Light Despondent Remixed

Chapters

01: Light Despondent
02: City Of No Palms
03: I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire (wait yes I do)
04: In the Summer Breeze / Burn My Shadow
06: Under Pressure
07: El Mañana / Dope Fiend Massacre
08: Colorless Sky / The Present
09: Hype Waltz / Firestarter / Jailbreak
11: Anarchy / Running In The ‘90s / Bad Motherfucker / Trout Mask Replica
12: PHILISTINE / The Stampede / To Hell With Combining / Don’t Fear The Reaper
Episode 2: A Stranger I Remain
13: Kiss The Sky
14: This Is Not My Life / Don't Lose Your Way
15: The Sinking City
16: Believe
17: Undetermined
18: Watch The Stars Fall
19: Shout
Episode 1: For The Kill
05: Burn It Down
10: Should I Stay Or Should I Go

01: Light Despondent

Light Despondent Remixed
Chapter 01: Light Despondent

Editors and co-authors:
TB3 - Admittedly, you didn’t do anything this time, but there’s still some bits of your writing left here. Thanks, man. It wouldn’t be the same without you.
Jed R - you’re just the best. You know that, right?
- if you say so - Jed.
I meant every word of that!

August 5, 2022
Just north of Berlin, NH

He took his final breath
I hear it to this day
There's no redemption
And the punishment is delayed
The only reaction that I face
Is hidden well behind my face
A trace surely can
Lead the law right to their man
Well, hurry up
The Light Despondent, Biting Elbows

Dancing Day

Let’s say you were a little unicorn filly named Dancing Day, hiding in the back of a tractor-trailer with her mother, and you were scared out of your bucking mind because the car had drawn to a stop.

Dancing Day been heading up to Canada, for her mother’s new job at PHL R&D, where they always needed more unicorns. The driver had been a friendly enough trucker that everybody called Chipmunk for some reason.

Dancing Day told herself that there were a lot of reasons it could’ve stopped. Traffic lights, border patrol near Canada, but she knew that where you were was wilderness. She also knew that she was quite far from the border. So what could it be? Did a moose walk over the…

That thought just stopped. No, that couldn’t be it. She didn’t know how she knew, but something was out there. Something was not right.

Then she heard it over the gurgling of the river nearby. People talking in sporadic bursts of other languages. She understood some of it, but not all.

“...checking for contraband. You have nothing to fear from us,” a woman said. She was calm. Businesslike.

“Unless you’re a horsefucker,” someone said in German.

“Unless that,” the woman said, on the verge of something like a laugh.

“-authority of free HLF, under the leadership of Michael Carter…”

“Fuck,” Dancing Day’s mother, Astral Nectar said under her breath.

This was absolutely not border patrol, a moose, or a traffic light.

“We are conducting an investigation into the presence of PER in the region,” said a man with a thick, raspy Eastern European accent. “If you’re not them, you have nothing to fear.”

Except these HLF just mentioned Michael Carter, which means that yes, Dancing Day and and her mother had a lot to fear. A little under two years ago had been what the HLF units and independent fighters that Dancing Day and her mother knew they could trust called the Schism, the Snap, or the Idiocy.

It’d started when Algernon Spader, the de facto leader of the HLF, had been assassinated by parties unknown. This had led to a split down the middle - while many of the HLF units had chosen to continue to act under Spader’s ideals, following his “official” replacement and protecting those areas that the PHL could not, keeping them safe from bandits and PER, many others had decided to follow Michael Carter, a man who’d lost his wife to the ponification potion in every way, and under his guidance they’d become the bandits. That’s bad enough, except their knee-jerk reaction to the presence of any pony was usually to shoot them, along with any human who defended them. Or was nearby.

Dancing Day wondered how Chipmunk was taking this.

Chipmunk

“Son. Of. A. Bitch,” Chipmunk said from the cab of the truck.

She looked over the checkpoint. HLF vehicles sat on either side of the road, homebrewed things with spikes and heavy machineguns. They’d been sprayed with slogans that seemingly proclaimed the death of the Solar Empire, though more-often-than-not came across as advocating the death of every pony in range.

Their checkpoint wasn’t too far from a bridge, so they’d probably be able to drive out at a moment’s notice.

Chipmunk had never outfitted her cab with much in the way of weaponry. She had a stubby pump action to the side of the seat, and a cheap HiPoint .45 under the steering wheel. That was it, though.

Two men, one average heigh and heavyset, the other tall and thin, walked just below her door, and Chipmunk felt a sense of unexplainable revulsion at them both. Not necessarily fear. In fact, the revulsion stood out because she was already scared out of her mind.

“Anything we need to know about?” said one man. He had a thick Ukrainian accent, and had a wide, sharp-featured face that looked to be all downward, slashlike lines, with a jaw so wide that Chipmunk wasn’t completely sure he could move his mouth. He had sunken, piercing pale blue eyes that almost reminded Chipmunk of a husky’s eyes.

“No sudden movements,” his taller, thinner friend added. ‘Sharp-featured’ were the first two words that came to mind when Chipmunk looked at him. He had a thin, angular nose, and cheekbones so sharp that Chipmunk couldn’t quite believe weren’t pushing themselves out of his face. He had a thick, wild beard, capped off with an unruly mop of dark hair atop his head.

He looked fucking feral.

Chipmunk couldn’t place his accent, but whatever it was, it was thick. Based on the look on his face, Chipmunk had the strangest feeling he would really enjoy it if she made a sudden move.

“Kraber, search the truck,” the Ukrainian man said, and Chipmunk felt her heart sink. SHIT.

Viktor Kraber. That was the only person the sharp-featured man could be. A notorious HLF man who’d committed mass murder in the Purple Spring when the HLF rose up against the Conversion Bureaus. A man with a bad reputation for torturing newfoals and PER, and an even worse reputation for civilian casualties and collateral damage.

If he finds the ponies in my trailer, Chipmunk thought, with singular clarity, He will kill them. Then me.

“Right on it, Comrade Lovikov,” Kraber said.

Chipmunk’s heart sank. Shit shit shit. Of all the HLF who could stop me here....

If that was Viktor Kraber, he’d called that man Lovikov… well, that couldn’t be anything good. The only HLF man by the name of Lovikov - actually, the only man with that name period - that Chipmunk knew was an HLF man who, similar to Kraber, had a long history of violent crime against any pony in range. There’d been rumors of him, Kraber, and other like-minded individuals throwing molotov cocktails at businesses that employed ponies, into pony neighborhoods. So far, nothing had been pinned on them.

It was only a matter of time, though.

“What’s your HLF ID number?” Chipmunk found herself asking.

“HLF-004-2541,” the Ukrainian said.

Again. SHIT.

There were a lot of HLF units, but their ID numbers were actually pretty easy to keep track of once you learned what they meant. Back in the day, when Spader’s influence ruled, every unit had been assigned a three digit ID number. ‘004’ was the number for the Menschabwehrfraktion - once a loyalist group under an Austrian or German man named Helmetag, but now…

Well. Now they ran checkpoints in the middle of nowhere, ransacking cars, and almost certainly stealing from them.

Dancing Day

She heard him tramping through the truck, through a maze of wooden crates and machine parts. His boots thumped against the metal floor.

Dancing Day didn’t want to breathe. Her mother tried to shrink back into the compartment in the crate, flattening herself against the wood.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

They drew closer. She could feel them through the crate, and she could feel her lungs screaming in protest as you tried not to make a sound.

Then they stopped. She could hear him breathing not even a foot away.

Will he find us?!

It was just then that he flung the crate open.

Dancing Day and her mother stared up at the man. He was tall and somewhat thin, lean and muscled, with a well-travelled body. His armor looked pieced together from surplus military equipment, though you saw stolen metal beneath the fabric. The barding had been thrown together, and held in place with ropes and strips of plastic almost as thick as a human's thumb, patched in places with duct tape. His beard was wild and unkempt, sticking out in all directions. His teeth and breath were rotten, every exhalation reeking of tobacco, poorly homebrewed alcohol, and hand-rolled cigarettes. His restless eyes, the color of maple syrup, darted from side to side. They were hardened, predatory, peeking out over dark bags that marked him as tired, restless. There were booze and other drugs on his breath, and he held a heavy revolver in one hand. His finger was on the trigger. He stared, nigh-immobile.

To Dancing Day’s young eyes, the yawning barrel of the revolver filled the world.

She and her mother were too terrified to make a sound.

It was then that Dancing Day noticed another strange detail about him. On his back was a pony-modified weapon, a long, thin rifle with the bullets all together in a belt. she could feel the magic radiating off of it.

‘How?!’ she asked herself. ‘How did he get this?!’

And that’s when the second-strangest thing happened: in some strange way, Dancing Day felt sorry for him. She could see genuine pain in his eyes, and understood it. Anyone with that much pain can’t be a bad person, she thought as she inched closer to her mother, who lay beside her, one hoof laid protectively over your body.

Astral Nectar was terrified, and yet she returned the HLF man’s maddened gaze with defiance. Her horn glowed softly, and Dancing Day trembled, wishing she could be as strong as her mother.

But most of all, she wished it didn’t end like this. No, after having survived this long, it CANNOT END LIKE THIS.

And suddenly, impossibly, it didn't. Which was the strangest thing that happened that night.

He saw Dancing Day embracing her mother, and something flashed across his face. His eyes watered. He was remembering something. Slowly, quietly, he did something to the back of his pistol which, in a flash of understanding, she knew to be called a ‘revolver’.

It clicked, she flinched… and he lowered it. Placed it in the... Sheath? Was that what it was called?

And then he closed the panel back on the two unicorns, one finger held to his mouth in the gesture you know to be a plea for silence.

He walked away, his boots clinking against the floor of the tractor trailer.

“Everything seems to be in order,” he said to Chipmunk. His voice sounded...flat, somehow. Not sad, nor drained of emotion, just hollow. Empty.

Dancing Day looked back at her mother frantically, at the dying flickers of light on her horn. Did she use her talents….get in his head? Was that her psychomancy, or some kind of mnemosurgery?

She had an odd look on her face.

“Did you…” Dancing Day looked at her mother. “Do something to him?”

She didn’t answer.

Chipmunk

She’d expected two things: Either a), he found nothing. b) He found everything and then tried to kill them.

She had not expected him to find the two unicorns, step up to the drivers-side window and gruffly wave her one with his gun. Of course, she didn’t know that he’d found the two unicorns - as far as she knew at that moment, she’d gotten away home free.

“Everything seems to be in order, right away…” he barked. “I’m sure your cargo will find a willing fence in Colebrook.”

He looked as if he was ready to throw up all over the ground, cheeks and forehead ashen behind the unkept mass of his beard. In fact, Chipmunk would learn that later, he did indeed void his stomach contents into the river.

Chipmunk nodded, fingertips brushing the gun as she reached to turn the ignition key. A look passed between them that might have been gratitude on her parts, or wariness. And then they had been in motion, peeling off into the distance at over eighty miles per hour.

Viktor Kraber

The man - whose name was Viktor Marius Kraber - was sat, or tired (in his native Afrikaans) and looking forward to some quality time with a bottle of rotgut. Home-brewed booze among the Fraktion tasted like paint thinner, with lying labels slapped on, but he didn’t give a fok.

I need a fokkin’ drink, he thought. The scene played over and over in his mind as he headed back to the HLF truck he’d used earlier that day, hoping there was something to drink. Staring down into the open trunk, he had felt an accusatory stare blazing back at him. Not from the fearful, if defiant mother, the one with the butt-mark of the telescope, but…

He had pressed the barrel of the revolver to the pony spawnling, and then he’d practically been paralyzed in their glare. He tried to yell, tried to pull the trigger, splatter the two hoenderpoes against the wall.

He stayed silent and failed.

Staring into those faces, gazing upon that pleading, pitying filly, he’d seen his family. In the mother mare, he’d seen Kate protecting a scared child. In the filly, he’d seen either Peter or Anka.

And through this lens, he saw his family. And they were…

“You’d disgust us if you were still alive,” he thought he heard Kate say.

“Daddy? Why are you hurting them?” he heard Peter ask.

“Mommy, daddy’s scaring me!” Anka screamed. “Make him stop doing it! Make him stop!”

So he had had uncocked and holstered the revolver, and stepped back.

He’d let them go.

Maybe, in the near future, he will reinterpret that moment as the ghosts of his lost family looming over him in judgment, rather than just a vague feeling of what would they do in his place, but a sense of disappointment was apparent.

Anka loved them, Kraber thought. She had loved the natural-born ponies...and their foals too.

Something about that unsettled him, now. Did… did I kill innocent ponies that’d been her friends? Wait. Why the fok am I thinking about that? There’s better questions.

Something about the look on that filly’s face had stopped him, and he was left feeling more clueless than he’d been in most of his life. Anger, he understood. Fear? Well, that just made sense, didn’t it, if he was coming after somebody. Hell, he almost enjoyed the thrill of it all. Especially the screams of PER as he came down on them and… disassembled them. Limb by limb, muscle by muscle. Sometimes alphabetically. ‘A’ is for ‘Amygdala’.

But never, never before had he gotten pity.

‘They must’ve used magic on me,’ Kraber thought. ‘Ja. That had to be it. I’ll tell Lovikov about the ponies in the lorry, and-

The train of thought derailed. Somehow, he couldn’t muster the energy to do it. That, and if he said so, Lovikov might very well shoot him.

I can’t let them know about what they must’ve done to me, Kraber thought, and it was just then that he saw Leonid Lovikov. Fok.

“Find anything?” Lovikov asked.

The heavyset Ukrainian man was shorter than him, and probably a little bit older. But he made up for it by looking like he was almost as wide with muscle as he was tall. He held an oversized M4 in his hands, some silly American thing rechambered for .50 Beowulf. A small, homemade SMG was strapped to his chest.

It took a few seconds for Kraber to answer. “No.”

“Don’t be like that. You’ll never guess what I found in this car!” his Ukrainian friend said, hefting the bag. “Actual goddamn cinnamon! I haven’t had cinnamon in forever! Okhu el! Back in the Suhoputnye voyska, we never had hauls like this!”

“Find any ponies?” Kraber asked unsteadily.

“Hey,” said another one of their number, a dark-haired woman with blue eyes. “Should I be concerned, Leonid, that you took food from those people?”

“We’ve got people back at camp who are starving, Blanchett,” Lovikov said. “Besides, haven’t we earned this? We’ve kept this place safe from PER and horsefuckers.”

‘Somehow,’ Kraber thought, ‘I’m not sure we made that driver feel safe.’ But he brushed that thought off. ‘She was a perdnaaier, same as most anyone we’ve killed. She probably fokkin’ deserves it.’

Then why didn’t I kill them all?

He didn’t have any answers to that question. But he did have an answer to Blanchett’s: “Lovikov’s right,” he said. “We’ve got people at home who need it.”

Children were starving in Defiance after all…

...kids who have never been children and may never be again. Some of them...the ones who listen to Lovikov and Viktor’s rants, want to head off to the nearest town and ‘bring the rain’ upon the traitors and horsefuckers. None of them would ever consider seeking shelter with someone outside the HLF.

For a moment, Kraber thought about how much he wished his children were in Defiance, playing with the children of the shantytown. And then, suddenly, inexplicably, he felt sick at the thought of how they’d be. He could almost hear the anger in Anka’s voice. Imagine Peter holding an SMG, even though his kids would’ve been barely out of primary school.

‘Daddy? Why are you hurting them?’ he heard Anka ask from somewhere.

Why wouldn’t he hurt them? Ponies had taken fokkin’ everything from him. His home. His family. His friends. They were even taking over the fight against the Empire, when any human could have seen - SHOULD HAVE FOKKIN’ SEEN! - that the world would be better without all of them. Racism against humans was idiotic, but punishing the... the things that’d ruined his life, his world?

That was just fokkin’ justice.

Except Kraber didn’t believe that. He knew it, but somehow, he didn’t feel it.

‘What would they be ashamed of?’ Kraber thought. I’ve spent all this time avenging them.

Somehow, that didn’t make him feel better. A sense of dread settled over him.

Except… he looked down at the pavement. Did that family of ponies earlier today do anything? Did they… need to be… I… He stopped. Refocused himself. I mean, they were ponies, but…

Blanchett and Lovikov looked to him, concern and confusion on their faces.

“Viktor,” Blanchett said, “Are you feeling okay?”

“I think I’m fine,” Viktor said.

He was absolutely not fine.

Johnny C Nny
Colebrook, NH

Meanwhile, while all that was happening, a man Nny - Nny to his friends, a local hero due to his actions in Alaska - had collapsed against one the comfier chairs in this Colebrook bar. He had the kind of stocky build that comes from being naturally short, the kind of frame that people can’t tell is flab or muscle, and hair that had naturally formed itself into something approximating a pompadour.

There were two earth ponies travelling with him. One was a mare named Fiddlesticks Apple, a yellow-furred, blue-maned earth pony, one of Nny's fellow heroes from Alaska. One of very, very few survivors. By sheer coincidence, both she and Nny hailed from longstanding dynasties of apple farmers. The other pony's name was Aegis.

‘Huge’ seemed almost like an understatement when describing that particular hypertrophically large Equestrian native. As did ‘pony.’ Terms more akin to ‘small horse' came to mind, and Nny's first words upon seeing him were "Good God they're making them big nowadays! Don't they know there's a gas crunch? Look at the size of you..."

Fiddlesticks had openly gaped at their first meeting, muttering something about how Aegis was ‘a good size up on Big Mac’.... No mean feat, apparently.

Aegis looked tired. He’d hoped to have gone to bed soon, but Chipmunk wasn’t there yet, and Nny assumed that worrying about her was keeping him awake. She was usually so…

Okay, she was late pretty frequently.

“Should you call her?” Aegis asked. It was easy to hear concern in his deep baritone voice.

“Even if I could, the wifi is shit where she is,” Nny said. “We’ll know sooner or late-”

“...No more crawl back to Equestria than you would go crawlin’ back in yer mom, ya fuckin’ dipshit!” Fiddlesticks yelled.

The bar fell silent as all attention focused on the small yellow mare, and the man with the battered Windham Weaponry AR who stood, staring at her in shock.

“You can’t talk to me that way,” the man with the AR said, voice strangely uncertain.

“I just did,” Fiddlesticks said. “What’re you gonna do about it? Now, I got a band to play in.”

She trotted up to a stage at one corner of the bar, quite pointedly not looking at the man.

Aegis snorted.

“That’s my Fiddlesticks,” Nny said, taking a gulp of some rum and coke, vaguely irritated that he didn’t even feel even a hint of a buzz. He looked over the bar, eyeing a few rough, hard-looking types who were sitting over by a wall of wanted posters. Some that, from their bearing, clearly lean more towards the Rogue HLF’s side of the political spectrum, were giving Aegis a little more attention than he would like.

Nny raised an eyebrow and eased back his coat, giving half the bar, bounty hunters included, a glimpse of his personal sidearm, a top-break .44 magnum with a twenty-gauge central barrel. A futurised LeMat that is likely the biggest pistol in the room.

Aegis shifted as well, and the dagger strapped to his haunch glinted subtly in the light.

Neither of them could probably take the bounty hunters, even working together, but the demonstration served as a reminder that they were armed, and willing to fight. As if weighing in on their side, the barkeep banged a sign hanging prominently over the drinks rack with the barrel of a stubby, decades-old Saiga autoshotgun with cracking plastic furniture.

RIOTERS WILL BE SHOT

And under that, in spray paint and stencil, it reads:

This is your only warning.

The proprietor didn’t pull back the charging handle. The shotgun was punctuation enough.

Immediately, a bit too quickly, they went back to looking at ‘wanted’-writs. Aegis, his personal liberty reaffirmed, sidled up a little closer to inspect them for himself, and Nny found himself doing the same.

He found himself looking at a wanted poster, and remembered his time back in the arctic. Remembered the pony who’d wiped an entire town off the map on the spur of the moment, the pony who’d been willing to condemn a god - or something very much like it - to a painful undeath in the service of the Equestrian Empire.

‘Shieldwall’
FACTION: PER
REWARD: $600,000 DEAD OR ALIVE.
WANTED FOR: PER activity, subversion of human governments and settlements, terrorism, arson, abduction, assault, mass ponification, collusion, mass murder, theft (And someone had scrawled “and a really crappy attitude!” at the end.)
Report any useful information to the authorities as soon as possible.

And then, unbidden:

“I hope you’re fucking happy,” Aegis said, looking at the newfoal poster. “I hope you’re fucking happy, Woven Sugar.”

Nny looked at Aegis uncertainly.

“Do you want to…” Nny asked, not sure how he’d end the question.

“Tell you what,” Aegis said, “Let’s just listen to the music.”

Nny nodded, almost relieved.

The band started playing, and Aegis started absentmindedly tapping his hooves in time with the music. It was just as well they were loud enough, it meant that neither of them could hear the TV just over the length of the bar.

It was broadcasting footage of some PHL troops. From their green lyre patches, they were associated with Nny's cousin Yael Ben Ze'ev’s forces, smoking out some nondescript town. The banner bar proclaimed them in Quebec, trying to break a HLF pocket that'd turned the small town into their little fiefdom. It was impossible to hear audio over the crowd or the band, but someone had turned on the old ‘teletext’ feature.

...officially, this is an act of mutiny. Many of these troops are not under the official command of Lieutenant Ze’ev, and our PHL liaison has refused to pass comment...

Years ago, this wouldn’t have happened. But that was before the Schism, when you could trust HLF to look after their own. With the original commanding authority behind the HLF gone, while many of the remaining units had decided to uphold Spader’s ideals, many others had gone off the rails and given into their worst excesses. Become bandits, caused huge amounts of collateral damage, killed ponies who’d never dream of being PER, taken over towns and ruled them with iron fists. The HLF were engaged in a civil war - although no one called it that. It was, at best, a schism, a conflict, a mutiny.

The news footage was shaky, taken from a news chopper (armed, most likely) hovering high above the town. Yael, prominent from her tall, thin build and position at the front, was crouched behind the scorched wreck of a car, toting a heavy rocket launcher. Nny, a gun-nut if there ever was one, watched with interest as she spun out from cover, aimed, and fired in one fluid action. Judging from the backblast, her weapon was something like a Russian Pozhar.

Then he sat up in shock. Onscreen, atop the rooftop behind Yael, a HLF soldier with a cheap submachinegun was clambering into view, a knife clenched in his teeth. The camera jolted, presumably because the cameraman was himself shouting a warning…

...and then the human abruptly lost head, a purple-pink pegasus flickering into frame, saddle-mounted rifle smoking.

‘So that’d be Heliotrope there’, Nny muttered.

One of the tanks Yael had brought to help open up a beachhead swiveled its turret toward a building, and fired.

‘It’s too close to - wait. It’s a damn flamethrower tank!’

The wooden building into which the tank had just fired burst into flames, crumbling as men, women, and children in battered tac-vests of stolen kevlar and hammered metal ran out, screaming and flailing…

The footage cut out, as the news anchor began discussing the disappearance of a PHL nurse named Sutra Cross, whose aid caravan had been raided by rogue HLF.

“Go Horsefuckers,” he muttered absently, fumbling for his drink.

“French country music in New Hampshire,” Aegis said, distracting Nny. “How about that?”

Watching Fiddlesticks strumming her fiddle, the two of them shared an awkward silence before:

“Seriously though,” Aegis said, “Should we call Chipmunk?”

“Beginning to think we should,” Nny said, checking his iPhone and realizing that it was almost 10:30. She had promised to meet with them here forty-five minutes ago. Trying to stem growing pangs of anxiety, he comforted himself with two readily available things: a cup of steaming clam chowder so thick his spoon can stand up in it, and the smile on Fiddlesticks’ face. The yellow earth pony mare with the inky blue mane looked so happy to be playing in this nowhere bar along the Canadian border, with the whole bar clapping and drunkenly singing along with her.

I can almost believe it’s before the war, Nny thought appreciatively. After all, it took him back to a time before he’d ever felt true hate, let alone the searing fires banked up in his heart towards people like Nichols or the damn Carters.

Before night watches in towns, before armed men and women had been forced to take up nocturnal patrols to protect their homes, families, friends, and livelihoods. Before weapons were openly carried on the streets, or before he’d had to carry a runically enhanced rifle with a balanced recoil system in his car at all times.

Back in some unseen halcyon days and weeks after Equestria first manifested, days where ponies were welcomed as visitors, with the promise of mutual learning and understanding lending every second of the day with new prospect, a new vision and hope for the future.

Nny missed the good old days in a way that made him wonder if they’d ever really existed.

Kraber

Kraber was absolutely not fine.

The rest of the cars, evidently judged to be ‘safe’, sped off into the distance. Undoubtedly, they’d call 911 as soon as they come back into the range of the dwindling cellphone networks, but the cops up here wouldn’t come looking for either the checkpoint, or Defiance.

They drove deeper into the forest, bumping and juddering on the old logging road, silent trees flashing by as the pickups penetrate their ancient fastness. The abandoned trail grew narrower and rougher, overgrowth pressing in so close that the rear view mirrors scraped against tangled branches.

When at last they stopped, the troops took up defensive positions to confirm they were not followed. After Lovikov had motioned ‘all clear’, they silently retrieve tarpaulins from the hollowed-out corpse of a felled tree, and throw it over the vehicles to shroud them from aerial view.

Then, on foot through the forest, Lovikov at point and Kraber guarding them. Fingers were on safeties as they tread softly on the undergrowth, a slightest ‘crack’ of a twig, cause for concern. At least, they made it to their camp.

The settlement Kraber was traveling to was not a proper home by any means. But most of the people inhabiting it had discarded the concept of a fixed home, knowing that the Barrier would come eventually and force them to move.

Building on the remains of an old lumber camp, it was designed by people like Kraber, historians of the partisans of World War II and the Cold War. The ‘cursed soldiers’ of Poland and the Japanese holdouts of the Pacific would have felt much at home here. Its infrastructure consisted in part of easily disassembled buildings thrown up from readily-available timber, but mostly tents and dugouts. A church consisting of a cross suspended between two trees, a small synagogue some distance away. A buddha that someone took from London sat upon a cairn of stones at the foot of a rocky cliff that shields that side of the camp from the weather. There was even what some of the brothers referred to as a reliquary, a container holding holy relics stolen before their native shrines could be overwhelmed.

Old mattresses and ugly, rough blankets were held in commune in a larger tent. They were kept dry by the heat from the adjacent foundry, built upon the rough foundations of the old camp sawmill. Here, to the roar of forges and the scream of lathes, the complex’s armorers were hand-making newer, bigger guns.

Not far from the smithies, a snarling diesel generator stood beside the modest command center shipping container-turned-hut that was Lovikov’s home, home of over-annotated maps and wild ideas: who, where and why to strike. The walls were virtually covered in reconnaissance data, collating as best as possible the known movements of all PER forces, some PHL, and Spader’s HLF loyalists.

The hut was buzzing with activity. A few computer screens flickered, while off in one corner was a man with an honest-to-god typewriter, typing out circulars, pasting in photos, making HLF circulars. It was then sent for duplication in their prized Xerox machine, loaded both with stolen paper and some hand-made stuff pressed from pulped bark. Even if it sometimes jammed up the rollers, it was all towards the goal of self-sustainability that Lovikov supported. Most of the duplicated circulars would be placed on roadsides in dead drops, for affiliated motorists to pick up and distribute.

Next to the command center was a theater of sorts, an improvised briefing room and communal space, ‘seating’ as many people as can actually pack themselves in. There was even a projector, allowing them to play movies now and then.

And all around were flags, hung on the sides of rough-cut walls, flying from improvised flagpoles, and even strung between the dripping trees. They were the tattered standards of dead and dying nations, hung in memorial, but the black HLF flag, embossed with a chalk-white fist within a circle representing Earth, took precedence above all else.

This settlement’s name would live in infamy for generations to come.

Defiance.

Though, at that moment, none of that mattered to Kraber. Not the complex chain of events that had led to the camp allying itself with Michael Carter over Maximilian Yarrow, the fact that they had the pony nurse Sutra Cross as a prisoner, or even the planned meeting with Carter’s Thenardier Guards in a day or two.

He looked out over the camp, then down at his hands. They shook like leaves in the wind.

He felt like he was back in the ocean and a wave was about to crest over him. And for a second, he felt-

Cold. Drenched in saltwater. The wave cresting down on him, a freak wave much bigger than usually came to the beaches outside Cape Town.

is this a

Water filling his lungs. Then

Is this a

For a second, Kraber was back in the main room of the house in Garmisch Partenkirchen. The one Kate had liked, but the pictures she’d hung on the walls had always made her miss Boston. She’d liked it, but it hadn’t quite been home.

He saw his family dead on the floor. Peter, Anka, and Kate, all the children at the birthday party, lay strewn about the floor. There were bulletholes in their skulls. Except…

No, that wasn’t right, they were ponified! And I didn’t even have a-

“Viktor,” Kate said, and Kraber could see through to the carpet through the hole in her head. “We’re still newfoals, Viktor.”

Before he knew it, he was on his knees.

Count to four, he reminded himself. Inhale. 1. 2. 3. 4.

He breathed out, and looked over the camp. Nobody seemed to have noticed, least of all Lovikov.

Especially not Lovikov, who was walking out into camp, regaling everyone with the story of the PER they’d killed that day. Holding out the bag of cinnamon.

“-And Viktor found the ponies!” Lovikov yelled at the top of his lungs, a wide smile on his face. “They were…. They must’ve been some of the biggest, baddest PHL operatives I’d ever seen. Oh, you should’ve seen him slaughtering them!”

‘Those weren’t soldiers, jou fokkin’ liar,’ Kraber found himself thinking. ‘They fokkin’ weren’t. And I… killed them. Just like that. He found himself pausing. Why am I getting so worked up over it? They were only ponies.

He didn’t want to listen to what Lovikov was saying. He stood up, turned around, and headed towards his tent when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Kraber went ramrod straight and twisted backwards, hand on his revolver, ready to-

It was just Mariesa. Another one of Lovikov’s drivers. Kraber made a show of relaxing, sliding the gun into his holster, pushing it in so hard he wondered if the front sight would cut through the leather.

“Is this about Emil?” Mariesa asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“He was…” Kraber sighed. “Fok. I feel like I walked home and found him stuffed in the fridge. He was…”

“We’re all going to miss Emil,” Mariesa said.

“Really?” Kraber asked. “I feel like we all barely knew him.”

“Maybe,” Mariesa said. “But… you’re home, now. You’re with friends. If you want to go get rotgut at the bar, that’s fine. If you want to be alone, that’ll also be fine.”

Somehow, ‘fine’ was not one of the words that came to Kraber’s mind when he thought about how he would feel for the rest of the night.

“I think I might need time alone,” Kraber said, heading off to his tent. “I just feel… different. Wrong.”

“You need to talk to anyone,” Mariesa said, “Just ask.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Kraber said. “I… I need time to think.”

December 2022
Dancing Day

“So that’s what was going through your head?” you ask.

Kraber nods. “Ja. It’s… it wasn’t the first time I went, made bad decisions, and couldn’t stop myself. There was the time in college I started drinking, trying cocaine-”

“Which time?” Aegis interrupts. “Because as far as I can tell from your college friends, that happened a lot.”

“Aweh, exactly,” Kraber said. “Or the time I was afraid of fatherhood and tried to avoid Kate. Or the time I burned down that conversion ca-”

“Wait,” you say. “How could have you done that in college?”

“Nevermind, that’s not important,” Kraber says quickly. “Besides, I plead the fifth. But there’d always be this question, eventually. What in the fok am I doing? And why haven’t I stopped yet?”

Dancing Day
Just outside Colebrook

“HE FUCKING WHAT?!” Chipmunk yelled, and Dancing Day cringed. “You… I don’t… what the fuck… fuck this… the fuck did he even… fucking… fuck!”

Mommy looked up at Chipmunk. “Yeah, that’s what happened.”

“And…” Chipmunk ran her fingers through her thick hair. “Christ.” She sighed. “When we get in there, I’m going to find the most gorgeous woman I can and fuck her brains out.”

Dancing Day blinked.

“What?” Mommy asked.

“What do you mean?” Chipmunk asked.

“It’s just that… you…”

“Look,” Chipmunk said, “What you have to understand is… that was a damn miracle, and we are all lucky to be alive. So… as far as I’m concerned, we deserve to celebrate.”

“Yeah!” Dancing Day said, nodding frantically.

She remembered that, a little over a year ago, her mother had been able to trust the HLF. Or at least, she’d been able to trust the HLF to understand they weren’t PER, that they provided valuable services that others needed to grease the wheels of wartime life.

This had been before the Schism.

By now, Dancing Day had begun to hear… stories. Towns the HLF had essentially conquered, sucking the locals dry of cash and food in return for protection. There’d been a mostly HLF-aligned farmer around these parts who’d begun abusing the earth ponies who worked for him. There was Michael Carter’s unspeakable crime, filling innocent ponies with lead as they stood to walls. There was the disappearance of Sutra Cross and all her medical supplies. There was the bruise on her mother’s jaw, the one she’d gotten the day she decided to make the trip to Montreal. There were rumors of prominent pony emigres found dead in alleyways, absolutely not PER jobs.

But as far as Dancing Day knew, they were just that. Stories. And rumors.

Though it made her wonder: What if they’re not? We wouldn’t have had to be hidden if they weren’t just stories…

“Well then,” Chipmunk said, as she stepped out of the trailer, the two ponies in tow, “Let’s head in.”

The three of them walked into the Dancing Bear, and everything almost seemed to stop.

Neither of them cut for impressive figures. Dancing Day was a small unicorn filly, her mother was - as most ponies were - quite small, and Chipmunk… well, she wasn’t exactly someone who habitually drew attention.

“Chipmunk,” Nny said, downing what was certainly not his first glass of alcohol, a pile of onion food on the table. Aegis was nearby, chowing down on his own separate pile. “What… the hell.”

“Boy,” Dancing Day said, “do we have a story to tell.”

Aegis

Cigarettes dropped to the floor from open jaws. Mugs of booze ait unattended in the grip of frozen hands. Even the unflappable bartender with the huge autoshotgun stood surprised, mouth open, eyebrows raised.

The band has fallen silent too, no-longer belting out those wonderful folk tunes from around the world.

“...and then, he lets us go!” Chipmunk finished, fingers splayed and palms out.

“Fuckin’ what?!” Nny gasped, in time with almost the entire bar’s exclamations of incredulity. His reaction was tame by the standards of the bar.

At that, Dancing Day’s mother held her tight, hooves over her ears to block out the flood of profanities.

Aegis didn’t quite get that. Admittedly, he’d done the same with his foals, but it wasn’t like holding his hooves over Amber or Rivet’s ears would make them un-hear all the other times they’d heard people swearing.

“But couldn’t he have missed them?” the bartender started in a rasping voice. He turns, the shifting of a beard revealing a disfiguring scar around his neck - the poor bastard had been garrotted once.

“No,” Chipmunk said. “Astral? Did he see you?”

“Plain as day,” Mommy confirmed. “He had the trunk open, the revolver to my head, and he just ignored us.”

“Could you have…” asked one bar patron, a woman with scraggly brown hair.

“I didn’t do anything,” Mommy said. “He did that on his own.”

The spell of her voice broken, the bar split up into heated pockets of discussion, conversations fragmenting already into innumerable rumors.

“Holy shit!” Aegis repeated to himself, over and over. “That...that just doesn’t happen. Holy shit.”

“It’s worse,” Chipmunk said, “It was Viktor Kraber who did it.”

The bar went silent.

Shit, Aegis thought.

Kraber was the poster child for HLF excess. The one who would always be used as an example when somebody wanted to classify them as a hate group. More tellingly, he was the example that usually convinced someone.

He’d cut a swathe across Eastern European and Turkish Conversion Bureaus before he’d been brought to heel. They said his kill-count probably ran well into four figures when you took newfoals into account. A man with a stolen PHL gun.

And this was the man who had chosen to spare Dancing Day’s life…

Why?

Author's Note

Some of you out there may miss Light Despondent. I know I do. But... I had to. When Red quit Spectrum, and Jed and I talked about remaking everything... I knew I couldn't keep writing in the classicsverse. I just couldn't put myself through that kind of pain.

And so, this reboot was born! In a lot of ways, this is pretty similar to the original story. Which is because my writing process consisted of copypasting the original chapter into a new google doc, deleting massive swathes of it, adding new dialogue, and revamping the setting.

So some of you might be wondering: What's different this time around?

Important Changes
* As you may have noticed, Light Despondent's original prologue is gone. I found - as I talked with Jed about it - that I had no goddamn idea what was going on, how anyone got there, and felt like it was completely at odds with the rest of the story. If the readers feel like that, it's one thing, but if I do, then it's a really bad sign.
* If the writing style sounds completely different, well, that's because it is! I recut as many sentences as I could so they sounded more me.
* The HLF now aren't the Reavers from Firefly. Neat, am I right? In this continuity, they were united by a man named Spader to become an effective fighting force during the Purple Spring.
** Oh yeah, I probably should have mentioned that, the Purple ~~Winter~~ Spring is the name for the months-long outpour of chaos between the Conversion Bureaus, early HLF, gangs, lone-wolf terrorists on both sides, militias, and some actual militaries.
* Of course, Spader died, which is how you get the HLF splitting and being on the verge of a short civil war. You'll see a lot of that in Light.

I hope you like the changes I've made, and I hope you enjoy this!

02: City Of No Palms

Light Despondent Remixed
Chapter 2:
City Of No Palms

Got good intentions.
Isn't it enough? No, it is not enough.
The comprehension of letting yourself get charmed by a bluff is upon me:
There's nothing I can do,
There's always something I could do.
Where would I be if it wasn't for you?
So I just do what I'm supposed to do.
I watch you turn into
А siсkly biomass of black and blue.
Biting Elbows, City of No Palms

December 24, 2022
Dancing Day

Aegis wasn’t the only one who wanted an answer to that question. So, around Christmas Eve of 2022 or thereabouts, long after Kraber had joined the PHL, Dancing Day and her mother corner him in a PHL-held building’s library and demands answers.

He’s a few steps above a private in the PHL, now. His LMG (the very same one that Dancing Day remembers) leans against the chair as he pores over his book, some sci-fi from the fifties or sixties. He’s even got a pony friend in Aegis - a pony so very large that some humans could easily ride him like an earth horse. Currently, Aegis is lying on the floor, assault saddle and headset leaning against the wall, forelegs outstretched as he reads a book of his own.

They both look bone-tired.

“Why’d you do it?” Dancing Day asks, almost accusing him.

“What?” Kraber asks. He yawns and stretches. “What do you mean?”

“The HLF nearly had you kill me twice,” she says. “Why didn’t you?”

Kraber sighs and goes back to reading.

Dancing Day’s mother, Astral Nectar - a mare the color of red wine, with a black mane that had once been immaculately styled - trots up.

“Answer my daughter,” Dancing Day’s mother says, in that unique mommy way where she can make a question not a question. “As far as I can tell, we owe you our lives several times over - and we don’t know why!”

Kraber looks almost pained when he looks at Aegis, uncertain.

“Viktor,” Aegis says, “You don’t have to answer it.”

“Even if it’s not going to be a good answer,” Kraber says… “I’m going to be honest, sometimes I don’t even know.”

“What?” her mom asks.

Dancing Day’s jaw drops.

“Maybe I just imagined that for a moment, both of you could’ve been my family, and imagined that they wouldn’t have liked the person I turned into,” Kraber says. “Maybe I just realized what I was doing wasn’t right, and I just… lost the anger. I don’t know. I’m sorry for what I was like, I’m sorry for what I did, but… I just lost the ability to hurt a foal and her mother that day.”

“Whatever it is,” her mom says, “I’m glad you did. I just… I still have to ask. How did you end up here?”

“Oooooh,” Kraber says,” That is a weird one. I was actually writing up a film script for it…”

“The one where you wanted to be played by Sharlto Copley?” Aegis asks.

“Well who in the fok did you expect, Grant Bowler?” Kraber asks.

“Hold on,” Aegis says. “We’re probably going to need Yael for this. Mind if I head out for a bit? I’m going to need to give her a call.”

You aren’t the only one who decides to listen to Kraber. Aegis’ foals Rivet and Amber join in, along with a heavyset man with a bald pate like a bullet who introduces himself as Grayson. An ex-HLF woman named Elena. A number of PHL ponies like Babs Seed, Mixtape, Spitfire, Soarin', and many, many more.

Well. It seems Mr. Kraber’s gotten quite a turnout, Dancing Day thinks.

“Look,” Kraber says, “I’ll admit, I’ve tried to tell this story before. I’ve fokked up, I’ve missed certain details, I may not be as faithful as I hoped. So… here and now, I promise. I’m doing my best to get it right this time.”

Is this a reference? Dancing Day asks herself. This feels like a reference.

Kraber

August 5, 2022
Early Morning
7:23 AM

They got the call late at night or early morning, when the PER had taken half the town.

“-PER! Oh God, they’re everywhere! Someone! ANYONE! HELP!”

Defiance burst into life. People dug themselves out of beds, readying their rifles, shotguns, or the more esoteric weaponry they’d salvaged here and there.

Kraber was one of the first out of his tent. Unlike many of them, he hadn’t been sleeping. He’d just been reclining against a large, stolen pillow, reading a book, surrounded by firearms.

Well, it’s about fokkin’ time! he thought, shoving his arm through his LMG’s sling, and holstering his two pistols - a massive .50 Smith & Wesson revolver and a 3D printed .45 automatic with a double-stack magazine and a modified trigger guard he could press on to rack the slide. Then his pump-action shotgun.

The weapons clanked and juddered on his back as he dashed through the streets of the town, but he barely noticed. As much as it could be said to have streets. They were more muddy ruts between tents, scored through by tire tracks. All around him, he saw people doing much the same. There was Emil Geroux, a frenchman Kraber had met in Northern Africa, and one of Kraber’s closest friends, if not lovers. He was rushing out of a tent with an M4 in hand. Following him was an Englishman from Burlingham named Andrew Crossley, a blond, stubbly man of average height. The way the stories went, his girlfriend had been one of the first to be ponified.

He rushed by flags of nations destroyed by the Barrier, by mementos of lost cities, and even small monuments to Algernon Spader. “The man who saved the HLF.”

The man who stole them from Carter, Kraber thought. Besides, Spader was dead, and they followed Carter now. Or they would if he wasn’t in prison. It was sort of unclear at the moment who they followed, but Atlas Galt seemed to be the highest-ranking person in Carter’s absence.

And with luck, when they’d cast off some of Spader’s restrictions, they’d become something new. Something better.

Lovikov talked about that all the time. About unity. About working together with him for a common good, removing ponies from their world by any means necessary. And yet, there were those selfish kontgesigs who decided to work with ponies, or to follow Yarrow’s banner.

In Kraber’s mind, anyone in those categories equaled “fokkin’ moegoes who couldn’t see the invaders for what they really were.” The PHL, and those horsefucking traitors to the HLF like Romero.

By the time he and Emil made their way to Defiance’s fleet of APCs and other vehicles, Leonid Lovikov was already there in the driver’s seat of their favorite - a coal lorry as massive as could still fit on one lane of road. It’d been retrofitted with extra armor, homemade pneumatic spearguns, window-slits for weaponry, and a big snowblower on the bumper that could (and had) turn crowds of newfoals to red slush in the winter.

Lovikov and his friend slash lieutenant Rebecca Benning had added it on while they were drunk.

“Kraber! Emil!” Lovikov bellowed. His big frame barely seemed to fit in the driver’s seat, and his close-cropped dark hair seemed to scrape against the ceiling. “You ready to bring some hurt?”

“Aweh, my bru!” Kraber yelled, a huge smile on his face.

All around them were other HLF getting into vehicles of their own. Other APCs, some homebrewed and some not. A few lorries - or pickup trucks, as Americans called them - with mounted weaponry in the bed. Some motorcycles, too. Just behind them, Kraber could see Benning herself - one of Lovikov’s lieutenants.

She wore camouflage, and carried an AA12 shotgun on her back. She wore mirrored aviator sunglasses, and wore her short, fine black hair under a red, white and blue trucker hat. Going by what Kraber knew about her, she’d been essentially raised in American militia movements, never seeing real combat until the Purple Winter. She was in the passenger seat of one of the technicals, with Helen Blanchett behind the stolen .50 machinegun in the back. An HLF lieutenant everyone called Sully sat in the driver’s seat, a homemade hand-rolled cigarette lazily held between his fingers. He’d been one of the first people from New Hampshire to join with the Menschabwehrfraktion.

“Ready to roll, Vik?” Benning asked, a wide smile on her face.

“Aweh, you know it my suster!” Kraber smiled, climbing into the bed of the lorry. Crossley followed him, idly scratching his stubble.

“I have a feeling,” Benning said, still smiling, “It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

Kraber took the spot at the front of the lorry, LMG poking out just beside the lorry’s actual gunner, a sullen-looking chainsmoker named Dan.

Emil squeezed into the backseat of the truck, as a woman named Mariesa slid into the driver’s seat.

“So,” Kraber called down, “Wat gaan hier aan?”

“Town over in Maine’s got PER up its сра́ка,” Lovikov said. “Rumor is, the PER have got…”

Lovikov’s knuckles went white. Kraber could see Lovikov’s face in the rear-view mirror from his perch, and he couldn’t tell if the man’s face was apprehensive or bloodthirsty.

“They’ve got a weird earth pony helping them,” Lovikov said. “And they’ve got weirder newfoals after them too. So you know what that means.”

“Oh hell no,” Crossley gasped.

...Shieldwall! Kraber thought for about a second before any conscious thought was overtaken by a wave of white-hot rage.

“We’ll scalp and fokkin’ unmark that son of a whore,” Kraber snarled, surprised by the venom in his voice.

“Exactly,” Lovikov said.

The varknaaier’d been behind more PER atrocities than anyone could count. Kraber had been caught in the aftermath of more than a few. An airport in Egypt that had turned into a massacre. Destroying a dam, drowning hundreds of people and potioning anyone who’d come out of the waterlogged ruins. He’d destroyed bridges, railroad lines, and any arteries of transportation that he could, and potioned any survivors.

Kraber thought - but wasn’t certain - that Shieldwall had something to do with what happened to his family.

And then there was the question of what he did to you on potioning, if you were lucky. There were stories. About being Shaped into something else as you ponified. Not just a newfoal, or one of the grotesque new variants, but sometimes turned into something… other.

Kraber had seen enough to know that at least some of the stories were true.

It was by the time they were in the town’s outskirts that they heard the radio squealing in protest.

“Jag kan inte sova nej nej nej nej kan jy my help wie ek is vem ar jag HJALP MIG ben kim oldu sonra soğuk sonra s-s-soğuk sonra sıcak sonra soğuk sıcak laissez-moi mourir-”

It was like several people all clustered around a microphone. Whenever it switched languages, it’d be in a different voice. There was a buzzing, throbbing, almost rasping static in the background, and a strange distortion whenever the voice stuttered.

“What the fok is that, anyway?” Kraber asked, more annoyed than anything. Before the barely decipherable babble had interrupted them, he’d been listening to a song he liked. Which was a nice change of pace, the radio around New Hampshire was usually fokkin’ vrot, repeating the same overplayed songs over and over again, or that horrible one with the FOKKIN’ MONKEY NOISE!

He thought some of the word salad was Turkish. ‘Cold then hot then cold again?’ he wondered idly.

“No idea,” Lovikov said. “Always assumed it was interference from some pony говно́.”

“Eu não sei quem você pode ouvir isso, mas você tem que pará-los! Antes que seja tarde demais!” the inexplicable broadcast continued. “They’ll use us up, they’ll use you all up!”

Kraber watched Emil jolt up. It wasn’t usually in English. Far as Kraber could tell, it could be in virtually any language.

“Ular bizni chirigan tomosha qiladilar. Chceme, aby to skončilo. Nekončí. Nechtějí nás přemýšlet. Navždy. Ti o ba wa. Nwọn wá lati mu o gbogbo.”

‘It comes? They seek to end it all?’ Kraber thought. He knew a small amount of Yoruba.

“Whatever it is,” Emil said, “I don’t like it. It’s… it’s unnerving as hell.”

“Maybe it’s ghosts or something,” said Mariesa.

Kraber gave Mariesa an irritated look. “perdedrolle is fokkin’ fye,” he said, sneering slightly. “I’ve seen ghosts before. They don’t talk over the radio like this.”

Mariesa gave him a flat, annoyed look.

“Oh really?” the man asked. “Where was that?”

“Back in Boston,” Kraber said. “I was pretty young, but-”

“Something’s up ahead,” Emil interrupted.

It was difficult to say what made them stop. Maybe it was the wrecked car in the middle of the road. Maybe it was the burning house.

Or maybe it was the mass of flesh that had simply melted across half the road, and reminded Kraber of molten wax, or rubber stretched almost to the breaking point. Legs stuck out in almost every direction, and it was covered in purple fur.

“What the fok?!” Kraber hissed when he saw it.

But he knew what it was. An Abomination. Going by a manual he’d found - and burned - it was essentially a blank slate newfoal. A mass of flesh that Equestria could use as clay, and reshape into essentially any kind of pony they wanted.

“What the hell is this?” Crossley asked. “Oh, that is twisted.”

Just on the other side of the street, a man lay dead, the barrel of a rifle pressed to his chin.

“Leonid,” Emil said through gritted teeth. “Step on it.”

On another day Lovikov would’ve chewed Emil out for the insubordination, but he didn’t. He floored it, and the lorry rumbled forwards faster than before.

When they got to the town center, they saw a child - probably barely more than a teenager - rushing across the street, screaming. A blank-flanked earth pony newfoal chased him, a manic grin on its face.

“I’LL MAKE YOU SO HAPPY!” it howled, its orange fur glistening with what Kraber hoped was sweat.

Kraber and Dan stood, unsure of how to react. With a sudden burst of speed, the orange newfoal rushed forward, pinning the child against the wall.

There was a thud, and the newfoal drove one hoof down into the child’s shoulders. “LOOKHOW HAPPY I AM!” it screamed “DON’T YOU WANT TO BE THIIIIS HAPPY?!”

The child screamed as the newfoal reached for a vial of potion, contained in the bandolier around its neck.

In that split second, Kraber fired two rounds from his LMG. Each bullet hit the newfoal dead center, and upon impact the newfoal exploded. One foreleg spiralled up into the air, and blood splashed against the rest of the street.

“FOKKIN’ KILL!” Kraber crowed, laughing slightly as he pointed at the spatter of blood that had been the newfoal. “OH, FOKKIN’ KWAAI, HE’S FOKKIN’ EVERYWHERE! FOKKIN’ PRICELESS!”

Dan - in between chattering teeth, and quick wheezing breaths - managed to choke out something that might have been “good shooting.”

The child glanced up towards their truck, and their eyes widened. There was a huge smile on their face, an expression of palpable relief.

They kept it as they picked themselves up and ran into an alleyway.

A rocket impacted the building ahead of them, and the lorry squealed to a stop. The blast was strangely purple, almost as if…

Oh no.

“Menschabwehrfraktion!” Lovikov yelled, walking out of the truck, shotgun in hands. “GAS MASKS ON, TAKE COVER!”

They scrambled out of the APC, finding cover behind various buildings. Kraber slid into cover behind a bullet-pocked car, scanning the streets of the town for any signs of PER.

Everything was still. He couldn’t see any signs of movement, save for the spots in the walls, or against the street where chunks of rubble and splinters of wood sprayed outward as bullets roared in the background of the town.

He could see a building nearby - a place with painted wooden columns that were almost certainly meant to mimic stone. There was a sign proclaiming it to be the town’s high school. It was a big, ungainly place that looked like bricks piled on top of more bricks, but it was without a doubt the safest place in the town.

There were several men and women keeping guard in front of the school’s pillars, each armed with black rifles, the make and model of which Kraber couldn’t quite place. The guards didn’t quite look military - their stances were too imprecise, sloppy. Their armor was a bit off, too. Some cheap kevlar that was… well, it was better than nothing compared to potion. And they weren’t covered up enough to properly fight against people armed with potion. They weren’t horrifically underequipped, but there was a lot of room for improvement.

Local militia, Kraber thought. No wonder they needed our fokkin’ help.

And yet: On the faces of one of the local militiamen Kraber could see apprehension. Fear.

We’re here to help, Kraber thought, Why wouldn’t they be happy to see us? Are the fokkin’ civs that ungrateful?

Behind him, the Menschabwehrfraktion were filtering out into the street, taking cover behind houses and other cars.

“Get in! Get in!” hissed one of the guards, red-haired, stocky woman with a Kalashnikov.

The Menschabwehrfraktion - at least, those who’d been in their coal lorry - rushed into the building.

Kraber felt incredibly out-of-place in the school, walking by posters for an upcoming school play, local events, and floor-to-ceiling curfew posters urging, if not begging children not to go outside alone.

I’d barely had Peter and Anka in school before…. he thought, and for some reason he felt overwhelmed by the thoughts of what might have been. Before they were ponified. Is this… is this the kind of place Kate would’ve sent them if we’d moved back to America?

It was almost overpowering, and Kraber could feel his breathing deepening. Growing the slightest bit more ragged.

“Hey,” Lovikov said, a hand on Kraber’s shoulder. “You alright?”

I MISS MY FOKKIN’ FAMILY, AWEH?! Kraber wanted to scream. ‘I WISH THEIR LIVES WEREN’T FOKKIN’ STOLEN! I WISH I STILL HAD THEM, JOU FOKKIN’ VARKNAAIER! I WISH THEY WEREN’T THOSE GODDAMN…. THOSE THINGS! YOU DON’T GET THEM BACK, MAAIFOEDIE, JOU JUST FOKKIN’ DON’T!

Evidently, some of that had shown on Kraber’s face, and he watched Lovikov take an involuntary step backwards.

“I’m lekker,” Kraber said, through gritted teeth. “Just. Fokkin’. Lekker.”

“You don’t sound fine,” Lovikov said as they tramped through the hallways of the school, Menschabwehrfraktion trailing behind the two of them.

Kraber stole a glance behind him, noticing Emil - who looked rather worried.

“Don’t worry,” Kraber said, “Give us time. I’ll work it off. Some people fok at funerals, I cut off heads, ja?”

December 2022
Dancing Day

“In retrospect,” Kraber is saying to Dancing Day and Aegis, and a bunch of other ponies and other PHL personnel who are filtering into his room, “I probably should have seen what happened next as a bad sign.”

“That’s the spirit!” Emil said, flashing Kraber a thumbs up. Lovikov even managed to flash Kraber a smile.

“Here,” said the woman with red hair, and she pointed them all to a set of thick metal doors, both painted red.

The school gym, Kraber thought idly, realizing just how damn packed the place was. Whole families had crammed themselves into the gym, along with adults, anyone who couldn’t or wouldn’t raise a gun, and schoolchildren who might have been undergoing remedial classes.

Kraber had always been the kind of person who heard bad news more keenly than good. Ever since college. Probably before then.

And so, when the brave men and women of the Menschabwehrfraktion strode in, Kraber noticed that strange occurrence again. Anywhere from a third to three quarters of the men, women, and children in the bleachers stood and cheered for them, but the rest…

Some were tired. But others just didn’t look happy to see them.

“Is it just me,” Crossley whispered to Kraber, “Or are we not exactly welcome?”

“It’s not just you,” Kraber said. What am I missing here? Kraber thought to himself. Or, better yet, what are they not getting?

It was a hero’s welcome, certainly, but something was screaming at Kraber that something wasn’t right here.

Some of that sensation evaporated when an official-looking man with a receding hairline that somehow remained thick, wild, and bushy walked up to them. He wore a cheap suitcoat over a red-and-black flannel shirt. Rather incongruously, he had a Windham Weaponry AR hanging over one shoulder.

Behind him was a skinny man with an eyepatch and a beard that would’ve segued well into a goatee if not for the bald patch in the middle of his chin. The shotgun on his back looked much too big for him.

On some level, Kraber recognized that the man was far skinnier than him. Kraber immediately didn’t like him. Something about the way he was looking at Kraber - hell, at the Fraktion in general - made him feel flou. It reminded Kraber of staring down a hyena.

“I’m Sadler,” the first man said, a relieved not-quite-frown on his face. “I’m in charge around here. We’re…. We thought we were done for, but then you answered, and…”

“At ease,” Lovikov said. “How many people have you lost?”

“The watchmen managed to ring the alarm and get most of us in here,” Sadler said. “But… but the potion, and, and the blood, and…” he started shaking. “Some of my friends didn’t make it. They kept telling me how much happier they were, how they wished they’d become ponies years ago, how they’d been stupid for, for, fuck, for not fucking trying it. Even if they’d been part of the Purple Winter before the War. And they, they were talking about being human like it was torture every minute of it, and they kept fucking smiling and-”

The skinny man with the not-quite-beard slapped Sadler.

“Right. Thanks, Bright,” Sadler said. “We were desperate for anyone to come, and…. And on behalf of my town, I want to say: Thank you.”

“Why are they here?” Kraber asked. “Especially Shieldwall? I mean, what the fok warrants-”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Bright interrupted, eyebrows narrowing as he stared at Kraber. Evidently, the feeling was mutual. “We’re human. They’re PER. It’s just common sense.”

“No,” said a woman - no, a teenager - with dark skin and darker hair. She looked almost like a Pacific Islander. Just sitting next to her was a slightly shorter girl with dyed-gray-blue hair that matched the color of her eyes.

“No, I heard Mr. Norton-” the teenager said.

“That fucker,” Bright sneered.

The girl with blue-gray hair sitting next to the teenager shook. “You mean my dad.”

“If Joe Norton was willing to do what he did to the rest of your family,” the teenager said, pressing forward in spite of the cries of fear, revulsion, and disgust at that name, the protestations that no, that couldn’t be Shieldwall, “Then he wasn’t your daddy. Anyway. I heard Norton and Shieldwall arguing, and,” the teenager continued, “Shieldwall said that… that they needed ponypower. For…” her face went blank. “I don’t know what they needed it for, but it’s definitely something big.”

“How big?” Kraber asked.

“Well,” the pacific-Islander-looking teenager said, deep in thought...

“And you’re sure Project Fillydelphia will work,” said Mr. Norton.

“Of course I am,” Shieldwall said, unaware of the teenager with the FN FAL sneaking through the bushes just behind them. “I designed it.”

“You’re sure you need all this ma - excuse me, ponypower?” Mr. Norton asked. “This quickly? I thought the whole point of Project Fillydelphia was to get more ponypower.”

Somehow, it almost offended her how normal the big, heavyset bald man looked. There wasn’t much distinct about him, not even the eyes. He had a flannel shirt, a shotgun, a beard, a green baseball cap. He could’ve been anyone from the town.

And yet, he’d quite literally dragged all but one of his children out on leashes, claiming that he’d promised them better lives. Regardless of what they’d said. Regardless of how they’d protested that this wasn’t what they wanted.

The only remaining child - Megan? - was hiding somewhere.

I could shoot them, she thought to herself. I could-

But that thought died in her head when she saw the armed guards that Shieldwall and Norton had. If she went for anyone, she wasn’t sure she’d make it.

“Yes,” Shieldwall said, “I am absolutely sure.”

“I’ve heard of Project Fillydelphia before,” Kraber said, and the teenager and her friend looked up to him with alarm. “The PER we’ve killed talk about how we can’t stop it, the fokkin’ praatsieks.”

Lovikov looked vaguely irritated that Kraber had spoken up. The look on Lovikov’s face seemed to scream ‘I was supposed to get the last word here.’

“But whatever it is, if they need ponypower for it,” Kraber said, “We can make fokkin’ certain they fail here.”

“Count us in,” the teenagerl said. Her friend with the blue-gray hair looked down at her, shocked. Then concerned. Then determined.

“Yeah,” the blue-gray-haired girl said. “Count. Us. In.”

“What are your names?” Lovikov asked.

“Megan,” the blue-gray-haired girl said.

“Dayoung Tengku,” the pacific Islander said.

Megan and Dayoung stood up, heading towards the HLF.

“You’re going to throw yourself into the fray?!” Bright asked. “Just like that?!”

“It’s our choice,” Dayoung said, her mouth pursed into a hard, straight line. “We’re gonna make those PER pay for what they did here.”

“The HLF could always use more manpower,” Lovikov said. “I promise, you’ll fit right in.”

Fate conspired against them.

“Yeah,” said Benning, “Gonna kill all the damn PER! Starting with this one!”

FOKKIN’ WAT?!

Kraber’s revolver was in his hand almost before he knew it, his gaze drifting to Benning, whose AA12 was pressed up against a pony’s skull.

The pony was trembling, too afraid to even speak.

“Whoa whoa whoa, WHAT THE SHIT?!” Bright yelled. Just in front of him, Sadler was backing away, with a moderately concerned and disgusted expression on his face.

Kraber recognized that look. He’d seen it countless times - someone who was, without a doubt, a kindred spirit, but didn’t have the balls to pull the trigger themselves.

Fokkin’ moegoe, Kraber thought. Or, for anyone who didn’t speak Afrikaans: Coward. Weak.

“Why didn’t you tell me jou had this fokkin’ filthy varknaaier in here?!” Kraber yelled. “Why in the fok wouldn’t you-”

Another pony walked out from behind the bleachers, a scared look on its face. It looked older, and had purplish fur. “Caramel Swirl, I told you not to leave the-”

She paled. “No… oh no…”

Kraber trained his revolver on it - or her? - in an instant. He felt himself smile. Fokdammit, I’m looking forward to this!

“STOP!” Bright screamed. “For the love of God, stop!”

“Why?” Lovikov sneered. “Why would any good human want to protect one of them damn gluesticks? The marshmallows? Why, it’s almost enough to make me wonder if you’re-”

“They’re not PER,” Sadler said, though he didn’t quite sound like he believed it. His voice sounded weak. “Caramel Swirl and Grapevine? The other ponies? They work the fields for us.”

Kraber could see the look on Lovikov’s face, and just knew he was on the verge of some kind of comment. If only because, so was Kraber.

“Why in the fok would you trust these goddamn things?!” Kraber yelled. “You’ve seen what their kind are doing outside! Give me one good reason not to shoot the fokkin’ geldos here and now!”

“Because the PHL pays us a lot,” Bright said bluntly.

“Will-” Sadler said.

“No,” Bright said, “I’m tired of dealing with this bullshit. We get it all the time from HLF, or bandits that took up the name, or drifters. Why do you think the grain, the fruit, the corn, potatoes, the vegetables are in such ready supply? Earth ponies make healthier, more bountiful harvests, and the PHL pays our town a handsome sum for employing them. You’ve probably eaten something that earth pony labor helped along.”

“I wouldn’t-” Kraber sneered.

“You would, and you probably have!” Bright yelled. “Food is food. I hated it at first, but you know what they say. The will of God has a way of making itself clear in situations like this.”

Kraber was about to reply, and then he paused to think about it. Have I? I don’t know where food shipments come from…

He shook that off. There were more important things to work about.

“They’re good po - no, they’re good people,” Sadler said. “During the town parties, they’ve made some of the best chili I’ve ever eaten-”

Bright shot Sadler a look that simply screamed ‘Really? Chili is the first thing you could think of?’

“-and they’ve helped out the town,” Sadler said. “Which is more than I can say for any of you.”

It was like someone had fired a gun into the air, and the entire gym went silent. ‘He did not just fokkin’ say that,’ Kraber thought.

Except he totally did.

“What the fok?!” Kraber yelled. Immediately, another gun was in his hands, pointed at Sadler.

“Why are you talking to them like this?!” Dayoung yelled. “Back during the Purple Winter, when the PHL, the National Guard had ignored places like this, they kept us safe! Algernon Spader kept them in shape, he organized the Bureau raids, he-”

“Spader is DEAD!” Benning barked. Her AA12 wasn't centered on the pony’s head, the little spawnling slowly backing into a corner within touching distance of his mother.

It wasn't exactly an easy thing to mention. Spader’s death remained a mystery to most HLF. One day, in the Rocky Mountains of all places, two hikers had found his body in a river, lodged between two rocks, burnt beyond recognition.

“And I'm sure he'd be happy with what cropped up in his absence,” Bright said, rolling his eyes. “Now. Are you going to help out, or-”

“But they came to help us-” started a gray-bearded man sitting near Bright and Sadler.

“And I haven’t seen much of that lately,” Bright said. “Are we going to sit here fighting over irrelevant shit, or are we going to actually save people? Because if we don’t, I’m going to shoot the woman holding a gun to our friends’ head.”

“You’ll die in moments if you try,” Kraber snarled.

“I’m sure that’ll be very encouraging when she’s dead,” Bright said.

“You sure you’ll get that same kind of enjoyment?” Kraber asked, smirking. “You, any other horsefuckers we take with us when we leave?”

“Control your men, goddammit!” Sadler yelled at Lovikov.

On Lovikov’s face, Kraber could almost see a brief look of… indecision? And then:

“As far as I’m concerned,” Lovikov said, “They’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to. Protecting humans from invaders. From those who would protect them, too.”

“They’re valued members of our community,” Bright said. “Far as I’m concerned, they’ve done more than you. Are you seriously ready to kill us for not wanting them dead?!”

Lovikov answered by lazily tapping his fingers on the grip of his pistol.

“Well then, Dayoung,” Sadler said, looking at the Pacific Islander teen. “These are your heroes. I hope you’re fucking proud of them, motherfucker.”

Dead silence.

“You didn’t just say that to a child,” Lovikov said.

“I absolutely just did,” Sadler said. “What are you going to do about it? Especially you, Dayoung. Go on, tell Caramel Swirl and Grapevine to their faces you’re proud of this shit. Right after working as a teaching assistant to one of them, no less.”

“As a matter of fact,” Dayoung said, “I think I am.”

“Oh what the fuck,” said the older, purplish pony - presumably Grapevine. “You’re dead to me, Tengku. Dead.”

“How could you?!” the foal - Caramel Swirl yelled.

“You’re the enemy,” Dayoung said, serenely. “Every time I look at you, I can’t unthink: These are the things that are destroying my world.”

The look on Grapevine’s face was quite indescribable.

They could’ve gone on for hours, or at least reams and reams worth of pages worth of back-and-forth dialogue. They could’ve argued until the PER were at the doors to the gym, having ponified around the school. The kind of stuff that would bog down fanfictions in days worth of dogpile editing.

If not for Emil, anyway.

“We’ll leave them alone,” Emil said, stepping in. His voice shook, but there was undeniable confidence in his posture, in the fact that he’d been brave enough to step into the middle of all this. “You hear that, all of you? We’ll leave them alone! This isn’t what we came to do!”

“What are you doing?” Viktor asked, biting back the anger. “We’re here to kill ponies and anyone that’d-”

“What needs to be done,” Emil said, as Lovikov stared daggers, and possibly a large array of other weaponry into the American’s back. “We’re sorry. We didn’t know what the ponies meant to you. But we came to kill PER, and if you say they’re not PER, then we won’t hurt them.”

He could make a truly great leader one day, Kraber thought.

“We…!” Lovikov started, ready to launch into a tirade. “Fine. We’ll do that.”

“But…” Benning said, not quite realizing that the ponies she’d aimed the AA12 at were long gone.

“I said,” Lovikov said, “We’ll do that.”

Dayoung and Megan stood up to follow him as he headed for the gym’s doors.

“Dayoung,” Bright said, “Megan. Are you sure you want to follow them? You saw what they did.”

“What they nearly did,” Dayoung said. “Besides, I… I can’t work with PHL. Not knowing what happens wherever ponies go.”

“But the PHL-” Sadler started.

“Where are they when this happens? Where were they when the Purple Winter happened? Where are they now?” Megan asked. “Hate to say it, but… Dayoung’s right.”

(As it happened, the correct answer was “pinned.” The outbuildings where the small detachment of PHL guarding the town’s ponies lived were being barraged by Shieldwall’s PER, including newfoals that were former army. But nobody had any way of knowing that.)

She was right next to Kraber when he thrust her hand up, a huge smile on his face.

“SHE’S GOT A KWAAI FOKKIN’ POINT!” he yelled.

And Dayoung smiled too. Her friend - Megan - made a shaky smile as well.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Kraber added, “I have to ask. Dayoung, what happened to your…”

“Dead,” she said flatly. “I hope.”

That told Kraber all he needed to know. The same went for Megan, going by what Dayoung had said about Norton.

“Then I promise,” he said, “We’ll take good care of both of you.”

A childless father and parentless kids, Kraber thought. Ain’t we a fokkin’ trio.

“Menschabwehrfraktion,” Lovikov said, sounding vaguely uncertain, and almost small or deflated. “Move out. We’re going to save this damn town!”

“Think you’ll be able to keep up with me, old man?” Dayoung asked, false bravado in her voice.

“...I’m 29,” Kraber replied after a pause.

Dayoung and Megan did a double-take each as they filtered into the Menschabwehrfraktion, heading into the PER-occupied downtown.

Sadler looked at them with cautious optimism as they walked. Bright stood at the door, a look of disgust on his face.

Kraber was just walking past him when he placed a hand on Bright’s shoulder. The skinny man (not that Kraber was one to talk with his rail-thin build) jumped in his buttoned work shirt.

“What do you want?” Bright asked.

“I have to ask,” Kraber said, “Because I’m genuinely curious. Would you really have shot Benning if she shot the gluestick? Even if you-”

“Caramel Swirl,” Bright corrected him. “And I have another question. Would you really have put off defending us from PER just to kill an innocent pony?”

Kraber didn’t have an answer for that.

In fact, by the time he was out on the main streets of the town, hiding behind a picket fence with peeling paint, he still didn’t have an answer.

Dayoung and Megan weren’t too far away, both hiding behind a car on another street. They’d parked the APCs and other vehicles nearby, creating a makeshift barricade.

“Fokkin’ showtime,” Kraber whispered to the gun in his hand, looking on with satisfaction as the runes etched into it began to glow faintly in the darkness that preceded dawn.

“I still say you should throw that thing in the Umbagog River,” Emil said, looking over at Kraber. “It’ll melt you. I… wouldn’t say you have long for this earth.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve bought into that kak,” Kraber joked. “Honestly, do we ever see people get melted from just being close to magic? I mean, when does that actually happen? It’d be just like the Queen Bitch to lie to us like that.”

Maybe Emil had swallowed ‘that kak, maybe he hadn’t. It wasn’t him who answered though.

“You should listen to him, Viktor,” Lovikov said bluntly, pushing the gun’s barrel down with one hand. “That’s PHL tech-”

“And yet it’s the only gun we have that isn’t a fokking overchambered monstrosity or surplus shit that isn’t worth kak against shields,” Kraber replied, hefting the weapon again and checking the sights. “But go ahead, if jou want me to use a gun with less than twenty rounds that the most dof fokking mall ninja would think was a piece of kak, go ahead.”

He glanced at Lovikov’s favorite BFG, a massive .50 caliber open-bolt automatic rifle made from large metal pipe. He’d lent his Kalashnikov to Megan.

It wasn’t as if this was the first time they’d fought about it. Lovikov wanted a pure, self-sufficient Defiance, with none of what he considered pony influence. Which included literature from Equestria, PHL-modded guns, or almost any media with ponies of Equestria in it.

On the whole, Kraber approved of most anything he’d say on that score…

Except for his LMG.

It was a PHL-modified Rheinmetall MG3, apparently an “MG2021,” whatever that was. Stealing it had been sort of an accident. Not long after a… well, a heated situation with the PHL and PER where his old Kalashnikov had been broken beyond even being used for spare parts.

And he loved the thing from the moment he used it to cut down newfoals. He’d added rails and a stolen reflex sight, along with a pipe bomb launcher underbarrel. And, thanks to PHL magic, the 7.62mm rounds hit like a truck.

“You fok with my favorite gun,” Kraber said, “And I will bliksem jou.”

“You wouldn’t,” Helen Blanchett said, staring at Kraber and managing the most impressive glare she could.

Kraber matched hers with a feral-looking snarl of his own. One that reinforced that yes, he absolutely would.

“Viktor, behave,” Lovikov said sternly. “Anyway, you know no one here is going on about it to upset you. We’re worried.”

“Yeah,” said Sully. “What if the magical radiation turns you blue, or mutates you into some sort of humanoid abomination?”

“Sounds fokkin’ lekker,” Kraber said with a mirthless smile.

“Sure,” Lovikov said with a raised eyebrow. “But this is real life, Viktor. Mutations don't give you superpowers, not even extreme ones. They just hurt you, make you sit in a bed bleeding and crying and screaming until you finally expire. No one here wants that for you.”

“Yeah,” added Jones, a Mainer who looked to be almost as wide as he was tall, “You don’t want to end up like Zollikofer.”

The less said about what happened to Zollikofer, the better. It had been in an abandoned town taken over by PER, and the Swiss man had found a PER gun, turning it against the varknaaiers and practically vaporizing newfoals…

Until the gun had turned against him. The rear section had exploded, and he’d woke up the next day with patches of fur, slowly ponifying over the course of a few days. He’d shot himself, of course.

It had taken multiple attempts to end it for him. Multiple successful attempts.

“Now that is fokkin’ uncalled for and jou know it,” Kraber growled. “This is completely different. I’m sure the PHL’d have no reason for their fokkin’ lekker guns to turn you into one of the fokkin’ gluesticks.”

“We all saw the Caspari Video, Viktor,” Lovikov said. “We know what magic does to people. The very presence of the gluesticks is inimical to us.”

“Jou know,” Kraber said, “That always bothered me. Never seemed too scientific. Do we know how much magic will kill someone? PHL are near foktons of magic every day, and you never hear about them getting the Rot or becoming a Slow Newfoal.”

“Slow newfoals are extinct,” Lovikov said, derisively. “They couldn’t have survived nearly this long. Everyone knows they would’ve died during the Purple Spring, and that strain of Potion was phased out anyway.”

“Clearly, you haven’t been hearing the stories I’ve heard from the Pacific Northwest,” Kraber said.

“Stop trying to distract me,” Lovikov sighed. “We’re not getting rid of that gun, are we.”

“Nooit,” Kraber said. “If you didn’t want me to use it, you shouldn’t have been asking me to get rid of it here.”

Lovikov stared at Kraber for a second, his face unreadable.

“Fine,” he said, after a few seconds. “Kraber? Fire at will.”

Kraber looked at his LMG. For a second, he could almost imagine that it was glowing. That it was a bit brighter than it should have been. And he smiled.

“Oh…. yeah,” he said, poking himself from behind the fence, staring through the gun’s reflex sight for a target.

The PER had taken control of an old mill building on the edge of town, and had turned it into a fortress in the meantime. Barricades of every kind dotted the stretch of road between the HLF and the mill - spikes of earth that looked to have punched up from the ground like bone under the skin, odd constructions that looked vaguely military, wrecked cars, and absurdly enough, gray-green vaguely box-shaped walls that looked inflatable.

But, just behind these walls, he found a PER man wearing a curiously medieval helmet, clad in kevlar that was almost certainly magically enhanced. He was talking to his friend, a purplish pegasus mare with an ugly burn scar and half of her mane missing. She was conspicuously not wearing a helmet.

Kraber strained to hear their conversation. It was more from curiosity than anything.

“Tellin’ ya,” the man said, “Featherdown, you have to wear a helmet.”

“It throws off my hearing and my maneuverability,” said the pegasus, evidently named Featherdown. “It’s so annoying!”

“Rather lose those than be dead,” the man said.

“I’m a pegasus, if I lose those I am dead!” Featherdown replied.

Well, Kraber thought, aiming for the kevlar-clad man, Guess that makes the first target.

He aimed for the man squeezed the trigger so softly that the first blast on the PER encampment below came almost as a surprise to him.

The 7.62x51mm round punched through the man’s upper chest, hammering into his body armor and then his throat.

It was difficult to explain next. Just about everything in the vicinity of his shoulderblades fell apart, blood spraying everywhere, chunks of viscera exploding out from where his neck had been…

Coating his friend Featherdown.

She stared at her friend’s lifeless, fallen corpse for a nanosecond too long before Kraber’s MG2021 ripped into her skull, not just punching through it but exploding it.

Then he turned it on the factory. While the armor and barricades might have been able to withstand some of the 7.62 rounds, the rest of the place- the tents, the camp followers in dresses, ratty t-shirts, jackets and jeans - was absolutely not. Three bullets punched through a glass window, and Kraber heard a sequence of screams within a second of letting his finger off the trigger.

“Support teams!” Lovikov called. “Open fire, rapid!”

All around them, HLF troops burst out from windows, from behind cars and other debris, firing into the PER. Years ago, some of the ex-military HLF might have called it inhumane to catch the PER with their pants down like this, but nobody cared about PER to say as much.

HLF rained explosives - some homemade, some not - and bullets down on the PER camp below them. There was no finesse. There was little fire discipline. There were only bullets, roaring down on their improvised like an avalanche.

“KNOCK KNOCK, VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber cackled giddily, as he inched the barrel to the right, raising it very slightly as he squeezed the trigger.

The LMG scythed through the camp, cutting a bloody swathe through the PER. One bullet cut through an inflatable barricade tent like it wasn’t even there, (and compared to the velocity, density, and PHL enchantment of the bullet, it pretty much wasn’t) and Kraber laughed hysterically as blood spattered against the wall behind the inflatable cover. He heard a scream - and then, another, as someone behind the inflatable barricade fell to the ground screaming.

Buggery-fok, did I just nail two of the kontgesigs in one shot? Kraber asked. It wasn’t like it was the first time that’d happened, but it was worth another try.

He aimed for another pony. This one wasn’t armored, and going by the placid look on its face, it was a newfoal. A generic, this time - the kind that potion created en masse, the sort that were building blocks of the Solar Empire’s army. The sort that was mostly useless after Conversion without training or weaponry.

And there was another newfoal standing in front of it, SMGs strapped to its back.

Kraber stared through the reflex sight, aimed, and fired. The round punched through both of them, splattering blood against the wall of another inflatable barricade. Or had he hit another in the tent, going by the blood spattered against another wall?

“FOKKIN’ KILL!” Kraber yelled, aiming for the main drag of the camp. The PER looked to be falling back behind trees, behind glowing pony-made shields. Magic kak.

Kraber watched one PER soldier, wearing what looked like a junkyard for armor and aiming an old bolt-action that was almost certainly magicked to be deadlier than normal. They were smiling as they stood behind an orange-tinted magic shield, a newfoal unicorn standing just to his side.

He was smiling by the time Kraber jerked the LMG towards the shield and opened fire. Some of the bullets shattered against the shield harmlessly…

And two of them didn’t. They punched through the shield like it wasn’t even there, shattering the PER man’s jaw and neck. His corpse tumbled to the ground in an awkward, ungainly spiral, blood dripping from the toothy space where his head had once been.

The unicorn gaped in horror, and Kraber turned the LMG to him.

The next two rounds almost split the unicorn in half. Lengthwise. Two twitching, bloody, not-quite-halves fell to the ground.

“GET THOSE BATTLE NEWFOALS OUT THERE!” someone yelled from within the foretress. “I’LL BE DAMNED IF WE LET THEM TAKE US!”

It was like an electric current had passed through all the HLF in the vicinity.

Battle newfoals!

There was a low moan from in the camp, and the earth seemed to shake.

And then it came. An abomination. A massive animal covered in shaggy fur, its hooves pounding against the pavement. It looked like a pony, if somebody had stretched a pony over a rhinocerus’ body and shoved in so much muscle that the thing looked almost deformed.

Several ponies sat atop its back. One held reins in its mouth, driving the abomination towards the HLF line. Another pony, this one a Natural, stood on all four legs with a machinegun trigger in its mouth. There was another still, a unicorn newfoal with its horn in what looked like a pipe, a long beam of light lancing out from it. Behind it, another unicorn pony barked out directions and pointed towards the HLF lines.

And there were two more of the same behind it.

“NEWCALVES!” Emil shrieked at the top of his lungs. “IT’S A FUCKING NEWCALF!”

Behind the newcalves, though, he could see more strange creatures. Things like ponies with gorilla-like forearms and massively oversized horns that reminded him less of unicorns and more of narwhals. They were living artillery pieces. While the Solar Empire called them Megacorns, the typical HLF word for them was “Gorilla-horse.”

One of the gorilla-horses dug its forehooves into the ground, gritted its teeth, and a beam of raw concussive force exploded out from its massive spearlike horn.

THWUOMMMMVVV

The beam lanced through the town, bowling trees over and punching through the wall of one house

Damn, Kraber thought, looking at the swath of rubble and splintered wood, Huh. Back when I played Titanfall 2, this would probably be a good time to voetsek.

So he ran. He pelted through the streets of the town, making a left turn and rushing into a house. It looked like it’d been abandoned in the wake of the PER attack.

As he rushed through the house (it looked like once it had housed a large family) he took stock of what he saw around him. A TV, a phone, (Defiance already had plenty of those) and…

Some canned food? Just lying there?

Kraber quickly shoved it into his backpack. The dogs would probably be able to sniff it out to see if it had any potion, but for now, Defiance always needed more food. Besides, they were providing a valued service! They sure as fok deserved payment!

As he ran out the door, through a bedroom at the back of the house, he also snatched up a clock-radio. Defiance also needed electronics - for IEDs, and any other machinery the fledgling town’s engineers could throw together.

He slid into cover behind one of the walls in the bedroom, and scanned the backyard behind him.

This just ain’t my fokkin’ day, he thought.

He could see some newfoals that looked… morbidly obese? No, overinflated, that was the word. The skin was pulled far too tight over their eyes and mouth, giving them ghoulish-looking smiles and red rings around their bloodshot eyes.

Splashers!

Guarding them were a set of newfoals with pipe SMGs in their assault saddles. And, flying just nearby, were a squad of pegasi with gas masks that fed into small canisters on their backs, along with nozzles mounted on bands that encircled their forelegs. A human with what looked like an autoshotgun, too…

All guarded by a unicorn.

‘They’re flanking us! Kraber thought, before his thoughts turned to disgust at the mutant newfoals the human and pegasi were guarding. When Kraber wasn’t willing to chop them limb from limb, he had a kind of… angry bemusement towards battle-formed newfoals. It was the best way he could describe it.

Before the War, it was “become a cute, happy little pony!” And now, they turned you into a goddamn monster that looked like Tim Burton’s or Jhonen Vasquez drawing a horse. They turned you into raw material, into war machines, into abominations that Kraber still couldn’t quite believe were able to function.

Why the fok do we even have the square cube law? he asked himself. More importantly, how the fok does the Solar Empire even spin this? It’s not like those monsters could fit into society… Not without a reconstitution camp, anyway...

So, who to take out first? The unicorn? Almost certainly. Unicorns could turn any engagement into a nightmare. The splashers? No, that was just-

Wait a minute.

Kraber recalled a tidbit from a long time ago. Wasn’t potion flammable? And the splashers typically carried volatile chemicals. If one explodes…

The unicorn was keeping its shield to the front. Moving with a large dome shield was hard, and it would certainly raise eyebrows. It was projected in… almost a quarter-sphere-like shape… in front of the unicorn.

He’d also left a small gap between the bottom of the shield, and the ground. A small gap that would presumably widen when he passed near a tree stump, about ten feet away from him. Towards the edge of the backyard.

Can’t mess this up! Kraber thought, sliding the glass doors leading onto a porch behind the bedroom, and placing a homemade HLF claymore mine made from an old lunchbox just next to the glass. The lasers would be uninterrupted, of course, but he’d need to get far away if he didn’t want to get cut to pieces.

Any second now…

He slid the door open, quiet as possible, and aimed the pipebomb launcher down.

This feels so wrong, aiming a grenade down he thought. Any second now… any fokkin’ second-

The unicorn at the lead raised the shield ever so slightly when they came to the stump, and Kraber pulled the trigger.

The pipebomb launcher made an electric crackle, the spring shot forward, and the pipebomb plummeted downwards. Right towards the stump.

Kraber could see the look of dawning horror on the unicorn’s face as the pipebomb - moving too fast to dodge - slipped under the shield. And then something strange happened. It tumbled over one of the stump’s roots, improbably bouncing up…..

Right into the unicorn’s jaw.

THOOM

The unicorn exploded into a pink mist, fire licking at the grass. The splasher behind him simply vanished in the conflagration, the volatile chemicals in its stomach catching fire.

THOOM

“FOKKIN’ LEKKER!” Kraber crowed as he watched the small, purple mushroom cloud.

Now, time to run.

Kraber whipped out his .45. He wasn’t exactly expecting to hit anything, but it made for a great panic-fire gun.

One…

He fired at the human, the .45 round impacting their helmet. While it didn’t pierce the armor, it left them stunned for a few seconds. Enough to make them charge him, submachinegun ready.

Two…

He was dashing towards the edge of the bedroom. He turned and fired, the .45 round harmlessly whiffing into the grass as the newfoals and splashers rushed after him.

Three…

Another .45 round. This one hit a newfoal in the leg, and it tumbled to the ground. Its fellows, caught in the blood frenzy, barely noticed - they ran over the once-human mutant.

Four…

Still another. It missed again. A purplish crossbow bolt harmlessly twanged by his head, embedding itself in a wall about six inches from his head..

Kraber got to the kitchen, and dove behind the counter - the very same one where he’d found the canned goods earlier.

“Oh for the love of God, who fokkin’ sprung for the cheap-ass-” Kraber started.

BOOM

KRAAAAAAAAANCH

“MY SPLEEN!”

A piece of shrapnel flew through the kitchen, embedding itself in the house’s front door.

Kraber peeked out from behind his hiding place, to see the lacerated bodies of the Solar Empire squad lying on the floor, the bedroom scorched and cut to pieces, and a hallway that was much wider than the original owners probably intended.

“Fokkin’ lekker,” Kraber said, walking down the hallway as soon as he was certain none of them were left. As soon as he was on the porch, and saw a pegasus, one wing shredded beyond repair, lying on the porch.

He emptied two rounds into the FOKKIN’ VARKNAAIER and left, heading into the backyard of another house with a missing wall.

They don’t give a fok about us! the thought raced through Kraber’s head. They just see us as a problem to be solved!

As he dashed into the house with an entire missing wall, he saw it. A darker blue earth pony, and with a green-streaked black pompadour. Standing behind a magic pony shield, next to a homemade turret.

“THIS FOR EVERYONE YOU’VE FOKKED, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Kraber yelled, ready to fire a pipebomb over the forcefield wall.

It was fokkin’ Shieldwall!

December 2022
Dancing Day

“You were face to face with Shieldwall?!’ Dancing Day gasps. “And lived?!”

Aegis just raises an eyebrow. “I mean, he’s here, so…”

“Ja,” Kraber says, “I did. Twice.”

“Must not have been easy,” Grayson says. “I mean… damn.”

“So this isn’t the time you got him on his stomach, and-” Elena starts.

Kraber pushes himself back against his chair, shocked. “No. Nooooooo…. No. Just no. That’s not for like a month.”

Shieldwall’s eyes darted towards Kraber. “YOU!”

“FOKKIN’ ME!” Kraber roared back. “There’s one person you and that pink mank genaaide bergbok didn’t get, and that was a big mistake on your part! CAUSE YOU! PISSED! ME! OFF!”

Shieldwall scowled at Kraber.

“This has been a long time coming,” Shieldwall said. “I’ve got one chance left for you, Viktor. Surrender now, and maybe we’ll be good to you. Maybe I don’t take you apart, piece by piece.”

The sound of machineguns, explosives, and more esoteric pony and HLF weapons rang out all over the town.

“I can see you’d be a pony of many talents,” Shieldwall said. “It’s never too late to forgive, Kraber.”

Flashes of his home. Of the potion, fragments of cake everywhere. The purple ponification potion on the ground. The message that he hadn’t gotten on his phone, the recording.

“It’s not too late to throw away this petty little grudge,” Shieldwall said.

”VIKTOR!” Kate was screaming. “They’re killing us in here, they’re…”

“Try it, mommy! It tastes good, and it makes you feel so good!” Peter laughing, almost tittering. Almost certainly ponified.

“Mommy! Where’s daddy?!” Anka. Screaming at the top of her lungs. “What happened to Peter?! What the heck happened to Peter?!”

“He’s gone, Anka! Stay BACK! Stay back, all of you!” Kate. Yelling. “I’m getting your shotgun, Viktor! No matter what, I just want you to know we’ll always love you!”

“You can put it all behind you,” Shieldwall said. “You’ll get to be with your family, now. I’ll even make you a Cocktail so you can get the form you’ve always wanted. I’m sorry you think you deserve an apology, Kraber. But you’ll change your mind when you take the potion. When you-”

“I’ll always love you, Viktor! I’ll always-”

A noise that Kraber could not describe. A sound halfway between a choke and a death scream as the potioned cake was forced down her throat.

“MOMMY!” Anka. Screaming.

“Oh, you’ll be happier soon enough when we get you out of that ugly human body and make you into a pretty little filly! How can you be happy with that body, yuck! Human bodies are icky and big and ugly and...and mean! Humans are mean! And you’ll all be one big happy family when we're done making you happy little ponies! ” Pinkie.Mocking his daughter. “When we get your daddy, anyway. Wow, he must be a terrible father if he can’t be at your birthday!”

Kraber had thrown his phone against the wall when he heard her say that.

“Aren’t you glad you won’t have to deal with a daddy like that? And he’ll never be such a terrible parent again!”

Kraber had then destroyed the rest of his phone by hitting it with a chair.

“DADDY!” Anka. Yelling again. “Daddy, where are you?! DADDY, WE-”

And then his daughter had screamed, too.

Then there was a splash.

“He’ll be with you soon.” Shieldwall. Almost certainly.

“Yupperoonie!”

Kraber shook with rage as he stared at Shieldwall, who stood just down the street from him. He hadn’t even heard what Shieldwall was saying.

“-what do you say?”

Kraber was silent for a few seconds.

“EAT MY DICK, JOU SHRIMP-KONT MAAIFOEDIE HONDENAAIER!” Kraber yelled, and fired the pipebomb. “COME HERE, JOU FOKKIN’ POES KAKKER NAIPOES, I’LL RIP JOU TO FOKKIN’ PIECES!”

“SPUTTER NEWFOALS!” Shieldwall called. “CHARGE!”

A stampede of newfoals wearing cheap, homemade assault saddles designed to give ponies a way to fire a gun without breaking their tongues or teeth. Each of them were armed with SMGs little more than pieces of pipe and pistol mags.

“Sorry to put this off, Viktor,” Shieldwall said, “But I’ve got places to be!”

Much as Kraber would have liked to think he could take them all, he probably couldn’t.

Kraber dove behind a wrecked car listing on its side finding himself sitting next to Emil, Crossley, and an HLF woman he didn’t know. He thought her name was Martineau, but he wasn’t sure.

“It’s Kraber!” the woman said, ducking and flattening themselves against the wall. “Oh, thank God!”

Kraber smiled slightly, and poked the MG2021 over the edge of the car, aiming for the sputter newfoals. They were running straight into the HLF lines, smiling widely as they bit on the mouth triggers for their SMGs. Long, barely-controllable saturating bursts ripped through the town, bullets embedding themselves in sidewalks, in wrecks, in houses. And, judging by the screams he heard, some unfortunate HLF.

God, I miss fighting PER that only threw vials and bodies at us, Kraber thought, just as a tree exploded behind him in a flash of purple. More fun, I didn’t think I was going to die, and I could just pile the varknaaiers up!

He looked towards a nearby tree, and then suddenly froze.

“FOK!” he yelled, pointing to two shapes that’d been behind the tree. Just behind it, he could see two shifting, warping shapes that looked almost like they’d once been people…

Well, they weren’t quite there yet. They were melting like candlewax, their bodies horrifically twisting into something inhuman. Their legs and spines bending in ways that bodies absolutely should not bend.

“You keep focused on the newcalf! I’ve got your back!” Kraber yelled at three others behind the car, letting loose a short burst of 7.62 in the direction of the two ponifying humans.

They fell like marionettes with their strings cut, blood oozing from their bodies - as if the potion was somehow pushing it out like water from a faucet. Not far away, the newcalf rampaged through their lines, machinegun rounds and pencil-thin beams of light ripping through HLF and trees alike. The gorilla-horses anchored themselves to the ground, making pained grunts that sounded far too deep to come from any set of lungs, and fired off massive beams through the streets of the town.

And the sputter newfoals kept coming. There were PER humans behind them, men and women armed with cheap rifles and submachineguns.

It was just then that Kraber realized his LMG had run dry. Fok! he cursed, sliding against the wall of the foxhole. He opened the LMG’s cover, ready to slide a belt into the feed tray.

A 5.56 round impacted a house behind Kraber and his two friends, leaving a much larger hole than it should have.

Magically enhanced, Kraber thought. Probably.

His face settled into a smirk.

Eh, mine’s bigger.

“Die, you defilers of nature! You rapists!” screamed an earth pony with two pipe SMGs on his saddle.

Something broke, deep within Kraber.

“DON’T YOU… EVER… FOKKING CALL ME A RAPIST!” Kraber yelled, nailing the earth pony in the balls with his revolver, leaving the new gelding screaming, hooves pressed to the bloody ruin of his crotch.

The bullet tore through the earth pony’s testicles like they weren’t even there, continuing on and ramming into a PER man’s left leg, exploding everything between his kneecap and the pelvis.

“CALL ME A DEFILER OF NATURE TOO?!” Kraber roared, twisting to the right and firing his massive revolver again. It split a PER man’s skull in half, vaporizing everything above the neck. Blood sprayed outward, spattering the trees red. “PISS UP A FOKKIN’ STICK, KONTGESIGS!”

“Ponify me!” the PER man screamed as he thrashed on the ground, his blood staining the pavement and grass. “I… have to be useful… to Queen… Celestia-”

A red pegasus mare flew over, a tuft of purple cloud held in her hooves, ready to ponify him. Kraber fired the revolver again, exploding the mare’s head before she could get anywhere near him. Good.

“YOU MONSTER!” screamed a purple, blank-flanked unicorn, crouched by a tree. He couldn’t have been more than a teenager when he’d been ponified. “He just wanted to serve his rightful ruler, and-”

“Shut,” Kraber said, “The fok. UP.”

He fired the pipebomb launcher under his MG2021. Like many members, he’d attached spikes to both ends of his pipebombs.

It tumbled through the air, tail over teakettle, and finally embedded itself in the unicorn’s throat.

“I was gonna blow up the tree,” Kraber laughed, “but that’s fokkin’ lekker!”

Gasping, choking and wheezing, he tried to telekinetically pull it out. Newfoals rushed to the unicorn’s aid, bringing willing hooves and magic to stem the blee-

!!CRACK!!

The pipebomb exploded, vaporizing the newfoal teen’s head.

The tree and newfoal did not become one of the largest frag grenades in the history of the Conversion War. But they came admirably close.

Nails, shrapnel, and bits of a wooden house nearby exploded outward, ripping through flesh and bark alike. All around, sputter newfoals and PER screamed as the tide of debris shredded them.

“FOKKIN’ KWAAI!” Kraber cackled, looking over the mass of screaming, bleeding PER.

He slipped another belt into the LMG’s feed tray, and hosed the varknaaiers down.

“DIE!” he yelled. “FOKKIN’ DIE, GODDAMN YOU! I JUST WANT A TALK WITH SHIELDWALL, IT’LL ONLY HURT FOR THE REST OF HIS FOKKIN’ LIFE!”

One PER woman just down the street suddenly screeched in agony, clutching at her cheek - except, as Kraber now saw, she had no cheek left. Instead, blood was welling up from from a gash that extended all the way down to her neck. He could see her teeth through it, even! With a single bullet blasted a complementary hole through her brainpan.

“WHICH WON’T BE VERY LONG!!” Kraber yelled.

Just nearby, he saw Dayoung and Megan behind another car. He heard the reliable, regular FWAM-FWAM-FWAM of Dayoung’s FAL, picking off sputter newfoals and PER with headshots.

And the heavy percussion of the Kalashnikov that Megan had borrowed from Lovikov.

Dayoung kept her mouth set in a determined, flat line. Megan had a sick grimace on her face as she opened fire with the heavy assault rifle.

“Jou doin’ lekker!” Kraber yelled, flashing them a thumbs up. “Just keep doing what you’re doing!”

And yet, despite all the spilled blood and wounds that should have killed anything with a sense of pain, the newfoals affiliated with the PER kept on coming, limping onwards on mangled stumps, blood, tears and spit flowing together as they fought into their death-throes.

Let them come! Let them fokking come! He’d rip them apart, make them pay for what they’d done! MAKE! THEM! PAY!

“DON’T DROP THE SOAP IN THIS LEAD SHOWER!” he roared.

The frenzy ascended mountains of violence. Kneecaps were shattered and limbs split, faces while ground against blood-stained rocks.

Ain’t I forgetting something? Kraber asked himself, then turned to his left to see the newcalf charging the four of them.

“FOK ME IN THE-” he yelled, and dove to the right, Martineau and Emil diving to the left. Crossley was slightly behind them.

Too far behind.

The newcalf barreled into the car with an almighty sound of metal wrenching and glass shattering. Crossley hadn’t quite gotten out of the way when a bit of shrapnel tumbled into the back of his calves, and he collapsed to the ground, gasping and wheezing.

He fell to the ground, struggling to pick himself up. It didn’t work. Both legs gave out under him, and he fell on his face.

The newcalf circled back to Crossley, and he screamed like Kraber had rarely if ever heard a man scream.

There was a twang, and Crossley twitched. There was a sound that made Kraber think of a balloon being popped.

And Crossley began twitching in his armor. Under the man’s homemade anti-potion mask, Kraber could see his eyes bugging out, pushing themselves so far out the sockets they looked like they’d press against the plastic of the mask.

“HELP ME!” the blond man screeched. “IN CE…. IN CE…. IN GOD’S NAME, HELP!”

Kraber stared through his reflex sight, and fired off a single round. Crossley’s head exploded, and he fell still.

“We helped him!” one of the ponies on the newcalf screamed, turning the machinegun towards the car they were using as cover. “WE WERE HELPING-”

“HOU JOU FOKKIN’ BEK, JOU VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber roared, turning the MG2021’s muzzle to the charging abomination.

The newcalf staggered, juddered slightly under the hail of bullets, but Kraber’s PHL-enhanced LMG didn’t seem to be causing anything above minor annoyance.

And then Lovikov stepped in, holding a ridiculous-looking rifle like a pipe with an oversized banana-clip jammed in the bottom. Kraber knew the things - a .50 BMG, open-bolt automatic monstrosity with an anemic fire rate but high stopping power.

“YOB TVOYU MAT!” Lovikov yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Holy shit, he’s insane,” Emil breathed, staring at the heavyset Ukrainian as he began firing.

Even as Kraber swept the LMG across the street, it was impossible not to want to see Lovikov opening fire on the massive thing.

Typically, you needed a heavy hunting rifle round to punch through a newcalf’s hide.

Lovikov had an open-bolt monster loaded with wildcat rounds, most of which were armor-piercing.

They tore through the newcalf’s hide, puncturing the thick leathery hide… but, Kraber noticed, not coming out the other end.

Must be doing some fokkin’ lekker damage in there, Kraber thought approvingly.

The newcalf staggered under the hail of bullets. Blood oozed from its massive wounds, and then one of its front legs abruptly stopped being a leg.

That was as best Kraber could explain it. When the newcalf’s bleeding right front leg hit the earth, it flopped and buckled bonelessly. The thing - a look of surprise or relief on its face - careened off to the right, its skull smashing against a tree.

There was a crack, like a watermelon being dropped from a great height.

“GET UP!” the natural-born pony on its back screamed. “BUCKING USELE-”

Emil shot him through the throat with his M4.

The newcalf tried to get up, of course. It staggered on unsteady legs, unable to support its own weight.

The ponies standing on its back turned to Lovikov. They swiveled the machinegun and the odd laser-like device they called “Celestia’s Spear” towards him.

Kraber and Emil were far quicker, filling the FOKKIN’ GLUESTICKS with lead before they could even get a bead on Lovikov.

“LO-VI-KOV!” Emil cheered, and Kraber found himself joining.

The heavyset Ukrainian jammed another magazine home, and fired again, the heavy rounds puncturing the thick skin of the newcalf.

“LO-VI-KOV!”

It blinked at Lovikov, and for a second, Kraber saw something in its eyes. Something like pity, remorse, or anticipation.

It didn’t last more than half a second. Lovikov’s oversized rifle chewed the massive thing into paste, painting the street in blood, bits of bone, and viscera.

“LO-VI-KOV!”

“BROTHERS AND SISTERS!” Lovikov howled, “TONIGHT! WE TAKE BACK WHAT IS OURS!”

“WE TAKE IT BACK!” Kraber yelled, hearing himself chorusing with the other HLF.

“They’ve got another wave coming!” Emil yelled. “Think we can take it?”

Kraber answered the only way that seemed appropriate to him.

“JOU FOKKIN SCUM BLIKSEMS!” he yelled, firing into the mass of sputter newfoals. One hand on the LMG’s jacket, he swept the thing across the battlefield again.

“GET INTO COVER!” a PER man screamed, an SMG in hand. “NEWFOALS, EVERYONE, GET INTO-”

For a fraction of a second, Kraber had a thought as he looked to the PER man.

‘Should I, or shouldn’t I? he thought, as one of his shots drilled through the back of a newfoal’s skull, leaving it crumbling to the ground in an awkward quadrupedal pirouette.

‘Ah, fok it, Kraber thought, aiming the LMG a millimeter or two upward. “JOU! HOU JOU FOKKIN’ BEK!” he roared, letting loose two rounds into the PER man’s jaw.

Everything under the PER man’s nose was red for a fraction of a second, and then there wasn’t anything left. There was a riotous splash of red over his vest, the trees, the houses, a newfoal next to him.

He made… noises. Pitiful, wailing, throaty, warbles.

“KORSO, NO!” someone screamed, and Kraber looked up, tracking the source to a flock of pegasi above…

They wore bandoliers of purplish-colored crossbow bolts, with SMGs similar to those used by sputter newfoals sitting below their wings in assault yokes. Small, boxy devices he knew to be crossbows were strapped just above their hooves. Each of them wore gas masks with dark lenses, and wisps of purple flitted around them.

He watched one of the pegasi tap a hoof to the bandoliers, sliding a bolt into the far-too-small crossbow and fire. The bolt punched through the jawless man, and he began to contort and spasm under his armor. His eyes bugged out, and his skull sounded like a bag full of sticks being crushed…

Kraber watched as the man’s skin melted like candlewax, as fur sprouted from beneath the skin so quickly he swore he saw blood. One eye’s pupil was bigger than the other, shaking slightly and looking towards the ground, like it wasn’t quite in the socket. Probably because it wasn’t. His chin stretched forward as his nose pushed itself further and further into his face.

Never get used to that, Kraber thought, biting back a wave of nausea. For a moment, he wondered about shooting the man - trying to see how much the potion could put together until the body simply failed. Meanwhile, Kraber would laugh hysterically as the potioned screamed in agony.

Ah, fok it. We have bigger things to deal with! he thought, aiming for the PER pegasi in the sky.

“Potioneer pegasi, two-o-clock!” Lovikov yelled, switching to a pump-action shotgun he’d picked up from somewhere.

He fired into one of them. It staggered - if that was the right word - and corkscrewed into a tree with an unsettling crack. Blood poured from every joint of his barding. Kraber laughed, realising that the buckshot rounds had gone right through one of the ‘sweet spot’ gaps in the pony’s barding, and ricocheted repeatedly off the inside of the armor plates, multiplying the internal damage to ludicrous levels. His organs were most likely paste.

“ATTACK!” the pegasus mare at the front yelled, firing the SMGs in its assault yoke.

Kraber ducked as the bullets peppered the ground, fragments of pavement and bits of dust dancing through the air where the bullets hit.

“Merry May!” he heard that same pegasus mare yelled. “Release cloudburst!”

Cloudburst?! Kraber thought, alarmed. They’re going to release potion clouds!

Most of the HLF kept gas masks on hand, just in case, but quite a few simply didn’t. Not enough money, for starters. If the pegasi made potion-clouds, and turned the things on the HLF… well, a lot of them would die. Visibility would be shot. If they took off the gas masks, they’d be fokked.

“TEAR THEM UP!” Kraber yelled. “We can’t let the varknaaiers get clo-!”

It would be difficult to say later what made him stop. The slight crack that Kraber heard through the cacophony of the battle shouldn’t have been audible, and maybe it wasn’t. But either way, he saw a leaf move strangely just behind them.

What was that?!

He heard the whipcrack of a crossbow, and then saw Martineau, the woman who’d been standing next to him and Emil make a strange, horrible noise Kraber could only describe as a “gasp-scream.” Then-

“KIll me!” Martineau screamed, her back arching at an impossible angle. “KILL ME!”

“SHE’S PONIFYING!’ Kraber yelled, frantically noticing the thick wooden shaft embedded in her chest, dripping with something purple.

The fokkin’ potion!

“KILL ME!’ the woman screamed, her back still impossibly arched. “FOR THE LOVE OF-”

There was only one thing that scream could possibly mean, and Kraber felt himself sweating under his armor, and the drysuit he wore to repel potion.

“Aweh,” Kraber said, forcing some calm into his voice, and turned the MG2021’s muzzle on Martineau’s face.

Two rounds burst out the muzzle, and everything above her neck exploded outwards. Kraber’s armor was painted red and gray in the splash of brains, blood, and viscera.

He stared, for a second, almost transfixed at the scattered remains and strands of muscle where her neck used to be moved in the wind - no. Not wind. They all moved in different directions, waving more like worms, stretching forward by millimeters.

Kraber felt almost sick as he saw it. No matter how many times he saw someone ponify, it always found new ways to shock and horrify him.

“Oh, shit,” Emil hissed. “PHANTOMS! WE GOT PHANTOMS!”

‘So they’ve thrown the fokkin’ monster newfoals at us, the sputter newfoals, and Phantoms,’ Kraber thought. ‘If the camp doesn’t have Shieldwall, it’s gotta have some important kak.’

“HOLD THE LINE!” Lovikov yelled from somewhere, as Emil reloaded.

“Fokkin’ phantoms!” Kraber yelled, scanning the terrain for something that suggested a phantom. A leaf that didn’t sit right? A branch that was bent? A breeze that wasn’t a breeze? A patch of air that seemed lighter than it should be? Fokdammit! It was always so much easier to spot invisible varknaaiers in videogames! he thought.

He and Emil scanned the surrounding area.

“STOP FOKKIN’ TOYING WITH US AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN, JOU FOKKIN’ DOPKAAS!” Kraber yelled.

There!

A tree branch. Bent… not quite right.

Kraber and Emil opened fire, their rifles deluging round after round into the general area of the branch.

It fell to the ground, harmlessly.

...shit.

And somehow, over the sounds of battle all around him, he heard Emil scream at the top of his lungs.

The world slowed down. He twisted back towards Emil, seeing the runnel in his friend’s suit. He saw the bolt embedded in the dirt. He traced the path of the bolt, turning back towards the fallen branch….

And seeing movement. What movement, he wasn’t sure, but something was coming. Right. At. Him!

“JOU FOKKIN’ HOLNAAIER POES!” Kraber yelled, ripping the bowie knife out of his shoulder holster.

He admittedly wasn’t sure what’d happen next, but that’d never stopped him. He shifted to the right, leaning on that leg, dipping downwards faster than he could completely perceive. He held the knife in one hand, white-knuckled.

And then he thrust forward, the curved tip of the knife meeting something in midair that should not have been.

“RAAAAAARGH!” Kraber yelled, holding both hands around the knife as it skewed back in his hands. Blood sprayed all over him, splashing his suit. “HOW JOU LIKE ME NOW, JOU PIECE OF KAK!” he laughed, forcing the knife deeper and deeper into the body.

The pony was silent.

Newfoal, then, Kraber thought idly, and ripped the knife out.

He could see a large red, bleeding scar in midair, the cloth of the pony’s invisibility flightsuit torn beyond functionality. It was hard to describe - he could see something like a glass outline of a pony, except some parts were more opaque than others.

It keeled to Kraber’s left.

“NO JOU FOKKIN’ DON’T, JOU SHRIMP-DICKED FOKMAGGOTS!” Kraber yelled, driving his boot forward, straight into the pony’s skull.

It tumbled to the ground with a sickening crack, and was still.

“JOU FOKKIN POESNEUS!” he yelled, stamping on the neck for good measure.

CRACK

He was rewarded with the crunchy sound of vertebrae collapsing.

God, I love that sound! Kraber thought. FOKKING ponies.

Satisfied for the barest instant, Kraber turned back towards Emil, back towards the PER camp trying to find a fresh target.

OH FOK NO!

The runnel in Emil’s armor had gone much deeper than either of them thought. Kraber could see pinkish fur bursting out from the hole, which looked much, much wider than it should have been. Emil lay back against the wall of a store, back arched in a silent scream. A horn had already begun to cut out from behind the gas mask, and Kraber stood in stark horror, trying not to imagine what his friend looked like under the armor.

He didn’t have to. Before Kraber’s eyes, a pink unicorn newfoal was stabbing his way out of the empty drysuit and bulletproof armor. Like a butterfly ripping itself from a chrysalis.

“Poeskak!” Kraber breathed, staring at what had once been his friend. “Emil, I’m so sorry!”

“Emil?” the newfoal asked, cocking his head, his horn glowing with a blue aura. “I’m Pas de Deux now! Won’t you dance with m-”

Kraber easily sidestepped the clumsy bolt of magic, pistol in one hand, and fired. The revolver bucked in his hand, and the bullet obliterated the skull of the thing that had once been Emil. For a fraction of a second, the newfoal’s skull was intact… until it wasn’t, as the skull sprayed outward in great meaty chunks, spattering against the trees and Kraber’s armor.

“I’m… so… so sorry,” Kraber whispered, as the still-smiling husk went ‘splat’ on the pavement.

The corpse still twitched, like the body was unaware the spirit had left. Emil had been… well, he was a wonderful dancer, and such a great kisser. He and Kraber had shared many a night together, looking up at the stars, sometimes falling out the tent and rolling down a hill… and he had been able to make dishes slopped together from forest mushrooms, stolen butter, and meat of unidentifiable provenance feel utterly delicious.

He’d been a kind soul, except when it came to ponies.

When off the field, he’d been almost saintly. On it, he’d been a nightmare.

“GODDAMN HOERKIND PONIES!” Kraber screamed, thumbing a spare round into his magnum, Kraber quickly scanned the battlefield, and came to a delighted conclusion: the enemy wasn’t advancing anymore. They were falling back. Trying to consolidate their defenses.

He smiled, despite himself. If this livestock wanted to wade into the meat-grinder, then he was happy to oblige. This was gonna be perfect.

Oh, so many ponies were going to die…

Kraber rushed across the street, finding himself in an alleyway between two houses. When he found himself on the next street, he found himself stopping, disgusted.

‘Well,’ Kraber thought, ‘Fok me in the ass.’

It had been a bloodbath. No two ways about it. More battle newfoals lay dad in between the wrecked trees, and one of the gorilla-horses lay dead at the walls of the camp.

There were more than a few dead HLF at Kraber’s feet, though. People who’d taken crossbow bolts to the face, been filled with lead… people who’d been ponified, and shot midway through the transformation. It was a gruesome sight.

We always lose so many here, Kraber thought. He felt…. Off, somehow. Weak.

He saw a PER pony behind a house, firing off the SMGs in their harness. Beside them, a human looked to be loading some kind of fat crossbow with another bolt.

Kraber felt his lips curl up in a sneer under his gas mask.

Sies, Kraber thought. Ponies. Humans. Working together like that? With the FOKKIN’ GLUESTICKS THAT’D TURN US INTO FOKKIN’ ZOMBIES?!

In that moment, it was too much for him to bear watching these two working together. Rage enveloped Kraber, and he opened fire, chopping them to pieces with 7.62 rounds.

‘Nothing good,’ Kraber thought, ‘ever came of it.’

“Damn,” someone breathed, and Kraber turned to see Dayoung and Megan, in cover behind a car.

“So,” Kraber said, almost conversationally, “How’s the first day on the job?”

Dayoung didn’t answer. Neither did Megan.

“Look,” Kraber said, “It gets easier when you think about who’s on the other end of the barrel.”

He raked the LMG side to side, scanning the street for signs of movement. It was just then that he saw it - a human with a purple armband, clutching a rifle that looked too smooth somehow. He was wearing an odd patchwork of armor, some looking almost medieval, some almost modern. A large paintball pistol - likely loaded with ponification splats - rode his hip.

The human didn’t say anything as they readied their gun. He was fast, his reflexes possibly enhanced somehow by whatever the PER had put in his armor.

But then, Kraber had an LMG already pointed in the man’s general direction. He didn’t need speed. A long, saturating burst exploded out the MG2021’s barrel, gas jetting out the holes in the flash hider.

It took more rounds than Kraber would’ve expected to bring down the varknaaier. 7.62mm rounds hammered against his armor, and yet the man still moved. Kraber saw what he could only describe as a crater in the man’s rib section.

What the fok is that armor made of? he thought over a fraction of a second, before another round hit the crater.

When the bullet hit, it was like Kraber had punched through a water tank - blood exploded outwards, splashing against the pavement. The man fell to the ground, clutching his side, still completely silent.

Kraber didn’t blink, and hosed him down with the MG2021’s belt until he stopped moving.

“See, that wasn’t a fellow human,” Kraber said, almost conversationally. “That was a fokkin’ perdnaaier. That was a mal fok who’d ponify newborns in the ward. Remember that, suddenly things stop mattering as much.”

“RETREAT!” Kraber heard someone screaming, “PER! Retreat! They’re killing us out there!”

He stared down the street,

“MENSCHABWEHRFRAKTION!” Lovikov yelled. “ADVANCE!”

As the PER rushed for the factory, the HLF followed, blazing away with their weaponry. Whenever Kraber saw any PER, he fired off his LMG. PER fell like puppets with cut strings, and Kraber laughed hysterically as it happened.

“THIS IS FOR YOU Emil, JOU PIELKOPS!” Kraber roared, the LMG spitting hot lead into anything in Kraber’s field of vision. “FOR MY WIFE KATE! FOR PETER AND ANKA! FOR COUSIN RICHARD! FOR EVERYONE ELSE IN OUR LIVES YOU TOOK AND FOKKED UP THE GAT!”

As if to punctuate that sentence, he aimed for a newfoal and fired, shattering its left legs in a spray of gore. The bullet punched through it, and it fell to the ground, gasping, still trying to push itself along on its remaining legs even as there were great chunks of muscle missing.

“I WILL LICK JOUR FOKKIN’ SPINES CLEAN FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE!” Kraber bellowed. “GONNA KILL YOU ALL!”

The epiphany, when it came, was surprisingly gentle. It neither struck him like a blow or beat him around the heat. It was more like a wave that gently washed over him, before running back out through a metaphoric hole in his gullet.

And with it went all of his rage and fire, leaving him naked and empty, alone with himself in the dark nadir of the soul.

Who had he saved recently, if he was honest with himself? Prisoners, maybe, but… had he been heroic? Had he left someone thinking “I am genuinely grateful for this man’s existence?” Had he felt satisfied for saving someone?

Not… recently. He’d killed ponies.

But… somehow that didn’t feel like enough, he thought, even as he watched the HLF all around him mow the newfoals down.

The forest town, and the troopers roared.

It was the height of summer, he was wearing full body armor, and yet Viktor suddenly felt cold...

What remained of the HLF had finally made it to the PER-taken factory, thank to Lovikov, Benning, and Kraber’s efforts. They had paid in blood and treasure to spells and ponification, but they had arrived.

Now for the part Kraber had been most looking forward to.

“Kwaai,” he said, unholstering his shotgun. He slapped Lovikov on the back with his left hand, a smile on his face. “Let’s get ready to bliksem them.”

“Da,” Lovikov said, a borrowed Saiga autoshotgun in both hands.

“GET TO THE PORTALS, NOW!” someone was yelling over a series of intercoms. Kraber’s best guess was that it was Shieldwall.

“They have portals?!” asked Sully, his Kalashnikov shaking in both hands. “Shit! We could be looking at a full-scale-”

“No,” Lovikov interrupted. “That doesn’t make sense. This is a fairly standard grab-and-run PER attack. The portals are more likely an escape route. We cut them off, destroy the portals, and burn the petuchaks. Blanchett, pass me a molly?”

The scarred woman smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

Lovikov walked up to a door, tossed a molotov cocktail through, and opened fire with his shotgun. It ripped through the room on full-auto, and Kraber heard screams of agony. All around them, PER were burning, and had Kraber not been wearing a gas mask, he would have savoured the wonderfully sweet aroma of cooking flesh. All the horsefuckers, the goddamn race-traitors and betrayers, the merry-go-round toys were burning to death.

Not exactly an ironically fitting punishment, but not an undeserved one either.

More screams, the squeals of ponies and humans burning alive. Good.

“What’s in here, anyway?” asked Dan the Gunner, peering inside.

In it, they could see something that looked like an archway built of junk and wood, standing freely in the middle of the room despite its structural implausibility. Lovikov’s autoshotgun was trained on the thing.

“That’s a damn portal!” said blond woman named Remillard. She’d been PHL, once upon a time - and left for the HLF. She’d never explained why. Either way, despite this - or maybe because of it - she’d risen through the Menschabwehrfraktion’s ranks, easily becoming a favored soldier of Lovikov’s.

“Tell us something we don’t know, Abby,” Lovikov sighed.

“Well, for starters… it’s short-range. Not imperial-made, looks like PER work,” Remillard said. “And it looks inactive. So, on the plus side, we’re not at risk of an invasion. On the other hand, there’s a PER base somewhere that we know nothing about.”

“Could we go through?” Dayoung asked, FAL held towards the portal, almost lazily.

“Nyet,” Lovikov said. “We don’t have the IFF, and even if we did… we don’t want to end up like Johnson.”

“Who’s-” Megan started, before Kraber waved her off.

“Don’t ask,” he said. “You’re happier not knowing.”

Kraber watched Remillard look the room over. Sometimes, he hated the woman. Wanted to hold her by the shoulders, and demand to know how she could’ve ever sunk so low as to work with ponies.

But for now, she was helping, and Kraber could let it slide.

“Huh,” Remillard said, looking at a table. “What’s this?”

Following Remillard’s gaze, he saw a glowing yellow crystal a little bigger than a railroad spike - something that’d likely be worth a lot of money before the War. Maybe more, nowadays, if the HLF found a buyer.

“Looks magic,” Blanchett said, as Remillard reached into her backpack for a set of tongs and a plastic container of some kind.

Kraber snorted. ‘Obviously.’

“Whatever it is,” Remillard said, placing the crystal in the container, “It looks important. Reminds me of that crystal stuff we see Imperials and PER using now and then.”

Kraber thought back to that. It did look familiar. And he had seen Imperials and PER using strange, crystalline equipment now and then

“I could maybe use some of my contacts in Portland to get to Romero, ask him for inf-”

“We are not,” Lovikov said, “Going. To talk. To that. Bastard.”

“Who’s Romero?” Megan asked, confused.

“Aweh,” Kraber said, “Jou know we’re one side of the HLF, people like Yarrow-”

“Yarrow,” Megan said, “Yarrow… the Englishman with the, ah, the energy weapons? All the Norse stuff?”

Kraber bristled at being interrupted, but he choked it down. Megan was a kid, after all.

“You know about that,” said Dan the Gunner, “But not Romero?”

“To be fair,” Kraber said, moving between Dan and Megan, “Romero likes to keep a low profile.”

“But seriously,” Megan asked. “Who’s Romero?”

“He’s on Yarrow’s side of the Split,” Kraber continued. “Their R&D. We get people like Remillard, they have Romero. Word is, not only does he supply newtech, but-”

And then Kraber heard it.

“HELP!”

Everybody snapped to alert, weapons out and scanning the area.

“Who said that?!”

“HELP!” the voice yelled again. “They’ve got us in the basement!”

Lovikov pointed towards the corridor. “I saw a set of stairs heading into the basement,” he said. There was certainly at least one easily-guarded hole that was perfect for holding prisoners…

As he moved, Viktor holstered his lovely new MG and unlimbered his shotgun. It consisted of two Mossberg pump-actions that had been welded together. Answering a nod from Lovikov with a small salute, he approached first. Just as insurance, he’d already changed the filter on his gas mask.

“Please!” the voice called out as he descended the stairs.

“You heard the guns!” another chimed in. “They’re here to save us!”

This speaker sounded younger. Like a child. Oh, if the PER had taken child prisoners, he was gonna slaughter whoever was left.

“Shut up!” someone else yelled, and there was the sound of a hoof against flesh.

Kraber kept his silence as he rounded the back of a pockmarked, crumbling wall of cinderblocks, an open room lit by a guttering lightbulb ahead. There was a single door at one end of the room. A single unicorn newfoal was standing guard, and immediately spun towards Kraber, casting clumsy spells. They were easily dodged, but the newfoal’s focus on the South African gave Benning the perfect opening to slip in behind the beast and snap its neck between two gloved hands.

“Nicely done,” approved Lovikov. “Guard down, without expending any ammo.”

Viktor however had already moved to take cover at the door, and was cautiously shining a torch down it with one hand while cradling the double-Mossberg in the other.

“Sound off!” he called. “If you’re prisoners, identify yourselves!”

“Yes! They’re holding us captive!”

“Silence!” screamed an incoherent voice, and Kraber winced.

“How many are guards are in there with you?” he demanded, ignoring the guard’s protestations.

“Only the two! He-ARGH!”

The sound of a body being beaten gave the needed opportunity. While the guard was engaged with beating his prisoners, Kraber threw himself out of cover and sprinted down the tunnel. His eyes did not have time to adjust to the dark, but there was no need, not from the pocket of light cast by the horn of a male unicorn as he laid into his victim with a levitated crowbar. A female stood beside him, a phial of potion in her mouth. His focus entirely on the stallion, Kraber ignored the mare, whose head exploded courtesy of a well-placed round fired down from the tunnel mouth.

The ‘CRACK’ of the bullet was deafening in the closed space, but not as loud as the smash as Kraber brought his shotgun’s stock down on the stallion’s head. The animal ducked at the last second, rolling aside so that the swipe missed him. The glaze of his wide, almost swollen-to-bursting eyes told his entire story: newfoal.

“They deserved it!” he shrieked. “You’re all apes, monsters, and-”

“I don’t fokking have time for this, jou bliksem,” Kraber sighed, kicking it in the face. The horizontal adit was plunged into darkness as the light of newfoal’s horn was snuffed out, but the Afrikaner heard his opponent landing at his feet, and grabbed it by the tail.

With little pause, he dragged the unconscious beast out into the open air and pressed the snout of the double-shotgun into the soft vicinity of its sheathed genitals.

D-DHOOM!

He fired with both barrels. Everything below the pony’s ribcage simply vanished, leaving the approach cutting to the adit slick with blood and viscera. The hindlegs flew off in separate directions, slamming into the rock walls with wet, meaty thumps. Ignoring the explosion of blood, Kraber reloaded the gun and, turning, returned inside the mine...

...only to find a stunned Lovikov.

“Where’s the prisoners?” Viktor grunted, before the wannabe-zampolit pointed with his torch at a few silent figures cowering against the rough-hewn side of the tunnel.

Ponies.

The beam of light illuminated a stallion and a mare, along with three little foals. They were crying, miserable beyond all belief. ‘Mutilated’ was a mild word to describe what had been done to them. The walls of their hooves had been peeled away, leaving bloody nubs of soft tissue on which it would be impossible to walk. Each equine was covered in the scum of their own tears, shit, spit and blood, leaving them so filthy that Kraber couldn’t even tell what color they had been when they’d come out of the womb. Their cutie marks had been cut off, wings clipped back to the bone, and their horns chiselled away.

And worst of all was their silence. You could see the pain and grief in their eyes, but they could not vocalise it. They had been systemically traumatized beyond even screaming.

“P...pliss,” whispered the stallion. “I… am PHL. I am important to them.”

He repeated the words, almost as if it was a mantra. Time and again he spoke, invoking the name of the Ponies for Human Life as if it was an invocation, a warding spell of protection.

And Kraber? Kraber...

...did not kill them. No, instead he shot ‘Comrade Lovikov’ in the balls and bitchslapped Blanchett to the ground with the gun. Then he’d carried the stricken family to a getaway vehicle and driven them to safety.

...yes, that was it. He’d run away with them, and joined the PHL. Repentant, he had patched up refugees as a trauma surgeon, once more devoting himself to life and healing rather than death and destruction. He’d risen high. He’d crippled the HLF by bringing along plenty of other disaffected ‘reformists’, which essentially ripped out their conscience, but made them desperate enough to do downright stupid things. At the end, the HLF would just be a hate group, trusted by few and reduced to such terrible actions that they’d be guaranteed little (if any) sympathy. Oakes would be dead, Birch would be dead too, and maybe - just maybe - he’d helped people.

He’d been skilled, and gifted, and gained enough traction as the resident ‘House, MD’ to convince command to finance the medical radio drama he’d longed to create...a dream that he nurtured from the day when Miranda Severance (who worked at PHL biology now, didn’t she?) linked him to a version of episode 19 of Night Vale, with Kevin and Cecil’s reactions synched up to show the contrast between them. And maybe, just maybe, using the traction he’d gained from that after the barrier somehow fell

how was it going to fall?

he’d be able to finance a movie about his life, maybe directed by Ilya Naishuller, maybe by Neil Blomkamp. And he’d be played by Sharlto Copley, of course… and vice versa.

He’d taught himself to draw, to paint and write. He’d given himself over to reinvent himself, to be anything other than the bastard who shot prisoners-

No. That was a lie.

What Kraber had done, what he had really done, was laugh hysterically.

Yeah. Confronted with that brutalised family of newfoals, he had laughed, and mocked the father’s ‘words of power’ as he and Lovikov riddled them with bullets.

They’d killed the foals first.

One daughter, a pegasus, had tried to fly away with her tattered wings, and the crunch she made as she hit the ground had been hilarious.

None of them screamed. Even then, none of them had made so much as a sound. That had been a little disappointing. They might have had the good grace to make things as amusing as possible.

So Kraber had filled the silence by laughing. When it was time to execute the parents, he’d done it personally, admiring the pretty rorschach patterns the sprays of blood had made against the rock and dirt.

And he’d relished every second, gleefully slaughtering each of the invaders. Each of the spies. Each of the fuckers - or buckers, that’s how they said it, ja? - that had brutalised and persecuted mankind, abused human trust and exploited human kindness.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The mare and the stallion he’d killed slowly, placing a bullet in each limb and then gradually working his way up through the abdomen to the neck. Blanchett had taken comparative notes, and expressed surprise when the stallion refused to die from blood-loss alone.

No, finishing that bastard off had required one last slug right in the socket that had housed his horn. The rage, the betrayal, and condemnation in his eyes as he stared up at Kraber had been striking, not just for its sheer intensity, but for how impotent it had been…

...as Kraber proved when he’d laughed one last time and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

He’d gone into the camp skop, skiet, and donner, he had completed his slaughter with a laugh, and a contemptuous kick.

Which was only natural, of course. They were ponies, they were the invaders, they’d destroyed the world and killed billions….

At least, that was what he told himself.

After The Battle

They were on their way back to the APC when Dayoung looked up to Kraber, Megan following close behind. The fleet of vehicles were pocked with bullets, and at least two had been smashed into unrecognizable hunks of metal by pony magic, but they were mostly alright.

Dayoung and Megan followed behind Kraber, Remillard, Lovikov, Benning, Sully, and Dan. They had a truckload of things they'd taken from the town as 'payment' - TVs, food, et cetera.

“Are jou okay?” Kraber asked, looking back to the two teenagers.

“You killed the ponies in the basement, didn’t you?” Dayoung asked, her voice unsteady.

Kraber nodded. “Ja. I did.”

He didn’t offer elaboration. Why should I? he thought.

“That’s what Michael Carter did, isn’t it?” Megan asked.

Kraber pondered that. “No. I didn’t go nearly that far.”

“How can you say that?” Megan asked. “They were-”

“For all we know, they could’ve been spies, or PER,” Dayoung said. “Why else would they be there? While everyone was arguing?”

Kraber clapped Dayoung on the back, a smile on his face. This stukkie, he thought. she gets it. “Far as I’m concerned,” he said, “I don’t give a fok. You remember what’s come to this world with ponies, the end of my home, this verdamnt war… then suddenly, killing a few starts feeling like a public fokkin’ service.”

“Da,” Lovikov said. “It’s what anyone in the HLF learns. Anyone in America, or Africa, or China can talk a big game about unity and friendship, right up until they lose their homes.”

Kraber watched Dayoung pause for a few seconds, shrug, and nod.

“I get it,” Megan said. “I think I do.”

They got into the truck and sped off towards Defiance.

As Kraber sat in the truck’s bed, Dayoung and Megan at the other end, a thought came to him. It wasn’t exactly something he could write in perfect grammar. If anything, it was something vaguely verbalized, along the lines of ‘That doesn’t make sense none of this does’ or possibly ‘does this feel right’.

Except both at the same time.

‘So what doesn’t make sense?’ he asked himself. ‘These people… well, they weren’t happy to see us. Even if it was in the middle of a war zone, they weren’t happy for us to save them.’

Ungrateful? No. Apprehensive. Worried. Unwelcoming.

What would make them so… so… Kraber thought, searching for the word. Unzufrieden mit us? They must’ve cared about ponies, yes, but… we’re only trying to help! It’s not like they could care about the fokkin’ gluesticks so much they would be afraid of us!

Except… we killed a family of… no, I killed ponies. I killed… a family of ponies?

I killed a family, Kraber thought, unable to unthink it. Killed. A. Family.

Still. I’ve done this countless times. What makes them so different?

“Hey,” said Dan the Gunner, looking down to Kraber from his position near the LMG, “What’s wrong? You gettin’ carsick?”

“It’s just….” Kraber said, shifting his hand from side to side in the almost universal hand motion for ‘ehhhhhhh...’. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Well, I’m sure that some time off in Defiance will set you right,” Dan said. “Around your friends. Around people who believe in the HLF wholeheartedly, unlike those jagoffs.”

Kraber turned towards Dan, curiously.

“I mean honestly. Not the hero’s welcome we expect. Least we’re coming back to people who appreciate us,” Dan sighed.

‘Somehow,’ Kraber thought, ‘I’m not completely sure that’s what I need.’

‘Where did that thought come from?’

December 2022
Dancing Day

“Wherever that thought came from,” Kraber tells you, “It didn’t leave. And I was thinking of that when I saw you in the trunk. The looks in their eyes. The realization that no matter what you were, I’d destroyed a family.”

He pauses. Aegis trots over to him, beer bottle in his jaws, and places it on the table next to his friend.

“Dankie, my bru,” Kraber says, ruffling the scraggly strands of mane that trail behind Aegis’ red bandanna.

“You’re welcome,” Aegis says. “Figured you’d need it after that story.”

“That’s horrible!” you yell, but then you remember what Kraber did in Montreal. The bond that he and Aegis share. Kraber has, you think, made up for what he’s done. Or at the very least, he’s on the way to doing it.

“It was,” Kraber says, the emotion blasted form his voice. “And I hope to God I can make up for it.”

“But I still have more question,” I say. “How did you get to Montreal? With us in the car trunk? And how did you and Aegis get to be such good friends if you were-”

“You’re sure you want to know?” Kraber asks.

I nod. “I”m sure.”

“Well,” Kraber says, “This is going to be a looooooong one.”

Author's Note

...Wow.

You know, Kate calling Kraber and having him hear this didn't happen in the original story, but it was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing here. And... good cripes, that was horrible. I think I need a drink, I'm too sober to deal with the fact that I wrote that. As for why Kraber didn't hear it until it was too late? Well, he doesn't like to use his phone while driving on account of nearly dying like that when he was in college.

Now some of you new readers (do I have new readers?) may be thinking: "THESE PEOPLE ARE DICKS!" I mean, I did kind of write them being ready to loot civilians, and looting. I mean, it wasn't

Good. That's the intended reaction to the HLF - and Kraber. Promise, though, Kraber gets better.

It'll take some time, though.

03: I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire (wait yes I do)

Light Despondent Remixed
Chapter 3:
I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire

Shouts out to Jed R, Sledge115, and Vox for all their help.

December 24, 2022
New York City

Dancing Day

Aegis walks back in the room, carrying a tablet with a rubbery plastic shell in his mouth. Something bulges from his saddlebag.

There’s a woman and a pony onscreen. A tall, thin woman with light brown skin, black hair, and deep green eyes. A purplish-pink pegasus with a turquoise-and-pink mane, and aquamarine eyes.

“So what’s this about, Kraber?” the woman asks. It’s hard not to recognize that deep, authoritative voice. You can’t tell if it’s inherently angry or just that commanding.

You know that voice. Most people do. It’s Yael Ze’ev, without a doubt.

“I’m telling the story of how I defected,” Viktor says. “The whole fokkin’ thing. And it’s naw complete without the both of you. I’ve been recording the whole thing, so I’m thinking we could maybe make the story into a book.”

“Sounds like a huge book,” says the pegasus. Heliotrope. Who, going by the story she tells, was named after her birth color by her parents.

“Yeah, it’ll probably need some rewrites,” Viktor admits. “I’ve tried this before, but this time I have a plan. So this time, I’m going to have your stories from the start. Everything gets some foundations – none of this telling-it-as-I-go-along kak.”

“Yeah,” Heliotrope says,

“You,” Yael says, a smile creeping across her face, “asking us. For help.”

“Well, why not?” Kraber asks. “Isn’t that the kind of big fokkin’ lesson we learned at the end of this?”

“We even had a musical number!” Heliotrope added.

“Iff’s mrnn mrmrstian mrmdition,” Aegis says, mouth still around the tablet.

“...What?” Heliotrope asks, as Aegis gingerly places the tablet on a nearby table.

“I said,” Aegis says, before reaching into his saddlebag. He comes out with what looks like a lump of rose quartz with an audio cable attached, then plugs it in to the iPad.

Before your eyes, pinkish-tinted holograms of Yael and Heliotrope appear, projected from the crystal at almost-but-not-quite lifesize.

“That it’s an Equestrian tradition,” Aegis says, smiling proudly.

“How did you…” Elena asks, confused.

“Asked,” Aegis says, still proud. “Politely.”

“Well that was nice of you, Aegis,” Yael says.

“By the way,” Kraber says. “Where’s Lorne? Oscar? Or Eva, or QS?”

“Lorne and Eva took time off to visit their families, and Oscar and QS are playing videogames,” Heliotrope explains. “Wasn’t in the mood to interrupt them.”

“Hope they’re doing well,” Aegis says.

“Oh, they are! Did you visit your family too?” Heliotrope asks.

“Ja,” Kraber says. “Didn’t spend too much time, though – they’re still a bit mad at me. But hey, Dad’s trying, so are Tania and Lauw. It really hurt being around Lauw’s kid, though – he can barely look at me even for a second…”

Kraber stares down at the floor. “Would’ve left if Aegis hadn’t begged me to go.”

“You had to,” Aegis says. “I couldn’t just let you be alone the whole time.”

“But… I would’ve been with you,” Kraber says, confused.

“You can’t push yourself away from them forever,” Aegis says. “Your dad loves you. Tania, Lauw… I mean, they watched you nearly kill yourself to s–”

“Which time are we talking about?” Kraber interrupts.

Aegis shrugs. “That doesn’t really matter. The point is… look, family can be distant. Family can be the worst bastards possible when you finally see ‘em again. But yours… they’re trying, Viktor. Even Lauw’s son.”

“Really?” Kraber asks, skeptically. “I mean, I’m pretty sure he didn’t really trip…”

“Okay,” Aegis admits, “Lauw’s son isn’t trying very hard, but… he is trying. They all are.”

“So. Kraber. What would you like to know?” Yael asks.

“Start with how you get to Maine,” Kraber says.

“What’s to know?” Yael says. “I killed a lot of people. I got sent to a punishment that turned into a nightmare.”

“And,” Heliotrope adds, “We got stuck working for a remorseless sociopath who was such a terrible person in general that no sane person would ever think that he was a good officer, to the point that he made me actually wonder if the mantra ‘better no officer than a bad one’ was for the best. Moving on.”

Kraber pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Major Ze’ev,” Kraber says. “Please. I know, even after it all, we’re not kwaai." A smile creeps across his face. "But it all turned out lekker, ja? At the end of it all, you got Gardner in the–”

Yael looks like she’s on the verge of a chuckle. “What a dick.”

“It’s been three months,” Heliotrope interrupts. “Really?”

“I’m not apologizing, that felt-” Yael says, and what comes out is a surprise because Yael doesn’t swear nearly as much as most other PHL that Dancing Day knows. “Fucking awesome!! It’s just… it’s not exactly easy to talk about.”

“Oh,” Kraber says. He looks a little uncomfortable. “Sorry.”

“I can’t fault you for thinking that way, but …” Yael looks downcast. “No. That’s not it.”

“Are you okay?” Kraber asks.

“God,” Yael says, that sad expression vanishing for a few seconds, “You have just changed so much, Viktor. I’d just… rather not talk about it for a bit. Heliotrope, can you take over? I’ll pick it up soon, but… not now.”

“Alright,” Heliotrope says. “It all started in New York. After Nipville.”

August 6, 2022
New York City

Heliotrope

They were already ~~killing~~ – no, calling – them the Butchers of Nipville. That was what Yael’s iPhone said, anyway.

‘Great.’

“Was it worth it?” Yael asked, all of a sudden.

Heliotrope was on the waiting room’s floor, laying on her stomach, looking at an iPad. Watching an old animation from five years ago. The animation echoed over the room. Someone in it started swearing. It could not have possibly clashed more with their moods.

She thought about that.

Watched a few more seconds of animation.

Thought about the time Viktor Kraber had once shot her in the stomach. Thought about the chaos in the Middle East as the Bearers of Harmony and their personal vanguard filtered across the region. The remnants of ISIS and the newer terrorist groups of not-quite-united HLF, finding a seemingly inexhaustible supply of goons emboldened by apocalyptic fears, that found themselves with an excuse to fight in the open, co-opting military materiel which had failed to be evacuated in the mad rush from the Barrier.

Then she thought about Nipville.

“We did some good, I’m certain,” Heliotrope said.

-- 39 Hours Ago --

Champagne Grape – known as Jinxie to virtually everyone in the PHL – had the worst fucking luck of anyone in the PHL, Heliotrope thought, in some distant part of her mind that was not screaming out “BURN IT ALL! BURN EVERY LAST BIT OF THIS TO THE GROUND!”

And by PHL standards, that was a hell of an accomplishment.

There was the time the purple and green mare accidentally discovered a load of ponification grenades in France when she was lightly touching everything in the room with her magic, managed to evacuate everyone from the old house before they detonated, somehow was set on fire, spent four hours straight in a decontamination chamber, and was left paranoid about other people touching her for the next month. Or, depending on who you asked, for the rest of her life.

And there was the time she’d been captured by PER during Operation Chrysoberyl, when they were working to capture Catseye. Then there was the time the Reavers rescued her and she’d been stuck wondering when these HLF would decide they didn’t want to kill her. Then the time that one of their members had been caught alone with her. Then the time Viktor Kraber had rescued her and taken a .45 to said member’s, ahem, member.

Yes, rescued by Viktor Kraber. Nobody could believe it either.

And then, finally, there was the time Champagne Grape immediately signed up for a quiet life in the Quebec countryside in a farming town, and found her town overtaken by HLF, and ended up being chained to the wall. With a shock collar originally made for dogs around her neck. A shock collar that could activate if the HLF man guarding her felt like it, or if she pulled against the wall too hard.

Which was to say... now.

Champagne Grape was shaking, her big green eyes full of fear. Currently, Heliotrope was undoing the clasps on her collar. Or at least, trying to. Jinxie, no, Champagne Grape wasn’t making it easy, what with shaking so much.

“What in the fuck,” Heliotrope breathed, as she looked up into Champagne Grape’s eyes, taking her mouth off the shock collar, “did they do to you?!”

Oscar Mikkelsen stood next to Heliotrope, a big, stocky presence that looked like he barely fit into his armor. As always, Heliotrope couldn’t see anything behind the face-concealing, multi-eyed helmet the big man always wore, but she assumed he was absolutely livid. Oscar was the kind of person who found other ways to communicate despite not having any visible expressions.

Case in point, the HLF man with a receding blond hairline that was currently nailed to the basement wall by his testicles, courtesy of a 14mm spike from Oscar’s Armacham Hammerhead rifle.

Next to him were about five men and women. Three had been cut apart by Heliotrope’s wing blades and foreleg talons, and the other two had been blasted apart by the SMGs in her assault yoke.

“Are We Going To Do Anything About That Guy?” asked Quiette Shy, her artificial voice visibly causing a stir in Champagne Grape. Like Oscar, Shy was another person – or in this case, pony – who found other ways to communicate despite having a huge handicap. Namely, her muteness. “We Did Kind Of Destroy His Testicles With A Nailgun.”

She was a white unicorn mare with yellow eyes under tinted goggles, and a dirty blond mane streaked through with brownish-black. The red bandanna over her mouth – and most of her throat – concealed a wound from Imperial troopers that had beaten her to keep her quiet when they were kidnapping her.

“No, he’s pretty dead,” Oscar said.

Heliotrope thought on that.

“No, Oscar’s right,” she decided. “If we did that, we’d have to guard him. We’d need medical training none of us have–”

“I have medical training,” Champagne Grape said, “I just really don’t feel like using it on this jackass. You want to know what he did?”

Heliotrope had an idea, but she figured it was best to get it from – as Harlan would say before bursting into unavoidable laughter – the horse’s mouth.

“I don’t know how they got here when they did, how they got all this military surplus,” Champagne Grape said, “But they did. These HLF were all over the town before we knew it. Keeping a bunch of ponies in tow, too, refugees that must’ve been right out the Resistance’s teleport zones. And they were pretty well-armed, too. Lots of surplus assault rifles and SMGs.”

“What happened?” Heliotrope asked.

“They… took over the town,” Champagne Grape said. “Had armed guards at every entrance, and they… put us to work. Earthponies would be paid in lodging and meals - no money. The payment would be not getting shot like Acacia. Pegasi were put under the Siphon, and us… the unicorns…”

She shuddered. Her purple fur was matted with sweat, blood, and dirt.

“They put this fucking thing around my neck and gave me a Kalashnikov. Unloaded, of course. Told me to enchant it. Give it more power, make it hold more rounds…”

The words were coming out in uneven gasps.

“I tried to weasel out of it, but they’d turn on the collar whenever they thought I was skimping on it. Finally, they just...”

“Wait. Wait,” Quiette Shy said. “The Siphon? HLF. Using Magic?”

She wheezed something under her breath, impossible to understand. Though Heliotrope assumed from the relative number of syllables that it was something like “friggin voicebox.” Except she didn’t say “friggin.”

“Are you hearing this, Yael?” Heliotrope breathed.

“Loud and clear,” Yael said. “I mean, I’ve heard about HLF using pony magic, but that’s just Romero and Ex Astris Victoria, and…”

Heliotrope imagined Yael pinching the bridge of her nose, as she usually did when she was deep in thought.

It was then that she noticed Oscar reaching into the HLF man’s pockets.

“Mike…” Heliotrope sighed, before she caught a look at the (expired) driver’s license in there.

“Patrick Gunderson,” Heliotrope breathed. “Well. Damn.”

Quiette Shy made a wheezing noise. The syllables were oddly distorted by her electronic voicebox. “Gunderson The Gunslinger. High Bounty On This One.”

“Heard of him,” Oscar said. “Wasn’t he…”

“Owned a bakery in New Hampshire with his wife,” Heliotrope explained. “And the heroin epidemic around there back before the war left his daughter a shell of her former self, so she took the potion with his blessing. So they…”

“And, hope I’m not interrupting your detective work,” Champagne Grape said, “But he’s also a Menschabwehrfraktion member.”

‘Fuck.’

The same HLF unit, originally formed in Germany, that boasted people like Leonid Lovikov, Jomi da Costa, and Viktor Marius Kraber.

“Okay,” Yael said, after a brief pause. “People like the Menschabwehrfraktion having magic? That’s a new one to me. I thought it was just Romero’s people who did that.”

Heliotrope and Quiette Shy exchanged a Look. It was hard to tell what QS was thinking behind her goggles and bandana. Heliotrope, personally, was more confused by it than anything. ‘How does someone do that? You’re a damn sheep among wolves. Surrounded by genocidal assholes who see you as moderately helpful at best, on the same side as the Carters. The fuckdamn Carters?!’

Meanwhile, QS looked… depressed? Disappointed? It was hard to guess behind the bandanna and goggles. She muttered something - in her hoarse, somehow overstretched real voice, not the automatic voicebox. Heliotrope could make out the sounds ‘uck,’ ‘I,’ and something that could’ve been ‘deal’ or ‘feel.’

“Huh?” Heliotrope asked.

“My Sister,” QS said. “Don’t Want To Talk About It.”

Despite the fact that Heliotrope often heard (or thought she heard) emotions in QS’ electronic voice, it was hard to understand if that was a threat or a plea.

Heliotrope didn’t know very much about QS’ sister. She was with some HLF unit, impossible as that sounded - probably Romero, on the basis that Heliotrope had no idea who else that would be. Tartarus, Heliotrope didn’t even know her friend’s sister’s name. All she could guess was that it had the sounds ‘uck’ and ‘i’ in it. And most of what she knew of QS’ relationship with her sister was that it was incredibly strained at best.

“One question,” Oscar said. “Champagne Grape mentioned a siphon. Thought only the PER and Solar Empire used those?”

By which he meant a Thaumic Siphon – a Crystal Realm device repurposed by the Solar Empire after the Crystal War, made to keep prisoners docile by harvesting magic for bigger and badder war machines. Heliotrope had been under one before - it felt like something had just taken massive bites out of her senses. She’d felt dizzy, her mind sluggish, every feeling either cranked up so intensely it overwhelmed her entire body or so subdued it was barely even there. When she’d been on the Crystal Realm prison ship Roustabout back during the War, Heliotrope had been so desperate to feel something, anything, that she’d gnawed on her forelegs. She hadn’t felt anything, until she knocked her deadened limb against the floor and her muscles burst into life with such intensity that it felt like all her muscles were the strings of a giant musical instrument and she’d just been plucked. There’d been no rhyme or reason to what had feeling and what didn’t.

“I thought so too,” Champagne Grape said, “But the HLF had one.”

“Where’d it go?” Yael asked. “What were they using it for?”

“I don’t know,” Champagne Grape said. “They managed to get it out of town before you got here, so we have some HLF running around with a treasure trove of harvested thaumic energy.” She paused. “I really want to say they thought they were just using it to keep us quiet, but…”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Yael said. “Far as I know, the HLF usually just shoot things they don’t like.”

“You would’ve thought so,” Champagne Grape said. “But… they were using us. To get that energy. Making an assembly line out of us. And whatever they have planned, it can’t be good.”

She coughed.

“Shit,” Champagne Grape said, and listed to one side. Her right foreleg wobbled.

“Are you okay?!” Heliotrope asked, rushing to Champagne Grape’s side to prop her up. QS stood nearby, her face hard to read thanks to the mask and goggles. But Heliotrope could tell she wasn't as stonefaced as she liked to pretend. She moved ever so slightly closer to Champagne Grape.

“I’m fine,” Champagne Grape said.

“No,” Quiette Shy said. “You. You’re Not. Those Things Can Cause Severe Damage.”

Heliotrope thought she could hear sincerity in her voice. But then, sometimes she projected what she thought QS would be thinking. It was hard to say.

“Maybe Even Permanent Harm,” Quiette Shy continued.

“Trust me, I know,” Heliotrope said, standing just by QS, one foreleg over the white unicorn’s back. “Had to go for checkups with Sutra Cross to see if I had any lingering damage.”

“It’ll be fine,” Champagne Grape said, between gritted teeth. “Just… promise me. Find whoever did this to all of us, and make. Them. Pay.”

“Absolutely,” Yael said, nodding solemnly.

“Calling medevac,” Oscar said, his tone moving to that odd, clipped tone he’d use sometimes. “Stand by.” He paused. “You’re going to be fine, trooper– uh, CG.”

“Trooper?” Champagne Grape asked.

“He had a strange upbringing,” Heliotrope said by way of apology.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Champagne Grape sighed. Heliotrope could hear she was saying it over what must’ve been incredible pain.

“Medevac’s gonna be a while,” Oscar said after a moment. “Don’t worry, J– uh, CG. You’ll be fine.”

“You were gonna call me ‘Jinxie’, weren’t you,” Champagne Grape said, giving him a wry smirk.

“Slip of the tongue,” Oscar said, his tone neutral.

“It’s fine, anyway,” Champagne Grape said, and the pain seemed to be dying down for a few seconds. “This is exactly why I got the name anyway.”

If it was any consolation to Heliotrope, it was that the HLF didn’t have anyone to use magic. Nobody to channel it, though if they used volatile magic energy in bombs, they’d waste most of it. Unless they had someone else in the HLF with equipment that could use magic, someone like…

“Romero,” Heliotrope said suddenly.

“You think he’s behind this?” Yael asked.

“Who else would be?” Heliotrope asked. “I can only think of one person in the HLF who’d know how to do this…”

Yael

Romero would have to wait, though. What with the military tribunal.

“I mean, the doctors say Champagne Grape will be fine, and we seem to have uncovered a conspiracy,” Heliotrope said. She seemed a little too… eager.

‘Like the brass will believe anything about it.’Yael sighed. ’We screwed up, and so they’ll brush it under the rug.’

“We don’t know it’s a conspiracy,” Yael said. “Isn’t this… jumping the gun? And Romero, I’m not sure he...”

Heliotrope sighed.

“Yael, why are you…” Heliotrope sighed. “The thought of taking these people down usually gets you excited! Remember when we took down Catseye?! Or the Oathbrothers? And here you are, just… destroyed.”

She looked down at the carpeting.

“Because we went against orders,” Yael said. “I mean, we had to. It was that or let those HLF keep torturing ponies like Champagne Grape. But we’re going to get dragged through the muck for this one.”

“At least we did the right thing,” Heliotrope said.

“I guess we did,” Yael said.

‘Why don’t I believe myself here?’

-- 40 Hours Ago --

Everyone had said, “Don’t attack. Don’t do it. We’ll send in a strike team first. You’ll be there to corral them, take prisoners, and provide reinforcements.”

Heliotrope, however, had been requisitioned by the PHL-UNAC task force to serve as a scout. There were only so many pegasi with invisibility flightsuits like Heliotrope’s, so they were invaluable.
Yael had been around to hear the story Heliotrope told. And it made Yael absolutely livid.

This was, after all, exactly what she couldn’t stand. It was the apocalypse, after all. It was the end of the world, and people had the stones not to be willing to work together? People gave in to hate in fear, and were so afraid of ponies, of letting a little kindness into their heart, that they sold out to monsters.

Heliotrope had taken recon photos too. She’d told a grisly story to go with all of them. That was some kind of machine they’d put ponies under, and they’d walk out…

Well, they’d barely be able to walk out. Sometimes they’d be dragged. Sometimes they wouldn’t be able to walk at all. Any ponies that they hadn’t put through that would be forced into backbreaking labor along with them. Ponies forced into workshops. Going by Heliotrope’s recon, the town was ruled under an iron fist, the way some of the cities and towns they found on the way through Northern Africa had turned into repressive popup regimes that seemed to disappear – or, more likely, become ponified – as soon as they appeared.

“How could they,” Yael had said. She wasn’t gasping or asking. She was snarling out the words.

Heliotrope had been silent, until:

“Let’s make sure they know they can’t pull this again,” she said. “What do you think about not taking prisoners here?”

A rare, if not unheard of order - and it was something coming from Heliotrope. To Yael, who outranked her.

“I think,” Yael had said, “that’s an excellent idea. These bastards need to know…”

39 hours and 47 minutes ago

“...that you can’t pull this shit at the end of the world and get away with it,” Yael had said. “No prisoners.”

“What if they surrender?” someone asked.

“Did I stutter?” Yael asked, her tone icy. “No. Prisoners.”

So they rolled out on Nipville.

“Heliotrope says that these buildings are full of ponies. Aim away from them,” she told the tank commanders. They’d brought flamethrower tanks, the kind they’d used to smoke out Newfoals. “Burn everything you can find. We’re bringing these bastards down.”

In retrospect, it had not been a good idea.

Yael was on her knees, behind a car, firing her Galil in semiauto. Next to her was Oscar Mikkelsen, firing his S-HV Penetrator, its slow THUMP-PWANG contrasting oddly with the heavy bark of the Galil.

She stared through the reflex sight. Just down the street, in one window, she could see the faintest hint of a rifle with a wooden stock. She considered aiming for that, shrugged, and aimed an inch from the windowsill. He was in a wooden building, so…
She pulled the trigger twice. The bullets punched through the wood like it wasn’t even there, and she saw something behind the glass stumble. A glimpse of what could’ve been a rifle.

Then...

Well, there was no then.

A red unicorn mare with a blue mane trotted towards her, sliding into cover behind the same truck as Yael.

“Status, Xiphos?”

“Bennett and Twist Tie are down,” the unicorn mare said. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I almost miss the desert, sir!”

“Urban combat is a damn nightmare,” Yael agreed. She clicked her earpiece.

“Redbrick, Pestle? Rossiter? How’s evac going?” she asked.

“Taking heavy fire, but the Twins have us covered!“ Rossiter said, his voice warbling over the radio.

‘The Twins’ referred to Pestle and Sour Mash, respectively. Pestle was a reddish-brown massive earthpony, big enough to carry his own minigun – meanwhile Pestle was a powder-blue Canterlot unicorn mare with a draft horse’s build and an autogrenade launcher.

A flamethrower tank rolled by, and Yael heard bullets pocking its armor with metallic pings.

“Move up!” she yelled at Xiphos, and the nearby soldiers. “Get into the buildings! We’re smoking them out now!”

They ran to the sides of the tank, and filtered in through doorways holes in the woodwork and stonework that were big enough that they could’ve served as doorways.

Yael slid into cover just behind what had once been a bar. There were bits and pieces of old bottles lying about – including some brands which, thanks to the Barrier, were virtually extinct.

‘What a goddamned shame.’

There was a boom of a shotgun, and a one of the soldiers next to her – a Quebecois man by the name of Boisvert – screamed, crumpling to the floor.

Yael didn’t have time to think. Didn’t have time to react. She was just painfully aware that, as she raised herself up from behind the old wooden bar, there were three men and a woman there.

Thankfully, she didn’t need time.

Xiphos’s horn glowed, and a red-tinted thaumic shield appeared in front of both of them. And, for no discernible reason, the HLF in front of them unraveled.

Limbs flew everywhere. One man’s head simply flew off for no discernible reason, another’s arm flew across the room trailing blood, another fell to his knees… then just fell on his side when it became clear everything below his knee was missing.

There was one left.

Yael knew from experience what that meant. She shot off a quick two-round burst at another man, and he crumpled onto his back, bleeding from his throat.

‘Got ‘im!’

Heliotrope materialized a foot away from Yael, panting heavily and resting on her hindlegs. Her leg and wing blades were bloody with the viscera of HLF.

“Something’s wrong,” Heliotrope said.

“What, besides them turning this town into a dictatorship?” Yael asked.

“No,” Heliotrope said. “We heard this was a Suncrusher ambush. But a lot of the people I’ve found… they’re Menschabwehrfraktion. Or Sons of Macha. I think they’re using the Suncrushers as cannon fodder.”

Yael drew in a sharp breath. “You’re sure?”

“I’ve seen a lot of Menschabwehrfraktion and Sons of Macha faces here. This isn’t a Suncrusher operation. Didn’t seem like something they’d do, either.”

“To be fair,” Yael said, “This doesn’t sound like Sons of Macha or Menschabwehrfraktion, either. Usually, they just kill everything in sight.”
“By the way,” Heliotrope said, “There’s a warehouse of some kind ahead. Looks like a lot of them have holed up there. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Yael nodded. “Oh… Yeah.” She looked over to Oscar. “You and QS up to your usual tricks?”

Oscar nodded.

“Time to rock ‘em like a hurricane!” Heliotrope crowed.

“So,” Quiette Shy said, “They’re Expecting Us to Go Through the Door.”

Her horn glowed as she stared at the brick wall.

“Technically. We Are. But We’re Going Through Our Own Door.”

THOOM!

A beam of blinding yellow-orange shot forth, punching through the wall. And, judging by the noises Yael was hearing–

“They got Alex!”

“What the shit?!”

“More fucking Geldos–”

–it’d probably hit someone too. There was a brief second when everyone was staring through the whole Quiette Shy had made, before the HLF were met with a hurricane of PHL-funded murder.

Oscar was the first.

“TARGET SPOTTED!” Oscar bellowed as he flung himself through the new hole in the wall. “ENGAGING!”

It never ceased to amaze Yael just how fast Oscar was. It was like everything around him was moving in slow-motion and he was just on a different timeframe, easily outpacing and reacting to everything.

Oscar sprinted towards a table, and took a flying leap over it. For a second, he was floating through midair, on his side, his Penetrator spitting out massive spikes that punched through armor, leaving smoking, glowing-bluish bubs poking out from the HLF.

That was to say, if they were wearing armor. Oscar’s Penetrator punched through anywhere from two to three at a time, dragging them back several feet.

As Oscar did this, Yael rushed forward, Quiette Shy projecting a shield in front of her. Yael could see the edge of the forcefield – which looked almost like yellow-tinted glass, but less solid somehow – scraping against the concrete floor.

Yael was firing a flurry of rounds through the HLF, her Galil punching through skulls left and right.

“Ze’ev! It’s fucking Y–” one HLF man with a red bandanna started yelling.

Yael put a bullet through his sternum.

‘You’re goddamned right it is,’ she thought.

“A Warehouse of Fuckdamn Trash.” Quiette Shy said from behind Yael. “Come On. Can’t You Even Pretend To Live Up To Your Own Hype.”

August 6, 2022

Heliotrope

“We didn’t, did we,” Heliotrope said.

“We killed a lotof HLF, we saved people,” Yael said. “I’m having trouble calling that anything but a win. But…”

Heliotrope walked up to her friend, nuzzling her.

A brown-haired woman only a few years older than Yael and much shorter (not as thought that was hard) walked out, barely-restrained contempt on her face.

“PHL Command,” she said, “Will see you now.”

It was amazing how she could somehow manage to say “You bitch, you ruined it all, I hope they crucify you” in so few words.

“Well,” the woman said. “Come on.”

Yael and Heliotrope followed her, down a hallway and through a doorway to the left. They entered into a wood-paneled room decorated in earthy tones, which might have looked contemporary, relaxing, or almost like an oasis of pre-war life.

Might.

If not for the PHL magitech cobbled together from crystals, wires, and computer equipment, kept from spilling out over the floor by laminates and plastic, that stood on the floor in place of seats. The projector screens that scrolled from ceiling to floor.

Or the PHL personnel, the highest-up of the high, sitting in the seats or remote-projected into the room.

On the left side of the room, she saw Time Turner – the loamy earthstallion who, rather confusingly, preferred to go by the appellation of ‘Doctor Whooves’ – in a high-backed chair, with Colonel Harrison Munro and Lieutenant Colonel Sabine Northwoods in two chairs to his left, and a Texai viewscreen of Colonel Ambrose Hex to the right. In other words, the Head of PHL R&D, flanked by two senior representatives, none of whom looked pleased.

‘Probably something to do with the experimental weaponry I used,’Yael thought, looking to Northwoods. She was a smaller woman, but then, most women qualified as “smaller women” to Yael, who stood at nearly six feet.

Northwoods was blond, and Swiss-American. Apparently, she’d had dual citizenship before the war broke out. For all that meant now.

And right now, she was staring daggers at Yael. If looks could kill, Yael would be an ashy spot on the floor.

‘Wouldn’t have guessed that taking energy weapons would leave her that angry,’Yael thought. Then, ‘No. There’s something else. Considering the way Hex is looking at me from the viewscreen, it has to be.’

Hex – a man with a potbelly, thinning hair that had once been dark, a man who exemplified everything Yael thought of when people described someone as “not aging well,” and then some – didn’t have even half the level of hatred that Northwoods was projecting straight through her and Heliotrope.

Plenty more of the higher-ups Yael was used to hearing about had joined. Well, as much as they could join, with half of them using projectors and the like to attend the meeting. Ralph Hill and Anthony Merrick were sitting in their seats on the right side of the room. Gladmane, the PHL-Equestrian Resistance liaison, was also there, projected on a viewscreen of his own. Predictably, he hadn’t been able to make it in person. The same had to be said about Francis Reynardine, that enigmatic Frenchman (or was it Englishman?) acting as the intelligence liaison.

And at the end of the room were four seats. One for Commandant Cheerilee, another for General Nathaniel Roberts, and another for Captain Alexander Reiner, the UN-PHL liaison.

And of course, an empty seat, right in the middle where an occupant could have easily presided over the whole room. A room for a commanding, moderating influence, sitting directly between the military, public relations, research, and a few other departments.

Yael knew the story behind that, of course. Knew the story behind the mare who should have held that seat.

‘I miss Ambassador Heartstrings every day,’Yael thought, and she could tell that Heliotrope was thinking the same. ‘If we had her, we wouldn’t have even needed a fighting chance against the HLF. She could at least talk to them, dammit.’

Reiner held some papers in one hand, gently batting them against the table into a more orderly stack. He pushed them towards Cheerilee, whose hooves simply adhered to the paper. As always, he cut an imposing figure. He seemed barely contained by his fatigues and the body armor he always wore, and his blond hair was cropped close to his skull. His blue eyes seemed to bore into Yael.

It could’ve been a moment where everyone in the room was silent. Or it could’ve been an hour. Ten minutes. Yael wasn’t certain.

And all the while, she watched Cheerilee reading over the stack of papers from Reiner – who was currently glowering at her with an odd mix of disappointment and anger. The mounting horror on her face was obvious as her huge eyes scanned the papers.

And, weirdly enough, that look of utter hatredin Northwoods’ eyes.

‘Well,’Yael thought. ‘I’m screwed.’

Heliotrope

After an eternity, Cheerilee broke the silence.

“Captain Ze’ev,” Cheerilee said. “Heliotrope. I’m tempted to ask. What the helldid you think you were doing?!”

“...Permission to speak freely, sir?” Heliotrope asked.

“I’m going to regret this,” Cheerilee sighed. “Proceed.”

“When we found out about what they were doing, we couldn’t stand by!” Heliotrope said. “They were torturing ponies!”

“Admittedly,” Roberts said, clearing his throat, “Our reports were somewhat vague.”

“Our report… is not. We found evidence that they were draining magic from ponies, slowly and painfully,” Yael said. “Working earth ponies to the brink of death. Even forcing them to enchant weapons at gunpoint, sir.”

“HLF doing that?” Cheerilee asked. “That’s… never heard of anything like that. Usually, they just kill any ponies in their way. Or leave them with us.”

“Exactly,” Yael said. “They were using ponies for something. I don’t know what. And they were perpetrating some of the worst crimes against ponies and refugees that I’d seen since the Mediterranean Evacuation.”

“Did you know this before you decided to besiege the town?” Reiner asked.
Yael and Heliotrope looked at each other. Confused.

“Sir?” Heliotrope asked, hesitant.

“Did you know this. Before. You decided. To besiege the town,” Reiner repeated, his voice full of tightly-controlled anger.

“Yes sir?” Yael said, still hesitant. Reynardine shifted slightly on his viewscreen.

“Then if you made such an informed decision,” Reiner said, “you would have known that the plan was to send in a small strikeforce that Cheerilee and I selected with Lieutenant Colonel Northwoods. The plan was for you to blockade the town as our team rescued the hostages.”

He paused.

“So why didn’t you do it?”

“There were too many people for us to evacuate using a team of specialists,” Yael said. “Casualties would’ve been unacceptable if I didn’t do something!”

“I’d say they still were!” Northwoods yelled. “You destroyed half the town, Major Ze’ev!”

“It was that,” Heliotrope said, “Or everyone but the HLF!”

“Collateral damage can be an unavoidable circumstance,” Cheerilee said. Her tone was kept steady, but it felt strained, “even when we’re careful. But we need something for people to come back to. There’s the damage to the town, of course, but then there’s the…” She stopped, her expression turning into one somewhere between disgust and horror. “I don’t know if you realize that the manifest for missing citizens of Nipville includes seven children, including three infants younger than three.”

Heliotrope’s mouth ran dry. “... What?”

“You didn’t think those houses you were burning just had HLF in them, did you? Or did you even think?” Reiner asked. His jaw muscles were clenched tight, and he was a little too deliberate with each syllable. His volume was slightly higher than was necessary. “Did. You. Goddamn. Think.”

Reiner’s temper was infamous among the PHL. And here, now, Heliotrope was left absolutely certain he was about to let loose on them.

“... Sir?” Heliotrope asked, feeling the distinct urge to step back.

“Answer the goddamn question,” Reiner said.

“I…” Yael looked profoundly disturbed. “I don’t…”

‘Foals,’ Heliotrope thought, dazed. ‘We killed foals. Sweet Luna, what have we done?!’

“I…” Yael started, uncertain. “I made my decision based on what I thought was right. I couldn’t let them keep destroying Nipville!”

“And that’s the fucking point of following orders,” Reiner said. “You can’t possibly know everything to do in a split second. It’s the job of Command to know.” He took a deep breath. “If you had waited, we had people on standby. We had a press release, a plan. Hell, we even had Romero on standby!”

Yael flinched. “Romero, sir? Why would you want Romero?”

“You do realize that there are still HLF contributing vaguely important things to this war?” Cheerilee said with a scowl. “Half the HLF is still nominally operating with the tacit approval of the UN, and since they’re using their manpower to tie up PER and protect towns, that’s saving us the troops to put to work where we need them. Now, though–”

“Now you’ve jeopardised that,” Reiner put in. “You’ve jeopardised it because they weren’t kept in the loop while you were killing their mutineers, so they won’t trust us as much–”

“They won’t trust us?!” Yael snapped. “After…”

She trailed off at Cheerilee and Reiner’s less than impressed expressions.

“Are you going to keep interrupting, Ze’ev?” Reiner said coldly. “Or am I allowed to continue?”

Yael shut up.

“I don’t particularly care what you think of the Spader-loyalists,” Reiner said calmly. “They are keeping a lid on a lot of people who, let’s get real here, don’t like ponies very much. People like Verity Carter.”

“She’s a child,” Heliotrope put in.

“And so’s my adjutant,” Cheerilee said. “So are more of the PHL’s personnel than I’m comfortable admitting.”

“And none of them,” Whooves scowled, “are children of a homegrown terrorist.”

Those were the first words he had spoken all meeting, and they were chilling.

“You going off half-cocked,” Cheerilee continued, “not to mention burning civilians, will not help those people do their jobs. That means they won’t be as able to help us. All you’ve done is give the Carter-loyalists, the people who don’t want to work with us, ammunition!”

“And worse still,” Reiner added, running a hand over his forehead, “you’ve managed to turn this into something that makes the HLF look fractured.”

“Uh, sir,” Heliotrope pointed out. “They kinda already are fractured.”

“Yes, we know that,” Reiner retorted, giving her an impatient glare. “The rest of the world didn’t need to, but now, unfortunately, we can’t avoid it. Best case scenario, we can make this look like a bunch of rogues, but it’s a big bunch of rogues. And that, whilst being shit, is still better than this somehow looking like the entire HLF has gone mad, because then that risks the entire swath of this country being guarded by Spader-loyalists in lieu of our own forces going into a panic.”

“That bad?” Yael asked.

“Yes,” Reiner said. “That bad. And that’s leaving out the fact that you just handed the mutineers ammunition. We had Romero and Yarrow both on the horn telling us that it was key to the fracture not worsening that the PHL let the HLF sort its own mutineers out. The more it looks like we’re persecuting them, the more the smaller, neutral units start drifting to the wrong side of the damn split.”

Heliotrope’s head was swimming. How was all this happening? How was all this even… relevant?

‘We saved people,’ she thought. ‘We saved ponies. It… was worth it… right? It can’t be nearly as bad as he says, right?’

“So,” Reiner summed up, “as a result of your actions, we have a burned out ruin nobody will want to inhabit or rebuild because of the fear it will be gone in two years, dead civilians, a potential political shitstorm, the carefully built alliance we have with a powerful paramilitary group that up until now we’ve managed to be cordial with potentially going ass over tits…”

“And our public opinion taking a nosedive,” Cheerilee said.

‘What?’ Heliotrope thought. ‘We’re the PHL, what could we possibly…’

Yael stared at Cheerilee, confused. And Heliotrope knew she was thinking the same thing.

“You realize your order for there to be no prisoners was on record,” Reiner said irritably. “That was an illegal order according to the Geneva Convention.”

“Sir, they weren’t following the Geneva Convention,” Heliotrope put in.

“And so you decided ‘to hell with the laws of war’, burnt a town, screwed over our political situation and murdered seven children?!” Reiner yelled.

There was a heavy pause on the air.

“Consider the optics, Major,” Roberts said, speaking more gently than Reiner. “I may not like it, but we do depend on some public opinion for our funding. Cheerilee. Captain Reiner. How often have the four of us had to keep the public from practically treating us as an invading army?”

“Too often,” Cheerilee sighed.

Reiner nodded, exhaustion flashing across his face.

“It’s not to say you’ve put us in danger of being downsized into oblivion,” Cheerilee continued. “But you’ve put us close.”

“And so, from here on,” Roberts said, “We are stripping you of your rank within the PHL.”

Yael gasped, but she stopped herself before she could say anything wrong.

‘After all we’ve done for the PHL, this is our reward?!’ Heliotrope thought. ‘We gave our blood and sweat for them, and–’

Yael looked down at Heliotrope, and Heliotrope stopped that train of thought.

“You disobeyed direct orders, jeopardised the political situation, and got innocent people killed,” Cheerilee said with finality. “I’m… profoundly disappointed. In both of you.” She sighed. “That being said, I talked with Captain Reiner, and he came up with something… appropriate.”

“Sir?” Yael asked.

“I have a... friend in the USMC who needs a UN-PHL liaison,” Reiner said. “Colonel Robert Gardner. He’s on the Barrierfall project at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, working to create strategies for the safe evacuation of the East Coast. You will be working with him for the foreseeable future.”

Heliotrope’s jaw dropped.

‘But virtually nothing happens that far out! Except Nipville, anyway. Any major HLF action is further west! We’ll be sitting there on our flanks for years!’

“That will be all, First Lieutenant Ze’ev. And Sergeant Heliotrope.”

Yael

As the train rolled in to Portsmouth, Yael was left with the thought that it wasn’t exactly what she thought of when someone used the word “City.” It was barely the size of a neighborhood in most other cities she’d been through, and the architecture in most cases made her think more of an overgrown village with its wooden tenements and brick warehouses.

‘Isn’t this a naval base?’ Yael wondered, as they headed towards the city nearby.

She hadn’t been able to relax the whole time. Every minute when she tried to sit back, to relax, to play video games, she’d found herself looking at suspicious passengers. Wondering if any of them would open fire on them. Wondering if the train was safe.

“Still remembering the Derail, huh?” Heliotrope asked.

“Don’t I know it,” Yael said. “The both of us, defending it from those bastards…”

‘Those bastards’ had been an assortment of HLF and not-quite-HLF, terrorist groups that had refused to work with the UN forces, and had…

Well. It was hard for Yael to say. There’d been a train full of refugees and artifacts. The terrorists had tried to derail it, and it’d only been a miracle that Yael, Heliotrope, and their compatriots in the IDF and PHL-UNAC taskforce were able to stop disaster.

“You took the fall for me,” Heliotrope said.

Yael stared at her friend. “Hmmm?”

“You didn’t tell them it was my idea,” Heliotrope said. “Why?”

“Why would I?” Yael asked, sighing. “Far as I’m concerned, we both made mistakes.”

“Did we?” Heliotrope asked.

“We’re heading to the middle of nowhere to serve with a marine colonel I’ve never heard of,” Yeal said, a twinge of anger creeping into her voice. “I’d assume that means we did something wrong.”

She sighed.

“As for why I made it look like my idea…” Yael said. “We stick together, Heliotrope. A world where we can’t work together is too horrible to imagine. If I told them, you’d be who-knows-where. And it’d be my fault.”

“So it had nothing to do with your career?” Heliotrope asked, a surprised look on her face.

“I guess it did?” Yael asked, surprised, before the scenario of just what could happen if it looked like she’d up and let a lower-ranked soldier just bypass the chain of command rushed through her mind. “Huh. I guess that would’ve been bad.”

“It’s still pretty bad. I can’t believe that they’d do this to us!” Heliotrope said, not quite fuming but getting there all the same. “After all we–”

“Heliotrope,” Yael interrupted, “We deserve it.”

“But–”

“I know we thought we were doing the right thing,” Yael said. “But even so. We went against orders. We hurt innocents, Heliotrope. We deserve this.”

“I…” Heliotrope sighed. “I know, I know. But I have to be mad at something! We…”

“We’ve got no choice,” Yael said.

“Funny,” Heliotrope said, a slight smile on her face. “Last time I disobeyed orders, it saved my life. Also probably my dad’s life.”

Yael stared at Heliotrope, and despite herself, burst out laughing. “You know that…” she choked out in between guffaws. “Oh. Oh, damn.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Heliotrope waved it off with one hoof.

Heliotrope, as it happened, had been Solar Empire military. And – nobody had known this until Cadance defected to the PHL – she had, impossibly, proven willful enough to break the Geas. At least, that was the working theory… The conversation had gone something like this:

“I don’t know. I guess Captain Cactus or Celestia’s presence didn’t affect me like it used to. Towards the end of the Crystal War, the Changeling Purges, he was like this… this loving presence. This commanding presence. Impossible to resist. He’d been telling us, ‘you see anyone, you ponify them!’”

A pause.

“Then, well, I… I just couldn’t. I dunno when. He tried to recall me and get me to ponify someone, I told him to go fuck himself.”

Further examination revealed that Heliotrope had apparently broken the Geas completely on accident.

“Don’t tell that to the therapist,” Yael said. “Able Mind will have you wondering if you’ve got a pathological need to break orders.”

Heliotrope had a short laugh. “Don’t I know it.”

“I do know how you feel, though.” Yael said. “I want to be mad too. I just want to hit something, to burn something down, but…”

“You said it yourself,” Heliotrope said. “It’s what we deserve.”

“Are we sure we believe that?” Yael asked. She looked out the window of the train. At the ocean, the sidings, the industrial buildings the train was passing.

“I thought you were the one who said it was what we deserve,” Heliotrope said.

“I am. But I know we’re both going to have a hard time dealing with it,” Yael said. “I’m as much telling you as me.”

“Well… I’m not,” Heliotrope admitted. “I’m not dealing with it. We’ve done so much for the PHL, dammit. And the HLF, we know they’re getting crazy. We know the Menschabwehrfraktion has Viktor Kraber in their ranks, and that Lovikov has… plans. We know the Sons of Macha are with him. We know that Carter’s side of the HLF are going crazy, and let’s face it, nothing’s stopping the ‘loyalists’ from going the same way.”

“But it’s not our place to investigate it,” Yael said. “Not anymore, Heliotrope.”

I really wish I believed that, Yael thought. I’ll have to believe it, though.

“So, this is us now,” Heliotrope sighed.

“Who knows, maybe we’ll be back in two,” Yael said. “We’ll have time to think.”

God help me, Yael thought. Being stuck. Alone with my thoughts. Knowing that goddammit, they were right, I killed a child, and I’ll never be able to make up for it by being stuck in the middle of nowhere.

I’ve screwed up more than I thought possible, and people are dead because of me.

Goddammit.

December 2022

“Of course,” Heliotrope says, “It wasn’t even two weeks. Barely even two days.”

“That was when I…” Kraber says.

“Yes,” Yael says. “The rig. And, you know, I’m still a bit confused.”

“About what?” Kraber asks.

“Probably about how that was the first of many times they watched you die,” Aegis says. “Say, how many times have we watched Kraber un-die at this point? Three?”

“Five,” Heliotrope said. “There was that time with the collapsing mill, and the MP20 Obregon…”

“You set me on fokkin’ fire!” Kraber yells.

“Wait. You got set on fire?! How did you…” you ask.

“You’re not mad, are you?” Heliotrope asks.

“Nah. If you can forgive me for all this, I can forgive that,” Kraber says.

For a moment, you think he’s being sarcastic, but no - he’s being genuine. He has changed a lot, you think.

“I’m still wondering how you survived that,” Yael says.

“Heliotrope. Viktor. Yael,” Aegis says. “We’re getting off topic.”

“Right,” Heliotrope says. “Anyway. We were pulling into the station…”

August 6, 2022

Heliotrope

She trotted off the train, and then, all of a sudden, there was Oscar Mikkelsen standing in front of her. Wearing his characteristic face-concealing helmet, carrying the HV Penetrator and a Vollmer shotgun.

Next to him was Quiette Shy.

“How did you…” Heliotrope breathed, flapping her wings and fluttering up to eye level with Oscar. “I thought we’d never see you two again!”

“We Had A Nice Chat With Munro,” Quiette Shy said, and Heliotrope was left with the impression that the mute white mare was smirking under her bandanna. “A VERY–” her speech device deepened into an unsettling mechanical bass, one that made a random passenger cast worried looks over the station. “Nice. Chat. Oh. Yes.”

Yael facepalmed. “Please tell me you didn’t blackmail him.”

“Why Yael. I Am Fucking Shocked.”

“QS…” Heliotrope sighed.

“You Blackmail Someone Once. And Nobody Ever Lets You Live It Down,” Quiette Shy said, making a sound that could have been a sigh.

“It wasn’t like that,” Oscar said. “We just met him for coffee after your talk, and I told him about that deal we made with him. And how I might get… ahem, repossessed.”

“Wait, do you mean possessed by ghosts again, or having representatives from-” Heliotrope started.

“Yes. So he decided to protectively demote me and keep me under your command,” Oscar said. “Bad decisions or not, there’s nobody I’d rather serve under.”

Heliotrope smiled at that. “That’s one of the nicest things I’ve ever heard about us.”

Yael shivered. And then, spur of the moment, she hugged Oscar. “Thank you. It’s been a difficult day, and I think I needed that.”

And, after some uncertainty, Heliotrope hugged him too, wings flapping as her forelegs enclosed Oscar’s chest.

“I needed that too,” Heliotrope said.

Quiette Shy joined in too.

“I Didn’t Want To Feel Left Out,” she said.

“Which reminds me,” Yael said. “How did you get sent over?”

“I Asked. Politely,” Quiette Shy said. “I Stay With You Three. No Question.”

“Well damn,” Heliotrope said. “So. Who’s looking forward to two years of sitting on our asses, far away from any combat?”

“That might not be so bad,” Oscar said. “I will fuckin’ smoke you in Smash Bros, Heliotrope.”

“You are on,” Heliotrope smirked. “Why, I–”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said a man with a calm, authoritative voice. They could see someone striding toward them, with a large dog on a leash. “I am Colonel Robert Gardner. I was told to expect two of you? Who are the others?”

‘So this is who we’ll be working with?’ Heliotrope asked. Gardner looked like the very picture of a USMC officer. Tall, with close-cropped dark hair that was steadily graying, broad-shouldered, and well-muscled. A square jaw, and a scar on his chin. Everything suggested that this was a man who got his hands dirty - or, when he wasn’t getting them dirty, he was almost certainly putting them to work in the gym.

His eyes were pale, pale blue.

Heliotrope would later think that in retrospect, that should have been a warning sign. But at the time, he looked impressive. He looked rock solid. He looked like, as Heliotrope put it, ‘he’d make sure this wasn’t nearly as boring as I thought it would be’.

“Oscar Mikkelsen and Quiette Shy, SIR!” Oscar said, snapping off a crisp salute.

Gardner looked pleasantly surprised. “Well. I won’t turn down cheerful recruits. I’d have liked to know you were coming sooner. I’d have made more coffee.”

“They asked politely,” Yael said. “And, well, neither of us could turn each other away.”

“I see,” Gardner said, narrowing his eyes. “Well, as I said, it’s nice to receive more manpower. What are some of your skills?”

“I Enchant Weaponry,” Quiette Shy said.

“The gear I make would be nothing without her, sir,” Heliotrope added. “I provide designs, duct tape, spit and polish... and QS can make it work.”

“Thank You,” Quiette Shy said.

“And I…” Oscar paused, deep in thought.

It was just then that Gardner’s dog walked up to him, and started sniffing him.

“Dog!” Oscar gasped, scratching behind the ears of Gardner’s dog.

“That,” Gardner said, “Is a military trained german shepherd, trained for sniffing out potion and attacking–”

“That’s a Malinois,” Oscar interrupted.

“Are you certain?” Gardner asked.

“Oscar knows about as much about dogs as you can be without being a world-class breeder or biologist,” Yael said. “I’d trust him.”

“Is animal husbandry his only useful skill?” Gardner snapped.

‘What?’ Heliotrope thought. ‘There’s no need for him to be that condescending…’

She thought on that for a second.

‘Then again, Oscar did just ignore him for the sake of petting a dog. Clear breach of military discipline…’

The guilt hit her like a tidal wave.

‘Oh, God, I’m a monster.’ Heliotrope thought. ‘I killed them. I broke orders, and because of us, the conspiracy we discovered is going to go unnoticed! And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the thrill of combat. I lost myself in the bloodshed, I loved seeing the looks on people’s faces when they couldn’t see what was cutting them to bits...’

“We’ll be heading for the shipyard,” Gardner said. “I’m working in concert with the National Guard and Navy.”

He took them to a rather large truck. A humvee, Heliotrope thought.

“Afternoon,” said the man in the driver’s seat. “I’m Souther. You’re our new recruits, I presume?”

“That they are,” Gardner said. “And two came extra. I can hardly wait for what we’re going to do.”

The words could have been coming from a world away as Heliotrope stared out the truck’s window, confused.

Their transport trundled down through the streets of Portsmouth, eventually finding its way onto a road that shared some space with a set of railroad tracks.

As they drove down, a train full of empty freight cars passed them by. The strange sight – a train passing them like another car on a highway – still didn’t deter Heliotrope.

‘We’ll still have people fighting on both sides if we win. Still have hatred lasting for generations to come. We’ll still have normal civilian life for both worlds being nigh-impossible. And I’m never going to be able to forget that thrill I get from combat. Shit, I couldn’t even forget about it back when I was in Poland, trying to relax.’

Yael

“Are you okay?” Yael asked.

Heliotrope made a noncommittal noise.

“...I don’t know what that was, but I assume I shouldn’t believe you,” Yael said. “You’re hurting like crazy.”

“I just…” Heliotrope said, as their transport drove through the shipyard. “It’s all hitting me at once. I’m just thinking of everything that could go wrong, and… it’s… Stupid of me.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Heliotrope,” Yael said.

“How in Luna’s name can you be so calm about it?” Heliotrope asked, trying and clearly failing not to yell. “How do we-”

“I’m not calm,” Yael said. “I’m pretty far from okay. But I have to be. Dad would tell me ‘Treat it like an adventure, Yael!’”

“Your dad did that too, huh?” Heliotrope asked, cracking a smile. “Always hated that.”

“Oh, you and me both,” Yael said, nodding and seeming to imperceptibly sink into her seat. “Then he said that if I didn’t, I’d just get really depressed. So it couldn’t hurt. It was the same way when I joined the IDF.”

“But… the conspiracy we found. The HLF. Everything we discovered in Nipville,” Heliotrope said. “We can’t just give up!”

“For The Love Of God, It Can’t Be All For Nothing,” Quiette Shy said. Beside her, Oscar sat silently, reading a comic book.

“If we push, they will push back,” Yael said. “This is the best we can do, unfortunately. I don’t like it more than you, Heliotrope, but I can’t do anything else.”

The truck pulled in to a building on the shipyard - a set of barracks, it looked like.

“I assume you’re talking about Nipville,” Gardner said, “and if I could offer some advice?”

“...yes?” Yael asked.

“Quit your bitching,” Gardner said, not quite unkindly. “You did it. And there’s no way to change that.”

With that, he strolled past the barracks, leaving the five of them with no choice but to follow him.

“Is he… always like that?” Heliotrope asked, bewildered.

Souther sighed. “He is. But he does mean well. If there’s anyone for refreshingly blunt advice, it’s Gardner.”

With that, Souther followed Gardner through a doorway, then down a hallway, then a flight of stairs...

And Yael found herself in what looked like a command center of some kind. One that would have resembled an HLF or PER base in the middle of nowhere, but for the ponies milling about, some of which sat in chairs in front of computers.

Occupying one end of the room was a large conference table, and a projector screen - next to a wall lined with photos and information on various HLF.

Yael looked them over.

‘Aaron O’Donnell, leader of the Sons of Macha. Suspected IRA connections. Aeron Grant, going by assumed name ‘Atlas Galt’, Leader of the Thenardier Guard. Maximilian Yarrow, Leader of the ‘Spader-Loyalist’ faction: personal unit, ‘The Reavers’, sighted with ATC equipment. ‘Captain’ Daniel Romero, Commanding Officer of the commandeered Thunderchild-class warship Columbia and head of Ex Astris Victoria…

She felt herself shiver as she saw the last one. A wanted poster.

Viktor Kraber. Menschabwehrfraktion member. Wanted for multiple counts of murder, mass murder, conspiracy to commit murder, illegal possession of firearms, assault and battery, theft of a motorcycle, manslaughter, assault with intent to rob, terrorism, breaking and entering, torture, impersonating a police officer, illegally crossing borders between countries, impersonating a child protective services officer, smuggling firearms, practicing medicine without a license, arson, forgery, vandalism, kidnapping, robbery, theft of military property, impersonating PHL personnel, and public drunkenness...’

At which point someone had scrawled in red pen “And a really crappy attitude” at the bottom of the poster.

It was all the big hitters, she realised. The commanders of some of the major factions. And some of their most trusted soldiers.

Gardner was preparing for a war down here.

Heliotrope

Gardner sidled up to the table and plopped himself into a chair, both feet up on the table.

‘No wonder Reiner got along with him so well,’ Heliotrope thought, scrunching up her nose, as Gardner reached for a remote.

“Now, Mikkelsen,” Gardner said, fiddling with the remote. “Take your helmet off. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”

Yael, Heliotrope, Quiette Shy, and Oscar all shared a Look.

“Are… are you certain that’s a good idea?” Oscar asked. “I’d really prefer not to.”

“I’d listen to Oscar,” Heliotrope said. “He’s very uncomfortable without it.”

‘Uncomfortable’ was a vast understatement. Oscar only took his helmet off when he was sleeping, and would open it partway when he was eating. Because, putting it lightly, Oscar wasn’t exactly handsome enough to serve as a model.

Gardner was silent as he fiddled with the buttons, finally bringing up a picture on the screen at the other end of the room.

“This is the military, not a college full of Beltway pansies,” Gardner said. “Now, take it–”

“Sir,” Yael said. “Oscar has a number of reasons for keeping it on. I’ve never denied him the–”

“First,” Gardner interrupted, “I wasn’t talking to you. Secondly, I told Oscar to take the fucking helmet off.”

Yael shot Oscar a worried glace.

“It’s alright, Maj - ah, First Lieutenant,” Oscar said. “Orders from a superior are orders. It’s only fair to obey.”

Heliotrope saw the wince on Yael’s face as he said so.

Damn, Oscar, she thought. Why the shit did you have to say it like that?! I wouldn’t… okay, maybe I would change what we did. But why would you say that after my best friend got demoted? After I got demoted?!

She looked down at the ground, thoughts racing through her mind.

I don’t know if I wish we’d done things differently. HLF died, but… so did a lot of the wrong people. Innocents. I wish we never fucked up, I wish I never told Yael it was my idea, and I wish we didn’t have to end up here. If there’s any consolation here, she thought, watching Oscar undo the seals on his helmet, it’s that I get to see how they react when Oscar takes off his faceplate.

And then a thought occurred to Heliotrope, as soon as Oscar yanked off half of his helmet.

Yep. He was being sarcastic when he said that. Well, that almost makes this worth it.

Immediately, Gardner’s second-in-command staggered back against the wall. Gardner flattened himself against his chair. The entire room went dead silent.

“Good cripes!”

Oscar’s face was far broader than the average human’s, with a thick squarish jaw. His nose was flatter on one side and skin seemed to stretch over it slightly, and his mouth seemed to curl on one side. The left side of his jaw was a mass of nodules and scar tissue. One ear was just a series of lumps that barely poked out from the side of his skull. About the only thing you could say that was normal about his face that his eyes lined up.

Oscar stared at him, not moving a muscle.

“Do… do you blink?” Gardner asked, his mouth dry.

Oscar did, and Heliotrope shivered a little. It never got easier to watch.

“I take it back, that’s even worse!” Gardner exclaimed. “Can you, ah…”

He gestured to the helmet.

Oscar seemed to take a little too long redoing the seals on his helmet, placing the faceplate back in position. And he seemed to enjoy it a little too much, as well.

“I…” Gardner’s mouth was dry. “How did…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Oscar said.

“It’s in his file, sir,” Heliotrope said.

“I… right,” Gardner said. “I’ll find some time to complain about that later. Now, what do you know about your official duties here?” he asked, pointing to the picture – a blurry satellite photo of what was probably Defiance.

“General Roberts assigned us to serve as PHL-USMC liaisons,” Yael said. “At the behest of Commandant Cherry and Captain Reiner. I’m assuming that means coordinating with East Coast PHL allies like Blossomforth, or Rachel Womack?”

“That’s correct,” Gardner said. “However, my other goal is to use you four to protect the East Coast from the HLF.”

He clicked a button on the slide. It flicked through, and then there was a photo of a group of HLF in ragged fatigues and body armor, carrying Armacham Technology Corporation weapons. Some of which, Heliotrope noted, were almost certainly energy weapons.

“Where did they get those?” Oscar asked. “There. That’s a type-12 energy weapon. And an MP20 Obregon. Not standard issue anywhere but Armacham.”

“I couldn’t begin to guess,” Gardner said. He clicked the slide again. Forensic photos of the Carter Massacre, the bulletholes and chalk outlines still there. The official story was that Michael Carter, leader of a more radical, kill-em-all HLF faction, had taken a submachinegun to the ponies and humans that had been hiding out in the basement, chewing them to pieces with a hail of 9mm.

But something about that never rang true to Heliotrope.

Click.

Another photo. A family of (dead) ponies sitting in the basement of an abandoned factory, brutalized beyond recognition, riddled with bullets.

“That,” Gardner said, “is from just yesterday. The Menschabwehrfraktion attempted to save a town from a PER attack, and it resulted in multiple civilian casualties, the HLF getting in a pissing match with the local authorities and nearly shooting them, not to mention innocent ponies being killed.”

Click.

An apartment block in Boston, a smoking ruin. A neighborhood that’d played host to many ponies immigrating to America, many of whom had stayed, full of broken windows.

“This,” Gardner continued, “Is a Sons of Macha attack. Building suspected to be home to PER potion lab was destroyed.”

Click.

“Here, in Pennsylvania,” Gardner said, “An attempted PER Vanishing. The town’s full of HLF, now. They haven’t taken the job from the police force, they are the police force.”

The four of them were quiet. The entire room had stopped, as they all stared at Gardner’s ghoulish slideshow.

“What these all have in common?” Gardner asked. He looked to the rest of the room.

“HLF,” said a sullen-looking blond woman in one corner.

“Certainly, Nilsdottir,” Gardner said. “But the real answer is: PER. Operating with uncommon boldness. And the HLF responding in kind, regardless of casualties.”

Click

Another slide. Featuring two massive, burly men trying to drag a giant pony near the size of an earth horse out of a shipping container.

Click

And then, of course, a picture of the very same men in police custody.

“That is Aegis,” Gardner said. “Earthpony farmer from around Littleton. The HLF dragged him out of his own home, in front of his own foals.”

“I Recognize Him,” Quiette Shy said. “Everyone Kept Asking If I Was Related To Him.”

“Are you, though?” Oscar asked.

Quiette Shy shook her head.

Gardner cracked a smile. “Aegis later beat them black and blue. But the problem is: The HLF are growing bolder, in response to a growing PER threat spearheaded by Shieldwall.”

Heliotrope shivered at the mention of Shieldwalll. By all accounts, he’d been a rather unassuming sort during the Crystal War, with a talent for guerrilla warfare. But now? He was perhaps the most infamous of the PER, a psychopath that saw potion the way most people saw hammers.

“I don’t know what either of them are planning,” Gardner said. “I know that Yarrow and Lovikov have their own designs, and I’ve heard whispers of Shieldwall’s master plan. ‘Project Fillydelphia,’ it is called. It aims to reshape the Eastern seaboard completely. I aim to stop it, and, most importantly, to stop the HLF. We can’t afford division at a time like this, and the only option is to obliterate them.”

Destroy the HLF? Do exactly what they’d planned on beforehand?

‘Hell yes!’

It was like fireworks went off in Heliotrope’s head. It’d been Yael and Heliotrope, along with everyone in the PHL and IDF that they could muster against the HLF.

These were people that’d gone from being a support group to an army of lunatics. They’d brought terrorists into the fold. A lot of them had tried to kill humans they didn’t think were “worthy” to escape the Barrier. And, of course, some HLF had personally threatened to gut her and make leather jackets out of her. There’d been HLF that did unacceptable things to ponies back during the Purple Spring, too.

Sure, they might have been been trustworthy for a time, but with Spader’s death, they’d been going off the deep end. Even the supposedly ‘sane’ ones.

“It would be an honor, sir,” Heliotrope said, snapping off a salute.

Yael

She also saluted.

‘So I’m being punished, by being sent to a person who asks me to do the same thing… but under orders,’ Yael thought. ‘I’m feeling some mixed messages here.’

Part of Yael wanted to ignore this and just make it more of a punishment. The other part of her thought that was silly.

‘I need to make up for it,’ Yael thought, ‘and I won’t be able to do that if I don’t tell Gardner what we know.

She took a deep breath, and made her decision.

“And while we’re on the subject, sir,” Yael said. “We found that the HLF knew enough to drain magic from ponies, and that they were… they were using ponies for something, sir.”

“I will investigate that in due time,” Gardner said. “For now… we wait. For the right moment.”

‘What?’

“If we don’t, it’ll raise too much suspicion from command,” Gardner said. “One step out of line, and we end this quickly and efficiently.”

‘Still. This doesn’t feel right. I screwed up, and I’m being rewarded for it? What kind of sense does that make?’ Yael thought. ‘I was supposed to be getting comeuppance for doing the wrong thing. I don’t get it.

“What about Romero and the other HLF, sir?” Heliotrope asked. “They’re officially UN-affiliated, if only in name–”

“Romero’s a damn pirate,” Gardner snapped. He looked at Yael. “Didn’t you once describe him as such, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir,” Yael said stiffly.

“We’ll do what you suggested, Lieutenant,” Gardner said with a grin. “Kill them all.”

Heliotrope was nodding

“And then,” Gardner continued, “anyone left sane enough we’ll bring in and make use of. Under our auspices, not the command of a glorified Jack Sparrow wannabe with delusions of grandeur and a senile, over-the-hill lunatic Englishman who thinks he’s still a competent commander even though his men run around with hammers and Norse makeup.”

Heliotrope

The four of them - Heliotrope, Yael, Oscar, QS - had made their way to a rec room by the end of the day, after was pretty sparsely populated. Though the naval base swarmed with activity, there were barely eight people there. Yael, Heliotrope, Quiette Shy, and Oscar all sat there, engaged in various activities in the period between dinner and lights out.

There were four more in there, too. A massively built black man who looked like he spent most of his spare time in the gym, a pale blonde woman with a big doorstopper of a Brandon Sanderson novel, sitting in a corner with her back on the floor and her legs up against the wall. And, off on another couch, Heliotrope could see one human and one gray-black earthpony stallion watching a movie.

Heliotrope lay outstretched on a cheap couch, reading a novel that described itself as a “Superhero murder mystery.” So the setup was, a reporter who was in the book’s words “totally not Lois Lane” (that was a character from Superman, right?) investigated a mysterious death in the wake of a supervillain attack.

‘This power just makes no damn sense,’ Heliotrope thought.

“Now There’s A Man Who Likes Grand Gestures,” Quiette Shy said, her Xbox controller floating in front of her as she lay in an armchair in the barracks’ rec room.

Heliotrope was sitting in the chair next to her, reading a novel.

“This is fuckin’ great!” Heliotrope said. “More anti-HLF work, and we can uncover what Lovikov’s up to. I’m looking forward to it.”

It was going to be great. If anything, this was not Erebus. And, Luna willing, she’d get revenge on Viktor Kraber for shooting her. Grounding her for weeks.

“You and me both,” said a massively built black (possibly biracial?) man with tattoos on his bald pate, who was lounging in a chair next to her, playing multiplayer with QS. “Eva and I… well, both of us get tired of watching people going crazy out there.”

“Eva?” Yael asked.

“The blond woman reading a book,” the man said. Then– “AW, SONOVABITCH!”

“Fuckin Win,” Quiette Shy said, and Heliotrope could almost imagine that there was smugness in her voice. Despite the fact that Quiette Shy technically didn’t have a voice anymore.

“Damn,” the man said. “She is good.” He held out a hand to Heliotrope. “I’m Lorne, by the way. Lorne Hebert.”

Except, to Heliotrope, Yael, and everyone else he’d ever meet, including Kraber, it sounded like “a bear.”

‘Which,’ Heliotrope reflected, ‘probably worked. Tall, stocky, massive build...’

“You don’t look like a bear,” Heliotrope said, chuckling slightly.

“That’s not what they said at the gay bar last night,” Lorne said, returning with a smile.

Quiette Shy immediately started making wheezing noises that could’ve been laughter, and Heliotrope started laughing so hard she fell out of the air straight onto the carpet. Meanwhile, the earthpony on the couch broke into a suspicious coughing fit.

Yael cracked a reluctant smile.

“...I don’t get it,” Oscar said.

“We’ll Tell You When You’re Older,” Quiette Shy said.

“I can already tell I’ll have fun working with you,” Lorne said.

Lorne’s accent was hard to pin down. It sounded Southern, but a little smoother somehow.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Yael said, “Where are you from?”

“Louisiana,” Lorne said. “N’auwlins, specifically.”

“Always thought it might be nice to visit,” Yael said. “Unfortunately, Cousin Nny never had the money.”

“You mean ‘fortunately,’” Lorne said.

Yael raised an eyebrow, quizzically.

“No,” Lorne said. “Trust me, you did, sir.”

Yael looked for a second like she was about to ask a question, then promptly the energy dissipated. She looked weirdly unsure for a few seconds.

‘It’s probably best not to ask,’ Heliotrope thought. “How’d you and Eva end up on this?” she asked.

“Top brass disapproved of making moonshine on my off time,” Lorne said. “Can’t a man have a hobby? Eva, though…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Eva said, then immediately went back to reading a book on her eReader.

‘Friendly, isn’t she?’ Heliotrope thought, but she bit it back. ‘Then again, Lorne did nearly reveal what got her sent to a punishment detail, so… can’t blame her there.’

“Right,” Lorne said, looking a little sheepish. “Sorry, Eva.”

Eva flipped him off.

‘...That probably explains a lot,’ Heliotrope thought.

“Yeah, well, I tried,” Lorne grumbled. “As for Smoky and Summers, well…”

Heliotrope assumed that was the large built coal-gray earthpony and the man mohawked sitting next to him.

“Let’s just say Yael’s a woman after my own heart,” the man said. He had a brown fauxhawk and a set of dark sunglasses, and a stubbly 2-day beard. He held out a hand. "Shawn Summers. Pleased to meet someone like you, Major Ze'ev. And Sergeant Major Heliotrope."

"It's Lieutenant, now," Yael said.

"And Sergeant First Class," Heliotrope added.

"You ate a demotion?" Summers asked, surprise on his face. "Damn, I wouldn't have guessed. I saw what you did in Nipvile, that was amazing!"

"It wasn't," Yael said. "It really wasn't."

"I wouldn't have thought so," Summers said. "I grew up around here, y'know? And I saw people just... lose their damn minds over fighting the PER, or any pony unfortunate enough to get stuck in the crossfire."

"Lost my little brother that way," Smoky added. "And... along come those assholes who turn a farm town into a slaughterhouse?! Far as we're concerned, you did the right thing."

The right thing. Yael felt like she should be happy. Felt like that should be welcoming. She wasn't. I screwed up, let me get treated like it! some part of her was screaming.

“Are you okay?” Heliotrope asked, concerned.

“I…” Yael said. “Heliotrope? I need a moment. We need to head into the hall. Right now.”

“I–” Heliotrope started.

Yael stared at Heliotrope, and she felt herself shrinking back, almost unconsciously. The Ze’ev Look – or, technically, Ben Ze’ev Look, but Yael felt annoyed at her surname making her sound like someone’s son – had been been passed through down through Yael’s family for generations. And, according to Yael’s mother, Yael had perhaps the strongest concentration of it.

Of course, Yael’s mother had promptly started laughing and fell onto the floor after Heliotrope had, with complete sincerity, asked if that was true. But, all seriousness, Yael did have a commanding stare.

And so, ignoring the confused looks they were getting from the four (definitely four) humans and two ponies in the room, the two of them stepped out into the hall.

“What the hell was that?!” Heliotrope hissed. “Far as I’m concerned, we’ve gotten a great deal!”

The energy in Yael vanished, and then for a moment, she seemed…

Well, that was the thing. Whatever it was that suffused Yael, it was gone and for a second she was unrecognizable. Yael usually looked lithe and graceful, but this time, here, she just looked skinny and exhausted.

“I’m sorry,” Yael said. “Really, I am. But… this isn’t right, Heliotrope.”

“What do you mean, it’s not right?” Heliotrope asked. “We finally got to strike back at the HLF. They did something bad, like we always knew they would, and we were finally able to put a stop to it.”

It just didn’t make sense to Heliotrope.

“And we also went against orders,” Yael said. “We hurt people, Heliotrope.”

‘You’re talking a lot about duty for someone who went against orders,’ Heliotrope thought, before realizing that was just too horrible to say to one of her best friends. ‘Besides, it’s not like I’m blameless there. I was cheering her on as she did it.’

“Heliotrope,” Yael said, “I know what you just thought. I know you’re still mad at…”

“At myself?” Heliotrope asked. “At Command? At–”

“At me?” Yael asked.

Heliotrope chuckled weakly. “Stars, I hope not.”

“I just need to know,” Yael said, “That… that we know we did wrong.”

“I guess we did,” Heliotrope said. “But as far as I know, we’re lucky. It’s best we see this as an opportunity, Yael. We’re not being put in the ass end of nowhere, we’re with a man we can help. We’re somewhere we can do good!”

Yael sighed. “You’re right. I just feel… almost cheated, somehow. Because this was almost certainly planned as a punishment. If Reiner didn’t know that, I just have a bad feeling. Logically speaking, we shouldn’t be around here.”

“But it’s the best opportunity we could possibly get!” Heliotrope protested.

“I know,” Yael said. “And that’s what unnerves me. Gardner hid these tendencies from the PHL, and I have to wonder-”

“Hey!” Lorne yelled from inside the room. “You lovebirds coming back soon?”

There was the sound of a slap. Not a particularly hard one.

“Th’ hell, Quiet?!” Lorne yelled.

“It’s Pronounced… Look, Oscar Would Explain It Better,” Quiette Shy said. “Fuckdamn Machines.”

“That,” Summers said, “Would be a cool name for a rock band. ‘Fuckdamn Machines...’”

“Long as it’s not speedcore, we’re golden!” Heliotrope said.

“Anyway,” Smoky said. Or at least, Heliotrope assumed it was Smoky, because he was the only one she hadn’t heard talking. “We’re going to be playing some Smash Bros. Figured it’d be a great way to get to know the four of you.”

Heliotrope clapped her hooves together excitedly. “Dibs on Ike!”

“FUCKDAMMIT!!” Oscar yelled.

"At least I still get to use Marth," Summers said.

“Look... I do get what you mean. I've got some lingering guilt over it too, but I think this could really turn out well!" Heliotrope said. "So... Agree to disagree on how good we’ll have it? I feel like it’s a bit early to call it.”

“You’re probably right. So for now,” Yael said, “Let’s get to know them.”

And so, they headed for the rec room.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Yael said, as the two of them strode in, “How do you use a controller without hands? QS I understand, but...”

Heliotrope grinned as she walked through the door. “Well, it’s very simple. All I have to do is…”

Author's Note

NOTE: If you have any more questions about the battle of Nipville, then try Jed R's story Map Of The Problematique, a companion piece existing side-by-side with Light. You can read it here.

Trust me when I say that when we bring in the Reavers, or characters like Cairn, or a number of other things in, it should answer a lot of questions. My intention is that Light doesn't need to be read by someone who's seen all the material and then some, but then...

Well, there will always be those little things from other works that raise questions. So, if you're in need of more light in the weeks-to-months long between updorts, then try out Map of the Problematique, which happens concurrently to Light.

