The sound of a knock woke Night Tempest out of her slumber. She went to sit up, grimacing when she felt her thigh flare up. The work that had been done on it was crude, but effective. The wound apparently stayed closed throughout the night, though her nerves seemed to resent her for all the tossing and turning. Ignoring the soreness, she shakily rose, walking through the apartment with a limp and opening the door. Expectedly, Gus was there, glancing down at her leg.

“Hey, you didn’t die in your sleep.”

“Yup. Quit staring at my panties and come in.” She giggled at him as he walked in, rolling his eyes with a soft smile. His cheeks might have been red, but there was too much fur to really tell. Her long-sleeved gown didn’t really fit like it used to, since she had grown since she was a teenager, but it was enough.

The feline’s first reaction was to pull her into a tight embrace. It surprised her, but she hugged him in return, just tall enough to rest her chin on his shoulder. “I almost didn’t leave last night,” he says first. Hearing that, she closed her eyes, deflating her lungs with a long exhale. “Probably sounds weird, but I hadn’t ever really thought about the possibility of losing my only friend.”

Temp let out a light chuckle. “It’s not weird. I was up for a while, wondering what might happen if something happened to you. I think we dodged an arrow.”

After a moment, they pulled away just a bit. “Maybe we should keep our noses out of bounty hunting for a while, huh?” He was still smiling.

Some part of her felt disappointed that the warmth was gone. It wasn’t like the heat of the sun outside; something about their hug was welcomingly warm. She brushed it off and let him go, turning to walk into the kitchen and procuring a carton of eggs from her cabinet. “Hungry? Scrambled eggs?” Opening them, two had been eaten already, leaving four in the case.

“Shit, I could go for eggs.” He reached inside his coat and pulled out a long wooden rod. When Tempest took a good look at it, she saw it was a cane. “Ehhh?” he vocalizes with a smile, eyebrows raised.

She scoffed and laughed. “Did you buy that for me? Want me to walk around with it?”

Gus rolled his shoulders with a shrug, setting himself down on the sofa. “Yeah, why not? You would look freakin’ awesome walking around with a cane, man.”

Night Tempest just shook her head, turning her attention to making breakfast. “Wanna drop by Empty Heart and look for a job?”

The cat leaned back, kicking his feet up on the table. “Yeah, sounds good.” There was a short moment of quietness. “If we don’t find anything, wanna get drunk?”

=========================================================================

The bar was lively as usual at that time of night. The hours of the moon dragged into early morning just past midnight, as the night owls told their stories and drank whatever beverage they could afford. Temp and Gus sat beside one another, both had a beer in hand. Two empty shotglasses sat in front of them. Both of them were smiling lightly, talking to whoever could be bothered to listen. Bartender, bystanders, each other. It didn’t matter, they were talkative drinkers.

“I’m thinking maybe we should have taken another shot or two before we got the beer,” Tempest comments, sipping her drink. “Not that I’m alcoholic-”

“Nah, I think you’re alcoholic. If we had a sustainable flow of income and nothing else to do, you’d be drinking holes in your liver.” He snickered at her.

She giggled, shaking her head. “No, no, hear me out. I enjoy sobriety. I do. Weed and alcohol is just like… An occasional thing, ya know?”

“Is it though?” His tone was playful enough for a tipsy chick to understand.

“Hush, hush. Listen. Listen, are you paying attention?” She looked over at him and the look on his face killed her. He was just staring, smiling knowingly at her. Temp couldn’t help but laugh, trying her damnedest to speak in-between chortles. “Okay, look.”

Gus scoffed and started mocking her. “Aight, listen, so get this, check it, listen, pay attention, aight? Look-”

She elbowed him, setting her drink down and covering her mouth. “It’s not funny! This isn’t funny, we’re just drunk.”

“We’re not drunk, you’re freakin’ hysterical.”

After a taking a few deep breaths, she sighed with a grin. “You stress me the fuck out, I need a cigarette.” She pulled the last one from the pack and got up to walk outside.

Night Tempest remembered that night fondly. She wished tonight could have gone like that. Instead she and her friend stood in silence, studying a couple wanted posters on the wall with a mix of shock and horror. The posters depicted the two of them - Gus The Calico and Night Tempest, wanted dead or alive. Two-thousand bits a piece.

