A young stallion crouched behind the remains of a house, his ears pricked. His gun, a fearsome pellet rifle, floated next to him, surrounded in a gentle orange glow.

The colt glanced around the corner, then flinched back. Ritually. Methodically. No bullets raced toward him, because he was alone, and the camp was abandoned. Honestly, he was too old to play those kind of games. Phoenix slumped, sighed, and stepped out into the open.

One day he'd find an active raider camp, or maybe a bandit patrol. Anything would be an improvement over day-old corpses of the vaguely criminal and definitively homeless.

The bodies lay here and there, victims of some other intrepid wasteland adventurer. Phoenix prodded at the first few corpses. Nothing. Not even a bent bottle cap. He stood and looked around at the splintered barrels and open, ransacked hooflockers. Thoroughly looted. Why did everypony have to be so damn meticulous? For a moment, he reconsidered, eyeing the torn and bloodstained sets of barding that covered the dead raiders.

But no. They were probably all filled with piss and shit from their last moments, and it wouldn't fit very well anyway. And even besides all that, his parents would have a fit if he came home dressed like a bloodsoaked raider. Then they'd ground him, or worse, make Dawn stay home to babysit him. Sometimes he wondered why he went home at all. There was plenty of crappy food out in the wasteland, only marginaly worse than his mom's cooking.

The faint clatter of gunmetal and the creak of aged leather caught his ear. Somepony was trotting past, just outside the camp.

With his lips pressed tight and his heart racing, Phoenix darted back under the cover of a nearby tent. He happened to land on top of a corpse, his face inches from the mare's putrid, lolling mouth. Phoenix wrinkled his nose and turned his face away. From what he knew about raiders, death might have actually improved her natural odor.

Hoofsteps approached and retreated. Phoenix chanced a look and froze. A young earth pony mare, in neat cloth barding, with a sturdy pistol dangling from her hip. What the heck was Dawn doing there? Their parents would flip if they found out that she'd come this far west. If only there was a way for him to snitch on her without getting into even more trouble himself.

Dawn paused, and Phoenix leaned back in time to avoid her gaze. He saw a flash of purple tail and orange flank as she continued across the plains, headed even further westward.

He waited a moment, until the sound of her rusted pistol clanking against her side faded on the wind. He appraised the trash pile of a camp once more, then ducked his head, stowed his weapon, and hurried after his older sister.

The wasteland surrounding Appleloosa was full of cool little places. Apparently lots of pre-war ponies figured the empty Equestrian desert would be a good place to build their personal bomb shelters, so even after two hundred years there was still salvage to be found for brave scavengers like Phoenix. Or at least there would be, if he was ever allowed to leave town.

From behind the crest of a distant hill, Phoenix watched as Dawn hurried toward what looked like a little chimney poking up through the hard dirt. He knew that those were air intakes, and were supposed to filter out all the magical radiation so the ponies inside the shelter could breathe. Once bombs started falling and ponies ran to their hidey-holes, it turned out that most of them didn't work very well.

Dawn circled the protruding pipe, stomping her hooves with each step. Halfway through her circuit, she paused and started to scrape at the dirt. When she lowered her face to the ground, mouth open and teeth parted, Phoenix looked away. He always felt weird watching earth ponies use their mouths for stuff. After a moment he looked back. Dawn had flung open a hidden hatch and descended into the bomb shelter.

Phoenix dropped to his belly, crossed his forelegs, and rested his chin on his hooves. If Dawn was scavenging this far away from Appleloosa, then he'd have to start doing it too. Maybe there'd actually be things left for him to find, for once. And now he knew better than to bring them home.

He unslung his pellet gun, set it on the ground, and looked it over. It never failed to impress the other colts and fillies his age. It was all steel and wood, heavy and sturdy, and it even smelled a bit like gunpowder, which made the fact that it could only fire plastic or rubber bullets even more galling. It had been a real gun when he found it, half-buried under a tree north of town. He'd taken it to his parents, gleeful like a puppy, certain that they'd fix it up and sell it, or maybe even return it to him as a present. Instead they gutted it, ripped out the pin and narrowed the barrel, and turned it into a toy.

He had a hidden place for his stuff now. All he kept there was a little pouch of bottle caps, bobby pins, and some kind of drug syringe. One day he'd work up the courage to sell the chem to Ditzy. Anypony else would tell on him, but Ditzy was cool.

Movement caught his eye. Dawn climbed out of the shelter, kicked the hatch closed, and turned toward the south. It was hard to tell from so far away, but it looked like her pack was still nearly empty.

Phoenix rose to his hooves, stowed his gun again, and carefully trotted after her, low to the ground and through sparse grass, behind hills and chunks of rubble. It was hard to be sneaky in the desert, but he had nearly a decade of practice. Still, he was careful. Dawn had even more experience out in the wastes, and she had a working gun. She probably wouldn't fire blindly if she noticed somepony stalking her, but it wasn't worth the risk. And if their parents found out she'd shot him, they'd probably still find a way to blame him for it.

He hesitated by the bomb shelter. Dawn had tossed all the dirt off of the hatch when she opened it and hadn't bothered to cover it back up. Anypony passing within a hundred feet could notice it and strip the shelter bare. She hadn't been in there very long; she might have missed something. His heart trotted in his chest, and with a firm telekinetic pull, he swung the hatch open again. A glance across the clear, empty desert, to his sister's distant shape moving steadily west, and he knew he'd have no trouble finding her again.

The steel stairs were as perfect as the day they were made. Somehow, with each step down into the dark, the room felt smaller, the ceiling lower. He concentrated for a moment, and warm orange light bathed the walls.

The shelter was round, like an aluminum can somepony had buried underground, and the ceiling was every inch as low as it felt, leaving barely a foot of space between his head and the concrete. The room was ringed with shelves, drawers, cabinets and cubbies. A fine layer of dust covered every surface, save for a few streaks here or there, where a mouth had pulled open a drawer, or a hoof had brushed across a table.

In the center of the room lay a skeleton. A time-ravaged vest was still wrapped around its shoulders. Phoenix walked up and pressed a curious hoof to vest's pocket. Loot! He quickly levitated the bounty up into the air, where they caught and reflected the light from his horn in a dazzling array. A pair of golden discs, thick and heavy, with tiny printing on both sides. He'd seen pre-war bits before, but they'd all been dinged up and dusty. Nopony used gold for anything in the wasteland, but that didn't make them any less cool. He tucked them into his empty saddlebag, then gave the skeleton a cheerful pat on the shoulder. “Thanks, buddy.”

It wasn't hard to see where Dawn had already searched. Earth ponies weren't the most delicate scavengers, and she probably hadn't cared about covering her tracks. He pulled open the first drawer beside the stairs and nearly whinnied in surprise. Cutlery, the kind that only Tenpony snobs used. They were worth their weight as scrap metal, though. He peered deeper inside and saw an even greater treasure. A short, fat knife, double-edged, with a tapered handle. This wasn't for eating, or for cooking. It was a killing knife. Phoenix snatched it up in his magic without hesitation, waved it around a few times, and then slid it into his pack alongside the bits. He'd have to make some kind of badass holster for it later.

He looked through the next few cupboards with renewed interest. They were all packed with things less exciting but still useful and valuable: food preserves, cleaning solution, sheets of fabric, and even a kit of basic medical supplies. The last item had obviously been handled, examined, and replaced. One piece had been removed, leaving a syringe-shaped divot in the kit.

A shot of Med-X.

Phoenix glanced back up at the open hatch and the overcast desert sky above, and his excitement was dulled by a sudden wash of worry. With one last regretful look at all the untouched riches surrounding him, he returned above ground and closed the hatch behind him. He did take a moment to brush some dirt over it. For later, he mentally announced.

To the west, the shimmering shape of his older sister plodded onward. Phoenix hoisted his bag and followed.

The desert was rockier, bumpier, and even a bit less dry out west. Phoenix took advantage of the terrain to close the distance between himself and his quarry, slipping from rock to bush to rusted road sign until Dawn was only a hundred or so feet away. Her shadow stretched long and soft across the cracked earth as the sun began its slow descent and the far horizon was painted a muddy brown. The cloud cover seemed lighter than usual, and the sun's light more piercing. That would be Phoenix's excuse for not noticing the camp sooner.