Plus, Jed is a super cool guy.

So, some of you might be noticing a lot of differences between the original version of this chapter and the current one. And that's because...

THERE IS NO ORIGINAL CHAPTER! This is the first chapter in this story made from COMPLETELY ORIGINAL CONTENT :pinkiecrazy:

As you can see here, there's a lot of different things we're going for here. Quiette Shy and Lorne (who you may remember from the Spectrum Reboot's chapter " The Hour Is Darkest Before") appear early, and most importantly, Yael and Heliotrope get assigned to Gardner. And they get narrator duty!

If you've read up to that point, I'm sure it's easy to guess where they're going, but that's unimportant (and spoilery!) right now. It was important I introduced Yael and Heliotrope earlier on, seeing as they basically take over secondary protagonist status around chapter 13 out of nowhere. And while that's not the worst thing ever, (You can put random characters as PoV characters midway through a book) I want this rewrite of Light to feel like it's The Expanse TV Show compared to the original novels. They introduced Bobbie and Avasarala (and even Ashford, gawd daaaaaamn! AND THEY GAVE HIM A FIRST NAME! I didn't even know Ashford had a first name. I also can't wait to see Bull's actor) roughly half a book earlier than in the original novels, and foreshadow everything, and that's the kind of quality rewrite I hope to be.

Yael and her squad are going to be very important for the rest of the story - I've got a lot of fun things planned.

04: In the Summer Breeze / Burn My Shadow

Light Despondent

Chapter 4

In the Summer Breeze / Burn My Shadow

edited by
TheIdiot
Jed R
Sledge115

I have burned my tomorrows
And I stand inside today
At the edge of the future
And my dreams all fade away

And burn my shadow away...
I faced my destroyer
I was ambushed by a lie
And you judged me once for falling
This wounded heart arise

And burn my shadow away...
UNKLE, 'Burn My Shadow'

Dancing Day
December 24, 2022

“I think,” Kraber said, “That I really started feeling fokked up the day after. I’d volunteered for Lake Patrol.”
“What’s that?” Dancing Day asks.

“Well, Defiance had a large rotation of guards. The ones who got Lake Patrol had the lekker spot,” Kraber says. “You know how in Rogue One, Scarif was a tropical paradise that Imperial officers used to retire while still getting paid?”

“Of all the star wars references I would expect,” Yael says, “That was not one of them.”

“What?” Kraber asks. “I like Rogue One. Besides, everyone knows the usual references. You have any idea how often I’ve seen a newfoal pull the ‘LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER’ scene? It’s gotten to the point where I just shoot them in the fokkin’ throat before they finish.”

“...Yes? I do know,” Dancing Day says tentatively. She hadn’t seen that many Star Wars movies at the PHL base’s movie night, and for whatever reason, she didn’t remember Rogue One all that well.

“Huh, it was?” asks Aegis. The big pony looks contemplative, and - using a stylus he keeps in a bracelet around his right foreleg fetlock - opens up a tab on the iPad that is plugged into the PHL crystal projector, transmitting holograms of Yael and Heliotrope.

“You’d better not accidentally cancel this program,” Heliotrope says.

“I mean, I hope I don’t,” Aegis says. “But I can just reopen it if I make a mistake, right?”

“I guess that’s true,” Heliotrope admits. “But it’ll still be really annoying. Computers, am I right?”

“They’re so hard to use!” Dancing Day pipes up.

“Really?” asks Grayson, the bald human that’d come in to hear Kraber’s story. “I think they were easy.”

“We don’t have hands, and Equestrian computers were - till they put in totem-proles - about the size of a room. Meanwhile, you grew up with computers being the size of a briefcase,” Heliotrope says. “Trust me, they practically have a vertical learning curve for us.”

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” Aegis says, as he looks over the tab on Wookieepedia that he’s just opened. “Middle of nowhere, tropical, middle of an ocean…” he nods. “Specially cause I remember the lake. It was so pretty out there. Damn shame I couldn’t just go there to relax…”

“If we survive the War,” Kraber says, “I will take you, Amber, and Rivet out there and bring the roomys.”

Dancing Day blinks at Kraber.

“He means ice cream,” Aegis explains. “But, Viktor… Knowing what happened to Sutra Cross, I’m not sure I want to be… there. That makes it almost worse.”

“Aweh,” Kraber says, nodding. “I can understand that. But if it helps, I know a great swimming hole near Milan…”

You look up to the tall, skinny man, and implausibly heavyset pony. You cough slightly, saying ‘Ahem!’

‘Aaaaaaaaaanyway, Lake Patrol was like that,” Kraber said. “You’re guarding something, but it doesn’t really matter cause you’re out on the water, and you can just relax.”

August 7, 2022

Kraber had already narrowed it down to Lake Patrol or guard duty on the Farm with Da Costa and Joca the border collie, but that didn’t mean he was done thinking over his options.

I haven’t spent much time with Da Costa, Kraber thought, looking over the signup whiteboard hanging on the wall. But… I don’t think I want to be with people right now.

“Come on come on come on,” said Gage, the wheelchair-bound man sitting behind the desk. He hadn’t had much money or been part of any military before the War, and any money the HLF made from homebrew or protection had been so diverted by other causes that Gage had only been able to afford a wooden peg after Kraber amputated him. “Viktor. There’s a long line.”

Kraber had seen the leg, and knew - from experience and momentary checkups he conducted - that there was still some residue of the failed ponification there. Oddly colored grayish skin, and strangely colored red - not human red, but bright cherry red - hair. It was part of why Gage wore pants (even though they got caught on the pegleg) so often.

He’d been retired from active duty, and been reassigned to his ‘work placement office.’ Which was - and Kraber didn’t feel like kidding himself - an old farmhouse that had, before they built Defiance, been in almost a cartoon sort of nowhere. It’d been added to time and time again with prefabs and shipping containers, turning it into a massive, sprawling complex of wood and metal that housed apartments, offices, vaults, refrigerators, and other similar rooms.

Behind him, a woman in red with curly brown hair - Mariesa - sighed, momentarily blowing a mass of hair out of her face.

“Isit,” Kraber said.

“There’s someone you’re holding up,” Gage said, “and that’s enough. Go out and put down your name before I turn Bessie on you.”

‘Bessie’ could have been any number of things. It could’ve been Gage’s loyal giant dog, or it could’ve been the Serbu break-open .50 BMG rifle that Gage kept behind his wheelchair.

He’d not been this snippy before the amputation. Does… does that really do the kind of damage I’ve heard? Kraber thought. Could be either, really.

Then looked at the whiteboard.

Talk to a friend, or some alone time.

Talking to Dacosta was super tempting. Especially now that Emil was…

Kraber studiously tried not to think about that, and instead focused on how if he told anyone what he’d done, he suspected he’d get two reactions: If he told them about how wrong he felt killing a family of ponies, they’d laugh it off or shoot them. If he went so far as to say ‘Yes, I didn’t kill a ~~mother and daughter~~ gluestick and her spawn,’ they would probably exile him.

So, no question there.

“Lake patrol,” Kraber said. “No question.”

20 minutes later

Kraber liked Lake Umbagog. It was towards the south edge of Defiance, which was over near Wentworth Location, and it gave him time to be alone on a tiny little boat, barely more than a metal rowboat with an engine. Kraber didn’t know the exact term for it.

Normally, Kraber didn’t like being alone. He loved companionship from humans or animals, sought it out wherever possible. But he’d secluded himself because…

I’ll get exiled if I talk to them about it, he thought as he steered the boat over towards the west side of the lake.

But Kraber didn’t believe that. Couldn’t make himself believe that.

‘They’ll do much worse. I know I would. So, that leaves me with three options, Kraber thought, as he scanned the lake for - oh who was he kidding, there was nothing to see. Lake Patrol was just a placeholder duty that nobody cared abo-

December 2022
Dancing Day

“Ahem,” Yael says.

“Ja,” Kraber says. “Exactly.”

August 7, 2022
Kraber

So:

Option One: Get it off his chest, talk it over. Get shot or exiled.

I don’t like dying, and I don’t want to get exiled, Kraber thought. So, that’s out.

Option Two: Leave preemptively.

I mean, this is all I have left, so- Kraber thought.

Upon that realization, he shut down.

fok.

It wasn’t the first time he’d thought of that. But this time, it really seemed… to be driven home, somehow. So, that leaves me with…

Option Three: I’m with these people, I guess.

It should’ve made him happy to hear it. I’m with Mariesa, Gage, Dan, Dayoung and Megan, Dacosta, he thought. And… Lovikov.

Why am I thinking of that last part as a downside?

“This is too fokkin’ stressful,” Kraber said. Fok it. I’m going swimming.

So he’d decided to strip down to kaalgat and go swimming, all his clothes piled up in his little boat next to his guns. Lake Umbagog was shallow enough he could practically walk through most of it, but there were deep enough points he could immerse himself in the water.

‘Reminds me of home, almost,’ Kraber thought. He still thought of Cape Town as home, and had intended to go there after college. But, well, then Kate had gotten pregnant in sophomore year, and they’d both stuck it out in a Boston apartment, then in Germany.

Kraber let his mind wander as he swam through the lake, doing the breaststroke. There were a lot of things he was reminded of as he swept his arms through the lake - the fun times he’d had in pools, or over on Long Beach, for example.

He still didn’t feel right.

“Maybe I’ll just get back in the boat,” Kraber grumbled, swimming up to the rim of the boat, ready to pull himself in...

And then he stopped, gaping as he saw it. Something sat at the prow of the boat. A pony.

No…

“Viktor…. We’re still newfoals, Viktor,” said the equine in the other end of the canoe. It was a grotesque thing, covered in blood and eyes full of worms, one foreleg missing, a jagged stump where there should have been a horn.

Two smaller ponies were standing behind it. They could’ve been the foals he’d shot not long before, or they could’ve been…

“Who are you?” he heard himself ask.

“You know who we are,” the three of them said.

‘No,’ Kraber thought, closing his eyes and shaking his head. ‘You’re not real! NOT REAL!’

“Aren’t I?” the equine asked. ‘I’m as real as you need me to be, Viktor.’

Kraber opened his eyes…

Only to find the boat blessedly empty.

Kraber shook his head as he pulled his clothes back on, enjoying the silence.

‘Fokdammit. This was supposed to be relaxing.’

He hadn’t quite been the same for the last eighteen hours or so. He’d had a moment of weakness, of doubt as he fired into the gluesticks. Then…

Well.

Then he hadn’t been able to fire.

“I just feel… wrong. Soft,” he muttered, to nobody in particular. “Fok.”

Things had just been so easy before yesterday. He would wake up around 7 AM, throw on his guns, and maybe squeeze in some target practice, wasting as little of their precious ammunition ammunition as possible. Then, he’d do whatever duties Lovikov required around camp - some surgery, some basic medical checkups, some maintenance. Even carpentry or fishing. Even patrolling just as he was now. And, when they were called on a raid, he’d sign on and murder everything in sight. More often than not, any pony in range was fair game. It’d been simple, really.

But lately, things hadn’t been so black-and-white. That hadn’t been the first time that those (Stupid, ignorant, HORSEFUCKING) townies had defended the FOKKING GLUESTICKS. About a year earlier, it’d been so easy to understand: ponies and traitors were targets, humans who did not associate with them were heroes.

And heroes, as Kraber understood it, made things better.

But then… Emil had died. Crossley was dead. And that family of ponies had died. Some of his friends had been ponified, again, and he’d been forced to kill them, again. And the Barrier still came. People were still ponified.

‘Am I even doing anything right?’

“Why don’t I feel like we did that much?” he asked himself. “And all we fokkin’ have to show for it, ja, is a glowing yellow spike and some salvage.”

‘And I killed a family. Couldn’t kill another one,’ Kraber thought.

He couldn’t unthink that: I. Killed. A. Family.

‘But they were ponies, right? Doesn’t that make it okay?’ he thought. ‘So if that’s right, then how’s it okay I let those two live? How’s that work? It’s okay I killed a family cause they were ponies, but it’s okay I didn’t kill ponies cause they were a family?

He sighed.

‘Katie, and Peter, and Anka… they’re still dead. And I’ve made nobody happier. I’m fokkin’ useless.’

He reached into a cooler and downed a beer. It didn’t help.

Fokkin’ American beer, Kraber thought. Tastes like piss! he continued, as his mind drifted towards thoughts of-

That filly!

Staring down at that foal, finger on the revolver’s trigger, things suddenly didn’t seem as simple. He’d tried to fire. Tried to call out what he had discovered. He didn’t have it in him. He later swore that he’d seen Kate, Anka, and Peter looking back at him from behind the eyes of those ponies.

In that moment, the filly and her mother had transfixed him. The look of utter hate in the mother’s eyes had reminded Kraber of… Well, himself. And so had the look of fear and pity in the filly’s eyes.

They’re not so different, Kraber thought. And then, unbidden: They’d hate me for it. I know it.

Wouldn’t Kate, Peter, and Anka want him to avenge them? Still… at least he wasn’t-

-inflicting the same kak that he’d suffered through?

NO!

His stomach suddenly lurched at the memory, and he leaned over the side of the canoe, breathing heavily.

“Oh, Viktor”, sighed the dead newfoal. ”Where’d you go so wrong?”

This time, it had spoken in Kate’s voice.

Kraber had, of course, also spent some time fishing. And so he took his boat on a detour, away from the weed-choked road to the middle of Defiance. There was a cabin, just off the lake, that he needed to visit.

‘I hate doing this,’ he thought. Except, perfectly honest, he didn’t. It was something of a duty, and someone had to shoulder the burden.

He anchored the boat just a few feet from the beach, at the docks he’d helped to build years earlier. He jumped out, and headed into the woods with a cooler full of fish.

Which way is it, again? he wondered, before cursing himself mentally for his forgetfulness. He stepped to the right, heading for a gap between two pine trees, when the flashlight radio he kept in his backpack suddenly flicked on.

“ There's a cold black sun
Burnin' way down low
Where the bird don't sing
And the wind don't blow...”

That way, then. Guess I made the right decision ~~for fokkin’ once~~

It almost - but not quite - kept him from realizing that there were no sounds in the woods around him. The underbrush had even grown, to the point that soon it’d be too difficult for him to head this way without hacking a path through the saplings. No herbivores had been this way in quite some time.

‘Why in the fok do we keep this around, anyway?’ Kraber thought to himself, as he walked towards the cabin he could just barely see through the overgrowth. The incessant song from his flashlight radio was his only companion.

He tried not to look at the trees on either side of him. Something felt… wrong. Different. As if there were things behind the trees, behind him, even. All around him.

Still, he kept walking, cooler of fish firmly in hand.

The cabin was forty feet away from him.

Wasn’t it?

Twenty feet.

And, after a few more seconds, maybe even a minute… Still twenty feet.

“Fokkin’ cut this kak out,” Kraber spat, revolver in hand. “Fokkin’ do it! Before I decide to make an excu-”

The current song skipped with a burst of static, and then, for a few seconds, it appeared to be an entirely different song.

“...why didn’t you save us, daddy? Parasites got in my brain, and now I think I’ve gone insane...”

‘...What. Is it tuning me kak?!’

Okay. That didn’t make sense. A radio couldn’t be deliberately toying with him. He’d heard the song before, but that lyric was… well, off the top of his head, it was ‘Scary terry,’ not ‘Save us, daddy.’ But he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was what he heard.

Was that Anka’s voice? he thought. Nooit. Couldn’t be.

He reached into his backpack for his flashlight radio, and found that it’d been switched on, its light illuminating his backpack.

Fokkin’ magic kak, Kraber thought, turning it off again.

And before he knew it, he was at the front door of the cabin.

He knocked, and a rather gaunt (not that Kraber was anyone to judge) woman opened the door. She’d kept herself in excellent shape, but there was something about her that looked unhealthy. It was difficult to place - something about the pallor of the skin? The blemishes along her jawline? The fact that just out of the corner of his eye, Kraber could see her eyes were bloodshot?

She was Beatrice Hatch. A friend of Rebecca Benning who’d dropped out of her upper-class upbringing back in the 2000s for one of the militia movements would, in almost a decade’s time, become the HLF.

“Hello,” Beatrice said. There wasn’t a quaver in her voice, there was only perfect certainty. That worried Kraber, somehow. “It’s you, ah…”

“Viktor,” Kraber says. “With a k.”

“Makes it sound cooler, doesn’t it?” Beatrice asked.

It was so strange for Kraber to imagine that she wasn’t much older than him. Only 32 - and he was 29.

“Something like that,” Kraber said, holding the cooler out to her and silently praying that it could just be over with. “Here. I brought this, and-”

“Oh, please! Come in, come in,” Beatrice said. “I insist. I’ll need some help putting it all in my fridge.”

To be completely honest with himself, Kraber didn’t want to. But it was that or leaving someone like Beatrice alone (Well, not really alone, but pretty much alone) in here. So Kraber decided to walk in, taking Beatrice’s outstretched hand.

Two things hit him immediately. The stench of the room, and the volume of the music on his flashlight radio shooting up like a rocket.

‘'Cause there ain't no world left, baby, under your feet… came the song over the radio.

“FOKKIN’ KAKHUISKRIEK-” Kraber yelled.

“Richard!” Beatrice said, taking on a scolding tone. “Richard, turn that shit down! Can’t you see we have a guest?”

There was a sound like hooves on floorboards. Probably because it was indeed hooves on floorboards - there was a newfoal with bruise-red-or-purple fur, trotting towards them with a blank expression on his face. It was perpendicular to the two of them, trotting out from a room just parallel to the kitchen.

It took an act of staggering willpower for Kraber not to shoot the FOKKIN’ ABOMINATION’ in the face RIGHT FOKKIN’ THERE AND NOW, LIKE HE DID ALL THE OTHER FOKKIN’ NEWFOALS, SPLATTERING THEM INTO A PASTE AND PAINTING THE-

“Is that any way to greet visitors?” Beatrice asked. “Richard, what do you have to say for yourself?”

The newfoal jerked its head - not his, IT’S FOKKIN’ - head towards the two of them, revealing three things: Firstly, it was a unicorn. Secondly, something was drastically wrong with its movement. It was jerking its head towards Kraber too fast, then imperceptibly slow, then at what Kraber could only guess was a normal speed. As its head pointed towards Kraber (Not at his eyes, just generally in his direction) he noticed it make a slight correction. Like a machine repositioning itself.

And thirdly, it revealed the speaker in its body. Just where a pony’s trachea would be. Beatrice, in a fit of… nobody could quite nail down what… had sewn it into the newfoal that had been her son Richard.

She’d said she could hear thin, reedy weeping from it. Though Kraber had never heard it.

It stared at him, slack-jawed, with sightless eyes.

“I… aweh,” Kraber said.

“There!” Beatrice said. “That’s better. Apologize to our guest, Richard.”

The newfoal remained still, making absolutely no perceptible motion. Kraber couldn’t even see it breathing.

‘Is this thing even alive?’ Kraber asked himself. Which was silly, as he’d plainly seen it walk out of what he assumed was a bedroom. But something about its stillness, about its silence, just made it impossible for him not to think so.

The newfoal twitched so slightly that Kraber couldn’t even say what muscles it was using.

“That’s a good boy, Richard!” Beatrice said, smiling. “That’s a very good boy.”

Countless thoughts about how Beatrice sounded like she was talking to a dog rushed through Kraber’s head. He tried - and failed - not to focus too much on them.

“I… have to chuck,” Kraber said. “Excuse me.”

“Viktor, you know I don’t speak Dutch!” Beatrice said, scolding him lightly. “Do you mean you have to throw up or leave?”

“...Ja,” Kraber said. “Here’s the fish-” he pushed the cooler over to her, uneasily. Then, a bit faster than necessary, he headed for the door.

“Goodbye, then!” Beatrice said, waving to him. “Thanks for the food. So few people are this kind!”

It wasn’t that Kraber was a fearful man. Far from it. Kraber’s default reaction to most things that scared or threatened him had usually been “punch it, stab it, shoot it, or burn it.” But there were a number of reasons that wouldn’t have worked here. Newfoals simply unsettled something in him, drove him closer to cracking, made him think of Kate, and Peter, and Anka, and no no no FOKKIN’ STOP-

“Are you sure?” Beatrice asked. “Richard’s been telling me about his plans lately. He says he’s going to spend some time in Portland, and Burlington, then move up to Montreal for the grand finale!”

Fokkin’ bosbefok woman, Kraber thought.
‘Not that you can judge,’ he thought.

“Aweh,” Kraber said. “I’m sure he has. Enjoy the fish, ja?”

“We certainly will!” Beatrice said, waving to him.

Kraber tried and failed to keep an expression of disgust off his face as he walked towards the door. Anything to get away from that fokkin’ madwoman.

Someone had to be nice to Beatrice. Someone had to make food deliveries, because Benning and, grudgingly, Lovikov - the main reason the camp hadn’t shot either of them - were often too busy to do it personally. Lovikov would find most any excuse to get out of doing it, as would anyone else who was assigned the duty.

Nobody wanted this constant reminder of what could happen to them, what’d happened to their loved ones, and what the Solar Empire would happily do to all of them. More than a few wanted to kill the newfoal that’d been her son Richard, and some of them wanted to just shoot Beatrice and be done with it.

Surprisingly, Kraber didn’t quite count as part of that group. He’d known Beatrice, back during the early days when he came to America, and Solar Empire zeps and potioneers had tried bombing the East Coast. He’d known her son, too. Good kid, before he’d gotten hit with watered-down defective potion made by some Solar Empire commander with the characteristic quantity-over-quality mindset.

She wasn’t much different from him. She deserved more than exile, or shooting the one thing that kept her at least relatively tractable. And Benning had threatened to leave Lovikov or start her own unit if Beatrice didn’t get treated well. Surprising all three of them, Kraber had sided with Benning.

She was a lot like him, really.

Too much so.

Is this what I could’ve been? Kraber thought, trudging out the doorframe. Wait, is this what I a-

Kraber’s flashlight radio clicked on again.

Fokdammit!

‘Where is my me. It’s been taken,’ sounded the radio. It was so distorted that it was nigh on impossible for Kraber to guess what the gender of the speaker was. ‘Dajte mi ma späť! VRÁŤ TO! Rydyn ni i gyd yn sgrechian yma! Laat ons uit! Laat ons sterf, jou siek fokken kontgesigs! Jag kan inte sova HJALP MIG’

A pause. A sigh.

‘Ingen lyssnar, är de?’

The radio warbled, and another voice - or maybe the same voice, with different distortions? - sounded. Then:

‘No. No they're not. They're not, they're not, nobody's coming, NOBODY'S FUCKING COMING-’

Different distortions. The same voice, but not sounding the same:

‘Не будь таким завзятим. Nogen kommer. Nogen vil afslutte dette. Nogen har to.

‘The same fokkin’ broadcasts we heard on the radio yesterday morning,’ Kraber thought. He’d long since deduced that the broadcasts were made up of multiple languages, though he freely admitted he didn’t understand all of it. While he spoke at least thirteen languages - Hindi, Hebrew, Afrikaans, Dutch, Portuguese, German, English, Polish, Turkish, some some Swahili, Yiddish, some Russian, some Spanish, and some Japanese thanks to his knowledge of Turkish, there was still a lot of the broadcast that went over his head.

The one bit of Afrikaans he’d heard made him shiver, though:

‘Laat ons uit! Laat ons sterf, jou siek fokken kontgesigs!’

Or in his native language:

“Let us die! Let us die, you sick fokkin’ kontgesigs!”

Part of Kraber wanted to brush it off and head back through these FOKKIN’ WOODS back to Defiance. The other part of him had his suspicions about just what this was. So, a scowl fixed on his face, he reached into his backpack to turn the flashlight radio off.

As soon as the switch clicked to the off position, noise burst from the radio. Well fok.

“Budou tě bolet! Bude vám to všechno ublížit! Peggio di quanto tu sia mai stato ferito prima! Und du wirst hier mit uns stecken, im Loch, tief im Loch, für immer und immer, wie sie uns mit diesen zahlen und machen uns zum schreien! Yardım et, bizi öldür, lütfen, bir şey, sadece bu acıyı durdur … kuacha kabla ya kukufanya ujiunga na sisi hapa shimo, kabla ya kuchelewa!

“Fok fok fok PIECE OF KAK SHIT C-!” Kraber cursed, ripping the batteries out of the flashlight.

“ARRÊTE ÇA! ARRÊTE ÇA! ARRÊTE ÇA!”

Despite Kraber’s head for languages, he’d never had an easy time with French. Spanish was easier for him. Whoever was on the other end, they were screaming “MAKE IT STOP!”

Somewhere, distantly inside, he was thinking something along the lines of ‘Well that didn’t work’ as the broadcast simply kept going while he rushed for the road to Defiance.

The road was just ahead. Somewhere, Kraber was distantly aware that he was sprinting.

Just before he hit the road, he heard a voice:

“Daddy? Where are you g-?”

The radio cut out immediately by the time he was on the side of the road.

What the shit was THAT?! he thought. That was… that was Anka’s voice. His daughter’s voice.

Impossible. Fokkin’ impossible.

And yet, that sure sounded like her…

“Aweh,” Kraber said, trying not to shake. “I’m just going to head back to camp and pretend that never happened.”

He trudged north, along the neglected, weed-choked road.

“They better have a fokkin’ drink for me up there,” Kraber grumbled, looking at the forest all around him.

Once upon a time, just after the Europe Exodus, Gregor Helmetag, former commander of the Menschabwehrfraktion, had led his HLF here, to rural New Hampshire.

They’d been looking for a place away from ponies. A place they could call their own. And to their surprise, the people of Wentworth Location had opened their arms to Helmetag. In the wake of the catastrophic PER attacks of the Purple Winter of 2020, and the chaos of the year of First Expansion, the offer had been simple: A cut of the food they produced, along with some shelter, in return for protection from PER.

Helmetag had kept his promise, turning the area into a sanctuary for anyone who wanted to make a life away from the horsefuckers, turning the rural scattering of farms and outbuildings into a small town. While there was some permanent settlement, the bulk of it was made up of prefabs and shipping containers that could be easily disassembled and loaded onto vehicles in the event of Barrierfall.

Not that Kraber could see it with the security ahead. A large wall - made up of trees and other assorted junk - surrounded their farmland, cutting through the often-unused road. Walls surrounded the farmland and nearby town, and guard towers reached up above the tree canopy. Kraber himself had helped lay the traps and landmines in the surrounding forest.

He nodded to one of the women in a nearby guard tower - a dark-skinned woman by the name of Thompson. She nodded back, her M1 carbine resting on a sling over her shoulder.

“How was Lake Patrol?” she called down. Then, sympathetically: “I know you needed it!”

Kraber was silent for a moment. “It was alright!” he called back, responding almost robotically. Without a doubt, it was not fokkin’ alright - something had just tormented him over the radio. But she didn’t need to know that.

“Glad it helped!” Thompson yelled, as Kraber headed down into the place they called home.

At first he was greeted with pastures. Cows, goats, pigs, and other animals trotted over the fields on either side of the road, and he could see HLF with cattle dogs sitting in the fields almost contentedly. Some of them, he knew for a fact, had been from the hearts of the biggest cities in Europe - before the Barrier had atomized them, of course.

One dog - it looked like a border collie mix - ran up to Kraber. It laid its paws on the old wooden fence beside the road, barking at him. A farmhand in an almost hilariously cowboy-like getup ran along behind the dog.

Kraber ruffled the fur on its head. “Braver hund, Joca,” he said, scratching it. It panted contentedly, its tongue lolling out. “Who ist good hond, ja, ja…”

“Bon Dia,” said the man walking up to Kraber. And as always, the Portuguese coming out of the man’s mouth sounded incredibly incongruous.

Kraber knew from experience that the man’s cowboy costume was something of a running joke - when he’d picked up the revolver, his first weapon when he’d joined the HLF, people had joked that he was a cowboy. He’d wholeheartedly embraced it when he got to America, taking to farm work like he’d been born to it.

“Goeie middag, Da Costa,” Kraber responded, shaking the man’s hand. “How jou doing?”

“Not bad at all,” Joao Miguel - or Jomi, for short - Da Costa said in portuguese. “Any idea where Gunderson is?”

“Vreemd,” Kraber said, stroking his unruly beard. “I was about to ask you that same question.”

“He and his wife made the best tortiere,” Da Costa said, well on the verge of salivating. “Y’know, I heard from Gimp-leg Garrett that he was on some kinda secret mission.”

He whispered those last four - five, in Da Costa’s accent - syllables conspiratorially.

“Something so secret even I didn’t know about it?” Kraber asked. “Sounds unlikely. Lovikov’s-”

Something skipped in Kraber before he said the next two syllables:

“My friend. Why wouldn’t he tell me this?”

“Just telling you what I heard,” Da Costa said. “Besides, everyone knows you love a good story. Maybe…”

“Maybe I’m not the right person to talk about it,” Kraber said, and sighed. “Sure. Maybe I’ll ask Lovikov about it when I go in camp to-”

Though nobody would peg Kraber as a master of reading emotions, it was hard for him to miss the sudden start that Da Costa had when he mentioned meeting Lovikov in person.

“Might not be a good idea,” Da Costa said. “Word is, Lovikov’s not in a… mood.”

“Is he ever not in a mood?” Kraber asked, the words spilling out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He was still scratching the dog’s head, and it was still panting contentedly.

“Eu nao sei,” Da Costa said. “Talked to Benning awhile ago. Says sometimes he’s almost elated, then he flicks back to rage a few seconds later.”

‘That can’t be good,’ Kraber thought, before trying to bury that. ‘No. He is my china, he fights the good fight...’

“Benning also said he wants to see you,” Da Costa added. “Some big briefing planned.”

Whatever showed on Kraber’s face, Da Costa must not have liked what he saw. A look of concern and confusion flashed on the Portuguese man’s face.

“Isn’t he your friend?” Da Costa asked. “I thought you were practically joined at the hip. Don’t tell me you’re going like those Helmetag loyalists and those caralhos who want us to employ ponies in the fields.”

“I’m not,” Kraber said. “I just…” His mind raced, as he tried to encapsulate the vague feeling of discomfort he had towards Lovikov in a sentence. Kraber loved the work he did in the HLF, loved bringing the fight to the PER and those misanthropic bastards that’d thought all humanity deserved to die or be lobotomized to the point they were barely individuals. He loved the violence. He loved little moments like these when he could just talk to friends.

And yet, even with the things he’d done, even with all these beliefs, something didn’t quite feel right.

“Wait,” Kraber said, derailing that train of thought. “People here want us to employ…”

“Crazy, right?” Da Costa asked. “We’re the HLF! That sort of thing is exactly why we came here. But… well… There’s one thing - the farmers say that anywhere with ponies is outproducing them. They don't want pony crops near them, but there's people - Helmetag and Spader loyalists - who say the extra food might not be so bad.”

“Fok that!” Kraber roared, suddenly. “Fok those perdnaaiers, and fok selling ourselves out like that.”

Da Costa looked surprised for a second. Then: “that's what I keep saying. But… they have their points.”

“Like fokkin’ what?” Kraber asked.

Da Costa looked to Kraber uncomfortably. Shifting from foot to foot. “Kraber,” he said, “you'd better go see Lovikov.”

Kraber sighed. “Suppose I should pull through. Good talking to you, Da Costa.”

“Yeah,” Da Costa said. “Sure.”

Dayoung

Dayoung Tengku sat with Megan, just under a tarp that’d been unfurled off the side of an old green bus.

They leaned back in old, cracked plastic chairs, next to a bubbling, simmering pot of stew. The Ukrainian man named Lovikov who led this HLF unit - the Menschabwehrfraktion - stood nearby. He wasn’t alone - numerous others were camped out near this bus. A woman by the name of Blanchett with a burn on her face. A tall black man named Hakim Jones. A big, brown-bearded man by the name of Eugene Sullivan (though everyone called him ‘Sully’) with a trucker-hat and a passing resemblance to a bear, and a stocky build that didn’t seem to be entirely fat or muscle. All of which Megan remembered from the PER attack on her hometown, but there was someone new - a tall, smirking Irishman by the name of Andrew Murphy.

But Lovikov dominated the scene.

The first thought Dayoung had when she saw Lovikov was: “My God, he’s huge.”

He was well over six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders, and bulging muscles kept under a drysuit - which, in turn, lay under a set of bulletproof armor that looked almost like it could stop an antivehicle round. If he was sweating in the summer heat, he didn’t show it. A gas mask hung lazily over one shoulder, and his face…

The first word that came to Dayoung’s mind was “pulled.” Lovikov had prominent cheekbones, short, trim gray-streaked beard that seemed to have retreated to the edges of his face, and a receding hairline far back enough to blur the line between “Well-defined widow’s peak” and “balding.” His eyes felt… sunken, somehow. She almost had a hard time telling what color they were.

A pot of stew bubbled and simmered nearby, and Dayoung sniffed it expectantly. “What is it?” she asked.

“Ah, you know. Bit of this, bit of that. How are you settling in?” Lovikov asked.

“...Decently?” Megan said, uneasy.

“Glad to hear it,” Lovikov said, serving up large bowls to Megan - then to Dayoung. “You know, I’m glad we have some new blood here.”

Megan flinched slightly.

“...I don’t know what you were thinking, but it’s not that,” Lovikov said. “Since Spader’s death, the HLF haven’t been doing too well. You remember that, right?” he asked.

Of course Dayoung remembered. Back in 2019 - in the 6-month outbreak of human-on-pony violence that’d become known as the Purple Winter - an ex-SAS soldier from Britain had come out of nowhere to unify bands of anti-pony militias into a cohesive fighting force. “For the good of humanity,” he’d said. He’d taken people divided by politics, culture, and language, and convinced them all to fight together in his new army - the HLF.

The ones who hadn’t joined up had either died, folded themselves into bigger groups, or become bandits - scum and scavengers who raided and stole to survive. During the Europe Exodus, Spader’s European “HLF” had helped evacuate people that the UN or PHL simply wouldn’t have been able to get to in time.

And then Spader died.

His body was found in a river, lodged between two rocks, burnt beyond recognition, the convoy he was with wiped out. It was in such poor condition that it wasn't even clear if he'd died human or was in the early stages of grotesquery.

“Yeah,” she said. “Damn shame, too. He… he was a good man.”

“Da,” Lovikov said, “So, with his death, well… we’ve been at war.”

“Well, obviousl-” Megan muttered.

Lovikov’s eyes stared at her.

For a moment, Dayoung could feel rage emanating from the Ukrainian man. Something that could almost be doubt wormed its way through her, for a fraction of a fraction of a second. But it passed.

“Not just with the PHL,” Lovikov said. “With ourselves. With elements in other units - Yarrow’s Reavers, his pet little tinkerer Romero from Ex Astris Victoria - and even this camp. Hidden little horsefuckers who think that because Spader’s gone, we can be buddy-buddy-”

(The American idiom sounded weird in Lovikov’s thick Ukrainian accent)

“-with the gluesticks. Make no mistake, the HLF is in dire straits.”

Megan looked to Dayoung uncertainly. “Then why did we…”

“Because the PHL didn’t care,” Dayoung cut in. “When we wanted help. Armed guards. They just sent us ponies and a few screw-ups with guns. The HLF, on the other hand does care.”

“You,” Lovikov said, gesticulating towards Dayoung with a ladle, “You get it. They left so many of us to die, too! And where were they during the Purple Winter?! Trying to talk nice when my friends, my family were dying or being ponified before my eyes?! Giving safehouses to any pony off the street? You remember that PHL loshadinoye der'mo Fiddlesticks? The one who was at the Alaska Incident, getting medals from Lyra just last year? She was PER! And the PHL treat it like that never happened!”

“That’s right!” Megan yelled, and Dayoung looked to her friend, surprised. Megan had never made outbursts like that. “I hear about that all the time - even went to one of her ‘benefit concerts’.”

“Exactly. That’s the kind of thing we’re up against - people who look at ponies, look at all the derr’mo they’ve done, and say it’s all fine,” Lovikov said.

“It damn well isn’t!” Dayoung said. “I lost so many friends during the Purple Winter. I watched ponies trample all over us with no consequence.”

“How refreshing it is to meet outsiders who finally understand. It’s a nice change of pace to have someone come up and join the real heroes of this war,” Lovikov said. “Welcome aboard.”

There was an odd silence as the three of them sat out on Lovikov’s improvised porch.

“So,” Dayoung said, somewhat confused as she kept sipping from Lovikov’s stew. It tasted somewhat fishy. “What are the plans?”

Lovikov sat down and considered that.

“I’ve a few ideas,” he said. “One - but it’s too unrealistic. We probably won’t be able to try it. But there’s another one-”

“You mean Operation DOG,” Murphy said, chortling slightly.

“Andrew,” Lovikov said, “I have told you repeatedly not to use that name.”

“What’s Operation DOG?” Megan asked, confused.

“You know. Operation Delusions Of Grandeur.”

And there was that rage in Lovikov again as Murphy said it. Dayoung could see it as clear as day. He looked like he was only an inch away from violent, screaming rage.

‘Maybe,’ Dayoung thought, ‘this wasn’t such a good idea.’

He glanced through the assortment of mobile homes, trailers, buses, and shipping containers that made up Defiance.

“Which I will explain when Kraber gets here for the briefing.”

Kraber

On the way to the bus that Lovikov called home, Kraber passed a gaggle of children, wearing rags and holding looted, near-destroyed toys, all of them armed, wearing kalashnikovs, bullpups, and SMGs.

Kraber idly wondered how many of those kids knew or could remember anything before the War. He understood the need for child soldiers, yes, but he always felt uneasy at the sight of it. None of them, he thought, desperately trying not to convince himself that Peter and Anka might still be alive-

dead they’re dead you killed them you kontgesig you horrible father you kiddie rapist

-would be able to live a normal life after all this. If any of them could go back. If there would be anything left at the end of it all. A kid… deserved a chance to be a kid. These children wouldn’t have that.

He overheard one talking in… Turkish? Thanks to Burakgazi, his lover from way back when, Kraber’s turkish was passable, so he could understand yet another rendition of the story of Old Skinner, some lone HLF man who’d allegedly accomplished feats that were downright impossible.

“They say he took potion to the face and lived - ordered someone to cut off half his cheek with a knife. They say he once took a PHL outpost by himself. They say he wears a coat of pony leather, the cutie marks all facing outwards… and I know a friend, right? Says he saw him...”

More mutterings.

“I heard he can command any HLF brigade he sees fit...”

“...blew those bastards away with his own power; turned them to mush.”

“Lit up the entire area like a flashbang.”

Oh right, apparently Old Skinner was not only real but had long since stepped up his game. Kraber himself still had memories of the first time back when he saw a site of unbridled carnage and someone claimed that it was Old Skinner’s work.

It was a small settlement in the Pacific Northwest that - based on who you asked - was either a joint settlement of independent humans and equines that just wanted to be left alone, or a PER/Imperial camp. Either way, when they got to it, everyone got to see the aftermath…

The area, according to their intel, was just some wilderness fashioned into a small town that used tents, camper vehicles, and RVs, rather like Defiance in its early days. The HLF had hoped to get some material out of it and possibly some prisoners and intel. Maybe even info on the EHS, God willing.

‘Not that time.’ Kraber thought silently in reflection.

When the HLF reached the area, they ground was twisted and warped like it’d been shattered, melted, burned, and then awkwardly put back together. Jagged spears stuck out of the ground, impaling some poor ponies and humans, but they’d probably gotten off lucky compared to the other inhabitants. Said inhabitants were…

Well. Here and there. Debris from the camp was everywhere, mixed in with massive red stains. Any vehicles that were there were practically useless - tires blown to pieces and the driver’s side of one was mangled into a mess. The only other thing that Kraber remembered were these spots of violet that were burnt into the ground - some of them were almost like footsteps.

The bodies that weren’t blown to pieces or ‘missing’ had been torn apart. Unicorns, ravaged and misshapen - their horns shattered or broken; Pegasi, wings either torn off or brutalized; Earth ponies, torn to pieces as if they were made of cheap paper or foam. It was after finding that one with welts for a face - couldn’t be determined it was a man or woman - that he heard someone say that this must have been the work of Old Skinner; only way that made sense, was the claim.

“I say we get rid of Kraber’s gun,” said one African man, a newcomer from one of the cities on the Gold Coast, before realizing, rather abruptly, that Kraber could understand him.

“It’s PHL. It’s magic,” he continued defensively, struggling to meet Kraber’s gaze. “We can’t trust it.”

“You fokking want it then?” Kraber asked, raising the LMG, pointing it in his direction, eyebrows narrowed. “Go ahead. Take it, kontgesig. Fokkin’ dare you.”

The man held up his hands, backing away slowly, and then running off into the distance.

“Yeah, that’s what I fokking thought,” Kraber said. Fokking vultures.... couldn’t see a good thing if it cock-slapped them in the face.

(And Kraber does, in fact, later realize the hypocrisy, the absurdity of this sentence as he tells you this story, groaning.)

“Besides, Romero can trust magic,” said an HLF woman who had been standing next to the African man. She sounded Irish. “And if an HLF man ca-”

Kraber stared daggers at that woman. “Romero. Is. Fokkin’. Not. One of us. Not for what he does. That varknaaier works with ponies, he’s sold himself out to Yarrow...”

He glared at the woman.

“Unless,” Kraber continued, “You’re saying that’s admirable…”

Which made the second person that Kraber had intimidated into running away from him that day.

‘Heh, I love watching ‘em squirm like that,’ Kraber thought. ‘Always a fokkin’ treat.’

“So,” said one American who Kraber had seen working on the farms with Da Costa. He’d probably never seen the Barrier.

“I’ve been talking to Farnowitz. He’s out in the woods by Colebrook. Says he saw four ponies up there in Colebrook, sharing a room in some B&B, with two humans…” the American said.

‘Farnowitz… Farnowitz… who’s…’ Kraber struggled to jog his memory.

He remembered a twitching, nervous man with green eyes, a huge widows peak, and stringy blond hair. The two of them occasionally met whenever Kraber was at a drop-point near Colebrook, to trade supplies with individuals sympathetic to the Cause. Farnowitz was one of those sympathisers: he was nice enough, and he knew guns, but… being honest, he was something of a moegoe. Not enough of a believer to join them in Defiance, too set in his ways to leave his hometown, not good for espionage.

Die man is te flou, Kraber thought. Still, HLF life wasn’t for everyone.

“Disgusting, I bet they were fucking each other last night,” said another American.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” the first guy said. “We probably just missed them at one of the checkpoints!”

For emphasis, he slapped himself on the forehead.

“Farnowitz remember the humans with them?” the second man asked.

“He said… a woman with hair dyed about five colors, and a short man with a pompadour, an assault rifle, and a revolver. The ponies, though… one of the mares had a telescope mark, another had a mark that looked like ballet shoes. ”

Kraber froze, ever so slightly, feeling conflicted.

’The filly and the mare from last night.’

Did he feel glad they were alright? Angry that they’d lived?

“So these guys were PHL?” the second man asked. “God DAMMIT! How’d we let something like that slip through their territory? We literally made a checkpoint just for that! One with Kraber and Lovikov, no less!”

‘PHL,’ Kraber thought. I… I let PHL survive.

The horsefuckers. Thousands of obscenities directed at them, for merely collaborating with the monsters that had killed his family, rushed through his head.

’At least nobody’s going to get ponified, anyway…’, he told himself. At least he could tell himself that.

Well. He couldn’t tell Lovikov that.

He was still thinking about that when he got to Lovikov’s bus.

The two girls they rescued sat outside, sipping from Lovikov’s fish chowder. Which, it had to be said, smelled extra nice today.

“Viktor!” Lovikov said, a smile on his face as he waved to Kraber. “Glad you could finally make it!”

Is that condescension I hear? Kraber wondered. “So,” he asked, “What…”

DAYOUNG

“...do you want me to do?” Kraber finished.

‘I can’t believe I’m standing in front of Viktor Kraber, Dayoung thought, awed.

The man was a legend. He’d lost his family to Pinkie Pie herself just before the Purple Winter and embarked on a campaign of destruction across Eastern Europe and eventually Turkey, destroying every Bureau in his path and murdering anything that even reminded him of ponies.

And some that probably hadn’t - there were stories of him fighting government forces, too. Even stories of fighting the PHL, before Spader put a stop to that.

“It’s easy,” Lovikov said. “I just need you… to show our new recruits. Who we are.”

“Am I a fokkin’ tour guide?” Kraber asked sarcastically.

Lovikov slapped Kraber on the back. “Nyet, nothing like that. I just figure that - with how you welcomed them in - you might appreciate showing them the ropes. Just after…”

Lovikov produced a sheet of papers from nowhere observable.

“This briefing.”

Lovikov walked to a tree, tugging on a cord. A strip of the material for projector screens spilled out, and Lovikov brought out an ancient, stolen projector. They’d looted it from a school during the Europe Exodus.

“Tomorrow,” Lovikov said, “We’re going to Portland.”

He clicked the slide. What looked like a stock photo of Portland flashed onscreen, and Kraber looked the city over. If you could call it that. It was very small compared to most cities he’d seen, built around a hill. No tall buildings to speak of, either.

“Tomorrow, a PHL mobile rig known as the Sorghum is going to be moving towards Portland for repairs,” Lovikov said. “We’re going to take it.”

The HLF all around Kraber erupted in shock.

“Are you crazy, Leonid?!” Helen Blanchett yelled. “Stealing from the PHL?!”

“We’re not going to steal it, obviously,” Lovikov said. “Not permanently. But: The PHL won’t take kindly to it being gone. We’re going to use that as leverage. They get the rig and all its personnel back, then in return… we get Carter back in the saddle again.”

Jones snickered slightly. “Heh. You said back in the saddle.”

“Okay, how the hell can you laugh at it like that, Hakim?” Helen asked. “This is… look, we’ve had some skirmishes with PHL before, but… nothing like what this’d be!”

“Well,” Jones said, “Excuse me for finding a way to cope with it! But.... this is just insane!”

“But it’d get us Carter back,” Sullivan added. “Not sure I like it, but… we need him.”

“This ou,” Kraber said, pointing to Sullivan, “Has the right idea.”

As Kraber said this, he thought over the plan. He thought of how obsessively fokkin’ superior the PHL acted. He thought of how they acted like the kindest, most oh-so-fokkin’ moral side of the war, despite the fact that they were as dirty as anyone else. He thought of how they’d left people to die, how the kontgesigs shamelessly worked with ponies, the fokkin’ gluesticks that’d been responsible for all this. The perdnaaiers who preached tolerance the same way the Solar Empire did and acted like nothing was ever the fault of their pony friends, when every day there was another house destroyed by the Barrier.

Kraber had never quite understood intolerance amongst other humans, but if according to the PHL it made him a bad person to hate ponies, then so fokkin’ be it. The common targets of human racism had never come close to destroying the world - ponies had.

‘What they’ve done,’ Kraber thought, They deserve to fokkin’ suffer.’

“I’m fokkin’ well in this,” Kraber said, a smile on his face. “Gives us an excuse to bliksem more of the hoenderpoes.”

“Great,” said Helen, “The goddamn madman thinks this is a good idea! I’m sure that’s a ringing goddamn endorsem-”

“Don’t. Fokkin’. INSULT ME!” Kraber yelled, and he saw red. Rage seethed in Kraber, and he reached to his hip for a knife, for a revolver...

Only for Benning to reach for a revolver of her own. Her .357 was a millimeter from the holster when Kraber stopped. Benning was incredible on the draw with that thing.

“I’ll admit,” Benning said, as if her hand wasn’t on her revolver, “It’s not the smartest plan, but we need Carter back. Without him, who’s going to keep real HLF fighting against the Solar Empire’s monsters?”

Lovikov continued on, unconcerned. “And there’s one more thing. One more reason why this plan is worth considering. We get Carter back, Galt finally isn’t the head bandersa for our side of the Split.”

“Aw, FOK YEAH!” Kraber crowed.

Everyone in the room looked at each other, relieved.

“I take back what I said,” Blanchett said. “I’m in.”

“Screw it, anything’s worth getting that asshole out of the picture,” Jones said.

“Oh, praise the Lord, we’ll finally be free,” Benning said.

Lovikov smiled, and the weight of years seemed to just slough off of him like mud in the shower. “Thought you’d all appreciate that.”

“Wait,” Megan said. The teenage girl had been quiet for awhile. “I mean, you’re all talking about… about what’s basically an act of war against the PHL. Can Galt really be that bad?”

“Yeah,” Dayoung said, “I mean, from what I heard about Galt, I’d think he was some big hero.”

“Well-” Lovikov started.

“Galt,” Kraber interrupted, “writes his own press releases with one hand.”

The floodgates opened, and Lovikov burst into laughter. At the same time, Dayoung snickered.

“Wait,” Megan said. “Writes them with…”

A bemused look crossed Helen’s burned face, just before she explained it to Megan.

Megan blushed, before breaking into a fit of laughter all her own. “Ha! Okay, I get it,” she said.

“...I’d be mad at you, Viktor,” Lovikov said. “If, one, that wasn’t hysterical, two, that wasn’t Galt in a nutshell. He’ as opposed to me as is possible. There are lines he’ll cross - depths he’ll sink to - that I won’t.”

December 22, 2022
Dancing Day

“And yet,” Astral Nectar says, “Lovikov said that.”

“To be honest, for all we say about him, that wasn’t wrong,” Aegis says. “There are lines Galt would cross that Lovikov wouldn’t. He was a loon, but a loon with… can I say principles?”

“Maybe ‘standards’?” Kraber suggests.

“Or ‘limits’?” Aegis ponders. “Doesn’t mean Lovikov wouldn’t take a piss over a line if need be.”

Kraber nods. “Aweh, Aegis. Exactly.”

He sighed.

“And, unfortunately, we’re going to be working with him for this,” Lovikov said.

“Oh, that is kak!” Kraber yelled. “BULLSHIT, LEONID! BULL FOKKIN’ SHIT!”

He wasn’t the only one who thought so. All around him, the other HLF - Sullivan, Jones, Murphy, Blanchett - were making similar exclamations, except they hadn’t been nearly as polite as Kraber.

As he heard them arguing, Kraber found himself puzzling over his HLF membership.

‘Is this really going to help anyone?’ he’d thought.

‘Of course it will, we’ll get Carter back!’

‘Is that for the best? I mean, considering what he did to those ponies when he got them out of that basement…’ Kraber thought.

‘Why in the fok do you care about ponies?! They’re the enemy! They’re monsters that’ll use you as raw material or lobotomized slave labor, all of them!’ Kraber argued back.

“I know how it sounds,” Lovikov said, “But at the very least, he agreed we needed Carter back. And with the men at his command, and the resources he can provide, it was just hard to pass up. Besides-”

Lovikov clicked a button. There was a whirring sound from the projector, and a scene of a street by a marina flashed onscreen.

The boats docked there looked... strange. Hammered together from scrap and wood, lined with tires. One was built on giant pontoons and a giant mass of gears jutting out from the back, another was an expanded houseboat with an array of what might have been solar panels but for their soft pink glow. There was even one that looked like it’d been a car at one point, a big heavy lorrie with a gas tank and a set of decks that’d been awkwardly welded or hammered onto it.

There were ponies trotting through the marina, too. A pegasus floating above a fishing boat, an earth pony in a tiny, pony-sized yellow raincoat.

“Is that a damn Coffin Ship?” Jones breathed, looking at the boat made from scrap.

“Da Costa and I came over on something like that,” said Murphy. “Not a day went by I thought it’d stay afloat.”

“He provided us with this tugboat,” Lovikov said, pointing to a large, forest-green tugboat sat by the dock, with multiple decks. The thing looked massive. “The Arctic Warrior. It has a hidden bottom so we can hold a damn sight more HLF and weaponry.”

Oddly enough, the relative normality of the Arctic Warrior almost made it stand out among the other strange craft.

“Wait,” Kraber said. “What’s… what’s with all the other boats? And…”

He looked to a lorrie, just driving through the middle of the photo. It had those same lightly glowing not-quite-solar-panels on the hood, a set of tubes feeding into the fuel port, and what looked like a boiler from a small steam engine in the lorrie’s bed.

“There’s a base of newtech, or magitech, or whatever you call it in Portland,” Lovikov said. “It’s filtering in from somewhere, and I don’t know where.”

“PHL?” Dayoung asked.

“Nooit,” Kraber said. “If it was there, they’d be selling it everywhere. Or at least somewhere more important.”

“I heard rumors that Romero could be there,” Jones said. “Think that could be it.”

“Seems likely enough,” Lovikov said. “But I don’t think he’ll stop us. For two reasons. One, that’d mean exposing himself - and he can’t afford that. Two, it’d mean him defending the horsefuckers. Can’t see why any HLF, even if they’re on the other side of the Split, would do that.”

“And we’re sure,” Murphy said, “That this’ll work?”

Dancing Day
Christmas 2022

You snort.

“I know, I know,” Kraber says, throwing up his hands.

“Positive,” Lovikov said. “In the event of Solar Empire attacks, the Sorghum comes equipped with a number of PHL weapons. Cannons, missiles, point defense - if we capture it, we’ve got a lot of big guns to point at Portland.”

“But… we won’t fire them, will we?” Megan asked.

Her voice sounded very small among the various grown men and women in front of Lovikov’s bus.

“Who let this rookie here?” Sullivan yelled.

“Lay off the stukkie, Sully,” Kraber said. “No need to talk like that to a kid.”

“Besides, she’s got a point,” Blanchett said. “The point of threatening someone with a big gun is making them think you’re going to use it. So what happens if push comes to shove and we-”

“So fokkin’ what?” Kraber interrupted. “Either we get our leader back, or we give all those fokkin’ perdnaaiers what they deserve. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a win either way.”

It sounded fokkin’ dof and he knew it, because he’d said it mostly to convince himself.

‘It’s ALL their fault? Even a mother and child being held at gunpoint in a car trunk? The War may have come with them, but that doesn’t make every last one of them responsible! Does Lyra sound like she was responsible for Kiev getting nuked, the Barrier, for ponification, the Crucible, the Biomass Vats, Hell’s Point, the Tbilisi Massacre, the Thaum Rot, to you? he thought.

“That’s certainly true,” Lovikov said. “Still, Lord knows I’d prefer to put Carter back in power. Are… are you feeling alright, Kraber?”

“Aweh, sure. Fokkin’ kwaai,” Kraber said.

“Dismissed, all of you,” Lovikov said. “Get some rest, all of you. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

His gaze lingered on Kraber, and for a moment Kraber almost felt a spike of panic.

Does he know?!

The thought raced through Kraber’s mind.

But, as everyone filtered out from the space between the bus and projector, Kraber pushed it aside.

‘It’s not worth worrying about,’ Kraber thought. ‘If I act worried, if I act like I have something to hide… then they’ll find it. For now, just keep calm.

Dayoung

“What the hell have you gotten me into, Dayoung?” Megan yelled.

“What do you mean?” Dayoung asked, confused.

“I mean, you took us away from our home!” Megan said. “Sure, we didn’t have much back there, but… it was what we knew! And now, we… we’re with a bunch of crazies in the woods!”

“They’re not crazy,” Dayoung protested. “They saved us! Our town!”

"And nearly killed Caramel Swirl, and Grapevine!” Megan hissed.

“Can you blame them?” Dayoung asked. “Look, even if they’re a credit to their race… we both know what they’ve brought with them. Even if the ponies were helping, well… I can’t fault them for what they did.”

Megan didn’t answer.

As they walked by, they saw Kraber moving towards a shipping container.

“Something doesn’t look right about him,” Megan said.

“What do you mean?” Dayoung asked. From what she’d seen of Kraber - who she’d been lead to believe was a great hero of the HLF - she hadn’t really been able to form her own impression of him.

“I mean,” Megan said, “Look… when we saw him back home, he was just overflowing with energy. Enjoying every moment of the fight.”

Dayoung frowned slightly. Something about the way Megan said those last six words felt off to her somehow.

“But now… well, if you told me he was drunk, I’d believe it,” Megan continued. “Look at him walking there. He’s…”

Dayoung squinted. He did look almost drunk. He was takings hort, plodding steps, and looked hunched over. He was swaying slightly.

“He just looks drained,” Megan said.

“Should we do something?” Dayoung asked.

Kraber

Kraber’s shipping container was a mess.

Granted, it always looked that way, but somehow it looked worse to him when he staggered inside. Bottles were scattered all over, under the unmade, dissheveled bed, in corners, in a cardboard box.

He’d spent all of last night practically turning the container upside down, looking for some beer, or even some spare drugs. He’d barely found anything

He collapsed on the bed, looking over their container.

His and Emil’s spare guns - a couple homemade Kalashnikovs he hadn’t used since Africa, one an 8mm semiauto-only and another in 7.62x39mm, a scoped bolt-action, an SMG made of pipe, a home-built harpoon gun, a beaten-up Ithaca 37 shotgun, a break-open grenade launcher, a homemade crossbow, and a Darra Pass autoshotgun based on a Kalashnikov, equipped with an underbarrel grenade launcher - leaned against the wall, kept in place by a homemade rack. There was also a weird-looking homemade .45 pistol with a strange-looking trigger guard. Kraber knew from experience he could press down on the trigger guard to rack the slide one-handed, cutting down on the reload time. Emil had liked the thing, but complained about how heavy the pull was.

Kraber knew from experience that Emil kept a homemade glockalike pistol - A “Schlock 37,” he called it - with a faux-polymer frame made of epoxy and resin - under his pillow.

‘So, all the fok-ups, and this is where I end up,’ he thought. ‘A dirty little shipping container in the gat end of nowhere.’

He lay on the bed, feeling utterly gone.

‘Fokdammit,’ Kraber thought. ‘You were the one that got me willing to sleep in a bed again after that time in Tunisia, Emil. And now? I’m here, alone.’

Before the war, when he felt this destroyed, there were a few things he could do. He could’ve gone and played Warframe, The Amazing Eternals, Wolfenstein, Titanfall, or Overwatch. But there wasn’t a game console in the container, and they didn’t have the power supply for both. All the consoles and TVs had been brought to the ‘rec center’ - a big, easily-disassembled prefab building that served as Defiance’s community hub.

In college, he could’ve called up some of his old friends - like Becker, or Strychnine Jones, or Jimmy “Polo” Polmont, Gray, Howie, Stretcher Burt, Corinne, Frank, Eva, Heather, Zanna, Miranda, Terry, Johnny C, or Zo. They could’ve gone out into the city, found a bar, and bashed some heads. They could’ve found a club.

When he was married, he could’ve just asked Kate for help, or gone to play with Peter and Anka, or call those old friends up - and no matter what time it was in America, they would’ve answered in a heartbeat.

But no, none of that.

‘I miss home,’ Kraber thought. ‘I miss Germany, I miss Garmisch-Partenkirchen, I miss Kagan… Fok, it’s a shorter list what I don’t miss.’

He turned on the bed, head bumping up against Emil’s pistol under the pillow…. And then the stuffed animals he kept. His old threadbare stuffed African Wild Dog with comically large ears, Anka’s stuffed wolf, and Peter’s stuffed horse with proportions that curiously reminded a pony of Equestria.

Some people had threatened to take it on that basis. Kraber had threatened to take their legs off and beat them to death with their own severed limbs. Seeing as it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d done that to someone who pissed him off, that shut them up.

‘Years of HLF membership,’ Kraber thought. ‘And this is what I have left. All I have to show for it.’

He sighed, and reached for a book.

What surprised far too many HLF members was that Kraber was, in fact, an educated man. So many people built him up as the ultimate psychopath, but… he was happy enough sitting in his tent, reading China Mieville, Irvine Welsh, Jeff Vandermeer, or Joseph Conrad.

‘With luck, that’ll make a good read.’

He would get a lot of weird reactions for that. Of course he read. Why wouldn’t he? At the moment, he was reading Railsea. He had meant to reread Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but something about the notoriously grim tale of a journey up the River Congo had alienated and terrified him as a boy, and still did.

And so he found himself engaged in Railsea. It was a silly plot, (some part of him inwardly giggled at his usage of the pony word for ‘flank’) about a world spanned with an ocean of rails, but he couldn’t help but read. Heh… That Apt Ohm. That had been really hard to get the first time he read the book.

Not for the first time, passing mentions of steam locomotives in Mieville’s fictional port of Manihiki, he found himself wondering about evacuation time. About winter. While he’d likely be overcome with rage soon enough, he did there weren’t that many routes around here. And the Barrier would likely force everyone into chokepoints through areas such as… say, Crawford Notch.

Which meant traffic. Congested roads, busy highways turned into parking lots, full of people trying to get and outrun the Barrier. He’d seen it before.

So, that left trains, then. Maybe steam locomotives? He knew they were rebuilding some of the old lines up here to assist in the evac. If the Barrier hadn’t stopped by-

“How are you going to stop the Barrier?”

Kraber could almost hear Kate saying it.

No. Not almost. His head snapped towards an old, threadbare armchair in the corner of the container.

Kraber stared at this apparition. She couldn’t be there. Wasn’t there.

She was there. The same mutilated newfoal with the missing eyes and legs. Sitting contentedly in their stolen armchair.

“How are you going to stop the Barrier?” the mangled newfoal repeated, sitting in the bed next to the stuffed horse. He tried to ignore it.

‘...& abruptly, Sham Yes ap Soorap was right in the middle of that moment. Quickly bloodstained. So started the longest hardest night he had ever worked. From butchery car to mess & back, again & again, running the length of the train. With drinks, with food to keep the strength up…’ Kraber read. Already, he was imagining steam engines, like the old Atlantic Rail engine he remembered from his childhood. The one that went through the winelands. The train that was probably responsible for why he was so bloutrein so much of the time, ever since his dad let a very[/] underaged Viktor Kraber (and his sister, and brother) have a taste of red wine.

“Viktor? Stop distracting everyone with flashbacks. What can this mob do to stop the Barrier?” the newfoal asked. Its voice sounded like Kate’s.

‘Why in the fok am I thinking like this? I haven’t done anything different from what I usually do! A few gluesticks dead, giving the kontgesigs what they deserve…’ Kraber thought.

He didn’t feel like he’d convinced himself.

“Maybe that’s the problem.It’s that you’ve kept doing this, Vic,” the newfoal said. “Year after year. But the problem is-”

And for a moment, Kraber saw a skull shining out from under her skin. Then heard a high-pitched scream, and saw her contort, her back at an impossible angle. He heard wet, meaty cracking noises, and before he knew, Kate was lounging there, the rich curly black hair he’d loved to play with cascading over her shoulders. The coffee she’d always loved in one hand. The gold earrings she wore that Kraber had never been able to find.

It lasted a split second, and then the newfoal was back.

“We’re still newfoals, Vktor,” the Kate-newfoal said.

“You’re not the real Kate,” Kraber said, surprised at how lucid he sounded. “The soul hasn’t left her body, as far as I know.”

“Even if it hasn’t,” Kate said, “I’d be here for a reason, wouldn’t I? And this reason is...”

“It should’ve been me instead of the three of you, Kate,” Kraber said.

“That reason is,” Kate said, as if that hadn’t just happened, “Yours. Why are you in the HLF? There’s too many things here that don’t make sense.”

“For you,” Kraber said, surprised. “It’s for you. It’s to make them all pay!”

“Yeah, but I’m not here,” Kate said. “What would I want, if I was here? What would Peter want? What would Anka want?”

Kraber felt tears welling up in his eyes. “That’s…. She was wrong! I fokkin’ trusted her, and she trusted ponies! She trusted Pinkie Pie! And that’s…”

“You had better not be blaming your own daughter,” Kate said. “I do hope that’s not the kind of irresponsible person you’ve become again, V-”

There was a knock on the door. Within seconds, Kraber had trained his eyes on it - and he was holding the Darra Pass autoshotgun.

When he glanced back at the chair, Kate was gone.

The dead newfoal had vanished, and with it the voice of his wife. Not entirely ready to accept that he was losing his mind, he walked up to the door.

Had… had Kate asked him that? Somehow spoken to him. No, impossible - she was hundreds of miles and an entire universe away. Practically braindead!

But that didn’t mean that the possibility didn’t have merit. This was, after all, a world that now had magic in it...and her question nagged at him. There were too many questions he could ask himself about the HLF as it was that didn’t make sense.

He opened the door, and there he could see Lovikov smiling.

Ooooooh balls.

“Viktor!” Lovikov said, holding out a hand outstretched, like he was expecting a handshake. “Talking to yourself, were you? You know that they say those who talk to themselves. They keep poor company.”

December 2022

“PFFFFFT…. BAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!” Kraber guffaws. “Haha…. Ha… oh… oh, man.”

“It’s not that funny,” says Aegis’ son, Rivet. He’s a few years older than you - but not old enough he’s hit a major growth spurt yet. Except he’s built like his freakishly huge dad, which means he’s frequently mistaken for a grown stallion.

“I’m with Aegis’ brother,” says Gray. “It’s not funny, Vic.”

Rivet raises an eyebrow. “Gray, I’m his son. We’ve been over this.”

“What’s this abou-” Kraber started.

And then the world went white. In one fluid motion, Lovikov stamped down on Kraber’s foot, and then he was behind the Afrikaner, grabbing his hand and twisting it behind his back.

“Jou bliksem!” Kraber hissed at the stab of pain in his shoulder, and moved to elbow Lovikov…

“That,” Lovikov said, pressing something cold and hard against Kraber’s throat, “Would be extraordinarily ill-advised.”

“WHAT THE FOK, LEONID?!” Kraber yelled, ignoring the pain in his foot and arm.

“You give answers quick, calmly,” Lovikov said, his Ukrainian accent shifting. Sounding more Russian. “And tell me WHY THE FUCK YOU DID IT, PETUKH!”

He jabbed the barrel of his pistol against Kraber’s ear.

“If I don’t get answer soon,” Lovikov said, “Then the rest Defiance learns you planned potion-bomb us. Learns that they were right about stuffed horse.”

Kraber sighed. “Seriously? Jou so petty that you’d bring that u - OW!”

Lovikov jammed the butt of his pistol against Kraber’s temple.

“There’s some concerns circulating amongst Command. Concerns that you might have certain… sympathies,” Lovikov said, calm again.

“Whatever the fok’s given them that idea?” Kraber asked, spitting on the ground. “What in the fok are you talking about?!”

“There’s been…mutterings, in Colebrook,” Lovikov said.

“What. The fok. Are you talking about,” Kraber said, enunciating every syllable..

“There’s more sympathetic eyes in Colebrook than just Farnowitz…” Lovikov said slowly, with forced calm. “We have ears too, and they tell us that some very interesting stories were being told in the Dancing Bear last night...”

The pistol’s barrel was shaking against Kraber’s ear. Kraber was idly wondering if it’d leave a scar against his ear.

“That woman you let through last night was PHL…” Lovikov said at last. There was no hint of question about it. “She had two ponies with her, and now they’ve hooked up with two more kickstands and a horsefucker.”

The Ukrainian licked his lips.

“You’re going to have to make up for that, Viktor...we all have our ‘wobbles’, but when one of our best and most celebrated players falls like you have…”

“What,” Kraber sneered. “Do you expect me to fokkin’ ‘do the honorable thing’ and shoot myself?”

“Never,” Lovikov said. “You’re a friend, right? So, in return for me not killing you... you owe me.”

“You can’t fokkin’ prove that I did it,” Kraber said.

“Oh, but I can,” Lovikov said. “I can prove that she was. I have photos, Viktor. And I can prove that she was driving that very. Same. Car.”

He drove the butt of his pistol into Kraber’s head, and Kraber’s skull throbbed.

‘He’s gonna give me a fokkin’ concussion,’ Kraber thought idly.

‘Oh, like a little brain injury would have any noticeable effect’ the Kate-newfoal said, standing nearby.

“And if I can prove that, well, it doesn’t matter what you have to say,” Lovikov said. “The rest of the camp will take my side no matter what.”

Lovikov spat on the ground.

“Consider most of your permissions revoked,” Lovikov said. “The guns you’ve hoarded? They’re mine, motherfucker. And maybe - just maybe - you go down, we don’t try to rescue you. We tell everyone you died heroically, so you give to the cause even after dead or ponified.“

Before Kraber’s eyes - as if to punctuate that sentence - two men walked out from the shipping container that Kraber and Emil had once shared, carrying the guns. Benning was standing nearby, a rather forlorn look on her face.

She looked regretful, strangely enough.

“THOSE ARE EMIL’S, JOU VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber yelled. “EMIL’S FOKKIN’ GU-”

Lovikov tapped his pistol’s grip against Kraber’s forehead. It wasn’t a hard hit - it was gentle, if anything. But Kraber flinched at the touch of the iron anyway.

Lovkov laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. “Come on, where’s those balls you had? Flinching at that, you pussy?”

‘THEY’RE ALL I HAVE LEFT OF MY FRIEND, AND HE DOES THIS KAK TO ME?!’ Kraber thought. And, as Lovikov’s grip lessened, Kraber drove an elbow back into the Ukrainian man’s skull.

Lovikov stumbled back, and Kraber sprinted towards the two men carrying his and Emil’s guns.

One of them tried to load the 8mm Kalashnikov and fire at Kraber. He wasn’t fast enough. Kraber drove a boot into one man’s face.

The man staggered back and collapsed in an ungainly heap. Kraber twisted towards the other man, ready to throw a punch into his face-

“I really wouldn’t do that,” said the other man, pointing a sawed off double-barrel directly at Kraber’s groin.

Kraber backed away, slowly.

“Now,” Lovikov said, aiming his pistol towards Kraber’s head. “You can have these back. If you admit you’re a horsefucker, anyway.”

‘If you say that,’ the Kate-newfoal said, ‘He will kill you.’

‘Don’t need a hallucination to tell me that,’ Kraber thought. If he puts me through this, there’s no way to win. Admitting it, in front of all these people… I’m dead.

“Admit it! ADMIT IT, PETUKH!” Lovikov yelled.

“Like hell I will,” Kraber spat, looking Lovikov in the eyes. “I. Am. Not. A. Fokkin’. Perdnaaier.”

And all of a sudden, Lovikov laughed. He lowered the pistol, relaxed his pistol, and for a second nobody was truly sure how to react to this marvel of perfect what-the-actual-fok.

“What the fok are you trying to pull?!” Kraber yelled.

“I think,” Lovikov said, “that settles it. You wouldn’t go that far if you actually were one.”

‘He goes from 0 to shoot me in the face and back in seconds.’ Kraber thought, as he breathed a sigh of relief. ‘What the fok.

“Congratulations, Kraber,” Lovikov continued. “You’re not dead yet.”

“I thought jou were going to fokkin’ shoot me!” Kraber yelled.

“But,” Lovikov said, “I didn’t.”

Something told Kraber that it was best not to press Lovikov on that one. Because for a moment, Kraber was left thinking ‘He’s about to do it anyway, isn’t he? I just know it.’

“Right,” Lovikov said. “Benning, Williams, Gunderson? We’re done here.”

“But he-” Benning started.

One look from Lovikov silenced her - a terrifying, twisted, hate-filled visage that promised murder and destruction aplenty. Kraber was pretty familiar with that glare. Of course, ‘glare’ was like calling an avalanche a minor rockfall.

Gunderson and Williams stepped back, uncertain. And even Benning took a step back.

“Would you like me to-?!” Lovikov roared, his eyes bloodshot. He looked like he was about to kill someone, right then and there.

Benning stepped back, a look of fear on her face.but his tone changed midway through. She was glancing towards Lovikov’s pistol - and Kraber noticed that has trigger finger wasn’t on the guard.

‘Oh, shit.’

Kraber glanced at Lovikov, confused, and started backing towards his shipping container.

And then Lovikov’s face… shifted.

“Look,” Lovikov said. “Kraber’s a friend.”

Lovikov was still holding the pistol, with one finger above the trigger guard, and it was still lowered - but the barrel was still pointing towards Kraber.

“And friends deserve chances,” Lovikov said, as the four of them strolled off towards the main drag of Defiance, leaving the weaponry scattered in front of their h-

Wait a second.

Kraber walked over to the pile of guns, and pulled the 8mm Kalashnikov up. Emil had actually bought it for him when they were in Darra Pass. The mags were rare as hen’s teeth, to the point that most of them were made out of cheapshit metal that slipped out of his hand.

It’d been his favorite gun before he found the ‘2021.

Once he lifted it, he saw that some of Emil’s other belongings were there too. Photos he’d taken with Kraber. Old family photos of people Kraber remembered Emil discussing - a brother? A sister? An uncle? A stepfather? And his stuffed animals, including the Horse. His photos, too. Photos of Kate. Of Peter and Anka. Of his family. OF SOUTH FOKKIN’ AFRICA, OF HIS COLLEGE FRIENDS IN BOSTON, AND LOVIKOV JOU FOKKIN’ KONTGESIG-

“JOU SONOVABITCH!” Kraber screamed.

“Hmmm?” Lovikov asked.

“Leonid,” Benning said. “Don’t you think you might have-”

“WHAT THE FOK, LEONID?!” Kraber yelled. “You seriously fokkin’ took that, too?! The guns I can almost fokkin’ understand, but this?!”

Lovikov turned around, looking at Kraber. He had a odd, jaunty smile on his face - as if Kraber’s accusation hadn’t even registed.

“Remember, Viktor!” Lovikov added, “I’m only being this lenient cause I’m your friend.”

‘Yeah,’ Kraber thought. ‘A friend that humiliated me in front of people I liked. And steals our fokkin’ mementoes.’

Dejected, Kraber picked up his motley collection and slunk back to the shipping container. When he got in, he bonelessly collapsed onto the bed.

“Damn,” he said, looking over at the old stuffed animals he kept from back in Germany. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to them or not. “I have had a shitty day.”

2015
Somewhere in Boston

In his dreams, Viktor can smell the weed. He’s attending college in America, in Boston, before the war, before candy-colored equines from another universe proved to be the greatest threat to human existence. It's actually back in October.

Viktor had nearly lost a bet. One that would’ve had him dressing in a chicken costume. Which just would’ve been silly. But now, he’d ended up in an African Wild Dog costume. A fursuit in various shades of brown, tan, black, and white. The costume’s head obscured his face, but Becker - always the innovator - had made it so he could pull it up and down.

––You realize it’s still gonna look silly, Zanna had said. ––I mean, even if you win the bet, you still kinda lose.

––It’s a favorite animal, I’ll be fine, Kraber had said. ––Besides, Andy will love it.

Andy had not, in fact, loved it. In fact, so few things about Viktor turned out to be loved, that Viktor had shown up at a halloween party without his date.

“Didn’t work out with Andy?” asks an absolutely stunning black girl dressed as a zebra, in a white unitard decorated with black stripes. She has a mohawk, and neck rings made of some faux-gold material.

Viktor sighed. “Damn right it didn’t, Kate.”

He’s known Kate awhile. In his social circles, she’d been a bit of a fixture. She was there at Anime Boston, giggling at his cosplay of Sweet JP from Redline almost a year ago. He’d laughed at her jokes, she’d drawn him in to Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls, she... even showed him some of her comics. Spent time in the van heading across the States.

“What happened?” Kate asks. “You two just seemed so happy together! It’s just… it’s hard to imagine you breaking up.”

“Aweh,” Kraber says, and pushes the fursuit head up so Kate can see his face. “Well, Andy found out that Emma and I used to date.”

“...and?” Kate asks. “I mean, it’s not like anyone doesn’t know. Shit, even I know.”

“Well, it’s more like he didn’t like finding out that I still like women,” Viktor says.

Kate chokes. “Fu-kin what?!” And starts laughing. People are staring at her. At the way she moves when she laughs.

Then she stops abruptly. A look of what Viktor desperately hopes is not fear. But why shouldn’t it be? Everyone knows about his temper by now. And Viktor thinks: I think I like watching Kate laugh more than I like watching her terrified.

So, with what feels like half the room assuming he’s about to do something horrible, Viktor decides that the most rational thing to do is break into a fit of laughter of his own.

“Wha-” Kate starts.

“Gotta admit, it’s pretty funny,” Viktor says. “I mean, gay man brushes me off cause I still like women? What kinda crap is that?”

Kate looks at him, confused.

“Wait till he s-says what Andy did,” Becker says, stumbling over, his stutter made worse by the fact that he is very drunk. He’s dressed up in an old Mad Max cosplay from the last con they all went to back in the summer. “He says, he says that Kraber should be brave enough to admit he’s gay, and Vic says something about butts, and then Andy says Viktor’s sleeping with the enemy and probably cheating on him-”

“And Andy says I should pick a side,” Viktor adds. “So then I say…” he pauses. “PICK A SIDE?! WHAT THE FOK IS THIS SHIT, STAR WARS?!
Emma laughs hysterically, hanging upside down from a nearby staircase, dressed as Batgirl. Outside the costume, she couldn’t look any different from Kate - shorter, pale to the point that nobody can quite tell if she’s wearing white tights, with short dark hair that’s a different color every other week. “Oh, it was priceless.”

“How long have you been there?!” Kate yelps.

“Awhile,” Kraber adds. “...You were just sitting there so you could interrupt us upside down, weren’t you.”

“You know it!” Emma says, throwing Kraber a fistbump.

“But nobody got hurt this time, right?” Kate asks.

Viktor sighs. “Unfortunately, yes. So, that’s why I’m in Terry’s apartment for awhile. And why Andy ain’t here.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Kate says.

The two of them stand, a bit awkwardly, at the fringes of the party. Surrounded by friends.

“Sorry that happened,” Kate says.

“Eh, if he was willing to say that crap, there’s nothing to be sorry about,” Viktor says. “No great fokkin’ loss.”

They stand some more. Above them, Emma is thinking - and will tell Viktor as much, months later - ‘JUST SAY SOMETHING ALREADY! WHAT IS THIS, A FILLER EPISODE?!’

“I like your costume, by the way,” Viktor says.

‘Finally,’ Emma is thinking up above them.

“Really?” Kate asks. “Thanks! It was either that or one of those ‘sexy’ costumes and...” she looked down. “I hate those.”

“Yeah, me too,” Viktor agrees.

“You saying that just to agree?” Kate asks.

“Nah. They’re just… tasteless,” Viktor says, to Kate’s nodding. “I mean, ‘sexy baby?’ Who fokkin’ does that?!”

“That is so messed up,” Kate agrees. “Which is why I like yours! You’re owning that sparkledog costume.”

Part of Viktor wants to yell. But, to his surprise, he finds he still can’t be mad at her. He can’t be mad. It’s as if being next to this woman just makes him feel calmer. As if as long as he’s with her, everything can be alright. As much as any of his friends, maybe more.

“It’s an African Wild Dog, actually,” Viktor says. “Scary little buggers, but they just look too fokkin’ funny!”

He reaches into a backpack, pulls out a phone, and flips through a series of photos until Kate sees it.

“Wow, they do look silly,” Kate says. “Glad you went for this, looks so much better than my roomie’s selection of halloween costumes. ”

“...your roommate or the costume?” Viktor asks, barely hearing her over the music.

“...it depends on my mood,” Kate admits. “Andrea’s nice, but she’s just impossible sometimes.”

“My sympathies,” Viktor says, wincing. “Believe me, I know bad roommates. Which is why I don’t have one anymore!”

“Oh, she’s not-” Kate stops. “Wait. Didn’t you try to eat your last one?”

“He was high! You can’t prove it was my fault! My bed was full of his shit!” Viktor protests. “Like, actual feces! He stole my clothes! I was on PCP! There was temporary insanity! The illegal drugs weren’t mine! It was dark and we thought there was an intruder, especially after I lost my keys and had to climb in through the window! The American education culture is fundamentally broken to the point that he had a mental breakdown after getting a B minus, and I feared for my life! It wasn’t what it looked like! He had mescaline in his balls! It was self defense! There were, uh… The lawyer… fok! What did he...”

Kate looks at him, confused and alarmed. “What.”

“Eh, he was a dick anyway,” Emma says. Still upside down.

How is she doing that, anyway? Kraber thinks.

“...yes,” Viktor says, looking off to the side. “Man, Sheja Rutabiyiro. What a hoerkind. Ek hoop hy breek sy spier van plesier af in 'n goedkoop hoer en sterf van bloed verlies.”

“Oh, the fuckin’ worst!” Becker adds. “You heard the stories about him right?”

“Damn right I have,” Kate says. “I mean, he was an asshole, but… I just thought they couldn’t all be true.”

“Oh, they were,” Emma says.

“Daaaaamn,” Kate says, then she’s silent for a few seconds. “What did Viktor just say, anyway?”

“You don’t want to know what I just said,” Viktor says.

“You’ll have to teach me some Afrikaans sometime,” she says lightly. “It sounds like a beautiful language.”

“You’re right. It is beautiful,” Viktor admits.

It is at this moment that Emma starts stifling a laugh.

“Not as beautiful as you though.”

It just slips out, the cheesiest come-on possible, and Kate dissolves into laughter. His self-esteem crumbles with every second, until, through her breathless peals, she manages to speak the four most wonderful words possible.

“Did you mean that?”

And Viktor finds out that he does, and tells her so, a smile on his face. They get to talking, talking moves on to walking together, and suddenly the costume doesn’t feel so bad.

Suddenly the two of them are dancing, the woman dressed as the zebra and the man dressed in the… ugh, he can’t say this with a straight face…. chicken costume, which suddenly feels like his best outfit ever.

“Aha!” Kate says at one point, a smile on her face, “Got you liking it! Yellow is a good fit for a coward who murders ponies and can’t even realize whAt… he... Is...”

Wait, what the fok?!

“Kate… what did that have to do with…” his voice trails off.

And Viktor comes to the worst realisation possible.

‘Wait, shit, I’m dreaming. Ain’t I?’

And everything crumbles apart and falls to nothing.

Having sex in the back of Kate’s old car, the horrible realization afterwards that Viktor is 21… while Kate has only just turned 17. Nearly six months later, near Viktor’s birthday and premature, their children are born. Kind of sickly, both born with autism, but as parents, the two of them love their children. What decent parent wouldn’t? No potion from PER members, no ‘miracle treatments,’ no therapists for autism that just end up treating his kids like they’re retarded (Those kontgesigs! Kraber kicked one of them in the face, which made Peter giggle a little, and then he’d treated him to ice cream) can change that, and Kate and Viktor love them so much.

Kraber selfishly wishes that maybe he hadn’t talked to her, maybe he hadn’t lost the bet, maybe he hadn’t gone to Germany or that he’d stayed with Kate’s family. But he’d needed to go to Germany! His mother had gone full nepotism, earning him a residency in Garmisch Partenkirchen where he can ski, (He’s really grown to love the sport) where he has no shortage of patients during the winter, and things are good. That he’d been anywhere, anywhere at all except…

May 10
2019

Here.

It was the last days of the world as anyone knew it, and it was Innsbruck again, in Austria. The Purple Winter. The days and weeks where it turned hot.

The HLF had been fighting for anywhere from days to weeks to a month. Nobody could say when the first attack had been, the first outbreak of hostilities or whatever passed as the turning point. Most of them agreed that it’d “Gone hot” during the Whitechapel Massacre nearly three weeks ago, when a mass of disgrunted HLF and religious let’s-not-call-them-zealots called PKS, or Ponification Kills Souls, protested outside a Conversion Bureau in London. Nobody knew what’d happened next, only that the PER counterprotesters had started throwing Potion…

When the PKS and HTF rioters had been ponified and made the expected immediate about-face, the rioting had overtaken the entire neighborhood. Bureau security had opened fire into the massed crowd, completely uncaring about collateral damages. Cars had been flipped. Businesses had turned into fortresses or massive conflagrations.

But it hadn’t been the first attack. Far from it. Relations between humans, other Equestrians, and ponies had been steadily worsening. The FOKKIN’ MASS MURDER that’d happened to Kraber’s family and all his children had been but one incident in a cresting wave of ponifications and abuses.

And the HLF - newly formed from a hundred anti-ponification protest groups, the newly bereaved friends and family of the recently ponified, anarchists, and anyone with an axe to grind - had responded in kind.

In Innsbruck, cars are overturned and wrecked, storefronts are shattered, and the fires are raging. Kraber saw to that.

And yet, even as he thumbs the detonator, he and Kate are still in Becker’s old car, still making love, only for Viktor to suddenly realize Kate is a newfoal unicorn the color of maple leaves in fall. And as she continues to manically bounce on his thrusting crotch, she levitates a bottle of potion to him, her zebra costume discarded like a snake's skin. It is dripping blood, as if someone has meticulously skinned it from her.

He reaches for a knife and stabs her, ramming the blade down into her neck and barrel, into her eyes, anything to keep her from ponifying him. But on the tenth or eighteenth or thirtieth stab of the knife into her neck, she is suddenly human again. Blood is gushing from her neck. Viktor tries to stop the bleeding, applying pressure to the wound, but there's far too many cuts to stem, she's losing too much blood...

She looks up at him, pleading even as she looks betrayed.

“You killed me, Viktor,” Kate says, her voice clear and uninflected despite her wounds. “Why did you kill me?”

He pulls away from her in fear, and topples out of the bloodstained car, weighed down by his clanking HLF military kit.

More newfoals are coming. They wear bandoliers of potion, and leading them from the rear is that mank genaaide bergbok Pinkie Pie. He grabs a baseball bat, Kate's baseball bat, and runs out the door. The stolen revolver at his belt is heavy, the Kalashnikov on his back so cumbersome. Newfoals are everywhere. He empties his assault rifle into them, screaming madly. He’s trying to make his way to cover and reload. If they get a drop of potion on him, or open up his mask, he’s fokked.

But when he gets a perfect shot in, a 7.62x39mm round cutting through up to two unshielded newfoals at once, dozens of maimed humans flash into this place, expressions of agony on their faces. They glare at him, gurgling, hands over the wounds, blood pouring between their fingers.

FOK!

One pegasus with a cutie mark of a snowflake divebombs Kraber, and he pulls out Kate’s baseball bat and cracks its head, splattering brains and blood all over the wood. And, to his horror, there is a human woman on the ground, everything above the bridge of her nose simply pulped into a mass of red.

“Eh-haaaah,” she gurgles, trying to look up at him. “Eh-haaaaauuurhhhhh…” she points a finger.

He takes the 9mm semiauto pistol at his hip and fires into her skull, maybe as a mercy, maybe just to finish her off, and he sees one of the newfoals practically pounce on her and baste her in potion, watching her scream and scream, thrashing, her eyes growing so wide it looks like they will pop, her smile so wide it looks like it’ll split her face in half-

Kraber takes his eyes off her and runs. In the windows facing the street, he sees Pinkie Pie in place of his own reflection, the pink mare weighed down with all his equipment, burdened with his sins…

He throws open the door to a shop, finding a storekeeper with a homemade double-barreled shotgun standing next to a mare. The storekeeper is ready to fire at him. Acting on reflex, Kraber swings the bat at the threat, caving in the storekeeper’s head from the side, teeth and spittle flying to one side, a spray of blood from the mouth and nose, one eye about to pop out. As she stagger-flies backwards the storekeeper changes to a pony. There is a look of utter agony on her face.

The mare, this one a violet pegasus with gray eyes and a black mane in a bobcut, screams, jumping at Kraber, but he’s faster. He rams his knife into her throat, and puts pressure down on the knife like a pry bar, a quick wet sound as he pulls it out….

Of a rather cute human woman’s throat. Her gray eyes are so sad, her bobcut covered in blood.

“No,” Kraber wants to whisper. “NO!”
She falls to the floor wordlessly. Kraber, noticing this, takes a shelf and throws it in front of the door to form a barrica-

FOK! There’s windows, that won’t work!

He rushes out the front door and exits into an hotel corridor. Now he’s running up a flight of stairs, knocking the empty banana-mag out with a full mag and shoving it home. A human armed with potion-grenades jumps out, and Kraber switches to his shotgun.

The buckshot hits the PER suicider like a freight train, blood exploding out from his mouth as he staggers back and tumbles down a set of stairs. At which point an explosion rings out from down in the stairwell.

Right.

Have to keep moving.

I have burned my tomorrows
And I stand inside today
At the edge of the future
And my dreams all fade away…

He runs, careful not to touch the corpse.

Kraber runs.

He rushes down the fire excape then, through streets that blend architecture, styles and nationalities flowing like water. Austria to Turkey, all down the Mediterranean to Africa, then over to America, off in the distance....

Desperate to escape, he clambers down a fire escape, into a ship’s hold, finding himself before a burning storefront. A dull purple stallion rushes out, half on fire, and runs up to Kraber. His hooves rap on the riveted metal deck.

“Oh thank Celestia! You have to get me out of here! The newfoals, the ponies at the Conversion Bureau, they’ve gone crazy!” he stallion babbles. “They’re trying to ponify everyone, and the HLF are going nuts and-”

He looks up into Kraber’s eyes. “Oh Tartarus no.”

Kraber smashes Kate’s baseball bat against his head, knocking his snout to the pavement. Then he grabs the stallion by the neck, and throws him into the flames. For a moment, he sees a human face, burning, screaming in agony.

Two newfoals, a filly and a foal, dissolve out of from the hull walls and rush at him. Kraber fires his Kalashnikov in short controlled bursts. But, when the killing rounds hit them...

They are Peter and Anka. Light, brownish skin, with Kraber’s not-quite-curly-but-full-bodied dark brown but not quite black hair, Peter with his one eye and Anka in that same costume - a horse costume, what are the fokking odds - she had insisted on wearing for her birthday, giant bulletholes through her.

“Kill them,” says a voice, and he turns to see a furious young woman. She’s armoured like him, and has a shotgun holstered on her back and an assault rifle in her eyes.

“Kill them,” Verity Carter repeats. “They murdered the people we loved…that’s our creed, our mission, you fucking coward. YOU KILL ALL OF THEM!”

“I CAN’T!” Kraber yells back. “They’re my family, my children, they’re… I can’t kill… I’m not...”

And suddenly Verity is a pony. Dark brown coat, her hazel eyes ringed in blue.

“Kill them all! Kill me too!” she roars, vocal cords raw and pained. “Murder everything that ever hurt you, because we’re all just fucking animals. Laugh while you do it, laugh at them like you did for me, you bliksem! Your whole life is one poisoned JOKE!”

Anka coughs up blood, and stares up at Kraber. “...Why?” she whispers. “Why?”

“...Daddy?” Peter asks, looking up at him. “Why’d you do that? What’s happening?”

‘No,’ Kraber whispers/says/thinks, though he can hear no sound. ‘No… this… I didn’t do this! This hasn’t happened!’

But it will, he realizes. I’ll kill them. I’ll have to kill all of them, and there’s no way I can stop it.

He turns to scream at Verity, and finds her tight black ponytail of a mane has exploded into orgasmically pink coils. The warlike mare moans lewdly, and like an elastic band, springs into another new shape, one Viktor knows all too well.

“You might as well have killed them,” Pinkie Pie says, a manic gleam in her eyes, like that of a child pulling off the wings of a fly or roasting ants with a magnifying glass just because, like Kraber had always told Peter and Anka not to. “You invited me, didn’t you?”

Four newfoals grab Kraber, holding him down.

“You wanted me to plan the party, and I did!” Pinkie Pie says, all happy and bubbly, bouncing over to him, that gleam still in her eyes. “Yupperoony, I gave them the best present of all!”

“FOKKING KONTGESIG!” Kraber spits, struggling against the newfoals. “LET ME GO, YOU GODDAMNED FOKKING TWO-BIT HARIME NUI RIPOFF! I’LL RIP YOUR EYES OUT AND FEED THEM TO YOU!”

“Don’t be like that! Parties are supposed to make you happy, and they’re going to be happy, perfect, pretty little ponies forever!” Pinkie Pie laughs. “Why didn’t you take it?!”

“He was helping meeee!” chirps the one newfoal holding down Kraber’s right arm. Kraber recognizes him, somehow, a flicker of self-awareness, something screaming behind those wide glassy orbs fixated on something only newfoals could see. Echoing behind its words is a tortured and distorted howl of misery.

“Dietrich,” Kraber whispers. The boy. The boy he’d been helping. The one that had gotten drunk and made him work overtime. Oh God, he’d even failed at that…

“Yeah, I’ve talked to your foals, and they’re right, you are a failure!” Pinkie Pie says, so sickly-sweet, like someone that thinks they’re being nice by being cruel, but is just being condescending, made even worse by their obliviousness. “But if you’re a pony, well, you might just be better!”

“NO! FOK JOU, MAG DIE DUIWEL JOU HAAL, JOU BLIKSEM! GOTTVERDAMNT… FOK! JY NAAI JOU MA VIR SAKGELD, JOU NAAI!” Kraber screams, and suddenly, impossibly, he throws off the newfoals. He rushes at Pinkie Pie. “SLAAN JOU BINNE JOU MA SE POES, JOU FOKKIN TEEF!”

And suddenly, he realizes he’s naked. No clothes, no nothing, no knife.

Ah, what the hell.

He punches Pinkie Pie right in the face, enjoying the satisfying crack, ready to…

To…

And then he sees that his arm ends in a hoof.

Oh FOK! Oh God, oh fok, oh no! FOK! There’s… potion. It got on his back there’s no way to get it off-

“Just wait, you’ll be happy soon enough-”

He screams wordlessly, something that might have made sense in any one of the many languages he knows, and pounds his fists against her face. Over and over, until the fingers meld together and become hooves, even as something keeps on telling him he shouldn’t be doing this, she’s his rightful better, he’d be happier as a pony, no matter what happens, and even as his life flashes by he keeps pounding and pounding with both hooves, roaring and shrieking till his throat bleeds and runs dry, and he wishes that this could all end that he could just-wake…

“Hi there!” he squeaks, in a bright, feminine voice. “I’m the Pretty Private, Victory!”

He, no, she...what, no! What’s happening to herself?

“I’m your toy soldier…” he/she chirps again. “I’m a cutesy killer!”

Oh yes...being a ‘pretty private’, whatever that is, enthuses her even more, and intensifies the drive she has to keep punching the face of the disgusting, bearded human male beneath her! This is her creed, so simple and right! Kill and destroy them all!

They’re gonna scream, just like she did; open mouth, open heart, blood and noise forever piercing her skull, poisoning her with psychopathic purple liquid. She watched it all, and felt the knife edge split down the middle…

She can feel her nethers moistening in glee as she fulfils her purpose. Everything’s clear now, no more doubts, no more pain. She was forged to fight and fuck, to slay and suck! An animal without desires beyond primal rage and lust...

And she’s gonna serve her Queen, she’s gonna keep hitting him till she can squish his brains between her hooves-

fingers

LIKE A FOKKING SAUSAGE!

And his identity floods back in…He can’t stop the killing...

AND HE DOESN’T FOKKING WANT TO! HE’S GOING TO KEEP PUNCHING THE KAK OUT OF THIS PONY, RIP HER FOKKING THROAT OUT WITH HIS FOKKING TEETH, AND SPLATTER HER ACROSS THE TRACKS OF EXISTENCE! RIP THE PAIN OUT HER THROAT AND SHOVE IT IN HER EYES, BITE OFF HER EARS AND SHOVE THEM UP HER FLANK, RIP OFF HER FOKKING LEGS AND BEAT HER WITH THEM AND STAB HER WITH THE JAGGED SPIKES OF THE RADIUS AND ULNA, THUMBS IN HER EYES AS THEY SCREAM AND AS HE DRIVES THEM UP INTO HER BRAIN! HE’LL LOOK INTO THE HEART OF DARKNESS, AND HE’LL EAT IT ALL! FOK THIS FOKKING KONTGESIG FOR ALL THE CRAP SHE’S PULLED, HE’S GONNA RIP OFF HER FOKKING HEAD AND PISS IN HER FOKKING SKULL! HE’S GOING TO MAKE HER REGRET EVERYTHING SHE’S EVER DONE, HE’S GOING TO-

-wake

up.

Wake Up.

Kraber gagged, coughing, rolling over in the bed. He was drenched in sweat, trembling - and cold. Oh, so cold. He found himself clutching the stuffed animals so tightly to his body that his arms ached. His .45 automatic was in one hand, rattling. The safety was still engaged, but there was probably a round still in the chamber. He was breathing heavily.

“Emil?!” he asked, looking around the room. “Emil, where are y-”

“I’m dead,” Emil said, looking up at Kraber. Bloody hole in the middle of his head. “Don’t you remember, you piece of shit?”

The revolver was in Kraber’s hands before he knew it. He only looked away for a fraction of a second before Emil was gone.

Oh. Right.

Emil was dead. It’d been barely even 48 hours since Kraber had watched the man he love be ponified, and then die.

Kraber tried to move. Tried to make himself do something, anything other than lie in bed. Actually, no he didn’t. What he really did was think ‘I should probably move’ and then he didn’t.

The most he could do was sort of flop to the side.

‘A man who tries to kill me, humiliates me, all for not killing a chi..’ Kraber thought. ‘..for not killing a mother and child, you son of a bitch, you monster’

‘Why do I feel like this?’ Kraber thought. ‘I’ve done the same thing to so many other gluesticks! I’ve punished them hundreds of other times!’

There’d been the Innsbruck and Graz Bureaus, and so many more. There’d been the gluesticks and horsefuckers he killed in Turkey. The Shieldwall and Pinkie Pie troops he’d slaughtered in Algeria. The mass grave he’d helped dig in Egypt. The camp full of kickstands that’d been getting food and water that could’ve gone to human refugees that actually fokkin’ well deserved it. The time he killed every member of the the Congregation Of Celestia, a nigh-religious group of PER potioners.

The refugees the PHL and Spader-Loyalists had wanted to guard that he’d slaughtered. The ponies he’d thrown overboard to drown. The skirmishes with PHL. The two ponies he’d killed in that basement just yesterday.

And yet… he just didn’t feel right.

‘She must’ve done something to my mind,’ Kraber thought. ‘It’s the only thing that could’ve happened. They’re just ponies, I’d never…

There was a knock on the door. Kraber made some kind of noncommittal grumbling noise, and rolled over on his face.

“Hey,” Lovikov said, sounding friendly. Enough that Kraber almost couldn’t connect the happy man he heard today with his behavior yesterday. “What are you, a college student? We have to leave for Portland today. Pack up what you’re taking, now.”

With that, Lovikov walked away.

Kraber pulled himself out of bed and pulled on his usual suit - a drysuit that’d protect him from potion, a gas mask, some old and obsolete kevlar the HLF had looted, patched over with some metal. Some spare filters.

Then he looked over the array of weaponry. He picked up the MG2021, and his revolver.

Then paused. Looked at the old Darra Pass autoshotgun and the weird .45.

‘Ah, fok it,’ he thought, and slid on their respective holsters.

“That’s a good idea,” Kate said, and then there she was, lying on top of his bed. “You know… Lovikov really isn’t good for you.”

“He’s my friend,” Kraber muttered. “I mean, he brought me this far, I… I owe him.”

“Viktor,” Kate said, “Stop. I’ve been turned into part of an alien race that values friendship over…”

“Over our right to exist as a species?” Kraber asked. “Over our culture? Over everything that makes us us?! Over the right to be a fokkin’ individual with an intact fokkin’ mind?!”

“I can’t really argue with that,” Kate sighed. “I’m probably a figment of your imagination-”

(Wait. FOKKIN’ PROBABLY?!)

“But all the lessons I’m supposed to know, all the ones I’m also supposed to fucking ignore for the sake of Equestria, and ‘disharmony…’” She reared up on her hind legs, making air quotes with her forelegs.

‘That’s definitely Kate,’ Kraber thought.

“A lot of them have something to say about being manipulated by someone,” Kate said. Then she put a hoof to her chin. “At least, I think they do. I don’t know if they did an episode about that…”

“Kate,” Kraber sighed, “We’re not in a TV show.”

Kate raised a hoof to object, then resumed thinking. “Well, you’re probably right… technically, I guess…”

Kraber just sighed again. That didn’t seem like an avenue worth pursuing.

Then he placed the rest of his supplies into the backpack. Some spare HEIAP 7.62 rounds for the LMG, a set of clothes, and his last 3 stuffed animals. The stuffed African Wild Dog he’d gotten in South Africa… and of course, Peter and Anka’s stuffed horse and dog, respectively. A wallet full of spare cash.

‘You’re probably not going to need all that,’ Kate said.

“Of course I’m not,” Kraber said. “It’s just… habit.”

He walked out the door, staggering slightly. Every step felt like a struggle. And he had this strange feeling - an awkward, almost crawling feeling, as if something was terribly wrong, as if ~~he was terribly wrong, no no stop~~

‘Whatever I’ve got,’ Kraber thought, ‘It hasn’t gone away. Do I have the flu? Why the fok do I keep feeling so out of it?’ He started feeling almost normal by the time he was near Lovikov’s bus.

He knew it was big when he saw the old SWAT van with the painted Thenardier Guards symbol next to the bus.

‘This is gonna be big, Kraber thought.

In front of SWAT van, Kraber saw Lovikov, Benning, Jones, Sully, Dayoung, and Megan having an animated conversation with some HLF he almost recognized.

Was that…

It was!

The Thenardier Guards. And some of their most high-profile members, too. Verity Carter was there, for one thing. Even Atlas Galt, their commander!

He was a hazel-eyed man of average height, with a prematurely graying beard. It could’ve looked silly. Instead, it somehow looked distinguished. He made for quite the presence in Defiance, standing as equals with Lovikov.

“This will work,” Lovikov said.

“Absolutely,” Galt replied. “We’ll have the PHL over a barrel with this. We won’t even have to consider your Plan!”

“A man can dream, Atlas,” Lovikov said, looking… well, it was hard to say. Maybe he was hurt. But then, more likely, he was just laughing it off with a friend.. “Perhaps, if it works, it can be tried. For now…”

“Understood,” Galt said. “For what it’s worth, Leonid, I like it. It’s just a bit… out of reach.”

“I keep telling you, I know,” Lovikov said. “It’s the main reason I agreed to help. It’s my plan, or Carter’s vision, or we all die.”

“Are things really that dire?” Hakim asked.

Galt and Lovikov looked to Hakim.

“Absolutely,” they both said. Or, well, both of them said something to that effect. Lovikov said ‘da,’ actually.

Kraber walked up towards them, and everyone stared. Apparently, he looked about as bad as he felt, going by the disgusted look on Verity’s face. Then again, she had that virtually every time she saw him.

“So,” he said. “What did I miss?”

06: Under Pressure

Light Despondent

Chapter 6

Under Pressure

Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don't work
Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn
Why - why - why?
Love, love, love, love, love
Insanity laughs under pressure we're breaking

Can't we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can't we give love that one more chance?
Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love
Give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?
Under Pressure, Queen

Dayoung

Homebase ‘Marlow’, Maine

At literally that exact moment, apparently, Kraber was getting kisses from a puppy that resembled a cloud shaped vaguely like a small wolf.

“AWWWW… Look at you! It’s so cute and fluffy!” Kraber laughed, petting the fluffy white samoyed dog that was currently trying to lick his face off. “Look at youuuu, braver hondije, oh, I just want to keep hugging you, awww...”

It kissed him again, and then barked.

“Who ist good bwoy,” Kraber cooed, clearly mixing up a number of languages. “Good hondije, yes jou are!”

“Are you quite finished?” Colonel Galt asked, glaring down at him.

"...nah," Kraber said, verbally flipping off the commander of the Thenardier Guards with a shrug, before going back to petting the dog, who was panting, its tongue hanging out. “What a good bwoy! You’re like a giant cotton ball!”
It barked.

“What a good puppy… Who’s a good bwoy! It’s you! You are the good bwoy and it is you!”

‘That’s supposed to be a hero of the HLF?’ Dayoung thought. By all accounts Kraber was a hero, an intimidating, unstoppable presence…

And yet, here he was cooing over a white dog so fluffy his hands seemed to disappear into the fluff.

“I guess he’s not so scary after all,” Megan said. “I feel… almost let down.”

Dayoung could agree with a lot of the sentiment in that. She’d been expecting glamor, underworld contacts, and heading into a strange city. Instead, she’d-

December 24, 2022
Dancing Day

“Hold on,” Dancing Day says. “Why did you start with that instead of leaving the camp?”

“Well, I thought it would be funny. There’s Smoky clearly thinking ‘oh, aweh, this man is so evil, here he is clearly doing something evil at this very moment,’ and then suddenly, there’s me holding a little hondije,” Kraber said.

“I… think I get it,” Dancing Day says. “Hey, wait a minute! How’d you know about the parts you weren’t there for?”

“But… I was there for this one,” Kraber says, confused.

“Not that, I mean… how do you know what Dayoung was doing?”

“Oh, I asked. Politely,” Kraber says.

“Okay, how many incendiaries did you use to-” Heliotrope starts.

“You bring one of Quiette Shy’s tiny flamethrowers, use it as a conversation piece, and nobody ever lets you live it down,” Kraber grumbles.

“Wait,” Vinyl Scratch asks, trotting into the room. A unicorn stallion by the name of Neon Lights (perhaps one of Vinyl’s closest still-living friends) and a Wonderbolt by the name of Echo is in tow, curious looks on their faces. Dancing Day knows from experience that Echo is blind. “QS makes tiny flamethrowers?”

“You’ve created a monster,” Neon Lights sighs. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, Kraber.”

“Seriously, again?!” Kraber asks, not quite yelling but close. “Is… is this a fokkin’ running gag at this point?!”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Vinyl says, casting a look over to Kraber. “So, Viktor. What’s this I hear about you telling your life story?”

“It’s… pretty simple,” Kraber says. “I’m telling the story of how I got here. We already got through… well, the worst parts.”

“Which parts?” Vinyl asks, curious.

“I… later,” Kraber says. “We already get sidetracked enough here! I’ll tell you just now.”

Vinyl blinks. “...What.”

“He means-” Aegis starts.

“Later,” he and Kraber say at once.

“Your language is weird,” Neon Lights says.

“Did you at least get to the part with Reaper yet?” Vinyl asks. “That’s one of my favorite parts!”

“We’re getting to that,” Kraber says. “Not much is gonna change from the last time I told you.”

Vinyl nods. “Well, I was talking it over with my friends here, and we’d like to join in and listen all the same.”

“I mean, we were there for a lot of it,” Echo adds.

Dayoung
Earlier, in Monument Square

Dayoung barely recognized Portland anymore. She’d been there fairly regularly, but now…

Well, the population had swelled like an overfilled balloon thanks to the Europe Exodus. Some people had been moved to other cities, other towns in America, but others… hadn’t. The populations of entire cities had been shored up against the East Coast. And those were just the human inhabitants. Ponies, zebras, griffons, other races - many of them called the east coast their home. Portland wasn’t unique in that regard.

They’d brought a lot to the city. Which, Dayoung admitted, wasn’t much of a city, but it was Maine.

Lanterns with no obvious power supply dotted the streets, and zebras and griffons alike milled about. Some even looked to be running their own businesses. A griffon was nearby, hawking - or perhaps eagling, though Dayoung groaned internally at that pun - various cuts of meat, cooked with strange spices. A human and a pony sat behind a stall, with numerous odds and ends that the stall’s banner claimed to be from countries that were eaten by the Barrier.

“I hate that,” Megan said, all of a sudden.

Dayoung turned toward her friend with a start. The tall blonde had been quite silent for awhile, barely speaking a word on the drive to Portland.

“What do you mean?” Dayoung asked.

“I mean that… there’s no way to tell if it’s actually from Europe, you know?” Megan asked. “And there’s one of those ponies selling it. Our memories, our homes, our histories…”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Dayoung said. “There’s plenty of people who said back home that they liked Champagne Grape and Caramel, but… well, every time I look at them, it’s hard not to just think ‘If they weren’t here, we’d be a hell of a lot happier.’

“I felt that too,” Megan admitted. “Just… it was at the back of my mind every time I saw them.”

Dayoung looked to her friend, surprised. “Really?! But you… you were there helping them move in! You even said I was doing a good thing working to teach Caramel Swirl in school.”

“I… well, I thought it was the right thing to do,” Megan said. “Even with that little voice in the back of my head telling me it wasn’t.”

Megan looked at Dayoung strangely.

“You okay?”

In truth, Dayoung was… well, if you could ask her, she’d say she was okay. The truth was, it hurt having Grapevine say it to her:

“Oh what the fuck. You’re dead to me, Tengku. Dead.”

And the hurt look on her foal’s face. The quite indescribable look-

Dancing Day,
December 24, 2022

“You just weren’t looking at her and you made something up, weren’t you,” Yael says.

Kraber throws up his hands. “Oh, no, no, no... “

Yael stares at him through the camera.

“Yes,” Kraber sighs. “That, and it worked really well when Jeff Vandermeer got trapped in his own novel-”

“Wait, he got trapped in the movie by Alex Garland?” asks a nearby filly who’s barely into her teens.

“No, that’s just silly,” Aegis says.

Dayoung
August 2022

Did I actually mean any of that stuff I said? Dayoung thought. I mean, did I? I sounded like I was reading from a fucking textbook.

Specifically, her own textbook. Dayoung had, after all, seen the HLF as heroes back at the dawn of the war, right around the time she started high school. And she’d been writing the stories she heard about for awhile.

Oh, the memories she had of the Purple Winter - watching illegal livestreams and blurry cell phone videos of HLF attacks on Bureaus, being up till 4 AM on forums. The way she and her friends from high school had watched Carter refuse PHL aid, yelling in Ambassador Lyra Heartstrings’ face:

“IT IS TOO LATE FOR YOU TO MAKE AMENDS! After what your species has done, after you stood back and made excuses, how am I supposed to believe you could ever make up for the Bureaus? You! ARE! COMPLICIT!”

Oh, how she cheered at that. She even had a tattoo of that quote on her back, and ‘YOU ARE COMPLICIT’ was spelled out on her forearm.

“I guess so,” Dayoung said.

“You’re not,” Kraber said, walking over to them both with a small pouch in one hand. “I can tell, Dayoung.”

“What would you know?” Megan snapped.

“Enough to know she’s going through some bad kak,” Kraber said.

“Where were you all this time, anyway?” Megan asked.

Kraber jerked his thumb towards a stall, manned by a zebra hawking what Dayoung assumed to be lucky charms, an assortment of small thumb-sized bags, and leather, and feathers, and…

“Vulture heads?!” Megan asked.

“Ja,” Kraber said, “Pretty common good luck charms for gamblers back home. Didn’t want to buy one, though.”

“How can you even stand to be around one of those, anyway?” Megan asked.

Dayoung’s gaze snapped to her friend. Neither of them had met a zebra native to Equus before (or even seen a zebra in person) so this display of anger felt… well, it was something of a surprise.

“Well, I…” Kraber started. “I was going to, but then I realized I couldn’t make myself do it. It’s only a zebra, it’s not part of the Solar Empire. I just couldn’t make myself care.”

“Oh,” Megan said, almost disappointed.

“Anyway,” Kraber said, “What’s wrong, Dayoung?”

“I’m just…” Dayoung started. “I’m just not… I feel insecure. About being here.”

Kraber

And what the fok was he supposed to say to that?

“Just don’t forget why you joined,” Kraber said.

“Why did you?” Megan asked.

“You can fokkin’ guess,” Kraber snarled, surging with anger. “I’m fokkin’ famous, just like I wanted when I was a kid. All it took was the deaths of my family, and SOME FOKKIN’ KONTGESIG-”

He kicked a trash can. A pony walking nearby looked at him, concern written on his face.

“-Saying it was MY FOKKIN’ FAULT,” Kraber seethed. “FOK!”

Fokkin’ Shieldwall, fokkin Pinkie, where in the fok do they fokkin’ get off telling me it’s my fault, gonna fokkin’ kill em! Kraber thought.

“Viktor,” Dayoung said, “You… is there anything we can…”

“Your friend doesn’t look too good,” said the nearby pony, still concerned.

‘Of course I fokkin’ don’t, but I’ll feel much better when I CRUSH YOUR FOKKIN’ BRAINS BETWEEN MY FINGERS LIKE I’M MAKING FOKKIN’ BOEREWORS-’

“Leave him alone!” Megan snapped at the pony. “He’s going through some pain, and the last thing he needs right now is for someone like you to”

‘No, someone said, ‘You won’t enjoy that.’

If it wasn’t Kate, it sure fokkin’ sounded like her.

‘If you do this,’ that voice continued, ‘There’s no way this can end well.’

It was exactly the way Kraber remembered Kate talking to him. The exact same tone of voice she’d used when Kraber had said he’d been on the verge of assaulting some SHRIMP-PIEL FOKMAGGOT that thought they knew more about his children’s health than an ACTUAL FOKKIN’ DOCTOR did, to make sure he didn’t dropkick someone in the face. Again.

‘That was funny, wasn’t it? I said “If you decide to lock Peter in the closet again, my husband will come next time and he will dropkick you in the face,” and then she did it again, saying ‘Oh, he won’t,’ and you... ’

Kraber heard laughter from somewhere.

‘You were all ‘SUP, FOKSUCKERS!’ Damn, we were all laughing about it for weeks!’

That had been a fokkin’ lekker day. And the more Kraber thought about it, the more he had to admit to himself that gunning down the pony then and there couldn’t end well.

I really don’t want to do this, Kraber realized. I don’t want to hurt them. He could almost see those two ponies he shot in the basement of that old mill, and… and too many more. Everywhere.

‘Why?’ asked one of them a pony he remembered shooting in Innsbruck. One of his first kills. He’d done it in with his old pump-action shotgun.

It was a strange thought. After all, if he did that, if he shot this pony in the middle of the street, he’d…

He’d...

Dancing Day
December 2022

”So,” Heliotrope says, “Did you… did you decide it because you thought it’d be immoral, or because you figured it’d destroy whatever Lovikov had planned?”

“Fok weet,” Kraber says. “I’ve… look, I don’t know which I was thinking. Maybe I had an actual fokkin’ conscience at the moment. Maybe I didn’t. It’s really hard to say. But…”

“But?” Aegis asks. He looks quite concerned.

“Who am I kidding,” Kraber says, looking down at the floor. “I was probably thinking about how it’d have ruined Lovikov there, and being a fokkin’ selfish kontgesig as usual.”

“You can’t know that,” Aegis says. “I know you, Viktor. And I know you’re a lot less selfish than you’d think.”

“Well, most other times I thought I was being a kontgesig, I wasn’t wrong,” Kraber says. “It’s like what Nny says. Someone asks him ‘why do you assume you’ve got enemies behind every tree’ and he says, he says ‘The better question is why I keep being right.’”

There is an uncomfortable silence.

“Maybe I should’ve done that,” Kraber says. “Saved us a lot of trouble, and I’d have died as I fokkin’ lived.”

“But you wouldn’t be here,” Aegis says. “I wouldn’t know you, Amber and Rivet wouldn’t have met you…”

“I honestly can’t imagine life without you,” Rivet says.

Dancing Day does a double-take. Had he always been there? She’d been very absorbed in Kraber’s story, watching him weave this tale. Apparently, a lot of ponies had come in without her noticing.

“How long have you been there?” asks Astral Nectar.

Rivet places a hoof behind his head, confused. “...Awhile?” he asks. “I mean, it’s not like I’m hard to notice.”

Which is certainly true. Rivet is a few inches shorter than the average pony, despite being only a couple years older than Dancing Day. He’s easy to mistake for a small adult. He has his dad’s white-gray fur and red mane, which should make him instantly noticeable, except it doesn’t.

“Unlike Amber, anyway…” he continues.

A smaller earth pony with orange fur and that same red mane pokes out from behind Rivet. “HEY!”

“You’re bright orange,” Rivet points out.

Amber sighs. “Fiiiiine… I guess I am orange.”

“They’re right,” Yael says.

Kraber looks over to the hologram of Yael. “Really? From… you?”

“I’m as surprised as you,” Yael says, gritting her teeth. “But can we get on with this story?”

“Aweh,” Kraber says. “Anyway, I told that pony that I was…

Kraber
August 2022

“...Sorry, but, I’m just… not feeling too good,” Kraber forced the words out. “I was just reminded of some shitty fokkin’ times.”

The pony narrowed his eyes.

“It was back during the Purple Winter,” Kraber said. And then, the words he spoke next came out like pulling teeth. His own teeth. Through his nose. Without anesthetic. “I’m. Sorry. I went through some… real bad shit. I was wrong… to take that out on. You.”

The pony looked surprised. “Wait. Really?”

“Yeah,” Kraber said. “Let’s just head our separate ways for now. I’m sorry for how I acted,” he said, the words flowing much more naturally.

“I…” the pony looked concerned. “Well buck. I’m not used to getting actual apologies. Thanks for that.”

And, strangely enough, that actually made Kraber feel better. Lighter, almost. “You’re welcome,” he found himself saying. “Dayoung, there’s a gaming lounge with Overwatch over thataway,” Kraber said. “At least, I think there is. Wanna head over while we wait?”

He pointed up the street, towards the art museum.

“We’re supposed to wait here while… our friends meet with…” Dayoung started, tripping over the names.

And I thought I’d reveal it all, Kraber thought, bemused. And he was already walking away, heading in the direction of the gaming lounge.

“I was actually heading there myself,” the pony said, sounding confused.

“I’ll even buy you some time there,” Kraber said. “Consider it an apology.”

“Throw in a drink and you’ll have a deal,” the pony said.

It was a surreal experience. Kraber hadn’t had a genuinely positive conversation with a pony since before the Purple Winter, unless he counted that time he met Champagne Grape. Which was…

Well, the less said the better.

“Ah, fok it,” Kraber said. “What’ve I got to lose.”

“Come on, wait, Vik!” Dayoung yelled, running behind him. “You’re supposed to wait with us, for-”

“Why?” Kraber asked, as he and the pony came to the crosswalk. “Not like Leonid trusts me anyway.”

Dayoung flinched like she’d been hit, and Megan opened her mouth to yell...

Dayoung
August 2022

“Fuckin’ what?!”

Dayoung stared at her friend, surprised by the outburst.

Kraber was across the street, just in front of a retrocade bar by the time Megan and Dayoung could process that.

Kraber was already sitting in a beanbag chair, playing Overwatch on a flatscreen TV by the time they got there. The pony next to him sat in his own beanbag chair, a controller under his hooves.

He was playing McCree. The team he was on was pretty shitty, to be fair, but it could have been worse. At least someone had bothered to play Mercy this time.

“Can’t believe this place has internet,” Dayoung said.

“Apparently, the owner cribbed some sort of magic router from the Reavers,” Kraber said with a shrug.

“Wait, ‘magic router’?” Megan asked, frowning. “As in, literally?”

“We don’t think so?” Kraber said, shrugging again. “Said some kinda doctor built it. I don’t fokkin’ know, and as long as it lets me do Overwatch and Warframe, I don’t fokkin’ care.”

“You heard they made the new Saturn landscape?” the pony asked.

“I haven’t been able to play it in so long, but it looks fokkin’ tits!” Kraber said. “God, I miss just being able to sit gat, rus bene, and play Frost with Soma Prime or the Prisma Gorgon. I just felt so… needed, y’know? Like, nobody just boots up Warframe and thinks ‘oh, lekker, a Frost main. Hooray,’ it’s ‘Fok yes! It’s a Frost main! We’re gonna make fokkin’ KAKSPUL on this Kuva!”

“I know exactly what you mean,” the pony added.

Dayoung nodded, shrugging as well. “I guess that’s fair.” She sat on the floor near the beanbag chair. “How’s the team?”

“Well,” Kraber said, sucking a breath in, “for starters, I’m on the same team as a Genji. Then there’s the Mercy – she’s too aggressive and she hasn’t used her ult yet. Buuut… Mercy did get nerfed to fok for like eight straight years, so I don’t exactly blame them.”

“Wait, you mean to tell me she wasn’t always this shit?” the pony asked.

“Nooit, back when she was released, she had a rez, so so…” He paused, before swearing. “Ah, fok!”

Sure enough, his McCree had been frozen by a Mei. And then shot in the head with icicles.

“Maybe you need to git gud, Little Vicky,” Megan snorted.
“Fok jou, and don’t fokkin’ call me that,” Kraber said, and flipped her off. “Anyway, it’s not a matter of gittin’ gud.”

“Says every bad player out there,” Megan said, rolling her eyes.

“I’m fokkin’ serious!” Kraber insisted. “It’s Mei, only sadistic kontgesigs play h-”

Dancing Day
December 2022

“Ahem,” Rivet says.

“It was just the one time!” Kraber protests.

“Didn’t you specifically say you were doing that just so that if someone said you were doing something evil, you could cut to that?” Amber asks.

“Yes,” Kraber says bluntly.

“I’m curious,” Echo says. “How did you feel, getting to play Overwatch with that pony? You’re sounding like you were getting pretty friendly with him.”

“Well, I…” Kraber says. “I would’ve said back then I was acting, and maybe I believe that. But now? It feels fokkin’ lekker when I think back to it. I got to just relax, I was playing videogames, I was in a bar, and things just… made sense. I think I liked it a lot.”

A slight grin crosses his face.

“Anyone up for that sort of thing sometime? Dibs on Frost if we play Warframe,” Kraber says.

“You can’t call dibs on Frost!” Aegis says. “We can play whatever Frame we want!”

“Yeah, but… should we?” Kraber asks. “I mean, from a strategic point of view, it makes sense to have multiple roles on the team. With the right comp, you can fight in the Kuva Fortress for about an hour. You could have a Saryn to debuff, Mesa to do damage from the bubble shield, Octavia for general support, Excalibur to do…” Kraber scratches his beard.

“What’s Excalibur good for anyway?” Rivet asks, derivatively.

“Has my time spent being basically your second dad taught you nothing?!” Kraber asks, mock-aghast. “What isn’t Excalibur good for?!”

“Ah, why not,” Vinyl says. “I’m totally up for that.”

“My secret mind powers are telling me you will play as…” Aegis starts, a rare smile on his face.

“Excalibur!” Vinyl says, a smile on her face.

Kraber shudders back into the chair, a look of pure ‘what’ on his face, one eyebrow raised. Aegis looks up at him, sharing that look.

“...Sure. Why not,” Kraber says.

Dayoung

“Oh, what the shit?!” Dayoung gasped, watching as the Mercy suddenly rezzed him and the pony… and three other people in the area, complete with a heroic sounding ‘heroes never die!’.

“Mercy’s ultimate hasn’t been rez in ages!” Megan said.

Kraber frowned. “The fok?” He looked at Dayoung. “Can you get a look at their gamertag?”

Dayoung frowned at him. “Can’t you see?”

“I’m lazy,” Kraber shrugged.

Dayoung scowled. “Fine. Fucking hell.” She got close to the TV as the Mercy player ran past. “DRomero1031.”

Kraber jumped out of his seat and threw the controller. “Fokkin’ hell, naw.”

Megan picked up the controller, grinning, and landed herself in the beanbag chair. “Move, you lose, buster.”

Kraber didn’t react, though, instead scowling at the screen.

“What’s up with you?” Dayoung asked.

“‘DRomero1031’,” Kraber said, growling the words out. “That’s Daniel Romero’s fokkin’ gamertag. No wonder he’s got a custom fokkin’ Mercy, he probably hacked the fokkin’ game.”

“Daniel who now?” Megan asked, not really paying attention as she switched from McCree to Widowmaker.

“Daniel Romero, Captain of the fokkin’ HLS Columbia,” Kraber clarified, still scowling. “Fokker’s part of the other side of the split. They say he uses magic, works with ponies, makes deals with PHL…”

Dayoung frowned. “How’s he still HLF then?”

“Because him and Yarrow were cosy with Spader in the early days, and Yarrow kept him around,” Kraber explained. “Now he’s supposedly ‘HLF R&D’.”

“We have R&D?” Dayoung asked.

“Apparently so,” Kraber said. “Always coming up with big ideas.”

Dayoung and Megan exchanged a glance.

“Any of them any good?” Megan asked with a smirk.

Kraber gave her a death glare. “You don’t wanna ask questions like that, kid.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Kraber said. “He’s the Enemy. He uses their gear, their ponies, their methods. He might as well be fokkin’ PHL.”

“But you’ve got that gun,” Megan pointed out.

Kraber’s scowl only deepened. “There’s working with enemy shit to gain the advantage, and then there’s the stuff they say Romero does. There’s a fokkin’ line you cross where you stop having the right to call yourself HLF. Me and Lovikov don’t agree on much, but we agree on that.”

Dayoung snorted. “Begs the question why he’s got time to be playing Overwatch.”

“Well, why the fok are we playing fokkin’ Overwatch, in that case?” Kraber asked, shrugging. “Even Hitler had fokkin’ hobbies.”

December 24, 2022
Dancing Day

“The irony is heavy with this one,” Neon Lights comments.

Dayoung
August 2022

“By the way,” Dayoung asked. “I have to ask. What’d you mean when you said Lovikov doesn’t trust you?”

"Leonid had... some big Plan," Kraber started. “Hold on, a mo. Barkeep, you have any tequila?”

“Certainly do,” the bartender said, passing Kraber a glass.

"How are you talking like that?" Megan asked.

"Like what?" Kraber asked, taking a swig from the tall glass.

"Like, I can practically hear you capitalizing the word 'Plan'," Megan said.

"Eh, that's not important,” Kraber said. “Anyway. He had some big Plan that required him to send some of his best men and women to Canada. Which I thought included me, but he said 'you're not trustworthy enough to do it, Viktor. You need someone like me to rein you in.' His words, not mine.”

As best Dayoung could guess, he was referring to whatever had happened in Nipville. A bit of a stretch, but what other major HLF actions in Canada had she heard of recently?

"That... sounds like an unstable relationship," Dayoung said.

"No, he's kind of right. He's more of a tactician, the idea guy-" Kraber said.

"But he told you. To your face. That you weren't trustworthy enough." Dayoung said.

"Ja,” Kraber said. “I mean, my wife would try and keep me under control, because… well, I’ve a bit of a temper.”

“But did she trust you?” Dayoung asked. “Did she know you were a responsible adult?”

“Am I?” Kraber asks. “I mean really. Am I a responsible goddamn adult?”

“That’s…” Dayoung shook her head. “That’s beside the point. Did she trust you.”

Kraber thought on that. “Ja,” he said. “I suppose she did. Why are you asking me all this, anyway? I thought you were all fokkin’ gung-ho about joining the HLF.”

“I was,” Dayoung said. Then backpedaled. “I mean, I thought I was, but…”

“Ja?” Kraber asked.

“Look, I just miss… I miss home,” Dayoung said. “The creature comforts, the school, the job, and… Do you know the plan here?”

“Not really,” Kraber said. “Like I said, Lovikov doesn’t exactly trust me enough.”

“And I keep saying,” Dayoung said. “That. Isn’t. Right.”

“Why?” Kraber asked. “I’m a fokkin’ attack dog-”

Dayoung could almost swear that she heard anger, regret, or… or something other than pride in his voice there.

“And Lovikov’s the leader,” Kraber said. “What he says goes. It has to. I couldn’t lead the Menschabwehrfraktion if I wanted to - and I don’t. I disagreed with Lovikov once in the past few days, and he retaliated by beating me to the ground and trying to steal my stuff.”

Dayoung gaped. “That’s horrible!”

“I guess it is,” Kraber said, taking another swig of tequila. “But he’s our leader. We have to be kept in check, or-”

“Exactly right,” Sully said, opening the door.

Dayoung hadn’t seen much of him, had barely seen him more than four times a few days ago in her hometown, but she was struck by just how solid Sully was. He looked like he could easily run circles around half the camp, and had thick graying brown hair. He looked to be chiseled from granite.

“You know,” Sully said, striding through the retrocade. “I heard what he said about you.”

He looked out of place, like a rock in the middle of a river, or the ocean. As he strode towards Kraber and Dayoung, the various Portlanders seemed to flow around him - the humans, ponies, zebras, and others perched on barstools would lean ever so slightly closer to their drinks. Others who sat at tables would lean in, and the hangers-on standing around, playing games on phones or antique handhelds, slid back.

A pink pegasus mare with a red mane was standing in front of him. Not aggressively, but not gently, Sully placed his foot against the mare’s barrel. Just above her cutie mark.

The meaning was clear. She ran to the edge of the restaurant, hiding near a black unmarked arcade cabinet.

“What you did,” Sully continued. “And I thought. This is Viktor, he wouldn’t possibly help the enemy. But here you are. Deserting.”

“I’m not fokkin’ deserting!” Kraber yelled. “What the ass-cock-dicking-fok is wrong with you people?! A man makes one fokkin’ mistake and you act like he dug up your dog and arsefokked it in front of you?! Jou all a bunch of varknaaiers. Fok jou up die gat.”

“Oh. Several mistakes,” Sully said. “One of them being that you were stupid enough to say that.”

“Look,” Kraber said, “I’ll go, alright?! I’ve had a rough few days, and it’s not helped by jou fokkin’ kontgesigs hammering in every little mistake.”

“Has it occurred to you that some of the people of Defiance are worried for you?” Sully snapped. “God only knows why, Kraber, but some of the idiots in this town actually think you’re alright. You pulling a stunt like this scares them, for a lot of reasons. I care about you! Leonid cares about you!”

“Which he decided to show by beating me by pistol-whipping me with his nine, browbeating me, ransacking my house, and threatening me at gunpoint the day after Emil was PIA,” Kraber said. “All because I make a mistake once. Pardon me... if I’ve some fokdamn doubts.”

Sully sighed. He looked almost deflated. “It’s useless arguing with you when you’re like this, isn’t it.”

Kraber looked like he was trying to smirk, but gave up halfway through. “Ja. Pretty much,” he said, frowning. He took another swig of tequila.

“What were you doing, though?” Sully asked. “I’m curious.”

“The two of us weren’t doing too good,” Dayoung said, flashing a quick glance at. “There was a pony asking me if I was okay, so I decided that the sanest thing to do was to head to an arcade and calm down. Kraber volunteered to keep guard while we did.”

Sully’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?! That sounds… unexpectedly reasonable.”

“Hey,” Dayoung said, “What can I say? He knows how to handle himself.”

Kraber’s eyebrows shot up. He clearly hadn’t expected that - he almost couldn’t understand it. Wasn’t able to understand.

Dancing Day
December 2022

“Which,” Kraber says, “Is how we get to-”

“What’s there for you to understand?” says an unfamiliar voice. A brown earth pony mare, wearing a militaristic cap. An adult, too. And, impossibly… Blank-flanked. “You can’t, and we all know it.”

“NEWFOAL!” Amber shrieks.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” the unfamiliar arrival says. “I’m not a newfoal, you all know it.”

“You,” Yael says, her face a tightly-controlled mask. Her voice has a lot more noticeable emotion in it - it’s as if she’s compressing every swearword she knows in every language she speaks into a single syllable. Which is a lot.

“What the fuck are you doing here,” Heliotrope says, somehow making it not even sound like a question. Dancing Day can practically hear what Heliotrope wants to add: ‘Here to try and kill another one of us?’

Aegis narrows his eyes. “Verity.”

Dancing Day knows her. Of course she does. The PHL is full of oddities. Humans who seem to be developing magic or psionic power, minotaurs, races of Equus that nobody has ever heard of, hackers, child soldiers and bystanders hired on the spur of the moment, Kraber, the New Researcher (as everyone calls aer) who is a one or technically-many pony think tank, and Verity Carter.

The newfoal-who-is-not-a-newfoal, a former HLF fighter who attempted to assassinate Alexander Reiner in his bed, failed, attempted to escape through Zecora’s private greenhouse, and came out a pony.

“Aren’t you supposed to be…” Dancing Day starts to ask. She quails as Verity Carter stares her down, her eyes pinpricks.

“Leave her alone,” Vinyl Scratch says, “Leave her alone, right now, or you go back in the hospital bed.”

“Oh, come on,” Verity says to the white unicorn mare, “What else can you even do to me at this point?”

Dancing Day can’t see what Vinyl Scratch is doing behind her massive purple sunglasses, but somehow she has the sense that the DJ is narrowing her eyes. “A lot.”

Verity just snorts, like she doesn’t care anymore. Maybe she really doesn’t.

“What the hell is she doing here?!” Vinyl asks, pointing to Verity.

“They let me out of observation,” Verity says. “Besides, where would I go?”

“Nowhere,” Kraber says. He’s not angry, he’s simply… stating a fact. Like rain falls, grass grows, and Verity is not leaving.

“That’s right,” Neon Lights says. “And, you know, I was wondering where you’d get to. And then I realized: You’re pretty much stuck.”

Verity rocks back as if she’s been punched. Vinyl looks up to Neon Lights, a look of… surprise? Shock? Whatever look it is on her face, it’s definitely not anger.

Aegis is beside Kraber and Vinyl now, a hoof on Kraber’s shoulder, and his bulk overshadowing Vinyl. Which is good, because Kraber is ready to… well, it’s not like he’s ready to leap out and stab her, but it’s more that despite sitting, something about him reminds Dancing Day of a predator. A wolf, or one of the funny-looking big-eared, spidery-legged “dogs” that Kraber loves so much, that happens to be loping low to the ground, waiting to see if it’s the right time to attack. Without Aegis, there’s about a fifty-fifty chance Kraber would decide it was the right time.

“I just wanted to know what you have to say here,” Verity says. “I mean, we were talking about it for months! You practically destroyed our side of the Split. And I just had to ask… you?! Really?”

“So you’re here to rub it in,” Kraber says.

Verity almost looks hurt. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t,” Kraber says, “But I know you, Verity. I know you hated me back when you were human. And I know it’s worse now.”

“You mean because you laughed at me after I got ponified?!” Verity yells.

Kraber looks to the side. Dancing Day can’t see the expression on his face, though she really wants to believe he regrets it.

“Can… can we move on with the story?” Astral Nectar asks. “Please? You said you were here for Kraber, Verity, so… let’s just keep going.”

Verity sighs. “Fine.”

“Anyway,” Kraber says, “That’s how we got to me holding a samoyed, deliberately trying to screw with Galt.”

“Why couldn’t we just start there from the beginning?” Rivet asks.

“It’s called dramatic irony, bru!” Kraber explains. “I’ve got this whole running gag laid out. Heliotrope, Vinyl, how many times did you and Yael immediately assume I was doing something evil when you were talking about me?”

Yael and Heliotrope look at each other, then Vinyl Scratch. All of them look somewhat embarrassed.

“Wait, really?” Aegis asks. “Huh.”

Kraber

Kraber had been in many a strange meeting spot. Abandoned mines. A boat in the middle of the atlantic. A plane. A boxcar in the middle of the woods. An oil rig. An abandoned town. A moving train. But “Abandoned underground bowling alley in the middle of a city” ranked near the top.

“Do you work for a Bond villain or some kak?” Kraber found himself asking a Thenardier Guard with prematurely (or dyed?) white hair. He could have been anywhere from his early thirties to early forties.

“Excuse me?” the man asked, turning towards Kraber confusedly.

“Your boss,” Kraber said. “Lofty name, love of codes, finds underground bases all the time…”

“I’d prefer not to talk about it,” the man said. “Besides. He’s got important stuff to say here.”

“The boss” was, in this case, Atlas Dagney fokking Galt. Despite all of his prattle about ‘equal opportunity for each man to prove his worth’, he was probably blanching at Defiance not having sent classier soldiers. But people like Sully, Mariesa, Blanchett, the other handpicked elites, and possibly Kraber? They were the absolute best Lovikov could pick.

Still. That was Galt for you. The picture of the average HLF ‘code-head’, a commanding officer obsessed with phrases and codewords, obsessed with his own philosophy. Obsessed with making things by his own hands, be they tables, weapons, maps, plans, or units.

If Galt had his way, his best options, they’d likely be in a hotel with some even more pompous codeword attached to it in official HLF communications, even if the so-called ‘communications’ were just children that were probably too young to remember things before the War, and almost certainly too young hold anything larger than barroom .32 pistols. He would’ve even taken a farm run by a sympathetic survivalist with a lot of guns, but all those contacts had dried up. The money, or at least what little of it was left nowadays, was in employing Earth Ponies as work to squeeze even larger yields out of the fields and orchards. That, and the fat government subsidy for employing earth ponies was too much for all but the most radically anti-government and anti-pony HLF to ignore.

“I see Birch isn’t here?” Kraber observed, taking a brief break to look up at the Thenardier Guards that had come to visit.

“Why, you miss him?” asked one woman, a redhead in clothing that looked like it was made of more patches than original fabric.

“Fok no!” Kraber said, briefly throwing up his hands.

The Samoyed, belonging to the HLF sympathizer who maintained the underground base, let out a short whine.

“No, no,” Kraber said, looking down at the dog, reassuring it. “I’m fine, I’m fine…”

Searching for the animal’s name, he held up the dog’s tag.

“...Lorne. See, I’m fine, it’s just that Birch is batshit crazy,” he continued, still addressing the samoyed.

Lorne cocked his head, visibly confused. Arroooo?

“Well,” Kraber explanation. “Our boy Birch talks about seeing ponies kidnap people before the war, zionists, chemtrails, reptilians…and he desperately wants the sane people to share in his madness, so he preaches this shit all the time.”

Chuckling, he scratched the dog behind the ears. “God help us all if that man ever becomes a officer. You wouldn’t want to serve under Lieutenant Birch, would you?”

Lorne whined, and licked Kraber’s face.

“Awwww… stop it, stop it!” he laughed, unmindful of everyone staring at him. “That’s what I thought, though. You know, you know a lot about this stuff, little hondije! And for that I salute you! Where’s a dog biscuit?”

“You’re one to talk,” muttered the youngest of the group, a twenty-something standing just behind Galt, dressed in civvies, augmented with a pair of under-arm holsters. Her hair was tied back with a bandanna, and her entire body had a youthful roughness to it that was simultaneously offputting and beguiling. Her bearing however was professional, and her twin pistols bright and polished.

“Verity Carter…” Kraber stared at her, wondering where he had last seen her. Had he run into her recently? Damn silly name she had. Wasn’t it latin for ‘truth’?

The youth shook her head in revulsion, eyes glinting. “You’re disgusting.”

Dismissing his wandering thoughts, Kraber smiled, showing his yellow teeth and wild eyes. “I didn’t even say anything this time! But yeah. I am, bakvissie. Doesn’t that at least give me some right to judge? Can’t I’ve somee fokkin’ standards?”

Shaking her head in disgust, Verity pulled on a short jacket that neatly hid her weapons and tugged on her ponytail, revealing it to be a clip-on. With it removed and a scruffy baseball cap (turned backwards) replacing it, she suddenly looked five or six years younger. A denim skirt pulled on over her jeans completed the image of a disaffected teen. Yay for counter-culture.

“Redd, you’re with me,” she beckoned to a young man dressed similarly to herself, before saluting Galt smartly.

“Colonel, requesting permission to proceed to the waterfront and finalise preparations for the mission with ensign Flamel,” Verity continued.

“Granted, Captain Carter,” Galt said blithely, not even looking in her direction. The girl and her one-man escort left with another lip-sneering glance in Viktor’s direction.

In her absence, uncomfortable silence reigned supreme for a few seconds.

“Well, at least Viktor doesn’t talk about zionist conspiracies,” Lovikov said when the quiet became too much to bear. “That’s one up on Birch.”

“Because Judaism, bru,” Kraber said.

“-Or any conspiracies that don’t involve the PHL or that bitch Yael,” Martineau finished. “That means our madman is better than yours. Besides, Viktor here does surgery.”

Galt threw up his hands. “Fine. Your insane person is better than ours.”

“Don’t remind me about that bull-dyke kike Yael,” Andrei Rianofski sighed, drawing the ‘evil eye’ from Kraber. “Our allies have lost over a hundred to her raids alone!”

For any members of the Front near to the Canadian border, Yael Ze’ev had become a sort of local boogeywoman. She’d apparently been demoted just yesterday for burning one Canadian redoubt to ashes with a squad of flamethrower tanks, but that was unlikely to stop her.

“We have far more important things to discuss,” Galt said, leading them into another room. “Myself, Rianofski, Captain Carter and several others have come up with a plan that might just cripple the PHL locally…if only for a moment, but a moment is all we need.”

And that was why Galt was where he was, and why he had even Kraber’s attention, if not his respect. He’d built the Thenardiers around himself on the results he could produce on demand. Which to Viktor was why it was so delightful to be here on their own terms, as the shock troops Galt needed to pull of his plan.

Not even trying to hide his displeasure, the Colonel placed a chess piece, a black King, on the map, sitting it about thirty miles out to sea from Portland.

“Tell me”, he asked, voice as treacherous as water flowing over rocks. “Have any of you ever heard of the Sorghum?”

‘I feel a reference coming,’ Kraber thought, still running his hands through Lorne’s fur.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve heard of it. Some mobile rig of theirs?”

“That’s right,” Galt answered, like he was talking to a child.

‘As if I was some kind of fokking retard, like Sheja, that kontgesig,’ Kraber thought, struggling not to pull out a revolver and splatter Galt. But that’d bring people running, so that was out.

“The Exile is a mobile drilling platform, bigger than anything else of it’s kind. The PHL contracted Armacham and Crowe to build it last year, and thanks to their ‘magic’, it’s now capable of also extracting and distributing oil brought up from any wells it’s tapped,” Galt explained.

“Yeah,” said Lovikov. “Just imagine the boom it’d make!”

He rubbed his hands together.

“The platform is due to be relocated from its current position on Usherfall Bank in one week’s time”, Galt continued. “There’s consequently increased activity to and from it in preparation for the tow. It’ll be within spitting distance of Portland, and a small town’s worth of boats will surround it. They’ll sell to the rig workers, give them rides to shore… security will be at an all-time low.”

“This is our opportunity,” Rianofski continued.

He tapped another chess piece, a White Queen, on the table.

“Through my contacts I have commissioned an ‘amenable’ shipwright down south. He has modified a ocean-going tugboat for our purposes. It’ll have a submerged basement of sorts for you to keep additional personnel, as well as concealed weapon lockers to arm yourselves… anything you could need.”

Everyone was now intrigued, as Galt slid the Knight across the table towards the King.

“Captain Carter has obtained us the passcodes and documentation necessary to get aboard the Sorghum, and then... ” Galt sighed. “Where possible, don’t kill people. Your primary goal is to take hostages. Then, as soon as you’ve secured the platform, place those hostages under guard in a location where you are unlikely to be visible to snipers. The Sorghum is also equipped with several missile launchers and cannons-”

“Who the hell equips an oil rig with cannons?” Sully interrupted.

“The kind of people that are paranoid about getting attacked by Imperials out at sea,” Galt said. “For good reason, too. You are to take control of the station’s armaments, for extra leverage. We will make a situation so untenable for the PHL that sending a squad to neutralize us would be impossible to consider. We’ll have the entire city and the population of the rig, the boats surrounding it in the palm of our hands, and we’ll give it all up in exchange for…”

Lovikov rubbed his hands together. “Michael Carter.”

“Exactly,” Galt said, nodding.

“I’m sure we’ll get him back,” Lovikov said, and flashed a glance at Kraber that anyone else might have considered friendly. “Especially. With. Kraber. On. Our. Side. In the chaos of a situation like this, anything can happen, but so long as Kraber’s here...”

It was a threat, pure and simple. Kraber wasn’t sure of what, but the malice was unmistakable.

Any fear Kraber could’ve held melted into white-hot rage.

FOKKIN’ THREATENING ME?! AGAIN?!

He was breathing heavily, gritting his teeth. Jou fokkin sonovabitch!

“Kraber,” Galt said, in that oh-so FOKKIN’ PATRONIZING tone, “Are you quite alright?”

Kraber forced himself to breathe. Ontspanne, he told himself. Fokkin’ ontspan. Come on, what would Kate say at a time like this to calm me down?

‘Viktor! People actually think that the Kraken is a good weapon in Warframe!’

The thought of that was so silly that any rage instantly evaporated.

“Are you-” Rianofski started.

“Fokkin’ lekker,” Kraber interrupted. “I was just thinking of an idea…”

For the rest of his life, he’d wish he hadn’t been the one that came up with it. Would want to tell others that Lovikov thought of it (it wouldn’t exactly be out of character for him). Would want to distance himself from the atrocity that came next.

“Fok with them,” he found himself saying. “You want them to hand over Carter to us? Let’s make them scared. Say something like ‘if our demands aren’t met, either we send a missile to Portland or kill a hostage. How many lives is it worth for you?’”

And suddenly, all attention in the room was on him.

The smile that Lovikov made was so wide that it looked like it could’ve split his face in two.

“Is that… is that really wise?” Rianofski asked. “Enough collateral damage, and they might decide to just destroy us.”

“It’s risky,” Galt said, “But I see the logic. We don’t exactly need to do that. We only need to make them think we can. Lovikov, would you be willing to fire on Portland?”

“If I have to,” Lovikov said. “But, hey, we can only hope.”

The hint of sarcasm was subtle, but so obvious to Kraber that he had to look around to see if anyone else heard that. Something deep in Kraber - not the newfoal he kept hearing, but some long-dormant part of him that’d been supressed and malnourished since before the War - stirred in him.

Lovikov was actually looking forward to the opportunity to fire on Portland.

Kraber played up the part of the remorseless Afrikaner psychopath all the time. It was a good role, it was one everyone expected. A classic. Murdering PER, going for horsefuckers was one thing.

But that?

He can’t go that far, Kraber thought to himself. Killing that many innocents would just be…

Later, he’d reflect on that. He hadn’t thought ‘innocent humans’ while leaving ponies out of the equation. He’d only thought ‘innocents.’

Later

The late-day sky was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.

Before the Barrier, Portland hadn’t been what it was today. There were so many languages spoken here now, with signs in the languages of so many atomized countries dotting the streets. The pedestrians - the human pedestrians, anyway - were dressed downright weird, in whatever clothes they could find, which weren’t many. There were weapons carried openly, either professionally manufactured or hammered together in caves or someone’s basement. Kraber thought it reminded him of Blade Runner, Sunset Overdrive, or that one… that one Mexican flash animation he loved as a kid, the one with the smileyfaces and the giant robot clown.

Of course, that didn’t mean he liked how the city now looked. He would have loved a melting-pot like this back before the war, but it was another thing to live it. All the rich people, virtually anyone with enough money had left to go east, buying themselves a few more months to live in comfort on the west coast, in deserts, in America’s heartland, or in the mountains. Anywhere that’d buy a few more hours of (comparative) luxury before it was destroyed.

And filling the gaps were… Kraber made his lips curl into a sneer, when he didn’t truly feel the emotion behind it. Ponies. Zebras, even a few griffons. None of whom wore any clothes.

“Fokking disgusting”, he said to himself. Or rather, he told himself.

Foods from other countries were combined with poor amounts of ingredients, substitutes and replacements, to form strange new culinary combinations. Kraber had happily visited a restaurant selling Nigerian ice cream alongside more American flavors like Moose Tracks and Husky’s Lover, which was vanilla malt ice cream with pretzels, peanut butter and chocolate swirls. The same fusion was tangible, visible, and even audible wherever you went, what with mongrel pidgin slang, mingling with dialects and languages from all over the world.

Improbably enough, there were a few places selling stolen Equestrian goods and ‘Equestrian-prepared baked goods’, which nobody in the HLF would touch. There was graffiti over the signage for these stores, and signs of broken windows, and yet, business seemed brisk.

The city’s primary industry had always been shipping, but the routes that outbound and inbound vessels now followed changed by the day, with cargos of wood, ammunition, food, and other necessities departing for southernmost Africa and America. Imports consisted for raw materials, scrap metal, neglected Soviet or American military hardware, all commodities that would be reused in the war effort. A cargo of steel ore might end up smithed into guns, or forged into rails for more locomotives, or any other possible permutation of human skill and technology. Who could say? There was even a huge ship, emblazoned with the Crowe Labs logo, armed with strange blocky guns and offloading multicolored containers.

They found the tugboat, as promised, near the Maine Street Pier. It stood out next to all the other vessels nearby for being utterly normal in appearance. Compared to the junkers around it made of half-sunken cars and scrap, the ancient tubs that looked like they’d barely survived the Europe Evacuation (probably because that was exactly what happened) held together with cable and ropes, the meaty ocean-going tug looked trim and ready to put to sea. As they approached, a pair of diesels could be heard turning over, and fumes belched from the twin exhaust stacks aft of the orange wheelhouse.

That was another difference from the other boats, many of which appeared to run on strange, magical engines pioneered by pony expatriates - Kraber noticed one outbound fishing boat, helmed by a mixed crew of humans and ponies, all clad in oilskins, that appeared to run on clockwork wound steadily by a hefty earth pony and a small, slight woman. He had to admit, it was fascinating.

“Alright, this is our tub,” said Lovikov warily, “the Arctic Warrior. Megan, Dayoung, Jones? You’re going to be keeping an eye on things from the docks, taking orders from Benning and Galt.”

Megan looked disappointed, but she made an effort to perk up ever so slightly.

“Things will be fine,” Galt said, standing behind the three of them. “Don’t even worry about it.”

“Just take care of us shoreside, and we’ll make sure it all works out,” Lovikov said, heading onto the boat.

“You’re coming with them?” Galt asked.

“Of course,” Lovikov said. A wolfish grin spread across his face. “I wouldn’t want to miss this.”

If Kraber knew what would happen in the next 78 minutes and 33 seconds, his response would have been to kick Lovikov in the face and yell “NO JOU FOKKIN’ DON’T!” But then, he was close to making that decision anyway.

He couldn’t unhear that statement from Lovikov: ‘We can only hope.’

It wasn’t as if Kraber had much keeping him from agreeing with that sentiment. He wasn’t exactly that different, anyway. But…

Lately, he was feeling wrong. Killing those ponies? That felt wrong. Not killing those ponies? That felt… well, it also felt wrong. But it felt less wrong than killing those ponies in Maine.

The thought of people like him or Lovikov holding an entire city hostage? That was one thing he could absolutely say, without a doubt, was wrong to him. Maybe Lovikov was his friend, but... something didn't feel right between them. Not anymore.

“Ain’t she a beaut?” called out the young corporal Kraber had seen leave the briefing with Verity Carter. Redd Flamel was his name if memory served, and right now he was coiling ropes on-deck. “Welcome aboard!”

Kraber jumped down on deck and nodded. “You a seaman?”

“Yessir. Raised on my family’s fishing boat, Antonia Graza. I’m your deckhand and engineer for this voyage.”

He seemed squirrelly, excitable, and yet utterly in command of his environment. Kraber liked that.

“Where’s the Carter girl?”

“Up in the wheelhouse, readying us for departure. Both herself and me were trained by the builder to operate the boat, but the fake Master’s Certificate is in her name.”

Kraber shook his head. A twenty-something slip of a girl as the captain of a vessel. Well, that wouldn’t do.

A quick inspection of the Warrior showed everything to be in order. It was almost immaculate in comparison to the other floating wrecks in the harbor. It wasn't pristine, but on the other hand, it was full of the concealed weapon lockers Galt had promised.

Even better was a hatch apparently leading to the bilge, which in truth opened up onto a secret compartment outfitted with bench-seats sufficient to seat twenty. It would be… perfect.

Over the course of the next hour the troops arrived in groups of two or three, keeping their numbers discrete. Thenardier Guards, and Menschabwehrfraktion alike, they came aboard. Most headed for the submerged compartment, cramped, smelly, dirty, and more than a little leaky, but the best place to conceal such a force.

At last, with everything ready and all supplies loaded, and the light of day dwindling into evening, Verity gave the order to cast off all lines, and turned the Arctic Warrior’s prow towards the harbor mouth. Down below, Kraber watched with approval as Redd busied himself with the twin diesel motors. The young man was clearly born to the sea.

Leaving him to it, Kraber himself went up to the immaculate wheelhouse, where Verity Carter was manning the helm, looking deceptively small as she stared forward through the reinforced viewports out towards the dark eastern horizon. Although she still wore her turned-back baseball cap, she’d swapped her civvies for body armour concealed under a heavy seaman’s jacket. To his delight, Viktor had earlier found a matching garment that fitted him hung in the captain’s cabin, along with the requisite peaked cap.

“Avast!” he cried as he entered the wheelhouse, a smile on his face and one hand on his revolver. The other hand was clenched around the snapped-off hook from the coathanger, completing the appropriate pirate-y image. “I be Kapitan Kraber!”

“... Shut up,” Verity muttered, pointedly tapping the framed Masters Certificate made out in her own name. Mariesa on the other hand, was smiling.

“Fok jou, I always wanted to say that,” Kraber laughed, stepping outside onto the bridge wing. The tug was ploughing steadily through the swells, heading for the rig. They could see it off in the distance, just over the horizon.

I didn’t know you could park one of those that close to shore, Kraber thought.

Dayoung

The three of them - and, of course, the Thenardier Guard members that Galt had dispatched with them - all stood in another boat. Off in the distance, Dayoung saw a narrow-gauge railroad, hugging the coast.

‘So what do we do now?’ Dayoung thought.

“I wanted to go on the rig,” Dayoung sighed.

“Menschabwehrfraktion and Thenardiers,” Galt said, “While you’re not part of Sorghum Team, you have an important duty nonetheless. This city may not react well to finding that we have them in our crosshairs.”

Dayoung bit her tongue to keep herself from making some sort of witty comment.

“It’s especially dangerous what with being in Portland,” Galt continued. “Portland… well, ponies and other aliens are more popular here than you’d think. You’ve got griffons, and Romero lives along the coast, distributing magic stuff where he can. And, when Equestria tried to build a bureau here, the whole city rose up against it. The leader was a man named John Caveney.”

Dayoung listened, rapt at attention. She’d heard of Caveney - of course she’d heard of him, the man who led Portland to destroy its Conversion Bureau.

“This city’s different, for some reason,” Galt continued.

“Can’t quite believe it’s a city, but whatev,” Jones said.

Galt glared at the big black man. He shrugged.

“Our job is to make sure that whatever happens, the city doesn’t get… ideas about what they should do,” Galt said. “We only step in when things go wrong. You’ll have full use of my bunker, arsenal, and the tunnels underneath Portland I have connections to. I’ll need some of you to keep an eye on the Bureau construction site.”

There was some confusion from HLF from both units.

“Yeah,” Benning put in. “I… well, you know I was raised around here. I was running the family business around the same time they started laying ground for the Bureau. The Purple Winter ended up stopping the construction, but there’s a big empty lot and a bunch of concrete where it could’ve been. The first floor is done, but they didn’t get any further above that. They got quite a bit below that, though - there’s a bunch of sublevels nobody’s quite been able to get to.”

“Why should we keep an eye on it?” Megan asked, and everyone - Dayoung included - stared at the willowy teenager girl who’d dared to speak up.

“Well,” Galt said, “Why not? There have been rumblings about PER activity. Shieldwall and Fairbairn have been weird ever since Fairbairn got half his face gnawed off.”

Dayoung raised an eyebrow. What.

“And there was… something that got Shieldwall unsettled back in the Pacific Northwest,” Galt continued. “But I’d be the first to admit I don’t know much about it. Be prepared for anything, men. We’re heading into dangerous waters.”

Kraber

“Platform ahoy!” Mariessa announced at last, sighting forward through a pair of binoculars. She seemed to have somehow become Verity’s first-mate during the few hours it had taken to head out to sea. Following her gaze, everyone sighted a cluster of lights on the horizon.

“Big bliksem,” Kraber muttered. And as the tug grew closer, the structure grew even larger - a massive leviathan kept afloat on two submerged hulls, like a giant catamaran. Four cylindrical columns supported the superstructure, shimmering softly as something rippled around them.

“State your business, Arctic Warrior,” Kraber heard the radio crackle.

“Platform Sorghum, this is commercial tugboat Arctic Warrior. I am her skipper, V Carter. We are approaching on a bearing of 100 south-easterly and are under instruction to moor up beside your north-western column. Over…” Verity said into her radio handset, having yielded the helm to a scowling Lovikov with the whispered orders to “keep her straight and point her where I tell you.”

Lovikov was clearly blanching at the thought of taking orders from someone less than half his age, but he did it.

‘How does Lovikov know enough to pilot a boat, anyway?’ Kraber thought. ‘Wouldn’t have thought a kontgesig like that would-’

Kraber had barely a nanosecond to wonder where that thought had been going before he realized what he’d just thought: ‘Lovikov is a kontgesig.’ Part of him wanted to doubt that. But part of him really didn’t. It almost felt like a relief to admit it. ‘Lovikov is a kontgesig.’

An island passed them by. It was a jagged, rocky little nub of land with a lighthouse, warning boats away. Not that it seemed to have done too much - a lot of boats, a regular small navy, hung around the Sorghum. They were of all sizes - the same kinds of junkers he’d seen in the harbor in Portland, and much larger vessels that looked like they’d barely survived the Europe Evacuation - example being, the container ship piled high with improvised houses made from shipping containers. Rather like his from back home, come to think of it.

“Why would they let all these boats sit nearby?” Mariesa asked, confused. “Seems kind of unsafe.”

Sully shrugged. “Who knows? Some people just need a community, no matter what.”

“I can relate to that,” Kraber found himself saying.

“Really?” Sully asked.

“Ja,” Kraber said. “When I lost my family, it was like… like the ground fell out from under me. I had to be with someone, and Lovikov and Kagan were there for me.”

“Arctic Warrior, please state your business. Over.”

Kraber stifled a laugh at the sight of the young girl strutting around the wheelhouse as she continued to banter with the platform, switching between coded frequencies on demand. Annoying and bitchy she may have been, but damn if she didn’t have guts. He could see how she survived in a unit like the Thenardiers.

“Please confirm security passcode?” the platform’s radio officer demanded at last.

“Break a fucking broomhandle off in Celestia’s flank,” the youth said. “Over.”

“Thank you Arctic Warrior, your documentation has been filed and you have permission to approach. Please turn to heading 154 and reduce speed to six knots, then proceed to final. Over.”

And like that, a pall had lifted over them. Verity twirled the radio handset on its cord with all the cocksure confidence of a gunslinger, and hung it on its hook with a satisfied smirk.

“We’re in,” Lovikov said, a smile on his face. “The hard part is over.”

December 24
2022

”Really?” Dancing Day asks.

And here’s where he breaks into laughter. He laughs hysterically, a bellowing guffaw that switches in pitch near-constantly, like you haven’t heard him laugh since the… incident… with Verity. Dancing Day finds it hard to say she doesn’t deserve it though.

“...ya done?” Aegis asks, raising an eyebrow.

Kraber shakes his head no, doubled over laughing. “Oh, no. It only got harder after that,” he manages to get out, eyes moist from tears of laughter.

07: El Mañana / Dope Fiend Massacre

Light Despondent

chapter 7:

El Mañana / Dope Fiend Massacre

Co - Authors / Editors
TB3
VoxAdam
Kizuna-Tallis

“It wasn't just the baby that died that day; something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned.”
Renton, Trainspotting

I had a vision
I saw Mr. Brown on the television
He was talking crap as he always does
I had to reign him in, why? Because

I don't like who he is
And I don't like who I am
I don't like what he does
And he makes me a man
On the verge of his mind
A spectacular view
Mr. Brown, I've got an issue and its got to do with you
Biting Elbows, Dope Fiend Massacre

August 8, 2022
Off the coast of Maine
Near the Sorghum

The sun was sliding down the horizon just behind Portland, and lights flicked on second by second.

Sunlight glinted on the metal of Arctic Warrior, and not too far above, Kraber could see pegasi and griffons, and maybe a few other species of Equus flying above the rig, from boat to boat. His best guess was that they were couriers of some kind - before his eyes, he saw a blue-green pegasus fluttering toward a nearby island.

It reminded Kraber of before the War. Even with all the time in the HLF, it was hard not to maintain some fondness about that time.

Things had just felt so…. Perfect back then.

Ponies had flooded into his college in Boston during the last year he was there, he’d seen a pony street performer making some fokkin’ tom near Faneuil Hall with spinning gravity tubes that were also on fire. This had been after Kate was pregnant, of course, and he’d been left with a feeling of almost childish wonder. Like he’d been reading his old Edge Chronicles books when he was a kid.

I’m bringing my kids into a world of wonder, is what Kraber had thought at that moment. Aliens that look like plushie horses! This could be fokkin’ lekker!

He’d talked things over with Heather, Terry, Polo, Corinne, Burt, Strychnine, Jamie, and his usual chommies from all over the city. Also, Nny - his friend who’d played Grave Robber in that shadowcast of Repo! The Genetic Opera - had been there infrequently. None of them had a pony friend gravitate towards them, (they expected to) and they’d all had plans to try and make things better. Plans they’d discuss in Burt’s favorite dive bar, over beer and burgers the size of hubcaps. Never mind that Strychnine would never have a degree, or that barely any of them had any business skills, but they didn’t let that stop them.

What did stop it was Kraber’s mother exercising the supreme power of nepotism to get Kraber to Germany, so he could complete his residency as fast as possible, and put him on the fast track to paying for his family. And she even managed to get him to a location near a ski area.

But all the time he worked to move there, he kept thinking. About what kind of world his kids would grow up in.

That’s gone now, Kraber thought. Fokkin’ gluesticks showed us what they really were.

“Rig ahoy!” Verity called out, as they approached the colossal bulk of the Sorghum.

The mobile platform truly was truly immense, its light shining out over the sea in the sunset. All around him, Kraber could see boats swaying gently in the sluggish, frigid current. Some were recognizable as… whatever they’d been before the war… but others were either so modified or built from so much scrap that they were nigh-unrecognizable.

To Kraber’s amazement, there looked to be small stores on sone of the boats weaving in and out of the mass of vessels. Most of those were taking turns at the docking ports around the feet of the rig’s support columns.

Squinting, he saw that on one moored-up boat, a large earth pony in a lifejacket was passing baskets of fish up to a longshoreman on the rig.

And there were many more boats clustering around the rig. Tugs not-so-different to the Arctic Warrior (barring the submerged compartment) along with a smattering of gunboats, both purpose-built and improvised, and patched, half-scuttled ships that clung to the Sorghum’s bulk like pilot-fish to a whale. Kraber doubted that a lot of them had more than one voyage left in them, save for the last desperate trip down south as the Barrier made its way to America…

Down below, hovering just above the waves, he saw a pink pegasus hammering in a large metal patch to a boat that looked like it should have been scrapped… in the nineties. It listed to one side, on account of the various houses bolted onboard like odd growths or barnacles. The label ‘Winterstraw Market’ was emblazoned on the side of it.

Yeah, Kraber reflected, Someone out there definitely has a sense of humor about this.

Tethered to the market and other boats, he could see aerostats made from a reclaimed and incredibly large potioneer ship, the PHL logo sprayed over eight-layer-thick graffiti on the gasbag.

A man lay on one of them, straw hat pulled over his eyes, a fishing pole propped up next to him, line descending town into the sea. A number of Coffin Ships floated nearby, one of which looked to be built on the tanks of two oil trucks. And, not too far away, an ancient container ship (Kraber knew little about boats, but it looked far older than it should have) seemed to dwarf the rig, its containers almost ready to spill out into the ocean. Music played up from above, with humans, ponies, and something that looked equine but had a beak dancing atop some of the containers. Strange glowing lamps hung above them. The words ‘BOREALIS’ were written on its prow.

‘Somebody’s a half-life fan,’ Kraber thought. ‘The end of the fokkin’ world, and STILL NO EPISODE THREE!’

If the rig was a city upon the sea, then here was the umkhuku suburbia, exiled from who-knew-where or making their way down from the wilderness of northern canada. Some of them looked to have beaten to high hell. Lots of the boats bore the scars of some kind of offensive magic, such as strangely transmuted wood with grain that appeared to be interspersed with metal wire, or shoots of plants growing up from the wood.

The largest of the support ships bore the name Genesis, and appeared to have began life as a bulk grain carrier. Now, its lengthy foredeck was a colossal hydroponic greenhouse, glassed and tented in to grow crops, likely the closest that most ponies on the rig would have to an orchard or vegetable patch. Kraber had heard that most of the PHL’s ‘oceangoing’ ponies were pegasi – their ability to fly made staff changes easy, and a life on the ocean wave satisfied their avian desire to roam, but a ship like Genesis would probably have at least some earth ponies at hoof to staff the greenhouses and artificial orchards.

‘Pegasi are simple, they usually have SMGs or bombs or molotovs, but earthlings favor those ridiculous little assault saddles with the light machineguns...there’ll definitely be some unicorns, if only because the PHL is addicted to with their magic...’

Still, even with those considerations in mind, the majority of the ponies present would be ‘peggies’, who tended to be overconfident and had lightweight, easily broken bones. So this should probably be an easy job.

“Shit,” Mariesa said. “I didn’t think there’d be this many people...”

“Huh?” Viktor grunted, and then realised that he had been so focused on the ponies that he’d neglected the veritable army of human security personnel patrolling both the rig and the large ships. So many guns were out there… and of course, he doubted the people on the boats were unarmed. That was a luxury few could afford nowadays.

“That makes things interesting,” admitted Lovikov, who had come out onto the bridge wing to join them.

“...Are we changing plans? Doing something else?” Verity asked.

“No. If we wait, the actual tow will arrive, and then the rig will leave. And once it’s underway, getting aboard is going to be near to impossible,” Lovikov said. “And since they swallowed our cover, they’re expecting us, so we have to do it now. There’s no other option.”

Hundreds, Kraber thought, making a mental shrug of acceptance.

“Stay on course,” cautioned Verity, checking repeatedly forward through a pair of binoculars.

Everyone else stood alert, but Lovikov in particular had a huge smile on his face, staring up into the huge cannons mounted on the PHL rig. Or at least, what they presumed to be cannons.

“I’m gonna go check on the belowdecks,” Lovikov said. “Make sure we’re all on the same page.”

“Aweh,” Kraber sighed, walking up to the prow of the boat. He watched as the Arctic Warrior passed yet another strange boat - a multilevel barge that looked to have a mobile home or prefab of some kind suspended a good ten feet above the hull on stilts. Men, women, ponies, and other Equus species sat on the underside of the mobile home, fishing, drinking, smoking, and playing cards.

“Oh, it will be gone soon enough!” chirped a forest-green newfoal mare, balanced on the gunwale like a sprite. Kraber whipped out his .45, ready to shoot it in the face, only to find that-

“Oh, what the shit is this fresh hell...” Kraber sighed.

That’s how you react to me? The inexplicable newfoal mare asked. Wow, you’re jaded!

She was covered in blood, one eye a mashed and jellied mass, pulped against a bullethole in her skull. Kraber could see her mane visible through the hole in her skull. A little hair actually appeared to have gotten stuck in there, waving out the empty eye socket.... her smile appeared to be held open with rusty hooks, blood oozing out from where they pierced the skin, the fur and skin underneath discolored by both blood and rust. Maybe she had once been beautiful, or as much as a pony could be nowadays… but there looked to be lines through her face, around her eyes. She looked like a porcelain doll, a decayed piece of Victorian automata, steadily cracking and unwinding...

“Isn’t that just wonderful?” she giggled.

‘Fok me, another hallucination?’ Kraber groaned inwardly. “Who are you?” He thought, doing his best to think at it. He was on a tug with the Thenardiers, after all. He had to… he couldn’t get shot too early into the mission.

“I’m you, silly! I’m Victory, your Pretty Private!”

FOK! It even sounded like Pinkie Pie.

“Or at least, I’m what you will be…”

“FOK…” Kraber was about to tell, but he stifled that. Looked down. Forced it into a whisper. “Fok... JOU! I’ll never… EVER take the FOKKING POTION!”

“Oh, don’t be so defeatist! Who knows what the future holds? I don’t, but it looks wonderful…”

“Hou jou fokkin bek…” Kraber gritted his teeth.

“Now, now. Don’t be that way! You’re so grumpy aaalll the time. I miss your smile, Viktor!”

“Well, what the fok is there to smile about?!”

That one wasn’t subvocalized, provoking a concerned look from Mariesa.

“As a human, there’s nothing,” the newfoal said. “But if you become me, you’ll be happy all the time! Just like us! Just like us! Wheee!”

She jumps down off the gunwale onto the deck, trailing a string from her back that’d gotten stuck in a scupper…

… A pullstring, like you’d see on a child’s toy. As she hits the deck it comes taught, and she moans lewdly.

“You’ll be happeeeeeee, nice and happeeeeeee…beyond measure, purest pleasure. Sexy, sexy pleasure!” she giggled, sounding like she was on the verge of an orgasm.

Kraber responded to threats only three ways. Punching it, running, and one more. He decided it was time to resort to that last one.

“Okay,” Kraber said, “Why does so much of your dialogue sound like it was ripped from a fetish comic?”

Victory froze. “What.”

“I mean,” Kraber said, confusion written on his face, “‘You’ll be happy all the time! Just like us! Just like us! Wheee!’ sounds like it’d be from one…”

Victory’s face slid into a frown, and she facehoofed. “Darn it, it totally does sound like it’s from that fetish comic that Cherry Blossom used to read when she was human! I totally forgot about that!”

She froze for a moment.

“Argh! Now I’m angry because of reasons!” Victory groaned. Then paused. “Hey, wait a minute! Why are you telling me this? I’m probably just a figment of your imagination, I’m supposed to be the one destroying your perception of reality!”

She paused again, watching Kraber as he looked out over the ocean.

“You know what’ll stop me from doing this? The free ponification plan! Now with free steak knives that never need sharpening, because you’ll never eat steak again, you sick, dirty carnivore! You’re bad and you should feel bad, which is why you should join up with us!”

‘They never need sharpening? What are they, Ginsu knives?’ Kraber thought. ‘As knives go, I prefer a Cygnetic.’

Victory sighed. ‘You know, you’re really not any fun right now. I’m gonna hide until this all inevitably fails and you have to confront that you could have stopped all the murder and death at any time, but you’ll never be able to unless you take the potion!’

Wait, wha- Kraber thought.

‘Oh? You want to hear more? I thought you didn’t want more of me! I’ve seen this happen before, you know,’ Victory said, matter-of-factly. ‘With a you very much like this you, except he was born in 1994. I don’t know why you’re a year older than that you-’

‘Because the writers are hacks?’ asked a newfoal that looked like Kate, visible in the reflections on the water below, standing next to Kraber.

‘Wait, writers?!’ Kraber thought. ‘That’s some fokkin ka… actually that kind of makes sense. But they’re not real, so fok this noise!’

‘Oh, most assuredly! But anyway. It was in a world much like this, except it was… well, let’s say a lot of its so-called-heroes deserved what they got…

And then Viktor’s mind comes unbound. One minute, he’s on the Arctic Warrior, and the next...

August 2023

...(s)he’s on another deck. It looks like an oceangoing ship when she looks at the railings, but then she sees the wings and nearby propellers. The massive gasbag above her head.

The city below. Victory is standing above Shieldwall’s territory, which he calls Utopia. The city that had once been called Montreal, a (DISGUSTING, WORTHLESS, UGLY FREAKS) human city surrounded by farms, with massive amounts of underground space.

Shieldwall wants to keep it. He’s attempting to unmake and remake the city to Equestrian standards, keep the subways. Back in the Solar Empire there’s politicians, warhawks and chickenhawks alike, who see him as having gone native, and as a criminal of the highest order for keeping this human city, and using PHL knowledge.

“This city - MY city - is not just a city, Secretary, ” Shieldwall had said before the Solar Empire Parliament, making it absolutely clear in that single syllable that he was claiming ownership. “It is a symbol. An idea. To all the humans who live in the HLF-ridden badlands between us and PHL territory, and even those poor benighted apes and Betrayers - yes, even Betrayers - who live in that squalid junta, Utopia is something… bigger than a city. It is stability. It is order. It is comfort. It is a place beyond all the little ways humans and ponies divide themselves. Look at how much I’ve been able to commit to the war effort, Secretary. The steel I’ve given, the valuable workers and Converted, and tell me you’d just do. Away. With all. Those. Gifts. To the Solar Empire.”

The Secretary of the Department for the Preservation of Equestrian Dignity had blanched. “Why, I…”

And that had been that. Shieldwall had made Utopia and the ship on which they stood utterly indispensable.

“Victory,” Shieldwall said. “Watching the city again?”

He was wearing a dress uniform, as he always did now. It was studded with virtually every medal that the Solar Empire could award.

“Yeah,” Victory said. “It’s just… it relaxes me.”

“You have everything you could possibly want in the suite,” Shieldwall says. “You’ve more than earned it.”

He walks up to the railing as well. “It is relaxing, isn’t it?”

They stand there for a few minutes.

“Come on,” Shieldwall says. “It’s time to go.”

And so they head to the elevators. They take one of the aerostats down into Montreal Utopia, weaving between the other skyliners, the towers and bridges, the signage taking up the sides of Montreal’s skyscrapers.

They pass by what was one the base of a skyscraper, destroyed by now and replaced with a small park of sorts - a grassy, green staging area for the baskets that convey people up to the Fillydelphia. Ascension Park, they call it.

Their aerostat - painted in Celestia’s typical white and gold - weaves past another, smaller skyliner. Neon signage, and even a massive TV screen festoon it. As Kraber Victory watches it from her seat next to Shieldwall, she sees the propaganda film. The New Order of Utopia. A film of everyday scenes of life in Utopia and its suburbs, ponies and humans living next to each other in ORDER harmony, smiles on their faces so wide and unreal it is almost as if they were painted in place.

On the streets below, Victory sees totem proles virtually everywhere. They have replaced the internet within this city, and overtaken every communication network. Below the ship, citizens cheer. It’s Shieldwall’s personal aerostat, after all.

It’s not long after that they get to the parade floats, which trundle down a wide main street. The potioneer ships that fly overhead - old, serviceable models that have been dressed up and brought out of storage - part as Shieldwall’s ship slowly merges into formation.

It’s going to be a beautiful day to celebrate V-C day and PLEASE STOP

Shieldwall’s newcalves trot contentedly through the streets. Each of them have a sort of saddle with a small decorative tent, which is protected by a pinkish lightly glowing thaumic shield. In the howdah sit Fillydelphia Campaign veterans armed with potion crossbows, paintball guns, and even Shieldwall’s favorite human weapon - a massive auto-grenade launcher.

Megacorns, living equine artillery pieces with horns like narwhals, proudly display artisan-made stabilization braces that mimic the ones they used to anchor themselves during the Campaign. The rank and file appear to be humans with newly-built PER weaponry, airguns capable of firing flechettes and potion splats like a prewar paintball gun.

“Take it,” Shieldwall says, passing her a weapon from the gun rack. A ceremonial machinegun, decorated in gold and white. Even the ammunition box has been decorated in gold! Some part of Victory thinks that is ridiculously wasteful.

Victory is the first to step out, and she feels almost blinded at first. She feels a reflexive burst of fear. Don’t look at me! she wants to scream. Stop, stop, just make it stop! And she remembers. She remembers the moment she was ponified, she hears the sound of herself screaming, the noise as the ship came to Montreal, the screams as she ponified those who stayed to defend the city and no no no

stop

She has the most powerful urge to place the muzzle to her chin and pull the trigger on the unspeakably tacky thing. At herself or the crowd, it doesn’t matter, she both needs and deserves to end it for herself, for all of them and she needs to

STOP

All is forgotten as Shieldwall steps out of the ship and the cheering reaches a crescendo. He basks in the spotlight for a few minutes, waving, smiling, even making cheers of his own.

“Thank you!” he yells. “Thank you all, for coming here to celebrate V-C day!”

The cheering is earsplitting, and lasts for block after block as he...

FOKKIN STOP

...takes his float down the street. They pass by the railroad bridge, which leads to Quebec, which is on the very edge of the Utopia Province.

THOOM

A shot! A lump of lead, glowing blue, hangs in midair against the thaumic shield around Shieldwall’s float. Then there is a detonation, and it punches through the shield, into Shieldwall’s right foreleg.

He gasps, slightly. Lists to the side. But within a second, he regains his composure.

“BETRAYERS!” a pony screeches.

“PHL!”

“Infiltrators!”

“KILL THEM!”

All these cries and more ring out through the parade grounds. People rush towards alleways, towards storefronts, towards anywhere with an open door. It’s as if the horrors of the Battle of Montreal have come back for one horrible moment.

Shieldwall limps away at as fast a pace as he can muster, which isn’t too fast what with one pegleg, one foreleg shot, and the war wounds, some of which Victory remembers causing during the Bad Times when she was human.

“Find the shooter!” Shieldwall yells. “FIND THE CELESTIA-DAMNED SHOOTER!”

“There!” someone yells, pointing up to a rooftop.

“Victory,” Shieldwall hisses through gritted teeth. “Sic em.”

And Victory explodes off the parade float. She feels…

alive.

It’s like someone has turned up the volume, the detail, the sensitivity of the world. She’s rushing past the floats before she knows it, conscious of what moves she’s going to make within minutes of doing them. She is on the prowl, now.

When she is within 20 feet of the building where they saw her, Victory leaps, her legs assisted by both the earth pony strength that Shieldwall bred into her and unicorn magic.

She sees a slight, feminine human figure fleeing across the rooftops. Victory snarls animalistically, and a thin beam of orange light tethers her to a nearby rooftop. She pulls on it, and she flies toward the roof.

The human notices, and makes a beeline for a fire escape.

“NO YOU DON’T!” Victory screams, and an orange field forms before her hooves. Once it hits the rooftop, she bounces. She’s hanging in the air for a few seconds before she sends out another tether…

Right to the fire escape.

The human has enough time to stare in horror, scrambling up, before Victory hits the fire escape. With her impact, the entire thing collapses, and the human screams as the whole construction comes down against the pavement.

Victory gently floats down to the pavement.

“My legs…” the human hisses through gritted teeth. “You bitch, I can’t feel my legs!”

She tries to crawl forward. It doesn’t work.

“Now, normally we’d have a trial, but we’ve decided that’s all a waste of time,” Victory says. “You’ll be relegated to a basic worker model once you’ve told us who you’re working for.”

The human snorts contemptuously.

“Glory… to Lyra Hearstrings,” she says, and bites down.

August 2022

And Victory was gone as if she’d never been there in the first place. Which, Kraber supposed, she hadn’t.

It was at that moment that Kraber became acutely aware of just how much he hated his life. Under his breath, he muttered a quick prayer – “Shema yisrael, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad…”

“Hey, Kraber.”

Kraber stood bolt upright, hand on his .45 pistol, ready to shoo-

“Whoa! Take it easy!” Mariesa yelled, hands up. “You’ve been jumpier than usual.”

“Jammer,” Kraber apologized. “I’ve… I haven’t been sleeping that well lately.”

“Wait, you actually sleep?” Mariesa asked, raising an eyebrow. “A lot of us hear you trying to sleep in that container you have. You never sound good, always thrashing around… some of us are worried you might be going hatchers.”

Dancing Day
December 24, 2022

”‘Going Hatchers’ was their word for bosbefok,” Kraber explains.

And then, seeing the looks of confusion on everyone’s faces, Aegis steps in. “Shell-shocked. The stress of battle getting to you. You know,” he says.

Dancing Day does know, yes. Too many ponies and humans have had that happen… especially Mr. Kraber. It’s sad, really – sometimes, she can see glimpses of who she thinks he once was. But those are fleeting, and she’s not sure what to look for.

“Because of Beatrice?” Vinyl asks.

“Aweh,” Kraber says, and shudders like a skyscraper in a quake. “I’ve seen a lot of screwed-up kak, but that really stands out.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Vinyl Scratch says, “Remind me why she sewed a bucking speaker into a newfoal’s chest?!”

“I saw that in person,” Heliotrope adds. “I… I just felt sick looking at it.”

“It was all kinds of wrong!” Vinyl adds, nodding vigorously.

“She claimed she could hear her son’s voice coming out of it,” Kraber says simply.

Everyone in the room is mesmerized or vaguely sickened, staring in rapt attention at this sudden ghost story.

“Well, could she?” Dancing Day asks after a brief silence. “I mean there was definitely something weird ab-”

“That’s not important for awhile,” Kraber interrupts, a bit too quickly. “I’m not sure I want to ova about it.”

“Trust him, it’s pretty fucked up,” Aegis says.

“Anyway, Mariesa had just asked how I was. And I’d said...

August 2022
Kraber

“I… I don’t think I’m hundreds,” Kraber said.

“What?” Mariesa asked. “Sorry… most of us don’t speak Afrikaans.” She paused. “Or, well, whatever other languages you speak.”

“Means I don’t feel fine,” Kraber answered. “Just – I can’t shake this feeling. I keep on asking myself… the fok am I doing? I’m hallucinating my family calling me a bliksem–”

“No we’re not.”

‘Hou jou bek, you.’

“And the worst thing is,” Kraber continued aloud, “they have a point.”

“Are they telling you to join the Tyrant Sun?” Mariesa asked. “I’ve heard that the PHL have hypnosis spells they can use to lure you in…”

December 2022
Dancing Day

“No we fucking don’t!” Vinyl yells. “Only the PER does that!”

“You’re sure of that?” Verity asks. “Maybe this is how you have a seemingly limitless number of ponies in your ranks.”

Aegis stares at her blankly. Scootaloo just looks confused. Heliotrope is somewhere between appalled and ready to burst into laughter while knowing that she really shouldn’t.

Vinyl scowls. “Oh, go choke on someone’s dick, Verity.”

“You’d talk that way to me?!” Verity yells. “Go on, just rub salt in the wound, why don’t you-”

“Hey,” Vinyl says, “What happened to you was fucked up, and I get that. And so was Kraber laughing at you.”

Kraber… well, he doesn’t quite cringe, but he looks contrite at the mention of that.

“Even if... but you’re not exactly making it easy for yourself here. I don’t like it either, but we don’t exactly have a way out for you. The best thing you can do,” Vinyl continues, not exactly unkindly but still not exactly kindly, “Is not make it harder for all of us. Especially uoi.”

“So now you’re blaming me?!” Verity yells. “Fuck all of you. I’m out.”

She storms out through the door.

Aegis and Kraber look at each other. It is a look that simply screams ‘This crap again?’

“Can we… can we finish my friend’s stories?” Aegis asks. “We’re not even at the interesting part yet.”

“Yeah, well the HLF are…” Kraber muses. “Well, here’s the thing. A lot of the HLF you see now, the ones who didn’t join the Reavers or whatever, do not fokking understand the PHL any more than I can understand vaporwave music or seapunk. Or normalcore.”

“The hell is normalcore or seapunk?” Vinyl asks, head cocked to the side, one eyebrow raised over her huge purple sunglasses.

“You’re the music pony, how do you not know?” Grayson asks.

“I don’t know everything,” Vinyl says. “I barely know that much about synthwave, either. Vik, you made the reference, why don’t you explain?”

“Fokked if I can explain. It’s too tumblr for me,” Kraber adds. “And this’d take too long.”

“A thought occurs. Did you… you said ‘the PHL’. Do you mean they don’t understand us?” Aegis corrects him.

“Right – sorry. Even if I’d say you’re all my chommies, it’s just a bit hard to get used to,” Kraber says.

August 2022

“No, nothing like that,” Kraber said. “I’m just wondering what the fok I’m doing. I’m thinking, maybe I should have… I don’t know, helped build a railroad. Go work in a hospital, do something, anything that’ll help people outside Defiance.”

“I get that,” Mariesa said. “But Viktor, it’s… it’s us against the world. Against ponies. If one of us brings back something from ponies–”

“Are you fokking saying that, or is Lovikov?” Kraber asked.

She looked open-mouthed for a second, and leaned against the tug’s gunwale, watching the waves below. Kraber did the same, right next to her.

“Don’t talk like that near him,” Mariesa said. “Please, just..”

“This sound fokkin’ mal to you?” Kraber asked. “Lovikov…. Look. He was our friend, right?”

And why the fok am I saying ‘was’? Kraber asked.

“Our commanding officer,” Mariesa said. “Our boss.”

Kraber nodded, speculatively. “Aweh. But I make one fokkin’ mistake, and he decides to kick me while I’m down and grind me into the dust. This is someone we trust, Mariesa. Someone who leads us. So why are we acting like we’re walking on fokkin’ eggshells around him? When I was in college, I’d-”

“I don’t want to know,” Mariesa interrupted. Then, turning away, looking at nothing in particular: “...Good question, though.”

Something about the way she folded her arms seemed… off to Kraber. ‘Something’s happened. To her.’

He couldn’t explain how he’d guessed. “What’d he do?” Kraber asked. “What could he-”

"What're you talking about down there?!" a voice called down from the bridge. "Kapitan Kraber..."

It was Verity, and the snide on the last two words was acidic enough to etch steel.

“NOT JOU FOKKIN’ BUSINESS!” Kraber replied, yelling over the roar of the tug’s bow-wave.

“I don’t care what you call yourself, Kapitan, but right now this is my boat, and that makes your business, my business!”

They glared at each other before Mariesa stepped in between, one hand placed on Kraber’s chest and the other held up towards Verity, palm out.

“Please, we’re all on the same side here. We’re all HLF...and that’s what we were talking about, Captain Carter. The cause,” Mariesa said.

Verity tipped her head and made a half-shrug. “Fine.”

She didn’t move away however, she and the tall, thin, muscled, man continuing to cross-examine each other in silence. The young woman staring down from the bridge wing, and the soldier gazing up from the main deck.

“Alright, what’s the deal between the two of you? Why do you get along so badly?” Mariesa asked, projecting her voice ever so slightly.

There was a pause, as Kraber stared up at the pilothouse, feeling Verity looking down on him.

“I think kids should have a chance to be kids,” he said at last. “I mean… look at yourself, Verity. You’re twenty-something years old and you’ve spent your entire formative years as a soldier. Before the war, even. You barely finished high school.”

“How do you know that?!” Verity yelled back.

Kraber raised an eyebrow. “It wasn’t like it was hard to find out. Besides, you kept talking about it when you were gesuip back in New Mexico. That time with the Brazilian po-”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Mariesa said. “Viktor, you got a minor drunk?! And there was a WHAT?!”

“Hey, she was a friend! And Verity asked!” Kraber protested. “Besides, back home that’d be drinking age. It’s nothing my dad didn’t do with me…”

“Wait, you were listening that whole time?” Verity gasped.

“Well. Ja,” Kraber said.

“Then you heard me say I wouldn’t take back any minute of this,” Verity said, leaning against the railing of the tugboat as increasingly bizarre boats passed them by. For example, at that moment there was a cheap pontoon boat that seemed to be dedicated mostly to a kitchen and small shack passed by, a sign written in Swahili and English advertising Nigerian buns. A zebra - the Equestrian one, not the Earth kind - stood next to a human, frying pan in their mouth.

Haven’t eaten that in awhile, Kraber thought. And then he decided to leave his guns on the Arctic Warrior, jump off the boat, breaststroke onto the kitchen-boat, and buy a bun.

That totally didn’t happen, but the idea of something like that, of just being able to stop for a few seconds it was very tempting.

“All of it, I chose all of it. Because neither of you saw… saw what they did to my mother,” Verity said.

“And you never saw what the potion did to my wife, my kids, my cousin…” Kraber answered softly, and the two hardened warriors, divided by age and gender, but brought together by circumstances managed to share a smile.

“I met your mother once, did you know,” he said, tone cautious. “It was at a convention, once, in Boston, actually – I slipped out of class for it. I needed a fokking break...”

“Couldn’t you have just waited for the weekend?” Verity asked, confused.

Kraber raised an eyebrow. “Verity. Do I really seem like the kind of guy who wouldn’t skip class just to see if he fokkin’ could?”

Verity thought on that for a few seconds. “No, not really?”

“Wasn’t like I was all that wanted in class, anyway,

“Boston Comic-Con 2013…” Verity mused, and both of the observers saw her visibly slip into nostalgia for back when people had big, flashy, decorated conventions like that, when there was money, clothes, and materials to spare for whatever costume you needed. When pop culture was a hell of a lot more important than living hand-to-mouth on what scraps you could find. “That...that was my first cosplay… I was in an Autobot exosuit. Wait, were you the guy with the pompadour, at the IDW panel!?”

“I’m assuming you don’t mean the stocky fat guy in the Kill La Kill shirt, right?” Kraber asked. “We all called him Nny, he actually starred with me in a production of Repo: The Genetic Opera. Funny guy. Could stand to shave a bit more, though… I saw him dressed as one of the Galaxy Girls the next day...”

“So close… and yet so far...”

“At least he looked good in tights…”

Verity waved a desperate hand. “No, goddammit, no! The guy in leathers, dressed like a greaser… kept asking my Mom all the questions about her work for DC and Dark Horse, who was he cosplaying…? Oh yeah, Sweet JP from Redline!”

“Oh, that dipshit…” Kraber said. “Yeah, that was me.”

“You looked kinda funny,” Verity admitted.

“Hey, I smaak Redline! I even ghostwrote a paper on it for a friend in film school!” Kraber said. “What the fok was I supposed to watch? Tailenders? Sies, man. Hated that so much.”

“Really?” Verity asked. “I thought it was alright.”

“Maybe, but I feel like it just can’t compare,” Kraber said. “Jou know what I mean?”

They chuckled softly, sharing a memory. Then Kraber’s expression darkened.

“Your mother was a brave woman. What the ponies did to her, that… that wasn’t right. Look, Verity,” Kraber said. “We might not get along, we might be too similar to really… get each other, but I understand your–”

A crack over the radio snapped the conversation’s tail off.

‘GOOD NIGHT SORGHUM TOWN!” he heard someone yell.

“The hell is that?” Mariesa asked.

“That’s the PHL’s local radio station,” Lovikov said. “It’s broadcast from the Sorghum by some horsefucker and her friend. I was hoping to take it over too. Add a little… personal touch.”

“I like your style,” Verity said approvingly. “Go ahead!”

December 2022

“You… you can sympathize with Verity?” Amber Maple asks.

“We all lost something in this war. Our pozzies, our chommies, our families, our lives… though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hilarious what happened to her,” Kraber says. “Except the PER. I mean, they probably did, but fok them.”

Vinyl raises an eyebrow.

“...I’m not sure what to say about your attitude here,” Aegis says. “On the one hoof, you just said that. On the other…”

A look of rare disgust crosses his face.

“The f…. That was really screwed up, Viktor,” Aegis says.

“I know!” Kraber not-quite-protests. “It was, but I don’t know how not to find it funny!”

“Wait, really?” Elena asks.

“Well,” Yael says, “Maybe... “ she rocks back like she’s been hit. “...I can’t believe I’m saying this about Verity. But just think about what happened to you.”

“Ja-nee,” Kraber says. “If I didn’t have Aegis, I’d be fokking ponified, dead… or stretched out on a table somewhere with a toolbox next to me.” He looks up at Aegis appreciatively. “She’s got nobody, pony or human. And… why in the fok can’t I think it’s not funny?”

Aegis moves closer to Kraber, comforting him with his great bulk, and Kraber leans against his barrel, gently sipping some hot chocolate that Dancing Day strongly suspects to be alcoholic.

“Thanks,” Kraber says, a warm smile on his face as he moves slightly, Aegis inclining his great neck towards Kraber for a hug.

“Just… don’t squeeze too hard, alright? I still think you cracked some ribs,” Aegis says.

“Sorry,” Kraber says, looking a little embarrassed as his best friend – his bru, his chommie – hugs him, and Kraber hugs back. “I love you so much, Aegis.”

“Me too,” Aegis admits, blushing slightly, the expression out of place on such a huge stallion.

“Hold on,” Kraber says, something dawning. “...I’ve got an idea. For Verity’s christmas present… Verksoon my a mo, I’ve got to talk to the Major! I’ve got a Hanukkah idea!”

And with that, he and Aegis have dashed out the room to requisition, leaving Dancing Day looking confused.

When they return, Kraber talks about the rig, and how it was...

Kraber
August 2022

In a word, enormous. Saying it was a city unto itself would have been trite and cliche, though it was one of the only descriptors that Kraber could think to use. It was massive, colossal towers, drilling platforms and pumphouses and inscrutable rugged-yet-kitbashed PHL machinery balanced by improvised buildings that made it look like nothing so much as a mass of paint, girders, and rust. Shipping containers and deceptively hardy driftwood dwellings had been hammered and welded into place where possible. A few didn’t look to have ladders down, and were perched high up on the rig. Probably pegasus houses? But beneath all that, Kraber could see those huge PHL weapons, bristling like hairs from the upper echelons of the four pillars that bore the Sorghum’s weight. The cannons had been modified in some odd, exotic manner, with additional machinery added on, strung and bound with cords and tubes that lightly glowed.

The light cast by the platform reached down and illuminated the darkening ocean below the rig.

With Verity keeping up a string of repeated commands from the rig over the radio, the Arctic Warrior muscled itself through the teeming vessels towards the nearest of the pillars. Wider across than the tugboat was long, the vertical pillar was coated in umber-red anti-fouling paint, and featured collapsible jetties around the base that unfolded for vessels to tie up to. There was even an elevator attached to one of the pillars.

“Redd, be ready on the aft lines,” she instructed. “Viktor, go forward, and don’t try be a pirate. Just take the coil of rope and sling it to the guy on the jetty…”

“...and then shoot him in the gesig while his hands are full?”

“...And the gesig is…”

“Face.”

“Wait, so you keep saying ‘kontgesig’, so… DAMMIT! No, you hick. You want his buddies to return fire? Are you trying to get killed?” she snorted. “Once we’re made fast I’m going to use the tug’s engines to whip the whole jetty sideways and knock em’ to their knees. Then you can kill everything. But no guns. Keep it silent.”

It was a beautiful, elegant plan…

...and unlike most, it survived first contact with the enemy.

The enemy however, did not.

“Alright, you’re tied up. You can shut off your engines n-hey! Hey! What are you doing! Go ASTERN, TUGBOAT WARRIOR, GO ASTE-ARGH!”

Dancing Day
December 2022

“This part isn’t easy,” Kraber said. “...Not the outright worst fokking thing I did in the war, probably. But it’s the one that hits the most.”

August 2022
Kraber

When they got on the jetty, the crew on the mooring platform had gone down like sacks of hammers.

Kraber held one woman by the shoulders, dragging her to her feet. “It’s fine, it’s fine. We’re here to help, just… just sit tight. It’s gonna be alright, soon.”

“Furrrggrrrwrrtthhhrrtrgbr,” the woman slurred, which Kraber - as a seasoned linguist who grew up speaking no fewer than six languages, including Afrikaans, English, German, Hindi, Swahili, and Drunk - assumed was a rough translation of ‘Fuck is with that tugboat?’

“Oh, come on,” Lovikov scoffed.

Why the FOK does he feel like he can talk to me like that?! Kraber wanted to scream. Because that tone. THAT FOKKING TONE. The same one he’d heard from everyone that talked down to him, his children. From Mrs. Bennett when she acted like every day Kraber managed to dress himself was a great big mystery, before Kraber kicked her in the face. From Anwar when he called a young Viktor Kraber retarded and tried to stab him, before it took about four teachers and the principal to get Kraber off him. From the PER pegasus stallion who brushed off his concerns about Cousin Richard. From the anti-vaxxer who tried to pass his mental issues off as vaccine injuries - and again, several educators had to pull him off her. From his fokkin’ stupid roommate insulting him at every turn, asking if he was pregnant, calling him gay, and insulting every girl he knew, even insulting him the amount of time he spent in the bathroom. Who, yet again, had gotten kicked in the face. Or partly eaten. It was hard for Kraber to remember.

There were more, but Kraber didn’t feel like going further.

“How did you know that’d-” Lovikov continued, still sarcastic.

“You think this is the first time I’ve dealt with someone who took a head shot?” Kraber asked, glaring at his ~~friend~~ commanding officer. “It’s easy to confuse them. Watch!”

He walked over to a man that Mariesa was holding up, and made a vaguely mystical gesture with his thumb and forefinger.

“The tugboat had an engine problem,” Kraber said. “Nothing to worry about.”

The man mumbled a noncommittal noise of agreement.

“Aren’t you just full of surprises,” Lovikov said, as he and Kraber ascended the stairs, weapons drawn.

At the moment, it was impossible for Kraber to tell if that was gratitude or sarcasm. Which would sound weird in roughly four months when he was telling it to Dancing Day, Vinyl, Heliotrope, Yael, Aegis, and all the others who’d gathered to hear the story. But then again, he was in a stage where everything about Lovikov counted as some sort of offense for him. Really, it could’ve been either.

Now that Arctic Warrior was secured tight to the column, the boarding-party were disembarking from their secret compartment onto the platform…

… and nobody or nopony knew that it had happened.

“Perfect,” Lovikov said, smiling, as they walked the spiral staircase up one of the pillars. The top of the column’s spiraling staircase opened up into a courtyard in one corner of the platform’s main working deck. Pipes as great and huge as felled redwoods rumbled, spat and hissed, forming a lattice roof over their heads. It was like walking through an industrial jungle.

“Hey. You’re… you’re the new tug crew, aren’t you?” asked a viridian-colored pegasus trotting up to them. He wore a light, inconspicuous assault yoke with two PDWs that vaguely resembled a P90, though Kraber could still pistol grips for humans protruding from the bottom of the things. Good touch. “Don’t think you’re supposed to be here. Especially after what that tu-”

Now, there could have been a bloodless, easy way to do this. The HLF could have appealed to the reasonability of the PHL. They could have held the pony hostage. They could have been convincing. There could have been minimal bloodshed.

That would have made too much sense.

“Don’t think you do either,” Kraber said, and before he knew it, his revolver was in hand.

The pegasus’ head exploded all over the hot pipework, congealing and cooking immediately upon contact. The smell of burnt flesh and blood filled the late summer air.

A human in fisherman’s oilskins stared, a look of utter horror on his face.

“Run,” Lovikov said, smirking slightly.

The man in oilskins obeyed admirably, dropping his toolbox and rushing by a tangle of pipes…

Before Lovikov dropped him with a 7.62x39mm round to the neck.

As if to punctuate that, the assault team poured up the stairwell and spilled around Viktor and Lovikov, and like parasites introduced into a body, began to divide, and spread, and slaughter.

The stamping of feet on deck and the first distant gunshots drew attention fast.

“What’s going on Seafo–” blurted an older man with a shotgun, rushing into the courtyard before taking stock of the situation. A UN patch shone blue on his shoulder.

He saw everything. The invading troops, Kraber and Lovikov… and the dead pony.

“Seafoam! YOU SONS OF BITCHES!” he screamed, unholstering his shotgun. “I’ll–”

Kraber’s LMG lifted his LMG clear of the duffel bag, and fanned the trigger. Three rounds cut through the man’s gut, leaving the varknaaier screaming, collapsed on the deck of the rig.

The Battle of the Sorghum had commenced in earnest.

It would be hard for Kraber to ever describe the firefight to secure control of the platform. Not for the violence involved, no. Nor was it because of brutality, or some new cruelty visited on people, like his masterworks of disemboweling PER members (and then tying them to trees for wolves to eat) or that time he pretended to dump potion on someone’s head and it was really… well, that wasn’t important.

“See, in action movies,” Kraber would tell a grouping of fillies and young adult mares a little over a year later, “...And most of my life, actually, firefights are choreographed long-range spectacles. Blood spraying everywhere. And the Conversion War, that’s pretty fokking large-scale.”

This… this was small-scale. Point-blank range for an MG2021. It ripped them apart, punching massive holes through humans, through ponies, through pipes, everything..

As the HLF force inveigled themselves through the corridors and compartments, ponies revealed themselves, along with men and women holding shotguns. They placed themselves behind corners and barricades, weapons at the ready… only for the HLF to launch grenades and pipebombs at them, the shrapnel and nails inside shredding the poor varknaaiers and adding dashes of colour to the industrial grey of the platform’s decor.

“WE TAKE IT BACK!” Lovikov howled. Yes, howled. Don’t look at me like that, Dancing Day. It sounded like a howl at the time.

He fired a quick burst from his Kalashnikov, chopping through men and women in jumpsuits and fluorescent vests armed with anything from high-end to cheap milisurp, to target rifles and bird guns ignored by more fortunate folk.

And beside him, Kraber did the same, his LMG roaring like a wild animal in the closed confines.

“...My God, we barely have a real military here!” Kraber heard someone scream. “They’re just murdering workers! And us, if we don’t-”

Her voice was cut off, as Kraber saw a woman with dyed-blue hair cut like a pony’s mane, falling to the ground choking, clutching a .45ACP-sized runnel in her throat. Maybe she was dying. But then, maybe she wasn’t.

And so a pattern established itself. Advance into another room, receive sporadic defensive fire, return with extreme prejudice. The defenders were loaded for bear, and the aggressors were loaded for tanks. Kraber's .308 rounds punched through up to two, even three of the PHL kontgesigs at a time. Blood spattered the walls, ceilings, and floors,

He barely even had to shoulder it – at this range, he could just pull the trigger and any round he fired would probably hit something. With each trigger pull, humans, ponies, and others fell to the ground, clutching massive holes, screaming as Kraber fired… and fired… and fired again.

When the MG2021 ran out of ammo, he simply pulled out his .45 pistol and fired that, the .45ACP rounds punching through head after head. When that was done, Kraber tried for the revolver – headshots with that thing didn’t leave pretty little holes, all he could see were a few remnants of the lower jaw when he fired.

This was fun, wasn’t it?! WASN’T IT?!

“You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” that new hallucination, Victory said, as Kraber slipped into another room. “Go on! INDULGE YOURSELF!”

She was holding her own pullstring in her hooves, and yanking it in tune to every dying scream and gurgle.

“Hi I’m Victory, the Pretty Private. Hi, I’m Victory, I’m your death. Hi I’m Victory, your pocket-monster psychopath, hi, hi, hi, DIE!”

“No, Kraber! This isn’t you!” the older newfoal screamed, using Kate’s voice.

“HOU JOU FOKKIN BEK, JOU VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber yelled back, not sure if he was yelling at the PHL or the two newfoals in his head.

Shouldering the MG2021, he aimed for one PHL man’s knee, the round tearing through it and shattering a pony’s hoof as it exited on the far side.

“You fucking sonova–” the PHL man screamed, just before Kraber’s boot shattered his jaw again, cracking his skull against the wall. A purplish-colored earth pony stallion, behind himtried to jump up, but fell, the stump of his hoof oozing blood. He gritted his teeth and tried to move, but–

Kraber drew back his fist and bliksemed the PHL man, feeling his nose shattering under his fist. In the corner of his eye, he could see Victory applauding him, and rushed on, laughing hysterically.

“JOU FOKKING INVADERS! JOU THINK JOU CAN SCREW WITH US, JOU BLIKSEM?!” Kraber screamed, and rammed his boot into the purplish earth pony’s jaw.

“Oh!” called out Victory, offering out her own golden horse-shoes. “Do you want to try these out? They’ve got bladed tips and are perfect for this kinda fun. Course, you’ll need hooves, but we have just the medicine for that.”

“Stop it, daddy!” Kraber heard Anka screaming, from somewhere. “Please, just stop this and listen to me!”

Kraber wasn’t listening. He was beating a pony with the stock of his shotgun.

“JOU LIKE HURTING KIDS, HUH?!” Kraber screamed, feeling something crack. “JOU LIKE HURTING PEOPLE THAT JUST WANTED TO FOKKING RUN AWAY?!”

Another hit with the pipe.

“JOU FOKKIN POESNEUS!”

“You… you’re one to talk,” the shade of Emil sighed in disappointment. “You… you’re just scared little children, murders and rapi–”

“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!” Kraber yelled, and headbutted a fresh pony, the spikes on his helmet impaling her eye. The mare screamed, a high piercing note that made Kraber’s ears ache.

“NOBODY! FOKKING! CALLS ME THAT!” Kraber yelled, pounding his fists into the earth pony. This was… it felt good, right?! IT WAS FOKKING SUPPOSED TO BE RIGHT! NOTHING WAS RIGHT!

Maybe if he pounded a corpse further into dust again it’d be fun. Maybe then he could finally feel like a hero!

Maybe... if he punched her again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again AND FOKKING AGIN–

“Kraber…”

There was a voice screaming his name, but it didn’t feel unimportant.

And then a pair of hands caught his fist, twisted his arm behind his back, and forced him into a submission hold, breaking his focus… and slamming him face-first into the floor.

“I know who you are, you bastard,” the man hissed, and Kraber was thrown at a wall, choking as the wind was knocked out of him. He wheezed, and coughed up blood inside his mask as a booted foot slammed into his stomach.

Kraber could see the name written on his PHL vest - Imbeault. “Viktor Kraber,” he said. “They’ll pay me good for your body.”

Imbeault barely seemed bothered by the bullets punching against his armor. Kraber was left almost certain that he had some kind of shield.

FOK! What do I do, what do I do… Kraber’s mind raced. What do I know about shields? It’s not like they’re immune to blunt impacts, so…

Kraber did the most logical thing he could think of: He headbutted Imbeault, who looked stunned… if only for a moment, before throwing Kraber at another wall.

FOK! He was so strong!

Kraber was thrown out of the room, the door smacking against his back, as he tumbled back outwards. Oh, fok!

“Dodge… this…” Kraber said, as he rolled over, unlimbering his MG2021, and opening full-auto.

Now, strong as Imbeault might have been, good as his armor might have been, it was still a machinegun chambered for .308 at close range. And aimed at Imbeault’s head.

Imbeault staggered back, the weight of bullets smashing against him.

“But how?! How the hell did you get that PHL-”

And finally, a hail of bullets shredded through Imbeault’s skull. He swayed for a second, and crumpled down. His armor was mostly intact, but his head was a pulped mess, barely more than a few scraps of flesh attached to the neck.

