Fallout Equestria: Lone Ranger

Chapters

Chapter Two: Packages and Promotions
Chapter Three: Gold Amongst the Sands
Chapter Four: Freefall out into Nothing
Chapter Five: Bones and Memories
Chapter Six: Steel in Desert Lands
Chapter Seven: A Melody of Suffering
Chapter Nine: The Cost of Feigned Ignorance
Chapter Ten: Silence on the Front
Chapter Eleven: A Change of Occupation
Chapter Twelve: Balefire Slingshots?
Chapter Thirteen: An Old, New Appleloosan Friend
Chapter Fourteen: War Never Changes...But Should Morality?
Chapter Fifteen: Time to Clean House and Scram
Chapter Sixteen: Operation: Onyx
Chapter Seventeen: Cogsworth
Chapter Eighteen: A Certain Familiar Crimson
Chapter Nineteen: Moving is a Bitch
Chapter Twenty: Mutual Suspicion of Authority
Chapter Twenty-One: Time for a New Path in Life
Chapter Twenty-Two: Ruminations on Friendship
Chapter Twenty-Three: Black Velvet if You Please
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Striped Traitor
Chapter Twenty-Six: Trouble on the Vacation Express
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Into the Dark Market
Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Motherly Check-Up
Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Cypher to Find a Merchant
Chapter Thirty: The Fault in Our Sun
Chapter Thirty-One: NER Territory Discoveries
Chapter Thirty-Two: A (Half) Day on the Town
Chapter Thirty-Three: Post-Apocalyptic Real-Estate
Chapter Thirty-Four: Out of the Frying Pan
Chapter Thirty-Five: A Queen and Her Bounty
Chapter Thirty-Six: Back on the Front
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Ranger with the Big Iron on His Chest
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Desert Sands Through an Hourglass
Chapter Forty: Long Night of Solace
Chapter Forty-One: Death From Above
Chapter Forty-Three: Fruitful Outpost Explorations
Chapter Forty-Four: A Test of Trust
Chapter Forty-Five: Homesteads Near and Far
Chapter Forty-Six: A Guide for a Maze of Shit
Chapter One: A Cap in the Hoof for a Cap in the Head
Chapter Eight: Promotions! Promotions All Around!
Chapter Twenty-Five: Restitutions for the Dead
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Raven in the Mountains
Chapter Forty-Two: A Siege Under a Desert Moon

Chapter Two: Packages and Promotions

“Rise and shine you lazy sacks of shit!” Came the barking voice of our Drill Sergeant, a steel grey stallion by the name of Iron Sides who woke us all up before dawn at four A.M sharp every morning for the same song and dance we had all committed to muscle memory years before.

I snickered softly to myself as myself and the four others in my Squad already stood at attention with neatly made bunks ready for inspection while the other Rangers, Recruits and even some of the other Veterans were rudely roused from yet another four hours’ worth of sleep. While Iron Side’s attention was focused on berating a particular Ranger Recruit who was a notorious heavy sleeper, I snuck a subtle wink to my fellow Squad mates for being as flawless as ever and we all seemed to bask in an unspoken glory of being the best Squad in Barrack 21. After all, we had all agreed that we were going to be the best the Desert Rangers had to offer and so far we had delivered just that. Unfortunately our superiors hadn't seemed to have caught on yet and we were ranked as second in the Corps. Incentive enough to keep trying our damndest.

“Rollllll call!” The familiar voice of Lieutenant Colonel Horn boomed through the P.A system with the same deafening tone as usual, my Squad and I already halfway through the door and into the central grounds where only one other Squad stood at attention before us, the faint look of smug victory shadowing each of their stony faces.

Just as we had all basked in our glory inside Barrack 21, we yet again shared in our mutual derision of Alpha Squad from Barrack 06. Raised from military stock and trained for Veteranship within the ranks of the Desert Rangers from birth, Alpha Squad was a veritable legend even amongst the Desert Rangers. Despite my dislike for their perfect animatronic and punctual obedience for being all too creepy, even I wouldn’t go so far as to ignore what the ribbons and patches on their uniforms signified. Honorable service in major battles such as Shattered Hoof, Dragonback Mountain and the Big Plains and seeing no less than ten tours of duty in the Zebra Empire as well as nearly twenty in the Badlands to the far south, the Desert Ranger's primary romping grounds. Fucking legends each and every one of them and me and every mare and stallion in Beta Squad were going to be their betters…someday. All we needed was a solid chance with even odds between our two Squads but who was I kidding? If the odds in War are even then your side isn't trying hard enough to win and turn the odds in your own favor using any means necessary.

I bit my lip in silent annoyance at the Zebras for starting this fucking War in the first place. The screams of the poor defenseless civilians in the Badlands when the Zebras first dropped from the sky like fucking bats out of hell, raining Necromantic Fyre on the villages below still haunted me. Hell…I don’t think anyone, including the high and mighty Griffin Airborne Rangers that had been present there would ever forget the horrors wrought by Zebra magic the first time any of us had seem them for ourselves. Since then, Beta Squad had served nearly fifteen tours in the Badlands alongside Alpha, Delta and Gamma Squads fighting in the harsh deserts and in the trenches of the Southern Front and we all felt another tour was nigh upon all of us. Our upcoming leave had been cancelled across the whole Corps so naturally something big was upon us. Only question was...how bad was the situation down south...? News tended to be relayed on a need-to-know basis to prevent any chance of bad press for our struggling nation, a situation that made it maddening for most to try and make sense of our status in the war when we weren't actively fighting in it.

As the roll call commenced, I took little comfort in seeing all Squads (barring those who were already deployed to the Badlands) arraigned before Lieutenant Colonel Big Horn. My heart sank lower in my gut the more faces I saw in the crowd…the Rangers only called out every Squad from every Brigade when shit was hitting the fan and hearing the scraps of the latest intelligence reports from the Eastern and Southern Fronts only made my suspicions worse. In the end I could only settle on one conclusion: we were losing again. Bad.

“Ya’ll are probably wonderin why we have ya’ll gathered all here tahday.” Colonel Horn boomed in his strangely commanding southern accent, an Appleloosa native himself. “Those of you who’ve been here long enough know what’s happenin’ next. I ain’t gonna bullshit any of yew…Equestria’s ‘n big trouble boys n’ girls…an’ we need every last one of ya on th’ Southern Front takin’ th’ fight back tah them Imperial asshats! Now, those of yew who’re Veterans’ll get deployed at 0600 hours followed by the rest of ya’ll at 0615. I want ya’ll tah get everythin’ on ya that yew can carry inta th’ field ‘cause it’s gonna be a helluva long time befo’ ya’ll be seein’ ya’lls nice n’ comfy bunks ya hear?”

There came a thunderous “SIR, YES SIR!” from every mare, stallion, Griffin and the few Dragons who had made it into the ranks before Colonel Horn continued.

“Very well then. Then report tah yer C.O’s and get yer asses ready tah kick some fuckin’ Zebra ass!”

It was the appropriate time for everyone to let loose with every single Zebra slur, vulgar mantra and profane shit they had in them and the entire base seemed to rumble with the whoops and hollering of the terrifying might of the Desert Rangers. This was going to be a great tour, I could just feel it.

Camp Macintosh was the largest military base on Equestria's west coast and looked the part well. An enormous complex of barracks, command centers, intelligence huts, hangars, workshops and all the other trappings of a thriving military encased in an eighty foot wall lined with enough watch towers and anti-airborne turrets to classify as a modern fortress. The Desert Rangers had called this place their home for over seventy years now and only within the last thirty had we been forced to share our space (and even expand it) to house the three other branches that made up the Equestrian Armed Forces of the modern era. As a result, we were parked in the eastern side of the Camp with the Steel Rangers on the west, the Engineers to the north and the venerable Airborne Forces taking up the center and south with their many runways, hangars and flight endurance courses to keep all those with wings to flap in peak condition. My home away from home for what felt like a lifetime...every day spent here was as good as a stay at a luxury resort compared to the hard living experienced on the Southern Front where the heat made Las Pegasus seem like a spring morning.

Ponies, Griffins, Wolves, Buffalo, Cougars and so many other species fleshed out this rather bland landscape of monochrome military buildings, recruits and draftees alike all forced together in Equestria's greatest time of need since the legends I had grown up hearing about its earliest years. It was ironic that the most binding force of shared identity that the Ministry Mares had once championed so enthusiastically in their younger years came in the form of overwhelming nationalism in the face of a world war. An irony that was not lost on me of course but it made one pause to consider on the events that lead to the hellish timeline that one finds themselves caught up in. In some ways, many of us here had grown up with the world being some sort of shitshow be it the old timers who could still remember the heady days when Equestria wasn't short on natural coal and the Zebra Empire had kept to themselves across the ocean or the younger cynical assholes like myself who were born into a world born of the mistakes of our parents and grandparents. To be a mare in the military when my mom was my age was a rare sight indeed and required veritable balls of steel to be able to make it somewhere. Now...with the war growing bleaker with every passing year, what you had under your tail mattered a hell of a lot less than if you could be a cog in the war machine.

Everywhere I looked I could see the gender disparity native to Equestria becoming ever more present with more and more mares taking up arms alongside their fellow stallions and making quite a name for themselves as warriors worthy of note. A point of pride for me as the beginning of my career had been much rougher than theirs was becoming with hazing from the stallions becoming less and less of an issue. We outnumbered the stallions 3:1 in civilian life, it only made sense to pull from such a large resource in a war once about a shortage of natural resources in the modern world. Hell, my own Squad of five was made up of three mares including myself and each of us kicked as much ass if not more than the two males in the team. We had answered the need and more than proven our worth to the populace and command alike casting aside outdated social ideas in favor of the pragmatism the times demanded.

I had to get to my office to set my affairs in order before it was time to leave. The downside of being a soldier of rank was the unfortunate pile of paperwork and mundane boringness that came with the office work side of my job. Had barely been back in Camp Macintosh five weeks and I was only just getting to the halfway mark on back-catalogued work load that had accumulated while I was dancing with death in the south. A decent enough effort by my standards as far as I cared but now it was time yet again to put everything on hiatus with no pause button on the back-catalogue of files, emails, and other notarized army stationary with my name stamped on it somewhere.

******

“Ma’am?”

“Hmm?” I hummed, looking up from the maps and battle plans littering my desk at Huckleberry Crisp, my second in command.

“Package arrived for you.” She said in a flat professional tone though the sparkle in her eyes betrayed her excitement. “Postmarked this morning from Ironshod Firearms.”

“Close the door please.” I instructed, the door to my small office clicking shut leaving just the two of us alone in my office, my horn already flashing with the muffling spell I had picked up in college from my roommate.

Once we were alone we were immediately all over each other, hooves tracing each other’s bodies in places they shouldn’t and mouths and tongues going everywhere else. It had been far too long since we had been alone together like this…far too long. And the War only kept us further apart, a constant weight of anxiety and fear keeping everypony pent up with all manner of emotions. Thankfully for me…Huckleberry knew where all my buttons were to calm me down.

She was a drop dead gorgeous mare of deep velvety purple fur and a long curly mane of lavender/violet that reached her neck just above the shoulder. Unfortunately due to the War she and I had both been forced to cut our manes short to fit into our helmets leaving her beauty with a bit of a crew cut. What the Army couldn’t get rid of? The lovely taste and flavor to be found between those nicely toned hind legs of hers. Better than any fruit I had ever tasted and sweeter than any jam or dessert could ever hope to achieve. My mare was my dessert.

Just as she was tracing her way down my admittedly fluttery stomach towards my nethers was when the intercom on my desk buzzed sending her to the floor with a squeak and myself backwards over the desk to answer the call.

“Yes?” I barked, quietly slapping myself for coming off much more like Sargent Iron Sides than my usual perky self. That being said, whoever the hell this was had just deflated any of the genuine build up happening between me and Huckleberry so I felt that at least in a private sense I had every right to be mad.

“Major Crete, the Lieutenant Colonel is here to see you.” Came the perky and youthful tones of Bongo, the secretary whom I specifically requested watch and announce whoever came to my door just for situations like these.

“Tell him I will see him in one moment please.” I instructed, pulling up the panties of my uniform along with my standard issue tan Ranger pants with great reluctance.

Huckleberry looked as miffed as I was but the LC was the C.O at Camp Macintosh and would more than likely discharge Huckleberry and myself from the Rangers for our less than professional approach towards each other. He was a good stallion...I knew that he wouldn't throw her and I to the wolves if word got out about us. It wasn't our fault we felt attraction towards each other and the government had declared that sort of love illegal... Once we were both adequately dressed enough and I was plopped back in my chair to give off the appearance of being busy did I tell Bongo to send the Colonel in.

As the Colonel’s unmistakable shadow approached the cloudy glass of my door, I caught the strong aroma of Huckleberry’s musk, my heart sinking to my ass when I realized it was way too strong and sweet to be explained away as perfume. Especially given the fact that perfume was not allowed to be used due to Bongo’s allergy to any and all perfumes and colognes.

I shot a worried look to her and she squeaked, “Sorry! You just really turn me on! What else can I do...? Not get wet?! You fucking try that I dare you!”

And with that phrase barely escaping her lips the Colonel strode boldly into my office, my years of learning a convincing poker face being put to the test as I could tell by the way his nostrils flared slightly he could smell it just as much as either of us could.

“Ah, Major Crete! Was wonderin’ if Ah’d be able to see yew at all. Are ya busy?” he asked, looking between me and Huckleberry with his usual upbeat smile.

‘Maybe he’ll forget about it if we get him talking…’ I thought to myself as I returned his smile. “No sir! Huckleberry was merely delivering me a package from Ironshod for me.”

“Oho?” he exclaimed excitedly, starting forward towards the large parcel wrapped in boring brown paper. “This here th’ ‘special order’ ya asked fer like three months ago?”

I inwardly punched the air in triumph. Praise be to Celestia for Huckleberry bringing in that goddamn gun at this very moment. Some goddamned privacy was all I wanted from the universe...

“Mhm!” I said happily as he lifted it up to me and simply begged to see how my specialty revolver order turned out, he himself is a crazed gun enthusiast and collector like myself.

The paper was a straight up bitch to remove (the damned postal service and their ‘Anti-Theft Packaging’) but eventually we got the damn thing off to reveal the beautifully carved, dark red mahogany case engraved with the symbol of the Desert Rangers inlaid with gold and silver leaf where appropriate. A roaring black Dragon clutching a scoped Anti-Machine Rifle in its talons, a crescent moon to the left of its head and a stylized sun to the right. I drooled with anticipation as I undid the bronze clasp holding the lid closed and slowly revealed the contents all nestled in the finest Trottingham red velvet.

“Holy sheet…” the Colonel whistled as I levitated out my new baby. “Now tha’ there’s ah gun.”

My Sequoia was simply stunning in every way. The barrel was eight inches long (a full inch longer than everyone else’s) and three inches wide spanning the full height and width of the six round cylinder in a block of blackened Celestium steel making my weapon extra thick against the pressures exerted on the frame and latch from the beastly rounds it took. And as a bonus, the extra weight on the barrel ensured the auto-ejector would work with minimal effort on my part speeding up reloading; a factor that might be all the difference in the trenches. The grip was a ‘hybrid’ design meaning I could shove it into my mouth and pull the trigger if I absolutely needed to in the event my magic somehow gave out, something that happened to Unicorns more often than other ponies realize due to the stress of combat on the concentration needed to hold shit. Along the barrel, engraved with silver rather than the usual gold as it looked better to me against the black, was the age old Ranger mantra, ‘Against All Tyrants’, while the dark red cherry grip was engraved with the symbol of the Rangers. Truly a work of art worthy of a damn museum if I could bear to be parted from it.

Whereas everypony else was fine with the swing-out cylinder design as was standard for Ranger Sequoias, I was much more picky. Growing up with my grandfather and learning to shoot using his old .32 caliber top break revolver set me up for an undying love of the design. Call it vanity but there was something about watching the auto-ejector spit out your spent rounds for you, showering you with gleaming, tinkling brass that just couldn’t be matched by a swing-out revolver no matter how hard you tried. The damn gun cost me two years’ worth of my salary but seeing it there before my eyes was worth more to me than any amount of gold bits could ever hope to achieve no matter how many were offered. (Though I’d probably take a few just to support the cost of the rather expensive .45-70 Celestia rounds.)

“Now Ah know tha’s yer gun n’ all but…mind if Ah send ah few rounds down range with her sometime…?” Colonel Horn asked sweetly, the tone of his voice authoritatively begging.

“Aye aye, Sir…just make sure I get my fair share first.” I replied, looking over every centimeter of my new baby and feeling giddy, tingly feelings that could only be described as a fangirl mental orgasm.

After a few more moments of everypony including Huckleberry ogling the gun (she herself having a vested interest in the thing, even suggesting the use of silver engravings rather than gold) did we finally set it and ourselves down for business. The Colonel continued to shoot glances the revolvers’ way as he tried to gather his thoughts and remember whatever he had come to tell me in the first place.

“Aw shucks, tha’s it.” He finally chuckled to himself as his eyes brightened in light of his remembrance. “Ah wanted tah ask yew if yew and yer Squad would like tah be th’ first tah drop into th’ Badlands.”

Huckleberry and I shot confused glances at each other. Alpha Squad was always the first to drop into any-fucking-where, especially the front lines. I mean hell, there’s a reason they’re called Alpha and we were Beta. They’re the fucking first at everything, including dropping into an active combat zone as we were on the cusp of participating in once again.

“Why…?” I asked slowly, looking down at the map of the Badlands with all its complex markings of enemy and friendly troop movements and then back up at him.

He sighed in reluctance than said lowly, “Alpha Squad’s unda suspicion by th’ Ministry of Morale fer bein’ covert Zebra spies…”

I looked back at Huckleberry trying to see if she too heard the bullshit I just heard.

“Fucking what…?” We both asked in hushed disbelief. “You fucking serious…?”

He nodded sadly and looked down at the floor mumbling, “Th’ Ministry’s sendin’ out folks tah take ‘em inta custody any minute now…Ah guess nopony’s safe from suspicion these days. Somethin' about 'suspicious conduct' tha' happened ah few years back er somethin'. Ya know them spooks...ahlways speakin' in vague terms so nopony is in on th' loop but the Mare herself.”

I had only met the Ministry Mare for the Ministry of Morale once during a ‘morale party’ she threw for the Desert Rangers a few months prior. She was a rather eccentric mare, even for my taste, with a neon pink coat and cotton candy mane though her age was definitely showing by the grey streaks of hair that ran through her mane giving her a more candy cane like appearance. What she lacked in looks (because believe me, I always check any mare out just in case), she made up for in unmatched enthusiasm. The very laws of physics (which are beat into your skull through concepts like the Coriolis Effect if you were a sniper) didn’t seem to apply to her by the way she seemed to stand on air at times after one of her many, many jaw dropping leaps into the air as she laughed her way to infamy bordering on insanity. Pinkie Pie may be many things (amongst coming off as completely fucking insane), but she hardly came off as the suspicious type. The Ministry under her rule though? I had never seen anything quite like their methods of sniffing out supposed traitors. If Alpha Squad of all groups was under their suspicion, what with their extremely colorful and successful career in the field, then nopony was safe. Everypony minus maybe newborns knew to fear their watchful eyes and ears as they were literally everywhere. Always looking for the next traitor in our midst, hovering over everyone's thoughts like a bird of prey looking for the slightest movement below.

I snuck a glance at Huckleberry who seemed to share my silent sentiment of deep concern. For all we knew even my well-practiced muffling charm and my constant search for bugs in my office space weren’t enough to keep the all-seeing eyes of the Ministry from seeing our…proclivities. The last thing either of us needed was to be the next public spectacle of ridicule for disobeying the law and face the rest of our lives in prison cells on opposite sides of the country. It gave me shivers to even consider that fate but as omnipresent a threat as it was to our happiness, it wasn't enough to break us apart. Pinkie Bye or not, we were dedicated to each other and that would never change.

“So…the reason you’re asking us if we want to go first is because we have to go first now?” I asked, looking back at him with a mixture of anxiety and what could be called disappointment.

“Ah’m ‘fraid so, Crete.” He responded in a slightly sour tone, glancing over his right shoulder towards the door. “Ya’ll are th’ best of th’ best now. Ah dun’ know when, if ever, we gonna be gettin’ Alpha back. If shit be like Ah heard...this is th' last any of us will be seein' them in this lifetime.”

As I opened my mouth to reply, my intercom buzzed once more which made us all flinch, the building tension in the room snapping just as quickly as the passionate tension between me and Huckleberry not ten minutes earlier by the same means.

“Yes, Bongo?” I replied, pressing the ‘Talk’ button on my desk.

“Representatives from the Ministry of Morale are here Ma’am, looking for the Lieutenant Colonel.” He replied, his normally chipper voice sounding on edge like the rest of ours did.

“Tell them tah meet me in mah office, Bongo. Ah'll be there in three minutes sharp.” Colonel Horn sighed as he got to his hooves.

“I don’ envy ya’ll headed out there.” He said as he turned to leave. “Latest reports ain’t a happy read, Ah’ll tell yew tha’ much. Zebras be everywhere down there. You watch yer back out there Crete…Ah don’ wanna have anotha closed casket funeral fer somepony Ah call a friend.”

Huckleberry looked at me with a pained expression of fear at that thought as I replied, “Neither do I sir…I won’t make a promise I can’t keep but I’ll do my fucking best not to get my ass blown up by some Imperial fuckwad.”

He grinned as he opened the door, the noise outside in the main office almost deafening compared to the muffledness of my office and said, “Damn straight! Kill ‘em all Major Crete! Don’t let ah single one of them bastards through, ya hear meh?”

Huckleberry and I both said with no little amount of zealotry, “Kill all sons of bitches, sir!”

He nickered with a chuckle and shut the door behind us leaving Huckleberry and I alone once more to hug each other as close as we could though the earlier feelings of passionate lust were long gone. Now all that was left between us was an unspoken fear of losing each other out on the battlefield. Sure, we had fought side by side and had gone through this same feeling dozens of times before…but something felt different this time. The War with the Zebra Empire had only gotten more and more fucked up as we went along and it felt like more and more body bags were being shipped home than troops being flown back out. The Desert Rangers had the best armor and weaponry a pony could get aside from our true rivals the Steel Rangers who primarily lorded over the east side of Equestria on what was known as the Eastern Front. While we relied on good old-fashioned wearable armor with perhaps some advanced optics and technology built into the Veteran Ranger’s helmets, those cocky fuckers trotted about in magic power armor, courtesy of the Ministry of Wartime Technologies.

They were the well favored Steel Ranger Corps that Princess Luna and her Generals almost exclusively relied on which festered some pretty nasty rivalries in the Desert Rangers Corps, though I suppose not without good reason. That being said, we had more skill, training and experience than most of the Steel Rangers including even some of their ‘legendary’ Star Paladins. But, due to their heavy armor and weaponry, they were much more highly favored than we were and were sent into any battlefield the Generals could get them onto whereas the Desert Rangers were sent off on stupid ass missions down south where the fighting was less intense than on the east coast where the main Zebra invasion was occurring. From time to time though, both Steel and Desert Rangers had to fight side by side in the trenches of the Empire to the far, far east. Even then though, we Rangers outshined them when it came to prowess and survival. Technology was a luxury we knew to employ but not rely on. The T-45 could make a relatively scrawny guy a veritable monster on the battlefield but the moment his armor starts having power issues or he loses his helpful HUD he'll be as helpless as a tortoise on its back.

I had seen for myself just what a Steel Ranger in full T-45 power armor could do on the battlefield on many, many occasions over the years since its glorious introduction five years prior. One-pony tanks packing an assload of firepower that could almost be called excessive although when in War, it’s better to overkill the enemy than underkill; particularly when it involves tasty calibers like 5.56mm or 40mm. Part of my list of obsessions, alongside guns, food, sleeping and sex, was armor…and boy could I talk anyone’s ear off about how much I fucking loved it. And despite my animosity towards the Steel Rangers melding with everyone else who called themselves a Desert Ranger, I had to admit that their armor made me green with envy. Not that I would ever consider joining up with them just to wear it but if I so happened to find one of them dead after a battle, I might just be tempted to get my buddy in the Engineers Corps to whisk it away to my private home in Las Pegasus for a small fee.

“So this is really it isn’t it…?” Huckleberry asked softly as we continued to hug each other close. “The end of the world…?”

“Ah geez, common’ Hucks!” I giggled as I playfully spanked her ass causing her to giggle a little. “We’re fucking pros! End of the world my ass. We’ll win this War, you and me, you’ll see.”

Deep in the pit of my stomach and heart and mind…I knew no amount of bravado was going to save us from what we all knew was coming. The only question left was ‘when’? Maybe I was just being overly paranoid...but it felt like all signs were pointed to the same thing: complete global destruction by Balefire and the classified Megaspell projects going on behind sealed doors in the Ministry of Arcane Science. Having been witness to both small-scale Balefire bombs on the Southern Front and the only open use of a Megaspell on a battlefield...I was unsure of which was the more terrifying weapon born of unbridled arcane power molded by the brightest minds of the century. One thing was for certain...were one of them to occur in the near future...I prayed to Celestia I could put a bullet in my head if I got the chance so I never had to witness what happens in person during detonation.

****************

Chapter Three: Gold Amongst the Sands

Sand…I was so used to it being in everything that I was beyond caring about it anymore, aside from the rare times I was caught outside with my helmet off letting the damn stuff clog my ears and nose and make a mess of my mane. I never liked sand, even growing up when going to the beach was actually considered a treat rather than a 'potentially life-threatening adventure'. Why? Well because it's rough and course and, despite my best efforts, the shit got everywhere; especially places where its the hardest to wash or brush out. The rest of my coat (which I kept as meticulously clean as the Wasteland would let me) was kept safe beneath my duster, armor and underbarding. I suppose it was my fault for living in New Pegasus but still…I felt I had a right to bitch after I choked back a sneeze that would have left the inside of my helmet covered in sand filled snot. After all, who's more fun to blame when you're pissed off? Yourself, the cause of your own misery or an inanimate object such as sand?

I had a bit of a walk ahead of me, more so than what my usual jobs entailed. Old Bitch Face usually did his business in New Pegasus and its surrounding towns like Oasis, or the northern NER townships of Shady Sands and Barkerville. In the end though his drug caravans went everywhere there were ponies to be found giving him proxy hooves in nearly every major settlement for hundreds of miles around. Today I was headed a ways out of my usual prowling grounds out to the ‘thriving’ remnants of Old Appleloosa, a Raider/Slaver town of no little reputation in the Wastes as being an almost bigger shithole than all the crazy shit coming out of Fillydelphia, not that that town needed any introduction to anyone with a brain left in their skull. It was honestly not that surprising Green’s caps and ‘product’ ended up in such a southern town. The place was one of the biggest gambling mecca outside of the Stirrup and had an even more prolific narcotics abuse than all of New Pegasus combined. If it was dirty, kinky, enslaved, addictive or stolen in any way, it almost always could be found in or have come through Old Appleloosa. Or so the stories in recent years had let me know. I made a fine point for decades that I would do no work any further south than the 395B exit on the I-15, so long and so firmly that none seemed to even bother asking in recent memory. Enough time to dull some of the worst of the internal anxiety and extreme apprehension and for me to privately be at best neutral towards the idea of heading anywhere near the Badlands.

To add to the growing list of oddities with the job, my target was supposedly a mare who was kicked out of Tenpony Tower a few years back. As to why, according to word of mouth it was for strangling a colt who looked at her funny, which naturally resulted in a call for her immediate execution for such an affront to such an elite society. She then escaped from custody by spiking the nightguard on duty with an overdose of Buck hidden in her mane from her abusive lover evading Tenpony searches earlier in the day. The best part of the story? She had incited the stallion into a blind, drug induced rage by insulting the size of his dick and he then proceeded to beat the metal cell door down himself; opening her cell and killing the poor fuck with a massive heart attack in the process. Naturally, a mare of such infamy and determination was bound to take up an occupation that best suited her skillset and with new newfound appreciation for the power of lightly enchanted anabolic steroids, she took what she learned under forced assistance to her ex's closet production and formed a drug caravan of her own from scratch, completely out of pocket. She may have skipped town but she still had a fortune of her own she had nicked out of her apartment's wall before making her escape, the personal finances of her ex having allowed them to live in luxury even by Tenpony standards. Not exactly the quintessential story but I had to admit the course of events from murder to drug dealing kind of made sense. Though her operation wasn’t quite up to par with Green’s in terms of size and profitability, she was the undisputed Queen of the Buck in the Wastes. Green, unable to best the potency of her product, had to satisfy himself as the Dash King and that was all that needed to be said as for why the two were at odds. Two of the biggest drugs on the market, aside from Mint-als and Medix, controlled by two separate but very, very powerful drug lords. The caps were always tinkling in me and my fellows' saddlebags from the sheer might of how much they wanted each other’s operation to fall to its knees, give the other a rimjob and then get curbstomped on the corner for all to see.

“Bitch gotta name?” I asked into my mike as I edged around Cockatrice Pit, a smaller impact crater from the War filled with half chicken/half serpent abominations that could turn you into stone with nothing more than a passing glance unless your armor had a specific paintjob.

“Who? Oh, right…yeah, th’ name’s Jingle Jangle.” Green replied, his mouth obviously stuffed with food by the way his voice sounded far thicker than normal.

“What, are you fucking serious?” I asked, wanting to laugh at how ridiculous her name was. “What’s she supposed to be, a Hearth’s Warming Eve decoration or some shit?”

“A what now?” He asked through another mouthful of food. “Ya on somethin’ Crete? Didn't think ya had it in ya to kick back and get a little high! Atta girl! Little puffy puff or nicky pricky neva hurt nopony!”

I sighed and waved the topic off, indicating for him to continue. The less he knew about my time from long before I was in his employ, the better and easier life could go on for me. It wasn’t like a history lesson was going to make him any less of an unbearable asshole anyway. Wasn't anyone's business where I came from.

“Anywho, she’s fuckin’ stealin’ my business an’ I need her gone, ya hear me?” He growled into my ear, obviously forgetting that I wasn’t exactly a good pony to threaten. "I been puttin' up with her bullshit for way too fuckin' long. I told 'er years ago when she was just startin' her little Raider circus up that we could split the western seaboard between us evenly and split th' profits! And what does that there cocksuckin' cuntwipe say?! She tells me she's gonna fuck me with my own broken business!"

“What exactly does she have to do with getting your caps back?” I asked, genuinely wondering if, now that he had me under a verbal contract, he was going to shortchange me with a two for one deal. "First you tell me I'm just on an extreme debt collection job and now you're saying this is a full blown hit on the Queen of Buck and her operation? Where the fuck is the truth in all this mess?"

“Everywhere!” He snarled. “She’s th’ cunt who’s on th’ recivin’ end of them caps they took! She ordered th' hit on my boys while transporting a large shipment of product plus a hefty tribute towards Shady Sands, you knows the one.”

Well, that changed things a bit. The 'tribute' was the glorified semi-annual blanket bribe for the select in the NER's hierarchy, their laughable impression of a Senate, that were lets say...open to the idea of importing a bit more than the law allowed. That explained the 85k in play and with it being technically summer (after all the weather was always warm out here), the Black Churt roots were still hibernating deep below ground making production of Dash far slower and much more dangerous. After all, the caves they fled to to escape the excessive heat tended to be the homes of some of the worst the Wasteland had to offer. The job was paying a bit low, way too low for a high profile hit like this...but I had already agreed to a price. A price that was about fifteen thousand caps shy of what I would have charged if I knew the target before agreeing. When I had told him on a prior occasion I was willing to do a lot as a favor for him, this was a bit more extreme than I had ever intended. And for such a low price...as if I needed more reasons to find another employer who couldn't control his own GDP at least half the year and whose accounting records could best be described as flaming Hell Hound shit. Perhaps enough time had passed for me to try again at the casinos. Pay was similarly low but at least it was consistent.

Considering she was a big-time drug mare, I probably could collect some extra caps from her own private stashes plus any on the bodies of her thugs I happen to knock off on the way. Nothing wrong with taking a ‘gratuity’ as we liked to call it, from the dead. If anything it was expected, usually because most hits payed out in units ranging from bad to ‘meh’ since most clientele weren’t able to afford much else. The real money laid with the cartels like Green's operation or the thriving Medix/Mint-al market on the east coast. Only the inexperienced or ill-equipped picked off the low-tier dealers and those of 'passable' quality went for the mid-level distributors and couriers. Hitmares of say...my quality were best suited for the central distribution hubs and the chem labs themselves, where the assets were the most valuable and the challenge for bodyguards the most fulfilling. On the plus side, the loot from the bodyguards was guaranteed to be of some of the highest quality products available. Money from the hit, plus money from the guards, plus money from the sale of their gear equals one very rich mare. Or stallion of course; there's no discrimination in this business despite the name. How we differed from bounty hunters was a hazy line that sometimes relied solely on the name difference between us but often revolved around the question: on average, do you take a lot more jobs that involve leaving a cold body than bringing in a warm one? If yes, well...we might just let ya in our little club.

“Alright, so what’s she look like? Keep out an eye for the mare who looks like a stuck up bitch?” I asked, imagining some golden haired beauty living amongst a bunch of sadistic fucks with a gold plated Tenpony stick rammed up her ass.

“Pretty much, yeah. Likes to wear this old business dress she had left ova from when they’s kicked her ass outa Tenpony. You see her an’ you blow her fucking brains all over that dress ya hear me? Don't even let th' bitch speak, if anythin be comin' outa her mouth its gonna be blood and her fuckin brain juice.”

“Got it Bitch Face, now let me do my job.” I replied, reaching up to my radio to shut him up for awhile.

“What’d ya call me ya-” He snarled into my ear before blessed silence returned with a simple click of a button.

“Called ya a punk ass bitch you fat-assed, slack-jawed, whore-fucking, dirty-ass piece of drug snorting, ass-licking shit wipe!” I growled to the desert air around me, feeling gracious to be able to get that off my chest, even if it was to dead air.

He had some fucking nerve to think he could even begin to talk to me like he was about to. He was a deplorable pig who just strolled into my room whenever he wanted, kept me from having a lovely nap and enjoying my honeycomb and always tried to lord over me like he were my alcoholic father. Joke's on him because I grew up with a single mother who only drank on occasion but made damn sure it would be a memorable one. Considering the strange path this job had already been taking, I wouldn't be surprised to learn he also wanted me to do the whole thing with just a knife or some other crazy stipulation just to further see how impossibly knotted he could tie my tail up in.

I took a deep breath and imagined all my little frustrations filled up my lungs like smoke before breathing out the bad feelings into the open air and outa my head. The Equestrian Wasteland is home to all sorts of fucked up. First off, you had the shitheads that are all the mutated animals and everything else transformed by Taint and decades of constant exposure to magical radiation. Then you had the Wasteland itself, a giant twisted landscape of craters, burned and gutted-out towns and cities with all sorts of wonders and horrors hidden inside all under the dreary, tan/grey cloudy sky. And, without a doubt, the most fucked up of all were the ponies, Griffins, Dragons and the few other intelligent species who lived here. You can always expect (with an acceptable margin of error) what a mutated animal will do when you approach them, but you can never trust a fellow sentient at face value. Unlike animals, who run off of instinct and base level thinking, intelligence grants the user an almost unlimited access to unpredictability. The psychology of the Post-War sentient was far more fragile, prone to manipulation and overall more cutthroat it had been in my youth.

One of the biggest reasons I didn’t tend to make new friends and kept the list of friends I did have short was for that very same reason. The Wasteland, a dose of drugs and the allure of caps can turn all but the most stout hearted, straight laced goody horseshoes into a killer or worse. That all being said though…I preferred killers over slavers. Least you could silence any morality you had left in you along with your victim’s screams whereas slavers had to break their quarry and live with them until they dumped them off and got paid. A dead body is a much more willing piece of luggage than a live pony after all. And a lot less annoying too with no careful planning of supplies to feed and 'care' for my quarry. Slavery...was just another fucked up reality of life after the Great War. There would always be the strong who ruled through violence and fear and would force those considered beneath them as the means to their own ends and on the cheap as even the most inexperienced servant would still earn a wage and be able to sleep soundly enough at night knowing they still had a right to self-determination. It was a world I had witness emerge and mutate on its own amongst the rubble of the old world and one I had spent many years trying to find a new place in for myself.

The trot to Appleloosa would bring me near my old wartime stomping grounds in the Badlands where some fires still burned in the blood stained trenches of the Equestrian-Zebra War that had turned into the world war that ensured the demise of everyone involved. The few memories that still remained of that time were all too feeble to raise their heads and get my attention leaving my mind free to wander a bit more as my hooves seemed to walk themselves southeast towards my goal. The sky above was as dreary as ever, a constant reminder to everyone that the Pegusi were still up above us all, still being cowardly assholes and not letting anypony see the sun or hell even the blue sky save for those small breaks in their mighty cloud layer that were quickly patched up. Always hiding from the ruined world they had abandoned so readily the day one of their own cities was struck during the Great War. One memory did rear its head at that thought, a memory of the day fire pierced the night sky…only to be cut off, like everypony down below, by the clouds of the Pegusi.

I stopped for a brief moment to stare up into the clouds, the vision filters of my helmet doing their best to pierce through it to no avail, and curse them for their cowardice. While everypony down below was forced to watch every city and most towns get incinerated in Balefire, the Pegusi had only taken one direct hit to Cloudsdale and then bitched out. My fur stood on end remembering the fires of that fatal day…watching the Zebras take my home from me only to see the clouds gather above as the Pegusi took the sun and the moon away from me too. It had been over two hundred years since I had seen either…and yet, fond silver framed memories of the celestial bodies remained even after all this time. I was a Daughter of the Night as my mother had so often called me as a filly...somepony who never felt more alive than at night bathed in the light of Luna's moon. With all the work being done to harness Lunar magic during those years, a fact I learned later as an officer with enough clearance to investigate without extreme secrecy, it made a bit of sense why the night felt so...enchanting. Ah...the painful realization nostalgia can bring...realizing the past almost always feels more simple and the circumstances easier to bear than those present burdens that weighed any of us who 'survived' the birth of the new world.

The main path ponies took to get to Appleloosa from New Pegasus followed E-15 for a ways until it reached the crater that marked where Camp Macintosh once stood. At that point ponies with any common sense and a Geiger counter would veer east, and make for the old train tracks headed out from New Appleloosa towards New Pegasus, and then proceed directly south following the line. My path took me right through the mile wide crater and back onto E-15 making my journey an easy day’s trot rather than the two and half days it would have taken otherwise following other marked paths across the sands. ‘Why don’t you just shortcut and go cross-country around the crater and then get back on E-15?’ You might ask? Well, like all craters, it had a tendency to attract all manner of irradiated wildlife looking for an equally irradiated place to chill out. The surrounding desert was usually teeming with nests and nooks where they slept, the labyrinth of dunes constantly shifting their configuration in the winds from the Badlands making navigation a nightmare even with a PipBuck. In other words, you had to have a lot of guts, bullets and a damned good compass to make it through the open desert without a road. Even with a road things were always dangerous and unpredictable...but at least you have the road to follow right? Maps, as outdated as they were, were still accurate enough to navigate the Wasteland with and any who could tended to add in as many new unique eh...features the Wastes had developed since the last official topographical survey.

Only the strong and the cunning lived long enough to be considered 'old' by Post-War standards. It was rare to see grandparents in the Wastes as, with the Equestrian medical system being in literal pieces and the prevalence of deadly dangers in everyday life, living past the age of thirty-five was uncommon. As I said earlier, it was only the strong survived in the Wastes. Whether that was by the strength of bullets or by the cunning of mind or even sheer dumb, pervasive luck, it didn’t really matter. As long as you made it through the day alive and hopefully ended up better off than you were the day before it was a day well spent far as most were concerned. I did wonder sometimes what life would look like if even just vaccinations were still in widespread use instead of sporadic inoculations of social elites by trained doctors lucky enough to come across one of the Pre-War stockpiles that still has working refrigeration. Diseases that had been declared extinct in my teen years and adulthood like the Dragonpox and Chronic Withering Disease had made a comeback, only barely contained by the recent reemergence of homebrewed decoctions of the mutated flora that battled these ailments as sufficiently as the first introductions of antibiotics. Hardly enough to drive them back into extinction but it was the greatest medical discovery of the new world since the discovery of how to once again brew the lesser healing potions that formed the one-size-fits-all basis of the western world's medical system.

A beep pinged my right ear as I continued to ramble internally over a never-ending stream of thoughts and brought to my attention the proximity warning marker I had set in my map function perhaps a century earlier. The spot on the map I had dubbed too far south for comfort...two miles outside what remained of Camp Macintosh. I'd explored the place only once since it was rendered a misshapen crater on the map and the experience had been a decidedly short one. Not only was the place teaming with all manner of nasty shit that give anyone with sense enough anxiety to rival middle school but the circumstances surrounding the crater made it a maze to navigate. What I was able to piece together from observation during my short sojourn there was that the anti-missile defense grid had kicked in during the bombardment of the Great War but too late to prevent damage to the world below the detonation. Kinetic force of the blast was near enough to the ground to flatten all but the most reinforced buildings and expose the underground complex that housed the Camp's highest ranking officer's offices, prison cells, the officer's mess and private medical clinic amongst countless rooms of filing cabinets and intelligence operations infrastructure. A platinum mine of possibilities for any poor sap insane enough to try their luck at but a mine bathed in Rads and nested with giant centipedes and Radscorpions.

The great wall that ringed the Camp soon came into view on the right side of the highway shimmering and swimming in the summer heat. Even from a distance I could tell the hundred or so years it had been since I had last visited had hardly been kind to those old walls with massive spans crumbling into dust or full of so many cracks that to merely brush against them could invite a collapse. There was an odd feeling starting to grip my thoughts the closer I got to the place I had once called my home for half of my adult life, the other half naturally being spent even further south. Nostalgia of a sorts but one that was far more bitter to the taste. Tainted by memories of fire and harrowing brushes with the very face of death... It was uncomfortable...but it was not enough to bring me to my knees as it used to. Gradually the edifice loomed above me as I passed through one of the major holes broken into its length and stood on the edge of the bumpy, blackened crater that occupied the Camp now.

It was completely unrecognizable now. The only buildings still standing were those that clung onto the lesser bruised edges of the mighty depression in the earth. The central complex, the heart and nervous system of the Southern Front, was nothing more than the exposed concrete tunnels scattered throughout the center of the crater and beyond. Enough creatures lopped through the mess to make paths throughout the entire expanse of black dirt and charred rubble, which made finding a good path easier for me. A tip the Rangers taught was to follow the animals when in unfamiliar territory. They always have a knack (even if their brains are all fucked up) of finding the best way through, under, over and around things. Especially those lower on the food chain who know where the bigger and nastier things lurked. What I needed was a semi-sentient creature like a Giant Rat or something else relatively small to follow to lead me down the best possible path and away from all the big, scary predators. As only a few angry red ticks started popping up on my visor's Eyes Forward Sparkle, I decided fuck it. I was just going to go in as straight a line as the terrain offered and kill whatever got too close with something big and scary of my own. This was merely a...scenic detour that just so happened to be on the shortest route to Old Loosa, I lost nothing by going this way.

The wonderful invention known as Eyes Forward Sparkle (or E.F.S for short) was just one of many incredible brainchildren from the complex and mysterious relationship of the mixture of Unicorn magic with Earth pony innovation. Powered by a self-sustaining spell matrix, the E.F.S maintained an unwearying eye on my surroundings like a giant sphere of attention that gauged ponies (and others) overall disposition towards me. How it worked was beyond me but I knew enough to say it was like a portable psychic that could sense if things wanted me dead or not and warned me of them by displaying either red ‘bad’ ticks or blue ‘friendly’ ticks on my compass. It’s range was about five hundred feet, which was nothing to sneeze at and was both a blessing and a curse. A curse because I was a sniper and liked taking down targets from ranges far bigger than five hundred feet but a blessing because in close quarters with many blind spots, I could essentially see where my enemies relatively were even behind concrete walls. That wasn't to say it was perfect but it was a hell of a lot more useful than it was a setback. There was never shame in using a little technology to give yourself the edge you need to cut through the opposition. If it keeps you alive and is affordable to maintain, then by all means pursue it as fat as I personally cared. Playing to your strengths keeps shit feeling manageable.

The path down into the crater was easier than I expected, especially after the torrential downpour not two days prior and my well-maintained armored combat boots found easy grip in the blackened earth. The Geiger counter of my helmet clicking louder and louder with every step I took closer to the center. I considered turning it off more than once after realizing I didn’t absorb Rads like other ponies did but the sound was, in a very ironic sense, comforting to me. The sound itself I found strangely soothing and the thought that the only thing to be found in Rad Zones were predictable creatures was also comforting. Looking around the crater, it being a massive, rather shallow bowl in the ground with not even a charred tree in sight, I still found it hard to believe that this once marked the location of the Desert Ranger’s H.Q. Had it not been for memory and the auto-mapping spell on my helmet’s E.F.S, I would have just assumed the Zebras had aimed at nothing in particular but decided this particular area needed to be fucked up.

The red ticks on my E.F.S weren’t too much of a worry to me as aside from the barely standing ruins near the base of the crater, I had an unobstructed view of my surroundings and could count the various less than troublesome creatures that answered to the angry red marks on my E.F.S. Great as the red tick system worked, it was not sophisticated enough to gauge the relative danger each tick posed to me. Could be as harmless as a pissed off Radroach or as murderous as a Hellhound and I wouldn't know until it got close. There was more than enough rubble around to hide behind. When I approached the collapsed entry to a particularly large tunnel was when a new tick appeared on my visor, a green tick I hadn’t seen in several months which indicated a Ghoul or something else that had a very high resistance to Rads that was in a pony or other sentient species shape. Why the Ministry of Wartime Technology had decided to use blue for friendly and green for irradiated entity was a little beyond me. Why had they programmed in a specific marker for irradiated creatures during a time we had all believed the Apocalypse was an unrealistic eventuality? To give them the benefit of the doubt, I had to guess it was merely due to them thinking ahead and planning for every contingency as was standard for Stable-Tec. Despite the evidence standing against them as arguably the most fucked up batch of scientists and sociology nuts to ever come out of the country, they had also made their name with quality products that satisfied their customer base.

With a soft sigh of relief I popped my neck and stole myself against being this close to my old station after so many years of avoidance. I floated out my faithful Sequoia, remembering I had only three shots left after dealing with Tomato Harvest, and approached the ruins slowly, my combat boots making soft crunching noises on the glass like sand beneath me. I for one wasn’t any more fond of Feral Ghouls than the next mare but it did strike a sad chord inside me to know that the poor fucks had probably been around as long as I had, only to succumb to the zombifying process of becoming a Ghoul. I wouldn’t necessarily refer to myself as a Ghoul sympathizer but I treated them cordially because of what had happened to them. In the end…we weren’t so different I suppose…only difference was our history and the fact I still looked hella fine which meant I could live amongst ‘normal’ ponies without much fuss over looks. Feral Ghouls on the other hoof? Much as I pitied the poor shit-for-brains like I did the non-Feral Ghouls who kept their brains…I was glad to put them out of their cannibalistic misery and make the world just that much safer.

“Alright shit-for-brains, come on out.” I called out to whomever was skulking about the rubble. “Let’s get the whole ‘brrraaaiiinnnsss’ thing out of the way alright? I’ve got places to be and I don’t want your nasty ass teeth nipping at my ass when I trot past here alright?”

Although I definitely wasn’t expecting an intelligent response, I was at least hoping for a Feral’s usual howling growl of hunger to come answering the dinner bell I just rang. Either it meant Ferals were getting smarter or I had a regular Ghoul on my hooves. A Ghoul hiding away from the big scary ass mare in the armored trench coat and gasmask helmet...

“Well…shit.” I sighed aloud, my artificially enhanced voice sounding even more bored and stale than I felt. “Guess you want to play some Hide n’ Seek? Alright then…you better make this delay worth my time.”

I stepped into what I assumed to be the old administration building of Camp Macintosh, the missing walls and chunks of ceiling really giving no indication as to what I was walking into as I looked around for the green tick I had seen earlier. If ever I had to file a single complaint against the creators of the E.F.S, it was that the system was shit at telling you the elevation of targets relative to where you were. Outside it wasn’t too bad as all you had to do was look up (or get the fuck off the ground if it was below) to try and find your target but indoors with multiple floors? That was a completely different rodeo. Skyscrapers, like the ones all over Manehattan, were fucking nightmares to navigate on their own but add onto that seeing red all over but never knowing if they were on the same floor as you or the floor above or below you was…well, a clusterfuck of horrible emotions nopony should ever have to experience.

The tunnel connected into a larger room at one end while the other went the other direction towards some unknown destination, the whole complex only dimly lit by sputtering and dying emergency lights still somehow drawing power from the backup generators installed deep beneath the Camp for...well, exactly situations like it was in now. Time, heat and mildew had done their own toll in turn to the walls and ceiling, the once easily legible painted signs and paper maps on the walls having been blotted out of nearly all recognition. Map became useless the moment I strayed inside the complex, no way in hell would the military have allowed even Stable-Tec to map their classified holdings underground. If I were to explore, it had to be done quick to save on daylight and that Ghoul I knew was there had to not be.

“Alright, common’ out please?” I sighed into the ruins after the green tick had eluded me for longer than five minutes of looking all over without straying too far from the hole in the tunnel wall. “Unless you’re dead then just stay where you are and let me at least check your shit for anything good. I’d like some .45-70 shell casings please. Ah...who am I fuckin' kidding, nopony has the caps for that kind of ammo this far south.”

I licked my lips and realized I hadn’t drank or eaten anything before taking off from home and added a second wish to my scavenging basket of wants. “Oh, and a Sunset Sarsaparilla would be nice…maybe a can of sweet corn? I’m kinda hungry to be honest…and not in the whole I wanna eat your brain hungry.”

Again, silence. This was just insulting. Even the most lazy of Ferals would have come galloping to the dinner bell I was ringing so violently. This wasn't a Feral. This was just a terrified Ghoul hiding from the big scary Veteran Ranger poking around its 'prospecting' grounds. I had no gripes with a normal Ghoul that hid from me instead of straight out attacking me so I had no reason to stay any longer. Besides...the nostalgic vibes tingling in my spine were starting to get to me.

“Alright, fine! Be a cunt! I didn’t want your shit anyway…” I growled as I exited the ruins, feeling a lot more slighted than I was expecting though the growling in my stomach made me feel a little justified.

“W-will you unload your g-guns if I s-shared my food with y-you…?” Came the young, slightly raspy Ghoulified voice from behind me, my reflexes kicking in and pointing the barrel of my gun towards its direction.

“Umm...what…?” I asked slowly, looking around for the source of the voice using every vision filter my helmet had to offer including thermal, UV and infrared.

Suddenly before me appeared a young Ghoul colt wearing a mismatched collection of metal armor held together with rope and Wonderglue. I will admit I flinched slightly at his appearance but my curiosity was piqued as to how he seemed to use a StealthBuck without one visibly strapped to his legs or slotted into a PipBuck interface. He seemed to be around the age of fourteen based upon his size and the slight squeaky pubescent tone in his voice but I knew better than to judge a Ghoul by his size. For all I knew he was as old as I was. Well…maybe a decade younger.

“Y-you don’t look l-like a Raider…” He spoke timidly, “Your a-armor is too well m-maintained…lot o-of accessories.”

He definitely had been around long enough to have an eye to distinguish the kind of shitty, hodge-podge armor Raiders preferred to wear from the Pre-War military gear I wore. He seemed to have an eye for armor himself as I found myself nodding in approval at the rather clever construction and design of his hodge-podge gear. By looks alone I summarized he had been alive for quite awhile as no newly turned 14 year old Ghoul was going to have the skill to construct armor such as his. Of particular surprise though was just how well...'preserved' his body actually was for a Ghoul of his supposed old age. Only bits and pieces of his skin was missing exposing the cherry muscles and veins underneath and his coat was patchy and missing in areas but still distinctively a soft gold in color. A thinning brown mane curled around his head which sported a weathered horn and faded green eyes while near his similarly brown tail was the cutie mark of a pineapple fruit being used as a topical drink cup with a little pink umbrella and straw sticking outa it.

“Yep.” I responded, nodding to the ruins behind him. “This stuff is…was…manufactured by the Desert Rangers. Might not know but it came from this place once upon a merry time.”

“Y-you know them too…?” He asked with a hopeful gleam in his cloudy golden eyes. “P-please…unload your guns.”

I cocked my head slightly, wondering if he was attempting a stick up using the ‘cute’ method. Not exactly cliché for a colt, let alone a Ghoulified one, but still a tad predictable. Enough to make me pause in answering his request.

“Y-you said you were hungry…a-and I have Sunset Sarsaparilla and sweet c-corn with me…” He said softly, nodding towards my weapons again. “I’ll s-share them if you show you’re n-not gonna h-hurt me.”

I myself glanced over his small frame looking for any weapons he himself might be concealing on his person but was surprised to find none. I was about to decline his offer and be on my way when my stomach angrily demanded I satisfy its need for stuffing, a need I had blatantly forgotten about prior to leaving town in my rush to get on the road. And so it was with cautious reluctance I flicked the barrel and cylinder of my Sequoia downwards, catching the three live rounds in a web of magic as they were flung up and smiling to myself as the three empty casings tinkled on the ground at my hooves. After scooping up the empties and slipping them into my designated pouch, I unloaded my Anti-Machine Rifle (the sight of which seemed to fill his eyes with wonder) and my dual 10mm's, setting all the magazines on the ground to my right. Once the last magazine was out and on the floor, and he seemed satisfied I wasn’t hiding anything else (which I was), did he smile shyly and sit on the ground, pulling out a few cans of corn and a single bottle of Sarsaparilla from the burlap sacks tied around his waist as makeshift saddlebags.

I curled up on the sandy ground as comfy as it and my armor let me and, as an act of good faith, took off my helmet, setting it to the side and shaking my head to get my mane out of the bun I had to put it in to fit inside my helmet. He seemed awestruck upon seeing how much hair I managed to stuff into such a small space and I detected a hint of blush on his cheeks out of the corner of my eye as I brushed a hoof through my mane to let it all breathe some. When seemingly satisfied taking in my appearance without staring, he nudged a can of the corn towards me that he had opened himself with a smile before his cloudy green eyes returned to my helmet and AMR lying beside me for any curious eye like his to see..

“So…h-how did you get this armor…?” He asked in his timid, slightly raspy voice, his eyes slobbering over my gear like a fanboy at HoofBeats. “D-did you find it here or…?”

I shook my head, trying to swallow my mouthful of deliciously sweet corn before responding. I still had polite manners in my daily life and I had been raised to not talk with my mouth full. Mother would always force me to watch how birds fed their young in the wild and would ask if I wanted her to feed me the same way. Needless to say the grossout factor involved with the thought was enough to keep me in the straight and narrow in that regard ever since.

“Not exactly…” I said slowly, stomach gurgling happily at what I had been craving for a while but hadn’t made the effort to go out and buy. “It’s…well, it’s mine. I earned it.”

“O-oh…?” He squeaked as he popped open the bottle of Sass with a hiss, the cap being slipped into his saddlebags for later spending. “D-do you mean…y-you’re a Desert R-Ranger…?”

“Was…but if you can’t tell kid, there ain’t nothing left to be called Ranger…just a crater and some scattered bones and weapons here and there.” I replied, looking at the ruins behind him sourly. "I was so 'lucky' to survive by...by events I would rather not mention. Especially to a stranger heh..."

“W-well, the first p-part of changing t-that is g-getting to know each o-other. R-right Miss…?” He asked, looking at me inquisitively for my name.

“Crete...Athena Crete.” I said after a moment’s hesitation as it wasn’t usual for me to give my first name to complete strangers, though this colt was strangely calming to be around.

“H-huh…that’s a-an…o-odd name.” He said almost to himself, a sentiment I myself shared in private.

“It was my mother’s idea to call me Athena…” I explained slowly. “She always obsessed over these old romance novels about great gods who ruled lightning and the ocean and shit from back in the day. Middle name of Crete also came from that...decided to make it my last name some...well, some time ago. My mom’s name was hardly as unique. Just Colgate Minuette…and she worked as a dentist in Manehattan for Celestia’s sake.”

“A dentist…? W-what’s that…?” He asked.

K, so maybe he wasn’t quite so old as I had supposed. I knew I was going to be in for a long guessing game trying to figure out his exact age. The Wasteland never gave anything for free...including a Ghoul's true age. That is usually information they kept to themselves kind of like a mare with how much she actually weighs. It was rude and borderline suicidal to ask without being told by them personally in confidence. And to answer for all those who had asked me in the past, I weigh one-hundred and eighty-five pounds. Heavy for a mare but reasonable for the stallion level strength I had worked my body up to needed to operate the way I did.

“Ponies who make it their business to clean your teeth, charge you a hoof and a leg to pull one and bitch to you when you don’t brush them enough.” I explained, the concept itself ridiculous in light of the Great War and life in the Wasteland that followed it.

"W-weird..." He mumbled to himself as he seemed to be thinking about his own teeth by the way he licked them slowly under his lips.
After a moment of awkward silence I finally asked him what he was doing in the middle of an admittedly dangerous crater all by himself especially without a weapon of any kind. Apparently he had a weapon a few weeks ago, but had been forced to leave it behind in the crater after a Hellhound caught his scent and forced him to haul ass out of here. Now he was back again looking for it, this time armed with a StealthBuck he had purchased against any future Hellhound visits. I felt somewhat guilty for making him waste his only StealthBuck (which were expensive as hell to obtain normally, usually costing around two hundred caps a piece if the merchant liked you) and as a token of my thanks for the simple yet fulfilling meal, I offered to help him scrounge the ruins of Camp Macintosh for his old gun for a time. I wasn’t prone to charity much anymore as it felt like a losing strategy in life...but he had been charitable to me without needing to be. I would feel betrayed by my own stomach if I refused to help him, the weight of the corn becoming like lead weights of shame in my gut. Either that...or I was gonna have some gut problems in the next few hours from bad corn.

“Y-you’d do that f-for me…?” He squeaked softly as I stood upon my hooves and reloaded my guns in preparation for the coming search.

“I always believe in repaying a favor, and in this case, a can of corn is well worth finding a lost gun to me.” I replied, tossing up a speedloader and catching it perfectly in the cylinder of my Sequoia much to his awe. It was a cool parlor trick I had spent the better half of several decades practicing and perfecting since there was nothing wrong with adding a little flair to your gunplay. Sheer intimidation alone was worth almost as much as a full magazine of bullets in most situations and I had learned that it was little tricks like that, that really did the trick with certain ponies. Some of my ‘kills’ never even happened...but only a few. I had a reputation to keep up after all.

Needless to say the little guy was more than a little giddy at the prospect of having adult sized help in finding his gun and the fact I was a Pre-War Ranger seemed to be the icing on the cake for him. Despite what I said earlier about avoiding kids like the plague…I was willing to make an exception for him because of his kindness annnnd the fact I felt a little burning ember of pride at how he seemed to look up to me with admiration and respect. I was used to being admired by other hitmares for my skill and accuracy (hell, I returned the favor for the exceptional ones) but I had never felt the kind of…innocent admiration coming from my little Ghoul friend. It wasn’t crammed with adult themes and violent references (or even sexual innuendo) but seemed to be genuine appreciation for me as a pony. Not as a hitmare or a hot piece of ass like everypony else saw me as but as a former soldier. A blessed sigh of relief I hadn't experienced in quite a long time...

“What’s your name, kid?” I asked as we ducked through the entrance-way of the collapsed tunnel once more.

“Golden Showers!” He called back happily seemingly completely oblivious to the sexual term associated with his own name.

I snickered quietly into my hooves, covering it with a cough. Even the kid’s name was something I found appealing. Maybe bringing him along would actually prove to be worth it. Maybe...even fun.

*****************

Chapter Four: Freefall out into Nothing

“So Major, what’s the plan?” Rain Dancer asked as we stood in the armory strapping on our various pieces of tan, green or black colored armor amidst the bedlam of everypony else doing the same. “The Lieutenant Colonel have any secret plans for how we’re gonna outshine Alpha this time? You said it yourself, he likes us more than them but the other brass won't see it.”

Huckleberry shot me a pained look as she donned her reinforced leather duster and I was forced to break the news to the rest of Beta Squad. I knew it was going to have to happen, but I had secretly hopped I could have been given at least a few days to reflect on the implications and changes in leadership that were going to happen because of it. With how the Desert Rangers were set up being the oldest of the official Equestrian Armed Forces, we had our own internal hierarchy of ranks and our own tactics and organization that stood outside those used by the General Army or the Steel Rangers. Ranger recruits were pulled from the best of the GA or special civic collaboration volunteers who became Rangers in full after three years of quality service and training. Veterans, after the rules of war were changed because of the escalation of combat with the Empire, were those who served and survived for longer than five years. The ones who had proven their lives worthy of the impressive expense paid towards armoring and arming them as some of the best the Armed Forces had to offer. However, with Desert Rangers being proven experts in the art of war, it was deemed prudent for Rangers and Veterans alike to have an official\unofficial rank befitting their skill level and accolades in the GA using their terms and imagery. This was done to expedite our orders on the field seeing as we were denoted as 'experts' in our fields for a reason. It saved the brass a lot of paperwork to just refer to us as Captains or Lieutenants with all the associated privileges of command yet allowed us to operate mostly within the confines of our own Corps. In short...the life of a Ranger had changed since the early years and more and more we were being used as stand-in officers for the General Army as attrition gnawed away at us. It was always a possibility that you could be pulled away from the Squad you had spent months with and knew well to go and lead a group of no-name Privates whose Sergeant took an early dirt nap.

“There is no Alpha Squad…” I declared as loudly over the din as I could muster without calling attention to us in particular, the thought of the Ministry officials not even two rooms over interrogating Alpha making me quiver with fear. “Or…should I say, we are Alpha Squad now. Ministry of Morale showed up not even a half hour ago to detain them and more than likely take them to Canterlot immediately. Took the Colonel by surprise just as much as anyone else it seems...”

Their stunned silence was to be expected at my revelation. The fear of us or any of our friends in the Desert Rangers being potentially under the suspicion of being Zebra sympathizers was a very real threat. I myself knew what they would do to ponies…they had Unicorns who were specially trained in the art of mind-rape meaning they’d dig around your head for memories that they could use to convict you of the charge they had brought against you. I use the term ‘mind-rape’ rather aptly as nothing else can quite describe how notoriously brutal their memory probes are...and most ponies never come out of it with their minds entirely intact. It was terrifying to think they had the broad authority to enforce this kind of invasive interrogation that bordered on all-out torture...but...them's the times as they said. Not much anypony could do about it but live according to every social code ever written or spoken and pray the eye of M.O.M passed you by.

“So…that’s it then?” Penny’s Worth asked in her sugary sweet tones. “We’re top dog just like that? Sweet Celestia...”

I nodded. Though no one said it, I knew we were all thinking the same thing. It was a wonderful feeling to finally be called Alpha Squad…but it felt like an empty victory we hadn’t truly earned. Of course we trained hard and tried everything we could think of to beat Alpha fair and square at their own game but now that they had been disqualified for the race to the top, we all seemed to feel cheated out of our victory. It was like getting a participation award that said ‘At Least You Tried’ written in gold leaf surrounded by little balloons and confetti. If there were pity cake to go along with the sarcasm then I might be less bitter about swallowing it all down.

“I know what you’re all feeling,” I said finally, looking up from the bracer I had been trying to strap on over my sleeve for over a minute. “And trust me, I feel it too. We got jipped the fuck out by the M.O.M and have what’s basically a fucking participation award. But we’re still fucking Beta Squad! We’ve kicked everyone’s asses to get to the second top spot with the Vets. Alpha may be gone but we still gotta earn that patch of theirs. Maybe this is a blessing for us. A chance to shine like Celestia’s fiery hot ass and burn those motherfuckers who think Equestria is their place to kick back and enslave the populace. So Beta…what we gonna do? Sit on our asses and mope about how we got ripped off? Or are we gonna go out there and kick some stripped Imperial ass out of our country?”

“Kill all sons of bitches ma’am!” Came their rallying cry like music to my ears, before me the four most badass mares and stallions (and one Griffin) who ever stalked the Badlands.

“Damn straight! What are we?”

“Beta Squad!”

“And what do we do?”

“Kick ass and spit fire!”

With that revelation off my chest, it instantly became easier to fall into muscle memory without getting the jitters. The din of fellow badasses nearby all jockeying about and engaging in playful roughhousing was the sound of home to me now. I had been in a number of barracks and posts over my career but Macintosh was always my true home. The noise was louder; always full of barked orders, choruses of Songs from the Pitts, in and outbound caravans both airborne and on hoof...the sounds of a thriving militopolis as I liked to think of it as. A paradise of war and her deadly practices attended by the priests and priestesses of death.

It was during massive mobilizations like this where the sheer size of Macintosh's armory came in handy and where tactical nerd in me got some quality hobbyist time. With so many Squads of equal or lesser rank crammed into one facility it was easy to glance left or right and come away with over a dozen various combinations of loadouts and specialist gear spread throughout the ranks. Squads formed as a new Recruit were encouraged and celebrated for staying whole throughout their promotions as familiarity and loyalty helped ensure the most cohesive teams. There were always the inevitable rotations that came...a member of your family getting gunned down or otherwise taken out of the action for good. But, in the rare circumstance where everyone is particularly safe, cohesive and unbelievably lucky, you might have a Squad like Alpha or Beta. The only teams where all members had the same dogtag timestamps left in the upper echelons of the entire Corps.

Some Squads, nicknamed Shufflers featured multiple dedicated snipers accompanied by only one demolition expert and a heavy machine-gunner with at least two members being equally talented at something else letting them 'shuffle' their role about as needed. Others like Snake Eyes Squads had none but shotgunners who doubled as flamethrower powerbitches, a reference to how they were bad luck for enemies and always specialized in at least two of the heaviest hitting weapon classes. Others, like my own, went with the old Jack of Aces technique. That is, filling every spot on your team with someone who was damned good at one skill and/or weapon class in particular but is capable of using others to a satisfactory degree. There is a case to be made towards the efficacy of all these variations and others but ultimately what determined it was if the team was cohesive, competent and effective while the brass using them like pieces on a board know when and where to use them. On the Southern Front...the conditions determining these factors were unfavorable but unavoidable it seemed.

Something that was favorable and unavoidable all the same was the welcome expansion of weapons deemed permissible for Ranger Squads. With every passing year it seemed like bigger and badder weapons were being greenlit for our common use rather than as tactical necessities only given out as part of particular mission parameters as had once been the case. With the introduction of enhanced BattleSaddles as part of a side project of the Ministry of War, the use of lightweight power-servos reinforcing the underbarding allowed for heavier armament without compromising agility. Thanks to the fancy new tech, anypony with a PipBuck 2000 model or above was now capable of lugging something as large as a 40mm autocannon and its accompanying ammunition canisters alongside their armor and duster with no problems. While this was a major boon to the expansion of our roles, it didn't change the weapons that had made us famous. AMR/APRs, our largest and most common heavy rifles for example, had always been made for all species to use comfortably regardless of they had magic, hooves, talons, paws or what have you. Rangers didn't discriminate if there was genuine talent in the soldier. If he or she were useful and would become even more useful when given the right training and tools to excel than if anything it was a crime to ignore said talent, as burgeoning as it may be.

******

There was a great flapping of many wings as the central airstrip of Camp Macintosh was filled with dozens of armored troop carriers; all hitched up to teams of four heavily armored Pegusi given a weaker form of terrestrial power armor designed for airborne units. In the early days, teams pulling these carriers had around eight to ten Pegusi hitched up to drag the older models considerable weight into the air. However...due to 'unforeseen circumstances related to casualty rates', there were fewer and fewer strapping bucks to yoink the airships along. There was a certain bitter irony to be found in this as science and magic would not have been given so much attention or funding had the falling Pegusi numbers not started to make national headlines after the first two years of war. We thought air superiority was more than enough to counter the earthbound Zebras...forgetting they ruled an Empire and wielded the might of many nations, all of whom swore fealty to the same Kaizar. Those damned Crowned Eagles were bigger than biology texts suggested and they pierced early armor prototypes like a tin can, especially the lighter armored Pegusi who needed all the agility they could get. Such a goddamn fast bird that even S.A.T.S was only marginally more accurate than blind luck and just as likely to fail. To date, the only ones known to go hoof to talon and win the majority of the time were an elite of elites amongst fliers known not as traditional Aces but as Thunderbolts. A tribute to the Wonderbolts of old and as a statement to their speed, precision and deadliness to the worst foes of the skies. There was always the occasional Feral Dragon brought in or the charmed flying ultra-conda but the Crowns were the marks of legend for being far more common in the skies.

That all being said...these wingy boys and girls before me weren't Thunderbolts. Not only was the shiny gold lightning bolt armor paint missing but so was the trademark staggering confidence as they waited anxiously in place while the many groups of Rangers boarded their crafts. Though it was proving to be my sixteenth tour in the Badlands in the last ten years, my ninth with the Rangers, I had never seen the entire Desert Ranger Corps get called upon at once for a deployment to the battlefield. Although each tour only lasted six-to-twelve weeks, the ratio of caskets coming north was starting to feel overwhelming compared to the thinning lines marching south month after month. There were (more or less) at least two Brigades of about ten thousand Rangers out in the field already which left the remaining three Brigades (roughly fifteen thousand strong, including myself) back on call at Camp Macintosh, Camp Boulder or on leave. Twenty-five thousand Rangers sounded nice when written in a newspaper or spoken during a PR campaign but the truth wasn't quite so magnanimous to those who did the heavy lifting and knew the weight of the national meatgrinder. It wasn't just us, the other Corps experienced the same slow realization of...well, reality. First it started with lists of KiAs being edited to MiAs before being brought to the media for mass circulation. They had a right to know of course as so many were serving...but it was an easy ruse to save face with and it only kept getting worse when it got good results out of the populace. After that it was a shift to excessive MiAs being relabeled as Verified Captured, a subtle show of the air of confidence the brass tried to program civilians to snort down. With nationalism on another steady rise, the story changed once again to the good ol' hero's death story tacked onto the PoW story. Of course, nothing of what I just said is my official opinion. Who knew how easily a Non-Disclosure Agreement can be snuck into the piles of red tape you need to hack through to join the Army's officer corps?

The standing and waiting was making me antsy. Not nerves as those had to be sacrificed long before now but the kind more akin to stage fright jitters. It was like going on stage after a season of rest and polishing. The dance was muscle memory incarnate but there was always a bit of nervous thought beating on your nerves like a snare drum and repeating all the steps needed to avoid the show crashing for everyone. Considering the scope of the operation that I had seen on the Colonel’s maps, Codenamed Operation: Enduring Sunlight, it seemed the whole damn Equestrian Army was being put into active service together for a massive assault on all fronts. Something like that hadn’t happened since the Manehattan Offensive when the Zebras first invaded mainland Equestria all along the east coast. Just another testament to the obvious. Since that invasion we had been able to pull enough troops off the front lines to allow them to rotate in and out of their respective Camps for much needed R&R. But to need so many models on the Equestrian side of the map fanned out in a thick border around the country...I mean who could ask for a stronger fucking supporting argument?

“Ah! Alpha Squad! Common’ ova here real fast eh?” the Lieutenant Colonel called out to us across the way, rousing me from yet another train of thought passing the time.

We trotted over like good little soldiers and each shook his hoof as he congratulated us on our promotion to the top of the ranks as well as apologizing that we wouldn’t be able to hold the special promotional ceremony until after everything was over. I don’t think any of us minded the fact we were going to skip the hubbub since it was in the field we intended to earn that promotion and we all quickly thanked him for his mentorship. The old stallion was definitely from a different era of Rangers but it was thanks to his studious documentation of the old ways we all were worthy of respect. His upbringing as a farmer had given him an intimate touch with the earth that helped him expand and refine the survival techniques then taught to the younger Rangers facing much more danger than his day. A charming addendum to his work was a section on home farming techniques if caught behind enemy lines with ample seclusion or in PoW camps. Though I had yet to need that section myself...it didn't stop Hucks or I from rereading it occasionally just in case we suddenly needed it. Or, more likely, started a garden of our own once everything was over. The moment we were done speaking we were ushered to the front of a line of rowdy soldiers waiting to board a troop carrier labeled with a large black ‘1’ on the armored chassis. The gilded limousine of the Rangers. Nothing special about it except she was the first to mark green to drop, a factor that was mandatory as the first hooves on the ground get the easiest kills...or so the legend went.

The troop carriers (affectionately called ‘Shaggin’ Waggons’) were about as comfy to sit in as a can of pickled carrots is to eat. It sat similar to a standard bus (though could carry three times as many passengers) with small seats lining down the length of the craft while the center aisles were packed with ordinance, supplies and other random shit we may or may not need in the field. Most of the stuff was meant for the poor bastards who were already fighting and dying in those godforsaken trenches, but overall it was all the property of the Equestrian Armed Forces and all its many branches, of which I was but a tiny leaf on the Ranger branch. That being said, I was one sexy leaf! (Or at least I thought I was. There were plenty of other mares who were damn fine themselves scattered around the Army.)

The seating arrangement, though pre-arranged by ponies higher on the pay grade than myself, was rearranged a tad so Huckleberry and I could sit side by side and enjoy each other’s company. It didn’t take long for the other four in Beta Squad to realize she and I were a pair when we first came together as a team nearly five years ago. We were subtle enough in our affection for each other to go by mostly unnoticed by superior officers and ponies who weren’t around us as much but months of bunking, fighting and living with the same five people forms bonds of friendship that can only be found in the Army. When they finally asked about it, we were both shocked that not only were they not going to turn us in (as was Camp protocol) but also wanted to support us in our secret love life saying it was ‘cute that two kick ass mares had found love in this shithole’. Since then, they had covered for both our asses time and time again going out of their way to make sure we had some proper ‘alone time’ each week in a random closet or empty office they had staked out for us. It was acts like that, plus their insanely good talents in the field, that made me love my brothers and sisters of Beta (now Alpha) Squad and trust them with my life anywhere I went. We never went anywhere or did anything without each other except in the rarest of circumstances and were arguably the most vocal proponents of granting leave to all Squad members at once. Bunkering down in the mud and gore or sprawled across the floor and couches in one of our respective civie homes, we just couldn't stand to be apart from each other for longer than a week it felt.

“Alright everypony, channel three and seal up. I want to talk with y'all.” I said, turning my helmet’s radio to our private channel and shutting off my external speaker so we could speak and be heard only amongst the five of us.

“Ma’am? Before we begin I just wanna say…damn girl, you cut it close this time.” Came the amused chuckles of Buck Beak, our one and only Griffin who preferred to blow shit up with his signature ‘Little Big Cannon’, a multi-barreled rocket launcher he had special ordered from the military weapon depots.

I blushed hard, grateful that my helmet kept my embarrassment from the prying eyes of the basic Rangers around us. Naturally, Huckleberry and I both informed everyone about our near miss with the Colonel and how he almost caught me literally with my pants down and Huckleberry’s head between my thighs. They all had already shared a laugh over it as well as a few nervous chuckles but I knew they weren’t going to let us forget about it anytime soon. And to be honest, I didn’t blame them. In retrospect it was a great story, one I hoped to cherish with my mare once we were retired from the Rangers living in a nice small home somewhere away from the front lines and the prying eyes of the M.O.M, which cursed homosexuality as an Imperialist ploy to destroy the nation.

On that note, I disliked Zebras just as much as the next pony. I had seen the horrible lengths they had gone to to win this fucking War, but it wasn’t like Equestria was much better. Zebras had just as strong a sense of national pride as we did and had their own views on sex and family that I had learned little by little by studying their books on philosophy. I knew full well if those books were found by the Ministry I could kiss my career, my mare, my Squad and my ass goodbye…but I couldn’t help but learn more about my enemy. A nation, an Empire such as theirs was a fascinating study in history for any self-respecting hobbyist like myself with as many bizarre twists and turns in their tale as anyone else. In my mother's day and especially prior, interspecies marriage, same-sex romance, mixed-species adoptions and the occasional polygamist arrangements amongst other social categories were all relatively commonplace. However...something changed sometime in my early childhood that saw those things scrutinized, railed against and then finally completely banned by M.O.M who held the power over what was deemed socially acceptable.

Were it permissible to do so, I'm sure there would be speculation as to what exactly happened that brought about these changes and I had my own list of potential suspects. First of course was the population scarcity from a killer epidemic of a particularly virulent form of the clop which spread like wildfire in the casual love lifestyles of yesteryear when sex was as easy to come by as Sparkle Cola was now. Second there was the growing international squabbles in the west with nationalism being a commodity not exclusively to just Equestria. Places like Griffinstone, Trottingham and even the Crystal Empire all bickered ever more vehemently over their relative importance on the global stage. Wasn't long before bad blood festered enough to incubate a new culture of suspicion and unease between once friendly neighbors. Third...there was a rumor the once infamously pansexual, anything-goes Ministry Mare Pinkie Pie had long ago been rejected by a mare she loved like no other and the heartache from the experience led to her sudden embodiment of the Anti movement. Of course, nopony could prove the rumor true nor false, but its mere existence was enough to lend some clarity to her campaign to transform Equestria under her ever watchful gaze. I suppose the only lesson to take away from it was to never fuck with the heart of a girl who would essentially become the new face of the entire fucking government.

“Heh…well, thank you for your support Buck.” I responded, trying to think through the haze of embarrassment and lingering libido to what I had originally called them together to discuss. “Ah fuck, that's right. Sooooo...I’ll be honest with all of you and tell ya straight up. I have no fucking clue what we’re doing or what we’re getting into. All the Colonel told me was that we are flying into the thick of things and pulling a Bird From Hell over the L.Z to support any fire teams below and further instructions are anticipated pending Olive's directive. Other than that I don’t know anything.”

“Hmmm…well, if I were to hazard a guess, the situation down there seems so fucked that they probably don’t even know where they need us to be. My bits are on them telling us what they need a month after we first touch sand.” Pennies Worth chimed in. “You know, like Shattered Hoof? Or am I the only one who hasn't yet forgotten that shitshow?”

I bobbed my head in agreement until Rain Dancer commented, “I heard a rumor in the showers we’ll be working with the Tin Heads and that they’re being flown in from Manehattan by the dozens. No clue if it holds any weight but it ain't something the guys would joke about.”

Great, now we had to share the battlefield with the Steel Rangers? I knew war was unpredictable and fucked shit up across the board for almost everyone involved but…common. We were snipers, hoof-to-hoof experts and didn’t cause tons of friendly fire incidents with fucking tri-barreled automatic 40mm grenade launchers; all traits desirable in the trenches of the South. Tin Heads had rule of the east coast for what felt like a decade now, a place where the wide open plains, light hills and dense infrastructure lent itself much more readily to the T-45 and its strength as a walking death machine. The Badlands on the other hoof had become nothing but miles and miles of trenches, homemade bunkers and makeshift camps all carved into the orange/red earth with hoof, explosion and shovel. Whatever olive, apricot and almond trees that had made the region agriculturally famous had disappeared years ago in the chaos and bloodshed and I wondered if the area would ever be fertile enough to plant after all the magical fire, shrapnel and bullet casings that had been blasted into it.

“Well, if that’s true then we’ll just have to work with it.” I finally replied after my thoughts had finished wandering and had come back home. “They may be a bunch of Tin Heads, but they’re fellow Equestrians which means we gotta at least pretend to be friends out there so leave your dicks in your pants. You can measure them later once we’re flying home with another successful tour under our belts. Let's just do what we always do and before ya know it we'll be right back here in eight weeks time headed back north.”

There was a myriad of giggles and snickers from the rest of them until Pennies Worth giggled, “The day one of you grows a dick is the day I want to watch you two go at it.”

Snickers turned to full hearted laughs as the red flooded my face once more with a vengeance making my helmet a little stifling. After turning on my helmet’s built in air conditioner and giving myself a few moments to stop blushing so damn hard that my cheeks felt like they’d explode did I finally come back to the conversation they were having about what they would do to outshine the Steel Rangers. The overall plan was to just do what we did best: snipe bitches before they even saw the Tin Heads coming and steal their kills right in front of em. It pissed them off to no end and that tactic is where every Ranger shone through time and time again. The perfect plan indeed.

The flight from Camp Macintosh to the Badlands took only a few hours, most of that time spent in near darkness as they seemed to forget to replace or just turn on the lights in the troop carrier leaving Huckleberry and I plenty of time to hoof each other through our pants. As the bay door finally opened to the howling wind outside, causing everypony wearing a coat or loose piece of fabric to start flapping violently, I was hoping nopony would see me and wonder if I had pissed myself in fear or something. What even was I going to say? Yeah, me and Huckleberry came over six times each while sitting next to each other just randomly? Heh, no. My only hope was that the drop into the L.Z was enough to air-dry the wet spot reaching down my thighs to my hooves without anypony noticing.

“Alpha! Prepare for the green light!” Came the barking voice of the Drop Boss, the Pegasus whose only job was to yell at ponies and tell them when to dive out of the back of a moving vehicle ten thousand feet in the air.

Everypony dutifully stood and checked each other’s weapon and armor straps so we wouldn’t lose anything important on the way down before proceeding to the bay door, each step making our coats flap faster and more violently in the gale. As we stood near the door, a large set of lights came to life like clockwork on either side of the door jam, the big red one brightly illuminated for all to see. This would mark my sixteenth tour and my sixtieth jump into combat…and even after all that time, I still fucking hated flying. Vertigo is a bitch I never managed to subdue.

The green light came to life with a bright glow causing the Drop Boss to needlessly bark out, “Green means go you pansies! Sixty seconds down!” and I was tempted to pull him out with me and hope the Unicorns down below would catch him.

Parachutes had been around for ages but with all the gear we carried, not to mention the weight of Steel Rangers who dropped like blocks of solid tungsten, the chutes just couldn’t fit with everything on our backs let alone have room to deploy. So instead, there were a dedicated taskforce of Unicorns with advanced telekinetic powers who’d stand by at every L.Z to catch those of us stupid enough to jump out of a troop carrier without a parachute. Which was everypony. All in all, the results had spoke for themselves and parachutes became almost the exclusive property of cargo drops and Tin Heads. Long as the strict timetable and communication standards were adhered to, everything made it down safely every damn time without fail.

The adrenaline kicked in the moment my hooves started galloping down the sunlit bay door towards the great blue expanse beyond filled with fluffy white clouds all basked in the warmth of the sun above. The instinctual urge to stop myself from running and jumping at ten thousand feet up was just as strong as the first time I had been forced to do so but this time my resolve to shine as the new face of Alpha was so fierce that I was more than happy to dive headfirst into a warzone.

As my hooves left the relative safety of the transport, the full scale of the battle raging beneath me unfolded to my view. Even from so high up, it wasn’t hard to spot the bright flashes of muzzle blasts or the sparkling green or red trails of energy rifles flying around everywhere below, every now and again a much brighter and bigger explosion punctuating the conflict as a missile or artillery shell detonated here and there. The closer I got to the ground breaking through the scattered clouds, the more friendly blue ticks and the more angry red enemy ticks appeared on my E.F.S and the thought popped into my head that the number of red seemed uncomfortably more than the somewhat sporadic blue I was seeing on my visor.

“Uhhh, Ma’am?!” Rain Dancer cried out fearfully. “Where the fuck are the Uni’s?!”

I focused my attention on the L.Z where we were more or less dropping towards and squinted, my helmet’s built in magnification following my unspoken commands and giving me a rather clear view of the completely empty L.Z site that should have had at least ten Unicorns present plus their armed escort to catch us. Looking closer (a task helped by how fast we were all dropping) I finally found what remained of the Drop Crew seemingly flung around everywhere as bloodied piles of mush around a crater that was too big for any standard rocket to achieve. Indeed it was a crater to match a very large artillery shell but...last I had been informed, we had destroyed their artillery support weeks ago. Right...?

“Shit! L.Z’s wiped out!” I called out through my radio to my Squad mates who were further up than I was. “Pass the word and fucking think!”

The dusky red earth hurtled closer with every passing second as I frantically tore through my brain for any feasible idea on how to catch not only myself but the ten thousand other Rangers who were or were going to be right on my tail. I was fairly talented in telekinesis, able to lift and aim multiple weapons at once while on the move and under fire, but I was never trained as a Drop-Uni let alone how to even self-levitate, so my magic was as good as useless from up here. With nothing better to do and no ideas getting passed back to me about how we were to survive this (I could see the headlines…‘Alpha Squashed: Desert Rangers’ Finest Lose a Bet with Gravity!’) I slipped my AMR from my back and started firing at every stripped fuck I could get a good sight on. It was indescribably gratifying to see five of their heads pop like gory balloons or their bodies tear in pieces by the sheer power of the 25mm round and when I finally clicked on empty I was too close to the ground to reload and fire again.

With a final sigh of embarrassment I closed my eyes against the inevitable gory impact with the ground and said across our Squad channel for all to hear, “Just FYI Hucks? You still owe me that rim job I gave you last week.”

“Yeah…make sure you wash yours better this time.” She responded with a giggle.

****************

Chapter Five: Bones and Memories

“So tell me kid, what kinda gun did you lose out here anyway? I gotta know what I’m looking for in this place.” I said as I followed Golden Showers around the dingy, dimly lit interior of the labyrinth of aging tunnels. “What is it? A little .357? Seems like your kinda gun. Well...a .44 Magnus or .45 Auto is probably manageable enough for you to control. I'm sure your budget also had a major say in your choice of weapon.”

His head poked out of a collapsed doorway, his small frame allowing him to squeeze into places I wouldn’t unless I was in the mood for some heavy lifting and squeaked, “N-no! Actually I f-found a genuine S-Sequoia here! Y-you know! T-the biiiigg revolver Veteran Rangers were a-awarded when they g-got promoted?”

That stopped me in my tracks. If he had found a Sequoia there was a chance it still had the name of the Vet who carried it engraved on the handle. It was a long shot to be able to remember who it was after so long but idle curiosity was always a shortcoming of mine I couldn't help but indulge. After all, I was here again...perhaps a bit of exploration was ok shock therapy. It wasn't like he knew the people I did or my part in the chaos that followed so...ugh...fuck it. Just fuck it.

"A Sequoia you say?" I replied after what could've been a fortnight of thought. "That is a...rather exquisite find. Not to mention rare. How'd you come across it?"

"W-well...this place w-was mentioned i-in several magazines a-and books I've c-collected!" His voice echoed from somewhere on my right in a decrepit meeting room. "T-they all talked about how t-the Rangers kept their base of c-command here and conducted all t-the Westcoast o-operations. A b-base that important h-has gotta be s-stuffed silly with s-stuff to loot after a-all."

"A reasonable assumption, where did the fascination with these Rangers come from? There seems to be a hazy memory of them in the common perception of the past but it is overshadowed by the NER's pale imitation."

"Y-you seem to know a l-lot about them t-too." He commented with curiosity after a moments pause. "I-I always wondered who exactly t-they were...I heard a-about their i-involvement in the Badlands half of the W-War here but I g-guess they must have all b-been there when the Balefire B-Bombs went off. T-there's next to n-nothing to find a-about them!"

The situation was evolving in an unexpected way. I was used to the occasional person asking if I am/was a Ranger for the New Equestrian Republic or at the least had the balls to kill one and strip their armor for myself. After all my armor looked close enough to theirs, it only made sense I got it that way. The predecessor of the Post-War elite of the west had been too efficiently blown off the face of history; a mocking nail of irony in their casket. Indulging him a bit in history wouldn't hurt much...perhaps it could do some good. I was already indulging him enough as it was after all...

"No, you got it right. They were all deployed en-masse to the Southern Front in the final month of the War and with resources as limited as there were, all information and equipment was kept in here in Camp Macintosh. Badlands are probably full of desiccated Ranger gear but who in their right mind goes there with the reputation is has? Blowing up the Camp plus a severe lack of media attention prior to that made erasing the Desert Rangers from public mind a fuckin' breeze. What had started as a promising push towards the ocean shores of the Abrak Jungle and kicking the Empire off the Continent ended up as a sudden last ditch counteroffensive. Shamans had been brewing up some horrible creations from Abyssal Magicks for who knew how long and sent em plus what remained of the Imperial internal forces up the harder but less defended route to Canterlot. East got all the attention and resources since it was the highly populated coastline facing the Far Continent, a fact we all learned after two failed attempts and a third one that was in progress when the Balefire detonated."

There was a palpable silence this time. It was possible I had overshared, if only by the sheer volume of information, but once I started letting it out, it felt...good to continue. I could dance around the Great War itself as much as I wanted to and get a chance to talk about the comparatively less traumatic events that proceeded it. He seemed attentive enough and hungry for knowledge about my previous profession in a way that was...charming to say the least. His case was subtly improved by being so young in appearance and tone. Ghoulification or no, the enthusiasm was enhanced as there was a distinct hint of whimsy that made it easier to unwind. I basically had a fan of my own with his attention focused on ancient history that meant little to anyone anymore. That...was something I found myself rather enjoying oddly enough, more so than expected when I had opened my mouth to speak. The itch of carnal pleasures needing a scratch was one thing; a more primal, instinctual thing that even Feral animals understood and acted upon when the mood struck. The itch of military and civic fame for deeds long made moot? Well, that was a sensation I had never thought I would experience in this way ever again. I was a Hitmare of some infamy with all the notoriety that came with such a burden. To be called that in the streets hardly fazed me at all as it wasn't a title anyone could just use without the approval of the Syndicate or skill to enforce their title. To be called a Ranger...it never felt right after everything that had happened long before now. The Desert Rangers were a forgotten memory while in its place the NER Rangers had taken their name and image, only partially understanding the long history they were attempting to commandeer for themselves. They gave the name some credit and their reputation was commendable for a Post-War organization but all the same...they were a pale imitation of the real thing.

"W-where did you learn all t-this...?" He finally asked while starting to wriggle back into the main corridor I was standing in. "D-do the N-NER teach this s-stuff in Ranger s-school?"

"Where? Well...nothing against the NER but they don't know shit about the DRC. I know what I do because I was there for the War against the Zebras so all my knowledge is first-hoof. If you haven't already noticed my revolver, I served and survived the Southern Front long enough to earn my own Sequoia. I would like to think that is an ample enough evidence but if you need more convincing...take another look at my armor and tell me the NER has anything this advanced. Now, I'll admit most of my service was down South in the Badlands with a few tours on the Eastern Front during the early days of the War. Of course...that was back before I was extended the opportunity to join the Desert Ranger Corps."

He nearly collapsed under some rubble he was shifting to worm his way free and rolled out onto the floor followed by a cloud of dust as the concrete crumpled under its own weight rendering the doorway completely unusable again. As he stood, the dazed look on his face continued leading me to assume he was gobsmacked at what I had just said. He was a smart kid. Er...adult? Ghouls were damned hard to age and I didn't want to be inadvertently rude to him because of that.

“What, you couldn’t tell I’m a Veteran, kid?” I asked as I afforded myself a smirk of amusement, hidden as I was inside my helmet. "Or is our reputation so out of date only the NER has a monopoly over the term 'Veteran Ranger'?"

“Y-you’re a r-r-real Veteran R-Ranger?!” He stuttered along, something I came to accept as being just part of him. "L-like...an o-original Ranger??"

“Yep," I said with a hint of pride. "And like I said, I got the gun to prove it. No bullshit."

My old girl slid out of her holster as smooth as melted butter and even I couldn't help but admire her yet again with a renewed awareness of the circumstances that brought my most reliable tool into being to begin with. Paying extra for the solid Celestium Steel frame was an act of foresight I had no idea at the time would see it remain functional and sturdy over two centuries; well past acceptable tolerance levels lesser guns would have succumbed to long ago. The hit to my personal finances had been rather bruising at the time but I had more than gotten my money's worth out of it. It also meant my name and the date of my promotion to Veterancy, carved in silver into the bottom of the butt of the frame, was as fresh as the day it was inscribed. Third of July, 2072. My twenty-sixth birthday. Young for a Veteran but...promotions were coming sooner and sooner for everyone back then as the corpses piled higher and higher on both sides of the fight.

His smaller and stubby looking horn glowed with golden magic as his eyes begged to hold it for himself while his mouth tried to form words with nothing to show for it. With a nod I let his small golden aura take the gun from my grip and float it back to his wide eyes, every inch and detail of the black and silver revolver (including the dark red cherry grip) being examined in excruciating detail. The wonder and glee in his eyes as he made sure every inch of the thing was seen twice over was more than enough to convince me parting with my weapon was a safe call. Of course, in the event he turned it on me I was more than ready to cut him down with the combat knives hidden in the small of my back without another thought. Would be the loss of an interesting little Ghoul but at the end of the day I would have something interesting to note in my journal that wasn't more of my usual philosophical rambles in-lieu of more...journal type information. Aside from big, interesting Contracts, there usually wasn't much worth noting about in there with every day feeling like the last week after week, month after month, decade after decade.

“T-this is…w-wow…” He whispered as he leveled the iron sights up to his eye towards the wall. “W-where did you get t-this? I've n-never seen a-anything like i-it!”

“Wellll, back when they still existed, I sent a custom order form to Ironshod Firearms once I got a hefty bonus on my paycheck from some extra voluntary work in the field. Took them eight months to tinker about with the frame and latch design until they had a working prototype but it would wear down the steel quickly. With some extra extra funding, they got their hooves on a crate of pure Celestium Steel ingots to play with and solid cast the damn thing from a custom mold. Cost me about a couple hundred-thousand-something bits all said and done but god damn has it served me well since day-one.” I chuckled softly as pride took up further residence in my breast leaving me feeling more…normal than I had in decades.

“R-really…? I didn’t e-even know t-that was p-possible!” He exclaimed as he swung the massive hoof cannon around with pure glee making sure not to point it directly at me which I appreciated.

“Well, an old friend of my mom had a cousin who was the C.E.O of Ironshod, so I got incredibly lucky. Always pays to have connections no matter when or where you are.” I explained as he finally gave the gun back to me, the regret of letting it go chiseled into his face like weeping stone. “As I'm sure you're relatively aware of, all other Sequoias are swivel-action and made from a steel alloy. Far as I know, this is the only model of its kind ever produced since I also paid for the private patent to the design and shit went to hell within a few months of its casting and manufacture.”

Just for vanity's sake I couldn't help but depress one of the two ambidextrous latches coming off the rear of the frame and let the forward-heavy barrel and cylinder assembly drop under its own sizable weight. Even the mass of the large rounds couldn't withstand the strength of the newly replaced auto-ejector spring and so, all six flung out around my hooves with satisfying clinks of brass on concrete. He watched with awe as I pulled a custom speedloader from the large collection on my waist, six fresh rounds held in thin spring-steel fingers, and pushed them down into the waiting cylinder; the spring steel recessing into the base plate of the speedloader smooth and easy. With a quick push, the steel fingers came back out and I easily slipped the rounds on the ground in between the tines ready for another two-second reload. It never got old...I was a top-break bitch for life and I loved these funky, old fashioned Mareseillian speedloaders. The Gun Runners kept their promise to me to not lend out the design just so I could enjoy it alone...after a very hefty bribe of course.

“T-that's f-fucking awesome!! Common’! Mine w-was in b-bad shape but you seem to k-know a lot about them so m-maybe you can f-fix it! T-that would be amazing!" And with that he shot off down the dingy corridor and deeper into the molding, rusty ruins of a place I could narrowly navigate even when it was a functional facility. If there was one thing I could be certain of, the only way I knew to get down to the sublevels of Macintosh was via a single elevator in the heart of the Operations building.

The AutoMapping spell of my helmet tried desperately to map out where exactly I was (since I had about as much of a clue as it did and I had lived here) but with little luck. The gloomy rubble filled hallways were burnt black from Balefire and the damage of age and I found myself missing the boring, monotonous grey of the old concrete floors, walls and ceiling of these tunnels. Tastefully punctuated every now and again with an overhead light that hummed softly but angrily overhead while the bare walls only received the most basic of 'decorations'. The lights, at least some of them, still functioned and cast enough light that my LED lamp was only needed in certain areas where they died entirely and I could still faintly remember the markings to guide one along. Lines in various colors marking the floor to indicate destinations at a glance and itemized letters and numbers dotting the walls periodically in a never ending sequence that would drive anyone mad. That was, until we managed to stumble across the central atrium of the sublevel complex that formed the base of the elevator I was familiar with. Despite being several hundred feet belowground, the entire complex was huge, its fringes reaching far and wide beyond the confines of the Camp walls. That being said, I had only limited and rather ambiguous access to the whole installation during my tenure so we were incredibly lucky to have stumbled across the atrium. At least now I had a point of reference to try and work with to navigate, the path behind us marked by bullet holes in the walls at obvious points from the small pocket pistol I kept stashed in my tail for emergencies with my abundance of cheap .357 ammo. While not quite a disaster in the making, knowing your way out of a maze you willingly entered is just good judgement. That, and I didn't carry a giant marker or can of spray paint on my person so I had to improvise.

The atrium was a lofty, domed room featuring a large crystal chandelier dangling over the circular receptionist desk in the center of the room still glowing softly overhead with dying bulbs. Most of the room's dingy lighting came from the emergency lights above each archway leading down one of six main corridors leading out of the room like the spokes of a wheel, one of which we had just entered in by. Whilst the reception desk was surrounded by a small sea of tables and chairs for those waiting their turn at the receptionist, the spaces of wall between each archway out served as recessed alcoves of padded benches and hardwood tables, not unlike booths one would find in a diner. A quirky perk of being an officer that I had forgotten, the atrium was a convenient place to establish an unofficial restaurant serving any and all with the clearance to make it down the elevator without getting to the bottom eight pounds heavier in lead projectiles. The galley was down...one of these corridors...somewhere. The alcoves were something I had always wanted to try...seeing Lieutenants and Colonels alike sharing a hearty hayburger together and taking a moment to just be people...I don't know. There was a certain glamour to eating here that I regretted never getting the opportunity to try.

"W-where are we?" He asked after my distraction by the alcoves drew me in to sit down in the one closest me.

The padding was nothing short of divine. Cupping every inch of my body like a satin sling and seemingly suspending me with all the gentle grace of still water. They had wasted no expense on the Rotunda Diner...and I had wasted my chance to go when I could get damn good smelling food and relax in this nirvana of cushioned peace I was not expecting but was pleasantly ok with accepting. I'd fuckin' earned it. Was just a shame it was 200 years too late to order anything and truly enjoy the experience for what it had been. Still...the sit down was worth it at least.

"We..." I sighed in contentment after relishing the cushions in silence for a few moments. "Are in the Rotunda Diner, central atrium for this whole maze of rat tunnels. Used to be able to sit here and get food, damn fucking good food, brought to ya. No cost, all expenses paid for by the government. The fuckin' dream for anyone...a dream I missed out on. Lemme tell ya something Gold...don't use the words 'someday' or 'soon' when talking about wanting to do shit with your life. In my experience...sooner becomes later and later...well, later never comes."

He nodded attentively as he stood nearby, my weird suddenly personal bit of advice being gobbled up instead of ridiculed as I had expected. The atrium was all at once familiar and foreign to me...some things I remembered clear as day about it like the misspelled 'I' in the Camp Macintosh mural painted on the ceiling above the chandelier while other things were entirely new details to me. The reception desk definitely didn't look like a reinforced pillbox the last time I was down here as the entire circular desk was encased in a concrete wall with a small strip of window circumnavigating the rim near the top. To be fair there had to be several months between my last visit and the start of the Great War but militarizing the receptionist desk in a secure underground facility that is beneath an equally secure military base was something I was sure I would have remembered. There was no mounted HMG poking out from it but there might as well have been.

With a reluctant sigh I got back to my hooves as I could see he was rearing to go and I had to admit I was curious myself to see what we could find down here. The Crater was notorious for Hellhound activity but we had been lucky not to spot any so far. These tunnels would serve them and their burrowing habits well and yet...aside from some obvious signs of activity near the entrance, the deeper we got, the more pristine the ruins seemed. Picking a random archway off a gut choice, we wandered out of the atrium and back into the belly of the beast. Any door sign I tried reading was far too faded by time or blackened by fire for me to make out anything written on them forcing me to resign myself that despite my memories of being here almost every day for fifteen years, I was hopelessly lost. The Balefire seemed to have scorched its way far deeper through the facility than I had expected even Necromantic magic to produce... Would explain the lack of skeletal remains in what would otherwise have been a populous location. Only the Rads that came from arcane destruction of this scale would be 'gentle' enough to leave something behind.

“H-hey! I f-found a door sign!” His raspy voice called out from much further ahead, my bittersweet reminiscing losing track of where he was. “D-does the name C-Colonel Horn m-mean anything to y-you?”

I seriously hoped he was just pulling my tail. Colonel Horn was a name I hadn’t heard spoken aloud in decades…so I had to admit there was no way he randomly pulled that name out of his ass to just rile me up. I trotted much quicker than I expected myself to go, following the little green tick on my E.F.S until I found him staring up at a gold plaque on the wall that I recognized the moment I saw it. Room 101, a room I had found myself in a lot more often than I would ever care to admit over the course of my tenure with the Rangers. Usually it for was minor things (though I always had a mini heart attack every time I heard that the Colonel wanted to see me) like battle tactics and advice on how to step up through the ranks but every now and again, I would find myself on the receiving end of his well-hidden temper.

The time Buck Beak ‘appropriated’ a crate of the Colonel’s finest Apple Jack Whiskey for the whole Squad (save myself and Huckleberry since we preferred the non-alcoholic version), I was stuck in his office for a good three hours as he went back and forth between wanting to demote me and sweeping it all under the rug for old time’s sake. Obviously he had chosen the rug yet again (I hated to think on what else he had stuffed under that thing) and I was let off with yet another verbal warning while the real culprit was ordered to clean the latrines with a toothbrush held in his beak and fly laps in a set of custom lead combat armor every day for a month. The Load of Shame the armor was called. Specially made out of pure lead so the weight of your stupidity weighed even heavier on your shoulders. Good times... Gold slowly opened up the door to the office, which gave a howling shriek from its rusted out hinges, causing both of us to jump back a bit, me with my gun pointed right at the door out of sheer fight or flight instinct. We both shared a small laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation before I followed him into the office, which was surprisingly still intact compared to the rest of the building though it wasn’t much more aesthetically pleasing than the hallway outside. All things tended to turn dull and crack under the pressure of a couple centuries of neglect and laying forgotten. Everything was just as I had remembered it being the last time I had set hoof in there two centuries earlier in what would be my last meeting with my C.O in this office. His dark mahogany desk lay in the far end of the room (though its former waxy polished grandeur was covered in centuries’ worth of radioactive dust) beneath a sadly tarnished photo of the stallion himself in his formal military attire, his bushy mustache looking clean and neatly trimmed. Along the walls of the perfectly rectangular office were more photos of dead ponies, plaques of now meaningless awards and medals, bookshelves of rotted books and a slightly warped liquor cabinet with one of its doors missing and the other one flung wide open. Were it not for the obvious signs of time, shit lighting and the broken cabinet, I could almost believe I was stepping back in time...

“W-was this y-your commander’s o-office?” Gold asked softly, glancing around as if he would desecrate the room just by looking at it.

“Mhm.” I hummed simply, walking across the faded and grimy Trottingham rug that gave little puffs of dust with every hoofstep. “He was a good stallion. One of the best I ever knew and a damn fine soldier and commander.”

“O-oh…” He whispered softly, the silent room amplifying his words to the point it sounded like he was only speaking quietly.

I edged around the desk, sparing a furtive glance at the pair of rotted chairs that myself and many others had occupied before me, and came around to the view Colonel Horn had enjoyed behind his desk of authority. His antique leather chair, a relic even before the War, was still just as sturdy and plush as ever; a true testament to the Earth ponies of yesteryear who knew how to build things to last. The old terminal still glowed a faint sickly green on the desk to my right, the glow being masked under a thick film of grime that I quickly wiped away with a hoof before looking at the message displayed on the screen in blinking green letters.

‘Message Paused. Resume Recording?’

“W-what’s that mean…?” Gold asked as he peeked over the edge of the desk at the terminal.

“It means that my old friend left us one last message.” I said simply as I tapped the arrow keys to get to the play button.

“This here damned thing on yet?” The voice echoed in the room from the small P.A speakers still built into the corners, the hallways echoing as well. “Ah, thank Celestia's soggy teats…well…looks like th’ world got fucked afta all! Whoda thunk eh? Happy apocalypse everypony! Bet plenty o' y'all been placin' bets on when it'd happen...right before Nightmare Night too! How...fuckin' goddamn poetic...”

There was a loud clicking underlining his words in the background, the same sound my Geiger counter was making as I listened to his last words though the intensity of my own was much softer. The air raid sirens wailed as well though the sound was muffled by the walls of his office. A faint rattling of the terminal itself could also be heard as the blasts that ended the world went off somewhere in the distance. At any moment the big one that left Macintosh a crater was gonna go off... It happened lifetimes ago and yet, I was still clenching my gut against the inevitable.

“Guess Ah can say whateva th’ fuck Ah want now eh?” He chuckled, a wheezing cough ending his mirth after a few seconds. “Tah all ya’ll Zebra fucks?! GO FUCK YOSELFS! Tah Princess fuckin' Luna Ah say yew was ah terrible leader 'n can be blamed fer loads 'o shit that ain't gonna mattah tha' much longer. Tah th' Hexagon, y'all fuckin' bastards are hella tah blame fer this shit too and y'all can kiss mah ass in hell! Tah ahll mah Rangers…? Ah hope ya’ll kicked some serious ass out there…ahlways believed in killin’ Zebs in fair combat ya hear? This here Megaspell bullshit? Cheapest way tah win ah War eva. Oh yeah...an' ah particularly huge fuck you tah General Olive Leaf fer rustlin' mah best Rangers an' sendin' mah ass back tah Camp Macintosh! Ah belong on th' Front tah die wit' mah soldiers wit' dignity goddamnit!”

His coughs became more and more frequent until he couldn’t hardly finish a word, let alone a sentence without the sound of his lungs crapping out on him. Acute radiation poisoning was a total bitch…I knew from experience just how much it wrecked ponies’ shit. Judging from the faded blood stains on the desk and the terminal and floor…he was close to death at the time of the recording from coughing up blood as his organs shut down one by one and internal bleeding found its way outside the body. An ignoble end to such a wonderful stallion...

“Ah fuck it…” He finally wheezed after a solid minute of gut wrenching coughing. “Ahma get ah drink…be right back…ain't done givin' y'all fucks ah piece 'o mah mind...”

And with that the recording hit its end where he had paused it two hundred and five years earlier. I looked up from the desk and towards the liquor cabinet to see his final resting place. His skeleton was so badly burnt I could see why I hadn’t noticed it the first time I had entered the room. Leaving the very comfortable chair behind, I loped slowly over to where he lay at the base of the cabinet, sprawled on his back with the remains of his hoof wrapped around an unopened bottle of Apple Jack Whiskey. Looking over the other unopened bottles on the floor around him I realized he had probably died trying to open the bottle for his last drink as none of the other bottles were missing their lids. A deep sense of sadness filled my heart as I gently lifted the bottle from his hoof with my magic, the baby blue light from its aura casting his remains in a gentle light. Sadness…now that was something I had almost forgotten the name for.

“P-poor Colonel H-Horn…” Gold whispered with a squeak as he stood by me gazing down at what was left of my old friend.

I pulled the cork out of the bottle with a pleasant pop taking note that it was almost free to begin with and held the bottle of pungent liquor over the open mouth of my fallen comrade.

“Sir…I know you…can’t hear me…wherever the hell you are…but I wished to bring you my last report as one of your Rangers before I tender my resignation.” I said quietly, unsure if this was a fitting eulogy or not. “Sir, the Zebras were thicker than the Everfree in the Badlands…we lost a lot of good Rangers down there even before the bombs went off…but I can tell you with confidence Alpha and I had their stripped asses on the run in those last few moments under Maripony. And you would have been proud of us to see them running back to their fucking Empire with their tails between their legs. We...I...lost everyone on the way there...by the time we made it to the tunnels of Splendid Valley, it was just Hucks, Penny and I. I...I couldn't save them...anyone...everyone died thinking they were saving Equestria…if only Hucks could have been so lucky to share in that misguided dream...”

I stopped to glance around the office for something, anything to put on his body as a proper burial shroud and laid my eyes on the Equestrian national flag he had been awarded for his service in the field. Respectively I unfolded the flag from its triangular display case and gazed at the pristine symbol of the nation I should have died for two hundred years ago with the rest of my Squad. I laid down the half white/half midnight blue silk upon his body leaving his head exposed and took a moment to gaze upon the Sun and Moon motif emblazoned in the center of the flag, the symbol of our Royal Sisters. I never knew what happened to my rulers during the bombings and hadn’t felt the urge to find out…but this blast from the past awakened something in me that demanded answers. Answers as to what happened to everypony I had once known and loved before the War. I had avoided the pain for too long...I needed to move on and let myself bring their stories to a close for good in my mind and heart. This...this was a good step in the right direction.

“Colonel, Sir, your last drink…two hundred and five years late.” I said finally, pouring the contents of the bottle into his open mouth before covering his head with the flag and placing his tattered signature cap with the little silver Phoenix signifying his rank upon his shrouded sternum.

I set the empty bottle back into the cabinet and sat on the floor taking a trip down memory lane one last time with my Commanding Officer. I always enjoyed his company even when he was angry at me. His Southern roots in Appleloosa were always a point of conversation as he relaxed in his chair over a bottle of his favorite liquor. He grew up on an apricot farm with his massive (and I mean massive) family of eighteen brothers and sisters plus all their aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins and so forth ending in a total population of around two hundred ponies in all, all living on the same two thousand acre farm. Sometime around the age of eighteen is when he decided the farm life just wasn’t for him and he decided (well, more like resigned himself) to the only other family approved profession that wouldn’t get him disowned: the military. Every buck in his family (and a good portion of the mares too) had served at least two years in the military with his grandfather achieving the rank of Colonel before him. After passing basic training and getting railroaded into officer school, he just fell in love with the military life and fit right in, slowly passing into legend like many before him. Equestria's military history was rather short but that was only a testament to how long Harmony had existed in the world prior. I could only wonder what mom must have thought witnessing the slow decent into chaos having lived back when the world was still relatively innocent. Well...innocent compared to the War... It was such a damn shame the Horn had to die like this…barely into his fifties and still able to outshoot even me on the range while holding a conversation at the same time. Denied the dignity of dying alongside his subordinates like a King on a lost game of chess fighting to the last.

“Farewell, old timer.” I said finally as I stood up and blinked the film of tears out of my eyes that I hadn’t even noticed form. “Hope you get to kick some serious Zebra ass of your own wherever the hell you are. Rock, rock on you crazy motherfucker.”

Gold looked up at me with tears in his eyes as he whispered, “T-that was…the c-coolest funeral ever!”

I nodded, the tears finally gone as I returned to business as usual. I may respect my C.O and gave him as proper a funeral as I could manage but he also had stuff that could be scavenged and sold to keep me and Gold alive. Nostalgia was a double edged sword I had been cut by one too many times before and I would not allow myself to get nicked by it again, not when I had a Contract still on the line. The Apple Jack Whiskey, though not particularly grand like a bottle of Trottingham Wine or Saddle Arabian Brandy, was of the highest quality and thus would fetch a nice price per bottle at any sensible merchant. After slipping all twenty bottles plus a few dozen cartons of fine cigars and cigarettes into my saddlebags, I made my way back to the terminal to see if there was any information that could lead me to more goodies. Walking over the rug, I took a slightly different path than I had taken to get to the cabinet and felt something off beneath my hooves that was hidden by the rug. With nothing better to do in the moment, I pulled back the rug to reveal a safe nestled safely underneath, a small red light indicating the bolts were still all locked tightly into place.

“O-oooh!” Gold gasped as he saw the safe. “I w-wonder what’s in t-there!”

“That’s what I’m gonna try and find out.” I replied as I sat down in the chair once more and exited the recording, the twinge of nostalgia in me downloading the message into my helmet’s massive storage device for future listening.

Most of the information on the main page of his terminal was boring, useless, and outdated information about troop movements and supply requisitions (though I found it notable that my Squad was still listed as ‘Beta’ in his records) and I ignored all his personal notes for a later time, focusing instead on the option at the very bottom labeled, ‘Safe Control’. Taping the key there was a loud thunk from the floor safe as the bolts jumped back on command turning the once red light green. It was just my luck that he had left his terminal unlocked for just anypony to break into and I sent a quiet thank you in the direction of his skeleton before helping Gold open the safe to whatever was hidden inside. Was it rude to break into his personal belongings like a calloused bitch? Probably...but it would only go to waste laying in there next to his long dead remains and even he would agree that it would be better for me of all ponies to have what he left behind than one of the deranged lunatics wandering the Wasteland who would only squander its worth. Whatever it was.

What lay inside was a treasure trove of objects. Most of them were personal effects like a neatly folded dress uniform and cap along with a few particularly shiny medals (all of which would fetch a wonderful price at the right vendor) and some other treasures. Of particular note was the Colonel’s own custom engraved Sequoia from his days in the field, an adjustable leather leg holster with a built in bandolier and several dozen boxes of .45-70 Celestia rounds. Beneath all that were a few bags of gold bits, a pair of extremely powerful binoculars (that were on par with the scope of my AMR), and a complete set of original Desert Ranger armor designated as the Mrk. I of the Ranger Series of combat armor I wore myself. Even the original canvas duster was included with the markings on the shoulder indicating its 'ancient' origins in the San-Palomino Desert and Badlands of old.

“H-holy shitballs…” Gold gasped as he held aloft the old helmet with its muted maroon lenses and other notable differences from the fully militarized version I wore. “I-I’ve never seen one like this b-before…”

I chuckled as he put it on his head, the fit just a bit off because of his small size and said, “That’s because that’s the Pre-War model that started it all. Back when the Desert Rangers only patrolled the San-Palomino Desert and Badlands for things like Dragons, Manticores, large Coyote packs and basically anything that could harm farmland or travelers/caravans through those areas. If you can’t tell, it’s not exactly equipped for intense, long-term combat engagements. Still, it held its own in a fight from what I heard. You gotta understand this shit is old, even by my standards. I mean when he was wearing this in active service my mom was probably just out of high school. The original Rangers were really just glorified Sheriffs roaming the desert keeping the peace. Of course...that was long before they were gobbled up by the EAF.”

He removed the older helmet from his head and held it beside my own for comparison, the differences almost strikingly obvious. While the old Pre-War Mrk, I model had a single filter gas mask built into the helmet and came equipped with a radio/tactical light package like mine did, the amount of upgrades added to the later models made the old girl look outdated. The Mrk. IV I wore boasted a dual filter mask that did more than protect from sand and smoke and protected from all kinds of gases like NecroGas and airborne substances, not the least of which was radioactive dust. Alongside that, the lenses were a bright blood red color (indicating the built-in optics package the Mrk. I lacked), the radio\light rig were larger boasting a much improved LED and the overall construction was significantly thicker. The Mrk. IV also boasted an EVA rated hermetic seal between the helmet and underbarding effectively allowing a Ranger to swim or otherwise exist in deadly atmosphere for up to ninety minutes with the refillable oxygen tanks on our armored backs. I had only seen the Mrk. I version of the Black Armor in pictures before now and to have it physically in hoof was rather illuminating for the armor nerd inside me, showing just how far and viscous armed combat had come since those very old days. ArmsTech had truly come a long way in seventy years...

As I finished explaining the differences between the helmets, Gold floated out the single desert camo painted breastplate (the dragon logo of the Rangers looking almost freshly painted in white on the left side) and the accompanying tan canvas duster, a set of lightly reinforced leather boots and a pair of faded khakis. The discrepancies between my armor and the one before us was even more obvious than the difference in the helmets. Missing were the larger neck guard (the number on his labeled 24), the external padded metal shoulder guards as well as any sort of armor protecting the hind legs and flanks. The ‘bracers’ were nothing more than shaped pieces of plain homogenized rolled steel fastened to the sleeves with wrapped leather bands and a connected piece that covered the front of the hoof. All in all…I couldn’t help but laugh at how little the armor seemed to want to protect regardless of the circumstances of the era surrounding its use. Even the NER, lacking in the industrial and technological prowess of the Pre-War world, had obtained the means to produce the Mrk. IIs in limited quantities for their own Ranger battalion and despite its own under-armored design, it was superior to this relic. It was good armor...for the time.

“W-wow…” Gold whispered to himself, his eyes glancing over the stallion sized coat and armor then back at his diminutive size that would never grow due to his transformation into a Ghoul. “T-things must have b-been so p-peaceful back t-then huh?”

I nodded glumly, trying to remember back to a time before the War but having great difficulties doing so since it had more or less begun when I was only six years old with the Resource Wars of the 2050s and stretched into my early thirties before the bombs fell. There had been a tense undertone to most of my life that I had just...grown up with accepting as the norm. I could only imagine what mom had emotionally gone through having to live through that transition from peaceful coexistence between the nations and races to outright brutal world war. Her longevity had been more of a curse than a blessing no matter what she tried to say to dispute that.

“They were…” I replied with a heavy sigh. “But I didn’t see much of them myself. I was still a filly when the War started so I didn’t know much of the real scope of the peace we had back then. Everything was much simpler I can tell you that…and aside from the rising inflation, things were pretty dandy.”

“I-inflation…?” He asked cutely, his youthful vibe almost infectious. "L-like a...b-ball or something?"

“Eh…I don’t want to bore you with Pre-War economics but let’s just say this bag of bits here would probably only get you about five days’ worth of food and maybe a good magazine or two to read when you weren't busy working your ass off for some corporate juggernaut.” I said sadly, nodding to the rather large sack of bits lying next to the safe. I knew I was being a little excessive with the hyperbole as that amount was probably good for two weeks’ worth of food and a dozen magazines but he seemed to get the point. Nor would he be able to refute my words even if he didn’t.

“Holy s-shit…” He whispered, glancing into the bag of gold with dismay. “B-but there’s so m-much s-stuff left over still!”

“That’s the funny thing. Production in Equestria skyrocketed as we tried finding alternative power sources to Zebra coal and the invention of the Spark-Battery and Spark-Packs only made it better but it was too little, too late. By the time we had a modest production volume of self-contained magical energy cells in circulation, the War had reached such a level of fucked up that there was no possible way for us to share the tech with all other countries who needed it, including the Zebras who honestly probably didn’t even want it anymore. Not that we would have wanted to give them access to Nexus Crystals or the tech to harness them to begin with.”

“W-wait…I…I always wondered…w-why did the War with the Z-Zebras start?” He asked, looking up from the helmet with interest.

“That is one hell of a long story that I honestly don’t know all the complex details to but the SparkNotes version is the Zebras needed our gems for their magic Voodoo shit and we needed their coal for our industry because we were fucking idiots who didn’t care about the environment or the fact we had magic. Long story short, their coal and our gem supplies started dying out on us and we started bickering over who got what and for how much. One of our negotiators insulted their honor somehow, and trust me, honor is a huge fucking deal to them, and then boom. The shit hits the fan and War is born from the crazy angry buttsex from our stupid arguments with the Zebras.” I said, laughing a little at the end at what I had described the events leading up to the War to be like. And in all honesty…I wasn’t really that far off on the whole angry buttsex part if the rumor I heard about that negotiator and the female Zebra were to be believed.

He laughed at my analysis of the prelude to the War and returned his attention to the armor and helmet as his smile faded and he whispered, “T-too bad I-I’m not big enough f-for this a-armor…and I-I never will b-be…”

I felt another pang of sadness at the plight of this random Ghoul whom I hadn’t even known for more than a couple hours but felt myself liking a lot. A horrible side effect of Ghoulification was the veritable cessation of physical development and aging meaning no matter how old Gold or any other foal-sized Ghoul got, they would never grow into adult sized individuals. The Ferals could give a fuck less since the littler ones couldn’t run as fast as the adults and usually died off eventually from starvation (yes, even Ghouls needed some amount of sustenance to get by) but those who kept their brains were stuck being kids (in body at least) forever.

I tried for a moment to imagine myself in his position with his fascination with the Desert Rangers and to come across a pristine set of their armor. No, it wasn’t the heavily armored combat version that covered all body parts as well as the vital organs but it was a piece of history. A history that was rich with stories of great prowess in battle, incredible survival skills and a code of honor to fight for the once great nation of Equestria. That and it was extremely high quality and with some luck and skill you would be able to cover the other parts of your body that needed protection with homemade or merchant bought armor. It was far from a hard problem to solve and with the number of quality armor merchants in The Pile, there was plenty of opportunity to fill in the gaps in protection the Mrk. I lacked. Of course, the poor colt would never be able to fit into that armor no matter how long he waited. That is…unless I did something about it.

“Hey…” I said softly, lifting his chin with the less sharp edge of my reinforced combat boot. “Chin up kid. I have a couple friends who might be able to help tailor a coat in your size and if we play our cards right we might just find some of the shit we need to make something in your size alright? I know a guy who, for the right price, can take this apart and resize it for you. Maybe. The Mrk. I might have some quirks to it since mass standardization of spare parts and repair simplification took awhile to get into wide practice. Won't know till he cracks it open.”

He gazed at me with wide eyes filled with shock and amazement as he tried to form words but simply couldn’t, his natural stutter only exacerbated by his shock. I smiled back at him in response and informed him the chest piece (which was almost as iconic as the duster and helmet) would easy to do by hoof with the proper tools seeing as it was merely a shaped piece of long-fiber Kevyarn with segmented poly-ceramic/steel pieces bolted on top. Thinking on it I actually had all the tools needed to make his armor and his duster (minus some basic supplies like thread) and for once…I felt myself wanting to help somepony and expect nothing in return. Every badass who’s served their time deserves to choose how they spend their free time and money. In this case…this little colt was so close to his dream of being a discount Desert Ranger that…I just couldn’t pass up the chance to see him smile again. Having a personal fanboy around that was interested in what's in my head rather than under my tail was a pleasant feeling after all and I couldn't help but feel the need to take another hit off this new euphoria I was experiencing. Who knew? Maybe with time he could be trained as a competent sidekick of sorts to take along on Contracts. It had been far too long since I had worked with a spotter anyway...

“Y-you w-would do t-that for m-me…?” He finally managed to whisper after a few moments of him trying to form even a single word. “W-why…?”

“Because…” I started, trying to find a good reason that wouldn’t shed light on the weaknesses in my hardened façade. “Because you’re probably the only pony I know who has given a shit about my old career and actually knows what the hell I’m talking about. I don’t see a problem with you wearing our armor or even pretending you’re one of us since…well, you don’t exactly see ponies running around calling themselves Desert Rangers now do you? Not even the NER uses that term and they practically stole our legacy right out from under us.”

He shook his head just as I had expected him to. The Black Armor (the affectionate name given to the armor worn by Veteran Rangers of the NER) was uncommon enough as it was in the ranks of their Rangers as it took at least ten to fifteen years of service for a Ranger to be promoted to the venerable title of Veteran. To come across one in the Wastes was a rare occurrence and needless to say, I was relatively impressed with their quality during the few chance encounters I had had with them previously. They wore the Mrk. IIs well enough for my annoyance at their theft of my title to remain in a contented-enough silence. It still irked me, especially when ponies asked if I too was one of their number, but at the very least they had some clout to back up their plagiarism and were competent warriors in their own right.

“Exactly.” I said with a smirk. “So you’re a good candidate for carrying on the all too forgotten name of the Desert Rangers. Everypony knows the Steel Rangers, who were assholes even before the bombs mind you, but nopony ever remembers the Desert Rangers and all we did to fight the War for Equestria. I'm convinced it was a deliberate ploy by someone in the government but I've yet to find proof... General Olive definitely had it out for us though, that much is fucking certain alright.”

His cloudy golden eyes filled with tears as he hugged me tightly with a surprising amount of strength for his size and I noticed that he actually smelled pretty good compared to most Ghouls who came off smelling more or less how they looked. Like death. Gold on the other hoof smelled a lot like pineapple (or something like that) and I had to wonder how in the hell he managed to smell like that with half of the skin and fur missing from his body. I hugged him back, gently at first like I would a ‘close’ friend but the longer he held on, the more I felt myself getting into the act. Soon I found myself clinging to him and imagining the smell of huckleberries instead of pineapple whatever-the-fuck coming from the little body I held against me. It was...the closest I felt to a pony in a very long time...and I guzzled every second of it with a thirst I had entirely forgotten I was capable of.

“Alright...well, I think we’ve got everything we came here for didn’t we?” I asked finally as we broke our simple but intense embrace and looked about the room. “One pristine Sequoia, a modest supply of ammo plus all this other shit right?”

He nodded furiously and quickly went for the leather holster we had found, floating it into the air against his back left leg with his golden magic before hesitating and looking towards me as if asking if it was ok that he donned the weapon. I nodded with a smile and encouraged him to get it on as quickly as he could so we could fill the bandoliers with ammo and slip the gun into its spot to complete the look. Before I knew it he had emptied two twenty round boxes and slipped the shiny brass rounds into the bandolier on the belt portion of the holster as well as the two leg straps that held it firmly in place giving his back left leg a wonderfully bedazzled look. I knew plenty of mares (and some stallions like Bitch Face) who went out of their way to adorn themselves with fine jewelry like necklaces, earrings and perhaps a diadem or two but the best looking bling to me was a bandolier full of nicely polished deadly brass followed in close second by one of cherry red shotshells. Just bandoliers and pouches in general looked good on people, an opinion I embraced as I was covered in them chest to hoof myself.

As he busied himself with getting the helmet to attach to his saddlebags for transport, I sat down again in the Major’s chair (making a note to snag it for my home sometime) and set about looking through his personal files which could have been called journal entries of sorts. There was plenty of garbage in there concerning the most boring of internal affairs of the Rangers but there was a file labeled ‘Veteran Dossiers [PRIVATE - NOT FOR GENERAL USE]’ which caught my eye in an instant. Looking deeper, I found the Colonel had a meticulous record of every single Ranger at Camp Macintosh and that this particular file was designated for myself and fellow Veterans. The information in each file was exhaustive in scale as it included notes on personal correspondence with each Vet, their respective psychological profiles and medical records from the Camp Doctor, and a complete list of each Vet’s strengths and weaknesses as well as a section dedicated to ‘Petty Offenses’. The chance to see what the Colonel thought of me in private was too good to pass up, even with the inevitable pain it would bring along with whatever I ended up reading, good or bad. With a mumbled apology in his direction, I nudged the cursor over my name in the list and cracked open the innermost thoughts of my former CO.

‘Lieutenant Colonel Athena Crete is rather exceptional even amongst the Vets. She has displayed an uncanny knack for strategy and sheer ruthlessness in the battlefield that can only be compared to some of those damned Feral Dragons those geniuses at Maripony decided would be a good idea to let loose on the battlefield; or her subordinate First Sergeant Buck Beak. Her team all look up to her and respect her as a mare of her word and integrity as well as their leader in any situation. Hell...if she were to ever lead a mutiny, they’d be the first to sign up. Despite these strengths, Lt. Col. Crete has one glaring weakness: Captain Huckleberry Crisp. It was brought to my attention by First Sergeant Buck Beak that the two of them, who are nigh on inseparable as it is, are indeed together in a romantic partnership. The likes of such a relationship are, of course, forbidden by the Ministry of Morale and the Desert Ranger’s own protocols against inter-soldier relationships. First Sergeant Buck expressed to me his annoyance for the two’s all too frequent proclivities (which were arranged in secret by his fellow Squad members) and also expressed his fears that they would inevitably be discovered and lynched by any number of offended parties. I informed him that if he wished to keep his rank and his place on her team, which I honestly have to admit is better than the previous Alpha Squad in many ways, he would forget what he told me and tell no one else. I could give a rat’s ass about the Ministry’s laws against that shit...hell before all this shit started happening I was engaged to my cousin for Celestia’s sake. At this point, I don’t see the need to court martial any of them for what they’re doing. They’re the best fucking Rangers we have and with the Ministry breathing down the original Alpha’s necks this is the perfect time for those two to try and have a relationship. We need our best hooves on the ground fighting those Imperial asswipes and Lt. Col. Crete, Captain Crisp and the rest of Beta...excuse me, Alpha Squad, are the best hooves we’ve got. Who better to fight a War then a pair of lovebirds who’d fight to the death for each other?’

I looked away from the terminal unable to even think as I looked back at the pony shaped mass beneath the Equestrian flag and the stallion who had, unknowingly to me and Huckleberry, kept us from being executed or at the very least imprisoned at someplace like Shattered Hoof. I wanted to hug and even kiss him for his silent actions in our defense and giving us the best years of our life, even though...even though we never had the chance to move in together into the little home at the edge of Trottingham that we had wanted. What filled my heart soon after were the complicated feelings surrounding Buck Beak and his breach of trust in telling Colonel Horn about Hucks and I. As he himself stated in his private report, Buck had been one of the ones going out of their way to arrange chances for the two of us to enjoy some quality private time with each other. Had his (and our) worst fears been realized then he would have been easily found to have been an accomplice and be appropriately charged during our likely combined court martial. Of course...that would likely have been the crowning achievement for General FatAss and his entourage of useless pencil pushers had it actually occurred...

I tried accessing the dossier on Huckleberry, a hunger for my old fiancé aroused in my heart like an unquenchable fire of need but to my horror I found the file had been corrupted and was thus inaccessible without somepony with the proper training to reformat it. I had no clue who even had that kind of experience as I usually left terminals alone and focused on the job at hoof but this...this was personal. Way more than any grudge match. This was vital, unaltered information about Huckleberry Crisp and I wanted, no, needed to know more. I didn’t have so much as a picture of my mare left to hold onto at night when the other Hitmares and ponies I knew weren’t around to see how truly weak and broken I was. The memories I had of her, though vivid, seemed faded like I had looked at them too many times that they lost their color. I wondered if memories could be worn out from overuse like holotapes or old vinyl records...if they could then I certainly had a head full of worn out disks and tapes with her name on them. What physical relics which remained, save her dogtags, lay buried in a box on that fateful hilltop...

“W-what’s wrong…?” Gold asked sweetly, looking up from staring at the gun strapped to his leg. “S-something bad…?”

I looked back at him, downloading my file as well as the rest of Beta Squad’s into my helmet, and said, “Just...a blast from the past that I’ve been needing for a long time. A...very very long time...”

****************

Chapter Six: Steel in Desert Lands

I have to admit...I had my eyes closed against what I assumed to be my inevitable demise as a pile of splattered meat sauce in armor against the desert floor so I had to open them to see why I wasn’t nothing more than a pony pancake. The first thing I saw was an emerald green sparkling aura of magic wrapped around me, suspending me a foot or so off the red Badland clay. Honestly the first thing to come to mind upon seeing that redness was wondering if my splattered and mangled corpse would actually be noticeable. When that ridiculous thought left my brain I was free to try and wriggle my body around in an attempt to see what Unicorn had taken the time to save me (and judging by the lack of meaty slaps on the ground around me, everypony else) from certain death. The second thought to come to mind was that I hoped whoever it was, was hot.

“Major Crete…” Came a gruff, unpolished male voice that reminded me of somepony trying to talk through a mouth full of molasses. “Nice of ya and yer Nad Pads tah drop in finally.”

The levitation field holding me up was all at once terminated and I was unceremoniously dropped on my ass before a large group of Steel Rangers who all stood proud and self-centered in their Power Armor, their helmets giving them all the same menacing glare kind of look. Most of the group were obviously Unicorns from their steel covered horns protruding from their helmets and many different colored auras all sparkled as one as the rest of the Desert Rangers were caught and dropped to the ground all around me. Although I was happy to be alive (even in the middle of an active war zone) I was completely pissed off that our intended glorious entrance into the battle was completely sideswiped by the fucking Tin Heads having to rescue our asses right out of the gate. Any chance we had of making a stunning entrance to outshine them on the battlefield was now completely and utterly out of the question...which meant me and everypony else was gonna have to triple our output of ass kicking to make up for it.

“For your information Tin Head, we were not advised as to the fate of the D.U’s which should have been one of you fucker’s jobs before we dropped.” I retorted, getting to my hooves and slinging my reloaded AMR onto my back.

“And fer your information Nad Pad, we just saved yer skinny ass so why don’ we skip th’ foreplay and get right tah th’ down n’ dirty kinky shit ahlright?” He growled back as Rangers continued to rain from the sky behind and around me.

I glared at him through my mask and knew he was more than likely glaring right back before a massive explosion shook the ground nearby wrenching us from our playground taunting and back to hell where we found ourselves in. I spun around on my hooves, flicking my tail up at him as a sign to fuck off, and met up with the rest of my Squad who were all readjusting their armor and gear from the free fall, Buck Beak looking the least troubled out of all of us due to his wings.

“You all alright?” I asked, our radios still synced to just each other.

“Yes ma’am.” Pennies Worth replied, getting to her hooves after checking the load on her main combat shotgun and that of her backup sawed-off double barrel. “Though I find it extremely insulting to have my ass be saved by a bunch of Tin Heads. Fucking hell, this was supposed to be our day to shine, not theirs!”

Everyone nodded, Buck Beak commenting, “Fucking Tin Heads...what next? They gonna save us poor defenseless Rangers from a Megaspell attack using just their golden egos?”

The sarcasm and nigh-on hatred of the Steel Rangers was positively dripping like Huckleberry in heat as we finally got our shit together and took the time to try and scout out the area.

The Badlands, though still red and hazy and blasted as always, had changed almost drastically in the three weeks I had been away from it back at Camp Macintosh for some much needed R&R. The trenches and foxholes seemed to stretch on for miles to the south where I knew the Zebra’s camp lay, a place we all called Fort Fuck-Off for how much we wanted them to hop the ocean back to their country and leave us alone. The drop zone was relatively far into what was supposedly conquered ground but aside from the platoon of Tin Heads playing catch with my Corps' lives, the area around us was devoid of any signs of life or activity. Far off in the distance the true fighting was taking place as the Grande Meat Grinder sucked in every stray fuck in uniform and churned em up in the blender, the air punctuated with the echoing roar of the artillery set up on the Eastern Ridge and the crackling pops of enemy mechanized units. The fight took a lot out of a girl but damn if the sound of the heavy 300mm Solar Eclipse shells going off and echoing down the Badlands weren't enough to get the blood pumping and chanting for blood!

Nearby lay the crater that marked the graves of the Drop-Uni team put in place for our arrival. Whole bodies were hard to come by as the blast had either vaporized their remains or simply blew them apart limb from limb scattered across an area the size of a hoofball stadium. At the craters edge, a small reading popped up in the upper right corner of my HUD as the feared clicking noise of the Silent Killer sounded in my ear which led to only one conclusion: the Zebras had used some of their really fucked up shit to take out our landing party. Well, either that or a Steel Ranger’s Crystal Fusion Core had exploded somehow, a very unlikely possibility given how immensely protected they were within the T-45 body. Putting aside my competitive spirit for a moment, I approached the Tin Head who had spoken to me earlier and asked for his take on the magical radiation emanating from the crater. There would always be another chance to play a game of verbal slander with them but only if we could come together long enough to do our jobs.

“We don’ know either.” He responded in the same gruff, southern tone. “None of mah boys were anywhere near here tha’ Ah am aware of so this here must be th’ work of them fuckin’ Imperials.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I exclaimed as I looked beyond the ever thickening group of Rangers surrounding the crater and the area beyond. “What kind of weapon could pull off something like that? Have you seen anything like this before?”

He nodded and pointed a thickly armored hoof in towards the south as he said, “Aye, this is th’ fourth crater we’ve seen just like this but ain’t nopony been around tah see whateva th’ hell it was tha’ fired whatever th’ hell it was tha’ did this.”

Well, I certainly had wished the intel I had gotten back at Macintosh had mentioned that little fact since now it meant there was more than Zebras, death robots, assorted Zebraland freak unit and the occasional NecroGas attack in play in this War. I racked my brain trying to come up with a potential explanation and stumbled across my barebones knowledge of their Balefire ‘technology’. Whereas Equestria relied on incredibly complex and insanely powerful magical spells (aptly called Megaspells) as the ultimate ace up our sleeves, the Zebras (who lacked magic similar to our Unicorns of their own) relied upon their use of archaic and often downright evil magics such as Necromancy and Voodoo to do the same. Their potions and talismans could achieve almost all the same effects as our spells could but their answer to the Megaspell was Balefire, the almost indescribably horrifying bastard child of science and Necromantic Voodoo having crazy monkey sex in the deepest pits of hell. Instead of more refined methods of ultimate destruction like the Megaspell Celestia One (which fired beams of pure sunlight at shit), Balefire Bombs engulfed everything in horrific, twisted, evil fire that melted ponies into the ground and snatched their Souls from their bodies leaving them desecrated and horrible to look at. Horror has a face...and it’s the face of a pony whose last moments were having their Soul ripped out of their bodies as they instantly flash-fused with their immediate surroundings.

“What if...what if they made mini Balefire Bombs?” I suggested in a hushed tone directly into the microphone built into his armored ear. “Ain't that always how these tech things go? I mean we all remember the first gen weapons they handed out during the first years...those big ass clunky things were fuckin' fat compared to the shit we got nowadays.”

The jet black lenses of his angry looking helmet stared at me for several moments before he said, “I fuckin’ hope tah hell, heaven n’ back tha’ tha’s just speculation...if they have tha’ kind of technology on their side, we’re fucked. These here trenches be ahll sorts ah cramped n' fucked without no goddamned Balefire shit goin' off in there too.”

I nodded fearfully in agreement. Bullets, shrapnel, magic and explosions can be protected against (though survivability may be a wildly varied scale) but there was nothing that could save you from a direct hit from Balefire anything. I actually wanted to piss my pants in terror at just thinking about what a Legion of Zebras armed with such a horrifying creation could do. Every Equestrian life here in the Badlands or on the Eastern Front or even in the Empire would be fucking useless against that kind of power. The more I thought about it...the more and more I began to realize that the use of Megaspells was becoming inevitable. The Zebras wouldn’t stop until Equestria was dead, that much could be seen by the increasing brutality of the War as the years passed. It was no longer about coal and gems in a ‘simple’ Resource War...this was a War of Annihilation. Equestria could live without the Zebras and their damned coal now that we had Spark and Crystal Fusion technology to power our energy needs but the Zebras wouldn’t stop until we were all dead and they had our gems and our bones for Necromantic fodder. This had become a two-way genocide by means of excruciating attrition of mind, body and spirit.

“Our intel is next to useless back at Camp so give me a sitrep.” I half asked, half commanded.

“Imperial Legionaries are swarmin’ everywhere yew can see.” He responded with a grunt. “Stripped ass is comin’ outa our ears to th’ south and they’ve been pushin’ us back up th’ valley. Their combat robots are too heavily armored fer anything less than an AP round ‘er somethin’ bigger than a 40mm grenade. Our supply of AP rounds is nil and ah fair portion of th’ snipers on site are K/MIA so Ah hope tah hell ya brought th’ heat.”

I rolled my shoulders to draw attention to the veritable cannon strapped to my back and said, “That we did. Most of us are trained exclusively as snipers and we all have experience with Anti-Machine Rifles. What, didn’t you do your homework?”

He rolled his steel covered head in lieu of rolling his eyes and sighed, “Let’s just cut th’ chatter and go do wha’ we signed up for.”

“Well, let’s go sniff these fuckers out shall we?” I said, smirking at him through my mask to which he nodded and said, “Aye, let’s go wreck some shit!”

From there we split ways, he to his group and myself to mine as we began taking stock of everything we would need for the upcoming mission. Throughout our entire conversation, the sound of gunfire, screams and explosions rang out across the Badlands, a constant reminder that we had only a few precious seconds left to us before we were shoved into the deep end. Buck Beak, loaded down with his multi-barreled rocket launcher, pump action grenade launcher and several hundred grenades and rockets, took to the skies to give us a better view of the current situation, the feed from his helmet cam being displayed on our visors. The situation seemed to be even more dire than what the Tin Head had told me as not even three hundred yards from us, the trenches were almost writhing with Zebra Legionnaires armed to the teeth with rifles, rockets and accompanied by their multi-limbed combat robots.

“Ma’am, I don’t like the look of this at all…” Buck Beak groaned just before his camera view flipped around in the air at an incoming missile.

“Buck! Cut the feed before I puke!” Rain Dancer cried out, his voice sounding dangerously close to throwing up inside his helmet which I could say from personal experience was a worse experience than getting shot in the ass.

The feed from Buck’s camera thankfully cut out leaving us staring at each other, the sun glinting off the red lenses of Rain and Pennies’ visors like a glowing orb of red gold. The other groups of Rangers, Veterans and Recruits alike, were all on the move towards the battle raging in the south. Snipers either flew into the air or went for any place with a vantage point while those less fortunate to be found carrying a shotgun or an assault rifle were directed into the trenches to inevitably fight the Zebras in brutal hoof-to-hoof combat.

Rangers (especially Veterans) were all trained extensively for CQC action but all Legionaries from the Initiates all the way up to their Legates were trained in it as well. The Equestrian style relied heavily on calculated blows and a quick offensive tactic while the Falling Kaizar style of the Zebras was very flamboyant, relying on complicated flips, jabs and kicks to keep an opponent at bay and dazzled by movement until the perfect moment came to strike. Anypony you saw dead in the trenches not riddled with bullets or shrapnel was almost certainly the victim of a broken neck, the signature killing blow of the Kaizar style.

My blood boiled within me seeing pile after pile of dead Equestrians; troopers, Tin Heads and Rangers alike all mutilated or mangled messes of skin, bone, armor and blood leaking into the red clay. What only added to my fury was there was not a single stripped bastard to be seen in any of the piles of the dead. They all seemed to have been shot from behind...the fucking cowards shot my brothers and sisters in the fucking back as they tried to flee for cover! I was convinced there was at least a shred of honor left in the Zebra’s fighting style but seeing how they mercilessly shot my people in the back convinced me more than ever before: the only good Zebra is a dead Zebra.

“LET’S FUCKING TEAR THOSE STRIPED BASTARDS A NEW ASSHOLE!” I bellowed through my mike for all to hear, my hooves carrying me forward into the trenches followed closely by the rest of my team who all shared in my less than child-friendly war cry.

****************

Chapter Seven: A Melody of Suffering

“Well...I think we’ve found everything we can get here.” I stated finally after we spent another half hour or so scouring the ruins for the weapon he had originally lost but coming up with nothing. "I mean, I'm sure there's plenty else to find if we looked hard enough but I'm kind of on a timetable for a job I was hired to complete."

He looked up at me with his big golden eyes and whimpered, “Y-you’re leaving…? B-but why…? Y-you’re my only f-friend...”

I couldn't hold back a chuckle as I replied, " Friend eh? You haven't even known me a day kid, I'm not exactly the best person to have as a 'friend'."

"B-bullshit!" He squeaked in response showing a bit more grit than I had expected. "Y-you had the chance to s-shoot me on sight l-like so many p-people do to Ghouls...you didn't. T-that's a rare o-ocurrance to me..."

"Well...true heh. Then again I don't come across a ton of friendly Ghouls myself but I don't blame any of you for what happened to your bodies. You're all victims of Taint and radiation in one way or another...something we have in common."

He looked at me critically before seemingly realizing that I was, for all sakes and appearances, a smoothfur pony wandering around a RadZone with impunity without even a need for a helmet.

"H-how...wait..." He mumbled as his eyes screwed in confused thought before turning to my armor.

"It ain't the armor kid, believe me." I sighed, taking my helmet off once more to look him in the eye properly. "It's lead lined I'll grant you that but its not rated for direct impact blast zones like this crater. Hell I doubt even the T-51s could handle the background rads of this zone for all that long judging by the Geiger counter reading."

"So...w-what is it then...? You're not a G-Ghoul so are y-you some sort of m-mutant...?"

"It's...more complicated than that." I replied cautiously as he was unknowingly treading upon very sensitive ground. "But...yes. To keep things simple...I'm a mutant. That's all I'm gonna say on the matter."

He seemed to catch onto my reservation on the topic and simply nodded before changing gears to the previous topic.

"D-do you have to go s-so soon...?" He asked softly, glancing at the gear he had obtained by my help.

I nodded with a twang of sadness before patting him on the head and saying, “I was hired to do a job and I gotta do it. Sorry kid...I had fun though. More fun than I’ve had in a long time. Kinda forgot what it felt like.”

He nodded slowly and whimpered, “M-me t-t-too…”

I felt bad for leaving him but I was wasting time as it was. Even though I didn’t get paid by the hour, it was customary in the business to get paid a nice little bonus for doing it quickly. Twenty-five hundred caps was chump change but with prices at my merchants being as low as they were with my ‘frequent customer discount’, it would tide me over for enough jars of powder, and enough boxes of primers and casings for the whole month. It wasn’t like I necessarily needed the money, I had over five-hundred thousand caps stowed away in a safe buried deep under my house, but I had grown up counting every bit that I spent to make it through the economic inflation of the War. Besides...I liked keeping busy and killing assholes for money was almost a joy for me. Equestria had paid a small fortune training and equipping
me to become a killing machine for the government. Now that I had outlasted said government, I had naught to work for but myself and my own interests; hardly the life I would have imagined for myself all those years ago but a welcome change of pace from the Meat Grinder. Besides...having no attachment to the Post-War apocalyptic world made killing easier than ever as nopony had any value to me and friends were a commodity I could be incredibly picky about.

“B-but...w-what about your o-offer…?” He whispered, floating up the old Desert Ranger helmet from where it lay attached to his homemade saddle bags. “Y-you said you w-were going t-to help f-f-fix this for m-my size.”

Damnit! I had almost completely forgotten about my offer to help him in the rush of emotions from the Colonel’s dossier files. Where I was going was no place for a colt to go, especially with their insane demand for child slaves regardless of 'quality'. If I could convince him to stay put for a day or two until I had finished my job and turned in the money, then I could take him back to Little Hoof with an open schedule. At that point, I’d have all the time in the world to get his armor resized and get the new coat sewn up. Money wasn’t going to be a problem and hopefully I made enough on the side from looting Appleloosa of everything it owned to cover my expenses and a bit more. It was a Slaver Paradise but it would still have a decent amount of shit worth snagging for the market and with the Queen of the Buck present...well, who knew just how many caps there were just begging to be taken? Goddamnit, this was exactly the reason a hitmare makes few friends...

“Right...sorry. Look kid, I’ll make good on that offer I swear it. I’m just kinda caught up in something I really need to get done. I was hired to do a job and I have to see it through. If not for the money’s sake then my own reputation’s sake.”

“O-oh…?” He mumbled softly, looking back up at me with curiosity. “W-what kind of j-job?”

I rolled my shoulders to bring attention to the rifle on my back and replied, “The kind that needs big ass guns and leaves behind a lot of dead bodies. Not a place for a colt I’m afraid. Why don’t you stay here for a few days, three at most, and let me do my job. I’ll come back right after I promise and we can go and get your stuff fixed up for you. After that...well, we can part ways on good terms and you can go back to doing whatever it was you were up to before ya met me. I'm sure it'll be much safer than my line of work.”

He glanced around the gloomy rubble filled corridors with apprehension and said, “B-but I-I’m not a c-colt! I’m j-just stuck in t-this body! I c-can take care o-of myself damn it!”

That was true. I was treating him like a child because he looked, acted and sounded like one but his true age had yet to be determined. I mean he had come here before and found a Sequoia, escaped a Hellhound that had stalked him, went out and bought (or scavenged) a StealthBuck and had come back here again to look for his gun. He certainly was brave, I had to give him that. His armor, while piecemeal and lacking professional assembly, was still fairly competent in design and construction and a quick glance was enough to show a fair collection of dings, dents and other legitimate battle scars. The kid was no virgin to combat at least.

