Chapter 1: Divine Intervention

A pale grey mare awoke with a start, but as soon as her eyes opened, she had already started to forget what was so troubling about what she had seen. All was quiet around her. The stars glimmered overhead, and the moon shone its pale light over them. Looking around, she found herself amidst a herd of many ponies, blank-flanked and bare-hooved, without wings or horns, all sleeping together under the stars. She could not count them, for numbers had no meaning to her, but they were enough to make one feel safe among them.

I saw through her eyes as she scanned the area, then the horizon - the vast plain that stretched around the herd. These were their lands, where they had always roamed. Wild ponies, feral, untouched by the Princesses’ gifts of intelligence and speech, started to stir as the sun broke over the distant mountains of the east. The mare rose to her hooves and languidly stretched as the day began.

They kept time by the sun and the moon and the changing of seasons, the division of hours, minutes and seconds in the day meaningless to them. In the sunlight, they ran; they grazed; they fought - mostly with predators, sometimes with each other. They drank the sweet water from cool streams and ponds that ran through the grasslands. Under the moon they slept in the open air, with a few of the stallions patrolling the outskirts of the herd’s circular formation. As the seasons changed, they migrated. Spring melted into Summer, and Summer became Fall. And it was good. As the mares came into season, they rutted, and that was good as well. Time carried on, and soon my pale mare found her belly becoming heavier with the foals she carried. And that, too, was good.

Moved to the center of the herd with the other pregnant mares, who in their condition could not run or fight as well, the pale mare spent more of her time dreaming. And in her dreams, she sometimes saw me. My life that had been. My life that had ended too early. Our spirits passed in the darkness, brushing against one another in the night. She had been frightened by the contact, while I was equal parts confused and curious.

Did I dream of the pale mare? Or as she slept, was this mare dreaming she was me? Terrifying dreams of a bleak world she lacked the capacity to understand. Was I a creation of her mind, or she of mine?

I awoke, and found myself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. From the sight of it - aged and splintered, and the excruciating pain that throbbed in my head, I deduced that this was not, in fact, the Everafter. In fact, where I lay had a look that was much more distinctly a hospital bed, though the room it occupied, for all its medical equipment, was clearly in someone’s home rather than a hospital. My head and right wing had been wrapped in bandages, my left eye covered, and an IV was feeding a red fluid into my right foreleg, probably a blood transfusion. To my dismay I found I could not see from that covered eye if I peeled back the bandages. On that side, I heard the voice of a zebra mare, speaking in that alluringly exotic accent I’d always had a soft spot for.

“Ah, you are awake,” she observed, standing from the chair she had been occupying. I turned to look at her, and probably spent a bit too much time eyeing her rump. She was an older mare, still fit and athletic, with a short, brushlike mane into which some grey had crept, diagonal striping and a glyph mark on her flank whose meaning eluded me (as they usually did). A thick loop of gold adorned the upper part of her right foreleg. I didn’t know if she caught me staring. She simply regarded me with a patient smile.

“Are you, my dear, in any pain?” she asked. I nodded and the action made my head throb even worse, making me grimace and hiss through my teeth. “It’s time we must discuss your brain,” she said, and quickly trotted out of the room. She returned a moment later as promised, with an old unicorn stallion in tow. He was just on the cusp of being elderly, clearly not moving as quickly as he once had in his youth. I guessed that his bluish green coat had probably once been brighter, and his mane and moustache something other than the salt-and-pepper grey they were now. His cutie mark was a simple green cross inside a circle of white. He looked at me with a gentle expression.

“You’re up, that’s good,” the doctor said in a deep, buttery-smooth country drawl. “I’m Doctor Greensleeves, and this is my assistant, Nurse Xinnia.” The zebra nodded politely. The doctor continued, asking, “How are we feeling today?”

“My head’s about to kill me, Doc,” I groaned painfully. “Also I can’t see out of my left eye.”

“Well, that’s to be expected,” replied Greensleeves. “We had to reassemble part of your skull like a jigsaw puzzle. There’s some swelling due to a postoperative infection, but we’ve loaded you up with antibiotics so that should go away within a day or two. You suffered some powder burns on that side of your face and eye, but what’s keeping you from seeing is the pressure on your optic nerve. You should get your full sight back once the infection’s cleared and the swelling goes down.” I looked at the screen of the Pip-Buck that had been strapped to my left foreleg. The cartoon pony on the health monitoring screen looked sad, his head a dotted outline shown in red, contrasting the monochromatic green that dominated the rest of the display

Xinnia quietly moved around to my other side, and pushed a syringe of Med-X into the injection port of my IV. Almost immediately I felt the pain in my head subsiding, and my body enveloped in a warm blanket of relaxing, blissful comfort. I couldn’t help but smile. I’d never had much experience with chems apart from alcohol, but I could totally see now why ponies would get addicted to this stuff. It was, in a word, heavenly. Still, I had questions. “So, ah,” I started, “I don’t know too many ponies who’ve survived a headshot from a 5.56 at point blank range. How exactly did that happen?”