“...Oh, holy shit!” Kraber wheezed. “Thanks for the save. Except you, Lovikov!” he yelled.

“I’m your commanding officer, you sonovabitch!” Lovikov yelled.

“Then why…” Kraber coughed, blood dripping onto his vest, “Didn’t you shoot the kontgesig?!”

“You know, he’s right,” one Thenardier Guard said. “What the hell was with that guy?”

“We’ve gotten as far as the radio suite” called down one other Menschabwehrfraktion woman named Katrin, originally from Amsterdam. “They’re resisting pretty heavily!”

There was a scream, and a bang.

“STOP!” someone yelled. “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP! WE’RE ALREADY DEAD!”

“What goddamn resistance?!” the newfoal asked in Kate’s voice. “They were just doing their jobs! They were doing something that’d help during Barrierfall! And you've refused to do anything like that! Oh,” the creature said in his voice, playing back what he’d said last night, “And if I'm near one pony, one of those fokking invaders that destroyed our home – then they’ll kill me. Ponify me! They can’t be trusted! I’m willing to bet they’ve done more to help humanity than you have in the last couple years!”

“Oh, don’t stress about it,” trilled Victory. “I mean, its all just more dead humans and traitors. You’re actually making it easier for Her Majesty by reducing the surplus population. When you’re me, you’ll thank yourself too! Keep up the good work.”

“Shut the fok up…”, Kraber hissed as he walked in the direction of the Menschabwehrfraktion man’s voice, eventually finding himself in the radio facilities, a small cluster of soundproofed rooms, each broadcasting on a different frequency and topic.

It wasn’t a long distance - for all its size, the rig occupied a very small footprint, after all.

He practically waded through blood to get to this deck. Ponies, most of them pegasi, lay dying on the floor, some of them with their heads...

‘This just feels wrong, but… what else am I supposed to do?’

...their heads missing, blown apart by HLF munitions, the gray-pink residue of their brains spattered against the wall. Some were still alive, and two HLF members, a short man and woman with an AK74S-U each (Burton and Sarah Mallett) held a screaming pegasus down, sawing her wings off with a hacksaw.

‘Does this accomplish anything?’

One dead pony looked to be a foal, and Kraber’s heart seized up as, for a moment, he saw the foal he’d saved two nights before superimposed over her. Looking at him with pity again - not anger, pity. An ass-mark of what looked to be ballet shoes fitted for hooves, whatever they were called, was emblazoned on her flank, but when he walked past her, it… It wasn’t there. He turned around – had she only gotten it on one flank? He turned around a little, curious, to find that it wasn’t there on that side either.

It wasn’t there! Okay, just a…. just another hallucination. He had to keep going but–

He remembered something. Something from back in Istanbul, a moment with Burakgazi. Right after they’d blown up the Bureau there...

July 29, 2019
Istanbul, Turkey
Right after the Istanbul Conversion Bureau bombing
A cafe with really good baklava

“Thanks for recommending this place," Kraber said appreciatively. "So... What was so important?"

"I found some textbooks,” said Burakgazi, the strange, stocky man that Kraber had met planning a completely separate terrorist attack on the Bureau, through the use of what seemed to be homemade chemical bombs. He was perhaps best described as ‘indeterminately brown’ – he looked Turkish, but there was a trace of something asian in his features, owing to one Japanese parent, which, he claimed, owed to the fact that Japanese and Turkish were very similar languages. He had somewhat wrinkled tan skin, early graying, prematurely receding dark hair, and a thick short dark beard that appeared to go out in every direction. “Textbooks from Equestria.” He looked to be somewhere into his thirties. It was hard to guess.

They were sitting at a cafe in Istanbul, looking on approvingly at the emergency services rushing by them, ready to rescue the Bureau personnel. Not much point, really – Kraber was half-tempted to stand up, take a look at the various mosquitos (as a Boston policeman by the name of Django Miller had termed the onlookers that flocked to a crime scene, back when Kraber was still in college) and others rushing to the site of their handiwork, and call out “STOP RUNNING, JOU FOKKING KONTGESIGS! THE HUMANS THAT RUN BUREAUS ARE FOKKING DEAD ALREADY!”

“Why the fok would you want to look at those, Mr. Burakgazi?” Kraber asked, disgustedly.

“Please. Call me Kagan,” Burakgazi said warmly. “We blew up that fokking concentration camp they called a…” he paused. “Oh. Right. I’m sorry for that.”

Kraber waved that off. “Reh, I don’t give a fok. You’re not wrong calling it that.”

Burakgazi breathed a sigh of relief… then he made a noise of disgust. “Was that bad to you, eh?”

“It was fokking Dachau in there!” Kraber exclaimed. “Praise the Lord and pass the thermite. But… why textbooks?”

“Well, I cherish knowledge,” Burakgazi said. “...Eventually, your knowledge of where to get thermite grenades. But I even cherish knowledge from goddamned gluesticks. They’re quite fascinating, really. Apparently, ponies have something called alicornal tissue – it’s thaumaturgon-superconducting...”

“Did someone read Perdido Street Station when they came up with that?”

“....Huh. That is weird. Still, I suppose it’s a good name for the particles that alicornal tissue can interact with. Damn, you’ve read that book too?”

“I love that book! New Crobuzon… amazing city, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I do like the point Mr. Mieville makes about criminals being marked for life…”

“It’s really not all that different when you get down to it,” Kagan agreed. “Anyway – turns out those ass-marks they have grow out of super-concentrated alicornal tissue pockets in their flanks – sometimes in other places, but that’s rare – and marks them with the skill they’re best with at, what they’ll be happiest with… No damn clue what it’d be. Usually it activates by the time they’re eleven.”

August 2022

Kraber staggered against a blood-spattered window, trying to keep down what little he’d eaten back in Portland. The navigation lights of ships on the ocean below danced in strange orbits, as he tried to comprehend the body before him. There were sporadic firefights all over the area, some of which were on the boats below. Let the kontgesigs come. He wouldn’t mind.

Why…

It had a cutie-mark. So that meant it wasn’t a newfoal – newfoals were always part of the PER or what have you. He’d shot a ch–

‘You fokking lying hypocrite…’ he thought, only for an unwelcome voice to finish the thought. Why? Why in the fok doesn’t this feel right anymore?!

“You did this two days ago, and you laughed!” giggled Victory, the Pretty Private. “You stupid, stupid human! But don’t worry…” she said, waggling one hoof back and forth like a mother chastising her son, one of those STUPID FOKKING PSYCHOLOGISTS THAT TREATED HIM OR HIS KIDS LIKE SHIT! “You can forget this if you just go pony…”

“Don’t listen! Viktor… this isn’t doing anything!” the other newfoal pleaded in Kate’s voice. “They know you, Viktor! You’re running out of choices.”

“Then,” Kraber said, looking uneasily at the remains of yet another pony, pinned to the wall with what looked like a railroad spike, “I have to fight, if the PHL will resort to-”

“It won’t be them that resort to despicable things” the other newfoal interrupted. “It will be you.”

Kraber could swear he heard the newfoal right next to him, to the point that his eyes darted around, not sure where the voice was coming from.

Maybe the PHL would get him for this raid. Maybe they wouldn’t. But… moments like this… there was only so long the authorities could justify ignoring the HLF. And he’d have to be bosbefok, fokking crazy, to believe he’d get out of this with no consequences.

… If he lived, assuming the PHL or Lovikov didn’t kill him, what then?

Who would even miss him?

Nothing, not even those fokking annoying hallucinations, had an answer.

That mare had to have done something to me, Kraber thought. And suddenly, things made sense. It was like a weight lifted off his shoulders, and he found himself nodding. ‘Ja! That makes perfect sense.’

It made perfect sense. Why had he been feeling guilty about hurting ponies THAT TOOK FOKKIN’ EVERYTHING FROM HIM, or wanted to ignore what’d become his entire purpose in life now that fatherhood had been taken from him? Fokkin’ easy! That mare in the truck had fokked up his brain.

That’s… fucking stupid, said the newfoal with Kate’s voice. Not-kate.

‘But it makes sense,’ Kraber thought. ‘Why would this all be happening to me now? Why would I be seeing things? Why would I feel crippled like this? Because I was MADE to feel this way! This isn’t me thinking it, it’s that fokkin’ gluestick!

Everything was clear to him.

‘You can’t know that,’ the not-Kate newfoal said.

But you can’t either! Kraber thought, smiling. You’re just a figment of my imagination!

‘I can’t convince you, can I? the not-Kate said.

‘Nooit.’

‘Fine then. I’ll leave,’ the not-Kate said. ‘Just remember to ask yourself. What would I do?’

Almost predictably, Kraber didn’t respond. Instead, he proudly strode over to the radio room, doubts forgotten.

All was silent, save for the sounds of Lovikov and various other ‘brothers and sisters of the liberation’ roughing-up the civilians in one of the radio rooms. There were no screams, not at this stage. He could hear the sounds of fists striking flesh, and dry sounds that...
Were those made by people? What few ponies were left on the rig didn't have long to live.

Kraber stepped into the radio room and surveyed the scene.

“What kept you?” Lovikov asked, in what Kraber hoped was a joke. He didn’t answer.

“Well, Verity, your informant did us well again,” Flamel said. “Not sure I trust her, but she certainly got the job done.”

“Verity has an informant?” Kraber asked, surprised.

“None of your concern,” Verity said, a dangerous edge in her voice.

“You… sons of bitches…” one woman hissed through her remaining teeth, only to contract in shock when Lovikov shot an earth pony who had been laid out beside her.

“Now,” the Ukrainian asked levelly. “Can I broadcast from this station?”

“You… You killed Shortwave,” the woman whimpered. “He… he was my f–”

“Ah, get off it,” Kraber said dismissively. “Ponies aren’t your friends. I just did you a favor.”

“Favor?!” the woman yelled. “FAVOR?! You bastard, he had foals! He smuggled them out of Equestria, just to–”

“Kraber?” Lovikov asked. “Persuade her.”

Without a doubt in his mind, Kraber punched that poor woman in the face, knocking her to the ground and leaving her clutching the bloody hole in her face that had been her mouth, wheezing and whimpering in the agony beyond mere screams.

Ja, that was some fine-ass fokking protection.

“Now…” Lovikov said, pointing down at the woman as if the finger he had to her face was a gun. “Can. I. Broadcast from here?”

“YES!” she gasped. “We were on the air when you attacked! We still are!”

“Good,” Lovikov said, and pointed his pistol to her head-

“Hey! Stop that!” Verity yelled. “We still need some hostages! Not that you and that crazy bastard left many to work with…”

“Fine,” Lovikov sighed, sounding like nothing so much as a petulant child. “Hakim, can you rig up a livestream for us?”

“Sure can,” Hakim said. “Just… I just need a computer… maybe a phone...”

He rummaged around the room, finally pulling out a laptop computer.

Shoving him none-too-gently aside, Verity changed places with him, holding her sidearm to the poor woman’s trembling head, as Lovikov stepped up to the console and started to speak.

“I’m sure all of you brainwashed sheep listening into tonight’s scheduled propaganda have wondered who we are,” Lovikov said smoothly. “Well. We’re not your salvation – that’s a shitty excuse. You’ve had enough salvation. No, we’re your LIBERATION!”

He paused for effect before continuing. “If you heard our attack ‘live’, then know this. We have waited as you welcomed in those invaders, those fucking gluesticks. The ponies, the zebras, the like. We are the Human Liberation Front. You’ve now heard with your own ears what we are capable of. And unlike you–”

“...is it really for the best if we’re guilting them?” Mariesa wondered, earning herself a stern look from Verity.

“-we have not forgotten what Equestria has done! We have not forgotten our families and friends being ponified, our homes destroyed! Unlike some of you...” Lovikov continued, disgusted. “You have seen what ponies have brought to this world – they cannot be trusted! It is the end of the world, and madness to trust those that have brought so much suffering! A wise man,” Lovikov said, “Would trust in humanity. Which is why we, the HLF, have taken over the Sorghum oil platform, just off the coast of Maine. We have hostages - the people of the boats surrounding us, the survivors on this rig, portland itself. And we have enough guns to kill them all if you horsefuckers do not acquiesce to our demands.”

Lovikov paused.

“You might be wondering,” he said, “If we’re going to hit Portland, the hostages, or the boats first. Well, you’ll find out if we don’t get what we want.”

Lovikov practically snarled out that last line.

Pride swelled in Kraber. His doubts were gone, his cohorts had captured the rig. Things were going to be fine.

December 2022
Dancing Day

“Spoiler alert,” Kraber says, “It was not going to be fine.”

Author's Note

EDIT: This said July 25th as the date earlier. My sincerest apologies

08: Colorless Sky / The Present

Light Despondent Remixed

Chapter 8:

Colorless Sky / The Present

The present is in fact not a present
Even though i'm glad that it's here at all
I'd like to think that something is gonna happen
When i know damn well that it won't
All i'll ever do is behold
Pull yourself together
When you're the primary feather
This is what you have been waiting for
You want progress, here is the antidote
A bit of your life in a cage
Biting Elbows, The Present

August 8, 2022
Heliotrope

“You’re wondering if we’re going to hit Portland, the hostages, or the boats first. Well, you’ll find out if we don’t get what we want.”

Those were the words of Leonid Nikolaievitch Lovikov, his face filling up the screen in front of them.

‘They actually did it,’ Heliotrope thought, her jaw dropping halfway to the floor. ‘Luna’s Mane, they did it.’

All were sat in Gardner’s briefing room – which had been a conference room, then an office, then a conference room again. What that had to say about its occupant’s sense of consistency, Heliotrope might have wondered at, were her attention not on the far more alarming sight of Gardner in the here and now.

He sat at the head table, both elbows firmly planted on it. He was trembling and purple-faced, practically frothing at the mouth. The projector screen was just behind him, showing a livestream of the Sorghum’s radio station.

“Those motherfuckers!” Gardner roared, pounding the table. Heliotrope heard something crack under the impact.

The radio was at the center of the room, slightly out of sync with the livestream.

“Firstly,” Lovikov’s voice said, “we demand the release of Michael Carter, who is being held unlawfully by lackeys of the Equestrian column, who have unjustly taken command of Earth military movements. Secondly, we demand food, ammunition, and medical supplies for those who live in Defiance and other free HLF settlements.”

“Even Bastion?” asked a man in the background.

Again, the livestream lagged slightly. Lovikov scratched his scraggly-yet-immaculate beard, a contemplative look on his radiation-scarred face. According to Yael, he had once looked… almost handsome. But Heliotrope – who wasn’t by any means one of the PHL’s more anthrophilic ponies – couldn’t see a way anyone would consider him human. He looked like a sculpture that’d been dropped and crudely mashed back together, with strange lumps, scars, and patches.

“With the exception of Bastion, and any settlements held by the HLF groups associated with Maximilian Yarrow and his side of the split,” Lovikov said. “Fuck em.”

“... Good God,” Yael said, rapt at attention as she watched the scarred Ukrainian monologuing on the big projector screen.

She sat at a table with, Quiette Shy, Smoky, Lorne and Eva. There was also a number of Marines, Coast Guard, and National Guard, a few of them familiar faces – a woman by the name of Crawford, a tall white man with black buzzcut hair and an eyepatch, a man with brown hair that’d tried to play as ROB not long ago, an Asian (Korean or Japanese?) woman with curly red hair – but most of whom Heliotrope didn’t know. The ponies among their number sat awkwardly in the chairs, Heliotrope constantly fidgeting against a chair to keep her wings comfy, or just to work off nervous energy. It honestly could have been either.

Heliotrope, as it happened, had a matching look of horror, her wings spread in fear, feathers tickling Quiette Shy’s face.

“They wouldn’t,” Lorne said. There was complete certainty in his voice, a certainty that Heliotrope envied. If she remembered anything from the Purple Winter, it was being proven wrong time and time again about what the Empire or HLF would do.

“They absolutely would,” Yael said, plainly trying to come to terms with this massive attack, and not quite succeeding.

“They did,” Gardner spat, as they watched the broadcast from Lovikov. “At 1730 hours, this HLF filth took over our Sorghum rig, and threatened to fire on Portland and its outlying islands. Or the ships surrounding our rig.”

Heliotrope nodded, fluttering out of her seat and next to her friend. “Yael’s right. We saw what they were like in the Purple Winter, or when they saw people trying to help out Equestrian refugees, but… God, I hope they won’t go this far.”

“Still,” Lorne said, “Attacking a city with that many people in it? That’s… they haveto be bluffing. I knew some guys tried to pull this, and it turned out they couldn’t talk the talk.”

“And how did you–” Eva asked.

Lorne raised an eyebrow. “Later,” he said, in a tone that implied ‘later’ meant ‘Fuck no.’

“Even if they are,” Gardner said, “We can’t brush this threat off. This is clear provocation, and by any reasonable metric, it is an act of war.”

He let that hang over the table.

“And I will be deploying our forces against it. It is well within the bounds of my authority.”

It was at that moment that Heliotrope had a thought so clear to her, so vivid that it was as if someone whispered it in her ear.

‘This will not end well.’

Probably because it actually had been, by the woman right next to her.

“You heard me,” Yael whispered. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

‘Why?’ Heliotrope wondered, not daring to reply. ‘We’re going after the HLF.’

“Get ready, everyone,” Gardner said, rising from his seat with ram-rod straightness. Those in the room followed his cue. “I shall put in a request at High Command for permission to deploy, and by God, faced with this, I expect we’ll be getting it in ten minutes flat. They’ll have some negotiator there, but I’ll be there as backup. If I know her, she’ll let the HLF walk all over her. Heliotrope, Ze’ev, you’re with me. We’re taking Samson.”

Heliotrope blinked. “...What’s Samson?”

It took a minute or two or three more, and a walk to the hangar, until she got her answer.

Samson, it turned out, was a massive chopper, even bigger than the MI-24 Hinds that Heliotrope had gotten used to in Northern Africa and even some parts of the US. At its back was a drop bay, and it looked big enough to–

“You could drop a power armor out of this,” Heliotrope breathed, amazed.

“An astute observation,” Gardner said drily. “But entirely valid. Try two power armors, in fact. This baby you’re looking at here, is an ATC dropship, built at the beginning of the war to ferry ordnance and supplies in massive quantities. And, as you’ve guessed, dropping ATC-built power armor onto Imperial positions. Not to mention,” he breathed, “if push comes to shove... fighting the larger potioneers on equal terms.”

Heliotrope looked up at him. “Then you’re saying–“

“I wish,” Gardner cut her off. “Samson here can do almost anything, but when it comes to shielding technology, this remains the one area where the Empire consistently has us by the balls. I’d hoped that the disruptor grenades would work, but…”

Heliotrope nodded. Shield disruptor grenades were a pet project for most PHL, and while they were mostly effective, they were incredibly hard to produce.

“Still,” the man said, “we’re hoping that, once PHL R&D’s work on it is brought to fruition, she’ll be one of the first to receive the upgrade. And as she is now, if those bastards ever did come looking for a fair fight, they’d get one. You’re looking at a milestone here, people.”

Heliotrope noticed Oscar cocking his head suspiciously, like a curious dog, as he looked over the ATC-built vehicle. But this was soon forgotten as she took a moment to drink in the sight of the chopper herself.

‘I’d love to get to work on this!’ Heliotrope practically gasped. ‘This thing must be so powerful! The engines, the… I bet this could lift a whole building off the ground! Screw my wings, I’d love to fly this! I’m almost drooling!’

This was one of her favourite things about getting to work on human machinery. While Earth may have lagged behind in terms of magic, it was leaps and bounds past Equestria in terms of technology. Every new machine that Heliotrope got to open up, be it cell phones, cars, guns, trains, planes, or in this case gunships, was like getting to see her dreams from the Sciences of Equus magazine come true, and then some.

‘Sometimes,’ Heliotrope thought, ‘I love my life.’

These were too rare for comfort, though.

“Samson’s stocked with a reserve of power armor,” Gardner told them, hand sweeping over the magnificent chopper. “Room enough for, hm, eight apiece, if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, nobody in this group is currently certified to wear power armor. So I guess we’ll-– ”

“I can pilot it,” Oscar said, raising a hand. The six-fingered one, naturally.

Gardner glared at him. “Do your soldiers come with any discipline whatsoever, Lieutenant Ze’ev?!”

Yael furrowed her eyebrows. “He’s fine as he is. Which reminds me. Oscar, are you sure you want to do it?”

“Yeah,” Heliotrope said. “I mean, you could get–”

It was probably for the best that Oscar interrupted her.

“I know exactly what could happen,” Oscar said. “But there’s no day that has been, or will be, when this tr– when Oscar Mikkelsen passes up piloting a suit of power armor.”

Quiette Shy held up a foreleg, which Oscar bumped with his own fist.

“My Man,” Quiette Shy said. The automatic voicebox usually had a faux-upbeat tone, but somehow it sounded genuine this time.

And Heliotrope thought, for a second, about what could happen if Oscar was discovered behind the controls.

‘Should I…’

But she decided against it. This was, well, this was something she just couldn’t bear to take from Oscar. He just got so animated at the prospect of getting in the cockpit. More than she’d ever seen him outside of battle or a good game of Smash Bros. or Titanfall 3.

“Heliotrope,” Gardner said. “Can you fly at the same pace as Samson?”

“... Probably?” Heliotrope said, hoping he wouldn’t spot her hesitation. Nothing could get in her way to being a part of this. “I might be able to get to the rig, easy, but I don’t know how long I can sustain that pace. I’m not a Wonderbolt or anything, after all.”

“I see,” Gardner said, impassively.

“Why, what did you have in mind?” Heliotrope swallowed down a gulp. “Think there’ll be a situation where we have to make a quick getaway, and I’d be left behind?”

Yael placed a hand on her shoulder. “If that’s what it is, you can put your trust in her, sir,” she told Gardner. “She’s been there. Playing wingman to Miss Sanderson, when she shot that footage of the Tyrant’s showdown with her sister.”

“As I’m aware,” Gardner replied, his voice betraying neither awe nor approval. “We’ve all seen Sergeant Heliotrope’s little contribution to the conspiracy theories surrounding the Tyrant. But, no,” he added, eyes meeting Heliotrope’s. “Nothing like that. What I need for you, Sergeant, is to scout the rig. Give me an idea of how many HLF are holed up in there.”

December 24, 2022
Dancing Day

“Hold on a moment,” Aegis interrupts, with a cough. “I mean, isn’t it a little bit important to say what happened during negotiations?”

Kraber shakes his head. “I thought we agreed we were going to just keep this sort of focused to one group of us.”

“What agreement?!” Yael scowls. “We were doing this anyway, no questions asked.”

“Huh,” Vinyl says. “That is weird. Which reminds me, what was Aegis doing at thi–”

July 25, 2022
Aegis

Aegis was watering the flowers outside his shipping container home, a hearty dinner of mushroom pie and salad sitting on his table. Cooked by Popover, who was lying on the couch.

“I sure hope nothing bad happens,” Aegis said. And nothing bad did happen to him. Even the time his family got stuck in the abandoned house up in Bethlehem, where nothing supernatural happened, and they all realized that the real axe murderer was love all along.

December 24, 2022.
Dancing Day

“WHAT?!” Vinyl yells.

Aegis just shrugs. “I’m kidding.”

Kraber raises an eyebrow. “... It gets hard to tell sometimes, ja? You have like, the most fokkin’ lekker deadpan.”

“I get that a lot,” Aegis says. “So, uh, what were you doing? During the negotiations?”

July 25, 2022
Kraber

It was at that moment, on the big projector screen at the far end of the room, that a dirty-blond woman made her appearance. A PHL Lieutenant Colonel, if the uniform she wore was any hint, though her being flanked by a pony did, in itself, narrow down her allegiances considerably. A mare so gray, Kraber could probably have drawn her in pencil without getting the colors wrong.

Of course, Kraber didn’t know either of them. He would later learn that the mare was named Chalcedony. But that was not important just then.

“I’m here... Lovikov,” said the woman on screen. And, turning her eye to the doorway. “And Verity Carter. Excellent.”

True to form, there was Verity, striding into the studio.

“I thought you’d be guarding the boat,” Lovikov said.

“I left Redd and a few other toughs to do it,” Verity said dismissively. “No way in hell am I standing by when I can help free Dad.”

Kraber had heard of that. Of Carter’s personal HLF unit in some hole-in-the-wall town in Maryland, a battle with PER from offshore… and by the time the PHL and National Guard got there, they’d seen Carter standing over a horrific crime scene in a bank vault, admitting readily that he’d done it.

As Kraber heard it, Verity had been just outside the vault, hiding in a former restaurant.

“Lieutenant Colonel Northwoods,” Lovikov responded, almost purring. “What’s the news?”

Kraber lay back against a chair, watching intently.

There was a strange look on Northwoods’ face. “...These demands are too much!”

“You and I both know that they’re not,” Lovikov snarled. “All we want here is legitimacy. We want our leader back, and we want to help humanity as best we can. We can’t do that when every battle we show up to turns into a three-way, can we?”

“I suppose not,” Northwoods said breathlessly.

“Of course not,” Verity snarled. “We’re only trying to help.”

“But listen, Leonid. Verity,” Northwoods said. “The PHL does not want to get bogged down in a pointless, self-destructive war against the HLF. You’ll get hurt, badly.”

“The hell we will!” Verity interjected.

“We’re facing the death of the world,” Northwoods said, almost pleading. “You’re too established, and well-hidden for a fight with you to turn into more than a bloody slog. We have enough weapons to make straight fights with you a massacre. If either of us pushes a fight, nobody wins but the Solar Empire.”

“She’s right,” the gray mare said, “I believe that if we pool our resources, we could… we could do so much good.”

“You and the gluestick,” Lovikov hissed. For a moment Kraber was absolutely certain he was going to burst into a real fire-and-brimstone speech. But then, begrudgingly, the other shoe dropped. “You and the gluestick… have a point.”

‘Lovikov agreeing with one of the fokkin’ gluesticks?’ Kraber thought. ‘Will wonders never fokkin’ cease.’

Northwoods smiled faintly. “I’m glad you’re willing to agree with me on that.”

Kraber was almost something that could charitably be called ‘relaxed,’ and then there was an interruption on the feed.

“Northwoods?” Lovikov asked. “What’s happening? What’s going on?”

There was a distant buzz outside. A window popped up on the lower-right corner of the screen. And expanded, taking up half the space to squash aside Northwoods, her face abruptly made thinner by the diminished aspect-ratio.

The PHL officer’s eyes flickering down towards the right, where her left would be, was a sign the intrusion upon communications had not gone unnoticed by her, either. The interloper’s face, placed like a perverse mirror to her own, stared ahead, unspeaking.

“And just who–” Northwoods started.

“–are you?!” Lovikov yelled.

The distant buzz grew louder.

‘Oh, fokdammit. Those are helicopter blades.’

* * *

Yael

Their massive gunship roared across the ocean towards the Sorghum.

‘This is such overkill,’ Yael thought uneasily. For reasons she could neither comprehend nor explain, Gardner had been able to find space inside it for her, Quiette Shy, and a computer that was capable of connecting to the HLF’s Skype call.

“Hostage negotiations by Skype,” Quiette Shy asked. “What have our lives become.”

Yael smiled slightly. The great thing about QS trying to tell jokes was that her automatic voice box gave her essentially the perfect deadpan. Which was great for stand-up comedy night at the PHL base where they’d previously stayed.

“Quiet. Both of you,” Gardner snapped.

Quiette Shy raised an eyebrow under her goggles, and flicked both ears back. Anyone else would have a hard time understanding the subtleties of the body language of someone who kept most of their face covered and couldn’t inflect vocally, but between her, Oscar, and pub night, Yael was a master of reading these subtleties.

This was without a doubt the ‘what-a-douche’ eyebrow-raise.

December 24, 2022
Dancing Day

“Trust me,” Yael is saying at this very moment, “You get to be a bit of an expert.”

“Wait, I’m confused,” Kraber says. “How do you tell? Like, ‘what-a-douche’ is pretty much her default expression.”

“No, that’s her ‘I-hate-everything’ expression,” Vinyl says. “Get with the times, Viktor!”

“No, no,” Heliotrope says. “Her default expression is ‘I-hate-everything.’”

July 25, 2022
Yael

The screen on the Samson flared to life, and Yael could see two screens – one with Lieutenant Colonel Northwoods and Chalcedony, the other with Leonid Lovikov.

“And just who-” Northwoods started.

“Are you?!” Lovikov yelled.

Gardner didn’t miss a beat.

“The PHL called me in as insurance,” Gardner said. “And it is a role I am happy to fill.”

“INSURANCE FOR FUCKING WHAT?!”

December 24, 2022
Dancing Day

“Wait,” Yael says, “I don’t remember Lovikov being that angry…”

“Really? Seems much more him,” Kraber says.

“It really does,” Aegis adds. “I’m going to be honest, let’s go with Kraber’s version here.”

Heliotrope shrugs noncommittally with both forelegs. “Whatevs. Any thoughts, Yael? Elena?”

“This is definitely Lovikov,” Elena said. “110%.”

July 25, 2022
Kraber

Lovikov had screamed those last three words, white-knuckled as he grabbed onto a control panel.

“I mean, it’s just you talking to Northwoods, and... Who are you again?” Gardner asked, his eyes moving from his right to his left. Ironically enough, opposite from where Northwoods and Chalcedony were positioned on this screen.

“Chalcedony, PHL R&D,” said the gray mare. Her tone was, at best, dubious.

“I see you’ve brought a wonderful assortment of characters, Lovikov,” Gardner said. “Verity Carter... yes, I know you used her help to get aboard the Sorghum. Eugene Sullivan, wanted for organizing militias, stockpiling weapons and drugs, and selling drugs to finance the HLF.”

The bear-like man scowled. “So what if I did?”

“Helen Murphy, wanted for mass arson and stealing from resettlement efforts for Equestrian refugees,” Gardner continued. “Andrew Murphy, wanted for theft, armed robbery, assault and battery. And finally, Viktor Kraber.”

Kraber watched Gardner’s stare settle on him.

“... Where do I even begin,” Gardner sighed. “And as far as I’m concerned, you’re all criminals. Graffiti taggers, murderers, thieves, rapists–”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Kraber said. “The fok did jou just fokkin’ say to me, varknaaier?!”

“You know what I said,” Gardner said, smiling. “Even about you.”

“DON’T JOU FOKKIN’ CALL ME THAT, KONTGESIG!” Kraber screamed. “DON’T JOU FOKKIN’-!”

“Figures,” Gardner sighed. “Angry because I’m right.”

“I’LL BASH YOUR FOKKIN’ HEAD AGAINST THE CURB AS I THUMB OUT YOUR EYES, YA DUMB FOK!” Kraber roared. “HOW DARE YOU, HOW FOKKIN’ DARE YOU CALL ME THAT, JOU BLIKSEM?!!”

Verity stared at him in horror.

“There was an allegation of it when you were in college,” Gardner mused. “And, there’s no way of knowing if your marriage to Kate Baldwin was legal and consensual–”

“THAT WAS FOKKIN’ FAKED!” Kraber howled. “LAST FOKKIN’ STUKKIE CALLED ME THAT, I CALLED HER AN AMBULANCE! AND I AM THE FOKKIN’ AMBULANCE, HONDENAAIER! I WILL RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND PISS IN YOUR SKULL, JOU FOKMAGGOT! FOK JOU AND EVERYONE BEHIND YOU, EVEN YOU ZE’EV! FOK YOU FOR WORKING WITH THIS SHRIMP-PIEL KONTWURM, AND FOK THE FOKKIN’ GLUESTICK! LET ME FOKKIN’ AT HIM, LOVIKOV! FOKKIN’ DO IT! I’LL FOK HIM UP!”

But, on the inside, his thoughts were more distant. Detached. Deadened.

‘Gardner… he’s going to shoot us,’ Kraber thought from somewhere, far away inside his own mind, as a Thenardier dragged him back across the room. Whoever this was, they must have been a very brave person, to get up close to him while he was in this state. Yet Kraber was too lost, be it in rage or bodily dissociation, to dwell on it. ‘We’re going to get shot by someone who wants the death penalty for graffiti taggers… Gardner. If he’s not everything we hate about the PHL, I don’t know what is.’

“I could be wrong,” Gardner said, “But even if you aren’t, it’s not like that makes you any better.”

“LICK MY BALLS AND CHOKE TO DEATH ON THEM, JOU KONTGESIG!” Kraber yelled in response, struggling against his Thenardier restrainer. “I’LL BLIKSEM JOU!”

“These people, huh?” Gardner said, performing what was meant to be a long-suffering sigh.

“Fuck you, Gardner!” Verity yelled. “All we want is my father back! We just want to–”

“Funny way of showing it,” Gardner said.

* * *

Yael

‘I can’t believe I’m this close to Viktor Kraber,’ Yael thought. ‘To Lovikov.’

“And These People Want Us To Work With Them?” Quiette Shy asked.

Yael nodded, and sighed. Whereupon, her disbelief of being such a short distance from Kraber was overcome by disbelief in something else.

“You know what I said,” Colonel Gardner said, smiling. “Even about you.

“DON’T JOU FOKKIN’ CALL ME THAT, KONTGESIG!” Viktor Kraber screamed. “DON’T JOU FOKKIN’-”

“Figures,” Gardner said. “Angry because. I’m right.”

‘Is he enjoying this?!’ Yael thought. Gardner’s face was in the same stoic, determined expression as always, but… ‘I swear I can hear a smile in his voice.’

“I’LL BASH YOUR FOKKIN’ HEAD AGAINST THE CURB AS I THUMB OUT YOUR EYES, YA DUMB FOK!” Viktor Kraber roared. “HOW DARE YOU, HOW FOKKIN’ DARE YOU CALL ME THAT, JOU BLIKSEM?!”

He looked absolutely livid. Yael could see it plain as day. He had murder in his eyes. She’d seen him look like that back during the Purple Winter, on the blurry cell phone footage and news cameras.

And Gardner was clearly prodding him towards that.

After watching yet more tongue-lashing of Kraber, trying to remain unemotional and failing, Yael spoke up.

“He may be a bastard, sir,” Yael said. “But…”

“Why, Ze’ev,” Gardner interrupted. “Is that… concern I hear? For one Viktor Marius Kraber?”

Quiette Shy was looking at Yael at that moment, face set even further in her ‘what-a-douche’ expression.

There were a number of responses rushing through Yael’s mind. ‘That’s sick!’ or ‘I’ve read his file, telling him that about his wife… that’s just wrong!’ or ‘Rape is the one low that historically, Kraber hasn’t sunk to.’

But at that moment, Gardner seemed to loom over her and Quiette Shy. And, from deep withiin her gut, she felt absolutely certain Gardner wouldn’t react well if she said what she really felt.

“Go on,” Gardner said. “Tell me, Lieutenant.”

‘Is he taunting me? It honestly wouldn’t surprise me.’

“...No, sir,” she said, finally.

And really. Why should there have been anything wrong there? This was Kraber, after all. This was Leonid Lovikov, who killed his commanding officer, burned an Equestrian refugee caravan, and refused to evacuate anyone he deemed to be PHL.

‘And… these people are holding a city hostage. They’d kill hundreds to prove a point.’

“Absolutely Not,” Quiette Shy said, unreadable as always. “Let’s Not Waste Our Time Here.”

“That’s what I thought,” Gardner said, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “We can’t let these people get the upper hand over us. Look at them. Look at these people they call their heroes. Mass murderers, thieves, criminals of the worst kind.”

‘That does sound like Kraber, Yael thought, watching Kraber still screaming in rage.

* * *

Kraber

“I WILL KILL JOU ALL AND FEED JOU BODY TO THE FOKKING NEIGHBORHOOD HONDS!” Kraber yelled. “I BLIKSEM JOU FOKKIN FACE OUT SO HARD YOUR JAW FOKKIN POWDER AND JOU CHOKE ON OWN FOKDAMN TEETH, VARKNAAIER!”

The huge man was holding Kraber back, at the edge of the room. “Kraber,” he said. “Kraber, please, calm down.”

A small piece of Kraber’s rational self had returned to the surface. It recognised the man holding him as Sullivan, who’d (seemingly) threatened him hours earlier. He must have forgotten, so consumed was he.

But that was all that came back up. The rest of him was still at sea. In more than one way.

“I’LL BE FOKKIN CALM WHEN I’VE BROKEN HIS SKULL AGAINST THE WALL AND I’M RUNNING MY FINGERS THROUGH HIS BRAINS LIKE I’M MAKING FOKKIN’ BOEREWORS!”

Lovikov seemed almost… unconcerned.

“Gardner,” Northwoods’ on-screen face said, through tightly gritted teeth. “You’re not helping.”

The Colonel shrugged dismissively, still looking the wrong way if he meant to see her, from the perspective of the HLF members in the room.

“With these people, I don’t know if there’s anything to be helped. I stand by what I said.”

“I knew we should have brought Bowman,” Chalcedony muttered.

“He’d be nailing this sohard right now,” Northwoods agreed.

‘What you said was FOKKIN’ DISGUSTING–’ Kraber thought, half to himself. ‘But is… is he right?’

“FUCK YOU!” Lovikov yelled. “We literally have guns pointed at three targets. Do you really want to find out who we fire them at?!”

“I said,” Northwoods said, “YOU’RE NOT HELPING, Gardner!”

“Really now,” Gardner said.

‘And… did Yael Ze’ev just feel pity for me?’ Kraber thought. ‘What the fok was that?’

* * *

Heliotrope

‘Northwoods is letting them walk all over her! Working with HLF? Especially these HLF? Like hell I will.

She completed a circuit around the rig, the salt air feeling cold and biting against her cheek, even in summer. Her assessment was, the guns were open to the air, and she could see HLF walking around them, holding shells and large crates.

Her earpiece crackled.

“Heliotrope,” she heard a voice say. “It’s Northwoods. Remember, your job is only to observe.”

“I could end it,” Heliotrope protested. “Right here. And now. They wouldn’t know what hit em!” she paused. “I mean, I think they’d guess eventually after the tenth guy lost an arm? But it’d take awhile.”

“You could,” Northwoods said. “But if you don’t recall, that was what got you here. Imagine the headlines. PHL show themselves impossible to negotiate with, once more. Firebrand–”

“He’s off in Asia,” Heliotrope interrupted, confused.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t just hear you interrupt a superior officer,” Northwoods said, her tone acidic. “I was going to say, firebrand officers, like you or Ze’ev, or Gardner, always think they can solve everything themselves. Which works well and good until they fail. Imagine what the headlines will look like if you do.”

Admittedly, Heliotrope wasn’t thinking of headlines, she was thinking social media, but that was beside the point.

“As I understand it, Gardner didn’t break up your squad. There’s others who can, and will do worse to you if you or Yael make it clear we can’t negotiate with the HLF.”

“But… with them?” Heliotrope asked, raising an eyebrow.

“There’s also the fact that if you go in all on your own, there’s no telling what could happen,” Northwoods said, sounding urgent. “This needs to be resolved calmly. Peacefully. I know you’re think they’re armed crazies that’d be better off working with us, but… they’re armed crazies we can’t afford to not be allied with.”

‘I think we can afford to be without people taking over the Sorghum.’

Northwoods’ meaning was clear. ‘I don’t trust you in the least, and I will have your hide if you go against orders here.’

A line of text scrolled by, in the lower-left of Heliotrope’s goggles.

‘HATE TO ADMIT IT BUT N IS RIGHT. WE NEED TO PLAN THIS OUT FIRST – G.’

Gardner, then. Well, if it was Gardner, then that… that at least made sense.

So Heliotrope flew around the rig once more.

‘Three heading for that cannon,’ she thought, wondering who thought it was a good idea to lend them this much ammo, instead of relying on nearby tugboats. Her goggles were giving her readouts on what guns the HLF were carrying, the caliber of the cannons they were commandeering…

‘Two over by that one on the west side, aiming it towards the city–’... Heliotrope noted, relaying the information back to Gardner and Yael. ‘Please, Luna, do not let them do this.’

The tall, dark-skinned – well, not just tall, but big – human named Lorne had said something like that, and even so, the HLF had been totally willing to do this. If they, or at least, Lovikov, were willing to pull such a blatant terrorist attack, then Heliotrope had to wonder what else they were ready to try.

‘Would they shell Portland if need be?’ Heliotrope wondered.

It was at that moment that something caught her eye. She could see the radio station – see Lovikov through the glass. And behind him...

‘Kraber.’

The man that’d shot her back in Cyprus. Left her wondering if she’d ever fly, let alone walk or feed herself again. Left her feverish in an improvised hospital bed in the abandoned, crumbling resort of Varosha, next to a potion amputee that screamed himself to sleep every night. The man who had bombed more Bureaus than she remembered, killing countless innocents. Hung and garrotted ponies from lampposts in Austria.

‘I’m going to murder him.’

But, Northwoods was r–

Okay, it was a stupid decision, but the thought of going against orders, what could happen to her and Yael, and QS and Oscar? That was too horrible to imagine.

“Kraber is leaving the room,” Heliotrope said. “No idea why.”

“I noticed,” Yael said.

* * *

Kraber

The reason why Kraber was leaving the room was that something deep inside was screaming at him, roaring, all the words for loudly telling him one single thing:

THIS WILL NOT END WELL.

Kraber would’ve liked to think it was Victory, or a hallucination of Kate, or… or some other thing… that told him that.

It wasn’t.

It was bone-deep… no, not fear. It was a sense of inarticulate negotiation, a wordless certainty that he absolutely should not be here.

LEAVE. NOW.

Lovikov would have said to ignore that. That it was all going to be be fine. That Kraber should trust him.

Kraber, on the other hand, would’ve been perfectly happy driving a right hook into Lovikov’s face. He was, after all…

‘Impulsive, prone to not using that brain of his, violent, easily provoked…’

As at least one psych evaluation from back in college had read. But, more often than not, his gut hadn’t been wrong.

‘Does what you’re feeling make sense?’ Kate had once asked him.

So, now, Kraber thought that one over.

‘I’m with Lovikov, who has all the intrapersonal skill that God gave mustard gas. Arguing with the worst fokkin’ officer I’ve ever seen, one standing next to a gluestick. Meanwhile, they’re walking over some blonde that looks stoned. And Ze’evs there.’

“Whatever you throw at us,” Lovikov yelled, “We can make you regret every second of it! Following me, the HLF will be a powerful ally. With what Yael did, that FUCKING KI–”

‘Ja, fok this.’ Kraber thought, mentally drowning out that last word.

“You didn’t just say that,” Yael said evenly.

“I absolutely did,” Lovikov continued, smirking. “You can’t afford to piss us off any more. Can you. Anything we do next is your fault. You provoked us.”

“So It’s Our Fault You Did This,” said the strange white pony, of indeterminate gender, standing next to Yael. “Sorry. Not Buying It.”

“QS!” Northwoods snapped. “Look. Everyone. We can talk this out, L… Lovikov. There’s no need for any of us to fight, we’re all against the same enemy, aren’t we?”

“We’re all against Equestria,” Lovikov said evenly.

“Correction. You are against Equestrians,” Gardner said. “Including the refugees fleeing a totalitarian nightmare. And any human who reaches out their hand to them. This may be the most perfect enemy the human race has ever faced, and still, you manage to target the wrong people.”

“Worst fucking negotiator ever,” Sullivan muttered under his breath. Kraber couldn’t tell if he meant Gardner or Lovikov.

“So,” Gardner continued. “Tell me what we get in exchange for releasing Carter.”

Wherever someone was watching the “negotiations”, if that was the right word for what Gardner was doing, jaws were dropping.

“WHAT?!” Lovikov yelled.

“Are you really that callous?!” Mariesa gasped, running a hand through her massive mop of curly hair.

“Are you fokkin’ tuning me kak?!” Kraber yelled. “We literally have guns pointed at three different targets! Are you really going to just… ask for more?!”

It wasn’t like he was a stranger to callousness. But that was… that was just…

What kind of person would do that?!

Yael’s face was unreadable. Kraber wanted to punch it. It reminded him of Kiana, of those FOKKIN’ KONTGESIGS THAT FOKKIN’ STOOD BY IN BOSTON WHILE THE POLICE WERE – no, no, calm. STAY FOKKIN’ ONTSPAN.

“Gardner,” Northwoods breathed. “I… I can’t believe you.”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Gardner asked. “You’re asking us to release a mass murderer. A homegrown terrorist. I saw what Carter did to those poor ponies in the bank vault. Tell me, what makes this worth letting him out?”

Verity flinched, a look of… what was that on her face? Fear? Anger? Whatever it was, Kraber was certain there was a story behind it.

‘Well, shit,’ Kraber thought. ‘It’s now or never to do it, isn’t it?’

Whatever ‘it’ was, Kraber didn’t know. But his instincts were screaming at him to leave.

‘I’ll figure something out,’

Never mind that he didn’t know how to get off the rig. (Wait, wat die FOK!?! Where did desertion come from?’) something wasn’t right.

And whatever it was, he wanted to get away from it.

Kraber stepped up to Lovikov, trying to put everything out of his mind. To remember what he learned back during acting in Boston.

“I’ll be making another sweep of the rig,” Kraber said, desperate to be somewhere without Lovikov. And, oddly enough, the blood. The red stuff was becoming a little unnerving somehow, pretty impressive from how much it had splattered, but something – be it his hallucinations, his conscience, what little he had left of a soul – was screaming out at him, to get out of this room! “I get the feeling the enemy could be holed up in a lot of places in here.”

“Just... be careful,” Mariesa said. “Don’t... don’t get hurt, alright?”

“I promise,” Kraber said, heading for the door and switching for a shotgun.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Sullivan asked.

“We’re not far from the coast,” Kraber said, “We’re surrounded by people that survived the Bad Old Days in Europe. Ponies and horsefuckers that are survivors. If one of them is thinking of pulling a Die Hard, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Very well then,” Lovikov said. “Just remember. Anyone plans on fucking with us, you kill em then and there.”

“What’s that?” Ze’ev asked. “Losing control of your attack dog?”

Kraber jerked back like he’d been shot. But he continued moving down the hallway.

* * *

Yael

The comment about Kraber being an attack dog had just slipped out as she and Gardner were talking with Lovikov. Right as Kraber had left the room.

Quiette Shy shot her a… well, it was difficult to tell behind her goggles. Maybe it was agreement or pride, maybe it was disapproval. It was hard to say.

Yael didn’t quite cringe. But for a second, a sense of resignation hung over her.

‘Great, again. Here comes another–’

Gardner glanced at her, a little smile on his face.

‘He doesn’t mind? Huh,’ Yael thought to herself. ‘Maybe Gardner’s not so bad. Callous as it sounds, they are asking us to release a mass murderer...’

“Maybe you’re the one with an attack dog,” Lovikov said. “And he’s my friend, goddammit!”

“I’m sure,” Yael said. She’d read some psych profiles provided by Agent Garrett Nichols, before he’d embarked on that wild goose chase in the Pacific Northwest, and what she saw had raised questions about how Lovikov saw Kraber.

“Kraber is leaving the room,” Heliotrope said over one of Yael’s earpieces. “No idea why.”

“I noticed,” Yael whispered.

“So,” Gardner said, stone-faced. “What are you prepared to offer if we let Carter go free?”

“He leads the HLF again,” Verity said. “Leads us to glory, more than you could ever hope for.”

“Hmm,” Gardner said. “Empty promises from a child soldier with a reputation for cruelty. I’m not considering that a benefit.”

Verity glared at him through the camera.

On Northwoods’ side of the argument – that is to say, of the screens – Chalcedony rocked back like she’d been hit.

Meanwhile, in Samson, on this side, Quiette Shy stared up at Gardner. Again, Yael wasn’t entirely sure how to read it. But for a second, she was certain that QS was aghast. She could see eyes widening, eyebrows threatening to hide themselves under QS’ messy blond hair.

And Yael heard a whispery, wavery noise that almost made her eyes water. QS’ real voice.

“That’s just beyond the pale,” Yael heard her say.

There was only one thing that could mean. QS never used her real voice, damaged as it was. She just used the neural controls to activate her artificial voicebox. For QS to forget, that was…

Just so bizarre.

“Can we?” QS asked. Yael winced, not quite from the sound but from the sympathetic pain. Talking like that, with the damage to QS’s voicebox, had to be causing a lot of pain. But then she realized: It was the only way for Gardner not to hear her. QS’ voicebox didn’t exactly come with ‘whispering,’ only ‘slightly above indoor voice’ and above.

Which meant… QS didn’t trust Gardner.

“Do we really want to risk all these innocent lives?”

“Isn’t it a bigger risk to let Carter go free?” Yael whispered back.

“They’re both such huge risks I see no difference,” Quiette Shy said. “I’m wondering if we wouldn’t be better off in military prison.”

“It all depends on what you make of it,” Gardner said, turning his head to both of them. Clearly, he’d heard the whole thing. “Of course, I’m sure both of you have another idea instead?”

Yael and Quiette Shy looked at each other.

She shook her head. Letting the HLF take more, letting them go without Gardner asking more of them… that was just too hard to imagine.

“That’s what I thought,” Gardner said.

“...Maybe all these people don’t DIE?!” Lovikov yelled. “I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS! Doesn’t anyone notice this?! Am I the only one of us that cares that I’m pointing a gun at this many people?! I can do it. Right here. And now!”

“I need more than that,” Gardner said. “I don’t know how they did things back in Ukraine–”

“Russia,” Lovikov corrected, hissing between clenched teeth.

“But America, the PHL? They do not simply roll over and let people like you take from them,” Gardner said. “You could just slide even further. Kill even more. Like that family in Rangeley.”

‘Like what?!’ Yael thought. ‘What did he…?!’

Lovikov stared at Gardner, betraying no hint of emotion. “How do you know about that?”

“We keep tabs on all of you,” Gardner said, running his fingers through Quiette Shy’s mane. She bristled slightly, and Yael was left with an impression of anger from the normally unemotive mare. But Gardner didn’t seem to notice. Or care. “So, tell me. Why should I even want to negotiate with people like you?”

Yael placed herself between Gardner and QS, slightly maneuvering QS to the other side of her, to the wall furthest from Gardner.

QS nodded in thanks.

‘That’s… why, Gardner?’ Yael thought. ‘This has to be the right place for me. Heliotrope has to be right. But why does this… why do I keep feeling like it can’t be? This should be everything I want. A commanding officer that agrees with me. My favorite squadmates at my side. But why does this feel wrong?’

“Northwoods said it herself,” Chalcedony said, speaking for the first time in awhile. “We all have a common enemy, right? There’s no reason to fight. A friend of mine once said that the only way people can live in peace is if they’re prepared to forgive.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t quite be sure of that,” Lovikov said. “There’s plenty of reason to fight.”

“And if you are talking about who I think you are,” Gardner added, “he’s just a bleeding heart idiot anyway. Having twice as much heart, allegedly, as us common mortals, will do that to a man, you know.”

‘This is the right thing to do,’ Yael thought, looking down to QS, who wore a similarly doubtful and worried expression. ‘It has to be, right? We’re here to maintain order. To stop these... fanatics, from murdering countless people. That has to be right.

She sighed.

‘I’m looking for ways to sleep at night and I know it.’

December 24, 2022
Dancing Day

“Of all the people Doctor Bowman hates in the PHL/UN Taskforce, that guy makes the most sense,” Kraber says in the here and now. “Even if he had the whole ‘good intentions’ thing to hide behind… he basically carpet-bombed any high ground he could have ever had.”

“Wish we really had had him there,” Yael says, sighing.

“If nothing else, it would have been really funny,” Kraber says, nodding sagely. “I mean, it was when the Doc finally did let loose. And Lovikov was there. Full-on ‘annoyed spaced-out clever British person’ ranting at both those douchenozzles at once? Fokkin’ priceless.”

“He really missed watching that time in Montreal though,” Vinyl adds. “You know, when Yael broke–”

“Really?” Heliotrope asks. “Next time I see him I’ll have to show him the video I made. It’s a Sparta remix!”

“I still have one of the teeth,” Kraber said, fondly. “One of em ended up in my pocket, and I never remembered to get rid of it.

July 25, 2002
Kraber

‘Anyone plans on fucking with us, you kill em then and there.’

The words rang in his ears as he made his way down the corridors of the rig. It felt like it shouldn’t have, couldn’t have possibly been this big… but, well, there it was.

‘That should be fun,’ something inside Kraber thought. Except it felt as alien, as not-him as Victory did.

“Do you even believe that?” the Newfoal asked.

“Of course I fokking do!” Kraber hissed, all pretense of sanity and normality gone as he argued with the… what was it? A ghost? A representation of his own guilt?

Ah, it didn’t matter. What it was, he decided, was annoying.

“No,” it said, “I’m right. And even so, I’m only annoying because you don’t fokking listen!” it mocked him, using his own voice. “Tremble as your psyche unwinds, praise her in your madness. As your children so sublime, you will know but gladness!”

“Get… out… of… my… fokking. HEAD!” Kraber yelled.

“Ooh, that’s a bad habit you’re getting into,” the Newfoal taunted him.

He strode down the corridors, shotgun held at the hip, ready to fire, searching for more ponies to kill. He kicked open doors, peered inside, prepped to throw grenades. He poked his head out from behind corners, scouring for anything that moved.

And he searched every door, every alcove in the rig’s accommodation block. He’d seen a movie where children and others would hide, and soldiers would come to smoke them out. Couldn’t remember the movie’s title – it was in black and white, so it must have been an old one.

He threw open cupboards, taking spare change and finding food. He threw open doors. He opened the doors to closets, kicked open crawlspaces, opened up whatever holes he could find.

‘What is this,’ Kraber thought, as he threw open a cupboard door, walking through the… kitchen? Was it a kitchen or galley on a rig? He could never remember.

“Eish,” he said to himself as he peered in. “It’s not like anyone but a child would fit in he–”

‘Great, more killing children, nearly destroying mothers, killing innocent humans who just signed up with the PHL–

Whoa, where did that last thought come from?

‘–and being the pet psycho of a bunch of fanatics that live in the fokkin’ woods playing treehouse,’ Kraber thought. ‘I CAN’T FOKKIN’ DO THIS ANYMORE!’

And it was at that moment that Viktor remembered the name of the movie this reminded him of...

Schindler’s List

And here he was, cast in the role of… No, he couldn’t be, he was Jewish, he went to synagogue when he could.

Oh, God, no.

The world dropped out beneath his feet, and one leg simply gave out under him.

‘It’s more of the mind spell,’ Kraber thought, uneasily. ‘Has to be.’

But none of the hallucinations answered. Somehow, that wasn’t a good sign. Kraber’s eyes darted over the room’s doors and exits, looking for one he could escape through without arousing suspicion.

‘It’s. Just. The. Mind. Spell,’ Kraber thought. ‘Come on, what would Kate–’

It could’ve been the mind spell, or the hallucination, or both if they were one of the same. But he heard it clear as day.

‘Oh, what is this white-person-in-a-horror-movie bullshit,’ Kate would sigh. Yeah, that was exactly what she’d say. Always finding a joke. Always finding some way to think that maybe, just maybe there weren’t so many reasons for him to be angry.

Well, that clinched it.

As he walked through the corridor, he thought back to the foal he’d shot in Maine, and the way he’d almost certainly done that again today, and how he didn’t want to think on what fate he’d brought to their mothers up on deck. To their fathers…

The terrible feeling as countless fathers entered their homes and saw the slaughter, searching in terror through an eerily silent house, falling to their knees as they smelled the psychopathic purple liquid and cried, NO NO NO NO NO for hours as they realized how much they’d been destroyed, the glee on their faces, the utter hate overcoming them as they took the knife to their torturer, hour after hour until morning turned into night and had it been fifteen hours already, they’d ask as they looked down at their victim, disemboweled and painting the room with their own blood, viscera and fluids and oh FOK

oh fok

oh no

NO NO NO NO he couldn’t be he was HLF he was a heroic partisan striking against a corrupt

he was destroying families

no no no he

killed children dammit

he could have just as easily been them he might have been broken but he’d broken so many more

He was the PER.

Alright, no. He was just as hateful as them. Still, they were monsters–

But did that justify what he’d done?

It... it didn’t.

Kraber turned away, hoping they wouldn't see him shaking like a leaf, or the tears welling up in his eyes.

Ah, fok! FOK! FOK! F–

Shit. He’d really beaten any meaning out of that word, hadn’t he?

He slumped down, sliding against the wall. He was idly aware that something had rubbed off on his back, maybe the blood.

What was he to do?!

“Hey? Annoying hallucinatory kontgesigs!” Kraber said. “Where the hell are you when I need you?”

There was no answer.

“We can’t do anything here. We’re just figments of your imagination,” said Anka. Or rather, an earthpony with what Kraber was acutely aware to be Anka’s voice. “It’s up to you.”

“But…” Kraber sighed, and slumped even further against the wall. “I’ve got kak. I have no idea what the fok I’m doing, I’ve got nowhere to run…”

“We don’t come up with ideas, Daddy. It’s only you.”

And for a moment, sitting next to the bodies of humans and ponies alike, Kraber felt… almost calm.

“If the PHL, no, when the PHL get here, because Lovikov is sure doing his damnedest to piss them off,” Kraber heard himself say, “I’m fokked. Pure and simple. If Lovikov finds me here, I’m probably also fokked. I’m not convinced he doesn’t want to throw me under the bus.”

‘... Something else doesn’t feel right,’ Kraber thought.

He didn’t know what. But there was a feeling of… presence. Of something else, some other thing that could go wrong. Whenever he tried to guess what it was, it… slipped through his hands. Like he was remembering a page of a book, but whenever he tried to focus on the words, his mind went blank.

“And I know Yael’s with her. And so’s that… that blond fokkin mal varknaaier Gardner,” Kraber continued. “Whatever else could go wrong, I know they want my head.”

And right then, Heliotrope bursts into the room – or was she there the whole time – and guns him down with those silenced SMGS of hers.

Except that didn’t happen.

‘But it will if I stay here. I am not getting off this thing alive,’ Kraber thought. ‘And Lovikov’s … either he’s looking for an excuse, or I just want to be away from him as soon as I can. Both work. So I need a...’

He thought back to the PHL man that’d attacked him.

‘That could work…’

* * *

Heliotrope

From what she could hear of the negotiations…

Well, they sounded less like negotiations and more like a screaming match. And Kraber was… Well, that was the thing. Her goggles, packed with functions as they were, couldn’t see through walls. Not yet, anyway.

As far as she could tell, he was somewhere in the bowels of the rig. Whatever he was doing, it was hard to say.

She flew towards… towards some high point of what looked like a fishing boat, and decided to listen in on the news. All the while staring off at the rig.

Portland was in chaos, going by what she saw on social media, and heard on the radio.

“... evacuate immediately,” went one video she saw on Facebook, live footage of a news story. “This is a crisis…”

And in a video from Twitter:

“My name is Rolling Storm,–” a hippogriff, female, hiding in a basement. Next to a dark-skinned bald man that looked a bit like Lorne, but shorter. “We’d leave, but… we can’t. There’s HLF in our neighborhood. My daughter, Sunset Horizon, is on the rig with her father. I hope she’s… I hope she’s going to be okay...”

“There’s a man outside!” the bald man hissed. He was clutching a cheap pump-action shotgun.

A Facebook post which said ‘Got out just in time - I’m hunkering down with my relatives over in Steep Falls.’

A Facebook video of a blockade on the highway. Live video from a train stopped in a station by HLF with guns and crude, homemade rocket launchers. And, mystifyingly, Twitter video of someone breaking in to the ruins of Portland’s old, never-finished Conversion Bureau.

But that last part couldn’t be important.

A Twitter post reading ‘HLF aren’t guarding Allen Ave, I got through that way.’ A reply to that same post reading ‘I took Auburn.’

But that wasn’t the worst of it. A photo of a pony cowering before a mob of HLF with various guns. And, as a counterpoint, a red-orange pegasus mare standing in front of a woman in a wheelchair, guarded by a man with a cheap Glock.

A sky-blue unicorn pony with a slicked-back gray mane hiding on a rooftop, captured from behind on cell phone video from a friend. In the streets below, there was a group of pro-HLF protesters standing in front of snipers and improvised barricades, on trucks with machineguns and even a missile pod or two bolted to the roofs blocking roads, carrying signs reading ‘Let The Real Hero Out.’

‘Holy Harmony,’ Heliotrope thought, ‘It’s a madhouse out there!’

At the other end of the street, the camera swung around to reveal police with not-quite nonlethal weapons, riot shields, tasers, shotguns wrapped with blue tape, a few AR-15s. Civilians caught between them in their cars, ready to flee. Some more successful than others, with one HLF woman standing on the hood of a pickup truck, FAL pointed down at the driver… who coincidentally had a yellow mare – it was hard to tell if they were a pegasus, earthpony, or unicorn – in the passenger seat.

‘He’s done more than any of you!’ read another sign.

“He fought for us first!” someone yelled.

On and on. More and more protest signs.

‘Almost as if they planned this…’ Heliotrope mused. ‘Dear Luna, please don’t let this go pear-shaped…’

She tapped the slider on the video with a stylus in a bracelet around her fetlock, and watched again.

‘Nobody wants to shoot anyone,’ she realized. ‘The police could have, but they won’t. The HLF would like to, but they won’t.’

It was weird. Despite how much she’d been told back before she deserted Captain Cactus’ division that humans loved war, and how very believable that was, they were weirdly squeamish about the real thing.

‘Maybe that’s a good thing,’ she thought. ‘I really hope this can last…’

* * *

Yael

“I think you’ll find more support than you assume,” Lovikov said. “Look at some of the social media from the city.”

He paused.

“I almost wish Kraber stayed in here,” he added. “He would’ve had something really funny to say about it. Probably would’ve referenced Metal Gear.”

(“For what it’s worth,” Kraber says, in December, “I would’ve said ‘Checked the internet lately?’ or–”

And he drops the volume of his voice to a whispery rasp:

“ The memes…”

“Wow,” says one human man named Jack – who has a faux-hawk, a red tank top, and aviators. He has found a comfy armchair in the room, one that Kraber clearly wishes he had snapped up earlier. “That was a dead-on Quinton Flynn imitation.”

“Thanks, Jack!” Kraber says. “I worked very hard at it.”

“He really did,” Aegis adds. “In the shower. For fifteen minutes straight. And he took my fur shampoo, too!”

“It was an accident!” Kraber protests.

“Hey,” Dancing Day asks. “Why does Aegis know that he-”

“Reasons,” Aegis says, maintaining a perfect poker face.)

‘What is wrongwith this man,’ Yael thought. For a second, she didn’t know if she was thinking so about Gardner or Lovikov. She eventually decided on the latter. Though she did take a look at social media, at news. At some of the same things Heliotrope did.

But, unbeknownst to Yael, it'd gotten worse since Heliotrope had checked. Not by much, seeing as that had only been a few minutes ago. I never would've dreamed there were this many HLF supporters out there in Portland, she thought.

And, as she stared at video of a blocked highway, HLF trucks armed with machineguns blocking one end, staring down a massive traffic jam that looked to be backed up for miles, she had one single thought:

Someone's going to die by the end of the night.

“What,” Quiette Shy said. Yael could see some hint of emotion behind her not-quite-opaque goggles. She guessed it was fear, or surprise. “It’s A Madhouse Out There.”

“As you can see,” Lovikov says. “The city supports me.”

‘I’m not so sure all of it does,’ Yael thought, watching the video of the HLF protesters in front of allied snipers, and police.

She really, really wanted to come to the same conclusion that Heliotrope had. She even came close, thinking something like ‘Good thing they don’t want to fight.’ Part of her imagined the struggle winding down by morning. Part of her imagined the emotional energy of this barely-restrained chaos bleeding off. There was only so much energy you could put in at times like this.

But…

‘Even if they don’t want to,’ Yael thought, ‘All that these people don’t want to fight won’t mean anythingif one of these people goes over the edge.’

Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn’t. But Yael couldn’t see the night ending without bloodshed.

“They want me to succeed,” Lovikov continued. “If you give us what we want, it’s o-”

Anger surged in Yael. “YOU MANIAC!” she yelled.

“... Excuse me?” Lovikov asked.

“What?” Verity added.

“Yeah,” Northwoods said. “They’ve been–”

“Lovikov, you haven’t created some sort of brilliant no-win situation, you’ve made a powderkeg!” Yael yelled. “Even if you meticulously arranged this little clusterfuck, what happens if it all topples down and there you are, standing at ground zero?!”

* * *

Kraber

Moving as if in a trance, Kraber began to strip the corpse of its armor and forced it onto himself. New armor in digital urban gray camo, nearly pristine and filled with numerous of items for him to use.

There was even a belt of grenades on the armor, with a note shoved in next to a black, hexagon-shaped grenade:

Imbeault:

I don’t understand why you feel like you needed these. You’re guarding a rig, not PHL R&D or Commandant Cherry’s office, but apparently, the public responds well to us looking like hardy Space Marines. I was told to make grenades to look futuristic and barely better than average, but I made a few with some Japanese research just for a laugh. They will work, but they probably aren’t meant to be used in close combat on the rig. Only use the black one in the event of an emergency.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Presley.

“Fok, this thing is laanie,” Kraber murmured to himself as put on the armor. It felt almost like a well-tailored suit. He just finished putting on the last of it on when he felt it warm up to keep out the cold sea air. Give him long enough, and he might not even notice wearing it.

It included a mask. A Crowe Laboratories Eel-type to be exact, with seven micro-cameras in place of a visor. A good gas mask... uncomfortable as hell, but worth it. Plus, it’d look funny when he stared at people while wearing one. They’d be unnerved, they wouldn’t be sure where to look...

He knew what to do now. Most of all, he had to do it fast, before he could tell himself not to, or realize just how stupid it all was. If this could get him killed, second-guessing absolutely would.

“There are no bad choices,” Kraber remembered his dad saying back on the beach. “There’s only what you do with a choice.”

It had sounded profound to Kraber. Then again, his dad had been drunk at the time.

With the gas mask secured, he put on the helmet on over it, making sure to line up the seals and latches that mated the two together.

‘First order of business, get off the rig. Best idea would be get to one of the nearby boats, blend in, say nothing…’

Flipping open a service hatch in the floor, he climbed down into a reeking, steaming vertical space, a series of descending catwalks threaded with creaking staircases, strung with hissing pipes and humming conduits.

And then he heard it. Down, almost at the bottom, low, just above sea level.

He rushed down the stairs, quiet as he could, and found his shotgun’s barrel pointed at the face of a redheaded child, her hair curly, smeared with unidentifiable muck.

‘Oh, balls.’

She pointed a cheap 9mm back at Kraber. Several other children were present as well, huddled together atop a rust-stained ballast tank: a girl that might have been the first kid’s sister, a youngish teenager in a jacket and ill-fitting kevlar, holding a 10mm.

They were guarding ponies. Mostly colts and fillies, sporting every color of the rainbow beyond the dull tones seen on Earth-born equines.

‘Well Vicky, hear they are. The Enemy! Aren’t they evil! Look at them, breathing like that! Where do they get off, huh? BREATHING?!’

Except, these didn’t look like the destroyers of the world. Nor did they look like they were anyone’s salvation, or what have you. They didn’t look like they were ready to ponify anyone. They didn’t look like they had no regard for human life – well, though little love for him burned in their eyes, and Kraber found he could understood that sentiment. They didn’t…

His finger closed around the trigger and abruptly stopped. His will failed him.

They just looked like scared children that had given up on everything.

Not fillies. Not colts.

Children. Their eyes were full of an innocence betrayed, one that transcended species. Even if… even if they were the same as those kontgesigs that had destroyed his home and murdered billions, he didn’t have it in him.

The little girl with the 9mm shook. Her gun trembled.

“Becky, put it down!” hissed a blue pegasus colt with gray eyes. “He’s PHL, look at the armor!”

‘What?!’ Kraber thought. ‘That makes no fokdamn sense, I–’

“Ja, I’m PHL,” he said.

‘That makes perfect sense. It’s the best way to get off this madhouse. Before…. Before whatever it is I’m afraid of happens.’

“I’m new here. Those bastards shot Imbeault, so I took his armor. No idea how to work any of it, but… shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.”

The little girl, whom Kraber assumed was Becky, lowered her 9mm, and Kraber caught a good look at them. The blue-gray colt, Becky, a little dark-skinned boy with a buzzcut. A pale white boy with chestnut-colored hair, buzzed into a mohawk to look almost like a pony’s mane. A yellow earthstallion with an orange mane, who could’ve been either someone’s big brother or father. The oldest of all of them. a… well, what was that? A pegasus? It was definitely colored like an Equestrian in unnaturally bright cherry-red and pink. Except it had talons, not hooves, and a beak instead of a horse’s snout. Its wings were much bigger, too. It definitely wasn’t a griffon, there was a light-purplish griffon standing next to her, and it was definitely not whatever that last thing was.

He could see more hiding behind girders, behind strange little protrusions on the underside of the Sorghum.

“The, ah… the peg–” Kraber caught himself before saying ‘Peggie,’ which probably would’ve given him away. “The pegasus is right. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you get off before the rest of the PHL start shooting.”

“But… what if the bad men see us?” asked a green earthcolt.

“And the PHL won’t shoot us!” the not-quite-pegasus, not-quite-griffon said. “They… they don’t, they wouldn’t. We’re foals!”

‘She believes this kak!’ Kraber thought, surprised.

Which was strange to him, seeing as – going by what he remembered from the past few months since Algernon Spader’s death, movie by reknowned pony director Reel Action coming soon – nobody had given him or the HLF nearly that same level of faith.

‘Not like I’ve given em much fokkin evidence to what with shooting a family, and oh God, oh Fok, I’m a BAD PERSON–’.

“Mister?” asked a small foal wearing a grey hoodie. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Kraber said. “I haven’t been for years. Now, anyone know a boat? I know which one the HLF took, and it’ll be too big a target.”

“There’s dad’s Coffin Ship,” says a light brown girl with a head scarf. “The… the Bin Pişman. It’s the one on two oil tanks. The one with the red paint, covered with eye symbols.”

“A thousand regrets, huh?” Kraber asked. “I can relate to that. Aweh, “Isn’t that also going to be a target?”

“It’s not the one that caused the attack,” the girl said.

Kraber shrugged. “Doğru kabuledilebilir.”

“...How do you speak Turkish, anyway?” the not-quite-a-pegasus-or-griffin asked. “You don’t sound Turkish.”

Kraber shrugged. “A man needs a hobby.”

December 24, 2022
Dancing Day

“Wait,” says Vinyl Scratch, “So you just left their escape tug there?!”

“It made sense at the time!” Kraber protests. “Anyone on the rig would be able to recognize it was the boat that was responsible for all this, and I prefer not getting shot at by HLF and PHL at once.”

“Why would you assume Lovikov would shoot it?” asks a green unicorn. They’re new, they’ve just come in to hear the story.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Heliotrope asks.

Kraber nods, a knowing grin on his face. “Heliotrope, she gets it.”

“Also, when did Verity get back there?!” you ask. “You can’t just have characters teleport for no reason!”

“I walked back when we’d secured the rig,” Verity sighed, rolling her huge eyes. “The idiot over there just forgot to mention it.”

“Hey, fok you! I was having a fokking mental breakdown!” Kraber yells. “... And probably withdrawal symptoms, too.”

“Wait, withdrawal from-–” Astral Nectar starts.

“ANYWAY! Escape,” Kraber says. “I found a little spot where one houseboat was just a little too close to the pillars…”

July 25, 2022
Kraber

“Have you seen my Heliotrope?” Kraber asked, tapping Redd on the shoulder.

“What?!” Redd gasped. “She’s here?! Where is sh-–”

Kraber drove his fist into Redd’s face, feeling something not so much crack as give, like pressing a thumb against an apple that’d been left in a fridge. Then, well, of course there was a crack.

‘Damn,’ Kraber thought, ‘That would’ve been a great time for a pun.’

Redd sprawled against the deck of the boat bonelessly.

‘Huh. I may have just given him brain damage,’ Kraber thought. He dragged the Thenardier Guard into a nearby alcove, and hid in a corner. ‘Aweh, now how do I distract–’

Wait.

Kraber thought for a second about just where he was.

‘So I’m going to be evacuating them from a rig that’s under guard. In plain view of an armed rig. And several armed boats.’

A pause.

‘What was my plan again? The kids will probably be fine, even if–’

Everything went white, and time seemed to stop. In the future, Kraber will claim that he must have thought, ‘Okay, if I didn’t have a plan then, I sure need one now’. But if that’s true he must have thought of that within the space of a second, or barely even used words.

There came an explosion that vibrated every single bone and muscle in his body.

‘Well, fok. Lovikov, you fokdamned kakhuiskriek, you DIDN’T–’

Heliotrope

“Except,” Heliotrope will say, months later in December of 2022, “Lovikov totally did.”

She tumbled backward through the air, thrown back by the shockwave. For a moment, she hung in midair, open-mouthed, hooves hanging lank, ears pulled back against her head in fear.

“Oh, SHIT!” she yelled.

“Leonid Lovikov,” Heliotrope heard Northwoods breathing. “What have you done.”

Heliotrope stared at the muzzle flash of the cannon, mentally plotting its trajectory as the shell arced towards the city nearby.

“Well, shit,” she said. “Yael! Lovikov just-–”

* * *

Yael

“I told you,” Lovikov said, with an unsettling certainty. “I. Told. You. That. I. Would. Do. It.”

“You bastard!” Gardner yelled.

Through one of Samson’s windows, Yael saw a plume of fire from Portland. Quiette Shy stared through it, open-mouthed – or Yael assumed she was open-mouthed – under the bandanna covering her snout.

‘I fucking knew it,’ she thought, surprising herself with her own calm.

“No,” Quiette Shy said, this time using the automatic voice. The faux-upbeat tone of the voice had never seemed quite as out-of-place as it did then. “Oh No.”

“I saw,” Yael said.

“He fired!” Heliotrope yelled. “He shot at a fucking city!”

‘I… didn’t want to think he’d do it,’ Yael thought. ‘But… I knew this would all go wrong. God dammit. Why do I have to keep being right about this?!’

In the background, she could hear Lovikov. “You acquiesce to my demands, and there’s no reason for this to get any more out of hand!”

She stared at the screen.

There was one woman (who Yael would later learn was named Mariesa) one with a large mop of decidedly nonregulation curly hair, who had a look of unmistakable horror on her face. Another one, a black man that Yael vaguely recalled as Hakim Jones, looked utterly aghast.

But the two were definitely in the minority.

Should’ve guessed you’d do it, Yael thought distantly. Why, what’d you expect?

Some of Lovikov’s soldiers were cheering. Laughing. Mocking. Some, like Sullivan - the giant man that’d been restraining Kraber - were stonefaced. Unreadable. Verity didn't seem to care at all what she'd helped to do, looking almost satisfied. One of them, an HLF man standing by Lovikov, had a huge smile on his face. Like a kid in a candy store.

But it paled in the shadow of Lovikov's expression - a ghoulish, self-satisfied grimace of victory. One that chilled Yael to the bone.

"Obey our demands," Lovikov said, quietly, "And nobody else deserves to die. How many else will you let me kill to make a point?"

They don't care, Yael thought dully. Bastards... they don't care at all?!

“It Already Is Out Of Hoof,” Quiette Shy said. Somehow, the electronic voicebox sounded weary. “You Were Right, Yael. It Is A Powderkeg.”

“One hundred and ten percent,” Gardner said, nodding. Then, pressing on a button that engaged a mute symbol on the screen, he turned to Yael: “I’ve requested permission to attack. It’s almost certain that they’ll give it to m-”

There was a buzz from Gardner’s earpiece.

He nodded. “Ready to fuck some shit up?”

“Absolutely,” Yael said, her voice steely. “This is what I came here to do.”

‘I stayed in America to stop HLF from doing anything like this ever again. Gardner’s going to let me do what I’ve wanted since the beginning of the war. Heliotrope was right, we were lu–’

“That’s what I like to hear,” Gardner said, grinning. And for a second, Yael’s resolve faltered ever so slightly.

‘You were looking forward to this, weren’t you?’ she wondered. ’No. Nobody would… what kind of man would look forward to hostage negotiations failing? He can’t possibly...

But as she said to herself earlier: ‘Why do I keep being right about these things?’

Which meant that maybe, just maybe, she was right.

But she brushed that off. It was time to get to work. ‘I can’t second-guess myself,’ she thought. ‘Not when lives are on the line.’

Time to save Portland.

Author's Note

I'm really happy with this. Vox has agreed, too, and I hope you like it as much of us do!

Of all the chapters I've changed since original Light, this one feels like it's the most improved. You've got actual characterization for Kate, you've got character moments for Yael and Heliotrope, with a brand new arc for the latter coming SOON™, and I managed actual characterization for Lovikov and Gardner.

I was worried about them basically being the same person, but thanks to some of Vox's critique, they should be undergoing some divergent character evolution. Gardner's still a dick, don't get me wrong, but there's... well, there's some changes to how and why. And, unlike in at least one early draft of a future chapter, Gardner's not gonna be racist.

Lovikov, however... take every negative trait of Gardner's. But especially Marcus'. And Red's. And Lovikov will now have all of them. Fun stuff.

So: What's coming next?

I mean, obviously it's a rewrite of a chapter from the last version of this story. Obviously. But next chapter, you're going to see the chaos from Dayoung's perspective, and how Portland spiraled into the madness you remember from last time I wrote this chapter. You're going to see how Gardner reacts to taking over the rig. And you'll see... well, a lot of the same stuff rom last time.

Sadly, the chapter has been in limbo for quite some time, as I was trying to make an anthology interlude sort of thing that came next, but then I realized I didn't really want to? That, and it involved using some of Red's old writing he tacked on to this. I was gonna do it, but then I decided killing myself sounded way more fun, so then I was all like "eh" and decided to just do my own thing again.

Anyway. Shouts out to Jed and Vox for all the help!

09: Hype Waltz / Firestarter / Jailbreak

Light Despondent Remixed

Chapter 9

Hype Waltz / Firestarter / Jailbreak

Co-authors:

TB3 (I still gotta credit him don’t I)
Jed R (this is Jed we’re talking about. I love him.)

Editors:
VoxAdam

Wait here please
Don't tell me things are under control please
When I know you know what it is that awaits me
And I know you know what its gonna do to me
Fuck you start talking
Biting Elbows, Hype Waltz

I'm the trouble starter, punkin instigator
I'm the fear addicted, danger illustrated
I'm a firestarter, twisted firestarter
Torre Florim, Firestarter

Dayoung
August 8, 2022
Minutes Earlier
Congress Street, Portland

Dayoung wasn’t entirely sure if this had been part of the plan since the beginning. But it felt… right.

“This is awesome!” Megan crowed, thrusting a sign up as she stood on the back of a pickup truck. A Thenardier Guard technical, a sea-blue or sea-green old International Harvester with a wholly incongruous DsHK mounted in the backseat.

I guess it pays to have Russian black-marketeers as friends, Dayoung thought. Someone, on the back of a vehicle so huge that she wondered how it’d gotten this far up the streets, was playing a guitar.

It almost felt…

No, it didn’t feel like… whatever Dayoung was about to think. It felt right.

“I’m just so happy to be here,” Megan said, wrapping her arms around Dayoung. “Thank you.”

“This is… pretty sudden,” Dayoung said.

Megan shrugged, leaning the sign against the rear window of the pickup truck. “I guess it is. But… this whole time, I’ve… I’ve felt like I haven’t been doing much. Like…” she laughed nervously. “The world is ending, and I’m just working a cash register. And I’m just supposed to be letting those ponies be part of my life? Like this didn’t come with them?”

“Yeah!” Dayoung said. “That’s… that’s exactly what I said.”

“And it’s more than that,” Megan said. “I feel like… like here, I found a family.”

Dayoung raised an eyebrow. “But you had a family.”

Megan frowned. “Sorry, Day. I just…”

Not long ago, Dayoung’s family had been ~~killed~~ unfortunately not killed, but ponified in a PER attack on another town. She’d made her way to Rangeley somehow, and managed to find a room with a local family.

“Well, it’s not like they’d notice,” Megan sighed theatrically. “Besides. The people I’ve met tonight, they’re all… they’re not willing to sit down and let the end come. They do things.”

“Like us?” Dayoung asked.

“Absolutely like us,” Megan said.

“LET THE REAL HERO OUT!” roared a shirtless, mohawked man standing on top of a truck, carrying a sign and a torch.

“LET HIM OUT!” Dayoung found herself cheering.

A woman wearing all-black clothes, spiked bracelets, and carrying a sign reading #FreeCarter cheered from the sidewalk.

A man wearing a T-shirt with a fist holding several horns cheered the same. On another building just in front of some Civil War monument, an HLF man had rolled an absolutely massive sheet of fabric (Had it been the sails to a Coffin Ship?!) over the side of a building. From the back of another truck, an HLF man in a boiler suit and cloth mask had rigged up a projector, playing Lovikov’s speech.

It would be in her memory forever, like the patterns of fabric burned into the skin of survivors of nuclear attacks.

The two of them - Dayoung and Megan - stood by Rebecca Benning, who wore her customary fatigues, a set of homemade armor that promised to stop bullets and potion, and mirrored aviator sunglasses. Along with a cap emblazoned with the logo of some militia from before the War - Dayoung didn’t know which.

“ENOUGH OF THE HORSEFUCKERS,” read Benning’s sign.

“THE GOVERNMENT IS SELLING OUT TO HORSEFUCKERS AND MERRY-GO-ROUND TOYS!” Benning yelled, “WHILE IGNORING PEOPLE LIKE US! PEOPLE THAT’VE FOUGHT TOOTH AND NAIL FOR FORGOTTEN HUMANS, FOR THE POOR, FOR THOSE WHO WATCHED THE GOVERNMENT LAUGH OFF THEIR CONCERNS!”

She is really in her element, Dayoung thought.

“You really have no options here,” Gardner said.

“I have plenty of things I can do here!” Lovikov protested.

“Look,” Northwoods said, and Dayoung heard her growing increasingly panicked-

Good, she thought. Let that bitch squirm.

“Lovikov,” she said. “Lower the gun. There’s no need for anyone to hurt, just lower the gun and we’ll talk.”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing so far?” Gardner asked. “In fact, I-”

Lovikov would later say Gardner had provoked him. There were countless conflicting memories of what had happened (In fact, Kraber would have no idea just what Gardner had said for days to come) but Dayoung would swear that Lovikov had done it without any sort of warning.

She’d remembered absolutely no change on Lovikov’s face as he tapped a button. But she also remembered that it had been supremely sudden.

One second, the HLF man behind the massive sheet was cheering, hollering, whooping for Carter to be set free.

“LET HIM OU-”

THOOM

The next, a building behind him exploded. Shrapnel rained down, fire lit up the sky, and a cloud of rubble blocked out the sky in the immediate area of Dayoung.

‘WHAT?!’ Dayoung thought.

And on the screen, Lovikov smiled.

Dayoung felt very cold, and for a few seconds, she shut down. Everything seemed… flat. Less. The way things did in a dream, the unremarkable ones where everything seemed normal until Dayoung realized she couldn’t feel anything, so many little bits and pieces of sensation were gone.

This can’t be real.

“Leonid Lovikov,” Northwoods said, her whisper magnified, all the emotion blasted from her voice. “What have you done.”

“I told you,” Lovikov said, with an unsettling certainty. “I. Told. You. That. I. Would. Do. It.”

“You bastard!” Gardner yelled.

“You acquiesce to my demands, and there’s no reason for this to get any more out of hand!” Lovikov yelled. The projector had shaken in the explosion, leaving the feed of his face listing to one side.

The civilians - pony, human alike - standing in front of Dayoung stared in horror at the explosion. As did Dayoung. Megan looked at the wreckage too, an unplaceable look on her face.

We’re not protesting, Dayoung thought, we’re corralling them into bigger targets.

She felt numb. Stumbled on one leg.

‘What kind of man would do this?!’ Dayoung thought. ‘Even consider it?!’

Then she looked over to Megan. ‘Come on, we have to go,’ she wanted to say. ‘We have to-

Four things happened.

First, a shell impacted just in front of Dayoung, close enough that the explosion only ruffled her hair…

Second, the mob of humans and ponies standing apprehensively in front of her? A sizable portion of them were just gone. The remaining ponies, humans, and other Equestrians were staring at their barricade, at Lovikov’s stupid, callous grin, in horror.

They stared at the crater. Dayoung stared back. Stared up to Megan…

Third, Megan looked tired, shocked, same as all of them. But there was a strange, hardened expression worming its way through her face.

Kraber

“Jump aboard! Quick!” he shouted from the deck of the Bin pişman.

There wasn’t a moment to lose. From above he could hear gunfire and screaming voices, and the roar of a helicopter’s blades.

“Fok,” Kraber said, surprising himself with his calm as he looked out at the chaos…

And then saw the civilians filtering out, through the catwalks on the underside of the rig.

‘One of the kids must have gone up to look for more survivors… whoever it is, he’s either crazy fokking brave or crazy fokking dumb. Kwaai!’

Children filtered onto his boat, dropping from the girders onto the Arctic Warrior and rushing across to the Bin pişman, some across boats, some plummeting into the icy Maine waters. There were others too, adults and ponies, and another one of those not-quite-griffons. The latter of whom were flying, next to pegasi - even trying to carry small children.

Surprised I left this many people alive on it, Kraber thought, with a sudden stab of guilt. Though I guess it makes sense. Gotta have some left…

Where the fok were they hiding, though?

An old - or just old-ish - man in an orange vest clambered down the girder with surprising agility…

And much to Kraber’s surprise, jumped in the water!

Right, Kraber thought, rushing to one side of the wheelhouse and grabbing a rope ladder. The Fostech was held in one hand, surprisingly light. Maybe it was armor, maybe it was adrenaline. Kraber couldn’t say.

“Easy,” Kraber said, tying the ladder to a series of metal knobs on the side of the boat - he didn’t know what they were called, and didn’t care.

A small child, shivering from the cold, made their way up. Then a pony - this one an adult - wearing a set of those absurd swimming fins. Kraber helped them up, one hand around their foreleg.

Then-

BANG

A scream, and one swimmer abruptly stopped moving. And another.

Kraber snapped towards a balcony on one side of the rig, not too far from one of the guns. There, he saw an HLF soldier armed with an assault rifle.

“QUIT FOKKIN’ AROUND!” Kraber yelled, and, awkwardly in one hand, swung the Fostech’s muzzle up towards him.

THOOMB

Blood exploded out from just under the HLF man’s shoulder, and he tumbled backwards like he’d been hit by a train.

“GLARGK!” he yelled.

“What was that?! yelled another child, shivering from the frigid Maine water.

Kraber didn’t answer.

That...

He looked up at the rig. For a moment, he could see two people rushing to the side of the man he’d nailed with a 12-gauge.

That could’ve been me, he thought, amazed. It should be me. But I’m here. And I bumblefokked into it.

...I can’t turn back. I’m leaving Lovikov, Dacosta, Mariesa, and… Huh. Did I really have that few friends back there?

Kraber considered it, and aimed up at one of the HLF coming to the aid of their fallen comrade.

THOOM

The man jerked back like he’d been punched, his visor a spiderweb of cracks and blood. “HLERGK!”

Reh. Fok em. Mind spell or not, this is the better thing to do.

And then the other man fell to the ground, bleeding from massive cuts.

What the hell?! That wasn’t me! Which means-

Heliotrope

Yael was right, she thought. Powderkeg.

“I need you to take out as many cannons as possible,” Yael said. “You’re the best chance we have of getting this done without a bloodbath.”

“My pleasure!” Heliotrope said, and made a beeline for the rig.

Along the edge, by a platform jutting off the rig that had no obvious purpose, Heliotrope saw a man with an assault rifle. Out in the open.

Stupid.

Time seemed to slow. She saw a boat built on two old oil tanks near the docks, with a man holding a rope ladder over the side. People were struggling to stay afloat in the water below, and then-

She saw the man on the platform shoulder his assault rifle. Its muzzle flashed, and Heliotrope watched the swimmers scream, falter, or force themselves to swim underwater.

Humans, she thought.

She’d just been thinking ‘Is he firing at them while they’re swimming?! when someone shot the HLF man in the shoulder.

Who the hell is that?! Heliotrope thought, looking down and seeing the man on the boat cradling what was either a shotgun or giant assault rifle in one hand.

“Colvin!” a man yelled. “Colvin, Willems, you’re gonna-”

Time slowed, and Heliotrope considered what was happening. The people on the rig were evacuating to that coffin ship, the one with the shotgunner. Which was…. Extremely risky, but Heliotrope couldn’t blame them.

I’d want to get off the rig too.

So, with that, she flew at the remaining HLF man - not Colvin, not Willems - and, wing blades extended, combat knife in her mouth-

(“Yes, Heliotrope is a practitioner of Santoryu,” Yael says.

“...I didn’t know you liked One Piece,” Babs Seed says.)

She sliced him to ribbons.

The blades ripped through the kevlar, through clothes, through skin, and blood spattered against Heliotrope’s suit.

Kraber

‘That was Heliotrope!’ Kraber thought. Heliotrope?! Helping me?! Of all the-

“That’s the last of us!” someone yelled, heaving themselves aboard the boat.

With that, Kraber ran for the wheelhouse and looked frantically over the controls.

Come on, come on, he thought.

The Turkish child passed him a key, and Kraber jammed it into the ignition.

THOOM

Something exploded in the background, and everything went white.

God, no, not this, not now-

Kraber jammed the throttle forward, at the same time resisting the urge to pat himself down with one hand, reminding himself that - YES! Wasn’t dead! Which didn’t make much sense, how would feeling himself prevent himself from… no, focus, FOKKIN’ FOCUS-

“COME FOKKIN’ ON!” Kraber roared, and pushed the throttle once more.

The boat roared into life, tearing itself free. Kraber looked at a grainy screen that looked to have been taken from a car, showing the Sorghum disappearing behind him.

“Who the hell are you?” one man asked. “I haven’t seen you around.”

"Ah'm one of thae new guards," Kraber said, trying for that old Robert Carlyle voice he’d affected… Nine years back?! Had it really been that long since… Ah, fokking hell. It’d work for now. Best not to think about it too hard. “My name’s Ivan Bliss.”

Another lie.

“Viktor, you have to stop running away!” the newfoal pleaded with him. “Tell them-”

...and then everything went bright.

NOT AGAIN-

Another shell.

The boat swerved to avoid it, and water splashed up against the boat’s windshield. Wipers rushed across the cracked glass, and Kraber twisted the wheel, shifting the boat towards Portland…

Only to see the city in flames.

Heliotrope

That boat’s fucked, Heliotrope thought. Whoever it is, I have to keep them safe!

She looked around, frantically, and saw one of the Sorghum’s guns (She didn’t know the make and model, she just knew it looked like it was the size of a small car) and flew towards it.

There were three people operating it.

How in God’s name could anyone do this?! She thought, looking them over. She couldn’t make out their faces behind their armor, the gas masks, but she knew that one was…

Enjoying himself?!

That was…

Heliotrope’s temper took over, and she dashed forward, silenced SMGs blazing, (or, more like rattling) wings and hoof talons outstretched.

The 9x32mm rounds shredded the man and woman standing by the cannon. There wasn’t even a word from them, just a sick gurgling.

The man in the gunner’s seat had just enough time to whisper “wha-” before Heliotrope’s wing blade ripped a gash in his throat.

I’d disable it with a grenade, but… she looked over the cannon. No, that’s a terrible bucking idea. Onto the next one after I do.

Dayoung

The few scant survivors of the attack hid in destroyed storefronts, behind wrecked cars, in buildings.

Some wanted to come out. Dayoung could tell.

“Stay back!” Benning yelled, sweeping back and forth an autoshotgun that looked to break every gun law and then some. “Stay the fuck back!” she tapped her earpiece. She didn’t pull the trigger.

The crowd didn’t seem to care.

Megan had a strange, almost… satisfied expression on her face. Dayoung couldn’t tell what it was.

“Come at us,” someone yelled, “AND WE’LL FUCK YOU UP!”

Maybe it was the shock of being at ground zero of an explosion, maybe she had a concussion, but Dayoung swore that was Megan.

Couldn’t be, Dayoung thought. She’d… she…

Okay, Megan could have said something like that. But then, she wouldn’t - couldn’t - sound jovial. That was… how could that even-

“It’s going to be fine,” Dayoung forced herself to yell out “None of you have to get hu-”

A unicorn mare - pink, with a cherry-red mane, stepping out, bottle of Bud Lite held in her horn TK, throwing it at Dayoung’s face. She staggered back, feeling something wet drip down into her eye.

“Did my brother need to get hurt?!” she yelled. “Did Jim?! Janna? Willy? Shae?! Did they need to get hurt?!”

“We will fire another shell if you do not cooperate!” Benning yelled. She tapped her earpiece, then pointed at them, a cruel grimace on her face. “Do it, Leonid! DO IT!”

There was a moment of silence.

“I said-”

A pause from Benning.

“THEY WHAT?!”

That was all the survivors needed.

“FUCK COOPERATION IN ITS ASS!” yelled a black woman with thick dreadlocks dyed partly green.

Almost predictably, the street erupted into chaos. People rushed out of ruined storefronts, armed with shards of glass, pistols, SMGs, AR-15s, anything they could get their hands on.

The crowd didn’t have much in the way of guns. But at that range, with that many of them, it didn’t matter.

“Oh, shi-” yelled the woman in black with the #FreeCarter sign, before the crowd pounced on her.

Dayoung tried to pull the trigger.

Couldn’t.

So - seeing Benning, the other HLF, everyone else doing the only sane thing to do in the face of an armed riot - she decided to run.

And then she saw Megan trying to fire the DsHK from the back of the truck. Trying and struggling to work the old gun.

Instinct took over.

Dayoung took a running leap onto the bed of the pickup truck, bodyslammed Megan, and dragged her bodily from the DsHK.

“I could’ve-” Megan started.

“You’ll be behind a machinegun firing into a crowd!” Dayoung yelled. “We’re going to die, Meg! We need to run!”

Heliotrope

With that, uh… decommissioning (Really just shoving a piece of metal she’d found under the trigger, something the HLF probably wouldn’t notice - she’d be able to easily remove it if the time came) she was heading towards another one.

She headed for the next one, aimed right at the city. There were seven more on the rig, as far as she knew.

Why’d this thing even need to be so big, anyway? she thought, flying towards that next one. With the noise of the cannons, the chaos, the fraught atmosphere of it all, they didn’t even seem to notice what Heliotrope had done.

Excellent.

She flew for another cannon, blades still outstretched, guns still ready. She bit down on the assault yoke, letting loose a quick burst of subsonic 9x32mm.

The rounds pasted the HLF on the cannon, blood spattering against it.

Nobody seemed to have pinpointed in the chaos, so Heliotrope moved to the next. Two down, six to go. As she made it to the third - manned by a trio of Thenardier Guards, wearing their typical red armbands - fate conspired against her.

In the second before she bit down on the mouth trigger, the person sighting the cannon looked over towards a spotter leaning over the railing, staring at the city. They were about to say something.

It was too late. Heliotrope was biting down as it happened. The 9x32mm flew through the air…

...and exploded through the head person firing the cannon, pasting their skull against the metal.

Oh, shit.

“Someone got-” the spotter yelled, aiming her carbine up towards Heliotrope, who banked to the right, towards the rig, then aimed the gun towards the spotter. Another human rolled behind a large metal mass that was either a ventilation system or pipe.

She fired again. At close range, the spotter didn’t even have a chance. Bullets ripped through the spotter, who hadn’t thought to get behind cover.

Not so much for the one behind cover. They fired their Kalashnikov up towards Heliotrope, screaming bloody murder.

“GLUESTICKS AND HORSEFUCKERS ARE HERE!” they yelled, shrieking like a teakettle. “THEY’RE GONNA KILL US!”

And the air became bullets.

Heliotrope yelped, and barrel rolled to the left, down towards the ocean.

She landed among the girders, panting heavily.

“Get some kinds of light, some paint, I don’t fucking care!” a man was yelling. “We’re gonna lock her down, and we’re gonna cut her wings off!”

Some ponies would’ve been running scared at that.

It just made Heliotrope angry.

Those bastards! Heliotrope thought, flying under the rig, passing through the girders, barrel rolling to the opposite side - the one with guns not pointed at Portland. Instead trained on the ships.

Why they hadn’t fired those was a mystery to Heliotrope.

As she twisted to her left, making her way to those cannons, she saw the coffin ship - the one on what’d once been the trailers of two tanker trucks - making its way towards an island.

Good.

As she hid on the underside of the rig, she heard it.

“AAAAAAAIIIIEEEEEEE!”

Someone was screaming. Pretty close by, too.

“It’s… I can’t do it!” he screamed. “Heliotrope’s here, and she’s right to-”

“Right to what,” someone said, their voice thick with an Eastern European accent.

Lovikov!

“We’re doing the right thing,” Lovikov said. “You don’t stop now.”

...He’s going bucking mad, Heliotrope thought. If he wasn’t before, he is now, he’s going bucking mad. I’m in over my he-

NO!

She couldn’t afford to think that way. She was Heliotrope, dammit. And Lovikov - for doing something so brutally violent, so boneheadedly stupid that she almost wondered if Celestia was paying him - was going to die.

“She’s killing us and we’re killing a city!” the man screamed. “She’s right to be here, and-”

Damn right, Heliotrope thought, just before-

Dancing Day
December 2022

Heliotrope groans.

“I can’t believe I was ever like that,” she says.

The hologram of Yael pats her on the back. “In your defense, we were pretty sure you were right.”

“That almost makes it worse, though!” Heliotrope protests.

“...What does that even mean, anyway?” Vinyl Scratch asks.

“I…” Heliotrope starts. “Look, I’m just… I’m really embarrassed about how it went down.”

“We couldn’t have known,” Kraber says. “I mean, fok, Lovikov told me almost every day how I was... “

He takes a moment to remember.

“‘Miy brat,’” Kraber says, affecting a Ukrainian accent that cannot even be considered to be in the same neighborhood as ‘passable’. “His chommie. His brother. That’s what he said. Course, the only difference between being his chommie and his enemy is how long he lets you live.”

“I thought that was an insult,” Dancing Day says, quizzical.

“Well, it is?” Kraber says. “But at the same time, it’s not. Lots of Eastern European languages - Russian, Polish, apparently Ukrainian, I don’t remember most of them-”

“I thought you knew every language,” Rivet says, confused.

“I don’t speak Estonian,” Kraber points out.

“Wait, so ‘brat’ means brother on Earth then?” Dancing Day asks. “Back in Equestria, I thought it was an insult.”

“Wait, so-” starts one pony whose name Dancing Day has forgotten.

“Nooit,” Kraber says, head in hands. “We are not doing this. Not fokkin’ now…” he groans.

“Every time we talk about that, I get heartburn,” Aegis groans.

“Ja, it’s time to stop,” Kraber says, nodding. “Aegis has some form of gigantism, and I’m just not going to risk the condition of his heart like that.”

“Don’t you mean a headache, daddy?” Amber Maple asks.

“Yeah,” Dancing Day says, nodding. “It’s really confusing, if I was talking about it I’d get a head-”

“No, I mean I get heartburn,” Aegis says. “It happens every time for some reason. Anyway, Heliotrope? Let’s stop this before I need some Tums. Where were we?”

“Well,” Heliotrope says. “I decided that the best thing to do was kill Leonid Lovikov. With extreme prejudice.”

“Which would be the best birthday present I could ever ask for,” Kraber says.

“But it’s not your birthday,” Heliotrope says, confused.

“Just let me dream,” Kraber says.

Heliotrope

She resisted the temptation to scream as she flew towards Lovikov. It was… well, it was certainly tempting.

BANG

Blood from the man’s skull spattered against the railing, and - Heliotrope hoped - not against her.

...he shot one of his own men, Heliotrope breathed, drawing to a stop out of sheer surprise. She made a tiny, involuntary gasp. Oh, buck.

“And you’re done,” Lovikov said, “When I say you’re d-”

He froze, and slid into cover.

He doesn’t see me, does he?

There was silence for a moment. Even Heliotrope was still.

“BACK TO FUCKING WORK!” Lovikov roared, all of a sudden. “OR DO YOU WANT TO JOIN WILLIAMS IN THE FUCKING OCEAN!?”

But he still stood there.

Then he seemed to relax. Letting his shoulders slump, he walked back towards a door, then-

Almost the second that Heliotrope flew at him, Lovikov opened fire with a little 9mm pistol.

Heliotrope yelped, and banked to the left.

How did he know?! The-

She thought about it. The little yelp she’d made. The blood splattering. Then-

“I can see you moving into the light, you goddamn kickstand!” Lovikov yelled.

I thought I patched that out! Heliotrope thought, hiding behind cover. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shi-

“We’re gonna fucking get you!” Lovikov roared. “Everyone! Heliotrope’s on the rig! A MONTH’S PAY TO WHOEVER BRINGS ME HER MARK AND WINGS!”

Heliotrope’s eyes went wide. There’d been rumors that some HLF from the Carter side of the split had done that, talked about it. That when he’d been caught, Michael Carter had been midway through doing it. And she had met a pony or two or three with U-shaped scars where cutie marks or horns had once been…

At that moment, Lovikov’s pistol ran out of ammo.

The only way out, she thought, is forward!

She rushed towards Loviokv in the moment that he was reaching for something, a look on his face that spoke his clear-

Triumph.

Heliotrope had just enough time to think “oh, shit,” before Lovikov tossed something towards the floor, just under her.

“Here,” he said. “Catch.”

Time slowed, and Heliotrope watched the object Lovikov had thrown. it looked to be a series of plastic tubes over a centrifuge. At the center of the centrifuge was a dark blue-green lump of chitin or stone, glowing lightly with a sickly blue-white-green light. Thoughts raced through her brain, as she struggled for a new option.

Bat it out of the air.

No. She was too far away, flying towards Lovikov’s head. And looking at the thing made her eyes water, made her ears hurt.

Shoot it.

The Assault Yoke with her two silenced SMGs was too inflexible. She had to turn to aim it. And who knew what it’d do?

Just go for Lovi-

THWAAAUUUUUU

There was sound like a taut string snapping, and everything went blue-white. Heliotrope felt numb all over, in her back, behind her hooves, in her mouth. She could barely feel, barely see. She was dimly aware she was hurtling through the corridor-

-She collapsed against a metal wall in a heap, feeling blood oozing from her nose.

What was that?!

She struggled to move her legs. They felt fine, but her hooves - it was like there was an absence of feeling right near the fetlocks, and her wings felt like dead weight at the sides of her barrel.

Lovikov walked down the hallway, a big, nasty-looking knife in one hand. A Kukri, Heliotrope thought.

“WE GOT HER!” Lovikov yelled, stopping his walk for a moment. “A MONTH’S PAY, GUN OF YOUR CHOICE, FREE HOMEBREW, I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU WANT AS LONG AS YOU GIVE ME HER FUCKING MARK AND WINGS!”

She looked to the door behind him. HLF were filtering in. The door in front of her. More HLF, edging through the doorframe.

For a moment, lucidity:

I can’t fight them like this.

Then panic.

So she ran - unfamiliar to her, she was far more used to flying - and stumbled down the stairs. Her hooves betrayed her, and she rolled down the staircase a quarter of the way down.

Find somewhere defensible, she thought, picking herself up.

She flapped her wings. Nothing.

Do I have a concussion?! No, no, I’m… that did something to me. To my body. To my alicornal tissue.

She galloped into a bunk room. One with a window at the back, looking out on the sea… and a view of Portland, in flames.

Almost feel my wings again! She thought. What was tha-

As the HLF surged towards her room, as Lovikov ranted and raved, the answer came to her.

It disrupted magic. That blue stuff? My ass it’s anything Lovikov should be able to afford!

“Yael!” Heliotrope yelled into her comms. “They got me pinned, I need hel-”

Someone hammered through the window.

“The PHL didn’t stop us when we fired on Portland,” said one man with a voice that sounded like nails against a chalkboard. “Let’s see what they think if we go to work on one of their most loyal soldiers…”

Oh, shi-

Kraber

Slightly Earlier

Portland was so in sy moer in that it looked far too much like a city from the Bad Old Days.

On some level, Kraber had known that this would happen. That if Lovikov had fired, then of course he would’ve shot at the city, that it didn’t fit his ~~chommies~~ to just shoot a warning shot and let it fall in the ocean.

It was still shocking to see one of the buildings burning from the top three stories up. A warehouse burning. Rubble in streets. A city that had easily as many humans as ponies, that ~~Lovikov~~ he’d left moertoe.

It’s a damn malhuis out there.

“What have you done,“ Kraber whispered. “No. What have I done.”

Huh, the newfoal said, that’s not how it goes in Gargoyles.

That’s not a gargoyles quote. Hou jou fokkin’ bek.

“You couldn’t have stopped it, Bliss,” said one woman, a hand on his shoulder. “You’re… not at fault.”

But I am, Kraber thought. I fokkin’ well am. I was there for all of this. I didn’t do anything to stop it. I was either along for the ride or controlling it most of the time.

It was me. All this fokkin’ time.

He stared at the city.

“Take the wheel a second,” Kraber said, not sure to whom he was talking.

A pegasus grabbed the wheel, and Kraber didn’t have it in him to be mad, to yell at the FOKKIN G-

Yelling at ponies just didn’t seem so important anymore. Not compared to what he was seeing in the city.

Not compared to what he saw as he grabbed a telescope and stared through a patch of windshield that looked relatively clear.

People stood in the streets… fighting? One threw a brick through a storefront and jumped inside, running out with a bulging sack. Another was running through the streets, in the middle of an angry mob, with what Kraber only hoped was an effigy of a pony on a stick.

He looked to another street. There he saw a group of HLF standing, holding signs, aiming guns…

He looked to another street. Ponies and humans rushing towards the ocean, in the direction of the same protesting HLF...

Then a shell flew over the boat, impacting them.

Kraber saw smoke. A crater. Rubble from buildings and remains of pavement.

Where there’d once been that group of fleeing ponies and humans, there were only a few scattered survivors left. A pair of shoes dropping to the ground. A set of limbs, a bleeding arm with no visible body. Still more viscera.

The HLF descended on the survivors.

Fokkin’ varknaaiers, Kraber said, expecting to feel sick...

Kraber didn’t feel sick. He felt…

Hollow. Sat. Blasted out.

Why?! He thought frantically. Throw up! Scream blou moord! Why can’t I fokkin’-

He looked to the floor, shaking ever so slightly. Breathing heavily. He felt so sat he couldn’t tell if he was going to start laughing hysterically or cry. His mouth was dry. The lyrics of his favorite Biting Elbows song played in his head.

Smile, my mouth is dryyyy….

It’s a hell of a thing from outside, he thought. If I was there, I’d be enjoying this. Caught up in it. And why can’t I be angry?! Why can’t I fokkin’...

“What the hell did you see?!” the pegasus yelled. The humans, ponies, and others in the wheelhouse, even a few desperately hanging to the outside of the boat looked in, at the two of them.

“You don’t want to know,” Kraber said. “I… I let me take the wheel again. I need to do something else. I fokkin’ insist.”

“Trust me when I say he’s right,” said a middle-aged, weatherbeaten man scanning the screen of his phone. “You don’t want to see this.”

A pegasus foal fluttered up and slapped Kraber on the back.

Belgrade, Kraber thought, taking the wheel again. He remembered the Bureau in Belgrade. He remembered being with Helmetag and Lovikov during the Purple Winter, the PER and Solar Empire herding people in like cattle, armed with shock-spears and guns, shooting or electrocuting people - anyone who ran. Anyone who looked at the PER in a way they didn’t like.

He remembered blikseming one pony. Nailing a man in the crotch with a 12-gauge slug from mounted his old pump-action Mossberg, causing him to fold in half like an accordion. Steeking a charging pegasus newfoal with a bayonet the size of a small machete mounted to that same Mossberg. He missed that Mossberg.

This is no fokkin’ different. It’s a bunch of fokkin’ bosbefok kontgesigs convinced they can save the world by corralling people like livestock, killing them or destroying them just because they fokkin’ can.

“Mother of God!” cried out one man. “That last one came down just a block from Mercy Hospital...”

“Fuck me!” added a mustard-yellow earth pony, practically galloping up to the tugboat’s bridge wing to get a better view, placing a pair of binoculars up to her eyes. “They hit my cousin’s house! And that’s… Huh. They hit the ruins of the Convie Bureau. Well, no loss there.”

“Portland had a Bureau?!” Kraber asked incredulously. “This…”

(He was about to say ‘Plakkerskamp’ but stopped himself)

“...wee little city?” he finished.

“They never finished it, though,” the earth pony explained. “It started construction early during the Three Weeks of Blood, and when the riots broke out, they started to convince PER doctors at Maine Medical to put patients in the Bureau, herd them in like cattle…”

“I remember that,” Kraber said, shivering. “Hope tae Goad I never see it again. Did… did most people make it oot?”

The earth pony turned his head back to Kraber. “Aye. Me and Patrick Saunders, this one hitter for the Portland Seadogs helped get them out. And the city burned the damn place to the ground.” The pony looked melancholy all of a sudden, his snout and ears angled downward. “Don’t know if there’ll be much left after th-”

The boat rocked as something impacted the ocean next to them. The window cracked.

“...They’re firing on us,” whispered one rose-colored unicorn mare. “FUCKING FUCK, THE HLF ARE FIRING ON US!”

It wasn’t intentional, Kraber guessed. Lovikov was just indiscriminately firing on the port facilities. But that didn’t make it any easier to watch.

“Lovikov, you fokking kontgesig!” Kraber screamed to nobody in particular. “WHAT THE FOK DOES ANYONE HAVE TO GAIN FROM THIS?!”

Another shell came down, and a plume of fire rose up from what looked like it’d once been a quiet residential neighborhood.

“Hold on, everyone!” Kraber yelled, remembering everything he could about handling a boat. He had to zigzag - but no, fokkin no, this thing handled like a fridge!

Another shell impacted the sea next to them, a spray of superheated steam splashing up into the air.

Right. Just. Keep. Fokking. Zigzagging.

I did this, Kraber thought watching the explosions and fire in Portland. Me.

Curiously, there wasn’t a follow-up barrage. It was just those shells, slamming right into Portland.

“We can’t get into the city proper!” he called out, seeing burning wrecks blocking the harbour channel. Well. That and the bombardment. “We’re going to press on, up into the bay…”

There was an island ahead. One of the many small islets on the fringes of the city. Kraber couldn’t remember its name, but he remembered seeing it on a map.

That didn’t matter though. All that was important was that, even though he knew the island to have been taken over by the PHL, the rig’s fire appeared to be ignoring it. The sprawling school had yet to take a single shell.

‘Where’s a fokking dock when you need one?’ he thought, scanning the island.

A shell carved through the ceiling just above Kraber, impacting the windshield and harmlessly landing in the water in front of them. Water, blown by the rising wind, speckled Kraber’s face, hitting him like tiny needles through the broken window.

Kraber had just enough time to think ‘Oh, SHIT,’ before his mind went into overdrive.

I know what I must do.

“Hold tight!” he called out, and shoved the throttles to their stops. The coffin ship’s stocky bow lifted itself up, as Kraber steered it toward the island…

Yael

Minutes ago, she’d gotten the call.

“Yael! They got me pinned, I need hel-”

“Heliotrope’s in trouble,” she’d said. “I need some good people to get to her.”

“I almost wonder why you let her go it alone,” Gardner had said.

Do you just enjoy being like that? Yael wondered. Something rubbed her wrong about the way Gardner had said it - he sounded like he could’ve meant it to be well-intentioned criticism, but something was… off with him.

Yeah.

Off.

“Cap… First Lieutenant,” Oscar said. “Am I joining the mission?”

“No,” Yael said. “I’m going to need you to pilot the power armor Gardner has on this thing. You’re the best one I know.”

“Are you… planning to have me shoot HLF with it?” Oscar asked.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Yael said. “But no. I was thinking more… it’s powered armor. Use it to carry things. Lift up the rubble.”

“Right,” Gardner said, sounding almost disappointed. “That was really the first thought that occurred to you?”

***

She was in the freezing Maine water, now. With Summers swimming towards the rig’s girders in a perfect breaststroke, andSmoky and Quiette Shy levitating above the water. Four human soldiers she barely knew, and one pegasus with a green coat, a blue and yellow mane, and a cutie mark of a sun fluttering above. He had a patch on his suit that read ‘STRANDED’.

Will Carson - everyone calls him Wild Bill. Transplant from Nevada. Has red hair and a mustache. Lorne looking at him, suspicious. I decided that Lorne was probably not coming with.

Mckinley Zhang. Curly hair, half-Chinese, shorter than me, but most women are. Grey eyes. Carries a short carbine instead of an SMG. Everyone calls her Zhang.

A. Walker. Everyone calls him Bro. No idea what the A stands for. Kind of a dirty blonde. Doesn’t seem to meet military grooming standards that well, with a face covered in stubble. Huge widow’s peak. Has a machete. From the deep south, apparently.

John L. Boniface. Everyone calls him Bowie. No idea why. Bald, sharp features, has pounds and pounds worth of tactical accessories on his M4.

The pegasus with the sun mark, however, went by the name of Chinook. A word which had no equivalent in Equus. He’d never said what his real name was, and Yael hadn’t pressed it.

Yael, much like her cousin, sometimes had a bad memory for names and faces. It took awhile for it to really sink in.

The mass of the rig loomed above them like a giant ceiling. Gunfire roared out above them, more bullets than Yael could imagine the HLF holding.

How does Cousin Nny swim in this, anyway? Yael wondered. The water was freezing, and it didn’t help in the least that she wasn’t wearing a wetsuit.

Yael grabbed the girders, effortlessly scaling the mass of the rig despite the vibrations as the guns fired again and again. Summers followed, as did the four others. The rig vibrated as the cannons fired, again and again.

Monsters, Yael thought, disgusted, when-

Glass shattered, sounding almost (but not quite) musical as it clattered to the ground.

“RAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”

“AIEEEEEEE!”

Yael didn’t know the source of the second scream, but she knew the first:

Heliotrope!

“Fuck em up,” she said, surprising herself with her calm. Quiette Shy stared at her, surprised at a rare expletive from Yael.

If they weren’t going to kill her earlier, they are now, Yael thought. The gunfire, if she killed a guy who got in while she was pinned-

“On it, Ma’am,” Chinook said, nodding before he spread his wings and flew upwards.

Smoky followed closely, placing second in the race up to the railing. Yael and Summers were second and third.

Before Yael could get a clear view, the two pegasi struck. Chinook dove town, his wolvers - common slang for hoof-mounted claws - plunging through one HLF man’s armpit. He ripped his right foreleg out from the gunner, his entire foreleg coming out slick with blood. Before the other HLF man could react, Chinook bit down on the mouth trigger for his assault yoke so hard Yael wondered for a moment if he’d break it. Silenced 9mm rounds buzzsawed out the barrels, shredding the gunner.

The ones Chinook had killed had been running. Towards the stairs. But there was a weird sort of resignation as they did it. Like they’d just stopped.

Are they trying to escape? Yael thought. Then: Well. Obviously! But how… where…

Smoky, however…

Chinook had made it quick. Smoky had not, smashing one foreleg against the skull of a man rushing down a set of stairs. In an instant, he feel slowly, struggling to stay upright…

“AAAAAAAIEEEERGK!” Smoky’s victim screamed. “They’re here! The PHL are-”

“Eat this,” Smoky hissed, jamming the barrel of his assault saddle's carbines again the man’s face. He bit down on the trigger, the rounds ripping through the HLF man’s skull. His corpse tumbled down the stairs, one limb lying at an angle that would’ve been painful if he wasn’t already dead.

So, stealth is out, Yael thought, vaulting over the rail and drawing her Jericho in one fluid motion, as Chinook and Smoky hit the HLF on the rig like a train.

She fired the Jericho into the nearest HLF soldier, a woman with auburn hair who’d been trying to throw herself over the edge. Suicide? Escape? Who could say?

“MY ARM!” the woman screamed.

Summers followed suit, armed with a club of some kind. He jammed it down against one HLF man’s skull with a crack, and Yael winced as she heard the noise.

“YOU WANT TO FUCKIN’ GO?!” Summers yelled. “COME ON, STOP RUNNING! HIT ME, I DARE YOU!”

Summers hammered it down against a man’s shoulder, and he fell down, screaming.

Looks almost like a tonfa, or a nightstick, Yael thought, firing into one woman, nailing them in the back of the leg.

They haven’t fired a shot, she realized, before John did just that, firing a wild spray of silenced .223 at one gun’s crew, watching them crumple to the ground. Then where’s the gunfire coming from?

“We’ve got them now. Walker,” Yael said to the stubbly soldier. “Zhang. Guard these bastards. Do what you want if they cause trouble. Summers, Smoky, Carson? You do it for anyone on the other side of the rig. Walker, QS, and I are getting Heliotrope. Then we’re killing the rest.”

That bloodlust surprised her.

Please, God, Yael prayed, Do not let me lose control again...

"Looking forward to it," John said.

...And don't let him lose control either, she hastily added.

“Yael. Something’s Wrong,” Quiette Shy said, as they headed towards a doorway. “They’re Leaving. And Heliotrope Said She Was Pinned. How Long Would It Have Been Before She-”

It was then that she heard Walker yell in anger and surprise, and crumple to the ground…

Heliotrope

Minutes ago

She’d seen the boot jamming through the window, and - with only one option, not sure if her suit worked, barely certain she could fly - flapped her wings and shot forward like a Wonderbolt strapped to a rocket.

She’d closed her eyes as she hit the boot, feeling all the pressure backing up the boot just vanish, the studs digging into her back. The man with the terrible voice, screaming in a way that made her eyes water and ears hurt as Heliotrope - wing blades and wolvers extended - cut through something, feeling blood splash against her.

Vision returned, and Heliotrope was watching the man she’d knocked against, seeing him staggering back near the rail.

With a wordless scream, she turned her back to the man and bucked him towards the railing. He fell over the side of the rig, screaming.

It was then that she heard a sound like someone ~~ripping through flesh~~ stabbing into a melon just like she did back at home when she was cooking.

Heliotrope wouldn’t rightly be able to think of what she was thinking. She saw a man, armed with an M4. She flew faster, ready to unfold her wolvers, outstretching her arms and-

Wait, that’s not a - he’s with Yael - I’m gonna-

She managed to slow herself, but not come to a stop as she barreled into the man.

There was a crash, and she tumbled to the deck.

“Can you get the fuck off me?” the man was asking. Heliotrope saw his name stitched on the vest - ‘A. Walker.’

“Dammit,” Heliotrope said. “I thought you were….” she sighed. “I’m sorry! I just, they’re still on the rig, and I panicked, and-”

“The gunners! They’re gone!” someone called from the other side of the rig.

“As Is Everyone Else,” Quiette Shy said. “What We Are Hearing? It’s Recorded.”

(“Aw, sonovabitch,” A. WALKER said.

“Nothing I hate more than these scum pulling one over on us,” said Summers. Next to him, Smoky nodded.)

“WHAT?!” Heliotrope yelled. They tricked me?! Those goddamn apes, how could they, how… they…

She trembled with rage.

“She’s right,” Yael said. “I can see one of the speakers, now.”

“Literally can’t believe that worked,” one of their prisoners said, through gritted teeth. Someone - possibly John - had shot her through the leg.

“...Where did they go?!” Yael yelled in her face.

“I don’t know,” the woman said, still gritting her teeth. “Lovikov told us to keep firing no matter what. Until he didn’t. Told us to fllow him, then you...”

“Escaping,” Yael hissed. “DAMMIT!”

She kicked the wall, leaving a dent.

Heliotrope backed away from her friend, worried.

“He made a mess and left you in the middle,” said a green-coated pegasus that Heliotrope vaguely recognized as being named Chinook. And to Heliotrope’s surprise, he held out a hoof. “You know, I can really relate to that.”

“You,” the woman said, looking Chinook over. “Really, gluestick?”

“Lady, I’m one of the Stranded,” Chinook sighed, irritated. “I’m from a country that uses wave tactics, has state-sanctioned brainwashing that they’re trying to push as therapy, and barely batted an eye when they left us here. I am almost convinced they hoped I’d, I don’t know, die in some unspeakably graphic manner while being livestreamed on youtube so they could use it as propaganda.”

Their prisoner flinched. Somehow, that made Heliotrope feel better. Good, she thought.

“Where would they have gone?” Heliotrope asked.

“He… he said said there was a boat,” their prisoner said.

Heliotrope shared a look with Yael. As did the rest of their new squad.

“Carson, Zhang? Keep an eye on the prisoners until a chopper gets here,” Yael said. “They’re not getting away that easily. We’re finding them. And we’re going to tear them up.”

“Go for it,” their prisoner said.

Any tension evaporated.

“You seem… pretty enthusiastic about that,” Heliotrope said. Wow. What happened to loyalty?

“Fuck Lovikov,” the prisoner said. “I work for him for years, and he drags me into this? He deserves what he gets.”

Kraber

Kraber had expected a sickening smash or a sound like freight train running over a million marbles. Instead, there was an upward surge like an express elevator, and a sudden roar like a million beehives as propellers left water.

He fisted the ‘emergency stop’ plunger, and the motors died…

Somebody took a breath, a child (or was it a foal?) cheered...

"IDENTIFY YOURSELF!" screamed a voice from ashore. Spotlights swept through the dark, blinding Kraber.

What to do what to do what to do...

"We're workers from the Sorghum!" One of the evacuees yelled. “There’s a guard with us! He’s drove the boat aground, and…. And…”

“It checks out,” said one voice, just behind the spotlights. Kraber only read them as the whitish outline of a person. “There’s a Cold War-era bomb shelter on the island. Follow us there.”

It was jsut then that another shell impacted the a nearby dock that Kraber had simply not noticed, sand spraying up next to them.

“MOVE!”

Kraber’s first instinct was to rush towards the side of the boat….

Before stopping himself. He grabbed the rope ladder and threw it over the side of the railing, waiting as everyone made their way off. Or, more accurately, stampeded off - the creatures that could fly did, and people were jumping over the side, flinging themselves off and landing awkwardly in the sand.

“Next time, get someone who knows how to dock a boat!" someone called out.

And then Kraber noticed something.

Awful quiet there, now...

"It's over!" someone called. "The PHL have them on the ropes now!"

Everyone nearby cheered, and the next few moments were a blur to Kraber.

It's fokkin' over, he thought. And I'm out of it.

He climbed down the ladder he'd set.

First things first, get out, he thought. They'll find out about me sooner or later. And honestly? The HLF are so fokkin' gefok after that. The further I get from that, the better.

Now I need another boat. Maybe a car.

He would've continued, maybe found a car, maybe gotten halfway across the country if not for the pale unicorn mare with a red mane highlighted in purple, who walked up to him as he disembarked.

“Quite an escape,” she said, her cutie mark indistinguishable in the gloom. “ I see you’re wearing PHL armor without a shield. How’d you-”

“Ah,” Kraber said, trying to put on an act of ‘silly-me-how’d-I-forget’ but mentally screaming. “Ah, eh…” and here, he tried to act embarrassed. “When the HLF attacked the rig I kinda traded in my older kit for one of the newer suits…”

The mare eyed the ill fit of the armor and shook her head. “You took this stuff off a dead guy, didn’t you?”

“Oh, no, definitely not, noooooo, no…” Kraber said.

The mare looked at him.

“Yes.”

The mare rolled her eyes, clambering up a ladder surprisingly easily for a pony. “You’re just lucky you didn’t get caught with your pants down.”

“Ah eywis can get dressed and undressed real quickly,” Kraber said quickly, trying to channel a bit of the old suggestiveness he’d used back in med school in Boston. That was what… Ah, fok, he felt so gross doing this! Like he’d just proposed to have sex with a moose, or, well, a horse. Siff, even if it did talk! But that was what PHL did, right? Fok horses? Had to stay convincing.

“I’ll remember that,” the mare said, a contemplative edge to her voice.

Oh, fokking SIFF!

“Anyway, look here?”

She pointed at a round device with a V-like symbol on it, two knobs coming out the top.

“Tap the right knob to turn it on. Congratulations! You just passed training,” the mare said sarcastically.

“Ah, okay,” Kraber said. “Can it… Can I shoot while it’s on?”

“Yeah, it’s calibrated to let nothing in, but stuff can go out just fine,” the mare explained. “Thankfully, you’ve already got a few PHL guns that’d work with it…”

"Lekker," Kraber said. "Thanks so much, ah..."

"Socket Wrench," the mare said. "I'm Socket Wrench."

If ever I owed a pony, Kraber thought, amazed. Oh, thank God, I can keep the MG2021 and that Fostech! And Lovikov thought that'd kill me.... YES! EAT MY KAK, LOVIKOV!

Wait.

Kraber stared out into the ocean, watching a pair of running lights that were heading away from the Sorghum. South.

“...Do you see that shit?” he asked, jamming a set of binoculars against his face so hard his eyelids felt almost bruised.

“What?” Socket Wrench asked.

“You’ve better eyes than me,” Kraber said. “Tell me, does that boat look like it should be leaving right now?”

“Those bastards,” Socket Wrench hissed.

Yael

Once they saw the ship leaving, they’d commandeered a boat, fast enough to catch up to the other boat Lovikov had stolen. The owner had practically thrown it at them.

“Those bastards shot my friends. You tell me how much Celestia paid them for it when you get Laurie-Anne back to me, y’hear?”

“Laurie-Anne” was the boat in question, a former PT boat of some kind. How it had crossed the entire ocean on the Europe Exodus, and why it was this fast were questions Yael didn’t know how to answer. Though these questions didn’t seem too important.

William - Wild Bill, Yael reminded herself - had taken the wheel. Much to her surprise, he’d proven to be excellent at handling it.

Heliotrope walked up to her. Yael could see Lovikov’s boat on the horizon, speeding past the burning city. Towards the shore.

We’ve got you now, she thought.

“You alright?” Yael asked, looking down at her friend.

Heliotrope stared at her, and for a moment, Yael had to reassure herself that her friend wasn’t glaring at her. That she was fine.

“No,” Heliotrope said, curtly. “They tricked me. They walked all over me. Those bastards, they…”

She was silent for a few seconds.

“They bucking cheapshotted me,” she said. “Yael, Lovikov had… something. I don’t know what. It was like a wireframe over a centrifuge, with this bluish or greenish thing in the middle. It hurt to look at.”

What?

Chinook and QS looked to Heliotrope, looks of concern on their faces. Well, presumably on QS’ face.

At least, she feels like she’d be concerned… Yael thought.

“What was it?” Yael asked.

“I don’t know, but it…” Heliotrope said, unsteady. She was backing away slightly. She looked…

Defensive.

“...It was magic,” Heliotrope said, finally. “Or, maybe not magic, but something from Equestria. With human technology added on.”

“What,” Quiette Shy says. The electronic voicebox does not make it sound like a question.

“It hurt when I looked at it,” Heliotrope repeated. “Tell me that’s something Lovikov’s supposed to have.”

Yael looked at her friend.

It was impossible. It had to be impossible. It couldn't...

But Yael would trust Heliotrope with her life. Her very soul. No, Yael thought. She saw it.

"You don't believe me, do you?" Heliotrope said, not looking at Yael.

"No," Yael said. "I absolutely do. I just..."

The ship that Lovikov had taken drew closer and closer.

"I'll think about it, okay?" Yael asked. "Promise."

She could see those monsters now. Milling around on the deck without a care in the world. Yael was almost certain that some of them were laughing, but later she wouldn't be sure. Maybe some of them were trying to cope.

But at that moment, she saw red.

I'm going to destroy them, Yael thought. Rip them to shreds.

“Everyone!” she yelled. “Fire on the that boat! Colonel Gardner, we are engaging…”

I’m already on it,” Gardner said. “Directing our choppers towards the stolen boat We’ll drown those sons of bitches! Delilah Two, take it on - We’ll be bringing Samson around to follow you!”

In the admittedly long list of terrible moments of August 8, that one would always stand out to her.

Samson and a PHL helicopter, a Blackhawk they’d bought on the cheap, following the stolen boat.

The stolen boat speeding away. The blackhawk - Delilah Two - firing missiles at the tugboat, surprisingly fast.

“We’ll show these HLF bastards what happens when you decide to-” Gardner’s voice rang out from Yael’s earpiece.

For a few seconds, Gardner was silent.

“I… I Feel Something,” Quiette Shy said. It was impossible for Yael to tell what emotion she was feeling, with her hidden face and electronic voicebox. "Something. Wrong."

“What in the hell is that?!”

In several seconds, it would become easier for Yael to believe that Lovikov had procured something like what Heliotrope had described.

Kraber

They were almost settling in when they saw it.

“Can you ID my pistols so they work with it too?” Kraber was asking, holding out his .45 and .50. “I know how it fokking looks, but these are old friends of mine.”

“Another time,” Socket Wrench said, as they walked along the beach. “For now just shut up and let me do the talking… and for what it’s worth, thanks for getting them out of that madhouse. Good job sol-”

Her jaw dropped.

“Good Luna, what’s that?!” she yelled, pointing at something with one foreleg.

Kraber, the motley crew he’d rescued, the people of Mackworth Island stared over at the scene in awe. There was the PHL helicopter gunship, (What the fok was that thing, anyway?!) the Blackhawk…

And the thing that had just appeared. Kraber couldn’t rightly say how - one minute, there was nothing. Then it was just there - a dark gray vehicle near identical to the massive gunship that Gardner had brought, bristling with guns, and marked with a red symbol not unlike a horse-skull.

Something hit Kraber like a train. Not physically, but mentally, and his brain jolted ever so slightly.

...Have I seen this before? Kraber wondered. There was something familiar about the symbol, but something was deeply wrong. Something was screaming at him ‘No, this isn’t how it goes!’

Something in the back of his head ached. He looked over to Socket Wrench, who seemed to be getting a nosebleed. Snoutbleed?

“This isn’t-” Socket Wrench hissed through gritted teeth.

“Is it some kind of weapon?!” the not-quite-griffon Kraber had rescued yelled, looking around frantically. Curiously, she was unaffected. As was another one of that same species.

The ship floated, still curiously silent despite the rotors that kept it aloft. Below it, Kraber could see the stolen boat, speeding along towards the shore. The PHL chopper and other leviathan vehicle followed the stolen boat, ready to fire. Though there was a curious sense of… hesitance to them.

“Who in the hell is that?!” someone next to Kraber whispered.

“Like I’d know!” someone else put in.

The PHL chopper fired a missile down towards the stolen HLF ship.

Several things happened. The mystery ship fired one of its turrets down at the missile, which harmlessly exploded just above the stolen HLF ship. The same turret paused, then…

Incredibly, impossibly…

It fired on the PHL, raking them with tracer fire.

What the fok?! Kraber thought frantically.

The smaller PHL helicopter swerved to side, machinegun fire spraying out from its door.

“YOU BASTARDS!” Kraber yelled, shaking his fist at the craft, though he knew it couldn’t possibly even notice him. “Do you know what that man’s done?! You can’t let him get away with it! You can’t-”

As if to punctuate it, the other craft - the one with the skull on it - fired a missile straight into the helicopter’s open door.

It broke in half, tail section spiralling into the ocean below, the cockpit dropping like a stone.

Dayoung

Dayoung would never really be sure whether it was the best or worst thing that happened to her. The three of them rushed out of Portland, heading north. Back to Rangeley, perhaps.

This can’t be happening, she thought. Can’t be happening. I’m back home. I have to go. And I’ll tell Grapevine I’m sorry-

“GO!” Benning was yelling to the driver of the HLF APC they’d all fled onto. It was full beyond capacity, and the sound of the homemade DsHK behind them was near defening “GO GO GO GO GO!”

The radio spat out a series of meaningless syllables Dayoung could only barely follow in the midst of the chaos.

“National Guard dispatched on Portland - war zone-”

Next to them, another truck full of HLF raced towards the city outskirts.

We have to get out! Dayoung thought. Before they get us, before I’m one of those Things…!

“Leonid,” Benning said, “What have you done.”

THOOM

Dayoung would later swear that she saw what happened next, but Megan would paint a different picture. So would Megan. As best Dayoung would later be able to puzzle out, a heavyset red-orange pegasus wearing a flightsuit with the words ‘THE STRANDED’ stitched on had flown alongside the other HLF truck, a molotov cocktail in their mouth, of all things.

She’d dropped it into the bed.

“THIS IS FUCKING WAR, BABY!” the pegasus yelled.

“Don’t let it get me,” Dayoung whispered. “Don’t let it get me, don’t let the gluestick get me, I won’t be one of those things!”

“You’ll be fine,” Benning said. “I promise.”

It was a lie and Dayoung knew it.

A National Guard vehicle - Dayoung didn’t know what - sat on one corner. Benning floored their truck, throwing the improvised APC to the left.

“There’s another neighborhood we can go through,” Benning said. “It-”

A burst of automatic fire drowned out whatever she was about to say. Bullets pocked the sides. National guard, rioter, PHL, it was impossible for Dayoung to guess. Everything simply blurred together, as Dayoung sat in the front seat, hunched over, hyperventilating.

“COME ON!” Someone who sounded like Megan but simply couldn’t be yelled, from behind her. “SUCK IT!”

The homemade DsHK roared as their truck rushed towards the city limits. They were near the seaside now, through a series of buildings that Lovikov apparently hadn’t destroyed.

Dayoung watched the sea. Her vision tracked to a small boat, rushing madly towards the shore. For a fraction of a second, she had a perfect view of it allt. The helicopter, the massive gunship chasing Lovikov’s boat.

“That’s Lovikov!” Dayoung yelled, staring at the boat. “He’s escaping!”

Somehow, I almost feel disappointed.

“What?!” Benning asked, staring over at it, catching only a fleeting glance.

Someone fired on the truck, bullets spattering the windshield. Bits of glass and upholstery sprayed against Dayoung, and the wind whipped against her face.

They turned right. Towards the ocean.

“No,” Dayoung whispered, but inside she was hoping they’d get him.

As they turned the corner, she saw it. There were two of the massive gunships now, except one was dark gray or black and emblazoned with a red symbol.

“Where did that come from?!” Dayoung yelled, just before it began shooting on the PHL.

“I don’t know,” Benning said. “Whatever that was, Lovikov never told me about it.”

He has that kind of help?! Dayoung thought. What in God’s name is going on?!

Lovikov was going to get away with this. And so was she.

Somehow that didn’t comfort Dayoung.

Heliotrope

“No,” Heliotrope whispered, staring at the falling helicopter.

“WHO ARE YOU?!” Gardner was roaring over her earpiece. “YOU’RE LETTING A TERRORIST, A MASS MURDERER GET AWAY! HOW DARE YOU, HOW FUCKING DARE Y-”

His voice cut out, as the mystery ship fired a missile at Samson.

THOOM

“NOT YET!” Gardner yelled over the radio.

The Samson wobbled in midair, flame spewing from its engine.

“Yael,” Oscar said, “We’re going down. I just want you to know, I-”

“No,” Yael said, quietly. Then, substantially less quietly: “No… NO!”

The Samson banked to the side, and Heliotrope’s earpiece was full of static. She watched in rapt fascination as the Samson swung around, valiantly trying to stay aloft. As it to the ground, the mystery ship fired another missile at Samson.

Another explosion.

For a few, terrible seconds, Yael couldn’t see any lights on in the Samson, which was tumbling tail over teakettle towards the coast. Towards South Portland.

“What kind of deus ex machina bullshit is this?!” Summers roared, spitting over the side of the rig.

With the Samson careening towards the ground, the mystery ship floated aimlessly for a second. Then, floating up towards the cloud cover, disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Once it passed through a sufficiently large cloud, it was like it’d never been there in the first place.

“Whoever this is,” Heliotrope said, “They’re going to pay.”

Dancing Day
December 2022

“Oscar lived, though” Heliotrope says. “Same for Lorne, and Eva. Smoky, too.”

“Why would you spoil it like that?” Dancing Day asks. “I thought it was going to be some big thing…”

“...It’s not a spoiler, we all knew,” Rivet says.

“Honestly,” Amber Maple says. “What would it do if we sat on it like that? This was months ago, it’s perfectly obvious.”

Kraber beams at her. “I’m so proud of you, Amber,” he says.

“Why thank you,” Amber Maple says.

“On the subject of people that survived,” Yael adds, “Unfortunately, it included Gardner.”

“You really hate him, don’t you?” Vinyl marvels.

“I’ve felt hate before,” Yael says. “Usually when I do that, things end up…” she looks to the side, then quiets down ever so slightly. “Things get broken.”

Her voice hardens.

“What I feel about Gardner,” she continues, growing in intensity, her stare hardening, “makes everything I felt when I decided to give in and burn something down look like anemic, mewling little kittens.”

Heliotrope cringes ever so slightly.

“Still,” Aegis says, “It turned out alright in the end.”

“I still have the duik in my boot,” Kraber says, a smile on his face as he raises up one combat boot to almost the same height as his chin.

“You are crazy flexible,” Aegis breathes.

Mommy blushes and starts giggling. After a few seconds, so does Aegis, and then Heliotrope.

“I don’t get it,” Amber Maple says.

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Rivet says.

“But I am older than you,” Amber Maple points out.

“And ‘duik’ is…” Dancing Day asks.

“Dent,” Kraber says, tapping the front of the boot. Indeed, on Kraber’s scuffed and worn boots, there is a dent in the front, just above where the biggest human finger (or whatever those smaller little fingers on the hindlegs are called, Dancing Day thinks) is.

“You could’ve gotten that boot replaced by now,” Spitfire points out. Which is a surprise, Dancing Day had almost forgotten she was there. “It’s jus-”

“DAGA KOTOWARU!” Kraber interrupts.

“Wha-” Babs Seed starts.

Dancing Day does not know what that means, but it’s pretty clear that it’s some sort of refusal.

“I earned that duik!” Kraber says. “PHL also got me a medal. Far as I’m concerned, this dent-” he points to his boot, still held in a position that hurts Dancing Day just to look at- “-And my medal are the same. It means I came, I saw… and I kicked gat!”

“Well said,” Aegis says, nodding.

“Well, more like you kicked face in this case,” Heliotrope says. “I’ve been meaning to ask, what is with you and kicking people in the face?”

Kraber shrugs. “Blame my upbringing.”

“There’s just one thing I’m wondering, though,” Babs Seed says.

“What he just said?” Scootaloo asks.

“No,” Babs Seed says, “Like… who were those people that saved Lovikov? Why would they do it?!”

“It’s…” Yael looks to Heliotrope, who looks to Aegis, who looks back to Kraber. Then they look at each other.

“A real mess?” Vinyl suggests.

“It was worse than that,” Heliotrope says. “We’ll get to that. Soon enough.”

“I do get it,” Aegis says. “I was confused too. Back in the Neighborhood, everyone was watching a blurry cellphone video of the thing for days. Months, even.”

“Cherry Tomato?” Rivet asks. “Y’know, parents were Independents? He said his parents said that they thought it was a PHL conspiracy, that they wanted Lovikov alive.”

“Oh, that’s just some horseapples,” Soarin’ snorts.

Those four again - Yael, Heliotrope, Aegis, Kraber - stare at each other. Uncertain.

“Right,” Yael says. It’s not a question, agreement, or disagreement. To Dancing Day, it sounds more like a noise, like a sigh or a whinny or something.

“I wonder, though,” Dancing Day said, “Why don’t we ask Verity what happened to her?”

Verity

“It’s time,” Lovikov had said minutes earlier, into a cheap-looking phone made mostly from plastic. “Code Moloko.”

And then, Verity had been watching the PHL gunship - like a giant metal plate with rotors attached - careening towards the ground. Watched the other, identical black (or dark gray?) gunship vehicle which seemed to be melting into the night as it drifted upwards into the clouds. It didn’t make a sound as it floated up through the heavy gray clouds, disappearing as quickly as it appeared.

And then, as their stolen boat sped towards shore, far from the wreckage of the PHL gunship, all was silent.

“What…” Verity breathed, staring up at the space where it had been.

Menschabwehrfraktion and Thenardiers alike staggered up from the hidden deck, from the cabin, staring at the sky.

“How did you…” asked Sullivan, the bear of a man that’d been seen restraining Kraber.

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Lovikov said.

“But… but…” Verity said. “You never told anyone you could do that! If you had that kind of power, why didn’t you-”

“Verity,” Lovikov laughed, “I’m not going to pretend this was a minor setback. This was…”

His eye twitched.

“Galt used me,” Lovikov said. “Thought I was expendable. Tried to force me into this.”

He gestured to the Sorghum.

Verity nodded, something about Lovikov piercing her carefully manufactured calm.

“Thought so,” Lovikov said. “Sure, he didn’t come through. But my backing did.”

“Who were they?” Verity asked. “Who… how… where…”

Lovikov raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Verity let that line of questioning drop.

“Anyway, me and my backing, now that I know that they trust me,” Lovikov said, “We’re going to have some fun.”

“How?!” Verity yelled. “One of your best is missing, there’s a bunch of us dead, and you’re branded a terrorist! As far as I can tell, your plan is pretty much-”

Lovikov smirked, and stepped towards Verity, who then found herself backing away, almost involuntarily.

Verity could see Portland behind him - the skyline of a burning, bombed-out city. The lights from the tug gave his face an eerie look.

“Oh, Verity,” he said. “That was Galt’s plan. Mine hasn’t even begun.”

Dayoung

The truck rounded the corner, moving along the seaside, passing restaurants, a Starbucks. Dayoung saw from one sign that there was a narrow-gauge railroad ahead.

“Gotten quiet,” Benning said. “Alright. We’ll regroup, and then I’ll ask Lovikov wha-”

The words died in her throat. As they drew closer to what had once been the Portland bureau, they saw men, women, and ponies.

Dayoung’s heart sank.

“Halt!” someone yelled. Ponies and humans rushed forward, rifles ready. “We’re here to help. We have a safe place we can-”

“Oh,” Benning snarled, “Like hell I’m stopping for these jumped-up jackbooted little horsefuckers.”

“Are you going to ram them?!” Megan asked, sounding unsettlingly gleeful.

Benning raised an eyebrow. Stared into the mirror.

“It sounds cool, but…. are you high?” she asked, and turned the truck around. “Don’t shoot at then. Any of you. We’re up to here in the shit already.”

Which surprised Dayoung, but then, it wouldn’t have been altogether sane or logical to ram a barricade of PHL.

They were turning around, heading south when it happened.

A unicorn nearby fired off a gray-white beam the color of mist at their truck, and it drew to a halt.

“Shit,” Benning hissed. “Typical PHL. I should’ve seen it coming.”

“Do I shoot them yet?” Megan asked, and Dayoung was more convinced than ever that something had broken deep within her friend. She… almost sounded like she was beginning to look forward to it.

“Not yet,” Benning said. “We don’t know what’s going on.”

“And… this could be the best way out that we have left,” Dayoung heard herself say.

“That’s bullshit!” someone yelled from the back of the truck. “That’d be abandoning Lovikov!”

“We fired on a city,” Dayoung said. “Any court would convict us. Maybe we just… shouldn’t make it worse.”

“Coward,” someone hissed as the PHL rushed towards the broken truck, weapons ready.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear us clearly enough,” a pony said, their face concealed. “We have somewhere safe for you. There’s no need to be afraid.”

The back of Dayoung’s neck tingled. She looked the soldiers over, and-

Wait a second.

The armor looked… odd.

She remembered the armor that the PHL from her hometown had worn. This stuff was… old. Scuffed. Worn. It looked…. Almost half-melted. Like it’d been twisted into the shape of a PHL hardsuit hazmat.Something just looked wrong. And there was a faint smell in the air. Like rotten grapes. It was familiar, hauntingly so, but what?!

“Sir,” one human said, looking over to the pony that seemed to be in command. “Tinderbox. These aren’t residents. They’re HLF. Aligned with the ones that fired on the city.”

“Are they now?” the pony said, a smile curving along their face. “Well then, at least nobody’s going to miss them.”

“I say we do it to them,” one human soldier said. “Here. Now.”

“Not yet,” the pony said. “Get out. All of you. Right bucking now.”

“I will not,“ Benning said, “Obey some little gluestick who thinks he’s a soldier.”

“My M16,” another human soldier said, “Says you will. You do it, right now, or I say you resisted arrest and maybe leave a little… collateral damage.”

“Come on,” another pony said. “Babineau. There’s no need for that sort of violence. We’re only here to help.”

And with those words, it clicked.

They’re being evasive. And if they could have shot us, they would have. And that smell - those words-

“You’re PER!” Dayoung yelled. “We have to get out of here, they’re PER and they have potion!”

All hell broke loose.

Author's Note

You know, I considered ending it with Lovikov’s line about his plan not having even begun, but I needed some way to make it look like what I do in the next chapter didn’t come out of nowhere.

This was… a very complex chapter. Had to completely rewrite everything at least five times over, introduce a massive amount of PoV sections. As Keroko (Thanks, Keroko! You’re pretty great) has pointed out, the rig was a terrible decision on the HLF’s part. I felt kind of locked into it, but then… what was I going to do? Make a completely different series of events?

As for who the Stranded are, well… I figure it’d be easy. A big part of Spectrum’s backstory has always been how ponies were essentially left to die on Earth when Equus declared war, and I spent a lot of time wondering what that’d to somepony.

Expect some exploration of that! And more Chinook. He was surprisingly fun to write.

11: Anarchy / Running In The ‘90s / Bad Motherfucker / Trout Mask Replica

Light Despondent Remixed

Chapter 11

Anarchy / Running In The ‘90s / Bad Motherfucker

Shouts out to Jed and Vox for the edits. And, perhaps, Tb3, as his original writing does still exist somewhere in here.

Goodbye, it's been fine
Echoes through my mind
Soundwaves break my face
Everyone can be replaced

I A M A L L R I O T
What else do you want me to be

[Chorus]
Anarchy, won't you be
Won't you be my baby, oh
Anarchy, won't you be, woah
Biting Elbows, Anarchy

Tracey: When you can't run, you crawl. And when you can't crawl, when you can't do that...
Zoe: ...you find someone to carry you.
Firefly

Yael
August 8, 2022

“What is this bullshit?!” Bowie yelled.

“WHAT?!” Heliotrope roared.

“The fuck did you-” Summers started.

“Like hell we are,” Yael says. “We were on the Sorghum earlier. We stopped the guns, dammit!”

“We Nearly Lost Heliotrope There,” Quiette Shy added. “We. Had. Nothing. To Do. With That.”

The volume in her automatic voicebox steadily increased, even as QS managed the same tone. It was as close as she could get to yelling.

“And you’re herding us like cattleinto the Bureau,” another National Guard said, their face hidden by a gas mask.

“We’re not,” Yael said. “The ten of us only just got onto the mainland. We were ordered by Colonel Gardner to help restore order in the city, so we came to–”

“Enough excuses,” the squad leader snapped. The men and women behind him were trembling. “Surrender to us now, and we shoot you.”

“Don’t you mean or?” Chinook asked.

“That’s your decision, not mine,” the squad leader said.

“Try it,” Heliotrope said, snarling. “I dare you. We’ll fucking destroy y–”

In that moment, Yael fired on the National Guard. Her squadmates died, she took a bullet, and after the firefight, there’d be an explosion on social media about how she had aided and abetted PER. About the overreach of the PER. About how they failed utterly, about letting them arm the Sorghum. More families dead, more of her friends dead, her in jail... Maybe even being left to die in the prison during Barrierfall.

And knowing full well she deserved it.

That didn’t happen.

Yael’s next option hurt to think about. Hurt to consider.

‘It’s this or another Nipville,’ she thought, her mind racing.

“There’s a way out of this,” Heliotrope said, the purplish-pink pegasus’ eyes darting back and forth. “We could…”

Yael looked down at her friend. In the instant she made that small movement, she thought of all the ways she had to say it, writing, discarding, and revising what felt like hundreds of ways she could talk to her friend without somehow saying the wrong thing.

“There’s not much we could do,” Yael said. “And I think you know that. This way, none of us get hurt.”

Heliotrope sighed, looking down. Looking… drained.

‘Whatever I said, I think it was right.’

“Heliotrope’s right,” Summers said. “All due respect, First Lieutenant, we could shred them here and now. QS shields us with her magic, we fill them with lead. There’s nobody who would kn-”

‘What,’ Yael thought.

“That’s Not The PHL Way, Though, Is It?” Quiette Shy asked. “And WeWould Know.”

“QS” Yael said. “Let me handle this. But I need you to say that again.”

“I said, First L–” Summers started, sounding strangely satisfied with himself. Beside him, Smoky dug at the pavement with his foreleg, snorting slightly.

“Because,” Yael interrupted, “It soundedlike you were saying to kill other military personnel we should be working with. Something that would in all likelihood be worse than what I’ve done in the last four days. I couldn’t have heard you saying that, could I? Because whatever the PHL has done, that would easily be one of the worst things on the list. I can’t have heard that.”

Summers stared at her, wide-eyed.

“I… must have…” he started. Then slumped. “No,” he said. “You didn’t hear it. That… would’ve been...”

“That’s what I thought,” Yael said.

‘Lord, do not make me regret thi–’

Yael’s earpiece crackled, so loudly it felt like she’d been punched in the ear. She winced.

“WE NEED HELP!” Major Haddon screeched into the piece. “First Lieutenant Ze’ev, I am orderingyou to support us!”

‘What to do, what to do?!’Yael thought. ‘Damn. Damn damn damn damn damn! That’s an order. They’re already breathing down my neck about Nipville. If I disobey a direct order, they’ll separate us. Me and Heliotrope, and…’

Hey eyes widened.

‘Oscar and Quiette Shy. Nobody else will know how to work with her. I’m what she knows, and I… I can’t sell out a friend. Oscar… No. Not Oscar. He’ll get repossessed. Legally, I have no right to employ him, and I could get in big trouble for it.’

And then came the voice of Gardner.

“I am ordering you to follow him, Ze’ev! Regroup with Haddon, now! Do whatever you have to. If our fellow PHL are in trouble, it’s our duty to help them!”

“Oh, what’s that?!” one National Guard yelled. “You getting orders to ponify us, here and now? Turn us into those little wind-up toys?!”

Haddon, screaming into the earpiece like a banshee. “He’s killing us! He got Barnes in the balls, and–”

A gunshot. A scream.

“OH GOD! RUNNING WIND GOT SHOT IN THE THROAT!” a woman shrieked from the other end of Yael’s earpiece. She didn’t recognize the voice.

[i]“The HLF are killing them,” Gardner spoke. “It is your duty to help.”

“He says there’s PER,” Yael replied. “He’s willing to hold us at gunpoint. I’m–”

“Have you not considered,” Gardner said, practically spitting out those last three syllables, “That they could be the PER? That they could be HLF?”

“Yael,” Heliotrope said, “He does make a good point, they–”

“Admittedly, yes,” Yael spoke to Gardner. Then, to him but clearly intended also for Heliotrope, and all the PHL and National Guard in the immediate area, she said, “But no. They were ready to shoot PHL. They were so psychotically angry that nothing else mattered. Either they’re right, or they’re all such good actors that I wouldn’t notice the slightest hint of a tell on any of them.”

“Are you saying that Haddon, someone I personallytrust,” Gardner spoke, “A man that has been with the PHL as long as I can remember, is PER?”

“I’m saying these National Guard,” Yael said, “Are unlikely to be PER. Or HLF. I’m saying that I’m not going to shoot anyone until I know what’s going on.”

“We have to!” cried Heliotrope.

“But. We Are Screwed If We Do,” said Quiette Shy.

“If we do what?” demanded Bowie.

Quiette Shy and Heliotrope answered at the same time. Heliotrope dejected, Quiette Shy sounding much like she always did.

“Yes.”

Yael felt like a rookie all over again. Her commanding officer dead. Finding herself in charge of the squad. Surrounded by Newfoals, Imperial Guard, and other grunts of the Equestrian military, all bent on turning them into broken little half-people. No way out that didn’t make her stomach churn.

“Look,” said Bro. “I’m sure we can talk this out. We all need to put down the guns, and–”

The National Guard squad leader snapped back. “What? So you can ponifyus?”

“Nobody’s ponifying anyone, dammit!” Wild Bill yelled. “You’d see that if you’d just listento us!”

‘Whatever I have to.’

Meaning ‘I won’t question if you follow Summers’ suggestion.’

‘Actually, won’t it be worse if I shoot them? The optics. The way it’ll look if I, if the PHL shoot National Guard. The way every crazy from Yarrow to Lovikov will be right. Gardner. Summers. What, in the name of all that is good and pure, is wrong with you two?!’

“What’s it gonna be, First Lieutenant?” Bowie asked. “What’s it gonna be?!”

It wasn’t exactly disciplined, it was probably an unacceptable way to talk to the commanding officer...

But then, this wasn’t exactly a normal situation.

“Alright,” Yael said. “I surrender.”

Kraber

“YOU’RE FOKKED!”Kraber roared, pasting one of the fake PHL in the throat with his revolver. “BEND OVER AND TAKE IT, VARKNAAIERS!”

Okay. Pause. Let’s back up a second or two or three or four.

In the span of those few seconds, as Kraber had been holding the stretcher with one hand, he was trying to think of the most badass one-liner while also drawing the .44 revolver from his hip holster. Feeling the front sight blade brush against the bottom of the stretcher.

And then firing.

For all of Barnes’ body armor, it was still point-blank for a .44 magnum, loaded for hollowpoint ammo with a ball bearing in the hollow. The man fell to the ground, shrieking in pain, clutching the ruins of his genitals.

Exactly as Kraber had predicted, there was a bang from that rifle he’d noticed in that window. One of the ‘PHL’ fell to the ground, grasping a bloody hole in their chest.

‘Just as planned.’

Slightly before that moment – the presumably fake PHL unsure of who to shoot – Kraber and Nebula had made their move.

Kraber leapt to the right, his black Smith and Wesson Model 29 in his right hand. Nebula rocketed off to the left, dragging Rime Ice’s stretcher with one foreleg and somehow keeping it aloft.

As Kraber flew sideways towards the wrecked hulk of a car, practically parallel to the ground, he squeezed the trigger. Which is how we get to the following quote:

“YOU’RE FOKKED! BEND OVER AND TAKE IT, VARKNAAIERS!”

As Kraber flung himself to the side, he pulled the trigger.

This was a terrible place to shoot from, and the recoil was so high the gun practically jumped out of his hands, but Kraber was at close enough range that it didn’t matter. The .44 round tore through the neck of the one masked pony, all but beheading them.

Their head dropped to the ground, and by the light of the neon sign, the guns blazing, Kraber saw the pony’s face.

Glassy-eyed. Unfocused. A wide smile on its face.

‘That,’ Kraber thought, the world slowing around him, ‘is a fokdamn Newfoal. I was right. Fokdammit. I was right.’

He fired again. A .44 round from the Smith and Wesson smashed against Haddon’s chestplate. This being PHL body armor, the .44 wasn’t an instant kill. There was a massive dent in the vest, but it didn’t look like the bullet went very far.

It did, however, hit Haddon like a train. He staggered.

So did Kraber. He was dimly aware of something hitting his shoulder as he slid-fell into cover behind an old, battered van, breathing heavily. Dammit. He’d been shot. Wincing more in anticipation of what he’d feel on his armor, he placed a hand over his left shoulder to find a lump of…

A bullet or three…

… They had deformed against the shoulder of the PHL body armor!

Damn, PHL stuff was lekker! Maybe there was something to being a horsefucker. Sure, it stung like a woman with teeth in her beef portal, but he was alive and not bleeding everywhere.

Thankfully, Kraber had a pain threshold that could – and had–let him take a barstool to the face without even staggering, so he dragged himself back into a sitting position against the back of the truck.

Someone was playing a saxophone off in the distance, weirdly enough.

The rifle, probably bolt-action, judging by the delay in reports, kept firing, spitting hot lead towards the fake PHL. Before Kraber’s eyes, a round drilled through the skull of one fake PHL man. They collapsed backwards, head bouncing against the pavement.

All around them, people and ponies were coming out of the woodwork to fight against the fake PHL. A blue unicorn mare lifted a trash-can with her TK, and flung it at one of the fake PHL, this one an earthpony with a heavy minigun in their assault saddles.

“We’ve got ‘em now!” Kraber heard someone yelling. He looked across the street, seeing a man dressed like National Guard with a gas mask, wearing armor that looked like it’d been burnt. “Some crazy bastard just shot Alan Barnes in the leg, under a damn stretcher he was carrying!”

The man settled into cover at the edge of a brick building, firing off an M16.

“He’s starting a firefight!” the man in burned National Guard fatigues yelled.

With a noise that wasn’t quite a sigh, they crumpled like a leaf as the trash can hit them right in the face.

“BLISS!” Nebula yelled. “What in the blazes did you get us into?!”

“They’re faking!” Kraber yelled. “They’re not really PHL! Dayoung was right!”

“I know that!” Nebula yelled back. “But this some crazy horseapples!”

She tapped a pair of bracers on both forelegs, revealing a set of claws – like three long knives. Like… Wolverine?

Huh.

“Sure wish I brought a gun about now!” Nebula yelled, as a pickup truck rolled up behind the three of them. In the bed was a black man with a Kalashnikov, and armor that had almost certainly been HLF-owned before he’d smeared it with the PHL’s mint-green, rolled up in the back of a pickup truck.

He fanned the trigger of his rifle, laying short controlled bursts at the fake PHL in the street.

Kraber poked his head around the side of the wreck of the car, jerking it back when bullets pinged against the vehicle’s metal frame.

Up on the roof, Kraber saw a red-orange pegasus in a jumpsuit reading ‘STRANDED’ jump up from the roof like a rocket, soaring up into the air. What looked for all the world like fire streamed off from her mane and tail. She was carrying four bottles, one in the mouth, three between the arms.

She flung the bottles down towards the presumably fake PHL, then twisted into a curious maneuver like a corkscrew or a barrel roll, flames trailing behind her all the way.

“SUCK IT!” she yelled, as the contrails of flame behind her ignited the bottles… which burst into flame just above the fake PHL.

One bottle smashed against the head of another fake PHL. The flame splashed over her, and she stood in place, screaming in agony.

In the distance, Kraber heard the roar of an engine.

“DAMN IT!” Giddy Gallop yelled. “We’re dying out here, and they’re onto us! Haddon, PHASE THREE!”

At which point, Haddon reached behind his back and pulled out a small crossbow.

With a ‘thwip’, the dart hit the flaming PHL soldier in the knee, and they fell to the ground convulsing.

A moderately interesting fact to note here is that Kraber, whatever his mental state, is something of a savant. But, at this moment, he didn’t need that to know what a fake PHL using a crossbow in the company of a Newfoal could mean.

“EAT THIS!” Kraber yelled, and – remembering a tidbit from the Expansenovels – fired a .44 round at the screaming, flaming woman’s throat.

Everything between her sternum and chin exploded, her flaming helmet jumping up about a foot at falling to the ground facedown. Her headless corpse fell, chest-down.

“HOW’S THAT FOR A MERCY KILL, VARKNAAIER!”

‘Two left.’

A flash of movement. Another one of the fake PHL – this one human – was poking their head out of cover. Kraber fired the Smith and Wesson, the revolver’s thick wooden grip bucking backwards in his hands.

Whatever the PHL armor was made of, the transparent faceplates they had were not. The .44 round drilled through the forehead just above the eye, splashing the transparent faceplate red.

‘One.’

“We need reinforcements!” Haddon yelled. “We are under siege from HLF and PER at once! It’s a three-way!”

Giddy Gallop jumped out from cover, spiralling up through the air. Bullets and even a grenade or two or three whistled past him, but they almost seemed to veer away from him as he flew towards the ground like a meteor.

Kraber fired the last round in the cylinder. Giddy Gallop dodged like he knew where the bullet would hit before Kraber even fired it.

“She was my FRIEND!” Giddy Gallop yelled, assault yoke blazing towards Kraber. Bullets ripped through the air.

‘Okay,’ Kraber thought, suddenly veryconscious of the emptiness of his revolver’s cylinder. ‘Hier kom Groot Kak!.’

Heliotrope

‘Where do they get off doing this to us?’ Heliotrope had thought just before Yael made the announcement. ‘We’re the PHL! We have th–’

And then Yael surrendered.

‘WHAT!’

She wasn’t sure what she thought of this whole situation. Held at gunpoint by National Guard? This was… this was definitely a new one.

“Yael,” Heliotrope hissed, “What, in the name of Faust, are you thinking?”

“If we’re surrendered, then we can talk things out.” Yael said, as she walked forward. “This way, nobody has to die. And there’s no reason for me to make things worse.”

Everyone in the street was silent for a few seconds.

Yael stared at the National Guard squad leader. “What?” she asked.

“I… didn’t think you would actually surrender,” the squad leader said. “I didn’t think it would get this far.”

“I was kind of hoping to kill PER,” another National Guard said.

“But,” Yael said, “We can help with that.”

“I saw yourcommanding officer ordering us to the edges of the city,” the squad leader said.

“Wait. Gardner? Him working with the PER?” Yael asked. “Something’sdefinitely screwed with him, but I can’t see him being PER.”

‘What?’ Heliotrope thought. ‘No. No no… well…’

And then she remembered how he’d treated Dancing Day. That was… well. That just wasn’t right.

‘She’s a pony,’Heliotrope thought. ‘More importantly, a little filly. And he… Yeah. Something’s not right with him. Yael’s been right this whole time. I have to admit that. But… he’s directing us against HLF. He helped us take over the rig. He can’t be all bad.’

Then again, Heliotrope would have to wonder. Why had she thought ‘all bad’?

“Who’s Gardner?” another National Guard asked. “We were ordered to help them into the hospital by Major Haddon.”

“I work under Colonel Robert Gardner,” Yael said. “We were assigned to the rig. Whatever you were thinking of, we had nothing to do with it and didn’t receive any of those orders.”

She spoke with absolute certainty. All around her, Heliotrope could see the National Guard lowering their weapons, relaxing their posture.

‘That’s Yael for you,’ Heliotrope thought, nodding with a smile on her face. Beside her, Quiette Shy breathed a sigh of relief.

“And where do you even get the idea we’d be ponifying people?!” Heliotrope asked, fluttering over. “We’d… we’d never…”

“Because I saw it, alright?” the squad leader said. “We were ordered to the edge of the city. Haddon said that as this was a PHL-related emergency, he was taking command. And, and everything was so chaotic I…” He swallowed. “I just didn’t know how to react. He acted like he had authority, everything was exploding, I didn’t know what to do! So, I’m heading to the northern edge of the city, and see someone walking out of the Bureau ruins with crates. Then I look through a scope into one of the hospital rooms, and... And clear as day, I can see someone being ponified through one of the windows. There’s Newfoals walking all through what’s left of the hallways, and nobody’s coming out.”

Without warning, and quite uninvited, he gripped Heliotrope’s foreleg.

“Let go of me,” Heliotrope said, keeping the tremor out of her voice. Just like she imagined Yael would say it. “Now.”

“Nobody’s coming out,” he repeated, before letting go. “And all the PHL there, except for you, apparently, are letting it happen.”

“First Lieutenant Ze’ev, there’s something worse,” another National Guard said. A woman. Yael couldn’t make out much behind their potion armor’s visor. “They got a lot of other PHL, some of my friends to help them set up the Bureau they have going in there. Like, like Arthur Wright, Ladan, Rime Ice, or Tea Cozy, or Adaego - you know, that earthpony with the tea stand, that zebra huckster? And Sylvia Bray. Friend of mine who works at Maine Medical. I think that…”

The woman sounded like she’d vomit in her helmet. Heliotrope had done that before, back during the Crystal War – somehow, it was not as fun as it sounded.

“I think that they’re suckering PHL, ponies, PHL allies into helping them do it,” the woman said. “These people… Sylvia especially… they can’t know what they’re doing. The PER are forcing our PHL friends, others, to help them ponify.”

A shiver ran down Heliotrope’s back, through seemingly every last inch of her feathers. ‘That’s monstrous…’

“And by the time they realize where they are, they’re surrounded by potion, and they’re stuck in there.”

Everyone turned to the one who’d last spoken, John – well, he was Bowieto everyone but Heliotrope by then – curious looks on their faces.

“What?” Walker asked.

“I got stuck doing that in the Purple Winter when I was in Manchester,” Bowie said. “Some people I thoughtwere my friends and some ponies were saying they were creating a shelter for all the violence, I got pressed into guarding it. By th–”

A blast of heat and sound resonated in the distance.

“What was that?” Zhang asked, her eyes wide behind the transparent faceplate of her armor.

In that moment, Quiette Shy spoke what was on everyone’s mind.

“Nothing Good.”

Kraber

Kraber shoved the revolver back into the holster on his right hip, and whipped out the .45 pistol.

‘I’m not going to be able to reload that thing. This is quicker. They’re usually armed with SMGs. The bullets probably won’t penetrate, but I don’t want to bet on that. I need cover.’

Kraber looked over towards a broken storefront with a hole in the window. He flung himself through, feeling broken glass bouncing off the kevlar and ceramic of the armor he’d taken. He rolled on the ground awkwardly, his left arm aching.

He staggered to his feet and slid into cover behind an aisle. The shape of Giddy Gallop fluttered down towards the window.

“You two!” he heard Nebula yell from someone. “Gonna need you to take care of Rhymey here!”

Giddy Gallop dodged again.

Kraber saw a spray of blood, but Giddy Gallop didn’t seem bothered.

A bag of potato chips exploded behind him, flecks of salt and fried potato floating to the ground. A bullet, probably 9mm, embedded itself in the cheap formica of a counter that probably hadn’t been changed since the 70s. Terrible fluorescent lights erupted into showering sparks of electricity as Giddy Gallop’s assault yoke’s SMGs ripped through the store.

Kraber tried to slow his breathing. Tried to stay quiet, back against the end segment of one aisle.

“We’re just trying to help, you horseapple-brained moron!” Giddy Gallop yelled. “But no! You DUMB! FU...”

It was hard to say what happened next, only that the last word segued into an ‘urrrrrrk…’

“Well,” Nebula said, “I did say I wanted a gun.”

Kraber looked over cover, past the exploded bag of potato chips. He saw Nebula standing over the corpse of Giddy Gallop, one of those weird wolverine claw things embedded in his neck.

‘That hadto be paining,’ Kraber thought.

Giddy Glow coughed, blood burbling out of his mouth.

“Is… is he still alive?” he asked, taking the Model 29 out of his holster. He thumbed open the cylinder – which came with a Hogue cylinder release, a present from Lovikov – and jammed in a speedloader.

Giddy Gallop made an unpleasant noise that made Kraber’s eyes water.

“I mean, I shot and grazed him,” Kraber said, carefully moving the revolver cylinder back into the frame. He appreciated the feeling of a good, slow reload. Too many things that could go wrong rushing a reload. Dad, Paul Kraber, had made it very clear that snapping a revolver closed with your wrist was a terrible idea. “Heh. Grazed. And you just…”

He looked down at Giddy Glow.

“Nope, that’s pretty dead,” Nebula said. She shook her head. “He just…” she shook her head. “I knew him for years! I knew him before this war. And he…” She shook her head again. Her voice sounded like it was coming from faraway. “How long, dammit? If I can’t trust someone like him, who can I trust?”

Kraber briefly considered that he was an HLF defector, wearing stolen armor, lying about his identity.

‘This is very ironic.’

The two of them were about to walk out of the store, when–

“GET DOWN!” Kraber yelled, grabbing Nebula and dolphin diving to the linoleum floor.

A second after he said it, something – or rather, several somethings – went ‘thoom’to the ground with a noise like a drum being dropped from a great height, and bouncing, shattering windows and shaking the floor beneath him. The other humans taking cover where Kraber and Nebula had been just seconds before, choking and clutching their throats. Just off in the distance, Kraber could see Haddon retreating. Motioning with his left hand with a Remington ACR in his right, a pony at his side.

PHL, who Kraber realized might not have been fake, were rushing to his aid.

‘Was that a grenade?!Kraber wondered. ‘A cannon? What?’

He peered through the window. Coppery metal cylinders slightly longer and slightly wider than one of his forearms peppered the street like thick black hairs on moles. They’d punched through windows, embedded themselves in walls, and nailed cars to the pavement.

‘Oh, this still can’t be good.’

“Any idea what these are?” he asked, looking straight at the strange coppery tubes.

“I’m the low mare on the totem pole,” Nebula said, “But admittedly, I’ve never seen that before.”

‘Fake PHL. Haddon’s crossbow,’ Kraber thought.

The strange devices began to hiss. In the flickering orange streetlights, he saw wisps of purple wafting off from them. Anyone standing nearby clutched their throats, making strangled choking noises.

“GAS MASKS!” Kraber screamed. “GET ON THE FOKKIN’ GAS MASKS!”

It’s the fokkin’ purple mist all over again!

Yael

In the months between August and December, Yael would watch many times as Heliotrope swore that the moment she heard it ‘thoom’ to the ground, she knew exactly what it was. At which point, Quiette Shy would invariably point out it couldn’tbe true, that Heliotrope couldn’thave known.

“They’re potioning people,” Heliotrope said. “I know it.”

“Told you,” one National Guard said.

“We need to move,” Yael said. “I don’t know what that was, but we need to move. Now.”

She tapped her earpiece.

“Oscar?” Yael asked. “Oscar, Lorne? Eva? Are you okay? We’re downtown. Something strange is happening.”

“...Ael?” Oscar asked, his voice crackling over the radio.

“Yeah, Lorne, the freakshow and I are here,” Eva said over the radio.

There was the sound of a light slap on the other end of the earpiece.

“Don’t be a dick, Nilsdottir,” Lorne said in his thick Louisiana accent.

“Thank you,” Yael said, nodding even though Lorne couldn’t see it.

“Anyway. First Lieutenant,” Lorne said. “We’re holed up near a playground. Not seeing many HLF, but there’s some survivors with us. There’s PHL outside, we might–”

“No,” Yael interrupted. “We’ve received word that any PHL working with Garrett Haddon cannot be trusted. Assume any PHL other than us or Gardner are in league with the PER, and rendezvous with us on Congress Street, in front of the State Theater.”

Lorne coughed a little. “All due respect, First Lieutenant? What the fuck.”

“We’ve… been told that PER have infiltrated our ranks,” Heliotrope said. “They’ve taken control of the hospital, I think. We’re talking with National Guard right now, and they say they’re using it as some kind of Bureau.”

Despite the story they’d heard, Yael thought that Heliotrope didn’t sound like she believed it.

“That’s sick,” Oscar hissed.

“Couldn’t agree more,” Yael said. “We’re…”

Her voice trailed off. What, exactly, wasshe planning on? Walk up to Haddon himself and tell him to stop? Go up to the site of the bomb and…

And…

No matter. Improvising had worked so far, and it wasn’t like she had room for more planning. Not many other options.

“We’re going to move closer to the site of whatever that was,” Yael announced, forcing calm into her voice. If she sounded like she knew what she was doing, if she kept going, sooner or later it would all make sense. “We’ll need reinforcements.”

“Something Feels… Wrong About It,” Quiette Shy said. “Yael. We Have To Be Careful.”

Yael nodded.

“...You outrank her by so much, First Lieutenant,” Bowie said, as they moved. “Why do you–”

“Because I trust her,” Yael said. “If Quiette Shy says that we have to jump to get out of the way of potion, I ask how high.”

With that, she set out towards Congress Street, which seemed to be where she’d heard the strange noise.

And then, screaming. From Congress street. High, piercing notes. The sound of revving motors.

“...What the hell is that?” ‘Bowie’ asked, his weapon ready.

With one foreleg, Heliotrope reached for a device just above her ear – something much like Yael’s own tactical earpieces, but re-adapted to ponies. Strangely, the controls were in a similar place on Heliotrope’s helmet.

Yael stared intently at Congress Street, the reticule of her Galil’s reflex sight pointed directly at the lettering on a broken storefront.

‘What is th–’

Before she could finish that thought, a horde of people rushed down the street either on foot or by car, screaming at the top of their lungs. They didn’t seem to notice Yael, or the soldiers behind her.

‘Oh no.’

A hissing noise. Behind the fleeing crowd, a steadily rolling cloud of purple.

‘POTION!’Yael thought, and her mind went into overdrive. ‘We have to stop it, evacuate them. We have to - no, that won’t work. But how do we make them trust us? As far as they know, the people of this city have nobody to trust.

Then we make them trust u– Wait. No, they won’t trust me. They can’t. Okay, okay. I’ll have to use someone as a figurehead here. Someone that makes it absolutely sure we’re not HLF. Maybe I can pressgang Chinook into being my spokespony here. I’ll say he outranks me. I’ll make sure everyone knows that it wasn’t an official promotion.

This isn’t my worst plan, but it’s also not my dumbest.’

“If anyone somehow wasn’t thinking of it, gas masks,” she said. “On. Now.”

“First Lieutenant?” Zhang asked. “What’s going o–”

Heliotrope and Quiette Shy already had their respective masks on as Yael stared down the street at the mass of purplish gas. The twisted, frozen forms lying on the pavement. Some of which were caught mid-scream.

“Potion,” Yael said. “I don’t know how right they were about Haddon being a turntail, but they were right about the PER.”

Their bodies were warped in unearthly ways, limbs bending in directions that were simply wrong. Spines bent back like tree branches, feet stretched longer and longer past the hems of pants as the rest of the leg shrunk back into the hips.

‘They look dead,’Yael thought, staring at the corpses lying on the pavement.

And, in the midst of all this, Yael saw a convenience store, with two humans, and three ponies – one wounded, lying on the floor – holed up inside.

“Do we shoot them?” Summers asked.

“No,” said the National Guard squad leader. Yael turned towards him, watching him give Summers a verydirty look that more than made up for the squad leader's hands being full of M4 and thus not being able to give him the finger. “In case you were thinking it–”

He looked at Yael.

“I wasn’t,” Yael said.

Kraber

Nebula scrambled to all four hooves, frantically pulling Giddy Gallop’s assault yoke over her barrel.

The black man with the Kalashnikov rushed towards the store now wearing a homemade gas mask – and a belt full of pipe bombs. He was followed by a blue unicorn mare. The doors to the store automatically slid open, much to Kraber’s surprise.

‘I threw myself through a broken window for nothing?!’ Kraber thought. ‘The fok is that kak?!’

The unicorn was carrying Rime Ice in their TK field.

“Glad ‘ou doo helped oud,” Rime Ice said, woozily. “Thanks for leavin’ me... in a safe place, Bebula.”

‘Did I give him more morphine than I thought?’Kraber wondered.

“The hell, man!” the black man yelled. “Thought that was PHL!”

“I don’t think they’re PHL,” Kraber said, unholstering the Fostech autoshotgun as he stared at the purple cloud.

“Aren’t you the guy that shot Barnes under a stretcher?” the black man asked.

Kraber nodded. “Right in the fokkin’ eiers.”

“Badass,” the man said, apparently understanding that bit of slang. “I’m Jolu. This is Melody.”

“No relation,” said the mare. “No matter how awesome it’d be to pal around with Lieutenant Scratch.”

“We were joining in, but…” continued the man. “Well, then those jackasses did phase two. Whatever the shit that is.”

His name didn’t immediately sink in, distracted as Kraber was feeling by Melody’s comment about the notorious Vinyl Scratch. ‘Jolu’ had pronounced his own name like there was an H at the beginning. Kraber would later learn it was short for ‘Jose-Luis.’

“I think I know,” Kraber said. “You have people in PHL armor, loading people into a hospital building, thenusing the ponification potion. In plain view of several people and that security camera.”

He pointed up towards it.

“What do you think it means?” he asked.

“I’m scared to think,” Melody said, her huge pony eyes widening ever more.

It was at that moment that a radio crackled to life. The speakers vibrated, playing a tune that was–

“So fokkin’ upbeat I want to tear the fokkin’ teeth out whoever made it,” Kraber growled. “With fokkin’ pliers.”

“You’re not wrong,” Melody said, with Nebula nodding her agreement.

“How long have we had that?” Jolu asked.

“We installed an emergency warning system a while ago,” Melody said. “This being close to the sea, they were worried abou–”

“I get it,” Jolu said, shutting her down immediately.

“People of Portland,”Haddon said, his voice crackling. “This is an emergency! PER have decided to take advantage of the confusion and ponify survivors of this calamity. Please, meet us at the hospital! We have food, water, and treatment for any injuries received!”

Kraber stared out the window, seeing what looked like an army - like more PHL.

‘Oh, shit.’

“What do you think?” Kraber asked, looking over to his unlikely allies. “I say we shoot ‘em, too.”

“Just because you were right last time,” Nebula said testily, “Doesn’t mean you’ll be right this time.”

And then, from the group of soldiers, the man Kraber would come to know as Shawn Summers, and later simply ‘That Kontgesig’, opened his pie-hole.

“Do we shoot them?”

“You were saying?” Jolu asked, looking over to Nebula.

“They probably don’t know what’s going on any more than we do,” Nebula said. “I thoughtI knew Haddon, I don’t know… them.”

“Alright,” Melody sighed. “I’ll ask them then.”

“Are you sure that’ll w–” Jolu started.

“Hey!” Melody yelled, getting as close as she could to the window without putting her head outside.

Heliotrope

“If you’re one of those fuckmaggots working with Haddon, shoot us!” cried out a blue unicorn mare.

The humans looked like stallions, so it was probably a pony. Definitely a mare.

Just before that, one of the National Guard snorted as Haddon’s message crackled over the nearby speakers. “That lying son of a bitch.”

“We repeat. There are PER in the city. Report to Maine Medical if you need safety. It’s all taken care of, thanks to the PHL.”

Heliotrope stared around them. It was like she was… paralyzed? The dead, probably halfway-ponified bodies on the ground. The ghoulish broadcast. And now, this pony.

“So,” Heliotrope said, “That’s a ‘no’ to shooting them?”

Yael nodded.

“We’re not going to shoot any of you!” Yael called out to them. “We’re just here to-”

“We can provide anything you need! Just… find somewhere safe. We’re only here to help,”Haddon pleaded over the radio.

“We’re here to protect everyone in the city,” Heliotrope said, surprising herself with her own confidence. “PER excluded.”

“After all. We’re the PHL. We stand for the survival of all species outside Solar Empire authority,” Haddon said.

Maybe it was selfish of her, but she couldn’t make herself care for the HLF that’d kicked this parasprite nest. ‘Screw em. They deserve what they ge–’

A sharp, if contained ‘bang’ broke into her thoughts.

“The fok, Holu?!” someone yelled.

Not understanding Spanish all that well, Heliotrope heard it as an ‘H’ rather than a ‘J’.

“Sorry! I really want to take that pinche pendejo off the air for real.”

“Aaaaamen to that, brotha!” one of the National Guard yelled back.

Heliotrope’s earpiece crackled.

“Yael,” Oscar said. “We’re heading up towards Congress Street. A lot of people just fled past us. What’s happening here?”

“Some kind of gas weapon,” Yael said.

“Would it happen to be potion?” Lorne cut in.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because, we’re fighting Newfoals right now.”

“Copy that,” Yael said. “We’ll be over to help you as soon a–”

Heliotrope cast an eye towards the twisted Grotesqueries in the street. Had one just twitched?

“Move out, everyone,” Yael said. “We’re helping our squadmates.”

They had barely gotten twenty feet before Heliotrope saw it. One of the bodies picked itself up – the change apparently restarting – and walked up to the window.

All around it, the other Grotesqueries began to shake like leaves.

“YAEL!” Heliotrope yelled. “They’re not dead!”

“Wha–” Yael asked, turning to see an assortment of humans just behind them, steadily shrinking and ponifying, becoming enveloped in colorful fur.

“Show them how HAPPY we are!” something else – almost certainly a Newfoal – called out, and Heliotrope saw a massive crowd of blank-flanked ponies with hungry, thoroughly deranged smiles and dull eyes pouring out of nearby streets.

One pony – Heliotrope’s pegasus vision picked it out easily, a gray-blue pegasus Newfoal with a discolored eye – pointed over to their group. “Shieldwall said if we get them, we get a title in New Equestria!”

So there they were. Surrounded.

Before Yael could say anything, Heliotrope bit down on the mouth triggers for her SMGs, painting the crowd with blood and viscera.

“TEAR THEM UP!” Yael roared, switching her Galil to full-auto.

Kraber

“And so help me God,” Haddon said.“We’ll sa–”

Jolu whipped out a pistol – Kraber couldn’t make out what kind it was in the darkness – and drilled a round straight through the radio.

“The fok, Jolu?!”

“Sorry! I reallywant,” Jolu yelled, “to take that pinche pendejo off the air for real.”

“Aaaaamen to that, brotha!” someone yelled back from outside the store.

“You and me both,” Nebula said, tapping the claws worn just above her hooves. She looked over at Melody. “Wait. YouPHL?”

“Yeah,” Kraber asked, narrowing his eyes. “What in the fok does tha–”

“I’m not PER!” Melody burst out. “I’m Indie, okay?”

Indie, short for “Independent.” One of many survivalists, refugees, and others that hadn’t joined themselves with the PHL, either side of the HLF Split, or PER.

“So you live in a city,” Jolu said, raising an eyebrow.

“Are any of us really that good at being ind–” Melody started.

There was a crash.

One person staggered like one leg was shorter, and fell against the window, a too-wide mouth squeegeeing against the glass. Bits of broken glass slid into their oversized bottom lip, but they didn’t seem to notice.

The light flickered, and Kraber saw the person. They looked wrong. Throat swollen, eyes too huge for their skull and practically going. A massive goose-egg of a bump or tumor on the head, something a bright unnatural lime-green poking out of it.

“No,” Jolu said. “Ohhhhhhhhh, shit, no.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Melody said.

The light stopped flickering. It went dark again.

“Hlelkgrk,” they whispered through tortured vocal cords. “Slmrm… hlaa-” Someone staggered towards the unbroken window. “Hel… some’n hel-”

The person against the window fell to the ground, making a noise that was not quite wheezing, coughing, or screaming. Kraber could hear several cracking noises like a demented chiropractor was going about their work, then a sound like vomiting.

All across the street, they could see those same glowing eyes opening. The light flickered, and he could see a number of silhouettes, suspiciously pony-shaped, standing all about the street.

“YAEL!” a female voice yelled. “They’re not dead!”

“Show them how HAPPY we are!” yelled something else that was almost certainly a Newfoal.

“TEAR THEM UP!” a woman roared, and there was the sound of an assault rifle or LMG on full auto.

“Good news,” Melody said, over the hail of gunfire, “They’re definitely on our side. Bad news? Newfoals. Lotsof Newfoals.”

“Great,” Kraber said, “As if tonight wasn’t fokked enough.”

‘Can you really trust them?’part of Kraber whispered. ‘They’re ponies. And that was… How many PHL named Yael could there possibly be? It’s her. It’s almost certainly her. You know what she did in Nipville. You know that she and Heliotrope will flay you alive. You knowshe’ll never forgive you. Also, you shot Heliotrope once. Can you even trust Nebula? Or Melody?’

The answer to that last part was, obviously…

‘… Well, I don’t have a choice. Ze’ev, if that’s her, and these two mares lie between me and ponification. I have to.’

“Alright,” Nebula said. “We’re going to need to set up a barricade. We might–”

“Um,” Rime Ice said weakly, pointing with one foreleg towards the massive hole in the window that Kraber had thrown himself through.

Kraber, Nebula, Melody, Jolu – and yes, Rime Ice – all stared at the hole in the window. Almost in unison. At the Newfoals rushing towards what was almost certainly Yael.

“We probably should have thought of that,” Kraber admitted.

Yael

Blur.

That was how she’d describe the chaos all around her. Aiming, perceiving any details of the surroundings, describing the Newfoals or the color.

Heliotrope bouncing to and fro, wingblades flashing, SMGs blazing. The National Guard had found cover – it didn’t have that much of a point against Newfoals, but habits were habits – and were spraying down the attackers. Next to her, Chinook was doing the same. His guns were louder, and he only had one set of wolvers as opposed to Heliotrope’s two, but he ripped them apart all the same.

And, slightly south from them, the ponies and humans in the store sprayed hot lead at the writhing mass of Newfoals.

“That’s what they get for not having guns,” Carson panted. He hadn’t even slid into cover, just spraying downrange with his M4.

“Where did they even get this many Newfoals?!” Summers yelled. Unlike John, or even Yael, he wasn’t firing in short, controlled bursts – they were long. Saturating. He must’ve had an extended magazine on his M4.

“They just keep coming!” Smoky yelled, fluttering overhead and spraying them down with his assault yoke.

But his words were instantly belied...

“FALL BACK!” one Newfoal yelled. “FALL BA-”

Almost automatically, not even thinking of a one-liner, Yael snapped her Galil towards that Newfoal and pulled the trigger. The 7.62 round punched through its throat, dug a tunnel through the flank of another, and embedded itself at the bottom of a streetlamp.

“Didn’t think we’d be fighting Newfoals!” Carson yelled over to her. “We’re going to have a hell of a st–”

Carson wouldn’t.

Because at that moment, a car – glowing with the aura of a unicorn’s TK, tumbling bumper over bumper – smashed into him with all the force the Newfoal could muster.

“WILL!” Bowie screamed at the top of his lungs. “NO!”

The thrown vehicle didn’t stop at Carson. It tumbled down the street, window over window, crumpling like a wadded-up ball of paper. Somewhere, Carson’s body was still in there or on there, but the car was moving too fast for Yael to tell.

And before Yael’s eyes, Carson’s M4 began to glow.

“GRABBER!” John yelled, diving for the rifle. One combat boot ready to stamp down on it, keep the barrel on the ground.

In the space of a second, Yael scanned the mass of Newfoals behind the barricade for one with a color that matched the rifle’s aura. She decided against it almost the moment she considered it.

‘No. Too many colors,’ Yael thought, rushing for cover.

John wasn’t too late. He was, maybe, fashionably late.

A bullet ripped out through the barrel, kicking the red-glowing carbine back a centimeter or two with nothing to hold it. There was a slight spray of red-pink from John’s leg, but he didn’t seem to notice it.

With the same bloody leg, John held the gun down until it expended its ammo.

‘He’s probably fine,’Yael thought.

“They’re not going to stop!” Heliotrope screamed, flying back towards Yael. “QS, I need an ammo drop. We’re going t–”

Just as a trashcan pelted the ground just behind her – then another car hit the ground right between her and Yael.

Yael didn’t have time to think about that as the two of them rushed into cover behind the wall of a brick building, bordered by a rock wall a foot or three taller than her head and a parking lot.

Quiette Shy galloped up, reaching into her saddlebag for a pair of 30-round 9x32mm mags.

“Can’t Believe You Survived That,” she said, taking ragged breaths. The camo bandanna she wore over her mouth contracted slightly with each breath.

“Barricades! NOW!” one Newfoal yelled. A team of Newfoal earthponies bucked against a car with their powerfulhind legs, pushing the car onto its side so the passenger side mirror pointed up towards the smoke-covered sky.

“You’re Okay,” Quiette Shy said. Yael thought she detected surprise, but that was…

Well, maybe it wasn’tso impossible.

“Retreat!” one Newfoal yelled from behind the improvised barricade. “Flame ‘em out!”

“This is Rasam… ah… Rasal…” Heliotrope started. “No, SergeantHeliotrope. We’re responding to a strange occurrence near Congress Street.”

From the moment Yael heard those first syllables, she knew something was about to go pear-shaped. It was like a twisting serpent in her gut, an intense feeling of wrongness.

“First Lieutenant Ze’ev,” Gardner said, his voice tinged with a tone that sounded calm and was anything but. “What. Exactly. Do you think. You are. Doing.”

Every syllable sounded like it’d been torturously dragged up his throat, and then out of his mouth, grabbing at things and coming out inch by inch.

Snippets of what could happen to her if she went against Gardner here flashed through her mind’s eye, but Yael paid them no mind.

“I let them take me prisoner so I could reason with them,” Yael said. “It was that or shoot them.”

“And I. Ordered you,” Gardner said. “To rejoin with Haddon. You. Will. Rendezvous with him. And secure. The hospital.”

“And I’m not going to,” Yael said. “Not until I know what’s going on.”

“We heard what Haddon and the rest were doing,” Heliotrope said. “We heard they were working with–”

The sound of whooshing fire came in from nearby.

Yael looked to the store where the four of them had been hiding, seeing a flaming storefront and the bodies of dead Newfoals littered around the flames. One walked out, grinning stupidly…

...Before its survival instincts kicked in. Like a switch had been flipped, it began screaming at the top of its lungs, rolling on the pavement.

Yael shot it through the head.

“...They’re Dead,” Quiette Shy breathed.

Yes. Yael had definitely heard emphasis in the auto-voice-box there.

Dancing Day
December 24, 2022

“Course, I didn’t die,” Kraber says. “Just like all the other times Yael watched me seemingly explode or burn to death.”

“That is weird,” Aegis says. “That… that so many times that happened, it involved fire. This time, the boat, Berlin, M–”

“It isweird,” Kraber says. He will be nodding slightly. “Still. At least I was immune to Heliotrope at the time.”

“How in the buck does thatwork?!” Heliotrope will yell.

“Well, you’re sort of like a ninja, and being on fokkin’ fire makes you immune to–”

“You’re just fucking with me, aren’t you,” Heliotrope will ask.

“I could be, but you’ll never know!” Kraber will reply.

“He is,” Aegis interrupts.

“Aw,” Kraber says, almost but not quite whining. “Here’s what really happened to that building.”

Kraber

Kraber didn’t needto give commands. Everyone already knew. Kraber dropped the MG2021 on the counter, using it as a makeshift rest, and let loose. Bullets ripped through the remains of the glass window, punching through Newfoals after Newfoal.

“WE NEED TO GET IN!” another Newfoal yelled. “GET THEM!”

‘Oh, shit.’

In that instant, the five inside the store looked at each other. One thought was clear.

‘We can’t handle this many.’

“RUN!” Nebula yelled.

The five of them, with Melody still carrying Rime Ice with her TK, bolted for a door at the rear of the shop, followed by the Newfoals. They rushed through the back room of the store, passing shelves and shells full of boxes.

“GET THEM!” a Newfoal screamed from somewhere, their voice rasping.

Kraber could hear the Newfoal hooves pounding against the tile of the floor as they rushed through the building.

‘Shouldn’t we be hitting the other side of the–’

“DOOR!” Nebula yelled, fluttering ahead with a sudden burst of speed. “Melody, I need you to help me open it! Bliss, Jolu, cover u–!”

Unfortunately, Jolu was running too fast, and didn’t hear her…

… And body-slammed against the door like a hockey player or footballer. It practically flew off the hinges, slamming back around against the outside wall with a crack.

“Well,” Kraber panted, “that works too.”

Nebula shrugged with both forelegs, still holding the door open.

Kraber turned, his back to her, shotgun aimed towards the Newfoals. Melody was barreling towards him, Rime Ice held in her TK.

“Get them!” one Newfoal screamed. They were red-furred with a purple mane, their blue-green eyes glowing slightly.

‘Huh,’Kraber thought, before pulling the shotgun’s trigger. ‘That’s new.’

The shotgun bucked, but the recoil was surprisingly manageable. Then again, he’d managed to one-hand it, so Kraber probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

The lead Newfoal practically exploded under the buckshot.

“Go!” Kraber yelled, firing the Fostech wildly. “GO GO FOKKIN’ HOL NOU NOU!”

Another shot. Without time to brace for recoil, the shot went wild, the gun bucking against Kraber’s shoulder. Whatever its effects on Kraber, the Newfoals took it far worse.

This time, he got twoNewfoals. One pellet cut a runnel through a Newfoal’s barrel, ending just where the cutie mark wouldhave been, another pellet hitting them in the leg. They collapsed to the ground in a bleeding spiral.

The rest punched into a white unicorn Newfoal with a look of hatred in its lightly glowing eyes.

“DOUBLE MOTHERFOKKIN’ KILL!” Kraber yelled, firing off another round. A Newfoal’s ribcage collapsed in on itself in a flower of red, its head spiralling off to the right.

Melody raced through, carrying Rime Ice in her TK, and Kraber flung himself out the door. Barely registering his surroundings, he turned around, just barely avoiding scraping against a brick wall. He panted, everything seeming blurry but for the door. Just like it had during surgery, where he had been able to hyperfocus on only the music in the background and the patient on the table.

‘GRENADES!’Kraber thought frantically, reaching for a belt lined with the tiny explosives. Next to him, Jolu was doing the same, reaching onto the pipe bomb belt.

At the same time that Kraber’s thumb inched towards the pin of the grenade, there was a slight ripping sound and Jolu found the entire belt of pipe bombs in one hand.

For a second or two, Kraber, Jolu, Nebula, Melody, and even the heavily doped-up Rime Ice stared at each other. Nebula raised a skeptical eyebrow, and behind the homemade gas mask, Kraber could see Jolu mouthing the words ‘la mierda?’

Kraber shrugged, placing the un-triggered grenade back on his belt. It was a motion that practically screamed ‘whatever, just go with it.’

Evidently, Jolu thought the same, triggering one pipe bomb and throwing it through the still open door.

Melody, taking the initiative, grabbed the door in her horn TK, a rose-pink aura surrounding the door…

Which she slammed shut. The pink aura lightly glowed in the seams between frame and door, humming slightly. All the while, Newfoals pounded against it, screaming incoherently.

“Carry me!” Melody said, in what would have been a yell if not for the gritted teeth. “I can’t… concentrate… on…”

She was looking towards Nebula. But in that moment, it all clickedfor Kraber.

‘She’d have been barely more than a foal when she left? Pony ages are hard to tell, but she’s young, she’s not so different from me. And I’d easily have killed her, the fok, the fok is fokkin’ wrong with m–’

Before he knew it, he’d grabbed Melody in one arm, scooped her onto his right shoulder, and dashed down the alleyway. Jolu followed.

Rime Ice yelped as, with this sudden motion, Kraber and Melody yanked him down the alleyway, though he didn’t look like he moved that much in the TK field.

‘That’s probably bad,’Kraber thought as Nebula shot past him.

Heliotrope

Whatever the Newfoals had been planning on, a massive explosion definitely wasn’t it. Bodies flew out from the flaming storefront, shrapnel struck Newfoals, and bits of brick and rubble – and even the PHL themselves.

“What’s going on?” Zhang asked.

“Should I–” Heliotrope started.

“Hold it, Heliotrope,” Yael said. “They could r-”

Heliotrope would never know what Yael was about to say. Not because Yael died or anything, obviously, but because of the crash as another car hit the ground near them.

And, of course, the bullet that punched through the back of Zhang’s shoulder. It embedded itself in the wall behind her, smoking slightly.

Zhang howled in pain, clutching her left shoulder.

‘We barely know them,’Heliotrope thought, almost dazed. How messed up is this?!’

She looked over to the street ahead. The Newfoals were creating a makeshift fortress of sorts, using cars as barricades and setting up nests with…

‘Guns?’

Yes. Guns. The Newfoals. Earthpony Newfoals stood behind barricades, hooves over pistol grips of rifles that glowed slightly. They looked to be held aloft by unicorn.

‘This can’t be right. They don’t use guns. They never use guns. How…’

Her mind raced.

‘Something’s wrong he–’

“MOVE!” she yelled, and rushed to her immediate left, heading south and towards the rock face.

“Can you walk?” Yael asked, looking down to Zhang.

“It’s the only part that doesn’t hurt,” Zhang said through gritted teeth. “I can probably still shoot.”

“I’ll make sure you get out of here safely,” Yael said, without hesitation. “Heliotrope, I need you to cover us. QS, do something to keep her okay.”

“On It,” Quiette Shy said, her horn glowing as she projected a red thaumic shield behind the two of them. Bullets sparked against it, but it still held.

Heliotrope was faster than Yael. As a pegasus, that came with the territory. A small wooden fence scraped against the bottom of her flightsuit, and–

“Enemy pegasi at one o’clock!” Yael shouted up to Heliotrope.

Heliotrope banked to the right, extending her left wing so she pivoted on her right side. What’s-

Behind Yael was a murder of (‘A murder? I’m making them sound like crows. Animals.’) pegasi, strips of metal fastened to their legs. Some looked like claws, some looked like knives. There was a faint sense of wetness that Heliotrope got as she stared at the improvised weapons.

‘Oh no.’

“Don’t follow me up here!” Heliotrope yelled. “You’ll just be a bigger target on the cliff, and Zhang can’t climb!”

Okay, it wasn’t much of a cliff, but Heliotrope was running a mile a minute.

Thankfully, Yael seemed to have understood that already. With a curt nod, she dashed along the side of the cliff, keeping low to the ground.

Meanwhile, more of the pegasi dove towards the street, smiles on their faces. Heliotrope watched in horror as the Newfoals manning the guns aimed away from the fleeing humans, subtly moving them into the path of the divebombing pegasai.

A National Guard screamed as one pegasus dove towards him, embedding six hoof blades in their shoulderblades.

“No…” the National Guard whispered, lying immobile on the pavement, knives in his back. Blood and something that definitely was not blood welled up. “No no no no no no, I… I can’t… not…”

His voice warbled slightly. Heliotrope watched the human make a strange noise partway between choking and screaming. The inside of the human’s visor turned a curious red-purple.

‘No.’

She watched the human shake, his spine bending at an angle that hurt Heliotrope’s head just to look at it.

“No, no, no…” the human said. It sounded almost like a chant from some human religion. And then: “YES!”

‘Oh buck. I was right.’

“YES YES YES YES!” the human said with manic glee. “I’m–”

‘Dead,’Heliotrope thought, before biting down on the mouth trigger so hard she wondered if she heard something crack.

The charging handles made a slight, metallic clang noise as they whipsawed back and forth. The 9x32mm rounds stitched up through the ponifying human into the clawed Newfoal, red blossoming out from their skulls and necks.

‘They’re moving as one,’Heliotrope thought.

“BETRAYER!” one Newfoal pegasus screeched, banking to its left and flying towards Heliotrope at a barely-controllable speed.

‘You Newfoals talk too damn much,’ Heliotrope thought, before hosing that Newfoal down with three more rounds. But even as she pulled the trigger, she could see something out the corner of her eye:

‘Bro’ took something to the ankles and tripped. The stolen gun that a Newfoal was using, inching towards his legs.

‘I have to do somethi–’

A red barrier appeared just behind Bro’s ankle. Heliotrope traced the glow from the shield back towards Quiette Shy, who stood in the middle of the street, unflinching.

The bullets pockedagainst it, but Bro, thankfully, was fine.

The Newfoal diving towards Bro was not. It skipped off the top of the shield, bouncing slightly, and fell on its back – on one of its wings – just in front of Quiette Shy. It tried to roll over. Tried to stand up on its forelegs.

It listed slightly. But it never truly got back on its hooves.

Quiette Shy bit down on her mouth triggers, and fired down at it. Pasted through the Newfoals’ face.

Bro nodded in thanks under his helmet, and scrambled down the street, rushing for a parking garage.

“You could be this harmonious,” the Newfoals said.

They didn’t say it in unison. Somehow, that was worse. They all said it at different speeds, in different tones – some angry, some almost sad, some saying it like it was the funniest thing in the world.

“You could be this unified,” the Newfoals said, pegasi diving down towards the humans below.

Heliotrope’s earpiece crackled.

“They’ve really got us by the balls,”Chinook said. Heliotrope saw him on the roof of one building, crouching against the brickwork.

“I’ve got an idea,” Heliotrope said. “You draw my fire on the Newfoals. Classic pincer movement.”

Chinook nodded.

“You’re clear for it,”Yael said over the radio. “Give them hell.”

‘That’s 33 shots left,’Heliotrope thought, going invisible. ‘Have to make these count!’

She few downwards, then banked left, weaving between two buildings. Fire escapes blurred past her.

“YOU WANT ME?!” she heard Chinook yelling, both on the street and over the earpiece. Rounds buzzed from his assault yokes. “THERE’S MORE OF ME TO GO AROUND!”

A buzz of assault yoke fire. A scream of what could’ve been pain or anger.

“I GOT AN EARTH NAME BUT I’M STILL HUNDREDS MORE PONY THAN ANY OF YOU LITTLE TUMORS ON LEGS!”

As Heliotrope turned on to Congress Street, she saw Chinook punctuating this by punching a Newfoal pegasus stallion in the crotch. Heliotrope wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard bones breaking.

‘Ooohh…’Heliotrope winced slightly. That hadto hurt.

“GET HIM!” a Newfoal yelled.

“UNZIP HIM!”

“TEAR OPEN HIS HEAD AND SEE IF WE MAKE HIM MORE PONY THEN!”

‘Showtime,’Heliotrope thought, and dove into the fray, leaning to her left and drawing into a corkscrewing roll, aiming herself directly at the Newfoals.

There would always be a blank spot in her memory when she remembered hitting the ranks of Newfoals. There was Heliotrope diving towards the Newfoals, cloaked and silent, the pavement spiralling towards her...

Then there was the moment after Heliotrope’s wing blade sliced along a Newfoal’s neck, only barelyskipping over the bones… but spraying blood everywhere. Over other Newfoals. The pavement. Hopefully not her.

‘Suit power low. Recharging. ’

The notification flashed in the suit readout in her goggles. She flickered back into vision, in the middle of an army of Newfoals.

‘Let them see me coming! I don’t give a buck!’Heliotrope thought.

But Heliotrope didn’t have time for that. She twirled back and forth, dodging knives and improvised bludgeons held in earthpony mouths.

“SEIZE HER!” another Newfoal yelled. “She’s beyond Celestia’s Light!”

Heliotrope responded by biting the trigger and spraying a short burst of two rounds into the Newfoal’s throat and skull. Blood bloomed from the remains of the skull across their light-turquoise fur.

‘Zombified little freaks!’ Heliotrope thought contemptuously…

Just as a unicorn Newfoal with a strip of metal in its horn TK clubbed her over the head.

“Got you~,” the unicorn said, singsong–

They fell to the ground, a bullet through their skull.

“Got ‘im!”Chinook called over Heliotrope’s earpiece.

Before Heliotrope’s dazed, woozy eyes, she could see the blue pegasus strafing over what had once been a Newfoal machinegun position, a dead Newfoal lying behind a rifle of some kind.

The Newfoals pounced on her, and Heliotrope knew what to do. She chomped down on the mouth trigger, spraying bullets through a red pegasus Newfoal diving towards her, and flew through the opening. Blood splashed against her, and Newfoals jumped at her, but she was flying too fast.

But then a yellow pegasus dove at her, ready to knock her to the pavement, and Heliotrope could see she sported what seemed to her a most sadistic grin.

“Now n–” she started.

“SH-YUT THE BUCK UP!” Heliotrope yelled, and drove a foreleg into the yellow pegasus’ face. Her opponent fell to the ground, blood streaming from a snout that seemed oddly caved-in.

Even with the foreleg punch to the face, the pegasus still hit Heliotrope. She wheezed, caught by the bleeding blue pegasus.

‘Just! BUCKING! GO! DOWN!’Heliotrope thought, and jammed her wolvers into the Newfoal’s skull.

The Newfoal didn’t budge the first time.

So Heliotrope jammed the wolver into the Newfoal’s throat, up through the mouth.

“Hlerth!” the Newfoal coughed. “Gleh… Bl…”

Heliotrope twisted to the left, so she was on top, and flung the body at an earth pony. They both collapsed to the ground, definitely not dead.

Heliotrope bit the mouth trigger, spraying five rounds through the two Newfoals.

‘Now they’re dead,’Heliotrope thought, before bucking a Newfoal in the face, launching herself up into the air, spraying bullets down into the waiting crowd of Newfoals. ‘Move like water,’part of her thought.

She landed on the pavement on her rear hooves, then plunged both forelegs down on a Newfoal’s skull. The wolvers tore through the Newfoal’s face, blood pouring from the useless eyes the claws had punctured.

“YOU APE-LOVING COCKADOODIE BRAT!” the Newfoal screamed.

‘Was… is cockadoodie a swear? Was that a reference to something?’Heliotrope thought, lifting the screaming Newfoal up with both forelegs as she pushed with her hinds.

Taking the Newfoal with her. She flipped forwards, ground blurring into sky, and back again...

...and slam-dunking the bleeding, eyeless Newfoal onto a unicorn’s horn.

KRANNNCCHH

“YEURGLK!” the Newfoal screamed.

As the scream drew the focus of the Newfoals - how could it not? - Heliotrope dashed forward, every blade extended, SMGs firing. Blood and casings littered the street all around her.

An adobe-colored Earth pony Newfoal stepped in front of her path.

‘I can take him,’ Heliotrope thought, and she flew faster.

The earthpony grinned, reared up… and stamped the ground with his forelegs. The ground rumbled and, suddenly, impossibly, there was a tree bursting out from under the pavement at ridiculous speed.

‘Newfoals can’t do that!’Heliotrope thought, staring at the tree that was right. In. Front. Of. Her!