“T-take me w-with you!” He begged, his eyes drifting towards my legs as if he wanted to cling to them to keep me from going anywhere. “I-I’m really s-stealthy! A-and now I have t-this gun! I’m a good shot t-too! I can h-help you!”

Again, another fair point. His small size made him a much slimmer target and his homemade armor seemed to be well suited for squeezing into tight places. I mean, in the end the kid’s life was in his own hooves so if he died following me then I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. Yes...the little fucker was growing on me but he was not a necessary life to save in my book, at best he was to be a nice experience to jot down in the journal. Besides...he had some nice shit that I could pilfer through in case he bit it. The Mrk. I, despite its outdated as hell design, would make for a nice display piece in my apartment if I could find room enough for it.

“Fuck it...alright.” I said after yet another moment of thought. “But we’re going to Old Appleloosa and we only go at one pace. Mine. If ya can't keep up you get left behind and I'll come back to get you after I'm done with the place.”

He cocked his head as he let his magic die out letting the helmet drop back down against his side.

“A-Appleloosa…?” He asked hesitantly. “W-what the f-fuck are we going t-there for…?”

He used the term, ‘we’ which was enough to make me start walking again, his shorter legs having to scamper a little to catch up to me in the dingy concrete corridor leading back out to the surface.

“Got a drug lord to kill. Client of mine put me up for this job and I agreed to a price before I knew who the target was. Rookie mistake on my part...”

“O-oh? Why?” He asked, my obvious hints at my line of work either going unnoticed or ignored.

“Because a hit like this on a mare with as big a reputation as she does is worth more than a shiny new cap kid. I’d charge at least four times as much if I knew who I was going for beforehoof. Here’s a tip kid, don’t ever agree to a price for anything before you know what you’re bargaining for. It'll save you time, blood, sweat, money and ammo...”

Our hooves echoed down the corridor as we followed the bullet holes I had left in the walls earlier to guide us back to the collapsed entrance leading into the crater. I was feeling...all sorts of weird around this kid. On the one hoof he was a complete stranger I hardly knew and had no prior connection to warranting no form of attachment. On the other...I just couldn't rid myself of the burgeoning feelings of endearment that were forming between myself and him. He was an OG Desert Ranger fanboy, a commodity as rare as legitimate DR gear in the Wastes...and I had a habit of collecting things.

"M-mind if I ask...but...are y-you a bounty hunter...?" He asked timidly breaking my from my thoughts.

"Heh...not quite. For a time I was until I...'graduated' I suppose is the right term to use here."

"I...d-don't think I understand..."

How to explain the subtle but important differences between a Hitmare and a bounty hunter to the uninitiated...?

"Lemme put it like this kid. What separates a bounty hunter from a mercenary? A merc works for a group and can do anything from running protection for caravans to waging war on another company and everything in between long as the pay is right. Bounties work alone or in small groups independent of each other with the goal of killing or capturing specific ponies with morality and codes of conduct varying from Hunter to Hunter. Make enough of a name for yourself on the West Coast being a Hunter and you might be approached by a Hitmare to join the upper echelons of the murder-for-hire world. Hitmares...hmmm...Hitmares are best described as the upper class of the killer elite. You will almost never be asked to bring in anypony alive and your clients have more caps than they know what to do with leaving them plenty of time to gain rivals, enemies and simply poor fucks lookin' to get a piece of their cash reserves."

I could tell I was still being a bit too vague for him to puzzle out the differences so I continued. At the very least the conversation was a good distraction from the monotonous hallway path.

"To put it as simply as I fucking can...Hitmares are Bounty Hunters but for elite clientele. You work alone, you have a name, personality and M.O. that set you apart from each other and you all follow a rough set of guidelines that everypony more or less agrees to adhere to in order to keep their status in this killing club. Funny as it might sound, this shit is serious business in New Pegasus and there are several bars and inns around the area that have formed around our profession. They keep their eyes and ears open as far and wide as they can for anyone needing a job done and put em on massive lists on display so any of us can pick up a job if we stop by for a drink or whatever. Long story short...if you want job security and are good with fucking people up with weapons, becoming a Hitmare is the best way to earn a lotta caps hella fast."

"Sweet C-Celestia..." He breathed as comprehension flooded his gaze followed up quickly by even more curiosity. "S-so how long h-have you been a H-Hitmare...?"

"Eh...to be honest kid, I don't even know myself..." I admitted. "Been killing people almost all my life and the whole Hitmare thing just kinda took shape around me as I went along...you don't really notice things change around you when you don't pay attention to much more than who's in your crosshairs. If I were to have to put a number to it...fuck...I don't know, probably fifty plus years? I was never approached by another Hitmare and asked to join. I just kinda...found myself among their ranks one day and never questioned how I had gotten there since the pay was too damn good to give the hoof to."

"Huh...s-so...how m-much is this current j-job gonna pay...?" He asked after navigating our way through the rubble of the opening and made our way up the crater wall back towards E-15.

“A measly twenty-five hundred caps for the head of the Queen of Buck…” I sighed, continually hating myself for pulling an amateur's mistake during negotiations. "Its what I get for trusting a greedy fuck like Green to pay me fair wages for my time and talents."

“W-wait, you’re g-going after J-J-Jingle?!” He cried, stopping in his tracks and forcing me to stop and look over my shoulder at him.

“Mhm. Gonna put a nice pointy tungsten penetrator right through her brain. That is if I can get a good bead on her ass from five-hundred yards but I've got other shit if the fight gets up close and personal. What, she mean something to you or something?” I asked, wondering why he was reacting so strongly to some bitch I had never met before and hopefully would have a bullet through her head by the end of the night.

He said nothing but charged up the hill faster than I thought his stubby little legs could ever accomplish forcing me to gallop uphill (something I hated doing) after him. Whatever about the mare had caused something to spark up in him and I had a hard time guessing what it was as I had only caught a brief glimpse of his face as he galloped past me. The closest word I had to describe it was either fury or rage and I had to wonder if he was trying to get there before me to either warn her of my coming or to kill her himself. Either way, we were running towards the shithole she called home.

What he made up for in vigor, he sorely lacked in stamina. By the time we came to the crest of the crater he had to stop and flop to his back panting for breath on the hot asphalt of E-15 while I stood beside him only slightly winded from our run. Had been quite some time since I had last seen what a difference Splendid Valley had done to improve my physical body.

“Yo, you alright kid?” I asked as I peered down at him, slipping the worn and dented military issued canteen from the back of my belt and floating it near his mouth just in case.

“Y-yeah…” He wheezed, his eyes fluttering as his small frame heaved with his panting. “F-forgot I c-can’t run very w-well…”

He accepted the canteen graciously and came away from his sip with wide eyes.

“H-how is it so cold w-when it's so w-warm outside?” He asked in amazement, looking the matte black bottle over suspiciously.

“Old spell the military put on these things. If it's hot out, it chills the liquid inside and if it's cold out then it’ll warm it up a bit however you’d like. It’s all designed to keep the soldier hydrated and properly accommodated wherever they may be. Back in the trenches we used to stick all kinds of shit in there to see if it would still work. Let me tell you, there is nothing more refreshing after a sweltering day in the mud than a nice swig of ice cold super tart lemonade right at your beck and call.”

“L-lemonade?” He asked softly, taking another swig from my canteen. “W-what’s that…? I get t-the lemon p-part but w-what is it?”

I stared at him incredulously for a solid minute before I came to terms that he was actually serious about this. I came across thousands of lemonade powder packets anywhere I wandered and had a habit of collecting as much as I could into the small bag I had dedicated just for them. I had neglected to fill up my canteen with the stuff before taking off (mostly because I was lazy and just forgot) but now I had more than enough reason to make some up. Without asking I took my bottle back from him, slipped several packets out of their special pouch and began breaking the seals as I explained to him the joys of processed lemon and sugar water.

“Ever tasted a lemon before?” I asked, knowing from experience Mutalemons were to be found everywhere on the east coast (if you can get past the RadWasps that built nests in the wild orchards) even if their flavor was a tad more bitter than the real thing had been.

“N-no…” He admitted shyly as I poured two packets in, saving the other three just in case he didn’t like his drink as brainfuckingly sweet as I did.

“Not even a Mutalemon? Damn...you’re missing out. Thankfully, I have just the thing here.” I said as I shook the canteen and its flavorful contents before passing it back down to him to try.

His eyes flew open wide with revelation and he quickly downed the rest of my canteen (which was the large, two liter size they usually only offered to Griffins and Dragons due to their relative size) and came away with a loud gasp of sheer delight.

After hovering the mouth of the bottle over his tongue (which was a mottled pink/purple color) to catch the last few drops he smacked his lips and said, “H-heh...s-sorry...that w-was so f-fucking amazing!”

I rolled my eyes and smiled to myself while taking the canteen back from him, commenting on how he had drunk all my water and requesting he find a way to refill it for me. He blushed hard, a very weird thing to see a Ghoul do since their ragged, greyish colored cheeks suddenly flush red often letting you see the veins in the muscles beneath, and apologized profusely, offering to empty three of his bottles of Sparkle-Cola into it as payment. I chuckled as I considered his offer (purified water wasn’t as expensive as a bottle of Cola but still) and I wondered if he was merely proposing it as a cheap way of turning his drinks ice cold for later. I finally relented and allowed him to dump his three bottles (I declined to accept their accompanying caps) into my canteen on the promise I got to enjoy most of the drink and he could have the rest. With that in place, we left the empty bottles in an arrow shape just for fun pointing into the crater and continued on our way towards Appleloosa, the irradiated shortcut making the rest of the trip an easy four or five hour trot.

As we made our way steadily southward, Gold continued to ask me question after question concerning the Rangers and what we did during the War as well as the rivalry between us and the Steel Rangers. I had literally forgotten how long it had been since I had traveled with somepony who was so eager to talk (or with anypony for that matter) and I found the chance to explain history to somepony who adored what I had to say was even more refreshing than any amount of lemonade. Whether I liked it or not (and I had to admit I found myself really liking it), I had a travel buddy. If he proved his skills in the field by staying alive, he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted.

“S-so why d-d-do you guys and t-the Steel R-Rangers hate e-each other so m-much?” He asked sweetly. “I t-thought everypony w-was like a b-big family in t-the Army.”

I chuckled and shook my head responding, “Well, within your own Corps maybe but the Tin Heads and us didn’t see eye to eye from the start. See, the Desert Rangers were around even before the War with the Zebras started. Like at least two decades before or something close to that. We were here protecting Equestria, even if it was just a portion of it, way before the Steel Rangers were even formed. Hell, everypony who either enlisted or got conscripted into the regular Army had their sights set on becoming one of us when the War first started. We were the best there was to be found anywhere...and then Apple Jack had the bright idea of inventing Powered Infantry Armor to improve survivability and firepower on the battlefield since neither Rangers nor BattleSaddles seemed to be enough. Now...I am not so biased as to ignore the power, protection and intimidation provided by the T-45s and 51s or even the lighter semi-powered models like the T-35 or the venerable T-37 and 39. That being said well, I can't be blamed for holding some resentment towards their mere existence. The Steel Rangers would make up what was on paper called the Armored Cavalry Corps alongside the 1st General Army Corps, the 1st Airborne Corps and the Desert Ranger Corps. Now, if they had pulled from just the General Army or Airborne Corps like we had done for years, we probably would have a much smaller rivalry between us. But no, they had to go and yank some of our top brass as well as many of our best Veterans to serve in their ranks. And since the Ministry of Wartime Tech had most of the final say in matters relating to the whole Equestrian Army, we were powerless to stop them. Then after that came all that fucking godawful propaganda. Not even five years into the War and hardly anypony in the general public seemed to remember the Desert Rangers anymore except for those with relatives in the Corps. The Tin Heads were the bold new face of Equestria’s might in battle. A walking tank of steel clad freedom galloping its way to victory. Long story short as to why we hate them? They relished leaving us Vets in the dust while they took all the public glory and recruitment drives. Everypony wanted to be a Steel Ranger...even my fucking cousins did.”

“W-wow…” He gasped softly as I finally stopped my rant to try and calm down a little. “W-what assholes…”

“Oh you don’t know the half of it. Just wait until you hear about how they acted on the field…” I muttered, thinking back to all the times missions, kills and rescues were snatched from me and my Squad to get credited to those knights in shining armor.

******

“S-so...I g-guess I should ask...w-what are we d-doing?”

The sun had dragged itself below the shroud of clouds blocking out the heavens and disappeared just as quickly behind the horizon basking the open desert in a mottled pink and brown light that grew darker with every passing minute. Fortune was in our favor. Gold's slower pace on the trail had scrambled my plans for a daytime frontal assault but a nighttime raid could prove to be even more beneficial. Reduced numbers on active patrol and lookout and a slightly greater allowable margin for error.

“Yeah, probably would be good to get a plan together...” I agreed as I dropped to my stomach and crawled through the coarse tan grass poking through the sand, my duster fading in perfectly with the color scheme of the desert. “To put it simply, we’re here to kill this Jingle bitch, collect a shit ton of caps and Dash that she took from my client, and leave her operation in ruins. More or less heh...wasn't all that specific on potential side-objectives and I wasn't in the mood to ask at the time.”

“W-who are you w-working for?” He asked as he crawled right beside me, his coat blending in even better than my duster in the late dusk sunlight.

I sighed and admitted I was contracted by a rival drug dealer to which he simply stared at me before nodding and mumbling, “Well...a-as long as I g-get my a-armor fixed…”

He gratefully accepted the spotter's-grade binoculars I offered him as I plopped the AMR’s bipod into the sand before me and took a peek down the scope at the ramshackle town of rusted out train cars, lopsided shacks and some of the most degenerate ponies to ever walk the earth. The scene before me was all too familiar a sight in the Wastes and Appleloosa’s slave business was positively booming as many of the outdoor cages were presently filled with the huddled forms of ragged, beaten and collared ponies of all ages and genders. To be completely frank, detached from my outward indifference towards the matter, I was highly averse to the concept of slavery. While not all slaves were treated harshly by their 'owners', if you were a mare and happened to find yourself with an explosive collar around your neck...you're getting raped at some point. Even stallions were on the receiving end of this utterly humiliating treatment if to a lesser degree due to Slaver preference for pussy. Irrespective of who the hell was getting forced into it, to repeatedly rape anyone into submission to the point their holes look like they had just given birth to a boulder was a sin far beyond redemption in my book. Sex was...something to be held to a higher level of respect. But... this was hardly the time to think about such things. To work against slavers and the drug trade would lose me all the reputation I had, and would stick a bounty on my head meaning I couldn’t ever settle down comfortably. With my moral compass fucked up as it was...it had been easier to turn a blind eye to where my caps were coming from and just do the job I was told to do. I was always at home behind a scope and surrounded by death.

Looking at Gold though, his eyes brimming with tears of rage and anguish as he glared through the binoculars...I was being forced to look directly at the monstrosity of a system I had rather willingly aided and abetted however so indirectly. In the end, I had fallen in line with everything because it paid well, staved off boredom and fed the angry attention whore inside myself. I had enough money to get by and more than enough materials, weapons and ammunition to keep myself living well for another few decades at least. In the end...I was really only a Hitmare because it kept me busy. Busy enough to push the trauma and nightmares into the back of my mind while I exerted my deep-seated fury at the past in every casing that flew from the ejection port of my weapon. I...I was going to obliterate the entire fucking town with Gold’s help and I would take the money, the loot and the drugs and disappear into the Wasteland. There would always be a need for my talents in the apocalypse...but some ponies simply didn't deserve them anymore. If anything...they deserved to be on the receiving end of it all.

The computerized rangefinder and image enhancement attachment to the scope of my Anti-Machine Rifle synced with my HUD allowing me to see a far wider field of view shared between two eyes rather than one squinting through a narrow metal tube. Appleloosa was an ugly town, there was no two-ways about it. The majority of the preexisting buildings from before the Great War were only notable from their bare foundations poking out from under the dirt and sand. In their place were shoddily manufactured shacks and lean-tos taking advantage of some of the only solid ground for miles around forming a slum-town labyrinth of squalor and abject horror. Train cars salvaged from the old rail lines that traveled through the town from the Badlands ringed the site, the gaps between them filled with shipping containers, sheet steel walls and other improvised defenses commonly seen across the Wastes. Were it not for the nightmare going on within, Appleloosa looked as unremarkable as the next Wasteland community dotting the San-Palomino Desert.

“K, so here’s the plan…” I began just as there came a loud explosion from the town below, the night sky lit up by an angry orange glow as one of the train cars exploded with such intensity I felt my jaw rattle slightly from the shockwave through the earth.

“W-was that you?!” Gold shouted over the noise, looking at my AMR which could only dream of being that powerful. “Great f-fucking plan!”

“That wasn’t me!” I hissed back at him, watching as the alarm was immediately raised and the once relatively quiet town was lit up with flame and filled with running ponies. “Something else is going on.”

Whatever had caused that explosion was definitely military grade ordinance as the fireball was incredibly short lived but the blast radius was quite wide with several nearby buildings being blasted apart by shrapnel or simply collapsing from the shockwave it produced. I was fairly certain that there were no other hits posted for the Appleloosa area as I had checked the board just prior to hitting the trail and had seen nothing. All being said however, it was always possible another bar somewhere else had something on their board not in wider circulation due to radio problems. Or perhaps the place just happened to be under an unrelated attack by another gang of Raiders. Or for all any of us knew, some Slaver high\drunk off his ass had started a game of 'hot potato' with a live grenade right next to the town arsenal; a situation more frequent than you would expect. Long story short though, whatever stealth options that had previously been available to us were now literally up in smoke and loud-n-proud was our only recourse.

“W-well what do w-we do n-now?!” Gold cried into my ear, floating out his brand new Sequoia and cocking back the hammer in preparation.

“Keep an eye out for a fancy ass bitch in a dress who looks important!” I yelled back, switching my visor between the view through my scope and the advanced optics package giving me a wider view of the chaos below us.

Honestly, whatever caused the explosion could potentially prove to be a great service to us as Jingle only had two options from what I could see. Either take her chances and dig into her office or whatever (Appleloosa didn’t seem like the kinda place to have a secret bunker) or make a run for it with her cronies for some alternate location in all the commotion. I hoped she would take the second option as we had a perfect vantagepoint overlooking the main entrance and exit and decent line of sight on most buildings. I wished my uplink feed to the wider military network still worked like it used to in the old days giving me whatever images of my target were on file for identification in the field. Sadly, all I had for identifying my target was that she looked like a bitch and let’s face it...a lot of ponies looked that way out here.

The amount of commotion would be enough to mask most of the noise of the AMR though the more we waited, the less likely it felt that our cover would hold out long enough to take the shot. I shot a look at Gold implying that I was uneasy about our chances when a shout rang out from the center of the town picked up by the microphones built into my helmet.

“We got ‘er! Th’ little bitch was makin’ a run fer it!” Came the ear grating call of a grossly scarred stallion with thick locks of greasy brown hair covering his face as he dragged something small and very colorful into the light of the center of town.

“Anutha one? Shiiiitt, I thought they’s all broked.” Yelled out another stallion as the group of slavers closed in on the scene.

The ugly brown one hurled a Unicorn filly into the center of the group. She was an utterly gorgeous little thing with a dark blue/teal coat and a gracefully curling mane of black, pink, and magenta. The poor thing was covered in scars and burns, obviously ‘recently used’ by one of the males in the crowd who all sneered at her, calling out what they intended to do with her once their turn came up. I was taken aback by both her horribly abused beauty as well as the implication that she had been the one behind the explosion. I didn’t blame her for a second for wanting to escape from the town and I brought my crosshairs to bear on the stallion closest to her, all thought of Jangle fleeing from my mind in my blind desire to free this one filly and protect whatever dignity she had left to cling on to. The punishment for inaction on my part would undoubtedly lead to her gang-rape and likely death.

As I lined up the shot, Gold squealing into my ear to save her from those depraved fucktards, the filly shot up and grappled the brown stallion to the ground, the sound of his neck snapping vividly audible in the silence before she leapt for another in the crowd. Shouts and cries rose once more as ponies began shooting blindly at each other as the filly incredibly tore through their ranks like a fucking Hellhound on a barrel full of Buck and Dash. Gold and I were both too stunned to do anything more than watch the scene unfold as a loud, angry buzzing sound rang out followed by howls of pain and blood starting to spurt everywhere like the fountains of hell. It was hard to track the filly even with my helmet’s optics but I was most certain she had gotten her hooves on a Ripper (a compact combat chainsaw) and was using it with such intense violence I didn’t think anypony down there stood a chance.

Within a minute the group of around forty was down to two. All victims of this lone filly's massacre or from friendly fire as each tried to hit such a small moving target in their midst. Of these remaining two, one chose to flee towards one of the shacks before the Ripper was most expertly hurled right into the back of his head, blood and brains spurting out everywhere but leaving the girl defenseless. The last pony standing was well prepared by this point and stared the filly down with a nasty looking homemade axe made from rebar and welded steel.

“Nice job!” the mare sneered as she looked around at all the gore she was standing and covered in. “You knocked out my competition for that sweet ass ya got there...and now ya got no weapon eh? Ain’t that a bitch...and you gonna be my bitch now.”

Gold didn’t even need to ask me, the bitch was in pieces all over the ground right as she finished her sentence. The AMR cracked the sound barrier as the 25mm round left the barrel, the muzzle brake spitting up sand and dirt all around us and the projectile turning the once cocky bitch into nothing but ragged meat like her compatriots. The filly jumped as the mare exploded in front of her but didn’t even pause to consider what happened, instead charging towards the stallion with the Ripper still lodged in his skull, the blades still spitting out gore until she yanked it out with a shriek. Instead of running off like I expected her to with the weapon in tow, she instead turned the Ripper on herself and held it to her neck, sparks flying everywhere as I realized she was trying to cut her explosive slave collar off. Which meant the fucking dead-mare’s switch!
I flung myself over the dune, barely remembering to drag my AMR behind me, and booked it straight for her, trying to cry out about the kill switch that could go off at any moment now that her handlers had died. There was no time to round the wall to make it to the front gates and the wall of train cars offered enough traction for me to leap and clamber up the wall like an obstacle in boot camp. Leaping as far as my legs would take me, I hopped from rickety roof to roof along the support beams that would take my weight far better than the sheet metal shingles and came to a rolling stop several feet from her in what must have been a shocking experience for the young girl. She shrank back from me, the Ripper falling from her red violet magic and lodged deep in the dirt. However, her horn still sparkled with magic for some reason.

“Hey, hey...it’s ok. I’m not gonna hurt you…” I said softly, raising my hooves and dropping the AMR I had floating behind me. “But if you want to be free, you have to listen to me. There’s a little switch, the ‘dead-mare’s switch’ that will go off if the pony carrying it dies and doesn’t hold the switch off until that collar comes off. Who was the one who had that switch?”

She stared at me with wide eyes (which I noticed with a jolt were mismatched, one deep red and the other a dark emerald green) and whispered, “I-I have it...right here…”

A severed foreleg floated over suspended in her red violet magic which I took, a small black box the size of a deck of cards still strapped onto it. I took notice that incredibly she had kept the switch from activating by holding the switch in the unarmed position. At that point Gold had finally caught up to me, wheezing and panting like dog out of breath and I informed him briefly on the situation, hoping my somewhat advanced skills with explosive devices would see me through at least disarming her collar. I had never attempted an explosive collar before but how much harder could they be compared to disarming a land mine or undetonated artillery shell?

“I-I can pick t-the lock.” Gold finally wheezed out as he got back up to his hooves. “I f-found that b-bobby pins make t-the best picks!”

I stared at him with apprehension and then nodded for him to give it a try while I fiddled with the device before me, cutting the device free of the severed leg with a wickedly sharp combat knife so I could better access it. While Gold retrieved a few bobby pins bent into an ‘L’ shape and a small screwdriver, I tried to find the access point on the kill-switch. I was fortunate that so many Pre-War devices shared universal docking ports for external computers, advanced explosive devices included. Had this thing been an IED, we would have been in far more trouble.

On my left leg I kept a small PipBuck 2000 strapped to the bracer inside a small leather pouch with a magnetic flap keeping it safe from dust and sand. It was nowhere near as glamorous or sophisticated as the 3000 model like the Stables or upper echelon military and government figures had received but it served me well. Allowing me to interface with stubborn technologies with its multipurpose adapter cord and archive of command codes I had stolen from the Army decades earlier. Long as the thing had an access port somewhere in its construction, I could hack a reasonably large range of devices with a few simple input commands.

Plugging in the small black cable that could retract back into the Pipbuck, the internal systems were displayed on my visor with a large message flashing, ‘BPM: 0, Device Armed and Ready’. I was continually stunned by this filly’s genius in holding the device in the unarmed position while completely fucking up forty something slavers in a manner I had not seen since the Feral Dragons of the trenches. It was a simple matter from there of simply inputting a command override code into the device (they all seemed to share the same master password of ‘ReD/EyE-101’) and watching as all the numbers faded and died. After disconnecting the input cable, I looked up just in time to see the lock on the filly’s collar click open and drop to the ground with an audible thump exposing the deep bruising and cutting it had done to the poor girl’s neck.

She stood there, sobbing softly, covered in blood and gore from horn to tail and looking the most pathetic thing I had ever seen in my life. Before I even knew what had come over me, I found myself hugging her tightly against me, my helmet discarded to the side letting her sticky red cheek press against my own as I felt myself weeping for this poor child’s plight. My usual stoic bravado was shattered...Gold had found my weakness and this poor pathetic little foal had stabbed right into my soft underbelly. And at that moment...I felt exactly the same way I had the day the bombs fell. Pure unadulterated fearful anguish that could not be stood against. These were tears that simply demanded release after being bottled up and willfully forgotten for so many terrible years.

“H-hey, I d-don’t want to r-ruin the m-moment but w-we’ve gotta move.” Gold stated as firmly as his stutter would allow, time and space realigning themselves in the logical part of my brain making me aware there were in most likelihood more angry ponies with big guns headed our way.

“Come with us if you want to live.” I stated as sweetly as I could to the still wide eyed and hyperventilating young mare who simply gave a quivering nod.

Gold tossed me my helmet which I immediately slammed down onto my head whilst scooping up my temporarily discarded AMR before we took collective stock of our surroundings. A quick peek over what I could identify amongst the carnage told me our target mare had either underdressed to blend in and was already dead or she had yet to show her face. Gold vehemently protested to the suggestion he and the filly move to a safe distance away to wait for me, indicating they were both capable fighters though the hollow, fearful look of the filly told me otherwise. In the end, I didn’t want to waste time bitching over it and told them to follow me closely and keep their eyes peeled for our target and anything else needing some holes in it.

Near the center of Appleloosa there stood a massive dilapidated barn that had likely served as a grain reserve for the town during the War but now stood as the most likely place to set up an H.Q. The front door was ajar as I expected it to be with all the ponies who had taken part in the massacre making walking inside a breeze. In all honestly, the barn wasn’t all that big with an ugly stage built out of pallets at the far end of a main hall filled with roughly cut wooden tables that were covered with the half eaten meals of the now deceased. Aside from a few dozen smaller rooms on the ground floor (which all just screamed ‘sexy-time room’) all that remained was a large office like room built into the hay loft with an old rusted out lift leading up to the door, the lift itself ‘out of reach’ ensuring Jangle was safe and sound above us.

“H-how are w-we supposed to g-get up there?” Gold asked with a whimper as he noticed the lift wasn’t on the ground floor. “T-too bad we don’t h-have a Pegasus with u-us…”

The rangefinder on my visor indicated the lift and the balcony leading to the door that acted as a landing pad were twenty-five feet above the ground we stood on with plenty of supporting beams holding up the somewhat lopsided office. The way I saw it, I had two options to get to her that didn’t need no cowardly ass Pegasus to do right. I could either use the environment to climb my way up (not exactly something they taught at bootcamp but a skill I picked up over the years) or I could blow out the damn support beams and literally bring her to our knees. Looking at the other two, who gazed up at me with muted awe, I had to choose which option would make me look the most badass to them since I was prone to a little vanity in my line of work.

Popping my neck, I crouched and replied, “Don’t send a featherbrain when a mare will do!” before charging forward and leaping onto one of the support beams.

From there it was a simple matter of hopping upwards between the beams spending only a fraction of a second in contact with either before jumping up and to the left, grabbing onto the base of the office. At that point, the edge of the lift was only six feet away, well within my capabilities and I swung myself upwards, curling over myself until my hind legs made contact with the base of the wall of the office before leaping out, using the wall as a springboard, and latching onto the edge of the rusty yellow lift that smelled like moldy hay. Even wearing fifty plus pounds of weapons and armor, I hardly noticed the strain in my shoulders as I pulled myself up onto the lift and paused to give a short bow to the two foals below. Gold clapped enthusiastically while the filly simply gave a small smile (her eyes still wide with shock) and I turned to kick the door down which felt much better than I expected. I suspected it was at least partly out of jealousy for being left out of the killing fields outside.

The door splintered beautifully beneath my combat boots and I strode in confidently, Sequoia out and ready to pop a cap in this bitch’s ass. To my surprise, she seemed to be expecting me, sitting comfortably in a worn out chair behind a grungy metal desk and giving me a sneering gaze. She was, for all shits and giggles, almost on point with what I had imagined her to look like based on the description Green had given me. She was unsurprisingly a rather attractive light baby blue colored Unicorn with a dusky tan mane and strikingly icy blue eyes that sneered at me from under a faded silk hat that had Canterlot written all over it. As per her description, she wore a slightly dirtied and threadbare business style skirt and blouse, all of which was accentuated with a small red and yellow flower, the same one that was a key ingredient in her product Buck. Red Berryl was a...personal addiction of mine after all.

“Well...you certainly don’t need somepony to walk you through my door now do you, Miss Crete?” She giggled softly, clapping her hooves in a slow, cocky manner that only made me want to kill her faster to spare myself the upcoming monologue.

“Well, certainly helps when all your doormares are all dead, so yeah.” I replied in my usual dry tone, bringing my barrel to bear right between her eyes just below her horn which I noticed was chipped towards the top exposing the sensitive core of bone beneath the thick layer of enamel.

“Indeed…” She responded with a sigh. “Look, if you came here to see me beg then you’re wasting your time and mine. If you’re looking for the money I acquired from Mr. Green...well, let’s just say that I’ve already spent it on a new batch of Buck that’s being brewed as we speak and as for his Dash? I’m afraid your mission here is pointless as I have already sold it to a buyer who paid top cap for it. So what are you going to do? Shoot me?”

Well...if even half of what she said was true, my pay for my troubles was going to be severely docked for missing objectives. Much as that sucked...it was hardly the end of the world; I had already experienced that once before and nothing the present had to offer could even compare to that experience. Even without the 80k and liters of liquidized Dash, killing Jangle plus the massacre outside would seriously destabilize her operational capacity. Raiding the town itself was bound to turn up enough shit to appease the anger of Green enough for me to slide my way out of his good side without getting myself put on the Boards. All at once...I felt empowered enough to finally admit to myself that it was high time to do something new with my life and recognize that working for Green was just too revolting to put up with anymore. I could live with the cut in pay with the five-hundred thousand cap golden parachute I had hidden under my toilet at home. There were other clients out there offering less morally challenged work and my skills would be in high demand anywhere I decided to go.

"You're hesitating!" She laughed with glee. "And to think I was going to try and hire you sometime down the line!"

"And what in fuck's ass makes you think I'd want to take contracts from the likes of you?" I growled back slightly offended in my professional pride. "Least the girls gettin' their brains fucked out under Green's operation are getting paid for all the dicks stuffed into them!"

She stared at me incredulously for my response and asked, "My, my...seems I've struck on a nerve without even trying! Don't you love it when emotional leverage is just so casually given to you without even asking?"

Hoooooooboy did she have far too much access to my buttons. I almost felt like a stranger in my own skin...feeling emotions and seeing a side of myself I thought long since dead. It was the fucking Wasteland! Everyone but the utmost silver spoon having asswipes struggled, bled and died in a perpetual survival of the fittest competition out here! There was no fixing the time I had spent abetting its deepest flaws...but there was a chance here to ensure survival to the otherwise doomed Souls living in this squalor. In captivity, none but their overlords had the best of chances...the...the least I could do was even the odds for them. I couldn't fend for them nor did I particularly want to. However...I could give them the means to balance the odds for themselves and send them back into the arms of Fate. What happened from there was theirs to decide but their right to that self-determination well, that was fundamental to the Desert Ranger motto. When they had originally coined the phrase, 'Against All Tyrants and engraved them upon the barrels of our Sequoias, they had been intended to reflect the Kaizar and Zebra rule in Equestria. In all reality, all the Great War had done was remove the tyrants of the old world and paved the way for new faces to take their place. Hmph...in that same vein of logic...the levels of treason I had engaged in with the assistance to the perpetuation of drug and slave lordship would have been punishable by execution in the field. No court marshal necessary for such heresy, just a bullet to the bastard's face from one yard away.

Without another word I pulled the gun away from her head and slipped it back into my holster causing her to stare at me with amusement. This was hardly an act of benevolence...it was fair punishment for one and justified reward for another far more deserving of this kill than I was. She had already, by some terrifying to consider miracle, made short work of the rest of her overlords. It was only fitting she got the final kill on her own personal tyrant.

" It seems I severely overestimated your nerve Miss Crete. How about we work out an exchan-ow!!!” She shrieked as I yanked her into the air by the mane with my magic and carried her over to the broken door.

“Sure, we can work out a goddamn exchange but I think there’s somepony who would reallllllly like to see you dead alright bitch-nozzle?” I said with a sneer of my own before adding, “Your death for her freedom? Deal!"

She blushed a deep red before I hurled her and her fine ass out over the balcony and into the dirt floor of the barn at the other two’s hooves The resulting spray of dirt seemed to stick to the filly’s blood soaked fur like flies to Wonderglue traps. The poor filly’s eyes only got wider, this time in amazement as she looked between the crumpled mare who gasped for breath and up at me standing in the doorway hopefully looking heroic or something cool like that. I joined them on the ground soon after, rolling over my armored right shoulder like I had been taught to dissipate the impact, and stood behind the mare presenting her as a present to the filly with no little amount of enthusiasm. This was as much for me as it was for her it seemed.

“Happy birthday!” I giggled softly as I held my hooves out in a mocking manner at the wheezing body of Jingle Jangle who was coughing up blood and more than likely suffering from a punctured lung. “I brought you the head of a snake!”

Gold’s face snarled in vicious fury as he got right up in her face yelling, “Y-you k-killed m-m-my fucking f-family you f-fucking whore!”

Jangle took another few seconds to catch her breath before looking up at Gold with yet another sneering, blood spattered grin.

“Oh right...the stuttering little know-it-all...well, can’t say I’m glad to see your ugly face again you filthy zombie. Did you come to ask how much they paid for your mother’s sorry ass? Here’s a hint...a hell of a lot more than what you would've been worth.” She giggled evilly, accentuated with a fit of coughing. “Enough for me to buy my boys a couple doses of Buck on the house with no negative balance on my books.”

Gold whipped out his new Sequoia and cracked it across her jaw sending her rolling to the hooves of the filly who stared down at her with trembling horror.

“Heh heh...well if it isn’t the little slut! Your asshole and snatch sore yet baby girl? The way all my boys kept looking at you, I just had to keep you around as a personal toy for their amusement. Happy workers are good workers as they say after all...and I hear you make one hell of a cum bucket eh?”

The filly shrieked in a shrill, heart wrenching wail of despair and rage as she reared up and brought her hooves crashing down upon the mare’s head driving it into the earth with a sickening crunch of the mare’s skull. Again and again and again she stomped on the mare’s skull until it was nothing but chunky red bits slowly getting buried by violently churned earth. Once her stamina seemed to finally give out, I felt my revolver get yanked from its holster and watched as she unloaded all six of the not exactly puny rounds into the lifeless corpse of Jangle; blood, flesh and even some bone flying out from the six massive holes she had created across the corpse. The cylinder clicked on empty probably twenty-something times before I finally caught her in my grip once again, tossing my helmet once more to the side to hold her sobbing, panting form against me. A position of comfort my mother had once used to calm me down when I was even younger than she was. It was...disconcertingly easy for me to do. I had never held somepony in such a way before but for a moment...the past blurred reality and I seemed to glimpse ever so slightly what it might have been like for her to comfort me so many decades ago.

“Shhhh…” I hushed softly, patting her sticky back as gently as I could. “It’s all over now...you’re free.”

I pulled away to give her a small encouraging smile, looking deeply into her stunning red/green eyes as she coughed. It was gentle at first and then became a bit violent as something thick and white ended up on my cheek which reeked like only stallion jizz could. I blanched more at the thought of how it ended up in her mouth than the fact it was on me and wiped it off quickly with a torn piece of Jangle’s dress that wasn’t soaked with fresh blood.

With that taken care off, the little mare blushed a deep red (which was fucking adorable on her teal/blue cheeks) and whispered, “S-sorry...M-Miss…”

“Oh trust me darling, I’ve had far worse stuff touch me than that.” I said kindly, hugging her again before standing. “Common’, we gotta get you out of here before any more shitheads show up. You ok enough to walk a little?”

She nodded and greedily accepted the small snack of canned corn from Gold whom she didn’t seem to fear in the slightest but rather thanked him for his help with a shy but genuine smile. Once she had scarfed down the can with a gusto found only in the chronically hungry, I retrieved one of the expensive but highly useful extra-strength healing potions stored in my medical supply satchel. The effects of the potion were almost immediate and many of her bruises, scars and cuts were all healed bringing her coat to a shiny, healthy luster despite the obvious signs of malnutrition. She moaned softly (if in an almost erotic tone) as the potion did its magic and she seemed to feel true relief for maybe even the first time in her life. Once the potion had run its course, full recovery lying behind another E-S potion or two that I didn't have, she sighed again in relief and looked at both of us with a wide smile of gratitude.

“T-thank you!” She exclaimed happily, rushing forward and hugging us both with all the enthusiasm of a filly. “I only dreamed I’d be able to escape from this place...and now it’s actually happening!”

“Mhm!” I responded with a smile, looking past her towards the door leading into the blood filled courtyard that was still illuminated by the town’s shoddy spotlights. “We’ll get you far away from here, I promise. But...I think we've got others who need liberating as well before we take off.”

She nodded eagerly and tugged on my hoof exclaiming, “I know where they hide all the keys! That’s how I got out! Common’, let’s go!”

I giggled softly at her enthusiasm and began to follow, plopping my helmet back over my head before I stopped and looked back at the office Jangle had built to be above all the wretched lives she bought and sold like mere cattle. Without hesitation I used my AMR to blast all the support beams out from under her office causing it to collapse with a mighty crash of twisted wood and metal to the ground. What did stand out from the debris was the jet-black safe that I seemed to not have noticed when in the office earlier, more than likely hidden out of sight. There literally could be anything good inside from money, to drugs, to drug recipes, to ammo, to spare keys, to fucking who knew what. I was going to find out one way or another. If she knew were the keys were and the town was now seemingly cleared of Slavers, I had some time to fuck around with this thing to satisfy my curiosity.

“Hey Gold!” I called out pointing to the safe. “Let’s see you pick that one eh?”

He huffed and immediately went over to it as if I had insulted his honor and said, “W-what? You d-doubt my s-s-skills?”

“Not at all, no. Just wanted to see if you’re up to the challenge.” I replied with a smirk as he set to work with his screwdriver-and-bobby-pin method.

Our nameless little friend was still a bit jumpy and reacted to sudden movements with wide eyes. Thankfully, it was quickly replaced with the same charming small, timid but excited smile. She had already retrieved the massive keyring for the town from where she had left it earlier and seemed happy to be back inside away from the carnage she had wrought. Now, she sat nearby hugging her tail to her chest and staring at the gigantic black revolver floating in her magic. Softly scuffing the dirt some ways in front of her, I got her attention and nodded next to her to ask if it was ok that I sit beside her. She gave a shaky but happy nod in response and, after I had gotten comfortable beside her, returned my gun back to me with gentle care.

"S-so many...so many months dreaming of d-doing that..." She whispered so quietly I only heard thanks to my helmet.

"I..." I began, only to stumble over half a dozen non-starter sentences unable to find the words necessary to comfort someone. I just hadn't been required to employ empathy all that much over the last two centuries and it was more obvious than ever before that I wasn't a people pony.

"Shh..." She chided softly, looking me in the visor with a soft expression. "I...I know what you're trying to say. It's ok."

As Gold fiddled about with the lock, my own awkwardness kept me in an uncomfortable silence that seemed to last for hours. I wanted nothing more than to say the right words to her. But...for the love of Celestia I didn't even know what the fuck they would even be! Was I going to apologize for indirectly contributing to her captivity? Reassure her that everything was going to be alright when anypony with a fucking brain knows that's an empty ass promise? Much as she needed the counseling and therapy treatment...I was beginning to fear that she wasn't the only one in need of an intervention of self.

I only remembered the revolver was empty after I had been mindlessly playing with it in my magic for the eighteen hours I had spent wandering my internal mental crisis. The small, if sudden, sound of the latch detaching from the hammer assembly caused her eyes to dart over to the cylinder as the auto-ejector kicked in and the six empty casings she had fired came flinging out. Such a sound...a chorus of empty brass that tingles the spine in a satisfying way while the sight of gleaming metal showering the earth was just as captivating to experience. An experience she seemed entirely mesmerized by with a look of such wonder that I was reminded of someone else who had looked much the same when she too had first seen the Sequoia in action. It had...been quite some time since...she had entered my thoughts so vividly.

“I...I guess it’s as good a time as any to ask...what’s your name sweetie?” I asked softly, looking towards her slowly as I slid six fresh rounds into the cylinder via a speedloader while storing away the empties for reuse.

“Huh? Oh...heh..” She replied with a blush of embarrassment as I caught her staring at me. “M-Melody. Melody Shine.”

I bit back a whistle at her gorgeous name and how well it fit the veritable little supermodel sitting beside me. In a way I actually envied her name for being way more normal sounding than Athena could ever be. (And don’t even get me started on the absurdity of Crete for a last name.) She seemed to be in her mid-to-late teens judging by the somewhat more refined tone of her voice though her height, which was most likely not helped by her malnutrition, put her more on the eleven to twelve year old side. Long story short, I had no fucking clue how old she was.

“Damn...that’s beautiful…” Was all I managed to say.

She blushed harder and squeaked out another thank-you as Gold triumphantly proclaimed (as impressive as his stutter would allow), “H-ha ha! I have d-done it!”

We all surged forward excitedly to see what crazy psycho bitch had hidden away in her oversized safe and were not disappointed. Despite her claims to the contrary, there inside was a tremendously large burlap sack labeled ‘CAPS’ with big black messy letters alongside several small wooden crates of liquid Dash and powdered Buck. While these unrefined components were only really worth anything to people with the equipment to finish the products, they still had high value. What had even more value was the small cache of magical energy weapons tucked into the back of the safe, a pretty rare find so far from their limited deployment zone on the Eastern Front. Aside from some finely polished Pre-War gold bars depicting Celestia raising the sun in all her glory (which were a huuuugggeee collectors item), all that was left was a leather bound ledger the size and width of my helmet. Certainly not light reading but something that could prove both interesting and infuriating to read on a bathroom break or something. The contents were probably enough to scare the shit out of anyone so why not eh?

“Okay, c-can we p-please get out o-of here now…?” Gold whimpered as he returned his tools to his bags. and checked the load on his new revolver for the hundredth time.

“Onnnee second.” I replied, stuffing the bag of caps into my mostly empty left saddlebag, the deep pocket spell struggling a little to fit the filly sized bag of bits inside.

My inner monologue obviously hadn't been heard by either one of them but I didn't have time to go over why today was Athena-Gets-Her-Shit-Together-Day. Motivation to change was not a concept I was familiar with anymore except as a source of pain and hard work, something to be avoided in order to keep life as functionally tolerable as possible for me. I had taken the first steps towards getting myself into a better state of mind and with these kids...something was telling me I was going to be alright in the end.

****************

Chapter Nine: The Cost of Feigned Ignorance

0200 hours, North/Northeast, MDS-Green, five rounds in primary, six in secondary, twenty-four in tertiary. I'd been waiting so long that I could tell you the readouts on my HUD by heart and then some as Melody took some time to sit in a corner alone. Much as I truly sympathized with her situation and respected her request for some alone-time...I got bored easily. And when I was on a job I also got antsy when I wasn't on the move. Annnnd to top it all off, there was a fuck-load of shit already going on in my head from the experiences of the last two hours. I was a mare in silent distress but unlike Melody, sitting around in quiet contemplation was just too hard for me to do for longer than a few minutes. I needed to move. I could think while on the road, something I was far too proficient in. Sitting still waiting for someone else to resolve their own scrambled brains was torture. Gold...Gold seemed just fine and dandy to examine the spoils of his skills behind that bobby pin and little red screwdriver.

"H-hello??" Came a faint call from outside, the tone frightened and most definitely not a Slaver's.

We all started at the sudden noise, Melody cowering under her tail while Gold drew his revolver and I simply got to my hooves. The EFS was showing nothing but blue friendlies outside and my gut wasn't screaming any misgivings. Waving to Gold to leave it to me, I trotted over to the open door and looked out over the stagnating field of gore still illuminated by the town's shoddy spotlights. The world turned a color palate of reds as the built-in night vision function automatically kicked in with a wave of my thoughts giving me a high contrast view of the dark world outside. There were a few figures wandering around out there, all of whom wore an explosive collar around their necks upon closer viewing. The gunfire from earlier had obviously spooked them all and undoubtedly the silence that followed from our time waiting on Melody had spooked them even more.

Ducking back into the barn, I looked directly at Melody and said as softly as I firmly could, "I'm sorry...but we've got panicked ponies out there wondering what the fuck is going on. They'll know and trust you, I highly doubt they'll treat me with as much leeway looking like I do. For all they know I'm a richie in the market to buy."

She tried her best to smile despite a quivering lip and nodded replying, "Y-yeah...the...the others first. E-everyone has to run."

Offering a hoof, I helped her up and double checked on her recovery progress. While the potions had a quick and potent healing effect, the components of the brew had a very short biological half-life and thus quickly wore themselves out after a few to several seconds. However, with how many she had drunk, there were enough active ingredients left in her stomach to have a slow, progressive healing affect over time. I could see it in her colors in particular, they were noticeably darker and her fur seemed to have grown back in giving a bit of plush to her appearance. Sweet Luna's teats she was a cutie...

"Is it...is it safe out there?" She asked quietly, glancing around me towards the open door.

"Far as my HUD's concerned, yeah." I replied confidently for the sake of her fears. "But, for the sake of safety why don't ya take this. You seem to know how to handle yourself."

Lifting my right foreleg a tad, I pulled out one of two suppressed 10mm pistols I kept in shoulder holsters beneath my duster. While certainly not standard issue for a Ranger, having an option on hoof that was almost as quiet as a knife and could hit reliably up to a hundred yards was just another form of job security. She took the rather large semi-automatic into her red violet aura with trepidation but seemed somewhat comfortable holding it having decent muzzle control and finding the safety on her own. Pulling Gold away from gawking at the energy weapons was difficult but a quick reminder that his talent as a lockpick would be necessary to free everyone else wearing a collar got his small ass into gear right away. All armed with our respective pistols, we set out into Appleloosa proper in search of the lost and the damned.

The town was even uglier up close. Appleloosa was once the largest city South of Las Pegasus home to a thriving agricultural division and served as the headquarters for FillyArms, a subsidiary of Ironshod Firearms since the respective owners were family. Of course, all that was ancient history and the town today was not even a quarter of the size with its maze of shoddy lean-tos and empty rail cars. Looking around the muddy, trash-ridden paths and laughably poor housing, it was hard to imagine this was still technically the place I came through by train once upon a time. Absolutely nothing remained of the old hick town aside from Jangle's barn and there wasn't even a point to wondering if anything remained of FillyArms of any value. Shit was gonna be long gone.

What occupied what was left of the train depot was a field of cages of all sizes stuffed with bodies. They were all as ragged and pathetic looking as Melody had first looked, all huddled close together on the floor of their cages. Wallowing in their own filth and dressed in either tattered rags or simply nothing at all. Most lay chained either to each other or to the bars on the floor by the neck keeping their heads down in a submissive position and I noticed with an angry shock that most of the mares and some of the stallions even had their tails cut off down to the base for ‘easy access’.

I had been purposely so far removed from the horrors of slavery that I had chosen to forget just how cruelly and unjustly these wretched lives were treated by their supposed ‘owners’. My own loyalties to the Equestria I had fought and essentially died for were being challenged by the barbarity I was seeing with my own eyes in the remnants of the land I called home. All the ideals I had fought for, freedom and the right to life and peace...this is what became of a world unrestrained by laws that reminded ponies of the concepts of morality. The only good thing that came with this loss of law was the rise of personal law. If somepony wronged you in the Wastes, there was nothing stopping you from killing them but your own conscience and your skills with a weapon. Fuck, what had I become...?

“We’re here to rescue you!” Melody stated happily though with a deep sadness in her eyes. “Everything will be ok. These ponies are here to help you all.”

All but the most beaten down of eyes gazed up at me and Gold like we were some kind of Gods sent from the heavens to release them from their bonds. I couldn't help but shrink inwardly from the amount of repressed hope they had in their eyes, especially the young foals scattered about the cages. Hope was a commodity that was all too rare for them...the burden of bringing and then sustaining that hope was almost too much to bear. What if I failed them? I had little provisions to offer them and most didn’t seem fit enough or keen on the idea of walking back to safety. Gold immediately set to the locks on the cages while Melody took the keyring and made her way through the cages as well emancipating all that could be found. As I had no keyring and lacked the skills of Gold, I really could only do what I was good at.

“I’ll go look for supplies.” I stated simply, the grainy tone of my voice through the mike coming off sounding more detached and unenthusiastic than I intended it to sound to the ponies present. “Scream if there’s a problem.

It was awkward being stared at by so many eyes at once as I silently checked on Melody and Gold's weapons and left them with spare ammo, setting off for the building Melody indicated was where they stored supplies. By the looks of things the shack was once a mercantile store from the sign above the lopsided wooden door that read, ‘Aunt Cherry’s Country Mercantile’. It was only fitting the slavers converted it into their supply depot since the building was probably pre-equipped with everything they’d need to store goods in a nice orderly manner. Least that would have been my first choice were I setting up the community myself.

The second my hoof touched the floor of the interior I knew something was off. The lights were off unlike in the other buildings I had passed by on the way and as a place of beer and drugs, there was no way in hell the place was simply 'closed' for the night. Thus, I was only caught partially off guard when a dusky yellow stallion jumped out from behind the door with a notched combat knife clamped in his mouth. The blade skidded off my bracer as I parried his attack and kicked him square in the jaw, the impact cracking a few of his teeth that were gripping onto the handle of his knife. He naturally howled at the pain and the knife clattered to the floor along with the fractured pieces of his bloody teeth, the distraction giving me enough time to pounce on him, my left hoof crushing his neck as we landed. It was certainly not a quick way to die I realized as I jumped back up to my hooves checking for other hidden dangers in the dimly lit room. I was never one to let my enemies suffer unless I knew for certain they deserved it. A quick gunshot from my Sequoia later and I was once again free to check the room which was much more cheerful to look at after I found the light switch. Great as my low-light vision, there was only so much detail to be garnered from so many shades of just red.

If one was to compare the differences between a slaver and a Raider, aside from the difference in tactics, armament and drugs of choice, the most obvious difference was in their choice of interior decorating. While Raiders preferred to desecrate the bodies of their victims and dangle them from the ceilings with chains or nail them to the walls with railway spikes and piss on everything, Slavers were a bit more homey than that. They instead preferred a bit more of a structured environment since they were in a business of sorts. Couldn't discuss the sale and purchase of living Sentients while sitting in a three-week old corpse now could you? The inside of the Mercantile was no different and though I could see the outside through several obvious holes in the wall between the shelves stocked with food, I had to admit the store was almost redeemable in quality. Well organized, relatively easy to navigate and giving me ideas of my own if I ever owned a larger residence than the small New Pegasus apartment.

I was more than pleased to see that Jangle kept her goons well fed since it was going to serve us well and I was even more pleased by the quartermaster’s (or whatever the fuck they called the guy who divvied out their food) attention to detail. Each food and beverage type was stocked together in neat rows with absolutely no pell-mell mixing of boxes and cans, even if they both held the same contents. It was a stupidly small detail but it was something that made me very happy to see since it irked me deeply to see ponies toss their shit about willy-nilly with no thought for order or symmetry. There were enough cans and boxes of fruits, vegetables and desserts to feed everypony in the cages enough to burst and enough bottles of Sparkle-Cola and purified water to fill a small swimming pool for them all to bathe in. I also noticed with interest dozens of hanging carcasses of Radgulls all plucked of their feathers and ready to be roasted by anypony (like myself) who had a thing for meat. Not exactly good for the diet by any doctor’s standards (especially those from before the War) but it did offer some variety to a diet of two hundred year old processed and preserved foods which was nice.

One thing was for sure, we were not short on food supplies but my next question concerned our standing on medical supplies. After a little more digging I finally found the well organized row of about a half dozen or so of the creamy yellow first aid boxes with the Ministry of Peace’s trademark pink butterflies painted in the crook of each arm of the embossed cross that formed the lid. It had been awhile since I had seen one of those cute little things around since most had already been ripped off the walls of the places I visited and were either kept by the thief or sold to a vendor for some caps. Four of the boxes were thankfully unlocked and I pried them open to find a healthy collection of generic lesser healing potions all the way to a hooffull of Extra-Strength types. In the last box I even found one of the rare Super-Restoration potions that could bring almost anypony nearing the brink of death back to their hooves in ‘Ten Seconds Flat’ as the bottle guaranteed. Along with all those wonderful goodies I also found a modest supply of healing bandages, syringes of the uber painkiller Medix and several dozen I.V bags of sickly orange colored RadAway. The other two boxes remained stubbornly closed against any of my efforts to pry them open and so I left them on the counter for Gold to work his magic on before heading back outside to check on he and Melody’s progress.

I was surprised to see roughly forty or so of the poor ex-slaves already standing outside their cage and most of them were busy picking through the carnage for anything of value which overall were weapons and ammunition. Most of the armor was either too shitty to be worth a damn to begin with or was rendered repulsive from the sheer amount of gore on them meaning my next stop would be the armory that I knew had to exist somewhere in this shithole. Wherever there were hungry, rapey Slavers, there was going to be a place with guns. Hopefully lots of them since we had easily over two hundred ponies in need of some form of protection from getting enslaved once again.

“How are things coming?” I asked as I approached Gold who lay on his stomach as he fiddled with the stubborn lock of the second cage.

“S-slow…” He sighed as he looked up at me with a small scowl. “W-wish I h-had some help b-but nopony k-knows how t-to do this s-shit.”

I felt genuinely bad I didn’t know how to lockpick myself and encouraged him to take his time since Melody seemed to have murdered every fucker in town and I could pick off the remnants with relative ease if they were as clumsy in a fight as the guy in the Mercantile had been. Leaving him to work I trotted over to Melody who was kneeling inside the third cage and was speaking gently to the occupants, some of whom she seemed to know personally by the way she would periodically nuzzle their cheeks or hooves.

“...I found a bundle of grenades laying out that Prickly Pear had left lying around after he got drunk and...forgot about me. I saw my chance and I just ran. I tossed them all into the storage room of the Big House where they keep the dynamite and tried to slip out in all the confusion…” Melody said gently to an older mare who was missing both of her hind legs, the stubs of which were loosely wrapped in soiled bandages that screamed infection.

“Oh, hello!” She said happily as I approached, looking up from her supposed friend in the cage. “What did you find?”

I leaned into her ear and whispered, “Enough food to last everypony here a month and hopefully enough medical supplies to treat all the ones who need it the most.”

“Why are you whispering…?” She asked, thankfully whispering back.

“Because I don’t want those who are out to stampede into that place and fight over everything.” I replied, looking to the forty or so who still picked through the bodies for anything of use.

“Why would they do that? There’s plenty to go around isn’t there?” She asked sweetly, looking at those who were still trapped in their cages.

“Why? Because sudden freedom after months or years of oppression can break some ponies and make them go bat shit crazy.” I said in a continued hush, remembering how barbarically some P.O.W’s had reacted when we had busted them from years of forced labor in the Empire. “Just...trust me on this alright? Keep them focused on trying to help each other and on you until I can secure everything. I need to find the armory, where is it?”

She pointed to the building that was thankfully right next to the Mercantile that looked completely built from the ground up with sheet metal and metal roofing panels. I thanked her for her assistance and after tipping my helmet to the two legged mare (who I knew was going to have a hard life even if we could cure the infection) in respect, I galloped to my final destination.

I didn’t fuck around like I had at the Mercantile and kicked the door down with my Sequoia out and ready to pop a cap in any shithead who thought pissing me off was a jolly good idea. This time around, there was nopony lurking in the shadows which were nonexistent since the lights in the room were already lit casting cheerful white light on the respectable armory of weapons the slavers had at their disposal.

Sadly, unlike the guy who ran the Mercantile store, the asshat put in charge of the armory had no sense of organization or even basic cleanliness. The room leading up to the caged back area where the guns and ammunition were stored was riddled with bullet holes, rotting garbage and hundreds of empty bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla and Sparkle-Cola that made walking a nightmare. Eventually I just got pissed and angrily started tossing dozens of bottles at once against the walls with my magic clearing a path to the cell door that was of course locked against prying hooves like mine. In this case I didn’t need a lockpicking master like Gold to fiddle his way in since I had a clear line of sight at what lay behind and with two shots from my revolver, the lock on the door was pulverized. All that remained was the simple task of flinging the sliding door to the right and strolling right into the toy shop for adults. Well, the destructive type of toy shop, not the sexy fun toy shop though I wouldn’t have been too displeased with walking into one of those either.

This was the kind of place I felt more at home in. The intoxicating smell of gunpowder and oiled gun metal wafted over me like the finest perfumes and I found myself removing my helmet to get a much deeper whiff of the wondrous aroma. When I had finished my orgasm of the nose, I noticed with amusement there on the wall above and on the gun cabinets were numerous messages warning the requisitions officer (or I guess the ‘Gun Giver Guy’ since these ponies were far from military) to NOT give out ammunition for target practice until the new shipment of ammo came in from their trade with New Appleloosa and Shattered Hoof. After laughing at it a few times I came to the understanding that for all the guns surrounding me, there might not be enough ammo to go around. Wonderful.

With a little digging I found to my continued amusement the amount of shotguns in the armory far exceeded that of any other weapon type to be found. I then understood why there were so many Radgulls in the Mercantile. The guys probably got bored with raping innocent ponies and not being able to take shots at them for loss of profit and so turned their barrels to the sky in search of a more colorful diet. Not soon after tossing the sixth combat shotgun onto the pile of lever action and double barreled shotguns did I discover the very empty ammo canisters of shotshells. Either the dumbasses didn’t listen to the rules (which was admittedly very probable) or they had just recently implemented the new rule on ammunition use. Either way, every single green metal canister of ammunition was or nearly was empty of every ammo type you could think of. 9 and 10mm, .45 Automag, .357 Magnus, .44 Magnus, .308 Winchestnut...there was hardly anything to be found. I was unsurprised to not find any .45-70 or 25mm Phoenix since those calibers were far rarer a sight in the Wastes than say a .38 or a 10mm but I was devastated that for all their gun filled barking, the Slavers had very little actual bite to go around.

With a sigh, I threw open my mag pouches and set down every single bullet I had on my person on a metal desk that lay within the cage with the weapons. Out of habit, I had brought along with me a modest supply of various ammo types that didn’t match any of the weapons I carried on my person just in case I found myself running on empty in the field and needing to use a weapon I had picked off the ground. What I had, coupled with what I had scavenged from the ammo boxes, was roughly enough to fill every magazine in the room with at least half a mag’s worth of rounds. Certainly not a pleasing situation but I couldn’t be held too much to blame since I hadn’t gone into this knowing I would be jailbreaking a few hundred ponies. Hell I had only gone into it with rather limited equipment because I had expected this job to go down a hell of a lot different than it actually had. There was just no anticipating what had all happened so fast...

Thankfully there were more pistols than anything else in the room (save for the shotguns of course) and pistols were honestly what I loved most and thus carried the most ammo for. Most of the guns were rusty and likely prone to jamming without some serious maintenance on a gunsmith's workbench. As I was without both my tools and the materials needed to patch them up, the best I could do was a few drops of gun oil from one of the cabinets and a couple tugs on the action to try and spread the lube evenly over the slides and bolts. Pisspoor patchwork but again goddamnit, how was I to know back in New Pegasus I would need to bring along my bag of field-work tools and lubricants?

“Hey guys! She found the weapons!” Came an unfamiliar call from the doorway.

“Huh?” I grunted, looking up from the semi-deconstructed .45 Automag pistol I was busy giving a once over to see a line of ponies trying to force their way into the room.

‘Oh Goddesses it’s gonna be another Sahara fuckup…’ I groaned inwardly to myself as I stood and barred the door to the weapon’s cache with as much of my body as I could, trying to look big and imposing to scare them off enough to let me speak.

“Now look here,” I stated firmly, glaring at all of them and realizing I had left my helmet on the desk inside the cage which reduced my level of protection if things got ugly. “Let’s all be fucking civil about this alright? I don’t want anypony stampeding in here to get all the guns they can and then shooting everypony so they get more shit, k? I’ve seen it happen before and I sure as hell don’t want to get shot by the ponies I just risked my neck and my supplies to rescue, ok?”

There was silence from the gaunt, bony forms before me until one of the more frail looking stallions asked, “Why would we do that…?”

I was taken a little aback by that and I stood there staring at them for a few moments in confusion. Was...was Melody actually right about these ponies? Was I wrong?

“Why would we shoot our rescuer…? That seems...well...the opposite of friendly or smart.” An emaciated mare stated weakly from nearby.

I slowly got back down onto all fours and looked over all of them with mixed feelings. Putting my misgivings to the side, I decided I would try and at least be somewhat regulated about this. Without another word I fit the metal desk into the doorway of the cage and scooped all the ammunition into the drawer next to me, sitting down in a chair I pulled from the corner before addressing them all.

“Alright, this is how it’s gonna go down. Those of you who will be traveling alone form one line and those traveling in pairs or groups form another. Come forward when it’s your turn and I’ll do my best to get everypony a weapon of some sort. I cannot guarantee everypony will get the kind they want since its first-come, first-serve and not to be a dick but it’s not like you get to complain much alright? That sound fair to everypony?”

Those who could speak chanted in the affirmative while the rest simply nodded before forming the lines I asked them to. It was interesting to note that the line of those going solo was far shorter than the line with groups in them and I had to admit it did make sense. These poor ponies had probably known each other for at least some time and I could speak from personal experience that life in the shithole tends to form bonds with those who are sharing your fate. After all...it was in the trenches of the Empire where I first became friends with Buck Beak and Rain Dancer, two of the closest friends I had ever had in my entire life. I...guess there was still some hope left in the new world horror.

The arming of everypony went almost as smoothly as the process of getting weapons from the requisitions officer at Camp Macintosh. Some ponies I was surprised to find only wanted a simple combat knife or one of the many .38 or 9mm pistols which resulted in me having a few shotguns and a dozen or so pistols left over. As an added bonus some extra ammo remained as well, fine by me since the only calibers I actually had in ‘abundance’ were for my two favorite toys. The surplus ammo (save for a dozen 10mm rounds which I kept for myself) was divvied out amongst anypony who wanted it and like that, my job was done. I stuffed my head back into my helmet once more and dug around in some of the other cabinets finding a collection of rudimentary holsters, saddlebags and a few tactical rigs for everypony to share. All the while...I couldn't deny that I was having the time of my life using what I knew to give these people a second chance at an existence that I came by easily.

After ensuring everypony was properly armed, I led them out to the square once more and found Melody already busy administering healing potions, bandages and painkillers to a line of ponies with various maladies of the flesh that needed immediate attention. Not that there was anypony among the ex-slaves that didn’t need attention but some were worse off than others, something I was sad to note consisted of way more mares than stallions. Was common knowledge that despite the 2:1 gender ratio ensuring mares abounded in this world, stallions had learned to topple the matriarchy of the past. While mares could still experience a broad bevvy of lifestyles, there were definitely more stallions populating certain...professions in the Wasteland. The overwhelming majority of them were horny too meaning the slaves to snag were of the female persuasion since they were more appealing product.

“Now, don’t be greedy please…” Melody said gently to the mare who was resting her head on her lap while taking a small sip from one of the few bottles of Extra-Strength potion. “We need to think of everypony who needs some too.”

A measly little sip of potion wasn’t going to heal much but I was amazed at Melody’s frugalness with our meager supply of medicine and even more so that no one seemed to say ‘fuck that’ and guzzle down the whole bottle. The impressive strength of the potion did have an effect though and the many cuts and bruises on the mare’s body seemed to fade slightly, the smaller ones barely closing up while the larger ones coagulated and scabbed over. Hardly a full-recovery but it was something. Probably the largest show of compassion any of them had experienced in a long time.

I noted with some slight apprehension there were still a good hundred or so ponies who had yet to be properly armed and nearly half of them were still awaiting medical care. With a quick nod to Melody I took half of the remaining supplies and put my combat medic training to good use doing as she had. A few complained as to why they had to share the potions with those who ‘weren’t going to make it anyway’ and I responded by bopping them on the muzzle and moving onto the next pony in line leaving them to glare and cuss me out. I could give a fuck less about their complaints since I had six definite arguments that would give them something worth bitching about and each of them were snuggled safely in my holster. I had only just rediscovered I had something of a heart, I wasn't going to be delivering the moon and I was still happy to shoot whoever asked for it.

The further along I went down the line of the needy, the more I witnessed the horrors of the all but thriving slave trade happening in the Wasteland. I had become calloused to them by simple avoidance and learning to simply shut them out of my mind as other ponies’ problems to deal with. With the veil covering my feigned ignorance wrenched away in the light of the poor ponies clamoring for relief...I could feign no longer. As the last of the truly needy was rudimentarily sated, I found myself sitting alone by the open door of one of the cages, staring at my hooves as I painfully recognized I had been squandering my life and talents for my own selfish gains. What happened in Splendid Valley, though immensely excruciating to experience, was a blessing. I was free like no other pony could ever be in the Wasteland. A Ghoul was immune to radiation and aging but hardly immune from racism and segregation from smoothfurs. Normal ponies have an automatic ‘in’ with others that fosters a certain level of trust that opens so many more doors than Ghouls would ever be afforded. And here I was, a mare with a hoof in both worlds. Immune to radiation but able to walk freely amongst others without hatred due to the fact I still retained my looks. Such a tremendous blessing and I had been wasting all of that on killing random people for money and having a damn good time doing it. If my mother could only have seen what had become of the daughter she thought she had raised…

“Hey…”

I looked up to see the beautiful youthful face of Melody who seemed to have finished patching up her end of the ponies in need, looking down at me with a small if pained smile.

“You...you look troubled.” She said simply, further amazing me that even amidst her own suffering and that of the other ex-slaves, she still was taking the time to try and tend to me.

I gave a short chuckle in an attempt to feign confidence but came off sounding pained myself causing her to sit down beside me and gently nuzzle my neck with her cheek.

“Thank you...for getting me out of here...and for helping these other ponies when you hardly have a need to…” She said gently, continuing to nuzzle into the crook of my neck in an almost loving manner.

“I...you’re welcome, Melody.” I replied softly, turning to look once more into her beautiful red and green eyes, the colors reminding me of Hearth’s Warming Eve decorations back when snow was actually a more common thing. “And...I disagree with you on one point.”

“O-oh…?” She gasped softly, the expression on her face a little fearful as if she had said something to offend me.

“You say I hardly had a need to help you or these poor ponies…” I said softly, looking up at the group of ex-slaves all try to help feed each other and hug their friends and loved ones while we watched on. “But...I disagree with that...because I did have a need to do so. It’s...it’s a basic right to be free, especially against being owned and treated worse than a fucking animal. So no...I may not have had to do it and only do what I came here to do which was to kill Jangle...but then again I had to help you and everypony because...it’s just the right thing to do. I...I can’t stand idly by while Tyrants still live on around me."

Her earlier muted apprehension was replaced with small tears of happiness which she began to shed freely, snuggling into my side as if instinctually and wiping her eyes on the lapels of my duster. I held her tightly once more against me, memories of my own fillyhood nights spent with my own mother in much the same position as we were and I noticed with surprise she smelled...familiar. A scent I had all but forgotten the taste of...this filly smelled exactly of huckleberries. The fruit had long ago died off in Balefire removing even the scent and flavor of my old lover from my life much as it had my lover herself. And yet, in my hooves there lay a filly who smelled exactly like her. Two centuries may have dimmed my memories but it couldn’t destroy them. Not by a long shot.

“I’m sorry...I forgot my manners.” I said gently as she pulled away slightly to look at me in the eyes once more. “My name is Athena...Athena Crete. It’s such a wonderful pleasure to meet you Melody Shine.”

I could see her rolling my strange name around her mouth but the taste of it seemed to be agreeable as she beamed and hugged me again saying, “Good to meet you too, Athena.”

As I pet the back of her head, the memories of my own childhood unceasing in their efforts to bring me to tears, I felt a warmth blossom in my breast that I knew from half forgotten memory was what they called love. Of all the memories and feelings inspired by the day’s events...that feeling of love was something I needed the most in my life.

****************

Chapter Ten: Silence on the Front

It wasn’t often silence was allowed to reign on a battlefield, especially when the hours leading up to it were filled with such loud amounts of noise that the most commonly treated ailment in the field is hearing loss. To hear it prevail over the moonlit camp was as eerie as it was beautiful. The sporadic gunfire had slowly died out as did the artillery bombardments of the enemy positions as the night progressed and I found myself not able to sleep. Even after the veritable workout Huckleberry had given me trying to get her off, I was still strangely wide awake. While I lay on my cot, staring at the dull silvery glow of the tent roof above me, she was passed out on the bunk beneath me with a stupid post-orgasm grin on her face happily sleeping the night away.

A quick look around the small tent was enough to tell you I was the only one for whom sleep seemed a distant goal. Everypony was either snoring or otherwise dead to the world save for me. The muted moonlight glinted softly on the pair of small silver oak leaves laying in my hooves, a constant reminder of the added responsibility and fame being placed upon my shoulders at the whim of a force that seemed so aloof from the true costs of War. What had gone so wrong with the world I had grown up in that my life had led up to this moment? I could still remember the day mom came home from work with news of what I soon learned was the massacre of Little Bighorn...

She came home early that day, much earlier than usual since her shift at the dentist’s clinic where she worked in PonyVille didn’t end until at least five. Even then, she didn’t usually get home until around six because of clean up and paperwork plus the rather short trot home. Even at six years old I knew mom was in an off mood as she always greeted me with that big sparkling white grin of hers as soon as she walked in the door. She always hugged me tight, smelling as always of minty toothpaste which at that age was the best smell in the world to me. Instead of doing what she always did, she entered the house house slowly, almost dragging her hooves with no hint as to her usual springy hoofsteps and her eyes staring blankly at the ground ahead of her.

It took me several tries to get even her attention to focus on me and when she finally did, she gave a fragile smile...one that haunted me my whole life. She never tried to fake smile, not even to try and convince me everything was okay when it wasn’t. Mom was many things...anal about dental hygiene (something I still kept up with as an adult), a damn good cook, good at science and chemistry, super pretty with her royal blue coat and her white/blue mane and tail...but one thing she was not was a liar. Nor did she ever try to be.

After several simple questions attempting to find out why she was acting so weird, she finally told me she sent everyone home early because of something that had come on the news. Something really terrible had happened at a school much like my elementary school and ponies were going crazy everywhere. They were even out on the streets near our house carrying signs and yelling, all headed for the big government building downtown. When mom saw them she had me hide in the attic with her and locked all the doors and shut the blinds. I will admit I was too young to understand what was going on and I cried a lot that night as loud noises and angry voices rang out across the suburbs yelling at ponies to go back home. All that long night that felt like an eternity, my mom held me against her chest in the darkness of the attic in the little nest of pillows and blankets she had made for us while the world outside descended into a frenzied madness. The whole night before I fell asleep in her hooves, I never heard her heart beating so fast in my whole life but I was too young to think mom was capable of being scared. To me she was my superhero who feared nothing and destroyed evil black things in ponies’ teeth.

The next morning I was laying peacefully on my bed downstairs wrapped snuggly with blankets and holding my little stuffed animal, a snake I had named Mr. Hissy, against my chest like mom had the night before. It took me awhile to remember what had happened that night since all I remembered at that young age was lots of noise and being terrified evil monsters were coming to get us. I remembered hearing mom talking to somepony on the phone in the living room where she usually did her little sewing projects (of which Mr. Hissy was one) and my curiosity drove me into the hallway just out of sight but close enough to hear what she was saying. Even as a filly, I was nosy as fuck.

She seemed scared, talking in a hushed tone to who I later assumed to be our next door neighbor Mrs. Potts, a bigger lady who sold fine china in a cute little store in Canterlot who always snuck me pieces of cake whenever she made some. I didn’t remember everything mom said on the phone but one thing in particular stood out in my young mind, a word I had learned in one of my ‘big-girl’ books and knew meant something very, very bad.

‘Tea...you don’t get it.’ My mom said in her hushed tone, looking like she hadn’t slept at all the night before. ‘They’re saying Princess Celestia and Luna have declared War on the Zebra Empire!’

Things had been tense for as long as I could remember between us and the Zebras. When I was first enrolled in Kindergarten there was a Zebra colt there I liked (as a friend mind you) named Zecuro who was super cool because he knew how to draw cool pictures using paints his mom made for him from roots and plants and such. The teacher though didn’t seem to like him very much and whenever something bad happened in the classroom like the goldfish dying or there was taunting on the playground, he was always the first to be blamed. He was almost never in class anyway because he was in the principal's office so much for supposedly doing things he never ever did. Mom always liked it when I played with him as a filly and would go out of her way to let us play together at each other’s houses. And as a filly, his house was suuuper cool.

He lived in a normal enough house like we did but the inside was decorated with strange things from his homeland that his grandparents had brought over with them when they had moved in. I remembered it being so weird and colorful inside his small house with lots of weird paintings of Zebras and other strange animals all painted in bright oranges, reds, blues and black. Zecuro talked a little funny (one of the reasons he was always picked on) but I loved it and wanted to hear him and especially his grandpa to talk whenever they could in their strange way. It was musical and mysterious making anything sound like a magical spell from a book and I would spend hours listening to his grandpa tell stories from his rocking chair about great spirits in the sky and of brave warriors who hunted big scary monsters with nothing but spears and bows. It was all so incredibly fascinating to me that my mom had caught on and had formed a friendship with Zecuro’s mom, even learning how to sew in their wonderful patterns and cook some of their simple but often spicy food.

And then all of a sudden he stopped coming to school a little of the way through the first grade and seemed to never be home whenever I went over to play with him at his house. His mom always looked sad whenever I went over and usually didn’t let me come inside the house to even hear grandpa tell his stories. Not soon after he disappeared the massacre at Little Bighorn happened where some Zebra refugees were gunned down in a case of panicked soldiers turned murderers. The area was home to some school Luna was building for special Unicorns and gifted Zebras as a joint project to smooth tensions between us through arcane cooperation. In response to the massacre, the Zebras retaliated by blowing the whole fucking school up, their own kids deemed an acceptable loss apparently. After that happened...we never saw Zecuro’s family again. They had fled during the riots of the night after the massacre and to this day I had no idea if they had escaped safely or even at all. The missing-persons reports from the time weren't all that bothered to get numbers let alone names right so there was never any point in digging through microfilms.

After their family left, things became really lonely for me and I was always so scared to go to school. All the teachers began telling us to hate Zebras and anything Zebra related as if even the very mention of their name would bring a curse on us. Everypony, including many adults, became so angry at any mention of the word ‘Zebra’ that I would sometimes come home from school with a black eye from a student or even a teacher for even thinking Zebras were capable of being friendly. Suffice to say...I was heartbroken and slowly learned to forget about Zecuro and his amazing family under the constant barrage of propaganda and school sponsored plays. They all shared a common theme: Equestria was the savior of the world while the Zebras were the evil demons set on world domination and the enslavement of all the free peoples of the world.

By the time I was eighteen, I had completely forgotten about how amazing Zecuro had been and was pumped to enroll in East Point to go and kick some major Zebra ass with my eyes set on joining the Desert Rangers. I had initially begun to idolize them mostly due to the awesome armor of the Veterans as well as their killer reputation as the ultimate badasses that any soldier in their right mind would want to become. I idolized them as much as all the other foals my age because they were the best of the best at the time. No one could look cooler, fight harder or kill more Zebras then the Desert Rangers and only the genuinely exceptional were even allowed to try out for the Corps. Of course then again, that was all before the Steel Rangers came barreling in with their thick heads, thick armor and thick egos.

And now here I was. A Lieutenant Colonel in the Equestrian Armed Forces and a Veteran Ranger in the elite Alpha Squad serving on the front lines of a War that had been raging for over twenty years. All those thoughts of home left a pit in my stomach that left me feeling strangely alone, apprehensive and...perhaps even traumatized. In the dark, truthful part of my brain where I hid the truths behind my fears, I wanted nothing more than to hug my mother and be told everything was going to be alright just one more time. It had been over ten years since I had been given enough leave to see her for longer than a day and usually she was up to her horn in patients with cavities from all the super sugary foods everypony had taken to eating. The War made civilians lazy in the kitchen these days it seemed, and the majority of the food on the market was so stuffed full of processed sugars and preservatives that I could eat a boxed cake from when I was a filly and it would still be in date. The most time I had gotten to spend with her was three hours at an expensive restaurant almost three years prior and we had mostly spent that time talking through mouths full of exquisite food about me and Huckleberry and our plans for the future. Three hours was hardly enough time to say anything...

The pit in my stomach lessened a bit at that happy thought. Mom from the beginning was insanely supportive of Huckleberry and I’s ‘forbidden love’ and actively asked how we were doing whenever she had the chance and the privacy. When I first came out to her that I was deeply attracted to other girls she simply laughed in her soft, adorable manner and told me she knew it from almost the day I was born that I was destined to be a lesbian. When I asked her what tipped that off (considering I never really got the chance to hang out with fillies my age much growing up) she simply giggled and whispered in my ear that she had caught me staring under some of the neighbor mares and fillies’ tails, including her own, much to my eternal shame. It took probably an hour for her to convince me to unlock the bathroom door where I had locked myself in, in shame and all she simply did was hug me till I had apologized my heart out. After that, she gave me a deep, meaningful kiss and told me to embrace my sexuality with everything I had because it obviously made me happy. I was a Ranger fighting for freedom after all wasn't I?

I still remembered that kiss...and I had to wonder...did mom...have those kinds of feelings for me…? I had never considered incest before, not even in general but...she was hot, even for a mare in her late forties. She always kept her coat immaculately clean and her mane and tail were always neatly combed before she went to work, a simple yet wonderful double layer of white and royal blue complemented nicely by her similarly royal blue eyes. She was right though...I had snuck more than a few peeks under her gorgeous tail when I thought she wasn’t looking in an attempt to have something sexy to hoof myself to. Puberty hammered my body with so much horniness and complex emotions I felt like I had to wear a sponge in the crotch of my panties while I was dressed in my uniform at school surrounded by so many girls I wanted to die. Did I consider those guilty peeks to be incestuous in any way? I guess...in retrospect they were, but at the time I only saw them as a quick present from mom to help me get off in the bathroom after lunch or something. Even now I still considered them presents because she was my mom and she always wanted me to be happy no matter the cost. Not enough fucks left in the tank to give to anyone who had concerned questions to ask me. I was not afraid to admit to myself that I was a bit of a pervert.

With familiar tingles blossoming down below I tried to remember her in all her wonderfulness and worked myself to a happy orgasm, feeling relieved of my earlier loneliness and fear of the unknown. Sleep finally came easy and quickly for me (amusingly almost as quickly as I had came myself) after I had licked my hoof clean and toweled up the rest of my peach-flavored mess. My last thought as it took a hold of my mind was to seek mom out as soon as I could and find out if my suspicions were correct. I didn’t know what to expect since incest was just as severely punished as homosexuality by the M.O.M so to mix both of those together was even more dangerous than Huckleberry and I’s relationship...but I was willing to try it out if mom was. Besides...if she was, she would probably be so proud of all the little tips and tricks I had picked up from all the time I spent between Huck’s thighs. I was more than willing to help pay her back for all the wonderful years she had spent raising me through such a difficult time. Heh...mom had probably been my special somepony all along and I hadn’t even noticed it.

****************

Chapter Eleven: A Change of Occupation

It took well over four hours to get all the ex-slaves freed, supplied, armed and patched up with the morning sun already making its way towards the Smother of clouds in the sky. But, by the end of it I was feeling a weight eased from my shoulders and it wasn’t the metal pauldrons that formed my armor either. Rather, it was an emotional burden over squandering my unique abilities and not helping ponies like these poor Souls at least have a fighting chance at existence. They were downtrodden and nearly beaten but the prospect of freedom and the proper basics for retaining it (i.e. the weapons and supplies) seemed to have all but the most forsaken smiling at least a little. Melody was continually surprising me with her gentle but encouraging nature that stood in sharp contrast to...well, whatever the hell it was we had first seen of her when we had arrived in Appleloosa. Something had definitely snapped inside her but she seemed...content to ignore that it had ever happened. Other than that though...she was holding it together amazingly well.

Looking over the rather large group of ragtag ponies gave me a sense of pride that I didn’t often feel. In fact, the last time I had felt it was the first time I had seen Alpha Squad all arranged in our new heavy Mrk. IV ArmsTech armor that was custom made specifically for the Desert Ranger Veterans sometime in the early 2070s. I had seen to it that these ponies went free and were properly armed for the world outside. Now...whether or not they stayed free was up to them as well as a bit of luck and chance and some I could tell would have absolutely no problem staying alive and free from chains. Others...well, I could only hope luck was on their side once they set out into the Wasteland. Even in groups, some of those present would have to be left behind if the march to safety was long enough and safety wasn't exactly common in the San-Palomino. Desert oasis or the occasional still functioning Pre-War waterline sprouted communities around them like only fresh water could but the nearest one of those was New Appleloosa. Without needing to ask, I knew that a sudden influx of two-hundred something very needy ponies into such a settlement wouldn't be welcomed with open arms.

Groups formed of their own accord with each pointed a different direction at what was hopefully a better life than the one they were about to leave. Hugs were exchanged, even a few heartfelt kisses here and there and one-by-one, the town was emptied of its former occupants. Many patted me on the shoulder or nodded in my direction as they left not really knowing what to call me but recognizing that I had helped facilitate their freedom. It had been Melody's idea to ration out the bag of caps from the safe, one that Gold immediately joined in on putting immense pressure on me to join too. I knew the moment the first one of those caps left that pile Green would have my hide and hang it on the wall like a trophy but with everypony getting a decent chunk to get them started...it was going to a much better cause. Three-hundred odd caps per pony wasn't a hell of a lot by my standards but I had a feeling it was more than some of them would have been valued at as a slave. It was at least something to get them started in their second chance at self-determination and that...that was something I could live with. Green wasn't as big of a threat as he thought he was. I could survive this change just fine.

"Are you part of the NER?" I was asked from behind whilst deep in thought looking at the lives I had changed.

"Pardon...?" I asked in return, turning to face a relatively healthy looking stallion in his late thirties or early forties.

"You heard me damned fine." He grumbled, pointing a hoof at my gear. "You're dressed like a Veteran. Maybe a heavily modified version well above the normal Vet but still. Which unit you from?"

"No affiliation with the NER over here pal," I sighed for what felt like the millionth time at this same question. "Those Veteran Rangers don't know what the fuck they're talkin' about far as I'm concerned."

His eyes betrayed his doubt but he did seem genuinely disappointed as he admitted he was NER himself. A Corporal of their Army, he had been caught while out on patrol probing the New Pegasus territory and had seen the majority of his Squad executed by their own bayonets after being ambushed. The mares under his command, healthy and easy on the eyes, had already been sold off a month prior to some interested party out East while he and the other two surviving stallions were left behind to rot in Appleloosa. Being the last surviving member of his patrol...seeing something that looked so familiar had caused him to go out of his way to address me. Alas, my Mrk. IV was two steps removed on the production timeline than the Mrk. IIs the Veteran Rangers of today employed in NER territory.

"So...if ya ain't a Vet...just who the hell are ya?" He asked with a bit more attitude than I felt was justified putting me automatically on the defensive in response.

"A real fucking Veteran Ranger asswipe." I growled quietly in my throat. "You and the NER better fucking know their history when it comes time to steal something else from the Pre-War world for their own use."

His nostrils flared at that but the time for talking had already expired between us. I had nothing to say to an NER lacky and I didn't want to hear another damned word out of any of 'em. I'd already gone through a solid decade of recruiters hounding my steps trying to get me into their ranks. I had the armor, the skills and the regional reputation they needed to push their influence into a new avenue leading towards their ultimate goal: the annexation of New Pegasus. Not only that but jurisdiction over the entire Westcoast from Bordertown down to the Badlands, a region they probably would want to rule over as well if it weren't still a living exhibit of hell on Terra Firma. With some spit in my direction, he left me alone to join up with the largest group headed North towards Shady Sands and the NER heartlands.

My contact with the NER more or less always went along similar lines to that. Somepony or another would recognize my armor as being vaguely similar to those adopted by the NER's Veteran Rangers and would then ask if I was a part of them in some capacity or another. To explain the truth to them would garner as much belief as a hyperbolic lie so I just refused to answer whenever I was asked from where I had found such advanced equipment. The NER had truly benefitted from having one of only two ArmsTech subsidiaries that existed outside of Camp Macintosh within their borders; within the very walls of Shady Sands itself or so I had heard. Without knowing the full history of it, I could only assume that they had happened upon a healthy stock of surplus Mrk. IIs in the deepest remains of the factory.

The other subsidiary was located in Boomtown, a settlement that had sprung up in and around the old factory complex in the Southwest due West of where we stood now in Appleloosa. Word was a group of old world Desert Rangers had been out on leave in the open desert when the Great War happened and took refuge in the isolated factory. Protected from the Rads by their armor and buckets of RadAway, they had taken to acting as the sheriffs of the San-Palomino area in the years following the end of the world. Over time their numbers expanded as far as their limited supply of Mrk. IIs and original-issue Mrk IIIs permitted with the original three mares immortalized as the Judge, the Jury and the Executioner. In their memory the Desert Rangers had outlived the Corps in a similar manner to the Steel Rangers doing much the same. The only difference was these Rangers willingly accepted annexation and absorption into the NER and could actually produce new sets of service armor. Fucking gorgeous as Power Armor was, it was still a machine and could break down with time and abuse like anything else in the living world. It's a hell of a lot easier to produce something that doesn't require anywhere near the same amounts of materials and skilled labor as something that took the smartest minds of the old world multiple years to develop. Needless to say, the Steel Rangers of today had to acquire from existing stock for new sets of armor or repairing ones already salvaged.

Returning to the barn following the green Ghoul tick on my HUD, I came across Gold sitting and admiring his revolver with such a look of pride and joy I could have mistaken him for a new father. The old black framed revolver gleamed softly in the precariously strung up lighting system and rotated slowly in his golden aura as he opened and closed the cylinder or spun it around to listen to it buzz. Sitting on his lap was his Mrk. I helmet, mask facing towards him to admire no doubt as he used it to prop up his forelegs upon which he rested his head as he gazed upon his new toy. If he was lying in any way about his obsession with the Corps, he was one of the most dedicated method acting charlatans I had ever encountered. The way he ogled his own new equipment was born of a genuine passion, of that there could be little doubt by now it felt. Gold was a fucking little geek and I couldn't help but find it endearing as well as rather flattering.

“W-well, I don’t know about y-you but I t-think we should g-get going!” Gold said cheerfully as he noticed me approaching from the doorway. "I've p-picked every single f-fucking lock I could f-find here. Melody a-and I piled it up by the s-safe if you wanna t-take a look!"

"In a second Gold. Have you seen Melody anywhere? Didn't see her as I came in..." I replied, quietly worried the cute little darling had already joined one of the groups that had already left.

"Oh, s-she's with that one m-mare with the eh...m-missing legs." He said with a hint of awkwardness. "W-wish I knew her name...I f-feel dumb for not k-knowing..."

"Well you ain't alone there at least." I replied, glancing around the barn for the two of them. "Don't know it either, I'll ask when I find 'em. Any idea where that would be?"

He gestured back outside and told me they should still be where I had left them earlier prior to working out supplies and logistics for everypony. I thanked him and returned the ammo I had let Melody borrow earlier that she had thankfully not had to use back to their respective pouches on my belt. I had already made doubly certain every building was clear of both hostiles and slaves and it seemed that all of them had been rounded up by the train tracks leading into town for delivery. Not every railcar had been repurposed for defense or shelter, just those with fucked up wheels or some other major issue that made them unusable on the intact rail line that ran from Appleloosa and up to the North to another Slaver town called Nirvana Springs. The rail was a major trade route in the area and several settlements and mercantile formed along its length. The single functioning train that used it was owned and operated by the citizens of New Appleloosa, by far the largest and most popular town South of New Pegasus which allowed them to operate unmolested as they ran goods along the rails. Slavers needed the line for supplies and moving...'cargo'...and the settlements needed it for trade and relatively safe transport giving every community touched by the train a vested interest in its continued survival. In other words, everyone was expected to protect the damned thing for as long as it remained in their territory and let it run unmolested so everypony got what they wanted without need for violence.

The sun was starting to peek its golden face over the horizon and I had a feeling the train would soon be along looking for its ‘cargo’ which was more than enough reason for us to haul ass out of there and get everyone to safety. The shock and horror of those on the train when they found Old Appleloosa the site of a massacre was hardly our problem now was it? The loss of the settlement was only going to be a bonus for everypony else in the region. With a bit of looking, I found where Melody and the dark brown mare from before were. Coming closer, I could see that the horrid gangrene and septic shock that had set in had been healed and the rags that had covered her stumps earlier were now replaced with fresh ones torn directly from Jangle's dress. The Extra-Strength potions had a hell of a kick in them as evidenced by its ability to heal such a bad case of sepsis but there was just no regeneration of lost limbs unfortunately. You could go as far as reattach severed limbs with one of those and some help holding the thing in place but far as I knew there was nothing that could grow back legs. At best, the mare was going to need some magical prosthetics made for her and those things were fucking expensive, even by my standards on my average income. Like the old world, it was by money and money alone that medical marvels are available to the public. How else were the corporations to meet their shareholders' quotas?

“Oh, Athena? I would like you to meet Chocolate Surprise. She...well, she helped keep me kinda sane here since nopony wanted to buy her...so we became friends.” Melody said, looking towards her friend with an affectionate gaze though it was undercut with intense sadness.

“Heh...well, until two days ago at least. Some asshole out at Tenpony apparently wanted some wife that wouldn’t ‘run away from him’ so when he caught wind that little old me was here ,he paid double what I would have been with four legs.” Chocolate said with a small smile of amusement, her voice deep and...well, chocolatey.

“And...how much was that…?” I asked timidly, unsure if I wanted to know but curious all the same since I didn’t honestly know how much or little slavers valued lives in terms of caps.

“Six hundred caps.” She said with what could only be called a sliver of pride. “Double the price of a normal sex slave who’s my age who still have all four hooves attached to them.”

“You seem like you’re...excited about being nothing but a sex slave to a richy pants asshole…” I said quietly, wondering why she seemed so upbeat in such a shitty situation.

“Well, if you’ve been walking around blind honey, this place ain’t exactly the lap of luxury now is it? At least with him I’d finally get the fuck out of here and only get raped by one guy every day instead of...oh, twenty at least. Well, the ones who are desperate enough for a pussy they’ll ignore I’m mutilated and go right in…”

I had to agree it was a little bit of an improvement but...goddamn just listening to her talk about it as if she actually enjoyed it was just...too much for me. Out of pity for Chocolate Surprise, I donated all but a hundred of the caps I had on hoof. It was hardly enough for cybernetic limb surgery (which honestly would easily set anypony back about 40,000 caps per limb) but it was a show of kindness I felt she deserved after how long she had suffered. She seemed unable to comprehend how so many caps had all at once come into her possession when she herself was valued at a fucking unEquine six hundred caps. I still was reeling at how low ponies were being valued as even slaves, sexual or otherwise. Not that I would ever consider putting a price on a life...wait...nevermind. I came to the realization I had done much the same thing by being a Hitmare. ‘A cap in the hoof for a cap in the head.’ That was the unofficial motto of every Hitmare who had any self respect in the business and I had adhered to it up there with the best of them. I had no right continuing that thought on price.

Melody had nothing to carry nor anything to wear so she was ready to go at any time. That being said, she insisted we take Chocolate to the first doctor who was trained in cybernetic prosthetics and beg him or her to have mercy and give us at least a discount. I will admit the last thing I wanted to do was haul a two limbed mare on my back across the all too dangerous Wasteland but when she started to cry is when my will to resist crumble. Her face was just too damn cute to resist for longer than a few seconds without any and all attempts to resist getting lost and demoralized in her ruby and emerald eyes. And so with a tiny bit of reluctance I hefted the mare onto my back and had Melody and Gold help tie her around our waists to keep her in place as I walked. We made triply sure the other groups of ex-slaves had all made it safely out of town and onto their own paths before setting out back towards New Pegasus. I had an idea as to who might be willing to help Chocolate cropping into my mind that perfectly coincided with another task we had at hoof. Connections were a mare's best friend no matter what the state of the world was like.

“You know, I’ve never ridden a mare like this before.” She giggled into my ear as we started our journey up the tracks towards Appleloosa since neither Melody nor Chocolate would be able to survive the Camp Macintosh crater shortcut. “Well, at least never on top.”

My cheeks flushed red and I muttered, “I’ve been both and I honestly couldn’t tell you which position I like more.”

“Oho!” She giggled mischievously, nibbling on the tip of my left ear since my helmet was currently in my saddlebag. “Looks like somepony has a thing for mares!”

Both Melody and Gold looked back at me, Gold with confusion and Melody with a blushing giggle as I hung my head a tad for some reason. I had nothing to fear anymore so why was I so embarrassed to admit I was a lesbian? The Ministry of Morale had been dead for centuries and the only laws in the Wasteland were the ones you made for yourself or forced upon others. There was absolutely nothing illegal about loving it up with the same gender anymore. So again...why was I blushing so damn hard it felt like my cheeks would pop with blood?

“Yes!” I blurted out suddenly, shooting my head up looking at all of them while we walked. “I fucking love mares alright? I love everything about them from their plush snuggly bodies to their cute muzzles and manes and their adorably fuckable asses! Happy now?”

Melody blushed hard as did Gold while Chocolate busted out laughing in my ear saying, “Well ain’t you one hardcore fillyfooler! I like you already!”

After what she had said earlier about being bought for six-hundred caps by a guy who wanted a mare who couldn’t run away from him, I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment I wanted to receive. I mean, Chocolate was cute in her own way with a dark brown coat and a super dark brown mane with light brown eyes but brown just wasn’t my color. It wasn’t even the fact she was missing her hind legs either, that didn’t bother me at all. I just...didn’t feel much of an attraction to her in general. I was allowed to have types after all and she was on the heavier side having probably been a prized captive and given more food to keep up her appeal on the market. Me...I liked my girls thinner and more lithe, a bit of plush in the right places and at least a bit of muscle on her bones. Although skinner was still pretty hot in my book. And shorter for some reason; I had always liked being the bigger mare in the equation as it made spooning far easier to manage. At four-foot ten, I was a decent bit taller than most ponies making me stand out in a crowd. Part of me deeply enjoyed the extra height since it made most mares and stallions alike have to look up at me slightly, a bit of leverage that was useful on occassion.

Everypony got a nice chuckle out of my brutally honest personal revelation but soon enough things returned to what could be called normal. Melody and Gold chatted as we walked and Chocolate barraged me with question after question about my sexual habits, most of which I answered since it wasn’t that hard to admit what turned you on. I had a big thing for garters and socks (especially striped ones that matched the wearer’s hair and eyes), skirts of any length in general, long manes and tails, a mare who knew how to talk dirty without sounding cheesy and probably my biggest fetish of all (aside from honestly just mares in general) was a girl who was chill with sex anytime, anywhere and making sly comments in public to get me to blush. Kind of a weird one that last bit but...there’s nothing like being complimented on your body by somepony you love in public in such a way that is almost an inside joke. It was a game Hucks and I played together and we played it very well indeed. Though I had to wonder...did the Colonel catch onto it after Buck Beak (fuck his blabbering lying ass beak) told him about our little love life? Games are easy to catch onto when ponies know that there’s one being played and who’s playing it. It was safe to assume, given the dossier that lay in my helmet’s storage device, he knew at least a part of it. As for how much...well, it was a question that probably didn't have one solid answer since there was only so much you could ask the past without diving into the Occult to speak with the restless dead. There were ways though...

Either way, it didn’t really matter anymore. Both the spectator and my playmate were dead and gone leaving the game nothing but a half forgotten memory of yesterday. Hell, I hadn’t even tried to play the game with anypony new in the post apocalypse. Nopony seemed to have the...feisty feminine charm that my Huckleberry did let alone her looks and most importantly her smell and comforting presence. There truly was no simple way of...moving on from such a gem as she had been in my life. Where was I to find somepony that filled all the odd list of attributes that had made her the absolute love of my life in the Post-War era? Somepony who is at once a passionate, dedicated partner with as much class as she has sass and has a keen killer instinct that is tempered by medical expertise and military discipline? The short answer is...nowhere. One could make the bid for a nice Steel Ranger girl but I'd rather date someone from the NER than have to deal with those madlads in the East.

Now...did I completely give up on getting down and dirty with a mare every now and again? Of fucking course not. I still had needs that needed tending to like anyone with a high personal libido had to put up with. The moral ambiguity of the Wasteland saw the peaceful glory years of the free love of yesteryear rediscovered as ponies, Griffs and everyone else left alive realized something. Everyone has the need to fuck from Radroaches to us Sentients and what was the point of making it harder to get than necessary? Of course...over time my time once spent between as many mares or stallion's thighs as I could get began to wear on me. The moments leading up to an orgasm were as blissful as could be, but no matter how mind numbingly amazing the release was and no matter how hot the mare was...when the afterglow wore off I never felt that same loving connection like I did to Huckleberry. As the years wore on, I realized that, that connection is what I needed most in my life and I didn’t have it with any of the mares I seduced into spending the night with me. The Wasteland had stolen a part of me that I could never replace. Not in the state of numb shock I found myself in while living in limbo.

“Yo, you even listening little Miss Lezzy?” Chocolate called into my ear jarring me back into reality. “Or are you too busy looking for a nice memory of me in a compromising position to get wet to?”

“You know Chocolate…” I said with a sigh. “I was actually. Thinking about you on your back all defenseless and unable to cover up is a big turn on.”

“Really now?” She asked as if caught by surprise. "Didn't think a good lookin' thing like you would have an eye for me."

“No..." I admitted, glancing over my shoulder to look at her out of the corner of my eye. "But I certainly could were I in the mood. Staring a little doesn't hurt anyone and everyone needs somethin' to get themselves off to in private from time to time don't they?"

"Fine thing like you just hoofin' it out? Girl, you not own a mirror or somethin' out where you live?"

"What does that have to do with anything? What I do in my own bed is my own business."

"Hun it has to do with everything! You've got some bright colors in that mane of yours and them purple eyes are just to die for!"

I blushed at the compliment, a soft fluttery feeling in my chest reminding me that I truly did care about my appearance to others if at least in a sexual appeal way. After Splendid Valley, the clock seemed to have been put on pause on my body leaving me almost unchanged from how I had been when I was first infected. What would happen if a soldier was partially exposed to an experimental gene coding program and then bathed in billions of particles of raw magical radiation from a myriad of arcane sources all at once? Well, the comics would have you believe that I would be flying without wings, breathing water like a fish or maybe just become a super soldier for the War effort. The truth of the matter was...I had been lucky enough to escape with my life from that whole fucking experience. While everyone else fucking died or hid away from the Great War, I had been so 'blessed' as to be biologically immortal with self-repairing telomeres in my genes and immunity from genetic mutations caused by magical radiation. I got the veritable immortality of Ghouls without my body going to the zombies and my brain a slowly ticking timebomb until I went Feral like the rest.

"You flatter me, hun." I replied with a nervous chuckle. "I didn't come by these looks cheap..."

"Well you kick some good ass for what it's worth. Sure there's plenty of bitches out there lookin' for a big strong mare to take care of 'em out here in this shithole."

"I'm sure there are. I don't have anyone I'm close with if that's what you're asking."

"I wasn't but thanks for answering that anyway. Was gonna ask sometime or another."

We both fell silent and the only noise to be heard was Melody and Gold discussing places they had visited in the Wasteland. The tracks beyond Appleloosa covered miles and miles of flat, dusty terrain with barely anything worth looking at as your next walking goal. Of course this negative was relatively eased by the fact we would see the train long before it saw us and the last thing I felt like doing was being spotted leaving the massacre. Only merchants with no qualms as to whom they traded with and Slavers or their clients would be riding anywhere South of New Appleloosa. They would remember us the moment they found the town deserted and all the Slavers dead with their boss. Goddesses only knew what sort of extra heat they'd be adding to the tab I already had with Green who was going to be making my life as much of a nightmare as he possibly could. I was hardly the only killer with talent in his network and my breach of Bounty was not going to go unpunished by the Syndicate, the only organization with more guns on its payroll than the NER.

"Soooo...since we've been on the topic, when's the last time ya got laid sugar?" Chocolate cooed after a few minutes of silence between us.

"Oh gods..." I sighed, trying to think back to the last time I had actually used a living person to help me get off. "Fuck...couldn't really tell ya. Been...working too much to be honest. Hard to find time when you are always on the road with a loaded rifle on your back and a target to kill."

"Coulda guessed you was a Merc." She giggled, tapping my armored shoulder with a hoof. "Who the fuck else has the firepower to take on a place like Appleloosa?"

"Bounty Hunters and Hitmares." I replied, reminded these terms became less familiar to people the farther away from New Pegasus you went. "Especially the boys and girls I know...and after the stunt I pulled back there, probably have most of 'em trying to stuff my ass with lead with the amount of caps Green's gonna put on my head."

"Whateva you say, honey." Came her chuckling voice from over my right shoulder. "The shit you do ain't none of my problem. Now...as for stuffin' that ass..."

I snorted in slight amusement at her constant tirade of sexual intention. She was certainly unafraid to talk about her likes and dislikes and I found that I could respect that about her. The girl knew exactly what sort of shit she was into and the lines even she wasn't willing to cross. Her poking at my own list of kinks and turn-offs was a fun enough exercise in opening up to someone about myself. Her carefree attitude towards the subject and laid-back nature in general was a massive boon for me as I tended to feel social awkwardness with strangers. With all her carnal sins laid bare, I didn't feel so bad in sharing my own. While there were a few kinks we shared in common, the largest point of contention came from the idea of bondage and inflicting some pain on your partner.

"Hun, I'm not gonna say it again. I. Just. Don't. Do. Gags. They hurt my jaw, they fuck with my gag reflex and they feel demeaning. Even more than a set of sexy leads and halters. You might find it enjoyable but I just don't...never have. Feels too much like over-dominance which is a massive fucking no no for me. Sexy time with someone who's only goal is to act like an alpha male or female and command me like I'm some sort of personal maid is the opposite of satisfying to me.”

"So you don't like bein' told what to do and all the dirty talk and shit?" She asked curiously. "Like at all?"

"Not really hun, no. Sex for me is a meeting of equals. Everyone deserves pleasure and their kinks some recognition and support. Sure, if the couple are both in on the whole tie-me-down-daddy shit then good for them. They're more than welcome to fuck each others' brains out in whatever fucking way they wanna fuck. But as for me and my pussy, I like to know its being well cared for and appreciated like it deserves. Last thing I wanna feel is uncomfortable when I'm going to be spreading my legs for someone. I'm open to fucking a lot of people, hell fucking Griffins are one of my greatest kinks. But I won't fuck just anyone. Especially not someone who wants to demean me for their own pleasure. Just hurts my conscience."

“Huh...a slut with a conscience eh? I can respect that.” She responded in a softer tone, one that just felt like she was being genuine rather than playful. “So...if I asked nicely would you maybe...reconsider my offer? Know my way around a sexy ass mare just as well I do a well-hung handsome stallion.”

My head sagged almost to the rail ties we were walking on. This girl was actually trying to fiddle with my buttons to get me to fuck her. Though...it had probably been a very long time since she actually had somepony nearby who wasn’t interested in raping her for once. Even then though, why me? I wasn’t exactly looking for some action (well, not the kind she wanted) and we certainly weren’t in the right place to do anything close to what she wanted to do. Not with a two day’s trot ahead of us just to get to New Appleloosa. Buttt…

“Oh…? What ya getting all magicky with eh?” She asked as my horn began to sparkle before she gasped softly and moaned out, “Ohhhh...that…”

Wrong place wrong time it may have been for both of us but I made my own rules. Out of all the stains to get on the outside of my duster, I think mare cum is probably the most acceptable next to the blood of my enemies. At least I had a chance to make a poor mare down on her luck happy and in a way I actually had more than enough experience doing. I had forgotten the finer tricks of the trade, but I was still very precise with my telekinesis. This was probably the one thing I could manage to play around with with my eyes closed and still get the desired results.

********

“Ok, c-can we please s-stop? My h-hooves are killing m-me.” Gold complained as the sun began to kiss the horizon once more signaling the inevitable fall of night.

I looked around our current location using my helmet’s optics to give me a clearer picture of our surroundings for a suitable place to camp. Even with Gold's helmet, I was the only one with night vision capabilities in the group and traveling at night came with its own dangers, namely Ferals, Hellhounds and a few other less than friendly shitheads who preferred to hunt at night. My eyes fell on a small shallow cave partially hidden in the rocky hills to our left only about a five minute walk from the tracks we were already on. The terrain directly between New and Old Appleloosa was sparsely dotted with bluffs and ridges, an advantage we had needed to take a few hours prior when the train came by pulled by a team of ten strapping stallions.

“Looks like over there is a nice place to set up camp for the night.” I replied, pointing with a hoof towards the cave. “It’s only about five minutes away, think your hooves can last that long Gold?”

He looked back at me with a pained expression but nodded, “G-guess I d-don’t have much of a c-choice do I?”

“Common’ Gold, you’ll make it!” Melody chimed in, herself looking worn out but remarkably upbeat about it. “Just keep walking and you’ll be there before you know it!”

We steered to the left off the tracks we had been following for the whole day, our pace slower than I would have liked as we had only managed to get perhaps a third of the way there. It was definitely a big change to my usual traveling habits by walking with a pair of kids with their shorter legs and especially with a mare on my own back which was starting to ache something fierce. However, it was the situation I was left with and the ponies in the group (well, at least Gold and Melody) I found myself liking. Chocolate...she was nice and all and was totally the kind of mare whom I would have been all over back in the day but I just felt...disconnected. We viewed things just too differently and as friendly as she was, I just didn't see any potential mate material in her personality.

Soon enough, Gold’s legs gave out about two minutes from the cave forcing me to slump him over my back as well leaving just me and Melody the task to finish making the trip into the thankfully empty cave. The cave itself resided in the rock-side cliff on a small bluff overlooking the tracks below. Once we arrived, I set both Gold and Chocolate down before digging in my bags for my military issued bedroll which was a sleeping bag with an inflatable mattress and pillow built into the bottom for maximum comfort on any terrain. The only problem was there was only one bag and three ponies to share it between since Gold thankfully had a bedroll of his own. It was shabby and as homemade as his old armor, but it seemed to suit him just fine by the way he collapsed into it headfirst.

“I’ll sleep with you!” Chocolate giggled as she eyed my sleeping bag with a slightly seductive look. “Gotta keep each other warm at night if you know what I mean.”

Gold hid his blush by turning his back to us and looking inside his burlap saddlebags for something while Melody hid behind her mane in an incredibly adorable manner.

“Thanks for the offer but I can tell you from experience, two full grown mares don’t fit in these things at all or comfortably. And as for warmth, unless you like waking up at three A.M soaked in sweat and dying of heat stroke, I recommend you don’t share one of these with anypony. Sunrise in the desert can turn these things from comfortable to boiling in minutes.” I said with a small chuckle, thinking back on the one and only time Huckleberry and I tried sharing a bag in the field and ended up regretting it.

“Damn girl, you are up on everything ain’t ya?” Chocolate giggled as I inflated the thin air mattress and set her on it. “Oh? What ya gonna sleep on then?”

“Well not on that.” I said as I dug a shallow pit for myself with a hoof and then filled it back up with the softened dirt. “I’ll take first watch so you guys can get some good sleep without having to worry about anything. Anypony up for the second watch?”

They all looked at me with confusion and it took me a second to realize this was probably the first time any of them had ever traveled in a group overnight. With a small chuckle I explained to them that while we traveled, at least one of us was going to have to stay up for several hours on lookout for anything that might want to eat us and keep everypony safe. In addition to waking everypony up if there was a problem or if it was simply time to wake up and get going. I wasn’t surprised that Chocolate didn’t volunteer given her physical state and Gold likewise declined since he wasn’t used to walking so much having lived in a small Ghoul community nearby Camp Macintosh for most of his life and never traveled far from it. Melody was the one who volunteered willingly though she did ask that I give her as many hours of sleep as I could. That was something I was more than willing to give. She was after all still young and still fresh from the life of an abused slave and was naturally exhausted. Me with my big girl pants, well we had the duty of taking one for the veritable little team I found forming around me. A weird, trauma-filled team of Wasteland weirdos.

I lit a small fire with a simple spell every Unicorn in the Army learned in the field and gave everypony an MRE that I had brought with me. I had eaten so many that I thought I would have gotten sick and tired of them decades ago. A quick tour of average Wasteland cuisine and the subsequent diarrhea made me scramble back into the arms of those dull brown plastic packets. Chocolate and Melody both seeming amazed at the portion sizes inside while Gold was stuck on the fact he was eating a military ration just like the ones Desert Rangers had once chowed down on. As we ate and the light faded from the land, I couldn’t help but notice how bony Melody appeared, the firelight throwing noticeable shadows along her body showing the curve of most of her ribs. As a ‘personal favorite’ of Jangle, I guess I was expecting her to have eaten better than that. Hell, Chocolate looked better fed than Melody did and she wasn’t even liked it seemed by most of the guys under Jangle’s employ. My only guess were that she either was purposefully malnourished (which seemed a bit unlikely for a camp sex slave) or... maybe she had snuck her food to the other slaves. I was a bit of a greedy mare and in a situation where food was going to be scarce, I was most likely going to hoard it all to myself since I get angry and stubborn really quick if I’m hungry. At fourteen (or whatever age she was) she was a better mare than I was at two hundred and thirty-six years old. She shared Hucks compassion...you could just feel it emanating off her small body like warm sunlight. A warm...familiar sun. A soft sun that seemed to believe, somehow, that everything was going to be ok...

As soon as dinner was over, everypony passed out leaving me alone to plop my AMR down in the dirt and keep an eye on the land around us, especially the tracks which was the most likely route for normal ponies to travel down. The night vision filter on my helmet made the lenses glow faintly red (which was fucking terrifying to see in a dark room) and made everything as clear as noonday though with a faint red tint. Thankfully everything before me was empty and silent save for Chocolate’s snores which were loud enough to rival mine and more obnoxious than I expected them to be. Eventually I turned on my helmet’s noise canceling feature (used usually by Rangers manning the big guns) and enjoyed the silence of my sealed helmet, any bad air getting magically filtered before entering my lungs leaving me feeling cool and refreshed.

A neat feature of the underbarding I wore beneath my armor was a unique flexible crystal fiber that was woven into the fabric that, like my canteen, was enchanted to keep me properly heated or cooled while wearing it in any environment. With a bit of fiddling and the help of a friend of mine who was obsessed with Pre-War tech, I had gotten the PipBuck 2000 on my leg to interface with the spell matrix of the crystal fibers and connect to my helmet which had a matrix of its own that allowed me to control its various functions with eye motions and thoughts. Instead of simply adjusting my body temperature automatically with the change of outside temperature (which was usually warm to hot, especially where I chose to live), I could manually adjust the temperature like an air conditioning unit to whatever I wanted it to be.

Barring an extreme heat wave (which happened more than I would like in New Pegasus), my usual preferred temperature was around sixty-eight degrees or so, seventy-to-seventy-one on cooler days. Nights in the Wasteland rarely dropped below seventy-eight which was great by me since it wasn’t too warm. With my night optics, I was usually more than prepared to travel at night amidst the prowling freaks of the Wasteland. Something a lot of Merc companies couldn't even say as working tactical lights for weapons and armor were as rare as they were in working order.

After a few hours of wandering around my thoughts, thinking about how to resize Gold’s armor and helmet as well as what to do with Melody since she had asked to stay with us, my radio beeped once more. Bitch Face was calling back, probably to find out why I was taking so long to deliver his goods. I usually had a fast turnaround time on my jobs, especially if they happened within New Pegasus and the surrounding areas. Appleloosa lay a ways outside my usual hunting grounds and plus, it was a major hit in general. Taking out a drug lord on her own turf surrounded by her goons and then making the trip back to New Pegasus wasn’t going to be a one day affair or even a two day affair.

I shut off my external speaker to keep the others from listening in on my conversation and replied, “Yes…? There a reason you’re bugging me at eleven-thirty?”

“Yeah.” He spat into my ear. “Where th’ fuck are ya Crete?! I wanted that shit yesterday!”

I sighed long and hard, making damn sure he could hear my annoyance before saying, “Look, I don’t give a shit about your stupid fucking lack of patience ok? All you do all day is sit on your ass counting your caps and getting your dick sucked off by all your stupid whores and yet you demand me to do shit for you that actually takes time.”

“Now look here little missy.” He growled in his annoying tone. “I pay ya good caps for that ‘shit’ I demand ya to do because I’m ya boss and I want results. Now, where th’ fuck are ya, ya selfish little cunt? I want my shit and I want it now.”

“Alright, shut the fuck up you hear me?!” I yelled into my mike, something snapping deep inside me at him pretending to own me like some sort of slaver himself. “I am not yours to order about like one of your fucking sluts because unlike them, I have respect for myself and my vagina and I’m not going to let you fucking order me around. Hell, I don’t even have to do this fucking job for you! You say you thought we were friends? Then why the fuck are you waaaayyyyy undervaluing my skills? I mean, twenty-five hundred caps to kill a fucking drug lord?! WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I AM GREEN?!”

“You’re my fucking Hitmare! How dare ya talk to me like that you fucking cunt?! I could put a hit of my own on your ass and I know there’s plenty of Hitmares out there who would fucking love to get ya tiny ass outa the picture and I’d pay them out the ass to do it too! If ya want to keep ya stupid head on ya body then ya have to bring me the goods no later than tomorrow night ya hear me?!”

I growled, panting in fury at how little he seemed to care about me even as a sort-of employee. With the sudden eye-opening experience of meeting Gold and liberating Melody and all the other ponies who had once been owned by Jangle...it was more than time to bite the bullet and accept a life on the run. If I hadn’t met Gold, I wouldn’t have been on the bluff to see Melody as I would have arrived at Appleloosa hours earlier and been on my merry way leaving her behind. And if I hadn’t met Melody, I wouldn’t have had the courage to free the slaves and take my first steps towards turning my life around. Whether I wanted it or not, my life was changing and the only choice I had was to choose if I was going to run with it or be dragged by the tail kicking and screaming to the grave. Either way my course in life had to go forwards in one way or another and the choice would be made for me if I didn't have the balls to do it myself. Hopefully before the horde of the Syndicate's best put my name on the same open market I previously bargain hunted on.

Without a moment’s hesitation I said, “ Oh I’ve got your shit alright and I’ll leave it in your drop box in New Appleloosa but consider me and my services off the market from hereon out alright? Find some other ho to order around and shoot bitches for you because I’m retiring.”

He snorted, “You? Retire?! Hah...what a fuckin’ joke...have it your way then. But if anything is missin’ from my shit I’ma put a hit on your ass so big you could buy half th’ Ultra-Deluxe!”

“Whatever makes you happy, you fat-assed junkie.” I sighed as I cut the connection, blocking the channel from my radio's broadcast spectrum so he couldn’t use it to harass me anymore. It wasn't the same as blocking someone's number on personal telephones but it was arguably more effective with so few working radios and coms towers.

I jumped a little as I felt something press up against me and I realized with a start Melody was curled up against me with a smile, her face slightly illuminated in the red glow of my lenses in the dark. I pulled my helmet off and gave her a small kiss on the head, the action feeling almost natural and she seemed to appreciate it, snuggling a little closer to me in the dim light of the cave.

“I...I just wanted to thank you again Athena. For rescuing me from...that place.” She said softly, looking out over the dimly lit sandy land outside the cave. “I...I can’t thank you enough...it was so...h-horrible...I..”

Her words were cut off but a small squeak and she forcibly swallowed the lump in her throat before giving up and leaning her head against my shoulder.

“You’re most welcome, Melody.” I replied softly so as to not wake the others. “My...my conscience would have tortured me otherwise.”

“Oh…?” She asked, cocking her head to the side.

Slowly...I explained a little as to why I was originally headed towards Appleloosa and how my meeting Gold had thrown my perspective out of whack and made me brutally aware of the world I had turned a blind eye towards. I didn’t go into great detail as I didn’t want to overwhelm her nor make myself out to be a horrible mare. I didn’t feel like I was but I had no right to self-asses given my actions in the time since the Great War. Truly, the last thing I wanted to do was scare her away from me. The longer I spent with her, especially with such close proximity as we were then, the more I felt that small, warm, bubbly spark of love grow in my breast. I was unsure exactly what kind of love it was as my definitions had all grown rusty from underuse but I felt...strangely safe with her. In the sense like I did with my mother on those cold rioting nights as well as the closeness I felt with Huckleberry. Like no matter what happened, I could be safe and warm in her presence. Without realizing it, I was hugging her to my side and felt small tears of joy leaking from my eyes. She did not resist my affections but rather seemed to embrace them as she snuggled closer and fell asleep against me, a soft smile of relief tugging at her lips as she snored softly in my arms.

Having her so close to me, snuggling and relaxing as she was against me, inspired new thoughts in my mind that I had never before considered. Huckleberry and I had discussed adoption once or twice but never really at length as we were both heavily involved in the War effort and the fact it would be difficult for the two of us to adopt a foal. The nature of our relationship and the strict laws surrounding parental candidates would have ensured we never would have even gotten in for a meeting. Since then, the thought of ever considering to be a mother had never once surfaced in my mind and not without good reason. I was a soldier. I was usually on the move through dangerous situations using my inborn talent for precision firearms use. I wasn’t trained how to be a mother because I had never exactly wanted to be one. My own mother's advice to me usually concerned my job or my schooling or my relationship with Huckleberry and rarely could be considered formal ‘How to be a Mom’ training. We all just accepted the fact we were going to be empty nesters and thus all talk of motherhood was reserved for talking about her in particular. Minuette had enough motherly love for both of us heh.

Still...I couldn’t deny that the feelings I had in my heart could only be called maternal in nature. Here was a filly, alone and directionless in life with nopony to look after her and with the trauma she had experienced for who knew how many years...she was going to need a caretaker. Somepony to help her through the darkest parts of the Wasteland and the nature of Sentient life. I was alone myself...loveless and, up till yesterday, friendless. I found myself longing for somepony special in my life. Melody wasn’t old enough to be a lover, but she was more than enough to be a...a daughter. Past that...well...despite how beautiful she was, I wasn't about to start fillyfooling with her so soon after Appleloosa. And that was a huge maybe at that, I wasn't about to ruin any sort of goodwill I had earned by her.

I nuzzled her as she slept, breathing in her wondrous huckleberry scent and whispered, “Goodnight...my little daughter.”

The words were new and awkward to hear coming from my mouth but they sounded right. It felt right. I didn’t want to speak for her but...the smile on her face as she slept soundly beside me seemed to convey her agreement. I would have to ask her soon whether she would consider the proposition but until then...I could pretend I was her momma as she slept and reminisce about my own mom and enjoy the same feelings of warmth and comfort I experienced then. Heh...if Green Peace could see me then he would’ve laughed his fat ass off. But it felt right…and I felt happier than I had felt in centuries. For once, I was not truly sleeping alone. All those other mares I had shared a bed with had left me feeling empty but Melody filled that void without even trying somehow. I could tell because for the first time in ages, my heart burned within me and I felt warm and fuzzy inside instead of detached and floaty. It had been awhile, but I still recognized what happiness felt like. I wasn't as cold underneath my armor as other Hitmares thought...while the Great War had burned out most feeling in my body, I was still me. I...had some semblance of a conscience. Unlike someone like Black Velvet, a non-starter for any Bounty I took was if it involved killing mothers or kids. Another was my refusal to operate against the interests of small communities barely scraping by. I had standards...they just were...all over the place and could flip on a bit depending on the situation. When I set on a path, I always kept the goal in mind but I was no so hyperfocused as to be above reevaluating my approach or, as in cases like today, my destination entirely based upon new factors introduced into the equation.

For the first time in my life, I said a prayer to Celestia and Luna. I wasn’t religious even before the War but I found myself dealing with feelings I couldn’t quite contain and...with nowhere else to put them, I decided to entrust them to the only mares I still had some faith in. Despite everything...they had tried to right the world. That was worth something.

“C-Celestia...Luna…” I whispered to myself, looking up into the sky and hoping they were somehow listening. “P-please...let this filly...rest in peace...and...l-let me be her momma. She...she has nowhere else to go...and...you know I’ve never been the same after...H-H-Huckleberry died...d-don’t let this wonderful feeling...d-die in me...a-amen.”

I threw a hasty detection spell around the cave that would warn me of intruders and fell asleep against my pseudo-daughter. With my Sequoia laying by my side and Melody in my arms, the fire roaring in my breast was almost too much to bear but...it was a pleasure to burn such as I was.

****************

Chapter Twelve: Balefire Slingshots?

The next morning was bright with scattered clouds and was silent long enough for all of us to have a hearty breakfast before we resumed the killing game with our old adversaries. As we ate, sitting on the edge of one of the countless trenches dug into the earth, I couldn’t help but get a morbid laugh out of the fact that even clouds had become a crucial part of the war. The cloud cover had been moved in during the night by the Shadowbolts, Rainbow Dash’s prized and elite fighting squadron of Pegusi who acted more or less as Alpha Squad’s Airborne counterparts. Since only Pegusi and Griffins could openly walk upon clouds because of their peculiar inborn magic, the clouds themselves became highly mobile sniper nests in the sky. All Airborne units came equipped with a few Cloud Buds in their kit which allowed them to spontaneously create small localized clouds in order to help mask their movements and/or create places of retreat. All you needed to grow the thing was a bottle of water and the hungry little cloud would swell as large as the water supply allowed. Funny to think the flying fluffy puff balls of my childhood where I tried to find hidden shapes in had become such a sinister omen of immanent death by sniper fire. Thank Celestia I wasn't a Zebra right?

Yet, despite all of Equestria’s badass technologies and magical advantages, the Zebras continued to keep pace with us, if barely, but enough to keep us all constantly on the edge of our hooves and continually inventing. The Zebras seemingly had a potion, fetish, talisman, robot or species for everything we could throw at them. Their answer to Pegusi and Griffins were large predatory birds that were comparatively smaller, deadly, and above all, fast. In response to our Power Armor they developed advanced robots armed to the metaphorical teeth with missiles and magically enhanced bullets. Their combat armor was getting pretty advanced too, even amongst the common Askari soldiers, able to stand up to bigger and badder cartridges and explosive ordinance. For being so scrapped for resources, the Empire was cunning and inventive. Their method was in opposition to ours with a massive focus on magic supplemented with engineering while we employed the opposite philosophy of engineering supported by magic where needed.

Where the Empire continued to shine on the battlefield though was their superior hoof-to-hoof combat skills. More soldiers died thinking they could go head to head with an Askari than by a bullet. Even my fellow Veterans fell into the idea that a one-v-one with anyone above the rank of Korporaal would be a manageable affair. The only way to even stand a chance at that level was to learn from observation in combat just how those striped fucks fought up-close. Thankfully, (at least in the Tin Head’s defense) the Steel Rangers seemed all but immune to their CQC tactics and were quite effective at turning a group of Askari into a pile of mush with their automatic 40mm grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. Even then though, a Tin Head usually was smart enough to leave when one of the Zebra’s robotic behemoths rolled down or over the trench. Great as 40s and 5.56s were, they weren't nearly so effective on these amalgamations of technology and Necromancy being purposed for anti-personnel work.

That was where we Rangers came in. Years ago, probably three or four before I joined EastPoint, the Equestrian Armed Forces in conjunction with the Ministry of Wartime Technology finally managed to strike a contract with our neighbors to the Southwest. Mareseilles had always remained aloof of Equestrian influence and, by virtue of their own highly competent and well-supplied armed forces, had escaped annexation. By virtue of their win in the short-lived Equestrian-Mareseilles War of '58, they retained their right to determine their own stance on the War and they chose the highly-controversial third door: neutrality. That being said, they did not go so far as to endanger themselves by refusing to trade with us and defended their waters vehemently from Zebra probing. After tensions between us cooled off we had managed to score a defense contract through their most prestigious rifle makers Barnette who had helped ensure Mareseillian victory in '58. While the rifles would be manufactured by hoof in their impressive factories, Ironshod Armories handled the ammunition that made this new line of rifles indispensable in the arsenal of modern warfare.

By 2062, Barnette had delivered its first of what would be an impressive line of large-bore rifles designed for precision shooting at extremely long range. The .50 Big Macintosh Guard round, named after the war hero of the same name, was already in development by the time the contract had been finalized resulting in the first rifles, the now named APR-1 and S2, being chambered in the 12.7mm rounds. By the time I was in rifle training at EastPoint though, these were already being considered underpowered and had been demoted to Anti-Personnel work while the new 20mm Lupis round was taking over as the Anti-Machine round of choice. Same as with the .50s, the bigger and better 20mm rifles, namely in 20x84 then 20x102mm, became less and less effective against newer and newer robot models. Zebra metallurgical processes had improved just like ours had and we found ourselves fighting ever bigger mechanized monsters.

Enter the AMR-25, my favorite big-girl toy of all time. Built off the frame of the original S2 rifle, the AMR exchanged the upper assembly for another chambered in the brand-new 25x102mm Phoenix shell. Retaining the semi-automatic nature of the S2 which had made it so popular with modern big-bore Designated Marksmares, the Anti-Machine Rifle allowed you to empty the five-round magazine as quickly as you could pull the trigger. Simple in design and construction and forged from a Celestium Steel alloy, the relatively lightweight rifle was capable of being operated by a single competent user rather than being so heavy and bulky as to need two ponies to carry and assemble the rifle in the field. A highly beneficial improvement was the option to store the barrel recessed 3/4 of the way into the frame and collapse the stock reducing the original length of five feet down to three-and-a-half. Easy to lay across the back even with a full mag, anyone deemed impressive enough behind a scope only dreamed of getting their hooves on one of these babies. However, the high-quality materials and large specialty ammunition came with a hefty price tag. Although exceedingly effective in a multitude of firing roles, the AMR-25 was just too expensive for the brass to initially order more than 1,500 or so of the beautiful bastards. They had only been in service not even two years and had already proven their worth far as I was concerned. Unfortunately, the trial run was set to a three-year minimum period by the EAF before they would commit significant funds and resources to mass-production.

Though a few hundred AMRs had ended up in the hooves of the Airborne Corps (namely the Shadowbolts and the Deadeye Brigade) and the General Army’s First Recon Sniper Brigade, the vast majority ended up in the hooves of the Desert Rangers. After all, we were the grandfather, father and kickass uncle of the art of combative sniping. From the moment of recruitment, every Ranger was trained extensively in the use of all six basic weapon types: pistols, shotguns, rifles, automatics, energy and ordinance. You had to serve time in real combat before you could be considered for the Corps which meant you were already a burgeoning specialist in at least one of those six categories. With an extra emphasis on rifles, we were intended as a Designated Markspony support role on the battlefield providing over watch of the GA on the field. Though as the War raged on and combat became less and less conventional in light of the technological race against the Zebras, the Rangers found themselves relying heavily on all six weapon types. In order to survive in the trenches, fields, planes, mountains and anywhere else the War called us to be present at, we had to be as flexible as the wind in order to stay alive with the orders we were given. Beta Squad, like ninety percent of the other Veteran Ranger Squads, originally began as an almost exclusively sniper team but with the changing times we all found something we all could specialize in and have a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

Buck Beak was always known as a Powder Ganger, a sort of nickname given to people who just couldn’t get enough fire and explosions in their lives. Once given the option, he immediately took a liking to the heavy ordinance usually reserved for the Boom Boys, the General Army’s explosives experts. Pennies Worth, though a Canterlot native with a tendency for politeness, was fascinated by the gruesome simplicity of of shotshells, thus she took on the role of Beta Squad’s shotgunner extraordinaire. In fact, she had first earned her warrant as an officer for her exceptional skill with boomsticks. Rain Dancer was a self-professed middle-of-the-fence guy and enjoyed a highly modular Boulder-53 light machine gun with an optional sight. He was comfortable firing off hundreds of rounds from both afar and up close and had earned his warrant more because of right-place, right-time circumstances rather than any specialty that normally awarded you such a rank. To be frank, he had fallen into the promotion to fill in a gap in his unit being the only Sergeant (really, the only officer in general) to survive a patrol gone to hell. Since then though, he had earned his place on my team for loyalty and rather accurate suppressive fire.

My darling Huckleberry preferred high-powered rifles like her favorite .338 Luna Magnus, but was no stranger to a knife or a pistol. As our official/unofficial Squad combat medic, she also served under me as our team sniper as her Barnette M-RAD rifle was much better suited to Anti-Personnel work. And me? Well, I preferred the two extremes as extreme as they could get. Namely the venerable AMR-25 and my new Sequoia, the biggest rifle a mare could carry and one of the largest revolver calibers in existence. All in all, Beta (now Alpha) Squad was as well rounded as you could get and it was precisely why we were the best for that reason. Jack-of-Aces teams were perfect one-size-fits-all responses to most situations, exactly how we had clawed our way into the Elite Five and earned our way to the best equipment we could ask to do our jobs with. The five best Squads in the Corps, one from each Brigade, were often immune from having to perform the duties of their GA rank and got to operate similarly to how we used to. On our own as a team with no temporary reassignments to coordinate grunts through a hail of bullets.

There was a chaotic beauty to how we, the Steel Rangers, the General Army and the Airborne Corps all functioned in our own unique capacities to form one cohesive and very efficient Army. The GA were the main hooves on the ground taking the brunt of the casualties even despite the recent introduction of armored fighting vehicles and first-generation assault tanks. The Steel Rangers served as the heavy shock troopers and original battlefield tanks bringing in heavier firepower than most GA grunts could handle. The Airborne Corps did their best to maintain air superiority, provided bird’s-eye covering fire, reconnaissance and assisted on the ground wherever needed as highly mobile fighters. The Desert Rangers now served in several capacities depending on rank, skill and location ranging from Anti-Machine details and assisting frontal assaults to acting as Special Forces tasked with high-value assignments behind enemy lines. Often missions such as those were in cooperation with one of the EAF's Specialist Taskforces such as the Shadowbolts in the Air Corps, Spectre Operatives from the GA or Firesquad Nightshade in the Steel Rangers. All in all, we had just about every essential part of the active battlefield covered in some way while the M.O.W and Acting Wartime Council handled the logistical end of the MeatGrinder. Rarely did any of us need to do much paperwork in order to get what we needed with the team of secretaries every officer above First Lieutenant or NCO above Sergeant had on standby in the Command Tent.

The only ‘Corps’ not officially recognized by the Army was the Engineer’s Corp. These were the guys (and gals) who hauled, built, maintained and repaired all the artillery, vehicles and wartime robots that had slowly come into use on the front lines in response to the Zebra’s excessive use of battlebots. However...due to a mindbogglingly stupid argument between the Ministry of Image and the Ministry of War, none of the hard work they did would receive official recognition. The reason why? Public image. The Ministry of Image, in a bid to rewrite the bad press about the War as fatigue set in and nationalism was running dry in the tank, refused to allow negative impressions on public media campaigns. It was difficult to catch those amongst the war photographers who were leaking the true chaos of the War to the public but this was hardly the smart way to go about it in my opinion. The 'negative impression' in question regarding the Engineers was an argument over how their uniforms, ranks, titles and the like should look. The M.O.W wanted to use special-requisition StableTec mechanic's underbarding and fudge the rest as the Engineers had not been so important when the EAF had been first formed but had outgrown their status of just being an extension of the GA. The Ministry of Image instead felt the Corps deserved something more and with Engineers showing up on the news, they needed to look good while doing their jobs or during live ceremonies involving civilians. And so...the Corps sat in a state of existence and non-existence all at once for the last eight years while two old friends argued over who's Ministry had more power in the Hexagon.

It boggled everypony’s minds that they were not given proper credit for their significant contributions all because the ‘image’ of dusty, greasy and grimy engineers on recruitment posters wasn’t dignified enough for a nation as great as Equestria. The fact they kept all our artillery, radios, vehicles and even Power Armor in tip-top condition was beside the point apparently. What made it even more fucking stupid was the fact there were plenty of posters in circulation (made and approved by the M.O.I mind you) calling for all able bodied hooves to help in the factories to support an undisputable Equestrian victory. These very posters featured the same grungy, sweating, oil-blackened image that was supposedly beneath the far dirtier job of an Engineer working his or her tail off while under the threat of enemy fire. Thankfully for all involved though, the Ministry of Awesome of all organizations had stepped up to forward its considerably untouched budget towards paying off the small army of mechanical wizards and technological witches. There weren't really any official ranks in the Corps, but at least they didn't go entirely unfunded while we in the field tried our best to show them the respect they damned well deserved. Especially the Steel Rangers with their fancy suits of armor.

“Yo, Crete!” Barked out a somewhat familiar Southern accent to my left. “I need tah talk wit’ ya ‘bout somethin’ k?”

I looked over to the source of the voice and saw a Steel Ranger standing nearby with his helmet removed from his armor. It took me a few seconds to realize this was the same Tin Head I had bandied words with on our arrival to the Badlands a few days prior. With all Tin Heads looking rather similar to each other while in full gear, the only point of reference I really had was his decidedly deep Southern accent. Few things quite sounded like molasses spilling outta the mouth as a heavy drawl.

I didn’t bother to set down the rest of my breakfast of hot oatmeal with milk and fruit but instead floated it alongside me as I made my way across the trampled red earth to where he stood. He wasn’t bad looking for a stallion with a chestnut coat and a dark brown mane buzzed down into a crew cut for his helmet. I figured he would probably look best in an old cowboy hat but the armor definitely suited him. Armor almost always made anyone look good no matter the gender or species. Then again, I was the kind of mare who would label her Mrk. IV as acceptable ballroom attire and swooned easily to a mare (or particularly handsome stud) wearing a dress uniform with full decorations. Approaching him, I noticed this time the twin butter-sticks of a Captain painted onto the collar of his gorget protecting what parts of the neck the helmet of the T-45 didn't. The desert camo pattern painted over the matte gray steel certainly helped you distinguish a Steel Ranger who served mainly in the South from silvery one who prowled the defenses of the East or the variety of camo patterns employed by those poor Souls damned to the Zulu Campaign in the Empire.

“Well if it ain’t the Tin Head from the L.Z!” I said with a somewhat forced laugh as I stood before him, his heavy variant Power Armor making him several inches taller than me. “What ya need eh? Another round of who can insult the other the fastest?”

He rolled his eyes and grunted, “Nah, Ah wanted tah talk tah ya about yer theory abou’ th’ Balefire launcher thangs.”

“Oh…?” I asked, remembering the conversation only because he had brought it up. “What about it...? That was at best speculation based off of inconclusive evidence and a bit of fear of the unknown. Hardly anything worth spending time making theories on unless there's solid evidence to give the damn thing credence.”

“Ah think we might’ve found one of ‘em.” He said quietly. “Tha' enough 'proof' fer ya to get interested?”

I cocked an eyebrow at his proposal, rather unable to take the offer at face value. It wasn’t common but in our legendary rivalry, it wasn’t unheard of for a Tin Head or a Ranger to invite someone of the other side to join them for something only to either humiliate them or give them a hell of a beating. Neither myself or anyone of Alpha Squad had ever stooped so low to do so ourselves but Rain Dancer had. Victim to a rather brutal gang rape from a group of Tin Heads who had invited him and a few other male Rangers over to their tent for a game of cards. Took his ass two weeks to recover even with the help of potions and nothing had been done to punish the offenders due to selectively deaf senior officers. Needless to say...there was little trust between the Corps and continued animosities from upper-management favoritism ensured the bonds of comradery were a pipedream.

“Why me, just out of blatantly curious disdain?” I asked bluntly, looking at him with a stern gaze. “If you found something this fucking insane it’s best to give it to the Engineers for analysis. Not discussing it with someone who ain't got the brains for that kinda gizmo. Do I look like an Engineer to you? Or maybe some Warrant Officer with a specialty for Engineering and Tech?”

He waved a hoof and grunted, “Ah’m fuckin' askin’ ya because yer th’ only one who’d believe meh an’ Ah can’t go tah th’ Engineers withou’ some proof. Yer th' one who made th' theory in the first place goddamnit!”

“Ok, now I’m confused.” I admitted, looking him over for signs of deception. “Do you or do you not have one of those theoretical Balefire things we talked about?”

He fretted an armored hoof and scuffed up some of the red clay below us before he mumbled, “Ah don’ have it...yet. Still werkin' on tha'..."

“So you’re saying it exists? Or at least something you think might be it?” I asked, looking at him incredulously with a continued hint of suspicion. This was a pretty elaborate scheme if it indeed was one...

“What Ah’m sayin’ is Ah saw ah weird ass lookin’ launcher thang in th’ trenches tha’ Ah think coul’ be th’ thang you was talkin’ abou’. Only problem is th’ damn thang is way th’ fuck tah th’ South there an’ tha’ there's Nopony’s Land. Too dangerous fer anypony but ah full Firesquad of our caliber tah enter.”

I turned my head to look in the direction he was indicating, the haze of the desert heat dancing in the sunlight overhead making anything farther than a half-mile or so a wavy mess of moving air. I retained my suspicions about his intentions but...a Balefire launcher, if it existed, would answer some pretty fucking terrifying questions that had been circulating through the ranks in every Corps. Just what have the Zebras been using to kill dozens of ponies at once in a single explosion regardless of their level of protection? T-45, the Mrk. IV, basically all of the M-CAP models...it didn't seem to matter as the blast was stronger than anything seen previously deployed. If I was to explore this option (and I had to admit it intrigued me as much as it scared me), I wanted to have at least one of my Squad with me just to ensure some sense of security against any funny business.

“Alright, I’m in but I’m going to be bringing my Squad with me. For multiple reasons.” I said finally, looking back at him with a look that dared him to challenge my stipulation.

“Would’ve called ya ah dumb fuckin’ Nad Pad if ya didn’t.” He responded with a chuckle, the Steel Ranger’s equivalent of our use of ‘Tin Head’ as an insult being to call us more or less a glorified dick protector. “I’ma bring mah Squad too. Th’ area Ah saw it is way too close tah th’ Zebra’s camp tah feel safe an’ Ah don’ know ‘bout you but Ah dun’ wanna be stuck out there by mahself.”

“This kind of op isn’t going to get cleared easily, not if it’s as far South as you’re implying.” I replied, thinking about how we were going to pull this off when no patrol squads were allowed into Nopony’s Territory without expressed permission of the General due to concerns of ‘reckless loss of life’; a very valid concern. “Alright, I’ll try and use my influence to get me and my Squad posted for fringe patrol duty tonight or posted to Outpost Charlie-Horse so we’ll be more or less allowed to go past the normal patrol routes. How long you thinking this little shindig is gonna last? Any longer than it takes to make a sweep of the area and we're gonna be missed.”

He bit his lip in thought, his brow furrowing in an amusing way before he said, “Well, if ya can get me an’ mah Squad tah join ya out there an’ we time it right, hopefully no more than twenty, maybe thirty mins tahps. Make ah straight path fer where Ah saw it an’ cut righ’ back an’ meet up with th’ rest of th’ patrol. No need tah involve anypony more than we needs to.”

"Why the secrecy though...?" I asked, retaining our combined hushed tones just in case. "Sure this kind of op would be handled by another team but you're acting like this'll piss off a lot of ponies."

"Ah hope t' fuck yer yankin mah tail there Colonel. Yew really thank th' brass'er gonna let us know about this here new threat? Hell nah! Just like wit' them damned invisibility cloaks them Dragoons wear, they're gonna deny everythin' until too many ponies die from it. We need tah be th' ones gettin' th' word out to people. If this damn thing exists, we just gotta know how it ticks! Ah don' wanna die tah some fuckin' 'undocumented enemy technology'. Lost too many friends tha' way..."

For having his head wrapped in government tinfoil, he was a stallion I could relate with on that point. My own personal obsession with the art of bodily defense made me an avid observer and low-key expert on armors both foreign and domestic. My written observations of advancements in Zebra body armor had even become highly valued by the Engineers who did the more professional analysis work on recovered materiel. If my unofficial work there had proven valuable to the ponies who actually mattered out here, well it was only natural that I felt inclined to help. Being the first to document such advances was keenly gratifying and gave my academic side something fun to chew on when I wasn't chewing through Zebs.

"You know what...this sounds too detailed and specific to be some kind of con. If you're serious about this, then I'll be nice and give ya the benefit of the doubt on this one."

"Ah know ya Nads ain't ones fer trustin' us Tin Heads..." He sighed, looking to the ground as his expression seemed remorseful. "But Ah swear on mah mama this here ain't no ruse. There's somthin' scary and Zeeb out there in them trenches and we needs tah find out what. If we combine our Squads fer fringe patrol duty, we can hit two birds wit' one stone. Some of us head to th' area we need tah search n' th' rest do th' rest of th' damned patrol like nothin' at ahll was happenin. Ahll goes tah plan, nopony'll even notice ah goddamned thang.

That would make sense. Each of us taking a partner with us out to the site while the rest of our team does the actual patrol. That way, we would both have a cover (as individual figures at a great distance can get miscounted easily, especially at night) and we would also be doing our job. I mean, the whole point of patrols was to be on the lookout for anything dangerous or nasty headed into our territory. I would think something as dangerous as a portable mini Balefire Bomb launcher would qualify as something worth patrolling for. At the very fucking least...it would be an interesting off-the-books op and give us a chance to show them up if it came time for combat. Just because we were in a truce for this thing didn't mean the rivalry wasn't alive and well and I wanted to win.

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do then. Gotta make a few calls but I'll see what strings I'm able to pull with these oak leaves on my neck.” I replied, finishing up my all but forgotten breakfast in one go. “Oh...I guess I should try and be civil since you already know my name. What’s yours, Captain?”

“Onyx Chain, Ma'am.” He said sheepishly, giving me a bit of a salute as I still technically outranked him by a factor of two on the pay-grade scale.

“Well, it’s good to meet you formally Captain Onyx.” I said, enjoying how neat his name sounded out loud. “If you need to contact me, tune into 303.4 Hertz. I keep that channel reserved for me and my Squad. I’ll let you know as soon as I have an answer about the fringe patrol thing, k?”

He nodded and trotted off quickly back into the camp leaving me to return back to my peoples who looked up at me with curiosity as I sat back down beside Huckleberry.

“Well?” Buck Beak asked, looking at me with anticipation. “Do I have to kill him or not?”

“No.” I replied as I snuck a piece of freshly made toast from Huckleberry’s bowl, much to her amusement as she knew extremely buttery toast was my comfort food of choice. “He actually had a proposition for us that is...interesting to say the least. Not entirely sure I believe it...”

“Interesting as in he’s asking for an orgy kind of interesting or interesting as in he’s inviting us to go do something with him?” Pennies Worth asked before sloppily raising her bowl of oatmeal to her face and gulping it down.

“The latter.” I said as I finished my toast and went for another piece. “He thinks he may have found a new weapon the Zebras are using to kill a bunch of us at a time with a single explosion. You know exactly the kind I’m talking about.”

“Wait...you mean those weird purple explosions that make that weird ass crackling sound?” Rain Dancer asked, leaning forward looking serious.

“You’ve seen one?” I asked, surprised as everypony seemed to know about the explosions but none had seen it first hoof. Well, nopony still alive that was...

“Only a glimpse of it but it was fucking weird.” He said in a hushed tone. “There was a flash of purple way up the battlefield and a loud crackling sound like a bolt of lightning mixed with firecrackers and then it died out. Even through the filters I could smell brimstone and the mushroom cloud left behind made the air around it really...weird looking. I dunno guys, it was fucking weird and set my fur on end.”

“Huh…” We all seemed to hum in unison, collectively digesting what he had just said.

“Well, regardless...there's decent evidence to support the idea that the Zebs have a new toy in their arsenal. Something portable, deadly and, hopefully not, related to Balefire tech. Captain Onyx believes he came across such a device in Nopony’s Land and asked if we were willing to break the rules and go on a little hunt for it.”

“You fucking serious?” Buck Beak asked, his feathers rustling a little. “That’s some crazy shit there…”

“I don’t think they have that kind of technology...not yet at least.” Rain Dancer said fearfully. "They just can't...right?"

“It makes too much sense for me to disregard it…” Pennies Worth mumbled in thought, chewing on her hoof as was her nervous habit. "Sure there's a lot of unknowns here but the facts are lining up too close for this to be just a wild goose chase through the trenches. I'm in if we're going to do this."

“I believe you, Athena.” Huckleberry said firmly, putting a hoof around me in support. “When do we leave to find this thing and where? And on that note, how are we gonna get all this shit approved? You know better than anypony that the brass don't just approve these kind of ops on short notice, not even to Lieutenant Colonels.”

“Well, the idea was to get ourselves posted for fringe patrol tonight with him and his Squad and a few of us sneak off to go find it and then meet back up towards the end of the circuit.” I replied, tracing out in the dirt a rough draft of the plan. “I’ll take one other, two at most. The rest need to stay and do the patrol. I don’t want us all going in case the patrol comes across something bad out there. Plus, if we get into some serious shit out there, you and his Squad will be the closest one’s to come and support us and we can chalk it up to investigating a disturbance that turned into an ambush. Bingo, bango, bongo we have ourselves an easy enough excuse to fall back on.”

“And we’re agreeing to help a Tin Head why...?” Buck Beak asked, looking at me like I was proposing something akin to heresy which I suppose in a way I was. There was no love lost yet between us and them and things were unlikely to change.

“Because…” I groaned before I sighed and tried again with a clearer train of thought. “Because we might as well make some friends in the Steel Rangers. I’m not supposed to tell you guys this but I’m going to anyway...command is going to start pairing Squads from different Corps to work together. Depending upon the skill of the individuals in each Squad will determine how big the combined teams are. Means we’ll probably get paired with another high ranking team, most likely from the Steel Rangers considering the tactical appraisal of the Front's fighting capacity.”

“Why’s that? We could use some extra wings in the group so why not pair us up with like the Shadowbolts?” Rain Dancer asked, looking up at the clouds where small figures could be seen darting about between them.

“Hahaha, no.” Buck Beak laughed sarcastically, ending in a stern tone. “I’m the wings in this party of fucktards and I’m gonna stay the wings in this group. I don't need some fucking short ass wingaling dildo getting his fat head in between me and the enemy. Flying and gettin' hit with explosives ain't some fucking joke.”