The shaky road ahead dipped into a narrow canyon with sheer, rocky cliffs to either side. A barricade of recovered wood and scrap metal choked the passage even further, and finally there was a pony. They leaned against the rock wall, eyes fixed on Dawn's approaching form. His sister's stride didn't falter for a moment, nor did she draw her weapon.

Phoenix drew up short, glanced around, then circled to the right, skirting across the road and darting through a narrow channel where a stream might once have flowed. Now the ground was dry and chalky beneath his hooves. He crept forward, climbing the gentle incline until he drew level with the waiting pony. He peeked down into the valley and observed his sister.

“Hold it,” the stallion said—probably a stallion, from the voice. “Where the fuck are you going?”

Dawn mumbled something, as she usually did. Phoenix winced for her.

“What? Speak up for fuck's sake.”

She straightened her neck and sneered. “West.”

“Pfft,” the stallion chortled, “you sound like a fuckin' colt. Need a drink or something?”

Dawn shook her head. She bared her teeth as they passed near her pistol. “Just a shot or two of Med-X. Got any to spare?” Her words were tinged with bitter sarcasm.

“Oh ho, of course we do, for a sweet mare such as yourself.” The stallion stepped back and gestured into the valley. “Come on in. Our… eh, doctor, would be happy to help 'ya.”

She flashed him a dazzling smile, the kind she rarely pulled out in Appleloosa, and moved closer. Inches from the doorway, she struck.

Her shoulder slammed into the stallion's chest, and they both careened behind the wooden cover. Bullets flew through the opening, cracking against rock and earth. Dawn wrapped her forelegs around the stallion's neck and swung him off his hooves, the tendons in her legs straining. He was unconscious before the next volley of gunfire was loosed. Splinters filled the air.

Phoenix lost sight of her in the cloud of debris, and he looked around in a panic. Further into the valley, a miniature army of scary ponies assembled, grabbing guns from holsters or nearby furniture. In a single glance across the camp, he counted eight ponies. His useless, declawed rifle found its way into the air, held aloft by his magic. Reflex, he supposed, or maybe just what he thought he was supposed to do.

Dawn drew her pistol and clenched it tight between her teeth, then chanced a look around the barricade. A millisecond later she jerked back, bullets flying out after her. One heartbeat, two, and she rounded the corner and dove, emptying her pistol as she raced for cover. Two of her shots found flesh. A burly mare fell to the ground with a scarlet hole in her forehead, and a unicorn staggered backward, blood flowing from a deep rake in his shoulder. Dawn fetched up against a sturdy barrel. She flinched as more bullets perforated the other side and sent shockwaves through the wood. With dexterity Phoenix would never have imagined, she released her empty magazine and loaded another.

Three more bandits opened fire through the valley, round after round slamming into her improvised cover. The barrel didn't last long under the onslaught, and in seconds it was reduced to a pile of wood chips and a pair of metal bands. Dawn was already gone. She scurried across the ground, dodged under a folding table, and disappeared into an enclosed tent. Bullets tore through the fabric and disappeared in kind. The valley fell still and quiet for a split second.

Phoenix tensed. Another glance reassured him that nopony was aiming his way, and he darted forward, descending the slope and circling around to the back of the camp, where the fortifications were less impressive. The barricade was the same as on the far side, but the sentry had clearly been pulled away by Dawn's explosive entrance. He slipped into the canyon, the tip of his rifle leading the way. Wild cracks of sound filled the air, lead smashing into rock. Yells, grunts, roars. Phoenix ran into the nearest tent. His magic was tense against the trigger of his gun, ready to fire at the first sign of movement. Enough pellets to the face would stop a pony just as well as a real bullet. Probably. Hopefully.

Hooves galloped past the tent, gunfire cracking between steps. Phoenix peaked out and glanced both ways. A mass of muzzle flares, dust, and swearing in one direction, silence in the other. He darted across the valley to the next tent. At the entrance, he paused, and he turned. Lying the middle of the canyon was a mare, a bullet hole through her brain. He had stepped over the corpse without a thought. There, beside her death-stiffened limbs, lay a rusted submachine gun. He grabbed it in his magic and dragged it closer. Once they were both hidden behind canvas, he dropped his fake rifle and pulled the real deal in close. He could only assume it was loaded.

The canvas rustled beside him, and his heart leapt into his throat. He dove for the far side of the tent and fell to his belly, slipping beneath the loose material. It draped over him like a blanket. A pony entered the tent, breathing hard and heavy. He could barely see her silhouette through the thick canvas. It sounded like Dawn. He nearly stood up and revealed himself, but he wasn't supposed to be out this far. If these bandits didn't kill him, Dawn would, and if she didn't, their parents would. Bullets ripped through the tent, in one side and out the other, and Dawn disappeared in a blur of trailing hair and flailing hooves. The sudden explosion of motion and sound sent a jolt racing through him, and he nearly jumped right out into the open, into the middle of the valley.

He trembled, and the ground tilted a bit, and he was glad to be lying down. With all the steadiness he could muster, Phoenix rolled back into the tent and gathered his shaking legs beneath him. He levitated the machine gun to his head height and held it steady. Even with every muscle in his body tense and quivering, his telekinesis was solid and certain. He could do this. He peeked through the tent flap.

Two ponies advanced through the canyon. The unicorn carried a shotgun in her magic. The other, a massive earth pony stallion, wore the bulkiest, scariest battle-saddle Phoenix had ever seen. Two giant miniguns were attached to either side. The huge black barrels spun slowly, the motors whirring like thirsty cats. Dawn was nowhere to be seen. Apart from the two encroaching bandits, the valley was deathly still.

Now he was trapped. He couldn't move without giving himself away, not even an inch, but any second they could glance his way, and they'd draw level with his hiding place with just a few more steps. His back hooves dug little divots into the dry earth.

A gust of wind rose up, whistling through the valley and catching loose ends of fabric and lengths of rope. Halfway through camp, not twenty feet from the two bandits, a lock of purple hair danced in the breeze, and whipped and snapped just above a stack of crates.

The miniguns roared to life, and the hair, the crates, the whole valley disappeared in a cloud of dust, smoke, sparks, and splinters. Phoenix lurched back into the safety of the tent and backed up until his rump poked out the opening on the other side. His borrowed submachine gun never left his side, and it's aim never moved from the earth pony's hulking form. His heart raced and pumped frigid blood through his veins. Dawn had to be dead. They killed his stupid fucking sister and he hadn't done a thing to stop it.

The roar of the miniguns fell to the hiss of steam and the clatter of discarded casings across the ground. “Fuck!” shouted the stallion through clenched teeth. “Did I get her at least?”

“Doesn't look like.” Hoofsteps, barely heard over the ringing in Phoenix's ears. “Bitch has good aim. Or she's fucking lucky,” the mare commented. “Is it deep?”

“Shut the fuck up.” A pause. “No, I'm fine. Grazed me.” The miniguns spun again. Spun, but didn't fire. “She's gotta be in there.”

“Probably.”

“What's in that tent?”

“That was Tanner's.” The mare sniffed dismissively. “Dead now.” The motor revved. “Hold it,” she muttered. “Let me get into position.”

A grunt. “Just say the word.” The mare vaulted over a stack of boxes and circled around the tent.

Phoenix took the opportunity to slip back into cover.

They way they were talking made him think maybe Dawn had gotten away, somehow. She always was a lot faster than her short legs and stubby barrel suggested. But, as far as he knew, this was her first fight. She had never mentioned shooting at ponies before, or being shot at. She'd never come home bleeding or even badly bruised. His mind was reeling, and his hooves and face were starting to tingle. He had to focus. After all, there was still a chance Dawn's corpse was lying under a pile of rubble a stone's throw away and he was alone in the valley with a bunch of murdering bandits.

With pricked ears, Phoenix retraced his steps. He slid out the far side of the tent and peeked around the corner.

The bandit mare stood nearly opposite the stallion, across the passage from Phoenix with her back to him. She leveled her shotgun at the tent, then leaned around its side and nodded at her partner.

Everything happened really fast.

Phoenix charged across the valley, directly toward the mare. Her shotgun kicked once, the muzzle flare nearly blinding him, and then he was on top of her. He jammed the barrel of his new machine gun to her upper back and mashed the trigger home. Above the frenzied sound of automatic gunfire, he heard metal against bone, and he heard blood and meat splatter to the ground. A choked, raspy scream escaped the mare's mouth, and her eyes rolled back so far that he could swear she was looking right at him.