Fragments of thoughts of a concussion, of a broken back, of being useless just like she was after Kraber had nailed her through the barrel with a sniper rifleflitted through Heliotrope’s head. All she had time to think of, seeing the ground racing by under her head, knowing the tree was coming, was ‘Oh, shi–’

She spread her wings, and felt herself slowing. Felt herself getting closer and closer-

She stretched out her legs, and winced as she felt her rear hooves scraping against the. ‘Please work please work please w–’

Heliotrope sprang up into the ski, her barrel scraping against the leaves. But, thankfully, not hitting the tree.

She breathed a sigh of relief, before turning invisible again.

‘Nearly caught off guard again,’she thought. ‘What is with me today?!’

She looked down to the adobe earth pony and plunged down towards him.

“Where’d she go?!” the adobe earthpony yelled, a look of confusion on his face.

Heliotrope shot down like a meteor, one wing outstretched, and banked to the right. Her wing blade dug through the Newfoal’s neck in a circle, blood spraying outward.

When she was done, the Newfoal’s head had rolled off his neck, blood pouring out onto the pavement.

“Heliotrope,” Oscar said over her earpiece. “I don’t know if that’s you, but I’m betting it is. Coming in hot.”

‘Oh buck.’

She could hear the sounds of music in the distance.

‘“Lorne says he’s about to fire,” Oscar said.

Heliotrope didn’t need to be told twice. She dashed upwards, leaving the Newfoals below clamoring to find her.

“NO YOU DON’T!” a Newfoal screamed.

Heliotrope’s suit wasn’t invisible, not at the moment.

“BETRAYING APE-L–”

The Newfoal would never finish. Because, at that moment, time seemed to slow down for Heliotrope. There was a moment where the Newfoal was flying up towards her, a mad grin on his face…

… And a moment where Heliotrope watched as a grenade smashed into the Newfoal’s crotch...

‘What.’

… and then the moment where the Newfoal fell to the ground, grenade not quite bouncing but not quite not-bouncing down to the pavement.

An explosion rocked the street behind her, the grenade’s fuse detonating in midair. Blood and limbs spiralled up through the air behind Heliotrope, and pavement and glass shattered.

“KABOOM, BABY!”Lorne yelled.

“Nice shot, trooper,” Oscar said.

“We’re friends, you can call me Lorne,”Lorne said.

“Affirmative, Trooper Lorne,”Oscar said.

Lorne chuckled. “...goddammit.”

Another grenade burst. Another Newfoal took it to the face, and vaporized near-instantly.

“Get clear of the explosives, Heliotrope, Chinook!” Yael yelled into the earpiece. “They’re tearing up the street!”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Chinook said, fluttering away from the remnants of the Newfoal position.

Heliotrope’s suit crackled as she phased back into visibility. She looked at him, not quite glaring, but–

“Don’t need to tell me twice, ma’am,” Chinook said.

There was a pause. The two pegasi looked below, watching as Lorne’s grenades bombarded the Newfoals.

“What?” Chinook asked. “In my defense, most of you know each other by your first na-”

He stopped cold.

“What’s that?!” he asked, pointing down at an indistinct blur on the street.

“That?” Heliotrope asked. “That’s Oscar.”

Oscar was bearing down on the Newfoals at inhuman speed, an autoshotgun held in both hands.

He fired the autoshotgun once, splattering two Newfoals against the pavement.

“SICK, EVIL NAKED A-” a Newfoal yelled, a dagger dipped in potion in its mouth as it leapt at Oscar from behind.

Oscar did something unexpected in that moment. He swept himself to the left, kicking a Newfoal in the face so hard they flew across the street like a pinkish furry soccer ball and hit a lamppost.

The lamppost dented as the Newfoal hit it. They didn’t get up.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Oscar’s left fist ~~lanced out~~-

No it didn’t. There was his left fist leaving the autoshotgun, and then suddenly being in the face of the dagger-wielding Newfoal. Nothing in between. Everything about the Newfoal’s face caved in around his fist, and they slumped off his arm bonelessly, bleeding from a bloody, pulpy mass that had once been the eyes and part of the nose.

Another pegasus tried the same, one of the few surviving clawed pegasi. It had its talons outstretched, ready to ponify Oscar–

Oscar shotgunned them out of the air before they even noticed.

Evidently, that was too much for the Newfoals. They ran from the PHL and National Guard, filtering into alleyways, into doorways of the most intact buildings, scampering away from the human with the impossible reflexes, the invisible pegasus, and the humans and ponies that just. Wouldn’t. Give up.

Oscar, Lorne, Heliotrope, and Chinook shot at the fleeing Newfoals. A few went down under their combined fire, but most of them escaped into the back alleys of Portland.

“I Missed You, Oscar,” Quiette Shy said.

“Yes,” Oscar said. “I aimed away from you too.”

“Don’t know who that is,” someone from the National Guard said, “But they saved our asses for sure!”

“Should we–”Lorne started over the radio.

“No,” Yael said. “We regroup, we get our bearings.”

Yael

‘It’s going to be a long night.’

Yael felt drained beyond belief. Gardner. The Newfoals. Haddon. Nearly being shot by National Guard.

‘Dear Lord,’Yael thought, ‘I don’t expect rest tonight, but I want to sleep all day tomorrow.’

She watched as Lorne’s grenades pelted down on the street. The Newfoals fleeing into alleyways.

Yael stared through her Galil’s reflex sight and drilled a round through the back of a Newfoal’s neck. They fell limp to the ground.

Part of her felt like she was doing something wrong for shooting retreating combatants. But… well, these were Newfoals. Half the time, people wouldn’t complain, the other they’d say it was a mercy anyway.

“Who’s that?” the National Guard squadleader asked, staring at a big, loud pickup truck – the kind the size of a small house that Americans just seemed to love – rolling down the street. Except it looked different - tubes extended from the gas tank into a device in the back, under the small roof attachment that covered the bed.

It was almost certainly PHL-modified.

And of course, there was Lorne poking up through a hole in the back that had almost certainly been intended for a turret, holding a revolving grenade launcher.

“That’s,” Yael said, “our reinforcements. Lorne Hebert, Private Eva Nilsdottir, and Mikkelsen.”

“Can you believe someone just left this perfectly good truck in the street?!” Lorne asked. “So–”

“You hotwired it?” Summers asked, looking at the massively built black man.

Lorne glared at Summers behind his helmet. “No, Eva did,” he said, voice dripping with tightly restrained contempt.

Yael knew that glare, and that tone of voice. She’d used it all the time, in the exact same setting. She knew from experience that what Lorne was reallysaying was ‘No, you jackass.’

“Full of medical supplies, too,” Eva said. “Seriously, who just leavesthis in the street?”

“There was a pony in there too,” Oscar added.

“How can you tell?” Chinook asked, flitting over to the truck and landing just on the roof.

“Hoofprints on the seat,” Oscar said. “Brightly-colored pony fur, too.”

‘How strange,’Yael thought. But she couldn’t dwell on that.

“Everyone,” she said. “I don’t know if that includes the National Guard, but… we’re going to find Haddon. And we’re going to make sure he regrets even thinking about turning tail.”

It wasn’t much of a speech, but she got cheers all the same.

Dancing Day
December 24, 2022

“...Wait,” Vinyl says. “So where was Kraber during all that?”

“I don’t know,” Yael says. “Kraber, why didn’t you bring it up by now?”

“...Honestly, I forgot about that,” Kraber says, almost sheepish. “I didn’t know what Yael did during all this, or how she found my truck–”

“They got yours?” Dancing Day asks, a quizzical look on her face.

“Well, there aren’t exactly a lot of trucks with medicine onboard, a turret, and PHL modifications in the city that someone just leaves in the street,” Aegis says. “I–”

“Oh, wow!” Verity interrupts. “Kraber forgetting how he’s really the hero in all this! I’d say it’s like seeing a unicorn, except we see those daily.”

Kraber glares at her, and it looks like he’s about to–

“Viktor,” Aegis says, reaching out to him with one foreleg. “Don’t.”

“Right,” Kraber says, before sitting back down.

He settles into his armchair for a second.

“Well then,” he says. “Either hou jou fokkin’ bek, or kindly fokkin’ tell me how you, the one who helped make this befok plan in the first place, the one who would have happily killed one of us, and gone along with Lovikov’s plan to take the entire-”

“Wait, the whole thing?” Soarin’ asks. “We never really knew what he was planning at the time, but… really? All of it?”

“It wasn’t hyperbole?” Lunar Phase asks.

“Surprisingly, no,” Kraber says, biting back anger in his voice. “It was fokkin’ worse.”

“And you are?!” Verity asks. “You were right there with me! The things you did in the Purple Winter–”

“Were fokkin’ awful,” Kraber said, face unreadable. He sounds like he is trying to keep emotion out of his voice, and only barely succeeding. “I cannot excuse them. I have done terrible things, Verity. I’ve done siek, horrible kak with a smile on my face. Things that make me genuinely wonder how Aegis’ foals can like me.”

Amber just stares at Kraber.

“Well, I thought it was a good question…” Kraber says, looking down. Sighing ever so slightly.

“It really is,” Verity says.

“It’s because of…” Rivet says, his voice trailing off. “I don’t know. It’s, you, it… you were always nice to us. I always felt like you were forcing it-”

“... Huh,” Kraber says. It’s impossible for Dancing Day to tell if that means he’s disappointed. Her first instinct is yes, but something isn’t right.

“But it was more like, uh… ” Rivet says. “You were forcing yourself to be nice to us because you wanted to be nice.”

“Which reminds me,” says Astral Nectar. “Why does Aegis?”

“Basically the same,” Aegis says, laconic. “There’s this moment in The Stormlight Archivewhere a character suspects Dalinar of pretending to be honorable. Then Dalinar does something so honorable that the main character says it’s-”

“At the point he’s not really pretending?” Amber asks.

Aegis nods. “The very same, Amber.”

Kraber strokes his scraggly beard. “You know, that sounds like a good time for a segue.”

“The part about you wanting to do the right thing?” Vinyl asks, cocking her head slightly.

“No, the part about The Stormlight Archive,” Kraber says.

Everyone stares at him. Rivet laughs a little.

“...You were serious?” Aegis asks.

Kraber nods. “It all started when I was being crushed against a wall, and I told Jolu and Melody that The Stormlight Archive was fokkin’ kwaai. Except not really, because you need to know how we got out of the building.”

Kraber

The alleyway erupted in fire and shrapnel. Heat licked at Kraber’s back, even through his stolen armor. There was a clang as the door flew off the building and smashed against the wall, the enraged screams of Newfoals, and the sound of something popping.

And still they ran. Jolu pulled ahead, outpacing Kraber but behind Nebula.

They crossed the nearby street, and settled behind a pair of parked cars next to some rubble. Panting like dogs. Sweating profusely. Breathing in great, ragged gasps. There was an alleyway next to them, a narrow street that would be lucky to fit even one car down its length.

Jolu wheezed something that might’ve been a swearword or a prayer.

“We have to stop it,” Kraber said, surprising himself with his own confidence.

“... How?” Rime Ice asked. “I’m… kinda…”

“Yeah, there’s that,” Nebula said, “We get Rhymey to a medical center I can trust. Maybe even back to Mackworth. I’m sure there’s PHL we can trust there. We’re going to need a truck, like…” her voice trailed off.

“Like the one we forgot,” Kraber finished. “Fokdammit.”

“Back the way we came,” Rime Ice added. “Hoo-buckin’-ray.”

‘I’m still not sure if I added too much or too little morphine,’Kraber thought. “Right,” he said. “If it’s still there, anyway. Or we could hotwire one of these cars.”

“Don’t look at me,” Jolu sighed. “I don’t–”

“I was going to do it,” Kraber said.

Jolu looked at Kraber. “Oh.” He sighed in relief.

“Let’s get going then,” Kraber said, realizing that somehow he’d fallen into a leadership role. “You’ve done well for your kind,” he said, as he walked down the street.

It was at this moment, Kraber knew: He fokked up.

“The fuck, bro?!” Jolu yelled. “Look. We nearly die, together. Nearly get ponified. We save a pony, and you pull that shit on me.”

Kraber looked at Jolu, incredulous. “What?! No, I… I wouldn’t-”

“Don’t tell me,” Jolu said. “You have black friends.”

What Kraber wanted to say was, ‘You son of a bitch, how fokkin’ dare you pull that shit on me.’

What he actually said: “My wife was black, actually.”

Jolu looked at him, surprised. “... Huh.”

“Was,” Kraber said, insistent.

Jolu nodded, sadly. “Lost Abuela that way.”

“And it wasn’t aimed at you.” Kraber held up his hands. “Sorry.”

“Oh,” Jolu said, relaxing but not really. “Wait, fuck that. That ain’t better.”

“Wha–” Kraber started.

“...my kind?” Melody said, voice numb, before her horn flared. “MY KIND?!”

The whole of the less than fifteen minutes Kraber had known her, she hadn’t raised her voice. Had worn a scared expression.

And yet, as her horn glowed, Kraber felt something slap him, and he fell roughly against the wall.

He tried to push himself up. Couldn’t. Something was pressing down on him like an anvil. He reached for his gun, but-

His arm wrenched itself behind his back, to the absolute limit of its flexibility.

“Neb… Jolu...” Kraber said, speech suddenly very difficult. “I…. I hel…”

“You’re PHL, I thought you’d understand it!” Melody ranted. “Don’t tell me - you’re some conscript, an HLF asshole that just joined for a bigger gun?!”

Well, that was better than the truth –- that Kraber was one of said HLF assholes. And, at this point, he had to admit it - he was probably one of the biggest kontgesigs on the HLF. “Some’n… li...tha...” Kraber said, vague as he could make it.

“Well, let me give you a fucking reminder,” Melody hissed, practically growled, and Kraber never would have guessed a herbivore would be able to make such a predatory sound. “Here’s what my kind have been through. Our precious ‘Elements of Harmony’ failed, and because of that we had our first war in over a thousand years. I lost family there, dammit! There were crystal golems in the streets, and we had so many earthponies refugees crowding into Cloudsdale because everypony thought they’d be safe in the sky. But no, Sombra’s battlecasters… they disrupted the cloud-walking magic, leaving HUNDREDS of ponies to fall to their deaths. It rained ponies for awhile, y’know? And the Wonderbolts couldn’t catch everyone.”

No matter how many times he heard it, the concept of war between pastel-colored ponies in a land that seemed like it was the archetypical sugar bowl before the war was a downright weird image, but Kraber decided he would just go with it.

“And after that, it just got worse and worse,” Melody said. “The Great Equestrian.”

“The Crucible,” Nebula added. “The Disharmony Act, the Hand In Hoof Riots, the Battleship Strike, and…” she blinked, shaking her head sadly. “Tartarus, Bliss. I told you about this. You listened to me. You’re PHL, for Luna’s sake! And you still…”

She looked down, silent.

“I’d be treated as a monster back home,” Nebula said, more solemn than Melody. “Put in some camp for dissidents. Suspected disharmonious elements. Doing the same borderline-suicidal work as Newfoals, but for less pay, if I’m not in an internment center. All while Equestria acts like being a mindless little golem is the ideal. You can get disappeared by the Imperial Guard for damn near no reason, too. I didn’t want to be part of that, not that Luna would let me.”

It was the first time Kraber had heard a pony so disgusted or saddened about Equestria itself.

“I can’t believe somehow you didn’t learn this by now,” Nebula said, practically hissing it out. “That’s why we’re here. Because even when humans like you fire on a city, we can be free of the nightmare that used to be home.”

“It’s just…” Kraber started, as the pressure increased. “I was just…”

‘No,’he could almost hear Kate saying. ‘It’s never ‘just’ that. It’s what the person reallymeans.’

“You were just what?” Jolu asked. “You were just thinking what? In front of me?”

“It’s… different…” Kraber choked.

“How,” Jolu said, not making it a question. “How the shit is it different. Ya Goddamn hypocrite.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Or are you gonna say you’re surprised I know that word?” Jolu asked.

‘It’s- t’s because… I… well, they’re…

It’s different. I’m different. I have to be, I was different to Kate, I was the kind of guy that glassed Nazis with a broken arm for…

...Wait. Did I do that for fun or for her brother? Or both? Was it both? Who the fok am I now? Would that person there, right now, be saying ‘it’s different’ and not knowing why?

I need to get out of this! Get the fok out of–’

So Kraber resorted to the only words he could say that would get him out of this.

“It’s really not,” Kraber said. “Fokkin’ hundreds. I admit it. I’m racist. I’m a horrible fokkin’ person. I’m Jewish, I’m bisexual, I married a black woman, and I joined a hate group. I’m…”

Either Kraber slumped against the wall again, in that horribly uncomfortable position.

“Fine,” Kraber said. “I’m. Sorry. I’m a terrible fokkin’ kontgesig. I only recently thought of how you’re outcasts, how your home all went to kak, and…. And on some level, I always had the ability to know. I just refused to. And what kind of fokkin’ kontgesig does that make me?! That’s literally what my religion is all about. What I learned about my grandparents and great-grandparents fighting, when theywere young. That’s what Great-Grandpa Dragan teaching me how to build pipebombs was about. I could’ve learned this any fokkin’ time, and I didn’t care. I talked about fighting for the freedom to take yours. I. Am. A hypocrite. I’m all the fokkin’ vrot things you’re thinking and probably more. I… look.”

He sighed.

“But, like a book once said: Sometimes, a hypocrite is only a man in the process of changing.”

“Is that from The Stormlight Archive?” Jolu asked.

“You read those too?” Kraber asked back. “Oh, it is bitchin’good!”

“Right?!” Jolu asked. “Dalinar’s the best character. No question.”

“Really?” Kraber asked. “I mean, my favorite is Kaladin. Or, well, Adolin. I can have both, ri-”

The glow of Melody’s horn softened, and Kraber fell to a more natural position, gasping profusely. “Oh, fok… oh… oh, that hurt.”

Nebula and Melody looked at Kraber.

“Personally, I liked Shallan more. And you’re not going to…” Melody started.

“I’m still going to slip,” Kraber said. “Like I said. I’m a hypocrite. But I promise I am fokkin’ trying.”

“You know what?” Nebula asked. “Close enough.”

“I’m sure this is a thrilling character moment, but can we get a move on?” Rime Ice asked.

That was as good as they were likely to get. And so, they walked down the street, Kraber inspecting cars.

He bent down next to one with a broken window, then shoved his hand through the hole, opening the door.

“I have questions,” Melody said. “About what you told us. With your great-grandfather.”

“Dragan is a fairly common name in Croatia,” Kraber said absent-mindedly. “Would’ve named my son Dragan, but Kate wouldn’t have it! Which is a shame, cause Dragan… wait, no, Dragan Strang? That would be stupid. Maybe Kate did have a point.But I got to call him my little dragon and have Dragan as his middle name. So I w–”

“No, the pipe-bomb thing!” Melody said. “Who teaches their foals to make pipe bombs?!”

“... Great-grandpa Dragan?” Kraber asked.

“There’s other odd things in his story, too,” Nebula said. “You knew the name of that woman that shot Rime Ice. Dayoung. And what you said when you were apologizing. You’re not–”

‘Oh, shi–’

“You!” someone yelled. “Stand up. Hands where we can see em!”

Kraber could see several more PHL standing at the edge of an intersection, not too far from where the five of them had jumped into the store for cover.

“Think they’re–” Melody asked.

“By order of Captain Haddon, all of you are to come with us. We are setting up a base in Maine Medical, and-”

“I have a counteroffer that sounds similarly appealing,” Kraber said sarcastically, looking them over. A few of them were absolutely not carrying standard PHL weaponry – crossbows, grenade launchers, and what looked like some kind of large squirt gun. The rest had the standard PHL Remington ACR. “How about you just choke on the sweat under my–”

“Oh, I don’t think they are,” a woman said. A woman with a very familiar voice, accented from somewhere in the Middle East...

Kraber turned, looking in the direction of the voice… only to feel his heart sink.

‘Well, fok me in the gat and call me a prison bitch.’

It was Yael Ze’ev. Flanked by Heliotrope, a heavyset masked soldier in all-concealing body armor carrying an HV Penetrator, a dirty-blond unicorn mare with a camo bandanna over her mouth, and a black man with a linebacker’s build and a grenade launcher, and another man with a pair of tonfas at his hips and an M4 in both hands.

“And from my perspective, things look awful!” Jolu said.

Kraber nodded. “Ja.”

“Goodbye, cruel world,” Rime Ice said.

“As the most senior PHL officer here other than Haddon, or Gardner,” Yael said, “And the one with a unicorn shielding me, I’m taking command. And you’re going to surrender and tell me what in God’s name you were thinking, right now, or we fire.”

“Y-you can’t do that,” an earthpony from the fake PHL stammered.

“One, you did and look where you are. Two, who’s stopping me? You?” Yael demanded, stepping forward. “Go on, traitor. Pull rank on me. Shoot us. Hit us. Summon up your demons. I dare you.”

The leader of this detachment of fake PHL snorted. “Oh, I think we can do all of that and more. Let me tell you how this is going to go down.”

Yael

“With your bleeding, mangled corpse in a dumpster?” spoke a thin man with a weird accent, wearing an Eel-type mask, staring at the wreckage. This was the man Yael would later know as Ivan Bliss, then Francis Strang, and then Viktor Kraber. Soon.

And Yael was certain she had seen him in the store.

“Or, better yet,” the masked man said. “You, lying on the sypaadjie there, clutching the bloody ruin of your ears.”

(”I didn’t say ears,” Kraber says. “I said eiers.”

“What’s the difference?” Heliotrope asks.

“It means, uh-” Aegis says, looking at his foals.

“Balls,” Kraber interrupts. “It means balls. That’ll be important later.”

“Yeah,” Vinyl says, making a motion that is part shrug, sigh, and shaking the head. “That sounds like you.”)

Yael looked at the man in command of the fake PHL. His nametag read ‘Whitten’. She admittedly didn’t know much about him.

‘This man was a hero, wasn’t he?’

She vaguely recalled that. He’d been a hero of the Europe Evacuation, helping to ward off Captain Cactus. He’d taken over a Reconstitution Camp despite the encroaching Barrier, his unit had fought in the battle of Puerto del Escudo...

“I just want to know,” Yael said, “Why?”

“Don’t encourage him,” Heliotrope said. “He’s a traitor to-”

Whitten looked at Yael, a weary grimace on his face.

“Tell me what you PHL fight for is worth it,” Whitten said. “We ruined the Earth, Yael. No matter what we all said about doing it for the greater good, we’ll be the same miserable bastards for all eternity. We’ll fight in wars, we’ll die for a meaningless god, all for nothing.”

“Are you saying,” Heliotrope said, “All human history is for nothing?! Art, culture, livesover millennia, walking on a Moon, the Internet, statues chiselled into mountains, stories beyond what I dreamt of in Equestria… For nothing?!”

“No!” Whitten protested. “I never said that. But we’re broken, you poor Fallen little pony.”

“I didn’t fall,” Heliotrope snarled, “I jumped.”

“For everything we create, there’s a downside,” Whitten said. “For every beautiful thing we make, there’s so many ugly little things. This is humanity’s chance to let what little beauty we’ve created survive. To break the cycle. This is all for the best. Even with all the-”

Whitten didn’t even finish saying the last words of that sentence before an ambulance slammed into him, flinging him and all his soldiers into the air. They flew in all directions, or were crushed under the wheels.

‘What,’Yael thought. ‘Seriously, what.’

“Okay, what?!” John yelled.

Yael knew what to do before Whitten even hit the ground.

“QS! Paralysis, now!” she yelled.

Quiette Shy nodded. Just as Whitten hit the ground, a beam beam of red light lanced out QS’ horn, enveloping Whitten and freezing him in midair. Quiette Shy stared at the moaning fake PHL on the ground, lying broken and battered.

“Well,” she said. “That Happened.”

“... Was that a Jojo’s reference?” the man in the eel-type mask asked.

“Huh,” Heliotrope said, nodding. “I likehim.”

‘Worrying.’

Yael looked over to Whitten, whose facial muscles strained. He couldn’t scream, and his eyes darted from side to side.

Somewhere in Yael, there was another her back at the ballet bar, wearing a red leotard and tights, moving with a grace she rarely felt outside of class, almost a foot taller than all the other girls in the class. Or maybe lying on a bed listening to Trout Mask Replica, possibly still in the leotard. This other her, whenever it was, was realizing how screwed up this all really was.

But, well, this was standard procedure. There were too many incidents of PER ponifying themselves – or becoming living bombs, and ponifying others – for Yael not to order this.

“Keep him restrained until we get transport,” Yael said to Quiette Shy.

“Need me to check for-” the man in the Eel-type mask asked.

“Oscar,” Yael continued, ignoring that. “Check his teeth. You-”

She looked at the masked man.

“You. I don’t know you, so I can’t order you. What’s your name?”

“Strang,” the man in the Eel-type mask said. “It’s Strang.”

“Wait,” a pale blue unicorn said, walking up to Yael. “I… you’re real PHL, right? I can tell. “I’m Melody, and…. And this stallion here needs help. He’s been shot, and he’s…. He’s taking it bad.”

Yael nodded. “Bro, Chinook? Keep guard on these two, I can call a medevac. You’re to guard the two of them with your lives, you understand?”

The human and pegasus saluted.

“If I can, Ma’am, I’d like to stay with them,” Jolu said. “They’re… they’re my friends. I need to know if they’re okay.”

Yael nodded.

“Very well,” Yael said, walking to the intersection, followed by her soldiers, a thestral pony, and the strange thin man in the Eel-type mask.

She tapped her earpiece.

“This is First Lieutenant Yael Ze’ev,” she said. “I am calling for–”

“WHY ARE YOU NOT FUCKING ATTACKING THE HLF?!” Gardner yelled. “THEY’RE SLIPPING THROUGH MY FUCKING FINGERS LIKE FUCKING SAND!”

‘Do it. Yell at him. Say that he’d have noticed the PER if he was actually good at his job.’

She didn’t.

“There was an emergency with PER in downtown,” Yael said. “I–”

And there came yet another explosion.

“What was that?!” Gardner yelled.

Here’s how Heliotrope would describe it when Yael asked her.

There was a... teenager, I think? She had a white gas mask, she was sitting in the driver’s seat of that ambulance that hit Whitten. screaming something unintelligible. Anyway, I saw her drop out of the ambulance…”

I remember her yelling that she was okay, even though I saw her rolling on the pavement. Bouncing a little.

Things weren’t okay.

The speeding ambulance, momentum barely sapped from where it tore through Whitten, reached the end of the street, jumped the curve, ploughed through the fake PHL, and smashed through a big plate-glass window.

“Get down!” Yael yelled, throwing herself to the pavement, just as a flash of light twinkled…

The hospital erupted into a massive glowing mushroom cloud lit from within by hundreds of shades of purple, and the sound of the conflagration sounded uncannily like a scream…

No, it was a scream. Dozens of screams, hundreds even.

And they were human. It was the death-cries of the unconverted within the bureau’s walls, burning alive as the potion stores cooked off.

Rainbow-colored lightning arced through the ascending mushroom-cloud. Yael, aghast, could not reconcile her relief at the structure’s destruction, and her horror at the casual eradication of innocent bystanders.

“Everything I touch turns to kak, doesn’t it?” the man in the eel-type mask sighed.

“I’m–” the teenager called out again, but as she stepped into the pool of light under a street lamp, the words died in her throat and Yael’s as well…

… As she brought up an arm to wipe her brow, and found a hoof attached to her wrist.

Now she screamed too. She was transforming – somehow, either from landing in a puddle of the potion, or having been struck by contaminated debris when her ambulance blew the Bureau up.

“No...NO! MUMMY! MUMMY!”

Purplish-pink fur sprouted out her skin in irregular clumps, and her face looked as pliable as clay, practically bubbling in the orange light. As it turned out, she was not, in fact, okay.

“Help me! Somepony help meeeeeheheeee!!!”

She screamed again, left eye forced closed by her cheek and brow swelling to the point that they were almost as big as a basketball, leaving her listing to one side. And, as suddenly as the massive potion-induced thaumic tumors had appeared, they receded, leaving the left eye to open, and-

“Help them! Haha! I’ll help all of them, Majesty!”

No. That was not a human’s eye! It was dull and glassy, like a doll’s eye. One side, the potion-imbued left half, moved forward, one arm with its fingers fusing into a hoof stretched out towards them. The right half, one with a desperate, pleading human eye, stubbornly stayed back.

“MAJESTY!”

Yael shot her in the face with her Jericho 941, realizing, too tired for even simple horror or revulsion, that she had never known the teenager’s name. She’d been brave enough to try and destroy the Bureau, but… the price she’d paid.

Nobody deserved that.

Somehow, it got worse when Yael saw inside the Bureau. She could see Newfoals in the bombed-out wreck of that building’s wall, some on fire, some jumping from heights that in all likelihood might kill them.

It wasn’t as bad as she remembered from the first time she’d been deployed during the Bad Old Times, the first terrible years of the war when any Bureau could’ve easily been turned into a forward operating base.

It was worse.

Even with the hole, even with the massive collateral damage, fake PHL and others crawled out of the woodwork armed with magic shields, rifles and smgs. They grabbed the wounded, those bleeding profusely from wounds, and shoved them towards the doors past the wreck of the van.

This was Sheol, and there were the damned, descending.

And inside, guarding them, were...

Yael paused.

“Newfoals.”

It was quite likely the first time a lot of these people had reason to be worried about Newfoal attacks here in America.

‘It’s up to us,’Yael thought.

But down below, she could see what looked like other ponies being herded into the ruins. If anything, they looked to be treated harsher than the humans being herded in. Some of them looked to be near dead.

“What are you waiting for?!” one of the fake PHL yelled. “Get in here, you–”

Yael saw red.

“QS? You, the blue unicorn? Keep us shielded, and keep Whitten from moving. Everyone else, kill the PER,” she said flatly, and drilled him through the head with her Galil.

Kraber

The round from Yael’s Galil punched the man backwards an inch or two or three, and his bloody corpse fall to the ground.

“JOU FOKKIN KONTGESIGS!” Kraber screamed, letting loose a pipe-bomb from the MG2021’s underbarrel launcher, the pointy end embedding itself in a pegasus Newfoal’s head, making her look like some strange alicorn...

Right up until it exploded, anyway, shrapnel shredding through the Newfoals right next to her. But… he paused. Wait. They weren’t getting new numbers. THERE WOULDN’T BE ANY MORE Newfoals IF HE SLAUGHTERED THIS FOKKIN BATCH OF VARKNAAIERS!

“Alright,” Yael said, ducking behind an ambulance. Something– maybe spells, maybe bullets – pocked it. “Kill the PER. Heliotrope, Chinook, you’re guiding them out. Quiette Shy, I need you to…”

“On it,” Quiette Shy said.

A purplish pink – well, a heliotrope-colored overlay surrounded Heliotrope through Kraber’s helmet’s visor.

‘Huh. They can just… do that?’Kraber wondered. ‘I don’t know what to think about that.’

Behind them, the National Guard stood around the traitor PHL man that’d hassled them , moving him into position in the storefront of a nearby building. Taking position behind cars.

‘This is going to be a bloodbath,’Kraber thought, watching Newfoals spill out of every ground-level opening in the hospital. Crossbow bolts, explosives, and even conventional bullets rained against the pavement between them and the hospital.

Kraber slid into cover behind a blue car, next to a blue pegasus with a yellow mane. A red energy shield formed in front of the car, and Kraber looked back, tracing it to an off-white unicorn with a dirty blond mane, and a camo bandanna over her mouth.

‘Quiette Shy.’

An explosive of some kind rammed against Quiette Shy’s shield. There was a vibrationof sorts, like ripples on the surface of a pool – as the shield took the brunt of the explosion…

… and, much to Kraber’s surprise, held.

He nodded thanks to the white unicorn. ‘There’s something to this. Shields, not being threatened, and not shooting kids. This feels right.’

She nodded back, as Kraber shoved a new pipebomb down the underbarrel launcher. “BLIKSEMS!” he screamed, the MG2021 ripping them apart like a buzzsaw.

“GONNA FOKKIN’ KILL YOU!” Kraber roared, letting loose a buzz of full-auto fire and cutting through some charging Newfoals. “I'm gonna kill your chommies and your family, I'm gonna track down your grandparents and turn them inside-out, nobody can stop the blood train that will turn your loved ones into a red splatter across the tracks of humanity!”

So far, he was making good on that promise.

“What is wrongwith you?” breathed a massively built black man with a grenade launcher. (This was Lorne.)

“Ye think Ah’d pass up the chance tae chib PER?” Kraber asked, as if the mere idea of leaving a PER member alive, with anything intact - be it arms, legs, brains, genitals, or dignity - was completely foreign to him.

Dancing Day

“It really is, you know,” Aegis says.

Dancing Day has to admit, it’s really not all that much of a surprise.

“Why thank you!” Kraber says, a smile on his face.

...Aaaaaaand neither is that.

“You’re welcome,” Aegis agrees, without missing a beat.

Kraber

“That’s befoktalk!” Kraber continues. “You can do any fokked-up shit you want to Newfoals and PER, and nobody bats an eye! I killed one by farting on its balls, once.”

“What?!” yelled a blue and yellow pegasus.

“It’s true!” Kraber called back. “It was taco night, and I used a lighter.”

“...While we’re glad for the assist, that’s…” said the blue-and-yellow pegasus stallion. Kraber would later know them as Chinook.

“...you a sick fuck, you know that?” Lorne asked.

“The kontgesigs killed my family,” Kraber explained. “It’s just a little–” his LMG jamming, right at the moment a pegasus Newfoal landed on the back of the car he used as cover, Kraber shoved a pipe-bomb into the Newfoal’s throat. With a grunt, he rammed his fist into the Newfoal, knocking them back into the mob of Newfoals… where the Newfoal exploded.

“Okay, a LOT AY FOKKING INTEREST!” Kraber called back.

Beside him, a heavily-built man (Oscar Mikkelsen) jumped over the barricade, HV Penetrator in hand. Before Kraber knew it, the heavily built man was behind a group of fake PHL, the Penetrator nailing them to the floor, to each other, to cars.

‘Holy shit,’Kraber thought.

Through the smoke, he could see some people rushing out the door, holding onto each other like crutches. All human. He stared through the reflex sight, ready to–

“They’re humans!” yelled the blue-and-yellow pegasus – okay, this is going to be too much of a headache to say every time, it was Chinook. “They don’t look like PER! Hold your fire, whoever you are!”

Kraber looked them over. Still staring through the red dot sight. A woman – probably a teenager – in a ratty T-shirt with a band logo, a small child that only came up to her hips, and a man with orange sunglasses and a blue shirt.

‘I could’ve killed people running from the PER,’Kraber thought. ‘After fokkin’ up the city. After killing countless people. I’m just no good to anyone here, am I?’

Kraber carefully aimed away from the running humans, tracking up towards a window…

And seeing a PER pegasus aiming a crossbow. A ballista of some kind.

‘That can’t be good.’

Kraber drilled two rounds through the pegasus’ face. They shot back against the wall, blood spraying everywhere...

He watched in horror as another crossbow – one he hadn’t noticed – fired. He fired two more rounds through the human aiming the ballista, but in the wind, in the confusion of the battlefield, they pockedharmlessly in the brick above the window.

Next to him, the massively-built black man (Lorne) with the grenade launcher fired a grenade up towards that same crossbow. Like thread through a needle, the explosive flew through the open window, splattering the PER man in a red haze.

Kraber would’ve been crowing ‘FOKKIN’ LEKKER SHOT!’...

...if not for the fact that at the very moment the grenade had blown up the PER man, Kraber was watching the child taking a crossbow bolt through the knee, falling to the ground screaming. Kraber knew what was happening almost before the bolt hit them.

‘Oh God, no.’

The child began to shake on the ground – no, shakingsomehow didn’t cover that. It was like their entire body was sloshing, bouncing, spasming all at once. Purple fur began to grow around the hole the bolt had made in their knee, spreading out through the hole.

The other two humans didn’t notice. Or weren’t letting themselves notice.

‘It’s Dachau in here,’Kraber thought.

Kraber shot the kid in the head. Twice. Then aimed for another PER soldier, at a ground floor window…

… Except he didn’t. Whatever it was that had been shut off within Viktor Marius Kraber all this time was back on, shining or blaring at full blast. All the while, he watched humans rush out in groups of two or three, desperately trying to dodge PER weapons. Purplish sparks and clouds sprayed up from the pavement, and crossbow bolts pockedeverything nearby.

‘I killed a kid,’he thought. He slumped down, back against the cover. ‘God dammit. I killed a kid. Why now?! Why?! I’ve killed plenty of–’

There was a giant blank space in Kraber’s thoughts for a few seconds there. He found himself making heavy, ragged breaths, trying to force himself back against the car he was using as cover.

‘Wait a fokdamn minute! That’s worse! All these kids, and… how many. I don’t know how many.’

“Hey!” Chinook yelled, ducking down...

… as a crossbow bolt flew over his head. The human and pegasus stared at that absurdity, seeing it shatter against the brick wall behind them.

“You alright?! Have you been shot?!” Chinook yelled.

“No,” Kraber said. “I just… I…”

He shook his head.

“I just shot that kid,” he said. “I… shot a kid.”

Chinook stared down at him. “I… I know,” he nodded. “But… we can talk through it later. We’ve got a job to do.”

‘I’ve shot more kids than this,’Kraber thought. ‘A lot of this is my fault. What in the fok is fokkin’ wrong with me?!’

“Having a job to do,” Kraber said, “Is how I got to the point where, after doing this more often than I’d like to admit, I’m trying not to cry while under heavy fokkin’ fire.”

‘I’m no fokkin’ good here.’

“I’ve been there too,” Chinook said. “But, no matter what, there’s still people that need our help. And I’d rather know someone’s not going to die a Newfoal than let myself stop.”

“You’re a correct ou,” Kraber said, nodding slightly. “Ah…”

“Chinook,” Chinook said. “It’s Chinook.”

There was a pregnant pause as the two looked at each other.

“Besides, these are PER we’re fighting,” Chinook said. “God’s perfect cannon fodder. You just told me you can do any fokked-up shit,” he made air-quotes with his forelegs “that you want to them, and nobody cares. Well, I need you to put that spirit to good use. Yael needs you to. Heliotrope needs it. The city needs it.”

Kraber felt himself smile.

“That’s doable,” Kraber said. “And I’ve got just the idea. Draw the PER fire over there.”

He pointed to the left of the hospital entrance. To a broken window, leading into a lower level.

“I can see some PER down in that basement. I’m going to flank them,” he said. “I’m going to flank them RIGHT UP THE FOKKIN’ GAT!”

‘Time to fok voort.’

Heliotrope

The humans in the hospital weren’t exactly rushing out in droves.

“They… they must’ve been using it as a Bureau,” one National Guard man said. “Raided supplies from the old one, came here.”

“How many more are in there?” Yael asked.

“A lot,” said a woman in a ratty T-shirt that was more holes than fabric, shivering. “They… they’re herding them all into a portal of some kind. But the hospital’s so big, that, that there’s people still in there. We have no idea how to get to them!”

Yael nodded. “We see to the people out here first, until backup arrives. I am notleaving you unguarded.”

She looked over at Heliotrope. “Heliotrope, I need you to observe the building. Everyone else? You’re with me. Even you–”

She looked for the PHL man with the eel-type mask. Strang.

“Where’d Strang go, anyway?” she asked, a sinking feeling in her gut.

She knew the answer almost as soon as she asked, watching someone hose down a broken window with a pump-action shotgun, as Chinook flitted from side to side, spraying down PER with his assault yoke.

And then, the man jumped in. There was a slight squelch as he did. A yelp.

“He said he was flanking them!”Chinook yelled.

“I’ll go after him,” Nebula said. “If I can’t bring him back, I can at least be backup.”

A singular moment of clarity hit Heliotrope.

‘This is going to get so ugly.’

Kraber

The hallway was littered with rubble, cheap broken art, shattered chairs, and dead Newfoals.

Fine, then. Ponies weren’t all bad. The HLF wasn’t a force for good and the protection of humanity. And if tonight was any judge, maybe the ponies had to be protected. Tomorrow, he could decide on all this shit and what it meant about him.

But he didn’t need to make any decisions when killing PER. That was a public fokkin service.

He looked up a set of stairs, and - certain he couldn’t hear anything from their direction - made his way up as silently as possible. He’d seen a walkway miraculously untouched by bombing, one that looked impossibly stable, that led into the main building.

He hefted the MG2021, peering around a corner. It was almost a straight shot to the walkway – almost– save for a few ponies and humans, definitely PER, retreating down it.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Nebula hissed, fluttering up to him. Kraber had no idea how she’d found him, but that wasn’t important.

“... Ah’m going to go practice medicine,” Kraber said, slipping back into his usual accent, smiling. “Someone’s oan a burst mooth…”

With that, he stepped into the hallway, Nebula following.

One of the retreating ponies – this one an earthpony, a natural-born stallion with a cutie mark of a firepit – turned and stared at the two of them, mouth open.

“Oh, bu–”

Author's Note

Because in some form, I've been sitting on this chapter for months. The main delay here was...

...Well, that's hard to say. The release of Fortuna? Trying to farm Akvasto Prime? The holidays? There was a lot of stuff that stonewalled this. Anyway, I managed to finally muster the enthusiasm to do this!

12: PHILISTINE / The Stampede / To Hell With Combining / Don’t Fear The Reaper

Chapter 12: PHILISTINE / The Stampede / To Hell With Combining / Don’t Fear The Reaper

Co-authors:

TB3 (Even if this rewrite erased a lot of what you did, Thank you so much!)
Jed R (Special thanks for… what don’t I thank you for?)
VoxAdam (For some last-minute cleaning!)

Editors:
VoxAdam

Pre-readers:
Kizuna-Tallis

“One man goes into the waters of baptism. A different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps that swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man.”
– Zachary Hale Comstock, Bioshock Infinite

Kraber
August 8, 2022

A fake-PHL pony collapsing, forehooves grasping at a massive runnel through their throat. A machine-gun roaring. A human in face-concealing PHL gear and a batpony rushing through the hospital lobby, gun blazing. But the MG2021 blazed back, 7.62 rounds punching through the drywall and cheap hospital art, speckling all walls with bulletholes.

“Choke to death on MY DICK, all jou fokkin’ GATPROPS!”

Kraber squeezed the trigger so hard, he wondered if he was about to feel something clink inside the receiver and watch something fall out. Like a poorly-made Transformers toy. A Newfoal dove under the reception desk, trying to find cover.

“It’s BIG! It’s HARD! And it’s COMING to get you!”

The 7.62mm rounds Kraber fired did not give a damn about the cover. Three rounds ripped through the polished wooden surface like it wasn’t even there – and one bullet hit square through the dot of the ‘I’ for Information, which was very satisfying, especially when it shattered the glass panel. The barrage must have perforated the Newfoal, as it tumbled out of its alleged hiding spot, bouncing awkwardly, then flopped over, dead.

Blood pooled out around the desk, onto the tiled floor of the lobby.

“Run, FOKMAGGOTS!” Kraber yelled, spraying the MG2021 into the four or five survivors. “Run SCREAMING, like the little fokkin’ MOEGOES that jou are! Force me to blow jou so I don’t TAKE the drink and BITE it right off and SPIT it down jou fokkin’ THROAT so jou die DEEP-throating JOU SELF!! I’m IVAN BLISS and FOK every last ONE of jou!”

“HIDEBU!” a fake-PHL woman yelled, as Kraber’s LMG punched through her spine. She collapsed to the floor, but she lived. Lived, groaning, to crawl towards an open doorway. There were flowers on a stand just in front of it.

Well, she’d have what she needed for her funeral.

“FOK YOURSELF!” Kraber roared, stomping on her neck.

Repeatedly.

Beside him, Nebula bounced from wall to wall, SMGs spraying out at the remaining fake-PHL – two earthponies armed with homemade assault saddles.

But then a pegasus Newfoal shot out of the room marked by the flowers, wearing the most pathetic assault saddle Kraber had ever seen around their barrel. Not that he’d seen many. This, though, this was two Borz pistols held to the Newfoal by a belt. Spraying wildly, and its every shot missing him by meters.

Though deafened, Kraber seriously doubted the Newfoal could hit the broad side of a barn. Trouble was, he was pinned there, and it was too close for Nebula to attack with an SMG.

… In sharp contrast to Kraber, Nebula never said a word. No insults, no one-liners.

She simply closed the gap, corkscrewing to the point she looked to be galloping sideways along the very wall – which got awkward when she knocked against an alcove containing a flowerpot.

Alerted, the pegasus Newfoal turned away from Kraber, and saw Nebula.

“BETRA–”

Nebula raised a knife and chopped into her neck, cutting her short.

As the pegasus Newfoal lay dead, its glassy, unseeing eyes contemplating the woman whose neck and spine Kraber had broken, Nebula came down to earth. She, too, contemplated Kraber.

He met her gaze. In a minute, he knew, they’d be formulating an argument.

“You idiot! Why did you do this?!”

“Because they need to fokkin’ pay! And nobody will miss me!”

But before either could say anything–

“HELP!”

They both heard it, the female voice coming from inside the nearby hospital room. Putting aside their unspoken argument, Kraber strode forward. It was a small space filled with glass, Kraber could see it from here. His MG2021 would cause too much dangerous stuff to fly around. Silently, he swapped it for the Model 29 revolver.

Yet even as his subconscious dictated his weapon choice, his conscious mind was churning.

“Is that really the best argument I have? Really?”

Nebula didn’t follow him.

As Kraber stepped into the flower shop, weapon in hand, he saw the scene.

A PER member – a shaking, blond, bearded pale man. They were wearing cheap Kevlar, with a pistol on one hip and an empty holster on the other. The blond man carried a small pistol-sized crossbow that, instead of bolts, looked to be loaded with a vial of potion, which glowed lightly in the room.

Pushed against a wall under a flatscreen TV, he was holding an Asian woman by the throat with one hand, the crossbow in another.

“I’ll do it!” the blond man yelled, their hands shaking. “You let me go, or I potion her!” He looked to the .44 revolver. Kraber’s hand was steady. “You even think of firing that, I’ll potion her GOOD!”

“Do it,” the Asian woman said. “I’d rather die. There’s more people here, more than me.”

“Like him?” the blond man asked, snapping the crossbow towards Kraber.

That was the moment when Nebula smashed through the window, hindlegs first.

In the space of seconds, her hooves skidded over the tiled floor, and she drove both forelegs into the PER man’s scapula.

There was a crack. The blond man screamed, and released his grip from the Asian woman. And Kraber did the thing that had always come naturally to him.

He kicked the blond man in the face.

The crossbow dropped to the floor. So did the blond man, who tumbled into a bed lined with stuffed-animal plushies – rabbits, dogs, an owl and a penguin – labelled ‘The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital’, cracking the plastic, then falling to the floor in an awkward heap full of plushies.

Screeching, the man reached for the pistol at his hip.

“OO OKE I AW!”

(Translation; “YOU BROKE MY JAW!”)

Kraber stomped down on his hand, looking down at the pistol. Cheap .32 semiautomatic. He’d used something like it once. Hadn’t liked it.

He saw Nebula actually flinch as he reached down to grab the blond man by the arm and drag him upwards.

“You… you…” the blond man hissed, through shattered bone.

Behind Kraber, Nebula was helping the Asian woman back to her feet. A doctor, by the looks of her white coat, torn at the spot where her name-tag should be.

“Are you alright?” asked Nebula. “Doctor…”

The Asian woman nodded, in shock. “Tanaka,” she whispered. “Julia Tanaka. Th… thank you.”

She said this to Nebula, not Kraber. He wasn’t sure he blamed her for it. The blond man was a true lightweight, Kraber had no trouble holding him up with one hand.

“Come on,” Kraber said, wrapping his prey by the neck. “CURSE LIKE A FOKKIN’ MAN!”

“He might be at this for a while,” Nebula sighed to Tanaka. “No finesse. Good distraction, though,” she said, glancing at the window she’d broken. “Gave me time to loop around.”

Inspired, Kraber choke-slammed the blond man right into a jutting shard of the broken window. It cut deep into his temple.

“What the hell is he doing?!” Tanaka yelled.

“It’ll be fine,” Nebula said casually, before touching an earpiece. “Yes. Sergeant Heliotrope, this is Petty Officer Nebula. PHL attached to Coast Guard.” Pause for reply. “Alright, we’re… Yes. Yes, it was stupid.”

Kraber whispered into the blond man’s ear. “You wanted to ponify Tanaka. Maybe make her a pegasus. Make her fly? We’re on the third floor, you know.”

He dragged the barely-struggling lightweight up to his feet by one arm, wondering if he was about to accidentally pull the thing out of its socket.

“Hey!” shouted Nebula. “Where are you taking him?!”

“What does that…” the man asked. “What does, what are you, no, no, n-”

Heliotrope

It was Bedlam out there. People streaming out of the hospital, and Heliotrope, along with all the Equestrians and humans who’d been with Bliss, they all stood at the foot of the hospital, ushering stampeding humans to relative safety.

Bliss had been unpredictable from the start. But…. going off on his own? Into a combat zone full of PER? Having a thestral follow him?

If Heliotrope knew who his commanding officer was, she’d–

‘Huh.’

Her train of thought abruptly crawled to a stop in the station.

‘Is that how PHL command saw us?’

She tapped her earpiece.

“Nebula,” Heliotrope said. “Please copy. Do you–” Static. “Nebula? Are you there?”

“Yes. Sergeant Heliotrope, this is Petty Officer Nebula. PHL attached to Coast Guard. Over.”

Heliotrope breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Luna, they haven’t got you. That said, this was a reallydumb thing for him to do.”

“Alright, we’re…”Nebula said.“Yes. Yes it was stupid.”

“Can you give me your position? Over.”

But instead of a response, this was what she heard. “Hey! Where are you taking him?”

“Nebula?” Heliotrope gasped, tapping the piece. “Nebula? What’s going on!”

For several agonizing minutes, stretched into eternity, the other end stayed silent. The Heliotrope got a response, of sorts. Up above, on the third or fourth floor, she saw machine-gun flashes in the windows.

‘What,’Heliotrope asked herself, is that idiot doing now.’

And then Nebula came back on. “Uh, Heliotrope? You were requesting our position? Somehow, I don’t think that’s gonna be an issue…”

“STRAIGHT FOKKIN’ DOWN! YEET!”

There was a scream, then a crash.

… Or was it the other way around? A crash, then a scream?

Regardless, a man flew backwards out the window, screaming at the top of his lungs. He looked like he’d been thrown.In open-mouthed shock, Heliotrope watched him plummet to the ground.

Yael sprang into action almost immediately

“Melody! I need you to break his fall. Heliotrope, I need you to catch him!”

Heliotrope sprang into action almost immediately. She rocketed up, pavement disappearing below her hinds as she flew towards the falling, screaming man.

But the minute she was within a foot of him, she knew they’d be too late. At his speed, he’d probably crush her forelegs against the ground, or whatever they hit. Physics are a bitch.

As it happened, she was inches away when he hit the roof of a car – was it a Subaru? – which collapsed like papier-mache on impact.

‘No…’Heliotrope thought, looking at the mangled wreck of both car and human.

“His jaw’s broken, his back, his arms… and his...” Heliotrope winced as she looked at the human’s twisted, mutilated neck. “Oh. Oh Ce…. oh Luna, they were notmeant to bend that way.”

“Heliotrope. Come in, Heliotrope,”said Nebula. “If it helps, that guy was PER.” She paused. “Bliss, did you seriously yell ‘yeet!’ when you did it?”

Another pause.

“Wow. Really?”

Yet another pause.

“Okay, I don’t care how fun it is to yell. If you’re gonna be that way, here’s one: Stop it. Get some help.”

Heliotrope thought that over.

“...That makes me feel better than it should,” she admitted. “The PER part, not whatever you were saying to Bliss.”

“Nebula, what’s going on up there?” Yael asked, walking over. “Did that idiot find a survivor?”

Kraber

“Bliss found one, yeah. She was being held hostage, so he…”

Nebula’s voice trailed off. She looked to Kraber.

“Mind if I tune you into this?”

Kraber thought that over. On the one hand, being in contact with Yael and Heliotrope, those two ominous figures down there – who would without a doubt tear him a new gat – was a disturbing prospect. On the other, well…

… There were all kinds of ways that not being linked up to the PHL could go wrong.

“And what’s wrong with that?”Victory asked, suddenly standing next to him, with no explanation. “Didn’t you wantto die a couple–”

Kraber’s train of thought derailed.

‘I wanted to die?! Goddammit, what is this? An American college?’

They seemed to be in a classroom of some kind. A classroom for younger children, but still, maybe that was why he’d thought of this.

Kraber had tried to kill himself twice while he was in college. The first time had been at a firing range, where Kraber was firing a FAL for the first time ever since he’d left South Africa. He’d been promptly distracted by soda.

‘OH WOW! CHERRY SODA?! I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THEY HAD THIS HERE!’

Finally, he said it. “Sure, why not.”

As Nebula fluttered up to his helmet, tapping a series of buttons, he looked over to the doctor.

“Are you alright?”

Tanaka, who’d followed him all the way upstairs – probably more for Nebula than he, really, – merely scowled, arms hanging at her sides.

“First of all,” she said, “what the hell.”

“In my defense,” Kraber said, “I’ve always wanted to use that line on someone.”

“Which one, ‘straight fokkin down!’ or ‘Yeet!’?”

“Yes,” Kraber said.

“I’m not complaining… This job, sometimes a little gallows humor goes a long way.”

Kraber nodded. “Amen to that.”

“You sound like you’ve been there, too,” Tanaka said, putting her hands in her pockets.

Probably because Kraber had. He remembered a lot of cases in emergency rooms, particularly for ski accidents, where he’d bonded at The Irish Pub – yes, that was really what it was called – with fellow doctors over some frankly fokkin’ siffjokes.

“So then when we take out the peanut butter jar out, I gotta ask: Was it crunchy?”

“Look, normally lightbulbs hang over the other end!”

“And then I say ‘that’s the secondworst place I ever found a spoon!’”

Kraber would usually win somehow.

“... So then we ask Howard... and this ou, he has a concussion, he can barely stand, he’s bleeding like Phineas Gage, he really should not be talking… who the Republican frontrunner is. And Howard, he just goes, ‘Now that I wishI could forget.’”

He nodded. “So, what happened here?”

Tanaka’s voice was most acidic. “Those PHL just stormed in, took things over, and started herding people in.”

Thirty minutes ago, Kraber would not have even noticed the subtle bristling, the narrowing of Nebula’s eyes.

“Excuse me?” the batbony asked.

“Right, right,” Tanaka sighed. “Sorry.”

Kraber couldn’t tell if Tanaka really was, in fact, sorry.

“They started taking over rooms we barely used,” she explained. “Clearing space in the basement, escortingpeople in by the dozen. Said they were taking over the hospital in an emergency.”

“And you let them?!” Kraber asked, incredulous.

“They had guns, they were PHL, and it wasan emergency,” Tanaka said. “What else was I going to do?”

Sighing heavily, she sat down on a little chair, in front of a desk much too small for her, and placed her arms upon it, wringing her hands.

Kraber mulled it over. “That’s fair. Is anyone else hiding in here?”

Tanaka nodded. “Caduceus and Sylvia Bray are holed up somewhere in the Richards Building. Somewhere on the eighth floor. They managed to wall off some survivors, but they need help.”

“Then that’s where I’m going,” Kraber said.

His helmet’s speakers crackled.

“Not yet you’re not, Bliss,” said Heliotrope.

“You,”Ze’ev growled, “Have made a very stupid decision.”

… That bitch.

‘FOKKIN’ stranded with these FOKKIN’ GELDOS and this GODDAMN PERDNAAIER telling me what THE FOK I CAN FOKKIN’ DO–’

Red-hot anger flared up in Kraber, against the PHL, against Lovikov, against every fokkin’ thing that had led him to this moment, to being stuck in this hospital, hated by everyone around him.

“AND WHAT THE FOK ARE YOU GOIN–”

“Soldier,” Heliotrope said. “Shut up.”

And, inexplicably, Kraber did. What was he even going to say?

“Is this the part where one of you threatens to kill me?” he asked.

“What? We’re not going to kill you, you imbecile,” Heliotrope said. “Why would you think that?”

“My last commanding officer was like that.”

There was a pause.

“Your commanding officer seriously threatened to kill you,” Ze’ev said.“You haveto be kidding.”

“I’m really not,” Kraber said. “Threw all my stuff out of my footlocker and threatened to throw it away, in front of my unit. It was my fault though, I–”

“Shut up,” Heliotrope said.

“Excuse me?”

Heliotrope heaved a sigh. “Whatever you did, Bliss, no way that could ever be acceptable behavior towards one’s soldiers.”

“He acted like everyone’s best friend as he did it, too,” Kraber admitted. “What a prick, right?”

She didn’t say a word.

“... Heliotrope, he can’t hear you nodding,” Yael said.

“Right...” Heliotrope said. “However, none of this changes the fact you yelled at superior officers. Us, not that prick you were talking about.”

… Shit.

So Kraber told partof the truth.

“It’s been a stressful day,” he said. “The rig, this attack, the PER… I just feel so angryat everything that I haveto just go in here and rip everything to pieces till I feel like at least somethingwent right.”

“Shouldn’t that be in past tense?” Heliotrope asked.

“No,” Kraber said bluntly.

“I understand,” Yael said, “It has been a stressful day. But you yelled at a superior officer. However, you can make up for it, soldier.”

“I can?” Kraber asked.

“Yes,” Yael said. “You can scout out the hospital, all to the very best of your ability, and I’ll forget that ever happened.”

Nebula, who’d been listening in with Tanaka for a while, coughed. “Lieutenant, is that blackmail, or the chain of command in action?”

“There’s really not much of a difference, when you think about it.”

Kraber grunted. “I was beginning to think it was more of a hostage situation.”

“Oh,” Heliotrope chuckled. “You would.”

‘I am relating better to two people I spent years thinking would literally try to kill me,’ Kraber thought, ‘as opposed to Lovikov. Excellent. Now this is hell. And here I thought I just wasn’t trying hard enough.’

“Anyway,” Kraber said, “I’ll… do what you said. Copy that.”

“Copy that,” Ze’ev said, flickering out.

Kraber turned to the woman and thestral, who each looked bemused.

“Alright,” said Kraber. “Tanaka. You talked about Caduceus and Sylvia Bray... can you guide us to the Richards Building?”

Tanaka nodded, getting up from her child-sized desk. “I will. And, Bliss... just call me Julia.”

“Fair call.” Kraber reached down to the floor, picking up the .32. “You’ll probably need this.”

“I don’t like guns very much,” Tanaka admitted, while Nebula inspected her own weapons.

“Coincidentally, PER don’t like being shot,” Kraber said, passing it to her with one hand around the slide. “It all balances out. I’ll pass you something new.”

Then Kraber’s earpiece crackled again.

Yael

A few minutes later, Yael again spoke into the earpiece.

“Bliss,” she began, then paused, realizing that she’d never thought too hard about his rank.

The insignia on his armor said Corporal, but… it wasn’t his armor. Still, it was good as anything.

“Corporal Bliss,” she said. “While you clear the hospital, Heliotrope and I will be securing a perimeter around Haddon.”

Nebula cut into the feed. “...Really? Just Haddon, sir?”

“Just him,” Heliotrope confirmed. “He was the only one who managed to survive getting shot andhit by an ambulance. PHL armor is tough, but it’s not thattough.”

Yael nodded. “We’re standing by, guarding the landing zone for our medvac. With Portland being what it is, driving him through the city would be… inadvisable.”

Bliss responded. “So, for the PHL, or basically any one of the alphabet soups?”

A pause from the other end.

“I’m going to go with ‘anyone,’” Heliotrope answered, nodding almost reflexively.

“Heliotrope’s right,” Yael said. “We haven’t accounted for all the PER in the area, I’ve gotten reports of looting, and that National Guardsman that nearly shot me–”

“Wait, what–” Bliss started.

“–whose nameI still don’t know–”

That bothered her slightly. She’d never gone and asked. And yet, somehow, here he was, helping set up the perimeter.

“-–is probably not an isolated incident.”

“Could be worse, though,” Heliotrope added. “At least we’re not HLF.”

Bliss laughed nervously. “Thank God. But for real though, Lieutenant. What about the Ship?”

The Ship.

Yael only barely stopped herself from thinking ‘the shit.’ She preferred not to swear nearlyas much as some of her colleagues. It had barely been an hour, and they were already thinking of it like some kind of boogeyman.

‘Can this f– can this city,’Yael thought, ‘stay fixed. For just one. Solitary. Minute.’

“Radar, scanners, thaumic sensors aren’t reading anything,” Heliotrope informed her. “We’ve checked. Whatever that was doing, it’s long gone.”

“If you say so,” Bliss said. “Something was wrong with that thing. It… the moment it appeared, it was like… I could… I felt my skin crawling.”

Heliotrope nodded. Yael looked at her, arching an eyebrow.

“Right,” Heliotrope said. “There was just… this… something was wronghere. It was like looking into a portal from behind. It was like my mind refused to go along with my eyes.”

“Right!” Bliss chirped. “Anyway. Nebula says she might have a lead on some survivors, and I need to keep quiet. Bliss, over and out.”

“Ze’ev, over and out.”

In front of her, Yael saw Lorne and Quiette Shy carrying Garrett Haddon on a stretcher they’d looted from an ambulance. Lorne held it in two hands, and Quiette Shy was merrily trotting along, the stretcher held aloft in the red aura of her magic.

Haddon was barely conscious, on account of Quiette Shy having dosed him with somethingfrom her saddlebags. Probably morphine. They going to use a local diner – the kind that served pizza that was a little more grease, a little less food – to hold him.

As Quiette Shy walked ahead of Lorne, Oscar nodded to them. He held his usual HV Penetrator in both hands. About three stories up, Yael saw Eva and Smoky, the coal-black earthpony staring through a set of binoculars.

“All this for one crippled human?” Smoky asked, swivelling the binoculars back and forth.

“He’s not just anyhuman,” Eva said. “Mostly because one? I barely call him human now. Two?He’s the one that knows.”

It should have reassured Yael. Should’ve made her feel more comforted to see all these humans and ponies working together. Off to one side, near a small alleyway, she saw Bowie working with a red and orange pegasus, who was towing a car tied around her waist.

‘Guess they couldn’t find a unicorn,’ she thought. There was something funny about that.

“Need any help?!” she called over, as Bowie and the pegasus pushed the car backwards toward the alleyway.

“We’re good!” the pegasus called over. Yael didn’t recognize them.

“You don’t sound good!”

“Oh, for the love of…” someone said from behind Yael. And there was the small blue unicorn who’d tried helping Heliotrope catch the falling man. Melody. She was trotting up, car enveloped in her horn TK. Before Yael’s eyes, the diminutive unicorn pushed

‘This is how it should be.’

She felt something that could have maybe charitably been satisfaction. But it was overshadowed by something. Something terrible.

Her mind kept flickering back to the first time she’d seen the thing.

Something bothered her. There was a feeling of almost palpable wrongnessto it, something that gave Yael an ache behind one eye just thinking about it. There was a feeling that it, or Yael herself, Should Not Be There, and…

She’d checked with the PHL and National Guard’s analysts. Anyone with an ear to the city. One minute it had been there, and the next it hadn’t. And that? That was absolutelymagic.

There was only one conclusion Yael could draw from that.

“Yael,” Heliotrope said, coming over. “You look… you look worried. Are you okay?”

“I’m not,” Yael said. “Because I just realized someone in the PHL wants Lovikov alive.”

Kraber

‘I’m a Corporal? Well ain’t this a son of a bitch...’

The journey to the Richards Building had been refreshingly uneventful. They’d encountered no resistance as they made their way up the fire stairs, to the eighth floor. Now the problem was finding where exactly the survivors mentioned by Tanaka – the ones named Sylvia and Caduceus – were holed up. This necessitated a to search room by room.

Kraber was still trying to process his new rank as, his .44 revolver held out cautiously before him, he opened the next door.

Nebula trotted in first.

The eighth floor had no bedrooms. It was cardiac administrative and labs solely. From what Kraber could distinguish, this was a hospital office like any other. It contained the obligatory vast bookshelf the occupant never read, and thin white curtains that made the world outside appear only as a void. Blank in daytime, dark at night, just as it was now.

“Hello?” Nebula asked. “We heard you were–”

There was Nebula, leading Kraber into the office. There was Julia Tanaka, holding out her pistol in a sloppy yet serviceable stance.

“YAAA-–”

Then there was the red crowbar. Swinging at Kraber’s face.

He staggered. “OKAY, WHAT THE FOK WAS THAT, GODDAMMIT?!”

Somewhere, Kraber heard the bark of Tanaka’s barroom .32.

A woman screamed. “DON’T SHOOT!”

“CADY, WHAT TH–” Tanaka yelled.

Kraber hadn’t really been concentrating on anything other than the glowing orange horn of the unicorn who’d tried to bludgeon him. All he knew was there he was, .44 in hand, ready to fire.

“STOP!” Nebula yelled, flying up under Kraber’s arm and pushing his aim up towards the ceiling. “Sweet Mother of Faust, STOP!”

“WHY JOU FOKKIN’-–” Kraber yelled, reaching for his other pistol.

“Bliss!” Nebula cried. “For the love of Luna, for Faust, JUST LOOK!”

‘Gonna fokkin’ kill her. She’s with them, she won’t let me shoot them, fokkin’ gluesticks, why do they fokkin’ have to stop us at every fokkin’ turn?!’

He was doing it. He was unholstering his 1911 ever so slightly…

“Vik.”

Kate’s voice. But it couldn’t be. It wasn’t… Kate was dead, ponified, dead, and that was… her.

He could hear the sound of her voice as clearly as he did whenever he scrolled through old messages on Facebook and opened the recordings they’d sent, trying to hear the sound of his wife’s voice again.

“That’s not how this should go, Vik. Don’t shoot. Act like I’m right here, right now, and think before you act.”

It was like there was a speaker held up to his ear.

‘I think I’m going crazy,’Kraber thought, surprising himself with how matter of fact that was. ‘Oh, I’m goingcrazy! What a nice fokkin’ change of pace! Dear Die-ary, today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender. I'm wondering if, maybe, there really is something wrong with me!’

He slid the revolver back into its holster.

“That’s better,” the unicorn said, stepping into view, revealing a yellow-orange mare with a mane in various green shades. “Now we can all talk about this like adu–”

“Oh, boo-hoo, you’re feeling sad we’re not talking rationally,” Kraber interrupted. “You klapped me with a crowbar! You might’ve fokked up my face, YOU BOSSIES ORANGE VISWYF!”

“Cady,” said a blonde woman, walking out. “Please.”

She was a little under average height for a woman. Blonde, with hair that’d clearly been whacked shorter with scissors, blue-eyed, and overwhelmingly cute. And wearing pale blue-green scrubs.

‘Man, the medical field lost out on a lot when we got rid of nurse outfits,’Kraber thought, his mind instantly changing track.

His eyes were also drawn to the assault rifle she had. A black M16 or something – Kraber had never been able to tell the difference – with a desert-beige 40mm grenade launcher mounted underneath, but with more inscrutable PHL tech mounted on it.

“They’re here to help,” the blonde woman said. “Look. They warned us, they said they were coming to help. Cady… just… please. Let them help.”

‘Cady’ nodded.

“So,” Kraber said, “I’m guessing that you two are Sylvia Bray–” he looked at the blonde woman. And, unable to keep the disgust out of his voice: “Caduceus.”

The orange unicorn glowered at him, then looked over to Tanaka and Nebula. The batpony just shrugged in the typical W-shape that ponies often managed.

“You did crowbar his face,” Julia said. “Don’t look at me.”

“Fine. I’m sorry,” Caduceus said, not making it sound like an apology, “that I’m skeptical of another human coming in, saying they’re here to help. I don’t need his permission to die. And if he thinks that would have fucked up his face, well–”

“Is there a part of–” Kraber started angrily.

It was Nebula to the rescue. “Let me handle this,” she said, surprisingly gentle. “Please.”

‘You know what? Fine. I’m on thin fokkin’ ice enough tonight. Sure. Why not. What even matters anymore.’

“I was the one saying we were here to help,” Nebula continued. “Unless you’re tired of–”

“Can we just stop?!” Sylvia suddenly yelled. “All of you! The city’s in danger, and personally? I’m tired of ponies and humans arguing!”

She shrank a little after saying that. Looking like she was trying to be anywhere but there.

“...She’s right,” Caduceus admitted. “I was under a lot of stress.”

Still, that didn’t exactly seem like an apology.

Kate’s voice again. “It won’t help. Sylvia’s right.”

‘Don’t need to tell me twice,’Kraber thought. ‘Close as I’m likely to get.’

“Very well,” Nebula said. “Status report?”

“We were holding down the fort,” Sylvia said, “but those fake PHL just stormed in, flashed guns and badges, and started Purple Misting it up in here. What the hell can we do?!”

“Shoot ‘em?” Kraber suggested. “Quick, are there any patients at risk in this building?”

“At least two dozen who can walk,” Caduceus said. “They ponified the more able-bodied ones first. And moved on to the bedridden and incapacitated later. Once the ambulance hit, we started getting them out, but… the fake PHL took control of one of the outpatient wings, we were using it as a waiting area for the evacuation. Now, they’re all… they’re all...”

Something clattered to the ground in the near distance.

“They’re all…”

A child’s giggle echoed in the room.

Kraber frowned. “What was that?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like the sound of it,” Nebula said, glancing at a pale-looking Caduceus. “Bliss, check it out.”

“Right, chief,” Kraber said, unholstering his revolver.

He’d never seen himself as one for stealth, but Kraber knew enough to keep his back pressed to the wall as he crept down the corridor.

There they came again, the child’s giggles.

‘Peter…’ the thought rose in him. ‘Anka…’

A house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Kraber walking into it, finding it empty. The ceiling fan lazily drifting, the smell of chocolate cake.

No…

Potion spread across the floor.

NO…

It was a premonition.

He came to a spot where the corridor intersected. Carefully, Kraber peeked around the corner on his right, towards the window side of the building. And froze.

The Newfoals stood before the windows, wobbling as if gesuip with delight. A small mass of them, undulating slowly, like zombies from the third act of World War Z.

“We’re cured now!” one cried… no, chirped.

It looked like it should be an adult, judging by its height and facial stubble, but it sounded almost like a young foal. Or a child’s windup toy…

“Fok me,” Kraber said, creeping back. “Fok us all.”

When the returned to the room, the look on his face must have been unmistakeable – well, he had raised the visor on his helmet, all the better to berate Caduceus. She herself was staring at him with a guilt-stricken expression.

Nebula moved to ask him something, but Kraber raised a finger to his lips.

“Company,” he said quietly.

Caduceus nodded glumly. “I was gonna say… they’re all converted.”

“Now you tell us?” Nebula hissed. “For Lyra’s sake! You really are a fuck-up.”

“Don’t worry,” Kraber whispered. “I got this. I’m going to communicate with them the only way I know works.”

“... Have me talk them down?” Caduceus suggested.

“Actually, I was gonna fill them with more lead than my college roommate’s plumbing.”

“That works too...” Caduceus admitted. “Be careful, though. They’re not alone.”

“PER?” demanded Nebula.

“Not officially,” said Caduceus. “It’s the fake PHL. But if you see anyone, that’s gotta be who they are. Nobody left in here but us chickens.”

“Where’d you see ‘em last?” said Nebula.

“Spotted seven bogies, Cath Lab N°5,” whispered Caduceus. “I’m not sure what they’re doing… they may be running diagnostics on the Newfoals. They say a lot of anomalous Newfoals tend to have had heart conditions... If you wanna take out the Newfoals, take them out first.”

“On it,” said Kraber, heading out.

He heard Sylvia speak up. “Wait! If they’re wearing the PHL’s colors, how can you tell who–”

But he was well past listening to any more.

“Bliss!” called Nebula. “Hold on!”

Kraber ignored her. Once again, with rather more precipitation, he crept along the wall, until he once again reached the point where the intersection.

He stooped and, taking a deep breath, made a dash for it, hoping the Newfoals didn’t see him. Newfoals on their own were no great threat, unless they’d been ‘updated’ into Newcalves or whatever new crime against God, nature, and science the Empire had thought up this week. But he didn’t know how much heat the PER might be packing. It wouldn’t do to alert them.

As it turned out, the Man Upstairs seemed to be going easy on him today, as none of the mindless donkie konts noticed him blur by.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Kraber marched up to the cath lab, and kicked the door open, shouldering the MG2021 in fluid motion.

Inside, huddled around a Newfoal on the examination table, Kraber found a ragtag group of humans and ponies, wearing combat fatigues with the letters ‘PHL’ crudely sewn on. There were two pegasi, two earthponies wearing crude assault saddles, and two humans.

All looked up to see him enter.

His first instinct? He shot the Newfoal in the head, killing it instantly. There was surprisingly little blood spatter, but plenty of grey stuff.

“NO!” screamed one human. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

The human, a brown-haired man in what looked for all the world like bulletproof HLF armor, was holding a crossbow with a rifle stock. Except instead of a standard bolt, it looked like they’d nocked a long, thin glass vial. The space inside of it didn’t look wide enough to fit a pencil.

“IT WAS–”

Again, Kraber acted on instinct, and fired two rounds from the 2021. The first passed underthe man’s right hand, cutting a runnel through their arm and vaporizing their pinky finger...

… Before nailing a pegasus in the leg. They collapsed, in shock.

The crossbowman, though? Time seemed to slow down, the bullet almost crawling towards him, Kraber distractedly tracking it… then watching as the .308 round punched through the crossbow, shattering his fingers, the vial exploding into shards and lacerating his body, one fragment cutting a runnel across his face, another landing dead center in his eye.

“YOU BAS–”

It was tempting – very tempting– to spray all 100 rounds in the box at them. But...

‘I only have about four more boxes.’

Kraber gave in to the temptation.

“FINE THEN! BUUULLLETS!” he yelled.

The MG2021 roared, punching holes through all but the crossbowman. Several bullets impacted on the lab equipment, shattering dormant machines and old Windows 98 computer monitors – who the fok even used those anymore?

‘And somehow, shooting people seems like less of an atrocity compared to that…’

Kraber strode forward and nailed the man in the balls with the MG2021. Serum from the shattered vial sank into the guy’s flesh, and fur began to erupt from the gashes the flying shards of glass had left….

The mutating mass of meat screamed, a high, piercingly absurd falsetto, and even as he clasped his ruined genitals with one hoof and something that still resembled a hand, Kraber had covered the distance between them.

“BLIKSEM!” he yelled, and kicked up, boot smashing into the man’s nose, knocking him down.

The man screamed again, and Kraber grabbed his skull – even as the PER member steadily morphed into something equine – and rammed him face-first through a viewing window.

‘Yeah, been there, done that. What do you want from me.’

And the place must have experienced some bad budget cuts, for a laboratory’s window to give in that easily. Blame the Recession.

‘What the shit do all those hospital bills go to if they’re thiscrap?!’

“MULLINS!” the surviving pegasus screamed

She shot up like a bullet, wings flying fast enough it looked as if she’d perform a Sonic Rainboom–

–then Kraber, holding the steadily ponifying PER man by what was probablystill his head, threw him back at her. She caught him out of reflex and, suddenly burdened with his weight, tumbled backwards onto the wall, cracking her neck.

‘Good.’

“They got Mist Swirl, and Mullins!” cried out the other human, an unarmored woman, a rifle banging against her shoulder. “They got–”

Kraber fired the 2021 right through her sternum. Staring down at the bleeding hole, she fell, while Kraber kept walking forward.

Unfortunately – for them – very few PER were trained soldiers, human or equine. Under calm circumstances, the two earthponies with assault saddles might have very well realized that a confined space such as this laboratory made for a fatal funnel. They’d kept just enough sense not to try firing themselves...

But these were not calm circumstances, and the pair surged into the choke-points just like blood into a coronary.

Kraber fired the 2021 again, spraying the remaining bullets into his would-be assailants.

‘Huh, sure has been quiet behind me,’ Kraber thought. ‘Goddammit, do I have to do everythi–?’

There was an on ominous clickingsound. His belt was out of ammo.

‘If I don’t use it now, then when?’

Kraber bolted for the doorway he’d come through, then holstered the LMG on his back. Bizarrely, it just seemed to… sort of stickthere.

‘Doesn’t even seem to weigh that much back there,’Kraber thought. ‘Huh.’

With the PER out of the way, it was off to sort out the Newfoals for him. But he’d need a replacement quick-firing weapon. A .44 revolver wasn’t going to do against swarming Newfoals.

It was when he whipped around the corner that he whipped out the Fostech shotgun, and fired.

But as Kraber wasn’t used to the recoil, the first round went wild, one pellet digging a runnel through a Newfoal earthpony’s leg, the rest impacting the tile and cheap sheetrock harmlessly.

Over the startled, angry cries of the damned, he reached into his vest, pulling out a pipebomb, the Fostech held in one hand. And he tossed the pipebomb into the mass of Newfoals.

It exploded, deafeningly, the shock-wave breaking all the nearest windows. The floor shook, a noise of groaning metal suggesting much punishment to its structural integrity.

He didn’t wait. The bomb hadn’t taken them all out.

Kraber rushed forwards, Fostech in both hands. It sputtered out 12-gauge lead into the moving pile of blood and viscera in front of him. Aside from the crunch of broken glass, his boot stepped on something squishy. Kraber wasn’t entirely sure if they were still alive, but it didn’t matter.

The Fostech was like a cannon in the confined space, and blood poured out all around him as he wore through its 12-round mag, painting the walls, the floor, the ceiling red. At this height, wind howled through the broken windows.

‘This shotgun,’Kraber thought, ‘may have been a mistake.’

The shotgun simply disassembleda Newfoal’s left half like they’d been hit with a dull axe. One leg tumbled down, split from its body, and everything else splattered all over the place.

‘BUT IT IS THE BEST FOKKIN’ MISTAKE EVER!’

“You idiots!” someone yelled, almost certainly a pony. “Do I have to do everything myself?!”

Unfazed, Kraber followed the voice. It had come from somewhere behind him, the doorway to a consultancy room. Trying not to look too hard the purplish stains on the bedding, he peeked past the door.

‘Fok! A unicorn, and horn all-a-glowy!’

Yes, a silver-armored red, angry-looking unicorn, raising himself the desk he’d been seated at. Kraber noticed something on the desk. A lodestone. This guy must be a superior officer, and he must have finished sending a distress beacon to any allies in the area.

They weren’t out of the woods yet.

Okay... unicorn magic was a nightmare at close range, unless you were trying to get yourself killed. They could do anything to you, even if it was something as simple as suspending you in their TK, helpless and defenceless.

First rule of fighting equines, take out the horn-heads. You never knew how they could fok you over. First rule of fighting unicorns... have backup.

He thought on the four women he’d left behind.

‘... Nebula will do all right. The rest? Not so much.’

So that led his thoughts to the second rule of fighting equines. Cheat.

“Here!” he yelled from behind the door’s cover, tossing last of the pipebombs he’d scavenged at the unicorn. “HOLD THIS!”

The unicorn was inches from the door. But any surprise of his lasted only a fraction of a second.

“Stupid trick, human!” the unicorn yelled, grabbing the pipebomb in his TK, ready to throw it back. Grinning, Kraber stepped out of cover and fanned the trigger of his 1911, dumping four rounds into the distracted stallion…

… Who caught all of them in his telekinetic field, all while rotating the pipebomb’s muzzle back at Viktor himself.

‘Oh, come on! That wasn’t fair!’

“Don’t worry!” the unicorn cried out, smile ragged. “You’ll stop your wailing soon enough…”

“FOK!”

As the pipebomb whistled for him, Kraber dove the way he’d came and clapped his hands over his ears, right before the blast and shockwave of detonation punched him in the everything.

This guy was good.

Wheezing, Kraber stumbled back through the mess of gore he’d created, his boots threatening to slip on the wet floor, his grip on the Fostech feeling weaker.

‘Too close…’ he thought desperately. ‘Too-close-too-close-too-close… must fall back…’

Then he did slip, the red puddle he’d made turning him into his next victim, and he crashed to the floor, painfully, his free palm barely breaking his fall. The stench of blood filled his senses.

He was completely, utterly dazed. It would only take another half a dozen heartbeats before the unicorn was on top of him.

‘And even if I evade him, he’s called for friends…’

But then Kraber looked up, and he saw he wasn’t on his own, either. Up the corridor, attracted by all the commotion, were the four deadweights he’d encountered.

“EISH!” he yelled, his voice hoarse. “Could use a LITTLE fokkin’ HELP here!”

Caduceus’ bewildered eyes were a sight to behold. No wonder. He must have looked like a total Stone Age savage, surrounded by the torn-open corpses and crimson tapestry, the winds from outside blowing his matted hair.

“What the… what the hell do we do?!”

“How would I fokkin’ know!” Kraber cried, trying to push himself back up. “How about something that keeps me from getting ponified!”

He heard the red unicorn canter up to him, and a hard weight pressed onto his back. He yelped.

“Found…” the unicorn hissed, unconcerned by the wind, digging his hoof deeper. “You…”

“Ah, fokking hell,” Kraber muttered, drawing his revolver.

Without looking behind him, he fired backwards blindly.

Light, fluorescent purple flashed in the air as the bullets spangedoff a wall of that same purple hanging in midair, deforming into mushroomlike shapes.

‘Well. I’m screwed.’

“Something about you seems familiar...” the red unicorn said, his voice slightly distorted from behind the protective shield. “You must be quite the beast. A prime specimen...”

Kraber glanced at his illuminated flank. Natural-born, then. Meaning he’d probably ponified a few on the side, lied to people, managed to pass himself off as PHL to pull off this raid....

“Go on,” Kraber said. “DO IT!”

“No,” the red unicorn said. “Getting Kevlar off your bodies… it takes far too much time.”

His saddlebag glowed. A crystalline power drill floated out, buzzing lightly.

“You know,” the red unicorn commented casually. “Shiedwall says one alwayss learn so much... from a live dissection. It’s not standard procedure, true, but the boss’s always keen to think outside the box for Her Majesty…”

Held in his equally-red aura, the drill edged closer to Kraber’s nape...

“Huh, dissection? No, no no no, that sounds too equine. Thankfully, you’re not, yet...”

Kraber broke into cold sweat.

‘Ohhh, no. AH SHI–’

“Hey, asshole!” called a feminine voice. “You missed a spot check!”

A vicious ‘whoomph’ burst above Kraber’s head as Nebula slammed into the unicorn’s shield, hitting it shoulder-first – or whatever it was they had. It was hard enough to knock him back, and the buzzing drill fell point-first into the bloodied floor, its rotations sending a spurt of pooled blood splattering into Kraber’s face.

‘That… that could have been me! God…’

“You people talk,” Nebula hissed. “Too. Damn. Much.”

But she was panting. Throwing herself into the shield had obviously cost her a lot of strength.

The red unicorn quickly recovered. “Carnivore nightkin witch!” he yelled, throwing up that purple shield again. “Betrayer, spawn of Tartarus, monkey-fornicator!”

Kraber picked himself up, trying and failing not to breathe heavily.

The Fostech felt too weighty. He let it slide from his grasp. However, he still held the revolver in one hand. Five rounds left in the cylinder...

“Bliss, get the HELL back down!” Nebula yelled, shoving him. “Cady, GRENADE!”

No sooner was Kraber back on his feet that the batpony had pushed him down again, and this time, he wasn’t lucky enough for his face not to squish into some foul-smelling intestines.

The grenade whizzed in from the corridor.

But there was no bang. There was a buzz, a noise that reminded Kraber of cars on concrete on bridges, and a scream of pain. Then silence.

“Okay,” Nebula wheezed. “We got him… we got him. It’s safe now.”

Wiping the intestines off his face, and trying with all his might not to curse the batpony who’d got him covered in this shit, Kraber stood up once more.

Of the red unicorn, all that remained were rainbow-colored threads of alicornal tissue, sizzling in the viscera that had splattered against the wall along with the rest, and blue smoke wafting up from a neck-stump on a headless body.

“What the f… the fook did ya hit ‘em with?” Kraber asked, as Sylvia walked over to him, staring in what could have been either sadness or pity at the unicorn on the floor.

“Crowe Disruptor Grenade,” Caduceus answered, an assault rifle hovering next to her. “40 millimeter, combining the shredded wire with magically-charged crystal shards.” She looked at Nebula and at the broken windows. “Explain to me, why didn’t we just throw him out.”

Nebula shook her head. “Don’t want to be a copycat,” she said, scowling at Kraber. “Besides, this guy?” She pointed at the unicorn’s remains. “Dunno if he could teleport, but a unicorn with that skill could use their protective bubble to break falls from much higher... We’re lucky he was distracted. I wasn’t sure the grenade would work. But it’s strong stuff. We’re... working on making them smaller, add them as standard enchantments on PHL bullets.”

All Kraber could process was this small bit of wisdom. The PHL had reverse-engineered shields from equine magic, and then crowned that by devising a grenade that could, at their best, crack the enemy’s own barriers...

‘The PHL’s making shield disruptor grenades...’

With shield disruption bullets coming soon. While it took the HLF tons of pipebombs and a lot of bullets to break down magic shields.

‘Great. The Sentients have adapted. We’re right fokked.’

“You can miniaturize them?” Kraber asked, thumbing a pair of speedloader-less .44 rounds into the Model 29’s cylinder.

“Sure. It’s not machinery we’re trying to shrink, just a binding medium for the enchantment,” Caduceus explained.

“Wait. Could I make that work with HEIAP ammo? I have two belts of the stuff in my backpack.”

“What’s that?” Caduceus asked.

“Long story short,” Kraber said, “thaire’s a tungsten penetrator inside the boolit, if it hits armor, the main bullet explodes and sends fire everywhere, but also pushes thaee penetrator down intae the target. It’s like a Russian Doll: bullet innae’ bullet. Works good against the Imperial Guards’ armor, or zeps.”

He was slipping into his false Scottish accent harder than ever. He was still nervous.

“Maybe,” Caduceus said, eyes narrowed. “That’s hardly standard though. Only HLF–”

“Bullshit they do!” Kraber interrupted. “It’s special sniper ammo. Super expensive in an MG, but a man gets bored sometimes.”

“You get bored of killing?” Sylvia asked.

“No, I just enjoy shooting deer and coyotes with special ammo,” Kraber said. “Sidenote, dae nowtuse armor-piercing rounds on wildlife. It just isnae a good idea.”

Sylvia nodded, looking confused and a little bit concerned. Perhaps it was because they still were talking about all this in the middle of a room full of dismembered corpses.

It was a health hazard, true.

“Oh,” Caduceus sniffed. “Anyway… for the record, I can’t do anything to your bullets. I’m a nurse, not a weaponsmith.”

She’d sure not sounded like a nurse a few seconds ago. As if to punctuate that:

“Suuuure,” Nebula said. “And where did you even get that disruptor?”

Caduceus pointedly ignored her.

“Awwww…” Kraber groaned, visibly disappointed. He decided to work it off through his usual method of self-medication. “So... there any more PER around?”

Caduceus looked confused at this, and a little disturbed by Kraber’s apparent need to kill PER.

“Downstairs, probably,” Sylvia said. “In the cafeteria.”

“Impressions Café, yep. Jimmy Garrett’s in there,” Caduceus explained. “holding down the fort. Sylvia and I worked with him, knocked out one of the PHL, he stole the suit, and hid them all. We ordered them to seal themselves in, while we went for help…”

“And you got me?” Kraber responded, struggling to hide his suspicion.

“Yes…” Caduceus answered back cooly, looking around the bloodied room. Disgusted, she tried wiping her hooves on a clean patch of floor. “What a bargain.”

“Julia and I are here too, you know,” Nebula pointed out.

“Guys,” pleaded Tanaka, joining in. “Let’s not fight. We’re meant to be helping each other, right? At least two of us are doc–”

“Three,” Kraber interrupted.

“You? Really?” Nebula asked.

“And here I was, thinking you needed professional help,” Caduceus said. “And here you are. The professional help.”

“Well, this war…” Kraber said. “Changes people.”

“That’d be a first,” Caduceus said drily. “Look, if we’re heading downstairs, I’ll try and cast a cloaking spell on us. If there’s anything I’ve learned about guns and stairways…”

“One makes easy fokking targets fir thae other,” Kraber finished for her.

“Exactly.”

Yael

“What,” Heliotrope said, somehow managing to not make it a question.

“It makes too much sense,” Yael whispered. “Nobody elsehas super magic versions of human airships that can apparently teleport. Nobody elsehas those human airships in the first place.”

“Maybe the Chinese?” Heliotrope asked, not sounding like she believed it. “I mean, who knows what they’ve been working on out in Africa…”

“No,” Yael said. “No, that’s not possible.”

“It can’tbe us,” Heliotrope said. “I… I mean. We’re the best, Yael. The best of humans, ponies, and anyone else that joined. We wouldn’t–”

It wasn’t that Yael wanted to disagree with that. It was just… easy.

‘We literally got sent here for burning people alive,’ she thought. ‘We’re not the best. And it’s the only thing that m–’

“Ma’am?” someone interrupted.

Yael looked down, to see Bro – a little battered, his PHL armor speckled with dirty and what Yael hoped wasn’t his blood – walking up to her. He had an FN FAL with a 50-round drum and what looked like a grenade launcher held to his chest.

“That’s not regulation,” Yael said, eyeing it.

“Well,” Heliotrope said. “As the markswoman, Ze’ev, you get an allowance of 7.62 for the Monster there.”

She pointed to Yael’s Galil.

‘Is she doing that to spite me?’Yael wondered. ‘No. This is Heliotrope. I’ve known her for years. I’m not a high schooler. Come on.’

Yael sighed. “Very well, then.”

“Ah yes,” Bro said. And it was at this moment that Yael pegged him as an American who’d grown up with guns. “The Cadillac of Kalashnikovs. But… Anyway. I was coming up to ask, do you think this is a bit… overkill, Lieutenant?”

“The fact that you asked,” Heliotrope said, “makes me more certain it was.”

“I, ah... I meant no disrespect, it’s just…”

Yael nodded. “It’s fine. But absolutely everything that couldgo wrong has,” she said. “I’m not taking any chances.”

Yael’s earpiece crackled.

“Colonel Gardner?” she asked, immediately picking up.

The apprehension in her voice must have been palpable.

“I’m setting up a perimeter around the city limits to catch any HLF,” Gardner said. “It would seem that… you were… right.”

And he sounded like someone was dragging the words out his throat. Painfully. And slowly.

“We definitely have found PER operatives in the city,”he said. “None of them claim to know anything about the inner workings of the operation. Or just how high up this conspiracy goes.”

“...Conspiracy, sir?” Yael asked.

“You heard me,” Gardner snarled. “Conspiracy. The HLF knew way too much.”

‘That is literally what I said,’Yael thought.

“And one more thing,” Gardner told her brusquely. “Someone absolutely had an in with us. Be careful who you trust.”

Kraber

Back in the fire staircase, the nurse, Sylvia, hung towards the back, while Nebula took point. They could’ve heard a pin drop as they made their way down to the cafeteria, on the first floor.

“Nobody?” Kraber whispered, as Nebula fluttered back up.

“Looks like they’re regrouping,” she said. “But… down there, on the way to the cafeteria… it’s just awfulin there.”

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad–” Caduceus started.

“You’ll just have to see for yourself,” Nebula said.

Caduceus visibly flinched at those last two words. “Cripes. Just how’d you miss them going up?”

“Not like we went out of our way to leave the fire staircase, you know?” Nebula hissed. “Now, c’mon, we’ve gotta take care of this.”

And as the five exited the staircase, Kraber looked on in disgust.Nebula was not kidding. It looked like he’d walked into a hospital-themed section of a haunted house. He suddenly felt veryglad for his gas mask as they wandered down a hallway, Nebula scrunching up her nose in that strange way ponies did.

The PER seemed to be packing up, but from the looks of things, they hadn’t been able to get everything. There were signs the hospital had been used for something siff. There was a rack of something stretched that looked like leather, sitting out in the hall. Medical equipment on trolleys that had been wheeled out of rooms.

‘They must’ve been trying to cart it out,’Kraber thought, walking by what looked like a tanning rack, with something unidentified stretched out in the corners.

Dacosta had one of those back in Defiance.

‘Am I ever gonna see Dacosta again? Fok. It’s been two days, but it feels so much longer.’

He’d never known where Dacosta got the material, but had known better than to ask. He stared at it through his mask’s lenses, reaching out, almost ready to touch it–

Before he did, he realized what it was, and jerked his hand back like he’d been bitten. And Kraber was suddenly glad he was wearing gloves.

“Skin,” he said, utterly failing to keep the revulsion out of his voice. “Fokkin’ siff.”

“I think it’s waste product from the ponification process,” Caduceus said, keeping her voice level. There was someemotion,Kraber couldn’t tell what, that she restrained.

‘What are you hiding, I wonder…’

“Well then, what the fok do they need with skin?” Kraber asked.

“Who knows?” Caduceus asked. Hadn’t she been walking on all fours, Kraber was certain she’d be shrugging. “Ponification bleeds off a lot of mass. Has to go somewhere.”

“I always wondered what they did with that,” Tanaka said.

“Did it help?” Nebula asked her.

“I could’ve lived a long, happy life without knowing.”

The doors all around them were thrown open. Kraber didn’t feel like looking inside.

They were coming in from the West. There was a ‘DO NOT BLOCK’ notice in front of an elevator, and a stretcher covered in a tarp – which was, conspicuously, blocking it. Because of course it was.

Something was under the tarp. Kraber saw what could have been an arm or a leg hanging out from under it, a stretched, warped thing that trailed off into the darkness. Kraber couldn’t see what the limb terminated in, but he didn’t–

Okay, he kind of did.Dissections of the half-ponified Grotesqueries were an endlessly bizarre task, a challenge Kraber wholeheartedly threw himself into. But it didn’t seem like a good idea.

“Cafeteria’s this way,” Sylvia said, pointing straight down the hall. She was trying not to look at the tarp-covered gurney.

There was a rustling sound. For a second, Kraber was sure he’d heard the tarp rustle.

He looked at Sylvia, who very pointedly looked straight down the hall, and away from him and the tarp-covered thing.

Then he looked at Nebula. Who just shook her head. Caduceus, meanwhile, had a strangely resigned look.

Tanaka, however, seemed…

‘Blasted’, was the first word that came to mind. She seemed utterly drained, barely registering anything around her.

crick

Kraber knew how Grotesqueries could beggar belief. How one day, after a battle in North Africa, he’d conducted a dissection of a woman who’d – unbeknownst to Kraber, or probably the unfortunate themselves – had a fetus in fetu. No, she hadn’t been pregnant, she’d just had a tumor of sorts that had an arm. And an eye.

He’d found that tumor shifted slightly, into the shape of something that wasn’t exactly a foal, but wasn’t nota foal either. And yet, somehow, it wasn’t as bad as the times he’d seen pregnant women being ponified, a truly fokkin’ disgusting crime against nature and all that was good and pure that made Kuato from Total Recalllook like–

‘No-no-no, that’s fokkin’ terrible, why would you even want to remember this, Goddammit…’

Kraber could hear or imagine he hearddry tendons that ran over twisted bones and snapping. Slowly rising.

crick

He very intently did not look back.

“What the hell’s been going on in here?” Nebula asked, trying to make her words sound like a joke and failing miserably.

Sylvia answered. “They were probably doing… experiments of some kind.”

“Maybe also stealing medical equipment,” Caduceus said. “Shieldwall likes a steady supply of human tech to work from.”

‘And how,’Kraber wondered, ‘in the fok do you know that?’

“Fokkin’ siff,” Kraber repeated. “How in God’s name does something my daughter said looked like her stuffed horse come to life, get mixed up in something so grotesque?”

“You have a daughter?” Nebula asked.

There were all kinds of things Kraber could have said in that moment.

Sarcastically, bitterly asking “Why not ask your friends what happened?” but that wasn’t what Nebula deserved here and now. The whole story, of being late to his birthday party and feeling worse than anything, walking into the house and–

‘No, God no, please God, in the name of all that is holy, stop, don’t make me remember, not now, not…’

“Oh,” Tanaka said, very quietly. “Oh.I see.”

In the end, his silence said more than he ever could.

“I lost my Dad to it,” Tanaka said. “He was a shell of his former self after the accident, but… I’d take it in a heartbeat over what he became. He’d ‘forget’ we hadn’t ponified, didn’t eat like him. When my friend had it applied too late and died just before the fur sprouted... all that little zombie said is he was glad Frank had even a fraction of his happiness. Like his death didn’t even matter.”

She clenched her fists, one finger tightening over the trigger guard of her barroom .32.

“Maybe… on some level, they thought it was right,” Caduceus said. “I mean, we kept saying we knew Harmony best. Maybe the seeds were always there.”

“I’m calling horseapples on that one, lady,” Nebula interjected. “The words coming out your mouth are insane! My niece loved dresses. She wanted to dance, or maybe just cared about playing dress-up. But then, in the span of a month during the Purple Winter, she wanted to ponify humans. And, before I said goodbye, I think she wanted to kill me too!”

She looked up at Kraber.

“From what I can tell, no special mark told her thiswas her purpose.”

“Is that… is thatbad?” Kraber asked, not thinking about the obvious past tense in her voice.

“Of course it’s bad,” Caduceus said. “If a pony has earned their mark, that means they’re fulfilling their destiny. Being themselves. They’re not a–”

“Sssh!” Nebula hissed, a hoof under her mouth. She pointed down the hallway.

‘This would be so much easier if she had hands,’Kraber thought as Nebula rapped her right foreleg against her left three times, then she held up a hoof under her mouth... like she was...

… was ...

DRINKING!

Kraber was about to mouth ‘three PER?’ to her, until the moment he remembered.

‘Oh. Right. Wearing a face-mask. This is both a blessing and a curse.’

He poked his head out from around a corner. Indeed, there were three PER standing there. A pegasus, an earthpony, a man in body armor. Standing between a counter full of trays and a wall with a dead flatscreen TV, above which hung a sign marked ‘Impressions Café’...

Sylvia let out a tight gasp, hands over her mouth. Kraber couldn’t see her face in the dark.

“No,” Caduceus said softly. “They’re here.”

The group was close enough to hear the three PER’s voices.

“Is it done in there yet?” the earthpony asked.

“I don’t know,” the pegasus said. “Why don’t you check?”

“Why don’t you?” the human asked. They sounded male.

Sylvia was whispering. “They… they weren’t supposed to. They ca–”

When asked later, Caduceus would say Kraber shot first. Nebula would say Sylvia screamed at the top of her lungs. And Kraber would say it was Caduceus yelling “NO, YOU BASTARDS!”. Meanwhile, all Tanaka would remember was that one moment she’d been behind Caduceus, next she’d been screaming bloody murder with a scalpel in hand, the little .32 bucking against the palm of her other hand.

Kraber just remembered the feeling of joy as he nailed one of them in the balls.

Whatever the case, there was a scream from one of those five, and then there was Tanaka, rushing the PER with murderous intent, something not just broken but shatteringinside her. Bloodthirst all over her face, under her surgical mask. Scalpel held in a backwards grip, so she could stab downwards.

‘Well, shit,’Kraber thought, ‘I feel so left out.’ Then, after a fraction of a second, ‘Automatic weapon won’t be a good idea. Could hit Julia. OF COURSE! AT TIMES LIKE THIS, THERE’S ONLY ONE THING TO DO!’

And so Viktor Kraber whipped out his revolver. In one fluid motion, he’d brought it up to eye level, stared through the iron sights, and fired the thing one-handed.

It went wild. A coffee machine exploded, and it could have been Kraber or Tanaka that did it. A cheap painting that was the visual equivalent of elevator music fell to the floor. And one round punched into a soft spot between helmet and vest of the fake PHL man. Everything between the chin and sternum simply exploded in red. The helmet spun lazily through the air. Blood splashed upon the wall.

The fake PHL man screamed, and their head clonked against cheap wall paneling.

He aimed away from Tanaka, tracking the running earthpony with the .44 revolver’s sight-blade. In the very same instant where Nebula was biting down her assault-yoke’s trigger so hard, part of him was seriously wondering if she’d break the thing, he fired. Anywhere from two to three to four to five bullets shattered the earthpony’s hindleg. They tumbled, skidding against the linoleum and trailing blood.

Meanwhile, Tanaka fell upon the startled pegasus, and brought the scalpel down.

And down. And down.

And down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down...

By the time Kraber had reached her, the pegasus looked like raw hamburger.

“... My God,” Caduceus said, staring at the gruesome scene.

There was the dead human, beheaded by one shot, their headless corpse slumped with its ribcage against the wall. The remains of the pegasus. And a bleeding earthpony crawling uselessly, trailing blood.

“My… m… MY LEGS!” the earthpony yelled. “CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS!”

Tanaka, standing over the formerly-living being she’d just butchered, looked his way. Something that had possessed her, called up from the depths, slowly retreated from behind her eyes again.

“I… I need to treat him,” Tanaka said, the scalpel dropping from her hand. “I. Need. I just…”

Kraber placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be okay...” He reached into one his numerous pockets, pulling out a small medkit and some morphine. “It will be okay,” he repeated, sighing. Not sure why he did what he did. “Someone, help Julia. Caduceus... ”

Caduceus groaned. “Fine.”

“And the rest of the PER?” Kraber asked, while handing Tanaka the medkit and morphine. “Where’d you think they are?”

But Caduceus didn’t look at him as she marched to Tanaka and the wounded earthpony.

“Kitchen, I shouldn’t wonder,” she muttered. “Where the meat is kept.”

From her tone, Kraber sensed she was one of those ponies who still hadn’t really accepted humans as meat-eaters.

“They can’t not have heard this commotion,” said Nebula, flying to the kitchen’s double doors. Gingerly, she pushed them. “Stuck. They must’ve lowered the latch. I don’t think they’re coming out for us.”

“Then we go to them,” snarled Kraber.

He kicked the door, just as Nebula bodyslammed against it.

It took them three tries for it to fly open, one door hanging on its hinges. It was at that moment that Kraber and Nebula saw it.

At least two dozen shapes stood in silence within, barely lit by dim emergency lighting. Shell-casings littered the floor from sub-machineguns, shotguns, and rifles made of bits of pipe. The white, once-sterile floor was bright crimson, traced with the prints of boots…. Only for the bootprints to just stop, the boots in the middle of the floor as if something had vanished right out of them. And, at the end of the prints from there, Kraber saw the distinctive shapes of Newfoals.

The sickly-sweet lavender scent of potion was on them, and they were swathed like mummies in the torn fragments of hospital gowns and uniforms.

“Ohhhhhh, Luna no,” Nebula breathed.

“Oh, fook this,” Kraber said, realizing what was coming next. “GET BACK!”

The nearest Newfoal looked up at Kraber, drew back its lips, and giggled.

“It’s you! So glad to see you again!”

“That’s ridiculous!” Nebula yelled, a slight quaver in her voice. “None of us-”

“Oh, but I can see the one that helped us! I just want to nuzzle them and thank them for making us so happy!”

Later on, Kraber did not remember pulling the trigger, or yanking the pins on three of the frag-grenades, or slamming the door shut as he tossed them in. In turn, Nebula did not remember screaming and opening fire with her assault yoke.

The doors bent like overloaded bridges. Thick red blood oozed out from under, and there was this awful smell like burnt hair...

‘Thank them for making us so happy…’

Kraber couldn’t get it out of his mind.

They’d been looking at him. Kraber hadn’t done it. Nebula couldn’t have done it, she’d been with him just about the whole time. Tanaka had been a hostage.

Which meant…!

In an instant, Kraber remembered everything Caduceus had said to him.

Almost before he knew what was happening, his booted foot connected with Caduceus’s body, hurtling the unicorn nurse away from Tanaka and to the floor.

“YOU PONY BITCH!” he screamed, unholstering the revolver and placing it to her eye. “Should’ve guessed when jou fokkin’ crowbarred me! I’m going to…”

“Ivan, what the hell are you doing?!” Nebula asked, horrified.

“It’s fokkin’ HER!” Kraber yelled. “They said one of us did it, and it hasto be her! Who’s been acting like I’m the worst thing ever to happen in this hospital? Who tried to crowbar me? IT! WAS! HER!”

During all of this, Tanaka might as well have been in her own little world. She was dressing the earthpony’s wounded leg, wrapping gauze and bandages around the bleeding stump.

“Tell me where they’re going,” Tanaka said, “And I’ll dose you with morphine.”

“Get… stuffed…”

Nebula locked her forelegs around Kraber, under his arms. “Ivan, just… Just calm down, I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for thi–”

A blast of acid green slammed into Kraber’s shoulder, knocking him to the floor like he’d been hit by a train. Nebula was dragged with him across the tiles.

“CADY, WHAT THE HELL!” Nebula screamed.

“You killed them…” said a quiet voice. “You just… killed them…”

He turned, slowly, and saw Sylvia was pointing her rifle at his face.

“You were meant to HELP RESCUE THEM!” she whispered. “They weren’t like the others, they weren’t violent, or attacking. They were pure, new-born…white as snow. And you KILLED THEM…”

“You monster,” Nebula hissed.

Kraber saw the light of madness dancing in her eyes, as she pointed to one side with a quick flick of the gun, indicating for him to step away from Caduceus.

“Get away from my friend. She might be Fallen, but she’s still a pony. She has more right to live than any of us…”

“And me?” Nebula asked, an indescribable look in her eyes. Betrayal, resignation, defense, flinching, all at once.

“You were traitors,” Sylvia said, her gun shaking. “I… I’m sorry, but you….”

“I’m everyone’s acceptable loss,” Nebula sighed. “As usual.”

All this had finally got Tanaka to look up from the semi-conscious earthpony.

“Sylvia, what the hell is…”

“... You?” Caduceus asked, aghast and prostrate on the floor. “What did you do…”

“Three flasks of serum, wired up to the sprinkler system…” Sylvia stammered. “And a smoke grenade on a timer… b-but it wasn’t supposed to be Jimmy! It wasn’t supposed to be them! Why’d you think I was so insistent they hole up here? They were supposed to be okay!”

“What!” Nebula yelled. “Do you… Do you honestly think Cady would be proud of you for this?! Or Rime Ice?! He loves you, he loves Earth, he loves the coast, and you do this!”

“I know neither of you would understand… but you’re still ponies… and when this is over, She’ll make you well again, make you both pure again…”

“Oh, shut up,” Caduceus snapped. “Look at you! Rime Ice and I, we were raised in Equestria! We came over on the same plane to the same airport after the Barrier ate up Britain, we share the same apartment… Dammit, we saw Equestria’s downfall. We know what it really is.”

“Who do you think you are, talking like you’re more pony than us?!” Nebula yelled.

“I take no pleasure in what I’m doing,” Sylvia said. “I can’t stand this world anymore. The HLF could have joined up with the PHL, but no, they made all the most terrible decisions. We’ve committed far too much evil in our lives to–”

For once, it wasn’t Kraber that kicked someone in the face.

“NUTS!” Nebula yelled, flying upwards and swinging both hindlegs into the woman’s face, before Sylvia even had the slightest impulse to pull the trigger.

Faster than anyone could process, even himself, Kraber raised his revolver and fired one round into Sylvia’s knee.

She screamed, leaving herself wide open.

Kraber didn’t pick himself up, not exactly. He leapt, practically pounced, and tackled Sylvia into the wall like a professional rugby player.

The wall dentedunder her.

Kraber found his feet, and, as Sylvia sunk down, sliding against the wall-

“GET THE FOKBACK UP!” Kraber roared, drawing back his foot and driving it up into her face.

There was a wet, splintering crack, a spray of red, something giving under the sole of his steel-toed boot, and she flopped back against a wall, smearing her blood and tears over the floor, screeching.

Struggling, she reached into her jacket, pulled a serum vial into view, and–

Model 29 revolver still in hand, Kraber shot her through the arm. The vial dropped to the ground harmlessly, not even breaking, and Kraber went in for the kill.

He grabbed her with both hands to hurl her against a wall, pinning her upright. Bones cracked like twigs. She was dying. Already dead, but her brain had not caught up with her body yet. Kraber head-butted her, then half-punched, half-grabbed her, ramming her into the floor by the face, eliciting a splutter that was too full of fluid to be a scream anymore.

A pistol fell out of her jacket, a small 10mm Steiner-Bisley. He saw her remaining hand weakly fumble for it, and dragged her away, spinning her in a half-circle, legs flopping behind her. Then, holding her left arm, he stepped on her shoulderblade, on the left scapula.

Gripping her left shoulder with both hands, he pushed forward against her back with his free leg, then pulled…

There was a pop, and Sylvia screamed. He let her drop onto the floor and she writhed in agony, her shattered arm and leg flailing as she tried to crawl away.

For a moment, he thought about letting it be.

“Fok it.”

He kicked her in the face again. Blood, spit, vomit pooled out of the shattered ruin of her mouth. He left her to bleed out on her own.

He picked up the unbroken vial as he went, examining it somberly.

“Sweet Lyra...” Nebula said. It was impossible to tell if she was angry or scared.

“That...” Caduceus gasped, sobbed. “That was…”

“Brutal… disgusting… overboard?” Kraber said idly, wiping bits of Sylvia off of his legs.

“By the Golden Lyre, what the fuck is wrong with you!?”

“I don’t fight to win,” Kraber said, sticking the woman’s Steiner-Brisley pistol in his backpack – you never knew when you needed a new gun nowadays – and placing her vial atop the nearest vending machine. “My old Dad always told me, ‘Ivan, dinnae fight tae win, fight so you don’t have tae again’.”

“She was like a third your weight and no threat once disarmed!” Caduceus yelled. “You could’ve SHOT HER IN THE FACE AND BE DONE! Admit it, you enjoyed that you depraved shit!”

“Yes,” Kraber said. “And?”

“You’re… horrible.”

Kraber looked over to Nebula, who was shaking slightly. He knewthat look. That was the ‘Get out of my blast-radius’ look Kate had gotten now and then.

He felt him stepping back.

“Sorry, Caduceus,” Nebula said, “But do all the people she ponified mean NOTHING to you?!”

“She was my friend!” Caduceus shouted. “And this bastard just ripped her apart with a… a smile on his face!”

The implications in her emphasis did not go over Kraber’s head.

“Horrible?!” Kraber yelled. “HORRIBLE?! More disgusting than the fokkin’ kontgesigs out there ponifying KIDS? Turning them into fokkin’ ZOMBIES?! FOK that KAK in the POES, you want to know WHY the fok I’m like THIS?! ”

Rhetorical question. Kraber was going to say so anyway.

“PINKIE, the goddamn fokkin’ VARKPOES, ponified! My! FAMILY!” Kraber yelled. “She came there and RAPED my children’s minds so there’s not a fokkin’ THING left of them, and my wife’s probably some pony’s FOKTOY, or a fokkin’ MEATSHIELD I’ll have to fill with BULLETS! And then she’ll have to tell me I’d be so much HAPPIER as a fokkin’ zombie, and call me BLIKSEM!”

Caduceus quivered under this tirade, but managed to not cower.

“So, YES! I’m horrible! But I hope you’re not saying I’m as fokkin’ BAD as them!”

“No,” Caduceus replied simply, looking sadly at the gaping Tanaka and the barely-there earthpony she was tending to. “You’re just living nicely up to the standard Celestia holds the whole of your race in.”

“Just like you, huh?” Nebula asked.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Nebula said. “What does that make you? Super-duper special awesome Flash Magnus for the pony way? Your friend–”

She said “friend” like a curse word so vile even Kraber wouldn’t touch it.

“– just ponified a whole room of people. Your friend betrayed the Hippocratic Oath in every way. Your friend’s responsible for a bunch of people turning into those half-things. Your friend decided that all humanity was so broken, destroying their minds, their culture, their everything, could only be an improvement.”

Nebula strode up to Caduceus, half a meter above the unicorn mare.

“Unless you’re okay with that,” Nebula said. “Do you feel like the hero yet? Because far as I’m concerned, Ivan’s more qualified than you.”

‘Ouch.’

Nebula wouldn’t know it for awhile, but from Kraber’s perspective, that was a burn that could practically be seen from orbit. One that even Kraber felt, because somehow, knowing he was not the hero didn’t help at all. Being treated like it made things even worse.

Because he hadenjoyed it, hadn’t he?

Fuming, he turned away, landing a furious blow on an innocent coffee-dispenser. Something cracked, and the machine began to drip fluid onto the floor.

Sighing, he looked over to Tanaka. “Fok. Okay, how’s your patient doing?”

“... Morphine’s pretty good,” the earthpony on the floor slurred.

“I’ll keep the dosage,” Tanaka told them, “If you tell me where the PER are. They’re surrounded by PHL, and HLF. They haveto have an escape plan.”

“Won’t tell,” the earthpony said. “I swear to Celestia, I won’t–”

Kraber tapped their leg-stump with one boot. They flinched.

“I’m sure that you hoped you wouldn’t get ‘human poison’ in you,” Kraber said, moving his foot ever so closer. “But at the moment, that stuff’s all that’s keeping you from pain so intense it’ll make you beg the sweet release of death.”

The earthpony stared up at Kraber.

“Don’t threaten me,” he said. “Don’t you dare threaten me.”

“Threatening’s when you tell people you’ll carve out their eyes or testicles with an ice-pick, then mix them up. Or, I don’t know, when you say you’ll kill someone by farting on them. Now this, on the other hand, is telling you what’ll happen.”

Nebula stared up at him, goggling. “Didn’t you tell me you actually did that last one?”

“It was Taco Day, Botkoveli had a lighter, and there were Newfoals slated for disposal duty,” Kraber said off-handedly. “See? That wasn’t a threat. I don’t like threats. I like promises. I like the truth of what’ll happen. And the truth is, you’re going to be in a world of hurt if you don’t let us take you prisoner.”

Nebula shook her head. “Creepers. I thought that was just a Minotaur thing…”

“You’ll kill me by farting on me?” the earthpony asked, confused.

“No. Well. Probably not,” Kraber said, hands on his hips. “You tell me if loyalty to the Queen Bitch matters that much here and now.”

“Ginger Snaps told me tha…” the earthpony said, through gritted teeth, “that if you get taken prisoner, then recaptured, you get… you get taken to a mnemosurgeon.”

Kraber stared at him, horrified. “Holy shit, bru! Why in God’s name are you even following them?!”

The pony stared at him, goggle-eyed.

“My commanding officer threatened to shoot me. You know what I did?!” His voice rose in pitch. “I TRANSFERRED, consequences be DAMNED, and if he EVER tries to get me BACK under his command, I will cut him to PIECES as he SCREAMS for a MERCYthat I will not give, and feed the TINY rotting remains of his body to the NEIGHBORHOOD HONDS!”

He took a breath.

“So if your so-called friends and officers think that little of you,they deserve even less respect than they fokkin’ give!”

“I...” the earthpony’s eye twitched. “I...” They shook like a leaf, one eye contracting and dilating. “The boss said they were … that he had pickup arranged on the roof.”

Upon which the earthpony simply lost consciousness, eyes rolling back in his head. His tongue lolled out onto the hospital’s tiled floor.

“... Did you just truth him so hard he died?” asked Tanaka.

Kraber reached down and placed two fingers to the earthpony’s neck.

“That would have been even more bizarre than Taco Day,” he said. “But for real, he’s not dead. Yet. Just unconscious.”

“You mean that was real?!” Tanaka asked.

“Do I look like the kind of man who would lie about farting someone to death?!” Kraber asked.

“I don’t know how to respond to that,” Nebula said.

“What is withyou?” Caduceus demanded.

“If this is more of why it’s wrong to shoot PER,” Nebula said, “Then I’ll–”

“It’s not that,” Caduceus said “It’s… I can’t read you for the life of me. One minute, you’re killing my friend with pretty obvious glee. The next… this.”

“To be honest, I’m not sure either,” Kraber said. “‘Bout five years ago, I’d never have dreamt of this sorta thing. And here I am.”

‘We’re not so different, are we?’

There was silence between the three of them.

“I get that she was your friend,” Kraber said, quietly. “I get that she’s what you have left. We’ve all lost someone, haven’t we? Nebula, you lost your friends. Julia, you said you lost… your Dad. And a friend.”

Tanaka nodded. Kraber sat down, on the floor, by the now-unconscious earthpony. He let his head hang and slump, limp arms resting on his knees.

“I lost my family,” he said. “My wife, my son, my daughter, even a cousin. And you know what that means? That means I don’t give a fok about hurting PER. There’s a human movie, Schindler’s List. Ever watch it?”

“Yes,” Caduceus admitted. “Ambassador Heartstrings… called it essential viewing.”

Kraber hadn’t known that. The list of things he didn’t know about the little green unicorn, it just kept growing. Enough to make him rethink why so many of the HLF grudgingly respected her.

“Moral’s that war reveals the truth in people,” Kraber said. “So… we had war. And it turns out, this is what I am. A mass-murdering terrorist that likes what he does. Sure, I’m proud of some of the deaths I’ve caused, of killing PER. But I just got a good look at who I used to be, and… I don’t think I’d like who I am now. Twenty-eight years of people calling me a sociopath, even in fokking grade school, and here I am.”

He was silent.

“You might be pissed off that I enjoyed it,” Kraber said, “But I don’t exactly like enjoying it. If that makes any sense.” He sighed, looking down at the ground. “Don’t know who I am anymore. I just… I wanted to be a husband. A father. I wanted to help. But I also wanted to kill everything. I wish someone would turn me off and just… fix me. So when I come back, I’d… I’d know!”

Caduceus stared at him gloomily.

“Bliss, you’re not going to like what I say,” she said. “But–”

“Don’t bother,” Kraber said, raising a hand. Less in warning than in resignation. “I’m not stupid. I was a doctor, remember? Not that you can’t be a doctor and… ach, you know what I mean. What I’m saying is, I’ve heard why some people choose the PER and ponification.”

And all Caduceus could do was sigh.

“Welp. I don’t know either,” she said, turning away from him and throwing up a forehoof. “Julia? No, wait. Nebula? Help me. How do I tell him the obvious, without being a sanctimonious bitch?”

“Short answer? Like he said, don’t bother.” But Nebula sounded somewhat sympathetic to her. “Sounds like he gets it himself. He just doesn’t want to hear it.”

Caduceus glanced at Tanaka, who merely nodded. She turned back.

“Fair enough, Bliss. Yes, I get it,” she sighed again. “They never gave your family any choice. Why would you feel sympathy for them? They want fixing, you want fixing… maybe I am just a big hypocrite for still calling Sylvia my friend, while giving you shit for what you’ve done.”

Imperceptibly, Tanaka seemed to let out a breath of relief.

“Here’s the thing, though,” Caduceus added, staring daggers at Kraber. “If there’s one thing I know for sure about Sylvia, it’s that she’d never have mentioned Schindler’s List almost in the same breath as ‘Taco Day’. That’s all you. Your special brand of fucked-up.”

Dancing Day

“Jesus, Kraber...” Verity starts.

“No, that’s my friend over in... Brazil,” Kraber says, stammering a little. “Actually it’s pronounced with an H, but.... when we visited, back before the war... heh, we’d always say ‘Hey, soos!’, so we just call him Soos now. Wonder where he is now…”

“Are.. are you crying?” you ask.

“No, no…” Kraber says, then looks over at all of you. “Yes.”

He looks the way he did that one night in August, the one where he’d let Dancing live. This man is drained, the filly realizes. There is… There is barely anything left in him. Whatever’s left of him from before the war, there’s barely anything.

“Ahweh,” Aegis says. “I… what were you doing out there in the HLF?”

“You don’t want to know,” Kraber says immediately. His eyes are welling up with tears, and this man is a shadow of his usual self. “Ever.” And, from somewhere under his pillow, he produces a bottle of bourbon, drinking it down.

And so, looking almost unsure of what to do, a little confused, Aegis rises up, hooves outstretched, and hugs his friend.

Kraber looks at his bottle, then up into the white-furred snout of his friend. “Ah, the hell with it,” he says, and puts it on the table to the side of him. “Vinyl, if anyone comes in, tell em that’s medicinal.”

With one of those ever-so-rare smiles on his face, he hugs Aegis back. And even Vinyl joins in with him.

“You’re better chommies than an old sociopath like me deserves,” Kraber mutters, but he doesn’t believe it. You can tell... he looks almost happy, for once.

“Actually,” says Lunar Phase. “You’re not a sociopath.”

“I’m not?”

“No… Aren’t you a doctor?”

“Not that kinda doctor! Besides, all the psychology I did was bullshitting on the Internet. I don’t know kak about it.”

“You’re not antisocial. You’re doing this, after all,” Lunar Phase says. “And you said you wanted to get a stiff drink with me, and a bunch of others... and you feel bad for what you’ve done. I mean, hell, why are you even in this hospital room? Didn’t you care about your children?”

“Because I felt bad for…” Kraber starts, looking over at Verity, and a smile spreads over his face. “Well, fok. How about that.”

And in response to that, Kraber hugs Aegis even harder.

“Can’t… breathe…” Aegis chokes, half-jokingly.

Kraber’s beaming like a child who’s been told he can eat all the cake in a bakery. It’s like a weight’s been taken off of him, and he leans back against a pillow.

“How about that…”

It’s right about then that Aegis’ foals and Dancing Day dogpile him.

“HUG ATTACK!” Amber Maple screeches.

“No! My only weakness! HUGS!” Kraber yells, struggling not to laugh, and nobody can stop themselves from cracking a smile. “How did you know?!”

“Aegis was hugging you earlier,” Dancing Day says, confused.

“Yes, well, my continuity is terrible!” Kraber laughs. “I blame all the rewrites. I had to rewrite this whole thing. You know, it’s a funny st–”

“What do you mean?” Astral Nectar asks.

“We’re all fictional,” Aegis says, “just characters made for the amusement of others. The previous story about us wasn’t very good, and it was caught in a dying universe. And so, we exist only as an attempt to fix a terrible, terrible mistake. An attempt to do better, no matter what. I think about that a lot. The idea that my continued existence comes from a mistake, and so I must always strive to improve... It’s kind of like learning that I was an unplanned pregnancy, but on a cosmic scale.”

Dead silence. Any activity in the room had not merely screeched to a grinding halt, but had its brakes fail and come to a crash against the wall, causing massive casualties and turning into an unrecognizable mess

Dancing Day stares in horror at the twisted, broken ruins of the conversation.

“That was a joke,” Aegis says.

“...Kay,” Vinyl says, uneasily.

“He’s just kidding, I had to fire the publisher on account of them being a doss fokkin’ kontgesig,” Kraber says, maybe a little too quickly.

“Wait, how did you fire the publisher?” Vinyl asks. “You don’t even work at a publishing house.”

“What happened,” Yael said, “Is that the publisher wanted the book to be this big triumph of the PHL over insuperable odds where we never did anything wrong. What happened was that they wanted to write the most despicable thing I have ever done like an unambiguously heroic act. What happened was that they laughed me off when I said ‘what about Angelo?’ What happened was that they wanted me to say I regret breaking that bastard’s jaw.”

“And the thing with the captive bolt pistol!” Heliotrope adds, angrily.

“And the captive bolt pistol,” Yael says, nodding. “And Kraber did not like that. He-”

“Told him to, let me guess, go fok himself if his mother hadn’t beaten him to it already?” Lunar Phase asks, briefly imitating Kraber’s accent.

“I resent these scurrilous accusations!” Kraber answers. “That is incredibly offensive for you say I told him that.”

“Wait, what?” Lunar Phase asks.

“Did you just say ‘scurrilous’?” Aegis starts.

“I mean it’s not that far off from anything he’d normally say,” Grayson points out. “You kind of-”

“No! I mean, what kind of fokkin’ jackass would say I was nearly that polite?!” Kraber asks. “Thats fokkin’ insulting. You should be ashamed of misrepresenting me like that.”

“...You’re lucky you’re being sarcastic, or that would sound really weird being directed at me,” Lunar Phase replies.

“Huh. I guess it would,” Kraber says, stroking his beard. He doesn’t exactly sound apologetic there, more confused than anything.

“Lieutenant,” Vinyl says, “Back me up on this. Was he really that mad?”

“He threw a chair out a window while screaming ‘ASS SANDALS!’ at the top of his lungs,” Yael says bluntly. “I assume that’s a yes.”

“And not like some lightweight piece of crap that breaks if you look at it funny,” Heliotrope adds. “It was an armchair.”

Kraber

There came a sound so dim Kraber couldn’t say he’d noticed. Less a sound than suggestion that there hadbeen a sound. The .44 was immediately in his hand. Kraber reached into the coat he wore under his armor, pulling out a few spare rounds, thumbing them into the cylinder.

“Bliss, wha–” Caduceus said.

“Shut the fok up,” Kraber said, almost absent-mindedly.

‘Now where was–’ He squinted. Craning his head slightly. ‘What even was that sound? Or did I imagine that?’

It sounded like a quick, shallow breath. Kraber traced it to somewhere in the kitchen, and tried to keep his footsteps quiet. He was heading back into the slaughterhouse, now. Back to the recently shrapnel-laced corpses of Newfoals.

Nebula and Caduceus followed him, uneasily weaving around the corpses. Even though Nebula could fly, she seemed to be avoiding flying overthem wherever possible.

There it was again! Coming from…

The fridge?

Kraber stepped over to the doorway, carefully avoiding the corpse of a man who was simply missing most of his upper body. An Ithaca 37 lay on what’d once been his stomach.

“...Shit,” Nebula said. “I think that’s Jimmy.”

The fridge’s door looked… off. Like it hadn’t quite been closed properly. Like it’d been closed in a hurry.

Kraber looked to Nebula.

“Hello?” Nebula asked, knocking lightly on the door with her foreleg. Dead silence.

“We killed most of the PER,” Kraber said. “It’s safe now.”

A slight murmur from inside, that vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“It’s me, Nebula!” Nebula pleaded. “Ca–”

Kraber stared at her. Cocked his head slightly, at least as much as he could under the helmet.

“Me and this PHL soldier are here to help,” she said, correcting herself.

Someone called from inside the fridge. “Like you did earlier? Like you helped Jimmy? Like you helped my Dad?!”

Nebula tapped her own earpiece. “Nebula here. We’ve found survivors…”

Heliotrope

“... And they don’t sound like they’re doing good. I’m seeing… I’m seeing dehydration, poorly-treated amputations, and, uh… This guy, this guy’s not breathing very well.”

‘... Damn,’Heliotrope thought. ‘At least… at least someone survived.’

“They’re pretty pissed at us, though.”

“Why?” Heliotrope asked.

“Well,” Nebula said, “Seeing this bunch come in, and ponify you, then we come in and say ‘No, we’re the good ones!’... It doesn’t go well over with some people. Anyway… Bliss got the PER’s escape plan out of a captive. Or thinks he did. Airlift by roof, pretty standard.”

Heliotrope just nodded slowly. “Right. I’ll leave you to that. Heliotrope out.”

She looked over to Yael, worried. Was everything going to be okay? Were things going to get worse? Was–

No.

Ambassador Heartstrings had told her to hope for the best. Even when you had nothing else. Maybe even becauseyou had nothing else.

“Yael,” Heliotrope asked, “Did you call in that medevac?”

Yael nodded. “Of courseI did. I’m going to call in more, too.”

She sounded snippy. But would that be wrong? It had, after all, been a stressful night.

“I… It might be a good idea to order more reinforcements with that,” Heliotrope said. “I think tonight’s going to be difficult.”

“Whats With The Future Tense Here?” Quiette Shy asked, volume turned up on her voicebox.

It wasn’t quite yelling, just someone talking more loudly. Like, well… like someone had turned up the volume on a speaker. Heliotrope had never quite gotten used to that.

“I... just have a bad feeling… ” Heliotrope said, feeling all her fur standing up on end. She fluttered around nervously, looking into every window for an unfriendly gun barrel. “The PER must be pretty confident if they were planning aerial escape… no Equestria sky-chariot would be let this far in…”

“Well,” Yael said, “I set up this whole perimeter just to be safe. We’re going to be fine.”

It wasn’t as if that worried Heliotrope more. That would be silly. It was more that she was worried it wouldn’t be enough.

And, as it happened, it wasn’t going to be.

Dancing Day

“So, how did you get them out?” Vinyl asks, curious.

“Honestly, I barely remember,” Kraber said. “And most of it wasn’t that interesting…. Jou know. It’d be pages and pages of people fokkin’ para, the…. It’d be morne. ‘You’re bad people! No we’re not!’ Anyway. We managed to get them out, when it happened…”

Kraber

Kraber was treating the hastily made Purple Stump on one woman with gauze and antiseptic when they heard it.

‘Purple Stump’ was a slang term Kraber had learned back when he was in Libya, from some of the Reavers he’d run into. It had come from a heavily accented man, who’d used it to describe the stumps of serum amputees. Kind of like Gage, from back in Defiance.

It felt like years since Kraber had been in Defiance.

“I hatetonight,” said the young woman with the Purple Stump, legs dangling over the table.

“You and me both, chommie,” Kraber sighed.

“I just…. It’s…. First the HLF come in, say they’re good guys, and then they shit on us. Then the PHL come, except they’re not good guys either, then theyponify us. Then there’s the ship. And now this.”

“I’ve been wondering what was with that for a while now,” Nebula said, who was helping Caduceus to bandage a man at the next table.

“Jamie said it had to be PHL,” the woman said. “The ship, I mean. Not the hospital.”

“Do you actually believe that?” Nebula asked.

“I don’t know, but who else would have it?” the woman asked. “You hear stuff sometimes, y’know? PHL black ops, leaders of countries that won’t help out during the war effort getting, um, removed…”

“That sounds more like it’s just the American government in action.”

“This one good?” Kraber asked, tapping a vein in the woman’s left arm.

“Hey, I don’t want to think the PHL would just let this sort of thing happen,” the woman said, nodding and pointedly looking away from Kraber as he injected her with morphine. “But, wha–”

That, there, was exactly when they heard it.

A wet meaty ‘crack’, and the sound of something shattering.

“Wha–”

Everyone’s eyes snapped towards the ruins of Sylvia’s body. Past Tanaka, who was tending to the earthpony prisoner.

Somehow, Sylvia Bray was still alive – and one hand was clasped around a vial. One that had broken, purple serum running along the floor by the coffeemaker, where Kraber had so carelessly placed it.

“I... “ she cried. “Did not… come this far… to die!”

“Sylvia?” Caduceus whispered. “What are… what’s she running on…”

Kraber reacted first, firing the remaining few rounds in the cylinder. But it was too late. Sylvia was already changing, already crawling or running or sloshingaway on appendages that might or might not have been arms or legs.

One round tore through the Sylvia-thing’s ear. Blood dripped to the ground. She didn’t even pretendto slow down, scuttling or galloping out of the Smith-and-Wesson’s sights.

“Well,” Nebula said, staring down the hall where she’d vanished. “Shit.”

“That can’t be good,” Kraber agreed.

Everyone stared at the space where Sylvia had once been.

Tanaka was holding a gun, unfired. “What was…”

“Why didn’t you do something?!” yelled the man Caduceus and Nebula had bandaged.

“I-I’m sorry, I panicked, and I just… I couldn’t…” Tanaka stammered.

“It’s alright,” Caduceus said. “It’s alright, Julia. We all crack under pressure…”

“I told Heliotrope,” Nebula said, “the prisoner mentioned they were going to the roof. If Sylvia was with them all along…”

“Then that’s where I’m going,” Kraber said, thumbing open the cylinder.

“What for, Bliss?” Caduceus demanded. “A single Newfoal? That’s all Sylvia’s gonna be by the time you catch up to her. If. Lieutenant Ze’ev knows now, let the outside team handle it.”

“Sylvia might inform them, and they might decide they’re not done with us.”

“In which case, you’re much more use to us here, holding the fort.”

Kramber harrumphed. “Okay, then. Have it your way.”

Heliotrope

“Richards Building, movement near the top floor!” Eva yelled.

Beside Heliotrope, Yael snapped her Galil up to what Heliotrope thought was a window. Sometimes Heliotrope envied that. It was like… Heliotrope struggled to find an appropriate metaphor before just giving up and deciding on “not having hands.” So much of Earth was made for humans with hands. And fingers.

‘If I lose a leg, I’m getting something like one,’Heliotrope thought. ‘Well, it can’t be any creepier than Pineapple Nectar’s prosthetic.’

So instead she just turned, aiming her SMGs up towards the top floor. She wasn’t certainhow effective they’d be at this range, or how accurate the assault yoke’s reticle was.

The one thing that Heliotrope had confidence in, at this moment, was her eyes. Switching the tint of her goggles to night-vision, she could see humans and ponies rushing to and fro, as far up as the eleventh floor of the Richards Building.

“What are they doing?” Bro asked, staring through his definitely not regulation FAL. “They’re holing up at the top? There’s no way transport…”

His voice trailed off, and he realized it a second after Yael, who was on the cusp of admitting it right as Heliotrope said it.

“... They’re trying to teleport out.”

Yael looked over to Quiette Shy. “Is there anything you can do to–?!”

“I Don’t Know,” Quiette Shy said. “I’m Too Far Away.”

“It’s... “ Heliotrope said, one hoof to her head. “I mean, it’s magic, yeah, but it has rules! We can’t just–”

“I know!” Yael snapped. “I just… Let me think. We’re not letting them get away.”

There was an intensity to Yael in those last few words.

And Heliotrope didn’t welcome it. She was scared.

~~Scared of what it meant that she was ready to start yet another murder spree. After all, if she was that willing to be excited, she’d be willing to kill again, willing to be standing again in a tent with a...~~

Dancing Day

“Wait,” Aegis interrupts. “Heliotrope, you okay?”

“I…” Heliotrope says. “I’m fine. I just...”

But Heliotrope is absolutely not fine. She’s breathing in and out her mouth, raggedly.

“I just… I don’t. Like to think about the pony I was going to turn into,” she says. “But, what the hell. We need it, right? For your story.For all the characterization.”

She glares at Kraber.

“... It’s your story too if you want,” Kraber says hesitantly. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to here.”

Heliotrope shakes her head. “Where do you get off being so damn emotionally stable?”

“You know who,” Kraber says, raising an eyebrow and looking over to Aegis. Who just sighs and puts a hoof to his face. “Look. Heliotrope. You know I’m telling this story as much for me as anyone else, right?”

“You don’t say,” Yael comments sarcastically.

“I just…. It all feels a bit fokked sideways. That I’m here. That we’re here. Jou know what I mean?” Kraber asks. “I need… I need to come to terms with the fact I’m really here and not dying in the-”

He stops.

“Viktor?” Aegis asks. “Are you alright?”

“I just realized I can’t narrow it down to a single time I could’ve been dying,” Kraber says. “It just keeps fokkin’ happening!”

“I seem to be quite terrible at killing you,” Yael says, a wry smile on her face.

“It’s weird, right?” Kraber asks, nodding.

Yael, Aegis, Heliotrope, Grayson, and even Vinyl just look at Kraber, looks of puzzlement on their faces.

“I think we’re not in a position to say what’s weird,” Aegis says carefully. “Especially not me.”

“Agreed,” Kraber says. “But. I just. I need to understand that now, I’m here. And that I’ve taken what I used to be and destroyed its eiers. And so have you, Heliotrope.”

“Is… is that metaphorical?” Grayson asks. Dancing Day has totally forgotten he was there.

“It’s really not,” Heliotrope says. “I used a captive bolt pistol to do it. Kraber…”

“I don’t even remember how I did it anymore,” Kraber says.

“Please don’t remind me,” Dancing Day says. “That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.”

“How could you even do that in front of a foal?!” Astral Nectar asks. “When we get to that part, I’m not… I don’t even want to remember how you did it. That was horrifying.”

“I’m sor– Kraber starts. “No. You know what? I apologize for literally anything I did except that.”

“I’m not asking for an apology,” Astral Nectar says. “It was that or–”

“Kwaai,” Kraber says. “Because that fokkin’ kontgesig deserved for me to TAKE THEIR FOKKIN’ NON-METAPHORICAL EIERS AND–”

He stops, eyes darting from left to right.

“Holy balls,” Grayson says. “Viktor. What did you do?!”

“Let’s… not make this about me,” Kraber says. “It’s not time.”

Heliotrope

“Alright,” Yael said. “Bliss and Nebula are in there, so…”

She dialed them in.

“Corporal Bliss. Petty Officer Nebula,” Yael said. “I’m going to keep things brief, because we haven’t got much time. What’s your status?”

“Still here in the cafeteria.” ~~Kraber~~ Bliss said.

“Yeah, that prisoner of yours?” Heliotrope said. “Remember what he said about the PER heading upwards for escape? We figured they must have installed a teleportation device. So here’s what you’re gonna do. Head up to the rooftop, and keep them from teleporting, by any means necessary. You see anything that looks suspicious, destroy it.”

“So,” Bliss said, “I’m being told… to go hurt PER?”

“...Yes?” Yael asked.

“Fokkin’ sweet,”Bliss said.“Don’t kill the prisoner while I’m gone, okay?”

“You seem to care a lot about leaving PER alive,”someone said from the other end of Bliss’s earpiece.

“In my defense, I was kind of running low on prisoners,”Bliss said.“That, and… I don’t know, I did kind of just truth them so hard their brain nearly exploded. I want to see where they go from that.”

‘What the Tartarus is going on?’Heliotrope wondered to herself. And she found herself smiling, knowing full well that she couldn’t stop Bliss’ enthusiasm.

From the looks of things, neither could Yael. Who was quite conspicuously not telling Bliss to stop. Or telling Heliotrope not to smile about it.

“Heliotrope?” Yael said casually. “Don’t you think they might need some air support up there? Someone… invisible?”

It wasn’t as if it satisfiedHeliotrope not to be told ‘no’. In a month or so, it would… but here? Now? It didn’t even register.

Kraber

Idly, Kraber remembered something from a book by Brandon Sanderson. If one day, he walked through a door and found himself with his old college chommies in some Irish pub in Boston, or in Faneuil Hall eating chowder, there’d be no way his past self would recognize him, maybe even vice-versa. He’d grown a little, his face was lined with worry even today, he’d racked up an impressive tally of scars, he…

Hell, he probably wouldn’t even think he was the same species. Which one would think that? Past or future? Yes. Obviously.

He remembered that silly Polaroid that Erika had taken, the one with him holding Kate, lifting her off her feet, smiles on both their faces. He remembered the two of them meeting at Anime Boston, both having snuck out of class, and… heh. He did remember Verity. She’d looked so happy back then.

And it turned out that Zo and Erika had been there, and captured him hugging Kate, with her looking very pregnant. Kate had been happy to see him, and kissed him right on the lips. “You came!” she’d said. “I didn’t know if you’d be able to use those passes I bought.”

And, when the convention had winded down, Kraber had treated her to dinner with the money from that… well, adult movie… that he’d worked on with all his chommies.

Fok it, he missed college. He missed all the food, getting to eat meat at a moment’s notice. Sure, there’d been a lot of small worries, but dammit, at least you could have fun. He missed Polo, he missed Bly, Erika… so many friends.

The last contact he’d had with a lot of them had been back when he watched the sermon-turned-riot that lead to the death of the old HTF – Polo had thrown a bottle at Reverend James Thomas’ head, Bly had been screaming into Kraber’s ear over the phone that “No, this wasn’t right!” Miranda had gone off to something in PHL Medical, and…

So many friends, so many things had been lost since those days. Whether drowned in the ponification serum, or erased by the Barrier, and then, inevitably, if anyone had gotten ponified, their memories were locked up, the Newfoals convinced nothing happy was to be found in them.

‘Maybe they’re not so bad,’ Kraber thought as he ascended the staircase. They were near the last floor before the rooftop, now.

And Nebula was talking to Yael, one foreleg to her earpiece.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she was saying as Kraber followed closely behind, “does ‘A yellow spike of crystal’ count?”

Said yellow crystal had been awkwardly jammed into a wall, just next to a radiator. Nebula stared at it, confused.

“Smashing glowing things usually works out at times like this,” Kraber said.

‘Isn’t that one of the things we found in Maine a couple days ago?’Kraber asked himself, looking it over, confused.

“That’s a transfer crystal,” Nebula said, looking equally confused. “Or teleport spike, depending on who you ask.”

“Magic-illiterate, here,” Kraber said. “No damn idea what that means.”

“These were common Crystal Realm equipment,”Heliotrope said. “Think of portals as being like a permanent passage. These are more like…. like folding space for a moment. They transfer anything in a circle between them almost instantly.”

“How come I haven’t heard of them?” Kraber asked.

“We... I mean, the Solar Empire... didn’t use them in the War, and never got the hang of it,”Heliotrope said. “Portals are much more consistent. They require a lot of precision.”

“What happens if I throw this out a window?” Kraber asked.

“You already did, didn’t you?”

Kraber looked sheepishly… down at Nebula, who was rearing up and had the yellow crystal perched on her right forehoof like an American football player about to throw the thing the length of the field.

“...no,” Kraber said.

He must not have sounded very convincing. Heliotrope just sighed, and said, “Alright. So since you already did it, that’ll really throw the ritual out of sorts. I don’t know where this will send them… but either way, this might not end well.”

“YEET!” Nebula yelled, and flung it out an open window. “Huh, that isfun to say.”

“You need to find the control crystal, now,”Heliotrope continued. “Otherwise, this might teleport you… anywhere. Might even end up in a wall.”

“How will we find it?” Kraber asked.

“Look for the edge of the circle, and try to move towards the center,”Heliotrope said. “Keep looking, and you’ll find it soon enough.”

Kraber looked to Nebula, and nodded.

They kept quiet as possible as they made their way through the top floor of the hospital. There could be PER anywhere, they were absolutely certain of that. And while the common stereotype was that their only weapons were vials of potion that splattered harmlessly against armor, well…

Tonight had proven that oh so very wrong.

Kraber peered around a corner, staring down the Fostech’s sights. It was running low on ammo – in fact, he didn’t know why he’d picked it up, it was so heavy.

‘Oh, right,’Kraber thought, spying two humans and four ponies in PHL armor that’d been defaced with what looked like a purple sun. ‘Auto-shotguns are cool.’

“We are getting creamedout here!” cried one armored pegasus. A mare, by the sound of it.

“Don’t worry,” said another pony, in an overbearingly cheery tone that made Kraber certain of one thing.

‘That’s it. He’s dying first.’

“We will prevail. Besides, no way he could get through Schuller and Hot Pie.”

‘Who in the fok are they?’Kraber wondered.

He’d ripped through so many tonight that they blurred together. If he’d killed either of them, chances were he just hadn’t noticed.

“We will win because our cause is just, our wills are strong,” the Newfoal continued. “And–”

“Our guns are very large?” one human asked. A big, burly man in green armor, carrying a big, long-barreled shotgun that looked more like an AA gun.

‘He has good taste in comics. He dies last,’Kraber thought.

The Newfoal looked up at him in distaste. “Well, yeah, but there’s our responsibility. We have to do this, b–”

It was at that moment, at 10:43 PM, August 8th, EST, that the minuscule shred of Kraber’s patience sharted itself to death.

‘That’s it, they’re dead. I don’t give a shit what order it’s in.’

“Besides, MINE’S BIGGER!” Kraber yelled, and opened up with the Fostech.

The Fostech did not pierce armor. But at this range – the point-blank ofpoint-blank – there was enough kinetic energy in the buckshot that it didn’t matter. Each pellet slammed against armor like tiny little hammers tumbling through the air at 1200 FPS.

The green-armored man took the brunt of the first shot. And - as far as as Kraber could tell - his organs collapsed on impact.

“HRBLUARGLK!”

‘Welp! I lied.’

Kraber and Nebula screamed incoherently, saturating them with lead. Beside Kraber, Nebula was screaming like a banshee despite her mouth being clamped over the mouth trigger.

The other PER human thought they could fight, trying to return fire. They found themselves salted and peppered by a spray of bullets from Nebula’s assault yoke, and collapsed to the floor, bleeding like a sieve.

Kraber fired two rounds from the shotgun, vaporizing an earthpony’s leg.

Nebula rocketed forward, a gust of wind buffeting Kraber.

‘I’m not going to want a shotgun, here…’ Kraber thought, switching to his Model 29.

He fired away from Nebula, the pistol bucking in his hands, brass clinking to the floor. In almost the same instant that Kraber was pulling the trigger, firing a fourth shot – the previous three had peppered the wall – Nebula slammed the entire weight of her body against an armored unicorn pony.

There was a wet ‘thud’that Kraber didn’t so much hear as feel, and the pony collapsed like a pile of snow against a plow, thudding off a wall.

Their helmet cracked, revealing an expanse of lime-green fur.

In that moment, Kraber was firing the .44 into a unicorn, one that was poking their head into line of sight to cast a spell.

They tumbled back, a bullet in the soft, weak neck of their armor.

Nebula stood over the lime-green pony she’d body-slammed.

“How’s it feel,” the pony rasped, and Kraber could see from their glassy eye that they were without a doubt a Newfoal. “How’s it feel, knowing I’m more of a pony than you, you miserable, carnivore, near-human...”

Nebula twitched, and reached around the Newfoal with both forelegs.

Heliotrope

“RAAAAAAAAAA-!”

“NO NO NOOOOOOOO-”

A Newfoal with lime-green fur was thrown out a window, screaming.

Heliotrope barely had time to perceive it as any more than a green blur and a rush of air, before it swooped past her beating wings. It made her jump, or close, in mid-air.

She did glance down, briefly and on instinct, but didn’t bother to check if it’d land. That was a foregone conclusion.

‘Oh thank Faust,’ she thought. ‘Missed me by a hair!’

Heliotrope looked up to glare at the offending window. They couldn’t see her, of course, that was the whole idea. But she somehow doubted they’d have been careful with their throwing, even if they’d known.

“What is with those two and throwing things out of windows?” Yael asked in the earpiece, to nobody in particular.

“When you’re up this high, the opportunity sort of opens itself up!” ~~Kraber~~Bliss called out over the comms.

Kraber

“Well, so much for not being a copycat,” Nebula muttered, panting heavily, hooves stained with the Newfoal’s blood.

“...What was that?” Kraber asked, leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

‘This has been… oh… oh God… oh man… so… fokkin’... sat… such… long night…’

“... ‘Nother… crystal…” Nebula panted, staring into a nearby doorway, trotting towards it, and steadily regaining her stamina.

She bit down on the mouth trigger, the bullets shattering the thing.

Click.

The lights flickered, and the speakers poured out static. Despite the fact that he was wearing a helmet, Kraber felt compelled to clasp his hands over his ears.

“Nnngh,” he hissed through his teeth.

“Stop. Doing. That.”

Kraber and Nebula looked around, scrambling to find the voice. And there, in the middle of the hallway, stood an earthpony with a dark blue coat, and a black pompadour streaked with green.

Kraber’s blood ran cold. It was Shieldwall...

“Celestia,”Shieldwall sighed,“I’m trying to–”

Nebula and Kraber looked at each other, shrugged, and opened fire. Kraber roared at the top of his lungs, emptying the remaining nine rounds in the Fostech’s mag into the stallion before them.

But there was no blood. Shieldwall, or rather the image of Shieldwall, simply stood in the middle

“You didn’t think I was actually here, did you?”Shieldwall asked.

“We could only fokkin’ hope,” Kraber snarled. “This was you, wasn’t it? The hijacking, the ship that let Lovikov go free, all the killing.”

“I haven’t been killing anyone,” Shieldwall said. “You have. And going by what I’ve heard, you’ve been enjoying it. I did know about the hijacking, and thought it’d be an acceptable diversion. The ship, though…”

There was a brief pause.

“Honestly, I’m as confused as you.”

“What?!” Nebula yelled.

“I mean it, though. Where would I even get that? I’d like to think it was the PHL, but that doesn’t make much sense, then, does it?”Shieldwall asked, shrugging. “Or maybe it was Russians. I’m sure I’ll find out.”

He sighed theatrically.

“This is why I have to do this, you know. We provide you the best opportunity to cast all this aside, and here you are. You monkeys, passing it up so you can throw shit at each other.”

He, or rather, his projection looked over to Nebula.

“And you. You had paradiseat your hooftips, nightkin. What makes them worth it?”

“Paradise,” Nebula said, through gritted teeth. “You call war, secret police, and our people being made to just get their objections cut out with scissors… a paradise. That aside, if I had to betray my Princess for a place in it, it wouldn’t be worth living in. What are you offering, Shieldwall? A world where people like you say ‘nightkin’ as if it’s an insult?”

“No,” Shieldwall said gravely. “We’re ponies. We’d never.”

Nebula stared at him, steely-eyed.

“I wouldn’t allow it. Not for a hero of Equestria,”Shieldwall said. “Any pony willing to give for the Empire deserves a reward. Give unto it, and your works shall not be in vain.”

‘He really believes this,’Kraber thought, marveling.

“This one,” Kraber said, “Will be.This is over. We’re not letting your troops get away wi–”

Something shook.

Heliotrope

Heliotrope felt a tremor.

At first, it seemed to come from the building. She heard a rumble from inside. Too low and continuous to be a grenade.

Then it stopped. But only by half. The tremors from inside remained. The tremor within her suit had reached a high, then cut out.

‘Wha-’

Her head, her barrel, her flanks itched all over.

She pulled up her forehooves, unable to stop herself. And she found she was no longer looking through, as she should, but an erratic honeycomb-pattern of solid and translucent. Her limbs were melting back into view.

“Heliotrope!” shouted Yael. “The hell! Is that you I’m seeing up there? They’ll spot you!”

“My suit…” murmured Heliotrope. “Something’s messing with my suit…”

“And what exactly are they not getting away with?”Shieldwall asked. “We already have fresh herds of convies. We already have a wrecked city. I’m not even here. This isn’t even a speedbump in my plan. Nothing you do will have any effect.”

And then a wall exploded.

“And I do mean nothing,” Shieldwall said calmly, like that hadn’t happened. “Oh, yeah, did I mention,” he added, fixing on Nebula. “Ze’ev’s little stooge? Were she here, you’d see her. But she’s not coming. She forgot she isn’t the only one who can play with crystals…”

Rubble from the ceiling, from the remains of the wall, crumbled onto the floor, and standing there was a unicorn with glassy red eyes.

“Which had… interesting side-effects.” finished Shieldwall. “Ah…. so hard to know how to make new friends these days, isn’t it? Fortunately, I have a… good connection to the other side. So, I made my own.”

The Newfoal stood in the midst of a hole in the wall, surrounded by rubble. She was a charcoal grey unicorn mare, her horn upraised like a sword poised to drop. Had amber-red eyes appeared to glow in the dark, and her mane was a shock of bone-yellow-white hair that extended all the way down her back before re-erupting into a frothing tail.

Rather absurdly, she looked to be clad in an old-timey nurse’s outfit with high socks. Both the uniform and the leggings were as shockingly white as her mane, except for the blood-red trim and patterni…

… Oh, the red wasn’t part of the design.

“Reaper…” Shieldwall said, “Play your part.”

His projection flickered out.

“Now, now... don’t you recognize me, Bliss?” the new mare chirped.

“No,” Kraber said. “Far as I’m concerned… you’re just another fokking obstacle.”

“Another pony to kill?” she asked. “To shoot in the knee, kick in the face, break the collarbone, and leave to die, without the mercy of even a wee sip of potion?”

“... Sylvia,” Kraber breathed. “FOK! You just can't kill people like you used to..."

“You left me a vial,” she said sweetly. “I had to drag myself all the way to the vending-machine, more dead than alive, my blood trailing after me... but it was worth it, wasn’t it?”

She tipped her head back and screamed, a boiling screech like a saw-toothed steam whistle. It was a rusty, tortured sound, that told of scalding water and shattered glass and savage, primal triumph.

“No, no, no… not triumph, Victory…” corrected an unwanted voice, and he saw the damn Newfoal that called itself by that name, standing beside the raving mare...

“... How it burned, broiled me to the bone, so deliciously deep that even Her Light couldn’t heal the scars...”

“Look at her, Kraber,” Victory giggled. “She’s so much like me… a war-born Newfoal, a prototype of what’s yet to come… Oh, the great Nepenthe would love to have a magnificent mare such as this in her sisterhood… and you too…”

“... Look at me, Viktor. I’m so broken that I can’t even connect to my brothers and sisters… cast out on my own, running on auto-law, my brain too smashed to share in their screams, from all that you did! Behold the face of your daughter-mare!”

“Great. Another love-child. I’ll have to use protection next time...” Kraber said.

Nebula stared at him. “Wait, what?”

The Newfoal’s horn flashed, and the still night air whipped up into a breeze that swept back her mane, exposing the fur around her horn…. which was lacerated and slashed, glowing from within with the same crimson light that burned in the pits of her eyes, as if something just under her skin or her horn was trying to make its way out...

“Are you proud of the destruction you’ve wrought?” She spoke in a voice like rancid honey. She lleered, more bloody light spilling out from her torn face. Disgusting, and yet, almost appealing, like a tribal brand... “Now, I’ll give you one chance…” she chirped, “Join me, and you’ll be happy all the time! I’ll have a new playmate too… after I’ve roughed your brain up a… oh, wait, no, you scrambled your own basket of eggs long ago. This, Viktor, this is going to be kwaai…”

“Go fok yourself,” Kraber snarled.

“But you’re so sad!” the Newfoal protested. “You’re crying all the time, lashing out at everything! If you take the serum, that’ll all just float away! You’ll be superior! You’ll live on forever, with madness myself at your side...”

“First, that’s at the expense of every fokking thing that’s me,” Kraber said. “Second, you’re not superior, you’re a fokking golem someone dredged up from muck of someone’s soul. Thirdly… you’ll never be happy.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m–”

“Dull,” Kraber interrupted, “You can never truly enjoy anything… cos’ what the fok’s enjoyment if you enjoy everything? You’ll just be an automaton in a year or three, unable to feel anything. I may feel like shit every day of my life, but that just means it’s that much easier for the little things to make me happy.”

Nebula stared at him, shocked.

“I blame my parents,” Kraber said, as if that explained anything at all.

The Newfoal shook slightly.

“I am Reaper,” she hissed, levitating two of the PER’s combat shotguns away from the nearest corpse. Then, with a telekinetic tug, she bent the bayonets clipped under the barrels into wicked, sickle-shaped arcs. “I will harvest new foals from the dirt of humanity!”

In that moment, Kraber opened fire with his MG2021.

“Nebula was right. You ponies. Talk. TOO. FOKKING. MUCH!” he yelled.

‘Get out of her way!’ ‘his’ Newfoal whispered in Anka’s voice, and Kraber, before the crazed mare fired whatever neurons in her horn controlled her TK, moved.

Her bullets ripped through the air immediately behind him, missing him by the breadth of one of Kagan’s hairs. Kraber panted heavily as he brought the MG2021 to bear again, blasting in her general direction before hurling himself into a roll, avoiding a second medley of buckshot.

Coming up in a crouch he moved to aim, but found himself staring in horror. The mare, ‘Reaper’, had produced two purple flasks.

Waving cheerily, she teleketically smashed a vial against the sickles, slathering them in the purple fluid...

“Oh, fok…”

...the second, she hurled at him. Staggering, he tripped onto his back, barely avoiding the lethal projectile. As he hit the ground, he immediately found the mare advancing on him, swinging her two shotguns like scythes.

Staggering, he tripped onto his back, barely avoiding the lethal projectile

“You get hit enough with these, you’re done!” the Newfoal screeched in a lunatic giggle. “Now, please sit back and TAKE YOUR MEDICINE!”

‘Dodge, Vikt–’

Kraber forced himself into another roll, and Reaper’s swinging sickles smashed into the spot where he had been.

“RUN!” Kraber yelled at Nebula. “GET THE CRYSTALS!”

“But you–”

“We fight her, we both die!” Kraber yelled, “I’ll hold her off!”

Reaper screamed at the top of her lungs. A bolt of concussive force, tinted red, slammed into the ceiling above Nebula like a train. Bits of sheetrock and crappy ceiling tile crumbled to the floor like beige snow.

“You’re not getting away THAT easily!” Reaper yelled, and dove towards Nebula.

Nebula reacted almost instantly. As if all four hooves were springs, she bounced up off the floor, flipping slightly and planting her hooves on the ceiling.

She sprung forwards, rushing down the hallway.

“I CAN SMELL YOU!” Reaper screamed, rushing forward at high speeds…

Something cracked over her head, and she tumbled to the ground in an ungainly heap.

There Kraber stood, holding a shotgun with wood furniture. The buttstock had cracked in half and was hanging by a few scattered strands of wood.

“Not so fokkin’ fast,” Kraber said, tossing the broken weapon aside and unholstering his MG2021.

“Y-you…” Reaper hissed, picking herself up. “You could have all this. Be as happy as me. And you throw it away for this?! Look how happy I am! Look how much better I am!”

“I’m not seeing it,” Kraber said. “Well? What are you waiting for, princess. Let’s dance.”

He squeezed the trigger.

Yael

Heliotrope landed back down among them. A panting, bedraggled mess. And most of all, visible.

“Oh, thank goodness,” said Yael, more concerned than angry. She went to hug her friend. “Heliotrope… what went wrong?”

“I don’t know…” Heliotrope whispered. “My flightsuit… went wrong. They were running some kind of interference… it completely bamboozled the crystals.”

“Bamboozled?” Yael said. “How do you bamboozle crystals?”

“They must have a totem-prole close by,” Heliotrope said grimly. “Damn if they’re feeling ballsy, bringing one out in the open like that… This has got Shieldwall written all over it.”

“What The Hell Is Going On Up There?!” Quiette Shy said. “There’s… I Can Feel Lots Of Magic Slung Around. It’s Like The Crystal War Again!”

“This is bad,” Oscar said, strangely matter-of-fact.

“She turned into some kind of Super-Newfoal!”Nebula yelled. They’re closing in! Send air support, send help, I don’t know! Anything!”

Kraber

Reaper screamed again, galloping towards Kraber.

There was a hole in the ceiling the size of a large lorry, the kind with those huge trailers. Kraber could see the Moon through it.

‘Top floor,’Kraber thought, frantically. ‘That’s right, I’m on the top floor.’

He dove behind a particularly large pile of rubble, rested the MG2021 on the flattest surface he could, and opened fire.

The MG2021 spat hot lead at Reaper, all of which plinked against something faint and red-tinted surrounding her.

‘FOKKIN’ SHIELDS!’

Thankfully, his seemed to be holding, too. The heads up display in the lower left corner of his helmet was blue, and he could see a little marker reading “100%.”

‘COME ON COME ON COME THE FOK ON!’ Kraber thought, watching the little ‘100%’ tick down to eighty, then seventy, as shotgun pellets skittered over his shield.

Run.

He didn’t.

Get out of there!

THIRTY PERCENT!

He didn’t. All that mattered was the bucking, shaking, roaring beast of an MG in both hands.

And then the red light around Reaper broke. Kraber smiled under his helmet, stood up, unholstered his revolver, and fired.

One.

Almost the instant it hit her, Kraber knew it wasn’t going to help. The area where he’d shot her glowed red for a fraction of a fraction of a second, and began to wane.

At the same time, her horn glowed.

‘She’s using magic to heal herself!’Kraber thought, in the fraction of a second before–

Something dropped from the hole in the ceiling, smacking Kraber between the shoulder blades like a rock. He wheezed, trying and failing to catch his breath.

‘Fokkin’... oh… the pain… it…’

Someone held Kraber through both arms, their upper arms under Kraber’s armpits.

“SON OF A FOKKIN–”

“Gotcha now,” one surviving, heavily bleeding PER man hissed, holding up a vial.

Shit shit shit shit shit shit

“You were thinking, ‘if it bleeds, we can kill it,’” Reaper said, laughing mockingly. “Newsflash, Bliss! You can’t kill me!”

She twirled a knife in mid-air, one dipped in serum.

Nebula

~~Something weird was going on up there. The PHL human in the green armor, the one with the big and definitely not standard issue gun, was...~~

wait no

Dancing Day (okay THERE we go)

“Wait, you can do this from Nebula’s perspective now?” Lunar Phase asks, confused.

“... Well… ja?” Kraber asks. “Why wouldn’t I? She wasn’t around for a lot of this, and it’d be super awkward getting Heliotrope just to be a glorified framing device.”

He looks over at Heliotrope, expectantly.

“You haven’t talked to her for awhile, Viktor,” Lunar Phase says, “Also you barely talk to her on Facebook.”

“Nebula has a Facebook?” Astral Nectar asks.

“Yeah, she says she likes the emotional validation of having so many friends and supportive presences at her hooftips,” Lunar Phase says.

“She must not have been using social media very long,” Yael says.

“I was the first one there when she set it up!” Aegis adds. “It wasn’t long ago, so yes.”

“Okay, when and how?” Vinyl Scratch asks.

Nebula

Nebula didn’t entirely understand what was going on here. First, the super-Newfoal. Then the teleport spikes.

‘They’d better not be bringing something in!’ She thought, dashing through the top-floor hallways, eyes darting from door to door. ‘Drat. And they expect me to destroy all the crystals?!’

“Celestia,” she overheard from someone. “I can’t believe that was little, mousy Sylvie. To imagine that… that it could… be...”

“You sound apprehensive,” someone said.

“No, I’m not, Curtiss,” they snapped. And all of a sudden – from the smell, from the cadence of their voice, from the haughty way they responded – Nebula knewthey were a pony. And the other one was clearly-

‘Huh.’

Nebula fluttered next to on a wall, listening in on the conversation. It seemed logical that they’d be guarding one of the spikes.

And that was definitely a human.

‘Alright. I don’t have time for this. We could be sucked goodness knows where. I don’t have time for philosophy.’

She peered through the nearest doorway. There was a man with a weird PER crossbow that was all wood, pipes, and glass, and a mare with an assault yoke.

And behind them was another yellow crystal.

‘I miss when they just threw vials and bombs. Shieldwall troops really keep their shirts buttoned all the way up.’

“So you’re saying you want us t–”

Nebula lost patience and dashed forward, slightly towards the left wall, and barrel rolled towards the right.

She didn’t have the hardware that ponies like Heliotrope did.

But what she did have was pure rage. As she rocketed into the room, she turned towards the pony that was guarding the shard, and pulled the triggers on her yoke.

The 5.56 bullets shredded her as Nebula flew. But she wasn’t done yet. She slid her wings to the sides, turned her face to the right, and rammed the entire weight of her upper body (and a light, stripped-down rifle!) into the human’s face.

Ponies weighed a lot less than the average human. But, well, the weight of a pegasus at high speed was still the weight of a pegasus at high speed.

The human fell back against the wall. He didn’t get back up.

‘... Did I give him a concussion?’Nebula wondered, alighting on the ground and trotting up to the crystal. ‘Hmmm. How many more crystals are there? Destroying six should be enough, probably.’

She thought on that.

‘Good thing they’re not bringing anything in. Just leaving. I guess they wouldn’t be able to get reinforcements in.

And then, a scream.

Kraber

“Two are gone!” Reaper screamed. “Are you even good for anything?! Stop her, jus–”

‘I know what I must do.’

“FOK YOURSELF!” Kraber screamed, and he strode forward, taking with him the man restraining him.

He bent down to one knee, leaned forward, and threw.

Kraber couldn’t say what, exactly, had happened, but he felt the weight of the PER man shifting. Above… Further above… Then, right then, in front of him. He pushed out with both arms, in a move that wasn’t quite throw or push, and flung the man towards Reaper, the Sylvia-thing.

One of the man’s shoulders landed, pierced by Sylvia’s horn.

‘I need some air!’He thought, rushing towards a particularly tall pile of rubble and clambering up, up, uponto the roof.

He could’ve used the opportunity to pour more bullets into Reaper, but he hadn’t been thinking thatstraight at the time. He dashed into the hallways, the screams far behind him.

“OFF ME, YOU NAKED-”

“MY BACK!”

‘I’m gonna reload,Kraber thought, ‘and get back in the fight.’

Nebula

“MY BACK!”

Nebula wasn’t really sure what was going on there. But it didn’t sound good for the not-pony thing that was menacing them.

She had never liked Newfoals, but she’d supernever liked the anomalous Newfoals. They were… Well, the simplest way to put it was that they weren’t ponies.It was like during the Changeling Purges when she’d seen Changelings imitate ponies... poorly. Exaggerated character tics, movements, as if they were putting on a performance. A caricature of a pony, more flamboyant, less real.

Also, they acted like they were more of a pony than her. That didn’t help.

“There’s a batpony traitorin here!” someone yelled. With her night vision, Nebula saw him on one side of a doorway. Earthpony with an oddball assault saddle, one serum paintball, one assault rifle. Definitely a Newfoal.

‘You’re one to talk,’Nebula thought, and flew up towards the ceiling. Silently as possible.

“Where’d she–” the pony said, their eyes tracking up. “Oh, broth-–”

Before the pony could pull the triggers, Nebula folded her wings to the side, and pile-drove down with one shoulder onto the pony’s neck...

Only to land right in the crosshairs of a woman with a homemade four-barreled shotgun, and a Newfoal pony with a unique assault saddle, mounted with a giant arbalest.

There was a hole in the wall. She could see someone on the other side.

“So you’re the one th–”

“OH, JA!”

And then the wall exploded.

Kraber

That last one had been Kraber.

Who had bodyslammed through the already weakened wall-

“COMBAT TIME!” he yelled, and shot the woman in the knee with his 1911. As she fell, Kraber rushed forward and shoulder-checked the woman.

“Yoink!” Kraber yelled, grabbing a four-barreled shotgun from her hand, and then stomping down on her throat.

She made a horrible gurgling noise. Still holding the shotgun, Kraber turned towards the apparently suicidally overconfident Newfoal.

“Monkey-scum, I’ll–” the Newfoal started.

The shotgun bucked. At point-blank range, what all four barrels did was better left undescribed. One or maybe two solitary hooves stood on the floor, the rest of the Newfoal practically vaporized at such close range.

“... I’m keeping this,” Kraber said, slipping its sling over one shoulder.

Nebula looked down at the floor, seeing another yellow crystal embedded in the wall. Without a word, she stomped on it.

“Any luck on your end?” Nebula asked.

“No,” Kraber said, panting. “She’s… pretty invincible at the moment. Her horn makes her shield. Also heals her. So I’m thinking I need to damage her shield, then un-horn her.”

Nebula nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Only question is how to keep her horn out. I need to wear her down, and work from the–”

“Bliss,” Yael said, “What the hell’s going on up there?!”

“Super-Newfoal,” Kraber said, “It was Sylvia, apparently. And she wants me ponified. So, jou know. Tuesdays as usual.”

“How do you know it’s super?” Heliotrope asked.

“Because I’ve poured a lot of rounds into her with no reaction, and because she wants us dead. She’s using guns. She’s intelligent.”

“That’s… that doesn’t sound good,” Heliotrope said. “There’s one more thing. Newfoals like that usually have some other ability.”

Kraber nodded. “So, what is it? Laser eyes, perfect pitch, super wall-building vision?”

“Kill it before you find out,”Yael said.

“Good call. But can’t you, I don’t know,” Kraber said, “send some fokkin’ reinforcements?!”

Kraber could just hearher jaw tightening. Hear her trying to find reasons to let him die, to stay comfy as–

“... Why would you–”Heliotrope started.

Ja, that was his lot in life. That was how this was always going to go. Who cared if he’d been really connecting with the two of them better than Lovikov, they were going to let him-

“... Alright,”Yael said.

Something pushedat Kraber’s skull. Just above one eyebrow, on the left side of his face. It wasn’t a cluster headache.

‘This isn’t.’

Isn’t what?

‘I’m supposed to do it alone. I’m supposed to be fighting her alone. ...Wait, that’s befok. Me against her alone? What am I thinking?!’

“Hold her off until they get there,” Yael said. “I’m sending Quiette Shy and a few others.”

‘... Bro?’ Kraber thought. ‘Yael has a brother? Or is he a huge douche? I’m so confused.’

“You alright there?” Nebula asked.

“Just… thinking,” Kraber said, reloading the four-barreled shotgun from a bandolier of shells. “How many crystals are we at?”

“Two,” Nebula said.

Kraber smirked, and pointed to a corner of the room, at a light yellow glow behind a bookshelf. The one that had driven Nebula to this room.

Reaper skidded into the doorway.

“Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare, you destroy that and I lose what I’m promised! I lose Paradise, I lose–”

Kraber and Nebula looked to each other. It was… difficult for Kraber to say how much he was getting across behind the mask, but somehow he was sure she got the meaning.

“Alright,” Nebula said, tightly restrained rage in her voice.

She pointed towards Kraber with one wing. And somehow Kraber knew exactly what was about to happen. From the absolutely livid look on Reaper’s face, so did she.

“I’ll give you the same choice you gave him,” Nebula said, and bit down on the mouth trigger.

Kraber started firing in almost that same instant.

The two of them concentrated about half a second’s worth of fire on the bookshelf. It splintered, and behind it there was a strange crackling. Yellow lightning danced across the floor and linoleum, the bookshelf crackling and burning slightly.

“So,” Kraber said, trying not to shake in fear, “I’m guessing that was the last crystal.”

“Y-you…” Reaper said, her eye twitching. “YOU RUINED IT!” Reaper screamed, “YOU RUINED IT ALL, YOU PATHETIC CREATURES!”

Her horn began to glow, and she began to sing.

“Reaper reaper that’s the queen calls me,” the unicorn mare sang. “Because they all, DIE! When I sing I ponify! You act as though payback makes you a noble man is that a fact? Well you’re a goddamn philistine!”

There was a drumbeat beginning from somewhere, something that sounded very much like a heartbeat.

Kraber and Nebula looked at each other and bolted for the hole Kraber had made, and ran for it. Neither of them knew exactly what was going to happen.

As Kraber dove through the hole, he caught a quick glimpse of something behind him. The two PER that he’d just shot were pulling themselves to their feet.

Well, the woman was. Despite the fact that Kraber knew full well he’d crushed her throat under his boot.

“... Run,” Nebula said, and the two of them slid out into the hallway and ran for the stairway.

Kraber didn’t need to be told twice.

“Did she just raise the fokkin’ dead?!”Kraber yelled.

He didn’t hear her answer – probably a yes? – but as the two of them ran for the stairs, Kraber could see more dead bodies, broken, shot, brutalized, and coming to life. People and ponies with missing arms, gaping bullet wounds…

Strangely, the ones with clear head wounds didn’t seem to be getting up as quickly.

‘Are headshots going to work?!’Kraber thought, worriedly.

Anomalous Newfoals were the collective boogeyman of anyone that’d spent time on the Barrier Front. Kids told each other stories of them hiding under their beds. Parents who clearly should have never been parents in the first place tried to scare their children straight with such stories.

Which had never been something either Kraber or Kate had considered. Neither liked scaring their kids.

And there was one here.

They Empire couldn’t be allowed to get this asset.

And suddenly, Reaper was galloping behind the two of them, wreathing black, red, and green smoke from her eyes and mouth, holding those two shotguns with the curved bayonets.

“Requiem aeternam, bullet right through the sternum
Lullaby to hell, babe
Reaper’s got your name!”

“EAT THIS!” Kraber replied, turning, MG2021 aimed at her, spraying long bursts… the MG2021 usually broke shields quicker than this...

She fired point-blank into Kraber’s stomach.

“NO!” Nebula yelled, and rushed at Reaper…

Only for a blast of pure concussive force to throw them tumbling down the hallway. As Kraber rolled back, trying and failing to get his bearings, he saw more corpses climbing to their feet behind Reaper.

Pony and human alike.

“Ta’ for now,” Reaper said, and Kraber swore he heard music continuing in the background, “But my ride is here.”

He lay on the ground, stunned from the impact. He heard the beat of helicopter rotors. Getting closer and closer.

“The medevacs I ordered should be getting here any second now,” Yael was saying.

And again there was that feeling of something wrong. That same feeling that this was Not How It Was Supposed To Go.

Breathing shallowly, swearing he didn’t hear the beat of the song in the background, Kraber looked over to Nebula. She… well, ‘lay’wasn’t the best word. She was flat against the wall, stomach in plain view, head on the floor.

“Nebula,” Kraber said, dragging himself up.

No response.

“Come on. Come on, get up! GET THE FOK UP!” he yelled, struggling to be heard over the helicopter rotors.

The armor was at 20%, now. There wasn’t time left. Thank you, magic-shielded armor.

“We’re the only line of defense!” he yelled, walking over to her and pulling on one foreleg. Helping her into a less awkward position. “We’re not letting her get to those choppers.”

“What if they’re PHL?” Nebula asked.

“If they are, then we’re saving lives. If not… well, hell,do you think we’d actually be that lucky?” Kraber asked.

Nebula looked to consider that.

“Tartarus, no!” she chortled slightly. “Okay. You win that one.”

“Reaper cannot let you in, it’s just not fair
I’m a pure mare–”

The two of them saw her trotting up the animated bodies that she held hostage. They’d formed themselves into something of a stairway, letting her gallop up to the helipad.

“JUST DIE ALREADY!” Kraber yelled over the noise of the rotor, firing his MG2021 in her general direction, idly noting a growing sound like the roar of turbines…

Floodlights swept across the roof, and he realised that what he could hear approaching were helicopters. A quick glance confirmed two of the choppers, both inbound towards the hospital.

‘It wasn’t right last time, and it isn’t now. And she’s not trying to destroy them.’

A voice spoke up on the radio. “The medevacs I called should be heading in,”

“Roger that, Colonel Gardner,” Yael replied.

‘Gardner, huh?’ Kraber thought. ‘So... that is the commanding officer for Yael’s punishment detail. Damn, if getting to do even moreof what you want counts as a punishment detail in the PHL, I should get in the Ponies For Human Life business.’

But something was wrong. As Reaper stood on the roof, they saw that she wasn’t attacking them. And the helicopters were slowing down, banking towards the roof.

‘This is wrong.’

“They’re definitely not PHL.”

“Lieutenant Ze’ev,” Nebula said. “Does the PHL use Hind helicopters, or did I miss something?”

Yael

‘I just can’t win tonight.’

This was a thought that had been winding its way through the mind of one Yael Ze’ev for most of the night, since roughly the time that she’d watched the Ship save Lovikov.

She’d been just on the verge of thinking that maybe, just maybe, things would go right. That there was some core of idealism in her that would be rewarded.

‘I now see how wrong I was,’she thought, as the thestral Nebula pointed out how American PHL didn’t use Hind helicopters.

Well, American PHL didn’t.

So something wasn’t right here. But the visor on her suit designated them as belonging to the PHL.

“Colonel Gardner,” Yael said. “Something’s wrong with the medevacs.”

“What!” Gardner snapped. “Dammit, I put in the request myself. And no, whoever you are. We do notuse that Soviet trash here. We use good old American steel!”

Heliotrope watched them closing in on the rooftop.

“Should we…. Should we fire on them?” Eva asked, confused.

“They have PHL IFFs,” Yael said.

‘I’m not going to be responsible for a friendly fire incident on top of all this.’

“Then f…”Gardner started. Then stopped. He seemed to be deeply confused there, if only for a few seconds. Trying to bite something down. “Keep an eye on it. They do anything suspicious, shoot them.”

Kraber

“Those aren’t PHL this time either!” Kraber yelled, watching the two choppers, Russian Hinds, closing in on the rooftop. They were…

Well, that was the thing. They had clear PHL paint, but something was wrong. Something was clearly verywrong. There were ponies fluttering around, and humans manning the guns. One of the was opening the doors as the chopper drew closer and closer….

‘Is it a goddamn clown car?!’Kraber thought crazily, as he watched the massive amount of people inside.

The two of them rushed towards the roof, Nebula slightly outpacing Kraber.

“OUT OF MY WAY!” Kraber yelled, sending a long, uncontrollable, burst into the general direction of several of the walking corpses that Reaper had raised.

He didn’t have time to see how they reacted. Both he and Nebula hit the zombies like a train – they hadn’t even picked up weapons. Weren’t even lurching. That was… more worrying than it should’ve been. Bullets ripping through arms, legs, skulls, and wings. And Nebula’s wolvers embedding themselves in limbs.

“-colts cannot crack this oyster shell
So go on, whip around that gun
like you're the best, it's just no fun
Another hero? Oh, please!”

Heliotrope

She watched the doors open on the helicopters. Even in the dark, surrounded by light sources, and staring up seven stories or so, her vision was just that good.

She saw the humans, the zebra, and the ponies through one of the chopper’s open doors.

‘Newfoals. Potioning crossbows. Paintball guns.’

“They’re PER!” she yelled. “It’s still more PER!”

By the looks of things Yael didn’t even doubt her for a second, and began firing up at the helicopters. And in seconds, so did Heliotrope. So did Summers, and Zhang, and the National Guard, and even Jolu and Melody.

Fate conspired against them.

Either every unicorn in the Hinds was projecting a magic shield, or the PER’s shields were just that good.

‘Nothing?! Seriously?!’

The bullets from her SMGs pinged against the glowing purple aura around the Hinds.

“Keep firing!” Yael yelled. “Lorne, can you hit them with your grenades?!”

Which was a silly thing to ask. Grenade launchers weren’t designed to engage flying targets, they were too slow, they were–

“Absolutely,” Lorne said, bringing his revolver grenade launcher to bear.

It was at that moment that Heliotrope saw it. The shields only covered one side of the choppers – specifically, the ones that pointed away from the roof.

‘They want the Super-Newfoal to get in!’

“Y… Lieutenant!” Heliotrope yelled. “They’ve gone for double shields on our side!”

Yael sighed. “Just what I needed.”

“It’s all up to Bliss and Nebula now,” Heliotrope found herself saying.

‘They’re so doomed.’

Kraber

“STOP THEM!” yelled a pony on the helicopter closest to Reaper, pointing at the two of them. “They’re gonna–”

Time stopped for Kraber. He saw the pony pointing at him, assault saddle jammed in between far too many people. He saw the… the zebrabehind the machinegun? That, that was weird. He’d rarely seen zebra PER.

And for a moment, he imagined Reaper on the helicopter.

“SUCK IT AND FOKKIN’ CHOKE!”Kraber yelled, and opened fire with the LMG.

It was point-blank. Aimed into a crowded helicopter.

Limbs flew every which way. People screamed. One gunner took a 7.62 through the knee, and fell screaming to the hospital roof.

His chin hit the edge, and he tumbled down screaming to the street below them.

“We can’t extract!” a woman yelled, and the chopper picked up speed again, rising up from the roof meter by meter.

“YOU!” Reaper screamed in frustration, turning her gaze to Kraber.

In that instant, the other chopper, the one Kraber and Nebula hadn’tpeppered with bullets, opened its doors. From its cabin, pegasi with serum bandoliers swarmed out the side-hatches, along with human PER hanging on the end of zip-lines.

“I’ll run interference on them,” Nebula yelled. “You take Reaper!”

“OH, COME ON!” Kraber yelled, rushing out of the way, panting, just barely dodging two more blasts from Reaper. “CAN SOMETHING TODAY JUST GO RIGHT FOR ONCE?!”

“Reaper cannot let you in, it’s just not fair-”

For once, Kraber agreed. This was getting to be a horrible, horrible day.

“I’m a pure mare
colts cannot crack this oyster shell
So go on, whip around that gun
like you're the best, it's just no fun
Another hero? Oh, please!”

Please let my shield tank this… Kraber prayed, firing into Reaper’s shield as a burst of shotgun shells raced in his general direction.

IT HELD! He pulled the pin on another PHL grenade and tossed at the mare. Then, he swung around the other side of his cover, hoping to catch her from behind once the blast disrupted her shield...

“Requiem aeternam
Reaper has come, sinner!”

CRACK!

“Yes!” he roared, seeing her horn smoulder in the wake of the pink, magical flash.

The MG in his hands roared fire, and by the time she had gotten her shield back in place, he’d landed at least a couple of rounds in her flank.

And yet she still kept on coming. FOK! Why was she so fokking durable?!

“Thigh-high socks are my absolute territory
Go on and drool -
the otaku cannot resist
You think the fire in your eyes
makes you a tiger in disguise?
Dream on, you goddamn pussy!”

The helicopters were overhead now, unable to fire, but dropping their human cargo onto the roof. The men and women falling from the sky were lightly armored, wearing what looked like metal breastplates under their clothes, glowing purple….

Nebula dashed between them.

“You’re all TARGETS!” she yelled, and - wolvers outstretched - cut through one line with both forelegs, like a pair of scissors.

The unfortunate human on the end fell to the ground, screaming.

“IT’S RAINING MEN!” Kraber yelled, letting loose another wild burst of 7.62x51mm up towards one of the ziplines – which, for some reason,seemed to be getting a lot lighter. The LMG bucked in his hands like a bronco, the rounds rushing towards the wi–

The man on one zipline shrieked in an incoherent garble. Something like “AAAAAOOOOUAAAARRRARARGK!”

He’d lost his grip on the rope. And was now falling to the hospital roof, blood trailing from his crotch.

‘That,’ Kraber thought,staring at the man who’d fallen to the roof, clutching the bloody remains of his balls, ‘was not what I planned on at all. I’ve been shooting a lot of people in the balls lately.

I miss kicking them in the face. It was a simpler time.

“SEIZE HIM!” one pegasus cried, pointing at Kraber. “Seize the HERETIC that withholds CELESTIA’S LIGHT!”

“Requiem aeternam
Reaper has come, sinner!”

“I’D LIKE TO SEE YA FOKKIN TRY!” Kraber yelled, opening fire with the MG2021 at the pegasi plunging onto him, clipping their wings and turning dives into death-spins.

Just beside him, he watched Nebula punch another pegasus – this one a Newfoal, probably – right out of the air.

The sound of them smashing into glass and concrete was satisfying, but he couldn’t afford flashy kills. Couldn’t afford to make them suffer. He had to remember what Caduceus told him...

Wait! Those helicopters up there were Hinds, Mi-24s… flying tanks, but what was that line from Snow Crash?

‘Fucking Soviet piece of shit, they made that windshield out of...’

“It’s just one human!” somebody yelled, opening fire from the door gun.

The chopper’s gatling ripped through the area immediately behind him, a bullet smashing against his shield, but it held - thank god, it held, and…

FOK! A bullet rammed into his stomach, the shield and PHL armor dampening most of the force… but not all of it…

… the surplus kinetic energy was enough to throw him back into a solid wall. Again, his shield flashed, and he bounced away from the impact, sprawling onto the rooftop.

“Is tha - IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE KONTGESIGS?!” he yelled, rushing towards a particularly large vent on the rooftop.

But as he slipped behind cover, he was desperately trying to ignore the (Oh God, oh fok, oh fok, why, ow, ow, OH GOD WHY, IT HURT) pain.

“Thigh-high socks are my absolute territory
Go on and drool -
the otaku cannot resist
You think the fire in your eyes
makes you a tiger in disguise?
Dream on, you goddamn pussy!”

He’d been shot before, yes… but never with something so fokking big! Damn, if he ever joined the PHL, he wanted a better shield over his armor.

He tried to breathe in, breathe out. His hands probed his abdomen, finding no entry-wound, no point of contamination for the serum, but he still felt a sticky witness inside the armor, against his skin – and blinding pain when he tried to breathe.

A rib, he realized. The force had been enough to compound fracture one of his ribs. And now he was bleeding out inside his own armor.

Okay… no fokking regenerating health, then. Had to… Had to kill them before he… died of blood loss… FOKKING OW! What had he been hit with, a fokking antivehicle round?!

“Bliss, no!” Nebula yelled.

Dancing Day

“Turns out, it wasan antivehicle round,” Kraber says, still wincing a little. “It was a civilian Hind, and they’d managed to find a homebrewed HMG… stung like a bakvissie with teeth in her beef portal…”

Everyone winces, and Dancing Day is not sure whether it’s from Kraber’s description or imagining the sensation of getting hit with one.

“Can your armor seriouslytank antivehicle rounds?!” Verity yells. “I’m calling bullshit.”

“Nah,” Vinyl says. “You can survive getting hit with one if the shield’s down… assuming it’s not in the heart or something. The shields can tank it, but not many. There was just enough of the shield left that it blunted the force. It would have gone through his armor with no trouble, though.”

“That, that sounds painful…” Dancing Day says.

“It could have been worse. The later marks had a twin autocannon in place of the Gatling, and that was chambered for 30mm sounds nearly seven inches long...getting hit by one of those would have meant...

Kraber

Damn, he really had broken a rib. He could feel the damn thing rasping against the inside of his damn chest...another hit like that might break it the other way and puncture a lung…

‘Getting potioned almost sounds better than drowning in my own fokking blood. Almost...

He tried to pull himself back to his feet. As he did, Reaper rushed him, her sickle-like bayonets raised. He was in so much pain.

‘It’s so comfy down here,’he thought. ‘Want to be in a bed… more than anything…’

One time, his father, Paul Kraber, had said these words; “If you’re going to do something, you finish what you start.”

Kraber had been near-collapsed under a heavy backpack.

“I’m not going to leave you here...”
He had to get up though.

Had to keep fighting.

Had to–

“BLISS!” Nebula yelled, flying towards him, guns blazing down towards Reaper’s shield.

And then there was a sudden stab of pain.

Nebula

There was Reaper, one shotgun in her TK.

And there was Nebula, everything going white from pain, wondering why she couldn’t control her flight anymore. The ground, the hospital, everything was a blur, and she kept spiralling to the right.

‘Why can’t I stay in control?!’ Nebula thought frantically, as the rim of the hospital’s roof loomed closer and closer.

She stretched out her wings, feeling her belly scrape against the concrete. She felt that against her stomach, straight through her fur. Felt blood against her fur.

For a moment, she looked back to see…

A curiously unobstructed view of the night sky. Something felt wrong, though. As if she couldn’t move. As if everything was frozen around her.

‘Oh,’ she thought distantly, looking back. ‘My left wing is gone.’

Somewhere, distantly, she realized she was probably in shock. But she had to get control, and she felt her muscles moving far too slow, at a glacial pace that felt years behind her impulses.

‘Oh, shi–’

She slammed headfirst into what, by now, had to be one of the hospital’s only intact windows.

Kraber

“[HA! GOT HER!”

It was a gleeful yell from the earthpony in the chopper. Kraber could see a human bending over to high-five them.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wMEbljVxXc)

A pony had just taken a bullet for him. Basically crippled herself.

… No.

He was definitely not feeling sadness. Or regret. Definitely not overcome with guilt. Because feeling guilt for what a ponyhad done, that was just crazy talk, right? And he was definitely not numb at this moment, as he sank to his knees.

“Oh, what’s this?” Reaper asked, the song’s beat still inexplicably continuing in the background. “A human being surprised that their toolscan get hurt?”

“She,” Kraber said, surprised at how hard it was to get the words out. “No, no… she was...”

His friend? Maybe. Someone he’d grown closer to? Absolutely.

“Come on,” Reaper said, the beat in the distance growing more subdued. “You humans. You wouldn’t care a whit for ponies, if they couldn’t save you. You’d all sooner cut your throats than even dream of sharing our Harmony.”

Kraber pushed out with one hand. Pushed himself up against a wall.

“Ponies, slaves to humans,” she said. “You’ve subjugated every creature in your world you did not butcher. Pets, that’s the best we could hope to be to you.”

“So the solution is that everyoneloses everything that is them?! Even you?!”

“Who cares?” Reaper shrugged. “Can’t you say you’d be happier, never having made all the bad choices you have? You’re so angry, so hateful, your every choice has led you to the same place! You and everyone you knew, in the before time.”

Emil. Kate. Peter. Anka. Kagan. Cousin Richard. Other Kate, Kate Goodwin from college. Poor Dietrich’s parents. Even Gage. Dacosta’s little brother Silvio, the one with the fragile x-chromosome syndrome. Kraber’s little brother Hayden, who had Koolen DeVries syndrome.

When one PER kontgesig tried to ponify his brother, Kraber had kicked that bastard in the face. Word was, his jaw had needed to be wired shut.

And according to Reaper, none of that mattered. Nebula didn’t matter. She was just a tool. And he didn’t matter. He was just supposed to die.

‘Like hell I will!’

“You think you’re happy?” Kraber whispered, finally back on his feet, “I’m a doctor, you lying fokmaggot. And it’s time to cure you of that.”

“You are just a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?” Reaper smirked. “This is what your exasperation results in. Are you sure you stuck with your family out of love… or penance? You weren’t free then. Now you are… uninhibited. What I offer you is freedom from all that.”

She began to sing again.

Reaper reaper that’s the queen calls me!
Because they all, DIE!
When I sing I ponify!
You act as though payback makes you a nobleman
is that a fact?
Well you’re a goddamn philistine!”

Adjusting the Russian-made grenade launcher sight he’d added onto his scavenged pipebomb launcher, he ducked behind one of the numerous buildings on Maine Medical’s roof, ran onto a recent upward expansion, sighted his target and fired.

The pipe-bomb flew upwards, reaching the apex of its arc just as it impacted…

… face-first into the windshield of the nearest hovering chopper.

The rest was physics. The pipebomb’s detonator initiated, and the force of impact plus the tiny jet of superheated plasma on the tip of the blast was enough to shatter the ill-maintained glass, filling the cockpit with scintillating crystalline shards and good-ol-fashioned shrapnel.

“KABOOM, BABY!” Kraber yelled.

The explosion itself was comparatively small. The results were not.

For a moment, just a moment, Kraber saw a severed arm, and a pegasus wing, fly out of the burning wreckage, chopped apart by the rotor. Then, unguided, with all of its controls shot, the chopper slewed sideways onto its beams and fell out of the sky, dropping into the street.

As it sank in flames past the roof, the tail-rotor struck the tip of the building, and flew off its mount. Trailing sparks, it spun across the roof like a demented firework, bisecting an unfortunate PER man on its merry way. The upper half of the unlucky bastard’s torso, diagonally cut through, jumped up about two feet in the air, blood spraying out both halves of his body….

All this chaos and viscera left only one small problem. There was still one chopper, and Kraber found himself now fresh out of pipe-bombs..

‘Please God, if you’re listening, make this shield work.’

He poked his way out of cover as he prayed, sending a burst up in the direction of the second Hind, ducking back as something hit him in the shoulder, leaving a splatter of purple.

Were they using ponification pellets in paintball guns? There was a sick logic to it all – even if he won the fight, he still stood a chance of getting the stuff on himself while changing out of armor. It would be a Pyrrhic victory, but still another Newfoal to the cause…

“Is that how I’ll be born?” giggled Victory. “Oh please yes, please fall over and be reborn just when you think you’ve won!”

Another rifle round, this one bog-standard .223, punched against his armor… then another, a heavy .308 from one of the battle rifles most militaries had gone crazy for in the earlier days of the Conversion War.

His shield flashed again and again – 53%! – so that instead of ripping through bone and tendon, the impacts felt only like being hit with a mallet.

Already clutching at his burning chest, Kraber struggled to ignore the fresh pain, instead gritting his teeth and reloading. He tossed out another grenade stolen from the PHL, this one a flashbang. Good for riot control. He threw it out in what he assumed was the general direction of the PER varknaaiers standing on the roof, shielded his eyes from the blast, and then rushed out through the disorientated mess, MG2021 aimed up at the helicopter.

But as he fired that last manic spray, roaring in defiance and agony, another round smashed into his thigh, whipping that leg out from under him.

“Go for the opening!” screamed a pegasus, who rushed rushed towards him, knife in mouth.

Ah fok fok fok fok it hurt, and he could feel his blood dripping down through into the legs of the armor - Heh, no way this was going to be an open-casket funeral, not looking the way it did right now-–

NO. No time for that!’

The second helicopter was still overhead, trying to swing around and paint him with its own MG. He couldn’t take any more rounds. No matter how many the PHL armor could take, there wouldn’t be many before it punched all the way through him.

He felt for his armor’s chest, and found two more grenades, one of them a flashbang, the other with Japanese characters on it. He vaguely remembered them, though he had no idea what they meant…. Fujin? The purplish-pink stripe on the rim told him it was another anti-magic weapon, but it still had an explosive charge like any other frag-grenade…

‘Why did Imbeault have these, anyway?’

He weighed it in his hand, and tried to remember an old episode of Mythbusters. Shooting live grenades out of the air…

What he’d taken away from that episode – incidentally, myth confirmed, kinda – was that a blow might be enough to trigger a grenade’s explosion. Like, say, a sniper round. Or rotor spinning at over 300rpm.

Well, here went nothing.

“HERE, HOLD THIS!” he yelled, and tossed it up in the general direction of the helicopter.

He would have loved to see what followed next in slow-motion, seen which rotor-blade struck the grenade, and flicked it away with enough force to trigger the reaction.

It wasn’t so much sound, or a shockwave, but Kraber felt in his bones.

The grenade had not exploded, per se. A giant purple-pink-black sphere had formed in mid-air, right where the helicopter’s midsection fuselage had been, sucking up everything and everypony save for Reaper, who stayed stubbornly attached to the ground, her hooves looking almost rooted to the concrete.

Kraber, for his part, was apparently heavy enough to remain ‘on deck’, weighted down by the sheer mass of his gear, holding onto a railing...

The PER grunts however, in their lightweight armor, followed their pony compatriots and were drawn, screaming, up towards the pocket-singularity. A few overshot it and flew into the helicopter’s whirling rotor, twirling around the singularity in an unstable arc, which had sheared off its driveshaft and was now suspended above the vortex, held in place between its own lift and the suction of the void. The sky filled with a matrix of blood as it sliced and diced anyone unfortunate enough to strike it, limbs and droplets swirling back into the singularity like a fountain in reverse.

The bisected halves of the helicopter spiraled around the sphere as if rooted to the ball of energy, the tail end slicing through the hospital roof and another Newfoal.

“Kwaai…” Kraber whispered.

And then, as if unable to sustain itself, the glowing singularity wound down, and . lLike a sun going supernova, violently rejected everything it had swallowed. Comets of ultra-compacted metal spewed out, embedding themselves in surrounding buildings.

A noxious cocktail of blood, oil, aviation fuel and coolant gushed out as if from a cracked egg, baptiszing Kraber and washing the potion off his armor.

What remained the helicopter’s nose crashed into the roof, bounced, and dropped to the street. The tail section, still airborne thanks to the spinning tail rotor, tumbled away, cutting through a pegasus, and tried to mate with a nearby house.

Fragments of Hind and hide rained down from the sky. A forearm with a wristwatch still attached landed on Kraber’s chest, and he hugged it in silent shock as if it were one of the stuffed animals in his pack.

The few PER who had fallen back to safety before being consumed got shakily to their feet, laughed weakly…

...right as the helicopter’s main rotor, still intact and spinning, dropped down out of the sky like a razor-edged flower head caught on the breeze…

Blood, metal, and shrapnel flew everywhere, pollinating the roof. Kraber, still lying prostrate on his back, saw blades spinning inches from his face, before the bloodstained rotor came to a creaking halt.

He picked himself up from behind a clump of flaming wreckage, MG2021 reloaded.

“Life’s good to me sometimes,” he whispered, and weakly climbed to his feet. “Oh, you have got to be tuning me kak…”

Reaper, a little worse for wear, stood not thirty feet from him, smilingly splashing one hoof in a puddle of… something. Fragments of superheated metal lay around her, from where the rotor had evidently struck her magical shield, and come off the worst for it.

“Want some?” she asked, holding up a hoof. “It’s the kind of stuff you like…”

Kraber caught the reek of petrochemical loveliness, and staggered backwards out of the pool of blood and fuel.

“...the kind that BURNS!”

She kicked a small wave of the stuff onto the fizzing metal, and with a sound like a elephant splatting against concrete from thirty-thousand feet, the entire roof was on fire.

Yup. Destroying the helicopter had neatly doused most of the surrounding rooftop with quality fuel, and the damn Newfoal had just set it on fire.

‘Wow,’Kraber thought distantly, watching the flames dancing, ‘Maine Medical is going to be fokked when this is all over. Bet it gets condemned.’

She didn’t seem to care, strolling through the flames with her shield up, the rising air wafting her mane almost angelically around her face. The orange-blue flames were actually a very complimentary color to her searing red eyes and the seething ruptures in her face.

But she was still humming that insufferable tune.

Wheezing, exhausted beyond belief, Kraber reloaded the MG2021, and squeezed the trigger.

“... Will you stop the fokking song!” he rasped, unable to get his voice above a pained whisper.

But Sylvia, or Reaper, did not listen, continuing the inane, prattling lyrics, closing the space between him even as his bullets dimmed her shield.

“Requiem aeternam
Bullet right through the sternum
Lullaby to hell, babe
Reaper's got your name!”

“COME AT ME, YOU UNDEAD LITTLE SHIT!” Kraber wanted to roar.

But it wouldn’t come, his burning chest wouldn’t obey, leaving him trapped in the silence of his rage and the crackle of the flames.

Driving him back towards the edge of the roof, she whipped one shotgun up, the bayonetReaper whipped out her twin sickles, slicing through his armor - Wait, fok, wasn’t there supposed to be a shield?! - , and cutting a run through it…

ItThey wedged, jamming between two plates.

“Well, that’s annoying…” she shrugged, and fired.

The pellets smashed against his stomach.

Reaper looked up to him, annoyed, and levitated a huge rifle at him. It looked like a sniper rifle.

At point-blank range, the muzzle was inside what remained of his shield, and the bullet tore straight through his abdomen - damn that hurt. . “But a mere setback.”

“BLURGK!” Kraber yelled, feeling something wet in his mouth.

Even as she kept on singing the song, Kraber could see her aiming the shotguns towards the hole in his armor.

So Kraber did the only thing he could. He reached forward, grabbed hold of Reaper’s horn, and let his weight fall forward, twisting as he did to force her under him, grappling hand-to-hoof on the roof as the pool of flame expanded and swallowed them.

Kraber was wounded, but the armor was evidently fireproof. Reaper did not have to deal with injury and blood-loss, but was unable to shield herself when pushed face-first into burning liquid.

Yet she didn’t scream, even as Kraber felt her body spasm and smelled her flesh burn. Instead, Reaper bucked him with her hind-legs and turned them over, so she was now on top of him.

At least she’d finally stopped singing, though.

“Hi there…” she squealed, mashing her scorched face into Kraber’s and planting her hooves on his chest… “I’m Reaper, the Pret…”

“I’ve fokkin’ heard that already,” Kraber wheezed, and headbutted her.

He wished that he’d kept the spiked HLF helmet, but the attack did its job. She staggered back, whatever spell she’d been about to try disrupted, and Kraber took the opportunity to knee her in the stomach. With her thrown off, he rushed up to her, and kicked her in the face.

While she staggered to all fours, Kraber pressed the revolver’s muzzle into the soft pocket of tissue between her neck and barrel.

“This won’t save anyone,” Reaper whispered.

“It’ll make mefeel better...” Kraber coughed, and something cracked in his chest. Felt like someone had thrown a bulldozer at him.

The revolver’s cylinder snapped open, more blood pouring from the open breach, and smiling back at her, he twisted the speedloader into place, closed the cylinder, and summoned the wull to pull back the trigger.

“Jou like that… jou fokking kontgesig…” he spluttered.

Her grin grew even wider, even lying there impaled on the revolver.

“This won’t end it…”

“Yes it will…”

He fired, again and again and again, his prone posture bracing him as all six rounds punched her barrel apart, blood dripping in great gouts from her wounds, splattering against him.

She went limp. Kraber dropping her to the side. Then, with an afterthought, lifted her up and threw her into the flames.

“Fokking...!” he wheezed, turned away and clutching at his side.

And then he heard a whisper.

“Reaper, reaper-”

And Kraber, for no reason at all, realized that the reason Kate didn’t let him name Peter ‘Dragan’ was because she didn’t want their son to be named after a man who gave beer to Kraber when he wasn’t even ten and taught him to make molotov cocktails at home.

‘Maybe she had a point,’Kraber thought, trying to ignore the pain in his chest.

“YOU THINK HER FIRE IS SO SIMPLE TO PUT OUT!”

He spun, stumbling, and jabbed back with his elbow, knocking her free.

“FOK!” he hissed, clutching his arm - the poesgesig had broken his collarbone! -Kraber hissed, clutching his arm, and grabbed back at the revolver, slinging the MG2021 on its strap over his shoulder. Okay, okay…. FOK! Down to just one-handed guns… against a psycho Super -Newfoal. Yeah, he was fokked.

He kicked Reaper in the face yet again, and rolled to the side, wincing as he landed on his bad arm, brought up his .45, and fired uselessly.

I am, Kraber realized, Probably about to die.

But like hell he was going to let it be to this thing.

Thankfully, the semi-automatic pistol had been optimized for a truly one-handed reload, and he remembered this as he placed it in his left hand, trigger finger closed over the guard, which pulled back the slide as he inserted a new mag.

“RISE!” Reaper cried, standing framed within the flames, and as she screamed, the flames turned black as night, and the pink-purple of sunset…

“Fokking metal…” Kraber winced, before he heard a shuffling sound that froze his blood. “Oh, you’ve got to be tuning me kak…”

The corpses, any corpse by the black flames, were standing up. Like puppets on strings. Humans, Newfoals and ponies all shambled to their feet and hooves, flickers of onyx light crackling on their limbs, in their eyes, on the shrapnel and glass that pierced their flesh.

Even worse, the few dying men and women on the roof, those scant survivors that were little more than brains, spinal cords, and failing organs were ponifying as Reaper harvested them...

“I AM THE REAPER!” she screamed in ecstasy. “LIFE AND DEATH BOW AT MY WHIM!”

She was a freak… a walking nightmare. A prototype of something to come...

‘I have to kill this thing before it get standard-issue somehow,’ Kraber thought. ‘The Empire can’t have this monstrosity!

But killing her would be no mean feat. Kraber fired his .45 once more, aiming for the skulls of the now-actually-zombified Newfoals.

“COME ON, COME ON! THIS ALL JOU HAVE?!” Kraber yelled. “I’VE PICKED THINGS OUT OF MY ASS-CRACK THAT WERE MORE THREATENING THAN JOU PIELKOPS!”

“Come on, come on….” Kraber whispered, fanning the trigger, desperately wishing he’d sprung for that laser sight.

He ducked back behind the roof’s AC unit, wincing as his broken arm flopped against his torso. It hurt not moving it, but it hurt more moving it...

He switched the pistol to his left hand, then tossed a grenade over his shoulder. There was a flash, and Kraber ran for the hole he’d jumped through in the first place.

‘Gotta get to Caduceus!’

Well. He tried to run. It came as more of a limp, and his body felt like it’d been thrown in a trash compactor and dragged out feet-first.

“He’s getting away!” Kraber heard one Newfoal scream. He saw a stallion, pointing. “This way, he’s here!” the Newfoal cried again – in Reaper’s voice. “Come on, Bliss, or whatever your name is! I heard you talking to Cady!”

He lowered himself dow–

The floor rushed up to meet him, and he fell too hard on his left side. Kraber felt blood flowing past his teeth.

“ARM!” Kraber hissed through gritted teeth. It hurt, it fokkin’ hurt, oh God, it hurt, it hurt so much, it was blinding, for a moment sight didn’t matter, then-–

“You wanted to die, didn’t you? Come on… we have something better!”

He stumbled down the stairs. Heh… maybe. Maybe he did want to. But no matter what… no matter what… He had to be brave. Had to keep! Fokking! Moving!

I. Am not. STOPPING!

Movement was life. And here he was, being hunted by the walking dead.

The hospital was silent as he seized hold of an abandoned gurney and pushed it ahead of him, using it to bear some of his weight. Except for the squeak of the wheels and rasp of his breaths, there wasn’t a sound to be heard…

Another staircase forced him to abandon the gurney, yet he hoped to find a wheelchair, maybe, to replace it.

But no, there was nothing to hand. Instead, bracing himself against the wall he pressed on, ignoring the minor, distant sensations in his leg, his chest, and collarbone.

He kept moving. Somehow, he felt like he should stop. Except that’d make him a coward. Oh, he could stop, and just give up. Be with his family once more – but he would never again be Viktor Marius Kraber.

“Would that be so bad?” Victory asked, leaning against a doorway. “You’d be happy! Vicky’s a sad, crying man with nothing to live for!”

At what cost? His eyes darted from door to door as he skulked through the hospital's hallways. If he drank of that stuff they called their mercy, would he know what he once was? Would he remember himself, would he truly be happy with his family?

“Come on, you deserve ponification,” said Victory, checking her hooves, up ahead. “A fresh start equals–”

“Maybe I do,” Kraber said, cutting her off. “But other people... other people in this hospital… fokking well don’t.”

So, he limped forward, gasping and wheezing, desperately trying not to think of where the blood everywhere had come from. In this hallway, the lights were flickering, there were IVs strewn everywhere, and–

ANKA!

It was her body, in front of him, a .44 Magnum-sized hole in her skull.

And standing over her, he could see himself. Wearing his HLF armor, now rusty and pitted, covered in… bones. There was an equine skull on one shoulder, a human one on the other… Then the figure winked at Kraber, held up a glass in toast, and drank deep from it. Purple liquid dribbled over his chin, and he smacked his lips.

“Tastes like...freedom…”

‘If I get out of this,’ Kraber told himself, ‘I am going to get so high. Or gesuip. Find the vilest, nastiest, liver-punching rotgut I can find, drink the whole bottle with time for seconds.’