“What? Don’t wanna get shown up in the air by some Pegasus?” Pennies Worth teased, poking Buck Beak in his armored wings which clunked softly beneath her hoof. "

He brushed her hoof away with his wing and frowned while angrily growling, “Oh shut up Penny, we both know I’d fuck them all over with my special moves.”

We all seemed to take his choice of words in a dirty direction as we broke out into fits of laughter and giggles at the thought of Buck Beak (a self-professed lady’s bird who we all knew was still a virgin) 'fucking over' a group of Shadowbolts.

“H-heh, you gonna invite old Rainbow Dash to your little ‘party’?” Rain Dancer choked out between fits of laughter.

Buck Beak’s feathery cheeks flushed red and he busied himself by shoving his beak into the mostly empty bowl of oatmeal before him as we continued to laugh at his expense.

"You gonna invite some of the Plague Birds into your love nest too?" I giggled with glee as the redness in his cheeks continued to darken. "Heard some of those Gryphon fuckers were pretty good looking for behemoths. Might be a bit big for ya but since when have little Griffins like you said no to some big bird domming?"

"Oh for the love of..." He groaned loudly and in a very pained and embarrassed tone. "What is with you and those fucking clowns in armor? So what they're one of the most decorated birds in the fucking EAF? Not like I fucking care! Those big ass fuckwads can suck my ass for all the shits I have to give."

"Oh shut it you featherhead. You'd like one of em to suck your ass wouldn't you?"

"FUCK!!"

It was moments like these that I fucking loved being around my teammates. All of us had our minds so deep in the gutter we all basically lived there where words like ‘fuck’ and ‘sex’ and ‘orgy’ and a whole bunch of other ‘dirty’ words were like greetings to each other. I myself adoredmy home in the gutter since not only did it allow me to fully express myself with swear words (something my mom liked to call ‘sentence enhancers’) but I had a hot ass mare to keep me warm and groovy while wallowing in the mud. Not only that but every single one of us was pretty fast and loose with the language when left to our own devices. 'Hey fuckface!' could suffice just as well as 'Hey, Penny!' while knee-deep into digging a foxhole or hanging around the Camp.

“Alpha Squad!” Barked the voice of the General flanked by the heavy thuds of his Shock Trooper’s hoofsteps. “At attention!”

We all shot up like cattle to an electric fence (hell anything to an electric fence) and stood in a well organized line before the General with his immaculately clean uniform that made me sick to look at. The look on his face was thankfully one of approval which meant we weren’t on his shit list...yet. Still, you couldn’t help but feel intimidated by him. Not because of his stature (which was short and pudgy) but because of the four golden stars on his lapels which meant he had the power to make anypony on the Southern Front disappear regardless of legality. Hell, I was half convinced he was the one who had reported the original Alpha Squad to the M.O.M. Not that I had any proof of that, I just didn’t trust or like the General. It was probably the too-clean uniform and the well polished stars. Or was it because he had been in the habit of sidelining and being seemingly complacent in the waste of talent being shown whenever he sent Company after Company of Rangers into the trenches as frontline infantry with little by way of tact or purpose. Yeah...definitely because of that I think. Anypony with their eyes open knew we were his least favorite Corps in the Army.

“Well ain’t you the most obedient sons of bitches I’ve seen yet today.” He chuckled as he looked over all of us with a smile, his Shock Troopers sneering down at us with their new and improved Power Armor that I had yet to get properly identified. Maybe Onyx would be able to shed some light?

“How is the Desert Ranger’s best holding up?” He asked, his voice infuriatingly patronizing in a subtly passive-aggressive tone. "Good old Alpha Squad."

“We are greenlit, Sir.” I said firmly in the standard militaristic manner that these top brass heads all drooled over. “My Squad and I are ready and gearing to kick some Imperial ass at any time, Sir.”

He grinned and sighed, “Excellent! Exactly the words I needed to hear. Meet me in my office at 2100 hours, I have a mission I want to discuss with you all. That will be all Rangers.”

We all saluted him and relaxed the moment he and his silent cronies’ backs were turned to us. Any meeting with the General was a bit of a big deal and the other soldiers nearby were looking our way inquisitively as he never seemed to stray this close to the trenches. Not that the eating galley pavilion was that close to the entrance to the labyrinth (which were still a good mile and a half further South) but it was just rare to see him anywhere outside the Command Tent. That was even if he was on site, which he usually wasn’t. Unlike the Colonel, who had been flown out the night of our quasi-victory in the trenches in pushing the Zebs back to their camp, the General almost always avoided being near the fighting. Of course it made sense that someone of his rank and stature was supposed to run the battle from afar and out of danger from enemy gunfire. That being said, he was almost always to be found back at the Hexagon in Canterlot safely away from all the blood and death of the War he was overseeing. With a map and a bunch of terminal entries, he determined the fates of thousands as he wielded the might of the Southern Front at his command. He was about as far removed from the reality of the War as the newborns in a maternity ward at the hospital and I resented being but a name and a number on his registry to push and move around the map at the whims of such an uninspiring leader. While the Colonel commanded respect from everyone he worked with, he had damn well earned that right by always being in or nearby the action ready to take direct charge if needed. This fat fuck probably hadn't even shot a rifle in over a decade.

“What do you think he’s got in mind for us?” Huckleberry asked, looking after them with a bit of a scowl on her face. “Another one of those stupid Bag-n’-Tag jobs?”

Oh gods, if I didn’t have to do another one of those for the rest of the War I would be a happy mare. A Bag-n’-Tag was the go-to term for a ‘Black Op’ that involved a Squad or two going behind enemy lines to capture and bring back a Veteran Legionnaire or rarely a Zebra Centurion for interrogation. This meant shipping them back to the M.O.M building in Canterlot and having their minds raped by the M.O.M’s Unicorn interrogators. What made these jobs a nightmare is the fact we had to do it quietly and could not under any circumstances kill anyone whether guard or bystander. This was hard as fuck to accomplish because the one thing Zebras all seemed to excel at was stealth and it's very hard to hustle a hustler. Not only that, but when you tried to subdue the target, they would almost instantly swallow the Nightshade tablet each high ranking Legionnaire had hidden in a false tooth at the back of their mouths that shattered when bitten. Either you ended up having to pack up and go home because a guard spotted you and started taking shots alerting the base or you had to sneak (usually run) home empty hoofed because the striped fucker would rather swallow instant death than get mind raped by a Unicorn. Well, when you put it like that, I think I too would prefer an instant death at by my own hoof than to get dragged into the heart of enemy territory and have my mind torn apart for information in such a brutal fashion. But still, the fuckers didn’t make our job easy. Not by a long shot.

“No idea…” I sighed as I turned back towards them all. “Guess we’ll find out tonight then.”

“Hey!” Buck Beak chuckled as we returned back to our original seating area. “On the bright side, this means we can’t get sent out into the labyrinth until after the meeting just in case we don’t live to make it to the meeting.”

“Glad our safety means that much to him…” Huckleberry sighed as she picked up her empty bowl of oatmeal and went back into the galley, putting her shiny new Captain’s pin on full display to get herself an extra serving of food.

“Well, hopefully it doesn’t take too long so we’ll have enough time to prepare for tonight’s little shindig.” Rain Dancer sighed as he lay back in the dirt and closed his eyes.

“Agreed…” I sighed as well, flinching as I instinctively began leaning on where Huck’s shoulder had been but finding it to be sadly missing. “Well...at least we get to chillax all day right?”

It seemed that despite our agreed bloodlust, none of us were too eager to head back into the fray that had mostly died down for now. We could all feel the order to advance that would be coming any day now. It was inevitable that the General, with his massive influx of new troops and equipment, would have his eyes set on pushing the Southern Front as far South as it could go. After all the basic plan for the South was exactly the same as that implemented in the East, driving the Zebras into the ocean and back to their stupid little Empire across the sea. The problem was just waiting for the inevitable. It’s like getting your mouth numbed at the dentist's’ office when they stab your gums with the anesthetic syringe. You know it’s coming, you know what the metal of the syringe tastes like with a numbed tongue, you know it’s not really going to hurt...but you still fucking hate the needle anyway. Mom knew I hated that damn needle more than anyone, she’s worked on my teeth enough to know. Fuck that thing. And fuck the inevitable.

****************

Chapter Thirteen: An Old, New Appleloosan Friend

“Huh…” Melody hummed as we rounded a bend in the track that curved around a brown hill bringing New Appleloosa into view. “It’s not as big as I thought it would be.”

“Well what were you expecting, Manehattan?” I chuckled as I lead the group ever onwards to the modest-sized settlement.

“I...I don’t know what I expected…” She mumbled to herself as we continued to walk. "I r-really don't..."

New Appleloosa was roughly the same size as Old Appleloosa though was in considerably better shape and was much more populated. The town itself was similarly defended by a wall of derelict rail cars taken from the railway, however New Appleloosa was home to much more competent defense planners and telekinetic prowess. While the Slavers had made do with upright cars patched up with shoddy walls, these enterprising ponies stripped them of their wheels and placed them in a nearly seamless ring two cars high. Over time, each of these defensive boxcars were filled to the brim with sand, rock and other rubble to act as a shield against any attack on the wall itself while the top was patrolled by a dozen armed guards. Inside the ring was an almost quaint collection of makeshift houses formed of various leftover passenger carriages, shipping containers, sheet metal, iron piping and wood. Four in particular even rose three boxcars high, welded to a rudimentary but serviceable support structure with external stairs and a sniper's nest perched atop each giving the town a wide field of view. Our approach was going to be noted.

To further our cover in the event the train arrived with news of the slaughter while we were here, I had to leave the straight and easy path of the tracks and approach the town from the exact opposite of the South we were running from. New Appleloosa wasn't a town I was all too familiar with having the bulk of my Bounties sending me North, East and primarily the San-Palomino area as a whole. While still in the Desert's limits on a map, New Appleloosa was in a gray zone lying on the fringes of the Badlands as well, a personal no-go zone. Until now that was. My three previous passing-throughs were for no longer than it took to catch a hot meal at the Bronze Bell and use their rather civilized public restrooms. Relatively comfortable, safe enough to take your time with and regularly had TP? It was well worth the detour during those three occasions but had done little to familiarize me with the town all that well.

Without another thought I turned to everypony and said, “Ok, for the record if anypony asks where we’re coming from just say, 'We caught the track just South of Barkerville.' That's vague but detailed enough to satisfy most small talk questions without arousing too much suspicion. As for Chocolate's wounds, we tell the truth only as far as we have to, to get what we need. On second thought, just try to not talk too much and let me handle the bulk of it. We wanna get in and outa here as quick as we can so we can beat the train. Needless to say they're not gonna be too happy that one of their largest importers was wiped off the map for now.”

They all nodded and I was grateful (if saddened) that they knew exactly why we were having to be a bit deceptive to the relatively good folks of NA. Old Appleloosa was a huge source of commerce for them and thanks to the three of us (Chocolate was just a victim plain and simple) the town was empty of all life. Well, until more Raiders and/or Slavers moved in which honestly could happen within a week, two at most. A pre-made, well-fortified town like that wasn’t going to stay empty for long. Sure as any band of sadistic bastards still roamed the earth in their thousands who’d all probably die at the chance to get such a strategic area all to themselves. Were it not Hell made real, I'd even feel inclined myself towards that kind of solid foundation to build a community on. That was of course assuming one mare and two foals counted as a 'community'; not that I would ever be so bold as to call ourselves by that term.

That train of thought brought another pertinent topic into the station for me to consider as my future plans were continually being developed. Assuming Gold and Melody wished to...stick with me longer, we were going to need a lot more room than my tiny concrete and steel fortress in Freeside. Chocolate...she was welcome to crash with us I suppose but I hoped that she would move on after regaining her legs and a bit of spending money. How much more room though...? Well...that was a good question. Hadn't been in a place to share room with anyone in decades so how much room did a mare, young mare and an ambiguously aged Ghoul need to live comfortably? Mother of fuck there was so much to think about...

We made our final approach using the rail line towards the large sliding gate protecting the town station line before being waved over towards a sentry door by a pack of guards. Though I had seen it before, I was still impressed to see the three mares and one stallion guarding the door wearing matching sets of the M-CAP R1A armors all painted a bright blue and yellow. Hadn't seen many of them survive the War being an exclusive line of the Ranger series, the same from which my Mrk. IV had come from albeit earlier in the development cycle. They were only issued to 1st Recon units but proudly used a version of the iconic breastplate included in a suit of combat armor made of better materials than those issued to lower ranking grunts. How they came into the possession of such treasures? I was too socially awkward to ask...

"Alright you three, just hold up for a minute now would ya?" Asked one of the mares, casually keeping the barrel of her .44 Trail Carbine level with my chest.

"Hey, I'm here too y'all!" Whined Chocolate, leaning dangerously far over to make sure they saw her on my back.

"Sweet Celestia, what happened to her?" Gasped a second mare in horror while the other two remained silent, checking us over while the mares kept their guns trained on us.

"Oh you know, out hunting for some grub and baboom baby!" Chocolate said with much more enthusiasm than could be unnaturally forced. "Butttt, we kinda really need to get my ass to a doc don't ya think?"

"You here to cause us any problems?" The male asked with a critical eye on me in particular, no doubt a concerning sight in my armor and armed as I was.

"Hardly," I said calmly and nonchalantly. "Like she said, we need to get her looked at by someone more equipped than I am and we need a decent amount of supplies. Only place South of Barkerville that has enough shit we're looking to buy."

"Is that so? Y'all a strange bunch for a bunch of travelers..."

I didn't have time to banter with suspicious minds. The best negotiator for stubbornness was almost always cold, hard cash no matter the era or the currency. Pocket change for me would be worth triple at least to those not making 50k a month. Money changing hooves always has a way of soothing tensions between people.

"How about I prove my intentions by eh...lightening this bag of caps I brought with us?" I suggested, pulling out my large leather bag of caps and letting it rattle for their ears to lust over. "I'm sure whatever they're paying you ain't what you think your time is worth so why don't we say...a hundred caps each and you guys let us in without any further questions. We told you what we're here for, if we meant harm I could have done it from miles away and we are just passing through to begin with. Not a bad deal I'd say."

Surprise and amusement hit all four of their faces as weapons raised and tensions eased. The caps were counted out quickly and with their greed so easily satisfied, we were allowed to walk through the large metal garage gate and into New Appleloosa. I was 400 caps lighter, but it was a relative drop in the bucket overall and I still had enough left over for more than a little wiggle room at the mercantile store. Not only was that our most logical stop after the town doc, but it was also the nearby the new location of Green's regional drop box. Hitmares and Hunters with other jobs in the que could stop by after any mission that brought them to the area and leave behind any important items Green may have requested at that particular time. I didn't have the caps, but I sure as hell still had the raw Chems that he had asked for. He was gonna have to be happy with what he got outta me at this point and there was always a tiny chance it would be enough brevity to afford us a more muted retaliation.

“Hey, mind telling me where I can find the main merchant?” I asked a random passerby soon as they came close enough to ask without feeling awkward. "We're kind of lost, sorry."

“Ah shucks, y’all new to town?” The stallion asked, his face lighting up in spite of my rather intimidating armor and helmet, something that usually gave strangers a bit of pause.

“Mhm.” I nodded. “I need to get some supplies for me and my friends here.”

He looked over our ragtag party of two foals and two mares, only two of us wearing some form of armor and chuckled as he pointed towards the north part of town and said, “Just there on yonder, can’t miss it! Th’ place is called Absolutely Everything so ya can’t miss it if ya tried. Oh, just a heads up but th’ owner is one of them Ghouls, but she’s a sweet gal. Ugly as sin but a sweet gal. Hell of a repairspony too! Keeps th' town well pump goin' nice and strong!”

Gold pouted a little and said, “H-hey! I’m a G-Ghoul too!”

The stallion looked at him with surprise as if really seeing him for the first time and exclaimed, “Well I’ll be damned! Y’all are gonna be just fine seeing her then! Good luck! And welcome to New Appleloosa strangers! Remember, yer lookin' for Absolutely Everything, straight down there and to th' right. Can't miss it!”

Absolutely Everything eh? Well, I was shy a bunch of ammunition and though I had enough for my Sequoia and my AMR, I still felt strangely naked without my usual extra supplies of ammo. Plus, we needed to get Melody a basic set of armor until I could pull together something better for her and Chocolate was probably sore from laying on the large turtle shell-like armored plating attached to the back of my duster. Seeing as she was there all day, I wanted to get her a blanket or something to act as some padding for the rest of our journey. The only problem, for once, was money. I had given just about everything I had to Chocolate forcing me to ask for it all back with the promise I’d pay for whatever she wanted as long as it was within our budget. And wasn’t too weird.

We passed between the patchy steel and wooden buildings heading in the direction the stallion had pointed us getting some strange looks and whispered words from the townsfolk who caught sight of us as we went. I had to admit we probably looked like one weird looking team of misfits to anypony looking on. I mean, amongst us was an armored Ghoul the size of a colt, a drop dead gorgeous filly wearing nothing at all (which was a rare sight indeed in the Wastes) a heavily armed mare wearing battle worn but still advanced Pre-War armor and a heavily scarred brown mare on her back who was missing her hindlegs. In all seriousness, we looked like a traveling circus that had gone through basic training at least once.

Amongst the whisperings my helmet’s microphones picked up was, “Wonder if they’re a bunch of junkies...or maybe one of those weird traveling prostitutes I’ve heard about. New Pegasus has a lot of weirdos, they’re probably from there.”

I rolled my eyes and continued until the houses gave way for a set of derailed boxcars all connected together to form one building. Painted on the wall of the doorway leading in, in large white letters was the phrase, ‘Absolutely Everything’ accompanied with a rather strange collection of silvery grey circles. It remained to be seen if the place indeed had absolutely everything we needed but we entered in anyway. The interior was stuffed full of box after box and shelf after shelf of the most random assortment of objects anypony would need. Guns, ammunition, canned and boxed food, tools, jewelry, books, random knick-knacks and everything in between seemed to be housed in the endless maze of shelves. It had been awhile since I had been in an establishment that actually qualified for the term 'general store'. Whoever ran this place knew what the hell she was doing and had a terrific supplier to boot. It was no wonder why New Appleloosa was booming.

“I wonder where the o-owner is?” Gold said as we all looked around for the Ghoul proprietor we had been told about but weren’t readily seeing in the store. "D-don't see anypony..."

There was a loud crash from over where a makeshift counter stood as a box full of assorted metal parts got knocked to the floor by a Ghoul who seemed to suddenly appear from nowhere. Since Melody was watching, I pushed myself to rush forward to help her tidy the mess. As I worked beside her though, I quickly noticed the bony, mostly featherless wings attached to her sides making her a rare sight indeed. I had only seen maybe one or two Pegasus Ghouls in my life and they had certainly not been as silent and non-biting as this mare was. Speaking of, or should I say the lack thereof, I was surprised that no sound at all was coming from the Ghoul. An event such as knocking something over would generally elicit profuse apologies from a store owner but as I kept my eyes to the floor and worked, not a single raspy word came from her mouth. Peculiar...

It wasn’t until I had stood and set the heavy box back onto the counter did I notice that though silent, the Ghoul was grinning at me with her poorly disfigured and zombified face in a welcoming manner. Words continued to evade her but she grinned nonetheless, something about her feeling different. I was feeling something...almost familiar but for the life of me I couldn't point a hoof as to what it was.

“Oh don’t worry about the mess.” I responded in what I assumed to be the best course of action. “We need to buy some supplies; bullets and the like. Mind showing us what you have? Preferably something on a bit of a budget since my caps are a little low right now but I'm open to a good haggle. I can play that game.”

She nodded and in continued silence, took us over to the shelves behind her counter where she smartly stored all her ammunition in locked steel cages. Once behind the counter, she unlocked the cages with a key in her mouth like any non Unicorn had to do for lack of magic. I looked back at the others as she did so and got similar looks of confusion though Gold seemed happy to be near another Ghoul and Melody didn’t seem as perturbed as I had expected her to be. It made sense she had seen her share of Ghouls during her time at Old Appleloosa so she was probably prepared for the less than appetizing spectacle before us. As she slid back the last cage door showing an impressive collection of battered but identifiable boxes of ammunition, she looked back at us and picked up a piece of chalk in her mouth. Scribbling away on a small chalkboard that laid on the counter next to a bottle of SparkleCola.

‘What calibers are you looking for?’ The chalkboard said for her, a cute little smiley face added to the end after the question mark.

Obviously she was a mute but she was literate and still had her hearing. It was rare, but some Ghouls couldn’t stand to hear the sound of their new, raspy tones and chose instead to remain silent. That being said, those were usually the weird loners you’d almost never see since they hid away in the mountains or in the sewers of cities to get away from normal ponies. It was a bit odd but the smiley face did a lot to get me to like her. The symbol was a Pre-War gesture that most ponies didn’t usually use and the bout of nostalgia was a happy one for me as I had used them excessively on my notes to Huckleberry. There was something about the simplistic charm of it that made it endearing and fun to use whenever I was feeling playful or happy. It all feels like a lifetime ago...

“Well, I was hoping you had maybe some 10mm Automag, .44 Magnus and either .223mm or some 5.56mm NEATO. Either of those will work, naturally.” I said as I glanced between the boxes on the shelves and her face, one of her cloudy golden eyes slipping out of place in an unnerving manner but one that was almost painfully familiar. I had seen somepony’s eyes do that before a long time ago and it was driving me nuts trying to figure out who this mare was. She was far too familiar to me for some reason and I just couldn't let it go. I was going through a change and the past was now finally more open for reflection and contemplation.

She nodded and started pulling out several boxes of each caliber type I asked for (including both the .223 and 5.56) using her bony wings with surprising dexterity to grip each box as easily as if she were a Unicorn using magic. She was even so kind and thoughtful as to point to small signs written in pencil on each shelf below each type of ammo showing the price per bullet like an old fashioned Pre-War general store which was definitely unique. Not only that but her prices were surprisingly low, even on the .44 Magnus that was usually a bit spendy in the range of 4-7 caps a round depending on the merchant. Here, everything was at least ten-percent cheaper than almost anywhere I had been in New Pegasus including The Pile. Only the Gun Runners prices came cheaper and that was simply by virtue of being one of their most frequent and high-spending clients. Was nice to know even in the post-apocalypse there were still some places that offered VIP discounts.

“Ummm, excuse me…” Melody asked softly behind me and to my left. “Why aren’t you talking? You can write so you’re certainly smart enough so...is it a choice…?”

Smooth Melody, very smooth…

The mare smiled again (something that seemed to be just who she was which was amazing given her life as a Ghoul) and opened her mouth wide to show us her rather repulsive inner mouth and her yellow and chipped teeth. In the center where her tongue would have been was a mottled purple stump that made me want to gag but also cry out in sadness. The poor girl had, had her tongue cut out...you could tell it had been cut by how the stub of her tongue was kind of jagged, evidence whoever had done had used a dull serrated blade. A tongue was useful for a lot of things, not the least of which was talking as well as tasting the goodness of life. (Yes, especially some good mare pussy, shut up.) I wondered how long it had been since she had been able to speak. Hell, I wondered how old she was in general. The little cues were all hinting towards Pre-War but I didn’t want to be so forward and assume as age was a touchy topic for some of them. And there was again those nagging hints of nostalgic familiarity coming from her that were getting strong enough to scream out loud in frustration from. Luna's ass on a stick I was going insane chasing vague nostalgia.

“Oh!” Melody gasped, tears forming in her eyes as we all realized why this gentle mare was so soft spoken. “I-I’m s-sorry...I...I didn’t know.”

The mare shrugged and smiled again, writing down the words, ‘Don’t worry about it! I can still write just as good as I could talk! See?’ ending it again with another smiley face as one eye focused on Melody and Gold while the other was stuck gazing towards the ceiling.

“Ok...this is going to sound weird but…” I said as I pulled off my helmet to let her see my face in case that sparked some kind of a response from her. “I swear I know you from somewhere. I mean, far as I know I haven't met you before now Miss but for the love of Celestia there is something about you that just screams I know you...somehow.”

She smiled and cocked her head in thought before shrugging again prompting me to say, “My name is Athena Crete. And you are…?”

She happily scribbled on her chalkboard, erasing the previous writing with her fetlock (which was already pasty white from chalk dust), and held it up in her mouth for us to read.

‘My name is Ditzy Doo! It’s great to meet you Miss Crete! Your armor is really old. Looks like the old Desert Ranger armor from the posters. Where’d you get it?’

Ditzy...Ditzy Doo...now that definitely rang a bell in my head from my childhood years though I was still unsure as to where exactly I knew it from. Maybe she had another name?

“Sorry, real quick Miss Doo but...did you go by another name before the Great War…? I swear to hell I know you from somewhere.” I said quickly, feeling bad for interrupting her but I needed to figure this all out before my head exploded from unanswered questions.

She erased her writing again and answered, ‘Well, everypony back then called me Derpy Hooves if that helps any…I changed name since ponies kept making fun of me and Ditzy sounded less bad to them than Derpy for some reason.’

Holy fucking shit...she was my motherfucking mailmare growing up! Of all the ponies to meet in the Wasteland who was a genuine relic of the past like I was, the last pony I expected to meet (even as a Ghoul) was old Derpy Hooves. Growing up, she was the most reliable mailmare in Pony Ville and despite her tendency to knock some mailboxes over while flying her deliveries, she was the sweetest mare a filly could ever meet. Always smiled, grinned and handed out fresh baked goods to all the foals whom she met like the fancy ice cream wagons in Manehattan, though unlike them she didn’t charge an arm and a leg for something. Some of the kids picked on her for being a bit of an airhead and being uncoordinated but I adored her as did my mother who always invited her in for a quick bite to eat or just a simple drink of water during the hot summer months. She played a small part in my childhood (I almost never got mail except on my birthday which she always made sure to give me a birthday treat and proudly presented my birthday cards from my relatives) but she left a lasting impact on my life that couldn’t be dampened by anything. No wonder she felt so familiar even when she was so horribly disfigured by radiation and couldn’t speak...oh Goddesses what had happened to her…?

“Derpy!!!” I exclaimed as I hugged her tightly against me, ignoring her less than appetizing smell or her squishy Ghoul skin in favor of relishing in getting to hug this amazing mare once again. “Oh Goddesses how I’ve missed you!!!”

She blushed and pulled away long enough to write, ‘You look a bit young to remember me from back then...’

“You probably don’t remember me, I was just a filly back then but you should remember my mother.” I exclaimed rather excitedly. “She was the dentist in Pony Ville before it went to hell. Colgate Minuette? Tall dark blue mare with a white and blue mane? Patented the XtraWhite brand and had a big business? Surely you've seen some advertisements with her face on it since the War...”

She scrunched her face in thought for a good few moments, her eyes even then refusing to stay coordinated as one looked down and the other up and to the left. With a rather terrifying sounding gasp, she hugged me tightly before writing, ‘Are you her daughter?!’

I nodded excitedly, ecstatic that I had finally met somepony I actually knew from before the Great War. Not only that, but before the fucking War with the Zebras even started! And to think she had been living in New Appleloosa for who knew how long and I had completely missed her for the last...hell, few decades for all I knew. Three times I had been through town but my overabundance of ammo and spare rations had always ensured my short stays were spent in the Bronze Bell getting a nice Brahmin steak with bean sprouts. At no time had I needed to seek out the mercantile here and all I could do was lament the time lost between us. I had a pre-packaged friend in the Wastes and I didn’t even know it…

We talked (well, I did the talking and she wrote her responses) for a good hour about what had happened to each other in the time since I had moved away from PonyVille. I had left there with mom at the age of twelve to live in Manehattan up until the point where I enrolled in EastPoint right out of college. She had continued in PonyVille until her teenaged daughter had graduated high school and then moved to Canterlot to enroll her in the Canterlot University of Arcane Sciences and Engineering on a full-ride scholarship. Meanwhile, Derpy had started her own delivery business transporting various goods between Canterlot and Cloudsdale with her delivery wagon. On the day of the Great-War, she was more or less outside the direct blast radius of the Balefire Bombs that took out Cloudsdale but not far enough away to escape the magical radiation from the bombs going off. Wasn't long before she noticed the effects though.

Within several weeks of wandering the new Wasteland in a dazed state, she became the Ghoul who stood before me. Since then, she had gotten back into her business of supplying goods (even making deliveries on occasion) and had settled in New Appleloosa roughly forty years earlier because they didn’t have a reliable merchant yet. And being the gracious Soul that she was, she brought her skills back to the table and helped the little town thrive into a definite spot on the map. Like me, she used her immunity to radiation to scavenge in areas most others couldn’t and was so kind as to soak everything she found in those areas in RadAway before selling it to the general public. Her finds had brought the town a fair amount of wealth over the years and they had returned the favor apparently. Of the five train cars that formed her shop, four had been attached over time by the help of a grateful populous allowing her to only expand her selection and gain the attention of the Crimson Caravan that had just recently agreed to a trade union that would only see the town grow in size.

“Look, I’m glad you two are all BFF’s and what not but I gotta pee and my ass itches.” Chocolate sighed loudly after a while of listening to the two of us talk, Gold and Melody finding some other foals in town to talk and play with which made me smile, if at least on the inside.

“Oh...heh, sorry.” I said sheepishly to the poor mare still lashed to my back before turning back to Derpy and asking, “Never been in this part of town, mind pointing me in the direction of the public toilets?”

She smiled again and scribbled down, ‘Just over by the medical clinic there’s a public bathroom. Nothing fancy but it works! Would you like some help?’

Chocolate giggled and replied, “Hey, what’s better than one mare watching me take a piss? Two mares!”

Derpy’s cheeks flushed red and she scribbled, ‘Thanks? Not many ponies see me as a ‘mare’ really anymore.’

“You’re always a mare to me Derpy. You were one when I was six years old and you’re still one today. Sure, time hasn’t been kind to your looks but overall, you’re still gorgeous as you ever were.” I said affectionately, looking past her ugliness and recognizing the saint of a mare inside.

From there she led us to a medium sized shack nearby a whitewashed building with a somewhat crudely painted M.O.P yellow cross on it and nodded to the two doorways with small rusted blue signs hanging above the doors. To my amusement they were genuine Mare and Stallion bathroom signs taken from some Pre-War building, a new addition from the last time I had been around. She led us into the mare’s section that had homemade stalls separating individual metal troughs of sorts that led downwards into a hole in the ground. With a bucket of water set in each stall to ‘flush’ the toilets, it was as rudimentary as it could get but compared to most ‘bathrooms’ I saw in the Wastes...it was pretty fucking high tech. And that was really saying something.

“Wow! This is way better than what I’m used to!” Chocolate exclaimed, thankfully not mentioning Old Appleloosa as I had begun to fear as she spoke.

Derpy nodded with yet another smile and helped me position Chocolate in a good enough spot to relieve herself, being so kind as to hold the poor mare’s tail out of the way with her teeth to keep it at least somewhat clean. Since she was occupied with holding her tail, I couldn’t take this extra time to ask her some more questions about what she had been up to and so instead spoke to Chocolate to get her informed as to what laid ahead for us.

“So, I probably should just tell you this beforehoof just so you know kind of what to expect.” I said, continuing to hold her lower body off the ground with my magic. “I have an old friend in New Pegasus, a merchant by the name of Cogsworth. Great guy and super genius with technology, especially Pre-War tech. I’m not a hundred-percent certain but I’m pretty sure he has the stuff to make a pair of cybernetic limbs for you. I’ve seen a few ponies with them so I know they work but from what I’ve been told the procedure can be extremely painful. He’ll have to attach live nano-wires to each of your nerve endings and route electrical power generated by your heart into the actuators in the joints to allow them to move. Lotta moving parts, lotta expensive moving parts.”

“Honey…” Chocolate giggled as Derpy helped clean her up. “I’m just gonna tell you it like this. The scars on my ass ain’t from a beating, I asked for them. Pain and me go hoof in hoof all the way to happytown. I think I'll be ok, sugar.”

I grimaced as I understood what she was saying. Whips, chains, leather bodysuits and all that other weird kinky shit wasn’t my cup of tea. I did at one point have a collar and leash with Huckleberry’s name engraved on the tag but that was between her and I and was for special occasions. With this new revelation in mind, I was admittedly even more interested to see the procedure (more than just for the sheer scientific awesomeness) now that I knew there was a high chance to see a mare potentially orgasm by getting a new lib attached. Sure, I wasn’t into that kinky shit myself but never had I passed up a chance to see a girl cum. Well...save for once but that’s because she was a sick sadist who got off to bathing in blood and making out with decapitated heads. Needless to say hers joined her prized collection and I couldn't even get myself wet for a solid month without thinking about the gore.

From the restroom, we entered into the medical clinic where Chocolate came in handy by eliciting more than a few cries of dismay at her condition. With hardly having to say a word she had obtained us a hefty discount on medical supplies. Not only that but they also agreed to part with a bottle of E-S potion to bring Chocolate back to full health and remove all the scars, scabs and other blemishes she had gathered over a long hard life as a slave. When I told them I was planning on getting her fit for cybernetic legs, the mare in charge showed her training with the Followers of the Apocalypse and brought out her old textbooks for reference. After twenty minutes, her memory was brought back up to speed and she was able to perform a series of complicated enchantments on Chocolate's stumps, readying them for the upcoming procedure. Something about readying the nerve endings for splicing or whatnot. Although the spells were a success, we would have to hurry as they would only last for so long before needing to be performed again, something I didn't have the skill to replicate myself. This all sadly meant I would have to leave my friend sooner than I had thought.

At the revelation of our former relationship before the Great War, Derpy supplied us with almost everything we needed at a very low cost, so low I had to coerce her into cutting back on the generosity so she wasn't just giving the store away. Included was furnishing Melody with a pair of saddlebags and a modified set of filly sized body armor made out of a Kevyarn underbarding jumpsuit with riveted steel plates affixed to strategic points. When I asked her how she just so happened to have armor already in stock that fit her size, she simply grinned and pointed to her store’s name. Absolutely Everything...I hadn’t believed it the first time I had read the sign but after seeing everything on our grocery list save for medical supplies get fulfilled in one stop I had to give Derpy credit. She had everything anypony could need and I had the feeling that even such a crazy request as a Crystalline Fusion Core wouldn't be too big a challenge for her to obtain. Whatever her bubble cutie mark was supposed to represent, it failed to let on about how damned good a merchant she really was. Or mailmare for that matter...

Before we left and as I was filling the last few magazines on my person, I caught sight of Melody staring at the gun racks with a rather intense stare. Now that she was properly armored, it was more than fitting that she get a weapon even if I highly doubted she had any idea as to what kind of weapon she wanted. Based on her size, I wasn’t inclined to thinking she would be wanting to lug around a Battle-Saddle so a pistol of some sort made a lot of sense. Then again, she didn’t seem like the type who’d be comfortable fighting within pistol-range of something. A rifle would probably suit her best given the sum of known factors but was she up for the weight and recoil though? Military semi-auto carbines were pretty damn uncommon out West and I was iffy on whether or not she could manage a FillyArms lever-action. That was assuming she had anything in fair enough condition for me to feel safe buying and relying on.

“Oh, hey Derpy?” I asked, turning to her as she was storing the few hundred caps I had insisted she take for her more than generous deals on our supplies. “We need to get Melody here a weapon. Mind showing us the rifles you have in stock? I’ve got the feeling she’d be more into those than anything else.”

She took me over to where Melody stood who was ironically already in the rifle section and allowed me to browse through her modest collection of surprisingly well maintained arms. As I went, I would both feel their weight and check their calibers whilst also explaining to Melody about the different styles including the advantages and disadvantages of a bolt-action rifle versus a semi-automatic. I didn't even want to go into the more finnicky lever-actions to save her from having to learn too much about guns at once. I allowed her to take each rifle after I had finished my initial inspection and got feedback as to what she liked and disliked about each, her opinions surprisingly competent for her level of experience.

“Ooooh!” Melody exclaimed as I checked the bolt on an old M1 battle rifle with an attached scope. “I like that one!”

The M1 battle rifle, though older in model and design than some of the others, was in incredible shape and came with two clip pouches attached on the buttstock and a rather powerful scope which was mounted fore of the slide and action. While I was in the process of explaining to her the recoil from the M1's .30-06 round, I opened the action again to demonstrate only to discover this was a deviant model. I knew the M1 well, any fucking member of the Army who ever served real combat tours sure as hell did. It was the go-to standard battle rifle for Fireteams in need of a cheap, easily replaced weapon accurate at medium range. This little bugger however was an oddity. Whether it was some other short-lived project attached to the M1 Carbine development, I wasn't the walking expert. However, I knew for damn sure I had never come across one chambered in .308 Winchestnut.

"Well I'll be damned Melody..." I admitted with a whistle. "This actually might just work if you're sure this is the one you want. It's a weird kind of semi-auto so it's a little complicated to operate."

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes!" She sang, bouncing on her hooves jubilantly much to my appreciation. "Tell me what I need to know!"

Derpy seemed surprised when we approached the counter with the oddball M1. Whereas my surprise was from its bore size and inclusion of a scope, her surprise seemed to be of a whole different sort.

'Looks like you found Oldie Goldie. Had that thing on my hooves for years but can't get rid of it.'

"That a fact?" I asked rather stunned. "A reliable model like that chambered in .308? Hell of a nice find with the price of .30-06s these days. What's the catch?"

She blushed sheepishly as she dug into one of the ammunition cabinets and retrieved two en-bloc clips, all scaled down to accommodate the smaller round.

'Only ever found these two clips that work for it unfortunately. Decent market for en-blocs of a normal size but this rifle seems to have been refitted by a talented gunsmith. Cheaper ammo over the normal rifle but sadly at the cost of clips. I don't have the tools to make them myself and it's been tough finding a willing buyer. Only two clips before you have to stuff new rounds into them again? That's a hard sell.'

"Ah. Well, that explains a lot then..." I hummed as I took one of the filled clips and demonstrated how it loaded for Melody to see. En-blocs were nifty but they were also known for being annoying to deal with, especially compared to traditional box magazines.

Once I felt satisfied she knew the basics of how the thing worked, I had to spend ten minutes alone attempting to persuade her to take at least something for the rifle, ammunition and the two clips. It was not easy, but I eventually managed to get her to agree to taking payment for the ammo and en-blocs but when it came to the rifle, she refused to budge an inch. Nothing I could say or do seemed to dissuade her from exerting her generosity as she saw fit.

When I demanded why, she simply scribbled down, ‘A filly deserves to be just as safe with a gun of her own as a mare like you or I are. Besides, like I told you, nopony has wanted to buy that old thing anyway and it ain't right to let a good gun go unused like this. That's just unfair to the person who made it!’

She ended the sentence yet again with another smiley face and I swept her up in yet another hug in a futile attempt to convey how grateful I was to her for her generosity when I honestly was a minor character in her own life. She hugged back with surprising strength and pulled away as another pony walked into the store asking for something special for his wife. Although I was busy helping Melody get the rifle properly slung across her back in a way that would make it both comfortable to travel long distances with but also be easily accessible, I couldn’t help but watch as the mare with absolutely everything presented the stallion with a fair collection of Pre-War gold jewelry for him to browse. It was difficult to say goodbye, especially after feeling invisible emotional strings begin to form between us that tempted me to stay but I had to pull away. Chocolate was on a tight schedule and I needed to pack my house up before it was hit hard by Green and his minions. If I played my cards right, there would be plenty of time to find time to come back here to pick up right from where we had left off. I had enjoyed speaking to her more than I had enjoyed any conversation in living memory and I was already feeling addicted to the euphoric high that came with it.

Before we left, I approached the San-Palomino Express Courier mailbox and pressed the secret lever built into the drop box that would deposit all the drugs we had taken from Jangle into a separate bin from the normal mail. The amount of bottles of Dash was immense, well worth over a million caps, and I deposited all boxes but two inside for him to do what he wanted with them. If I was going to have a hit on my ass, I might as well make it smaller than it could have been had I have taken all the drugs too. I only kept 50k worth of vials just as a tax for my own comfort and buried them towards the bottom of my bags. Along with my deposit was a short note meant for Green himself that explained why his money was missing and the real happenings behind what had occurred in Old Appleloosa. He was bound to get word of it soon enough anyway but I wanted him to hear it from me personally. While I ran out of paper long before I had finished what I had left to say about him, it felt great to let it go and get on with things. Life was going to change irrevocably, I had already seen to that the moment the first cap left that bag. It was time to nut-up and shut-up as the saying went.

As we began our trek northwest towards E-90 that led Northwest towards New Pegasus, Melody asked, “So...you’re really over two-hundred years old?”

I nodded as I donned my helmet once again, grateful for the much cooler air found inside.

"Guess I was being a bit obvious about that wasn't I?" I laughed sheepishly, wondering how that fact was gonna go down. "Yeah...I'm 236 to be exact as of this month."

“Huh...cool!” She giggled as she slowed down her pace to go walk beside Gold to show off her new gun excitedly.

I guess after all the shit she had seen, a two-hundred year plus old mare who still looked like she was thirty-one wasn’t going to be too odd a sight. Who was I to judge? I’d seen weirder myself during those years. In the end, I was just happy to see her smile and giggle like everything was right in the world. It was a small atonement I suppose for what I myself had done to make myself frown more often than I smiled...and all I wanted was to keep her smiling as long as possible no matter the cost.

I whispered the words ‘mother’ and ‘daughter’ over and over again, each time the words gained more meaning to me and began to feel more and more real. I wasn’t qualified in the least, what with my knack for killing and overly sexual nature and complete lack of experience raising a child but...I still wanted to try. Until I got the courage to ask (and the time felt right where she trusted me enough) it didn’t hurt to pretend to myself I was her mother. I mean...it made me happy and it was for once an actually pure thing for me to dabble in so...what was the harm?

****************

Chapter Fourteen: War Never Changes...But Should Morality?

The bulk of the day spent waiting until our ten o’clock meeting with the General was spent mostly doing random shit to pass the time. Most of the camp had been emptied in light of the General’s call to push the line further South and into Nopony’s Land, which separated us and the Legion’s camp by about six-and-a-half miles. Naturally, this left myself and the others in my Squad with very little to do. Since we were not cleared for active duty but rather were being held under a ‘temporary leave’, we were not allowed to even be near a loaded firearm just in the freak event it went off and killed one of us. They couldn't afford to lose anyone called to such an important meeting and thus...we did the only things we could do under the circumstances. Eating, napping and talking.

“Goddesses I’m so fucking bored…” Buck Beak groaned as he lay on his back nearby, the noonday sun and the natural heat of the region making sleep almost impossible. “Can’t we go ask the fucking M.O.P peoples for one of their blankets?”

“You know they’d just laugh you right out the door…” Rain Dancer sighed as he fanned his sweat riddled face with a fan made out of a Stable-Tech flier. “Talk about budget cuts and the ‘scarcity of resources’ and all that bullshit…”

I too rolled my eyes at their annoying claims when they seemed to give out health potions like candy to anypony who was wounded but refused to see you if you were deemed ‘battle ready’ due to the aforementioned ‘budget cuts’. We knew the national budget was hurting something fierce over the last decade and a half but with most of it put into the War effort, you'd think valuable assets such as ourselves would be afforded a bit more comfort to keep us at peak readiness. The blankets in question were made of the same kind of material as the inner lining of our armored underbarding with its specialized temperature regulating crystal fibers that would make sleeping on the sun itself a breeze. I loved those blankets as much as anypony who had the chance to feel and/or sleep with one but the only way to get anywhere near them was to get shot pretty bad or some other kind of grave injury beyond the scope of a combat medic to handle. Unfortunately, nopony was allowed to have one outside of the M.O.P tents because they were government property and weren’t ‘toys’. I'd counter-argue we were in the same category but it was just too damned hot to account for counter-counter-arguments and the like. The Badlands certainly lived up to their name by being bad in almost every way.

“I could just shoot myself in the paw or something.” Buck Beak suggested, looking at all of us with damp, rustled feathers giving him a disgruntled and unpleasant look. “Go over to the firing range and have an ‘accident’?”

“You did that twice on our last tour and three times on the one before that, Buck. They’re gonna catch on and stop healing you. They may be blanket-hogging dicks but they’re not stupid.” Penny sighed, her voice muffled slightly from the damp towel covering her face in an attempt to keep cool. “Besides...they won’t wrap you up in a blanket for a dumb old bullet hole to the paw…”

“They did last time!” He challenged. “Remember?”

“Yeah, that’s because you almost shot your entire fucking leg off you dumbass! Did you really need to use a shotgun when something like a pistol would’ve worked just as well if not better? You could have just used a peashooter like a 9mm or maybe a .45 if you were feeling particularly stupid.” Huckleberry piped in, giggling softly as she was the unfortunate one who had to help him to the M.O.P tents hobbling on three limbs, the fourth of which was barely hanging on for dear life by what we later learned was a single tendon.

He growled and yanked the towel from off of Penny’s face and threw it over his own much to her annoyance. Thus began yet another round of tug-of-war between the two of them over the rights to the towel, the smuggled canteen and their offer of a temporary blessing of relief. The heat in the Badlands usually hit around one hundred and twenty or so during the early summer hitting a high of one-thirty in the middle and only slightly cooling down to the high nineties in the late summer. In the years before Equestria more or less kicked them out in lieu of farming, the Badlands had been home to one of the largest Dragon Nests in the whole world. Literally tens of thousands of them would flock to the region living in the caves dug into the red canyon walls and congregating as they were like to do as the region was warm, desolate and perfect. The Great Dragon Migration was, as I was told by my mom who remembered the peaceful days before Equestria’s aggressive expansion, a sight to behold. The skies over PonyVille and any other towns in the migratory path would be filled with the glittering scales of thousands and thousands of Dragons all headed to the Badlands to gather, mate and catch up with old friends from all around the world. I was told by some of the older soldiers and the truly retired Veterans that the noise of the War in the Badlands was like birds chirping peacefully compared to the sheer raw noise the Migration created every year. Of course, all that was long before I was even born. Dragons had been scattered across the globe with no one nation to call their own or even a communal place to gather.

So much about Equestria had changed from the time I was born until now...happiness, true genuine and unbridled happiness, was a rare sight anywhere. Everypony was always grim and looking over their shoulders, huddling in small groups where conversations were held in hushed whispers because it was impossible to tell where the Ministry of Morale’s peeping ears and eyes were to be found. Ministry of Morale...what a fucking joke. There was no morale to be found in the ponies of Equestria when the damn Ministry set up to be the smiling face of Equestrian life was watching every single fucking thing you did and listened to every words you said and read every word you ever typed. It was literally as if the Ministry had declared war on its own people...Pinkie Pie was a sadistic bitch and I didn’t care what anypony said about her happy, go-lucky nature. A mare who made it her business to make everypony’s business her own business was not a mare I wanted to meet nor would willingly support. Unfortunately...I didn’t have a fucking choice in the matter as did nopony else save for Princess Luna herself but privately...I was quite convinced Luna had lost her mind. Just like everypony and everything else in the world. And why was it so fucking hot?!

“Will you guys fucking STOP IT?!” I burst out suddenly, the noise and the heat and the monotony of the situation driving me to snap. “You’re like a bunch of fucking kids! Buck, get your own stupid ass motherfucking bitch ass towel, goddamnit!”

Everypony sat in stunned silence as I stood there panting and shaking with rage, sweat dripping off of my cheeks and the tip of my muzzle like I had stuck my head under a shower head. I never yelled at them, not over petty bullshit like this so why was I doing so now?

“Sorry…” I sighed as I slipped back down to my seat and laid my head on the all-too-warm metal table which only made me more miserably hot. “Just...stop fighting...please. I'm so sick of this bullshit...”

I could feel all their eyes on me but I didn’t give a damn. I was hot, flustered, anxious and worst of all bored. When I got bored my only recourse was finding something like a book to read or a rifle to disassemble and clean over several hours. Just anything that I could use to focus my thoughts on and keep me from having to run circles around in my own fucking mind. Unfortunately, I was all but barred from finding things to keep me occupied and so I was stuck with these yahoos and their petty squabbles over a stupid towel. Without another word, I stood and walked out of the tent and into the even hotter sunlight outside, wincing at the bright light shining right into my eyes from on high. If this didn't prove I was a child of the night, I didn't know what would...

“Alright, first thing is to jack a pair of fucking sunglasses…” I mumbled to myself before the tent flap opened and Huckleberry trotted out to my side with a hint of trepidation.

“Hey...mind if I join you?” She asked even though she knew my answer already.

“Please.” I said simply, beginning my journey to the galley since soldiers were always prone to leaving sunglasses there and since I wasn’t allowed to wear my helmet (which would have provided its own air conditioning and shade from the sun) I had to settle for the next step down.

“You doing ok…?” She asked softly as we edged our way past a line of wagons hauling 150mm Solar Eclipse Shells towards the artillery batteries located on the Eastern canyon wall, dangerously close to the trenches.

“Eh…” I sighed while we waited for a group of Privates trot past in pursuit of the wagon train. “Been better…”

“Your cycle didn’t come early did it?” She asked sweetly and in a hushed tone, my mare knowing my schedule for when I went into heat just like I did her. “That would suck ass…”

I giggled softly and replied, “If I was, I’d be asking you to do just that. No...I’m just bored out of my fucking mind and this heat is killing me.”

“Yeah…” She sighed as well, sparing a small glance upwards to scowl at the sun before saying, “Fuck youuuuuu.”

Her cheerful, wacky behavior was enough to lift me a bit out of my dark mood and she accompanied me into the galley for the tenth time that day. They at least had large fans with misters in place to cool the staff and occupants and while we couldn't stay for long due to Camp rules, there wasn't enough COs on deck to keep an eye on how many times we visited. The cooks on duty (who were mostly disabled or handicapped veterans who still wanted to serve their country and earn a paycheck) were less than surprised at our arrival and since the camp was empty, they had no one to serve. With the galley entirely devoid of occupants however, they invited us behind the counters to the large portable freezer which they used to chill out (no pun intended) and rest from the brutal hot summer heat. Was hardly an offer I was willing to refuse.

“Congrats on th’ promotion Crete!” A toothy old Pegasus stallion commented as he unlocked the large chrome freezer door and opened it, a wonderful blizzard of cold icy air hitting all of us like the kisses of angels. “I wanted to be a Lieutenant Colonel but I couldn’t pass th’ exams so they stuck me with th’ humble rank of Major.”

“Thanks…?” I said unconvincingly, not entirely in the mood to chit chat with these random ponies as we sat on boxes of frozen beets and carrots. “I take it you were part of the Airborne Corps?”

“How’d ya know?” He asked, putting his old uniform’s patches on display which clearly indicated he was only a Staff Sergeant in the Airborne Corps which meant he was a Non-Commissioned Officer and not an actual officer.

“Intuition?” I said with a forced laugh, looking towards Huckleberry for help.

She grimaced in reply but mouthed, ‘Better in here than outside.’ which I couldn’t argue with. The stallion was getting a little on my nerves which were only slightly tempered by the freezer. Talking with the three that had joined us in there, we had learned non-verbally that everyone else just smiled and went along with the old guy's version of things to keep his spirits up. The other two were easy to talk to thankfully, a mare in her thirties missing a leg from a Scorpios and a Wolf that had damaged two of his paws from getting body-slammed off the canyon wall by one of the rare Rhino units normally only seen in the Empire itself. After a few minutes though, the door buzzed and the old vet took off excitedly to help whoever had just come in leaving the freezer far more comfortable to converse in.

"Well, thanks again for letting us hide in here for awhile." I grinned at both of them, shivering slightly from the sweat that had turned to ice in some places in my fur.

"Please, for a couple of Veteran Rangers? Easiest shit we can do with the small amount of power they give us." The Wolf chuckled, his size and faint red patches of fur near the eyes and down the tail hinting at some Direwolf blood in his genealogy somewhere.

"Yeah...I'm sure kitchen duty isn't anywhere near as glamorous as what you guys used to do." Hucks admitted with a hint of awkwardness, sharing my slight discomfort for being in the fight while they could not.

"Well if you wanna compare cracking eggs and chopping vegetables to cracking skulls and chopping Zeebs down with bullets, no fuckin' contest." Said the mare, gazing at our Ranger patches with longing. "But...it ain't all bad here."

"Yeah, we eat before all of you so we can do our jobs without getting hangry and get paid pension on top of what they pay us here. For only having to cook and clean to make 58k a year, I could be doing a hell of a lot worse for myself. Not a lot of city jobs for Wolves and I ain't one for super blue-collar shit ya know?"

"Well...yeah, I guess that's pretty decent after all." I admitted, glancing around the freezer at all the frozen meats hanging from hooks around us. "So uh...gotta ask...is it weird having to prepare steaks and such?"

"Well if you're asking me, yeah I guess it was at first." Replied the mare, glancing at a rack of beef next to her casually. "Helps knowin' I'm not eating it and I like to talk whenever its my turn to sharpen the old cutting tools so it helps keep my stomach inside me. Don't have anything against meat-eaters but eh...just not my cup of tea ya know?"

"I mean...kinda obvious what my feelings toward it are..." The Wolf chuckled, looking around with with a hint of hunger in his bright brown eyes.

"Naturally!" I laughed, unwittingly adding, "I like it too from time to time."

"No shit huh?" The mare said with surprise, eyeing me out of the corner of her eye with a mixture of interest and aversion. "Wouldn't have taken you for a meat-eater, Colonel."

"Well it's not like I have a fucking steak every other week..." I groaned, scrambling to defend my odd consumption habit. "In survival training, they teach you to use whatever source of nutriment you can obtain while stranded. Well...after four days wandering the Arbak Jungle with no food, I sank my knife into a large rat and had...a sort of life changing experience. Sure, I had some stomach problems from it but it was the first food I had tasted in days and I didn't even mind that it had come from an animal. That part of the jungle was mostly toxic to an herbivore, exactly why they selected it for that part of the training. Sometimes...ya just need to choke it down if it'll keep the engine running and the more I tried it, the more I found an appreciation for its flavor."

The Wolf seemed overjoyed and gave a soft howl of excitement, "Yes! Finally one of you ponies fucking gets it! You think hunting a Zeeb with a rifle is tense? Try doing it with just your wits and your bare teeth. Just like my ancestors used to do it baby! Ain't nothing more satisfying than tearing out throats and feeling them bleed out in your jaws."

I smiled wide for him, pointing to my teeth and responded, "Yeah, don't think these babies are designed to rip and tear hun. Why do you think I have to cut my meat into very small pieces and I have to avoid sinew and fatty tissues? Can't really gnaw my way through them like you can."

He nodded in acknowledgement while the mare simply rolled her eyes and stretched out. They had both taken my odd indulgence rather well, even better than Huckleberry had when I first admitted it to her several years prior. Her palate had always been a tad more dainty than my own, preferring as high a quality a meal as she could possibly get no matter the effort needed to obtain it. I could suffice myself on cold canned goods, packaged bread and the jerkied meats usually meant for carnivorous field rations if I couldn't find a fresh source on my own. Got a decent amount of weird looks from ponies when I asked for it, but it wasn't a huge social deviancy in survival situations. Hucks...let's just say that she considered my stomach to be made of something akin to Celestium. In her hooflocker, she kept a large box full of small glass jars of spices that she would then put into smaller vials hid in her large, thigh-mounted medic bags. I had to admit, powdered garlic, salt and a little pepper can bring out the most flavor for your time in most meals we had.

"So, what are you two up to this fine day in hell?" The mare asked after a small lull in the conversation. "Would've expected a pair of Vets to be out there...well, you know."

"Unfortunately we have a meeting with the General." Hucks commented, hugging herself as the chill began to sink its icy fangs through our uniforms. "No clue what it's about so I couldn't gossip about it even if I wanted to."

"Damnit..." The Wolf growled, glaring at the aluminum flooring with frustration. "I hate being outa the fight! We don't have any idea what the fuck is going on out there yet we are near the combat zone?"

"Oh not this again..." The mare groaned, leaning back to rub her eyes one at a time.

"I'm serious! I've only been of the field for six months and noone can give me a straight answer as to what the hell is our standing. One day we're pushing South like a freight train and the next it seems like we're having to turn on the bombard generators because the Zeebs did a whole no-you on us and got some artillery back in range. I just wanna know...bottom of your hearts, honest truth...are we winning out there?"

He looked between Hucks and I intensely, a small shiver that wasn't the cold trickling its way down my spine as I locked eyes with him. The mare seemed interested as well and I caught her glancing at the door to see that it was firmly shut. As private a conversation as we could ask for. I doubted even M.O.M would bug something so clandestine as a fucking freezer.

"I...honestly don't know." I said with as much sincerity as I could muster. "I'm not just saying that either..."

"I'm afraid I have to agree with the Colonel here." Hucks followed up with. "We've only been here a few days since we came in with the supply shipment."

"An 'I don't know' is still more honest than a yes...I believe you." He sighed, scratching an ear with a hind leg though with a noticeable limp. "How about overall then? A Captain and a Lieutenant Colonel should have been around long enough to be able to give me something better than that."

"Don't push it Brushthorn..." The mare warned, glancing at us warily. "Please don't..."

"I won't, don't worry about that hun." I reassured her, covering my oak leaves with a hoof. "I'll speak to you as an equal and say it as I see it. We are in a perpetual Meat Grinder and this is a War of attrition that neither of us can win without either the world economy collapsing or...drastic measures are done to ensure one side or the other is the last mare standing. StableTec, the M.O.W, plenty of other companies have a deeply vested interest in the War's continuation since money is being constantly channeled into them and their military contracts. NEATO is falling apart at the seams since few of the nations involved actually joined it willingly and all the while, the Empire is digging in with ever more ferocity into every inch of ground they take."

The silence that followed was telling. I had said exactly what he wanted to hear with exactly the level of brutal honest he had requested and yet...my answer was all at once defeating and enlightening. Huckleberry chose to remain silent, simply nodding at me and agreeing with my every word.

"Glad I ain't the only one seeing holes in this whole grand scheme of things." Brushthorn laughed if in a pained, sarcastic tone. "Least some people in higher ranks notice this shit too."

"Well that really doesn't say much..." I sighed. "We're only a Captain and Lt. Colonel by circumstance and rarely have to engage with that side of the bureaucracy nightmare. In all reality, we are far more Veteran Rangers than we are COs. We rarely meet with desk jockeys, have limited interaction with anyone higher than Colonel Little Horn who is himself a full Colonel by the same set of circumstances we are. We get it because we fucking see it almost daily. We aren't your normal ass 0-3s or above who get kicked off the field and shoved behind a desk like someone from the GA. Unlike them, we are still out there kicking ass while they only know us as names on a terminal or a map."

"Well...glad a sense of cynicism isn't lost on you Ranger types." The mare laughed softly, getting to her hooves and shuffling to get warm as the cold seemed to finally be too much for any of us to bear. "Maybe try and bring these concerns to your next meeting though...? I think I can speak for Brush here when I say that we both don't have a lot of confidence in the War or where its headed. We spin in circles trading the same goddamned stretch of useless sand back and forth for what, the last eight, nine years?"

"More or less depending on your brand of semantics." Hucks commented also standing up. "We can try but...that kind of 'defeatist' talk is eh...very no-no around the brass. They don't like hearing about ponies getting second thoughts about their patriotic duty..."

They certainly didn't...more than one officer had mysteriously vanished or been reassigned for having similarly distracting thoughts. While I had sought out the freezer for relief from the wait up until my meeting, I found myself regretting it in light of the extra weight of anxiety put on my shoulders from this honest conversation. Fucking hell 10pm just wouldn't come soon enough let alone be over and done with...

******

“Ah, perfect! Common’ in Alpha!” The General boomed out in his low, gravelly voice as the door to his office was opened by one of his precious Shock Troopers.

We filed in, all of us thankfully allowed back into our temperature controlled armor, and we took our seats at his large oak table that had a map of the area literally carved into the wood. Being meticulously sanded and painted in minute aerial detail, it was impressive to say the least and I took a few moments to get a feel for where our troopers were on the field. The position of dozens of little pony shaped figurines scattered about the map was enlightening to say the least. Since none of us had even been allowed a peek at even a tactical map the entirety of the day, I was completely unaware as to how the battle was going. By the look of all the GA marked figures forming a long curved line near the exit to the valley and the artillery pieces nearing the same location, we had pushed them back out into Nopony Land. Past that, the map of the Southern Wilderness was covered by a clear sheet of flexible plastic striped with red bars to indicate approximate enemy holdings. The day's gains would serve our plan well as the fringe patrols would be set on a path even closer to where Captain Onyx had specified our search was to take place. Still...seeing the model of Fort FuckOff sitting just three miles from the new front was a bit unsettling. Every time we started to get close to it, the more caskets were being sent home and the lines would be redrawn once more. Fucking tick dug in deep into the desert.

“Well, I’m sure you’re curious why I brought you all here and kept you guys off the front lines.” He said casually, stating the obvious so much that it hurt. “Well, I’ll tell you. I received word last night that the Zebras have a fresh caravan of supplies en-route from the Empire that are going to make landfall in the next week or so. I want you and a team of my elite Shock Troopers to clear a path through enemy lines and take those supplies out. A volunteer Brigade across the Corps will be formed in the time leading up until this caravan arrives and will make a concentrated push towards the enemy encampment. This will provide sufficient distraction to allow your combined Squad to slip behind their lines unnoticed while a team of Dash's finest Shadowbolt snipers will provide overwatch. Havin' them flown in especially for this op so don't make me waste the good Mare of the Ministry's best on a botched job.”

Everypony looked at one another excitedly. A Stash-N’-Blow job was much more fun than a Bag-N’-Tag because it meant we gotta be loud. VERY loud. Well, at the right time of course. Generally we were to be as stealthy as possible to make it to the supply location and then from there tear ass six ways till Monday, raising all hell with all the ammo, explosive ordinance and sheer brutality we could muster. I was surprised he was willing to part with his precious Shock Troopers so I could only imply the supply caravan was going to be fucking huge. One thing for sure I noticed on the newer Power Armor models...everything looked bigger, including the heat they were packing. The standard Tin Head packed a 25mm automatic grenade launcher and a 5.56mm minigun but these new bastards seemed to have 40mm grenade launchers and what I could only guess was a .50 minigun. Whatever the hell they were carrying, it was big and perfect for this kind of op. Just how many of these things were already on the field let alone in production...?

“Now, any questions before I deliver your official briefing?” He asked, having his secretary (whom we were all pretty convinced slept with the General for extra money) float out small holotapes that we would stick into our helmets which would play a full mission report on our visors.

“Sir, I’m sure this will already be covered in the briefing but may I ask why this op is being labeled as Operation: Downsize? The last time that term was implemented, it was by the Ministry of Morale when they were pushing for the countrywide restriction on reproducing children in mass numbers.” Huckleberry said, bringing up a very good point. The M.O.M had used that very same codename for the population control measures they were implementing to reduce the potential drain on resources that could go towards the War.

“You’ve got a keen eye there Captain Crisp!” The General crooned in a manner than made us both shiver in disgust. “The caravan was reported to be carrying little striped bastards by the dozens because they thought they were gonna kick our asses out of here and were going to swoop in to populate the region and build an army on our own soil. Sucks for them that they didn’t get the news we pushed those fuckers back! It’s the perfect time to eliminate all their potential new Empire lovin’ soldiers from growing up to bite us in the ass!”

“Wait, back up. You want us to kill children?!” Penny cried out.

“Aye, that I do. Gotta problem with that, Lieutenant?” The General challenged, the edge in his voice sharp and ready to cut at her neck if she protested another word.

We all remained in stunned, horrified silence which he smiled at and seemed to take as our commitment to the job.

“Perfect! The briefing will tell you everythin’ you need to know about late-term aborting the shit out of those little bastards. Alright, dismissed. Go off and kick some more Imperial ass for me will ya? You will be cleared for partial duty until the date specified, we still need your hooves in the action a bit.” He said, standing and nodding to the door as a signal the conversation was over and further protests would be handled...unconventionally.

We filed out quicker than entered and didn’t say a word until we had gotten halfway back to our tent. The entire situation was absolutely shocking to all of us, some of us more cold hearted than others but even that was a non-factor here. The Empire had gotten bold from its most recent gains in the South and either due to faulty info or something else, they had the bright idea of somehow taking these gains and turning them into a colony on the Continent?? They had kept a firm grip on the Southern Wilderness for quite a few years now yes, but all that time had ensured it was all but entirely secure. If we could lob 150mm Solar Flares into their territory on a semi-regular basis and had marginally better air-superiority, what made them think it was a good place to bring in a bunch of kids? Everything felt wrong about this...

“I’m not fucking doing this. I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m not going to kill a bunch of kids just because I’m told to. Hell, I don’t give a fuck if you use Little Bighorn as your excuse, you can count me and my ass out of this.” Huckleberry said firmly, a sentiment we all shared more or less unanimously.

“So that’s it then? Are we going to disobey direct orders and keep our consciences or are we going to obey direct orders and keep our lives?” Rain Dancer asked, looking at each of us seriously.

“Fuck it.” I said simply. “I think I still have enough morality left in the tank for this. We gotta warn him.”

****************

Chapter Fifteen: Time to Clean House and Scram

If there’s one thing you can’t have enough of in the Wasteland, that’s friends. And I don’t mean your generic, hey let’s hang out at the movies all day and prey on drunk hapless mares, kind of friends. I mean the real kind, the ones that come in handy because they’re good at doing something of one sort or another. For me, this sort of friend was embodied by certain merchants throughout New Pegasus with whom I made the extra effort to get on really good terms with. In exchange for bulk purchasing, roughing up competition, providing protection or even a Bounty or two, they supplied me everything I needed to stay afloat in the world. There was one merchant however whom I visited more than any of the others, mostly because he was almost guaranteed to have just about everything the others had and more. His name, was Cogsworth. A Saddle Arabian by ancestry though a native-born Equestrian of roughly nine generations or so. Despite being far removed from his native land, he still maintained the accent (if a bit less prominent than with a true native) and dressed somewhat in the traditional style. A long full bodied armored tunic and a decorative headpiece that covered his neck with a layer of ballistic fibers against getting shot from behind. A...modern take on an old classic.

Cogsworth was rather unusual in that got his name from his cutie mark, something Saddle Arabians didn’t seem to get naturally until a bunch of them had moved into the country a couple centuries before. His lucky ass tattoo was a bag of money with the symbol for the Syna (the reallllly old Arabian currency) which looked like it was in the shape of a steel cog. His true name was something rather unintelligible to those unfamiliar with their peculiar vowels and pronunciations, but the nickname ponies gave him from his cutie mark stuck and he seemed to prefer it over his real name. Like I told the others, if there was one thing that made this guy tick, it was Pre-War tech. Anything and everything made before the War was relevant to his interests and he would go to great lengths to obtain anything that struck his fancy. His merchant 'stall' was truly more of a 'hall' as he had taken ownership of an adjoining warehouse that had once been used to store records for the Equestrian Gaming Commission. Nowadays though. itwas crammed full of anything you could possibly want that was in any way associated with the Pre-War world including clothing, artwork, furniture and of course, technology. Didn’t matter if it ran off of magical energy, Crystalline Fusion, gunpowder, coal, oil or whatever the fuck else shit can run off of, he was bound to have it or at least be able to repair it. It was precisely these skills that we would have need of in order to help fulfill my promise to Chocolate. Cybernetic limbs were a pain in the ass to find and even more of a pain to create from scratch, but he was a damn good engineer; I had yet to see him fail at tackling and overpowering any technological problem I came across. Hell, I owed the continued existence of my PipBuck 2000 to him as well as the spell-matrix of my helmet that allowed me to interface with both it and my armor's subsystems with just a flick of my thoughts. If there was one guy I could trust to see me through this promise, he was the only one worth putting caps down for.

The group seemed to be excited about the prospect of finally seeing one of the big Pre-War cities for the first time. I hoped they weren’t expecting too much from it since the fair majority of the city was nothing more than a mangled shithole surrounding the walled off Stirrup of New Pegasus controlled by the enigmatic Mr. House. Where I lived, on the farthest southeastern edge of the city limits, it was mostly sandy from the centuries’ worth of sandstorms blowing in from the San-Palomino Desert whereas the inner city was mostly concrete rubble and cracked asphalt. One constant though permeated the whole city: all roads lead to the Stirrup and the casinos on it. Sure, you might have to skirt the Wall to get to the one way in and out, but the amount of signage alone would help you find your way there quickly. The Lucky 24 Casino, the illustrious symbol of New Pegasus with its tall white tower, dominated the skyline of the Stirrup and could be seen for literally miles around. Everypony including Chocolate gasped in awe upon first seeing it when we were still a good ten miles away from Little Hoof and my house. Overall, it was a rather pleasant reaction.

“W-wow! I-I’ve never seen s-something so tall and p-pretty!” Gold gasped as he looked the tower up and down with wide eyes.

“How did it survive the bombs?” Melody asked, looking at the other casinos poking up around the Lucky 24. “I thought Las Pegasus would’ve been a big old target.”

“It was.” I replied, looking at the devastation surrounding the walled off Stirrup where the bombs actually had some effect. “But that tower had magical energy weapons built into it that shot down most of the warheads as they came flying in from the Empire. Saved most of the area from getting fucked up like the rest of Equestria. And that, fillies and gentlecolts, is why New Pegasus is perhaps the wealthiest location on the Continent.”

“Wow...never knew that!” Chocolate said with a nod of approval that rubbed against the collar of my duster. “I always thought they just rebuilt the place because...well, casinos! Who doesn’t like to gamble and drink and get laid while they lose all their money on a single game of Roulette?”

“I don’t.” I said flatly. “I don’t drink, gamble or pay for some whore to eat me out.”

“Well no wonder you’re such a prude!” She giggled, rubbing her muzzle against my right ear making an irritating scratching sound as her fur rubbed against the microphone. “You need to get laid little lady! Clear your head and relax a bit eh? I know I need it and it’s only been a day since I last had some. How about you eh? When’s the last time you got down and dirty with a mare? Or a stallion?”

“I’ve tried stallions before, they’re not really my thing.” I said with a sigh. “Every now and again I'll find myself in the mood for some dick but I just...I like my birds alright? You find a nice Griff who's good with his talons and...woo, what a time heh. But um...yeah, no. Not really one for stallions.”

“Oh? Well then what about a mare eh? How long since your last mare?” She asked again with a loud gleeful giggle.

I sighed and relented if not to just get her off my back about it. I'd already said plenty about my habits.

“A decade? I don’t remember to be honest.” I said quietly.

“Oh? Girl like you with your looks? I’d expect you to be drowning in the pussy!”

“You’d think that yeah, and I guess if I actually tried that’d be the case but it’s not.” I said with a bit more bitterness than I intended.

“What made ya stop? You talk a lot about mares but haven’t been with one in ten years? Somethin’s fishy. Heh, hope that’s not why. I’ve met a few Trout Snatches in my time...goddesses they taste awful but for some reason they seem to squeal the loudest which kinda makes up for it.”

I blushed hard and shook my head furiously saying, “No! No, no...Huckleberry always said I taste like a Spark Battery mixed with a hint of something fruity but no...the real reason why is I just...lost interest in it kind of. Like...not like I lost any interest in mares or in sex but just...after Hucks died I just never felt complete while doing it. It lost its true deep and sacred meaning to me.”

“Huckleberry…? Who’s that? Former lover?” She asked with surprising tenderness rather than the joking flirtatiousness I had come to expect from her.

“Mhm…” I hummed sadly, grateful once more for the helmet for hiding my face from showing the pain in my eyes. “She was my first and only true marefriend during the War. She served by my side in the Rangers...we intended to secretly marry and move into a tiny house in Trottingham once the War was over but…”

“The Zebras fucked us all in the ass with a cactus?” She asked with a small giggle as we passed one of the many towering cacti that littered the San-Palomino Desert.

“Y-yeah...more or less.” I responded with a small smile. I was never one to not laugh at a dirty joke or innuendo, even if in contextually poor taste.

“Heh...I’m sorry...I really am. I...I know how it feels to lose somepony that close to you too.” She said softly, her voice slightly remorseful.

“It’s alright.” I replied as we began our trek down a sandy slope leading towards the Little Hoof suburbs, my boots simply choosing to glide down the sand making travel faster and easier save for balance. “You didn’t know because I didn’t choose to tell you earlier.”

“True dat…” She hummed back, her forelegs clamping tightly around my neck as we slid. “God, you do this every time you come back home?”

“Eh, not usually!” I giggled as we reached the bottom, my momentum forcing me to hit the cracked dry desert ground at a gallop in order to slow down. “I don’t usually come this way. I usually come in from the south on E-15 rather than the E-90.”

“E-15 from the South? How?” She asked as I finally came to a stop to wait for Melody and Gold who were carefully stepping down the slope towards us. “Last I heard the fuckboys talking about it, bunch of Hellhounds and Cockatri were supposed to be in that area. Hell, not to mention there’s that fucking huge ass crater right in the fucking road.”

“Common, I’m an ultimate badass remember? Besides, a little radiation never hurt nopony.” I replied with a giggle.

“Maybe for your pretty ass but not mine.” She replied, tapping my duster and armor with her hoof. “What, this thing super insulated against Rads or something?”

“Well, it is insulated against Rads naturally, whole underbarding alone is a proprietary tri-weave of Kevyarn, lead-tungsten nanowire and microfilament crystal strands. Hard pieces cover over 90% of the rest of my body and are a mix of Celestium Steel and lead-tungsten giving a significant level of defense.”

“So...nerdgasm aside, you just waltz right on through like nothing? Right…” She mumbled. “I can see how you’d get past those fuckers living in the Crater, but not the Rads. What’s your secret? Rad-X underwear?”

I chuckled at the idea as it too wasn’t a bad one but I finally relented my secret. There really was little harm in telling her of all ponies as she had the least amount of reasons to want to fuck me over. Or...so I hoped. You could never be too trusting in the Wastes...

“I’m immune to it.” I said simply. “No fuss, no muss.”

“Bullshit!” She laughed, causing Gold and Melody to look back at us as we began walking again towards Little Hoof.

“Nope.” I said flatly, unwilling to banter words about to try and get my point across. “I’m totally fucking immune, even ask Gold. That’s how I met him was actually, we met while I was making my way through the Crater. We stayed there for a few hours the two of us and I did just fucking fine. Didn’t need any RadAway or Rad-X, haven't ever since I mutated.”

“Well damn!” She exclaimed in approval, her hooves tracing my chest in little circles. “So you could fuck a Glowing One and be fine? Dammmnn! Lucky!”

Instead of thinking about the tactical advantages of being immortal and immunity to further mutations by Rads like any soldier (or hell a normal person) would, the first thing she thinks about is fucking a radioactive Ghoul. I had to give it to her though. I usually analyzed strangers and situations from a tactical perspective and how I could use the terrain or their own weapons against them. If I had to include how hot they were, it would be one of the last items on the list if not the last. But her? Sex and attractiveness was at the forefront of every thought with this mare. In some ways...I wished I had that level of dirtiness in my mind. Then again...I did at one point have that same kind of mindset but that was before my old life ended in Balefire and radiation. Now, I was a killer first, a tactician second, a craftsmare third, a merchant fourth and a horny little fucker fifth. It was a list that kept me alive and happy for the most part. Still...I could use a little more dirt in my already shit filled head. A little extra kinkiness never hurt nopony and M.O.M couldn't say no anymore.

The final stretch to Little Hoof passed quicker than I expected and Melody possessed surprising stamina for being such a scrawny little thing only just beginning a full recovery. I was expecting to have to carry her as well as Chocolate the last few miles or so but she refused to give up. We had to stop periodically to let her and Gold take a breather (and steal a swig from my canteen refilled with lemonade) but overall, we covered a lot more ground than I was expecting us to. When the charred and lifeless husks of bombed out buildings began to envelop us is when we finally got to see the first signs of civilization since leaving New Appleloosa two days prior. It was ‘civilization’ at a stretch though.

Huddling in the buildings that still had roofs or at least partial roofs were the poor citizens of Freeside, the impromptu ‘city’ of the poor of the Wasteland that sprung up around the Stirrup trying to leech the comparatively insane wealth of the casinos into their desperate hooves. Freeside itself wasn’t all that bad. I would not have stuck around for so long if I had felt otherwise like I had with Manehatten all those years ago. It treated me well and I gave back to it in my own way. In all honesty however, for those not so lucky as to be me, the key to living in the area was three-fold.

One: be nice to everyone, especially the elderly because they held sway with many others, most out of direct sight. Being courteous does you a lot more service than being a cunt ever would with these people. Number two was to dress and act as tough as a Dragon at all times when walking down the streets, especially in the alleys. Even though you have a good relationship with people, there are always assholes who are looking to mug you for a quick cap. And finally, the third key to living in Freeside was to know the fine line between being a friendly, generous neighbor and being a rock solid defender of your own turf. Like with key two, there were always the assholes out there who would love to take advantage of you if you’re known as a helpful, somewhat wealthy person. You had to be ready and able to tear their shit up if they started grabbing for yours.

I was one of the very few who called the part of Freeside I lived in by its Pre-War name of Little Hoof but I was well known there regardless. To the ponies, Griffins and other assorted species of The Pile (named after the marketplace that stood within a massive pile of rubble), I was known as Crete by the adults and ‘The Ranger’ by the kids. I normally didn’t converse too much with my neighbors, mostly because I was usually away on business but I did my best to maintain good relations with all of them so I could live in relative peace. I would handle the bigger jobs like fighting off Raiders who liked to pop into the area and they would keep an eye out for unsavory characters approaching my house. It was a simple but effective arrangement and it won me a decent bit of local support. I was a known killer of course, but I was a welcomed one for my willingness to keep my business out of town and point my barrels at invaders.

“Yo Crete!” Called out one of my neighbors, a stallion who went by the name of Mr. Holes. A name that went well with his services that were digging holes of any shape and size for any occasion long as the 'aluminum was good' as he referred to caps. “Glad to have you back! Who’re the friends?”

I approached him and nodded to the companions I had grown rather fond of over our last week of experiences together. I was proud of the company I was keeping.

“Some ex-slaves I rescued from Old Appleloosa. I uh...just couldn't do nothing when I saw the place for myself.” I responded, looking towards Gold and Melody who waved at him welcomingly.

“Shit, so you’re the one who fucked the OA up? Damn girl! I mean, it makes sense but damn!” He exclaimed in response, whistling in approval and looking towards his enchanted shovel that he used for work. “I’d be drowning in business if I were there to see it! Been awhile since I got paid to dig somethin' like a mass grave.”

It had only been four days since it had happened but I was almost shocked he knew about it already. The train from New to Old Appleloosa took eight hours alone and we had left town before it had returned so I was very confused as to how word had spread so quickly. If he knew already then who the fuck else knew? I hoped to hell Green hadn’t yet...I just wanted to move out silently and slip away to somewhere else before he came down on my head looking for his 85k in caps.

“H-how did you find out about it…?” I asked, the fear obvious enough in my voice to give him pause as well.

“Buncha traders were passing through the markets talking about how Old Appleloosa was a bloodbath when they made a stop there to trade. Said forty something ponies looked like they had been attacked by a Dragon by the way they were all torn up and shit. Why?” He asked, looking at me warily. “You got assholes on your tail we should know about Crete? We ain't gotta worry about the NER coming after ya for 'back taxes' do we?”

“No, you know I’m not stupid enough to fuck around like that but…” I sighed. I had to tell him the truth. Maybe it would buy me some extra time if I could cash in some favors with my neighbors and get them to keep an eye out for Green or his minions so I’d have some extra warning time to prepare.

“I fucked Green Peace over a bit.” I admitted in a hushed tone that only he and unfortunately Chocolate too could hear. “He wanted me to go to OA to pick up some stolen drugs and caps and I ended up slaughtering the town and freeing the slaves. Don't you dare bother asking me why because I couldn't give you a short answer even if I fucking tried. I gave them all of Green’s caps to help get them on their hooves and escape and once Green finds out you, know he’s going to come down on me like a goddamn hammer. Whole Syndicate network is going to light up across the Westcoast with my name in flashing letters next to that fucking Garand fucker I saw on the Board before I left. Big big money will be on the line then and for everyone's safety I have to bounce.”

He blinked a few times with a dumbfounded expression as he tried to digest my revelation. Everypony in Freeside knew about Green Peace. He was just as big a name on the Westcoast as Mr. House or New Pegasus and controlled most of the gangs in the area working everything from the back alley hustle to arranging the import of Chems to the Stirrup at a hefty mark-up. All gangs that was save for the Queens, who remained independent thanks to their numbers and their charismatic leader who naturally went by the name of The Queen. To have Green Peace on your ass was almost a guaranteed death sentence as his influence, caps and power seemed to have few limits. Thankfully for me though...I knew almost every single Hitmare he’d hire to kill me and knew their tactics over years of observation. If I were to be hunted, I was going to be one hell of an elusive target and in the event I was caught, I’d fight back with everything I had. With such large weapons though, I had more bite than my bark if anything else.

“Well shit…” He finally sighed, looking at the other ponies meandering down the broken streets hiding in the shade of buildings from the heat of the sun. “He’s probably heard about the hit on OA by now. I mean, if I know then he does for sure. As for your little fandango with the caps...you might have a few days. I’ll let the others know. Don’t worry Crete, we’ll have your back. We owe you for that shitshow with Cook Cook last month anyway. After this, we can call us all even and you can slip off and to...well, wherever the hell it is you plan on going from here.”

I smiled and thanked him sincerely for his willingness to help making sure he knew I only wanted him and the others to act only as scouts and not as bodyguards. The last thing I needed was for anypony to die for me when they didn’t even have anything to do with my fuck ups.

"Oh trust me..." He sighed, checking the beeping radio on his hip. "We aren't interested in dying over your shit with Green, Crete. Now excuse me, I gotta take this work call so I can feed my family for the week."

From there, we made our way off the main street and into the labyrinth of buildings in varying states of fucked. I had chosen my home with some care making sure it was tricky to pinpoint exactly being in the midst of an unmapped sprawl of lean-tos and sheet metal shacks intermixed with Pre-War buildings. Eventually though, we made it to my home nestled on the ground floor of an old apartment building, the door recessed and behind a shabby looking screen door that helped to disguise its real scope. Embedded in an old mailbox to the left of the doorway was an old retinal scanner that Cogs and I had stripped from an R&D building associated with StableTec. One quick peek into the scanner and the titanium alloy door retracted its eight bolts from the reinforced concrete frame, swinging outwards to grant us entry. Gold stared in wonder at the thickness of the door while the rest of us crammed ourselves into the small interior of my one bedroom apartment. The space was already crammed full of weapons, some clothing and armor, my reloading/maintenance bench and of course my small padded cot in the corner. With a kitchenette, working fridge and a decent hot plate, it had been my home for over five decades now...it was odd that I hadn't noticed just how damn small the place was.

“You live here?” Melody gasped softly, staring around with wide eyes as if she were looking at one of the luxury rooms at Tenpony Tower.

“Yep!” I chuckled, setting Chocolate down on my cot and poking through my possessions taking a quick mental inventory of everything I owned. “Lived here for a good fifty years now, though the door and the scanner were only installed about six years ago after I got robbed.”

“O-oh? W-who would r-rob you?” Gold asked as he poked his head out of the bathroom since that was the only area he could fit in comfortably.

“Loads of ponies to be honest.” I sighed as I started loading up a large duffle bag with boxes of ammunition I had reloaded myself. “I’ve got well over six-hundred thousand caps worth of pristine Pre-War weapons and ammo in here. Even if you didn’t sell them, they’d still be better weapons than anything you’d find in the Wastes save for the stuff the Gun Runners are churning out. Those guns are actually reallllllly high quality to be honest but I like thinking mine are better. They'd kill to just study my AMR let alone get their hooves on the schematics.”

Melody giggled softly and began poking through the second of the two bookshelves I had managed to cram into my room. I didn’t mind too much since the only thing there were some Pre-War books, magazines and all the weapons manuals I had found in decent condition during my travels. All my breakable mementos were on the windowsill overlooking my bed so I didn’t mind if she poked around my books. While she busied herself on that, I gathered up my bullet molds that I used to craft my own rounds and took stock. The only molds I had in my possession were for 10mm, .45-70, .45, .223 and .308 rounds and just a single mold for the 25mm. Based off the jagged side with exposed metal grains, I assumed it used to be part of a larger mold, more than likely one meant for 5-10 rounds at a time. It was...tedious to say the least to be only able to work on one round at a time. But, it meant I could be very exact in my powder charge and take extra time with the casting process for more complicated rounds like the Dragons Spit or APEI. In short, all my 25mm ammo was match-grade and performed with almost exactly the same level of efficacy and velocity. An absolute necessity when the target breaks the 3-600 yard easy zone and you still gotta get a shot on them without startling them with a miss.

The secret to crafting normal bullets was simple. The Gun Runners and a few well-off weapon suppliers carried small, portable crucibles for melting down scrap lead for casting. Just a Spark Battery was all you needed from there to power the little arcane flame inside and from there all you had to do was toss your lead into the melting pot. Wait about five-to-ten minutes for the lead to turn into metal soup and then use the attached trough to pour it into your molds which too could be attached at the end by either hooks or magnetics. Wait another half hour for the lead to set and boom, you’ve got fresh new bullets. Full Metal Jacket bullets require just an extra step to make and that’s just buying the hollow copper jackets and pouring the lead directly into them. FMJs (full metal jacketed rounds) were only marginally harder to produce since the Runners also sold pre-cast copper jackets for a variety of calibers by the hundreds.

Thankfully most molds came with steel inserts that held the jackets in place making it significantly easier to just pour and go. Now, my specialty rounds like the high explosive, incendiary and armor piercing? Those were a bit trickier but vastly more rewarding to create, the secrets of which I learned from a few sources. Looting old schematics from an Ironshod factory was the way of the future while the past saw some illegal training I obtained from Ironshod workers themselves during the War. How I came across the latter...let’s just say back then I was a bit more willing to give myself to stallions in exchange for information and training. Huckleberry was naturally annoyed when I told her but forgave me quickly after I started supplying her with Armor Piercing Incendiary rounds for her .338 Luna Magnus. Rounds like that were uncommon and unless you begged for a requisition form, best anypony had who wasn't a Steel Ranger, Shadowbolt or used something chambered in .50 or above was at best FMJs.

The penetrators for my AP rounds came from small tungsten carbide darts I obtained from Cogsworth who broke down old Sky Chariots that were beyond repair. Aside from the steel walls and occasional aluminum parts, these things were primarily composed of tungsten carbide in their main chassis as most attacks on them came from below. The high-explosive compound was a mixture of finely ground gun powder, alcohol and a minute quantity of a Spark Pack’s inner crystals. As the crystals are super-charged and are left in a near critical state, suspension in the alcohol/dynamite putty keeps them from achieving critical mass until impact with a target. The resulting explosion is larger than any clandestine explosive charge that could be stuffed into the 25mm projectile. The incendiary compound was either made from a hydrogen based accelerant commonly found in Incinerator fuel packs (which is less effective given the small quantity) or from Dragon’s Spit. A putty made of Dragon saliva (incredibly flammable if exposed to the right temperature of flame) and a small glob of C-4. The problem with Dragon’s Spit though was not in efficacy as it burned better than the napalm used in the military. No the problem was availability of supplies. Unless you wanted to find a Dragon willing to spit into a giant jar for you, the only place to get that kind of substance was the Dark Market.

The Dark Market...Goddesses I loved that place just as much as I despised it. A long-standing proprietor of all things sinister and evil, they existed and thrived even before the War dealing out all manner of exotic drugs, spells, technologies and most prominently everything and anything from the Zebra Empire. Potions, talismans, relics from the forbidden realms of Voodoo, Necromancy and other Black Magics...it could all be found there. Nowadays, given that nothing was exactly ‘off limits’ in the Wastes the Dark Market dealt mostly in moral ambiguity. By that I mean that they bought and sold items that were incredibly difficult to produce and required questionable morals to obtain. Black Magics and the like were still naturally for sale but alongside it also came ingredients for making these vile concoctions yourself. It was the only place you could buy different kinds of blood by the gallon and get other such weird Voodoo ingredients plus the books or scrolls needed to tell you how to prepare them. I only went for Dragon’s Spit (which was gathered from Feral Dragons they kept caged in the Market) but I always pondered over getting one of those potion books if not just for something interesting to read. I had just never seemed to have found the time sadly.

“W-what is this?!” I heard Melody gasp rousing me from my internal musings.

“What?” I asked quickly, clawing through my memory for anything on those shelves that could potentially make me look bad or just awkward to her. Like my vibrator…

She floated a piece of yellowing paper gently over to me and I was genuinely surprised to see that it was a page of sheet music, something I had never paused to collect in my life far as I knew. It was a bit faded but still in relatively good condition and my mind tried to stumble through the black notes filling the bars with what little of my formal musical training that was left in my memory. It certainly wasn’t music for a bass guitar, that much I knew since I was certain I’d recognize the beats of my old instrument anywhere on paper. I couldn’t find any indication as to what instrument it went to since the only markings that weren't musical notes was a bit in the top right corner saying, ‘Page 6 of 20’. It was a long song whatever it was but aside from that, I had no clue.

“It’s sheet music.” I said simply, looking back at her with slight confusion. “I couldn’t tell you for what instrument but it’s definitely not the bass guitar. That much I can tell you.”

“You play the bass?” She asked softly, looking up at me with muted awe and more than a little surprise.

“I did growing up through middle and high school in band class.” I responded, smiling at happy memories of playing alongside my bandmates at school rallies and being the only school that allowed the measly old bass a chance to do a solo just like everypony else got to do.

“Wowie…” She hummed to herself before taking the page back and humming after a few moments of staring at the paper.

“For somepony who didn’t know what sheet music was, you certainly have a knack for picking up on notes.” I said with a soft chuckle as she continued to hum at a slow pace along with what I assumed to be the music on the page, her voice soft and nigh on angelic.

“T-this sounds like it belongs on a cello…” Melody mumbled after she finished the page before looking up at me and saying, “I've only ever heard of the instrument but...there's something inside me just screaming this is for a cello. C-can I…?”

“Can you what?” I asked, dumping my extra lead and empty casings into another bag. “Can you keep it? Sure, I don’t see why not. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to have any use for it since I definitely can’t play the cello. Hell, I doubt I could even play a single chord on the bass anymore. It’s been what...two hundred and...ten years since I last played? Something around that number or something...I dunno.”

Her eyes welled up with tears and she rushed forward to hug me, squeezing with all her wee little strength and sobbing out her gratitude for such a wonderful gift. Whatever stalwart resolve I had crumbled at her touch and I enveloped her in my embrace being careful not to crush her against my armor. It was a small thing to me to give away (I didn’t even know I had it) but it meant everything to her which meant I had to find the other nineteen pages of whatever the fuck song it was. It was probably a folly to try and find them but fuck it. Not like I had any plans anymore, not after burning the only bridge I had been standing on for five decades now.

“You’re welcome, Melody.” I said softly before pulling away enough to look her in the eyes. “And I promise you we’ll find the rest of those pages no matter the cost.”

She gasped like she had been struck in the gut and whispered, “R-really…?”

“I promise.” I said firmly with a smile. “Even if it takes ten years or even fifty we’ll find all of them.”

She looked down as I stood up and whispered, “I don’t want to wait till I’m an old mare...but if that’s what it takes then okay. I can...I can wait that long.”

I chuckled softly at her determination and finished packing up the rest of my gear before pushing Gold out of the bathroom and kneeling in front of the toilet.

“If you’re gonna randomly puke, at least give us time to turn our heads, sweet fucking Celestia…” Chocolate grumbled as she looked away and covered her ears.

“I’m not throwing up, I’m just looking for the little switch that opens up the secret compartment that holds my extra caps…” I sighed as I reached behind the mostly white toilet bowl and pushed a small lever hidden behind the S-bend.

The back wall opened and the toilet slid into the depression exposing a hole with a ladder leading down ten feet to a very small cave that housed my safe with all my money. As I began to climb down, Gold said, “Y-you hid y-your money under a f-fucking toilet?!”

“Hey, the last place ponies would look for money is under the Shit-Express here, alright? Ithought it made sense at least.” I mumbled back as I slid down the ladder and crawled through the low, rocky entranceway to my safe, a large relic from none other than StableTec who were supposedly the be-all experts on keeping things secure.

“Who even made this hole?” Melody called down as I fiddled with the locks and opened the safe showing bag after bag of caps I had acquired over years of killing countless people.

“That guy I talked to when we first came into town actually!” I called back. “He digs all kinds of holes and he was more than happy to help me make this one here including the cave!”

“Huh...wowie.” She replied as I climbed out of the hole and shut it for the last time.

“Yep. Cogsworth helped set up the trap door and it’s worked for me ever since. Actually, this was one of the first things Mr. Holes dug after getting his cutie mark. His most recent work is much more smooth and refined compared to this but I decided against having it re-dug since I like the rough look of it.” I said as I squeezed my way out of the bathroom and back into my bedroom that was sadly looking quite bare with its empty weapon racks and the walls devoid of their usual trophies. It was almost unbelievable that I was finally leaving this place behind...

Now that I had my cash secured there wasn’t much left to pack up. I quickly realized I had more bags of stuff than I had ponies or room to carry them with and we would look incredibly conspicuous to any of Green’s little spies if I walked out with all of them floating alongside me at once. The only options were to either make several trips during the day or make a quick get away during the night with everything at once. The only problem with the latter one was the fact that Green could come crashing down on us at any moment and every minute delayed getting out was another minute closer to his inevitable retribution. As far as stashing my stuff away (pending getting a new place) was concerned, I would have to entrust it to someone I knew wouldn’t go off and keep it or worse yet, sell it. My neighbors may be supportive of me...but that didn’t mean they were all trustworthy. Honestly...the only person who seemed like the best option was once again Cogsworth. Unlike other ponies, he had yet to fail me and as far as I knew had not once lied to me about anything be it his products’ condition or his opinions on shit in stock in his warehouse.

“You’ve got a lotta shit hun.” Chocolate said, speaking the painfully heavy obvious. “How ya gonna haul it all?”

“We’ll all carry as much as we can in our first trip and pretend it's our goods going to the market. We’ll drop it off with Cogsworth since we’re going to him anyway and then I’ll come back and pick it up after I’ve found a new place to live, preferably someplace bigger than this so I can room guests better.” I replied, slinging her onto my back once more and then strapping a pair of duffle bags to my sides which further hampered my movement but, seeing as we were relatively safe in Freeside, I wasn’t too concerned by it.

“Oh? What kind of guests are you planning on having?” Melody asked as she smartly took the lightest bag that had what few clothes I owned inside and suspended it in her red violet magic beside her.

“Well…” I said shyly, looking at her and Gold with a small hesitant smile. “You both are welcome to stay with me. If you’d like that is, heh. I mean...if you want to take off and go your separate ways, that’s cool too. I just...I realized I really missed having ponies to talk to living nearby. It’s...um...it's comforting to not be alone for once.”

They looked at each other for a few moments before nodding and grinning at me, Melody saying, “We’d love to! Besides, where else am I gonna find a kick ass bodyguard like you eh?”

Kick ass bodyguard eh? Well...it wasn’t ‘mom’ but I suppose it could work. I just hoped she would come to see me as more than just a kick ass mare and maybe accept me as her new mom since I had already unofficially and internally adopted her as my daughter. Maybe it was just another pipe dream hoping for something like that... But hey! She wanted to stay with me so that’s a win right? Had to start somewhere and attaining badass status by her standards wasn’t too shabby at all in my book. Not the easiest hoof I had ever been dealt but one I could definitely make the most of if I were careful.

****************

Chapter Sixteen: Operation: Onyx

Penny was still shaking in rage by the time we got back to our tent to retrieve our weapons and equipment for the night’s jaunt. Everyone else looked grim, even Buck Beak who usually didn’t seem to express much by the way of sympathy for his targets. I myself...I was still reeling in shock at what the General had demanded of us. It was just...so far beyond the call of duty that it didn’t even register as an order from a superior but rather the demand of a sadist. Not that any of us were particularly good people given the fact we were all rather ruthless in the trenches. We did whatever it took to win every fight we found ourselves in but then again, that was the point of it wasn’t it? As our drill instructor taught us, the only thing that separated a competition from a real firefight was rules. If there were rules, it was a competition. Of course one might find themselves in a situation where they must compete for their lives in a duel or such but that wasn't nearly as likely anymore.

I heard that the first few years of the War were actually more like a combative competition between two honorable nations. Everyone followed their internal doctrines on the rules of engagement and every engagement played out more like an elaborate duel between two skilled opponents fighting to the death. That was, of course, before the Zebras started introducing the Crimson Dragons and their invisible advantage in combat. With their agility and speed, they had a habit of 'Scalping the Trenches' as we called it. A technique that saw them gallop at full speed down the labyrinth and use the trench walls to vault over unsuspecting ponies and lop their head of with their signature straight swords. Add to that their use of NecroGas, which literally melted flesh from bone, and other foul concoctions and the War had gone from an honorable duel to an all out bloodbath of carnage and brutality unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Even in hoof-to-hoof combat, the Zebras had little honor left in their tactics. It used to be that if an Equestrian and a Zebra found themselves sharing the same foxhole together, they’d duke it out one-on-one in the truest test of skill and cunning to see who the victor would be. Nowadays...a one-on-one fight wouldn’t stay that way for very long and someone would always end up being ganged up on and usually shot from behind. I still had several dents and scrapes on the back of my helmet from Zebras attempting to do the same to me but thankfully armor had improved significantly since I had first entered the service and I escaped with my head and back intact. In honor of these behind-from-back moves as Hucks and I called them, we each scratched in the words, ‘BITE ME’ on the backs of our helmets. We didn't know if the Zebs could understand it or not, but it was fuckin' hilarious to us all the same.

“How could he ask such a thing?!” Penny finally screeched as we exited the tent in full gear with our private comms channel. “Killing adults armed with a fucking enchanted assault rifle is one thing but mercilessly killing a convoy of children just so they don’t set up a colony on our land?! I mean...fuck! I get why he’s ordering it because fuck the Zebras colonizing our land but...FUCK! If it were a fuckton of adults I wouldn’t give two shits about blowing them all to hell but...kids?!”

I was grateful the radio in my ear automatically reduced the volume of her voice so I wasn’t deafened by her angry outburst. Regardless, she was speaking the very same words all of us felt. I had to wonder what the rest of the Army would think if they knew what he was asking us to do. Would they too be similarly (and justifiably) outraged at his order and refuse to do it? Or...or had we slipped so far that most wouldn’t even question the morality of the command and go through it obediently? I knew some Squads, like Gamma for example, that were well known as battleground sadists. The kind who wouldn’t just volunteer for such a mission, but would do so with immense pleasure. They were but one of the many ‘Kill-Joy’ Squads to be found in the Army, their overwhelming qualification being terror tactics. I mean, I thought I was pretty ruthless in combat...but these crazy ass motherfuckers went above and beyond; usually mutilating the bodies of their victims and painting their blood on their armor in mockery of traditional Zebra war paint. Aside from those fucking monsters though, would the rest of the Army react like we were? It was a genuinely concerning thing that I wasn't all too sure if they would or wouldn't...

“We can hear ya just fine Penny, calm the fuck down would ya?” Buck Beak groaned as he tossed a 40mm grenade into the air and caught it in the open chamber of his pump-action grenade launcher.

“Sorry…” She sighed before continuing her verbal assault with more restraint on her volume. “But seriously...this is just fucking wrong. He can't be fucking serious about this.”

“He’s a General, Penny…” Rain Dancer sighed as well, slinging his light machine gun onto his back and ensuring the mag-strips had a hold of it before he let go. “They’re not prone to speaking bullshit when it comes to combat missions. Maybe in politics but not in combat.”

“That just makes it even worse…” She mumbled. “It would be bad enough if he were yanking our tails with this but the fact he’s a fucking General makes it ten times worse. I mean, you don’t hear Luna saying shit like that do you?!”

“Well…” Huckleberry hummed which cued me in on what she was thinking instantly.

“What, you implying Princess Luna has come out and said to kill kids?” Penny growled though not in anger towards Huckleberry it seemed.

“Not directly, no...” Huckleberry replied in soft tones as we meandered into the entrance to the trenches to begin our three-and-a-half mile walk to the meetup point further down the valley. “But he’s directly beneath her in the military hierarchy. Aside from General Stonewall in the East, he's the only other four-star General in the country which means the only pony who has the power to contradict him is the Princess-in-Chief herself. Unless my understanding of the hierarchy is FUBAR, I doubt either General commences ops like this without first getting the approval of the Crown. So, either he’s going batshit crazy and is acting on his own accord or...he’s relaying orders from the highest levels of power in this country.”

That sent an icy torrent through my veins as I realized she was more than possibly right. After the Massacre at Little Bighorn, Princess Celestia had chosen to abdicate rather than be the one responsible for overseeing a World War. This left a bit of a power vacuum as she had been the ultimate leader of Equestria with Luna acting more as a prime minister than a co-ruler. Of course, with her older sister's abdication it had been to her to take the reins and do her best with the shit sandwich she had been left to deal with. To her credit she had done a better job than many had expected seeing as she had rather limited experience with direct rule but there were many problems with the system in place. Despite being the only five-star General in the EAF (by virtue of being our national leader), she was not a military oriented mare and thus allowed her subordinates to formulate plans and tactics. These would be reviewed in a weekly briefing in Canterlot with the Ministry Mares and all Generals from Brigadier to four-star.

There she would approve of the plans she felt were best and veto the ones she didn’t approve of before anything was communicated to us smaller cogs in the machine of War. Now, it wasn't like every minute detail and plan is reviewed in these meetings, it would be too much for the Princess to take in let alone understand. It was common knowledge amongst the C and XOs that Luna left almost all small operations and planning to the discretion of the Acting War Council. This left a lot of cracks in oversight protection that could be taken advantage of. Like she said, there was a chance this was coming from the General himself without prior authorization and he was simply using his stars to enact his own will. We all knew our GA ranks were more for appearances than genuine leadership positions we were expected to fill. While my silver oak leaves might intimidate anyone below me, I was still a Veteran Ranger in the eyes of the AWC and wasn't going to be given the same access to internal information as an actual Lieutenant Colonel normally could. Hell, even questioning my orders would be exceedingly dangerous if rumors of Olive's Black List were even remotely true.

Really, the only pony higher than myself that I trusted was the Colonel himself. Being in an administration role rather than working in an active combatant role like I was, his rank would carry actual weight. He was the only one who potentially had the authority to verify our orders all the way at the top and not get fucked in the ass for it. Still...I had a feeling that the General, now that he knew we didn’t agree with his orders, was more than likely going to keep us under close observation for any signs of insubordination. That meant I would have to find a way to contact the Colonel in such a way that I could communicate my concerns without being caught out as doubting my superiors. He had just as much brains as he had heart, he was sure to listen to me if I could just get him in a spot we could speak as equals. He had been able to do it all my career up to this point, I could count on his support now just like I could as a new Recruit to the Corps.

“Oh sweet Celestia I hope to fuck you’re wrong…” Rain Dancer mumbled fearfully as we passed the M.O.P crews coming back in pairs from the frontlines, a stretcher strapped between them carrying dead or dying ponies, Griffins, Dragons, Buffalo and other species that had joined in the War to defend the Continent.

"Common guys, let's be fuckin' honest with ourselves for a second here. I think we can all agree shit's fucked the hell up here and what can go wrong usually does." Grumbled Buck Beak followed by mumbled agreements from all of us.

"I don't like it any more than any of you. That being said, we've got something to focus on tonight so let's put our minds on that so we can make it back safe tonight. No telling what the fuck we will found out there. Nopony's Land is riddled with bullshit and I want everyone's eye on the prize. Heads on a swivel, safeties off and short, controlled bursts if we come under fire. In that situation, scatter and keep em occupied long enough for me or Buck to get a bead on them."

It had been relatively easy to get assigned to fringe patrol with Onyx’s Squad. A simple radio call to the General’s office and within two minutes I had formal approval with the added personal comment, ‘Kill all striped bastards that your scopes can see.’ It was a bit unusual for a fringe patrol to be granted shoot-on-sight clearance of any enemy combatants since normally we were supposed to wait until we were engaged first. Regardless though, we were more than fine with the clearance being granted since it had been a full twelve hours since any of us had been allowed to pop off a shot or two. Most of that time was spent withering away in the hot sun without much relief while everyone else got to charge off and kick ass. While a break was appreciated, it was undercut by just how unfair the climate was... Another quick radio call to Onyx and his Squad and we were as ready as we would ever be for the night’s events, however they turned out to be.

The walk to the rendezvous spot, which was the point at which the patrol started its arching route across the extreme edge of conquered and cleared territory, was rather simple and only took a half hour to traverse. It certainly helped that we were all in the peak condition of health and fitness but I think our greatest asset was our determination to get the jaunt over with. Even with the intriguing distraction, only a few of us were actually going to be heading out to look for it. The rest still had to walk the patrol and be bored outa their minds the whole time. Almost nothing interesting happens to patrols.

As we walked, more and more M.O.P cleaning crews passed us headed back for camp, the bulk of the casualties being from the General Army since their armor was admittedly...less than adequate for the kind of fighting we were involved in. Whereas middling NCOs, Desert Rangers and Airborne units were encased in one of the several variants of the Modular Combat Armor Platform (M-CAP), any poor sap with a single chevron or below was left to the wolves so to speak. The basic BDUs provided to them were nothing more than uniforms with a built-in tactical harness and a simple steel helmet. Hardly adequate protection but there simply was only a budget for those who had the right mixture of luck, cleverness and survival instinct to make it past the first couple ranks. Until you had proven yourself worth the trouble of supplying extra kit to, you were expected to crawl your way out of the Meat Grinder using what you had. Sink or swim was the order of the day.

A soft-body ballistic vest (like the kind worn by patrolling police units) was usually only provided to those Enlisted who managed to live long enough to make it to Corporal. Considering soft armor wasn’t worth a damn against anything bigger than a 5.56, it was sufficient for facing general infantry armed with that caliber but not much else. Only when you hit the rank of Sergeant did they start issuing you actual steel/polyceramic armor, usually the lighter model of the M-CAP Model-4 that could be strapped on over your fatigues as separate pieces. Upon the rank of Sergeant you were given either heavier versions of the 4 or, due to budget cuts, be given the older 3 which was an all-in-one suit that was not nearly as mobile as the 4s. All this being said though, even the M-CAP could only protect from so much of the bullshit we were asked to square-up against.

This was evidenced by the thick stream of casualties flowing from the front lines...not many were living to see the ranks beyond Private let alone seeing Specialist or Sergeant. The only thing I could think of that would potentially help the problem is if the Ministry of Image came out with a new line of uniforms that were made from or at least were reinforced with Kevyarn. The material was technically the intellectual property of the former Crystal Empire but had rapidly expanded its capabilities since it had been introduced twenty years ago thanks to help from M.O.W. According to the manuals I had been able to browse, I knew they were a mixture of synthetic elastic polymers, traditional spider's silk and Crystal Sheep wool woven into one of two patterns; the only difference between them being the quantities of each ingredient included in the weave. I had seen many things improve since graduating EastPoint. Metallurgy, synthetics, manufacturing techniques...many things had seen improvement over the years and I had yet to see a new version of Kevyarn hit production. Surely the Ministries of Image and War could put some time and attention into expanding on this old but relatively reliable material. They could make the new uniforms garish and flamboyantly pink for all I cared but it would save lives if we could find a way to protect more Privates from at least a 5.56.

“We’re coming up on Outpost Charlie, Ma’am.” Buck Beak announced over my radio as he performed aerial reconnaissance for us as we walked.

“Copy that. What ya seeing up there, B?” I asked, resisting the urge to look around since we were eight feet below the ground line surrounded by muted red clay and dirt.

“Massive heat signatures from Camp Fuck-Off as usual.” He replied, a small rectangle popping up in the right corner of my visor showing me his helmet feed. “Scattered thermal signatures roaming the maze...most seem to be buzzards doing what they do best. I’m not seeing any magical or electrical energy signatures anywhere...nothing in the skies either. Looks pretty damn clear to me. Hell, there’s not even a PRS in the sky. You’d think there’d be at least one Pegasus team up here this time of night doing recon.”

I watched as his vision filters changed the world into different colors as he searched for any signs of hostile life in the area and felt the knot in my gut loosen a hair. It was relieving to know he couldn’t see anything but then again it’s what we couldn’t see that gave me cause for concern. The only way anypony could detect a Crimson Dragon was via S.A.T.S, the Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting Spell that artificially jacked up your adrenaline with a potent spell and ran hit-probability ratios for accurate shots on enemies. It worked off the psychology subroutines that actively marked targets as friend or foe allowing one to hyperfocus on particular body parts for more accurate shots. The spell gave you time to observe your surroundings and was able to track (if barely) the position of invisible enemies by highlighting the distortion their cloaks made on the spell-matrix sensors. The only issue was that S.A.T.S was exclusive property of the almighty StableTec corporation which meant the only device with the system was their line of PipBucks and Power Armor. It goes without saying that such a costly device was only issued to specialist teams in the GA and Airborne and was only standard issue to Desert and Steel Rangers who had earned them. Even with S.A.T.S integrated in all our helmets, more often than not we relied on our skill and training to see us through the day. The technology, though insanely useful when trying to pop headshots on more than one target, took the challenge out of combat somewhat for me. There was something more gratifying to being able to perform crack shots without the need for too much technology.

“I want a S.A.T.S sweep real quick please.” I commanded nicely, wanting to make doubly sure the area was clear for now of anything nasty, deadly, invisible or, worst of all, all three.

“You got it.” Buck Beak replied, his videocam pausing for a few seconds at a time as the spell turned on and off as he scanned the surrounding terrain.

Thankfully the only entities highlighted were scavenging birds with no frozen pony shaped highlights to be seen anywhere. Once he had finished his sweep of the first mile and a half of the patrol route, plus a portion of Nopony’s Land, he came back to circle above us. The lone watchtower known as Outpost Charlie-Horse soon came into everyone’s view with two solitary heat signatures lounging within keeping a wary eye on the South. Getting picked for that post was always a gamble. Either spend the whole night and not see a thing or you’d end up dozing off only to be woken by your smirking CO telling you that you’ll be cleaning the latrines for a month. Or, you could just wake up dead from a Crimson Dragon. That was always a possibility out here.

“Hail Rangers!” One of the heads poking up over the sandbags called out as we walked past the tower. “You boys stuck on fringe tonight?”

“Yep!” I called back, turning on my external speaker so he could actually hear me. “What’s the good word, soldier?”

“Absofuckinglutely NOTHING.” He called back, pointing a hoof towards the South to the somewhat distant lights of Camp Fuck-Off. “Place is emptier than the galley on Pickled Radish Day. I almost wish the old Great Chief would fuck with me tonight it's been so fucking boringgggg!”

Damn, that empty huh? I was ok with that. A quiet Nopony’s Land was a good Nopony’s Land in my book and it would make things easier in the long run for what we were about to do. Onyx and his Squad had yet to arrive so we all decided to just sit down and wait at the base of the watchtower and discuss things. The two grunts above begged to come down and join us or have us come up and hang out with them but we just didn't have time to humor them. Now that we were here, it was as good a time as any to make a more concrete version of the basic idea of a plan we had earlier.

“Alright, once we are far enough out of sight of Charlie-Horse, me and Hucks will break off from the patrol with Onyx and whoever he brings along with him. You all know the song and dance on this one, I'm sure you guys are more than able to do this shit without me. If you see something, say something. If said something isn’t friendly, shoot it and ask questions later. Oh, and I heard a rumor that the Colonel is holding a contest amongst the entire Corps to see who can kill the most Legionaries so if you gun one down, try your best to snag their epaulettes as a trophy to prove your kill.”

“Damn, a Head Hunt! I love these!” Buck Beak chuckled evilly, reaching for a leather bag tied to his belt and pouring out a small pile of them into his armored talons. “Last time they did one of these was what, two tours ago? Been gathering the best of these babies for ages now!”

“Well shit, Buck.” Rain Dancer replied, peeking an eye into his own trophy bag and sounding disappointed in himself. “Why didn't I think to do that... Do you remember who won the prize last round?”

“That chick from the Buffalo Brigade…” Huckleberry sighed. “You know, the one who managed to lug around the M61A1-Vulpes on her Battle-Saddle in original configuration?”

“Wait, what?” Penny asked in shock. “She carried a what now?!”

“You know, the 20mm Vulpes minigun?” Buck Beak said, looking at her with his red lenses softly glowing in the darkness. “The bitch carried it on her back and fuckin' galloped through the trenches mowing everything down. Do you know how much that shit weighs? Even with MDS canisters, that's a fuckton of weight!”

“Sixty kilos.” I replied, rattling off from my rather extensive list of memorized arms and ammunition. “That’s assuming she had the tri-barreled version and not the six. That would jump it up to 112.”

Penny whistled and asked, “Sweet Celestia, I can see why she won. I've seen what those things can do from Sky Chariots so I can only imagine what those babies can do up close. Did she use an MDS canister at all to help with the ammo?”

“Well no shit, Penny. The thing has an RPM of 6,000, do you really think even a Buffalo could haul a minute's worth of ammo on her back unassisted? Only help she got was her two ammo-bearers to keep her topped off.” Rain Dancer answered. “Can't imagine what it'd be like to have to be the one to carry her extra rounds as she tore ass...”

“Wow...is she here on this tour? I’d love to meet her!” Penny said excitedly much to Dancer, Hucks and I's sadness.

“Sorry to say but...the Iron Buffalo went down last tour…” Huckleberry said softly. “She ran too far ahead of her ammo girls and got outflanked while clearing a jam in her flex-chute. When they found her body though, she was literally piled on by dead Askari and surrounded by piles more. It was like sixty-three kills she managed to get in before they took her down. The M.O.P ponies who retrieved her said there literally was no hide left on her body she was so full of bullets, shrapnel and stab wounds. She’s gone down a legend…if only the rest of us can be so lucky to earn the same reputation.”

“This War is going to make everypony a legend.” Rain Dancer sighed as he leaned back against the reinforced wooden post of the tower. “I mean hell, ain’t we legends by now?”

“Nah. Nopony gives a damn about the Desert Rangers anymore, it’s always the Steel Rangers who get all the media attention. When was the last time anypony from our Corps was on T.V or on the radio for an interview? I’ll tell you: six years ago. It was Colonel Sand doing this short shpeal on our advanced reconnaissance missions in the Zulu Campaign and Griffinstone Offensive and our take on their combat readiness. And even then they cut him off after like three questions because that one Tin Head burst into the scene declaring victory at the Manehattan Offensive. Ever since then we’ve gotten the ass of the media attention.” Penny said flatly as she loaded a spare drum magazine with Dragon’s Breath shotshells from her chest bandolier to pass the time.

"Yeesh...yeah, I remember that shit..." I grumbled. "Memory will be burned into my memory for ages to come..."

We waited another ten minutes in silence, most of us idly checking and rechecking our weapons and equipment in an attempt to stave off boredom. The waiting was becoming more and more unbearable as ten minutes turned to thirty and still there was no Onyx. Or really any signs of life aside from the two bozos in the tower above us who we were pretty sure had decided to take a nap. Since we were around to do their job for them, I suppose I couldn't blame them. Repeated radio calls to Onyx went unanswered and so we were forced to wait. Wait and run circles in the brain until the knot in your gut twists and convulses into the size of a volleyball.

“Do you think this Onyx guy is yanking all our tails on a wild goose chase?” Rain Dancer finally asked as the clock ticked on forty-five minutes, our patrol technically starting fifteen-minutes ago. “I mean, he is a Tin Head after all…”

“I guess…” I sighed as I stood up clipped the grenades I had been trying to juggle back onto the bandolier across my chest. “Either way, we’re here to do a patrol so let’s get it over with. I’m gonna pass out if we don’t get moving and I’d rather sleep in my cot than on the fucking ground. Did plenty of that in the Empire...”

They all duly agreed and stood up stretching as best they could with armor and weapons on. Penny finally put her helmet back on since she didn’t like the way her mane stood up everywhere from wearing it for long periods of time.

“Ayo, Crete!” My radio buzzed just as we started walking towards the starting point of our patrol route.

“Captain Onyx.” I said with a dangerous tone of annoyance in my voice that I didn’t care to hide. “You better damn well have used that forty-nine minutes to come up with a good excuse for why you’re late.”

“Ah do, Ah’m sorry…” He said meekly as four T-45’s climbed out of the trenches and made their way towards us, their thermal signatures quite noticeable like moving beacons of technicolor. “Yew won’t believe wha’ th’ General wants us tah do…”

“Blow a bunch of foals to hell?” I suggested, wondering just how many were being roped into that madness.

“How’d ya know?” He asked with a small gasp. “He didn’ ask yew too did he?”

“He did.” I said simply, making a small recording of their approach to point out to anypony who would listen the fact that the T-45 was far from stealthy on thermals. “He asked all of us to do it. Though he said he was sending us with his Shock Troopers...know anything about that?”

“Naw.” He replied as they came up to us, each of us exchanging nods of acknowledgment to each other in greeting. “Only said we’d be workin’ wit’ a buncha Veteran Rangers n’ nothin’ else. Didn’t even give us ah briefin’ fer it. Said we’d get one later. Ahll sorts ah weird...”

I paused just long enough to radio in that we were beginning our patrol to Command before showing him the small holotape we had been given with our mission briefing and noticing for the first time it had the words ‘Classified: View on 08/16/2077’ written in red ink on the label. This bitch had a time-lock on it which made it almost impossible to access before the date in question. Well, that is if you wished to do so without being picked up by M.O.M for breach of security.

“View on th’ sixteenth? Tha’s not fer ahnother week. Th’ fuck’s goin’ on?” He asked as he gave the tape back to me and we brought up the rear of the group. “Somethin’ feels really off about this here…and Ah mean more than th’ fact he wants us tah murder a buncha young'uns.”

“It does seem rather disorganized for a mission of this scale…” I admitted, looking beyond the fucked up nature of the mission itself at the logistics of it all. “Mission briefing via holotape, lack of information or proxy approval from our Corps officers and...I guess maybe even conflicting information since you got less info than we did. I mean, nothing against you but I don’t think you or your Squad are considered part of the General’s Shock Troopers are you?”

He shook his head and muttered, “Nnope. He didn’t say anythang abou’ Shock Troopers, just y’all Veterans. We're good, but we ain't Shock Troopa quality. Yet, heh.”

“And he didn’t say anything about standard Steel Rangers being apart of this thing when we spoke with him. Fuck, this is confusing…” I mumbled back, looking away from him at the column of Rangers before us all proudly arraigned in the best the military had to offer. “Well...what are your thoughts on the mission? Between two ponies.”

“Fuckin’ psycho.” He stated firmly, nickering softly in disgust. “Ah ain’t gonna do it. No way n' hell. Ah might belong there fer mah part in this damned War but Ah don' wanna go down knowin' I killed ah kid. Don' matter if its one o' ours or theirs.”

“Thank Celestia…” I sighed in relief, relieved to know we weren’t the only ones who were willing to disobey the commands of a psychopath. “We aren’t either. If it were nothing but armed adults then I’d have no fucking problem with it but I won’t kill a bunch of kids. Doesn't fucking matter how much at War with their country I am. Even gunning down unarmed adults is a huge no-no, we all know this shit from diapers!”

“Damn straight!” He laughed back, bumping me in the side with a metal clang. “This here War has fucked everythang n’ everyone up...dunno ‘bout y’all but Ah ain’t gonna give up mah Soul fer ah couple more kills tah mah name. I ain’t no foal-killer. Besides, they ain’t gonna count in th’ Head Hunt anyway.”

After a moment of shared silent revulsion for our future orders, it was time to organize our combined patrol and figure out the logistics. With nine of us in total, we were a bit large for a fringe patrol group but I liked the extra feeling of security that so many heavily armed bodies provided. Four (two from each Squad) traveled above ground and kept an eye on the area around us while the rest of us stayed below in the trench. Buck Beak, again being our only air support, circled overhead giving us an even greater field of view over the maze of holes, furrows and craters dotting the dark landscape. We made a wide arch along the absolute fringe of our holdings in an attempt to apprehend any potential Zebra insurgents or efforts to lay anti-personnel/materiel mines. On some occasions these sort of patrols would be so lucky as to come across Zebra weaponry, robots or other such military materials that we could stake out and call in a salvage crew to retrieve. Sadly though, most patrols would be nothing more exciting than seeing corpses, festering gore and all the other party decorations of World War. Tonight’s objective was a salvage op thankfully, though instead of hoping to merely come across it in our route, we were going to break the rules and jaunt out to Nopony’s land in search of it. An unconfirmed piece of ordnance that could prove a total game changer in the course of the War if it actually existed. Even if it didn’t exist, we lost nothing by it so either way, it was worth the risk.

Once the route began to veer right towards towards the West, Onyx selected three of his Tin Heads to accompany him while I selected Penny and Huckleberry to follow me. Though we had originally planned on only having a group of four approach the site, being so close to Fuck-Off made everyone nervous. Onyx himself seemed pleasant and cordial enough from the limited interactions I had had with him but I didn’t know the rest of his Squad for shit. I wasn’t going to let my mare and the only other mare on my team be alone with a bunch of Tin Heads. Did I assume they were all stallions without checking? Yes. Yes I did. The SRs drew in stallions like moths to an inferno as every guy wanted to wear the Steel and assert their dominance in the fight. I had a right to make assumptions when 3\4 of their number were of the male persuasion.

“Aight, so it’ll probably be easier tah get there if we go up tahp.” He said as one of his three lackeys started kicking a ramp into the trench wall for us to climb out on. “Ah don’t rememba exactly where Ah saw th’ thang but I marked th’ general area fer us tah sweep when Ah wasn't so busy gettin' shot at. Since there’s gonna be seven of us goin’, we should be able tah cova a lotta ground but we only got like thirty minutes tah look before we need tah head back tah meet up wit’ th’ rest of them. Not ah lot o' time but its ahll we can do.”

We all nodded and I took a second to check out the three he had chosen to go with him. The difference between a mare and a stallion’s helmet was usually subtle and often you had to rely on body size and the subtleties in shape (like wider hips, thinner legs and a narrow torso) to tell the difference between the sexes whilst in armor. I wasn’t too sure but...I had a feeling that every single member of Onyx’s team was a mare. It was harder to tell the difference on a Steel Ranger since the T-45 made everypony roughly the same height and encased them in an inch or more of magically forged steel but...there were enough signs to make me wonder. Wider cuisse meant a wider pelvis and the torso tapered more in the waist than those I had grown accustomed to seeing. The most telling detail though was the slimmer mask portion of the helmet covering the muzzle. Either these were handsomely feminine stallions or Onyx had himself a team of mares, the damn fucking lucky ass bastard...

Their magically powered armor tore into the dirt wall as easily as a jackhammer and within a minute there was a rudimentary slope made in the trench wall that even the T-45 could walk up without toppling backwards. On the surface, I finally got to see the end result of the day’s offensive and I was almost uncomfortable with how close we were to Camp Fuck-Off compared to how far away we were from our tents. The Zebras had yet to widely circulate their own version of the AMR (which they had reversed engineered from our own version taken on the battlefield) so I was relatively confident I was not in range of any well-trained sniper fire. I knew I could make a mile-and-a-half long shot in these conditions considering there was no crosswind and the humidity and temperature were down. Even then though, I would be at the mercy of the BORS system attached to my scope and hope it compensated for the Coriolis-Effect properly. The Zebras as far as I knew had nothing of the sort so...why was I still unnerved at being so ‘close’ to their camp?

“Ah’m gonna send y’all th’ area Ah marked out fer this here gig but just in case, just follow me kay?” Onyx said as a map of the area was transmitted to my visor with a small four hundred foot area highlighted in red a half-mile to the Southwest of where we stood. “What’s yer Griffin seein’ in th’ skies?”

“Buck Beak, what do your Griffin eyes see?” I asked, instinctively looking up for his small figure circling in the sky.

“Nothing.” He replied in a bored tone, the distinct sound of his grenade launcher cocking coming through over his radio feed. “It’s too quiet. I don’t like quiet...”

“Does he mean tha’ in a good way ‘er a bad one?” Onyx asked as we had patched them all into a common radio feed.

“Buck, don’t go making noise to soothe your boredom, k?” Penny sighed in our ears. “Last time you did that you got the attention of that murderbot thing remember?”

“Yep! And that was a hell of a great fight!” He laughed, obviously missing the point.

“There wasn’t supposed to be a fight remember?” I responded, silently wondering what Onyx or his other three Tin Heads thought about our conversation. “The mark of a successful patrol is having everything be quiet and uneventful, not bang, pow, boom anything and everything you come across.”

“And the mark of an awesome patrol is taking an enthusiastic midnight stroll, blowing shit up and filling up the night sky with fire!” He chuckled back with a tone of glee.

“I will agree with the Griffin on this regard, patrols tend to become very dull experiences without any action.” Came an unfamiliar Canterlot accented mare’s voice over the channel.

“I agree wit’ both the Griffin and the mare. Patrols should be quiet but they’s more fun when there’s something t’ shoot.” Came another mare’s voice, this one with a sexy Manehattan drawl.

“Brandy? Wha’ ‘bout yew eh?” Onyx asked, presumably to the last member of his team who hadn’t spoken yet.

“Ain’t got no ‘pinion on th’ matter Sir.” She responded in a very thick Southern accent. “We’ve got this here job an’ we gonna do it.”

“You never have an opinion on anythin’ Brandy.” The Manehattanite sighed. “You’s always just quiet and boring.”

“Well ‘scuse meh fer bein’ ‘ficient.” Brandy retorted in a calm, even manner, her voice like sugared molasses spilling out of her mouth.

“Pardon me Brandy, but remind us again as to whom is the most efficient soldier in this Squad?” The Canterlot mare challenged in her formal tones.

“Aight, settle down ladies.” Onyx chuckled, finally bringing the argument to a close. “We’re just ahbout there now so spread out n’ look ‘fer somethin’ tha’ looks like ah launcher of some sort. Looked like ah missile launcher but...funky.”

Everyone went silent as we broke off into pairs, my confidence in Onyx’s Squad improving knowing he was literally the only male in the whole group. The likelihood that Hucks or Penny would be sexually assaulted was thankfully next to zero, even with a bunch of unknown Tin Heads and I felt safe letting my mare go off alone. I nodded towards Hucks who joined up with the Canterlot mare hoping she got my unspoken message. She knew better than to mess around with other mares just as I did and before I knew it, everyone was paired off except for me and Onyx. Brandy chose to go with Buck Beak (who remained airborne) on the premise that she preferred to work alone as much as possible. Seemed to suit Buck just fine as he had those same kind of tendencies and could respect them in kind.

“Well, guess it’ll be just yew n’ me eh?” Onyx chuckled as he led the way forward, his 20mm grenade launcher rotating on a mechanical pivot on his armored back like a sentry gun. “Keep yer eyes out fer anythin’ nasty an’ Ah’ll blow it tah hell.”

“Well in that case, I hope you’re ready to run because I don’t wanna be around when old Stripped Ass comes poking around wondering why there’s a bunch of explosions in Nopony’s Land.” I replied, looking over my shoulder at the distance just to reach Outpost Charlie-Horse.

“Puhlease…” He snorted in amusement as we hopped down into a random trench in the search area, his armor clanging like a metal can in the wind. “With this here armor, Ah’m gonna be runnin’ fer days an’ not feel ah thang. Just try tah keep up lil' lady.”

I knew better than that and I hoped as an actual user of the T-45, he knew it too. The spell-matrix placed in the armor only negated the armor’s weight and didn’t provide any bonuses to speed or agility leaving the wearer up to his or her own personal fitness. Then again, even the weight negation had a limit. This meant nopony (aside from the Iron Buffalo) would be hauling around a 20mm minigun without overloading the Crystalline Fusion Core shutting the whole thing down. The stronger guys could still move with a crashed matrix but it was slow, precarious and usually resulted in more casualties. Or at the very least lost munitions as they tried to shed excess weight in order to make it home alive. Now, the newer model that I had seen on the Shock Troopers? It was more than possible that recent advances had gone beyond what the T-45 models were capable of and introduced some crazy new shit. I had yet to learn anything about them save for their distinctive appearance but I could tell they were going to outperform. Even in desperation, Equestria never let anything hit the field until it had passed high standards of quality and stress testing.

As we searched, I brought up the topic of the new Power Armor model and was unsurprised to learn that he knew nothing about it. It turned into a genuinely pleasant conversation as he himself was somewhat of a low-key expert in PoA and could respect my first-hoof observations. It certainly made the search less boring as we scoured the dirt and sand for anything worth looking at using all the vision filters available. As we were well within the range of Equestrian artillery and well-trained sniper fire from Charlie-Horse, I was unsurprised to find Zebra corpses still littering the ground; most probably victims of bleed-out on the way back to camp. Their armor, a sort of armored combat dress made of strange, foreign materials, blended well with the blackness of night with their distinctive black and red coloring. During the daytime though, they stood out like a sore horn against the dingy red of the Badlands. A subtle testament to their devotion to the tactic of stealth and subterfuge that had defined their way of waging war.

"Yer sure ya saw it right?" He asked me incredulously if with great interest. "No bullshit?"

"Ya know, despite the animosity between the Corps I don't have a reason to lie about something like this. And even if I were lying, you'd more than likely see the truth for yourself. I've no doubt that we will start seeing those fuckers hitting your Corps like mad once they finish field tests."

"Ah'll be damned...they actually managed tah get .50s into Power Armor..."

"Didn't get the best look at it but the secondary seemed to be a 40mm too. Couldn't tell ya if it fires the Hellfire 40s or the shorties but it's definitely bigger than that 20 you're working with there."

"Yeeeehaw! Now tha' right there is why Ah signed up fer this shit!"

The world continued to change colors as my filters switched from one to the other, each trying its best to make something of the dull earth around us. The bodies on the ground were always a cold blue on thermals, which was a relief if a macabre one. We came across various weapons and munitions, none of which we had room to carry and none of which came close to what we were after. Of course, we didn’t exactly know what we were after but I pictured a Balefire launcher to look like...well...I wasn't entirely sure. Balefire had to be contained within specially enchanted glass so I would expect something like...a traditional cannon? He had said launcher though which implied shot from the shoulder. Soooo...I suppose what I was looking for was like a missile launcher but all sorts of whack.

“Sound off.” I commanded dully into my mike as a routine check-in with my Squad.

“Huckleberry here. I’ve got nothing.” Hucks said in a bored tone.

“Ditto for Penny. Nothing but dirt, blood and bodies over here.”

“Skies are clear. Nobody but us out here...unfortunately. Wish a Zeeb would...”

I waited a moment to let Rain Dancer say his piece but was at first surprised and then scared when no word came from him. He wasn't like Buck, going radio silent just to have a laugh at our own expense.

“Yo, Rain Dancer! You dead bro?” Buck Beak called out. "Or do I gotta get some Zebra dick outa your sorry ass to get you to answer the call?"

“Yeah bro...sorry, was busy digging.” He replied much to my relief. “I thought I found something but it just turned out to be a giant dragon bone left over from who knows how long ago. Sorry to say but I’ve got nothing either. Just a giant graveyard out here tonight. A shared one with the old Migration that used to happen here.”

“I think you mean a field for harvesting trophies!” Penny giggled. “We could probably pick up a few dozen epaulets each and be that much closer to winning the Head Hunt!”

"Already ahead of ya bitches!" Buck chuckled gleefully. "Been snagging 'em anytime I spy a particularly shiny one that'll look good for the leader board. Not like anypony can put a date on those I'll let slip into the eh, honorably gained ones if ya know what I'm sayin'."

“Guys...we earn our quarry honorably remember? Do I always have to remind you about that?” I growled, kicking the dirt in lieu of giving Buck a good uppercut to the beak.

My reinforced combat boot struck metal in the loose earth and without another word I immediately pounced on the site with all the fervor of a miner who struck coal. What I found was an odd, metal half-pipe contraption that was about five feet long and included some piping and what looked like pressure gauges on the left side. The more I looked at it, the more I noticed defining features including a trigger mechanism, a padded shoulder rest and a sort of charging handle that could be operated by mouth. The half-pipe itself was more like a third-pipe with the left side completely open giving me the impression it was meant for ease of loading something rather large. The overall feel and weight of the object was similar to a missile launcher except this thing seemed to use a large spring and compressed air system in order to launch its ordinance. Unless the Zebras were shooting bowling balls at us, the only logical ammunition was...

“Guys…” I gasped softly as Onyx took a turn looking the thing over. “I think we found our Balefire launcher!”

“All you will find here is death and blood, Equine.” Came the melodic accented voice of a Zebra from the darkness. “Nothing else will be found upon these fields of war.”

Fucking Crimson Dragons I swear...

****************

Chapter Seventeen: Cogsworth

“Is this New Pegasus? It’s a lot...messier than I expected.” Melody asked as we hauled my stuff down the streets of Freeside towards The Pile.

“Nah hun, this is just the ghetto outside of New Pegasus.” Chocolate answered, her weight shifting on my back as she looked around. “New Pegasus is pretty damn clean compared to this dump.”

That comment earned her the scornful stares of those within earshot though it wasn’t as if they could argue her point. The reason anypony lived here was to escape the random nature of the open Wasteland for the somewhat predictable life near the city. While New Pegasus was a broader term than it had been as Las Pegasus, certain parts weren’t going to let just anypony enter though. The Stirrup, home to seven of the remaining famous Las Pegasus casinos, was the Tenpony Tower of the West acting as the home of the region's wealthiest. As often happens whenever there is a wealth gap in the population, the disparity between the rich of the Stirrup and the poor of Freeside was spiteful at best and violent at worst. The Stirrup provided its own automated protection for itself saving it the cost of hiring and paying armed guards. Instead, the front gate leading into the Stirrup was guarded by a new breed of robots that answered only to Mr. House and who required you pass a ‘credit check’ in order to be allowed entry to New Pegasus proper. If you didn't have at least 2k in your caps bag, you didn't have much a chance of getting in without having to deal with the NER and the paperwork needed just to see their embassy within the Stirrup. Sure you could gain a visa to bypass the guards and enter freely but only if you were a citizen of theirs with a valid passport. Arguably the more expensive and time-consuming route of getting inside.

To be honest, it was a strange way to utilize an old concept. Instead of scouring your bank records and calculating your likelihood to default, they literally looked at how much you were worth in pure cash. For me, two thousand was my average spending money for the day, but for the residents of Freeside, 2k in caps was something most of them could barely dream of having to their name. And so, being barred from the Stirrup and hopelessly optimistic dreams of scoring big at the tables, they were left to take root in the ruins surrounding it to fend for themselves. A meager living of prostitution, bartering and trading for goods and scavenging the Wastes for scraps of the old world. It was...an arguably bleak existence but to those lucky enough to have a talent for those things, they generally did OK for themselves and managed to scrape out a respectable living. The rest...well...there was not much that could be done for them. At least...that's what I had liked to tell myself up until now. Now...I wasn't so sure that was true.

My neighbors waved or nodded in acknowledgement as I passed. Despite my attempts to remain low-key while I lived amongst them, there was only so much I could do to reduce my visibility. They didn't bother me much thankfully, word of my profession having made its rounds through the nearby street blocks. I kept my business out of Freeside as a peace offering against any would-be assassin on a mission of revenge for someone I had killed within New Pegasus. And to sweeten the deal, I had used my weapons and skills to assist with Raider attacks and dangerous creatures that had wandered too close for comfort. By now, I had become somewhat of a respected figure in the neighborhood of Fetlock despite my profession being rather sinister and associated with psychos like Black Velvet or Killer Queen. It was an amusing arrangement and I hoped to use all the goodwill I had gathered over the years to see me through this transition.

The Wasteland provided an exciting and challenging way of life that I enjoyed immensely. I had always been the fighting type. Hooked on the adrenaline of combat and the sensory clarity that came with fighting for your life in a battle for survival. However...what it lacked, and the one thing I came to understand about my own needs in the last few days, was stability. Caps changed hooves, bullets ended lives and life continued to meander from one day to the next leaving all but the most basic of instincts unsatisfied. Meeting Gold and subsequently Melody and Chocolate had reminded me just how much I truly needed companionship in my aimless life. The Army had been perfect for me as it satisfied almost all of my needs. Professional badass training? Check. All the guns and ammo I could ever want? Check. Access to the sexiest versions of ArmsTech gear and plenty of exposure to its models? Huge check. Camaraderie and trust forged in combat? Double decker checker. But...with the loss of the Army (and Equestria itself) also came my own personal loss of that companionship that I found myself sorely needing. Add to that the fact what happened at Maripony made me outlive almost anyone I would ever meet...well...it was no wonder why I had preferred to live alone. I hated it...but...it protected me from having to lose someone else I had grown close to. My defense mechanism was a terribly double-edged sword.

“You ok, Athena…?” Melody asked, breaking the downward spiral of my thoughts with her angelic voice. “You look...sad.”

“Sorry…” I replied with a fake smile trying to mask my true feelings. “Lost in thought. I do that a lot.”

She smiled and giggled, “It’s okay, I do it a lot too. Mostly daydreaming about escaping. Guess I’ll have to find something new to dream about huh?”

“Yeah…” I replied, wondering if her rescue was anything like she had dreamed it to be. “You doing ok…? After everything that happened to you...I’m...surprised you’re holding it together like you are.”

Her smile faded as her eyes drifted towards the broken pavement passing beneath our hooves.

“It’s...hard.” She admitted softly, my ears straining to catch her voice without my helmet on. “But the walking and talking really help keep me distracted from...everything.”

I could tell I was beginning to step into an emotional minefield that had yet to safely clear of hazards. Hell, I had barely started to deactivate even one mine as far as I knew. Making the executive decision, I decided to backpedal into safer, happier territory to keep her mind off of what had happened to her. Mom had to do very much the same for me after my first few tours of duty as I had to come to grips with the reality of War. There was a big difference between saying you will kill someone and actually doing it... My first tour in particular had been particularly traumatizing for my bright eyes and bushy tail. As time went on though...I found that I no longer feared the dead that I had killed myself. I was not momma's innocent little filly anymore...nor could I ever be again...

"Welllll, hello there Ranger!"

I looked up from my depressive train of thought and saw to my grateful surprise Black Hole standing nearby, his trusty shovel slung casually over his back. While his name and cutie mark might have once been meant for studying the stars, nowadays it translated into being exceedingly good at digging holes. He was one of the friendlier neighbors I had actually found to be worth more than a few words to.

"Ahh, good old Mr. Holes." I smiled in response, coming closer into order to grip his hoof in greeting. "I am actually glad to see you as I have kind of a huge favor to ask of you for once..."

"Well shit, Crete! Name it!" He boomed with a hearty laugh, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement. "We owe you for a lot. Others might not wanna say it to your face but we appreciate you for sticking up for us. Those guns of yours make short work of those dumb shitheads lemme tell ya! Fuckin' glorious to see them bastards running back to the desert to bleed to death heh heh heh."

"So...I...don't know how to say this." I started, feeling the social awkwardness kick in a little too strongly. "We just came from Old Appleloosa and-"

"No fuckin' way, that was you??" He gasped, sending an icy pole down my spine in fear.

"W-what was me...?" I asked, my hesitation enough to confirm both our suspicions.

"Holyyyy shit Ranger." He grinned, pounding me on the back with his strong hoof. "Heard the place was a fucking massacre. Lemme tell ya, them Slaver whoresons deserved everything ya did to 'em. And then some!"

It hadn't even been four days since we had left New Appleloosa...how the hell had word traveled to New Pegasus already? I knew we had been slow on the trail due to Gold's lack of stamina but I didn't think we were that slow. I was going to need this favor even more than I had thought.

"Thanks heh." I replied awkwardly, looking around the street fearfully for Green's goons, something else he picked up on.

"Crete...what's wrong? What'd ya do?" He asked pointedly, staring me dead in the eye with all the posturing of a lion.

"Look...Holes...I fucked over Green Peace." I admitted after several excruciating seconds of trying to force the truth out. "Big time. Not only did I free the slaves there I...I donated the caps Green had sent me to retrieve to them to help them get on their hooves."

He blinked at me blankly for a few moments as the gravity of what I had just said seemed to sink in. The moment it hit bottom, his expression darkened considerably. His tan coat seemed to bristle with concern.

"Well fuck me with a broken shovel... You've gone and done it this time haven't you?"

"Look, we can butt heads later over my impulsive decision but now is not the fucking time alright? Can you help me or not?"

"I don't know Ranger..." He admitted cautiously, rubbing his chin in thought. "None of us are good in a fight, you know that better than anyone."

"I'm not asking for protection Holes, all I need is for you and anyone you can convince to help just keep an eye out for Green or his fuckwads. Try and keep em away from my place until I can get the rest of my shit moved out. If they don't find it and wreck the bitch, she's all yours. I won't be needing it anymore that's for fucking sure."

"Huh...well, when you put it like that, I think I can handle that. Lemme go put a word through the grapevine and see who's listening and willing to help out. We got your back, Ranger. You've had ours enough time so far, its about time we paid a bit of that back to ya. May the Goddesses help ya out wherever you disappear to ya crazy, crazy bitch."

With a laugh he set off down the road towards the local water spout, as big a place of community as the local bars. It was a large load off my mind knowing I would have at least a somewhat better chance of making it out of the mess I had made for myself. It felt wrong to pull Melody and Gold into my problems but...I had found myself enjoying having them near. Their curiosity and child-like wonder towards the world was a blessed distraction from the cold and unforgiving insides of my own thoughts. I...was willing to almost anything to keep that distraction going. It made me feel better every time it happened.

“Soooo...Melody, did your daydreams happen to include what you wanted to do once you got out of there?” I asked in a happy tone, hoping there was a bucket list of experiences I could try to satisfy.

“W-what do you mean…?” She asked, looking back up at me with hushed excitement.

“Like are there places you wanna go to or things you wanna do that you’ve always wanted to but haven’t been able to until now?” I elaborated. "You know, like go visit the ocean or seeing Ministry Walk even though both of those ideas are so dangerous as to be idiotic. The Hexagon is in Pink Fuckland and the ocean glows at night from residual Rads."

“Oh…” She hummed quietly, scrunching up her face cutely in thought. “Well...umm…”

She clammed up and shook her head with a soft blush of embarrassment that I intended to prod on until she spilled her desires out loud. She was obviously unused to being asked for her personal desires and there was no time like the present to begin tearing down the barriers she had thrown up to protect herself against her abusers.

“Common’, I won’t judge I promise!” I responded, putting on the biggest encouraging smile I could muster and hoping it didn’t come out looking like a grimace.

“W-well...I...I’ve always wanted...t-to learn how to p-play the violin.” She squeaked softly, hiding her blushing face behind her mane like a colorful veil of black, pink and magenta.

The violin huh? That was going to be a hard thing to find but not impossible. I could think of a few places off the top of my head that potentially had a violin, the first and foremost of which was Tenpony Tower. Why a luxury hotel turned stuck-up bitch haven? Well exactly for that same reason. If anyone in the Wastes was going to keep a violin around it was going to be a rich ass Tenpony resident. The other places were old schoolhouse band rooms (which were usually taken over by Raiders who liked shitting on everything) and the College of Arts and Music in Canterlot, aka Pink Fuckland. I had only visited Tenpony once before and had found every reason not to repeat that mistake in the century since then. Too clean, too expensive, full of assholes and they stripped you of your weapons at the gate. That would be a huge fucking hell no from me Mr. Tenpony. Now go fuck your own wrinkled ass ya fucking bigot.

“I think that’s a wonderful goal to have.” I replied gently, finding myself nuzzling her cheek without meaning to as my maternal instincts continued to rouse themselves from centuries of dormancy. “I’m not too sure where we’ll find you a teacher but I’m pretty sure where we can find a violin at least.”

“O-oh?!” She gasped loudly before blushing again and repeating herself in a quieter tone. “Oh? W-where would that be exactly...?”

“Well, don’t quote me on this but I’m ninety-eight percent sure that at least somepony in Tenpony Tower might have one stored away somewhere. If their reputation says anything, it’s that they’re proud to retain the finer culture of the old world, which naturally would include classical music. I mean, it’s possible they don’t have one too, but I’d rather try looking at Tenpony first than at the CAM in Canterlot. The worst Tenpony can do to you is kick you out and/or shoot your ass and both of those things I can deal with. Been dealing with hate-filled bigots and violence nearly my whole life...”

“T-Tenpony Tower…?” She asked softly, glancing at Chocolate before back at me. “You sure they’d even let us in?”

“Hell if I know, but it’s worth a shot. Worst that could happen is we’re told to fuck off and we lose nothing but a bit of pride. At least pride is a renewable commodity. With the CAM? Ehhh...if Canterlot is even a quarter as bad as I’ve been told, then the worse thing we’ll lose is our Souls. Don’t know about you but I’d rather recuperate my hurt pride than be melted into the floor or something while my Soul is torn out my asshole and used as fuel for Necromancy.”

“What exactly happened to Canterlot?” Chocolate asked out of the blue. “I mean, I’ve heard stories about it for years but...I obviously ain’t never been there. Even with my legs I ain't stupid enough to head into that kind of pink if ya catch my drift heh heh.”

“Be glad you haven’t…” I replied as we came to the entrance of The Pile, a half collapsed set of stone archways leading into what had once been the Las Pegasus Gaming Commission headquarters. “I wasn’t there when it happened but according to ponies I’ve talked to, namely Ghouls who survived the Megaspells, the Zebras had somehow managed to sneak a special kind of Balefire Bomb into the city and detonated it. At the same time, they launched a full barrage of ballistic missiles upon the city forcing them to raise the shields. The Princesses had to maintain the shield or risk losing the Capitol but it ended up trapping the blast of the Bomb inside the city. As to what exactly the Bomb did, nopony is really sure...at least not any of the people I’ve talked to about it. It left behind what they call The Cloud, that giant ass pink cloud of Necromantic death that’s clung to Canterlot ever since. Hell, on a clear day you can clearly see it from PonyVille and with a good scope you can even see The Cloud from here if you find a high enough place to stand. Binoculars work good too of course but I prefer to use my scope. Never know when you might have to shoot at something and binoculars don't do the whole 'pew-pew' routine ya know?”

We entered in past the armed guards who stood watch for potential thieves who all regarded me with a nod of approval. I was a regular here. Everypony knew the trench coat wearing Ranger here since she was the one who spent a lot on weapon supplies and usually brought in some neat shit you didn't see too often. Exotic alcohols, fancy cigars, explosive ordinance and even occasionally fine textiles, I made it a habit of snatching up whatever I knew I could sell. Sure, weapons, ammo and body armor were my favorite things to loot but I wasn't stupid. To the right person, a clean dress or an old radio were worth more to them than any finely crafted firearm or box of ammunition. I was a packrat and had gained an eye for appraising value over the years even if the extra money earned was just that, extra. In all honesty, collecting such relics was more of an idle hobby than anything else. Also helped me learn to haggle as well, a useful skill by all accounts.

The marketplace itself filled every available nook and cranny the old LPGC building had to offer, especially the lower floors that had escaped the partially collapsed ceiling above. Considering just how huge the Stirrup had been prior to the bombs, the LPGC was just as big to keep up with it. Once upon a time it had actually been the biggest building in Las Pegasus outside of the Stirrup (bigger than even the City Hall) and stood as a testament to just how vast the gambling industry had been and the lengths needed to govern, monitor and control it all. These days, instead of endless offices, conference rooms, cubicles and filing rooms, the old building was home to the largest Wasteland marketplace on the Westcoast. Because the merchants themselves all owned a claim to the building, they didn’t have to pay any of the ridiculous merchant and land taxes imposed by the New Equestrian Republic in places like Shady Sands. The NER was a pain in my side and I preferred (like most ponies here) to keep them as far away from myself as possible. The moment you become of interest to them, whether as a source of squeezing out taxes or an enemy of the Republic, they would pester and assault you relentlessly until you either gave in or died. At which point they would seize everything you owned and call it 'back-taxes' while billing you for your own funeral. The world hadn't changed one fuckin' bit.