She ran her fingers through her long mane and sighed, shaking her head slowly. “This is so fucked up. Did Diablo sell us out?”

Gus raised his brows and looked over at her. “He’s your buddy. Think he’d be willing to sell us out like that?”

Temp frowned at him. “He’s not my buddy. Especially not now, if he ever had been.” Her gaze wandered over to the bar crowd, and she picked up several cats looking their direction. Gus might have been able to sneak back out, but Night Tempest was the only pony in Brink, and a pretty flashy one at that. The white mane could easily be spotted from miles away. “The way I see it, we need to go and get this shit sorted out with the marshals or just fucking run,” she continues. “We’re kinda looking at our death sentence here.”

The calico nodded, giving the sneering caricatures of themselves one last look. “Our safer bet is skipping town. Think maybe it’s about time to go to Equestria?”

“I still think that’s a shit idea. Especially as broke as we are. But I reckon it’d still be easier to sneak into a cargo bay than walk for days in the desert.”

Gus wanted to say something else, but his words got lost halfway up his throat when he saw five felines get up and walk purposefully towards them. “Trouble’s coming,” he mutters, taking her arm lightly in his grip and easing her towards the door. She repeated a phrase in her mind that helped her along with the cane - Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. The earth mare hobbled out with him, making it outside and off the porch before their pursuers sped up and chased them out. The calico grumbled and looked her in the eyes. “Can you fight?”

Her answer to that question came in the form of her cane. As one reached for her, she put all her weight on her good leg and swung hard, smashing the walking apparatus into the first guy’s temple. A loud crack broke through the air as the cane snapped, and the offending cat fell to his side clutching his head. A groan followed as the second lunged over him and tackled Tempest to the ground. Her ears picked up the sound of swords crashing into one another. Sparks flew and the skin-crawling sound of metal ripping through flesh hit her ears. Gus had brought one down. Three to go.

Two of them ganged up on him. She meanwhile had to focus on the guy straddling her, drawing a knife from his coat. Before he could plunge it into her belly, she gripped the blade and twisted it from his grasp, sending it careening into the dirt. The mix of pain in her hand and her thigh had her face contorted in agony, but it was nothing to her compared to what her fate would have been otherwise. She covered her face with her free arm as he started throwing punching. That and the blood dripping from her palm on her face made it a little harder to aim, but within milliseconds her own dagger was in her other hand, and she pushed the business end into his chest, just under the ribcage.

She wasn’t sure if she hit his heart or a lung, but it was enough to put him out of commission. He fought back erratically, struggling for his life as she twisted the steel under the bone and eviscerated anything she could. He wasn’t breathing for much longer. The pony pushed him off and got to her feet, just in time to see another asshole join the bodies. One left. The final adversary swung wide and low. Gus jumped back and winced in fear, the realization he had nearly been gutted hitting him like a sack of bits. She was on her feet as quickly and as quietly as she could manage, moving right up to his back.

All Gus saw was Tempest’s arm wrap around the cat’s throat and his eyes bulge, and he heard the telltale shlick shlick shlick of a blade repeatedly entering and exiting flesh. He stepped to the side as the last cat crumbled, wheezing and crying. Temp sheathed her blade and looked up at her friend, her wounded hand trembling gently. He stepped closer to her and put an arm around her, silently leading her away from the devastation.

They walked, walking until they’d gotten a ways away from the dead and dying, with nobody else in sight. Eventually, she took a knee, dragging Gus down with her. He helped her to sit as tenderly as he could managed kneeling beside her and keeping a light hold on her. She started to speak shortly thereafter. “August…”

“Yeah?”

“What if that’s us tomorrow?” There pain in her voice. Not physical pain - it went deeper than that, as if for once she was genuinely afraid of death.

The cat shook his head. “Don’t talk that way, Temp. Between the two of us, we’ve got this shit in the bag.”

She looked up at him finally, gripping his shirt tightly. It stained red. “What are we gonna do?” Fear, confusion, dread.

It was rubbing off on Gus, and he didn’t seem to hide it. He sat beside her and hugged her close, cradling her hand in his. “I’ll go wherever you go. We’re wolves, right? Wolves run together.”