He leapt over the broken, dying bandit and dove toward the nearest cover, a few sandbags stacked atop one another. He fell to his barrel, legs splayed, and pressed his ears down. He could imagine the minigun spinning faster, faster, and then loosing its payload. A few mouldy sandbags wouldn't stand up against that. In a second, his cover would be scattered to the desert winds, and then he'd be as much hole as he was whole.

And the minigun whirred. The motor growled. The roar of bullet fire cracked through the valley like an angry dragon. Phoenix winced. When he didn't die, he paused. A second or two later, and he tentatively glanced over the top of his cover.

The tent the two bandits had sighted lay demolished, the fabric so thoroughly perforated that it resembled a net more than a single sheet of canvas. The interior was a mess of splintered wood and scattered belongings. A flash of blue and purple blurred past the remains of the tent. A few clear, decisive bullet cracks rang over the minigun fire. The beefy stallion growled past the bit in his mouth and swung around, clumsily following his target. The canyon's rock walls fractured and cracked from the sudden bullet hail.

The earth pony kept turning. His head weaved and he staggered to the side. His minigun spun to a hissing stop, and once again the valley fell quiet, save for the groan of leather and the slow clatter of gun metal. The stallion breathed hard, and as the dust began to settle Phoenix saw several crimson trails running down his body. From his leg, his barrel, down the side of his neck. But somehow, the beast was still standing, albeit not very steadily.

Once again, Dawn was nowhere in sight.

Phoenix's heart was probably still racing, but for some reason he couldn't tell for sure. He jerked to his hooves and vaulted the pile of sandbags. He swerved and leapt over the ruins of the camp, bodies and weapons and tattered tent cloth, the huge stallion quickly filling up more and more of his vision. Phoenix aimed his gun, vaguely realizing that he had no idea how much his magazine held, if it had even been full when he found it.

With speed belied by his size, the stallion swung around and leaned forward. Six giant barrels of death filled Phoenix's vision, and the colt quickly realized that he was screwed. Sure, the minigun couldn't be spun up to speed in time to stop him, but he was outweighed by hundreds of pounds. One good punch, or even a shove, and the earth pony would have all the time he needed. In desperation, Phoenix leveled his weapon and fired. His aim was off, and the rounds clipped into the large stallion's chest and shoulder before veering up into the canyon wall beyond.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Dawn—actually saw her, not just a glimpse or a hint. She stood tall, eyes fixed on the earth pony, her pistol held carefully in her mouth. She fired, and the recoil snapped her neck to the side.

Bang.

The stallion crumpled, eyes wide. Blood pooled in the dirt beneath his head and trickled downhill toward Dawn, growing thinner and murkier as it absorbed grit and sand. Phoenix shivered. They were both standing there in the open, target practice for any passers-by. His vision swam, his limbs jittered with nervous energy, but he couldn't move, and he couldn't look away.

And the world slowed right down.

There was a muted scream to his right, choked and shrill.

Dawn stalked toward him, her gun still clenched between her teeth. The pistol's barrel shook, and Phoenix wondered again who would be in more trouble if she shot him.

She stood across from him, eyes hard and narrow, and looked him up and down. Her gaze lingered on his legs for a moment, and he realized that they were flecked with blood. His belly, where his coat was thinnest, tingled at the edges of perception. He must have scraped it raw while diving into cover. She stared at the gun floating beside him, and when he followed her cue he noticed the dozens of straight, careful notches scratched into both sides of the receiver. A tally, easily over thirty marks on the side facing his way. Numbly, he turned it over.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dawn snarled.

He snapped his head back to face her. She'd put her gun away, at least, but now she was inches from his face, eyes flaring and chest heaving, her ears pinned back and her shoulders tense. He took a step back, ready to leap aside if she came any closer. “Uh…” He tried desperately to focus, to remember and interpret whatever she'd just said. His hind hoof slipped in a slimy puddle of sand and blood.

“Are you following me? You'd better not be fuck—” Her voice broke suddenly, veering down into a lower, louder pitch. He flinched, but she didn't even pause for a second. “—ing with me right now. I have shit to do, and you can take a back seat for once in your fucking life.”

She usually didn't swear this much. Or stand this close to ponies. Or raise her voice above a low, conversational hush. Phoenix's nerves, which were only just starting to recover, frayed and twisted.

“And stop aiming that thing at me, or I'll beat you with it till you black out.”

In a heartbeat, his telekinesis winked out and the machine gun fell to the ground. He had forgotten he was holding it.

Her snarl slowly faded into an irritated scowl. She turned her back and crouched down to inspect the nearest pile of debris, apparently content to ignore him. Her intense, focused search shook something free from the maelstrom of his thoughts, and the thought flew out his mouth. “Are you a chem fiend?” he blurted.

“What?” she said, and spun back to face him. She sounded genuinely baffled. “A chem… how do you…” Her frown deepened, and soon enough turned back into a glare. She took a sudden step forward. “Have you been spying on me?” she growled.

“Med-X,” Phoenix sputtered. “In the bunker, all you took—”

“The bunker?” And again, inexplicably, she seemed to calm down. “You searched the bunker? That bunker?”

“You left it all open and uncovered, so I wanted to take a look inside before it all disappeared.” He swallowed. For some reason he was starting to feel really tired. Bone tired. Swaying on his hooves tired. “There was a ton of stuff worth taking in there, but I think all you wanted was the Med-X. A-are you in trouble? I promise I won't tell if you are.” Unless it was really bad. Like if Dawn was actually addicted, or if she'd fallen in with some kind of gang—not that he'd ever heard of gangs near Appleloosa.

It was nearly dusk, and the desert was already cooling, the meager daylight fading. If they went straight home, they might make it before dark.

Dawn grimaced and glanced back at her bags. “It's not for me,” she said at last.

“Is it for Candi?” She was the closest thing New Appleloosa had to a doctor. Their parents sold most of the chems and medicine they found to her at a big discount. But she wouldn't buy combat chems, like the contraband syringe Phoenix had squirreled away.

Dawn flinched, her eyes bulged, and her face reddened. She looked ready to run for the hills. “No! I mean, no, it's for her patients!”

He blinked. “That's what… what I meant.”

Their eyes met. Phoenix saw something in hers. A wild, panicked anger. An anger with no target in particular. Then it softened, because she was seeing something in his eyes in turn.

She glanced to the ground. “How about a deal?” she asked, soft and feminine again. “You go home right away, and you don't tell Mom and Dad I was out here, or about the Med-X. When I get back to New Appleloosa, I won't mention that you were out here too.”

“I'm staying with you,” Phoenix said. “Something's wrong, and—” The horizon swayed before his eyes. He wondered if he was having a heart attack. “I don't… whatever's going on, I'm staying with you.”

“Are you okay… is everything—hey, Phoenix?” Dawn moved closer. She lifted a hoof to his side, and he couldn't help but lean into it. She lowered him gently to the ground. Everything was dark and blurry, and he almost giggled at how strange it felt. “Stay there,” she muttered soothingly. “I'll… I won't go anywhere either.”

Metal against bone. He wondered where his pellet rifle was. He remembered dropping it.

Blood and meat. A raspy scream. Panicked, bloodshot eyes stared down at him from the twilight sky above.

He missed his rifle.

And the sky blurred and darkened into nothing.

“… Fucking stubborn old bitch…”

Phoenix shot upright, sleep retreating at the edges of his vision. The surrounding canyon was just as fragmented and bloodsoaked as his most vivid nightmares suggested. He couldn't see Dawn anywhere. He winced and curled back up. His eyes squeezed closed, he pulled his legs in tight, and he hoped that if he just slept for a few hours more, the world would change around him.

A moment passed.

“Phoenix…”

He stirred, only barely acknowledging the voice. His chin emerged from his blanket and his eyes flicked open for a split second.

“I saw that. Get up. We need to move.”

He snuggled tighter, and pulled the blanket over his head. Anything to distance himself from the familiar voice of the real world.

“Sorry, bro, but that's not going to fly today.” A pair of jaws ripped the blanket away, and the cold desert winds assailed his underside. Phoenix rolled over and hunched his shoulders, his eyes still pressed shut, but already the veil of sleep was starting to fade. He raised his head and blinked against the dark blue horizon. Why was it still night? He felt like he'd been drugged. His muscles were sore and twitchy, and a weight pressed on his thoughts, suppressing and distorting them into shapes unrecognizable.

