Fallout Equestria: Dracony Chronicles

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 7

Chapter 1

Lazuli remembered a time when the sun would rise in the morning. A time where she could look out a window and smile, watching the bright yellow orb of warmth and light illuminate the landscape, controlled by the princess of the sun herself. Celestia, she came to realize, had been a good ruler – a good leader. Her flaws were ones that Lazuli couldn’t really overlook, but she held no negative feelings towards her…especially now.

The sun no longer shone, or at least, not in the way it used to. A dense layer of clouds covered Equestria indefinitely, allowing enough light during the day to light up the surface, but nothing more. Lazuli sometimes wondered who controlled the sun now that the princesses were gone – it surely didn’t move on its own, but no one in the Wasteland knew the answer, and many simply believed the goddesses controlled the sun and moon from beyond the physical plane. Lazuli doubted it, but at this point it mattered very little to her.

As she stretched herself out and pushed the blankets off of herself, she inhaled deeply and sat up in the wooden cot she had been sleeping in.

Lazuli did not look like a normal pony, because she wasn’t one. Her fur was pure white, her mane a mixture of two tones of blue – one dark, one nearing turquoise. The most notable feature about her was her tail, which was long, prehensile and tipped with a sharp spade at the end. The spade itself was flexible and wobbly, and only lethal when she attached a weapon to it…or if she struck the right place.

About two centuries ago, she would have had a pair of glamourous wings jutting out from her sides, but the translucent appendages were now replaced by ugly (albeit effective) metal contraptions that mimicked the movements and function of her wings to the last muscle twitch, but of course…she couldn’t feel any of it. She had lost her wings a long time ago, though, so she had gotten more than used to it.

Her ears wiggled a bit, one of her hooves reaching up to rub at her eyes. Her right ear had a slight notch in it, running from the tip to about a quarter down the entire length. As she stood up, her muscles tensed and relaxed. She was still in shape, fairly toned without being overly muscular. Her bright blue eyes were less bright than they used to be, but still carried a sparkly lustre that refused to die even after so long.

As she stretched herself out, her tail bumped against the nightstand. Her home wasn’t much to speak of – it was a small cottage, not too far from where Manehatten had been…or…Lazuli was fairly sure that was where it was. She had lost track of geography over the course of the last two centuries or so, but she was decently sure her little cottage was somewhere near where Fetlock had once been.

Making sure nothing fell off of the nightstand, Lazuli trotted to the other side of the room and peeked out the window that had a grand old view of a concrete wall. Glancing down to the ground, she saw very little water left in the bucket she kept outside. No shower today, I guess. She thought to herself. Might need to get some more water…

Her eyes alighted upon her desk when she pulled her head back in. Sitting on the desk was a multitude of papers, scattered wildly across its surface. Some had writing on them, while others were blank.

On the top corner of the desk sat a radio, one equipped with a holotape player and…well…radio. On occasion she would tune into whatever local broadcasts she could find, but for the most part she simply used it to listen to tapes, either recorded by ponies who wanted to recruit her services or…for the one tape she always kept around.

She saw it there. In the middle of the desk, a dirty and somewhat chipped tape was sitting on top of all of the mess she had accumulated. It had been nearly five months since she last listened to it – she hadn’t the heart to subject herself to it, again…but she knew she had to.

She pulled her chair back, sitting down on it and reaching out. Her hoof felt like it was made of lead, falling short and landing right in front of the tape. I can’t. She thought to herself.

…but I have to anyway…Lazuli decided, picking up the tape and sliding it into the slot in the radio. She clapped it shut, taking a deep breath.

Her hoof hovered over the buttons on the radio, and she clenched her jaw before bringing it down. The ‘play’ button clicked gently and the radio crackled to life.

“Hey, Laz.” A voice came across, a mare’s, a bit static-y but still more than audible. “Um…listen. I know that I haven’t talked to you in a while. It’s…it’s been…how long, two months? I uh…yeah.”

A small pause lingered, then the voice spoke up again. “Sorry for not visiting. I’ve been…like…really busy here in Canterlot. The good news is I’m doing pretty well, it’s nothing too stressful or anything. I…do still miss you, though.” The mare cleared her throat. “Uh…I’m not great at this, I guess. I didn’t really rehearse before I recorded this, but I know you don’t like big rehearsed speeches anyway, heh.”

There was a bit of shuffling, and the creaking of a chair. “Yeah, I…well, I should get to the point of this. I’m recording this to say I’m sorry, Laz. I’ve been really tossing you to the side lately, and…I really am sorry. I’ve kind of been distracted, I guess, and that’s no excuse to treat you like garbage. I’m just sorry you failed the mental health test and all, or you could be up here with me…not that I’d imagine you’d want to be, eheh. Power armour is super uncomfortable. And…well…ponies here aren’t too friendly anymore. Not that they ever really were, but…yeah, this war is…um…yeah.” She coughed and cleared her throat.

Another few moments of silence. “I really am sorry. I don’t know how to properly say it. I…haven’t seen you in a while, but I promise the next chance I get I’ll come visit you in Ponyville, okay? And…I promise I won’t…” She paused, a bit of a sniffle coming from her. “I won’t uh…hit you…again. I-I don’t know what came over me there. I was just…it was…I was overwhelmed. There was so much going on, we hadn’t seen each other in weeks, and you were just…yelling so much, I…”

The sound of a tissue being pulled from a box was barely audible, but Lazuli could hear it. The mare on the other end blew her nose, clearing her throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…get this emotional, but I really miss you. And I want this damn thing to be over. Like…I really do. I’m honestly sick of it all. If I could leave and come back to Ponyville with you, you know I would, but it’s too late for that.” The mare inhaled deeply, breathing out, and then back in. “I’m sorry. I really am. I should be able to visit you in a week or two, and when I do…I swear to Celestia, I’m gonna hug the fuck out of you, okay?”

The tape fell silent for a full ten seconds, then the mare sighed. “When this is over, I’m taking us both on a cruise, I swear.” Then there was the shifting of a chair again, the click of a button being pressed, and the tape ended.

Now the cottage was truly silent, as was Lazuli. She wondered, briefly, why she did this to herself – and realized after a few seconds that her tears were starting to wet the papers beneath her. She pushed herself away from the desk, inhaling sharply and wiping her eyes clean. Her teeth clamped around the tough fabric surface of the black combat suit sitting at the end of her bed, and she threw it over her back before stepping into the bathroom to at least try to clean herself up a bit.

Chapter 2

Lazuli still wasn’t sure what she should have called herself. A mercenary was the obvious choice, but mercenaries weren’t usually contracted to kill one pony. She wasn’t only an assassin either, though. Her metal wings and combat experience made her an ideal bodyguard and hired muscle, though her skills were somewhat undesirable in a future where firearms and explosives existed. While she was fairly proficient with small sidearms, she couldn’t do much in the way of ranged combat and she relied primarily on close quarters.

Given her lack of gunslinging ability, Lazuli was typically just an assassin or a mobile bullet-shield. Right now, she had been contracted to kill a bandit warlord – no one that was particularly well known. He was just a nuisance to the locals nearby. The village of Redhoof had suffered a great deal thanks to him, so one of their citizens had taken it upon themselves to contract an assassin to kill him.

These days, she normally opted for stealth, but today she was feeling less patient than usual. She wasn’t going to wait around for night to fall, and she figured her suit covered with dust would be enough. After essentially bathing in the dirt on the ground, she approached the raider encampment.

It was nothing special, but few raider camps ever were. There was no fence around its circumference, just a few spiked poles, bits of barbed wire run along the ground and hung from wooden beams, and guards standing at what she assumed to be the ‘main’ entrance.

It was a pretty sad sight, but it made it easier for Lazuli. She quickly tapped the pocket on her right side, feeling what seemed to be marbles rattling around within. Got those…she checked mentally, then felt at her left side. The holster of a .50 revolver sat at her hip, and the gun was firmly secured in it. And that. She checked, nodding slowly. Her tail was outfitted with a triangular blade that slipped over the spaded tip of her extra appendage, and her mane was slicked to the side to keep it out of her eyes. No time like the present. I just want this over with.

Lazuli stepped out from behind the rocks she had been sitting near, making sure to walk as softly as possible as she made her way towards the camp. Walking in the front was stupid – why do that when she could just go around? She approached from the back, fairly sure that the largest tent – for all of their buildings were tents, it seemed – was the one that would have the leader inside. The leader was technically her only target, but she had been offered bonuses for each raider she killed…plus, she knew killing the leader wouldn’t be enough to stop them from raiding towns, so she decided she’d take care of whatever ponies she ran into along the way. She liked to think it was just for the extra pay, but she also felt it was the right thing to do…in a morbid sort of way.

The barbed wire was hardly an issue. She briefly wondered why it was even there – probably just to prevent ponies from charging in, but it was easily walked over. She moved a bit slower to make sure she didn’t touch it, then hopped to the other side and made her way between two large tents, peeking her head out through the middle.

As soon as she poked her head out she heard a gasp. An earth pony mare was standing directly to her left, holding a rolled up paper with some kind of plant inside and smoking it. Her mouth dropped open, and she made what was about to become a scream…

But Lazuli moved quickly, her tail lashing out and wrapping around the mare’s neck. The sharpened blade sliced into the flesh of her throat, and in one swift motion, Lazuli both slit her throat open and dragged her in between the tents, holding her down until her convulsions stopped. For a moment, she felt a bit of sadness for the mare, but it wasn’t hard to dispel when she thought about what horrible things they must have done in the past.

Leaving the mare’s body tucked between the tents, she peeked back out again. Nopony was around now, just her. She crept out from her hiding place, keeping herself low and moving as slow as she could while still making decent progress. Her eyes darted from side to side, ensuring that no one was watching or in sight of her.

After a while, she began to realize she didn’t really need to be stealthy. She straightened up, her pace quickening a bit as she made her way down the rows of tents. The camp was not large by any means – maybe only fifty ponies in it, and that was the maximum. She rounded a corner to find herself staring at a solid building, one of the only ones in the area. It was a hut, and a run-down one at that, but it was clear that the leader must have resided in there given the two guards standing outside.

As soon as she turned the corner, both ponies stood straight up – but Lazuli froze up at the sight of them. One was standard raider fare – leather armour, big, bulky, somewhat scruffy and unkept. He was a unicorn, with a dark blue coat and an olive green mane. She couldn’t see his cutie mark, covered by the leather armour as it was.

It was the other pony that made her freeze. Standing on the other side of the doorway was a filly – surely, no older than 14. While her attitude showed hardiness, Lazuli could see fear in her eyes. A few bruises were present on her face, and her own magic – for she was a unicorn as well – was clutched around a baseball bat.

Lazuli’s eye twitched. She stepped forward, earning a growl from the stallion. “Ey!” He yelled, standing about fifteen feet away from Lazuli. “Who’re you? The boss ain’t seeing anyone right now.” His magic wrapped around a sledgehammer leaning against the wall, lifting it into the air and hefting it over his shoulder.

“Not your damn business who I am.” Lazuli replied, glancing at the filly every few seconds.

“Guess it isn’t, you’ll die anyway.” The stallion paused, his eyes moving up and down Lazuli’s body. “…huh. You look weird. Mutant?”

Lazuli didn’t respond. Her wings shot out to her sides, the metal appendages clicking and whirring with each movement. At the sight of the larger-than-average wings, the filly balked a bit.

“Ey.” The stallion growled, turning to look at the other ‘guard’. “Don’t be a bitch, remember? She’s a wannabe good-guy, just kill ‘er like that friend of yours.”

The filly was trembling, her baseball bat raising a little higher. The stallion chuckled and turned to Lazuli. “Bet you’re gonna say somethin’ about how gross this is, right? Havin’ a filly workin’ for us, ‘n all.”

Lazuli didn’t respond. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but it was getting under her skin.

“Ya know, I caught her myself. Her and a little colt walkin’ around searchin’ for supplies. I saved ‘em, ya know. Sure, the colt had to die, but…”

“H-his name was-“ The filly started to speak, earning an angry glare from the stallion.

“Shut it, kid. He ain’t got a name anymore, and neither do you.”

Lazuli cleared her throat, but it was ignored. The filly was still shaking, but tried to raise her voice. “Y-you- you made me- he- he had a name! H-he was my friend!”

“He ain’t anymore.” The stallion grunted. “So shut yer mouth ‘fore I fill it with something else.”

Lazuli’s ears jerked upwards, her pupils dilating and her jaw clenching tightly. Her tail raised above her head, blade glinting in the dim light filtering through the clouds. “What did you just say to her…?”

“Why’s it matter, huh? She’s an all-purpose filly, she is.” The stallion patted his hoof against the young mare’s mane, her body quivering under him.

The stallion didn’t get another chance to speak. Lazuli moved forward before he could, her hind legs tensing before pushing her off from the ground. She dashed towards him, wings outstretched.

“Big mistake, hon. Was gonna let you go, too.” The stallion hefted his hammer off of his shoulder and swung it through the air, aiming for Lazuli’s head as she neared him…but he only hit the ground with a loud THUD. Lazuli launched herself off of the ground with a kick, her hind legs spreading open before her thighs locked around the stallion’s neck. She swung herself backwards, her weight dragging the stallion back with her and slamming him into the ground, his neck still firmly locked between her legs.

Lazuli was breathing heavily, a snarl etched on her muzzle. “Got any more to say?” She growled, tightening her muscles and clenching harder around his throat. He tried to gasp, his magic picking up the sledgehammer again, but her tail pressed itself into the base of his horn and began to crack its surface. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand…” She panted, taking deep breaths. “It’s fucking slavers. And even worse than them…foal slavers.”

The stallion again tried to speak, but Lazuli didn’t allow him any time. Her legs locked tighter, her front hoof propping her up, before she twisted her whole body sideways. A rippling CRRRACK sounded out, his neck snapping under the pressure and his body falling limp in her grip.

Lazuli let herself fall limp too, but not until she was certain the stallion was dead. As she stood back up, her eyes fell on the filly…who had dropped her bat, and was cowering against the wall. “Uh…” Lazuli cleared her throat. “Hey.” Her voice was soft, both to calm the filly and so she wouldn’t alert anypony nearby – if she hadn’t already. She didn’t hear anyone coming though. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Are you okay?”

“I-I…I…” The filly stammered, fearfully holding her hooves up to her chest.

A deep sigh rumbled out of Lazuli. “Look, kid, I don’t uh…” She rubbed the back of her neck, looking around. “I have to do something here, but…um…” She nibbled on her lower lip. “Stay here, okay? Just…um…” Lazuli quickly gripped the stallion’s body, dragging it around the corner of the building and hiding it in the shadows. “Just act normal, can you do that? I know this is a shock, but…I’ll get you out of here. Kay?”

“M…m-m-mhm…” The filly nodded. Her bright amber eyes were making Lazuli’s chest ache, but she needed to stay focused. She put her hoof on the door to enter the building.

As she pushed it open, she glanced back at the filly, who shakily picked up her baseball bat and held it beside her. She was shaking, and Lazuli wasn’t even sure what she was going to do with her, but for now it seemed like she was safe.

Laz stepped into the building, her head entering through the door to look around before the rest of her. The hut was small, and only one room from what she could tell…and she could see a pony sitting with their back facing her. No one else was in the hut, so she could only assume it was the leader.

Her mind went back to the contract. Grey fur, black mane, earth pony. She couldn’t see his head, but the colours sure as Tartarus matched. Her tail slowly raised up above her head, poised to strike like a scorpion’s.

“Fuckin’ kids…” The stallion seated in front of her muttered. “Useless. Dunno why any of them bother buyin’ em…but whatever. More caps for us.” He mumbled, his voice gravelly and deep.

Lazuli tensed her muscles, her hind legs locking in place before she struck. Her tail sliced through the air, the razor-sharp blade headed right for the stallion’s neck. She knew this was the best way to kill a pony – if it didn’t end them in one strike, it would keep them silent and immobile for a second one. Her tail had no problem slicing right through flesh, snapping the stallion’s spine clean apart and stabbing all the way through to his throat. His hooves shot up to his neck, clutching at it as blood poured from the opening…then he slumped forward, head slamming against the desk and blood seeping into the papers sitting on it.

She waited until his twitching stopped, then pulled her tail out. She wiped the blade clean on his fur, shaking her head gently. “One of the only times I’m actually happy to kill somepony…” She muttered to herself, snatching a few papers off the desk and stuffing them into her pockets before stepping back out of the hut.

“Kid?” Lazuli glanced around, finding the filly standing in the same spot as before. “Oh, good…” She smiled, though she had no idea if it looked friendly or not. “You okay?”

Now that she could focus, she got a better look at the filly. She was small, about half Lazuli’s height, with light green fur and a sky blue mane. Her aforementioned amber eyes sparkled as she looked up at Lazuli, seemingly more in awe than fearful, now. “…is…is he…?”

“Yeah.” Laz nodded. “He’s not gonna bother you anymore.”

“…s-so I…I can…leave…?” She asked, tilting her head.

“I’m not letting you leave on your own, kid. It’s too dangerous. You’re coming with me, okay?”

“Wh-…” The filly started vibrating, in a way that was clearly not in terror. “R-really? I- y-you would…you would help me…?”

Lazuli got the feeling she might regret this, but she couldn’t easily say no to a filly who had clearly been through more than a pony her age ever should be. She nodded slowly, her smile returning to her lips. “Here.” She knelt down, bringing her chest to the floor. “Get on my back, I’ll fly us out of here, okay?”

“Y-you’re sure they won’t shoot us?” The filly asked, already climbing onto her back. Lazuli grunted a bit at the weight, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.

“I’m sure.” She replied, straightening up. “By the way…what’s your name?”

The filly seemed to hesitate, then slowly leaned in and whispered into Lazuli’s ear. “I-it’s Pearl Blossom…” She murmured, and Lazuli couldn’t help but smile.

“Well, I’m Lazuli. Lazuli Cutter.” She said back, slowly spreading her wings. She felt Pearl’s front hooves wrap around her chest, and wiggled her hips a bit before launching off the ground. Her body wasn’t used to the added weight, but she was able to handle it. “Hold on tight!” She called back to Pearl, flapping her metallic appendages to carry them into the air before the raiders could notice.

This is such a mistake…Laz thought to herself, looking over her shoulder at the filly, whose eyes were wide with wonder as she watched the ground shrink below them.

…but I’m good at making those.

Chapter 3

Lazuli sat silently on the floor as the filly ate. Laz didn’t have a lot in the way of food, but she had enough to be comfortable. Pearl was sitting on her bed, hind legs dangling off the edge as she ate piece after piece of dried Radigator meat that Lazuli had bought off of some traders that came through a few days ago. She wondered for a bit if the filly would eat meat, as some ponies in the Wasteland didn’t, but she seemed perfectly content with it.

She slowly lifted a piece of meat to her own mouth, taking a bite out of it. It was just dry jerky, really, but proper meat was something she found hard to get – and, while she knew that a Dracony could resort to eating equine meat…she wasn’t going to do that.

“Umm, miss Lazuli?” Pearl spoke up.

“Just call me Lazuli. What is it?” She replied.

“Umm…is…is this…you live here?”

The Dracony smiled a bit, and nodded. “Yep, I do. I know it’s not much, but…” She waved a hoof.

“I-it’s…very nice.” Pearl said, nibbling on her food a bit more.

“Oh, well er…thanks.” Lazuli stayed quiet for a minute, then continued. “Um…do you have…a place to go?” She asked tentatively, tilting her head. “I don’t suppose you come from Redhoof, do you?”

“Mm-m.” Pearl shook her head. “I…I used to live with my mom in a small village…but…”

Lazuli frowned. “Raiders?” She asked, trying not to make it too difficult. Pearl nodded slowly.

“Y-yeah…they…got rid of everyone except me and a few other foals…”

“…how old are you, Pearl?” Lazuli swallowed softly.

“I-I’m 10.” Pearl responded, looking up at Lazuli, having finished her food. “Why?”

Lazuli wasn’t sure why, and in fact it was completely out of character for her – but she suddenly moved forward and wrapped her front legs around Pearl. She embraced the young unicorn as tightly as she could without hurting her.

“I’m so sorry…” She said, almost in a whisper.

“U-um…thanks?” Pearl smiled shakily, slowly returning the hug and resting her chin on Lazuli’s shoulder. “Are you okay, miss- or…Lazuli?”

Lazuli breathed in deeply, holding Pearl as if she’d run away if she let go. “I-I’m fine.” She finally released her, sighing. “But…since you don’t have anywhere to go, I um…you can stay here, if you want.”

She inwardly cursed herself. What are you doing? You can’t take care of a filly. You’re out of your house half the day…

Pearl’s eyes lit up like a pair of suns, the likes of which Lazuli hadn’t seen in about two whole centuries. “R-really? You’d let me stay with you?!” It was Pearl’s turn to hug Lazuli now, her hooves wrapping tightly around the Dracony’s middle and squeezing her as hard as she could.

Sweet Celestia, kid’s got grip…Lazuli gritted her teeth, carefully returning the hug with a gentle squeeze. “Yeah…of course I would.” Lazuli nodded. This is a terrible, stupid idea, Lazuli. She thought to herself, but there was no way she was leaving Pearl to fend for herself. She could make this work…she just needed to alter her schedules a bit.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” Pearl squealed, burying her face in the fluff of Lazuli’s chest. “I promise I won’t do anything to annoy you, thank you so much!”

“Hey, it’s fine, kid.” Lazuli gently ran her hoof through Pearl’s mane, giving her another squeeze. “But you probably need rest. You can use my bed for now, okay?”

“Wh- um, where’re you gonna sleep?” Pearl tilted her head.

“I’ll just sleep on the floor. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Lazuli let go of Pearl, but not before lifting her up and placing her gently on the bed.

Pearl seemed a bit apprehensive, but with a confident smile from Lazuli she calmed herself down and nodded. “Th-thanks, miss Lazuli.” She laid down on the bed, which was really the only proper bed she had been in her entire life. Lazuli saw her wriggle around a bit against the sheets, pulling the covers over herself with magic. As he eyes closed, the look of pure contentment and bliss on the filly’s face made Lazuli’s chest ache.

Lazuli slowly laid down beside the bed, curling herself up like a cat and resting her chin on her forehooves. “It’ll be fine, Laz…” She muttered to herself, sighing gently and wrapping her tail around to her front before shutting her eyes.

The next morning, Lazuli woke to find that Pearl was still fast asleep in the bed. She didn’t have the heart to wake her up, so she just headed into the bathroom to clean up.

