The dull, recycled air was heavy with smoke and the coppery scent of blood.
For the moment, the only noise in our little corner of the underground bunker complex was the steady breathing of my patient. Occasionally, the quiet was punctuated by his restrained grunts as magically manipulated instruments sliced deep into his flesh, often parting old scars across his pale yellow coat with little care for delicacy. The slow but steady drip, drip, drip of my patient’s blood upon the table he rested on was a reminder of the timeline my work rested upon. With increasing regularity the sharp, metallic clang of spent bullets being dropped onto a surgical tray met both of our ears. Every clang meant we were that much closer to finished with our latest “date,” as he’d once referred to them.
After a particularly tricky one finally came loose and was, in turn, discarded into the tray, I sutured the wound with a locationally fixed healing spell. I then closed my eyes and permitted myself a long drag from the cigarette almost forgotten between my lips. As the pungent aroma permeated my lungs, it calmed me. Steadied my focus, kept me sharp.
I was being paid for what I did, after all.
After the skies cleared, the dust settled… after the fires finally burned out from the Battle of Filly, there were a lot of pieces to be picked up. A lot of jobs that needed doing. When I grew up, trained as a doctor in Tenpony, I certainly never thought my skills would be for sale to the group now known as Applejack’s Rangers. The way things turned out, one of the local chapters lost their last medical expert during the battle. Terrible shame, I’d even heard of him. That left them with a whole lot of technical expertise... and a complete lack of medical personnel.
So they purchased my services. Nothing so barbaric as slavery, in fact I’d say it was more reminiscent of the pre-war concept of capitalism. I’m well paid, well fed, and living in comfortable conditions - or, at least as comfortable as my employers, at any rate.
But I was not one of them. At least it didn’t feel that way.
One of the first things I learned was the fierce sense of brotherhood these ponies felt for each other. For all the good they’ve done for the wastes - and it’s been a lot, don’t get me wrong - it remains an us and them relationship. I guess some things are hard to shake, even after a schism like the one they went through.
All except for one young mare. A tech expert, specializing in spell matrix manipulation. As separate as I felt, it often seemed like she felt a similar distance between herself and the ponies she called brothers. Her name was Steel Cherry, and she was the first pony that I truly felt… well, a connection with.
No, not that kind of a connection. Goddesses, no - neither of us swing that way.
But talking with her is one of the things that keeps me sane while working for these ponies, these Rangers. Talking, and the sweet smoke I’d held in my lungs til they started to burn.
Well, I suppose there was one more exception: the idiot on the table before me seemed almost eager to test my skills at every available opportunity. I guess that counts as a connection.
I exhaled, my lungs reminding me that they needed air along with the calming carcinogenic.
Paladin Apple Strudel coughed, unprepared for the sudden puff of smoke in his direction. "Tourniquet, your bedside manner sucks."
"If you didn't get yourself shot so often, you wouldn't have to deal with it as much," I pointed out before taking another drag of the cigarette.
He huffed at that, as much as he could from the tabletop. "You'd miss me, and you know it." He quirked his head towards me, ignoring the smoke for the time being. "If it wasn't for Cherry, I'd hazard a guess that I'm the only Ranger you've talked to in days."
My ears folded back in irritation. He had a point, loathe as I was to admit it.
In lieu of a response, I resumed my work. Near-silence overtook the med lab once again, punctuated by the muted clangs of spent bullets clattering upon the surgical tray. In due time, I finished and sent Strudel on his way after patching him up and feeding him a healing potion. I’d cut it close, working while he was still hopped up on combat anaesthetic… but it worked.
I almost missed the the look he cast me as I walked out, before the door shut behind me. Those green eyes, with an expression I had never seen them in before. Was it pity? Something else?
A girl can dream, can’t she?
*** *** ***
“Why does that idiot insist on getting himself shot?!”
My shout startled the only occupant of the room I’d abruptly entered, a pale red coated unicorn with a gunmetal grey mane tied up in a neat bun, almost hiding the pink stripes. Steel Cherry. She almost knocked a piece of power armour she was working on off the table as she jumped at the sudden noise. She looked my way, her glasses not-quite seated on her nose, confusion evident on her features.