He'd been talking. Talking to Dawn. He could just barely remember the wave of fatigue and vertigo that had swept his legs out from under him. Shit, had he fainted?

It took a few tries to get his hooves back under him. He looked around at the wreckage. It was mostly unchanged from the previous night. A shattered camp, assailed with heavy gunfire and the stampede of dozens of hooves. The few tents that were still standing were laced with bullet holes, the few intact boxes and craters covered in a thick coating of dust. The sky above was murky.

Dawn was nowhere to be seen. Hadn't she just spoken to him?

The crate of cloth and linens was still untouched, right where he'd seen it during the fight. Other valuable items were scattered around, also unlooted. Preserved food, guns and ammo, medical supplies, although notably not Med-X. He even found a health potion nestled within a coil of braided rope, which he chugged down without thinking. Immediately his body felt lighter, and his head less woolen. He looked down at the empty bottle, winced, and tossed it into a nearby pile of debris. Better if Dawn didn't find out that he'd wasted a perfectly good healing potion.

Phoenix finally found his sister at the mouth of the canyon. She was crouched behind a cluster of boulders, munching on a snack cake. Her ears pricked and swiveled to follow his steps.

He cleared his throat.

She turned and opened her mouth, only for cake crumbs to slip from between her lips. “Oh, sorry,” she muttered, hastily covering her mouth with a hoof. “Uh, that was the last one.”

Phoenix shrugged. He wasn't really hungry. “Are you done with the camp?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Let's get one thing straight. If you're going to tag along, no more questions. I'm sick of explaining myself.”

The urge to argue rose suddenly and violently, and a short list of Dawn's few mistakes appeared in his mind, cross-indexed both chronologically and in order of magnitude. He swallowed it down and said, “Okay. I'm sorry.”

She kept the glare up for another few seconds. “Good. Get your stuff. You made us waste hours already.”

He nodded and trotted back into the canyon, his mind racing. So, whatever Dawn was up to, it was time sensitive. She only seemed to care about gathering Med-X, and apparently she needed a significant quantity to boot. She had definitely already found one dose, if the medical kit in the bunker was any indication, but she hadn't used it yet. Probably. Phoenix didn't really know what a Med-X high was like, but he had heard it made ponies mellow and blissful, and so far Dawn seemed louder, angrier, and more aggressive than ever.

So was she really just trying to help out Candi? New Appleloosa always needed medical supplies, but Dawn had never acted so single-mindedly before. Was there somepony in town that needed Med-X really badly, and more than just a few doses? It didn't make any sense.

He hefted his bags and, after a long moment's consideration, the submachine gun as well. It wasn't pretty like his pellet rifle, but he didn't need pretty out here. He needed to protect himself. And his sister.

He took another look around the ruined camp. In twenty minutes, he could probably strip it of all of its small valuables. More than enough to justify Dawn's long absence, and maybe enough to get him off the hook as well. He sighed and cantered back toward Dawn. In truth, they could bring home a working PipBuck, or a live Balefire bomb, or a hundred thousand caps, and they'd still be in just as much trouble.

“Fucking finally,” Dawn muttered. She grabbed her own saddlebags from the ground nearby, shouldered them, and gestured off into the distant desert. “Come on.”

There ceased to be a road this far out. Apparently the canyon marked the frontier of pre-war Equestria, and beyond that there was only dirt and dunes and desolation. Dawn didn't hesitate.

After minutes scraping their hooves across hard gritty terrain, Phoenix bit his lip and glanced to Dawn, who moved at a canter a few paces ahead. He perfected his words in his head. “I know you said not to ask questions, but—”

“Shut up,” Dawn growled, low enough that the wind almost swept it away. Phoenix was so prepared for it that he broke off anyway.

“I just want to know if we're actually going somewhere,” he continued. “Cause it kind of seems like we're in the middle of nowhere.”

Dawn pursed her lips. “I know what I'm doing. Unless we already missed it. You picked a bad time for a nap.”

Phoenix frowned. His hooves thumped against the ground a bit faster. He still didn't know how long he'd been asleep. Based on the sky alone, it had either been a couple hours or an entire day. Or multiple days, but he didn't want to even consider that possibility. Their parents would actually skin them.

The sun rose steadily, and soon Phoenix had it figured out. Three or four hours at most. Probably only three. He was too exhausted and Dawn was still too high-strung for it to have been multiple days. Were they meeting a train, maybe? No, if three hours didn't make any difference, a full day wouldn't either. And there weren't any train tracks out this far anyway. A caravan? Those didn't stick around, and they didn't announce their schedules. No way Dawn could know down to the day where one would be. Pegasi?

He tried not to think too hard about that last one.

By noon his frogs and hoof-tips were tingling. He somehow still wasn't hungry, but his mouth was dry and aching for water. He paused at one point to look through his bag, but all he'd packed were tools. He'd expected an afternoon over familiar hills, after all, not a cross country hike. He licked his lips, which only made them sting more, and fought for the courage to ask his sister for a break. Why was he suddenly so afraid of her? He never had been before.

His heart shrank. He'd never seen her kill a pony before, either.

“Stay low and stay quiet,” Dawn said, finally breaking the silence. “We're getting close.”

Phoenix craned his neck and peered out at the near featureless wasteland before them. Save a few gentle hills and clusters of cacti, there was nothing to break his line of sight until the horizon.

“How can you tell?”

“I said be quiet.”

His nose wrinkled, but he shut up anyway. He glared out across the wastes, daring anything distinguishable to show its face.

The hills rose on either side, and soon the siblings plunged between them.

Dawn swerved to the left, toward a rocky outcropping, and Phoenix followed dutifully. As they grew closer, the outcropping became an entryway, and soon enough Phoenix was able to distinguish a worn wooden door set into the stone. Some kind of cave, then.

Dawn drew her pistol and held it carefully between her teeth.

“Are we…” Phoenix undid the clasp of his saddlebag with some hesitation. “Are there ponies in there?”

Dawn didn't respond, but she also didn't lower her weapon.

Phoenix withdrew the battered machine gun and held it close.

In the distance, a patch of rock by the entrance shifted, warped, and materialized into a familiar shape. A unicorn stepped away from the rock wall. Their horn glowed, casting light across the stone around them, and a long gun floated into the air. The barrel pivoted to face them, nearly turning into a single point. Nearly.

Phoenix whirled. “Get—”

A small explosion resounded across the wastes, and Dawn collapsed to the ground. A red mist filled the air, and it took Phoenix a moment to process what was adrenaline pounding behind his eyes and what was real. He ducked backward and crawled, on knees and fetlocks, toward his downed sister.

“Dawn?”

“Shh!” she whispered breathlessly. Blood leaked from her side, staining her leather barding a dark brown. “Maybe he… only saw me.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “Fuck…”

Phoenix stayed prone, his belly to the gritty ground. He pulled his saddlebags off and reached a hoof inside, searching for something, anything, that could help. Why had he drank that healing potion earlier? Because he'd been tired. Shit.

“Don't move,” he said. “I'll…”

“What? Shoot them? From here?” Dawn asked. “Stay down. I'll…” Dawn twisted, her forelegs scrabbling at the earth. She hissed. “I'll handle it.” Her sides heaved.

He began to shift closer, then flinched back as another gunshot rang out overhead. Nothing stood between them and the shooter but a few tufts of knee-high desert weeds. Phoenix reached out a hoof. “How bad is it?”

She cringed away from him. “Don't… touch. It's fine.”

Phoenix craned his neck and peered at the very edges of his vision. An indistinct, pony-sized shape moved slowly but confidently closer, the rifle still raised in a steady cloud of telekinesis. Seconds and breaths passed languidly. Phoenix could imagine himself through this pony's eyes, through the rifle's sights. An vague lump, nearly invisible against the dull terrain. Even a small movement would break that illusion and outline him perfectly. Camouflage into target practice.

Millimeter by millimeter, Phoenix magically dragged the machine gun closer to his body. At the same time, he felt the weight of his saddlebags. Examined the contour where the rawhide touched his coat.

In one motion, he wrapped his magic around them, rolled to the side, and lobbed his bags into the air, toward the approaching pony. Three quick gunshots split the silence in succession.

Phoenix jumped to his hooves, lifted his gun, and staggered forward. They were on a slight slope, so he ended up half sprinting, half falling most of the way.