Temp smiled at that, leaning into him and burying her face in his neck. He held her a little tighter in return, resting his cheek on her head. The need for comfort was mutual. The two of them had killed quite a few people in just a couple days, and now they were wanted by the marshals’ service. All the stress came up at once and left her in a sigh as she clung to August, looking at her hand. “I need to clean that shit up,” she says quietly.

“Yeah.” He got up, helping her stand and threading an arm around her waist. “Let’s go home.”

=========================================================================

Pain.

That’s all she could have used to describe the night. From the point Setra left up to the sunrise, that’s all she felt. Even well after they’d all grown tired of her and let her rest, she felt sore and hopeless. It was perhaps the most unsettling and uncomfortable experience of her life, and throughout every rape and between every sensation of a caribou’s cock sliding out and back in, she couldn’t decide whether or not she just wanted to die.

Night Tempest did know that her nerves were shot and she felt like she’d ran the marathon several times in a row. So when she finally passed out, it felt like only seconds when a hand firmly picked her up by the arm and dragged her to a standing position. Blearily, she caught the face of Rekke in her gaze. Motherfucker.

“You’ve been sleeping all day. It’s time to go to the auction.”

“Auction?” she asks tiredly, tempted to arch her back and stretch. She thought better about that since her breasts were almost touching the big bastard anyway.

“Yeah. We can’t just keep you here. You use up space and food.”

“You’ve fed me three times since I’ve been here,” she snarks.

He snarled and threw her towards the door, where she stumbled into the grip of the other guard. “That was two times too many. Let’s go. Don’t wanna be late, huh?”

Agata put a leash on her and kicked her back leg, forcing her to her knees. “Crawl.”

Is he being fucking real right now?

The caribou kicked her in the side. “Crawl, bitch.”

Tempest grumbled and followed him down the corridor. Now that she got a look at it, it was a bit cleaner than the cells themselves. It was still a shitty bunker, but at least dragging her hands and knees across the floor wasn’t as nearly as disgusting as it would have been in her chambers. All-around it was still depressing and dreadful. They passed by several more cells, a handful of them were occupied by mares of all shapes and sizes.

The pegasi were given the same treatment as the one she’d seen earlier. She’d noticed the unicorns had their horns removed or bound in some kind of brace. Earth ponies were left alone, for the most part. A few had been chained. It was a nightmare to look at, seeing her kin like that.

Another thought struck her as they went. The only other ponies I’ve seen are my parents and my sister. Why should I give a fuck about these mares?

...Because this is inhumane? Good to know she still had some sense of right and wrong. They diverted from the hall into what looked like a bathroom, although there were no toilets or showerheads. Just water hoses. Agata stood her up and told her to sit still. She knew what was coming. It didn’t take long for the squeak of a faucet to precede a jet of cold water hitting her. She winced and turned her head away, cursing loudly. Rekke was laughing somewhere in the corridor.

Agata gripped her tail and hosed her nethers with the water, making her flinch and cry out. She felt fingers rubbing her ass and her marehood. Tempest felt disgusted, mostly with herself for just letting him. He was mercifully done soon enough, although not after pushing an index finger inside her cunny for good measure. He stirred her up for a few seconds, enjoying the wriggling he was getting from her. She certainly didn’t mean to make any noise when she exhaled, but she did, and the caribou grunted victoriously.

“Don’t bother fighting it.”

Eat shit.

After that particularly humiliating shower, she was led to a lobby of sorts where her captors checked out with another guard, and then she was taken outside.

The site she was at apparently had a name. Kennel 03. She couldn’t see much from where she was, mostly just forest. Although in the distance was a mountain with a city perched upon the top - Canterlot. She supposed if this is how things were after how much time has passed since the invasion, then the princesses were all up there licking Dainn’s hooves. A hoof to the side broke her from her reverie.

“Hey, let’s go. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.” There was a cart waiting for them, apparently.

“Care if I ask where we’re going?” she asks lowly, keeping her head down.

“Ponyville.”

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay. A panic attack began and ended with me in the ER because I legitimately believed I was going to die, and then Halloween happened.