Once she had washed her face with the questionably clean water she had been keeping, she sat down at her desk and stared at the papers sitting on top of it.

For the past 2 years or so, she had been working on a record of her life. The past 180 years or so didn’t have a lot in them – the first 20 years after the bombs dropped had been hard, so she hadn’t left them out, but once the turmoil subsided, once the Stables began to open many years later, it wasn’t so interesting anymore.

Her life before the apocalypse, however…that was something she felt that she needed to document. She was fairly sure that she was the one of the only ponies alive who could remember the times before Equestria had been turned into a Wasteland, a time that she had actually been able to live normally before that was taken from her, too.

After staring at the pages for a few minutes, she picked up the radio on the desk and plugged in her headset. It was a simple pair of headphones with a scraggly wired microphone attached, but it did the trick. Flicking to a specific channel, she brought the mic down to her mouth. “Aura, you there?” She asked. For a few seconds she didn’t get an answer.

“Yeah, I’m here.” Came a soft, female voice. “What’s up, Laz?”

“Listen, uh…” She cleared her throat. “I need some advice, and I need uh…help. But I know Redhoof isn’t too fond of non-ponies…any chance you could convince them to let me come visit? If it helps, I’m the one they contracted to-“

“Yeah I know, Laz. I’m the one who set that up, remember?”

The sound of a chair rolling across wood and an exaggerated sigh came across through her headphones. “Fiiiiiine.” The mare on the other end replied. “Ugh, such a pain having to see you in the flesh, you know?”

Lazuli rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Aura.”

“Kiss-ass.” Aura replied.

“Well I could also just not help you next time you’ve got raiders…”

“Nah, you love me too much.” Aura’s snicker came through, and Lazuli snorted.

“Anyway. I’ll be there in a few hours, okay? Just tell them, so they don’t shoot at me…my passenger isn’t exactly combat-ready.” Lazuli turned to look over her shoulder, watching Pearl’s chest rise and fall as she snored. She looked completely peaceful, like she hadn’t slept in a bed in months, maybe even years…or maybe not ever.

“Can do, old-timer.” Aura snapped her out of her thoughts, and the radio switched to static.

Lazuli put down the radio, smiling a bit. These things are so damn useful. She thought to herself, getting out of her chair and trotting over to the bed to wake Pearl up.

“Just stay on my back, okay?” Lazuli smiled over her shoulder as she trotted into the town, the packed-down dirt road kicking up gentle clouds of dust with each step.

“I’m not too heavy?” Pearl asked, her bright eyes looking around at her surroundings.

“Nah, you’re fine.” Laz replied, looking around as well. Normally, she didn’t go into towns much, unless she really needed supplies…those she normally got from traders passing by, anyway.

Redhoof was a town of few wonders, and even fewer ponies. It boasted a population of just over a hundred, which Lazuli supposed wasn’t too bad for a town in the Wastes. Its buildings were actual buildings, at least, made out of wood and bricks and sturdy enough to not loose parts during a storm. The town itself had gained its name for the basin it was sat in, a large natural crater that was filled with red sand and dirt. Most ponies who walked around outside had red hooves, hence ‘Redhoof’.

As she made her way down the street – for the town was essentially one long street walled in by rows of buildings, though there were a few twists and turns – it didn’t take long for her to be greeted by the only mare she knew on a friendly basis in the town, and one of the only ponies who she considered anything more than a living sack of meat in this Wasteland. Aura Burst was a bright mare, both in her intellect and colouration, a nice contrast to the drab browns and reds that filled the area. Her mane was a shiny, shimmering blonde, and her coat was a light creamy colour that wasn’t quite beige, but too dark to be considered pure white. A horn jutted out from her forehead.

“Laz!” Aura called, her face brightening into a wide smile. “How the heck’s my favourite dead-maker?”

“You need to work on your titles.” Lazuli said with a bit of a smirk.

“Hello!” Pearl spoke up suddenly, putting her front hooves on the back of Lazuli’s head and hoisting herself up so she could be properly seen.

“Wooooaaah, Laz.” Aura squinted, giving the Dracony a saucy look. “Somethin’ you want to explain to me? Who’s the lucky guy?”

With anypony else, Lazuli probably would have ripped their throat out, but she just snarled instead. “I will end you.”

“Yeah okay, scary.” Aura snickered. “But uh…seriously, what’s with the um…that?” She nodded at Pearl, who was still smiling like a…filly.

“She’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Uh…Aura, this is Pearl Blossom. Pearl, Aura Burst.” She said, gesturing between the two of them.

“Here, let’s walk back to my place. And uh…nice to meet you I guess, Pearl.”

Lazuli fell into step beside Aura. “So…what’s this about, then?” She asked, glancing back at the filly who seemed content to play with Lazuli’s metal wings.

“Well…when I was out killing that raider boss – you’re welcome by the way – I found this one.” She extended her wings, doubling as both a guard to keep Pearl on her back and a source of entertainment for the young unicorn. “She uh…they…um.”

“Slave?” Aura raised an eyebrow.

“…yeah. And you know how I am about those.” Laz replied.

Aura frowned and nibbled on her lip. “So…you saved this filly, and now you don’t know what to do with her.”

“Well…I mean…it’s not so much that I don’t know what to do, but I…” Lazuli started, but trailed off.

“Geez, I’ve never seen you like this.” Aura tilted her head, concerned. “I could probably ask around and see if anyone in town wanted to take he-“

“No!” Laz suddenly blurted out, startling Aura. “I mean… I… no, it’s fine, it’s just…” She sighed heavily. “I can handle it. I just need to figure out how to work it into my… career, you know?”

Aura’s horn glowed a gentle gold colour, pushing open the door to one of the houses lining the street and stepping inside. “Well that’s uh… kind of impossible, Laz. You can’t take care of a kid and be a merc who’s never at home.”

“I-…” Lazuli tried to come up with some sort of rebuttal, but Aura wasn’t wrong. “…yeah… but I don’t want to just… leave her with a town, you know? What if raiders attack again, or-“

“I get it.” Aura cut her off. “Believe me. But… your options are kind of limited. Unless you settle down somewhere, that is, but… that doesn’t really seem your style.”

As the two mares walked into the house, Lazuli gently slid one wing to the side and let Pearl use it as a ramp, the filly hopping onto the floor. Lazuli and Aura sat down on the couch, Pearl soon following their example and sitting next to Laz, scooting as close as possible and resting her head against the Dracony’s side. Pearl seemed to get the idea that she shouldn’t talk yet, so she stayed quiet.

“…I guess you’re right.” Laz nodded. “But… I kind of do want to settle a bit.”

Aura looked a bit taken aback, her green eyes focusing in on Lazuli’s. “…you feeling okay, Laz? Sure you’re not sick?”

“I mean it, Aura.” She responded, suddenly overcome with a feeling of exhaustion. “I just… I dunno. I’ve been doing this for almost two centuries, in total.”

“I still don’t really believe that whole thing.” Aura chimed in. “Er…but right, go on.”

Lazuli shot her friend a bit of a glare, then snorted. “I’ve been doing it for so long, and…I miss being able to be normal. I only really was ‘normal’ for like…ten years, but I miss it.”

“Well…I’m sure ‘normal’ back then is pretty different from ‘normal’ now. Not that I’m saying you don’t deserve a break or anything, but…what would you do, really?” Aura asked, her head tilting and her ears wiggling a bit.

The Dracony thought about it for a minute. “I…” She realized that Aura had a point. Most settlements in the Wastes weren’t very fond of mutants, and while Lazuli wasn’t a mutant in any way, she was always seen as one. “I d… I don’t…” She leaned back in her seat, staring at the carpet. “I don’t know…”

Aura put a hoof on Lazuli’s shoulder sympathetically. “I’m not gonna tell you what to do, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t do it even if caps were on the line, but you’re not the motherly type.”

“…what if I…” Laz started to say, but it turned into a mumble.

“Um… what if you what?” Aura lifted one of her ears.

Lazuli took a deep breath. “What if I… worked here? In Redhoof?” Her head slowly turned to meet Aura’s gaze.

“Laz…”

“No, I’m serious.” She said more firmly. “The ponies here know me. Maybe they don’t really like me, but they know me, and I’ve done three contracts for them as a whole. They can’t just say no, right? And I know for a fact they have empty houses, and that the leaders need a secretary.”

“Laz, the life here would bore the hell out of you. Why are you letting one filly change your whole way of doing things?”

“Because Topaz-…” She froze, her ears flattening against her head for a moment, her eyes wide. “I… I mean… because Pearl… deserves to have a normal, safe life.”

Aura’s face seemed a bit concerned, but she sighed and shook her head. “I can ask the mayor, I guess. But… don’t get your hopes up, okay? For now…make yourselves at home I guess.”

“Thanks.” Laz tried to clear her head, looking down at Pearl, who was idly curling Lazuli’s mane around her hoof. “Pearl, you okay?”

“Yep!” Pearl responded, the first time she had spoke for a while. “I’m fine.” She smiled, her grin surprisingly bright despite probably not having much dental hygiene.

Lazuli sighed and laid her head back, a heavy sigh rolling out of her. She didn’t know why she was deciding to basically change her entire lifestyle because of this one filly, but she did know that she wasn’t going to let Pearl live in a town that was already prone to raider attacks and destruction on a regular basis, not without her being there to protect her.

…sweet Celestia, what’s wrong with me? She wondered, before getting up to look around the town with Pearl.

Chapter 4

Within a day or so, Lazuli was headed back to her cottage with Pearl. She had gotten lucky, in a way; there was one home open in Redhoof. It was a small, one bedroom one kitchen house with a bathroom attached to the bedroom, which was at least big enough to also double as a living room. She had taken a look at it before leaving, and told Aura that they would be back for it once she figured out what to do next.

Pearl had remained oddly silent over the last little while. Lazuli occasionally glanced over her shoulder at her, a slight frown on her face each time. Eventually, she actually spoke.

“Hey, you alright kid?” She asked, keeping her voice soft, and her wings up to help Pearl feel secure.

“…Mhm.” Pearl nodded. She looked tired.

“Did you get any sleep last night? You were quiet all morning.”

The filly shrugged. “I dunno.” She yawned and rubbed her eye with one hoof. “I just feel really…sleepy…”

“Well, you can sleep on my back, no problem with that.”

“Mmrh…I’ve been tryin’, though…” The unicorn wiggled a bit, resting her head against the back of Lazuli’s neck. Despite it being a rather balmy day outside, Pearl’s cheek felt cold.

“…Um…are you feeling okay, Pearl? You’re really cold.” Lazuli started to feel anxious.

Pearl mumbled something incoherent, resting her head fully against Lazuli’s back. For a moment she was silent, and that moment dragged on…the Dracony realized that she had fallen asleep. She considered taking the filly back to Redhoof to get her checked out, but she was just about halfway between her cottage and the town at this point. It would be unnecessary, she decided. Pearl was just a little under the weather.

Lazuli trotted along in silence for the rest of the trip. Something felt slightly uneasy to her – Pearl was dreadfully silent. Normally a filly like her would snore, or maybe move a bit in her sleep, but she didn’t seem to be. Lazuli finally stopped walking, lowering one of her wings and craning her neck back to look at her passenger…

But found that Pearl was the least of her worries. Her eyes tilted slightly upwards, focusing in on two figured walking behind her. They had stopped when she looked back, both seeming equine in stature, but she couldn’t make out what exactly they were.

Her wing raised again, hiding most of Pearl in the shadows between them, but she was certain they had seen her anyway. She slowly turned herself around, making sure to keep her eyes on the mystery ponies. “Who’re you, then?” She called. By her estimate, they were both about thirty feet away, so she raised her voice.

The two of them started to walk forward. While Lazuli wasn’t wearing her suit, she had her weapons on – so she used her tail to flick her revolver out of its holster, rearing up on her hind legs. Her wings folded so they held Pearl on her back, her front hooves clutching the gun while her tail wrapped around the trigger. “That’s close enough.” She said, as the ponies approached to about fifteen feet.

The figures were identifiable now. Both of them were zebras, a fact that didn’t deter Lazuli too much. While the zebras had been an enemy of Equestria during the war, and she had been alive to see what they had done, she knew it was foolish to judge an entire species based on the actions of their ancestors. Even so, the stalk-y nature of these two made her uneasy.

As the one to the right of her spoke, she was even more uneased. His voice was heavily synthesized and almost robotic, sending a bit of a shiver down her spine. “We didn’t think it’d be this easy.” He said simply. Lazuli could see a bridle dangling in front of his mouth, and tightened her grip on her revolver. Both of them must have been wearing saddles, then, but they had rather large cloaks covering them up.

“I said, who’re you?” She repeated, pulling the hammer back on her gun. “Talk.”

The one on the left spoke with a much more normal voice, but every time his body shifted she heard a dull whirring noise. “You’re not in a position to ask questions. You’re lucky we’re not killing you.” Both of them threw off their cloaks at the same time. The zebra on the right pulled an assault rifle off of his back, a mechanical pair of wings not too dissimilar from her own unfurling. One ‘feather’ on his wing curled around the trigger as he pointed it at her.

The other zebra just smirked, his lips closing around the bridle in his mouth. Lazuli saw he was equipped with a machine gun, or at least some kind of large chain-fed weapon. “Drop the filly.” The one on the left spoke, his voice again making Lazuli shiver.

So that’s what this is about…Lazuli frowned. The amount of cybernetic augmentation on these zebras – zebras didn’t even have wings, so there must have been a lot of machinery running through the left one, and the right one had his entire left foreleg and right hind leg fashioned entirely out of metal – unnerved her. She had a feeling she knew where they were from, but she had no idea why they would want Pearl. “Not a chance.” She shifted one of her hind legs back a bit, ready to move if they started to shoot, but she assumed they didn’t want Pearl dead.

The right zebra snickered. “How much do you think the boss would give us, if we brought in the Dracony and the kid?”

“Stop calling it a kid.” The leftmost zebra snorted. “It’s not a kid.”

“Well then you’re not a zebra, are you?” The partner asked. Lazuli was getting a bit more confused, and considerably more on-edge. The winged zebra tilted his head with an overly mechanical whirring noise, and gave a small ‘hmmm’ of contemplation.

“I guess I’m not then. Now can we please capture one of them and kill the other one?” He finally said, raising his rifle again.

Shit. Lazuli thought to herself. If she unfurled her wings, Pearl would fall to the ground, and be open to being shot. She thought that wouldn’t be an issue, but now it seemed they just wanted either one of them. “…So if I gave you this kid, what would you do?”

“Eh, let you go I guess.” The right zebra shrugged. “You weren’t really part of the job here, but you’d be a pretty bonus for the boss if you wanted to come back with us.”

“…Uh-huh. Not the best way to ask someone to come nicely.” Lazuli suddenly flicked both wings out to the side. With a metallic shnck the feathers on the end of each wing slid open to reveal razor-sharp blades, her best alternative right now, as her tail blade was packed in her bags.

The left stallion tightened his grip on the trigger. “I wouldn’t do that. It would be a horrible mistake.”

“You already made one by coming after me.”

The three of them stared at each other for a few seconds. Lazuli took note of everything in her vision and field of awareness. Pearl was on the ground behind her, more than open to bullets if they started shooting. The zebra on the right had taken his bridle out of his mouth to talk, but the more silence hung between them, the more likely it was that he would just put it back. The stallion on the left was the real problem – he was aiming right at her head, and while a battle saddle wasn’t the most accurate thing in Equestria, a rifle held by sturdy (and presumably mechanically enhanced) hooves was deadly beyond that.

Cough.

It wasn’t the opening Lazuli had expected, but it was one she was more than grateful for. As the stallion on the right jerked a bit with a heavy cough, the winged zebra’s eyes left Lazuli for a fraction of a second. Technically the Dracony wasn’t even aware, but she knew it was her best chance, so she dashed forward.

A bullet fired off. The rifle in the zebra’s hooves discharged, a bullet whizzing through Lazuli’s mane as she ran forward. The shell casing clinked to the ground, and Lazuli heard a faint CRACK followed by a fizzling noise behind her, but the Dracony was already too close for him to fire again. Her head collided with the bottom of his chin, sending him flying backwards and sprawling on the dirt.

The stallion with the machine gun whirled himself to the side, mouth open around his bridle. He had been in the process of turning when Lazuli moved forward, and she barely had time to twist her body sideways before he bit down. Her whole body swung towards him, her tail colliding with the side of his head. His teeth bit down on the bridle, his machine gun firing three rounds off to the side, the noise echoing through the Wastes before he crumpled. After those shots, he fell to the ground, unconscious. Clearly the augmentation on his limbs didn’t protect his cranium.

Her head turned to the side, and her wing immediately shot up to her face. She heard the pinging of bullets against its metal surface as the remaining zebra fired at her, having picked himself up and reclaimed his gun. She ran forward somewhat blindly, swinging her wing outwards and lashing out with the blades attached to them. The zebra narrowly jumped back, his rifle dropping to his side, and then dropping completely to the ground.

Lazuli barely had time to react as he reared up on his hinds again and swung at her with his front hoof. She brought her own up to block it, sending a wave of pain running up her leg and into her shoulder. Sweet fucking Celestia, he hits hard. She grunted, locking her front leg around his and trying to swing herself backwards to throw him.

He countered it perfectly, however, by throwing himself over her back purposefully. He landed on his three hooves, swinging his remaining leg over his head and bringing Lazuli with it. The Dracony landed flat on her back in the dirt.

She was starting to panic a bit, the breath being knocked out of her lungs from the impact. It was rare to find a pony in the Wasteland who could match a Dracony with two and a half centuries of experience, but this zebra was terrifying. She narrowly moved her head to the side to avoid a punch, swinging her lower body upwards to lock her legs around his neck. She tried to drag him down, but his front hooves grabbed hold of her thighs and he swung his whole body around, prying her legs away from his throat and throwing her painfully into a nearby rock outcropping.

Lazuli’s vision was dazed, but she could already see him moving forward. Clearly he wasn’t the type to gloat until he knew his opponent was fully incapacitated. She rolled herself away from the rock just as his hoof struck the spot her head had been in, falling to the ground and flipping herself upright. Her tail managed to wrap around his hoof as he swung for another punch, effectively holding him for at least a millisecond.

He tried to use her tail as an advantage, dragging her backward to try and throw her again, but she didn’t let him. She yanked her tail forwards, then brought both hind legs up, lashing out with them and dragging him right into their path at the same time. A satisfying THUD was followed by a sharp, painful explosion of breath and a dull crackling noise, and the zebra was thrown back into the dirt, wheezing and clutching at his chest.

Finally, Lazuli was allowed to catch her breath. She didn’t even realize that she had been without air for almost thirty seconds straight, her lungs eager to suck in the dust-clouded fresh air.

“F-fuck…” Lazuli said out loud.

The zebra seemed not to care for her expletive. He began to stagger upright, his eyes focusing in on Lazuli…but the Dracony had already picked up her revolver from the place she had dropped it. Her tail curled around the trigger, not hesitating for a second as she pulled it back. The whole gun jerked backwards in her hooves, not allowing for a second shot for sure, even if it were capable of such without pulling back the hammer again. Even a zebra with reflexes as impressive as his wasn’t able to dodge a bullet, and the burning hot cylinder of metal burrowed right through his head – bursting out the back with a spray of red liquid and sending the stallion slumping to the side, blood leaking out onto the dirt.

Lazuli lowered the gun, her breathing heavy and her heart still racing from the adrenaline. She glanced down at the zebra on the ground a few feet away. He hadn’t been unconscious for long, and was staring at Lazuli with wide eyes – when he fell, his machine gun had broken off of his saddle and now lay unusable on the ground. Her eyes bored into his.

“F-fucking hell, calm down.” He swallowed nervously, standing up and kicking the gun away. “No need to…f-fuck, you seriously- but- how-“ He cleared his throat to try and seem stern. “I’ll leave. You won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

The Dracony raised her revolver again. The hammer clicked back. It was more of a heat-of-the-moment decision than a proper one, but she did it anyway. Her tail pulled back, the gun discharging again and sending a bullet through the second zebra’s skull. This one was much less clean, entering through the side of his jaw and shattering the bone, ripping out through his trachea. He choked and grasped at his neck, as if trying to patch the hole, before falling forward and laying in the dirt, gargling for a few seconds and eventually falling quiet.

Lazuli slowly slid the gun back into the holster on her hip, running a hoof through her mane. Part of her knew that it was in poor taste to kill a surrendering enemy, but she didn’t exactly feel merciful towards a stallion who had wanted to take Pearl away a second time.

“L-Lazuli?” Came Pearl’s voice from behind her. The Dracony immediately turned around to face her, only able to imagine how terrified the poor thing must have felt.

It was when she turned around that her already cold-blooded veins ran even colder. Her eyes must have been the size of dinner plates.

Pearl was standing up, but she didn’t look right at all. For one, her mane was a mess and her fur was frazzled all over, making it look like she had just been thrown down a hill. Her eyes were wide, and she looked terrified…

But only one eye could express that emotion. The other was fizzling and sparking in a way that pony eyes tend not to do.

Her right eye was cracked, that was the best way Lazuli could put it. Instead of the clear lens covering the beautiful amber discs that she had gotten used to with Pearl, she was looking at a cracked sheet of glass, with the occasional spark or staticky image appearing behind the glass itself. Pearl’s left front leg was torn open on one side, revealing a mass of squishy synthetic material and fizzling machinery. The filly’s face was contorted in abject horror, staring at something that the Dracony wasn’t capable of seeing.

Lazuli didn’t know how to speak, all of a sudden. Her jaw began to move up and down, her eyes blinking frantically, thinking she was having some kind of hallucination. “P-…Pearl…wh…what happened…to…”

“Wha-a-a-a-a-at’s h-happening to me?” Pearl’s voice seemed to skip several times during her speech, her head frantically jerking from side to side, trying to rid her vision of some projection that she could receive no assistance with removing, since Lazuli couldn’t see it.

“You…y-you’re…you’re a…” Lazuli lifted a hoof, which was shaking, she realized. “A…r-robot…?”

Pearl lifted her front hoof, the one that was sparking and twitching. She must have been hit by a bullet – there was no way that damage happened from falling off of Laz’s back. “I…I’m…wh-…” Pearl was trembling, her whole body struggling to figure out what was happening to her. Her head turned back to Laz, a tear rolling down her left cheek while her right eye flickered and sparked. “Wh-what am I?!”