Xinnia interjected before the doctor could reply to my question, a huge grin on her face. “For most, this wound would end it all. But lucky you, your brain’s so small!” She showed me an X-ray of a pony head, ostensibly mine - the skull cavity empty save for a tiny walnut-sized brain in the center. A line crossed the skull from front to back, barely touching the little brain inside. And was she actually rhyming? Seriously?!

She looked at me and her grin turned into peals of laughter that Greensleeves quickly joined in. I tried to look at them with a flat expression, but soon found the corners of my mouth turning upward against my will, a few snorts of air escaping my nose. I had to admit, it was pretty funny.

As his laughter subsided, Doctor Greensleeves shook his head. “Seriously, though, the bullet did manage only to graze the side of your brain, but from the looks of the wound I’d attribute that to an inexperienced shooter wielding more gun than they could handle,” he explained. “Recoil pretty much saved your life. That and Ol’ Hoss. He found you up there in the cemetery and brought you to us.” He took on a bit of a sheepish expression and rubbed the back of his head with a hoof as Xinnia added, “We might have left you in that grave, but Hoss insisted your life we save.” The doctor nodded and continued, “And so we did. Now, the damage to your brain, I‘m sad to say, was irreversible, but we don’t know how or even if it’ll affect you. I’d like to run some cognitive function tests once we get you back on your hooves.”

I nodded, starting to lose focus. I still had more questions, but the Med-X was commanding me to sleep, and I found as the minutes went on that resisting it was going to be a losing battle. The doc must have noticed my eyes glazing over, as I was vaguely aware of him nudging my shoulder. “Six? Six? You still with us?”

“That’s… not… my name,” I muttered weakly, and then the world faded to black once more.

The drug had lulled me into a dreamless sleep that was more akin to unconsciousness, and when I awoke I was barely aware than any time had passed at all. Obviously it had, however. The mid-morning sun filtered through a set of vertical blinds that covered the large window of the clinic room. My bandages had been removed, and the great throbbing pain in my head had subsided to a dull ache. As promised, I was once again able to see from my left eye. Not perfectly - things were still blurry and unfocused - but it was a vast improvement.

I watched the motes of dust filter through the beams of sunlight that came in between the blinds, and became aware of voices in an adjacent room. An argument, from the sound of it, in hushed tones. Something I was not meant to hear, should I unexpectedly wake. I could identify Xinnia’s accented speech as she spoke admonishingly to Dr. Greensleeves.

“Consuming resources for ten full days! Yet still in a coma there she lays! How long must we wait till she's dead? We've other patients who need the bed!”

“What would you have me do, Xinnia? Toss her into the trashbin? Put her back in that grave she was found in? And have all our hard work be for nothing?”

“Where I am from, it is our way, to die rather than in sickness, decay. They do not linger any longer, their sacrifice makes the whole herd stronger.”

“That’s barbaric!” Greensleeves’ voice became harsher but still whispered. “I simply cannot do such a thing. I won’t!”

Xinnia sacrificed her rhyming speech to clarify her point. “Her body recovers by the day, yes, but we know nothing of her mind. Her soul may have fled already. What if she never regains her consciousness? And aside from that, we know nothing of this mare. She could be a raider for all we know. Certainly she is a pony that somepony wants dead. And that invites danger, not only to us, but this whole village.”

Greensleeves sighed, loath to admit that she had a point. “Ol’ Hoss has promised us two thousand caps if she makes a full recovery. Two thousand caps. That money would go a long way toward helping the ponies around here. We could buy supplies, make some improvements to the clinic, even save something for our retirement.” His voice was even, though there was a faintly plaintive note to it at the end, as he tried to bring her around to his position. “Even disregarding her own needs, we owe it to this community to at least try.”

Xinnia sighed, and relented at that. “All right,” she said finally. “But I do not like this. There is something more to this story that remains hidden from us. And I fear it is something that could destroy all of us here.”

“I know,” the doctor replied simply. “And I don’t think you’re wrong about that, but…” he trailed off a moment, and then he proposed, “Let’s give her a week. If nothing’s roused her by then… Well, we’ll see.”