“H-holy s-s-shitballs!” Gold exclaimed as he eyed all the merchant stalls set up throughout the vast hall. “T-this place is h-huge!”

“Yep!” I giggled in response, waving my hoof over it proudly like it was my pet project. “Fillies and gentlecolts? I present to you The Pile! Home to all the useful shit and bullshit you could ever want! Eh...pending availability of course.”

The first time I had seen The Pile upon making my way home from Maripony, it clashed unnervingly with what I had grown up calling marketplaces. I was used to clean and immaculate grocery stores with shelves stocked with all the preservative stuffed foods you could ever want and to come home to find it a dingy, garbage and rubble filled mess was...shocking to say the least. As time went on however, I found myself growing to love The Pile for all its rink-a-dink charm and eventually learned to call it my second home. I wasn’t the Queen of the Pile as that position was filled by somepony else far richer than I...but I was for damn sure one of the best regular customers they saw. Not many ponies can claim (especially in the Wasteland) to have shopped consistently at the same place for fifty years straight without dying somewhere along the way. Then again, I wasn't most ponies now was I?

I gave them the basic tour of the main floor as we walked through it, pointing out the places of interest like the Let Us Stand, a bar and diner that ironically served cabbage rather than lettuce like the name implied, the Gun Runner’s Kiosk, which sold the finest hoof-made firearms in the Wasteland and the New Pegasus Banking and Loan. That last one was a bit of a joke to me but they had obtained a very honorable reputation in The Pile for being fair and reliable people to deposit your money with. To further add to their credibility, most merchants and caravans that passed through the area regularly had at least part of their savings stored away in the massive vault that they had inherited from the LPGC. If you squinted your eyes and held your head at the right angle while wishing on a shooting star, you could almost convince yourself it was a real bank again. Certainly had similar levels of security and armed guards at least.

“I gotta say, this is really impressive.” Chocolate murmured to herself as we followed the thick flow of merchants and shoppers alike leading deeper into The Pile towards our destination. “Thought this place’d be a dump like everything else but...it’s damn impressive. Where’s the brothel eh? I might need a quickie or two before the day is out.”

“Of course…” I sighed with a smile, pointing towards the large stairs leading to the basement levels where the more seedy businesses were located out of sight of the children. “Depends on which one you want and how much you’re willing to pay to get crabs or the clop.”

“Shit, ponies still got crabs even out here?!” Chocolate whined. “You’d think the Rads woulda killed those fuckers off by now or somethin'...”

“What are crabs?” Melody asked innocently, looking back at both of us with a curious stare.

“Something you ain’t wanna get sister.” Chocolate said much to my relief. "Believe me."

“Oh...okay!” She giggled, following close beside us in the thick boisterous crowd of ponies, Griffins and a few other species that had grown to wider acceptance in the Wastes like Wolves, Buffalo, Eagles and even the occasional Zebra.

“H-how much f-farther?” Gold asked as he looked about with continued wonder, obviously wishing to wander about some. “T-that Ironsides Armory p-place looked pretty c-cool.”

“Just through here, common.” I replied as we reached the far end of the hall and walked onto a less crowded skywalk connecting to an old warehouse that used to store the bulk of the LPGC’s files and computer mainframes. “Old Cogsworth decided to set up shop a bit outside the main thoroughfare so he’d have more room to display his stuff and work on his projects. Considering he brings in a lot of caps and pays his chunk of the rent better than most of the other merchants here, they don’t really care that he has so much space to himself. If anything, they’re glad he does since he’s one of the main attractions of The Pile so-to-speak so to let him expand his business means everypony else gets to as well. We’ve got people from all over Equestria coming just to buy from him.”

Melody took a few wobbling steps onto the skywalk before squeaking loudly in fear and dashing back to the ‘safety’ of the entrance back into the main merchant hall.

“G-go on without me! I’ll be ok, I promise!” She called out to us even though we were only six feet away, drawing the attention of several curious passersby.

“What? Oh Mel…” I sighed before walking back to her quivering form. “Are you really that scared of heights? It’s not even a ten foot drop and this skywalk is very safe. I’ve walked on this thing back and forth for over thirty years and not once have I ever felt unsafe on it.”

“Yeah...but you’re also the mare who climbed up twenty feet of nothing but pillars to get...Miss...J-Jingle.” She whispered, the name of her former ‘owner’ getting hissed out with surprising venom.

“You’ve got a point…” I admitted, thinking about the ten-thousand foot drops I had taken part in during the War which made everything less than that less intimidating by contrast.

“Here...just...close your eyes and walk with me alright darling?” I said softly, putting her hoof in my own and nodding for her to close her eyes and trust me. “Very good. Just take a deep, big-girl breath and walk forward. Imagine that we’re just walking down a nice sunny street. The sun is out and warm on your face and there's a big shiny rock just over here. Do you wanna go see what kind of rock it is?”

"Y-yes!" She squeaked again, clamping her eyes shut and holding out her leg for me to grab. "I wanna see the shiny, sparkly rock!"

"Alright, here we go now. Take it slow and keep focused on the sound of my voice." I replied, grasping her leg and beginning to lead her forward towards our goal while feeling rather protective of her.

She took slow tentative steps and gripped my fetlock like a fucking vice but we eventually made it to the other side where Gold stood and applauded Melody for her bravery. It was a small gesture but she took it to heart and blushed hard, hugging him tight before happily skipping along beside us as we made our way down the short flight of steps into the main warehouse floor. It was as spectacular to behold as ever. Aisles upon aisles of chrome plated shelves loaded up with old Pre-War bits and parts for repairing or creating almost anything imaginable. Long as you had the schematics and the brains to make the damn thing of course. For a fee however (or a favor), he would craft it for you if he had the time and few could assemble shit as competently or as professionally as he could.

On one half of the vast room were all the spare parts that anypony with the skill and money could buy in bulk lying in large bins, across the shelves or, in the case of sheet metal, leaning against the far wall. On the other side lay a shrine to the Pre-War world offering up robots, tools, various technologies and even a small selection of the very rare energy weapon. Mr. Helper robots with their octopus-like appearance that helped out around the house as a personal butler, Mr. Gutts the militarized version of the Mr. Helper and even the Defendor with its heavy combat focus in the rough shape of an Equine armed with missiles and a minigun. There were others of course in the vast lineup of mechanized toys but those three were the top sellers everypony wanted to get their hooves on. Miss Helpers and their cousins the Miss Nurse were always in high demand for childcare and any competent doctor's clinic while Protectrons were a cheaper alternative to a Mr. Gutts for defensive purposes. If it ran off Crystalline Fusion tech, Cogs was more than likely going to have it.

As we made our way to the front counter that really acted as the entrance to a third part of the building where Cogsworth kept his repair shop, we passed several Mr. Helper robots. They busied themselves as always, meandering about the aisles floating on their small anti-gravity spell casters and tidying up the shelves of bulk parts or sweeping the floor of dust and sand that had come through the patchy ceiling. Melody and Gold gaped at them with amazement and I had to assume neither of them had ever seen a robot before. Melody, being young and obviously born long past the War, was understandable but Gold...I had to question once more just how old he really was. If he knew the Desert Rangers so well and talked like he was somewhat familiar with the Pre-War world but had never seen a robot before then...fuck it. My brain hurt just trying to figure that one out on my own. I'd just have to find an appropriate time to break down and ask him.

“Cooooooool!!!!” Melody exclaimed loudly causing two of the nearby Mr. Helpers to glide over to her.

“May we assist you young lady?” They asked in unison in their preprogrammed Canterlot stallion accents.

“Whoa! You guys can talk too?! Wowie!” Melody gaped as they bobbed happily above the ground like two chrome plated buoys in the ocean.

“Why yes we can talk young Miss!” One responded in a jolly tone. “Each Mr. Helper is programmed to emulate the speech patterns of your species in order to best acquiesce your every command!”

“Huh…?” Melody hummed as she cocked her head to the side in confusion.

“Heya 42, is Cogsworth in today?” I asked, interrupting her confusion and calling the robot by the number painted in gold on the side of his chrome plated chassis.

“Ah Miss Crete! A pleasure to serve you once again! Yes! The Master is in today, would you like an escort?” He boomed heartily in his almost seductive tones.

“No thanks, is he in the back?” I asked looking towards the space behind the front counter.

“Would there be any place for our Master save for his mighty workshop?” 42 chuckled, gesturing towards the back with one of his eight legs, each of which ended with a different tool for use in various menial and heavy duty tasks. “You will find him there to be sure Miss Crete! Do enjoy your time here and stay safe outside! Wouldn’t want an old Hellhound to take you out of the game now would we old chap?”

“Ditto 42, see ya.” I responded with a soft chuckle as I led our party past the shelves and to the lengthy checkout table that had a glowing red button hooked up to a bell to ring for assistance.

“What were those?” Melody asked excitedly, peeking around me at the many more Mr. Helpers floating about the store. “He was really friendly! I’ve never heard an accent like that before!”

“They’re Mr. Helper robots darling. They're robot butlers made first back when I was your age. That accent isn’t something you’re gonna hear really anywhere anymore...it’s the old Canterlot accent used by the rich asshats who used to live there before the whole place got fucked up beyond recognition.”

“Didn’t that happen everywhere though?” Chocolate asked as I pressed the button and a bell rang above the door leading into the workshop. “I mean...Equestria ain’t exactly a paradise is it?”

“Compared to Canterlot, the Wastes could be considered a paradise. At least we can live down here. Up there...everything is just dead and dead from what I hear. Hardly anypony actually lives who’s visited there looking to scavenge. I mean, if you could somehow survive the Cloud then hellllll yes would Canterlot be the fucking payoff of a lifetime. With all the shit they’ve got there untouched for two-hundred years? Goddesses I can only dream what I would find if I could break my way into the Ministry of War's portion of the Hexagon. The possibility of finding surviving schematics there is fucking insane, not to mention potential fortune in spare sets of armor and weapons they are more than certain to have in storage. Could probably supply a small army with the shit I could haul outa that hellhole. Too bad the whole fuckin' place is well within the confines of Canterlot...”

“Wow...guess we should stay away from Canterlot huh?” Melody giggled, stating the obvious but in a very cute way.

I smiled at her use of the term ‘we’ and said, “Mhm...would be a good idea. Ain't no place for anyone, especially cutiepies such as yourself.”

She blushed softly with a big smile while Chocolate complained about the wait. A curtain hung over the door leading to the back which glowed brightly from behind every now and again accompanied by the sound of sparks. Cogs was hard at work on something and probably was in such a state of focus we couldn't break his concentration. Without further ado, I led everyone through the curtain and into Cogsworth’s personal mechanic shop that was so full of tables, tools and materials it was chaotic compared to the well organized storefront. The room itself was quite large, not as big as the main storefront but due to all the random half finished projects littering the tables and even the concrete floor it felt much smaller than it actually was. Cogsworth was at the far end of the room working an arcane welding torch like a stylus over what looked like a magical energy weapon. The dark teal flame of the torch cast up gold and violet sparks that danced in the air and across the workbench like tiny jeweled embers while their soothing colors gleamed starkly on the black visor of the welding helmet Cogs wore. Despite my eagerness to keep the ball rolling, I couldn't help but stare at the fireworks show with the others for a few moments. Celestium always had a quirky way of responding to arcane fire.

Amongst the projects we passed on our route to his current workstation I saw the partially scraped chassis of a Sky Chariot nearby the modest sized smelter he had built by hoof himself. Following traditions taught to him by his father, he had taken a deep interest and passion for metalworking being largely self-taught by sheer determination. The smelting furnace had served this passion well by allowing him to melt down scrap metals of all types down in order to cast them into something new. Over time he had also picked up another passion, this one for the armor of our forgotten medieval past. With the blessings of modern metallurgy and by the power of his blast furnace, he had been able to craft ancient looking armors out of Celestium steel, tungsten carbide and even a one-of-a-kind suit forged entirely of Lunar Steel. His furnace and anvils had another use however. Though our passing was brief I noticed happily that a large box filled with gleaming little tungsten penetrator darts was labeled with my name and was ready for me to pick up. The only guy I could get high quality penetrators for my AP rounds and not get price gouged.

Possibly the most defining feature of his workshop, aside from all the tools and robotics, was his seeming obsession with Sparkle-Cola. Against one wall were a line of near pristine Sparkle-Cola machines all humming softly with life as they chilled their tasty bottles of Cola while the words ‘Sparkle-Cola’ glowed brightly written in large red letters across the top of each machine. The walls not adorned with tool racks were wallpapered with numerous Sparkle-Cola posters of varying degrees of wear and tear while dozens of empty bottles inhabited a large wastebin. Nearby lay a glass furnace so the empties be reused for some other purpose like the lens of a rifle scope or for a Mr. Helper robot’s optical sensor. I was convinced that at least a portion of his wealth came just from the amount of Cola he consumed almost daily seeing as every opened bottle was a cap for the purse. Not that a Sparklediction was necessarily bad (especially considering it was, to this day, fucking everywhere) but I hoped he wouldn’t replace everything he drank with it. Water, as boring and unflavored as it always has been, is a staple of life. SparkleCola was only so healthy for hydration but...I wasn't his mother and I had a few addictions of my own that were arguably worse than Sparklediction.

When the noise of fizzling sparks and arcane welding died down for a second I tried again to get his attention, this time calling out louder and waving my hooves to try and catch the corner of his eye.

“Hey Cogsworth! How’s it going?” I nearly yelled to which he spun towards me on his swiveled work chair and lifted his welding helmet.

“Well if it is not Colonel Crete!” He chuckled in his Saddle Arabian accent. “Back so soon?”

He was fairly handsome as far as stallions went with a dark chestnut brown coat, black mane and golden wheat colored eyes. His body as usual was covered neck to hoof with his long billowing off-white robes that were part of the old traditional dress of the Saddle Arabians. He had long since upgraded his garb however, throwing his burning passion for armor into his own personal design. He had gone to great lengths to deconstruct and reuse derelict PoA, reforging it into body armor that looked decidedly medieval complete with bronzed titanium scales acting as the flexible underbarding for his breastplate, vambraces, greaves and faulds. Knight in shining armor indeed, a sentiment he took to heart on a personal level as he admired the romanticized values of medieval chivalry. He was a genius no matter which way you sliced it as well as a quirky dork and that was probably what had made me pause to help him find his footing. It was just a shame he had to be born in the Wasteland picking through the scraps of the old world and only gaining glimpses at the full scope of technological achievement of the past. He would have thrived working for the M.O.W or StableTec.

“What do you mean? I haven’t been here in almost a month now.” I replied as we came right up to him. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost track of time again, Cogs.”

“Ummm…” He hummed sheepishly. “To be entirely honest, I am unsure…”

“What month is it?” I asked with a smirk as he set down his welding stylus and bit his lip in thought. “And don’t cheat with your PipBuck. Tell me what month it is.”

I saw his eyes stray towards the large foreleg mounted personal computer on his right foreleg before looking back up at me in defeat. He had been in a Zen mode for an entire fucking month. That explained the abundance of works-in-progress we had passed on our way in.

“June…?” He asked sheepishly. “July…?”

“End of July.” I said flatly. “A week from today it’ll be August again. Well, week from tomorrow but...semantics.”

“Oh…” He said blankly, looking towards the green text on his PipBuck and checking the date for himself. “I...I suppose I became lost once more in my projects...forgive me.”

“No need to apologize Cogs. Nothing wrong with getting so absorbed in something you lose track of time, especially if it’s something you’re passionate about. Helps keep you busy and focused.”

“What about self-pleasure?” He asked with a chuckle as he took off his welding helmet and scratched at his thick black mane with the scale-mail of his foreleg.

“Hey, what I do in my free time isn’t any of your business.” I retorted as I motioned for everypony to drop their bags and find a place to sit.

“Actually you made it my business given that you purchase your Spark Packs from me. You bring in a healthy income with your 'passion'.” He grinned, laughing at the red flushing my cheeks. “Who are these guests you bring? I cannot say I have ever seen you escorting others beside you in this manner before. How rather peculiar.”

“Well…” I said looking at Gold and Melody who sat to my left looking around the workshop with amazement. “That’s kind of the reason why I’m here…”

It took only ten minutes to explain what had happened to lead me through the chain of events of the last week and he listened attentively the entire time only pausing to ask questions when I had finished my narrative. Gold and Melody waved and introduced themselves as if on cue when I mentioned their parts with Chocolate making an all-too-subtle comment about banging Cogsworth like a screen door in a windstorm. The comment seemed to go over Cogs head much to Chocolate and I’s amusement but he seemed to like her anyway. It could have gone a hell of a lot worse to be honest. If he were anyone else, I would not have blamed them for tossing me to the wolves and leaving me to deal with my own bad choices. But not Cogsworth. By his honor as a friend I knew his obsession with chivalry would ensure I had his support.

“So let me attempt to re-say what has been spoken please.” He said quietly. “You have saved this filly and this mare from slavery and freed many others, became friends with this Ghoul and in the process, have screwed over the largest drug lord on the Westcoast?”

“Um...yeah...more or less, heh.” I chuckled nervously, looking at Melody and Gold who just smiled back at me.

“Well...I must say that it is very unlike you to befriend others, Athena. Especially in the manner that you have with these ponies…” He said with an analytical tone. “But I cannot say that I disapprove of your actions. I will gladly store away your personal possessions and will even offer to help secrete you until such time you find suitable housing elsewhere. Have you been approached by anypony from Green’s operation as of yet?”

I shook my head and said, “No. Soon as we jailbreaked everypony from Old Appleloosa, we hauled ass straight here though not by the route I usually take. Also, due to my eh, young friends here, the journey took us a few days more than I would have liked but we managed just fine thankfully. We just came from my apartment and talked to Holes. He said he’ll warn the neighbors and get them on my side. Hopefully that'll be enough to give me the time I need to haul my shit outa there. Told Holes he could keep the place so you'll have to reset the retinal scan to his profile FYI.”

“A good stallion…” He commented mostly to himself as he stroked his black goatee. “Have you any inclinations towards any particular new place of lodging?”

“No...though now that I have...friends.” I found it weird to hear myself speak that unfamiliar word aloud. “I was thinking about getting someplace bigger. Maybe with multiple rooms so everypony can have their own space to decorate as they like. Would be nice to have a real home to come back to for once. Something bigger than an 8'x12' apartment at least.”

I heard Melody gasp as she asked, “M-my own r-room…? Like...my own bed and books and everything?!”

My heart did a few happy flips in my breast at her youthful enthusiasm and I was more set than ever to give her everything she had ever been denied in her short, miserable life. The sound of her jubilation was...intoxicating to say the least. Her voice was at once both soothing, melodic and enchanting...and I wanted to hear it again and again and again. Something inside me was just starting to thaw out and I was getting high off the burn.

“Mhm!” I hummed loudly, beaming in her direction. “A room for everypony to relax and kick back in. Oh, and probably room for my reloading bench and such. Armory, workshop, maybe space for a kitchen? I don't know.”

Cogsworth continued to stroke his goatee in thought as he gazed over the four of us. As he opened his mouth to speak there came a loud yell from the main floor portion of the warehouse as a crass stallion yelled out, “I don’t want to fucking buy anything you fucking chromedome! Where the fuck is the owner of this shithole?!”

Cogsworth sighed and stood as he said, “Do excuse me...it seems I have an irate tenant to attend to.”

The voice sounded dangerously familiar and I waited a second hoping the stallion would yell again so I could try to pinpoint where I had heard him before. I didn't have to wait long as the curtain went up in flames and standing in the smoldering ashes was a thickly built navy blue stallion wearing a heavily modified Flamer battle-saddle. One of his eyes was foggy with a thick scar cutting from his eyebrow down to his cheek with a thick cigar screwed into the right side of his mouth as he sneered through the opening. Was more the pity...I had hoped my knife would have left a festering wound that would have given him sepsis but that was never going to happen. He could drink a hundred health potions and not feel a dent in his wallet with the kind of Bounties he was known for taking.

“There ya are ya Arabian shit!” He bellowed as I yanked Gold and Melody behind a toolbox and out of sight. “Why ain’t ya working the counter waiting for your customers like any good merchant eh? Or did they not teach you manners back in Saddle fuckin' Arabia?”

“As a craftspony, I must fill my inventory with fresh products on a regular basis to meet demand.” Cogsworth said coolly as his hoofsteps retreated from our position and towards the assholey guest. “Or did they not teach you proper inventory management at whatever third-rate school you attended? Oh my, pardon me. I mistook you for one who actually attained an education worthy of note.”

“Don’t get sassy with me ya robot fucking swine!” Bellowed the stallion, the sound of his Flamer warming up sizzling audibly in the air. “Where’s Crete? I know she’s a friend of yours and now that I see ya for myself...I can see why! Fucking traitors gotta stick together don’t ya?”

“If you are referring to my heritage and our part in the War...I must remind you that Saddle Arabia fought valiantly by Equestria’s side for the full duration of the fighting and not one of our Immortals was ever accused of treason. We were annexed were we not?”

As they continued to bicker over ancient history, Melody fearfully asked with a whisper into my ear who the stallion was. Seeing the Flamer and the fucked up eye was more than enough to jog my memory of where I had heard his voice before. The last to fall victim to one of my combat knives.

“He goes by the name of Cook Cook and he’s a total sadist. He rapes girls all the time and then burns them alive for his amusement!” I hissed back in her ear as I rolled Chocolate off my back and shoved the barrel of my AMR between the gap in toolboxes and flicked the bipod open as quietly as I could with magic. With my head on the open market now, so was his.

A month prior Cook Cook had stormed into Freeside with a posse of drugged up psychos he had named his Fiends and began terrorizing everypony on the outskirts of town. He was well known in the area for being a serial rapist without equal and had a bounty on his head for several thousand caps for the trouble he kept causing the NER. He had obtained a sort of diplomatic immunity from Green however by ending up in his employ as one of the local hustlers meaning nopony could touch him (let alone harm or kill him) without Green's approval. If it wasn’t obvious where he got his name, Cook Cook had a tendency to roast ponies alive with his Flammer on a regular basis. The only reason I was able to do anything against him on that occasion was because he had tried to set fire to me when I had gone to defend my neighbors. He had broken Green’s rule about attacking other ‘employees’ and I was allowed to defend myself which I had done by slashing his face wide open and sending his screaming ass back into the San-Palomino.

“Shut the fuck up, where’s that bitch Crete?!” He demanded angrily. “You tell me or I’ma burn this whole fucking place to the ground I swear to fuck!”

“I would like to point out that the amount of fuel in your Flammer is insufficient to incinerate my shop as it is mostly comprised of metal which has an average melting point of fifteen-hundred degrees Celsius whereas your Flammer only produces a flame of around eight hundred and seventy Celsius…” Cogsworth sighed. “I know not where she is. I have not seen her for a month. I have been inundated with orders upon orders and have hardly found time for myself let alone social calls.”

“Bullshit!” Cook spat. “I have a shit ton of your merchant buddies who told me they done seen Crete and a buncha foals walk in here not ten minutes ago! Unless ya wanna call your friends fuckin' liars do ya?”

My AMR was cocked and ready but there was a problem...I was working with my APEI rounds in a rifle meant to destroy armored robots at up to two kilometers away. Yeah, I’d royally fuck Cook Cook up but I’d also blow a massive hole in Cogs’ shop. Sometimes bigger wasn’t always better... It was going to be an awkward shot with my Sequoia with so much junk in the way blocking my lines of sight to the iron sights. While I could fire the AMR semi-blind with the BORS connecting my HUD with the view from my rifle scope, I didn't have such a luxury for my revolver. I'd have to use S.A.T.S to...

To my left I heard the soft but distinct clicking of a rifle safety being switched off and I turned to see Melody bravely if shakily lift her rifle up in her red violet magic and aim it between the toolboxes right at Cook Cook. There was a visible rage flooding her body that harkened to the same violent rage we had seen in Old Appleloosa and I was almost a little scared myself. There was a crazed, fearful look in her eye as she hissed, “Fucking rapist!” and took aim down the scope of her M1 battle rifle.

Cook Cook looked beyond Cogsworth towards the sound of Melody’s voice before the back of his head exploded outwards in a spray of chunky red flesh and he crumpled to the floor. A modest sized hole puncturing his cheek just below the eye I had cut open a month ago and leaving him with a permeant look of angry surprise.

Cogsworth flinched and jumped away from the carnage (probably to save his white robes from needing another cleaning) and then said, “Thank you for your time, do not come again please.”

We clambered out of our hiding place while Cogsworth explained to the twenty odd Mr. Helpers that had immediately entered the workshop at the sound of gunfire that we were no longer in danger and that they could return back to work as usual. Melody leaned back against one of the faded red toolboxes and shook softly, clutching her new rifle to her chest and breathing heavily. Whatever had snapped in her back at Old Appleloosa had just reared its brutal, ugly head and left in its wake a deeply frightened filly who seemed appalled at what she had just done as though waking up from a trance.

“Hey…” I said gently as I tugged on the rifle causing her to look up at me with tear filled eyes.

“W-what did I d-do…?” She whispered, averting her gaze to the carcass she had created to her right. “I-is he…?”

I nodded though maintained a soft encouraging smile as I tugged on the rifle again, which she eagerly relinquished. Setting it on the ground to our side, I hugged her close and pet her back comfortingly hoping it was at least not making the situation worse. It wasn't like I knew what the fuck I was doing trying to mother her.

“Shhhh...it’s going to be ok…” I hummed softly as Cogsworth and a Mr. Helper began cleaning up the mess. “You did the right thing…”

“I k-killed somepony…” She cried softly into my ear. “T-that’s b-b-bad…!”

“He’s killed a lot of innocent ponies, Melody...raped them and burned them alive in front of their whole families just for laughs...he would have done things to you or I or Chocolate that even the slavers back in Old Appleloosa would be sick to even think of doing.”

“B-but…” She attempted to say before I put a hoof to her lips.

“There are some ponies out there...that just don’t deserve to be left alive. I’ve known Cook for too long...and I promise you from the bottom of my heart that he would’ve lit you up like a marshmallow for s'mores without even thinking about it. Killing ponies is bad...but sometimes, killing one pony will save hundreds, even thousands from pain and death.”

I didn’t have the right to say those words. I was a killer. I did it for money. I did it because I was bored. I did it...because I hated the world and enjoyed killing those who inhabited it. I actually felt slightly sick to my stomach with guilt admitting it to myself. I was not a good person...

“W-why didn’t you kill him y-yourself then…?” Gold asked pointedly as he eyed me with a critical gaze. “I’ve s-seen you g-gun down ponies w-without issue, s-so why not him?”

“It’s complicated…” I sighed, letting Melody go and standing up. “I couldn’t touch him before now unless I wanted Green Peace to be all over me and Freeside’s ass. Cook Cook kept Freeside in line by pushing ponies around and getting them to join or at least support Green’s drug trade. At the slightest sign of rebellion he’d swoop in and cause a whole mess of nightmares for everypony.”

“So what’s stopping Green from doing that now?” Chocolate asked from her place on the floor. “Ain’t he just gonna blow this whole place up now this dickweed is dead?”

“No.” Cogsworth responded for me. “His fight is with Athena now and Cook Cook is merely an expendable asset. With his demise, Green will most probably send further Hitmares of his to try and collect the price upon your head.”

“I s-still don’t s-see how h-he’s not gonna w-want to blow u-up Freeside?” Gold said as he checked the load on his new Sequoia and the loose rounds bandoliered on his belt and holster.

“Because Freeside isn’t the one who fucked him, it was just me and he knows it. If he strikes at Freeside without reason then he’ll lose a lot of business on the Westcoast. Freeside might be a shithole but it’s the largest settlement this side of Canterlot and word travels quickly around these parts. Green may be powerful but he doesn’t have a standing army, just a bunch of random merc groups who are scattered around all over the region. If Freeside went up in arms against him, he’d lose. Not only that but Freeside and the Stirrup need each other to survive. As much as Mr. House hates Freeside, he needs it because it brings in business, supplies and acts as a barrier to the Wastes outside. Not only that but the NER has a stake in Freeside as well. If Green moves, he’s going up against House, the NER and all the local militia that will be scrambled up by the Queens. So...instead of attacking Freeside because of me, he’s just going to go for me. Still sure you guys wanna tag along? The road ahead isn't gonna get much easier for awhile...”

I looked around at each of them in turn. Gold looked at his Sequoia, Cogsworth shrugged nonchalantly, Melody looked at her hooves and Chocolate said, “I’m only here because you promised me new legs sooo...my fight ain’t yours bubble butt.”

“Right…” I sighed, slinging my AMR across my back and looking down at all of them. “Look...I’ll give you all, all the caps you could ever need to get by out there. Just take off and keep yourselves out of my shit...you guys don’t have to die just because I did something to piss off Green. You guys have no dog in this fight.”

“Well w-where would we g-go?” Gold asked, looking up from the black and gold cylinder of his revolver.

“Well...wherever you came from before I met you I suppose…” I responded, quietly hoping this was going the direction I wanted it to.

“I-I...don’t come from a-anywhere…” He whimpered. “M-my mom is d-dead...m-my sisters are d-d-dead...I’m j-just w-wandering around…b-better to wander w-with a f-friend than a-alone.”

“You barely know me, Gold…” I sighed, looking down at him in his homemade armor, his back bearing the old Black Armor and helmet that I had promised to have tailored for him. “We’ve only been traveling together for five days…”

“L-long enough for m-me to t-trust you with my l-life.” He said softly, looking up at me with a mixture of respect and awe. “And m-my trust is m-mine to give. Not y-yours.”

I sighed and had to concede he was right. I could only influence his opinion but not actually change it for him, nor was I the master of whom he decided to trust or distrust. He was putting a lot of faith in me and I only hoped I could live up to that trust. It was probably going to get him hurt, or worse, killed. But...I couldn't force him to go. Quite frankly I didn't want him to.

“I...I don’t have anywhere to go either…” Melody whispered. “My parents sold me to...J-Jangle...they owed a debt...and it was either lose their drugs or lose me...obviously they chose me.”

I stared at her horrified that parents to such a beautiful filly were so uncaring they were willing to sell their own child to a drug lord just to get high. I mean, I understood addiction and I knew Buck in particular had usually deadly withdrawal symptoms for long time users but still...it took a particular kind of evil to pull that kind of shit off. I was used to the common evils of the Wastes. Rapists, sadists, Raiders, junkies, Slavers, ‘doctors’...but Melody’s ‘parents’ were a different breed of evil...one that scared me as much as it sickened me. If there was anything I hated more than slavery, I think I just found its rival. If her biological parents were still out there, I was going to make them suffer. Though it was illegal at the time, I still had been given training in ‘advanced interrogation techniques’ by the Rangers for use on in-field interrogations of Zebra captives. I still had the little bag of tricks they had issued at the end of the training and had not let that skillset go to waste when encountering particularly degenerate sickos in the Wastes. I was going to enjoy that one immensely…

“I’ll keep you safe...I promise.” I told her firmly, looking into her mismatched eyes with all the resolution I could muster. “It will be dangerous...but we’ll make it. I haven’t lived this long just to get picked off by some asshat from Green.”

She nodded slowly with a quivering smile as Cogsworth came back with an enchanted keycard, an item I knew all too well. He took us further into the depths of his workshop and ushered us through a nondescript maintenance door and onto a cargo elevator headed beneath the warehouse. Just like with the robots, the elevator ride seemed to delight Gold and Melody but their awe was turned into wide-eyed amazement when we reached the bottom. At the other end of a large hallway stood a large StableTec door closed firmly shut, the large gear shaped door was about twelve feet high and the the center was painted with a large yellow ‘109’. Unlike most Stables though, this one was hardly even worked on before the Great War and was nothing more than the door and Atrium beyond with a few roughly hewn tunnels that all quickly led to dead ends. Cogsworth and I actually found it together hidden behind a false concrete wall a few years after he had bought the building with the door rolled partially open surrounded by skeletons and rusted out construction equipment. There was no documentation for the Stable regarding why development was so late when dozens of other Stables had already been fully built and furnished years before but neither he nor I cared too much to find out. With some time and spare parts, Cogs got the door mechanism to work and I helped string the place up with lights making a cozy little place for him to stash away his money as well as his valuable products. Unlike other Stables however, the door was locked behind an after-market card reader. The keycard system, like the retinal scanner on my apartment, was retrofitted from other sources and worked nicely when it came to ensuring security. Well, as nicely as two hundred year old technology could.

He swiped the card through the reader which immediately flashed a cheery green light before entering a twenty four digit code and speaking an Arabian phrase into a microphone passing the voice pattern analyzer. A klaxon screeched out as little red lights on either side of the door frame spun around announcing the opening of the repurposed Stable. The large gear shaped door slid away from us, pulled inwards from behind by the giant screw like door mechanism and then rolled on its cogs to the left revealing the large plain entrance room that was filled mostly with old machinery and controls to the door. We entered in, Melody, Gold and even Chocolate gasping in awe at the structure as we made our way up the entrance ramp and into the hallway leading to the half finished Atrium where everything was stored. As a precaution, Cogsworth shut the door behind us and reassured everyone that he was not going to lock us in with him, he just wanted to prevent any who might follow from gaining entry to his inner sanctum.

“What is this place?” Melody asked as the lights overhead flickered to life in the dingy white hallway that had some of the wall panels still missing showing the complex wiring and piping underneath. “Some sort of laboratory…?”

“You’re not too far off.” I said simply as we stepped out into the Atrium. “It’s original purpose was quite benign.”

The Atrium itself was a large spacious room with a second floor balcony lining each side of the hall. At the far end of the hall was a large circular window leading into what would have been the Overmare’s office had the place actually been built but instead the empty window frame lead into a small roughly cut stone cave. On either side of the ground floor were open doors leading to the stairs to the second floor of the Atrium with several empty rooms lining the length of the second floor. They were dark and essentially boarded up as they had no current use with their pneumatic doors locked tight until he found a use for the space. The rest of the Atrium floor was filled with even more chrome plated shelves bearing CFC’s, Spark Batteries, rare metals like platinum and tungsten and Cogsworth’s vast supply of gemstones, missiles and his personal collection of Pre-War PipBucks and other Stable-Tec inventions.

“Woah…” Gold gasped as he looked around at everything. “T-this is a-awesome!”

“What are these things?” Melody asked as she cocked her head at one of the PipBucks laying on a separate shelf.

I giggled to myself as I felt Cogsworth’s tech ramble inbound. Out of all the things Cogsworth was obsessed with in Pre-War tech, PipBucks were by far his biggest drug of choice. Robots and energy weapons got him pretty high on life but nothing got his nerd juices pumping quite like PipBucks could.

“That my filly is the PipBuck 3000!” He said proudly, standing by her and putting his hoof on the device like a proud parent with a newborn. “First conceived in the year 2045, the PipBuck is the epitome of personal mobile computing and self management!”

“Ok...I know you’re speaking English but...I didn’t understand anything you just said.” Melody said with a sheeish giggle.

“They’re called PipBucks sweetie.” I said simply. “They’re little computers that get attached to your leg that keep track of your health and what you have in your saddlebags. They also come with a radio, Geiger counter, a mapping spell and a few other nifty tricks that help in battle and travel. Cogsworth here is completely obsessed with them and would do anything to get more of them. I should know seeing as I've nabbed a few of the ones in his collection myself while out and about.”

“Not just any PipBuck am I after! The PipBuck 4000 to be precise!” He boasted, looking at the spot on the shelf reserved for the 4000 model that had eluded him for over a decade now.

“What’s so special about the 4000?” Melody asked, looking at the differences between the 1,2 and 3000 models that Cogs had on display. “I mean, this one looks pretty nifty already.”

“What is so unique?” Cogs asked incredulously, lifting his left leg to show the PipBuck attached around his fetlock. “Why everything of course! S.A.T.S possesses a far superior range and targeting spell-matrix is capable of calculating even minute variables in wind, humidity and gravitational influences on bullet arc. The E.F.S is even capable of distinguishing relative threats based upon synaptic interaction with the spell matrix’s psychological and biochemical analytical system, and the-”

“English, Cogsworth…” I sighed. “Basically, according to the specs he’s found in some old StableTec terminals, the 4000 is supposed to be the best shit since the T-60 went into production, limited as that was.”

“The T what now?” Melody asked looking even more confused.

“Just...the 4000 is supposed to be super awesome ok?” I said with a sigh. "Latest and greatest model."

“Indeed! And I intend to take it, improve upon it and create an even superior model unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Your helmet will be left in the dust, Crete.” He said with a smirk, nodding towards the helmet that was fastened to my saddlebag.

“You keep dreaming Cogs.” I retorted, tossing my bags of stuff in an unused corner. “You know, if you do manage to make that crazy idea of yours come true, you know what I’m going to ask you to do for me right?”

“How could I resist?” He chuckled as he set down the 3000 he was basically fondling in his hooves. “I would be honored to perform the necessary upgrades to your helmet. But first we have much more pressing matters to attend to at this present time. Go hence and gather the rest of your belongings as quickly as you can muster. I will leave the door open but you must move swiftly. With Cook Cook eliminated, word is bound to spread quickly regarding your presence here. I would much prefer we not transform my business into a battlefield.”

“Thanks Cogs, I owe you big time.” I said as I gripped his hoof in a formal show of camaraderie. “Don’t worry, there should only be another load or two. Although...shit...”

“W-what?” Gold asked as I looked towards the doorway leading out.

“We’re going to attract a lot of attention if we come back again with a bunch of bags and shit...fuck, how are we going to do this?” I asked myself, trying to go through the stealthy options I had available and not liking the search results. “There’s only one way into this place so they could easily bottleneck us and choke us off if they were smart enough.”

“There is more than one route to my shop, Crete.” Cogsworth chuckled. “Come! I suppose it is time to unveil my latest project! One of many as I am sure you have noticed thus far.”

We followed quickly behind him and he brought us out to the entranceway of the Stable where the door stood once again firmly shut. He didn’t say a word but proceeded to the left to an innocuous metal wall that he waved the keycard over causing a soft beep to chirp out. I stood in confusion when nothing happened for a few seconds but my confusion turned to elation as the wall parted showing a lit tunnel beyond curling down into the earth before us. The bastard had actually fucking made an escape tunnel for his own fucking Stable, the absolute madlad.

“I concluded it would be best to have an escape route in place in any event I find myself trapped in my own Stable and surrounded by enemies. This path leads outside into the sewer system on the eastern portion of Freeside. There is a ladder nearby the exit that will lead you directly to Junction 16. You should know where to proceed from there.”

“Junction 16? That’s like sixty-feet away from my house.” I responded with surprise.

“Well who better to flee to than the one mare who has yet to not save my ass from death?” He grinned, nodding towards the tunnel. “Go. You must move swiftly. Green is not known for his patience nor his charity.”

I threw my arms around him in a hug of gratitude before suggesting Chocolate stay behind so she could both rest from laying on my back as well as avoid any potential conflict we got into. Both to save her hide as well as to leave me much more free to fight and survive without her weight on my back and her legs or body getting in the way of my movement. She didn’t object and lovingly threw her arms around Cogsworth’s neck as he slung her on his back in preparation to set her down somewhere else. As we left she winked at me subtly and mouthed something along the lines of ‘getting lucky tonight!’ from Cogsworth shoulder before licking her lips and winking again. I rolled my eyes and left her alone with him, leading my group of ragtag foals down the tunnel towards my apartment.

“That mare is going to be very, very disappointed…” I giggled to myself.

****************

Chapter Eighteen: A Certain Familiar Crimson

We had been expecting it, at least in the back of our minds. Still...simply just expecting it did nothing to prepare us for the comment made by our invisible rival. We stood side by side, aiming our weapons into the empty trench around us and hoping for any sort of sign where this fucking Crimson Dragon might be. After a brief moment, I remembered S.A.T.S was just a thought away and allowed the spell to take effect pausing the world around me for as long as the little meter in my HUD allowed. With my perception artificially bolstered I had time to look around in front of me, the aim-assist computer tracking for targets wherever my eyes looked. There she was, a roughly Equine shaped mass of un-targetable green highlighted in the red tinted world of my low-light vision filter. While I couldn't target the Crimson D as their invisibility cloaks only appeared as anomalies on sensors, I had an amusing 95% chance at hitting Onyx for any body part I targeted.

I deactivated the spell letting time resume as I addressed the strangely non-hostile operative before me. If she had wanted to kill us, I would have felt a sword trying to slice and dice its way through my gorget and Onyx would have gotten an AP round or two into the Kevyarn neck mesh of his Power Armor. These Dragons knew exactly how to take down the toughest prey to walk the warzones and it was all we could do to pray luck was in our favor.

“Alright, you got us assface! Strange move to give away your position...unless you’re just trying to keep me unaware of a behind-from-back attack.” I said, peeking over my shoulder for another peek at S.A.T.S and finding nothing.

“Behind from back...?” The Zebra asked inquisitively, the voice distinctly and very surprisingly male. “Have you further butchered your own language, Equestrian? Regardless, as you can see I am not come here to attack you. I could have done so when your backs were turned to me moments ago.”

“Well, cut the bullshit and tell me what you want then.” I retorted, resisting the urge to shoot him point blank with a 25mm shell and see how he liked the flavor. The Mrk. IV could take the backsplash, he couldn't take it head-on.

“That is...” He responded in a soft tone. "Rather complicated..."

“Ya know wha’ else is complicated?” Onyx challenged, his tri-barreled minigun starting to spin with an ominous whir. “Pickin’ up th’ pieces of yer body when Ah’m done wit’ yer sorry fuckin' hide!”

Several more guns cocked and spun up to speed from the top of the trench walls on both sides as the rest of our Squads had approached our position in perfect silence. For once it was a ten-on-one fight with a cornered Dragon and not the Feral ones they had brought into the fray on several occasions. This kind of Dragon was known for only carrying a sword and a sniper rifle rather than might talons and jaws. Hardly a threat to our superior numbers though the sword was slight pause for caution. There were a few kinks in my armor someone with the know-how and skill could exploit. My front knees for example, between where my pauldrons and bracers were fixed. Just normal Dragon leather and a Kevyarn underbarding; their swords could cut through tougher stuff than that.

“Peace, Equine…” The Zebra said with a tired sigh. “Very well, allow me to further demonstrate my peaceful disposition towards you. One moment.”

He suddenly appeared before us, dressed in the strangest armor I had ever seen beneath his invisibility cloak which draped over his shoulders with its pointed hood pulled down. I had seen a few of these cloaks and their large ruby encrusted brooches before however his armor...well, that was something very new indeed. From what I could see, it was a full-bodied black armored jumpsuit similar to the underbarding myself and other Veteran Rangers wore. However it differed in that it there was no duster with external impact plates but rather had them incorporated into the suit itself. The mesh between the metal or ceramic body plates covering key portions of the body was very reminiscent of Kevyarn too...

Perhaps even more unusual was the Zebra himself. I had seen and fought a fair few over the years but never had I ever seen let alone even heard of a male being a member of the Crimson Dragons. Similar to an Equestrian stallion, his face was a bit stockier and more squared in shape rather than the more gentle curves of female Zebras. The black and white stripes that I could see not covered by armor were neat and comely with bold lines between the contrasting colors. His mane, a ‘mohawk’ style as was traditional for all Zebras, was shorter than a females’ and he had a small set of two golden hoop earrings pierced through his right ear. His eyes though...those were extremely unusual, an icy blue color when most Zebras had some shade of gold, brown or tan. Overall...I was at a loss where to begin analyzing the small mindfuck of information being presented to me. Strange armor, unusual gender choice for a CD and distinctly blue eyes. He definitely was a strange sight, even on a battlefield.

“I am here to broker an agreement between myself and your people.” He said simply, slowly unloading his covert black sniper rifle and unbuckling the sword, scabbard and all, from his back and depositing it at my hooves. “You are a Lieutenant Colonel of your military are you not? Unless you have re-designated those silver tree leaves for another rank that I am unaware of. Thus, you should be in command of such faculties required to process my request.”

I nodded slowly, almost unable to speak let alone form cohesive thoughts as the amounts of weird going on was almost too much to comprehend. This was a fucking top-tier Imperial operative. So high up the chain of command the only ones said to wield more power were their infamous Shaman caste and the Great Chief himself. Buck hadn't said anything yet about any outside threats and I was certain our fellows on the trench walls would have an eye on the surrounding terrain. I was as safe as I could be...what was the harm of indulging some curiosity?

“What is your request then?” I asked, looking at him with a critical squint; a motion my helmet translated into a command to zoom-in on his face revealing several scars on his cheeks and poking up from under the collar of his black armor on his neck.

“This War between our nations is pointless.” He said firmly, looking me directly in the eye with an air of authority. “We have allowed ourselves to degrade into savage daemons set on destroying the other in the rivers of blood we have made beneath our very hooves. Whatever our qualms were that began this conflict have long since ceased to matter...all that is left is our mutual hatred of the other. It is because of this I have chosen to abandon mine hatred and see past my own petty conflict with your people. I wish to act as your eyes and ears within my camp in exchange for amnesty and asylum within your country. I have had enough of War for one lifetime and wish to witness ours come to an end in our lifetime.”

“Um...uh...o-one moment please.” I said, a stuttering mess as I muted my external speaker and spoke directly to Onyx through our radio link. This one was gonna need to be crowd-sourced.

“Thoughts?” I asked, wishing for once I could see his expression beneath his steely helm for any sort of nonverbal indicators.

“Ah don’ even know wha’ tah do, let alone thank…” He responded in a bewildered tone, looking back at me. “If he’s fer real then we gotta take th’ offer. Anythin’ we can take tah get these sons of bitches outa Equestria Ah say. Ah Crimson Fucker as ah planted spy fer us would be ah helluva intelligence asset. Let's hear 'em out...Ah've gotta lock on him n' he's dropped his weapons so Ah think it's safe enough fer now.”

I nodded in agreement before looking back towards our would-be defector, deciding to take off my helmet as a show of non-hostility as he had his own head exposed first. That didn't keep me from eyeing his unique sword lying in its sheathe on the ground nearby as I set my helmet down in the dirt. I had yet to see a curved sword be employed by a Crimson Dragon in the field but tonight was a night of many firsts it seemed. Things were getting more interesting by the second...

“Very well…” I said, looking him dead in the eye while I tried my damndest to remember the script I had been taught for the insanely unlikely case I encountered a defector. ”We will...we will deliberate the t...terms? Terms of these pro...proceedings henceforth."

Fuckin' smooth... However, I was strangely rescued from my demonstration of poor memorization habits by the Zebra interrupting me with a look of extreme curiosity and scrutiny.

“Do excuse my interjection but your face is like unto someone I used to know...many, many years ago whilst abiding amongst your people in the earliest days of our conflict.” He said, gesturing slowly to my face with a hoof.

“Oh…?” I asked slowly, looking at him cautiously in the event this was a ploy to catch me off guard. “Is that right...? Who do I look like to you then? Don’t expect you to know many ponies on a first name basis given the hell we’re all living through right now. But please, elucidate me why don't ya?”

“I...her...name eludes my memory…” He admitted slowly, looking down slightly in thought. “She was a filly of a visage much like yourself except two decades your junior...we studied astride each other in school and I had considered her a friend as did my family. Her mother was also welcomed amongst us. We taught them many things of our culture and homeland across the sea...but alas this was before we were all sent home to whence our roots had sprung.”

“Zecuro…?” I asked in a loud tone of surprise, the name faint yet distinct in my memory from the golden years of my childhood innocence.

“Yes?” He asked immediately as if to a commanding officer before relaxing and looking confused. “How came you by my name…?”

“Zecuro, it’s me.” I said with hushed excitement, trying to keep the volume down as we were so close to Camp Fuck-Off. “Athena. I'm the filly you went to school with!”

“Impossible…” He hummed cautiously. “The patterns of destiny do not allow for such coincidence to occur, particularly not in the midst of warring nations. Far too fortuitous for the spirits who walk betwixt this world and those beyond to arrange...”

“Your mother’s name was Xera, your father’s name was Bukiki.” I said excitedly, trying desperately to convince him I was indeed the childhood friend he seemed to remember using whatever information my brain could recall. “I...I was the one who broke your grandpa’s old hunting stick...I don’t remember what you called it. I cried for weeks afterwards? Your mom made me tea every time to calm down made from some weird purple roots you guys grew in the herb garden behind your house.”

“My elder’s Assegai?” He gasped softly in realization. “Atina!” He exclaimed much louder than any of us were comfortable with, a chorus of shushes from my comrades reminding us where we were.

“You two know each other?!” Penny finally said in disbelief from the wall to my left. “Since fucking when?”

“This is Zecuro?” Huckleberry commented from my right. “From what you told me, I thought he was killed during the deportations way back in the late 50s.”

“That’s what I thought too!” I replied, beaming with uncontainable excitement at Zecuro who eyed my Squad and Onyx’s cautiously. “He disappeared before his parents did and they never answered whenever I asked about him so...later on I just started assuming that meant he was dead...holy shit this is crazy!”

"I...I am likewise overwhelmed by this revelation." Zecuro said with a small smile, glancing at my companions with a hint of wariness. "I had detected an unusual radio signal designating this area as a point of interest for the enemy. I...had not anticipated the one I would be requesting asylum by would be you."

“Not to be that asshole but I’m seeing activity near your position.” Buck Beak said in an almost nonchalant tone as if he was reading the scores from the latest hoofball games. “Advise you shitheads get the hell out of there unless you want a bunch of stripes all over your asses. I mean, I'm hella bored up here so I could use some bang, pow, boom to get the old heart goin'. And no! Ya can't fuckin' use that as an excuse to call me 'old' ya hoovsey havin' chucklefucks so don't even start!”

I relayed the information to Zecuro leaving out Buck's extra input as it was downright stupid to give him any excuse to make some real noise and get the party started. My inhibitions towards acting guarded around Zecuro were all but gone as I felt such joy in my Soul that I wanted to flip off the trench walls and squeal in excitement like the filly he remembered. Sadly, just as it wasn't a good idea to stroke Buck's ego by egging him on, it was likewise hardly time to start chatting up the old times like a high-school reunion. Zecuro seemed to be getting similar information from his own sources as he had a hoof to his ear and was concentrating on it as if he were on coms. It was certainly smaller than the usual headsets seen on most Zebra soldiers, nestled so small in the ear I wouldn't have even noticed it had he not brought attention to it. The Crimson Ds certainly got all the neatest toys...and now I had a real chance to look into how their shit really worked if everything went the way I was really beginning to hope it was.

“It seems that my brothers and sisters are commencing a patrol towards our present location.” He said with almost a bitter tone. “I was not the only one to have noticed your radio beacon it seems. I would advise in the future to use an ultra-high frequency as those we are still struggling to intercept with our current radio technology. We best part for the time being. But, we must meet again as soon as possible. Where would be best to allow these proceedings? Now that I am aware of thy identity, I refuse to allow for any other to speak to me on this matter. Time may have driven us apart but this is no mere aberration in our life journeys. To request asylum is to leap with faith into the Void as it is...to leap in thy direction is potentially a blessing I have sought for many a year.”

I ran through a few possible places in the trenches that were closer to home but decided Outpost Charlie-Horse made the most sense. It was isolated from all but the fringe patrols and they were always looking for trained snipers to occupy it so I would have no problem getting myself appointed to the spot. Hell, maybe Hucks too since she was a Two-Star Marksmare herself and definitely could qualify instantly for the post. If they had any objection to it then they could just simply glance at the silver oak leaves on my lapels to know why I wasn’t somepony to fuck around with. That or the golden crosshairs with three gold stars painted onto my breastplate beneath the batch number on my neck guard. A Tri-Star Marksmare award wasn’t something they just gave away after all. Besides...who even wanted the most boring post in all the Southern Front? Nopony. That’s why there were hardly volunteers to the post. Everyone was more or less forced to go when their time came around. Even the Five Squads on occasion thanks to the lottery system of names. There was going to be no issue getting the place to ourselves and for once it's dreadfully boring nature was going to become a benefit.

“Outpost Charlie-Horse.” I said, pointing towards the northwest where the lone watchtower stood. “You know where it is I assume? Probably have the entire South memorized with how long the Empire has been digging in here.”

He nodded with a sly smile and responded, “Indeed...I was amongst the first to prod its threat potential when it was first established nine years hence. I found it to be nothing more than a mere lookout and not a target of any particular strategic value to the Empire worth destroying. Thus why it has been left untouched aside from a raid or two in order to remind the occupants of their omnipresent danger. Merely a passing distraction for mild amusement at best.”

“So we have you to thank for that outpost being so unbearably fucking boring??” The Canterlot mare finally spoke up. “I do not know if I should thank you or curse you…I have more hours logged into that forsaken structure than my Power Armor...”

“Cut the chatter and look alive people.” I commanded, looking back towards Zecuro who was retrieving the discarded magazine from his sniper rifle. “Alright, perfect. Let’s meet there tomorrow night then, around the same time that we are now. Think you can make that?”

He chuckled softly as he slowly drew the hood of his cloak over his head, his form vanishing from sight the second it rested on his mane. Their invisibility magic was truly a spectacle for the eyes, even for a Unicorn like me. Not that I was even remotely gifted with anything above advanced telekinesis...Studies of the Arcane had been a hell of a slog to get through in high school and college alike.

“As you should well know...there are certain perks that accompany elevated rank. I will meet you as requested my friend, Atina. Until we meet again, may warm sands guide thy path and benevolent stars light thy journey.”

I nodded my head and offered his sword to him, taking a second to marvel over its unique design before he took it gently and slipped it under his cloak hiding it from view. Unlike all other Zebra made swords I had seen, which were straight bladed with double edges, his gently curved along the length of the blade and featured only a single cutting edge. I was hardly an expert in swords as they were a weapon of a previous age but seeing as they were really only larger, deadlier combat knives...I could appreciate the idea. It was an absolutely beautiful, exotic piece that was certainly not made by Zebras but someone even more foreign to me. After all they both cut, stab, block and attack with a sharpened edge and point...only difference really was how far away from the fucker you could be when ya cut them a new one. I was going to have to ask about it when we met again as he had my curiosity at first but most certainly now had my excited and undivided attention.

I saluted towards where he was last seen standing before hearing his almost imperceptible hoofsteps galloping down the trench and into the distance. The silence that followed was intense as everyone seemed to still be dumbstruck with just how much info had been exchanged in so short a time. With a quick practiced motion, I slapped my helmet back onto my head and nodded towards the North from whence we had all come. both our Squads present, the patrol had technically been abandoned for the last twenty or so minutes and any Pegusi on a patrol of their own would be bound to notice our absence from the patrol path. Onyx attached the mystery device to the magnetic strips running along his back just behind the mounts of his weapons and plodded along beside me. His armor made considerably more noise than myself in my comparatively silent Ranger gear even with the rattling of the grenades across my breast that swung and clacked together as I galloped beside him. On top of sticking out like a sore horn on thermals, the T-45 was the opposite of the word 'subtle' and whatever was the doubly opposite of 'covert'. That was what the Semi-Powered Armor series like the T-35s or 38s were more suited for anyway. The 45s had brawn in spades.

The rest of the patrol went completely smooth with no sign of any Zebra activity to be found. Occasionally we would pass a pile of corpses here and there filled with members from both sides of the day's fight that had yet to be M.O.P'd up. We all walked in stunned silence, even Buck who usually liked to fill silence with more of himself than was ever needed. Towards the end, Onyx turned towards me looking between my face and our Camp. I had a feeling about what he was going to say...

“Hey Crete, I got th’ feelin’ we shouldn’t report anythin abou’ tonight.” He said in a hushed tone. “Ah mean, yer th’ rankin’ officer here but...Ah got this here feelin’ tha’ we shouldn’t tell nopony about yer friend Zecuro or this here Balefire thingy. Dunno if he was just playin' games wit' ya 'er what but he seemed tah be genuine tah me...”

I looked at everypony around me who all glanced back in my direction silently; the meaning was conveyed clearly. None of us felt right about telling command about Zecuro and not just for the fact they’d be furious for letting him go when we had the chance to Bag-n’-Tag him. Being privy to a portion of the madness infecting the General, it seemed we all had a silent agreement that Zecuro would not be treated fairly or given the chance to prove anything. The fact he turned out to be a personal friend of mine seemed to have subdued everyone and what he had said about the pointless nature of the War only seemed to exacerbate the silent gnawing growing in our minds. I personally felt that if he was coming willingly, which seemed to be the case, then I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt and see if our past friendship truly was stronger than his ties to the Empire. I was still hesitant given his position as a Crimson Dragon...but the Zecuro I remembered was honorable and dependable. Traits instilled in him by both his father and grandfather who came from a long line of warriors tracing all the way into their ancient tribal days; or so their familial tapestry told. If any Zebra was to retain their honor...I was going to bet my bits (and life it seemed) on Zecuro. Perhaps it was suicidal...but my gut wasn't sensing any danger coming from him directly. And...I couldn't get what he had said about destiny bringing us back together out of my head. I was wary...but I felt this was right.

“You guys know this is insanely illegal right?” Buck Beak commented as he landed next to us for the last quarter-mile of the walk back to Camp. “Yes? So everyone here knows they’re being fucking stupid dangerous with their lives?”

We looked at him in confusion as he was the last person I expected to get lectured on safety and legality but he immediately followed up with, “Fuck yeah! Finally all of you bitches are joining in on my anarchist fun! My corrupting influence has devoured you all! Welcome to hell, dicks n' pussies of Alpha! I'll be your pilot, Bitch McFabtits, for the duration of your voyage.”

“Dunno about ‘corrupting influence’ Buck.” Huckleberry giggled. “We’ve all kind of helped each other into this dumpster fire of a dirty ass gutter we all call home.”

“Ya know, you’s freaks are pretty chill in my book.” The Manehattenite chimed in. “You’s not so bad fer a buncha Nad Pads. Ain't somethin' I says often so don't you's go fuckin' up ya hear?”

“Indeed. I suppose I was wrong to assume you Rangers were all a rabble of incompetent delinquents.” The Canterlot mare said with a hint of remorse in her voice. "I am not so petty as to not acknowledge my own flawed prejudices."

“Well, you girls are all pretty nifty yourselves in my book.” Penny replied happily as Camp finally came close enough to embrace. “I hope we get to work together again sometime.”

“Oh yew can count on it!” Onyx said with a laugh.

****************

Chapter Nineteen: Moving is a Bitch

“This place stinks!” Melody complained as we edged our way around mound after mound of decaying waste and trash that all congregated around the drain hole covers from Freeside residents literally tossing their shit down into the old drainage system.

I, thanks to the quality filtering of my dual-filtered gas mask, didn’t smell a thing but I could only imagine how much the place reeked. I was one of the few residents lucky enough to own a still fully functioning toilet in their home that dumped its contents into the old cistern. The sewer system itself was about as remarkable as you’d expect from a large underground stone tunnel. The bulk of the walls and ceiling were made of dirty tan bricks and numerous smaller tunnels and open-ended pipes that fed into the main tunnel we were traveling down, leading in from other locations around the city. I had to admit it was a genius way to travel undetected (as who in their right mind would want to walk through this place?) but that didn’t stop me from trying not to gag at the rotting garbage and waste lining the entire path. Not to mention the flies and other nasty little bugs come to the ahem...feast. So many it seemed that the path ahead was actually passable with some careful hoofwork from how much was consumed.

I felt bad that I got to walk odor free while she and Gold were forced to endure the stench of our surroundings. Without a second thought, took my helmet off and plopped it right onto Melody’s head, holding my breath against the inevitable. She eeped softly at the sudden helmet but quickly changed her surprise into wonder as she seemed to notice my internal visor and all the information presented on it.
“What is all of this stuff?” She asked, her voice coming out sounding slightly grainy but still beautiful nonetheless. “S.A.T.S...Thermal...whoa! Everything went all rainbow colored! It’s soooo prettyyy!”
My heart ached and flipped around in my chest at yet another one of her joyus outbursts of excitement. It was as if every time she squeed in delight, a little part of the mare I once was returned to life just to remind me once again at just how much I missed Huckleberry. And just how much I wished for this wonderful little filly to become my own little daughter. Not to replace Huckleberry...but maybe to just fill the hole she had so sadly left in me that had yet to fade.
“That’s the thermal vision filter.” I said with a laugh, unfortunately taking in more than a few breaths of our lovely surroundings. “It lets you see heat signatures. It’s really effective when you’re trying to find living things in the dark. Or see heat blooms from above in particular areas potentially launching a missile or something.”
I choked back a wretch and fumbled at my belt for the pouch containing my military issued emergency fume mask which was intended to protect against a short term NecroGas attack when caught without my helmet. Though the smell of shit and piss and other such nasty stuff wasn’t anywhere near as deadly as NecroGas was, in the moment I was inclined to disagree with that. I thankfully found it in the small black pouch on my waist next to my emergency medical kit (which contained just two enchanted bandage rolls, a pair of Medix painkiller syringes and a tiny bottle of an extremely potent healing potion) and soon enough the white dust mask looking device was slipped over my muzzle and letting me breathe normally without wanting to throw up the sweet corn and Sparkle-Cola I had for breakfast. As usual, being a pack rat made up of at least 30% bags, bandoliers and pouches was saving my ass. Or I guess in this case, my stomach.

“That’s so cooolll!” She sang giddily, hopping around yet another pile of assorted nastiness. The helmet was obviously too large for her head but seemed to be doing a well enough job of filtering the air for her without the EVA seal. “What else can this thing do?”

“A l-lot!” Gold said from behind me, his voice strangely muffled to the point I almost didn't even think it was someone speaking but rather a weird gurgle in the pipes around us.

I looked over my shoulder to see him plodding along behind us wearing the old Desert Ranger helmet he had obtained with me at Camp Macintosh. The fit was a bit snugger than Melody’s as he was a little bigger built than she was, but it was obvious it wasn’t a tight seal by the way it wiggled around on his head like a loose ball bearing. He and Melody both amusingly looked like little walking bobbleheads with a military theme and I had to fight the urge to laugh at the ridiculous helmet-to-body size ratio. It was amusing reminder of my promise to get it resized for him and seeing it on him up close was a fun distraction from the labyrinth of shit and garbage we were being forced to navigate in a gloom.

The passage was rather dimly lit aside from the occasional emergency maintenance light still clinging to what was left of Las Pegasus's power grid outside of the Stirrup. The lenses of Gold's helmet were still a dull red and his voice wasn't being amplified by the internal microphone/speaker that the Mrk. I had debuted with. The thing's Spark Pack probably hadn't been changed even before the Balefire so it was good to know that ahead of time, even though Cogs would have found that out himself anyway. If there was one thing I knew he always had a reserved stash of just for me...it was Spark Packs.

“Oh really? Like what kind of things?” She asked happily, looking back towards Gold as well only to trip on a piece of rubble headfirst towards a particularly large pile of manure.

I caught her in my web of magic just in time to save her head from being buried up to the neck in shit though I had to admit to myself I did it at least partially to save my helmet from needing a really thorough washing. She hung limply in my grasp, panting heavily at the adrenaline from the moment but quickly calming down when I set her back on her hooves on the cleanest portion of the stone tunnel I could find.

“Heh, thanks!” She giggled loudly as she started to walk again though slowing down just enough for me to take the lead. “That was a close one!”

“Mhm…” I hummed distractedly as I flipped back the magnetic cover of my PipBuck 2000 and tried to access the mapping spell on my helmet remotely.

We had traveled about a half mile from Cogsworth’s Stable and were roughly six blocks away from Junction 16 which had a drain hole leading to the surface. As we walked, I noticed that not all drain holes had a cover let alone an attached ladder to get out. Every now and again we passed one with a ladder but there was always something wrong with them that made me nervous. A few missing rungs, a rickety fastening to the floor and all of them had copious amounts of rust caking them which not only spelled a dangerous climb but also the possibility of tetanus infection for my little unarmored friend. If you asked anyone but a trained doctor what a vaccine was, I guarantee you they would think it was the name of some new mutated beast in the Wasteland and not a little shot you got to keep you from getting sick from the countless risks out in the world alongside the constant threat of radiation. Disease was a common companion to be seen in Freeside since proper medical care was generally out of reach by the common family’s income.

“How far are we from your house?” Melody asked a few minutes later, taking extra careful steps and rarely looking up from the ground before her to keep from tripping again.

“It’s just up here.” I said pointing towards a bend in the mostly straight tunnel. “Hopefully there’s a ladder to help us out or otherwise we’ll have to either keep going or back-track until we find the closest way out of here.”

My PipBuck beeped softly as we approached the warped ladder leading up to Junction 16 and Melody commented on the same from the helmet feed she was privy to. Out of all the ladders we had passed, this one was in slightly better shape which was a breath of relief though only a slight one at best. I wasn’t too worried about it collapsing under Melody or Gold’s weight considering they were both so small but I was an above-average sized mare with over a hundred pounds of armor and weapons. And by above average, I meant that I was an unusual four foot eleven compared to most ponies who were around four foot five.

“W-well...this s-should be i-interesting…” Gold said with a chuckle as he looked at me then at the rust covered ladder. “T-think you can m-make it?”

I rolled my eyes and sighed, looking between them as I thought through how would be best to proceed. With the appearance of Cook Cook, I could only assume Green’s Hitmares were already on the move looking for my head on the streets above. Unfortunately a surprise appearance in the middle of the street from the sewers near my home would be quite noticeable if anypony were around to see it. Since it was barely three o’clock in the afternoon, there were going to be plenty of pedestrians walking up and down the area trying to go about their day. In some ways, it might have been easier to have traveled above ground where at least I could see any potential threats and try to avoid them by taking a back alley or something. Buttt...well, here we were in the shithole. And the only way to go from here is up.

“Alright, Melody? I’m going to need my helmet back for a bit, you can borrow this facemask I have on. I need to try and get ahold of Holes and see if he can find a way to cover our exit from here. If Cook Cook found us, then that means more than likely they found my house and are either trying to break in or are staking it out to wait for me to come back. Either way, I need to call in a huge fuckin' favor to buy us some time. Gonna need every damn second we can squeeze out or we're gonna have a big shootout in Freeside.”

“Staking it out? What does that mean?” She asked just as I removed my mask forcing me to put it back on to respond.

“Basically it means they’re keeping a close eye on my house so they can shoot me when I show up. Much as use the same tactic as a sniper...god I hate campers...” I responded, taking a breath and removing my mask, offering it to her in exchange for my helmet.

It took her a moment to get the thing off her head but I soon enough was encased in the familiar safe comfort of my battle-worn helmet, the pneumatic seal around my neck hissing closed eagerly. As she fumbled with the mask and Gold attempted to help her get it on over her horn and ears, I tried to find the radio frequency Holes used for his 24-hour service hotline that anyone within range could call in on if they needed work done. I had found him replacement parts on several occasions for the device so I was very familiar with tuning into his station. Finding a few of the parts alone for it would equal some hefty favors I might be able to pool together on this one. I saved my favors from grateful neighbors almost entirely, hoping one day if I ever needed, I could have a militia of support around myself if the time needed. This was probably my first bet that I felt confident in cashing-out on in this town.

‘Hope to hell you’ve got your radio on you Holes…’ I thought as I tuned into his channel and said, “Hey, Holes! I need a huge favor right about now! I know it's short notice but I really need a fuckin hoof here. Or like...sixty. I dunno.”

There was silence for a moment before he responded in a hushed whisper, “Quiet down, Crete! Green’s goons are all over the fucking place looking for you! Where the hell you at?”

“I’m in the sewer below Junction 16.” I responded, looking up at the dull brown drain hole cover at the top of the ladder. “I decided to take a more subtle route to get home. Not exactly the cleanest of choices but it got us this far without getting shot at so it's not totally fucked.”

“Well kudos to you for thinking that far ahead but there’s Hitmares and mercenaries all over that area looking for you right now! Saw that one whacko Black Velvet trotting into town last night with her psychobitch sister Red, some fuckin yokel named Filly Sixshooter this mornin' and I can see six Talons not even ten feet from that damn drain hole.”

Well fuck, if the Talons were on my ass already then shit was going to get really interesting. Sure the Velvet twins were a concern but Freeside was a big place and there were only two of em after all. The Talons though...they had a small army to themselves of the baddest, meanest asses of the Westcoast. Of all the merc groups in Equestria, the Talons were the Death Squads of the War given new life by taking in almost exclusively big, mean Griffins and throwing them beak-first into the most dangerous Contracts. If Green paid them well (and he had the money to do so) then these fuckers weren’t going to stop until I was dead or they were dead. Or, if I paid them off but...that was unlikely, especially with the caps on my person. Talons were loyal to the Contract they signed regardless of the owner and I doubted I could pay them all enough to make them turn a blind eye. Thankfully what I had in my favor was a lot of firepower and rather extensive experience with Griffin combat methods. Fighting alongside Buck Beak and the other Griffins in the War had given me more than a little insight into their preferred battle tactics which hadn’t changed much as the years dragged on. And I thanked fuck that the Inland Gryphons were so few and far between on the Continent...if the Talons got their claws on those giants, they could shatter mountains if they wished.

“Only six?” I laughed half-heartedly. “Fair enough...any way you or somepony else could distract them enough for us to slip out and into my apartment? They haven’t found my place yet have they?”

“No, thank Celestia. They seem to have an idea as to its general location but have yet to find it and ain't nopony round here saying a damn thing to these fucks. I doubt they’ll make it through that door of yours though.” He responded with a soft chuckle.

“Well regardless, I need to get back in there to snag the rest of my stuff.” I said, envisioning the six Griffins who stood above me on the street dressed in their signature black armor. “I only got about half of it on the first trip and I didn't want to chance another street level excursion with my head in such high demand today. Any chance I can get some help? You and anyone else you get to help can consider their favors paid in fold after this and you won't have to deal with my issues for much longer.”

“Well…” He said, trailing off into thought. “These shitheads can’t do anything more than rattle our cages unless Green wants the Queens all over his ass which I doubt he wants. Started to see em patrolling Freeside recently so if it comes to it they'll give em the what for. I’ll see if I can rile up the neighbors to do something stupid. Gonna hold ya to that 'paid in full' bit!”

I wondered what he meant by ‘stupid’ but only paused to comment, “Well whatever you end up doing, don’t toss an oil bomb on them. Griffins hate singing their feathers and might just open fire regardless of the Contract. Don't want anyone getting hurt alright Holes?”

“Right, I’ll try to remember that...” He replied, his tone indicating I had just given him an idea. “I’ll be right back. Think you can wait?”

I looked at the piles of shit all around me and said, “I can though I’d rather not stay down here. For all I know there’s some of you down here with me. Got an ETA with an answer?”

“Didn’t need to hear that but point taken…” He said with audible disgust. “Dunno, uhh...least a few minutes. Hold tight, I’ll go see if I can spark something up.”

Again that hint of something involving fire but I didn’t respond, muting the radio so I didn’t have to listen to white noise and setting it to unmute when he called back. Again...it was just so weird to finally be leaving Freeside for real. It was home for all its dilapidated glory. I wondered if they would miss me after I left for...wherever the hell we were off to next after this.

“So what’s the plan?” Melody asked, looking at me curiously and looking somewhat like a battlefield nurse with the facemask (which I noticed was slowly starting to turn from white to brown).

“A friend of mine is going to go distract the Griffins topside so we can book it into my house and hopefully grab the rest of my shit without getting spotted. If there’s not enough time then we’ll have to bunker down there and wait until nightfall to move out.” I replied, looking up at the ceiling wondering what Holes had planned for our Talon friends.

“Wow...that bad huh?” Melody said softly, glancing at the rifle on her back. “Do...do you think we’ll have to fight?”

Her apprehension was clearly apparent from the timid look in her eyes and her tone of voice and I reluctantly admitted, “I hope not but...I have the feeling we won’t get so lucky. I kinda put a big price on my head for what I did in Old Loosa.”

My words added an extra measure of fear to her countenance and she looked back at her rifle again before saying, “O-okay...i-if I have to…”

We didn’t have to wait long before the tunnel shook a bit and sounds of angry screaming echoed down from above signaling that Holes had hopefully done his job. Sounded bigger than I had hoped but I also hoped that it was big enough to get their attention for a long period of time.

“Alright, get your asses moving!” He half-shouted into the radio. “Their backs are turned and they’re headed my way but I don’t know how long their curiosity is going to last.”

With a hurried nod to the other two I leapt as far as I could over the large pile of waste at the base of the ladder and came to a sickeningly squishy landing near the ladder getting a thick blackish brown muck all over my combat boots that I was eternally grateful I couldn’t smell. Yet.

“Okay, I’m going to go up first and check to see if it’s clear to go, I’ll try and levitate you two along with me so you don’t have to walk through this shit.” I said as I began to climb up and towards the drain hole cover, silently thanking Chocolate for being willing to stay behind leaving me free to do this without her adding to my list of worries.

The cover was heavy enough to warrant using a hoof to shove it up and to the side rather than using my head as I had been planning to do and I poked my head out of the hole just enough so I could see over the rim and down the street in either direction. To my right smoke billowed from within an abandoned building far down the street and I squinted to zoom in on a pair of six tall, black armored Griffins with large battle-saddles plodding towards it. Other than them and the occasional running and screaming bystander, the street was empty and I descended back down the ladder just enough to see both Melody and Gold standing at the ready. It was now or never.

I focused all my energy into my horn trying to spark as much power into my telekinesis as possible as I enveloped both of them in a misty baby blue aura of sparkling magic, lifting them several inches off the ground and floating them towards the ladder. Their combined weight was more or less equal to that of a single adult but I had to feign my confidence in my telekinetic abilities. Multiple weapons or bags I could handle but lifting living beings was a whole different game. While the weight of the object is negated thus allowing it to float along like a balloon, it required a lot of focus and energy on the part of the lifter to float something with that much mass through the air in a controlled manner with any amount of swiftness.

My magic wavered slightly towards the end and the tip of Gold’s hoof dragged through the muck for a moment but I managed to get them to the ladder. The next challenge was going to be getting them up and out of the hole behind me. I climbed the rest of the way out of the sewer and laid prone on the street trying to make myself as small and inconspicuous a target as possible in the bright desert sun, my underbarding noticeably cooling down at the change in ambient temperature. I sent them up one at a time, the amount of concentration required to keep one floating above the ground while lifting the other fifteen feet vertically was in my opinion on par with trying to hit a target a mile and a half away with a strong crosswind to contend with. Immensely stressful, frustratingly tricky...but not impossible.

“T-this feels w-weird…” Gold whined as he emerged from the hole and landed on his hooves beside me. “It’s not n-normal to f-fly…”

I didn’t comment but focused on bringing Melody up right behind him as quickly as I could. I felt an invisible, silent clock ticking down the amount of time we had left until we were found. Even an explosion wouldn't keep them busy for long when I was nowhere in sight nearby and soon enough the featherheads would be pecking the streets for me.

“Wheeeeee!” Melody giggled loudly as she floated up and out of the sewer. “That was fun!”

“I-if you s-say s-so…” Gold mumbled, shaking a bit as if trying to throw off a weird tingle in his spine.

I stood up with them, wincing slightly at the small hornache that was starting to form in my head from the amount of effort went into lifting those two. Stumbling a bit from the light-headedness, I pushed the two of them urgently towards the alleyway nearby. Freeside's inherently chaotic and expansive layout from the heyday of Las Pegasus was a useful defense for keeping my front door hidden from scouting parties. Naturally, the StableTec branded security bulkhead was a dead giveaway in this part of town devoid of anything important enough to warrant such a door. Coming up to it though, I was relieved to see that it was sealed as tight as I had left it and my visual scan of the area showed no immediate hostiles. Judging by the noticeable bloodstain of the concrete, Tomato had unfortunately more than likely survived...ah well, just another worry to leave behind soon enough.

When the three of us were safely inside, I noticed even more strikingly the depressing state of my now empty home of fifty plus years. I wasn’t particularly fond of Freeside given it’s ghetto status but it had been a pretty good home for half a century. As sad as it was to move, I was also excited for a change in scenery to something bigger than what I had lived with for so damn long. At least now I was going to have roommates to share my space with, something I hadn’t experienced since the barracks back at Macintosh. Sure, it was a Ghoul and a formally enslaved young mare but...least they liked me for me. I wasn't in the habit of being picky where I got my validation from.

The last eight duffle bags were ready and waiting by the door, these ones particularly heavy because they either contained ammunition or disassembled weapons of varying size. Either way it was really just bags full of lead and machined steel and were going to need something special to get them out the door.

“How are we going to get all these out of here?” Melody asked as she tried for two seconds to lift one of the bags with her magic then gave up. “They’re really heavy…”

“H-hey, I t-think you f-forgot a few m-magazines.” Gold said from the floor near an empty set of shelves.

“The kind you read or the kind you slap into a gun and shoot with?” I asked as I tried to concentrate enough to try and lift even two of them at once but coming up short with my hornache.

“The o-ones you shoot w-with.” He replied as he stood up with one of the mags to my AMR in his mouth.

“How do you even carry these things?” Melody asked, floating the magazine over to herself and staring at the eight-inch long block of black metal loaded with five black-tipped armor piercing rounds. “They’re huge!”

“Well believe it or not back in the day ponies just had to carry these things in big ol' bags but the Ministry of Arcane Science came up with a nifty little spell that makes carrying shit like that way easier for solo operatives.” I said before I groaned and slapped myself a bit on the cheek for being a fucking idiot. Sometimes muscle memory becomes a little too hyperfocused on a particular set of motions and forgets there's more to learn and adapt to.

“Umm...does the explanation of the spell require a slapping ceremony in order to tell it or something…?” Melody asked with a small giggle.

“No…” I sighed, checking the filter with my helmet’s diagnostic system for any damage from my impulsive slap and making note I should clean the filters soon. “I just remembered the spell could’ve saved us the hassle of making two trips to begin with... I only use it for weapons and even then only out of habit so I didn’t even think of it as a possibility. Duhhh! I swear I hate my brain more than I should...”

“W-well what does it d-do?” Gold asked, peering at the four other magazines he had retrieved from the floor.

“It’s called the Mass Displacement Spell or MDS for short.” I explained, taking all five magazines in my magic and setting them before me in a line on the industrial desk bolted to the wall. “Basically what it does is it takes something, something heavy for example, and displaces it in Time. By doing so the mass of the object is removed from where we are now and the object is replaced with a small placeholder of sorts called a Sigil Stone. This makes carrying heavy things or lots of objects much easier because these Stones weigh next to nothing and can be carried in bulk. When you need the object, you just zap it with a bit of magic and it returns back to this timeline ready for use. The PipBuck 3000s have a portable version of the spell built-in, the lucky bastards...”

“I don’t get it…” Melody said cocking her head in confusion.

“Just watch then and you’ll see what I’m talking about.” I said as I focused my concentration on the relatively simple spell, even for an amateur like myself.

The spell itself was surprisingly simple in contrast to most Time spells I heard about in school. Of course, that was probably because all I was doing was displacing an object just a split second out of sync with the rest of Time rather than trying to reverse or advance my place in Time itself. Plenty of shit they taught me in college and EastPoint was in one ear and out the other as far as my interest level cared to remember things. Decades of practice reduced the process to a second’s long ordeal and within a moment there were five small Stones lying on the floor. Melody and Gold both snatched one up with fervent fascination and turned them over and over in their hooves with wide eyes.

The Stones were small puck-like discs a half an inch wide each and glowed in the center with a small blue rune that I was roughly the shape of an hourglass. Under infrared, the Stones also featured more runes which lined the circumference, each character representing something about the object being displaced like some sort of log of the item being exchanged. The name of the language used had eluded me since five minutes after I took the final exam regarding it in EastPoint and I didn't care to relearn it. Remembering incantations and other arcane shit was never much my thing anyway. I preferred for the most part to blow the magic user off the face of Terra Firma before they even had a chance to spark their horn up.

“Did the magazines go inside these things?” Melody asked, which I considered to be a rather astute question.

“In a way…” I said slowly, trying to dumb down the specifics of the spell to fit more with her level of understanding. “It’s more like that Stone takes the place of the magazine in Time until we need the magazine. Think of it like an exchange. We give Time the magazine and it gives us back the Stone to show we made a deal and when we need the magazine, we give the Stone back and Time gives us the mag. That make more sense?”

She nodded and sang her acknowledgement before giving me her Stone, which I deposited with the other four in the single AMR mag pouch I had attached to the main bandolier across my chest. Myself and every other Anti-Machine operator had so much to thank the MDS for as it made carrying vast quantities of heavy ammunition a breeze. Since every one of my loaded mags weighed about five pounds each and were eight-inches long, this made carrying more than five or six at a time impractical, if not impossible, for the standard sniper. With only five rounds a mag, carrying only six mags, or thirty rounds, was just not good enough for the daily demands we saw in the Badlands. At the end of some days, we would be up to our knees in empty casings as we were asked to switch on the fly from Anti-Machine to general infantry support on the fly.

As a rule, snipers were supposed to carry about a hundred rounds of their rifle’s caliber and about half as much for their sidearm in the event they got caught too close for comfort with the enemy. With the introduction of the MDS, I could carry several thousand rounds of 25x102mm without adding even half a pound to my overall weight; all contained in a single pouch on my bandolier. This ease of transport meant the rest of my tactical rig was wide open for modularity leaving me capable of hauling around ammunition for weapons I didn't even own in the event I needed one and came across something I could use. With options like Armor Piercing, High Explosive, Dragons Spit, my APEI ‘All-Equestrian-Special’, as well as the boring old lead rounds, I had lots of options for wreaking havoc on any who opposed me. Body armor, including the hardy T-45 and even the T-51 was nearly futile against the might of AP or APEI rounds and the HE rounds could decimate lightly armored targets in droves. Best part? I was really the only pony around who carried this bitch of a portable cannon around the Wastes as only 500 were ever produced by Barnette for the EAF and the vast majority of them were lost in the Badlands or in whatever became of the Empire. There were still a decent number of surviving .50s in the Wastes though and the APR-S2 in particular shared the same design elements of my AMR-25. Enough so that on the rare occasion I came across someone with the S2 I would double-take just to make sure the bore size was just half rather than a full inch. To face another with my rifle would be at once terrifying and exciting.

“So...how many of those can you carry?” Melody asked, looking at the rifle on her back with a thoughtful expression.

“Carrying all the magazines I own, I have about three-hundred rounds on me at any given time with this bandolier here.” I said before I stopped to do my mental math one more time. “Right? Sixty mags times five-rounds a piece...yeah, three-hundred rounds. Not exactly a plethora but enough to get me by for a couple average weeks in the Wastes.”

“Wowie…” Melody hummed, glancing at the rifle on my back with interest. "I didn't even know they made guns that big here in Equestria!"

"They don't! This here was made in Mareseilles! Don't worry if you've never heard that name before, they liked to keep to themselves before the Great War anyway so it doesn't surprise me the name is forgotten. Smaller country to the Southeast, East and a little South of Old Appleloosa. Outside of Canterlot, it was the fashion capital of Terra Firma, known for fine dining, expensive wines and a cheese industry to rival Trottingham's. Had a hell of a Navy and Special Defense Corps commandos too but didn't like to use 'em all that often, especially not for Equestria's sake."

"Well why the hell not?" Melody huffed indignantly. "That's fucking rude ain't it?"

"If only it were as simple as that..." I sighed sadly, thinking about how complicated the shitshow of a web the old world was. "They refused to help because it wasn't their War. Equestria tried to bully them into joining in like they had the rest of NEATO and when that didn't work we fucking invaded them back in 2056. Long story short: we were in the wrong, got our asses kicked by their commandos and ended up signing a pride crushing peace treaty in '58. After that...they didn't really want anything to do with us and only used their military forces when the War came into their territories. Past that...not a whole lotta love between us and relations never improved before the Great War. I wonder sometimes what its like there...especially now since they were the only neutral country on the Continent which means no one had a reason to Megaspell them off the face of the map. Who knows how far ahead of us they might be right now if they escaped the Great War isolated behind the Maginot Mountains."

"U-um, A-Athena?" Gold said in a worried tone and tugging on the tail of my duster. "W-we should probably k-keep moving..."

I nodded and quickly ‘exchanged’ the duffle bags for Sigil Stones before depositing them in an empty mag pouch and checking the room for any other stragglers. I was mostly fine if I lost a 10mm or even a .50 BMG mag because I knew I could always just buy a new one from a vendor like the Gun Runners for a pretty inexpensive price. Anything dealing with the AMR-25 however was irreplaceable. Only one factory in all my years had carried anything for it, that being a few spare parts and a replacement barrel that lacked a muzzle brake. I was grateful for the parts though since the years had been tough on my favorite gun but the rest, like the receiver, bolt, firing pin and other such key components, had to be re-machined by eye by either myself or Cogsworth. The gun still worked well but not beautifully. There were a few minor hiccups here and there that irritated me from time to time like the fifth round having the tendency to misfeed forcing an emergency breech clear.

Thankfully, the room was totally and entirely empty meaning the only thing left was to get the hell out of dodge and unfortunately dive right back into the sewer. Unless of course we wanted to start urban warfare against Green’s cronies and take the overland route back to Cogsworth. Only issue with that is I didn’t want to drag the fight with us everywhere we went. The Pile was already ugly as it was. It didn’t need any more holes in the walls or rubble on the ground making our trip through the maze of buildings even more dangerous. After a few minutes of careful movement, we took up position in the same alleyway we had used to get off the street from the sewer entrance and I gave Holes another buzz on my radio.

“I hope to hell you got your shit together, Crete.” Holes growled into my ear in a warning tone. “My little distraction is bringing all the freaks to Junction 16. Guess they thought you blew something up or some shit, hell if I know what those feather fucks think when they're wearin' Talon gear.”

“Wonderful…” I replied as I wondered if anypony had dropped into the sewers yet since we had all forgotten to put the lid back on the hole. “How many?”

“Eh...more than ten, I can tell you that much. They don’t look happy. Shit, they’re knocking on my door! Be back!” He replied, a muffled banging heard in the background.

“Well fuck…” I sighed, poking my head out slowly into the street and finding it thankfully empty for the moment. “Alright, follow close and don’t shoot unless you’re shot at first. In that case, tear them a new one and aim for the head.”

Melody and Gold nodded silently in acknowledgement and trailed close behind me as we made our way through the short alley and onto Junction 16. The view before us was somewhere in the realm of chaotic as multiple figures could be partially seen in the thick haze of black smoke from further up the street. Thermals showed me sixteen in total, six of which were quite clearly the Griffins from earlier toting their large weapons and were making their way back towards us quickly while the rest went further away. The distance to the open sewer hole was a little over forty feet, which meant even at a gallop we would be in sight of our feathered friends before we made it down below. This was going to need some planning.

Melody started running out from the alley with Gold following suit leaving me silently fuming as they had ignored my earlier instruction to stick close to me. They hadn’t even left me any time to explain the fact we were going to be seen by the Talons if we moved too soon. I fumbled at my chest for one of the few grenades I carried on my person in a panic hoping to make an effective smokescreen for our escape. I yanked the pin from the smoke grenade (noting it was amusingly a neon pink type by the colored stripes down the sides) and hurled it onto the street, tripping up Gold who ran over it as it rolled across the asphalt. As he rolled out of control into the cracked road making a loud ruckus with his armor hitting the pavement, the grenade popped and hissed out thick plumes of bright pink smoke that quickly filled the street like a solid wall of pink clouds. I took the chance to dash forward and silently cursed my choice of smoke colors as nothing was more obvious than a gigantic pink cloud to cover one’s escape. Not a second later the Griffins seemed to have caught sight of my party trick and immediately opened fire through the smoke amidst some angry shouts and bellowed war cries. I regrettably had to dive and tackle Melody to the ground, taking care to twist around so I landed on my back with her against my chest cushioning the blow for her. Bullets whizzed above us like angry hornets causing the smoke to curl and billow as the projectiles cut their way through the pink haze. I knew it wouldn’t take them much longer to guess we had dived to the ground so I shoved Melody as gently as I could off me and towards the open sewer drain while rolling on my stomach and planting my AMR on the ground before me. I only needed one shot and the locals could probably live with this part of the road being even more fucked up than normal.

They stood in a line before me, my thermal vision unobscured by the smoke and I switched mags to suit my ammunition needs. The switch from APEI to HEI was effortless, both to maximize my efficiency as well as the fact there were six of them and I had only five rounds to share between them. Griffins were notorious for not wearing armored gauntlets on their claws as they complained it made pulling triggers more cumbersome. Not only that but they also tended not to wear armor on their hind paws or even their very large and exposed wings for more or less the same reason. Comfort was king for a Griffin just below money which was their emperor almighty for as long as the two have been in contact with the other. It was precisely this flaw that I poised to exploit as the Dragon’s Spit incendiary compound was hot enough to superheat the tar in the asphalt while the high explosive charge was strong enough to propel shrapnel through most light armored plating. I only needed one shot...and with the range locked into the BORS computer, the fuse on the tip of the round was set to go active from the first rotation free of the muzzle brake.

The AMR cracked loudly through the commotion like a cannon compared to a firecracker and the smoke around me gusted away from the might of the blast channeled out the sides of the muzzle brake. The two inch projectile punctured through the pink cloud and detonated at the paws of my winged opponents. Though I couldn’t see in normal detail, the large hot red explosion, the subsequent shower of rainbow colored gore, the glow of white-hot fire and the horrific squawks and screeches of pain told me I had done my job. I scooped up the rolling empty casing as I myself rolled into the hole and onto the ladder, dragging the cover onto the entrance above me before jumping down and to the side just outside the pile of shit surrounding its base. Melody and Gold both clung to the ladder halfway from the bottom and were overjoyed when I floated them to the clean safety of the brick floor beside me.

“Yo, Holes.” I called into my radio, hoping his guests had already left by now.

“I’m here, sorry.” He said after a moment sounding out of breath. “They dragged my ass outside and were going to ‘teach me a lesson’ when you made that smoke screen. Nice color choice by the way, it’s cheeky. Really pissed them off. Come to think of it, it’s kind of a scary color now that I think of it, what with Canterlot and all that.”

“Thanks…” I said distractedly, wondering what it looked like to people not in on the situation. “Those six Talons, I blew at least a few of their legs off and made it back into the sewers but I don’t know how long it’ll take them to check down here.”

“You made it down? Perfect. Green’ll be pissed you maimed his featherheads but honestly, not like there’s much more he can get pissed at you for. Poor bastards though...they like their claws.”

“I know.” I responded as I led the pack at a brisk trot back up the tunnel towards Cogsworth’s escape tunnel. “I know some mares who love them too.”

He chuckled and surprisingly admitted, “I know what you mean. Griffins are fun bastards under the sheets. So what now? You just gonna ditch us and vanish into the Wasteland?”

I glanced back at Gold and Melody wondering that same question before answering, “At this point I think I have to. It’s too dangerous to stay in Freeside now that Green knows I’m already here and he’ll find my place sooner than later so I don’t see any other choice. Besides, I’ve wanted a bigger place for awhile now...just haven’t had the reason to move out until now. Just didn't expect this to be the catalyst for change...”

“Well...I wish you luck Crete.” He said solemnly. “You may have been a bit aloof with everyone but we all liked you as a neighbor. Gonna be a shame to see you go...but, we understand. Hey, if you get the chance? Why don’t you just kill that fat green bastard for us huh? Would make everyone here super happy. Not to mention the Queens would finally run Freeside normally again. The Queen is having a hell of a time stamping out Freeside's rogues gallery of idiots on Green's payroll.”

“I’ll look into it, Holes I promise.” I said with a small laugh though I was beginning to feel a small pang of sadness for leaving good ponies like him behind. “For what it’s worth...thank you for everything. I’ll try to find a way to pay you back for all this. For what my word is worth around here, I promise.”

“Heh...you can pay me back by using that big ass gun of yours to start cleaning up this country of shitheads like Green!” He laughed. “Aight, assholes are coming back around, I gotta go. Stay in touch, Crete.”

The line went dead before I could respond so I just switched off the radio in general since I had no further need of it.

“I d-don’t think she h-heard us…” Gold said hazily to my right.

“Hey Athena! You in there?” Melody giggled, jumping up and tapping the side of my helmet to get my attention.

“Sorry...got lost in thought again.” I said looking towards her. “What’s up?”

“Oh I was just wondering where we’re gonna be moving to!” She said brightly, skipping around another pile of refuse. “Is it big? I hope it’s big! Well...it’s ok if it’s small too. I was just hoping for a big bedroom all to myself but then again I don’t know how big is big for a bedroom because...well, I’ve never had my own bedroom before!”

God her voice was enough to make me swoon…

“Well...I don’t have a place picked out yet, Mel.” I said with a small chuckle. “I mean, I only just decided to move out today so it’s a little soon to have something in place yet, especially given we have a drug lord on our asses. Most ponies plan ahead for moving out. I didn’t leave my house four days ago thinking I was going to be moving, otherwise I would have packed up and left everything with Cogsworth before I even left.”

“Heh, true.” She giggled, bouncing along beside me with the ever dirtying mask over her muzzle.

There were echoing noises bouncing throughout the tunnel as we went coming from the open drain holes above us indicating the search was on even more fervently than before probably due in large part to my business with the Talons. For now thankfully there no angry heads poking down from above and I ignored the angry red ticks on my E.F.S as I still couldn’t tell the difference in how high above or below me any enemies were. I still kept my Sequoia out and floating in front of me with the hammer cocked on an armor piercing round just in case there were some baddies crazy enough to dive down into this shit stream to look for us.

My map beeped sooner than I had expected it to indicating our exit was upon us on the left hoof side. It was as innocuous as any of the other dozens of recessed decorative alcoves that adorned the otherwise drab brick walls of the tunnel but this one was special in that it was yet another of Cogsworth’s ingenious hidden doors. Pushing against an unremarkable brick on the arch caused it to pop open like a little spring loaded panel revealing a keypad with an optional key card reader attached to its side.

“Four two, four two, five six four...whenever you wanna knock on Cog’s old door.” I mumbled with a giggle as I typed the appropriate code into the pad which beeped a happy green light before the brick wall slid into the floor with surprising silence.

“What was that?” Melody giggled as she paused for a moment to see the keypad before following behind Gold and I.

“A little rhyme Cogsworth came up with to remember his master password that he uses for just about everything.” I responded with a smile she couldn’t see. “He taught it to me since he trusts me not to fuck his shit up. And to think they used to bitch all the time at desk jockeys about diversifying your passwords...”

The walk back up the well lit tunnel took barely a few minutes and we exited out into the well-cleaned white and blue colored Atrium of Stable 109. I wasn’t surprised to find it empty as Cogsworth was still open for business and his was one of the most profitable in The Pile next to the Gun Runner’s outlet store. The Stable door was thankfully open so we wouldn’t alert anypony to its presence in the building and we made the short trek into his workshop area where we found Chocolate laying on Cogsworth’s modest bed nestled in the corner of the room nursing a large pout.

“Run up against the old Arabian stoic virtues?” I giggled as she frowned even more at my approach.

“Stoic virtues?!” She pouted. “The guy fucking told me no! Me! Is he always that big of a prude?”

“Eh…” I laughed as I took out the Sigil Stones for my duffle bags and touched them with a bit of magic causing them to be suddenly replaced with the original objects. “It’s how he was raised. His mom taught him to treat mares with respect and not as objects for sexual pleasure only. Until he’s gotten to know you better, he’s going to keep his dick in his pants so to speak. It’s just the kind of guy he is and I honestly really respect that of him. Not enough to do that sort of thing myself but enough to not call him a morally straight-laced tight ass.”

“Humph…” She pouted again with an irritated sigh. “Guess I’ll have to seduce him the old fashioned way.”

“That you do!” I giggled as I stacked the bags with the others in a hidden space behind one of the many tool boxes. “Not everyone out there is a sex crazed nymphomaniac like you.”

“I know…” She sighed with even more irritation in her voice. “Fuckin’ prudes are everywhere. What happened to the good old days where you just had to ask and boom, you can get laid the next second?”

I could tell Melody was starting to get very uncomfortable with the subject by the way she bit her lip and looked around the workshop as if for a place to hide so I changed the topic as best I could without being too jarring.

“Speaking of the old stoic, where is he?” I asked, looking around the otherwise empty shop.

“Dealing with some asshats who wanted to buy some shit.” She sighed, nodding to the newly hung curtain over the doorway leading out to the store portion. “Something about one of those robot dudes. You know, I wonder just what kind of sexy attachments those Mr. Helper dudes got. I certainly could use the help, especially from something that doesn't have a one-shot rifle if ya get my meaning.”

And I thought I thought about sex too much...but goddamn was she a piece of work. I stood by the curtained doorway for about fifteen minutes waiting for Cogsworth to finish his business and listened keenly at how great of a salespony he was. For every question about his many wares, he had an immediate and informational answer that was tailored specifically for the ponies he was working with rather than a memorized script for general use. When complimented on his work and the condition of his products, he always acted with humility and made sure to compliment them in return for something of theirs that he appreciated be it their armor, weapon or even manestyle. By the time he parted the curtain and walked back into the workshop, he had a fat sack of caps in his possession and a happy smile on his face as the sounds of his satisfied customers left the store through the skywalk. The guy would have thrived as a telemarketer in another, less exciting life.

“If ever there comes a day where I do not make a single purchasing customer happy, please do indulge me with a thorough and complete lashing for mine incompetence in satisfying the needs of my fellow Equestrians.” He said with a solemn smile as he deposited the sack in a large safe amidst piles of other bags waiting to be counted at the end of the day.

“Knowing you Cogs, that’ll never happen. Besides, we both know I don’t want to hit you even if you’re a jackass sometimes.” I giggled softly in response, noting how he was potentially wealthier than I was with just what he had in that safe alone, not to mention the much bigger vault he kept hidden deep in the Stable.

“Indeed…” He chuckled before he looked at the pile of duffle bags over by where Chocolate lay talking with Gold. “Ah, I see your venture was a successful one. Tis a blessed sight indeed to see the gift of luck was with thee.”

“Yeah, the sewer route was a wonderful idea.” I said in a sarcastic tone, glancing at the dirty brown mask lying on a table near Melody. “Such a wonderful smell you discovered there Cogs!”

He rolled his eyes and walked over to the bags, opening a few of them and peeking at the contents before saying, “My word...you brought everything.”

“Well I’ve got a drug lord and his army of psychofucks on my ass so what’d you expect?” I asked, looking at the faint bloodstain on the floor where Cook Cook met his fate earlier. “If you’re gonna haul ass for your life, you can’t half ass it. You either go full ass or none at all.”

Chocolate giggled gleefully and commented, “Damn straight! Ain’t nopony goin’ to go half ass on my ass!”

Cogsworth and I both rolled our eyes as I continued.

“Thanks Cogs…” I said with as much sincerity as I could muster without coming off as cheesy. “I really owe you for this.”

“Think nothing of it!” He chuckled with a bright smile, nodding towards his workshop. “Where would I be without the aid of my closest associate?”

“Eh...probably still working that Brahmin farm with your family?” I suggested.

“Oh my...let’s refrain from going there shall we?” He responded with a sigh. “What are your plans now? You have your belongings but no lodging. You and your friends are more than welcome to lodge within mine Stable though I do not think that is what you wish to fix as a permanent solution to your housing needs, is it not?”

I nodded. The Stable would be a nice place to bed down for a few days while we waited for Green to start searching elsewhere for us but as it was unfinished and thus unfurnished, I doubted everypony would find it comfortable for longer than a few weeks. While it did offer us a decently covert route around New Pegasus, we couldn't stay for very much longer in the area. Still, it would buy us time to find a new home somewhere else, hopefully somewhere relatively nearby since I didn’t like the thought of moving to the other side of the country. I may be on the run but the Westcoast was my home. The ideal location was an abandoned office building or hotel, something that we could barricade and fortify while living on the top floor out of the reach of most enemies. There were a few buildings I knew of that fit that bill though I had yet to fully inspect the majority of them and I didn’t want to move into a complete dump. A partial dump that could be cleaned up relatively easily and restored with some effort and time was what I was willing to settle for. It was straight up stupid to hold out for a well preserved building like something found on the Stirrup and even then, this was the West. Aside from the Stirrup, the only buildings around that broke the 10th-floor marker were going to be East of Canterlot where skyscrapers were much more in fashion and widespread.

“Thanks Cogs. I have a general idea for the perfect place but I’m going to need your help finding something like it. Or hell even something close to what I have in mind given how small shit is around here. You willing to help me out?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t abusing our relationship by asking for so many favors in one day.

“Of course!” He smiled. “I would love to further assist you in this endeavor! You assisted in my acquisition of this place and thus it is only fair that I assist you in finding a place of your own. No mare nor stallion should be without a pocket of land to call their own and you are no different from they.”

“Sweet. We’ll go get settled in, in the Stable. Once we’re ready we can sit down and talk about what I’m looking for, k?” I asked, moving to go pick up Chocolate who scowled at me.

“Oi! You still owe me a pair of legs sugar ass! That nurse chick was very clear we needed to get it done before the shit she did to mah stubs wears off so let’s get me some sweet new robolegs eh?”

“Ah yes, pardon my lack of remembrance. Please allow me to begin constructing them immediately.” Cogsworth apologized as he quickly began gathering tools and materials from around the shop. “Do pardon the time required to construct these as they are very delicate devices and require time in order to be built properly. It should take me no more than eight hours to complete them, ten if I require more raw materials than I currently have available.”

“Honey, I’ve got all the time in the world.” She giggled, licking her lips again as her eyes strayed to his ass. “Maybe we can get to know each other better eh?”

“I’m out!” I laughed as I took Melody and Gold with me back into the Stable with a few spare cots Cogsworth loaned to us for our stay.

“Chocolate is a slut.” Melody said simply as we set everything up, her bed noticeably placed near enough to my own that she could easily reach out and touch me if she wanted to. “Do you think your friend would be a good stallion for her…?”

I was surprised by the sudden question that sounded all too grown up coming from somepony as relatively young as her. It was obvious she cared about Chocolate as evidenced by how she paid her extra attention back in Old Appleloosa but I wasn’t really sure just how much of a history they had together. The most I could assume was it was just a mutual friendship between two girls living in the shit together but still, it was touching to see how much she cared for her friend’s well being. I knew Cogsworth very well, more than enough to say beyond a doubt the guy was completely and utterly single. We never really talked about it much but it was more or less due to him just waiting for the perfect mare to show up in his life. Of course, this was despite my constant suggestions he go out looking for her rather than just waiting for her to come to him. Not only that, but I did also try to open his mind to the idea of potentially looking for a stallion for himself since as a bisexual mare myself, I found I got along with and understood my own gender better than the opposite one. He wasn’t keen on the idea sadly... I could think of a few stallions who would be good for him that worked in the Pile but...not everyone could be as 50/50 as I tended to be.

When it came to Chocolate though...I did have to wonder if this was the mare he was looking for. She was crass, overtly sexual, good looking in her own way (like I said, I’m just not one for the color brown) and had a rather fun, unique personality. From what I knew of Cogs, he was looking for a mare more or less that fit her description. He liked girls who were bubbly, sarcastic, optimistic and had a well proportioned, thicker physique; that is to say he liked girls with big, plump asses. The years of slavery hadn’t exactly left a nice plump to her ass, but I was sure with proper care and some time she would fit that bill nicely. Not only that, but she seemed like the kind of mare who wanted a nice fat ass as opposed to myself who preferred my asses slim, firm and toned. Still...all rambling aside, she seemed like a good candidate for my lonely friend who I knew was pent up down under and was fit to burst. Yeah...Chocolate and Cogsworth would make a good couple. Barring any unknown hitches, Cogs was going to treat her like a Saddle Arabian queen. His queen.

“He’s the best stallion I know.” I said firmly, looking at her with confidence. “He’s one of the few guys I know who I feel confident in calling a true gentlecolt. He’ll take great care of her, I promise you. I’ve known him for over twenty years and I know he will treat her like a Queen. No doubt in my mind. Guy's totally into the old chivalry stuff of the past.”

“Well...awesome.” She said after a moment of thought, looking up at me with a soft smile. “She deserves somepony like him then. Has for a very, very long time now.”

“Hey…” I started slowly, trying to form the right words so I didn’t come off sounding rude. “How did she end up...disabled like that?”

“Oh…” She responded with a soft sigh causing my stomach to lurch a bit with apprehension. “We were out picking mutfruit for Jangle since she was throwing some party or something and wanted fresh fruit for her guests. So, me and her and a bunch of others were out looking for them near the old orchards South of town just before Death Valley begins. There was a big old RadWasp in one of the bushes that got angry, one of those scaryyyy ass black and red ones, and we backed off. There was a loud beep and then...boom. Her legs got blown off by a landmine somepony had left in the dirt.”

“D-damn…” Gold whispered as he looked towards the giant Stable door. “P-poor girl…”

Melody nodded in a somber way before yawning and curling up on her cot with heavy eyes. Soon she fell asleep, followed minutes later by Gold who was probably just as exhausted as she was from the excitement of the day. I sat up on my cot watching them, wondering what I was becoming by taking these two into my life. I didn’t feel ready let alone worthy to call myself a mother just yet but…I did feel some sort of maternal connection to them, Melody especially but to Gold as well. Every day that passed with these two felt more vivid and crisp in my mind and heart than any I had experienced in the history of the Wasteland. The days were no longer blink and you'll miss it moments...but they didn't drag on like others did either. I felt like I was finally awake. Finally...aware again that I still had something left of my heart and...it could still feel good things and in turn make me feel...well...happy. Melody with her courage, charm and similitude with Huckleberry and Gold with his eagerness and genuine curiosity.

I knew he was far older than he looked but his looks inspired feelings of youth in my mind associated with him and just by the way he acted, it was clear he hadn’t exactly grown into mental adulthood. At the very least, I was their guardian. Melody needed a lot of time and love to recover from what happened to her and Gold...well, I had to admit I didn’t know much more about him than the fact he was a Ghoul with a fascination with the Desert Rangers. Still though, there was a certain frail innocence about him that made me feel more motherly towards him than I would towards a mere friend. I felt the instinctual need to care for him just as I was going to care for Melody, though I also recognized he probably was capable of being more independent than Melody was. I mean after all, I did meet him at the Camp Macintosh Crater where he was bravely searching for his lost gun by himself in a place notorious for Hellhound activity. The kid could take care of himself and with a bit of extra training, I was sure he would end up as one of the lucky ones who survived in the long term.

Still...I was unprepared to be a mother. I was somewhat confident in my abilities as a guardian since it was like watching my fellow soldier’s backs only with a pair of kids but motherhood continued to hold some mystical, frightening meaning that I was uncertain about. Huckleberry was the more motherly of the two of us. I was the ‘dad’ figure since I was such a goddamned tomboy and was given to acting like a guy more than a proper lady while Hucks was more half-and-half with her gender roles. She was the more mare-like of us and was the one who was more serious about adoption and planning for a baby than I was. Of course...it had to be up to me to make changes in my life in order to adopt a child. Or two. I was really unsure of what to do with Gold...but Melody for sure was going to be my daughter. Whether or not she accepted it...I was going to treat her as my own in my heart and pray like hell she would be receptive to the idea.

Looking over the two of them I just couldn’t help but whisper in frustration, “Goddamnit...why is it so fucking hard to parent kids you haven’t even adopted yet?”

I answered my own question...I had to tell them. Wait, scratch that. I had to ask them first. Worst move I could make would be to adopt them without even asking first. With that in mind, I had the resolve to at least put the idea in their heads about my potential candidacy for parenthood. It was times like these where I wished I had my own mother to turn to for advice on this whole parenting thing since I was as underprepared as could be. So many questions never asked because I never in my life thought I would one day be like her...oh Goddesses...what would she even think of me...?

My armor and coat weighed heavily on my back as I sat there fighting off the allure of a safe night's sleep. I was in a Stable for Celestia's sake...I could sleep for as long as I wanted, as deeply as I wanted and nopony could stop me but myself. With slight trepidation I began to shed my layers of protection and set them on the concrete floor next to me finally getting truly naked for the first time since my last bath a week prior. Even my escapade with Chocolate saw me continuing to wear at least the upper-body portion of my underbarding just in case we were interrupted by a madmare with a pistol or something. It wouldn't be my first time getting caught scissoring another girl and getting pushed into desperate combat.

The air in the Stable was cool against my fur and I felt up my chest and legs with a hoof, losing count of how many scars I had covering my body from my years of constant abuse. There were knife marks, bullet wounds, burns from both fire and energy weapons and many others that I had a hard time remembering the origin of. Above all the rest though were the bizarre, jagged scars along my lower spine that marked where I had been literally Tainted in the caverns beneath Splendid Valley. In the darkness of the Stable I could almost see the faint purple glow emanating from them, a constant reminder that though I was 'lucky' to be alive...I was a marked mare. I had more in common with a Ghoul and a mutated animal than I did with Melody...but for what I was worth, I was going to prove myself wrong. I was going to be better than the mare I had been. I was going to stop merely existing and start living...and that all was going to start with asking Melody to be my daughter. Certainly not what I expected...but I was grateful for it nonetheless as nothing in this life comes free.

****************

Chapter Twenty: Mutual Suspicion of Authority

“Anythin’ tah report Crete?” The Colonel asked as I stood before him in the small white canvassed office that had been set aside for him amongst the many rooms of the Command Tent.

“No, Sir.” I said simply, wishing I had the extra layer of facial protection my mask provided. Not from attack but from my less than perfect poker face that knew more than I was telling my commanding officer.

“Hmmph…” He grumbled as he fell back into his hard wooden chair that was far less comfortable than his personal chair back at Camp Macintosh.

“Is there something wrong, Sir…?” I asked with some hesitation as I couldn’t yet tell if he had seen through my lie.

“Can we speak as friends, Crete?” He asked suddenly, nodding for me to close the door, which I promptly did before sitting down on an equally uncomfortable chair in front of his desk.

“O-of course, Sir.” I responded with a soft hitch in my voice. He liked to talk as friends often but there was something about his current attitude that had me on edge.

“Tell meh honestly…” He said tiredly, looking at me with a sudden age appearing in his face that made him finally look as worn out as his official record of forty years in the service indicated. “What are yer thoughts on th’ General?”

“Would you like my official thoughts or my personal thoughts…?” I asked after a moment’s hesitation.

“Well considerin’ Ah just muted th’ microphone they snuck intah mah desk, Ah want yer personal feelin’s on th’ bastard.” He chuckled softly, pulling out a small black disk that had obviously been taped to the bottom of the dull metal desk he had been given, a noticeable bullet hole through the center.

He called the General a bastard so he definitely wasn’t fucking around with this and wasn’t pulling my tail either. I loved my C.O for these very reasons. He knew how to balance professional with personal relationships when it came to how he interacted with his subordinates. It transformed him from some untouchable figurehead to more of a father figure anypony could turn to, save for the new Recruits who had learned to fear authority in the General Army. More often than not he would share a cigar or a bottle of his personal stash of Apple Jack Whisky with a group of his Rangers during the night when things had wound down for the day and swap dirty jokes and war stories. If not for the large office and the silver phoenix insignia pin on his hat and lapels, it would be hard to distinguish him as a C.O rather than just a Ranger or even a common soldier like everypony else at camp.

“Well...if I’m allowed that kind of freedom, then I’m just gonna be brutally honest.” I said with a grin as he leaned back as best he could and sipped from a bottle of whisky while lighting a cigar.

“Yer honesty is ahlways brutal, Crete.” He chuckled as he took a long drag on his stogie and let the thick grey smoke billow out of his mouth like a lazy steam engine. “Tha’s why Ah like ya so much.”

“Thanks…” I replied with a small blush before I regained my composure enough to say, “I think he’s a fucking sadistic racist fat assed asswipe. Sir.”

He laughed heartily as he took a long swig of his bottle and another drag on his cigar.

“Glad Ah’m not th’ only one who thinks our C.O is ah fuckin’ pig.” He chuckled with a wide grin.

“Sir…?” I asked with more humility than I had intended, the need to tell someone other than my Squad what the General had ordered us to do rising like a viper of disgust in my breast.

“Yessir?” He asked, looking up from his bottle that he had been studying, the alcohol already starting to glaze his eyes over a bit with sleepy contentment.

“The General...he’s gotten intel that there’s a caravan of Zebras coming in from the Empire here in a week or so and he’s asked Alpha Squad to lead the assault on it.” I said in a hurried tone as if we were going to be discovered at any moment by the General or worse someone from the M.O.M.

“Oh? Well tha’s nice.” He said with a smile. “Not many get tah do ah mission given by th’ General. Give them Zebras ah nice assbeating k?”

“No, Sir please listen.” I said with almost frantic fervor as i tried to convey the horror of the mission. “The convoy is a bunch of foals. Zebra foals.”

“Foals…?” He asked with confusion. “Why send ah buncha kids tah fight ah War?”

“They’re going to try and settle the Badlands but I don’t think they’ve gotten word about how close we are to kicking them out of here.” I said, trying to settle my frantic speech enough to get through to him. Yet another reason I hated alcohol.

“The General wants us to kill a bunch of kids.” I said with as much sternness as I had in my possession. “Instead of sending them back home or taking them in for ‘relocation’, he wants them all fucking obliterated. He’s assigning his Shock Troopers to work with us and their weapons are designed for massive carnage. Like 60mm launchers and .50 cal miniguns. You don’t send that kind of shit in unless you’re wanting to leave a crater.”

“Th’ T-51?” He asked slowly, visibly trying to fight through the haze of intoxication. “Fuckin’ serious?”

“Have I lied to you before?” I asked before I immediately wished I had worded that differently.

“Heh...ya have Crete but yew don’ fuck around wit' somethin’ this crazy.” He said eliciting a sigh of relief from me. “Ah’m gonna call this one in. He may be th’ General but he still has tah talk tah meh before he goes n’ snags mah top Rangers. Tha’ alone is enough tah phone in abou’. Real question is how th’ fuck do we call this here bullshit in an’ keep ya off tha’ bastard’s Black List? Last thang Ah want is tah have him ship yer ass off tah th’ Zulu Campaign and then boom. Yer fuckin’ dead.”

I stared at him with shock as he confirmed my suspicions about the mysterious disappearances of more than a dozen officers that I knew about who either got suddenly reassigned to the Zulu Campaign in the Empire or just flat out vanished like they had never existed in the first place.

“Yep, Ah know about th’ General’s Black List…” He said with a heavy sigh. “Ah ended up on it at one point but he couldn’ get rid of meh so easily. See, mah daddy is one of them bigshots back home so tah have meh killed would’ve sparked up an investigation and he ain’t got official backing by M.O.M fer his shit. They’d rip him apart...but we can’ report him just yet. We still gots ourselves ah War tah fight and he’s ah competent tactician. We’ll use this here mission of yers tah our advantage though. Any ideas?”

I thought it through seriously as we were both on the line now. The most logical thing would be for the Colonel to head to Canterlot himself in person and tell the Princess and any others his concerns about what was going on on the Southern Front. Due to the nature of the two pronged attack of the Zebras splitting us between the Eastern and Southern Fronts, most of Equestria’s attention was on the East as many more large cities existed in the area whereas the South was nothing more than dirt, sand and small agricultural towns. With the situation being as it was, the General was granted a lot more leeway in how he ran things as he wasn’t under direct and constant supervision by the Princess, which accounted for the existence of his personal Black List. The fucker could kill or otherwise dispose of anypony he wanted whether or not they posed an actual threat to his reign over the South. The gold stars were his crown and the Badlands his kingdom. The image of the silver engraved motto of the Desert Rangers on my Sequoia came to mind. ‘Against All Tyrants’. It’s what I signed up for wasn’t it?

“Alright, I’ve got an idea.” I said quickly, hoping our time together in private wasn’t running out sooner than I had time to explain. “He gave all of us these holotapes with the mission briefing on them but we’re not supposed to access them until the sixteenth. I don’t know if these things are tracked for unauthorized access but I’m sure you can find somepony who can fiddle around and find out. Either way, take it with you as evidence for my claims.”

“Take it where?” He asked, the alcohol leaving a confused but happy grin on his face.

“Canterlot.” I said firmly, setting the small holotape on his desk with a metallic clack. “Take it all the way up to the fucking Princess if you have to. They’ll listen to you more than they would me. Besides, I don’t exactly have the jurisdiction to come and go as I want like you can. I have to stay back here and lead my team.”

“Tha’ there is truer than a fuckin’ college textbook!” He chuckled, ending in a small hiccup. “Get it? ‘Cause them textbooks be ahll facts n’ truths eh?”

I responded with a half-hearted giggle at his unique if somewhat lame attempt at humor and after a few more minutes of idle conversation about the things we hated about the General’s tubby appearance, I finally asked if I could retire for the night. It didn’t take much for him to agree as it was five something in the morning and I hadn’t been able to sleep since the night before due to the impossibility of taking a nap in this goddamned heat.

His snores were almost noticeable through his closed door as I shut it behind me and took off towards the exit of the Command Tent, only for the familiar voice to call out, “Well, well, well! Colonel Crete! May I have a word with you?”

I steeled myself against my revulsion for the fat bastard and turned to face him and his two Shock Troopers with the neutral face of subordination to authority. It was only the second time I had actually seen him standing and not hidden from the chest down behind a desk and I noticed that his drab olive green uniform did little to hide the excessive curves of his belly and flanks. Perhaps he could delude himself that the uniform suited him and made him look muscular but at three foot ten, he came across more as a gold star spangled bowling ball in a uniform.

“Yes Sir?” I asked with an even a tone as to border on sounding bored.

“Your patrol with Captain Onyx went well I take it?” He asked with a creepy undertone of sneering superiority.

“Yes Sir.” I said simply, focusing my thoughts on images of armor and penetration stats for various bullets to keep myself from showing any emotion.

“Excellent…” He crooned, his accent making my fur stand on end and forcing me to really think about how well a .50 Big Mac Guard saboted tungsten dart would penetrate light armored plating (which was really well, up to nineteen millimeters of steel at 1,400 yards).

“Is there anything else you needed me for, Sir?” I asked politely, nodding towards the large ornate oval clock hanging above the front door. “I would like to turn in for the night.”

“Yes, yes...of course.” He chuckled, motioning for his cronies to follow him. “Take care of yourself, Crete. We need you.”

He left without another word for which I was grateful as I felt I had hit my limit of words that I could spare for him. I nearly galloped the whole way back to my tent, unconsciously wanting to put as much distance between his creepy ass and myself as possible. There was something in the way he addressed me that came across as unnerving and it was more than the fact that he was openly gleeful about mowing down a convoy of children. The skies were clear that night and there was nopony out there digging in the dirt but us. Buck Beak was a bit of a jackass but he knew how to do his job and I had been with him long enough to trust him when he confirmed there was nothing in sight. If there were, he would either just tell us or, more likely than not, just take it out himself as he could never get enough amusement out of the large explosion of dirt and shrapnel (or liquid fire) that came from the end of his grenade launcher. Still...I couldn’t shake the feeling that the General knew a lot more than he let on. Of course then again I was guilty of the same crime.

Walking into my tent, I found all but Huckleberry and Rain Dancer had hit the sack already and were filling the interior of the tent with a cacophony of snores. Huckleberry and Rain were seated at the metal table nursing bottles of water and a light snack of honeyed pine nuts and raisins. They regarded me with tired expressions as I entered and Hucks pulled out a chair for me to sink into, pushing a modest pile of nuts and raisins my direction.

“Well…” I finally said after a few moments of relative silence save for the loudmouthed sleepers to our right. “I told the Colonel about the mission the General gave us.”

“Mhm…?” Rain Dancer hummed tiredly, not even willing to form words.

“He said he’s going to take a trip to see the Princess here soon and take it up with her directly. For now, let’s just go about business as usual and hold our heads down until we get further news.” I said dully, the exhaustion finally catching up with me and sludging my words like molasses.

“Great…” Huckleberry sighed, sucking a nut near her face off the table and into her mouth. “What about what’s his bucket?”

“There’s a lot of buckets out there Hucks…” I sighed back, picking out the raisins from the pile before me since they were at least a little more appetising than the nuts, though not by much.

“You know...the one in black.” She said cryptically.

“Oh...we’ll work with him as best we can. There’s not much we can do about him right now so we just have to wait and see. For now...let’s just call it a night, k?”

We all rolled out of our chairs and into our respective cots, Huckleberry pausing just long enough to grace me with a small but meaningful kiss before we all collapsed as one. There was nothing like a day of pure boredom compounded with insane heat and ending with a bizarre and somewhat stressful night patrol to knock the edge out of a girl and make her sleep through anything.

**********

“I’ve got eyes on twenty Z’s. Looks like they’re trying to sneak around the main thrust and corner some of our G.I’s over by that little patch of trees.”

Out of the corner of my eye I followed the view on the helmet feed and found the spot Buck had indicated on the far left side of the canyon wall where a small knot of dried and dead trees stood, a testament to the once extensive orchards that used to occupy the region. The military had been gracious enough to allow us three whole hours of sleep before we were once again thrust into the heart of the day’s newest push to the south, the air alive with the sound of all manner of gunfire, energy blasts and explosions of all sizes. The Zebras had been busy in those three hours and had set up a defensive perimeter a mile from their camp and had dug in with concerning deftness. They had dialed in their artillery onto strategic points in the trench networks approaching Camp Fuck-Off and had made short work of two heavy pushes South. At the same time they had doubled the number of HMGs and flak cannons pointed at the sky all but denying Airborne units any access to the defensive line and having decent odds of hitting them blindly through clouds.

At the moment we were involved in an ever changing combat scenario where everyone’s skill was put to the test and everyone’s chosen weapon had their time to shine. One moment I would be sending fifteen rounds downrange into a group of Askari or a combat robot and the next Pennies Worth was tearing ass with her combat shotgun as a sudden group of enemies swarmed our position keeping us on a constant arbitrary cycle of long, medium and close range combat. Buck Beak had to be careful when combat came too close for comfort as he easily could injure or kill one of us in his attempts to rescue us with a 40mm, which nearly happened more than once. Thankfully our armor was capable of taking glancing shrapnel and the worse that came of it were some cuts in the small areas not covered by armor.

Luckily for me we were at a long enough pause in fighting for me to turn my scope on the area and confirm there were several Legionnaires flitting through the gnarled trunks headed towards a section of trench that flashed with angry lights from the abundance of gunfire therein. There wasn’t much I could do from my elevation except perhaps catch the group off guard and take a few down but I was overall limited on options since I was several thousand yards away from them and could only catch pieces of the whole picture.

“Light ‘em up!” I commanded with pleasure, knowing he had been waiting for the chance to use his multi-barreled rocket launcher ever since the fighting had started but had been barred from doing so due to the close quarters combat and the high potential for collateral damage.

“Oh I’ll do more than that!” He called back, the feed on his helmet clearly showing the long, wide barrels of his quad-launcher on his left side while his pump-action grenade launcher was clutched in the talons of his right arm. “They gonna get wrecked as fuck, Imma tell ya that much!"

It was interesting to watch the missiles and grenades be shot from his aerial point of view only to detonate on the ground before me engulfing the knot of trees in a large plume of hot smoke and flaming dirt. The Zebras had been engulfed in the blasts and hidden from sight but there was still some satisfaction to be gained by watching the little red ticks on my E.F.S that had marked their position disappear like they had never existed. It was a bit out of our way to protect a group of grunts who were probably going to end up dead anyway by the end of the day but they were our fellow Equestrians at the end of the day. They had earned what little help we could provide amidst our own anthill of problems.

It was easy to disassociate yourself from feeling any sort of emotional attachment to the unknown infantry of the General Army who came and went by the thousands while you and your small team stuck around by virtue of your armor and prowess on the battlefield and it was fairly common for even Rangers to feel a level of contempt for these poor saps. I did my best not to (though even I fell victim to feeling a sense of superiority by being a Ranger and a Veteran at that) because I forced myself to remember these guys and gals had family, friends and dreams of their own. Buck Beak knew this feeling better than any of us having been part of the General Army himself as an enlisted soldier. The only reason he became a Ranger and subsequently a Veteran Ranger was his capability with airborne combat techniques and his obsession with explosive ordinance.

A heavy blast detonated a few feet from me and sent me tumbling over the edge of a nearby trench wall and onto the blood-soaked ground below from the concussive force. The helmet had done its job by protecting my eardrums from exploding from the soundwave of the blast while my armor and duster had absorbed the brunt of the explosion leaving me with a spinning head and a painful bruise that went from my butt all the way to my neck. As I lay in a crumpled heap against the shaking wall of the trench, my helmet kicked in its Medical Health Gauge system to assess the scope of the damage. Pictured on the left of my visor was a basic silhouette of a mare’s body highlighting most limbs and my head in green while left side of my ass, chest and neck showed a greenish yellow color. Nothing too serious (especially compared to the bloodied pulp I would have been otherwise) but I felt the relatively ‘healthy’ green understated how much the bruising actually hurt. Hucks was gonna have conniptions for sure...

“Athena!”

Several thumps nearby told me my team had jumped down after me and a painful lift of the head confirmed it. Everyone minus Buck Beak quickly approached and helped me up to my hooves; Huckleberry checking me for injury while the rest distractedly stood guard nearby. In this maze of trenchworks, we were just as likely to be left alone as be apprehended by the enemy which made our time spent below precious, paranoid and numbered.

“What happened?” Huckleberry asked frantically as she yanked my left leg up and checked my PipBuck for the M.H.G readout. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear..."

“I was hoping one of you had the answer to that…” I groaned, my chest burning somewhat with pain as I breathed in. "Haven't felt a hit like that in awhile so that took me more by surprise than it should have."

“Something went off next to you and next thing we knew you took a dive into this trench.” Rain Dancer commented, looking back at us with his machine gun pointing down the empty furrow of earth before him.

“It felt like a forty-mil…” I groaned, looking up angrily towards where Buck Beak was circling in the sky, small puffs of grey smoke shooting out of his launcher followed by the empty casings falling to the earth around us.

“Mind your aim you dumb shit!” I yelled at him over the radio, craning my head to the side so Huckleberry could jab me in the neck with a dose of Medix to kill the pain. “I know a forty when I feel one!”

“Yo, don’t blame that shit on me, I was still emptying a tube of incendiaries at those shitheads in the trees like you told me to.” He growled back, the sound of his launcher being loaded accompanying the live feed of his armored talons shoving the large rounds into the magazine tube.

“Well then where did it come from?” Huckleberry asked, just as the spark of a bullet shattering on the side of her helmet answered her question.

She and I dropped to the dirt floor, the impact knocking the wind out of me as the Medix had yet to kick in leaving her to draw her rifle and fire ten rounds in quick succession over the heads of Penny and Rain Dancer who had likewise dove for cover. As the empty casings danced off my breastplate and onto the ground, the rapid angry bark of Rain’s machine gun followed suit, accompanied by the flesh tearing roar of Penny’s shotgun. My head was still a bit dazed from the pain but I was infinitely glad that the bullet had only come from a 5.56. Had there been a Zebra with something like a .338 or whatever their equivalent was...I could very well have been laying on my back clutching her lifeless body against me.

While she reloaded her rifle, Huckleberry helped me to my hooves and slipped a standard healing potion into one of my pockets from her collection of medical supplies housed in the large green pouch strapped to her flank she had obtained from the M.O.P before we had set out for the day. It wasn’t the time or place to chance removing my helmet to chug the potion but by the time she had shut the pouch and had pulled back the bolt on her fresh magazine, the Medix was kicking in and I felt a happy numbing warmth spread throughout my body. It wasn’t enough of a dose to render me a stoned-out chemhead as we called addicts but it was definitely enough to render the painful bruise on my side an afterthought.

“Buck! Keep your eyes on us would you?” Rain Dancer groaned over the radio since Buck Beak could have easily warned us of the incoming enemy but had failed to do so.

“Look, I’ve only got two eyes and a whole fucking valley to look at plus you guy’s wingless asses and the fact is - SHIT!” He called back before his video feed dove suddenly, a smoke trail sailing right through where he had just been. “Case in fucking point! I can’t be everywhere at once! You’ve got fucking eyes so use ‘em eh? Such a wonderful fucking idea ain’t it?”

“Fuck you you feather fucking…” Huckleberry growled as she raised her rifle up towards him in annoyance, which I promptly knocked back down with a hoof.

“Hey, he has a point alright?” I barked at her. “We’ve only got one pair of wings in this Squad so let’s not piss him the fuck off too early today, alright?”

“I heard that!” He called back with a laugh as we all caught sight of the barrel of his XM-41 grenade launcher dip down towards where we stood highlighted with little blue ticks above our heads through his helmet feed. “Don’t make me use Big Boss on you!

I rolled my eyes as I caught my AMR thrown over by Penny who was busy picking through the pockets of one of the dead Zebra Askari for spare shotshells so she wouldn’t have to ditch one of her empty magazines in the dirt. Seeing as Equestria was the first to develop firearms in the world, it was only natural that the Empire stole and copied directly from our designs meaning almost all ammo types, save for a select few, were interchangeable. Whether it was a Zebra Assault Rifle or an M16 Carbine didn’t matter since they both used the 5.56mm ammunition. All that mattered then was your taste in weaponry since both Equestrian and Zebra weaponry had their pros and cons. Every now and again you’d come across a Ranger or a G.I who preferred to use a Zebra weapon rather than the Equestrian one they were originally issued. The practice was looked down on but since the soldier was only as good as his weapons let him be, the CO’s tended to overlook it. If someone was a better shot with the enemy’s weapon then let him use it was the ideology.

I took a second to examine my left side as we climbed back out of the trench to the fairly level terrain above and noted the deep scoring on my shoulder guard, breastplate and cuisse as well as the jagged holes torn through my duster. I was lucky to be alive let alone retain all my limbs after a blast like that; it made me a bit sad to see the new fresh paint job I had gotten for my armor get ruined like that. Then again, the holes and the scrapes and dents gave me more of a grizzled veteran look that said, ‘Yeah bitch, I’m a badass. I took a 40 mil to the side and walked it right off, what up?’ The more I looked at the damage and the unspoken message it displayed, the more I found myself liking it. I usually had my armor fully restored and repainted whenever it took damage to keep a nice clean professional appearance but I found the battered and worn look very flattering. One could even say it was sexy in it’s own way.

“Alright, well I have to ask then. Where the hell did that forty come from?” I asked as I looked around at my Squad mates for an answer. “Zebras don’t use launchers, it’s not enough of a physical challenge for them.”

“This one does.” Rain Dancer commented as he rolled the headless body of a Askari onto its back showing a worn M79 grenade launcher strapped to its chest. “Looks like he snagged one of the old single-loaders.”

“What’s the batch number?” Buck Beak asked. “Maybe we can find who owned it.”

“Umm…” Rain hummed as he unclipped the launcher from the body and started peering at the buttstock and barrel. “Let’s see...I.A #592279. No idea who’s it is.”

“Are we seriously wasting time trying to find the owner of a stolen grenade launcher guys…?” Penny sighed as she almost nonchalantly fired a few Dragon’s Spit rounds into the trench near her setting the dirt aflame amidst the shrieks of burning Zebras.

“Hey! A fallen soldier deserves to be buried with his weapon!” Huckleberry and I said at about the same time.

“You said 279 was the last three on that batch number, Dance?” Buck asked, three explosions detonating several yards from us in quick succession followed by three empty 40 casings dropping from the sky next to me.

“Mhm. Oh, looks like there’s a little carving of a duck here on the butt. You know, one of those rubber ducky toys.” Huckleberry commented as she joined in the search for the missing owner, completely ignoring the whizzing bullets and general mayhem of the conflict going on around us.

“Got it, it belongs to Corporal Yellow Duckling. Damn...KIA three months ago over on the Eastern Front. Wonder how it got all the way down here?”

The ground next to us frothed with loose dirt as a large steel scorpion burst out from its tunnel and showered us with red clay. There was no cover to be found anywhere nearby save for diving headfirst back into the trenches, which didn’t seem like a good idea when you’re being tracked by a murderous digging machine. It was one of the Scorpios as we had decided to call them when they had started cropping up on the battlefield about a year ago. They were about twelve feet long from head to tail but were only about four feet wide to make a slimmer profile for when it burrowed through the ground. The Scorpio came equipped with two razor sharp claws on each mechanical forearm that could cut a pony in half with little effort while its tail was equipped with an energy weapon of sorts that shot beams of Necromantic energy at you that would disintegrate almost anything on the spot. Along the length of the tail were retractable metal spines that oozed thick green poison from their tips that could either be whipped into you by its thrashing tail or flung at you from a distance like javelins. It was as if a killer robot had a threesome with a porcupine and a scorpion and then fell into a pot of mystery science juice and then got pickled in really angry Necro-juice. In other words...I had no clue how the damn things were made but they were deadly, angry and really fucking fast.

“Draw its attention!” I called out as it was far too close for my AMR to be effective and safe to use. “Danger close!”

“Got it!” Rain Dancer and Penny’s Worth both yelled back, running in opposite directions before unloading a hail of jacketed lead with their shotgun and machine gun respectively.

Their rounds sparked and fragmented off the Scorpio’s heavy armor as the glowing red ‘eyes’ tried tracking both assailants at once. It raised its tail to the side winding up for a flick of its poisoned spines and hissed with a grainy, mechanical howl of rage that grated on the ears like hooves on a chalkboard. I instinctively dove as the whoosh of its tail whistled through the air behind me as I ran. And not a second too soon as several poisoned spines sailed over me and skidded off into the dirt several yards ahead of the direction I was running towards.

Without another thought I decided I was far enough away to be safe (ish) from the blast of a twenty-five mil and rolled myself back around to face the thrashing steel monstrosity before me. In the back of my mind I knew I had half a mag of high explosive rounds left in my AMR and I also knew it wouldn’t be as effective without an armor piercer but to switch out mags would cost precious time and without proper cover, Penny and Rain were going to get hit eventually.

“High explosive it is!” I mumbled to myself as I lined up my black and red crosshairs on the writhing mass.

“Wait, what?!” I heard Penny yell as I pulled the trigger.

My first shot obviously missed as there was no immediate explosion but my second and third struck the tail and main body of the machine throwing it onto its back with large sparking holes in its steel body. It knew it was hit and immediately buried itself into the ground beneath it and out of sight though now with a definite red tick marking its stationary position just below the surface. It was attempting to hide itself in the hopes we would think it had retreated so it could pop right back out from behind and impale us in the ass with its spines and Necro-weapon. Unfortunately for it we knew this song and dance and could play along.

“Looks like it’s playing hide-n’-seek!” I laughed as I stood up and reloaded my rifle with a magazine of APEI rounds while transferring the empty into a Stone and putting it away. “You got any burrowing charges Buck?”

“Only a few. Why, you want one?” He asked, his helmet feed showing him drawing out one of the black and brown striped grenades that unlike most 40 mils had a pointed tip rather than a rounded one.

“I’d like one, yes.” Rain Dancer replied, flicking the barrel of the recovered launcher downwards and watching the empty casing get ejected over his shoulder. “Oh, and do you serve waffles at this hour or do I have to come back later for those?”

A few seconds later the burrowing charge plopped into the dirt beside him, which he promptly loaded into the empty barrel and aimed directly at the tilled dirt covering our cowardly foe. The burrowing charge itself was initially designed for blasting the interiors of underground bunkers as well as for clearing landmines but we had found them to be equally effective at disabling Scorpios that thought somewhere in their pre-wired heads that they were safe underground. The launcher discharged with a hearty, hollow thump noise (one that I loved immensely) into the dirt only for it to erupt from below with a thermite charge that melted the machine in pieces as effectively as a hot knife through soft butter. In its wake it left a small crater filled with steaming liquid metal like a giant pot of soup fit for a Dragon who sometimes ate metal as well as gems as part of a healthy diet.

“Damn! I didn’t think you’d actually get a good hit on that thing.” Buck snickered as he landed next to us, the gust of air from his outspread wings slowing him down causing our coats to flap around a bit. “I even had a burrowing charge loaded and ready just in case you fucked up like you always do.”

“I’m not even going to respond to that…” Rain replied as he tossed the empty launcher towards him with a bit more force than was necessary.

“Why? Because you know I’m going to say, ‘You learned from the best goddamn Powder Ganger in the Corps’?” Buck chuckled as he slung the pony-sized weapon over his shoulder and resting it against the comparatively massive barrel of Little Big Cannon. “Of course you did! Because I am the best fucking Powder Ganger in this whole damn Corps!”

He proceeded to flex like any musclebound contestant at the Mr. Olympus Bodybuilding Championship, though the effect was dampened by the sleeves of his duster being too loose to show off the true curves and size of his biceps and the weapons on his back restricting his normal mobility. We all shared in a laugh but had to regrettably return to the action that had moved further south than where we stood as we were continually gaining ground in our push towards Camp Fuck-Off. The defense against our progress was fierce but I still found myself...surprised. It just wasn’t as fierce nor as desperate as the previous day’s defense had been. Either we had killed so many of them they were running low on hooves on the ground or they were cooking up something akin to a trap.

“Am I the only one who feels this push is...too easy?” Penny asked as we trotted after our fellow advancing soldiers from all Corps. “I mean, yesterday they went fucking ape on that one ridge a half mile back. I’ve never seen fucking swords cut down that many troops in my life. Ever.”

I returned a silent nod with the rest of my Squad and immediately responded to my gut shrieking for me to check S.A.T.S. The world stood still as the spell artificially jacked up my adrenaline to insane (but still safe) levels and immediately in front of Penny stood a crouching Dragoon highlighted in neon green with a sword like object clearly coming from its mouth poised to strike. I couldn’t target the damn thing as their cloaking spells fucked with the targeting processor but I used the brief few seconds the spell gave me to think through a way to save Penny’s head and kill the Dragoon. I let the spell drop me back into reality with my body already responding to the commands my mind had sent them during S.A.T.S sending me barreling into Penny’s side just as the invisible sword came crashing down on my right shoulder, the raised neck guard catching the blade before it lopped my own head off.

The blow sent me headfirst into the ground, my horn painfully getting jostled a bit inside the hollow cone of the helmet from the impact, but I made an effort to kick in the direction of the invisible Dragoon as I went down hoping the others would catch on. Though I couldn’t see it, as my visor was smudged with wet clay and I was face-first in the dirt, I felt my left hindleg collide against something hard sending a jolt of uncomfortable vibrations up from the tip of my armored hoof and into my hip, which was still sore (if numb) from the earlier explosion. I rolled onto my back to see the partially cloaked body of a Dragoon, this one wearing the same black armor that Zecuro wore, reeling from my kick with a deep bleeding gash on the side of his head from where the somewhat sharpened edge of my combat boot had sliced into him. Before I knew it my Sequoia was out and I was back in S.A.T.S with a ninety-five percent chance to blow his striped head right off his shoulders, which I executed with no little satisfaction.

The body collapsed instantly the moment his head exploded under the might of the explosive bullet and vanished from sight as the hood fell into place where the head would have been, completing the enchantment.

Penny helped me back up asking, “What the hell?! How did you know he was there!?”

I shrugged sheepishly and tried to explain away with the simple gut feeling explanation but she didn’t buy it for a second leaving me with nothing left to try and use to convince her I honestly had nothing other than the fact my gut told me to use S.A.T.S at just that moment. Never mind the fact that I had saved her life, all she was concerned about was my seeming precognition that I didn’t have any explanation for. How was I to explain 'just a feeling'

“Yo, holdup!” Huckleberry called out as she felt around the area where the body disappeared and flung back the cloak to reveal the headless body once more, the earth wet and sticky around the neck region. “This wasn’t Zecuro was it?”

“Oh fuck…” I gasped in fear as I hurled myself towards the body in a panic, silently cursing myself for blowing off the head since that was really the only definite source of identification we had on him.

There wasn’t much to look for as the neck was nothing more than an oozing stump of red flesh and a gore smothered spinal cord and the rest of the body lay hidden inside the strange black armor I had only caught a few glimpses of the night before. The Squad made a defensive circle around me as I made my hurried examination of the body looking for any indication as to who the hell I had just decapitated. I hefted the headless body up and unclasped the Imperial brooch (in the shape of a mohawked skull with ruby eyes surrounded by golden stars) off from around its neck breaking the enchantment on the cloak. The armor beneath was as bizarre as before and I noticed small rubies embedded along the spine that I could only assume interacted with the cloak in some way. The Dragoon didn’t seem to be wearing dog tags of any sort that I could recognize making identification that much more difficult.

Eventually, in frustration, I yelled out, “Who the fuck are you, you blood-belching vagina?!”

“Blood belching what now?” Penny laughed, my anger turning more to embarrassment as I realized the nature of the weird insult.

“Shut up, fucking help me look for something! An ear or a fucking eyeball or something!” I growled back, digging through the gore soaked dirt for anything useful in identifying the deceased.

“Eye found something!” Buck Beak laughed as I looked up and saw him holding a severed eyeball in front of his left eye, the optical nerve dangling like a red and white tail behind it.

“Looks like it’s just the normal brown.” Huckleberry sighed with relief as she examined it for herself amidst Buck’s childish giggling. “Thank Celestia…”

“Yeah, the sword is normal too.” Rain Dancer said as he stabbed the straight bladed weapon into the ground by the body. “Looks like you just killed a regular old shithead. Good for you.”

I too sighed in relief and bent over the body to retrieve the Imperial brooch as well as mark the body with a special E.F.S marker so we could retrieve it later. I wasn’t sure if anyone else yet knew about the upgraded stealth armor being worn by the Dragoons but I intended to let them all know since it was potentially game changing for how we dealt with them in battle. But...I wanted to have some time to look at the armor for myself before I passed it onto the Engineers. I had to stay true to my hobbies and I was hardly opposed to keeping a headless body in my tent for a few hours if it meant I got to see for myself the newest in Zebra armor technology. I had been one of the first to document the Mrk. III and IV Legionary armors when they hit the front lines in the years prior so I felt I was at least partially qualified to examine this new breed of stealth armor.

“Buck!” I called out as I stood and slipped the cloak and brooch into a saddlebag to take back to the Engineers and have another Dragoon added to my head count. “You still got Dark Blaze's call-sign?”

“Yep. Need me to tell him you’ve got another body to snag?” He replied, looking at the body and scratching at his neck.

“Naturally.” I nodded. “Tell him it’s the usual purple tag like last time.”

“Same place as usual?” He asked, tapping one of the rubies on the back of the armor with a talon.

“Yep. Tell him I’ll pay him double if he gets the body out of the armor for me and I’ll even toss in the sword as an added bonus just for the hell of it.”

I guess it was a bit weird (if perhaps immoral) that I hired a friend every now and again from the Engineers Corps to smuggle bodies and their armor back to my tent for my own academic purposes but I wanted to be the first to document new advances in armor any time they came out. I had done the same thing for the Mrk. III and IV and I would continue to do so until the War was over and even past that if Equestria still felt the need to make protective gear. Besides, once the military brass got their hooves on the stuff and made their official report, they tended to understate the protective capabilities of the enemy’s armor and never really mentioned what it was made from. I’m a detail oriented mare when it comes to armor versus bullets. If I know what the enemy is wearing and just how much punishment it can take, then I can adapt my strategy accordingly to best suit what I am up against. I wasn’t always going to be lucky enough to have my AMR and Sequoia on me whenever I got into a fight. Thanks to me and Snatcher we found out the Mrk. III was weak to 5.56 on the sides and flanks and the Mrk. IV was weak in the abdomen to shrapnel and fire.

“What time was that little shindig of yours with Zecuro supposed to happen?” Penny asked as we left the body behind and made our way towards the hastily thrown up mountain of dirt that formed the Zebra’s defensive position of the day.

“Like four in the fuckin' morning or something stupid... I’m gonna need a nap.” I yawned, blinking back the tears that normally followed a yawn and wishing I was in bed before the Medix wore off since I liked sleeping on my left side.

“You know we really should be up there with everyone else…” Rain mumbled as he raised a pair of powered binoculars to his eyes and surveyed the ridge. “Looks like they’re putting up a hell of a fight there.”

I yawned again, the pain in my side starting to return as a dull throbbing ache, which was only going to get worse. As amazing a painkiller as Medix is, it has the tendency to wear off if your heart rate is up and seeing as I had just saved my best friend from a sword to the neck by an invisible assassin and thought said assassin was my other best friend...suffice to say my heart was hitting its athletic threshold and then some. Couple that with the fact Medix was denatured by adrenaline in the bloodstream and even the ten cc’s I got was on its way out in a hurry. Thankfully, unlike RadAway, it wasn’t a diuretic so I wouldn’t have to worry about a bathroom break anytime soon.

“Think you guys can handle it from here?” I asked with yet another yawn, looking between them and the ridge ahead. “I need a nap for tonight.”

Buck sighed irritably since he was always gearing for a nap no matter what, but I had important things to do and he didn’t. Plus, a First Sergeant’s commands versus a Lieutenant Colonel’s? No fucking contest. And Celestia be praised for that; otherwise he’d be asleep half of the day and blowing shit up the other half. When those halves happened to occur during the day was up for ambiguity to decide.

“Yeah, I think we’ve got this. Mind if we snag your AMR?” Penny asked sweetly. “Some of us don’t come equipped with a rifle and besides, it’s always good to have an Anti-Machine riflemare on hoof right?”

I tossed it to her and then turned to Huckleberry for my ‘excuse’ to return back to camp before the assault was over. She had a Zebra rifle up and at the ready pointing at the gap between my bracers and the rebraces above. I hated getting shot but I needed the excuse to go home with the only recourse being self-inflicted bodily damage to such a degree as to warrant a medivac. With modern painkillers and Emergency Restoration Potions, many battlefield injuries can and would be treated in the field either from your personal medkit or that of your Squad medic. All these options for getting a soldier back on his or her hooves in the AO made it difficult to find an injury big enough to require seeing an actual healer for. After another heavy dose of Medix, I felt stoned enough to tackle a moving train head on and not feel a thing so I gave her a long lazy nod followed with a stupid giggle. With a small laugh she pulled the trigger and my front legs buckled out from under me though I didn’t feel a thing aside from a painful tickling sensation in my knees. This was followed up with some not-so pleasant knife work from Hucks who knew just where to cut and stab so as not to kill me but leave me with enough injuries that even an Extra Strength would have some trouble managing all of the damage in one dose.

As I laid on my back, Penny and Huckleberry spreading some of my blood on my sleeves and breastplate to make the injuries look worse, Rain Dancer called in over his radio, “Alpha Seven-Six to base, we need medical exfil stat! Alpha Six-Nine is down! I repeat, Alpha Six-Nine is down!”

The blood loss, coupled with the heavy dose of painkiller, were taking their toll more than I expected and I wound up blacking out in the hooves of Huckleberry. We both knew the wounds were treatable in field with her kit and I wasn’t really in any danger but...I still felt bad for forcing her to even pretend that I was in mortal peril. At the very least, I wanted the last thing I saw before I drifted off to be her face but I had to stick with the menacing gas mask of her helmet instead. The only indication of who dwelled inside being the big 303 written in big white numbers on her neck guard and the sides of her helmet. My last thought before unconsciousness set in was a vague hope I got to steal one of the M.O.P’s blankets when they checked me out.