Lazuli’s breaths were quickening exponentially from the moment she had turned around, but at the sight of Pearl’s expression, she started to force herself to calm down. She realized that clearly, Pearl wasn’t aware of what she was, that she had believed herself to be a full pony. Lazuli wasn’t quite sure if Pearl was a fully robotic creature or just augmented heavily – either one would explain why those zebras were looking for her, she thought – and now the poor filly was absolutely terrified and confused.

She cleared her throat, and slowly took a step forward. “Pearl…you need to calm down. I don’t know what’s happening, but you just need to…”

“N-no, what is this?! Wh- this- I-I’m not a pony!” She backpedalled slightly, her broken hoof creaking as she started to back away. “I-…g-get away from me!”

“Pearl, please, I want to help-“

“GET AWAY!” Pearl screamed, her right eye flashing and sparking, a red tint glowing in its depths. She lifted her undamaged forehoof, and Lazuli froze in place as she watched the bottom of it slide open to reveal the barrel of what she could only assume to be a gun.

Pearl didn’t even seem aware of what she was doing. She started to back away, evidently unable to put her leg down, struggling to hold herself up on her damaged one.

“Pearl…” Lazuli stepped forward, testing the waters. “I need you to listen to me. Listen to my voice. I want to help you.”

“Y-you knew about this, didn’t you?!” Pearl yelled, a dull click coming from the opening in her hoof. Lazuli couldn’t figure out if it meant it wasn’t loaded, or that it was preparing to fire. She lifted a wing just in case.

“Pearl, I had no idea.” She shook her head. “I…I know you must be confused, and I’m- I’m confused too, but I can’t help you if you don’t calm down.”

“You knew! I-I know you did! Y-you…you were gonna sell me, or something! I-I’m a freak!” The filly’s head twitched, her eye sparking again.

Lazuli’s pupils shrank in her eyes as Pearl brought her hoof back. She barely had time to duck, her wing flying up over her face as a loud, explosive BANG echoed through the Wasteland.

Chapter 5

Lazuli was back on her hooves as fast as she could be. Her mind was swirling in confusion, her eyesight blurry and shaking. Every step felt groggy, like she had drank ten times as much alcohol as she could handle, and she could barely make out Pearl’s body – the filly was backing away slowly, her hoof still pointed at the Dracony in front of her.

She rubbed her forehead with a hoof, struggling to stay standing…or awake. “Ngh…fu…what was…” She murmured, shaking her head a few times. Her mind began to clear, her blurry vision returning to normal. She just managed to catch Pearl’s sky blue tail vanishing down the road. “PEARL!” She yelled after her. Her first few steps were shaky, but as she picked up the pace her balance returned. As she trotted, she noted that fragments of some kind of explosive were sitting on the ground – based on how groggy the explosion had made her, it was some kind of concussion grenade.

That was the least of her concerns right now, though. Her trotting turned into a full-blown gallop, one that was less synonymous with a pony’s anatomy and more like a hunting feline. She ran as fast as she could, and reasonably should have been able to catch up to Pearl easily…but as she reached the top of the hill that the road inclined towards, she didn’t see the filly anywhere. Her head twisted from side to side, eyes darting every possible way. For miles in most directions it was just a vast expanse of Wasteland, with a few settlements far off in the distance. The only sizeable building she could see nearby was an abandoned factory, but she couldn’t see Pearl anywhere.

“PEARL!” Lazuli yelled again, her voice echoing far louder than she had intended, but she didn’t care about how loud it was. Her mouth opened to yell again when she saw a figure in the distance – definitely not Pearl, given the pony’s black colours, but there was an odd glint coming from it.

Thump.

Lazuli wasn’t quite sure what the sound was, at first. She felt something bump against her chest, and her eyes slowly curled downwards. There was a small syringe stuck to her chest, fitted on the end with a two-toned blue bit of fluff. She tilted her head as her vision began to swirl, bright colours overtaking her sight and making her wobble. She staggered from side to side, her throat creaking as she tried to yell once more, but instead slumped to the ground, falling completely limp.

Lazuli’s eyes shot open, her lungs inflating with air in the form of a deep, heavy gasp. She immediately tensed her front legs to lift herself up, but found that they were bound tightly against a wall, and she was sitting upright against solid concrete. She wiggled, but the bonds were tight, her hooves tied together behind her back and secured against the wall. “Son of a…” She murmured to herself, grunting and trying to wiggle her hooves out.

She heard something shift in front of her, and her eyes swivelled back to the front of the room. The door was obscured by a sizeable unicorn stallion, wearing some kind of light combat armour. He was far better outfitted than a raider, that was for sure, with a full bulletproof suit, a sidearm holstered at his hip, and what looked like some form of pump-action shotgun held to his side. When he spoke, he had a soft but stern voice. “Stop moving.” He said.

Her eyes locked onto his. He was a slim but clearly athletic stallion, and probably a few inches taller than her if she were also standing. His fur, from what she could see, was cream coloured, with a sandy blonde mane and tail. “Who’re you?” Lazuli asked, clenching her jaw. “And where’s the filly?”

“Filly? You mean the synth?” The stallion snorted. “She’s being held in a different cell.”

“I swear on Celestia’s grave, if you hurt her…”

“We haven’t harmed her. Even if a robot like her isn’t capable of feeling pain or emotion, we still don’t want to damage it any further.”

Lazuli’s scowl deepened. “She’s not an it. She’s a scared filly who has no idea what’s happening to her, and I need to see her.”

“Well that’s not going to happen. You’re meeting with the boss.” The stallion reached down and started to help her up. “Just in case you get any ideas about running…” He pointed down at her neck. She could hear a faint beeping noise from it, and looking down, she realized a collar was clipped around her throat. A bomb collar…she thought to herself. So they’re slavers. Fuck me…

As she was untied from the wall, she didn’t think it was a good idea to attack the guard. She complied with his non-verbal demands as he helped her stand, then shackled her front and hind legs to allow walking, but nothing more. Her wings were held down with strong chains, not allowing them to stretch. Her eyes briefly caught sight of the emblem emblazoned on the stallion’s uniform – the image of a unicorn staring straight out, its eyes glowing dull green. The letters R.O.D were written beneath. She couldn’t quite figure out what it was supposed to mean or stand for.

As she was led out of the cell, which opened up into a surprisingly well-kept corridor with full lighting and linoleum floors, she spoke again. “So who are you guys, then? Armour’s a bit fancy for run-of-the-mill bandits.” She knew she might have been pushing some boundaries, but right now she just wanted to make sure Pearl was okay.

“Our organization is known as the Riders of the Dusk.” The guard replied. Lazuli’s ear twitched slightly, but he kept speaking. “A group focused on the preservation of old Equestrian values, and the betterment of Equestria so it might be brought to its former glory.”

Lazuli raised an eyebrow. Something about the name made her feel a bit uneasy…or was it anxious? She couldn’t be sure. “Riders of the Dusk?”

“Our leader decided on the name. I don’t know what it means. She simply said it was an homage to friendship.”

“…Right.” Okay, so they’re insane then. She decided, and continued to trot along beside him…until he spoke again, this time in a more inquisitive tone.

“Apologies for how I spoke earlier. The leader made it clear that we shouldn’t treat prisoners like that. But…if you don’t mind me asking, what are you?”

Lazuli turned her head towards him as she walked, snorting. “So now you’re all friendly?” She realized it wouldn’t get her anywhere to be aloof, though. “I’m a Dracony. Pretty sure there aren’t any more of us around, anymore…”

“…Dracony…” The stallion fell quiet, walking in tandem with her. “That’s…that sounds familiar. I…huh.” He shook his head, leading her through a few different bends and doorways.

Lazuli glanced through a large door as they passed it, then stopped. It opened out into a large and rather extensive room that she could only assume was a training hall, where she watched multiple ponies – earth ponies, unicorns, even a few pegasi and, to her surprise, the occasional zebra – sparring or practicing close quarters moves. Some of them were also just exercising, or training with weights. “Training room?” She asked, turning her head to look at her guard, who had stopped with her.

The unicorn nodded. “Yeah, that’s where we practice. The shooting range is outside, so don’t get any ideas about guns in there.”

“Guns aren’t really my style, anyway.” Lazuli started to walk along beside him again. “So what do you guys do, exactly? You said you uh…preserve old Equestrian values and stuff, but are you a militia, a task force, or…?”

“We’re more of a militia.” The unicorn answered with a slow nod. “We work to keep the peace, but we’re not a huge organization now. Only about a hundred and fifty strong so far.”

“So…you help towns and civilians and stuff?” She asked.

“When we can, yeah. We’ve taken on Enclave patrols sometimes, but they seem to stay away from this area anyway, so…”

Lazuli snorted. Enclave. She had despised them from the beginning, and was at least glad to hear that these ponies were against them as well. “Right…okay. So uh…why exactly did you see it fit to drug me and knock me out?”

“You were approaching the base, and your er…” The guard hesitated. “Filly looked quite aggressive. It’s just protocol, I hope you don’t mind.”

“And am I going to be allowed to leave?”

“Hopefully, once the leader meets you, yes. Though it will be your decision. We were looking through your bags, by the way…your gear bears a striking resemblance to-…” He paused, then cleared his throat and looked forward again. “I- er…nevermind. I’m sure the leader would explain things much better than I could.”

Lazuli stopped as her armed escort did, the two of them ending their walk at a large pair of metal doors. He cleared his throat. “Right. So. I need to explain something before you go in there.”

“You’re not leading me in?”

“No, I’ll be staying out here. The boss requests to see prisoners like you alone, just to assess their eligibility to enlist.”

“Enlist? I can tell you right now it’ll be a waste of my time then.” Lazuli shook her head. “I’m not enlisting.”

“Well, she wants to see you regardless, and I’m sorry to say you can’t leave until you meet her.”

The mare clenched her teeth together and inhaled deeply. “Okay. So what do I need to know?”

“Our leader isn’t a physical pony, but she deserves all of the respect of one. She uploaded her consciousness into a hard drive some time ago, and while she doesn’t speak much about her past, we know she used to be involved with the Equestrian Army.”

“…You mean like…pre-war?” Lazuli’s ear twitched. This sounded like a big scam to her. Somepony taking advantage of righteous-minded ponies under the guise of someone who had survived the war.

“Well…yes.” The guard nodded affirmatively.

Lazuli snorted again. “Yeah…okay then. So I just go in?” She tried to lift her hoof up and open the door, then remembered she didn’t have that luxury. With a flash from the unicorn’s horn, her shackles suddenly came off and neatly laid themselves across the guard’s back. “Uh, you sure that’s a good idea?” She asked.

“She wants visitors to be un-bound.” He shrugged. “Orders are orders. You can go in when you’re ready, but if you try anything, keep in mind that she has full access to your collar and can detonate it the second you try.”

“You guys really know how to convince ponies, huh…” Lazuli rolled her eyes, bringing her hoof up and pushing the door open.

The stallion remained at the door as it closed behind her, nearly silently. The room itself was dark, and warmer than the rest of the building from what she could tell…something she greatly appreciated. The rest of the building felt cold, and her cold blood was grateful for a warmer room.

The noises in the room were soft, but computer…ish. That was the best way Lazuli could describe it – occasional blips and whirrs broke through the din of hardware spinning, clicking and working, and at the far end of the whole room was a very large computer screen up against the wall. The walls were lines with large metal boxes that she could only assume were hard drives and other computer parts. Lighting was low, except near the computer screen.

Lazuli’s hooves clopped loudly against the tile floor as she approached, her eyes surveying the room. She stopped a few feet from the screen, tilting her head slightly. It was blank at the moment, nothing but a black screen. She almost felt stupid trying to talk to it, but she did anyway.

“Ahem.” She cleared her throat. “Hello?”

There was no response for a few seconds, until a voice came from the screen. “Gah! Sweet Celestia, I wasn’t expecting visitors this soon, my apologies.” The voice was somewhat mature, definitely the voice of a leader…something about it sounded familiar, too.

“Er, hi.” Lazuli looked around. “You uh…you don’t have a picture, you know that right?”

“Oh, wait, I can’t see you either. Uh…this is really unprofessional, my bad.” The voice stopped for a moment.

Suddenly the screen flickered to life. Lazuli had been staring at a black surface the whole time, so the sudden flash of light made her wince and squint her eyes. “There we go!” The voice said, a bit more clearly than before. “Right…so…shall we g-…” The mare stopped again, this time it seemed of her own fruition. Lazuli rubbed her eyes with her hooves, letting them focus in on the screen.

“Gah, geez, you could have warned me…” She murmured, letting her gaze fully rise to meet the one who was staring back from the computer.

It took several seconds for Lazuli’s mind to fully wrap around what she was looking at. The mare on the screen was only a head, her neck disappearing from the bottom of the monitor. The image was far from detailed, and barely even recognizable, but a few major features stuck out from her pixelated visage.

Her fur, or she supposed her pixels, were a dark purple colour. Her mane was styled upright in a pinkish purple mohawk, and while the pony was clearly a unicorn, her horn was broken. A scar ran across her right eye.

While the computer didn’t seem capable of a full projection of a pony, or even a high-definition image of her head, the mare herself was clear – albeit a bit pixelated. Both mares had no doubt in their minds about the identity of the other, and the two of them sat there staring for nearly a full minute.

Lazuli was the one to break the silence. Her mouth closed as she swallowed, her voice almost a whisper. “F-…Fi…Fizzle…?”

“…” The mare on the screen’s expression shifted from complete shock to an ears-back and somewhat sheepish smile, tears welling up in eyes that failed to properly reach the physical realm, yet portrayed a clearly perceptible level of emotion. “Laz…?”

Chapter 6

The sound of hooves clopping against the hard floor echoed through the computer room. Lazuli staggered towards the screen, almost dumbfounded by the sight in front of her. Fizzlepop Berrytwist, a mare whom she had assumed to be dead for almost two centuries now, was staring back at her with an almost equal amount of bewilderment. Lazuli slowly put her front hooves up on the panel in front of the monitor, staring at the projection in front of her.

“I-…” She began, her mouth suddenly feeling as dry as the desert outside. “F-Fizzle…is…a-are you…really…”

“I-I am.” Fizzlepop replied, her semi-static projection occasionally changing in facial expression, but her voice was all Lazuli needed. “I…I can’t believe you’re…you’re still alive…”

“How-“ Lazuli’s voice cracked. “How are you still alive?! I haven’t seen you in- s-sweet Celestia…it’s been…two hundred years, right?”

Fizzlepop paused for a second. “I…hold on. I’ve got something that might be a bit easier to talk to.”

“Wh-…” Lazuli winced as the screen flicked off. A split second passed where she thought it might have just been a figment of her imagination, but then a mechanical hissss and a few loud clanging and whirring noises caught her attention off to the side of the room.

A container slowly slid open, a bit of steam pouring out with it. What looked to be a mechanical pony stepped out, a robotic unicorn body that sported the same mohawk and armour that Lazuli had gotten so accustomed to seeing Fizzlepop in…hundreds of years ago. Her voice was slightly more synthetic when she spoke, bouncing off the metal walls of her ‘throat’, but clearly a physical body was better. The robotic body moved a bit more stiffly than a real pony’s would, but she wasn’t surprised to find it was so accurate. After all, she had just found out that the filly she had saved was a robot herself…

Fizzlepop stopped a foot away from Lazuli. Even though her eyes were more like camera lenses than proper equine eyes, the Dracony couldn’t look away. “…I…I c-…I…” Lazuli started to stammer.

“I know…I can’t really wrap my head around it either.” Fizzlepop shook her head slowly, the metal plates on her body shifting with each movement. “I…I really can’t believe you’re- oof!”

There was a loud CLANG as Fizzle was tackled, knocked onto her rump and sliding across the floor a bit. A pair of strong forelegs grasped Fizzle’s upper body, and she looked down to see Lazuli’s face buries in her metallic chest. “I…o-oh…” Fizzle cracked a smile, gently returning Lazuli’s hug and pulling her closer. “I…I missed you, Laz…”

Lazuli was shaking. While Fizzle’s robotic body couldn’t feel it, she could definitely tell, and she had to admit that she probably would be if she was capable of doing it without rattling some screws loose. “I…F-Fizz…” Lazuli felt tears rolling down her cheeks, dripping onto the metal surface of her old friend’s chest and falling to the ground after that. “Y-you’re…you’re…still here…” She choked up, her voice struggling to sound normal.

Fizzle calmed down much easier than Lazuli, her voice much steadier. She could only imagine how Laz had been living this whole time…

“It’s okay, Laz. It’s okay…” She gently nuzzled her metal snout into Lazuli’s mane. “We’re okay.”

“I-I can’t…I can’t believe…” Lazuli said, then trailed off, sniffling gently and letting more tears drip down Fizzle’s chest.

Fizzle sighed gently and stroked Lazuli’s mane, running her hoof through its surface. She would give anything to be able to actually feel it, but just knowing that she was there was enough. She suddenly hugged Lazuli much closer to herself, her eyes sliding shut as she rested her chin on top of the Dracony’s head, between her ears.

Lazuli sniffled and tightened her own grip, her whole body shaking as she embraced her friend of…well, she had to say over 200 years.

Fizzle sat there for what felt like only a minute, but ended up being well over 10. Neither of them said anything, the two simply sharing a tight and loving embrace…until the door slid open.

The cream-coloured unicorn that had been standing outside poked his head in, looking around. “Erm, Commander Tempe-…” He started, then paused and stared at the two of them for a second. “…Er…is this a bad time, ma’am?” He asked, watching the commander’s head slowly raise up.

“Hm? Oh…apologies, Lieutenant Bronze.” She had a smile on her face, one that was much more easily expressed by her robotic form. “What is it?”

“Uh…” The unicorn shook his head to clear it. “Right. Well…the scouts to the East have come back. No casualties. You said you wanted to speak to them when they returned.”

“Oh, right.” Fizzle slowly nodded. “I’ll be there in a bit, alright, Lieutenant?” She paused, then waved to him. “Actually, Lieutenant…do you remember the stories I used to tell about a Dracony named ‘Lazuli’?”

The stallion took a second to register what she had said, and when it clicked in his mind his expression changed entirely. His pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks, his ears folded back against his head and his mouth fell slightly agape. “Th-that…is…is that…”

Fizzle just nodded in affirmation. Bronze made a tiny squee noise that was unbefitting of a high-ranking guard like him, but quickly stood himself tall and tried to regain his composure. “Er, yes, of course, ma’am. I uh…I’ll inform them you’re meeting with someone…” squeeeeee. “Extremely important.”

Lazuli’s ears twitched a little and she slowly turned her head up, her nose pressed against the bottom of Fizzle’s chin. “…Wh-what did you tell them about me…?”

“Just a few of the things you’ve done for Equestria, Laz. Nothing much.” Fizzle ran her hoof up and down Lazuli’s mane, ruffling it a bit.

“Y-you…you told them about…”

“Where do you think I got the name ‘Riders of the Dusk’, Laz?” Fizzle smiled, giggling and giving the Dracony another nuzzle. “…Obviously we both need to catch up, but you heard him. I’ve got some stuff I need to do. You’re coming with me.” She gently tapped her hoof against Lazuli’s nose.

Lazuli swallowed, tears still rolling down her cheeks. “I-I swear on Celestia’s grave, I’m not letting you out of my sight…”

“You think I’d let you out of mine?” Fizzle smiled. “Now come on. We can’t catch up if you’re crying like this, can we…?”

Lazuli slowly straightened up, managing to pry herself away from Fizzle and wipe her eyes clean with her hoof. She sniffled softly, a small giggle escaping her. “S-sorry…I just…gods, it’s been…so long…”

“C’mere.” Fizzle pulled Lazuli in again, pressing her metallic cheek into the Dracony’s. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, right?”

“…Y-yeah.” Lazuli nodded enthusiastically, standing up as Fizzle did.

G.O.M. OS V 1.2 Booting up.

Running Diagnostic Scan.

System Integrity: OK!

Memory Bank: OK!

External Layer: Consider Repair.

Internal Functions: OK!

Running Secondary Diagnostic.

…

Data Integrity: 96% Complete. Corruption Detected.

Diagnostic Repair Sequence Running (Admin)…

…

…..

Done!

Booting Up Synthetic

G.O.M Model: 2

Designation:

Whatever the fuck I tell you.

Loading done!

Awaken, [LEAD LINED].

The boot-up screen went from black with green text to a full optical projection of what Lead Lined was looking at. His eyes clicked and whirred, taking a few seconds to properly fixate themselves on what was within his line of sight. The glass covering slowly hissed open in front of him, and he stepped forward.

In physical appearance, he wasn’t very dissimilar from a zebra. His fur was the standard greyish off-white, and his stripes were an equally standard darker grey. His eyes, which had visible signs of being artificial, were blue. His mane was slicked to one side of his face.

The only real sign that Lead Lined was artificial from a distance were the two large, metal wings stuck to his back. It was an obvious fact that zebras were not winged creatures, but his creator had seen it fit to make him as mobile as possible. When he spoke, his voice was quite audibly metalling and synthesized, for he didn’t possess the same organs as a normal zebra. Each movement he made was precise and calculated, making them almost look abrupt and jerky whenever he stopped moving.

His ear twitched with a gentle click as he heard the tapping of a hoof against the floor. His head gently turned to face his left side, where he saw another zebra standing.

The zebra in question was a mare, one with a similar disposition to his own. While he showed very little emotion simply due to his synthetic nature, the mare staring at him was a different story. Her mane was styled in a mohawk, with a braid of her hair flopped against the back of her neck to maintain any excess. Her eyes were a bright, steely blue, and her body was currently covered by a long black coat that had sheets of metal on some parts – namely her shoulders – as armour. Underneath was a combat vest.

The most noticeable feature about this zebra, however, was her right foreleg. It was very clearly made entirely of metal, and was about as bulky and equal in shape to its left counterpart.

He stayed quiet, allowing her to speak first. One didn’t simply address the leader before she addressed you, in most cases.

“It’s about time.” She spoke, her voice low, but stern. “How do you feel?”

Lead Lined slowly blinked, an action that was understood by him to be normal for a pony. “I feel…fine, creator.” He replied.

The zebra rolled her eyes. “Just call me Ayize, how many times have I told you this?”

“Right. I feel fine, Ayize.”

The leader slowly began walking in a circle around her artificial creation, a frown crossing her face. “Mmh…are you sure? No sparking, no optical glitches?”

Lead tilted his head and blinked a few more times, focusing in and out on objects that were further away. The laboratory was nice and clean, with bright white lights shining down on the equally bright and white tiles and walls. In the middle of the room was a work table, as well as a few others dotted around the walls, and several storage units. Behind him were three large pods, each meant to house a synthetic like himself. He noted that the one to his left was empty, while the one to his right was glazed over with a metal covering to hide its contents from view. “Yes, I am sure.” He said finally.