All of a sudden, the vision of himself, mouth wet with potion, shuddered and appeared to shrink inside his armor, limbs shortening, sleeves flailing, like there was nothing inside.

Kraber whispered the shema, knowing what was going to happen next.

It didn’t disappoint – within seconds, like a butterfly from a cocoon, Victory the Pretty Pony had crawled out.

“Hey, Vicky,” she said, smiling up at him, “Look behind you.”

He ignored her.

“I said… Look behind you.”

“You’re not real…” Kraber hissed. “I’m bosbefok. I’m… I’m crazy, and by God, I’m getting out of here and saving everyone from those PER without you fokking me over.”

“Oh, such a disappointment,” Victory said. “I just wanted to warn you about the terrible, horrible monster behind you…”

“Don’t listen to her!” he heard Kate yell from… somewhere. “She wants you to get converted! She’s not even real!”

“Oh, but I am, unlike you,” Victory purred. “I’m as real as his nightmares. As real as his fears, as real as he makes me out to–”

“HOU JOU FOKKIN’ BEK!” Kraber roared, and fired the revolver, leaving a massive bloody stump where Victory’s head had been, blue smoke wafting up from it. “BOTH OF YOU! YOU DON’T CONTROL ME! EK BEHEER ME!”

Victory collapsed, blood spraying out from her neck-stump against the wall.

‘None of this makes any sense!’ Kraber was screaming internally. ‘She’s not real! How did I just shoot her?! How the fok couldI shoot her. What the fok’s going on?!’

“Honestly, I’m as confused as you,” said Victory - who was now Anka, lying on the floor, blood staining ashy grey skin and oozing forth from that hole in her skull, puddling in what might have been hair. “Partly because I am you, but, well, semantics.”

“Oh, Celestia, that hurt!” somebody else yelled. “The ape shot me!”

The lights flickered on, and Kraber could see another pony there, this one a scarlet pegasus. He’d punched through both of her wings, grounding her.

“Wha… I didn’t… Where’d all this blood come from?!” the pegasus screamed, staring up at Kraber. “I… whose blood is that?!”

She pointed in the direction of where Anka and Victory had been, only for Kraber to realize that their corpses weren’t there.

And yet the blood remained. Kraber could even see strange hoofprints and even an imprint in there, with no trail. Like a strange equine had just been standing in the blood and fallen over, their body disappearing...

He abruptly decided it was better not to question that, and shot the scarlet pegasus in the head.

He heard a noise. Like someone crying, hidden deep in the shadows.

“Victory?” He spun and fired blindly into the dark. “Anka?”

There was a wet thudding sound, then a scream of pain. He’d certainly hit something...

“Over here!” another voice screamed, and Kraber limped away, desperately hoping that the Newfoals wouldn’t find him – neither the real ones, or the ones that stalked his thoughts.

Heliotrope

“... Bliss?” Yael asked. “What’s going on?”

“I… think I might need more room on that medevac…” Bliss’s voiced wheezed over Yael’s comms. He sounded like he was dying. No two ways about it. “Is it still... coming?” he asked.

“No dice,” Yael said, with barely-restrained fury. “Those lying f– the PER somehow took the codes, and spoofed the system so the dispatch says they already got here. It’s up to us.”

“Who would…” Heliotrope asked.

“You just can’t k– trust people like you used to,” Bliss said, his voice strangely raspy.

“Alright. While we’re here… What happened to you?!” Yael asked.

“That… that Newfoal can raise the dead,” Bliss said. “As in… she makes their bodies walk… like puppets on strings… nnngh, oh, God…”

“We’ve sent in reinforcements,” Heliotrope said.

“Get to Nebula first,” Bliss said. “I… I can find a few grenades. I’m going to use them if the PER get to me first.”

‘Suicide.’

Heliotrope had seen many humans take that over ponification. Had seen countless people turning themselves into bombs, killing themselves rather than going pony.

From what she’d seen of Newfoals, she couldn’t blame them.

“...It’ll only be a last resort, right?” Heliotrope asked.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” ~~Kraber~~ Bliss said. “Just… tell the reinforcements to be careful. I don’t know much about how the zombies act, but this one’s full of surprises.”

Ambrosius Bro

Zombies.

The man who insisted that everyone refer to him as ‘Bro’ had grown up ~~fairly~~ ~~sheltered~~ ~~secluded~~ nearly imprisoned. There’d been a lot that he hadn’t known about the world outside his family home. Years ago, he would’ve been laughing at that. Zombies? Seriously?

Two years in college - he’d put off his studies until the war was over - and the utter weirdness of the Conversion War had slowly beaten the idea that anything was “too weird” out of him.

He could tell that the National Guard that their squadleader (his name was Olson) had sent alongside him, that weird Mikkelsen guy, Summers, and Smoky.

Smoky was taking point, carrying a pair of .308 machineguns in his assault saddle. Quiette Shy slowly trotted behind him, lighting their way with a shield that glowed lightly red.

“Can you, maybe, use a lesscreepy color for this?” Bro asked.

“I’m Sorry,” Quiette Shy said, “I Don’t Choose What Color This Gets To Be.”

“So is it connected to eye color?” one National Guard soldier asked.

“Maybe?” Quiette Shy asked.

“So then what happens if you have heterochromia?” Bro asked. “If you have blue and yellow eyes, is it like… a marbled aura? Is it green?”

“I Don’t Know, Okay?” Quiette Shy asked. Bro imagined that was her snapping at him. Maybe. Having one of the only sources of light they had washing the hospital in red was absolutely not helping matters.

“Damn,” Summers said, looking over the carnage.

Bro looked at his squadmate, and - not for the first time - was very glad that they’d gone with transparent visors. It wasn’t as protective as the solid helmet Bliss had gone for, but it just felt betterbeing able to see someone’s face.

“One guy did all this? How the hell is he just a corporal?” Summers asked, with terrible sickly excitement.

Bro couldn’t quite believe it either as they tramped through the hallways.

“And he took down two choppers! What a badass!” Summers said.

“Can you keep it down?” Olson asked. “We don’t know what’s in here…”

“How many more PER could there be?” Bro asked, affected confidence in his voice. He didn’t want to admit it, but the PER scared the shit out of him.

Becoming one of… of those things…

It reminded him of ~~Delia~~ ~~Daisy Bloom~~ Delia.

He’d shot her in college after she took the slow potion. The things she’d described towards the end… well, Bro was happier not thinking on it.

He shivered as he looked over the corridors. Bliss and Nebula had really torn it up in their fight through the hospital.

There were bodies. Everywhere. Pony and human alike. And it looked like there were potion vials

Wait.

Bro stared for a moment at the body of a red unicorn. Had it twitched, ever so slightly?

In the distance, he heard the sounds of someone running, boots hammering against the linoleum.

This is wrong. This is….

The lights in the hall flickered.

“It moved that time,” Bro said, pointing at the red unicorn. “It definitely moved.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Smoky asked, turning back towards Bro. “There’s no-”

His words died in his throat. Bro followed his gaze to see someone leaning against the wall, their face shadowed. In the red light of QS’ shield, it was difficult to make out their features and even harder to want to, in this light.

“Sir,” Summers said, turning around, aiming his M4 at the new arrival. “This is a PHL operation. Evacuate the area.”

The figure didn’t respond.

Bro stared at them, through his FAL’s reflex sight. The figure stumbled out, and-

A light flickered. Smoky gasped, and even Quiette Shy made a noise of surprise. Bro saw her mouth move under the bandanna.

The figure was missing an arm, and had no lower jaw.

They were making a horrible noise. Something like bones or metal grinding together.

And they were holding a small knife in one hand.

“Sir-” Bro started. Even though in part of his mind, he knew exactly how this was going to go and you did too.

In the instant that the man lunged for them, Summers fired a split second before anyone else.

The first bullet didn’t even make the man’s eyes widen. Though he staggered back, all the same.

Bro fired, the FAL smashing against his shoulder like a Newfoal trying to buck his collarbone into shattered fragments.. Quiette Shy fired. Olson fired a shotgun.

Bullets ripped through the mutilated man. A spray of 5.56 rounds cut through their arm.

Finally - after more bullets than Bro was willing to admit had been fired - the disfigured man collapsed. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“What Was With That?” Quiette Shy asked.

“He didn’t respond,” Olson said, amazed. “He didn’t… he didn’t say anything.”

“He didn’t even react to getting…” Summers said, before walking over to the dead man. “Huh. He’s….”

He held two fingers to the man’s throat.

“No pulse. And, this arm-”

He looked at the stump.

“He lost more than enough blood that he should be dead twice over,” Summers said.

“Uh,” Quiette Shy said, trotting over to the body. “He is dead twice over.”

“What?” Smoky asked, as everyone crowded inch by inch towards the body.

“His body lost most of its blood a long time ago, “ Quiette Shy said. “This…. This wasn’t a person. This was just somepony puppeteering them. Like a golemnetrist.”

“....Awful thing to make into a golem, though,” Smoky said. “You…. you were in the War too, right?”

Quiette Shy nodded.

“So then you know this is an awful thing to make golems from,” Smoky said. “They normally went f-”

It was difficult to say what made them all stare down the hallway. But what Bro - and Quiette Shy, and Smoky, and everyone else - was certain of was that there was a noise, and then there they were, staring down an ever-increasing crowd of animated bodies staggering into the hallway. But some…. Some were walking near-perfectly upright.

How did the PER get this many?! Bro thought frantically.

“QS, keep the shield up,” Summers said.

“Since When Do I Take Orders From You?” Quiette Shy asked.

Summers didn’t respond as the horde drew closer. “Everyone, hold your ground. They’re just shamblers, even dumber than Newfoals!”

The horde of animated bodies rushed up against Quiette Shy’s shield. Bro didn’t even have time to question how it was possible to shoot through it (how apparently it wasn’t one-way, how in the…?) but within the space of a second, suddenly he was.

And the world became bullets.

Quiette Shy

A massive tide of bodies crested against her shield like a rogue wave in the ocean.

AM I EVEN DOING ANYTHING?! Quiette Shy wondered, as her twin 5.56 assault rifles blazed away at the animated bodies. Someone screamed, an absurd high-pitched falsetto. For a moment, Quiette Shy wondered if it was her (Which seemed silly - Who just didn’t realize they were screaming? Come on) but then, there it was.

Smoky wasn’t firing. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, in utter terror.

Bro’s FAL, Summers’ M4, Quiette Shy’s twin assault saddle rifles, Olson’s box mag-fed shotgun, all roared in the close confines of the hallway.. Sure, they were punching through two, three, even four enemies, but she didn’t feel any real impact to her shots. There’d be an arm that flew off, holes in the chest, but there was always another body to replace what she’d hit.

They just. Kept. Coming.

“I Can’t Hold This Forever!” Quiette Shy yelled.

And then - suddenly, incredibly - an opening. Quiette Shy saw through the horde, to the end of the hallway…

To a woman with half her head missing, holding a crossbow made from scavenged materials.

Another one? Holding a weapon? Is she...

“They’re just bodies!” Summers yelled. He didn’t seem to notice “Just keep shooting, we’ll be able to-”

The zombified woman seemed to be shouldering the crossbow. And then, there was a crossbow bolt sticking from - no, through - Quiette Shy’s shield. Potion dripped from the tip, slow like molasses.

Oh no.

They’re using guns.

And the shield’s getting weak…

“RUN!” Olson yelled.

For once, your fear has served us well, Quiette shy thought, and began moving ever so slightly backwards.

She looked back, looking past her flanks, to see Smoky bolting towards the exit.

Bro followed.

And finally, so did she and Summers.

Kraber

The stairs. Had to get to the stairs! Fok! If only he had some claymore mines, something! Anything! FOK!

‘Shema yisrael Adonai eloheinu, adonai echad...’

Ah, fokking hell, his leg hurt as he descended. It was all he could do not to scream, hissing out between his teeth, spittle moistening against his gas-mask.

He had to ignore it. Pain was just chemicals, like any other drug.

‘Just a dull buzz’, he just barely failed to convince himself.

He just… of course he walked this way. That was only natural. There was no pain, he just needed to get out…

I can find the gun! Kraber thought, working his way down the stairs. The cafeteria was only a few levels down, he had to-

It was difficult to say what happened next. He was limping down the stairs one minute, then-

Reaper was there.

“You seemed to like what you did to my friends,” she said, almost purring. “How about a taste?”

Reaper’s horn glowed, and everything went off…

Off….

Well, that was the strange thing. It was like forward was up, and he felt himself flying backwards, crushing the glass window beneath his weight.

And the whole time, Kraber had this sense. That somehow, the fact that gravity had taken a hard right turn, the fact that he was being thrown out a window and worst of all losing to a Newfoal, failing, was the least wrong part of this all.

Shards of glass danced around him as he tumbled through the air, the streets just below.

I’m not supposed to be here.

He saw Yael, Heliotrope, their squadmates.

Neither are they. They were never here. Not until this very moment.

Heliotrope was pointing up to him with one foreleg.

It didn’t make sense, but Kraber had this pervasive sense that before two or three or four minutes ago none of this had been happening, that Yael had never been here.

The only thing Kraber had time to think as he saw the roof of the building rushing up to catch him was:

“Oh, shi-“

Kraber didn’t land on the roof.

His upper back took the brunt of the impact, and he bounced off. Something snapped. He felt…

Well, that was the thing. Kraber would never really be sure what happened.
It was like he fell asleep for a few seconds, and the next thing he remembered was falling towards the ground, everything burning, everything feeling like he’d been hit by a train, and oh God, he hurt everywhere, there were tears in his eyes and he raged at his own calm as the ground came up up up up and no no, he couldn’t die here, he was not gonna die not gonna die, please, God, not here, not here, if there’s a hell, please be merciful, I refuse to die here, just let me see Kate aga-

Heliotrope

It would’ve sounded like a melon being dropped from the sky. If not for-

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGHK!”

That.

Bliss had bounced off a building. Then plummeted down to the street, his left side taking the brunt of the damage.

Then he’d screamed.

And then he was silent.

...He’s dead, Heliotrope thought.

“ Ze’ev!” Summers yelled, over the radio. “They’re coming!”

“What is, Summers?!” Yael yelled, eyes darting from side to side. “What’s going on?!”

“We’re being chased, that’s what!” Bro yelled. The nearest doorway flew open, and the PHL and National Guard - led by Smoky, who was galloping away at full tilt, a look of utter terror on his face.

“By?!” Yael yelled over.

“ZOMBIES!” Smoky yelled, and as if to punctuate that, the bodies spilled out the doorway behind them. Mutilated bodies, missing arms, heads, any body part but legs.

….Great, Heliotrope thought.

She reared up on both hindlegs, jumped up, and took flight.

Below her, she saw a massive horde, even worse than some of the Newfoal rushes they’d had to fight, and-

Were some of them using cover?

This is so much worse than a Newfoal rush, Heliotrope thought, watching the chaos below her.

Before Heliotrope’s eyes, she saw a zombified Newfoal that might’ve been blue at some point, missing most of its skull staggering forward, wearing an assault saddle. As Heliotrope watched, it bit down on the mouth trigger, letting loose a spray of wild, unaimed shots...

Towards Yael’s perimeter.

They ambled towards a wrecked car.

Oscar fired a Penetrator round through the zombified Newfoal’s skull. Even at such slow motion, the Penetrator’s bolt had much the same effect as a captive bolt pistol on a man’s testicles-

“That seems kinda Freudian,” Aegis says.

“I did what Yael wanted,” Heliotrope says. “There’s no subt-”

“No, you did what you knew was right,” Yael says.

“He means that it was a weird thing to reveal,” Kraber says. “Like, it betrays a lot of unresolved feelings.”

Staring at Heliotrope, Kraber then adds: “You know, like how I keep saying I earned the dent in my boot, or the thing with the shock collar I did.”

Astral Nectar just stares at him.

“I read his Freud library books,” Kraber says.

The bolt destroyed what was left of the Newfoal’s skull.

Something strange happened, in that moment. It wasn’t as if the Newfoal died, it was already past that point - it was more like someone cut the power. It sprawled limply.

Are headshots the key?! Heliotrope thought, banking towards a particularly large group of zombies. She bit the trigger, and 9x32mm rounds sprayed down towards them.

Two heads exploded - one belonging to a unicorn (Can’t they use their - NOPE! No, I am not jinxing it!) and another belonging to a human.

The unicorn stopped firing. The human…

Well. Despite being headless, they kept firing. But the rifle fired wildly, unaimed.

And then they broke into a full-tilt unstable run, rifle held like a blunt cudgel. But they had no head. They had no head-

Quiette Shy fired at them. Straight through the legs.

They fell, and finally stopped moving.

It makes sense!

What even is tonight?! Heliotrope thought frantically, before yelling: “We have to cut off their limbs!”

Yael

Right. Dismember them.

That made sense. If they couldn’t move, whatever it was that controlled them would… well, lose control.

From behind a car, Yael aimed for the legs of one charging earth pony zombie, carrying a molotov cocktail in its jaws. She fired, driving a 7.62 round through two of its legs. It tumbled on its broken stumps, falling onto its face, before bursting into flame.

I am going to be seeing this in my sleep, some distant yet calm part of Yael thought.

“We can do this, right?!” asked a National Guard in cover next to her.

“Yeah,” Yael said. “We can-”

The National Guard man took a crossbow bolt through the eye. He fell to the ground on his back, screaming as purple fur sprouted around the socket and his eye grew faster than his socket. He screamed, clutching his forehead as a horn ripped its way out from under the skin and his bloodshot eye forced the bolt out his skull.

I don’t even know his name, Yael thought. I never looked at his nametag. I only just met him and he’s dead.

Training took over Yael in that instant. She snapped her Galil towards the man, and drilled a 7.62 into his skull at close range.

His skull exploded. For the second time.

Wherever you go, I hope you’ll be fine, she thought.

“Is Rime Ice doing okay?!” she yelled over to Melody.

...I just wanted to dance, she thought. Before the War. That’s all I wanted.

Beside her, from inside the convenience store they were using, Melody levitated a pair of assault rifles. They floated just outside of Yael’s peripheral vision, blazing away at the zombies.

“Is Rime Ice okay?” Yael called over.

“I think so,” Melody called back. “Jolu’s keeping him stable, but…”

But that won’t matter if we don’t hold out. But it’s harder and harder to hold out in the first place.

“Colonel Gardner,” Yael said, evenly. “WHERE IS MY GODDAMN MEDEVAC?!”

“I’m trying to get it through, dammit!” Gardner roared.

“For that matter, where are you?!” Yael yelled. And for a few seconds, she was feeling something as far removed from rage as Earth was from the sun.

Where the hell have you been?! We’re dying out here, and he’s just sitting on his butt?!

“I’m trying to set a perimeter around the city!” Gardner yelled back. “It’s just one Newfoal. You can handle it. Just keep Haddon under lock and key until I get that m-”

“The zombies just keep coming!” Yael yelled back. “I wait long enough, I won’t be sentient enough to even decide!”

A Newfoal pegasus rushed at Yael, divebombing ever closer to her, a vial in its jaws. No, no, no - she thought, aiming towards the once-half-living thing.

“EVEN IN DEATH, MY HAPPINESS CONTINUES!” the pegasus yelled, from frayed, ragged vocal cords.

Quiette Shy looked to Yael. Her horn glowed, and - as if slapped by a giant hand - the Newfoal crashed into a wall, bounced, and didn’t get back on its hooves. Just like ~~Kraber~~ Bliss had.

Thanks, friend, Yael thought.

“We’re Getting Fucked Sideways!” Quiette Shy yelled.

“Melody,” Yael called over to the blue unicorn, “...I’m going to try to get our HVT out. I may have to leave Rime Ice here.”

“And the soldier with the arm wound?” Melody asked.

“What?” Quiette Shy asked.

“Zhang. The Chinese one. She… she’s having a hard time keeping upright,” Melody said.

Quiette Shy and Yael shared guilty looks. Shoot. I didn’t even notice it, Yael thought.

“You’re just going to leave them here, for-” Melody started.

And Yael turned that over in her head. Was she going to risk the lives of two people? For-

Yes. Yes she was.

“If I take them with him,” Yael said, “I’ll be making them targets.”

“You’re not actually going to-” Gardner cut in over her earpiece.

“Enough of this,” Yael said. “I’m moving him out, NOW!“

“We know where you are,” Gardner said. “We can send a helicopter to your posi-”

Haddon was going to die. They were going to die or be ponified.

“I. Do not. Give a damn. About position,” Yael said. “We are getting Haddon out. She paused. “Heliotrope! I’m going to need you to find an ambulance. QS, Summers, Bear?”

Heliotrope looked at her, confused.

“Lorne, Hebert, whatever his name is! Three of you get to her when she finds a vehicle!” Yael yelled, ducking behind a piece of rubble as a bolt of magic sparked over her head, burning through a brick building. “Get him out of here, dammit! And we’re going to find out what he knows, I don’t care how.”

Heliotrope

It was two minutes later. And there Heliotrope was, sitting next to a slightly scuffed ambulance just sitting in the middle of the street…

Right on the eastern edge of the perimeter Yael had originally set up to protect Haddon.

Heliotrope’s blood ran cold at the emphasis her friend put on those last four syllables. For a moment, she was back in Nipville, and Yael was saying not to take prisoners.

“It’s right here!” Heliotrope yelled, perching on all four hooves on the roof of the vehicle.

She looked over to Yael, who was busy issuing orders to the three people that would be helping her escort Haddon out of the city.

She didn’t hear what Yael said over the sound of an explosion, but she heard Lorne nodding.

“QS, can you project a shield while you carry him?” Yael asked.

Quiette Shy nodded.

“Great! We’ll cover you!” Yael yelled.

“Okay,” Quiette Shy said, and ripped a wrecked car off the ground.

WHAT?!

Heliotrope stared at her. At the glowing red car, a beat up metal relic that dated back to the 70s.

“Not what I meant,” Yael said.

“I Obey The Spirit Of The Law, Not The Letter,” Quiette Shy says. “Besides. This Has More Mass. Easier to Lift Two Things At Once, Too.”

And with that, the two humans, one unicorn, and their prisoner broke into a run towards Heliotrope.

“I’ll cover you!” Heliotrope yelled, springing up into the air as if she’d been fired from a cannon. As the three ran towards her ambulance, she stared down the zombified things running and shambling closer and closer to her squadmates. There were a few earth ponies, and some horrifically mutilated humans carrying assault rifles and shotguns.

“We”

“Will”

“Never”

“Stop”

They said, as Heliotrope sprayed them down with SMG fire. They all said that. It was if they were being controlled by a puppeteer that couldn’t decide which puppet to speak through.

A ~~flock~~ swarm of zombified pegasi - moving with unnatural unity - flew towards the three of them, some with assault yokes loaded with Equestrian-made crossbows ready, some with vials of potion in their mouth.

Quiette Shy raised the car up, blocking the storm of bolts and bullets with it. And beside her, Lorne raised his grenade launcher, not quite aiming it. Summers was busy firing on the other group of zombies heading for them, and Quiette Shy was keeping both Haddon and the car aloft.

Which left Heliotrope and Lorne.

You crazy human, Heliotrope thought frantically as Lorne pointed his Milkor M32 grenade launcher in the general direction of the swarm of undead pegasi, readying a shot that was surely only a few steps above a cowboy hipfiring a single-action revolver.

THOOP

It was not.

The grenade sailed through the air, and punched square into the lower jaw of a pegasus dead center in the swarm.

The swarm was shredded. Viscera flew everywhere. Dismembered pegasi corkscrewed to the ground.

Holy buck, did he just get lucky? Heliotrope thinks. Except, as she will find out soon, he did not. Lorne’s skill with a grenade launcher, it will become clear, beggars belief.

But there was one more pegasus coming. An absolutely titanic mass of meat and muscle, one that slightly reminded Heliotrope of that absolutely overmuscled pegasus she remembered from the War, was flying towards them. Blazing away with its assault saddle’s crossbows, wearing the claws the PHL had dubbed ‘wolvers’.

They were dipped in potion.

Heliotrope flew towards them, her own wing blades and wolvers outstretched, firing her assault yoke on full-auto.

Blood spouted out from where the 9x32mm rounds hit. Beside Haddon, Quiette Shy had thrown up a tower-shield like construct of magic. The bolts peppered it, but Heliotrope could see it cracking like thin ice.

He was going to get to Haddon, he was going to kill them, and-

BAAAAAAAAAANG

There was the sound of several pistol rounds fired in such quick succession that they sounded almost like a single peal of thunder.

The pegasus fell limp, the top half of its head separated from its body as if someone had used a blunt guillotine and hadn’t gotten the head all the way through it.

And there, 1911 at the hip, unsteadily resting one side of his body on his massive machinegun, was Bliss.

Heliotrope’s mind shut down for a few seconds there. The closest thing she had to a thought in those three seconds was: How in the goddamn-?!

Heliotrope, Quiette Shy, Lorne, and Summers stared at him.

He’d pulled himself up, jamming the muzzle of the MG2021 into the ground and leveraging himself up. Using the machinegun as a crutch.

“Can’t a guy… get any rest around here?” ~~Kraber~~ Bliss asked, through gritted teeth. He stepped forward, one leg dragging slightly.

Heliotrope gaped at him. “You were thrown out of a window. You bounced on your back. Your organs should be paste. You were already pretty injured before. Your spine should be gone. How in Luna’s name you still alive?!”

“Fuck that,” Lorne said. “How is he standing?!”

“I just sort of assumed... it was PHL armor at work,” Bliss said. He was wheezing slightly. “Think there’s something wrong with my lung…”

“...Its Potion-Proof. Blunt-Impact Proof. Stabproof,” Quiette Shy said. “Not Seven-Story Fall Proof.”

“More importantly,” Summers said, “How did you get here?!”

“I… walked?” Bliss asked, confused. “I mean, my legs are the only things that don’t hurt right now…”

Does he have a concussion?! Heliotrope asked. And she’ll ask later if he did, and Kraber will say ‘well, probably, but I don’t fokkin’ remember, I was in shock.’

“See the walking dead out there?” Bliss asked, in response to a question nobody had asked. “There’s a super-Newfoal doing it. I beat up the woman that turned into it, and I’m in a mood to finish the job.”

“You’re not going to live that long,” Summers said, matter-of-factly.

“I’m not,” Bliss said, “Unless the unicorn there gives me a healing spell.”

Everyone looked to Quiette Shy.

“I… would’ve pointed,” Bliss said. “Except, funny thing.”

He twitched slightly.

“I… don’t think my arm works too well,” he said. “Someone should really do something about that.”

“That Could Kill You,” Quiette Shy said. “We Know What Magic Does To The Human Body, And-”

“We also know what radiation does, and we bathe people in that shit to deal with cancer,” Bliss said. “They’re dying. I’m dying. And it’s that or being ponified, or the tall one trying to shoot me.”

Lorne looked over at Bliss, scowling.

“Not you! The other one! I saw him reaching for his nine!” Bliss yelled.

“No. I. Wasn’t,” Summers said, in a tone that made it absolutely certain he hadn’t been.

”He fokkin’ was,” Kraber will say in December of that year. “I’d swear on it.”

“Even then?” Yael asks.

Kraber just nods.

“Damn,” Yael says quietly.

“Wasn’t the first time it’d happen, either,” Aegis says.

“Wait. You too?” Kraber asks.

“That’s sick and wrong…” Heliotrope breathes.

Heliotrope looked over to him. It was true, the Last Rite was just something you did to the ponifying. But this man here was, incredibly, not dead. Yet. And Summers’ hands weren’t on the pistol grip of his Beretta.

“I’ll Do It,” Quiette Shy said.

“But.. you saw what magic…” Heliotrope started. “What’s even your plan, anyway?”

“There’s a grenade launcher in the building with shield disruptors loaded,” ~~Kraber~~ Bliss said. “Quiet there is going to heal me. I’m going to take it. I’m going to get in close and break her shield. Then I’m going to saw Reaper’s horn off and stab her in the fokkin’ throat with it.”

“That sounds suicidal even after the part where you get doused in magic,” Lorne said.

“I’m sure that’ll be a big fokkin’ concern to me when I’m getting ponified. Don’t worry,” he said, and-

He took a breath. Failed.

“HNNGURK,” he choked, and stumbled back, hitting a chunk of rubble with his right arm.

“Are you okay-” Heliotrope started.

“Do I fokkin’ look okay, ya dumb-?!” he took a breath. “Right. There’s nobody that’d miss me if I die from cancer, and my parents would probably actively fokking celebrate their racist kontgesig shitstain of a son dying. I’ve nothing to lose if you just fix my body.”

“I’ll Try, Then,” Quiette Shy said. “Just-”

“Oh just fokkin balls, for the love of God JUST FOKKIN’ RIP THIS BAND-AID OFF ALREADY!” Kraber yelled. “Just pull up your skirt and strap that dildo on! A lot of people are going to die if you don’t help me out!”

“If You Say So,” Quiette Shy said, her horn glowing.

Kraber braced himself, feeling a strangely calming warmth as Quiette Shy’s burgundy-colored magic washed over him. It tickled, her aura, and rose goosebumps all down his back and legs, as if he was sitting, comfortable cool and damp beside a running bath or swimming pool.

But pain came soon enough, a strange sense of coldness in his arm, in everywhere that had been hurting, like he had plunged scalded flesh into ice water…

I can’t scream, Kraber reminded himself. No matter what…

His left arm shook, and it was like being stabbed in the hip again… it popped and crackled, shaking, and every muscle in his left arm, every muscle was burning. It was like being flayed with a white-hot knife, but he couldn’t scre-

Heliotrope

“OH SWEET MOTHER OF GOD, THE PAIN!” Bliss yelled.

“Apparently he could scream,” Heliotrope will add in December.

And not in December nor August will Heliotrope have ever heard any human screaming like this. It sounded like he was being flayed alive. Like his body was a cup full of thick sauce someone had stuck their finger inside and twistedit.

“IT’S UNBEARABLE! FOKKING WHY?!”

Kraber will later say that wow, that is a good analogy, also to never use that mental image about his or anyone’s internal organs ever again.

“Yael,” said Heliotrope. “I’m not leaving someone to die or get ponified.”

“...I want to argue with this, but I really can’t. Just get Haddon out of here.”

She shut off. Heliotrope breathed, looking in horror at Quiette Shy, unable to step forward and put a stop to what she was doing.

“You’re killinghim,” Heliotrope breathed, unable to step forward and stop her.

“He Asked,” Quiette Shy said, yet Heliotrope thought she detected a hint of solemnity.

“MY EVERYTHING HURTS! HOLY FOK, IT’S LIKE READING THE VORRH AGAIN!”

Dancing Day

“Okay, pause,” Dancing Day says. “Did… did he actually say that?”

“He absolutely did,” Heliotrope confirms.

“It’s not my fault Brian Catling’s writing made me feel like I was dying inside,” Kraber grumbles. “I mean this time I was dying outside andinside…”

“Sounds like college,” Grayson says.

“... Wait. He exposed yourself to that much magic?” Verity asks. “You’re crazier than I thought.”

But Dancing Day can tell she’s admiring that level of bravery. She considers it a small victory for Kraber to have won even that small a concession.

“Damn that’s gotta hurt,” Aegis says. “I once had to get my leg speed-healed in the field… hurt a lot, but it worked.”

“Did the pain come from the magic hurting you?” Grayson asks.

“Well, yes and no,” Kraber says. “Sure as fok wasn’t giving me cancer, I checked with the PHL. I’m entirely cancer-free!”

“I don’t think magic gives you cancer or anything,” Heliotrope says. “Besides, Geiger counters don’t go off near us…”

“Sorry,” Kraber says. “Old habits. Really, thought, it just doesn’t make sense. Every study I’ve read has found no evidence, but you go up to any random fokkin’ ou with a pony and they act like you have the plague! I feel like I’m surrounded by antivaxxers!”

“Is that why you act like you’re always surrounded by idiots?” Vinyl Scratch asks.

“Ja,” Kraber says bluntly.

Vinyl looks at him, not expecting that. “Well, damn. Sorry.”

“We should just be lucky you don’t act like you did in college wh-” Rivet starts.

“Ohhhhh, no,” Kraber says. “They do not need to know that! But anyway. It’s just that healing is meant to happen over time, at the body’s natural pace, and artificially accelerating that process really fokking hurts.”

“You’re sure?” Aegis asks.

“My broken collarbone, and a damn rib, were both healed in a couple seconds! Reset and respliced, nerves threaded together, splinters and marrow stuffed back where they had come. Of course that’s going to hurt. It was the second or third worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Second?” you ask.

“...You really, really don’t want to know,” Aegis says.

Heliotrope

“What are you doing over there?!” Yael yelled over her earpiece. “It sounds like a dying hyena!”

“Those…” Bliss wheezed, in ragged gasps, “Sound…! Diff… erent. Oh God, this is worse… than Kate’s goth poetry...”

“We need you to get Haddon to that ambulance, as soon as possible!” Yael yelled.

“I’m not leaving someone to die or get ponified,” Heliotrope said.

Yael sighed. “...I want to argue with this, but I really can’t. Just get Haddon out of here.”

“Are you done yet?!” Lorne yelled, looking down to Quiette Shy.

“In A Moment,” she said, and Heliotrope met her gaze. “He’ll need to keep down for a bit, but we’ll have to-”

Kraber

“That stung like a woman with teeth in her beef portal! But I’m okay!”

And indeed he was. Kraber was back on his feet.

There were a number of strange things today. But most importantly, Quiette Shy - aka, one of Heliotrope and Yael Ze’ev’s most trusted lieutenants - had healed him.

‘The world is just on its fokkin’ gat today,’Kraber thought, slowly taking the weight off the light machine-gun.

“I Thought We’d be Evacuating You Too,” Quiette Shy said.

“I repeat,” Lorne said. “How. Are. You. Standing.”

“Hate,” Kraber said. “And drugs.”

He pulled a morphine needle out of his medical bag, unzipped one glove, and drove it into the nearest vein he could find.

“Lovely, lovely fokkin’ drugs,” he said.

“...Kay,” said ~~the guy whose name Kraber didn’t know at this point, the bla okay you know what fok it I’m not comfortable with talking about my friend this way~~ Lorne, unsettled. “You sure you’re alright? Because I just watched you get thrown out the seventh story of a hospital, and bounce off another building.”

Kraber looked at Lorne, confused. “Huh. So that’swhat happened.”

He looked over to Haddon.

“That’s the bawbag that knows?” Kraber asked. “The one that can blow this wide open?”

Quiette Shy nodded.

“They’re coming,” Haddon laughed madly, “My salvation! The apex of my perfection! The-”

“Don’t make it any more tempting than it is to poke some more holes in there,” Kraber said, scowling at Haddon, LMG pointed directly at his crotch. “And you. Heliotrope. Disinfect him with iodine when you get to a safe place. I want him to know what he did.”

“Damn, that’s brutal,” said Lorne. “Not a bad idea.”

“So are we actually doing that or-” Summers started.

“MOVE!” Heliotrope barked, and the four of them, Haddon in tow, rushed away.

“For Equestria! For Canterlot! For Shieldwall!” one of the few surviving PER yelled. This one a unicorn Newfoal. “There’s just one ape between us, it’s not even remotely fair!”

“Well, you’re right about one thing,” Kraber said. “IT’S NOT TOO FOKKIN’ FAIR FOR YOU!”

They responded with potion flasks, which shattered against his shield, their contents burning off in a cloud of purple steam, as ineffectual as ice against the sun.

“People?” Kraber asked. “You’re just in time to watch me… practice medicine.”

He roared again, firing the .44 revolver into a Newfoal unicorn’s horn. A lump of alicornal tissue and bone flew into the air, leaving a few rainbow-colored strands of something poking out from the middle of the unicorn’s forehead, and obliterating everything above it, leaving a messy stew of blood and brains splattering the walls.

His next shot went straight through a pegasus mare’s potion bandolier, shattering the glass and punching a massive hole through her abdomen… only for the Newfoal to refuse to die. Instead, the shrieking revenant flew at Kraber, only for him to reverse his grip and pistol whip her with the revolver’s heavy wood-and-rubber grip.

There was an audible crack.

“THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE WITHOUT THE FOKKING BARRIER!” Kraber laughed, and kicked the Newfoal in the face, brains and blood spattering over his boots. “WHY THE FOK WERE WE EVER AFRAID OF YOU!?”

“Because we’ll win…” they all replied in unison, eyes glowing and voices in resonance. “It is commanded that we win…”

He fired again, ripping through the nose of an earth pony that looked to be carrying a mouthful of potion in his cheeks in place of a flask, sending an absurd spray of red, purple, and gray everywhere.

A pegasus Newfoal rushed through the window, a chain of potion bottles in her mouth.

Kraber fired the LMG again, pulping her intestines, leaving one wing flying off into the distance in a wildly improbable, gravity-defying arc.

The pegasus, however, spiraled into the window of a nearby shop across the street from the hospital, ramming facefirst into the wall, oozing blood and perforated with broken glass.

“You mock the Barrier, but cannot answer it…” she gurgled, in synch with a pair of unicorn Newfoals who appeared at Kraber’s flank. “You defy the Sun, but cannot challenge it…”

“NOBODY TELLS ME WHAT TO DO!” Kraber roared, and shot her in the neck. Shey fell, limply, her spine severed.

Their horns roiled with sickly shadows, spells charging, and Kraber fired his revolver again, aiming for the horn of the one closest to the entrance to the hospital.

“You have no recourse, no answer, no future…”

A mare’s head exploded, the unused energy from the spell going wild and shattering the window inwards, pulling a spray of glass shards into the other unicorn’s body. Kraber crossed the distance in seconds, and rammed his boot up into his face.

“Nothing but death… Nothing but our embrace…”

He stamped on its neck. The Newfoal didn’t get up.

“ALRIGHT, WHO THE FOK’S NEXT?!” Kraber roared, sliding a new belt into the MG2021, the old one more-or-less spent. “I LIVED, BITCH!”

Heliotrope

“I LIVED, BITCH!” Bliss called over from the hospital.

That was not something Heliotrope expected.

Lorne stepped towards the driver’s seat, but Summers stopped him.

“Typical,” Lorne grumbled.

“Hey, you’re an insane shot with that thing,” Summers said. “We need that.”

Lorne shrugged, before getting in the passenger seat.

And with that, the ambulance roared off into the night through the ruined streets of Portland, Haddon in the back, Quiette Shy watching over him as he was strapped to the stretcher.

Heliotrope stood on the roof. Tempting as it was to fly behind it, well… that was the thing. Even if pegasi could outrun human vehicles in the best of conditions, there were several problems there.

One: Heliotrope was absolutely not in optimal conditions. Two: An exhausted Heliotrope would be no help to anyone.

The sirens blared as the ambulance tore over broken pavement. This close by, it was deafening.

She squinted through her goggles, feeling the human-made vehicle rattling along on its way out of the city. Towards Gardner’s perimeter.

Towards freedom.

Kraber

“KNOCK, KNOCK!” Kraber yelled, kicking a door open.

Much to his surprise, it flew off the hinges, and fell on an earthpony reaching for a scavenged assault saddle.

Well, whatever. I guess that works.

He stomped down on the door, feeling something crack in the earth pony that’d been caught under it.

He turned to see a pegasus Newfoal mare staring back at him (a ‘normal’ one, not one of Reaper’s corpses) with an absurd, surprised look on her face, flittering in midair, a potion vial in her mouth.

Kraber lowered his revolver and drove his left hand into her mouth, feeling teeth shatter before his fist.

“I thought Reaper broke-!” another ‘natural’ Newfoal yelled. More were coming up the stairs, even as Reaper’s hordes descended from on high…

“Can’t break what’s already broken,” Kraber said, staring down a mass of zombified Newfoals. “Let’s DANCE!”

And Kraber simply waded into the mass of Newfoals, 7.62x51mm rounds cutting through up to five Newfoals at once, sending blood and limbs flying everywhere. A steady stream of viscera flowed down the stairs and splashed against his armor, so much that he could barely see the original forest-green color.

He fired in short bursts that could have been anywhere from 2-5 rounds, keeping the blood pouring.

“IT’S JUST A FLESH WOUND!” Kraber yelled, as the 2021 utterly destroyed a Newfoal’s skull.

Then it ran dry.

With barely a thought, Kraber switched to the pipe-bomb launcher and fired, the improvised explosive pinning a zombified human to the floor by their foot….

And exploding.

Kraber only barely outran the wave of heat and concussive force. He shifted the MG2021 onto his back, then unholstered his .44 and a big knife.

“STOP!” screamed a natural-born pony with an assault saddle. “For Celestia’s sake, sto-”

Kraber didn’t even blink. Running full tilt, revolver held in one hand, he snapped so hard to the right that he thought he’d break something, and pulled the trigger.

The Model 29 - the Dirty Harry gun, yes - bucked in his hands, ad the single round punched through his opponent’s face.

A pegasus flew at him. Using his knife hand to rest the pistol, Kraber fired another shot, the round punching clean through the pony’s wing.

They flew towards him. Kraber dodged to the side like he was playing rugby again, and kept up his breakneck sprint for the assault rifle.

Finally, he bodychecked through the doors, feeling their weight against a shoulder that he knew should have been injured. But wasn’t. He shook off the reflexive pain. There was work to do.

They were getting closer! He looked frantically around the cafeteria, and shoved the biggest table he could against the doors.

Heliotrope

Almost predictably, it didn’t go smoothly.

The very, very few remaining pegasi (How many bodies were left?!) swarmed down along the road, passing abandoned cars and bombed-out storefronts.

Suddenly, Heliotrope thought, this seems like it was a very bad idea.

And in that moment, she jumped into the fray, guns blazing, wing blades and wolvers outstretched.

Bullets and bolts whistled past her. But it was like everything was in slow motion around her and Heliotrope was a Mustang Marathon recordholder. She dipped, rolled, and dodged away from the incoming projectiles, hosing the enemy down with 9x32 rounds.

There was something that always happened to Heliotrope in a melee, or when about to hit something. It would be like everything went blank, like there was no up, down, left, or right… And then, there she’d be, right in the middle of it.

Today was no exception. Before she knew it, she hit the swarm of undead and living pegasi like a crashing skyliner, body parts flying, heads drilled through, limbs ripped apart.

With a wordless scream, she then bit down on the mouth trigger barreling towards a Newfoal that looked to be carrying a sack of Potion vials under its belly.

A Newfoal - maybe living, maybe not - curved towards her. And Heliotrope banked to the left, both forelegs outstretched. She raked her hoof-mounted claws through its right wing. It stayed aloft for a fraction of a second…

Before Heliotrope bucked out with her hindlegs, kicking them and sending them careening into the wall of a building. That one, that one had probably been dead.

“Why?!” another Newfoal yelled. “We’re just… like… you!”

“NO YOU ARE NOT!” Heliotrope screamed, and rushed towards it, body checking it with her shoulder. It tumbled backwards, making a hwoof sound as it struggled to stay alight-

Did I knock the wind out of it? Heliotrope wondered, before shooting through it.

It fell to the ground, screaming again.

A bolt tore through the air, only barely scraping Heliotrope’s helmet. She didn’t have time to stare in shock, she just let instinct take over. She dove for the ground, wings spread, aiming for an alleyway. She saw bolts racing towards her, but she didn’t panic. Couldn’t panic.

She glided an inch above the ground. It all raced by her, and for a moment she felt exhilarated. This is amazing!

She heard something crash into a dumpster behind her - another Newfoal.

They’d followed me!?!

She outstretched her left wing, banking in that direction, and bit down the mouth trigger so hard she felt almost as if she’d break the mechanism. The feedback was immediate - three pegasi down, furry undead missiles raking through the pavement and assorted debris that made up the alleyway.

I think I’m good, she thought, flying up above the alleyway, towards the rooftops…

What?!

There were more pegasi - HOW MANY HAD THEY MADE?! - rushing towards the ambulance. Carrying unicorns in either their legs, or in improvised harnesses.

Uh…

Heliotrope was struck by the absurdity of it all for a fraction of a fraction of a second, before realizing: This can’t be good.

In that instant, a beam of pure heat lanced toward her, drilling a perfectly circular hole through the roof of a building that housed several apartments and a laundry.

This was a diversion! Heliotrope thought frantically, beginning evasive maneuvers.

The unicorn passengers fired spell after spell at her, plants growing where they impacted the ground, concrete melting, pavement bubbling, roofs burning or sparking with electricity.

And still she dodged.

“Look Out!” Quiette Shy yelled up, and Heliotrope turned to see the doors to the ambulance opening-

QS, no, why…. This is an awful idea...

-to reveal her projecting a wall of magic over the door, Lorne poking his rifle through it.

That’s not so bad.

Sporadic fire broke out from the rear of the ambulance, spraying down the carrier pegasi. They dodged - but with their payload of unicorns, they were like fridges with wings. Two went down before Heliotrope’s eyes.

“Keep To The Sides, H,” Quiette Shy said. “We’ll Keep Haddon… Safeish.”

“Man, can’t we rough him up a little bit?” Lorne sighed over the radio.

“He Was Hit By Another Ambulance,” Quiette Shy pointed out. “I’m Not Risking It.”

Blasts of magic rattled the ambulance before Heliotrope’s eyes. Another lance of fire shot towards her, and it felt so hot, so dense, that it could have almost been confused for a solid object.

She banked over it, back parallel to the ground, twisted to the left, and sprayed the pegasus. They fell to the ground silently, their charge screaming and trying to force themselves out of the harness, biting through the straps.

It didn’t help. They were only partway out when they hit the ground.

Heliotrope shot at another pegasus. She watched blood spurting out from somewhere - she couldn’t see where - and saw the pegasus carrier dodge down into an alleyway on her left.

Then a bolt of magic shot forwards, scorching the right side of the ambulance and burning off the mirror, peeling the paint in a grotesque mess.

Heliotrope tracked it to see a ragged group of the PER and fake PHL (HOW MANY DID HADDON- no. Forget it. More important things to deal with here) blockading them, taking up the entirety of one street. Blockading themselves behind a set of wrecked cars, carrying massive PER ballistas and rocket launchers.

There was even a unicorn projecting a shield over it.

We can’t ram that! Heliotrope thought frantically.

“SUMMERS!” Heliotrope yelled. “We have to change direction!”

“I see it!” Summers yelled, and the ambulance swerved left, roaring down a hill at a slight incline. The PER bolt flew straight and true, embedding itself in the side of the ambulance-

“WHOA!” Lorne yelled.

“Lorne! QS!” Heliotrope screamed. “ARE YOU-”

“IT RIPPED MY SHIRT!” Lorne yelled.

“WHAT?!” Heliotrope yelled.

“It Punctured The Walls, But…. Neither Of Us Got Hurt!” Quiette Shy yelled.

“That’s a relief,” Heliotrope said, flying above the blockade’s shield, spraying 9x32mm rounds down towards the PER and fake PHL defending it. The other pegasi had tapered off, seemingly - the one remaining carrier was turning away, and it looked like the blockade was…

Wait a minute.

Heliotrope felt a sudden stab of panic.

Oh no.

“Summers!” she yelled, following the ambulance. “Something’s wrong!”

Kraber

He was in the cafeteria now. The place where Sylvia should have died. Tanaka, Caduceus, the survivors, they were nowhere to be seen. He hoped they’d gotten out alright.

It was child’s play to find where Sylvia’s body had been. He desperately tried not to look at the bloodstains near the coffee machine, and the skin that looked stuck to the floor, melted on, even. It was caught between equine and human, with tan fur growing out and random points in the viscera.

He failed. Oh, God, had he failed...

That was an eye on the floor. Somewhere between Equestrian and human, not quite the glassy unnatural amber-red of the pony, not quite the brownish eye he remembered Sylvia having. It resembled a double-yolked egg, two irises bulging from a single orb.

He stepped on it, crushing human and pony alike… no, no - crushing the monsters in between, neither one nor the other… Newfoals squashed beneath his boots.

Her wallet was lying on the floor. It was stuffed with photos where once there had been money and credit cards. He snatched one out at random - Sylvia standing between two other women (one smiling sadly, the other laughing, with a grin aimed at the sad one. He knew that one - the smile of somebody telling you to lighten up and enjoy yourself), while in the background several ponies played blackjack. A mare, her mane a vibrant purple, was holding onto the laughing human women, pegasus wings hugging on tight. Caduceus was there too, photo-bombing the picture, an empty shotglass hanging on her horn...

‘Mercy and Jackie, Cady and Sylvie. And Rio - poor Rio. Vegas. August, 2018. Friends forever...’ said a scribble on the back. He turned it over again, peering back into the past, gazing back before the war. Humans and ponies enjoying each other’s company, smiling and laughing…

You kontgesig, he told himself. He snarled and grabbed the picture, wanting to rip it… but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, to shred a preserved scrap of innocence. There was precious little of it left, nowadays...

Instead he stuffed it back into the wallet, beside the other treasured photos, zipped that into an empty pouch on his armor, and continued to loot through the tattered remnants of a life. A few rations, some medical supplies… spare magazines for that 10mm, which he stuffed into his own backpack. And even a belt with more disruptor grenades…

The disconnect between those artifacts of the world before the war and the weaponry in there was almost heartbreaking. He’d known people like Sylvia at college back in Boston - not that he personally knew her, that would have been silly - and he’d seen them get broken. All of them, in that picture… he doubted they’d ever expected war. To have to hold a gun. He fokking well hadn’t.

I think we could’ve been friends, he thought. Fok. And here I am. Beating the shit out of someone I would’ve liked before the war. Someone with a life. Family. Friends.

And I can’t truly say I’m much better.

And then he realized.

Shit.

The gun’s not here.

At least the grenades are, though! That’s something! He thought. Alright. I need-

He called in Caduceus.

“Caduceus?!” he yelled. “I…. I fokked up. I have the grenades, but no launcher. Where are you, where’s Julia-”

“I’m sorry!” Caduceus yelled. “I took the rifle! We can’t get to you.”

“That’s just like you, isn’t it?” Kraber asked. “You don’t care when people like us die, only your friends. No matter how low they’ve sunk, how low we’ve all fokking-”

There was a crash.

The sound of twisting metal and shattering glass.

The doors had exploded inwards.

Kraber dove behind a support beam. There, trotting into the cafeteria, without a care in the world, was Reaper.

“No, wait!” Caduceus protested. “I - we have -”

“Bliss,” Julia said, “We have a prisoner. We have wounded. I’m sorry, but we can’t risk it.”
“I guess I can’t argue with that. Oh, Reaper’s here, now,” Kraber said, “It’s too late.”

He turned to look the fokkin’ abomination of nature in the eyes.

“And hey. I’m sorry for that, Caduceus,” Kraber said. “We’ve all lost someone. And you’re about to lose me.”

“Bliss, no-” Julia pleaded.

He hung up.

Heliotrope

The pegasus that’d flown left - the one Heliotrope thought was dead - came flying out of an alleyway. Heading towards the ambulance. Carrying a unicorn with a lightly glowing horn.

“NO!” Heliotrope screamed in horror, rushing towards the ambulance, spraying down towards it.

“Heliotrope, What The Ta-” Quiette Shy started.

“There’s a pegasus heading for us!” Heliotrope yelled. “Summers, anyone, we have t-”

That was all she got out before the unicorn’s horn flashed. The ground under the ambulance exploded, and it flew up onto the air tail over teakettle, end over end, front bumper spinning above the ground.

“QUIETTE SHY!” Heliotrope screamed at the top of her lungs. “NO!”

Her friend. The unicorn that’d taught her nearly everything she knew. The pony that had been her rock, her anchor, the one she’d always been able to cling alongside no matter how strange Earth seemed, was almost certainly going to die.

There was one moment where its doors opened down, about six meters above the ground.

Lorne, Haddon, and Quiette Shy were flung, screaming, from the rear of the ambulance. A red bubble had popped into existence around them - absolutely one of Quiette Shy’s shields.

No no no no no no

It bounced on the ground.

Heliotrope rushed towards them, Haddon’s safety a non-issue as she rushed towards a pony who was a friend, no, a partner, no, security, safety, something even more than friendship.

Heliotrope watched the three of them, trapped in the bubble, tumbling along the street. The three of them rammed against each other and against the walls like ball bearings in a tin can.

No no no no no

she watched in horror as the ambulance crashed to the ground, metal compacting and collapsing into itself. She heard Summers screaming at the top of his lungs, trapped in the mass of twisted metal that was now the ambulance.

And somewhere at the end of the street, halfway to the warehouses and what Heliotrope’s maps told her was a Whole Foods, Lorne and Quiette Shy lay sprawled in the street.

Are they okay?! She asked herself, fluttering down towards Quiette Shy. She placed one hoof on the white and blonde unicorn’s throat. Good. Good good good.

A PULSE!

She breathed a sigh of relief. Quiette Shy was fine. Everything was going to be-

She looked over to Lorne, who was moaning lightly, one hand to his temples.

Oh.

I probably should’ve done something about that. Well, he’s… definitely alive…. And not bleeding… the medics can deal with that, I guess?

“Is…. is the prisoner-” Lorne started.

FUMP

Haddon’s stretcher fell facedown on the pavement. Blood oozed from between his skull and the pavement.

“So is that a no?” Lorne asked, slurring his words slightly.

“FREEDOM!” Haddon screamed, voice absurdly warped by his position on the ground, his broken nose, and the clear pain in his voice. He struggled, in obvious pain.

“...WHY?!” Heliotrope yelled. “Why do you even want this?!”

And it was in the second that she asked, that Haddon took a crossbow bolt to the arm. He screamed in something indistinguishable from pain or joy, his body twisting and practically bubbling under the stretcher.

“FINALLY!” Haddon laughed, a huge smile on what had once been his face, fur bursting from under his skin. Limbs that were somewhere between arms, legs, and tentacles slipped past his restraints like folded paper under closed doors. A horn forced its way through his forehead, skin splitting and peeling off around it to reveal yellowish fur the same color as Haddon’s hair.

And something that had once been Garrett Haddon crawled out from under the stretcher, a smile on its face. A well-built yellowish unicorn with a brown mane streaked with orange.

“I’m… finally… alive!” the thing that had been Haddon cried, a beatific smile on its face.

Haddon was gone.

She’d failed. They’d failed.

“Yael!” Heliotrope yelled. “We lost… we lost Haddon!”

Kraber

“It’s over, Bliss,” Reaper said. “You’ve pushed your lackeys away. All crimes are forgiven once you’re ponified, but for you? We’re going to make an exception. You’re going to be judged for everything you’ve done. Mass murder of ponies and equestrian citizens. Subversion. And I don’t know, possibly littering.We’re going to make you do the sickest, most vile things we can, and we’re going to make you enjoy them.”

She smiled.

“How harmonious,” she said. And as she rushed at him, she began to sing. “ Don’t fear the reaper…”

He fired, and she easily sidestepped the furious shot. As more of her undead puppets rushed to dogpile Kraber, she watched on with laughter in her eyes, and that accursed song on her lips.

“You… you killed all of them…” the first Newfoal to reach him whispered in Reaper’s voice, even as Reaper herself kept singing.

Kraber said nothing and shot the Newfoal in the face with the revolver. Another thirty seconds had dropped everything but Reaper herself, and slathered him in blood.

“Why won’t you take the potion?!” Reaper screamed in glee, as Kraber’s bullets smashed against her shield.

Kraber briefly considered saying something witty, but fok it, it was a Newfoal. Nothing any man or woman could say to them that’d make them listen.

He held his ground, even as Reaper’s shotguns smashed against his shield. Need… more… fokking… time…

It was as if everything was in slow motion. Her shotgun shells crawled through the air, bouncing off, purple smoke hissing off the places where it impacted him.

But they were coming closer and closer with each volley, whereas his thundering responses only seemed to crawl towards the Newfoal beast by millimeters...

Yael

The zombies coming towards their barrier. Piling against a magic shield Yael, her forces, the National Guard, spraying bullets into the charging horde.

It wasn’t working. Everyone that had died - PER, PHL, probably even HLF - was swarming their position. Guns fired wildly towards them.

Oscar cut through it like a cleaver through raw meat. He rushed from side to side, nailing into the zombies with his Penetrator in one hand, a machete from God-knew-where in the other.

He roared wordlessly.

“This guy is a machine!” Smoky breathed, staring in awe as Oscar shouldered such a heavy burden.

Smoky himself stood behind a wrecked car and a newspaper dispenser, firing wildly.

“Heliotrope!” Yael screamed into her comms. “What is your situation, we-”

And then, through heavy interference, she heard it.

“Yael!” Heliotrope yelled. “We lost… we lost Haddon!”

“...shit,” Yael said, simply.

As soon as that syllable escaped her mouth, it finally hit her: We've lost everything. Bliss is going to die. We're going to die. It's all over. I'm never going to find out how deep the PER go here, and I'm going to end up happy with it, as one of those things, begging for a merciful death that will never come, no no no stop, can't think of it, mustn't think of it-

She felt herself breathing faster. More raggedly.

‘No,’ Yael thought. ‘I refuse to give up here!’

“There’s so many!” someone screamed. Yael couldn’t place who. “We’re gonna, we’re gonna-”

They were cut off with the telltale ‘thwang’ of a crossbow, before descending into the mad laughter of a Newfoal.

Zhang, clearly in pain from her back wound, screamed in agony as she took another round through a weak spot in her leg’s armor, her shield spent. She fell to the ground, clutching the bloody remains of her leg.

“NO!” a National Guard man yelled, running towards her, ready to-

A potion crossbow punched through his arm. He fell to the ground, twitching, screaming, his body shifting in unnatural ways.

Smoky turned, and unleashed a short, controlled burst of 5.56 rounds into the National Guard man’s face.

And then, against all odds, he got back up.

“Kill me,” he whispered through lacerated lungs. “KILL ME RIGHT NOW! It hurts, it hurts, everything HURTS! I CAN’T!”

He staggered towards Zhang, ripping the bolt that had halfway ponified him out of his arm, stalking towards her.

“No,” Zhang moaned. “No, no, no, no, fucking no…”

Bro shot him in both knees with that ridiculous FAL he’d taken.

But that didn’t stop the thing that was once a National Guard. He fell to the ground, and began crawling towards Yael.

A sniper round from Eva’s hiding place in who-knew-where practically ripped him apart, lengthwise. Yael didn’t want to remember the sounds she’d swear he made after it happened.

“There’s so many targets!” Eva screamed. “I can punch through eight, but there’s still more!”

“Keep shooting!” Yael yelled back. “Bliss, Heliotrope, they’ve got to come through for us!”

“It’s just one man,”Eva said. “We’re fucked, Lieutenant. I hope you know that.”

Yael didn’t answer. Partly because she didn’t know how, but also because there was a pegasus rushing at her with a big, rusty axe.

“Heliotrope,” Yael said into her comms. “It’s been an honor. I know it won’t be the same without me or Oscar, but… you, Quiette Shy, just… live your lives as best you can. And don’t forget us.”

Heliotrope

“What do we do with the other humans?” a PER human asked, crossbow in hands. Lorne looked dazed, struggling to his feet.

“They’re PHL, and Shieldwall didn’t say we had to bring ‘em in,” said a PER pony, assault saddles at the ready. “I figure we can do what we want.”

“Heliotrope,” Yael said, “It’s been an honor. I know it won’t be the same without me or Oscar, but... you, Quiette Shy, just… live your lives as best you can. And don’t forget us.”

“NO!”Heliotrope screamed, firing 9x32mm rounds towards the PER. She stole a glance at Lorne and Quiette Shy, who - perhaps concussed - were staggering to their feet and hooves. At the ambulance that held what probably remained of Summers, pulped and pasted by the wreck.

Wait.

There he was, crawling out the windshield, a cut on his head, one eye swollen shut.

‘Holy blazes. We’re alive! We’re all alive!’

It was incredible. They’d all survived the crash! Especially Quiette Shy!

“You May Have Destroyed This City,” Quiette Shy said. “Brutalized Us. Converted Us. Betrayed Us. But-”

The volume on her electronic voice box turned up, higher than Heliotrope knew it could go.

“LIKE HELL ARE YOU TAKING US.”

A shield materialized in front of the four of them. There were the PER – of which Heliotrope counted eight, including one unicorn other than the Newfoal that had once been Haddon.

“Look at me,” the unicorn formerly known as Haddon said, laughing, tittering like a schoolboy.

‘Or like a dead person,’ Heliotrope thought, even if that idea made absolutely no sense.

Ice gathered around the Haddon-pony.

“I’m something new. Something beautiful.”

“The hell you are,” Summers said.

“You know you’re gonna die, right?” the Haddon-thing asked, smirking, laughing slightly. “We’re holding all the cards here.”

And in that moment, Heliotrope heard helicopters.

“Hear that?” the thing that had been Haddon asked. “More reinforcements. Face it, you lose.”

Kraber

Had Reaper’s shield gotten tougher? It was still going down at an almost glacial rate.

‘I’m not going to lose!’Kraber thought. ‘Not to Celestia, not to Lovikov, and certainly not to this fokking thing!’

And just before Kraber could lose hope, the walls exploded outwards and there was Caduceus, standing between some broken pipes.

“But how–” he asked.

“Come to join me?” Reaper asked, a huge smile on her face. “Come on, you missed me so much. You didn’t even mind what I did to–”

Caduceus’ horn glowed, and Reaper’s head rocked back as if she’d been slapped. She stared at Caduceus, open-mouthed.

“You… you hit me,” she said, surprised. “Even… when my human-self’s father hit her, he–”

“Sylvia,” Caduceus said, “has been dead for a long time now. The woman that’d do anything for people she loved, the nurse that worked thirty-two hours? The one I had to drug to make her sleep?”

“You wha-?!” Reaper started.

“Gone,” Caduceus finished. “And all I have is left is you.”

Kraber pushed himself back against the wall, and lifted himself up.

“Neither of us are anything special, Reaper,” said Caduceus.“We didn’t come to Earth to bring peace or love… I wish I could say I did, but… I’m just a messed-up girl looking for her own peace of mind. But you… You’re nothing but a… a sword in their mouth!”

Caduceus yelled, and suddenly, everything was tinted green. A stream of energy from her horn was feeding into Kraber’s shield, strengthening it.

“Here!” She magically tossed him a Kalashnikov with an underbarrel 40mm launcher, the rifle hazed in the green of her aura. “Come and get your birthday present!”

Heliotrope

‘Oh no,’ Heliotrope had thought. ‘More PER. It’s–’

And then, in that moment, an M60 cut through a PER man like a weird sideways guillotine, uneven halves of his body falling to the ground in bloody heaps.

“Hey, Colonel!” someone called. Probably the gunner. “I guess we are the support!”

“That we are, Vango!” yelled the unmistakable voice of Colonel Robert Gardner, who stood by the open door of a blackhawk helicopter, firing his Remington ACR down towards the PER. “That! We! ARE!”

‘What took you so long?!’part of Heliotrope thought.

“Run!” a PER woman yelled, and they rushed towards an alleyway.

Heliotrope, Lorne, Quiette Shy, and Summers followed, emboldened. Summers screamed at the top of his lungs, firing his rifle full-blast towards the alleyway…

Kraber

“Caduceus!” Reaper yelled in recognition. “Why are you helping this human?! He’ll kill us both!”

“No, just you,” Caduceus said. “But you were never alive to begin with…”

“But… we’re both ponies…!” Reaper screamed, her forever-grin strained for the first time.

“I’ve lived my whole life in Equestria. Whatever you are now, you aren’t my friend, and you’re barely a pony!” Caduceus yelled, before turning to face the man she knew by the name ‘Ivan Bliss’.

She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration. When she opened them, her eyes blazed green.

Reaper’s shield was ablaze with green fire, small baseball-sized explosions radiating out from where Kraber’s 40mm grenades hit. And then Caduceus was at his side, Sylvia’s rifle held in her TK, shaking and shuddering as the same magical energies contained within the disruptor-grenades bound to the bullets.

They were kneeling, both of them. Firing one round at a time like old-fashioned troops armed with muzzleloaders.

The result was a magical firestorm as thaum fought thaum. And then, before their eyes, Reapers shield flickered, cracked, and finally shattered like a glass window.

She seemed frozen in shock as Kraber lined up for the kill, one grenade left.

“No,” Caduceus said. “Let me end it. I covered for her time after time, this is my responsibility.”

“But… we were friends,” Reaper whispered.

“Sylvia,” Caduceus said. “If there’s any of you left in there… Goodbye.”

She squeezed the trigger.

What happened was underwhelming compared to what both of them had expected.

“Fok!”

Instead of a stream of 5.56 rounds, only a single bullet struck Reaper, glancing off her horn. Her head snapped back…

“FOK!”

When the mare’s gaze tipped back forward, her grin had been replaced by a snarl.

And with that, disaster struck. A wave of pure concussive force shot out from Reaper’s horn, and Kraber and Caduceus were both flung back against the wall of the cafeteria. The kalashnikov flew out of Kraber’s grip, bouncing harmlessly against an overturned table.

“I can’t end it like this, BETRAYER!” Reaper screamed, gathering red energy around her horn.

“WILL YOU JUST FOKKING DIE ALREADY?!” Kraber yelled, whipping out his revolver.

His rifle might be out, but her shield was done and he could still fight. Sinking easily into a two-hand grip, Kraber flowed through the action of aiming like flowing silk, and firing all six rounds in what felt like the space of half a second. The resulting sound was not a single bang, but more akin to a peal of thunder.

The .44 rounds punched through Reaper’s horn and her neck, and she fell, coughing blood.

He reloaded, snapped the cylinder shut, and fired them all off once more, repeating until he swore he could see a ridge of bone just above her eye.

One final lucky shot managed to sever her horn, and finally, blessedly, she fell.

Quiette Shy

When they were in the alleyway, they only saw one person left. A human with a wounded leg, blood oozing into the pavement.

“You… you…” the human wheezed. “You just… left me to…”

“Got him!” Summers crowed.

“Join The Club,” Quiette Shy said. She saw rage on Heliotrope and Summers’ faces, as they searched the alleyway for any signs. “They Must Have Teleported.”

“That’s right,” the human wheezed. “They… my leg… they didn’t take me with them…”

All honesty, Quiette Shy didn’t mind that they’d slipped from their… ‘Horn? Hooves? No, fingers totally work better here,’she thought. ‘Fingers.’

The sun was coming up, now. Quiette Shy looked at their prisoner, and sighed audibly.

“The zombies are falling apart!”Yael called over QS’s earpiece. “I think… I think that crazy idiot Bliss actually won!”

“Holy shit,” Heliotrope breathed.

She sounded like she didn’t quite believe it. Quiette Shy didn’t.

“So,” Lorne said, looking over the alleyway. At the wounded PER man slumped against a wall, clutching his wounded leg. “I… I think that means we’re finally done.”

“Looks like,” Summers said, clutching his side.

‘He should get that looked at,’Quiette Shy thought.

Finally. After so long, after puzzling out the same things, after struggling to deal with everything thrown at her by Reaper and these PER and the HLF and That Ship, whatever that bucking weird ship was, it all felt like it was finally over.

It wasn’t, of course.

Quiette Shy knew that. There were still people that needed to answer for this. People that’d make them try to answer for it.

‘PHL Command is going to have Gardner’s balls in a vice,’Quiette Shy thought. I am not going to want to be him, or Yael, or even Heliotrope when the brass come knocking. Also, I am not looking forward to seeing the memes about the Ship. They’re going to be awful.’

But for now, she felt like she could finally relax.

After all this time.

Kraber

Kraber moved forward, cautious.

He’d seen this creature stand up from so much already, he had to be sure…

“Cold…” he heard Reaper whisper, before she made a broken, whimpering noise. “So cold….” the creature repeated, blood leaking down from her horn’s stump. “Cold… everywhere…”

Kraber reloaded, and stared down at her, stone-faced, about to pull the trigger.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wanted this… and didn’t… It’s all my fault. I can’t… she was in my head… Lady Cadance… called itself... my guardian angel. It was a monster and I invited it in... tore at me, made me want… things… love things.”

She shuddered, vomiting black blood, and then looked back up at him with vivid purple eyes.

“Wasn’t it magnificent, though…”

“There won’t be any more like you…” Kraber responded. “None of these abominations…”

“Oh, there will,” Reaper giggled. “Someday, sometime, another me, another fragment of Her will hit the right configuration, bottle the same champagne… You didn’t even know I was here, I and my sisters are here and will forever be inside every Newfoal… we whisper and talk and plan… this thing, this glorious Reaper, is the potential inside every soul blessed by the serum... and when another sister stumbles on it, we’ll have… Victory.”

Kraber shuddered, absolutely sure that she was staring at him. No, into him.

He shot Reaper in the eye, and the light that radiated out from around her horn dimmed. The body stirred, and then it was a human eye, desperate and pleading. Sylvia’s eye.

“I… I thought… It’s such an easy thing to say you hate something… so easy to hate… I can’t believe I went the easy way… I thought I knew… I wish I knew something…. anything. Shoot me, end all of this!”

“Okay,” Kraber said, raising his revolver.

“Just promise me.“

“What?”

“Don’t lose your way.”

“I won’t,” Kraber said.

“How… sublime…” she whispered, blood burbling up from between her lips.

“Goodbye, Sylvia.”

He fired his revolver for the last time.

END OF EPISODE ONE

Author's Note

I LIVED BITCH

Sorry it took so long, guys!

But it's finally here! Some of you may have noticed that this chapter took awhile. And the reason is, well... as much as Philistine is my favorite chapter, it needed a complete overhaul to fit with Yael being in Portland. Then the overhaul needed an overhaul. And I overhauled that overhaul. And Vox overhauled that overhaul. Then I had to cut some of Vox's edits out (I still love you though) to keep this story feeling me.

I wanted a finale (to episode 1) that was as ME as possible. That was more me than the entire first 11 chapters of classic Light were. And, y'know... I think it worked.

It was pretty time-consuming. I'm at nearly 45k words, after all! It didn't help that I was playing a lot of Warframe and Spacelords at the time, so there was a lot of time I wasn't spending on this.

Oh, yeah! I probably should've mentioned this, but this is meant to be the finale to Episode 1. I was going to have an epilogue chapter, but that was getting to be more than 10k words, and I was all "Does literally anyone want a 10,000 word chapter featuring a daring escape immediately after this?"

A dood gotta pace themselves, after all. Pacing was one of the classicsverse's biggest problems, but to call it a problem implies that it existed in the first place.

And so: Grand Finale to episode 1!

The next episode will be a bit more chill, honestly. More intrigue, more wandering, less gore... it's meant to be sort of a breather episode before things get heavy again.

Episode 2: A Stranger I Remain

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

13: Kiss The Sky

Light Despondent Remixed

Chapter 13

Dust / We’re Sorry / Kiss The Sky

Shouts out to:

Jed, for being willing to talk this over with me

Vox, for editing help

Sledge

And TB3, because - even if this is all original material - I still owe a lot to him

Dancing Day

“It didn’t get any easier from there,” Kraber says, shaking his head slightly.

Dancing Day nods. She remembers all the chaos in the wake of the Battle of Portland – the rumors that flew about Hadley’s Hope, the Battle of Littleton, the Berlin Break, the all-out war between PER and HLF, that big Emission in rural Maine, and of course, Montreal.

“No,” Heliotrope says. “It really didn’t.”

Kraber chuckles lightly. “Y’know, if Verity was here, she’d be talking a blue streak about how much of it was our fault.”

“How much of it was?” Vinyl asks.

“Well, not thatmuch,” Kraber says. “For what it’s worth, Yael, Heliotrope? Berlin was not your fault.”

“It couldn’t have been,” Heliotrope says, confused. “That was totally out of our control.”

“The fact that you know that,” Kraber interrupts, “Is a good si–”

There is a knock at the door. A human woman with dirty blonde hair and prescription sunglasses walks inside, looking at him.

“Viktor?” she asks. She’s dressed like an off-duty nurse, wearing a nametag reading ‘Heather’.

“Well, fokdamn,” Kraber says. “Heather!”

He jumps out of his seat, looking excited. “It’s been too long! How’ve you been?”

“Eh, you know,” Heather says, “Nurse duty’s been kicking my ass.”

“Enough you couldn’t see someone on the same base?” Aegis asks, curious.

“To be honest, yes,” Heather says bluntly.

Kraber and Aegis wander off to talk to her, with her shaking Aegis’ hand. “So, Heather, Aegis. Aegis, Heather…”

‘Must’ve been one of Mr. Kraber’s friends?’ Dancing Day wondered.

“Wait,” Vinyl says, “Who’s this?”

“Long story short, this is my friend Heather from college,” Kraber says.

“I heard Viktor had some off time to tell this story,” Heather says, “And I haven’t seen him in years, so…”

“I get it. Look,” Kraber says, “Heather and I… we’ve some catching up to do. Yael, Heliotrope you mind taking over for a bit? I’m barely gonna be conscious for the first fifteen percent of this chapter–”

“Wait, what–” Heliotrope interrupts.

“And I’d kind of like to get back in touch with Heather for a bit,” Kraber says.

Yael shrugs. “That’s a good idea.”

Yael
August 9, 2022

What the Battle of Portland might have lacked in length, it more than made up for in pure chaos. PHL against PER who were disguised as PHL... HLF against real PHL... PER against HLF... local militia against almost everyone.

It was a madhouse.

One that Yael was grateful to be seeing at its tail end.

“...He did it,” Yael breathed, amazed. “He finally did it.”

All around her, the zombies were crumbling. Collapsing to the ground. One of them – the Newfoal that had tried to cut her head off with the axe – crawled up to her, clutching the ruins of its stomach.

“Dad,” it whispered. “Dad, I’m sor…”

It died midsentence, blood oozing out onto the ground.

She looked at the corpses – which were, she was certain, going to staydead. Then to the few surviving PER.

She didn’t even need to give an order. They all knew what to do...

…

… …

… … …

… Yael then breathed a sigh of relief, leaning against an ambulance…

… And before she knew it, she was slumping onto the concrete, panting heavily, and wondering if she’d be able to get up for hours.

“Oh…” she wheezed, her back pressing the ambulance’s exterior. “Oh… Tonight was the worst.”

“Affirmative,” Oscar said, collapsing into a sitting position next to her.

“I… need to sleep forever,” Smoky wheezed, shrugging off his assault saddle and letting all four legs give out under him.

At the entrance to the Maine Medical Center, five figures of different shapes and sizes emerged, staggering, looking as bone-tired as Yael felt. Those who had hands were holding them up. Those with something other than hands walked out in front, vulnerable to attack.

“Who!” Smoky yelped, scrambling for his saddle. “More enemies!? Come on, we can take th–”

“No need,”Bliss’ voice crackled over Yael’s comms. “It’s us, Lieutenant.”

And so they were, all five of them. The humans among them lowered their hands.

There was Bliss, and there was Asian woman with a cheap .32 pistol tucked into her jeans. Ahead of them was an unfamiliar orange unicorn, carrying an unconscious earthpony with a bandaged leg. And finally there was Nebula, missing one of her wings, who looked not just tired, but utterly hollowed-out.

“Sonuvabitch…” muttered Yael. Her joints creaking in protest, she stood up, facing them. “You’re one tough guy to kill, you know that, Bliss? Nebula,” she called to the thestral. “Sitrep. What happened in there? We saw those helicopters blasting the rooftop– Richards Building, was it? Who are these people?”

Nebula tried to straighten herself, her remaining wing barely steadying her.

“Petty Officer Nebula… reporting for duty, Ma'am,” she wheezed. “Escorting Julia Tanaka and Caduceus, nurses at the Maine Medical Center… Survivor count… three.”

“Three, huh?” Yael frowned, glaring at the bandaged earthpony slung over Caduceus’ back. “And who’s he?”

The Asian woman stepped in. “He’s my patient, Lieutenant,” she said firmly. “PER guy, sure, but… Hippocratic Oath, and all that.”

Yael just nodded. “Alright.”

With a weary motion, Bliss tapped his helmet. “...Think I need…. Rest,” he coughed. My… medical opinion… is that my everything hurts.”

“Yeah,” Nebula snarked. “You say that a lot.”

“I ain’t deadyet. It’s just… been a long day. There a bed somewhere?”

Yael turned away to gaze over the burning wreckage. Rubble and metal shards of helicopter were lying strewn about all over the place. None of this felt like a victory. Haddon was dead, Portland was a ruin, and she had failed to save it.

But. The prisoner Nebula had brought in? That was something, at least.

‘And how am I going to expla–’ Oh. Wait. That was on Gardner. ‘Thank God for small mercies. For now, I think Bliss has the right ide–’

Bliss collapsed next to Yael.

“Bliss,” she said. “Bliss, get up.”

“No,” Bliss mumbled, “I like it down here.”

Heliotrope

There was only one reason Heliotrope would ever remember the beginning of the reconstruction. They were in the midst of talking to Colonel Gardner about rebuilding efforts, even as Julia Tanaka and Caduceus ignored their exhaustion to attend the wounded - like Zhang, who miraculously hadn’t died from blood loss - when they made their horrifying discovery.

“... We’ll need to call in a lot of horsepower,” Heliotrope was saying, pacing about the concrete. “The areas near the harbor were the most devastated.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to fix the hospital?” Yael asked skeptically. “We might as well build a new hospital, after all that damage we caused.”

Gardner glanced at her dismissively. “Horsepower, you say, Heliotrope. Can’t you just, I don’t know, magic it back together?”

“It’d take a small army of unicorns, Colonel,” Heliotrope said. “We haven’t got all the specialized construction tools we’d have in Equestria. But I’d definitely advise that we use it as a shelter. Enough of the structure could still be stable. And the first one we’re taking to shelters,” she pointed at Bliss, lain-down on a military-issue blanket, “is that one.”

“Alright, let’s get the armor off him, Nurse,” Yael told Caduceus, who grunted and trotted over. “He’s going to need…”

Her voice stopped cold as Caduceus’s TK expertly pulled off Bliss’ gas mask. It got not further than one or two feet in the air before she dropped it. Because the face she’d revealed was thin, boney around the cheeks, and bearded.

“...That’s Viktor Kraber,” Heliotrope said, jaw hanging open.

Emotions crashed down on her like cresting waves. Fear. Sickness. Revulsion. Anger.

The man that’d shot her in the gut, made her feel crippled for nearly a month, worse than she even knewshe could be hurt. Had shot a lot of Stranded in the Purple Winter. Spearheaded the Innsbruck Massacre. The Graz Massacre. And many, many more.

He was there, right there, unconscious.

This man had killed Reaper. He had saved a huge amount of people from the PER in the Medical Center. But from where Heliotrope was standing, there was no way none of this mess at the hospital couldn’t be his fault. He had helped Lovikov hijack the Sorghum, and this city wouldn’t be in such a state without that.

‘Bastard. What gives you the right to lie there so peacefully?’

Someone was yelling behind her.

“... What was he doing?!” Gardner cried. “What was he taking from us? Why was he lying?!”

“What’s going on?” said Summers, running up to them. “Who…”

Then he saw Kraber. And Summers’ fingers very conspicuously brushed against the holster of his Beretta. They moved away soon enough – but still kept very close to his pistol. And he kept looking at Kraber.

Momentarily relieved that Summers hadn’t given in to his trigger-finger – it wasn’t that she was one to talk, though she didn’t have fingers, but she shared Yael’s apprehension for this man – Heliotrope gave Kraber a hard stare.

‘Let him suffer. Whatever we do next, he is getting what he deserves.’

Yael’s voice was rather too calm when she spoke. “We need to detain him.”

“Really now, Ma'am,” Smoky stated, staring at Kraber. “Nobody will miss him if we don’t.”

‘And that is probably true,’Heliotrope reflected, looking over to the coal-black earthpony. Off the top of her head, she didn’t know much about him, but there was something about him that made her feel uneasily familiar.

“Soldier,” said Yael, “you are notadvocating–”

“No,” Smoky replied, but he was glowering.

Caduceus was staring down at Kraber, the helmet lying discarded before her, a look of cold contempt on her face. Tanaka, alerted, walked up beside her.

“My God...” she whispered.

Her unicorn friend snorted. “I’ll say. I knew there was something wrong about that guy. Taco Day… I mean, seriously.”

‘The Tartarus is taco day?’Heliotrope wondered.

Tanaka stared at her, face creased with worry. “Whatever he did…” she began. “He still went through Hell to help us…”

“Shut up,” snarled a male voice. “All of you. Let me think.”

Colonel Gardner, it seemed, wanted the last word. He walked from one side of the gathering to the other, one hand in his pocket and the other stroking his chin.

“Alright. Lieutenant Ze’ev is correct,” Gardner said at last, but Heliotrope thought she picked up reluctance in his tone.. “I can’t think of a way it wouldn’t be procedure to detain him for PHL Command. We find a place to stack this piece of shit, then we decide on what to do.”

Yael
August 10, 2022

Colonel Robert Gardner had complained, naturally. Said there was more important stuff to do. Said that the work was never done. But… they’d literally worked from sunrise to sundown and back again. They deserved a rest. So Yael had found herself sleeping until about 11 AM.

A command center had been set up by Gardner in a chain hotel – the Hilton Garden Inn, Downtown Waterfront, in fact. Barely two miles away from the Maine Medical Center. Yael had little prior experience with Hiltons, nor did she get to enjoy it much for the sights before she’d fallen alseep, utterly spent.

But it had been a good bed. While the hotel’s upper floors were lacerated, the building retained regular electricity and running water, with the staff falling over themselves to accommodate the PHL. Not surprising, frankly, seeing as government perks helped places like this keep going a little longer while the world ended.

And the promise of PHL help in rebuilding. That was useful too.

This was 2022. American hotels no longer got Europeans as guests – or Israelis, for that matter. At least the Europeans were lucky to have been given Special Administrative Zones on the Eastern Seaboard. How unsurprising that in the End of Days, America had finally let down its Zionist allies, and the Slattery Report’s proposal to create a settlement for them in Alaska had ended up getting implemented at last.

Yael had been there once before, and hated every minute of it. Hated the rueful jokes about Michael Chabon. Hated the cold. Hated the fact that there wasn’t any of the skiing Cousin Nny liked that could keep the cold bearable.

Then again, she’d been alright with all of those things in otherplaces she’d been, like Tunisia or Turkey. The problem was, in all likelihood, that it wasn’t home. And that it was a miserable, wind-bitten, freezing place full of prefabs and towering gray Modernist concrete blocks. It felt more like somewhere that Jews were meant to escape from, not to.

Anyway, this was how it was.

They had requisitioned a conference room in this former hotel, using a video-chat function to link up with PHL Command and the USMC. Thus Yael, with a stomach of bad scrambled eggs, had found herself in this four-way meeting between Commandant Cheerilee, Colonel Gardner, Lieutenant-Colonel Northwoods along with her zebra adjutant Asani, and USMC Brigadier-General Joseph Thompson Ernest Raleigh – Gardner’s direct superior.

Asani stood silently in his screen’s background, wearing a frown that looked like it’d been etched on his face at birth and left there for the rest of his life. Yael knew from Heliotrope’s experience that someone of his size would be considered intimidating by equine standards, but… well. Being near six feet, he still felt short to her.

Northwoods took a look over at Asani. The rather heavyset zebra’s face was unreadable.

“I just finished that call for you, Colonel,” Asani said. “He’s going to be pissed when he gets back to you, though.”

“Who was that?” Cheerilee asked, looking into her respective screen’s camera.

“One of our suppliers,” Asani said, impassive. “Nothing to worry about.”

It was only on the fourth syllable of that sentence that Yael realized she’d thought she’d seen a flash of panic in Northwoods’ face. It’d disappeared too quickly for Yael to really analyzeit, but she felt absolutely certain it was there.

‘A vague answer. Panic. What are you–’

This was lost in the tirade that Northwoods soon unleashed.

“Because of you,” Northwoods said. “There’s reports of PHL ponifying people. Helping PER, even helping HLF. There’s people on the Internet saying we wantedthis to happen to Portland and that it’s a false flag. Others saying that by having ponies, we haveto be so infiltrated that we can’t possibly be trusted.”

Heliotrope stared at Northwoods on the screen, perturbed. “Good Luna.”

“That,” Gardner said, through gritted teeth, “Was notmy fault.”

“Really?” Northwoods asked. “Because it looked as if you couldn’t negotiate for the life of you. Like you were eggingLeonid on. This is a goddamned mess. A city destroyed. Reports of a super-Newfoal, PHL traitors. Everything making us look like utter fools! This is a complete failure, Colonel Gardner!”

Yael looked surprised by the venom in the shorter, doll-like Swiss-American’s voice. Then again, everyone was short compared to Yael.

“Gets worse than that, too,” Northwoods said. “That yellow paper we hate? Samizdat?”

Gardner growled. “I wish we could burn down that fucking yellow rag so much.”

“First Amendment,” Raleigh said, surprising everyone. “I don’t like Samizdat, but there’s nothing we can do.”

“Nothing we shoulddo, Brigadier-General,” Cheerilee said, gently.

Raleigh was silent for a few seconds, before nodding in agreement. “Absolutely correct.”

“Well, they acted fast,” Northwoods said. “We had barely put out the hospital fire before they went and started another one. It’s everywhere. They’re claiming the disguised PHL weren’t PER with stolen uniforms, but PHL that went traitor. They’ve identified a few who we have determined to be PER spies, but…”

“But?” Yael asked.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“We can take it,” Heliotrope said.

“They doxxed PHL,” Northwoods said. “Gave contact info and a bunch of other stuff. One of them had to bring his family onto an airbase to hide, and there’s a riot outside of it. The commanding officer threw one man who advocated shooting them in the brig, but...”

Yael stared at the screen in rapt attention, horrified.

“They… framed some of the people working with you, Ze’ev,” Northwoods said. “Including Chinook, Walker, and… Mikkelsen. They used a photo of his real face, too. Mention that you trusted him, and that clearly, ‘it’s a typical judgment call for First Lieutenant Ze’ev.’ Their words, not mine. ”

Something broke within Yael.

‘Oscar?’She thought. ‘OSCAR? He’s so skittish about his appearance, and they’re going to draw an Internet mob on him!’

“Whoever is leaking this to the public,” Yael said, “I am going to hurt them.”

Gardner nodded. “I want to be around for that.”

“Not how I would have put it, Lieutenant Ze’ev,” Cheerilee said, with a tone of voice reserved for someone maneuvering the tiniest jigsaw piece into place, “But it’s true. This is a catastrophe. For PR, and a lot more.”

“Robert,” said Brigadier-General Raleigh, “did the best he could at containing it. We’ve got plenty of HLF and PER in custody thanks to the perimeter he established, and it was because of his decisive action that we were able to contain the super-Newfoal threat.”

Anger surged in Yael. As usual. ‘Another white man, saying he deserves credit fo–’

“Not entirely true. A lot of that was Ze’ev,” Gardner said. “I maintained the perimeter, she helped hold the hospital. Isn’t that right?”

A surge of gratitude flowed through Yael. Even in the IDF, that wasn’t something she was used to hearing as a biracial woman. And it wasn’t just whiter Israelis who’d take credit – once or twice during the Europe Evacuation, it had been an Ethiopian officer, having clawed his way up the ranks, brute-forcing his way into command, who had said;

“She’s white anyway. Let a black man get credit for once.”

The fact that Yael had avoided a disciplinary hearing was one of the few things that kept her believing even in these troubled times that miracles could happen if she believed in herself.

And then gratitude gave way to fear, as Yael thought about that insistence in Gardner’s voice... What would happen if she didn’tagree and thus credit Kraber, or undercut her commander. She knew, at this point, that Gardner was a hair’s breadth away from losing his command. That finding out a lone HLF man, one of the worst, had done this muchwhile Gardner had been off maintaining his precious perimeter…

Well, it would destroy her. Destroy Gardner. Maybe even separate her and Heliotrope, leave Quiette Shy in the bowels of some godforsaken PHL lab on a ship in the Arctic Ocean or the Pacific or some forgettable part of the globe, and Oscar ~~back with~~ them, ~~in a place where they would~~

That last one was too horrible to consider.

“Yes,” Yael said. “That’s correct.”

“Brigadier-General Raleigh is right. The best with what I was given,” Gardner retorted. “I had to face down terrorists. Madmen that, for all I know, would’ve done this anyway.”

“You can’t know that you couldn’t have reasoned with Lovikov,” Northwoods said.

“Actually, I can,” Gardner said. “I readLovikov’s psych profiles. As compiled by one FBI Special Agent Garrett Nichols.”

A sigh that could only have come from pure pain ran through Cheerilee’s body. Yael personally didn’t feel it. Garrett was a good detective, the best profiler she’d ever known, and probably one of the smartest people she’d ever met.

“He very well might have done this no matter what I said,” Gardner said. “We know that when his unit and the Thenardier Guards claimed to be herding ponies into a bank vault in Wabush ‘for their own safety’, they shot them all anyway. Lovikov hates ponies, and almost anything that reminds him of the fall of the Soviet Union, with a passion. There is no telling when he would have lost his composure and just shot the city anyway.”

“Regardless,” Raleigh added, “I’ve seen what these madmen are doing. I’m not demoting Gardner until I see these bloodthirsty psychopaths who are a greater threat to Earth than Equestria punished. Gardner stays.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gardner said, nodding and smiling.

Cheerilee looked somewhat apprehensive, but she nodded slightly. “Very well, then. Even so, it remains my stance, and that of the PHL High Command, that the Solar Empire must always be treated as our foremost priority. This in-fighting we’ve seen flare up time and again on Earth can, in the end, only serve their interests.”

Everyone, both those physically present in the conference, listened quietly and attentively to the titled Commandant of the PHL, Ambassador Heartstrings’ official successor. Best laid plans of mice and men, the saying went, but it could have applied to ponies as well. It still lay fresh in Yael’s memory how despite Heartstrings’ precautions, the loss of the Ambassador had, back in February and March, left the PHL feeling practically headless. There’d been a feeling even among PHL that they’d lost their momentum. Pushes from other offshoot groups like the Chinese People's Liberation Army Conversion War Defense Group2 and the mostly griffon-run1 Russian “Division E” to take over. And even a few war hawks from the US and Russia alike that’d tried to push their pork-barrel project3 HLF units to the forefront of the war.

It’d been a dark time. Yael had friends from bases in some parts of the US, places that weren’t so friendly to ponies, who didn’t know if the lights would be on when they woke up the next day.

She knew that Miss Cherry had not been regarded by all as the true heir to the Golden Lyre. A lot of popular sentiment had deemed, and still did, that Lady Cadance would be the natural inheritor for the role of the great bridge between worlds. It was only Cadance’s own endorsement which had decisively swung the vote in favor of the Head of Cultural Preservation.

Amongst the High Command, Cheerilee was considered a moderate, and sure enough, a willingness to please both sides ran with the ever-present risk of satisyfing neither – those who felt she was too accomodating with the HLF, or those who felt she gave too much of a carte blanche to the PHL’s extensive paramilitary wing. To men like Gardner.

Right then, though, Gardner seemed content to just sit and listen.

“We know the HLF,” Cheerilee continued. “Even amidst the fallout of Portland’s shelling, we can’t afford to lose sight of one thing– that whole crisis at the Maine Medical Center was not their work, anymore than it was ours. Through the PER, the Solar Empire continues to operate in indirect and labyrinthine ways, everyone… And tempting as it is, we’d be very wrong to treat Shieldwall’s anomalous creature as just icing on the cake.”

She eyed Yael.

“Lieutenant Ze’ev. Colonel Gardner just praised your contribution to containing this Newfoal in the hospital. I’ll brief Time Turner and R&D to send someone over, but is there anything you can tell us from what you saw?”

Yael tried not to let her anxiety show. She felt Gardner looking at her closely. “Apologies, Ma’am. I’m afraid I did not get a good look at the creature during the fight. However, perhaps Heliotrope can tell us more. I’d sent her out to scout the area, before it happened.”

Yael knew what Heliotrope would have to say, and Heliotrope knew she knew. Yet under the circumstances, it was as good as it would get.

“Wish I could, Ma’am,” Heliotrope said wearily. “Shieldwall’s getting real smart, that’s one thing I can tell you. I was gonna sneak up on PER holed up in the Richards Building’s upper floors when my flightsuit gave out. Completely fritzed out the invisibility.”

Cheerilee’s lips thinned. “This is serious news, considering your suit’s… uniqueness, Sergeant Heliotrope,” the PHL’s leader said, a hint of distaste in her voice. “What could’ve caused it?”

“I dunno for sure,” said Heliotrope. “But I think they’d set up something to interfere with the crystals, maybe even a totem-prole.”

Gardner interrupted her with a cough. “I’ve already run a first sweep of the Richards Building, Ma’am,” he told Cheerilee. “A right fucking wreck it was upstairs, but we did secure another few prisoners, including one human. No sign of a totem-prole, though.”

“They had transfer-crystals, according to one source,” Heliotrope said. “If a totem-prole was there, ‘porting it away would take precedence over their own lives.”

“Typical Imperial philosophy,” Cheerilee agreed. She looked thoughtful. “Heliotrope, you mentioned a ‘source’. What source might that be?”

Heliotrope glanced at Yael and Gardner before answering. “Petty Officer Nebula. A thestral. Attached to… um, the Coast Guard, I think. She... had a thing about breaking windows–” This had to be meant in jest, though what the joke was, Yael didn’t think even Heliotrope knew. “–but it got her places. That, and her innate stealthing abilities worked where my suit failed.”

Yael tried telling herself Heliotrope hadn’t sounded a little bitter there.

“I see,” said Cheerilee. “Then Petty Officer Nebula is to be commended. I should like her report in my inbox as soon as possible.”

‘Should have seen that coming. Shit.’

“Can we also get her preferential treatment for a prosthesis?” Heliotrope asked. “She fought as hard as some of the PHL’s elites, if not harder. She lost a wing, and I think she deserves something as thanks.”

Raleigh looked at her, confused, pursing her lips.

“Physical therapy and bed rest are agony for a pegasus,” Cheerilee said, nodding. “Very well. While I do that, we must look into the totem-prole hypothesis. If one was installed in the hospital, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s somehow connected to the super-Newfoal’s creation. Shieldwall’s got a reputation for experimenting.”

Even through her worry, Yael saw the wisdom in Cheerilee’s words, so she just nodded too.

“I’ve read the number of PER prisoners taken,” Cheerilee said. “Two female pegasi, one male earthpony, one male human?”

Yael could just hearthe earthpony mare asking herself ‘and why were there so few?’ internally.

“You’ll understand I’d like to be updated on any intel from them as we garner it. But now, back to the HLF.” She coughed. “Gardner, you’ve made a very special prisoner. What’s your next move?”

Gardner smiled mirthlessly. “What else? We have Viktor Kraber in custody, so we’re going to interrogate him to the best of our ability. Next, we’re going straightto Defiance. I have more than a few questions I want to ask all of them.”

“Excellent,” Cheerilee said. “We’ve been trying to get in contact with them, but there’s been complete radio silence. Our contacts in both prisons in Berlin, New Hampshire–”

(She pronounced it the German way, Ber-LIN, not BERlin. That detail had always thrown Yael off whenever she visited her cousin.)

“–have been trying their best, but no luck.”

Yael thought about that, and wondered about Cousin Nny. He lived pretty close by, and it’d be nigh-impossible for him notto know someone from around there.

“Whose bright idea was it to have two prisons housing HLF thatclose to that terrorist camp, Ma'am?” Gardner scoffed.

“They were close to a rail-line, and we had a lot of criminals after the Purple Winter,” Cheerilee explained. “It made perfect sense at the time.” She looked at Gardner sternly. “Remember. This is mainly saber-rattling. I’ll have Captain Reiner as Command’s eye and ears at Defiance, and I’d wish to avoid further escalation.”

The Commandant glanced at a spot on her side of the viewscreen which Yael deduced represented Raleigh’s feed.

“I’ve conferred with the USMC in the person of Brigardier-General Raleigh,” Cheerilee said conclusively. “The federal government wants someone to pay for Portland as much as you do, but for the sake of keeping this from spilling over with other groups of HLF, they don’t want it to look as if a formal raid’s being conducted on Defiance due to guilt by association. Officially, this is still being treated as a matter between the PHL and the HLF– the National Guard or the Marines will only intervene if the PHL show signs of fanning the flames. Am I clear?”

Gardner nodded. “Very well then, Commandant… So, sir,” he said, addressing Raleigh, “just what does this mean in practical terms?”

Yael observed the Brigadier-General’s face as he drew himself up.

“In practical terms,” Raleigh stated, “what it means is, the feds are ruling out a drone strike on Defiance as an option.”

“Fine by me,” said Gardner. “I want them to look me in the eye.”

“Just remember, Robert, this is a refugee camp of–”

“Terrorist camp, Joseph,” Gardner hissed. “Their leader is directly responsible for the fact that I’m now standing in a city that looks for all the world like it’s gone through Barrierfall. Every one of their citizens has been raised to hate us. Their children play with pony bones and weave pegasus feathers into their hair.”

Dancing Day

“Did they… did they ever do that?” Dancing Day asks, looking profoundly sick.

“If they did,” Kraber says, “It wasn’t while I was there. There might’ve been one, or two, but… no. I’d fokking hope not.”

Yael

“Those are just rumors,” Lieutenant-Colonel Northwoods said placatingly.

“If they do this,” Gardner said, “I wouldn’t claim any cruelty to be above them.”

‘...Doesn’t he mean ‘beneath them’?’ Yael wanted to ask. But she wasn’t going to interrupt a superior officer. This all felt precarious enough as it was.

“There are families there,” Northwoods said. “It’d be madness not to go, but. I will notsee you burning it to the ground.”

“Or what?” Gardner asked, and Yael felt as if something in him was tensing, coiling–

There was a beeping sound on the monitor

“Lovikov only took his elites with them,” Cheerilee said, removing her hoof from a switch. “We can’t risk another war at such a crucial time. You’re going, Colonel, but you’re not bringing your full force.”

Gardner nodded. “Fine.”

Cheerilee looked him dead in the eye. “Fine, what?”

Gardner nodded again. “Fine, Ma'am.”

Incredibly, he managed not to make that last part seem sarcastic.

“Good,” Cheerilee said curtly. “We’ll be sending over a transport to move your captured prisoners to the respective facilities. Watch over the prisoners in the meantime, and try to get as much information out of them as you can.”

Kraber

Kraber didn’t have any plot-relevant dreams that told him cryptic phrases that might as well have come from a cryptic phrase birthday game on Facebook, like ‘The Obelisks Do Not Know You. Repent, They Too Have Teeth’, or ‘Beware the Quartz’ or ‘Sixty-Two Days. The Everstorm Comes’.

He didn’t dream about his wife. He didn’t dream about his failures. That was actually pretty lekker. And for once, he woke up relaxed.

For a moment, he was imagining that this was the little house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen just off the slopes. The one inspired by that week over in Yellowstone, with all the wooden furniture.

‘Viktor,’ Kate was saying, ‘I told the hospital you were taking a sick day. It’s just us, baby.’

‘I need to work,’ Kraber had said, ‘mom has that podcast, and they-’

‘Hannah saw you try to get drunk during an alcohol shower,’ Kate had replied, ‘And, not, like. With a beer in the shower. As in, you were using alcohol to shower.’

That was very true.

‘Trust me, you need this.’

The reason he’d tried to get drunk was because… well, that was too horrible to even consider recounting.

Right up until the moment he woke up and started wondering where the hell he was, what was going on, and how he got there.

He looked around the room. It lookedlike someone’s bedroom. Basement floor, judging by the tiny windows and the extraordinarily dreary atmosphere.

The first thing anyone thinks when they wake up in a new and comfortable bed should not be ‘Oh shit.’

But Kraber’s life had developed a near-limitless capacity to surprise him. He looked to one side of the bed, reaching for his backpack.

He rifled through it. ‘No guns. Stuffed animals are here, which is a plus… no armor, either. Well, this is nice. Least the stuffed animals are here.’

He walked towards what looked like the way out. Tried to open it. No luck. Stared through the peephole, to find a long hallway full of doors.

‘Shit.’

No luck. The closest thing he could find to an exit was a first-floor window. It looked like some pretty thick glass, too.

‘What to do what to do what to do…’

As his mind raced, he heard voices. From down the hallway.

“... Was him all this time?!”

“That face, the beard… pretty distinctive.”

Quiette Shy

Here was what had been happening at that moment:

Quiette Shy and Yael – Summers and Gardner following, soon enough – had been at the questioning of the captured PER human. Heliotrope stood in the background, assault-saddles ready, mouth trigger hanging just slightly below her chin.

There were many ways people described PER like the one they’d been interrogating at the hotel. Filth. Grapes. Lobes – that one had taken Quiette Shy a while to understand, until someone had explained it was short for “lobotomy”. Traitors. Vials. Zombifiers. Zeds. Zs.

In this particular case, the most defining word was “human.”

That kind of pissed Quiette Shy off.

She’d known some PER from her social circles in Canterlot back home, second or third or fourth or even fifth sons of nobles that had joined the PER from a distance, convinced that they could import the refinement and culture and benevolence of Equestria to Earth. Allegedly they weren’t being racist, but in hindsight Quiette couldn’t say they weren’t notbeing racist. Ponies like that, like Jet Set or Hoity Toity or Brandywine Flask who had all the benefits of their home, seeing the good they could do from the comforts of an armchair, thatshe understood. Almost.

But–

“How Bucked Up,” Quiette Shy said to the thin, shaking little human sitting before her, “Do You Have To Be To Take A Look At An Entire Planet With Thousands Of Years Of Innovation And Culture And Think, ‘It Deserves To Die. Nothing’s Worth Saving’? To Resign Yourself To Rolling In The Muck, Hated By All?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” said the thin, dark-haired human sitting at the table. One leg tapped against their chair.

The other leg had been amputated. It wasn’t entirelythe PHL’s fault – they’d been recovered from a team sweeping Maine Medical, most of their leg a pulped ruin beneath the knee. Apparently Kraber had shot them there.

“I Don’t Want Any World To Be Destroyed,” Quiette Shy asked. “I Don’t Believe This World Is So Repugnant It’s Beyond Saving.”

“You weren’t born here,” the ~~human~~ PER operative said. “Do you know what it’s like, knowing we’ll always hurt each other? That we’re too dumb to keep ourselves from destroying the planet? How older generations, I am convinced, wish we were dead?”

All their gear had been stripped away, and sat in the hotel’s loading dock under guard of various PHL, National Guard, and police. It would be placed on a truck, then it would be moved to a PHL-commissioned freight train and sent up to Montreal, or the Nevada desert, or some flyover country between East and West Coast.

“I don’t see how that equals something worsethan genocide,” Yael said. “And I hope I never grow to hate everything as much as you do, here and now.”

“You should,” he said, turning to Yael. “What America does to people like y-”

Quiette Shy could imagine that whatever she thought about a human telling her how she should feel, Yael felt it too.

“I’m Israeli,” Yael interrupted. “There’s a lot of context here that gets lost on me.”

That seemed to derail the PER operative’s train of thought, just a little bit.

“Can’t you admit that where you’re from would be happier without religion?” the PER man asked. “The problem with humanity is humanity itself.”

“You justify your actions,” Yael said, “By refusing to see any positives. For me, Judaism isn’t just religion. It’s identity. It’s moral framework, it’s our culture, it’s what binds us together. My beliefs are not the problem. The problem is sociopaths who think only their beliefs matter who can’t live and let live.”

Quiette Shy nodded approvingly. Yael had never exactly been thatserious about religion, not as much as she made herself seem.

Honestly, Quiette Shy thought that Yael’s usual defenses of her religiosity were heavily out of spite. If Quiette Shy was in her friend’s shoes, shewouldn’t be letting PER go after something she cherished so.

“I justify nothing,” the PER man said, “Duty to Shieldwall and Solar Empire are their own reward.”

“So Then What IsThis Duty?” Quiette Shy asked.

“To a higher cause.”

“That’s what your kind of fascist always does.”

“Fascists,” Quiette Shy said, tapping one hoof against the floor. “Oh, That Is Rich. I’m From A Country That Treats Us Like Citizens Until We Cross The Line, Then We’re Just Raw Material. You’re Leading Armed Insurrection That Will Kill A Planet And Entire Cultures.”

“We are revitalizing it,” the PER man hissed.

Yael

“Oh?” Quiette Shy asked. “Tell Me. How Many Crops Have You Gotten From This Revitalized Earth? How Many Ecological Cascade Events, And Wolf Attacks Have You Dealt With? How Many Factories In New Prance Have Been Revitalizing The Earth With Their Own Pollution?”

Quiette Shy kind of likedEarth’s wolves. It’d been funny watching Earth’s predators attacking Imperials in the wilds back during the Bad Old Days. Watching ponies that hadn’t been told Earth was basically the Everfree Forest on a planetary scale getting caught flat-hoofed.

That, and there was something funny about the way it was so easy to make them act like dogs with perfectly applied head scritches from Oscar.

The PER man was silent.

“How Many Homes Have You Destroyed?” Quiette Shy asked. “I Know Potion Isn’t Much Of A Weapon. How Many People Have You Killed Instead?”

“They were necessary sacrifices,” the PER man insisted.

“Funny how sacrifices can be necessary when you’re not making them,” Yael said. “So, what’s so important to Shieldwall that you’re willing to make so many of them?”

“Even if I could tell you,” the PER man said, “I wouldn’t. You can start breaking my fingers, one by o–”

“Even if we did,” Heliotrope said, “Nobody would complain.”

This was technicallytrue. Yael couldn’t imagine anyone shedding tears for tortured PER. ~~Bliss~~ Kraber had been right when he said you could do anything awful to them and nobody would care.

That said…

‘Why does everybody think militaries see torture the same way some people see hammers?’ Yael wondered.

Agent Garrett Nichols had once told her something she’d always… well, ‘believed’ was a strong word. But she’d considered it much more palatable;

“People likely want to tell you what they did. Either they feel guilty or they’re proud of it. Once you put people through enough pain, you can make them confess to murdering John Lennon just so the pain stops. It’s not reliable.“

‘So, which one is he?’

Yael had narrowed it down to prideful. The complete lack of remorse. The seeming glee in his own superiority as PER.

“Can’t have that much useful information anyway,” she said.

Quiette Shy and Heliotrope stared at her, but neither one said anything. They trusted her.

“What?!” the PER man asked.

“I already knowhe’s planning something like Portland,” Yael said. “The deeply-placed traitors?”

Okay, thatone she could only guess. You didn’t reveal that many assets unless you had a goal, and Yael’s best guess was that it had been a spur-of-the-moment maneuver to discredit the PHL during a crisis.

But why, then…

“The teleport spikes we found?” Yael continued. “And obviously, it involves anomalous Newfoals. From there, it’s not hard to figure out. Shieldwall regards those mutant freaks as his bread and butter.”

It was a bluff, of course. Transparently so.

“You think we have thisplanned?!” he laughed. “Nah, that’s the trouble with you PHL. You can’t think big enough. If you could, you would’ve given up on being a total humana long time ago!”

Thankfully, he was taking the bait.

‘Good…’

“But it all makes sense for how Shieldwall is going to–” Yael started.

“Think,” the PER member said, laughing slightly, “bigger. We need you worn down, so we can strike you at your weakest. With Project Fillydelpia, we’ll bring this country, the PHL to its knees, we–”

His mouth stopped working abruptly. He fell over, staring at Yael, Heliotrope, and Quiette Shy in utter horror. He tried vocalizing, tried making sounds, but his jaw was clenched shut.

“Geassed, then,” Yael said off-handedly. “Already pre-enlisted as a future recruit of the Royal Guard, did he? Guess I’m done.”

Gardner shook his head, placing his hands in his pockets. “Never did care much for Delayed Entry, myself,” he said sadly. “It’s unbecoming for the greatest democracy in the world.”

A pitifully ironic statement, given how the number of outright child soldiers had gone up worldwide in the past year alone, but Yael glanced at him, feeling a rare moment of warmth for Robert Gardner. While Israel’s military service may have given its people an edge once a new war came, countries that hadn’t always lived under a constant fear of annihilation shouldn’t be pushing their youth towards militarism the same way.

“Looks like all we’ll get of him, then,” Heliotrope added, nodding. “When does his mouth open up again, anyway?”

“Not my problem,” Yael said, as the three of them walked out the door. “We’ve got more to do, then.”

“Like interrogating Viktor Kraber,” Gardner said.

Yael had to wonder, how long had he been there?

“I want to know what the fuck he and Lovikov were thinking when they did this,” Gardner said. “After all he’s destroyed…”

Kraber

“... does he even feel regret?”

‘That asshole?! Kraber thought. The one that called me a rapist?!

“I’ll tell you what he willfeel. Pain.” That voice came from someone Kraber didn’t kn–

‘Wait a minute. The one who pointed his gun at me. The blond one with the nine-millimeter.’

Dancing Day[(/b]

“It was Summers,” Heliotrope interrupts.

Kraber grumbles. “So, is the fact that he wanted to make like Thomas Calvert on me still fokkin’ surprising?”

“I don’t know who that is,” Aegis says, and in that moment Heliotrope is saying:

“Oh, that one guy from Worm?”

“You read Worm?” Rivet asks, surprised.

“Lorne’s little sister’s name is Taylor, it was kind of unavoidable for them,” Heliotrope explains.

[/hr]

Yael

“The humans and ponies he’s killed,” Yael said. “Shooting my friend. The things he’s stolen. That monster once stole from a caravan we were bringing to a camp full of ponies. He–”

Dancing Day

Yael suddenly looks very uncomfortable.

“Look,” Kraber sighs. “It’s fine, Yael. I live in a glass house on this one. I can’t throw stones. At this point, I’m just glad you didn’t use a car battery and a dog collar.”

Soarin’ and Spitfire look at Kraber with confusion, and then near-identical faces of disgust.

“Viktor,” Heliotrope says, “Why.”

“Don’t like that, huh?” Dancing Day asks, not really sure what Kraber means.

“....Uh,” Kraber says. It does not quite sound like a yes to her. He sounds almost embarrassed. “That’s… kind of the opposite of the problem.”

Dancing Day doesn’t really get what that means, but she has the sense it’s better not to know.

“Oh no,” Aegis says, placing one hoof against his face.

Kraber

“–needs to pay. Besides, he’s Lovikov’s friend, on all accounts,” Yael finished. “They’ve worked together on and off since North Africa. We can get a lot of good intel out of him.”

“Like the Sorghum,” Gardner said. In a way that made it absolutely certain he expected Kraber to know. And wouldn’t take any other answer.

‘Shit.’

“You think he knows, though?” someone asked.

“How could he not?”

And Kraber realized he couldn’t argue with that logic. Fokking dammit. He was supposed to be Lovikov’s friend. He was one of his most trusted soldiers.

‘And he didn’t tell me about the ship.’

Kraber couldn’t provethat Lovikov knew about it. But it wouldn’t make much sense for him not to know, would it? Lovikov’s right hand. An escape from the Rig. Impersonating PHL. He was well and truly–

“THAT FOKKIN’ KONTGESIG!”

A night-stand shook. A cheap mass-produced lamp that was an imitation of an imitation fell to the ground, and shattered.

Kraber stared at the wreckage, seething, foot throbbing.

“FOKKIN’ PRICK!”

‘He didn’t tell me about the ship.’

“ASS SANDALS!”

A wooden chair splintered against the wall.

“THAT MOTHERFOKKER!”

Lovikov hadknown. Had absolutely, no questions about it, knownabout the ship. Or, part of him whispered, at the very least, they’d known enough about him to want to support him. But that… For all the sense it made outwardly, it just made sense to assume Lovikov knew.

‘The shit we could have done, and he didn’t let me know. Who else was in on this?! What fokker didn’t tell me?!’

An armchair flew into a window, glass spider-webbing under its weight.

‘The shit we went through together! The Europe Evacuation, Innsbruck, fighting alongside the Russian Army, Tunisia, the hunt for Pinkie! The Mercy Ships where I kept him on life support after that infection, the time I performed surgery on his leg!’

“What am I, JUST FOKKIN KATSPOEGIE TO HIM?!”

A desk tumbled across the room, near the still-locked door.

‘I gave my everything to him! It was supposed to be us against the world, against the Solar Empire! I give all that to him and he doesn’t fokkin’ tell me?! He has to go behind my back like THIS?!

Dancing Day

“Uh,” Dancing Day says, “This is… Look… Kraber, we know you like men and women, were you–”

She instantly regrets this question, as Kraber’s face contorts into a look of pure distilled hate that makes it look like he is about to chew nails and spit out paperclips.

“FFFFF-”

“Uh….” she says, backing away slowly.

“Viktor,” Aegis says. “Are you…”

“Fine,” Kraber says, a little too quickly.

“...You’re sure,” Yael says evenly.

“Ja,” Kraber says, nodding. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because we know you,” Vinyl says, “And you’re usually angry.”

Heliotrope gives Vinyl a Look. One that makes it absolutely unclear whether she wants to agree or say something about how that’s not something you say to your friends.

“Nooit, Vinny’s got a point on that one,” Kraber says, chuckling lightly.

“...Vinny?” Vinyl asks.

“I thought it was lekker,” Kraber says.

“Nickname’s worth thinking about,” Vinyl says, a hoof under her chin.

“But for the record, fok no,” Kraber says. “Not touching that with a ten-foot pole. I just… how many of us in here have been falsely accused of something?”

Nearly every hand or hoof in the room goes up.

“That’s… more than I expected,” Kraber says. “But the reason I asked, well… something similar to this thing with Lovikov happened,” Kraber says. “I just… Years of friendship. Of being together. I talk to the guy, I trust him. I just want the benefit of the doubt. But no, somehow I’m an entitled kontgesig who is the worst fokkin scum for asking for that.”

“I know what you mean,” Heliotrope says.

Kraber looks over to her. “You do?”

“Sure I do,” Heliotrope says. “I serve in the PHL, I work with Yael, I go above and beyond… But parents still hide their children when I’m nearby sometimes. Sometimes, even if their kids aren’t afraid. Somehow that hurts more.”

Aegis nods sadly. That one silent motion says a lot.

“It especially hurts because we’re supposed to be really cute to humans,” Vinyl says.

Everyone looks at her.

“Come on, it’s true!” Vinyl protests.

Kraber looks over to Aegis. “I’m a scientist, and I’ve just confirmed that.”

“You’re a sci-?!” Aegis starts.

“I was studying making cyborg limbs before the Purple Winter,” Kraber admits off-handedly. “I loved Deus Ex ever since playing it with my big brother Edward and my little brother Hayden, and it was always a childhood dream.”

“Um. That’s a lot. But. Anyway,” Aegis stammered. “Well, thanks, Vik.”

Kraber

Kraber had calmed–

Well, that was a relative term. ‘Calm’ and ‘Kraber’ were, at this point, rarely anything other than acquaintances who treat each other with barely restrained contempt.

But he was certainly calmer than he’d been while throwing furniture, so that was something.

He looked outside. He had no real way to tell what time it was, but by the looks of the long shadows, the slightly darker sky, it had been awhile.

He stared through the window at the city. It wasn’t much of a view, but even so, it did not look very good. There was rubble littering the alleyway that faced this room, and – he thought – someone’s hand sticking out of it.

‘...What have I done. They’re going to torture it out of me.’

Dancing Day

“...Were you, though?” Dancing Day asks.

Heliotrope looks distinctly uncomfortable.

“Viktor,” she says. “I want you to know that-”

“I probably do know, and I don’t care,” Kraber says. “It’s not important right now.”

“No,” Yael says. “No. I wouldn’t have stood for it. If you’d said you didn’t know what the Ship was, I…”

“You wouldn’t have believed me,” Kraber says offhandedly.

“Of course I wouldn’t have. I would’ve asked a few more questions, just to be sure. Then I would’ve believed you,” Yael says.

Heliotrope

Heliotrope glanced over one wing. “What’s going on over there?”

“I read a psych file,” Gardner commented, shrugging. “He has some mental disorder that makes him periodically lose his temper. Nothing to worry about.”

Yael nodded. Apparently, as usual, she’d read psych files beforehand.

“IED?” said Quiette Shy.

“What?” Summers exploded. “He has explosives on him?! Why didn’t any of you search–”

“We did,” Yael said. “We didn’t see anything to worry about after we confiscated his guns.”

“This is Viktor Kraber,” sighed Heliotrope. “There’s almost certainly something to worry about.”

Whatever Kraber was doing in there, he sounded pissed. How exactly someone so thin could move around so much furniture, Heliotrope had no idea, but there he was, apparently destroying a perfectly good hotel room.

The five of them were getting closer to his room. Ever so closer.

“COCK-FOKKING FUNGAL RIMJOB PIECE OF SHIT!”

There was the sound of glass shattering.

Kraber

He slid onto the street on his belly, the pavement rubbing against his stomach like a cheese-grater.

‘Ow.’

He’d pushed the backpack out first. The shards of glass scratched against it slightly, but didn’t break the canvas.

‘Fokking ow.’

With one final pull, he dragged his legs through the window. He gasped, breathing a sigh of relief as he was finally able to stand up.

He slung the backpack on, and walked down the alleyway. Finally. He was out. He was–

‘Um.’

Kraber’s train of thought derailed.

‘Well, fok. Now what.’

It admittedly wasn’t the first time in the last twenty-four hours he’d realized just how alone he was, but it was the first time he truly didn’t have anywhere to turn. Not even any PHL to fool.

‘Would Tanaka help? No. I don’t know her apartment. And Nebula? No, I don’t even know where she is. What to do, what to do…’

He looked to both sides of the alleyway. Somehow, the PHL hadn’t heard the window break. Maybe it was a small window, it was just one more noise among the city’s tapestry of background noise upon background noise, it was hard to say.

They’d absolutelyhave guards posted on either side. Which meant…

Kraber looked up at the building that had crumbled into this alleyway, bricks spilling levery which way, shattered glass poking from former windows.

‘Only way is up, I guess.’

He crawled onto the rubble. Lifted himself up, digging his fingers into the gaps between bricks.

‘This is a terrible idea.’

He looked from side to side as he scaled the ruined building. Nobody seemed to have noticed just yet, but–

Heliotrope

“He’s escaped!” Gardner yelled.

That same fury surged through Heliotrope. He’d been part of this absolute shitshow. He’d liedto her. Escaped them. Made them all look like fools.

And there he was, about to escape any responsibility for his actions.

‘You may have helped us,’ Heliotrope thought, ‘but that sure as Tartarus doesn’t erase what you’ve done.’

Kraber

‘...Shit.’

He crawled through what was once a living room.

‘Can’t let them find me!’Kraber thought frantically, looking for somewhere, anywhere to– ‘Wait a minute.’

He crawled through a roughly man-sized hole in the wall. Found himself in a hallway. It looked… well, hell. It looked like it could crush him at any second. But at least it wasn’t outside. He heard not a sound from all over the building, and he was absolutely certain of one fact:

‘This place is empty.’

He looked outside. Saw PHL troops leaving the improvised prison next door – he guessed it was temporary? – and filtering into the streets.

‘They won’t look for me here. They’ll all think I’m on the run. I wait for dark, and get out when it’s da–’

He looked down. More PHL traversing the streets. A police car wailing down the broken street.

‘...No, I can’t let them set up a perimeter. That’s fokkin dof. What I have to do is wait for them to thin out here, and get out of the city as fast as possible.’

Yael

“He’s proven,” Gardner said, “That he’s not going to be reasonable about this.”

They hadn’t noticed Kraber in the destroyed building nearby,

But what they weredoing was working to cover the city, to prevent his escape.

“Summers, Smoky, and I will look for Kraber near the train station,” Gardner said. “Boniface, Nilsdottir, Mikkelsen, Chinook, you’re with Heliotrope, by the bay. Shy, Walker, Herbert, you’re alsowith Lieutenant Ze’ev– you’ll be heading north towards Eastern Cemetery to guard our perimeter. I’m leaving the rest of our troops to guard the hotel until the transport gets here. Now MOVE IT, PEOPLE! We’ve got a wide area to search!”

Lorne looked confused at that, before shrugging and heading off with Yael.

“What made you so confused?” Yael asked, as the four of them rushed towards an APC.

“It’s not Herbert,” Lorne said, “And the Colonel knows that.”

Yael nodded. “I understand. Waytoo many superiors don’t wantto know how to pronounce ‘Yael’. Not that they’d have to.”

The two of them threw open the doors. Bro had – somehow, by osmosis or process of elimination or whatever – taken the role of driver.

Lorne slid towards the gun turret. For a moment, Yael wondered if he’d fit. But no, Lorne wasn’t that big.

“The Colonel’s one of them,” Lorne said. “There’s worse out there, but… man, does it get tiring.”

The APC grumbled to life, and gently rolled out into the packed confines of Franklin Street. Thankfully, they were given a wide berth, citizens and others moving out of the way.

“I Know What You Mean,” Quiette Shy said. “Too Many People Keep Thinking I’m Some Delicate Little Flower, And… Tartarus, Even Some PHL Don’t See Me That Differently From The Solar Empire.”

Bro took a moment to look at the white unicorn mare. “Seriously?!”

“‘Seriously’,” Quiette Shy said, her voicebox playing back a recording of Bro’s voice.

“That’s a damn cool trick,” Lorne called down from his seat in the gun turret.

“Thank Heliotrope, Not Me,” Quiette Shy said. “I’m Just Here Because I Had To Be. Because I Can’t Sit By In My Fancy Bathroom The Size Of This Hummer–”

“Wait, what–” Lorne started.

“With Functioning Bucking Vocal Cords,” Quiette Shy said, and Yael wondered if she detected a bit of resentment in her voice. Most of the time, it felt like any attempt to ascribe an emotion to the pale dirty-blonde unicorn’s voicebox was merely projection, but sometimes… well, sometimes that didn’t quite feel right. “I Suffered To Be One Of The Stranded. One Of The Timberwolves–” By which she meant the elite Equestrian unit devoted to bringing ponies home. “Destroyed My Throat Because I Wouldn’t Stop Talking About That Kid They Ponified,” she continued. “And Still. I Feel Like I’ll Never Be Welcome Here Sometimes. Do-”

She stopped.

Lorne chuckled a little, but there was no humor in it. “Been feeling that way since I was born, QS. You too, fri–”

A rock bounced off the windshield.

“SHIT!” Bro yelled.

Yael saw a little boy barely into their teens, with a dirty face and bandage over one eye, looking for all the world like they’d just thrown the rock at the car. Someone that could’ve been his brother or father stood in front of him, a fearful but defiant look on his face.

‘Ungrateful little son of a bitch… What did we just fight at the hospital for?’

But Lorne didn’t do anything about it.

“Could’ve just been rubble, First Lieutenant,” Lorne said, “Isn’t that right.”

“Absolutely,” Yael said, nodding. “It was, after all, just a rock on the windshield.”

They moved on. Already, the bandaged kid and his companion were receding from view.

Bro coughed. “Have to admit. I’m kind of surprised.”

“Ambrose…” Lorne said, a warning note creeping into his voice.

“I mean, with your…” Bro said, before his voice died in his throat. A note of fear crept into that last syllable.

“It’s alright,” Yael said. “It’s alright… It’s absolutely not worth wanting to shoot people. Especially not right now.”

“What made Nipville so worth it, though?” Bro asked.

“Ambrose, don’t you fuckin–” began Lorne.

“It Was A Bucking War Crime,” Quiette Shy said. “I Saw Ponies Being Drained of Magic. The Whole Town Felt Like A Death Camp.”

“Don’t doubt it,” Lorne said, “But the problem is... “ his voice trailed off, just like Bro’s had.

“It’s alright,” Yael said, tiredly, “I don’t care thatmuch.”

“Alright. If you have that much of an easy time deciding,” Lorne asks, “How easy is it gonna be next time?”

“Huh,” Quiette Shy said, as Yael looked out the window.

They turned down Congress Street, where the civilian congestion lessened. Before them loomed a row of spires – this part of town was a melting pot of faiths, Yael recalled, with a Catholic cathedral and an Anglican church side-by-side, and hidden away, a synagogue.

It wasn’t all bad. She could see plenty of the PHL’s humanitarian division working together to fix the city. Human volunteers lifted rubble thanks to devices of magic and machinery, and there was even one large earthpony standing by a mobile tureen marked ‘St. Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen’, full of piping hot soup.

Such was the image of the PHL in its early days, the dawn era of Ambassador Heartstrings, before the paramilitary wing had grown in size and influence. It was only six months since that horrible day when the news had broken of the Ambassador’s capture aboard the Thunderchild, less than half a year since her execution – but sometimes, Yael wondered if a part of Heartstrings’ dream hadn’t died before then.

She watched as a pegasus, who’d been patrolling the charred remains of a red-brick building’s upper floors, carried a unicorn down to street level. In her forelegs, the pegasus held a very large, slightly-burnt stuffed elephant.

The two landed. A little girl squealed with joy, and scooped up the elephant in both her arms.

It wasn’t allbad out there.

‘We didn’t make this,’ Yael thought. ‘Whatever that prisoner meant by ‘tearing us down,’ I just need to remember what I’m seeing right now.’

Kraber

Kraber’s escape plan had been predictably grandiose.

‘Okay, so I jump from building to building. I break in through the roof. I walk out, try to keep the guy at the desk from noticing me. There’ll be epic parkour.’

But what really happened was that he was standing on top of the roof, finding that it book-ended anotherapartment, and that all he had to do was climb up about a foot to get onto its roof.

‘...Oh. Well, that’s disappointing.’

The door at the roof was, predictably, unlocked. As Kraber opened it, he looked towards the city center – towards the hospital that straddled the hill at the center of Portland.

And then for a moment, he wasn’t in Portland. Walls and roof and floor and ceiling all ran together, and he could have been somewhere in Europe or Africa during the Evacuation. He could have been in Cairo or Zagreb or Belgrade or Innsbruck or Munich. He could have been witnessing devastation from the shellfire they had rained down upon the ~~ponies’~~ Imperial strongholds thanks to totally-not-gifted-by-the-Russian-government Soviet military surplus. He could have been in those wartime ruins in Bosnia full of ponies camped out, running ~~from an unrecognizable home much like him~~ across a Europe that ~~gone mad, where none welcomed them~~, was being eaten by the Barrier and descending into anarchy.

He could have been on a crumbling concrete ruin with the old Kalashnikov which old Lovikov had gifted him, staring down at ragged-looking Equestrians circed around a fire, just behind a cart lined with food.

‘Hoarding it while the real victims here suffer.’

He could’ve been about to open fire and shred through one pony with a 7.62x39mm round.

For a few moments, Kraber had thought of how glorious that felt. But then none of this happened. There was no Europe anymore, and there was no glory. If there’d ever been any.

And then there he was, standing on a rooftop in an area bristling with PHL out for his blood.

The walk through the apartment building was inconsequential. The interior was mostly unchanged… save for another hole in the wall, caused by shellfire. An enormous torso that transitioned to twisted, long-dried mass of shattered muscle and bone lay in the middle of the hallway, flung from the site of the explosion.

‘This must have been one of the first casualties,’Kraber thought, reaching down towards the hoodie. It was a dark, nondescript olive green, with a peeling indecipherable logo. ‘What was he doing?’Kraber pondered, stripping the hoodie off. ‘Was he just… on a computer? Watching TV?’

It wasn’t quite his size. Then again, with his tall, lanky build, most things weren’t. It almost felt like a tent on him.

‘He had nothing to do with this. Just sit gat, rus bene. And this pissing match over the man who told us it was okay to do this, the man Lovikov practically worshiped, just got him killed.’

He was still mulling it over as he tramped onto the street, hood kept low.

Tempting as the prospect of parkour had been, it was best he just tried to blend in. Become a part of the scenery.

About two minutes had gone by before Kraber started wishing that he’d gone for the visible, highly dangerous route, becausewalking through the city felt like coming down from a bad trip. It would’ve felt sick and wrong to say it was fun coming to this city in the first place, but it had been an incredible adrenaline rush. He’d been king of the world, he’d taken down a monster, he’d won...

But….

Looking over these wrecked buildings, these streets torn apart by artillery fire, the shattered windows, the dazed, shell-shocked people wandering the streets, it was hard to keep up that same feeling.

The streets were cratered, and in the morning dew the dust and filth clung to everything, settling in a deathly pall. People moved through the grey waste like ghosts, scavenging, looting, rummaging for the dead.

He adopted a shambling gait, adding to the act of the average bergie, as he staggered through the streets.

“...Can’t imagine what this has to do with ‘saving’ humanity,” one woman said, holding up a heavy piece of rebar and using it as a lever to push a slab of concrete off of a pony.

“Oh, damn, thank you!” the pony gasped. “My… my legs… ah God, that hurts…”

And Kraber saw what he’d done.

‘This… this is who we are,’ Kraber realized. ‘This is what we do.’

He walked towards an overpass. Miraculously, it seemed to be undamaged… but all the same, it was clogged bumper-to-bumper with traffic. He’d probably have an easier time leaving the city at walking speed.

‘By train, then,’he thought. Portland Transportation Center it was.

He walked on.

His first option was to turn north, if only for a brief detour. Going north, he’d spotted from on high, would take him past Arcadia National Bar – from what he’d seen, a bar that sold itself on the old-timey charm of an 80s video-game arcade, with a life-size weighted-Companion Cube before the entrance to catch next-generation gamers’ eyes.

His kind of place, in better days. But a quick thought was enough to tell him why going that way would be the worst idea possible. The pursuing PHL were sure to spread out in a perimeter as they searched for him. Even ‘lilting’ from his path would be too dangerous. He had to cover all the ground he could between he and them.

So, against his gut instinct, he followed Congress Street – westward, not east. Only for a couple city blocks, however. As it opened before him between the Portland Museum of Arts and the State Theater, he recalled from his previous day’s venture that the street curved to and fro, and would lead him back to Maine Medical.

He had no wish to go there.

Apprehensively, he did turn north now, past the Theater, letting himself disappear for a moment into the smaller streets of Portland.

Until, eventually, he emerged next to a place called, of all things, ‘The Holy Donut’. The shop lay opposite what must have once been a huge, verdant parkland, but emergency farmland initiatives and the shelling had turned into a brown husk.

Pulling down his hood further, hands in his pockets and eyes lowered, he continued from that point on in a straight line and never once looked up again till he’d reached his destination.

This was not the first time Viktor Marius Kraber had ended up at a train station that looked more like a refugee camp. There’d been that one time at Ramses Railway Station in Cairo, where the beautiful marble floors had been crowded with hucksters, carts full of belongings, refugees, and even tents.

The railroad had been at the point where they were sending boxcars, livestock cars, flatbeds, anythingthat could hold people. They had not been getting to the point they were deciding how many people couldn’tbe allowed in, unlike what Lovikov’s dear friend Kessler from Colorado was claiming.

And they wouldn’t be doing it here, either. But deep down, Kraber wondered if they wouldn’t get to that point.

The Transportation Center’s parking lot was full. Kraber was of the opinion that if people there could’ve parked on top of each other, they absolutely would have.

He slunk into the station. A fairly generic box of a building with sloped roofs. It wasn’t as bad as he was expecting inside – no tents, no people cooking on hot plates, nothing like that – but it felt a bit too close for comfort. Humans, ponies, others from Equestria sat camped out on the floor.

‘…I did this,he thought, the idea barely registering. I did this.

Was this unlike anything he’d ever done in the HLF? No. Of course he’d burned cities before, of course he’d caused mass vandalism, of course they’d bombarded positions.

But the first two things had been beforeSpader. And the bombardment had been on Imperial positions with soviet-era materiel of a provenance Helmetag could never quite explain. All of it had been stuff that, well… made sense. This was not.

He’d been on the receiving end of a Solar Empire bombardment before, as potion mortars, sunspears, other weapons he didn’t have names for at the time rained down on Algiers. He’d seen the Solar Empire doing awful things to cities.

‘This,’Kraber thought, ‘is starting to look a lot like their work. War with PHL? With the US? Is that what happens next? This can’t end well.’

There was a crowd of people gathered around the ticket booth.

“Hey,” he said, tapping the shoulder of a fat man in a dust-coated, ratty suit. “Hey. How long till the next train?”

“Good question,” the man said.

“Better question is how long till we get on it,” said a teal pegasus with a purple mane. “You need a lotof ID to get on that one. The PHL, the National Guard? They’ve been checking the creds of everyone trying to get out.”

Kraber’s blood ran cold.

‘...Shit.’

“Wait looks too long,” he said, turning on his heel and heading towards the door. Were those soldiers at the gate looking at him?

‘Fok fok fok fok…’

Heliotrope

The bay looked like the Europe Evacuation all over again, clogged with boats ready to leave ASAP. Counter-intuitively, the boats so close to the rig had received the least damage, and so – with so many homes destroyed – leaving the city was starting to seem like a smart option.

Heliotrope watched over all the boats jockeying for position.

They had to keep watch here. Otherwise it’d turn into chaos. The Europe Evacuation had taught her that.

Below her, Oscar and John moved to and from with PHL power cores, passing them on to various boats that’d been converted to electric and solar.

“Just leave that in the sun as often as you can!” Heliotrope called down to one woman, “The crystals will give it enough solar power to keep the boat going a loooong time.”

“Will do!” she called up, a look of gratitude on her face.

Heliotrope hadn’t expected gratitude. Like Quiette Shy was saying at that exact time, a lot of the time she didn’t exactly feel… welcome.

Especially because, simply put, they had failed.

‘We should’ve. Should’ve saved more.’

They could’ve done better. Kraber had still escaped, the city was still in ruins, and all this devastation was still there.

And yet they still had such gratitude.

‘Do we even deserve it?’Heliotrope wondered.

“Any sign of Kraber?” Gardner’s voice crackled over the earpiece.

“Not yet,” Heliotrope said, scanning the area. For such a bombastic personality, he was nowhere to be found.

“Two National Guard say they saw Kraber at the Portland Transportation Center, near the Fore River,” Gardner said matter-of-factly. “We have him now. Summers, Smoky, and I are the closest to his position.”

There was a pause.

“We are going to make him pay.”

Kraber

This meant back into the city.

‘I can’t walk away from it all. I can’t hide. I can’t take the train. I can’t take a car. I’ll have to hotwire a boat.’

The walk back through the city wasn’t any better. If anything, it felt like the first time all over again.

It was when he saw the street leading to that gaming bar and saw the same square where he’d been hanging around with Dayoung and Megan off in the distance that the problems began.

‘Oh God. I did this.’

He saw a chunk of rubble from one building that had crushed that same zebra from… barely twenty-four hours ago? God. It felt like years since then.

‘They were innocent in all this. Unlike those po–’

That thought lost momentum at exactly the moment he started thinking it. Nebula. Caduceus. They’d been willing to help him, even if Caduceus hadn’t exactly been happy about it. About Tanaka. About Rime Ice and Melody and Jolu.

(What the hell happened to those last 3, anyway? Kraber wondered. I kind of forgot about them)

‘I hurt them. I was part of all this. They weren’t PER, they weren’t Solar Empire, they didn’t ponifykids and mothers at their fokkin’ birthday parties. And I hurt their friends all the same. How many others have I hurt? Do they know someone I killed?’

Were those tears straining against his eyes? Gasping from the pain, taking in deep breaths, hyperventilating as if he had just been shot, he clasped one hand to his head. The left side of his brain was pulsing, throbbing. It hurt almost as bad as being shot.

‘If they asked me before today, would I even care? Would I just say ‘Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down’?’

He’d killed hundreds, enough that his body count was enormous. He remembered stripping the flesh of the living, salting the wounded, and a litany of drownings, beatings and stabbings.

He thought about the stories of Yael Ze’ev, and how she and Heliotrope had arrived to save the city. She and Quiette Shy.

‘...Didn’t I shoot Heliotrope once? If the shot hadn’t gone wild, she might not have been here to help. I’m not the hero here. I’m worse than that. What have I let myself DO? How many people have I left just as fucked-up as me?’

He remembered the words “tell us what you know or we’ll send you to Kraber“, becoming a shibboleth of the Front’s torturers. Remembers his growing myth, of being built up as some kind of monster, of coming to believe his own propaganda. Kraber: the rabid dog on a chain, the kind of story told to frighten children, by loving parents full of the kind subconscious hate for their own offspring that inspires those scary stories, on the offchance that a little dose of nightmare before bed will make their children behave, be good, stay close, and avoid the HLF.

He couldn’t be that way, could he?! He was… he was not… Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, not Kraber, not that much of a kontgesig, this was fokking evil. Surely this had to be someone else? Ivan Bliss? No, people like Nebula and Caduceus would be looking for Ivan Bliss. He would become someone else. Someone from Leith, maybe, someone–

‘Who am I kidding? I’m fokking terrible at keeping up a Scottish accent.’

Verdict. Your name is Viktor Marius Kraber, and you give up.

He slumped against a large piece of concrete in an alleyway. Out of sight, out of mind. All around him, the city dragged itself back to what little life it could ever have again.

‘Last night felt good. Cos’ for once, I know I wasn’t being a bastard. Did that unicorn from that checkpoint do something to me? Is she the reason I don’t want to…’

But he couldn’t stomach that. No, whatever had happened, this was for the best.

“You’re not a partisan,” Victory said, trotting up next to him. “You’re not a hero. You’re not even anything special among humans.”

But–!

“You all do this, or at least you all want to. There’s only one way to break that cycle.”

“No,” Kraber muttered, ignoring the looks he was getting. “I may be this beaten down, but I refuse to do that. This was my fault and no-one else’s.”

“You’ll find that you don’t have much worth to give. But if you finally give yourself to queen Celestia, and you’re smart…. You can see your family again. You can-–”

“Viktor Kraber,” a familiar voice uttered, “You didn’t think you could hide from us for that long, did you?”

“I was sort of hoping,” Kraber admitted, turning up to see…

Colonel Robert Gardner.

Flanked by the soldier that had tried to shoot him during the hospital shootout, and an unfamiliar coal-black earthpony. Both these individuals Kraber would later learn were named Shawn Summers and Smoky.

“Alright,” Kraber said, everything in his body urging him to run. “It’s over. There’s not much more I can do.”

“That,” Gardner said, “is certainly true.”

He reached for his gun. As did Summers.

The earthpony… Well, it was hard to tell what exactly they were doing, as they’d kept the triggers in their mouth the whole time.

There was no thought like ‘It’s over’ or ‘Guess I got what I deserved’ in Kraber’s mind.

“Look,” Kraber said, very carefully, the way Kate had spoken to police officers. “I’m surrendering. I can assure you that I am completely unarmed.”

He raised his hands slowly.

“What about the backpack?” Summers asked, his ACR jabbing against Kraber’s abdomen. Without any body armor, it was a lot more painful than it had any right to be.

Kraber didn’t express any signs of pain.

“It’s just full of spare clothes and some stuffed animals,” he said.

Summers chuckled lightly. “What kind of pussy is nearly thirty and sleeps with a stuffed wolf?”

“They were my son and daughter’s,” Kraber hissed, “You kontges–”

The heavy boot-shaped stock of Gardner’s rifle slammed against Kraber’s face. He fell to the ground, panting heavily.

‘Man,’he thought, through the throbbing of his jaw, just as he fell to the ground. ‘Good thing it’s not a wood stock like last time.’

“We’re going to confiscate them anyway,” Gardner said.

“You son of a–” Kraber started, before catching another stock to the jaw.

This wasn’t right.

Far be it from Kraber – as in, from one continent to another – to call someone out for protocol, but this didn’t feel right. Three soldiers. An alleyway. Him alone. The hungry looks on Gardner, Summers, and the black earthpony’s faces.

The very same look he’d worn time and time again.

‘I’ve done this before, haven’t I?’Kraber thought, his blood running cold. ‘Fok. FOK FOK FOK FOKKIN’ FOK, I NEED A WAY OUT–’

“Come on,” said the earthpony, “Don’t make this any harder for us than it has to be...” He wore a look of utter rage on his face as he said it.

“What,” Kraber said, slurring slightly due to the one bruised half of his jaw, “do you want.”

“What I want,” Gardner said, “is orderin a world that aggressively lacks any. You people went against the wishes of the government back during the Purple Winter-”

“Because they did a grand total of jack shit, and jack fokkin’ shit!!” Kraber interrupted. “We had people turning into those little fokkin’ zombies, and the BfArM and FDA telling me it was all well, hundreds, and befok when I WAS STARING AT THAT FOKKIN’ PINATA AND TYING A CLOWN TO A CHAIR!”

“Shut up and let me finish,” Gardner growled, “or I’ll say you resisted arrest.”

The earthpony momentarily faltered. There was a little flickerof disbelief in their eyes, and then it vanished.

“You wouldn’t,” Kraber said.

“Wouldn’t I?” Gardner asked, still growling. “You, Viktor Kraber, are a monster by any metric of the word. How long has it been since you killed a foal, hmm?”

Kraber rocked like he’d been hit again with a rifle stock.

“Probably last night,” Summers said, smirking.

“Or, maybe...” Gardner began, looking over to Summers, and Kraber hatedmore than anything how they were playing off each other, playing with their food–

‘Shit. This is an execution.’

But if it was play, the two men did it with looks that only superficially resembled joy.

“Maybe,” Gardner said again, “it was four days ago, In Rangeley, Maine.”

“What did you…” Kraber asked, shaking.

‘How did they know, what are they going to–’

“I can’t imagine that saving one foal and her mother would have made up for that,” said Smoky. “And then you blew up this city. A humancity. Full of the people you said you were protecting. How do you look at yourself in the mirror?”

“Look,” Kraber said, “I know I’ve done horrible things, but I can… try my best to–”

“As a matter of fact,” the coal-black earthpony said. “You really can’t.”

“I can put Lovikov behind bars!” Kraber protested. “I can tell you where we sell the moonshine and drugs we use to pay a lot of the expenses! I can tell you where Kagan Burakgazi is, I can tell you who really burned down the Stabil Mobile in Graz, I can tell you where we got a lot of the guns, I can tell you where our arms caches are. I can even tell you where Defiance i–”

“Do you seriously think we wouldn’t fuckin’ know?” Summers asked. “We have satellites, you Nazi fuck.”

“Here’s the thing,” Gardner said, “I don’t need you. With everything I can connect Defiance to, it doesn’t matter that you’re a witness. They’ll be dime-a-dozen for me in the next twenty-four hours. Nobody will care. Nobody, not even Lovikov, will mind.“

“To be fair,” Kraber said bitterly, “That last part’s probably true.”

“And nobody is going to stop us,” he continued. “Come on, think about how many things you did. You’ve operated illegal checkpoints and stolen from people. You’ve shot up and extorted refugee camps. And then there’s how you must’ve treated your wife.”

“Don’t you fokkin’ dare–!” Kraber yelled, noticing a small brick on the ground next to him.

“We’re going to use you as an example of what the HLF is,” Gardner said. “Ass-kissers like Munro won’t be able to stop me then. You’re the lynchpin for us finally burning the whole HLF, the whole fucking thing, to ash. Bastion, that prick Romero, that flowery fuckhead Kevin…”

‘Aw, fok, not Kevin, everyone loves Kevin!

“…they all go down,” Gardner finished. “Because you’re the HLF. A murdering, violent, insane monster. That’s all they are, and all you are.”

‘...Yarrow was good to me. Even when I didn’t deserve it. Same for Kevin. They… when they were in the same camp, I even cooked for them.’

“You’re going,” Kraber said, “To use me. As an excuse to kill them. There’s kidsthere in Bastion, on Romero’s ships! Maybe the last people that got to grow up outside the PHL’s grip!”

“Don’t pretend,” the coal-black earthpony said, “You finally care about children. Even without all the foals you shot, how many kids did you orphan during the Purple Winter? I’d bet some of those same kids you’re talking about lost their parents to a certain someonethere.”

“Just stop lying to yourself,” Summers said, walking ever so closer, pistol held out. “Even without that, I can’t imagine you being one much for kids anyway. Your temper? A black woman? Your kids? I almost think they’d be better off being pon–”

Dancing Day

Kraber stops. He’s seething. Breathing heavily.

“Now do you believe me, Yael?” Kraber asks.

“It’s been a long time since either of us would disagree here,” Heliotrope says. “I know full well what Summers was like, now. I just…”

What comes out of her mouth next doesn’t sound like it was pulled out, like she might say. It sounds more like something she pressed out.

“I didn’t want to admit it,” Heliotrope says. “Cos’ then, well…”

“I get it,” Yael says, nodding.

“Alright,” says a new pony who clearly hasn’t been in the room for long. He’s clearly a new arrival. He looks to Dancing Day like an out-of-work, uh… worker. He’s got the large build and the half-grown two-day beard of one. Also, he smells like her dad after the end of a long day of work. “Please. For the love of Ce… for the love of Luna. I am not working for another place that sees murder like hammers.”

“We’d never-” Mommy starts.

“Well, apparently you did!” the earthpony retorts.

All Dancing Day can think of is that she’s glad Verity isn’t there to hear this.

“Alright,” Spitfire says. “I’m not going to say it doesn’t exist. Yes, people do lose their tempers. But it’s not official policy. Absolutely nobody in this room is going to defend even a tenth of the things Gardner did. We don’t...”

She looks to Yael.

“How did you put it?”

“We don’t see them like hammers,” Yael says.

“Exactly,” Spitfire says. “Gardner was the kind of soldier who lets their service give them an Alicorn complex, and it caught up with him.”

“Wait, do you mean God complex?” Heather asks.

“I…” Spitfire starts. She seems to be caught flat-hoofed. “I mean, maybe, but…”

“That’s a weird mental image,” Aegis says. “Kraber, you want to drink to forget later?”

“DO I?!” Kraber asks enthusiastically. “Fok ja! Heather, you wanna come? It’s been too long.”

“Not your worst idea,” Heather says. “I’m in.”

“It’s an awful mental image,” Heliotrope adds. “Someone like that, with alicorn in him? Faust!”

“I’d almost rather the Sol…” Dancing Day starts, before realizing her mistake. Oh no.Her mouth clamps shut.

“I want to argue,” Aegis says, “But I really can’t.”

“More specifically, it caught up with his face,” Heliotrope adds. “Besides. There were lots of other PHL helping to rebuild the city. You don’t have to worry about us here.”

There’s a pause, and finally Dancing Day remembers that Viktor is supposed to be telling this story. She wonders just how he survives.

“What was with that part about ‘The PHL’s grip?’ she asks, looking over to him.

“I… didn’t trust governments all that much,” Kraber says. “At the time, all I really thought of was the establishment not helping during the Purple Winter.

“And now?” Mommy asks.

“Let’s just say Lovikov didn’t sell me on the alternative,” Kraber says. He seems much calmer.

“Are… are you okay?” Rivet finally asks. “I remember what happened the last time someone told you that. You, uh….”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Kraber says. “Don’t worry. I handled it like a responsible goddamn adult.”

[/hr]

Kraber

“ COMMIT ALIVEN’T, YOU UGLY FREAK!” Kraber yelled, and smashed a brick into Summers’ face.

It left a massive dent in the man’s visor. It didn’t shatter, and Kraber hadn’t given Summers a concussion. But there was only so much someone could cope with, body armor or no, after having a brick slammed into their face at close range.

“NEXT ONE GOES UP THE OTHER END!”

He curled up his toes and kicked Summers in the balls.

But Kraber had only enough time to think ‘shit’ when he realized Gardner and the coal-black earthpony were pointing guns at him.

“FOK YOURSELF!”

He pushed Summers in front of the earthpony, just at the second they started firing.

“SMOKY, YOU IDIOT!” Summers yelled, as four bullets pummeled against his spine, punching through the backpack he wore.

Kraber turned to face Gardner, who was–

KLONK

SHIT!

Everything blurred as Gardner clasped both hands together and smashed them against Kraber’s ear, knocking him against the wall. Kraber felt his ear burning, felt a ringing in his ear as he tumbled towards the wall.

No… towards the earthpony!

Turning his back to Kraber, Smoky bucked him full-force in the shins. He gasped from the pain – it felt like a high-speed freight train had rammed into his legs, full-force. Kraber stumbled back, falling against the wall, and Gardner drew back a right hook, crushing him between wall and fist.

Everything went white. Kraber had just enough time to see Smoky rearing up on both legs, and then driving a right hook with his forelegs directly into Kraber’s gut.

He coughed. It felt like whatever he’d eaten in the past twenty-four hours was about to come up, Everything hurt. Being punched with hooves felt like being pummeled with brass knuckles again, but somehow worse.

Summers lay on the ground, moaning from the punishment of the brick to the face, kick to the groin, and several bullets face-tanked by his back.

“So,” Gardner said, “You’re still conscious? Guess I need to work on my left…”

He drew back another punch, even as Smoky’s hooves came down on Kraber’s stomach again, and again, and again…

“HOOK!” Gardner yelled.

Kraber weakly punched out towards Gardner. Several things happened. The punch missed Gardner’s chest, face, throat, anything he could’ve been aiming for…

And instead hit Gardner’s elbow. The punch went wild, and Gardner staggered, momentarily off-balanced. Smoky and Summers turned towards this spectacle, briefly distracted.

Kraber lunged straight into that opening. And it was in this moment that Kraber remembered he was wearing his favorite boots. The ones with the reinforced toes. The ones that were good for hiking, and had kept his toes safe if someone dropped a wrench or scalpel near his feet.

“BOOT!” Kraber yelled, and kicked Gardnersquare in the fokkin’ eiers.

Not his best one-liner, but whatever.

He couldn’t have gotten more of a reaction if the boots were weapons in Warframe and he’d modded them for blast damage. In fact, he almost could’ve sworn he heard something like a tiny explosion when boot made contact with crotch. Felt something give that shouldn’thave given.

Gardner staggered back again, hands moving down towards his balls. Kraber stepped forward, blowing past Smoky, bending over, one arm wound backwards, fist clenched.

“SHORYUKEN!” Kraber yelled, and punched Gardner in a straight, narrow arc that exploded against his throat like a grenade.

PHL body armor, like most serum-proof armor, had a weak spot near the neck. To ensure proper range of motion, you understand. There was little, if any plating there.

So Kraber’s uppercut went right to the source. Gardner wheezed, staggered back, then started falling face-first towards Kraber, writhing in pain.

Before he could land, Kraber drew back a foot and kicked him in the face. Gardner jumped backwards, landing on his shoulderblades and bouncing slightly. Kraber lunged forward, striding forward on his left leg. With his right leg, he stomped down on Gardner’s crotch with the kinetic energy of an industrial steel press.

“YOU–” Smoky yelled, leaping at Kraber.

‘At times like this, there’s only one thing to do!’

“SHOULD’VE TAKEN MY DEAL, JOU SHRIMP DICKED FOKMAGGOT!” Kraber yelled, and reached out, grabbing Smoky by the shoulders.

He bent backwards, and suplexed him down to the ground, headfirs–

Dancing Day

“That,” Vinyl Scratch interrupts, “Did not happen.”

“Believe it or not, it actually did,” Kraber says.

“You seriously expect me to believe you suplexed someone?” Vinyl asks.

“Is it really any more unbelievable than literally anything else in this story?” Kraber asks. “Just wait till we get to the part with the pirates.”

“You’re just bucking with me, aren’t you?” asks the earth pony that’s very clearly new to the PHL. He looks over at Kraber, as if expecting a joke.

“Yeah,” Heather asks. “Viktor’s always been kind of a weirdness magnet, but–”

“He’s not,” Heliotrope interrupts.

Heather and the new arrival look at each other in dismay.

“Oh, great,” Heather sighs.

[/hr]

Smoky screamed as his face had a short but passionate meeting with the ground.

Kraber picked himself up. The last one left was Summers, who was back on his feet, currently reaching for a gun, hisgun, which had flown out of his hands–

BANG

What happened next was hard to describe. In an after-action report with all the honesty you would expect, Summers would say Kraber displayed superhuman reflexes, the bullet skimming within a millimeter of his head.

Kraber would just say “Fok it, I don’t fokkin’ know, maybe it was close range and that lying dickpuppet didn’t think to look up from his toppie’s fokkin’ jakob and he didn’t aim? It all happened pretty fast.”

And then Aegis would go “Wait, his what’s what?” and Kraber would walk out of the room to explain it, and then Aegis would be all “What the Tartarus, man,” when they both walked back.

Whatever happened. A gun was fired. Kraber, not noticing the impact or even registering if he’d been hit – he hadn’t – shot forward and lashed out with one foot.

He didn’t hit.

(SHIT!)

Summers stepped back and delivered a straight, near-flawlessly accurate punch to Kraber’s face.

Before Kraber could step forward, suddenly there was a knife in Summers’ left hand. He stepped forward, scything the knife in a wide arc that came within a millimeter of Kraber’s face. Summers pressed forward again, thrusting the knife towards Kraber’s throat like a guillotine. Kraber reached out, trying to grab the knife with his left hand, and-

It stopped. Everything stopped. Summers was looking at Kraber in momentary surprise.

Kraber didn’t understand why – didn’t needto understand - and clenched his right hand, readying himself for a solid right uppercut that would break Summers’ jaw. He pivoted it upwards–

Summers intercepted it flawlessly, forcing the knife (Where the hell had it been?!) and Kraber’s left hand towards his throat.

“We’re saving the world,” Summers said. “And I’m–”

In that moment, Kraber decided to use his head. He looked up to the sky, opening his neck to Summers’ strike. There was a hungry look on Summers’ face as he pushed closer, closer, closer–

“–gonna show you,” Summers said, slavering like a hyena over raw meat, the knife drawing ever closer to Kraber’s jugular, “what happens wh–”

DONK

Kraber slammed his forehead down against Summers’ skull. Everything went white, and Summers looked momentarily shocked. Which meant Kraber headbutted him again, this time even harder, with more intensity. He felt something wet on his face, somewhere near his hairline.

Summers’ helmet deformed, and spiralled off his face.

What the hell?! Kraber thought. There must’ve been something wrong with the seals, that shouldn’t-

And it was in that moment that an idea occurred to Kraber.

‘Oh, I’m gonna enjoy this so much. I think my murder-boner for this is going to count as an armor-piercing weapon.’

As Summers struggled to get his bearings, Kraber pivoted to the right, drawing his right arm over his left shoulder.

“EAT THIS AND CHOKE!” Kraber roared, and whipped the entirety of his right forearm against the side of Summers’ head in a nuclear-scale bitchslap, smashing him left-cheek first against the much-abused wall.

“YOU–”

Summers was reaching for another weapon at his hip. Something that looked like a police nightstick as filtered through one of Kate’s nightmares, studded with nails.

It was at this moment that Kraber finally realized why Summers’s knife had stopped, why he’d been able to push Kraber’s left hand so easily. The knife was embedded in his left hand’s palm and poking out the other side just behind a knuckle, blood oozing around both sides of the cut.

‘Someone should definitely do something about that!’ Kraber thought, and ripped the knife out of his left hand.

Pain barely registered. The blood sprayed out in an arc, landing just at eye level with Summers, who stumbled, swinging the little war crime of a club unsteadily. That was all Kraber needed, as he lunged forward and ramming one boot into Summers’ balls, harder.

“WAS IT?! THAT?! FOKKIN’?! HARD?! JOU WANT MY SKINDER THAT’LL FOKKIN’ HELP?!” Kraber yelled, and slammed him face-first into the wall with his right hand.

Kraber put his first idea into action. With the left side of Summers’ face pressed against the wall, Kraber began to push. Slowly. Surely. Feeling the wall grinding against Summers’ like he was pressing parmesan against a cheese grater.

“WELL, HOW BOUT JOU! FOKKIN’! GO! TO! THE DOLLAR STORE!”

Summers’ face molted pink and red against the brickwork, as the man screamed all the while. Spotting Smoky getting back up, Kraber flung Summers to the ground, leaving him to bounce unsteadily, blood misting off from what had once been the left half of his face.

“BUY SOME FOKKIN VIAGRA!” Kraber yelled, and – finally – rammed another boot into Summers’ skull. He twisted slightly and fell to the pavement limply on his back, and Kraber couldn’t see if he was breathing. “CUT THAT SHIT OFF WITH SOME FABRIC SCISSORS!”

“SHAWN!” Smoky yelled, galloping back towards Kraber.

“TURN IT SIDEWAYS, AND IT’LL HELP YOU GO FOK YOURSELF IF JOU FOKKIN’ MA HASN’T BEATEN YOU TO IT!” Kraber yelled as he pivoted, remembered playing football as a kid.

He drove a kick into the earthpony’s jaw. Smoky backflipped and landed on his assault saddles. He didn’t get back up.

Heavy breaths wracked Kraber as he stood. Steadily, the pain flowed back into Kraber, and he found himself clutching his impaled left hand.

‘This kind of sucks,’ Kraber thought, staring disinterestedly at the blood coming out of his hand wound.

“Whoa!” someone yelled, stepping into the alleyway. “Are you–“

”AND WHAT IN THE FOK DO YOU WANT?!” Kraber shouted, face bloody, covered in bruises, reaching for one of the lost guns, standing over the broken, moaning Gardner.

Cooler heads did not prevail, and the man scampered away.

‘... I have to leave. Now.’

Kraber ran, picking the gun and shoving it into his pants’ pocket as he rushed out into the street. The harbor was close by. He could do this.

He could escape.

Yael

‘Good God,’Yael thought, minutes later. ‘Why didn’t they call backup?’

When they had found Gardner, Smoky, and Summers, the trio looked as if they’d gotten in a fistfight with a snowblower. And lost.

Gardner was barely conscious, lying prone on the ground, shaking in pain, his face looking like it was composed entirely of bruises and elbows. Smoky was concussed, blood matting his fur, a goose-egg of a bump so prominent it almost looked to Heliotrope like the skin had grown over a short unicorn horn, fur scraped off his ears. And Summers was…

“Mother of God,” Lorne gasped.

Summers, without question, had sustained the worst of it. By the looks of him, he could have been fed into said snowblower face-first. The skin from half his face looked about the same color and texture medium-rare hamburger, his nose was broken, and part of his jaw seemed broken, too.

“One Human,” Quiette said, voice sounding like it was coming from very far away, “Did All This. With His Bare Hands.”

“Looks like,” Oscar said, nodding.

“Christ,” Lorne said.

“Colonel,” Chinook asked, fluttering up towards Gardner. “What…. What happened?”

“We tried to make him surrender,” Gardner said, sounding like was forcing the words out syllable by syllable. “It didn’t work. He went ballistic, hit Summers in the face with a brick, and started beating us to bloody pulp.”

“Why didn’t you shoot him?” Yael asked.

Summers rolled over on his stomach. His back was peppered with impacts from 5.56 rounds. The body armor had stopped them, but… at near point-blank range, it’d clearly done some damage. Summers was definitely going to have to visit a doctor soon.

“I–” Smoky started. He looked…

Well, Yael wasn’t really sure how to say he looked. There were a lotof emotions crossing his face. Guilt. Fear. Possibly nausea. Not helping was that he looked concussed as well.

“W-we tried,” Smoky said. “I sh-shot my friend!”

“What in the–” Bro started, confused.

“That bastard threw me in front of Smoky when he started firing!” Summers snarled, before almost immediately touching his face gingerly.

Talking had hurt. A lot.

‘Friendly fire, then.’

Gardner picked himself back up gingerly. He was wheezing slightly as he did.

“So,” Lorne said, “Why’d Kraber go so far with Summers?”

“What?” Gardner asked, a little too quickly.

“Don’t… fuckin’ know,” Summers wheezed, very pointedly not looking at Gardner.

Dancing Day

“Normally, this would be the point where a character would describe how they suddenly realized the holes in the story,” Yael says now, in December of 2022. “But honestly, I think I figured it out within seconds of getting in that alleyway.”

“Wait,” Aegis says. “Really?”

“It wasn’t hard,” Yael says. Heliotrope cringes slightly as Yael says this.

“You’re sure?” Kraber asks. “Could’ve fooled me. Because this seems a bit less like you figuring it out, a bit more like you reading ahead. And, you know...”

He mimes an explosion with both hands.

“Positive,” Yael said. “Viktor, it looked like you were about to kill them with your bare hands.”

“Speaking of which,” Heliotrope adds, “Why didn’t you?”

“Damn near did. And they stopped moving,” Kraber shrugs. “I guess that I figured if I was standing over the corpses of Gardner, Summers, and Smoky, then you’d absolutely kill me. I didn’t need to kill. I needed to leave.”

Aegis nods. “I guess that makes sense.”

“If that happens to anyone in this room, with a radio, you’re going to call for help,” Yael says. “It’s a basic survival impulse to call for help. We didn’t get any. Which told me something was off. When Summers said he didn’t know, that was when it solidified.”

Kraber nods.

“Mister Kraber,” Amber Maple asks, “You hit them in the head. Do you think you gave them any brain damage?”

Kraber opens his mouth, a fragment of a syllable about to be–

“And pleasedon’t say it probably wouldn’t be the first time,” Rivet adds.

Kraber sighs, his shoulders sagging. Then, as he is stroking his beard in thought, Heliotrope speaks up:

“Aegis,” Heliotrope says, “What did Summers do?”

“Trust me when I say you don’t want to know,” Aegis says. “All you need to know is, I’m glad I got that damn apology for not joining in that time.”

Heliotrope looks over to Aegis’ foals. Amber shakes her head slowly. Rivet looks anywhere that Heliotrope isn’t. Dancing Day can’t read his face.

“I’m guessing,” Heliotrope says, with the smooth, millimeter-precise intent of a bomb defusal expert, “It wasn’t a big leap from what he said to Vi–”

“Yes and no,” Aegis says, bluntly. “Don’t ask. Just don’t.”

“If Summers did that before andafter Kraber turned his face into raw hamburger,” Heliotrope says, “Smoky was already practically codependent, and Gardner was–”

“Gardner?” Yael asks.

“A total shitfucker, ja,” Kraber interrupts.

“At that point,” Heliotrope says, “I don’t think it really matters if Kraber gave any of them head injuries.”

Yael

So, there it was. Or would be. Yael figuring out that something wasn’t right. This wasn’t to say she’d learned the whole story. That she suddenly flipped ahead to the next chapter posted on the site.

But there was definitely something wrong.

“Radio Sergeant Heliotrope,” Gardner ordered. “We’re bringing this bastard in, no matter what.”

“Sir?” Yael asked.

“If anyone can find that psychopath, it’s a pegasus with invisibility,” Gardner said, nursing his raw wounds. “He left the alleyway heading that way.”

Gardner pointed east, towards the sea.

“He’s escaped our custody. Made me look like a fool. We are bringing him down.”

Kraber

“You could still-” the thing that was not Kate said.

Some part of Kraber told him he running into the street, covered in blood, wearing a stolen hoodie, was nota good idea. But in his defense, it…

Actually, scratch that. It was still a stupid idea.

‘The PHL are trying to kill me! I mean, I thought it would’ve happened earlier, maybe like a week ago! And it’ll be like trying to pick GG Allin out of a crowd! Everyone will know it’s me!’

He wished he’d looked at a map during Lovikov’s planning session. That he had a sense of where he wa–

There, looming on the hill, was Maine Medical. Behind him. He’d been heading… south? Yeah, probably south.

‘Oh. Okay. I could see water from the hospital. I think I actually recognize where I am. First off, I’m not going into any buildings. I’m heading for the ocean. I’ve got two ideas. Freight train or boat. Freight train’s the safest one. People steal rides on them all the time.’

The more Kraber thought it over, the slower he went. Until, before he knew it, he was…

Walking.

‘Get back to running, you dom fok! They’ll–’

Wait. Kraber’s thoughts slid back into place and then he remembered.

‘I’m covered in fokkin’ blood and I’m a wanted man. What part of running will actually helphere.’

So he forced himself to walk. The blood on his face and hands, the bruises, the dirty hoodie…. If he just walked depressedenough, staggered a little, made himself feel a little less there, people wouldn’t notice.

He would later learn that he was not actuallycovered in blood – he’d just taken a lot of hits to the face, and his hand had been wrapped in gauze, so it wasn’t allbad. He was just panicking.

All around him, the street hummed with activity. A unicorn mare – wait, was that Socket Wrench?! he wonderedas he watched her – lifted a chunk of rubble off a pile. A group of soldiers – PHL, National Guard, whoever – stood there, helping someone out from under there.

An arm hung limply at their side.

Pegasi fluttered across the street, carrying carts up towards the upper floors of buildings too damaged to safely ascend.

‘How do they do that?’Kraber asked himself, watching as one dark green pegasus with a green-black tail streaked through with pink as a cart trailed behind him, suspended by nothing he could see. ‘What happened to Nebula?’He watched as another pegasus flew by, despite the fact that the sky was getting darker. ‘Do they have prosthetic wings? Is she dead?’

“God,” he said, surprising himself with the sound of his voice. “...It was for me. Why did it have to be for me?”

‘Twenty-four hours ago, I would’ve been trying to kill them like it was the most natural thing in the world. And here they are, fixing mydamage. Saving my life. She shouldn’t have done it for me. I’ve got no place here. I’m not fokkin’ worth it.’

Gardner had proved that by trying to kill him. Same for those two grunts with him. If the PHL put a man like that in charge during the siege last night, he didn’t have a chance of getting out alive. And with the city like this, with that many ponies here? He’d be dead instantly. They’d want him dead, no question about it. Just like Ga–

‘Wait a minute. If they wanted me dead, they would’ve just shot me.’

As Kraber passed a great earthpony singing lightly as they dragged something large on their back into a building, one man and one woman keeping it stable – ha-fokkin’-ha – on the enormous pony’s back, as he was wondering if the three of them and indeed most of the street were singing ‘We All Lift Together,’ another realization came to him.

‘They wanted me to suffer. They liked the idea of being able to go fokkin’ befok without limits. Cos’ that’s what I would do. Have done. Will do. And that’ssomeone they trusted to put out this fire. It’s like throwing water on a glue fire. I’m gonna die if I stay here. I need to get out.

He waited at a crosswalk, hood pulled down, keeping his gaze fixed just low enough to the ground that his face would be just hard enough to discern.

‘First stop, freight depot.’

Heliotrope

Common knowledge was that Heliotrope was patient. Able to stand still, invisible, for great periods of time. As Yael could attest from most times, the truth was… mixed. To say the least.

“Kraber’s on the move,”Yael said over comms.

Memories of the hospital bed in Varosha came back like water splashing across her face.

“Summers, Smoky, and I?”Gardner put in. He sounded very, very winded. “We had him, but he… he beat the fucking shit out of us.”

Yael

Yael couldn’t interrupt here. Maybe it was intentional – though how could it be – but Gardner had effectively blocked her from anything she could say, for that moment.

‘What am I going to do? Interrupt my superior officer to tell Heliotrope I have a feeling that he’s lying?’

“His survival,” Gardner said, “Is optional.”

‘Wait, what?!’

Yael remembered Alexander Reiner’s words like she’d heard them only two days ago, probably because she had.

“You realize your order for there to be no prisoners was on record. That was an illegal order according to the Geneva Convention-”

“Sir, they weren’t following the Geneva Convention,” Heliotrope had put in.

“-And so you decided ‘to hell with the laws of war’, burnt a town, screwed over our political situation and murdered seven children?!”

‘We’re doing the exact same thing, Yael thought. He’s issued an illegal order.

“Sir,” Yael asked, “Isn’t…”

Heliotrope

“...a take-no-prisoners order illegal?”

Heliotrope thought about what her friend had just said. She did remember what PHL command had said. She definitely remembered the idea it was illegal.

“I can see why you’d be confused,” Gardner said, voice full of self-confidence. “But think about it. First, this is Kraber. He participated in the bombardment. He lied to all of you. He shot Heliotrope once before. In fact, if not for him, she could’ve brought Haddon in!”

BUCK! Heliotrope thought.

That part stung. Knowing that she’d healed Viktor Kraber, costing valuable time… had she reallyslowed them down, given the Solar Empire more time to react?

“Just think of what we could’ve gotten from Haddon if he hadn’t ponified!” Gardner said.

And Heliotrope found herself nodding along.

‘I could’ve brought him in… I failed. I failed humanity. I failed the PHL. Because of me, the bastard that shot me gets to live, Haddon is ponified and gets off clean.’

She looked to Quiette Shy. Her expression was unreadable behind the dark coal-black glasses she was wearing. She could’ve just as easily been asleep. Still, there was a strange… fragility to her posture. She looked like she’d prefer to be anywhere else.

“I Am Not Apologizing,” Quiette Shy said, “For Fixing A Man’s Broken Back And Punctured Lung.”

“Wait, he what?!“ Heliotrope asked. “How in the Luna-damn…”

Quiette Shy nodded. “He Was Probably Going To Survive Anyway, Too.”

Did she sound… bitter?

“How the buck did he survive any of that, too?” Heliotrope asked. “I thought humans actually took monthsto recover from injuries.”

“We do,” Bro said.

“Oh, That’s Simple,” Quiette Shy said, “I Read Viktor’s File Once We Brought Him In. My Best Guess Is That Various Processing Issues Give Him An Absurdly High Pain Tolerance.”

“So being crazy makes him immune to pain?” Eva asked. “Damn, wh–”

Quiette Shy glared at her.

“I was going to ask why I didn’t get that,” Eva said, sulking slightly.

“...I Don’t Know If That’s Better Or Worse,” Quiette Shy said.

“Look. It’s easy to make snap judgments like this. But sometimes the obvious choice,” Gardner said,“is the wrong choice.”

Heliotrope fluttered upwards.

“I need to look for someone,” she said, “who looks like they’re…. Not blending in. He’s going to be acting like a wounded animal.”

“Could he be looking for a train, or a bus?” Bro asked.

“No,” Summers said. “He was walking away from the train station. They’d want ID. He wants some way out of the city that’ll let him leave without it.”

“Something without checkpoints,” Heliotrope realized. “Which means, he’s either going to steal a boat, hitch a ride on a freight train, or walk out.”

“Excellent thinking,” Yael said.

“Sergeant Heliotrope,” Gardner said, “Your team is going to coordinate with any National Guard about the ocean. Ze’ev, you’re going to the freight yard on the south end of this part of Portland. I’ll be checking with our perimeter.”

“Isn’t this overkill for just one person?”Chinook asked.

“It’s a mass murderer who escaped from our custody and beat the shit out of me. Summers’ face looks like something out of Kitchen Nightmares because of him,”Gardner said. “At this point, I don’t give a damn about overkill. Just ‘dead’ and reload.”

Gardner cleared his throat.

“Attention all units…”

Dancing Day

“I have the phone number of this pony who was working with Gardner, on the outskirts of the city,” Yael says.

“Huh,” Astral Nectar says, “Really? I’d love to hear what happened over there.”

“You’re sure?” Aegis asks. “I… think that’s a mistake.”

“Then again,” Heliotrope says, “Anything involving him is probably already a mistake.”

“I kind of want to hear it,”

“Alright,” Yael says. “Calling Blackpowd–“

“Wait,” Kraber says, “Hou jou fokking bek, Blackpowder?! The stallion I met in Bethlehem?!”

Yael nods.

“Small, funny little world,” Aegis says in an absurdly high-pitched voice.

“Bru, nice, “ Kraber says, his open hand meeting Aegis’ hoof in a gesture that everyone has just sort of defaulted to classifying as a high-five out of force of habit.

“Why weren’t you there?” Heliotrope asks, curious.

“Parental leave,” Aegis shrugs. “Besides, I was discovering that the real axe murderer was love all along, remember?”

“Wait, I thought you were kidding about that,” Dancing Day says.

“You’ll never know,” Aegis says.

Blackpowder

Outpost Sourmash was Gardner’s rather grandiose name for a little PHL command post near Portland Jetport. A stallion by the name of Blackpowder stood guard in front of one of the holding cells.

And Blackpowder went to the holding cells they were using, now – some outbuildings from back when the Portland Jetport had remodeled, leaving rooms and rooms that nobody had any cause to use. There were plenty of cells to use, too – this was, after all, an airport.

Blackpowder trotted down that line. A Somali-originating National Guardsman from Portland by the surname of Warsame – distinguished by his dark skin, black two-or-three-day beard, baseball cap, and aviators – leaned against a wall, M700 sniper rifle slung across his chest as he sipped coffee so strong Blackpowder almost wondered if the fumes would wake him up.

(They did. From down the hall, no less.)

Warsame’s requirements for caffeine could accurately be described as a war crime against taste-buds.

Smoky didn’t like walking by the prisoners.

“–ing gluestick, I’ll boil and–”

“–Betrayer, you–”

“Come on, come on, you’re a Betrayer, you don’t know what’s–”

That last one came from a human. And that kind of pissed Blackpowder off – he had about as much right, maybe more, to tell them how to be human. Wait, definitely more – it wasn’t like hewas saying an entire world deserved to die.)

They’d shot all the Newfoals on sight. Sure, there were humans out there who talked a good game about saving the Newfoals, and how it wasnt right because these used to be people, and how they could cure them someday if only they just…!

“Just what?” Blackpowder would ask, and they’d say something about Newfoal asylums, and Blackpowder would just sadly shake his head. Because, thing was, he knew a guy named Vadim who received letters from his friend Anton, who worked at the Bellwether Newfoal Stable Zone. And the things that Anton had talked about before that place had been… “liberated” by Shieldwall troops were nightmarish.

There were some duties that took a special kind of creature. Duties that could make anyone save for this special kind of creature into a monster.

“Attention all units,” Gardner said over Blackpowder’s earpiece. “Viktor Kraber has escaped PHL custody. He’s proven unwilling to cooperate, and is fleeing the area.”

There was a pause.

“I am approaching Outpost Sourmash with a man he wounded, and I expect you all to help bring him to justice. I am setting up an operation in coordination with the police to head him off at one of his most possible escape routes,”

Gardner paused.

“He’s armed. He’s dangerous. He’s not going to talk to us, no matter what we do. He assaulted one of my men. He’s helped destroy this city. This isn’t a battle anymore, men. This is motherfucking war.”

The line went dead.

“Kraber’s escaped, yeah?” Warsame asked. “Looks like Gudrun and I are off to help.”

“Abe,” Blackpowder sighed, “I swear to Discord, if you were naming your rifle again-”

“Gudrun is my new spotter,” Warsame said. “She’s one of the new meat from the Free Militia of Griffonstone.”

“Huh,” Blackpowder said, because he couldn’t think to say anything else.

“This,” a voice said over the loudspeaker, “Is Captain Samuels. Gardner is en route to the base with wounded. Be ready to greet him, and get to your positions.”

“Well,” Warsame said, “Looks like it’s time to get to work.”

As the two of them headed out, leaving only a skeleton crew of guards, they head the laughter coming from one improvised cell. From a man with a dyed mohawk. He’d been shirtless during last night’s abortive pro-Carter protests, which might’ve looked wild and intimidating then. But now, it looked…

Blackpowder wasn’t attractedto human chests. The pale, hairless look, the way he could see the man’s ribs, the lack of fur…. He could sort of understand how, with human taboos about nudity – he remembered the shock as the ERP or Equus Resettlement Program had moved him up to Bethlehem and he’d found out that no, people did not go nude in small towns. But here, now, it just looked sickly.

He’d been captured only an hour ago, and nobody had gone and found him a shirt. Nobody had really cared.

“You think you’re gonna be able to stop Kraber,“ the mohawked HLF man said. “The Night Surgeon. He’s the best of us. He’s gonna kill you all, he’s gonna rip off your heads and piss in your skulls–”

“Yeah,” Warsame said, looking away from him, “10/10 resisting. Except the part where, y’know, you blew up my house. And my school. And probably my friend’s dog.”

Warsame was clearly trying to make a joke of it. The only problem was that he was failing. And badly.

“Hope you’re fuckin’ proud of yourself, motherfucker,” Warsame muttered. “I bet all the little kids you blew up must’ve been realevil horsefuckers.”

“My cousin came home from Spain and lost everything thanks to gluesticks like you!” the mohawked man yelled. “This! THIS IS WHAT YOU FUCKING GET FOR CODDLING THEM!”

“Bold words for someone in Jamila range,” Warsame said, stepping forward, hands on his rifle. He wasn’t aiming anywhere, and his finger wasn’t on the trigger guard. He didn’t look like he was seconds away from shooting the shirtless prisoner.

But these were times where tempers were frayed. And Blackpowder wondered very much how many people didn’t care about putting in the effort to keep calm.

“Abe,” a short-ish red-haired woman said, stepping in front of him, “He’s not worth it. We needto get to the captain.”

“Guess you right, Riley,” Warsame said.

“Now,” Blackpowder said, realizing only then that he’d been holding his breath, “Let’s go and meet the Colonel.”

It was about ten minutes later when Gardner got their outpost’s infirmary, traveling in an APC. He was a heavyset, imposing man, who looked almost as broad as he was tall. He had graying blonde hair, and a hairline that wasn’t receding enough to be considered “balding” and left him with a very, veryprominent widow’s peak.

His nose looked broken, and his face looked like it was about 60% bruises.

“You,” Gardner said. “Unicorn, ah… Blackpowder. Help me carry this man.”

“Sir yes sir,” Blackpowder said, trotting up to Gardner’s APC. Gardner gestured to a stretcher, which Blackpowder held open in midair with his TK, channeling magic through his horn. Summers slid on, and Gardner grabbed the other end of it.

A nervous-looking black earthpony with a considerable resemblance to Blackpowder followed, looking every which way. Well, save for the mostly surface-level wounds like a massive bruise on the forehead and missing patches of fur.

But as Summers slid onto the stretcher, Blackpowder got a long, hard look at what’d once been the left side of Summers’ face.

“Holy buck,” he breathed. “What did Kraber doto this man?!”

If anything, he looked worsethan Gardner.

The face of one Shawn J. Summers looked, as Heliotrope, Warsame, Riley, and apparently Kraber would put it, like “raw hamburger.” Blackpowder didn’t have experience with that, as he preferred vegetarian burger substitutes, but he was led to understand it was red-pink and looked kind of like burn scars but wet.

That…

Wasn’t too far off from what’d happened to Summers’ face.

“Bass’rd ground my face against a brick wall and kicked m’innit,” Summers mumbled. “We… could’ve had’t all together if he’d just shut up n’ listened.”

Blackpowder would not have needed any skill in field medicine to see that Kraber had probably done something very bad to the man’s jaw.

“We were trying to bring him in peacefully,” Gardner said, voice brimming with authority. “Isn’t that ri–”

Dancing Day

“Peacefully,” Kraber said, voice flat.

“Now,” Heliotrope said, “Viktor, I know you–”

“He. Said. Fokking. ‘Peacefully’,” Kraber said, voice icy cold. This was new. Normally when Kraber actually bothered with things like subtlety before an outburst, it was a sign he was about to put someone in the hospital.

“Look,” Yael said, “We didn’t know and had no reason t–”

“If he can call that kak ‘peaceful’,” Kraber said, “Then I can go and peacefully shove my fokking hand so far up his gat that I can use him as a fokking handpuppet, so maybe I can finally hear an apology coming out of that fokkin’ mouth of his. Call up that bastard, right now, and tell the PHL’s patent office I am about to invent a whole new fokking level of pain for that varknaaier!”

“The PHL don’t have a patent office,” Soarin says.

“They fokkin’ will when I’m done!” Kraber yells back.

“How can Kraber make having a patent office sound like the a threat?” Astral Nectar whispers to Yael.

“Third word in that sentence,” Yael says, not evening looking at her. “It’s Kraber, we don’t have to explain it.”

“Sweet Mother of Faust, I really have to wonder about his bedside manner…”

“Look,” Aegis says, “Viktor. Out of everyone in this room, you probably have the best reason to hate him. But if you head up and kill him right now, you will get nailed for murder.”

Kraber shrugs. “And, that’ll make how manyby now?”

“Well–” Aegis starts.

“Don’t answer that,” Heliotrope says. “Look. He’s gone. You and Yael, you’ve won. I hope you’re proud of yourselves.”

“Very,” Yael says. “But… look, Viktor. We’ve won this one at least. I just wish it wasn’t us.”

“Why?!” Kraber asks, the single syllable sounding tortured through his clenched jaws.

“Because if it wasn’t us, then someone else could’ve gotten their shot in,” Yael says. “Like Heliotrope-”

“Actually, I’m fine,” Heliotrope interrupts. “Cause of, y’know, the thing with the-”

Yael nods. “Right. Or Aegis, or…”

“It’s a long list,” Astral Nectar says, nodding.

Blackpowder

“Isn’t that right,” Gardner said. It wasn’t a question.

“Absolutely,” said the earthpony that could’ve very well been Blackpowder’s brother.

“Sir,” Warsame said, looking over to Gardner, “Do you really think he’ll come this way? I mean, near an airport?”

“I can’t know that,” Gardner said. “But right now, we are ending this. You, ah…” he scanned Blackpowder, seeing a nametag stitched onto the unicorn’s tac-vest. “Blackpowder. Come with us and get Summers to the nearest infirmary.”

As Blackpowder trotted off in the direction of the airport’s infirmary, he channeled a very small amount of magic away from the stretcher, away from keeping the wounded human atop it, to listen to what his friends were saying.

As he turned back, he saw a griffon – slightly more purplish than normal – alight on the grass next to Riley and Warsame.

“...Tartarus happened to that guy’s face?” the griffon asked. They sounded female. Blackpowder assumed that meant this was Gudrun, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Apparently, Kraber ground his face against a brick wall and kicked him till he stopped moving,” Riley said.

“He was willing to fight three PHL at once, and did that?” Gudrun asked. “Don’t know if he knows this, but he’s basically screwed himself over. There’s basically nothing protecting him right now.”

Kraber

Had Kraber known at that moment the exact specifics of what was going through the PHL grapevine, he would’ve approached a soldier, cold-clocked him, stalked Gardner, and then promptly emptied an entire magazine of whatever gun he got into Gardner’s or Summers’ crotch. Even if it was a grenade launcher. He wasn’t particular.

It wasn’t to say he didn’t understand he was fokked sideways. That part seemed pretty obvious.

‘None of them would’ve been willing to let me surrender anyway,’Kraber thought. ‘I need to live through this, so how do I… Hmmm…’

One plan came to mind.

‘Whatever town I get to, I find the air-raid alarms and try to turn them on.’

Never mind that he didn’t know how to turn on said alarms.

‘I find a shelter. Hold it at gunpoint, or… No. I get a hostage and put this Beretta up to their ear. I say that I won’t come out unless I’m given a peaceful surrender, and not shot on sight. That’ll fok over those sanctimonious pricks who treat you like a hero one minute and utter fokking SHIT the next!’

He ambled down the streets, heading for the bay and the mouth of the river.

From what he could guess, this had once been a big shipping area. The train tracks stopped very abruptly, cutoff by an overpass, and it looked like they were in the process of being rebuilt towards the waterfront, past all the trendy fokkin’ hipster bars that took dives with names like Flynn’s and replaced them with art nouveau places that sold overpriced drinks. Or maybe he was just projecting on that. He was thinking about the worst fokkin’ dive bar he’d ever found in Boston, somewhere a fifteen minute walk from campus, a dark, forgotten place with dark beer the color of coffee and these greasy burgers piled high with melted cheese and mushrooms sauteed onions, ones that left the bar’s regulars continually amazed he stayed so thin, and–

‘Focus, Viktor.’

The train yard looked quiet. He could see locomotives that were being loaded up with rubble and other junk, trucks buzzing, workmen and a few Equus natives looking busy.

It wouldn’t be hard to slip between all of them. Jump into a hopper car.

Kraber moved gingerly down the hill. From tree to tree.

It must’ve taken ten minutes to get down to the street. But it still looked promising, didn’t it? Still the same locomotives that were being loaded up with rubble and other junk, trucks buzzing, workmen and a few Equus natives looking busy.

Kraber hung behind a series of long, low buildings, heading for the end of the railroad, the one that lead onto the edge of the port he’d come near. One that he remembered as having an absurd little narrow-gauge railroad.

‘…So now I have four options? Is hitching a ride on a narrow-gauge railroad an option? I don’t think they’d be as strict about the IDs, maybe…’

Kraber thought that over as he scoped out the fence around the railyard. There had to be a way in, right?

He saw the overpass. Saw the concrete pylons on either side of a set of double track, with a big black diesel with a long orange line cutting across its sides, lying silently in wait. Another orange and yellow locomotive, he thought – a BNSF, going by the lettering.

So he kept going. Kept moving along, ever-closer to the overpass. He could see it a little better, noticing a ramshackle array of buildings underneath it. Structures built of shipping containers, the remains of boats, cast-off wood…

It looked like an awful place. Like some of the HLF shelters he’d lived in while escaping the Barrier. The strange thing about places like America, he’d noticed, was that the allegedly temporary shelters had opportunities to grow and metastasize, becoming something too permanent to really be taken apart before Barrierfall.

‘I can sneak on easily from there. Or at least around there.’

He walked into the street, passing the same railroad workers on the locomotives that were being loaded up with rubble and other junk, trucks buzzing, workmen and a few Equus natives looking busy. They were talking about… something’. Kraber couldn’t hear what they were saying. The background noise of the city and rail yard enveloped it like a warm coat over a wallet buried deep in a denim jeans pocket.

The little shanty filling the space between road and overpass was within a few meters, now. As he noticed, the shanties crept over the road, creating a small tunnel. One deck even jutted out above the road, threatening to push out from the sides of the road like the neck frills of some lizard.

The lights were on. Kraber saw the lights of a television flickering through one.

In no way was this architecture possibly up to code.

A green pegasus fluttered above, looking down at him. Were they… were they looking at him too long?

Kraber saw a flight of stairs leading up, through one little alcove. Could see light shining through a gap. Could imagine the pathway that could give him a clear avenue towards the freight yard.

He turned to cross the street. Looked over towards the railyard, and saw the same railroad workers on the locomotives that were being loaded up with rubble and other junk, trucks buzzing, workmen and a few Equus natives looking b–

‘Wait a fokdamned minute.’

This was too easy.

Kraber stood, squinting, looking at the railyard. True, this wasn’t the same angle, wasn’t the same sight. But…. it looked the same.It all looked the same.

No trains were moving. The engines were running, but nothing was happening. There was a man wearing unstained coveralls that looked brand new, walking towards him. And the Equus natives he saw were… missing something. They didn’t look like they were usedto working here.

‘Shit.’

Yael

As the only one with any police training, Yael had taken control of the sting. It was, frankly, amazinghow Gardner had to coordinate it… and how Summers managed to brute-force his way into getting this open.

“We’re dealing with a monster,”he’d said.“Are you really going to stand in our way? Aid and abet him? Let him ride out of here consequence-free?”

‘That,’Yael thought, ‘is someone who knows what it is to be police.’

He hadn’t even needed a chance to convince the police. The few that were in fighting shape at the end of the night were out for blood. Not even the totally-not-in-a-hate-group-nor-do-I-know-anyone-who-is crowd were willing to argue.

“Sir,” one policeman said, “If this is the endpoint of the HLF, I want nothing to do with it.”

“You’re one of the good ones,” Gardner had said.

If anything, she was glad it was her. There was something about Gardner’s attitude towards all of it that bothered her. Why hadn’t he told Yael until after he’d started beating up Kraber?

Dancing Day

“Until after I started beating them up,” Kraber says. “There’s a difference.”

And more importantly, Kraber had gone out of his way to help. He’d gotten people off the rig. Helped out at the hospital. Nearly died.

“Does that seem right to you?” Yael had.

“I hope you’re not defending him,” Heliotrope said. “This man…. He fucking shot me. He’s stolen from refugees, shot people at checkpoints, murdered people of several species…”

“I want answers,” Yael had said from her hiding place in a nondescript building that could’ve been an office or temporary housing or anything, really. Oscar was hiding in there with her, Penetrator at the ready.

Bro was hiding in the yard as well.

“This all seems like a lot,” Yael said, “For one man.”

“It’s not just one man,” Smoky said. “One, it’s Kraber. Two, we’ve managed to capture plenty of HLF at our perimeter.”

“You’re both still out there?”Yael asked.

“Nah, Summers isn’t,” Smoky said off-handedly or off-hoofedly, “He’s getting his face treated for infections and stuff.”

“He’s coming,”Chinook said, over the radio.

“Feel free to make him hurt when he gets there,”Smoky said. “That bastard hurt my friends. I want him to suffer.”

That… would not be a unique sentence.‘In the end,’Yael decided,‘it was less about what he’d done tonight than what he had done in total.’

Besides. This was, after all, Kraber.

“He’s under the overpass now,”Chinook said, “I don’t think he notices me.”

They were right on top of him now. He was heading for the little shantytown built under the overpass.

“I still don’t see,” said one engineer, a hard-bitten man with an ugly two-day beard and a round face, “Why we still have to go along with liars like you.”

Yael had never been able to figure out if people who used that slang term were saying “Liar” or “Lyre”, and she’d learned from experience that it was best just not to press it. People who were willing to say that, to her face, they were never worth talking to and they’d always seize on any opportunity to cut her down.

Kraber

His mind raced. They knew he was there. But they didn’t know that he knew theyknew. The train was out. They were… Was that someone moving towards him? Was that someone in that coffee place looking at him, watching, waiting?!

He couldn’t start running. That would… if the PHL saw him running, they'd know beyond a doubt it was him.

He was walking faster and faster. He could see the area with the little narrow-gauge railroad drawing closer and closer.

‘You could give up…’

Oh, like hell he would! Not to Gardner, anyway. Definitely, definitely not to Gardner.

‘I’m not going to be able to stay free by the end of the day. The only question is how to surrender. What to do, what to do!’

He looked up to the pony in the sky. The green one. Shooting him wouldn’t work. That’d bring more PHL onto him like flies to a corpse.

‘They’re not going to let me live. Gardner won’t, and I was part of this. I was Lovikov’s inner circle. They– Wait a minute. I wasn’t part of his inner circle. Not even fokkin’ close. But he’d say I was. Bastard didn’t trust me. But that doesn’t matter.’

He wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the time.

Yael

“...He’s gone,”Chinook said, amazed. “I don’t get it.”

He’d escaped from her and a pegasus that could turn invisible, twice! In one fucking day! Yael felt herself breathing heavily. Both fists were against the table and Yael didn’t remember if she’d pounded them against it.

‘Today,’some distant part of Yael thought, ‘is not my day.’

“Can things,” Yael said, “Just workfor once today.”

It was just… a rainstorm’of little annoyances coming down around her in sheets. Slamming down her like rain drumming on corrugated metal.

Yael took a few deep breaths, breathing heavily.

“...Ma'am?” asked the same engineer that’d talked to her in such depth earlier. “Are you…”

“Yael?” Quiette Shy asked. “ Are you okay?”

“No,” Yael said bluntly. “I am very much notokay. Kraber keeps on not being captured.”

Quiette Shy backed away a little. “So… what do we do now?” she asked.

Yael thought of everything that would calm her. Counted to four in her head. Exhaled. Then walked over to a cheap map lying on a 70s-era desk for reasons that the owner of the office probably didn’t even remember.

‘Draw it up. Having a plan will help.’

“Do you mind if I…” she asked, looking over to some official in a ratty work shirt.

“Does it even matter at this point?” he asked, shrugging. “Besides. I got more.”

Yael took a pen, and circled the approximate area of the railyard. It was a terrible map, so it was mostly coasting by on guesswork. Thankfully, by the looks of things, Quiette Shy could follow her.

“He’s not going to double back if he knows we’re in the railyard,” Yael said. “So…”

She started marking the docks of the city. Little marinas, anywhere she could find a boat... All the way up to the narrow gauge railroad.

“We keep guards, police, any of our allies over here,” Yael said. “Unless he’s thought of a fifth way out, he’s still either going here or to find a boat.”

“What if he doubles back, Ma'am?” Chinook asked.

“He can’t know our troop movements,” Yael said, “And he’s not going to turn back. He’s this close to the edge of the city, he’s not going to make things worse for himself. He won’t be thinking that clearly.”

Indeed, as it turned out.

“Do You Think He’ll Take The Narrow-Gauge?” Quiette Shy asked.

“Possible, but,” Yael checked her phone, “not likely. The next train doesn’t get here for awhile. He won’t want to wait.” She turned to a wall, activating her comms. “Heliotrope, I’m going to need you to keep an eye on the coast. He’s looking for a boat.”

“What happened?” Heliotrope asked.

“He slipped through our fingers,” Yael said. “And no, I don’t know how.”

Dancing Day

“But wait, did both of you just… forget he killed Reaper?” Rivet asks, confused.

“To be honest, well…” Heliotrope says, looking a little sheepish, both forelegs clopping together.

“Look, it didn’t mattermuch to the three of us,” Kraber says. “I figured that it didn’t matter what I had done, and I figured that if your commanding officer was going to kill me, no way he wouldn’t order you to do i…”

“He kind of said it was optional,” Heliotrope admits.

“...Oh yeah,” Kraber says. “He did say that. I’m beginning to wish I caused even more–”

“Be satisfied with what we did get, Viktor,” Yael says.

“Yeah,” Heliotrope says. “I just… really wish I got to join in. Actually, just how did you do slip through their, well, um, our hooves?”

“I thought I told you,” Kraber says.

“You didn’t,” Yael says.

“Well, it’s actually pretty fokkin’ simple,” he says, shrugging. “I’d jumped onto a lorry, landing somewhere between the trailer and the main body.”

“...How did you not die from that?” Astral Nectar asks.

“That is easily the least unbelievable thing that hasn’t killed me.”

Dancing Day looks over to Aegis. “...He’s not wrong,” she admits.

Kraber

FOK!

His foot hurt. His back hurt. His… okay, almost everything hurt. But he wasn’t going to get shot. So, y’know. Silver linings. He thought it over. The truck seemedto be heading for the docks. Maybe for a ferry, maybe a container ship. Which meant...

‘Option five, bitches!’ Kraber thought, before realizing. ‘Oh. The trailer’s going to have to be moved.’ He clung to a small outcropping of metal that didn’t look like it’d crush his hand. ‘I guess I’ll have to reschedule my death again, huh? Jackass!’

As soon as the truck had drawn to a stop at an intersection, Kraber jumped off and barreled down the street, much to the shock of nearby pedestrians.

Kraber sprinted across the docks, more thankful than ever that he’d run track back before he was in college. Just ahead of him he saw a short, screen on a metal frame resting in a bed of pebbles, reading off the departures for a nearby narrow-gauge railroad.

‘Narrow-gauge railroad?! Okay… come on…’

It was a vain hope, and in no way could it possibly work. But it was something. He’d have more hostages, be in a more enclosed space.

He checked the timetable. Another narrow-gauge train in ten minutes.

‘TEN MINU-’

Wait.

He heard something. He looked over his shoulder to see a pegasus diving towards him, forelegs outstretched.

Yael

“He’s getting away!”Yael cried.“Chinook, keep your eyes on him, take him out if possible!”

This was her last chance. If he couldn’t be stopped now, well…

The ocean would complicate things. What if Romero rescued him? What if he got to Canada? No, Canada probablywouldn’t give him immunity. But what if some politician tried to nail the PHL for violating Canadian sovereignty or something? What if Kraber just ended up stuck in bureaucratic limbo and nobody could find out what was going on?

No, Yael didn’t like that.

“But go non-lethal. This is one of our last chances.”

Kraber

Kraber didn’t have time to think about why the pegasus wasn’t shooting first. He leaned low to the ground and dove under the timetable. The pebbles scratched against his skin under the T-shirt, and he struggled to regain his footing.

Finally, he slid back upright, feet pounding the wood of the docks.

‘You kontgesigs made me do this. Then again, this is probably a fokkin’ dof idea’, Kraber thought as he raced along the planks. ‘Anything would be a safer bet, but…’

He looked over his shoulder. The pegasus hadn’thit the billboard, but he hadbeen thrown off a bit. Rainbow Dash or Wonderbolt-quality, this pegasus was not.

If he was absolutely certain they wouldn’t let him live, then a boat would be the fastest way to get out of the city. No traffic jams. No PHL checkpoints.

The PHL were right behind him. And just in front of him, he saw a man in a speedboat.

A speedboat with keys in it.‘Keys that had only just been inserted.’

“Hey, man,” the man in the boat said, “What’s–”

‘At times like this, there’s only one thing to do!’

Kraber leapt off the dock and rammed the soles of both feet into the man’s face.

The man tumbled back awkwardly, head bouncing against the metal railing surrounding the windshield of his speedboat. He fumbled, reaching for something, his hand not quite sure if it was reaching for the dashboard or his pocket–

Kraber drove a solid right hook into the man’s jaw again, knocking him into the water.

He turned the keys. The boat roared to life, and he shot out into Casco Bay.

Heliotrope

Assigning her to keep watch near the coast had been, putting it mildly, an awful idea. She flew back and forth, she kept watch by marinas, but overall it was ahuge area to cover.

She’d been in touch with Oscar when she heard from Yael and Chinook. Kraber had sussed out the trap she’d laid, somehow, and was en route to a marina, running like his life depended on it.

‘It probably did.’

She’d been flying towards the marina Kraber thought he could escape through, when she saw Chinook diving towards him.

‘Good…’

But then Kraber did something unexpected. He dove under some kind of billboard. Chinook, fixated on chasing Kraber, was on a trajectory that’d put his skull straight through it.

‘Chinook, no!’

He managed to bank, just barely,a look of clear panic on his face as his stomach fur grazed the top of the board. He struggled to maintain control, everything

‘Kraber or letting him…’

Chinook looked like he was about to hit something else. He was barely in control of himself, wobbling this way and that, dizzily plummeting towards the ocean.

‘...I’m gonna hate myself if I let him die.’

Heliotrope flew towards him and caught him between both forelegs.

“He got away!”Chinook yelled. “I failed, Sergeant!”

“There’s a boat leaving for the wild blue yonder!” Heliotrope yelled. “He’s escaping!”

“Can things,” Yael said, “Just stay controllable for more than two minutes in this city?!”

“Apparently not,” Gardner said tersely.“I’m sending a PHL Blackhawk for Lieutenant Ze’ev, Sergeant Heliotrope, Mikkelsen and Shy. Chase him down and subdue him by any means necessary. Everyone else is to regroup with me for the prisoner transfer.”

“Yes, sir,” Heliotrope said. “Where did he get that boat from…”

“Heliotrope,” Gardner said,“Regroup with Lieutenant Ze’ev to get on the chopper.”

Kraber

“Stop!” someone yelled, and Kraber heard the ‘tac-tac-tac’ of a 5.56 rifle. “STOP, GODDAMMIT!”

“SEEYA, FOKSUCKERS!” Kraber yelled, flashing a middle finger back at them.

The boat roared out into the ocean, towards the Atlantic, and Kraber found himself finally relaxing. The first thing he did was reach for a roll of gauze in his backpack, and pour some vodka he’d found stashed in the boat on his hand wound. The second thing was to smash the running lights.

If Kraber had either a) known absolutely anything about boats other than how to hotwire them, or b) not been panicking, he would’ve known this was an absolutely awful idea.

‘South? No, everyone’s going to be heading that way. North… hmmm. North north north. I could…’

A thought that could not quite be verbalized sailed through the troubled waters of his mind.

‘Would that work?’

It was – putting it very, verymildly – something that even the most casual of passing observers could never describe as being even on speaking terms with a good idea. But it was also theonlyidea.

...Especially since the guy he’d kicked in the face was lying in the water near the docks.

‘I did notthink this through.’

He would find the Reavers. He’d rejoin them, as he’d heard they were in Maine at this moment. And then he would either find a way to disappear into their ranks or head west, or, if worst came to the worst, use them as human shields while surrendering. The Reavers, for reasons he could neither comprehend nor explain, didseem to care for him. They would hand him over – of course they would – but the PHL wouldn’t open fire on a settlement like Bastion, would they? Or the Reavers would just… hand him over to the PHL.

The plan was simple. Except it wasn’t, on account of the fact that it had a number of variables he couldn’t control, ran mostly on random chance, and he couldn’t predict how the Reavers would react.

‘How do I know they won’t kill me?’

The answer seemed obvious.

‘Everyone else will. Or ponify me, so… fok no.’

The shore grew farther away. Kraber seriously wished he knew where to find a map. After minutes more driving, the shore was just a dark line on the horizon. Thankfully, the boat had a compass, so he probably wouldn’t have to worry about getting lost at sea.

He wondered if he was good enough at navigating to track by the North Star. That… was extremely unlikely. Compass, then. And he’d try to use the coast as a guide.

He switched on the motor, and let the boat rush along the shore.

‘I can do this. I can win.’

He was going to run away. He was certain of it. He was going to take the boat down south, get as far away as he could, and put all of this out of mind. Forget he’d ever been part of the HLF, and maybe, for the first time in three fokkin’ years, do something right by anyone, anyone at all.

But for now, this was…

Actually kind of nice. The wind in his face. The smell of the salt in the air. The spray of saltwater against ragged clothes, that…. Had he taken a shower in the last forty-eight hours?

‘That would never be acceptable in any hospital.’He started laughing slightly. ‘Heh. Reminds me of the time I had to take an isopropyl shower. I didn’t get vrot, but God dammit, I fokkin’ tried!’

It was peaceful, out on the sea. No Solar Empire, no Lovikov, no Equestria, no hallucinatory Newfoals, no nothing.

It felt like Lake Patrol had, a long time ago. Or two days. Was that really how long it’d been? Dacosta, Joca the border collie and her tendency to headbutt him, Gage, Mariesa, that little pub he liked, the house he and Emil shared…

He’d never see any of that again.

‘This is what, the fourth time I’ve been musing on being alone?’Kraber wondered. ‘Is it… is it because I’m on the ocean? I need to think about some other fokkin’ thing.’

To distract himself, he switched on a tiny radio.

“...investigation continues into the public abduction of Sutra Cross. So far, no official statement has been given by authorities, but all signs point to the HLF.”

He tuned it to another station.

“...death toll in Portland continues to rise. Reports of Newfoals are…”

“Jag kan inte sova…”

“...city has been cordoned off to prevent the escape of both PER and HLF…”

“Oh, this is just a mess out here, this is-”

“IYA NIE NE NOOIT NE… Ovdje je sve mračno… ”

Kraber knew enough Croatian from Grandpa Dragan to get the basic idea of that last part. ‘It’s all dark in here.’

The rest of it… well, that sounded like various different ways to say ‘no’.

‘I don’t need this,’Kraber thought, trying to switch it to another station.

‘“–Maine 99.9 The Wolf! Coming up next, the 2000s called and we’re giving them some love. Up next is Destrophy’s ‘This is Not My Life,’ and they’re right–”

That last syllable, ‘they’re’, had started to warp. The speakers contorting the afternoon DJ’s voice into an absurdly out-of-place Swedish accent, changing the pitch so the gender became nigh-impossible to place.

He twisted the knob again.

‘I don’t need this.’

‘“Right!”’

The last one had sounded like an insurance ad or a car dealership ad, some obnoxiously folksy thing from some middle-of-nowhere businessman.

‘“Ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son,” the radio crackled. Kraber felt something that moved in the general direction of relaxation. “Behind you!”

‘Is it following me?!’

Yael

The Blackhawk rushed across the Atlantic. With the exception of Gardner, Summers, and Smoky – who were being treated for what Kraber did to their faces – Yael had packed near everyone inside.

Heliotrope, Quiette Shy, Oscar Mikkelsen… and their newer soldiers, like Chinook, Lorne, Bowie and ‘Bro’, and Eva.

The pilot was a Japanese woman named Tetsuko. An earthpony mare with the name Tumbleweedsat in the co-pilot’s seat. This had surprised Heliotrope the first time she saw it.

“What can I say,” Tumbleweed had laughed, “Always wanted to fly.”

Portland almost looked close enough Yael could jump out and swim there – not a good idea all the same – when suddenly the static came.

The radio had, at Tetsuko’s request, been tuned to a station playing some tune from the 2000s, when suddenly-

“IYA NIE NE NOOIT NE… Ovdje je sve mračno… ”

Yael had heard of Gestalt, obviously. If you were on the East Coast it was impossible not to have heard of it. She had no idea what any of it meant. And from what she could tell, few other people did. There were PHL codebreakers on the case, but no real progress had been made.

And then it vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“I hope we have someone on that,” Lorne said.

“Something’s Weird Here,” Quiette Shy said. “It Always Stays On Multiple Frequencies. It’s Like This Is… Moving Around."

Kraber

“...saker rör sig snabbare och snabbare. Vinniger. Faster. Nader koorshogte. Fever.”

Whoever or whatever it was making Gestalt’s voice sounded… different. More stressed. Kraber understood some of it, the parts that were in Afrikaans, but the rest sounded Swedish. Or some Scandinavian language, anyway.

“Det er noen nye. Nuwe. Kažkas, kas neturėjo pasirodyti. Nouvelle. Bul bardik murun bolgon emes ele. Before. Bar bolçu. Il y avait. Before.”

As usual, Gestalt was incoherent. Kraber thought he’d caught some Lithuanian in there. He didn’t speak Lithuanian especially well – German, Croatian, Polish, and Russian were the only Eastern European languages he spoke well enough.

‘There is something new,’ Kraber thought he heard. Then the word ‘new’, but in French.

“Tu mani nesaproti. Tu neko nesaproti.”

...Something about cats? No. That was definitely, definitelynot Japanese. It sounded vaguely like Lithuanian.