*****************

Chapter Twenty-One: Time for a New Path in Life

My dreams that night were different than usual. Really, it was odd in general to dream at all anymore as they seem to have long since abandoned me leaving my sleep a dull, blank experience. Despite it having been a good four decades since my last actual dream had occurred, this one was unfortunately a return to the same old nightmares that had plagued me since the Great War. The dream was really more like a constantly shifting mosaic of nightmares all rolling from one to the next like it was following some cinematic script. Sometimes I was back in the Badlands watching my Squad slowly fall around me as we fought to the death to defend a position. Other times, I was back at home with mom, looking out the window watching Balefire slowly consume the town around me while mom simply held me to her chest and tried to sing a lullaby to get me to sleep. Aside from mom and Huckleberry, everypony I met in my dreams were faceless as if my mind was trying to convince me that I had truly forgotten who my greatest friends and colleges were in years past. And yet, whenever one of them were killed I somehow knew exactly who they were despite there being nothing about them to distinguish them from the next faceless entity fighting alongside me. Perhaps the strangest part of it all was the fact that aside from mom’s lullaby, there was no noise whatsoever. The faceless didn’t scream, the bullets didn’t whistle as they went on by...the noise of death was naught but silence. And to be honest the silence scared me most of all.
“Athena! Wake up!”
The sudden existence of noise in my world of silent destruction was so jarring that I flung myself out of bed and onto the floor, the panic in my dazed mind frantically looking for something to defend myself with. Melody and Gold both jumped away from me in shock, the haze of my nightmares casting them in a twisted light of black and red causing my panic to become terror. The small part of my mind that still clung to reason and reality screamed at me that I was just experiencing another panic attack but the screams of terror every other part of my brain were shrieking into my senses drowned out reason. There was little I could do to reason with an attack like this but clench my eyes shut and cling to what shred of conscious sanity I had left inside me until it was all over.
It took a few moments for the haze to fade and I found myself curled up under Melody’s cot trembling and sobbing into the veil that lay before my face that was my own mane. The emotions coursing through my body were all so muddled and intermixed that it was hopeless to try and give even one of them a name; let alone stem the flow of ugly tears pouring from my eyes. I could feel the eyes of Melody and Gold on me, witnessing the badass mare of yesterday broken and defeated lying on the floor curled up under a bed like a foal. It hurt my pride to let them see me in such a state...but with every tear and every choked sob escaping my body I felt better. I wasn’t plagued with continued visions of death and sadness but they had left their emotional caress on my system. Crying...that was something else to add to the list of forgotten emotions of the last two centuries. Forgot how wet and messy your face and muzzle get...
“Hey...shhhh...it’s ok.” I heard Melody whisper comfortingly to my right followed shortly by her small but surprisingly warm body snuggling up to me. “You’re gonna be ok.”
Words continued to evade my abilities and instead what came out were nothing more than soft sobs of attempted speech. Her warmth was welcoming though and I found immense solace in its presence beside me, the sodden veil over my eyes flopping off as her little muzzle brushed it away from my face, her lips barely brushing against my own as she went. It was too subtle to have any more meaning behind it than a mere coincidental accident but it caused my weary heart to flutter a bit in my chest. I wanted a real kiss...but it was far too soon to be seeking one from her. Still...the small glimpse into what it would be like was more than enough to rouse me from the sad chains binding me to the cold concrete floor of the Stable Atrium. She was someone worth keeping it together for. Myself I couldn't give a fuck less about anymore...but she, she was someone to believe in and try to fight for.
“T-thanks…” I mumbled with a heavy sniff as I shakily got to my hooves then collapsed onto her cot behind me.
She beamed with a mixture of pride and compassion and helped me lay back and into the down feather pillow which she strategically placed under my head so I could still see everyone in comfort. Gold stood awkwardly next to his own cot looking torn between wanting to help and having no clue how to do so. I felt exposed and strangely naked without my coat and armor on. My patchwork of scars and burns were not entirely visible through my relatively well groomed coat but in that moment I felt like every single one of them shone like slivers of ugly light. Neither of them seemed to pay my collection of physical imperfections much mind though Melody did take a look, at once both intrigued and saddened by what she saw.

I tried to form the words needed to allay their worries about my condition but was prevented from doing so by Melody who gently offered me a bowl of warm oatmeal and Brahmin milk with a bit of brown sugar and a worn silver spoon. The aroma was thick and sugary and reminded me of more than a few warm recollections involving oatmeal and Huckleberry. The two were always paired together in my memory, almost as much as the smell and image of buttered toast. Sadly, the toast was missing from Melody’s simple meal but I was grateful nonetheless for her offering.
“I made this for you while you were asleep.” She beamed, nodding towards a small hotplate set on the floor nearby with a covered pot set on top and some raw ingredients set to the side. “I don’t know how to make a lot of kinds of food, but I hope you like it!”
I wanted to thank her for her thoughtfulness (as well as comment on my love for oatmeal) but she again stopped me by basically shoving a spoonful of the warm delicious sludge into my open mouth with a small smirk tugging at the corners of her beaming face. The consistency was a bit thicker than I preferred my oatmeal to be (I liked mine a bit more on the soupy side) but the oats were properly cooked and the balance of milk and brown sugar was perfect. The feeling in my gut was one of satisfied contentment and the bowl was scarfed down faster than I think she or I thought.
I was halfway through licking the leftovers from my lips when she giggled, “Damn...you ate that up like crazy! Was it that good?”
I had to catch myself from mumbling something about eating her up like crazy and instead responded with, “You’re damn right it was that good! Where’d you learn to make oats like that?”
“Chocolate actually.” She smiled as she ran to refill my bowl with another round of the grey sludge. “It’s the only thing she knows how to cook, so she taught me how to make it since...some ponies really liked it.”
Her last few words hung heavy in the air with awkward tension and I understood what she was implying. Jangle, or one of her underlings, really liked oatmeal. I could only hope my love for the stuff wouldn’t bring up bad memories for the poor girl. She quickly recovered though and returned with another bowl and a big smile on her face. I found myself picturing herself in a nurse’s uniform like Huckleberry would wear every now and again just to get me to squirm and wriggle when I was feeling ill. It was rare that I would catch something like the flu (or once a horrible case of Dragon Pox) but she would use the situation to dress up whenever she brought be something like soup or, as is probably obvious by now, some oatmeal and toast. Depending on how well I felt though would determine if she followed up the meal with some ‘desert’. Not for Dragon Pox though. That was an ugly sickness...
“Heh, you ok Athena?” She asked as she levitated the bowl onto my lap, the warmth immediately pressing against my aroused nethers and eliciting a mewling moan from me, much to our combined embarrassment.
“H-heh...thanks, Melody!” I quickly squeaked as I yanked the bowl from my crotch and buried my red face into its contents guzzling them down hoping they would calm me down but it was too late.
“Alrighty...looks like you and that bowl need some time alone.” Melody giggled as the bashful shame flooded my face painfully.
I dropped the bowl in defeat and set it down on the floor beside me, hiding my face behind my scarred hooves in shame for being so aroused by someone as young as she was. Huckleberry wouldn’t ever let me hear the end of it, I knew that much...but then again Huckleberry was the kind of mare who’d be into young mares. Always envious of their smaller asses and more vibrant coat colors. Goddesses...everything was getting so confusing in my life, I had no clue how to deal with it all. The last week had been a rollercoaster of change and I was amazed I was keeping my cool after a century's worth of status quo just got shattered on almost a whim.
“Don’t be shy.” Melody laughed innocently beside me. “If oatmeal turns you on, then that’s cool by me! You never have to be afraid of loving what you love. We all have to have weird things we like to make us different...otherwise, we’d all be the same and that’s super boring. I like being me. There’s only one of me out there in the world and I have to live up to that uniqueness in any way I can. Especially now that I actually can.”
“Hucks used to say something like that…” I mumbled to myself, looking up from my hooves at the boring grey wall in front of me. "Something very similar..."
“Hmm? Who said what?” Melody asked sweetly, looking over at me with a tender smile.
“Huckleberry...my...fiance.” I managed to say with great effort. “She...she used to say stuff like that all the time. She loved being unique. To call her weird was a compliment...heh, to call her insane was taken as a badge of honor. 'I'd rather be called insane than crazy because crazy implies I can be reasoned with.' She always liked to say. She loved being weird...she’d go out of her way sometimes to do weird shit just to get me to laugh on a bad day.”
“Oh? Like what?” She asked as she sat on the cot beside me.
“Well...one time she stuck fruit on her horn and tied a blanket around her neck and danced like she was a Flamenco dancer.” I replied quietly, gaining more confidence and volume the more I remembered the event. “No music or anything, she just danced like nopony was watching and made up her own music by singing nonsense. She didn’t speak a lick of Espania but it sounded like she was fluent in it when she danced...I laughed so hard I threw up.”

“Wow...she sounds awesome.” Melody said in a hushed voice, an amused smile gracing her muzzle. “Wish I could have seen it. Why did she do it?”

“Well...I was having a really bad day…” I lamented, looking towards the armor and duster I had deposited on the concrete floor next to my cot. “We had lost a bunch of good soldiers in a freak accident back at camp…”

“W-what happened…?” She whispered in a fearful tone, eying me carefully so as to gauge if she was asking too deep a question.

“A battery of Solar Eclipse shells exploded.” I replied simply. “Those are the hundred-and-fifty millimeter shells used exclusively by big artillery guns.”

I drew in the air the dimensions of the massive piece of ordnance that was roughly four and a half feet in length and six inches thick to demonstrate the size of a single shell.

“About fifty of those all went off at once...one of my close friends was caught in the blast. The kill radius of a single one-fifty is fifty meters. Multiply that by fifty plus some extra power from the gunpowder in each casing and the blast was big enough to leave a small crater the size of a warehouse. Only time I’ve seen that much power from a single blast that wasn't an actual bomb was from a BEL.”

“A BEL? W-what’s t-that?” Gold asked, jumping into the conversation with sudden interest.

“It’s short for Balefire Egg Launcher.” I replied, thinking back on the first time I laid eyes on one with Captain Onyx. “It’s basically like a rocket launcher/slingshot thing for miniature Balefire Bombs. There’s a few of them still left out there in the Wastes plus the rare Balefire Egg or two for it. If you ever see anypony hefting what looks like a metal half-pipe with grips onto their shoulder, fucking run. Unless of course it’s your goal to die horribly in a pink and purple mushroom cloud of Necromantic obliteration. Thankfully the range is pretty dismal on those things since they fire with compressed air and pneumatics and the Balefire charge is rather small and isolated but still. Wanna be at least 500 meters away just to be careful.”

“How many of those things are there?” Melody asked, looking towards the securely bolted door of the Stable with uncertainty.

“Eh...I’m not entirely sure to be honest.” I admitted, grateful for the change in topic so I could stand up and get dressed without making a puddle around my hind legs with my arousal. “Probably a few hundred or so 200 years ago but nowadays I couldn't even begin to guess. After we found a working one, we turned it over to the Engineers who then remade it to shoot supercharged Spark Bombs that had more or less the same level of destructive power as an Egg but without lingering Necromantic death clouds and unquenchable fire.”

“The more I hear about all these crazy weapons, the less I hope to see them…” Melody mumbled as the last pieces of my armor went on my shoulders. "Your exploding rifle is the biggest thing I've ever seen."

"Heh, the 25x102mm definitely is no slouch in the high-explosive category; especially with my own custom rounds with powdered Nexus Crystal and some mercury fulminate to detonate it." I said with a loving glance at my old girl resting against one of Cog's shelves nearby. "But...despite her size she is definitely not the biggest gun out there. For a portable Anti-Materiel weapon, you can't get bigger but when it comes to explosive ordinance...I mean, you've got rockets and missiles like the Hydra-70s and TOWs on the old gunship Vertibirds, 20 and 30mm autocannons on the Gryphon battle tanks and trucks, and of course FIM-6s, Dart-88s, and any 40mm grenade launcher."

"Wowie...there's a lot of guns out there isn't there?" Melody giggled softly, looking at her own rifle. "How do you remember all this stuff about them?"

"Literal centuries of experience babe." I laughed in response. "With that much time, anypony would be an expert."

After another minute of Gold and Melody both eating the rest of the oatmeal (Melody making a cheeky smirk as she slurped her bowl down), we left the Stable and entered Cog’s workshop where he was busy attaching the second cybernetic leg to Chocolate’s body. She laid calmly on Cogsworth’s cot with her head propped up on a pillow while she watched the stallion work, wincing every now and again as each microfilament wire was magically fused to a nerve ending in her body. We walked over silently to observe the process and I couldn’t help but notice Chocolate was living up to her prediction that the pain of the procedure would rile her up by the glistening fur above her vagina that was modestly covered with her equally moist tail. Breakfast and a show...eh, definitely worse shit to wake up to.

“A-ah! Well heya mm...my bitches!” She called out to us in between small moans of pleasure. “S-sleeepmm….good?”

I could feel Cogsworth’s flustered face even five feet away as he continued to work as quickly as he could while trying desperately not to look up from his work even an inch. Given his proximity to her snatch, it wouldn’t even take much for her to wrap her new legs around his head and bury him right into her crotch. I could smell her musk the second I entered the room, a thick velvety chocolate smell that could only be called a dark milk chocolate flavor that would turn even the most stubborn of heads. My own mouth watered a little at the thought of turning the aroma into flavor but it was neither the time nor the place to get down with her. Besides...I never was super fond of chocolate as a candy anyway and from the conversation the night before, it was just best for her to save herself for Cogsworth. That being said...I couldn’t stop imagining if her juices would taste great on vanilla ice cream like a sexy hot fudge sundae. What I wouldn't give for soft serve...

“Yep!” Melody beamed, ignoring her arousal. “Your new legs look great!”

“I know, right?” Chocolate agreed, looking down at the two shiny new limbs attached to her body. “I’m like a sexy cyborg now! Definitely will be fuckin' great to walk again.”

The limbs themselves were some of Cogsworth’s finest works I had seen yet. Each was perfectly crafted from high quality steel alloy with joint servos and actuators taken from a T-51 model of Power Armor giving them immense stability and strength. Unlike lesser quality limbs made by less experienced craftsponies, all the complex wiring and moving parts were encased under a finely machined layer of steel with a matte finish. On the small mobile table next to Cogsworth (which honestly looked more like a surgeon's kit than a toolbox), lay a small can of dark brown paint the same color as Chocolate’s coat. On a nearby workbench lay the remnants of his paint mixing process with several small bottles of various shades of brown paint and a selection of brushes of various size.

“Isn’t the metal gonna look weird against your coat?” Melody asked, looking at where the steel met the flesh of her hip.

“I am preparing to paint it.” Cogsworth said as he pulled away with some small delicate tools in his mouth. “It is a blend of mine own creation. It will not corrode and will withstand many abrasions before wearing away. No one will think to suggest these legs are anything but natural. Well...until they require a secondary coating in approximately ten years.”

He smiled proudly and began to slowly apply a layer of the thick brown paint to her legs, Melody jumping in excitedly to help. Her talent with precision telekinesis was mesmerizing to watch as she almost effortlessly painted all the tiny grooves and curves with all the poise and skill of a master painter at work. As she worked she screwed her face up into a cutely ridiculous expression of concentration, sticking her tongue out to the side as she worked until they had finished and pulled away to let their work dry. I was admittedly surprised at just how exact the paint color had been to matching Chocolate's coat. She would be looking good as new and I couldn't help but feel a small amount of pride in how pleased she looked seeing her new legs get fastened on. Dare I say I was...actually beginning to enjoy helping those deserving of help get to a goal they want to achieve. I wasn't about to start up a charity...but I wasn't going to turn my back on these ponies either.

“It will only take but a few minutes.” Cogsworth explained with a tired but triumphant grin on his face. “I thank you for your patience, Lady Chocolate. Dare I say that these must be the swiftest of mine most recent projects! I am quite pleased with my timing.”

“Lady Chocolate eh?” She mused with a smirk. “I like the sound of that…”

Cogsworth blushed and hurried away to return his tools to their proper place while Melody hugged Chocolate tight in congratulations and Gold stood fixated on a Pre-War magazine on the Steel Rangers. In an attempt to avoid getting my pants wet (again) from thinking about Chocolate, I went over to him and peeked over his shoulder at the article he was reading. It didn't even take me long to realize what kind of trash it was and start getting upset at it. It was full of glorious action shots of the Steel Rangers in T-45s and 51s surrounded by overly detailed fiery explosions while firing volleys of grenades and bullets at the evil Zebra foes. Tin Head porn and media orgasms all wrapped up into one blasphemous weekly subscription service delivered right to your front door...

‘The Steel Rangers, the brainchild of Apple Jack, the head of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, burst onto the frontlines of battle on this day ten years ago in Equestria’s finest show of Earth pony technological prowess brought to life by the might of Unicorn magic. The magically powered armor, which is made of advanced metals and armed to the teeth with the latest in Equestrian weaponry, renders every mare and stallion who proudly wears it both a one-pony army and a symbol of our glorious nation. When asked about how she felt regarding the overwhelming success of her invention, Apple Jack replied, “Well, I don’t know what else to say except I’m proud Equestria came together to make the ponies dying for our freedom from Zebra Imperialism safer. I didn’t want to fight them, but they came to the wrong damn rodeo and we ain’t gonna stop ‘til everypony can sleep safe at night.”’

As I read I felt a sickening feeling of disgust slide into my gut. Not only at the godawful praise for the Tin Heads gushing from the page but from the careful diction used in the article. It was little words like, ‘glorious’ and, ‘prowess’ that made me cringe from the heavy hoofed propaganda laden exposition behind what was admittedly one of the best pieces of wartime technology ever invented. I was an Equestrian through and through...but I wasn’t exactly proud to be one. Nationalism was a great tool to bring everyone together to fight the common enemy found overseas but in retrospect it was exactly the reason the War became worse. The more we clung together as brothers and sisters of a united Equestria, the farther removed from reality and morality we became. Common sense was thrown out the window in favor of winning the present day and no thought was given to what would become of our creations after the War had been won.

“W-wow...they really l-liked the Steel Rangers d-didn’t they?” Gold asked as he idly flipped through the rest of the magazine which was more or less Steel Ranger porn with glory shots of them galloping bravely into battle or standing heroically atop a hill and other such bullshit.

“Hold up, go back.” I commanded, a slight growl hitting my voice as he passed a particular picture that looked familiar.

He glanced up at me before turning back a few pages before I stopped him on one two-page wide picture of a large group of silhouetted Steel Rangers posing atop a hill overlooking the smoking battlefield known afterwards as the Battle of the Withering Heights. Everything about the picture was all wrong, even the date the picture was taken.

“T-the Battle of the W-Withering Heights…?” Gold asked as he read the small description in the bottom right corner of the photo. “W-what happened t-there?”

“Oh I’ll tell you what…” I growled, looking at the silhouetted Tin Head holding the Equestrian flag in its right hoof. “This entire picture is a fucking lie.”

“H-how so?” He asked, peering at the photo. “It l-looks pretty o-official to me…”

“That’s because you weren’t there…” I sighed as I sat back on my haunches taking the picture with me. “The Battle of the Withering Heights was one of my first combat engagements right out of EastPoint Military Academy. I was a newly graduated 2nd Lieutenant put in command of my first Platoon in the General Army and we were stationed at Withering Heights, which is a rocky outcropping of sorts on the Eastern Front on the ocean. Our job was to keep an eye on the water for any invading Imperial armies since they were inevitably going to try and invade Equestria again after we kicked them out the first time they invaded. I had a head full of battle tactics and leadership training but absolutely zero practical application of my schooling in a real battlefield setting...just like every other graduate. That didn’t earn me much appreciation from hardly any of the enlisted soldiers working under me since I was the equivalent of a school teacher newly graduated from a high-end university going to a shitty part of town to teach a bunch of rowdy boys how to live on the streets. What did I know about fighting and dying? What the fuck did I know about seeing your own people getting their heads blown off right in front of you and their brains getting splashed into your eyes and mouth? Nothing...absofuckinglutely nothing. As rough a start as any freshly minted Officer can ask for to be honest.”

He winced a bit at my detailed description of true warfare but continued to look up at me with intense interest, silently prodding me to continue my narrative. I couldn't blame him. In many ways, the Pre-War world was far more interesting than the boring doldrums of the Wasteland. What I wouldn't give to not have to walk everywhere like in the old days...

“The whole thing is a long story so I’m going to give you the Sparkle-Notes version of it, k?” I said, looking over the picture of the familiar grass covered rocks near Manehattan.

“T-the what now…?” He asked.

“Oh...right. Outdated reference.” I sighed, remembering hardly anypony knew the full dictionary of Pre-War slang like I did. “Let’s just say Sparkle-Notes were a long list of book and article summaries written by Twilight Sparkle for any high school and college students who needed to do a book report but didn’t actually read the damn thing. It basically summed up the important parts of the book and let you know what it was about in a fraction of the time needed to read the actual book.”

“Huh...t-that’s pretty c-cool.” He commented as he thought over the concept. “D-did you ever have to-”

“Use Sparkle-Notes myself?” I finished for him with a laugh. “Eeyep! All through high school and as much as I could in university all the way through till EastPoint when that sorta shit woulda seen my ass thrown out. Thing with me is I love reading. If a book is interesting to me I’ll read the shit out of it but if I have to read it for a grade, you’ll have to drag me by the tail to read anything. It’s like my mind just shuts down whenever I had to do something for a grade...anywho, I’m off topic. What was I talking about?”

“Ummm...t-the Battle of the W-Withering Heights?” He replied, pointing to the picture open on my lap.

“Right, so the Sparkle-Notes version of what happened to me and my Platoon was we were assigned to the Southern portion of the Ponyarny Inlet on the Withering Heights operating the Anti-Submersible and Anti-Airborne guns when the Empire launched their second invasion of Equestria. It was me and about forty other soldiers, plus another two-hundred or so from the other platoons stationed there. 250 or so against what turned out to be the Empire’s entire First Legion, which had about three-hundred thousand troops. That’s just Zebras and doesn’t include the Wyverns, Cheetahs, Antelope, Elephants, Tigers and all the other fucking scary ass species from the Empire they've tried shipping over. In total I think they had like four or five-hundred thousand Legionaries landing all along the East coast. At the Ponyarny Inlet where we were stationed, we had probably eight to ten thousand Legionnaires to deal with by ourselves alone. Goddesses...the intelligence community nearly collapsed that day it felt like...questions went unanswered, orders were patchy and incoherent and the whole fucking time we are begging for reinforcements because like hell we could hold out against the whole Legion.”

“H-holy shit…” Gold stuttered as he looked at the scope of the Ponyarny Inlet presented in the picture. “W-why were there s-so few of you? Y-you'd think they'd have more s-soldiers on the coastline during a War.”

“Mixture of things I guess.” I responded, looking on the right page of the photograph at the battered remains of Withering Heights that was obviously brushed up with fake fire and smoke to make it seem more impressive to the public. “Biggest of all was General Stonewall who thought Ponyarny wasn’t tactically important enough to the Empire to post more than a single Company to defend it. Me and the other four Platoon Lieutenants of 3rd Company demanded our C.O, who wasn’t even on site mind you, for at least another Company to help us shore up the defenses but our requests were repeatedly denied. Humph...I can still hear his stupid Manehatten accent telling me essentially to go fuck myself.”

“Why?” He asked again, scanning the size of the Inlet once more. “I-I mean, it l-looks big enough t-to land a b-bunch of troops on to me. I-I mean, I'm no expert o-obviously.”

“Exactly…” I sighed in response. “They wanted to put the bulk of the 6th Division further north closer to Manehattan and the entire 2nd General Army Corps along the Manehattan Bay. If you go to Friendship City, you can still see the huge network of defenses all along the coastline. Trenches, bunkers, artillery, you name it. The Wall as it came to be simply referred to.”

“C-Corps…?” He asked meekly looking abashed. “Y-you’re using t-terms I don’t k-know.”

“Oh, right...my bad.” I apologized, digging around in my duster’s inside pockets for a pen so I could try and sketch out the overall general idea of the Army’s organization. “So first off your smallest group is the Fire Team, which is four-to-six soldiers usually headed by a Corporal. Next is the Squad headed by a Staff Sergeant, then a Platoon, like what I was leading back then, commanded by a 2nd Lieutenant. After that there’s a Company commanded by a Captain, a Battalion by a Lieutenant Colonel, a Brigade by a Colonel, a Division by a Major General and then a Corps by a Lieutenant General.”

He peered at the ascending list of terms, taking interest in the little symbols I put next to each ranking officer’s title that represented their rank, and nodded seeming to understand a little bit more of the scope of the Army. As I finished my rough doodle, he glanced towards me and seemed to have taken notice of the weathered and battered silver oak leaves still pinned to the lapels of my duster. Thanks to some extreme heat several decades back, they had partially melted and fused with the leather they were pinned to making them a permanent addition to my duster.

“I-is that a M-Major?” He asked, switching focus between the oak leaf doodle on the page and the partially melted one on my lapel.

“No actually, it’s the next rank up. I don’t have colored pencils to point out the difference but the Major has a gold leaf and Lieutenant Colonel, my rank, is silver.”

“H-huh...w-why make it the s-same symbol t-then?” He asked, looking rather confused. “W-why not m-make it like a-another type of leaf or s-something? That w-would be easier t-to understand.”

“It definitely would, but I wasn’t high enough on the pay-grade to make those kinds of decisions. Hell, I don’t think Luna ever even thought about it to be honest since she delegated so much to the military higher-ups all the time. Don’t blame her though, it’s such a tiny ass problem so why would she pay attention to it?”

“Huh...w-well, h-how many people d-does each r-rank command? How far up do the numbers go?”

With a quick alteration I added the appropriate approximate number of individual soldiers found in each group, which were ten, forty, one-hundred and ninety, one-thousand, five-thousand, fifteen-thousand and forty-five thousand soldiers respectively. Funny how quickly something so mundane and obsolete could be called to mind when other similarly obsolete thoughts eluded my memory.

“I-I had no idea s-so many soldiers could e-exist…” He muttered to himself. "S-so many guns and uniforms a-and...just....w-wow!"

“When the whole fucking world is at War and each major power think they’re the sword of righteous judgement, there are no shortage of volunteers. No shortage of patriots.” I replied, thinking back on the fiery passion that had lead me to apply to EastPoint in the first place alongside so many others. “You probably won’t ever see anything like that ever again...hopefully. I mean ya never know with how ponies in general are to be honest. Long as there is a struggle to survive...there will be bloodshed and somepony is gonna want someone else's brains making friends with the ground.”

He laughed a little but nodded saying, “Y-yeah...though, i-it would be c-cool to see s-so many soldiers at o-once.”

“Oh Goddesses it was fucking amazing…” I sighed happily as we were interrupted by Chocolate trotting up to us excitedly.

“Check these fuckers out!” She squealed in delight as she stood in front of us and held one of her new legs out for us to admire. “Ain’t they fuckin' somethin’?”

The paint had fully dried on the matte metal and Cogsworth’s masterful choice of color left the cybernetic limbs almost indistinguishable from the rest of her body save for the slightly off looking hock where the joint servo connected the upper and lower portions of the limb together. With the bandages removed and the area cleaned up, I finally was able to see her cutie mark which, as I suspected, was a raincloud dumping chocolate colored raindrops into a martini glass. I never considered chocolate milk to be a fancy enough drink for a cocktail lounge but then again, it was fucking delicious and way better than any alcohol I could think of. A chocolate milk ‘martini’ didn’t sound bad at all.

“W-wow!” Gold exclaimed as he held her leg in his hooves and examined its immaculate construction. “I-is this Celestium Steel?!”

“Indeed as you say!” Cogsworth boomed happily nearby where he was busy placing the last of his tools away. “I knew not that others knew of metallurgy as I do.”

“Y-you kidding?” Gold squeaked in delight as he showed off his homemade armor. “I l-love armor! T-that’s the reason I t-teamed up with A-Athena in the first p-place!”

Cogsworth chuckled and looked towards me asking, “Is that so my friend? And what act lead to this colt becoming thine companion?”

Gold dashed off back into the Stable to grab the helmet and armor we had recovered from Camp Macintosh before I even had a chance to respond and was back less than a minute later with the pile of Pre-War relics floating behind him in his magic.

“Oh my…” Cogsworth hummed as he took the ancient helmet in his hooves and looked it over. “Is this not the genesis of your armor’s design my friend?”

I nodded and gestured to the Desert Ranger’s dragon logo painted on the black breastplate laying on the table beside him on top of the tan leather duster.

“Damn straight, Cogs.” I laughed as I looked over it for myself, feeling pangs of nostalgia prick at my thoughts at the outdated but familiar design. “One of the original sets of Mrk. I Veteran Ranger armor before they decided to up the ballistic protection on the design. We found it in Camp Macintosh along some other pristine relics.”

He looked up from his examination with a confused expression but I knew why.

“I recall you stating firmly you would never dare to enter the places of your past…” He said cautiously, switching his attention between me and Gold.

“Well…” I sighed, looking at Gold then back up at him. “Things...things are starting to change for me Cogs. I’ve stayed aloof from my problems for what, ten decades at least? I can’t stay the same mare I have been…I can't keep sitting on my ass adding digits to my age and not doing a goddamned thing worthy of the post-apocalyptic history books!”

“Pity your change in life choices had to coincide with the wrath of Green Peace…perhaps then this would be a more ample time to celebrate such a change.” He mumbled before returning to his drooling over the helmet.

As Gold began to gush about the Rangers and how I had promised to get the helmet and armor resized for him, I caught up with Chocolate who was busying herself by downing a few bottles of Sparkle-Cola from one of the many fridges lining the wall of the workshop. Already there were four bottles on the floor by her hooves and she quickly guzzled down her fifth as I approached, belching loudly as she dropped the empty bottle alongside the others. I always felt more at ease around another mare if she wasn't afraid to let out a good, loud burp. A good metric for how much of a tomboy I could be around her and not put her off with my behavior.

“Well heya hot stuff!” She giggled as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof. “Ya ready to rock n’ roll?”

“If by rock n’ roll you mean move out then no.” I said, taking a bottle of Sparkle-Cola Rad from the nearest fridge and staring into the soft purple glow emanating from the bottle from the liquid inside. “I didn’t exactly plan this whole thing out so I’m just pulling ideas out of my ass as we go along hoping I come across a good path to follow.”

“Heh...I mean somethin’ different but hey, that works too baby.” She giggled as she gave a small wink and sat down against one of Cogsworth’s many toolboxes.

“You’re a brave mare drinking so much of Cog’s personal stash you know.” I mentioned, gesturing to the pile of bottles at her hooves. “If you can’t tell, he’s a bit more than obsessed with the stuff so it’s dangerous to mess with a guy and his addictions.”

“Phbbbt, whateva!” She laughed, kicking one of the bottles towards me. “I’m a medical patient so I get ta drink whateva I want. Regain my strength and all that.”

I shrugged my shoulders with a sigh and sat beside her, still holding the bottle of Sparkle-Rad and getting mired in my own thoughts.

“Damn it feels good to be able to walk again.”

“I bet…” I mumbled, lost in thought still staring into the glowing liquid.

“How much these things gonna cost ya anyway?” She asked, laying on her back and swinging her legs open and closed admiring them.

An idea came to mind the moment she mentioned the cost of her operation. I knew Cogsworth wasn’t going to accept a single cap for the procedure even if I tried to force him to accept payment for his time and materials...but it was the cost of the procedure that had my gears working hard around an idea. To pay 20,000 caps per limb wasn’t the problem in that moment, it was the reality of the sheer individual number of caps one would have to carry on their person in order to pay for them that had me thinking. A cap is only worth just that, a single cap. As a system of representative money, it had everything it needed to be the perfect currency of the post apocalypse. They were relatively rare but not too rare as to be unobtainable, they were corrosion resistant due to the materials used and, perhaps most importantly, the methods to make them (or fake them) were extremely difficult to come across if not entirely non-existent. The latter part was what made caps so genius in terms of Post-War commerce as the technology and magic used to make genuine bottlecaps was lost. This meant forgery was insanely difficult to pull off as any smart merchant knew what real caps looked and felt like from extensive experience working with the real thing. There had to be a better way of making them do more than they already were...

“Yo, bitchlord!” Chocolate called out, kicking me softly with her back hoof which definitely felt harder than a normal hoof leaving the spot a bit sore. “You listening or are ya thinkin’ about how much you wanna ride the Chocolate Express eh?”

I giggled a little but retained enough composure to try and pass my idea on past her to see if I wasn’t just spouting nonsense. I felt I was onto something. Maybe nothing would come of it but since the idea was in my head, we were safe for the moment and I had a listening ear, wouldn't hurt to air it out loud.

“I am! Or...at least I was earlier but hear me out for a moment would ya?” I asked, looking down at where she lay, her posture quickly changing from one of lazy lounging to a hastily posed look of seduction the moment she caught me looking directly at her.

“Eh...if ya put that mouth of yours to good use afterwards then yeah, I’ll hear your idea.” She giggled seductively, flicking her tail against the ground to bring the attention of my peripherals on her snatch.

“Heh...fine.” I smirked. “Best deal I’ve made since I got a crate of .50s for a bag of coffee beans.”

She propped herself up against the tool box once more as I started forming my idea out loud.

“Alright, so you know caps are only worth just one cap apiece?” I asked, trying to set the stage.

“Yep.” She replied as if I were stupid. “What about ‘em?”

“Well, there’s more than just regular Sparkle-Cola out there right?” I said excitedly, glad I had at least part of her attention on my idea and not just my mouth. “I mean, there’s the Cherry and Rad version right?”

“Yep.” She replied, looking at the cold bottles of Cola in the fridges behind me. “I like Cherry but they’re harder to find...they ain’t as cheap either.”

“Exactly!” I exclaimed, yanking a bottle of Sparkle-Cola Cherry from a fridge and holding it up next to the bottle of Rad I already had. “Cherry is rarer than the regular Cola and Rad is rarer still!”

“Great detecting skills Sheerluck, are you gonna keep blabbering about shit everypony knows or should I just yank your head into my pussy now and shut you up in a wave of cum?”

“Sorry.” I apologized, taking a second to calm down before I started tripping over my words. “My idea is this: what if every cap wasn’t just the same old cap? What if, because Cherry and Rad are less common than regular Sparkle-Cola, the caps from them were worth more than a regular cap?”

“What you mean…?” She asked, her tone and expression changing to one of interest.

“Like what if instead of a Rad cap being considered worth just one cap, it was worth like ten caps?” I said with some excitement, popping open the bottle of Rad and Cherry with a pleasant and aromatic hiss. “It would make buying shit a hell of a lot easier would it not?”

“How…?” She asked, holding out a hoof for the bottle of Cherry which I floated over to her.

“Let’s say you want to buy a box of something worth fifty caps, k? Instead of having to pay fifty individual caps, which is annoying as fuck to count out in a hurry, you just pay the dude five Rad caps and call it a day? They're all clearly labeled so just a quick glance will let them know what kind of caps you're paying.” I replied before taking a swig of the sweet radish flavored drink that cascaded down my throat with a happy, sparkling feeling that left a warm glow in my stomach.

“Huh...that would make buying shit easier…” She agreed, already three-quarters of the way through her sixth bottle of Cola. “I gotta say, that’s a pretty rad idea.”

I sighed and looked at her with a slightly disappointed glance as I said, “For that pun, I’m gonna tease ya for awhile.”

“Bring it on bitchlord!” She challenged with a wide grin of defiance, getting to her hooves so we could take care of business. “I bet you ten caps I’ll last longer than you.”

As we walked past Melody and Gold, who were browsing through the magazine on the Steel Rangers from earlier, I giggled, “Yeah, Hucks used to say the same thing every night we had a chance to get busy...I made five grand in two months. You’re on girlfriend.”

********

“I can’t feel my legs…” Chocolate whined as we walked out of the Stable and back into the workshop, her gait waddling and staggering a bit beside me.

“Told ya!” I giggled as I wiggled my hips to get my tail to sit correctly between the tails of my duster. “Every mare has her weakness, all you have to do is spend a few minutes exploring her and you’ll find it. Once you find it, you unleash the fury on it until she can’t see straight!”

“Or walk straight…” She mumbled as she staggered into me, pausing for a moment to lean against me for support.

“Yeah, that too. I gotta say though, I’m really impressed with your stamina though.” I said with a smile still moist from earlier. “Nice use of that bottle by the way. Wasn’t expecting that.”

“Heh…” She giggled softly, looking back at the half-closed Stable door with longing. “Shame we didn’t have more time to go again...I think I could beat ya this time.”

I rattled the small bag of caps I had won from our bet and winked.

“Bitch, you lost eight times in a row, I don’t think you’re gonna win this anytime soon. Besides, you can barely walk with how wrecked your ass is.” I retorted with a grin, shaking the bag of caps near her face like a victory rattle. "Admit it, you've met your match."

“Nine’s my lucky number so back right the fuck up.” She sighed with a soft chuckle. “But I guess ya right, I’m gonna lose again. How in the fuck did you learn to twist around like that?”

We exited into the workshop proper where Cogsworth sat amidst a shower of multicolored sparks arcing from the arcane welding stylus in his hoof while Gold and Melody looked on, mesmerized with the fantastic lightshow being put on before them. Currently in the works was what appeared to be a smallish helmet and I could only assume Cogs was busy making Gold his tailored Ranger armor. On the table laid a small black breastplate that was half finished, pieces of the segmented metal plating still missing from the ballistic padding underneath and lying to the side waiting to be fastened to the material. It was always fascinating to see the inner workings of the R-series, particularly how the breastplate pieces overlapped and shifted around somewhat to flex with the motions of the body while worn taking inspiration from Dragon scales. While the flex could arguably be improved, for what it was it was far more comfortable to wear and dance around the battlefield in than most other versions of the M-CAT in service.

“Huckleberry challenged me to eat myself out when we first started dating and I spent a year stretching my body and spine to its limits just to show her up. Found a Warrant Officer who used to practice as a chiropractor and yoga instructor who was willing to help me achieve my body's full potential.” I explained quietly so as to not break the mesmerizing spell over the foals. “Once I managed that...I found it came in handy in more ways than just licking my own cunt so I kept on stretching and stretching until almost no pose was too painful for me to take up.”

“Oh? What could be more useful than that?” She asked, leaning against me again as her hind legs trembled slightly which made us both smile with amusement.

“Well first off is just moving around in general.” I said distractedly, my own attention being drawn to the beautiful shimmering sparkles coming from Cogsworth’s work. “Walking, trotting, galloping...everything really. When Hucks and I started taking martial arts training at EastPoint, I had an advantage when it came to grapples and escaping from holds since I could just wriggle my way out of most of my sparring partner’s grip. Hucks took some dance classes on the side and we kind of got into a competition to see who could be the most flexible and poise perfect dance partner. I have multiple double joints to work with in my body and all the years of using it combatively have left a lot of muscle behind.”

“So both of ya could fold in half on yourselves? Damn…” She mused quietly. “So the stretching really came in handy for war huh? Ain't somethin' I'd think of normally but I guess I can see some use for it.”

“Mhm. A good stretch before every fight could be the key to surviving another day. Plus, when somepony puts you in a stress position, you won’t hurt as bad as others since you’ll be used to stretching your limbs at strange angles. Zebras were all highly trained in hoof-to-hoof combat, it served as a sort of right of passage to adulthood in their culture at the time. Unfortunately that meant 98% of the enemies you'd encounter are even more dangerous when unarmed, especially with the trench walls giving them every opportunity to be acrobatic and get behind you somehow. Had to learn to fight like them in order to match them...when someone fights dirty, you gotta be willing to wrestle in the mud right with 'em.”

“And to top off the dirty, you can still eat yourself out at the end of the day, right?” She giggled, bumping my flank playfully with hers. "Not a bad set-up."

“Heh, that too. Though that was really hard to do anytime we were on tour since there is little in the way of personal privacy in the military. If they found out about her and I, we’d probably have been executed. Or at the very least court martialed and convicted for life at a place like Shattered Hoof.”

“Shattered Hoof? Eh, I’ve been there once or twice...not a fan.” She replied in a bored tone. “Sure the guys are rough enough but them beds honey? Fuckin’ squeak like a mouse bustin’ his load on a bat.”

I looked at her queerly and she looked at me with an incredulous expression as if I was an idiot for calling her out on her bizarre analogy.

“What?” She sighed rolling her eyes. “The beds squeak a fuckin’ bunch an’ it’s hard to get into it when you can’t even hear yaself screamin’ for more. That’s one sure way to get any girl dry.”

“Well...now that you put it like that…” I admitted, dwelling on the idea longer than I expected I would. “I guess I’d have to agree with you. A squeaky bed or couch would really kill the mood for me.”

“Heh, there ya go girl. Get your head out of reality and back into the gutter where it belongs.” She smirked, bumping me again. “Life’s betta with a little dirt in it. Besides, ain't like anypony around really gives enough of a damn about what ya do with your pussy. Everyone's gotta get humped or do some humpin', just a fact of life.”

“That it is.” I agreed with a small smile as the light show ended and Cogsworth stepped away from his work with an even more tired grin of triumph on his face. Poor guy had been going for most of the day now between working on Chocolate and now Gold...

“And thus it is finished!” He proclaimed proudly to his assembled audience, gesturing with no little amount of flair to the black and grey helmet set on a stand before him. “One-half inch of the finest Celestium Steel integrated with StableTec’s finest microfilament crystal wiring and the PipBuck 3000 operating system. This stands as the first modern-day recreation of Desert Ranger armored technology and I am most honored to have been allowed to partake in its creation, in particular this pristine version of the original Mrk. I model. The M-CAT [R] might yet be seen again in numbers wandering the desert.”

The helmet itself didn’t look all that different from the larger stallion-sized version we had taken from Camp Macintosh. The most notable of changes were the lenses which were a slightly darker shade of maroon than before and the antenna and radio/light package attached to the right side of the helmet looked more functional than before. The lens of the tactical light was a good two inches wider in circumference making for a much brighter light while the radio package looked like it had been repurposed from another type of helmet; more than likely taken from a derelict M-CAT5 based off the overall shape. Aside from those minor changes and the overall darker color scheme, it still retained the single air filter attached to the mask and seemed basically unchanged. I had to wonder if Gold had requested that the armor and helmet continue to look like the old Mrk. I despite Cogs being more than capable of whipping up some extra bits of armor based off my own to protect the shoulders, hips, thighs and hindlegs.

While Gold tried on his new helmet with no little amount of enthusiasm, Cogsworth turned to the breastplate and busied himself with fastening the few remaining metal sections to the long-fiber Kevyarn. It had been quite awhile since I had seen Kevyarn so clean and new and I found myself brushing my hoof over the thick charcoal grey fibers and feeling the soft vibrations tickle the tip of my hoof. Such a quirky substance and I always preferred the feeling of long-fiber to the short variety seen in soft ballistic vests.

“What’s this shit here?” Chocolate asked as she peeked over my shoulder at the nearly finished breastplate. “We just welding metal to a chair pad or somethin’?”

“Heh, it kinda looks like a chair pad doesn’t it?” I laughed as I looked at it from her perspective and noticed the similarity. “No, this is long-fiber Kevyarn. If you wanna keep with the chair pad analogy, just think of it as a bullet resistant chair pad used by the Army.”

“Huh...if it’s bulletproof then why ya puttin’ metal on it?” She asked, tapping the matte black metal while Cogsworth paused to form the neck guard the old fashioned way using a hammer, a forge and an anvil, the ping of metal striking metal very soothing on my ears.

“Ah, ah...I said bullet resistant sweet lips, there’s a big difference here.” I corrected. “Bulletproof means it can take any reasonable caliber of bullet and shrug it off no big deal. That term is reserved for something like metal plating on a Sky Bandit, Vertibird or a Scorpio. Resistant just means it can take quite a few different kinds of hits but can still be compromised by either too many shots or taking on something bigger than it can handle.”

“Heh...bigger than it can handle eh? I like the sound of that.” She giggled to herself as Cogsworth returned from his hammering and fastened the neck guard and remaining two pieces of metal to the breastplate with a speed and grace you'd expect more from a dancer than a smith.

“These are far easier to manufacture than I had expected.” Cogsworth mused as he opened another paint can, this one made of solid steel with a complicated lid fastening system that hissed slightly as it was removed. “I am now going to apply a few coats of silver-ablative paint to increase its refractive capabilities against energy weapons. Any advantage is a viable one to have in combat after all and even a modicum of protection against magical weapons is better than naught at all, rare as those weapons are in these wretched times we live in.”

“Wait, silver-ablative paint?” I asked with surprise as he mixed the thick silvery substance with black dye to match the color scheme of the armor from a large collection of paints. “Since when in the fuck did you get this?”

“I obtained it from a merchant visiting from Manehattan.” He explained in between brush strokes, the thick viscous liquid adhering to the metal and drying almost instantly with unsettling quickness. “He informed me he had discovered a cache of the substance within the confines of a derelict Ministry of Wartime Technology manufacturing plant in the industrial sector of Manehattan. Truly a blessed discovery.”

“Oh? Let me guess...he’s a Ghoul.” I surmised since just about everything Ministry related was irradiated to hell either due to bombing or contamination from their Crystalline Fusion Cores suffering a meltdown from lack of maintenance over two hundred something years.

“That he is.” He chuckled, though there was a hint of disgust and pity in his voice. “Only reason he knew of its existence was due to him having once been of the employ of that particular factory. Part of his face and the skin on his body was lost in the detonation of one of the plant’s CFCs. It is a miracle he survived at all but he is a very reliable merchant. I bought his full store of silver paint for eight-thousand caps and a personal robotic assistant at a handsome discount to assist with his travels. I have made some fair trades in my time but this is by far amongst the finest I ever have had the pleasure of documenting in my ledgers.”

“Damn, that’s a pretty good price, can’t come by this shit anymore. Well, unless you can somehow scrape it off the T-51’s and reuse it but chances of even finding a set of that shit is low.” I commented, inspecting the slightly faded label on the can. "Well...this far out West at least. Who knows how many those psycho ass Tin Heads have in their armories...sure as hell ain't me, I ain't going into their territories unless I absolutely have to and we ain't anywhere close to that yet."

“What kind of paint is this?” Melody asked, licking her lips slightly at the sight of the thick silvery liquid in the can. “It looks like liquid moonlight! Wish it didn't look so...tasty...”

“It’s a special paint the Army would put on Power Armor and some of their later generation combat armors to help protect against magical energy weapons and Necromantic weapons. The silver is enchanted with...I think it was some special Lunar magic created by Princess Luna back in the day. I could be wrong...anywho, the point is it basically acts as a mirror of sorts. It refracts, or deflects away, energy that otherwise would have burned a hole in your chest. It’s a thin layer but honestly I’ve seen it make a difference more than once in a gunfight. And I'm not talking a skirmish with a bunch of Raiders, I'm talking full-on professional armies in open, brutal, years-long combat. Can turn a partial burnout into a deflection and a direct hit can be reduced in strength somewhat so if your armor on its own is already tough, you just might survive. Can never go wrong with some extra protection no matter what kind it is.”

“Soooo...would a condom work?” Chocolate giggled.

“Sure, think of it like a condom if you’d like. It’s just an extra layer of protection against nasty shit that’ll kill you.” I replied, raising my hooves in defeat. "Of all things to compare it to..."

“W-what’s a c-condom…?” Gold asked cluelessly, thankfully his question went unanswered as the paint job was completed and he was finally allowed to don the breastplate along with his new helmet. His repeated cries of, 'Holy fucking shit!' and 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' drowned her out although just from Gold's tone alone he was experiencing an orgasm of his own.

The smooth, new look of the armor clashed with the mottled gold fur and reddish muscles of his body and he appeared strangely naked without anything covering the back of his neck or legs but at least his head, torso and the front of his neck were protected now. He still needed bracers, greaves, faulds and boots just to cover the rest of his body from harm but most importantly, he still needed a duster. No self-respecting Ranger would allow himself to go anywhere without his combat duster but that brought us to yet another problem that needed to be addressed.

“The coat you currently possess is not armored enough for extreme combative situations.” Cogsworth explained as he held up the canvas-like material of the duster we had brought with us. “The coat used by Athena and the other Rangers during the War are composed of Dragon leather with short-fiber Kevyarn inserts and Celestium reinforcement of the shoulders and forelegs. The Kevyarn and Celestium I have in mine possession, however the leather...that particular kind will be difficult to obtain I am afeard to admit.”

“W-well...I c-can just w-wear this one then.” Gold replied, his voice sounding grainy rather than muffled indicating the PipBuck system and microphone were working properly now. “Can y-you just a-armor this o-one?”

Cogsworth nodded though followed up with, “I can, though it will not possess the same level of protection as Athena’s coat provides and the flexibility will be negatively impacted with the addition of Kevyarn inserts and fastened metal. Dragon leather is incredibly resilient to wear from exterior forces, ever more so with the aforementioned inserts.”

“And, if you get it treated right with some enchantments, it self-repairs itself if its ever torn or punctured and at least 40% of the material survives. Just like a Dragon wing.” I said proudly, showing off the minimal amount of scuffs in the tan/brown material compared to the rather deep scoring in my bracers, greaves and pauldrons. “Overall, probably one of the best materials for armor if you’re looking to go light, flexible and sturdy and wanna splurge on something better than treated Radigator hide.”

“W-wow...I k-knew Dragons were b-badass but t-that’s just amazing!” Gold said as he felt the grooved texture of my duster against his leg.

“Damn straight. Shame so few exist these days...the Pox of the 2050s and forced resettlement in the early 60s really broke the entire race apart. Next to impossible to find any these days which sucks because their bodies are a goldmine of rare, unique substances. Doesn't matter if you practice witchcraft or leatherworking, there is something for everyone to be found in a Dragon. Thankfully...we can rest easy knowing there is a captive pen of Feral Dragons nearby for us to poke through.” I chuckled as I checked my PipBuck out of blatant curiosity to see if I had any vials of Dragon saliva on my person; the sudden urge to make Dragon Spit rounds coming to mind after discussing my UE rounds for the 25mm. “Damnit...and I don’t think I have any in my bags either…”

“Hmm?” Cogsworth hummed, looking up from his own PipBuck which was connected by a cable to the back of Gold's helmet running diagnostics on the HUD.

“Dragon saliva.” I explained, double checking the itemized inventory list of my saddlebags and various pouches and pockets but finding nothing under ‘D’ but 25mm 'Dual-Purpose' rounds. “I don’t have any and I really want to make some DS rounds for my AMR since I seem to be completely outa them. I feel safer having them in my arsenal. And before you ask, no I will not just fallback to using thermite-incendiary rounds. They don't have even close to the splash radius of DS rounds and it burns out too soon with a 2.5 inch projectile. Maybe if Barnette had another couple years they could have made a 30mm variant of this bitch and we just might be able to have that thermite conversation but we ain't in that alternate reality.”

“Ah...I am afraid to inform you that I too do not possess the substance myself.” He replied apologetically, checking his own list just in case. "If I had known, I would have obtained some on your behalf in preparation for your return."

“It's fine, Cogs..." I sighed softly before looking at the group. "Well...guess I’ll just have to visit the Dark Market myself.”

I picked up what personal effects I had allowed myself to let out of sight and continued, “Besides, we can pick up some Dragon leather there too since their younger Ferals shed at least every month during their growth spurt. Really was hoping to avoid going there with all that's been going on but I feel that uncomfortable not having those rounds in my bandolier. Ah well...least I can pick up the leather we need at the same time since old Scalie knows his shit.”

“Indeed. Perhaps you can also discover somepony who knows of a new domicile for you. People there come from all corners of the globe, perhaps you might happen upon one from the Continent with information you seek.” Cogsworth reminded. “If you plan on returning here, would you be so kind as to requisition a decanter or two of Cockatrice blood and powdered black gemstones? Preferably from the Crystal Empire but if they only possess domestics in their stock that will suffice. I understand fully well how difficult foreign acquisitions can be...”

I nodded in response and made a note on my PipBuck to remind me once I got to the Market since I knew I would immediately forget the second I stepped through those amazingly creepy arches and saw the hellish landscape of stalls, cages, pits and all the weirdos even the Wasteland couldn’t handle. The Market was...a rather difficult topic to dissect given it seems to have always existed even before the Equestrian-Zebra War. It was a pocket dimension created by a lone mad Shaman of the old Zebra tribes who had blended their Voodoo magic with that of Equestrian spatial magic as a refuge to flee from the Elders who sought his life. Someone discovered the Tear that lead to it some time after his death and since has expanded it into what it was today: a bizarre refuge for those who wished to remain in the shadows. The Market itself had spawned on its own as these outcasts set up shop to barter and trade with each other and the magic within it grew darker and darker with so much saturation of what were previously forbidden arts. As it grew to accommodate the ever expanding population that lived and worked there, more Tears began to form across the globe that allowed entry. The first few were random, such as two that led to the Dwem cities in the Greifenlander, but a way was discovered to create them at specific points on the map which allowed for easy access from all the major countries that survived the world intact enough.

“Just how dangerous is the...Dark Market? Did I get the name right?” Melody asked as we walked onto the skybridge headed towards the stairs leading towards the basement of The Pile where the Dark Market resided.

“You got it right.” I smiled as she clung to my leg but walked with more confidence than before. “It’s only dangerous if you don’t seem confident in yourself or make a bad impression with the merchants. There’s a certain...culture down there that has to be followed and adhered to diligently. They have their own language of sorts. If you want to get the best deals and not get ripped off, or worse blacklisted, you have to learn to speak it.”

“Huh...weird.” Melody replied as we reached the stairs without incident though I noticed there was some commotion near the front doors that I hazarded to guess was more of Green’s goons. “Will you teach me how to speak...Dark Marketian?”

“Heh, sure!” I giggled softly. “If you gain their trust, you’ll be safe down there for the most part. The merchants will be on your side if you’re in trouble.”

‘I hope…’ I thought nervously.

****************

Chapter Twenty-Two: Ruminations on Friendship

I had never managed to figure out how teleportation spells worked...and it would have been prohibitively expensive to go to a magic school to learn there from proper teachers. Excuse me, 'Arcane Studies Academy' as they liked to call themselves in their godawful TV and radio ads. Despite my inability to transport myself at will to start at one place then reappear in another, waking up from anesthesia was as close to teleportation as I could get. Well, without another more talented Unicorn to help. My sleep was deep, dark and seemingly instantaneous as it only felt like ten seconds after passing out in the dirt that I was waking up in one of the M.O.P tents staring at the unnaturally clean white canvas roof.

“Welcome back, Colonel Crete. Good to see you back amongst the living!”

I looked sluggishly to my right and saw a pale pink mare dressed in a white M.O.P uniform and a small nurse’s hat with the M.O.P logo stitched on the front. She was smiling at me as she adjusted the flow on the I.V line attached to my right leg, a clipboard hanging on a tent post nearby with my medical record attached. On the floor sat my kit in a tidy pile, the blood and muck of the battle earlier having been cleaned off by someone while I was out.

“Been awhile since you’ve had to come and see us eh?” She commented as she took the clipboard and flipped through it to my combat injury reports. “Definitely not something to complain about of course. Last tour you only saw us once for a javelin in your rump?”

I nodded slowly, focusing most of my attention on regaining the use of my limbs after such a heavy dose of anesthesia. That incident was pretty simple. A Scorpio got the last laugh after I thought I had destroyed its gem processor and approached it to catalogue my kill for the Head Hunt. With its last breath of mechanical life it stabbed me in the ass with its spiky tail and promptly died while I gaped at the four foot long bit of metal poking outa my butt. Thankfully Huckleberry was right next to me and had enough Anti-Venom to counteract the poison but not enough medicine to take the damn thing out safely. If she removed the spine, I would have easily bled out in three minutes because it had pricked into a major artery. I still had a scar there...some injuries are just too much for any amount of healing potions to remove completely from memory. Thankfully though, Hucks didn’t mind the scar and usually made the effort to kiss it gently every night she had the chance to. She always felt like it was her fault my beautiful ass got jabbed but as long as I got some extra attention for it, I was ok with letting her feel that way long as she knew I held nothing against her for it.

“You were lucky your Lieutenant was there with Anti-Venom. Sadly too many of you soldier boys don’t think to pack any with you so you end up dying from a toxin that is easily cured if it hasn't progressed too far. So...what happened this time? Your front knees were both torn nearly in half by enemy fire according to Captain Crisp. I just wanted to see if there was any more information to add to the record seeing as you were the one who got shot. You know how these things are.”

“Got caught off guard by some fucker who was out of my direct line of sight.” I lied. “I was engaging in close quarters with an enemy combatant and whoever they were got a couple lucky shots with AP rounds it seems. They knew where to aim too so that's fun to think about...”

She nodded, writing down an abridged version of my false account with a pen before spitting it out and muttering, "Violence like this is so unnecessary…”

I could see she had a well thought out speech ready to go but the last thing I wanted to hear as pins and needles prickled through my legs was how nopony was naturally violent at heart. That we are just confused by external stimuli forced on us by societal values that were, at their core, corrupted. I had already listened to more than one of those kinds of speeches and as much as I agreed that the world would be better without violence, I was a soldier. There were ponies dying every second I laid here getting lectured so it made no sense to me to ruminate on how fucked it all was. Happy thoughts of peace were great and all...but they were a waste of time with how deranged everything had become. We had been at War for over a decade now and had seen the global economy and trade network writhe and shrink right along with international diplomacy. Peace was an outdated thought now. We had all thrown ourselves into the Abyss and there was no going back to where we were before. Not without many more corpses on either side.

“Before you continue on your little sunshine and rainbows shpeal full of pacifist bullshit, don’t.” I said with a slight slur, my tongue feeling like a fat slug in my mouth. “I hear this shit every damn time I come to you guys like some deluded church choir and I get the fucking point. Unfortunately, not all of us get the luxury of sticking behind the battle lines and healing the wounded while philosophizing and ruminating on the ideals of peaceful coexistence. Some of us have to get up off our asses and show that we won’t go quietly into the Abyss. It's mares like me who ensure your pretty little head stays attached to your fucking shoulders because I gunned down the fucker who would otherwise decapitate you without another thought.”

She bristled silently, her smile from earlier fading to a subtle snarl of disgust.

“I was hoping that a fellow female would be more inclined to agree with me and the cause of the Ministry of Peace.” She growled, placing heavy emphasis on the word peace as if that would drive her point home.

“Look, whatever your prissy ass name is, I want peace just as much as anyone else here fucking does.” I growled back, sitting up slightly. “I wanna have a fucking day off for once in my goddamn career too! But unfortunately for everyfuckingone, that doesn’t seem to be a fucking option anymore! Since diplomacy has failed and peace is just a whimsical dream for you pussyhoofed tree huggers, girls like me have to stand up and fight to the death to protect this country of ours so we don’t all end up shipped North in a body bag. So please! By all means, go right ahead. Tell me how your philosophies are going to save Equestria when there’s no ears left to hear them.”

Tears welled up in her eyes and she trembled on her stool as her quivering mouth tried to form a response. I felt bad for being a total bitch to someone who had healed me (and was hot to boot) but she was just a pawn of the M.O.P working behind the scenes with no clue, just ideations. Peace could have been achieved years ago...but somepony higher on the pay grade than me fucked it all up royally and now me and everypony else had to clean up the mess they made. By now, the only way peace seemed like a feasible option was the complete unconditional surrender of the enemy...and I would be damned if Equestria was the one who ended up waving the white flag above Canterlot. Much as I despised my own country...it was still the only place I knew to call 'home'.

“Thought so…” I sighed, laying back down and staring at the ceiling again feeling exhausted. "You people never change."

Her sniffling was the only sound to be heard in the room aside from the rather loud drip of the I.V line reminding me that I was still indebted to her for bringing me back to health. As the silence drew into a profound eternity, I regretted the harshness of my words but not the message they conveyed. We couldn’t dawdle with delusions of peace while there was a very real threat to our way of life literally a few miles away encroaching like a plague of destruction. Even if we somehow won this War, I wouldn’t feel true peace until I could live with Huckleberry without the fear of governmental retaliation against our relationship. Until then...I would continue to be a soldier against the enemy to my peace. Whoever they might end up being.

“Look…” I sighed, finally breaking the silence. “I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to be so harsh. There’s a lot of merit in believing peace is actually possible in our lifetime. I want it just as much as you do...there’s somepony I love dearly that I wish to spend the rest of my life with when this War is over. But...as long as the Empire fires on us and seeks to destroy us, I can’t hang up my weapons of war and sleep soundly at night. I was raised to take problems head-on and not quit until I had won or a compromise could be reached. I’m sure you were raised to treat ponies with respect and genuinely care for the wellbeing of everyone...we each have our traits that make us the mares we are. I’m more inclined to be a soldier and you are the healer. In this situation...we’re both vital to the survival of Equestria. People like me get the spotlight during the conflict because we’re the ones kicking ass...but when this is all over, people like you are going to be the real heroes. Tearing the world apart is fun and all but I'd be hot shit when it comes to putting the world back together again.”

She stared at me with a look of disbelief mixed with slight confusion on her cute face, her ruby eyes standing out beautifully with her long eyelashes that bore a light layer of mascara. Was hard not to let my eyes linger too long...

“T-thank you.” She finally said. “I...I’m sorry I made assumptions. I guess...I felt all you soldier boys...and girls, were just out for guts and glory. I guess we’re more alike than I thought…”

I smiled as she stood up and quickly removed the needle from my vein (god do I hate that feeling…) and said, “And that is the Equestria that we all want back. The place where we’re all on common ground with each other and our only differences are those in our talents and personalities.”

She nodded quietly and inspected my legs to see if they were fully healed before clearing me for active duty, making a note on her clipboard and making a green checkmark. I pulled back the blankets and found I was unsurprisingly naked although sadly missing the accompanying pleasant company. She averted her eyes as I got dressed though I could have sworn out of the corner of my eye she was stealing glances towards me when I was putting on my pants and was in a slightly compromising position. Maybe it was just my own wishful thinking that every mare found me at least somewhat attractive. That or I'm just that selfish and self-centered. Either way, I kept my tail a tad more to the side than maybe was necessary just so she could get a good peek if she so wanted.

“Keep fighting the good fight.” She said in a hushed tone as I walked past her out the partitioned room in the much larger M.O.P tent. “I’ll be here...to make sure you get back up to keep on fighting it for us.”

She finally seemed to understand the role we each had to play and I actually felt a twinge of regret that I had to leave so soon but as she had other patients to attend to, I knew it was my time to leave. I made it halfway to the exit before I stopped and turned around.

“I never caught your name.” I said as she was walking away from me, her tail positioned such on the skirt of her uniform that her pair of tight pink panties was readily visible and nearly derailed my train of thought with a flush of the horny.

“Oh.” She giggled softly, turning around to face me and thankfully hiding her cameltoe from sight. “Silk Carnation. It’s a pleasure to...get to know you better Colonel Crete.”

“Call me Athena.” I said with a soft blush that I hoped she wouldn’t notice. “If...you aren’t busy later, and I’m not dead or dying, would you like to join me and a friend for dinner?”

The request seemed to take her by surprise but she seemed flattered and maybe even a little excited as she replied, “Oh...well...sure! My duties here end at eight every night save for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those are my required days of rest set by the Ministry. What day works for you?”

“Honestly if I give enough advance notice, I think I should be able to get any time I wanted off. This new promotion should carry enough weight behind it.”

“Wonderful! Would you like to try for tonight then?” She asked, glancing at the watch strapped to her leg. “I can meet you out front at eight-fifteen. I should be finished up by then.”

I nearly said yes until I thought about my rendezvous with Zecuro later in the night. I would have to swing by H.Q to request the evening off from fighting until the 12pm watch at Outpost Charlie-Horse. As long as we ended by eleven, I would have enough time to get to the Outpost and be on time for my shift.

“That should work perfectly.” I said with a smile. “Huckleberry and I will meet you outside this tent at twenty-fifteen hours sharp.”

“Oh? The friend is Captain Crisp?” She said with a bit of surprise, possibly thinking the ‘friend’ I had mentioned was a boyfriend or something.

“That a problem…?” I asked slowly, hopeful there wasn’t some sort of bad blood between the two of them.

“No! I guess I was just expecting...a...stallion.” She relented with a soft blush. “You talked about having somepony you loved a lot and...I guess I assumed. Sorry.”

I chuckled at how close to the truth she had gotten without even knowing it and replied, “It’s alright, it happens a lot. I don’t know why people always assume I have a special somepony. I’m a soldier girl and don’t got no time for no boys!”

I slapped my hoof against my breastplate in a show of bravado and she giggled cutely.

“I’ll agree with that.” She responded as I made my way back to the entrance of the tent. “See you tonight! Be safe out there!”

I waved and finally left the confines of the tent, trotting quickly towards my own tent and realizing finally that the sun was much lower in the sky than I had previously thought. Judging by its height above the horizon it was getting close to five or six in the evening meaning I had been out for probably a good six hours or more. That explained why I felt so well rested; a bonus because it meant I didn’t need to take a nap anymore in preparation for the night. Even then though, if I was offered the chance to take one, I was going to pounce on it with all the vigor of a Dragon. Sleep was a rarer commodity out here than food, water or even good patches of shade. Any chance to lay down not taken was a chance completely wasted never to be seen again.

The inside of the tent was saddeningly empty meaning the rest of Alpha Squad were still out and about kicking ass and taking epaulettes. I removed my helmet from my saddlebags and put it on, checking the visor’s display to see if anypony in my Squad were injured. This was a neat optional feature for commanders to use when they wanted to keep tabs on their soldiers who were wearing PipBucks and/or Ranger helmets and allowed me to see the M.H.Gs of my Squad. I was relieved to see green all around and their E.F.S markers were actually making their way back to camp. Perhaps it could be called a tad too invasive but as we were all using the old PipBuck 2000s, it wasn't like there was a lot of info to glean from the M.H.G.s. The operating system was shared between our PipBucks and helmet HUDs and was a model that had debuted sometime in 2068, a good nine years ago. From what I had heard, the 3000s standard issued to the Tin Heads had twice the processing power and functionality of our dinky old models and there were rumors that a 4000 model had recently been launched on a small scale amongst top government agencies and StableTec.

Satisfied that Huckleberry and the rest of my troops were safely accounted for and en-route to base, I hopped onto my cot and mumbled, “Alright...I’ve got a half-hour before they get back...let’s take advantage of this. Annnnnnnnd sleep!”

It wasn’t as sudden as I had wished but sleep came a few minutes after I had shut my eyes and stopped trying to force myself. The anesthetics from earlier had left me groggy enough to conk out a lot faster than normal.

********

Despite being a very heavy sleeper, there were certain things that I was always aware of, one of those being touched by unfamiliar hooves. Reflexes shot me out of bed faster than I had time to wake up and I found myself with Penny’s face in my crotch with my legs wrapped like a vice around her neck and my combat knife inches from her dark green eye.

“Whoa! Yo! It’s just me!” She hollered as best she could with her face crushed between my legs and snatch.

I let go of her immediately, sighing with relief as the electrified adrenaline wore off leaving a small ache in my recently healed front knees. She coughed a bit and rubbed her neck but quickly started to laugh.

“Holy shit.” She giggled, coughing here and there while still rubbing her neck. “That was fucking terrifying! It’s like I woke up a sleeping rattlesnake!”

“Sorry…” I said as apologetically as I could, still laying on my back and looking down my stomach at her. “Crimson Dragon training...never really leaves your system once its programmed in, ya know?”

She nodded, still smiling and laughing before she asked, “That some kind of kinky Judo grapple you and Huckleberry came up with? I mean, that’s the closest my face has ever gotten to another girl's junk.”

My first thought was honestly if she liked how it felt and my second was wondering if I was showered enough for it to still smell appetizing and not just a bunch of sweat soaked fur and flesh. Still edible of course...but not pleasant.

“Heh…” I breathed, biting my lip as familiar tingles tickled their way through my lower body. “Sorry…again.”

She shrugged and stood up, rubbing her chin with a hoof then surprisingly taking a small sniff of it.

“Hm.” She hummed, helping me up. “How’d it go?”

“Huh? Oh, the injury report.” I replied, taking a second to remember the entire reason I had gotten off the battlefield in the first place. “Went fine. Full recovery and cleared for active duty as usual. Didn’t even question my excuse for having both of my knees blown off. If anything, the question never had a chance to get off the ground since I kinda chewed her out for being a goody-horseshoes pacifist.”

“Nice.” She giggled, tossing a bag of clean fatigues onto her cot. “If you’re wondering, everyone else is out doing laundry. One of Huckleberry’s shots detonated a satchel full of landmines on this group of Zeebs and the whole place was suddenly tinnitus and body parts. I can only guess one of them was carrying a lot of blood bags or something because blood got everywhere. Like all of us were stained red from head to hoof, it was that much. Dance got a bunch of intestine wrapped around his neck like a scarf and I got brain in my duster pockets. You would've had a blast with it, no pun intended.”

“Damn...wish I could have been there.” I mused as I sat on Huck’s cot and scooped up the third of six combat knives I kept in the different places I frequented just in case I was caught without my usual weapons. “Everyone ok?”

“You know it!” She snickered, sitting beside me and uncharacteristically laying her head on my shoulder. “Hey, Athena?”

“Yeah?” I asked, looking down at her as best I could without having her slide off my shoulder.

“Do you think I would make a good mother?” She asked, a question that came completely out of left field.

“Ummmm...why…?” I asked, looking past her head to her stomach that was still as flat and unrounded as ever with no sign of a baby bump. “You’re not pregnant are you? I seriously hope not...”

“What? Oh hell no!” She laughed, patting her flat belly contentedly. “No...just thinking about what I’m going to do after the War you know? Once that white flag flies...what the hell am I going to do with my life? I’m thirty-nine and never even had a boyfriend before. I’ve been fighting this damn War for going on twenty-two years now and I’ve got nothing to show for it but skill with a shotgun, a Warrant and other asskicking related skills. I don’t cook, I don’t really clean, I have no clue how to take care of a household let alone a foal...and yet I find myself wanting to be able to do those things you know? I want to be a good wife and mother like those stupid M.O.P posters keep blabbering about. Guess you could call it a bit of a pipe dream but...I still feel its what I need to do.”

“Wait...you’re almost forty? Since fucking when?” I asked with genuine surprise.

“Since May 23rd, dumbass!” She laughed. “Yeah...I’m going on forty here soon enough. Sorry for lying about my age, you guy's aren't the only ones I had fooled...I’m not proud of how old I’ve let myself get and have nothing but this Warrant commission to show for it.”

She gestured to the little silver bars on her lapels marked with four distinct black squares, the mark of a Grade 4 Warrant Officer. While certainly no Colonel or Brigadier General, a Warrant Officer was nothing to make light of as it took just as much effort to obtain as many of the officer ranks. I didn't see what she was getting so worked up over when her accomplishments were speaking for themselves, even despite the fact the promotion had kinda been a participation trophy sort of affair. Not like any of us asked for the promotions we got or the extra responsibilities that came with them. We were scab workers filling in for fuckers killed working the machines before us and taking up the mantles they left in their wake.

“Slow down there Penny. First off, you're a fucking W-4 which means you've almost completely peaked in your career. Second, feeding into the first, you earned all these promotions! I mean, you didn’t go to an Academy did you?”

“No...enlisted as a Private back in ‘55 when I was seventeen, had to lie about my age then too. Been fighting ever since.”

Wow...she was old considering that was the same year that the War officially started.

“Exactly! That shows you’re a survivor and if you can survive getting shot at for twenty-two fucking years, pushing a foal out of your snatch and raising it is going to be a cakewalk. Relatively speaking.”

She laughed and sighed softly, her warm breath tickling my fur beneath my button-up shirt.

“Thanks...you really think I could pull it off? The whole stay-at-home mom thing?”

“Well...knowing your feisty go-attem attitude, it’ll probably take you a few years or more to get used to it but I think you’d do a great job as a mom if you ever chose to settle down with someone. You’ve got a strong maternal instinct, I can feel it. Definitely a damn better mom than I'd ever fucking make. I don't got any of those mom instincts everypony talks about and don't really think I care to ever have 'em anyway. I mean, not gonna lie...I hate being around kids. Even my mom fucking agrees with me that me having kids probably wouldn't be the wisest choice given who I am.”

“Speaking of your mom, would you mind asking your mom next time you talk to her if she’d be willing to talk to me about the whole mothering thing since she had to raise your sorry ass on her own.”

“The hell you implying?” I scoffed in mock offense just as the rest of the group walked into the tent with their bags of fresh laundry and new uniforms.

“Well hey! Looks like Penny finally decided to pop her cherry!” Huckleberry giggled as she observed Penny’s head resting on my shoulder. “Don’t get too attached ya hear? That there is my girl and I’ll fight ya for her, Chief Warrant Officer or no.”

She quickly whipped her head back from off of me with a deep blush to her light blue cheeks and stuttered, “N-no! I w-was just...oh fuck me…”
Hucks rushed up and pinned her back on the cot beside me with a sultry smirk as she said, “That can be arranged. Name the time and place and we’ll show you what a real orgasm feels like. Don’t think I can’t hear you at night baby...or smell you in the morning. Blue raspberry isn’t something you’d normally smell out in the desert surrounded by sweaty soldier boys.”
Penny went dark red with embarrassed horror while the only males in the group stood close with wide excited eyes at the rather steamy show going on in front of them. It was one of the few redeeming qualities about guys I enjoyed...they were the only ones who liked a little mare on mare action more than even I did. Not that I blamed them at all for it...after all, we were the cuter sex. Although...male Griffins still had a fair amount of allure I had to admit.
Hucks let her go soon afterwards though not without leaving a small kiss right on her lips and a tender loving smile before helping her up and giving her a tight hug. Buck and Dancer both groaned in disappointment that there wasn’t going to be a hot lesbian threesome for them to enjoy but I had the suspicion Huckleberry had finally broken Penny’s stubborn heterosexualism so maybe the boys would get a show after all. Maybe not tonight but perhaps someday. Was a right better dream to think possible than that the War wouldn't escalate to the point that Megaspells and Balefire got involved for real.
“Soooo, Penny told me y’all got bathed in blood out there? How was that?” I asked, doing my best to give Penny a break from the hungry gaze of our two sex-starved boys.
“Wet, hot and colorful.” Dancer said simply, rubbing his neck with a look of disgust that I wouldn’t have understood had Penny not told me about his new scarf.
“Fucking awesome!” Buck bellowed. “I can check that off my bucket list.”
“Oh? What else is on this list of yours?” Hucks asked, sitting Penny down so she could recover before plopping down next to me on her cot. “Let me guess, punch a dolphin? Maybe rub butter on your brother and call him toasted bread?”
“Nah, though I like the dolphin idea.” He laughed as he crashed onto his cot. “They’re smug little fuckers with their little flippers and fancy tricks...but no, next up on my list is to take a picture of a missile using a regular old camera right before it hits me in the face. After that, I wanna dig a giant hole out there in the Badlands and fill it full of Zebras then toss in a couple crates full of Obsidian Geckos and watch them duke it out.”
I had to admit both of those sounded like really cool things to try and accomplish as demented and dangerous as they were but then again this was Buck Beak. Demented was his bread and butter.
“Huh...I’d pay to see that.” I commented before silence fell about the tent, Penny climbing up to her cot and holding her bag of laundry close to her.
“So...you ready for tonight?” Dancer asked as he rummaged around in his bag and surprisingly pulled out a black bottle of Absent.
“Yeah...but answer me this, where in the hell did you get that? That’s illegal, even with the Colonel.” I responded, jabbing a hoof at the bottle. "Hell, even I don't feel right about that thing being here."
“Eh, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Buck Beak grinned as he snatched the bottle from Dance’s hooves and stabbed his talon into the cork, pulling it out with a loud pleasing pop.
“What’s this?” Penny asked, leaning down from her bunk with curiosity since she enjoyed drinking as much as everyone else save for Hucks and myself.
“Absent! Where’ve you been Penny?” Buck laughed as he took a long draught before holding the bottle away from him, gagging and making noises like he was trying to really clear his throat. “H-holy fuck! What is that?!”
“It’s the new recipe, just hit the DM!” Dancer proclaimed proudly. “They call it the Draught of Living Death!”

“I can see why…” I sighed as I peered at the jet-black liquid that smelled strongly of enchanted alcohol all throughout the tent making my nostrils burn almost as bad as those first few seconds of NecroGas while you’re fumbling for your mask.

“I still don’t get it, what is it?” Penny asked, sniffing the air then grinning. “Me smells strong liquor!”

“That’s right! Want a swig?” Dancer asked encouragingly as Buck flopped onto his cot looking dazed and already high as fuck.

“Before you do that Penny…” I sighed, holding out a hoof between her and the bottle being offered to her. “Absent is a new alcohol that’s been around for only a few years now. It’s two-hundred proof made from Red Berryl flowers and the fermented paste used to make Buck and enchanted with a psychedelic spell that makes you trip major balls. Can get addicted to just whiffing the fumes coming off the bottle like those weirdos in the Engineers who got hooked to sniffing the petrol used in the armored fighting vehicles. Tried this shit myself once back in EastPoint on a dare and was lucky to come to safe and sound at home two days later after a complete blackout drunk/high. Scary fuckin' shit...”

She pushed my hoof out of the way and held the bottle to the sky like a chalice to the gods and said, “Where the hell have you been all my life you amazing sounding liquid goodness of life?”

“Waiting for you to find it…” Huckleberry mumbled as Penny chugged almost the rest of the bottle, none of us making a move to stop her since it was pointless to try. She drank any of us under the table on the rare nights allowed off base to go out together as a group in civilian clothes.

She gasped a bit as her lips left the mouth of the bottle and gave a very cowgirl-like 'woooowie!' before tossing what was left to Dancer and sitting on the edge of her cot looking straight ahead as if waiting for something.

“Damn! What a feisty ass bottle that! I don’t feel anything.” She said in a normal voice unlike Buck who acted like he had crammed a bottle of acid down his esophagus. “When does it kick in?”

“Depends on body type, weight and a bunch of other stuff.” I said with another sigh, disappointed in her enthusiasm for the effect. “With how much you drank...I’ll be seeing you at the M.O.P tent in twenty minutes or less. Before you lose touch with reality, please try to remember not to tell them too much. Shoot for mild-illnesses and possibly poisoning in battle from a Scorpio since the toxin is known to cause hallucinations. Last thing we need is for one of us to get thrown in the brig for being intoxicated on station.”

“Huh…?” She asked distractedly, her eyes glazing over as she mumbled, “Shiiiiiiiiit…”

And without another word she fell backwards onto her cot, mumbling gibberish to herself and giggling at the hallucinations playing out in her mind’s eye. Absent was truly something else, supposedly the result of illegal alchemy blended with age-old distillation techniques and some narcotics. I could only wonder what kind of damage it was doing in the civilian sphere with so many looking to escape the modern world.

I just personally never saw the allure of alcohol no matter the type or the people who drank it. Growing up in high school, the bulk of my filly friends ended up pregnant, broke, in a really bad relationship or all of the above all thanks to alcohol and similar substances. Even when reluctantly dragged into a party by my friends, I would sit in the corner trying to do something, anything but pay attention to the chaos and debauchery happening around me. That’s not to say I was a little angel filly with a clean nose and a pure conscience...my nose was usually covered in mare cum and my conscience was mostly left chained up in the basement of my mind while I full-heartedly hurled myself into a relatively rebellious lifestyle. Even in all that time though...I never once got drunk and only accidentally got tastes of the different alcohols usually available to high school seniors. Accidents because every cup, bottle and jug was a possible hiding spot for other dumbasses' stashes. Again...my aversion was not out of some sense of moral conscience, it was just simply out of a logical hatred for what it did to people. Conversing with drunks was a painful, smelly experience and there was always a high probability of violence breaking out with just how much I hated being around them. One cat call or unwanted grope was enough to send the slobbering idiot to the floor with a punch to the gut or a Judo takedown over the shoulder.

“Dude…” Buck Beak chuckled with a slurred tone, pointing to the tent flap that was partially open to try and tempt the cool evening air inside. “S-shut that fucker up, bro.”

Dance, who had drained the last of the bottle in the meantime, shook his head lazily and mumbled, “Nah...I...I need it up-down for my...irises…”

“Dude it’s fucking tripping me out that it’s open dude…” Buck said in a slightly frantic if stoned voice, pointing at the tent flap in earnest like it was paramount to his survival.

“Why…?”

“Fucking……...people dude…”

They proceeded to chuckle and squawk until they hugged each other tightly and began to sway back and forth through the center of the tent lazily humming a bumbling waltz. I had seen both of them drunk more times than I cared to admit (they had the scars to prove it), but I had never seem them acting so...gay. It was fucking hilarious to watch as they stumbled over each other trying to agree on the right tempo to hum along at but if I didn’t know they were drunk as fuck, I would have been tempted to think they had a thing for each other. I knew they didn’t...but, it was fun to think they did. I was unsure if even Huckleberry knew I had a thing for gay birds. My hots for Griffins was well-known to her but I had never considered just how arousing the idea of one of em taking it up the ass was until now. More than likely it would be Buck on top having to assert himself as always but...I couldn't lie that I was into the idea. They could joke all they wanted about me being lesbian but at the end of the day I was firmly bisexual. It just so happened my taste in males had feathers, paws and beaks. Stallions were fine enough but nothing beats a knotted cock and the feeling of hands gripping your ass.

After another thirty more minutes of them attempting to out-dance the other, they both passed out on Buck’s cot, each drooling on the other as they slept off the potent brew. Penny continued to giggle to herself as she traced her hooves through the air above her making complex shapes and designs. It was rather adorable to see, especially now that I knew she was going on 40. There was just something childish and innocent about her mannerisms that was endearing and I hoped she would show this side of her more often. Just because a girl moved out of her younger years doesn’t mean that she should grow up entirely. Besides, Hucks and I liked doing age play more and more often these days because seriously...the only thing cuter than a grown up version of Hucks was a cute as hell smaller version of her!

“Well...looks like we are the only survivors. Again.” Hucks said with a small smile, tossing a blanket over the two guys and putting a pillow under Penny’s head. “It’s just like Poor Richie’s all over again isn’t it?”

“Eh...sure.” I replied, checking Penny’s pulse when she finally fell asleep to make sure she was still alive. “Though there’s a lot less...broken bones, glass and strippers this time around.”

She snorted and shook her head in laughter as she wiggled her shoulders seductively in a manner familiar to the night in question.

“What was her name? The one who gave you a hornjob on stage?” She asked, biting her lip in thought.

“Ah shit...Mulberry?” I asked hesitantly finding it difficult to remember all the details from before the bar fight.

“That’s her real name but what was her stripper name? Cunny Bunny?”

“No, that was the one Buck ended up decking after she yanked a feather out of his neck and stuck it in her mane. I think it was Clitoria Labia...or something like that. I don’t honestly know. So much shit happened that night.”

She nuzzled the scars on my right shoulder from where a stallion had stabbed me with a broken bottle and said, “Hell yeah it did. Thankfully the Colonel was there...no idea what would’ve happened if he wasn’t.”

“Yeah…” I sighed, thinking about how similar a shade of red his face was when compared to the fire extinguisher he was brandishing after the bar top fire was snuffed out. “I’ve been thinking about my mom lately…”

“Oh?” She asked inquisitively, laying her head on my shoulder and rubbing small circles on my chest. “What about her? Has she given you any more grief about going into debt for the house we want?”

“No, we actually haven’t even talked about that in months now ever since you told her the status of our savings account. No...it’s just. I don’t know...”

“Common...you can tell me babe.” She teased cutely, kissing under my jaw and nuzzling my ear. “Let me guess, she wants you to make her cute grandbabies or something? My mom won’t get off my ass about that.”

“She’s mentioned it but she knows I’m not one for kids…” I replied, sighing inwardly at the thought of raising a bratty little colt. “No...I just...I don’t want her to get too much older while I’m still in the Army you know? She’s almost a hundred for fuck's sake and that grey hair is going to start showing up whether we like it or not. What if she dies of old age while I’m still out here in the fuck middle of nowhere? I mean...aside from you, she’s all I’ve got. The moment whoever the fuck it was came in her in dentist school, she’s had to raise me herself. Working thousands of long hours at the office picking shit out of pony’s teeth and filling in all the holes Pinkie Pie’s stupid fucking sugar cakes put in them and...I never had the brain to appreciate her struggle when I was growing up. I didn't even know she was in her 70s when she had me...I learned that when I turned 16. When the War started, I saw all the older kids signing up by the dozen to go and fight the good fight and...I wanted that. I hated being the weirdo on the playground who always got picked on because I liked boy toys more than girl ones.”

“Let me guess...you wanted the Redshift Rider BB-Gun for Hearths Warming didn’t you?” She teased.

“Damn right I did! I spent days reading all the reviews for it and watching all those cheesy ass commercials they had on the T.V back in the day...that thing got me to finally stand up for myself and I punched that stupid bitch right in her ugly ass smug little face.”

“Oh? Wait, is that what landed you in court?” She asked, staring at me in recognition.

“Woah, woah, woah! It didn’t go to court babe...that was the story mom and I keep telling to have something interesting to tell everypony at like parties and shit. Check the records, you won’t find anything.”

“So…what happened? Your mom and her mom duke it out or something?” She giggled, booping my muzzle playfully.

“It was her dad actually but yeah, that’s what happened.” I laughed. “Mom summoned up her college girl days and beat the shit out of him. She was a self-professed professional bitch slapper from what she tells me...and from the fact he got plastic surgery to cover it up and mom paid for it, they called it even and I never talked to the bitch again.”

Her stunned silence was highly amusing as my mom, the best dentist in PonyVille (according to Gabby Gums), wasn’t the one you’d expect that sort of behavior from. Her feisty nature brought me back to what I was thinking about the other night...and I didn’t know if I could sum up the courage to tell her what I was really thinking about mom. I knew she wouldn’t care if I told her I had the hots for my mom but was I brave enough to admit it out loud? Maybe I needed an outsider’s opinion. Maybe...maybe Zecuro could be the advice giver non-pony person thing I needed. At least for the courage to say it out loud. For all their warmongering, the Zebras had wisdom in spades.

“You are right about one thing.” She said after a while. “Your mom is still pretty fucking hot for going on a hundred-years old. My mom looks like a raisin with a maternal instinct and a ruby necklace and she's only half her age.”

“Heh...yeah, she is pretty purple. But she’s not that ugly, common. How can you diss your own momma?”

“True! At least she hasn’t hit that point in her life where she complains about everything and everyone.”

Snores filled the tent while the hustle and bustle of a military in motion rumbled along unabated outside. The ground shuddered as the final shots from the Howitzers roared over the valley, hurtling shells at Camp Fuck-Off while the air was tense with caution born of a warzone. And yet, for all the chaos and commotion surrounding us, we were at peace with the world. It was small, fragile and admittedly illegal...but it was ours and we cherished it with all the tender care of a happy parent.

****************

Chapter Twenty-Three: Black Velvet if You Please

“Well fuck...this isn’t good…” I growled, ducking the two foals under me as we hid behind a slightly crumbling pillar that wasn’t even supporting the roof. “That’s Black Velvet…”

“Huh?” Melody asked, looking at the vender stall next to us that was selling animal pelts. “I thought black velvet would look...softer. Or something. Is black velvet a kind of animal?”

I stifled a laugh and turned her attention to a white mare with a short cropped mane in a rough bob-cut who was strutting into The Pile dressed in heavy Pre-War combat armor. While Cook Cook was a simpleton who thought only with his Flamer and a bag of mixed meat, Velvy was...cunning to say the least. She once studied under a Ghoul that supposedly came from the same era I hailed from, an ex-NER Veteran Ranger who found better money in training Merc groups. I hated to think he was just as good as I was, but given Velvet’s impressive record...I was inclined to believe it, if reluctantly. Her talents had gotten her access to the best of the Pre-War stock and somewhere along the line she donned a set of the M-CAT Model 5, the best damn armor ever produced that wasn't in the Ranger series. Like any self respecting Hitmare, she had painted over the bland military tan with a hearty black color reminiscent of the Talon Company though with a tasteful white trim, accented nicely by some cherry red shotgun shells mounted in elastic bandoliers across her shoulders and chest along her neckguard. Unlike some of us, she went without a helmet. Something about looking them in the whites of their eyes or some shit I never really cared to hear. I rarely interacted with other Hitmares both in an attempt to keep safe as well as just the fact I wasn't really one for making friends with fellow sociopaths.

“No, the mare walking in. Her name is Black Velvet...she’s...in the same line of work that I’m in. Was in. Whatever.” I said, trying to figure out what the hell I was doing with my life now.

“Black Velvet…?” She giggled. “She doesn’t even have any black hair! What a dumb name.”

“I know. She only has a streak of black in her tail that she’s really proud of but...you won’t see it unless you really go looking for it. Not sure what her cutie mark would be to get that sorta name in this day and age without being from like Tenpony Tower or some shit. but she ain't the type in my book.”

“So...what’s the deal? Former girlfriend or something?”

“Heh, no. No, no, no...white coats might be my thing but the Velvet twins aren't mares I'd ever wanna take to bed. Both of them are Hitmares and damn good ones at that. Cook Cook may have let you put a bullet through his fat head but Black's not so consensual or unprofessional. See that dent in her neckguard and the big old scratch along the chest? I put that there...we had an argument over payment for a Contract we both inadvertently taken due to a communication mishap with the Syndicate. Didn’t work out too well. Holy shit...to think that wasn't even three weeks ago...”

Her bright blue eyes glared over the market, the scars on her face hidden quite well by her rather well groomed white fur and I instinctually wrapped my magic around my Sequoia in anticipation. She was a sniper and a CQC specialist. I was also a sniper and a CQC specialist. This made fights between us interesting because we either engaged at 600+ meters or point-blank range, the latter of which we had the most experience with. She was damn fucking good with her hooves, enough to make me very hesitant to engage her even with an apparent advantage in my favor. A knife in your possession can be turned on you in an instant if you weren't incredibly attentive.

I dug my helmet out of my saddlebags, not expecting to have to put it back on so soon, and glared at her through my visor forcing the scopes to zoom in on her. I was trying to get a closer look at what exactly she was packing so I could at least have an idea as to what I was up against. She had her favorite weapons just like I did but again, like me she was known to swap things around. If not for style, just to shake things up and keep in practice with more weapon types. The best Hitmares were the ones who specialized in few but could wield all. You never knew when you might find yourself stuck without your favorite weapon or even weapon type and you always had to be capable of using whatever you could find. There were more than a few occasions where I found myself tapping into my random reserve ammo in order to use something I had pulled off a dead enemy.

“Alright...so the APR-1, couple combat knives...that’s probably some throwing knives there...where’s your sidearm bitch…?” I muttered to myself as I took stock of the weapons visible on her body, the Anti-Personnel Rifle making me even more anxious since even my armor, as good as it was, wasn’t rated for straight shots from a .50 BMG. That was the territory of the T-60 to handle.

I was actually dumbfounded to find, at least as far as my quick analysis was concerned, that she wasn’t carrying a pistol or sidearm of any kind. I didn’t see any sign of a leg, shoulder or even boot holster anywhere on her person which was breaking the first rule of being a competent Hitmare: always have a sidearm on you at all times. Maybe she was feeling cocky today and wanted to go for a pure skill loadout (or as we liked to call it, a Quality Build) and force me into a wrestling match with her and those knives. Shit...of all the days I had to leave Little Fang at home…

“Should we just run for it?” Melody asked quietly, peeking from around the pillar at the mare who was steadily making her way towards us, the market parting around her like a school of fish at a predator.

“I dunno…” I muttered back, biting my lip nervously. “We can’t go openly, I’m way too recognizable dressed as I am. Folks here don't like her but that doesn't mean she can't leverage some of her intimidation to get someone to squawk.”

Looking back at the stall Melody had pointed out earlier, I shoved the two foals under the tattered cloth that marked the wall of the merchant’s stall and followed after them. We were in the back where all the extra pelts lay, amongst them being those of fox, Manticore and even what seemed to be Hellhound pelts. Melody buried her face into the fox pelt, nuzzling it and looking like she was in the midst of ecstacy while Gold looked scared but determined, his as-of-yet unused Sequoia hovering firmly a few inches in front of him. It was a rather good hiding spot and one Melody in particular would be loathe to leave but I didn’t know the merchant who owned the place. If he or she came to the back to find a pelt, I would have a rather hard time trying to convince them to let us stay back there. Not to say I wasn’t recognizable, but not everyone I could count on to help me out in our situation. I couldn’t speak for Melody or Gold but I was pretty sure trying to make a new friend when an angry badass is on your tail wasn’t a very good idea.

“Mmmmm...can we keep this?” Melody asked sweetly, throwing the white pelt around her shoulders and continuing to rub her face into it. “Is so soffffttt…”

I distractedly waved a hoof in her direction not implying a yes or a no but just trying to shut her up while I attempted to take another peek outside without getting the attention of either the merchant or Velvet, wherever the hell she was. Looking just over the front counter I was able to spot her progress as the crowd continually rolled around her like a wave everywhere she went. Her path had taken her to the far side of The Pile but I knew better than to trust that simple fact. If I were in her place I would have hired and/or 'enlisted' people I knew to act as more subtle eyes in the crowd. While I, the well known one garnered the most attention, they would be able to flit about the place unnoticed keeping a wary eye out for my prey. Velvet was no fool. She may be mighty unpopular around New Pegasus, unlike her sister, but she was hardly an idiot. That job was left to asshats like Cook Cook and Green who more than made up their lack of intelligence and charisma with brawn and that particularly male brand of idiocy.

“On the count of three we’re gonna crawl under the back of the tent and move into the next stall behind us. We’ve still got a walk ahead of us to get to the stairs to the Dark Market so we’re going to have to move quick, fast and swift, got it?”

“T-those last t-two words were r-redundant…” Gold mumbled behind me as I tugged up on the back of the tent as high as it would let me without tearing the fabric.

“Don’t question my Engrish smartass, get moving.” I hissed at him, half guiding and half hurling him under the gap followed closely by Melody.

The area behind the tent was mostly devoid of people since it was mostly a place for merchants to kick back and relax when somepony took over the stall for them. The two who were there simply glanced up at us from their derelict lawn chairs and waved lazily at me before settling back in their seats and closing their eyes. Who would have thought being a regular patron would come with these kinds of hidden perks?

I glanced over Gold and Melody just to check their wellbeing and noticed the pelt was poking out slightly from Melody’s saddlebags. I knew she didn’t have the money to pay for it so it seemed she had simply taken it. Saving the lecture for later, I yanked a blank holotape from my pocket and shoved it into the small slot in my helmet to record an apology message to leave alongside my payment for her theft. I could only hope the merchant person had access to a tape player because otherwise my gesture would ultimately be pointless even if it was an honest effort.

“Hey, sorry. I don’t know who you are. I’m sure you’re a nice dude, gal, whatever the hell you are, I don’t know. Anyway my daughter stole a fox pelt and this is the apology money for it. I don’t know how much this thing cost so I’m highballing it just to be safe. Good luck with your business and if I live long enough to come back here on better terms then I’m going to get to know you better and have my daughter apologize in person k? Gotta go.”

I pushed them towards the back of the next stall while I reviewed my message to see if it was good enough to leave behind. I regretted being a little coarse with my addressment of their gender but I was in a bit of a rush so it was going to have to do. I could make the proper restitutions when I came back and wasn’t being hunted down while doing daycare duty with two foals. I could afford it, even if he decided to gouge.

After they were adequately secured behind the next stall, I dove back under the partition to deposit my payment only to barrel down the merchant himself. Reflexes moved faster than comprehension and I had him in a proper chokehold with a hoof over his mouth before I could even think to ask what was going on. His light orange face turned a shade of red as he tried to choke out a scream from around the hoof clenching his throat and the one covering his mouth. I shook him a bit to tell him to shut up and relaxed my grip around his neck enough to allow him to get some air before I suffocated him and hissed into his ear.

“I’m really fucking sorry about this but for the love of Celestia don’t you say a fucking word got it? You’ve probably noticed that mare everyone is scared shitless of walking around out there and probably already know her name if you’ve been here long enough so you know exactly how dangerous this situation is for everyone involved. The only reason I’m here is to pay for a fox pelt my daughter stole from you a few minutes ago when we were hiding back here and I’ll be on my way. Got it?”

He nodded furiously, his slightly emaciated body trembling in terror as a detestably fragrant puddle formed beneath his hind legs. The poor guy had pissed his tail. Goddamnit, all I wanted to do was make amends for theft, not rob him of his stallionhood…

I dug through my saddlebags for the caps needed for the transaction, grateful to myself for thinking to bag up some of them in groups of fifty. Dropping two bags onto the shelf beside me I quickly released him and with another whispered apology I was out again from under the partition, silently wishing my idea for easier commerce would catch on quickly so I wouldn’t have to worry about sorting individual caps for large transactions like this.

Neither the two of them nor the sleepy merchants from earlier were anywhere to be seen by the time I made it back forcing me to fall back on my E.F.S to try and find the green tick that would mark Gold’s position since he was bound to be the only Ghoul in the immediate area. Sure enough, it didn’t take long to find the green amongst all the blue though I did notice there were more than one red tick amongst the forest of blue all around me. The hunt was thicker than I had hoped but then again I had pissed off Green Peace. He was smart enough to go for overkill when it came to me and again, I didn’t blame him. If I was the one hunting myself, I would hire as many willing bodies as possible and give them all miniguns and APRs. The best corpse was the one that was so full of holes it wouldn’t dare get back up again. (But not so full of holes as to be unrecognizable when it came time to get paid. A body without a head can prove to be hard to identify.)

I took a second to fiddle with the controls of my radio hoping the restoration and update of Gold’s helmet had worked well. I was banking on the hope that his obsession with his new toy kept it on his head instead of in his bags.

“Gold! Gold do you copy?” I hissed into my mic, crouching low behind a stacked pile of metal containers as one of the red ticks seemed to be walking very close nearby.

“O-oh hey! T-this thing w-works!” He replied, stuttering his way through a mini fangasm over his toy.

“Gold, where the fuck did you two go?! There’s more than Black Velvet out here looking for us and the last smart thing to not do would be to wander off in a place you have no fucking clue where you are!”

I glanced back at my E.F.S and noticed to my horror more than one red tick was directly to my right with nary a blue to be found and my choice of cover only hid my left and front sides. Too many civies for a gunfight and potentially too many for a tussle with a combat knife. With Little Fang I’d feel better since she gave me much needed length to my blade (and came with a very peculiar effect) but again, I had chosen to leave her back with the rest of my stuff. I was getting sloppy after becoming a kind-of parent. Too many lives to take care of at once. It was like being a part of Alpha Squad again only if everyone was an unruly teen and I were the mother trying to corral them through a minefield.

“M-Melody saw an a-art booth and wanted t-to go check it out.” He replied, obviously distracted. “We’ll b-be right b-back I promise!”

“Be right back my ass!” I growled, looking to my right and seeing four ponies and one Griffin huddled close, five angry red ticks marking their exact position on my compass. “Look, if you are where I think you are then look to your right. You should see a giant sign that says bathroom on it. Go to it and find a place to hide nearby and don’t fucking move until I get there. Mommy has to go kick some ass.”

“M-mommy?” He asked as I shut him off eliminating a potential distraction from what I was about to do.

“Alrighty...five-on-one….I can do this.” I whispered to myself as I took a quick tactical glance over my surroundings looking for anything I could use to my advantage. “Cakewalk...whatever the fuck that saying is supposed to mean.”

Aside from the metal containers, some chunks of the stone ceiling and a beaten up umbrella, the only other assets I had available to me were the pair of combat knives strapped to my lower back. Grenades and everything else I had was out of the question unless I wanted to start some true chaos. Close-in and personal was the name of the game.

I felt the container next to me, tapping it just hard enough to get a feel for the vibrations and discovered that despite its rusted appearance, it was actually solid steel that felt like at least a quarter of an inch thick. That was enough to stop most small-arms fire but a rifle would be dodgy at best. All I needed to do though was shave off as much energy from the bullets as possible and hope my armor could handle the rest. In a last ditch effort, the container was going to be my safe zone. Relatively speaking...

“Here we go…” I said to myself, drawing my combat knives from my back and wishing I had thought ahead to practicing throwing them so I could even the odds faster. None of them had helmets on and direct hits to the head or even neck would do wonders from a distance.

Clenching my gut, I dove out from my hiding place and hurled one of my two knives at my would-be assailants, hoping it would at least hit who I had been aiming for as I made contact with the ground and rolled. Jumping back up, I found I still had another ten feet of ground to cover but my knife seemed to have made contact with the cheek of the Griffin, though pommel first. I hadn’t killed him, just clocked him in the jaw and really pissed him off.

“It’s her!” A mare from the group yelled as they turned on me in disorganized unison, guns primed and ready to blow me apart.

“Shitfuckassrabbits!” I exclaimed, pushing all my effort into my next leap to cover the last five feet between us before they unleashed the fury.

My knife found a temporary home in the eye socket of the Griffin I had clocked earlier while one of the stallions in the group got a facefull of my crotch as I tackled him to the ground, throwing all my momentum into my downward motion. His neck thankfully snapped with a jolt, pinned between my leg on the ground and the second one curving down his back forcing him down harder against the wedge of my leg. Behind me the Griffin shrieked (though it sounded more like the squawk of an enraged turkey) and I instinctively yanked my knife back out to stay by my side where I could actually see it. Hooves were nearby my head so I swept a leg under them to get whoever it was off balance just long enough to unravel the dead guy from my hind legs and get back up.

“Shit!” Exclaimed the pony I had knocked around, their body flopping over at the same time I stood up.

My knife buried itself again in flesh this time in the neck of the mare on the ground, the serrated portion along the spine of the blade immensely effective in opening her esophagus to the open air leaving her thrashing softly on the dusty concrete floor. I caught sight of my other knife on the ground lying next to the Griffin who sat trying frantically to stop the blood pouring out of his empty eye socket, the missing eye impaled on the blade like a skewered piece of meat. He was too occupied with his injury to be considered an active threat so I flung myself at the last remaining stallion, my armored horn stabbing deeply into his unarmored chest. The impact with the ground hurt my neck and rattled my horn given the position I was in but there was a distinct clunk felt through my horn as if I had stabbed completely through him and into the concrete below. He went limp instantly as I pulled my head out of his chest and turned to see the Griffin still on the ground cradling his wounded eye.

None of them had managed to get a shot off. I was genuinely impressed with myself. I hadn’t been cornered in a situation like this in several years and with very good reason. It was bad for business to blow the brains out, or worse rip out someone’s intestines, in a public place you frequented yourself. You would forever be remembered as the crazy bitch who cut three people in half in front of a child’s fifth birthday party. Well...at least I was remembered that way to the ponies of Birkenworth fifty years ago. I was sure they had forgotten about it by now but...I wasn’t willing to take that chance.

Snatching up the eye encrusted knife, I walked up to the Griffin who cowered away from me holding up his talons in a feeble attempt to keep my blade from finishing him off. Rule number six of being a successful Hitmare: never leave witnesses if you can help it unless it serves to increase your notoriety. (If that is something you wanted.) I didn’t give a shit for this guy’s life, he had tried to kill me. This was justice if anything else, a concept everypony in the Wasteland knew to be integral to everyday life. Either you settle your differences with cash or you just straight up shot the fucker and moved on. So...why was I hesitating to kill the son of a bitch?

“Get out of here.” I sighed after what felt like a century of thought, throwing a hoof to the right. “Go before I decide to carve you out a new asshole…”

He squawked timidly and took off as quickly as he could while still holding a clump of torn fabric to his eye. It was a horrifying feeling to watch a witness scurry off of my own free will but I had to stop myself as instinct began to raise the crosshairs of my AMR on his bloodsoaked ass. It wasn’t like me to do this. So for that cause I was going to blame it on Melody. This was her doing, not mine. Mercy was much more her style.

“Won’t be long before somepony finds ya…” I sighed, looking at the slack jawed bodies swimming in a kiddie pool of their own gore.

“Gold.” I finally sighed into my radio, restoring the connection between us now that I was finished taking care of business. “You guys stay put like I told you too?”

“Y-yes.” He responded, his voice strained and quiet. “S-she’s right n-next to us!”

Sweet mother of Celestia I was going to have an aneurism…

“Stay right where you are, I’m coming.”

There was no point in even attempting to hide the bodies, even if I had the time to try it so I simply left them behind and hugged the line of stalls ahead of me making my way steadily north towards where they were hiding. The general bedlam of The Pile had nicely covered up the noises of my scuffle as yelling and screaming were more or less common amongst hagglers and gamblers alike. Hell it wasn’t uncommon for fights to break out and for ponies to wind up dead so that could go to help explain the five bodies I was leaving in my wake. Either way, my progress was unimpeded by further violent detours though there were still a healthy abundance of red on my E.F.S.

The sign indicating the public bathroom (which was one of the few in town that had actual working plumbing) was large enough to be seen across most of the building as it had been painted over a pair of large television screens that were fastened to a large support pillar in the near center of the room. I had never toured the LPGC building before the Megaspells but I assumed the T.Vs were for public announcements or stock prices or something of that nature. Now, like most things Pre-War related, they were re-purposed for something far more mundane than they were designed for.

Leading out from the base in a perfect east/west direction was a wide avenue of sorts that marked the main street of the market with a third street coming from the main entrance to the south. To the north of the sign were the stairs leading up to the offices that had been converted to the fancier booths that sold such things as cheese, wine, meat, clothing and so forth. It was a matter of pride to say that you could afford to shop on the second floor and became a sort of colloquial term applied to the richer tenants of Freeside who still couldn’t afford to enter into the Stirrup, which was reserved for the truly elite. Though I was a Second Floorer, I preferred to shop on the first floor with everypony else. I hated being labeled as rich. I was a self-professed punk ass bitch who just happened to have a lot of money and a big appetite.

“Where exactly are you two?” I asked, poking my head around a basket of fresh cut meat and failing to find an obvious hiding spot.

“I-in the bathroom…” Gold responded in a strained whisper almost too quiet to hear. “S-she’s right n-next to us.”
“Wait, like in the stall next to you?” I asked, taken aback with a sudden bout of humor at the thought.

“U-uh huh…” He gasped. “I-it’s very l-loud…”

She only ate meat so that made sense. Ponies were herbivores by default but omnivores by necessity. And then there were weirdos like Velvet who routinely wrecked their insides by devouring nothing but meat with no greens to counteract it. I myself liked a juicy Brahmin steak just as much as the next mare but the shits it gave me the next day almost made it not worth it...so I had to wonder just how little Velvet cared for her poor intestines. What a weird form of masochism.

“Stay put, I’m coming to get you.”

The path to the bathrooms went right through main street and there were red ticks on the E.F.S everywhere throughout. It felt like that stupid Old McDonal song from pre-school. Here a red, there a red, everywhere a red bitch. This was going to get messy if I didn’t time my movements carefully.

A Brahmin made its way past and a split second decision later I was clinging to its underbelly, half my vision obscured by the swollen udder. Meanwhile my legs cried out for mercy at having to hold myself up by bear hugging the underside of the sweaty, muddy two-headed cow. Red went around me without a fuss as the lumbering beast lopped behind its master towards whatever stall it was destined for, our path starting to veer dangerously away from the destination I had in mind. My grip gave out around the same time I decided to hurl myself off my impromptu ride and I had to rely on my momentum to roll me under a table covered with a patched cloth giving me a temporary respite from my efforts.

“Fuck me...right in the ass…” I panted, staring at the bottom of the table while my limbs took their time flushing the lactic acid from my muscles and I fought against my diaphragm trying to get me to hiccup.

“U-uh...w-what?” Gold asked with embarrassment obvious in his hitching voice.

“Nothing! Almost there, standby.” I panted out, shutting off my radio with a huff.

It was almost peaceful hiding under the table watching as the little ticks of red meandered about, looking aimlessly for me. Given a pillow I probably could have taken a nap right then and there but I instead settled for a long draught of my canteen refilled with ice-cold lemonade. A minute of rest later and I felt good enough to poke my head out from under the tablecloth to check for any witnesses before rolling out and booking it for the next available hiding spot. It was difficult to roll properly with a large rifle slung over my back, even with the barrel retracted into the receiver for portage but it was faster and beat the hell out of army crawling out from under there.

“Alright...how many shitheads can we count today…?” I mumbled to myself as I scanned the last stretch of stalls to the bathroom.

There were six visible and four I could not directly see on the road ahead, the four I assumed were guarding the entrance to the bathroom where Velvet still seemed to be occupying. I didn’t envy the poor guy or gal who had to stand guard outside or nearby her stall but it was a smart move on her part yet again. The second worst place I could think of to get caught by an assailant was with my pants down on the loo. The worst by far though would be getting attacked when muzzle deep in a tasty mare, but thankfully I had managed to avoid that horrible of an experience. As to how I wasn’t quite sure given my history.

It was at this time as I settled back to sit and think about my strategy that my armpits seemed to finally notice there were a pair of thick objects underneath them. I couldn’t help but slap my head in disgust with myself. I literally had a pair of suppressed pistols on my person the whole time that would have made my knife tango with the guys from earlier a cakewalk. Sure it wouldn’t have taken nearly the same amount of skill to pull off, especially with S.A.T.S, but I was going for efficiency not style. Well...OK, more like sixty/forty in efficiency's favor. Drawing both at once with practiced ease, I stepped out from my hiding spot and leveled my weapons on the red ticks marked on my compass, S.A.T.S coming online in perfect unison with my actions.

95% chance for two headshots on the two closest to me and an assortment of various other statistics for the other four ranging from 86% all the way down to 29. With the world at a standstill and my worldview wide open to taking in all the environmental factors surrounding my chances, I decided to take out the first two simultaneously then move in quickly to try and conceal the bodies from sight. It wasn't quite like me to be so sneaky and concealy but the best Hitmares tended to try new things on occasion to see if its more effective.)

The suppressors hissed out their deadly projectiles as the nirvana of S.A.T.S sent my bullets out with undying accuracy towards the two nondescript heads. As one, the back and side of their heads exploded in a wonderful spray of brain-filled gore as the jacketed rounds traveled halfway through their brains before exploding out the other side. Bodies dropped in their old, familiar way and I was already on the move towards the first, taking advantage of the observation that the next nearest ‘bad’ witness had her back turned. Fucking amateurs… If I wasn’t so focused on protecting my kids I would have been insulted by Velvet’s blatant disregard for my reputation. Or maybe she just thought I was stupid. Either way...in some ways it was just too easy.

“I’m really close Gold, just another few minutes at most.” I said as I drug the last body into a relatively obscured area, the ponies around me staring at me for half a second before moving on with their business with a bit more speed behind their steps.

“O-ok…she’s g-gone now.”

I looked up just in time to see the frowning snarl of Velvet waltzing out of the bathroom, the large trademark Barnette muzzle break of her APR-1 more than obvious on her back while a previously unseen magnum revolver lay in a holster across her armored chest. I was actually deeply pissed off at this. Not the fact that she was hunting me down (wasn’t the first time) but the fact she seemed to almost be copying me. I was the one known for the big rifle, the big revolver and the thick armor, not her. The thick armor sure and I would make a concession to the rifle bit but not the revolver. If it was a large caliber top-break, I was going to scream and I didn’t care if it turned into a bloodbath. It was fine to copy some fighting tactics, maybe a weapon choice...but it was an unspoken rule to never copy another Hitmare’s aesthetic style if you yourself were already counted amongst their number. An adoring fan in a lower rank can certainly try if they're looking to maybe learn from their idol but it was a risky practice as not every Hitmare liked being copied by novices.

I pulled my rifle from my back, blind anger edging out my common sense just enough to train my sights on her ugly face when she looked directly at me and smirked. The AMR was a charcoal grey, the scope lens treated to not reflect light and I was mostly in the shadows. So...how the fuck was she pulling this off?!

She whistled and the remaining eight ticks on my compass all formed up beside her forming a wall against the entrance of the bathroom, two of them holding Gold and Melody hostage. One had a gun (Gold’s gun I noticed with terror) against Melody’s temple while the other had a rusty, jagged knife against the jugular of Gold who hung limply in the grip of his captor either knocked out or passed out.

“What ya gonna do, Crete?” She yelled out, the crowd within earshot all quieting down as they comprehended the situation that was unfolding. “I got your two little shits right where I want them and I’ve got you right where I want you. What ya gonna do? Blow us all up with your AMR? Go ahead! We’ll take your brats with us to the grave!”

Her compatriots didn’t seem to be so dedicated to that statement by the way they eyed her and my rifle nervously as if I would actually take her offer. Melody looked...almost bored despite the massive barrel pressing against her head. It took me a second to realize this was probably not the first time she had been in this kind of situation. A gun to the head tended to get ponies to do what you wanted them to do but after awhile I suppose it would become just a formality. I actually noticed she had slightly lifted her tail to the side as if to present herself to the stallion who held her in the air. Terror was instantly exchanged for rage at seeing her fall immediately into her broken, victim state.

“Velvet!” I yelled out, stepping into the open and dropping my rifle on the ground. “You know the rules. No kids.”

She snorted so loudly in disgust I heard her even from where I stood. She hated kids even more than I did and everyone knew it, especially the Syndicate which explicitly made the no-kids rule just for her. If you intentionally shot a child who posed no threat to you then you could kiss your positive image (as positive as you could get as a killer-for-hire) goodbye. The whole process was so regulated it was scary.

“Oh that’s rich coming from you, Crete! I know your logbook just as good as everypony else in this shithole does. Besides, what happened to your whole ‘I never want to have a snot-nosed brat of my own’ shtick? Huh? Since when did you bog yourself down with these little fuckwads?”

She jerked a hoof towards Melody and Gold, though Melody was the only one who reacted. It was a tired look of sadness towards me before letting her head sag downwards in defeat.

“That’s none of your fucking business Velvet. Now, let them go and let’s settle this beef of ours like responsible adults.” I growled as loudly as I could at her, snickering internally at how she cocked her eyebrow in slight surprise.

“Phhbt, like hell I will.” She laughed, gesturing once again towards her captives. “I finally have a solid one-up on you Crete and I’m not gonna give it up just to play fair!”

“Yeah but you’ve also got quite an audience this time don’t ya?” I countered, pointing at the large crowd that had gathered around us that was only getting thicker as time went on. “Harm those foals and you’re gonna have to kill everyone to cover it up. Don’t know how many bullets you guys have but it’s not going to be enough to pull that big of a stunt off. You think I've ruined my reputation? Least I killed Slavers and other fuckers the Syndicate has no particular love for. Innocents are for amateur Mercs like the Talons to slaughter, we kill to a much higher standard than that and we both fucking know it. It sure as hell ain't a holy profession but it damn well ain't interested in collateral damage. Something you seem to not give two shits about relying on your precious big sister's clout in the community to keep your name on the books.”

I knew there were two more of them directly behind me at that very moment from the crunch of their hooves in the gravel behind me, but I wanted to give them an extra second to think they were on the winning team. One of them made the obvious mistake of cocking their weapon right behind my head which was all the time I needed to draw my knives out once more and stab them under their chins right into the brain. Dragging them forward, their heads still impaled on my knives, I presented them to Velvet with as much saucy flair as I could muster before wrenching my blades free and watching them flop to the ground on either side of me. As the ground beneath me turned red and wet, a vein throbbed in Velvet’s neck while her eyes narrowed in anger towards me. Her pride had been sufficiently prickled and it was about fucking time.

“Fine! You and me then, you cocksucking piece of shit!” She snarled, flinging Melody and Gold to the ground as she strode towards me drawing her own combat knives. “Knife dance it is you fat ass, so helmet off. Let’s do this properly.”

I snorted in amusement as I took it off and set it down beside my rifle. ‘Properly’ wasn’t even close to the word I would use to describe her M.O. ‘Messy’ and ‘uncultured’ where more apt descriptions but they lacked the proper weight needed to be insulting. In the end I went with ‘retarded’ since I couldn’t come up with anything better. Well...anything that wasn’t more than one word and wasn't a swear.

“Bring it on bitch…I’m a cunt-muncher anyway.” I giggled, crouching low and watching as she did the same though her pose just screamed NER. My assumption was correct as to the source of her training. “I haven't sucked dick since I was in my twenties...unlike you.”

She lunged at me, knives spinning in her magic as she aimed for my neck and chest whilst I jumped over her. One blade glanced off my shoulder while the other missed entirely, swinging into open air as she skidded to a halt using her kneeguards to brake on the concrete floor. I retaliated as I hit the floor behind her, lashing out with only one knife at her ass while I kept the other nearby in preparation for a follow-up strike. Naturally it just glanced off her faulds given she was wearing the Mrk. V model of combat armor, but I could tell she had felt the ding in her butt by the way she got to her hooves looking livid as fuck. We hacked and slashed at each other for another solid five minutes, neither of us making a dent in the others armor or defenses as we were just too evenly matched as we were. For every slash she had a parry and for each of my counters she had one of her own to offer right back. Despite her hatred for me, it was nothing compared to the fiery vitriol I held for her for threatening harm to my kids. She was going to die and that was fucking that.

“Let’s see how you like this little bag of tricks, Crete!” She giggled evilly, pulling a gold ring set with a orange/red gemstone out of her bags and slipping it onto her horn after I had used her head as a springboard to get some distance. “I know how much you hate using magic so why don’t I make up for that?”

Her horn sparkled again with green magic but it changed into a flame once it reached the ring on her horn. Not only had her wealth and reputation bought her her armor and weapons but it also extended into the realm of the arcane. Fucking Pyromancies...I hated the cursed Souls that had invented them.

“Aha! So you recognize this, don’t you?” She sneered as the flame on her horn erupted into a massive fireball that hurtled towards me like a boulder of hot orange light.

I half yelped, half screamed as I dove out of the way, my progress assisted once the fireball connected with the ground and exploded behind me sending me flopping across the impromptu ring of ponies who all jumped back from the flame. Magic was alive and well in the world, I of all ponies knew that. I just tended to avoid combat mages as best I could and that was a policy I had kept since my first ever experience fighting a Zebra Alchemist. I wasn’t talented with magic. I preferred my skill with a weapon over any kind of skill behind a spell. Magic was the realm of great magicians and schoolbook nerds, too esoteric and arbitrary for me.

My knives seemed quite small compared to the funeral pyre coming from her horn and it was an unspoken rule that it was a no-gun duel. The only reason she was ‘allowed’ to use Pyromancies was because technically, as far as I knew, all she was using was telekinesis which just so happened to be channeled and used as fuel through the Inferno Ring on her horn. Telekinesis was allowed for Unicorns engaging in a duel and she was just exploiting a loophole in the technicalities of it all. With none of the Shadow Brokers present to officiate on behalf of the Syndicate, there was no official ruling to be had on whether or not she was cheating. Besides...it had been a long time since I had seen these kinds of specialty magics. Most Unicorns just learned the universal magic attacks like the Arcane Arrow and the Magic Barrier so Crystal magics, Pyromancies, Electromancies and Frostbite magic were all insanely rare to see. Hell, I couldn't even remember the last time I had seen somepony talented enough in magic to use one of them let alone have the resources and/or wherewithal to find one of the Rings needed to perform them.

“How do you like the taste of fire, Crete? Huh?!” She taunted, launching another fireball from her horn that I had to dive under once more.

“It’s old fashioned!” I retorted, rolling up to my hooves and snatching up as many chunks of concrete as I could grab in my magic and hurling them back at her since I had nothing other than my telekinesis in my bag of tricks. “I haven’t seen a Pyromancer in years! How old are you?”

“Younger than your wrinkly old ass!” She hissed, shooting another fireball right for me.

I changed my tactic this time and instead of diving to the side, circling around her, I dove towards her to close the distance between us meaning her next fireball would be much closer to home. The glare of the fireball exploding seemed to blind her slightly (the fire burning brighter in response to her anger) giving me an extra few seconds to close the gap and I made the assumption that fireball was the only Pyromancy she thankfully seemed to know. Besides, with the Ring on, she couldn't perform telekinesis so the advantage was mine.

“Shit! Get away you-!” She howled, fear widening her eyes when she realized that I was three-feet from her, more than close enough to angle my knife to plunge right into her heart via the chink in her armor under her left armpit. The Kevyarn bodysuit under the ballistic impact plates was mostly woven from the short-fiber variety which, while strong against bullets and shrapnel, was hot shit against a sharp knife.

Her voice cut off in a satisfyingly wet gurgle as I exploited the weakness I had personally discovered in my fourth year in the Badlands right after the Mrk. V hit the front lines with the GA's bestest boys. Though I had never planned on having to use this information myself (since at that time the only ones wearing it were Equestrians) it had come very in handy as I watched her sink to the floor. And the Colonel said my fascination with armor was going to be a waste of time.

“Steel beats fire biaaaatch!” I laughed, getting close to her and wiggling the hilt of my knife poking out of her side eliciting a scream of pain indicating I hadn’t hit her heart. “Shit...I missed.”

I looked over my shoulder at Melody who looked back at me with sad eyes that I couldn’t quite interpret. Either she was sad that I had stabbed Velvet, or she was personally hurt from the words Velvet had quoted from me regarding children. I went with the latter option considering Velvet was a terrible mare and Melody was understanding of killing terrible people as far as I knew. I mean, she had literally stomped the shit out of Jangle's head so...

“J-just kill me…” She gurgled, blood dribbling from her mouth indicating I had definitely stabbed her in the lung meaning a long and painful death if I didn’t do something about it.

“Do it Crete!” A person in the crowd bellowed out followed swiftly by several other shouts of approval. “Gut the bitch and send her head to Green!”

It would be a proper message to send to Bitch Face, that’s for sure. But...goddamnit Melody. There was a reason I had tried to eliminate my morality from the equation when it came to taking care of business. It was easy to eviscerate a target and get their guts all over the floor and walls when you didn’t even have to pause and think about the ethics of your choices. Believe me, I put up with four semester’s worth of Philosophy at EastPoint and my ethics class was the worst. Do good because goodness invigorates the Soul and blah, blah, blah...if I was doing good, it was because I wanted to do it and not to fulfill some ethereal mandate set up by some old stallions millenia ago. (Looking at you Pluto!)

All I had to do was pull out my knife and she would drown in her own blood within minutes. Or I could pull it out and shove it back in aiming right for her heart. The avenues for death were endless. Looking back at Melody, I gave a face I hoped implied my question regarding her approval of killing Velvet since she seemed to be the only thing holding me back. I knew it was my relationship with her and how she perceived me that was really to blame but I was being general in labeling her as the problem. She gave a short nod before turning towards Gold who was still sprawled out on the floor at the hooves of the lackeys who were deathly still with fear seeing as I had beaten their master.

“You had a good run Velvet.” I said to her quietly so the others couldn’t hear me. “Had we not fought over territory and hits so much I might have called you a friend…”

“S-save the *cough* bullshit Crete…” She huffed out, lazily looking at me through the haze of blood loss. “We both know...that’s a lie.”

"Eh...I guess you're right. You're too much of a cunt to be a friend, too straight to fuck and too competitive to share."

I drew out my revolver to put her down swiftly but she shook her head with great effort and wheezed out, “Leave...me a...pretty corpse please…”

She was never one for personal appearances so this request came off as a little strange. But I holstered my gun anyway and grabbed my knife once more. As I prepared to take it out, I noticed that despite her lack of formality, her coat was clean and her armor, as dented as it was, was polished and well presented. Maybe I was just looking in the wrong spot for her sense of vanity. After all, the short bob-cut hair style was actually kinda cute on her.

“Sleep tight.” I said, drawing the knife out and plunging it back into her heart in one deft motion, her body instantly going limp and flopping backwards.

The crowd cheered as her body hit the floor with a solid smack while the eight who had stood by her fled every which way to try and avoid repercussions from the mob for taking her side. The fame was something I had secretly been wanting for years ever since the Tin Heads had stolen the spotlight from my Corps but the only thing on my mind that I wanted was Melody’s approval. I dashed over to her side as quickly as I could and hugged her harder than I ever had before hoping with all my might she would feel my love for her. She hugged back, gently at first but then with more vigor as she clung to me, her small head resting on my shoulder as she did so.

“What Velvet said earlier…” I whispered into her soft ear that was pressing against my lips. “That was before I met you...you have become the single most important thing in my life, Melody.”

Her breath hitched as I said that and she kissed my cheek in response, a youthful passion behind it that sent my heart careening off a jump and into the sky. She was my daughter in all but name now...I could feel it in my Soul she could feel it too.

“T-thank you…” She squeaked out before looking over my shoulder and gasping, “What are they doing?!”

I whipped myself around to see the crowd rushing towards Velvet’s body with bags out and knives poised as if to dismember her. I set Melody down as gently as I could in a hurry and charged towards them with my guns out and my anger kindled. Velvet had done Freeside a lot of wrong in life but that was no reason to desecrate her corpse. Not even I hated her that much. Besides, there was something better that could be done to satiate their bloodlust.

“Back the fuck up!” I bellowed at them, stopping them in their tracks. “Anypony who even thinks about touching her body is going to join hers on the ground you hear me?!”

They shied away at that looking completely bewildered that I was standing up for the mare that had just tried to immolate me not even five minutes prior but they didn’t know honor like I did. It was yet another unspoken rule in my trade, just like the hooves only rule, to give the body of a fellow Hitmare a proper burial given you defeated them in equal combat like we had. Cook Cook was different as we weren’t in a formal duel and he was harming the people of Freeside including children which, again, was against the rules. Rulebreakers could be disposed of however you saw fit long as there was sufficient evidence of their transgressions on file.

“Do you know what she’s done to my family?” Cried out a mare clutching two young foals to her breast. “She murdered my husband! Destroyed our business! We have nothing because of that monster!”

“What about my children?” Another called out. “Who’s going to avenge them huh?”

“You’re no better than she is, you monster!”

The crowd was quickly turning against me. I may be more popular than Velvet in Freeside but I was far from the model citizen. I was a Hitmare and everypony knew it. I killed indiscriminately for money. Maybe I haven’t done much against the citizens of Freeside...but I really wasn’t any better than Velvet. I just did my business outside of town.

“Well, she was my kill, not yours. I get to do whatever the fuck I want with her body and what I want to do is give her a proper burial. There’s this little thing we like to call ‘honor’ and I’d like to show her some alright?” I said as calmly as I could, slightly lowering my weapons but not entirely removing them from sight.

“Oh like you’re any better than she is. You’re just as at fault as she is, Crete. You may take your business out of town but we all know what you do for a job.”

“You’re right. I’m a monster and I’m not going to admit it. Hell, I’m fucking proud of that!” I challenged, glaring down everypony in turn until they averted my gaze. “But even I have some standards alright?”

Melody tugged on my tail and whispered an idea into my ear that was reminiscent of what I had done in Old Appleloosa. It was an awkward, slightly uncomfortable idea but it was genius nonetheless and would go a long way to help sooth the tension between myself and Freeside.

“Alright...my daughter just gave me a great idea.” I said after mulling over the details of her plan. “Everyone who has been personally affected by Velvet’s actions meet me at Cogsworth’s shop in three hours for restitutions. I know it won’t be enough to replace the things and people you have lost...but take it as a sign of my apology for your situation. You can scream at me, shoot at me, whatever. But turning me down in this is just insane.”

They all looked more or less dumbfounded at my proposal though eventually some began to call for my capture and execution as if that would help them. When the crowd started to look unfriendly I snagged everything I could find of Velvet’s, including her body, and booked it with Melody and a conscious if confused Gold right back towards Cogsworth. The crowd thankfully didn’t follow and those who had been milling about unaware of the commotion kindly got out of the way the moment they caught sight of us hauling ass with a corpse across my back.

As we entered the safety of Cog’s workshop area, he looked up from his work on the Mr. Guts with the flame job with surprise.

“Back so swiftly?” He asked with an amused chuckle, Chocolate hanging off his shoulders nibbling on his ear lovingly. “A trip to the Dark Market that be this short must have a compelling story behind it.”

He finally noticed the dead and bleeding mare on my back and looked at me with both surprise and shock.

“Velvet? Tell me not you have vanquished her…” He said slowly, Chocolate perking up to see the body sprawled out on my back dripping blood onto the floor from the wound in her armpit. “May the gods have mercy…”

“I did.” I said simply, letting her corpse fall off my back and onto the floor. “And with her money I’m going to try and repay the ponies outside for all the shit she’s done to them.”

He stared at me critically for a solid, awkward five minutes before saying, “You have changed radically Athena...be wary that you be not swept away into something too unfamiliar…”

“I’ve got a heart Cogs, I just haven’t really used it in the last...I don’t know, fifty or sixty years. Longer than you’ve been alive that’s for sure. Anywho, I’ve got to find Velvet’s house thing so I can break into it, steal her shit and pay these ponies back. I told them to come back in three hours so...we don’t have a lot of time.”

“Wait...ya gonna play the good girl hero babe while yo ass is still bein’ hunted down?” Chocolate said incredulously. “Girl, you fuckin’ crazy.”

The look of adoration on Melody’s face was more than enough for me to dedicate myself to the idea she had proposed, the danger of it be fucked. She was genuinely looking up to me with love and adoration...that was well worth the risk of getting shot in the face by an angry citizen or getting shot at by another group of Green’s goons. I hadn’t done much wrong by Freeside but I sure as hell was going to make amends for whatever they thought I had done wrong using somepony else’s money yet again. Well, I had killed Velvet honorably so her shit belonged to me now technically but it felt better to think it was her money going towards reparations and not my own.

Damn right I was fucking crazy. I was two-hundred and thirty something, now was as good a time as any to start losing my marbles. Maybe I would get lucky and the ponies on my tail would get tripped up once my marbles hit the floor. If they wanted crazy, they were gonna get it alright. I would see to that.

****************

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Striped Traitor

“Colonel Crete!” Silk exclaimed excitedly as she exited the M.O.P tent still dressed in her nurse’s uniform and looking cute as a button. “And Captain Crisp! What a wonderful surprise!”

“You told her we were coming right?” Hucks mumbled to me as we hugged the soft pink mare before us.

“She did, she did!” Silk laughed heartily, blushing a little. “I guess I’m just surprised you actually turned up! The last couple of dates I had, the guy never turned up so...Not that this is a date! Heh! It's just the best thing I could come up with for conversation. Anyway!”

She blushed even harder looking between Hucks and I while we stood there laughing with her, even though we knew right then and there where the night was headed. She apologized for not dressing up better for the night, especially compared to my mare and I who were wearing our dress uniforms, but we quickly put a stop to her apologies. Hucks and I actually hoped to catch her before she had changed into something else since, who could resist a cute pink mare in a white nurse outfit? I suppose it could be considered bad that we had every intention on seducing her but we weren't going to go anywhere she didn't want. At the very least, we'd get a nice dinner with a cutie pie who could help get Hucks connected with some more medical training to aid in the days ahead. Barring anything insane happening, we were looking at a solid win tonight.

“So what’s the plan for tonight?” She asked excitedly as we led the way back towards our tent, the boys and Penny having already moved out on a three-pony patrol of the Western ridge to give us space. “Sadly there’s no Chez Perez restaurant in camp or else I'd say let's use those military discounts of yours to get us good seats.”
“Well, we might not have any sort of restaurant out here without going up to Appleloosa but, by special request, Athena here managed to convince the cooks to make us a nice meal. Eggplant steak with a creamy sauce, mushroom garlic risotto, a light salad and peach pie!” Huckleberry proclaimed proudly, sweeping the door flap to the tent open presenting the metal table in the center of the tent that had been given a makeover for the night.

My ‘friend’ in the galley (the Staff Sergeant who had taken a liking to me in the freezer) had been so kind as to lend me a tablecloth and a pair of candles for the occasion as well as serving our meals on metal platters rather than the usual plastic ones. The lit candles threw the rather fine cuisine set for three in a romantic light, and I caught the surprise on Silk’s face as she saw the spread. I would have probably reacted the same if I had come home to this one night after a patrol.

“O-oh my!” She gasped, staring at the savory steaks and risotto on the table with a watering mouth. “This looks wonderful! H-how did you get all this?!”

“Being a big shot has its perks!” Huckleberry giggled, slapping me on the ass in a not-so-subtle way much to the surprise of Silk who stared as if not sure if what she had seen had actually happened.

“Heh, yeah it does!” She finally laughed as she took a seat at the table and set several napkins on her lap to keep her uniform from staining. "This sort of meal takes a lot of skill behind the cook! Did you get someone out of Appleloosa or...?"

"You're joking right?" I laughed, looking between her and Hucks incredulously. "I think the only one with the balls to pull a pretentious move like that on a day's notice would be our benevolent General."

"Heh, is that so?" Silk laughed nervously, unsure of how to respond it seemed. "W-well, it looks delicious all the same!"
We sat on either side of her and began to eat, the meal having been prepared with delicious care. The thick juicy steak was on par with any I had eaten at the restaurants in Manehattan and the risotto actually beat them out of the water. Whoever this Staff Sergeant was before the War, it had to have been an extremely competent cook to be able to pull off a meal like this on short notice with what the military had in the kitchens. As we devoured our meal, I winked at Hucks to get her to take a second from staring at me to glance at Silk who was eating her food with closed eyes and a look of pure bliss on her face. She grinned back at me and mouthed, ‘Phase One Complete.’

Naturally we had planned the whole night out and Silk Carnation was the focus of our efforts. The goal? To sweep her off her hooves with a wonderful night with two awesome mares and then move in for the kill. We had no intention to force her into anything but we sure as hell were going to try and get her turned on and at least sexually confused. If nothing came of it then we weren’t out anything and if she came from it then all the better. This wasn’t the first operation of this kind Huckleberry and I had undertaken, nor would it be the last if we had anything to say about it. The 3:1 gender ratio of the country was only exacerbated by War casualties and there were more sexually frustrated girls fighting the good fight across the globe than you'd expect in this day and age. Didn't take much to show one of those lucky ladies a good time.

“How is it?” I asked, beating Hucks to the question.

“It’s amazing…” She crooned softly in pleasure. “I haven’t eaten this good in years...so much work, no time for fancy food. I can’t tell you how many meals have been dominated by top-ramen and MREs in the last three years…”

We both nodded in agreement. War had a way of limiting your food choices, especially when you were on an extended campaign. Still, top-ramen was one of the most versatile quick meals I knew of as long as you had a good spice collection and some other stuff to put with it like canned vegetables and the occasional can of Cram I managed to ‘borrow’ off Buck Beak or any of the other omnivores I knew. Meat had its place in my diet although I rarely got to have it thanks to everypony around me usually looking at me like a disgusting freak. Sadly, not even tonight was I allowing myself my quasi-taboo indulgence. It was already going to be an experience and a half for the poor girl, I didn't want to make her sick to her stomach just because I wanna play carnivore. Guess my guts would thank me too.

“I’m glad to hear it!” Huckleberry smiled, winking subtly at me in victory. “You know Athena’s mother is a really good cook too. Back before our Squad was basically living in our armor 24/7 in the desert, we used to have big dinner parties at her place in PonyVille. Her fucking peasant loaf bread and homemade raspberry jam are to die for.”

“Oh? What does your mom do for a living?” Silk asked, politely swallowing before speaking. “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

I shook my head and laughed, “Nah, just little old shithead me running around the house making a mess was more than enough for her. My mom is a dentist in PonyVille. Well, was. She works in Manehattan now since it offered more money and was somehow quieter than the hometown of the Ministry Mares. Nothing special, but she’s good at what she does.”

“You’re from PonyVille?” She asked excitedly, just like everypony did when they learned where I grew up. “Did you ever-”

“Get to meet any of the Ministry Mares?” I finished for her. “I get asked that a lot whenever anypony learns where I was born and I have to tell everyone the same thing: nope. Maybe when I was extremely young back when they still lived there but I don’t ever remember meeting any of them. I was the daughter of the local dentist. What right did I have to go see mares like them? I know my mom knew them rather well back in the day before they became too important for such a small town but...that was a long time ago.”

“Oh...I guess you’re right…” She replied with a sad tone. “But still...it must have been cool to have lived in the same town as them right?”

“Yeah, I guess…” I said quietly, thinking back on the rather boring childhood I had. "To be honest, aside from the occasional trainload of tourists come to see the former hometown of the Elements of Harmony, PonyVille was very quiet. I guess after the Ministry Mares moved away to attend to the government, all the weird shit the town was known for kinda just...stopped. No more Chaos gods, no paranormal invasions, not really even any freak weather outta the Everfree. Nopony went in looking for trouble and no trouble came crawling out of it to bother us in town. Hell, you could even explore the first few hundred feet of the tree line without feeling impending doom was nigh."

"Huh...how...disappointing." Silk sighed wistfully.

"Disappointing eh?" Hucks laughed. "What, you were expecting spectacular stories or something?"

"Well...yeah, I guess so." She relented with a blush. "Growing up hearing the stories of PonyVille and the Ministry Mares encountering evil and weird things for the sake of Equestria..."

"Sorry to burst your bubble..." I laughed sheepishly, taking another large bite in order to give me a bit of time to breathe. "All that fun stuff happened in my mom's early twenties and she's almost sixty now. The Ministry Mares seem to have been blessed with an extended lifespan thanks to the Elements because they haven't aged nearly as much as they should have in forty years. My mom and other original residents seem to have gotten a bit of that effect too; my mom barely looks like she's out of her forties."

"Really?" She gasped, her wide eyes reflecting the candlelight magnificently. "I never knew that!"

"Neither did I to be honest." Huckleberry commented with similar surprise after a bite of risotto. "But now that you mention it...it goes a long way to explain some shit I've always wondered. Always thought the Ministry Mares just had access to some high-tier magic to keep them young so their minds and bodies stayed at their peak for the War."

"Well...honestly that's a pretty good theory to be honest. But no, it's their connection to the Elements according to my mom. She had a chance to ask one of them personally about it during one of the town's reunion fairs when I was still a newborn. I'm the first to admit I don't know a ton about Arcane Science but I know better than to question the abilities of ancient magic, especially as far as the Elements are concerned. Sadly the Six went their separate ways before I was even four or five and I don't think they ever really got the chance to come to another reunion. I went to about a dozen of those reunions for the free food and to see mom light up at seeing old friends from back in the day. Neighborhood definitely changed over the years..."

"I'm...sorry to hear that." Silk sighed sadly. "I bet that was pretty tough on your mom to see the town break up like that."

"Well...she handled it pretty well all things considered. Business was thriving thanks to Pinkie Pie's Sugarcube Empire putting cavities into everypony's teeth and her homemade toothpaste recipe took off like wildfire in the dental community. She actually minored in chemistry in college and spent a lot of her free time when I was a napping filly to fuck around with her chemistry equipment she kept in the basement trying to make better toothpaste, mouthwash and the like. Guess you could have called it a bit of a closet obsession but she made a lot of money on the side selling her products via her clinic and soon enough was filing patents to protect her investments."

"You're kidding..." Silk gasped, looking at me with a mixture of impressed and disbelieving. "No way you're talking about Colgate."

"Heh, yeah most people know her for her last name since that's what she named her brand after." I laughed in response, feeling a bit odd being a bit of a celebrity. "Once I moved out of the house she thought fuck it and decided to go full-time into her patents and before she knew it she had an office in Canterlot and a manufacturing plant outside of Fillydelphia making 30k a day in profits. Although nowadays she shifted from an active role in her company back to a more quiet life in a clinic she owns in Manehatten while the board of directors handles the brand. Still makes a killing just off the royalties alone so she is more than content to keep things as they are. Hell, she's looking at a very comfortable retirement whenever she decides to slow down finally. Like I said, being near the Elements for so long in her early marehood seems to have boosted her longevity a bit. Not that I'm complaining...I love her so, so, so fucking much..."

"Huh...so you're her daughter. I would have never guessed that..."

"Well, with a name like Athena Crete, it's not hard to see why." I replied with a slightly bitter laugh. "First thing you should know about mom is she was big into romance novels after I was born. Guess she felt she couldn't find a husband, raise me and run a growing business all at the same time so she got off to those raunchy fantasy novels that were kind of the rage a few decades ago. I...was a surprise kid in her senior year of dental school so she didn't have a name picked out or anything. Unlike most parents, I guess the gift of foresight that usually graces parents when they name their kids skipped her by because she couldn't come by any inspiration for my name or so she says. Eventually she decided to name me after some character in one of her novels as she was her favorite heroine. And no...I never bothered to look into my namesake, it's a bit too embarrassing to think about."

"Sweet Celestia...I can see why you would feel that way, holy cow..."

“Sorry to be boring but my backstory ain't so crazy as hers." Huckleberry giggled after a moment of silence. "I grew up in Stalliongrad with my six siblings. My dad worked as an accountant and my mom stayed at home taking care of the seven of us. We were staggered out at least so a few of us were old enough to be out there looking for part-time work to help the family out. Wasn't comfy living by any means but we never went hungry at least, not something everypony could say during the 50s.”

“Seven??” Silk asked incredulously as a family that size would have been prohibitively expensive with today’s economy. “How was your dad able to afford all of you? N-no offense…”

“Honestly I have no clue…” She admitted. “I hardly ever saw him so I guess he just worked all the time to support us. He died a few years ago from a heart attack. Doctor said it was stress and overwork so I guess that’s it.”

“Wow...and here I thought my family struggled…”

"Oh hush hun, it was ages ago and I've definitely gained some good, healthy weight on me since then. Hell, enrolling in EastPoint right outa Stalliongrad U was probably the best choice I could have made given our circumstances. It got me outta the house, let me channel my anger in a constructive funnel and officer's pay is enough to send a little home each month."

"Wow, you both seem to love your families very much to give them up for this hot, desolate place."

"Eh, I mean yeah I love them and all but I didn't get involved just because of them. Honestly given our social status the best job I could hope for was some boring ass, low-wage secretary position at one of the factories there which...fuck that shit."

The air was getting a little hostile as Hucks showed a bit of her hidden venom for the mundaneness of the civilian world so I decided to interject in order to save the mood.

“How’d you get into the M.O.P?” I asked, catching her slightly by surprise.

“Oh, I just signed up at the high school job-fair thing my school had. I’ve always looked up to Fluttershy growing up and playing doctor with my sister, so it just kind of made sense you know? I never felt so at home then when I first put on my trainee scrubs and set hoof into one of those big hospitals the Army has out of Camp Golf. Soon enough I was reading medical textbooks in my spare time any chance I got and the course just flew by. Once I finished the basic training course they looked at my test scores and said I had the first pick over two equally honorable careers. On the one hoof, I could go intern under a nurse’s assistant at one of the Helping Hoof clinics and take a four-year nursing course to become a fully fledged nurse working in the civilian sphere. Or, I could sign up for the two-year advanced training course for the Ministry of Peace and become a licensed nurse as an official student of Fluttershy. Obviously I took that choice. There was no way I was about to pass up the chance to wear the true M.O.P nurse cap, it's a badge of honor in the medical community.”

She patted the nurse’s cap set on the edge of the table lovingly and smiled to herself lost in some happy memory.

“I didn’t graduate top of my class but I was in the top fifteen-percent so that’s something right?” She laughed. “Dad was proud of me at least. Mom...thought I could have done better but she was always a major bitch to me so I never really listen to her. Anyway, after graduating I interned as full-fledged nurse at one of the Army hospitals in Trottingham since they always need lots of help and it was there I saw the chance to become a…‘combat medic’. They had lots of openings for the Eastern and Southern Fronts and I chose the Southern one because I guess I thought the fighting down here would be...not so intense. Plus, I like the heat. It was always too cold for me in Trottingham.”

“Oh you’re from Trottingham?” Hucks asked excitedly as we were eventually planning to move there.

“Well, I was born in Manehattan but dad got a job in Trottingham so we moved there when I was like six or seven. Why, got family there?”

“No, it’s just Athena and I were planning on buying a house together there.”

She looked at Hucks and I curiously as usually only couples bought a house together while roommates usually worded it differently than that. More like, ‘renting a place together’. I bit my lip nervously as she stared critically at each of us, the weight of the law heavy on my mind.

“Wait…” She said softly, her eyes widening as the two of us broke out in heavy blushing. “You’re not...oh my Celestia…”

“Not...what?” I said nervously, staring at her rather than Huckleberry.

“You know exactly what I’m saying.” She said flatly.

“Alright, fuck this.” Huckleberry sighed as she got on her hooves and stared Silk down. “Yeah, Athena and I are lovers and we’re madly in love with each other. Tell anypony and I’ll be sure to add your name to the lists of the deceased you hear me? If there's one goddamn thing this War has taught me, it's how to put bodies in graves. I’ve worked too hard for too long to keep our relationship a secret and I’m not going to jeopardize it for some sweet ass like yourself. Got it?”

Silk trembled and cowered in fear much like she had in the M.O.P tent earlier when I had counter-lectured her on the realities of war. I felt kinda bad for her but I was filled with admiration for my mare and her fiery passion for me and our relationship. I knew she wasn’t going to give up on me and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give up on her. We had been together for eight years now and I was going to make sure that number went into the double digits at the very least.

“Y-yes m-m-ma’am…” She squeaked with trembling lips.

Hucks returned to her seat and put her hoof on mine, leaning over the table to kiss me in full view of our guest. It was scary yet highly arousing to make out with my mare in front of a stranger and I could feel the arousal trickling down my thighs thinking about all the things I wanted to do to her right then and there. The muffling spell was in place, the tent had a proximity warning spell surrounding it and the mood was right. I was going to fuck both these mare’s brains out.

“O-oh my…” Silk gasped in surprise as she watched us, a heavy blush hitting her face though her eyes never looked away.

Huckleberry lingered on the kiss for a few more seconds before slowly pulling away and winking towards Silk and licking her lips.

“What? Never seen two girls making out before?” She teased, poking her on the chest. “Obviously you’ve never been around a drunk, horny mare at a sorority party before.”

Silk shook her head and covered her mouth sheepishly as she squeaked, “I-I...I’ve never…”

“Never what?” I asked, unbuttoning Huck’s dress shirt and nibbling on her chest fluff. “Kissed a mare? Watched mares kiss each other? Gone to a sorority party?”

“A-all of the above…?” She squeaked again.

“Well fuck me, next thing you’re gonna tell me is you’re a virgin.” Hucks giggled sarcastically, helping me undo my buttons using her teeth and tongue in a very sensual manner.

Her silence caught both of us off guard enough that we stopped stripping each other down to the nude and stared in her direction. Now her entire face was hidden behind her hooves, the bright red skin of her face standing out starkly behind her soft pink hooves.

“Sweet Celestia…” We both gasped in amazement given a mare of her caliber should have been drowning in whatever gender she preferred. “You’re a fucking virgin?!”

“I’m sorry!” She cried slamming her face down into the table and covering her head as if to ward off an attack.

As she began to sob we stood there quite unsure how to proceed. Here was this twenty something piece of fine ass who had yet to pop her cherry with anyone let alone a stallion, which was the usual way people lost their fillyhood. Hucks just shook her head in amazement while I thought back to my first time in bed with someone at the age of twelve. When I had first gone into heat was when mom, in her conscientious motherly wisdom, had stopped allowing me to have sleepovers with boys including Zecuro since boys going into their first few ruts were known to be less than self-controlled. I had been clopping since I was about six or so so I knew why she was keeping me from horny boys but she let me have girls over with the idea that I was as straight as most everyone else. How wrong she was!

Hucks finished taking off my shirt, using her magic this time around just to speed things up and once we were both properly stripped down to our drab black dress socks and panties we converged on our sobbing guest. With immense practiced ease we snuggled up into her sides and wrapped our arms around her in as comforting a way as we could muster, petting her back slowly and methodically while whispering kind comforting words into her ears.

“Hey...shhhhhh...it’s ok cutie.” Hucks whispered tenderly. “It’s not like we’re going to hit you for being a virgin sweetie. It just means we have...an extra responsibility to make sure your first time is your most memorable.”

I nodded and followed up with, “Mhm...in a lot of ways I envy you because you’re old enough to be smart with who you decide to be with instead of taking the first dick that comes your way...a lot of my fillyhood friends did that and...they regret it. Hell most of them got pregnant from it and the boys left them in the dust...so...count yourself lucky.”

She was mostly silent save for the occasional sniff and hitched breath until she asked, “D-did that...happen to either of you…?”