Ayize circled around to his front, tilting her head as she examined his eyes. “Hm…I suppose.” She frowned and took a few steps back. “Alright. Come on out then.”

Lead stepped forward as requested. When he moved, his hooves clankedagainst the floor, his joints giving off quiet but noticeable clicks and whirrs with each step. “What do you require me for, Ayize?”

The look on her face was one that he couldn’t quite decipher, though he was fairly sure it was either anger or disappointment. “Well, your previous unit ran into some…issues.” She said, nodding towards the pod that sat empty beside him.

“Issues, ma’am?”

“One issue, specifically. Your databanks have our files on Lazuli Cutter, right?”

Lead closed his eyes, images flashing across his vision of a Dracony dressed in a black outfit and wielding a sharp blade on her tail. “Hired gun and contract killer, proficient with close quarters combat an-“

“I know who she is.” Ayize inhaled, then sighed. “Deadeye ran into her while trying to get that filly back. It didn’t end well for him.”

“My records show that Lazuli should not be a match for one of us, Ayize. Are you certain that she was alone-“

“If I wasn’t certain, I would be telling you more.” Ayize snorted. “All you need to know is, your last model fucked up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And while I don’t really care as much about getting the filly back now, I do want something else from you.”

The synthetic nodded slowly. “Of course, ma’am. Whatever you require.”

Ayize snorted and shook her mane a bit. “You’re equipped with internal weaponry, a semi-bulletproof chassis and advanced optical drives. You’re superior to Deadeye in a lot of ways, but Lazuli isn’t somepony I want running around my Wasteland. I need you to get rid of her.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t hesitate, when you see her. Kill her as soon as possible, while maintaining your own safety.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t let that…thing mess up my plans, got it? The Gifts can’t be pushed back.”

“…Gifts, ma’am?”

Ayize groaned and rolled her eyes. “Gifts of Mutation. Our group. Our logo’s on your wings, you dolt.”

“Ah. Right. My apologies.” Lead nodded, spreading out one of his wings to inspect them. The emblem was certainly there – the black and white, low-detail image of a zebra in between a unicorn and what seemed to be a completely robotic pony. The words ‘Gifts of Mutation’ were emblazoned beneath. “I’ll leave as soon as you wish, ma’am.”

She stared at him for a minute, then tapped her chin with her metal hoof. “Hrm…don’t leave just yet. I need to run some tests on the efficiency of your power supply.”

“Of course, ma’am.” Lead nodded and stood still as Ayize walked over to the bench, picking up a few tools with special grabbing mechanisms attached to her hoof that allowed her to manipulate objects with a level of finesse beyond a simple zebra’s, but nowhere near a unicorn’s.

The metal door to the laboratory slid open, revealing another zebra. Based upon statistics alone, Lead knew that approximately 60% of the GOM was made up of zebras, much like their leader. The other 40% were recruits from the Wasteland or purchased slaves. Ayize liked to boast the largest and most substantial pseudo-military organization in the Northeast part of the Equestrian Wasteland.

The zebra at the door stepped in slowly, her gait somewhat timid. She was different from many zebras – her stripes, instead of the expected grey or black, were a bright and stunning golden blonde. Her eyes were bright blue to match, and her mane was in a mohawk similar to Ayize’s.

“Er, ma’am?” The zebra spoke, and even a synthetic creation like Lead felt a bit calmed by it. Imani was known around the compound as the kindest and most friendly mare in the GOM, and this reputation was clearly not unwarranted based on her voice. She could sing like an angel, or at least this was the phrase Lead had logged in his memory, and her kindness knew no bounds. One would be hard pressed to find a pony who could bring themselves to dislike her.

Ayize turned her head to the door with an annoyed expression. “Yes, Imani? What is it?”

“We uh-“ Imani squeaked slightly as her leader’s eyes met her own, and nervously cleared her throat. “We’ve found nothing on patrol, ma’am. As far as we can tell, Lazuli is back in hiding again.”

“Well, Unit 4 is damaged, right?” Ayize moved closer to Imani. The golden zebra was slightly shorter and much less athletic than her commander, so she shrunk back slightly.

“…Y-yes, ma’am.” She nodded.

“And her tracker is damaged by extension?”

Imani swallowed, and nodded again. “…Y-…yes, ma’am.”

“So…” Ayize put a hoof to her forehead, sighing. “You’re telling me…that we can’t find her?”

“I-I put out an order to double patrols, I know this is quite important to y-“

Suddenly, Ayize slammed her metal hoof into the wall right next to Imani’s head, her cold blue eyes glaring into the other mare’s and their foreheads nearly touching. “And when, exactly, did I give you the order to do that?”

“N-…y-you-…you didn’t, but- I just thought-“

“Don’t think.” Ayize growled, her voice growing quieter and darker. “Don’t ever think. You’re not very good at it.” She shoved herself off the wall, and Imani nervously swallowed again.

“M-my apologies, ma’am. I…would you like me to recall the-“

“No!” Ayize banged her hoof against the ground, her sharp inhales of breath making Imani wince. “More patrols is exactly what we need.”

“B-but you just said-“

“I said I didn’t want you making the decisions, butter-ball.” Ayize snorted, prodding a hoof into Imani’s side. It was true, the mare was a bit chubby, but the remark clearly stung.

Imani cleared her throat and just nodded. “Er…y-yes, ma’am. My apologies.”

“No no, I don’t think you get it.” Ayize stepped forward, backing her subordinate against the door. “I don’t want you making decisions at all. You’re an idiot.”

“…Y-ye…yes…ma’am…”

“You make horrible decisions. You’re a singer, you’re a medic, you’re a cleaner. That’s what you do. You go on patrol when I tell you, and the rest of the time, you’re what I’ve told you to be.”

“I-I understand, there’s no need to-“

Ayize’s hoof suddenly pushed into Imani’s chest, pinning her up against the door and holding her there. The golden zebra’s ribs creaked under the force. “You work for me. I’m the boss. I don’t give a shit how much the other troops like your pretty smile or your singing. You’re not the one in charge. That’s me.”

This time, Imani was silent. Ayize spoke again. “What, no ‘Yes miss’ this time?” She waited for a response.

“Y-yes…m-ma’am…”

Ayize let go. Imani dropped to her rump, then quickly stood back up, her body trembling very slightly. “Now get out.” Ayize said sternly, and Imani immediately nodded and slid the door open, exiting the room. Ayize slowly turned back to Lead, who had stood still the entire time. “And you, she said, stepping towards him, her frown turning into a gentle smile. “You always know how to follow orders, don’t you?”

“Whatever you require, yes.”

“Good boy.” She gave him a gentle pat on the head and reached up behind his mane, pulling open a flap of fur and synthetic flesh to reveal an access port. “Now, this might hurt…or maybe not, if your pain receptors aren’t working. Might be better if they’re not…either way, stay quiet.”

Lead simply nodded his head, folding his wings and widening his stance to allow her to lean on his back while she worked.

Chapter 8

Nighttime in the Wasteland was always a mixture of terrifying, saddening and beauty, in Lazuli’s experience.

When she lived in her cottage, the used to lie on the roof at night and stare up at the sky. She supposed she did it just so she might get a glimpse of the stars, and maybe even the moon above…she knew she wouldn’t, of course. The Enclave had made sure of that. But still, a mare could dream…or at least reminisce.

After Tempest had cleared up a bit of business and made sure that the night guards were in place, she and Lazuli had come up to the roof of the Riders’ base and sat down along the edge, staring out into the expanse of Wasteland stretched out before them. When they had sat down, it was about 4 PM. Based on how dark it was now, it had to be past 7.

But they had run out of things to say, now. They simply sat there, Lazuli’s head resting on Tempest’s metal shoulder.

Lazuli was the first one to speak up. She turned her head so her chin leaned against the metal surface, looking up at her friend. “Hey…Tempest?”

“Yeah?” Tempest gently pulled Lazuli closer, her hoof wrapped around the Dracony’s waist. Every movement she made brought the gentle clicking and whirring of machinery working in tandem, creating what was essentially a proper working pony.

“Do you remember what the sun looks like?” She asked.

“…Well, I didn’t exactly look at it, I didn’t really want to go blind.” Tempest giggled a bit. “But…yeah, I know what you mean.” She squeezed Lazuli gently, holding her as close as possible. “And…yes, I do.”

Lazuli nodded. Tempest turned her head to face the Dracony, posing a question. Lazuli blinked as she looked into Tempest’s eyes – she still hadn’t gotten used to the look of a pony’s eyes essentially being cameras with fake contact lenses. “Laz, have you ever wanted to be in more of an…erm…organized group?”

“You mean, like…joining this one?”

“Well…yeah.”

Lazuli shrugged. “I…could give it a try, I guess. Why, did you need something…?”

“Well, there’s a squad of seven that I had running combat operations. One of their members was…injured. He’s not dead, but now they’re short a member…their infiltrator, to be exact.”

Lazuli couldn’t help but smile a little bit. “So…you want me to take his place then?”

“Not saying you have to, of course.” Tempest smiled back. “But…if you want.”

“Hmh.” Lazuli rubbed her chin with a hoof. “I’ll think about it, maybe.”

“I know that means yes.” Tempest bumped her hip against Lazuli’s.

“…Hush.” Lazuli bumped back, but it was just her hip pushing against metal. Tempest didn’t budge, simply giving a small, metallic sounding laugh.

There was a brief lull in their conversation, before Lazuli inhaled deeply. “…So…what…what exactly is going to happen with Pearl?” She asked, turning her head back to look out at the horizon. It was dark now.

Tempest didn’t say anything, focused on forming how to say it properly. “Er…Lazuli…Pearl’s a synthetic. You know that, right?”

“Oh…” Lazuli bit her lip. “You mean, fully? Not a bit of organics…?”

“No. We would have erm…” Tempest cleared her throat, though it was more out of an attempt to clear the awkward feeling, since she didn’t have an actual throat. “Investigated further, but you said not to.”

“Okay, so…she’s synthetic, so what?”

Tempest shifted a bit, bringing her hind legs up onto the roof from their dangling position at the edge and looking Lazuli in the eyes. Lazuli could see bits of purple paint had worn off of her face, revealing greyish silver metal beneath. “Laz. You can’t tell me you think a synthetic pony cares about you.”

“Well she seemed pretty damn scared when-“

“I know, Laz.” Tempest put a hoof on the Dracony’s shoulder. “But…well…I guess technically we’ve never had a synthetic this advanced before, sure, but…” She struggled to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t upset Lazuli. “She isn’t a pony, Laz. She doesn’t have feelings, they’re programmed into her.”

Lazuli grimaced. “That’s not true, and you know it. I…by that logic then, you’re not a pony.” She tried to rebut, but Tempest just shook her head. Each movement of her neck earned a loud metallic click and whirring sound.

“I get it, Laz. You were craving companionship, and learning that she’s a synthetic isn’t…great, but…” She shook her head again. “Laz, I think she’s using you.”

“Using me?” Lazuli parroted.

“Yeah.” Tempest leaned back against a pole behind her. “Look at how attached you are already. She knows that. She can tell. She’s playing you. You know whose logo we found on her electronics?”

The Dracony’s tail flicked angrily behind her, and she swallowed. “Don’t…don’t you dare…”

“It was the G.O.M, Lazuli. You said they hate you, right? Ayize, specifically.”

“I…w-well…yeah, but-“

“Laz. I’ve been living in this Wasteland as long as you have. Surely you can tell when you’re being played…” Tempest frowned, her eyes scanning Lazuli’s face for recognition.

Lazuli paused, sitting there and staring into Tempest’s not-quite-equine eyes. “But…she’s…so innocent…” She finally said.

“I know. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t help her, it’s just…” Tempest sighed. “Don’t put all of your trust in her. You don’t know if she’s just here as a bug. You know how hard it was to convince the soldiers we shouldn’t get rid of her?” She patted Laz on the shoulder.

“Okay…fine. But I want to see her.” Lazuli said firmly. Tempest nodded almost right away, and the two of them started to stand up. The dull hum of Tempest’s body using a bit more power to move, coupled with the clicks and whirrs of her body, made Lazuli shiver just a bit. It almost physically hurt Lazuli to argue with Tempest…and besides, she had a point. She had trusted Pearl due to her foal-like innocence…but maybe that was what Ayize had wanted.

Lazuli was led to a door near the end of a dim hallway. It almost felt eerie, but calming at the same time, with the gentle blue lights that shone above. “Ultraviolet,” Tempest had explained. “Low energy consumption, plus if anything goes wrong we end up seeing the erm…fluids, before we get in.”

The explanation was morbid, but Lazuli liked it nonetheless. As she stopped in front of the door, Tempest nodded curtly. “I’ll let you go in alone.”

Lazuli nodded in response, and let Tempest open the door. The metal blockade slowly slid to the side, allowing Lazuli to step inside, before it shut behind her. Presumably it was for safety – there wasn’t a guard in the room, after all.

Upon entering the room, Lazuli’s heart ached just a bit. Pearl was immediately obvious, her light green fur glinting in the dim light. The cell itself was cozy, with clean concrete floors and walls, and Pearl’s bed was at least somewhat furnished, with a proper sheet and a blanket. Pearl herself looked about the same as the last time she saw her. Her fur was a bit tattered in some places, and she could actually see some stitch marks in some places, but otherwise she looked…decent.

The filly was facing the opposite direction from the door, though. Lazuli could hear sniffling, and decided to speak up so she wouldn’t be scared. “…Pearl?”

The unicorn – Lazuli refused to call her a synthetic, a robot, whatever – tensed up a bit, but she didn’t turn around. If anything, she pushed her head further into the corner.

“Pearl.” Lazuli repeated, gently stepping forward.

“Go away.” Pearl said, her voice quiet.

Lazuli paused, standing still in the middle of the room. Pearl didn’t say another word, and she wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“I said go away.” Pearl said again. Her head turned slightly, and Lazuli couldn’t help but wince as she watched the filly’s left eye fizzle and blink like a monitor that had been hit by a rock.

“I’m not just going to leave right away like that, Pearl.” The Dracony slowly walked forward, turning herself around and sitting down on the bed next to Pearl.

“I said…” Pearl’s voice cracked, and she fell silent.

Lazuli tentatively reached over with her hoof. “I know you’re scared, Pearl…and I know you’re confused. But I need you to trust me, okay? Everything is fine.”

Another long two minutes of silence. Pearl was the first to break it.

“…Did you know?”

Lazuli shook her head. “I didn’t. I swear to Celestia I didn’t.”

“…I…” Pearl sniffled, reaching up and wiping her eye, though it was more out of reflex than anything. No tears came out. “I-I’m not even a pony…”

Lazuli firmly wrapped her hoof around Pearl, pulling her up onto the bed. “Hey.” She said quietly, hugging the filly against her. “Listen. I’m not a pony either, really. Ponies in the Wasteland call me a mutant.”

“That’s not the same…” Pearl sounded slightly choked up. Lazuli could tell if her eye wasn’t broken, it would probably be dripping with tears.

“It is the same, and I’ll tell you why.” Lazuli said firmly, holding Pearl tightly. “We’re both not ponies, but we feel just like anypony else. I can tell you’re not like a robot. You’re scared, you’re sad, you’re feeling things. Right?”

Pearl’s lips twitched a bit, her mind unsure of what emotion she was feeling. Her left eye sparked again. “Y-yeah, but…but I…”

“There’s no buts.” Lazuli turned Pearl to face her, looking her right in the eyes. “You’re as much a pony as I am, you got that? I dunno who made you, or…what you’re for…” That was a lie, but she hadn’t the heart to tell her. “But clearly, you’re not evil, and you have control over yourself.”

The filly’s ears folded back against her head. Her lip started to quiver, and Lazuli let out a soft “Oof!” As Pearl moved forward and pushed her face into the Dracony’s chest, wrapping her forelegs around her in a tight (or, as tight as a filly could manage) hug.

Don’t cry. Don’t…don’t cry damnit, you’ve seen worse…Lazuli told herself, breathing deeply as she gently wrapped her hooves around Pearl, her wings slowly unfolding to embrace her tighter. “I’m sorry this happened, Pearl. I swear…I’m never letting anything bad happen to you again.”

Pearl just nodded, dragging her muzzle up and down the soft surface of Lazuli’s fur. The two of them sat there for quite a while, until Lazuli felt the filly slump against her fully, falling asleep.

“I didn’t realize you’d have foals here, that kind of surprises me.” Lazuli’s voice echoed down the hallway as she trotted along. She had an earpiece in her ear, which was the method that most ponies living in the Riders’ base communicated with Tempest, since her robotic body was only really used when she needed to make a point in the ‘flesh’.

“Well, we don’t exactly have strict rules on…ahem…mating, so it happens sometimes. We’ve got a few resident caretakers to keep watch on them when their parents are away and all.” Tempest replied.

“…Are you sure Pearl will be okay there, though?” Lazuli asked, occasionally swiveling her head to look at the doors along the walls.

“She’ll be fine. We teach the foals here that any mutants, ghouls, whatever, they’re all like us. And…she’s no different.”

Lazuli kept trotting around the halls, glancing from door to door. Tempest’s voice came to her again. “Laz, do you have any idea where you’re going? I can see you on the cameras.”

“Wh- uh, yeah, I’m just um…looking around.”

“You’re in the wrong hallway. The armory is in the west wing.”

“Uh…” Lazuli cleared her throat. “Yeah, I knew that. Just er…” She peeked into one of the doors, where she saw large stacks of papers sitting on desks. “Checking the um…file room.”

Tempest’s laughter was like a melody to her ears, so while her cheeks flushed bright red under her fur out of embarrassment, it still made her happy to hear her laugh.

When Lazuli finally made her way over to the other side of the building, she trotted into the armory. She was about ten minutes later than she would have liked, but the soldiers there with her seemed not to mind. Most of them stood at attention as soon as she arrived.

“Er…hi there. Why are you saluting me?” Lazuli asked, tilting her head.

A mare chimed in quickly from the left side of the room. “It’s protocol to salute to a higher officer, Captain Lazuli!”

“…Wh- Captain?” She blinked.

Tempest giggled a bit, her voice popping into her earpiece. “You’re Captain Lazuli now.”

The Dracony yelped a bit. She stepped away from the soldiers slightly, excusing herself from the main room to duck into the closet. “Captain?!”

“Well, the group’s named after you, of course you’ve gotta have a higher role!”

“Tempest, I don’t have any experience with-“

“Hush, you’re not going to be making any of the big decisions…but you’re in control of this next operation. I mean, if you want. You can stay back too, I know this is a bit sudden.”

Lazuli blinked incredulously. “…Well…alright…what’s this ‘operation’ though? I’m not much of a military mare, you know that.”

“Oh, it’s simple. There’s a small raider group living just outside of a town called Ashtown. It’s not a big place, more like a village really. The townsfolk don’t even have electricity, I believe, so it’s difficult for them to defend themselves. We tried to negotiate with the raiders, but…”

Lazuli raised an eyebrow. “Negotiate?”

“…Yeah, I guess it was kind of stupid. But…we have reason to believe they’re holding slaves there, too, so it’s important you do things quickly. The raiders aren’t heavily armed, but they have guns, as far as we know.”

“So, we’re taking them out?” Lazuli asked.

“It’s…not ideal, I know, but there isn’t much else to be done, unfortunately. Peacekeeping is our main priority, but well…yeah.”

Slowly, the Dracony stepped out of the closet and sighed, looking around the room. There were six soldiers with her, presumably all that was needed when you had the enemy outgunned. “Right…” She inhaled deeply. “Okay, well-“ She cleared her throat. Damnit, I’m not a leader, come on…she rubbed her throat with a hoof, then spoke up again. “I’m sure you know who I am. Uh…but I’m new here, of course, so I’ll need to know everyone’s names…or at least their codenames. From left to right. Give me your specialty too, if you have one.” She swept her hoof from the left side of the room all the way to the right, then pointed at the pony on the far left, a smiling unicorn mare.

Lazuli couldn’t see her colours very clearly in the dim light, but she appeared to be red with a darker red, velvety mane almost completely hidden by a helmet she was clipping on. “Velvet Rain, specialty in long range engagement, Captain!”

She looked to the stallion next to Velvet, a pegasus – that alone surprised her, but she didn’t falter. His coat was black, with a dark grey mane with silver streaks in it. “Swift Bolt, ma’am! Specialty in aerial combat!”

Her hoof went to the next, a large earth pony stallion who sported a bit of a beer gut, but also impressive muscles, with brown fur and a sleek blonde mane. “Steel Mustang. Specialty in heavy weapons.” As if to prove his point, he hefted his battle saddle onto his back, loaded with a heavy machine gun.

The next pony was a zebra, which oddly surprised Lazuli a lot less than the Pegasus. She stood just a hair taller than Lazuli – emphasis on the hair, which was styled in a mohawk that seemed almost required for zebras. “Mahiri,” She said, with a bit of an accent. “Specialty in surveillance.”

Next was another unicorn mare, this one with a pure white coat and a bright blonde mane. She was less armoured than the rest, and her bags sported a large red cross. She was a bit on the chubby side. “Crystal Harmony, captain! Specialty in healing magic.” Her voice was soft and friendly.

Finally, she pointed at a stallion sitting in the corner, checking the magazine of his rifle. He was clearly a unicorn, but he had a scar running all the way from the left side of his jaw to the top of his right eye. His fur was a light brown, like freshly cut wood, and his mane was a much darker chesnut shade. “Hm? Oh. Wild Ace, Cap’n.” He said politely, standing up and saluting. “Specialty in close to medium range combat.”

When he stood up, Lazuli’s ears flattened, but quickly went back up. She was shocked at the state of him – it wasn’t that he looked terrible, but he was visibly augmented. The entire right side of his body was metal, his right leg an extremely advanced cybernetic limb. The metal stretched around his right side as well, his hind leg on the same side also completely synthetic. In fact, so was his rear…a long metallic brace ran up his neck, presumably to hook into his spine, and was secured with plating all the way up his neck and up to the back of his head. His left hind leg was partially metal, only about down to his thigh. She decided not to comment on it, but she could only imagine what had happened to him to warrant such extensive (and likely expensive) prosthetics.

Lazuli nodded, straightening up a bit and flexing her wings. “Alright, well now we know our names. Oh, and I’m Lazuli, of course. Or-…I guess you’d call me Captain.”

“We’ll call you whatever you like, ma’am!” Velvet Rain offered from the side, with a cheery smile.