It was a young stallion, probably only a few years older than him, although Phoenix sucked at guessing ponies' ages. He could have been halfway to thirty. His yellow coat glowed in the sickly desert sun, and if he had a mane it was too fine for Phoenix to discern from so far away. Scars crisscrossed his face and neck, and a few long ones ran across the stallion's chest. Phoenix had no idea what could cause something like that. Knife fights, maybe?

His eyes were narrowed and focused, and he pivoted his rifle toward his target without a moment's hesitation.

Phoenix careened closer. He could feel his knees buckling and his center of gravity pitching forward, his hooves starting to slip out from under him. He kicked off with his hind legs in an attempt to wring out every inch of distance he could. Another gunshot. Phoenix's ears flattened instinctively, but he didn't break stride. He couldn't, at that point. There was no impact, no pain, nothing, so the shot probably went wide.

The stallion's eyes flared wide, and the glow of his telekinesis undulated, making the tip of his gun wobble and shake ever so slightly. He started to scurry backward, and Phoenix spotted a cutie mark as the stallion's hips shifted back and forth. A silver paperclip, pristine and glinting. Phoenix wasn't sure there were any paperclips like that left in all of Equestria. His cutie mark story must be one hell of a tale.

Phoenix held out his fully automatic weapon and emptied the clip, point blank, into the stallion's face.

Orange. The stallion's mane was orange. It was just shaved so close that it was nearly invisible.

Phoenix's momentum finally died, and he toppled sideways. He slid a short distance. The ground pulled and jabbed at his coat, and finally he came to a dizzying, sprawling halt. Stars danced in his eyes and colours swam at the edges of perception. Suddenly the ground was very comfortable, something to lean and depend on. If he hadn't killed the orange pony, Phoenix thought, then so be it. Then they'd lost and the bad guys won. Big deal. He pressed his eyes closed once, trying to dispel some of the static, then again, more slowly. It was getting harder to open them back up again.

A throaty gasp came from somewhere up the hill.

Phoenix jerked back to his hooves and clambered back to his injured and maybe dying sister.

“I heard that,” Dawn growled as he approached. “All of it. Did you get him?”

Phoenix shrugged. “Yeah.” He reached down again and stopped, his hoof poised inches from her side.

Dawn looked up at him and huffed, then wobbled, grumbled, and stood up, shoving him aside in the process. She peered down the slope at the mound of bloody orange hair, and she started down the slope. After a few steps she pivoted to keep her wound out of his sight.

Reluctantly, Phoenix followed her. He kept his eyes off the mess, instead choosing to focus on the cave. A wooden door was wedged into the entrance. It wasn't much more than a few mismatched and misshapen pieces of lumber hastily nailed together. The rough shape of an eyeball was scratched into the wood. An eyeball.

“Phew, you really did a number on this guy,” Dawn commented. She leaned down to search the pony's pockets and suppressed a gasp of pain. She recovered quickly. “He didn't get you at all?” she asked.

“Nope.”

Dawn kicked something toward him. “Here. Just like you've always wanted.”

Phoenix glanced down. It was the stallion's rifle. Not dissimilar to his old pellet gun, but infinitely more deadly. He glanced between it and the machine gun he'd left in the dirt where he'd fallen, then levitated the rifle into the air. Its weight felt good. Familiar. He started to tuck it inside his bag, then looked back at the cave and thought better of it.

On second thought, maybe the submachine gun would be a good idea as well.

“Find anyth—any Med-X?” He chanced a look Dawn's way and saw a splatter of red on the ground and a jumble of sprawled limbs. His throat clenched tight and shivers lanced through his extremities.

“Would you cool it on the questions?” She turned and appraised him with a scowl. Her expression quickly faded into concern. “Actually, maybe you should head home. You're looking a little… uh…”

“What? Exhausted? Dehydrated? Frustrated?” He cleared his throat and trotted over to the cavern door. “Come on, let's just shoot whoever's in there or whatever.”

She trotted a circle past him and held up a leg, barring his way. “I was going to say 'dead,' actually. Was he…” She glanced past him toward the corpse. “Was that your first kill?”

He snorted and thought back to the mare in the canyon. “Nope. Is that your first bullet wound?”

“Nope.”

“Then I guess we're both fine.”

Her nostrils flared, but she dropped her leg. “I… I guess we are.”

The mid-day sun burned the clouds above a deep red, and the winds licked every few seconds, reminding them for a second what comfort felt like.

Dawn cantered past him and shouldered through the doorway. Of course the door wasn't locked. Had he expected bandits to drill a bolt straight into the stone?

He raised the rifle, fiddled with safeties and magazine releases, and then plunged into the cave. It was pitch black aside from the faint blue shining from beyond the doorway. The siblings peered into nothing.

“If you're going to tag along, you could at least give us some light,” Dawn griped. She started forward.

Phoenix concentrated, and a second later his horn erupted into a gentle light, revealing patchy brickwork and pillowy piles of stone powder. Every hoofstep threw clouds of the stuff into the air, choking and blinding them both, and forming dazzling patterns in his horn light.

Crates and boxes of all shapes and sizes lined the walls, and the natural cave floor was covered by planks and grates that were haphazardly hammered into the stone, sloping down further into the earth.

Phoenix's magic had never been especially strong. His light flickered whenever he hoisted his rifle, and his rifle wobbled whenever he aimed or focused his light spell. After the fourth angry glare from Dawn, he slipped the gun through the loops in his backpack. Dawn was clearly a better shot anyway.

The tunnel started to curve, and Dawn drew up close against the inside wall of the turn, then gestured for him to do the same.

“Light up ahead. Kill the horn,” she whispered.

He did so without hesitation, plunging the two of them into almost total darkness. The dim babble of voices touched their ears.

Dawn turned and said, “There's only three, I think. Stay here and watch my back.” She stared at him, as if expecting resistance. Then, slowly, she turned and crept around the corner.

Phoenix took a few more steps forward until flickering firelight caught his eye. Another thirty or so feet down the tunnel, a campsite was erected, and the long shadows of gathered ponies were cast on the walls. He could only pick out two distinct silhouettes, but there were enough indistinct shadows that he could imagine a third. He drew the rifle and ran a hoof over the barrel. He took aim and waited.

Dawn's shape was even less distinct that the ponies around the camp. Her slightly lighter shade of black scuttled forward, darting from alcove to outcropping, and pressing herself to the wall where there was no other shelter. Even knowing she was there, he struggled to keep track of her darting form.

One of the silhouettes circled around the campfire and snatched something from the other. “Enough's enough,” the distant voice muttered. It sounded like a mare. “Go to bed. We need to be ready for that shipment tonight.”

“Fuck off,” growled the other, swinging their forehooves desperately toward the bottle. “I sleep better with a few in me.”

The mare danced backward, casting wild, primal shadows across the cavern. She tutted. “This shit's gonna kill you, you know?” She held the bottle in a single hoof, somehow, then reversed her grip with a quick spin—again, somehow. The contents spilled and sloshed across the stone floor. A few drops splashed into the fire, and whisps of steam filled the air.

“Did you just—” The stallion started forward, then apparently reconsidered. “Just you fucking wait,” he muttered. He retreated and reluctantly curled up beside the fire, still tossing the occasional sour glance toward his companion. “Soon we won't need you anymore, and then you'll be fucked.”

The mare either didn't hear or didn't care, because she soon curled up in kind.

Dawn stepped into the cavern and turned, glueing herself to the wall. The fire would sporatically flare her way, and Phoenix would spy her silhouette against the cold stone walls.

Something blurred past the fireplace, and the wild shadows nearly blinding Phoenix for a second. He fumbled with his gun, and he tugged madly on every switch and latch he thought he needed to. He finally got it primed and centered on the scene unfolding before him.

Dawn reached to her side and drew her pistol. She always amazed him with how natural her gun grip looked, like it was an extension of her, despite simply being gripped between her teeth. She sprinted in a diagonal, almost like a crab, and opened fire. Through flashes of firelight, he saw both prone ponies thrash and sputter, their forelimbs gripping their throats or torsos. Dawn spun on a dime and slid to a perfect stop. An electronic beep echoed through the cave.

Across the camp, a third pony stood, something indistinct levitated beside them. A rock? A grenade? An apple? Phoenix squinted, but the dim light made it impossible to tell. He needed to move closer.