“No…” Huckleberry said first. “My first was my boyfriend when I was sixteen...he...died a few months before I went to East Point...you know, when we had that nasty outbreak of Dragon Pox…”

“Mine was actually with another filly…when I was twelve...” I admitted, laughing silently at how long my preference for girls had been around in my life. “My mom wouldn't let me have sleepovers with boys after I had my first estrus so I got to know the local fillies in more ways than one. Was smart of her to keep me away from teen pregnancy and she had no clue I was bi until I was sixteen and she caught me one night cuffed to my bed with Peachy Creme humping my face. Heh...the look on her face…”

“You were twelve…?” Silk asked, slowly lifting her head to look towards me with puffy, damp eyes.

“Yep!” I giggled confidently and unabashedly. “Candy Twizzler in the old treehouse in our backyard. She was really confused when I crawled between her legs and started eating her out like it was my last meal but she was so horned up that she begged me to keep going. And going and going and going. Neither of us slept that night. Heh, mom was so confused why the two of us smelt so fruity and shit but she let us shower together which was cause for only more pussy eating. God I miss those days…”

“Fruity…?” She asked again, this time with more interest in her voice.

“Well, she tasted like cherry liccorice and I taste more like peaches or apricots.” I explained. “What, didn’t you know every pussy tastes different?”

She shook her head with surprise etched onto her face like a beautiful stone carving.

“Seriously? Well, I guess straight girls wouldn’t exactly know that but guys who’ve slept around certainly do! We’re kinda like Basking Robbins, over a million flavors of pussy!”

She blushed but gave a small laugh at my analogy before pulling herself up from the table slightly and finally realizing Hucks and I were stripped down causing her to blush even harder.

“Y-you two...f-find me a-attractive…?” She whispered, looking between us with almost a hint of need as if this information was vital to her wellbeing.

“Phbbt, hell yeah we do!” I exclaimed sincerely, brushing a hoof against her cheek. “What’s not to like? You’re a beautiful pink, you’ve got white hair to die for and it matches your coat so perfectly! Plus, baby blue eyes? Princess I’ll fuck you anytime, anywhere and I’ll love you just as much as I love Huckleberry.”

Hucks smirked at me over Silk’s back but didn’t comment as Silk whispered, “R-really…?”

“I know you’re a virgin but are you telling me this is literally the first time someone’s ever complimented you on your body like this?” Hucks asked, looking back at me with an expression of total disbelief.

“W-well...no…” She admitted, leaning back in her chair and feeling our chest fluffs under her timid pink hooves with a look of rapture. “But...n-not so...sincerely...I guess…”

We were hot chicks serving in the Army alongside the rowdiest asshats the male species had ever spat out of the general civilian workforce. Catcalling and sexual harassment were all part of the daily life for us so it made sense she had learned to tune it all out. If anything she had it worse off than either of us did since she was hotter than most and wore a tight fitting nurse uniform and even tighter fitting panties. Speaking of…

“Oh, and before I forget, you rock the cameltoe just let me say.” I crooned into her ear eliciting a squeak of embarrassed panic out of her.

“Does she?!” Huckleberry exclaimed excitedly. “Of course you got to see up her skirt first you lucky bitchnozzle…”

“W-would you like to see it…?” She asked, surprising both of us as we had been expecting a tad more seduction to be required before we reached this point.

“Girl is that even a question?” Hucks asked incredulously though her tone was playful rather than accusatory. “Hell yes we wanna see it!”

She blushed ever harder, the blush seeming to move beyond her face and into the rest of her body as she went from a soft pink to a more hot pink color (no pun intended). With some hesitation, she stood up from her seat and leaned her upper body on the table, gently pushing what remained of her meal out of the way while spreading her hind legs slightly and pushing the chair away. We waited patiently, with damp and dripping nethers, for her to go at her own pace and gave small whistles of sensual encouragement as she reached back and tugged up her white skirt showing the size-too-small white panties hugging her ass so tightly it left almost nothing to the imagination, save for what her puffy little lips and glistening pink interior actually looked like.

“Damn girl!” Hucks and I said almost in unison, relishing the unobstructed view of another mare’s snatch. “You do rock the cameltoe!”

Silk squeaked in embarrassment but didn’t pull her hooves away from her skirt keeping it up for us to see. Hucks winked to me and gave her wonderfully plump but slender ass a good smack eliciting a small yelp of surprise from our guest but also making the fabric pulled taught against her lips get immediately dark and damp with sweet, fragrant mare juice. The air was getting heavy with the smell of warm huckleberry, tangy peach and soft carnation and with another few spanks of her ass from both of us, Silk was gripping the far side of the table and panting heavily.

“I think she likes it babe!” Hucks giggled as she crouched over Silk and nibbled on her ear, her hooves masterfully massaging into her upper back getting her even more aroused based on her groans of pleasure lingering in the air as heavily as our combined musks.

“Ohhhhhfffuuuuccckkk….” Silk moaned breathlessly and sensually, her eyes unfocused and her mouth open and drooling a puddle onto the table.

“Gonna take that as a yes!” I replied to her comment, pulling Hucks down with me so we could each strip her underwear off together and get the first view of her soaked virgin slit.

As our teeth clamped down gently on the waistband, she eagerly wiggled her hips under our chins, panting in need but quite unable to make any coherent sentence. We obliged her immediately and freed her delicious candy ass, each of us closing our eyes so as to not spoil the view too early.

It was difficult to tell a virgin pussy from a well loved one, even for somepony like Hucks and I who had probably seen a good hundred or so of them between us, but Silk’s looked entirely untouched. Her swollen pink labia were plump and squishy with little of the ‘contouring’ that older fillies and mares developed making her snatch look like it belonged on a young filly rather than the early twenties-something mare we were seducing. Like her lips, her clit was a small nub of pink adorning the top of her snatch with thick drops of mare cum dribbling off it and onto the sandy floor below, the scent of carnations and something even sweeter emanating from her nethers like that first breath of air after walking into a floral shop.

“Holy fuck, this looks like mine when I was twelve!” I blurted out, thinking back to those days I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror staring at my own ass and wishing I could fuck myself.

“I was going to say the same thing.” Hucks mumbled as she leaned close and took a long whiff of her dripping cunt. “Mmmmmmm….fuck me, you smell gorgeous. Like delicious but fucking beautifully so.”

“O-oh…?” Silk whispered from her place on the table, her sweat beaded face peering back at us with that same out-of-focus gaze.

“Mhm!” I confirmed, leaning forward to get a smell for myself.

My muzzle went farther than I had intended and the tip of my nose brushed against her sodden lips, the heat emanating from her love tunnel radiating against my face like a warm fire and sending my own body into horny conniptions. Unlike most mares...when I get wet, I get really fucking wet. As Hucks could affirm, if I was sufficiently horny I could make puddles around my hind legs if I stood still for too long in once place and could probably drown a mare in my own cum if I sat on their face too long. (Now that’s the way I wanted to go!) Already I could feel the panties hugging my cunt were doing nothing to stem the flow of juices dripping from my snatch like a veritable waterfall and Hucks could clearly see it from her place beside me.

Hucks grinned at me and nodded for me to take another whiff before shoving my face deep into her vagina, my muzzle surprisingly fitting between her filly sized lips and my entire nose being enveloped in the hot, sticky, deliciously comfortable vice that was her pussy. At my sudden intrusion she gasped loudly and her entire body trembled as she tried to bite back the groans fighting their way free from her lips. Without another thought I began to lap like a thirsty dog at the moist ribbed walls clamping down on my face trying to slurp up as much of her flowery nectar as I possibly could, her moans turning quickly to full-throated screams of ecstasy at my unrelenting assault on her virginhood.

Though I couldn’t see it (as I had a face full of delicious pink ass to stare at), I knew instinctively that Huckleberry was either at work kissing our guest or was soon going to begin snaking her tongue under Silk’s tail to give her a good rimjob as was her specialty. Her cum tasted delicious and I could scarcely get enough of it in my mouth or lathered on my tongue at any given time. Hucks head rested on my own indicating she was going for the glory and the groans turned to beastial howls of pleasure as we lapped away at the most sensitive of places on a mare’s body. Before I knew it I could feel her already tight walls begin to clamp down even harder and spasm out as she reached her climax.

“FUUUCKKK!!” She howled, arching her back and shoving her ass deeper into both of our faces as a generous helping of thick, sweet cum gushed out of the depths of her pussy and into my greedy mouth, which I promptly guzzled down like the good little slut I was.

The tide of juices kept flowing, ebbing into a small drizzle as she collapsed onto the table panting like she had just run a marathon. With a final slurp on her insides and a few gentle, loving kisses to her drenched lips I rose up from where I had been crouched on the floor, wincing silently as my muscles screamed out from being in such an awkward position for so long.

“How was it babe?” I asked softly, leaning close to her hot, sweat covered face and giving her cheek a gentle kiss.

“A-amazing…” She gasped out between labored breaths, her eyes clamped shut and her body trembling softly as she basked in the warm, happy afterglow of her orgasm. “B-better than...I ever...thought it would be…”

I looked back at Hucks who was still nuzzling her ass tenderly and gave her a well-earned smirk of victory. I was the champion cunt-muncher and she was the queen of ass-licking. Together, we formed quite the team of ‘professional’ mare-pleasers, satisfying any and every need a girl could have minus a few. Neither of us would work with shit, vomit or blood fetishes but just about everything else was fair game. In fact, recently Hucks had gotten the both of us into watersports though performing that while in a tent with three others sleeping nearby was next to impossible. That was one of the downsides of our line of work...the proper place to take a piss was either in the latrines or behind a bush if you were out on patrol, not on another mare’s face or body.

“Glad to know we did such a good job.” Hucks said proudly, mounting the mare from behind like a horny stallion. “Mmmm, damn. Ya know how I sometimes say I wish I had a dick? This is one of those times. I’d bust a nut so deep in your tight ass I’d be satisfied for a week.”

Silk blushed at that but seemed to really like the idea by the way she wiggled her hips against Hucks, her tail getting drenched in the sticky, syrupy like juices trickling down from Huck’s snatch.

“I think I agree with you Hucks, she would be a great mare to smash. You’re not in heat are you?” I asked her with a soft giggle.

“N-no…” She breathed out, still wiggling her hips against Huck’s crotch. “B-but you t-two could still...c-cum in me if you wanted to...I’d like that.”

I bit my lip at the thought. Though my experience with stallions and other males was limited compared to my experience with girls, I knew it was the ultimate fantasy for just about every guy to bust his load deep inside a girl’s cunt or ass and watch her howl and moan like a cat in heat while impaled on their shaft. Though I hadn’t admitted it to Hucks for her own pride’s sake, I had actually developed quite the hunger for it. So much to the point I had went out and bought for myself one of those dildos that ejaculates fake jizz into you just to satisfy my hunger for a good creampie. Though my chances to use it were few, I enjoyed it immensely but...it still wasn’t the same as the real thing. Maybe...I was more into guys than I had lead myself to believe.

“So, anything you’d like to try sweet lips?” I asked with a small laugh, playfully giving her wet ass a good spank.

“C-could I see yours…?” She asked timidly, looking at the two of us.

“Hmm, let me think about tha- YES.” Hucks exclaimed, standing with her ass right up against her face and beckoning me to join her.

As I moved over to join her though, a soft beeping noise came from my helmet which was laying on the corner of my bed next to my piled up armor indicating I had someone trying to reach me. Considering that it only beeped if someone was trying to contact me via my private channel, this had to be of some importance.

“W-what’s that…?” Silk asked, peeking up from over Huck’s ass to look at the helmet.

“Someone’s trying to call me…” I sighed, slowly walking towards it with no little amount of reluctance and resentment.

“Just ignore it…” Hucks sighed, rolling her eyes and looking back at Silk. “We’re kind of really fucking busy right now.”

“I’m going to tell them that, just give me a second.” I replied dully, putting on my helmet and flopping onto my back on my cot, wincing as my back collided with the armor I had forgotten was there momentarily.

“Crete here...this better be important guys, I’m in the middle of something.” I sighed out into the mic, hoping they would catch the obvious annoyance in my tone.

“Atina? This is you, yes?”

I would have recognized those melodic, Zebra tones anywhere.

“Zecuro?! How the fuck did you get this frequency?!” I exclaimed in shock, completely taken aback at how my private channel had been compromised so easily.

“I will explain all at a time removed from now.” He replied earnestly. “Harken, I do not have much time. Inform your compatriots there will an attack commence on thine Eastern ridge just before the sun rises and thine artillery is not sufficiently defended. Tell thine compatriots to shore up their watch immediately and please do not delay thine coming to our meeting. I am en-route as I speak. We have much to discuss.”

And with that the line went dead filling my ears with hissing static and my mind with confused panic. How had he gotten access to my private channel? Why so soon was he willing to trust me with this kind of information? Was this a test? A ruse? A fucking goose-chase? And he was talking to me while he was walking to Charlie-Horse. I looked at the top right corner of my visor to check the time and saw it was only 10:30. We had been with Silk for only a few minute-long hours and our original meeting time was set for something like 3a.m. Something was definitely up and I didn’t like the feeling it gave me.

As I took off my helmet, Hucks cocked her head and looked at me with concern.

“What’s up? Who was that?” She asked, seeming to forget for a moment there was a mare sniffing at her panties.

“My meeting got pushed to now instead of later…” I replied with a sigh, trying to play off my budding panic as annoyance and hoping it was convincing given our uninformed company.

“Oh…? I wonder why so soon?” She asked, thankfully catching on and playing the vague-game.

“I’m so fucking sorry Silk to leave but...duty calls.” I said as apologetically as I could while fussing my way into my armored underbarding and strapping on my armor.

“It’s ok!” She giggled, giving Hucks a spank of her own which made her turn around with surprise and a very sultry look. “I think I’ll be ok with your girl here. You don’t mind that I’m borrowing her do you?”

“Absolutely not!” I grinned, slapping my Sequoia into its holster on my leg. “Long as you give her back to me. She is my fiancé after all.”

“What?!” She gasped in excitement. “Congratulations! Though...how are you two gonna marry with M.O.M looking over your shoulder?”
‘Man...she had a quick turnaround time…’ I thought to myself before I answered her.
“I’m sure we can find a priest somewhere who will be willing to do the ceremony if we paid him enough.” I replied with a laugh, getting my duster on followed by its external armored pieces. “There’s more supporters of gay-rights in Equestria than you would think, especially because it was practically legal to be anything other than straight not even twenty years ago.”

“True...forgot about that…” She mused. “Fuck, so much has changed in Equestria since I was a kid…”

“Mhm...I still remember when cartoons were just for entertainment and not for indoctrination.” Hucks commented. “Alright, get going babe. Let me know how it goes alright?”

“You know it.” I giggled, slapping on my helmet and trotting out of the tent towards H.Q for permission to go to Charlie-Horse for a shift.

It hurt me to leave them, especially when my legs and snatch were still wet from the anticipation of getting licked by her but I had a job to do and a potentially game-changing opportunity to gain inside information of the Zebra war plans from a Crimson Dragon. His rank alone would guarantee him a place in their most exclusive of military councils which meant he would have access to all but the most classified of their information. A downside of being a Ranger marked for active duty with a Squad was the fact I was usually excluded from high-level meetings on the basis that I was just too busy kicking ass to attend them. I would always be informed soon after the meeting ended about what transpired but I almost always had a part to play in their schemes. I could count how many of those meetings I had attended since joining Beta-now-Alpha Squad without even reaching the number five. Priorities were made and as much as I hated being in the dark, I hated being off the battlefield even more. Nothing got me more bored and stir-crazy than meetings.
The trip back up to H.Q was shorter than I remembered it being but then again, I hadn’t been running the first few times I had made the hike up to the lair of the General. There were many I passed while en-route there but most didn’t pay me much attention as they passed by, the bulk of them being slightly inebriated or just wandering about out of boredom as the night wore on. The M.O.P tents were brightly illuminated from within like a forest of white fairy lights stretching out of sight while the exteriors were strung with soft golden Hearth’s Warming lights. Despite it being late March, the out-of-season lights nonetheless gave the tent an even cozier appearance while the tenants inside were naught but silhouettes milling about their own business. Even in the small things the Ministry of Image seemed to go a bit above the bare essentials.

“Ah, Colonel Crete.” One of the Shock Troopers grunted as I approached the front door of the tent. “The General would like to speak with you in his office. We just sent a runner to your tent to fetch you but it looks like you were ahead of schedule.”

Of course he wanted to speak to me now… The Laws of Irony were still very much in effect as it were.

“Thank you. As you were.” I replied, quickly walking inside and finding a private corner to send a frantic message to Huckleberry concerning the coming messenger.

“Hucks!” I yelled into my mic, hoping I was loud enough to get her attention. “Hucks! Stop fucking and get dressed NOW! The General has a runner inbound and you two don’t have much time! I gotta go so PLEASE FUCKING STOP!”

I cut the transmission and took off my helmet as I was now indoors and about to speak with my superior. It took a second to slow my heart rate and frantic thoughts about my mare getting caught. We had set two proximity spells around the tent set ten-feet apart from each other and tied their response mechanisms to the psychological profiler subroutine of our helmets so it could differentiate between passing hooves and ponies intentionally coming towards our tent. I was out of range of the spell but Hucks wasn’t and I prayed to Celestia that she wasn’t nose deep in her ass enough to not hear the proximity warning. It wouldn't be the first time...

“Ah, Colonel. Come in…” The General crooned as I walked into his spacious office. “You may leave, Miss Daisy.”

His yuppy secretary gave a nod of her rose colored head and scampered off leaving him and I alone in his well decorated office space. I took the padded seat offered in front of him putting my poker face to use once again while trying to remember the weaknesses inherent in the Mrk. V model combat armor as a way to focus my thoughts. Even then though, I couldn’t help but notice the lavish luxury he had chosen to adorn his space with. There was a Saddle Arabian rug beneath me, a Tiffany chandelier above me and the walls were covered with hanging portraits of the General wearing different uniforms and different medals all sneering out of their frames with his grimy, ugly grin. On the wall above his head hung a picture of him dressed in the new Power Armor of his Shock Troopers while, unsurprisingly, standing surrounded by his favorite Steel Rangers. The ego of this fuck never ceased to amaze me or not make me sick to my stomach. Even the Colonel with all his joking ego fluffing wasn't this much up his own asshole.

“So...Crete.” He said, leaning forward in his high backed leather chair that could have passed as a throne. “Why do you think you’re here?”

Fuck...it was another iteration of my mom’s favorite game when I was growing up. ‘What Do You Have to Tell Me?’ was the worst game ever invented besides Monopoly and I hated playing it then as a kid and now as an adult. You never lnew just how much they knew and if you're me, you're into a lot of questionable shit.

“You tell me, Sir.” I responded in an even tone, hoping to prick his ego enough for him to spill the beans for me rather than having to guess, starting with the least consequential then moving up the list. “Considering I am here without much pretext, it honestly could be anything so I am going to refrain from guessing as it is pointless.”

He frowned a bit at my answer and leaned back in his chair a bit more.

“I asked you here Crete because I think you’re hiding something from me.” He said flatly, his chest puffing out slightly as if to make him seem more intimidating. “And I wanna know what.”

Ice shot through my body like a bullet but I didn’t let the pain show on my face. There were a lot of things I was hiding from him, the question was which was he specifically thinking about? My relationship with Huckleberry? My dissatisfaction with Equestrian nationality? My hidden stash of porn in my tent? Zecuro? The list of grievances was longer than the barrel of my AMR and possibly even beat it in terms of range.

“I’m afraid I do not understand Sir.” I replied, maintaining my calm demeanor even though I was screaming underneath. “What exactly can one hide when they are under constant surveillance by the M.O.M and their superior officers?”

“Quite afuckinglot it would seem…” He grumbled. “Tell me, what happened on your little patrol with Captain Onyx and his Squad?”

“I’m afraid I’m still confused...Sir.” I said. “This line of questioning seems more appropriate for my C.O to be asking as I report directly to him and he to you. Unless I am mistaken in my knowledge of the chain of command we have established for things like this. I presented my report in full to Colonel Horn as soon as it had ended and the facts presented there are an accurate representation of events.”

He was getting really pissed off and he did a poor job of hiding it. I got the impression that he was not used to being beaten around the bush by an inferior and judging by the look he gave Miss Daisy as she left the room...I had to assume he wasn’t used to mares with a backbone either.

“You are correct. Technically speaking.” He grumbled again, the wheels in his ugly little head obviously spinning out of control in an attempt to find a way around my words. “But, as your General I have the authority to question you directly and by Celestia I’m gonna use that power. Tell. Me. What. Happened.”

His eyes glowered with restrained anger as he stood up slightly in his chair in yet another attempt to make his short stature more menacing when in all reality, the stars on his shoulders were by far the most intimidating aspect of his person.

“You’ve read my report. It states clearly what happened. If there was anything more, I would have added it in there but, obviously, there was nothing of further value to be added. If you would like me to make a footnote or an annotation I certainly can but there will be nothing to show for it as there is no information to include in such a manner. I have said what was to be said as per protocol.”

I could tell in that moment that if he wasn’t surrounded by other offices, he would have shot me in the head right then and there. I was essentially the rape victim who was telling him ‘no!’ and he was a stallion not used to being denied what he wanted and my mind was cast back to high school reading MacTeague. Unless I wanted to end up like Trina, I had to play my cards very carefully. At least I wasn’t a money whore, so I had that on my side for what it was worth.

“Very well.” He said finally through gritted teeth. “But if I get even the slightest hint that you’re lying to me Colonel...I will personally see to it that that pretty little head of yours gets a full shakedown from M.O.M. Am. I. Clear?”

I nodded, containing my dread of a potential mind-rape by one of M.O.M’s goons behind a face of steely indifference. I had been shot, stabbed, electrocuted, burned and poisoned more times than I could ever hope to count and this little fat assed demi-god wannabe was talking to me like he was my alcoholic father demanding another beer. I had to be careful...but then again, I wasn’t going to go down easily if it came to it. If it came down to it, I was going to go down swinging without a single fuck given as at that point, what had I to lose anymore?

“Alright...get the hell out of my office, Crete. Go do something productive or something.” He growled, picking up a random pile of papers and pretending to work, the door immediately opening and Daisy stepping in with a pot of coffee, a plate of scones and two mugs.

“Have a good day sweetie!” She called out to me as I walked past, her voice having a slight southern drawl to it and sounding much older than the mare it belonged to.

“Yeah, whatever...” I grunted, getting out of there as quickly as I could and trying not to imagine what else Miss Daisy was bringing the General to eat.

At the far end of the tent was the Requisitions Office where everypony had to go if they wanted their gear repaired, wanted to request special assignment or really just wanted anything in general that wasn't important enough to bother you CO about. It was a place I was more than familiar with as in the years leading up to now I had been a regular face. Always coming up with requests for assignment to one op or another in the hopes of rising through the ranks faster by building my 'portfolio' of missions top impress the brass with. It was a strategy that worked in my favor more than once and there was always the element of luck involved in my escapades. Most of the time it was the luck of just staying alive (something that seemed to have followed me ever since Withering Heights) but every blue moon the commanding officer of the operation would be K.I.A and I would step into their boots and take command of the operation. When I got home, boom, a battlefield promotion was waiting for me to take their place because I somehow pulled it all together. Eventually they caught on that I was better suited for work as a Ranger and they yanked me out of the GA and into the Desert Ranger Corps. I had been dreaming of joining them ever since I was a teenager and first saw the propaganda posters for the newly reformatted Desert Rangers. Of course...that was back when Equestria saw them as heroes. Before that title was stolen away.

“Well hello there Major Crete!” A voice called out from the desk in front of me rousing me from my thoughts.

“Well shit, I didn’t know they pulled you back here!” I exclaimed happily, looking into the eyes of the very same stallion who had been there for me at Withering Heights. “How you been Dodge?”

He was an orange musclebound stallion in his early thirties with a black mane and spring green eyes wearing an olive green GA uniform that clashed weirdly with his coat. Specialist Dodgeball was a chill dude who knew how to make a mean cocktail he called the Atomic Annihilator and though I had never tried it myself, I knew the people who had and they adored it. Plus, it had the fun side effect of making your whole body glow like a bottle of Sparkle-Rad which was a huge hit at raves. The pictures folks would bring back from PT were a sight to behold.

“Best fuckin’ time of my life BitchLord!” He laughed, giving me a hard hoofbump before gawking at my neck. “Holy shit, you’re a fucking Colonel now?!”

I laughed and pointed out that the pin was an oak leaf and not the silver Phoenix of a real Colonel like Horn had been promoted to.

“Lieutenant Colonel, Dodge. Het your eyes checked, dumbass.” I giggled. “But people call me Colonel anyway since there’s really no short-hoof way of saying Lieutenant Colonel without saying LC which...just sounds like fucking gang slang. Calling somepony a Lieutenant would be insulting to their rank but calling them Colonel isn’t exactly true either so it's one of those weird grey zones nopony likes to put much thought into.”

“Yeah…” He agreed, scratching at his neck where his mane seemed to have recently been on the receiving end of a haircut. “And saying the whole title feels too long. Fuck, now that’s gonna bother me for the rest of the day! Thanks, asshole.”

I rolled my eyes and set my hooves on the counter/table between us and said, “Yeah, yeah...look, I’d like to get booked for the next immediate shift on Charlie-Horse, k?”

He looked at me incredulously but pulled up the information on his terminal anyway while saying, “God, your life must have gotten pretty boring since the last time I saw ya, BitchLord. What, they got you sitting behind a desk now too?”

I tapped the table he was currently sitting behind with a smirk.

“Look who’s talking. Nah, they’ll probably ask me to after this tour is over in a few weeks just to keep their hierarchy intact a bit longer. Since my rank as a Veteran Ranger outweighs my rank as Lt. Colonel, they need me out here more than they need me behind a desk so for now, I get to be a field operative still. Honestly ever since I became a Ranger, the whole GA ranking system has become a formality more than anything. Rangers only have three ranks just to denote skill level and veterancy since we intentionally leave behind our old ranks to join the Corps. Problem is, all the GA officers keep getting killed left and right so they gotta rubber stamp more and more of us for ghost positions in the hierarchy just to keep shit functional. The whole fucking thing is a joke.”

“Heh, you’ve got that right!" He chuckled bitterly. "They don't got you leading platoons and shit do they? I've had to assign so many to Rangers in the last few weeks I can't remember who does and who doesn't have an assignment."
"Oh thank fuck no. Actually my Squad got promoted to Alpha finally though...not in the way we intended."
"Well before shit hits the fan, lemme just say congrats! So, what ya mean, 'not as you intended'?"
"Heh, dunno if I should tell you this but the original Alpha was yoinked right outta Camp Macintosh not even two hours from our deployment down here. Word from Colonel Horn is M.O.M thinks they're some sort of high-tier Imperial spy ring or some shit. So, being Beta we were naturally next in line to take up their title and boom, now I am the leader of the DRC's Alpha Squad."
"Well shit...that's all sorts of fucked up sister." He replied with a knowing smirk. "Still though, bet it feels good to finally be able to call yourself Alpha finally. You talked nonstop about being in second place to those perfect fucking boys last time I saw you. Might have been a few years back but it's damn hard to forget how much you bitched to me, Blaze and Buck; every fucking night it felt like!"
"Alright, fine...you gotta point." I sighed in defeat, leaning on the counter and laying myself down a bit. "Point is...we didn't earn it dude. This tour was supposed to be our shining moment where we finally did something worth dazzling the chiefs with and getting considered for the top spot. To win by default like this...it doesn't feel like a victory at all."
"Huh...that sentimental about it eh? Well, maybe just use this tour to make yourself feel like you earned it. There's gotta be something you can do to get some sorta closure for this shit."
"Yeah...well, sadly that ain't tonight." I laughed, feeling the clock on the wall stabbing anxiety into my bloodstream. "Like I said, I need to be put on for Charlie-Horse. Draw straws for it in the Squad since our number came up and I got the ass end of chance."
I mean, Lady Luck ain't everyone's savior so I guess it's only fair. Besides, you’re dressed up and all ready to go kick some ass so who am I to say no to Fate? Next shift starts in ten minutes and...oh, looks like there’s already two others posted to be there too! Isn’t that nice? Now you can get bored out of your fucking mind with friends! Make sure ya snag a magazine and a lot of something to snack on, it's gonna be a hell of a night.”

Two others? Fuck, that was going to make my rendezvous with Zecuro even more difficult. I mean, how the fuck was I going to talk with him when I had two others not involved in the scheme stuck by my side? I thought about maybe meeting him in the trenches on the pretext of going to take a shit or something but if I was gone for more than even ten minutes, they’d probably come looking for me. Maybe if I brought a magazine to ‘read’ while I ‘did’ it? Everypony knows if you bring something to read with you to the bathroom, you’re gonna be there for awhile. He already recommended the magazine bit so it stood to reason it was a decent cover story. Wasn’t much of a plan but it was the best I could come up with on the fly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah Dodge.” I sighed, hiding my apprehension once again behind a mask though this one was of humor rather than my earlier one of steely indifference. “Just put me on the list so I can go please. I got picked for next shift and if it's in ten minutes then I'm already gonna be late as it is.”

“Already done!” He laughed, tapping the screen of his computer confidently. “If they gave out battlefield promotions for fastest typist in the GA, I’d be a fucking Master Sergeant by now.”

As I turned away to leave, his last words stuck in my mind and just as I was leaving his corner of the tent I turned and said, “Let me put in a good word for you Specialist. I owe you that much for the extra ammunition you gave me and my Platoon at Withering Heights. Saved a lot of lives. I'm smelling Warrant Officer heh heh.”

He looked astounded I remembered something so small that had happened over six years ago but I left before he could respond. I was unsure if I could pull off something like a Warrant offer but he deserved it after being stuck at the same rank for several years now. Despite his physique, his mind was even more potent and he had single-hoofedly streamlined the Requisition process and computer systems. Unfortunately, this was a very specific Specialty and as such there really was no rank higher than his that reflected his mastery. However since he spent so much time behind the counter doing what he did best, he rarely got any time in the field meaning he usually couldn't pass the practical parts of the tests. Why they hadn't already awarded him a Warrant...was completely beyond me. Wouldn't be the first time the EAF was in such disarray some deserving few were forgotten and left behind. As I began the long run to make it to Charlie-Horse in time for my shift, I thought back to the aftermath of that day in the Ponyarny Inlet when Dodge and I had both first met.

It had been a regular, boring day on the Heights overlooking the inlet that lay on the Westcoast of Equestria about forty miles Southeast of Manehattan. I was a Second Lieutenant just a month fresh off the graduation path from EastPoint in command of my first Platoon of forty soldiers; the bulk of whom were male and had taken quite the dislike of having a mare be their C.O. Especially one who had earned her commission by going to a cushy military school rather than by a battlefield commission earning it through blood. Lots and lots of blood. It had been sixteen years since the War had begun and only three since we had beaten back the Empire’s First Invasion force. How we managed the first time, I honestly didn’t have a clue even after four years of grueling modern-day military history classes. It all seemed like a mixture of superior magic/technology mixed with a hell of a lot of luck. Regardless, I was fresh out of school and was just as clueless about the ‘real world’ as I had been coming out of high school.

What began as small blips on the E.F.S radar turned into a solid mass hurtling towards us from the ocean, like a tsunami of pure death sent from the Empire. Ships filled the water like geese in a pond full of soggy bread and Wyverns, the Dragon species native to Zebra lands, filled the skies with noise and fire. And there I was, a wide-eyed freshmare in high school all over again staring at the embodiment of Death itself with only forty other poor bastards stuck under my command. The only advantages we had in that fight were our well planned/well built fortifications, high caliber Anti-Ship/Anti-Air guns and access to the then-new GAU-19 minigun, a tri-barreled machine of death chambered in .50BMG, the largest sub-cannon caliber available at the time to the General Army. I could remember staring at the multi-thousand round belts that fed into those beauties as they looked out over the Great Sea sitting on the concrete walls of the Sea Wall. HEI, HEI, AP-I, SLAP, AP-T. The same, odd pattern of five continuing endlessly for yards through flex-chutes and out of large ammo canisters. In retrospect the odd belt pattern had been a blessing as it allowed us to engage ships, early combat robots and infantry alike with high-explosive incendiaries to soften the targets and armor penetrating tungsten to punch right through and do some real damage.

Thanks to the MDS, Deep-Pocket spell and the sheer amount of explosive ordinance we had at our disposal (thanks in no small part to Specialist Dodge bending the rules for me), we somehow managed to survive the brunt of the 10,000 troops attempting to land in the Ponyarny Inlet. In total, the Inlet had maybe 200 troops to defend it in total with another few dozen from the Engineer Corps on-site to assist with the heavy ordinance. It took a full week and 147 deaths before the Steel Rangers came to save us but by that time we were almost no longer in need of rescue. We sunk so many of their ships and blasted so many Wyverns from the sky that we were only up against what was estimated to be roughly a little over three-thousand enemy combatants by the time the Tin Heads came barreling onto the beaches. With Manehattan properly defended and garrisoned, the full brunt of the SRs descended on the rest of the coastline to assist. There were plenty of other places like Ponyarny that were similarly understaffed and overwhelmed but who had held out against incredible odds. And yet, for their relatively easy clean-up operations, they were awarded the Medal of Valor by Princess Luna herself and I went from Second to First Lieutenant, almost completely forgotten as I laid in the first of many M.O.P tents recovering from eight gunshot wounds and my front left leg getting blown off. Thankfully I had seen where the damn thing had flown off to when that Commando swung his sword through my shoulder and they were able to reattach it. But...at the end of the day, I felt forgotten. Me and all the other poor fucks who somehow survived the Invasion were quietly awarded Amethyst Hearts, a promotion in rank here or there and sent right back out as soon as the docs cleared us for active duty once more.

When the Third Invasion hit in 2074, the SRs were in Ponyarny and I was busy at work down in the Badlands, a fully initiated Ranger of the Desert Ranger Corps and having the time of my life. And yet...I never once was recommended for any kind of commendation for my efforts at Withering Heights save for nine Amethyst Hearts and a simple promotion. Meanwhile...the well-known tale of the SRs began to get even more inflated and propelled them into legendary status while the Desert Rangers were shoved towards the asshole of military importance. And now, here I was three years later a Veteran in almost record time still without recognition. They made a fancy ribbon specifically for Withering Heights that went on as part of your dress uniform, a grey rectangle with a blue stripe down the center flanked on either side by a dash of red. There was no V-PI (Victory-Ponyarny Inlet) award on my uniform and I doubted there ever would be. It was not something I was about to go demanding for.

******

I was so consumed with inner anger and hatred for things that happened nearly eight years ago that I walked head first right into one of the thick wooden beams supporting the watchtower that was Outpost Charlie-Horse. The blow shocked me more than it hurt and I heard laughing above me as I looked up to see a Ranger and a GI look down at me from their perch, grins on their faces as they reveled in seeing a Veteran absent-mindedly walk right into a pole.

“Oh shut up…” I growled quietly to myself, walking around to the walkway leading up the tower that hugged the tower like scaffolding. “I’ve got more experience than the two of you combined.”

Once at the top, I remembered how boring Charlie-Horse really was. Beneath the drab wooden roof were three-and-a-half concrete walls reinforced with sandbags with an opening for the ramp, a couple rickety chairs, a table, a radio and a few metal boxes for storing supplies. The only potential redeemable factor the tower had to offer was the unobscured view it provided of the labyrinth of trenches extending out for miles in every direction and the distant glow of Camp Fuck-Off.

The Ranger was dressed in the usual armor unique to this particular rank, a thick tan breastplate with bulky shoulder guards, faulds, bracers and greaves and a black water pouch fastened firmly to his backplate. Supplemented with an appropriate tactical harness, the M-CAT(R) Gen II was looking better than ever as the next best thing to a Veteran's Mrk. IV. I remembered the weight and protection it offered well as it had only been a few years since I had last worn it myself. It was more than capable of taking shots from the usual weapons the Zebras carried keeping your ass in the game longer than you'd expect with casualty reports like the ones we had. The Ranger wearing the armor was more of an afterthought when it came to the details I took in about him. Dusky orange fur, yellowish hair and green eyes. Nothing too impressive for me to seriously consider his appearance. He wasn't a mare, he wasn't a sexy feathery birb, he was just another stallion. Nothing to write to mom about.

The GI was even less remarkable as an individual, both in terms of his looks and his armor. I could tell with just a brief glance he was a Corporal by the simple short-fiber shoulder pads and ballistic vest he wore over his drab olive green uniform. They only gave plate carriers to Sergeants and anyone above that wore M-CAT. Brown coat, chestnut mane and I didn’t even bother looking at his eyes. These people were only going to get my attention if their personalities stood out more than their generic appearances. Not to say I was hostile towards new faces, I was just not in the mood nor in the correct circumstances to be making friends out here. Far as I was concerned, they were just as in the way as the General was for all I cared.

“Well, didn’t know we were getting a Veteran posted out here tonight!” The Ranger commented, his accent sounding more Western than anything else. “How’d one of you get posted all the way out here? Bad luck?”

The less they knew, the better.

“Yeah, you could say that.” I replied with a well-faked laugh, sitting down at their table where they were playing a game of Blackjack using real bits instead of chips. “Me and my Squad drew straws and I lost.”

“Oh shit, you’re a girl!” The GI exclaimed in disbelief, nearly falling out of his chair as his face flushed red.

“Very astute observation numb-nuts…” I sighed, pulling off my helmet for them to ogle me like most guys did.

“Damn, you get your promotion from flaunting them good looks?” The Ranger chuckled, thumping his chest where the Desert Ranger symbol was painted alongside the words ‘Ranger Dusk’.

“If you’re implying that I slept with the Colonel to get promoted to Veteran then I suggest you run off back to Camp before I cut your dick off.” I growled, making sure they both caught sight of the Sequoia on my leg, the pins on my lapels and the handles of the combat knives I kept on the small of my back.

“Whoa, fucking hell Ranger! It was just a joke!” He blurted out, holding up his hooves defensively while the GI chose to hide under the table whimpering.

“It better be.” I sighed, setting my helmet down on one of the boxes next to me and leaning back in my chair popping my spine comfortably against the back of it. “I’m sick of being harassed about that kind of shit from all of you people.”

“Meant no offense Ma’am.” The GI whimpered as he climbed back into his seat after seeing I wasn’t going for his dick with something sharp and military-issued.

“I know…” I finally sighed, picking up a set of cards and shuffling them with my magic. “Look...you guys don’t know what it’s like to be a mare out here. Showers are rare, there’s no medicine out here for when you go into heat and guys like you are constantly making jokes about our ‘female problems’ and asking us to get into bed with you while pretty much ignoring the things we do out here. Always gotta be flaunting your own portfolios and awards so loud in our faces we can't even get a word in edge-wise despite having a fucking majority of the population We’ve already got enough stress from getting shot at out here just like you so stop adding to our problems alright? If female shit annoys you so much, why not try finding out what those problems really are and seeing what you can do to help them. We wouldn’t complain so much if you guys didn’t complain so much about our complaining and actually did something. There's plenty you guys can do to make our lives easier. We're all far from home feeling hot and sweaty and all that shit just like everyone else down here and we deserve some goddamn fucking respect alright?”

They stared at me with confusion as I dealt out the cards and pulled thirty bits out of my money purse, setting it on the table before me. It wasn't my first time baring my fangs a bit at misogynistic behavior from my peers and I was well known to be the first to promote all the cool shit mares were doing in the War. I wasn't part of some agenda like many wanted to believe but it was out of a genuine hatred for the loss of the equality of the sexes that once existed in the world. While mares dominated the population brackets, somewhere along the way stallions had crept in front of us. Perhaps a show of chivalry harkening back to the old days of swords and metal plate but over time came a sense of superiority of sorts. At first we were too precious to waste as corpses in War and then all of a sudden it became a matter of us not being fit for battle. It was absolutely ridiculous...some of us had always been getting our hooves dirty from the very start like the members of the Wonderbolts. Having a dick or a cunt wasn't enough of a factor to determine who could kick ass and who couldn't, it was how badass the owner was that made the soldier; simple as that. It was a belief worth fighting for because all it asked for was equal recognition. No special treatment, no fawning parades of sympathy, no special labels. Just the ability to do a good job and be accepted as part of the group for it.

“I’m sorry...I didn’t think about that.” The Ranger said quietly while the GI nodded in agreement.

“No one does, that’s why it’s still a problem. Next time you get the chance, ask you mom about what it’s like. Might give you some good insight. Now, let’s play. I’ve only been here five minutes and I’m already bored out of my mind unless you boys can't play a good round of cards to save your asses.”

The mood lightened significantly after my lecture and soon enough we were laughing, swapping stories and dirty jokes over lukewarm bottles of Sparkle-Cola and Sunrise Sarsaparilla; the latter of which I enjoyed much more than Cola as the carbonation didn't hurt my sinuses as much. The Ranger, who’s name was Summer Dusk, was a plumber and electrician before the War and had been recruited into the Desert Rangers after he had shown particular skill in maintaining energy weapons and disabling enemy combat robots. Why he joined the Rangers rather than the Engineers? Well, better pay and he got to be where the action was more than the Engineers did with a gun in his hooves and adrenaline in his veins.

The GI was still unremarkable as a person even after he told us his whole life story. However, he made up for that a bit with his gentle, generous nature. He was barely nineteen years old, had graduated high school in Manehattan and came from a family of street cleaners. He really only had joined the Army to send the bigger paychecks back home to try and get his family into better housing. Other than that, he had no other reasons to be away from home in the middle of a desert fighting a country he had never even heard of before for reasons he could only begin to try and guess at. He wasn’t a patriot...he was a scared young stallion doing what he thought would better his family situation. What a way to live...

“What about you, Ranger?” Summer asked me pointedly after pushing the thirteen bits I had won from him into my pile. “What brings you all the way out to the fuck-middle of nowhere? I’d expect someone like you to be up on the Eastern Front to be honest. Fighting over there is pretty bad from what I hear.”

“Well, to be honest where else is a Desert Ranger supposed to be but the deser-” I began only for the two of them to gasp and then collapse on their sides right after the other.

I knew exactly what was going on and was on my hooves in an instant, flinging the table their direction hoping either it or the cards and bits that were on it would hit her and show me her position. The table bounced off in a weird way before it hit the sandbags on the other side of the platform and I hurled myself right after it with my knives and Sequoia out and ready. If I could cause enough damage, I could disrupt the cloaking spell and make her visible. I collided against a very hard, invisible object and I wrapped my legs around it like a spider with its prey bringing the invisible Crimson Dragon to the ground. The impact knocked the wind out of me but I didn't loosen my grip lest I give up my one real advantage over her. I wasn’t going to let the fact I couldn’t see her fuck me over like she had Summer and the other guy.

“Atina! Cease! It is I!” The invisible but unmistakable voice cried out somewhere near my right armpit.
There was only one person I knew who wouldn’t (or couldn’t?) remember the ‘h’ in my name and I immediately relaxed my anaconda squeeze to let him up. It was a bizarre experience feeling an invisible force extricate itself from your grasp but a moment later his hood was flung back and I was seeing my own orange tinted reflection staring back at me from the massive glass visor on his head. It looked similar (if more heavily armored) to the Advanced Environmental Suits the scientists from the M.O.A or the nurses from the M.O.P sometimes wore whenever they needed to travel into unsafe conditions. The orange opaque visor extended from just below the nostrils all the way back to mid-scalp like a glossy dome while the rest of the head was encased in the same matte black metal the rest of his armor was made from. Interestingly, the slit in the top of the helmet that allowed their high mohawks to fit was entirely absent making me wonder just how short he had to have cut his mane to be able to fit it in there.

“I am most apologetic concerning your comrades.” He said quickly, nodding to the two bodies on the ground. “Fret not, they are but unconscious. My hoof was forced so I adapted. I have no intention of harming Equestrian lives any more than I am forced to do so by mine country.”

I stole a quick glance and saw that they were indeed still breathing before looking back at him. The helmet hissed softly and sections on the neck and muzzle popped out slightly allowing him to remove the helmet from off his head. I had to suppress a giggle at the three-inch high strip of hair that had replaced the rather majestic mohawk he had sported the last time I had seen him but he didn’t seem to notice my amusement; a smile broke out across his young face, his blue eyes no less striking than the first time I had seen them. They were beautiful but wholly unnatural from any other Zebras I had seen before and though I couldn’t remember through the haze of time...I swear his eyes used to be gold.

“Atina...it is so good to see you once more...after so many years.” He said sincerely, picking up the thrown table and scattered chairs so we could talk in more comfort. “I apologize for the inconvenience mine appearance has caused you thus far. It is regrettably unavoidable given our circumstance.”

I took a seat across from him, setting my helmet down beside me on the table like he had done with his own strange helmet and allowed myself to smile as wide as I could in glee. I had not realized just how giddy seeing him again after more than twenty years would make me but I was not opposed to the feels either. He had been a good friend in the past and that fact had not seemed to dim with time, War or circumstance.

“Believe me…” I managed to say between trying to catch my breath. “Seeing you again is well worth the trouble. To be honest, I thought you were dead. Like legitimately thought you had died in the riots of ‘54 by the way your parents reacted when I came over to play after they happened.”

“Ah…” He sighed softly, scratching at his scarred neck in an almost nervous manner. “Those years were...complicated. And something I do not wish to discuss now. Presently, did you warn your people concerning the attack?”

“Oh fuck me…” I whispered as I realized I had completely forgotten about his warning in the wake of the General and Silk.

“I had feared thusly…” He sighed, obviously disappointed the first bit of intel he had given me was seemingly wasted.

An idea sprang into my head and before he could even ask I was at the radio set in the far corner of the platform and had dialed into H.Q to tell them the news.

“Alpha six-nine to base, Alpha six-nine to base, I’ve got eyes-on tangos en-route to ordinance on East Ridge. Suggest immediate reinforcement ASAP, over.”

The line was silent save for quiet static for a few moments before a tired voice responded, “Negative copy on that, Alpha six-nine. Say again, over.”

I repeated myself again, trying to keep my cool in front of my friend who watched on in silence.

“Solid copy six-nine, thanks for the heads-up. Command out.” The other end replied before the line went dead leaving me feeling confused if he had even really cared about the rather important information I had given him. Charlie-Horse may be one of the most boring places on the Front but that didn’t mean the info forwarded on from here was just as boring.

“Well...I did my part.” I sighed, returning back to the table and sitting back down. “So...where to begin?”

“I was asking myself that very same inquiry.” He said calmly, putting his hooves on the table and spreading out a map. “I felt we should begin with a convergence of information as further proof of my diligence to this defection.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me Zecuro.” I reassured him, my youthful confidence in his character pushing aside my doubts and reservations.

“Perhaps not...but it would not be wise to be so trusting in me so soon.” He warned, the little doubts in my heart stirring slightly to his words but not enough to erode my confidence. “Now...as of now, our forces are most concerned with the defense of our main camp until a caravan from the Empire arrives with supplies and troops. At such time we will attempt to make a push back towards thine Camp and regain such areas as have been lost to us by the arrival of your Rangers.”

He pointed at the stretch of No-Pony’s Land separating the two Camps on the map and I was surprised at the accuracy of the drawings of the area with even the minute details on point with the latest intelligence I had learned just that morning. It seemed they were more than aware of our positions up and down the valley down to the types of artillery we had and the locations of the Steel and Desert Rangers best troops.

“How did you get all these details?” I asked him seriously, seeing a small black circle in the DRs group that looked roughly where my tent was placed.

“Various sources of information compile to make these charts.” He explained. “Interceptions of communications, Dragon operatives like unto myself and informants in your ranks.”

“Wait, WHAT?” I exclaimed, realizing that little black circle was exactly where my tent was based on the location of the Galley and the M.O.P tents.

“Monetary compensation and lofty promises are quite appeasing bargaining tools that we have utilized against thine country for decades now.” He said with remorse. “It is most unfortunate not all your people are as stalwart in their nationalism as thou art.”

Of course it made sense we had traitors of our own in our midst. The economic recession, exhaustion from fighting, indoctrination, sympathy...all these factors could wear down on a pony and make them betray their own people to secure their own finances and...perhaps even their own place in the new world order if the Empire successfully conquered Equestria. Despite my understanding of their situation though, I was determined to weed out these little fuckers with all the same fury I had focused on the stubborn dandelions that had infested mom’s garden as a filly. I wasn’t going to be bested by a fucking weed. And the best part was I had a gun this time around rather than a garden hoe and a shovel.

“Alright…” I breathed out, returning my focus to the map. “So what’s next?”

“That is an astute question…” He said, pointing towards the ocean far to the Southeast of Camp Fuck-Off off the coast of the Far South. “Our reinforcements will make landfall in less than two weeks’ time so you have time to prepare for their coming. Intelligence reports have this force as being particularly large, far more so than in previous months.”

“Actually, I already knew about that.” I replied, biting my lip nervously as I remembered Operation: Downsize was looming in the future. “Our General informed us about it and he wanted me, my Squad and an unknown number of Steel Rangers to take it out as soon as they land. He told me it was full of Zebra foals.”

“W-what…?” He asked fearfully, staring at me with his wide blue eyes. “F-foals…? That is not possible...the High Chief would feign send children to a place such as this!”

“I don’t know, Zecuro...that’s just what I was told. We were ordered to go in there and blow the whole fucking thing to hell twice over. Hell I wouldn’t be surprised if he ordered an artillery barrage of the area before and after we were done just to make sure everyone was dead. He seemed...particularly happy about it. In a way that rubbed all of us the real wrong way.”

“This is most troubling…” He said after a moment of tense silence. “I was informed it would be but able-bodied reinforcements, supplies and ammunition. Are you certain to this information’s validity?”

“Bro, the whole thing is so fucked up and ambiguous that nopony knows what the fuck is going on anymore. Far as I know, yeah this shit is a 100% real. The General is...a special kind of racist psychopath yes but he wouldn't be where he is if he made decisions on completely faulty intel. This kind of thing is totally within the realm of reason for him and to be honest, so is the possibility that this is all a red herring and we’re going to be sent on a wild goose chase and get killed. Far as I know he’s already killed off plenty of people who’ve caused him trouble and I think I’m next on that list. For all I know, I could be sent to the Empire on the front lines intentionally to die out of his sight.”

“I see…” He sighed, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. “Such is Fate to grant us such a mess as we have in our possession…”

He remained in silent in contemplation and I took the time to take in every detail the map had to offer, lamenting it wasn’t one of the fancier digital maps we had back at Camp so I could zoom in and out on the various details. Another point of annoyance was the lack of English anywhere on the paper, the squiggly runes of Afrikaans littering the margins like an ancient manuscript. I was no linguist and neither were anyone in my Squad. We left that to the eggheads to handle since our jobs were to kill everything and gather what information we could manage and leave the rest to the handsome talking experts who dealt in that kind of work. I only had a basic grasp of the spoken language but the written one was just too foreign for me being written in a strange, flowing script. The differences between letters was too subtle for me to focus on while entire words and sentences just looked like the scribblings of a kindergarten foal.

“Zecuro?” I asked him eventually, taking an interest in the helmet that lay beside him. “When did these get made? You weren’t wearing one of these the other night.”

“Ah, the helmet.” He said with a smile, picking it up like a proud parent. “Indeed these are new. With the technology we recovered from thine fallen Rangers we have developed a similar system for tracking enemies and seeing through obscuring agents. With the unrestricted allowance of the use of NecroGas, our operatives required adequate shielding and a breathing apparatus. This is our proud result.”

He offered the helmet to me and after a moment’s hesitation I gave him mine to inspect. Considering there were no Unicorns in the Empire, there was no place for my horn to go in the thing so I had to make my observations by peering through the neck hole at the inside of the visor, Indeed it seemed to have a bare-bones version of the E.F.S running as I could see an orange/gold HUD on the inside of the visor. Complete with what looked like a compass and what could have been a rudimentary MHG and motion detector in the top left and right corners. Judging by its ability to operate independent of being attached to a power source on the main body, I had to assume the strange circular device on the back of the helmet housed a power source, most likely one of the artificial crystals they used to power their automations. The construction was solid as well, bearing a similar feel and weight to what the armor I had recovered recently but had yet to examine up close. Without better tools to pry into its secrets more, I was only left guessing how effective against bullets it would be.

“The fit is not the best…” He muttered and I looked up to see him wearing my helmet which clashed with the sleek black of his armor so much I almost laughed. “This is highly advanced. I know not what even the half of what these functions perform. Indeed this is impressive technology.”

I nodded with a proud smile, happy that at least in this case my shit was better than his. A small victory but one that mattered to me. At least in this regard we had a leg up on them in the R&D department.

“Good.” I giggled, offering him back his helmet after I had gathered all I could from it. “I actually have obtained one of those sets of armor when out in the trenches a half mile South of here. It should be waiting in my tent by the time I get back from this meeting and I am now looking extremely forward to examining it in detail.”

He peered at me inquisitively and asked, “Why would it be in your tent? I would assume, like all else your people recover from the field of battle, it would be forwarded unto your Engineers for analysis.”

“Because I’m obsessed with armor and I want to learn everything I can about every set that hits the battlefield. That way I know its strengths and weaknesses and thus can adapt my fighting style to match without having to guess until I died. If I gave it to the Engineers, I wouldn’t see it again and they would most likely downplay its strengths to maintain the illusion of home brewed superiority. As great as Equestrian tech is, I’m not stupid enough to think our shit is automatically gonna be superior to yours. War is the mother of innovation and you guys are not an exception to the rule; I don’t want a watered down version of the facts. If my government and leadership are going to pour water in my vodka, I’m gonna just drink vinegar and get it over with. That is, if I was a vodka girl which I sure as hell ain't.”

“You are just as much a curiosity as you were when we were but foals.” He chuckled, glancing at his fetlock where a small orange hologram came to life displaying the time. “I must leave shortly. Thine compatriots are sure to rouse soon and I would feign be spotted by them at such a time as this.”

“Yeah, I hear ya.” I agreed, looking at the unconscious bodies of the Ranger and the GI. “Look, before you go...I just wanted to say thank you for trusting me like this. I know how dangerous this is for you, especially given your Great Chief's method of dealing with traitors…”

“Tis only traitorous if one believes his side was once correct but no longer is. I have never once believed the Great Chief to be in the right. This is my home. The land I was born unto and the country I, for a time, grew up in. A Zebra I may be; a foreign national in the land of horns, wings and strong magic...but I am an Equestrian at heart. I share more with thee than my own kin.”

I was flabbergasted. Never in my life had I not heard a Zebra declare their love of land, country and kin and I suppose this time was no exception to that rule but never had I seen a Zebra proclaim their love for Equestria with the same zeal. Indeed, not one had ever claimed Equestria as their land, country and kin. Had he included a ‘Long Live Princess Luna’ in there, I would have eaten my own citizenship papers.

“Waar is jy? Moens ons hulp kry?” Came a yell from down below, the language and voice undoubtedly Zebra.

“Oh Gods immolate me hence…” He whispered, slamming his helmet onto his head and indicating for me to become as one with the floor as possible while he stood and went to the wall to look over.

He called out to them in Afrikaans, most likely telling them he had killed everyone in the tower already while I laid on the rough wooden floor trying not to breathe in any of the sand that piled on the ground at least an inch thick. His tone changed to one of pleading and I heard the sound of armored hooves on the boardwalk headed up to where we were. Obviously they either wanted to come inspect the kills themselves or just wanted to come up, pull up a chair and relax for a bit. Either way...I was fucked if they decided to inspect any of us. Before they came around the bend, I yanked my helmet off the table and onto my head with magic before laying back on the ground as limp as a boned fish. I was hoping I passed for a dead body, grateful my armor hid the betraying rise and fall of my chest. I even craned my neck at a painful angle to make it look like he had snapped my neck so as to account for the lack of blood. Had to hope they didn't look too closely at the other two guys who weren't so well hidden.

“Ah, well done Dragon.” A melodic female voice declared as their hooves walked slowly past me, the PipBuck operating system translating their foreign speech into intelligible English for me in my ears. It was a new feature that came with the latest software update but had not really had the chance to test for myself with so little talking going on between them and me. “Incredible, you even managed to kill one of their Veteran Rangers! That is no small feat.”

“I caught them unawares. It was not an honorable kill.” He replied flatly. "There is no honor in such an unworthy hunt."

“Humph...honor is relative.” The Zebra scoffed, a hoof colliding with the side of my head sending me flopping onto my back. “All that matters is more of them die than our own kin. Burn them, shoot them, skin them alive if you wish. All that matters is they suffer the wrath of the Great Chief and that of our people for what they have done to us. Would you not agree?”

“I agree.” He said immediately. “Death unto Equestria.”

“Death unto them indeed. Now, what brings a Dragon so far North at this time? I thought none were allowed to leave the Camp unless given explicit commands?”

“I am under special orders from the Kolonel.” He said firmly, a challenging tone to his voice. “And who are you to question my authority, Kaptein?”

“It is becoming of a leader to question the actions and motivations of those above her.” She retorted, a set of cat-like paws coming into my limited field of vision indicating there was a Cheetah or Leopard in their midst, a rare thing indeed after the failure of the Second Invasion.

“Then do you question the actions and motivations of our Great Chief?” He asked pointedly, my ears straining to catch her answer.

“Of course not.” She spat, anger kindled in her voice. “Dare you to question him yourself you curr?!”

“No. But I wanted to point out the flaw in your logic. If you question my actions as part of your philosophy on leadership then it logically follows that you would in turn question those above me leading all the way to the top of our hierarchy. Do you question the Kolonel?”

“What you speak is blasphemy!” She growled, the sound of a gun cocking as loud as an actual gunshot in the tense silence surrounding us.

“Blasphemy? Surely you must be joking…” He replied with a sigh. “If there is any fault here, it is in your hypocritical philosophy. Either you challenge the authority of those in positions above you or you do not. There is no room for selectivity in your philosophy.”

The cat creature growled lowly in its throat nearby and I could almost hear the silent grinding of the teeth by the Kaptein. Things were getting electric in boring old Charlie-Horse and I had to play dead while they happened.

“We will speak of your blasphemy to the Kolonel herself. She will decide your fate.”

“Of course.” Zecuro responded coolly. “But know that I outrank you Kaptein and my words stand above yours in the eyes of the Kolonel. Who is she more likely to believe? One who has earned the right to the Black Ghost or one who has but merely earned the right of a middling command?”

There was silence between them and the pounding of my heart was so loud I feared even they could hear it through the inch and a half of Kevyarn and steel covering my breast as I lay on the floor beneath them. Shit was about to go down but in what way I could only frantically guess. Best case scenario, they left me alone. Worst…?

“I am not convinced even now of the validity of your kills.” The Kaptein commented, her voice now directed towards my body. “How am I to know he is only half-dead? If honor is so important to you, then let me validate it on your behalf. A kill means naught if there is no one to confirm it occurred. Such is the way.”

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…

It was a dangerous move...but I had no other choice given one look at my face would show the life still beating frantically in my body. I grabbed onto the combat knives on my back with my telekinesis, grateful the armor on my horn obscured the sparkling aura, and flung them in the direction of the voice above me while at the same time rolling my body under myself and flipping up to my hooves. There was a loud metallic clang as one blade glanced off her armored torso and a yelp of pain as the other somehow managed to find the chink between her pauldron and breastplate. By no means a killing blow but distraction enough for me to get my Sequoia out of its holster and out where I could see it. All it takes is a second.

S.A.T.S came online giving me a good view of the chaotic world that I had incited around me and a moment to mentally breathe. Ruby red blood sprayed out of the wound in the Centurion’s shoulder, suspended in the air like a macabre garden hose while I caught sight of the other three in the group. One was a spotted Cheetah dressed in lightweight, flexible armor complimentary for their terrifying speed on open ground with razor sharp metal claws strapped onto his/her paws. The other two were Zebra Askari, field troops dressed in their Imperial Mrk. IIIs and hoisting assault rifles with intimidating drum mags. If they managed to pull them from their slings, they would have fifty rounds each while all I logically had was six shots and a couple of knives since my rifle was far too unwieldy in such a tight space. This was a situation best suited for Penny and her shotguns. Thank fuck none of them had one of their enchanted swords...

Without realizing it I had used up almost all of the spell’s duration making notes about their armor and weaponry and only managed to get off one 95% headshot on the Zebra nearest to the barrel of my revolver before the spell exhausted itself and time resumed its normal pace. None of them were wearing helmets as my assessment had discovered meaning my best chance of success was to shoot ‘em all in the brain. The Kaptein did not stay down for as long as I would have hoped and within a second of her comrade’s head turning to gory confetti, she had yanked my knife out of her body and was lunging for me; the blood covered blade clenched in her snarling teeth begging to make friends with my body. I jumped up, presenting my chest to her as it was the most heavily armored part of my body, and caught onto one of the crossbeams supporting the roof, using my momentum to swing/kick my legs into her neck after the knife grazed off my breastplate in a shower of sparks. I was eternally grateful that the overall tower was structurally sound despite its reputation.

She flew backwards and over the concrete wall of the tower, flopping out of sight while the Cheetah pounced upwards at me, tackling me to the ground with a crash that knocked the wind out of me and made me lose focus on my magic leaving me weaponless. The snarling cat pressed down on my chest with its sharpened claws and pressed its menacing face against my muzzle allowing me to stare into its golden eyes. It was then that I noticed they had round pupils rather than the vertical pupils of house cats, an odd revelation to take away in the face of an apex predator. Its face was adorned with the characteristic black spots of its kind but also had intimidating red war paint adorning its cheeks and forehead that looked like it could only have been drawn in blood. This was one kitty that had tasted pony blood before and liked the flavor.

“You disgusting Unicorn!” He hissed, his mouth full of metal fangs that clamped down on my neck like a vice.

His fangs were halted by the long-fibre Kevlarn mesh of my underbarding but the flexible fabric didn’t stop his mouth from cutting off my airway. With his paws pinning my hooves down, I could only lie there and suffocate without even the use of my horn to defend me being as distracted and in destress as I was. My lungs and brain cried for the air that would not come and I felt genuine terror of dying. A bullet was hurt like hell but could be pretty quick for the most part. Suffocation though...every second was spaced into an hour while my vision went foggy and my head ached with unbearable pain, veins popping everywhere like bubble wrap in my head and neck. Hucks and I had tried erotic asphyxiation once. Neither of us had enjoyed doing or receiving it one bit despite how much we trusted each other and I doubted this fucking spotted freak would respect my safe word. ‘Pineapple’ wouldn’t mean a damn thing to him. Only scenario I feared more than this was drowning. This was a damn close second though.

******

“Atina! Atina please wake!”

The world came back into focus slowly, the pounding in my head making me clench my eyes shut against the pain while my bruised throat croaked out a pitiful whimper.

“Oh praise the Gods!” Zecuro gasped in relief, the feeling of his body under mine faint through my armor. “I had feared you had perished!”

When the pounding in my brain subsided enough that I was willing to tempt my eyes open, I saw his sweaty, panicked face hovering inches above mine, his blue eyes wide with fear but softened slightly by relief. My helmet was laying on its side to my left where it had been tossed aside by my compassionate friend. Looking further I also saw the long silver blade of his unique curved sword gleaming softly in the dim light of the overhead lamp; its long handle wrapped in black and red bands and capped with a silver pommel with a large red stone housed within. Even for the few moments I looked at it, it seemed to gleam from within with an unsettling glow.

“N-not quite…” I croaked out, the words as painfully sharp as those of the Cheetah as they crawled out of my throat.

“They are all vanquished…” He said quietly, nodding his head to the sword and the dead bodies that undoubtedly lay on the ground beyond my sight. “I have...never taken another Zebra’s life...but your life outweighs their own. Yours must be saved.”

Any doubts regarding his trustworthiness died in my heart as though they had been run through by his sword. He had killed his fellow soldiers, the ultimate act of betrayal a soldier can perform, to save my life. Maybe he had done it out of necessity to add validity to his stance with me when he was really a double agent...but the fuck that I cared about that possibility. He had just yanked my ass from the brink of death. I owed him the extreme benefit of the doubt at the very least for such an act as a life-debt was not something he was bound to treat lightly.

“I do not have much by means of aid for your wounds…” He lamented. “But I took the necessity of locating your medical supplies on your body. Forgive mine intrusion of bodily privacy.”

He lifted the bottle of healing potion Huckleberry had given me what felt like a lifetime ago and pulled the brown cork out with his perfectly white teeth. Pressing the cool glass against my lips, the magenta fluid sloshed gently inside the bottle while the smell of some kind of flower wafted over my nostrils. Even the scent alone was enough to clear my airway slightly and clear my cloudy mind.

“Drink. If you are able.” He pleaded gently, his eyes now full of compassion and gentleness. “I must see to your health.”

I took the vial in my shaky magic and opened my mouth, letting him pour the sugary liquid down my throat, the bruised tissues screaming out in pain before going numb and then warm and tingly as the concoction did its job repairing the damage. Any who drank these potions on a regular basis knew that when the warm sensation in your stomach died off, the potion had exhausted itself and the healing would stop immediately after even if the wound was only half-healed. The warm bubbly feeling wore off after a few moments leaving a sort of empty, lonely feeling in my stomach. But, my throat no longer hurt and I could breathe normally again which was good enough for me. The damage wasn’t entirely fixed as my larynx still felt tender and my voice was a little raspy but I was good enough to get back onto my hooves. The rest could be fixed soon as I got home.

The floor of the tower was wet with blood-soaked sand, one blood soaked pussycat and two headless bodies. One with a jagged stump for a neck from my Sequoia and the other with a clean, professional cut through the skin, muscles and spinal cord. It was obvious whose work was whose and I laughed to myself at the clean nature of his kill compared to the brutal method of mine as he yanked his sword from the body of the Cheetah, a wet scraping sound screeching out softly as the blade dragged against the metal armor on its back. Made me want to cover my ears and scratch myself silly...

“Thank you, Zecuro. I owe you a life-debt.” I said raspily as he sheathed the blade on his back in a simple black scabbard.

“Think nothing of it.” He replied in an even tone, picking up his helmet and shaking the bloody sand from its orange visor. “Circumstance is nary one to grant ease of passage through the bowels of war.”

I could scarcely put it better, let alone so eloquently as he had and I just nodded, picking up my knives and revolver from the ground. He put his helmet back on, the sectioned areas hissing closed as a seal was formed similar to that of my own armor and he bowed formally to me.

“I think it is best if I depart for now. With these bodies it will be easy to explain to thine comrades what occurred here. I will contact you again when I have an adequate opportunity presents itself to me.”
Before I could respond he backflipped over the edge of the tower, his hood slipping into place as he did so hiding him from sight before he hit the ground. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see him but I ran to the edge anyway and looked out over the darkened landscape before me wondering how he had survived that fall. I was a somewhat capable free-runner but a forty-five foot backflip was not something I was willing to ever try. Zecuro was on a whole other level of badass than I was used to seeing and I was excited to see just how much training the Crimson Dragons had instilled into his mind and body.

As I turned back to the carnage on the floor, I heard the GI and Summer groaning as they came to, their minds undoubtedly full of questions about what the hell just happened. I had to agree with Zecuro. The pile of bodies was going to be much easier to explain than the truth.

****************

Chapter Twenty-Six: Trouble on the Vacation Express

“They’ll be fine.” Hummed Silk happily, measuring out an Extra-Strength healing potion into a pair of beakers. “Just a mild concussion and some minor damage to the larynx, nothing one of these shouldn't be able to handle. It could have been a lot worse if you hadn’t been there. A lot, lot worse.”

With a smile she, passed each beaker to the pair of soldiers I had the misfortune of calling a medivac for just a few hours before. The Ranger had been the first to come to, before even the Pegusi from the M.O.P dropped outta the sky with a pair of litters for them. Took a few moments for him to calm down from his controlled flailing trying to fight off an opponent who had long since fled and explain the dead bodies in his place. Was an easy enough story for him and the GI to believe, even with the perfectly decapitated Kaptein which I explained away as a fear tactic to scare away the rest of the attackers. While a bit much, even for me, they just lapped it up with admiration, awe and maybe even some fear.

“Well...what can I say? I’ve got a lot of tricks to call on when I need to. I'm a universal badass!" I laughed, enjoying the looks of respect the two of them flashed my direction.

After finishing up some work on a small, portable StableTec terminal tucked in the corner of the room, Silk turned back to Summer who was the more injured of the two. As a precaution, both of them had been hooked up to a saline drip with a few milliliters of RadAway injected into the I.V bag for good measure. Everypony in the Army knew and remembered sourly the first time they had to swallow an entire bottle of RadAway as part of basic training with the goal not to grimace (or worse) spit out the rancid bright orange liquid in front of everyone else. RadAway was like the liquified version of eating burnt rubber mixed with some battery acid and a bit of booty sweat to finish it off. In some ways, you were happy to keep the Rads if it meant you didn’t have to live with the horrible aftertaste that stuck around on your tongue for several hours. Without something strong (like my lemonade) to waste the taste out, you started to consider tearing your own tongue out after awhile. Thankfully it could likewise be administered intravenously but that came with another one of my inner phobias: needles. Truly, it was better to avoid the need for the shit altogether.

“Thanks Ranger.” Summer said after drinking his beaker of dark magenta potion. “I don’t know what we would’ve done without you there.”

“Yeah...thanks.” Private Star Caster likewise responded, staring into the liquid in his beaker as if contemplating his own mortality.

“Come on Private, drink up! You’ve still got your whole life ahead of you!” Silk said cheerfully as she stuck a syringe filled with the viscous orange fluid into the I.V bag and pressed the plunger, the clear saline turning to a brilliant pale amber orange. “Well, give it a minute actually. We have to let the RadAway drip its way into your bloodstream a bit first. Thankfully this saline will extend the biological half-life of the potion while it’s in your stomach so it doesn’t lose its efficacy before you’re cleared of all Rads, if any exist that is. You’ll find out soon enough.”

“How so?” Summer asked a little concerned, eying the pale amber bag hooked to his vein suspiciously. “It almost looks like piss if I'm going to be honest.”

Silk giggled and nodded, picking up the medical file describing the ingredients and effects of RadAway.

“You’re pretty much right on the nose about that.” She laughed, flipping through the pages of the creamy yellow folder till she found what she wanted. “Acetazolamide is one of the ingredients, it’s a powerful diuretic designed to help bring the blood to a more alkaline level and flush out radiated cells.”

“Diur-what now?” Star asked, eying his own bag with concern.

“Basically means it’s gonna make you piss a lot.” Huckleberry said as she entered the room, Silk giving her a friendly smile. “But that’s only because the RadAway doesn’t destroy the radioactive particles in your system, it just binds to it like soap to dirt and dislodges them from the body so they can be carried away through the bloodstream to the kidneys. Unfortunately the excessive use of RadAway can cause kidney blockages, kidney stones, dehydration, biochemical imbalance and an excessively basic blood pH. When in doubt, consult your physician.”

“Well!” Silk said proudly, looking at her in surprise. “I had no idea you were a medical student, Captain Crisp!”

“I’m not, I just have a passion for first aid and knowing everything I can about the shit I’m putting in my body with the trust it will heal me.” Hucks said with a smile, flashing me a slightly concerned look when nopony was looking. “How is everyone? I heard about what happened.”

“Stable.” Silk said professionally, breaking protocol by handing her their charts as if testing her knowledge. “But let's pop quiz you since you sound like you know your way around the manuals. Any recommendations or suggestions based off of these results, Captain?”

As she browsed over the records Star seemed to be protesting her intrusion into his private medical records but Summer waved him off frantically mouthing something along the lines of, ‘Dude, she’s hot. Let it go!’ Star nodded balefully and both their eyes tempted fate by inching towards Silk and Huck’s flanks while they were preoccupied. I held my tongue and my hoof from giving them a verbal as well as a very physical thrashing and did my best to ignore their gazing eyes. Instead I focused on browsing through the info presented on the amber colored screen of my PipBuck, taking note I was very low on 25mm shells as well as medical supplies. The Zebs had thrown a lot of their all into the last few days' offenses and tactical retreats and I was finding myself needing to lob high-explosive shells at infantry nearly as often as I needed armor-piercing saboted rounds at enemy robots.

“Well, if these blood results are correct then he’s got hypertension and he’s got anemia.” Hucks finally said, pointing to Summer and then Star in turn. “I recommend iron and folic acid supplements for Private Caster and as for Ranger Dusk, potassium supplements and perhaps a thiazide-diuretic if the problem persists. Oh, and a change in diet too. Those blood sodium levels are much too high.”

“You saying I got a problem with what I eat?” Summer said in a hurt tone, looking at his well built frame. “I feel fine.”

“Your blood says otherwise.” Silk said as she went back to terminal in the corner of the room and started checking the Camp’s medicine stores. “I think you’re right Captain, that probably would be the best course of action. May I ask how many years of medical training you have acquired over the years? You seem fairly well versed for not being one of the Ministry's combat medics."

"Me? Oh, collectively probably six? I took every course I could but all they ever really do is teach triage shit and other base-line care. In another life, I'd have become a M.O.P surgeon were the pay better and I were allowed to carry a gun but I know how the Ministry of Peace is with its rules. Sorry guys but I need more than just a sidearm to feel happy and safe out here, even here at Camp."

"Is that so?" Silk mused with a broad smile of glee seeing my mare was so entrenched in medicine. "Indeed that is a newer rule that stands in the way of our clause to 'Do No Harm'...but...I understand why we have that rule now. When we lost that transport last year because nopony was able to defend against the ambush...I try not to think about it."

"No need to! I ain't here to stir up any more shit than what's going on outside." Hucks replied with a jovial chuckle. "Thanks for the pop quiz! It's nice to actually get a challenging question for once and not Buck Beak being an ass and asking me where babies come from."

"Oh my...yes, I am familiar with Sergeant Beak. His paw was in a right state last I saw him... I need to prepare a full report for Doctor Tourniquet and see if he concurs with the diagnosis and I will also ask him about getting Capt. Crisp in contact with some supplemental training. From the sounds of things, she would do very well with some extra knowledge!”

Huckleberry beamed in pride at herself while I stared in disbelief at how big of a medicine nerd she really was. True, I had a passing interest in medicine myself but my heart laid with weapons and armor meaning I took in only the essentials about medicine and how to stabilize trauma wounds. When it came to more advanced drugs and chemicals like the ones she had suggested, it went right over my head like the finer nuances of modern-day fashion trends. Although I suppose in a sense armor could be considered a form of fashion but that was a viewpoint not popular enough to get catwalks of its own.

“Well, you two are in good hooves.” I said as I stood up from my padded stool and gave a simple salute to Star and Summer. “Hucks and I gotta take off and get some food, I’m starving! Fight like that really gave me an appetite.”

“Thanks for the assist, Ranger.” Summer said as he saluted with his other leg that wasn’t connected to a needle. “Hope to see you around sometime. Hey, who knows? Maybe I’ll be a Veteran here too in a few years. I’ve already got three years under my belt as a Ranger so maybe something’ll turn up sometime eh? I mean, they've been letting in Rangers who make it five years for ages now so why should they stop now?”

“Hey, I was one of those five-year Vets. Even living one year in this fucking fight is a major statement in my book so by all means, hang in there another couple years. Always looking for new faces kicking ass with us out there.” I said with a smile before slipping a note to Silk and exiting the tent, the sunrise just barely peeking over the Eastern ridge casting the heavy artillery as distant silhouettes against the backdrop of the morning sky.

“What was the note about?” Hucks asked as we left the M.O.P tents behind headed for the galley.

“Oh just our personal radio frequency in case she ever wants to stop by again for some TLC.” I said with a grin, pulling out the pair of red tinted sunglasses I had ‘reallocated’ to myself from the galley earlier and sliding them onto my muzzle. “Speaking of, how did you two avoid that runner from earlier?”

“What? Oh! That.” She giggled, putting a hoof on the back of her head sheepishly. “Well, I heard my helmet beeping and I had to assume that was you sending us some kind of warning given how soon it happened after you left so I threw my PipBuck onto her leg and attached a StealthBuck to it. Told her to keep her mouth shut and, in a stroke of brilliance I might say, I yanked my panties back on and was halfway through getting my pants on when the runner opened the tent flap and caught me changing. Poor fucker was only like eighteen...but anywho, he screamed and pulled his head out of the tent and tried to shove every single apology he could into a single breath before telling me that the General was looking for you. The moment he heard me say you had already taken off he hauled ass out of there so fast you might have mistaken him for a Cheetah! Couldn't have asked for a better excuse!”

She burst out laughing and I couldn’t help but join her as I imagined the look on that poor guy’s face. Walking in on a mare changing wasn’t exactly considered taboo since most ponies grew up not wearing clothes but when there was a dress standard to strictly follow in the Army, walking in on someone putting on their pants was pretty embarrassing. If any suspicions were raised in his mind, that event would surely purge it from memory. Especially considering Huckleberry was probably leagues ahead of him in the ranks. If she wanted to have him punished, all she had to do was report him and boom, it would be taken care of quickly. Thankfully she wasn’t that kind of mare.

“Damn, that’s awesome!” I laughed, clapping her on the back as we took a seat at one of the empty tables directly beneath one of the rotating fans, the desert heat already pushing the mercury past 109. “So after that she took off and you cleaned up?”

“Yeah, Penny helped out since the guys said it wasn’t their problem so that was nice. Did you know she’s almost forty?”

“Yeah, she told me just before you guys came back from laundry. Did she tell you about her thoughts on maybe starting a family after the War?”

“Seriously?!” She exclaimed as one of the retired veterans came up to our table with a selection of MREs for us to choose from. “I mean kudos to her but sheesh...when I think of a mom, I think of your mom, not her. Ya know what I mean?”

“Mhm, Penny isn’t exactly the poster girl for stay-at-home moms but I think if that’s what she wants then why should we put her down for it? I mean, it’s not like our plans aren’t any more sensible than hers. I’ll take the spaghetti please.”

The MRE was opened and prepared right at our table like a restaurant by our attending veteran and he seemed pleased we had come back to see him. He had a happy, youthful gleam in his eye despite him missing a leg and I got the feeling he hadn’t been this close to young, pretty mares in awhile. I flashed him a big smile and smirked inwardly as he tried to grin back and his dentures fell out and onto the table with a clatter than brought attention to us. Instead of blushing or even showing any kind of embarrassment however, he just laughed and shoved his teeth back into his mouth refusing to frown even a little at his own blunder. Age truly removed certain inhibitions.

“Come back again soon, toots!” He chuckled in his comfortingly old voice before heading back to the kitchen area, hoof bumping his fellow guys who looked at us like prizes to be wooed.

“Oh boys…” Huckleberry sighed with a laugh, scooting her hot bag of black bean soup towards herself. “They never change do they?”

“Nope.” I laughed, sliding the steaming spaghetti onto my empty plate and getting out the other items in the package. “Ten bits says one of us isn’t gonna leave here without an offer for a date!”

“Twenty!” She replied, slamming the money onto the table just as a young stallion dressed in a simple green GA uniform ran up to our table, out of breath and panting for air.

“Need something?” I asked, waiting patiently for him to catch his breath and hoping he wasn't here for a date too.

Hucks winked as she nodded to the panting stallion and I immediately understood. This was the same poor sap who had caught Huckleberry earlier. He definitely wasn’t bad looking though so he had that going for him.

“I...*pant*...I have a message for Colonel Crete.” He said trying to keep a professional face while also trying to get oxygen into his lungs as quickly as possible.

“Well, considering it looks like you just ran all the way here from H.Q, it must be important.” I replied, sitting back in my chair a bit and setting down my fork. “Take your time soldier, no need to kill yourself over a message. A bullet is the faster way to go anyway so always look for that out if ya can.”

He nodded gratefully and took a full minute to compose himself, entirely avoiding the smirking gaze of Huckleberry, before he said, “A mare by the name of Colgate Minuette has sent you a private message requesting you come and meet her in Manehattan as soon as you can.”

It had been awhile since mom had sent me a message outside of our designated monthly calls so either something was up or she was just really desperate to see me.

“Message her back and tell her I will be there by tonight.” I replied, making sure to keep the message short so he could remember it after his marathon back to H.Q. “Is that all?”

“No, Ma’am.” He replied, giving a very formal salute before I dismissed him, his vigor for the return trip surprising given the state he was in when he arrived.

“Huh, wonder what your mom wants.” Hucks said through a mouthful of food.

“Hell if I know but it’s been forever since I’ve been able to see her. I mean the last time I got leave that didn’t get cancelled was what, a year ago?”

“Last August, so a bit shy of a year.” She replied, shoving more food into her mouth without any regard for manners. “You gonna talk to her about your fears and shit? Good time as any.”

The image of her as an old, greying mare hooked up to life support flashed through my head with painful results and I nodded, unable to say anything for the moment. The Elements certainly had done wonders for her longevity but they had their limits. Last time I saw her was when I had learned some of the older residents of PonyVille had passed away or were headed towards their last legs in care homes. Time was marching ever on...

After another few minutes of eating in silence, she asked, “Wait, how are you even gonna get the leave needed to do this? I mean, we’re not booked for leave till after this tour ends, right? We’ve still got four-weeks left down here.”

I felt the weight of the oak leaves on my neck and knew immediately how I was going to secure myself an early leave. Colonel Horn would most likely approve my request since he and my mother had met more than once during formal dinners and he seemed to really like her. It also didn’t hurt she had given him a complementary mouth cast for when he inevitably needed dentures like all the other bucks in his family, all paid for on the military's bit of course. All in all, my chances were comfortably high enough to secure me a temporary leave. I’d ask for a whole week since I had been denied my previous two leaves so they owed me almost two weeks in total. It was a nice middle ground compromise that I personally found hard to argue with, even with the state of the Front.

“Time to put these shiny fuckers to use then.” I said with a grin, wiggling my chest so they sparkled in the muted light of the sunrise.

******

“So ya wanna go see yer mom?” The Colonel said quietly as he read over my written request for leave, a mug of coffee in his hooves. “Tha’s a way betta reason than th’ last Ranger tah ask meh fer leave.”

I sighed inwardly with relief at his words. He was a family guy and knew the importance of maintaining those kind of familial bonds no matter the situation. After all, he came from a huge family himself.

“Permission granted, Crete.” He said with a smile, slamming down a rubber stamp leaving a giant green checkmark in its wake unlike the usual red ‘Approved’ stamp. “Tell ‘er I said hi will ya? She’s ah good mare.”

I pulled the request back across his desk and stuffed it into my dress uniform over my heart and thanked him sincerely for his generosity given we were on an active battlefield.

“Eh, think nuffing of it, Crete.” He laughed, offering me a drink even though he knew I would never take one. “Yer ah good apple. Ah should know, Ah farmed ‘em fer years. Have yerself a good time, ya hear?”

“Oh I definitely will, Sir!” I beamed as I gave him a salute and left his office, the sound of his small radio coming on as I shut the door behind me.

With light jazz following behind me like a live action soundtrack, I made my way across H.Q to the Requisition post to get myself a ticket on the next train out of Appleloosa to Manehattan. I had originally planned on asking for a week off but felt that would be asking a bit too much so I had shortened it to three days off effective today. The Colonel merely glanced at my request before giving me the rubber stamp of approval so it seemed in hindsight I could have gotten away with a full week. Unfortunately, Huckleberry had been denied before me on the grounds that I outranked her and I took priority for leave requests and so she was unable to accompany me on this trip. In the end, the three days was honestly enough time to go and see my mom before I got too lonely from the lack of huckleberry flavored cum on my face and the lack of a huckleberry scented mare in my arms at night. Oh, and the rest of Alpha Squad were going to be missed too I guess.

“Yo, Athena!” Specialist Dodge yelled out as I approached, a smile as wide as a mile on his face. “I heard about that shit that happened at Charlie-Horse! That was dope!”

I had almost forgotten about what had happened not even five-hours ago in the wake of my excitement to get the fuck out of the desert and back to air conditioned civility of the north. This was a lie that I was getting more and more comfortable telling considering the notoriety it seemed to earn me so quickly. Savagery was something to be rewarded now it seemed which made us no better than our opponents. Before long, I wouldn't be surprised if the EAF started introducing Necromancy as part of the Combat Sorcerer spellbook. That is, if they ever decide to send us Combat Sorcerer units in general...

“Oh, yeah.” I laughed, slapping the request form down before him. “Wasn’t that hard. The tower’s construction really played into my favor giving me space to grapple but also narrowed the playing field. I do better when they're too cramped to work cohesively.”

“Well damn straight from what I’ve heard! Word around the practice mats is you’re one hell of a flexible fighter.” He said with genuine respect. “They call you the Serpent of EastPoint you know.”

“Seriously? Since when?” I asked, taken by surprise at the unexpected title. “And why?”

“Well you can’t be held in a hold can you?” He asked, typing in the form’s information without looking at his screen. “Everypony said it was like trying to wrestle a greased up, angry ass eel! Wish I could've seen it but I could never afford a fancy Academy like EastPoint. Had to enlist like every other sad fuck in my town at the recruitment center downtown.”

“Well I guess there’s some truth to the name and legend, but since when did they start calling me that?”

“I dunno, you graduated in what, ‘68?” He asked, tossing the form onto a pile labeled ‘Fulfilled’ to his right.

“Yeah, what about it?” I asked, feeling the class ring hanging on its chain around my neck next to my dog-tags.

“The class of ‘69 and '70 are the ones talking about it then.” He replied, putting a hoof under a slot in the printer next to him waiting for the train tickets to print. “Or maybe some of the guys from your year. I dunno, I just know I’ve heard more than one person call you that while brushing up in the dojo. Just between us as friends, I sure as hell hope we don't get paired up in a practice match sometime. You'll fuckin' destroy me.”

I was strangely flattered by the title. I had loved snakes for as long as I could remember and mom still kept safe Mr. Hissy, the stuffed animal she had sewn for me well over twenty-years ago. A snake was as lithe and agile as it was strong and difficult to hold onto when angry and I was essentially the same way when somepony put me into a chokehold. I didn’t even have to try much and I would somehow wriggle my way out and wrap myself around them in a hold they could not escape, again, like a snake. The only times I had been beaten were when I was unfairly pitted against the Dragons who had muscles the size of melons and whose scales made it very difficult to wriggle myself free. Other than them though...I was a pretty slippery motherfucker. Put me in a flat wrestling match with a Zebra and I felt confident I could snap her neck before she could get to mine.

“Huh...cool.” Was all I could say as the tickets plopped out of the printer and into his waiting hoof, one from here to Appleloosa and the second from Appleloosa to Manehattan. "Well, don't worry too much on that one Dodge. It'd be unfair as hell for them to pit a GI against a Veteran Ranger, especially one who sits his ass behind a desk all day."

"Oh fuck off, Crete." He laughed, slapping down my tickets in mock anger. "But seriously...have a good time while you're way up North! It's rare for any of us to be in a region that actually has four seasons, ya get me?"

“Hey, don't I know it. Don't ya worry Dodge, Imma have a damn good old time in Manehatten. Hope to see you around sometime alright?”

“That’d be dope!” He laughed as he waved to me. “Don’t forget to tell-”

“Already did!” I replied. “He said he’ll give it serious consideration, which is Colonel Horn speak for 'done deal'. You'll be getting commissioned with a warrant in no time!”

“Fuck yeah!!!” He whooped, punching the air and knocking his computer off its stand enough to startle both of us. “Oh shit...thanks sis! I owe you big time for this!”

I gave him a parting wave and exited the tent’s double doors, walking around the edge of the tent for the train station rather than the usual path back towards the trenches. Despite the heat clawing beads of sweat out of my face like drops of blood wearing my dress uniform, I felt happy. I was finally going to leave all this behind for a few days and get to spend time with the only other mare in the world I loved more than myself and Huckleberry. It was a reunion that was long overdue and the only sour notes to plague the happy melody in my heart were the fact that Huckleberry couldn’t come and it was only a regrettably short three days that I had ahead of me. However, I wasn’t focused on the downsides. I was finally going to see mom!

“Appleloosa.” I said to the GI standing guard at the entrance to the station, a large, white ‘MP’ painted onto his black helmet. "Should all be cleared already."

“Everything is in order, Colonel.” He said stiffly after glancing down at the terminal in his workstation, pressing a green button on the podium next to him causing the pedestrian sized door to swing open allowing me in. “You are to report back here no later than 1800 hours on March the 15th, 2077.”

“I know how to read the fine print…” I sighed as I brushed past him with my stamped ticket and sat on the bench to await the next train that would hopefully be arriving in twenty minutes with a load of supplies from Appleloosa for the cooks and Engineers and so forth.

As I sat there waiting, I couldn’t help but wish we were meeting in our hometown of PonyVille rather than the bustling metropolis of Manehattan. After I had graduated high school and enrolled at EastPoint, there wasn't a point to sticking around PonyVille when it was miles away from her company holdings. That wasn’t to say it wasn’t incredibly difficult for her to leave the place I had grown up in and the town she had cleaned ponies’ teeth in for over thirty year. However, she told me herself that PonyVille had lost its innocence and comforting presence the day the Elements of Harmony had left for good to set up their respective Ministries in Canterlot. With all the better paying jobs opening up in the bigger cities and the rising costs of living, PonyVille slowly lost its place on the map as the largest town in Equestria that was not considered a city. It was still historically significant but, like most things historical, they are only important to the ponies that remember them. Everypony else focuses ahead towards the future which laid in the factories and research labs of the cities.

While all that was happening, I was sitting in classes and getting trained to be the soldier I had always wanted to be. Three square meals a day if I was lucky, none at all if I was unlucky and all the firearms training I could have ever dreamed about. Sure, the exhaustive leadership training was great experience but anyone who knew me knew I wasn’t much of a leader. At least in the cut-and-dry definition given by the Army that is. I was made a 2nd Lieutenant by graduating and earned many of my subsequent promotions by just filling a gap opened up by the death of a superior in good enough fashion. Ok...fine, I guess I was a leader but I didn’t like to think of myself as one. I preferred to think of myself as a follower who ended up doing things her way and somehow found obedient ears to listen to her crazy plans. It worked out for me so far and I didn’t see a need to change even if my methods verged on the unorthodox at times.

I was certainly unorthodox compared so some of the other military brass but then again, that’s what endeared me to the Desert Rangers in the first place. While the other Corps followed strict rules and operated within the bounds of their own codes of conduct, the Desert Rangers were the OG badasses of Equestria who did things their way. Squad leaders were often left to their own judgement when it came to battle planning and they were expected to play with the strengths each member of their Squad provided. With Squads never exceeding eight members in total, fast friendships were formed between everyone and everyone came to know instinctively the strengths of their fellows and stepped in to fill the gaps in their weaknesses. I suppose I am biased towards my own Corps since this sort of bonding happened in all branches of the military, but the Desert Rangers didn’t have a reputation as professionals of the unorthodox for nothing. We were Rangers because we were the best of the General Army and we became Veterans because we knew how to use everything in the battlefield (especially the terrain) to our advantage. That was the legacy I wanted to be a part of.

The train arrived faster than I had thought and I settled myself into the hardwood seats of the passenger car along with a small number of other ponies all headed to Appleloosa. Were they going home to see a loved one too? Nopony seemed to be eager to speak to anyone else on the train and one by one they all dozed off after we had set off North. I checked my PipBuck’s watch and sighed. It was seven a.m. and I hadn’t slept since probably six-something the day before. Plus, I had been in a bit of a tough-as-balls fight that I nearly died in and all the espionage spy stuff with Zecuro. Pulling one of the M.O.P’s blankets out of the duffle bag I had packed for the trip, I laid on the hard bench and smiled as the cooling effects of the blanket took care of the stifling air of the passenger car. Now that I had a friend in the M.O.P itself, it had been more than easy to snag one of these precious beauties out of the thousands they kept in stock. Silk was proving even more useful than as a simple butt-buddy for Hucks and I and that was wonderful as I certainly wanted her friendship as well as her ass.

******

The trip to Appleloosa had only lasted an hour but the much more crowded trip to Manehattan took most of the day, time I spent mostly napping when I wasn’t woken up for the periodic stops on the way. While half of the stops were at other stations like PonyVille (a nostalgic pang filled my heart the entire time we were there seeing familiar sights), the other half were mandatory stops at various military checkpoints. They were scattered about Equestria on all the rail lines and the bulk of the nation’s roads having their roots in several domestic terror incidents involving sleeper cell agents planted by the Empire. Originally they had been implemented to check the trains, wagons and other means of transport for illegal goods from the Empire or potential domestic terrorist IEDs, but now they fulfilled the duty of customs and border patrol officers under the direct supervision of the M.O.M. Lining the hastily built platforms were Steel Rangers standing stiffly, watching the train for any sign of trouble while several dozen uniformed officers would enter onto the train. One, to check the tickets of all riders to validate them with the central database and two, to check the citizenship papers of everyone on board looking for anything or anyone who seemed out of place.

The papers themselves were something everypony had to carry on their person at all times ever since Edict A-13 came into effect putting a stranglehold on free immigration. They were small booklets, usually hung around the neck, that contained such information as your birthdate, birth certificate, blood heritage and any pertinent medical or financial information that would go to further validate your existence in Equestria. Naturally it was easy to tell what kind of papers you had by the color of the cover. Gold for native-born citizens, silver for second-through-fifth generation immigrants, purple for first generation immigrants, green for members of the armed forces and red for those few Zebras who had been allowed to stay in the country under strict regulations and scrutiny. Traveling the country certainly wasn't what it used to be.

The officers coming down the car were experienced in their jobs and scanned through dozens of papers in quick succession. By the time the bored looking stallion reached me, I had already pulled out my green covered booklet and stuffed my ticket into the front page. He seemed mildly interested to see another soldier on the train and opened my booklet with the same dull enthusiasm as he had the rest, glancing over my name, rank and other personal information that he needed to know about in order to let me through. I found it very strange that one of the sections of the identity paperwork asked if I was a virgin or not (obviously a HUGE no) followed up with the slightly less strange question as to whether or not I had ever had sexual relations with a Zebra. If yes (which mine was again, no), then I was to give the name, if possible, of the individual(s) with whom I had had intercourse with and the relative date of said intercourse with any extra information I could provide on them. It was painfully obvious what they were getting at there.

I had always wondered what would happen to those who marked yes and gave the name(s) of their former lovers. Would they be taken in for questioning or even one of M.O.M’s mind rapes? Certainly the named lovers would be flushed out of the woodwork if they were still in the country but I still wondered what happened to the unlucky sap who had decided it was worth the risk to get kinky with a Zebra. I suppose I could understand the allure but all of them got kicked out before I had a chance to see their mares for myself. Well, in a situation where we weren't trying to slaughter the other.

“You’re on leave, Colonel Crete?” The officer asked dully, glancing through the pages of my booklet with no more interest than if he were reading the latest stock prices.

“Correct.” I responded, feeling it wasn’t the right place to be a bit more laid back.

“To Manehattan to visit your mother, a Dr. Colgate Minuette of Colgate Dentistry and Orthodontics?”

“Yes.”

“What is the purpose of your visit to Manehattan?”

“To...visit my mother?” I asked with a bit of confusion as he had just said why I was visiting not even a second before.

“That is correct.” He replied further confusing me as to what the hell kind of game he was playing at. “What do you plan to do during your stay?”

“I don’t know.” I replied knowing mom probably had the whole three days and more planned out for us so we got to do as many things as possible together. “I received the message from my mother to visit her in Manehattan earlier today and took the next train out of the Badlands. No time to make plans with such short notice so I guess my mom has plans. Why?”

“I’m going to have to ask you to come with me, Colonel.” He said flatly the moment I stopped speaking, his magic snapping my booklet shut with a startlingly loud snap for such a small thing.

“And why is that?” I asked indignantly as I had literally done nothing wrong and yet was getting all the questions when everypony else was just glanced over and approved without a second thought.

“We have orders to detain you.” He said flatly, motioning for me to stand while his magic gripped the 1912 pistol on his leg. “Come with me now, else I will be required to use force in order to detain you.”

With a growl I stood, ignoring the curious onlookers who craned their heads every which way to stare at me as I followed him off the train and onto the platform. I was then led into the makeshift office on the far end of the station where I was given a full body search while every single item in my duffle bag was removed and thoroughly examined. The intense scrutiny was performed by a pair of mares wearing white uniforms with pink trim around the cuffs and shoulders and a large armband with the three-balloon motif of the M.O.M that was on proud display for all to see. All the while, I complied with their demands in silence putting my poker face to use once more to conceal any sense of dread I had about the situation. They had nothing on me and this was all some sort of prank or misunderstanding. Right...?

“Colonel Crete, you are to be detained for a period of three-days until such time as it is deemed fit for you to return to your post on the Southern Front. You will be held at Shattered Hoof Detention Center until such time as you are returned to your post and are subject to the full jurisdiction of the Ministry of Morale until such time as the Equestrian Armed Forces resumes ownership of your life. Do you understand the above, yes or no?” Said the taller of the two ruby colored mares who appeared to be a set of twins.

“I understand what you’re saying but I don’t get it.” I said as I sat magnetively cuffed in my chair completely naked, my uniform and everything else laying on the table behind her. “I’ve got all the paperwork, I followed the proper procedure and obtained the approval of my commanding officer, Colonel Little Horn of the Desert Rangers Corps. I demand to know by what authority I am being held when I have done absolutely nothing wrong.”

“That information is classified.” She responded stone faced. “Further inquiries into this matter will be met with swift retribution as outlined in Section Five-A, Clause Eighty-Seven of the Royal Ministry Charter concerning the Ministry of Morale. All statements are on official record and will be used as part of your official hearing.”

“Oh this is bullshit…” I fumed, my fur standing on end as I growled at them. “I haven’t seen my mom in over a year and you asswipes are gonna detain me because I was going to go and see her? Where do you guys get off huh? Last I checked the definition of morale was the confidence, enthusiasm and discipline of a person or group at any particular time. Keeping me from seeing my mom is the exact opposite of a morale-booster. Even you aren’t dense enough to ignore that. Unless you skipped basic vocab in school which, let’s be honest, seems likely given how anti morale this dick move is.”

Her lip curled and she turned to the MP officer standing guard saying, “Inform Shattered Hoof that Miss Crete is cleared for psycho-invasive interrogation on my authorization. Full examination of the hippocampus.”

Psycho-invasive interrogation, the fancy term for ‘mind rape’.

“You know it’s pretty coincidental that you’re gonna hold me for three-days.” I said, dislocating my shoulders with as little grimacing as I could, my anger acting as a great painkiller for the moment. “That’s exactly as long as I was supposed to be on leave. You know what else? I think I know who ordered you guys to yank my ass off the train. It was General Olive Leaf wasn’t it?”

It was subtle but there was a flash of concern in her eyes that was quickly covered up with the same angry indifference of before. It made sense. The General was highly suspicious of me (for valid reasons though ones that eluded his xenophobic mind) and my sudden leave of absence from the Front where he could keep an eye on me wasn’t going to be allowed lightly. It made too much sense to all be a coincidence.

“Silence.” She commanded, motioning for her twin who pulled a syringe out of her uniform pocket, the glass filled with a milky white liquid that I could only guess was Ketamine, a popular drug and very effective tranquilizer.

The cuffs were secured tighter than a condom around my fetlocks but I had learned (in bed of all places) that they lost their magneticity when twisted and pulled in a very specific way. It was a little known design feature that only existed as a final solution to getting the cuffs off if the key was lost. Problem was...I only knew the angle from the front where I could see it, not behind my back. As I laid eyes on her horrifying needle, adrenaline coursed through my veins in a way only S.A.T.S could bringing the world to a well lit, crawling pace and I instinctually felt what to do. I wouldn't need the targeting computer for what came next. I was in my territory the moment I wrenched my goddamn hooves free.

With a hasty breath I flung my legs up from behind my back and around to my front, eternally grateful for my extreme flexibility and double joints. With a painful twist and a pull, they clunked open and I was already up and flying towards the one with the needle first. My front legs wrapped around her neck while my hind legs grappled with her stuck-up twin who stood within easy reach of her sister. In their haste or their pride, somewhere along the lines they had forgotten to lock one of the M.O.M’s horn clamps on me that negated any magical energy from flowing out of the body; it was too easy to wrench the syringe free of her grasp and fling it right into the neck of the MP as he was drawing his weapon. We crashed onto the floor, their heads providing enough padding that it didn’t hurt me nearly as much as it did them, and I took a second to stretch out my shoulders before standing up and taking a split-second survey of the room. The MP was sinking against the wall as the Ketamine flooded his veins from the empty syringe still stuck in his neck and the twins were curled up on the floor moaning pitifully, obviously not used to pain like this. When the door wasn’t blown open by a minigun toting Steel Ranger I quickly assumed I had been covert enough not to draw attention to myself over the sound of the train.

“Alright tomato head.” I said, mocking her red color though not as intimidatingly as I would have liked. “Tell me what the fuck is going on and I won’t play judge, jury and executioner on your ass.”

“G-General Olive ordered you detained for leaving the Front without his permission!” She squealed, her face slightly crushed under the forehoof that wasn’t throbbing in pain. "H-he sent word ahead to d-detain you."

“Thought so…” I sighed, stepping off her head and starting to get dressed as though nothing had happened. “I’m going to go see my fucking mom and none of you asshats are going to stop me. I haven’t done anything wrong and if I report this to Canterlot, which I sure as fuck am gonna do, all of you are getting to share my room at Shattered Hoof, not me.”

She continued to roll slightly on the floor cradling her bruised head while attempting to nod in response, her sister entirely still on the ground. I expressed a level of self-restraint that mom would have been proud of and refrained from stomping all of their heads into tomato paste. Rather, I demanded they let me pass and that I would deal with the General myself when I got back from my well deserved trip home. We could all walk away from this event and forget it ever happened.

“U-understood M-Ma’am…” She whispered as she signed a release form and checked on her sister whom I had semi-intentionally knocked unconscious. “But what about him…?”

She pointed to the MP still stoned out and unconscious against the wall.

“You’re one of M.O.M's fucking Unicorns aren’t you?” I retorted as I set my mane right using her blank terminal screen as a mirror so I didn’t look like I had just wrestled two government employees and drugged a third. “Do one of your mind rapes on him. I know that badge on your chest, you’re part of the Psychological Division. Do what you freaks do best.”

She nodded timidly and gave me the release form as well as my papers before approaching the knocked out stallion and touching her glowing horn to his forehead. I left them behind, confident I had scared enough shit out of her for her to keep her mouth shut and boarded the train that was still waiting in the station. The last of the officers departed from the caboose looking as bored as the before having seemingly found nopony else of interest on the rest of their check. I took my seat where I had been before my attempted detention and set my duffle bag on the chair beside me as a pillow for yet another nap, this one particularly well-earned. Naturally my mind was abuzz with questions about what had just happened but they could wait three days. Still...how quickly a M.O.M task force had been assembled to apprehend me was certainly pause for concern. The General seemed to have a lot more clout with the Hexagon than I had anticipated for such a detestable stallion. Of course, he had the four stars on his perfectly starched lapels to ensure that kind of loyalty but the idea he would use his power to fucking detain me when I tried to go on a three-day weekend...fuck, I just didn't wanna think about it anymore.

As I pulled my blanket back out of my duffle bag preparing to lie back down, a mare sitting in the row behind me asked, “What was that about? Seemed pretty serious.”

“A clerical error.” I replied before laying my head on my back and tossing my cap over my eyes to shut out the light.

****************

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Into the Dark Market

“Mom! Wake up sleepy head!” Melody giggled into my ear what felt like minutes later, waking me from a vague dream that involved bananas, a fruit I hadn't thought of in well over a century.

“Eh…?” I grumbled as I opened my eyes and saw her beautiful mismatched eyes staring back into mine, the ceiling of the Stable noticeably quite different from that of the shop.

“Siwwy…” She giggled again, booping my nose with hers and tugging on my hoof to sit me up. “You’ve been asleep for like six-hours now!”

I knew I was still in my armor given the uncomfortable pressure on my lower spine from where the turtle shell ended and where my cuisse began. Glancing at my PipBuck I saw it was roughly eight o’clock at night which threw off my measurement of time by a fair amount. I had not cared to check my clock while we were raiding Velvet’s house earlier but the sun wasn’t that low in the sky when we had left for The Pile. Either way, I felt better after the nap and my mind felt lighter now that the ordeal was over. Sleep never stopped surprising me with how effective it can be, even on a partially mutated body like mine.

“Where is everypony…?” I asked, sitting up and wincing in silent pain as my neck and shoulders popped and cracked as I moved.

“They’re out in the Workshop eating dinner, that’s why I came to wake you up!” She said cheerfully, her breath smelling strongly of garlic and onion though not in an unpleasant way. “Uncle Cogs bought us a bunch of food from one of the restaurants on the Second Floor and brought it back for all of us! Common! All the Alfredo is gonna be gone!”

That explained the garlic and onion breath and got me out of bed like a bullet from my Sequoia. Alfredo was a rare taste in the Wastes and just so happened to be my favorite food just behind pizza and fried rice. Melody climbed onto my back and we charged out of the Stable together on a quest for deliciously creamy pasta, the smell smacking me right in the face the moment we left the Stable and unconsciously sending my legs galloping even faster, Melody clinging tightly to my neck and giggling with glee as her mom charged with fury for food.

“Well look who’s awake!” Chocolate laughed as we skidded to a halt in the Workshop, the three of them gathered around a hastily cleared work table laden with several dishes of fine food. “Did ya dream about me, sweet lips?”

I blushed slightly and set Melody down in the chair next to mine as I yanked the half-empty platter of pasta towards myself, stuffing my mouth with the dairy ridden Alfredo sauce so fast I risked choking.

“Whoa there!” Cogs exclaimed, trying to pull the plate away from me. “There are others at this table who desire this just as you do Athena.”

“Thanks mom.” I sneered at him while pulling the plate back for me and Melody to share before digging back in with a hungry passion.

“Oh my god!” Chocolate giggled as she watched me pork out. “Can you eat pussy like dat?”

Melody burst out in giggles while Cogsworth and Gold looked away with red cheeks as I pointedly replied, “You know it!”
The rest of the meal continued more or less in the same vein with plenty of banter as everyone had a chance to talk about something they wanted to say. The Alfredo was delicious but not quite the same as the stuff I had enjoyed before the Great War. Standard wheat, barley and rye had been laid waste by the Megaspells and what had sprung forth in their place was what came to be called Razorgrain; sort of a hybrid between wheat and barley with oddly shaped stalks that could cut deeply if handled improperly. There were a few subspecies that reflected the general flavor of Pre-War grain species with even a new variant hitting the local market that tasted pretty similar to rye. Agriculture was doing well enough for itself in the West, even here in the desert proper.

Of course, I was eternally grateful that civilization survived enough to know how to cultivate the land and domesticate those Feral species that were beneficial to our survival. Farming in the region was primitive compared to the massive corporate farms of yesteryear but New Pegasus thrived thanks to still-functioning water pumps and a clean aquafer deep below the city. I could only guess that Mr. House had planned just as far ahead for the city's longevity belowground as he had the buildings topside as the pipes functioned almost flawlessly. This allowed the Stirrup to charge the farming community on the other side of town (the side much more reduced to rubble) half of their yields in exchange for direct access to a water main. Westside, as it came to be called, was at once home to some of the richest and some of the poorest in the region outside the Stirrup itself. For every wealthy Brahmin baron or collective farm owner, there were three dozen poor saps weeding and toiling away on the farms themselves making just enough to afford their room in the collective housing unit they were assigned to.

Regrettably, the wonderful meal was over before I knew it and my stomach was fit to burst from the amount of food I had forced it to cram in. Melody’s scrawny frame also clearly showed the massive bulge of her full stomach as she leaned back in her chair in the grips of a contented food coma. The Pile had great restaurants for the post-apocalypse, especially the Second Floor which supposedly had managed to snag some talented chefs out of Tenpony. Of course...the agriculture, talented chefs and the like were all possible thanks to the ancient magic of writing shit down as well as cutie marks. It was easy to take them for granted, especially in an era where blank flanks were not uncommon thanks to the means for some talents to be realized being non-existent or unobtainable. But, at the end of the day it was magic older than written record itself and it gives ponies the extra inspiration needed to keep the wheels of innovation cranking. Slowly and on rusted cogs...but turning all the same.

“I haven’t eaten that much in years…” Melody sighed happily after a good ten minutes, patting her belly gently. “I’d ask for more but I think I’d throw up.”

“I agree with her…” Chocolate groaned from her place on the floor where she had unceremoniously decided to lay down. “Shit’s filling as hell!”

As we waited for the meal to settle in our stomachs enough for us to move, we discussed our next step that we wanted to accomplish. Gold casually reminded me that we were originally going to the Dark Market for Dragon leather for his duster before Black Velvet had crashed our party. Without a place to go yet beside Cogs, there was some time to hit the Dark Market and run a few errands I felt. Cogs had mentioned they might be a good opportunity to try asking about a new place to stay, a sentiment I agreed with as its denizens came from all across the globe via the Gateways. If somepony had good real-estate ideas, I had a decent chance of stumbling across something that could work for us. Now that I was all-but-convinced that Melody and even Gold were here to stay with me, my hole-in-the-wall apartment was absolutely inadequate to house all three of us in any sort of comfort. I needed space for my trophies, weapons and work benches, Melody repeatedly asked for her own bedroom and I knew Gold would want probably much the same for himself.

“What precisely are you seeking in a residence?” Cogsworth asked as he downed his third bottle of Cola. "Describe unto me your perfect choice in housing."

“Well...it’s gotta be close enough to New Pegasus for starts but not too close if you know what I mean. I want to be near enough where I can come here to The Pile for stuff but not so close as for ponies to be constantly nearby; you know as well as I do I hate areas with crowds. Honestly I’d like it to be an apartment complex like Velvet was staying in so everypony could have a room if they wanted to. I mean I know its a lot to ask for but you asked. Only other thing I can think of would be like an old Army outpost or something, ya know something with some pre-built defenses in it so I don't have as much to worry about when it comes to fortifying the bitch up.”

“I see…” He mused, taking a bite out of an apple and chewing slowly. “What else?”

“It would be awesome if it was kind of isolated like that one hotel is.” I said, liking this route of wishful thinking for what it was. “You know, the one outside Fillydelphia they never finished that was supposed to be Tenpony's sister hotel. Something like that with a great line of sight for miles around and a nice concrete wall with razor wire lining the top would be absolutely perfect.”

“Why not go one step further and wish then for a castle?” He chuckled, setting up his empty bottles like walls surrounding the empty box of Insti-Mash potatoes. “That would be most advantageous would it not?”

“Sure, a castle would be dope!” I giggled, lobbing my fork at his makeshift castle like a spear. “But seriously, who the fuck even owned a castle before the War? Aside from the ruins all over Trottingham, there's just the Royal Palace in Canterlot and let’s face it...we’d need a lot more than overactive imaginations to live in that clusterfuck.”

“Indeed. So, an easily defendable apartment complex or, even less probable, a derelict military base of some form. I assume you would like my assistance in repairing and fortifying such a place?”

“Well, you’re the one with the materials and the robots.” I laughed, tempting fate by taking another bite of Radlemon Pie. “I don’t got none of that as you know. Unless ya want your ballistic toy tinkered with and adjusted, I don't have any of the skills needed for construction either.”

"Indeed that is the circumstance. I would be glad to assist you my friend, although I am afraid I cannot accept even a number of favors for my services. I will of course be extending a gracious discount but..."

"No worries, Cogs. You'll get paid for you and your robot's hard work in full. I've got a lot of savings that I've got nothing to do with and I can always try and see if I can snag another Contract or two if I really need to."

"Oh? I-I thought that they would b-be mad at you for...y-you know." Gold interjected, looking at Melody who was dozing off too hard to be part of the conversation. "C-could you even get a C-Contract?"

"Well, thing with the Syndicate I've learned is high earners get more leeway. Long as the Directors and their Shadows got paid well, they tend to turn a blind eye to transgressors. That's how Black Velvet got away with her bullshit for so long, that and her big sister's clout with the Directors. Odds are, given Green is not well liked by anyone, my fucking with him just this once will be overlooked and my record will be clean enough to get Contracts still."

"Oh? Even with several taken out on your own head?" Cogs asked curiously.

"This ain't the first time someone who works for them was also considered a target by someone else. If they live or die, it doesn't matter as long as caps fall into their hooves. Any bar in town that has a Board is considered neutral territory with all patrons encouraged to shoot the aggressor in any situation if gunfire erupts anywhere nearby. Somepony tries waiting nearby one for me to snag a Contract is gonna get the shit blown out of him by a bunch of drunk, angry Mercs, Hunters and maybe a Hitmare or two. Happened to Golden Rod and Salty Brine four years back when they tried killing Killer Queen outside the Stiff Stallion if you remember."

"I see...very well then, I will leave it to you to set your financial affairs in order. Naturally, I will not be able to make cost estimates until I am able to inspect the location but I am sure you will have something for me to analyze before long."

The room fell into silence save for the soft whirring sound of the Mr. Handy floating around us clearing the table while humming a happy tune. I knew my ideas for a new home were kind of asking a lot of the universe given the crappy real-estate market in Equestria but I was determined to find something as close to my vision as possible. With that kind of setup I could keep Melody safe, have plenty of room for even more stuff and live right next door to people I cared about and host others, assuming Cogs and Chocolate wanted to pay us a visit or something. Who knew, maybe I would let the dork inside me turn it into some sort of command post to make believe I was working at Camp Macintosh again.

It dawned on me that I had literally no idea what I was going to do with myself now that I was a parent and had more or less called it quits to actively being a Hitmare. Was I just going to settle down as a full-time parent like Penny had wanted to do after the War? It was a possibility but I couldn’t lie to myself...I would get bored of that really quickly and would need to be out in the Wastes doing shit. Besides, it wasn’t like Melody was a four year old. I didn’t necessarily have to be a stay-at-home mom given she was sixteen or so. With some practice behind the trigger and some more time out in the Wasteland by my side, she would be more than capable of taking care of herself in the big, bad world. Gold was even better off having demonstrated some notable level of competence when it came to Wasteland survival. There was still plenty of polish that needed to be added to make both of them shine but soon I would have a pair traveling companion who aren't useless in a fight and could hold their own. The only question was if Melody herself was willing to live that kind of admittedly dangerous life with me. Gold...now that he had most of his armor assembled, I think the only way I could get my Desert Ranger fanboy off my tail was by shooting him. There was no way I was gonna be able to shake that boy loose now that I had semi-delivered on my promise for the equipment.

“Well...I think it’s time we take off to the Market.” I said with a heavy sigh fighting back the fat, lazy feelings trying to glue me to my chair. “Anyone who wants to come is welcome to. I know you two already asked to come but I know the post-dinner fat and happy feeling pretty damn well so if you wanna just stick behind and nap, go right ahead. I'd do the same if I could trust someone else to make the trip.”

“I-I’ll go!” Gold exclaimed excitedly, immediately jumping out of his chair and running to go put on his new armor.

“Alright, that’s one. Anyone else?” I asked, looking at Cogsworth and Melody.

“Isn’t it closed?” She asked, looking at the collector’s edition Sparkle-Cola clock on the wall nearby that glowed purple and blue. “I mean, it’s almost ten. Don’t places close earlier than that?”

“The Pile for the most part, yeah.” I replied, tossing my Sequoia up into the air and angling my hind leg so it would land right in its waiting holster. “But not the Dark Market. It’s kind of like New Pegasus, it never goes to bed no matter how late it is. Hell, night time is when most people visit it anyway. Time is relative in there anyway.”

Melody tugged on her armored jumpsuit and grabbed her rifle though I got the feeling she didn’t much like her armor. Compared to Gold and I’s armor, hers was lacking both aesthetically and in its level of defense. Small arms would be tolerable but rifle anything would be problematic, especially with the Kevyarn. That begged the question though as to what kind of armor appealed to her but it was a question for a later time. For the moment it sufficed and, most importantly, it fit and was a hell of a lot better than running around stark naked in naught but your own fur. After running back to the Stable to strap Little Fang to my back, the knowledge of its usefulness not being lost on me, we set off out of the Workshop and up the stairs to the skywalk connecting us to the rest of The Pile. Cogs knew just as well as I did that no matter how long we spent down there, we wouldn't be gone longer than a half-hour.

From the moment our hooves stepped onto the skywalk, it was easy to tell The Pile was all-but-closed for the day. The echoing clamor of the pedestrians milling about buying and selling goods throughout the entire building was mostly silent now save for the few merchants that kept their stalls open late into the night. The bulk of what noise remained in the slightly echo-y building was the laughter and singing echoing down from the fancier bars upstairs. There, alcohol was served all night and good chow was ready and waiting for those citizens who could afford to enter the Stirrup but chose to live outside it. Everywhere you looked, the thriving aisles of the market from earlier stood closed up and sadly quiet, sliding metal grates or simple cloth blinds pulled over the counter; all their goods stored indoors inside tightly locked trunks, safes and barrels against the busy day of trade ahead. It was peaceful and eerie all at once.

“It’s so...quiet.” Melody whispered almost to herself as we made quick time towards the grand staircase in the center-rear of the building. “It’s kind of sad…”

“The feeling you’re getting is called ‘Kenopsia’,” I explained with a smile, grateful I remembered the term as it was a curious sensation I experienced myself often particularly in Pre-War locales I used to remember. “It’s the eerie, sad atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now empty and abandoned. It’s especially apparent in places like well-known cities or buildings with importance to you. One of those odd emotions that somehow has one word to sum it all up easy for you in the dictionary.”

"Yeah...that's pretty cool there's a word just for it. I love learning cool new things about words!"

We finally reached the Grand Stair separating the Main Floor from the Second Floor. Standing guard at the foot in a small booth built just for the purpose was the pair of bouncers tasked with keeping the poor from the fine establishments above; little love was lost between the rich and poor even outside the Stirrup. They eyed me idly as we approached, angling to the left of the Grand Staircase to pass down and behind it in order to reach the stair down to the entrance of the Dark Market. Unlike the way to the Second Floor, no bouncer was needed in order to gain entry. Everypony knew it was here but few were allowed to pass the Gateway. The Dark magic that helped fuel this pocket dimension was the sort of security protocols that M.O.M could have only dreamed of being legal for their use...

“I guess you must feel...Ke-Kenopsia a lot, huh? Being so old and all that...” Melody commented softly as we started our journey downwards.

I stopped mid-step and looked at her with a pained expression as visions of Manehattan, Las Pegasus, PonyVille and other such places flashed through my head in their pristine, Pre-War glory. Lofty towers of steel and glass, well-maintained lawns and gardens...

“All the time.” I replied softly before taking a deep breath and another step only to graze the edge of the stair and tumble headfirst down to the next landing in a crumpled heap of mare. I had come to a stop on the next landing down despite what my inner-ears were trying to show me and the impacts had been blunted by my armor.

“You ok?” Melody asked frantically, trying to find my head in my tangle of softly aching body parts.

“Yep...just having a friendly meeting with another emotional friend of mine. Hello, Mr. Pain...” I mumbled as I unraveled myself from myself and stood up. I noticed a small message appearing on my visor indicating a suggestion that I clean my Flexi-Mesh padding as soon as I could, the words bordered by an orange square indicating some urgency behind the message.

“Y-you tumbled like a c-champ though!” Gold chuckled as he slid down the center railing with surprising grace, landing with a loud clicking sound as his bare hooves touched the floor.

“Tumble-n’-Roll Champ all through EastPoint.” I laughed painfully, checking the message off and making a mental note to take care of it ASAP. “Wrestling, Judo, rolling down a hill...I did it all. Of course, that was over two-hundred years ago but eh, I think I still kept the title. I mean, they award Noble Peace Prizes to dead people and they get to keep their titles so...why not me too eh?”

“You’re siwwy.” Melody giggled as she hefted my AMR into my arms after it had flown off during my tumble. “But I love you for that.”

“Thanks, Mel.” I replied, taking the lead once again across the landing and around the corner to the next set of stairs leading even further downwards being extra careful where I put my hooves this time around.

The stairs finally ended with a long hallway leading up towards a gigantic set of cold black marble doors carved out to look like a great Dragon devouring the world. The walls leading up to it began to be lit by torches in sconces recessed into the rough hewn walls that burned with purple and green fire casting everything in a trippy, flickering light. Melody and Gold alike stared at it all with absolute amazement, the light of the arcane torches casting strange colors on their faces and bodies . Above the doors, carved in a very gothic font were the words, ‘Deinde Qui Ibi Tenebrae Prosperabitur’, a sentiment that anypony who dared enter understood before they even arrived. The Market was decidedly on the black side of the moral alignment chart though was not itself wholly evil from what I had experienced. It just happened to be the most accepting place on the planet for those who peddled the forbidden and taboo of yesteryear.

“Deinde...what does all that mean?” Melody asked after feeling a hoof over the magnificently carved Dragon where every single scale was contoured to give the exact feel of a Dragon’s hide. "Wow that's cold!"

“It means basically, ‘He who brings Darkness shall prosper here’.” I replied, giving a rough translation of the mantra. "And yes hun, that's because that door isn't technically there. What you're touching is a physical manifestation of something that is 100% magic. That magic just eh...just so happens to be Dark in nature. Don't worry, it won't harm you just from touching or even entering there but you can't linger for too long or it will start affecting you."

"Oh? Like how?" Melody asked right on cue.

"Depends a lot on what Darkness you already have lingering inside you to be honest so it's too varied to give a straightforward answer." I replied candidly as this was not the kind of place to be vague about the rules. "But the longer you stay in there, the more time the ambient energy of the Market has time to poke and prod at your inner demons and stir them up. Stay too long and they will more than likely overrule your ability to ignore them leaving you with your worst attributes at the surface of your being and there's only so much that can be done to repair the damage. The magic used here is stronger than anything you two have even heard of so for the love of fuck...listen to the rules imma lay down here."

"We understand! Don't we, Gold?"

He timidly nodded, obviously a bit spooked about what I had just described but not enough to turn tail and head back to Cogsworth upstairs. Despite the dangers, I couldn't blame him at all for taking the chance to witness something truly out of this world. The Dark Market was one of those Post-War marvels that exceeded what it had been Pre.

“Now...before we go in there...remember what I told you two earlier. Stick by me at all times, don’t look anypony in the eye, don’t touch anything and most importantly do not speak to anyone while we’re in here. The people here are...well, honestly the only word that best describes them is ‘cursed’. The Dark Market is another world that parallels ours and acts as a refuge for weirdos and weird shit too crazy and powerful for the Wasteland to handle. There are many entrances all across the world so you'll see some pretty crazy and diverse faces down here. Can only wonder what those other places are like but sadly only the merchants are allowed to pass through any Gateway. Everyone else is connected to one specific door and none of the others in order to prevent old blood conflicts from flaring up between regions since this one hub has spokes that touch every nation. Any enterprising group or Merc company would die for that kind of super-highway to move vast distances. Fuck...to think what that sorta thing could have done in Equestrian hooves...”

“I-I’m not so sure I want t-to g-go in there…” Gold whimpered as he took a few steps back away from the door like being even near the stone would suck his Soul away.

“You don’t have to, but that means I’d have to walk you all the way back to Cogsworth and I’m really too tired to do that right now.” I replied, gesturing up the hallway to the stairs that seemed to be cast in an entirely different light as if the real world ended there and the hallway marked the entrance to a different plane of existence.

“N-no! I-I’m not a c-coward.” He said as confidently as he could though there was still a note of trepidation in his raspy voice. “I’m n-not afraid.”

“Good…” I replied softly, turning back to the door and putting a hoof on the center crest of the devoured world. “This isn't the sort of place to wear your fear on your sleeve.”

I nudged them aside and stood before the door, raising my hoof to the fanciful crest in the center of the Dragon's jaws. The crest glowed a bright red as a glowing pentacle projected from the stone requiring a few twists of my hoof in the right order; runic symbols floating atop the circumference of the array flashing softly as the tip of my hoof passed over them like an electronic combination lock. All Gates into the Dark Market were heavily fortified with unknown Dark magic set as a defense against any (like the NER) who wanted to come inside with motives ulterior to simple economic exchange. After getting the combination correct, I pressed my lips to my hoof still surrounded by the glowing runes of the pentacle and whispered the mantra engraved above the door. As the last word left my lips, the crest hissed open while the doors swung inwards, Melody and Gold both jumping slightly from the sudden noise. My blood was part of that array...the color of the runes deriving their color from the same gathered from everyone who had been granted entry.

“Welcome my friends, to the weirdest place on Terra Firma!” I declared as I walked forward with my timid quarry in tow.

The gates led to yet another torch-lit hallway, the walls seemingly carved from black obsidian which gleamed with a fine polish in the light that ended with yet another stair leading downwards. At the top of the landing the full scope of the Market came into view, the doors behind us booming shut sealing us away from the rest of Reality. Before us was a monstrous cavern carved out of the same obsidian-like rock as the hallway that was packed to the brim with all styles and sizes of exotic tents, traditional stalls and endless rows of variously sized cages. The air was alive with the yips and growls of the caged creatures as well as the barking of the seedy merchants to any within the reach of their calloused voice. Most of the patrons milling about below us were hooded or masked in one way or another; scowling eyes flashed from the shadows masking their identities from the others as caps changed hooves in exchange for glowing potions, decapitated heads and scraps of ancient scrolls that seemed to warp Reality around themselves. It was the opposite side of the coin to The Pile above. Caps here were considered an uncommon currency and the goods being exchanged were only for niche practices and the bizarre hobbyist.

“W-what the f-fuck…?” Gold stuttered, looking about as if stuck between wanting to charge forward in interest and wishing to flee back to the waking world.

“It’s cool!” Melody sang as she looked over everything with wide eyes eager to see more. "Weird...but cool!"

“I’m glad someone else likes the look of it for once.” I replied with a laugh, thinking back on the time I had made the mistake of bringing Cogsworth with me and the scene he had made after being nearly sold into the service of a Necromancer. “Time doesn’t pass while we are here. We could spend a day's worth of hours down here and not a second has gone by since we passed the Gateway. But, like I said earlier, we gotta be quick here. Faster the better.”

They didn’t say anything so I took the lead yet again and led them down the chiseled stairway and to the edge of the bedlam. Scaly Fang, the only Dragon merchant who actually liked me, was towards the far end of the Market over where the mutated Feral guard-Wolves and inbred Manticores were caged. Unfortunately, our quest for leather meant traversing nearly a half-mile of weirdly dangerous terrain with two foals who were, as proven earlier with Black Velvet, prone to ignore commands and follow the whim of their interests. Thankfully (and it was the only situation where this was a blessing) Melody was not a virgin and thus could not be snatched up by one of the Necromancers for their blood rituals over by the unorthodox food court. As for Gold...considering he was turned into a Ghoul at age fourteen, it was doubtful he had ever gotten some good mare action. Or stallion action, wouldn't bother me in the slightest if he liked a bit of dick in his life too for all I knew. He wasn't the only one.

“K, this is where things get trippy and a hundred times more dangerous than walking through the front door, you got me?” I asked, looking at both of them long enough to get my seriousness across. “People here don’t have the burden of a conscience usually and wouldn’t hesitate to snatch you up for the sake of a profit. Everything is bought and sold here, even Souls. Stick by me and you won’t end up as one of them, I promise. Can't beat the niche shit you can find here though.”

“Wait, Souls?!” Melody asked incredulously. “How the hell do you sell a Soul?”

“It’s easy if you’ve got the magic for it.” I replied, the memories of my first encounters with the practice still fresh in my memory. “Abyssal Magics are...sinister to say the least. No attacking the physical body or even the arcane side of you if you're a Unicorn. It attacks the Soul directly ignoring armor like an X-Ray. Thankfully few can use them but those who can...just fucking run. Don’t even try to shoot at them, just run. The shit they can do is worse than dying, believe me.”

“But how do you sell a Soul? Like what does a Soul even look like?” Melody continued, unfazed by what I had just said.

I pointed to a nearby shoddy tent wherein a Zebra mare, partially hooded with a thick leather blindfold over her eyes, was cupping a small yellow Flame in her hoof as if weighing it and said, “That right there is a Soul. Inside the body it is unseen and ethereal but using the right magic, you can remove it from a body and allow it to take a visible form. It's a tricky art and isn't inherently evil in and of itself, just some of its sub-types.”

“Fire?” Melody asked in a surprised tone as if she had expected something different. “I was expecting something like a little floating ball that glows or something. Or...something...”

“The analogy ‘fires of life’ is a very literal thing, Melody.” I responded, unconsciously putting a hoof to my chest where my own Flame resided. “Fire is an apt illustration of the concept of life. It warms the body and illuminates the mind, leading you on towards some distant goal through the darkness of ambiguity and hardship.”

“W-who are you and what the f-fuck did you do w-with A-Athena?” Gold asked, calling me out on my lapse into sage-like speech and sounding a bit too philosophical for a Hitmare.

“Shut it.” I snickered, watching as the Zebra inclined her head towards the robed Griffin before her and pressed the Flame into a talisman hung around her neck, a great eye set in emerald and bronze which glowed brightly as the Flame was consumed. “A Blood Oath. Curious…thought the last of those practitioners emigrated back to the Empire...”

“Huh?” Melody asked again, looking between me and the strange mare in the blindfold.

“The Griffin made a promise of some kind to the Zebra that had to be paid for with blood and Souls. I wonder if it was for a Blood Gem or something equally rare to pay such a high price…” I replied distractedly trying to see between the passing pedestrians at what exactly they were exchanging, looking for a distinctive dark red glowing stone but unable to see much of anything. “Alright, let’s get moving. We’ve got a ways to go yet and we can't get caught up staring at everything. If we did that, we'd be here until we mutated into demons or something.”

They nodded and I loosed Little Fang in its black sheath on my back while unbuttoning the strap over the spur of my Sequoia. I was a familiar enough face to those who could actually stand to live here but that was never enough to exclude one from potential bullshit. Gateways opened up from here to the Kyoto Isles in the Far East to places like Espania in the Northwest corner of Saddle Arabia and Dark Magics were practiced differently amongst all of them. Anyone could have an agenda in which your free-will had nothing to do with it. Unpredictability reigned in the Dark Market and you either had to fight the current and drown or, roll with it and try to keep your head above water. That meant treating it like a familiar battleground but only a few on the field were known friendlies.

The crowd ebbed and flowed in a sporadic fashion as we attempted to weave our way between ponies, Griffins, Zebras and about a dozen other Sentient species going about their business; it was almost impossible to spot anyone without armor or a weapon of some sort on their person amongst their other exotic garb. It was serene to see a glimpse of the harmony of co-existence that used to exist in this country being replicated in a place such as this. That wasn't to say the Market was harmonious, in fact it was quite much the opposite but yet it remained an interesting insight into what the concept looked like in action. Melody clung to my side with every step while Gold was a bit more hooves-off about the whole situation and preferred to walk on his own four hooves as we made our way steadily through the quasi-mob. Harsh voices barked about their products in languages ranging from English to Afrikaans to Saddle Arabian with one voice sounding almost Mareseillian, though I couldn’t be sure given the sheer noise surrounding us like a hurricane of sound.

Large and elaborate tents were the preferred method of housing and storefronts in the Market, a trend adopted right out of Saddle Arabia and the Empire. Each varied wildly in shape, size, color and configuration in a chaotic yet organized mess across the whole scope of the Market. Hooks of meat, cages of animals, vials of various fluids, books, exotic jewelry, antique artifacts, ancient sets of armor and weapons...the list of items on display was mind-boggling. Another benefit of having many Gateways was the resulting explosion in the diversity of products for sell. To be frank coming to the Market somewhat guilt-tripped me on the inside as I considered just how much of the place was devoted to the arcane, in particular some of the most powerful artforms in the world. Of course it was one thing I was pretty ho-hum with in practice outside of lifting guns and fiddling with buttons on shit. As a result, I could only appreciate no more than a third of what the Market truly had to offer the enterprising shopper.

“They’ve got art!!!” Melody yelled into my ear excitedly, jabbing a hoof towards a traditional stall that looked eerily out of place next to the mix of shoddy and majestic tents on either side of it. "You didn't say they'd have art!"

Hanging from every possible surface were paintings of all shapes and sizes hailing from multiple species and ethnic backgrounds. I recognized the bright orange, white and black colors used in traditional Zebra paintings as well as the highly detailed aerial landscapes of a Griffin artist as only they (and the occasional Lesser Dragon) had the dexterity to paint such minute details. Of course, this was about as far as my knowledge in fine art went aside from some other random shit I remembered from college. I had never had much affinity for art and never wasted my limited wall space with pictures that could have been used for more bookshelves or storage space for ammo. Melody though seemed to have a keen interest in it and tugged on my leg begging me to take her over to the stall for a closer look. We were getting too close to Scaly to get stuck looking at shit now, goddamnit.

“Melody, stop it. Now.” I said firmly, tugging back on her and nodding in the direction we had to go. “Look, if we’ve got time after we’re done here then sure, we’ll stop by for a bit but we’ve got shit to do and this is not the place to be standing for too long, alright hun? Please...just trust me, Mel. Alright, Gold? Let’s get going now.”

Without even looking I could just feel that he was nowhere nearby. I turned and spun in a full circle hoping to pick him out of the crowd but there were so many Ghouls already present in all shades and colors that it was impossible to pick out the little twerp from the bunch. Similarly, checking my E.F.S as normal would be similarly useless with a crowd like this. The little fucker had grown on me but this was more than I wanted to deal with right now.

“Goddamnit!” I growled, yanking a leather belt from my bag and wrapping it around my leg and Melody’s. “You’re staying right next to me. Don’t bitch about it, let’s move.”

With my helmet back on, I went immediately for my radio; Melody grumbling to herself as she glared at the belt connecting us but graciously not fighting me on it. I could tell she was spooked even if she hid it well.

“Gold where the FUCK are you?!” I yelled into my mic. “Get your ass back here now goddamnit, this isn’t funny!”

All I got in response was dead air. Either he was ignoring me or, in more likelihood, wasn’t wearing his helmet. Without a PipBuck and an EarBloom of his own, there was no other way to contact him unless he had somehow come across a shortwave radio since I had last seen him not even two minutes before. My first real day as a parent, hell my first twenty-minutes as a parent were going about as well as I had assumed they would be. Why would I be so lucky as to make it even an hour without more bullshit coming my way? First Velvet and now this...

“Where did you see him last?” I asked Melody, almost in a demanding tone that I instantly regretted given the shock in her eyes.

“I-I don’t know...he was right behind me when I saw the cool art stuff…” She mumbled, ashamed that her infatuation with the stall had potentially cost us more than the price of any painting.

“For fuck’s sake…” I sighed, fighting back panic seeking to jab itself into my brain and take control of my actions. “Alright...come on BitchLord, think!”

With my E.F.S essentially useless in our surroundings and no Buck Beak or Vertibird crew circling above to lend us their eyes, I was clueless as to how to go about a search party with just two of us. I could feel Huckleberry’s scolding at my ineptitude as a parent playing darts with my heart with slivers of ice cold shame and self-loathing. What would my own mother say if she could see me now? I wanted to shriek if it weren't for social awkwardness and wanting to keep it together for Melody's sake. She was already starting to crumble from the strain.

“Ek het die beste klippe te koop!” Cried a Zebra mare nearby, the translator doing its job and turning her words into, “I’ve got the finest Gems for sale!”

“Bingo.” I grinned, untying and then lifting Melody off the floor a few inches with telekinesis so we wouldn’t have to do a three-legged race through the bedlam.

“Where are we going?” Melody cried out, bobbing alongside me like a sparkling buoy as I vaulted over, under and around people between us and my goal.

“You’ll see!” I yelled back, skidding to a stop in front of the tent with the blindfolded Zebra we had observed earlier.

“Ah, I bid thee welcome!” She chuckled as we approached, several tables surrounding her piled with jewelry, uncut stones and various talismans and Zebra fetishes on display for sale at mid-to-high tier prices indicating quality. “Tell me, what bringeth thee to mine humble wares? It seemeth to me thou art seeking something that was lost...tis a shame to lose something precious, is it not?”

I knew better than to question her insight into our situation given my extensive history with her species and asked, “I do seek something. Someone. We came with a colt and he is missing. Can you help us?”

Melody looked at me like I was crazy for asking this complete stranger (emphasis on strange) for help in finding Gold but thankfully did not say a word as we waited for the mare’s response. It wasn't my first choice but employing the aid of the Dark would help us more than anything else I could think of. Dark Perception would allow one to see the location of any Soul one desired like a beacon in a dark field. A mare who dabbled in Blood Oaths and peddled Gems was without a doubt going to have the abilities I needed. The only question...what was she going to charge for this? I only had a few hundred Groschen in my purse, the old Greifenländer coinage made of their impervious Silver Steel used as one of the only hard currencies accepted here. I hoped it would be enough...

“Thou seekest one who is lost...such a task is nary beyond mine abilities but there is no such thing as assistance without proper compensation…” She chuckled again, the emerald eye around her robed chest glowing ever-so-slightly as she spoke the word ‘compensation’.

“What do you need…?” I asked with a sigh, reaching for my money purse.

“The power ye seek cannot be bought with money, foolish girl…” She chided, pulling a withered black Tome from her robes and setting it on the table, a cold, evil aura emanating from the book like it had just been pulled out of the freezer. “I trade for Souls and nothing less...have ye my price?”

Fucking Necromancers...of course she would ask for the one thing I didn’t have in my possession. But...she was the only one who seemed capable of casting Dark Perception in the immediate area.

“Take mine then.” I said finally after weighing my options. “I can live without it...already done it once.”

She chuckled again, a slight cackle to her voice that reminded me of a witch’s from the old Nightmare Night displays of my youth. I knew I was being flagrantly stupid with my own well-being with this stunt but I wasn't in the mood or had the time to care with Gold's life on the line for my lapse in attention. I was already done with the transaction in my heart so all that was left was to do the damn thing already.

“I know not whether to commend thee or pity thee…” She chuckled, holding her chipped and flaking hoof out for me to press my chest against. “Indeed thou shalt live without thy Soul...but it will be a cursed existence. Is this life ye seek worth the price I ask? Think carefully...”

“Yes.” I said without hesitation. “My life is cursed enough as it is, what’s another curse added onto the pile?”

She seemed a bit miffed that I was so flagrantly disregarding her warnings but smiled as she felt my armored chest press against her hoof. Business was business after all.

“Foolish mortal…” She mumbled, her hoof glowing with a sickeningly Black aura as she pressed her other on the Tome on the table. "So be it."

It was as if she had shot me through the chest with my own AMR. The pain was excruciating as her Abyssal Magic phased right through my physical armor and into my ethereal body, acid laced tendrils wrapping around my heart and piercing deep within for the Flame that resided inside my body. I had shut off my external speaker prior to the spell so I was allowed to scream my lungs out without letting Melody hear, a sentiment that bolstered my flagging resolve and allowed me to keep my wits about me as the tendrils were wrenched out and back into her hoof. As she pulled it away, a large Grey flame flickered and sparked brightly, floating in the air above her hoof like a small bonfire. Of course, I was reeling from the indescribable experience too much to take immediate notice having to bend my knees and gasp for air to fight off a blackout. Easily I would take getting shot a dozen times over having my Soul torn outta my body.

“T-this is not p-possible…your kind vanished from this Plane long ago.” The mare gasped, wrenching her hoof away from the Flame like it were something poisonous.

The Flame continued to hover in the air glowing with a soft, gentle light that at once felt both cold and yet strangely warm even from a small distance. While my experience with Souls was much smaller and less extensive than the Zebra’s, I knew enough to understand and likewise be shocked by the color of my Flame. Yellow was common, Blue was was rare sign of a pure Soul, Red was only found in those who had succumbed to the lust for destruction and death but Grey? I had never heard of that color before in a Soul. Even Black, the rarest Flame to exist, was only said to be found in those who had given themselves entirely to the Dark. But, even Black was a known fucking color.

“T-take this back…” The mare whispered, afraid to even touch the orb. “Tis an accursed Flame, I shall have none of it.”

So Grey was a really bad color then? That was...comforting…?

I reached out and gingerly put my hooves beneath the floating Flame, the warm/cold atmosphere around it seeming to suspend it a few inches off the grooved texture of my armored combat boot; the metal gleaming softly in the muted light cast by it. It felt familiar. Like an old stuffed animal like Mr. Hissy... I wished I could be alone with it in the darkness of the Stable where I could stare into the Grey without fear of prying eyes. I felt...compelled to stare...

“I can’t put it back in me lady.” I said pointing to my chest. “This isn’t exactly like shoving a buttplug back in. That I at least know how to do, this is out of my skill range.”

She grimaced so hard at the command that I was afraid she might puke but with the same Black aura clinging to her hoof she pushed the Flame back through my chest and back where it belonged, a sudden rush of warmth blossoming from my breast like stepping into a warm bath as it found its rightful place in my being. The whole experience was a fucking rollercoaster for my body to experience and I was grateful for my enhanced stamina keeping me on my hooves when I otherwise would have completely crumpled up.

“I will assist thee…” She grumbled, opening the Abyssal Tome that seemed to shriek silently with the howls of damned Souls consumed to form the pages. “But dare not to come near me again. What ye bear is truly the curse of the Grey Walker. I have no need of thy curse be yet upon mine own Soul. Walk thy middle way betwixt alone!”

Putting both of her hooves on the open book before her, the pitch black pages entirely devoid of writing, she began to chant in a language that was entirely foreign to this world. I only knew the words spoken were the Black Speech of the Abyss from whence this spells came and drew their power. Her words seemed to hang in the air with an icy bite on the ears, the unintelligible runes of the Black Speech glowing in red upon the pages beneath her hooves as her eyes shone with a sickly, eerie red through her blindfold. I could only dream of being able to explore such kinds of power...

A cold, almost imperceptible wave of energy seemed to explode outward from her that I would have missed had I not been looking for it to occur. The moment it passed I knew she had performed the spell correctly and it wouldn’t be but a moment before our search results came back. Dark Perception could pierce through walls, earth, clouds and flesh with the target standing out like a flare amongst the crowd. It was magic like this that made Zebra snipers paired with a Sangoma witch-doctor so damn deadly, the ability to isolate high value targets with pinpoint accuracy.

“I have found him.” She muttered, her voice echoing slightly as if multiple layers of her voice were all speaking at once, some higher pitched and others lower. “He has been taken by Necromancers to the Temple of Kalymeet. Make haste err the knife strikes!”

So he was a virgin, at least I had been right about something. Unfortunately...he was a virgin and Necromancers preferred their blood to any others. First ten fucking minutes and somepony had already wandered off and gotten kidnapped. And Mother of the Year award goes tooooo...

“Great, thanks.” I blurted out, yanking Melody with me as I doubled my pace towards the center of the Market where the Temple dedicated to the Zebra God of Death, Ogbunabali,stood.

The crowd was as thick and preoccupied with their own tasks as before but my experience in freerunning had taught me just how to navigate such a hectic terrain. After all, what was the difference between a pony and a low wall when it came to vaulting over them? (Well, aside from the obvious of course.) Out of the corners of my eye I saw other shops displaying their wares as we passed including a stand that offered both shrunken and pickled heads with what seemed to be home décor themes. Perfect for the more wealthy and ‘classy’ Raider who wanted to decorate their shithole of a house with more ornate severed body parts.

“What are they going to do to him?” Melody whimpered as we slowed down, the glowing black pillars surrounding the squat Parthenon-like building coming into view.

“They’re gonna cut his heart out, pass it around and take bites out of it while draining his blood into cups they’re gonna pour onto some Blood Gems to strengthen their power and turn them into Dark Gems someday.” I explained as I squinted at the building and my visor zoomed in on the scene before me. "You know, your average ritualistic sacrifice bullshit."

As I expected, there were about a dozen black-and-red robbed ponies and Zebras flitting about between the rough hewn pillars supporting the peaked roof in preparation for their ghastly ritual. The obsidian altar in the center seemed to pulse from below with an angry orange/red glow like the beating heart of a volcano while on the far side chained to a pillar was Gold and several other ragged bodies that were undoubtedly the other sacrifices. The Dark Market continued unabated around the public ritual and more than a few had gathered near the Temple to watch. In many ways, the medieval ways of the time when the Market had first been created had yet to end with public spectacles like this being common.

“T-they’re going to kill him?!” Melody gasped in horror as we approached the Temple, Little Fang’s long silvery black blade floating beside me practically begging for something to cut deep into.

“When you’re in a psycho Necromancer cult, you gotta do what you gotta do.” I replied, pushing through the crowd and up the stairs into the Temple itself. "Not today, goddamnit!"

“Ranger!” Cried one of the hooded ponies, pointing an accusing hoof at me. “You desecrate this holy place! Leave at once or suffer! This does not concern you.”

The other nine cultists had noticed me by now and had all turned to face me, various weapons being drawn from under their robes ranging from knives to guns to one with a staff. It was no simple staff like a quarterstaff though. An ornate metal set of horns curled out from the top, a carved purple stone darker than any amethyst suspended in the air between the horns emanating a sickly purple and black aura I could almost feel from here. It was a Catalyst, and by the looks of the Gem suspended in the horns, it wasn't meant for casting normal spells. This would be a whole different tango to the one with Velvet's Inferno Ring. Blood vs Dark Gem...this was going to be interesting.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” I replied, taking the sword in my hooves and rearing up in the combat style unique to the sword’s Far East heritage. “You’ve snatched up one of my kids and I’m here to get him back whether you fuckin' like it or not. The Ghoul. Let him go and I’ll be on my merry fuckin' way. You freaks can go back to your worship or whatever, ain't my business the moment I get him back.”

Melody tugged on my tail, pointing at the huddled bodies of the other virgins set for sacrifice with a scared, pleading look in her eyes that punctured through my wall of apathy yet again. Right...the other poor fucks deserved their freedom too I guess.

“Actually, scratch that. I want all of them.” I said with hesitation, the prospect of fighting the Cult of Ogbunabali more frightening than Black Velvet could ever hope to have been. “You’ve got...six seconds.”

There were a few snickers and the one with the Dark Catalyst hissed, “You dare steal our Sacrifices to the Almighty Ogbunabali? This is your last chance Ranger, leave or you will join them in death! This is not some offer to heed lightly or throw scorn at too hastily, thou fool. The might of our Lord shall not turn a blind ear to such heretical speech.”

His warning was undercut by the bellowing yells of his underlings all charging towards me and I settled into a firm stance with the blade above my head. While most blades could be swung with magic or in the mouth, this sword was designed to be held in the hoof. Through some unknown enchantment it allowed you to hold it as firmly as if you had fingers like a Griffin or a Dragon and never left your grip even if you swung it in a single hoof. The Bushido Style as it was known was difficult to master and required immense agility and flexibility to perform correctly even in the best circumstances. Although my armor was not as flexible as the legendary Warriors of the East I had heard so much about, it was good enough for my adapted version of the Bushido Style. I could only hope I did Zecuro proud with my use of his Nagamaki in battle and earned some kudos points with the Kyotian gods.

I activated S.A.T.S out of habit, not to make the fight easier (which it would have) but to just take a moment to see what weapons I was up against. Out of the ten, six used bladed weapons, three used small-caliber pistols and of course the last had that Dark Catalyst. The blades were easy to parry, the bullets far from strong enough to penetrate my armor so the Catalyst became my main focus. Aside from the various Gems that had been discovered and employed during the last years of the War, Catalysts were an ever evolving device from beginning to end. Like a witch or wizard’s wand, Catalysts helped focus the power of a Unicorn’s magic and doubled its output like plugging a guitar into an amplifier. In this case, the Unicorn wielding the staff didn’t need a Dark Ring to produce Dark spells as the Catalyst provided the same proper transformative properties of the Ring as well as an added bonus in magical output thanks to the enchanted wood. That being said though, the moment the staff left his hooves he would immediately lose the modifying effects of the Dark Gem floating between those horns and have to rely on far less dangerous magic attacks. It was scary to think that there were Catalysts out there strong enough on their own to allow non-Unicorns to use advanced techniques such as Frostbite Magics or Pyromancies.

