She watched as the unicorn’s magic warped across the sky like lightning, the sound of the crackling had been filling the air for hours but her ears had yet to unpin themselves from the sides of her skull.
Of course, the magic assault spells weren’t loud enough to block out the screaming of soldiers as they felled one another with arcane weapons and magic spells. This mare was mentally thanking the universe for not being directly involved.
One exceptionally large magic blast lit up the sky, washing the thick cloud cover in a mish-mash of colors that the mare didn’t care to name. It didn’t make the smoking plumes flowing out of the half-collapsed buildings any prettier.
Of course, they weren’t really pretty in the first place.
The mare leaped backwards as a bolt of magic struck the ground near her hooves, sending small wisps of steam to dissipate into the air above the puddle they had formed in.
The mare would have been using it as a mirror if it weren’t for the fact she was in center of battle and that the puddle couldn’t reflect much, being a gross mix of bodily fluids and muck.
That and the fact the mare was sure she looked unpleasant. Just looking at her muck-caked hooves she could make the well-placed assumption.
Her tail had been turned into a mud-collecting mop that would take a while to fully clean and her mane had been plastered to her neck and forehead by the downpour that had turned the dusty skeletons of this city into a mucked up mess of bright lights and dead corpses.
The one comfort she could find to not think about the grossness of her exterior was that there were some corpses in these streets with much worse appearances.
A second bolt of light struck the mare’s impromptu cover, an overturned carriage that would probably have set fire if it wasn’t soaked through to the center of the wood boards.
Beneath the staccato sounds of powerful weaponry, the mare could hear someone shouting, sneering and continuing to fire off ammo into the carriage floor.
The mare fished around in her single saddlebag, pulling out a small metal sphere. The one single blemish in its surface was a small hole the diameter of a sewing needle that had a warm pink glow coming out of it.
The mare lifted up the sphere and tossed it out over the carriage and ducking low to the ground. She could hear the pony sneer before picking up the sphere, only to let out a violent stream of profanity before being silenced halfway through an exceptionally crude remark by an explosion that rocked the carriage.
After peeking around both sides of the carriage to ensure no one else was around (and taking the moment to observe the masterpiece of gore that decorated the ground and floor of the carriage), the mare decided it was safe to proceed down the alleyway that was only a couple pony-lengths away from the carriage.
The rain didn’t hit as hard in the alleyway, as the metal sheeting that probably was meant to form a bridge between the two buildings was shielding it from the downpour. That didn’t stop the rain from thundering down the drain-pipes, rattling them and the metal sheeting in an obnoxious way that made the mare speed up her pace if only to get out of earshot of it.
The mare pressed herself to one of the walls as a bright blast of blue magic shot in front of her, carving out chunks of plaster and bricks from the building corners that ended the alleyway.
Quietly and hesitantly, the mare peered around the corner, seeing a firefight going on further down the street, only with much thicker clusters of soldiers and more heavy artillery, not the light-weight hoof held weapon fight she had just gotten away from.
The mare leaped away from the wall, heart flying into her throat as large chunk around the size of her head was carved out of the wall and spread across the ground in bits of rubble by a powerful arcane blast.
It would have exploded her skull, had it hit what she was sure was it’s intended target. The mare pulled out a weapon. It was a pistol and its ammo wasn’t pure magic like the weapons she had been passing strewn about the muddy ground, but metal.
Clutching the weapon tightly, the mare peeked around the wall again, ready to shoot whoever pointed at her.
She could see the sparks of purple reflecting off one of the few clean (well, clean as you could get at this point) puddles she was standing near. It was enough of a warning for the mare to leap out of the wave, landing in the mud and blood covered ground as her previous hiding place was blasted to bits by what the mare was confident was an arcane missile.
She leaped to her hooves and looked for whoever it was that had fired the weapon. It was a pegasus, rapidly flapping his wings to stay in the air while water poured off his body and the launcher he had strapped onto one of his shoulders and was guiding with his forelegs.
He wore leather-like armor that shielded his flanks and chest and was stained in blood.
The mare held up her pistol, firing it off at the face and gun of the pegasus. One bullet managed ot tear off the pegasus’ ear and that caused him to cry out in pain, although the sound was lost to the thundering of the storm and firefights before he pointed his launcher at the mare.