I flinched - I hadn’t meant to do that, especially not to her.
Cringing, I added in a quieter tone, “Sorry, I didn’t think you were still working.”
With a sigh, the soft spoken scribe re-adjusted her glasses to sit normally upon her nose. “Maybe he had a reason…?” She asked tentatively.
“It happens so often, Cherry… it’s like he has a death wish or something.”
She looked back to her work, where it looked like she was doing delicate work on the interior workings of a suit of power armour. Strudel’s suit.
I’d never seen it disassembled before. I was certainly no technical expert, but it looked bad. I already knew it was from how many bullets I’d pulled out of the buck, but there was something about seeing his armour that made it so much more… real. Removed from the clinical state I usually viewed such things from. Rent metal, bullet holes, drained potion and med-x dispensers, and what looked like a damaged auto-repair talisman. The stylized apple-and-gears design upon the flank had a hole in it, and I found it hard to differentiate the red paint of their affiliation from the blood of the stallion who’d bled for their beliefs.
And I’d interrupted Cherry’s work on it.
I sighed, stepping over to fold my forehooves upon her desk, away from her work. I rested my head and sighed. “Why do you think he does it, Cherry?”
She blinked, but didn’t look up this time. “He wants to make a difference. I mean, all of them do… they’re my knights, you know?” She shook her head, “Not the rank, but where it comes from. Like the knights of old, saving princesses and slaying dragons. It’s why we all became Applejack’s Rangers, why we moved on from what we were.”
She looked up, meeting my eyes. “It’s why you joined us, I think.”
I snorted. “I joined for the caps, Cherry, and you know it.”
She put her tools down, the calmest fire I’ve ever seen blazing behind her blue eyes. “Doctor Tourniquet, do you truly believe that? In times like this?” She inclined her head towards the end of her desk, where a small, framed picture rested. A painting of a clear horizon, the sun blazing brightly… a reminder, she’d once called it. ‘Of what we’ve fought for,’ she’d said.
She seemed to grow almost timid again, as if taking that sort of tone brought back a more… delicate part of her afterwards. “Sorry,” She said, “I just… you don’t seem like that type of pony. I think your work is wonderful… you heal ponies, you help them. I just find it hard to believe that’s where your values lie.”
I gave a sigh.
“I guess we’ll see, now won’t we?”
*** *** ***
Three days later, fate seemed determined to test my words.
Gunshots hammered into the side of a long derelict skycarriage I’d taken cover behind. Beside me, a lucky round penetrated, catching the last of my ever dwindling number of bodyguards in the throat. Blood sprayed, and he fell with a gurgling cry. Just as I’d tried to do with the others, I clamped a healing spell over the wound. It was no use. There’s only so much healing magic can accomplish, and the shock of the injury proved too much for him. He joined a pair of his compatriots on the dirt. They’d died harder, but were just as surely dead.
He and his associates had held out admirably, but nowhere near long enough. The raider population of the Manehattan area had taken a serious beating during Operation Cauterize, but there were still pockets where they preyed upon the unwary. I suppose we got cocky, complacent. I needed medical supplies from the tower, and I’d thought things were quiet enough… so I told them what I was doing, and headed out with a group of mercenaries headed in the right direction.
I was careless, and it was going to see me dead for my foolishness.
That was when I saw it. For a moment, just a glint of steel on the horizon, but growing larger by the second. As he came into view, somehow I just knew.
I couldn’t see him through the armour and faceplate, but his iconic large-gauge shotgun and medium machinegun tipped me off to his identity. Nopony else in the local contingent used a loadout like that, and his ridiculously aggressive combat style confirmed it. It could only be Strudel, in full power armour, and it made my heart flutter at the sight. Maybe something Cherry had said about the pre-war knights had rubbed off after all.
Still, they’d see him soon enough if nothing drew their attention.
I’d never paid particularly good attention to learning to shoot… it just wasn’t a thing I needed. Other ponies did that for me! I just patched them up. Still, I had a decent handle on how it worked: Point away from self, pull trigger until it clicks.
Baby steps.