“Well…if it’s all the same to all of you, call me Lazuli, or Captain.”

“Yes ma’am!” They all said in unison, their hooves once again meeting their foreheads in a salute.

Slowly the Dracony turned around, taking a few deep breaths to calm her nerves. “So, you all know the mission?” She asked, glancing back at them.

“Yes ma’am!” They said again.

“Good…” She exhaled, biting her lip and muttering under her breath, “Because I’m confused as hell…”

She turned back around to them. “We’ll head out in five. Make sure you’re ready.” She stepped past her ‘squad’ as Tempest had elected to call it earlier, and went to change into her gear.

Chapter 9

This was undoubtedly a first for Lazuli. Sure, Tempest had spent quite a while going through the basics of the mission, and she was assured that her ‘squad’ would be able to handle themselves even if she wasn’t the best leader…but going from a lone operator in the Wasteland to being the leader of a small group of military-trained ponies was a massive leap. She wondered, briefly, if Tempest was pranking her somehow.

As she walked along the dirt road with her squad in tow, she occasionally glanced between them. They all seemed to understand that she was the leader, that much was certain…the only one who seemed vaguely unhappy about it was Mahiri, who had spoken very little to her, but the zebra seemed generally aloof.

“So, Captain.” A voice at her side nearly made her jump, but she shook it off and turned to look at Velvet Rain, who had slid up alongside her. She seemed to constantly be smiling.

“…Yes?”

“What’s this suit made out of? If, er, if that’s not out of line, ma’am.” Velvet’s smile widened as she nodded towards the black suit that Lazuli was dressed in.

Lazuli figured she’d only be able to get more comfortable with this team if she talked to them, so she had no problem answering. “Mostly special fibres woven out of Dracony fabrics. Laced with a bit of diamond throughout, to make it extra durable.”

“Woah…” Velvet peered a bit closer. “Diamond? How’s that possible?”

“Well, uh…” Lazuli brought her tail up to her mouth and nibbled on it slightly, a habit she tended to partake in that probably wasn’t good for her teeth – though she realized the ponies were staring at her, so she cleared her throat. “Draconies used to be able to cut gems really well. Our whole land was filled with them. They used special techniques, sort of like magic, to make the minerals into lighter, thinner fabrics…a lot of Dracony fabrics used to have gems in them.”

Velvet looked amazed. Lazuli was happy to see somepony legitimately interested in Draconies, and not just calling her a mutant. “That’s so cool…” The unicorn murmured, then shook her head. “Uh, sorry if that’s out of line…ma’am.”

“Oh no, it’s uh, fine.” Lazuli glanced over her shoulder at the rest of the group. “All of you don’t need to be…this formal. It’s fine, honestly.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, miss…” Swift Bolt, the pegasus who had been flying the whole time, softly landed and started to fall into step next to her. “What happened to your wings? Commander Tempest never told us you lost them. She said you had these big, beautiful blue ones.”

Lazuli frowned, looking back and wiggling her metal wings. “Yeah…I got those removed. Not because I didn’t like them. They just uh…got broken beyond repair.”

“…Ah. Apologies.” Swift nodded, and started to fly above them again.

“Swift, it would help if you could stay in the air.” Mahiri piped up from the back. Over her right eye, she wore a half-visor that allowed her to see through a camera attached to Swift’s chest. “While you all are chatting, we could be missing things.”

“And, Captain?” Crystal Harmony spoke, leaving Steel Mustang and Wild Ace as the only silent ones.

The Dracony looked over her shoulder. The medic was rooting through her bags idly, checking the stock of her items. “How experienced are you with the military? The Commander told us you were discharged after an accident.”

“Oh, that.” Lazuli nodded slowly. “I was in the army for, uh…two years? Yeah, about two. Started out as a Royal Guard before that, patrolling Canterlot…but I got discharged because of my erm…” She gave Crystal a sheepish smile. “Attachment to Tempest. We were best friends.” She paused. “…Still are. Honestly, you guys probably have more experience in the military than me, but I don’t really know what Tempest’s training is like.”

Mahiri spoke up from behind her again. “I’ve noticed you don’t carry a rifle or anything, but you have that blade on your tail. Why’s that?”

“Hm? Oh.” Lazuli swished her tail a bit with a slight frown. “Well, I wasn’t in the military for long…so I kind of…er…” She couldn’t find the right way to phrase it. “I don’t know, fell out of practice? I used to be decent with a rifle, but I was always better with hoof-to-hoof.”

“Really?” Velvet chimed in from the side.

“Well, I was a street brawler for a while, heh. Then I was an assassin…then I joined the military. Then I got kicked out. Then…” She stopped, trailing off and shaking her head. “Well, I know you all know what happened then. Military training isn’t much good when you’re on your own, so I kinda…regressed, I suppose, back to street brawling styles and everything.”

A loud gasp came from beside her, and she turned to see Velvet practically right in her face. “Wait, hold on, did you say you lived in Canterlot?! Like, before the war?”

“Well, sort of, ye-“

“Can you tell me about it? Oh my gosh I’ve always wanted to kno-“ She stopped herself and hurriedly looked away, puffing her chest out as she walked. “Er…sorry, ma’am.”

Lazuli couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Well…I don’t see why not, we’ve got another hour of walking to do…”

After about an hour of walking, with a break near the three-quarters point to check their gear, Lazuli’s squad was nearing the raider camp. Just as Tempest had said, it definitely didn’t look like much. They didn’t even have solid buildings, just frantically cobbled together structures of metal and wood, and the occasional cloth tent. Mahiri relayed all of this back to them through her visor, which doubled as binoculars – or, as she was inclined to correct them, a monocular.

All six of them sat behind a large outcropping of rocks and dirt, checking their equipment again. “So, what’s the plan, Captain?” Wild Ace finally spoke. He had chimed in a few times during their Canterlot conversation, but never directly spoke to Lazuli.

“Hm? Right.” Lazuli cleared her throat. “Well I haven’t worked with you all before, so I was planning to stick to each of our strengths. Mahiri’s already scouting out the area, and Swift’s helping her. Swift can try to direct Velvet on where to aim.” She glanced at Velvet, who saluted and lifted the long-barreled sniper rifle she had on her back.

Lazuli looked at the rest of them. “Crystal, you’ll stay behind, mostly. As support.” The unicorn seemed not to have any issue with that, nodding in agreement. “And Steel, Ace, you’ll be the main attack forces. Steel in front, of course.” She looked between them all. “I’ll be scouting the inside of the camp, and taking out anyone I come across. If any of you need my help, just tell me over the radio, okay?” She tapped her ear with a hoof. “The estimate is there’s about twenty in there, but that’s only an estimate. Swift and Mahiri spotted fifteen already. They’re pretty lax on guard duty, so this shouldn’t be too hard.”

The six ponies at her command nodded to her, then to each other. Velvet hopped up and placed her rifle on its tripod, sitting atop the rock. Steel fitted the bridle off his battle saddle into his mouth, clipping the strap of his helmet shut. Wild Ace stepped up beside him, holding an assault rifle in his magical grip. His mechanical parts thunked loudly against the ground as the two of them started to move.

Lazuli was glad this was going well. She had been required to learn about tactics in the military, but that was over two centuries ago – she was glad that she somewhat remembered the basics. She slinked off to the side of Steel and Ace, slipping herself under the badly constructed metal fence.

Mahiri’s voice crackled over her earpiece, which covered nearly her entire ear. “Careful Captain.” She said softly. “There’s two to your right. Not facing you.”

Lazuli craned her head to the side. She saw two ponies standing there, both earth ponies. Their backs were to her, through one kept looking at the other while talking.

She slowly slipped under the fence completely, raising her tail above her head. Looking up, she could faintly see the outline of Swift flying above – if one wasn’t privy to his presence, they would have no idea he was there. Clearly, though, Mahiri had a perfect view of the camp below.

The Dracony quietly creeped up behind the two unaware stallions. She briefly glanced at the backs of their necks, ensuring they weren’t wearing collars – which would imply they were slaves – and when she saw they weren’t, she struck.

Her movements were quick, for she knew they would both be armed. She ducked between the two of them, flaring her wings out. The sharp blades hidden in the tips of her feathers slashed at the two stallions, not killing them, but startling them enough to knock them back. She quickly spoke into her microphone. “Steel. Ace. Now.”

She heard an affirmative “Yes ma’am” from the other end, and it was followed up by gunfire from near the entrance to the camp. Lazuli ducked under a swing from one of the stallions she had knocked over, his hoof grazing over her head while she lashed out with one of her hind legs and slammed it into his side. He fell to the ground, wheezing, while the other one got up and reached for the rifle leaning against the fence.

Lazuli’s tail swung through the air, cracking against the rifle like a whip. The stallion’s weapon flew several feet through the air, landing in Lazuli’s hooves as she reared up on her hind leg. She centered the ironsights on his head, not even hesitating to slide her wingtip around the trigger and pull it back.

She then spun around, pressing the barrel to the struggling first stallion’s temple and firing again. Both of them lay in the dirt, blood seeping out of the holes in each of their heads while Lazuli discarded the gun and began jogging along the fence.

“Left, Captain.” Mahiri’s voice came again. She paused just before the break in the tents, swinging herself around the corner with her tail outstretched. She landed firmly on the back of a large earth pony mare, and before she could react to her impromptu passenger, a sharp blade was being plunged through the back of her neck. This is super helpful. Lazuli thought to herself.

“Ace, Steel, three coming towards you. Two left, one right.” All seven of them shared the same channel, so Mahiri was being careful to give the right directions to the right ponies.

“Velvet, one guard on top of the fence.” Mahiri called. Lazuli looked up, seeing a pony with a rifle attempting to use the higher vantage point to shoot at the two stallions in the middle of the camp. As she watched, a bullet flew from a few hundred metres away, impacting directly into his chest. The burning hot metal sliced right through his flesh, entering the left side and puncturing his heart, knocking him from his perch and sending him falling to the ground. By the time he landed, he was already dead.

Lazuli ducked under the bottom of a tent, bursting out through the front flap into the middle of the camp. One unicorn stallion tried to raise his sidearm to shoot at her but she quickly lunged forward, swinging herself around in the air. Her tail smacked the gun out of his magical grip, and her hind leg firmly impacted his face, knocking him to the ground. Her tail followed up again, stabbing into his chest to finish him.

“Four more, that I can see.” Mahiri said. Lazuli rushed out into the ‘road’ in the center, where Ace and Steel were standing.

Lazuli heard a click, and Mahiri was in her ear again. “Grenade!” She yelled, with actual urgency this time. Her head snapped upwards, watching as a blinking red orb sailed through the air.

Lazuli spread her wings out and leapt off the ground. With a flick of her wings she spun herself around, flipping forward through the air. Ace watched with his eyes wide as her hind leg collided with the primed explosive, knocking it right back where it came from. The unicorn mare who had thrown it glanced at the grenade as it landed right next to her, her ears folding back against her head before it exploded.

Lazuli landed back on her hooves, her wings folding back at her sides. The tent that the mare had been standing next to was now on fire, but it wasn’t close to any others, so she hoped it wouldn’t be an issue.

She didn’t hear Mahiri in time, or perhaps the zebra hadn’t spoken fast enough. “CAPTAIN, BEHIND-“ She began to yell, when she felt a solid metal object against the back of her head. She wasn’t even able to describe what the sound was, because almost right away her hearing was gone. Immediately her vision exploded into stars, her entire head swimming when she slumped to the ground. She was only lucky that the stallion who had swung the pipe at her was less than steady, or it would have killed her.

She couldn’t hear anything. Her vision was swirling, and she was completely unable to keep herself conscious. As soon as her head hit the ground, she was out like a light.

Chapter 10

Lazuli popped back into consciousness only about twenty seconds after being knocked out. She gasped painfully, her head feeling like a two ton weight was resting on the back of it, compressing her brain. Sparkles and lights danced in front of her eyes, and out of the corner of her vision she saw the bright white and gold unicorn, Crystal, running towards her.

Crystal inhaled sharply through her teeth as she saw the state of Lazuli, a dead earth pony lying beside her and the back of her head covered in blood. “Sweet Celestia…” She murmured, quickly opening her pack and pulling out a vial and a syringe.

She leaned down to Lazuli, who weakly squirmed and writhed in pain. Quickly, she filled up the syringe. “Sorry about this, but it’s a lot less painful if you’re asleep…” She stuck the needle into Lazuli’s shoulder as quick as she could, sighing in relief as the Dracony’s squirms slowed down, and eventually stopped.

Lazuli’s eyes were nearly blinded when she first tried to open them, searing white light burning into her pupils, which had been shrouded in darkness for hours. “Ungh…” She squinted, her whole face contorted in discomfort. Her head felt like she was floating in zero gravity, yet at the same time as if she was being sat on by an elephant. “Wh…f…rr…” She tried to make a proper word, but it came out jumbled, her speech slurred.

She heard a voice, but her vision was fuzzy and her ears felt like they had cotton balls stuffed in them. Her eyes blinked a few times in a lazy manner, managing to clear her head just enough to see Tempest and Crystal Harmony standing over her. The proper flesh-and-blood unicorn was scribbling down notes on a clipboard, looking down at Lazuli with a concerned expression. Tempest looked downright distraught, clearly having to resist the urge to grab the Dracony and hug her as tight as possible.

As her eyes properly opened, she groaned again. “Mmghs…Teemp…” She whined, looking between the robotic unicorn and the real one. Crystal made a gentle shushing noise.

“Shhh, Lazuli.” Crystal frowned a bit, putting a hoof on her forehead to check her patient’s temperature – then remembering she was cold blooded, and that she had no idea how to tell if she was feverish or not. “Don’t move too much.” She said quietly, her voice gentle enough that she managed to keep Lazuli from freaking out.

Lazuli’s head was swimming, a bandage tightly wrapped around the top part of it. She snorted a bit, her voice slurred slightly. “Whaass…I…nngh…”

“She’ll be a bit out of it.” Crystal said, turning to face Tempest. The robotic mare’s head gently turned from Crystal to Lazuli, each movement bringing a harmony of gentle mechanical clicks and whirrs.

“I see…but she’ll be okay?” Tempest asked.

“I’mmssss fiiiine!” Lazuli slurred, her head falling back against the pillow.

Crystal chewed on the inside of her cheek, then sighed. “I’m fairly sure, yes. Her brain wasn’t damaged – thank Celestia for that, I really think she should wear a helmet – but her skull was cracked. If the pipe had hit any lower she might have been paralyzed…but for now she’ll be fine. Just needs rest. Er…a lot of it. I’d say at least ten days in bed, and no combat missions for three or four weeks.”

Tempest, more out of instinct than the actual need for something to physically stimulate her jaw, nibbled on the metal tip of her hoof. “Goddesses…I should have never sent her out…”

“Commander, this was an extremely successful mission.” Crystal turned back to her. “Almost no injuries besides Lazuli, and we managed to free the slaves they were keeping. No injuries to them, either.”

Tempest didn’t seem convinced, her head shaking from side to side. “I just got her back…and she nearly died on the third day since I met her again.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Commander. You know her, you’ve told us about her. You know that if you had tried to keep her back, she’d probably go out on her own. And that might end even worse.”

Lazuli’s head began to clear, but her senses were still muddled. “Listeeeen…I’m fi…oh Celestia…” She tried to move, but immediately was hit by a wave of nausea as her head spun in circles. She retched, laying her head back down and breathing deeply.

“Laz…” Tempest stepped over to the side of the bed, again having to resist the urge to hug her. “You’ll be okay. But you have to stay in bed.”

“Mmnff…bed’s for…uuugh…” She grumbled again, struggling to center her vision on Tempest alone. “How many’s of you…”

Tempest winced slightly, and stepped back from the bed while Crystal gently wrapped her magic around the bedsheets, tucking the Dracony in like a foal. “She’ll be absolutely fine, I promise.” The unicorn shot Tempest a friendly, warm smile. “In a few days, I’m sure she’ll be well enough to talk properly…but for now, I think it’s best if she’s given some alone time.”

Tempest’s eyes focused on Lazuli, who slowly wiggled herself down lower in the blankets. “Mmmh…fluffyyyyy…”

The robotic unicorn sighed and shook her head. “Alright. I’ll need to hear the report, anyway…” She slowly trotted towards the door, her hooves clacking loudly against the tile floor as she and Crystal left. Crystal flicked the light off, leaving the sunlight filtering in through the curtains.

“Just rest, Lazuli.” Crystal said softly, and slid the door shut.

“Are you sure?” The voice of a stern, commanding zebra mare said, the absence of her voice afterwards creating a nervous silence within the walls of the office.

“Erm…” An earth pony cleared his throat shakily, his hoof toying with his chest.

“Stop touching your chest.” Ayize said, her eyes not once leaving the dark green stallion in front of her.

“Y-yes ma’am.” He quickly put his hoof back down, a bead of sweat running down his cheek.

“Was that a ‘yes, I’m sure’ or you saying yes to what I asked you?” She leaned forward on her desk, the solid metal hoof attached to her right side gently tapping against the wooden surface.

The stallion swallowed. “T-to the first one, ma’am…and…a-also the second.”

“Mmhm.” Ayize stood up, her hoof thunking against the carpeted floor. “So…you’re telling me that Lazuli joined up with the Riders?”

“Y-…” The pony’s voice caught in his throat. “Y-yes.”

“For fuck’s sake, would you stop being so scared?” Ayize rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I’m gonna kill you. You’ve brought me very valuable information…” She stopped at the window on the right side of her desk. It spanned almost the entire wall, giving her a full view of the factory floor far below. “Hm. And she was with others?”

The earth pony nodded. “Well…er…she also…uh…got hit. By one of the raiders. Er…well…one of us.”

“Oh?” Ayize raised an eyebrow, turning her head to look back at him. “You?”

“U-uh, well, not me, but- um- another pony…he hit her in the head with a pipe.”

“Ooooh…” Ayize’s eyes closed, a somewhat malicious smile crossing her lips. “Just a second, I need to savour that…” After taking a moment to envision the Dracony’s head being beaten in with a metal pipe, she opened her eyes again. “Not dead, obviously, or you would have opened with that.”

“Uh, I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “But…definitely injured.”

“Hmmh…and you got away because their medic decided to heal you as well?”

The stallion puffed his chest out with a nod and a confident smile. “That’s right!” He said cheerily, but his confidence faltered as the zebra stepped a bit closer, her expression not changing a bit.

“And you came to me…” She said slowly, the grin returning to her muzzle. “Of all ponies.”

“Well…I…I was…aware of y- um…I’ve…b-been here before, and you said I didn’t have anything t-to offer, so you s-sent me away…”

Ayize paused and tilted her head. “…Hrm…I thought you looked familiar. Jade, yes?”

“Y-yeah, that’s me.” Jade swallowed as his rump bumped against the back wall.”

“Well, Jade…” Ayize stepped closer. She was a bit taller than him, and her chest was nearly touching his as he backed up as far as he could go. “You’ve done nicely, but you’re not fitting into my group with all of your parts still attached.”

“…I-…I b-beg your pardon…?” Jade’s voice was quiet, and a small squeak escaped him when Ayize’s metal hoof wrapped around his shoulder.

The zebra’s smile was as terrifying as the rest of her, even more so, Jade decided.

“See, I’ve got a rule here.” She pulled him away from the wall, throwing him backwards so he landed on his back. Shifting forward, she sat down on his chest, pinning him. “No one gets to be a member of my group without giving something in return. A bit of a…” She waved her hoof in the air for a few seconds, trying to find the right word. “Show of loyalty, let’s put it that way.”

“U-um…” Jade squeaked again.

“So, my question is, what’ll it be?” She asked casually, as if she were serving drinks. “A leg? Two legs? Front or hinds?”

“W-wait, I-I never said anything ab-“

“Though I guess I could just decide for you.” Ayize giggled, her metal hoof pressing down on his right foreleg. “Ooh, you know, you’d look really nice with some proper implants…maybe reinforced bones like mine.”

Jade was panicking now, his breath quickening and sweat pouring down his face. “N-no, wait, I-I don’t want- um, I-I changed my mind! I-I gave you the information, c-can I just go now?”

“Ooooh no, see it doesn’t really work that way. You’ve gotta make a choice.” She leaned forward, resting both of her elbows on his chest and leaning down so her chin was resting on his muzzle. “Mmm…personally, I’d say a hind leg. Earth ponies like you with even more kicking power is always good to see. But there’s always the chance you want to let me decide…”

“I-…p-please…don’t…” Jade whimpered quietly.

Ayize snorted. “You’re no fun. Fine then, I’ll choose.” She stood up to get off of him. He started to scramble to his hooves…

And Ayize spun back around. He wasn’t able to see what she held in her hoof until it was already in his face – in the most literal way. Pure, unbridled agony rippled through his skull as a sharpened letter-opener was impaled directly through his left eye, digging nearly six inches into his socket. Blood poured out of the wound as his hooves immediately shot up to hold it, but Ayize yanked the weapon out as fast as she had put it in.

The zebra snorted again as Jade fell to the ground, howling and clutching at his eye, hind legs kicking wildly and his body rolling back and forth. “Oh, come on. You were the one who let me choose.” She looked down at the letter opener, soaked in blood. With a gentle hum, she tossed it back onto her desk. “Can’t have you screaming like that when I start digging around in there, though. Consider yourself lucky.” She raised her metal hoof over her head, slamming it into Jade’s temple. The writhing Earth Pony was mercifully knocked unconscious, and Ayize went about preparing a syringe of proper sedative so she could take him to her lab.

Chapter 11

Lazuli’s recovery was slow, but at the same time quicker than Crystal had expected of her. Draconies were clearly faster to heal than a normal pony. Within two days her mind was completely clear, though Crystal maintained that she shouldn’t be allowed to walk at that point. Not until she was certain that she was healed enough, and any sorts of hairline fractures along her spine had fixed themselves.

While the Dracony lay in her bed, staring idly at the ceiling above her, she heard a click and she sound of the door sliding open. She turned her head, a movement which made her wince almost immediately, expecting to see Tempest or Crystal.

Crystal was the first pony she saw, the white unicorn sporting the same cheery smile as always. Walking behind her, however, was Pearl Blossom.

Lazuli’s blank expression turned into a smile as wide as Crystal’s, her eyes lighting up. “Pearl!” It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen the young – or, she supposed she didn’t know how old Pearl was – filly in two days. Pearl wordlessly ran over to the bed, hopping up on her hind legs and wrapping her hooves around Lazuli. Crystal opened her mouth to say something, but stopped herself and gently shut the door behind her as she walked over to the other side of the bed.