I couldn’t tell whether Xinnia had responded, or how. They were quiet as their hoofsteps on the creaking wooden floor drew nearer, the pair returning to the clinic room. As I heard them approach, I quickly lay down and threw the sheets over myself, pretending to be asleep. I felt the zebra’s hoof upon mine, gently turning it so that she could read my vital signs from the health status screen of my Pip-Buck. And then I heard a long-suffering sigh from the zebra.

“Open your eyes, child,” she said in a gently scolding tone. “It is not good to try to fool your doctor.”

I did, and sheepishly smiled as I looked up at Dr. Greensleeves and Xinnia, standing next to each other as they checked me over and made notes. I felt the doctor’s magic push my eyelids open as he shined a bright light into my eyes for a moment, the light bright enough to be mildly painful and leave a purple and green afterimage in my field of vision. “Pupil dilation’s good,” the doctor commented matter-of-factly, then looked at me and asked, “How do you feel now?”

“Better,” I answered with a little groan of effort as I tried to push myself out of bed and onto my hooves. The pair stepped back to let me move toward them onto the floor. I noticed the IV still sticking out of my foreleg, its saline bag almost empty, and had to be careful not to get tangled up in it. Xinnia interrupted my movement to quickly pull it out, and deftly wrapped a small pressure bandage around that leg before she stepped back again. “Lots better, actually. Thank you,” I said, finally putting my hooves on the floor. My legs briefly tried to wobble out from under me, and I took a moment to steady myself against the bed frame before trying to stand unassisted again. It worked better on the second try.

“Listen, I uh,” I began, considering my words a moment. “I heard you talking just now. I… I kinda understand where you’re coming from and why you’re worried, but… I’m pretty sure those bucks got what they wanted from me already. I doubt they’d care even if they did find out I was still kicking.”

“Yes, but you do not know that for certain, do you?” Xinnia said, still carefully watching me as I took a hesitant step, then another, like a foal learning to walk again.

“No, I guess not,” I admitted, looking at my hooves on the floor. My black coat looked shiny and clean, I noticed, and was thankful for that.

Dr. Greensleeves chimed in with a welcome change of subject, catching my attention as he looked at me, then my saddlebags. “You said your name wasn’t Six,” he said. I understood the confusion as I followed his gaze. My bags were worn and threadbare in a few spots along the edges, but still managed to look sturdy enough to last through another apocalypse. Underneath the grime and dirt, Stable-Tec’s primary blue and yellow color scheme was still visible. A large yellow number 6 stood out on the blue of the top flap, just above the brown leather clasp, inside the circle of a grey cogwheel.

“So, what should we call you?” the doctor asked.

That was when everything fell apart.

“What do we call you? Who are you? What’s your name?” The question rolled over in my head in all its various permutations. Such a simple question. A simple answer. I knew it. I could answer easily. So why wasn’t I? I stood there frozen a moment, moving my mouth as I tried to force the answer out. An answer I didn’t have.

The doctor and nurse both looked at me more closely, their heads tilted in confusion and concern. I looked to the doctor with my eyes wide in slowly growing terror, my hooves tingling and cold. “I… I don’t know,” I admitted, finally. My mind was like a desperate secretary scrambling and fumbling in an office that had been near a balefire bomb’s explosion, trying to find anything amid the chaotic ruin - my memories were papers and files that lay scattered everywhere in disorganized heaps, most damaged in some way, some burned beyond recognition. I asked myself other questions, my inner secretary doing her damndest to find answers and coming up empty-hooved each time. Where was I from? How old was I? What were my parents like? What had I been like as a filly?

In a daze, I stumbled toward a mirror that had been set up near the clinic’s desk. In it, I saw a lovely black pegasus mare, violet mane streaked with lavender, a grouping of purple flowers on her flank. But that wasn’t me. I didn’t know this mare at all. She looked at me with terror building behind her golden eyes. I raised my wing and so did she. I felt a sharp stab of pain as it moved, and it showed on her face. I moved closer and saw the scarring above her left eye. I raised a hoof and felt the same knots of scar tissue on my own face. But that wasn’t me. I was absolutely certain I had never seen this mare before.

I sank to the floor, covering my face with my wings. “I don’t know,” I sobbed as desperation overwhelmed me. “I don’t know anything!”

The doctor and Xinnia approached me carefully. “Try to calm down, Miss,” the doc said in his gentlest tone. “Take some deep breaths and center yourself.” I looked at them as the tears streamed down my face and my voice broke. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know why I’m here.” The last part wasn’t true, though, I realized. I knew why I was here. I remembered in vivid detail everything about the night I’d died. The one part of my life I could remember was the thing I wished I could forget.