“Who do we have here?” the pony murmured. They stalked closer, narrowly skirting the fire. The object in their grip spun idly, like a child levitating an old toy. “A—”

Phoenix squeezed the trigger, and a single shot rang out.

The threatening pony toppled sideways and disappeared into the fire, replaced by the stench of burning hair and burning flesh.

That made three. Phoenix stumbled forward. “That was all of them, right?” he called. The fire's comforting warmth made him appreciate the desert's unrelenting dry heat even less.

Dawn didn't budge. “I'm standing on a mine,” she said flatly. “If you have a some fancy unicorn spell in store, now would would be the time to pull it out.”

“I can make water boil! Like, forever!” he blurted without thinking. He'd been waiting years for somepony to ask him that question.

She shot him a withering glare. “Could you please take this seriously? I'm a sneeze away from death over here, if you missed it.”

And then he felt stupid. “Sorry, uhh…” He crouched down to take a good look at her hooves. They were impeccably manicured, as usual. In some ways they were the pretty part of her, other than her mane. Slightly less noticeable was the pressure plate beneath her. A single red LED blinked a regular pattern. Huh. “Well… you're the one who stepped on a landmine. So…”

“I'm also the one standing on a landmine!” she all but shrieked. Her voice cracked more than once, veering down into more masculine tones before recovering. “Just… just do something. There should be a pin or something.”

“Or something?”

“Well I don't know. When have I ever played around with explosives?”

“When have I?”

“Just fix it!”

He gritted his teeth. “Luna, fine. Just give me a minute.” He glared at the metal plate beneath her. It looked a lot like the top of any random pre-war oil barrel. He tried to peer underneath it, but all he could make out was a couple wires and a spring. The flashing LED above made it hard for his eyes to adjust. With all the concentration he could muster, he prepared to slice both wires. The steady pulses of his heart shook his vision and his magic, but he held fast. “Be ready to dive,” he warned, a slight hitch to his voice.

“What?”

“On my mark!”

“What?”

He cut the wires. “Now!” he cried, throwing himself backward, toward the fire.

He hit the ground and rolled. He caught himself with a hoof, and glanced behind to find himself inches from the firepit. He sighed, and his breath was accompanied by a puff of soot, then he looked up, to where Dawn was still standing, less than a foot away from the undetonated plate. She glared at him.

“What the fuck was that?”

He jerked to his hooves and said, “I guess I disarmed it.” He offered her a cheeky grin. “What else did you want?”

She grimaced and started forward, but then glanced at the pressure plate and paused. She took several steps back, until her flank was pressed against the cave wall.

“A bit more warning would have been nice.”

“But I disarmed it.”

“I could have died!”

“We could have died like a dozen times each today!” Phoenix shouted. His brow furrowed. “Or… uh… in the last two days.”

Dawn sighed. “It's only been thirty hours or so. We've both slept.”

“You slept? When?” He looked at the ceiling as if it would reveal the answer. He found it soon enough. “Before you left? You planned all this?”

“Of course I did. Couldn't you tell?”

“Honestly, no. Not really.”

Dawn opened her mouth, paused, and glanced at the pressure plate. “Okay, I'm pretty sure it's not going to explode.”

Panic rose in Phoenix's throat. “What if that's just what they wanted us to think that?”

Dawn strode forward, circled the pressure plate, and rolled her eyes. “Then I guess they succeeded.” She hooked a hoof under the plate and pulled. The barrel lid popped up, and Dawn tossed it aside. “Huh.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” she snapped. She set the lid back into place and started to circle the camp. “Help me search.”

He glanced back toward the pressure plate and inched back around the fire. “Med-X?” he asked at last.

“Would you…” she huffed, then her whole body drooped. “Yeah… Med-X.”

He nodded, then started with the nearest crate. Mostly rawhide and leather armour, none of which was likely to fit him. Not that he really cared anymore. He'd seen how ineffective it was. “Why?”

“Why?” Dawn looked down at the nearest corpse and gave it a prod.

Phoenix felt his gourd rise and quickly looked away. He slid open another box. “Come on, I've followed you this far. What's the Med-X for? If you're not an addict then… why?”

“Med-X isn't only for addicts,” she snapped without looking up. “Lots of ponies have pain, and sometimes all they need is a little bit less of it.”

His heart thudded again. “If you're—”

“It's not for me!” Dawn all but shouted. Her sides heaved. She pulled back from the corpse she was searching, growled, then grabbed the pony's barding between her teeth and ripped, gnashed, and tore it apart. “Fuck!”

Phoenix heart was about to explode, but he swallowed the nerves down. “Who is it for?” he asked.

Dawn's entire face screwed tight. She spat out a scrap of leather. “You know Candi's mom?”

Her frankness surprised him. “Uh… you mean Shea?”

“Yes,” Dawn winced. “I mean… she was the town's doctor before Candi stepped up. She was there when we were both born, you know.”

“I know.”

“Yeah.”

Phoenix looked down at the box he'd opened. A cornucopia of chems. He grabbed a single syringe of Med-X and reached for the lid. A shade of red caught his eye, and he quickly swiped the healing potion as well. He knew somepony who might need it.

“Well,” Dawn said, “she's not feeling too hot.”

“She's really sick. Everypony knows.”

Dawn sucked in a sharp breath. “Everypony?”

Phoenix met her eyes and tried to appear sympathetic. “Pretty much,” he admitted.

“Damn,” Dawn muttered. “Candi won't like that. It's supposed to be a secret.”

“Not much of a secret if she stays indoors for two weeks straight,” Phoenix said. “Is she… is she okay?”

Dawn shook her head. “She's dying. And Candi's taking it really hard. I thought… I thought maybe this would help.”

Oh. Huh. Phoenix checked out the next crate. Nothing but empty bottles. He closed it.

“But why just Med-X? Is there a shortage?” he asked.

“No. But it would help Candi's mom the most.”

That sent a dark chill down Phoenix's spine. “You mean… she's really dying?”

“And in a lot of pain,” Dawn confirmed. “But she won't take anything to ease it. She's the selfless type. I guess being a doctor for forty years will do that.” She averted her gaze. “You can probably empathize.”

He thought back to the healing potion he'd quaffed back in the canyon and tears pricked his eyes. He forced them back. “N-not really.”

“I thought…” Dawn sniffed herself and turned away, toward the other corpse. She rolled her over with a hoof and stared down at her barding. “I thought if I found a ton of Med-X, more than all of Appleloosa needed for years, then she'd take some. And maybe Candi—and Shea's last days would be easier.”

Now the tears fell free, and Phoenix wiped them away desperately. “That's really…” he breathed. “Really kind of you.”

Dawn slammed a hoof down on the dead mare's chest. A burble of blood gushed from the corpse's mouth.

“Yeah,” Dawn muttered. “Yeah.” She spun around. “Find anything?”

He levitated the syringe into the air. “Just this.”

“Not good enough,” Dawn growled. She cross the cavern and snatched it with a hoof. “There should be more. They should have…” She glanced back and forth. “Look for a paper.”

“Huh?”

“There should be a scrap of paper around here with times and dates on it. Help me look for it.”

Phoenix nodded and complied. There were all sorts of papers scattered around. Some held makeshifts journals, some were covered in nearly incomprehensible poetry. One was just a long sum of numbers, like a kind of ledger.

“Found it.” Dawn said. She turned his way with a torn scrap of paper balanced on one hoof. “Shipment… no that's… ahah! Tonight!” She spun toward him and tossed the note his way. It fluttered in the air and plunged toward the fire, and he snatched it in his magic at the last second. “Four hours! We need to hurry!”

He looked at the note, near the bottom, by the day's date, and the time a few hours away.

Med-X shipment and misc.. Small party, long range.

That sat atop the highest hill nearby. Dawn had borrowed his rifle, and now she aimed it with both hooves and her mouth across the desert. It looked as awkward as one would expect.

“Are you sure you don't want me to do it?” he offered.

“Hmmghmmm,” Dawn mumbled past the grip.

He wrinkled his muzzle. “I'll take that as a no?”

She nodded minutely.

“Okay.” He sat back on his haunches and waited for the sun to set. Already the clouds were painted red and brown by the descending light. His saddlebags slumped off his back and slid to the ground, and, after minutes of staring off into the dead horizon, he reached a hoof inside and retrieved the healing potion he'd found in the cave.

“How's your side?” he asked.

Dawn shrugged without taking her eyes off the wasteland before them, or her mouth off the trigger.