Figuring it’d be wiser to get back to cover, the mare bolted to the nearest alleyway and didn’t stop, not even while the pegasus kept firing projectiles that sent up bursts of mud and building debris.
The mare kept running, swerving in order to keep close to the walls of the abandoned buildings. Once the mare was sure she was out of sight of the pegasus, she lept into the nearest window, the spare glass shards scraping her fore and hindlegs.
The pegasus flew in, growling and calling out curses. Clearly a previous resident of Baltimare judging from the accent.
Once the pegasus had passed the window, she popped up and pointed her gun, emptying the remaining bullets in her pistol into the exposed space between the pegasus’ wings. Blood sprayed out and the pegasus cried out in pain, collapsing to the muddy ground.
The mare crept out and walked over to the shaking pegasus, watching as rainwater trickled into the multiple bullet holes in his back. His chest was rapidly expanding as he sucked in deep breaths in hopes to stay alive.
The mare stared down at the pegasus, panicked eyes bulging in their sockets as he clung to life.
The mare crouched down so she was closer to the pegasus. A small spark of hope flickered in his eyes as the mare began to dig around in her saddlebag. Mercy, his eyes begged. Give me mercy.
The mare paused as she spotted was an all too familiar red symbol painted onto the pegasus’ barding. She hadn’t exactly been eager to treat the wounds of her would-be murderer, but this planted a small seed of anger in her belly.
“A traitor like you doesn’t deserve mercy.” The mare hissed into the pegasus’ ear. He let out a choking cry that sent blood spurting to the ground. “P-Please..”
The mare shut him up by reloading his gun and pressing the barrel to his matted underbelly fur.
The pegasus cried out in agony as she fired into his stomach, letting his blood gush out into the dirt.
The mare stood up, trotting away as the pegasus’ hooves clawed at the ground, the red pooling around in the mud and rainwater beneath him, his cries slowly growing weaker and weaker.
The mare, for a moment, considered taking the pegasus’ weapon. It was a little narrower than her barrel, but it was far too big to carry for her current task at hoof.
The ammo probably wasn’t though.
The mare turned around and trotted back over to the pegasus, unbuckling the harness-like attachment that kept the launcher attached to the pegasus’ body.
The pegasus had devolved to whimpering. For a moment the mare thought she saw tears going down his face, but the rain made it hard to tell.
The mare set down the launcher with a little bit of physical strain before finding where the ammo would be loaded into and opened it, carefully lifting out the remaining ammunition. And putting it into her saddlebags.
In her concentration on handling the ammo, she hadn’t realized the pegasus had stopped breathing.
The mare continued on her way, the rain washing away whatever blood had gotten onto her fur, not that she truly cared. The darkness of the city streets was kept illuminated by the occasional still functioning lamp and the constant arcane firefights in the city around her. Fights she was glad to not be involved with.
The mare knew where she was supposed to go. She stopped outside a poorly barricaded substation entrance, quietly reading the graffiti smeared on the side. She smiled at the hidden message inside and wedged herself past the boards and chicken wire.
Loyals Only. All Others Are to be Shot on Sight.
The inside of the abandoned station was quiet. An eerie sort of quiet to the mare, as the only lights were a few flickering torches propped up against the chipped tile of the walls and columns that held up the dirty ceiling.
The floor tile had been largely chipped away and its color was faded. Of course, most of it was hidden by filth, trash and chunks of plaster that once covered the ceiling.
There were also countless stains that the mare didn’t feel eager to try and identify, especially since most of them were beneath scattered pony skeletons.
The mare kept trotting, passing yellowed and faded signs that advertised a multitude of things, like magic-enhanced glasses, pegasus chariot transport companies and of course the adverts for the Equestrian Armed Forces.
One advert had silhouettes of the three Princesses while being surrounded by proud and well-armed and defended soldiers that were charging at shadowy figures on the edges of the poster. The mare found it humorous, seeing as only one Princess had yet to join the front-lines nowadays.
Then again, she was the figurehead and the head of the entire Herd, but that didn’t mean much to the mare. All she knew was that Princess was powerful enough to level a small city and must be respected.
The mare kept walking, passing by a sign that had been broken off its pole and dropped on the floor.
Platform 9
She was heading the right way.
The mare walked over to the nearest railroad line and hopped down, stepping around the few bones that littered the railway.