“Retrograde Amnesia is not at all unexpected with an injury such as yours,” the doctor explained. “I mean, you’ve been shot in the head, of course your brains are a bit scrambled,” he added with a light smile. But then he reached out and softly put his hoof on mine. The touch made me jump slightly, but then I started to relax. I looked up to them, sniffling. Xinnia held a syringe in her mouth as she watched me, her eyes compassionate but still wary. That needle held some kind of tranquilizer, I’d guessed.

“Now it’s true,” Doctor Greensleeves continued, “that some of your memories may be lost forever. But not all of them. You should regain some, in fact I’d even say most, of your memories over time. We just have to be patient now and see what happens.” Both his hooves held mine as the doc, with some difficulty, joined me on the floor. “In the meantime, between Ol’ Hoss and Apple Blossom, I’m sure we can fix you up with a place to stay and some kind of work to do here while you recover.”

But I was already starting to piece things together, using just the one thing I could remember. Aces. The name was etched into my mind along with that disgustingly smug face. He was the reason I was here, and in this sorry state. He’d taken everything from me. My pride, my most valued possessions, my job, even my identity. Now I was going to take everything from him. He’d lent me a bullet. I was going to pay him back, with interest. In that moment of clarity, all my confusion, anger, sorrow, and loss became condensed into a laser-focused hatred for that one pony.

Revenge drove me now, compelling me to stand. I scrubbed my eyes and wiped the snot from my muzzle, scowling as I felt myself galvanized. I knew it was barbaric; one of ponykind’s darkest and ugliest emotions. But it was mine. And it was all I had at the moment. Suddenly, I had a purpose. A reason to be. An epiphany that finally drove me to embrace this second life I’d been given. It wasn’t a particularly good or noble purpose, but it was mine all the same.

Still, I needed a name. One appropriately dark and foreboding, to match my new life goal. Xinnia took a step back, noticing the change in my expression. She looked confused, surprised, even a bit fearful. “Midnight Shadow,” I said finally. “That’s my name. And all I need’s a gun.”

The pair shared a look, and suddenly that mood was shattered. “Midnight Shadow?” the doc mouthed to Xinnia, as though it was the most ridiculous name they’d ever heard. It probably was. Thinking on it, perhaps it was a little too comic book villain-y. But I liked it! It was… cool! The doc tried to contain his snickering, but I could see the smirking amusement on Xinnia’s face. “Midnight Shadow, huh?” he said, stifling a laugh.

I looked between them and gave a defeated sigh, facehoofing. “Fiiiiine,” I said, “Just call me Six for now.”

The doctor nodded, and Xinnia relaxed, putting the syringe aside for now so she could speak. “What do you need the gun for, child?” she asked, her tone patient, but I sensed a note of disapproval in her voice.

Fortunately I had a ready-made excuse with which to mask my real purpose. “I need to get back to Pony Express HQ. Report in, tell them what’s happened.” Yeah, right. They’d probably shoot me once they found out I’d let my package be stolen. At the very least, I would be, like, so fired. “And, you know, it seems like it’s not quite safe to travel out there.”

“I think I’ve got something you can use,” the doc said. He struggled to rise to his hooves, and I quickly stuck my head in under his chest to give him a helpful push. He thanked me quietly and then trotted off to find what I’d asked for. “You can also keep that Pip-Buck,” he called out to me. “I’m sure you’ll find it handy. There’s an instruction manual for it on the Data screen.”

I started to fiddle with the device, exploring its functions while I waited. Xinnia gave me a suspicious look. Moving closer, the zebra spoke into my ear. “You are not really going to back Pony Express, are you?” I froze, and cursed internally. How did she know? I thought i’d hidden my hand fairly well. I grimaced, and finally responded with a shake of my head. No point in lying now.

“I see,” she said, moving around me. “You intend to find your attacker.” I nodded. “I will not stop you, child,” she said in a soft voice, giving my neck a nuzzle that took me by surprise and caused me to stiffen further. “But I would urge you to reconsider.” Xinnia came around to to face me, and brushed my mane with a hoof, her expression serious and somewhat pained as she looked me directly in the eye. “You have been given a second chance at life. That is a rare and precious thing in a world as unforgiving as ours. It would be tragic indeed to see you lose it pursuing something as meaningless as revenge.”

I opened my mouth, but before I could reply, Doc Greensleeves had returned, all smiles. “You girls, ah, ‘gettin’ acquainted’?” he asked as he noticed Xinnia’s close proximity to my face, waggling his eyebrows to emphasize his innuendo. I immediately turned away from the zebra with a cough, a hot blush on my face that I could only hope my dark coat would hide. I sat on my haunches, my legs feeling wobbly again. Xinnia simply rolled her eyes at the old stallion, huffed and trotted away into another part of the house.