I pushed Melody away to keep her from the fight (hoping she would at least try to use her rifle to help me out), and ducked under the slashing attack of my first opponent, their sacrificial blade leaving a silvery red trace in its wake. Crouched low I spun on my back left hoof, cleaving open the Zebra’s back as my right hoof planted firmly behind him while glancing over my shoulder to see where the remaining nine were. Little Fang seemed to purr in my grip as blood wetted its blade only to be absorbed right into the metal like a sponge and the grip in my hooves became even more sure as it recognized there was a feast to be had by the strength of its steel. The Blood Gem embedded in the pommel was roused and remembered it was starving.

“I see you too use the power of the sacred Gems!” The one with the staff barked, fury carving itself into what face I could see beneath his low hood. “Heresy! Now you must die! For thus it is written!”

The second of the dagger wielders attacked from behind while two of the gun users opened fire on me from the front and left side. Beneath my layers of long-fiber Kevyarn and Flexi-Mesh padding, the 9mm bullets sparking off my armor felt like minor thuds as if someone were merely tapping against my chest trying to get my attention. I caught the blade of my behind-from-back attacker against the flat side of my own and slid her all the way down to the crossguard locking her in place; I kicked her in the chest and used her body as a springboard to backflip up into the air to face my next attackers. My brief amount of airtime saw one of the three gunners get shot in the chest, the bullet exploding out of his back and sparking as it broke against the black stone behind him. Melody was not so timid in this fight as I had feared.

My momentum was enough to carry me right into the face of a stunned dagger wielder who seemed in shock at the speed at which I had already killed two of his fellows only to quickly join them as the razor sharp chisel-point of Little Fang bit into his skull like a Dragon to a tender steak. Properly wetted, the blade sucked his corpse dry of blood in the brief seconds it was impaled through his head and I flipped horizontally over the first blast of Dark energy cast by the leader, hurling the dead weight of the body into the chest of the next one in line. As three of my hooves clacked down to the stone floor, the sword still clutched in my front right, I saw the second gunner drop from a well placed shot from Melody, this one sailing clean through his eye socket and out the back of his head. She was popping off some damn fine shots and I wished I could be by her side to congratulate her.

With half of them now down and a sixth trying to stand up from getting knocked down by the flung body, the odds were evening out; a fact not lost on the leader who raised his staff over his head and slammed it into the floor, the Dark Gem glowing fiercely purple/blue. A wave of dark purple energy exploded from where his staff hit the floor which quickly dissipated by the time it reached where I stood fifteen-feet away. His followers looked at him with a mixture of confusion and annoyance as his AoE attack had a limited range and I was safely outside it. Well, was. While they stole a second to express their silent judgement towards his inefficacy, I cleared the gap between myself and the third of the gunners, hurling Little Fang ahead of me into the air so I could gallop on all fours for more speed.

Pouncing on the gunner's back I caught Fang and drove it through her neck and into the floor, the stone giving away to the blade like soft butter as her blood too was instantaneously sapped into the blade. It offered no resistance as I yanked it back out and moved onto the one who had just gotten free of the tangle of emaciated legs only to lose his own as I leapt forward, swiping at his legs and catching myself by whipping out a combat knife in my other hoof and driving it into the cracks in the floor to stop my momentum. My shoulder screamed as it was wrenched by the sudden stop given by the knife and I found myself swinging around as if on a pivot bringing me back around towards the now legless and howling stallion. In a move that would have made even Zecuro proud I got my legs under me and launched myself into the air, flipping horizontally once more and bringing down Fang like a hammer into the flailing head of my victim. With the Blood Gem roused from its slumber and engorged as it was after so many years of use, flesh gave way before the blade even made contact. With every kill the edge became more and more refined. Had I wanted to I could summon up the blood of the fallen to greatly lengthen and enhance the blade giving me access to some potent Sanguimancy spells. However, with Melody, Gold and the other victims in the crossfire, it was bad enough that I was fighting them normally.

‘This thing is almost too sharp…’ I thought as I slid the weapon back out of the furrow I had made in his head all the way down to his neck with hardly any effort.

Seven down, three to go. There was a loud crack like distant thunder and a ball of Dark energy shot into the air from the Gem. It stopped before it reached the ceiling and I knew what was coming next. It was the same idea as Arcane Bombardment but using the much deadlier Dark energy rather than regular arcane energy which could be resisted with a strong enough Aura of your own. As I predicted, the ball exploded into multiple smaller masses and rained down at random, the purple balls exploding slightly like miniature fireworks as they hit the ground and blasting puffs of icy cold air. I danced around them easily enough but one of my three remaining targets got hit in the head by one of the darts and crumpled into ash and bones with a wraithlike shriek. I heard Melody yelp behind me as the barrage ended but the sound wasn’t frantic enough to warrant me turning around to inspect the damage. A real injury would have caused her to scream like that cultist had...

With only two of them left, the leader snarled at me and yelled, “What have we to do with you, Ranger?! Have you come to destroy us all? Lay waste to our Order and tear asunder our works?”

“You kidnapped my son and were going to gut him for his heart, I’m pretty sure that warrants me wiping your asses off the face of the motherfuckin' planet you psychopathic sadist!” I retorted, getting into another fighting stance and egging the last dagger wielder, a Griffin with a knife in each talon, to come and get some. "Normally I wouldn't even fucking bother with you freaks but one of you dumbasses just had to go and make it personal!"

“We are practicing our religion!” He cried, jabbing a hoof at the altar that seemed to be angry that it wasn’t getting drenched in fresh extra virgin pony blood by how it pulsed with light. “Would you deny us the right to worship the Almighty Ogbunabali?”

“Look, I could give a fuck less about you psycho’s beliefs. Have a fucking potluck of toad livers and crow entrails then dance naked under the full moon while chanting 'I Am Da Queen of Da Bass' for all I fucking care.” I growled, glancing at Gold who was picking the lock to his own chains while everyone was focused on me, his Sequoia cast aside by the cultists on the ground nearby. “Stand down and give me the key to all of them and you two can go off and have a blood orgy and suck Ogbunabali's dick for all I care. Get down and dirty with big daddy draggo and go nuts!”

They both howled as I finished speaking clearly indicating my offer of a potential blood orgy with a Dragon was rejected which I didn’t much mind. The Griffin came at me first, the Unicorn obviously careful not to be parted from his Catalyst, and attacked. The blades spun around his talons with a speed that even made me envious as he hacked and slashed at every part of my body he could, angry sparks erupting as our blades deflected the others’ in a flurry of motion. He was clearly talented and had me work up a sweat trying to get a hit on him as for once the length of my sword came as an impediment rather than a bonus. He was just able to stab and twirl his knives around much faster than I could with my nearly three-and-a-half foot blade and equally lengthy hilt. It was a godsend for sure that the Mrk. IV had well over a dozen pieces of tertiary armor attached around the neck, knees and other locations usually targeted by the Crimson Dragons of old. More than half came in handy for keeping his steel from biting into my body where my guard with my weapon just couldn't move fast enough. Little Fang begged to unleash her full power but I fought against the urge just as intensely as I did with my opponent. It was too dangerous to trust techniques I had little practice with or control over.

After a clever uppercut to my guard, he kicked me to the ground with a light orange paw to the chest. As I landed, the message to clean my Flexi-Mesh popped up again with a much more urgent red outline and I could feel the padding on my fall was a lot stiffer than it should have been. While the honeycombed rubber and liquid-crystal padding system could blunt impacts upwards of several hundred Joules, repeated impacts imparted kinetic energy in the liquid-crystal which was stored as potential arcane energy. If it absorbed too much without being purged by a special process, it would turn rock-hard and eventually even explode on its own from a random energy containment breach breaking bones or blowing limbs clean off. Kicking Fang out of my hoof he jumped onto me with a look of smug victory on his beak, his daggers pressing against my neck. I hated the idea of getting my throat slit; a fear as strong as my terror of the ocean.

“Should’ve stayed out of our shit.” He laughed just before his head exploded and a second later he was tackled off me by a shrieking Melody who pummeled his dead body with her smaller hooves and beat him mercilessly with the butt of her rifle.

The Unicorn spun his staff around menacingly and shouted at me to try and fuck with him in close-quarters combat but half his robed chest exploded outwards in a shower of bone and mushed organs as Gold fired his first .45-70 round, the maiden voyage of any new gun. He stood there shaking slightly but there was a satisfied smile on his face as he wiped the blood splatter from his face and kicked over the half-standing corpse of his first kill that I knew of. Melody on the other hoof had stopped beating the dead Griffin and sat on his chest, calmly fumbling to load three spare .308 rounds into the en-bloc stuffed in her rifle while the end of her tail sizzled slightly. The yelp had obviously been about the burnt tail which calmed my fears immediately and I looked around the Temple to see the crowd that had gathered for the ritual had now dispersed. Whether to take shelter from the fight or move on because the spectacle was ruined, I couldn’t quite guess. Then again, it was the Dark Market. What were another ten dead bodies amongst the many that wound up here by one means or another?

“Everyone ok?” I asked, getting to my hooves and letting Fang slurp up the pool of blood that had settled into the spiraling channels carved into the floor around the altar before sheathing it on my back.

“I-I’m good.” Gold said over his shoulder as he went to work on the chains on the five other captives who had said nothing let alone looked up from their hooves. “That was d-dope!”

“Melody? You good?” I asked a little gentler, watching as she replaced the three missing rounds in her clip before putting it away.

“Yep.” She said with a bit of a forced smile. “Just making sure I’m ready, mom.”

I wasn’t so quickly convinced given her reaction to the massacre she had caused at Old Appleloosa but I took her at her word as she seemed as chipper and happy as ever. If she wanted to let her guard down and talk, as I felt she might want to do, I was sure it was going to happen the next time she and I were alone. I respected and admired how resilient she was for her age even if I regretted the circumstances that led to her above-average maturity for the situation. It would come in handy given the lifestyle I pursued and I was silently grateful for having kids with spines and good aim.

As the last of the captives was freed they scattered out of the Temple and vanished into the crowd without so much as a thank-you for our efforts. I was a bit pissed off at their ingratitude but quickly pushed it from my mind as I checked my map of the Market and remembered we were very close to Mr. Scaly’s shop. Seeing as everyone was loaded up and ready to go we set off once again though I paused to wrench the Dark Gem from the Catalyst so nopony else could pick it up and use it. The moment the Gem was removed the staff cracked loudly like a clap of thunder and disintegrated into dust leaving nothing behind but a pile of nondescript ash. The Gem glowed with a soft purple radiance like an enchanted amethyst of the darkest hues and was cold to the touch much like the presence of the Abyssal Tome from earlier and I slipped it into its own pocket for later study. I knew very little concerning these particular Gems aside from the scraps of knowledge taught to me by Zecuro and was curious to explore their lore some more. Now that I was the proud owner of an Inferno Ring, it was only fitting I start brushing up again so I could try and put my meh talents in magic to as much work as they were good for.

“You sure you’re ok?” I asked Melody as the crowd thinned when we neared the cages. "Tell me honestly, Mel."

“Well, not really but I’m ok enough.” She replied not looking me in the eye. “I’m as good as I can be I guess.”

I decided not to press her further and took the lead with both of them nearly hugging my side as the lines of cages loomed before us. On either side were smaller cages housing any and all of the twisted creatures and abominations found in the Wasteland for sale as pets, guards, food, mantle pieces and really anything else you could think of. The noise was even more intense than the crowd from earlier as the air was alive with yips, howls, barks and of course the bone rattling roars of the Dragons. At the far end of the long alleyway of cages stood an open tent, an age-worn relic of the M.O.I tents of old wherein stood a long line of tables piled high with carefully folded Dragon skins of just about every shade imaginable as well as variously sized vials of Dragon saliva, blood and other bodily fluids used in various potions, recipes and dietary supplements. The only thing missing however was Mr. Scaly himself, an easily recognizable stallion covered in as many scars and burns as I had with an eyepatch and a messy, wild mane of bright purple above a magenta coat. Hard to miss such a berry colored stallion in such a dark place.

“Ok...all your shit’s here so where the fuck are ya?” I asked to nopony in particular as as leaned over the only part of the line of tables that wasn’t taken up by something and looked behind.

The small sleeping bag he napped on/in whenever he felt like it located right under the main table was deserted and there was no sign of him anywhere else. Knowing he would know I wasn’t a thief I hopped the table and started wandering around the rest of his tent poking around crates of skins and bags of dung with no luck. The small Sparkle-Generator was vibrating softly in its corner powering the soft yellow lights that emphasized his products and the place he and I had played a few games of cards was likewise deserted. It was like he had stepped away for a bit to take a piss or something.

“Oi! What the fuck ya doing, you?” Barked an angry voice from the front where I had left Gold and Melody.

“Not this time bitches!” I rumbled to myself as I dove out of the maze of crates and into the lit counter area with my revolver out and cocked.

“Whoa, calm ya tits Crete!” Yipped Amaris, the unusually large white Fox that looked more like a Wolf. “These two your pups?”

“More or less, yeah. Don't ask, long story and I've got shit to do.” I said quickly, checking to see if there were anyone else in the area I had to worry about while Melody stared at her in wonder. “Look, have you seen Sneak? He’s not here as far as I can see. His place is open but nopony is home so is he off taking a piss somewhere or something?”

“No, he took off last week to sell some of that black leather he just got off of Ol’ Blackie. Said he had a buyer who wanted to check the quality in person over by Shady Sands but couldn't make the trip to The Pile so he took off with a collection of samples and left me and that annoying ass Lion with keeping an eye on his shit. What you need him for?” She replied, her voice soft but a little gruff, a sexy long mane of plum purple falling down her head and shoulders like the mane of a pony despite the fact she was a canine.

“Gold here wants a duster like mine and the only way to get one like this is to get Dragon leather.” I replied, holding up a bit of my coat. “Know when the bastard should be back?”

“Nah.” She said scratching her left ear with a hind leg like any dog. “I thought he would be like three or four days ago, but you know the Wastes. Nothing ever goes exactly to plan out there and Shady Sands is a decent walk North so I hear. Not like I'd fuckin' know, I never leave this place except to roam the Crystal Tundra where I came from when I'm bored of this place.”

I thought back on how drastically my trip to Old Appleloosa had changed my entire life plans and chuckled painfully at the truth of her words. The Wastes brought about changes and complex conundrums of its own in the most unexpected of ways, especially while on the road out in the middle of nowhere.

“Like this place is any more predictable?” I asked pointedly. “We just came from slaughtering those freaks at the Temple. They were gonna cut Gold open and use him to incubate some Dark Gems.”

“Oh?” She laughed, her fluffy white ears perking up with interest. “About damn time...they fucking annoyed me with their loud ass chanting and all the screaming from the sacrifices. I wasn't gonna touch 'em, I live here. Only place they can touch ya now is if you stick around or head to the Zebra lands somehow.”

She turned to Gold, seeming to ignore the fact he was a Ghoul and said, “So, a virgin eh? I don’t blame you kid, it’s always good to wait on it for awhile. The person who pops your cherry is usually gone and outa your life a year later.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from personal experience.” Melody giggled slightly.

“Well damn, ain’t you a cutie!” Amaris giggled, the sound sounding like a cute, playful growl mixed with a laugh. “They didn’t snatch you up too? That’s surprising.”

“Not a virgin.” Melody said quickly, looking towards me for some reason. “Haven’t been for awhile.”

“Huh, with your looks I ain’t surprised.” Amaris responded, stretching out and yawning lazily. “Well, if ya need to find him that bad just head out towards Shady Sands. He always follows the highway so he shouldn’t be hard to find. Basically the only merchant here who actually visits the Overworld in Equestria.”

“Even with those tolls the NER charges?” I asked surprised. “Carrying Dragon leather? He must be paying out like three-hundred caps just to go one-way.”

“Hey, cheaper than getting your face eaten by a Hellhound or some shit though.” Amaris said over her shoulder before jumping up onto the padded couch that sat behind the counter of the nearby cages that sold nothing but cats of all shapes and mutations. “Good luck! Tell Scaly he should get someone else to watch his shit next time, he's got nothing interesting to look at to pass the time and Dragon shit is hell on the old sniffer.”

“She’s so fluffy!” Melody squealed softly as we left the Dragons behind and made our way back through the crowd towards the gateway out of the Market, everyone tied to my legs so we all walked awkwardly as one. “Is she a Wolf of some sort? I've never seen anything like her!”

“She's a Fox actually, one of the Feral species out in the old Crystal Empire. Was once caged up for research purposes in Manehattan Pre-War and got exposed to Taint during the experiments which expanded her brain size and complexity making her Sentient. Ended up a like me in a few ways with biological immortality through accelerated cell regeneration and arcane-induced genetic stasis. Hates cats obviously, but she's nice enough for being a former lab rat given sentience by alchemy. Would have fit in well in the Army to be honest, a lot of the old predator instincts are still present in her behavior and I've a feeling she'd be vicious in a fight.”

"Wow...she was experimented on?" Melody asked with some measure of disbelief. "Why would Princess Luna let something like that happen though?"

"Hun, I'm pretty sure old Loony was way in over her fucking head given how much of the governing she left to 'trusted advisors'. I couldn't tell you about how well managed the Ministries were back when they first started, I was just two years old when they left my hometown to go set them up. All I can say is that somewhere along the way power got to ponies' heads and incredible lapses in oversight and regulation happened all over the fucking place from the bottom to the top. Hell, far as I'm able to guess Amaris was held and experimented on by the Ministry of Arcane Science since they are the genesis of the very same Taint that partially infected and mutated me. There is a lot more shit even I don't know about locked away in places like Canterlot more than likely..."

“W-what was she s-saying about a t-toll?” Gold asked, gratefully switching topics since the past was still something I was coming to terms with. “You h-have to pay t-to use a r-road out here?”

“The NER has a standing army they use to try and secure the Westcoast under their control and because they’re trying to cover such a large area, they’re spread pretty thin across the board. Had they a surplus of soldiers like they did fifty years ago, we would start encountering patrols soon as we crossed the two-mile exclusion zone around New Pegasus. Of course, back then times were better for them economically so the tolls weren't needed.” I explained, stopping both of them as a cart rattled on by with a caged Radigator loaded onto it.

“They’ve managed to ‘claim’ the major highways connecting New Pegasus and the surrounding towns North of here to Shady Sands, their capital. A large part of their army spends their time patrolling the length of them warding off bandits. Makes the main roads pretty well guarded from Raiders so any trader headed North takes their roads. Problem is, now the NER charges you to use them in order to cover budget deficits lost to embezzlement and fraud. It's basically highway robbery disguised as a form of business tax but ponies put up with it for the most part just to keep the peace.”

“Why though?” Melody asked. “Seems unfair to charge people to use a dumb old road, even if it is guarded.”

“Well if it was any old road then yeah, but the NER’s got soldiers patrolling the whole damn thing and they need to pay said soldiers or else they’ll just desert and go home. That’s why they charge you to use the road, to help make ends meet thanks to their internal issues. It’s based on the relative value of your cargo but it’s becoming common for the soldiers to rifle through your shit and take a bit of what they want as an extra fee. That way, they don’t have to work for a meal or a cigarette and get to chill out doing nothing all day. Toll stations are notoriously boring posts from what I've overheard old vets talking about and now they're just a place to get politely robbed by the Republic.”

“I thought you said they were protecting ponies?” Melody said critically as I pushed open the Gates and we left untouched back into the waking world, the doors booming shut behind us. "That doesn't sound like the kind of ponies I'd be grateful to have protecting me."

“Well naturally they protect NER citizens when there's a problem but there's the caveat. There hasn’t been a major attack on any of the roads or settlements in over thirty years. Even back country banditry is pretty unorganized and sparse.” I said, waiting at the top of the stairs for their shorter legs to catch up. “They're basically charging you for the reputation of the road, not for an actual service. Just ask anypony who’s been posted on Highway Patrol duty, they’ll tell you the exact same thing: you get paid to sit on your ass and pilfer things from merchants passing through half of the day and the other is wandering the Wastes nearby the booth. It’s the cushiest job in the NER army far as I know aside from maybe the mailroom or their Revenue Service.”

“They sound kinda like a bunch of losers.” Melody mumbled as we made double-time across The Pile to the skywalk, the massive building as devoid of life and sound as before with the glow of the moon outside peeking through the high windows and crumbling dome.

“They’re not bad, per-se. They're...just a bit too greedy for their own, and everypony else’s, good. They do a pretty decent job of keeping the major settlements safe but they pass new tax laws like Sparkle-Cola with their back-to-back ad campaigns. After the twentieth one, you just kind of tune them out and accept they’re not going away anytime soon. Long as you're not a merchant though, getting past tolls in NER territory is pretty easy so we shouldn't be held up for too long.”

“H-huh…” Gold hummed, opening the door for Melody and I like a proper gentlecolt. “H-have they tried t-to tax you t-too then?”

“Plenty of times.” I snorted, pulling off my helmet to scratch an itch in my mane that had been bothering me since before we had gotten to Mr. Scaly’s booth. “I always drove 'em off. They kept sending bigger and bigger groups to try and force me to pay but eventually I guess they got the message and stopped bothering me to pay the 45% tax on living in Freeside as a ‘Protected Guest of the NER’. We’re all guests in the eyes of the great President. Not like houseguests. More like hotel guests. Except the hotel is kinda shitty and they charge like they’re the Rarity Suites.”

"Right...you mentioned the random tax collectors earlier...damn." Melody hummed, keeping her eyes on me the entire time we crossed the skywalk to the doors of Cogsworth's Pre-War Bazar.

“Back so soon?” Cogsworth chuckled as we strode into the Workshop where he seemed not to have moved an inch since we had left; Chocolate asleep face-first in the empty pie tin on the table. “Did you get what you desired?”

“Nope.” I said with a sigh, plopping down into a chair and stretching my hooves out on the table. “Turns out he hit the road several days ago to show off some samples of new leather he just harvested but hasn’t come back yet from Shady Sands. Amaris said he should have been back two days ago but...well, here we are.”

“Curious…” He replied, lifting his PipBuck to his face and pressing away at the blue glowing buttons looking for his map. “One would expect him to have returned by now. Tis not that far of a journey between here and hence.”

“Yeah, we made it in what? A day-and-a-half on hoof?” I asked, peeking over his shoulder at the vastly more detailed map the 3000 model offered over my 2000 and feeling some measure of envy.

“Precisely. I know not of thee, but I have uneasy feelings regarding this. I despair to think it...but I feel compelled to wonder if something hath befallen him.” He replied, his ear twitching at how close I was to his head. "Such an absence is not like him with his quarry of Dragons to tend to within the Market. It is most unusual for him to be late as he currently seems to be."

“Yeah...now that you mention I don’t like this either. That kind of trip is two-days max with the wagon crew he has running with him. Remember that one time he told us about how they all went for a solid twenty-eight hours straight high off their asses on Buck to make an egg-laying deadline?”

“Hey bartender...Bloody Mare-y, O-positive…” Chocolate mumbled in her sleep, three empty bottles of Tree-Hugger Rum laying near her head as a testament to how her night had gone since we left.

“Yeah...I’m gonna agree with her.” I yawned, glancing at the Cola Clock and feeling tired again after the fight. “Let’s figure this all out in the morning. Scaly can wait another few hours, I’m beat.”

“Very well.” Cogsworth said as he stood up and took a shot of rum himself from a small, nearly empty bottle, one of five laying before him indicating they had engaged in a drinking contest, the victor clearly Cogsworth. “Go and rest. You all look like you have had a battle. I take it there were some complications?”

“Yeah, something like that…” I said distractedly as I stood up and felt the grimy sweat of the last week’s exertions stick to the lining of my underbarding in an unpleasant way. “Hey, did you get the Stable’s Water Talisman working? I could really use a bath. It’s been like two-weeks since I’ve last had one and I’d rather not use another semi-clean puddle of water this time. We all know I'm fine with a bit of sweat, grime and bleck but it doesn't mean I have to like festering in my own stank.”

“Of course.” He chuckled, lifting Chocolate from her seat with ease and draping her across his back. “It has been a month since you have last set hoof here, I have accomplished much in that time. You shall find the Stable's primary facilities are all fully functional including lavatories, faucets, lights, doors and other such amenities.”

“Oh thank Celestia…” I breathed, following behind him with almost too much excitement. “I’ve been needing this.”

"W-wait...a bath...?!" Melody gasped with wide eyes of wonder and delight. "L-like a real one??"

"Naturally!" Cogs chuckled as he led us through the Stable door. "And now complete with running hot and cold water!"

"Well what the fuck are we waiting for?! Let's go!"

Leading us past the Atrium where our cots lay with tantalizing softness and where Gold decided to stop, Melody and I entered into one of the unused rooms on the second floor of the Atrium which had been converted into a large, white tiled bathroom. It came complete with a large refurbished ceramic bathtub in the center of the room, a set of shower heads along one wall and a set of bathroom stalls on the other all housing clean, undamaged toilets all now hooked up to the sewer system and fully functional. It was any mare’s dream to be in, let alone use a bathroom as clean as this one and I could only envy those Stable Dwellers who got to live with facilities like this their whole lives. According to Cogs, the design of the washroom was a variation on what StableTec would have done minus the tub so it wasn't hard to imagine for a moment what it would be like to only know indoor plumbing and incandescent lighting. Kinda boring if spoiled rotten.

“I assume you remember how to operate a bathtub.” He chuckled as he gestured to the tub and turned to leave. “Towels are to be located in that set of lockers near the door, just be sure to mop up after your inevitable mess if you would. Complimentary rubber mops are located to the left of the lockers and are to be used to flush water towards the drainage system installed beneath the floor.”

After leaving, the large pneumatic door hissing shut behind him, Melody turned to me with an awkward blush and said, “W-well...um...if you want to use the t-tub I can just...shower. Or...wait my turn.”

“Nope.” I said with a smile as I quickly stripped naked and tossed all my shit in a heap wherever they decided to land. “You and me, hunny.”

She bit her lip with an even larger blush but didn’t say a word as I finished tugging off my socks and panties, tossing them in an entirely separate pile for cleaning.

“Well?” I asked, flicking my tail over my snatch to air everything out better and sighing at the warm air cooling down my sweaty ass. “Ya gonna strip down and get ready for a bath or am I gonna have to do it for you, little lady?”

She squeaked and turned yet another shade redder matching closely to the color of her red eye and I turned around to turn on the tub, nearly ignoring the blue tap and going full blast for the red hot tap, turning the blue one only enough so I didn’t boil us alive. As I stood there, holding a hoof under the running water and fiddling with the taps for the right temperature, I couldn’t help but swish my tail a bit just in case Melody was staring at me. It wasn’t enough to show a whole lot underneath it but it was enough to call attention to it. I suppose it was instinct by now as it never failed to entice Hucks no matter what was going on and Melody had brought back a lot of happy memories since her unpredicted arrival into my life.

When the water was the perfect balance of hot but not too hot, I quickly looked over my shoulder and caught her staring exactly at what I had hoped she would, my sudden eye contact making her squeak even louder as her head whipped away like she had been looking another way. I smirked. Grandpa would have been proud at my fishing skills as I had a definite tug on my line as the bait had been taken easier than I had thought. I wasn’t going to start reeling in yet though. Melody was going to need time to figure out things for herself and what she wanted from her new life. If I was going to seduce her...I was going to do it gently, lovingly and allow her to grow into it of her own accord. Though the fact she had been staring was a good sign in and of itself at least. At the end of the day, she was the most important thing to me now.

“Common darling.” I said sweetly, walking up to her and putting a soft hoof on her armored chest, playing a little with the steel zipper hidden between the strips of riveted steel. “I’m not gonna hurt you. You know that.”

“I...I know.” She said quietly over the rush of bathwater running behind us. “It’s...I’m not used to ponies being this nice to me...I’m used to them stripping naked and shoving their dick in my mouth without even giving me time to get some spit on it. This is...this is really nice. Soft is nice.”

“Yeah...guys are like that.” I sighed, thinking on the Ironshod workers I had slept with for information on specialty ammunition. “Not me though. I know all the right ways to treat a lady and make her feel special and adored like she deserves. Just takes a soft touch, a creative and slightly devious mind and comfy surroundings to bring out the best.”

She looked up at me, still blushing slightly and laughed, “Yeah...Chocolate told me a bit about your...special talents when you were passed out. I don’t...think I’m quite ready for that stuff again.”

“Hey, by all means hun.” I said, nudging down the zipper of her jumpsuit with some magic as we talked. “I wasn’t going to push you into anything lewd anyway. Thought I was gonna be alone but I ain't dumb enough to say no to company like you, Mel. You’ve been through a lot more than I ever want to experience. It’s the least I can do to try and help you relax and recover from all of it. A good, hot bath is a damn fine way to keep that ball rolling for ya.”

“You’ve had a way harder life than me…” She said, not stopping me as I continued to bring the zipper down to where it stopped just below her navel. “I mean...you had to watch Equestria get blown up and everything...all I’ve had is...well, it’s not as bad as yours. I don't want you feeling compelled to stop and help me...I don't wanna be a burden.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes I suppose but that doesn't detract from the fact you've seen some serious shit too hun…” I said as I pushed the loose suit from off her shoulders and gently helped her get her front legs out of the sleeves. “The thing with personal experiences that most people don’t get is that something that might be no more painful than a stubbed horn to one could feel like a gunshot wound to somepony else. We all experience life’s bullshit and orgasms in different ways and that’s what makes us all unique. Sure...I’ve had a long life full of bad shit...but I’ve had a long time to grow into the role. You...you’re still young and this is really all you’ve ever known. I want to change that. And so far...despite all the crazy shit that's been happening ever since I met you...I don't have any regrets about throwing my world into chaos for you.”

She shivered as I carefully stepped beside her and tugged the lower half of her armor down her back and over her thin flank, letting it drop to the floor with a clatter of collapsing fibers and metal plating. She was as gorgeous as ever with that majestic azure coat and I finally noticed her cutie mark. An upside down treble and bass clef that formed the shape of a heat with small arrows hovering along the long tail of the bass clef in the seven colors of the rainbow. It was beautiful and much more artistic than the revolver and sniper rifle on my own ass and it went a long way to show the differences between us. I was the definite tomboy who had a severe armor fetish and she was clearly the artistic one. I mean, her name was Melody for fuck’s sake and her cutie mark was a heart made of musical symbols. Just like most of the ponies in my high school band, she was a natural while I had to struggle to learn the bass guitar just to be able to play along with everypony else during recitals. I was the only one in band without a music related cutie mark and it showed. Only stuck with it thanks to my dedication to the instrument that I so loved to hear.

“Has anyone ever told you you are the most beautiful and eye dazzling little mare ever?” I asked softly, leaning into her ear and feeling her cheek in my tender hoof.

“N-no…” She admitted with a tiny sob as she turned and hugged me. “Sexy, hot, cute and gorgeous...but never beautiful. It's...thank you. I...I need to hear stuff like that. I want to feel pretty, like a mare. Not just some cocksleeve.”

“Well...you are beautiful no matter what they say.” I replied, hugging her tightly in return and kissing her sensitive little horn again, a soft coo escaping her lips as I did. “Common, let’s get you washed up. Healing potions don’t treat sweat and I can't reach my back ever and it'd be fuckin' awesome to finally have somepony do it for me so I don't have to fuck with mirrors and telekinesis.”

She flicked her tail and grinned, full-hearted and pure making my heart dance a jig from here to Mombässa. I could feel the burgeoning trust and love she had for me already after so little time together and I had to stop and reflect on what I was feeling just now. Was this...what it felt like to be happy...? I had forgotten the sensation...

“Me too. I-I’ll help you if you help me.” She said cutely, a heavy blush returning to her cheeks as she lifted a scrubbing brush laying on the rim of the tub with her red-violet magic. "We both win!"

“Deal, cutie pie.” I giggled, cannonballing into the tub with her still in my arms.

****************

Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Motherly Check-Up

“Manehattan! Last call for Manehattan!”

‘Ugh...fuck off...five more minutes…’ I thought to myself as reality barged its way into the peaceful silence of sleep.

“Ma’am?”

Somepony was poking me in the leg, shaking more sleep from my body and shoving the waking world into my tired brain. Who the fuck was this guy and did he know the power coiled up in this little spring of a mare?

“Ma’am! Are you getting off here?”

I pulled the cap off my face and stared into the concerned if irritated face of the train conductor. The sound outside the train was loud and making the windows rattle. Or was that just the sound of the engine? Where the fuck was I?

“Where are we…?” I asked, rubbing more sleep from my eyes.

“Manehattan, Four Star Station.” He said with a sigh, picking up my ticket from off the bench. “Yep, this is your stop soldier. Best get a move on before we take off. Unless of course you wanna pay the 275 bits needed for a ticket to Fillydelphia which is where we’re going next.”

Man this guy was an asshole…

“Alright, alright! I’m getting up!” I grumbled as I stuffed the blanket back into my duffle bag and slung it over my back. “Have some respect for a soldier will ya? I didn’t earn these ribbons from being an asshole to people who’ve been through a lot more than you could ever swallow. Go and bother somepony who gives a fuck would ya?”

He took a step back and didn’t say another word as I pushed past him and off the train into the crowded station. The noise of civilian life was surprisingly just as crazy and chaotic as an active fire zone only the stakes were much lower. At least here all I had to risk was some lost time from missing a train or getting short-changed by one of the carrot-dog stands. Ponies went about their daily business with little regard for the world beyond their own. Nowhere was there a uniform to be seen save for the armed guards in the corners and by the doors. Nor were there any carts of ordinance, wide-eyed Privates or shell-shocked veterans anywhere in the crowd. It was...it was like stepping out into an entirely different world that I wasn’t sure how to interact with. It was a feeling I had forgotten about in not even a year's time.

“Thank you for your service, Ma’am!” A mare trying to corral three bickering colts said brightly as she passed.

“You show those Zebra bastards what for!” Said a stallion, pushing a cart of luggage past me on my left.

“Equestria rules! Zebras drool!” Yelled a teenaged colt as he saluted me proudly from a bench nearby.

The memory of what had happened at the checkpoint was still fresh in my mind as were the bruises deep in my shoulders from dislocating them so suddenly without prep. Humph...Equestria rules. I had thought that too when I was his age all the way up till...I wasn't even quite sure. There had been a growing sense of doubt in my heart for years but now...I wasn’t so sure what I believed anymore. M.O.M was nosy and invasive, everypony knew that. But M.O.M was always watching you. Every word you spoke, wrote or even thought it felt like. And they had the ultimate jurisdiction over your life if you became a pony of interest to them. Somehow one-sixth of the Hexagon had become the ultimate civil authority with a hoof in all the courtrooms and police offices. What the fuck was going on…?

Weaving through the crowd I found the line of payphones along the wall leading to the bathrooms; each had their own 'private' cubicle despite my gut telling me it was just as bugged as any of my tech down South. Most were already being used by ponies who had just arrived and were calling for taxis or hotels or were just saying goodbye to someone on the other line before they caught their train out of town. Finding an empty booth, I stepped inside and deposited a five-bit coin into the slot then dialed mom’s home phone guessing she had already planned ahead and gotten the time off she needed. With how short notice this little trip was, it was either that or something incredibly major had happened. Her message had been way too vague to even hazard a guess one way or the other but I hoped everything was all fine and dandy. I desperately needed some of that stability in my life right now.

The line rang a few times, the bedlam of Four Star Station nearly drowning out the sound before there was a soft click and the most beautiful voice in my life answered.

“You’re here!” Mom said excitedly, a hint of age present in her melodic tones. “Wonderful! Guess who’s got us a reservation at Le Chez-Perez?!”

“No way!” I replied, stunned she had managed to get a table at one of the finest restaurants in Manehattan so soon. “How the hell did you manage that? Last time we looked they had like a six-month waiting list!”

“And that was two years ago little lady.” She chided with a laugh. “You think I haven’t been planning ahead for this little get-together for a year now? Ever since your last leave was canceled I’ve been making plans for what we’re going to be doing. Never a dull moment!”

“Well sweet! Where should I wait for you? Unless you want me to snag a taxi and just meet you at the apartment?”

“Oh shut it, it would be rude for me to not come and pick you up myself! I’ve already got Dr. Plaque’s son on call for a ride. I’ll be there in a half-hour alright? Just wait for me over by the fountain, okay darling? You know, the one you fell in after you tossed the wrong coin in and tried to go after it?”

Even with two years having passed since that incident, the memory was just as fresh and just as awkward as if it had just happened yesterday making sure that damn water feature was forever burned into my memory. We had spent the day at her place eating good home cooking and reminiscing about the past before she dropped me off to catch my train to head back South. Naturally, the large fountain in the center of the large station was a place to make wishes with the proceeds going towards one of the M.O.P's many charities. Just as naturally, I was feeling good on that occasion and wanted to toss a coin into the water with the wish that the memory of the day's events would never leave my mind so I could think back on it on hard days in the South. My wish came true the moment I realized I had thrown a five-hundred bit coin and not the fiver I thought I had grabbed from my purse.

“Thanks for reminding me about that…” I sighed, grateful the booth hid my embarrassment from everypony else in the station. The only ponies who knew about my shame right now was the two of us, whoever was in the crowd that day, the person on the security cameras, and now whatever employee of M.O.M that was assigned to listen in on our call.

“Hey! It’s my job to do that kind of thing.” She giggled. “Oh, speaking of jobs, are you still keeping up with your brushing and flossing? You know I’m going to know if you haven’t.”

I licked my mostly clean teeth and grimaced as I said, “Not as good as I should be…”

“Did I teach you nothing about proper oral care?” She lamented in an overly dramatic tone that reminded me of the one fancy ass Ministry Mare who was famous for being a drama queen. “You keep brushing, Athena. I’m serious. You’ll keep those pretty little teeth of yours while everypony else loses them from all this sugary shit everypony keeps shoving in their fat mouths. I swear…”

“Heh, you just did, mom.” I laughed, pointing out that she didn’t swear all that often.

“Deposit another five bits please.” Chimed the operator as the time I had paid for was already up.

“I’m not wasting another five bits when I can just talk to you in person.” I said as I picked up my duffle bag and set it on my back. “See you at the fountain?”

“See you at the fou-” She said cheerfully before the line cut off and the operator chided me for not paying quick enough.

“If you weren’t just a fucking robot, I’d shoot you in the face…” I mumbled as I hung up the headset and exited the booth, wondering what our government eavesdropper would've thought about that response.

The station was just as packed as ever with ponies coming and going as their simple lives dictated and I managed to make my way through the various terminals to the fountain we had talked about. It was a large, multi-level fountain that commemorated the heroic death of Big Macintosh when he had dove in front of a bullet meant for Princess Celestia some years ago during a public speech in Manehatten. The Royal Princess, carved in exquisite white marble with gold leaf, stood in regal glory over the well-built, muscular body of Big Macintosh who was carved out of red jasper with large emeralds for his cutie mark. Water poured from the tip of her horn and gently dribbled down of her eyes like tears while a small fountain of water splashed out of the bullet hole in his chest and into the ringed pools of water below it. In the bottom most pool, the water sparkled with gold bits of various value from those come to make wishes and to commemorate the fallen hero. The higher the pool your bit landed in, the more likely your wish or blessing of good luck was to come true or so the ‘legend’ said. A perfect grenade throw ensured mine had reached the uppermost tier which made my scramble for it completely futile without causing even more of a scene than I had. Goddamn did I cringe every time I was forced to remember that moment...

I sat on a bench nearby the fountain in full view of the row of doors leading out to the loading area for luggage and passengers. Outside, the line of taxis waited impatiently to take people where they needed to go. To my right was a support pillar for the lofty marble ceiling whereon was a large television displayed the daily news. Though the crowd drowned out any chance the news had of reaching the ears of those interested in hearing it, below the television was a large sign. If you were lucky enough to own a PipBuck (objects I saw on more and more ponies’ legs as the years went on) all you had to do was put in your EarBloom and tune your PipBuck to the frequency displayed on the sign; something which I chose to do to pass the half-hour ETA she had given me to wait. After all, it was smart to learn about what was going on in the civilian world since things there tended to affect those of us in the military. Like international politics and economics.

“Hello, and welcome to Equestrian Daily News!” The chipper voice of the mare on the screen said in my ear as I tuned-in to 101.1. “I’m your anchor, Daily Post. In today’s news, there is trouble at the border as the representatives from the Republic of Mareseilles meet with Princess Luna at the Royal Palace in Canterlot to discuss a possible military alliance. For those in our audience not aware of this closed-off country, the Republic of Mareseilles is located to the far Southeastern edge of Equestria behind the Ponyrenees Mountains. Up until now, they have openly refused to join in the National Equestrian Alliance Treaty Organization, or NEATO. This Organization includes the Kingdom of Equestria, her sister-kingdoms of Saddle Arabia, Espania, Griffinstone and the Duchy of Crystal as well as our allies in the Greifenländer. They are all who stand against the Zebra threat from the Far East and the use of Mareseilles’ formidable naval strength would be a powerful asset in our War against the Empire. However, it seems thing did not go as planned once more at the formal discussions between both our nations. My co-anchor Newsworthy Times reports to us live from the Palace where the meeting has just ended. Times?”

Big surprise there. Mareseilles had been hooves-off on every single conflict the rest of the world were involved and kept to themselves. Nopony had been allowed into the country since before I was even born and it looked like they and their reportedly massive naval fleet were going to remain hooves-off for the time being. I returned my attention back to the screen as the scenery changed from the news channel set to the interior of the Royal Palace. Here, a mare dressed in a simple blouse and skirt stood levitating a microphone to her mouth while ponies in business suits and skirts milled about in the background. It was hard to think the guards posted by the doors used to be clad in plate armor wielding spears and swords not even fifty years ago.

“Thank you Daily. As she said I am standing here outside the room where this historic meeting has just been finished. It has been nearly forty-years to the day since Mareseilles closed its borders to foreign immigration in response to the Food Riots of the late 2030s. Since then nopony has seen head nor tail of them save for the brief telephone communications they have had with Equestria in the years since having no official embassy in any country. Unfortunately, yet again it seems they have refused to join NEATO stating their continued policy on not meddling in the affairs of other nations. This has been the status quo between our nations for many years now so this comes as no big surprise for many in the political and military field. But, the fact we have met with physical Mareseillian delegates for the first time in forty-years is a step in the right direction as far as international tensions are concerned. There was talk after the meeting that there is a possibility for a Mareseillian Embassy to be opened here in the capital city in the coming months. I’m Newsworthy Times reporting to you live from the Royal Palace, Canterlot.”

"Thank you, Times. We will have an interview with some of the attendees tonight at six where we will have many questions to ask about our mysterious neighbors and the state of the War effort." The feed cut back to the mare in the newsroom.

As the news turned to the latest stock prices and the cost of coal per kilogram, the one depressingly low and the other dangerously high, I pulled out my EarBloom and fit it back into the slot on the side of my PipBuck with a heavy sigh. The world was falling apart piece by piece with every passing day with no end but destruction in sight. Was sad to see that the civilian world was just as fucked and chaotic as the one I was used to living in, just with different things at stake.

“Hello there! May I sit here please?”

A white colored stallion with a short auburn mane was standing nearby wearing a simple business suit though lacking a tie. Hardbacked saddlebags were strapped around his waist, the same used by business ponies to protect their precious clothing, and a pair of brown eyes flashed kindly behind a pair of simple glasses. On the floor lay a metal briefcase which he had set down in order to speak to me properly. All in all, he looked like every other businesspony I had ever seen in person or on one of the covers of Equestrian Entrepreneur magazine. A right better sight to look at than a gore-soaked Private's uniform or an Engineer's oil and mud covered one.

“Sure. Not like I’m going to be using it.” I replied, scooting me and my shit over enough for him to have the space he needed for his precious saddlebags and suit.

“Thank you.” He said politely, unstrapping the bags from around his waist and sliding over his thick metal attaché case on the floor before sitting down beside me. “Lovely day isn’t it?”

“Aye. The air up here is a lot cooler than in the Badlands.” I said, looking out of the high windows of the terminal at the sunshine peeking between the surrounding skyscrapers. "It's nice to feel the breeze and actually feel a bit of a shiver from spring still in the air. Beats the hell out of a sandstorm down South."

“Oh? You just arrive from there?” He asked, his interest in me probably a result of extroversion and the need to just talk to people. Not a trait I shared but one I was willing enough to humor I guess.

“Mhm.” I nodded, gesturing to the ribbons and their award devices on my uniform showing how many tours I had completed there already. “Just on leave for a few days to see my mom. Been ages since I've seen her so I'm glad to be here, heh.”

“Fascinating.” He replied with a wide smile of interest on his face. “What’s it like down there?”

“Hell.” I said immediately, looking him right in his brown eyes. “If there were a stronger or more descriptive word I’d be using it right now. Sadly, I ain't got any that don't involve a lot of cussing.”

“I’m sorry.” He said quickly. “It’s not fair that you have to give up your life to fight a War you didn’t start, isn’t it?”

“Heh...yeah, you could say that.” I laughed shortly hoping he would buzz off and leave me alone already.

“That’s the honest truth though.” He said almost to himself, looking at his briefcase. “We’re all paying the price for other people’s stupid mistakes. We didn’t need the Ministries twenty-four years ago. Everypony got to be left alone and the world was a better place for it. We used to worry about petty things like Winter Wrap Up and the like for crying out loud! Look at us now...fighting to the absolute death over resources, politics and culture.”

Finally somepony new who shared my secretive sentiments. He didn’t know the real cost of the War but it seemed he knew enough to be able to say that out loud. I wondered what sort of business he was in that would give him such an open-eye perspective on current events? Maybe a military contractor of some sort...or maybe like an economist?

“Yeah...I wanted to be a Ranger when I grew up, so I guess I was just born for the military. But...honestly I wish that so many ponies didn’t have to die. You have to be careful who you make friends with down there...anyone can die in an instant and you’re left with their mangled corpse as reward for your emotional attachment to them. Hell of a fucking thing to try and forget every night.”

He blanched at my dark yet true statement and looked at me rather kindly for a stranger. Normally, I'd have wondered if he had some ulterior motive behind his empathetic motions being a business-type and all. However...I didn't feel any sense of alarm around him like I would have expected from my well-trained gut instinct. He was being genuine.

“Tell me Colonel, do you feel safe?” He asked, my gut suddenly twinging slightly in concern.

I eyed him with a slightly perplexed stare, my thoughts immediately turning to the Sequoia I had hidden in my duffle bag as that was a weird and creepy question to ask somepony even on a good day. But then again, he was a businesspony. Goddamnit, was this some sort of weird, mid-day sales pitch?

“Absolutely not.” I said flatly. “Eyes and ears are all around you and you can’t take a shit without feeling like somepony in Canterlot is watching and making note of it somewhere. Thought everypony knew that.”

He laughed though there was a subtle tone of bitterness in his tone that seemed as if he were intimate with that kind of situation. My gut was increasingly just as concerned yet confused on what to think as my brain. The odds of economist being the answer were diminishing quickly, this guy had to be some sort of military something or rather. Government maybe...?

“Well yes, Pinkie Pie is Watching You Forever as the posters say.” He said checking a simple watch on his right leg. “Even now of course. There is no escaping her watchful eyes.”

I cocked my head at him slightly and casually slipped a hoof into my bag while he looked towards the ceiling. While my gut was convinced this guy was genuine in his words, my brain wasn't so convinced that he was safe to be around. After all, I had been accosted not even eight hours ago by agents of the government. But if he was here to apprehend me...then what the fuck was up with this whole...act?

“There are currently seven-hundred-and-thirty-six individual cameras, listening devices and M.O.M informants in this building and this bench, this exact spot I am sitting in now is one of the only three blind-spots.” He said, gesturing towards the P.A speakers, the billboard adverts lining the terminal and other innocuous objects. "Rather excessive don't you think?"

“Um...ok?” I said feeling very uncomfortable with this guy’s ramblings.

“Nothing is ok.” He said, thankfully standing up and retrieving his bags. “Not while Pinkie Pie is watching and ponies go blind to where she’s put her eyes. But that can certainly change if everypony is forced to open theirs and see the world for the complicated mess of things that it is.”

Finally finished strapping his bags on, he checked his watch as a train screeched to a steady halt on the platform behind us before saying, “Stay safe, Miss. Constant vigilance is the only way any of us are going to make it out of this alive.”

“Um...ok…?” I whispered as he trotted briskly to catch his train. “Ok...that was fucking weird as all hell…”

Now that he had pointed out the three-hundred-and-thirty-six different surveillance devices and informants surrounding me, I felt suddenly claustrophobic. I knew M.O.M was everywhere but I suppose I never considered the real scope of the eyes watching me and everyone else at all times. As far as I knew, M.O.M knew about Huckleberry and everything else any of us ever did. There could be bugs in my helmet, my armor, in my brain. Anything was possible in this day and age of rapidly evolving technology and arcane science.

I glanced at my PipBuck with a feeling similar to disgust and reached to tear it off and throw it as far away from me as I could but not before relief cascaded over me as the familiar blue and white of mom walked into the terminal, her sparkling white teeth almost whiter than the hair in her mane. The sun had finally peeked its head over my gloomy horizon and it only took most of the day to fucking happen.

“Hello!” She exclaimed, hugging me tightly and nuzzling my cheek with hers, the comforting, nostalgic smell of spearmint putting my mind and heart at ease. “I’m so glad to see you again, Athena. It’s been too long.”

“Amen.” I purred as I nuzzled her back and took a few more deep breaths of her minty musk to further calm my senses.

“My, you’re quite cuddly today.” She laughed, reaching up a bit to pat my head as she was a tad shorter than I. “Haven’t seen you this snuggly since you were what? Sixteen?”

“Just shut up and hug me mom…” I mumbled allowing myself to let the stress of the last few weeks wash away in the warmth of her embrace.

“Heh, alright. Can do.” She laughed pleasantly. “The taxi is waiting though.”

After another minute of solid hugging I finally felt relaxed enough to let go and follow her gratefully out of Four Star and onto the street outside. Manehattan was as large and towering as I remembered it (if maybe even more so) and the warming spring air blew between the skyscrapers with a hint of sea salt in the air from Friendship Bay. Waiting for us, pulling a Sky Taxi, was who I assumed was Dr. Plaque’s son, a yellow Pegasus who waved at mom with a bright smile as we approached. In a way, mom had set up her own private transport which was kinda cool to think about. She may have resigned as CEO from her company but there were still plenty of benefits to be had in connections and shareholder stocks.

“Hey there, Dr. Minuette!” He hollered over the noise of the other taxis and passengers loading and unloading around us. “Looks like you found your daughter! Nice! Ready to go? I can only stand here for another minute before those dudes over there kick me out they said.”

He nodded towards the slightly obese parking police comprised mainly of Pegusi and a few Unicorns, all of them wearing much more armor than the last time I visited mom. I could have sworn the last time I was here they were just wearing your run-of-the-mill police body armor; short-fiber Kevyarn vests and utility belts with tasers and a basic sidearm. Now, all of them were wearing a version of police body armor that looked two steps shy of being classified as riot armor. It was most certainly from the M-CAT line but was some sort of bizarre 60/40 hybrid of Kevyarn and ballistic plates while each officer carried a pistol as well as Spaz-10 shotguns configured with drum magazines and no stocks. These boys were ready to fight a small urban campaign and very few of the shells I spied on their persons were rubber pellets.

We quickly took our seats in the cushy Sky Taxi, the luxury a far cry above the Sky Chariots of the military, and shot off into the sky. It was the first time I had ever been able to fly in civilian transport over the city and I was amazed at the view spread out before me each way I looked. Skyscrapers towered around us like glass obelisks commemorating the might of Equestrian industry while the smaller buildings boasted numerous rooftop gardens and skywalks connecting most things together. Below those was the spaghetti pile of streets, avenues and one-ways connecting everything else to everything else and beyond, the late afternoon sun glinting off of the mixed traffic below. Mechanized vehicles were on the road more and more every time I visited mom and it was amusing to see the clandestine side of the Greifenländer engineering that made some of the most difference for us. In the distance, flitting by in passing views between buildings, was the Pony of Friendship and Friendship Bay. The statue, now green as the copper used to construct the colossal torch wielding robed mare had oxidized, was a gift from Mareseilles centuries ago when they had actually talked to us and not treated us like two high school mares who had a falling out. I had to wonder though as I saw the sweeping robes adorning her body if she was wearing anything else underneath it. I mean, she was Mareseillan after all and if a babe like Fleur Di Lis had come from there then...maybe all Mareseillian mares were just as smokin’ hot. Not like I would know with Fleur being the only well-known Mareseillian to do photo shoots outside of her home country. The world would never know though...but still, I liked to imagine a fine ass hidden under those aquamarine robes of hers.

“So, tell me everything!” She exclaimed excitedly, rolling up the windbreaker so we could hear each other and not get drowned out in the rush of air that rustled our fur and sent our manes billowing in the gale like flags.

“Where to begin?” I asked, thinking back over everything that had happened in the three-weeks since we had last spoken on the phone for the brief two hours we were allotted once a month.

“Wherever you like darling.” She replied with a smile, hugging me again and seeming to smell the perfume I had borrowed from Penny for the occasion. “Damn, is that Penny’s stuff?”

“You remember well!” I laughed.

“How can I forget a baby blue face like hers?” She said, rummaging through her purse and pulling out a bottle of perfume of her own. “I’ll tell you again what I told you and her then, she’s got good taste in perfume. I'm surprised she can even keep any in stock with how horrid you guys can reek after a day's work down there.”

I stopped her hoof as she floated the bottle to her chest in her golden magic and shook my head. I liked the way she smelled now. It was just the nostalgic aromatherapy I needed right now to detox from all the crazy of the last week.

“I smell like the office.” She complained, putting the bottle back into her purse but not complaining any further.

“Exactly.” I said, laying my head against her chest and breathing in her minty freshness again and again. “Smells like home.”

She seemed to catch the hint that I just wanted to be with her for awhile and contented herself with petting my head and holding me against her. And for that moment while we flew towards her apartment...I was six years old again. Or twelve or sixteen or even eighteen. All of the years of my life that I had spent with her growing up in PonyVille. For a moment I could forget I was a twenty-eight year old Veteran Ranger in the largest war in our planet's history. For a moment...I could forget about everything but her.

The trip came to a stop faster than I wanted and the Taxi thudded slightly as its wheels made contact with the asphalt of the street outside her apartment. We climbed out quickly and thanked our ride for his service before entering the lobby of mom’s more upscale middle-class apartment building. While the walls were not made of marble nor the light fixtures of gold or crystal, it was still a fine establishment with a dedicated receptionist who wore a tight fitting red and gold uniform and on-site laundry and mail services for all its patrons. It was modest compared to her income behind the scenes but I admired that about her.

“Hello Minuette!” The receptionist beamed as we approached. “Oh! This must be Athena! I’m so happy to meet you finally!”

“You’re a new face.” I laughed, looking around for the receptionist I knew. “What happened to Red Vine?”

“Retired is what I was told.” She replied, looking at the mailmare whom I did recognize. “Hey Windy! Red retired right?”

“Drafted.” She called back, sorting through the pile of mail in front of her and putting them into the appropriate mail slots for each apartment number. “I thought you knew that!”

“No, wait, then who retired? Was it Bell Bottom?”

“It was one of the janitors, Bell Bottom still works in Laundry.”

While they bickered over who was gone and who wasn’t, mom retrieved her mail from the cubby with her magic before taking my by the hoof to the elevator. The apartment wasn’t fancy enough to have a bellhop so we were forced to make the great exertion of selecting the thirteenth floor ourselves. As the floors dinged away as we rose, mom decided to rummage through my duffle bag without even asking permission. Wasn't a surprise given I had the tendency to hide chocolate in there for her on previous occasions, the whole thing with the attempted kidnapping from earlier kind of blowing it from memory.

“God these military shirts are drab.” She sighed before pulling out my Sequoia. “Helloooo, who is this?!”

“Oh shit, I didn’t tell you!” I exclaimed excitedly as she looked over my baby. “It came in from Ironshod literally the same day as we were sent on tour. Isn’t she pretty??”

“I’ll say!” She hummed as she peered down the sights in the lights of the elevator. “And they said it couldn’t be done. Told ya AJ would come through for you! Loyalty is her defining trait and it carries in the family it seems.”

Back in the day everypony in PonyVille, even the Ministry Mares back before they were that, saw my mom for their bi-annual cleanings meaning she got to know everypony pretty well on at least a semi-personal basis. Apple Jack, the head of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, was a regular face in the office. When she or her siblings didn’t have a chipped tooth from farm work, they were in for a cavity filling from all the apples and apple related shit they ate every single day. As the years went on, it seemed friendships like that weren’t easily forgotten and the two of them kept in touch as best they could with mom even making special visits to Canterlot to make doubly sure her dentist was doing a good job at maintaining those teeth she had spent so many years repairing, cleaning and getting to know. It just so happened that Apple Jack had a cousin by the name of Braeburn who was the CEO of Ironshod Firearms, the same manufacturer who produced the BFR (the Big Fucking Revolver as it was lovingly called) that had been chosen years before by the Desert Rangers to serve as the basis for our Sequoias. With a bit of begging on my part and a bit of clever negotiation from mom, we convinced her to personally request a very custom gun on my behalf from her cousin. It took weeks of arguing with his top design specialists to even convince them to give it a go but it had been well worth it. A small fortune and two years later, they finally came through and delivered exactly what I wanted; perfection was achieved and she was chambered in .45-70 Celestia.

“Tell her I owe her big time.” I said, gazing at the glossy black finish surrounded by her magical aura. “This thing has saved my life already in the little time I’ve had with her.”

She lowered the gun slightly and sighed softly. I had slipped up too early with the sordid topics of the South.

“How close this time?” She asked simply, opening the action of the gun slowly as to not fling out the rounds with the auto-ejector.

“Too close.” I replied somberly. “But...there’s some crazy shit I have to tell you about and it involves someone you and I both thought was dead. Sit down and lemme tell you a fuckin' tale and a half.”

She shook her head and put a hoof to her lips as the elevator dinged and opened up on the thirteenth floor. I followed her in silence as we traversed the warmly lit white hallway to her apartment. In honor of my obtaining Veteran status, she had moved to apartment room 1369, the closest she could get to my batch number of 69 without having to move down thirteen floors and sacrifice her view. It was a rather large apartment complete with a reasonably sized kitchen that fed into a dining room, a majestically quaint master bedroom, a guest bedroom and a covered balcony where she maintained the small flower garden she had brought over with her from PonyVille. In addition, she also had a wonderful view overlooking Center Park, the two-and-a-half mile long public park that sat on the upper East side of Manehattan. It was always an eye-catching sight with the green nature walk contrasting so starkly against the urban sprawl around it but it was a pleasant break in the skyscrapers. Had she a telescope and the nosy mentality to use it, she had the perfect vantage point to crowd watch those meandering about the park.

Once the door was shut and the bolt locked she set her purse and my gun onto the kitchen counter and sighed, “I hate having to live with the idea that you could die at any moment out there...it’s the worst feeling a mother could possibly have to endure in this world with giving birth itself in close second.”

“I’m sorry mom…” I said timidly, feeling now, more than ever, the weight of her concern over me and my wellbeing.

“I know you are…” She sighed, looking at me with a face lightly wrinkled with age. “And I know it was your choice to join the Army and it was your choice to put your life on the line for your country. The day you got your cutie mark when you were up there with grandpa Sonnet...I knew you weren’t going to settle for the simple life of a dentist. And you know I've always had your back in this mess.”

She motioned for me to sit down at the counter and I took a seat without even thinking of arguing. My shoulders still ached from my fight earlier and standing only made it worse by putting weight on the abused area. While I sat she dug into her fridge and pulled out a bottle of white wine, her personal favorite and the thing I knew got her through my high school years. Not that I was enough of a problem to push her to alcoholism like some other foals my age but certainly more than enough to make the occasional stiff drink a worthy reward for particularly shitty days of teen angst.

“I loved it though mom.” I said as she poured herself a modest glass as well as one for me which was surprising to say the least. “I don’t regret the life I lived growing up with you.”

“I know that too, dork.” She said with a small smile, leaning against the granite countertop and taking a sip from her glass. “But...that didn’t stop you from getting into every fight you could possibly find, could it?”

I blushed slightly and she took another sip with a smirking smile.

“You encouraged me though so don’t put all that on me.” I said, gripping my glass and bringing it to my nose, the sickly sweet aroma of fermented grapes tickling my nose in a slightly unpleasant way.

"Oh shut up, you know full well you were a little stinker of a young mare to raise. With or without my prodding to stand up for yourself more, you made plenty of dumb decisions when you were younger."

“You’re the one who decked what’s-her-bucket’s dad remember? Not me. You aren't without fault either here.”

She laughed heartily and nodded her head knowing full well what she did.

“True...he went down like a total pansy after one punch. You’d think the guy was made of glass by the way he crumbled. I’ve met molars with late-stage caries with more spine than him.”

Just like sex slipped its way into my analogies, dentistry terms slipped into hers. It was a family trait that everyone seemed to have and a great way to figure out what was the most on ponies’ minds if you paid attention to us during reunions. Whenever we got around to having another one that is...

She finished her glass after a few more sips and poured herself another while the seconds turned to minutes between us. There was still a tension in the air, punctuated by the gleaming hunk of metal sitting beside me.

“How’s Huckleberry?” She asked, glancing towards me with her royal blue eyes.

“You know, same old Hucks as she’s ever been.” I laughed softly, finally swallowing my distaste and swallowing a sip of the wine in my glass trying not to gag on the less than pleasant taste. Obviously my poker face failed me on this ocassion.

“Oh right, I forgot!” She laughed reaching for my glass after noticing my grimace. “You don’t do wine.”

“Yeah...I just can’t get over the flavor to be honest.” I replied letting the glass go. “I love white grape juice to death but that...just tastes rotten. Can't ever understand what makes anyone wanna go on extended tours just to drink the stuff. The charcuterie boards are great and all but how in the fuck do you people like the taste of that shit? ”

“Well it’s fermented grapes, what did you expect?” She laughed, downing my glass in one gulp with surprising ease. “Maybe something stronger then? That way you don’t need as much eh?”

“Are you trying to get me drunk or something?” I asked her as she turned and started digging through a high cabinet for something, my face flushing red as I caught sight of her pleasantly plump flanks and the thoughts of several nights ago flooding into my head.

“Mayyybe.” She giggled evilly, pulling down several bottles of various hard liquors that I didn’t know she own. "I mean, for Celestia's sake its been two years since I've seen my little girl! Why not? We’ve only got this one life and what’s better than a little family fun and togetherness to kick the weekend off right?”

“Most consider family fun to not include alcohol…” I said as she pulled a pair of shot glasses out from her glassware cabinet and set them on the counter between us, my earlier blush gone in light of these new events. "Unless you're talking parties for just the adults which can get all sorts of crazy."

“Well thankfully we don't have your Uncle Fletcher here to down a bottle of vodka and then start some drunk karaoke..." She mused, putting a hoof to her chin as she looked between the various bottles as if deciding which would fuck us up collectively the fastest. “Hmmm...I always thought of you as a rum kind of mare. You always loved molasses things as a filly.”

“Really…?” I asked, wondering how the yo ho ho and a bottle of rum ideology fit in with my more aggressive lifestyle. “You think of me as the beach bum type? Just because I'm in the Badlands doesn't make me a fan of the sand and sun.”

“What, you think you’re a vodka kind of girl?” She asked, raising a bottle of the clear fluid out from the group and looking it over. “Or maybe tequila...that will get you drunk faster than you can say ‘another round’. If you've got the stomach for it straight, doesn't work for everypony that's for sure.”

This was a side of mom I had never really seen before. I knew she drank wine and didn’t mind it at all since she never got really drunk nor let it affect her daily life. It was like she had lost thirty years and was back in college before she matured enough to make it into dental school. After another moment of thought she pulled out a box from the pantry and put six more shot glasses on the counter, one for each bottle.

“Well we've got all night! Let’s find your big girl drink.” She giggled, pouring all seven bottles at once with a professionalism that surprised me. Someone hadn't forgotten her past, that's for sure.

“What’s gotten into you, mom?” I asked as she put the first glass in my hoof, this one a dark brown liquid I could only assume was some kind of whiskey judging by the color. Either that or a very orange-ish brown stout that somehow snuck into her booze cabinet with the big boys.

“The real question is, what’s gonna get into you?” She laughed, whipping her head back and downing her shot in one go. “Damn, that one burns every time.”

I smelled it and was immediately slapped, punched and mauled in the face with the smell of cinnamon while she stuck her tongue out and wiggled it in the air as if trying to air it out. I liked cinnamon in small quantities when it came to deserts or those cutsie little wax burners they sold at mom stores but this was a full on face-fuck of all the senses but touch and sound. A 3/5 was still more than enough here though.

“What in the fucking sweet ass hell is this?” I asked, trying not to cough as my eyes watered from the cinnamon assault I was sorely losing against.

“Firestorm!” She laughed, poking my glass closer to my mouth. “Classic college-girl shot! Common, it goes down best if you just get it down in one go. And try not to spit it out, that’s a noobie move, freshmare.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about mom’s glorious return to her college days but...nopony I knew was around and I trusted her with my life. For the first time in my life I felt myself shoving my anti-alcohol label in the closet to join labels like 'heterosexual' and 'normal' and tipped the glass into my mouth. The shit was like RadAway but with an extra hefty punch of cinnamon thrown in for good measure and I struggled to get it down my throat worse than my first time swallowing cum that didn't come from a mare. Least jizz had something close to flavor but this...this was something not fit for Equine consumption at all. Why the fuck did I agree to this shit?

And yet, as I sat there wiping the tears from my eyes and gasping for air while mom cheered me on and poured us each another shot, I felt proud of myself and it sat better in my stomach than it had in my mouth. After a minute it felt like Hearth’s Warming Eve in my mouth and I found myself more eagerly taking the second shot offered me. Slapping back shots was Penny and Buck's territory but it was strangely comfortable shooting them back-to-back with her and seeing how inexperienced I was compared to her. I was connecting with my mom at a level only adults could and it was kinda weird...but I liked it a lot more than I expected. She was relaxed, talkative, expressive and just exuded a youthful air that was just as intoxicating to be around as the liquor in our guts.

After the sixth or seventh shot, things kind of became a blur. Or was it after I nearly spit out the vodka? Either way all I knew was that I was fucking hammered. The world glowed softly with a warming light and my body seemed to glow in much the same way with it like I were one with the universe. Words left my mouth that I didn’t remember saying and mom was like a beacon of light as we laughed over incoherent jokes, the ones I could remember being really raunchy. One moment I was drunk, taking shots with my mom and then next thing I knew I was laying in bed with her holding her head as she yammered away about the first or sixth time she had sex. The night was a radical departure from the day's earlier events.

“He was well hung…” She giggled softly, patting me on the leg with her hoof while her tail flicked all over the place like a possessed marionette. “Guy was like eighteen inches or something and I was tellin’ Rose Luck like, ‘Yeah I can totally fit all that in me!’ and she was all, ‘Bitch, what?’ and then boom, next minute he was all up in me balls deep. The look on her face when I sent her those pictures! Ha! I thought she was gonna die or something.”

I patted her head and nodded in warm contentment thinking about Huckleberry and her wonderful ass. I was comfy...so goddamn comfy and warm and fuzzy... We could say anything it felt like.

“I wasn’t in heat thank Celestia...could you imagine?” She asked with a laugh, looking up at me drooling slightly. “Your daddy could have been old Creamy Canary! Fuck...maybe things would’ve gone better…”

She went quiet for what could have been an hour before she slowly sat up and looked me in the eyes.

“I’m proud of you…” She mumbled though her voice was light and slightly passionate. “I’m so fucking proud of you...my little girl...all grown up and being a big old soldier mare…”

I smiled lazily and put my hooves on her cheeks feeling how soft and squishy they were, my daydreams about Huckleberry fading away to the beautiful mare in front of me. The one that had given me the life I had...the one who had given up so much so I could be happy. She was just magnificent...

“I love you too mom…” I said softly, not even realizing I had been leaning forward until our lips connected.

She started softly as our lips pressed together but didn’t pull away and after a brief moment she pressed back into me, moaning softly before pulling away and pushing my head back against the pillows. She climbed onto me, her hooves gentle whenever they touched me, and stared down at me with eyes brimming with tears and a large, tender smile on her aging face.

“I love you...and I always will Athena…” She sniffed softly, putting a gentle hoof to my lips that I promptly kissed and put against my heart.

Her legs gave out and she fell onto me, her thigh pressing right up against the hot arousal of my snatch that I had not even realized was there but probably had been from the moment she had started talking about sex. She gasped softly as she felt it and her eyes widened slightly as she realized what it was...but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she laughed a little and rolled her thigh against me, smirking as I couldn’t hold in the needy moans coming from my mouth.

“How long has it been since you’ve gotten laid, darling?” She asked, laying on me entirely and nibbling on my neck, tracing circles in my chest fluff with a hoof. "And I mean properly made-love to, not one of those quickies you've told me about."

“I-I don’t know…” I squeaked, hoping this wasn’t a dream and I wasn’t just imagining this as I was passed out on the floor blackout drunk.

“Too long then.” She giggled, putting another longer kiss on my mouth, the taste of mint still discernible from all the liquor on her lips. “Let mommy take care of you huh? Just this once.”

I nodded timidly, craning my neck to kiss her back and eeped in surprise as she pinned my legs down and started nipping at my neck and chest with her teeth and lips. I could smell myself in the air, the musky scent of peaches hung heavy in the air but there was something else too. A heavy scent of peppermint like a stick of gum or...like a tube of toothpaste.

She blushed softly when I pointed this out and flicked her tail towards me, the smell of mint strong in the rush of air. It didn’t need to be said where it was coming from. I had never smelled her arousal before but I always knew it couldn’t be anything else. Mares tended to taste like their respective coloring save for some exceptions like myself.

“Is it bad…?” She asked with a small, cute hiccup.

“Never.” I smiled, pulling her into a deep, passionate kiss.

I wasn’t sure whose tongue entered whose mouth first but quickly enough we were licking and slurping on each others mouths like a pair of sluts and we had instinctually begun to grind our cunts on each other’s thigh. Minutes could have been hours but all I knew was the immense pleasure coming from my pussy as she bumped and ground on me, every bit of fur seemingly covered in our mingled juices. Before I knew it she was panting like a dog in heat and had thrown my leg up in the air, hugging it against herself as she squashed our lips together and started grinding again. Her thigh had felt amazing but the hot, wet sensation of her lips and clit against mine was enough to send me over the edge almost immediately. Within a few thrusts I was biting down on my leg screaming as hot, thick cum squirted out of my snatch and against hers.

“Fuck!” She exclaimed as the blast of hot juices splashed against her and up her stomach. “When you told me you were a squirter I didn’t think you was this much of one!”

I couldn’t remember telling her that. All I knew was the glorious sensual pleasure erupting from my loins like the message of an angel. I regretted not being entirely conscious for this moment but I was too far gone to be able to care.

“Damn...Huckleberry is lucky…” She mumbled as she wiped her chest and licked her hoof. “You doing ok sweetie?”

I could only pant for air and nod, my body shaking as it basked in the afterglow of one of the best orgasms I had ever had in my life. I couldn’t remember the last time mom had had sex with someone but I was almost positive she had never been with a mare. How the hell was she this good at getting me off? Or was that just the booze loosening me up…?

“You let me know if these are too tight ok?” She asked somewhere near my head, my hooves raising up and then sagging, supported by something soft yet firm.

“Huh…?” I asked, opening my eyes to find I was tied to the bedpost with silk scarves. “Holy shit, mom!”

“What?” She asked, poking her head out of her walk-in closet, her mane now up in a cute ponytail with a blue silk bow. “Thought Hucks said you liked a little light bondage. Least that's what she told me.”

“Well...yeah but...” I said, tugging my legs against the binds but feeling strangely safe. “Um…”

“Yes?” She asked in a purring tone, walking out of her closet wearing fishnet stockings, garters and her tail in a similar bow, a thick purple dildo in her hoof. “How do I look…?”

In all my life I had never expected my mom to dress up for me like a Las Pegasus hooker but the look was...tantalizing. My vagina drooled as heavily as my mouth and she walked over to me shaking those hips of hers with no shame. I really did inherit some of her good looks...

“Take it by the look on your face I’m good enough to eat.” She giggled, climbing onto the bed with a smirk as she pulled out a black leather collar and a leash and strapped it around my neck. “Now...who’s mommy’s little kitty?”

“M-me…?” I squeaked, amazed yet insanely turned on by how much of a kinky bitch she was.

“Excuse me?” She asked, tugging on my leash and flicking her tail against my snatch the elicited a small yip of pleasure from me. “What was that?”

“M-mew?” I meowed sheepishly.

“Good kitty.” She giggled, standing up and turning around giving me an unobscured view of her dark blue pussy that was swollen and puffy with angry red flesh. Holy shit she was in heat! “Now, be a good kitty and eat that pussy like a good little girl.”

Without further ado she sat her ass down on my face and wiggled her hips until my muzzle sat between her hips and my mouth was deep in her red hot snatch. Like Silk her ribbed walls tugged and clamped down on my muzzle trying to pull me deeper into her while my mouth was flooded with hot, sticky mouthwash. I knew it was far better than mouthwash but that’s what popped into my mind as I slurped, sucked and lapped away at her pussy with reckless abandon, the buzz in my brain only adding to my abandon. Meanwhile she cooed and moaned above me, humping my face like her life depended on it until I couldn’t take it anymore and started nipping at her insides as well, a motion that turned her moans to soft screams laiden with more profanity than I had ever heard her say in my life.

“A-Athena! I’m g-gonnaaaaahhh!!!” She screamed, her folds spasming and clamping down hard in a most familiar way before a heavy squirt of minty cum exploded in my face, drenching my face and mane and splattering the pillow and headboard behind me.

She bucked and ground as she continued to cum, the flow of juices slowing to a dribble before she went almost limp and flopped off my face, her body gleaming with sweat and cum. I swallowed what I could, my tongue and mouth sore from eating her out so furiously but it was more than worth it for the meal I had been so privileged to enjoy. I tugged weakly against my binds wishing I could rub her juices all over the rest of my body, to feel this new kind of motherly love all over me. All I could taste was her sweetness and all I could breathe was her musk. Everything was mint. Everything was lovely. Just like the mare who nuzzled her way into my chest with all the tender love and affection that only a mother could exude.

“H-have fun…?” She asked sweetly, licking my sodden fur with heavy licks like a momma cat grooming her kitten.

I nodded and started to untie my bonds so I could hug her close to me but she tugged on my collar and flicked my horn shaking her hoof like I was a naughty filly.

“Ah ah ah!” She chided as if she had caught me sneaking into the cookie jar. “Kitty still has some work to do for mommy. Consider it back payment for all those years I wiped your little filly ass.”

I looked at her with hazy eyes only to notice she was rubbing the dildo from earlier in her juices before lowering it past my needy fuckhole to my asshole. I looked at her with wide eyes and opened my mouth to protest, to ask her to at least loosen me up before shoving that thing up my ass but she took the chance and stuck a third scarf into my mouth, wrapping it around my head and tying it with a little bow.

“Ah ah… it's time for your check up.” She giggled, wiggling the slick head against me. “This won’t hurt a bit darling.”

The biggest lie she and every other dentist told their patient just before the drilling began. I was quite literally and figuratively fucked.

****************

Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Cypher to Find a Merchant

“W-where exactly a-are we going?” Gold asked as he fought for control over the canvas duster that was far too long for his short body but refused to take off.

“I told you guys already, we’re headed for Shady Sands!” I replied, stopping and turning around to help him before he ended up tripping on the hems and breaking his neck. “That’s where Amaris said he was headed and since he hasn’t come back yet, we’re going on after him.”

“But w-why?” He asked again as I flipped through the inventory on my PipBuck and used its connection with the Deep Pocket spell to bring my sewing kit to the top of my saddlebags so I wouldn’t have to dig for it. “T-that’s NER territory you s-said.”

“Yeah, I thought you said they were the bad guys.” Melody said as she checked the bolt on her rifle for the third time, a cute habit she seemed to have started to adopt after watching me do the same with my own weapon. “They take taxes and grab land and all that stuff you talked about. They don't sound like friendly ponies to me.”

“Well, they’re greedy bastards sure but they’re not evil.” I said, doing a rough tailoring job on his coat so the sleeves at least fit on his forelegs and the coattails didn’t drag behind him like a wedding train. “Despite their shady economic and political tactics, these days they’re still doing good stuff here in the West. They protect the Northern caravans, established trade routes throughout the Western settlements and established a unified rule-of-law out here that their citizens are expected to follow. It’s the closest thing the Wastes has in terms of modern civilization like what we had in the old days. They’ve got laws, a relatively stable if partly corrupted government and a standing army keeping an eye over their citizens and territory. All-in-all, they've done more for the Wasteland than most ever do. NER lands are some of the safest in the country and I don't have to tell either of you how rare that sorta thing is these days.”

“Oh...well that does sounds nice.” Melody commented in a thoughtful tone while helping me with a particularly hard stitch on his right sleeve, her red violet magic nimbly manipulating the sewing needle with finesse. “So...should we be worried or feel safe heading into their territory? From what you've said, I don't have an idea what to think about these guys.”

“A mixture of safe and maybe a tad worried, but leaning much more towards the safe side. They've got more bark than bite these days since they've 'domesticated' two-thirds of the West and have far few Raider gangs roaming about. When we reach the first toll station let me do the talking alright? Anypony whose been in their military for more than a year should be able to recognize me. That'll help speed shit along.”

“Is that a g-good thing…?” Gold asked, happily running around a bit to test the rough stitching and finding the new fit was much better than the old one.

“Eh...again, a mixture.” I replied, brushing the sandy dirt from Melody’s coat before continuing forward through the hot desert expanse, a drab tan building visible in the hazy distance. “They know I’m not a direct threat but they also know I’m a walking arsenal that can obliterate Squads at 1,600 meters without ever being seen. They don't bother me, I don't shoot at them; couldn't ask for a better arrangement if you ask me, especially after I decked the last three recruiters from their Ranger Veterans. Just because I dress like them and shoot like them doesn't automatically mean I want to be a part of their little club...if anything, they're copying me.”

"Oh? What do you mean?" Melody asked as she glanced at my gear. "Do they have armor like this too?"

"What, the Mrk. IV? Phbbbt...not in a million years." I laughed with a smirk of pride. "No, my stuff is two steps down the R-series tech tree hun. They wear a similar style to mine but with a lot fewer bells and whistles called the Mrk. II. So think what Gold has on now but with a Kevyarn duster and some armor for the legs and hooves. Good protection from small-arms fire and works decently against your average rifle rounds long as you hit the ballistic impact plates."

"Y-you ever get Hitmare w-work out in the R-Republic?"

"Eh, not usually. They really only like to hire a select few in the Syndicate to do their dirty work thanks to some sort of prior tie with the Republic, usually a military connection. Least three of the Gung-ho Guns are former NER 1st Recon snipers and Jasper Brooch is a former Major in their army who just graduated to Hitmare status a few years ago. Only been in the Republic on a Contract a dozen times or so, all thanks to Green's connections up North who had business with me and certain undesirable business partners of theirs. Had to be as discrete as possible since a few of them were in government."

“W-why be discreet t-though?” Gold asked, admiring the polished grip of his Sequoia before putting his helmet back on. “Why not bang b-bang everything? S-send a message!”

“Really…?” I asked him with a sigh as it seemed he hadn’t learned anything. “Because dumbass, if I shoot everything then I go from being a well-armed traveler free to move about relatively unmolested to a known political assassin working for a cartel. If that happens, then I can’t walk openly in NER territory for any reason whether commercial or professional. Considering they firmly control all the territory North of New Pegasus this side of Canterlot all the way up to the Crystal Mountains, that’s like fifty-thousand square miles of land I can’t walk through. Not without a lot of stress.”

“O-oh…” He whimpered. “R-right…”

“If you choose to travel with me, you have to think less like a typical soldier and more like a Hitmare.” I laughed, smacking him on the rump making him eep with embarrassment. “Take as few shots as possible, leave as small of a hoofprint as you can and always be aware of where you are and who you’re with. Make a few friends you can trust to keep you informed and supplied, only make enemies out of people you can kill and always think about your public image. If you’re gonna be known for something, be known for being fair and having some measure of culture. Keeps most off your ass or in fear and the rest can be...persuaded. It’s a juggling act for sure but it pays off, especially when you play the long-game. Building up favors and saving them for a rainy day as we've seen can come in handy at a moment of crisis.”

“But...I thought you were leaving that behind?” Melody asked, the toll building coming clearer into view as we got closer. “You said you were mom…”

It was a little strange to be called that finally out loud in such a clandestine way. Had I been less prepared for it and not half-focused on the road it might have made me stop for a second to comprehend how...alluring the word was.

“I know...I know I did. I'm...not sure yet on that hun. It's been my way of life for the last century and a half and I don't know how to live otherwise anymore. I can promise you though that I will only take jobs if we need the money in the future and I will teach you both everything I can about how to stay on top of the competition out here. With Green most definitely sending a lot of firepower our way, we have to be as viscous and deadly as we can be to ward them off.”

“Yeah, I guess you have a point.” She sighed, looking ahead with a slightly anxious expression as we neared the toll booth. "I just...I don't want to fight. I just want to have a nice bedroom and lay down with you and just...forget about shit."

"Well...something like that is gonna take time and work to come about. We've got to find a place first after all and that's gonna take some time. In the meantime, we can go and find Scaly and get Gold's coat all made and I can ask him if he knows of anything around the area that might work. He likes to wander the desert a lot more than I do so it's possible he knows of a nice quiet place for us out there. Now, we're almost there so let's quiet down so I can get us through here."

The toll station was less of a set of booths lightly guarding the E-90 and more of a small, walled military camp with sliding steel gates blocking entrance further North. Within the octagonal shaped walls were a collection of small shacks surrounding a set of adobe brick buildings built on either side of the road which housed the toll booth, main office and barracks for a portion of their Southern garrison. Outside, on either side of the well-defended gates, were large fenced pastures for the multitudes of pack Brahmin waiting alongside their handlers for the red tape to unravel inside the office. Standing atop the sandbag-and-adobe walls as well as in a set of eight watch towers were armed ponies wearing the tan/brown uniforms of the NER, each carrying a scoped M14 or M1A1 in modest repair. It was not the kind of place to try and fuck with without either a lot of soldiers or a lot of long-range ordinance. Preferably both.

"Halt!" Commanded the stallion closest to us as we approached the Southern gate, his voice barely audible over the noise of the Brahmin pens nearby. "State your business here, strangers."

"I'm hired muscle for a caravan that came through here about a week ago. Was held back at the offices due to some payment issues with the company that hired me so now I'm just headed North to join up for the trip South." I replied without even missing a beat. "NER territory, sure but you know how these companies are with their insurance deposits."

"That so? You're the second one who's come by today with a similar story. Guess the fucker just got tired of waiting for ya two eh?" He replied, looking at his compatriot nearby nervously. "I know that armor...I've heard stories about you, Ranger."

"Oh really? Well then you know I'm not a bitch to keep held up longer than needed. Lemme in already, damnit."

He nodded and yelled up to his buddies on the wall to raise the gate. Two pairs of the wall guards approached the posts holding up the gate and bit onto a set of ropes connected by a pully system, tugging them back in unison and lifting the heavy steel door out of the way. Melody and Gold both kept mostly quiet as we passed but seemed enthralled with the gate mechanism and the quasi-shanty town that housed the caravanners as they awaited approval to continue. It had been interesting to internally document the place's evolution over the years as the NER grew in size and importance drawing in merchants a plenty. The Republic was ever more ripe for the markets as time went on and small scale industrial manufacturing had already begun to churn out patented NER products. Regardless of their problems, it could never be said that they were a bad thing for the Wasteland and were the closest thing to civilized society in the Wastes. At the end of the day, they had inherited all the problems that came with governing, protecting and developing a nation and were facing them with enough goodwill in their hearts to not be villainized like the Steel Rangers had. They protected their own even if they exploited them and their military brought peaceful nights of rest to hundreds of thousands. Far from terrible.

“Did they build these themselves or were these already here?” Melody asked, glancing at the office building as we neared the door from veering off the road.

"Nah, Pre-War shit is concrete, steel and drywall. The NER had to rediscover the magic of making bricks from sundried mud. Not quite clay like the old days but its just as good for building long as you don't build too high or expect to be shot at." I replied, tapping the side of the main office building as we walked parallel to it towards the front door.

“Don’t touch the building civilian!” Barked one of the guards up above, his eyes flashing dangerously from behind his goggles that protected them from the sand.

“Oh like my little poke is gonna bring the whole thing tumbling down?” I yelled back, pushing the door open and stepping inside the somewhat well-presented office.

It was a modestly large room divided in half widthwise by a high brick wall that separated the workers from the travelers. Lining the wall were booths with barred windows behind which a few stallions and a couple of mares sat dully going through the travel documents and merchant papers of the ponies in front of them. Several others were already waiting in line behind them looking dusty, dehydrated and pissed off they had to stand there or risk their place in line. There were chairs provided for any who walked in but to do so was as good as saying, 'Yeah no, I'm totally not in line.' It was like the Department of Vehicles, the most boring place on earth, had risen from the ashes as bland and slow-paced as ever before. There were many things about the old world that never really seemed to change even with time.

The doldrum of the office though was quickly undercut from the angry yelling of a well-armored mare who stood before one of the stallions in the booth. Needless to say he looked back at her with the look of a guy annoyed and on the edge of an angry outburst. If it got any louder, the guards would be called in and this whole process was about to take a hell of a lot longer than it needed to.

“What do you mean you can’t help me?! I’ve been working on this investigation for days and I don’t intend on stopping now because you refuse to spare information about where this guy went!”

I moved closer, trying not to cut in line as the merchants were sure to throw a fit if I usurped their place in line that they had probably been standing in for an ungodly amount of time. She was a cobalt blue mare with a curving black mane that had a single large streak of lilac running through it that nestled over a charcoal grey duster similar to mine; the only thing it was really missing was length in the tails and the reinforced shoulders, back and forearms. Strapped on over and beneath her duster was a lovely black painted M-CAT Model 4, a modular platform that unlike the Model 3s was not an all-in-one suit of Kevyarn and plate ceramics and could be worn with other clothing for similar levels of protection. Around her waist was a large set of saddlebags with an integrated holster for a Rimmingson pump-action shotgun and, in one of the most bizarre choices for a weapon I had ever seen, a large power drill sat in a custom holster on her back left leg. It was clearly industrial-grade by its yellow and black color and lacked a power cord rather using a Spark-Pack plugged into a slot on the side of the housing for power. Several black smoke grenades dangled from her saddlebags like military-themed talismans and a large black and lilac tail protruded from under her coat curling gently behind her. She was no Hitmare I had ever met but she certainly had the air of one about her. Maybe one of the Gung-ho Guns?

“I told you before, Ma’am…” The stallion sighed, pushing some papers back towards her with a bit of sass in both his tone and actions. “I can’t just give out info on the ponies who pass through here willy-nilly to the first mare who comes up asking for it. If I did that then I’d lose my job and I worked my ass off to get here.”

“He is one of your main sources of income! He has your paycheck for fuck’s sake! I don’t mean him any harm, I just need to fucking find him ASAP so I can fulfill my fucking contract with his caravan.” She almost snarled at him, jabbing the papers he had given back to her right in his face with her violet magic which he simply bat away with a hoof like it were a nagging fly.

“Get out of line would ya? There’s people here who actually have business to do with me, Mercenary.” He sneered, looking over her towards the next pony in line. “Next!”

“Fine, you’ll be looking for a new job once your paycheck gradually loses its value in the open market asshole…” She growled, yanking her papers back and stuffing them in her bags before stomping away looking murderous.

So she was the one the guy at the gate had mentioned earlier. It was an odd coincidence that we both arrived here looking for missing merchants, something that was rather rare in such protected territory. Was a longshot that we were looking for the same guy but...it was worth a shot to at least ask her if our missing merchant happened to be the same pony. At the very least, I was interested in maybe complimenting her on her choice in gear and style. (Even if the power drill was...not my first choice for a close-quarters weapon.)

“Hey, you looking for a merchant too?” I asked holding up a hoof to stop her as she got closer, a distinct if subtle bulge under her left armpit cueing me in that she had something in a shoulder holster hidden under her duster. As a Unicorn she would undoubtedly be twitchy on the telekinetic quick-draw...she was smart and knew this business well, that much was obvious.

“Unless it’s about Dragons, then no.” She replied with an irritated sigh, looking over her shoulder towards the stallion with disgust.

“Actually we are looking for a Dragon merchant.” I replied, my luck pulling us through yet another hoop on the road to victory. “Is his name Scaly Fang? There isn’t many Dragon merchants in Equestria.”

“Mhm, but I’m more concerned about what you want with him.” She said pointedly, jabbing a hoof at me and by extension Melody and Gold who stood slightly behind me in silence.

“Well if you can’t tell by the shitty tailoring job I’ve done on his coat, Gold here needs a good leather duster to match his old Ranger armor we've been refurbishing for him. Scaly has the best selection of products because he actually knows how to treat the leather so it self-repairs. Saves you a lot of money in the long term let me tell you.” I said with a short laugh to try and ease the tension, holding up the sleeve of my duster showing off the untorn leather that wasn’t covered by a bracer or pauldron. "That, and he's a friend of mine of sixty-plus years so I'd say I have a right to be worried about his wellbeing since he left a week ago and hasn't come back on time. We need his services for a multitude of products."

“Then I suppose I can stop for a moment… what do you want to know? The investigation hasn’t progressed much past from what my Bounty provided me, and ponies either refuse or don’t know what happened.” She grumbled, pulling out the papers from earlier out of her bags and floating them over to me.

I knew from the red-inked stamp of an eye that this was a legit Bounty signed off on by the Syndicate which was a bonus as packages like this tended to have all available intel on the target. A quick glance over the cover page allayed my fears that she was out here for a Dead-or-Alive job but was just as vested in the survival of the target. Inside the intel packet was the name, general description and last confirmed position of Scaly with the stipulation that the 600-cap Bounty would only be paid upon confirmation of his safe return to New Pegasus. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t give the name of the person who posted the Bounty but it included a rough map of the area. Map print-outs like these were ours to do with as we wished and I observed hers was heavily marked with a red line going back and forth across the greater New Pegasus area. This girl had been on this guy’s trail for days now it seemed and covered everything South of the toll station with much of NER territory currently unchecked. Couldn't be said she hadn't put a lot of work in already so she could prove a short-term ally as long as our interests coincided. Didn't seem all that friendly however...

“Hmmm…” I hummed, looking over her map though noticing she was staring intensely at my helmet as if trying to figure out how big of a bullet she needed to bust her way into my skull. “Last I heard from some fellow merchants who work nearby him, he was headed to Shady Sands with a shipment of leather and in particular some black hides he was proud of. Looks like you’ve been from here to New Pegasus to Appleloosa and back again. If we'd bumped into each other sooner I might have saved ya a lot of walking.”

“Well good for you; my guess? Idiot’s already dead along with his whole caravan. But...if I want to get paid, I’d need to at least get his stupid head or something of his as evidence. They want him alive at all costs but if he's dead, he's fucking dead. No point in wasting my time or they'd have the Syndicate's Shadow Brokers hounding their nightmares.” She said matter-of-factly, taking back her papers and sighing. “Why couldn’t he have just traveled in a straight fucking line?”

“Well, far as I know he did. The E-90 is a long ass road so there's a lot of ground to cover assuming he stuck just to the asphalt. If he went off road well...that'll be a whole other ballgame and we can cross that bridge when we get to it. We should get going then before we lose any more daylight...it’s only a day’s trot to Shady Sands from here if we keep the pace.”

"We?" She asked shortly, looking incredulously at the ground.

"Well if you wanna join our group then go right ahead." I replied, looking between her and the door out. "Only makes sense since we have the same end goal in mind. In the event we come across Raiders or something, it's always best to have numbers and equipment of which I have both."

She looked at me with a pretty pair of cyan eyes that bespoke years of hardship and grim experience and said, “Fucking hate working in teams... But...you’re my best bet of getting paid. That being said, it's still unlikely I get the full price for this guy anyway. Fine...let’s go.”

We left the office behind and swung around to the toll booth on the left side of the road, the Griffin running the booth waving a lazy talon our direction. I wasn’t used to seeing Griffins in the ranks of the NER but it wasn’t entirely out of the question as good soldiers were always needed, no matter what their genetics dictated they were. Contrary to popular belief, not every Griffin was part of the Talons like so many people assumed. There were actually a scattered selection of small cloud and land based Griffin communities throughout the Wasteland who continued to call Equestria home even though Griffinstone was not impossibly far away. That being said, it was incredibly rare to be allowed into one of these communities as their anti-outsider mentality all Griffins were known for had yet to die out even today. Unless you spoke like them, fought like them and acted as tough and haughty as them, they wouldn’t consider you tough enough to set hoof in their nests or join their groups. To see a pony in the armor of the Talons was a pony to be feared because if a predator species sees them as an equal, they will be merciless and cruel.

“Four of ya?” He said in a bored tone, a pair of sunglasses hiding his eyes from view. “Alright, twenty-five caps per. Let's not take too long, alright? I've got shit to do here.”

“Alright, I’ll pay for all of us then.” I said, pulling out a bag of bits and starting the tedious process of counting out one-hundred individual caps. "Gimmie just a sec and we'll be outta your feathers."

The unnamed Merc looked at me with curiosity but didn’t oppose my generosity and silently observed as I dropped a bag of 100 into the open bottom of his booth window. Seeing me count them out in real-time, he didn't even bother to drop the contents onto the table and double check for himself; rather he glanced over the four of us, jotted down a quick entry in the log and waved to the next gate up to open. We began to move followed slightly from behind by the Merc as the gate was raised similar to the first and the way towards Shady Sands was opened up to us. Gold and Melody had already begun talking about what they wanted to do once we got there despite knowing anything about it while the Merc remained in silence. Not wanting to ruin their aspirations and conversation, I hung back and trotted beside her hoping to get a friendly conversation to pass the time. I didn't expect much but...if my reputation still had meaning, odds are I could get her talking about something we could relate on. Didn't have to be anything grand but anything was something against the long, boring walk ahead of us.

“Hey there.” I said in an upbeat tone, my voice sounding a bit less than happy through the mic. “So...what’s your name? Don’t think I got it before now and I kinda like knowing who I'm gonna be drawing weapons with.”

“Cypher.” She said shortly, not looking towards me but keeping her eyes focused on the road ahead. I could already tell that this conversation was going to go absolutely nowhere and I'd be left alone with my thoughts again.

“Cypher? That’s a pretty sweet name.” I said continuing my efforts to goad her into talking more. “You work with computers then or something? Not a common name these days so you've gotta have some experience with tech.”

“I go diving into Pre-War facilities all the time, yes.” She said in the same stony tone as before. "What's it to you?"

“Oh? Sweet.” I laughed with a bit of relief, happy to have found something we shared at least a bit in common. “I do too every now and again. Stables are a personal favorite not gonna lie, but they’re hard to find and usually impossible to open. StableTec knew how to make damn good doors, that's for sure.”

“You seriously have a favorite death wish?” She asked me incredulously, finally looking towards me as if I were suicidal, crazy or both.

“Eh, they’re not that dangerous.” I replied, shrugging my shoulders as best I could while walking. “Not as dangerous as say poking your head around downtown Manehattan or going anywhere near Stalliongrad. Then again, they could have gotten a bit better over the last couple decades since I've been out East. Doubt it, but still...”

“I’d rather stay clear of Pre-War places. It’s just too dangerous more often than not. But, sometimes my job requires me to do so and at that point, I have no choice.” She sighed, looking back ahead and blinking slowly as if trying to ward off sleep. "It is a crowded market for Mercs in this region, I can't afford to be picky about which Bounties I take."

“Yeah, you do have a point.” I laughed trying to keep the mood light and break the ice a bit between us. “But you can’t deny anything Pre-War is a blast when you’re feeling particularly dangerous right? I mean, they’ve got the best shit and the best fights save for Raider dens and all that bullshit in Filly. Can net yourself a healthy sum of caps from just the loot alone sometimes. Made more money on some Contracts selling the shit I found than from neutralizing the target.”

“Yeah… unless that ‘best shit’ is hidden behind a still functional StableTec turret defense system.” She mumbled. “Gods, do you ever shut up? Is this what you Hitmares really do all day?”

I snorted a bit in both amusement and annoyance. Being deep enough in the Syndicate's ranks to get official notary from them would explain why she knew me on sight. However as a Merc, I outranked her by two full degrees and if she acted like this around one of the Syndicate bars around New Pegasus, she would have gotten bitchslapped for insulting her superior. Though I had to admit it was nice to be recognized by someone in the network and not have to immediately be on the look out for their betrayal. If she was rubber-stamped for this mission by the Syndicate, it was her only open job as they didn't allow for more than one job per operative to keep some for the less experienced.

“Ever since those two came into my life?” I asked rhetorically, gesturing to the two foals having a laugh over a billboard of Pinkie Pie and her piercing gaze watching on forever. “Nope. I forgot how nice it is to have somepony to talk to when you’re on a long trip. Really passes the time better than the radio does. Two-hundred years of the same fucking music gets old real quick and I take silence over those tired old tracks any time.”

“Mhm. Still, are you gonna explain to me why the foals are in front of us and not the opposite?”

I gestured to the open desert plains surrounding us with a few rolling bluffs and cacti to break up the monotonous horizon. There was nothing to be seen for miles around, even with my visor's optics and E.F.S pumped to their max. Aside from any soldier patrols and fellow travelers on the roadway, we were entirely alone and I was ok with their shorter legs setting the pace for the group.

“We’re in NER territory, we’re taller and any threats are gonna come from either the front where we can see them or from behind. If they were behind us then we wouldn’t be able to defend them in time. Besides, you’re wearing the M-CAT Model-4b for crying out loud! That model was designed for quick-twitch movements.” I said, slapping her on the back which clunked loudly as my hoof hit the thick armored backplate that was hidden under her duster. “We’re in the best possible location to ensure their protection. Long as we both keep our heads on a swivel.”

“Humph, you make a good point.” She sighed, looking over her shoulder at the road behind us. “Let’s hope we switch out quickly when the terrain changes.”

“Have you even been this far North…?” I asked her seriously. “It’s nothing but this shit until you hit the lowlands leading up to the Crystal Mountains where the grass and trees still have color.”

“Hell no, I’m not even from here and I fucking hate the desert.”

“So where ya from then, Cy?” I asked, using a nickname version of her name to test the waters of our new relationship.

“You did not just call me that.” She growled, glaring at me with an angry snarl.

“So what if I did? What you gonna do about it?”

“We are not close enough for you to say that.” She sighed with a heavy dose of venom in her voice.

“Suit yourself.” I said as I rolled my eyes. "I'm a fuckin' hoot to be around."

“Whatever you say...”

We fell into silence after that, my opinion of her more than a little rocky as I wanted to get to know her better but I also wanted to punch her in the gut for being a bitch. I at least was being friendly and engaging trying to show we weren’t enemies but she wasn’t taking the bait. Most in the business tended to be this way which was part of the reason I didn't make friends with my colleagues. Most either drank, smoked or dosed up too much for my comfort level and the rest either died too early in the game or were just outright psychopaths.

The miles stretched out endlessly as we slowly made our way down the thirty-miles of road leading towards Shady Sands. Gold had to stop more than once to rest his legs and steal ever greater gulps of lemonade from my canteen until it was entirely empty and I had to fill it up again using his own water that he had packed for the trip. Melody was proving surprisingly athletic for her build and only had to pause to rest a third of the amount of times Gold begged for a break. Cypher however never said another word; stopping with us when we stopped but never once asking for a break of her own accord. As if to add another layer of ‘fuck off’ to her stony silence, she had pulled a grey gasmask from her saddlebags and onto her face effectively hiding from sight. I had to wonder what exactly she used it for given it would be ineffective in a RadZone and a simple bandana tied over the muzzle was sufficient for a trip through the desert.

Thanks to Gold, by the time the sun was waning in the sky turning everything a golden amber color, we were still ten-miles outside Shady Sands and it was quickly getting dark. Even though we were in NER territory, I didn’t trust the area enough to risk a midnight journey and I didn’t think Gold nor Melody were up for a full night’s march. Cy was another question but I was willing to bet she would’ve been fine to continue on till we hit the city and found a place to stay. Had I traveled alone, that very well would have been the case for me as well as thirty-miles in a day was an extended trot for me.

“Alright, looks like it's another night of camping in the open everypony.” I said with a strained sigh as I sat down and stretched out; Gold melodramatically sprawled out on his back on the asphalt and panting like a dog. “Take your time to rest up because we gotta find a place to stay for the night that’s at least easily defendable.”

“Is that really necessary?” Cy asked with a voice muffled by her mask. “It’s just ten-miles.”

“You’re not a Ghoul colt who’s eternally out of shape…” I sighed, helping Gold to his hooves and giving him my canteen again. “You really need to get your own one of these damn things, you know?”

He pulled off his helmet once again, his face pouring sweat despite the temperature-controlled interior of the helmet and Cy seemed to finally take notice that he was a Ghoul. Every time we had stopped previously she always chose to stand ahead of us staring off into the desert waiting for us to finish up and get going again. About as detached as could be.

“I…take that back.” She said quietly, turning away to change the subject and squint into the darkening Wasteland. “I can’t see much of anything in this light…if we choose to make camp off the beaten path, we will be wandering blind.”

“Well thankfully I can see in this light so give me a sec. Keep an eye on them, I'll go put my NVF to good use.” I said, standing up and walking off to the crest of one of the bluffs on the side of the road, the world brightening up with a soft red light as I turned on my low-light optics with a flick of my thoughts.

The area surrounding us was completely barren. Nothing but hills, cacti, some scattered sagebrush and roving tumbleweeds. The distant glow of New Pegasus could still be seen behind us though not nearly close enough to make out the distant form of the Lucky 28. So far, the only option I could see was an isolated hilltop not too far off that had a relatively unobscured view of the surrounding area. At the very least we could see the world around us and only one of us would have to stand guard to be effective. Especially when it was my turn to take a watch.

“Alright, there’s a little hill like a quarter mile that way.” I said, gesturing my hoof in the general direction of the hill. “Should be easy to get to and only take less than fifteen clicks. As good of a campsite as we could ask for out here.”

“I understand green night-vision goggles but…why red?” Cypher asked me, pointing right at my helmet and completely ignoring what I had just said.

“Oh...red because it looks dope and it sustains basic Mark-1 night vision better than any other color despite green being the preferred color. Yeah, I know we can see more shades of green than any other color but green isn’t as intimidating. I mean, they did make these helmets with green lenses but you only saw those in the Zulu Campaign. Anywho, let’s get moving. The sooner we get there, the sooner you can pass out and the sooner I can go and take a piss.”

Melody giggled softly and stood back up before levitating Gold’s helmet back onto his head and passing me my nearly empty canteen. After that we were back on our way, though this time off the road and meandering through the shifting sands that couldn’t make up its mind if it were a thick layer or a thin layer over the dry caked earth beneath. The hill came up quickly and I found it was indeed a rather secure spot given the location and everyone began to undo their saddlebags. The three of us unpacked sleeping pads that Cogsworth had been so kind as to give Gold and Melody so they wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground itself. I of course had the continued luxury of one of the old M.O.P patented survival sleeping bag.

Cy unpacked a simple sleeping mat made of blankets and began snapping off the dried up branches of the few trees that surrounded the hill, tossing them into a pile in preparation to start a campfire. She was quick and meticulous in her search making sure to gather both kindling and thicker logs using a knife and her power drill to cut the trees into larger chunks. Once she was ready she pulled out of her bag one of the most basic staples of wilderness survival aside from the knife and duct tape: flint and steel. Scraping the steel over the flint, a shower of magnesium sparks danced between the kindling and into the chunks of tumbleweed she had placed at the very center of her pile of twigs. With a very heavy breaths, the smoldering weeds turned into a small flame and then into a small blaze as the larger and larger sticks caught fire. Soon, a modestly-sized campfire roared with flickering light in the center of our small camp, Gold and Melody both staring with awe at the skill of our traveling guest. It was charming to see them so enthralled by such a simple tool.

“How did you do that…?” Melody asked with awe as she gazed into the flickering flames, the night air slowly growing chill.

“You learn a few tricks when you travel around.” She said with what could have been a hint of pride, finally peeling off her gasmask and setting it on the ground near her saddlebags which she repurposed as a makeshift pillow.

“That you do.” I agreed, nodding to the fire with satisfaction. “But there’s other skills you need to learn too, like cooking for example. A bit of know-how goes a long way.”

“Wasteland cooking does the job just fine.” She said flatly, pulling out some raw ingredients from her bags like Mutfruit and pine nuts. "Doesn't need to be fancy to be filling."

“No, but a bit of fancy never hurt anypony.” I retorted, pulling out of my bag a few cans of vegetables, some dried Brahmin jerky, seasonings and a portable frying pan. “Eat well while on the trail and you’ll never fight hungry. Dunno about you, but the only thing worse than a gunshot in my opinion is walking on an empty stomach.”

“Who said you can’t go with a diplomatic solution? I usually prefer to get out of situations with no holes in my duster if at all possible.”

“Oh sure, like the mare with a shotgun, revolver and fucking power drill doesn't have to get up close and personal to do her job. Never heard of a diplomat's toolkit including that shit; diplomacy is almost never an option in this line of work and you should know it as well as I do."

"Humph...I don't have to explain anything to you..."

She grunted as she dug through her second saddlebag and pulled out a bottle of white wine, setting it beside her spread of nuts and fruit. Without a pan, the only thing she could conceivably do was have a drink as she nibbled on her un-mixed trail mix.

“Wine? Seriously? What are you gonna do, soak your nuts in alcohol?”

Melody and Gold both burst out laughing and looked towards Cy as if challenging her to up the ante against me. This was exactly like high school all over again. Only difference was this bully had firearms and wasn't all that friendly to begin with.

“More like your face when I break this bottle over your helmet.” She grunted, flipping the bottle over neck down as if to throw it in my direction.

“And what, make me smell like one of those whores from the Ultra-Deluxe Casino? No thanks. I don’t need to smell like a drunk bitch to get a date around here. That shit is better off used as a firebomb.”

“That’s where our similarities split,” She said flatly, turning the bottle back around. “I’m not one for relationships. And you’re not worth spilling a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc 2037 over. And no, no wine will ever be wasted as a firebomb as long as I have a say in it.”

“Wait, that’s a Blanc?” I asked, knowing just a little about fancy white wines thanks to mom’s lifelong friendship with them. “My mom loved that vintage.”

“You trying to get a sip of my bottle?” She asked incredulously. “Not gonna work. I paid 450 caps for this and I ain’t gonna waste it on you.”

“Oh please…” I sighed, settling back and starting to prepare my food. “Wine is for pussies. Even my mom knew that which was why she kept hard stuff in the upper cupboard. Not that I drink any of that shit anyway.”

“So, your mom loved being a pussy? Make some sense in that, girl.”

“Oh that’s rich.” I growled. “My mom was a better mare than you’ll ever fucking be. She only drank wine because it looked better to others than her other choice of Firestorm Whiskey.”

“Better mare than I’ll ever be, eh?” She smirked, pulling the cork from the bottle with her teeth like a sorority girl. “I suppose that’s true...”

“My mom was a dentist. A respectable mare who even worked with the Ministry Mares themselves once upon a time.” I boasted, getting really worked up over this playground level of taunting. “How about you huh? What did your mom do?”

“Apart from abandoning me in the middle of the road? Nah, nothing else.”

“See? Exactly.” I huffed, putting my pan over the fire and frying up the jerky a bit with some diced tatos, garlic salt, water and a dash of pepper. "Since my mom was a fucking hero compared to yours, don't you fucking dare bring her up like that ever again. Contract or no I ain't attached to you at all and I've no problem leaving your ass behind to search for Scaly on your own."

“Well, luckily I never grew attached to her, heck, I don’t even know her, and I have no regrets.” She said flatly, taking a small sip from her bottle and licking her lips. "Attachment is a dangerous thing."

“So you saying that me growing attached to my mom was a mistake?” I challenged, digging through my bags searching for dried Razorgrain rice to boil up to go with the meal.

“What? Pfft, no, you had ponies to rely on, didn’t you? Me? I’m a fully grown, entirely independent mare and I work for myself as I see fit.” She laughed bitterly, taking another deeper drink and eating her pine nuts raw. “No attachments, no worries, no painful goodbyes. Couldn't ask for a better deal.”

Her words hit me square in the chest like a punch. No attachments, no worries...no painful goodbyes. That was exactly the kind of mare I was not too long ago. The mare I had turned into after I realized life was a continuous nightmare of death, pain and radiation. Indeed goodbyes were the worst part of living in this world…

“I was like you too you know…” I said after a long pause, staring at my small pot of water beginning to boil over the coals and causing them to hiss and steam. “That’s the kind of attitude that keeps you alive...but not the one that lets you live life to the fullest. There is a difference I have learned.”

“Survival of the fittest, that’s all it matters to me. If I am alive and they are dead at the end of the day, I am content.”

I looked towards Melody and Gold who looked on in hushed silence, anxious to see if she and I were to come to blows and decided to swallow my hurt pride. Cy was just a mare trying to make it in this world the best way she knew how. In the end she was just following the Wasteland lifestyle like anyone else was, including myself. The only real change for me was that I was now caring for two others along with my own ass which complicated matters but...the benefits were outweighing the drawbacks so far. Survival of the fittest, yes...but that doesn't always imply some sort of lone-survivor lifestyle.

“I understand.” I said quietly as I drained the water off and into an empty bottle to reuse later for this same purpose. “But I’m not looking to survive anymore. I want to live. Surely you know the difference.”

“Sure, but can I actually live without the fear of being abandoned again? Of losing all those I cared about? Or believing they care about me, only to find out they don’t?” She asked me sharply, glancing at Melody and Gold. "No. I think not."

“You never really know if you don’t try…” I replied slowly. “You’re going to end up losing something sometime along the road since life requires immense sacrifice and...it’s worth it to trust in someone’s ability to care for you as long as you know who to trust.”

“I had ponies caring about me, in the most unexpected of places. I lost them all!” She exclaimed, slamming her bottle back into her bag angrily.

“Join the club bitch.” I sighed, spreading my hooves and gesturing to the entire world around us at large. “I lost my mom, my friends, my family, my lover, my world and my reason for existing. What have you lost huh? What could you have possibly lost that can compete with that? Huh?”

“Everypony I cared about, and I’m making sure I don’t lose anypony further by not growing attached to somepony else.” She said bluntly, glowering towards the two foals like their mere presence would invite challenge.

“Well then, you and I have nothing left to say to each other then do we?” I asked slowly, the crackling sound of the fire the only other sound to puncture the tense silence gripping us in that place in time.

“I was abandoned since birth, took in by caravans, lost them, scavenged alone, I then grew attached to ponies I deemed wrong, they all died and I then joined ponies who I thought truly cared for me, but truth is, they were just using me. Nothing more, everything less.”

“Well...I hope you come around…” Melody finally said, looking at her from her sleeping bag with gleaming, tear filled eyes. “B-because I can’t think of living in this shithole of a world alone…”

“S-same…” Gold whimpered. “T-too big...t-too scary…”

“I’ve been living alone for years already, I don’t need a fucking lecture from a bunch of shitbrained kids.” She sighed, laying back in her sleeping bag and turning away from all of us.

“Well...fuck you too, lady!” Melody huffed before climbing out of her bag and joining me for our rather tasty dinner of meat, rice and canned onions with diced mushrooms and tato sauce.

We ate our meal in silence, Melody only pausing to comment on how good it was before they were stuffed and turned in for the night. By the way she was turned away and laying down, I assumed Cy had left me with the first watch of the night. After I pulled my AMR out and set it up to where I could quickly snatch it up, I set an alarm on my PipBuck to go off in roughly six-hours so then I could turn over the watch to Cy and get some sleep of my own. As the night wore on, the fire burned down and went out leaving the area dark, dismal and cold. Not willing to leave the camp to gather firewood, I walked towards Cy to wake her up and ask her nicely to go find some more wood for the fire, at the very least for the kid’s sakes.

“Hey...Cy? You mind getting some more wood…?” I asked quietly hoping she wouldn’t spring awake and try to kill me.

“Fire’s already out...?” She mumbled rolling over slightly to see the barely glowing cinders amongst the ash.

“Yeah well, its been about four-hours since you started it and none of us have tossed any more wood onto it since then. I’d leave but I’m on watch.” I replied, wanting to make her at least somewhat useful if she were to stay with us.

“Alright, I’ll go get some wood, if that’s what you want, and I’ll take the next watch too.” She sighed, rolling up and onto her hooves begrudgingly.

“Thank you.” I said simply, taking up my seat again and looking out over the empty desert expanse without really looking, my mind deep in thought over what she had said earlier.

She wandered off for some time, the sound of breaking wood and snapping branches punctuating the otherwise silent air regularly until she came back, a large bundle of variously sized branches and logs floating in her sparkling violet magic. She set about again, using the bright LED on my helmet, setting all the twigs and kindling up in the firepit before looking around for something.

“What ya looking for…?” I asked, following her movement around with my headlamp.

“Flint and steel’s missing.” She muttered, digging through her bags and duster pockets before yanking my head closer with magic and checking again, this time more furiously.

“Ow! Sheesh! Well, last time I saw it was when you last used it so...I dunno where you keep stuff like that.” I said sheepishly, looking around with my eyes in vain for the glint of steel anywhere in the dirt.

“Mhm, hope your fuckin' kids didn’t go and try to play with it.”

“Shut up before I shut you up.” I bristled. “They’re more than old enough to know better. And after being such a bitch to them do you really think they’d wanna touch your shit?”

“Play? No, steal? Maybe. But still, they haven’t tried to replicate what I did to make the fire, have they?”

“You would have seen the sparks just like I would have.”

We glared at each other for a solid minute before she said, “Right, I might’ve just lost it. Happy?”

“No, not really.” I sighed, looking at the dull pile of wood. “I don’t carry it because I usually have my zippo with me...annnnnd I just remembered I left that on Cogsworth’s table because Chocolate wanted to smoke a cigar. Fuck me.”

“We’re lost causes.” She said with a short bitter laugh. “What are we gonna do, use a bullet to make a fire? Sounds safe.”

Fire. Who the fuck had just been using fire? And then it dawned on me. I had a little trinket still left over from Velvet that I specifically didn’t sell and now I remembered why.

“Actually I’ll do you one better.” I grinned, pulling out of my bandolier the large golden ring set with the fiery red/orange gem that glowed in the darkness like an ember. “Ever seen one of these?”

“No. Should I have?” She asked with a bored sigh. "Don't have time for stupid jewelry, leave that to girls who care."

“I’d be surprised if you had. This is an Inferno Ring. An arcane relic of the War that changed combat magic forever.” I said proudly, slipping the warm ring onto my horn and feeling my head get wrapped as if by a giant invisible halo of warm flame.

“...Well, what are you waiting for?” She asked as if expecting some great magic show.

“It’s not so damn easy, calm your teats girl…” I snapped, focusing my magic through my horn and into the gem hoping I remembered enough basic Ring training to spark a flame. I'd only passed Combat Spellweaving because the Colonel had fucked with the final report to give me a passing grade...

A small, rather pathetic flame erupted onto my horn just above the Ring and flickered in the night air like a little candle atop my head. With the 'pilot light' on and the Ring protecting my hair from the heat, all I had to do now was try to focus my thoughts and concentrate on making a fireball. Pyromancies required a strong, fiery will and a concentrated effort to perform being one of those magics that is heavily affected by the caster's emotions. Anger was a potent fuel to tap into but extremely unwieldy by all but the most self-controlled as it easily sparks out of control. The only other emotion that could properly enhance Pyromancy was passion, an emotion that, like anger, is not easily controlled but much easier to focus. Passion could be anything from happiness to hunger to even sex as long as the emotional response was overwhelmingly strong. While I had plenty of anger to tap into, I finally had a passion for life that exceeded my centuries' long bout of anger. I was a mother now.

With the memory of my wonderful, relaxing bath with Melody fresh in my mind, I channeled my passion into my horn as if I were channeling it into an art project and willed into existence a much larger, brighter flame atop my head. A large ball of fire shot out of the pyre in the direction my eyes were looking (thankfully away from everyone and out into the open desert) which exploded with a loud crack as it hit the ground. A small cactus nearby caught fire in the explosion but quickly smoldered into nonexistence from the water within the plant. I had officially cast my first spell that wasn't telekinesis! If only that snooty fucking M.O.A.S instructor bitch could see me now and give me a legitimate passing grade for that course...

“Whoa there, let’s not try that again…” I laughed to myself, shoving my horn into the pile of branches and holding my breath as if trying to force more flame through my skull and into my horn.

The pile almost immediately ignited and I yanked my head away before my hair caught fire, the flame on my horn going out as I lost focus on the flow of magic and stared at my handiwork. I hadn’t exactly performed any great Pyromancy spells or even a mediocre one, but I had started a campfire without help. It was definitely something at least.

“...I’m surprised you didn’t wake up your kids. Still, I’m impressed.” She said quietly, sitting down before the roaring fire with a small, amused smile. "I have never seen anything like this before."

“Heh...thanks.” I replied, sitting down on the other side of the fire. "It's something the Ministry of Arcane Science brewed up in the last five years of the War. Around the world small Nexus Crystals are found in magically charged environments that imbue them with an alternative type of arcane energy which can then be used to alter normal Unicorn magic and enhance it. This is an Inferno Gem, more than likely from somewhere in the Ember Mountains near the Badlands since that's where I remember hearing about some mines for them. Let's anypony with some talent cast Pyromancies."

“It’s not like I’ll be going out casting a Magma Pyromancy anytime soon though. I’d need a Tome for that first, plus a Magma Ring to even have a chance at performing any of those spells. There were a few Magma Pyromancers back in the day...they were something to behold, let me tell you. Old Dragon fire magic in the hooves of ponies...”

“Well, I learn something new everyday. Though for the rest...I’m just gonna pretend I understood what you said.” She said, pulling her bottle back out and nursing it like a child.

“Well...it’s a little more than complicated.” I explained, pulling the ring off my horn and holding it in my hoof, looking at the gently glowing Gem cut in the shape of a fanciful Gothic flame set in gold. “Inferno Gems like the one in this Ring are considered high-value weapons and were only given to designated Unicorns trained in advanced spellwork. I only got training because I was a Unicorn and they wanted all the back-ups they could get on standby."

“Fire isn’t the most developed uh, manipulation system, for lack of a better term, right? The Zebras couldn’t have focused on the same type of magic too?”

“I’m….not sure what you mean.” I replied, looking up from the Ring at her.

“You folks in the Pre-War world. You guys couldn’t have only cared about fire manipulation, right? You seem to ignore all of these other types of magic… like that ‘Frostbite’ or plain Thunder, were they not as developed?” She asked, looking at me with keen interest.

“Well if you didn’t interrupt then maybe I could have gotten to those in due course.” I sighed. “Electromancies and Frostbite Magics are just as fully fleshed out as Pyromancies. You need training and either a Thunder Ring or a Frostbite Ring to perform them but the fundamentals are the same. And before you ask why didn’t they develop things like air and earth Gems, I don’t know if they did or didn't. Do I look like I worked for the Ministry of Arcane Science?”

“No, but somepony like you could keep a lot of secrets.” She said with a hint of suspicion, taking another sip of her wine and a mouthful of pine nuts.

“Sure but why would I? It’s not like I’m some politician or warlord. I’m just a girl living for the moment and enjoying life while I still can. I know shit like this because I was there when it was introduced. Not hardly enough to explain the complex science behind them but enough to give you a basic idea how all this bullshit works.”

“ I understand, but I’d rather be away from you when some greedy person finds out you have valuable info about how these artifacts work. Most of us feel smart just because we know of its existence.” She said simply, looking into the crackling fire with a blank expression.

“Well fine, if you had the choice to use fire, electricity or ice magic, which would you choose?” I asked since this seemed to be the only thing we could at least somewhat discuss as reasonable adults without it turning into a dick-measuring contest like earlier.

She sat in silence for a little over a minute before she responded, “Ice, it lets you prepare and plan things in advance, it’s the best choice for a tactical approach in my opinion.”

“Ah. That unfortunately was the artform I saw the least in the Badlands due to the lack of moisture. It was really popular on the Eastern Front though since that was in Trottingham, northeastern Equestria and Griffinstone. Actually, speaking of these Frostbite Magics originated in the Duchy of Crystal. Makes sense honestly. I place that’s surrounded by a frozen landscape is bound to develop ice magic.”

“Disappointing...what about the Thunder you mentioned? Where were these used?”

“Not sure.” I replied, stuffing my mouth with food before continuing. “Rumor I heard was they came outta Cloudsdale back in the day but I've never seen a Thunder Gem. Only heard about 'em in that training course as a throwaway mention by the instructor. Oh fuck what was his name...?”

“So...how common is something like this Ring in the Wasteland?” She asked quietly just loud enough to be heard over the campfire. "Should I expect to come across this sorta thing?"

“From my experience, no.” I said, slipping the Ring back onto my horn and trying to pull a little ball of flame from the fire and into my hooves so I could try to hone my control over it. “This is the first Inferno Ring I’ve seen in decades and the first to actually be used by a Unicorn who’s been trained in Pyromancies. Any Unicorn who is talented in combat magic is gonna use the standard collection of combat spells developed by the M.O.A.S back in the day. You know, shit like Magic Dart, Arcane Spear and all that. This chick had a lot more training than most Unis out there today.”

“ Who’s this Unicorn anyway? Pretty skilled fellow as you said yourself.” She asked slowly, looking up from the fire back to me with a small amused smirk as a ball of flame no bigger than a golf ball floated between my hooves.

“A Hitmare by the name of Black Velvet. I bet even you have heard of her.” I replied, bouncing the ball between my hooves in a game of catch with myself. “White mare, usually wore the Model-5 M-CAT? Nasty attitude with a passion for massacring?”

“Not on a personal level. Mercs don't tend to get to interact with Hitmares."

“Of course...well, I kicked her ass not even two days ago. First mare to use Pyromancies outside of the Dark Market I’ve seen in decades. Far as I know, she never went to the Market to learn from a Pyromaster so I’m not sure how she got her hooves on all of this. I hope I can find out because if anypony else out for the Contract on my head has access to these things it's gonna make my life a hell of a lot more dicey. These magics are fueled by emotion and out here, emotions are easily exacerbated by circumstance. If you think a Magma Pyromancer is a threat you’ve never met a Black Flame Pyromancer wielding a Dark Tome.”

“...Not gonna ask what that is, how did you kill her anyway? If she’s that good, how come you two fought without you getting scratched? As far as I can see, your armor is almost pristine.” She commented, gesturing to my beaten up but still sturdy armor.

“Well, it seemed that for all her resources she only knew Great Fireball. A powerful spell for sure but one that’s predictable and thus avoidable. We were in an honorary duel to the death as per Hitmare tradition so it meant blades, hooves and telekinesis only.”

“Honor amongst killers...what a joke..." She snorted, looking away with a sigh of disgust.

"Laugh it up then, see if I care." I responded. "Fact is I'm one of them and you fuckin' ain't so why don't you leave your snarky opinions to yourself. Hitmare is a title that carries all kinds of weight around these parts and with that honor is also a set of rules to follow just like being a Bounty Hunter or a fuckin' Merc like yourself. If an honorable duel is called, the rules of engagement have to be followed. If she had ignored the rules, I guarantee that she would have ended up killed by the Syndicate soon after her victory as an example to everyone in the network."

"Like I should trust the Lone Ranger?" She laughed bitterly, glaring at my helmet sitting beside me. "Save me the high-and-mighty speech, Crete. I know who you are."

"Then you'll know I'm not an enemy of the Syndicate and only am on the Board thanks to my former employer putting up too much money for the Shadow Brokers to sniff at. That and there's plenty in the network who'd love the chance to put a hole in my head and take my spot in the rankings. The moment Green is dead or something happens to nullify my Contract, I'll be right back on the books like nothing ever happened."

"Is that so? And what makes you think you're so special that you're gonna survive the price on your head? I looked at it myself just three days ago. Fifty-thousand big ones for the Lone Ranger. No Dead-or-Alive, no Tag-n-Bag. 50k dead."

"Only fifty? Oh common Green, I thought you'd take me more seriously than that..."

"You say that like it's not enough to retire early on in this day and age..."

"Never said it wasn't but it's hardly worth the danger to life and limb. There's a goddamned good reason I've been with the Syndicate as long as I have making the kind of money I have been: I'm fucking good at what I do."

"Well now you just sound like an arrogant piece of shit."

"Well excuse me for earning that right, sister. I know my skillset, my loadout and my tactical advantages like the back of my hoof and can wipe the floor with just about anyone sent after me. If I kill enough of them, the Syndicate will have no choice but to alter the terms for the price on my head."

"The hell are you talking about 'alter the terms'?"

I sighed, having another bite of cold leftovers to give myself a moment's pause.

"It's a rarely used clause in their operations book. If the target has killed a certain number of those sent after them then they are deemed too dangerous to be left on the Board. At that point they're exclusive targets for Hitmares only given the danger and sheer price involved which would limit the number of dumbasses on my tail. Got two under my belt already on the same day so if I were to hazard a guess, it'll probably take another four or five before my Contract is up for review for reclassification. At that point...well, that's my problem."

"I see...and you think you too will join that exclusive list?"

I looked at her with a mixture of annoyance and tiredness, the fork of food floating a few inches from my mouth as I took her in.

"You say you know me but I have my doubts on that if you are doubting that I'll make it that far." I retorted. "Unless something crazy unexpected happens that nopony can prepare for, I'll outlive all of you fucking Mercs a hundred times over."

"Humph...well I can't say you're lacking in confidence..."

“Thanks mom…” I chuckled, looking over at her as she stood up and took her place at the edge of camp to take the next watch.

“Don’t. This still doesn’t mean we’re good.” She grunted in my general direction killing any good vibes the conversation had. "Just because I'm on another Contract doesn't mean I have to fuckin' like you, Ranger."

“Yeah, well like Melody said...” I snorted rolling on my side and away from her angrily. “Go fuck yourself Cy. Just because you don’t want to be friends doesn’t entitle you to be a cunt. Keep this up and I’ll probably shoot you to shut that bitch ass attitude up. Sheesh…”

“You won’t have to make it clean, there’s no one waiting for me on the other side.” She retorted sharply with vitriol and venom. "And I've absolutely zero fucks left to give about it anyway."

“Oh trust me…” I sighed, closing my eyes and attempting to keep my telekinesis from putting six holes in her smug ass face. “I wouldn’t be clean about it. Bitch.”

******

Chapter Thirty: The Fault in Our Sun

“Wakey, wakey sleepyhead!” Mom’s hazy voice sang, her melodic tones rattling my brain like a private HoofBeats concert in my head. Something was wrong with my head…

“Nnnnnppphhh…” I managed to grunt out, opening one eye but instantly closing it as sunlight drove a spear of white hot pain into my retina. “Gahhh! What the fuck is going on?!”

“Oh! Right!” Mom apologized in a soft tone, the faint glow that made it through my eyelids dimming significantly. “Sorry Athena…”

When my head stopped pounding enough for me to try opening my eyes again, I found I was still in mom’s bed wrapped snugly in her comforter. The lights were off and the big window overlooking Center Park was draped thickly in blinds casting the room in a soft, comforting glow as the sun filtered through the fabric. Vague memories meandered slowly through my head of the night before and I jolted more awake when I remembered exactly what had happened. I had made love to my mom. No, that was too soft given the kinky shit she and I had done together. I had fucked my mom. Sure I had thought about that and maybe gotten off to the idea before now but I never actually thought it was actually gonna fucking happen! Was it the alcohol? Had I seduced her into something she didn’t want to do? Did she even remember what the hell just happened?! Oh I was so fucked...

“For a first time drunk, you held your liquor like a champ!” She hummed softly, her soft furry muzzle nuzzling my cheek tenderly, the smell of musky peaches and crisp fresh mint heavy on her fur and breath only bringing back more lewd memories to mind. “You definitely inherited my liver, that’s for sure. Well, maybe not entirely but like...83% or something.”

“M-mom...I’m s-so sorry…” I whispered, fighting back tears as the pounding in my head was exacerbated to excruciating levels by the frantic beating of my heart.

“For what?” She asked in a confused tone, my eyes screwed shut against the pain again. “It’s not like you puked on the carpet or something. Even then I wouldn’t have been that mad about it, I did that my first time and you put down a lot more shots than I did my first time out with my friends. You think I was too drunk? You should have seen Rose Luck and Lily that night. Those two had their heads in the toilet for so long we had to go check on them three whole times to make sure they didn't drown trying to make out with the damn toilet. Ugh...don't miss those benders...”

She didn’t get it. We had committed a rather serious crime and I had inadvertently drugged her in a sense. It’s not like I gave much of a damn about the law but mom was a law-abiding pony for Celestia’s sake! How could she have let me act out my horny lusts with her? Where was the punishment? The scolding? The possible disownment….?

“M-mom...we h-had sex mom…” I whimpered, feeling the chaffing on my fetlocks from where I had struggled vainly against her binds before giving way to the passion.

“Yeah we did!” She laughed, laying down beside me as the sound of a lighter clicking sounded in my ear followed by gentle breathing in. “Goddamn I haven’t had that much fun in bed in years. You definitely inherited my flair for the kinky things in life...Hucks is a lucky girl to have that mouth of yours between her thighs every night. Err...whenever you two get a chance that is.”

A sweet, flowery smell tainted the air as she breathed out and I opened my eyes to see her laying beside me with a satisfied smile on her face and a Red Berryl pipe in her hoof, a dried nugget of the red and yellow flower softly glowing in the bowl. It wasn't just a simple pipe either like the small ones busted out in the backs of bars and trains I was used to. No, she owned a goddamn custom blown one shaped like a toothbrush with the bowl resting in the center of the blue-and-white bristles in her trademarked colors. It was just so sudden that I couldn't even come up with something to say in response to all the what-the-fuck going on.

“What? I know you’re not a drinker but you expect me to believe you haven’t snuck a toke in your life?” She asked me sounding almost offended as she cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Well yeah but...you?” I asked, stuck between feeling mortified mom was a drug user and proud to be the daughter of such a fucking dope ass mom. "What, white wine after dinner got too boring for you in your old age?"

She sighed and took another long drag on her pipe, the happy orange smoke flowing through the clear glass and into her mouth before she breathed out, the smoke now a faintly sparkly gold color and gracing the air with an aromatic flowery scent like walking through the flower market you could almost feel.

“Yes, me.” She said, seeming completely relaxed and content. “Rose Luck got me into it in college after we ended up as roommates in our Freshmare year. My college required you to live on campus with an assigned roommate so I couldn't just live at home like I wanted. I’m just glad I got her instead of someone like Blueberry Scone or what’s her bucket...that one mare with the dorky hat she always wore. Anywho, best thing after a good fucking is a bowl of Berryl and a good cuddle in the bathtub. Well, that or curling up in front of the T.V to watch some TLC-Trottingham. Speaking of...I wonder if that one place with the gorgeous veranda sold. You ask me, the asking price was a little much, even for Trottingham...”

Her logic was exactly along the same lines as my own but that’s what surprised me the most. Growing up she was the slightly raunchy, mostly refined dentist mom everypony associated with oral hygiene and a string of pearls and sapphires that she always wore with her work uniform. In this moment however, it was like she had taken up the mantle of that rebellious older sister everyone seemed to secretly want when they were younger. The one that taught you to take shots and how to snag boys when mom and dad weren’t home and who went through a box of condoms faster than a box of pizza on a weekend. I had inherited a lot from this side of her I was beginning to realize.

“Mind sharing…?” I asked, hoping this wouldn’t aggravate my hangover.

“Sure thing.” She giggled softly, putting the surprisingly light pipe in my hoof and showing me how to get the proper hit from the bowl without inducing a coughing fit. The whole process was simple to learn and was really just a fancy course in breathing techniques.

I breathed in and was greeted with the surprising flavor of glazed pineapple doughnuts, a wispy feeling flowing through my mouth and into my lungs; the world around me slowing softly into a hazy, whimsical doldrum. Surprisingly...the pain in my head seemed to evaporate like morning dew and everything was right in the world. Literally puff and everything went poof right along with it. I had taken some hits of Berryl as a teen but either I had memory problems or this shit hit a lot harder than I seemed to remember.

“It’s got the added bonus of curing a hangover thanks to the inaprovaline in its nectar which is the most therapeutic part of the plant.” Mom giggled happily, kissing my cheek and tracing her hoof down my chest. “Saved my ass so many times before class let me tell you. I'm so glad there's such a huge underground market for this stuff now. Apparently there's more than one type of Berryl too!”

Within another puff of the pipe my headache was entirely gone and all was right in the world. Mom made a passing comment about letting me rest up from the night before and turned on the rather large television she had in her bedroom right across from her bed. She tuned into a cooking channel teaching you how to cook with prepackaged foods seeing as those were all the rage these days in modern households. As she adjusted the volume to the right level, she curled up into me and cuddled me in her grasp, petting my head and stomach while kissing my ear and sighing happily. Every so often we would pass the pipe to the other filling the room with flowery, golden smoke as every puff brought tranquility to our minds.

“So whatcha gonna wanna do is prep ya oven fer 350 degrees and open up ya box of Fancy Filly Snack Cakes!” The overly enthusiastic southern accented mare said cheerfully, opening her box of snack cakes and holding one up to show off. “Fancy Filly Snack Cakes is ah proud supporter of Cookin’ Fancy with Cherry Jubilee an’ comes complete with ahll th’ nutrients your foal needs tah grow up big n’ healthy! Fancy Filly Snack Cakes comes wit’ ah three-hundred year freshness guarantee or yer money back!”

“Three-hundred years?” Mom snickered, picking up the remote to change the channel. “Who the fuck would want to eat even hundred year old snack cakes? They’re not even that good.”

“They keep you in business though right?” I said lazily, the haze of the Red Berryl cushioning every fiber of my existence.

“Yeah, but doesn’t mean I sell out to them like she does. I mean, could you believe me if I supported that crap at my office? I even published an article to Shining Ivories explicitly examining the ingredient list of those cakes. Nutrients my ass...only thing you’ll find in there that’s on the food pyramid is fat and sugar.”

“Isn’t flour in cake?” I asked, reaching for the pipe as she took it from my hoof and set it on the nightstand. “That’s a grain...product...thing, right?”

“Humph, yes but only if it’s made from actual grains.” She snorted, floating in some breakfast cereal and milk for us to eat in bed. “Those cakes are made from a synthetic grain-like substitute called Wheat-X...tastes like the real thing but is anything but the real thing. They say in the ingredient list it doesn’t contain wheat but...common, who actually reads the ingredient list and nutritional facts these days? And that's even assuming they print all of them on there to begin with.”

“I subsist mainly on MREs these days so...I guess I’m one of those who doesn’t give much of a fuck…” I mumbled, watching as she flipped through the channels looking for something interesting to watch. "They don't really allow that kinda shit into Camp..."

“Well at least those are strictly regulated by the EFDA.” She sighed as she settled for the news channel given every other channel was either blasting Equestrian propaganda of some sort or was mindless drivel like the cooking channel. “They have to know exactly what kind of crap they’re feeding you so you can all remain stuffed full of calories on the go. I can only imagine the kind of workout you get everyday down there. Judging by last night, I'd say you're in even better shape than me at your age because damn did it take a lot to wear you out. I ain't as young and spry as I used to be, heh.”

I laughed lazily and glanced down at my lean, toned body. Even with the hell of a workout mom had given me the night before and all the sweat and juices that had soaked my grey fur, I was still surprisingly well groomed. In fact, my fur looked like it did after Huckleberry groomed me like a momma cat with her kitten…

“Oh...I couldn’t resist.” She replied after I had asked her about it. “After you passed out I didn’t want to potentially drown you in the shower and...you just taste magnificent. Before I knew it I had made it all the way up to your chest. It was...rather therapeutic to be honest. I can see why big momma cats purr so loud when they groom their 'lil cuties.”

“Ah…heh, well I'm glad to help?” I laughed shyly, my eyes being drawn back to the T.V as she flicked past the same news channel from the day before; a split second view of a very familiar face causing me to exclaim the need to change the channel back for a second. I knew that stallion...

“...Though as to why he decided to betray the Ministry of Morale, let alone Equestria itself, is still unknown in the wake of this horrifying report. This is an ongoing breaking-news report.” The anchor said in a bold but nervous tone, mom looking at me inquisitively then back at the television screen as the channel audio kicked in at the end of her sentence.

In the right side of the screen was a picture of a stallion with short brown hair, simple glasses and a business-casual style business suit. The same exact stallion I had met in Four-Star station the day before. I knew from my meeting with him he was someone of importance but...I had to keep listening. Betray the Ministry of Morale...? My guess as to him being someone government was correct it seemed and involvement with M.O.M would explain his uncanny headcount of the surveillance being employed at the station. Fucking hell, what was going on?

“As part of the investigation, it has been...hold on. I have incoming information from our producer with a live update..." The anchor paused to lift a hoof to an EarBloom in her ear before nodding and returning her attention to the camera. "We have confirmation now of the name of the suspect. The suspect has been identified by law-enforcement as Mr. Winter Snow, a veteran analyst in the Electronics Division of the Ministry of Morale who has a warrant out for his arrest in response to a massive data breach of classified Hexagon documents earlier today. As stated previously, these classified documents were published by Mr. Snow in an article published in the Equestrian Daily newspaper titled, 'The Fault in Our Sun: How the Ministries Betrayed Equestria. Police affiliated with this case have notified us that the suspect has already fled the country and is now thought to be under asylum in the Kingdom of Griffinstone. Efforts are underway to extradite him from the country, however it appears that the Königreich von Greifenländer has sought to intervene on the behalf of its sister-kingdom on the grounds of Griffin/Gryphon sovereignty. As both countries allied willingly with NEATO rather than face annexation, Equestrian rule-of-law cannot apply there leaving the government with little recourse during these troubling times. This is an ongoing breaking-news story and we will update you with more information on the case as it unfolds. I'm Newsworthy Times, this has been Equestria News Daily.”

“Oh my gods…” I whispered, the cool, suave look of Snow staring back at me as if challenging me before vanishing to a commercial break pitching new Sparkle-Cola Cherry soda.

“What? Did you have the hots for him or something before all this? Is this like the whole Mac-Belle breakup scandal from a few years ago?” Mom asked as she reached across the bed to snag a bottle of Treehugger Rum set on the nightstand.

“Mom…” I sighed, rubbing my eyes slowly. “No. He’s a weird, creepy dude I met at Four-Star right before you got there to get me. He kept talking about the government and surveillance and even said he chose my spot because it was some sort of blind spot in the station that the cameras couldn’t see. The whole fucking thing was kinda freaky...”

“Oh? Huh, cool.” She said after wiping her mouth with the back of her hoof and licking the rum from off her fur.

“You’re being very cool about this…” I said suspiciously.

“I don’t really see a reason to get worked up over him.” She replied closing her eyes. “It’s not like he did anything.”

“Did you not hear what he did?” I asked her in exasperation.

“Yeah, I did Athena.” She said bluntly. “He's done exactly what thousands of others around him, before him and certainly long after him have, are or will do. You don’t think that this kind of corporate espionage and whistle-blowing hasn’t been happening for decades? Or still is? Hell it’s a million times worse nowadays thanks to this damn War throwing big budgets around like a clown with candy. Before now the worst it got was when those two coffee brands had that major advertising battle that blew up into a lawsuit a few years back. Even then, the paper trail clearly pointed to a bought-out third-party auditor who used his access to Jitterz Beans financial records to blackmail them into easing up on the advertising campaign or else risk their trade secrets getting leaked to the competition. Whole damn thing stretches back yearsssss, even back to when I was a filly so it was crazy to see those two blow up like that...”

I stared at her as she trailed off into silence wondering just how much ENPR mom had been listening to lately as she seemed even more well informed than usual. I had grown up listening to ENPR alongside her for all our favorite programs. She liked NewsHour from the TTC World-Service from Trottingham and Everything's Considered from PRX while I liked the weekly trivia games like Wait-Wait, Please Tell Me and Science Fridays. Growing up I never really wondered why we listened to that more than the regular radio stations. It just kinda was always there and I always liked to be taking in information when I had a down moment. It was so bad as a filly that if I didn't have a book to read or the radio to listen to as I ate my meals I would inwardly start to panic from the lack of information input. In retrospect, it was thanks to my ADD I was the way I was on that but it set a precedent that I couldn't shake even as an adult. If I couldn't eat with my Squad who would more than keep my mind occupied, I was in the company of books, magazines, field guides, maps, pamphlets...anything that had enough interesting shit on it to keep me occupied until my plate was empty.

“Look...long story short, this Winter guy is just like any of the other bozos out there selling insider secrets to the highest bidder, only difference is he got caught and the info for sale was pretty large. Doesn't change the fact that this case is only on the news because of what he leaked.” She said simply, rubbing her eyes before taking a long toke on the pipe, blowing out slowly and forming a perfect smoke ring that slowly faded into the air like a halo of gold dust.

“But...what if he...what if I…” I stammered, thinking immediately of my gun and the spare ammo I had packed in my duffle bag as well as the small pocket pistol I kept stashed away in my tail just in case I was about to be assaulted by the Royal Guard or molested by M.O.M.

“Nothing is going to happen to you, Athena.” Mom said softly with a slight airiness to her voice. “They won’t take you in just because he happened to sit down next to you at a train station. You didn’t know who he was as far as I know did you?”

I shook my head slowly, intentionally blocking out the horror coming from the television screen and taking solace in mom’s voice.

“Exactly. Worse they can do is just take you in for brief questioning and then send that pretty little butt of yours back home to bed with mummy where it belongs.” She growled playfully, rubbing my chest with the tip of her hoof.

Suddenly I was reminded at how much more...thorough my last detainment had been and I was overcome with a slight wave of nausea, the faint aching in my shoulders still noticeable from the day before and a night of heavy drinking and sex.

“You’ve gone a bit clammy darling, and your heart rate is up. What’s bothering you?” She asked with gentle concern as her head laid on my chest.

“Mom...there’s something I gotta tell you…” I began, feeling like a fifteen year old filly who had just decided that week to officially come out to her mom all over again. As much as I missed fillyhood, that experience ranked up there with the worst shit about puberty. I came out of that talk alive and still loved and understood by mom so I guess it all turned out ok in the end. Just like it would here.

******

“My Goddesses…” Mom swore under her breath a solid forty-minutes later after I had explained everything that had been happening the last two weeks or so, a mandatory bathroom break happening right in the middle of my exposition dump. “My Mummy-Senses have been going crazy the last few weeks...I constantly worry about you but these instinctual… taps on the shoulder in the dead of night...they finally make sense.”

“Ma’am, I perceive that thou art a prophet. What other little ticks or mannerisms do you have that tickle whenever you think about me?” I asked her with a small smile to lighten the mood as I usually tried to do to avoid needless anxiety.

“Ha...if I were a prophet, you think I would have gone into dentistry?” She asked with a snort, pulling a long string of floss deep from out of her mane followed by a small box of toothpicks. “Cavities you can generally see with ponies, especially after all that junk food that’s polluting the shelves. You would think a mare could find some decent tomatoes at the market but by Celestia there is nothing fresh anymore that’s sold in the big cities unless you go to the hippy side of town where they’re more into full on environmentally-friendly and nutritional foods. Anywho, if I were a prophet, I’d go into banking.”

“Banking?” I asked, wondering how having psychic powers would help you aside from spotting fraud and/or theft which admittedly would make you employee of the year. “What do you have to gain from there being an assumed psychic?”

“It’s simple really.” She said with a satisfied smile and opening the drawer on a small cabinet/desk she kept in the corner for her personal paperwork and filing purposes, levitating out a modest sized file of papers and bringing it over to us. “I simply join up, gain some credence in the profession and then become a financial consultant of said bank. I’ve got all the research right here.”

I looked at her in surprise as she flipped through some of the material that included news clippings and what looked like a copy of Banking for Eggheads, one of Twilight Sparkle’s earlier book series ideas that had taken off with insane success. Either she was intent on actually switching professions this late in her life or she had been on one of her old Subjectable Hearings. When I was younger and she still had some form of free-time, she would periodically let her inquisitive mind wander a bit and select a subject she had either heard about on ENPR or had discovered on her own and would then analyze the fuck out of it. It was a habit instilled in her after so many years of writing papers, dissertations and the like for school and left her with an intense love of research. With school out of the way, she was much more free to explore the topics she was interested in outside of dentistry and weeks would be poured into these projects. At the end, she would have a fifty-to-five-hundred page file containing detailed, concise notes on the subject and appropriate details from any secondary subject that was pertinent to the research topic. Given her current file seemed cluttered and contained roughly torn news clippings rather than the finely cut edges of more official notes, I assumed she was still in the first draft stages of her process. She certainly had plenty of free-time now that she was in a quasi-retirement and could focus on more than just the day-to-day bullshit of running a company.

“Ok...so you’ll do a lot of good for other people by helping them control their finances. Cool.” I said after blazing through that thought process in a split second. “What else is in it for you? Remember, you’re going in on the assumption that you have psychic powers. Don’t waste its potential with something so...asinine.”

“I’m not.” She grinned. “You see, if I can become an active manager of ponies’ retirement plans, specifically the act of using statistics and such to try and beat the market price for your stock shares, then I have a huge earning potential. I am higher on the chain of income for the bank and so am more than likely to be left anonymous to the retiree unless they request the information in writing. With my abilities, I’ll be able to do a good deed by helping ponies prepare for retirement in this inflated, receding economy and I’ll make bank off of commissions because the average commission rate is about four-grand a stock transaction. The funniest part? The term ‘financial advisor’ doesn’t mean a damn thing! That and ‘wealth manager’ and ‘economical overseer’ and ‘money witch’ and all the other permutations you can think of are all titles that bankers use that mean absolutely nothing and take little-to-no requirements at all for somepony to become one. That being said, that commission though be looking mighty fine in that field.”
"Sooo...what you're telling me is in another life you could have been a psychic banker. A banker? Really?"

“Heh...well if you want to be a cynical little shithead about it, yes. Really. Long story short sweetie is I make money, a lot of money, helping ponies prepare for the future. If Celestia came down right now and accused me of wasting my pretend power on making money, I can show her I have done good things. Of course I will. Would. Donate most of my earnings to charities like the Canterlot Filly Fund, the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame or stand-up comedy. Ever since Fluffy died from obesity a few years ago, music and comedy ain't been the same…”

“As stupid and boring as that sounds...I think that would be the best use of your pseudo powers mom.” I laughed after sitting and thinking about her arguments in greater detail.

“I know what you’d do with it.” She said with a grin while a billion possible uses for psychic powers went through my mind trying to figure out which I was most likely to use it for.

“Oh…?” I asked with a small blush as the obvious passed by unspokenly.

“Figuring out if those poor stallions stuck down there with you are scared enough of you yet so as to not try anything funny.” She giggled with a mischievous grin.

“Huh…” I hummed as the proposition struck that particular chord of amusing irony that saw me choose more than one stupid option in my life just because it struck me in the right ways. “That actually would be something I would do with it to be honest. Amongst dozens of others.”

“I know it is.” She purred as she pulled my head over and onto her chest so she could pet and nuzzle my ears and cheek. “You always loved to make an example of boys. And the best part about it was you were never doing it, and still don’t as far as I know, out of some girl-power agenda. You were just a angsty teenaged filly who hated getting looked at only as a fleshlight and wanted to remind those horny dumbasses that you had muscle and knew how to throw a gut punch hard enough to down someone twice your age. That little bastard nugget Paisley Doily had it coming and I'm glad you showed him what for. That principal was a total ass anyway...”