Phoenix carefully stood up and circled around behind her, moving his hooves slowly and noiselessly, until he finally had an unobstructed view of her injured side. He sucked in his breath.

From hip to shoulder, her grey barding was stained almost black, and streaks ran down her legs on either side. That was too much blood.

Dawn shifted and flicked an ear.

He took a step closer and peered at the wound. The orange light from his telekinesis glinted off of something deep within her flesh.

His stomach sank. “Dawn! You have a bullet in you!”

She dropped the gun and whirled toward him, bending a foreleg to shield her barrel from sight. “Would you just forget it already? I don't need—” Her eyes landed on the potion floating beside him. “Where did you get that?”

“In the cave. When I was looking for Med-X.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Why… why didn't you give it to me then?”

“You seemed really angry. I didn't want to upset you.”

She held out a hoof, frog toward the sky, and shot him an expectant look.

“Don't we… uh… We need to get the bullet out first.”

She glared, and he gave her the potion. She upended it in one motion, then tossed the empty vial aside.

“Better?” Phoenix asked, squinting past her raised leg.

She snorted and turned back to the overlook, but he saw her breathing ease and her limbs relax. “Thanks,” she muttered.

He settled back down at her side and gazed across the desert. “You're welcome.”

“No need to be smug about it,” she said.

“Huh? But I just meant—”

“Sorry. I'm sorry.” Dawn sighed and stretched her neck. “I'm just really tense and… I'm sorry I've been so shitty today. And yesterday.” She settled onto her stomach, the rifle within easy reach. “You're good at this. Better than I was at your age.”

“At killing ponies?”

Dawn flinched. “I mean… yeah. That. But also everything else. You must have followed me for hours before we got to that canyon, and I didn't have a clue.”

“You were distracted, I guess.” He paused. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” she said, echoing his exact inflection moments ago, then stuck out her tongue.

He almost laughed.

Time passed. The shadows lengthened. The sky dimmed.

“Hey, uh…” He licked his lips. “Who were those ponies in the cave? I mean, they shot at us right away, so I guess they were assholes anyway—”

“Language,” Dawn chided.

He waved a hoof. “Yeah, yeah. But seriously, how did you know they'd be there? And about the note?”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “I suppose it's nothing worth hiding. They're slavers. Part of Old Appleloosa's supply network. I was scavenging in the mountains and accidentally crossed one of their caravans. They were on their way back, so there was nothing to loot, but they also had a schedule or something. Dates that other caravans were coming in, and the stuff they'd be carrying.” She looked back out toward the setting sun. “Today's their biggest Med-X delivery for weeks.”

Phoenix digested that for a moment. “So we're taking medicine that's meant for slaves? Isn't that kinda… fucked up?”

“Don't be a moron. It's for the slavers. Or it's to keep the slaves from passing out from pain, so they can keep working. Or something. I dunno. But isn't anything that makes life harder for slavers a good thing?”

He shrugged. “I guess so.”

“We'll take all that medicine back to New Appleloosa and use it to actually help ponies.” Dawn's head tilted back slightly, and she stared off into the horizon. “We'll be heroes.”

“To Candi,” Phoenix said quietly.

A small smile crossed Dawn's face. “Yeah.”

Heroes. Maybe they were. He thought of his pellet gun, lying abandoned in the canyon, surrounded by corpses. He thought about the battered submachine gun in his bags, taken from one bandit to kill another, and to save his sister. He thought about the functional, deadly rifle in front of them. He wasn't sure how to feel about that gun.

“Sure you don't want me to hold that?” he asked, gesturing for the rifle.

Dawn opened her mouth, then her face twisted. “You know what? You're a good shot. Maybe better than me at this range.” She slid it his way.

He levitated the gun into the air, checked the clip and the action, then brought it to his face. The ironsights were sharp and clear. Point and shoot. He aimed at a rock, then a little higher to account for the distance. That seemed about right.

“You do look older,” Dawn commented. “And not just cause you're holding a big boy gun.”

He grunted. “I kinda feel older.”

Maybe killing was just part of growing up.

A dust cloud gathered at the edge of the world. It moved steadily closer, growing in size and definition. Dawn fell still beside him. He held the rifle close and sighted the object as it approached.

“This is it,” Dawn whispered, nervous and excited. Her limbs shivered.

Two ponies came into view first, their limbs a blur of dust and motion. Minutes later, the caravan they dragged behind became clear.

Dawn squinted. “Just two?”

“I think there's a few behind the caravan,” Phoenix said between breaths.

A minute dragged by, then another.

“Whenever you're ready,” Dawn said. She reached back and drew her pistol.

The rifle sights hovered just above the leftmost pony. Phoenix counted his breaths until he could distinguish the pony's head.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

His breathing stopped entirely, and he fired.

Everything froze for a moment. The rifle kicked against his magic and bumped his shoulder. Dawn started forward, down the path from their semi-hidden perch and toward the empty plain.

Then the pony dropped to the ground. Phoenix held them in his sights for a moment, but they didn't so much as twitch.

Dawn was gone, already racing across no pony's land.

Phoenix turned toward the second lead pony. Only a few degrees away, really. He took a second to line up the shot. It was harder this time. The second pony was ducking and crawling toward their downed companion. It was harder, but not by much.

He fired.

The second pony stopped moving.

Dawn appeared at the bottom of his vision, an indistinguishable mess of dust and pounding limbs. She'd be on the caravan within seconds. He raised the rifle again, toward the back of the caravan. There had to be more. One heartbeat. Two.

Not a hint of movement, other than Dawn's frantic shape.

“Huh.”

Phoenix gathered his bags, slipped the rifle through the straps, and hurried after his sister.

He caught up with Dawn quickly. His legs were longer than hers.

She shot him a frustrated look when he drew level with her, but her mouth was filled with a pistol, so he was spared a rebuke.

It wasn't easy, but he managed to unzip his saddlebags and withdraw his submachine gun without breaking stride.

Several hundred feet of desert stretched before them, but ponies were built to run. Long before Phoenix had mentally prepared himself, the caravan loomed before them.

Dawn broke off and circled to the right, barely slowing. She disappeared behind the vehicle.

Two lumps of pastel pony meat lay before the caravan, victims of his practiced aim. He shivered, then followed his sister's example and circled to the left, submachine gun extended, ready to kill another slaver.

That's right. They were slavers. That meant they enslaved other ponies. All of these guys had probably killed and raped and abused hundreds of others. That buoyed him a little.

A gunshot rang out, and he leapt around the corner, his magic tense on the submachine gun's trigger. Dawn stood over another body. A mare, naked except for a neckerchief. Come to think of it, the two drivers had been unarmoured as well.

Dawn reared onto her hind legs, grabbed the caravan's rear door between her front hooves, and ripped it open. He was still surprised by how strong she still was, despite everything. But then, why would being a mare make her muscles any less potent or scary?

She retreated away from the open door, probably anticipating gunshots. There were none. The caravan was empty.

Phoenix released a shaky breath and grinned at her. He stepped forward, around the corner and into the doorway.

Something slammed into his chest, hard enough to leave him breathless. His hooves tangled, his head spun, and then the world spun as well. His back hit the ground. Between gasps of air and static in his ears, he heard another volley of gunshots, the familiar crack of Dawn's pistol, then silence.

He finally managed to fill his lungs. He continued to inhale greedily in an attempt to dispell the ache in his chest. Luna, but it stung.

“Ph-Phoenix?” Dawn's face loomed over him. Her hoof touched his chest nervously. “Are you…”

“Fah… fine,” he managed. “Are we… did we do it?” He tried to sit up.

“Woah! Hold on.” Dawn pressed a hoof against his forehead, keeping him supine. “I think you got shot.” She peered closer at his torso.

“Just winded,” he said. He was already starting to recover, despite a few bruises. He pushed her hoof away and rolled to his hooves. He barely swayed. “See?”

Dawn shook her head. “Lucky bastard,” she said with a chuckle. “One day you're gonna get shot for real, and you won't have a clue how to deal with it.”

Together, they looked into the caravan. It was piled high with crates, and with just one glance it was clear what they contained. Layer upon layer of carefully packed syringes.

Dawn made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a hiccup. “Fucking finally.”

She slid the nearest crate onto her shoulders and carried it out to the open air, then started carefully transfering syringe after syringe into her bag. “Come on, help me. We need to carry as much of this as we can back to town.”