I levitated a fallen carbine from beside me, leaned out over the skywagon and opened fire. The damn thing had a kick to it, I could hardly see what I was aiming at; much less whether or not I hit anything… but damn if they didn’t start pouring fire back on my position in response. Ducking back down, I blindly held the weapon up and fired until it ran out of ammunition. Casings tumbled down all around me, and the skywagon hull became even more pockmarked with impacts from the other side.
I stole another look around the side, to see that Strudel was almost upon them.
He came in hard, from a sharp angle relative to their direction of advance. At a full gallop, almost a full ton of steel and pony can be remarkably difficult to notice when he isn’t the focus of attention. Far too late, I heard a cry ring out from the raider position. Rounds started to whizz around him, and a couple even sparked off the armour, but he’d just entered killing range.
I hadn’t known what that would mean, but I certainly do now.
He opened up with the machinegun first, spraying hot lead across the breadth of their line. It was only the precursor, however. To get their heads down, even if I did hear a few cries of pain as a result of the salvo. I heard his shotcannon cough. Even from the range he was at, the effect was devastating. I saw a spray of blood, painting a section of the rocks they hid behind bright crimson in the harsh afternoon light.
Their return fire intensified. I saw rounds begin to penetrate, and I could almost see the bullets I’d have to dig out of him later… if there was a later.
It wasn’t enough to stop him. Not nearly enough.
In seconds, he was upon them.
I don’t know if they expected him to stop, to make use of his armour and medium range weapon to engage them from a distance… but whatever they had expected, he certainly didn’t oblige them. I saw him drop his shoulder and hammer an earth pony mare with a spiky mane into the side of the skycarriage she had been hiding behind, much like my own - he dented it, with her body. Her cry of pain was more a gurgling scream than anything. I was almost glad it stopped when he punched a hole through her with the shotcannon - as well as both sides of the skycarriage.
He started to open up in earnest, judiciously applying killing power to the ponies trying to harm me. In all honesty, I missed most of it while trying not to get myself shot by opportunistic shooters. Still, in none too short order the remainder started to run.
But they didn’t all run away.
I saw two start to run straight my way. They must have wanted to finish what they’d started before the real Ranger showed up to ruin the fun.
I backed away, panicking as I scrabbled for a weapon. One of the corpses near my hooves yielded a pistol, which I picked up in a magical field and held none too steady, trying to cover any possible avenue of approach.
Turns out, I hadn’t thought of one of them.
One of the two jumped straight over my improvised cover. He was a dirty, grey earth pony with a rusty old submachine gun clutched in his mouth. Before I could adjust, he tackled me to the ground. The pistol skittered away, my magical hold on it broken.
He held me down, spit out the gun and grunted in my ear, “Fuck you, bitch! This was a trap, wasn’t it? Well I’ll make sure the bait’s all used up by the time he finishes with the others!” His fetid breath assailed my nostrils as I realized what he meant, and that I didn’t have a whole lot of say in the matter.
Abruptly, he… well, he exploded. Not in the fiery, chemical way, but rather the way in which a pony’s middle basically disappears as the result of a hail of 5 gauge shot. A massive fan of blood sprayed from the point of impact, coating me and the surrounding area in a fine mist of gore.
I locked eyes (well, in a sense, considering the visor) with my savior as he rounded the corner. He must not have even stopped to engage the others, content to let them run… in order to save me.
Just as he came into view, so too did the recently departed raider’s partner. Seeing her friend’s demise, she had to know Strudel would win in a straight up fight, and she didn’t have the option of running. So she chose just as her buck had - to take me out. I saw her level her assault rifle, and I thought, “Goddesses, please be kind.”
I heard her fire, and instinctively closed my eyes.
As the fire continued and I wasn’t perforated - not even hit, for that matter - I opened my eyes and looked up, desperately wondering what was going on. Beside me, forming a protective shield around my prone form, was Strudel. He’d chosen to gallop forward and dive in front of me, rather than try and take her first. I could see his armoured body twitch with every impact, hear his grunts as his flesh was torn. I could hear the muted hiss of healing drugs being pumped into his system as the armour desperately tried to counteract the violence being dealt to its wearer.
After what seemed like forever, the mare’s weapon clicked empty.