“Du kan inte förstå något av detta.”

Something Scandinavian again.

“Još gore. Neki to razumiju. Vree hulle. Hulle sal jou vernietig om 'n punt te bewys. B’karov, Shieldwall lir’tzot hishh’it. Corrupt. Roes. SPOIL. Consume.”

“UNDERSTAND?!” Kraber yelled. “Understand FOKKIN’ WHAT?!Croatian?! Afrikaans?! Hebrew?! I literally grew up hearing that! You're clearly trying to tell us something, but it sounds like word salad made on International Day at a fokkin’ high school!"

"Aweh, Viktor. Is hierdie beter?" Kate asked over the radio.

What.

‘Is this better.’

Kate's voice. His native fokking tongue.

Before the tiny shred of self-control Kraber had left shredded itself to pieces, he had just enough time to think ‘Well, shit.’

Yael

“First Lieutenant Ze’ev,” Gardner said, over the radio, “Are you hearing this?”

“Am I hearing what?”

“The Gestalt signal is switching from station to station,” Gardner said. “It’s following Kraber, somehow.”

“Is that even possible, Colonel?” Lorne asked.

For all Yael knew, it was. It just wasn’t as if she had any knowledge about radios.

“Apparently it is, Herbert,” Gardner said. “That fucking thing is talking to Kraber.”

In that instant, the radio said something about Kraber having suplexed a woman. Yael kew full well from Kraber’s file that it had happened - the man had a long, well-documented history of aggression, violent outbursts, and -

“It’s His Wife,” Quiette Shy breathed, and Yael thought she saw her eyes widening under the red-tinted goggles.

“No,” Bro said. “No no no no no. That’s literally impossible. You don’t just come back from ponification.”

“And, how many Earth biologists said my physiology was impossible at this point?” Heliotrope asked.

Bro looked over at her. Raised a finger. Looked like he was about to argue.

“You’ve got to admit,” Bowie said, “She’s not far off.”

Yael nodded. That did make sense. And plenty of human biologists had, indeed, made the case that most Equus physiology was impossible. Right up until they’d seen Rainbow Dash flying.

“Alright,” Yael said. “Heliotrope, Quiette Shy, if this really is talking to Viktor, I want to know how to find him. And I know you do too.”

Heliotrope nodded, a determined look on her face. Quiette Shy was - typically - unreadable.

“You,” Yael said, “Are the best thaums we have on hand…”

Kraber

“Ek kan nie. I can’t… ek… Ek wens u alles van die beste. But I. Kann ich dir nicht sagen. I wish it was both of us against the world again.”

“Like the time I punched that kid who thought you were kidnapping Anka?” Kraber asked.

His voice sounded to him like it was coming from far away, and he felt like he was just out of view of a camera, watching an actor he’d hand-picked to portray him – probably Sharlto Copley – reading his lines.

The incident Kraber related sounded absurd. Probably because a) it was, and b) it never happened.

“Are you sure you remember – onthou– it right? Reg.” Kate asked. “You didn’t punch a kid, you suplexed some annoying white girl. Just like that bitch of a GP.”

Actually, that waswhat happened. Anka had come out whiter than her brother, so seeing her next to a black woman in the Star Market had set something off in some woman convinced the world revolved around her. She’d assumed Kate was a kidnapper. So, after seeing someone trying to take his daughter, Kraber had done what he felt any sane and rational father would do, and suplexed the offending white woman into a wooden shelf, leaving her unconscious.

Okay, that was more what his own father would’ve done, so the jury was still out on that.

There was no reason he’d suplexed her, specifically. He probably could’ve just punched her. Or kicked her. Or yelled at her. Suplexing had just seemed funny at the time.

Also he’d suplexed a GP once, but that wasn’t important.

“Was that a Mexican suplex or a German suplex?” Kraber asked.

“Is Mexican suplex even a thing?” Kate asked. “I mean, you’re German, so maybe it was going to be a German suplex no matter what.”

“Infallible logic,” Kraber said, nodding to himself robotically.

Because if he put emotion into that, then he’d have to come to terms with the fact that he was fokking talking to his ponified fokking wife over a fokking primitive radio that had no logical fokking way of receiving his fokking words, using fokking pony magic, and this was impossible, this was fokmothering impossible, motherfokker–

Reality came crashing down around him.

“KATE?!” Kraber yelled. “WHERE ARE YOU?! You were… you were fokkin’ ponified! I saw the house! I saw the pinata! The serum everywhere!”

“We don’t have time for that,” someone else said, their voice like Kate’s and like Gestalt’s but neither, with an inexplicable Swedish accent.

“BUT YOU’RE PONIFIED!” Kraber screamed. “HOW… WHO… THIS IS FOKKING IMPOSSIBLE! BUT IF YOU WERE HERE, THEN WHO WAS PHONE?!”

There was a pause.

“Really? You’re doing this now?” Kate asked.

“Why shouldn’t I?!” Kraber yelled back. “THIS MAKES NO GODDAMNED FOKKING SENSE!”

He looked down at the radio, searching it for what must have been the fourth time.

“I DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH THE FOKKING MICROPHONE!”

“I wish I could explain, Viktor!” Kate exclaimed, pleading. “But we don’t have time!”

“Really?!” Kraber asked. “Because we had enough time to talk about me suplexing some fokkin’ Karen, but apparently not enough to tell me why THE WOMAN I LOVE WHO IS FOKKIN’ PONIFIED IS TALKING TO ME?!”

“We wish I could tell you everything,” Kate said. “But… the most important part is this. Shieldwall is going to attack a city. He plans to use this to destroy the PHL. And if the PHL falls, that’ll be the end of the greatest force uniting humans and Equestrians.”

“And then what happens?!” Kraber asked. “And he can’t just… stage a land invasion, not until Barrierfall. They tried that during the Blackdog Raids!”

“We can’t… tell you that…” said the thing that may have been Kate. “He won’t let us. Me. Us.”

Heliotrope

“You’re the best thaums we have on hand,” Yael had said. “Is there a way we can hone in on it?”

And for a moment, it was like Heliotrope was back in the workshop she had during the years after the Crystal War. Like a filly in Sugarcube Corner. Just her hashing out solutions…

But with Quiette Shy. That part was nice.

The thing that Heliotrope – and Quiette Shy – always found so strange about magic on earth was that there were so many ways she had to reinvent the wheel. There weren’t any crystals or foci that they could just borrow from home or buy from the store. There was always a computer a fraction of the size and exponentially better that they could use.

Heliotrope found herself thinking of how she’d read Perdido Street Station once. How the summoning from there involved a machine designed to summon electrical – excuse me, Mister Mieville, elyctrical – elementals and channeling them into a ritual circle or something to create ‘the victimless sacrifice!’

While the PHL absolutely didn’t use ritualistic pony sacrifice and didn’t use stolen tissue from Newfoals to make magic items, Heliotrope couldn’t help but feel some resonance with that passage.

“Agate?” Quiette Shy asked, looking over to Heliotrope.

“Does a quartz work?” Heliotrope asked, rolling one over with her foreleg to Quiette Shy, who held it in place with a lightly glowing red aura.

“I Guess,” Quiette Shy said, nodding. “Now I Need A Radio.”

Walker reached onto his armor and pulled a walkie-talkie off of its velcro, tossing it to Quiette Shy. She easily caught it in her TK.

“Going to Need Some Wire, Maybe Fiber-Optics For The Crystal,” Quiette Shy said. “Also, a Chocolate Bar.”

Heliotrope passed the wires and a Hershey’s over to Quiette Shy, who wrapped the quartz in the wires, then held it to a radio.

She closed her eyes. A red aura surrounded her, and – lightening to white – arced from her to the console of the helicopter.

“The Gestalt Broadcast Is Homing In On A Radio, Currently Traveling North By Northeast From Us,” Quiette Shy said, her eyes glowing behind her goggles. Flashlight-beams of red shone from her eyes, lightly illuminating the back of a chair. “We Find This Radio, We Find Him.”

She looked over to Tetsuko.

“Turn 50 Degrees East,” she told the pilot.

“On it,” Tetsuko replied. Heliotrope felt the helicopter banking to the right.

“What was the chocolate bar for?” Heliotrope asked.

“I Got Hungry,” Quiette Shy said.

Kraber

“Who?!” Kraber asked. “What’s happening?! Where are you, where did–”

“There were three things that could have happened next,” said the thing that might have been Kate. “First, the PHL won. Things carried on alright, until that thing with the Amplifier. Or the Solar Empire won, and the PHL crumbled. But there was a…. Disturbance. Something, or someone from a space outside spaces entered that earlier world and moved things around. And from that arose other endings: There was a…. Corruption. And it could win.”

“Is it the HLF?” Kraber asked.

“Not exactly,” she said. “Look. There’ll be someone else who wants the PHL to lose. Someone who will promise you every awful thing you’ve ever wanted. Turn this world into a hell for all that aren’t human.”

“Lovikov?” Kraber asked.

“Worse,” Kate said. “Viktor. Beware the Quartz.”

“Was that a Steven Universe ref–” Kraber started.

“She knows too much,” the thing that resembled Kate said, “and it’s taken - Removed! Killed! - things from her that you don’t know you can lose. Loss. ”

“What’re you talking about, Kate?!” Kraber asked. “What’d she… what’d the Quartz lose?”

“Everything,” Kate said. “Beware. Hate. Beware the EHS. Fear.”

“Beware what!” Kraber asked. “Kate, who are the EHS? Where are you! Where are you going?! WH–”

He heard a helicopter in the distance, the repetitive thrumming drowning out the sound of the broadcast. Kraber’s eyes almost began to water from the ear-piercing static creeping in to the broadcast.

“And there’s one more,” she said. “Something from Outside. Something that followed this newcomer.”

THITH-THITH-THITH

Kraber turned around to see a helicopter rushing towards his boat, a big PHL lyre stamped on one of the doors next to the American flag. Its blades were thrumming as it roared over the sea. It was pretty low to the water, too. Enough that if he threw a rock, it’d probably hit the chopper.

“WHAT THE FOK IS IT?!” Kraber yelled. “WHAT IS ANY OF THIS?! WHAT THE FOK IS GOING ON?!”

“NO!” Kate screamed. “YOU CAN’T, I WON’T LET YOU, THIS IS-

The radio cut to static.

“KATE!” Kraber screamed. “WHERE THE FOK ARE YOU?! KATE! NO, NOT AGAIN, I CAN’T FOKKING LOSE YOU AGAIN, FOKDAMMIT, WHERE THE FOK, I NEED YOU, COME BACK!”

...FOK.

Heliotrope

She’d been looking forward to getting up close and personal to Kraber. But, as usual, something had ruined it.

“And just what the buck did any of that mean?” Heliotrope wondered aloud. She looked through the cabin of the helicopter, seeing confused face after confused face through the transparent helmet faceplates. The squad looked from face to face, murmuring.

“That,” Oscar said, “Was weird.”

It was hard to parse any emotion from his voice.

“Weird isn’t the half of it, big guy,” Chinook said. “I mean, that… if that was someone coming back from ponification, I just…”

His voice trailed off.

“I mean, heck,” he said. “Where do I even begin. Sounds like some seriousdark magic.”

“That,” Heliotrope said, “Sounds…”

“What,” Chinook said, “Far-fetched? Because I think we passed that point a long time ago.”

Heliotrope nodded. They had, after all, fought zombies the night earlier. “I mean, Newfoals were probably already dark magic at this point. Plus. What else would last night be?”

“...You’re sure,” Bro said, “I’m not really sure tha–”

“How Could It Be Anything ButDark?” Quiette Shy asked. “Magic Is Supposed To Enrich Life, Not… Twist It.”

“And what was the thing about a quartz about, anyway?” Eva asked.

“Well, Heliotrope and Quiet used a quartz, so…. Do you think that’s what it meant on the radio when it said ‘Beware the Quartz?’ Lorne asked.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think it is.”

“Why?” Heliotrope asked. “I’ve never even heard of the EHS. Plus, it’s not like everyone thinks ”

“It Sounds Familiar,” Quiette Shy said, “But I Can’t Quite Place It.”

Heliotrope nodded. It didsound vaguely familiar. But how…

“Alright, everyone,” Yael said, “We’re coming up on his boat, and he’s armed.”

‘It’s just him with maybe a pistol against all of us,’ Heliotrope thought.

“I don’t think neutralizing him will be much of an issue.”

Yael raised an eyebrow. “It’s not that. It’s that I want to bring him in with as few people getting hurt as possible. Us included. I’m going to be the one to talk him down.”

Kraber

The helicopter followed him at a steady clip, spraying up water into his boat.

Kraber might as well have been on a different planet.

“WHAT?!” Kraber screamed. “What in the fok is it?! What’s the EHS?! What’s this other thing?! I’ve lost everyone in my life that I cared about at this point, and I’d really appreciate some fokdamn guidance!”

He slammed his left fist down on the radio. The plastic cracked, and somewhere he felt like he should have probably noticed how much that should’ve hurt his left hand.

But the radio didn’t respond. After all, it was just a radio.. It had been crazy to believe it could ever be talking to him, wasn’t it?

A song started playing.

“This is not my life…
And these are not my eyes…”

Kraber turned back to stare up at the helicopter.

‘Take it out by aiming the pistol upwards! You’ve already killed a lot of helicopters today, one more can’t hurt! But someone has to drive this. And then I’ll be a sitting duck!’

He looked through the mirror the boat had installed just near the steering wheel. Then looked back at the chopper. It had the PHL logo stenciled on one side. And he could see a couple of Equestrians at the helicopter’s door, wide open.

One of them was aiming a very large gun at his boat. A purplish-pink pegasus with a blue-green mane, wearing tinted goggles. Standing next to her was a tall brown-skinned woman with dark brown or black hair, who seemed to almost scrape the ceiling of the chopper. And a man in face-concealing heavy armor that was incredibly poorly-suited for these summer months.

Kraber couldn’t recognize the third man, but it was Yael and Heliotrope. The terrors of HLF units the world over, especially the Americas.

‘Always knew I’d go out like this,’ he thought.

He couldn’t hear what they were saying. He knew they looked excited, though.

No, not excited. Angry. Absolutely livid.

‘They found me!

He looked back. Saw Yael Ze’ev aiming towards his boat with a Big Fokkin’ Gun the size of the average pony.

“Viktor Kraber,” Yael said, “You are ordered to–”

Dancing Day

“I’d just like to say,” Yael interrupts, “What you did next was not my fault.”

Spitfire narrows her eyes. “Lieutenant,” she says quietly, “You were aiming an autocannon at a man in a boat.”

“And I thought she was going to kill me no matter what,” Kraber says.

Yael

Yael was aiming the cannon towards Kraber. Whatever she was thinking, Heliotrope couldn’t tell.

The Obregon was designed for use against Newfoals, against larger Equus targets. But it seemed likely that just having the cannon aimed at the boat couldn’t be a bad idea. It’d reinforce the overwhelming power of the PHL.

“You are ordered to cease and desist,” Yael said, voice amplified by a spell from Quiette Shy, “By the…”

Kraber

“.. authority of the PHL,” Ze’ev said, “for your role in the destruction of Portland, the Sfax Raid, murder of countless innocents, and–”

Kraber looked over his shoulder. Saw the helicopter.

He heard Gardner’s voice in his head.

“Nobody is going to stop us. Come on, think about how many things you did. You’ve operated illegal checkpoints and stolen from people. You’ve shot up and extorted refugee camps. And then there’s how you must’ve treated your wife.”

Kraber would wish he thought to say something. That he had some answer.

Instead, panicking, realizing that he had a cannon aimed at him, he whipped out his stolen Beretta and started firing. Two three-round bursts ripped through the summer air, towards the helicopter.

Yael

Her shoulder exploded with pain.

She staggered backwards, left hand to her right shoulder, breathing heavily. And, maybe it was just her, maybe it wasn’t, but it felt like the helicopter shook lightly.

‘Don’t let me fall don’t let me fall don’t let me fall– Kraber, you bastard.’

Kraber

‘Oh, shit!’

He stared at the Beretta like he was holding a bomb that’d just armed itself all on its own. His eyes tracked from the sights, all the way up to the helicopter. At Yael off-balance, close to the Obregon that they were using as a door gun.

At Heliotrope.

Logically, Kraber knew he was too far away from the ~~gluestick~~ pony to see the expression on her face.

But, probably due to a logical guess, he knew that her face was contorted in anger.

Heliotrope

‘NO NO NO NO…’

It was like Heliotrope was staring at herself lying on the street in Varosha, bleeding to death from an artery under the wing.

‘You helped us,’she thought frantically, ‘and now, you didn’t listen. You’re dead.’

She rushed towards the door Yael had occupied. Spreading her wings, and flying towards the Obregon.

“YAEL!” Quiette Shy yelled, catching the tall Israeli woman in her TK.

Heliotrope hit the spade grips of the cannon, swinging it so hard towards the helicopter it was near parallel to the doors.

Her hooves stuck to the grips, and she felt energy spreading from her hooves over the triggers. She’d done this before. Held weaponry, tools, and other things against her hooves, but it’d been years since she’d fired weaponry without a mouth trigger.

The massive gun fired, its barrel lighting up the early-morning light of the Atlantic. The barrel rotated slightly.

Kraber

A plume of steaming water sprayed up, spattering the windshield.

‘They’re shooting back,’Kraber thought, amazed, ‘with a goddamn cannon.’

He stood, transfixed, as the gun tracked towards him.

‘Might be a good way to go out,’ he thought. ‘Besides, I was enough of a boef they wouldn’t even try to keep me alive.’

So he stood there for a second that felt like an eternity. Watching. Waiting.

Heliotrope

She didn’t want to stop. This was Kraber. The man that’d shot her, committed countless atrocities during the Europe Evacuation, and had lied to them. Been part of the shelling of Portland.

She aimed down towards the engine, a fraction of a fraction of a movement.

Kraber

The cannon or whatever the fok it was fired, and time seemed to freeze.

“You’re not going to stop here,” someone said. It sounded for all the world like Kate’s voice, whispering in his ear. Or maybe it wasn’t. Who knew.

‘You know,’ he heard himself thinking, ‘maybe you don’twant to die?’

“You gotta admit,” Victory said, “that’s infallible logic. Besides, if you die you can’t eat pancakes anymore.

That was a fair point. Kraber bent over in a running start, ready to fling himself off the bow. His feet were just at the tip when–

‘...Shit’

He felt himself being flung from the deck of the boat, and a wave of heat licking at his back. He felt weightless, and somewhere in his mind, was dimly aware that the ocean was beneath him.

Kraber slammed against the surface of the water, and everything around him went dark.

Yael

She wasn’t going to die. It’d just been a couple 9mm rounds to body armor, at fairly long range, and they hadn’t hit anything vital.

But it had taken her by surprise, and it had hurt. Yael stood up, breathing heavily and looking over to the three others in her helicopter. Oscar Mikkelsen, Quiette Shy, Heliotrope. Plus Tetsuko and Tumbleweed, the pilots.

“Did you get him?” Yael asked, looking over to Heliotrope, who stood behind the MP20 Obregon, rearing up on her hindlegs.

The barrel was smoking slightly.

“Did we really need to do that?” Tumbleweed yelled back from her seat.

“I don’t know,” Yael said, quietly. But…

She’d wanted Kraber taken down for a while. There’d been the awful things he’d done in Tunisia, the Innsbruck and Graz massacres. The Equestrian prisoners whom the Menschabwehrfraktion had shot.

And now, she’d wanted answers. Answers that… she wasn’t getting.

She didn’t regret it, but she also didn’t feel satisfied. It was hard to say just what that meant.

Heliotrope was touching her right foreleg to a spot on her left side, just under one of her wings, wincing slightly – but still, she looked triumphant.

“That’s for the time you shot me, you bastard!” the pegasus called down to the flaming wreckage of the speedboat.

“Heliotrope,” Yael said shakily, “We… just killed a man with an autocannon.”

Heliotrope

Of course they had.

“I thought you were going to die,” Heliotrope said somberly. “You, stumbling, falling back-first into the ocean…”

Yael nodded.

“I panicked- He’d nearly killed me, and… I just couldn’t bear losing you too.”

“I wasn’t going to fall,” Yael said.

“I couldn’t tell at the time,” Heliotrope explained. “And he’d already made it clear we weren’t going to capture him.”

“That is true,” Yael said, nodding. “I… guess we’re done.”

“Yeah,” Heliotrope said. “We did what we had to.”

Something about those words didn’t feel right, though.

‘No,’she thought. ‘Kraber’s gone. My friend’s alive. And Gardner said there’s plenty more people from Defiance to capture, right? It’s going to be fine. Isn’t it? We did what we had to.’

Dancing Day
December 2022

“But you didn’t die, right?” Dancing Day asks.

Everyone – Kraber, Aegis, even Yael Ze’ev and Heliotrope on their videochat – looks right at Dancing Day.

“...Fokkin nogal?!” Kraber says, not mad, just supremely confused. “How in the… What the fokkin’... I… How loskop can jy–”

He sighs.

“Sorry. No need… I’m here, aren’t I?” he asks. “So clearly, I survived having... bietjie-baie MP20 Obregon shells?”

“About seven,” Heliotrope supplies. “I’ll have to ask Oscar.”

“Izzit?!” Kraber asks, a smile spreading across his face. “Eish. About seventeen MP20 Obregon shells hitting my boat.”

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask how you survived that,” Yael says.

“I jumped off right before the shells hit the boat, the explosion must’ve made it look like I was caught in the blast,” Kraber says.

“Let me rephrase that,” Yael says. “How you managed to survive while being set on fire-”

“Fell in the ocean?” Aegis suggests. At which point Kraber nods, clearly thinking something along the lines of ‘sounds about right.’

“And without being cut apart by shrapnel or hit by the shockwave,” Yael continues, without missing a beat. “And without being noticed.”

Kraber is about to answer, stops himself, then frowns. “Aweh, thaaaaaat one I don’t have an answer to.”

“Look,” Heliotrope says, “Maybe it’s just not that important. I mean, like Aegis said, we’ve seen Viktor die–”

“Nearly die,” Dancing Day interrupts.

“Nearly die,” Heliotrope says, “like four times now.”

“It’s closer to five,” Aegis points out.

Author's Note

Author’s Notes

Footnotes4:

1 A lot of Division E is griffon expats, rebels, and dissidents from outside the Solar Empire. The idea was a show of solidarity with Equestria's enemies as a united front. Unfortunately, this was a complete failure in gaining Russia any political power. Not only did Lyra have more momentum, but it backfired on Griffonstone, leaving them heavily neglected by the Solar Empire. And yes, I absolutely did pull this out of my butt when I made this chapter.

2 Honestly it just made sense for there to be a Chinese equivalent, if I was just going to add in a Russian version. I literally do not know anything else about them.

3Pork-barrel project is an American term for "the appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district."

4I’m probably not going to have many footnotes in the future, these chapters are huge enough without you having to routinely move to the bottom. But in my defense, it would’ve disrupted the flow to define these midway through, and that’s everything in making a HUEG CHAPTER like this readable. The next one will probablybe shorter.

Hopefully.

Jed, if you’re reading this, pleasehelp me keep it under 9001 words.

~ Jed
I am reading this, and I will make sure it is EXACTLY 9001 words, because I love an old meme.

Comments:

Fluffy: How the SHIT did this chapter get so big

But anyway. Some of you might be wondering: “What was with Gardner and Summers there?!” And, well, like Spitfire said: “Gardner was the kind of soldier who lets their service give them an Alicorn complex, and it caught up with him.”

I’m sure many of us on Team Spectrum can confirm that it’s definitely possible for soldiers to seemingly develop god complexes, likely due to putting their lives on the line in a country’s military. I can easily see how they’d start seeing their opinion as mattering more than the usual civilian’s. We’re intimately acquainted with this toxic tendency due to our shared interest in Robert Heinlein’s novel Starship Troopers, and what the fuck do you think I’m referencing of course I mean Red

Meanwhile, Summers is sort of like that – but he believes that since he’s preventing the apocalypse, anything he does is justified. He’s less obsessed with his own power than Gardner, he’s more of an attack dog that happens to be serving under a sociopath.

Smoky is just an enabler.

VoxAdam: I don’t ordinarily pen a co-writer’s note for Light Despondent, mainly since I edit and proofread the story, or share the occasional exchange with Doc on lore ideas, more than I serve as a real co-writer. Which may be for the best, because following on from the message Doc left above for Jed, I know well that I’m not the person you want to bring down the word-count!

However, I got a little closer to the action with the preceding chapter – which I’ll just name Chapter 12, ‘Philistine’ for the sake of convenience, rather than reproduce Doc’s habit of naming chapters after multiple songs in full. You could say that, not being a chapter too concerned with the word-count, it was well-suited to my capacities. :-p Same in that regard with this chapter, though we both made a more concerted effort at restraint here.

I think my foremost contribution here, besides looking up the geography of Portland and Maine – places I’ve never once had a chance to visit in my life – was to find myself ping-ponging ideas with Doc for the PHL’s debriefing scene, to employ an expression I like. Readers who’ve read OG Spectrum and the previous iteration of Light Despondent where this story is headed with the town of Defiance, and this time, our aim was for it to make sense. And more importantly, to not be the product of some truly lamentable militarism, as decried by Doc in his comments on OG Spectrum and Starship Troopers.

I have not read the book, but I do love the film. Would you like to know more?

~Vox

14: This Is Not My Life / Don't Lose Your Way

Light Despondent Remixed

Chapter 14

This Is Not my Life / Don’t Lose Your Way / Little Talks

Sometime I feel like the shit, sometime I feel like I'm shit
Sometime I wanna stand for somethin', then sometime wanna sit
Didn't really plan on cussin', but sometime it just slip…

..The way I feel tonight, I think I'll wear these shades
For the rest of my life
– Gorillaz, Doyathing

Kraber was not floating.

He was not in the ocean. He was not about to do this again. He was not going to see everything fall apart around him again, and worse.

He was really in Britain this whole time.

He was in a line with a hundred other soldiers, each of them standing to attention. Their uniforms were jet black, with bulky body armor and full face masks. No two soldiers were identical, though – each of them had messages painted onto their armor in whites and reds, and all of them had at least one trophy. Some of them had small repurposed pieces of golden and silver armor attached to their body armor. Others had necklaces of teeth, and a handful – he felt ~~almost sick~~ proud – had skulls on spikes attached to their backs like grim banners.

He himself had seven tails that he had ripped from their former owners sewn onto the cloth of his black long uniform overcoat. Each one was a great commander of the Equestrian Royal Guard, and each had fought well. These trophies were testament to his skill.

They were, in a way, the reason he was here at all.

“Each and every one of you has served humanity to the fullest,” a voice was saying.

He could not see the speaker, but he felt a – strange and unnerving – combination of fear and pride at that voice. It was soft, almost whispered, and yet it echoed and filled the room where they all stood.

“You have sacrificed in the name of Earth. You have given your blood and your toil to her, and you have been rewarded with life at the close of this war. We stand victorious over the bodies of every Equestrian that has stood in our way. The Tyrant lies dead at our feet.”

Kraber swelled with pride. He had played his part in this victory. He had stood his ground against the horde. Though the final battle had been one man's victory, every soldier here had fought hard to win him the time to fight that victory.

“Those ponies who resisted are dead,” the voice continued. “Those who were amenable now serve to rebuild what their Mistress laid low. Their freedom is a small price to pay for their lives.”

Kraber thought about the many Equestrians who toiled outside in the work camps even as the voice spoke. He scowled at the thought of them. Many of the little varknaaiers had claimed to not support what the Tyrant had done – but if they didn't support it, where had they been when mankind had burned? Where had they been when less than three million of them finally broke the Tyrant's last assault? And when their champion had marched into Equestria and slain Sol Invictus and Commander Sparkle and thousands of others alone, a tornado, a hurricane... when the last chance to step forward and make their difference had come... where had they been?

One of the indentured, an overly-large stallion, nearly the size of a small Earth-born horse, with strong, hard eyes, had yelled at Kraber as they patrolled the occupied lands. He had screamed about having a family, about how this wasn’t fair or just.

“So did I,” Kraber had said, too quietly for him or the stallion to hear any emotion in his voice.

Not that it mattered. He had shot the stallion and crucified the corpse at the head of the work camp entrance as an example. There would be no dissent. No protest. No anything. These ponies had had their chance to make amends for their kind, had had their chance to stand by the human race in their hour of need, and they had never come. Mankind, alone and confined to one island, had stood against the tide and, though they had suffered more than anything had any right to, they had survived.

This was their retribution. And, much as some people over in London grumbled about it, they needed the work camps. The country’s industry was shot, they needed minerals and iron to rebuild anything like pre-war infrastructure.

‘How many of those people are using devices or vehicles built with metal from work camps?’ he wondered. ‘Fokkin’ hypocrites.’

“Some,” the voice continued, shaking Kraber from his reminiscences, “may say that we have won. That now we may rebuild our shattered world. And it is true, there is much work to accomplish.” There was a pause. “The Converted, our erstwhile kin, need to be tended to. We must salvage what we may of them that they might once more become as part of us, and that they might rule over the natural-born Equestrias and keep watch over them– in time, maybe even guide them to become more than they are, and if nothing else, keep them from ever again standing against us." Another pause. “But we are not done.”

Kraber frowned. Not done? Had they not fokking suffered enough? This was insane. What was this? What was that voice? What was he remembering...?

“I have stepped into the darkest chambers of Canterlot,” the voice continued, and Kraber's eyes narrowed in hatred at the very mention of that place. “Within those cursed halls I have seen a device. A thing that has shown me other worlds. Other Earths, other Equestrias.”

Kraber frowned in confusion. Other Equestrias? Other worlds? What was this kak?

“I have seen a thousand worlds where the Tyrant marches,” the voice pressed on. “She goes by many names and has many forms. Queen Celestia, Astra Solamina Maxima, Ra-Abaddon, Solaris, Corona, The Dark Star, Stella Imperatrix Supremus... but whatever the name, she is the enemy of humanity, our darkest foe.”

And now the owner of the voice stepped into view at the head of the line of men, and Kraber swelled with pride – and his heart almost stopped in his chest. The figure wore a full set of ornate, pitch black knightly armor. Slung over his shoulder was a sword as long as him. The blade was tempered steel and the hilt looked almost as though it were made of black marble. No face could be seen, but two burning, almost glowing eyes could be seen behind the slit in his helmet visor. Seven locks of mane hung from his belt, one for each of the Elements of Order and one for their foul Mistress.

This was the man who had slain the Tyrant, the man who had risen from nothing to lead the last armies of Mankind for four years alongside Constantine the Mad. The man who took them from the brink of hellish mindless purgatory to the hooves of Celestia herself. This was the Nameless, the Avatar.

And Kraber was terrified. Was this a vision of a world where everything that could have gone wrong, would go wrong?

Had already gone wrong?

It’s a shame, isn’t it? This was gone, once. This deserved better than it got.

who said that

And was this man he was... this... other him... and that was as crazy a concept as any... was he the man Kraber would become? No, no. That wasn’t right. He’d left, things had changed too much for this to happen. But still, it felt too close for comfort.

Kraber blinked as the Avatar approached him.

“You have all served with distinction and valour,”he said, and Kraber felt the urge to bow his head. He resisted and kept looking directly ahead. “There is not a warrior here who has not proved their mettle on the field.”

Again, Kraber swelled with pride. Yet this... person’s... praise was terrifying, if it was even a person under there anymore. The longer he looked at it, the more he felt like it was just something shaped like a person. And tried his best not to grin beneath his own mask...

“I have brought you here to offer you a special honor,” the Avatar continued. He paced along the line and Kraber stifled a sigh of relief at his passing. “Those other worlds are a threat. This Equestria came to our home and threatened it with war. This Equestria reached beyond the veil of the multiverse and nearly destroyed us. There is no way of knowing whether others will seek the same thing. Therefore... we shall go to them.”

What?

“We shall seek them out. We shall find every threat to mankind across creation, and we shall crush them. Every Celestia– every Solamina, every Solaris, every Corona, every Stella Imperatrix, every Ra-Abaddon. All of them will die beneath our blades."

Fok no. Fok that fokking shit right the fok now. You can stop, you know.

Then why don’t you?

Because I

“It will mean suffering and pain. It will mean hardship and the burden of responsibility, the likes of which you have not yet come to comprehend. It will be a life of unending war. You may never see this world again.”

He paused. “I will not ask any one of you to commit to this life. Only those who accept this burden will face it. Do you accept it?!”

Every warrior was silent for a moment, but Kraber needed no time to think. (‘...Don't do it, jou fokkin chopkont, don't you even fokking dare...’) He had lost everything already. There was nothing left but duty – and vengeance.

“I accept!” he yelled, stepping forward one pace.

The Avatar looked at him, but Kraber did not falter.

“I accept!” another man, Eric Smith, yelled a moment later, also stepping forward.

“I accept!” came the voice of Manfred Stein further up the line.

One by one, every warrior in the line stepped forward, each one accepting the hardship promised by their leader. Though none could see his face – though none of them even knew what he looked like under that armor – Kraber imagined him grinning.

And yet he felt so cold...

“Good,” he said. He stepped up to Kraber first and placed a hand on the man's chest.

‘For God’s sake! THINK!’ Kraber screamed wordlessly at the other him. ‘Think about what the fok you’ve agreed to! About… Ask yourself! Please! I’ve done this– I might be younger than you, but… I swore to do this! I swore to exterminate all those fokking gluesticks, go in skop skiet and donner and fill them with lead, and it’s destroyed me! No family! No friends but fokking kontgesigs that just want to kill and kill and kill some more! It’s hell!’

“You have all suffered, brothers and sisters,” the Avatar said. “But now we shall deliver that suffering tenfold. Each of you shall become like me. Each of you shall have magics and augmentations that make you the equal of the worst of the Tyrants. I promise you, Viktor– one day, with Excalibur as my witness, you will have as many manes on your belt as I do mine– all of them."

That kind of power... the power to slay Elements... to slay Tyrants...yeah. To keep anyone from feeling like him, ever again. That sounded good. But something stirred...

‘One question,’ he thought, and he was surprised to hear the words coming from the one he saw below...

“Question.”

He, the self from Maine and the Sorghum, spoke through Kraber – the other one, thirty-six or thereabouts – and he was surprised to hear himself.

It was him talking, his own voice overlaid over his own. “What if we find a Celestia that has not done anything? One that knows nothing of us? One that is... dare I say it, innocent? Are you truly guilty if you haven’t done anything yet? Perhaps… we could teach her what she would do. And help in our crusade.”

The hand of the Avatar was retracted, and Kraber sensed he was pondering the question honestly.

“There is no such thing as innocence, Viktor,” he replied grimly.

oh no

“Only degrees of guilt. And you... all of you... shall be the iron fist that punishes it in the name of mankind.”

Kraber looked into those eyes. Those fiery eyes, eyes that had seen death and promised more... and he believed.

“NO YOU FOKKING DON’T!” Kraber screamed at the other him. “I fokking hate Celestia, I don’t like ponies any more than you… But think! He wants you to attack ponies that haven’t so much as heard of us!”

The other him –- this broken, terrible man with seven ponytails sewn into his coat – was impassive as he faded away.

“For God’s sake, was I always?! This! Much! Of! A! CHOPKONT?!” Kraber yelled. “YOU’LL REGRET THIS, JOU FOKKIN BLIKSEM!”

“Hrm?” the other him asked, and–

–The vision blurred, faded into blackness like smoke and fire, and Kraber thought he could hear a voice screaming in the darkness, the sound of battle behind him. And the voice, though deeper and colder and raspier than he hoped to ever be his own voice sound, was him.

“I am Viktor Kraber! I am the slayer of the twelfth Celestia, the fourteenth Pinkie Pie, the thirtieth Sparkle, the butcher of the Legion of Nightmare Corona and the doom of General Aegis the Giant! I wear the skulls of Kings, the manes of Gods! I am the iron fist of the Avatar! I am death! Now FACE ME AND BURN!”

The warrior, the him that was the iron fist of that dark knight, was changed beyond all recognition. He wore some kind of advanced plate armor that wouldn't have looked out of place in a gothic science-fantasy. It was massive, bulky and yet moved as fluidly as cloth. Runes glowed all over the armor, and the flayed skin of a pink horse was hung from one great pauldron, while a symbol that Kraber didn't recognise was hung from the other.

This... this was the darkest point. The very pits of evil. A man who had seen things Kraber couldn’t have dreamed, and never blinked. A man who had walked the spaces between worlds as the herald of doom. This was a man who looked at all the horrors Viktor had performed in his time with the HLF, every butchery, every murder, all of it... and he called it a slow Tuesday.

“Aegis is my china, you kontgesig!” he heard someone yell, a woman who was and was not him. “My china! SHUT YOUR FOKKING FACE!”

“You realize that you’ll die if you fight me,” he felt himself say. There was pity there, but no remorse – only a cold edge that promised quick death.

Okay, this one might’ve been nice to be if only for a bit

I’ll try anything at least once

“Ja,” said the woman who was and was not him. Victoria Kraber, he supposed. “But it’s me between you and him, or his children.” She looked up at the other him, defiant, light machinegun held out. “Come at me, jou fokkin kontgesig.”

There she was. Facing an unstoppable engine of destruction, just a machinegun and a scant few grenades, looking out at a burning landscape, and daring him to kill her.

Kraber wished, desperately, that he could be so brave.

And, as the other him, the monster that had strode between worlds, looked upon her, he wished he could be anything but that, and found himself screaming that

this had to stop

When Captain Grey got to the engineering deck, they’d pulled Twilight out of the column, gently as possible. Doctor Viktor Kraber, the chief medical officer (‘Why am I surprised thinking that? I’ve always been a doctor, haven’t I?’) was there too, his bushy beard bristling, his pale blue medical uniform decidedly unkempt.

“There you are!” he said when he saw Grey. “I can’t believe you let her do this! What the absolute fok, Captain?!”

“What happened?” Grey asked one of the engineers, deliberately ignoring Kraber.

‘Kontgesig doesn’t care,’ Kraber thought. ‘As long as he gets his results.’

“I don’t know, sir!” the engineer said, sounding nervous. No surprises there: Grey made everyone nervous. “During the jump she just… she just went stiff, stopped responding.”

“Sir,” Kraber said, scowling, “she’s fokkin’ catatonic.”

“Catatonic?” Grey repeated, frowning as he finally turned to address Kraber. “That’s never happened in the test jumps.”

“This was much further than the test jumps,” Kraber retorted, scowling. “I already told you, sir, that she’d strained her nervous system doing these things.”

“She knew the risks,” Grey said quietly.

“Did she?!” Kraber asked scathingly.

“Better than you, Doctor Kraber,” Grey snapped, looking him in the eye. “Or are you seriously suggesting that Twilight Sparkle miscalculated the potential effects of her invention?”

“I’m suggesting that Twilight Sparkle has a history of self-destructive behaviours that prevent her from adequately taking her own health into consideration. Anyone that knows her would know that,” Kraber retorted hotly, “and instead of taking that into account, reeling her back before self-care made its way to the prestigious spot of last in her list after some gentle prodding from yours truly while planning the design and use of your new favourite toy, you decided to enable her self destructive insanity!”

Grey scowled, before taking a breath to calm himself down. “Get her to sickbay, find out what her situation is. Get me a report as soon as you can.”

Kraber struggled to keep himself from punching Grey in the face, but Grey didn’t even wait for him to decide. He turned and stalked off.

Before he could shout after him, punch something, swear, anything, the ground buckled, Kraber fell back again...

...And he felt tired. He felt old, more than anything. Fok’s sake, he was thirty-six! But… thirty-six was older than he had any right to be. Older than the age itself had any right to be. He’d seen over a decade of battle, of the world gone to shit, all but for one island.

"Angel, angel, what have I done?
I faced the quakes, the wind, the fire.
I've conquered country, crown and throne.
Why can't I cross this river?"

He’d seen everything. He’d seen Converted militia, he’d seen his pozzy destroyed, he’d seen Barrierfall in Britain… he’d seen the Avatar of Albion himself at the height of his glory, the battle in the sky between him and that hondenaaier Solamina… God, that battle...

He held his Bren gun at the ready, focusing himself. He was already dead, and the dead didn’t get distracted by anything. The dead had purpose, and they fulfilled it until some fokker was lucky enough to send their body the same way their soul had gone.

He steeled himself. He was ready. There was a Webley riding his hip, and a sword at his back he'd taken from a Knight who'd never need it again. Lucky he'd learned how to handle one–

This wasn’t right. He’d had sword lessons from Burakgazi, but he’d been shite at them!

...and now he was talking to the Undead, the tall man’s face obscured by the same death mask gas mask they all wore.

“Kraber, isn’t it?”

“Ja, sir. Joined when I heard South Africa was gone. People kept saying I was lucky. If I'm fokking lucky, my family burned in the Barrier and didn't get ponified by the PER."

No word. No anything except madness and thousands of homeless people struggling to live and all the while wondering what would happen when the Barrier finally reached them… except it never had, and instead there had been war, and a chance for even the Dead to seek revenge. Stuck in Britain, with only the khakis and a few million from other places, with nowhere to run.

‘This is what would happen, isn’t it? No ability to trust ponies till it’s too late and we’re down to millions instead of billions,’ Kraber realized.

And yet, instinctively, he knows that’s not what happened here. But it could be. Not Britain, but somewhere... Whatever it is… it still left him without a family. Dear God, why couldn’t he see visions of happy things? It’s always got to be horrible fokking doom.

"Not knowing is the worst," said another man quietly, a Frenchman named Pierre Dupont that he had joined up with in the early days.

Yeah, that was true.

‘No,’ Kraber realized. ‘It’ll be worse. Not like there’ll be ponies willing to help… We’ll have made PER of all of them.’

“This is why we have purpose, brothers,” the Undead assured him, and Kraber believed him. The Undead had always inspired that. "Kraber, I want you to lay down suppressing fire. When they're suppressed, we'll charge."

“Excellent,” Kraber said, smiling.

The Undead turned to look at the approaching group of militia ponies, as though waiting for the perfect moment. Kraber trusted the man – he was as nuts as the rest of them, but he was a good leader.

“Now!” the Undead called suddenly.

“Booyah motherfokkers!” Kraber yelled, and his Bren Gun barked out a deep staccato rhythm, the heavier bullets simply cutting the ponies apart. Three ponies from the head of the militia group dropped, spurts of blood exploding from the impacts. The rest of the ponies take cover, suppressed, though a bunch of spells flew in the direction of the Dead Men. One impacted on the rubble near Kraber, and then he cursed, grabbing at his gas mask. The fokking convies had broken it! Ah, fok, he needed a new one now!

“Right!” he said angrily, drawing the sword and looking at the Undead. “That’s it! Tell me it’s time, sir!”

“They’re suppressed, Kraber,” the Undead said, and Kraber figured the man was probably grinning. “Everyone, charge!”

And, right as Kraber stepped forward, opening fire…

...he was somewhere else.

Kraber scrambled awake in a bedroom.

It was kind of hard to say what part of that sentence surprised him more. That somehow he’d gotten to a bedroom. That it was clean. That he felt dry. That…

‘Shouldn’t I be kind of… dead right now?’

The sheets were soft. The room was clean. And things suddenly felt like they’d fallen back into place.

Maybe… maybe the small, dark-colored mare writing in crayon on the wall could answer that question. What was she writing? Couldn’t be that important.

‘We are… something.’ he read.

“Hello?” Kraber asked, looking down at the mare. “Could you–”

“Change the war, Viktor,” she said, and Kraber saw what she’d been writing.

‘We are in hell – HELP US!’

Her head snapped back in the direction of Kraber, and he saw it was Pinkie Pie, her eyes blank and pupil-less.

“SAVE MY SOUL!”

Kraber stepped back, staring wide-eyed at her. And then, to his surprise. “This? Again? Really?” he asked, taken aback by his own calm.

“Afraid so. We never got to meet like we were supposed to,” she said, sadly.

Kraber couldn’t convince himself to say anything else there. She looked like a little girl there, small and vulnerable. Like none of this could have happened.

That was the last thought he had before the floor tilted, and he felt himself falling back towards the bed and then through it, into–

not again
For the love of God, not again
Let us just be happy, let Pinkie be happy too, I don’t want thi

”The driver was fine. The driver’s always fine.”

This is something Kraber has heard from a friend back in Boston. Whenever Howard or Kate were doing anything with their friends, they ended up asking Kraber to be the designated driver.

Howard had been saying it to explain how Kraber was their rabbit’s foot in this case. How Kraber would always be the focal point of any police attention. How, in a truck full of drunk college students and maybe one underage girl, Kraber could have pounded back an amount of beers, confessed to the kerels, and inexplicably gotten off without a ticket or even a warning.

Of course. Howard’s little brother Shameik was wheelchair-bound ever since he got hit by a drunk driver, so Kraber was never really sure what to take from that one. The driver’s always fine, even when he shouldn’t be?

And now, here Kraber was, repeating that little Howard-ism over a kid who’d probably only just gotten his driver’s license. And the kid’s back was

as shattered as Kraber’s would be about 3 years from then, with broken scapulas as shattered as mine were on April 7th of 2017,which was funny because Kraber had broken one at the first moment of his existence, isn’t it, and wait what how are you doing this

bad, with a very likely concussion, broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and broken scapulas,

Just like Doctor Fluffy Nny had suffered once

leaving him bedridden and in crippling pain. Kraber could sort of understand this. He'd been in the hospital for awhile after he'd jumped off a bridge that time back in college.

This was Dietrich Zoller.

The child of local celebrities. His father had been a big local skier, and then he’d done something truly terrible to his back.

The only cure, it seemed, was ponification. His wife had gone along with it, leaving Dietrich the lone human in the house.

Dietrich had some unsettling things to say about life as the Only Human In The House.

“Dn’ even r’member my name,” Dietrich slurred.

(Of course, this was not word for word what he’d said, he’d talked in German, not English, but Kraber would have to translate it to English later while storytelling.)

“Dn’ care, they barel’ feed me,” Dietrich was slurring. “Get me… t’ some oth’r hospital, get me ‘way from em… they’re gonna dose me while sleep...”

Viktor Kraber listens solemnly.

Well. Tries. Because he radiates an aura of “Fok-julle-naaiers” so intense that it’s impossible for Dietrich not to see it through a drugged out haze. He clearly Does Not Want To Be There. Understandable, really. What kind of fokkin’ kontgesig made someone work on their kids’ birthday when they’d scheduled it a month in advance?

See, this kid’s car crash coincides with Anka and Peter’s birthday party. Which is pony-themed. Peter didn’t want that, would’ve been happy with something involving the outdoors, but he’d gone along with it for his sister.

And here he is.

“Viktor,” Kate had said once, “You’re going to want to quit.”

“I love helping people,” Kraber had said, “I can’t just…”

“You burn yourself on both ends,” she said simply. “That’s what you’ve always done.”

Kraber understood that better than he ever had at this moment. He’d just finished time in the operating room, performing a spinal fusion on Dietrich’s back.

‘Well fok,’ Kraber thought, looking down at the two screws in the kid’s spine, ‘he’s not going to have a fun time taking planes any time soon.’

Blood misted against his rubber gloves.

Finally, it was done.

Kraber walked towards the operating room’s exit, dropping his gloves in the box.

“It’s my kids birthday,” Kraber said, “I’m out.”

“But–” Dermail started, walking towards Kraber. “You–”

“I asked for today off,” Kraber said. “You force me to stay one more minute and I swear to God, you will end up on that fokking operating table.”

Nobody felt like contesting that. Kraber’s record from his four tumultuous years in the States spoke for itself.

As Kraber slipped into his Audi, there was one thing he couldn’t get out of his mind.

Dietrich’s parents were going to sell the car. His car. His parents were apparently more and more distant from him.

That was… worrying. There’s something he doesn’t like about Newfoals, something his mother has spent months researching. There is a shifting under the skin of the world.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we are not alone. There is life out there, and they’re friendly!’

Even though the rate of Conversion has plateaued – though at a higher rate than he would have expected – Equestria is pushing for a mass expansion of their facilities, as if expecting an influx of willing converts… but he can’t rightly say why they are.

He will later suspect a cocktail of spells, suggestion, and pheromones inveigling their way into the general populace and the political establishment, for how else could humans have jumped on that bandwagon so fast? Kagan will support this theory.

He’s called upon his old chommies, the few that he's still in contact with – God only knows what Polo's up to now – and they're various shades of unnerved. Though there's funny news as well, specially about Helen’s sister Corinne, the one they bombarded with horse porn, but that’s cut off when Helen says she herself has now joined the Harriet Thomas Foundation, and she’s terrified.

And Heather, who ended up staying in Boston, nursing at the hospital there, passed along a really disturbing bit of information about a particular patient from last year, a graphic artist. It was one of the rare cases where the resulting Newfoal was so unequivocally different in temperament and attitude that it was impossible to deny something was seriously wrong. Heather is now convinced that whatever the serum did, whatever mental rewiring it entailed (“Of course it rewires them, you sure as Hell don’t have the muscle memory to walk on four legs like a quadruped!”) is far more extreme than anyone realizes, outright destroying identity at worst.

Heather felt very sorry for that poor artist’s daughter as well. She’d apparently reacted, well… saying she’d reacted ‘poorly’ would be like calling the ocean a body of water. The poor girl had gone nuts, that was how Heather put it. Her screams of “THAT’S NOT MY MOTHER!” had carried through the entire hospital, until the police had to be called in to secure the girl and arrest the father for attacking a representative assigned by the Equestrian consulate...

In the future, Kraber will make it inside the Innsbruck Bureau with a load of satchel charges and bathtub semtex, and the battle cries die in his throat. Even when he is telling a room of ponies and humans about this story, he will never say what he has seen inside Bureaus. He’ll soon have an impressive count of Bureau bombings to his name, but he shall never speak about it. All anyone will know about the Innsbruck Bureau is that he had just stepped inside, and simply decided to kill anything that moved and blown the place to hell.

...Peter and Anka do not like the Bureaus or the Newfoals, a fact upon which the man agrees. He also does not like Reitman’s–

‘Who the shit is Reitman?’ Kraber wonders.

insistence on ponification serum being the Grand Panacea, the Cure-All-Elixir. He has seen her and that odd unicorn Catseye together on TV, and it is as if they are fundamentally the same, two appendages of the same body.

There are colleagues of his who want to use the serum as well, though the hospital has heavy restrictions on its use. They claim that the serum has been too easily accepted, without sufficient long-term testing – oh, how wrong that will eventually prove to be, the serum was tested and refined for years!

But his mother has done her own extensive tests, and the preliminary results disturb him beyond belief. They indicated that, without exception, Newfoals eventually show an almost complete dissociation from previously-treasured passions, possessions, peoples and philosophies, becoming almost completely different people. And now there’s PER. People who don’t care if you want to be pony and have started making the choice for you.

One of them had tried to proselytize to Kraber while he was out on a family walk. Pointed out that Anka might’ve been happier if she was ponified, on account of her auti–

Kraber cold-cocked the PER member and stole their wallet.

Kraber’s home is close. Kate wants it to be temporary, it maybe it will be. Despite everything, she loves that her husband’s job brings in so much money. She also loves skiing, as it turned out back in college – which was kind of a surprise to everyone. She’s thinking it might be nice to move back to America someday once Kraber has finished this nepotism-fueled residency, find a ski area so Kraber can always have brisk business treating extreme sports injuries. Maybe somewhere on the East Coast, cause Boston will always be in driving distance. Or maybe Colorado or Utah, maybe they can be in Park City, and go to Sundance.

That, Kate thinks, would be amazing. She could learn so much about film, and maybe, just maybe, have an in one day. And maybe they could get a giant malamute. And he’d be the perfect pillow. The width of Kate’s ideas blows Kraber away whenever he hears her talk. While he misses Cape Town, the problem is that she’s not going back there. In part because Kraber keeps blikseming people enough, and there’s no reason to make the problem worse.

Kraber’s still thinking about that as he pelts out of the car. Finally. Dietrich is fine, and that asshole who made him come in on his children’s fokdamn birthday party. He’s going to talk to Kate about it too. He’s going to say it, finally – Dermail is a piece of kak, and he wants to take Kate home. He’s even looking forward to Kate telling him not to kick Dermail in the face.

Today is April 23rd 2019, his children’s birthday. Peter and Anka turn five today. The twins were an unexpected blessing (never an ‘accident’) that came during that production of Trainspotting that he was in, and he has been through hell for them and Kate.

And I’m about to go through more, aren’t I? He asks.

He’s looking forward to seeing what she’s baked as he steps up to the front door. Perhaps because of her preternatural skill in the kitchen, she tells Kraber that he must never refer to her skin as ‘chocolate-colored’. That’s a food, she says. You might get to eat me up, but nobody else does. Besides, it’s annoying when urban fantasy does that. He is looking forward to welcoming hugs, kisses, or Anka and Peter insulting Dermail. He knows the kids shouldn’t hear some of the stuff he’s said about Dermail in plain view of her, but he’s secretly proud of them.

‘My kids know three languages!’

He wishes so much that he could have been around to see Pinkie Pie create the party. It just seems to fit. Pinkie seems to him like an adult with the partying capacity of a teenager, and the bubbly sugar-driven enthusiasm of a child, which Peter and Anka will love. The man muses on this, the noise in his head drowning out the terrible, deafening silence coming from his house.

No, I don’t want to do it again!

Don’t do it you kontgesig

YOU SON OF A

When he opens the door, he expects a great, bonecrushing hug from his wife. He expects Anka to laugh and smile and for all the anger he has for being forced to work on his children’s birthday to just melt away. Perhaps Anka will be wearing a horse costume. A brown unitard with a tail. Silly, he admits it, but he helped make it for a ballet recital – who would have guessed that skill at stitching up wounds from industrial accidents also translates to sewing fake manes onto costumes? – and she loves the thing.

It is a struggle to get her not to wear it in day in and day out, but the man loves her even so. Even with his friends in attendance, judging by the girls and ponies Anka has invited, poor Peter will no doubt have already been forced into a matching costume, whether he likes it or not.

The man is also hoping Pinkie Pie hasn’t had to leave for her next appointment. He caught a lucky break in managing to secure her services today, but apparently she has a soft-spot for twins. To his amazement, she refused to accept any of his hard-won cash, saying over the phone she’s happy simple to help ponies ‘smile, Smile, SMILE!’

It’s odd that she limited her definition to ‘ponies’, but her presumes its force of habit for her. From what he’s seen and heard, she seems like a nice pony, and expects a good hug from her too…

...Perhaps he’ll get a quiet conversation with her, and some clarification over his concerns and fears over the serum and Equestria…

‘No! No, none of that pessimistic thinking now. I’ve worked my ass off, I get to be with my kids and my wife, scoop them up and hug them and ask how happy they are...’

“Today is a Happy Day!” he says aloud.

And he’s really looking forward to giving himself his own birthday present, in the form of punching Dermail in the face. It’s probably not a good idea, and maybe he’ll get arrested, but he’s really looking forward to how this goes next. First, a party with Peter’s favorite chocolate cake, then punches, then going back to America with Kate.

He can almost see it as he’s throwing open the door and bracing himself for-

Something isn’t right. The wallpaper was a pale bluish color, not white. There was never a staircase so close to the door.

In the first hour after death, the silence is overpowering. The absence of any of the sounds of rowdy children and foals is deafening.

There is no one within the house. He is certain of it. The man calls out again and again, eyes wide. He wishes he had a gun. He feels as if he is walking into the gullet of some great leviathan beast, something ready to swallow him whole.

Wait a minute.

This is not my house, Kraber thinks, looking at a stairway.

It’s supposed to curve. There wasn’t a straight staircase leading upstairs last time–

Last fokking time?!

–and when he looked down at a long set of drawers, the photos didn’t make sense. He didn’t remember taking Peter to that beach. There was someone in a photo from Boston that he didn’t recognize, someone that he and Kate were holding close to with a profoundly unfamiliar face.

In some distant corner of his mind, the man knows what is about to happen. It urges him to get his gun from upstairs, a modest pump-action shotgun. Though he can’t rightly say why, it’s not like the house is full of something dangerous–

That’s not true. There is nothing in this house, and he’s afraid that the nothing is going to come up and swallow him. He knows what is about to happen, a panicked realization that he has been here before. And yet, even as his feet and mind scream against him, he is powerless. He can do nothing.

This isn’t my house.

So it’s not going to happen again.

A speaker crackles. It is playing some pony song that Anka likes, straight from Kate’s iPhone. And it’s on shuffle, so as soon as the track ends, it switches straight to something new.

‘C’mon everypony smile-smile-smile,
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine...’

The man knows these lyrics. The man has heard this song countless times before, not just on Kate’s phone but on one of those radio stations that plays music from Equus. He steps into the living room, praying to not see blood on the floor or walls. Prays that his children are fine, that they are just trying to surprise him. Perhaps Pinkie Pie is trying to surprise him? She is a genius of partying, after all. Or so he’s been told.

Praying that the house he and his family have made together is not white with crimson inside, as that favorite song of his says. He looks into the dining room. My God, his mouth is dry. There are drops of something purple there. Something grotesque.

no don’t make me do it
Not again

This is not my beautiful house
This is not my beautiful wife
I AM NOT GOING TO FOKKING FIND

He knows the smell before he even sees it. Like lavender shampoo, or wildflowers, but sickly sweet and cloying. He knows that smell, has seen its source in hospitals, held out by dead-eyed doctors with clammy hands and gray-white-yellow skin. They always seem like addicts to his eyes, far too insistent on bringing it to patients attention, singlemindedly convinced on using it on everything more severe than the common cold. And even that’s a stretch.

He trembles. No. No, it cannot be.

But it is. It’s serum.

He sees the room. It is as if a cyclone has come through there. Cake is splattered all over the walls, the furniture is smashed, and there are tiny hoofprints leading out the door. There is more of that purple slimy shit everywhere he can see.

There’s a cord suspended from the ceiling, with a few scraps of papier-mache suspended from it.

A pinata. Pinkie Pie had promised a pinata on the phone…

SHE’D FILLED IT WITH SERUM!

... Serum which had splashed all over the children when the bat had been swung hard enough, by a pair of tiny hands…

“No… Oh God no, oh God… Oh God...” He thinks he is going to be sick.

don’t make me see this, not again, why do you keep doing this to me

Then hears a terrible laughter, and he is not sure whether or not it is his. At one end of the room, he sees a clown in makeup. A pony, though how makeup works with fur, he does not know.

Not Pinkie Pie… an accomplice...

The creature will not stop laughing. It laughs and laughs, hysterically, and the sound grates against the man’s ears. Kraber sees its flank after one bout of convulsive laughter, and realizes that it is blank.

That used to be a human.

And it was here.

“Made ‘em smile!” the clown laughs, a huge smile on its face. “Just like you should, what kind of horrible father–”

Usually, when someone said that to Kraber, they ended up lying on the floor immediately.

Kraber can’t tell if the horror hasn’t set in or somehow he’s just gone full circle all the way back to calm. His thoughts can’t be articulated. All he knows is that someone is going to be screaming soon.

The man does not know what he is going to do. He walks upstairs, and finds his rifle and medical bag. All he knows is that he is going to stop that clown from laughing, from laughing that his children have disappeared.

Eighteen hours after death.

Kraber stands over a chair. He’s lined tools out on a table – hacksaws, needles, wrenches, kitchen utensils, scalpels, and went to work.

‘I don’t even remember how long I was here,’ Kraber thinks, looking at the figure of what used to be an equine.

It’s been flayed into strips, it sits on a tablecloth that used to be white and is now all the dried rusty brown of blood. He left a hole in its throat, there were red empty holes where the eyes used to be, and entrails lay on the kitchen floor. There’s a spare leg on one end of the table cloth, and a blowtorch.

He’d kept it alive as long as he could even as he was taking it apart.

Kraber picks up his pump-action shotgun.

Someone. Is going. To die. Fokking. Screaming.

Kraber remembers–

why am I seeing this
I don’t remember meeting Helmetag for awhile

Something walks out of that house, with a pump-action shotgun, a lot of ammunition, and bombs made from household chemicals. It searches for someone, anyone willing to assist in its quest for revenge. Polo, over in Boston, says that he knows a guy who knows this German ex-military guy by the name of Gregor Helmetag.

And he’s been joining the fledgling HTF alongside Mike Carter. Kraber is, sadly, not alone. They all want to make Equestria pay, and they’re going to get vengeance soon enough.

It’s going to be fokking kwaai.

During the Three Weeks of Blood, Erika Kraber will receive a phone call. It’ll be something asking about the status of her children. The podcast she makes in response will be the final nail in the coffin for this man – that his children are drunk up, that there is nothing left to get back.

What is left of the man dies. It may never come back, and there is nothing left inside him tying him down. He’d love to be with his parents. He really would.

But he’s really looking forward to killing something.

He walks out of the house, following fresh hoofprints into the thick, dark forest beyond the street, where trees stretch tall enough that the stars themselves seem to be caught within their branches.

He doesn’t take long from him to find them. Or for them to find him.

Ponies, many of them Newfoals, slip out of the trees. They form themselves out from the cracks between bark, the shapes between branches.

The man smiles.

With each Equestrian he kills, with each newly invented act of brutality and sadistic glee justified as ‘saving mankind,’ every self-effacing reason he gives for his newfound murderous tendencies, he kills a little more of himself.

The seasons change all around the man as he walks through the forest. There are Equestrians swinging from the trees next to him, hanging by their necks, a thousand torments visited on him. They are bleeding, missing limbs, strips of flesh crammed into their mouths, cutie marks ripped off, de-horned and de-winged, too covered in their blood, spit, and shit for the thing that was once the man to tell what color they are. One of them, tied to a tree that the man remembers from out west near Agua Caliente, has an adorable little wolf pup gnawing on its insides, spilling from a wet bloody hole in its stomach.

Wait. Torments visited on him? Something wasn’t right.

And where was Agua Caliente? Who the shit was Reitman?! There’d been so many things he saw that were going over his head.

I’m not remembering the right version, Kraber realized. This is wrong, this is all wrong!

Yes. They all have his face. It is not an equine’s face and snout, it is his face, stretched grotesquely over the pony skulls, torn and bleeding, a ghastly smile on it. It is… No. They are turning to him. The man runs, backing away, trembling, finding he has no knife, no weapons. He has only his fists.

“No no no no,” he whispers.

They are looking at him… for approval. Hoping for his pride, like the young fresh-faced recruits that have never been in a battle.

Oh, God. The thing that was once the man runs, trying not to scream, as the corpses hanging from those trees turn to follow him, still looking at him expectantly.

He runs. The trees rush by, and he sees so many people hanging from them. Sees skulls hidden between the roots, feels bones crunching under his boots.

“Well,” Pinkie Pie says, walking out from behind a tree. Looking up at Kraber with a strange sadness in her eyes. “Aren’t we a pair.”

“YOU!” Kraber yelled, pointing at her. “YOU FOKKING MADE ME THIS! YOU’RE THE REASON I–”

“I had a lot less choice than you did,” Pinkie Pie said. “It was you here, just like it was me not being able to stop.”

“No,” Kraber whispers. “No! THIS IS NOT ME! I’m never going to become that!”

“Oh, Viktor,” someone says.

Kraber turns and saw a faceless Newfoal stalking toward him, its eyes full of worms and maggots, covered in blood, its cheeks missing, its skin taut, hanging off it like a ripped and tattered too-big coat on a skeleton.

“You already are.”

“No,” Viktor pleads. “NO! I can change! I can–”

“You cannot,” the faceless Newfoal says, and its voice reverberates everywhere…

Except it is not one voice. It is a babble of several, out of sync with each other, coming from no discernible source.

Finally, Viktor realizes. It is his voice. It is Kate’s voice. It is the voice of Peter and Anka, of Dietrich, of Burakgazi, of Lyra, of someone who is not Marcus Renee, of those two Equestrians he had spared. Wait, that makes no sense, they never said a w–

“It is too late,” the Newfoal says.

And something begins to arise from underneath the mass of death and rot that was a face at one point. Eyes grow back from pea-sized to human-sized, bouncing around inside of enormous pony eye sockets, and muscle knits itself back together.

The pitch of the voice intensifies, sounding not unlike Pinkie Pie’s, until he realizes that he hears Victory’s voice.

“There is nothing you can do… But that’s not so bad, is it? Those PHL are idiots! They’re selling their souls to the devil!” she mimed. “Honestly, this world doesn’t have much longer. Maybe a few months. But you know that, right?”

“WHAT THE FOK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” Kraber yelled.

“There’s only so long before this world ends.”Victory says. “You remember how this was supposed to work last time. Remember being me?”

Montreal

“Poison tooth?” Shieldwall asked, walking up to the dead human. Victory had smelled the human’s breath, stared at the froth on their lips.

Shieldwall didn’t seem bothered by the bullet wound. He had a slight limp, sure, but nothing screamed that he’d been shot.

That was the first thing ~~Kraber~~ Victory noticed about him after the wound. He’d apparently been rewarded with the best modifications the Solar Empire could give for anyone save the elements. Reinforced skin, enhanced healing…

You’d need a pretty big gun to even touch him.

And yet apparently the humans had one.

Victory nodded.

“If you would?” Shieldwall asked.

Victory nodded again, and – grasping the rifle in her telekinesis – unloaded the magazine. Revealing a magazine full of rifle rounds that had once been hollowpoints, tipped with crystals.

“Huh,” Shieldwall said, “These aren’t for just anyone. These are meant to kill alicorns.”

“Could they?” asked a piebald unicorn mare with red-brown spots, this one a natural-born unlike Victory. Victory vaguely remembered that she liked them, but their name kept slipping her mind.

‘What am I missing?’

“Let’s not deal in heresy, Cinnabar,” Shieldwall said. “It’s PHL-built, too. Didn’t know they still made those.”

“PHL or the ammo?” Victory asked, chuckling slightly.

A smile crept onto Shieldwall’s face.

“Figured these were obsolete,” Shieldwall said, “What with the new EHS models–”

EHS.

You remember them, don’t you, Kraber? They were never supposed to be. An unintended yet logical consequence.

Victory’s head felt like it was about to split open, and then… and THEN–

what’s this, this isn’t supposed to–

A unicorn mare by the name of Sandalwood, with a brown mane, purple eyes, and a tan-ish coat led them. That kind of surprised Kraber, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter.

“Your offspring,” Soldano said, “are a valuable wartime asset. Failure to comply will be considered a treasonous act under the Equus Patriotic Service Act, section–”

“I know damn well what you said,” the mare said, “I’m not giving them to you.”

“Or what?” Kraber asked, fingers drumming over the surface of the revolver at his hip. “You’re going to go Indie? Join the PER?”

“No, the PHL,” the mare said. Her voice sounded curiously weak.

“Haven’t ya heard, pendejo?” Soldano asked. “We’re the PHL now. I mean, we’re led by a bona fide PHL hee-ro.”

Kraber looked over at their transport to confirm. Saw that it was emblazoned with...

Kraber's head felt like it was about to explode as he looked at it. That was very much not PHL. This was... well, whatever it was, it was something for which he had virtually no frame of reference.

He saw three letters underscoring it. ‘EHS’. It looked vaguely like a horse skull, and Kraber recognized it as the symbol he'd seen on the ship that had saved Lovikov in Portland, the one that had ████████████████████████████

“The hell you’re PHL, Sandalwood!” the mare spat. A small unicorn foal cringed behind her, looking thin, its eyes wide and staring. “These people would skin you alive if they thought it’d get you an extra ration.”

“If that goes even an inch in saving their world from us, so be it. I’m doing what I have to for humanity,” Sandalwood said coldly. “Anything else is tantamount to killing them.”

“So you’re going to take foals from their parents?!” the mare yelled. “We came here because we wanted to stop being used as spare parts! We’re here because we wanted better lives. Now–”

“Finish that sentence,” Sandalwood said. “I dare you.”

“Lyra would never allow this,” the mare hissed.

“I’m not Lyra,” Sandalwood said, “And for that matter–”

She jerked one foreleg towards Soldano–

“He very much isn’t, either,” she finished. “Kraber?”

Kraber’s Kalashnikov was pointed at the mare in a blink. “You wouldn’t leave a child motherless, would you? Don’t make us do anything you’d regret.”

“It’s a bit too late for that,” the foal said, speaking for the first time.

Something flashed around the two of them, and the world exploded. The mare and her foal vanished behind a curtain of fire and cascading brick and concrete.

“YOU SON OF A–” Kraber screamed.

And everything went dark.

When Kraber came to, he was under a ton of rubble. Maybe even a literal ton. He was in a coffin-sized space, barely able to move his arms, a little pinprick of

do you accept

light shining down on him.

Gunfire rang out around him. Soldano screamed in agony.

For some reason, it was Kraber’s first instinct that it was PER doing this. That only they would use a child this way. That only they would perform so brazen an attack on human soldiers only trying to protect Earth.

But he didn’t hear ponifications. He didn’t hear the mad laughter of Newfoals. He just heard screams and gunfi–

“GLORY TO LYRA HEARTSTRINGS!”

But we said we were PHL.

Then who?

‘No, Romero or Yarrow would never do this,’ Kraber thought. ‘They’d never kidnap foals to make magicked weapons. They’d never kill the president and overthrow governments all over North America to–’

wait what

None of this made any sense, no Goddamn sense...!

“GLORY TO THE PHL!”

“HELP ME!” Kraber yelled. “I CAN’T MOVE DOWN HERE!”

After an eternity of gunfire, of Viktor screaming for help, it died down.

“There’s a safehouse,” a woman or mare said. “We have some transport there. Go to the Copper Owl brewery and ask if Mr. Dallas can pick up your tab. The bartender will understand what you mean. Now move it, and don’t look back!”

There was a pause.

“Someone’s down there!” a man yelled.

Kraber heard the sound of hooves touching down on the rubble.

“It’s Viktor Kraber, isn’t it?” someone asked. Their voice was familiar. Very much so.

That’s Heliotrope, Kraber thought.

“Yes!” Kraber screamed, even as he knew she’d never do it. “PULL ME OUT, PULL ME OUT GODDAMMI–”

“I’ll ask Blackberry Preserve what he thinks,” Heliotrope said. “Or, alternatively. You can say ‘hi’ to all of them down there.”

Kraber’s blood ran cold.

“No, what did you…”

“Tell your baby-killer friends I said hey,” Heliotrope said, and Kraber heard the sound of her wings flapping, of hooves scraping off and then leaving the rubble.

“Sarge,” someone said, “That’s cold.”

“But that’s also Viktor Kraber,” Heliotrope said. “He’d do worse to any of us in a heartbeat.”

Kraber would never be able to

DO YOU ACCEPT

tell how long he’d been down there. Minutes or seconds or days or hours, he sat, barely mobile, mouth dry, screaming his lungs raw.

Nobody came.

And Kraber grew to understand that he wasn’t really buried. Somewhere, he was in a burning house falling into the Androscoggin River. Somewhere, he was being impaled, trying to pilot an airship away from Montreal and bleeding everywhere. Somewhere he was stuck in a car trunk. He heard people all around him, as this seemed far more extensive than just a coffin-sized,

DO YOU ACCEPT

but, well, he was still stuck.

Kraber had survived. Soldano and Sandalwood, in all likelihood, had not.

THERE IS A WAY OUT. ACCEPT THE BLESSING OF HE WHO SACRIFICED HIS OWN NAME TO THE DARKNESS, AND YOU WILL BE FREE. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SAVE THOSE WHO DEFEND FROM

“Get me OUT!” Kraber howled through lacerated lungs and a dry mouth. “Help, fokkin’ HELP me goddamit–”

ACCEPT THE BLESSING.

And Kraber felt another hand, something cold and metallic grasping his…

AND WE WILL REMOVE YOU FROM HERE. WE ASK ONLY THAT. YOU. SAY. YES.

Kraber saw a face in the darkness, but that couldn’t have been it. This space was too small.

But then.

He’d never been in there, had he? Maybe he hadn’t for a long time.

He looked closer at the face, to see a tall, far-too-thin figure in black armor emblazoned with gruesome trophies. The face was thin. Angular. It had high cheekbones, prominent eyebrows, and stubble with a sense of permanence.

His face.

“How…” he breathed.

“You’ll find,” the other him said, and it was so strange hearing something that sounded so much like a recording of him but wasn’t one, talking to him, “That we’re a lot more interested in the why.”

The other Kraber looked down to him.

“I would’ve done that?” Kraber asked. His mouth felt dry.

“Why are you so surprised?” Victory asked. “It’s nothing you haven’t done before. You’ve left plenty of people motherless. I’d almost think you enjoy it at this point. You just can’t bear anyone not hurting as much as you have, since the day you were born-–”

And Kraber is angry. Angry at this bitch that treats him so poorly each day, angry that he deserves it. Angry at himself. Angry at himself for the shit he’s done.

“FOK…. JOU!” Kraber yells. “NO! JY NIE DIE BEHEER MY NIE! EK BEHEER ME, JOU BLIKSEM! EK… BEHEER…ME!”

“The HLF does!” Victory yells. “They want you to jump, you ask how high, they want you to kill foals, they ask you how many, you murderer, you kiddie ra–”

“VOETSEK, JOU BLIKSEM!” Kraber yelled, kicking the Newfoal in the face.

This was the worst damn dream he’d ever had. It was practically making his ears bleed, and his skull hurt like hell as he screamed.

“WON’T BE ME!” he screamed, and he was surprised to hear his own voice, his own heavily Cape Town-accented voice, the one he cultivated after hours and hours of watching District 9 and Elysium on his laptop and at movie night at Defiance’s bioscoop. The one that was, thankfully, not entirely an affectation.

“It already is,” Victory said. “None of you… save for a few… ever go pony. It would be so much better for them! Not like it’d be any different from what you already are… but at least you’ll be free! Untainted by morality or conscience!””

“Don’t jou FOKKIN’ quote TRAINSPOTTING at ME!” Kraber screamed. “Hou JOU FOKKIN’ BEK, jou fokkin’ KONTGESIG! Ek sal NOIT daardie! I’ll NEVER be THAT! I’LL–”

“But you already are!”

And suddenly, a hallway opened up behind her, lined with doors, the spaces between them splattered with bloody splashes. Kraber looked back. All he could see was a blank space.

“These are your choices, Viktor,” Victory taunted him. “No matter which door you do, it’ll probably end the same way! Dead! Ponified! A monster!”

Newfoals, unicorn, earthpony, and pegasus alike formed themselves from the stains in the wall, stretching their way out, dripping blood onto the floor from massive wounds.

“Dead! Ponified! A monster! Dead! Ponified! A monster! Dead! Ponified! A m–”

Kraber looked down at Victory and sighed, bending down on one knee, arms outstretched, as if he was about to hug.

“There’s only one thing I can choose, I think.”

“I’m glad you-–” Victory started, right as Kraber picked her up, suplexed her, and threw her at that bare patch of wall.

There was an audible crack.

“NEVER! FOKKING! BE! YOOOOOOOUUUUUU!” he screamed, and punched her in the face. Cracks spread out from where her snout had rammed into a tree. “This isn’t either world! Maybe I’m a monster, but I’ve still got time to change, I hope… But I’m not a fokking monster! I’m ME!”

Victory weakly punched out at him, and Kraber kicked her hoof out of the way.

“ORE WA VIKTOR KRABER DA!”

A punch, even as the Newfoals tried to grab at him with that peculiar hoof TK, or with their horns.

“ORE WO DARE DA TO OMOTTE YAGARUUUUU KIIIICK?!” he yelled, and curled his toes, like he was playing football again, and drove his foot up into Victory’s face.“I’M NOT GOING TO BE SOME FOKKING MONSTER!”

A punch to Victory’s face.

“EK! GAAN! TE! WEES! ME!”

Water spread out from one crack in the forest floor when grabbed her by the neck and rammed her down into the concrete. He could see a sink on the wall – why was it there? – and he ripped it off the wall, bringing it down on Victory’s head.

“VIKTOR MARIUS FOKKING KRABER! IVAN BLISS! ME! ME! ME!”

He punched her in the throat, and the floor exploded into a geyser of saltwater, and they were all washed away, blasted down the hallway.

“WHOEVER THE FOK I AM!”

he held Victory’s head under the water, watching the bubbles as she drowned below him.

“Ek sal iemand anders wat!”

Kraber

Seawater rushed into his mouth, and Kraber gagged.

Kraber coughed, flapping his arms, struggling to stay above water. And it was at that moment he realized he was freezing.

A wave crested down on his head. He felt himself plunging down into the freezing depths before breast-stroking his head above water. He made a gasping noise, struggling to stay afloat, to get his bearings, to keep himself from panicking.

The waves swamped him.

‘Can’t die!’ he thought, and tried to paddle. He didn’t care what direction, but he had to move, he had to be somewhere, anywhere, he couldn’t be buried agai-!

Another wave, and so much seawater in his mouth! He gasped, choking, and for a second he thought he could see a strip of land just on the horizon. The island had to be close, he felt like he’d been swimming for hours!

It was a long shot, but he had to try. He folded his arms above his ribcage, fingertips up to his throat, and pushed forward in a breaststroke.

His muscles burned. The effort to keep himself afloat was excruciating! But he pressed on, moving towards the island. Stroke by stroke.

He couldn’t say how long he swam. But no matter how hard he tried, the island didn’t seem to get closer.

‘That’s it,’ Kraber thought. ‘I refuse to die.’

An eternity later, he heard it. The roaring of an outboard motor.

“Hey!” someone yelled. “There’s someone in the water!”

‘Oh, thank the Lord!’

“Here!” someone yelled. “Take it!”

Kraber turned towards the thing that’d been poking him - an oar - and grabbed it. A dark-haired, well-built woman in a vaguely naval uniform was holding on to it, a look of surprise and disgust on her face.

“Buggery-fuck, it’s Viktor Kraber!” she yelled. Next to them, Kraber could see a middle-aged fisherman in oilskins, carrying a big pump-action shotgun.

“Well,” Kraber said, making brief but passionate eye contact with the muzzle of the fisherman’s Mossberg, “fokdammit.”

“Calm down, both of you,” said a white-furred pegasus with a blue mane, the mark of a butterfly, and a tight black cap. “We’re not going to shoot him.”

“Lucky,” said the shotgunner. “It’s. Viktor. Kraber. Tell me why we shouldn’t.”

“Yeah, and I’m not leaving a man to drown in the ocean,” Lucky said. “It’s the principle of the thing. Either he dies in agony, unable to breathe-”

“Yeah,” Kraber said, “Drowning is not a good way to go.”

“He makes his way to that island and we don’t know where he is,” Lucky said.

“He might die on that island,” the shotgunner said, stubbornly.

“And he probably won’t,” Lucky said. “The news said he was dead. But here he is. So, option two – we display basic kindness, and we have him in sight. What’s it gonna be.”

“She’s right, Rogan,” another woman said, looking at the fisherman with the shotgun. “Unfortunately. I’m not leaving a man to drown.”

“Fine,” ‘Rogan,’ the shotgunner sighed. “But we’re disarming him when he gets aboard.”

“So,” the woman said, “We’ve given you two choices. You can either come aboard, disarm yours–”

“Oh for the love of God, I don’t have any guns!” Kraber yelled. “Get me out of the ocean before I die of fokking hypothermia!”

“We have–”

“And I don’t give a fok,” Kraber said. “In the past forty-two hours, I’ve been insulted by a friend, left to die twice, pistol whipped, had my limbs broken and rehealed, shot several times, stabbed, told my children were better off ponified, mutilated a PHL man, and was blown the fok up by Yael Ze’ev and Heliotrope. If you give me a hot meal and a bed right now, I will be in the palm of your fokkin’ hands. I will even do a Rusty Venture for you if you ask nicely.”

“Really?” the woman asked, seeming genuinely intrigued.

“I mean, I think it’s a bit too late to go back on that offer, so fokking yes!” Kraber yelled. “Now, would jou kindly PULL ME ONTO THE FOKKIN’ BOAT?! The water is fokkin’ freezing my dick off!”

They pulled him in, and dragged him over the railing. He coughed, spitting up what felt like a gallon of saltwater.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghb6eDopW8I]Someone turned on a radio.

Rogan still kept the shotgun trained on Kraber. “Well?” he asked.

“Told you,” Kraber said, weakly, his body feeling faint and somehow overstretched by the change in temperature. “Naw in the fokkin mood.”

“That’s as close as we’re likely to hear from someone like Kraber,” the dark-haired woman said, reaching for Kraber’s backpack. He didn’t object. “You know, Yael exploded the boat you were on, right? How did you survive?”

“It…” Kraber coughed. “Jou know, fok weet.”

He took a look around the boat. It looked like a fairly standard Maine lobster boat - large cabin, a wide deck with lobster traps, and fishing equipment.

“Wow,” ‘Lucky’ said, whistling. “You’re going to have an interesting story to tell on the way to the Captain.”

“Wait,” Kraber said. “Who… who’s that? Isn’t one of you the Captain of–”

Rogan smirked. “It’s much bigger than that.”

Author's Note

This was supposed to be a confusing meta episode. It was supposed to have all this high-minded, intriguing, house-of-leaves ish stuff...

But the problem with it was, well, I got bored. I felt like I was only spinning my wheels. I felt like it wasn't enjoyable, I felt like one of the sequences where the fourth wall was broken was just too bizarre. I found it too silly, too jarring compared to the rest of the story... and, well, if I thought that, I assume you'd take it worse than I did. You'll still probably find echoes of what this was planned as somewhere in here.

And not subtly.

So, presented for your viewing pleasure: This!

The segment from Kraber's backstory is virtually unchanged, on the basis I figured it was funny.

15: The Sinking City

Light Despondent Remixed

Chapter 15: The Sinking City

Heliotrope
August 12, 2022

“He really fucked up my face, didn’t he?” Summers asked, looking over at a mirror. The two of them sat watching the TV in the Hilton Garden Inn’s common room, Quiette Shy lying on an ottoman, levitating a book up to her face.

‘Defiance standoff continues’, the news ticker read. ‘Menschabwehrfraktion maintains silence in the wake of the battle of Portland…’

It’d been two days since they’d destroyed Kraber’s boat – the owner had not been happy – and they’d gotten back to the city. Gardner had been raring to take the fight to Defiance as soon as Yael got there. But the fact was, it was late in the day, and no doctor worth their salt would’ve discharged Gardner, Summers, and Smoky the day that a homicidal maniac had put them at risk of concussions.

As such, the last two days had been a sort of departmental limbo. The three of them had required MRI scans, and even with preferential treatment given to PHL, it was going to take awhile.

“Ehhhh…” Heliotrope said, raising one forehoof.

The right side of Summers’ face had been cross-hatched with lines and blotches in red, purple, and brown. A red welt jostled his eye for real estate on his face.

The damage was only skin deep, though, and with a regimen of antibiotics, zebra-made salves, it was now just a mass of pink, half-healed scars.

While the PHL could flash-heal people like Quiette Shy apparently had to Kraber (Heliotrope still couldn’t believe it. This was Kraber, after all) according to PHL medical researchers, there were side effects. Pockets of air in bones, incomplete healing, damage to muscles…

General consensus was that you just had to let the body run its course.

“It could be worse,” Heliotrope said finally. “Are you okay?”

“I think the biggest wound is my pride,” Summers said, with a wry smile.

Dancing Day
“And his balls,” Aegis adds.

“Not this time, anyway,” Yael says.

“Really? I mean I thought I kicked him pretty hard there and ohhh….” Kraber says, a look of understanding dawning on his face. “That’s what you meant.”

“Letting the HLF have that much independence was the biggest mistake the US ever made. Yeah. The leadership didn’t want to rock the boat. But because of that, we have a bunch of other countries setting up colonies in the US that get pretty tight-fisted come tax season.”

“You think they’re colonies?” Heliotrope asked.

“Ever seen Lovikov’s record?” Summers asked. “A man like Helmetag gets replaced by someone who took the vehicle entrance to the Russian army.”

This might’ve sounded like nonsense, but there was a kind of sense to it. According to records the PHL had accumulated, Lovikov hadn’t started as Russian army. Born in Ukraine in the 1980s, he’d been directionless after the fall of the Soviet Union, eventually joining with a biker gang, oddly enough.

Except this biker gang had Putin’s ear, fighting alongside Russian forces, and carrying out vigilante executions during the Purple Winter. They’d clearly had a lot of anti-West sentiment running through them even before the War.

Somehow, he’d ended up in the Menschabwehrfraktion, serving under a German by the name of Gregor Helmetag. It was speculated that he was in charge of procuring ex-Soviet hardware for them. He’d ended up in a very high place on the Menschabwehrfraktion’s ruling council. Then, as the various European and African HLF groups were settling into America, PER had attacked one of the temporary settlements meant for refugees. Helmetag, Lovikov, and several others such as Gage McCorliss had been left with no choice but to lead from the front.

And according to most records, Helmetag had been nearly ponified. Lovikov had killed his former commanding officer himself.

There was something Heliotrope had never liked about that story. Something that seemed very convenient for Lovikov, didn’t it?

“We really haven’t gone after them yet,” Heliotrope marveled.

“I know, right?” Summers asked. “What’s stopping us?”

“Massive Civilian Casualties, For One Thing,” Quiette Shy said, looking up from her book. “There’s Kids There. Families.”

“No,” Summers said, “Not for long.”

Quiette Shy’s head snapped towards Summers, accusatory. “And What Does That Mean.”

“When they fight us again, those won’t be innocent bystanders,” Summers said.

“When?” Quiette Shy asked. “What Do You Mean, When.”

“This won’t solve anything,” Summers said. “There’s the Ship. And there’s all the HLF that’ve been waiting for the chance to do this. They’ll throw kids at us if they have to. I’ve seen it.”

“You’ve seen it?” Heliotrope asked.

“Was fighting in the Middle East for most of my life,” Summers said. “I saw… things there, Sergeant Heliotrope. People threw children with Kalashnikovs at us.”

He sighed.

Heliotrope actively tried not to think too much about the many, many wars this world had been engaged in before, and even as the CERN portal manifested. Those had been greatly emphasized by propagandists who sought to reinforce the idea that every human struggled with their social inhibitions on a daily basis, liable to regress into savagery at the slightest push.

And Heliotrope didn’t respect that. There were good humans, like Yael, or Oscar, Summers, Gardner, the PHL. And yes, humanity might have had their monsters who were willing to kill children, but....

… What did that make her? Or Equestria? The Battle of the Crystal Citadel or the Changeling Purges hadn’t been solved by throwing pies like the Bearers of Harmony would have wanted a long time ago. They – she – had done terrible things in Equestria’s service. And there were plenty of Equestrians still doing terrible things to humanity, often claiming retribution for things they hadn’t even known about even a decade ago. In this case, two wrongs absolutely didn’t make a right.

There was a right way to be an Equestrian, and a right way to be human… And as far as Heliotrope was concerned, no amount of Pan-Equine ideology could change that her people hadn’t been doing it right for some time now…

“People ask why the Colonel acts the way he does,” Summers said. “Good HLF, bad… that doesn’t matter. We’ve made a situation where we willingly broke ourselves. And now, instead of showing them who really holds power, we’ve let them think they can get away with anything. There have to be consequences.”

Dancing Day
December 2022

“And just where does he get off,” Aegis says, a look of clear disgust on his face, “Talking about government power and authority like a bureaucrat from the Palace that had a mnemosurgeon fill him up to the ears with politics?”

“Is that a thing that happens?” Rivet asks, and he looks genuinely sick to Dancing Day, the fur around his cheeks sweaty and lank. “Would mom have…”

“Don’t think about it, son,” Aegis says.

“He was practically joined at the hip with Gardner,” Heliotrope says.

“It’s the best explanation I’ve gotten at this point,” Yael says. “I could never quite figure out who was ordering who here.”

“So… was it him or Gardner pushing to execute me?” Kraber asks.

“Honestly, I think they were two of a kind,” Yael says. “Gardner might have wanted to shoot first and ask questions later. But I can’t imagine Summers would’ve stopped him.”

“Here’s what I think happened to you,” Heliotrope says. “I think Gardner was talking about how he wanted it, and Summers…”

She holds a hoof under her chin.

“I don’t know what he did,” Heliotrope says. “He sure as Tartarus didn’t stop him.”

She sounds very bitter.

“Are you alright?” Dancing Day asks.

“No,” Heliotrope says bluntly.

Heliotrope

It was then that Gardner walked into the room. Against all odds, his jaw hadn’t been broken – merely very, very bruised. The odds were good, though, that another hit there would probably break it.

Gardner had taken a lot of punishment, after all.

“Planning room, everyone,” Gardner said. “We’re breaking the stalemate.”

The next few minutes were a blur – everyone filtered out of their rooms, from their hidey-holes, from whatever they were doing, all of them ending up around a long wooden table at the conference room.

A PHL-made crystal projector sat on the table, lightly glowing.

“Now. I’ve been cleared for duty, but I’m not allowed to take any hits to the jaw for awhile,” Gardner said.

“Then How Are You Here, Colonel?” Quiette Shy asked. “Normally, That Would–”

“Because I have a duty to make things right,” Gardner interrupted. “Lovikov has committed crimes that outshadow anything committed by anarchists during the Purple Winter. And in part because of me, he’s escaped.”

“There was a lot you couldn’t have foreseen,” Yael said. “The Ship, for one thing.”

“And I could’ve gotten to him before it destroyed the Samson,” Gardner said. “This is my, no, our chance to make things right.”

He paused.

“Are we going to be attacking Defiance, sir?” Summers asked.

“No,” Gardner said. “The goal is to grab their leaders, and force their hands. We’re going to break the blockade, and force them to let all our forces in.”

“Sounds like what they did,” Yael said.

“It is,” Gardner admitted, sounding disgusted at the comparison. “But… Commandant Cherry, or that adjudant she’ll be sending as her representative, Allie Way…”

Dancing Day

“Who?” Dancing Day asks.

“My cousin?” Vinyl asks. “She’s PHL middle-management, loves bowling…?”

Nobody seems to recognize her.

“And Northwoods, and Raleigh… they all made it clear. Civilian casualties would be unacceptable. And I’m inclined to agree.”

“But, excuse me, sir,” Summers asked, staring at the projection. “These routes… they’re all marked on foot. Why aren’t we using helicopters to get there?”

“Anti-air that they definitely don’t have,” Gardner answered sardonically. “And too much risk... That the government definitely doesn’t have the evidence to confiscate. What we’re going to do is surround them. And if they don’t negotiate, well…”

Something that was not a smile crossed Gardner’s face.

“Let it be said that I tried. Now, here’s the plan. First Lieutenant Ze’ev? Your guys’ insertion to the Sorghum worked swimmingly, so the four of you will be the lynchpin of all of this. You’ll be instrumental in preventing any casualties and maintaining our leverage.”

Dancing Day

“So there was a time when Gardner didn’t decide to solve problems by holding someone’s piel to the braai,” Kraber says bitterly. “What a novel fokking concept.”

“There was a time when he could do good,” Heliotrope says. “But–”

“When?” Aegis asks, bluntly. “Did you see it?”

It’s hard to say whether or not Aegis simply doesn’t grasp the implications of what he’s said or is intentionally rubbing salt in the wound, but Heliotrope shoots him a dirty look.

“You jerk,” she says, flatly.

Aegis’ face falls. “I’m sorry,” he says, the situation coming up. “I.... I didn’t…”

He can’t quite articulate what he “didn’t.”

“That wasn’t right,” he says finally. “I just… it’s hard not to be bitter about all that happened.”

Then, after a second, as Heliotrope is about to say somethi-

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “That was wrong of me.”

“That’s not what hurts,” Heliotrope says. “I… just feel like I should’ve done more.”

“Look,” Kraber says. “We’ve all done things we regret.”

“I thought you didn’t have regrets,” Soarin’ said.

“No, I said I didn’t regret enough. Normally, people feel bad after throwing kontgesigs down the stairs,” Kraber says. “Long story. Anyway. Heliotrope. Never feel guilty for what someone else did. Some people… will never want to change. And that’s not on you.”

“Isn’t your wife a lot of the reason you didn’t hurt more people?” Amber Maple asks.

“She… was a good influence,” Kraber says. “But in the end, I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do. That’s on me, and I’ll have to live with it. But Lovikov would’ve been a monster with or without me. Same for Gardner.”

He pauses.

“Does this make sense?” he asks.

“Honestly,” Aegis says, “maybe it’s a bit hypocritical–” Kraber shoots him a look. “–but sometimes, a hypocrite is only a man in the process of changing.”

Heliotrope wondered about that. After all, these were people that survived by arming everyone, kids included. And Summers did have a point. Those kids would stop being civilians pretty soon. They’d been raised by people who were active during the Bad Old Days, when any Equestrian on hand was fair game to be shot.

People like Kraber.

“I will not,” Gardner continued, “fail humanity once more. We are bringing Lovikov in. And yes, people, I do mean humanity. If those idiots hiding in the woods decide they can attack ponies, take the fight to us instead of our common enemy, we can’t give the fight with Equestria our all. Imagine. The prospect of fighting a war on two fronts, even during Barrierfall.”

“You think they’d really go that far?” Smoky asked nervously.

“First Lieutenant Ze’ev,” Gardner said. “Sergeant Heliotrope. You fought against HLF and other human fighters during the Europe Evacuation, didn’t you?”

Heliotrope nodded.

“I did too,” Gardner said. “It was a nightmare. I’m sure you both can agree.”

Yael and Heliotrope looked at each other.

“Nightmare does not even begin to describe it,” Yael said.

“It was a toss-up whether or not some of our allies would shoot me,” Heliotrope added. “Yeah, I know about Spader and that Charter of his, but… there were too many humans who just saw all of us as targets.”

“Kraber, for example,” Yael said, voicing Heliotrope’s thoughts.

“And we just let him stay in Defiance,” Heliotrope added, fuming.

“Do either of you think we could be headed for that kind of chaos again?” Gardner asked.

Yael drew in a breath, but Heliotrope spoke first.

“Three days ago I wouldn’t have said they’d destroy a city or have the Ship,” Heliotrope said. “All bets are off, sir.”

Yael

And then there they were, fleet of APCs trundling down Route 125. Yael could see a tiny fraction of the view through one window – people moving away from them, parents holding their kids. There’d been a devastating attack on Portland, and a PHL detachment was heading down to bring justice.

This was going to be a joint operation, too. The National Guard, the ATF, and local police from the surrounding counties that Defiance bordered – technically, it was an unincorporated township– they would all be cooperating. The PHL and ATF would be providing the military might, and the police would be…

… Well, the PHL didn’t exactly make for good police.

There was also the fact that the PHL, rightly, didn’t trust the police around Berlin. You had to wonder about people who let armed militias stay so close.

‘I have to admit,’Yael thought, ‘that won’t inspire confidence.’

“If they’re willing to blow up Portland,” ‘Bro’ said, “They’re willing to set up traps in the road. They’re willing to fucking kill us.”

“You’re Freaking Everyone Out,” Quiette Shy said.

“Whatever happens,” Yael said, “We’re surrounded by the best PHL armor in this thing. It-”

“It’s not important right now,” Bro said, head snapping back and forth. “And excuse me for being freaked out!”

“Bro? You okay?” Smoky asked, laying one foreleg on Bro’s shoulder. “Just… try to get it off your chest.”

Yael let a slight smile cross her face at that.

“It’s just…” Bro said. “Look, the people I grew up with talked about overthrowing the government all the time, once they got to drinking away their government checks–”

“Wait,” Heliotrope said, “What?”

“It’s an American thing,” Summers said.

“Look,” Bro said, “I joined up with the PHL mostly to pay for college.”

“Shit,” Lorne said, raising an eyebrow. “You too?”

“And there were plenty of people back there who always talked about maybe overthrowing the government, trying to treat the law like a magic spell they could find a way out of.”

“You seriously had that kind of person here?” Smoky asked.

“That’s Not How Magic Works,” Quiette Shy said.

“What about ritual magic?” Heliotrope asked.

“This isn’t important,” ‘Bro’ said. “Look, it’s just… I grew up with people who wanted to do something like this. And now, someone actually has. Who’s to say that it’s not going to end up more common now?”

“Nobody’s done that since the Bad Old Days,” Yael said, “We’re not going to be dealing with an outbreak of wanton HLF attacks.”

“I really hope so,” Summers said. “Look, I grew up somewhere like where Bro did. People like this don’t just… stop.”

Something about the words unsettled Yael.

Heliotrope

They disembarked not long after, coming to a stop near a building marked ‘Magalloway Plantation’. Heliotrope couldn’t tell just what the building had been, but she knew that was what the area was called.

Which kind of confused her.

‘What’s a plantation? Isn’t that like, a slave-run farm humans did, or… or like back home?’Heliotrope wondered. But she had bigger questions.

Questions which centered on how the whole area was full of ATF and National Guard, and were those U.S border patrol? All of which were armed to the teeth. Lots of assault rifles, helicopters, apparently a tank. It felt for all the world like something from back during the Europe Evacuation.

‘What a nightmare,’Heliotrope thought, remembering those dark days.

Chaos everywhere. Cities vanishing every day. A bombing near-daily. Cities overrun with Newfoals. Running into Ferals out in the wilderness. Military vehicles on every corner – and yes, fine, Heliotrope had been part of said military, but that didn’t stop her from feeling intimidated. Bandits and others stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down –- Heliotrope had witnessed more than a few caravans of trucks turned away at the ports carrying almost everything from small towns, short of the houses. If the rumors that the Barrier didn’t affect things the same way underwater were true, there were probably the relics of entire towns resting on the Atlantic seafloor.

And equine safety hadn’t been close to guaranteed back then. It tapered off come the Battle of Iceland, and there were plenty of towns out in the US where – thanks to careful social engineering, a constant stream of definitely-not-propaganda from the PHL, and earthponies in invaluable food production and farming roles – the average Equestrian could safely walk alone past sundown, provided there was curfew going on. But Heliotrope remembered a different time. A time where Heliotrope might as well have just deep-throated a hunting shotgun and saved everyone the time and effort if there wasn’t a PHL official in arms’ reach.

Case in point, Cyprus… They’d been sent there seemingly temporarily, and the HLF had attacked them. Heliotrope had been too afraid to use the Suit or use her training – nobody, Equestrian or human or whatever else, would be all too comfortable around a sapient equine with military training.

‘Faust, no. Anything but that. Never again.’ She looked over in the direction of Defiance. Then to the humans surrounding her. ‘And thank Faust I’m with good humans.’

At just that moment, a shortish human who looked like he’d barely scraped past the minimum height requirements walked out of a nearby bar, which Heliotrope guessed had been used as a command post. He called out, and waved to the two of them.

“Hey,” they said, walking towards her. “Heliotrope!”

‘Who are–’

“Was wondering when you’d show up here!” called out a yellow earthmare, trotting behind them.

‘Oh!’

Heliotrope caught a better look at them. A short human with dark brown hair, a round face, and stubble, standing just beside the yellow earthmare with a Stetson and an inky-blue mane.

It was Johnny C Heald, known to his friends as Nny, and Fiddlesticks. Apparently, they’d been heroes of the Alaska Incident. Details on what’d happened to them were very hush-hush, but Heliotrope knew the basics:

Shieldwall had been doing Something Bad in Alaska. Common wisdom perpetuated by bloggers who were definitely not PHL agents was that he’d been trying to stage an invasion from there.
He hadn’t been. Nny and Fiddlesticks had been barred from screenings of a movie about the Alaska Incident because of their clear irritation with “inaccuracies.”
Apparently, Nny had mangled someone between the pistons of a steam engine and survived an encounter with Shieldwall.
They’d managed to steal a valuable piece of Solar Empire equipment.

The rest was under wraps.

“Cousin Nny,” Yael said, walking up to him with a huge smile on her face. “It’s been too long!”

“Damn right it has!” Nny said, walking up to her, arms outstre-

“I’m wearing pounds and pounds of gear and I’m almost a foot taller than you,” Yael said. “You’re probably not going to be able to lift me up.”

“Let him have this, Yael,” Fiddlesticks said. “Just let him have this.”

Heliotrope cocked her head, looking over at the yellow earthmare.

“You two are weird,” Heliotrope sighed, just as Nny enveloped Yael in a bear hug.

Summers hovered in the background

Yael

There were a lot of complicated emotions swirling through her head as Nny’s arms hooked around her. Gratitude at seeing him for the first time in months.

And also moderate confusion about her cousin’s strength level. He was short and fat, regardless of army training, but… like, was he lifting her up an inch?

That was weird.

“You’re not allowed to do that with a superior officer,” Summers scowled, positioning himself between her and Nny. Under the man’s transparent faceplate, Yael could see him sizing up her cousin.

“He’s my cousin,” Yael said. “He can do what he wants here.”

Summers backed away, but Yael still saw his eyes on Nny. The two of them couldn’t have looked any more different. Summers had a foot or more on Nny, was heavyset, and built like a linebacker. Meanwhile, Nny was just short and broad. It was genuinely difficult to tell what was fat and what was muscle under all his fatigues.

Summers looked like he probably weighed more than Nny in terms of sheer muscle. Like he could just step close to Nny and crush hi–

‘Where did that thought come from?’

Dancing Day

“I don’t remember if that’s the hindsight talking,” Yael says, “But it is amazing how many red flags he threw up.”

“By the end, he was practically doing semaphore with them,” Aegis says.

“You know what they say,” Heliotrope said. “When you have rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”

“Did you think that or not, First, ah...?” Dancing Day asks, confused.

“I don’t know,” Yael says. “Viktor, was Summers that much of–”

“A total kontgesig?” Kraber asks. “Truthfully, fok weet. I don’t know if the three of them really were that dickish, but… I know Summers actually did say that about my kids.”

“You seem a lot calmer,” Astral Nectar observes.

“Course I am,” Kraber says. “He got what he deserved, so I don’t need to spend any time in the… planning phase. Oh yes.”

“Hey, saying ‘Oh yes’ when you’re threatening someone is Nny’s thing,” Aegis says.

Kraber smirks and nods.

“Oh,” Spitfire says, nodding. “Now I get it.”

“The shameful part, though,” Yael says, “Was what I thought next.”

Yael

“Really?” Smoky asked. “You don’t look anything alike.”

“My great-grandparents left Lithuania for Boston before World War One,” Nny said. “Yael’s great-grandfather didn’t.”

And as a result, he had left her grandfather with a series of horror stories that would wake Yael up in a cold sweat, she knew, until her dying day – Grandpa Darius had literally had to dig his way out of his own grave.

“So, what about the, uh…” Smoky said. “Color…”

“Oh, for Lyra’s boundless love of humanity!” Fiddlesticks sighed, “Her dad met an Ethiopian Jew. They fell in love. The end.”

‘Is autism communicable? Yael wondered.

Which was kind of a shitty thing to think, but it was the only explanation she had for how the two were so mutually odd.

“Can we please not talk about that?” Heliotrope asked. “It’s the first time either of us have seen Nny in a while.”

“It’s been too long,” Fiddlesticks said, walking up to the two of them. “You’ve, ah… been...”

“Demoted,” Yael said bluntly.

“Yes,” Heliotrope said, “They demoted us. For…”

Yael shot her a Look.

“Cuz,” Nny said. “I know what happened.”

“You’re not… mad, or disgusted or anything?” Yael asked.

“Cuz,” Nny repeated, “They let Kraber and Lovikov stay an hour or two away from my house. They let multiple murderers–”

“Wait, do you mean various different murderers,” Smoky started, “Or people with multiple counts of murder?”

“Does it matter?” Nny asked. “I mean, I don’t think I’d feel any more safe if I was surrounded by a bunch of people that only killed one guy. We were at the point where they were about to hunt us both for sport. Or where I’d start doing it back, too!”

“I swear, saying disturbing things with a straight face is your superpower,” Heliotrope said.

“Christ,” Summers said. “And we let the HLF live near people with a slap on the wrist?!”

He looked over to Yael.

“First Lieutenant, do you think if I’d been a serial killer over in Britain, then said I was HLF, I’d be okay?” he asked.

Yael’s gut instinct was ‘no,’ but…

Dancing Day

“Despite his bluntness,” Yael says, “Summers was like a rapier in some ways.”

“...never say ‘rapier’ in the same sentence as you mention that man, ever again,” Heliotrope says.

“Please tell me he never–” Vinyl starts.

“Holy shit, no!” Heliotrope breathes. “But… Just. Just don’t. It feels kinda gross, Yael.”

“Very well then,” Yael says. “But he was kind of like that because it was so easy for him to poke through chinks in your armor.”

Yael

… Was that really too different from what Viktor Kraber, what a lot of the Menschabwehrfraktion had done? There were a lot of people out there who had died because of them.

“Can’t argue with that,” she said cautiously.

“I mean, probably,” Heliotrope said, without a hint of uncertainty.

“It’s awful,” Fiddlesticks said. “There’s just this feeling that instead of calling in the bomb squad, they just shoved a stick of dynamite into our closets and hoped for the best.”

“Well then,” Summers said, holding out one hand, “Consider us the bomb squad.”

Nny high-fived the taller man.

‘Well, Nny seems to like him so far,’Yael thought. ‘How bad could this get?’

And for a moment, things felt like they’d be okay.

… It was very much not going to be okay, not for a long time.

Heliotrope

But that wasn’t important.

They fanned out into the woods. PHL in camo, with ponies covered in a special fur-safe dye that’d help them blend in to the forest – or, in the case of Heliotrope and Chinook, the sky.

Heliotrope flew up, over the tree cover. Defiance was laid out before her, sprawling over the road and onto newly-cut farmland. Prefabs, mobile homes, tents, and cheap throwaway houses oozed out into the woods, with no particular plan, full of streets that went nowhere.

She had looked at the satellite map of Defiance before. Had studied pictures of it. And, from what she’d gathered, an infantry assault of it would be a nightmare. Wide, narrowing streets encouraged long sight-lines for anyone defending the place, irregular corners ensured any cover was dicey at best, and a network of tunnels all-but-confirmed by near-constant posts on internet forums ensured a quick escape route

‘This had all been planned. Lovikov designed this,’ There was only one question that she didn’t have answers to. ‘How can someone with that intelligence do something so stupid?’

Word from captured prisoners had been that Aeron Grant ordered it. And that did go some way in answering the question. Grant possessed an inexplicable combination of traits. A good mind for tactics, and all the common sense that God gave a porkchop. As an example, back in Europe he’d been trying to save various refugees, and somehow managed to position himself behind the Spanish armed forces, saving himself, and his scant amount of rescued…

But deflecting the brunt of the attack onto the PHL and the European militaries, hurting many more people than he possibly could’ve saved.

And Portland, of course. If the rumors of his involvement were true, which they probably were, he was up to his old tricks.

Heliotrope looked down towards Defiance.

The humans there looked…. Confused. Scared. There was an uncertainty to their movements. She peered down at the wall.

“The Northwest corner of the wall, just to the left of that weathervane with the chicken,” Heliotrope whispered over her comms. “There’s a blind spot in their guard schedule there.”

Yael

Yael swung a grappling hook, and climbed over the rough-hewn wooden walls. It was getting pretty dark, and it was very likely she wouldn’t be noticed.

Quiette Shy trotted nearby, affixing herself to the wall with some magic centered channeled through her hooves. Oscar was rappelling up nearby, and Yael struggled to keep pace with him.

As they crested the wall, Oscar looked towards a guard. He tapped a silenced pistol at his hip.

Yael shook her head.

‘No. A dead body will raise too many questions.’

Oscar was impassive, but the pistol didn’t clear the holster.

They slipped down to the ground, and slid into cover behind someone’s brown-painted woodshed.

“QS, get to Heliotrope’s position at the radio station any way you can,” Yael said. “Invisibility, teleportation, anything.”

Quiette Shy nodded.

“Oscar? You’re with me. We’re paying Lovikov a house call,” Yael said.

The big man nodded. Lovikov’s personal quarters were a refurbished bus next to what residents of Defiance called The Big House, one of only a handful of buildings that couldn’t be moved, or packed up and rebuilt later.

It was the seat of Defiance’s council. Lovikov, some handpicked representatives, and a few that the town had voted into office. There were seven seats - Lovikov and Benning, someone named Dallas Genovese, Emily Bretton, Preacher Lewis Witting, Janna Orson, and Pierre DuPont.

Yael, Chinook, Summers, and Oscar were going to secure it all by their lonesome.

It sat towards the Northern corner of the shantytown. Not far from them. Heliotrope had picked out this gap specifically for that purpose.

The two of them inched along the side of a mobile home attached to what looked like an improvised workshop.

Yael watched a woman wearing bear fur, the remnants of pants that could’ve been slacks or chinos or khakis, and a T-shirt walking by. For whatever reason, she stopped in the middle of the street.

Oscar and Yael barely dared breathe.

Then, as soon as she started moving, Oscar blurred slightly and rushed across that street, making almost no noise.

Yael would never truly understand how Oscar could be that fast. How he could cross meters in the span of a few seconds. How he could literally run circles around an entire room of PER and gun them all down before any of them could get a lock on him.

It was just sort of something she’d grown to accept.

Yael followed suit. Her spare Tavor held ready, keeping low to the ground to make herself a smaller target, she rushed across the street in Oscar’s footsteps.

“Hmmm?” the bear-skin-wearing woman asked. She tramped towards the two of them, unholstering an ancient bolt-action rifle.

Oscar reached for his silenced pistol again.

And just as the woman rounded the corner, about to cry in alarm-

And in that moment, Yael unleashed perhaps the deadliest weapon in her arsenal.

More powerful than the silenced Tavor at her back. She didn’t like the Tavor as much as the reassuring and powerful weight of a good 7.62 Galil. That, and the stock was ridiculously long, with its underbarrel Six12 shotgun. More powerful than her little Jericho 941. Or the combat knife she carried.

The Ben Ze’ev family’s famed right h–

Dancing Day

“Now, pay close attention to that punch,” Kraber says.

“Really?” Heliotrope asks.

“...How?” Dancing Day asks, confused. “Yael just described it. There really wasn’t much to-–”

“Cos’ it's not the last time you're gonna see that punch in the story,” Aegis adds.

“You too?” Heliotrope asks. “Seriously?”

Yael

The right hook drove into the side of the woman’s skull, just in front of the ear.

There was a sickly noise – though Yael probably hadn’t killed her – on impact as the woman crumpled to the ground, eyelids fluttering.

She lay in an ungainly heap.

Oscar looked at her and nodded. He needed no instruction, as he straightened her body out and pushed her under the trailer.

Yael felt the woman’s neck with two fingers. She was alive, but…

“Whatever. I’ll pay for the MRI scan.”

The two of them made their way to the house. Oscar stared through the window. He could see figures milling about, walking from room to room.

Dancing Day

“Did you really have to interrupt it to reference Invader Zim?” Yael asks.

“I knew you liked that Invader Zim movie, Dad!” Rivet crowed.

“It’s pretty good,” Aegis admits, “I mean, it’s kinda dark and I don’t like all the humor, and I feel like a lot of the randomness aged poorly.”

“You weren’t even on this planet when that show was on,” Heather says, “And you’re saying that?”

“I thought GIR was funny,” Dancing Day says.

“...Astral Nectar, you ever wonder if this world is just harmful to children in general?” Aegis asks.

“Can’t be much worse,” Mommy shrugs. “Least she’s not growing up on the totem-broadcasts like Tinder’s Trailblazers.”

By which Mommy means a show Dancing Day has only heard snippets of from other expat foals like Sundae Sprinkles – apparently, it’s some awful totem-broadcast puppet show that shows fictionalized Trailblazers rescuing cowardly or abducted ponies, but often failing to “save” ponies who work with the show’s fictionalized PHL by leaving them in explosions or letting them fall into vats of molten metal or something, all while falling in dramatically slow motion that was really just to save on animation costs, all while yelling “NOOOOOO!” with the slowed-down sound making them sound like mooing cows, and then a couple episodes later they’d come back as “MECHA-BUTTERCREAM,” who would then reveal a diabolical plot to set fire to the Sun all while telling the audience “They had. To go. INSIDE” and then there was a nightmare that Sundae Sprinkles had once had where everyone was screaming at the top of their lungs, and Mecha-Buttercream had turned to the camera and yelled “I AM IN HELL, HELP ME,” but then Rivet said he knew from Dusk Twinkle that it actually was an episode, and–

“Anyone who lets their foals absorb that crap,” Aegis says, and Dancing Day is surprised at the vitriol in his voice, “has already failed so hard as a parent, I almost wonder if abduction could only be an improvement.”

Apparently even Kraber is surprised. Because, after ten seconds, mug of something that could have been alcoholic, hot chocolate, coffee, or all three halfway to his mouth, he says;

“... Well, shit.”

Nobody is quite sure how to react to that.

“You never answered my question,” Yael says, looking at Kraber.

“Not really,” Kraber replies, “But… I just knew you were talking about blikseming someone and cold-cocking them in one hit, and–” A note of wistfulness or joy creeps into his voice. “I just got so excited about the end of this story.”

Yael looks to consider this. She looks over at Aegis, who then looks at Heliotrope. All of them then look at Kraber, who has his head cocked kind of like a confused African Wild Dog, an expression on his face that just screams ‘Yes. What are you going to do about it?’

“Understandable,” Yael says.

Heliotrope

All of a sudden, Heliotrope realized the symmetry of it all and had to laugh. The HLF had started this by livestreaming from the rig…

And then there she was. About to take over Defiance’s radio station.

She alighted on the roof of the station – a tin shack with an antenna that Heliotrope suspected had just been stolen outright from a place the Barrier had consumed.

“Where are you, QS?” Heliotrope asked.

“Right Behind You,” Quiette Shy said, drawing up next to Heliotrope. “Just Open The Door. I Shall Follow In The Shadows.”

Heliotrope reached up to the doorknob, feeling it turn underneath her forehoof. The two mares trotted through the hallways, Heliotrope invisible and Quiette Shy moving noiselessly.

What really struck Heliotrope as they moved through the hallways was how banal it all seemed. A cork board with a poster for Small Town Loud Fest in Lancaster, posts for GenReal and Second Sun, and even something for the Lost Children. Coming… fairly soon, in fact.

‘Huh.’

It seemed almost easy to forget that these people didn’t care about innocent lives. That they’d been complicit in bombing Portland. That they’d done some really fucked-up stuff in Germany, and the Middle East. That they openly didn’t consider ponies to be refugees as well, and there were a large number of murders they swore they had nothing to do with, usually aimed at ponies who happened to be within a few miles. That they’d been as destructive to ponies in Rangeley, Maine, a few days ago, as the PER themselves. Apparently, they’d shot prisoners.

‘What’s with all these PER attacks on rural areas, anyway?’ Heliotrope thought. ‘There’s no strategic goal to it. At least, none that I can see. And are they… trying to actually keep Newfoals? Huh. That’s a weird one. PER actually caring about the lives they convert.’

Heliotrope and Quiette Shy stood, invisible, not far from the recording booth. Heliotrope pressed one ear to the wall, listening intently.

“... DJ twenty-Gage,” the voice said, “Telling you once again that the actions of Leonid Lovikov enrage us.”

Heliotrope caught a glimpse of him through the door. He was a wheelchair-bound man with a leg replaced by a crude prosthetic that barely looked able to support his weight.

Is he recording? No. We would’ve been hearing this.

Heliotrope looked down slightly.

No.

No, he was reading. A piece of printer paper was clasped firmly in his shaking hands, with crumpled up sheets lined in ink and pencil littering the floor like snow.

“He could’ve had anything there,” Gage continued, the paper shaking like leaves in a hurricane, “And he just went and shot up a city. If you’re out there, Lovikov– and I know full well you hear this–”

And Heliotrope had to wonder just what in Tartarus that meant.

“Innocent people died there. Men, women, and children died. There’s a lot of kids who aren’t going to be seeing their mothers and fathers today. And vice versa. I just want to know one thing, Leonid. Is this a fucking joke? At what point do you or Aeron Grant get to the punchline? Because this, I don’t know how this could be worth it. Someone explain it to me!”

“Say The Word,” Quiette Shy whispered. “And We’re On It.”

Heliotrope wondered just what any of that could mean. What was this guy talking about? Were they… were they seriously trying to distance themselves?

There was so much that didn’t make sense.

Yael

The house had once been a farmhouse, and it was still used as such for the few nearby farms that served Defiance. According to what information they’d been able to glean, they used the dining room as the main meeting room, sitting around a long, rough-hewn dinner table.

Yael could hear a heated discussion.

“Idiot’s going to bring them down on us all!”

“Why did we let that jumped-up-biker into command?!”

“This was better under Helmetag!”

“Too bad Lovikov...”

“Helmetag was half-ponified and you know it!”

“Da Costa says he thinks someone’s in the woods. We’re going to have to send someone in just to make him feel better.”

“Farnowitz is reporting PHL movement, maybe we’ll–”

Yael didn’t know who either of those people were, and it wouldn’t be until much later that Da Costa was Kraber’s friend, a Portuguese man who liked to play cowboy and went and started a farm.

”Poor bastard,” Kraber says.

But regardless, Yael knew something that Defiance’s command didn’t know: That there actually were men and women in the woods.

‘I have to end it now.’

She heard the hum of the radio, then looked down a hallway. She saw two HLF in armor that looked nigh-indistinguishable from anything a real military would wear. One was wearing a British-designed hardsuit over a wetsuit, while the other one wore a badge of the Menschabwehrfraktion badge – the letters ‘MWF’ over a fist – next to a faded American flag.

“Heliotrope?” Yael spoke into comms. “Do your thing.”

She paused. They’d have seconds to get this right.

“Oscar? You think you’ve got the beanbags to do this?”

She looked down towards Oscar’s waist.

At which point, Oscar unholstered the Volmer shotgun he always carried, before racking the bolt and shoving a beanbag round into the breech.

Heliotrope

Quiette Shy’s horn glowed, and the door exploded.

“HEY!” Gage yelled. “What’s–”

Heliotrope shot through the door like a bullet. She folded her wings to the side, forced one shoulder forward, bending her neck out of the way. And slammed the full force of her barrel into Gage’s wheelchair. He fell onto his back, gasping, knocked out from the seat of the thing.

“GAGE!” someone yelled. “I’m–”

“Microphone!” Quiette Shy yelled, the automatic voicebox sounding strangely… organic. “NOW.”

The glass and the doorway suddenly took on a reddish tint, as Quiette Shy held the shield over the vulnerable entryways.

“The gluesticks got in!” the man on the other side of the glass yelled, unholstering a cheap, battle-scarred Glock, firing fruitlessly against the wall of force that QS had projected.

Heliotrope nodded, and flew up to the mike. She stood on radio equipment that Gage, or the human watching as he recorded, would likely consider priceless, and spoke.

“Attention, assholes!” Heliotrope yelled. “This is the PHL!”

Yael

At the same time, Oscar took a deep breath, tensed himself, and blurred.

With all the kinetic energy and subtlety of an avalanche, moving at the speed of an Olympic runner, Oscar Mikkelsen rushed for the door, Yael struggling to keep pace.

Before either HLF guard could say anything, Oscar took a running leap and kicked the English guard in the face. He slammed into the door, which swung outward and bounced against the inner wall.

Yael followed. She rushed through the open door, Tavor at the ready. She swept her rifle across the room, looking over the Defiance council….

...With its two empty seats.

“Attention, assholes!” the radio squawked, in Heliotrope’s distinctive Seaddle accent. “This is the PHL! We’ve captured your radio station, and your leaders!”

“Wha–” started one man with huge sideburns, wearing a ratty business suit. Yael vaguely recognized him as a French expat by the name of Pierre Dupont. He fumbled for a pistol, and–

The muzzle of Oscar’s HV penetrator rustled his hair.

“This,” Oscar said, holding the Penetrator ready, “Would be a bad idea.”

“We’ve secured their command room,” Yael said. “Await further instructions, Heliotrope.”

“Roger that,” Heliotrope said.

“Summers?” Yael asked. “Place the projector.”

“We don’t allow magic here,” one tall, bald white-bearded man said. He looked like he was wearing the garb of a preacher, but they were old. Ratty. This was definitely Witting.

“And we don’t allow hillbillies and traitors to shoot cities,” Summers said. “One of us is going to make an allowance here, and it isn’t me.”

He reached into his backpack, and placed a disk in the center of the table. It expanded ever so slightly, widening by the second…

Before projecting an image of one Colonel Sabine Northwoods standing atop the table.

“Where. Is. Leonid. Lovikov,” she asked, voice icy.

“What the hell is all this?!” asked the man at the head of the table. Yael recognized him as Arnold Soldano.

He was enormous, with a build that would’ve granted him great success in any contact sport. As a result, he barely seemed to fit in his chair, almost scraping the ceiling. PHL Intelligence was that he’d been best friends with Lovikov.

“You know what this is,” Yael said, one hand on the Six12’s trigger guard, the other over the Tavor’s. Not for the first time, she wished there was a way to hold it without being so close to shooting them. “Oscar?”

One of his hands reached for the button to activate his comms, all as he managed to keep aiming the Penetrator towards DuPont’s head with one hand. As a Penetrator was built on a scale typically reserved for autoshotguns, this was impressive.

“Heliotrope?” Oscar said, voice rumbling, “Ze’ev says to tell them what we want.”

Heliotrope

“We’ve secured their command room,” Yael said. “Await further instructions, Heliotrope.”

“They’re going to get you,” Gage rasped from the ground, “You bastards, you… you gluesticks…”

Heliotrope never really knew what to think of how mostly furless human faces displayed expressions, but there was something genuinely unnerving about the way the human’s face had twisted itself. It looked red and wrinkled, and for some reason all Heliotrope could think of was a bomb about to explode.

Something smelled wrong about him. Specifically, something about his leg, right above the prosthesis.

He smells like… an infection, Heliotrope thought. Then: Where did that come from? An infection?!

“Try It,” Quiette Shy said. “I Already Have A Shield On, And So Does Heliotrope.”

Holding back her revulsion, Heliotrope sniffed at his leg.

“Don’t you dare, gluestick, don’t you fucking dare, I swear to God–”

“You were half-potioned, weren’t you?” Heliotrope asked.

Gage just glowered at her. If looks could kill, Heliotrope would be dust on the floor.

“And I’ve had nightmares about it damn near every night,” Gage said. “I’ve suffered for this. I’ve been kept off the frontlines in this fucking chair because of you.”

“I’m…” Heliotrope said, thinking about just what might’ve happened. About the pain of losing a limb. Ever since Kraber shot her, she knew firsthoof just how much it hurt to be kept out of action, to feel weighed down by your own body. She’d never wish that on anyone.

This went double for potion amputees. Sometimes they were fine. Other times they came back… wrong. You could have someone who only lost a foot who might only be able to serve again after months and months of therapy, who seemed to have lost part of something imperceptible.

And the signs were everywhere on this guy. Unreasonable. Violent. Uninhibited. Heliotrope was even sure she saw flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth.

“Sorry,” Heliotrope said. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Gage just spat at her.

Well. Buck you too then, Heliotrope thought.

Suddenly, comparing him to an infection didn’t feel so bizarre.

There was pounding on the forcefield. “Open up, we–”

“Stand down!” someone yelled. “They have the town council at gunpoint, they could shoot up that whole room! This could turn into a bloodbath!”

“What?!”

“Heliotrope?” Oscar said, voice rumbling, “Ze’ev says to tell them what we want.”

“Where,” Heliotrope said into the microphone, “Is. Leonid. Lovikov.”

Gage laughed. “You know you’re not going to get out of this alive, right?” he cackled. “You don’t have it in you to start shooting us all one by o-–”

Yael

What Heliotrope said next would surprise Yael. It was pretty unsettling, to say the least.

“You know, that’s what we thought about the HLF,” Heliotrope thought. “That, well.. You didn’t like us, we didn’t like you. That was fine. But then…” A pause. “Well. Then your leader decided to shell a city. Countless innocents dead. I saw a lot of parents walking around without children. I watched a man get thrown out a window and shatter his back. He died in a lot of pain.”

This was technically not untrue.

Good lord, Heliotrope, Yael thought.

The men and women of Defiance’s council stared at the radio like it was about to bite them.

“So,” Heliotrope said, “If that’s not off-limits… Well, ask yourself what that’s opened up for us.”

“... A bit more graphic than I was hoping for,” Northwoods said, “But overall, the point is clear. We want Lovikov. And we want him now.”

“What leverage do you have?” asked a council member. “There’s more of us than–”

“For starters,” Northwoods interrupted, “Colonel Gardner has surrounded the camp with PHL. Many of which, I’m guessing, are already over your wall.”

“That’s bull,” one councilwoman sneered. She picked up a walkie-talkie.

Then put it down immediately.

“Well,” she said. “Shit.”

A pause.

“Alright,” Soldano said. “You’ve gotten us over a barrel. What do you want?”

“Soldan–” protested a youngish man in military fatigues that seemed indistinguishable as belonging to any military. He had shaved the sides of his head to make a more-on-top haircut that ended in a ponytail, and walked the line between well-groomed and shattering any possible hygiene standards.

“No, Dallas,” Soldano said, “Emily’s right. The gl–”

Yael’s Tavor snapped towards him. She wasn’t going to do anything with it – if a gunfight started, God only knew what kind of madness awaited – but that was just the sort of thing friends did for one another.

“The pegasus,” Yael insisted.

“The pegasus that took our radio,” Soldano said, sounding very annoyed but also strained, “Is right. Lovikov bit off more than he could chew by bringing this down on us.”

“You keep talking like he’s not here,” Oscar said.

“What I want to know is, where is he?!” Northwoods demanded. “Where is that son of a–”

“Simply put,” Soldano said, “We don’t know.”

The ground fell out under Yael.

‘What.’

Lorne

They stood on the hill, assembling a mortar. The people of Defiance couldn’t see them on this side of the hill. It’d be trivial to fire the mortar off into them.

But something didn’t feel right.

The simple fact was that Lorne would’ve felt better alongside Yael. For whatever reason, he always felt like he was being isolated. Or isolating himself. Either-or.

He turned away from the mortar. And saw Gardner, sitting in a little command post near the hollow of a tree. On his left was Smoky, the bruises and stripped-away fur obvious at that angle. The two of them were discussing something with some of the higher-ups. Lorne recognized Cheerilee, Colonel Northwoods, and General Nathaniel Roberts.

Something big is going down, Lorne thought, feeling almost compelled to turn back almost as soon as he looked.

He didn’t like Summers or Gardner. Never had. And, the moment that Ze’ev, a black woman, had been moved to Gardner’s little dumping-ground for soldiers who neither the PHL or US military could use, Lorne knew he wanted to stay close by her.

Because there was something about Gardner and Summers that made Lorne want to be a country away from them. Something that made him feel like they would be nice and cordial, right until the moment you dug a KKK robe out of their closets.

‘Smoky seems nice, but…’

He looked over to Smoky. His face was covered in bandages.

‘Shouldn’t he be in a hospital?’Lorne thought. But, no. Apparently the three of them had insisted on coming here. Including Summers. Even though that last one looked like Kraber had fed his face into a belt sander. ‘Which raises questions about why… The Lieutenant never bought that. Sure, if he was willing to shoot us while we were chasing him with a helicopter, I get it, but…’

“Our troops are ready to attack,” Gardner said. “Hebert will be ready to fire at any time.”

Lorne nodded, heading for the weapon. It was PHL-modified, so there were always going to be some kinks… but overall, it looked easy enough to master.

“Stand down, Colonel Gardner,” Cheerilee said. “You agreed to not attack them.”

On some level, Lorne knew that was the plan all along. But…

Lorne looked over to Bro. Who just shrugged.

“Fuckin’ madness,” Bro said, in his unplaceable but definitely rural accent. “You can’t just… handle people with kid gloves like this! They think you could give them an inch…”

“They’ve already taken a mile,” Lorne finished. “Yeah. I know.”

“I know that,” Gardner said. “But. We’re ready nonetheless.”

On the other end, this must’ve looked like a perfectly normal affirmative.

But Lorne saw it.

It was an act of supreme will with which Gardner forced himself to obey. He’d really wanted to shoot Defiance that day. And Lorne…

Well, it wasn’t to say he wanted to kill the Menschabwehrfraktion, but he didn’t feel right about it.

“Haven’t you heard?” Eva asked, looking over from her nearby sniper’s nest. “Lovikov’s not there, and apparently he and Benning acted alone. Despite the fact that this is his camp.”

She swore under her breath in Icelandic.

“Don’t buy that for a second,” Smoky said, looking over towards the three of them.

“If we fight,” Cheerilee said, “We’ll be declaring a civil war.”

“They,” Gardner said, “Have already declared civil war.”

“Lovikov has, anyway,” Cheerilee said. “There are HLF all over the country, Colonel Gardner. Like it or not, a lot of them have established what might as well be island-states within the US.”

This wasn’t always true, as there were a lot of HLF enclaves and settlements that paid their taxes and kept under the radar, but there were a few down south that made Lorne feel like he was walking into the movie Hostel.

There were a few that he knew for a fact had taken in the more fringey antigovernment types. The kind that had racist sensibilities from the fifties – make that the eighteen-fifties –- who’d been at the Hoof-Tax Riots, refusing to pay taxes because of how many of said taxes were been poured to the PHL.

‘And Defiance,’ Lorne thought, ‘has all of these people and more. I saw way too many Confederate flags around here.’

In fact, if he looked through the mortar’s viewfinder, he could see one flying over a PHL-designed prefab. The irony that there was a PHL design here was not lost on him.

Gardner growled. “We allowed that much of a destabilizing influence into our country?”

“I don’t like it either,” General Roberts said. “But it’s how this is. If we’re seen as aggravating one side of the Split, it could be a disaster. Times are only going to get worse from here, and we can’t afford civil war during the era that comes next.”

There was a pause. If anyone asked Lorne, he would have claimed this was always an untenable situation. There were just too many angry people, in too much space, who could slip into the cracks between bubbles of authority, just like that… or, Lorne knew, turn the authority to their side.

There was no way the police didn’t turn a blind eye to a lot of Defiance’s activities. How many people had been murdered around Menschabwehrfraktion territory, sometimes in blind daylight?

Too many.

“If I may?” Smoky asked.

“... Certainly, corporal Quartz,” Cheerilee said.

“It sounds like we’re going to have civil war no matter what,” Smoky said. “Lovikov’s willing to do this, the Reavers trying to frame us for that bombing in Bastion, plans to break Carter out...”

“Well, even so,” General Roberts said, “If there’s a chance that this isn’t the opening shot of another war, that Lovikov and Benning were on their own…”

Lorne could hear it in the General’s voice. He very clearly did not find it believable either.

“Well, I’d prefer to take it,” General Roberts said. “Colonel. I don’t like them any more than you. But there’s two things: Firstly, it should be the jobs of the police and national guard to do it.”

“The police are on the payroll of the HLF here, sir,” Gardner said. “I’m certain of it.”

“Then we will deal with that,” Cheerilee said. “But I remember what civil war felt like back in Equestria. It was a nightmare. If we are responsible for kickstarting that here, everybody loses. And nobody wins.”

“We saw people being blown up during Portland, Commander,” Gardner said. “The city was destroyed. Someone has to pay for this!”

“But I don’t want it to be the whole of Defiance, or even the whole of the HLF, Colonel,” Cheerilee said. “Unless there’s evidence that it’s the party line of the entire settlement, I can’t in good conscience authorize a strike on them.”

“Besides,” General Roberts said. “The PER are very clearly planning something over here. Whatever it is, I don’t want us to be distracted while they do it.”

That had been the rumor for a long time. That the PER had something planned. They’d been unusually brazen in the US and other areas on the frontline of the Barrier, with surprisingly few “stragglers” left in their wake. Rumor was they’d even been taking the Ferals.

Officially, according to PHL and government-approved media, ‘Ferals’ were an urban legend. But, well…

‘You make people into animals, they start acting like animals,’ Lorne thought. ‘Also holy shit, is that racist?’

Then again, it wasn’t like the few Equestrians he knew – Smoky didn’t count, the two of them barely said a word to each other, and his closeness to Summers and Gardner unnerved him – were any more sympathetic towards Newfoals.

“The goal here,” Cheerilee said, “Is a show of force. They know we could destroy them. And we know it too.”

Yael

“Shtuyot,” Yael said, putting in all the venom that people normally reserved for swearwords.

This story had to be nonsense.

“It’s exactly how it sounds. Bastard left us with the bag,” confirmed ‘Dallas,’ the blonde man in the uniform that looked more like a costume than anything. “It was a messy one, too.” ‘Dallas’ sighed. “Self-righteous, bloodthirsty, lying-”

“Dallas,” ‘Emily’ said. “Stop.”

“Emily’s right,” Soldano said. “He’s still-”

Yael was about to ask why, before DuPont went over her concerns more-or-less word-for-word:

“Still what?” DuPont asked. “Because it looks like he left the PHL a perfect excuse to kill all of us. Since they’re not doing that, I feel like I should be a lot more grateful to them in the immediate moment.”

“Christ,,” Emily said. “Mind deep-throating that boot a little longer, you two?”

“He’s not wrong, though,” said the only other woman on Defiance’s council - so, definitely Janna. “We are… kind of screwed right now.”

Dallas nodded. “They want to be reasonable, let’s… talk this out.”

“...Right,” Soldano said, after a pause. What should have been a single syllable came out so strangled it sounded almost like it was three.

‘...you win this round, Dallas. And DuPont.’ Yael silently thought. She didn’t say anything in their defense. No need to make it worse for both of them.

“I swear to God,” Soldano said. “It’s all true.”

Apparently, Lovikov had acted mostly alone. There’d been a hand-picked group he took on the boat with seemingly no rhyme or reason – younger kids, a relatively respected driver, only a few of his seeming favorites – and they’d had no records of any contact with Grant.

None of them had shown up yet. There were no calls to Defiance’s command, anyway. But it was all bullshit, of course. It had to be.

“Do you seriously expect me to believe,” Yael said, “Any word of that.”

Soldano was impassive.

“You have to admit,” DuPont said, “It’d make a lot more sense than him coming back here.”

“Explain,” Oscar said, his voice flat.

“He very publicly attacked an entire city,” DuPont said. “If he went back here, you would kill us all.”

Yael nodded. That part, that one makes sense.

“I swear to God,” Soldano said, “You will not find him here.”

It was bullshit thought. It had to be. There was just one problem with that explanation: The conspicuous lack of Lovikov himself.

“Well then where in the fuck is he?!” Summers yelled.

“My best guess,” Soldano said, “Is with the ship that saved him.”

There was a pause.

“This is the part,” the youngish man in the nondescript fatigues added, “where you say ‘You mean that wasn’t y–’”

“I know damn well it wasn’t you,” Yael snapped. “You don’t have one of those ATC gunships. You don’t have anywhere you’d put it.”

The youngish man shook his head sadly, seeming almost disappointed.

“So,” Northwoods said, “You’re all absolutely certain that he’s not here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Soldano said.

“Then you’ll allow us to check,” Northwoods said.

“What?!” Soldano protested. “No, no, no… you might–”

“If we don’t find Leonid, if it turns out that idiot is about to ruin everything by staying here, then that’s going to mean civil war,” Northwoods said. “It’s only consolidation of authority,”

Something about that sentence had the same effect on the crowded room as a pistol’s report. The HLF were silent for a few moments. Yael wondered if time had slowed down, if something was about to go wrong, and then–

“You raise a good point,” Soldano said, and something sounded a bit odd about his voice. “Very well then.”

‘And what,’ Yael wondered, ‘the hell was that about?’

Heliotrope

Gage’s phone rang.

“... Yes?” he said, reaching for it slowly. Carefully. Heliotrope’s gun tracked his hand as it reached into the recesses of his wheelchair.

He pulled out an iPhone.

“That Had Better Not Be One Of Those Derringers That Look Like Phones.”.

“... That’s a thing?!” Heliotrope asked, shocked.

“Always thought those were kind of stupid,” said the guy on the other end of the glass. “What if cousin Gene mistook one for his iphone and shot off part of his ear?”

“Nobody could possibly be that stupid,” Heliotrope said.

“You don’t know my cousin,” said the guy on the other end of the glass.

“Fuck you, Lewis!” Gage yelled. “You’re letting them walk all over us! If they didn’t–”

“Gage,” ‘Lewis’ said, “Stop threatening to bite their hooves off and think clearly for a second. If you shoot them, then you will die. If we are very lucky, then it will not kick off a massacre.”

‘... I kind of like him,’ Heliotrope thought.

Sure, Equestrians and their fellow Equusites were usually more durable than humans – there was a scientific explanation about altered laws of physics back on the homeworld – but the human was right. If Gage opened fire, everything would go crazy.

And then, as Gage answered–

“We’re what?!” he asked. “No, I…”

Presumably, it was the same message that Heliotrope and Yael were getting.

“According to them,” Yael said, “Lovikov and Rebecca Benning acted alone, and they’re nowhere to be found. The rest of Defiance was blameless. Apparently.”

The disdain and sarcasm in her voice could peel paint from the walls.

“That’s bullshit,” Heliotrope said.

“It’s their story and they’re sticking with it,” Oscar said.

“Both of you,” Yael said. “Quiet down. Now, they’re–”

There was a knock on the door.

“Open up!” someone said. “It’s Carl. We’re letting them…”

Yael

“Search the camp?!” yelled one of Defiance’s council members. “Soldano, this is ridiculous! They’ll see everything!”

“You would let them and their ungodly powers see every inch of the camp?!” the one in the priestly-looking robes asked.

“If I may?” Yael asked.

“If you may what?” Soldano asked, teeth gritted.

“Do you have another war crime you’re ready to do?” one woman asked. “Maybe round up our children and–”

Yael drew in a breath. “Shut. Up.”

The woman did.

“Here’s the thing. You know how believable your story is,” Yael said. “So do I. If it turns out Lovikov isn’t here, then fine. You were right. But you are not going to make us all leave just because he’s not in this room.”

“Or what?” asked another councilmember. “Are you going to burn us all alive till you find a corpse that looks like him, and call it mission accomplished?”

“Depends,” Summers said, raising his M4. “Are you going to kill everyone in Berlin or Errol just for the sheer hell of it?”

“Both of you,” Northwoods said. “Shut up. Look. Nobody here wants a fight. You clearly don’t want the might of the PHL and National Guard on you. And we don’t want another war.”

Yael thought on that. Would she relish a fight with the HLF? Bringing back authority to the US, making sure that nothing like Portland would happen again, that she would never see anything like the atrocities perpetrated on ponies and most any human who affiliated with them during the Europe Evacuation.

She’d seen Defiance. She’d seen children’s toys in the houses. And she’d spent enough time in America to know that…

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to fight Lovikov.

But…

The thought of burning down Defiance just like Nipville suddenly seemed a whole lot less palatable.

‘I’ve lost so much for burning down Nipville. Do I really want another one?’

“Just let us search for him,” Yael said. “Let us make sure he’s not here. If he’s not, then we just walk away.”

Northwoods looked to her, approvingly.

“Well said,” she said. “So. What’s it going to be?”

Dancing Day

December 2022

“You could cut the tension with a butter knife,” Yael says. “I’m just going to say it. It was awful. Quiette Shy said…

Quiette Shy

The process of starting the search hit them like a whirlwind. One minute they were guarding Defiance… And seemingly within minutes, Lorne was walking in, rifle in one hand, a group of PHL at his back.

“They’re letting us search the camp,” Lorne said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, you two.”

Searching Defiance would almost immediately remind Quiette Shy of evac duty.

Back during the Europe Evacuation, Quiette Shy had to visit countless small, insular communities not unlike this – rural places that were due to be ponified and then consumed by the Barrier. Evac duty had never been pleasant.

You could never tell how people would react. Even if they were the PHL, even if they were there to help, even if Ambassador Heartstrings had decided to personally lead the evac – which, on many occasions, she had – they were still more like a paramilitary than a humanitarian organization these days.They were coming into towns, forcing people out of their homes, forcing them to leave behind everything. People broke down during the evacuations. When they’d been in less developed parts of the Balkans or Middle East, there’d been times where people fired on them – some HLF, some not.

It made the overall effect quite similar to walking into a minefield.

As she walked through the camp with Lorne and Bro, she felt more and more like each hoof was coming closer and closer to the detonator.

Parents yanked their children away. People stared at them from between blinds. Men and women watched them, hands under their coats.

Heliotrope

The search took hours.

They looked in every room. Every trailer. Every prefab.

It was monotonous work. She’d never really have an easy time of recounting everything that she saw – Quiette Shy perfectly summed up just how the whole experience felt.

Heliotrope watched as a group of ATF agents dragged a man in handcuffs. Behind him, they were carrying out a huge rifle with the magazine on top of the receiver, instead of below, and a bore larger than a human thumb.

‘We really did this without firing a shot,’ Heliotrope marveled inwardly. ‘Guess the HLF weren’t that dumb.’

“You can’t do this!” someone yelled. “We need that for the-–”

“But you’re still in America,” one agent said. “We still have laws about destructive devices. Like that Lahti there.”

Heliotrope would, as long as she lived, never truly understand gun laws in this country. It had also mystify her just how many weapons the HLF had been allowed to keep – rocket launchers, grenade launchers, anti-tank rifles, among others.

There was a group of other ATF that were following Quiette Shy and Heliotrope. She hadn’t learned all their names yet – one was named Clement? – but they’d been helpful so far.

They were walking into another house, one of only a few buildings that had been here long before Defiance was a fever-dream in the mind of Gregor Helmetag. Heliotrope could almost imagine it as a hunting cabin in an almost cartoon sort of nowhere.

Solar panels lined the roof, and a windmill turned lightly in the wind. It looked like - minus the small settlement that had subsumed it, ignoring the Barrier - this place could have survived on its own for years.

Heliotrope didn’t like it.

Actual permanent dwellings were rare in HLF settlements. If you had earned one that wasn’t, that made you, or the house, important.

Or both.

Except from what Heliotrope saw, there was a family there. A mother, a father, two children.

“Why do we have to work with Lyres, huh?” Da Costa asked. He was a big, bald, mustachioed man who looked like he was wearing a cowboy costume. He wore a coat with multicolored feathers woven in, and Heliotrope could only hope they hadn’t come from ponies.

Heliotrope knew him by reputation:

Joao Miguel ‘Jomi’ DaCosta. Apparently, a bastard to the core.

He stood in front of Heliotrope, a scowl affixed to his face.

“Because,” Heliotrope said, “Either you work with us on this, or…”

“So you’re threatening us,” said one of the kids, a red-haired girl. They looked like they were barely into their teens – with humans, Heliotrope had a hard time telling these things – but they were dressed like HLF fighters through and through. They looked like they’d very much enjoy killing Heliotrope.

“We absolutely are,” one ATF agent said. “Keeping these weapons has been deemed an unacceptable risk after Portland.”

‘Lyra’s Grace,’ Heliotrope thought. ‘Did she ever get to be a child?’

She had to have been nine or ten, at most,during the Purple Winter.

“Or what?” the man asked.

Bro stood tall, his rifle pointed at the ground, not quite in their direction but close.

“After what Lovikov pulled,” Heliotrope said, “Be grateful Northwoods made sure we weren’t threatening you more. This is a slap on the wrist, and you know it.”

“We’re prepared to fight,” the redhead said.

“Jessie…” Da Costa’s wife warned.

“Are you though?” Bowie asked. Heliotrope looked at him, surprised. It was the most she’d heard from him in awhile. “Are you really willing to make enemies with the US government? Cos’, well, takes a special kind of man to look at the apocalypse and think ‘you know, I’m gonna fight a war on two fronts, and while I’m at it, I’m also gonna be responsible for the PHL not putting their one-hundred percent into stopping the Barrier or helping resettlement programs. God, it feels good to just care about me!’”

Dead silence all around. HLF all around were staring at him, aghast or angry.

“I had to fight in the Middle East, once,” Bowie said. “That was a war on two fronts. I can promise it was miserable for everyone. There were people we had to leave behind because they’d dug themselves a hole we couldn’t get them out of. You’d do well not to put yourself there.”

Da Costa glowered. Heliotrope silently cheered for Bowie.

“Alright,” the man said. “You can search my house. As long as the gluesticks–”

He seemed to be smirking, knowing that he was saying it in plain view of Heliotrope.

“Don’t take anything.”

And the three of them walked into the house.

Yes, she was bitter. Humans could talk a big game about the HLF being human too, but the fact was, sometimes Heliotrope felt stuck between two groups that hated her equally. To Equestria, she was a deserter so high-profile that the Trailblazers had an order to kill her on sight.

Meanwhile, for too many humans, she was just a gluestick. Sometimes –- during her first days serving with Yael during the Europe Evacuation – she felt like the PER, the HLF, and even some IDF had been competing to see who killed her first.

The smart one in the IDF took the punishment, and changed with the times. The ones too dumb to stop eating court-martials and penalties for shooting allied Equestrians either found themselves in prison or joining the Carter side of the Split.

After checking the bedrooms, she heard it.

“He might be hiding in a tunnel,” one child said, pointing to the basement.

“Tomas… You shouldn’t be telling them about that…” Da Costa warned.

“But Mister Lovikov did something bad,” ‘Tomas’ said. “If we hide things from them, won’t it be worse?”

‘There is something wrong,’ Heliotrope thought, ‘with this family.’

“Fine,” Da Costa sighed, and she and Quiette Shy followed Tomas towards the basement.

And here she was again. No, correction, the HLF had shot up a city, and Heliotrope knew full well they’d do it again.

If they’d just fired on Defiance, it never would’ve happened.

‘Wait. Did I seriously just think that?’

Strangely, Heliotrope found that she didn’t mind the idea.

‘They’ll do it again,’Heliotrope thought, as they checked a closet. ‘Lovikov took a lot of people with him, and they’re so going to bring in more. Lovikov didn’t exist in a vacuum. Best nip it in the bud.’

But… well. Orders were orders.

And if she fired now, well… that was unthinkable. She didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of so many others.

‘I have to follow orders now. Otherwise I’m screwed.’

Tomas made a left turn, passing through a room full of bunk beds, and walking into another room that looked like a workshop of some kind. There was a wall full of tools hanging on hooks at one end, full of saws, screwdrivers, hammers… almost a hardware store’s worth.

“It’s right here,” Tomas said, reaching for an empty hook and turning it. He pulled on it and twisted it, revealing a doorway and a set of stairs leading down…

“Oh,” Quiette Shy said, making the light hissing noise that Heliotrope knew was a sigh. “How Cliche Can One Man Get.”

The two of them looked at the stairs.

“Heliotrope, You Guard Me Until Bro Comes Down,” Quiette Shy said.

“Since when do you order me around?” Heliotrope asked, chuckling.

“You Really Want To Be In An Enclosed Space Where You Can Barely Fly?” Quiette Shy asked.

Heliotrope winced. “Oof. Point taken.”

So, Heliotrope stood, her back to the mute white unicorn, watching Tomas trembling slightly. Watching his father come down the stairs.

“There’s Nothing Here,” Quiette Shy said.

“What?” Tomas asked. “You can’t have checked all of i-”

“It’s Just One Room,” Quiette Shy said. The three of them looked down, to find….

That the stairs had only gone down for about ten steps, not enough for one story. That there was a concrete room only a few meters wide at the bottom, almost completely bare and full of crates.

“I don’t understand,” Tomas said, looking over one wall, covered in ancient mildewed ‘70s-vintage posters. “It… it’s supposed to be here!”

Yael

The ATF agents were rummaging through the hole under the shipping container, dragging up what felt like enough arms to arm one of the smaller HLF settlements out in the Rockies.

All under the watchful if apoplectic gaze of a red-headed man with a prosthetic leg, spewing out sovereign citizen boilerplate. After ten minutes that felt like ten hours of this ranting, causing another Nipville was starting to seem a whole lot less unappealing.

“Something something, flag doesn’t have stars, something something, navy flag,” the guy was saying. Months from then, Yael wouldn’t remember or care what it was. It was like he was trying to recite a counterspell for the law.

‘The U.S,’ Yael thought, ‘really should’ve kept a better handle on this sort of thing. Even before the war.’

Back home – either in Israel, or in the Alaska Panhandle, which Yael actively attempted to avoid – the idea of being a sovereign citizen wouldn’t have been nearly this comfortable. Back home, they would have… Well, Yael wasn’t really sure about that. It wasn’t even a concept in either place.

Especially because, back in Alaska with Dad, the usual response was, “Here’s the door. You sure you want to walk through it?” while the snow piled up against the walls.

“Oh, please,” Chinook sighed. “Just shut up.”

Yael looked up and slightly left at the pegasus, silently mouthing ‘thank you’.

“Excuse me?” the man asked. “The First Amendm–”

“I read up on it on the flight here,” Chinook said. “It doesn’t cover shooting people, and it doesn’t force us to listen to you. ”

“For the record,” said one agent, a blond man in a wholly incongruous bowler hat, “Be glad we’re not stepping on any more.”

“I am an independent citizen of–” the man started.

“Convenient, isn’t it?” Yael asked. “You’re not part of the US on April 15th either, I’m guessing.”

“You claim to be peaceful all you want,” one man sneered, “But then you blow up Kraber when he’s running away.”

Yael snapped towards him. “And you’re peaceful until you blow up a city.”

“That’s not the same thing!” he yelled.

There was only one problem with that. They hadn’t worked out a story on what happened to Kraber. As far as anyone knew, he was still at large, and had escaped with Lovikov. Nobody could have possibly known that Kraber had been blown to pieces by an Obregon.

So how did they?

Yael didn’t know how to feel about that. There was a lot of stuff that left her wondering just how to feel today. Kraber’s seeming death, the search, Defiance…

She sighed.

“Really?” Yael asked, hand at her hip. “Why is it not the same?”

“Because you answer to no one,” he said. “We fight for freedom. We’ve always fought for freedom, even when your corrupt governments sucked their-–”

“I’m Israeli,” Yael said. “We didn’t have a single Bureau in our country.”

The mention that she was Israeli turned him an interesting shade of purple or red. “Y…”

He reached for his hip, and–

“Do it,” Yael said. “Make another Nipville. I dare you.”

“You caused Nipville,” the man spat.

“Right,” Yael said. “Because I didn’t see a town that was torturing ponies. Because I didn’t see a settlement that’d been taken over by armed lunatics who think the whole war centers around them. Because I didn’t see them–”

And this was a gamble. They hadn’t mentioned this in the story because… well, who would believe it?

“–draining their magic.”

“And so what if we did?” the man asked. There wasn’t a hint of surprise or denial.

‘So he did know.’

“It’s almost like,” Yael said, “Everything’s my fault. Almost like you shouldn’t be blamed at all!”

For a moment, she really did want to shoot the man then and there.

And suddenly, Yael imagined a future where she hadn’t seen her Heliotrope. A future with no Oscar or Quiette Shy, where the much-feared civil war had reached a boiling point. Yael lowered the Tavor. It wasn’t an act of supreme will or anything. The moment was gone, and suddenly she just felt tired.

Something she’d said struck a chord in her.

Did she still want to fight Lovikov? To make sure nothing like Defiance happened again?

‘Sure. It’s their fault for doing it. But how I reacted? That’s my fault,’Yael thought. ‘I always could’ve stopped it… I need to think on that…’

Heliotrope

“That’s Tomas for you,” Da Costa said, looming over his son. “Always. So. Imaginative.”

All around Heliotrope, the agents were peeling open the crates. From what Heliotrope could tell there were a few guns. A Kalashnikov, an M4, some shotguns, a Barrett. But…

“That’s all aboveboard,” the wife said. “Even the Barrett.”

Heliotrope wanted to take it all. Wanted that Barrett to end up in an armory, or just taken as a trophy for Oscar.

But even so…

Well.

‘We could cripple them and take it all,’Heliotrope thought. ‘Command won’t let us. Also what is going on, Tomas?!’

“But the passage is there!” Tomas said. “You go there all the ti–”

“Tomas just loves having a secret room,” the dad said, a smile on his face. He reached for Tomas’s hand. “I mean, what kid wouldn’t, right?”

“But…” Tomas said, looking at a poster for some Burt Reynolds movie. “It’s supposed to be…”

Heliotrope walked up to the wall and tapped it. Something was bothering her about all this, but…

...When her forehoof tapped the concrete, it felt like a solid wall. Nothing hollow.

“Tomas’s always been like that, right?” Da Costa asked, squeezing his son’s hand. “Not like my Tara.”

He looked over to his daughter, who had climbed down the stairs and was now beaming with pride.

“Tara’s a good kid,” Da Costa said.

Dancing Day

“This... “ Dancing Day says, “Sounds really creepy.”

“How did you not notice this, Viktor?” Amber Maple asks.

Kraber just looks down at the floor. “Same way I didn’t notice how shitty it was all around me. I told myself it was how it was supposed to be.”

“What does that mean?” Spitfire asks, her eyes narrowing.

“It means…” Kraber says. “It means I didn’t see why Tomas wouldn’t want to fight. The world was being tough, and I thought we had to be tougher. From the oldest guy that could still hold a rifle, to preteens.”

He sighs.

“Did Da Costa ever... “ Rivet asks, and he flinches slightly. Backs away like a wounded dog.

“No,” Kraber says. “God, I hope not. Not like that.” He pauses. “Dacosta lost everything when he had to leave Portugal. His family and his ability to play cowboy were all he had left. I can’t blame him for wanting his kids to fight, but… I think he forgot they were kids. They stopped being family and started being underlings, and the shift was so slow I didn’t notice.”

Another pause.

“What a shitty fokking way to grow up,” Kraber finishes. “Defiance was good at making people into monsters and keeping them that way.”

“True that,” Heliotrope says.

at the same time

“Uhhhh…” Aegis says. “Kids. Have I… am I like that?”

He looks at Amber and Rivet.

“You…. could’ve… done worse?” Rivet asks.

“That’s the best any parent can hope for,” Aegis says, completely deadpan.

“Dad,” Amber sighs. “That’s an awful joke.”

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Aegis says. “Look. I know I’ve screwed up. I just hope to Faust I haven’t broken you.”

“You’ve done your best, dad,” Rivet sighs.

“Heliotrope,” Yael says. “Come on. We-”

“Still technically works, right?” Heliotrope asks, gesturing vaguely to herself.

Yael is silent. Nobody knows how to react to that.

Heliotrope

“Well,” Heliotrope said, “There’s… nothing else we can do, I guess.”

In truth, Heliotrope very much wished there was more she could do. Because something was bothering her deeply. This family. This basement.

It suddenly seemed very clear how little power they actually had here.

And the wall did seem to be pretty solid.

But it bothered her. How Da Costa had treated his son with such obvious contempt. How they lived in a town that saw nothing wrong with Portland. And how they’d clearly stocked up these weapons with the intent of killing ponies.

“Do you, ah…” one agent asked, “Have… permits for all this?”

“Certainly,” Da Costa said. “Everything’s aboveboard.”

There was a light smirk on his face as he said it.

‘He’s getting away with it,’ Heliotrope thought, ‘they’re getting away with it. Their leader blew up Portland. And suddenly, everyone’s swearing up and down they had nothing to do with it. How many people here Unmarked ponies back during the Purple Winter? And we’re just slapping them on the wrist They’re going to go on thinking this is okay.

And this is going to happen again and again, because the HLF just have a magic shield that repels consequences.

We tried to save Nipville– I told Yael to do that!– and we got punished. Not the people who took the town over in the first place.

I’m going to make all of you pay.

Yael
Four Hours Later

‘And to think,’ Yael thought, ‘Nny made all those jokes about the Quartering Act.’

They’d set up camp outside Defiance. Her shift was over, and apparently they were planning on being there for a day or two more. Just until the investigations were over. Until the PHL and the government were satisfied that they’d done enough. Arrests were being made, guns were being confiscated and taken to who-knew-where, and yet:

‘It doesn’t feel like we’ve done anything.’

It wasn’t much of a camp. A few tents, most of them leaning against the APCs. And the thing that bothered Yael more than anything was the silence. She couldn’t hear anything from the nearby shantytown – no music, no idle chatter, no nothing – or from the PHL and other law enforcement around her.

It felt like Yael could’ve heard a pin drop at any point in the last couple hours. It’d felt quiet in the last half hour of the search before Cheerilee and Northwoods called it off, and it’d been quiet as they left.

The most noise Yael could remember came from one guy, who started yelling “Horsefuckers go home! We ain’t scared of you-”

Then there’d been a clunk, and silence. And all the while, wide-eyed children stared at them. Men and women and others of all ages watched them, stonefaced. It looked like…

‘Like I put them through Barrierfall all over again.’

This had been Lovikov’s camp. And if that man was in charge, who knew what was going through their heads?

Yael thought on Nipville.

‘Do I really want to be responsible for that kind of pain again?’

There was a knock on the wall of Yael’s tent.

“Hello?” Heliotrope asked.

“Yeah, Heliotrope?” Yael asked.

“Gardner’s about to call a meeting down in the command post,” Heliotrope said.

“He might be,” Yael said. “But then, why don’t I know about it?”

“Alright,” Heliotrope sighed. “It’s just… I just need to talk. About today.”

“You too?” Yael asked, getting off her sleeping bag.

“Yeah,” Heliotrope said, as Yael opened the door. “It’s just…. Something’s bothering me. About today.”

“What?” Yael asked, crawling out the doorway.

“Yael,” Heliotrope said, as they passed another tent,, “I just… look. We’re going to be getting a meeting telling us this was a victory.”

“What makes you say that?” Yael asked.

“Nobody died today,” Heliotrope said, “It’s a moral victory, right?”

The sarcasm in her voice could’ve peeled the paint from the walls of most any house around here.

“They are lying to us. I don’t care what it looks like, this was Lovikov’s camp. They had to have known,” Heliotrope said, seething. “And we didn’t even give them a slap on the wrist. Somewhere, Lovikov is out there, laughing at us.”

“We should be avenging this city,” Heliotrope said, “Avenging all the refugees from my home that they’ve fucked, not giving them concessions. My old labor union back in Las Pegasus kept on talking more and more about coming to agreements, till he practically shoved Canterlot’s collective hooves so far up his plot they could use him as a hand puppet!”

It didn’t take long for Yael to realize what she was suggesting.

“Heliotrope,” Yael said, “We’re not going to let the HLF do that!”

“But the brass are having us just dance around the consequences!” Heliotrope protested. “I thought you’d…”

“I’m furious too,” Yael said. “But…”

She sighed. Opened the door to the stairwell.

“But?” Heliotrope asked, fluttering just next to Yael’s head.

“But I feel like I barely know where to direct it. Heliotrope, I’m as mad as you,” Yael said, realizing, all of a sudden, that it was absolutely true. “I want Lovikov to burn as much as you do. But I don’t know who else to turn all that anger on, and…”

She sighed.

“And no matter what, we can’t go against orders to use it,” Yael said. “They were about as lenient on us as the HLF. I can’t let the four of us fall apart. Let QS moulder behind a desk, or have Oscar get repossessed. We’ve got to stick to orders, Heliotrope. I can’t have you changing my mind.”

“Let’s make sure they know they can’t pull this again,” she said. “What do you think about not taking prisoners here?”

Yael remembered herself saying that as if it was yesterday.

“Are you saying this is my fault?” Heliotrope asked.

“No,” Yael said, “I’m saying we’re both at fault for letting ourselves lose our way. I pulled the trigger, same as you.”

She was silent, as they approached the first floor.

“Also,” she said, “I seriously doubt this is just it. Lovikov’s still somewhere out there, after all.”

Heliotrope paused to consider this, hovering in midair. She placed one hoof under her chin. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”

“I think,” Yael said, uttering some words that would come to haunt her, “That the best place we can put all that anger is into getting Lovikov to justice. Regardless of condition.”

She was surprised at the coldness in her voice.

“Then, we… work with each other. Keep Oscar and QS with us, like we always have?” Heliotrope suggested.

“Sounds about right,” Yael said.

“Us against the world,” Heliotrope said, tapping one hoof to Yael’s fist. They rounded a corner of another APC, only to find–

Quiette Shy, looking up at them confused, a walkie-talkie held in her TK next to her mouth.

“I was just about to call you,” Quiette Shy said. “We’re required. In Gardner’s command post.”

“What do you know,” Heliotrope said. “Guess I was right. There is a meeting.”

Heliotrope

The “command post” was a much larger tent. Gardner had set up a table, and his PHL crystal-projector sat atop it.

Cheerilee and Northwoods might as well have been on another planet for how differently they viewed the raid.

“Well done. The goal here was to intimidate the HLF… and I think you succeeded,” Cheerilee said, her image flickering above the PHL-made projector they’d installed. “Our analysts are reporting a massive spike of fear in HLF circles.”

She paused.

“You’ve managed to intimidate them,” Northwoods added. “They know that we can do this at any time, and - if anyone else has the bright idea to destroy a town - they know that consequences do exist.”

Something about that bothered Heliotrope. She looked over to see Yael’s jaw clenched, her brow furrowed.

‘Did Northwoods say that on purpose?’Heliotrope wondered.

“The HLF know we can do this. And they’re already thinking about how we might not be so gentle next time,” Cheerilee finished. “It may not seem it, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.”

Heliotrope only barely restrained herself from blurting out her thoughts. ‘I don’t want a step. I want justice! We’re surrounded by wreckage, and the only guy we came close to capturing was too bloodthirsty to even consider surrenderi–’

Dancing Day

“Kraber, no,” Aegis says.

“It’s fine,” Kraber says, “It’s all fine. We’re friends now, right, Heliotrope?”

Kraber had mellowed out a bit. This was indisputable. But what with suffering from a case of resting bastard face and having an infamous temper, it was easy to forget.

“... Viktor?” Heliotrope asked, looking up at him, very unsettled.

“I, ah,” Kraber says, “Need some air. I have to walk out for a little bit.”

“I’m sorry,” Heliotrope says, almost pleading. “Just…”

“I know,” Kraber says. “I promise. I’m not going to do anything. I just… need to keep calm and think of strangling Gardner with some barbed wire.”

“But I–” Heliotrope started.

“I know you did,” Kraber says, “But it’s not right for me to be mad at you. I just need some air, is all. Just going to walk out, clear my head, and check Facebook or something.”

Heliotrope

Mostly Heliotrope just breathed through her nostrils a little too heavily.

If Cheerilee noticed the sign of disrespect, she didn’t show it.Thankfully, Gardner was there to voice those concerns of hers.

“Yes, maybe we scared a bunch of inbred hicks and gun hoarders,” Gardner said. “But there’s dangerous people in the HLF. You need only to look at Lovikov’s record in Chechnya and Ukraine to tell that. There’s criminals that no other faction would take. What happens when they become emboldened?”

“They won’t kickstart a civil war,” Northwoods said. “Nobody could be that stupid.”

“Since Helmetag’s death, the Menschabwehrfraktion has historically been popular with anti-government elements,” Yael volunteered. “Even neo-Nazis.”

Heliotrope knew from experience that Yael had been far less kind to the kind of far-right elements that had begun to fill the HLF in America.

‘Go Yael,’ she thought, before winding up with a statement of her own.

“These aren’t humans who think rationally,” Heliotrope said. “Gardner is right, ma’am. If they’re scared or emboldened, they’re unpredictable. Violent. What happens if this doesn’t work?”

“Then we’ve bought ourselves time,” Cheerilee said. She looked displeased to see Heliotrope talking, but she said nothing.

“There’s only so much we can sell off for that,” Gardner said.

“I know,” Cheerilee said. “I recall a leader who talked about ‘peace in our time’.”

It wasn’t right to think of a commanding officer this way. But Heliotrope struggled not to blatantly roll her eyes. ‘She just doesn’t understand humans! Faust, this-…’

But what Cheerilee said next startled her.

“And I won’t fall into the same trap.”

What, Heliotrope thought.

“Using the IFFs built into your armor. And tracking them with a PHL satellite, PHL R&D was able to create a 3D map of Defiance.”

A blue-tinted wireframe image of Defiance replaced Cheerilee and Northwoods, hovering gently above the table.

Heliotrope looked at the lightly floating model. Then searched out the house with the strange basement room, looking along the bottom of the model.

The room was… strangely misshapen. It wasn’t a box, it looked more like a trapezoid. And it was opened on one end.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to it.

“Huh,” Northwoods said. “Must’ve been an error with the mapping software.”

Heliotrope wasn’t sure of that.

‘Tomas was sure there was something there,’Heliotrope thought. ‘And that father? He might not have done anything in front of me, but he was sure as buck guilty of something.’

“You’re sure?” Heliotrope asked. “There was a child there who seemed pretty convinced there was a pa-–”

“You know how imaginative children can be,” Northwoods interrupted. “It’s been a difficult few years, hasn’t it?”

There was something in that phrasing that Heliotrope didn’t like. But there wasn’t much else to go on there.

“If you say so,” Heliotrope said.

“You mean…” Gardner said.

“You know what they say, Colonel,” Cheerilee said. “Hope for the best, and expect the worst.” She paused. “For now, your orders are to assist us in rooting out any PER on the East Coast. You’ve all seen renewed activity from them even before Portland.”

“Are you sure the HLF aren’t the… at least as big a problem?” Gardner asked.

“Positive.”

“All due respect, ma’am,” Gardner said, “The HLF are a destabilizing influence on this country. And the PER, as far as I know, have never destroyed a city without Solar Empire help.”

“Lovikov’s actions,” Cheerilee said. “Were a fluke. And the HLF do not convert humans.”

The tone of her voice made it clear she did not expect argument.

“Shieldwall’s PER regiments, however, have been getting increasingly bold,” Cheerilee said. “Vanishing entire towns. And they haven’t been leaving many of those Newfoals stranded. Remember, there’s still that little matter of the anomalous Newfoal at the Maine Medical we must look into. Those regiments are building up the horsepower for something, and I want you to gather intel on them and stop it. By any means necessary. Is that clear, Colonel Gardner?”

“Yes ma’am,” Gardner said, nodding.

Her projection winked out, and then there they were, sitting in an empty room.

“GODDAMMIT!” Gardner yelled, pounding the table with both fists. There was an audible crack. “They fucked us…” he said, more simply. “We had them. Then and there. And they fucked us.”

“Well, we didn’t find Lovikov–” Yael started.

“That doesn’t matter,” Gardner snarled. “Does anyone in this room really believe that this little cock-up of his was divorced from the rest of the camp?! So now, we have a situation where a bunch of jumped up little militiamen in their rascal scooters look all fine and dandy next to us! It’s almost like the HLF shouldn’t be blamed for this at all!”

He sat, breathing heavily.

“And Kraber looks like he did nothing wrong!” Gardner finished.

“HE FUCKED UP MY FACE!” Summers yelled.

Everyone stared at him.

“What do we say about his role?” Yael asked. “Kraber, I mean.”

“Hmmmm?” Gardner asked.

“He assisted very heavily while repelling Reaper,” Yael said. “We need to-–”

“Downplay,” Gardner said. “As far as anyone should be concerned, the HLF are monsters who attacked an innocent city. We have no need to lionize them. They don’t want credit? Fine, we’re not giving them credit. And one more thing. I saw your footage of emptying Private Mikkelsen’s MP50 Obregon into Viktor Kraber’s boat, and it was an incredible amount of force to lay against one man. Some would almost call it reckless.”

“... Sir?” Yael asked.

“But,” Gardner said. “He’s HLF. Fuck ‘em.” He nodded. “Keep up the good work, both of you.”

Heliotrope saluted with one foreleg, a satisfied smile on her face. After some uncertainty, a similar expression formed on Yael’s face.

‘What’s with her?’ Heliotrope wondered.

A pause. “You’re certain he’s dead?” Gardner asked.

“Positive,” Heliotrope said. “It was at practically at point-blank range, with…” she rubbed one foreleg on the underside of her jaw, deep in thought. “17. shells. The boat was vaporized when we hit it. He couldn’t have possibly survived. And even if he didn’t, he’d probably drown. I’m certain we won’t see him again.”

“So,” Smoky asked, “Where do you think we go from here, sir?”

Gardner sighed. “Honestly? I have no fucking idea.”

Heliotrope looked up at him, staring in confusion and horror.

“I just feel like we’re about to find another Portland, too late,” Gardner said. “The brass can talk a lot about preparing, but… they’re preparing too. We’ve been sending weapons to the Yarrow side of the Split, and I have no way to guarantee how many of them are actually on our side, if loonies like the Reavers can ever really be said to be on anyone’s side. What if the Ship bombards a city?”

“As if I didn’t have enough nightmares already,” Yael said.

Heliotrope nodded. The events in Portland had thrown everything into disarray. The HLF had someone with tech rivaling the PHL and a willingness to use them

“There’s one idea I have,” Heliotrope said.

“What’s that, Sergeant?” Gardner asked.

“If there’s anyone who could know where the Ship is,” Heliotrope says, “Or where the HLF got those magic Siphons in Nipville… It’s Romero.”

A slow, unpleasant smile crept across Gardner’s face.

“It’s high time,” he said slowly, “that we pay that pirate a visit.”

Author's Note

I almost feel like I need to apologize for this chapter. It took months to write out, it meanders, and you can tell where I lost focus.

But, in the end, it was a chapter that had to be written. I honestly just wanted to rip this band-aid off. This chapter was just getting more and more bloated.

In classic Light, Lovikov fires on Portland and... nothing. No comeuppance. No bombing. No drone strike or military action until the government just... does a thing that is bad. There's so many things about it my original concept for Defiance that I just couldn't in good conscience continue with this time. I'd be thinking about Lovikov's lack of comeuppance every time I wrote this.

I'm sure some of you probably really wanted bloodshed here, but it's not a good idea. Not as the story is at the moment. I don't want to write gratuitous war crimes (yet) and there were certain events that (simply put) have to happen, and couldn't if I didn't do this.

You might be wondering where Lovikov actually is, though.

You'll find out soon.

16: Believe

Light Despondent Remixed

Chapter 16: “Believe.”

As usual, I can’t thank Jed enough for this! Jed did a frankly amazing amount of work here. Shouts out also to TB3 for approving Verity's characterization.

“Universal law is for lackeys. Context is for Kings.”
Captain Gabriel Lorca, Star Trek: Discovery - “Context is for Kings”.

I don't even know if I believe
I don't even know if I believe
I don't even know if I believe
Everything you're trying to say to me
So open up my eyes
Tell me I'm alive
This is never gonna go our way
If I'm gonna have to guess what's on your mind
Mumford and Sons, Believe.

Dancing Day
December 2022

“So,” Heliotrope says, “that was what we were doing. How’d it go for you?”

Kraber sighs. Looks down, shoulders sagging.

“It was great getting a fresh start on the Columbia,” Kraber said. “But…”

“But?” Yael asks. “You have that Look, Kraber. The one that Nny gets when he’s trying to lie but doesn’t feel like putting in the effort.”

“Romero did something for me that nobody else would have,” Kraber says. “Except maybe Lovikov, or Soldano, or Anton Kessler. And those people were fokkin’ dildos, so, y’know, fok those guys.”

“Um,” Aegis says, raising one foreleg.

“I lied to you and your children,” Kraber says bluntly.

“Fair’s fair, I guess,” Amber Maple says.

“I don’t get it though,” Heather says. Dancing Day had kind of forgotten that she was there. “What didn’t you like?”

“I’ll get to that,” Kraber says.

Somewhere near Casco Bay

It was massive, and sure looked like it belonged to a navy. He’d never been big on ships, but he could have sworn there was something familiar about it: like he’d seen something like it before.

It looked somewhere between a skyscraper lying on its side and a submarine. The outside was rounded, sleek and featureless, save for the command tower sticking up near the stern. It looked almost like it could go to space.

Up on the deck, he could see people in uniforms, but he couldn’t place them as part of any military he knew. They were mostly wearing blue jumpsuits with white piping and other detailing, black boots and undershirts. There was, however, a symbol on most of their uniforms, even his guards’ Kevlar vests; an HLF badge like a star with names, ID numbers, ranks and the name ‘Ex Astris Victoria’ printed on neatly.

He felt them watching him.

Can they see me? Kraber thought, watching a series of large black letters stenciled on the side of the ship pass by.

HLS Columbia TC-03

The Columbia, in the flesh, Kraber thought, eyes widening. Well, fok me up the gat sideways.

If there had been any doubt before about where he had ended up, there was none now.

The boat drew to a stop next to the leviathan supership. Kraber watched as Rogan the shotgunner spoke into the radio, and ‘Lucky’ fluttered up.

“Pull us up!” she yelled. “We’ve got a special case!”

“You realise that never sounds anything less than ominous?” someone called over to her.

“What am I supposed to say, Freeman?” the mare countered. “‘We’ve got Viktor Kraber with us’? They’d shoot him on sight.”

But nonetheless, a lift inched down from the deck, drawing steadily closer to the boat. Kraber watched it, waiting for the other shoe to drop. On the surface, everything about this screamed ‘bad idea.’

Kraber had never met Romero in person. The closest he’d been to the man or any sort of HLF navy was when Helmetag had ‘indefinitely loaned’ him to Yarrow as a punishment, and he’d been definitely-not-strongarmed onto a train into Quebec, then onto a boat heading for Bastion.

He’d been kicked out of the Reavers, eventually. It hadn’t been on good terms, but they’d let him live.

Somehow, Kraber wasn’t certain that would still apply. He had, after all, been very publically part of ~~a great victory wait what the fok~~ no the destruction of Portland. And if the PHL - the merciful ones, fokkin’ right? - had tried to kill him before, Romero probably wouldn’t be much kinder.

Every instinct should’ve been screaming at Kraber to run.

“Definitely not in favour of being shot,” Kraber called up.

“Well goddamn,” said one other crewmember, this one a woman, “you weren’t kidding. That really is Kraber. I just got one question, Lucky.”

She looked over to the blue and white pegasus.

“What in the hell made you want to drag him out of the ocean?!”

The lift rattled to life, and Rogan motioned for him to step onto it with the barrel of his shotgun.

“Are you, uh…”

Rogan just scowled, shotgun still pointing at Kraber. His point had been made abundantly clear.

“He was gonna die in there,” Lucky said. “Also, we couldn’t find any sharp objects on him.”

...I feel naked without them, Kraber thought, stepping onto the lift. Shit. Medical bag is gone.

“I don’t like it either,” Rogan called up. “But, well, too late now.”

Talking about me like I’m not even here, Kraber thought. But he was at point blank range for a shotgun. So it was best to just go with it.

“I hope,” ‘Freeman called out, “You recognize how precarious this is.”

Kraber looked down at the ocean, then over to a nearby island. I miss my phone now.

Then again, it might be for the best if I don’t use one...

“You’re Viktor Kraber. Most people wouldn’t mind you getting shot whilst ‘resisting arrest’,” Freeman continued, as the lift drew closer to the upper deck. “Do you even know who you are?”

So many answers to that question, Kraber thought. The lift was so close to the deck that Kraber almost felt like he could step aboard then and there.

“Well?” Freeman asked.

“Oh, fok jou sideways,” Kraber said, “That literally just happened. Twice.”

Whatever response the guard was expecting, that was definitely not it. “Uh…”

“I just got blown up and drowned in the span of…” Kraber thought about it. “I mean, I was unconscious in the ocean, it can’t have been that long. The last couple hours, anyway? Before which, that exact thing happened. Twice. One of them had a helicopter. I’m just not in the mood right now.”

He coughed, and staggered slightly. Am I really that out of it?

“He said something about getting his limbs broken and rehealed,” Lucky Strike volunteered. “And shot. And stabbed.”

“You don’t look like any of that happened,” the guard said, suspicious.

“I asked a unicorn for help. Even if I don’t,” Kraber said, “Do I somehow not look fokkin’ HALF-DROWNED?!”

“Eh, not really. More like one-third drowned,” Lucky Strike said. “Which is still pretty bad, but, y’know, levels of bad.”

“Look, just give me a bed, maybe a hot drink, and I’ll do anything,” Kraber said. “Ek is siek en sat van sy fokkin’ nonsens. Maybe, 24 hours ago, I’d threaten to bliksem jou, but… I just don’t care right now.”

“Hey, Rogan, save the date,” Lucky Strike chuckled. “Little Vicky Kraber’s out of fight. Only took about half an ocean of blood, right?”

Kraber growled. “Seriously?”

“I just spent most of the last few days with the Reavers,” Strike said with a wink. “I can think of worse things to call you, if you really wanted.”

As if there needed to be more reasons we didn’t trust this side of the Split, Kraber thought. Working with gluesticks… ugh.

Then:

No. Not like… not like that.

“Should we keep on tighter alert?” Rogan, the shotgunner, called up to him. “The ‘Fraktion might want him back, and after what we’ve seen, I don’t think they’d stop short of coming for us.”

“They won’t come for me,” Kraber said dully. “As of whenever it was that I stole that boat yesterday, I’ve chucked the Menschabwehrfraktion.”

Dead silence on the deck. Nobody knew quite how to respond to that bombshell.

Freeman stared at him. “Wait, what.”

“Ja,” Kraber said. “I quit. Entirely voluntarily. With the added bonus of accidentally faking my death so Lovikov can’t unretire me. I just…” he ran a hand through his sopping wet hair. “I don’t fokkin’ care right now. I just… I need some rest right now. I fokkin’ insist.” He paused. “Sure, I had to pass up on severance pay, but I’ll work something out.”

“Uh huh,” one nearby guard said. “I feel so much better. This is my so much better face.” He was wearing a gas mask, so the sarcasm was even more obvious than it would have been. “Just get movin’, wouldja? The Captain’s an impatient man. Then we decide on what to do with you.”

Strike snorted. “He’s not really. People just say that. Although he can get pretty rage-y when he dies on Super Mario.”

Kraber blinked. “The fok.”

“I know what I said,” Strike smirked.

It was the most fokkin moerse ship Kraber had ever set foot on. The corridors were a stark gray-white, but - strangely enough - were decorated with paintings and a few potted plants. It looked like they’d been riveted to the wall and floor.

This isn’t just a ship. This is a pozzy, Kraber thought.

The interior of the ship had more ponies wandering around, most in that same blue jumpsuit uniform, wearing the same symbol that had been on the guards’ uniforms. None of them looked happy to see him.

That same symbol was also painted on doors and walls liberally, along with a few other tags and symbols Kraber recognised. Reaver tags, Corsair symbols, a few of Kevin “The-Mildly-Miffed” Flowers’ icons, and more besides.

The guards - including Strike - escorted him down a few flights of stairs, before finally reaching a door with Captain D. Romero printed on it.

“Alright,” Strike said. “Bit of advice, Kraber, if you ever take it.”

Kraber’s immediate thought was ‘not from a gluestick’, and he grimaced at the thought. Some things were instinct, hard to kick. Strike frowned slightly, clearly misinterpreting his expression.

“Well, take it or not,” she said, “the Captain isn’t the sort of guy with whom to fuck.”

Kraber bit back a retort. Neither am I.

“But if you’re here,” Strike continued, “there’s a reason. I don’t get it, myself, but the Captain knows what he’s doing, and I trust him.” She leant forward slightly. “So help me, if you repay the Captain’s kindness with your usual shit -”

“You’ll what?” Kraber cut in. “You know who I am. What I’ve done.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know me in the slightest,” Strike retorted. She grinned nastily. “But I guarantee, Little Vicky. You will.”

And with that, and a final look at the guard, she left. Kraber blinked, trying to decide if he should be worried, before shaking his head as the guard opened the door.

Here we go, he thought.

A high-backed leather chair was facing away from the doorway, a desk with a small bulldog bobblehead on top next to an old laptop in front of it. It was almost ridiculously normal.

“Thank you gentlemen,” a voice came from the chair, speaking in a polite deep-South accent. “That will be all.”

The guards nodded and left without another word, leaving Kraber alone in the room, the door shut behind him. There was a moment’s silence.

“Mr Kraber,” the voice said. “Viktor Kraber.”

“Ja?” Kraber asked, putting every ounce of fight he could into that single syllable.

The chair spun around, revealing a man in a long-sleeved pale-blue shirt, epaulettes on the shoulders and a nametag - reading “ROMERO” - on the chest. He was dark haired, maybe fifty, with a soft smile and blue eyes filled with a mysterious humour that seemed to know too much. There was a certain sense of deja vu about him that Kraber couldn’t pinpoint: the blue uniform, the eyes, the dark, neat hair…

Actually, come to think of it, he looked a lot like Jason Isaacs. Yeah, that had to be it.

“Well, well,” Captain Daniel Romero said. “Hello, finally.”

Dancing Day

Everyone has dubious expressions on their faces. It isn’t exactly surprising.

“So…” Aegis says after a moment. “Romero, huh?”

“Right,” Kraber says, giving a sardonic smile. “You can imagine how thrilled I wasn’t.”

Yael looks even more dubious. “I always wondered what he was like. Before, y’know, I actually met him.”

“What were you expecting?” Heliotrope asks.

“From the man with two Thunderchild-class ships, enough mysterious connections to make a mysterious switchboard of mystery and a reputation as the R&D Guy of the HLF?” Yael replies. She thinks about it for a moment. “I think I probably expected him to be taller.”

“You too, huh?” Kraber asks.

“...You’re both like six feet tall!” Vinyl Scratch protests. “What, were you expecting him to look like a basketball player?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Was it as weird for you?” Kraber asks Yael.

“Tell you when we get there,” Yael replies.

“Well, I’m not going to be here for it,” Vinyl says, waving a hoof. “I… look, I get it, you’re talking about HLF, but I’d rather not hear about that overgrown warlord.” She looks at Heliotrope. “Come let me know when we’re past this, please? I’d like to get to the parts where Aegis comes in.”

“Okay, then…” Heliotrope replies, waving a wing.

Vinyl leaves, and Kraber lets out a sigh. And just as he is about to continue-

“You’re still telling this?” Verity Carter asks, still trotting in, still a pony. Still looking like she wants to murder everything inside. “I thought you just sort of ended up in New Hampshire somehow.”

“No, we’re getting to that,” Aegis says.

“Well then, how come Lovikov and I didn’t hear about the parts with Romero?” Verity asks. “You’d think that during the Battle of Montreal, that would’ve come in handy.”

“Simple,” Kraber says, “You’re all horrible people and I don’t like you.”

Dancing Day is pretty sure Kraber doesn’t entirely mean that, but he said it so bluntly that it’s hard to tell.

Verity’s eye twitches.

“Four of the people in this room have tried to kill you, and you were telling them first?” Verity asks.

“Five,” Aegis says. “Vinyl walked out earlier.”

“He and that side of the Split cost us everything,” Verity says. “We could’ve had it all, Kraber. We could’ve ended the war! And here you are, sitting with war criminals, and the war’s still going!”

“Some cures,” Aegis says, cold fury in his voice, “are worse than the disease.”

His tone of voice leaves no room for argument.

“Where was I?” Kraber ponders aloud. “Oh, yeah. Romero.”

Kraber

“You sound almost min to meet me,” Kraber said, eyes scanning the room. He’d ended up with someone on the other side of the Split - chances were, they weren’t happy to see him. God, I miss having a gun!

But these people had made sure he was stripped of every conceivable weapon. Kraber’s eyes scanned the room. The wall of firearms over there? No, only an idiot keeps loaded firearms in plain view like that. Maybe the chair?

“Eager would be a strong word,” Captain Romero said, leaning forward. “But you are quite famous. Some would even say ubiquitous. To have Viktor Kraber, the Viktor Kraber, on board my ship… I don't know whether to update my will or ask for a selfie.”

Kraber wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Usually people were his friend, or afraid of him - this kind of flippancy from a total stranger was… new.

“Gaan for the will,” Kraber said.

“I hope that’s not a threat,” the other man said idly. “I might be a nice guy, but I wouldn’t respond well if you were threatening me.”

“Nooit,” Kraber said. “I just can’t think of a way the selfie would end well. I think it’s for the best I stay dead for a bit, aweh?”

“Well, most people seem to be able to take them without anything untoward happening,” Romero said, smirking. “But then, this is you we’re talking about. I’d half expect your average visit to the toilet to be a bloody affair.”

“Haven’t been like that since I quit cold turkey,” Kraber said. “It’s more that… well, I’m guessing nobody knows where I am? I think it’s safer if I keep it that way.”

“Ha. You. Talking safety,” Romero said. He straightened. “Formal introductions, I suppose.” He stood up, revealing the full blue uniform. Who makes uniforms for a militia anyway? “Captain Daniel Romero. Welcome aboard HLS Columbia.” He smirked again. “Now, at least, you’re sure where you are, though I suspect you had a good idea already.”

“It wasn’t hard to guess,” Kraber said. “Besides, I already knew that the Columbia was somewhere off the coast of Maine.”

“We’re not as inconspicuous as I’d like, it's true,” Romero said with a sad smile. “But we make up for it in other areas. And we’ve got reasons to be around here right now that make up for any potential security... issues.”

“Do any of them involve Lovikov?” Kraber asked. He didn’t expect an answer (or at least, not one beyond ‘none of your concern’), but to his surprise, Romero only smiled.

“Not yet, but give it time,” he said. “There’s always some… issues, with our other halves, but those haven’t yet become so problematic that direct intervention is warranted on the Columbia’s part. I leave that to Max.”

“‘Max’?”

“He was probably the only person I’ve ever heard call Yarrow ‘Max’,” Kraber says with a shrug. “I have no idea.”

“Besides,” Romero continued. “Can you imagine how the… esteemed Colonel Gardner might have felt if we’d intervened in Lovikov’s recent…”

He coughed, frowning.

“Monumental fokup?” Kraber suggested.

Romero snorted. “That’s certainly one word.”

Kraber snorted. “I don’t have to fokkin’ imagine. Gardner’d probably have accused you of rape, then shot you, then acted like you provoked him, then acted like a hero for shooting you execution-style.”

There was silence. Romero looked at Kraber expectantly. Kraber, in response, stayed stonefaced.

“... you’re not joking, are you,” Romero said after a moment. “That’s a real thing. It actually happened.”

“He had one subordinate named Summers,” Kraber said by way of explanation, “who actually said my kids were better off ponified.”

“Christ,” Romero said, looking away for a moment and actually paling. “That… in this day and age, that’s…”

“Given the sorts of shit he’d researched, I figure he probably thought it was almost as bad as I did,” Kraber muses. “Either that or he was thinkin’ about Sharon.”

“Who?” Heliotrope asks.

Kraber shakes his head. “Later.”

Kraber took a deep breath.

“You might want to keep an eye on that one if he’s ever close by,” Kraber said. “I know they’re not PHL command, but…”

“But they’re dangerous already,” Romero said. “I understand. It’ll be just one more problem to deal with in a growing sea… or shrinking sea, technically.”

He sighed.

“But there’s something else, too. We’ve been using our… shall we say, ‘equipment’... to monitor Solar Empire activities behind the Barrier, and they’re planning… something from their shipyards in Western Europe, specifically the one in Iceland. It’s been reflected in the enhanced PER presence on the eastern seaboard. You could write it off as their preparation for Barrierfall, but anyone with their ear to the ground should be able to tell that Lovikov aside, the brazen escalation that we saw in Portland was not normal.” His grin became wolfish. “And my ear is always to the ground.”

Kraber nodded, thoughtfully. “What… what do you think they’re planning?”

“Our… ‘intel’ is sketchy,” Romero said, turning to look out the porthole, before looking over his shoulder at Kraber. “If I’m to start talking about what we do here, what we know, there’s something I need to know first.”

“Name it,” Kraber said.

“Our intel put you with Lovikov’s team attacking the rig. I’m tempted to ask,” Romero said. “How did you come to be here?”

“Fok weet,” Kraber said bluntly. “I woke up in the middle of the ocean.”

“And how did you get in the ocean, Mr Kraber?” Romero asked. “I can’t imagine the best fighter in the ‘Fraktion being let go so easily. Not by Lovikov.”

“Lovikov was going to set me up for some grand, heroic death, and he was starting to piss me off,” Kraber said. “I was starting to piss me off. So I… left. Went into Portland, fought Reaper - you probably already know most of this kak - then when Colonel Gardner, Smoky, and Summers got me, I tried to surrender, they tried to execute me, so I peeled off half of Summers’ face-”

Romero raised an eyebrow at that last one, then shrugged.

“-and tried to escape by boat,” Kraber finished.

“I notice a distinct lack of that boat,” Romero said, arching both eyebrows.

“Well, Yael Ze’ev blew it up,” Kraber said. “With an MP50 Obregon. While I was on it.”

Romero raised an eyebrow. “How did you survive that?”

Kraber shrugged. “Fok weet. I remember being on fire, I remember rushing for the bow, then losing consciousness. Kinda disappointed to wake up, honestly.”

“There’s just one question,” Romero said. “See, I have a file on you.”

“...How?” Kraber asked.

“The usual means,” Romero said, as if that explained everything. “A lot of it came from the Reavers’ resident psychologist. The man described in that file would’ve tried to kill Clements, Rogan and Lucky Strike, regardless of how insane the odds were. I want to know why you didn’t.”

“Aw, fok. There’s no other way to put it!” Kraber said, raising his voice but not quite yelling. “I’m fokkin siek en sat of what I do for them!”

“I’m afraid I don’t speak Afrikaans,” Romero said, looking at him and frowning slightly.

“I said that I’m sick and tired,” Kraber said. “And I didn’t know it until… well, right during the attack on the Sorghum. I just… I stopped being able to feel the same anger. I realized that what we were doing… wouldn’t accomplish anything, and that hurting the PHL ponies on the rig would be…. Aw, fok it, it wouldn’t be right.”

Romero nodded. “I see.” He unfolded his arms, before leaning forward to look at Kraber. “Did you ever hear Algie Spader’s speech about rage, Viktor?”

Kraber shrugged. “Bits and pieces. Never the whole thing.”

Did he just call Spader ‘Algie’?

Romero grinned. “The part that always struck me was this. ‘Rage untempered is a fire that burns all, makes barbarians and rapists and murderers. Rage honed and sharpened, tempered and cooled, becomes the bullet, the flamethrower, the knife, the soldier. One kills your enemies, for a time. One wins your war... forever’.” He straightened. “It strikes me that you seem like you're getting pretty tired of being untempered.”

“I…” Kraber started. “Jou know what? Ja. Everyone was talking me up at Defiance like I was their pet monster. Their ace in the hole. And… and I feel like I’ve had to ask lately, ‘Is that the Viktor Kraber that Kate married?’”

“I can understand that,” Romero said. “We’ve all become different people during this conflict. Unfortunately, as many of us on this side of the Split have come to realise, Lovikov and his ilk aren’t interested in putting those changes to any practical use. Aren’t interested in making our suffering into something more than, as you say, ‘pet monsters’.”

“No,” Kraber said, surprised at the venom in his voice. “They fokkin’ well aren’t. They’re interested at taking angry people and pointing them in the direction of ponies until something dies.”

“Which, apart from its poor military application, is a shocking waste of resources,” Romero said dryly. “Tell me, just what was your medical speciality again?”

“Trauma surgery,” Kraber said. “I also wanted to be a pediatrician, or pioneer the use of artificial cybernetic limbs, or be a vet somewhere rural so I could operate on bobcats or wolves or African Wild Dogs or something.”

“Interesting. And ironic, considering your disdain for-”

“Don’t,” Kraber interrupted.

“And your mother’s trials on Newfoals - you did some work with her on that, right?” Romero continued. “Or at least, are familiar with it?”

“Too fokkin’ familiar,” Kraber growled.

“I see,” Romero said. “I'd like to share some things with you, Viktor, if you're willing. A man with your talents shouldn't be left in a cell to rot, not when you can make a real difference.”

Kraber raised an eyebrow. “Go on…”

“I'd like to know I can rely on you,” Romero said. “If you agree to join us, you're on side. You're with us all the way to the finish line, wherever that may be. If not… I’m happy to let you off at the nearest port town, give you some equipment, and let you on your way.”

“I’ll need some time to think it over,” Kraber said. “At the very least, I’m not fokkin’ going back to Lovikov. Ponies or not, this is… this is a man who humiliated me in front of my friends the day Emil fokking died, all because I didn’t kill a child.”

“Wise move to not go back,” Romero said. “Rest assured: nothing we do here is so… dehumanising.” He smiled. “Actually, in time, we may achieve the opposite.”

Kraber blinked. “...Wat. You’re not talking about what I think you are, are you? Mom… she said that was impossible!”

“Everything is impossible, Mr Kraber,” Romero said, tapping an intercom button. “Until someone achieves it.”

The door opened and a guard in a similar uniform to Romero’s entered.

“Sir,” the man said.

“Please escort Mr Kraber to an empty room on D-Deck,” Romero said. “And have fresh gear delivered to him. Oh, and have the special order I asked for sent up to his room as well.”

The man nodded, before stepping outside and waiting.

“Special order?” Kraber repeated.

“You'll find out, Mr Kraber,” Romero said. “I’ll speak to you in the morning.”

Later

The room on D-Deck was not a brig. Which surprised Kraber. It had enough beds for about four people.

“Well fok,” Kraber said. “This is actually nicer than my old room.”

He fell on the mattress, and was surprised to feel how comfortable it was. Then, of course, he noticed the special order.

“And you even put my stuffed animals against the pillows!”

“I’m tempted to ask,” his escort said, “why you’d want a stuffed horse. Captain was rather specific about that thing.”

Kraber glared at the man, who stepped back immediately.

“Just a question, sir,” the man said, holding up a placating hand. “Always sleep with my first ever navy shirt I got issued on myself. Amazing what comforts people, right?”

Kraber shrugged.

“There’s also a rec room not too far off. It has an XBox, PS4… couple public computers, too. You’re allowed the use of any game consoles onboard, though your internet access has been restricted to those for security reasons. Includes online multiplayer, unfortunately.”

“Surprised you even get internet,” Kraber commented. “This is a warship, right? An HLF warship no fokkin’ less. I'd have thought the US Navy would have torn you up.”

The man didn't answer that, and Kraber didn’t press him.

“Considering what I’ve heard about you,” the man said after a moment, “I’m surprised you’re taking it this well.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” the man said. “You're on the other side of the Split.”

Kraber chuckled dryly, then sighed. “I… well, I finally understood what my side of the Split is like. And I think I’ve had enough of it.”

The man nodded. “Had to happen sometime, huh?”

“Yeah,” Kraber said. “I guess it did.”

“Mind if I ask what brought that on?” the man asked.

“I was on the rig when they were about to fire,” Kraber says. “And a day before, Lovikov went and threw all my stuff on the ground because I decided not to shoot a small child in the face. It was the day my boyfriend died too, so kind of kak all around.”

“...Holy shit,” the other man said. “That’s… if anyone in the Reavers or Ex Astris tried to do that, the Captain would shoot them.”

“Not blood eagle them, or give them a show trial?” Kraber asks.

“Nah,” the other man said. “Just shoot ‘em.”

There was an awkward pause.

“I’m, ah, Louis, by the way,” the man said. “Believe it or not, I really do understand what you’re going through here. I left the Carter side about a year back.”

“Oh?” Kraber asked, blinking. “Which unit?”

“Thenardiers,” Louis said, snorting. “Birch’s voice alone is enough to make you want to shoot yourself, but… well. It was the Thenardiers. You know what they’re like.”

Kraber did, in fact, know what they were like.

“Or, God forbid, Glanzon’s Gluemakers,” Kraber said.

“They’ve all been dead a couple months now,” Louis pointed out.

“Eh, no loss,” Kraber said.

“Literally had a man from the Thenardier Guard tell me he’d shoot a PHL pony rather than a human PER member once,” Kraber says.

“...Christ,” Heather says.

“How are these people that dense?!” Yael wonders aloud.

“Have you never heard of a joke?” Verity snorts.

“Yeah; it’s call the HLF,” Heliotropes says scathingly.

“At least the PER aren’t the ones that took over what’s left of America!” Verity started. “At least they’re not-”

“They turn people into THOSE GODDAMNED THINGS!” Kraber yells. “FOK! You’re like klansmen that go out of their way to stab black nurses in the hospital!”

“That’s weirdly specific-” Aegis starts.

“Don’t ask,” Heather whispers. “Just don’t.”

“I’m latino, you-” Verity starts.

“YOU WANT TO MEASURE YOUR FOKKING MISERY DICK?!” Kraber yelled. “WELL YOU HOU JOU FOKKIN’ BEK, CAUSE I’M ABOUT TO TURN LEFT AND-”

“YOU SOLD OUT HUMANITY, YOU SON OF A-” Verity screamed.

“I.. YOU… FOKKIN’ WHAT THE FOK?! O JY DINK JY’S WY’S NE?! VERTEL ME HOE IN DIE FOK VERSLAWENDE FOKKIN’ TEL AS-?!” Kraber yelled back,

“Viktor. Don’t,” Aegis says, very quietly. “I need to ask you something, Verity. It’s very important.”

“And that is?” Verity asks, defiant.

“Why are you here?” Aegis asks. “Everyone here has an axe to grind, maybe even against you. Viktor, very transparently, does not like you.”

“And you?” Verity asks.

Aegis looks down at the floor. “...Not important here. But I can’t see any way that being here is causing you anything but suffering. For your own health… don’t be here, Verity. You’re only hurting yourself.”

Verity sighs.

“Do you know what I lost because of the War?” Verity asks.

“I don’t see where you’re going with this,” Yael says.

“I lost my mother, and senior year of high school,” Verity says. “I was seventeen at the time. I was so busy protesting and fighting, so angry that I missed out on… too much. I never got to go to RISD like I wanted. And now I never will.”

“We all lost out on the people we got to be, Verity,” Astral Nectar says.

“So, because of the fucking War, I had to be a kid standing up at the adult’s table,” Verity says. “I had to deal with creepy, greasy bastards day after day. I suffered to stay at that table. And that is not even starting on this.” She motions to herself. “And now, you-”

She pauses. There is dead silence.

“I’m nowhere,” Verity says. “And you were too, Viktor.”

“What do you mean?” Kraber asks.

“I mean that somehow, you managed to carve out a place,” Verity says. “And I need to know how you did it. Because… I’m stuck here. And if I don’t find out how to be not stuck, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”

Kraber nods.

“Very well then,” he says. “Just… try not to defend too many war crimes.”

“Well hi, Pot,” she replies with a snort, “I’m a black kettle.”

“So Romero had you escort me because of that,” Kraber said.

Louis nodded. “It can be… difficult getting used to it here. Lucky Strike is really good at putting the fear of God into you, but…”

Part of Kraber really wanted to start insulting her, but… it’d been a long day, she’d made it abundantly clear she wouldn’t care about killing him, and the longer he tried to justify saying ‘gluestick,’ the less it felt like it was really worth it.

Kate had said that the longer you try to justify something, the more you prove it wrong. And that felt about right.

“But?” Kraber asked.

“But we do good work here,” Louis said. “No matter what, we’re not in a place that celebrates cruelty. We’re in a place that looks toward the future. That’s why I came here, you know. I knew that they’d eventually reach something like Portl-”

“About that,” Kraber said. “Portland isn’t an endpoint. I know the man, and whatever Lovikov wants to do next, it’s going to be worse.”

“You’re telling me,” Louis said, “that you think Lovikov’s going to outdo Portland?”

“I’m not telling you I think that,” Kraber said. “I’m telling you I know that. The man doesn’t de-escalate or step back.”

They both considered that.

“Then,” Louis said, “I think we both did the right thing leaving when we did.”

“Did you actually sleep?” Heliotrope asks. “I mean… it was the Columbia, and you were you, so…”

“After everything? Fok yeah, I slept,” Kraber says, laughing softly. “I didn’t think they’d kill me in my sleep, if that’s what you mean. Honestly, at that point, I didn’t care if they did.” He pauses. “So… gotta ask. Did anything come of Gardner wanting to ‘visit’ Romero?”

Yael frowns. “Eventually. But he was getting stonewalled by someone else.”

“Who?” Kraber asks.

Yael sighs. “That’s a long story…”

“And one with a lot of shouting,” Heliotrope adds, grimacing. “Plus side, I think it did get Gardner punched in the face.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

“Fokkin’ lekker.”

“With all the head shots you gave that man, how does he not have a concussion?” Spitfire asks.

“Yeah,” Heather points out. “I’ve seen Viktor give people concussions with one kick before. Is Gardner’s skull adamantium or-”

“Honestly, I just don’t think it’d have any noticeable effect,” Yael says.

“I’m a doctor, and I can confirm that,” Kraber says.

“Can you?” Aegis asks. “I mean, does it really work like that?”

“Do you think it doesn’t?” Kraber asks.

Aegis just shrugs. “Fair enough.”

“What about Summers?” Dancing Day asks. “Did he get a concussion too?”

“Let’s just say that’s a bit of a non-issue at the moment,” Heliotrope says.

Kraber awoke to a knock on the door. Sleep had, thankfully, come easy.

He woke up, staggering to the door. Looked through the peephole, readying himself for a-

Oh wait. They don’t trust me with guns.

There was nobody at the peephole.

Kraber opened the door, and looked down to find a tray with a hot breakfast sitting atop it. And in a bowl was-

Shrimp and grits?! Seriously?!

There was a note next to the bowl.

Dr. Kraber,
I had the ship’s cooks make this special for you. I didn’t tell them who it was for, but I felt it was best that you’re comfortable. You have a big day ahead.

I will be returning in one hour. Please, be ready for the tour by then.
--D. Romero

Kraber quickly set to dismantling his breakfast, bite by bite. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like Romero had used instant grits, or cooked them with water. Kraber had threatened people at gunpoint for that last one.

I probably don’t have long till this turns out to be an elaborate trap, Kraber thought, but I might as well enjoy this.

And he called me Doctor! Shit, it’s been way too long.

An hour later, as Kraber slipped on the shirt and trousers, a knock came at the door. When he opened it, Romero was standing there, hands behind his back.

“Mr Kraber,” he said. “I trust the sleep was good?”

“Best I've had in a while,” Kraber said softly. “But I've got a funny feeling like I’ve been sleeping with the enemy.”

Romero nodded. “I guess we’ve been that to you for a while. Shouldn’t have been the case, but we can’t exactly help that now.”

“No, I guess not,” Kraber said. He let out a sigh. “So, uh… is there a tour guide?”

“Yeah,” Romero replied with a wink. “Me.”

“Alright,” Kraber said. “But I only do this on one condition.”

Romero’s smile dropped like a stone.

“You’re not in a place to make demands,” he said flatly.

“But this is an easy one,” Kraber said. “You tell me why I’m here.”

“I thought I made that point earlier,” Romero said, folding his arms. “Furthermore, I thought you had a good answer.”

“Maybe,” Kraber said. “You had a lot of good reasons. But the PHL was willing to shoot me for resisting arrest. The Spader side of the HLF hates me. Lovikov is probably going to want me dead next time we meet. So why me? Why here?”

Romero nodded slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face. Finally, he met Kraber’s eyes with the most serious expression Kraber could imagine. It was like he had aged ten years, and turned to stone.

“Because we must win the war,” he finally said, speaking slowly. “We must. I cannot afford to waste any opportunity, squander any resource, when that opportunity or resource might be the key to winning this conflict. I cannot, and will not, pass up any chance of victory. Whatever we have to do, I will do it.” He chuckled. “To be frank, Kraber? You are not the worst thing I’ve done. And you’re sure as hell not the worst thing I’m willing to do.”

Admittedly, that answer raised more questions for Kraber.

But at the very least, it made it clear that this wasn’t a trap. That Kraber wasn’t going to die. That he wouldn’t have to give someone a concussion (again).

That was good enough.

As it happened, Romero made for a pretty good tour guide. He was jovial and friendly, for the most part. Even… nice.

The same couldn’t necessarily be said for some of the other crew. Kraber could feel the glaring eyes from more than one of the crew of this ship.

“None of them want me here,” he commented as they walked.

“Let them think what they like,” Romero replied, conspicuously not answering, “but this is my ship. My ship, my rules. They’ll do what I tell ‘em, even if they don’t necessarily like it.”

Kraber nodded slowly. That hadn’t been his experience of the HLF. “If you say so. Surprised it hasn’t got you killed.”

“We’re not some floating band of pirates, no matter what people choose to call us,” Romero retorted. “For one thing, I happen to prefer the term ‘privateer.’”

“That’s literally just a pirate that attacks…” Kraber said. “Ohhh. Lekker. I get it now.”

“I’m glad,” Romero said, smiling. “Anyway, why would they want to kill me? We’re aboard a human marvel, and they get to serve aboard her.”

“Wait, human marvel?” Kraber repeated. “Really?”

“The Columbia was one of four combined research and warships that were built by the Armacham Technology Corp for the war effort,” Romero explained as they continued walking through the halls. “One of those ships is a testbed for the latest and greatest in UNAC and PHL tech under the command of Rebecca Kleiner - the Prometheus. But I suspect you’re more likely to have heard of the prototype ship - the Thunderchild.”

“Wait: this ship’s Thunderchild-class?” Kraber asked, frowning in disbelief.

That was why the design had looked familiar! These things weren’t just advanced, they were top-of-the-range, or they had been when they were announced. A massive propaganda win for the PHL and UNAC, a massive upswing for morale even among HLF. Rumor was, the design had been originally intended for space travel, before the big governments had all dropped that one like a lead balloon.

But after Lyra’s death, the project had disappeared from public view, never brought up except in reference to the obvious tragedy.