Phoenix nodded, and on shaky limbs he climbed into the caravan, his horn already glowing.

At the back of the vehicle, huddled behind crates and within shadows, lay a small pony. Smaller than either of them. A gun lay just beside the body. He levitated it into the air and looked it over. Over the course of two days, Phoenix had become something of an expert in scavenging guns, in his opinion. He released the clip and glanced inside.

Rubber bullets. So that's what had hit him. After everything that had just happened, it barely registered. Then he looked over at the body, and it hit him a bit harder. Not a young adult or an older teenager, but a kid. Younger than him. Armed with only a toy gun. Why would a kid be travelling with slavers? Something was wrong.

“Dawn?”

“Hmm?” His sister raised her head from her task. “What's up?”

He looked around the inside of the caravan. Tiny bottles of dried spices. Blankets. There was a small pile of books, a board game. A map. He unfolded it and looked close. Routes were staked out up and down Equestria, from Friendship City to Tenpony to New Appleloosa. The route skirted far away from the slaver city.

He looked up at his sister. “This is a merchant caravan.”

Dawn shook her head. “They're slavers.”

He floated the map over to her, and she grabbed it with both hooves. Her brow furrowed. “But… the slavers… the note…” she said tensely.

“We just raided a caravan.”

Dawn shook her head again, more vigorously. “They're slavers. Or they're working with slavers, which is basically just as bad.” She waved a hoof. “Can't you just enjoy a win for once? We did it!”

“Working with slavers?” he mumbled. “Just like everypony in New Appleloosa?”

Her eyes narrowed, and all good humour drained from her eyes. “Shut the fuck up and start loading drugs, Phoenix.” She turned and began to sort through a crate, her tail whipping in tight, restrained thrashes. “Just when I thought you'd grown up a bit.”

So he put the map away and dragged a stack of crates out. Just like the note had suggested, almost every crate was packed with medical supplies. He took everything out of his bag except his two guns, then carefully stowed syringe after syringe. Nearly a hundred doses in his bag alone, he reckoned. Dawn did the same, and her bags were even bigger. New Appleloosa might never need to buy painkillers again.

The last of the day's light fled behind the horizon, and soon the grey ceiling far above darkened to black.

Phoenix surpressed a yawn.

Dawn noticed. “We need to sleep,” she said. “Let's drag the corpses out into the desert a bit, and then we can use the caravan.”

He shivered, but already the bodies were starting to seem less like ponies and more like piles of meat. He telekinetically grabbed a leg and pulled. Dawn crawled in behind and pushed. It took both of them nearly twenty minutes to move all four corpses out of sight of the caravan. Phoenix's entire body crawled as they walked away from the impromptu grave they'd chosen, and he almost wished he'd used his hooves or even his mouth instead of his magic. Something deep inside felt dirty, and he wasn't sure how to clean it, or if it could be cleaned. Dawn didn't seem bothered though, so he tried his best to ignore it.

“You know that we can't tell Mom and Dad, right?” Dawn said as she prepared a fire. “They'd kick my ass for doing something like this under normal circumstances. With you here too… I'm pretty sure they'd lock us both in our rooms for decades.”

“Probably.” Phoenix stared into the fire, following the valleys and peaks and letting the light burn into his retinas. “What should we say?”

Dawn appraised him again. She'd been doing that a lot, and it was starting to weird him out. “Something that makes it both of our faults, a little. Now hear me out…” she trailed off, expecting resistance. When she met none, she awkwardly continued, “Uh, no matter what we say, they'll pick one of us to blame for not coming home sooner. Either you for being reckless, me for being irresponsible, or something. But if we can spin it so we were… I dunno, looking out for each other…”

He could imagine it. Their parents would be pissed, but they'd also be relieved. Mom and Dad were also both dumb as rocks. If he and Dawn could convince them that they were just being generous and loyal and whatever, maybe relief would win out over the pissed-off-edness.

“You were attacked by bandits…” he began to suggest, then thought better of it. “No, one bandit. And you took them out before I got there.”

“Still too much.” Dawn tapped a hoof against the floor of the caravan. “They don't know that I… well… technically I'm not supposed to go much further from town than you are.”

Phoenix jerked upright. “Wait, seriously? So I've been covering for you this whole time?”

“Does it count as 'covering' if you didn't know you were doing it?” Dawn said with a grin. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, it's gotta be something weirder than that. Maybe you just thought I was in trouble?” She frowned. “No, that's… that's nothing.”

One of the pitiful pieces of wood in the fire splintered and cracked, and a cascade of smoke billowed out, filling the air with a dirty haze.

“We've still gotta walk all the way back,” Phoenix said. “Can we just sleep for now, and think while we're on the road?”

Dawn didn't reply. Phoenix rolled over and tried to pretend he was alone.

And the desert night was lonely.

They rested on a hill just outside New Appleloosa. Their venture out into the wastes had taken nearly two days. The return trip took just a few hours. To be fair, there were fewer gunfights on the way back. And there was also a lot less talking.

“They might not even be in town,” Phoenix said. “They're probably out looking for us.”

“One of them would stay. In case we come home.”

Shit. There went that hope. “Any ideas?”

Dawn sighed. “Yeah.” She gestured to her side, where she'd been shot. “We'll say I was hurt and you came looking for me. I still have the mark to show for it.” She grimaced. “Although we'll have to explain the potion.”

“And why we're loaded with Med-X,” Phoenix added.

She shook her head. “Nope. I'm taking it all to the clinic first thing. Walking around town with a bag full of drugs isn't a good idea, and we definitely don't want Mom or Dad to find out.”

“Good point.”

“You go straight home. Try not to talk too much. Just say that you were trying to help me and that I'm at the clinic, but I'm not too bad off.” She considered for a moment. “That sounds… normal, right?”

“Nothing about this is normal, but… yeah.”

“Look, worst case, they ground us.” She shrugged. “And it's not like we ever do what they tell us to anyway.”

Phoenix chuckled. “I guess not. Weird to hear you say it though. I've always thought you were a total narc, you know?”

Dawn shifted away. “Usually I kind of am. I just don't want to piss them off more than I have to. They put up with a lot.”

“Don't be dumb, Dawn. You're their favourite. Probably always will be.”

She looked out into the desert. “You say that, but you're the only one who calls me Dawn.”

“That's not true. They just forget sometimes.” Phoenix couldn't believe he was defending their parents, and to Dawn no less. “They're not bad ponies, they're just kind of…”

“Ditzy?” Dawn sugggested, a slight grin on her face.

“Pfft, yes. That exactly. Hey, speaking of Ditzy—”

“We weren't, actually.”

“How much do you think she'd offer us for all this Med-X?”

Dawn glared at him, and he raised his front hooves.

She rolled her eyes. “I doubt she could afford to buy this much. I doubt anypony in town could. This is… it's a lot. A few thousand caps at least.”

“Woah.”

“So unless we have some really wealthy addicts in Appleloosa, that's basically a non-starter. 'Sides, Candi needs it.”

“You mean Shea.”

Dawn stood up and started into town. “Yeah, her. Come on.”

On stiff legs they made their way toward the distant town. Phoenix paused every few minutes to run a hoof along his new rifle. He didn't hate it, and it fired real bullets, so the trip hadn't been a total waste. With luck, his parents wouldn't even notice that it was different from his old toy.

They passed the raider camp he'd been searching two days prior. Somepony had since come through and finished the job, leaving tossed and naked corpses in their wake. Maybe one of his parents. He thought back, trying to remember if he'd left any trace in the camp, anything that could mark the start of his trail. He couldn't. For some reason, he couldn't remember a single detail of that day, other than the canyon. He remembered the canyon perfectly.

New Appleloosa loomed on the horizon. As always, Phoenix kept his face neutral.

He glanced sidelong at Dawn, and saw the same expression on her face. They shared a silent nod. No matter their purpose, and no matter their experiences, the town didn't quite feel like home anymore. Not quite. It was weird to finally share something with Dawn, but he treasured it nonetheless.

They passed through the gates, and Dawn split off with the bags and the Med-X.

Phoenix turned, naked apart from his rifle, and faced Appleloosa's central road.

He walked toward his house and his parents, and prepared for the conversation ahead.

Didja miss us? he'd ask…

Yeah, that sounded good.

Author's Note

Thanks to Chaotic Dreams for pre-reading.