“You been okay, Pearl?” Lazuli asked, putting her hooves on either side of the filly’s head and turning it from side to side, examining her. “No more damage?”

“I’m fine, miss Lazuli…” Pearl hugged the Dracony tighter, burying her face in her chest.

Laz tilted her head, jostling the bandage wrapped around it slightly. Crystal’s light blue magic fixed it. “Something wrong, Pearl?”

Pearl didn’t say anything for a few seconds, simply nuzzling into Lazuli’s chest. “I was scared you died…”

Lazuli winced. “Oh, come on Pearl…” She hoisted the filly up onto the bed, letting the synthetic pony lie on her chest. “I’m fine. See? Just a bump on the head.” She tapped the bandage.

“But…” Pearl mumbled, burrowing deeper into the fluff of Lazuli’s chest. “I was scared…that if you…if you didn’t come back…they’d hurt me…”

A frown came to Lazuli’s lips, and she gently pulled Pearl a bit closer. “Pearl…that’s not gonna happen. Okay? I won’t let it happen. Don’t be silly.” She stroked a hoof down the filly’s back. She knew it was an optimistic promise, at best. She had no control over what happened to Pearl if she were to die, but she hoped that Tempest respected her enough that she wouldn’t let harm come to her.

“Mmph…” Pearl mumbled into Lazuli’s chest, holding her tightly for an amount of time that neither of them were counting.

“It will be fine, Pearl.” Crystal spoke, and when the filly’s head turned to her, she winced slightly. The synthetic’s left eye was still all kinds of odd, flickering and blinking like a computer screen with a virus. “Lazuli will be back on her hooves in no time.”

All Lazuli could do was nod, hugging Pearl tighter. “And as soon as I am, we’ll go outside for a walk or something, okay?” She squeezed Pearl, then let go.

“Oh, Lazuli.” Crystal said, her magic lifting up an earpiece. “The commander would like to speak with you. Erm, she says it is not urgent, but her robotic body is in use elsewhere. You can still communicate with her, though.”

“Oh, um…” Lazuli glanced down at Pearl, who seemed content to snuggle with her chest fluff. “Okay.” She flicked one of her ears upward, allowing Crystal to place the earpiece inside.

She tapped it a few times with her hoof, then cleared her throat. “Tempest?” She asked it.

“Laz!” Tempest sounded happy, which was good. Lazuli was worried it was bad news.

“Hey. You alright?” Lazuli gently patted Pearl’s back, the filly simply lying there with her ear resting against the Dracony’s chest, as if to make sure she was still alive.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” Tempest said. “Er…but…listen. I feel like um…” She paused for a second. “Okay. Lemme find the right way to say this. Sorry, I’m not usually this…flustered.”

If Tempest required breath, Lazuli imagined she would have taken a very deep one. “I can’t help but blame myself for this. I sent you out with a squad when you…really don’t have that much experience working in big groups. Or groups at all, really, aside from you and me…”

“You and I.” Lazuli corrected with a giggle.

“Wh- is it you and I? I thought in that context it was you and m- er, anyway, that’s not the point. The point is…I jumped the gun a little. There was a vacancy in that squad and I tried to fill it with you, but it was a bad decision. I’m sorry.”

“Well…it did kinda confuse me, yeah, but we all make mistakes.” Lazuli smiled softly. “Besides, I liked it. The only real problem was me getting careless…”

Tempest shrugged – or at least, Lazuli assumed she would have. “I’m sure.” She said, earning a giggle from them both. “But…I don’t know if it’s the best idea for you to be in such a big group just yet. I do have another idea set aside…they’re just a lone trainer right now, but I feel like you’d work well with them.”

“This is a lot of names to remember, Temp.”

“I-…” Tempest cut herself off. “Mmh…yeah…I’m changing things around way too much, aren’t I?”

“Well, I don’t mind it…if this is the last time.” Lazuli snickered.

Tempest sighed with relief. “Okay, good. Um…one other thing about it.” She said, her voice a bit more secretive than before.

“…Yeah?”

“Well, er…they’re not really…an outside-work kind of squad. Your last one was a task force. This one is just a…um…trainer.”

“…Trainer?”

“Yeah.”

“As in, teaching uh…fighting and stuff?”

“…Yeah.”

Lazuli stayed quiet for a second, running through it in her head. Tempest was essentially asking her to stay inside, or at least around the compound, for an indeterminable amount of time. “…So…I…” She rubbed her forehead with a hoof. In every way, it really made sense. She was injured, and even when she recovered it was probably extremely difficult for Tempest to send her back into the field so quickly. “Mmh…I’ll need to meet them first…”

“Oh, yeah of course. But…” Tempest said nervously. “Lazuli, what I’m basically trying to say is…I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go outside.”

“Yeah, I picked up on that.” She gently stroked Pearl’s mane. “And I guess you’re…kind of right. Might be nice to be able to settle down and not move around so much, for once…”

Tempest seemed even more relieved by that. “I’m really glad you’re okay with it, Lazuli. I know that I really wouldn’t have much say in whether or not you go outside, but…I think it’s for the best, really. At least for a bit.”

“Hmmh…yeah…” Lazuli sighed and stretched out a bit, looking down and noticing that Pearl had fallen fast asleep on her chest. Geez, she’s an easy sleeper…she thought to herself, trying to shift herself carefully so that she wouldn’t wake her.

“Well, hope you get better soon, Laz. I’ll be there to see you in pony later.” The earpiece clicked, and Lazuli looked over at Crystal, who was standing near the window and staring out into the Wasteland.

The unicorn gently removed the earpiece from Lazuli’s ear. “Erm…would you like me to…” She nodded towards Pearl, who whined and snuggled her nose into Lazuli’s chest in her sleep.

“No…I think it’s fine.” Lazuli continued to stroke Pearl’s mane. “I mean…if that’s allowed.”

“Of course.” Crystal bowed her head slightly. “Can I get you anything else, or would you like to rest for now?”

“I’ll just rest, yeah…thanks, Crystal.”

The nurse bowed her head again, and exited the room in a slow trot. As the door slid shut behind her, Lazuli let her head press back into the pillows and shut her eyes, holding Pearl tightly against her.

It wasn’t until a day later that Lazuli was finally given the chance to meet the pony Tempest wanted her to work with. She walked in with a disciplined gait, and Lazuli watched her approach the bed.

She was a green unicorn mare with a mane and tail that Lazuli would have to describe as amber-chocolate. She wasn’t quite sure what the colour was. Auburn was too red, but chocolate was too brown. It was a healthy in-between, and looked quite nice, especially with how it was cut short and styled. Her eyes were a bright, stunning amber, almost yellow, matching the colour of her magic. When she stepped far enough inside, Lazuli could see that her cutie mark was a yellow sheriff’s badge surrounded by a golden circle, with a revolver emblazoned in the very center. It was plain to see why, since she had two revolvers holstered on either side of her hip. She wore a black cowpony hat on her head and a matching black coat to cover the rest of her, a long one that trailed behind her slightly.

“Howdy!” The mare said cheerily, then quickly snapped to attention. “Er, I mean…afternoon, Cap’n. Name’s Copper Star. Commander Tempest was tellin’ me I’ll be workin’ with you, and well…is it outta line to say I’m super excited for it?” The mare squee’d, a wide smile crossing her lips. Her Southern accent was quite endearing, Lazuli had to say, and definitely came across in her speech.

“Oh, er, nice to meet you. You can drop the formalities, really…I’m the one who’s new here, anyway.”

Copper trotted up to the side of the bed. “Sorry, Cap’n. I get uh…just…goddesses, it’s so cool to be workin’ with you…”

“Uh…well, I’m still stuck in bed here for now.” Lazuli giggled, sitting up so she could at least be at eye level with the unicorn. “So…you’re a trainer? No offense, but you’re not really geared up like one.”

“Oh!” Copper removed her hat with her magic, placing it on the table and shaking out her mane a bit. “Sorry, Cap-“

“Er, just call me Lazuli.” The Dracony smiled.

“Oh, uh…sorry, Lazuli. Came right from the barracks, wasn’t on duty today.”

Lazuli nodded slowly. “Right. Well…it’s good to meet you too.” She reached out with a hoof, surprised by how strong Copper was once she grabbed hold and shook it.

“I’ve heard so much about ya!” Copper said cheerfully. “Commander never stops talkin’ about you, ‘specially after you came back. I had no idea you were still alive, though…”

“Well…same with me, but uh…for Tempest.” Lazuli cringed inwardly. That was a horrible way to put it. She tried to change the subject as Copper sat down next to the bed. “So…what do you do every day, as a trainer?”

Copper shrugged, adjusting her coat. “Ahh, nothin’ much. Teach some ‘a the newer recruits how to shoot, li’l bit of self defense…but I’m sure y’all would be a lot better at that bit.”

Lazuli looked back up at Copper. “So, just…working with teaching new recruits, that’s all?”

“Yeeeeah…” Copper shrugged again. “’S not super interestin’ I guess, but it’s somethin’. I’m hopin’ one day I can get to go out on a real mission…heck, maybe with you.” She gently nudged Lazuli’s shoulder with an elbow, then quickly pulled back. “Er, sorry, ponies keep tellin’ me I’m too chummy…”

Something about Copper’s demeanor made it impossible for Lazuli not to smile. “Hey, it’s fine. I’m already ‘chummy’ with Tempest, so there’s no problem.” She elbowed Copper back. “Besides, I think we can get along, especially if we’re gonna be spending so much time together, huh?”

Copper gave a small noise that sounded like a snicker. “Well yeah, I guess so.” She leaned against the bed, sighing. “Sorry your welcome’s been so…confusin’, too. Just when ya get back in action, you’re stuck in a bed, huh?”

“Eh, it’s nothing.” Lazuli waved her hoof. “I’ve had worse.”

“Them wings of yours’re really neat, by the way.” Copper said, glancing down to watch as the metal appendages shifted beneath Lazuli.

“Oh, thanks. I got them pretty recently, actually…” She stretched out one of them, letting it glint in the light shining down from above.

Copper watched as the metal wing shifted, clicked and whirred in the air. The two of them stayed quiet for a few minutes, but Copper was the one to break the silence. “I’m really lookin’ forward to workin’ with ya, Lazuli.” She said, her bright smile returning as she stood up.

“Same here, though it’ll probably be a week…maybe more.” She smiled back sheepishly. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back at it soon enough.”

“Should hope so.” Copper stood at attention and saluted, trying to suppress her giddiness. “I’ll come visit ya when I can, Cap’n.” She slowly turned around, and began to walk out the door.

As the door slid shut, neither one of them heard the mechanical clicking from behind the window. Before Lazuli could hear it, it was already gone.

Chapter 12

Lazuli sighed.

Pearl was sitting beside her on the bed, while the Dracony’s hoof gently stroked her back. Lazuli couldn’t help but feel calmer when the filly was around – she cared very little about her apparent differences. For all she cared, Pearl was a filly, plain and simple. She deserved the same level of respect, too.

“Lazuli?” Pearl laid herself down next to the mare, looking up at her with one wide and curious eye and another that was still cracked and flickering. They couldn’t fix it, they said, for fear of damaging vital parts of her. Pearl took that to mean she needed an eyepatch, and was determined to find one.

Slowly, she turned her head to face Pearl properly. “Mmmhm?” She smiled softly, hugging Pearl closer.

“Um…” The filly looked like she wasn’t quite sure how to phrase what she wanted to say. “You…you were around before the war, right?” She asked.

“Yep.”

“And…um…” Pearl nervously tapped her hooves together. “Were there…any robot ponies, like me?”

Lazuli paused, then shifted a bit to better face the inquisitive synthetic. “Well…no, there weren’t. At least not that I ever saw. But honestly…” She suppressed a giggle. “You’re so much like a regular pony, I dunno if I could tell the difference!”

Pearl stayed quiet for a moment. “So…I’m not like…super…different?”

“No, you’re not. I thought I told you about this already, Pearl. Just forget about it.” Lazuli ruffled the unicorn’s hair, earning a cute giggle from her.

Then the door slid open. Crystal Harmony came in first, with a neutral expression on her face. Tempest followed her closely, her metal hooves clanking against the tile and her whole body shifting with metallic and mechanical noises. “Afternoon, Laz.” Tempest said with as much of a smile as her current form allowed. She was given an ear-to-ear smile by Pearl, and a smirk from Lazuli.

“Hi, Miss Tempest!” Pearl chirped, her previous existential doubt seemingly forgotten as she sat up and beamed.

“And hello, Pearl.” Tempest nodded. “Er, Pearl, I need to talk to Lazuli in private for a bit. Is that okay?”

Lazuli was surprised – she had seen Tempest interact with Pearl a few times, but she was surprisingly good with foals. Pearl had no qualms about giving the two some time alone, and hopped off the bed. She glanced back at Lazuli, who gave her a curt nod. That was all she needed to skip happily out of the room, leaving Crystal, Tempest and Lazuli alone.

Tempest watched her leave with a smile. “She’s really cute, isn’t she?” She turned her head to Lazuli. “I know I was kind of harsh about her before, but…she’s growing on me.”

“Yeah.” Lazuli nodded, leaning back against the wall and sighing. “So, what’s this about? What deadly disease do I have?”

Tempest rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing like that. Er…Crystal? I think you can leave us as well.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Crystal nodded her head and quickly strode out of the room. When the door slid shut, Tempest sat down and placed her front hooves on the bed.

Lazuli found her ears folding back slightly at the way Tempest stared at her. The metal unicorn’s face wasn’t nearly as expressive as a normal pony’s, but it was expressive enough to tell her that she wasn’t happy. “Er…what’s wrong, Temp?”

“We found something on your wings, Lazuli.” Tempest said softly, her camera-like eyes focused right on Lazuli’s. “Something that worries me.”

“…Uh…metal…?” Lazuli offered, but her response was met with an artificial snort.

Tempest didn’t look amused. She reached out, taking hold of one of Lazuli’s wings and gently spreading it open. “Care to tell me why your wings say…” She gently placed her hoof on the bottom of the wing, where the logo of the GOM was quite visible. The image of a zebra mare’s head from the side was emblazoned above the three letters. “This?”

“…I…” Lazuli swallowed. “Temp, that’s not what you think. You know me.”

“Then explain, please, because I don’t want to believe it as I see it either.” Tempest sat back, letting Lazuli fold up her wing again.

Lazuli leaned forward, her wings unfurling and wiggling a bit. “Well…you know that my wings really didn’t work properly after uh…my accident, and all.” She said with a sheepish grin. “They were barely good for gliding, and even that was painful. So…when a zebra comes up to you and tells you that she’s got a whole lab where she can take the broken wings out and give you something better…” She curled one wing in front of her, gently rubbing it with a hoof. “It’s kind of hard to not at least be interested.”

“But you didn’t work for her? She just gave you wings and you left?” Tempest raised a mechanical eyebrow.

Lazuli fell silent, her eyes darting from Tempest’s down to the bed, then her wing, then the wall. “I…I uh…”

“Lazuli.” Tempest’s voice grew more stern.

“I-I…o-okay, well…” Lazuli started wringing her hooves against the sheets. Why am I so shaky? Just…tell her. She told herself, but her words wouldn’t come out properly. “I-I had…there…sh-she was…I had this…um…”

“Lazuli.” Tempest’s voice was darker, her metallic teeth clenching together. “I’m not going to be angry. I’m getting angry because you’re not telling me.”

A few seconds of nervous silence were held between them. “I…” Lazuli started, then sighed. “Alright, fine. I was Ayize’s hitmare. Happy?” She crossed her arms in defiance, but at the same time desperately hoped that Tempest wasn’t angry.

“…Uh huh.” Tempest shut her eyes for a second. “And how long was this going on for?”

“About…two years.” Lazuli snorted. “Terrible.”

“What was terrible?” Tempest leaned in slightly.

“Me.”

“…You?”

“Yeah. Me.”

Tempest’s head tilted to the side. “What makes it so terrible…?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Lazuli’s mane nearly spiked up, her head angrily turning to Tempest. “I was a hitmare. For a zebra that didn’t care about anypony but herself. Didn’t care about anything except her inventions. Didn’t give a damn about me, even. I let myself get used by a criminal just so I could feel like I fit in somewhere.”

“…Laz…” Tempest winced.

“No, see, this-“ Lazuli growled, her teeth gritting together. “You acted all angry, and now you’re gonna tell me I’m fine?” She started to sit up, her wings clicking and bending in ways they probably shouldn’t have.

“Laz, you need to lay down.”

“You-“ Lazuli pushed the blankets off of herself. “You think- you think this is okay?” She started to push her hind legs off the bed, but was overcome with a wave of nausea.

Tempest reached up and put a hoof on Lazuli’s chest. “Laz. Stop.”

“You…y-you’re only…saying it’s okay…because we’re friends. If I was any other mare you’d despise me.”

“Lazuli, you need to rest.”

“Y-you’re not even…saying no…” Lazuli said weakly, suddenly struck by how tired she was from just that bit of movement. The back of her head throbbed.

“Lazuli. Listen.” She gently pushed the Dracony back down onto the bed, starting to pull the covers over her. “I’m not about to say that I’m particularly happy, but I can’t exactly blame you either. I’d probably have ended up doing the same, or something similar, if I hadn’t been trapped in a computer…”

Lazuli had tears welling up in her eyes. “I-I…I killed…s-so many ponies…”

“Hey.” Tempest shook Lazuli as gently as she could without hurting her more. “Listen. This isn’t the time to talk about this, clearly. I just wanted to know that you weren’t…you know…” She trailed off, as if not wanting to finish her sentence.

“Th-that I wasn’t what…?” Lazuli mumbled weakly, her jaw clenched tightly and her eyes shut.

“…We’ll talk about this later. I promise.” Tempest pushed herself up. “You need rest, for now.”

Tempest looked down at Lazuli. Lazuli couldn’t bear to look up at Tempest. Both of them hated to leave it like this, but both of them knew it wasn’t going to get anywhere otherwise.

The heavy metal clanging of robotic hooves against tile slowly grew further from Lazuli until the door slid shut, blocking out the noise almost entirely. Lazuli curled up in a tight ball, holding her tail up to her face like a stuffed animal and covering herself with the blankets.

Chapter 13

Whrrrr.

Clang.

Beep.

Lazuli’s tail impatiently swished back and forth, her eyes glued firmly to the grey wall in front of her. She could hear the sounds of machinery working behind her, and feel the gentle tug against her back whenever the new contraptions attached to her body moved.

“Hm…they work well enough.” A voice said from behind her, and a hoof – a cold, obviously artificial hoof – pressed down on her back. “Lie down.”

“How long is this going to be?” Lazuli snarled, but still obeyed and laid herself down on her stomach.

The voice – a mare – simply chuckled, and Lazuli felt something cold press against her spine. “Calm down. I operated on you for five hours, you rested for two weeks and now you’re complaining about time?”

Lazuli winced as the cold sensation moved higher up. “Hm.” The voice murmured. “Your body’s adapted way faster to the prosthetics than I thought. You Draconies are just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“You say that as if you’ve seen one before.” Lazuli snorted.

“Well, I haven’t! This is cool shit.” The voice snickered, continuing to do…whatever she was doing to Lazuli’s back. “You’re still not looking, right?”

“Mmhm.” Lazuli’s eyes rolled. “You know, I can handle blood or whatever it is back there.”

“Mmm, nah, I like you enough, so I’m telling you not to look. It’s kinda horrifying right now, but I’ll just patch it up in a minute.”

Lazuli blinked, her head turning slightly. “Patch it up? But you said you were done with-“ She started, but felt something jab her in the side. She yelped softly, her head turning to look back, but almost immediately she was overcome with a wave of exhaustion, and her head flopped to the ground.

The curtains to her room ruffled slightly. Second time in three minutes, she thought to herself. Two more before five minutes and I get t- uh, what rule did I make for myself again? Her confusion simply led to her looking away and staring at the door, as if she expected somepony to come in at that second.

Lazuli was only off by about a minute in that regard. She was about to look away when the door slid open, revealing the gleaming metal form of Tempest.

Fuck. She thought to herself. It had been two days since she spoke to Tempest about her time in the GOM, and she wasn’t looking forward to the follow-up.

“Hey.” Tempest stepped into the room, letting the door slide shut behind her. The heavy metal thumps of her hooves hitting the tile echoed through the small space, and she took a seat next to the bed as soon as she reached it.

“…Hey.” Lazuli replied, not sure what else she could say.

“Feeling any better?” Tempest slowly smiled, as much as her robotic form would allow.

“…Yeah, a bit.” The Dracony shuffled slightly. “Why?”

“What do you mean, why? I’m making sure you’re okay.” The metal pony – who was as real as any other, in Laz’s opinion, if not more – leaned against the bed.

Lazuli snorted. “Don’t act like you aren’t still angry. You don’t have to lie to make me feel better.”

“Laz…” Tempest raised a hoof.

“I get it. We’re friends. But…I’ve done terrible stuff, and you’ve done nothing but be nice and try to help ponies in the Wasteland.” Lazuli turned away from Tempest, pulling the blankets up to cover everything but her head.

“Laz, I’m not angry.” Tempest affirmed.

“Well maybe you should be.”

“But I’m not.”

“I dunno, then. I guess I’m just…” Lazuli realized she had no idea where she was taking the sentence, so she ended it with a “Mrph”.

Tempest briefly paused to think about how to word what she wanted to say. “Alright.” She leaned forward, placing both front hooves on the bed. “Lazuli, here’s the thing. You’re getting angry at yourself, and that’s fine. I’m not gonna say I approve of what you did, but I’m also not going to say it was something I could never forgive you for. I already have.”

“I killed innocent ponies.”

“You did that before the war too, Laz. If anything you were less ethical back then, and I was fine with it after you gave it up. I’m not going to hold a grudge or act like I understand what you went through and judge you for it.”

Lazuli’s eyes widened slightly, but Tempest wasn’t able to see it. Her hooves tightened around the blankets. “I…”

Tempest’s head tilted to the side, a metallic imitation of a frown crossing her lips. “What’s wrong?”

Lazuli shook her head. “I’m…sorry. I just…gods, I must look a mess…” She hugged the blankets closer to her body.

“You look better than before.” Tempest placed a hoof on Lazuli’s shoulder and gently rubbed up and down. “Listen. I don’t blame you, okay? I don’t think anyone does. If anything, it just makes me think even better of you, knowing you actually got away from that…madmare.”

The Dracony sighed. “Yeah, but…mmgh…”

“No buts, okay? No hard feelings, nothing to worry about.” Tempest reassured her.