As the little light the torches provided faded to darkness in the train tunnel, the mare lit up her horn. She enjoyed the small shiver of enjoyment at finally using her magic after going the entire day without it.
The light helped her avoid stepping on any of the ancient skeletons or tripping over the occasional scraps of metal that the mare assumed once belonged to one of the trains that used to frequent the undergound tunnels.
After a while, the mare came across what was probably once a passenger car. It had been derailed and smashed into the brick wall, the half that wasn’t inside the wall was blocking off the rest of the railroad at an angle.
The mare didn’t really care. Instead she climbed onto the slightly slanted car, walking past the unhinged door that had once likely been an entryway from the car that would be attached to the passenger car back when it was still operational and not smashed into a wall.
The seats inside the passenger car had once been soft and accommodating, the space beneath them still holding few bags of luggage, but now the cushions were rotted and the interior paint had mostly been peeled off by age.
There was an old poster on the wall that the mare had struggled to find anywhere else in abandoned substation, although she hadn’t gone out of her way to explore much of it.
The poster had a silhouette of Princess Celestia, with the words ‘Equestria Needs You!’ next to her and then on the bottom was a small message, calling for ponies to visit their nearest EAF recruiter and then the rest was too faded to make out properly.
She kept walking to the front of the passenger train that had been lodged into a wall. The front of it looked like it had been crumpled like paper. The mare was glad that the door and it’s frame had already been wrenched out of the car wall and quietly jumped down.
There was a small tunnel here, looking to have been carved out of the stone and dirt behind the brick wall in a hurry.
The mare trotted down it, getting sort of sick of all the walking she had to do to get to her destination. She was regretting not preserving the water in her now empty canteen.
She started to pick up her pace as time seemed to stretch on forever.
Eventually, the tunnel grew wider, branching into a room with a large door, four armed pony guards standing in front of it.
The guards pointed their weapons at the mare as she walked in, extinguishing the light from her horn as there was a proper lantern hanging above the door, shining on their metal armor.
“I am one with the Herd, I serve it only.” The mare answered with an annoyed tone, causing the guards to lower their weapons.
“.. Check her.” One guard walked over to the mare, holding up a device to the mare’s cutie mark. The device cast a purple light on it before emitting a green light followed by an affirmative beep and an automated voice.
“Trixie Lulamoon. Unicorn, Arcane Branch.”
The guard gave Trixie a glance over before stepping away from her and opening the door with his magic. Trixie gave them no nod or thanks, just entering and letting the door close behind her.
The door had led to a hallway. It wasn’t particularly clean, but it looked more well constructed. Somepony had even bothered to paint the halls white which contrasted with the blue doors whose paint was badly chipped around the edges.
Trixie continued walking past the doors, following the sound of voices.
The hall opened up into another room which was bigger than the one she had just left, its ceiling being several pony lengths higher that Trixie.
The room itself was full of other ponies who were all settled at salvaged tables eating one of their meals. Lunch or dinner, Trixie wasn’t sure.
She walked past them, ignoring some of the friendly waves as she went up a set of metal stairs that led to a platform on the other side of the dining area where a door was situated next to a hallway.
Trixie walked over and knocked on the door, earning a short ‘Come in’ from the other side. She did as the voice said, opening the door with her magic and closing it behind her once she was inside.
The room was small, but decently furnished. There was an old wooden desk set a few hoofsteps in front of Trixie, a desk-lamp, mug, and stapler all taking up the corner of the desk.
There were filing cabinets taking up the wall behind the desk and a wilted potted plant sat in the corner by the door.
However, Trixie didn’t care for the decor. She was staring mare behind the desk. It was a unicorn mare like Trixie, but she wore an unzipped, black leather jacket that covered her back and some of her barrel. Trixie could see the handle of a pistol sticking out of one of the pockets.
“I see the pegasi are still maintaining the rain.” The mare muttered and Trixie ignored the sudden feeling of annoyance with her mane still plastered to her drying fur.
“I delivered the message and here’s their response.” Trixie answered, wanting to go lounge about in her quarters. She levitated a recorder to the other unicorn who took it and looked over it before looking back to Trixe.
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
The unicorn hummed in thought as she looked over the recorder. “Thank you, you may go.”
Trixie quickly left the office. All she was interested in now was getting dry and filling her empty belly. Then maybe a nap.