I was ready, the fallen pistol levitating from the ground with the determination of an enraged medical mare behind it. I’m not a good shot, not even a decent one. But out of the fifteen shots I fired, it turns out I was good enough.
She crumpled to the ground, bleeding heavily.
“Studel!” I cried, rushing to his injured side. I fired up my healing magic and a medical analysis spell, dropping the spent pistol without a second thought. “Oh please, please be okay!”
The analysis painted a vicious picture. Much like what I’d seen so many times in the clinic, but so much more real. Seeing the weapon that caused the wounds, seeing the face of that raider, the hate in her eyes… it was a whole different feeling than the sterile, analytical sort of medicine I was used to. I had no time to remove bullets, not right now. His armour had healed what it could, and he was pumped positively full of med-x... but even with that much combat stimulant pumping through his veins, shock was a very real danger, and his wounds still bled freely. The armour was trying feebly to pump from empty vials and repair from a drained supply of scrap.
“Didn’t… agh… think you cared, Tourn,” he replied.
I magically stitched, and mended, and warmed, and did a dozen other minor operations, my horn bright with overglow. Unbidden tears streamed down my face. “I do! I do, Strudel! You’re right, you were so right…”
He went quiet, and my heart nearly stopped.
I had only just finished suturing the last of the deadly bleeds, but the strain on his body had taken its toll. Through my analysis spell, I saw his vitals flatline.
I didn’t hesitate. I kicked off his helmet and tore open the emergency access locks on the back of the armour, dumping the plate attached to his barrel to the ground, accompanied by a minor torrent of blood. I dropped all my other spells, focusing everything on one last gambit. I charged my horn, brought it right up to his chest, and closed my eyes.
“I need you!” I shrieked, and released the magic in one tight burst, sending a wave of magical-electric energy surging through his body.
Spent, I collapsed against his side, my ear pressed against his coat. Silence, my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.
For too long, it felt like.
Then I felt it.
Thump-thump, thump-thump.
I swore, I’d never ask the goddesses for another thing for as long as I lived. They’d given me what I’d never realized I needed, and I didn’t intend to waste it again.
Still leaning against him, I waited for his breathing to get back to a steady cadence before I asked, “How’d you find me?”
I couldn’t see his expression, but I heard the smile in his voice. “I wasn’t more than ten minutes behind since you left the bunker.”
Mulling that over for a second, I asked, “Why?”
He sighed at that, and I felt it through his body. When he finally replied, he said, “Because you’re one of us… and more than that, you’re…” He seemed to find it difficult to say, though whether it was from my weight on his chest or the words themselves, I couldn’t tell. “I care for you, Tourn. I’d be heartbroken if anything happened to you.”
I could have face-hoofed, had he not been dead serious. I hadn’t seen the bonds forming, right in front of my eyes this whole time. It just took a different perspective to really see them.
I slumped down, my back resting against his barrel. In a daze, I tried to use my magic to pull out a cigarette, only getting a painful spark from the tip of my horn for the effort. I resorted to pulling one out by hoof, shaking the container to reveal one and grasping it between my lips. With shaky hooves, I brought my igniter to the tip, letting the flame start to burn before giving a long, slow inhale.
It surprised me when Strudel spoke up, almost enough to choke on the smoke I’d just inhaled. “Terrible habit, that. It’ll kill you someday.”
“Bite me,” I replied, “If you don’t like it, don’t get shot so much.”
He turned to me, a serious look in those deep green eyes of his. “Deal,” he said, before leaning forwards to kiss me. From our positions, it was awkward, and it forced me to drop the barely-lit cigarette in the process… but it was oh, so wonderful.
I met his lips halfway, hungry for more.
When I finally pulled back for air, I breathlessly replied, “Deal!”
Author's Note
I actually found this while digging through gdocs while I've been writing the next chapter for Frozen Skies (on that note, not to worry, this hasn't exactly been what's been eating my time away from the skyhorses. The only thing this has gotten since summer 2015 is a once-over and a check for gdoc import errors). A simple story, almost enough for a bit of nostalgia towards it, enough to take half an hour and get it posted up here.
Didn't have any editors or even prereaders for this one, so this one's all me (though Steel Cherry is Riddles' character, used with permission). Thanks for reading!