“Yup,” Romero said. “And the Columbia and her sister ship Challenger are both under my authority as head of Ex Astris Victoria.”

“How did you even get these?” Kraber marveled.

“It’s… well, a long story,” Romero chuckled.

“Seriously, how did he get those?” Heliotrope asks in the here and now.

“Well, the Thunderchild and the Prometheus were built under contract by ATC,” Yael suggests. “He had connections there, right? Same as with the Reavers. So maybe they built them for him? I mean, I don’t know of anyone saying there were four of the Thunderchild-class being in any paperwork, but it’s not like they’d have told me. I’m just a proverbial grunt.”

“But the cost must have been astronomical!” Heliotrope says. “Seriously, how in the name of fuck -”

“No way to know,” Kraber cuts her off. “Not like it matters. I don’t think he’s gonna be a problem with it: he’s hardly Lovikov.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Yael mutters.

“Seriously, though,” Kraber said. “How? These are top-of-the-line.”

“They had top-of-the-line tech,” Romero corrected. “Or were designed to. But they’re also unwieldy and slower than they need to be.” He sniffed. “And they’re over-designed.”

“They’re what?” Kraber repeated, stopping. “‘Over-designed’? You’ve got one of the coolest ships ever built, and you’re complaining?”

“‘Cool’ doesn’t stop her from being an over-designed, co-developed boondoggle,” Romero said blandly. “She’s a dreadnought that can go underwater, she’s a battleship that’s also designed to carry science and research teams, and she’s got enough superfluous space to be a functional small arcology - which we actually have to use her as, I might add. Plus, these things are ridiculously expensive to build.”

Kraber blinked, trying to figure out how to respond to that.

“That… doesn’t explain how you got them,” he said after a moment.

“You know, you’re absolutely right,” Romero said, chuckling. “It doesn’t.”

At Kraber’s exasperated expression, he just laughed again, and Kraber resisted the urge to punch him.

That would be a bad idea, he thought, restraining himself.

“People talk about Max Yarrow having ‘backers’,” Romero said. “Truth is, the man had me, and the brains to let me use my connections to get more connections. And, to be fair, quite a bit of moxxy, too, so that helped.” He gave Kraber a sidelong glance. “So using those connections, we… acquired them, shall we say, and I renamed them and put them to work.”

“‘Renamed them’?” Kraber repeated. “What was wrong with the names they had?”

“No one on my crew can pronounce ‘Deucalion’,” Romero replied, mangling the word slightly and wincing. “Not even me.”

Kraber shook his head. “So you’ve got these ships.”

“I got the ships, Max gets the esoteric weapons you've no doubt heard rumours of, we both get access to specialised personnel, and a certain amount of space from awkward questions,” Romero replied. “Which suits me just peachy. ‘My ship, my rules’.”

As they walked, a pony in a pale blue shirt and dark blue trousers trotted past, and Kraber couldn't help but watch it - her - go past with a slight glare.

“On this ship,” Romero said, noticing this, “we don't let prejudice prevent us from working with the best minds. If we did, I'd never get you on board.”

“What?” Kraber said. “You're comparing me to a gluestick?!”

“To some people, and a lot of ponies, you're much, much worse,” Romero said casually. “Almost every depravity a human can commit has been laid at your door. If even half of it is true, a lot of people aren't going to like my keeping you aboard.”

“The parts about rape and cannibalism aren’t true,” Kraber said. “I’ve never done either of those things.”

“You realize that doesn't help, right?” Romero said dryly.

“And I’m… gonna try and be less… the rest of it,” Kraber added, wincing at how trite it sounded. “Turnin’ over a new leaf. That kind of thing.”

“Good,” Romero said. “Let's try to keep it that way, shall we?”

He led Kraber into another room, where men, women and ponies were handling chunks of what looked like some sort of Equestrian Crystal.

“This is the testing room,” Romero said. He smirked as Kraber leant down to look at the crystal, eyes wide in shock. “What you're looking at isn’t Equestrian – it’s actually primed Earth crystals. A variety of diamonds, and other similar rocks, all worked on to allow them to retain thaumic charge. They haven’t passively absorbed as many thaums as are present in Equestria, but they’re much, much cheaper.”

“Still,” Kraber said, whistling. “Lovikov would throw a fokkin’ fit like a viswyf if he knew you had this much. This’d buy enough guns to wipe out America.”

“Which would be a rather pointless exercise when those guns are so much scrap metal in the face of the Barrier,” Romero pointed out with a wry smile. Said smile disappeared as he noticed something, and he sighed. “Jenkins, why the hell isn't this pile processed? I ordered it done two days ago.”

“Uh, we hit a snag, sir,” one of the technicians, a nervous looking man with a goatee, said. “Glitter couldn’t -”

“Glitter couldn’t what, do the job we keep him in for?” Romero snapped. His expression had turned in the blink of an eye from genial to stern, almost stony. He pointed at the pile. “If there’s a setback, I expect to be kept notified. If there’s delay, I expect to know when it happens, not two days later when I happen to be passing through! And if he’s on Breezie Dust again…”

“Then?” the goateed man volunteered.

“Then he’d better hope I don’t find out,” Romero said, narrowing his eyes. “Or… maybe Lucky Strike would like that information?”

Another technician - a dark-haired Thai woman - jumped slightly at the mention of ‘Lucky Strike’. The name sounded vaguely familiar to Kraber, but he couldn’t place it.

Oh, fok, that gluestick, he realised, before wincing internally.

Jenkins was stammering. “Uh, yes sir -”

“So: why wasn’t I kept informed?”

“Uh, b-because we thought we’d -”

“What?” Romero thundered. “‘Pick up the slack before I noticed’?”

“Uh… well, yes, sir…”

“Well, you didn’t,” Romero said, his tone now colder, calmer, but with an undercurrent of disappointment. “Next time, you keep me informed.”

There was a pause, and then Jenkins nodded.

“Uh, y-yes, sir,” he said.

“Now. Glitter.”

“Uh, G-Glitter said something about needing to rest or he’d r-risk… over-channeling? Whatever that means?” Jenkins raised his hands. “I swear to God, he didn’t get high. Not after Lucky Strike...”

Dancing Day

”For the record,” Kraber says, “Breezie Dust was slang for some drugs they grew in some of the unused spaces on the ship. And Lucky Strike...”

“Guess Romero doesn’t run such a tight ship after all,” Verity interrupts, smirking slightly.

“I’m getting to that,” Kraber says. “Lucky Strike apparently did… something… so siek that nobody would ever consider doing dust ever again. And as for why this was a problem, well…”

Kraber pauses.

“A Thunderchild is groot,” Kraber says. “As in, not-hard-to-get-lost-in-there big. About half of the day-to-day work on the things involved trying to jippo them back into working order. And it’s not like Romero could buy spare parts.”

“...It’s not?” Rivet asks.

“Well, who would make them?” Heliotrope asks.

Dancing Day nods. That seems to make sense.

“The point here is,” Kraber says, “Keeping the thing going is hard graft. You’re expected to give fourteen hour days, if need be. It’s hard not to imagine something to take the edge off at huistoegaantyd.”

After blank looks:

“...that’s the end of the day,” Kraber explains.

Dancing Day nods. She’s honestly kind of grateful he explained that, because that was even harder to understand than a lot of the other words that came out of his mouth.

Romero sighed. “Just… Get him working as soon as he can.” He paused. “Over-channelling… have him also speak to the doctors, tell them everything he knows. Might be something that we can use.”

“Yes, sir,” Jenkins nodded again, and then wandered off.

Kraber whistled, letting out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

“Bit… harsh?” he asked.

“This is a research vessel and battleship, in the middle of a war of annihilation,” Romero replied, his voice terse. “I don’t have time for people to get high, not do their jobs and then conveniently forget to tell me.”

“They’re not all professionals though, are they?” Kraber asked. “I mean, aren’t most of these guys volunteers, like the rest of the HLF?”

“On my ship, we have professional standards, or at least I damn well try to,” Romero replied. “Letting standards slip is how we get Lovikov or Birch or…”

He paused, and looked almost awkward.

“Nah, you can say me,” Kraber said, chuckling weakly. “I’m not exactly a paragon of discipline.”

“No, you aren’t,” Romero agreed. “And if you’re going to work with us, that’s going to change.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Been meaning to ask, by the way,” Kraber said suddenly.

“Oh?” Romero said, turning to look at him, his expression slightly testy.

Kraber crossed his arms. “How’d you hack Overwatch to give you a reverted Mercy?”

Romero gave him a blank look, before chuckling, the tension gone from his expression.

“I didn’t,” he said. “Just got a contact of mine at Blizzard to revert her.”

There was a pause while this processed.

“You had a contact at Blizzard,” Kraber said dully.

“Yup,” Romero said with a grin.

“And you got this contact to revert a character the entire Mercy main playerbase has been trying to get reverted for years.”

“Yup.”

“You had time for that?”

Romero rolled his eyes. “I was correcting an injustice. Classic Mercy was easily the best.”

“Fokking right?!” Kraber asked.

“Absolutely!” Romero said, grinning. “I don’t care what DPS players say. If they can kill a whole team with a skilful and well-timed use of their ult, why shouldn’t a healer be able to rez a whole team with a skilful, well-timed application of theirs?” He paused. “Anyway, I had them make it optional. I know one guy who’s incredible at using Valkyrie, would be a real injustice to rob that from him.”

Kraber was too busy boggling at the fact that the character had been reworked just at Romero’s say so. That, in its own way, was a lot scarier than him just hacking the game.

Just who the fok is this guy?

“Besides, Mercy’s been in kind of a rut since her ult got nerfed,” Kraber found himself saying. “Sure, a healer that lets their team die is kinda counterintuitive, but… it was her niche. It was an integral part of her! And when you get rid of that, what’s left? It’s like a burger without the meat.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Romero said. “Anyway, like I said. Correcting an injustice. I’m big on those.”

“That right,” Kraber said. I could get to like it here.

More than once, they came to parts of the ship where mechanics were working to fix things: loose panels, charred wiring, etc.

“We had the resources to acquire these ships,” Romero said evenly. Kraber noted that he still didn’t elaborate. “But some things about her are still a little… ad hoc, shall we say?”

“Ad hoc?” Kraber repeated, frowning.

Romero grimaced slightly, running a hand through his hair. “It’s… complicated. Suffice it to say, she’s Thunderchild-class, but she’s not quite up to Thunderchild specs.”

The fok? Kraber thought. This guy was just… admitting that his ships weren’t the best? This can’t be a trap. Or it can be, and it’s either a really fokkin’ bad one or a really scarily good one.

With everything that had floated around about Romero over the years, either was possible.

“We’ve managed to bring her closer than you’d think with limited resources,” Romero continued. “To the point where she’d do the job, and she does. I did manage to get a replacement main cannon and secondary particle turrets installed.” He sniffed. “We were running on Windows Vista for about three weeks, though.”

Kraber blinked. “You’re fokking tuning me kak.”

“I wish. It was… frustrating.”

“I mean,” Kraber said slowly, “at least you weren't running on Windows 7?”

“Some of our surplus Armacham gear actually was for a while,” Romero said with a frown.

“Oh, come on.”

“Well, we got Linux instead,” Romero said after a moment, “but that took about a week where the Challenger and the Purity had to cover us. You’ve no idea how embarrassing it was to have the old tug there, more able to shoot than we were.” He grimaced. “And I’ll be honest, I still don’t understand Linux.”

“Me neither,” Kraber said blandly. “But… does this ship work?”

“Oh, she works, yes,” Romero said. He grinned. “Just takes a bit more coaxing than if I had permission to dock at UNAC’s chief port at Boston. I ended up making sure the Challenger was better equipped for actual fighting - Captain Brooke’s gotten herself into a few scrapes - but we’re both on level pegging now.”

“Seriously, how did you get this stuff?!” Kraber asked.

“Like I said,” Romero replied easily. “Connections.”

He chuckled, and said nothing more. Kraber found himself wondering if Romero enjoyed people not knowing where he’d gotten this ship, or these weapons.

Dancing Day

“He totally does,” Kraber says suddenly. “Like, you can tell when you’re in the room.”

Yael raises an eyebrow. “I mean… isn’t that a bit childish?”

“Hey, I can’t throw stones,” Kraber says.

“So, wait, his ships aren’t full-spec?” Heliotrope asks. “I mean… how ‘not full-spec’ are we talking?”

Kraber shrugs. “The way Romero told it, he got Columbia and Challenger without some of the more… ‘flashy’ tech installed.”

“How d’you mean ‘flashy’?” Heliotrope asks.

Kraber shrugged. “Apparently the Thunderchild specs he had included a few redacted bits and blanked out spaces. Lots of stuff he told me they didn’t know what equipment was meant to go there. It’s why his labs had the room they did.”

“Makes sense, if Thunderchild was the one with the most complex stuff,” Yael says quietly.

“Yup,” Kraber says, nodding. “Also, Columbia and Challenger have no PEPS point defence, just conventional and some ATC lasers. And their shield generators aren’t the specialised model the Thunderchild or Prometheus had when they launched - think I overheard someone saying Columbia’s was a modified Armacham Elite Powered Armour shield? Or maybe one of the prototype Enhanced ones…” He shrugs again. “Either way, most of that stuff, and their particle guns and stuff, were added later. Or so he said. For all I know he got them through fokkin’ space magic.”

“Huh,” Heliotrope comments. “If you’d told us that when we worked for Gardner, he might have been interested to know it.”

“I wouldn’t have told that kontgesig a goddamned thing,” Kraber says.

“If you wouldn’t have then, you sure wouldn’t have now,” Yael adds, snorting. “But he’d probably sleep easier knowing.”

“Good thing he doesn’t, then,” Kraber grins. “Frankly, if he craps his pants at night thinking Romero’s got a laser that can fry his penis from the other side of the world, I’m all for it.”

“I dunno, a laser like that would need to be pinpoint accurate to hit such a small target,” Yael says blandly.

There’s a moment, and then most of the adults laugh.

Eventually, they came to the lower decks, and Romero led Kraber down a corridor with glass-walled rooms, each one holding a pony or human in an orange jumpsuit, each one glaring out with such hatred that Kraber felt his own anger rise, and the urge to break something.

“These are the prison rooms,” Romero said grimly. “Most HLF never take any, hence why I tend to take their prisoners off their hands. There’s a considerable value in it.”

“Value in what?” Kraber growled. He motioned to one of the prisoners, a woman with a shaved head. “That’s Jenny K. I saw her potion a school bus once.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Romero said, “and before she worked as an intern in a Bureau she was an artist and a YouTuber who specialised in hair styling.”

Looking over the shaven headed woman, Kraber frowned.

“Seriously?” he asked.

“I’ve seen reports that indicate that the Bureaus were mind-manipulating even without potioning,” Romero said, a low, angry growl in his throat. “You don’t think a self-genocidal organisation can grow to tens of thousands strong even after war is declared and the worst atrocities come to light just from disillusionment, desperation, disgruntled otherkin, hypocrisy and wilful stupidity, do you?”

“I dunno, I know a lot of disillusioned people,” Kraber said.

Romero snorted. “Let’s say, hypothetically, someone joins the PER to put food on the table, because as far as they’re concerned-”

“Is this an actual story?” Kraber interrupted. “Because I’ve heard it before. Wasn’t exactly praat 'n gat innie kop.”

“Yes,” Romero said. “Let’s say someone joins because of… because of that. Now, this is someone whose heart isn’t really in it. They just want food, or money, or some kind of fulfillment, or they want to survive up to the Last Resort. And yet, within the space of a year they’re running with Shieldwall. Part of his worst excesses. Participating in experiments, guarding one of his Reconstitution Camps.”

“Seems there’s a missing step in here,” Kraber said.

“Exactly,” Romero said. “When we talked to a man like that, he said… ‘It wasn’t me, it was the PER’.”

“That’s a terrible fokkin’ alibi,” Kraber said.

“Indeed,” Romero said. “He was disillusioned, but... enough to potion babies? To completely ignore the insanity that is Newfoals, the abominations of the spitters, the Newcalves, the brain-foals?”

Dancing Day

“Brain-foals?” Dancing Day asks.

Almost everyone and everypony there winces.

“Trust me,” Rivet says, “You’re better off not knowing. It’s…. You just look at it and you want to vomit.”

“Sounds like a newcalf,” Dancing Day says. “Or, or a megacorn.”

“...Sure let’s go with that?” Amber asks, looking over at her brother.

“Cause of, uh,” Rivet says. “Cockroaches.”

“Cockroaches?” Amber asks, looking at him strangely.

“Yeah,” Rivet says. “Cockroaches. Like, you look at a newcalf and you think ‘what does that make humans? Cockroaches?’ Like… are humans just so low that that’s an improvement? Are they cockroaches?”

“Maybe leave that discussion for another day,” Aegis says gently.

Kraber

“I don’t think so,” Romero finished. “There aren’t that many psychopaths in the world.”

“So… they’re brainwashed?” Kraber asked. Jenny was still glaring at them. She wasn’t even blinking.

“They are, or at least that's our theory,” Romero said with a nod. “Some PER the Reavers captured at Hadley’s Hope were exposed to… something. It seems to have broken that brainwashing.”

“Which is lekker,” Kraber said.

“...Unfortunately, it did so by breaking something else,” Romero said.

He indicated the cell next to Jenny, where a man was rocking back and forth in a corner. There were conspicuous bloodstains on the wall.

“What happened to him?” Kraber asked, not sure he wanted to know.

“He’s uninjured,” Romero replied softly, a frown on his face. “The woman he was captured alongside was in that cell before him, though, and she killed herself by slamming her head into the wall sixty seven times. After we put her in a straitjacket.”

Kraber almost gagged. “Fok off.”

“I am deadly serious,” Romero said, almost sighing. “I don’t know what it was - there were no direct witnesses to it - but it was… unnerving to watch on the security cam.” He frowned. “Still, every little thing we learn is a step in the right direction.”

He moved along, and pointed to a few of the ponies. All of them had a variety of shields as their cutie marks.

“Guardsponies,” Kraber guessed.

“That’s right,” Romero said.

“Yeah, figured,” Kraber said with a frown. “What can you learn from these konts?”

“From what we’re told, the Guard are subject to something my pony staff tell me is called a Geas,” Romero explained as they walked past the cells, ignoring the dirty looks the ponies gave.

“Oh, ja,” Kraber said. “That’s a magical spell that forces people to obey commands, right?”

“The entire Guard is subject to it,” Romero said with a nod. “Makes them loyal to Celestia. We’ve reason to believe similar magic is in use across her realm. Might explain how a skittish magical herbivore race can take to conflict with the ease and zeal these ponies have. As opposed to, say, the griffons.”

“...I guess when you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense,” Kraber said.

“And yet most of our colleagues never consider that these soldiers are victims of something that is forcing them against their will,” Romero said. “Not even the PHL really think about it, outside their R&D.”

“They don’t?” Kraber asked. “And you do?”

“Like I said, outside their R&D,” Romero said, shrugging. “I don’t know the extent of their position. Every officer I’ve spoken to has focused on weapon and defence research. Just easier not to worry about it or outsource it, maybe.”

Aegis looks over at Yael and Heliotrope.

“Is that true?”

“It’s…” Heliotrope says. “Look. I’d love to be able to break the geis. But….”

“But you usually don’t get the opportunity,” Aegis says.

“We do try it on prisoners,” Yael says. “The failure rate is… unacceptable. So normally we just try to keep them comfortable in prison.”

“Do any of them try to enlist with us?” Heliotrope asks. “It gets… lonely sometimes.”

“Even if it does work,” Yael says, “they’re usually not in a mood to just pick up arms for us. They’re usually just relieved to stop fighting, though.”

Romero kept walking, and Kraber kept following.

“One of the prisoners we took even said he was a botanist before the war,” Romero continued. “And yet, he displayed a lust for conflict I’ve never seen in a human soldier.”

“Wait,” Kraber said. “Wait. Wait. Fokkin’ wait. You’re saying that… after talking to me, saying what you just did about ‘every depravity.’”

“You feel remorse for your actions,” Romero pointed out. “This former botanist only regretted that he was prevented from carrying them out. Going off of a hypothesis from Commander Lucky Strike, we kept him in an isolation tank as an experiment, and he went practically catatonic. We had a vial of fake potion-”

“That had better have fokkin’ been grape juice or something,” Kraber said.

“Watered down blackcurrant with purple dye, actually,” Romero said, his expression pensive. “But when we tempted this botanist with it, only then did he become responsive. Specifically, he tried to splash it in my face.” He clicked his tongue. “He missed me. He got the woman next to me, one of our mechanics.”

“But it was fake, right?” Kraber asked.

Romero paused, before stroking his chin. “Mr Kraber. Have you ever heard of ‘conceptual magic’?”

“Conceptual magic?” Kraber repeated. “Er… no?”

“The fake potion ponified my officer,” Romero said evenly. “The botanist believed it was potion, and it acted like potion. The idea in his head created his reality.”

Kraber’s eyes widened. “How?! How in the fok does that even work?!”

Romero shrugged. “Like I said. Conceptual magic. And if the ingredients aren’t the most important element to the final product, that at least explains how PER can manufacture bootleg potion with relatively makeshift ingredients for terrorist raids.”

“So… you shot the woman?” Kraber asked. “Right?”

Romero paused again. “Actually… no.”

“No?!” Kraber repeated.

“It’s strange,” Romero said. “Presumably because it was conceptually created rather than actually brewed properly, it made her… well, a kind of anomalous newfoal. She’s perfectly loyal to Celestia, in the same way extremely devout Christians are perfectly faithful to the idea that Genesis is literal, but she just fixes things. That’s all she does.”

“You’re tuning me kak,” Kraber said.

“No, I’m not,” Romero said. “Fixes things. Cheerful as heck. ‘Oh, I don’t mind helping you out before your inevitable ponification or destruction. Seems only fair I should make what’s left of your life on Earth easy. Don’t mind me, just fixing this gasket. Can you pass me the spanner? Oh, you’ll look great as a Pegasus. I hope you’re a Pegasus.’ That kind of thing.”

“Ah, ‘curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!’” Kraber quoted. “That is seltsam.”

“We double check her work, of course,” Romero said, “but I think she’s… she just does what she did before. Minor repairs, odd jobs. It’s like the ‘conceptual potion’ ponified her, made her think Celestia is a goddess, but didn’t instil aggression, the desire to actively potion us, any of that. Like a half-programmed machine.”

He paused, his expression becoming almost nauseous.

“When she doesn’t relapse, that is,” he said quietly.

“Relapse?” Kraber asked.

Romero shrugged. “Again, we don’t understand it yet. And you can understand, I’m not exactly willing to test it out some more.”

“I see your point,” Kraber said. “Mom was always skittish about any sort of tests involving newfoals. My only question is… if the botanist did that with a fake, why doesn’t Celestia take it even further, if they can just… believe something into potion?”

“I have no idea,” Romero said. “But if I had to hazard a guess, it’s because the ‘fake’ potion didn’t do what they needed it to. And he was at an emotional… high point? Low point? His belief was higher than it would have been? Some other circumstance that’s difficult to manufacture? We don’t know, but if we don’t know then that makes it unreliable.”

“And being unreliable in a war is bad,” Kraber guessed.

“Exactly,” Romero nodded. “So perhaps that has something to do with it. Imagine if they… believed a water tank into potion, then made a thousand newfoals… but they just did odd jobs and occasionally said ‘oh, I’ll fix that for you, but I’ll probably potion you one day’. Unnerving, sure, like a bad animatronic. But useless in war, and that damage is all-but irreparable. And then, like I said, relapse.”

“Yeah, what did you mean by that?” Kraber asked.

Romero stroked his chin. “You ever heard of the Slow Newfoals?”

“Yeah,” Kraber said. “Newfoals who weren’t befok from the start. They were… well, them for a little while. My cousin Richard was one, y’know. But there was something wrong with his variant.”

“What happened to him?” Romero asked.

“...He started having memory problems,” Kraber said. “Then he started having these sections of time where his nieces said he was foaming at the mouth angry, then he started forgetting how to talk. Kinda like the newfoals of Bellweather. Then when the Purple Winter came, he just… collapsed. Joined up with the Bureau staff, and we never saw him again.”

“A Slow Newfoal might slowly ‘lapse’ into the state of a blank Newfoal,” Romero said quietly, “until that state becomes permanent. Sharon -”

“That the mechanic?”

“Yes, her name was Sharon, though she prefers ‘Sunbeam’ now, usually,” Romero nodded. “As I was saying, Sharon… relapses. There are odd moments where she seems almost… no, not almost. She seems human. Aware. Terrified.” He took a deep, steadying breath. “They’re usually brief. Fortunately.”

“So… like the opposite of a Slow Newfoal?” Kraber asked, frowning. “Progressing from the blank state to a state of… consciousness?”

“I wish I knew,” Romero said quietly. “Truth be told, it’s not up there with my favourite things to have happened on this ship.”

“I can imagine,” Kraber said quietly.

“Still,” Romero said quietly, “it does give us an opportunity to study.” He paused. “Theories, Mr Kraber?”

“Theories?”

“You are familiar with some research into Newfoals,” Romero pointed out. “Speculate.”

Kraber frowned, thinking it over.

“Maybe the most important part of the potion isn’t about transforming, but the rewriting,” he said after a moment. “Mom and I knew it had some invasive psycho… psychoactive? Psycho-whatever properties in the mind, right from the beginning. Maybe the most important part of the potion is whatever it is that causes so much aggression in newfoals.”

“Perhaps. Unfortunately, this is all theory.” Romero snorted. “In any case, none of our colleagues on the other side of the split have considered that if the Geas is a spell, most of our enemy's forces could be neutralised with nothing but a powerful enough counter-spell. We’ve discussed this possibility with the Equestrian Resistance, but they’re not sure how to go about it. The best idea they have is trying to retrieve the Charter of the Guard, but God knows how they plan to get that.”

“You think it’s that simple?” Kraber asked.

“Magic works on that principle.” Romero stopped. “As an energy, it always has an opposite. It isn't an exact science - or even a science as you or I understand the term - but it is something that roughly translates. It has its own rules. It has limitations. Things still have to make their own kind of sense.”

“Funny, isn’t it? Real magic obeying Sanderson’s Laws,” then Kraber paused. “Wait. Back up.”

“What?” Romero asked.

“You said Equestrian Resistance,” Kraber said. “You work with them?”

“Well… yes,” Romero said, frowning, “of course we do. Our goals are similar, and we can exchange important information with each other. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.” He paused. “That, and they seem to find it refreshing to deal with someone who works outside a government. I’m not privy to everything they have to say, but I’ve picked up on some… concerns.”

“That so?” Kraber asked.

Romero snorted. “Look at the government. They’ve got Gardn-”

“Point immediately fokkin’ taken,” Kraber said.

“I thought it might be,” Romero chuckled. “I do hope you’re not going to make good on what you threatened to do to him.”

“Not all at once,” Kraber said. “But soon. Sometime. I’m not the kind of man who says that idly. It was sort of a spur of the moment sort of thing, but, well, I’ll figure something out.”

“Well, I’ll have to ask you to refrain until it’s politically convenient,” Romero said, a small twinkle in his eye even as his expression was deadly serious.

“I’m not really into the whole ‘brain-sausage’ thing anymore,” Kraber says. “Nowadays, I’m thinking I’m just going to beat him to death with his own wheelchair.”

“Gardner… doesn’t use a wheelchair,” Verity points out.

“Challenge accepted,” Kraber says.

“It’d probably sour the well if you - Well, I won’t repeat it all. More than one person uploaded the whole thing to Vimeo, and one of the things you said has become a hashtag.”

“Not YouTube?”

“Got copyrighted.”

“Fokkin’ seriously?!” Kraber yelled. “This is is why I had to keep uploading my medical drama podcast to podbay.”

“It is getting pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?” Romero said sympathetically. “Come on, there’s still more to see. We haven’t taken you to the medical testing wing.”

He paused.

“I do kind of miss that podcast you wrote,” Romero said. “It was just so wonderfully absurd. I have to ask, though. What possessed you to make it also a musical?”

“I listened to Fall Of The House of Sunshine once,” Kraber said.

“That was a good show,” Romero said, nodding.

“You don’t have any more Newfoals on this thing do you?” Kraber asked.

Romero gave him a Look.

“Fok,” Kraber said mildly.

“And here’s Daisy,” Romero said a few minutes later, folding his arms as he and Kraber stood outside a converted sickbay room.

It was a standard Newfoal: a mare, restrained and apparently sedated. There were charts and graphs surrounding her.

“I told you we were working on the opposite effect,” Romero said quietly. “As far as any of our experts understand, Newfoals are subject to something much stronger - and much more devastating - than the Geas.”

“From a neurological perspective, that makes sense,” Kraber said. “The Geas needs to command people - getting ponified, from what I’ve read, rewrites your muscle memory completely.”

“In a completely destructive manner,” Romero agreed. “I had a man who works with PHL R&D in here once -”

“Fok, seriously?” Kraber asked with an appalled expression.

Romero raised an eyebrow, and Kraber sighed.

“He described Newfoals by saying that ‘literally the only thing that the human aspect contributes is raw material. A positive number to do a subtraction sum on to get to the newfoal state’,” Romero continued. “And I wish he was wrong, but all our research seems to conclude the same. It’s only special cases - anomalous Newfoals, or subjects like Sharon or Slow Newfoals - that aren’t purely subtractive.”

“And Slow Newfoals don’t exist anymore,” Kraber said quietly. “Fok. Mom always said there was something really fokked about the process, that it couldn’t have been good to change that much.”

“But still, it’s magic,” Romero said, smiling ruefully. “Magic can be used to destroy - surely it can be used to repair, as well. In time - not a short amount, I’m sure, but in time - we will discover how to fix this. Fix them.”

Kraber looked at the Newfoal. She seemed oddly serene: he wondered whether they were all like that when not awake and screaming about the glory of Celestia.

“This is the work I’ve wanted to do the most,” Romero said quietly. “I don’t think anyone or anypony hasn’t lost someone to the potion. It’d be a damn pyrrhic win for humanity if killing Celestia just annihilated them all and we never got the chance to save them. If we never even saw it as worth the attempt.”

“I can understand that,” Kraber said. “I’ve… you know, I’ve thought of what happens if we have to find something to do with all the newfoals.”

Romero looked at Kraber, a look of not-quite-surprise on his face. “Have you now?”

“Captain,” Kraber said, “You know who I am. What I’ve done. And I’ve had to drink myself into a stupor just to stop thinking about either option I came up with.”

“You as well, ” Romero said. He sighed. “Though if it comes to it, I’d settle for that pyrrhic win.”

“Would you?” Kraber asked, surprised.

Romero gave him a bland look. “I want to win this war, Kraber. I want to not die, and for the rest of the human race to not die. One day, if things keep going the way they have been, this war’s going to get desperate, and if I have to, I’ll get desperate right alongside it. We’ve got a dozen plans that’re straight up vile in our stores, just waiting for the eleventh hour.”

There was a long silence after that.

“How many do you have aboard, or are Daisy and your anomaly the only one?” Kraber asked quietly.

Romero glanced sidelong at him. “Daisy’s one of three standard Newfoals aboard.”

“Standard?” Kraber repeated.

“Oh, we have a few tricks up our sleeves,” Romero said with a small grin. “Although I drew the line at having a spitter on board, for various reasons.”

“That’s good,” Kraber said quietly. “But, uh… what do you have?”

Romero smiled. “I’d probably better show you Dave.”

‘Dave’ was a Newcalf of all things, a mass of flesh, muscle and bone slamming itself against what must have been reinforced glass, though glass that regenerated cracks seemed far beyond what Kraber thought of when he considered the term. A few guards stood nearby, scowling at the glass, their trigger fingers understandably itchy. Most of them were holding type-7 particle weapons, ATC’s finest in ‘big shooty sci fi guns’.

“The absolute fok,” Kraber whispered. “How’d you capture that?!”

“More horse tranquilizer than I care to think about,” Romero said blandly, “pun not intended.”

“But… why?!” Kraber asked.

“Lots of reasons,” Romero said sadly. He raised a hand and touched the glass, even as the Newcalf slammed into it again. “Because even these things might be salvageable, somehow. We’ll never learn how if we don’t look. But also because these things are the proof of two things.”

“What things?” Kraber asked.

Romero sighed. “Thing one. The Solar Empire is using magic that fundamentally alters and affects the body and mind on levels beyond that of traditional magic. No Unicorn I ever met, PHL, my R&D, or otherwise, understands a Newcalf or megacorn. From what little we’ve been able to read about alicorn physiology-”

“You have books on that?!” Kraber asked. “Can I see?”

“In time,” Romero said. “From what we’ve read, the average megacorn’s growth of alicornal tissue and unicorn ivory rivals or surpasses even that of alicorns. Both these types violate laws of conservation of mass, thermodynamics, magical principles that should not and could not be violated by any standard transformative action or spell. You cannot create something from nothing. And yet these ‘specialised’ newfoals… seemingly, they come from it.”

Kraber frowned. That made sense, actually. Both types of newfoal came from a single person, (and rumors that there was a kind of newfoal that could come from two people were hopefully just rumors) converted into those monstrous forms from a single dose of a modified potion. Where did the energy and matter come from? What catalysed it?

“The second reason we keep Dave around is more morale based than anything to do with the science,” Romero continued. He tapped the glass. “It’s a reminder that what we’re fighting isn’t some misguided benevolent demigoddess trying to save us from ourselves in some hubristic, blinkered attempt to be kind. No.” He took a deep breath. “This is an attack, designed to hurt us. Smother us. Crush us under the boot and leave nothing. The average Solar Empire grunt would say they’re here to help and ponify, but they’d have made far more without the soldiers incinerated by fire spells, the bombings, the use of explosives, or the stolen guns. And that…” He motioned to Dave. “That is not help. Not even by the standards of the most misanthropic, depraved idiot on the planet could you consider that thing preferable to the human condition.”

Kraber looked at him, and then back at the Newcalf, even as it slammed itself against the wall again.

“Yeah,” he said, “I can see that.” He took a breath. “So.. what else you got?”

“Oh, there’s a metalfoal on the deck below we named ‘Star Platinum’, and a few other assorted odds and ends,” Romero replied. “No spitters. No brain-foals.”

“Fokked up,” Kraber muttered. “And you just… run tests on these things.”

“That’s right,” Romero nodded.

“Dunno how I feel about that,” Kraber said quietly. At Romero’s look, he shrugged. “They were human once, weren’t they?”

“That’s why we’re here, Mr Kraber,” Romero said quietly. “We’re going to find a way to fix this, somehow. Beat the Empire. Free the Newfoals, free the Guards, free the brainwashed PER, and prove to the world conclusively that we’re fighting the real good fight, and then - just to cap off - winning said good fight.”

Romero turned to look at Kraber, and motioned to the room around them.

“So,” he said evenly. “What’s it to be, Viktor? You with us?”

Kraber frowned, looking at Dave the Newcalf, and found himself wondering.

“Why you?” he asked suddenly.

“Why me?” Romero repeated.

“Why do you do this?” Kraber clarified. “This seems like… I dunno. The sort of thing the PHL do.”

“It is,” Romero replied. “And also the sort of thing members of the Russian ‘Division E’ did, though we’re not unprofessional butchers like them.”

“I remember how Lovikov was back during that leak from the Prospect,” Kraber said, remembering the infamous photos of Division E’s experiments that’d been leaked to major newspapers all over the world. The official Russian statement was that it was a PER smokescreen to distract from the truth, but Kraber still didn’t buy that.

“How was he?” Romero asked.

“I’ve had one-night-stands where the patriotism was less disgusting,” Kraber said. “I used to cut people up for a living, but fok!“

“And all this without mentioning the Chinese’s Conversion War Defense Group and their… work,” Romero continued, grimacing in disgust so palpable that Kraber could feel it. “It says a lot when their magic work still lapses into pseudoscience. But these groups existing doesn’t mean I can’t do it too. Better than some, even.”

“Might even be a reason to do it,” Kraber muttered.

“True,” Romero nodded. “And I prefer doing things myself where possible.” He gave a small grin. “After all, someone else might have gotten it wrong.”

Kraber gave him a sideways glance. “Is that a Mass Effect reference?”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“… how is one of the boogeymen of the Spader-Loyalists such a geek.”

“How is one of the boogeymen of the ‘True’ HLF such a geek?”

“... touché.”

“Still, could be worse, at least when you heard about Star Platinum, you didn't say-“

“Wait, was that a MOTHERFOKKIN JOJOS REFERENCE?!”

“Ah, I spoke too soon.”

At the end of the day, they came back to Kraber’s room.

“And you’re in,” Romero said.

“There’s not gonna be paperwork, is there?” Kraber half joked.

“You get a uniform, and we’ll talk duty roster when I figure out where best to use you,” Romero replied, smirking. “But no. No paperwork. Technically, we don’t have a payroll. Although Max does pay taxes.”

“He does?”

“Obliquely. It’s kind of hard having a direct debit to a government when you have enough guns to start your own banana republic,” Romero said. “And that’s leaving aside our… friends in UNAC. Gardner need only see one letter with an address and -”

He made a ‘pop’ with his mouth. It was a surprisingly casual reference to the consequences of getting in Gardner’s way.

“I wonder if he’d been so blasé after Defiance,” Heliotrope says softly.

“No idea, haven’t spoken to him since,” Kraber replies, “but… somehow, I doubt it.”

“I take it you don’t pay taxes,” Kraber asked, snorting derisively.

“Ah, yes, taxes,” Romero replied, shaking his head and chuckling. “Let me fill that form in. ‘Occupation: privateer. Place of residence: dubiously acquired naval vessel. Workplace: selfsame dubiously acquired naval vessel’. That’d be swell for the paperwork.”

The two of them laughed, but Kraber’s died soon. Romero’s smile faded.

“Wondering when the other shoe will drop?” he asked.

“Kind of,” Kraber replied. “The work you’re doing… not gonna lie, some of it seems…”

He trailed off, not sure how to adequately describe it.

“You haven’t started gloating like a Bond villain yet,” Kraber said.

“Am I a Bond villain?” Romero asked.

“You have a floating base, a research department, troops, guns, and massive funding,” Kraber said. “You tell me?!”

“I understand,” Romero said quietly. “But I don’t have a cat. Or a Nehru collar jacket. Kinda wish I did have the former, might make the place homely.”

“Right? The ship’s cat is a time-honored tradition,” Kraber agreed. “Even if the gloating hasn’t started yet, I feel like I should be… worried. This wouldn’t the first time I walked into something that looked too good to be true and someone tried to kill me.”

“Bad business deal for the Menschabwehrfraktion in Tunisia?” Romero suggested.

“How do you even-” Kraber started. “No. Not that. College, actually. Would you believe it wasn’t my fault when someone tried to kill me twice there?”

Dancing Day

”I still can’t believe you got off with self-defense that time. I mean, you threw a woman out a second-floor window,” Heather says.

“I had a good lawyer,” Kraber says offhandedly, as casually as someone admitting to preferring blackberry jam over blueberry.

“Wait, you what?!” Amber Maple yelps.

“Viktor pissed off some girl something fierce,” Heather explains.

Dancing Day is genuinely confused to hear someone call him by his first name. Usually everyone just calls him ‘Kraber’ and that’s that.

“Mostly not my fault,” Kraber adds. “And, well, after arresting me for going down the same set of stairs as her didn’t work, she got a bunch of friends to try and kill me. And one of them was the first friend I made on campus.”

He looks down.

“She was the one that got thrown out the window, by the way,” Kraber adds.

“Your first friend from college,” Heliotrope says, softly. “You never told us any of this.”

“You didn’t ask,” Kraber says.

“It honestly… makes sense,” Yael says. “The way you’re so… guarded.”

Kraber

“That’s surprising,” Romero allowed, “But yes.”

“I just feel like at any moment, there could be some moment where suddenly, someone throws my stuffed animals over the deck for laughs, “ Kraber said. “Or I’m about to be turned in for the reward money, but it’ll say ‘alive or dead,’ so somebody’s going to paralyze me for shits and giggles.”

“Are you saying it because you’d do it,” Romero said, “Or because-”

“Because if I’m not doing that, someone else will. That’s the best I can expect,” Kraber said. “I just…”

“So you wanna know what the catch is?” Romero asked.

“I guess I do,” Kraber said. “I want to be sure this isn’t some kind of elaborate trap.”

Romero nodded. “The catch is that you work for me, Viktor. For some people, that alone is the dealbreaker.”

“I’ve worked for Lovikov,” Kraber pointed out.

“I realise that,” Romero said quietly. “But what you have to understand is, the work we do is hard. Emotionally, physically, mentally. It is not without sacrifice. We are a long way from done. But I know it is a sacrifice worth making.” He sniffed. “Still… Columbia has a pretty high transfer rate.”

“Where do they transfer to?” Kraber asked.

“Sometimes Challenger, for more action or less Newfoals,” Romero replied evenly. “Sometimes the Corsairs or the Reavers take ‘em, or one of the smaller units that still operate with Max. We’ve even had people transfer to groups like Kevin’s little band: they want to go back to old-fashioned militiaman work.”

“Tempting,” Kraber said, “But… I worry a bit, though. That I might get stir-crazy. That might not be such a bad offer.”

Romero sighed. “What we do here might change the world, or help change it if we catch something PHL R&D happens to miss. But it takes commitment to the course.” He frowned. “And frankly, asset that you will be, I don’t know that you have that, yet.”

“What the fok else am I gonna do?” Kraber asked, shrugging. “Go back to Lovikov, wherever the fok he is?”

Romero shrugged. “No. Much as I’d like to know what desolate hole he dragged those poor bastards into. But just because I’m not Lovikov, that doesn’t mean this is the right choice for you. You think about what you want.” He raised a finger. “Because every second you’re here, I want your best. And if I don’t get it, we’re going to have a talk. I expect everyone on this ship to do the job I keep ‘em for. No exceptions.”

Kraber nodded without another word. He had a half-dozen glib responses, yet somehow none of them felt quite apt.

“The plus side,” Romero continued, “is that - whether you believe me or not - none of my people are going to do anything untoward to you. If they do, after all, they have to answer to Lucky Strike. Or to me.”

Neither of those options sounded particularly brilliant for a would-be smartass or office bully, but still… something was nagging at the back of Kraber’s mind.

“Alright,” he said, in lieu of anything better.

After a moment, Romero nodded and headed off, leaving Kraber alone with his thoughts.

Again.

“And that’s how I joined the Columbia and learned the true meaning of Christmas,” Kraber says with a smirk.

Everyone gives him a look.

“Alright, maybe not,” Kraber says, shrugging. “But still. It wasn’t bad for a while there.”

And so it was that Kraber had the rest of the day to sit back and relax.

He arranged the stuffed animals on the bed just right, and set to browsing the bookshelf for something to read.

The Terror? By Dan Simmons?

Who the fok kept that on a boat? Well, whatever. He’d read it a few times before the War, and it’d been a good read.

Part of him really wanted to… Do Things. Go to the red room. Eat something. Find a human, talk their pants off.

But that last one probably wasn’t going to work. The last couple of days had felt like years, and walking around unsupervised, in a t-shirt that desperately needed a wash, on a ship full of people happier to see ponies than him seemed like a bad idea.

So, for tonight, Kraber was happy to sit, read, and do nothing.

And tomorrow would be fine.

It had to be, right?

“It didn’t quite happen that way,” Kraber says. “Things got worse before they got better.”

Author's Note

AN:

Jed: Well, this was certainly one hell of a chapter to write. Also one hell of a development cycle, since it took a long ass time to write and get perfect. And we’ve still got loads to do 0.0

Daniel Romero you may have seen in chapter 19 of Spectrum proper. He’s… well, he is as you see him. Which is to say, you can make your mind up what you think of him, and you’re probably not wrong whatever you say.

Warlord?

Very possibly.

Pirate?

His semantics aside, probably.

Dangerous?

Almost certainly.

Arrogant?

Definitely.

But fun to write, too, which is always the first priority for me as a writer (especially in fanfiction, because - y’know, nobody pays me for this stuff). And my God, was he fun to write. 😁 Many thanks to Doc for basically letting me run wild on this one.

And jiminy cricket, how did he get those ships? He’s told me, and I still don’t believe him, and he’s a character I made up, so that goes to show how untrustworthy he can be about the whole thing. 😂

In all seriousness, though. I hope you enjoy this chapter. I really, really hope you do. I’m proud of the work me and Doc put in.

Fluffy: Well, this got big fast.

Jed’s been wanting to write Romero for a long time, and this was the perfect place to do it. A lot of Light (and Slow Mutants - new chapter coming SOON™) involves the factionalism outside the PHL - who else is in this world? What do they want? How do their approaches differ?

With luck, Light is making strides to answer these questions. I’m glad you guys have enjoyed the de-escalation here, because we’re going to see some action and/or intrigue next chapter!

Not gonna go too deep into it. Spoilers, y’know.

And yes, I’m absolutely sure you remember Division E from two chapters ago.

Special thanks also to TB3 for approving the extra characterization I gave to Verity!

17: Undetermined

Light Despondent Remixed

chapter 17: “Undetermined”

“We will be alone. We will not have backup. There's just us. And we get one chance to get it right.”
Captain Gabriel Lorca, Star Trek: Discovery - “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not For The Lamb’s Cry.”

“Make the incision above the coracoid bone,” said Doctor Richter.

The last time Kraber had been cutting a pony open had been when they’d captured some of Shieldwall’s PER. They’d been tough, but Kraber had made them talk. They’d revealed the locations of a few holdouts that escaped from the “Newfoalsland” camps, before they could disappear any more rural little middle-of-nowhere towns in Canada.

And then, here he was.

Kraber drew the scalpel along the pegasus pony’s shoulderblade. Blood welled up around the cut, exposing hollow Pegasus bone. Kraber knew, for… reasons… that it was actually comparable to aerogel in terms of how impossibly strong it was.

Thank God I’m not using a kitchen knife for this again, Kraber thought. It hadn’t even been a good kitchen knife that last time.

And now, here he was.

“Twelve-gauge needle?” Kraber asked.

A unicorn pony by the name of Doctor Fetlock passed the specially-made needle over to him, clutched in their telekinesis. Kraber wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t about to jab it into his eyes, b-

No, his friend might never fly again if we don’t do this, Kraber thought. He wouldn’t be that petty, right? Ri-

“Focus, you bloodthirsty idiot,” Fetlock said.

Kraber grumbled, before pushing the needle into the pegasus’ coracoid bone, perforating it with tiny little holes.

“Wire?” Kraber asked.

The unicorn passed him an 18-gauge steel wire. Slowly but surely, Kraber wound it through the holes, circling the fractured coracoid. Bit by bit, it regained shape.

“We’re going to need the wing cast,” Richter said, walking over to the 3D printer. It was something Kraber had been extremely happy to see in an operating room. After years of seeing uncomfortable, cumbersome casts and utterly hating how unhealthy it was to keep a limb so enclosed, apparently Ex Astris Victoria had jumped on the 3D-printed cast bandwagon. Instead of a massive white plaster lump around the limb, it was a hard, reinforced plastic scaffold.

He reached in, then carried it over to Fetlock.

Fetlock levitated it above the anesthetized unicorn’s wing, and slid it over the feathered appendage. His horn glowed, slightly more intensely, and the cast sealed itself closed.

“Now, immobilize it,” Richter said.

Kraber nodded. He and Fetlock each grabbed a strap from the cart next to the operating table, attaching it to the cast and winding it around the barrel.

“I’m going to, ah… go over there,” Kraber said, jerking one thumb towards a corner of the room.

“You’re sure?” Richter asked.

“I’m sure,” Kraber said. “You think she wants me to be the first thing she sees when the anesthetic wears off?”

“No,” Fetlock said, bluntly.

As Kraber headed off into the corner, he heard the patient stirring. He couldn’t quite tell what they said. It was something like “mlurmrmrmrrm?”

“It’s alright,” Fetlock said, “You’re going to be fine, Alpen Glow.”

“I…” Alpen Glow said. “Oh, thank you, thank you so much, I wouldn’t have been able to fly without you!”

Fetlock stammered off a series of unintelligible syllables. Kraber slowly walked towards one of the exits, where he could deposit the already bloodstained scrubs and gloves.

This was fine.

“I literally owe you my life,” Alpen Glow says. “You and Richter!”

Better that he gets credit for it, Kraber thought.

“Well,” Fetlock said, “I don’t mean to brush off my part, but-”

His voice trailed off.

“It was…” Fetlock said. He sighed. “It was Viktor Kraber that actually did most of the legwork. He was responsible for the wire around your wing, and he’ll probably be the one that removes it.”

“There’s a what in my what?!” Alpen Glow yelled.

“The falling pipe really fokked up your coracoid bone,” Kraber said, turning back, almost involuntarily. God, I missed this. “The wire is to hold it in shape until your bone is healed. I’m keeping it immobilized so you don’t strain anything. After a short recovery period, you should be cleared for some physical therapy to see what condition you’re in.”

“So,” Fetlock said, “like I said, Kraber actually did most of the work.”

“...Oh,” Alpen Glow said. She looked at him, confused. “Well, then, ah… uh… I… well... Thanks?”

“Just doing my job,” Kraber said with an ironic salute.

“Sure…” Alpen Glow said, her voice trailing off. It sounded like she’d rather be saying anything else or be anywhere else.

“I’ll help you out,” Fetlock said.

“Sure,” Alpen Glow said, very pointedly not looking at Kraber, the fur near her mouth taking on a strangely reddish tint, “You uh, you do that…”

Fetlock and Richter helped the pegasus off the table, helping her towards the door millimeter by millimeter on legs still unsteady from the anesthetic.

Kraber headed over to the room. Alpen Glow looked at him, her eyes wide with…

With…

What was that? Sadness? Fear? Disgust? Whatever it was, it didn’t quite feel thankful.

As Kraber opened his locker, he felt Richter’s gaze raking over him.

“You did good work,” Dr Richter said quietly. “But you got unfocused.”

“Hard to stay focused when every fokker is giving you death glares,” Kraber retorted.

“That’s just how the job is,” Richter said. “Don’t tell me you’ve never operated in a combat zone. You need to put your personal feelings aside.”

“Have you heard of me before?” Kraber joked weakly.

“Yes, and that is precisely why I am saying, ‘put your personal feelings aside’,” Richter said sharply.

“My personal feelings aren’t as much of an issue,” Kraber said. “Getting insulted in the middle of a theatre is. Alpen Glow tripping over herself to hope I didn’t do anything is.”

“Put that aside too then,” Richter said. “When you are in a theatre, Dr Kraber, you focus on your patient, not on whatever guilt thing you’ve got going on, whatever nasty thoughts are going on in whatever passes for a psyche up there.” He raised one finger. “You want to get unfocused? Ask for another post. You want to do surgery? Don’t lose your focus again on my watch.” He raised another finger. “And don’t act like being called ‘you bloodthirsty idiot’ is some great injustice. Frankly, it’s the politest description I could have picked.”

“It’s… look, I’m trying,” Kraber said weakly.

“Yes, which is why you’re still here,” Richter said. “But you’ll forgive the rest of us for not being immediately thrilled about that.” His expression softened slightly. “Give it time, Dr Kraber. And don’t worry about Fetlock. He’s always tetchy with new people. Especially Carter-side people, and especially those with your kind of rep.”

“Not that we’ve had anyone quite as bad as you,” Fetlock added.

“Yes, fokkin’ thank you, I get it,” Kraber said angrily, turning towards Fetlock. “I’m horrible, you’ll never accept me, I’ll never be welcome here, I fokkin’ get it -”

“I don’t think you do,” Richter growled, stepping between Kraber and Fetlock with a sharpness Kraber hadn’t expected from the man. “You think you’re hard done to, Kraber? Do you have any idea how hard it is for us to do our damn jobs, thanks to you? Do you have any idea how many of my friends have been shot at, because of people like you and the rest of the ‘Fraktion? And here you are, moping like a teenager because no one likes you? Because no one’s tripping up to make you feel like you’re welcome here?” Richter leant forward. “Let’s make one thing totally clear, Dr Kraber. The Captain affords us many opportunities to do good in this place. The only reason I’m letting you into my theatre is because that got him a lot of goodwill. Frankly, I think he’s out of his mind, and that you’re one step away from deciding being insulted, or around ponies, or even looked at funny, is a good enough reason to kill someone. Oh, don’t fucking pull that face,” he added at Kraber’s hurt look. “Your entire MO is of a man who kills people if they look at him the wrong way. There’s a goddamn betting pool right now in the rec room -”

“And don’t go to the rec room,” Fetlock added from the other side of the room. “You don’t have clearance.”

“- about how long it’ll take you to snap and murder someone!” Richter finished. He took a breath. “I mean, Jesus. There’s you, feeling sorry for yourself. Meanwhile we’re all here wondering whether we’re the unlucky bastard whose eggshells will crunch the wrong way when we step on it around you.”

Kraber

Pulling his uniform back on after the surgery, Kraber paused, looking at himself in the changing room mirror.

As Kraber understood it, uniforms were meant for a sense of cohesion. You looked at someone dressed the same, you knew that that person was with you.

And yet.

Kraber felt so extraordinarily out of place that he might as well have been wearing a halloween costume. As he walked through the hallways of the Columbia, making his way towards the medical bay, it was impossible not to catch stares. Dirty looks. One pony’s gaze lingered on Kraber far too long, and Kraber was hard-pressed to think of a better description than terror for that thought.

At least it was a comfy uniform. It consisted of a mid-blue two-piece with a long-sleeved undershirt: four pockets in the trousers, as well as white piping; hell, they’d even given him a badge, placed on the chest of the single-breasted zip-up jacket.

For the last few days, he had been working in the medical bay. As a surgeon’s assistant.

It was strange: having the badge on, feeling like he was part of something again. More than ever, really: the ‘Fraktion had never bothered with all the officiality.

What I get for working with a biker that got hired by the Russian government, Kraber sighed.

The badge was blank: no name, just the Ex Astris Victoria symbol and a blank space for the name, rank and HLF ID number. Kraber couldn’t even really remember his HLF ID. It had always been ‘Hey, Kraber’ and that was that when he was with in the ‘Fraktion.

Will they change it? he pondered half heartedly. I’m not ‘Fraktion, here.

It was amazing, really. Worrying about something as small as a uniform in the face of the apocalypse.

Dancing Day

“Of course he worried about uniforms,” Verity snorts. “Dad always said, ‘Dan Romero wants to be a Captain’. ‘Dan Romero wants a little fleet, all in little uniforms’. ‘Dan Romero wants everything to be just so on his ships, that’s why we don’t work with him’. The way I heard it, he practically gets off on it.”

“That makes sense,” Yael says quietly. “Uniforms are a big thing among tinpot dictators, fascist regimes.” She holds up a hand at Kraber’s raised eyebrow. “You’ve got to admit, there are some similarities in the psychology.”

“He’d probably agree with you,” Kraber says with a smirk. “And then say it didn’t matter what you thought.”

“Of course,” Verity says irritably.

Kraber

Two or three or four or five days later, Kraber was in the Captain’s office.

“I feel so… isolated,” Kraber had been telling Romero. It was meant as a wellness check - after a few days on the Columbia, manning the medical bay, it’d been nice to have someone say something to him. “The lack of social media is my fault, but nobody wants to talk to me.”

“There’s Fetlock and Richter,” Romero said. “No connection to them?”

“They’d be happier if you bought them a surgical robot,” Kraber said bluntly.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Romero said. “You’re still an excellent surgeon.”

“Well, I’d be excited to get a robot, but you gave them a war criminal. I just can’t compete with that,” Kraber said. “I know, it doesn’t matter, but…”

“What makes you say it doesn’t matter?” Romero asked.

“Because I’m a terrible person,” Kraber said. “Why should I complain about this? I’m lucky to be alive and deserve what I get.”

He sighed, looking down at the carpet.

“Who told you that, Viktor?” Romero said. Kraber noted that he didn’t explicitly contradict it.

“Everyone,” he said, sighing. “Everyone thinks it. Richter tells me something like that whenever I so much as get itchy. If one of your crew tried to kill me, I’d get that same retort.”

“You really believe that, don’t you,” Romero said, rubbing his forehead with a groan that might have been irritation. “Look, I… I can’t pretend that you’re going to have it easy here. You won’t. Frankly, it’d be naive to think otherwise.”

“No joke,” Kraber said dully.

“That said,” Romero continued, “I have something of a vested interest in your comfort.”

“And that is?” Kraber asked. “Is there some kind of diabolical, secret plan, that-”

“No, it’s just that we were understaffed, hiring another surgeon would be difficult, and you practically fell into our laps,” Romero said, cutting him off.

Kraber blinked. “That’s really all of it?”

“That, and I remember what Yarrow had to say about you. Keeping you isolated and miserable is not in our best interests. Or anyone’s.” He sighed. “Have you tried to visit the rec room yet?”

“No,” Kraber said. “Fetlock told me I didn’t have the clearance to-”

“And you believed him?” Romero asked.

“Well,” Kraber said, “I’ve never been on a naval vessel, and I assumed I was just…”

His voice trailed off. In hindsight, it did sound silly.

“Everybody has rec room clearance,” Romero said, in utter disbelief. “It’s the rec room. That’s how it works. It even has a bar.“

“Thought that was against regulation in the navy,” Kraber said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, well, my navy, my rules,” Romero retorted, chucking. “I’ll take you there myself.”

He stood up from his chair, and headed towards the door. He motioned for Kraber to follow.

“Does it have any good beer?” Kraber asked, as they walked down the hallway.

Romero snorted. “Please. We’ve got beers that nobody even makes anymore. Some people had pretty alcoholic priorities when evacuating Europe.”

“Coors is an endangered species, I see,” Kraber said.

“No it’s not,” Romero said. “That’s… oh. The Stand. I see what you mean.”

“Is there any Glamorgan?” Kraber asked.

“There could be,” Romero said. “I don’t know all of it.”

After a very, very long walk - Kraber wondered if maybe, just maybe, all the complaints that the ship was just too big were on to something - they made their way to the rec room.

For a moment it felt like it was going to be okay. Kraber looked over to a set of four flatscreen TVs against one wall. It looked like they were playing a match of Spacelords.

“Thanks, Captain,” Kraber said, looking over to Romero. He’d walked over to a woman strumming her guitar with an idle expression on her face when they reached it. She was young, petite, pretty in a ‘no makeup but still looks like she’s got six instagram filters’ kinda way. She wore an almost-dandyish outfit, shirt buttoned up to the top, waistcoat and drape coat, that looked like it might have been David Bowie’s in a past life, and her hair was styled in a spiky almost-quiff.

She looked familiar, and Kraber couldn’t place why. But, that was neither here nor there. Because Kraber could, apparently, finally go play some videogames.

It’s been two fokkin’ weeks!

He was so excited. He moved past the tables, towards the little corner of rec room where people were playing Spacelords. He’d missed getting to play Ginebra, too.

Kate had cosplayed Ginebra once. That had been… that had been amazing. He’d told her she was beautiful, that he loved her, and that he could only get so e-

Wait.

His neck prickled a little. He looked from side to side.

Everyone was staring at him. Now that the Captain wasn’t at his side, it suddenly felt like Kraber was drowning again.

This is fokkin’ kak. I’m Viktor Fokking Kraber. I don’t need the Captain to be a security blanket.

But it felt like everyone in the rec room who wasn’t either playing games or talking to the Captain was looking at him. It felt like the Captain and whoever-it-was were off in their own world.

Eyes bored into him on all sides. One pony whispered to their friend. A pegasus fluttered out of their seat and left the room. It looked like everyone else would rather be anywhere else.

This isn’t good.

He walked over to one of the chairs they were using.

“...can’t believe we kept him on the boat.”

“Think we should throw him off?”

“If I didn’t think Strike would kill me, I’d have tried.”

And Kraber, all of a sudden, found himself behind Louis - who sat near one of the armchairs, waiting patiently.

“So, uh,” Kraber said, “How long till I can join in?”

“They just started this up,” Louis said. “I’m next mission, then… maybe you?”

Kraber felt someone glaring at Louis. The rec room felt so quiet - it was like everyone was hanging on to his every word.

“...Alright?” Kraber asked. A pony - or something that looked very much like a pony - glared at him as he said it.

Minute after minute passed by. Kraber sat, waiting for the in-game mission to end. All the while, he could hear people talking about him.

“Louis?” Kraber asked, looking at his… no, not friend. Somehow, that didn’t quite work. But Louis was the only one that’d made him feel anything approaching ‘welcome’ so far.

Louis was silent.

He can’t let them think he’s my friend, Kraber thought. Their eyes are all on him.

Suddenly, it felt like Fetlock might’ve been on to something.

...It wasn’t going to do that. Not for a very, very long time.

Nobody, not even Louis, said a word to Kraber. Everybody looked away whenever he looked in their general direction - human and pony alike.

It was…. Sobering.

Can’t blame them, Kraber thought. This is only fair. I was a bastard. I’m lucky they’re not executing me.

He leaned back against a chair.

Wish I brought a book. Or do I not have library privileges, Fetlock? You kontgesig?

After some time - Kraber wouldn’t remember how long - the guitarist that he’d seen earlier came up.

“Hey, Louis, ‘sup?”

“Hey,” Louis said. “Nothin’ much. Just playin’ some Spacelords.”

“Oh, pfft, gerroff that, you muppet,” she said, shoving him in the shoulder and sitting in the chair next to him. “Fuck you playing that for?”

“Probably so you don’t beat me again, Hannah,” Louis replied, speaking more easily. “Oh, uh, you… probably haven’t met… Viktor.”

“Viktor, eh?” the guitarist asked, turning to Kraber. “You doing alright?”

The woman looked at him, and everything clicked into place.

“Wait a fokkin’ minute,” Kraber said to Louis, frowning at the girl. “Aren’t you -?”

Sure enough, she was in fact the guitarist and singer most HLF members called ‘Haze’.

“Sorry, who’s ‘Haze’?” Yael asks.

“Seriously?” Kraber replies. “‘Haze and the Last Choir’? One of the HLF-supporting bands that stuck with the Spader-Loyalists? Big rivalry with the Lost Children even before the Split?” His expression sobered. “She used to do charity gigs before UNAC raided one of their gigs and shot her. Must have been not long after she was on the Columbia.”

Heliotropes eyes widened. “Wait… a gig?”

“Yeah…?” Kraber says, frowning. “Why?”

Heliotrope covers her mouth. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

“What?” Yael asks.

“What was that raid Lorne was on?” Heliotrope asked. “The one he came back from with a bloody nose and that big asshole grin on his face? Summers too? Said it was the most fun he had since he was on the force?”

Yael’s face falls. “Ah. Hell.”

“Wait, what?” Kraber asks. “Do you know something?”

“Tell you later,” Heliotrope murmured. “So, uh… you wanna tell us how meeting her went?”

“Shit, if it isn’t Little Vicky Kraber,” Haze said, running a hand through her hair and grinning.

Kraber winced. Seriously. Everyone around here calls me that.

“Yeah,” was all he said.

Haze looked him up and down in his uniform.

“I didn’t know you were in Ex Astris,” she said after a moment. “Thought you were with the ‘Fraktion on the douchebag side of the split.”

“I, uh, was.” Kraber smiled awkwardly. “We had a sort of mutually agreed falling out. With violence.”

“Oh, right.” Haze shrugged. “Well, cool anyway. I guess it’s better late than never, huh?”

“You… don’t mind me being here?” Kraber asked.

“He let you on, didn’t he?” Haze said, pointing to Romero, who was speaking to some of his crew with an oddly serious expression: in fact, it almost looked grim. Some of them looked concerned, some of them were nodding, though none of them looked happy. And more than a few were glancing at him.

“Cap’s the kinda guy who knows when people are worth takin’ a chance on,” Hase continued.

Kraber turned to look back at her. “Really? Then why the hell am I here?”

“Beats me, mate,” Haze said with a wink. “Cap also happens to be batshit, so his reasons make no sense to like, half the damn ship.”

“Including you?” Kraber asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, nah, I’m not even crew. I’m just hitchin’ a ride, sorta,” the girl said with a grin. “Was gonna play a gig with the Fen Riders, but then some asshole blew them all up. Cap took me and the Choir onboard for protection and shit. Then we’re going with the Corsairs to another gig.”

“Least we could do,” Romero suddenly said. He had apparently walked over, a blue Pegasus mare with a red mane and a couple of men in utility jumpsuits with him. He gave her a small smile. “Never heard anyone play ‘Space Oddity’ like that apart from Bowie himself.”

“Hey, yeah, I think I heard that once,” Kraber said with an easy grin. “Good stuff.”

“Cheers,” Haze said. “You should totally listen to my take on ‘Mr Blue Sky’. I sent Cap the demo.”

“That’s a damn good song,” Kraber said. “Always loved it.”

“I liked it,” Romero said with another smile. “Maybe needs to be a bit faster.”

“Gotcha,” Haze said with a wink. “I’ll have another tweak after me and the girls do the gig.”

“I’ll have a listen too, if you’ve got a file,” Kraber said.

“Hey, sure,” Haze said with an easy grin. She snapped her fingers. “Hey, did Cap tell you about the pheromone thing?”

“The what?” Kraber asked, around about the same time that Romero groaned and put his head in his hands.

“The pheromone thing,” Haze repeated. “It’s this cool theory some of the scientists are coming up with on the chem deck. See, they say -”

“Haze,” Romero said patiently, “that was just a busywork theory. They weren’t serious about that.” He paused. “I hope to God they weren’t serious about that, because it would be terrifying on every conceivable level.”

“Busywork theory or not, it was pretty funny,” Haze said with a wink. “Who’re your mates, Cap?”

“Oh, right, introductions,” Romero said. He motioned to the two men. “This is Biggs,” he motioned to a shaven-headed man with a scar over one eye, “and Wedge.” Here he motioned to the other man, who had a mop of short, curly black hair and a toothy smile. “They’re some of my engineering staff.”

Kraber guffawed. “Seriously? Wedge and Biggs?”

“Not our… not out real names, er, obviously,” ‘Biggs’ said, smiling nervously. “But we, uh, left those behind.”

“What they mean,” the blue mare said with a chirpy smile, “is that they used to work with fuckin’ Taskforce Paris and they’d rather not say who they were.”

“And you are…” Kraber asked, looking at her.

“Jessie,” the mare said, deadpan.

Kraber blinked. “You. Are. Shitting me.”

“Nuh uh,” the mare said, grinning. “These two fuckin’ lunkheads saved me from a PER reconditioning camp back in their Taskforce days, and ran away with me when that rat bastard Janvier wanted me… y’know. ‘Interrogated’.”

The way she said ‘interrogated’ left little to the imagination.

“Since then we’ve… we’ve stuck with her, y’know, kept her safe, kept us safe,” Biggs put in. He didn’t have a stammer, so much as an incredibly soft voice that seemed uncertain whether it even was a voice. “And we, uh, came here.”

“Since the UNAC wouldn’t really want us!” Wedge added, scratching the back of his neck. He sounded permanently excited.

Kraber raised an eyebrow. He looked at Romero.

“I figured speaking with a few more ex-Carter people would put you at ease,” the Captain said, clapping Biggs on the back. “I’d say ‘share stories’, but… well, regardless, I think it’s good for us all to be reminded of where we came from.”

“But we’re one thing!” Wedge put in. “But you? Shit, man, you’re Viktor fucking Kraber!”

“Is it, uh, true you once killed a Newcalf with a spoon?” Biggs asked.

“Yeah, Angus always used to tell that one,” Wedge added, “the little Scottish prick!”

Kraber laughed. “It was a spork, actually. And to be fair, anything would have been dangerous being fired out a blunderbuss I stole from a re-enactor.”

“A blunderbuss?!” Jessie put in, eyes widening. “Fuck the fuck off! How the fuck did you have a blunderbuss?”

”I wanted to use a blunderbuss ever since I was a kid,” Kraber said, shrugging. “Anyway. This was back when Helmetag was still in charge of the ‘Fraktion, and one of his chommies who’d joined with him was a re-enactor who was into the full Jack Sparrow shit, so he had a functioning blunderbuss. Carried the thing all the way through the Barrierfall Front. Then the poor fokker got himself ponified during a PER attack -”

“Wait, this wasn’t the battle of Threetoos, was it?” Louis asked, turning from the game with wide eyes. “My unit was only a few miles from there, we got called in afterwards!”

“Threetoos?” Haze asked.

“Pre-fab camp Two Two Two,” Romero supplied evenly. “Back before they started giving them names like ‘Hadley’s Hope’ and ‘Blink’.”

“Threetoos was hit by PER about a month before Helmetag bit it,” Kraber continued, “and he and his friend were with me, Emory, Gage McCorliss’s brother Riley, and some little squit named Terry. Terry got hit by a spitter two seconds after we got there because he didn’t fokkin’ wear his helmet…”

“Rookie mistake,” Wedge said sadly, shaking his head.

“Definitely,” Biggs agreed. “I, er, knew a guy called Ochre, took a hit like that on the Barrierfall Front. It was nasty… nasty business, y’know?”

“Always is,” Kraber said, nodded. “Anyway, so Helmetag’s friend had this blunderbuss, and it’s a bitch to load and he never fired it. Kinda like Angeal in Crisis Core never uses the Buster sword -”

“Aw, shit, you played Crisis Core?!” Wedge said excitedly.

“Fuckin’ sad ending,” Jessie said mournfully.

“No, I watched the playthroughs on YouTube,” Kraber shook his head. “But the point is, he still has the thing when an Empire-pony’s spell takes his head off. Now naturally this is right when Emory has just been smushed to kak by a fokkin’ newcalf and McCorliss is being throttled by the thing that used to be Terry, because bad shit comes in threes, right?”

“Totally!” Jessie said. “Happened to me the one time I went with Lucky on a mission. First we had fucking Robert Gardner hounding us -”

“Oh that bastard gets everywhere!” Wedge said sympathetically.

“Even the hospital, recently,” Kraber said, smirking.

“What?” Jessie asked.

“His subordinate called me a bad father and said my kids were better off ponified,” Kraber said. “So I called him an ambulance. And I am the ambulance, bitch!”

“What did you do?” Biggs asked, eyebrows raised.

“I kicked him in the fokkin’ eiers with steel-toed boots twice,” Kraber said.

“Man oh man,” Wedge said. “A lot of people would buy you drinks for that one!”

“Tempting, but… I think I need to work my way up to ‘feels safe in kicking range,’ for most people,” Kraber sighed.

“Wish you coulda been there to clean his fuckin’ clock. But then we heard that fucking Quickblade was out there, too!” Jessie continued.

“What, ‘Armando Cain’ Quickblade?!” Kraber said, eyes widening. “FOK no!”

“Fuck yeah!” Jessie replied. “But then it turned out it wasn’t Quickblade, it was Imperial Creed, and a whole battalion of Royal Guard!”

“In threes,” Biggs said evenly. “You, uh, see what we mean?”

“Yeah,” Kraber said, smirking. “In my case, I ended up grabbing the blunderbuss, and in what might have been the third luckiest shot I ever took, the spork that Helmetag’s friend had jammed in there probably a fokkin’ decade ago flies out, hits this fokkin’ Newcalf square in the face, right through the eyeball, and it drops like a goddamn stone. And then I said something stupid, like ‘Looks like the spork is in the other eye now!’”

“Nice!” Wedge said, laughing.

“Yeah,” Biggs added, smirking. “It’s… y’know, it’s nice when things, uh, go to plan. One liners and all.”

“Speak for yourself, I fuckin’ hate one-liners,” Jessie groaned.

“Man, you lot are crazy,” Haze laughed.

Kraber was laughing too, but still, something about that stung.

“Right, well, we’re on fucking shift in a couple of hours so I’m gonna get a nap in,” Jessie said. “See ya around, Kraber.”

“Yeah, s-see you around,” Biggs agreed, nodding.

“You gotta tell us what happened to that blunderbuss next time!” Wedge added excitedly.

“Yeah,” Kraber said.

They headed off, waving and talking amongst themselves as they did so.

“Yeah, I’d better get back to practicing for my new set,” Haze said, stretching. “Got a couple of new songs in it, and no one in the band’s gonna be able to follow the chord progression if I don’t nail it down, right?”

Romero shrugged. “If I knew what that meant, I’d agree. Unfortunately, I’m not a musician.”

“Pity,” Haze said. “Bet you’d be really good at it.” She waved to Kraber. “See you around, Vicky K. Hey, catch me in the canteen later, we’ll catch up. I always wanted to know what the hell happened between you and Yorke.”

(Vaguely, Kraber remembered that thing with Yorke, and how he couldn’t get the words ‘ACHIEVEMENT UNCOCKED’ out of his head.)

He winced again. “You probably don’t.”

“Probably not,” Haze said cheerfully, “but it’s nice to be friendly, at least, right?”

She walked off, and started talking to a couple of the officers sat at another table.

“I’d probably best get going too,” Louis said after a moment. “And, uh, Viktor?”

“Ja?” Kraber said.

“… I’m sorry,” Louis said. “I… people are a bit edgy. Y’know?”

Kraber found himself smiling. “I get it. Really.”

“Thanks, man,” Louis said. “Catch you later.”

He headed out of the rec room.

“Who’d have thought it,” Kraber said quietly. “A kid like that in the HLF.”

“Anyone on the right side of the HLF would have thought it,” Romero replied. Kraber looked at him, and noted the significant look he was giving. “We’ve always been here, Viktor, the whole damn time. Always doing our part, always trying to make the world a little better.” He gave a wistful smile. “You just didn’t look our way.”

“Yeah,” Kraber said quietly. “I guess.”

“Don’t worry, Viktor,” Romero said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Barely anybody wants to remember we’re here. Most people prefer to ignore the good we do, because it’s easier just to think of us as a bunch of atrocity-committing lunatics than to think that maybe it’s more complex than that. People like things to be easy.”

“Must suck,” Kraber murmured, “gettin’ compared to… well, people like I used to be.”

“Suck?” Romero repeated, smiling. “Yeah, a little. But in the end, I don’t need people to believe I’m doing the right things, I’ll just do ‘em. People can think what they want.”

“Excuse me, Operative Kraber?”

Kraber and Romero turned, to see a grey Earth Pony stallion in a white medical jumpsuit, looking at Kraber through a pair of half moon spectacles.

“I’m sorry, Operative,” the pony said, “but you don’t have clearance to be in the recreation room at the moment.”

And just like that, Kraber snapped.

“Oh fok off!” he yelled. “What the absolute fok do you mean I don’t have permission to use the rec room?! Everyfokkingone should be able to do that! I thought Fetlock was just telling me to take the piss and call it ra-”

“Kraber, calm down,” Romero said, holding up a hand. “What do you mean, Dr Well Met?

The Earth Pony - Well Met - blinked, apparently not surprised (or all that perturbed) by the rant. Kraber took a moment to calm himself, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the eyes of everyone on his back.

“If I’m allowed to finish, Captain,” he said evenly, “Operative Kraber isn’t cleared because he never showed up to his initial health assessment.”

Romero raised an eyebrow, giving Kraber a look, and all of Kraber’s anger disappeared.

Fok.

“Uh… sorry?” he said.

“Kraber should have received email and personal notification in the time he’s been here,” Romero said evenly, looking back at Well Met.

“No one wanted to go speak to him, sir,” Well Met said blandly. He looked at Kraber. “They seem to have been sharing stories about a Dr Banes who found a rusty spoon jammed through his rectum hard enough to cause internal bleeding?”

“It was his jugular and a kitchen knife, actually. And he was having too much fun with the rectal exam,” Kraber said before he could stop himself. “That… doesn’t make it sound better, does it?”

“No,” Romero said, hissing. “Kraber… just… go with Well Met. Get your physical done.” He looked at Well Met. “While he’s with you, acquaint him with your work.”

“Sir,” Well Met said, still sounding somewhat uninterested.

Dancing Day

“So hang on, what’s the pheromone theory?” Heliotrope asks.

Kraber chuckles. “Haze told me before she left. Supposedly, pony pheromones are stronger than human ones. Mixed in with a bit of magic. That’s why so many humans are physically attracted to you even though - you know. Cartoon Horses.” He chuckles again. “I mean, it makes sense, I guess?”

Yael and Heliotrope exchange a glance.

“Well,” Heliotrope says after a moment, “if you ever randomly want to strip in front of me, we know why.”

Yael smacks her upside the head.

“Huh,” Kraber says, “And here I was, thinking I was just drunk that one time.”

Heliotrope raises an eyebrow, trying and failing to keep her expression neutral.

Kraber

Dr. Well Met didn’t like this any more than Kraber did: he didn’t look uncomfortable - in fact, he didn’t look like he had an opinion of anything - but he was keeping just enough distance.

When they got to the medical bay, he began running through the motions. He was surprisingly quiet throughout. But Kraber also noticed that he wasn’t giving him the usual looks.

“Uh,” Kraber said, “so…”

“So?”

“You… don’t seem too… bothered by me?” Kraber ventured. “Like… y’know, the funny looks, that kind of thing.”

“I’m not ‘too bothered’ by you,” Well Met replied, giving Kraber a tired smile.

“You’re… not?” Kraber asked.

“On the contrary, I know something of how you must be feeling right now,” Well Met said blandly, looking back at his notes. “It took me a… well, a long time to be welcomed here, and a much, much longer time to feel it.”

“Fok off,” Kraber snorted. “How the everloving fok could you understand -”

“I worked in the early Conversion Bureaus,” Well Met said, staring Kraber down.

There was a momentary pause.

Kraber’s first instinct was to try to stab him. To rush across the room and dropkick him. To gouge his eyes out, do something, anything.

“… you’re not threatening me yet,” Well Met said after a moment. “Interesting. Your psych profile would have suggested something else.”

“Not gonna lie,” Kraber said, “I’m absolutely fokking livid right now. But…”

“But?” Well Met asked, almost blandly curious.

Not murdering someone PER went against everything Kraber knew. Everything was screaming at him to act. But…

If you do that, he’ll give up on you, Kraber thought. You could’ve died in the ocean. You would have died if you got stuck on that island without a boat.

You’re fokked, Viktor.

Suddenly, a thought occurred.

“But this is a test, isn’t it?” Kraber asked.

“Not that I know of,” Well Met said, shaking his head.

“Even if it isn’t,” Kraber said, “It’s still possible for me to fail right now, and hard. If I hurt you, then…”

“Forgive me, Dr Kraber, but my understanding is that you are quite adept at saving your own skin,” Well Met said, giving an almost tired smirk. “All that, and no concern for me.”

“You said you were PER,” Kraber pointed out.

“Not PER,” Well Met said, rearing up on his hind legs. He held a stethoscope pressed to one forehoof. “Never PER.”

“You ponified people,” Kraber said, tightly controlled rage. “Pardon me for not making the fokking distinction.”

“We’ve both done things we regret,” Well Met said tiredly. “My time there… it wasn’t about ‘perfecting humanity’. Certainly nothing to do with… with whatever in Tartarus Shieldwall thinks he’s doing.”

“Then what?” Kraber asked, his fists clenched so hard that the knuckles were turning white.

“You weren’t there,” Well Met whispered. “For us, the early days were about helping sick people, about experimenting and pushing the boundaries of magic.” Something about his expression almost became wistful. “It was… for an Earth Pony, it was beautiful. We’re looked down on, when we try to study magic. But this was different - it was magic and medicine, all at once.”

“Sounding a bit too happy with this, doc,” Kraber said, raising an eyebrow.

“In hindsight, no, but when I was there, when I was doing something that was so… unique…” Well Met paused, closing his eyes. “I did feel happy back th-”

“Still sounding a bit too happy with this,” Kraber interrupted. “What made you leave? I’d expect you to be frothing at the mouth and screaming about how it’s time to ponify the nonbelievers.”

“I told you, I am not PER, and I never was,” Well Met hissed.

“Sure,” Kraber said. “You just ruined people’s lives.”

“The early ponification potion was about repairing lives,” Well Met said, slamming a hoof against the floor. “We thought we were healing. I wouldn’t expect a man who abandoned his Hippocratic oath to understand this, but I took mine seriously, and still do.”

“What the fok do you know about me?!” Kraber yelled, his composure suddenly snapping. “My family was turned into those… those things! They’re gone! When you were ‘helping’ people, how many of them are dead, right now?! How many of them are nothing more than meatshields or fokkin’ worse, right fokkin’ now?!”

“DON’T YOU THINK I KNOW WHAT I DID?!” Well Met screamed, and Kraber actually stepped back. “Don’t you think, you stupid, self-centred hypocrite, that I know precisely what happened to all of them?! Don’t you think I read the reports?! Don’t you think I saw the trials, when the war footing started?! Why the fuck do you think I’m even here?!”

“I don’t fokkin’ know, why the fok are you here?!” Kraber yelled back, though he felt some of his fire dissipating.

“Fine!” Well Met yelled. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as if to steady himself. “You want to know what broke me?”

Kraber nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“It was the first Newcalf trial,” Well Met said evenly. “Every Bureau Doctor I ever knew was there. And they all… they all clapped as this poor human… just broke. Their body twisted, warped, tore, bled… and the sounds. Sweet Luna.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “And… and then what was left, when the screeching stopped and the cracking subsided… was this ugly, brutish, feral thing…”

“You were there?!” Kraber asked, interested despite himself.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Well Met said. “We were still going on and on about peace. I think I was just about able to convince myself until we saw… that. It was… it wasn’t a cute, happy pony. It wasn’t a cancer patient given a new lease on life. It was this slab of muscle and bone. I’d never seen one before then, but it reminded me of one of Sombra’s berserkers. And I knew that whatever I saw seeing, it was a weapon. And if they did it now, they’d do it again. And I found myself wondering just what sort of beings do that to other sentients.” He scowled. “So you can understand, Mr Kraber - there are those who saw me as they saw you. Those who still do. I understand why it’s difficult.”

“Did… did anyone ever really accept you?” Kraber asked.

“Their acceptance wasn’t the problem,” Well Met replied. “I had to accept myself.”

“And did you?”

Well Met’s silence was all the answer Kraber needed.

“Any tips?” Kraber asked weakly.

“It’s a process, Dr Kraber,” Well Met said. “No matter what, you always have to remember why you’re there. You have to realise that… that yes, you did things you regret. You were part of terrible things. But you still have - well, in your case, you still have the hands your God gave you.” He smiled ruefully. “Only you can decide to use them for good or evil. And when you do good, people see that.”

“But what happens when I do good and people decide it doesn’t matter because of all the other fokked-up shit I did?” Kraber asked.

“Then you keep trying. Or perhaps,” he added, “in your cases you remind yourself that yes, you did do enough ‘fokked-up shit’ that you might never win them over. But also remember that doing good is it’s own reward.”

“You think so, huh?” Kraber asked.

“Dr Kraber, you are hardly the first person on this ship to treat me with the sort of contempt you have,” Well Met said evenly. “And you won’t be the last. And I may not have hit the depths of mishippism that some of my ex-colleagues did, but I know what I did.” He let out a sigh. “Now, the physical’s almost over - and might I say, you’re in remarkably good shape. I’d almost think you’d never been in any… scrapes.”

“Well, I did get healed by a Unicorn,” Kraber explained.

Well Met raised an eyebrow. “That’s… we usually don’t do that.”

“Why’s that?” Kraber asked. “I mean, it hurt like hell and all, but…”

“Because the human body isn’t meant to heal that quickly,” Well Met said. “Healing… well, without trying to science the heck out of magic, which - believe me - never works…”

It sounded like a conversation he’d had before.

“... it works by accelerating the rate at which your body’s natural processes operate,” Well Met continued. “Pony bodies have magic that makes that work for us. Humans aren’t evolved for it.”

“I guessed,” Kraber said after a moment. “Honestly, I never want to do that again. I’ll take two months of recovery over feeling torn apart any time.”

“It’s also possible that might have caused unforeseen side effects,” Well Met said. “There’s a… think of it like a magic MRI. Mostly, we use it for Newfoal analysis, but I think it’ll work for you.”

Kraber sighed. It seemed risky.

But…

It’d been a nightmarish few days. Kraber had never really believed that magic was inherently that harmful to humans, but who knew what it’d done to him?

“Sure,” Kraber said. “Sure, that’ll work.”

“Right this way,” Well Met said, leading him towards an orange door in one corner of the room. A keycard reader sat on one side, so low that Kraber would’ve had to bend over to reach it.

Well Met reached into his saddlebags, pulling out a blank white card. Gingerly holding it between his teeth, he maneuvered it into the slot.

Ah, Kraber thought, so that’s why it was so low to the ground.

Well Met gestured to the machine. It did in fact look like an MRI, with a long patient table leading into a cylinder. But there was a strange device with a crystal plugged in, resting on a nearby table.

“Well then,” Well Met said, “Have a seat.”

He gestured to the patient table. Kraber walked up to it, swinging one leg over and lying down on his back. Well Met trotted up to a control panel, and pressed the buttons.

It felt good to lie down for a bit. The patient table hummed, inching forth into the scanner.

“Now,” Well Met said, “Sit still.”

Nothing all too interesting happened while Kraber lay there. Not until-

“Huh,” Well Met said. “Well, what do you know. What the Tartarus is that.”

What the hell?!

Kraber’s eyes darted from side to side. “Doc,” he said, his voice strained, “That’s not something you want to hear in an MRI. What the fok is it?!”

“Don’t move!” Well Met said, voice raised a little too high. “You’ll throw off the scan.”

What is it?! What the fok is it?! Do I have a tumor? Am I going to need brain surgery? Oh God oh God oh God

But Kraber had to keep still. Had to stay down. But he was breathing heavily, trying not to move. What is it, what is it, what in the fok is it?!

After an eternity, the patient table inched out from the tube and Kraber sat up.

“And people say my bedside manner is Godawful,” Kraber said, glaring at Well Met. “What the fok did you find in my kop?!”

“It’s, well,” Well Met said. He pointed to a screen showing Kraber’s brain, looking at the hippocampus. “Someone used magic to do something to your brain. They pulled out a memory.”

“But I do-” Kraber started.

Well Met stared at him expectantly.

“Right,” Kraber said, before slipping into a weirdly high-pitched German accent, “I never built an Amnesia-inator, I think I’d remember something like that…”

“You’re taking this surprisingly well,” Well Met said.

“Am I?” Kraber asked. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little bit absolutely fokking livid right now. How?! When?! WHY?!”

“All I can tell is, it was precise,” Well Met said. “And recent.”

“How recent?” Kraber asked. “Would it be… in the last couple weeks?”

“I’d need to run these results by a few of my colleagues to be sure,” Well Met said. “But I can’t be sure.” He paused. “Any idea what it could…”

Kraber stared back at Well Met.

“Right,” Well Met said, sheepishly.

“The only thing I can think of,” Kraber said, “Is… Someone was smuggling a mare and her foal up to Canada, I think. We had a checkpoint, and I didn’t want to shoot them or hand them over. I’ve been wondering if the mare… did something to me. Could it have been-”

“Do you really want to go through life thinking you needed to have someone do that to you not to hurt a child?” Well Met asked.

Kraber stared at the earth pony. That was…

Am I really that much of a monster?

It wasn’t a comforting thought. How… how could that be possible? How could he have just... Lacked empathy, basic humanity, enough of anything to need people to take little pieces out of his brain to make him do the right thing? Had anything really been his choice?

Kraber felt his heartbeat quickening. Felt himself breathing heavily.

He stumbled into a nearby chair, shaking.

Did I have a choice?!

“N-no,” he said, surprised at the stutter in his voice. “Must have been… s-something else. I… don’t want to think I…”

He looked down at the ground.

“I think I need to go to the ship’s library or something,” Kraber said. “Is the physical done?”

“I think that’s for the best,” Well Met said. “Someone will be there to escort you to the library. I’ll… have the results back soon.”

The ship’s library wasn’t quite what Kraber had hoped for - it was just one large room, the size of a small bookstore. A few portholes poked through spaces between shelves.

Still, there was a comfy chair in one corner, and that was good enough.

“Do you have any Brandon Sanderson books?” Kraber asked, walking up to the librarian - a pale purplish earth pony with their mane in a short pixie cut.

Her eyes widened as she saw him.

“Y-you’ll have to read one of the paperback copies,” she stammered. “I-I’m not really allowed to give you the cinderblock-sized hardback ones.”

Kraber just sighed. Whether she was actually allowed to or not was irrelevant at this point.

“Fok it. Whatever,” he said. “I just… I need to be alone with a long book, and I’m going to be done with all the books they left in my room anyway.”

The mare - who looked weirdly like Twilight Sparkle, which explained the fok out of the short manecut - trotted towards one wall, and Kraber followed.

“It’s… it’s, uh, right here,” she said, rearing up and reaching for a copy of The Way of Kings with her mouth.

Kraber didn’t stop her from biting it, and passing it to him in her mouth.

Feels kind of wet…

So Kraber took the book and moved towards the lumpiest armchair he could find.

“Um, if you need anything else…” the mare said after a moment.

“Thanks,” he tossed out. “Probably won’t. Unless I decide to fokkin’ -”

He paused, thinking better of whatever he’d been about to say.

He sat like that for awhile, until:

“Kraber,” Romero said, looking down towards him. “How was the physical?”

Kraber hadn’t even seen him coming.

“It was… difficult,” Kraber said. “Apparently, I’m mostly fine. Except for the fact that someone went to town on my brain.”

Romero stared at him for a second. His eyes went wide with shock, fear, and…

Recognition?

“You’ve seen this before. What are you not telling me?” Kraber asked.

“Lots,” Romero said. “My office. Now.”

What in the fok is going on? Kraber asked himself.

There were seven of them - Kraber, Well Met, Romero, Lucky Strike, an unfamiliar mare, and two guards - standing in the well-furnished office.

Kraber looked down at the mare.

The lack of cutie mark gave her away as a Newfoal: Kraber might have normally panicked, but Romero had said they let one wander about. Kraber pointed at her.

“Is that Sharon?” he asked.

The Newfoal paused, and turned, frowning at him.

“I’m not Sharon,” she said. She blinked, her eyes widening as she took him in. “Oh, s-s-s-s-darn, you’re Kraber.”

“Ohhhhhh, shit,” Well Met said, his jaw dropping. “Uh. Captain. If you don’t mind me asking, why do you have the two of them here?!”

“Wait,” Kraber said, frowning, “if you’re not Sharon…”

“Viktor,” Romero said, motioning to the Newfoal, “meet Hope. As of now, the last Slow Newfoal known to exist.”

“Oh, shit,” Kraber said.

“Still can’t believe there was a Slow Newfoal,” Yael says. “I genuinely thought they’d all gone native by now. If not extinct.”

“Maybe she really was the last one,” Kraber says quietly. He shakes his head, looking oddly sad. “I liked Hope. I hope - no pun intended - that she’s okay.”

“I…. how?!” Kraber asked. “How did you… why… when?!”

The Newfoal’s horn - no, Hope’s horn - began to glow.

“Is this a joke?!” she asked. “I… I was worried when you said he was onboard, but us in the same room?! Are you mad?!”

She had a slight British accent. Kraber couldn’t place where.

“Maybe,” Romero said. “But you’re here for a reason. And that reason is: You’re the best source of information on… one of the subjects we’ll be discussing.”

“And what does a Newfoal have to say about this?!” Kraber demanded.

“More than you,” Hope said, bitterly. “I traveled across America to get here. I saw horrible things to get to where I am. I just don’t know which one involves you.”

“You’ll find out. You two,” Romero said, pointing to the two guards. “Outside. This is now a level Omega situation.”

“You’re going to trust them with that?” one guard asked, jerking a thumb to Kraber.

“I absolutely am,” Romero said. “Priority level one, people. Everyone but Kraber, Well Met, Hope, and Lucky Strike out.”

“Don’t worry boys,” Lucky Strike added, glaring at Kraber. “I can handle things if this goes apeshit.”

The guards exchanged glances.

“Alright, boss,” the first guard said to Strike. “We’ll be outside.”

As the two guards left the room, closing the door, Romero pressed a button on his desk.

There was a mechanical whir from within the heavy metal door, then a clunk. A light humming noise filled the room, just quiet enough not to be annoying but loud enough not to be noticed.

“So - level Omega, Captain? What could either of thempossibly have,” Lucky Strike asked, pointing towards Kraber with one foreleg, “that would warrant that level of classification?”

“We’re about to find out,” Romero said. “Well Met?”

“So do you want the good news or the bad news?” Well Met asked.

“Bad,” Kraber said mournfully. Romero glanced at him. “The bad news will be the serious one, and the good news will be some irrelevant kak that doesn’t make up for it.”

“He’s right,” Hope said.

Well Met raised an eyebrow. “Whatever makes you think that?”

“I know how my life works,” Kraber said weakly.

“Life’s not like that I’m afraid,” Well Met said quietly. He glanced at Romero. “And you don’t mind the Captain being here?”

“If what Kraber said about his memory loss is true, I need to know about it,” Romero said seriously.

“His what?” Lucky Strike asked. “Do you think it’s… Them?”

Well Met nodded. “It… it could be.” He looked at Kraber. “We couldn’t confirm an exact date for the procedure. I had every specialist I could think of look at it.”

Kraber let out a deep breath. “So she could have done it.” He blinked. “My act of mercy could have just been that.”

Saying it felt like the tolling of a doom bell, and Kraber felt like a weight was settling into his shoulders. Maybe he was irredeemable. Maybe he was -

“No,” Well Met said, cutting the train of thought off so hard it derailed and exploded. “That’s… extremely unlikely.”

Kraber frowned. “Wait, what?”

“It wasn’t done by that mare,” Well Met said. “You’d need an expert. And you’d need to do it in controlled conditions. That’s… I don’t think anypony can do it spur-of-the-moment, just like that.”

Kraber blinked, taking in what Well Met was saying with a sudden cold feeling running down his spine.

“But the HLF don’t have experts like that,” he said. “Do we?”

“No, we don’t,” Romero said quietly. “Not even I have any ponies with that level of skill. Obviously Lovikov doesn’t. And the PHL would doubtless have done more to you than what they did.”

“Wait, do they have mind magic?” Kraber asked.

“They’d say they don’t, just for the sake of covering their flanks,” Lucky Strike said. “Personally, I say yes.”

“According to my sources, they avoid it wherever possible,” Romero said. “I think they’re being sincere about that, if only because we’d all be on their list if they weren’t.”

“Wait,” Aegis says. “Do we?”

“As little as possible,” Spitfire says. “The PHL’s charter forbids mental manipulation through the use of magic.”

“Romero’s right, they’d all be on the list to manipulate if we did,” Yael adds dolefully.

“You are just an expert at inspiring and deflating confidence at the same time,” Aegis says.

“But…” Kraber said. “Your faction didn’t do it. The HLF didn’t do it. The PHL didn’t. So then who…”

“Kraber,” Romero said, and Kraber stopped talking.

The Captain looked… concerned. No, not concerned. Worried. Genuinely worried.

“You know that I’m someone outside of the PHL,” he finally said. “There are plenty of other little outsiders. The People's Liberation Army Conversion War Defense Group. Division E. Shriek’s collective out in the middle of nowhere. Armacham likes to play at it, too. Independents that settled in the middle of nowhere. Little neighborhood defense squads like the ASF or Deschutes Militia. But there’s…”

He paused. Kraber frowned: there was something entirely new in Romero’s expression.

Fear.

“There are others,” Romero finally continued. “People like Gardner don’t know the half of what’s going on in this war. Hell. ‘Half’ is being generous. There are other interests at play, other factions, higher up than him, higher up than his CO... but that’s all irrelevant. I don’t concern myself with who knows what, unless the what is something I need to know.”

“Who are they?” Kraber asked. “What do they do? If they’re not with the Solar Empire, why are we worried about them?”

“Partly because they’ve been financing me and outsourcing work to me,” Romero said, simply. “And because they’ve also done it for Lovikov.”

“That’s…” Kraber started.

“What?” Lucky Strike asked. “Crazy? You can’t believe your friend would work with-”

“Actually?” Kraber said. “I didn’t know about the Ship any more than any of you.”

Hope’s eyes widened.

“But everyone says you two were best friends,” she said. “That you’re his right hand, his brother-”

“Not so fokking much, apparently,” Kraber interrupted. “So I’m thinking all bets are off with that man. Honestly, it makes a lot of sense at this point. The way Lovikov seemed so confident Defiance would never be attacked. The fact that the PHL or National Guard didn’t come until recently. It makes sense.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Romero said. “I can’t prove it. But I’m certain of it. The Ship wouldn’t have come from the PHL, so it would have to have come from them. They needed Lovikov for something, and I’m… let’s just say, uneasy about the idea of a world where Lovikov’s vision is a key component.”

“You really think…” Kraber started. “Him?! That fokkin’ kakhuiskriek?!”

“Sounds like a nightmare,” Hope said.

“I’m trying not to think too much about it,” Romero said quietly. “But the fact is, they wouldn’t have saved him if he wasn’t important to them somehow.”

He sighed.

“They’re planning something,” Romero said. “I’m certain of it.”

“Seems to be a lot of that going around,” Kraber said.

“What’s more, we know They’re doing things that’d turn any of the factions against Them,” Lucky Strike said. “During the Blackdog raids, we found an island base. It was littered with vivisected ponies - we couldn’t tell if they were Newfoals. They were… experimenting on them. They torched the base - I think They were expecting the Barrier to erase it - but from what we could tell, They were trying to experiment with ways to boost magical powers.”

“There were signs of heavy, heavy magical rupture,” Well Met said dolefully.

“Magical rupture?” Kraber repeated, but everyone ignored him.

“Like the site I found in the Rockies,” Hope said, shaking slightly.

“Allegedly found,” Lucky Strike said.

“The mare knows what she saw, Strike,” Romero said. “And after Hadley’s Hope, are you really going to be incredulous?”

“Sir, after Hadley’s Hope, I want to be incredulous,” Strike replied evenly. “I happen to like sleeping soundly.”

“Sorry, holding the phone and the mayo for a moment,” Kraber said, pointing to Well Met, “but he said magical rupture. What does that mean?!”

“What happens to a human cell when too much water gets into it?” Well Met replied. “It swells, and too much and the subject dies. Same with magic and pony cells.”

Kraber blinked. “Fok.”

“And there’s one other thing I didn’t mention,” Lucky Strike said quietly.

“And that is?” Kraber asked.

“The base we found had seriously high newtech,” Strike said. “The kind that only the PHL has. Except…”

“Except I checked with my colleagues there,” Romero said. “They didn’t have any records of the equipment found on the base. When I gave them a piece of equipment we managed to recover, they pointed to one with the exact same serial number in a Montreal facility. That’s why I think the Ship came from them.”

“The point, Kraber,” Well Met said, “is that the marks on your brain? We suspect these individuals had something to do with it.”

“But… why?” Kraber asked.

“From what we’ve gathered, it means they were trying to recruit you,” Romero said. “Apparently, you didn’t pass the test.”

“They tried to recruit me too,” Hope said. “They said I’d be the perfect infiltrator. But…”

“That’d be horrible,” Kraber said, surprised by the empathy he felt for this impossible Newfoal. “You’d be… you’d be throwing yourself into the fire. Surrounded by wretched little fokking half-things and ponies that treated you like an automaton.”

Kraber admittedly didn’t know much about life in Equestria beyond televised interviews with ponies that’d managed to escape. They hadn’t painted a happy picture. From what he could tell, there was very little freedom, and most culture was essentially an arm of the Canterlot palace.

...suddenly, the complaints that some of the militia recruits Lovikov had acquired didn’t seem to hold as much water.

“Exactly,” Hope said.

“Okay, so… what?” Kraber asked.

“What?” Romero repeated.

“Why not speak up?” Kraber asked. “If these people are so shadowy…”

“What would I do?” Romero asked. “If I make myself troublesome, they could-”

“Assassinate you?” Hope asked.

“No,” Romero said. “They could end me without a blip in the news cycle, and find someone in my own fleet that’d take my place.”

“But I’d never take over your ship,” Lucky Strike started. “Not -”

“I didn’t say you, Lucky.” Romero’s tone was completely devoid of its usual humour. “And frankly, they’d probably find it easier to sink us all if they decided we weren’t worth their investment.”

Strike blinked, her jaw closing with an audible clack.

Romero continued, his tone deadly serious. “They could throw me in a cell and make it so I never see the light of day. They could confiscate this fleet, and erase or take all of the research I’ve done. And They have resources and reach that most people are too… too moral to imagine.”

He looked troubled. Which, in and of itself, was troubling.

“There’ve been abductions on the mainland,” Romero said. “All unicorns. Even foals. I’ve seen rumors that soldiers in black, with no insignias, have been committing them. It’s not the PHL, and it’s certainly not the PER’s style.”

“I’ve seen that too,” Hope said. “I was in a homestead once where this happened. I was the only one that got out.”

“What about Hadley’s Hope?” Kraber asked. “Is what happened there part of it?”

Romero shook his head. “No, that’s an entirely different problem, and honestly, I’ve no idea what to make of it, except that it’s proof that this war is far more… far more troublesome, far more complex, than we understand. There is far too much at play here.”

“Who are they?” Kraber asked. “What… do we even know their name?”

“All we know is that they have a symbol like a horse skull,” Romero said. “And not much else.”

“So then,” Kraber said, “What… what do we do? We don’t even know what they’re planning.”

“We’ll discuss it another time, Mr Kraber,” Romero said quietly. “For now, just be thankful that your act of mercy was real. It’s a good sign.”

It was real, Kraber repeated in his head. I did that. I did that. No one else. No one made me do it. It was just me.

“Just like that?” Hope asked. “These people are dangerous, Captain! They...”

Hope’s eyes were wide as she stared up at the three of them.

“Nothing is sacred to them,” she said simply. “They didn’t care what could happen to me if I went to Equestria. They could wipe an entire town off the map without blinking.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it right now,” Romero said. “We don’t know anything. We don’t have leverage. For now, the best thing we can do is make sure we’re off their radar.” He sighed. “Believe me. I don’t like it any more than any of you.”

He sighed, and Kraber was suddenly reminded that this man was older than him. For the first time since he’d been aboard Columbia, Romero looked older.

“Right,” he said. “Well Met, you did the health checkup?”

“Yes,” Well Met said.

“Anything else?” Romero asked.

Well Met let out a weak chuckle. “Apart from the medical miracle that is this man not being a corpse, no. He’s fine.”

Not a word I’d pick, Kraber thought.

The next day, Kraber went looking for Romero. He had questions - lots of them.

Who are these other people? What could they want with Lovikov? Shouldn’t we be trying to stop them?

“That’s still an important question,” Heliotrope says.

“Trust me, we’ll see those guys dealt with,” Yael says darkly.

But he wasn’t at his office, and it took searching half the ship to finally find him on the crew quarters decks. He was talking to a pale, shaven headed unicorn mare - what little mane she had growing back looked red.

And she had no cutie mark.

Sharon, Kraber thought. He hid in an alcove quickly.

“Well, Sunbeam,” Romero was saying to her. “I’m glad you’ve had another productive day. I hope you’ve not been straining yourself.”

“Oh, Captain, you know I don’t strain myself doing jobs like that,” ‘Sunbeam’ said. “I’m just grateful to be here and helping you all. It’s the least I can do.”

“I know,” Romero said softly.

“And…” she paused. Kraber narrowed his eyes at her, as she blinked. “Captain…”

“Sunbeam?”

The Newfoal shook her head. “I… I’m…” She looked up at him. “Dan. It’s… it’s happening again…”

“Sharon,” Romero breathed, a sudden desperate joy sleeping into his tone. “It’s alright, we’ll get -”

“Captain,” Sharon cut him off, “you can’t help. This is the fifth time. It always ends the same. I always go back.”

“Back?” It was half a denial, half a plea. “Back where?”

“I’m remembering more, now!” Sharon murmured, her eyes wide. “More about that place, about… her…”

And then she blinked again, her expression faltering. A moment later, she smiled that half-empty Newfoal smile again.

“Oh, I’m sorry Captain,” Sunbeam said. “I’m probably just tired.”

Romero said nothing for a moment, and when he did speak it was in the sort of tight voice that Kraber knew well from the billion time’s he’d used it, right before breaking some kontgesig’s nose.

“It’s alright, Sunbeam,” he said. “You get some rest. We’ll speak again soon.”

With that, Sunbeam turned and went into her quarters. Kraber frowned, feeling a wellspring of mixed emotions coursing through him… until Romero turned and looked at him.

Until the day he died, Kraber swore down he had never seen an expression so lacking in expression that still contained so much emotion. Romero’s eyes were boiling, even as his face was set perfectly still. He met Kraber’s eyes, blinked once, and then strode past him without a single word.

Fok, Kraber thought. Just… fok.

“This stuff must be heavily classified,” Yael says after a moment. “I’d never even heard of Romero’s Newfoal.”

“Why would we have heard of Romero’s Newfoal?” Heliotrope points out. “Romero was trying to keep Gardner as far away from his shit as possible. He practically said as much when we met him.”

“True,” Yael says. She looks thoughtful for a moment. “I… I don’t want to seem harsh, but part of me feels like Sharon should be…”

“Killed?” Kraber asks.

“No... well, yes, euthanised.” Yael looks distinctly uncomfortable. “I know she represents a new kind of anomalous, but…”

“No, I get where you’re coming from,” Kraber says. “But I think you actually would have a warlord on your hand if you did that.”

“What makes him keeping Sharon around any better than Hatch and her son?” (Someone) asks.

“Hatch mutilated her son,” Kraber replies at once. “And I’m fairly certain that poor kont never actually ‘relapsed’ the way Sharon does.”

Heliotrope swallows. “Did you ever speak to a Romero about it?”

“According to Hope, Sharon is a taboo topic with him,” Kraber replies. “Anyway, the next time we spoke he didn’t even mention it.”

“When was that?” Yael asks.

“Right before Matinicus Island,” Kraber replies, “a couple of days later…”

The two of them - Kraber and Romero - were on the way to the ship’s firing range. It’d been too long since Kraber had been shooting.

Romero has given no indication that he’d seen Kraber watching him and Sharon. He gave no indication that it even crossed his mind. Which, Kraber thought; was probably for the best. It had seemed…

… personal.

“So you were reading our Sanderson collection, then?” Romero asked.

“Yeah,” Kraber admitted, smirking. “Been too long.”

“Was always more of an Honorverse man myself,” Romero said.

“Really, I’m so surprised,” Kraber snarked back.

Romero chuckled. “Believe me, I was halfway to giving myself a black peacoat and white beret for a uniform before I realised that I didn’t actually want to turn my unit into a cosplay group.”

“Atlas Galt did,” Kraber pointed out.

“No, that idiot just named himself after an Ayn Rand novel,” Romero snorted derisively. “You can’t cosplay as objectivism.”

“I dunno, I knew a guy who looked the spitting image of Andrew Ryan,” Kraber said.

Romero rolled his eyes. “Speaking as an old-school Conservative myself, I am legitimately ashamed to be lumped in with people like Galt.”

Somehow, it wasn’t surprising that a man like Romero was right-wing. Kraber winced slightly, but tried to keep an open mind.

“Fiscally Conservative, socially centrist,” Romero said evenly, as though noticing his discomfort. “I’m sure we could debate our respective views on the way governments should be run, Kraber, but believe it or not I don’t have the time, the inclination, or the energy to engage in whatever passes for ‘debate’ these days.”

“Right,” Kraber said, nodding. He paused for a moment, blinking as he replayed the last few sentences of their conversation. “How did we get onto this topic?”

“Cosplay,” Romero said blandly, “and my desire not to center my command around it.”

“Right,” Kraber said, tilting his head thoughtfully. “I dunno, think you’d look better in a black double-breasted peacoat than whatever these blue things are.”

Romero chuckled. “These ‘blue things’ are utility jumpsuits.”

He paused.

“Ah. We’re here.”

“So… what was it like?” Yael asks. “Being on the other side of the Split?”

Kraber pauses. “D’you ever have one of those moments where you suddenly, completely realise that you’ve wasted years doing the wrong thing, crystallised into something so minor that it doesn’t even make sense?”

Yael blinks. “What?”

“I had a moment like that the moment I got my hands on one of Romero’s pistols,” Kraber said.

He held the 9mm pistol in his hand, frowning. It was a dark gray-green, the Ex Astra’s Victoria symbol stamped into it, and a soft glow coming from three small vents on the side.

“Never seen a pistol before, Kraber?” Romero asked, picking an identical pistol up from the weapon’s rack. The two of them were in what Romero called a ‘training range’: a room about twenty by fifty metres long, probably one of the biggest rooms on the ship. There were dozens of different weapons behind him.

Apparently, it hadn’t been intended as a firing range beforehand - it’d been some kind of storeroom.

“That a trick question?” Kraber asked. He held the pistol up. “The fok is this?”

“A pistol,” Romero replied, grinning. At Kraber’s scowl, he rolled his eyes. “Seegert ACM90. Specialised Model, based on the ACM46, but with a few… mods.”

Kraber blinked. “Define ‘mods’.”

“Point at the target and see,” Romero said.

Kraber put the pistol into a two-handed grip. Stared through its reflex sight, aiming at a pony-sized target at the other end of the range.

He squinted, pulled the trigger, and-

BANG

The pistol’s recoil was barely noticeable. What was noticeable, though, was the effect on the target.

It burst into flame.

“You loaded it with incendiaries?” Kraber asked, looking over to Romero.

“Check the magazine,” Romero said.

Kraber tapped the magazine release. The 18-round double-stack magazine slid out, Kraber catching it in his left hand, peering at the bullet caught between the feed lips.

It was definitely not an incendiary round. It was an entirely normal 9x19mm Parabellum round, the kind that’d been used since the Luger was invented.

“A magic gun,” Kraber said, a smile on his face. “You used magic. To enhance the rounds.”

“Well, there’s a couple of different shot types,” Romero said. He tapped a small switch on the side of the pistol, opposite the safety. “Standard, then there’s incendiaries. Pretty boring, really.”

“‘Boring’,” Kraber repeated. “You have fokkin’ incendiary pistols? How come I’ve never seen one?”

“Because the last weapon I gave to the ‘Fraktion,” Romero said slowly, “was a modded AKM that was…” and here, he chuckled, “charitably, ‘an essay in the craft’, before we started making serious strides. That was before Helmetag got killed and the ‘Fraktion started sending my supply teams back in pieces.”

“Wait, he what?” Kraber asked.

Romero glared at Kraber.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know,” he said. "After all, you were there.”

It was true. The evidence, in hindsight, was all there. He’d never seen them or their vehicle leave, he’d never gotten his hands on it, and the party line of “No horsefuckers” had been thrown out.

“Oh, you would be amazed the shit Lovikov did not tell me,” Kraber said after a moment. “Apparently, he didn’t tell me his backing could summon the kind of gunship I’d almost trust to you, he didn’t show me all the hidden tunnels under Defiance -”

“I had wondered about that,” Romero mused.

“He didn’t tell me that he’d throw all my shit out on the floor and destroy it,” Kraber fumed, “right in fokking front of me…”

Kraber scowled.

“He just told me we’d never work with horsefuckers and left it at that after the supply team came,” Kraber said. “I swear to God, I didn’t know any more than that. I don’t even know what happened to the gun.”

“And yet he let you keep a gun you stole,” Romero added. “What kind of man would rather loot the dead than accept a gift, I’d wonder…”

“It means he’s a bastard,” Kraber said, bitterly looking at the pistol. How many more ways did I fok up? How many more awful things did I just refuse to notice?

“So how common are these?” he asked.

“We’re phasing the M90 in as a standard sidearm, replacing the M46. Currently this is in the hands of our elites,” Romero said. “Then there’s the VES Advanced Rifles, and the ATC laser stuff our specialists use…”

Just what does he deploy them against, anyway? Kraber wondered.

“So, common,” he said after a moment. “Fok, I really was on the wrong side.”

“You keep saying that,” Romero pointed out, “like you’re surprised. I’d have thought you’d be past the novelty stage.”

“I…” Kraber shook his head, before leaning against the wall. “Honestly? Every minute I’m here, I wonder what the fok any of the HLF I was with were thinking. Not being here, not having access to this stuff… the fok, y’know? Hating ponies more than wanting to make a difference?!”

Romero, either because he realised Kraber needed to talk, or because he didn’t know what to say, didn’t reply. He holstered the sidearm, folding his arms.

Kraber took a deep breath. “Working with ponies isn’t so bad here that it’s enough to make working with a borz look good. And… and you people are doing stuff I didn’t even think HLF thought about. You're working on stuff I’d never even considered.”

“You’re wondering why you didn’t join us sooner?” Romero asked.

“No,” Kraber replied. “I’m wondering what the fok my side’s even doing. You show Hakim or Jomi this, and they’d act like the outhouse they dug was as important as cold fokkin’ fusion. And if you’re doing it, the PHL is working on it too.”

“So that,” Kraber says, “Is why the pistol was so meaningful: It created a sense of, eh… ultimate futility.”

“What?” Aegis asks.

“I’m just surprised to see you use those words,” Spitfire says.

“You’d be surprised what inveigled itself into my fokking vocabulary,” Kraber says, smirking. “Anyway. It was… this one guy here has incendiary weapons. The Reavers are working with the PHL, who... are the PHL. There’s also these assholes that apparently have the PHL’s resources. It made being HLF feel… small. Irrelevant. Like there wasn’t any future to it.”

“I don’t think Romero or Yarrow would appreciate you saying that,” Aegis says.

“They really wouldn’t,” Kraber says. “You’re right - not so much that, more… the Defiance sort of lifestyle. Hunkering down in the woods, getting more and more bosbefok, and stockpiling guns wasn’t the future. And if people like Lovikov and Galt were planning on antagonizing the PHL…”

“You don’t need to say it,” Heliotrope says.

“Your side is doing the wrong things,” Romero said with a sigh. He folded his arms. “War is coming, Kraber. A war we don’t have time to fight. I'm just pleased you're picking the right side.”

“I'm fighting for humanity, aren't I?” Kraber asked.

“There’s far too many people who would think of it along those lines,” Romero said. “No. Not just humanity. As long as you're fighting for the freedom of all species to live outside Queen Celestia's rule, then you'll be fine. But… there's an undercurrent I've noticed. With Lovikov. Some of the more far-right groups out west. A desire for war among humanity.”

“That’s…” Kraber said.

“This is the part where you’re about to protest,” Romero said.

“I literally had to swim out of Portland,” Kraber said. “So no. Even if I wanted to, I really can’t.”

“I’m just going to stop having expectations for you, Mr Kraber,” Romero said with a grin. “Feels like they exist just to get undercut in these talks of ours.”

“Fokking with people’s expectations was my favorite thing to do back in school,” Kraber replied.

“I’m relieved that you’re getting it,” Romero said. “You know that among many groups, the desire has always been there. From the days before the PHL and UNAC, from people like Senator Goleman. Believe it or not, I don’t get funding from him.”

“Something tells me you two would never be on speaking terms,” Kraber said. Going by what Goleman had said in interviews, the good senator was more in line with Lovikov.

“You presume correctly. there’s always been an undercurrent. An idea that the wrong people are in charge. And if that idea takes root in fertile ground then… we may very well have war. A pointless, stupid war, against the stupid leading the insane or the desperate, dragging us all down to the level where Celestia wants us.”

“Of all the times for the boogaloo, this is literally the most dof fokkin one,” Kraber sighed.

Romero raised an eyebrow. “A childish term for it, but I couldn’t agree more.”

“I just… I don’t get it. Why they’re so… so bone dead fokkin’ stupid?!”

Romero took a deep breath. “I don’t know. Truth be told, I really don’t know.”

Kraber let out a short, harsh laugh. “That’s not comforting.”

“Wasn’t meant to be,” Romero said quietly. “Kraber, I’ll level with you. I’ve anti-pony people on my crew. Yarrow’s got anti-pony people in the Reavers. It’s inevitable.”

“Is it?” Kraber asked.

Romero snorted at that. “Really? Your wife was black.”

Kraber bristled. “What the fok -”

“Can I finish?!” Romero snapped. “You know full well - more than me, certainly - that some people don’t need a reason to have irrational, pointless prejudices. Ponies? As a group, they’re far more different than having a slightly different shade of brown skin.” He sighed, looking more tired than Kraber had seen. “I mean seriously. You’re gonna ask if the human race’s first alien species, whose leader decided to commit cultural and actual genocide on us with her super magic, really would cause a racist - or speciesist, whatever - reaction?”

Kraber felt the anger drain out of him. When out that way, it almost made sense, in the way that all sorts of pretty horrible things made sense.

“Hey, somebody’s gonna ask if it was really inevitable,” he pointed out. “Anyway, everything sounds bad when you say it like that.”

Romero snorted. “There’s always gonna be people who hate ‘em, and there’s always gonna be people who screw ‘em. Personally, wouldn't have minded green space women for our first alien race, but that’s the dice roll.” He sighed. “But the Carter side? I don’t get ‘em. I don’t get the stupidity. Just look at Portland. I’m half-convinced Lovikov or Galt will take a truce with the PER at some point if it means screwing the PHL over more.”

“You really think so?” Kraber asked. “Even for Lovikov, that sounds… fokkin’ chop. They’re meant to fight for humanity.”

“Even now, you’re defending them?” Romero asked.

“No,” Kraber said. “I’m saying that even I have a hard time believing they’d find the people that carry FOKKING POTION less objectionable than the PHL!”

“Again,” Romero said. “Portland. If people like Lovikov are so capable of critically failing at helping humanity once, I believe they’ll do it again.” He paused, before looking sideways at Kraber. “Sometimes… sometimes I think it’s destiny.”

Kraber snorted. “Fok destiny. It’s shit. And I preferred Warframe.”

“Maybe,” Romero said quietly. “But sometimes… sometimes I get the awful feeling of deja vu. Like… like I’ve been here before, but not.” He paused. “It was that deja vu that made me join the HLF, you know.”

“Really?” Kraber asked.

“I just…” Romero sighed. “I went on the forums. In the start, when the ponification started, when… when people changed.” He had the look on his face that Kraber had seen ten thousand times: the look of remembering someone who was now just another somepony, if that. “I didn’t like what I saw.”

“I know what you mean,” Kraber said. “I… was very skeptical. I mean, what are the side effects? Then mom kept hearing rumors about Newfoals acting weird. I… it scared me.”

“It wasn’t just that,” Romero said. “I saw a powderkeg. I thought to myself, there’s potential there, but there’s risk. And then, out of the blue, the thought occurred to me: ‘this thing needs me’.”

“High opinion of yourself much?” Kraber asked.

Romero chuckled. “Might have been ego. Lord knows, more than one person’s accused me of it.” His smile faded. “But I knew - I just knew that the Front needed firm hands, strong leaders. Or it’d…”

He trailed off, looking wistful.

“It’d what?” Kraber asked.

Romero considered that for a moment, before looking at Kraber with such an intense gaze that Kraber felt that most unfamiliar of sensations, true concern.

“Imagine the Carter side, but it’s all the HLF units, all the commanders, thousands more men and all of them crazy, scared, and desperate,” the Captain said quietly. “Imagine Max is the only sane one, if he’s even alive. Imagine there was no Spader, no Charter, that they’re all just out there, nothing but a name and nothing to say what the cause really is. Not an army, just...”

“The Buzzards and Rock Riders from Mad Max, more or less?” Kraber asked.

“I suppose so, but I have to ask: Why them?”

“They’re not with the heroes,” Kraber said. “They’re not the villains, either, they just sort of… are. And they’re mostly around to make things worse for everyone else.”

“That’s why I was afraid,” Romero said quietly. “I could almost see that future. All the pain, all the death, all the misery, for nothing at all, no reason. Almost as though some malicious entity had just said, ‘these people exist to hate, fail, die, and nothing else’.” He chuckled. “Turned out, Algie Spader had the same fear. That’s why he wrote the charter. That’s why he took command.”

Kraber found himself thinking back to his hallucinations: the other worlds he had seen, the other versions of his life. Captain Grey, David Elliot, that figure in the black armour that had chilled his soul… all those visions… could they have been real? Could they have happened, somewhere, some time?

“Maybe it was real,” he finally said. “That future you were afraid of?”

“You think?” Romero asked, looking at him with surprise.

Kraber let out a sigh. “I don’t know. What I do know is that, real or not, you dodged a bullet in this world.” He paused, scowling. “I still worked with Lovikov, though.”

“But not anymore,” Romero pointed out.

“True,” Kraber said quietly. “Wonder if I was smart enough in whatever world you were afraid of…”

He didn’t finish the thought.

“Whether you were or not doesn’t matter, Viktor,” Romero finally said. “You made the right choices here. Keep makin’ ‘em. Keep being the best you you can be.”

“Is there such a thing?” Kraber asked.

“I think so,” Romero replied, smiling. “I think there’s more good in you than you let yourself believe. And you owe it to the world to find that person. We all owe it to the world to find, and become, the best versions of ourselves.”

He straightened, before drawing his pistol.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ve got target practice to do.”

Kraber snorted at that. “Watch me beat you hands down, Captain.”

“I’d be happy to see it,” Romero chuckled. “I happen to like my security people to shoot better than I d-”

“Action stations, action stations, all hands.”

Kraber frowned at Romero through the corridor, uncertain what to make of the ringing klaxons and the call.

“Oh, no,” Romero said. He pointed to Kraber. “Right, Kraber, you’re with me. We’re going to the bridge.”

“What do I do on the bridge?” Kraber asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re on guard detail, aren’t you?” Romero retorted, scowling. “I need a guard on the bridge. Think of it as a learning experience.”

“One guard?” Kraber asked. “I might be a certified badass,” and here Romero rolled his eyes, “but even I’m not going to be much use if we’re boarded and overrun.”

“You know how to shoot people in the head, don’t you?” Romero asked. “If we’re boarded and there’s no way to hold the ship, that’s your job.”

Kraber blinked, shocked by the callousness of it. “Dark.”

“Practical,” Romero replied. He tapped his head. “This cannot be allowed to serve the enemy. Neither can any other mind on that bridge. We know too much. I will not allow it.”

Kraber let out a sigh. “Right. But I need a shotgun.”

“Follow me,” Romero said, leading Kraber to the stairway that led to the bridge. “I’ll call Ledger and make sure he has something you’d like.”

“If he gets me a Cobray Terminator out of spite, I’ll stab him,” Kraber said. “I’ll fokkin’ do it.”

Romero stopped dead in his tracks, before looking at Kraber with the same cold expression he had used before on the tardy scientists. Kraber stopped dead, feeling the blood drain from his face.

“Don’t threaten people on my ship,” Romero said.

Kraber blinked. “I wasn’t -”

“I am not finished,” Romero hissed. “I want you here, Kraber, because you’re an asset and I think there’s something about you that makes you worth the time and effort. But make no damn mistake,” and here he pointed at Kraber so emphatically that he took a step back. “I listen to my crew. I know they’re scared of you. That might have been you joking, but to my people, they don’t know it’s a joke. You do stab people in the eye, or worse, when they piss you off, Kraber. I read the reports about the PHL operative at Stanley Bridge.”

“That was… not one I read about,” Yael says.

“It’s not really called Stanley Bridge,” Kraber explains. “It’s ‘prefab village two-seven-zero’, or something along those lines. Like Hadley’s Hope or Daisypusher town, just sort of a place with a few dirt tracks and a small PHL garrison. Kinda like that place where Aegis lives, the Neigh-”

Kraber’s voice trails off. “Fokdammit,” he says, chuckling a little despite himself.

“Who even names these places?” Aegis asks.

“This isn’t important,” Heliotrope says. “Was it where you stabbed a PHL guy in the eye?”

“That was a different one,” Kraber says mournfully, and leaves it at that.

“Feeling at home here is a two way street,” Romero continued. “You can’t whine about people not liking you and not making you feel welcome if you never fucking try to prove them wrong about you.”

That was one of the few times Romero had sworn around Kraber, and it was so vehement that - for one of the equally rare times in his life - Kraber had nothing to say.

“You understand me, Kraber?” Romero asked.

Kraber’s mind was blank.

When Kraber didn’t reply, Romero’s voice raised a notch. “I said, do you understand me, Viktor Kraber?”

Kraber nodded slowly. “Yes. Sir.”

“You’re damn right,” Romero said shortly. “Now let’s go get you a Vollmer and get to the bridge.”

Kraber had actually been hoping for an autoshotgun of some kind, but this didn’t seem like the best time to press the issue. He was still thinking about one particular sentence the Captain had said.

What if they’re not wrong about me? he asked himself. What if that’s the whole problem?

It wasn’t a question he could imagine any good answers to.

Author's Note

AFTER TEN THOUSAND YEARS I'M FREE
TIME TO FUCK UP EARTH
LET'S GO BITCHES
JOSE CONSECO

This is another heavy chapter. Jed and I had a... balance we had to hit. On the one hand, most of these people have no reason to like Kraber. On the other hand, you sympathize with Kraber because he's the protagonist. So, how unreasonable do I want them to be?

The one rule I had was that I didn't want to hit the same levels of sadism that you see in Worm. I hope we did that well!

18: Watch The Stars Fall

Light Despondent Remixed

chapter 18: “Watch the Stars Fall.”

“When I took command of this vessel, you were a crew of polite scientists. Now, I look at you, and you are fierce warriors all.”
Captain Gabriel Lorca, Star Trek: Discovery - “Into The Forest I Go.”

The bridge of the Columbia was much like any other naval warship (at least, from what Kraber has seen in movies): the large observation window, the rows of complex looking stations, the stern-looking people manning them. Kraber took note that there didn’t seem to be any ponies on the bridge: he wondered if that was deliberate or just a result of the personnel Romero had ended up with.

And there Kraber was, with a massive black shotgun.

It was a pump-action-only Vollmer shotgun with a pistol grip and a folding metal stock. The most striking features were a box magazine attachment that looked like it could accept Saiga mags - and a little loading port above said magazine. A little switch was attached to the magwell, which Kraber guessed could switch between the box and tube mags. There was a foregrip attached to the pump, too, with a little flashlight attached.

There was a sidecar on the left side of the shotgun, just opposite to the ejection port, filled with six shells colored flaregun red, emblazoned with images of dragons. A little “flame warning” sign was helpfully written on the sidecar.

Incendiaries? Huh.

The Vollmer looked like it’d been designed back during the Bad Old Days - either for or by someone who really, really loved pump-action shotguns.

...He knows they’re scared of you, but he also told you to guard them with a shotgun, Kraber thought. He’s right, but this is one hell of a mixed message.

“Report,” Romero said evenly.

“One potioneer zeppelin,” one of his officers said evenly. “Standard assault class model, six cannons, standard shields.” He paused. “Looks like a Harvester, sir, but something’s off. It looks a bit… larger.”

Kraber had heard of Harvesters. Short of something like the Blackdog Raids, these were the closest anyone in North America (or the PHL base over in Bermuda) got to action with the Solar Empire main army itself. It was a catchall term for Potioneer ships that combed the fringes of countries that hadn’t been consumed by the Barrier, ponifying scavengers and retreating behind the Barrier before they could suffer serious damage.

The ones in the Atlantic typically focused on fishing vessels. Not only were they easy targets, but it meant less food in the U.S and Canada, and a weaker, more desperate population. He wasn’t accustomed to seeing them this close to the coastline, though.

“Have they seen us?” Kraber asked. Romero threw him a look. “What?”

“Discipline on the bridge, Kraber,” Romero said testily. He looked to one officer, a stately-looking woman with a walking cane. “Renner. Have they spotted us yet?”

“If they haven’t, sir, they soon will,” Renner replied. She limped over to one of the stations, and Kraber could have sworn he heard the sound of a metal leg clunking. “They’re coming directly at us. Think they’re trying to head for Portland.” She paused, frowning. “They’re escorting another ship. Looks like a cargo-zep. Heavy-duty, too.”

Kraber peered through the window, looking past the speck that was the potioneer to see…

Well. He’d never seen anything quite like that before. It was wider and fatter than any zep he’d ever seen, human or pony, looking more like a flying saucer than a dirigible.

“A supply ship?” Romero wondered aloud. “But supplying… what?”

“Nothin’ good, I bet,” Kraber muttered.

Romero didn’t reply to that, but he didn’t contradict Kraber either. Instead, he walked over to Renner.

“I want battle readiness,” he said. “Evacuate the exterior, seal all outer bulkhead doors and prepare to engage the enemy. Testudo protocol.”

Renner nodded, before limping over to the nearest console and picking up a radio.

“This is the XO,” she said. Kraber blinked in mild surprise: he hadn’t met her in all his time here. “All hands, evac top deck and seal outer doors. Prepare for engagement. I want main cannon and auxiliary batteries armed and ready.”

At once, a hail of reports began streaming in: the deck was evacuated in short order, and Kraber could see the ship’s secondary cannons turning. He could also see the potioneer approaching in the distance.

“You’re going to engage them?” Kraber asked, not bothering to keep the derision out of his voice. “She’s a potioneer.”

“And this is a Thunderchild-class ship, the most top-of-the-line naval vessel ever built,” Romero countered, scowling at him. “She was built to take down a potioneer or ten. The first of her class took on twelve before she went down.”

Kraber grimaced: he knew that the Columbia, for all that she was impressive, did not have everything the Thunderchild had been equipped with. If it hadn’t been clear when Romero told him so, it had certainly become clear afterward.

“We’ve refined her, with testing and hard work,” Romero said, apparently catching on to Kraber’s uncertainty. He grinned. “Trust me, Kraber. If Max could take down a Gen 1 Potioneer with a rocket launcher, a knackered cruise ship and a lot of machine guns, I can take this one with the Columbia.”

“Which reminds me,” Kraber said, “Do you need me to grab a rocket launcher? I know how to use a Panzerfaust 3.”

“Nothing so crude as that,” Romero said. “We’re on a ship full of guns. We’re going to use her.” He turned to Renner. “Class and type of potioneer.”

“Metrics say Gen 4 design, enhanced magical shielding grid, enhanced potion and standard cannons,” Renner replied evenly. “The same type that attacked New York two months ago.”

They didn’t take those down, Kraber thought. The PHL spent two weeks cleaning out Newfoals from every nook and cranny they’d gotten in.

He would’ve said it out loud, but… Something didn’t feel right about it. Not in front of Romero. Not after talking as much as he had.

“Whatever Romero used to shut you up, I want some,” Vinyl says jokingly.

“So do half the UNAC and PHL officers in a hundred mile radius,” Yael replies.

“Speaking of which, what do you use for it?” Spitfire asks.

“You don’t want to know,” Kraber says.

Kraber began planning escape routes. Potioneer. That means I’d have to stay aboard… and hope the fokker doesn’t potion the entire crew.

“Airtight seals locked,” Renner reported. “We are now at complete Testudo protocol.”

“Now, three possibilities,” Romero said evenly. “They’re stupid, and think they can take us because they’re ponies and we’re humans and they have Celestia watching over them. Two, they’re smart, and they figure they’d better not try their luck. Or three: they’re really smart, and they have some plan in mind to take us down.”

Kraber wondered whose benefit he was speaking for.

“We’ll find out in a minute,” Romero said quietly. “Stand by, all hands. Activate shields.”

“Activating,” someone said.

A tense moment passed. The radar pinged. You could have heard a pin drop.

Gimme a gunfight any day, Kraber thought, feeling sweat drip down his brow.

“They’ve increased speed in this direction,” someone reported.

“Alright,” Romero said, clapping his hands. “Estimate barrage length to break their shields.”

Someone inputted commands into their console. “Computer says sustained barrage for one minute should do the trick.”

“Alright,” Romero said. “Give them a two minute sustained barrage. Let’s not try our luck too much.”

“Ten seconds to range,” Renner reported. “Weapons standing by.”

Kraber closed his eyes. Alright, I know it’s a little late to ask God to watch over me, but now would be a great time to give me a little luck.

“They’re in range!” Renner yelled.

“Commence firing,” Romero said evenly.

Kraber opened his eyes, in time to see a hail of particle bolts streaming from various cannons, hitting the Potioneer. The zeppelin was firing back, using what looked like conventional weapons, but they were impacting on the shields.

“Enemy shields weakening, exact reading unclear,” one of the officers said. He frowned. “We have boarders inbound.”

“Newfoal?” Romero asked.

“Guard,” the officer replied. He tapped his console. “They’re small enough to evade our particle fire, and they’re going to pass through the shields.”

“Without the Potioneer to protect them, they’ll be stranded anyway,” Romero said. “Get Lucky Strike and her team on standby. Their shields?”

“Still weakening,” Renner said, “one minute left on barrage protocol.”

Romero folded his arms. “Knew they’d have improved. No one’s stagnant for long.”

“Hostile ship is continuing to fire,” Renner said urgently. “Our own shields are weakening.”

“Backup generator on standby,” someone else said.

Suddenly there was a flash of light from the Potioneer, and the particle shots began impacting on the hull.

“Their shields are gone!” Renner confirmed.

“Main cannon, fire!” Romero yelled.

The main cannon let out a near deafening boom. The bridge shook. A single high-power round slammed into the Potioneer, blasting through her primary hull and splitting her clean in two. There was another boom, and then the Potioneer exploded.

“Target destroyed, Captain,” Renner said evenly.

“Good,” Romero said, nodding. “Well done, all. Well done.”

Kraber blinked in disbelief. “I've… never seen HLF take out a potioneer ship like that.”

“You wouldn’t have,” Renner said scathingly, limping past him. “You were with the wrong HLF.”

“No argument here,” Kraber said, nodding. “But… I’ve never even seen the UNAC do that.”

“They do it more than you’d think,” Renner put in. “Kleiner on the Stampede fleet’s got her Prometheus honed down to a perfect killing machine.”

“Their kill count might be ahead of ours, but that’s a statistic I really enjoy trying to beat,” Romero smiled, clapping his hands together. “Alright. Weapons’ station, target the cargo ship.”

“She’s trying to get clear of our weapon’s range,” Renner reported, looking over the weapons’ officer’s shoulder.

“Then don’t let her, Renner,” Romero said seriously. “Big gun. Fire at will.”

“Targeting solution complete,” another officer said. “Firing.”

There was another loud boom, and this time the distant cargo ship suffered an explosion. Kraber saw smoke begin billowing from the blown out engines, and then the cargo ship began slowly descending.

“Plot her angle of descent,” Romero said calmly. “Get Strike’s team and some of the Marines ready for a landing action.” He looked at Kraber. “You’re on the ground team, too, Kraber.”

“You sure?” Kraber asked, frowning. “You not worried I’ll bolt?”

“Bolt where, exactly?” Romero asked with a slightly sardonic smirk. “I might be the only senior person in any organisation who doesn’t want you dead right now.” He raised an eyebrow. “Plus, you’re going to be deployed to an island. Where would you go?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Kraber said sarcastically. “Really makes me feel welcome here.”

“You have phenomenal trust issues,” Romero said bluntly.

Kraber nodded, then shrugged. “Too many murder attempts in college. It really sticks with a man..”

“Anyway,” Romero added, “trust is earned. I’m sure you’re doing a fine job so far.”

“Be nice to meet someone else who thinks so,” Kraber muttered.

Dancing Day

“He wasn’t wrong,” Kraber says. “A lot of people wanted me dead.”

“So you were with the landing party?” Yael asks. “What happened?”

Kraber lets out a sigh. “Well…”

Kraber

“She’s heading for Matinicus Island,” Romero said to the landing team as they geared up. “There’s a small town on the island: ideal for conversion if the survivors on that cargo ship want raw material. You should aim to prevent that and protect the civilians at all costs.”

“Any UNAC on the island, sir?” Lucky Strike asked.

“None that I’m aware of, though that means very little,” Romero said heavily. “But you have to presume your team is on its own.”

“Which can be good, or can be bad,” a Marine with an English accent and a bristling moustache said, a red beret perched upon his head.

Romero nodded. He motioned to Kraber. “Ladies, gentlemen, this is Trooper Viktor Kraber. I believe you’re familiar with the reputation.”

There were scattered mutterings.

“Viktor,” Romero continued. He motioned to the troops. “You know Commander Strike. This,” he said, motioning to the Englishman, “is Lieutenant Marcus Schaefer, former paratrooper.”

He said ‘Lieutenant’ in the British style, crisp and sharp.

“Mr Kraber,” Schaefer said, nodding in a passable attempt at amiability. “I trust you know what you’re doing.”

Kraber nodded.

“There’s Kerkonen,” Romero said, pointing to Louis, who gave Kraber a short nod. “And Prisma.”

He pointed to a white unicorn mare with a mane in various shades of light blue and purple.

“Then there’s Troopers Samuels and Kent,” Romero continued, pointing out two more troops, neither of whom were particularly distinctive (apart from a small scar under Kent’s right eye), “and Specialist Payne.”

Payne was a woman with a fauxhawk and a smirk, a Norse symbol on her chestplate. “Ready for action, Little Vicky?”

“Does EVERYBODY have to fokkin’ call me that?!” Kraber yelled. Fokkin’ typical.

“Well, we don’t have to,” Payne said. “We could call you Vik instead-”

“That’s even worse! It makes me sound like Vic Mignogna!” Kraber yelled.

“Vicky it is,” Payne said.

“Go on,” Kraber said. “Tell the remorseless fokkin’ psychopath you should’ve let drown-” he glared at Kent - “Why it’s a good idea to keep doing it. To his face. I dare you. I fokkin’ dare you. I double fokkin’ dare you, k-”

“Because you’re in front of all of us,” Kent said blandly. “Seems a bit redundant to do it when you’re not.”

Kraber’s eyes bulged, but some small part of him couldn’t help but think: huh. That… is not terrible logic.

“And because you need a little humbling,” Lucky Strike put in from behind him. “Or do you think you’re hard done to, Mr Kraber?”

No, Kraber thought. Honestly, this is better than I could’ve reasonably expected.

“Think you’re being unfairly treated?” Lucky Strike continued, angrily. “Maybe that you deserve us all being really nice about you and how you’ve killed so m-”

“Enough of this,” Romero said evenly, cutting them all off. “You’ve all made your points clear. You all know the mission, Strike. It’s yours.” He looked at Strike. “I expect you all to make it back in one piece.” He lowered his head, and his look became a glare. “I hope you take my meaning, Commander.”

“Don’t worry, Captain,” Strike said evenly. “We’re professionals.”

Somehow, Lucky Strike’s comment made Kraber angrier. But - in an action he had not performed in so long that he could be considered as needing physical therapy - he choked it down.

“I mean what I say, Commander,” Romero said evenly. He looked Kraber in the eye. “As for you, Viktor. Do your job, don’t backchat, and don’t go off the rails. This is your chance to show everyone what you can do.” He leaned a touch closer to Kraber. “This is where you start trying to prove people wrong about you, Viktor. Don’t disappoint me.”

Kraber nodded slowly. “Yes. Sir.”

“One other thing,” Romero said, now speaking so only Kraber could hear. “Strike already knows this, but be careful of any UNAC you encounter.”

Kraber frowned. “They’re on our side, aren’t they?”

“Nothing’s that black and white,” Romero replied. “They’re on our side as an organisation, but individually? You never know if you’re dealing with one who thinks we’re scum just for being HLF or one who’s fought and bled with us.” He smiles. “Which is why I say be careful.”

With that, Romero left the room, and Lucky Strike moved to the head of the room.

They’re going to let me die, some part of Kraber thought. I just know it.

“Don’t worry, Little Vicky,” Payne put in, as though reading his thoughts. “If the Captain says jump, we jump high as he likes. He wants you to come back, we’ll see it happen. Nothin’ personal, mind you.”

“Personally,” Schaefer put in, “I just want this bloody job done with. I have a game of Skype chess going on with a mare called Chalcedony and this whole thing interrupted it.”

“Well, I’m sorry we’re interrupting Lieutenant,” Strike cut him off. “I guess we can postpone saving those civvies and killing those Imperial cunts for when you’re feeling good and ready.”

Payne and Kent chuckled. Samuels stayed resolutely silent.

“So,” Strike continued. “The mission.” She sighed. “Potioneer went up in smoke so there’s no chance that we can retrieve anything, but the cargo ship might have valuable intel. We are going to go, eliminate survivors, act to protect the civilians from ponification if possible, and terminate the Newfoals if otherwise. Any questions?”

“One,” Kraber said. “Are we it?”

Payne hefted her weapon, an ATC-branded, bulky-looking thing. “This baby is ‘it’.”

“Is that a Type-7?” Kraber asked.

“A modded Type-7,” Payne replied. “We call it the ‘Sam Yarrow Special’. Standard Newfoals don’t have shields that stand up to her, they fry their brains trying. Guards take one shot before their shield goes, and then they’re either picked off by the squad or fried by my second shot.”

“Added to that, I’ll be bringing my favourite MOD-3,” Louis said. “If they have heavy ordnance, they won’t.”

“You’ll be on suppression, Kraber,” Strike said to Kraber. “I’m gonna trust you know how to suppress properly, Kraber?”

She put a lot of emphasis on that word.

“That’ll be… pretty difficult with a shotgun,” Kraber said, looking down at his shotgun.

“Then we’ll get you an M249,” Strike said, rolling her eyes. “We will have time to gear up, Mr Kraber. We’re professionals. How about you?”

Kraber took a deep breath. Prove you’re trying to change, Viktor.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said. “Uh, ma’am.”

“I hope so, Kraber, for your sake,” Strike said, a slight smirk on her face. “‘Cos the Captain’s not as forgiving as I am.”

“Thirty,” Schaefer said quietly.

“What?” Kraber asked.

“Star Wars References,” the man replied blandly. “That’s the thirtieth one that either Payne or Strike have come out with since I’ve served with them. We keep count.”

“We don’t get nearly enough rec room time,” Payne added solemnly.

The helicopters sped towards Matinicus Island - a little, scrubby, pine-covered island in the middle of the ocean. Kraber couldn’t quite bring himself to say the assortment of buildings that he saw qualified as a town - they were spaced so far apart, with so many nearby trees, that it looked less like a town and more like buildings that just happened to be nearby.

The potioneer had made an emergency landing on the southern coast of the island, on a gray, sandy beach. Kraber could see confused-looking Solar Empire military, rushing out of the flaming wreck, carrying weapons.

“Evasive maneuvers!” Lucky Strike called over, and both choppers swung to the side, just as a few half-hearted blasts of raw magic lanced past them.

“Don’t you have shields for these or something?!” Kraber yelled.

“It’s still best we don’t get hit!” Strike replied, as they circled towards the harbor - which was currently crowded with people on boats, including one slow, massive sea cow of a ferry. “We might need shields later!”

“They’re evacuating,” Strike said calmly. “Good.”

“That’s not good,” Kraber retorted. “That means there’s something worth evacuating from.”

“Not necessarily,” Schaefer said. “Could just be standard procedure.”

“You’re both right,” Strike said grimly, nodding at Kraber. “Good call, Trooper.”

“Uh, thanks,” Kraber said. “Ma’am.”

Beams and spheres of raw magic roared overhead as the helicopters rushed towards the main harbor.

The closer they got to the harbor, the more it seemed like the Solar Empire troops were only taking potshots at them. A beam of magic from a Sunspear lanced through the air, a full thirty feet from them. Kraber had a sigh of relief, and only then did he realize he’d been holding his breath.

The houses below their helicopter drew closer and closer. Soon, Kraber could distinguish individual shingles on the roofs. On the streets between the houses, Kraber could see a few stragglers rushing for the ferry. A beat-up car that looked fifty years old rumbled towards the ferry, belching smoke from the exhaust. It was just close enough that Kraber almost felt like he could jump on to the roof. As Kraber watched, it rushed by a man in a battered safety vest that looked like it’d been orange once upon a time.

The helicopter drew closer to the ground.

“Move it, people!” Strike called out, as the helicopter’s skids sunk into the grass. The whirling rotors grew quieter by the second. “Without us, this island gets erased!”

She was the first out of the chopper, landing in the grass with both forehooves.

And immediately, all eyes were on her. It wasn’t as if the evacuees hadn’t noticed the helicopter, but a pony stepping out of one? That immediately commanded attention.

“Take a picture, people, it’ll last longer!” Strike called out, irritated, before motioning for the squad to disembark.

The man in the battered vest rushed up to her. He looked a bit out-of-shape, and in a shoulder holster he wore an ancient-looking revolver.

“Oh, thank God,” he said. “It’s you! We were hoping you’d come, with-”

“Yes, it’s us,” Lucky Strike said. “The-”

“And we’re so lucky to have PHL on-”

“Commander Lucky Strike, HLF ID Nought Nought Six dash Nought One Seven One,” Lucky Strike said blandly, with only the slightest of stresses on HLF. “We’re with Ex Astris Victoria.”

The man in the vest blinked. The emotion on his face was not disappointment, not exactly, but he looked more confused than anything. Kraber imagined his thoughts:

A pegasus? The HLF? This kitted out?

Lucky Strike ignored it all the same, instead motioning to her squad.

“Kent, co-ordinate with the evac - keep these people out from under hoof,” she said.

“Ma’am,” Kent replied with an easy nod.

“Payne, Prisma, Kerkonen, Vicky,” Strike continued, giving Kraber a pointed look that practically screamed do not question me calling you this, asshole, “take point and scout out the enemy position. Kerkonen, you’ve got the explosives, so grab the MOD-3. Anything those assholes try to field, anything that looks like it’ll get them off this island, blow it the fuck up.”

“Ma’am,” Payne said.

“Samuels, Schaefer, you’re with me,” Lucky Strike continued. She turned to the man. “What’s your sitrep?”

“No casualties so far, but that won’t last if they get in range of the ferry. Most everyone lives near the harbor, but we managed to get most everyone out of the way when it was clear they were going to make landfall,” the man said.

“Alright,” Strike nodded. “Schaefer and Samuels, you’re on perimeter, help keep this evacuation going.”

“Yes ma’am,” Schaefer said crisply.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and hope you’re supposed to have UNAC here,” Strike said, turning back to the man with a wry smirk. “Local defence of some kind?”

“There’s only eighty-three people on the island, and the UNAC are over in Portland,” he said.

“Which has just had a shitshow happen,” Kraber muttered.

Somehow, he didn’t think Portland was ever truly going to stop haunting him. The alleged defenders of humanity had blown up a city - caused damage on the same scale of the Solar Empire on a good day.

“The assumption was we’d all try to do it,” the man continued. “But…. us? Against an entire potioneer?”

Lucky’s smile stayed on her face, but it became a mite more fixed and irritated looking. “Well, vishante kaffas. Looks like we just became your new best friends. I’ll try to call in support. For now, though, we are the support.”

Schaefer and Samuels walked over to the man in the vest. Meanwhile, Payne motioned for Kraber, Prisma, and Louis to follow.

“This is gonna fokkin’ suck,” Kraber said grimly.

“It won’t be as bad as some,” Louis said from next to him. “Remind me to tell you about Hadley’s Hope sometime.”

“Was it as bad as Prometheus?” Kraber asked.

“I don’t know,” Prisma said. “I mean, I’ve never heard of a-”

“You know, you really have to stop,” Louis said. “The pop culture references are really getting out of hand.”

“Now there are two of them,” Prisma said flatly. Louis gave her a dirty look. She grinned at him.

“That count as Thirty-One?” Kraber asked.

“Only counts if Lucky or I say it,” Payne answered with a wink. “Now get ready, ladies. This is where the fun begins.”

“That was thirty-one,” Louis said, as they headed for a stand of pine trees. “We’ll have to let Strike know.”

“Now keep quiet,” Payne said, as the four of them stalked through the thick pines. Between them, Kraber could see old houses, seemingly untouched by PHL newtech, looking the same as they must have forty or fifty or eighty years ago.

No wonder there was barely anyone here, Kraber thought. This really is the middle of nowhere.

“Prisma, you see anything?” Payne asked.

The unicorn stared through the trees, her eyes glowing softly.

“It looks like they’re using the ship as a base,” Prisma said. “They’ve wheeled a bunch of equipment out. Definitely enough to steamroll the island, but…”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Not what I want to hear,” Payne whispered. “What do we have?”

Prisma didn’t reply. Instead she motioned for them to take cover.

“Crates,” she whispered. “They’re wheeling out big crates. I don’t know what’s in ‘em, but they’re shaking. Whoever is in there, he cannot be good.”

“He?!” Kraber hissed.

“Shit,” Louis said. “You don’t think they were carrying heavies?”

“If they were a consignment meant for Shieldwall’s unit, maybe?” Prisma said. “Bastard always has a few on standby.”

“What do you think they’re planning on, Payne?” Kraber asked.

The fauxhawked woman held her chin, deep in thought. “Hmmm. The nearest Solar Empire outpost would be a couple thousand miles away.”

“And Matinicus isn’t that… survivable,” Kraber interrupted.

Payne glared at him, but she nodded. “Do you mean because of land, or because it’s in spitting distance of the East Coast?”

“Yes,” Kraber said.

“So they know they can’t make a base. My best guess is, they’re going to try to clear off the island first so they can repair the ship or its lifeboats, then make a break for it,” Payne said. “And probably kill off the ferry.”

That would be bad, Kraber thought, and he was surprised at how unfamiliar that thought was.

That… would be bad.

Yeah.

But somehow, this didn’t quite make sense to Kraber. He had no evidence.

I feel like I’m missing something.

“Louis,” Payne said, “remember what Strike said - see anything that looks suspicious, you blow it up.”

“Actually, ma’am,” Louis grinned, “she said ‘blow it the fuck up’.”

“Semantics, Mister Karkonen?” Payne asked, raising an eyebrow and smiling at him. “Really?”

Louis just smiled. “Just making sure we know the degrees of difference, ma’am.”

“What’s our next move?” Kraber asked.

“We need to have a better shot at the Potioneer,” Payne said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a map of the island. “There’s a little hill to the east, overlooking the crash site. We take that hill, get a good look at the island, and neutralize them.”

“Question, though,” Kraber said. “Why aren’t we just calling the Columbia to blow up the wreckage?”

“You’re asking that now?” Louis asked.

“I just went along with it cause I was happy to get off the ship, bust some heads, and get some fresh air,” Kraber said.

“You call this-” Prisma started, “No. God, you need professional help. If you didn’t, you’d clearly be able to see-”

Kraber’s temper flared. Was she fokkin’ mocking him?!

“No, no,” Payne said. “I’d like to see this as a learning experience. See, some of the materials you can get from a Solar Empire ship are worth their weight in gold. To PHL Enchanted gasbag cloth, wood, metal… they use magic for everything.”

“Same goes for Columbia,” Prisma added. “She’s got a lot of stuff that’s meant to have enchanted metal instead of the regular stuff. Hampers her functionality if we don’t have enough.”

“And even if she didn’t,” Payne finished, “we still need that stuff for research, for new tech, new armor. You can make a lot of money out there selling this to us or the PHL-”

Kraber had heard of that, admittedly.

“No, Lovikov never told us that was an option,” he said. “He said he’d rather die than get money from horsefuckers.”

Everyone stared at him.

“That’s like cutting your throat to stop shaving,” Prisma said, so amazed she couldn’t even be disgusted. “I mean, Commander Strike doesn’t like the PHL that much, but even she sells to them.”

There’s definitely a story behind that one, Kraber thought, but he put it out of his mind. She probably wouldn’t tell him, and there were more important things to discuss right now.

“You’ve all praat 'n gat innie kop how that could be the Menschabwehrfraktion motto if you wrote it in Latin,” he sighed.

“We what now?” Prisma asked, confused.

Kraber smirked a little. He liked keeping people off-balance by making them wonder what he was saying, now and then.

“What I’m saying is, you went and convinced me,” he said.

“You’re really telling me you’re that myopic?” Prisma asked.

Kraber ignored the implication as they made their way towards the hill.

“I thought the rumors I was hearing from some of my friends that stayed in touch were bad,” Louis said, breathing a sigh of relief. “No extra cash from salv? That seems like a pretty good way to keep you tied down.”

“I almost wouldn’t have believed it,” Payne said. “I… don’t like to think anyone would be that willing to shoot themselves in the foot in earnest.”

“What if they are though?” Prisma asked.

“Either they’re taking advantage of other people that are, or they’re a flash in the pan,” Payne said. “Not that damaging.”

But Kraber didn’t buy that.

Lovikov wasn’t a flash in the pan. He couldn’t imagine that man not clinging to power with ev-

“Ohhhhh, shit,” Prisma said, staring through a gap in the trees.

“What?” Payne asked.

“You’ll have to see for yourself,” Prisma said. “It’s… bad.”

Now that he had a closer look, Kraber could see that this was clearly not just any potioneer ship. Kraber had seen the photos of Harvesters, of potioneers attacking New York, fought during the Solar Empire’s abortive Blackdog Raids.

It was… bigger. Much, much bigger than any of them. The gasbag was strangely lumpier, and there were additional sections that seemed welded onto it.

And ponies, a few zebras, marching along a defensive perimeter outside didn’t behave like they expected a few fishing boats that might have a rocket launcher or something. They’d set up spears, horn amplifiers, and other weapons every few meters.

The crates Prisma had mentioned sat outside. Milling around in front of them were the most horrendous newfoals Kraber had ever seen. There were megacorns of course - less Unicorns than horse-sized ponies with what might have been oversized Unicorn horns sprouting, not from their foreheads, but from the centre of their spines, the horrific growth tearing the flesh where it met the pony’s coats. Their posture was arched, like a cat, and they seemed to hobble as they walked, yet all the while their faces were smiling. But there were others as well - spitters, recognisable by the ugly, lumpy glands underneath their jaws that looked like a cross between ballsacks and tumours. Then there was a small collection of what might have been regular Newfoals if it weren’t for the lack of eyes in their empty sockets.

“Crap,” Payne whispered. “Are those Shriekers?”

“Shriekers?” Kraber repeated.

“First appeared at Fairport,” Payne explained. “They’re… I don’t know what you’d call it, but they can see even without eyes, and they’re ridiculously fast. Plus, y’know, shrieking.”

“Yeah, figured that part from the name,” Kraber muttered.

“What the hell are they even here for?!” Prisma hissed.

“We’d know if it was an invasion,” Payne said. “This…”

“They might have been a replacement for Cairn’s group?” Louis put in. Payne and Prisma looked at him askance. “What? I read the briefings.”

“Cairn’s group was a platoon of Guard to back up a largely PER and Newfoal group,” Payne snorted. “This… this is more force than fucking Instrument lost at Fairport, and that was a whole damn battalion. It’s…”

“Like they’re planning something big,” Kraber cut in. “My guess is, there’s some base they wanted to transfer them to.”

“Shieldwall, I bet,” Prisma hissed. “Bastard seems to be behind everyone’s troubles these days.”

“Call it in,” Louis suggested.

Payne nodded, before tapping her headset. “Columbia Two to ColumbiaOne, come in, over.”

There was nothing but static.

“Say again, this is Columbia Two for Columbia One, over,” Payne said, looking over at Louis.

Still nothing.

“They must be jamming us!” Payne hissed, lowering her hand. “Bastards!”

“How? They can’t know we’re here,” Kraber said.

“It’s standard procedure,” Prisma said quietly. “Shit, I thought we’d adapted our frequencies to overcome it.”

“Apparently they fixed that up around the same time they bulked out their shields,” Payne said. “Now what the fuck do we do?”

Louis looked at her, then the Imperial column. “Alright, Payne. Get back to the port. We’ll hold them off.”

Payne blinked. “No, I’m not leaving you all -”

“You need to warn Lucky Strike that there’s the best part of a whole Division on this island!” Prisma hissed. “This is bigger than one team can deal with.”

Payne hesitated for a moment, before nodding.

“Good luck,” she said, before turning and jogging off.

Once she was a good distance away, Louis turned to Kraber.

“If you’ve any advice about how to go about blowing this shit up,” he said, “I’d very much like to hear it, Mr Kraber.”

“You’re asking him?” Prisma said almost reflexively, but she shook her head and waved one hoof absently as soon as she said it. “Never mind. It’s Viktor Kraber, of course you’re asking him.”

“I’m more an expert on riddling things with bullets than blowing them up,” Kraber replies evenly, trying not to feel slighted by either her indignation at Louis asking for his advice or her immediate assumption that he knew the most about killing of any of them. Especially since the last part was, unfortunately, true. “But that being the case, I’d recommend blowing up the Newcalf as a priority. I don’t know about ‘Shriekers’, but Spitters and Megacorns die to bullets a lot easier than a Newcalf does.”

“Shriekers are faster than any other variant we’ve seen,” Prisma replied, “but you’re right, they’re brittle as shit if you actually hit them.” She looked at Louis. “You heard our expert, Louis.”

Louis nodded. “Right then. Boom time.”

Kraber watched Louis aiming the MOD-3. The thing was, simply put, enormous, to the point Kraber wondered how the manufacturer expected anyone to carry it.

Was it built for minotaurs or something?

Louis fired.

The first shot roared through the air, trailing fuel. It rammed into a megacorn, which simply evaporated into pinkish and purple mist.

It went wrong almost immediately.

Kraber heard shouts of alarm from the Solar Empire forces arrayed below, watching them frantically rush from place to place, swiveling the sunspears and ballistas wildly in any direction. Beams of sunlight, of raw magic, all lanced out into the sparse forest and fields of the island.

“-apes-”

“-found us-”

Kraber sighted in his M249. It was much lighter than what he was used to, and much more controllable.

The two follow-up shots slowed down, suddenly, unexpectedly, before coming to a complete stop a meter above the ground. Behind Louis’ transparent faceplate, Kraber could see his mouth forming a little ‘o,’ as in:

“OH, SHIT!” Louis yelled.

The two rockets tumbled in midair, and roared back towards their position, roughly.

Nobody gave the order. All Kraber knew was that one second, the three of them were standing there, the next they were pelting north back towards the little half-town at the port, flames licking at the back of his armor.

A sunspear stretched out overhead, grasping a pine tree in fire. It spontaneously bloomed and burst into flame, multicolored flowers exploding out from the bark and branches even as the tree burst into flame.

They didn’t know where they were going. All Kraber knew was that he wanted to be anywhere that the Solar Empire forces weren’t. Kraber let loose a few halfhearted bursts from his M249, knowing full well they wouldn’t hit anything.

Kraber stole a glance over his shoulder. The Solar Empire forces were galloping along behind them. He could see one stallion limping (had he hit a leg?) but that was the extent of the damage he’d done. If they got him, he wouldn’t just be dead. He would be worse than dead.

Kraber heard something bellow behind him. Felt the hoof-falls of something fokkin’ enormous stampeding towards them with all the kinetic energy and subtlety of a chainsaw or an avalanche.

Louis looked over his shoulder. Swung the MOD-3, the heavy weapon shaking.

“I can still make th-”

“FOKKING RUN!” Kraber yelled, his throat raw.

Louis didn’t listen, turning around to fire again. He looked over his shoulder, grasping the carry handle in his left hand, the pistol grip in his lef-

And then Louis took a crossbow bolt to the shoulder. He stumbled back. Kraber took a deep breath, ready to yell, to shoot him in the face to stop the potion from spreading, anything.

No no no no-

Kraber turned around,

Louis stood back up, his grip on the MOD-3 steadying. The body armor had held. Louis picked himself up, aiming the MOD-3 for the next newfoal.

Kraber sighed in relief, his M249 rattling as he sprayed lead downrange. They could do this. They could win.

Just then, Louis took another crossbow bolt, this one hitting a softer, lighter-armored part of his hardsuit. He let loose another volley, but the MOD-3 in his hands sagged a little.

“I’m fine!” Louis yelled. “I’m-”

Obviously, he wasn’t fine.

He began to shake. Kraber couldn’t see what was happening inside Louis’s suit, but he knew.

“LOUIS!” Kraber yelled. “LOUIS, NO!”

“They… fff….. F… bucking… got... m…” Louis wheezed, cracks spiderwebbing across his helmet’s faceplate.

Kraber knew from experience what was happening. Under the suit, Louis’ body would’ve been shaking, and running and dripping like a lit candle. He would’ve been in intense pain. From everything Kraber knew, the process of ponifying was absolute agony.

For a moment, it felt like Kraber was watching Emil there again. Kraber had never heard Emil’s last words. Not as Emil.

But he would hear the last words of one Louis Kerkonen:

“DO IT!” Louis screamed, as a shell from one of the potioneer ship’s salvaged cannons impacted the ground, sending grass flying and leaving a crater. The barrels of the MOD-3 swung towards Kraber. “THEY… WANT…”

So Kraber unholstered the pistol Romero gave him, letting the M249 hang at his side. He slowly walked up to the Ex Astris Victoria member, placing it to Louis’ throa, angling it upwards ever so slightlyt. He vaguely remembered from Lovikov’s lessons that the neck was always the lightest-armored part on people with really good armor.

He fired. The pistol had been set to incendiary, and burned through Louis’ skull.

Louis didn’t make a sound. His body fell to the ground, his helmet rolling off the charred stump of what used to be his lower jaw.

I should really be feeling something right now, Kraber thought, his knees buckling.

But Kraber didn’t look at it. Nothing crossed his mind.

And he grabbed the MOD-3. Aimed one of the rockets Prisma had enchanted for the shambling Newcalf as it struggled towards them. He fired.

There was a moment of almost-silence before the explosion. Gobbets of stuff, red and nasty, landed all around them.

Damn, Kraber thought.

The rest of the Imperials took cover, and at that moment, Kraber made an executive decision.

“We need to leave,” he said to a stunned Prisma. “Now.”

Before she could reply, he had shouldered his weapon and picked her up bodily. She was a lot heavier than he’d imagined, but adrenaline and desperation fuelled him.

Prisma wasn’t limp in his arms. Her limbs twitched uncontrollably as Kraber sprinted across the island.

He stumbled a little. His legs scrabbled against the ground, he pitched forwards…

But he

“GON FIND, APE!” something bellowed from behind him. Kraber assumed it was one of the grotesque mutant newfoals. It sounded like something had taught a bellows to talk, and it came out impossibly deep and twisted, pulling syllables to their breaking points. “DIE, NOW, YOU!”

Kraber stole a quick glance down at Prisma.

And they should be cute, he thought. Who… what fokkin’ varknaaier thought…

“YOU TOO, MONKEYBUCKER!” someone else yelled.

I can’t fight an entire army, Kraber thought. Gonna… need… support….

They hadn’t gotten far enough but it was all Kraber could do to find a hollow to hide them in. There was a tree that’d grown over a boulder, and the root system was just tall enough to hide them both.

Kraber had collapsed against the rock. The little town wasn’t too far, but….

My everything hurts… Kraber thought, panting like a dog.

He looked down to Prisma. The alabaster unicorn was only just stirring, but she was shaking, staring at him in rage.

“You… you killed him,” Prisma whispered. “YOU KILLED HIM, YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

“He was being ponified,” Kraber hissed. “Now shut up or we’re fokkin’ dead!”

That shut her up. She blinked, before letting out a deep, raggedy breath that might have been a sob. Kraber watched her, suddenly aware of how awkward this was. He had been with men and women who had a moment of just breaking - how could he not have? There was barely anyone in the ‘Fraktion who counted as a ‘professional’. Yet for some reason, this pony…

This pony, he realised. He pursed his lips, feeling a sudden wave of… what was it, exactly? Shame? Guilt? How many of her kind have I butchered while they cried? How many of her friends?

But right now, he couldn’t fix that. All he could do - all he could do - was be here for her now. To his surprise, he found himself reaching out and patting her on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “He was… he was a good guy. He deserved better.”

“It… it doesn’t get easier,” Prisma whispered, her eyes squeezed closed. “He wasn’t the first friend I’ve seen go that way.”

“Me neither,” Kraber said, nodding. He thought back - Emil was the most recent example of a friend dying, but hardly the only one. How many friends had died as… as something else?

“Fuckdammit,” Prisma whispered. “Why does this have to happen? What the fuck happened to us?! Why the fuck are we even here?!”

It would become clear that she wasn’t talking about the two of them, under this tree. After some thought, Kraber would realize that she was talking about being on Earth,

“All very good questions for when we’re not in a fokkin’ warzone,” Kraber said quietly. Prisma scowled at him, and he held both hands up. “Look, I get that I’m not exactly brilliant at being reassuring, but if we don’t move, try to connect back up with Strike, we will die here. And you do not get to do that, y’hear me?”

“Why the fuck not?” Prisma hissed. “I’m a bucking ‘gluestick’ to you, aren’t I?”

Kraber paused, swallowing back whatever angry retorts he might have had. It felt remarkably easy.

“No,” he said after a moment. “You’re Prisma. You’re my teammate. And I’m getting you home, if it fokkin’ kills me.”

Prisma paused at that.

“Why?” she asked. “What… after everyone else you’ve killed, what makes me so special?”

“Well-”

Kraber stopped. It’d all sounded so logical at first. But, in all honesty…

“I don’t know,” Kraber said. “I know how that sounds. But… I’ve always gotten the shit end of the stick-”

“Don’t you mean short end?” Prisma interrupted.

“No,” Kraber said. “But when it comes to trust, I’ve never been lucky. People have tried to hurt me ever since I could piss standing up. And the last four years, that’s been… well-earned. I’ve been a kontgesig. There’s no way around that. But…”

“But what?” Prisma asked.

“But in the last month or so, some funny things happened,” Kraber said. “I couldn’t let a pony die. And it was like… everything fell apart, then. Lovikov humiliated me in front of most of the camp. And then I had to desert during the attack on the Sorghum, and when I was at the hospital…”

The words flowed out like a dam had burst.

“...when I was at the hospital, there was this pony who put complete trust in me. Her name was Nebula,” Kraber said. “And you know what she got? She lost a wing. Because she trusted me. I don’t even know if she’s alive.”

He looked down towards Prisma.

“You’re not just another pony,” Kraber said. “You’re my chance to do something right, for once in the last few years.”

Prisma looked at him, eyes wide.

“Oh,” she said. “I-”

And then the world became heat and pain.

Kraber was sitting around a campfire. Around this fire, there sat others - a pair of men in black trench coats and gas-masks, another Kraber who looked almost exactly like Kraber, and a figure in massive, bulky armour that looked straight out of Warhammer.

“We can’t keep meeting like this,” one of the ones in gas masks said.

“Meeting like what?” Kraber asked.

“Like this,” the other him said tiredly. “Starting to become a fokkin’ bad habit.”

“But hey,” the other gas-mask wearing Kraber said. “At least you’re alive, right? Better than us two.” He motioned to himself and the first gas-mask wearing Kraber. “We’ve been dead for years.”

“‘Technically’ dead,” the first amended, at Kraber’s look of surprise. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Better than he’s going to be,” the second motioned to the other Kraber.

Kraber frowned, feeling altogether confused. The other him sighed.

“It’s a long story, chommie,” he said tiredly. “And I’m too fokkin’ old and miserable to tell it. At least you got to spend some time with HLF who aren’t all fokkin’ natural disaster villains.”

“Aren’t what?”

“Also a long story.”

Kraber wet his lips. “So… is it good? Me being with Romero and the Columbia?”

“Fokked if I know, Viktor,” the other-him said. “I lived in a world where the HLF were all scum, the PHL did what the fok they wanted without consequence, and everything ended really, really fokkin’ horribly.” He smirked.

“Really? The PHL doing whatever they wanted without consequence? Like they don’t already?” Kraber asked, rolling his eyes.

“This,” the other-him said, “I’d take this in a heartbeat over what I had. In your world… do the PHL run everything?”

Kraber paused to think about that. “Well…”

“Are they at every level of government?” the other-him asked. “Do they make the laws?”

Kraber shook his head. “Don’t think so. UNAC are, but they technically are the government so…”

“At least where you are, the HLF are more good than bad, the PHL - or is it UNAC where you are?” the other-him asked.

“Technically both.”

“Both then - they get held to account when someone in their ranks is a fokkin’ kontgesig, and there’s a chance in hell that it won’t end all moer for you all.”

“… I don’t want to know, do I?” Kraber asked.

“When did wanting to know or not know matter?” the other Kraber asked. “We still got stuck with this kont anyway.”

He jabbed a finger at the armoured figure, who had stayed resolutely silent.

“Speaking of, kontgesig,” the first gas mask wearing Kraber said, “why the fok are you being so quiet? Normally when you’re here it’s all ‘rarr, my Master will shit in your cornflakes, your toast has been burned, and no amount of scraping will remove the black parts’.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” the figure replied, his helmet distorting his words. “Your doom is already decided, and by Others than me. Your time of reckoning is at hand.”

“Oh, stop being fokkin’ portentous,” Kraber said. “I get that I’m hallucinating or dreaming or whatever, but can I at least have something that has hot women, hotter men, decent beer or all three?”

There was a chorus of laughter at that.

“No such luck, chommie,” the other him said. “But hey, look on the bright side. You’ve got an advantage we don’t.”

“Which is what?” Kraber asked.

“The watchmare,” the armoured figure said.

“The who?” Kraber asked. But before he could get an answer -

When he came to, Kraber almost shot up, feeling a sudden wave of terror. Had they captured him? Was he -?

“Sssh!” a voice hissed from near his head.

A tall grey mare in a battered brown cloak was hiding next to him, crouched among the trees. She had one hoof gently laid on Prisma, whose breathing was shallow, and she was looking over the injured mare with a gentle expression. The fur was scorched off of her.

Kraber couldn’t tell what kind of pony the newcomer was. She was tall, for sure, but there were tall ponies of every race. Then a horn poked out from under her tatty hood, and he realised he was with a Unicorn.

Fok, he thought.

“Who are -” he began.

“Ssh,” the mare hissed again, holding a hoof to her mouth. “You will bring them down on our heads, and while you may have a death wish, I most certainly do not.”

Her accent was unfamiliar - vaguely Gaelic, if you could say that about a pony’s natural accent.

Kraber pauses. “Actually, why do so many ponies sound American?”

“That is a linguist’s nightmare,” Heliotrope says sagely. “Best to avoid it.”

“The better question is why Equestrian Standard sounds so much l-” Kraber starts.

“No no no,” Aegis says. “We do not talk about that.”

The unknown mare looked around, before returning her attention to Prisma. The unicorn’s eyes were widening.

“T… they…” she was trying to speak, her breathing increasingly laboured. “W… we have… we have to…”

“Gently, little pony,” the other mare said quietly. “You’ve fought bravely. Rest now. I will see that your task is done.”

Prisma’s eyes widened fractionally, and then with a final, gurgling rattle, she slumped.

“She’s…” Kraber said, but he couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“She’s gone, yes,” the mare said quietly. She looked up. “And we may join her if we are not quiet and careful.”

“Well we can’t just sit here,” Kraber hissed back. “We have to do something about that Imperial division. They’ll overwhelm the dock!”

“Thank you, human, I am aware of the situation,” the mare said, risking a peek through the trees. “Hm. A single Newcalf remains, but no spitters, and only three Megacorns. They must have been travelling lightly. Or you managed to do more damage than you anticipated.”

“We killed a lot of their heavier gear,” Kraber said.

“Indeed?” the mare asked, looking back at him. “Then you are to be congratulated on your success, despite your losses. You have made both our tasks somewhat easier.”

Kraber frowned at her. “You a PHL operative or some kak like that?”

Now that would be just typical.

A PHL Operative, or God help him, an Agent, meant bad news. Not just for him, but for everyone else, too. Kraber had heard plenty of rumours about Operatives and Agents. Individual Operatives tended to have a lot of leeway - taking on their own missions, often having very little, if any, contact with PHL command. Agents were even higher on the chain, with the kind of pull that a less charitable person might compare to a classic Men In Black kind of vibe. It was the kind of leeway - and utter lack of scrutiny - the Spader HLF wished it had, and the kind that would in all likelihood shatter the Carter HLF in less than a year.

If one was here? That meant trouble.

“Their goals and mine align, but no,” the mare replied, shattering that thought process like cheap glass. “Mine interests are more long-term than theirs, most of the time.”

Kraber didn’t even really register the archaic turn of phrase, so caught up he was in what she had said.

“‘Long term’?” he repeated. “More long term than winning the war? How’s that possible?”

“Irrelevant,” the mare said. She turned to look at him for a moment, before sighing. “There are several ways we can go about this, but few of them maintain mine secrecy.”

“Is that important?” Kraber asked.

“Well, I happen to think so,” the mare replied, frowning. “And while I agree that such things can seem somewhat subjective depending on your point of view… well, let me just say, it is not just ego that calls mine work important.”

Kraber rolled his eyes. She’s definitely some sort of PHL. That’s the ego for it.

“You are still armed,” the mare said after a moment. “I will attempt to draw them off and engage the worst of their forces. You can make it back to the rest of your group by then.”

“Oh, will you really?” Kraber asked, rolling his eyes. “All one of you?”

“Yes,” she replied evenly.

“What, just like that? No prob, Bob?” Kraber said, feeling a wave of incredulousness threaten to break even his extraordinary levels of bullshit tolerance.

“Mine name is not ‘Bob’,” she said shortly.

Kraber snorted. “Oh, sorry. Are there some who call you ‘Tim’?”

“Mine name is not ‘Tim’ either,” the mare said, smiling, “though if you really want to call me that, I would not object.” She paused, and then added wistfully. “I have never had a nickname before.”

Kraber wet his lips. “Phil. I’m going to call you Phil.”

“... why?” the mare asked.

“Because I’ve lost control of my life,” Kraber said, eyes wide and voice unnaturally light.

The mare - ‘Phil’ - simply shrugged. “That, human, implies you ever had it to begin with.” Her expression hardened. “And in mine travels, I’ve learned that nopony - no being - has the control in their life that they think they do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kraber asked.

The mare smiled, but it was a bittersweet smile at best. “I have seen the worst excesses of this Empire. The burning of Adlaborn, the fall of the Tower of Stars… and, of course, what is happening right now across your world. If I had control of mine life, human, none of this would have come to pass.”

“That… doesn’t make sense,” Kraber said. “What does it have to do with you?”

“Everything, and nothing,” the mare said. She shook her head. “Do not concern yourself. I have said far more than was necessary. A bad habit, I suspect - when one has nopony - no being - to speak to, one finds that one has no filter.”

Kraber shrugged. “I mean, I don’t have one anyway half the time.”

I really don’t have control of my own life, he thought.

But the mare just smiled. “Perhaps, then, it is past time we both learned better.”

And then she was gone in a flash of light, and Kraber was alone.

He paused, taking a deep breath, before going over to Prisma.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Really, I am.”

He was actually surprised that he meant it. Only a few short weeks ago, the death of a pony like this would have made him feel a sick sense of… vindication? Even vengeful joy? Now, though, he saw her not as a pony, but as a comrade. A friend - one he’d let down, let die.

Fok, he thought. And suddenly he remembered Nebula. What even happened to her?

We fought together, and… she lost a wing. She probably died hitting the building like that. For me.

Why the fok is it never me? Why do I keep coming out alive while they don’t?

“Of course, Nebula actually survived,” Heliotrope says. “She had to go through months of intense physical therapy to get back to using her new wing.”

“That’s good,” Kraber says quietly.

“You know,” Heliotrope adds after a moment, “that bit about PHL agents being… y’know, allowed to do everything? It’s not quite like that.”

“How do you know?” Heather asks.

“Um, well” Heliotrope says sheepishly. “I actually qualify as an Operative-”

“...How?” Heather says, eyebrows rising.

“Easily,” Heliotrope said. “Not everyone’s some kind of super soldier with no oversight. Some of them are just enforcers, and… since Montreal, UNAC’s been much bigger on keeping an eye on all of us, the PHL and our Agents and Operatives especially.”

“So then why did Kraber think that?”

“For one thing, I was surrounded by fokkin’ trottels who thought the government started pandemics for laughs or some kak, I don’t fokkin’ know,” Kraber said. “Plus, it was before Defiance, and before I actually worked with PHL.” He snorts. “You have any idea how demystifying working for an organisation is? Now I know how much paperwork goes into being an Operative, I’d literally rather suck Lovikov’s dick than be one.”

“Please,” Aegis says. “You’d bite it off if you got close enough.”

“One time! It was just one fokkin’ time!” Kraber sighs.

“Wait,” Heather said, her eyes widening, “you actually-“

“Don’t ask,” Yael says tiredly.

“Alright… so how does something like this stereotype of omnipresent super-soldiers become the public’s impression if it’s not true?” Heather asks, perhaps wisely choosing to ignoring the mental image/mental images. That, as everyone knows, is a survival skill around Kraber.

“Because it’s not entirely a lie, either,” Yael says quietly. “Much as some people might wish it was.”

“Like I said - ‘not everyone is some kind of super soldier’,” Heliotrope points out. “Meaning that the PHL did and does occasionally – well, more than occasionally, I guess – have people and ponies who qualify for being ‘super soldiers with no oversight’, and then some.”

“Like Cobalt Steel?” someone asks.

“Exactly,” Heliotrope nods. “Except some of those guys haven’t always been as… wholesome.”

“You always hear stories of Operatives or Agents who put their troops at risk, or blew up civilian habitats just to get one PER spy,” Yael explains. “The good thing about the Agent and Operative model is that it allows troops to get things done without waiting for backup or confirmation. In an age where PER incursions can spread quickly, that’s a blessing.” She winces. “The bad thing is that it stops there from being sufficient oversight when those troops get it done the wrong way.”

Something about the way she says that indicates that she’s seen ‘the wrong way’ before.

“Lyra was good at picking the right people,” Heliotrope adds quietly. “But obviously her touch isn’t there anymore.”

“I like to think we’re doing okay,” Aegis says.

“Really,” says one man, who’s leaning sitting next to a nearby bookshelf.

“Well… now,” Aegis admits. “Better than we were.”

“We had some bad times,” Spitfire says, nodding.

“Cobalt Steel’s fine, though,” Yael points out. “I don’t think he ever abused his freedoms or position.”

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Heliotrope laughs. “Hey, wasn’t he at -”

“Yup,” Kraber says, cutting her off, “but can we focus on the story at the moment? I simultaneously hate and love non-chronological storytelling, but it gives me a headache when I’m trying to actually tell a story.”

“So what happened next?” Heather asks.

Kraber takes a breath. “Well -”

“Kraber!” Strike yelled as he approached a few minutes later. “What the fuck is happening out there?”

“What do you…?” Kraber asked, looking to Payne. She, along with Kent, Samuels and Schaefer, had apparently finished rounding up the civilians, and were now setting up a defensive position on the dock, ready to protect the ferry.

“I warned her about the Division,” Payne reassured him, nodding. “But then there were a few explosions, and -”

“Where’s Louis and Prisma?” Strike asked.

“They didn’t make it,” Kraber said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Payne averted her eyes. Kent and Samuels had their helmets on, their expressions unreadable, while Schaefer simply closed his eyes.

“You and Lovikov,” Lucky Strike said, “seem to have a gift for being the sole survivor.”

Kraber scowled. “Fok you. I watched two good people die in front of me today.”

Strike shook her head. “Alright, then - explain.”

“We sent Payne back to warn you about the division,” Kraber said, motioning to Payne, who nodded. “Then we tried to hold them off, but…” He shook his head. “Louis… he took a hit from a potion-infused crossbow.”

“Fuck,” Payne swore. “That’s a bad way to go.”

“I… I dealt with it,” Kraber said. “Then me and Prisma tried to retreat, but…”

“You got hit with something,” Schaefer said. “There’s scorch damage on your armour.”

Kraber nodded. “And on me. Prisma… wasn’t so lucky.”

“Well, shit,” Strike swore under her breath. She met Kraber’s eyes. “Any word on the enemy’s strength?”

“As of right now, not sure,” Kraber replied, shaking his head. “Supposedly, only one Newcalf, no spitters, three Megacorns.”

“What about the Shriekers?” Payne asked.

“No word on them, either,” Kraber said quietly. “And what the fok is a Shrieker, anyway?”

“You don’t want to know,” Strike replied, shaking her head. “We were at Fairport, and we wish we didn’t know.”

“If there’s only one Newcalf, that should be fine for the MOD-3 to take out, assuming it’s still in working condition,” Schaefer put in.

Kraber glanced over the weapon. “Looks like it, Lieutenant.”

“That’s something then,” Strike said. She sighed. “Alright, get into positions. I have no idea how the fuck we’re going to hold off what’s left of a division, but it’s not exactly going to be fun.”

This was an understatement of such incredible proportions that Kraber couldn’t help but laugh at it.

“Fun,” Kraber said. “Sure.”

“First platoon, shieldwall!” the lead Guardspony called. A wall of faint opaque light flashed into existence, and Kraber saw the division of Solar Empire forces marching forward in formation. “We have to hold this island!”

Kraber stole a glance over his shoulder. The ferry was far away now, but….

There were boats in the harbor. As far as he knew, there weren’t any weapons on the ferry, and it’d be a slaughter if the guardsponies got to it.

Lucky Strike was the first to react.

“Everyone, start setting up traps, claymores, anything to slow them down till our reinforcements get here,” she said. “Take positions, and hold the line.”

“But what i-” Kraber started.

“Hold. The. Line,” Lucky Strike said. “Kraber, aim for where their hooves are going to be. Buy us some time.”

The Solar Empire forces drew closer. Kraber watched this army of ponies and monstrously altered half-formed things that had once been humans slowly advancing. A Newcalf strode forward, something curiously human in its broad, overstretched face as the crew of earth ponies riding on its back fired off a ballista, in tandem with the sunspear unicorn that manned the main weapon.

For a moment, Kraber saw the lens of the sunspear. Every sunspear platform came with a scope attached, meant to focus a unicorn’s aim like a periscope.

And he knew: They’re aiming right at me!

Kraber lowered the MOD-3 and dashed for a boulder. A beam of light shot out from the sunspear atop the newcalf and lanced through the grass behind him. A pencil-thin line of fire cut through the grass.

His legs pounded against the soil of Matinicus Island. Everything hurt. Everything was-

BURNING!

Kraber looked in horror as he saw the sunspear’s beam cutting into his armor, just above his left shoulder.

(This thing must be shielded!)

Kraber dove into cover behind the boulder, slamming awkwardly into a tree root with his chestplate, bouncing slightly. Ow ow ow FOKKING OW-

His pained ribcage saved him as the boulder exploded above him.

Huh.

Kraber slowly picked himself up. Looked over the shredded, half-melted lump of granite that had saved him.

The unicorn on the Newcalf had turned away from him, swiveling the sunspear towards a nearby house. Presumably, he didn’t think Kraber could’ve survived that much dust.

They’d raised the shields, too.

Don’t think I’ll be able to get a clear shot at the newcalf, Kraber thought.

And with that, the members of Ex Astris Victoria began firing.

Sure would be nice if I had those fokdamned disruptor grenades, Kraber thought, letting loose a short burst from the MOD-3.

The three rockets impacted just a few centimeters short of the shields. The ground shook around them. One newfoal stumbled, another was blown back a foot.

And all of a sudden, there was a gap in their advance. Lucky Strike didn’t have to make the order, everyone simply knew. Every soldier’s fire concentrated in the gap Kraber had created, ripping through the advancing columns of newfoals.

This lasted all of a second.

Kraber fired again. A unicorn collapsed to the ground, screaming in pain, staring at their cracked hooves.

Kraber didn’t waste the opportunity. Within a fraction of a second of impact, he’d let loose another burst of rockets.

Two made their way through the gap. One of them impacted almost harmlessly

Then the MOD-3 ran dry.

Ohhh, fok.

Kraber hadn’t picked up any reserve ammo for the massive weapon. Mentally, he kicked himself.

Then again, we were running away and I would’ve practically had to undress him to get more…

He’d seen enough grotesqueries to know that wasn’t something he wanted to see in his life again. He knew he would - it was an inevitability at this point - but he didn’t want to.

“I’m out!” he called back to Strike.

He heard Strike curse, before she moved up to his position.

“Payne, lay down some suppressing fire!” she called.

Payne brought up her own weapon, the ‘Sam Yarrow Special’, and fired. A blue-purple-pink beam lanced out from the short, heavy weapon, making a curiously high-pitched noise as it ionized the air around it.

It hit the unicorn shieldwall like a drumstick against a cymbal, the shields curiously vibrating, waves of color rushing over them.

Kraber could see uncertainty written on the faces of the ponies advancing - some of them, anyway. The others, the newfoals, wore identical looks of hatred.

“FORWARD!” someone called. “It’s just one monkey with a big gun!”

Kraber watched the unicorns gritting their teeth, staring in shock at the effect of the energy weapon on their shield. But nonetheless, they advanced.

Payne fired again and again. That beam hammered across their shields, making a low thrumming noise each time.

And then-

THOOM

The shields exploded, crackling a car windshield. Kraber switched to his M249, squeezing the trigger like the brake on a runaway bike.

The natural-borns were the first to run as the 5.56 rounds ripped through their number. For a fraction of a second, the newfoals were paralyzed with indecision. Some of them were even rushing towards their own ponies, looks of hatred in their eyes.

Were they going to attack their own?!

AND THEN-

“Break formation!” one of the Empire’s officers called, audible even over the sound of Kraber’s LMG and Kent and Samuels’ rifles firing. Payne fired again, and one of the Imperial ponies simply disintegrated, a charred skeleton clattering to the floor.

“Here,” Strike said, bringing out a bulky magazine for the MOD-3 - it looked like a giant magazine for an AR. “I have two of these. Figured Louis might go overboard, need more.”

“Thanks,” Kraber said, loading the weapon quickly.

He glanced from behind cover at the advancing Empire forces. Between Payne’s Type 7 and the fire from the others, the Empire’s forces had hunkered down. One of the Megacorns, however, was moving up, under cover from a handful of Newfoal militia shieldsponies.

“Surprised they haven’t sent Pegasi in,” Kraber commented.

“Me too,” Strike said quietly. “Maybe they got distracted - there could be something else on the island. Like some militia or something.”

The Megacorns had reached whatever position it had been heading for. The horn on its back was crackling with power.

“Take that out,” Strike muttered to Kraber. “On my signal.”

“Gotcha,” Kraber said, aiming.

“Payne! Shields!” Strike called.

Payne gestured in acknowledgment, and then fired, taking down two of the shielding Newfoals in quick succession. Strike smacked Kraber’s shoulder, and he grinned.

“Boom boom, motherfokkers!” he yelled, and then he fired.

Three rockets shot out, almost in slow motion, shooting towards the Megacorn. The first impacted on the last Newfoal, splattering the poor thing into mush, the second exploded between the Megacorn’s feet, sending it slightly into the air with a screech of what might have been agony. But the third…

… the third shot impacted right on the Megacorn’s horn.

There was a flare of reddish light and Kraber ducked behind cover again as the light lashed against trees, ponies and anything else, breaking rock and tearing up ground. There was a moment of calm, and then Kraber glanced to Strike. She grinned.

“Keep firing!” she called.

“Shooting!” Schaefer called. He popped his head up, firing his rifle in quick, efficient bursts.

Kraber risked a glance. One of the other Megacorns had been obliterated by his one-in-a-half-million shot. The explosion had also put the remaining advancing Imperials into even more disarray than they already were.

“The last one!” Strike yelled. “Payne!”

Payne popped her head up and fired again, the Type 7 first incinerating the flesh of one of the Megacorn’s escorts, before impacting the thing’s skull. There was a flash of light, and the thing staggered, a smoking skull where its obscenely grinning face used to be. It staggered again, actually taking one more step forward, before collapsing to its knees in what Kraber thought of as an almost comical rendition of the falling ATAT from Empire Strikes Back.

“Thirty-two, Payne!” It may not count, but fuck it, Kraber thought.

“I’ll take it!” Payne called back, laughing as she fired again.

“Megacorn’s down!” one of the Imperials called.

“Charge the ‘calf!” another bellowed. “Suppressing barrage!”

A hail of spells shot out from the bunkered-down Imperial soldiers, and more than a few shields popped up, particularly brave Unicorns interlocking shield-spells to advance, small groups of Earth Ponies and Pegasi behind them.

And then, just as the Newcalf started charging, a spell shot out from the trees. The first spell impacted in front of the Imperial column, exploding in a flash of light. Several of the Guardsponies were just gone, empty armour clattering to the ground. More were blasted clear, charred or battered by debris. A second spell shot out, this one impacting the Newcalf itself, and the giant lumbering thing simply disappeared into a puff of ugly smoke.

“WHAT?!” Payne yelled.

The Imperial division was now in complete disarray, and, seizing the chance, Kraber brought the MOD-3 up, firing with even more reckless abandon than he normally did. Rockets ripped through the air, exploding into the grass, shattering trees. One landed directly beneath a particularly large earth pony’s barrel and exploded, vaporizing him.

Strike joined him, the SMGs in her assault you firing wildly. With no formation left, the division of Imperial troops couldn’t bring a cohesive shield up in time, and most of them were shot apart.

A few spells shot in their direction, but they were halfhearted. Wild. One missed Kraber by almost two meters.

He didn’t even flinch.

“We’ve got this!” Kent yelled. “Just keep fi-”

And all of a sudden, Kent screamed. A needle-thin purple beam of magic punched into his arm, and he fell to the earth.

He let loose an ear-piercing scream so loud that Kraber’s eyes teared up slightly from the sheer volume of it. His right hand clasped his left arm, and he lay on the ground, still screaming.

“What the fok did they-” Kraber started.

“It doesn’t matter, keep firing!” Strike called. “We’ve got this!”

They did not have this. There were still enough Unicorns firing spells and advancing Pegasi and Earth Pony soldiers to overwhelm them. Schaefer and Samuels were pinned.

Then a hail of machine gun bullets lashed out from somewhere, followed in quick succession by shots from what could only have been a rotary particle-cannon. And a rotary particle-cannon meant only one thing.

UNAC, Kraber thought.

He turned, eyes widening as he saw a pair of gunships floating in the air behind them, the sound of their rotors only now becoming audible over the din of battle. They both flew with a black and white colour scheme, one with a symbol not unlike a cartoon ghost (complete with what might have been a speech-bubble saying ‘BOO!’), the other with an exaggerated shark face. Behind them flew a troop-transport ‘copter, with similar colours and - for some odd reason - a little Union Jack painted on the side.

“REINFORCEMENTS!” a pony in an officer’s hat yelled. “They’re-”

Kraber switched to the M249 and drilled a short, controlled burst through their head.

The Imperials fell back under the barrage; with their heavy ordinance gone, they had no way of countering the firepower of the gunships. Soon, any that weren’t reduced to splatters of red on the ground were retreating, heading back for the trees, for anything that wasn’t here. Kraber could have sworn a few more were hit by the same sort of spells that had obliterated the Newcalf.

A blissful, ringing silence held over the battlefield, and Kraber let out a deep sigh. It was over. They’d survived.

Holy fok did it feel good.

The transport helicopter landed and disgorged a half-dozen soldiers - pony and human alike - in white-tinged Hardball armour.

Damn, I need me a set of that, Kraber thought absently. The art potential alone on such gear was endless.

One of the soldiers removed his helmet after a moment, looking around with a smile on his face. He had dark hair, cropped short, along with a strong chin and dark eyes.

“Alright, move it out!” he said to his squad. “Hoof, Grit, get your arses in gear and secure the dock. Little Bird’s sending help soon, but you know how these Delta boys get.”

“Sir,” a scarred green Unicorn said with a salute.

“And who’s this?” another soldier asked.

He looked to be one of a two-pony P220 team. Kraber didn’t know much about the PHL’s growing collection of pony-compatible firearms, but he had heard enough about the P2 series to know he didn’t want to hear more. The other pony, an Earth Pony stallion with a nasty scar on his throat, moved ahead, setting up to cover the dock.

“Well, looks like the cavalry’s here,” Strike said tiredly.

The dark haired man noticed them as she said it, and walked over to them. Kraber glanced at Strike, but she seemed completely at ease.

“Good to see you,” the dark-haired man said once he reached them, saluting Strike. He had a British accent, but beyond that Kraber couldn’t place it. “Sorry we’re late - we were in the area on, uh, ‘other business’, so to speak.”

“Right,” Strike said, nodding slowly. “There’s not much left for cleanup here.”

“Always more cleanup than you’d expect in situations like this, ma’am,” the man replied, shrugging. “Anyway, like I said, we were in the area. Better safe than sorry.” He motioned to his team. “I’ve been told to pass on my CO’s compliments to your CO, Commander Strike.”

“I’ll let the Captain know, Sergeant,” Strike replied tiredly. “Right now, I just want my team off this fucking island.”

“I hear that,” the Sergeant said, chuckling. He looked up at Kraber. There might have been a flicker of recognition, if only for a moment, but then he just smiled. “Nicely done, here, trooper.”

Kraber was about to agree. About to say how good it felt to drive them away, and save this island. But…

Louis was dead. Prisma was dead. And who knew what’d happened to Kent’s arm?

Kraber suddenly felt very off-balance.

“Thanks,” Kraber said hollowly. “Doesn’t fokkin’ feel it.”

Elliot nodded. “Never does, does it?” He extended a hand. “Sergeant David Elliot, First Encounter Assault Recon, under the auspices of PHL R&D.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kraber said, taking his hand. “I’m, uh…”

He blinked.

“Have we met?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Elliot said. “Your voice sounds familiar, but… can you take off your helmet?”

“I’d… prefer not to,” Kraber said.

“Ah, I get it,” Elliot said. “The new First Lieutenant we got has a man like that. Still, you do seem… weirdly familiar.”

Wait a minute.

“Dave!” another man - another Brit, judging by the accent, this one a tad shorter than Elliot - said, waving a hand. “We need you. Some prick’s throwing a shitfit.”

“My sympathies on it,” Kraber said. “I’ve had shit officers too, y’know.”

“Are the rumors about EAV really that bad?” someone asked.

“Oh,” Kraber said, throwing up his hands. “Oh, no no no no. Not…” he sighed. “Not like that. I’m new here. I just mean that I had a nightmare of a Captain before I joined.”

“Only question is,” one of the PHL said, “who gets the salvage?”

It was the shorter Brit. He’d taken his helmet off and was looking around ruefully.

“You’re still under Munro, right?” Lucky Strike asked.

Elliot nodded, a grimace on his face. “For as long as he’s successful in keeping Gardner out from under his feet, anyway.”

“I hear that,” Strike smirked. “But I seem to remember he has something of an arrangement with us. Just tell him we were here.”

Elliot nodded again. “Above my pay grade, gotcha.” He laughed. “Funny - so much shit above my pay grade and I’m still here.”

“Aren’t we all,” Kraber muttered. “Plus side, you don’t have to deal with Gardner.”

Elliot raised an eyebrow. “You raise a good point. The joys of that psychological tire fire being above my pay grade, I guess.”

“He’s that much of a terror?” Schaefer asked. “Even to his own men?”

“You have to ask the question?” Elliot replied. He had a pensive look on his face. Almost wistful. “You know... after a few weeks, it might look like the gruff, uptight facade is just that, a facade, and behind it all lies a heart genuinely passionate about America, protecting the innocent, and saving humanity.”

He paused.

“Really,” Lucky Strike started. “Because-”

Elliot held up a finger. “A few weeks after that, you’ll probably realise that no, actually, he really is just kind of… no, not kind of. He’s an absolute wanker under the surface. Simple as. I’ve literally met him once, and let me tell you -”

“Never again,” the entire squad around him chorused. This was clearly not the first time he’d said it. Might not even have been the first time he’d done the speech.

“You were leading up to that punchline, weren’t you,” Kraber said.

Elliot nodded.

“Now we just have an island to double check for spitters,” the green Unicorn stallion said glibly.

Elliot rolled his eyes. “Duty calls, I guess.” He met Kraber’s eyes. “Best of luck out there, mate.”

“You too,” Kraber nodded.

With a final wave at Strike, Elliot put his helmet back on and jogged off, heading to meet with his squad.

“Wish they’d been here sooner,” Strike muttered. “Could have used the help.”

She let loose a burst of indecipherable grumbling. Kraber caught the words “Johnny-come-latelies,” “All the credit.” Yet none of it sounded too angry - and she had talked like she knew these men. Kraber found himself idly wondering when Strike had met them, but he shrugged it off.

Ones who’ve bled alongside us, he thought absently.

“Hey Kraber,” Strike said after a moment. “Question.”

“Yeah?” Kraber asked, looking down at her.

“The spells that disrupted their final advance.” Strike said. “You didn’t look as surprised as I’d expect.”

“Uh…” Kraber said, blinking. “I mean… I was surprised. But… I think I’ve got a pretty solid idea of how it happened.”

“Oh yeah?” Strike said. “So do you wanna tell me who the hell did that?!”

Kraber ran a hand through his hair, his eyes wide. There was only one explanation.

“Phil,” he finally said.

“Phil?!” Strike repeated, nonplussed. “Who... the fuck… is ‘Phil’?!”

“It’s… a long story,” Kraber said. “I’ll explain… fok, we have to write reports, don’t we?”

“Yup,” Schaefer said evenly.

“Then I’ll explain in my report,” Kraber said quietly. “Because fok it, it’s not gonna make sense either way, so I might as well have the chance to formulate my words before I completely fok it up.”

Strike shook her head. “Right, sure, whatever.” She sighed. “Fucking Luna’s wingboners, but I have lost fucking control of my life right now.”

Kraber laughed hollowly. “That, I totally get.”

Aboard Columbia the next day, Romero looked at the report on his tablet with a raised eyebrow, occasionally looking back up at Kraber. He and Lucky Strike had just finished giving a verbal report to back up the written one. She was standing next to Kraber, stiffly at attention.

“An unknown Unicorn - a mare - who didn’t give her name, and who was powerful enough to disrupt the enemy’s advance?” he summarised.

“Uh, yes sir,” Kraber said, frowning. “Is… is her being a mare significant?”

“Only in what it rules out,” Romero replied. “I’ve heard rumours of Unicorns that act against the Empire both here and on their soil, but the one I’ve heard the most about is supposedly a stallion. The only other mares I’ve heard about with that kind of stopping power have been dead for years.”

“Could it be resistance, sir?” Lucky Strike asked.

“The ER are good, but somehow this doesn’t feel like them. Besides, why here? They barely have any presence on Earth,” Romero said quietly. “That’s a question for later, however.”

“If you say so, sir,” Strike said.

“We’ll have to make a note of Kerkonen’s last words,” Romero continued. “‘They want…’, indeed. Cryptic, but we’ve heard similar final pronouncements.”

“Right up there with ‘more about that place, about her’?” Kraber asked.

There was a pause, and Romero met Kraber’s eyes, his own suddenly blazing with fury.

Ohhhh, fok. Me and my big mou-

Finally, the Captain took a deep breath.

“That’s correct,” he said evenly, as though he didn’t know exactly what Kraber was referencing. “Newfoals have a habit of saying strange things - especially when they’re anomalous. Those close to the Newfoal state also have that habit. It’s good to have an eye on it… or an ear on it, in this case.”

Kraber wet his lips. “What do you think it is?”

Romero shrugged. “Evil.” He sighed. “Other than that… you did a good job. We lost two good people, and Kent’s going to lose that arm.”

“Damn Guard zappers,” Strike muttered.

“But we successfully held the island,” Romero finished. “And denied the enemy important assets.” He smiled thinly. “Good work, people.”

“Sir,” Strike said, straightening a little, a small smile on her lips at the praise.

“Sir,” Kraber said, nodding.

“Alright,” Romero said, waving a hand, “you’re both dismissed. Strike, please tell Renner to come speak to me at her earliest convenience.”

“Sir,” Strike said, and she and Kraber both left the office.

As the door shut behind them, Kraber risked a glance at Strike, who hadn't spoken to him directly since the island.

She glanced up at him. Her expression was impassive.

“Good work,” she finally said, nodding once. “Well done.”

A slip of paper floated out of a pocket in her uniform, despite the fact that there was no wind. Frowning, Kraber bent over to pick it up. In scraggly, uneven writing, he read the words Hoppy’s Pub - Section F.

“Consider that some thanks,” Strike said.

And with that she trotted off, leaving Kraber on his own. He half-shrugged to himself.

It’s a start, he thought.

They gave Kraber some leave the next day. Which meant that he had as much time as he wanted, for one day, just to relax.

The night before had been more bad dreams. So he’d decided to lie in his bed for about an hour. He’d spent the rest of the day in the rec room, playing videogames. That’d gone well enough.

And then, late at night, he thought back to the mysterious ‘Hoppy’s Pub’ that Lucky Strike had mentioned. And:

Well, why not?

So he’d headed down into Section F. This part of the Thunderchild-class ship looked almost abandoned - there was exposed wiring everywhere, and spare parts and machinery were scattered everywhere. It looked like this part of the ship was mostly used for storage.

He passed through a room with an assortment of planters under various lights.

They grow stuff here? Kraber thought, turning a corner.

He saw it almost immediately: A dull green door, sitting under a sign reading “Hoppy’s Secret Pub.”

Clearly not that secret, Kraber thought, raising an eyebrow as he opened the door.

He beheld a windowless room full of little treasures from countries before the Barrier ate them up. The walls were papered with signage from other countries, even a few paintings that looked like they must’ve come from other countries. There was no rhyme or reason to the decor, with a railroad sign sitting next to a beaten movie poster that looked like it was from the nineties, and written in Latvian.

“Hey there,” an Earth Pony sitting behind the bar said. “I’m Hoppy.” He smirked. “Actually, ‘Hopping Mad’, but my mother and father were clearly thinking I’d be, y’know. More mad.”

“That’sh right, me first name ish monkey! ME PARENTSH HATED ME!” Kraber said.

‘Hoppy’ blinked. “You’re Kraber.”

“Did the beard give it away?”

“No. The obscure pop culture reference gave it away.”

“None Piece is obscure?” Kraber asked. “Come on, people still talk about how they’re at soup all the time!”

Hoppy shrugged. “It is when you’re an alien from another planet who’s never even seen - aneem?”

“‘Anime’, Hoppy, it’s called ‘Anime’,” one of the patrons of the bar, a man in a white tank top and uniform blue trousers said tiredly. “Fifth time.” He glanced in Kraber’s direction. “He plays it up, the whole ‘clueless pony doesn’t do human culture’ thing.”

“Y’know, I used to play that card,” Heliotrope muses. “Then I realised it was kinda hackneyed.”

“You too, huh?” Aegis asked. “I gave up after they started thinking that I was stupid after I said I didn’t know what Breaking Bad was.”

The rest of the ‘bar’ was sparsely populated. There were a couple of ponies and humans - including Jessie and Biggs - sat in one corner. It was quiet.

“So what’ll you have?” Hoppy asked.

Kraber shrugged. “Something to make me not feel my face.”

“Huh, alright,” Hoppy said. He pulled out a smoking grey bottle. “Friend of mine called Bowman brought me this. Called Stoneale, apparently. Makes you literally shit granite for a month.”

“Four to six weeks,” the man at the bar muttered. “Bad idea. Medical opinion.”

He didn’t look like a Doctor, but who was Kraber to judge that particular metric?

“Alright, how about something less exotic,” Hoppy said. He put the Stoneale away and pulled out a purple bottle. “Rhubarb gin - can go straight, with tonic, or with lemonade. My recommendation is with lemonade because all the yes.”

“Fizz is good,” Kraber shrugged. “But...” he thought for a second. “You have any prickly pear and some tequila? A margarita with some prickly pear might be a nice change of pace.”

“Huh.” Hoppy looked surprised. “Okey dokey. I’ve got just the thing.”

He bent over, turning away, and poured a glass of purplish-pink liquid, before pushing it Kraber’s way.

“What’s the currency?” Kraber asked.

Hoppy frowned. “The currency?”

“For this place,” Kraber said, motioning. “We talking ration slips or what? I’ve done the ‘black market’ thing before.”

“Oh,” Hoppy said, nodding. “I dunno. A story? Captain Romero once told me he frequented a bar where you paid in stories. ‘The Captain’s Table’ or something. Never did tell me where the place was.”

Kraber laughed. Finally, things felt like they made sense. “What story should I tell, exactly? There’s the time I was on one of the Mercy Ships and had to put on a play, there’s the time Defiance had to put on a school play, the time I was in a musical… or the time I apparently got a phone call from my wife’s g-”

“The night surgeon putting on a school play,” one pegasus sitting at a corner table chuckled. “You? Seriously?”

“I… don’t think you’d like to hear the rest,” Kraber said, slowly. “A lot of them end in ‘And then he died, too.’”

He felt like he could’ve said more. Like there was so much he could’ve added. But for once, Kraber felt like he had said enough. If he had to jump through that many hoops, it probably wouldn’t be worth it.

“You’re sure? Cause I’d like to hear about the one where you got Louis and Prisma killed,” a voice asked from behind him.

...Fok.

Author's Note

AN:

Jed: Yes, that’s TCB Galatea. And yes, that’s Spectrum/Reduxverse David Elliot. Because WHY NOT MUDDERKUFFERS. This won’t be the last time either if I can help it. 😂

On a more serious note: as brief as this cameo for TCB Galatea is, it is a welcome one for me. She’s the sort of character that begs a little more elaboration, as whether in SPECTRUM or in Redux, she doesn’t get nearly enough time. Everyone’s always paying attention to the Prime one instead. 😂

For more on Galatea, depending on which of the two “Spectrum” continuities you’re following, there’s Sledge115’s The First Second of Eternity for SPECTRUM (which I recommend for some downright excellent prose), or the Reduxverse’s The Silent Sentinel, which I’m egotistical enough to link to but not egotistical enough to pass judgement on, though it does actually elaborate on TCB Galatea more 😂

19: Shout

Light Despondent Remixed

Chapter 19

Shout

In violent times
You shouldn't have to sell your soul
In black and white
They really really ought to know
Those one-track minds
That took you for a working boy
Kiss them goodbye
You shouldn't have to jump for joy
You shouldn't have to jump for joy
Shout
Shout
Let it all out
Tears for Fears, Shout

“I will use you, or anything else I can, to achieve my mission.”
Captain Gabriel Lorca, Star Trek: Discovery - “Context is for Kings”.