The doctor led me over to the clinic’s desk, where he set down a leather holster and pulled from it a well-worn 10mm automatic pistol. “This old girl was my traveling companion for many a year of my adventuring days.” he said, a touch of wistful nostalgia coloring his voice. I lifted the pistol for a closer look. Sleeker and less boxy than its predecessors, this little beauty had been the top of the line when the megaspells hit. Since then, it looked like it had really taken a beating. There were scuff marks and scratches everywhere, even a few places where I could swear the pistol had been used to deflect blows from a sword or axe. Despite that, the action moved with ease as I slid it back, and it ejected an unused round from the chamber. It was clear that despite being well-used, this weapon was also well-loved. I also took note of the detachable suppressor and spare magazine held in specialized pouches built into the side of the holster, and I especially appreciated the comfortable rubberized mouth-grip. I was about to ask if this gun had a name, when I noticed the engraving on the slide - in florid script was the name, “Lily.”

“This,” I started, then corrected myself, “She… sounds like she’s got a lot of sentimental value,” I said, admiring the weapon for a moment, then looked back to the doctor. “Are you sure you want to just... give her to me?”

The doctor laughed softly. “‘Course I do. It’s not every day I successfully bring a patient back from the dead.” He looked at me, his smile genuine. “Consider this a birthday present,” he said, lighting a cigar I hadn’t noticed him pull out. “Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.”

I was honestly stunned by his generosity. First the Pip-Buck, and now this. “I don’t know what to say,” I stammered.

He looked at me with a wry sort of grin, turning the unlit end of the cigar toward me. “Well, you could say, “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I replied with a smile, and helped myself to a draw on the cigar. I quickly found myself coughing again, in large part because that was decidedly not tobacco smoke I’d just inhaled. The old doctor smiled, his eyes full of mirth as he watched my reactions.

Half an hour later, my tears, panic and anger from earlier were all but forgotten. I was lounging in the hospital bed with a hoof in the air, watching it leave little trails in my vision as I smoothly waved it back and forth. Somehow the colors of the room looked so much more vivid to me now, and even the worst of Dr. Greensleeves’ jokes was hilariously funny to me. Relaxed and happy, I listened as the old doc regaled me with the most amusing stories he could think of from his own adventures in the Territory. This was nice. If I had anything to complain about at all it would be that my mouth felt like it’d had all the moisture sucked out of it, but thankfully Xinnia was there at my bedside, keeping me supplied with cold, delicious Sparkle Colas to alleviate that little problem. Funnily enough, I vaguely remembered not even liking the soda before - now I couldn’t get enough of that sweet, carroty flavor.

We passed the afternoon and into the evening like this, and I found their company therapeutic. Maybe that was part of the point, I wasn’t sure. As evening settled solidly into night, the doc and his nurse bid me goodnight, and at long last I was left alone with my thoughts. I considered what Xinnia had said earlier. Maybe she was right. Maybe I should consider the doc’s offer. Settle down, find me a nice stallion I could raise a dozen foals with, and let Aces and that chip be somepony else’s problem. If not here, then… somewhere. It was fairly tempting just now, with all the pleasant feelings that lingered in the air. I knew it would be the smart thing to do. The safe thing. But, as you will soon see, I am not a smart pony. And really, if I had done that… well this would be a damn boring story I’m telling, now wouldn’t it?

My thoughts drifted to that chip again, and I started to piece things together as well as I could with what few pieces of the puzzle I had. I remembered the sparkle and shine of that chip, like no metal I had ever seen before. Star metal? I’d never seen any in person before, so I had no idea. All I knew was that it called to me, as though it had its own soul, reaching out to me, yearning to be possessed. I could already hear the chip’s song in the faint background mists of my mind, and I knew that the longer I was separated from it, the more desperate I’d become. The more risks I’d be willing to take; the more lines I’d be willing to cross.

I wondered if it had touched Aces in the same way. He had taken the time to intercept me personally, after all. He knew exactly where I’d be and when, which meant that he’d gone as far as breaching Pony Express’ security. But how I was I going to catch him now? I had no idea where he was going and by now he had at least a four-day head start on me. Sure, I could fly much farther and faster than he could walk, but that was still a daunting handicap to overcome.

I grunted in frustration, too tired to think anymore. Rolling over onto my side, I pulled the thin blanket over me, and in short order, I was asleep.