Slowly, the mare in the bed rolled over, managing to force a smile under her teary eyes. “I don’t deserve you, Tempest.”

“Well, you’ve already paid more than enough to earn me.” Tempest snickered, a sound that reverberated so heavily in her metallic chassis that Lazuli almost didn’t recognize it as laughter.

Lazuli managed a small snrk, then gently leaned in and pressed her forehead against Tempest’s chest. “I love you, you know that?”

“It’s hard not to love you, too.” Tempest ran her hoof through Lauzli’s mane. The feeling of cold metal against her head should have been unpleasant…but Lazuli couldn’t think of a better one, really.

The two of them sat there together. Lazuli occasionally shifted her head a bit, but for the most part she kept herself pressed against Tempest.

“Alright.” Tempest said finally, after an amount of time that could have been anywhere between thirty seconds and an hour, as far as Lazuli was concerned. “I’ve got a few things I need to do, and this metal body doesn’t feel…natural, yet. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to visit soon.” Tempest started to pull back, then paused. “…and, Lazuli, we’re good, right?”

Lazuli stared for a few seconds, then slowly nodded her head. “…Yeah, we’re good.”

“Good.” Tempest gave Laz a gentle nudge on the shoulder and stood up, turning away and trotting towards the door.

It was bright out.

That was Lazuli’s first inclination that she was in a dream. She hadn’t seen the sun in almost two centuries, there was no reason she could now.

She could also feel her wings. Giving them a small wiggle, she looked back to see that her brilliant, translucent blue limbs were still attached, not replaced with the ugly hunks of metal she had now.

In earlier years she might have openly called out to see if Luna was the one influencing her dreams – but as it was now, she knew the princess wasn’t around.

Her mind only seemed to properly form the landscape when she became aware of it. She had stopped dreaming of beautiful landscapes for some time now – well, she supposed that some landscapes in the Wasteland could be beautiful, but only ever with sinister undertones. It didn’t matter now, as she found herself sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking a swirling sea of pitch-black darkness that seemed to suck in all light and never let it back out.

And yet, the sun was still shining.

She stayed silent, since she knew there wouldn’t be anypony to answer her even if she did speak. She just allowed herself to stare into the darkness, a blank expression on her face. “Why does my mind even bother…” She murmured, shaking her head.

“Perhaps,” A voice came from behind her, causing her to jolt her head upright and look over her shoulder. “Because it is trying to tell you something?”

As her eyes alighted upon the figure speaking to her, she found herself unable to focus on it. That is, until it came closer.

She cursed her mind even further when the figure revealed itself to be a Dracony. It was like her brain was actively trying to hurt her. The Dracony, based on its voice, was male, and his coat was brilliantly white. His mane, however, was a bright silver mixed with a much darker grey, the lighter of the two matching his eyes and his wings.

Lazuli rose from her seated position. “Okay, so what lesson are you gonna try to teach me then?”

“I’m not here to teach lessons.” The Dracony replied. He tilted his head to the side. “You…are still alive, right?”

“…I…what?” Lazuli felt something well up in her chest at the implication that there was a chance she wasn’t alive. “I…yes, I am?”

“You sound uncertain.” He blinked twice, then took a few steps toward her. “This is not how you would appear in the waking world, is it, Lazuli?”

She scoffed, looking away from him. “You already know the answer to that, you’re in my dream.”

“And how do you know you aren’t in mine, Lazuli?” He responded, stopping a few feet from her.

“Yeah, okay, I get it, reality’s fucked.” She snorted.

“Awfully blunt of you, but that isn’t my point.”

“Do you have one, then?”

“I do.”

Lazuli stared at him. “Okay, and what is it, then?” Her tail flicked impatiently behind her.

“Humour me for a moment. What would you say if the whole world you lived in right now was a dream?”

“…I don’t know. Depends. How far back?”

“Let’s say two hundred years. Before the war.”

“…Okay…I’d probably break down and start hugging Tempest until my muscles gave out, I guess.”

“So, you had a loved one then.”

She blinked once, then twice. “I…yeah? How do you not know- ugh, I’m not even gonna try to decipher these dreams anymore.” She turned away from him completely, lying down on the edge of the cliff and staring out into the expanse of nothingness.

“Lazuli, what if I told you that I, right now, exist in the same world you do?” He asked, an eyebrow raising, though she couldn’t see it.

“I’d say great, now leave me alone.”

“You would care nothing for the survival of your species?”

Lazuli’s ears twitched. “Don’t mess with me like this today, please.” She laid her head down on her hooves.

“I’m not messing with anything.” The stallion shifted forward. “It is a genuine question.”

“Is it really? Because it seems like my mind is trying to trick me into feeling bad about something that I didn’t have any control over.” She snapped, shooting him an angry glare over her shoulder. Even when the brief image of her mother – and her kind, smiling visage – appeared, she avoided feeling anything. It had been used in dozens of her dreams by now, and she had grown to be wholly uncaring.

The stallion inhaled deeply, then sighed. “So you wouldn’t believe me, then?” He asked.

“Nope.” She snorted again. “Because if you were telling the truth, you’d come to me in real life, not in dreams.”

“If I came to you in real life, I would be abandoning the remnants of Bellephron.”

“Yeah well Bellephron can go f-…” Lazuli lifted her head slightly, her pupils shrinking as she stared blankly into the distance. “…Are you serious?” She gently glanced over her shoulder.

The figure was gone. The Dracony who had tried so hard to reach her was nothing but a wisp in the wind that no longer blew through the landscape of her dreams.

When her eyes opened, they briefly flashed a shimmering blue colour. Her head darted from side to side, looking around frantically for a pony who was not there, and likely never had been.

The sound she made was something in between a sob and a cough, but she cut it off before it could become anything more.

When she closed her eyes again, her sleep was dreamless.

Chapter 14

Lazuli twisted and turned in her bed. The sheets were wildly strewn about her, parts of them twisted around her body and coiling her like an angry snake trying to choke the life out of her. She gasped, tossing her head back and forth, eyes still shut, yet her body reacted as if she were feeling great pain.

Her eyes opened, but she wasn’t in her hospital bed. Instead, she was lying on her front on a metal table, pain tearing through the lower part of her back. A voice came from behind her, but her hooves were firmly bound to the table and she was unable to turn to see who it was. It was distinctly female, though.

“Come on now, Lazuli.” The voice giggled, another painful slice from a scalpel burning through her, at the base of her bright blue wings. “I get you’re resistant to potions and all, but I can’t have you waking up so often…I’ve got half a mind to leave you awake for this.”

“F-fuck…m-make…make it…stop…!” Lazuli cried out, her muscles tensing, warm blood seeping out of the wounds being cut in her back and a painful whine escaping from behind her gritted teeth.

A condescending tsk tsk tsk came from behind her. “Now this is just a pathetic showing from you. You were so impressive up until now, is this all that it takes to make you cry?~”

The mare’s voice seeped with malice, yet it held no evil intent at the same time. Lazuli hissed as the scalpel cut deeper, slicing through all the way to the bones of her wing, making her retch and properly bite down on the edge of the metal table to keep herself from howling.

“You sure you don’t wanna be asleep for this?” The mare snickered. “Would be a good idea, really…”

“I-I- f-fucking-…” Lazuli wheezed, trying desperately to ignore the pain shooting up her back. “I d-do…!”

Slowly the sound of hooves clip-clopping against the concrete floor of the laboratory grew louder as the mare circled around to her front. A tall zebra stood before her, her right foreleg replaced with a cybernetic counterpart and her mane styled in a mohawk. Cold, steely blue eyes glared down at her. “Gods, you’re pathetic.” She snorted. “A few cuts to your wings and you’re crying?”

“N-not…c-c-…crying…” Lazuli stammered, but she knew that was a lie. She could feel tears rolling down her cheeks, just as she could feel blood seeping from her wounds.

“You know, this wouldn’t’ve happened if you hadn’t tried to block bullets with these things, Laz. Buuuut it just means it’s the perfect time for an upgrade.” Ayize’s metal leg folded open to allow her to pick up a small syringe from in front of Lazuli, squeezing out any excess air. “I’m not that cruel though. Try not to wake up early this time, okay? I’m gonna need to start sawing bones and connecting nerves soon, and it’s gonna hurt.”

Lazuli winced as the needle was injected into her neck, and already the pain began to subside. “H-how…f-fucking…nice of y-you…” She said drowsily, her eyes slowly closing before she passed out entirely.

She woke up almost immediately. Her body jerked, her eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright, inhaling deeply as if she hadn’t been breathing for a whole minute. She started panting, her head swiveling from side to side, regarding the infirmary room…

Everything looked normal. She reached back with her hoof. Both of her metal wings were there, whirring and clicking with each movement she made. Her chest was pounding, but she was slowly calming down. She gently laid herself back down, taking slow, deep breaths and staring up at the ceiling.

It had been a week and a half since she had gotten hit. At this point Crystal had deemed her well enough to walk, but she slept in the infirmary anyway – Tempest had decided she should stay, but wouldn’t explain why. She could tell the unicorn was hiding something, but from the way she hid it like a school filly who couldn’t hold a secret in, she imagined it was supposed to be a good sort of surprise. She was just glad that Tempest seemed not to be angry about their last conversation, which was a relief.

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead!” Came the sing-song voice of the nurse she had become so familiar with, the lights in the room gently flickering to life. They weren’t oppressively bright, but it was still enough to make Lazuli squint.

“You know, I’m not a filly.” Lazuli smiled softly as she sat up to greet Crystal.

The pure white unicorn softly giggled, running a hoof through her mane as she trotted forward and used her magic to start changing the blanket Lazuli had haphazardly wrapped around herself. “Really? These sheets say otherwise. Goddesses, did you have some kind of bad dream? Looks like a bomb went off in here!”

“Well…” Lazuli rubbed the back of her neck, which was still quite sore. “I did have a bad dream, yeah. Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. At least it wasn’t anything to do with water, hm?” She joked, folding up the blanket. “…Alright, maybe that wasn’t very funny. But still, you should get up and get some breakfast. I believe Commander Tempest has something to show you, as well…”

Lazuli raised an eyebrow. “Show me? Er…right.” She slowly swung herself to the edge of the bed, setting her hind legs down on the tiles before her front hooves came down after. “Uhm…Pearl’s okay, right? She didn’t visit yesterday.”

“Oh, yes!” Crystal placed the folded sheets aside, starting to change the actual bedspread now that Lazuli was up. “She was a bit busy yesterday. She’s started school here, you know!”

Lazuli blinked. “She-…she has?”

“Mmhm!” Crystal said cheerily. “The other foals have taken well to her. In fact, she’s the target of quite a bit of admiration, that little robo-filly.”

“I…um…wow, she didn’t mention that at all. When did she start?”

“Only a few days ago, darling. Don’t feel left out, most of her concern has probably been on you. She’ll be happy to see you out and about.”

Slowly, the Dracony wiggled her wings and smiled. “Crystal?” She asked, leaning against the bed.

“Hmm? What is it, darling?”

“How’s it possible for a pony to be as nice as you?”

The unicorn turned beet red. “Oh, well that- that’s a very kind thing to say, Lazuli. Thank you.”

“You’re just-…ngh. Sorry if that’s weird. You’ve been nothing but nice to everypony I’ve seen you interact with, it’s kind of amazing, especially out in the Wasteland…”

“Oh, it’s-…it’s nothing, darling. Now go on, you’ve got plenty of ponies to charm.” She flicked her tail in Lazuli’s general direction, earning a gentle giggle from the Dracony as she turned and headed for the door.

When she stepped out of her room, immediately she was nearly given a heart attack. Copper Star practically tackled her right out of the gate, though it was more reasonably a tight hug. The green unicorn happily wrapped her forelegs around Lazuli with a happy ‘squee’ noise that made the Dracony’s heart wobble. “And a good mornin’ to y’all, Laz!” The cowmare chirped, releasing Lazuli from her death grip and pulling back with a wide, charming smile. “Was startin’ to wonder if we’d lost ya!”

“Come on Copper, it’s been what, two days since you saw me?”

“Two days too many!” Copper asserted.

Lazuli was still surprised how fast the two of them had bonded. Copper came to visit her only three times since they met, but each time Laz grew to like her more and more. There was something about her energetic attitude, her friendly demeanor and happiness, three things that were often missing in ponies in the Wastes. “Okay, fine.” Lazuli rolled her eyes. “So what’s happening now, then?”

“Well there ain’t no way I’m lettin’ ya go out in the trainin’ yard yet, but Commander Tempest’s sayin’ she got somethin’ for ya! Should probably go see what that’s all about, hm?”

An eyebrow was raised again. “Well…that was my plan, yeah. I kind of wanted to go see Pearl first, though…you seen her?”

“Pearl’s prolly in class right now, hun! Er…Cap’n, I mean. The school here ain’t anythin’ fancy, but it lets foals learn ‘bout some important stuff. Mostly history ‘n all. The Commander always makes sure li’l foals know about all that. And any grown-ups too, if they don’t already.”

“Oh.” Lazuli rubbed her chin with a hoof. “Well…when does class let out?”

Copper glanced at the clock on the wall. Time was mostly subjective in the Wastes, but when the sun was out it was day, and when the moon was out it was night. The clock read 1 PM. “Mmm…’bout an hour?” She said.

“Ah. I’ll go see Tempest then, I guess.” She started to trot down the hall, Copper falling into step beside her.

The green mare trotted along with a bit more of a skip in her step than the Dracony, who was a bit uneasy on her hooves. “So uh, Laz, er, you mind me callin’ you Laz?”

“You already have. Like, multiple times.” Lazuli shot her a smirk.

“Oh, er, right. Well I’ve been meanin’ to ask somethin’, but I just wanna make sure it ain’t too personal…”

Lazuli raised an eyebrow. “Erm…I’m sure it’s fine. What uh…what is it?” She tilted her head slightly.

“Well, I was wonderin’…are you and Commander Tempest like…a thing? Or I guess, were you a thing, back then…?”

“…That- um- well…” Lazuli cleared her throat. “I…er…if you-“ She shook her head. This isn’t a hard question to answer, Laz. She reminded herself. “Well…no, we weren’t. If you mean a romantic thing, anyway. We were just…really good friends. Still are. Never anything more.”

“Ah, yeah, gotcha.” Copper could tell she asked an awkward question. “Was just curious ‘n all, since y’all seem so close and stuff.”

“Well, we did just meet again after 200 years of thinking each other dead.”

Copper nodded. “Uh, right. Sorry ‘bout that.” She kept walking, glancing in every direction but Lazuli’s.

“So, any idea what this thing is? The thing Tempest wants to show me, anyway.” Lazuli helpfully tried to change the subject.

“Oh, I ain’t got a clue. I know she was askin’ around for ponies who were good at makin’ wooden stuff, though…”

“…Wooden stuff? She better not have gotten me a toy…” Lazuli said in mock annoyance, but in reality, it would be adorable.

The two of them reached the main doors to Tempest’s chambers after a minute, and Copper turned to stand outside. “I’m gonna wait here. She prolly wants to talk to ya alone, right?”

“Um, I guess so, yeah.” Lazuli nodded. “I’ll be out in a minute.” She slowly pushed the doors open, making sure they were closed behind her before walking further inside.

It was dark in the computer room, as always, but something was a bit different. She was greeted almost immediately by the form of Tempest’s robot body standing in the center, the metal construct happily bounding over to her with steps that made metallic echoes and mechanical noises bounce off the walls. “Laz!” She called happily, grabbing her Draconic friend in a hug that was similar to Copper’s, only a lot…colder. Not that Lazuli had a problem with that.

“Hey, Temp.” Lazuli happily returned the hug, giving the metal mare’s cheek a small nudge with her nose before pulling away.

“I’m honestly super happy to see you’re okay…” Tempest smiled warmly. “I was getting worried. You walking okay? Bones healed and stuff?” She began to circle Lazuli closely, looking up and down her body to examine her.

Lazuli rolled her eyes. “Temp, I’m fine. Stop acting like I’m minutes away from turning into a ghoul, metal-flank.”

“Hey!” Tempest feigned offense. “That’s rude.”

Laz swished her tail a bit. “Mmph. Alright, anyway, what’s this thing you wanted to show me?” She looked around, not noticing much different in the room, aside from a chair in front of the monitor that Tempest was usually projected on.

Tempest’s various parts clicked and shifted as she moved, slowly walking towards a door that Lazuli understood to lead to nowhere but an empty hall. “Weeelll…I figured since you needed to stay in the base for a while, and maaaybe you’d want someone to sleep with instead of erm…you know…being alone…” She pushed open the door, revealing that the hallway had been cut off with a large wooden wall, made into what looked like a very small bedroom. The bed was set up in the far left corner across from the door, and while it looked very makeshift, it was sturdy.

The room had no windows, but the lights at least worked independently to the rest of the lights in the hallway. There was a janitor’s closet that had been repurposed into a proper one, where Lazuli could see her suit, holster and weapons hanging.

Lazuli glanced at Tempest, who was sporting the best smile she could with her current body. “Oh, and uh, if you want Pearl moved here too, I’m sure we could arrange that. It’s not a big deal. Er…” Tempest glanced anxiously between Lazuli and the room. “Do…uh…do you like it? I know it’s a little rusty, but we can work on that-…”

Lazuli simply leaned in and rested her weight against Tempest. “Temp, you need to stop second-guessing like that.” She murmured, gently rubbing her cheek against the metal surface of her friend’s shoulder, hearing the gears and machinery moving inside. “It’s great, it really is. I’m just…are you sure you wanna use this much…space, just for me?”

Tempest leaned down and nuzzled the side of Lazuli’s face. “You’re worth it, Laz.” She said quietly. “Don’t worry. We weren’t going to use the hallway anyway, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Aww, so I’m not special?” Lazuli snickered, bumping her hip against Tempest again. “But…I really like it, Temp. As long as Pearl gets to sleep here too.”

“You got it.” Tempest gently clapped Lazuli on the back. “But, you understand that I don’t want you leaving the base, right?”

Lazuli’s smile didn’t waver. “Temp, I can handle being cooped up in here for a little while, don’t worry. As long as I get to go outside at least a little bit.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I just don’t…you know…want you getting hurt.” Tempest sheepishly grinned.

The two of them stepped back out of Lazuli’s bedroom, and Tempest began to walk her robot body back to its pod. “You’ll start work as a trainer tomorrow, Laz. For now, you can relax a little.”

“Temp, I’ve been doing nothing but relaxing for…like…two weeks.”

“Still, take the time to explore the base or something.” Her robotic body slid into its space, and Tempest’s face appeared on the main screen in the middle of the room again, her voice louder and clearer. “I’ll be right here. Unless you want to talk, of course…”

Lazuli bounded right up to the chair that sat near the monitor, hopping onto it and leaning right up against the screen without another word. “You say that like I have an option~”

Chapter 15

“See, you keep telling me that, but you’ve got a revolver on your cutie mark.” Lazuli’s voice bounced along the walls of the hallway as she walked with Copper, smirking at the unicorn, who only managed a bashful blush.

“I’m tellin’ ya, I ain’t good with these!” Her magic jostled the holsters on her hips. “I mean sure, ‘m good for like, close-ish range, but I couldn’t hit a barn door with a balefire bomb if I tried.”

Lazuli rolled her eyes. “Revolvers are meant for closer ranges, Copper. It’s not a sniper.”

“Yea, but er…ya know.”

“…Sure, yeah, I know.” Lazuli snorted with a bit of a giggle, earning an embarrassed look from her partner. “But uh, is there anything I’m supposed to know about training these recruits? I know you told me what I’m doing, but like…any specifics?”

Copper thought for a second, her holsters gently jingling against her hips. “Mmm…well, none of ‘em are as flexible as you, ya know. So like…don’t try gettin’ em to do front flips ‘n stuff. I’ve never seen ya fight, but the Commander gave us a pretty good idea…”

“Well that’s just common sense.” Lazuli frowned.

“What I mean is…” Copper shrugged. “Don’t give ‘em too much at once. All they need is some hoof-to-hoof combat ‘n all that, got it?”

“Yeah, easy enough. Have you not taught them any?”

“I taught ‘em what I could, but t’be honest, I ain’t very good at it myself…I just taught ‘em simple stuff, like disarmin’ from close range or like…throwin’ ‘em, and stuff. For the most part I’m the one teachin’ ‘em about guns and aimin’ and such, I ain’t much of a close-fightin’ mare…”

Lazuli nodded, letting Copper walk slightly ahead of her when the doors opened. There were two parts to the training area – one was the indoor section, furnished with crudely repaired mats, various fake weapons and real ones (mostly non-lethal) as well as a few training dummies to practice close-quarters combat on. The second part was outdoors, just past the door at the back of the hall. This was where the shooting range was, as well as an area to practice aerial maneuvers for the few (and yet, surprisingly numerous) pegasi that resided at the base.

Copper slowly walked into the training room. Lazuli could see a few recruits standing near the training dummies, either practicing their kicks and punches or just waiting for the instructors to arrive. She counted six, but only two of them really caught her eye.

One was a stallion, one was a mare. The stallion was the kind of pony Lazuli had expected to see in a pre-war action film – he was bulky, tall, and definitely had the muscle to hit like a truck, but evidently he didn’t have the skill to back it up, if he was still practicing. An earth pony, as far as Lazuli could tell, he wore his mane in a bun – something that Lazuli thought was odd, but appropriate – and had dark red fur with a yellow mane and tail.

The mare was much smaller, about Lazuli’s size. She was a unicorn, not very muscular but certainly not unfit either. Her coat was a light creamy colour, and her mane was a mix of orange and yellow that matched her fiery orange eyes. Her entire aesthetic came off as hot – Lazuli quickly replaced that word in her head with fiery instead, knowing the implications – and she looked ecstatic to see Lazuli walk in.

The rest were mostly just plain earth ponies or unicorns with features that weren’t exactly stand-out. The mare, however, looked just about ready to explode. Lazuli questioned if she might actually have enough energy pent up to just combust into real flames.

“Afternoon, everypony.” Copper spoke, standing up straight to be more authoritative. “I’m sure y’all have noticed we’ve got one more instructor up here today.” She wrapped a hoof around Laz, pulling her closer. “This here’s Lazuli Cutter. Captain Lazuli Cutter. Y’all know her, I bet, since the Commander talks ‘bout her so much.”

The recruits wordlessly nodded. The fiery unicorn nodded with growing enthusiasm.

“Now, in case y’all haven’t heard, this here mistress of close-quarters combat-“

“Er, that’s…not the best way to put it.” Lazuli murmured.