Kraber

They were all staring at him now. Hoppy was frowning, the look of every bartender in the world when trouble was brewing in their establishment. Other ponies and humans had turned as well, every one of them looking right at Kraber.

He turned in his seat to look at the speaker. It was a blue, shaven headed Pegasus mare in EAV Marine fatigues, a scowl on her face as she looked at him. Her wings were flared up.

Pegasus adrenaline response. The thought struck deep in Kraber’s mind, and he shifted in his seat, half ready for her to jump on him. He was already thinking of the best targets: Pegasus bones were lighter than most ponies - breaking her legs or wings (or neck) would probably be simpler.

Then he caught himself. No. No, we shouldn’t - we’re not -

“Well?” she asked. “Cat got the famous tongue of Viktor Kraber? No quips? No excuses? No dumb pop-culture references? You’re not going to say ‘but for me, it was Tuesday’ or make a joke about how that doesn’t even narrow it down?”

That last one especially hurt. Because Kraber’s first instinct actually had been to make a joke about that, but she’d beaten him to it.

Dear Die-ary. I’m beginning to think maybe, just maybe, something is really wrong with me, Kraber thought distantly.

“Come on,” the mare growled. “Bucking come on. Say something, you bucking asshole.”

“Cindy,” Hoppy said from behind Kraber, “maybe you should -”

“Should what?” ‘Cindy’ said. “I’m sure Viktor Kraber will say something fucking hilarious in a minute to make us all forget who the fuck he is, right?” There was something in her tone that felt like she wasn’t just talking about Prisma and Louis now. “Hey, maybe he’ll make a joke about dogs, or reference some fucking movie with that Obi-Wan guy getting stoned! Oh, I forgot! He likes dogs more than people, he’d never hurt a ‘pupper’, so I guess he’s alright now and we can just forget who he is, what he’s done, what he did to Louis and Prisma the fucking second our backs were turned!”

She turned to look at the crowd in the bar, none of whom looked comfortable about what she was saying.

“Hey, they didn’t find her right?” ‘Cindy’ asked. “Maybe when they do we’ll find her eyes gouged out and her hooves missing, with the words ‘you’re fokking welcome’ carved into her bucking flank, huh?” She turned back to Kraber. “That about right? Or maybe, just maybe, you just scalped her and unmarked her like you did that family at Point Echo.”

That had been years ago, now, but Kraber remembered. He remembered the look of terror and helplessness in the eyes of the father as he watched his daughter die, the blood spilling from her throat. She couldn’t have been older than twelve. Maybe younger, it was hard to tell with ponies. The mother had screamed, kicked, screeched, even as he stuck the dagger into her throat. She’d head butted him so hard he’d cracked a rib as he held her. Lovikov had laughed, said to keep her scalp on a wall as a trophy and a memento ‘of how much spirit she’d shown’. Bastard probably still had it somewhere.

The father… Kraber could see his eyes now. Staring at Kraber with the same haunted look Kraber had seen in the mirror a million times. He had done that to that father. If he hadn’t gutted him there and then, that stallion might have come after him with the same vengeance he’d had towards Pinkie Pie.

Kraber could feel it sinking in, now. The hollowness of himself, his cause, everything he had been and done for years. His everything. Why had he killed that family, and spared another? What had made that father, that mother, that daughter, worthy of death, and the other worthy of sparing? Would he ever really know?

‘Cindy’ wasn’t done. If anything, Kraber not speaking was just galvanising her.

“Am I the only one who notices how phenomenally INSANE we’re being right now?!” she asked the crowd. “Doesn’t anyone else notice how this is a bad idea?! Am I crazy?!”

A hand went on Kraber’s shoulder. The man who’d been next to him looked suddenly sober and serious.

“Walk away,” he whispered. “I mean it. You’re going to kill her if she keeps going.”

Later, Kraber would think that the first thought Kraber should have had ought to have been something along the lines of ‘she’s the one shouting, and you’re worried about her safety?’

But of course, he didn’t think that. It never even crossed his mind.

I am?

It took him a moment to realise. Oh fok. He’s not actually wrong. How many people have I killed in moments just like this?

Then he realised something else. The mare talking to him like this was a Pony. She knew the reputation. She obviously knew the reputation. She was spouting off every major trait he was known for, referencing things he hadn’t just done, but been proud of.

She expects me to kill her, he realised. And in that moment, everything he was crystallised. Everything he was, had done, could do, everything that he had become and built himself up to be, crystallised into a single realisation.

They’re waiting for the moment where I go off the rails, he thought. They’ve read what I’ve done, they’ve heard the stories. Are they all scared?

Why the fok shouldn’t they be? Wouldn’t I be, some maniac with a penchant for scalping people, gouging eyes out, murdering everyone who looks at me funny, starts working with them on their ship full of fokkin’ guns and crazy shit? Surprised no one’s fokkin’ lynched me.

He hadn’t noticed until now, but ‘Cindy’ was crying. Maybe she had been from the moment she’d started speaking. Maybe he’d seen what he wanted to see when he’d seen the scowling: an angry gluestick that he had to be ready to ~~kill~~ take down.

“Aren’t you going to say anything, you bucking coward?” ‘Cindy’ asked, her tears spilling even as she grinned almost ferally. “Nothing at all? What the buck is your defense going to be? I definitely committed all those documented atrocities, but I definitely didn’t kill these two when I was the only witness?!”

Kraber picking up his drink and downed it. “Yeah.”

He stood up. ‘Cindy’ flapped her wings once, bringing herself to matching height, and hovered there. For a moment, he met her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

‘Cindy’ blinked. Her eyes widened in what might have been shock, or horror, or a dozen other emotions.

“You’re right,” Kraber said after a moment. “I did a metric fok-ton of horrible things. It’d be pretty in keeping if I had done something to Prisma.”

“But you didn’t,” Hoppy said from behind him. “Right?”

There was a plea in his tone. Kraber suddenly realised that every one of the ponies, especially, was staring at him apprehensively.

Wouldn’t you? a small voice asked him.

“No,” Kraber finally said. “I tried to save her. I just failed.” He sat down, not caring that ‘Cindy’ was now looming over him. “I think… I think I don’t wanna be ‘in keeping’ with myself. Not the guy you’re talking about.” The father’s eyes, staring with that dead look that promises revenge for every last thing. “Never again.”

There was a moment of silence. Kraber closed his eyes. Then he felt something smack against his cheek, warm and wet. He opened his eyes, reached a hand up - spit.

‘Cindy’ was trotting out.

“I don’t know what the fuck you did to convince the Captain,” she said over her shoulder, “but you’re running out of time.”

There was a collective moment of tense silence, and then Kraber sighed, turning back to the bar.

“Can I get a cloth?” he asked Hoppy.

“Sure,” Hoppy replied. He grabbed a washcloth and gave it to Kraber, a sympathetic smile on his face. “Sorry about her.”

“Don’t be,” Kraber said. “You know who I am. You probably know better than me. I’ve let myself fokkin’ forget.” He chuckled weakly. “Frankly, I’m surprised ponies or people who think like her haven’t shivved me in my sleep.”

“Christ,” one human said. “Don’t tempt fate like that.”

“I reckon they know what Strike or the Captain would do if they did,” Hoppy replied. “We’ve had vigilante justice in EAV before. Never ends well for anyone.”

Kraber had made the decision that he loved Romero’s office. It reminded him of a pub-

”How predictable,” Verity sighed.

“Hou jou bek.”

-he and his old college friends had frequented. Allegedly due to the owner foreseeing that it would be nostalgic soon enough, it’d hadn’t been redecorated since the eighties, so it’d gone from trendy, to slightly-out-of step, to a dinosaur, to trendy again. So there was a sort of timeless feel to it, a sort of… jaded tranquility.

Romero’s cabin felt similar, in a way. He’d decorated it with several paintings, or facsimiles of paintings. One or two obvious ones. One or two battle scenes. One or two that looked more modern. One facsimile (or at least Viktor hoped it was a facsimile) of Van Gogh’s ‘self-portrait with bandaged ear’.

And there was a comfy couch sitting in one corner, as if to observe it all.

“You de-escalated,” Romero said, sounding as if he couldn’t quite believe the words coming from his mouth. “You de-escalated.”

“You don’t have to sound that surprised,” Kraber muttered, even though he was frankly still surprised at himself.

“It’s not just surprise, it’s happiness,” Romero said. “I’m glad. It’s a sign of progress.”

“What’s the point?” Kraber asked, staring at Romero’s spare tablet. Romero had recommended some article before the upcoming meeting, but Kraber hadn’t looked it over yet. “It failed anyway.”

“It’s still a huge step forward for you,” Romero said.

“Didn’t feel like one,” Kraber said. “Besides… she had a right to be scared of me. They all do. Not six months ago I was murdering people just for looking at me funny.”

“Try not two months ago,” Lucky Strike muttered.

“So in the end,” Kraber said, “The problem is optics.”

“This is rich,” Lucky Strike said, “Coming from you.”

“But am I wrong?” Kraber asked.

“No,” Romero allowed. “I suppose you’re not.”

“You said it yourself,” Kraber said. “The Front has a serious image problem that is mostly my fault.”

He switched to another article. It was titled:

A Nervous Energy
By Lewis Hauser
"The election of President Jack B. Davis was a watershed moment in the American political system. The country - in fact, the world at large - breathed a sigh of relief as republican frontrunner Donald Trump lost the election. Some, such as Dreher, identify it as a crippling blow to American conservatives, as the bloc once so united in opposition to president Barack Obama found itself losing its momentum. It's surmised that without the emergence of Equestria, he could never have been elected. While the other two candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump, were too entrenched in the political strategies they'd formulated years before, Davis focused heavily on outreach and a plan to welcome the new arrivals. Various political theorists have cited Davis' election as a blow to fascism... but neither Davis nor the Conversion War ended the division facing America. At the date of publication, this division is reaching a fever pitch, liable to cause a dangerous blowout in the next two years...

“...For all your faults,” Lucky Strike said, “You’re not directly responsible for all of it.”

“Isit?” Kraber asked, raising an eyebrow. “Could’ve fooled half the ship.”

“Hey,” Lucky Strike said, “That’s still a step in the right direction.”

Kraber grumbled. “If you insist. Why am I here again?”

“Among other reasons?” Romero retorted. “Because your word may yet carry some weight in Defiance.”

“I’ve been pretending to be dead for awhile and working with you,” Kraber said. “I doubt that. There are people there who would stab you in the front as soon as look at you. I’d know, I am one of those people.”

“But not everyone,” Romero said. “An entire town, along with their agents in the North Country, can’t be so irredeemable as to be a complete write-off to everyone. I believe that, if you understand our positions, not only could this benefit you… but you could serve as an intermediary, eventually. Pull part of Defiance’s base out from under Lovikov, and save us from having the U.S government use it as a stepping stone to crush us.”

Kraber looked up from the article. Stared at him for a few seconds.

“Are you just making this shit up as you go along?” he finally asked.

“Excuse me?” Romero asked, a note of irritation in his voice.

“I feel like every time we talk, you’re revealing some new plan or some new way to turn things to your advantage,” Kraber said. “Fok, how do you keep all this straight without having an aneurysm?”

“How did you manage to go through medical school, be an actor, star in a film, learn how to ski, and be a father over the course of about four years?” Lucky Strike asked.

Kraber opened his mouth to reto-

“…Touche,” he admitted. “But for the original point. It’s entirely possible I had some of the hydroponic ganja that totally isn’t allowed on the ship, but did you just ask me to conduct negotiations? Do you know what happened last time I had to settle a hostage negotiation?!”

“It was excellent marksmanship,” Romero admitted. “And I’ll admit. I wish to heaven I had Spader or even the good Reverend to help me out here. But you’re what we have, and you’ve got one key advantage. You know these people.”

“Bold of you to assume that knowing them is the same as being able to make a difference,” Kraber said.

“And bold of you to assume that just because I only just told you a plan that means I only just came up with it,” Romero retorted. “Frankly, and forgive me if this sounds cold, but it’s an old plan - I’m just replacing men like Kerkonen in it with you.”

“I think that’s a fokkin’ dof idea, sir,” Kraber said.

Romero’s eyes narrowed. “It’s what we have, Viktor, and-”

“Captain,” Lucky Strike said. “Even if that was insubordination-”

(I mean, it probably is, Kraber thought, but what the fok is my rank, anyway?)

“-he’s not wrong about how that at least sounds,” Lucky Strike said. “But he’s wrong about the goal. We’re not trying to bring people like in, we’re trying to subsume people like you and bring you around to our goals.”

Romero nodded. “Quite right.”

There was a pause.

“Have you finished that article?” Romero asked.

Kraber nodded. It’d been a fairly interesting read.

“That,” Lucky Strike said, “Is what this meeting is about. Romero gave you the, ah… ‘ pointless, stupid war, against the stupid leading the insane or the desperate’ line, didn’t he?”

“Aweh,” Kraber said.

“I may not like it. But you’re the ship’s foremost expert on Lovikov,” Lucky Strike said. “I’m guessing we don’t need to reiterate the same points - we already know them. So tell me: Do you honestly, genuinely believe Lovikov would wage war on humanity?”

“Well-” Kraber started.

The words died in his throat.

First, he’d wanted to say yes. Then he’d second-guessed himself. Then…

“He absolutely would, if Portland is any indication,” Kraber said.

“What about some of his contemporaries? Galt, for example?”

Kraber snorted. “Who even fokking knows what Galt will do? He’d gas a town of innocents if he thought it’d gain him something down the line.”

“Then the situation is dire. We need to take the legs out from under this movement, and you’re our best chance to do it,” Romero said. “And you’re frankly higher profile than most men from the other side of the Split that I’ve worked with.”

“Wait, if it’s an old plan, why didn’t you implement it before?”

“Because he thought you would be there, and kill our guys,” Lucky Strike said pointedly. “That doesn’t seem to be a problem now. Unless you got cloned.”

“God save us,” Romero muttered. “That would be… awkward as hell.”

“You’re telling me,” Kraber said, eyes wide. “You’ve seen my fokkin’ self-loathing issues. Imagine I had someone to take them out on who was actually me!”

“...That’s why he gets to oversee the summit?” one other guard was asking. His nameplate read ‘KAMINSKY.’ He was wearing a helmet with a transparent faceplate, exposing a handsome, sharp-featured face with a thick mustache and spectacles.

Kraber had seen him at the synagogue on the Challenger. He hadn’t been happy about seeing him there before, and it didn’t look like he would change his mind anytime soon.

“He’s heard the whole explanation twice,” Lucky Strike said. “So…”

She sounded just as annoyed as KAMINSKY. Kraber had looked Kaminsky over, and he’d known - immediately - that Kaminsky hated him and wanted him off the ship, dead or alive.

He’d been very subtle about it, though. Maybe it was Kraber’s knowledge of body language. His ability to read people’s tones.

Or maybe it was the fact that Kraber had been in the mess hall, eating crabcakes, and heard Kaminsky saying “I hate that bastard and want him off the ship, dead or alive.”

Could’ve been anything, really.

“...Yes,” she said. “Yes, he does.”

“Fine,” Kaminsky said. “But you do anything funny, anything at all, and I swear to God-”

“He’s in the middle of an HLF summit, surrounded by the most important leaders, one of whom carries around a particle gun,” Romero said.

“Besides, nobody could be that stupid,” Lucky Strike said. “Right, Kraber?”

There was a dangerous edge in her voice.

“...Right,” Kraber said.

I never know how to feel around her.

Romero and Kraber were heading for Conference Room Two, which, according to Romero, was ‘one of my personal best’. Kraber didn’t know who was onboard, but it had to be impressive if Romero was putting on a show.

Before they reached the door, Romero stopped.

“Put this on,” he instructed Kraber, handing him a gas mask from the wall.

Kraber looked down at it. “Why?”

Romero rolled his eyes. “Because we’re going to a meeting with a cadre of elite HLF officers and staff from the Spader loyalist side, and I don’t want them knowing you’re onboard.”

“What, you ashamed of me, Dan?” Kraber asked with a smirk.

Kaminsky grumbled.

“First name basis after a week?” Heliotrope asks.

“It was just a couple of times, I haven’t really spoken to him much since,” Kraber replies. “Sometimes, we squad up to play Apex, but…”

“Is that the guy that keeps playing Lifeline?” Soarin’ asks.

“Yeah,” Yael says. “Granted, sometimes I do that.”

Romero rolled his eyes. “Kraber, just do as I ask, please? There’s enough at stake without us having awkward questions from people I respect and have to work with. There’s a voice modulator in there that should make you… less recognizable, at the very least.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t just muzzle me,” Kraber said.

“Don’t tempt me,” Kaminsky grumbled. “I’m begging you, Cap. Let me do it.”

“That would be counterproductive for a number of reasons,” Romero said. “I know I can’t stop you from talking. Just don’t do it too much, the modulator might…”

“Crap out?” Kraber asked.

“Exactly,” Romero nodded.

Kraber sighed. “Fine. Just so you know, though, I’m not fokkin’ cool with this. My face is my best feature.”

“On that,” Kaminsky said, “We agree at least.”

“Have you seen my cheekbones?”

“They’re alright.” Romero snorted. “Whatever you say, Kraber.”

“Alright?!” Kraber sighed. “Philistines.”

Kraber slipped the mask on, and the two of them walked into the conference room… and Kraber felt a weight in the pit of his stomach.

Sitting around the conference table were a few of the most famous (or infamous, depending on your opinion) members of the Spader-Loyalist HLF. Maximilian Yarrow himself was sat there: shaven headed, bearded, tattooed, a long green overcoat slung over a tank top and cargo trousers. Next to him was stood a blonde haired woman in bulky Armacham-labelled battle armour, a heavy assault rifle that looked suspiciously like some kind of modified ATC laser rifle in her hands. Lucky Strike was there, too, a frown on her face. There were others, too - most of them in Armacham armour, either labeled with Spader’s old ‘1st Skirmishers’ logo, or else daubed in a variety of runic symbols that looked Norse. There were others, too, that Kraber didn’t recognise: a couple of men in Corsair armour, old Hardball sets painted black with red swords daubed on their shoulders. At the back, there was a youngish man in camo fatigues, his arms folded as he looked around the room furtively. An HLF militia armband was around his upper left arm.

The Reavers. Kraber felt the urge to just walk out. The Reavers were… well, if the Spader-Loyalists had batshit people, Yarrow’s Reavers were them. Kraber had worked with them once, and during that time he’d caught a member of their group, a rather good shot called Yorke, trying to rape a pony refugee. At which point, Kraber shot them in the dick. He could still remember the exchange beautifully.

“Come on, you’re just like me, I’m sure you’d-

“FOKKIN’ KONTGESIG!” Kraber had roared, and shot him in the knee.

” I thought you shot him in the dick,” Vinyl said.

“I kneecapped him for a clearer shot at his dick,” Kraber said.

Yarrow’s response, however, hadn’t been nearly as pleasant and cordial as that. In fact, it had given Kraber genuine pause.

“You don’t ever. Ever. Let men like that serve with you,” Yarrow had said coldly, as his men did their work on Yorke. “You don’t stand for it. You don’t slap them on the wrist. Not in this kind of outfit, not in this kind of war. You end it, and you say ‘this is what happens when you cross the lines of human decency’.”

As far as Kraber was concerned, that particular message was… well, not overkill, but to misquote Rogue One, definitely more of a manifesto than a statement.

When the Reavers had posted the video online, along with a warning about war crimes and how the Loyal HLF dealt with them, Lovikov had just laughed. ‘All that for some gluestick’s honor’.

Should have been a sign right then, Kraber reminisced. Fok. How did I… let myself stay submerged like that?

And then there was someone else he recognized - a vaguely brownish man with a massive handlebar mustache and an utterly massive widow’s peak. Everything about his features seemed exaggerated, from his long, wide chin to his curiously flattened nose, and the rumor was that he had acromegaly.

Dallas Gennaro.

He led the Freebooters, a unit of (mostly) HLF that’d fight for whoever paid them. PHL, rural towns, even some of the prefab settlements like Blink that the U.S government had built to house the refugees of an entire continent. But never PER or Solar Empire. They weren’t monsters, after all.

Something was profoundly strange about his inclusion. Romero, from all indications, preferred to keep a tight, professional ship. So why was a mercenary here?

“Daniel,” Yarrow said to Romero with a curt nod, beginning the meeting. “Good to see you.”

“And you, Max. Glad to see you recovered,” Romero said with an easy grin. He nodded at the blonde woman. “Sam.”

‘Sam’ just nodded back.

Is that… Kraber narrowed his eyes. Samantha Yarrow? Isn’t she PHL? Fok’s going on there?

“And… Gennaro,” Romero said. “Good to see you again. Been a long time.” He glanced at Yarrow. “I assume you brought him?”

“That’s right,” Yarrow said.

“Well, I’m glad you could make it,” Romero said easily, sitting down. Kraber stood by the door, trying not to feel intimidated that Yarrow was here: when they had last met, it hadn’t exactly been the best of times, even when the split hadn’t been such a formalised, violent thing.

“We were expecting Kevin,” Yarrow said evenly. “But he couldn’t make it. Pressing business in New Jersey called him away.”

“Of course it did,” Romero said quietly. He sighed, leaning heavily on his hands. “Alright, so. We’re here to talk about two things.”

“The transmissions, and whatever the fuck Cairn was doing in Hadley’s Hope,” Samantha put in.

“Also,” Yarrow put in, “We need to talk about Lovikov.”

Romero chuckled. “We probably do, don’t we. Times like this, I wish Gregor had just got that prick shot somewhere.”

Kraber nodded, and he wasn’t the only one.

“Helmetag wasn’t that sort of man,” Yarrow said stiffly. “Which would normally be a good thing, but in this instance…”

“In this instance,” Romero finished, “it leaves us with the unfortunate circumstance that while we’re trying to do our job, the PHL and UNAC are going to be worried we’re like Lovikov.” He clicked his tongue. “There’s an old truism that bad rep goes further than good rep. Startin’ to wish it wasn’t a truism.”

Kraber nodded again.

“So,” Romero began. “Hadley’s Hope. What happened?”

“Commander Cairn took the town,” Samantha began. “Seems like he started with ponification - the usual PER slash Imperial combined gig, rounding up the citizens. Then…”

“Then what?” Romero pressed.

Samantha shook her head. “You… you ever played Doom?”

“Yes,” Kraber said.

Samantha motioned at him. “Well, like that. Blood on the ground. Smears of weird writing everywhere. Like… like someone had gone mad in that town. The rump of Cairn’s forces were holed up somewhere, but their iconography was weird. Like they’d gone…”

She trailed off again.

“Gone rogue?” Romero asked.

Sam nodded once.

It’s the beginning, Viktor, something whispered in Kraber’s ear. He turned, but there was no one else in the room.

“I’ve seen some of the Ferals doing that,” Gennaro said. “Spooky shit.”

“Strike,” Romero said, looking at Lucky Strike, “you were seconded to Sam’s unit at the time. Would you concur with her assessment?”

“I would, sir,” Lucky Strike said, nodding. “I don’t know what Commander Cairn’s forces were doing, but it was…” She swallowed nervously. “It was not standard operating procedure for their unit or their force’s type.”

“Standard operating procedure does change, Strike,” Romero pointed out.

“Respectfully, Captain,” Strike said, her tone quavering slightly, “not like… not like that.”

What the fok happened in Hadley’s Hope? Kraber thought to himself.

The beginning, Viktor, the whisper said again.

“So, uh… what did happen in Hadley’s Hope?” Kraber asks.

Yael and Heliotrope share a glance, neither of them looking particularly happy.

“You don’t want to know,” Yael says after a moment.

“I seriously have to wonder at this point,” Heather said, “If they named it that as a cruel joke.”

Kraber looked over to her, chuckling slightly. “Right?!”

“Like ‘hey, we knew this place was doomed anyway, so we named it Icarus,” Heather said.

“Did they seriously name a place that?”

“That’s concerning,” Romero said quietly, folding his hands in front of his mouth. “Very concerning. A unit of PER and Imperials going rogue? You’d think the brainwashing of the Geas would stop them, or their political officer -”

“We, uh, found their political officer,” Samantha cut in.

Romero moved his hands, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

“Dead,” Samantha continued. “Mutilated. Tongue cut out, some sort of runic symbols carved onto him. Unfamiliar ones too.”

Romero sighed. “Well, that explains that.”

“Why… how the f-fuck would that happen?” Kraber asked, affecting a moderately okay Boston accent.

Samantha shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“It’s not unheard of, not entirely,” Romero said, his voice quiet, “but it’s rare. Very rare. I can only think of a handful of circumstances where any soldier of the Imperial Guard has spontaneously broken the Geas. One is Heliotrope with the PHL -”

Dancing Day

“Wait, he knows about that?!” Heliotrope exclaims.

“Of course he knows about that,” Yael says heavily. “He’s a mysterious R&D guy. It’d go against trope if he didn’t.”

“Besides,” Vinyl adds, “Those files are public. You don’t need much in the way of clearance to look them up.”

“You’re oddly calm about this,” Heliotrope says.

“If it was a choice between Romero bringing it up and Lovikov, who would you pick?” Vinyl asks.

Dancing Day shrugs. “It’s a good point.”

“How do you accidentally break a Geas, anyway?” Aegis asked.

“Easy,” Heliotrope says. “I… look. I’ve always been used to doing my own thing. When someone tells me to hate the race that created Deus Ex or Prey-”

“The one from 2016?” Kraber interrupts.

“That’s the one!” Heliotrope crows.

“Bethesda really screwed Human Head over with that one,” Yael said.

Everyone turned to look at her.

“I play games too,” Yael said bluntly.

“I say, ‘why?’” Heliotrope said. “I… I saw ”

“ - and I’ve heard of isolated, similar cases,” Romero continued. “That said, psych evals of Heliotrope have been little help because she claims to have done it by accident. None of these incidents are particularly helpful to this case, though. That was individuals. Not units.”

“So… what?” Kraber asked.

“So, we have a rogue Commander on the loose planning something that has Jim and Hiro Mifune poking around my men,” Yarrow put in. “And when Hiro Mifune is poking his head around, you know something serious is about to happen.”

“The Mystics?” Romero asked, frowning.

“Mystics?” Kraber repeated.

Kraber could see Kaminsky smirking at that.

“Mystics?” Aegis echoes.

“Long story,” Yael says sighing, “and I don’t get half of it.”

“I almost have to wonder if they get half of it,” Spitfire said.

“Hey, I was about to make a joke about that, but you beat me to it,” Kraber said, chuckling a little.

“Yeah,” Yarrow said, frowning. “Some of them picked up a survivor in Nipville and gave him to us. He’s a good kid. But they’ve been tagging with him ever since.”

There was a long pause, and the kid in the militia armband shifted where he stood, visibly uncomfortable.

Well, there’s that kid, Kraber thought.

“Well,” Romero finally said, “that, unfortunately, is just one of our problems.”

“The transmissions,” Yarrow said quietly. “What do you have?”

In reply, Romero motioned to Lucky Strike, who brought a tablet out of her saddlebag and placed it in front of him. He tapped a few commands, brought up a video with a few of his officers in it, and pressed play.

“We recorded this,” he said, “about three days ago.”

The video showed the officers huddled around a radio, which was spitting static. After a moment, voices could be heard.

“Det finns ingen tid. Ei ole aikaa. There is no more time. Ko si aye. O ko le daaju lati ja. Jon imkniecca skončyć. yaseaa li'iinha' dhali-”

“Is anyone out there? Are we the last ones left alive?” another voice cut in. “This is the last Ark. Is anyone left, we are begging you, respond, ple-

“'iinha' hdha lah. qabl fuaat al'awan. Circa à dà un spugna in u vostru cori di corpu.”

“I speak Corsican,” one man spoke up. Kraber didn’t know him, had never seen his face. “Last part was ‘He seeks to drive a spear into your beating heart’ but I can’t even guess what that means.” He wrinkled his nose. “Pronunciation and accent were abysmal, though.”

“Die hoeke sny ons wanneer ons probeer om te dink!” the radio continued.

Kraber’s blood ran cold at that. ‘The angles cut us when we try to think!’

“Tá gach uair... agony. Bolest je to všechno, tady. Všechno to bude. As we are, you will be. If you do not ARRETE, to skončí, stöðva það áður en það er of seint, make it stop, Ēṭā khuba dērī āgē ēṭi bandha karuna, make it stop, MAKE IT STOP, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE IT STOP, pabeidziet to, pirms tas beidz jums, WE BEG OF YOU-!”

It burst into static, and then:

“They took our eyes. And yet we see. Gure gogoak hartu zituzten. Eta oraindik uste dugu. They took our hearts, and yet they swell with love for you. They took our ears, and still we hear. They took our legs, and yet we want to run, run to anywhere else where the pain isn’t everywhere, where it is not Unser Geist, unser Körper, unser Leben-!”

It cut out again. There was only static.

“...More English this time,” said the kid in the fatigues.

“Dear God,” Kaminsky said. “That’s the stuff of nightmares.”

“Heard those before,” Kraber said. “I… a lot of it is in different languages. Some of it sounds like...

“We’ve counted eighteen languages at least,” Romero said quietly. “Finnish, Swedish, Afrikaans, German, and even Tolkienate Elvish and Klingon.”

“Heghlu'meh qaq jajvam,” Gennaro said blandly.

“And Swahili, I think,” Kraber added, ignoring that. He saw Kaminsky throw him a dirty look, but he ignored it.

“What are these transmissions?” Samantha asked quietly.

“We don’t know,” Romero said quietly. “They’re on any frequency, any radio, any transmitter of any kind. And they’re all saying the same sorts of things: warning of time running out, asking for help.” He sighed. “Some of them also appear to be… extra-dimensional in origin, for lack of another word.”

“Extra-dimensional?” Yarrow repeated.

In response, Romero tapped the tablet and brought up a note. “A transcription of one message. ‘This is the UES Ajax to any arrow forces, stop, we are under attack by Celestial Dominion forces, stop, send reinforcement immediately, stop’.”

None of those words made sense. ‘Arrow’?

“Another one,” Romero continued. “‘USS Enterprise has departed New York City. The last bastion of the United States has fallen. God save our souls. Gilead Aeterna’.” He sighed. “There’s more, with references to things I’ve never heard of.”

“What could be sending those sorts of messages?” Samantha asked. “And more importantly, why?”

“We don’t know,” Romero said quietly. “But it’s a prelude to something bigger, I’m sure of it.”

“Well,” Yarrow said quietly. “That’s just peachy.”

“It feels almost anti-climactic to bring up Lovikov next to these,” Romero said quietly, “but we’ve got to. Portland was a turning point.”

“I’ve heard rumors,” Samantha said. “That Lovikov’s been… recruiting.”

Lucky Strike spoke up. “Who the fuck would join up with Lovikov after he committed the worst rogue HLF terrorist attack since the Purple Winter? More importantly, how is he even recru...”

Her voice died in her throat as she looked over to Gennaro.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” she moaned.

“And that’s,” Gennaro said, “Why I’m here. I got a dodgy contract not long ago for a farming settlement out in the desert that the PHL are trying to cultivate. Turned out, the place was under construction, and…”

“And?

“And we met up with some bigwigs in suits and gas masks,” Gennaro said. “The human was asking some questions about working with them. I don’t know who they were, but they… they had money. Real pull. They talked like they’d never see a day in prison.”

He paused.

“And one of them talked about working for Lovikov. He said… something strange. He said… ‘we can save this world without compromise.’”

“I’ve seen that on some graffiti,” Yarrow said. “Even found it in Bastion, once. ‘No Compromise.’”

Kraber raised an eyebrow. That was… ‘Worrying’ wasn’t the word for it.

“Did you accept?” Yarrow asked, finally.

“No,” Gennaro said. “If I did, I wouldn’t be here. They said I had nothing to go on if I tried to tell the media, that they wouldn’t trust an HLF man, and… well, they were right.”

He sighed.

“But… I’ve got a friend - a spy, more like - in an anti-government militia out in Oregon,” Gennaro said. “The Constitution Security Force.”

“Why would you have a spy there, of all places?” Yarrow asked.

“It’s America,” Gennaro said simply, “But yes, essentially. Romero, I know that you and Yarrow strive for a racially equal, non-judgmental HLF. But…”

“But like you said, this is America,” Kraber said. “If you’re looking for people that like skirting the government, you’re going to attract particular people.”

“Begs the question where all the crazy left wing people go,” someone asked.

“The PER,” Gennaro said at once, without a shred of hesitation.

“Dude, the fok?” Kraber said immediately.

“What?” Gennaro said. “Extreme left-wing people are all about tearing down the corrupt world order and curtailing the ‘excesses of capitalist individualism’ or some shit like that. What is Celestia to them but a chance to tear down literally every ‘oppressive institution’ in one fell swoop?”

“God damn apocalypse,” someone else muttered.

“So it’s crazies on either side of this shit,” Kraber said irritably.

“Exactly, Mr…” Gennaro said. “Ah. You might want a nametag installed. While I’ve tried to keep kard-karrying-klansmen-”

”Gennaro always spells it with a K,” Kraber said. “He likes alliteration.”

“-from my organization, it’s impossible to completely stem the flow of them,” Gennaro continued. “I’m guessing it’s much the same for you.”

Romero, and both Yarrows looked at him, conflicting emotions rushing over their faces.

“It’s been particularly difficult for me,” Maxi Yarrow said. “Although honestly, most of the ones who’ve joined me basically give that shit up. Haven’t had to kill any of them yet.”

“Preston has a way of weeding them out,” Sam Yarrow said.

Kraber smirked. I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for that man.

“Smashing them with that hammer of his?” he asked.

“For the ones that don’t outright refuse to work with him? Daryl Davis’ doctrine, actually, at least most of the time,” Maxi Yarrow said with a chuckle. “Man’s the gentlest HLF man I think I know.”

“But anyway, my spy?” Gennaro continued impatiently. “She said that they’d gotten an offer to join Lovikov, and that another militia recruited them.”

“That’s…” Romero said. “Extremely worrying. We do not recruit from them, period. It’s in the damn charter for God’s sake.”

Sam Yarrow nodded. “Human life is sacred: class is irrelevant. Creed is irrelevant. Race is irrelevant. Sexual orientation is irrelevant. Under the eyes of all deities or none, all human life is made equal.”

“Wait,” Kraber said, “A thought occurs. Why did you say ‘the human?’”

“Because there was a pony with the man that recruited us,” Gennaro said.

“This is impossible,” Sam Yarrow said. “Lovikov… the Carters... they don’t work with ponies. No way, not a fucking chance.”

“Swear on my grandfather’s soul, she was there,” Gennaro said.

“It makes a certain amount of sense, though,” Lucky Strike said. “The Ship that saved Lovikov? The way it disappeared? You’d need seriously high tech to do that. And the only ones that have it work with ponies.”

“But… Lovikov…” Kraber said. “No. No no no no. This is impossible.”

“Impossible or not,” Gennaro said. “It happened.”

Kraber thought on that. “I have a very bad feeling about that. He’s willing to look for anti-government militias, who else will he recruit?”

Romero and Kaminsky threw Kraber a look.

“Well, it’s not our -” he began.

“Primary concern, no,” Yarrow cut him off, “except that it is, Daniel, or at least it’s mine. I’ve fought tooth and nail for us to be seen as legitimate. Lovikov is - even aside from Carter, perhaps moreso - the single greatest obstacle to legitimacy I have ever faced. Carter, for his many faults, could be reasoned with at one point. Lovikov, not so much.”

He took a brief moment to compose himself.

“Dan,” Yarrow said. “I’m trying to be kind here. But it’s hard to see that assertion as anything but astoundingly naive. If Lovikov takes the plunge, he takes us all with him. Lovikov running about, in open war against the PHL means that the independence you and I thrive on is gone.”

He looked to Kraber.

“You’re entirely confident Lovikov would be that much of a hazard to us?” Yarrow asked.

“I’d stake my life on it,” Kraber said. “Minus the part with ponies, but...”

“You don’t sound sure of that,” Gennaro said.

“I think that if he’s willing to work with ponies, Lovikov only cares about the end point,” Kraber said.

Samantha clicked her tongue. “Great. So we’ve got Cairn and whatever the fuck he was doing that’s got the Mystics poking their nose in our business, we’ve got transmissions from other universes that make no sense, we’ve got Lovikov giving the HLF a bad name, and we’ve got Gardner, Ze’ev and the rest of the PHL just happy to let them do it so they’ve got an excuse for their civilian slaughtering escapades.”

“Sam,” Yarrow said in a warning tone.

“No, let’s be honest,” Samantha continued angrily. “They want Lovikov. There’ve been people in the UNAC and PHL wanting to burn us all or fold us in for years, just because they’d rather everybody wore their flag rather than be an independent group they can’t directly control. Lovikov is just handing them the evidence they need to sell whatever actions they want to take to the President and the public.”

There was a long pause.

“You’re probably right,” Romero said after a moment. “Hell. You’re certainly right. There’s always someone waiting to take the worst view of any group they don’t control. But we can’t do anything about Gardner: we can do something about Lovikov, and we can do something about the PER, Shieldwall’s plan, and whatever Commander Cairn’s doing.”

Samantha sighed looked over at Kraber. “You. You’re so sure Lovikov will do that. Any insight on his plan?”

Kraber shrugged. “F… fokked if I know. Lovikov just sort of aims for objectives, makes things up, and pretends it was all his plan the whole time. Give him a week and he’ll be saying he always planned to fire on Portland and it was a huge victory for the cause of some advanced something or other.”

Samantha sighed. “Bollocks.”

Yarrow leant forward. “Well, then we’ve got to deal with all these problems at once, don’t we?”

Kraber almost laughed, but the expression on Yarrow’s face was deadly serious.

“Um, sorry,” he said, “but… er, how?” At Samantha’s scowl, he held up both hands.

“Ignore him,” Kaminsky said. “Look, he-”

“I don’t mean to be that guy,” Kraber continued, “but you’re talkin’ about heavy odds.”

“That’s enough, soldier,” Romero put in.

“No, Daniel,” Yarrow said, holding up a hand. “The man wants to ask a question? I’ll answer it. If I can’t explain to a guard, how the hell do I explain to anyone else?”

He smiled, a confident, dangerous expression on that man’s face.

“The problems are threefold,” he said. “Cairn’s doing something big, weird, and not sanctioned by the Empire. Now, he started with Hadley’s Hope, but whatever it is it won’t stop there.” He looked at Samantha. “Sam - you, Luke, Earnest Star and a few of our best will begin investigating Cairn’s movements. See if you can find anything out. I’ll contact Munro and see if he can give us some help. He has FEAR. They’re experts in this sort of thing.”

“Alright,” Sam said quietly.

“Lucky Strike,” Romero said quietly. “I’ll assign you to continue working with Officer Yarrow. I want her to have the best people - and ponies - for this, and that’s you and your team.”

Strike saluted. “Any time, sir.”

“Now, as for Lovikov, the Empire, and the UNAC,” Yarrow said, clapping his hands together. “That’s a harder problem. Daniel,” he looked at Romero, who straightened. “You’re still the best man for whatever the Empire’s doing.” He paused. “And you are right about one thing. Whatever Lovikov’s doing, it is fundamentally not the primary concern. The Empire is.”

“I aim to please,” Romero replied with a small smile.

“Good, then aim to give us an edge,” Yarrow said sternly. “Any edge you can. Newcalf weak spots, better modulations on our particle guns, new frequencies, portable shield generators. Anything that gives us something.”

“I can extrapolate on some ATC tech,” Romero said with a nod. “See what the boffins can do. These Thunderchild class ships are testbeds, after all.”

“Now,” Yarrow said, sucking in a breath. “The UNAC is harder. The problem can be partially mitigated by taking Lovikov out. Now, Lovikov… whatever idiocy he’s planning, he’ll fail. But he’ll take a lot of good people out wi-“

“What if he succeeds?” Kraber asked.

Dead silence. Everyone’s train of thought squealed a halt, brakes grinding.

“Excuse me, soldier?” Romero said, a note of impatience creeping into his voice. “Would you care to repeat tha-“

“I asked,” Kraber said, “What if he succeeds?”

Kraber had thought that what happened before was silence. He’d been wrong. This was like a complete lack of ability on all sides to even make sounds, as opposed to a simple absence.

“Well,” Lucky Strike said, “we all clearly want to say it, so I’ll do it: he’s clearly a madman, and there’s no chance he could succeed. So, arguments?”

Kraber blinked.

She just threw me a bone.

It’d taken him a few seconds to truly grasp it, going by her sarcastic, mocking tone. He’d grown used to that being aimed at him when he was a kid. But-

She wasn’t mocking me. Just the idea.

“I…” Yarrow started. “The Ship, for one thing, his ability to evade authorities. Clearly, we underestimated him.”

“No, that’s not quite right. He wanted to be underestimated,” Sam Yarrow put in.

“So if he has the ship,” Gennaro said, “what else might he have?”

“Were you trying to build him up this way?” Romero asked, looking at Kraber.

“No,” Kraber said, “I genuinely wondered this.”

Another brief moment of silence. Kaminsky was staring daggers at him.

“I can’t say for certain,” Yarrow said. “Because I don’t know what his end goal is. But a world where someone like Lovikov wins a fight with the PHL, one where he does as he pleases, or God forbid, takes on the PHL and defeats them…”

“That could never happen,” Gennaro said.

“The soldier here asked it as a thought experiment, I figured I might as well go with it,” Yarrow said.

“It would be an endless nightmare,” Lucky Strike said. “Lovikov doesn’t give a damn about innocent lives, especially if they’re ponies.”

“If we think he’s going to do that?”

“The answer’s plain as day,” Yarrow said. “Take him out before he has the chance.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“Just like that?” Kraber put in.

Yarrow smiled. “Well, not just like that… but a lot like that.”

Kraber felt the blood drain from his face. Yarrow was casually talking about ‘taking out’ another HLF officer.

“But he’s…” he began, before trailing off.

“Yes?” Yarrow asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, he’s an HLF Captain,” Kraber said quietly. “He’s surrounded at all times by people who don’t bat an eye at him doing basically whatever the fuck he wants. Assassinating him…”

“What you’re saying we should,” Gennaro put in, “is difficult.”

“He’s a mutineer, but we’re not savages,” Strike put in. “Shouldn’t there be… I dunno. A trial at least?”

It seemed appropriate for someone to ask, if nothing else. Kraber wouldn’t have necessarily given Lovikov a trial, but Yarrow, so Kraber had come to understand, wasn’t him.

Yarrow, however, snorted.

“Lovikov is a bastard murderer who shot a good man for the sake of power, hires the dregs of humanity, and exacerbates divisions when we not only are supposed to be a group for the unification of humanity, but we need to unify or we’ll die. He has jeopardised not only our mission, but our lives and the lives of our families,” he said. “He’s on the path to ruining any unified front between us and the UNAC, has given men like Gardner all the ammunition they need to take UNAC into a pointless, bloody civil war, and risks single handedly plunging this entire front into chaos, and chaos only serves one pony.”

They all knew who he meant.

“His life,” Yarrow continued, looking straight at Kraber, giving him the uncomfortable feeling that Yarrow could see right through the mask, “is what’s difficult. His death will make all our lives a lot easier.”

“Okay,” Kraber said.

Whatever response Yarrow was expecting, that was clearly not it. He blinked.

“Fuck him,” Kraber shrugged, entirely sincere. “I just retired when he tried to bombard Portland. Also, he didn’t give me severance pay. That dick!”

Romero sighed. “Soldier, do me a favour and go wait outside.”

Kraber nodded. “Uh, sure. Uh, sir.”

He walked out, leaving the conference room.

Y’know, Viktor, he thought to himself. Maybe you should have kept your mouth shut.

He shrugged.

Like that’ll ever fokkin’ happen, he thought, resigned. This had been a problem for him virtually as long as he could form words.

A few minutes later, Romero and the others exited the room. Yarrow stopped and held his hand out to Kraber, who was (thankfully) still wearing the gas mask.

“Always keep a question in mind if it occurs,” he said. “Questioning if you don’t agree or understand is part of what makes us human.”

“I’ve had enough of absolute certainty, anyway,” Kraber said. “It’s a fokkin’ croc.”

Oh, shit, he thought. OOH, ME ACCENT’S SLIPPING!

The thought was enough to make him struggle not to laugh. Thankfully, the mask hid that.

“What’s your name, trooper?” Yarrow asked.

“Uh, Francis,” Kraber improvised. “Francis Strang.”

“Francis Strang,” Yarrow repeated. “Keep up the good work. It’s men on our side that’ll go down in the history books, you mark my words.” He brought his other hand up and clasped Kraber’s hand tightly, his voice brimming with the kind of sincerity that would have had any soldier on Earth choose to follow him into hell to rescue a snowman. “Every one of you brave lads and lasses is a credit to humanity. You’re what we’re fighting for.”

Kraber didn’t reply, just nodding. It was good Yarrow couldn’t see his face - he was fairly certain his guilt and shame were showing. It should’ve made him feel better to see Kaminsky getting embarrassed, but…

You’re not fighting for me, he thought morosely. You shouldn’t. I’m not brave, and I’m not a credit to fokkin’ anything.

He could see Kaminsky, an expression that was a very admirable attempt at studied neutrality on his face as he listened to Yarrow talk. Kraber felt his heart sink

And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

But he didn’t say anything, and with a final nod, Yarrow passed him, Samantha following him with barely a glance in Kraber’s direction. The others followed, until finally only Romero and Kraber were left.

“Well,” Romero said, giving Kraber a raised eyebrow. “I think I owe the techy who built that voice modulator a beer or seven.”

Kraber let out a small, guilty laugh. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir,” Romero said acidly. “You sounding professional sounds really wrong somehow.”

“Right?” Kraber asked. “It’s like me having sex with Ze’ev.”

“Christ,” Romero said. “That just sounds unnatural.”

Kraber let out another chuckle.

“And how, Dan,” he said. “And how. I think I need to flush that out my system with some bourbon.”

“You were lucky,” Yael says.

“I was,” Kraber repeats. “Right then, right there? Sam Yarrow would have killed me faster than you can say ‘lynch mob’. She might have had a hate-ladyboner on for the PHL, but that just meant men like me were second place on her shit list.”

“Yeah,” Yael says with a nod. Whatever history she has with Sam Yarrow, she doesn’t elaborate.

“So… what was the whole thing with Cairn in Hadley’s Hope?” Vinyl asks.

Kraber smirks. “I did find out one thing.”

The moment Kraber walked into the rec room he knew he’d made a mistake.

Here’s how it goes: Kraber opens the door to the rec room, boots tapping against the metal floor, and then-

And then-

Dead silence. Men and women, mares and stallions, staring at him. Some of them shocked. Some of them staring daggers at him.

Aw, shit.

Kraber’s eyes settled on a chair. That’d be the best weapon at a time like this, wouldn’t it? But as he moved towards the kid that he’d seen, he realized:

Nobody was doing anything. They were all just staring at him.

The kid was sitting in the rec room. Apparently the different parties wouldn’t be leaving for a day or so, but fortunately Yarrow wasn’t in the rec room - neither of them, actually.

“Hey,” Kraber said to him.

The kid blinked and looked at him, his eyes widening. “Shit. You’re…”

“Yup,” Kraber said, winking. “But, uh, keep it under your hat, huh?”

The kid blinked again. “Uh… yeah. Sure.” He paused. “Shit. How are you even here?!”

“Eh, jou know,” Kraber shrugged. “Faked my death so I could retire, and ended up here! Somehow.” He paused, scratching his beard. “When you think about it, it really doesn’t make much sense.”

The kid looked at him, mystified.

“Well,” he said after a moment. “That’s…” He paused. “Wait a minute. You were there.”

“I was where?” Kraber asked.

The kid pulled out a small notebook, flicking back through it. “‘A man with a bushy beard, the shadow of a man in armour made from obsidian and nightmares behind him’.” He looked back at Kraber. “Shit, that was you.”

Part of Kraber really wanted to laugh it off. To treat it like it meant nothing. Instead:

“You saw it too?” Kraber asked.

“In my dreams,” the kid whispered. He held up the journal. “I… Jim said that I should do a dream diary. He thinks whatever I’m dreaming is… it has something to do with Cairn, with whatever Cairn’s doing.”

“What do you think he was doing, then?” Kraber asked.

The kid’s eyes widened. “I… you’ll think I’m crazy.”

Kraber stared at him for a second. Then tapped his head. “Bru.”

The kid winced. “No. Seriously. This… if Jim didn’t tell me he believed me, I’d…”

“Just say it.”

The kid licked his lips. “I was at Hadley’s Hope. One of Yarrow’s new recruits. I saw the symbols.” He swallowed. “They were… singing.”

“What do you mean?” Kraber asked.

“I mean singing,” the kid hissed in a desperate whisper. “They were…” His expression became slack, and his eyes glazed over. “They were singing the song of the Nameless, bringing him here, but they don’t know the words yet and he will not tell them, and the pale mare is muffling the sound.”

Kraber frowned. “What?”

“She’s muffling the sound,” the kid repeated. “Muffling it. She doesn’t want to see him eat us all again. But the song is being sung. The bell is starting to toll.” He blinked, his expression becoming confused. “Oh, no, I did it again, didn’t I?”

“The pale mare,” Kraber said, stroking his beard in thought. “Can’t tell if she’s a unicorn, earth pony, or pegasus? Albino? All whites and grays? Has a sword?”

The kid’s eyes widened. “You see it too.”

“Once,” Kraber said. “While I was unconscious in the ocean.” He stroked his beard again. “I also saw Princess Luna, I think. Which was weird.”

“I thought she was dead,” the kid said.

“I think I’m beyond the point of questioning that,” Kraber said.

“Well,” the kid said, shaking his head, “I’m at the point of wishing the whole thing was very far away. A few weeks ago, I was just a militiaman. Me and my group were drafted, and the next thing I know the PHL burned us all.”

He paused.

“There was something weird about Nipville, too,” the kid said.

“Weird how?” Kraber asked.

“Well, they were…” the kid said. “The commander that brought our unit in, some man by the name of Soldano-”

“Arnold Soldano?”Kraber asked.

“I don’t know, he never said his first name,” the kid said. “But… he had us deploying these devices that looked kind of like auto-milkers.”

“I’ve seen enough hentai to go where this is going,” Kraber said.

The kid looked at him with an expression of utter disgust. “Jesus, no. Not like that. But they did drain… something.. From ponies. You’d fasten the ponies to the floor under them and hang the machines to the ceilings, and… it was like all the color drained out of them. We had to use a barn once and the dirt under this machine, it… it was gray. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Kraber’s knowledge of magic was… well, to say it was rudimentary was putting it mildly. He’d never known much more than the bare fundamentals - Ponies have a particular kind of tissue in the hooves, wings, horn, and flank that superconduct magic - but beyond that, one common thing he knew was that color was involved.

“They came out looking like death warmed over,” the kid said. “Fur was clammy, and I just felt so sick about it. They looked like they’d vomit if you poked them, like… like moving was a struggle. It was like walking when one of your feet has gone to sleep.”

“I think…” Kraber said. “I think it might’ve been draining their magic or life force or whatever.”

“It makes sense, honestly,” the kid said. “They looked so awful.”

“Yeah,” Kraber said. “That’s a…”

It’s not any worse than what you’ve done, is it? Something whispered to him.

“You know what?” Kraber asked, suddenly feeling extremely tired. “I can’t throw stones. I just… I feel so sick about what I’ve done, and you seem like a good kid. You shouldn’t… you shouldn’t have had to do that.”

“Siphons,” the kid said. “Soldano called them Siphons. I think you might’ve been right.”

...Fok.

“This was going on since before Nipville,” Kraber said, his jaw dropping. “Oh my God. How long has he… did I ever really know him? Was he just lying the whole time?! Fok, I thought he…”

“Going by the fact that nobody I’ve worked with can mention Lovikov without insulting him,” the kid said, “No, I don’t think you ever did know the real Lovikov. I don’t think anyone really knows that kind of person. Not till it’s too late.”

Whoever Lovikov’s backing are, Kraber thought, they have the resources of PHL and they don’t give a shit about ponies.

It’s one of those Others that Romero mentioned.

He had so many questions.

“We need to tell the Captain, Yarrow, anyone,“ Kraber said.

“You really think they’ll believe me?” the Kid asked. “Also, wait. You’re not going to ask if I’ve told anyone else?”

“Take my word for it,” Kraber said. “If someone asks ‘have you told anyone else,’ you need to run or stab them. Because they are absolutely about to betray the FOK out of you.”

“You seem pretty certain about that,” the kid observed.

“We need to go find the Captain and Yarrow,” Kraber said. “Now.”

“You seem like you have a lot of… conflicting emotions about Lovikov,” the kid said. “Are you-”

“Those,” Kraber said, “Were not my chommies. We need to go. Now.”

The kid was moving before Kraber realized it. They rushed out the doors, passing a particularly shocked-looking pegasus fluttering by.

Her eyes widened as she saw Kraber.

“Y-” she started.

Kraber ignored her. “Sorry, but we have to chase. Later!”

“But I-”

More of her saying ‘you bloodthirsty idiot, probably, Kraber thought, as they rushed for the Captain’s office.

They rushed through a metal corridor. As they passed a set of stairs, Kraber saw Cindy again, staring at him with a look of utmost hatred.

They’re unnecessary, Kraber thought. We have to get there, now!

He turned a corner. Romero’s office was so close, right there, and-

“Stop. Right. There.”

CLACK

Kaminsky was there, holding a Sumak SMG that looked like a clone of an MP5, pointed straight at Kraber’s chest.

Reflexes almost took over. Kraber could see himself jumping and bicycle-kicking Kaminsky in the face.

The kid stopped him. He held hand out in front of Kraber.

“No,” the kid said.

“Kaminsky,” Kraber said. “This is urgent, we… need a fokkin’ ova with the Captain.”

“No,” Kaminsky said.

There was a moment of absolute silence, and Kraber blinked.

“Did I fokkin’ stutter?” he said. “I said -”

“Heard you,” Kaminsky said. “I said no. I don’t care what power you think the Captain’s given you. He’s in a meeting. You can wait a few damn minutes. End of.”

“This is no time for measuring our shotguns,” Kraber said heatedly. “I need to get this kid through that door. Right now.”

Then suddenly, like a lightning bolt, Kraber was struck with clarity.

“Are you fokking high?” Kraber asked.

“...Excuse me?” Kaminsky asked.

“You really, genuinely, truly think,” Kraber said, “That you can threaten me with that piece of kak MP5 clone, without being caught on camera. Do you think the Captain’s too dof to have security footage outside his office?”

And then Kaminsky laughed. It was short, bitter, and hard.

“No,” he said. “I think I can kill you. You have a rep with thieves and amateurs, Kraber, but you don’t have plot armour. This is real life.” He raised the weapon a fraction. “I was with Delta Force at Fairport while you were setting up a treehouse in the woods with that glorified biker bandit Lovikov. Whatever you think you can do, I promise you that trying to force your way past me will only end with the remains of your face on the deck, bleeding, followed by you cleaning toilets for a month. And all that… because Viktor Kraber doesn’t have the patience to not be the center of attention for five minutes.”

He was moving towards the kid. Inching ever so slightly. If Kaminsky wanted to shoot him, he’d have to-

No.

And Kraber was surprised to realize that it wasn’t Kate’s voice or Victory’s voice or the voice of the evil Nega-Kraber or whatever.

It was all him.

The ends don’t justify it, Kraber thought. I’m sure you and the kid will be really happy about getting another bystander hurt.

Also, whatever happens next will only be my fault.

“...Then let me go in,” the kid said.

That surprised Kraber, slightly. But immediately he knew what to say:

“He has the important information, not me,” Kraber said. “He knows about Nipville, I wasn’t even invited.”

“… how serious is this,” Kaminsky finally said.

“Fairport level serious,” the kid said. Kraber had no idea if the kid knew what Fairport was (and come to think of it, Kraber didn’t know much about that particular shitshow.), but it was a good play.

Kaminsky frowned. “You’re serious.”

“Yes, sir,” the kid said evenly.

“I see.” Kaminsky took a deep breath. “Fine. I’ll escort you in. And if you’re still here, Kraber…”

“You’ll shoot a man to death outside the captains office, on camera, unprovoked?” Kraber asked. “Aweh, great plan, ten outta five knackstapeece. If that made sense in your head, you need professional help.”

“No, I’ll just escort you to the brig with a bloody nose,” Kaminsky retorted, grinning nastily. “Killing people just for pissing you off is the sort of thing unprofessional dickweeds with something to prove about their… shotguns do. I’m sure you know the sort.”

“...Fine,” Kraber said. “I’m going to the rec room.”

“Have fun with that,” Kaminsky retorted, opening the door. “Alright, kid. In you go.”

He pointed to the kid, punching a code into a keypad. The door slid open.

There was a pause as Luke walked into the office. Kraber saw Yarrow and Romero sitting in the room, looking alarmed at the sudden intrusion.

Kraber inched over to the side. Yarrow couldn’t see his face, or at least he hoped not.

“As for you,” he said, looking at Kraber. “I don’t know what you’ve done to convince the Captain, but you’re running out of time.”

The same thing that Cindy said… Kraber wondered. And, combined with the… Something very bad is about to happen.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kraber asked.

The door opened.

“Ah,” Romero said. “Are you still here? I need to clarify some things about Soldano to you.”

Kaminsky blinked, before glowering at Kraber.

“He needed to be in there more than I did,” Kraber said by way of explanation. He couldn’t resist grinning. “I didn’t know he’d want my perspective.”

“I see.” Kaminsky was doing a very good impression of someone who wasn’t absolutely livid. It was almost admirable. “In you go then.”

“Well, thanks,” Kraber said, still grinning.

A vein throbbed in Kaminsky’s forehead. Kraber might have regretted pissing him off if he’d been in a better mood, but right now all he could do was think it was hilariou-

“Viktor Marius Kraber,” Yarrow said. “Aren’t you dead?”

There was an unpleasant edge to his voice. A strange coldness. As if he was another Yorke, and Yarrow’s Browning Hi-Power was about to brush the tips of Kraber’s mustache.

...Fokdammit. I’m about to have to answer a lot of unpleasant questions.

“Ah, shit,” Lucky Strike sighed. “Here we go.”

Yarrow’s eyes bored into Kraber. Despite himself, Kraber knew he couldn’t match that, so he simply stood, as noncommittal as possible in the face of one of the most influential HLF men in North America.

“He was supposed to be,” Kaminsky growled, staring at Kraber.

“Mind telling me how you survived being caught on an exploding boat?” Yarrow asked, coolly.

“I…” Kraber started. “Well, you got me. By all accounts, it doesn’t make sense.”

Yarrow and Kraber shared the kind of relationship that came from having less than nothing in common. No matter what, they’d end up at opposite sides of the room. Like two magnets that repelled each other. The best they could do was a relationship on the same level of friendliness as two colleagues nodding to each other in the same hallway. Nowhere was that more important than right here and now.

“That’s really the best answer you have?” Kaminsky asked.

“Ja,” Kraber said, refusing to say anymore.

“I’d heard the rumors,” Yarrow said. “I’d…”

“I know,” Kaminsky said. “I’d prayed they were false, too.”

Yarrow looked at him for a moment, then looked back to Romero.

“Sadly, nothing’s entirely airtight,” Yarrow said, his voice uncannily soft.

“He is remarkably hard to kill,” Lucky Strike said.

“You… certainly have an ability to throw people’s plans off the rails,” Yarrow said. “I’d assumed-”

“It’s alright,” Kraber said. “You can say you hoped I’d died in the explosion.”

Yarrow blinked at him. “I can say that. And honestly, I’ll probably mean it.”

“I’m not that different from Lovikov in a lot of ways,” Kraber said. “If any of you wanted me gone, I wouldn’t blame you.”

“‘Gone’ is an understatement,” Samantha said coldly. “You’re the walking embodiment of what’s wrong with the HLF, why we have to justify ourselves to men like Gardner.”

Kraber swallowed. “I can’t exactly disagree.”

“Wait,” Kraber said. “Soldano is leading Defiance now?!”

Yarrow nodded.

“...Yes?” Romero asked.

“I’m guessing you already know,” Kraber said, “That this isn’t a change. Soldano has none of Lovikov’s charisma, none of the charm.”

“I’d surmised as much,” Romero said.

“So, overall, not so much of a threat,” Lucky Strike said.

“I didn’t say that,” Kraber said. “I said, Soldano has none of that…. But, he’s more or less Lovikov’s autopilot. He’ll do pretty much whatever Lovikov wants, with less of that little h…”

Kraber caught Lucky Strike glowering at him.

“That sentient touch,” Kraber finished lamely.

“You and Lovikov see murder the way our carpenter sees hammers,” Yarrow said. “Pardon me if I don’t know what to think of that.”

Samantha hadn’t moved from her arms-folded position, her eyes still narrowed at Kraber. “I know exactly what to think.”

“Lovikov will tell you why to enjoy it,” Kraber said. “Soldano will dive in headfirst. He’s got none of the finesse. But if it helps… he’s not quite bright enough to really do any of what Lovikov is planning on his own.”

“Alright,” Romero said. “That’s actually really good news.”

Kraber blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“No, he’s right,” Yarrow said. “If we’re going to take Defiance out from under Lovikov, him not being there is the best news we’ve got. Especially if Soldano doesn’t have the same charisma.”

Ship’s Library
Later, Kraber would collapse into an armchair that - and he was certain of this - had been specifically picked during the Europe Evacuation for being the right combination of “sturdily built” and “comfortingly broken from years of loafing.”

Two meetings, having to explain Soldano, not feeling truly comfortable, and Kaminsky’s clear urge to beat the shit out of him had left Kraber exhausted.

I poked a hole in Kaminsky’s ego. Tried to get some revenge against Lovikov.

But I’m… still… not happy.

It was like Kraber had an itch… under the skin. Not for the first time, he wondered about all the things that he’d seemingly forgotten how to do.

I should get this. I should be able to understand why they’re pissed. I should be able to understand why none of this makes me happy.

A thought crossed his mind unbidden, as Kraber made his way to the library’s comics section.

Dear die-ary. Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender. I'm wondering if, maybe, there really is something wrong with me.

He chuckled slightly.

Okay, that shouldn’t be funny right now. Why am I laughing? What’s so funny? What the fok is wrong with me?!

He reached for a hardback-covered comic. Pulled it ou-

“Your problem,” Victory said, one eye poking through the hole he’d left, “Is that you have emotional detachment disorder. You’ve had less of a life story and more of a genetic disaster. You know that, right?”

“What the fok?!” Kraber yelled, careening back into a bookshelf sitting against a metal wall.

“You alright back there?” the librarian asked. “Do I need to-”

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Kraber said. “Just thought I saw an… enormous rat. With mange.”

“The mighty Vicky Kraber,” the librarian muttered, “Scared of a rat.”

“Hey, if you don’t think it’s a massive sanitation issue, go tell the captain,” Kraber said. “I’m not scared of rats! You’d be surprised if you just saw one staring at you. At…”

He paused.

“At eye level. Huh.”

Victory absolutely was not that tall. But she was looking him straight in the eye through the bookshelf.

The librarian didn’t say anything after that.

“You just said that because you remember The Expanse,” Kraber whispered, looking for another comic. Watchmen, Watchmen…. Or Kingdom-

HOLY SHIT

THEY HAVE TRIGUN?!

FOK YES

Kraber ripped the manga off the shelf, a smile threatening to split his face.

“I mean, obviously,” Victory said. “Because I am I am he as you are he as you are me, and we are all together now, copyright Michael Jackson!”

Kraber just stared at her for a few seconds.

...where do I begin with that one?

“But seriously though,” Victory said, “Something is wrong with you. You were awful at psychology, you don’t know much about brains, but… that much is obvious. It’s been obvious for years. You’ve known that since the first time a teacher laughed at you.”

Kraber ignored her, trying not to remember that. It’d sparked a lifelong bone-deep distrust of teachers.

“I say this from the bottom of my heart, wherever I left it,” Victory said, “you need to do something about it.”

Like… seek professional help from a counselor that doesn’t see it as the perfect alibi? Kraber thought.

He’d considered getting counseling from one of ship’s psychiatrists, but… he hadn’t felt comfortable. The first one he contacted, a pegasus mare by the name of Stable Alignment, wouldn’t even say a word to him. The first time he’d come, she’d stared at him. Hadn’t responded to him no matter what he said.

When he’d finally left, there’d been a crash and a scream. And the sound of sobbing.

...did I kill one of her friends? Kraber had wondered, before coming to the conclusion that… with how he’d been in Austria and Germany, he probably had. Odds weren’t too bad.

He looked for a chair. And found one below a porthole, sandwiched in between two bookshelves. He settled in, and turned the cover.

The moment he heard hoofsteps against the metal floor, Kraber was suspicious. They could’ve been there for anything, anything at all, but fragments of paranoid fantasies.

What is it now?

“...Oh,” said a very tiny voice. “It’s you.”

The panel of Trigun read “Housewives packing hunting rifles. Children should not see this.”

“...Unfortunately, yes,” Kraber said. “What is it now?”

He looked over the pages to see Alpen Glow, looking up at him as if she’d opened a closet door to find some kind of horrible bug-eyed tentacled thing with too many mouths.

Oh, just fokking great.

Alpen Glow made a noise so indistinct Kraber couldn’t tell if it was a stammer or a cough. Her eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates. Her eyebrows were slowly inching their way towards the safety of her widow’s peak, and she was forcing herself back.

Kraber just sighed and went back to reading Trigun. What happened next was almost a reflex:

“Look, if you have more death threats, take a number,” he said. “I don’t fokking care right now.”

“L-look,” Alpen Glow said. “H… he doesn’t want to talk. Th-there, I can go back to the rec room now?”

And why are you asking me? Kraber wondered, before taking another look up from the page and seeing a familiar gray unicorn with purple eyes, and a reddish-brown mane.

Hope.

“What’re you doing here?” Kraber said, and all the apathy he’d poured into his last sentence just evaporated then and there.

“She wanted to say something to you,” Hope said.

“What’re you d-” Alpen Glow asked.

“Besides, he’s not going to do anything,” Hope said.

It was like Kraber lost all sense of up and down for a few seconds. There was a reflexive snap of rage. Then sadness. Then relief.

Somehow, Hope hadn’t made that sound condescending.

“...How in the fok do you know?” Kraber asked, narrowing his eyes. “How do you know that I’m not some kind of horrible ticking time bomb being held here at gunpoint?”

“Because you don’t want to,” Hope said. “I… know what that feels like. To be seen as some kind of ticking time bomb, like you said.”

It shouldn’t have made as much sense as it did, but Kraber nodded along. “Ja,” he said. “Ja, I do.”

“Just,” Alpen Glow said. “...I see you’ve both backed me into a corner.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I didn’t do anything,” Kraber said.

“I just…” Alpen Glow said, stumbling over each syllable like a rock careening down a hillside. “Before I tell you this, I need to know: Did you kill Louis and Prisma?”

Kraber took in a deep breath, and exhaled deeply. “You heard from Cindy, didn’t you.”

“Not just her,” Alpen Glow said. “It… I hate to say it. But it’s very believable.”

Kraber sighed. He wanted to get pissed off at that, wanted to be high on the fumes of righteous anger, but…

“No,” he said. “Everything else, she accused me of. But not that. I swear to God, I didn’t kill either of them. Louis got ponified with a crossbow, and Prisma… ”

He paused. “I don’t actually know what happened to her. I think it was some kind of fire spell. But everything just burned, and then… there I was.”

“...Huh,” Alpen Glow said, looking down at the metal deck of the library.

Kraber tried and failed to get back to his book. The anime had changed so much - they’d padded things out so much, just before the episode that’d be adapting it.

I forgot how annoying that kid that says they captured Vash three times was, Kraber thought, as he read over a panel featuring Vash pushing up a pile of rubble with a metal beam. It was such a striking moment - after all the comic talked up Vash’s actions, after all he tried to avoid the attempts on his life…

He did the right thing regardless, as he pried the rubble off the wounded bystanders that’d been holding him at gunpoint minutes earlier.

At this point in the episode, Vash would’ve been receiving an utter torrent of abuse from the episode’s villain.

Lucky you. Everyone gets to be wrong about you, Kraber thought. Do I even still like this story?

He tried to get back in. Tried to enjoy the comic.

“Hope,” Alpen Glow said. “This is stupid. He... clearly doesn’t want to talk.”

And then Hope asked three words Kraber hadn’t heard from anyone on the ship:

“Are you okay?”

What Kraber was going to say was: “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

But something didn’t feel right. There’d been genuine compassion in Hope’s voice, the kind he’d barely heard from anyone but Romero.

“...No,” Kraber said. “I’m starting to feel like a prisoner.”

Alpen Glow and Hope looked at him quizzically.

“I have nowhere to go, I don’t get to talk to anyone, and people are openly ova about how much they want me off the ship,” Kraber said. “And yeah. They’re right. I’m just… I’m starting to feel like I should’ve died in that boat explosion, and most of the ship shares that opinion. I know they’re right, but it… this fokking hurts. Ek is siek en sat.”

He sighed.

“Ja. I’m a kontgesig. But everyone’s berdonnered at me and I feel like I’m just stewing in my own resentment every day,” Kraber said. “That can’t be healthy.”

“Have you been in prison?” Alpen Glow asked, her eyes narrowing. A note of anger crept into her voice.

“I’ve been in holding before,” Kraber said. “Some of it was during the Purple Winter, with police departments. Some of it was during college. So I’ve definitely been a prisoner.”

“Honestly, I get it, too,” Hope said.

Conflicting emotions surged through Kraber’s mind. Confusion. Anger.

Where the fok does she get off? How in the… why… of all the fokkin’...

“It’s not that bad,” Hope said, as Kraber struggled to process it. “But… I’m the only Slow Newfoal, you know? Everyone wants to learn about my DNA, my alicornal tissue, my everything. There’s test after test, every day,” she sighed.

She slumped a little as she said that.

Kraber stumbled over the next word like a mountaineer approaching a summit. “You feel like…. Like you’re not a person here. Like you’re not even a side character in someone’s story. Like you’re their macguffin.”

There was supposed to be a question mark at the end of that sentence. But somehow, Kraber had forgotten. He’d felt extremely certain as he said it.

Libraries were admittedly supposed to be silent, but the next few seconds of quiet stuck out to Kraber - and, he was certain, to the rest of them.

“Oh my God,” Hope said, her jaw hanging open. “That’s exactly it!”

“Does anyone even ask Layla from House of M or Kobik or whoever how they feel about existing as just a plot device?” Kraber asked.

“I don’t know who either of them are,” Alpen Glow said.

“Don’t worry about Kobik, Secret Empire wasn’t very good,” Hope said.

“Actually, it was kind of ass,” Kraber said.

“You know what?” Hope asked. “You’re absolutely right.”

“That Secret Empire was ass?” Kraber asked.

“That’s not important. More… How’d you know that was what she felt like?” Alpen Glow asked.

“Honestly?” Kraber asked. “Most of it was a guess. She was talking about expectations, and there’s… so much that Romero wants to put on my shoulders.”

“What could he possibly want out of you?” Alpen Glow asked, chuckling slightly, her nose wrinkling a little.

“Honestly? You’d be surprised.” He held up his right palm, fingers curled slightly. “Prove you can reform the Carter side, be an ambassador to the Carter side, be a weapon to use against Lovikov, and provide surgical services. All while most of the ship hates me.”

Kraber was already sitting in an armchair, so there wasn’t much more he could do to signal relaxation or exhaustion. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. He sort of… melted, slightly, deciding to resist gravity less than normal.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Alpen Glow said, “I’m grateful.”

Kraber blinked.

“For saving my wings,” Alpen Glow said. “I still need to walk a lot, but… Without what you did, I wouldn’t have been able to fly ever again. So… Thank you.”

If Afrikaans hadn’t been his native language, all ability to use English would’ve fallen by the wayside, he would’ve simply said “Que,” or something similar. Thankfully, the Afrikaans word for that was:

“Wat.”

So really, it didn’t change much.

“You seem… surprised,” Alpen Glow said.

“Well, I…” Kraber said. “I mean, it’s kind of my fault. But niemand nie actually been grateful to me for a couple of weeks. Dankie. I mean it, really.”

“I thought I was thanking you,” Alpen Glow said, one eye narrowing, one eye widening in confusion.

“Yeah, well, it’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me,” Kraber said. “So… thank you. Really.” He sighed. Exhausted from weeks of struggle, a smile cautiously wandered onto his face.

“I just wanted to say it because…” Alpen Glow said. “You always seem so… alone.”

“I know. I’ve been very subtle about it,” Kraber said.

“I know what it is to be the low mare on the totem prole and having to work your way up,” Alpen Glow said. “You’re not the only one who came here from the dregs.”

“So do I,” Hope said, nodding. “The best thing you can get when you’re there is… to know you’re on the right track, you know?”

Kraber didn’t know. He’d had a fairly absurd number of life-changing experiences, but needing to work his way up among people who at worst wanted him dead was a new one. The longer he thought about it, the more sense it made to him.

“I cav it, but there’s one thing I don’t get. What do I do?” Kraber asked.

Alpen Glow frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“What you’ve said meant a lot,” Kraber said. “But… I do my job, I try not to piss anyone off, I work in the kitchen in my off hours, and they still…”

Something caught in Kraber’s throat.

“They still fokkin’ want me dead.”

“They wanted me, and Doctor Well Met dead too,” Alpen Glow said. “Nobody here is a bad person, they’re just…”

“Some of them still don’t know what to make of me,” Hope nodded her head solemnly.

“Just…” Alpen Glow said. “Keep trying. I know everyone says that. But if you keep working at it, they will come around. Promise.”

“You… really mean it?” Kraber asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Course I do,” Alpen Glow said.

It probably should’ve bothered him that Alpen Glow didn’t deny his assertion that the ship wanted him dead.

”Hold up,” Dancing Day says, “You keep saying you’ve been here for weeks. Did you… forget about Yael? Or Heliotrope?

Kraber’s eyes widen. He stares over at Yael and Heliotrope’s holograms.

“Uhhhhhh….” he says, voice droning and trailing off a little bit.

“It was an interesting few weeks,” Vinyl Scratch says.

“I wasn’t around for most of it,” Kraber says sheepishly. “I… kind of forgot.”

“Honestly, so did I,” Heliotrope says. “Except in my case, I kind of wanted to forget.”

Kraber

Time Unknown

DO YOU ACCEPT

Kraber was in a log cabin, sitting next to Lovikov.

“So what the fok is this?” he asked.

Lovikov looked up at him from his seat and smiled. “The future.”

“So is it modern art?” Kraber asked. “Is this log cabin really a statement on the failures of mankind and the way nature abhors a vacuum?”

Lovikov looked to him. “What.”

“I’m just saying, I don’t understand any of this,” Kraber explained. “Is this… is this a fokking drug deal? You mentioned that we were going to be getting help from ‘a friend in the north woods.’ Then drove me and Benning here.”

DO YOU ACCEPT

“This,” Lovikov said, “is my backing. We’re here to vet you with them.”

“And if I fail?” Kraber asked.

“That won’t be an issue,” Lovikov said, smirking.

”It’s you again, isn’t it?” Kraber asked. “You’re actually-”

Oh.

You only wish it was me. This… is something else.

“And why,” Kraber asked, “Is that?”

Lovikov’s smirk didn’t leave his face. “You’ll find out. Or maybe you won’t.”

As if to punctuate that sentence, a bookshelf swung open, revealing a set of stairs leading into blackness.

“Oh God,” Kraber sighed, “How cliche can one man get?”

Lovikov’s smirk stayed as if it was painted on his face. And Kraber didn’t go down the stairs. Didn’t

Didn’t

DIDN’T

Kraber wheezed. Choking and spitting.

“FOK WAS THAT?!” his eyes darted around the room. Around the shipping container he shared with [█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.].

Oh. I’m back?

Back from where? He wondered. He was sitting up in his bed. He looked down, towards the other pillow. Where [█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] should have been.

“Love?” Kraber asked. There was some word there, some word he should’ve been using, but… for some reason he was drawing a blank. He looked towards the other pillow, the sheets pulled up over a sleeping form. “Sorry,[█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] I didn’t mean to wake you up. I was just having the weirdest fokking dre-”

He stopped. The figure was unearthly still.

[█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] was a ~~light~~/~~heavy~~/ sleeper. And nobody could just keep sleeping within inches of a man having such an outburst. If Kraber knew his nightmares (and he did!) then [█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] absolutely would have noticed.

Slowly, tenderly, Kraber reached towards the covers. He wondered if he’d hidden his stuffed animals on that side again, and-

He blinked.

His stuffed African Wild Dog and stuffed horse were in the crevice between the two pillows. The African Wild Dog’s glass orbs bore into him as it made its insipid sewed-on smile.

...seltsam…

Kraber’s fingers moved, millimeter by millimeter, towards the edge of the stolen bedspread with a precision he reserved for surgeries. Like peeling back the skin to work on an organ, he shifted the bedspread back to find-

Nothing.

There was nothing under the covers. But-

The bed creaked. Kraber didn’t weigh enough to make the bedframe do that, not on his own, anyway.

So what in the goddamn-

He looked closer at the other half of the bed. Something wasn’t right. He ran his fingers along the fitted sheet that covered the mattress. Felt every thread as his eyes narrowed, until…

A sudden absence. The bed indented ever so slightly. As if someone was sleeping right next to him. Except he was the only one in the room. [█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] was dead/away/dead/away.

Kraber reached for the stuffed African Wild Dog and pointed their glass eyes towards the dent.

“Now isn’t that bizarre?” he said aloud.

There was(n’t) someone there. There was an indentation, a sense of weight, but nothing filling it. It was there. Something, someone had to be there, but nothing was. Was. Wasn’t. Was. Wasn’t.

“You’re awake, huh?” Lovikov asked. “That was a wild night you had at The Tanner’s.”

Kraber spun around the room, looking for Lovikov’s voice. He was sitting on an old, crappy armchair Kraber had taken from a wrecked house in a town the PER had “disappeared.”

[█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.]’s armchair. They’d loved that armchair.

“But…” Kraber said. “There was… we’d… you took me somewhere. Near the…”

The words died in his throat. He couldn’t remember.

“You had a bad dream,” Lovikov said. “You got drunk at the Tanner’s, like you always do, and I had to carry you back.”

“It felt so real though,” Kraber said. “We were in the tunnels, and… there was a secret door, and…”

“Secret what?” Lovikov asked, a look of confusion written on his face. “Viktor, you’re not making any sense. What are you talking about? I know I remember carrying you out of Tanner’s.”

Kraber considered that. That… did sound like something he’d do, and he had a splitting headache.

“That… does sound nice,” Kraber said.

“Hey, it’s what friends are for,” Lovikov said. “You… doing okay?”

“I…” Kraber said. His head throbbed. “Ag, fokking balls, my head hurts…”

“I’ll… go get you some water or something,” Lovikov said. There was a curiously wistful look on his face. “You know I love you like a brother, right?”

Kraber smiled weakly. “You’ve always done right by me. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”

Lovikov tapped him on the shoulder, that strange wistful look still painted on his face. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up like that. That’s goddamn quitter talk. You always deserve a friend by your side.”

The two of them stared at each other.

“Now,” Lovikov said, “I’ll… go get you some water. You stay in bed, relax, and try to take a load off.”

Lovikov turned and left.

That did admittedly make sense. But something didn’t sit right with Kraber.

He narrowed his eyes. Looked at the pillowcase, to find a slight yet noticeable stain. Just where his fingers had touched it.

He held his right hand up to his face. Stared at the fingertips.

There was dirt under them.BRRRRRRIIIIING

Kraber awoke in a cold sweat, and he reached for the pistol he kept under his pillow, only to realize-

Where was it where was it where was it-

Kraber’s eyes tracked to the source of the ringing. Was it a bomb?! Did they get to him?! Oh, shit. Was that dickbag Summers here?! Did Kaminsky and Cindy plan on a murder attempt?!

His eyes

(son of a fokkin whore what the fok is goin on here fok this fok, where the fok is my goddamn .45)

darted around the room. Looking for the source of the noise. A little box sitting on his nightstand. Operating on instinct, Kraber surged out from his bed, reaching for it. He grabbed it in both hands, wishing he had a screwdriver.

I can use my thumb to unscrew it! That works someti-

Kraber paused. For the first time, he looked down at the object in his hands, only to find that he was holding an alarm clock.

Shit, he thought. I could’ve died.

Kraber considered that. Then realized that made no fokdamned sense. He was holding an alarm clock! So what the hell was he thinking? That he somehow could’ve died in the dream?

That made no sense.

He shut off the alarm, carefully looking for the off switch. And at his fingernails.

No dirt.

Why did I ever think there’d be? It’d be a decent scare if I was making an adaptation of Pet Sematary, but it doesn’t make much sense here, he thought.

He sighed, and sat back down on the bed. He’d purposefully set the alarm so he had some time to sit down and relax. It was half an hour before he’d have to put on clothes, get breakfast, take a shower… the usual morning kak, before staggering into the lobby of the medical bay with the blackest, bitterest, sludgiest coffee on the ship.

He set the alarm again. He probably wasn’t going to fall asleep again, but it helped to be sure.

And just what in the fok, Kraber thought, was that about?!

His dreams had been worse, lately. Fields of screaming pony and human faces. Cockroach-trees. Herds of things that had once been human, running across fields of rust-red and purple grass. And then there’d been the time he woke up, panting heavily, drenched in sweat, saying out loud “and thank fok I won’t remember this!”

“What was that?” Dancing Day asks.

“Fok weet, I don’t remember,” Kraber says.

* * *

The next day began like any other.

Sit at the table furthest away from anyone. Lean back in a chair that wasn’t made for people built like beanpoles.

Sit with Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie.

They talked about this newest movie, some Reel Action flick the PHL had made for as little money as possible for as much output as possible. It was titled “The Confession.”

It was sort of an anthology piece. All these citizens of the co-prosperity sphere or whatever Celestia called it now had managed to escape the Solar Empire. And they’d give their stories. Explain how one day, it’d clicked for them that this wasn’t their home anymore. You’d have these ponies sitting in an almost aggressively sterile room, monologuing about the secret police or the

None of them had seen it, of course, but Jessie was big into films so she’d seen some reviews on youtube and wanted to go and see it on shore leave.

“We get shore leave?” Kraber had asked.

“Well, yeah,” Wedge had said. “It’s best in the summer. All the places that sell lobster rolls are open, there’s ice cream everywhere, and I get to enjoy the summer. Everyone gets…”

Wedge’s voice trailed off into nothing. They’d run straight into the ass end of the elephant in the room.

…fokdammit.

Nobody would’ve said it. They all knew.

For a moment, Kraber thought of looking to Alpen Glow for guidance. But then he thought about Louis. Where was he, a-

shit.

“They’d really trust you with shore leave?” nobody asked. “They’d really trust a literal mass murderer enough to get off the ship?

“I mean, I can bootleg it if you want?” Alpen Glow asked.

The spell was broken.

“Sure,” Kraber said. “Aweh. Sure. Why not.”

It wasn't long before someone actually said it, though. As Kraber searched for something to say, he heard a new voice.

“Like they'd ever let you off the ship,” they said.

Kraber said nothing. He looked over to find, of course, another pony. A heavyset green unicorn pony of indeterminate gender, with a yellow and orange mane. They stood next to a black woman with

He didn’t even feel angry anymore. What was the point?

“You missing your friends right about now?” they asked, levitating an iPad over to them.

Kraber didn’t say yes as he read the article displayed on the iPad.

It read: “PHL Victory! Colonel Gardner’s forces liberate HLF stronghold.”

Not captured. Not broke. Liberated.

It had a picture of a tank (Kraber didn’t know tanks) that stood proudly atop a wall of tree trunks and rubble, looking down upon an improvised pillbox on what used to be someone’s deck. A gun that looked like a DsHK sat on a tripod with plastic tubs of 12.7x108m sat abandoned, looking very small in front of the tank.

But he came close. Too close. There was this sudden pang of longing to be somewhere else, to be on the open road.

He could just imagine what they’d say. Awww, does the poor widdle nazi baby want more war crimey?

”Pause,” Heather says, sighing and raising one eyebrow. It looks as if it is trying to seek shelter under her bangs.

The room goes silent. Everyone looks to Kraber’s college friend.

They,” Heather said, “Would not say that.”

“Agreed,” Heliotrope said.

“It was my self-loathing talking,” Kraber says bluntly.

“You know what they did there?” the black woman asked. “It was a little town called Ellisburg. I had family there.”

“I can tell you what we did there,” Yael volunteers.

“Maybe in a bit,” Kraber said. “We’re almost at the part where we get off the ship.”

“Really?!” Dancing Day pipes up, excited.

“You’ve been weirdly quiet, lately,” Aegis notes.

“I, uh… fell asleep,” Dancing Day says. “This part with the ship was kind of boring.”

“Boring? Really?” Kraber asks.

“Well, maybe just tiring? I thought Romero and the Thunderchild were cool,” Dancing Day admits, “But… you just looked so out of it. You were like, a… like a…”

She looks up to Astral Nectar.

“What’s a… it’s like a, like a…”

“Like a pegasus in a tunnel?” Astral Nectar asks.

“What’s that mean?” Heliotrope asks.

“I mean that he just seems like he was out of his element,” Astral Nectar says.

Kraber sighs and nods. “You know what? You’re absolutely right.”

“You know what they did?” the woman asked. “They recruited hate groups and let them run rampant. Literal. Goddamn. Nazis. You know why Kaminsky hates you so much?”

Kraber really wanted to make some sort of witty comment. But… it hadn’t been the first time this happened. It’d felt so omnipresent he hadn’t even felt comfortable signing on with the therapist.

“I assume it’s because I’m of the war crimes,” Kraber said, deadpan.

“Because he’s jewish,” the pony at her side finished. “I don’t understand human religion that much. But you… you looked at people that would’ve killed you with a smile on their face, and you decided to smile right along with them.”

“How the fok do you know they were Nazis?” Kraber asked. “I didn’t even know about this until t-”

“Because they literally had Nazi flags,” the black woman said. “Some of them were a literal hate group from before the War.”

She picked up the tablet from the unicorn’s telekinesis field. Scrolled down to show a group of men and women, most of the men in bulletproof vests with the ubiquitous goatee-and-wraparounds combo that seemed to be manufactured in bulk in small towns.

A… distressing amount of them had swastikas on their armor.

Oh, shit.

“You joined with a bunch of pissed off rednecks forty years too late to the cross burning. I hope you’re fucking proud of yourself, motherfucker,” she said.

She spat on the floor. It came within millimeters of Kraber’s boots.

“Does it make you feel proud to do this?” the pony asked.

“Honestly?” Kraber asked. “No. No, it fokking doesn’t. This is going to eat at me every hour of every fokking day of my miserable life.”

The noise in the cafeteria died down, ever so slowly. Kraber became aware of far too many eyes settling on him.

“For the love of God. I am sorry,” Kraber said, his voice trembling. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’M FOKKING SORRY!”

His voice rose. He felt his eyes heating up, burning.

They’re going to laugh at me, aren’t they? He thought.

The woman and pony stared at him. The pony wore a scowl, the woman was openmouthed.

“Everything I did was a mistake. It was wrong then, and it was wrong now. I’m. Fokking. Sorry,” Kraber said.

“And I don’t give a shit,” the pony said, finally. “What you did, Kraber… that’s unforgivable. We’ve told you. You’re running out of time.”

Their glare swept over Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge.

“You three. You sicken me,” she said. She looked to Jessie. “You… you know what this man has done? The lives he’s ruined? Three weeks ago, he would’ve killed you, skinned you, just like he did Prisma and Louis.”

“FOR THE LAST FOKKING TIME, I DIDN’T KILL THEM!” Kraber yelled.

“And what goddamned evidence do you have?” yelled an Earth Pony stallion who sat by a water bubbler, in the corner. “You don’t give a shit about killing anyone! If one of us got killed tonight, we’d all think you did it!”

Oh, fok. He was right.

It didn’t matter.

“Maybe if you three keep being buddy-buddy with him,” someone else said, “You might end up in trouble.”

Kraber turned around to see Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge staring at anything but him. He could only see the corners of their faces, but their expressions were pulled taut. They were afraid of him.

Everyone was afraid of him.

Fok it. It’s all pointless, Kraber thought. As long as he was Viktor Kraber, as long as he was on this boat…

It could never work. He could never be happy.

It was a sobering realization. It wasn't as if he could tell himself with a straight face that it was unfair. After all, anywhere else, he would've been hanged.

And these people... where did he even get off acting like they owed him anything? Why in God's name do I keep bragging about this shit?! The shittiest thing was that they were right. If he'd been here, and the boss had crowbarred someone like him onto the job, he would've hated them too.

He was a monster. And every day he was here would remind the entire boat of that simple fact.

“I’m… going to the medical bay,” he said.

When he got to the waiting room of the medical bay, he saw Cindy glaring at him.

Kraber desperately wanted to punch or stab something. Even to play a videogame. Take off some stress. But…

Nothing.

He had no outlet. No release. No. Fokking. Nothing. He ached to do something. Anything. To find a woman or man or whoever at a pub, But he wasn’t going to be allowed in the rec room, he wasn’t going to be allowed shore leave, and

(I’m going to die on this ship)

Kraber blinked. Where had that come from?!

Despite everything, he couldn’t shake it. It made sense. An entire boat full of armed HLF and ponies? None of whom liked him?

It was only a matter of time before he had an… accident.

“The fuck are you looking at?” Cindy asked.

Kraber ignored her, stepping into the office. He let the familiar, artificial un-scent of antiseptics and equipment wash over him, as he stood in a hallway leading to several examination rooms - and one operating room.

Doctor Fetlock stood to greet him.

“Excellent,” Doctor Fetlock said. “I’m glad you’re here. Our patient was injured while working on a... classified... project."

There was a pause.

"You're not going to...?" Fetlock asked, his voice raising with an unspoken question.

Kraber sighed. He felt almost weightless, less like he'd walked up to Fetlock and more as if he'd blown in like a piece of detritus on the wind.

"What is even the fokking point, anyway?"

Fetlock didn't answer. He trotted towards the operating room, not even looking at Kraber.

That same thought seemed to echo in Kraber's mind. What's even the point. The longer he thought about it, the harder it was to answer.

Cindy was right. Kaminsky was right. He'd deserved a hundred times worse than them treating him like a bit of muck scraped off the bottom of a shoe. And if he complained about it, what did he have a right to say? Knowing his luck, if he scheduled an appointment with a therapist on the ship they'd just laugh in his face.

There was no reason to expect anything but things getting worse.

"He's suffering severe back injuries, punctured lungs, and organ damage," Fetlock said. It was as if Kraber hadn't said anything at all.

Sometimes he felt like a ghost on this ship. Less than real.

The automatic door slid open. Kraber guessed there was a laser sensor mechanism calibrated for pony height, meant to minimize contact.

"So," Kraber said. "Who am I-"

His voice died in his throat as he looked down at the operating table, to the patient sitting there, anesthetized.

It was Kaminsky.

...Fokdammit.

“If today was a person,” Kraber found himself saying, “I would shoot it. I would shoot it in the balls.”

Author's Note

Now, I know what you're probably thinking: Cindy, Kaminsky, and so many of these other people sound like dicks! How could they exclude Kraber like this! He's the main character!

But the thing is.... as Jed pointed out for me once, they're not wrong. Kraber is, by any definition, a serial killer. A serial killer with useful skills such as surgery, but one nonetheless. They're not wrong to hate and fear him. You'd be unsettled if your boss hired someone with multiple counts of murder.

And believe it or not? This is actually toned down from what I had. Earlier, there was a kangaroo court scene where a bunch of EAV members try their hands at vigilante justice, but Jed and I had to cut it out. Because not only was it too miserable, but neither of us liked what it was saying about his characters.

But seriously, it was way too miserable and Jed and I couldn't get ourselves out of it.

So, what happens next chapter?

Kraber gets off this boat. The kangaroo court thing Will Not Happen. I don't know how much passion I have for the next arc, I don't even know if I'll finish it... but, much like Kraber, I think I might enjoy a change of scenery.

Or maybe I'll just work on a different fic. There's something else I have in the works that has far less murder involved. I think it'll be a nice change of pace.

Episode 1: For The Kill

Light Despondent Remixed - Episode 1:

Special thanks to:

Kizuna Tallis (I never thought I’d have a quote from Chance the Rapper, but well, here we are. Thank you!)

TB3 (Some of your work is still in here, probably?)

Jed R (as always, he’s just great in general)

For The Kill

“I can’t believe this! We’re on the verge of being exterminated backwards and forwards in time - and we fight over the scraps. We’ve got no choice - we have to unite, ponies and humans alike, before there’s nothing left to protect!”

Lieutenant Colonel Sabine Northwoods, PHL R&D

“...But what you really have to be afraid of is the EHS. Blacker-than-black-ops. If there’s an HLF threat, or a PER cell that’s not far enough underground, the EHS will cut it out.”

Nimbus, PER Pegasus potion-bomber in the so-called ‘Shieldwall Corps,’ a unit of PER led by Shieldwall.

Gardner: “You have to trust us, because we know we can win - and we won’t do that without any of you. We have to win to preserve the good ol’ USA, to save the human race as we know it. And winning means we have to accept that we’ve gotta do some stuff we don’t like. Leave a few starving refugees behind before we firebomb a place to shit or have to evac it at Barrierfall? We can’t save everyone. Kill some civvies to clear out a PER nest? It’s them or more people ponified. Our job isn’t to save everyone. It’s survival. Our job is victory. Our job is keeping our own people alive. Anyone who isn’t with us might as well not be human. It’s the end of the world… and when faced with extinction, every alternative is preferable.”

Unknown Reporter: “But what about the HLF? Surely they’ve-”

Gardner: “Let me stop you right there. Whatever you’re suggesting, you can’t. I grew up around these people - people who think they can always do one better than the government. People that are always oh-so-independent until the moment they need their welfare check or need to take responsibility, then it’s the driver’s fault for hitting a cow they should’ve cared for. People whose defense for armed occupation is that essentially, property rights don’t mean crap so they can do whatever they want, up to and including murdering ponies that I personally promised some farmers would be great workers. They don’t care about logic, they just care about their own power.”

Press conference with US Marine Corps Colonel Robert Gardner

“They call refugees ‘the Dispossessed.’ Well, that’s a relative term, one for people like Johnny C that’ve read too much Vandermeer. To you, to people who still have a house or apartment you don’t have to run away from, that’s people like us. But some refugees I know, like my friend Abraham… they have families, electronics, heirlooms, photos, stuff from the old world. To us, the Dispossessed are people that lost everything, even their minds. Johnny C, Abraham, his brother Dalibor, and I? We saw this one HLF woman in a hunting cabin near Errol, along the Magalloway… she had a newfoal she claimed was her son. She’d fitted a speaker to its stomach, and claimed she could hear the very faint sounds of weeping from it… begging for mercy, for her to save it. Crazy stuff.

That’s what being one of the Dispossessed means to us.”

Blossomforth, PHL pegasus.

“We have to kill them. Slaughter their ranks and fold in anyone with enough shreds of sanity, anyone reasonable enough to accept that maybe killing every pony in sight doesn’t work! Harsh? You don’t know harsh. We don’t have the option of leaving them to their own devices! They and the PER will come out of the woodwork, scrabbling over the remains and fucking us over a barrel. We leave them, and the last bastions of safety in this world go to shit! Come next November, when the Barrier hits Canada, we’ll be fucked if we leave them as they are, and anarchy’ll reign! We need to defend the lines behind our home front!”

July 15, 2023. Lieutenant Yael Ze’ev, member of the ‘Dominant’ faction of PHL, a subgroup seeking greater emergency powers during wartime. One week before the disappearance of Sutra Cross.

“I had PER friends before the war. And when we split for good during the Three Weeks - when I left one of them with a black eye - they asked me: ‘Sutra, why are you helping them! None of them want anything to do with us! With ponies! The ones with me are the right kind of human, they’ll-’”

At which point I cut her off.

“‘Anyone that’ll sell out their friends to save their own skin, not to mention becoming one of those darn things, is not the right sort of anything. I’m not doing it for the criminals and murderers that you think every human is, Honey. I’m volunteering my medical training and spells for the scared families and ordinary citizens in need of help. Can you honestly tell me that everyone deserves what the Empire will visit on them?’

She said yes, so I punched her and felt something crack. What would you do?

Sutra Cross, radio interview on the subject of the Sutra Cross Medical Convoy

They’ll go power mad. Not today, no. Not even tomorrow. But soon. You can see it in the propaganda. You can see it in the way they make subtle insinuations about those not part of their little group. You can see it in the way the PHL blends the political and the military. You know who else blended politics and the military? The Nazis. You wanna call that an exaggeration? Right now, it is. But it won’t be. It won’t be when the dissidents, the outspoken, the people who think they’re going too far, start disappearing, getting arrested. They’re already covering up the deaths of civilians, sticking medals on Gardner’s chest or giving the Butcher of Nipville a slap on the wrist instead of a firing squad. Call it Godwin’s law if you like. You’re happy now, when it’s PER they’re after. But then they’ll come for the HLF - not just the extremists, the Carter-following traitors, but all of us. Then the anti-military. Then the opposition parties, or the protesters who don’t like the PHL being so knee deep in all the governments. And then, one day, they’ll come for you. And there will be no one left to speak for you.

Officer Samantha Yarrow, HLF, the Reavers, speaking to an underground radio station known for anti-PHL-government sentiments. Said radio station was raided three weeks later, just before the Massacre Of Defiance, on Robert Gardner’s orders, and all members either arrested or shot during the raid.

Of course they want to destroy us or bring us onboard. It’s not just a matter of dealing with the split and the fallout from that. They would work with us for that. No. They want to consolidate their power. That’s understandable, not just because they think they need to, but because that’s what everyone wants. Some of them might even do it for honourable reasons, or what they think are honourable reasons. But make no mistake: choosing to focus so much on us instead of the true enemy is folly. Fringe groups and crackpots, those can be dealt with internally. But the Empire needs our attention most of all. I’m not in the business of politics or jurisdictions. I am in the business of winning the war.

Daniel Romero, HLF, Ex Astris Victoria.

I don’t have a problem with authority in and of itself. I have a problem with authority assuming it is right merely because it is the authority, merely because it holds titles and prestige. Having a title doesn’t make you right. I have the title ‘Commander’, but the reason my people follow me is because they choose to. Bonds of trust and loyalty, far beyond anything they held to their countries, far more than any respect for a word. The UNAC, the PHL, they fight the same enemy I do, but they’re not the be-all or the end-all. Authorities are not right because they are authorities. Authorities are right when they are right. And sometimes, they’re not. Sometimes, you have to make your own choices. They don’t usually like that, of course, but as long as we stay clean and they stay focused, we won’t have problems. And if we do… well, we do.

Maximilian Yarrow, HLF Commander.

Y’know, all this stuff is silly. The real enemy’s out there, bigger’n we know. This is a war of magic, of gods and demons, and we’re still stuck turning our wheels in the mud of earthly things. Truth is, all the tech we’re makin’, all the guns, that ain’t the only adapting we need to make. We need to change how we think. That’s the only way we’re gonna survive.

“Jim” of the Mystics.

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, so they say. I say, perhaps when they are all blind, they will finally use their ears, and listen! If that is what it takes, then it must be so.

Hiro Mifune, former UNAC.

“Money doesn’t mean much in these times. Sure, the rich may be able to escape from the front line, hole themselves up in places like ‘the Last Resort’, or invest in walled communities with their own little private armies to continue living out their lavish lifestyles. But all they’re really doing is prolonging the inevitable.

But I… I just can’t in good conscience sit back. It’s tempting, I’ll admit that much. But when the enemy is so ruthlessly dedicated to wiping us and everything we’ve ever done as a species out, sitting back is not an option. It’s not the sane or conscionable option.

I’m no fighter; I barely feel comfortable even handling a pistol. But I still try to help in some ways. I still record songs for my fans; they say it helps keep the population’s morale up. Though using them for food drives helps too, I think. I occasionally volunteer at shelters, taken in some refugees as they were passing by, help out with the “behind-the-scenes” things that keep the war running smoothly. I know any little thing helps us out.”

Interview with Chance the Rapper from Complex magazine

05: Burn It Down

Light Despondent

Chapter 5

Burn It Down

If you're feeling like I feel then run your life like it’s a dance floor
And if you need a little heat in your face, that’s what I’m here for
If you're chilling in the dark and you're looking through a telescope
You will see me sipping on a soul of a new hope
Awolnation, Burn It Down

Heliotrope
Somewhere in Maine

It wasn’t that Heliotrope wasn’t used to what she’d consider to be police work, it was more that she barely fit and she knew it.

Sure, there were plenty of times she’d had to do it. Try and keep refugees from rioting, de-escalate situations, keep other troops from snapping, trying to keep planes from getting overloaded, move people here and there, trying and mostly failing to keep the Coffin Ships from being full past capacity. Things like that.

She stood near Oscar, looking over the various witnesses. A bunch of motorists they’d managed to get to this PHL base in Maine, who’d been at an HLF checkpoint. In the room just in front of her, she could see

“They stole the furniture I was hauling!” said the short, potbellied, balding man sitting in the chair. Going by what Heliotrope had heard, his name was Darren Pines. “And… Jesus, I thought I was gonna die!”

“Right,” Summers said, nodding. Gardner sat behind him, leaning back in a chair so that it was practically at a 45 degree angle.

“You’re sure?” Pines asked. “They… they held me at gunpoint. If I’d made a sudden move, they would’ve killed me.”

“But nobody died this time?” Summers asked, surprised.

“No, nobody has died,” Pines corrected. “These checkpoints… I used to think they did good, y’know?”

“I don’t,” Summers said. “Far as I’m concerned, that was my job.”

“But you’re military,” Pines said, confused.

“Not always,” Summers said. “I was a cop before the War, and trust me - there was nothing I hated more than people trying to do my job for me.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason,” Gardner said.

Pines just raised an eyebrow.

‘What would that mean?’ Heliotrope thought. There were so many little gestures, so many little facts humans knew that she didn’t. Like whatever it was that made Pines look so strangely skeptical.

“I know, I know,” Summers said. “But the law is there for a reason. When people try to take it into their own hands, deciding that maybe - that maybe they should be the law of the land, it doesn’t end well. Especially if it’s a bunch of pissed-off rednecks with military-grade weaponry.”

“And police are so rulebound compared to that,” Pines muttered.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Gardner said. “But like he said. The law is there for a reason. We’re talking people who you said could’ve very well murdered you. With no respect for due process, and willing to turn their weapons on anyone they don’t like. We saw that after the Purple Winter. And I am not letting that happen again. We cannot afford anarchy.”

And for that matter, neither was Heliotrope.

“Hey,” Yael said, walking by. “How are you doing?”

“...Exhausted,” Heliotrope said. “It feels like we’ve been at this for hours.”

“Probably because we have,” Yael said. “QS is getting… really annoyed.”

Heliotrope raised an eyebrow.

“More than usual,” Yael explained. “This, this just doesn’t work for her and Oscar. Neither of them can carry an interview in a bucket, but Gardner dragged them with us.”

She sighed.

“I just… I just don’t know what to feel here,” Yael said.

“Still feeling out of it?” Heliotrope asked.

Yael sighed. “Oh, so much.”

“Want to talk about it?” Heliotrope asked. She understood what Yael meant - about feeling almost cheated, about feeling like none of this made sense. And it was starting to get to her, too. There were a lot of things that didn’t quite make sense.

“Maybe later,” Yael said. “For now, we have another interview. With a mother and her foal.”

“The ones that Nny said…” Heliotrope said, her voice trailing off. “Nope, can’t say that horseapples with a straight face.”

“I know, right?” Yael asked.

Heliotrope had written it off as a rumor when she heard it Kraber

“Bet it’ll be quite the story.”

Yael

So is this the ass end of the PHL or not? Yael asked herself. On the one hand, it was exactly the kind of grunt work Heliotrope hated.

On the other hand, Gardner had an ulterior motive. She was certain of it.

She sat in a dusty room with Heliotrope, Oscar, QS, Lorne, Eva, Smoky, and Summers. Along with Gardner and a thin man who looked Indian.

Mamjudar Whitman, she thought. An FBI agent with a reputation for brutality against PER. The stories went that he’d taken a vial of potion and shoved it down one person’s throat. Without opening it.

Yael wasn’t sure if it was true or not.

“Bring in the first person of interest,” Gardner said.

“Two,” Whitman said.

“I said one,” Gardner said. “Now, obey my orders, or so help me-”

“She’s a child,” Whitman said. “She refuses to talk about it without her mother in the room.”

“I don’t care,” Gardner said. “We’ll have them one at a time, like I said.”

Yael and Heliotrope stared at him. And Yael watched something dark cross her friend’s face. The same anger that’d led her to tell Yael they had to stop the HLF and attack Nipville, the same anger that’d led her to cut HLF to ribbons time and time again.

The same anger Yael was beginning to feel.

So she placed her hand in her friend’s short, unruly bluish-green-and-pink mane.

“Heliotrope,” she said. “Please.”

Heliotrope’s expression softened.

“I… Whitman said it himself, she’s only a child,” Heliotrope said. “If it makes her more comfortable, more willing to talk, then I don’t see a reason why not.”

Gardner grumbled. “Fine. Why not.”

The unicorn filly that came in looked like she could have done propaganda for the Solar Empire - her colors were so sunny and bright. She had a yellowy-orange coat, with a pink and light yellow mane. Her mother, however, looked absolutely nothing alike aside from being a unicorn mare too. She had a bluish-black coat, a purple mane, and purple eyes. She had a cutie mark of a telescope, while her filly had a set of hoofshoes resembling ballet shoes.

Yael knew their names from the mission brief - Dancing Day and Astral Nectar, respectively.

“You’re listed as ponies of interest in an attempted PER Vanishing,” Yael said. “I know what that sounds like, but it’s more… because of your contact with the HLF not long afterwards.”

It was impossible for Yael to miss them both shivering.

“I don’t know how we’re still alive,” Astral Nectar said. “Viktor Kraber himself walked into Chipmunk’s truck-”

“Chipmunk?” Oscar asked, breaking the silence.

“Her real name is Keisha Nicole,” Gardner said. “The PHL contracts the company she works for to transport things all across New England.”

“Anyway,” Astral Nectar says. “We were-”

December 2022

“Oooh, can I tell this part?!” Dancing Day interrupts.

Kraber shrugs. “I don’t see why not. Yael, what jou think?”

“Well, Heliotrope doesn’t want to go through everything, and I…” Yael yawns. “I have the feeling we’ll be here awhile.”

She looks towards Aegis.”You’re the only other narrator here, what do you think?”

“I think,” the big stallion says, “That it’d make sense to get her perspective. She was there at the beginning of most all this.”

Dancing Day

“We were supposed to be heading to Montreal,” Astral Nectar said. “They needed unicorns, so both of us were scheduled to head to PHL R&D for work.”

“Your Child Would Be Working Too?” asked a strange white mare with a dirty-blond mane.

Or at least, Ithink it’s coming from her? Dancing Day thought. Sounds like it’s coming from a speaker under her red bandanna, in the same area as her mouth. Just under it, that’s so weeeeird…

“I volunteered,” said Dancing Day. “The PHL needed more unicorns, and, well… I’m one. I’m not the strongest unicorn, but I have to do something!”

Right now she sat with her mother in a PHL base just near White River Junction, in what used to be a railroad roundhouse. And autoturrets, of course. Though only a fool would try to bomb it. You would desperately like to be off indulging in summer activities, just swimming but evidently, you are needed for…’debriefing’?

According to some humans, like Chipmunk or Nny, ‘briefs’ are human underwear. And that makes Dancing Day giggle slightly.

“That’s very admirable,” said Yael, the dark-skinned woman sitting before Dancing Day. She’s lighter-skinned than Chipmunk, but darker than most humans I see around. Why are humans referred to as ‘white,’ anyway? It’s more of a pinkish color anyway…

“I couldn’t stop her if I tried,” Astral Nectar said. “And I did try-”

“I kept hitching a ride in Nny’s truck!” Dancing Day giggled.

“Yes, you certainly did,” Astral Nectar sighed.

Sure, mommy was mad, but we got so much done! And I helped her out! Why’s she mad? Dancing Day thought.

“Do you know what makes you persons of interest in this?” asked Heliotrope, the purplish-pink pegasus next to her.

“The fact that we saw Viktor Kraber,” Astral Nectar said, and you stifle a gasp.

It’s so hard to imagine that you came face to face with the boogeyman of any pony looking to make a life outside Equestria. The man responsible for massive amounts of pony deaths (and the death of any humans that happened to be helping them) during the Purple Spring and afterwards.

Viktor Marius Kraber, you think. You can’t believe you didn’t know it was him before. Not the worst of those horrible HLF man. That’d probably be that nasty Mr. Carter or his daughter. But Kraber’s certainly up there, and Chipmunk said he had enough crimes to his name to spend a looooong time in prison. He’s a serial killer, whatever that is.

A cereal killer? Why would anybody would want to hurt breakfast cereals? Count Chocula never hurt anyone, Dancing Day thought.

“Exactly,” Yael said, confirming it with a nod.

Heliotrope growled under her breath, and Dancing scooted back slightly. As she did, she saw Heliotrope’s face twist in rage. She didn’t know that much about people, and couldn’t possibly guess, but it was clear that she had some grudge.

“And he… didn’t stab you? Say anything?” Heliotrope asked, biting back the obvious rage in her voice. “Put a tracking device on you?”

“No to all of those,” Astral Nectar said. “I think we would’ve noticed a tracking device.”

“He just walked out of there!” Dancing Day said, eager to help. “He didn’t even do anything, and when we got to the bar, mom got so drunk, and Keisha met this really nice woman and-”

“Dancing Aphelion Day, no,” Astral Nectar sighed. “They do not need to know that.”

Dancing Day sulked slightly.

“Was there anyone else there?”

Astral Nectar made an effort to look thoughtful and contemplative. Dancing Day even made an attempt, even as someone offered ‘the brave little filly’ a chocolate chip cookie the size of her head. Gracefully she accepted it, and tried to chew on it in a manner that at least looked worldly and knowledgeable.

Maybe Mr Kraber and his friends just need cookies like this to see why they’re on the wrong team… Dancing Day thought. So what would help? What would a man like Mr Kraber need to feel happy? Nobody deserved to lose as much as he did.

“A man with a Russian accent,” Dancing Day said. “Big human, too - I’m guessing he could’ve looked handsome if he didn’t have a receding hairline and wasn’t covered in scars.”

“That’d be Leonid Lovikov, alright,” said the man in the suit. “Nasty, nasty fucker. Ex-Russian-Military.”

“What branch are we talking, Agent Whitman?” asks the big, bearish, dark-skinned man behind Yael.

‘Whitman’ sighed, pinching his nose and pushing his glasses up to his forehead. “It’s really stupid.”

“Agent Whitman,” said the dirty-blond mare with the strange, computerized voice, “I Am An Alien That Looks Like A Prey Species On Your Homeworld, And My Home Is a Fascist State That Wants To Turn You Into Smiley Zombies. How Stupid Could We Possibly Get.”

Everyone turned to her, confused looks on their faces.

“What. Do You Have Any Idea How Often I Get That Shpi… shpil.. Spial.. Oh Forget It,” the mare said, making a strangled noise that could’ve been a sigh. This time with her real vocal cords.

“I’m with QS on that one,” Yael said.

“The part about this being silly, or us hearing that too often?” Heliotrope asked.

“Yes to both,” Yael replied. “How stupid could it possibly-”

“He was a member of a Russian biker gang,” Whitman said.

“How the shit does that count as a military?!” asked a helmeted man in gray armor. A nametag on his body armor read “MIKKELSEN.”

Dancing Day’s jaw dropped. “How in Luna’s name is that possibly-”

“Fair Enough,” the strange mare said. “That Is Pretty Stupid.”

“Okay,” said a dark gray or black earth pony, “That’s just… wow. I don’t… how in the…”

“Look,” Whitman said. “This biker gang… The Night Wolves? They were basically an arm of the Russian military before the Purple Spring, fighting in Ukraine alongside the actual military. The less said about what they did during the Purple Spring, the better. But even by their standards, he had a reputation for brutality. Course, that changes when he’s caught in the whole clusterfuck in Kiev. He comes back from the dead, months later, with a high-ranking position in Gregor Helmetag’s Menschabwehrfraktion. Refines his reputation for violence, earning hundreds of kills on PER, suspected of friendly fire on PHL forces. Pretty similar to Kraber, really. The two of them earn a reputation as blunt cudgels in Helmetag’s hands, until after Spader’s death. At which point, Helmetag starts talking integration, he starts talking about working with us, with the Reavers… and then Helmetag winds up garrotted. With barbed wire. Then, all of a sudden, Lovikov’s in command. He’s considered one of the most dangerous combatants on the kill-maim-burn end of the HLF split.”

“I know a lot about his reputation,” Gardner said, stroking the stubble above his chin. “Him and Kraber…”

“I met that man once,” Smoky said.

Everyone looked to the earth pony, surprised.

Smoky

”I’d been told the best thing to do in Europe was go backpacking, and I got as far as Innsbruck, Austria, before the Purple Winter kicked off.

I mean, maybe heading for a place that had a Bureau was a bad idea. But it was Austria. I was hoping to see some of the sights, maybe pick up some skiing while reared up, take photos… y’know. I signed up with this program that’d let me find host families. And I found this nice couple with two teenage daughters, they lived near the Bureau.

Even ate some of the sausages they made!

...What? I can eat meat. Griffons do it, so can I. Besides, it… it’s not a big deal to humans, and it would’ve been rude. They cooked this special for me. Anyway, I had a great time, living at their house, eating the food, trying to play videogames with their daughters. So, we’re all out at a restaurant, enjoying ourselves, when there’s an explosion.

I don’t know what’s going on, but… we sit. We wait. We pretend to relax and eat dinner. And someone sees [i/]them - beaten, bloodied - filtering into the street. We’re not at the window, so all we’re going by is hearsay. But before I know it, everyone’s pressing to the window of the restaurant, and we see protesters. They’re beaten and ragged, they’re carrying broken signs, and there’s ponies among them.

They look scared, and I’m about to cry out to one of the ponies before I see it’s a newfoal. I have just enough time to think ‘Oh no’ before someone follows them. Equally angry, equally ragged HLF. And they’ve got armor, they’ve got clubs, it wouldn’t surprise me if they have guns, either.

The PER and pro-pony side are right in front of the restaurant. The HLF are staring them down. We’re just about to leave - the waiter didn’t blame us for getting the check early - when we hear the shot.

And they go crazy. We don’t even have time to pay, we’re rushing for the back of the restaurant, stuck in a mob of screaming citizens of Innsbruck, and also something’s on fire.

The way I heard it, the bullet hit the pavement - right between an HLF woman screaming at a PER man. Conveniently between, in fact. Then, guns get pulled out, unicorns start throwing spells, the Bureau’s security guards open fire, and someone’s throwing a molly.

Storefronts are kicked in. Potion gets tossed into the crowd at random, hitting PER and HLF and civs. I see a pony getting thrown through the air, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Anyway, we’re all crowding out through the back of the restaurant, and I hear someone’s been thrown or jumped through the plate glass window of the restaurant.

We’re trying to get back to the apartment, so we turn down a street - I don’t remember where - and then at the other end is Kraber.

He’s flanked by men and women with bike chains, baseball bats, molotovs, rifles, shotguns, pistols. I don’t think he’s leading them. He doesn’t seem like the leading type. It looks more like they’ve just… gravitated toward him. There’s a few dead men and women on the ground in front of our group.

“Give us the fokkin’ pony!” he yells. He’s hefting a Kalashnikov. Pointed right at us.

The family I’m with doesn’t respond. I can tell they don’t want to give me over, but what choice do they have?

“Or you’ll kill us?” someone asks.

“What the fok are you, PER?!” Kraber yells in German. “More fokkin horsefokkers?! Far as I’m CONERNED, this is a fokkin’ favor! You know WHAT THEY DID TO ME?!”

He jerks the gun towards us. He’s not making any dramatic motions with it, not pulling the charging handle. Somehow that’s worse.

“Give him to us,” Kraber says, quietly, “And you don’t die.”

“You’d shoot through all of us to get to him?” asks that same person who wondered whether Kraber would kill us all.

“Would I?” Kraber asks. The HLF men and women behind him laugh and jeer, the only sounds I’ve heard them make in all the time I saw them. “Oh, I don’t know, would I? I mean, I’m just here to fokkin’ help, and here’s this blond little FOKKIN’ KONTGESIG-”

And Kraber shoots him in the head. I scream at the top of my lungs, the crowd surges back and forth. But the HLF behind him train their guns on us, and we fall silent.

“-trying to shit-talk me like I’m that teacher he hates,” Kraber says. “Aweh, look at that! Guess I might!”

Part of me shuts down. And I realize that there’s no way out of this where the family that’s given me safety this whole time gets out okay. So I realize I have only one option. I’m about to stop forward, when-

BOOM

Flaming shapnel rains down the street, bouncing against the pavement. Someone screams.

“SHIT!” Kraber yells, and everyone immediately understands we have to run. We rush down the alley the other way, and he doesn’t seem to pay us any attention. We manage to get to the apartment, we pile everything in the car, and we head out to the mountains.

Others weren’t so lucky. Kraber was one of the worst out there during the attack on the Innsbruck Bureau. If anyone came at him, he’d hit them with the baseball bat, disassemble them, just cut them up. Didn’t matter if you were neighborhood watch, police, army, or innocent - if you walked on hooves or associated with ponies, he butchered you.

On the third day after his arrival, a police officer tried to arrest him...and Kraber just shot her in the leg, and belted her with his baseball bat till there wasn’t anything left to hit, ranting in more languages than I know. Meanwhile, her partner stood by and just watched. There’s video of it.

Knowing what I know now about guns, I don’t think he was shooting to kill, just to wound. Then he could get in close and beat the shit out of them with his hands.

There are so many people that owe crippling injuries to that bastard. So many friends dead.

He killed children. Foals, even. He crushed the skulls of newfoals. He’d stab ponies to death, skin off their cutie marks. He hung PER from lampposts, garrotted them, left them to die of shrapnel in their windpipes.

Then - once they built a big enough bomb - they blew up the Bureau. And with that, they left Innsbruck.”

Heliotrope

“There is so much blood on that man’s hands,” Smoky finished. “From his week in Innsbruck alone, that it doesn’t matter how many of either side he killed.

He looked hollowed out and empty.

“There’s one thing I don’t get, though,” Yael says. “What about that thing with CG?”

“You?” Gardner asks. “You’re asking that, Ze’ev? Why the fuck would you care?”

“I don’t,” Yael says. “But it still bothers me. It just doesn’t fit.”

“We can ask him about it personally. For now, he needs to go down,” Heliotrope said.

“Look. Dancing Day, was it?” Smoky said, “Don’t waste pity on the man. By the Golden Lyre, I don’t think there’s much left in him to separate him from the beasts. He’s probably doing something truly, unspeakably evil at this very moment!”

And after what Heliotrope heard, she was inclined to agree.

Author's Note

Fluffy: So basically, the most important thing you can take from this chapter is that Gardner's a jackass. Well, that and the fact that Kraber has a lot of felonies under his belt. I whitewashed them a little, but I needed Kraber to still be at least somewhat palatable. Sure, I was totally willing to write him killing a lot of innocents in the last chapter, but I'd prefer not to have too much of that. It's important that you understand that he absolutely would have shot Smoky, the family he was staying with, etc. And that this implies that it happened many other times.

I went back and forth on including this chapter, but I felt like it was for the best that I did. Light... I'm not gonna mince words, this story's gonna get jumbled. It's gonna have lots of viewpoint per chapter, especially when I get to the scenes that jump from anywhere from one to five perspectives. I don't want to go above four, though.

Besides, it was very important to Jed and I that we reinforce that, again, Gardner is a jackass. Gardner is our way of looking at all the time we spent writing Marcus, and saying "You know what? We hate being forced to act like character is the messiah and his shit don't smell." We've got more coping planned, but I can't go into that right now.

Special thanks to Jed, for helping out, for giving this a quick edit, for being a great friend in general, and just being Jed. Special thanks also to Jed's wife, who's there for him when I can't be and is just great for him in general. They truly deserve each other.

Also, what act of true unspeakable evil is Kraber committing at this very moment? You'll have to find out soon!

Jed: So… Gardner’s a dick.

On a more serious note: I’m glad to be able to help Fluffy write this “remixed” version of Light. I hope you lot are enjoying reading it as much as I’m enjoying helping put it together. As good old Gardner will hopefully be illustrating, things will not be quite as black and white as they used to be.

… just wait ‘til you meet Romero.

Fluffy: Yes, meeting Romero will be friggin dope.

10: Should I Stay Or Should I Go

Light Despondent Remixed

Chapter 10

Should I Stay Or Should I Go

Heliotrope
August 8, 2022

They stood, dazed, looking at the space where the mystery vehicle had been. Staring at the plume of smoke from Samson.

“Are they…” Heliotrope asked.

Yael wasted no time in turning on her radio. “Colonel Gardner, this is First Lieutenant Ze’ev! Are you there? Please respond!”

Static.

“Who the hell were those ass-clowns?” Chinook asked.

For a moment, Heliotrope almost thought one of the humans said it.

He acts just like one of them, she thought. Somehow, that worried her.

“Those… those bastards,” Heliotrope breathed. “How could they, how bucking could they...”

She shook with rage.

It was the biggest HLF attack since the Purple Winter. Thousands dead, in all likelihood. And the a - the human that’d done it - was free. Because some jackasses swooped out of the sky and saved him.

Who were they?! Heliotrope thought. Who has that kind of power and rescues Lovikov?!

And now he was free. What would he do next? Open fire on a school that had ponies in it? Bomb a small town? Poison a reservoir?

All bets were off. That…

Part of Heliotrope wanted to say ‘typical human.‘

But then, even by her standards for humans (of which Yael formed the top rung) she knew. This could not be, absolutely was not typical.

“I… I don’t know,” John said. “Far as I know, only militaries or the PHL have those ships.”

“So,” Walker said. “Not HLF.”

“Well,” Yael said. “Maybe the Reavers. But.. no. Not too likely.”

“Why not?” Summers asked. “It’s HLF with bigger weapons than even we get.”

“They hate Lovikov,” Yael said. “And besides. We’d know if they had that.”

“Who else would, though?” Smoky asked, as Summers followed that up with a nod.

Heliotrope thought that over. Another military attacking them? No. Couldn’t be. That would… Well, Summers raised a good point.

They really hate us, Heliotrope thought. People like them, those who tried to fight rather than band together… they were the worst of humanity. Not like the ones she was working with here and now.

Truly.

Yael sighed. “Alright. Who else would think it’s the Reavers?”

Heliotrope raised a hoof. As did Smoky, Summers, and John. Quiette Shy, Yael, and Williams - or ‘Bro,’ as he insisted on being called - were the only ones who weren’t in agreement.

Summers nodded at her, looking satisfied.

“Like Smoky said,” Heliotrope said. “Who else would?”

Yael

In the future, on December 24 of 2022, Yael will correct Heliotrope with how she saw the look on Summers’ face.

Self-satisfied.

Not for the first time since she’d been reassigned to work with Gardner, Yael had a sense of… dread. No, not dread. Wrongness.

Those two, Yael thought, looking towards Summers and Smoky, are going to be trouble.

She glanced over at Heliotrope. You, though… I wouldn’t have expected.

Why?

“We don’t know it was them,” Yael said. “We have no evidence they have that, or that they would want to save Lovikov.”

“They’re HLF,” Summers said. “It’s all the same to me, first li-”

“Quiet,” Yael said, deathly serious. “You’re coming close to insubordination, Summers. I don’t like them either, but I can’t prove it’s them. I don’t have evidence it’s them.”

Of course, it was more than that.

Seven children. I don’t… Yael thought. Good God. I don’t even know their names, how screwed up… how meshuggeh... is that? A town gone. Wiped off the map. And I did it.

If I say that the Reavers did this, I’ll do that again. And it’ll have been my fault. Not…

Not…

Was she seriously about to blame Heliotrope? No, that was ridiculous. Heliotrope was Yael’s best f-

Yael’s radio crackled.

“...nant Ze’ev, do you copy! We came down in a baseball field in South Portland. No injuries, thank God.”

“Thank God,” Yael said. “Sir. What do I-”

“First order of business, you are to pick up the other soldiers I assigned - the National Guard have agreed to take the prisoners off our hands until we know what to do with them. Secondly, you are to rendezvous with us in Portland and help us restore order,” Gardner said.

Yael nodded. “Yes sir.”

Kraber

At roughly the same time, Kraber was walking away, dazed. Trudging along the beach. He didn’t know where he was going.

I think I may be in shock, he thought.

Someone with that kind of backing, Kraber thought, willing to save Lovikov? And here I was thinking that Galt was the best ou - no, their side of the split got.

His mind was buzzing.

“You don’t seem happy,” said a strange batwinged mare, fluttering up behind him. She had a blue-black coat, orange eyes, and a dull purple mane with streaks of lighter pink. It reminded him of… of stars, weird as it sounded.

On a normal day, Kraber would have pulled out his revolver and exploded the fokking vampire gluestick coming up to him. But this wasn’t a normal day. Oh, he couldn’t look at her or damn near any pony, any of those foals, without seeing Pinkie Pie turning his family, Kate, Peter, Anka, Cousin Richard, into those fokking zombies.

Do I feel like a fokkin’ hero yet? He wondered. I shot fokkin’ foals.

They’re only ponies, another part of him pointed out.

They’re still children! Wee yins! he heard himself think, the last two words taking on that Robert Carlyle imitation he’d used during that production of Trainspotting in Boston. This isn’t right. None of what I’ve fokkin’ done is right.

“Those who talk to themselves keep poor company,” Anka said, in that odd accent caught somewhere between Germany, Roxbury in Boston, and Cape Town.

Kraber paused and facepalmed. Fok, she was right, wasn’t she? He briefly debated telling this batwinged pony to go away, to just fokking take his pistol and shoot himself so he didn’t have to feel like this anymore…

“Hey,” the batwinged pony said. “You did good, Mr… Bliss, was it?”

Kraber made a noise that could’ve been a yes or no.

“You don’t sound too good,” the batwinged pegasus said.

“I just feel like this wis my fault,” Kraber said.

“You were just a guard, weren’t you?” the bat-pegasus said.

“I have a… a close friend in the HLF,” Kraber said. “Was HLF, for a time. And I…”

Aweh, Kraber thought. Like hell I’m telling them the whole story.

“He was with Lovikov,” Kraber said. “And whatever happened out there, I feel like… I could have stopped him. Should have stopped him.”

“You couldn’t have known he’d be part of this,” the bat-pegasus said.

“But I fokkin’ should have,” Kraber said. “I knew he was getting radger and radger. I knew he was getting angrier. But I just… let it be part of the background. And now, here I am. Friend dead or dying, or complicit in this fokkin’ atrocity of a hostage situation.”

The pegasus looked at him, sympathetic.

“I do know what you mean, y’know,” the bat-pegasus said. “I had a friend back in Luna’s night guard. He was Solar, I was Lunar, and no matter how bad things got, we were friends. Then, well, things got… bad.”

“This bad?” Kraber asked.

“Funnily enough, yes,” the bat pegasus said. “I can tell you about it if you like.”

Kraber looked at the burning city just across the bay. Then at the island full of humans, ponies, and other aliens from that world. All of whom would likely rip him to pieces if they knew who he really was. What he’d really done.

I’m fokked anyway. My friends are dead or gone, they won’t take me, and I’ll be captured by morning. And I’ll deserve it.

There’s nothing for me.

Nothing.

It was a sobering thought.

“You know what? Fok it. I’ve nothing better to do,” he said, shrugging, looking over the batwinged, fanged (fanged?!) pony. “Mind if I ask a question though?”

“That was one,” the batpony said.

“…What the fok are you, anyway?” Kraber asked.

“Seriously?” the batpony asked.

“Well, Ah’ve bare ever seen yuir like,” Kraber explained.

“We have a lot of names,” the strange batpony e said. “Nightkin, the Nocturne, Thestrals… batponies…”

“Oh yeah, Ah haird o’ that,” Kraber said. “Thought it was just a story people told back at the refugee camp.”

The pony sighed. “Not surprised. There aren’t exactly many of us left. I’m Nebula, by the way.”

In retrospect, Kraber shouldn’t have been surprised by her appearance. There’d been a lot of odd species of Equus that had come to earth in the chaos around the Purple Winter. There were some HLF from down south that swore they’d seen a pony made of crystals, and he’d laughed it off right until the moment he saw one himself.

“What happened?” Kraber asked.

“Lots of things,” Nebula said. “They helped Princess Luna escape, a long while back…

Dancing Day

“Here’s the bit of the story I remember,” Kraber says, and clears his throat. “Back from when I met her awhile later.”

“What happened to her?” Dancing Day asks.

“Oh, she’s fine. Still over in Portland, still watching for Imperials or some ship that manages to make its way across the ocean.” Aegis says. “Wonderful mare. Bit irritable nowadays, but who isn’t?”

“Good point,” Vinyl agrees. “It gets hard sometimes.”

“Which is why I’m happy for the friends I still have. Like all of you,” Kraber says. “She’s not…” And Kraber looks downcast here, his shoulders slumping. “…another friend I’ve lost.” He takes a drink of the bourbon hidden under his chair. “I’ve lost more fokkin’ chommies than some of you kids’ve ever made…” he sighs.

“I remember,” Heliotrope said. “That time we were in Kentucky, stopping by that town where you said Zoe lived, Oscar asked ‘Is that a friend of yours?’ and you said…”

“Must be,” Kraber said. Kraber, from what Dancing Day can tell, does not often get teary-eyed or choke up outside of screenings of Wolf Children Ame and Yuki. “She’s ponified.”

Aegis pulls himself up onto a large chair, andd puts a hoof behind Kraber’s head, over his shoulder.

“Ah, thanks for that,” Kraber says, and he smiles over at Aegis. “You’re a real china, Aegis.”

“You too, Viktor,” Aegis agrees.

“Ah, fok it. All of you - I’m glad I met you,” Kraber says. “Yael, Heliotrope, Aegis, Vinyl, Amber and Rivet… you’re the fokkin’ best!”

“Even though I tried to blow you up?” Yael asks.

Kraber shrugs. “Dom nool. Most of you have tried to fokkin’ kill me by now. Eish, I even blew myself up once. It’s lost a lot of emotional impact.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask how you survived that,” Yael says.

“Why do I feel like ‘Dom nool’ doesn’t actually mean ‘No problem’?” Aegis asks.

“Because jou know me, and I lived with you for almost a month,” Kraber says bluntly. “As for how I lived, well, I was jumping off when the Obregon shell hit the boat. The seawater put out the flames.”

“Alright,” Heliotrope says. “So you didn’t get hit by any shrapnel? And how about that time you blew yourself up?”

“Okay,” Kraber says, “That part is weird.”

“You threw a belt of grenades, in the middle of a house, that fell into a river!” Vinyl Scratch adds.

“Well,” Kraber says, “That’s a long, interesting story, full of twists, and turns, and it also has pirates, and time travel, and-”

“You have no idea, do you,” Vinyl interrupts. It is not a question.

Kraber smiles. “Fok weet! But some of that was true, anyway.”

“Even the part with the pirates?” Rivet asks.

“Surprisingly, yes,” Heliotrope says.

“Wait,” Dancing Day says, “So does that mean that Aegis tried, or…”

Aegis and Kraber look at each other uncomfortably.

“We’ll get to that,” Aegis says.

Nebula

We were revered by a lot of ponies back in the day. Feared too, for obvious reasons that we have wings and canine teeth. There were some ponies that came up with stories as to where we came from; that we were created through magic as Nightmare Moon’s loyal soldiers, we were the victims of curses…

There’s bad stories about what thestrals faced.

But anyway, without Princess Luna’s magic, we got rarer and rarer. Then, one day, when she came back, we found out that she was hiring new Thestrals. I joined in, my sister said she’d love to come, and she was so resigned to not getting to try join when…. Well, we learned something interesting. You can be born a thestral, yes, but Luna favors the use of enchantments and some illusions to temporarily transform us to look the part.

“How… extensive are these changes?” Kraber had asked as she told the story. “Is it like ponification, or…”

Well, she wasn’t born a thestral like me, so she doesn’t have the omnivorous digestive structure. Wasn’t even born a mare. See, she asked Luna to make her thestral disguise look like a mare. Always seemed happier on duty that way...

“So your sister was…” Kraber said.

Nebula nodded.

“Huh,” Kraber said. “She was trans? All that time? And nobody thought to take that into account when making the ponification potion?”

I guess the Queen just didn’t care.

Luna, though… whatever it was that killed a part of Celestia’s heart, it never hit Luna. For all her anger about the Wedding Invasion, Princess Luna was never all that intent on the orders to exterminate the Changelings. Yes, Mr. Bliss - genocide. Queen Celestia had us exterminate all Changeling hives in Equestria, and it had been scary how easy she’d whipped everypony into a frenzy. As I remember, that was when we first heard about the mare they call ‘Celestia’s Sword’...

“Who’s she?” Kraber asked.

“We… don’t know. A mare that obeys the queen bitch without question, wears a flesh-colored mask like half a human face… and the nightmare of many a Changeling. And mine. I saw her in action, and she was surgical in the field. Like a scalpel to someone’s throat...”

Luna, well, she’d wanted to capture Queen Chrysalis, punish her, impose sanctions, but not…. not kill her. Eventually, Celestia managed to convince her…. and we did so. I know we didn’t burn the majority of them, anyway, but the things we did during that campaign…

We didn’t kill them all. But what we did wasn’t much better. Any Changeling that survived lives under 24-hour surveillance in these little walled communities with barely a pot to piss in, outside the ruins of their Hives in scorching desert where nothing can grow in these cheap little shacks long past their expiration date. It’s better than life under Chrysalis, almost anything would be, but that… that… well, changelings don’t have much in the way of childhood, but… part of me just felt sick when I saw how we ripped larva away from their hives.

We caught a lot of flak, so you humans say, for lagging behind on the campaign to protect the home and hearth of Equestria… once, it was more literal, though we could never prove that the fireworks launched by the Celestian Guards weren’t an accident.

From there, well, it went downhill. After the GreatEquestrian exploded on Declaration Day - and that’s a long story, please ask somepony else, I’m trying to make a point - Luna begged her sister not to ‘spread harmony’, to do what she planned, based on what she’d witness on that ship. For a year or two, Luna sat by, afraid to act against Celestia again, desperately hoping that something could be salvaged from the war. Why? Well, she’d been Nightmare Moon - ancient enemy of the ponies, mad alicorn with great and terrible power, gone mad with jealousy for Celestia - earlier. It’d take too long to explain. She’d only just recently been reintegrated into Equestria, and she was.... well, afraid. She would tell us she had confidence issues, and feared that even the slightest inkling of arguing with her sister meant that she could be on the way to becoming Nightmare Moon again. And I can’t prove anything, but I know in my heart of hearts, like up is up and bullets come from guns, that Celestia played on those fears-”

Kraber

“She did what.” Kraber said, angered beyond inflecting even a question mark in his voice.

“You heard me,” Nebula said.

“It’s just… Look. I have three siblings,” Kraber explained. “Maybe we hit each other a bit, but that shit is too fokking far!” he paused. “She disnae care. She disnae care, so I don’t know if she can be hurt. Not that it really compares to what Celestia’s done in the past three years, but… her sister, man.”

“Yeah. She played on it to keep Luna from acting. Oh, she tried to reassure Luna, but there was always the veiled threat at the back of those words - “are you feeling quite yourself, Luna?” - “do you wish to speak to a doctor about these outbursts, ‘dear sister’?”...urgh! Before long, we had ponies saying Nightmare Moon had never really been ‘purified’ or what have you, that Luna was just biding her time… whispers and rumors among the Canterlot nobility, the practical dissolution of the Night Court for ‘reasons of national security’. Because Luna just… kept… asking…. questions.

There was only so long it could work, though. Luna was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but she knew something was wrong. She knew it in her bones. When her mane began losing its luster, fading back to the colour it had been at her birth, she became convinced something was rotten in Equestria. And do you know what the greatest, saddest honor was? It was she confided her fears in us, dammit. Not to her sister, nor her so-called friends, but in us...her guards, her forsworn defenders.

...most of those guys are dead now, I think. I’ve lost a lot of good friends. What? My sister? Well, she’s over in New York right now. Spends as much time as possible as a mare. If you’re ever there and you see her, tell her that Nebula says hello. And I think there are some of the old Nightguards back in the home country, leading resistance cells-

“Wait, resistance cells? In Equestria?” Kraber interrupted.

“Yeah,” Nebula said, surprised. “Course there’s an Equestrian resisty. Why wouldn’t there be? Even if you don’t like humans-”

“Gee, I wonder why…” the nameless newfoal sitting next to Kraber muttered.

“Then you probably don’t like all the things Celestia’s done,” Nebula explained. “Ever hear of totem-proles?”

“Vaguely. Not until about last December,” Kraber said. What a great day that had been...

“Anyway, they’re kinda like human computers, except the government has complete control. And they will catch you if you say anything there,” Nebula said. “It’s left a lot of ponies not really trusting the internet.”

And Kraber found himself… curious. There were some things he remembered from First Contact about Equestrian culture, but he’d never really bothered to learn much more. He’d learned about biology, sure, but not much else.

Not counting the checkpoint, the most positive interaction with a pony Kraber had before this very night had been with the Reavers, in a room with Thomas Yorke. It played out in his head like a film script whenever he thought of it, every detail of that room in stark detail.

A panning shot of the room, a fairly large warehouse that nobody has seen fit to refit for the war. It makes YORKE, KRABER, and the pony between them (CHAMPAGNE GRAPE) look small. Isolated. It is dark and shadowed, though the characters stand in a pool of flickering orange light.

YORKE: “Come on, Viktor. You know you want this. Hurt em like they hurt us! Make them fucking pay!”

YORKE reaches down. He is unzipping his pants. This action is out of focus, so not to glamorize what he clearly wants to do. But it is absolutely clear from the PREDATORY LOOK on his face.

(A wide shot of KRABER, standing silently over CHAMPAGNE GRAPE. She is looking at YORKE, who is half-undressed.)

(The camera zooms in on CHAMPAGNE GRAPE’S face. She is terrified. Another shot where Kraber is close up to the camera but out of focus, but Yorke is in sharp relief. It moves towards Yorke, inch by inch, with Yorke eclipsing everything.)

YORKE: “I had you pegged the moment you got here. You’re just like me, Kraber. I know you’ll like th-”

BANG

A red stain spreads across Yorke’s pants. He falls to the ground, screaming in agony.

YORKE: “YOU BASTARD! I… you… YOU…!”

We cut to KRABER, who holds his SMOKING .45 steady. His face is in shadow under his NICE OLIVE GREEN STETSON HAT, leaving the viewer to guess what he is feeling. Perhaps KRABER does not even know himself.

KRABER: “Ja, well.”

(A pause. Kraber sighs.)

KRABER: “I don’t like myself very much.”

(He sounds TIRED. Beaten down.)

There are shouts from outside the room. The REAVERS have heard the gunshot.

KRABER: Someday, God willing, I’ll be able to use that whole speech.

The footsteps outside grow closer and closer.

So, with that in mind, he found himself asking a question:

“...Was it always like that, though? That kind of surveillance, the hatred of Luna, the…” Kraber gestured all around himself in a wide sweeping motion. “This?”

“No,” Nebula sighed. “There were problems, sure, but…. They sure as Tartarus didn’t start with humanity. There was racism, ponies could be jerks, but… we were once people. Just like humans.”

“...Once?” Kraber asked. “Wait, so does that mean you’re a…”

“No, that’s just silly!” Nebula laughed.

“Wait,” Kraber said. “Can the Potion make batponies? I mean, I’ve never heard of that…”

Nebula’s train of thought came to an abrupt halt at the water tower.

“Uh….” she said, eyes wide. “You know, I haven’t either. Either the Potion isn’t designed for that, or they’re put to death.”

“That’s disturbing,” Kraber said, nodding slightly.

“But… that’s not important. I mean, we weren’t so different. We weren’t always some kind of apocalyptic menace, y’know? We had lives. We had cutie marks and followed them. We were just… normal ponies.”

Kraber looked at her. The mask kept him from staring sarcastically, so he settled for a simple “Really.”

“Okay, not all of us were normal ponies,” Nebula admitted. “But… but now, with the War…. I don’t know what we are. What we’ll be.”

She sighed.

“If anything, the War’s hurt Equestria than humanity ever has.”

Rage surged in Kraber. “And what the FOK are you fokkin’ insinu-”

Nebula fluttered up, holding both forelegs out in a placating gesture. “Not that! I mean… I mean, the War hurts home too.”

And that was something Kraber had never really considered. So, that in mind, he did something he’d never considered doing to a pony:

“Sorry,” he said. “Continue. I… that was wrong of me.”

“They wouldn’t admit it, but it does,” Nebula said. “Foals informing on their parents, on their brothers, surveillance everywhere, everyone’s afraid, you can get disappeared at any moment for not being ‘harmonious’...”

She looked at the ocean.

“And pollution, too. They had to build up quick for the war,” Nebula said. “There’s a lot of runoff, too. A lot of places that won’t be inhabitable for awhile. Shouldn’t be. They keep it out of view, hiding it in faraway places that they don’t want us to look at.”

“Like Love Canal?” Kraber asked.

Nebula looked at him, confused. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Neighborhood too close to some runoff,” Kraber said. “People kept getting sick, they sued for damages, won, got relocated. I had to take a class and learn it once. I think I saw some Solar Empire rag saying it’s why we shouldn’t be...”

“But the Solar Empire lets that same thing happen! They just keep it out of view.” Nebula said, not quite yelling but coming close. “But they won’t let us protest, won’t let us ask for better working conditions. They support the war, though, so we’re not allowed to protest against them. We’re… really not too different, good or bad. No matter what they say.”

Dancing Day

“Hey Kraber!” calls out a Night Guard mare walking by. “Heard you talking horseapples about my sister!”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, Lunar Phase, I’m fine,” Kraber said. “Just telling these folks here a story.”

“Looks like all those writing classes you take on leave are paying off,” Aegis says.

“What’s the story about what?” ‘Lunar Phase’ asks, gracefully flicking a full mane of gunmetal-silver locks behind one ear. Despite the sleek muscle visible beneath her gleaming coat and the tempered steel in her eyes, she’s almost the perfect definition of pony femininity.

Dancing Day marvels at her beauty.

“Oh, just how I got into the PHL,” Kraber explains. “Just got to the part with your sister.”

“Really!” Lunar Phase says. “I miss her so much…”

“That’s…” Kraber looked down at the beach under him. “Wow. That’s… that’s quite a story.”

Kraber had never met Queen Celestia. Never had a sense of… of her, really. Absurd as it sounded. He’d just project some generic concept of her or Pinkie Pie upon every pony he met.

It was becoming increasingly clear that was fokkin’ dof.

These last few days had been… odd. To say the least. Letting that mother and foal live, and getting to talk to Nebula.

It was a shock just after the thought crossed his mind, that there could be good ponies. But… their foals could suffer just like him, just like his own children. Just like him. And, most importantly, the war had cost her a prominent position too. She’d gone from a royal guard to a watchmare on an island in Portland, and she couldn’t go home again.

Yeah, for a gluestick, Nebula seemed alright. Not as if she’d be a friend of his, but more like they could be civil.

This just… makes sense, Kraber thought as he looked her over.

“You know,” Kraber said, “I’ve been thinking. About that HLF friend.”

“Yeah?” Nebula asked.

“He’s an asshole,” Kraber said. “Anyone that looks at you, then looks at the rig and says all of this is justified would have to be. So would anyone that listened to Lovikov.”

“You were in there too,” Nebula said. “Weren’t you?”

For a moment, Kraber’s mind rebelled against that. Of course he was still HLF, he was still old Front, he was someone that’d been there from the begi-

Nah.

Fok it. He’d left, and it wasn’t like he could go back or anything. While it’d seemed horrifying to be so cut off from his (former) friends, to be among ponies and not HLF that propped him up every step of the way, something felt different. He thought about Sully automatically assuming he was deserting. He thought about the near-feral kids in the camp that walked around with feathers braided in their hair, carrying little Kalashnikovs only slightly longer than a pistol, break-actions, barroom .32s, and borzes. He thought about Lovikov, and just how many things the HLF had taken from him. He thought about all the stuff the HLF had him do, about Lovikov throwing out Emil’s stuff onto the ground, torturing him with grief and guilt.

Last time I let someone talk to me like that, I broke his nose, and his jaw. In two places, Kraber thought. What the hell happened to me?! This means I’m tough? This means I’m a hero? Letting Lovikov walk over me? Killing children? Killing ponies that are…

He prepared himself to feel sick. Surprised himself when he didn’t.

Some of them aren’t so different. There’s definitely good ones, like Nebula.

Then he thought back to his current position:

I have nowhere to go. Nobody knows me. Nobody needs me for anything. There’s nobody commanding me. No direction.

Kraber smiled.

Sounds kwaai.

“I was,” Kraber said. For a moment, he almost relaxed, looking out at the sea…

...The moment passed as Kraber saw the glaring problem that, oh ja, Portland was on fokking fire.

“The Rig stopped firing,” Nebula said, “But… there’s still HLF there. There’s still lots of rioting. Seems Lovikov kicked off something big.”

It was at that moment that Kraber’s instincts betrayed him.

“I’m going into the city,” Kraber said. “Things are looking bad out there. The National Guard and PHL are going to need all the help they can get.”

Dayoung

Ten of them were ponified.

I want to go home I want to go home I want to go home

The few HLF that’d been in Benning’s APC were rushing through the streets, chased by the PER impersonating PHL. Dayoung watched as a man by the name of Harrison took a 5.56 to the knee, just through an opening in his bulletproof armor, and fall to the ground screaming.

“WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED!” one PER-as-PHL man was yelling. “SURRENDER, AND WE WILL BE LENIENT!”

As in, ‘We’ll ponify you as painlessly as possible.’ Which… wasn’t reassuring.

Evidently, the poor bastard that’d taken a bullet to the kneecap agreed. As the not-PHL approached, Harrison whipped out two homemade grenades.

“SEE YOU IN HELL!” he yelled, and pulled the pins.

THRAAWM

The not-PHL surrounding Harrison exploded in a plume of fire, shattering windows all around.

“Jimmy! NO!” someone screamed.

There was a man running next to Dayoung. What happened next would be sadly obvious in hindsight to Dayoung. She hadn’t noticed him until now, had been so focused on running that it barely registed that he was near her.

Or what would happen in the next three minutes.

A burst of automatic weapons fire shot over her head, shattering a miraculously untouched window.

“Oh, thank God!” the man running next to Dayoung yelled. “We need help! We’re being chased by-”

He really should have known better. That same weapons fire - from a Kalashnikov, Dayoung realized - ripped through his head, and his corpse flopped bonelessly to the ground. The remaining half of his skull oozed onto the payment, a look of dumb amazement on that remaining hemisphere.

“Oh thank God!” someone yelled. “PHL! It’s PHL, we’re safe!”

Dayoung looked in their direction, and saw a man pointing a Kalashnikov at her.

“Get the bitch with the FAL!” they yelled.

Dayoung yelped, and leapt into cover behind an overturned truck next to a crater in the pavement. 7.62x39mm rounds clanged and skidded across the truck, and Dayoung hoped to God that none of them had a grenade.

Megan slid into cover next to her. Along with a slightly older, balding HLF man with a confederate flag cap.

“This,” she said. “Is…”

“Please do not tell me you’re enjoying this, too,” Dayoung said.

“...At this point, no,” Megan admitted.

“This is FUCKED!” the older man yelled. “Those are disguised PER, and they’re going to take them over us?”

...We shot up their city, Dayoung thought in a daze. And you expect them to trust us?

Dayoung stared through an opening in her cover - and jerked her head away as the bullets flew.

“Oh thank God!” someone said. “Thank you, thanks so much…”

“Just doing my part,” said the same pony that’d said nobody would miss them. Tinderbox, Dayoung thought. His name is Tinderbox. “We have a shelter set over by the waterfront.”

“This seems… odd,” someone else said. “Where’s… the Coast Guard? The National Guard?”

“They’re working on the outskirts of the city,” said another one of the not-PHL. “Getting people into temporary shelters. They’re in the south of the city, we’re workin in the north.”

Dayoung couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“Don’t go with them!” the older man yelled. “They’re PER! You can’t trust them!”

“Yeah!” Dayoung yelled. “We saw them ponify people just five minutes ago!”

The moment she said it, she knew nobody would possibly believe it.

“Soooo…” said another one of the not-PHL. “Who are you going to believe here?”

There was no question. The civilians followed the fake PHL without a question, letting them ~~secure~~ imprison them. Heading to their doom.

“Don’t!” Dayoung yelled. “It’s a-”

Almost offhandedly, one of the fake PHL turned towards them, holding a big single-shot grenade launcher.

He almost had to aim it down to get it to hit them.

THOOP

“GRENADE!” the older man yelled, and the three of them ran. Upon hitting the ground, there was a hiss - and a slight misting above the street, just behind the truck.

Megan and Dayoung made it to the edge of the street, next to some kind of clothes store.

The older man was a little too slow.

“So,” Megan said, looking over to him. “What… what do we do?”

The older man’s eyes were a little unfocused.

“We head north,” he said, with complete certainty in his voice. “There’s HLF in rural maine we can group up with. Lovikov’s heading that way, too. God knows if we’ll get back in with hi-”

He coughed.

“With hi-”

Another cough. This one sounded like it might very well drag a lung up his throat and throw it onto the pavement, and maybe a few more organs with it.

“Are you okay?” Dayoung asked. “You don’t sound too…”

“I don’t…”

The man’s eyes bugged out so far Dayoung thought they’d fall down to the same level as his mouth.

“RUN!” Megan screamed, one arm over Dayoung’s neck.

His voice sounded squeezed. Like his throat was in a vise. And then he began to…

It was hard to describe. Bits of skin sloughed off like peeling paint, or seemed to become waxy. Indistinct.

“No,” the man said, far too calm and certain. As if he was discussing the weather. “Oh God, no.”

His eyes grew bigger and bigger. His spine twisted, and he let out an unearthly scream as his face began to lengthen, and fur sprouted all over his body.

Dayoung and Megan stared at what had once been a man, shocked and horrified. Before they knew it, there was a somewhat rotund green pegasus newfoal in front of them.

Before they could shoulder their weapons and fire, the newfoal sprang up into the air and flew away. Towards the seafront.

“We need to follow it,” Dayoung said, surprising herself with her own calm. “We can stop them, we c-”

“No. Screw all of this!” Megan yelled.

“Bu-”

“We’re screwed, Dayoung,” Megan said. “No matter what we plan on, everyone in the city has an axe to grind against HLF at this moment. And whatever we did wrong, they won’t believe us. We need. To get out. Now.”

It was like a voice speaking in her ear. Like those videos she’d watched, which had someone saying “It was at this moment Nathan knew: He fucked up.”

That was absolutely, a hundred percent true for Dayoung.

We’re being played.

Kraber

Kraber had expected resistance. Or requests for some sort of ID.

But no. They just gave him a lorry, some battered old faded blue thing with a roof and a bunch of tubes feeding in and out of the gas tank, along with a bunch of supplies he could use. Kraber had absolutely no idea how he’d refuel it. Or even if it needed refueling.

Fokkin’ fok, Kraber thought. That’s not swiss cheese security, that’s grated parmesan. I could do anything with this lorry. Idiots. I can take this lorry out of the city, maybe even out of the country,

He drove the lorry along the causeway, heading towards the city - and, hopefully, the mainland. Telephone poles flickered by, and the lorry bumped and juddered along the road. Either nobody had touched the lorry’s shocks, or the road hadn’t been serviced since before the War.

It’s close, Kraber thought, though he didn’t know what was.

The newfoal was currently watching him from the back seats. It became indistinct if he looked at it too closely, but it was definitely there.

“You could have stopped the shells!” the older new foal pleaded from the passenger seat, only visible in the flickering light cast by a passing streetlights, disappearing whenever their orange light segued into shadow. “This won’t-”

“If you’re my guilt, I expect you to make fokking sense,” Kraber said. “I’m not facing down that many people with guns. I’d get filled with more lead than Terry’s plumbing.”

The lorry rumbled along the causeway, and Kraber gazed out the window towards Portland. Saw the fires, the lights shining, helicopters flying overhead.

And this is where I’m going? Kraber thought, raising an eyebrow. No no no. Fok that noise. I’m going to leave. I can make some great money from this. I can leave if I w-

Something screamed.

Well, scientifically speaking, the noise that came from the radio wasn’t a scream. Various audiologists, researchers hired by or contracting with the PHL, would say that it was created by human vocal cords, pony vocal cords, and electronic distortions that could not have been created by any organic being, layered over each other all at once. That it came from multiple sources. Roughly a three hour drive away, the foals of an abnormally large stallion by the name of Aegis were hearing the sound for the first time, and would hear it in their sleep for the next few weeks.

But Kraber’s first instinct as to what it was: Scream.

Before his eyes, he watched every light in the city flicker.

Holy shit.

“...Ji… hu…. A… a ba de gi ko…” a voice spoke over the radio. A meaningless babble of syllables. “A za ka ba ha ya zo mao lo ye…”

And then, inexplicably, a voice arose from that. The same voice speaking the syllables. Overlaid with itself, impossibly enough.

“A ke ka ka ka za za za za...”
“Jag kan inte sova… gdje mi je. Moji su me odveli.”

Was that Croatian? Kraber wondered.

“A ua go he sho kol a…”
“HJALP MIG nemate puno vremena HJALP MIG jany zbirajucca ponify vam usio HELP DEAR GOD HELP odblokujú zbraň, odomknú dvere a uvoľnia sa LIEWE GOD, LAAT ME STERF!”

Well. “Help me” seemed pretty understandable. And: “Dear God, let me die” in Afrikaans. Huh.

What the fok was this?!

“A ya ha za wa na ga ta ba ja la ma ha na...”
“Nǐ xīnzhōng de jiānfēng UKONCETE TO, SHEOL, THIS IS SHEOL.”

Kraber’s Czech wasn’t very good - he’d be the first to admit it - but he was reasonably sure he heard “End this” in there. And… well, the first part sounded like Chinese, but he’d never truly grasped Chinese. Japanese had been slightly easier.

“Ya xa gi ap lo ip kin yo ar gra or die…”
“והם יהרסו אותנו. הלב והמוחות שלנו. שניהם בבת אחת.”

‘...and they'll destroy us. Our hearts and minds. Both at once,’ Kraber translated mentally. This was probably something any halfway decent linguist could figure out. He knew for a fact that he’d probably heard something and missed it. It wasn’t that the broadcasts, whatever they were, were hard to understand, linguistically speaking. It was just that there was so much to sift through.

Kraber had played videogames before, had managed to accidentally create glitches that had two voicelines from the same character playing over each other. It was so much worse in real life.

It drawled into a strange, almost meditative chant. It sounded like a chorus to Kraber, though he couldn’t possibly say why.“As it was, it may be,” the horrible conjoined voice said. “As it should have been, it was not. As it as not, it must. Not. Be. AGAIN!””

Static crept into it.

“Do you know what happened to all of you?” The voice asked. “As Celestia took your dreams, something took the stolen dream she had been given and cast her into an endless nightmare, with you following.”

“You dove in headfirst. Viktor,” the radio said. “Do you know that someone changed? Once, a long time ago, there was a man named Marcus. And then. Then there never was.”

Can’t be talking to me.

“And then there’s the interloper,” the radio said. “They changed things. A group of HLF that stood against the madness. They went from you rescuing your friend in a burning building to you here. But not now. And look how they were rewarded, Viktor.”

It. Is not. Fokkin. Talking. To me.

“You know who I am…” and the voice shifted. Pitched down. Became deeper. Took on a Boston accent. “Vik. “

The voice sounded like it was coming from the passenger seat. It could’ve been whispered in his ear.

“...no,” Kraber breathed, not sure what it was aimed at, or what exactly he was refusing. “No, no, no, FOKKIN’ NO-“

Kate.

His blood ran cold.

“No,” the voice that was not, couldn’t be, absolutely was impossible to be Kate’s. “No. I know who I mean, Vik.”

Some people have the urge to run away from their problems. Some kick their problems in the face. Still others wait until their problems aren’t looking, and then hook their feet around their ankles while they’re descending a set of stairs, and wait for them to trip down the stairs while trying to maintain plausible deniability.

Kraber was trying to figure out how to apply those. Especially the last one. Granted, he’d only tried it once, but it was one of his happiest memories from sophomore year.

Smash the radio? No. Leave the lorry? No. He needed the fokkin lorry.

So how am I supposed to push a radio down a flight of stairs? That one doesn’t really work here...

“I know what’s going to happen. I know how many times they’ve tried this and you died. I remember that this has been tried and failed, twice. I remember Lyndonville. I remember that-”

“FOK!” Kraber screamed, pounding against the radio. “FOK FOK, JOU… FOK THIS… THE FOK YOU… I DON’T… FOK THIS FOK!”

He twisted a knob on the lorry’s radio so hard he wondered if he was going to rip it off the dashboard.

There was another one of those horrible electronic screaming choruses as Kraber twisted the knob.

And then, blessedly, static.

I must never speak of this again, Kraber thought, as the lorry drew to a stop at an intersection. As it drew to a stop, Kraber tried to slow down the jackhammering pressure in his chest.

Calm, Kraber thought, trying and failing to let this go. Fokkin ontspanne. Okay, it knew.... it KNEW me, goddammit! It talked in Kate's voice! WHAT IN THE F-

There was a noise like an emergency weather system broadcast, and suddenly there was a song playing over his radio.

“Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that you are mine
I'll be here 'til the end of time
So you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?”

“This song? Now? Seriously?” Kraber asked himself. “What is this kak? Is it going to start with that song that goes Don't go back to the restaurant Princess Carolyn, Just keep driving away next? Am I getting someone else’s symbolic music?"

He stopped when he got there. That was just car safety, after all. And he looked both ways. Right, then left.

I go right, I head north. Away from all of this. I go left, head south, I go into the city.

North, I’m free.

South…

He thought back to stepping in the lorry.

They really trusted me, didn’t they.

Fokkin’ moegoes.

Heliotrope

Heliotrope fluttered a few feet above the rig’s deck, at what was about eye level for most humans. This was fairly normal for her. In her experience, she had an easier time talking to humans when neither of them had to strain their necks.

At the same moment that Kraber sat at the intersection, that song was also playing as they loaded the prisoners into the Coast Guard helicopter. Zhang and Carson were waving the prisoners on, Zhang jabbing at one HLF woman with the barrel of her little Sumak RPL SMG.

Heliotrope bobbed her head to it. It was… genuinely catchy. One of the things she loved about being on Earth was all the new things - every day, she was exposed to a new bit of pop culture for the first time. Just days ago, she’d never heard of the movie Metropolis by Fritz Lang. And now she had something new to enjoy. And she’d never heard thi-

Oh, right. She had. While watching Stranger Things.

It was also funny how often she’d think she was discovering something new, and it would’ve been around her all along. It was one of the fun little surprises that made Earth feel like an adventure~~, more than exile~~.

“You don’t think this is symbolic, right?” Walker called over.

“Not at all, Walker!” Heliotrope yelled back, fluttering along at about walking speed, behind one prisoner.

He looked pained. “Please. Just call me Bro. Everyone does.”

“I’m not calling you bro,” Heliotrope said. “You’re not my brother, I barely know you, so-”

“It’s short for my real name,” Walker said. “Ambrose.”

“I’m Very Sorry,” Quiette Shy said.

“Old family name, ah… Quiette Shy,” ‘Bro’ said. “And please. Walker is my dad.”

“If You Are Bro, Then Call Me QS,” Quiette Shy said. “Its Only Fair.”

“...Okay,” Heliotrope said, as Yael stared at them both. “Bro it is.”

“Definitely,” Yael said. “...Bro.”

“That’s the spirit!” ‘Bro’ said. “Especially with you, ah… QS. Now, let’s get this over with.”

“We’ll be happy to take them off your hands,” said one Coast Guard with a thick Boston accent, and a nametag reading REZNIK. He was manning an M60 turret. “Or…” he looked over at Heliotrope and Quiette Shy. “You know. Hooves. Or horns, I guess!”

He smirked a little.

Heliotrope found herself chuckling a little too. It wasn’t a good joke, but… after all she’d been through, it helped. Just a little. Quiette Shy made a weak, hoarse little laugh. Chinook, though, stifled a smile.

Smoky was unmoved.

“Makes me sick,” one prisoner mumbled.

Heliotrope stared at the woman that said so, and fluttered towards her, staying at eye level.

What struck Heliotrope was how… dead that one looked. The woman hadn’t been shot, and as far as Heliotrope knew there wasn’t a wound on her body.

But there was a hollow look to her. Something that reminded her of the refugees she’d seen who had been forced out of their homes with only a suitcase to their name and seemed to be so blasted out of emotion that they were unable to feel anything. The particularly deadened people from refugee camps that never truly returned to speaking terms with reality, who would either end up in the high-sec areas of the camps or escape somehow and walk, trancelike, towards the Barrier. Someone had called them “moths,” and the name stuck. And Heliotrope…

Well, she’d had that look too once. Only the flightsuit, a stuffed animal, and a few knicknacks to her name once she deserted and was stranded on Earth. Ponies, humans, and others alike that had lost everything had that look.

It made Heliotrope livid to see that look on the HLF.

“You don’t have any right to look like that,” she heard herself say. “You’re a murderer. A monster. You fired on a city for fucking what?!”

She spat on the ground near them.

“You’re not the victim here,” she said. “You fucking sicken me.”

There was a look of tightly controlled fear on Yael’s face as she said so. Yael moved forward, hand within an inch of her Jericho 941. Imperceptibly, John moved his very tactical M4’s barrel ever so slightly in the woman’s direction.

“It’s not that,” the woman said. “I did something fucking terrible today. I shot at innocents. In no universe does that make me the hero.”

Yael was stonefaced.

The prisoner looked down to Heliotrope, the look turned to raw anger.

“But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” she said, staring down Yael, QS, and Heliotrope. “Come on, I-”

“You-” Heliotrope started, flying towards her.

Yael stared at the HLF woman.

Heliotrope would always remember that glare - some people relied on weapons to back up a glare like that. Yael’s was different. It somehow managed to convey the idea that not having a weapon, having her hands out in plain view was even scarier.

“Get her out of my sight,” Yael said, emotion gone from her voice. “Now.”

“Damn,” John said, whistling. “Stone-cold.”

Zhang looked Yael approvingly. As did Chinook, who looked strangely… satisfied. Not, as Yael would later describe Smoky or Summers, self-satisfied, but-

Dancing Day
December 24, 2022

“I’ll say it here,” Yael says. “He said he felt like he belonged.”

Heliotrope

She watched, nodding. Satisfied.

Good.

Zhang, Carson, John, and ‘Bro’ stared at her.

“Thats Our First Lieutenant,” Quiette Shy said, nodding.

“I certainly am,” Yael said. “Now let’s get back to work.”

“You heard the lady,” Reznik said to a coast guard next to him. “Move them out.”

“Since when do we take orders from a Marine,” said another Coast Guard with a nametag reading CLEMENT, as they shepherded the HLF into the chopper. Clement looked very young, like he was barely out of human high school. Scratch that, he looked like he’d lied to get out before high school was finished. “To help the PHL? That’s like, two chains of command that get skipped over.”

To Heliotrope, there was something weird about considering that young.

Yael shrugged. “I’m IDF but I’m also here, taking orders from that same marine,” she said. “So’s Heliotrope.”

“How’s a pony get to be IDF?” Clement said, laughing.

Anger surged in Heliotrope, but she made the best effort not to show it. He’s not being a jerk. He’s not like them. He’s just curious and thinks it’s weird. Probably wonders if I’m Jewish. Which would be weird for a pony.

“I volunteered,” she said, forcing calm into her voice. “Yael let me in.”

“Heliotrope?” Yael asked, looking at her friend, concerned again. “Are you…”

“Sorry,” the second Coast Guard said. “It’s just… a bit weird, is all. Some days, I barely know who I’m working for.”

“I can relate,” Yael said, nodding.

“Really?” Reznik asked.

“Under a new commanding officer,” Yael said. “And I... I barely know him. It’s unsettling.”

Much to Heliotrope’s surprise, the two Coast Guard talking with her nodded sympathetically. Relating to her. There was an easy sort of charisma that Yael had, something that made people look at her and decide she was trustworthy. Something that had kept Oscar, QS, and Heliotrope herself close by.

“You’re sure about that?” Heliotrope asked. “He feels… understanding. Like he’s exactly what we wanted.”

“Amen to that,” Smoky said.

“I don’t know who he is,” Yael said. “I don’t know. There’s something… off with him.”

Heliotrope fluttered up to eye level with the two Coast Guard and shrugged, with both forelegs. “I haven’t seen it so far.”

Yael nodded. “Alright. It’s only that... something feels wrong. I don’t know what.”

She doesn’t believe me, Heliotrope thought.

“Don’t worry. It’s nothing against you,” Yael thought. “I just have a bad feeling. I could be wrong.”

She paused, looking at Heliotrope.

“We’ll see.”

“Looks like you’ve got your hands full,” Reznik said. “It’s pretty bad in the city. There’s still firefights going on. Between HLF, and… maybe PHL.”

“What do you mean, maybe?” Zhang asked.

“I mean I have no idea what’s going on,” Reznik said. “I’m hearing that there’s PER out there.”

Kraber

About 10 seconds later, Kraber was still listening to the song.

How do I know that merry-go-round toy didn’t fok with my head? He asked himself. How do I know that any of this is my own choice? How do I know that the radio message wasn't in my head? Jou know who has radios talking to them? Crazy people, that's who!

He thought on it for a moment.

He’d hurt people. He’d done what Kate would call-

(And for a second, her voice was as clear as if she was sitting next to him)

“Fuckin’ shitty things,” Kate would’ve said. “I’d… I don’t know where the man I married is, but this jackass? I’d never love someone like that.”

And there were innocents in Portland, too. Kids. He’d… fok, he’d hurt so many humans in this single night that it probably overshadowed anything he’d ever done to the Solar Empire. He’d hurt so many ponies, too.

They’re people just like us. They’ve always been. They’re not…

What the fok have I been doing?

He buried his face in his hands, still sitting at the intersection.

“Dammit,” he said, under his breath. “Dammit. Dammit. Fokdammit! FOK! FOKKIN’ FOK!”

He pounded the wheel, the car sitting there. Engine still running. Using… far too much gas. Huh.

What would…

He thought for a moment.

Then what wouldn’t Kate loathe?

She wouldn’t hate a man that gave everything to do the right thing.

Or, another part of him whispered, you can leave. Put all of this behind.

Kraber tapped on the gas pedal, the car moving ever so slightly. “Jou know what? Fok that. I’m doing the right thing, FOR ONCE IN THE PAST FOUR FOKKING YEARS!”

Okay, that was… that felt invigorating. Making a decision, for himself. Part of him had a fleeting desire to come back to the HLF, to drive the Bin pişman. back out to the rig and… okay, fok it, that wouldn’t work. No. Fok that noise. He knew what he was getting into when he did this stupid fokking thing.

“I know what I’m doing,” Kraber said, nodding to himself. “Ja.”

“...Sounds like a riveting conversation,” someone said, knocking on the window. A dark blue-black pony with orange eyes, and a purple mane streaked with pink. “What’s up, Mr. Bliss?”

Kraber stared at them for a moment. “...Nebula?”

“You weren’t planning on leaving, were you?” she asked. “Because that would be-”

“It would be immoral, cowardly, fokkin’ gutless, it’d make me a fokkin’ moegoe,” Kraber said. “So no. I’m not doing that.”

“I don’t know what that last word means,” Nebula said. “But I’m assuming it’s bad.”

“It means coward,” Kraber said. “Fl-” he caught himself. He’d been about to say ‘flou.’ I really need to work on my accent… he thought. “Weak.”

“In what language?” Nebula said.

“Dutch,” Kraber said, before immediately regretting it.

...Okay, that’s technically true. I do technically speak Dutch. Why did I decide to be a Scotsman instead of a Dutchman?

“Any reason why a Scotsman knows so much Dutch?” Nebula asked, almost playfully. She squeezed her way into the passenger side seat of the lorry.

She’s probably on to me.

“Spent a lot of time in Amsterdam,” Kraber said, and against all odds, that seemed believable. He actually had spent some time in Amsterdam during his secondary school years, and after graduation. And some time there during the Bad Old Times during the Purple Winter and the Europe Exodus.

...I miss the koffiehuises there, Kraber thought. And of course the coffeeshops.

“You alright?” Nebula asked.

“Just… thinking,” Kraber said. “About Amsterdam. So many lekker things I miss, ya ken? The first place I ever had weed. The the place I first kicked a neo-nazi in the face and broke his jaw and nose. The second place I did it, too! That coffeeshop Walter had to drag me out of cause I was so bawed. The time I went to the Anne Frank museum. That club where I met Sophie and...“

He sighed.

“And that bar. That bar was fokkin’ horrible! Just the fokkin’ worst. Ever. Of all ay fokkin’ time. But, somehow, it was lekker. I was there with friends, so it made things less horrible,” he said. “All these moments will be lost in time. Like… tears, in the rain.”

For all the times that Kraber had lied already tonight, and would lie in the next month or so, he was quite surprised to find himself not lying.

“Were you just leading up to a blade runner reference this whole time?” Nebula asked.

“I could’ve been, but you’ll never know!” Kraber said. “Now, were you…”

“I was going to come with you,” Nebula said. “Help you out. I just need you to, uh….” she gestured at the door.

“Right,” Kraber said, opening it. “Let’s get vying then.”

Yael

She ordered them all into the boat back to Portland. They needed to get into the city as soon as possible, and couldn’t wait for a helicopter.

Restore order in the city.

“Alright,” Yael said. “We’re heading towards the Old Port of the city. It’ll be very tight quarters. You know how it is in old parts of cities - streets seemingly plotted by people that hated you beyond all reason.”

Chinook and Walker chuckled, ever so slightly. Nobody else seemed to laugh.

It wasn’t much of a joke, anyway, Yael thought.

She tapped her earpiece.

“Colonel Gardner,” she said. “We’re approaching the Old Port. What are our orders?”

“I have four colleagues in the PHL here,” Gardner said. “Garrett Haddon, Giddy Gallop, Peter Whitten, and Honeysuckle. You - along with Mikkelsen Hebert and Nilsdottir - are to rendezvous with them and help direct their efforts to the hospital. On orders from Northwoods-”

Yael could just hear him grimacing.

“-I will be leading the effort to cut the fleeing HLF off at the edge of the city, with direction from PHL command,” Gardner said. “Good luck, First Lieutenant. You’ll need it.”

With that, he told her and Heliotrope the frequency for the four PHL he mentioned. And, before Yael could ask who that was for, specifically, he was gone.

Yael felt almost dazed.

I was supposed to be reassigned to Antarctica, she thought. Wouldn’t the PHL have sent me to Rothera or something? This isn’t where I should be.

Doubt crept in.

And Gardner’s not in the city with us. Meaning a lot of this is up to me. Shit. What if I lose my temper again and I kill civilians again? What if I screw up? What if I’m not the right woman for the job?

What if Heliotrope convinces me to burn everything again, li-

What?

Did… did Heliotrope make me do it? It has to be her fault, it-

She considered that. No. She didn’t make me do it. But she… she suggested it. And I wanted to. I did it with a smile on my face.

She had additional questions. Of course she did. But…

That doesn’t matter. I can’t let it matter.

The boat drew closer to a dock. Carson threw a coil of rope over the edge

It doesn’t matter that I might not be the right woman for the job. Whoever the right person is, they’re not here. And I am.

The boat roared towards the shorefront of the city, towards what looked like a ferry platform of some kind.

Yael let herself slump into a chair, trying to steal away one moment of peace.

A map of Portland sat next to her. Almost absentmindedly, she found herself poring over it...

Dayoung

They ran. They weren’t thinking about finding a car (Neither of them knew how to hotwire one). No, the only thing they had to focus on was getting out. No PHL. No PER. No HLF. Just… out.

“We find the nearest HLF,” Megan said, panting heavily. “We regroup. We make our way back to Lovikov.”

Dayoung stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Megan asked.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Dayoung said. “Look, we did this and got in a huge mess. We can find somewhere else, and l-”

“No,” Megan said.

“Excuse me?”

“They know we joined Lovikov,” Megan said. “Or at least, they will find out. Government agents are like bloodhounds that way. There’s footage they’ll find of us, on Congress Street in that square with the Civil War statue, with Viktor Fucking Kraber, and Leonid Lovikov. If we leave, if we try and go on our own, someone will find us.”

“I…” Dayoung started.

“We hide out with the HLF,” Megan said. “The tide’s turned against us.”

“...Alright,” Dayoung said. What she really meant was: It’s too late to leave.

What in God’s name have I gotten us into? This is my fault. I talked our way into this, I was thinking all about heroes… and here I am. No heroes in sight.

“We’re probably going to need something to trade for when we get back,” Megan said, coming to a stop in front of a store with broken windows. “Camp’s not going to be in a good way, so how about…”

She looked inside.

“...Those are nice shoes,” she said, nodding.

“Are you….” Dayoung sighed. “Are you. Are you seriously.”

“They’re nice shoes,” Megan said, shrugging. “And nobody’s going to stop us.”

With that, she walked through the hole in the window, surveying her bounty.

“Where was all that talk about leaving as soon as possible?!” Dayoung yelled into the shop.

Megan didn’t answer. Dayoung heard Megan rummaging around, exclaiming how this pair looked good, and how if only she could find the other half of the pair...

Looting a shoe store, Dayoung thought. After we bombed a city. What is thi-

It was at that moment that fate conspired against Dayoung and Megan.

First, there was the screaming. High-pitched. Panicked. Angry. The hoofbeats on pavement. Then… well, we’ll get to that. Dayoung stared down the street at the sky-blue unicorn pony rushing up the street, his mane matted with sweat.

Kill him. Do it.

Dayoung would debate with herself whether or not she was getting ready to shoot the pony. She thought she remembered her FAL moving upwards, but then she didn’t remember having a clear shot or sighting it. She’d always ask herself: Would I have shot him? How would things have ended up differently?

Megan interrupted these questions with the sharp report of her Glock pistol.

It hit the unicorn in the right hindleg, and he fell to the ground screaming.

“Megan, what did you just-?!” Dayoung yelled, as Megan stared at her victim.

“He was coming at us!” Megan protested, her voice oddly shrill. “He was a unicorn, he-"

But her excuses were soon drowned out by the sound of a pickup truck drawing to a stop. Dayoung stared over at it, seeing a tall, thin man in body armor and an odd, seven-eyed gas mask in the driver’s seat, a strange batwinged pony in the passenger’s seat.

It would’ve looked bizarre if not for the fact that Dayoung hadn’t seen the stock of a rifle or shotgun in there, just behind the passenger and driver seats.

Oh, shit.

Kraber

The lorry rolled into Portland, and they saw youngish bakvissies in ragged clothes and kevlar, along with HLF jackets covered in patches - standing by the smashed-open a window of a shoe store.

“What,” Nebula said, “The hell.”

Practically giggling, one of them grabbed what few shoes she could, even holding a pair of high heels in her teeth. A dazed, fearful sky-blue unicorn pony with a slicked-back gray mane and blue aviator sunglasses ran by, and pulling out a cheap nine-mil, one of the bakvissies shot it in the legs. Twice, crippling it on one side.

Before Kraber’s eyes, they rushed at the pony, stopping only briefly to pick up their loot, and kicked him in the gut. She was cheeri-

Wait a minute.

He recognized them.

The darker-skinned one was Dayoung. The other one was Megan.

“Rime Ice!” Nebula gasped. “They got Rime Ice!”

Evidently he wasn’t the only one who knew someone.

Oh God, Kraber thought. Save my new friend - wait, she’s a friend? That’s lekker - when - how - IS THIS THE FOKKIN’ MIND SPELL?! IS IT MAKING ME SEE HER AS A FRIE-

Calm. Fokkin’ ontspanne, he thought. Alright.

On the one hand:

He hadn’t known them long, but… they were kids. He wouldn’t…. Well, he had done it before, but it wouldn’t be right to hurt kids.

And the damn gluestick had to be in the wrong here. He and his kind had certainly brought nothing but suffering to earth. But that was kak and Kraber knew it. Who was the one that had helped fire on a city? Who had taken advantage of a crisis to loot a goddamn shoe-store?! Who would Kate fokkin’ hate? Who would she…

Huh. Would she threaten to divorce me and take the kids if I joined the HLF?

I mean, Anka liked ponies, Peter was sort of ambivalent, though, but… I’m killing kids, I literally murder people.

Yeah.

Kate would fokkin’ take the kids and leave in a heartbeat.

So, tempting as it was to let that pony die - Kraber had no ability to guess if he was one of the good merry-go-round-toys like Nebula - Kraber couldn’t do it. Firstly, ~~it wouldn’t be right~~ he had to preserve his cover.

And secondly-

“ORA!” he roared, and punched Dayoung across the face. Megan got a wild shot off, and it skidded harmlessly across his armor before he landed another blow on her too, the sole of his boot in her face. The crunch of impact might have been her nose breaking.

She fell to the ground bonelessly.

“Get,” Kraber said, revolver in hand, “The fok. Out. Now.”

“You don’t understand!” Dayoung yelled at him. “There’s PER in the city, whoever you are! They’re… they’re impersonating PHL! They nearly ponified us!”

Nebula rolled her eyes. “Right. PER.”

“How well do you know her, huh?!” Dayoung yelled. “She could be PER t-!”

Nebula…

Well. It was silly when Kraber thought on it. This was, after all, a pony. A batwinged pony, sure, but still a pony. An ungulate.

Nebula growled like an animal (do I not think they’re animals?) and showed her teeth. Kraber could see sharp fangs in her mouth, a maw full of teeth that could probably take off a person’s arm if Nebula so desired.

“Call me PER again,” Nebula said. “I fucking dare you. I double motherfucking dare you, motherfucker. Say I’m PER one more goddamn time!”

Alright, Kraber thought, so then what would Kate want?

Okay. Okay. She met me after Strychnine got hurt, I helped him out on the pavement, made a tourniquet, walked around without a shirt and an unzipped hoodie…

So should I take off my shirt or…

No. Kate would want him to help. Anka and Peter would want him to help the pony. Nebula would…

Well, she probably wouldn’t mind either option. And Dayoung and Megan were human children, he couldn’t exactly just shoot them in cold fokkin’ blood like every other foal he’d probably shot now-

FOK FOK FOKKIN’ STOP

Guess I’m outvoted. Most efficient thing I’d do would be shoot them both and help the pony. But-

“Alright, you fokmaggots,” Kraber said, voice distorted by the mask. “It’s your lucky day. Walk away and we’ll let you keep your weapons. Just walk away.”

It’s not what I should do, is it then?

“But-” Dayoung started.

“What?!” Nebula yelled.

“Rime Ice, or whoever he is, needs treatment more than he needs a gunfight,” Kraber said. “And I…” he sighed. “I don’t… I don’t feel like killing kids.”

“I don’t like it,” Nebula said, “But I respect it. Besides, we have you dead to rights. We’ve got one of you on the ground and Bliss here could gun you down at any time.”

She fluttered up to eye level with Dayoung.

“If we kill you here,” Nebula said, staring daggers at Dayoung, “We’re no better.”

Damn, Kraber thought, this mare has stones!

Dayoung rocked back like Kraber had punched her again.

They fired on a city, Kraber thought, they did all this. And we’re still…

Damn.

He wasn’t really sure what he wanted, but there was something that stuck with him about that. Something almost… inspirational. It didn’t make sense to him, but it felt right somehow.

Am I gonna be Vash the Stampede now? Kraber though, watching as Dayoung dragged Megan out of the way. I couldn't make that work. I'm not that good a shot. I... I could've shot them. Maybe I should have.

He didn't.

Bakgat, he thought, sighing internally.

“Child soldiers, huh?” he said, almost conversationally.

Nebula nodded.

“Those two psychos gone?” Rime Ice said, his voice ragged.

“Yeah,” Nebula said. “Any suggestions for where we can take you?!”

“Maine Medical might work!” the pony said. “There’s PHL there. But… it might be dangerous.”

He sucked in a breath between clenched teeth.

“If I die, tell Sylvia Bray at Maine Medical that I love her,” he said.

Nebula nodded again.

“Hold on!” Kraber said as he knelt beside the wounded stallion, momentarily deepening his voice. People looked for a person, not a persona. Kagan had always said that. “I’m gonna help you out, boykie.”

“Please… no…” the pony whispered.

“Don’t worry! I’m a doctor. Vasbyt china, this kak will be over soon.”

“What?” the pony asked.

“Never mind that!” Kraber said.

A quick check established no spinal or lumbar damage, so at least he could safely move the pony, so long as he didn’t handle or move the area around the gunshot wounds.

I can’t remove the bullet here. Too much debris, too much that could go wrong. Don’t have much anesthetic, just some morphine.

He applied pressure to the wound, wrapping bandages from his old medical kit around both Rime Ice’s legs. With that operation finished, he took out a large needle, injecting a heavy dose of morphine into a vein just above the hoof.

“Better?” Kraber asked, surprised to find himself concerned.

“No, not really,” Rime Ice gasped.

“Ja, I couldn’t do that much,” Kraber said. “I don’t have the tools or the room to remove the bullets. But I can stop the bleeding. It’ll be paining, but it’ll help until you actually get to an operating room.”

He didn’t like it. He… he couldn’t stand ponies, he admitted it. But this was a patient in pain, shot and kicked by two greedy bitches. Even if he was from a race of imperialistic, mass-murdering and mass-zombifying xenophobes, it was hard to say humanity was in the right here.

It was about then that he saw the PHL. A group of humans and ponies walking towards him,

“Are they okay?!” one pegasus pony standing among the PHL asked.

OH SHIT

They’ll find me out. They’ll know, no question. Nebula, well… I seem like I’ve convinced her? But these people, they’ll find me out in a heartbeat.

“Do you have medical help,” Kraber said, “For this pony?”

“Certainly!” said one human at the head of the unit. “We’re setting up a base in Maine Medical. Treatment for everyone.”

Now, in a bad situation, everyone likes to say: I saw it coming. They like the satisfaction of feeling smarter, or they don’t want to admit not seeing it coming. So they assume that the bad feeling in their gut meant they were just that prescient, or they just lie to themselves.

Kraber will never be truly certain which category he fell into on that night in Portland. But he will be certain he had a bad feeling.

Treatment for everyone.

Something about the way they said that rubbed him wrong.

No, no, Kraber thought. Gotta stop being such an impulsive fokkin’ kontgesig. That can’t be it.

“Hey,” Nebula said. “Ah…. Giddy Gallop? Is that you?! Good to see you! It’s Rime Ice, he…. Some HLF bitches shot him up pretty bad!”

“Oh no!” that same pegasus gasped. “Rhymey, what’d they do to you?”

“Shot me in the legs,” Rime Ice said through gritted teeth. “What the buck does it look like?”

I’m glad he’s oka-

Kraber’s train of thought came to a screeching halt. Wait. Surrounded by PHL. They will kill me if they find out who I am, Kraber thought with complete certainty. I… I fokkin’ need a way out.

He couldn’t run away either. He’d get filled with bullets and… the unicorn would die? Hm. He supposed that’d be bad.

A masked, heavyset PHL man in heavy armor tapped something on the ear area of his helmet.

“This is Major Garrett Haddon, yes,” he said. “Are you the reinforcements that Gardner promised?”

A pause.

“Good,” Haddon said. “Very good, S…. ah, first lieutenant.”

Yet another pause.

“At the moment, I am evacuating a pony from Congress Street,” Haddon said. “We’ve set up a base at the hospital. You are to rendezvous with us there.”

Another pause.

“No, the hospital,” Haddon said. “Maine Medical.”

As he heard Haddon talking on and on, Kraber’s mind raced.

Think, damn you, Viktor! Kagan always called you a slippery bastard! I managed to survive the HLF this long, keep my gun from getting stolen! I can think my fokking way out of this! Okay. I could sell this pony out, and join the H-

Something exploded in the distance.

-ell no.

That would… that’d be betraying humanity. Betraying himself. Betraying Kate. Peter. Anka.

So, Kraber thought. Mind spell or not, I guess I’m stuck with this.

December 24, 2022
Dancing Day

It’s then that Verity reenters the story, trotting back into the room like she owns it.

“And that’s the first time I felt like I hit rock bottom,” Kraber says.

“Wait, are you considering what happened the day after this as rock bottom?” Aegis asks.

“Well, yes,” Kraber says. “I didn’t have friends, family, or money. All I had was my word and my balls.” He pauses. “And my guns… and a stuffed animal or three-“

“Which reminds me,” Verity says. “I actually talked to Lovikov. How did you manage to get away with carrying a stuffed horse around while in the HLF?”

“Wait,” Lunar Phase asks, looking over at Kraber. “You have a stuffed horse?!”

“Her name is Joanna,” Kraber says, holding up a stuffed mare proportioned like an earth horse with a strangely long face, because it would be weird if it looked like a pony native to Equus.

“It was my daughter’s,” Kraber explains, and Lunar Phase draws in a little gasp, a little ‘oh’.

“Whose blood is that?” you ask.

“Mine,” Kraber says. “Mostly. Anyway, I threatened to shoot off their balls and rearrange their organs when doing surgery. I… I don’t fokking know, I was gesuip when I told them what I’d do. And none of them bothered me afterwards, though even women kept putting their hands over their crotches when I came by...”

There’s an uncomfortable pause.

“Look, sometimes, violence really is the answer,” Kraber explains. “And I was drunk! I wouldn’t have done that…”

Heliotrope, Aegis, and Yael look at him.

“At least, I hope I wouldn’t…”

Aegis looks up at Kraber, then to his foals, to you, to Scootaloo, then to Babs Seed and Featherweight.

“I’m not sure to be conflicted about the fact that you’re right, or wonder whether or not that’s a good thing to say in front of foals,” Aegis says.

“Ah, don’t worry, I have some restraint,” Kraber says. “Who the fok do you think I am, Francis Begbie? It’s not like my idea of kind paternal advice is to say ‘beat the fok out of your brother with a baseball… bat…’”

His voice trails off as he remembers that he has, in fact, told foals how to beat up Newfoals with baseball bats. And, of course, that he had once played Begbie in a production of Trainspotting.

“I’m a terrible fokking person,” he groans, and his shoulders slump.

“Wow, he finally gets it…” murmurs Verity.

“The fok’s that make you?!” Kraber asks.

“Consistent.”

“Hey, fok jou, haven’t you ever heard of character development?!” Kraber yells. “I may have tried to kill myself four times by now, Verity, but I’d rather succeed than end up like you!”

This comment was not aimed at Dancing Day’s mommy, Astral Nectar, but she staggers back like Kraber has kicked her in the face. This is to say nothing of Verity, who is stunned silent by this outburst.

"Daaaaaaaaaaamn," Lunar Phase whispers. Vinyl Scratch nods.

Surprisingly, it's Aegis and Yael that look at Kraber with something approving disapproval. Kraber looks at them, on the edge of an apology, but turns back with a shrug. Clearly thinking something like 'I meant every word, I'm not taking it back.'

“That is the most savage thing I have ever heard,” Grayson breathes.

“Spend some quality time with Lorne then,” Kraber advises. “Cause what I just said ain’t shit compared to his roasts.”

“He’s right,” Vinyl Scratch adds, “Lorne is crazy.”

“Where do you get off acting like this?!” Verity yells. “You do not just grow this side overnight-”

“I’d been killing, murdering, and otherwise making mayhem three years,” Kraber says. “I just… One day, I just couldn’t take it. I was fokkin’ siek en sat of it!”

“You practically lived for that!” Verity yells.

“No, I didn’t have any other fokking thing to live for!” Kraber yells back. “It’s really hard to have faith in the HLF when they’ve promised to kill you and then maybe your friend, fired on a city, abused innocents at every turn, kidnapped you, and put a shock collar on your neck LIKE A FOKKIN’ HOND, AND PLANNED TO DO SOMETHING SO FOKKIN’ AWFUL I FEEL SICK JUST THI- !”

“What was that thing with the collar?” Soarin asks.

“Yeah, some guy kidnapped me and fixed me with a shock collar,” Kraber says, suddenly calm. “It was his first mistake. He should have known he was only making me harder for....” He looks around. “Scheisse.”

“Wait, do you mean harder for them, or that you, uh…” Soarin’ asks.

“We’ll leave that for later,” Kraber says a little too quickly.

Yael

Earlier

As the soldiers behind her docked the boat in what looked to be a commercial pier, surrounded by speedboats, yachts, and Coffin Ships, Yael stepped onto the dock.

She watched the PHL on the boat maneuvering it towards the dock. Heliotrope and Chinook had ropes held in their respective mouths, bringing them around the large wooden pillars that served as mooring posts. Zhang held another rope in her hands, and Yael watched it become more and more taut as Chinook wound it around the post.

How exactly ponies managed to tie knots using only their mouths was a question Yael had never fully understood, so she watched, curious, as Chinook and Heliotrope did exactly that.

Summers and Smoky looked down at the dock, watching intently as the boat pulled towards it. Somewhere, in the wheelhouse, Carson was keeping the motor tightly controlled. Meanwhile, Bro and John - no, Bowie - scanned the skyline with their M4s.

There was a feeling of… pride?

I barely know these people, and already I like them, she thought, nodding approvingly.

Once it was done, and they began disembarking, Yael looked at them.

“All of you,” Yael said, “I don’t think this is what we believed we’d be doing here and now. I thought I’d be languishing in some Godforsaken post until Barrierfall.”

She stared at them as they walked onto the dock. They were standing at attention.

“I bet you did too. But as of now, we’ve been forced past that. We’re in a nightmare I couldn’t have dreamed of,” Yael said. “I mean. Never once would I have imagined anyone, even Lovikov, would do this.”

She paused.

“We might not be the ones saving the city. The ones stopping the HLF. But we’re going to do our best,” she said.

They saluted her.

With that, Yael turned on her heel and walked along the dock, towards land.

“Wouldn’t have thought you were one for speeches,” Heliotrope said, nodding approvingly.

“I’m not,” Yael said, her boots tapping against the wood. “But…”

She shrugged.

“It felt right,” she said, finally.

She turned the radio to the frequency she’d been given.

“Is this…”

“This is Major Garrett Haddon, yes,” a voice said. “Are you the reinforcements that Gardner promised?”

“I am,” Yael said, nodding almost reflexively.

“Good,” Haddon said. “Very good, S…. ah, first lieutenant.”

“What are our orders?” Heliotrope asked.

“At the moment, I am evacuating a pony from Congress Street,” Haddon said. “We’ve set up a base at the hospital. You are to rendezvous with us there.”

“Not the stadium?” Yael asked, remembering what she’d read from the map. There was one very close by, too.

“No, the hospital,” Haddon said. “Maine Medical.”

“Copy that,” Yael said, before turning off the coms.

“Does something seem weird about that to you?” Heliotrope asked.

Yael looked over at Heliotrope, confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re right,” Heliotrope said. “A stadium does make more sense. More ways in and out, more space…”

“That Is A Good Point,” Quiette Shy added.

And indeed, some tiny shred of Yael’s mind agreed that it was. Because… Well, there was what Heliotrope said. But the longer she thought about it, the more baseless it seemed. It was a hospital, for God’s sake. It had more resources to treat injuries. And from what she’d seen on the map in the boat, and from what her cousin (who lived two hours away) had said, it was huge. As in, had-seen-factories-smaller-than-it huge.

“I agree with those two,” Summers said. “Something ain’t right. I say we-”

“Enough,” Yael said, her voice cutting through the beginning of that conversation like a whipcrack. “We’re not. Our orders are to help the PHL in the city. There are no alternatives.”

She looked at Heliotrope. It wasn’t quite a glare, but it wasn’t exactly not a glare.

At that moment, Yael was thinking:

Last time I took that kind of initiative, people died. We got sent here. We are not doing that.

Heliotrope turned away. Yael could see the ghost of a sulk on her friend.

Dammit.

Yael was thinking of that as she walked through the streets. They were…

Well, quiet wasn’t the word. Yael could hear someone firing a 9mm somewhere. But at the same time it was the only thing that felt like it fit.

I didn’t do anything wrong there, Yael thought. I didn’t…

So why do I feel wrong?

Yael tried to push it out of her mind. Kept walking.

“Yael,” Heliotrope said.

Yael resisted the urge to pull rank. That’s not going to help.

“I’m telling you,” Heliotrope said. “Something isn’t right here. Why aren’t we working with Coast Guard in here? Or National Guard?”

Yael didn’t respond. Just keep walking. Don’t make this any worse than it needs to be, Ze’ev.

“As far as I know, we don’t have those kinds of powers unless it’s Barrierfall,” Heliotrope said.

That gave Yael some pause.

She stared at her friend for a second. “Are you… are you disappointed?” Yael asked. “It would be nice if we had that kind of power. But…”

Her voice trailed off. She’d been about to say something along the lines of ‘The law is the law’ or something, but knowing how and why she was here? It just didn’t work for her.

“...but we don’t,” she finished lamely.

“But,” Summers pointed out, “You were pretty comfortable taking control of lots of towns during the Egypt Evacuation.”

Actually, the Egypt Evacuation hadn’t just been Egypt, it’d been Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and a large number of other countries. It had just been termed the Egypt Evacuation by some Irish reporter with a talent for alliteration, and it stuck.

Yael and Heliotrope had fought there. Against Solar Empire troops, sure, but there’d been other humans. Proto-HLF, terrorist remnants, and what her old commanding officer had called Lame-Os.

It took her awhile to really get the reference.

“It’s Different,” Quiette Shy said. “Precedent Hadn’t Been Established Yet.”

“Besides, we were still IDF, not PHL,” Yael said. “When ISIS remnants attacked, the PHL didn’t have…” she considered for a moment. “Jurisdiction?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” John said. “How does that work? You seem like you’re pulled b-”

“It’s Very Complicated,” Quiette Shy said.

“And no,” Heliotrope said, “I... I’m not disappointed. It feels like back during Nipville.”

Oh no.

Yael inclined her head slightly, cocking it almost like a dog’s. A frown formed on her face.

“Not like…”

Yael continued to stare at her.

“...Okay,” Heliotrope sighed, head hanging down low. “It is like that. But not just that. There’s… there’s another feeling I had there. With the Siphon. With Champagne Grape, with all those HLF knew about the town.”

“It Wasn’t Anything They Couldn’t Have Gotten From Publicly Accessible Records,” Quiette Shy pointed out.

“I guess that’s true,” Heliotrope admitted. “But… Yael. QS. I’m telling you, I felt like there was something we didn’t know back then, and I feel the same right now.”

“You’re probably not wrong,” Yael said. “But I don’t know enough to investigate whatever that was. And I…”

She looked at Heliotrope.

“Alright, Heliotrope,” Yael said. “Yes. There was something weird there. But I don’t know what. We’ll find out soon, but for now… we have a job to d-”

Her voice died in her throat.

Well. Not really. In actuality, there was more of this back-and-forth, more barely-arguing. But the most important thing here is, just after Yael, Heliotrope, QS’ and other’s back and forth, this happened:

Picture it. They come to an intersection. Yael looking the corner to see who’s there, and seeing an assortment of National Guard walking down the streets toward them. They looked…

What?

Okay, there was nothing weird about wearing anti-potion armor. Most militaries did it. But here? Now? Something didn’t make sense.

In the future, Yael will blame herself for not seeing it coming. But Quiette Shy will say nobody could have. And then she will point out that Yael has something of a guilt complex. Which Yael will then admit is probably true.

“We’re PHL,” Yael said, a sinking feeling in her gut. “We’re here to-”

“Yeah, we know,” said a man that appeared to be squad leader. “You’re under arrest, all of you. For assisting PER.”

What?!

Kraber

The streets felt eerily quiet.

Not that they were, of course. There was gunfire in the distance, but there was nothing on the streets save for Kraber, the moaning Rime Ice, (who sat on a stretcher, carried by Kraber and a PHL man) Nebula, and the PHL unit of ten.

It was more because there was nothing on the streets around them. There were battle scars on the street from the Sorghum’s weaponry, broken windows, burned out hulks of cars, HLF posters that’d already been defaced, the corpses of HLF and protesters alike…

But the storefronts were mostly intact. There was nobody around them, barring the hospital.

“Something’s not right,” Kraber whispered to Nebula. “We’re being evacuated to the hospital, and... nobody?”

Nebula nodded.

“What’re you whispering about?!” the PHL man carrying the stretcher with Kraber asked.

“Nothing,” Kraber said.

“No,” said one earth pony with a facemask. “You were both saying something. By definition you were not saying nothing.”

They sounded oddly robotic. There was a deep, crawling fear at the pit of Kraber’s gut, something screaming at him that this was wrong.

“Who… Who’s that?” Nebula asked. “Never met him before.”

“That’s Running Wind,” said Haddon. “He’s new.”

Nebula stared at him, skeptical.

“So,” said a light tan and orange pegasus, in a set of characteristic light armor common to pegasus soldiers on any side of the War. “What, exactly were you saying to this man?”

“It was a private little in-joke, Giddy Gallop” Nebula said. “It’d… it’d take too long to explain.”

“We have a ways to the hospital,” the stretcher-bearer across from Kraber said. “Go on. You were saying?”

Kraber’s mother Erika, who would always just be Ma to him, had a saying she’d picked up from her American relatives: “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.” And these people? Definitely bullshititng him. Treating him like the one that was lying - okay, he was totally lying, but they didn’t know that - and jumping at the slightest provoc-

“Hmmm?” Giddy Gallop asked, as their earpiece crackled. “No. No Code C Assets recovered yet.”

Another crackle. Kraber couldn’t hear the response.

“And stop using this channel! It’s insecure. Anyone-”

(Giddy Gallop glared at Kraber)

“-could be listening!”

Aaaaaaand, clearly coded speak. It was like someone was screaming at the top of their lungs, roaring, wearing a t-shirt and covered in tattoos in front of Kraber. All of which said something to the effect of ‘WE ARE HIDING NOTHING AT ALL.’

They’re not telling us something. It’s plain as day.

He looked at Nebula, who had a worried look on her face.

“Giddy Gallop,” she said. “I didn’t know you worked under Haddon.”

“Promotion,” Haddon answered.

“Really?” Nebula asked. “Because as far as I know, Giddy Gallop outranks you.”

“It was a field promotion,” Haddon said.

The back of Kraber’s neck prickled. It felt like being stalked by wolves again.

They were close to an outbuilding near the hospital. Big, brick structure, about eight stories tall. Squat. PHL were forming survivors into orderly lines leading into the building, with ponies, adult humans, and human children in separate lines.

The more Kraber thought about it, the less evidence he had that something was wrong. But somehow, that made him even more suspicious. There was an oddly… confused atmosphere to it. He’d evacuated refugees before, and… okay. Separating ponies was normal. Had always been normal. But separating children from parents? That didn’t make sense. That and the way some of the PHL guarding the operation moved… uncertainly.

It wasn’t easy to spot. But there was something about the posture, the way some PHL looked over towards superior officers who looked to their superior officers made Kraber wonder just how coordinated it all was.

And how, Kraber wondered, Does a ‘Code C Asset’ fit into this? What’s the C stand for?

“Where’s the national guard?” Kraber asked, suddenly.

“We assumed control,” said the PHL man sharing the stretcher with Kraber. Their nametag read ‘BARNES’. “The National Guard are helping to corrall survivors to us.”

Taking direct control of a situation. Clearly bullshitting us. Assuming we’re lying too. And-

Kraber saw something in a window out of the corner of his eye. There was a neon sign on one building, casting a pink glow over the street, the light spreading to one window. Through which he could see a glint of white, of-

Gun.

A scoped rifle of some kind, with a wooden frame. Probably bolt-action, somewhere in the neighborhood of .30 caliber, maybe larger. He was imagining the trajectories in his head, seeing them as clearly as if the rifle had a laser sight. It was. Aimed…

He couldn’t be certain it was aimed at him, but it was certainly possible.

Now why would that be aimed towards - I only have so much time! Fok, fok, FOKKIN FOK I don’t want to die! Not this time, anyway?! And what?! WHAT IN GOD’S NAME DOES C STAND FO-

Cold certainty crept through his brain, suffusing his body with a chill he didn’t expect to feel until winter. His mind raced. And then, suddenly… it clicked. It all clicked.

Think. FOKKIN’ THINK JOU FOKKIN’ CHILDKILLING KONTGESIG, YOU PIECE OF SHIT. FOKKIN’ THINK. What’s the most rational course of action at a time like this?! Kraber thought.

A plan began to form.

“Jou know,” Kraber said. “Rime Ice. Nebula. Remember what that woman that shot you said?”

Nebula nodded, her gaze steely. She was nodding. She understood.

“I’ve been shot before, too. And it was fokkin’ awful! Hurt more than the time I cracked some ribs by jumping off a bridge, and that stung like a woman with teeth in her beef portal! Bitch I’m okay.”

In the future, Kraber will not really be able to remember if he said “But I’m okay” or “Bitch I’m okay.”

“Could you not?” asked Barnes. He scowled at Kraber through his gas mask’s faceplate.

That is the ugliest fokkin’ dick tickler I have ever seen, Kraber marveled, staring through Barnes’ mask. It was less facial hair and more facial wisps.

“I could, but I don’t care,” Kraber said, shrugging. “And, well, the operations to deal with getting shot, they were… pretty terrible too. They needed about twice the dose to get me under. Not as lekker as it sounds with my pain threshold.”

NOT TODAY, OLD FRIEND! Kraber thought, looking up at the window where he saw the bolt-action.

“Wait,” Nebula said. “Really?!”

“Ja, my drug tolerance is fokkin’ radge. Same for my pain threshold,” Kraber shrugged with one arm, holding the stretcher in the other - which was reaching for an itchy spot under his armor. “Really. Anyway, what I’m saying is-”

I hope I’m right about this, Kraber thought, as he resorted to the most rational option he could’ve imagined at that particular time.

“-there may be some momentary discomfort,” Kraber said, and fired the .44 revolver into Barnes’ crotch.

BANG

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay! And... for posting it at nearly midnight. I just got bored of sitting on it, though.

As I'm sure you can guess, this chapter is divided in half. I spent awhile rewriting this in an earlier form, trying to accommodate Yael, and rewriting it in its entirety because... well, I've changed a lot of this. The traitor PHL, Yael, Heliotrope, Dayoung, Gardner, adding in Gestalt so that subplot doesn't get thrown out, writing an entirely new action scene for the next chapter...

It was a lot.

Originally, I hoped to have this episode of Light done by New Year's, but that's not overly likely. I can probably get to the "season finale" of Light, "Philistine/Don't Fear The Reaper" by then, anyway...

Yeah. I'm okay with that.

NOTES

If you're wondering why the flashback to Kraber shooting a rapist in the dick is in script format, well... I did it because I could. I thought it would be funny.
The C in "Code C Asset" refers to the super-newfoal Imperial Creed, from some of Jed's stories.
Yes, the Changelings aren't all dead here! They're just kept in conditions not dissimilar to Native American reservations. This nugget of backstory will likely be retconned, but I got bored with sitting on this chapter. Please bear with me if/when it gets retconned.
If you're wondering about some of Heliotrope's subtle speciesism, it's... well, it's a character arc. I promise.
Kraber always cries while watching Wolf Children Ame and Yuki. Always.
Lunar Phase is BACK, BITCHES
WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE WITH LGBT FRIENDS AS OPPOSED TO READING ██████████████. (nope) But all seriousness though I made an effort to be better when it comes to pronouns.
Early drafts of Kraber talking to Gestalt were much less subtle. I figured the story had more to gain this way, as opposed to bogging Kraber down with questions like "what is this" and "WHOA, IS THAT KATE IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT?!" and "OH FOK AM I GOING TO CRASH?!"
Chinook was made to die at some point in the next few chapters, but he gonna live because I like him.
Mentioning "Koffeehuises" and "Coffeeshops" in the same sentence was totally intentional. It's Amsterdam. Come on, guys.