“…This here…er…master,” Copper glanced at Lazuli, who winced a bit at being called a ‘master’ – something she was far from – but nodded anyway. “Of close-quarters combat, is gonna be teachin’ y’all a few things about somethin’ that don’t involve guns for once.” The gun-slinging unicorn looked around the group, who were in various stages of excitement ranging from polite smiles to the ludicrously extravagant expression of the mare near the front. “Any questions?”

Lazuli nearly leapt into the air out of shock when the cream coloured mare suddenly jumped in front of her, their noses nearly touching. “Is it really you?!” She squee’d excitedly, dancing from hoof to hoof. Some of the recruits nervously glanced at her with shifty eyes, unsure if enthusiasm of that level was allowed.

“Solar.” Copper said in a stern tone, and the mare jerked back to a standing position with a small squeak.

“A-apologies, ma’am.”

“Er…” Lazuli blinked. “It’s fine, Copper. But um…Solar, right?”

The mare’s eyes lit up even more – if that was possible – and she gasped. “Y-you know my name?! Th-that’s amazi-“

“I just told ‘er your name, hun…” Copper rolled her eyes.

“O-oh…uh…right. Um, yep! Solar Flare, new recruit into the Dusk Riders!”

Copper bit her tongue. “Riders of the Dusk, honey.”

“E-er, Riders of the- yeah!” Solar nodded happily. Clearly she had tons of energy, Lazuli thought to herself, but not the best brain she’d ever seen…

Lazuli cleared her throat, glancing around the room of recruits. “Yeah…well…yes, it’s really me.” She answered, hoping that would placate her, but almost certain it wouldn’t.

“That’s awesome!” Solar squealed, and a stern look from Copper made her calm herself down. “E-er, that- that’s uh…c-…cool, ma’am!”

“If you’ve got a lot of questions,” Lazuli said to Solar, “We can talk later. Right now there are probably others, okay?”

“Y-yes Lazuli! O-or, um, yes ma’am!” Solar saluted, then scrambled back into line.

Copper straightened herself again. Lazuli couldn’t help but notice that she was a lot more confident and less jokey when dealing with recruits, which she supposed was to be expected.

“Right.” Copper sighed. “Any other questions?”

Solar opened her mouth. Copper quickly added in, “From anyone else?”

Solar quickly shut her mouth. The stallion that Lazuli had regarded before spoke up, his voice just about as she expected – an air of confidence hidden behind a deeper tone. “Pardon me if this is out of line, Captain.” He began. “But why would we bother learning about hoof-to-hoof?”

Lazuli looked towards Copper, who simply glanced at her, since it was her question to answer.

Lazuli realized that she probably wasn’t the best mare to speak to recruits with any kind of motivation or confidence, but she would do her best.

“Well,” She began. “A gun can only do so much. If you’ve got a pony charging at you with a baseball bat and your gun’s still in its holster, you actually have a lot less time to react than you’d think. Even against another pony with a gun, what if you can’t get to yours?” She wiggled her wings gently, the metal surfaces shifting and scraping together. “Knowing how to disarm, how to fight, it can mean the difference between life and a bullet in your skull.”

She glanced back at Copper, who nodded to her as the Dracony began to walk forward. “Plus…” She looked around at all six of the recruits. “It’s good exercise. It encourages quick thinking. All sorts of benefits that don’t seem immediately obvious. I survived 200 years in the Wastes while barely using a gun at all. You need to know how to handle yourself if your guns aren’t a reliable option. And…this might be cliché, I dunno if it still is – your hoof never has to reload.”

Lazuli stopped in front of the stallion, who had about six inches on her in terms of height. “So that’s why you bother learning. Sure, you might not need it if you’re planning to stay in the base and do maintenance…but if you wanna go anywhere outside, it increases your survival chance by quite a bit.”

The stallion looked down at her as she finished, then snorted slightly, but seemed content with her answer regardless.

As Lazuli stepped back to stand beside Copper again, the southern mare spoke up once more. “So, everypony clear?” There was a collective ‘yes ma’am’ that followed, and Copper nodded. “We’re gonna start with the close-quarters training, then.” She looked to Lazuli, ensuring the Dracony was okay with it, before taking a few steps back. “All of y’all are expected to listen to what she tells ya. She’s a higher rank’n me, so listen up.”

Lazuli was glad that she had gotten at least a bit of an explanation on what to do from Tempest before she left the room this morning. “Alllllright.” She smiled widely, looking between the six ponies in front of her. “Huh…six, right? Perfect. I want all of you to get into partners and stand across from each other.”

At her command, they all slowly shifted along the mats until they were standing face-to-face a few feet apart.

Taking a moment to properly figure out what she was doing, Lazuli nodded, noting that Solar and the as of yet unnamed stallion were partnered up. “Alright. Now…” She lifted one hoof to her chin. “Hooves up, who here has ever been in a fight without a gun?”

Several hooves went up, aside from two.

“How many of them won a fight?”

One hoof went up, from the stallion who had asked the question earlier.

“Hrrh.” Lazuli nodded. “Okay. Well, that means that at least four of you have some experience with fighting, and that’s good.” She slowly walked down the row of ponies, looking at each one of them closely. The four that she had yet to pay attention to had been mostly silent, so she addressed them first.

“You.” She pointed at a slim earth pony with a dark blue coat. “Name?”

“E-erm, Silver, ma’am.” He replied.

“Okay, Silver.” She turned to face him, motioning for his partner to take a step back. “I’m gonna show you – and I want you all to watch this – how to counter a basic punch. I want everyone to pay attention, because this is what we’ll practice for the first little bit.”

Off near the back of the room, Copper couldn’t help but smile. She’s pretty good at this, she thought to herself. Like she’s done this before…

Cobalt had no idea where he was going, or what he would do when he got there. The two uncertainties seemed to conflict, but he was so exhausted that he was just thinking things to keep himself from fainting. Sweat dripped from the end of his chin onto the dirt below as he trodded along, his hooves dragging in the dirt. He lifted his head, but his vision was blurry and unfocused.

What does it even mean to die? Cobalt thought. That was a horribly depressing thought, but he wasn’t exactly sure what else he could think about. He hadn’t drank anything in over a day, and hadn’t eaten in even longer.

Cobalt was not a lucky stallion. His cutie mark was that of a wrench twisted around a lugnut, and alluded to his natural talent with engineering and machinery…but even with this supposedly divine-chosen ability, he was horrible at it. His natural life setting seemed to be on the ‘fuck you’ difficulty, with the knob broken off. Regardless of what he did out in the Wasteland, he messed it up somehow…and now he had been kicked out of yet another town for mucking up their water supply. It had been a mercy that they didn’t shoot him.

A hoof reached up to wipe at the sweat on his forehead, precious liquid that was escaping his body in an effort to keep him cool. He momentarily considered drinking it, but even he gagged at the idea. His black mane was matted down against his head, and his blue fur was soaked in the sweat, not allowing his movements to even feel the slightest bit comfortable.

He was fairly sure he was going East – or, maybe it was west. He really had no idea, but he could see what looked like a building far, far in the distance. His horn fizzled as he tried to reach into his saddlebags to take out his binoculars, but he couldn’t even get the clasp open. “B-by the sun…” Cobalt murmured, his voice hoarse.

Suddenly he felt something impact his chest with a dull thump and an uncomfortable pricking sensation. He looked down, his hoof reaching up to reveal a small dart embedded in his chest.

He felt his head swimming even more than before, and slumped to the ground, his head landing in the dirt. While he knew he should have been terrified, it allowed him to rest…and he was grateful for that, at least.

Chapter 7

“I’m going to say a word, Lazuli. I want you to say the first word that comes to mind as soon as I say it. Don’t hesitate, whatever the word may be. Just speak it out loud.”

Lazuli couldn’t have been more bored. As a bare accustomed to action for the last ten years of her life, being stuck in a psychiatrist’s office and being asked basic questions to ensure her sanity was intact was truly mind-numbing. Still, she nodded. “Mmhm.”

The doctor sitting across from her leaned on the desk. His fur was dark brown, and his mane was a deep, nearly black colour that she was fairly sure was more of a chocolatey shade, but she just called it black. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, then nodded. “Right.”

“Left.” Lazuli replied, suppressing her desire to roll her eyes.

“Big.”

“Small.” She couldn’t hold back a bit of a snort.

“…Sun.”

“Moon.”

This went on for a minute or so. Just basic words where the first thing that came to her mind was ‘I’ followed by ‘want to get out of here’, but she couldn’t say that – so the obvious opposite word was what came out.

“Death.”

“Kill.” Lazuli noticed the doctor raise an eyebrow slightly, his horn glowing and scribbling something on a piece of paper. Oh, so that wasn’t right?

“…Foal.”

“Loud.”

The doctor’s lip twitched a bit and he wrote something down again. “Hm…Apple.”

“Farm.” Lazuli blinked at her own answer, but figured it was probably how much time she had spent in Sweet Apple Acres.

“Smile.”

“Sadness.”

She watched the doctor’s pen write again. “How many more of these?” She leaned back in her seat, crossing her forelegs over her chest.

“Mmh…perhaps that’s enough of that.” The doctor agreed with her, and put both hooves on his desk, leaning forward. “Now, I want you to answer the questions I ask you as honestly as possible. Remember, nothing we talk about here will leave this room. Alright?”

“I’ve done this before, doc. I know how it works.”

The unicorn frowned. “Lazuli, you’ve been through a traumatic incident, we need to make sure you haven’t been psychologically damaged. I know it’s boring, but it’s for your own good.”

Lazuli sighed and nodded her head. “Yeah, alright. Go ahead.”

The doctor – Lazuli realized she had already forgotten his name, but looked down at the nametag to see it was ‘Dr. Head Case’, which was certainly not very confidence-inspiring – sighed and picked up his list.

“Alright. First question – how old are you?”

Lazuli couldn’t hold back an extremely audible groan.

The first ten questions were basic, horribly mundane ones that barely even required any of her brainpower. It was when he got to the eleventh that she actually needed to think.

“Next…what exactly happened in the skies above the Badlands ten days ago? Be as thorough as you like.”

Lazuli tilted her head, but supposed it was a fairly normal question. “Well…we were on an airship, on the way back from Baltimare. We had to take a detour over the Badlands thanks to some heavy weather over Dodge.” Her tone shifted a bit. “And…our ship was attacked. It was a small one, nothing big in terms of firepower…but the other ship was a lot bigger. I wouldn’t say a galleon, but…pretty big.” She cleared her throat. “It uh…didn’t hesitate to fire on us. We barely had time to fire back before the engines broke down and we started to crash.”

The doctor was scribbling down notes as fast as she was talking, so she continued. “The ship didn’t follow us down, it just…kept going. Like we had been in its way so it was easier to blow us out of the sky instead of going around, or slowing down a bit and letting us pass. I didn’t see any flags…but there’s no way they missed ours. The Equestrian Army is a pretty clear emblem.”

“And what happened after you crashed?” He asked, his voice still the same. He dabbed his pen into the inkpot.

“Right…after the crash, we had a lot of injured, and quite a few dead. There were…I think thirty of us on the ship, thirteen of us died. Two more died before we were rescued. Injury complications.”

She inhaled deeply. “It was uh…messy. Lots of broken bones, burnt fur, feathers were kind of everywhere. I um…” She rubbed at her right foreleg. “I got off with barely any injuries except a dislocated leg. Managed to pop it back in, though.”

“Mmhm…I see.” The doctor nodded knowingly, but of course she knew he had heard the story already, and probably from a dozen other soldiers anyway.

He took off his glasses, wiping them with a cloth and placing them back on his nose. “Next question…and do forgive me for bringing this up, but you have…quite a history. I’m not a stallion to judge, of course, but I couldn’t help but look into it.”

“Uh-huh…I don’t hear a question there.” Lazuli’s ears folded very slightly.

“Yes yes, of course.” He cleared his throat and looked down at the desk. “Tell me, Lazuli…how does it make you feel, to kill a pony? Or any living creature, really.”

Lazuli winced a bit. “Well…I dunno, it…it depends on the pony. Or the creature. If they deserve it, well…it doesn’t feel good, but I feel less bad about it.”

“Mmm…” The doctor sighed and wrote down more notes. “So far you seem fairly consistent with your previous psychological evaluation. However, there is…one more issue I must go over.” He reached under his desk, pulling out a picture in a frame. It was a picture of Tempest, her trademark mohawk on display and her armoured helmet held at her side.

“Yeah, that’s Tempest. So?” She tilted her head, unsure of what this had to do with her mental health.

“Would you say you are friends with Tempest, Lazuli?”

“Yeah, she’s like…my best friend.” Lazuli agreed.

“And you are aware that conflict with the zebras is reaching the point that war may be imminent.”

“Yeah.” She replied curtly.

The doctor leaned forward again. “So, can you tell me with any degree of certainty…that you would still be able to continue fighting, or even continue living normally, if Tempest were to die in battle?”

Lazuli opened her mouth to respond, but her breath caught in her throat. Her ears flattened back against her head, and her mouth closed again. “Wh-…I… w-well…” She swallowed. “If-… I mean, she… uh…”

The doctor was already scribbling notes. “Please answer the question. Yes or no?”

“W-well- I don- I…”

“See, Lazuli…” Head Case sighed. “You have done wonderful things. You’ve shown compassion that many guards throw away after a few weeks in the field. You’ve served Equestria quite well, but…this is why we don’t allow relationships between active members.”

“N-no, we’re not- she- I can-…”

Head Case gave her a sympathetic smile that was more insulting than anything else. “I’m sorry. We’ve been concerned about this for a while…they just didn’t ask you in your original assessment.”

“She-…she’s not…we’re not…”

The doctor was already writing notes down. “I’m sorry I made this drag out as long as it did, Lazuli. Clearly this question was the only one we needed…”

“No! I can- you can’t just-…” She jumped up suddenly, bringing her front hooves down on the desk. Tears were starting to shimmer in her eyes. “Please, I promise it isn’t a problem. Just- just let me stay…”

“Lazuli, I’m sorry, but you’re just making it worse.” Head Case shook his head and waved his hoof towards the door. “Perhaps this can be overlooked by my superiors, but I have to report it. Now please, I have more patients to see.”

Lazuli tried to argue, she tried to keep talking, but Head Case was a brick wall now. She pushed herself off the desk, tears burning in her eyes as she trotted towards the door. The unicorn sighed when the door slammed shut behind her.

“Even a psychiatrist has his orders…” He sighed again, folding up his report and sealing it in a small envelope addressed to ‘Captain Tempest Shadow of the 14th Equestrian Armed Division’.

The pirate attack had been a ‘happy accident’ as the Captain had put it. She had been in need of a reason to give Lazuli another mandatory psychological evaluation – she would have made one up if it weren’t for the attack. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Lazuli to fight alongside her, of course…she just couldn’t bear to see her hurt again. She was sure that they would be able to look back on it fondly, eventually.

Lazuli felt uncomfortable.

It was a common reaction, really, when you had multiple ponies staring at you like you were some kind of circus attraction. The Dracony was standing beside Commander Tempest’s robotic body, much closer than the average soldier or even a friend would be. She was just glad Tempest had reminded her that she still went by that name now, and not Fizzlepop – hell, she wasn’t even sure if the soldiers knew her real name, so she wasn’t going to embarrass her. She’d get herself used to it again.

In the room there were plenty of ponies. The main ones in focus was the group of four standing in front of them, but many others were milling around the main hall of the building that housed the organization. While they didn’t stop and stare for long, many of them slowed down to get a look at Lazuli.

“This is weird.” Lazuli murmured to herself, while Tempest talked to her scouts.

The robotic unicorn nodded, sighing in a way that clearly was more of a pre-recorded action than an actual exhalation of breath. “Right…so nothing turned up of note?”

“Not at all, ma’am.” A unicorn standing slightly in front of the rest nodded his head. “We encountered a few G.O.M members, but they were non-combative, so we simply made sure they didn’t make any sudden moves.”

Lazuli’s ear twitched. “Hold on, did he s-“

“I’ll explain in a minute.” Tempest bumped her mechanical hip against Lazuli, and the scouts glanced between each other briefly. She ‘inhaled’ sharply, closing her eyes for a moment, then opening them again. “Right. Well, you’ve all earned a good rest. You’re dismissed.”

The scouts all stood at attention and saluted in sync, then began to trot off in different directions. One of them, who was still staring at Lazuli, bonked straight into a desk before correcting his course and walking away. Lazuli raised an eyebrow and looked up – Tempest was slightly taller than her – with a frown. “So, are you going to explain to me why your soldiers are all looking at me like I’m an alicorn?”

Tempest giggled softly, holding a metallic hoof up to her mouth. “Well what do you want first, the G.O.M or the R.O.D?”

“I-…er…don’t call it that.”

“What? I was asking if you want the R- oh.”

Lazuli suppressed a snicker, biting her lip. “But, uh…could you start with this group? I’ve got some uh…familiarity with the G.O.M.”

“Right, well.” Tempest tapped her chin with a hoof. “Let’s walk while we talk about this, okay?” She started to trod down the corridor they had come from earlier, her hooves gently tinking against the tile floor with each step.

She stayed quiet for a minute, then started to talk. “When the bombs began to drop on Equestria, I knew I didn’t have a chance of surviving. So…I did what a few other ponies tried to do, by uploading myself into a computer…as you saw.” She waved a hoof. “But…I didn’t expect it to work. I expected to just turn it into a sort of memory orb of my memories, not actually…be part of the computer. I was lucky that the computer wasn’t destroyed…but also kind of not lucky, since I sat there in the Baltimare ruins for years.”

Tempest kept walking along, ponies saluting her as they passed. “I don’t know how long it was, but eventually somepony found me. I was conscious, but I didn’t really know how to project myself – so my hard drive was removed, and taken to a fully functional base. The one you’re standing in right now. It was inhabited by a very small group of survivors, and when they plugged me in, I was actually able co communicate.”

She sighed gently. “I won’t bore you with the huge details, but basically, they decided I should be their leader. I was a pony who had survived through the war, so I was…I guess just their superior by default, plus I can’t really die of age or anything.” Her pace stopped, and she started to step through a door off to the side of the hallway. She was back in the computer room now…only, it was attached to the side of it, and contained a whole load of extra parts like spare hard drives, and massive metal boxes that blinked and hummed gently. Lazuli supposed this was just the server room, or something to that effect.

“I modelled the group after you, Lazuli.” She said finally, stopping her stride. Her eyes were closed when Lazuli stopped and looked up at her.

“…Me?” Lazuli shook her head in confusion. “But…why?”

“You were my best friend. Call me selfish.” Tempest opened her eyes again and turned her entire body to face Lazuli. “But I also know how selfless you were. When you finally re-joined the guard, you were one of the kindest ones around civilians, even though you hated other guards seeing it. When that airship crashed, you helped everyone else before you even considered that you might have been injured. And…as for the name…well… ‘Riders of the Dusk’ is just a cool name, don’t you think? You kept your codename in the guard, anyway…”

Lazuli took a minute to properly absorb all of the information. “I…geez, really?” She rubbed the back of her head. “So…all of these ponies know me, because…you told them all about me?”

“Laz…” Tempest smiled and put a hoof on the Dracony’s shoulder. “You were- and, well, I guess you still are the greatest mare I’ve ever known. You just…” She struggled to find the right word. “You’re just…an inspiration for me. I don’t think I could have ever got past my own uh…villainous past if it wasn’t for you.” She paused, then looked around. “Also…don’t mention that part of my history to anyone, okay? They uh…don’t need to know that.”

The two of them stood there in silence for a bit. Tempest nervously glanced back and forth, unsure of what Lazuli’s reaction would be…

Until the Dracony suddenly leaped forward and wrapped her forelegs around Tempest’s neck, hugging her tightly. “Gods, you’re such a sap.” She murmured.

“Please, like you’re any better.” Tempest teased, nuzzling her nose up against Lazuli’s neck. “I just wish I had a proper synthetic body, so I could actually enjoy this.”

Lazuli frowned as she pulled back a bit. “That reminds me…you said you’ve been in this building for a while, so…how have I never run into you, or at least some member of your group?”

“I was going to ask you that.” Tempest shook her head. “It seems really weird that we haven’t seen or heard of each other in 200 years…”

“Well, I mean…I’ve been avoiding groups, to be fair. I had a few run-ins with the G.O.M and uh…” She slowly shifted, her wings flexing in and out. “I wasn’t too keen on interacting with any more groups after that.”

Tempest snickered. “And I’ve been avoiding contract killers and mercenaries, only recruiting ponies who want to improve the Wasteland…so…I guess we were distancing ourselves from each other without even realizing.”

Lazuli held back a giggle, shaking her head. “We’re both pretty stupid.”

“And blind, don’t forget blind.” Tempest added.

“And deaf.”

“And even stupider.”

The two of them started laughing, their shared giggles going on for a few minutes until Lazuli paused, and pulled back a bit more. “Oh, I- right, I completely forgot about Pearl…”

“Pearl? Who’s that?”

“The filly I came here with.”

Tempest raised a mechanical eyebrow in an overly slow, almost comical motion.

“The-“ Lazuli sighed. “The synthetic. She’s a filly. They said she was captured with me?”

Tempest’s eyes opened a bit wider. “Oh! Right, her. You should feel lucky…if I hadn’t been around, they would have dismantled her just to research her circuitry.”

“Wh- are you serious? Isn’t that…you know…cruel?”

“Well…we haven’t seen a synthetic like her before. Especially one that’s completely aware and sentient…”

“…Can I go see her? She’s probably scared out of her wits.”

Tempest nodded. “I actually had them keep her company, and made it very clear to be nice to her. I was only able to watch through the security cameras, but her sentience seems legitimate…but yes, I’ll take you to her now. Just…right after I change the command roster.”

“…Command roster? Why?”

“Well, you’re here.” Tempest smiled knowingly at Lazuli, and watched her friend’s expression change from confused to mildly interested. “It’d be a little silly if the Riders of the Dusk didn’t include Dusk Rider herself, wouldn’t it?”

It was Lazuli’s turn to raise her eyebrow, a bit of a smirk crossing her lips. “Well…I’ll consider it. But I have to see Pearl.”

Tempest clapped her hooves happily, letting out a heavily synthesized but still completely adorable giggle, like a school-filly who had just been given an award. “Amazing! I swear, once all of this is settled in, we’re spending the whole night catching up, okay?”

“Wouldn’t do anything else, would we?” Lazuli snickered, flicking Tempest’s side with her tail.