“So you don’t see me as some wayward daughter acting out against the laws of the land and 'traditional' status-quos?” I asked with a soft coo into her big fluffy blue ear.

“Hardly…” She sighed, pausing yet again to take another long hit on the pipe until the red and gold nugget of Red Berryl was nothing but silvery metallic ash with hints of electric blue scattered throughout like sprinkles on a sundae. “You’re the snarky little girl who studied how to sew skirts and dresses so you knew the best ways to sneak peaks up those wearing them. You’re the sneaky little butt-head who refused to wear diapers by the time you could walk and was potty-trained at the age of two. You’re the sarcastic little know-it-all who punched the best-looking colt in the class for deliberately putting a hillbilly accent with a lisp over his reading of the intro to The Queen of the Crowns when it clearly was meant to be read by a graceful mare from Trottingham. Of course with the accent and ‘fairy’ like mannerisms of the ponies of the Trottingham Lochs with all the proper dainty grace it deserved. *Sigh* I long for those simpler days...”

She pulled me father onto her chest and hugged me tightly against her soft and fragrant chest, nibbling on my ears affectionately after kissing me on the horn.

“You’re the Lieutenant Colonel who’s off destroying the enemy for the sake of her country and her mother’s safety...and who’s always been and always will be the love of my life. You’re my little girl...the accident of my late college years turned miracle of my late life years. I will always support you no matter what my darling.”

I cuddled into her more feeling flushed with pride and love for my long-suffering mother. She had been nothing short of amazing given the tumultuous nature of the world shortly after my birth and had done it all, the endless hours at the office as well as the endless hours spent at home caring for me, as a single mother fresh out of medical school with a short resume to her name. The grace of friends and neighbors kept us solvent as a small family until mom caught a break with the local clinic in PonyVille after their last orthodontist retired. Still...a question always lingered in my mind. My origins were as vague and filled with bad choices as any superhero and I didn’t have any idea which father figure I had to thank for the amazing powers of insane never-ending libido, constant anxiety, slight OCD tendencies, possible cognitive dysfunctions and of course, the curse of the Big Gay with its little trademark sticker in the corner put there by M.O.M. My own mom by contrast would have made the government proud with how much sex she was having with stallions at school. Provided she had kept on fucking like she had before she had me and had a couple more kids to help balance out the casualties on the Fronts. The Meatgrinder needed lives to grind in order to keep on turning after all.

“Still don’t know who my dad is…?” I asked, sorry to break the lazy summer morning peace but curious enough to breach the sacred silence.

“I’m sorry darling…” Mom said after a long sigh and looking at the curtained window. “That was my last semester as a Senior...if I wasn’t blacked out, at work or at school, I was riding every dick within a five-mile radius. All the girls on my floor at CGNU decided we’d have a whore-off where everyone in their Senior year tried to fuck as many people as possible in two-weeks. Bonus points for multiple partners, bigger bonus points for interspecies play and extra bonus points for going bisexual if you’re normally straight. Oh, and you were rewarded with alcohol if you took pictures of it and with small cash rewards for the more kinky things you did. Damn those were the days...you would have loved 'em hun.”

“Did you ever…?” I asked with interest.

“What? Get paid for being a dom or something? Only a few times. I was way more into the offer for Pics-4-Shots. I was totally fine with people on campus seeing a picture of me deepthroating the hoofball quarterback and getting double-boned by one of the better looking guys in the chess club and the library assistant.. Long as I got my next bottle of Firestorm or Treehugger...I was doing alright at school. Sure, I walked with a limp from all the pounding my ass got and I usually had at least some cum somewhere on my body even after a good shower but I passed most of my classes and didn’t get pregnant. Always knew when I was going into heat and would stick to Rosey for that miserable two-and-a-half weeks. Of course...that was until I lost track of time in my Senior year and spent more time drunk than sober...”

“Annnnd I popped in and fucked everything up?” I asked, half-laughing and half-serious.

“Hardly, darling.” She crooned gently, feeling the curve of my flank under her hoof. “You were certainly a surprise as you honestly could have come from any number of thirty-to-forty guys. I let 'em breed me absolutely braindead when I was in heat my last month before graduation. That and I don’t remember which day I forgot to perform a temporary Sterility Spell...the days are hazier now than they were even then.”

“One of forty?” I asked slowly, taking in the sheer scope of the statistical problem my birth had created.

“Somewhere around there…” She said with a lot of remorse. “Darling...I hope you know I truly didn’t plan on having you out of wedlock...I was young, stupid, drunk and in college with the world ahead of me with a booming economy and just a big enough knife to cut me a comfortable slice of the proverbial cake. The moment I first started getting morning sickness and feeling changes in my mood I knew I had to own up for my reckless behavior. I always wanted to have a filly...if not to just tell you to ask your grandmother if you ever asked me what it was like to be raising the best daughter in the world. Speaking of, you never asked me that. Not once in the eighteen-years I raised you did you ever give me the chance to make a good, burning mom joke and I'm kinda miffed about that.”

“That a bad thing?” I asked, hopeful I hadn’t ruined a fillyhood dream of hers.

“Nah…” She sighed with a smile. “You were never the spoiled brat type so that question never thought to pop into your head. That or you had enough respect for me to control even your rather witty sarcasm.”

I rolled my eyes and batted at her ear while she traced circles on my chest and back in a slow, therapeutic fashion. Oh to be five or even six years old again… But, that was decades ago and I am a very different girl than I was back then. Not only mentally but physically as well. My hair (when allowed) was much longer, I was now five-foot four and was a full head taller than most. I had a lot more scars and burns than when I was younger as well, but I suppose most of all I had lost my innocence in the interim of twenty-years separating me from myself. The world was scary back then because I didn’t understand everything that was going on around me. Now the world was even more horrifying and that was only because I knew what the hell was going on. Too well even; more so than most Equestrian citizens or even soldiers I felt. With all the darkness and dread of adulthood sagged my shoulders beneath its weight...it felt better now to have my burdens made lighter by my loving, wonderful mother. As an adult I needed her now more than ever before.

“When do you think you’ll be coming home?” She whispered into my ear in such a soft, pleading tone that even an inch from her mouth I still had a problem hearing her plea. “I don’t mean on leave...I mean for good Athena.”

“I...don’t have an answer for you mom.” I replied shakily as I wondered the same thing. “I'm never told anything anymore about much of anything. As a Vet, I’m relatively well-informed more or less of the situation happening on the Southern Front but as a Lieutenant Colonel...I’m usually left in the dark about stuff going on elsewhere. All I hear about the Eastern Front and the Zulu Campaign are second-hoof stories from radio chatter people overheard and the occasional thrilling tale from an eyewitness who got reassigned to our Front for some reason or another. I don’t get civie news out in the Badlands and even then, I wouldn’t give its reporting skills high praise. Whole thing is too edited and full of propaganda to get any meaningful information out of it anyway.”

“Wait, how do you not know what’s going on?” She asked quickly, lifting my head up so I could see the concern in her eyes. “You’re a goddamn LC, you should know what’s going on!”

“Yeah well in the eyes of the military, I’m a Veteran Ranger and have stewardship over just my Squad and not much else. If it doesn't have anything to do specifically with my Squad, I'm just left outta the loop usually just to save on time wasted in meetings. If anything, ever since I became a Ranger, the hierarchy of the GA is basically just a fancy title and a pay raise for people like me. I have the title but hardly any of the responsibility aside from the addition of the kind of paperwork I did as a Captain. I checked with Colonel Horn about it and he even said, ‘Crete, the thing about promotions around here is that, unless you’re already a desk jockey before your promotion or are seen as a stand-out leader, you could become a fucking General and still only be in charge of a single Fire Squad. Unless yer askin' for it squeaky-wheel style, it's just easier tah keep y'all in yer existing groups.’ Info is kept tight-lipped about just about everything and the only way to make sense of anything is to piece together rumors, accounts and...illegal rummaging through files.”

"That is...disheartening." She sighed softly. "When you talked about the higher-ups being an exclusive club sort of deal, I didn't think it was this bad. Nothing about these promotions has made any sense to me..."

"That's probably thanks to Equestria's modern military being only 40-something years old. Ranks, responsibilities, logistics and everything else is still a complete work-in-progress everywhere you look. I mean, we're fielding three whole Armies with well over 100,000 soldiers in each spread out across five, officially four, Corps with all five expanding in size and scope every year. It's a logistical nightmare from the bottom to the top and quite frankly I'm amazed we've adapted as quickly as we have. From over a thousand years of relative world peace to all-out War in a little less than fifty-years."

"Wouldn't I know it..." She sighed again, this time even harder and sadder than before. "I've lived through that change in real-time. I remember the Little Bighorn Riots of the '50s, the Food Riots of the 40's...I even remember when the first guns started being imported from the Greifenländer at the end of the 20th century when I was still making watches and hourglasses. The world has grown darker the older I get..."

"Do you...regret living for so long...?" I asked softly, asking this for the first time.

"Do I regret having lived with the Elements and winning sixty-plus extra years of good looks and stable health? Never. It let me exhaust all my cutie mark's profession had to offer and let me discover my real passion as well as give me lots of time to actually see it grow and evolve over time. Not many ponies get the chance to evolve their career path outside of what their cutie mark dictates so I consider myself incredibly blessed for the chance to see what it is like to live and work in a profession that is somehow better suited than what my mark dictates. I'm not so bound to Fate as everypony else is."

"Heh...yeah, I forgot you used to be a clockmaker." I laughed having never seen her once pick the trade back up while I was alive as dentistry had become her life by that time.

"Once upon a time!"

She giggled, giving me a playful bop on the head then a noogie which I could feel throwing my mane in all sorts of crazy directions. Then I remembered there were some patches of my hair that mom hadn’t gotten to leaving my fur and mane slightly dry or crunchy from dried cum. Mare cum was better in every way than stallion jizz...but even then, if you didn’t clean it before it dried, it would get flaky and crusty and feel like patches of tree sap stuck to your fur. It was one of a few reasons I kept romps with guys as an occasional thing. That and you could pass off the smell of mare cum as some kind of perfume or candy you ate; stallion jizz...well, just about everyone over the age of puberty knew what that smelled like.

“Shut it…” I growled sitting up and stretching myself out, every single bone seeming to pop with the same satisfaction as opening a bottle of cold Sunset Sarsaparilla. “Mmm...I need a fucking shower.”

“Hm? What, my tongue bath wasn’t thorough enough for you eh?” She pouted with a wide,playful grin. “Very well, let’s go get cleaned up. We can’t go to the Chez-Parez smelling like each other now can we?”

“To be honest I would love to smell like you longer…” I said quietly as I got to my hooves and nearly collapsed from the sudden weight on my sore legs, especially my strained shoulders.

“Well, it’s always good to smell minty fresh!” She laughed as she stood beside me and allowed me to lean on her for support, hobbling alongside her across the bedroom to her master bathroom. “Always a hit with first impressions I would hope. After all that's what I used to pay advertisers to say. Boy am I glad to not have to deal with those pesky idiots anymore...they're at least a quarter of the reason I decided to resign from my position.”

Her bathroom, though smaller than the standard master bathroom, was still spacious and simply dignified like the rest of the building. The walls were painted a light tan color with a hint of orange and were adorned with graceful golden candelabra that held aloft small, candle-shaped lights that could be dimmed by a switch on the wall. The floor was a creamy-white ceramic tile while the shelves and built-in cabinets were of some kind of honey-colored wood that gave the room a sort of rustic, down-to-earth kind of vibe. The bathtub was separate from the shower (unlike my apartment back in Las Pegasus which was way cheaper than this place) and was obviously purchased to replace the bathtub that had come with the room. What lay before me was a veritable altar dedicated to the sudsy relaxation of bath time carved out of fine white marble into the shape of a simplistic rowboat. I knew she had been planning awhile back on buying a bigger, more personalized bathtub but this was even fancier than I expected, even from her. The apartment alone was rather modest for the amount of money she pulled-in monthly but that had always been her style. Keeping things modest was security against economic downturns and prevented the shock that came from riches-to-rags situations.

“Is that…?” I asked, looking over the boat-tub and noticing subtle details in the carvings that were almost painfully recognizable. The more I looked, the more her odd choice in tub shapes started to make sense.

“Yep.” She replied with a wide if sad smile. “Grandpa’s old fishing boat. Had them carve it out using the old scrapbooks your Grandma made for us all those years ago.”

“Lot of memories in this thing…” I murmured, putting a hoof on the aft portion of the boat as faint visions of days far away spent at their lake house flittered past my eyes.

“I even paid extra to have that old patch he had in the right side carved-in with insane precision.” She said with tempered pride, gesturing my eyes towards the stern where a large, rough and ugly patch of stone had been cut into the exact shape of the emergency patch Grandpa had made decades before, just a few months before he died. “I managed to snap a picture of the old thing before your Auntie Dew threw it out as junk when they were going through the estate. It's been over twenty-years and I have yet to forgive her for it. It meant a lot more to you and me than it ever did to her...”

The graceful white dingy held a lot more than water. It held memories. Very old and very personal memories. I had gotten spooked by the sudden flopping of my very first fish catch in the bottom of the boat and kicked a small but significant hole in the side of his prized boat. Even in his late-eighties, he was still quick on his hooves and he made that patch out of whatever he had in the boat. The patch, despite being bumped, nicked and even frozen solid when the boat was accidentally left in the lake over winter, never gave in. It was the one constant about Grandpa you could always expect. After the dementia set in...eventually it became the only thing you could expect from a trip to Grandpa’s house. But even those depressing and frustrating final months were vastly overshadowed by the happier memories mom and I had both shared there. Both alone as well as together. Of course, this was all so long ago that I could almost have called the world a happier, more peaceful place to live in.

That boat patch experience actually had occurred during a family reunion there. Back when the family actually felt like making the effort of setting one up and attending it instead of canceling at the last minute. It was strange to think that the older I’ve gotten, the more friends feel like family and the less family feels like...well, anyone in general. I had grown so distant from my cousins and other relatives (not exactly of my own fault as I did try) that I would need a week-long family reunion just to put vaguely remembered names with poorly remembered faces. Since I was eight my life was a whirlwind of events and information making every reunion a giant game of guess-who as I tried to remember ponies who definitely remembered me. On that topic, they really had to stop expecting me to remember all their kid's names and ages and all that...

Speaking of nieces and nephews...I never even tried to keep up with any of them. By the time I was twenty, the entire family had decided to not even try and organize a reunion anymore; besides, it felt like every single reunion I went to, the number of nieces and nephews I had (not to mention obscure cousins) seemed to quadruple. My cousin Peppermint alone had probably twenty-kids by now if her previous three twin-pregnancies had continued their terrifying construction project in her uterus. In all honesty...if it wasn’t for the regulated hormonal benefits of ovaries (and the satisfaction of a good fucking during estrous) I would have been scooped clean by the time I had graduated high school because...well, fuck kids. The older I get, the worse they seem to become and the redder the tint on my glasses looking back on my time at that age. I wasn’t an angel filly as mom would immediately tell you...but I sure as fuck didn’t think it was funny to take a shit in the wrong place or set the carpet on fire unlike my own cousins had done. I had to keep myself around adults at all times just to save myself the hassle of restraining my hoof from bitch-slapping some random chick's annoying little brats in public.

"Lost down memory lane?" She asked softly, nudging me back into reality.

"Heh...yeah. Just...thinking about the old, old days. Back when we actually used to have family reunions and shit and ponies like Peppermint and Éclair being massive pains in the ass over budgeting and travel expenses...not like we asked her to have twenty fucking little shitheads..."

She blanched and nodded in agreement replying, "Oh please don't remind me of those two...I've had to ask the front desk to block their numbers from being forwarded to my home phone and I've blocked them on my cell. They won't stop begging for money and I've already loaned them both over ten-grand."

"Ah yes...'money problems'?" I asked, sitting casually on the toilet to wait as she turned on the water taps to fill the tub.

"Yep...and I'm sick of entitling those two idiots. I told Auntie Pepp years ago when she had number six to get a hysterectomy because having a foal every year is going to be hell on her body. But no, she and Uncle Éclair refused and just kept right on fucking like a bunch of Ferals and now they can't make ends meet with only one of them working. If she didn't keep blowing my loans on stupid home appliances she saw on TV I might've been willing to keep offering my sister some support until at least half of them moved out. Screw that and screw them. If she can't get her spending habits under control then I'm not going to entitle her into thinking she can keep coming back to me for cash."

The hot water cascaded into the bathtub with a loud but comforting hiss and while we waited for it to fill we discussed some more about what had been going on down South. Eventually, the topic came around to Zecuro and everything that revolved around him. She had been as deeply shocked about his survival as I was and expressed a desire to potentially see him again one day but, we both knew that was a level of risk that neither of us were willing to take. Her eyes teared up in gratitude as I recounted how he had saved my life though I had been strategically vague as to just how close to suffocating I had gotten with the Cheetah just to spare her any further cause for worry. After all, it was the least a soldier daughter could do for her poor worrying mom right? Already had to tone down everything I did down there anyway.

“Well...when you see him next please do send him my best regards alright? Not my basic regards, the best ones.” Mom said as she carefully went through her armory of mane and coat care products so both of us would come out softer and fluffier than before. “I always knew he was loyal to you.”

“Oh? What do you mean?” I asked her curiously as I sniffed deeply of a bottle of some conditioner that smelled like what I assumed walking into a nutmeg themed bakery smelled like.

She selected several from her arsenal and returned the others before laughing softly and cupping my cheek as she said, “Darling...you would be surprised how many ponies look up to you. You’re a natural leader and ponies can feel that when they talk to you. You have just the right balance of cocky, air-headed idiocy and a heart of gold.”

I blushed at her ‘cocky idiocy’ comment but shook my head all the same. I wasn’t a leader. I was the glorified follower who ended up in charge more often than not because other people were too lazy or too stupid to take up the challenge of getting ponies in and out of firezones alive with a completed objective. I also had to disagree with the whole ‘heart of gold’ bit. Mom had seen me do competitive Judo at EastPoint plus get into plenty of fights over the course of my life but those were competitions. Competitions with rules and no chance of brutal death via striped or spotted bastard. As far as I knew, she hadn’t ever seen me take a life let alone multiple at once like I had done almost daily for the last nine years.

If anything...it felt like I was living two separate but very similar lives. How do you explain that to the one mare who will love you above all else…? How to explain you’re not that precious little filly of hers anymore? That you’re...well, an adult. An adult whose life profession is War. Like as I said before...I never claimed to be a saint but I was loathe to consider myself as evil. I just felt comfortable on the fence. Able to hop down into the Black or White spectrum when the situation and my mood called for it but always able to hop back up onto that damn fence of moral ambiguity that had become the throne on which my morals seemed to reside reigning over my life; adding a flavorful brand of chaos to my life that made me the loose cannon I was. But again...how does a daughter even begin trying to explain these things?

“Mom…” I began, hoping to express a fraction of my side of things before she snuffed it out with her favorite finishing move: Unconditional Love. Only the truly most despicable of acts could hope to withstand the healing effects of this Category V. Mega-Mom Spell.

“Ah, ah…” She chided softly though with surprising firmness, a gentle hoof pressing against my lips in warning. “Don’t say anything that will fuck up our time together alright?”

“In what way…?” I asked, hoping I was permitted to speak.

“Any way really…” She sighed, standing and gently splashing the bathwater with her hoof testing the temperature. “I’ve only got a day and a half and one more night with you and I’ve been waiting for your little ass to come home for way too long now. Don’t ruin this with sad thoughts alright…? I know you already have something bought for me for my birthday next month but I would rather have a peaceful vacation with you. That’s all I want Athena. All I’ve ever wanted for the last nine years ever since you left home for the South.”

“I…” I began, thinking through the diction and prose of my sentences so I could present my depressing ideas in as positive a light as possible. “I...alright. I can do that.”

She smiled and gestured for me to join her by the tub as it was just about filled enough for two mares to relax but neither drown nor flood the bathroom floor with water. As a precaution (as well as out of instinct for my own bathing regimen) I set a pair of towels on the floor around the tub to act as a sort of rudimentary bath mat that honestly worked better in the long run. Of course, this was an old habit. The last bath I had taken was well before I joined the Army as showers were the way to go.

“I see some things never change.” She giggled as she set herself down into the water and groaned loudly in a heavy sigh of relief. “Mmm...like the feeling of a good hot bath on a girl’s body after a wild night.”

I laughed a little and crawled in beside her finding myself likewise unable to cut off the mewling gasp of pleasure as the water engulfed my body like a discount mom hug. She snickered at my ‘cute wittle noises’ and embraced me in the hot water as an added layer of safety from the angry outside world. After we both adjusted position so we would both be comfortable for our soggy bathtub cuddle time, everything went still and silent throughout the room making everything feel enshrined as a golden moment in Time. After a few minutes I heard the gentle, tinkling sound of her magic above my head and a moment later a small record player started playing a compilation of traditional Connemara music from the mysterious and highly magical portion of Trottingham referred to as ‘Éire’. Flutes, fiddles, drums, guitars and angelic mare voices singing softly about...life. The greenery of the world, the mystery of death, the innocence of childhood and of course...the magic of Éire. I didn’t even stay awake long enough for the second track to play. I knew that record by heart and it was the last layer in my pile of snuggly things and so my only option was to fall asleep given the circumstances. Sail away, sail away, sail away...

**********

Chapter Thirty-One: NER Territory Discoveries

When I woke a few hours later, the sky was in the early stages of brightening up from the rising sun the Pegusi got to enjoy every morning. Meanwhile the rest of us down below were stuck with the drab cloud cover that had remained unchanged for almost as long as I could remember now. It was easy to forget that once-upon-a-time there was such as thing as blue skies or celestial bodies such as the sun and moon hidden away behind them...

I turned my head slowly to look for Cy (as I woke up alive I assumed she was still around) and saw her nearby the edge of the camp, her drill and shotgun laying on the ground beside her while a thick beaten up book lay in her lap. While she certainly seemed learned and literate, I hadn’t exactly thought of her as the reading type what with her bitchy attitude and ‘it’s you or me’ mentality. Of course, I hadn’t expected Black Velvet to be the OCD clean freak she was and had been taken by surprise by her apartment so...it was probably time to stop judging ponies by their actions and attitudes alone. Even Mercs and Hitmares couldn't be expected to be all guts and glory. I certainly was not so cut and dry so why not others?

Looking a little longer, I caught sight of a worn out pen flying across the pages suspended in her violet magic. Was she writing a book now? I couldn’t think of anything she could write that hadn’t been already extensively covered by Pre-War scholars like the Art of War or How to Be a Bitch 101 so...maybe it was a journal? That idea made more sense than anything as though she had been obstinate in being friendly, I could tell there was more behind those blue eyes than she was willing to let show. The more I thought about the idea of her journaling, the more my nosy little brain desired to sneak a peek into her writings to try and understand the mare behind the pen. Mom always said I was too nosy for my own good but...I couldn’t help myself. The informed mare was the one who survived the battle. Or the argument.

I sat up finally after exhausting every possible made-up journal entry I could think of that could be in there and stretched out. Sleeping in full combat armor wasn’t the most comfortable but the sleeping pad and my underbarding did cut the discomfort down significantly enough for me to catch a few hours of decent sleep. At my movement Cy snapped her book shut, pen and all, and set it out of sight. Her shotgun floated into her open lap to fill in the void and she softly glared at me. Obviously someone was self-conscious as shit.

“Good morning.” I said with a yawn, the mask around my muzzle not quite roomy enough to let me yawn satisfyingly.

“Morning. Slept well I take it?” She asked in a dry tone, playing with a cherry red shotshell in her magic making it dance and spin in front of her like a marionette.

“As well as you can while dressed up for war and in the open desert.” I replied, taking off my helmet and letting my mane down to enjoy the cool vestiges of the evening air. “See anything out there?”

“Apart from the endless sea of sand and dust? Not a goddamn thing.” She said, standing up and stretching herself. "Boring is boring but at least it's usually safe so I can't complain too much."

Melody and Gold were still asleep in their bags but with my helmet finally off I could feel the temperature rising with every passing minute. Soon enough, they’d either have to wake up on their own or get roasted to death in the sweltering heat of both their sleeping bag and the desert sun. I hated the sun to be frankly honest. I didn’t like being hot and yet, I had decided to live in the fucking desert because it was the most familiar. Granted everywhere was essentially a desert these days, but the San-Palomino was especially hot being an already preexisting wasteland of sand before the Great War. It wasn't nearly as bad as the Badlands this time of year but definitely made for a close runner up. The only bonus I had was my helmet and underbarding, a luxury nopony else but the Steel Rangers could enjoy as the microfilament crystal wiring used to line them was one of many technological casualties of the Great War. The fact mine worked so well for so long was a testament to the quality put into my gear by the Ministry of War and I couldn't be completely mad at them for everything.

“How do you manage wearing that black Model-4b and that duster in this heat?” I asked her after curiosity forced my mouth to ask and my hoof to go for another swig of lemonade. "I've at least got the benefit of an internal cooling system thanks to ArmsTech but you...you're having to handle this heat the hard way."

“A whole lot of water inside an enchanted canteen, nothing more.” She responded, pulling out said canteen from her saddlebag. I immediately recognized it as the same make as my own canteen except it was the smaller pony sized version that I myself had refused to take when issued one. It was Dragon-sized or none at all for me given how much lemonade I downed on the daily.

“Ayyyy!” I laughed, raising my canteen like a flagon of ale at a bar. “Canteen buddies! You’re either resourceful or smart. These fuckers are pretty rare these days and I hear the SR covet them like jewels. How'd ya come across one?”

“It was part of the reward of one of my biggest contracts, I don’t know where they got it from.” She said taking a long drink and weighing it in her hoof. "Not like it truly matters at all, as long as it works that is all I care about."

“Lucky find then.” I said taking another small sip of my own tart brew before slipping it into its buttoned ‘holster’ in the exterior utility belt of my duster in the small of my back. “That thing uses the same microfilament crystal technology as my underbarding for temperature control. It’s pretty neat stuff but Cogsworth hasn’t yet figured out how it works or what kind of crystal it uses since there’s so few examples left and he doesn’t want to risk destroying anything of mine that has it.”

“I have no idea who this ‘Cogsworth’ is and I’ll just pretend I understood your rambling.” She muttered to herself while standing up and tossing her canteen onto her bags.

“He's my...you know what? Fuck you.” I sighed, standing up as well when the temperature got to the point sweat started to prickle on my forehead around the base of my horn itching something fierce. “Kids! Wake up!”

Melody jolted awake and immediately after started whining miserably; crawling out of her hot and sweaty sleeping bag while trying not to get sand stuck to herself. Gold took a few friendly punches to the ass to fully wake and he crawled out of his bag as well, wincing as the sticky bag yanked out some of his already patchy gold fur.

“What time is it?” Melody asked, spinning in circles trying to dry herself off in the stiff breeze wandering lazily across the desert from the East. “Ewww...I smell like sweaty balls…”

Gold blushed and glanced under himself for a split second before saying, “H-heh...um...y-yeah…”

“It’s 9:36 in the morning.” I replied, sneaking a glance at my PipBuck rather than playing the guessing game with an obscured sun in the sky. “You two have been asleep for about seven hours or so. Eat quick so we can hit that road and get to Shady Sands before the heat really picks up. You don’t want to walk around on asphalt this time of the year past noon if you want to avoid your hooves getting slightly warped from the hot asphalt. Unless you’ve taken Keratin-Klear of course then don’t give a shit and keep on running!”

“K-Keratin-Klear?” Gold asked, putting on his armor and Sequoia while Melody dutifully rolled up their bags for transport.

“It’s a potion from the M.O.A that strengthens the keratin of your hooves with a sort of synthetic protein that makes them super durable and heat resistant. Add a dose of Skele-Grow and you’re capable of denting thin steel plates with just your hooves! Well, if you’ve got the strength of course...that's kinda a must. Only seen a few stallions who were able to do that shit and trust me, you'll probably be too amazed at the sight to know to run like hell.”

“Huh, cool!” Melody hummed, looking at her slender azure hooves as if imagining them strong enough to break steel. "I bet that stuff is pretty rare like anything else cool in this world..."

"Heh, looks like you're catching on. " I winked, tossing them each a couple granola bars from an MRE full of them. "The great bane of anyone wanting cool shit these days is availability. Like my rifle, can't fuckin' tell ya how many people from gunsmiths to NER 1st Recon to random ass bitches have begged to buy it off me. Or just tried to kill me for it. Anywho, ready to head out, Cy?"

“As always. Ready when you are. And stop fucking calling me that, damnit.” She said confidently, her drill back in its modified leg holster and her boomstick tucked away in a Kevyarn gun sleeve on her back.

“Yeah, yeah...whatever. Onwards good freaks!” I laughed, spanking Gold playfully on the rear when he was finishing the last of his granola bar sending the heel flying off into the dunes much to his dismay.

We veered West back towards where we had left the road behind, a trail of several Brahmin visible from our secluded hilltop meandering North with a company of merchants. Halfway to the road though, Gold veered off course back the way we came yelling something about seeing something that he wanted to go check out. The thermometer on my HUD was already well into the 80s so a detour like this would only make their walk worse.

“Gold! Don’t trust your eyes at first glance out here.” I called after him, trotting along slightly behind him. “Mirages fuck with your eyes, especially when you’re thirsty!”

“I-I saw something though!” He called back, climbing up a sand dune despite breathing hard. “L-like a body!”

“So?? There’s bodies all over the damn place! It's the fucking Wasteland, of course there's a dead body in the middle of nowhere for no reason!” I called back, swiftly climbing up behind him feeling ready to whip his ass with my hoof a few times for wasting time on something literally anypony who stepped outside their door saw more than once in their life. “It’s probably vulture food anyway! Get your zombified ass back here and let’s get going damnit!”

He disappeared over the edge of the dune and out of sight without a response. With a huff I mounted the sand and looked over the other side seeing a small flock of emaciated buzzards crowded around what could only be a corpse in the sand up ahead. Nearby the first group of birds was an even larger group of patchy feathered buzzards pecking away at the corpse of a Brahmin wearing the large pack of a traveling merchant’s wares. My annoyance now completely forgotten, I rushed after him in order to investigate as we had a missing merchant to find and we had just found one. Well, what was left of one at least...

“Fuck o-off birds!” Gold yelled out, his gun bellowing even louder as two of the birds were flung off the corpse with gaping holes in their wrinkly, disgusting bodies.

The rest caught on quickly they were no longer the apex predator in the area and flew off screeching their displeasure at our intrusion into their meal, circling high above waiting for us to leave their food alone. The half-eaten body of a pony laid in a coagulated pile of gore below it, the flesh pecked from its bones wherever the birds could find gaps in its Radigator leather armor; the head entirely bone including the ears and horn. Lumps of pink/grey brain sat decaying in the skull out of reach of the beaks of the buzzards and spent brass casings littered the ground around the body half buried in sand. With the animal activity, it was hard to determine a time of death but with the bits of brain I floated out of the empty eye sockets I could only guess it had been within the last two days. The brain matter was only starting to turn to a discolored pink mush and a fair amount of fluids dripped off the sample lending credibility to my educated guess. Melody and Gold both looked away with disgust while Cy looked entirely indifferent to the morbid affair. Battlefield autopsies like this were helpful when on the trail of a killer and after awhile you start to get a feel for these sorta things even with little formal medical training.

“Well, I’m no doctor but I think he’s dead.” I laughed, tossing the mushy brain back into his skull. “But seriously, this guy isn’t our merchant. The armor is Radigator leather, not Dragon and Scaly wouldn't be caught dead in anything less. My guess this guy was just a caravan guard. Question is though...why and how was he killed? This is NER territory and we’re only a bit away from Shady Sands not even a mile from the E-15. The amount of patrols in this area should have prevented this or at least fucking found it first. If Gold could see it, I’m sure others can too. No offense Gold.”

“Well, unless you guys want to spend more time with the wonderful sloppy corpse laying here, let’s get on the move.” Cy said with a bored sigh. “Hold up...there’s more buzzards to the Northeast.”

I looked the direction she was pointing (after finding the body was already long since stripped for bullets) and saw another circling flock of birds further up. Probably just a dead coyote or two but...my curiosity was now piqued as well. Merchants rarely traveled alone with just one guard and even then, where was the merchant him or herself? There were a lot more questions than answers so it was time to follow the birds it seemed.

We moved on quickly towards the next group of buzzards to find a pair of bodies, a guard and a merchant, both stripped for what they were worth but neither looking anything like Scaly. Like the Brahmin and the previous guard they were both shot to death multiple times though by whom was unclear. No body parts were missing or mutilated so Raiders could be ruled out and the kills seemed to be relatively clean so whoever pulled this off had some skill behind a firearm. The decay and animal activity fucked with my forensic skills though so it was impossible to tell the kind of bullets that killed them. Not that it would be very helpful as literally anypony could have any kind of caliber at their disposal but it was kind of an unspoken rule that the bigger the caliber, the better the gang was. Or single pony, hell if I knew. Either way the kills were semi-professional and that’s all we had to go off of leaving oh...a dozen possible known organizations in the Wastes that could have done this and a countless number of smaller ones I probably didn’t know about. But again, I was stumped on the why and the how...no Merc Company in their right mind would be so bold as to attack a caravan near the NER capital and Raider gangs were all but extinct in the region. Something wasn't sitting right with me on it.

“Well at least we can return them to their kin in one piece. Mostly.” Cy commented as she peered at the bodies for herself with the same unconcerned expression. "I will admit, this is very unusual...something went very wrong out here."

“What kin?” I asked, looking around at the empty expanse. “It’s not like we’re gonna find dog tags with names and addresses on these suckers since they're just merchants, not Republic troops. They could be from Manehattan for all we know and I dunno about you but I ain’t walking all the way over there to try and find someone to tell them their loved one died in the middle of the desert to some unknown enemy. Love the sentiment but not a fan of how the idea would be executed.”

“Was a joke lady. Plus, tell some ponies that a caravan died here and the word will spread like wildfire. Somepony somewhere must have answers...”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I sighed, memorizing their basic descriptions as best I could with what I had for when we reached Shady Sands so I could inform the authorities. “Alright, let’s keep going then. This is really weird though…I don't like it at all.”

“I-it’s getting w-weirder…” Gold called out pointing a hoof further to the northeast where there were a line of circling birds in the air. "T-there's more..."

“What the fuck…?” I asked myself quietly, running through how something like this could have happened. “Did you hear about anything weird when you were searching, Cy?”

“Nope, nothing at all like this. This must have happened even before we, or at least I went on this road.” She said slowly, bending closer to examine the corpses for herself. "Hmm..."

“Who would want to shoot these ponies anyway?” Melody asked, averting her eyes to the spectacle and instead focusing on scratching her neck where beads of sweat were forming under her charcoal grey armor. “They don’t look like they were carrying anything that valuable.”

“Well judging by their armament, I would have to agree it was probably something on the cheaper end of the spectrum like assorted junk and trinkets, maybe a few low quality weapons and healing supplies.” I said poking through their empty pockets and bags. "Hard to tell though without anything left on these bodies...even Raiders tend to leave shit behind that they know they've no use for but there's not a goddamn thing here."

“Looks like canned goods were at least on the manifest…they must have had an agenda against these folks.” Cy said quietly, picking up a few cans of pineapple that had been shot and the delicious juices drained out making it essentially useless.

“Nooo...not the canned fruit..." I whined as she tossed me one of the cans. "Well...there's nothing to find here so let’s keep following the trail then. Follow the birds everypony.”

We followed the trail of buzzards and corpses for another three miles or so, the bodies all lower level traders and basic caravan guards indicating this had at one time been a full blown caravan of over a dozen individuals. As to why they had fled the well known NER road for the open desert, I was at a complete loss. Again, it was a NER controlled road for fuck’s sake, where the hell were they when this caravan was being meticulously picked off one by one as they fled into the wilderness? The NER boys on guard were lazy but they wouldn’t let their source of trade get gunned down like this so close to their capital city. It would be insanely bad for business if word of this got out and as much as I disliked the NER and its practices, they provided safety in the Wasteland for its citizens. These days, safety was a precious commodity in short supply and even the illusion of it can do wonders for a population.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” I asked Cy as we passed the sixth Brahmin and twentieth pair of rotting bodies. "I mean, I have but never like this...this is something new."

“Nope. Whoever did this is, or are, more than likely seasoned veterans given their efficiency and the number of bodies.” She commented grimly. “Did you notice all these casings are mostly 5.56s? Rather odd wouldn't you say?”

I bent low and examined them for myself and was surprised to find they were indeed mostly 5.56mm casings sparkling in the sand around the bodies. There were also some 10mm and shotshells scattered about as well but the abundance of 5.56 meant more than one of the assailants had an automatic weapon in that caliber. Given the relative finances of the merchants and their guards, the 10mm and 20 gauges belonged most likely to them given their cheaper nature. The NER’s standard rifle for most of its troops was the classic M16 service rifle chambered in 5.56 but...it just didn't make any sense to accuse them as the responsible party. The last thing the NER would do would gun down their main source of income and a major food supply. The most likely reason was some well-equipped Raiders, a rogue band of former Mercs or...maybe even a band of Gunners. They were a decidedly Eastcoast Merc Company that was second only to the Order of Steel Rangers in terms of training and firepower but I had never heard of them operating so far West. Of course though, there was a first time for everything and it was prudent to try and eliminate all possibilities.

“What do you think shot these?” I asked her, tossing one of the spent casings towards her to browse. “Definitely an automatic given the amount of rounds but it's a big old question mark as to what kind. There’s about a dozen options we could choose from and most are rather expensive weapons these days.”

“Hmmm...” She replied, turning over the brass and scrutinizing it. "Not a clue. There's just not enough to go off of to make any kind of assumptions this early in the investigation but I have some probable suspects in mind."

“Such as…?” I asked, staring at a round of my own. “5.56 is a military assault rifle round, most Raiders on this side of the country don’t have access to that sorta thing in any sort of bulk. ARs in the hooves of Raider gangs is an Eastcoast thing, over here it’s .357s, .44s, .45s, 9 and 10mm and .308s with the occasional .50 Big Mac.”

“There’s always the possibility of the NER itself, but there are also the Specialists, Gunners, Talons, and maybe even the Steel Rangers, the latter might just have left the junk behind.” She replied, tossing the casing back into the sand.

“NER is really unlikely...these are their boys. Talons is a strong possibility but who the fuck would put out a hit on an entire caravan in NER territory this close to Shady Sands? Even the Talons don't wander this far North... The Gunners I’ve never seen West of the Gap and the Tin Heads wouldn’t gun down a caravan like this. These guys didn't seem to be packing any Pre-War tech worthy of being utterly annihilated by the Order far as I can tell. And who the hell are the Specialists? Never heard of them, they a new Company in the region?”

“They're a gang out of Baltimare who think they're hot shit because they robbed some SR tech and weapons and can almost use them smartly. If I can make it out here, so can they.”

“Ah, so you’re from the East then...makes sense.” I replied, standing up and continuing on the trail. “And what brought you to this desert paradise on the other side of the Continent?”

“A way out, to get away from the gang I just mentioned. I had a rep among these guys.” She sighed, trotting alongside me with a stiff expression. "And no, I'm not about to start explaining my history with them so don't even fuckin' ask."

We trotted in silence for another few minutes until she stopped me with a hoof and pointed, the feeling of her actions indicating there was something other than a body this time.

“Something’s out there. See these ruins to the Northeast? Whoever or whatever attacked the caravan must be holed up inside...I would if I were them.” She said as her shotgun was drawn and the chamber checked for a round.

I looked past the next set of bodies and squinted at the hazy ruins in the distance. With my visor zooming in I could clearly see there was a small cluster of ruined and collapsed buildings surrounding a twenty story or so apartment complex that looked in incredible shape given the buildings around it. The trail of bodies led in its direction and, since we were already four miles off course from Shady Sands, I felt it wouldn’t be that big of a detour to at least check out the place. It was in NER territory but...I was already getting ideas for a new home just looking at it.

“Maybe...it wouldn’t hurt to check it out though.” I turned to Gold and Melody who were nursing the last of my lemonade and fanning their faces with each other’s tails and said, “Alright, there’s a building up ahead, we can rest in the shade there for as long as you like, k?”

“Ok!” Melody grinned happily with a sweat soaked face. “Let’s get going! This heat is killing me!”

“B-but what if the k-killers are in the b-building?” Gold whimpered, his sweat a milky white color with a hint of blood in it from his exposed muscles and veins.

“Then we kick ass and don’t take any fuckin' names.” I replied with a laugh. “Unless they’re worth our time then we’ll adapt that game plan as necessary. I'll never say no to a good fight.”

“Before you swoop in and murder everypony else inside, let me do some light recon first.” Cy said in a commanding tone, putting on her mask and taking point on our trot forwards.

“No offence but you don't seem to be the recon type, Cy.” I said with a soft chuckle noting that though she was wearing shadowed combat armor, she was prepped for close encounters of the deadly kind with her shotgun, drill and revolver. “Unless you’ve got a StealthBuck, some binoculars or a very good scope on you that I haven't seen yet.”

“I have a spotter's scope I won in a game of poker with a 1st Recon jockey. I’ll go as high as possible and try to find the weak spots and see through the cracks in the windows and walls.” She said, pulling out a pair of high-powered military spotter’s binoculars.

“There’s little elevation in this area Cy, that building is the only one standing and they’ve got the advantage on height. Here…” I said, slinging my AMR from off my back and offering it to her. “Take it if you want. It’s got an 10x60 scope with a built-in rangefinder. You’ll make a much smaller profile with the bipod on the ground.”

“Thank you, but no. I wasn’t going to try to blow up the walls on the highest floors. Their armory is probably near the middle to allow easier access to both troops near the top and the ground, I’ll try to blow that up.”

“I want the building as intact as it is now actually.” I said, returning my AMR to its place on my back. “If it’s in good condition I think I’ll be moving in and making it my new home.”

“Riiight, so the hard way then. We’ll have to go through it floor by floor then...wonderful.

“Cy, I’m a pro. Watch me work and you’ll see why.” I giggled, popping my neck while Melody looked on with a proud grin.

“You show her you’re the best of the best mom!” Melody giggled as we approached the ruins, hugging to the windswept dunes to limit our profile to anyone peeking from the upper floor windows.

We found a nice place to hide that offered a full view of the building using the ruins of a partially built building some distance from the standing one. I plopped my rifle down onto a sturdy portion of crumbling concrete wall and started counting the heads I could see on the ground floor as well as through the windows of the upper floors. It was difficult to count using the E.F.S (as usual) and my vision filters were useless against peeking through the walls. Unlike the thinner walls of Cogsworth’s workshop, these walls were much thicker and blocked my sight and my one vision filter that could spot thermal signatures through walls like this hadn't worked in over a century.

“I’ve got eyes on ten so far but there’s probably more than that inside. Judging from the number I can see, I estimate...thirty or so tangoes. No group in their right mind would set up base in a building this large with less than twenty to defend it. Cy? Your opinion?”

“What can you tell me about their gear? I’m gonna gradually approach and engage them at close range. Throw in maybe a smoke or two.” She said, plucking a pair of black smoke grenades from her belt and peering over the edge of the wall.

“Lower tier…” I mumbled glaring through the scope at the ugly heads I could see. “Welded steel and patchy leather, only the bare minimum covered. Steel looks standard since I can’t see any sign of Celestium and the leather is most likely Brahmin. These guys don’t look rich enough to afford Radigator leather. Armament looks to be mostly 9mm and a few .357s. Might be a riflemare on the upper floors but I can’t be sure; most likely a .308 at the most on that front so nothing your or my armor can’t handle. I’ve got a suppressed 10mm if you wanna try to do this quietly.”

“Yes, please. I’d rather not take all the bullets.” She sighed, extending a hoof for the pistol I was offering her. “Hmm...this isn’t the kind of suppressor I’m used to seeing…”

“That's because I made it myself with some help from a friend. You wouldn’t happen to have a suppressor on your rifle would ya, Mel?” I asked knowing the answer but hoping I was wrong all the same.

“You mean a silencer?” She asked, looking through her bags and shaking her head. “Nope, sorry mom.”

“Darling...for the sake of mommy’s OCD please don’t call it a silencer…” I groaned, taking a deep breath and letting it out along with my annoyance. “Silencers don’t exist...suppressors just muffle the noise somewhat so you’re not as noticeable and so you won’t blow out your little ears when that gun goes off. Now, I guess we’ll have to go akimbo on this. What’s your experience with the Harries Technique Cy? If any.”

“I can stand up on my hindlegs pretty easily, if that’s what you mean.” She said, rearing up in demonstration and showing strong poise in her stance.

“If you were an Earth pony that’d be necessary but I just mean using a pistol and a knife with your magic.” I said, drawing my other pistol and a freshly sharpened combat knife. “Need a knife by the way? I’ve got more than one for obvious reasons.”

“For me, it’s just shoot, drill through someone’s eyeballs, take cover, then repeat...but sure, I'll take one.” She replied, extending a hoof for my other knife.

“Well, I’ve heard that thing of yours and it’s loud as hell. If we have to go loud then by all means switch over. How about a bet?” I asked with a grin, thinking back on the Head Hunts of yesteryear as I drew my other pistol and flipped the safety off.

“At least your enemies run away after seeing you covered in flesh, blood and brains. Depends on the challenge.” She replied, spinning the knife around her hoof.

“Whoever kills the most before the alarm is raised, if ever, gets to keep 70% of the scavenged shit. Sound fun?”

“If that means more caps for a good bottle of wine and a few boxes of Dragons Breath rounds, count me in.” She said with an actual smile for once.

“Perfect, you’re on!” I giggled, taking aim at the first Raider relaxing in a dilapidated lawn chair by the front door. “Skill against skill alone so I won’t use S.A.T.S. On your signal.”

She took aim, knife floating near her head, and fired the first shot followed immediately by my own. The two chumps guarding the door never knew what hit them as they slumped in their blood-soaked chairs; bits of flesh dripping off the backs and onto the patchy dead grass silently as the empty casings clinked on the ground beside us. A perfect headshot at 30 yards with iron sights was enough to impress even me. She was definitely a step above your average Merc.

“That sounded pretty silent to me…” Melody giggled as we stood and got ready to move inside.

“Shut it…” I sighed, knowing my suppressors were as close to silencers as Equinely possible thanks to the enchantments. “Snag those casings please and set yourself up to snipe anypony’s heads you can see through the windows. Don’t take any shots until I give you the sign to go loud.”

“And what sign will that be? When I start hearing a bunch of loud gunfire and ponies shouting ‘Fuck you’?” She asked, getting into a comfortable position on the rubble and bracing her rifle on the crumbling wall.

“Pretty much. Probably won't see too many to shoot if anyone but I still want you to be ready to pull that trigger. Gold? You wanna join or do you wanna hang back and help guard our sniper?” I asked, looking at him as he opened the cylinder on his revolver and spun the shiny brass around with a soft buzz of clicks as they spun around.

“I-I think I’ll guard M-Melody.” He said timidly. “I-I’m not good at fighting m-more than a f-few ponies at once…”

“Heh, yeah that's a decent enough excuse." I laughed, patting him on the back reassuringly. "Plus that Sequoia isn’t exactly a whisper quiet weapon either. Keep an eye on her, k? These ruins may have more of them lurking about so be prepared for a behind-from-back attack. Er...an assault from behind.”

He nodded with hesitant courage but drew himself up to his full height and sat next to Melody who nuzzled him affectionately before returning her eyes to her rifle obediently. I had next to no time to train her in proper sniping and yet she had shown almost a natural proficiency with the weapon on at least three occasions. Granted, those occasions had been with a clear line of sight and limited opponents but it didn’t diminish the fact she had some genuine inborn talent behind a crosshair. Obviously music wasn’t the only thing she was naturally gifted in. Still, even diamonds in the rough needed a professional to help polish them into a gleaming, priceless object and I was looking forward to having the opportunity to train her. The time-honored art of sniping was a worthy heirloom to pass on.

“Let’s get going then, Cy. No time like the present!” I said, jumping out from behind the ruins and galloping towards the door to minimize our time out in the open.

She followed close behind and we stopped as we reached the shoddy front doors to get our bearings. The two guards laid in their gore with looks of surprise and their crappy weapons (a battered .38 revolver and a rusty combat knife) laid on the ground nearby their hooves entirely untouched. Each head had a small hole through the skull in almost the exact same spot despite being on two different bodies; exactly between the eyes as Death intended. The rest of the outside was quiet and devoid of life so our only route forward was inside and up.

“Alright...on the count of three we’ll breach the door and sweep the entrance hall. I’ll take the right, you take the left. Got it?” I said, loading a spare mag into my gun even though I had only used one round of the original twelve-round magazine. You never knew when you needed that extra bullet.

“I’ll try and leave a few kills for ya.” She smirked, accepting the two spare magazines I offered her from my shoulder holster.

“Ditto.” I replied, psyching myself up for the breach.

On the count of three, we each burst through the double doors and into the dimly lit interior of the apartment lobby. There were no enemies in sight despite my helmet indicating multiple enemy ticks on my E.F.S. The lobby itself reminded me of a slightly inferior (and significantly dirtier) version of mom’s apartment in Manehattan. The furniture was filled with holes from years of neglect and pests, the plaster was chipping off the walls and the receptionist booth was missing massive chunks making it hard to believe it was once an actual desk. Despite the obvious Raider presence, it was missing the usual Raider décor as there wasn’t a single mutilated body dangling by chains from the ceiling or nailed to the walls. There were large bloodstains on the floor, some fresher than others but otherwise, it seemed relatively 'normal' for a ruin. While the older blood splatters looked like they came from a wounded pony hobbling along, the fresher ones distinctly looked like something had been dragged across the floor. Nothing a bit of water and Zebroxo detergent couldn’t handle though.

“They must be on the upper floors…” I sighed, hopping over the front desk in search of the ammo canisters I knew had to be there given Raider’s standard M.O. “You use anything that uses 5.56mm or .357?”

“No unfortunately. Leave it there so we can share it later, depending on who gets the most kills.” She replied, looking around the dusty room with her mask hissing softly as she breathed.

“Yeah...I don’t either.” I mumbled as I left the ammo cans on the working portion of the desk. “But, no such thing as too much spare ammo. Alright, let’s move on. We can loot when we’ve cleared this place. Nineteen floors to go.”

She nodded and we quickly swept through the rest of the lobby looking for any potential hiding places for would-be ambushers. After finding another few dead and rotting caravan guards in the supply closets, we mounted the stairs as silently as we could headed for the first floor apartments. With only two of us and a few dozen of them, this was going to be more than tricky but after seeing her precision shot at the front door, I was confident Cy was the right mare for this job. Cogsworth and his energy weapons and combat robots certainly would have made the job easier but he wasn’t at liberty to leave his shop pending a massive order from the NER for robots. The cobalt blue mare would have to do and I was far from mad about that fact. At the end of the day she knew her shit and had yet to actually pull a gun on me so our temporary partnership was a beneficial relationship for both of us.

The first floor looked like any apartment floor I had ever been in with a long corridor leading from the stairwell towards the various rooms scattered along its length. The dust on the ground was disturbed but there weren’t any sounds that I could hear on our floor at least which was both encouraging and disappointing. With the lack of action, I was tempted to move onto the second floor but the possibility of fighting a two, even three-way war with enemies from below, in front and above was undesirable. We needed to check each and every goddamn room just to be sure. If I had Alpha Squad, we would have had at least two groups of two working two floors at a time plus a pair of wings in the air sniping any fools in sight. Sadly...it was just me and the bitch.

“How do you want to proceed? This floor feels empty but we can’t be sure unless we check every room.” I asked her, the muted sunlight streaming through the grimy windows illuminating the floating particles of dust like gracefully falling flecks of gold.

“Melee takedowns only, if possible. There could always be another pony nearby and even with these suppressors I doubt the noise would go unnoticed. Keep an eye out for anything that could make noise if we or they bump into it. Would be a shame if their body lands on something and causes a ruckus too early.“ She replied, floating the combat knife before her ready to stab the shit out of anypony who came too near.

“I agree. Want to split up and take separate rooms or move in tangent?” I asked, holstering my own pistol and drawing Little Fang for the extra blade length and the potent Blood Gem in the pommel still hungry for hemoglobin.

“Split up at least for this floor, we’ll clear it out faster. Might be sacrificing a little bit of security in the process but hey, we'll get this shit over with quicker.” She said confidently, moving forward with her borrowed knife at the ready.

I nodded at her retreating form and followed behind, going for room 101 while she took 102 right across from me. The doors were busted open by brute force and we entered easily into our first rooms. They were rather small and frankly shitty; not because of their decaying state (which didn’t help any) but the size and amenities available were total shit. The room I was in was roughly the same size as my old room back in Little Hoof suburbs but rather than a separate bathroom and room for a queen sized bed, they had stuffed in a pair of twin beds that barely fit in the corner of the room beside a rotting T.V stand with a large blown out television on top. The bathroom was stuffed into the other corner of the room only separated by a thin curtain and no bath or shower to speak of. The kitchen was likewise small and dingy as hell with a minifridge and small hotplate acting as the only cooking appliances worthy of mention on a countertop that was barely larger than a couple of 2x4s. Dozens of empty liquor bottles littered the floor offering both a noise and a tripping hazard to any who dared walk across the floor and curled up on the bed were a pair of skeletons, both bleached white from long term exposure to the desert air and the residual Rads that clung to everything living and dead.

“Y'all two drink yourselves into oblivion or what?” I mumbled as I poked through the fridge and found a few surviving bottles of Badland Bourbon, a rare commodity ever since the Badlands were made into a warzone and bourbon production ceased entirely in their historic distilling centers. “Damn...what are these? 2047 vintage? Hot damn!”

Bourbon was one of the seven drinks mom had made me try with her on that wonderful day. Like it’s wheat-based cousin whiskey, bourbon packed a hell of a corn flavored, smoky punch to the mouth and again like whiskey, I hadn’t been that big of a fan. That being said, I had heard on more than one occasion that whiskey and SparkleCola were a delicious combo. Bourbon though was a rare enough commodity that only the wealthy or the lucky got to imbibe it making it a valuable trade item. Mom had been right though, rum had been my drink of choice that night. As I stashed the bottles away in my bags I thought about potentially giving booze another solid try after many years away from it but couldn't make up my mind on it. I hated what it did to ponies (especially stallions) but getting drunk on my own terms in a safe environment didn't sound too bad... Red Berryl though...that was something I was always down to puff on.

The rest of the apartment was empty and devoid of anything of edible or valuable and so I moved on, Cy emerging soon after with a bottle of wine in her hooves that she showed me with pride. It was another Sauvignon Blanc, this one an even older vintage from 2020. Though I knew little about fine wines, the rule everypony seemed to know was the older it is, the more expensive it became and the more you can charge for it.

“Anything else interesting?” I asked, glancing into the next room and seeing it too was empty and entirely devoid of anything, obviously an apartment nopony had moved into before the Balefire struck. “I snagged a couple of bottles of Badlands Bourbon in my room but nothing else worth anything aside from a couple skeletons.”

“The only thing of value is here in my hooves. The rest was junk or broken beyond repair.” She sighed, putting the bottle away in her bags and batting some of the dust from her mane where it hung in the air like a fine gold powder fit to make one sneeze.

“This floor feels like a bust to be honest…” I said, glancing up and down the hallway. “Nothing we can’t do when we have a lot more time on our hooves. Wanna move up the stairs?”

“Nothing to see here anyway…” She sighed in a bored tone, looking around and shrugging in response.

We proceeded cautiously, stepping on each stair at the point where it met the wall in order to reduce the chance of squeaking wood, and poked our heads and weapons into the hallway. There were still no enemies that I could hear or see and Cy seemed of the same impression. Red ticks milled about on my E.F.S like they were right in front of me but I knew better. More than likely, we would start seeing ponies much closer to the top floor. For now we could skip the empty floors and loot them later when there wasn’t the threat of bullets flying through the walls and breaking things we wanted to salvage. Oh, and sailing through our bodies too but that was honestly less annoying if I was to be honest. My Mrk. V had proven year after year to be the best at keeping bullets from penetrating my ass without my permission.

Floor ten was when we finally came across some people to shoot, the sound of multiple voices heard from the floor below making us change our weapons to match the threat. Cy was proving incredibly talented in room clearing operations and was the perfect wingmare to have the moment a door was opened and we began to open fire. S.A.T.S proved to be unnecessary as we each knew our role in the program and our opponents were completely caught off guard. The door would open and we would partially enter, Cy crouching low under my barrel and gunning down the right side of the room while I remained standing and took down the left side. After every room we would pause to see if the alarm was raised but nary a sound was made aside from the gurgling death rattle of someone with their neck blasted open. Life had become too easy ever since the great warriors of old all but vanished in Balefire. I mean, back in the day clearing a building like this full of guards protecting my target by myself would have been at the very least...like three-times more difficult. Sure, I would still kick everyone’s ass, but the challenge would at least feel more like an actual challenge. This? This was a Radroach shoot on normal difficulty and nopony could tell me any differently.

As the last room was cleared of enemies, this one with a mule and a stallion both sleeping away like nothing was happening, Cy and I both paused to reload and take a quick peek at the contents of the room. Her empty magazine rattled as it hit the floor and a fresh one was fed in and the slide cocked on the first round...but she didn’t pause to snatch up the empty mag. She just left it sitting there. On the floor. As if those things grew on trees. The fucking nerve...

“Pick that up.” I said calmly, doing my utmost to not freak out even though my mind was starting riots in Downtown OCDVille.

“Excuse me?” She asked bluntly, looking around the room from the piles of dirty Raider clothing to the brain splatter on the walls by the beds. “Pick up what?”

“The empty magazine. The one you eh...left on the floor where it doesn’t belong.” I said feeling a slight shrill enter my voice.

“It’s empty, why should I bother?” She retorted, kicking it towards me with a sigh. “You can get these things literally anywhere.”

“Yes. But these are still useful.” I said through gritted teeth as I stooped down to pick up my mag in my mouth just to give my mouth something to do other than chew her out for wasting something that could come in handy later on. After all...an empty magazine was refillable and thus still had value. Unlike other people, I couldn’t just leave my equipment behind just because it wasn’t immediately valuable as an asset. It was hard enough not scooping up every single spent casing we left behind and sticking them into my bag for reloading when I got home but this was too much. I needed to have every magazine used remain in my possession whether or not it was filled. The full ones went in my mag pouches ready for use and the empties got turned into Sigil Stones and stowed away for refill. Everything had its place and every place had its purpose in my arsenal. While I was fully aware my habits were not hers, far as I cared I outranked her.

She rolled her eyes again after I gave her a scathing glare and poked through a closet with a broken door only to pull out an FIM-6 missile launcher that, based on the glowing red lights in the targeting computer housing, was still functional. It was covered in hundreds, if not thousands, of small tally marks scratched into every metal surface provided by the weapon. The number of marks was eerily familiar as were the overlarge optics, grips and buttons. It was definitely a Griffin-sized model from the size alone and there was only one Griffin I knew who could have racked up so many marks…

“What the hell?” Cy grumbled as I kind of shoved her out of the way to examine the weapon closer looking almost desperately for the little singing songbird etched into the arm of the digital recon scope that marked it as the property of Buck Beak.

I spun the launcher around and around and around in a crazed fervor looking for that stupid little songbird. It had to be somewhere! Lady Nightingale's cutie mark, Buck Beak’s celebrity crush for decades, was forever carved into the first missile launcher he had ever been issued before he had gotten Little Big Cannon custom made. Serial number IAEO-0008675309, a number I wasn't likely to forget after he had made a stupid song up about them. Where the fuck was it?!

“Calm the fuck down damnit, you’re making enough noise to wake every single of these fucks up.” Cy hissed, yanking the long cylinder of death out of my hooves with an angry glare. “What’s so important with this thing anyway? It’s just a launcher, go buy your own. This one’s mine bitch, I found it first.”

Maybe I was going temporarily blind. She was a fresh pair of eyes, she could find it!

“I need to know.” I panted breathlessly, hooves still outstretched for the weapon. “Look on it, please. A Nightingale songbird wreathed with a heart carved in by the scope.”

“What? I...fine.” She sighed, glancing at the area I had indicated. “Nothing here, can we go now?”

“No, it must be his…” I whimpered despite myself, my sudden crazed lust for memorabilia reducing me to uncharacteristic tears. “Only Buck could have so many marks…”

“Look, I dunno what you’re looking for or who the fuck 'Buck' is, but it ain't fucking there. Can we get back to cleaning this place up already?” She grumbled, leaning the launcher against the doorframe as she left the room. "Sheesh..."

My world was cracked. Not broken...but the cracks were starting to show themselves again now that I had begun to crawl back out of the shell of isolation I had made to keep me sane. I was alive, standing here today still breathing and kicking ass. Buck, Dancer, Penny...Hucks and mom. Everyone else was dust except for me... It was not a pleasant thought let alone feeling as the icy cold shame of survivor's guilt pricked at my heart. I missed the old world...even all the bullshit that came with it like the War and shady politics.

‘Shut your stupid ass face hole and get back to the action, Crete!’

I could hear Buck’s voice in my head as clear as if he were beside me. His overly masculine, puffed up bravado-filled voice echoed in the confines of my tiny mind loudly enough to make my head spin. Of course I was being stupid. Nostalgia was a sign of weakness, a sign of degrading morale in the face of an unknown future ahead. Then again...was it all that bad...?

‘Just because you burn the photographs of the past doesn’t mean you’ve erased them from existence. There’ll always be a record of things that have happened because somewhere, somehow...there’s someone watching over us.’

Great...now Penny was joining in the chaos trying to appeal to my soft side that enjoyed the...well, the soft things in life including nostalgia. I’m going mad. About time to be honest…

‘Don’t look at me Crete, I don’t wanna get involved in this.’

Typical Dancer. Always the reluctant combatant. Many help. Very counseling.

‘Look...appreciate things that happened, happened. They changed you one way or the other but don’t let them get to you. If they’re bad, do what you do best Crete. Blow a fucking hole in them and move on.’

‘Knowing my girl she’d probably fuck that hole too as an expression of dominance.’

I laughed out loud to myself at her imagined comment. I wasn’t one for necrophilia but then again...establishing dominance like that was more Buck's thing. I preferred a nice, warm body to love up on.

“You got a problem or somethin'? Or should I just leave your ass behind and win this bet of ours? Huh?”

Cy’s face appeared in my field of vision as suddenly as if she had teleported there looking as grim and irritated as always. She was pretty cute but her bitchy attitude killed any chance my libido had at considering her as an avenue of venting its constant tension in my body. Not even good looks could hide a bad attitude.

“Oh I’ve got tons of problems.” I laughed, getting back to my hooves and tightening the suppressor on my weapon just to give myself something to do other than try to explain away my lapse in concentration. (Or should I say sanity?) “But unfortunately for you they’re not enough to keep me from wiping the floor with you. Bring it on.”

“Hmph...not like I’ll need the advantage of you staring into space.” She muttered, pulling on her gasmask as a sign of terminating our conversation.

“That’s the spirit.” I laughed to myself as we left the room behind headed for the stairs.

******

“We’ve got you outnumbered! Drop your guns and come out slowly!”

I looked at Cy who was busy shoving bright red shotshells into her shotgun and then back at the floor in front of us. We were hiding behind a thick metal locker I had hastily thrown down as improvised cover near the center of a large communal living room on the top floor of the apartment building. Behind us were about twelve or so ponies all hellbent on killing us while before us lay the bodies of sixteen of their brethren; various sized holes peppering their bodies ranging from slim knife wounds to gaping canyons filled with a mixture of gore and buckshot. With stealth no longer being necessary, we had both ditched the 10mms in favor of our bigger weapons. her with her shotgun and myself with my Sequoia and a knife. So far, we seemed tied in our respective body counts and neither of us were really that concerned about being outnumbered. For ponies in our business, this was just another day at the office though instead of skirts and suits we got to wear Kevyarn and Celestium steel plate. Far more enjoyable a lifestyle than an office jockey.

“I’m not going to ask you again! Come out slowly with your hooves in plain sight!” Called out the stallion from before, his eloquence rather refined for an ordinary Raider. "We outnumber you six-to-one, there's no winning this."

“Then it's a fair fight!" I yelled back, flicking up the barrel of my revolver on six fresh .45-70’s and turning to Cypher. "Feel like giving up to this clown?"

“Please, this is foal’s play.” She replied in her usual bored tone. “I’ll take left, you’ve got the right. Let's end this already...”

“Hey, I get left! Why do I have to be on the right?” I complained, completely ignoring the heavy thuds of bullets pounding against the back of the locker I was leaning against.

“Because it makes more tactical sense. Their bigger units are on the left and I’m the one with the shotgun, not you.”

“Have you seen what my Sequoia can do to armor?” I grunted in annoyance as I shoved the huge weapon into her face. "They make AP rounds for this fucker ya know."

“I know, and I still think my shotgun will do better.” She replied, opening the chamber of her gun and hoof loading in a bright neon orange shell.

“That’s a Dragon’s Breath round.” I commented incredulously. "Seriously?"

“And your point is?”

“Uhhh, I asked for minimal structural damage to this place. Last fucking thing I want is for you to set off an inferno damnit. You ever seen an apartment fire?”

Guns continued to fire, ponies kept shouting expletives our way and the poor abused locker continued to thud and clang as their minor calibers slowly chipped away at its structural integrity. And yet still we sat against it, bickering about whose gun was better. Were she not such a cunt, something like this would never have happened while on a job but her attitude really prickled my anger and I was almost more focused on showing her up and putting her ass in its place than killing those out to kill us. All of a sudden my head was ringing and a heavy, painful thud rang out from the side of my head as a bullet shattered against my helmet, the sudden impact sending me flopping forwards and onto my stomach. Without even having to look I knew that the sniper I had eyed earlier had joined the fun and had enough firepower to pierce through the locker but not quite enough to put a hole through me. The M.H.G didn’t change the outline of my head from green to yellow but my headache said otherwise. As usual, the PipBuck 3000 OS had the knack for understatement and vaguery.

“Ugh...that was a .308 if I’ve ever felt one…” I groaned as I got partially up and crawled back towards Cy who was eying me through her mask as if unsure she should be grateful I were alive or not.

“Your armor is better than I thought.” She commented before pulling a smoke grenade from her waist, yanking out the pin and tossing it over our cover into the bullet filled middle ground. "Smoke out!"

There was a loud pop and then an audible hiss over the din of gunfire while the ambient light in the room coming from the broken and grimy windows was quickly dimmed in the wake of the growing plume of ominous black smoke pouring from the little steel canister with a large black stripe on it. The shouting became more confused as visibility went down to nearly zero and my vision automatically went from black smoke to the rainbow of thermal imaging. Cy was already standing up and flipping over the locker as I drew a knife back out of its sheath and followed suit, crossing the distance between us and them to strike before they could get their bearings. Even my anger towards her couldn't do much more than sulk in approval at her ability to navigate and kill with a lot less visibility than I was granted.

The thermal world was always a trip to see as everypony was a moving mass of reds, blues, purples and that odd super pale orange color that you only really see with white-hot gun metal. The bright orange/red objects in their mouths or strapped to their sides flashed white-hot at the tip at regular, chaotic intervals while I felt the occasional thud of a stray bullet stopping an inch and a half from my skin. I was so entranced with PipBuck’s World-of-Color mode that six bodies lay on the ground in my wake dead or dying without me even remembering how they got that way. If anything, I was disappointed in how easy things had been made for us compared to before where these saps had actually stood a chance. A very slim one, but a chance nonetheless.

“Back to back! Don’t let them close in!” The leader called, his multi-colored hoof waving about like a beacon in the muted blue/purple background while the floor was occupied by other similarly orange beacons.

I looked right just in time to see a large flash of white come from Cy’s shotgun while a figure collapsed with a long item in its hooves. The sniper was down finally and by the looks of things, it was 2-on-1 now. Cy moved to take the last stallion out but I stopped her as a sudden stupid (and vain) urge hit me. We would get close to him but not too close and then wait for the smoke to wear off so the first thing he would see is both the room full of his dead underlings as well as the two badass mares who had taken care of them. I did my best to try and communicate this without saying anything as it was quiet enough for him to overhear me explaining my stupid plan to her and I think she understood me. At least enough to not take the shot at that moment.

“Guys? Where are you?” He barked out, his voice hard but tinged with panic as the realization of the situation set in. “Oh fuck…oh fuck, fuck, fuck...”

The smoke finally started to die down and we stood there waiting right in front of him with guns at the ready, the bodies of his minions soaking the threadbare carpets with their blood. With the smoke gone, I switched back to normal vision and was taken aback at who we were really up against. We had not had the pleasure of taking in the sights the moment we mounted the stairs and entered the room so now was the first time I was actually getting to see the asshole who had decided to move into this place. Instead of the scarred and grizzled old Raider that I was expecting, it was a fucking trooper of the NER. There was no mistaking their beige tan uniform, the hard leather breastplate or the giant NER logo painted on his chest and sewn into his shoulder. As soon as he caught sight of us he gave a small yelp of fear and fell back over himself trying to back away.

“Stay away Ranger! Don’t come a step closer!” He cried out from around the grip in his mouth, pointing an empty 9mm at me, the standard sidearm of most lower ranking troopers. “We didn’t fuck with you! Why the fuck are you after us??”

We stood there in silence trying to figure out how the fuck the NER ended up here with a bunch of Raiders giving him enough time to reload from the pouches at his waist and open fire at me. Thirteen times he shot and eleven times my armor thudded and sparked under his pointless assault. I just...couldn't understand what the hell I was seeing.

As he clicked on empty yet again, the gun dropped from his mouth with a clatter to the floor at his side and his expression was filled with the look of a mouse cornered by a Manticore. In the time it took to approach him, I noticed the three black chevrons sewn onto his right shoulder. A Sergeant in the NER leading a band of Raiders holed up in an abandoned apartment complex just outside of Shady Sands. It wasn’t the most bizarre thing I had ever seen but it definitely cracked the top thirty. As for potentially devastating consequences, it was somewhere in the twenties for sure. There would be hell to pay in the Republic once word of this got out.

“What in the hell is a Sergeant like you doing all the way out here with these fuckers?” I asked, standing over him with my gun hovering nearby just in the very unlikely occurrence he had a bomb vest on. "Speak!"

“N-none of your fucking business, Ranger.” He sneered back at me, eying his fallen weapon and the two empty mags laying nearby. “You finally declaring war on the NER? Is that what this is all about? Huh??”

War on the NER? We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of shit including what constituted a fair tax rate on citizens but declaring war on the NER was not just insane, it was stupidly out of character for me. I had no quarrel with the Republic itself nor its citizens, just its politics and how it handled some shit under its jurisdiction. The most conflict that would get out of me is a heated argument but war? I was just one fucking mare. A mare with a big ass rifle and high-tier armor but just a single pony at the end of the day. I had neither the confidence nor the insanity needed to take on such a ludicrous idea...not to mention the necessary headcount of underlings to actually facilitate a real war.

“Dunno what you’ve been smoking ever since you joined up with these guys trooper, but do I look like I’m ready to challenge the NER?” I said incredulously, gesturing to the two of us and the otherwise empty room. “Don’t know what army you’re seeing bolstering our numbers but so far it’s just me, this bitch and a couple of kids outside. That’s a terrific army. Best fuckin' army I've ever heard of! Oh yes, we will most definitely be conquering the North with such an impressive roster of soldiers, won't we Cy?”

“Ugh, just fucking shoot him already damnit. Your kids have been alone too long.” Cy said quietly, cocking her shotgun and pointing it casually at the trooper. "Besides, I'm getting bored. We've got a body count to tally up."

“Hold up a second, I want some answers.” I replied pushing her barrel out of the way of his face before shoving my own barrel in its place. “You’ve got ten seconds to explain and don’t beat around the bush. My attention span is arbitrary but if you keep me interested I’ll keep listening. One...two...eight...”

He sat deathly still for a few moments before I jabbed him in the head with the barrel to rouse him back to the situation. The guy’s uniform was soiled and worn out but not to the point where I would consider it to be the garb of a deserter nor was the stallion’s face the dirty, ‘fuck-all’ appearance most Raiders donned. Either this guy was the real thing or was super conscientious about laundering his pillaged uniform. No...his manner of speech was too refined for a Raider, this guy had to be a trooper.

“I don’t have anything to say to you, Ranger.” He spat, going cross eyed trying to keep my gun in sight against his forehead. “You’ve killed the rest of them so finish the job, damnit.”

“If you had nothing to say, you wouldn’t be here now would ya? An NER soldier boy running gun with a bunch of Wasteland degenerates? You think I'm not gonna wonder about that shit? Whether or not you have anything to say, something’s gotta be said for this whole fucking situation, don’t ya think?” I replied, gesturing to the bodies around us. “What happened to the caravan, bitchnozzle? And don’t tell me you don’t know, there’s more than enough circumstantial evidence to convince this jury.”

“We...um…” He stammered, looking around wildly in a probable attempt to find something to clobber me with.

“Annnnnd you just lost my attention...” I sighed, pointing my gun at his left shoulder and blowing the entire joint out with a tremendous bang, his leg flopping off to the side like a large limp noodle in a spray of blood that was rather fantastic.

His screams made my ears curl in annoyance and I regretted my snap decision to shoot him as he was no good to me as a screaming mess of a stallion. After a few seconds of that I couldn’t bear to listen to it so I dug through my medicine bag looking for Medix to dull his pain long enough to get a coherent statement out of him. Was I feeling particularly benevolent? Hell no. Once he was done speaking, my next shot was going through his skull and into the floor. Or the wall depending on if he was upright or not, either way he was buzzard food just like the merchants he helped slaughter.

“Alright, feeling better? Good. Answer the question or I’ll blow your dick off next.” I said after sticking him with 25cc’s of uber-opioid and waiting a minute. “What’s an NER tan hide like you doing with a bunch of chemheads like these?”

His bleeding had significantly decreased thanks to the vasodilating properties of Medix so he was in no immediate danger of bleeding out on me. Only question was if he would spill the beans before I spilled the rest of his blood supply.

“We...we were fucking bored ok?” He groaned, crawling back a few feet to lean against the back wall. “Patrolling the San-Palomino makes you wish for a Rad Winter...it’s just nothing but fucking sand and cactuses and-”

“Cacti.” I corrected without even thinking.

“What?”

“The plural form of cactus is cacti, not cactuses.”

“Ok, whatever...we’re fucking bored alright? All you do all day every day is stand there in the heat with a gun you’re not allowed to use unless provoked with similarly bored friends. You’re not even allowed to talk much unless it’s official business because they don’t want us distracted from watching the goddamn empty roads! What the hell is there to do out here?! The closest bar is in fucking Shady Sands but even there you have to be off-duty to get a shot of fucking AJ! We already smoked our whole stash of Red Berryl three months ago and none of the fuckwads passing through the checkpoints have been carrying any more! Just a bunch of canned food n’ shit. I mean yeah we get a pack of smokes a day and maybe a few more from ‘redistributing’ them from the yahoos who pass through but still...it’s fucking terrible out here. Give me a fucking break damnit!”

“So you mean to tell me you joined up with a group of Raiders because you were bored?” I asked incredulously, looking at Cy who stood there as motionless and emotionless as ever.

“Yeah, fuck you sister! I bet your life is just so fucking fun packed you’ve never had time to be bored haven’t ya?” He snapped, pulling out an almost empty pack of cigarettes and screwing a slightly bent fagg into his mouth as nonchalantly as I had ever seen. Although having a final smoke wasn't too egregious a thing to allow him to do under the circumstances.

“I’ve had plenty of time being bored, dumbass. Try staring down the same scope for three-days waiting for a single target to enter your line of sight. Or better yet, try watching over the Ponyarny Inlet sometime and let me know how you feel after a few months of that shit during the winter. You’d be begging for this heat again. So...you were bored, joined a gang, shot up a bunch of innocent merchants and took their shit as extra income. As stupidly fucked as that is, I guess I understand at some level. Did you happen to find any Dragon leather in all your pillaging?”

“What’s it to you huh?” He snapped, patting at his chest with his remaining hoof and looking annoyed. “Ah fuck, do one of you have a light?”

“It’s a lot to me actually.” I sighed, pulling out a flip lighter from my belt and lighting his cigarette for him. “Because if you killed the merchant it belonged to then your life is fucked beyond belief at this point and no amount of Medix is gonna protect you from what’s to come.”

After taking a long drag and blowing the plume of gray smoke into my face, he nodded with a bored expression.

“Yeah, he’s over in that other room...might still be alive, might not. Knock yourself out bitch...be doing me a fucking favor...”

I nodded to Cy who approached the door to the indicated room cautiously, kicking it down and disappearing from sight with her shotgun up and ready. While we waited I looked back at my captive who was already halfway through his second cigarette and was looking tired and defeated. I was sickened by his actions. I knew the NER underpaid its troops by a decent margin but...was that really enough to justify this? Shaking down merchants for loose goodies was one thing but murdering them for their shit was entirely another. Not that I was any sort of fucking authority on the morality of killing but even my fucked up moral compass knew that this sort of shit was wayyyyy South of 'good'.

“Anything else you wanna tell me?” I asked as I got back up to my hooves. "Blood loss will kill you in twenty minutes so make the best of your time left, asshole."

“Don’t suppose I’m gonna make it out of this alive, am I?” He sighed, using the smoldering cherry of his second cigarette to light a third. “Well...would it be too much to ask for a bit of whiskey? You seem like a girl who’d pack a bottle everywhere she went.”

“I’m actually a rum or tequila mare but I’ve got a bottle or two of AJ.” I replied, raising my PipBuck to my face to rummage through my inventory to bring one of the bottles I had taken from Camp Macintosh to the top of my bags. "I shouldn't even be doing this for you..."

He took it gingerly, eying me for any sign of foul play but eventually he pulled out the cork with his teeth and downed the entire bottle in one go. It was impressive for sure and I granted him a modicum of respect for being hard. Didn't diminish the fact it was a waste of whiskey on a waste of life...but what was done was done. Maybe it would loosen his tongue a bit more...

“Thanks…” He muttered, tossing the empty bottle across the room. "I ain't got shit left to say to you so why don't yo-"

The roar of my Sequoia blowing his brains across the wall and the grimy window above cut off his last act of defiance leaving the room quiet and heavy with mixed feelings, all of them dour.

“Yeah, yeah...save it for whatever the fuck comes after this world...” I mumbled as I holstered my weapon and trotted across the room to the room Cy had disappeared into.

It was a standard (if extremely filthy) apartment room with a larger kitchen unit connected to a modest sized living room and a hallway leading towards what I assumed was a bedroom. In the corner Cy was kneeling down and talking to a huddled form from which several chains extended and connected to railroad spikes hammered into the floor and walls. Dried tracks of red spiderwebbed outwards from the figure as well. This wasn’t how Scaly deserved to go out… Eaten by one of his Dragons? Sure, was bound to happen eventually but tortured and chained in the corner of a nondescript apartment building in the middle of the desert? That was a Raider’s grave, not Scaly's.

“W-who’s there?” He croaked out, his gruff voice dry and cracking as if he had spent the last few days screaming. “Is that you...A-Athena?”

I approached Cy and sat beside her taken aback at how unrecognizable my friend was. His eyepatch was removed and both his eyes were empty, bloody sockets while his body was riddled with cuts and burns of varying size ranging from a few inches to one cutting him his left shoulder all the way down his chest to his right thigh. His legs were crossed and though he was curled up on himself, it wasn’t hard to see he had also been gelded. And very unprofessionally at that. I liked to threaten to cut stallion’s balls off but I almost never went through on my threat because even a bitter enemy deserved to die with their stallionhood intact. Castrating a guy was a terrible punishment...the ultimate fuck you right above dating the guy for two years and then marrying his sister. (And no, I had never done that myself but it goes without saying that would be almost as big a blow to the balls as gelding.)

“About damn time…” He chuckled. “How the hell did you find me...?”

“Do you want the truth or a vague approximation of it?” I replied, bringing every single medical supply I had to the top of my bags since he needed more than just what your average first aid kit provided. “Truth is...well...things have changed for me a lot in the last two weeks. Enough to make your head spin probably...”

“Really?” He gasped after chugging an Extra-Strength potion and weakly breaking the bottle over his head as he did with everything he drank be it booze or water. “You found my sorry ass in the middle of the fucking desert and killed the assholes who captured me. Far as I can tell ain’t nothing changed about you, Crete.”

“Heh...well, I guess that’s true…” I laughed halfheartedly. “But...would you believe me if I told you I adopted a couple of kids and decided to try a new way of life?”

His empty sockets stared me down and I stared right back at him, ignoring the fact I could see the severed ends of his optic nerves deep inside. In two weeks...less than two weeks actually, my entire outlook on life had changed dramatically. I didn’t even recognize myself some nights but it wasn't something I found myself hating. If anything, the more I pursued this road, the more confident I felt in my heart that this was the right thing to do. My...chance at redemption you could say if I was feeling a bit whimsical.

“You ain't one to fuck around...but goddamnit I wish you were.” He sighed. “Because that...ain’t the kinda thing I’d expect from you. Where’s the hardass Crete I know? Hope she hasn’t retired... If you got kids then you’ll need her watching over ya more than ever in this fucking world.”

“That part of me can’t retire, Scaly. I’m a soldier girl for life and not even motherhood is gonna stop that. Maybe bridle it a bit but not retire it. Not by a long fucking shot.”

“Mom…? You in here…?” Melody’s voice called out from the living room outside. "Holy shit what a mess!"

“In here Mel.” I called back, smiling as Scaly's face went slack-jawed with amazement at hearing the voice of a young mare call me ‘mom’. "Though you might wanna shut your eyes if you haven't already...it's not a pretty sight in here."

We waited a few moments until her adorable little head poked into the room, her face instantly brightening the moment she caught sight of me. Gold followed silently behind her, his Sequoia out and his eyes glancing everywhere for any possible threat to his new sister. Both looked as healthy as ever which was a tremendous relief though the moment Melody caught sight of Scaly she immediately made a move towards him.

I moved quickly to bar her view of my poor friend to spare her more traumatic images but she quickly pushed me out of the way and hurried over to his side, digging in her bags for her own medical supplies including an MTK, a Military Trauma Kit which was something that surprised me immensely. The Kit itself was a small satchel that contained a device that could only be described as a couple Ultra-Strength potions attached to a small computer with a hypodermic needle and breathing mask for delivering the volatile liquid directly into the bloodstream via vein and lung. Even during the War, MTK’s were a rare sight due to the cost of the potions being used apparently containing exceedingly rare plants. Contained inside the pressurized containers was a potent cocktail of super-charged healing elixir, Medix, Dash, RadAway and an experimental drug called Hydra, a potion purportedly capable of regrowing missing limbs. I had only seen six of these in my life and only once have I ever see one be used. The results were...immediate to say the least. And almost violently so...

“Mel sweetie, where in the fresh fuck did you get that?” I asked her cautiously as she opened up the satchel (which was embroidered with the M.O.P insignia as well as the letters MTK in bold red) and started unraveling the long plastic tubing connecting the needle and mask to the computer.

“The medical ponies back in New Appleloosa, why?” She asked sweetly, looking through the instructions sewn onto the inside of the satchel flap. "They gave it to me when you took Chocolate to the toilet since I told them I liked medicine. Might have had to play the baby-eyes routine to get it but I didn't steal it if that's what you're asking."

“Do you know what that is?” I asked again, eying the device with a bit of trepidation as Melody was hardly a trained combat medic.

“A Military Trauma Kit, silly.” She chided me with a smile, pointing to the words written in bold font on the instructions. “What, am I not allowed to have this or something?”

“I wasn’t saying that Mel but…”

“But what? I like medicine! It’s so fascinating! Plus, I get to help ponies. Like...like him.” She replied, looking towards Scaly who had his ear turned to her and was smiling in her direction in silent thanks. "Besides...they said they didn't need it and after hearing a bit about where I came from they insisted I couldn't leave without some kind of gift. It was either a half-dozen free Extra-Strength potions or this and...well, I liked how official and cool this thing looked so I chose it."

“Just…” I began before I cut myself off from telling her flat out no. “Just...why don’t you watch me do it ok? I’ve got combat medic training and a lot more experience in this sorta thing. This isn’t your average health potion hun, this is a goddamn Ministry of Peace Trauma Kit. This thing is like comparing a bomb to a grenade in terms of how potent the shit inside there is. There’s a reason these weren’t standard issue to combat medics save for the truly exceptional because you have to be incredibly precise in your administration of the chems. Otherwise, the patient could go into cardiac arrest, have a Medix overdose, get cancer up the ass, go into a coma, sprout multiple limbs and other nasty malformities... Hucks was very adamant I understood that back in the day...”

Her little hooves trembled slightly as the gravity of my cautionary words sank in and she timidly passed the device over for me to handle keeping very close by watching my every move with rapt attention. First and foremost I checked to see if the damn thing even worked as without the calibrator, I was left with a very expensive cocktail of uselessness on par with the Lovely Lotus cocktail from the Chez-Parez. All show, no bite and about the same amount of mystery juice involved. A blue light came on when I pressed the ON button and I waited ten seconds for it to turn green as it ran a self-diagnostic and cleared itself for duty; a small screen displaying info in the normal StableTec green. Once that was done, I dug into the satchel for the small I.V prep kit that came with alcohol wipes for disinfecting the venipuncture site, a long rubber band for a tourniquet as well as a vial of Lidocaine for numbing the area for those who, like myself, feared the soft prick of the needle more than even a bullet. After disinfecting the site and applying the tourniquet, I had Melody take his leg and feel around for a suitable vein while explaining what she was looking for. Both to teach her how as well as save me the time it would take to get my combat boot off so I could feel with my own hoof. Her face was scrunched up cutely once more in avid concentration as she tapped the tip of her hoof along his leg before squeaking in delight once she found a good strong vein.

“Alright, so since this is an intravenous needle, you’re going to want to pierce the vein at a twenty-five degree angle so the needle only goes into the vein and nowhere else. If you poke through the vein you won’t be able to deliver the medicine properly and trust me, this shit needs to be in the blood, not the muscles. This is a standard issue butterfly needle, about 23 gauge. It shouldn’t be hard to use.” I instructed, wiping the needle down with alcohol just in case the sterile plastic cap had suffered a breach over any of the last two hundred plus years.

“Butterfly?” She cooed softly, floating up the bizarre syringe that roughly looked like a butterfly. “How’d it get that name?”

“Well, because it looks like a butterfly. Sort of.” I laughed, picking up the sterile package it was sealed in hoping there was a cutesy drawing of a Fluttershy butterfly or something because branding rights and all that. What I found was infinitely way better than that.

The small package had understandably small writing so it was difficult to make out the fine print but what had caught my attention was an acronym. Written in the boldest letters a 0.2” font could produce was the acronymed version of B.U.T.T.E.R.-F.L.Y across the top of the torn packaging. After holding the thing a few inches from my eyes so I could read it, it read (and I quote):

“We are truly sorry you have to get acquainted with the Ministry of Peace in this way but know that our B.U.T.T.E.R.-F.L.Y needles are made with the utmost concern for safety, health, wellness and, most importantly, comfort and safety.

What exactly is a B.U.T.T.E.R.-Fly needle you ask? Oh, um why, thanks for asking. B.U.T.T.E.R. is a neat little acronym (that means it’s a big word, or maybe even a small word, where each letter represents an even bigger word) that spells out a long and dreadfully scary sounding army term that I um...don’t...want to say out loud. Please? Oh thank you, thank you! Just add it as a note please? If. Um...that’s ok with you that is…(Battlefield Utility Tactical Triage Emergency Response)

And then there’s my favorite part! F.L.Y. Not only does it change the word ‘butter’ into butterfly, it also is a personal promise that Fluttershy Loves You! Fly high everypony, and let Peace Hold Out!

Stay safe everypony, and may Luna guide your way in these scary times”

Fluttershy, Ministry Mare of the Ministry of Peace,

12345 Ministry Walk, Canterlot. 00001’

I was completely stunned with just how ludicrous the whole fucking thing sounded, not to mention the god-awful amount of cheese tossed on this little needle from hell. They had actually printed, word-for-word, Fluttershy's little rambling tirade about the product instead of some professionally written script like you saw on most things. You know what has needles attached to their fucking faces? Fucking bugs. You know what kind of bugs freak me the fuck out? The ones with fucking needles on their fucking faces. You thought the mosquitoes of the Empire with Malaria were annoying/deadly? You ain’t never seen a Bloodbug then. Mosquitoes the size of fucking fillies with stabby parts as long as your fucking leg. Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck. Nope. Just fucking no.

“Got it! Can I try it? You know, for practice sake?” She asked, looking at me pleadingly with her big, beautifully mismatched eyes.

“Probably should ask the guy you’re poking, not me sweetie.” I laughed, looking towards Scaly who shrugged his shoulders with a pained chuckle.

“After the shit I’ve been through the last week...a couple of needle pokes’ll be like a kiss from Amaris. Go ahead kid.” He said with a chuckle settling more into the queen bed we had laid him on after cleaning it as best we could of cum stains and dust. "Just...do try to be kinda careful would ya?"

With a determined look, her magic enveloped my own and took hold of the needle after I had lined it up at the appropriate angle for her. After a deep breath she eased it forward into his skin, the steely length beginning to vanish under his magenta colored coat. He didn’t even flinch at what would have sent my own heart racing for cover if I were in his place and I pointed her attention to the small glass chamber separating the needle from the plastic tubing that had just been flushed full of blood. She had struck the phlebotomist’s version of gold on her first try and I was frankly impressed.

“Awesome! Remember, if you’re ever doing something intravenously make sure that the syringe, or in this case the chamber, fills with a little blood. That means you’ve gotten the needle into the vein and can then inject the chem. Now...for the really tricky part.” I said, patting her on the back before picking up the device and trying to recall how the damn thing worked.

If memory served me right, I was supposed to enter in the approximate weight of the patient, plus their age and gender into the system using the little dials and buttons set below the computer screen. Scaly was a very well-built stallion after years of domesticating Feral Dragons and had very little body fat to account for so I guessed his weight to be somewhere around a two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, a full thirty pounds heavier than the average stallion. Age I knew was thirty-two and even without his balls, he was still definitely male. If anything, he was more of a stallion now than he had been before seeing as he was maintaining a stoic attitude in the face of his own torture. I doubted my own ability to keep such a straight face if I were in his place but then again that would mean my pussy getting royally fucked the hell up and that...that wasn't something I even wanted to think about...

“Just to ask Scale...how much do you weigh?” I asked, knowing weight was one of the most important factors for administering the MTK. “I put you down at 250, that close enough?”

“I’m 255 actually but close enough for government work.” He chuckled, keeping his legs crossed and his tail tucked tightly against his crotch. “Why? Putting me up for auction when we get back to the Market? Ol' Death Smoke would pay you a pretty cap or two for my ass.”

“Heh...that he would. Don’t worry. We’ll get you back in no time!” I replied, adjusting the weight to the exact number just to be on the extremely safe side. “Alright...just a warning Scale...this is gonna hurt like hell.”

With a snort he flung his legs wide open showing off the sagging, empty flesh under his sheath that had been brutally torn open. Melody covered her eyes while Gold blanched and instantly clenched his hind legs together as if he too would suffer the same fate for just looking. Cy remained behind her mask so there was no telling her visible reaction but I knew for myself that the sight of his poor, ragged ballsack was enough to make even me, a vagina-haver, clench my own legs and cringe at the thought. This guy had seen the gates of hell and lived so my warning was just preaching to the converted.

“What more do I have to fucking lose, Crete…?” He asked with a tired sigh, slowly crossing his legs again and covering his face with a filthy pillow. “Kill the stallion but don’t rob him of his dignity…”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see it and slipped the face mask over his muzzle before flipping a small lever on the side of the canister. The machine hissed softly as its cocktail of Chems flooded into a smaller upper chamber and were properly mixed and proportioned before zipping up the clear plastic tubes as a dark magenta fluid and into his vein while a vaporized version came through the mask. A few seconds after the mystery medical cocktail started dripping into his system he began to convulse slightly, each and every wound and scar glowing a bright blue before the flesh sealed itself up. I almost laughed as the same bright blue light shone like a disco light from his crotch and the image of a male stripper with glowing junk and the stage name of ‘DJ Disco Balls’ popped into my head. A long, pained groan emanated from his mouth as his body was rocked with convulsions and none of us could do much more than watch in fascinated horror at the spectacle taking place before us. After a solid minute he stopped twitching and lay still, breathing heavily and covered in sweat.

“H-holy fuck…” He gasped, sitting up and pulling the pillow from off his face revealing a pair of fully functioning red eyes. “Wait, what the fuck?!”

“What the fuck?!” I exclaimed right after him followed by Melody who squeaked, “What in the hell?!”

“So that thing repairs missing eyeballs.” Cy said nonchalantly. “Neat.”

He felt his face after removing the mask, waving both hooves in front of his new eyes before staring at me in total disbelief. I had seen an MTK regrow a hoof severed at the knee before but repairing both eyes including the one he had lost eighteen years ago? That was more than a little surprising. Only question was if he got his balls back too.

“Hey, Scalyanything else get regrown?” I asked with a slight blush hoping I didn’t come across as too interested.

He clenched and unclenched his legs a few times and sighed in relief.

“The boys are back in town!” He chuckled. “Daddy’s back in business girls!”

“Heh, thanks but no thanks, Scale.” I giggled nervously, standing up and looking away to save myself some face. “Maybe someday...I dunno.”

“What? I gotta know if they still work don’t I?” He asked, getting to his hooves after removing the needle from his leg.

“Mom said no bozo, fuck off.” Melody growled, a familiar dangerous flame smoldering in her eyes as she moved to stand between me and him.

“Whoa there little filly, I’m only joshing around get me? Your mom and I go way back. Without me she wouldn’t have been able to keep that fancy coat of hers in such great shape.”

I blushed again and batted nervously at the collar of my duster before saying, “I was doing fine before I met you Scale...but yes, you’ve come in handy a few times. That explosion in Vanhoover for example.”

“Haha! Yeah! I totally forgot about that shit...goddamn that was something! Whatever happened to that ZapApple you found?”

“Sold it.” I replied, continuing my attempts to avert my gaze to the side of him so my face wouldn’t turn any further shades darker. “To Amaris. She paid ten big ones for it.”

He stared at me in disbelief before shaking his head and laughing a little.

“And she didn't even fucking share?? Well...thanks again Crete. Let’s get the hell outa here now please...dunno ‘bout you guys but I really miss my bed back at the Market. Longer I spend out here the more I age and I wanna keep my good looks as long as I can. I mean, how else am I gonna test the goods to see if they still work?”

“TMI bro, but thanks.” I chuckled as I lead us out of the room and past the murderfest that occupied the communal living area. “Don’t mind the mess. My apartment isn’t usually like this.”

That got a few laughs out of him as we stood in front of the elevator Cy and I had missed earlier but Melody and Gold had both used to get to our floor. Looking back at the large space, I noticed there were more than the one room Scaly had been found in. In fact there seemed to be seven or eight rooms in total that all shared the living room and if each apartment room was the same rough size as the one from earlier…

“What ya doing mom?” Melody asked, looking up at me with a bit of concern. “Does yew needs Nurse Melody too?”

An image of Huckleberry in her nurse uniform popped into my head only to reform into little Melody wearing it instead which...I was afraid to admit looked even sexier on her than it had Hucks. But no, that wasn’t what I was thinking about. Well...if I found a uniform for her though…

“Just thinking about maybe moving in here.” I replied as the doors dinged open and the shabby but still functional elevator car took us on as passengers. “Definitely a TLC job but I think we could pull it off!”

“TLC as in Tender Love and Care or Totally Lost Cause?” Cy mumbled as the doors slid shut.

“Guess we’ll find out won’t we?” I retorted, holding back the urge to deck her bitch face right then and there.

It was going to be a hell of a project but I was in the perfect situation to make it work. Cogsworth’s robots would be more than happy to have a serious cleaning challenge ahead of them and I knew I could turn the building into a veritable fortress worthy of protecting my children. Sure, it was ten miles away from Shady Sands but the NER could suck my ass for all I cared. I’m a mom making a difference. A weird, bloody difference but a difference all the same.

****************

Chapter Thirty-Two: A (Half) Day on the Town

When I awoke, I was wrapped up snuggly in bed once more; soft, fluffy and...alone? I opened my eyes slowly feeling more refreshed than I had in recent memory and looked eagerly for the minty mare beside me only to see the bed depressingly empty. Not only that but the entire bedroom seemed empty. Panic flooded my poor, defenselessly cozy mind and I flung myself out of bed in a heap as my magic buried itself deep into my tail and yanked out the little Swift&Western Undercover Carry Revolver from its special holster. It was a custom made sub-nosed .38/.357 Magnus revolver with an eight round capacity and a compensator for the light Celestium frame to help with the above-average recoil of such a tiny gun with a surprising amount of bite for its size. I already knew it was fully loaded so I didn't even bother checking the cylinder like I normally would. This was my backup gun and it was always kept topped off and I had yet to use it outside of the range.

After I had swept the bathroom and found nothing I burst into the living room, rolling across the ground to put distance between myself and my last known location using the island in the kitchen as cover. As I crouched against it, straining my ears past the snare drum that was my heart, two sensory inputs made contact with my brain from both my ears and my nose. My ears heard the sound of happy humming with a lot of heavy sizzling from what I could only assume was the stovetop while my nose caught whiff of the delicious smell of sautéed mushrooms and onions. And me, being the genius I was, had thought mom had been abducted or something. Fucking moron I swear to Celestia…

“Well hello there!” Mom called out heartily as I stood up from my hiding place behind her island trying to regain my composure from earlier. “Decided to let you get some more sleep after I cleaned you up and got you all dried off and all that. I got hungry while I was watching T.V and decided omelets sounded amazing right now. And...yeah. Not really much else to be honest, been a very quiet morning. You look a bit frazzled dear...bad dreams?”

I reluctantly set my revolver on the counter next to me and sat down with a heavy sigh as I tried to come up with the best way of explaining my overactive (and arguably overprotective) behavior. Instead she picked up my weapon and turned it over and over in her hooves with rapt interest. When her golden aura of magic popped open the cylinder and she eyed the eight gleaming brass cases with shiny undented primers, she gasped in utter surprise much like I had when I was in the process of ordering the gun. I loved that she was a bit of a gun nut herself, something we both inherited from my grandfather who had been amongst the first ponies to come into contact with firearms after they had first been imported from the Greifenländer.

“Eight rounds??” She gasped as she looked up at me with a hoof to her mouth in dainty surprise. “Of .357 Magnus? Where on earth did you get this?”

“S&W.” I said with a smile. “It’s my emergency ‘tail’ gun. The Swift&Western Undercover Carry Revolver. It’s part of their new line under the Military & Police brand designed for undercover cops who want to keep a high capacity, respectably high-powered snub-nosed revolver on them at any given time. This one is a bit more special, not to mention spendy, than the OG version. This one has a Celestium steel frame reducing the weight down to couple ounces as well as being corrosion and weatherproof. Also got an eight-port compensator to help with the recoil of such a light gun and the grip is covered with a prototype update of FlexiMesh called SynthiMesh which was purported to absorb twice as much kinetic energy than original FlexiMesh. Since I use magic for guns though, I couldn't tell you if its soft on the mouth or not as advertised.”

“Well...damn. Sounds like you know this thing better than you know yourself.” Mom replied with a laugh before serving me up an onion and mushroom omelet that was as thick as my thigh. “Eat up little lady. Pretty thing like you needs to keep up her stamina so she can eat other things later.”

“What, mouthwash for desert? Not this early in the morning, thanks. Besides, wouldn't mix well with all this tasty goodness.” I giggled, blowing a raspberry when she huffed and puffed herself up a bit in indignation, the effort making her appear all the more fluffy.

“Minty fresh before bed or wake tomorrow smelling like the dead!” She chided, quoting her own company tagline which she said had been inspired by my halitosis as a kid.

“Yeah, sure whatever.” I laughed, taking a massive bite of my meal and sighing in delight as her culinary charms had worked extra hard this time around to please me. “Fuck me this is good…”

“I’m glad you like it!” She smiled as she served herself up and sat at the barstool next to me. “I sautéed the vegetables in olive oil and Badlands Bourbon to give it a more smoky, full-bodied flavor. And before you ask, yes. Cooking is where 75% of my liquor cabinet goes, not my stomach. I’m old but not stupid darling...I know my liver and body aren’t what they used to be even with the extra longevity. So, a tip of the wise: you’ll only be this age and this fit once in your life so don’t be afraid to live a little while you’re still a catch. Of course, with Huckleberry as your unofficial bride I think you have the cat well in the bag already.”

We ate in a comfortable, companionable silence until mom declared she was too uncomfortable eating at the counter and wanted to move back to bed. This way, she could cuddle me, eat her breakfast and watch television all while laying back on one of the softest king-size pillow top mattresses I had ever had the pleasure of sleeping on. With no complaints from me she and I moved ourselves and our half-eaten breakfast back into the bedroom where we yet again ended up cuddled close and eventually feeding each other bites of our food. All the while, a rerun of an old episode of Baking Bad played on T.V. If you asked anyone from my generation why a show about illicit baking activities from my mom’s era was still fun and heavily merchandised to this day...I’m not sure anyone would be able to give you a straight, well thought out answer. Ponies just seemed to still find the premise of a school teacher from Appleloosa turning to an illegal baking business to support her family during a drought a lot of fun. Enough fun for the series to be greenlit for a modern day reboot with big name actors and all the cutesy cheesiness of the original being replaced with a darker, more mature perspective just like just about everything else in Equestria that was getting updated and/or being forced to accept the new state of world affairs and the depression that comes with that.

“What time is our reservation tonight?” I asked when it went to commercial break three minutes after starting, giving us a solid ten-to-fifteen minutes to talk before the show came on again for another three minutes. Four if there was an action scene in the episode.

“Hmm? Oh, I set it for seven p.m. so you and I will have plenty of time to get ready as well as time to hit the town!” She said excitedly, pulling the covers partially from off herself before she seemed to remember she had a horn and used that instead to float out her purse. “I’ve been saving 10% out of every paycheck so you and I can go on a shopping trip!”

She then proceeded to dig deep into her purse pulling out a small money purse with the National Bank of Equestria logo (a gold and silver Yin/Yang sun and moon) embroidered right into the fabric that seemed a bit too thick for even leather. When I took it and felt the material under my hooves I recognized it immediately. Kevyarn; the short-fiber variety as well. Bullet resistant moneybags from a national bank...that is what things had come to.

“You know this bag is made of Kevyarn right?” I asked her as she took it back, poked the knot tying it shut with her horn and then watched as it untied itself for her at her touch.

“Of course! That’s why I paid extra for it!” She said proudly, turning the bag over and catching a dozen large shiny gold coins in her hoof. “Slash and pierce proof from any blade, bullet and fire resistant, waterproof, has a lifetime guarantee and it only unties itself for me since the string is attuned to my unique magical signature. Well worth the extra cost believe you me. Even if I was mugged they'd have a hell of a time getting the thing open.”

I glanced at the money in her hooves and was dumbfounded to see each of the coins bearing several zeroes embossed in the metal as well as small white diamonds set just below the Royal Crest on the face of the coin. These weren’t quarter-bit coins you got from grandma to go to the candy section with. These were big league coins. Big league coins worth twenty-five grand each.

“Mom...uh...um...wh-...” I stammered as I stared at the Royal Crest and the little white diamond embossed in gold just below the large, well carved 25,000 moniker. “This is too rich for me mom. I don’t need to go shopping. I’ve got plenty of what I need back at home and the Corps gives me everything else I need to do my job.”

“Oh come now!” She chided, returning her savings to her stab-proof moneybag. “When’s the last time you were home and not on active duty in at least some capacity?”

“Like...three years ago?” I replied, thinking about how I had to sell my little place in New Pegasus because I just simply didn’t live at home long enough to justify paying rising rent costs and near non-existent utilities. “But that just proves my point. I don’t have time for civie things. Only clothes I wear are my armor, my fatigues or my dress uniform and that last one is only for special occasions anyway. Food is provided for me and I don’t have a refrigerator for leftovers and even if I did own one, I would just use it to cool me down during the summer. Soooo…I…don’t see what I can take home with me that's reasonable enough for the brass to led slide.”

“Well, who said this was for clothing and accessories?” She asked cheekily as she stood up and took her empty plate to the kitchen, myself instinctually following her so I could hear her without her having to yell from the other room.

“What do you mean...? What did you have in mind?” I replied, eying her curiously as she quickly washed down our plates and set them to dry on a rack next to her cooking dishes.

“Oh I’m looking for something like this for myself.” She said with a smile, tapping my little tail gun affectionately. “Mrs. Crown got mugged the other day walking home from work and I don’t know about you but I would rather have some kind of protection for myself. Oh wait. I do know about you.”

“Heh...yeah. No complaints out of me though, weapons are always good to have on you, especially these days. City's gotten that bad huh?”

“It's always been at least kinda bad darling, it's Manehatten for Celestia's sake. And besides, you’re the little lady with an eight-shot peashooter shoved up your tail. You of all mares knows it's always smart to be prepared for the worst.”

“Well, that’s kinda undercut when I remind you that everyone has a gun down there. Even Dark Blaze from the Engineers is always packing and he does everything he can to avoid conflict if he can manage it.” I replied with a laugh as I spent a few moments trying to get my weapon back into its holster before attempting to mask its profile under layers of green and blue hair.

“Oh yes! I remember him!” She exclaimed with excitement before breaking down in hysterical laughter in which I too joined in once I remembered. “O-oh my Celestia I forgot about that!”

Somewhere in the rough region of two years ago mom had organized a dinner party for me and my friends so she could get to know everyone I was fighting alongside better. Dark Blaze was still a relatively new friend of a few months while everyone in Alpha (back then Beta) Squad were all already familiar with my mother. Dark Blaze was an Engineer, a down-to-earth kind of guy who avoided conflict when he could and preferred to help others kick ass by modding service weapons and personalizing them out of the back of his mobile workshop cart when he had free time. One of the few Pegusi to join the Engineers Corps rather than the obvious Airborne Corps, he had suffered a freak accident as a colt in Cloudsdale that ended up with his wings getting entirely amputated down to the wing sockets in his spine. Even though he could still walk freely on clouds like any other Pegasus (thanks to their natural charm), he was as good as an Earth pony without his wings. That is until he got his cutie mark of course.

His father, a mid-level scientist for the Ministry of War Pegasus Division, had raised his son in a highly scientific household with weekly subscriptions to The Scientific Equestrian and Innovation Magazine as well as monthly subscriptions to Equestrian Riflemare and Guns and Ammo. Around the age of 14, Blaze had been to enough robotics seminars and had enough hooves-on experience to attempt to fix his own injury...and the little bastard somehow managed to pull it off. Within a month of his 14th birthday he had finally gotten his cutie mark and had the crude, if effective, pair of cybernetic wings to prove it. Naturally his father pounced on his son’s genius and sent him off to the Trottingham School of Trades to earn the degree needed to both perfect his son’s craft as well as the credentials needed for him to patent his ideas.

Returning to the dinner party, Blaze had chosen that night to unveil his then latest incarnation of cybernetic wings for the handicapable Pegusi using himself as the test subject as he had with all his wing products. The night had gone amazingly. Buck Beak had limited his drinking so he didn’t hit on my mom that time around, Penny had taught mom how to properly care for her rare Nyx flowers, Hucks and I rocked a duet on karaoke and Blaze got a little too excited when Hucks fell asleep on his shoulder and her head slipped into his lap. He popped a boner but not the kind you immediately think of. Nah...poor sap got a very spring-loaded cybernetic wingboner that clocked Rain Dancer right in the jaw and ended up knocking out a molar and chipping three other teeth. Thankfully mom was there and took us to her clinic (at 11:30 p.m on a Saturday mind you) and fixed Dancer up good as new. She also gave him a generous dose of Medix for his troubles so he could sleep that night as well as a long list of cavities that needed filling to keep him awake and in constant fear of gingivitis. All in all, one of the most memorable dinner parties I had ever been to that didn’t involve a lot of alcohol and a strip club at some point during the night. Although I had to admit I did enjoy the chaos of a bar brawl with the Squad.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me.” I managed to choke out after several minutes of laughter. “He wanted me to tell you he finally got the last one taken care of.”

“Oh?” She asked with a light giggle in her voice as we stood and got ready to leave. “It took him two years to get sixteen cavities filled? No wonder he doesn’t have a mare...guy must have halitosis out the flank.”

I bobbed my head in agreement as it didn’t take a licensed orthodontist to tell me that Dancer had terrible breath. There was a reason he slept on the top bunk at a higher elevation from everyone else’s noses and wore his helmet even more often than even I did. He knew just as well as we did that he had a huge problem but sadly nothing (and I mean nothing) any of us tried had any effect on the scent of death housed in his throat like a cumshot that didn’t get entirely swallowed and was left to fester for a bit. And yes...that familiarity is personal experience…but I did manage to beat it within a few days thanks to mom’s help and a lot of mouthwash.

After mom felt I looked presentable enough to be out in public (which included a modest amount of eyeliner, mascara and a dash of perfume), we gathered up her purse and a backup purse for myself so I could carry my Sequoia and took off. Since we had thirteen floors to the lobby, I took that time to try and get used to the feeling of having a purse, even if it was only a very gaudy gun bag. I tried letting it dangle off my shoulder like mom was doing but it only slipped off the edge of my shoulder and onto the floor. I tried across the back like I would sling my AMR but then I couldn’t reach it easily and it was also really difficult to use telekinesis on something you can’t directly see. If I tried grabbing my weapon from my back with magic, I could very well end up just groping my own ass instead. In the end, I put the strap over my head and let the bag dangle by my left side while I got used to having to undo the flap covering the opening in the event I had to quickly draw out my weapon. In reality it was more of a glorified satchel than anything.

“You fussed around enough yet? You’ve got more wiggles now than when you were in kindergarten!” She giggled as the elevator doors opened on the lobby with its tightly uniformed team of female employees who all acknowledged us with no little amount of excitement as we passed.

“Shut it.” I sighed breathing in the cool, salty air of the outdoors and feeling refreshed. “Sweet sister Celestia sing me a sweet song of motherfucking joy does it feel good to be a boring person again for a little bit. That and getting out of the fucking desert heat is just...mmmff...”

“I bet!” She laughed as she waved a hoof by the edge of the street and hailed an empty taxi from the unending hustle and bustle of Manehattan traffic. “Gold Storm’s at school today so we’ll have to take the ground route. Unless you want me to pay extra for a Sky Chariot which I am totally fine with doing. You seemed to really enjoy the flight.”

A taxi cab towed by a thickly built stallion with thick stubble and an even thicker cigar in his mouth pulled up alongside us and regarded us with more than a little approval in his eyes. I always had mixed feelings when people ogled me. A mixture of trepidation for what they might be tempted to do and pride in my beauty for being so eye-catching to begin with.

“Well what do we got here, eh?” He chuckled as he hit a lever attached to the front of the cab with his hindleg, the half door swinging down and becoming a stairway for us to climb up into the taxi. “Step right up ladies! Where ya two fine things be off to this afternoon?”

“The closest gun store actually.” Mom said with a smile as we sat down in the cab and got settled in.

“Eh? Don’ be pullin’ my tail, lady. Where we really goin’?” He laughed, kicking the lever again and closing the door. “Th’ Carousel Boutique ain’t too far away, wanna go there?”

“No, I said the closest gun store, sir.” Mom said with a nervous laugh while I casually flipped back the flap keeping me from my weapon. “And please do get a move on, we have a dinner appointment at 6:30.”

He looked back at us like we were aliens from another world for asking to go to the gun store, something almost everypony did at least a few times in their life because the state of the world necessitated it. Nearly everypony you looked at on the street was packing! Dainty mares with their little pocket and purse pistols from S&W and stallions with their beefier semi-autos from Bunaa and, more recently, Desert Hawk with their collection of big frame pistols. Even our driver was packing a FillyArms 2012 in a leather holster on his leg. Was it really so hard to believe...?

“Yes ma’am. Next stop, Uncle Bubba's!” He said eventually, shrugging his shoulders and pulling us away from the curb and back into the flow of traffic giving the hoof and cussing out anypony who tried to cut him off be they carriage or mechanized personal vehicle.

Our ground level view of Manehattan and its towering glory was far less exhilarating than our ride in the Sky Chariot but no less impressive. Manehattan had somehow grown even bigger since I had last visited. The skyscrapers had grown ever taller towards the clouds while the population almost seemed to have doubled in the two years I had been gone. The streets were packed. Ponies rushing about every which way trying to go about their daily lives without bumping into everyone else trying to do the same around them. Shops packed into every ground level space made available by the endless rows of apartment complexes and on every corner were vending machines that sold both snacks and ammunition for keeping both yourself and your weapon full and loaded. It was a crazy sight but one that had become the norm in every major city around the country and even beyond.

“I miss what Manehattan used to be…” Mom sighed after our taxi got clipped and rattled by another taxi driver going much faster than he needed to. “There’s too many ponies living here now and it’s a damn problem to get anywhere anymore. And don’t even get me started on the gang violence in Ashland…”

“Ashland?” I asked, slipping a hoof into my bag just to touch my gun for comfort as I was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the chaos of civilian life. “Never heard of it.”

“Eh...it’s one of the older suburbs near Fetlock that used to be well known for its quality lumber production way back in the day when Manehattan was founded on brick and wood buildings. My grandmother said the area used to be so full of ash trees that there was a heavy debate that went all the way up to Princess Celestia herself whether the area should be used for the booming lumber business or be cordoned off as a national park. Obviously the lumber companies won out and Ashland is entirely devoid of ash trees. Now...it’s the suburb where Manehattan shoves all its minorities into and leaves them to fend for themselves.”

I was fascinated with the tale she told and was actually keen on learning more. Growing up, these sorts of things either didn’t exist in places like PonyVille or were too far away for younger me to care about, but recent experiences had opened my mind up once more. I had always wondered where Equestria had decided to dump off it’s Zebra minority. Ashland seemed to be one of those places. I didn’t say anything but nodded enthusiastically for her to continue.

“Not much to be said really.” She replied as we rolled to a stop at a corner shop about a mile away from her apartment. “Place is a warzone all the damn time. The Chem trade over there is so thick you could walk up to anypony and ask them for an eight-ball of Berryl and get it the next second on the cheap. Either that or a bullet to the head. Cops are overwhelmed and getting really desperate now from what I’ve been told. Mrs. Crown lives near Ashland and she tells me she has to put blackout blinds over her windows and play her polka music extra loud just to block out the mayhem happening across the river. Thankfully no break-ins but still...I worry for that mare...”

We stepped out of the cab and paid the driver for his services (mom, being the good mare that she is, giving him a tip) before entering the store, a large cowbell rattling obnoxiously as the door nicked it while opening. Before either of us had the time to acknowledge the racks and racks of guns before us, a portly stallion with a large desperado hat and leather vest bounded out of seemingly nowhere and shook both our hooves with all the fury of a used wagon salespony.

“Well howwwwwwwwdy!” He boomed in a Southern accent so thick I could have cut it with a knife. “Welcome tah Uncle Bubba’s Magical Gun Emporium of Everythin’ an’ Anythin’ that goes Boom! Ah’m Lone Star but y’all can call meh Bubba! Now what can Ah get fer ya ladies tahday? Y’all lookin’ tah protect yerselves an’ deal some damage Ah hope?”

“Well hello Bubba!” Mom replied with a wide smile not even batting an eye. “Yes in fact we are here to buy some protection! What do you have available?”

He gestured to entire store with a massive wave of his thick legs and exclaimed, “Everythin’ an’ Anythin’! Who’s first eh? How ‘bout yew little lady?”

He pointed at me and I shook my head laughing nervously.

“Heh, no actually. I’ve got everything I need for right now thanks.” I responded, pushing mom in front of me to emphasize who actually needed a weapon.

“Ah bullshit!” He chuckled, tugging my hoof and pulling me deeper into the store followed by mom who was barely able to keep her laughter in check. “Pretty thang like yew needs tah feel safe ya know? Who knows what kinda gangbanging chickenfucka is gonna set him eyes on ya and think, ‘Well...ain’t that a fine piece o’ ass!’ Y’all ladyfolk need all th’ protection y’all can get if Ah do say so mahself!”

While he did have a very valid point, I had all the weapons I needed. As surprising as it was for me to turn down any offer to buy another gun, I had to hold myself back from purchasing anything. Not only did I not really have anywhere I could keep any I bought (except for maybe with mom or a friend) but I would be obligated to buy a holster for it, spare mags (or speedloaders), possibly other accessories not to mention a padded carrying case to keep them protected… It was a dark path I couldn’t fall victim to. Not again. When he continued to try and convince me of my need of proper protection, I finally pulled my Sequoia out of its suede leather and gold purse and set it onto the display case beside us. The heavy beast clacked loudly as the metal touched on the glass of the case bringing even his exuberance to a standstill as he beheld it with awe and reverence.

“Sweet mother of cherry pickin’ wolves what in th’ hell is this?!” He cried as he shoved his face right up to my weapon and gawked at it.

“Ironshod Armory #000303420.” I answered with a grin of immense pride for my baby. “Top-break action chambered in .45-70 Celestia. Six rounds, eight inch barrel, Red Mahogany grip and a Celestium Steel frame.”

“I ain’t neva seen anythin’ like it…” He murmured in awe, reaching out tentatively to hold it, which I allowed as any gun enthusiast was a friend of mine. Well, as long as they had no thoughts of thievery.

“Nor will you ever again!” I laughed as he turned it over slowly in his hooves, his general demeanor indicating he also had a level of experience in gunsmithing himself. “It took a long time to convince them to even try and a very hefty sum of bits but they somehow pulled it off.”

“This ain’t real. This here can’t be real!” He exclaimed, looking up at me like I were pulling his tail. “Ain’t no way in hell yew can chamber ah top-break in .45-70! Too much pressure on th’ latch!”

“Celestium frame.” I answered simply, tapping the black metal. “And a different latch design then most top-breaks use. If this were .45 Long Colt then yeah, the old S&W .32 design would work fine but this needed something a lot stronger. Plus, this design makes it way easier for an Earth pony to load it without magic. All you gotta do is press down on this lever here and gravity takes care of the rest! No more chipped hooves or pinched tongues trying to lift up that damn latch like you have to do with the .32.”

I demonstrated this for him by pushing down on one of the two small levers attached to the recoil shield on either side of the weapon and slowly dropping the cylinder so the auto-ejector didn’t fling all my good rounds everywhere as it was designed to do. His brown eyes only got wider the more I talked and I was eating up the attention more than I thought I would. We went on for so long that mom had to poke her head out from around my shoulder to remind us she still existed.

“Sorry to be a bother darlings!” She apologized as we turned back to her and the entire reason we had come to Uncle Bubba in the first place. “Once I get what I need, you two can chat for as long as you like! Well, until 5:30 or so since I’d like time to go back home and get dressed up for dinner tonight.”

Bubba and I both quickly apologized and turned our attention back on her, my gun returning back to my purse just in case he decided to snag a one-of-a-kind revolver for his collection. Then began the process of trying to find something for mom to use that was both classy (befitting of a mare of her caliber) as well as highly effective at killing somepony very quickly if the need arose. Though mom’s gun knowledge was not nearly as polished as his or mine, she could hold her own and that ended up becoming a problem when it came to choosing between getting a revolver like myself or a semi-auto like most other ponies preferred. There were certainly pros and significant cons to either action type and she knew almost all of them off the top of her head meaning we went back and forth for a solid twenty minutes as she tried to decide what in particular she wanted. I truly felt for her in those moments as a very similar conundrum had been presented to me as well when I was looking for a tail-gun. In the end I went with the revolver as there was a certain magic about them that I could never get over, regardless of the limited capacity and more frequent need to reload.

“I’d like to have a lot of bullets available to me since I don’t think I’d be a very good shot in a stressful situation. Then again...I also really love the look and feel of a revolver…” She muttered to herself as she looked over the collection of nearly ten pistols set on the counter before her she had picked out of Bubba's inventory with our combined help.

“I gotta say, yew is th’ most indecisive mare Ah’ve eva met!” Bubba chuckled as he went through the different options for the eighth time in less than ten minutes. “At some point y’all gonna have tah choose.”

After a brief pause mom finally looked up from the two guns in her hooves (a revolver and a semi) and declared, “Fuck it! I’ll just buy both of these then! Best of both worlds right? One for the purse and one for the tail.”

I was relieved she had finally come to a decision but also taken aback at her use of the f-word in public, something I had never once seen or heard happen in my life. Occasionally she would use some minor vulgarity in her sentences to act as ‘sentence enhancers’ as she called them but she never strayed far from the words ‘damn’, ‘hell’ and occasionally ‘bitch’. The bigger, more crass adult words (like those found everywhere in my vocab bag) she rarely if ever touched. Up until now though I guess. She was more full of life than I had seen in a long time...I couldn't blame her for chasing the high of having her daughter around after two years away.

“Th' FillyArms 2012 Defender 'n th’ Swift&Western .38? Ahlright! Let’s get ya ringed up!” Bubba declared with a wide grin as he put away the other eight guns and directed us towards the cash register over on the other side of the shop.

The register itself lay beneath a massive sign on the wall that read, ‘Better guns, better prices: Bubba’s Guns!’ which I kind of wished I could steal as a sort of fun novelty item to hang on the wall. Bubba himself seemed to be doing incredibly well for himself as now that we were finally away from the pistols, I could see they also had many rifles, shotguns and even some heavier ordinance for sale as well. Ironshod, Desert Hawk, Bunaa, FillyArms, Kaiser-Stahl and even a few rare energy weapons from Ministry Arms were all on display; the latter having a sign barring anyone but government employees and military lackeys from purchasing them. Even though I qualified, I wasn’t gonna waste my hard-earned army money on one of those. Energy weapons offered no challenge because they all essentially acted like a shotgun blast at point-blank range. If their armor can’t refract and absorb enough energy, the whole fucking pony just disintegrates into a pile of pink ash. An unloottable and thus unconfirmable kill for the Headhunt since you needed epaulettes in order to qualify and those things tended to turn to ash like everything else. Not only that but they had no recoil and gave me no kill satisfaction whatsoever. If I was going to kill somepony, I wanted to tear them apart and make sure it left a mess as a message to anyone else. Pink ash wasn’t nearly as effective a message as a mangled pile of torn intestines flopping out of a gaping wound in the gut and it never would be. As long as there was something that spat hot lead and tore ass, I was going to use it and enjoy the hell out of it.

“Aight, so th’ .32 is twelve-hundred bits an’ th’ Defender comes tah thirty-six hundred fer ah total of forty-eight bigguns. Now, can Ah interet y’all in some accessories?” Bubba chuckled as he pressed some buttons on his register making it go ding in a very pleasing way. “Every five bits ya spend here, one bit is donated tah th’ Wings fer Angels charity! Can’t say no tah that now can yew?”

“Wings for Angels? Can’t say I’ve heard of this charity before.” Mom commented as she was led from the register towards the shelves where all the ‘accessories’ were stored.

“It’s like the Wounded Warrior program but specifically for Pegusi veterans." I explained while watching her try on several different holster styles as well as browse through Bubba’s collection of mag and speedloader pouches. "Darkblaze is actually one of the founding members and they get partial funding from the Ministry of Wartime Technology since Blaze’s dad still works for them and convinced them of the major benefits of sponsoring, even partially, a veteran-focused charity organization. Veteran money is a gold mine that every corporation is trying to get a piece of since it makes them look better on the marketing campaign. A bit underhoofed but...it's better than nothing.”

“Oh really? Well isn’t that wonderful!” She commented with a pleasant smile, seemingly having decided what accessories she wanted much faster than choosing out the weapons themselves. “I think I will take two of these and two of these please.”

She picked out two simplistic mag pouches that could fit two of the smaller Colt Defender magazines as well as a few of speedloader pouches for the .32. When I asked her where on earth she planned on putting them seeing as she rarely put on clothes, she replied that she intended to sew them into the inside of her purse herself as soon as we got home and had the time. I will admit I was a little ashamed I hadn’t thought of that but I took consolidation points in the fact that in all likelihood, I was the one who had taught her to think tactically in this way. Well, either myself or Huckleberry; one of the two. The sale of the weapons themselves was almost insultingly easy. No I.D was checked, no forms were signed granting permission to perform a background check with the Royal Accountability Agency...hell not even mom’s name was written down as part of Bubba’s ledger when it was all finalized. In two minutes mom had purchased two easily concealable weapons, pouches to hold four reloads per weapon and one hundred rounds for each weapon all with the same level of security in play as purchasing cigarettes from the convenience store. Even alcohol was more federally regulated it seemed...

After we had thanked him for his time and loaded mom’s weapons up with ammunition, we set back out onto the street feeling empowered and confident. Mom’s demeanor perked up significantly the moment those two guns entered her purse and you could just feel the sense of security and confidence they inspired in her. That was the mark of a true gun lover in my eyes, especially with mares. A gun could buy you a lot of things depending on how you used it. Money, drugs, sex, fancy housing, illegal imports...a gun was basically a glorified ATM card, only it was a little heavier and could launch chunks of copper coated lead at speeds approaching and surpassing the speed of sound. Give a timid girl a gun and tell her how to use it properly and she will more than likely feel a bit more courageous in her everyday life. She never even has to fire a single shot at another pony in a life-and-death situation to get those benefits, though admittedly said situation could end up ruining guns forever for the poor girl. For those who ended up like myself...life-and-death situations wherein I had to kill someone became almost an addiction. The only fights that gave you more of an adrenaline rush than a gunfight were knife fights and in those situations, I tended to be even better with a knife than I was with a gun. Nopony expects my agility.

“Where to my ladies?” The male cabbie called out as he pulled up alongside us at the curb looking quite dapper in his traditional Trottingham flat cap.

Mom checked her pocket watch and turned to me asking, “Well, it’s 4:40. Anything you’d like to do on our way back to the apartment?”

“Meh.” I shrugged as I got into the cab with her. “I don’t really know what there is to do in Manehattan since I usually just go with you wherever you go. Let’s just head on back and get ready for dinner.”

“You got it! Driver? Take us to 5883 Liberty Way please!” She commanded, our cabbie giving us a proud salute before charging forward out into the main thoroughfare.

While we rode towards home, mom slipped her FillyArms Defender out of her purse and caressed it in her hooves, dropping the magazine and staring at the seven copper jacketed .45 Automag rounds housed therein with a look of awe as well as smug victory. Not wishing to disturb her private time with her new friend, I contented myself with enjoying the view as it went by. I stared absentmindedly for perhaps a few minutes before I realized that everywhere I looked, there were nothing but ponies in sight. Earth ponies, Unicorns and a few Pegusi meandered about here and there on the street but no other species could be seen anywhere. While the bulk of the Equestrian Armed Forces were indeed ponies, there were still tens of thousands of soldiers from species other than Equine present in our ranks and that was something I had grown quite accustomed to. Manehattan was devoid of Buffalo, Dragons, Wolves, Lynx, Elk...not even a fucking Griffin could be seen hawking Griffinstone antiques on the street corner. Needless to say the lack of diversity around me was unsettling for some reason.

When I couldn’t handle taking in that information anymore I turned to mom and asked, “Where is everyone?”

“Hm?” She asked, glancing up and away from her new toy just long enough to make eye contact.

“I mean, where is everyone?” I asked again, gesturing to the city around us and the single species seemingly the sole occupant of it. “All I see are ponies. No predators, no other herbivores...nothing but ponies. Why is that?”

She stared at me as if trying to gauge if I were being humorous or not before responding, “They have their own towns, cities and countries, love. They tend to live there where others of their species are well established and the environment and politics of the area are best adapted to suit their specific needs. Why do you ask? You grew up with this being the norm, what changed?”

“The Army…” I admitted, looking back at the populous that, while being very diverse in terms of coat and mane colors, was lacking any semblance of real diversity. “I’m always working with members of other races down South and...I guess I got used to that. I wake up every morning and see over ten different species all working and fighting together as a single entity. Well...except for the Connemara Brigade of course.”

“Connemara? Wait, you have actual Connemara ponies fighting with you guys?!” Mom gasped, her gun and magazine dropping from her hooves in her surprise.

“Yeah! I swore I’ve told you about them already.” I replied, scooping up her belongings with a smile.

“No! I would have remembered that for sure!” She exclaimed loudly enough for our driver to glance over his shoulder towards us as he galloped down the street. “I didn’t even know they had agreed to join the War...what are they like?! Tell me everything!”

“Heh...well...what’s there to say…?” I asked, rubbing the back of my head sheepishly as I, like many others, knew next to nothing about those thick accented, hard-assed bastards. “There’s only a little over three-thousand of them total in the Army as far as I know and they’re organized into a Division with some guy named Colonel Bushmill in command. They have very thick, melodic accents, fight like fucking berserkers and wear a traditional battle garb that includes an actual armored combat skirt...thing.”

“Fascinating!” She exclaimed, gobbling up the information greedily. “I’ve always found them to be such a deeply intriguing race...is it true they don’t have any Unicorns or Pegusi where they come from like Zebras?”

“As far as I’ve been able to see, yeah. Unless nothing but Earth ponies decided to enlist or something in which case...I don’t have a clue. But yeah, I didn’t see any horns or wings poking out from under their tweed hats or their rather peculiar armor.”

“You calling any armor peculiar is peculiar in and of itself. What’s so peculiar about it?”

“Well, they all wear very colorful...robe things.” I explained, trying to find the right words to describe their battle dress that was both a mixture of our semi-medieval past and our heavily modernized combat garb. “They’re all plaid in design and they wear them under their standard issue combat armor. Far as I can see the different colors they come in represent what family line you’re from or something. The armored skirts they all wear I’m gonna guess is made of really thick short-fiber Kevyarn and I’ve noticed some have added on some external faulds though more in the traditional style with multiple lames rather than the single piece that combat armor comes in.”

“Whoa there, a bit too much info darling.” She chided gently as the taxi lurched to a stop outside her apartment building. “Remember: not everyone is as nerdy as you when it comes to armor alright?”

“Sorry mom…” I apologized sheepishly, thinking back on all the times I had been chided before for the same reason even if the info I was babbling on about was different each time. “Long story short...they’re a weird bunch but they make delicious food, sing amazingly and are damn terrifying when they do a bayonet charge over the trench wall. I've even seen like half of them carrying fucking Claymores on their backs! I'd ask to learn how to use one myself but eh...they're a scary bunch of guys, even for me.”

“Hm.” She hummed in thought as she paid the cabbie and followed me indoors. “I would love to visit Éire someday...the pictures I’ve seen make it look so magical and peaceful…”

“Not to mention the mares from there, at least the two that I’ve seen, are drop-dead gorgeous. Pale coats, blue or green eyes, blonde, red or golden colored hair...make a girl wanna squirm.” I whispered in her ear to keep anypony else from overhearing us as we waited for the elevator to descend to our level. “Let me tell ya...all they had to do was say hello and instantly my thighs are soaked.”

“I bet!” She giggled, pressing the button for the thirteenth floor and standing beside me as the doors closed. “How much would I have to do to achieve the same effect?”

I blushed at her sudden sensual change and almost immediately began to feel the familiar tingles and wetness of my own arousal under my tail. A few seconds later faint whiffs of my peachy musk hung in the close confines of the elevator and I caught her sniffing the air curiously then smirking as she immediately recognized it.

“Well that was easy!” She laughed, pulling me by the hoof out of the elevator and into her room before anypony had the chance to see the warm juices trickling down my thighs and towards my hooves leaving dark glistening tracks down my fur that stood out against my silvery grey coat.

“Well know that I know you’re turned on by me, my pussy’s reaction time to your teasing is significantly reduced and there’s not much I can do about that…” I grumbled while she locked the door behind us and set her purse on the counter.

“Oh really?” She teased, pawing at my chest with her hoof and biting her lip a little. “Well...I suppose we have time for a quickie.”

I glanced at the clock on the wall (a wine barrel shaped one with wine bottles for hands) and saw it was already five-thirty meaning either we had less than five minutes to get each other off (hardly a challenge) or she was content with being late to our reservation.

“You know we’ve only got like five minutes until we’ve gotta leave right…?” I advised, pointing towards the clock for extra emphasis. “Plus we’ve gotta get dressed up and all that…”

“I’m shocked, Athena.” She said with mock surprise, pawing at my chest more sensually then before. “You of all ponies passing up sex for dinner at a fancy restaurant?”

The heat in my groin was getting hotter by the second and the trickle of juices coming from my snatch was approaching waterfall levels of flow making my resistance less and less effective at holding me back from pouncing on her and grinding her into next Thursday. I had awoken something in mom and whatever it was, was hungry, feisty and kinky as fuck. She wasn’t a MILF...no, I had awoken a Cougar inside her and not just because she was in the right age group. She was almost worse than I was and I found myself for once feeling submissive rather than dominant like I always was with other mares, barring Huckleberry as we switched off depending on our respective moods.

“But…” I tried, giving what little resolve I had left into my attempt to dissuade her even though I really couldn’t think of any reason to deny her what she wanted other than the fact the reservation had been planned a year in advance just for me.

“Athena Minuette Crete.” She said in a commanding tone with a soft, playful growl to her voice. “The only butt I wanna hear is the sound of my hoof spanking yours. Understand?”

A smoldering lust glowed from within her royal blue eyes as she puffed her chest out a bit and stood tall and even though she was a few inches shorter than me (the tip of her muzzle reached just below my lips), she seemed to loom over me. Like a Cougar with her prey…

“Y-yes.” I squeaked shyly, looking ‘up’ at her timidly but feeling giddy and very filly-like at being under the command of somepony so beautiful as her.

“Yes...what? I can’t hear you darling.” She chided, walking past me towards the bedroom and flicking her tail against my cheek giving me a peek at the beautifully tight slit underneath.

“Y-yes mom?” I tried again, eagerly following behind her like an obedient little puppy.

She stopped at the doorway to the room and looked at me with a small smirk of pride.

“Better...but you’re still my little girl. Act the part for mommy like a good little filly and she may just reward you for good behavior.” She cooed, entering the bedroom and pushing me onto the bed while she bit her lip and stood in front of me as if deciding what she wanted to do first.

“Y-yes mummy.” I squeaked shyly, glancing up from looking at my hooves in time to see her shiver at the cutesy title.

“Mmmm…now that’s more like it.” She sighed happily. “Yes...you’re my little filly. Always and forever.”

I beamed in pride at her affectionate remarks feeling like I were six years old again but this time things between us were different. The love was deeper and the passion was much, much stronger than it had been back in the day. My body trembled with anticipation and my mind reverted to a childish state that was more than willing and eager to please her in any way I could. So this is what age-play really felt like… I officially had a new fetish I wanted to try the moment I got a chance alone with Huckleberry.

She disappeared into her closet for a moment only to reappear wearing one of her pearl necklaces and carrying a bundle of clothes in her magic which she then tossed towards me.

“Put that on darling.” She said kindly though with a commanding tone. “If we’re gonna do this kind of roleplay, you should look the part.”

I slowly pulled the different articles from the pile and found the school uniform I had been forced to wear during my Senior year at high school that came complete with a tight blouse and a plaid skirt that seemed to have gotten even shorter in the years since my graduation. In addition were plain white thigh-high socks, a pair of fake glasses I had worn for Nightmare Night when I had gone as a hipster mare from Trottingham and two hair ties. It took me a moment before I realized they were meant to give me pigtails, something I hadn’t done to my hair since I was literally six years old. She was going all out on this and I had to wonder if and for how long she had been planning on this situation happening. There were just too many components for it to be random.

“I...didn’t know you kept all this.” I commented as she watched me struggle to fit my larger frame into clothes from my younger years when I wasn’t so fit. Not to mention tall. "Soon as I graduated I dumped this damn thing in the trash. I hated having to wear a damn uniform just to get told shit in a classroom that I already knew."

“Well...what can I say?” She replied, dropping her Cougar mode for a moment to answer me. “I miss having you around and...I tended to keep some of your old things after you moved out so I could have something of yours to hold onto when I felt like crying because I feel so alone here in Manehattan without you.”

I had never considered just how lonely she could be living alone in Manehattan away from her friends from PonyVille while I gallivanted about the south in constant mortal peril. I was a fully grown adult. I moved out because it was time for me to grow up and find my place in the world but now that I was on my way into my thirties and had found my calling in life, I found myself missing home more than I ever had before. For the briefest of seconds I even entertained the thought of resigning my commission and retiring from the Army just so I could come home and live with her again if not to calm her worried mind and give her the companionship she so desperately needed. The thought, though as pleasant and appealing as it was, was just not feasible. Prior to Zecuro’s miraculous reappearance from the dead, this decision would have been much easier to follow through with as back then, not even a month ago, the only thing worrying me was losing the War and losing Huckleberry. Now that I was entangled in the clusterfuck of a web spun by the General and Zecuro and Onyx and myself...there was no way I could resign. Zecuro needed me. The fate of unknown numbers of ponies and Zebras and everyone else were heavily in play on the chessboard in front of me and as my high school chess teacher could tell you, I sucked ass at chess. (I play a mean game of checkers or cards though.)

The blouse could only be partially buttoned down my stomach and the skirt did little to hide my ass but the socks fit well enough and the glasses still surprisingly fit on my muzzle even after twelve years. When I tried and failed multiple times to put my mane up in pigtails, she graciously came to my assistance having me sit in front of her while she literally worked her magic on getting my hair all done up and ready to go. We each sat in silence as she worked, the mood soft and slightly melancholy but not altogether depressing. We had grown a little distant the longer I was away from home and the farther South I was sent but this was a critical moment for us. As unorthodox as it was, we were bonding again and that was more important to me than just about anything else that was going on.

“Mummy…?” I asked after she had finished and started hugging me against her chest.

Her lips nibbled on the tip of my right ear from behind as she cooed, “Yes my darling?”

“I love you. More than anything else in the world.”

“I love you too Athena.” She whispered into my ear as her hooves slithered down my belly towards my aching nethers and the enormous wet spot I was sitting in. “Always and forever.”

Huckleberry was going to be pissed when I told her what mom and I had ended up doing together during my time off, but that was a problem for Future Athena. Present Athena had her mummy to please and the rest of the night to do it as well as the next morning. I wasn’t one for using the word ‘perfect’ in a world where everything had devolved into a shitshow...but this was as close to a perfect moment in my life as I was willing to admit barring my first night with Huckleberry. Even then though...the only way to improve the evening in my eyes (and I’m sure mummy would agree) was if Hucks was here to share it with us. A threesome with the two mares I loved most in the world? You could put a bullet in my head right after that and I would feel I had lived a very full and fulfilling life with few regrets to speak about. I could see the look on Huck’s face the moment I dropped this little gem of intimate knowledge on her poor little head…

****************

Chapter Thirty-Three: Post-Apocalyptic Real-Estate

“I thought we were going to Shady Sands…” Melody whined after she noticed (roughly two miles into our trip) that we were walking south back towards New Pegasus rather than north.

“That was back when we were in pursuit of Scaley here.” I replied, nodding towards the stallion in question who waved with a wide grin at Melody. “Now that we found him, we don’t need to go all the way to Shady Sands to try and find him anymore. Besides, Scaley’s tools and materials are back at his stall and I really need to talk to Cogsworth about maybe/hopefully getting his help in renovating and fortifying that place up so we can move in.”

“Wait, what?!” She gasped, zooming around in front of me and walking backwards just so she could see my face to tell if I were lying or not. “We’re gonna live there?!”

“Is that a bad thing…?” I asked hesitantly knowing the state we left it in made it much more a tomb than a home.

“What? No! Am I gonna get my own room?! How big is it gonna be?! Can I paint the walls blue?! Wait! No! Magenta! Wait!” She screamed in the purest form of joy I had ever seen that was more than enough to make my legs wobbly and my head swim.

“Calm down sweetie!” I laughed, giving her a playful little bop on the nose to shush her down a bit. “Yes you can paint the walls whatever color you like. Well, as long as it’s not brown. Brown is a really ugly wall color, especially in the desert.”

“Yeah, speaking of.” Scaley commented, glancing over his shoulder towards the apartment building that was out of sight behind us lost to the haze of the desert sun. “What’s a place like that doing all the way in the middle of the fucking desert?”

“I can answer that actually!” I chimed in, grateful that I enjoyed history enough to take notice of the changes in the world around me as the years rolled on.

“Of course you can…” Cypher muttered under her breath though I wasn’t certain if she was intentionally loud enough for me to hear her.

“This area up here actually used to be a lot greener.” I explained, gesturing to the area immediately around us and certainly as well behind us. “Go ahead and scuff the ground off the side of the road, tell me what ya get. Gold looks like he could use the breather anyway.”

Even as I spoke the poor Ghoul slowed down breathing heavily and stopped altogether at my mention of stopping for a minute. Melody volunteered to go do the scuffing and after kicking the ground and creating a massive dust cloud informed us with an enthusiastic grin that it was more dirt than sand. All the while her relatively clean coat got a light powdering of light tan dust as did her mane making her look a little grey with age though the lack of any wrinkles whatsoever was a dead giveaway.

“Dirt like this just doesn’t exist where there’s been no vegetation.” I continued, brushing her off while Gold chugged away at my lemonade. “This place used to have a lot more green. You couldn’t call it prime grazing pasture but it was definitely a prairieland of sorts. Well, until radiation from the Megaspells and Balefire Bombs abortion punched the shit out of the soil itself so nothing but the most resilient of surface plantlife, like cacti, can grow these days.”

“Wowie…” Melody commented, looking around us with a sad expression. “Wish I could have seen it. I bet it was way prettier than...well, this.”

“Oh believe me it was!” I replied as Gold drank his fill and gave it back to me if reluctantly. “This is the E-15 which goes as far North as Bordertown and then snakes back West to meet up with the E-90 near New Pegasus which continues the Southbound trend to Old Appleloosa. Over a thousand miles of asphalt and most of it in NER hooves. Well, the E-15 at least."

"Damn...have you walked the whole way?" She asked. "A thousand miles...wowie."

"In one go? Hell no, my hooves would be killing me after a walk like that. But, I've gone as far North as the Great Lake which is...well, not as great as it used to be let me tell ya."

"Lake??" She gasped, Gold likewise showing some interest as well. "Can we go swimming sometime?? I've always wanted to try!"

"Heh, maybe sometime hun. It's only been in the last like twenty years the water has been deemed safe to use at all. Gotta love that the only fresh water to survive the War is coming from underground aquifers though it took quite a long time for the tainted water to evaporate and run off."

"Oh common, Crete." Scaly laughed. "You really think the Republic will let you take a dip so close to Camp Nine-Iron?"

"Probably not but I think it could be fun. If they get pissy then I can just give them the ol' one-two and be on my merry way. Had enough run-ins with those fools for us to have a mutual understanding of sorts."

"You and me both! In fact, I got something perfect to get my point across when I need to intimidate little bitches." He chuckled in response, sitting back and scissoring his forelegs in an outward motion causing a shower of sparks that ignited his hooves in bright orange and red flame.

“Cooooooollll!” Gold exclaimed, gawking at the true form of the Flaming Hooves of Fury. “How do you do that?!”

“Certain portions of Dragonhide are very abrasive like sandpaper. These parts are where the Dragon needs more texture to its wings in order to reduce aerodynamic drag and promote extra lift during flight so this is generally found along the wing bone. This hide is also very thick so as to both protect the bone as well as pad it and give the light, more flexible hide on the wing itself a solid anchor so it doesn’t tear away during heavy winds. Thing is though this hide produces a lot of heat when rubbed against itself and I discovered that latent magic still resides in Dragonhide that allows it to retain its toughness and self-repair. This magic comes out as fire produced from the heat generated from me rubbing that special hide against itself. Truly wicked shit.”

“T-that’s awesome! But...h-how are you going t-to put that o-out?” Gold asked, looking around as if searching for a fire extinguisher.

“I’m...still working on that part…” Scaly admitted, going over to the side of the road and following Melody’s example by kicking up a pile of dirt to smother the flames which took more time than I expected.

“Yo Scale...that’s not real Dragon fire is it?” I asked as he trotted back towards us with smoking sleeves. “That flame was pretty red there.”

“Sadly not…” He lamented as we continued forwards back home. “It’s just Cinders, latent fire magic that permeates their hide so they’re fireproof. So far this is the only method I’ve found of triggering it and I only think that’s because the heat and the friction are somehow transferring thermal energy into the leather and giving the Cinders a little bit of the bellows if you know what I mean. That’s my theory anyway; best one I can come up with at least.”

“Have you found a use for that yet though?” I prodded. “It’s a neat parlor trick but is it handy in a fight?”

“Yes actually!” He declared immediately. “Not only is it a huge intimidation factor but it burns the hell out of people’s faces when you punch them. Got to test that a couple weeks ago against that one asshole who thought he could cut into my Feral business by stealing some of my breeders. I’m hoping I can find a way to increase the thermal output of the flame so I can at least have something more substantial...at least that way I could melt lead just by holding it in my hooves. Right now, the best I can do is melt tin and burn paper. But hey! Still fucking awesome, am I right?”

“You think that's cool? Guess who found an Inferno Ring?” I asked, beginning again on the road after he stood up and nodded that he was ready to go.

“Seriously? That’s a rare find that.” He replied as I showed him the little gold and red Ring attached to the chain around my neck that contained my dog tags as well as several dozen other little trinkets. "Doesn't look like any of the ones they make in the Market so this has to be an original piece! Hot damn..."

“Wait, you actually know what she’s been talking about?” Cy asked incredulously, looking back at us from her place at point with a look of skepticism.

“Well sure!” Scaly responded immediately as if this knowledge was common, which it was in the Dark Market where he spent 95% of his time. “Even if you ain’t seen one, you gotta know about Equestria's dabbling with Infused Gems. Right?”

“You forget Scaly. Melody and Gold have only been to the Dark Market once and that’s hardly enough time to learn all the itty bitty details of the Underworld that you know from decades of living there.” I reminded him. “And Cy here’s never even been to the Market and, as far as I know, this is her first time even hearing about it.”

“What did I tell you about calling me that?” She bristled, glaring over her shoulder where even the fur on her cheek was standing on end.

“Look Cy...long as you tag with me, I’m gonna keep calling you that. ‘Cypher’ is too long to say, no matter how awesome a name it is, and I like the sound of Cy better. Makes you sound more Equine than that faceless mercenary façade you keep trying to shove down our throats.”

She fumed silently for a second before whipping her head back around to face forward and ignore us. Or, more specifically, me. Her attitude was really getting on my nerves and I was reaching the point where I could not be logically held responsible for anything I ended up doing to her. Any sane pony would get tired of her cold shoulder and quippy, sarcastic mouth faster than I did and probably would have already blown a hole through her ass. So...if any hypothetically sane pony would do what I planned to do...did that make the choice a good one?

“Cy. Or Sia, I don’t fucking know your name yet.” Scaly groaned as he rubbed his eyes. “I don’t even know you yet and already I think you’ve got a stick up your ass. My girl Crete here is a gem and you better start treating her like that or you’re gonna answer to me.”

“Well thanks, bro.” I laughed, smiling at his compliment even though I knew it was yet another cleverly disguised flirt. “Though next time you want to try getting under my tail, maybe try not to be so obvious about it? I’ve met shy, horny twenty-year-old's who’ve shown more tact than you.”

“Oh common Crete…” He groaned as he rolled his fully functional eyes. “Every time I try to compliment you, you spin it on me so it looks like I’m trying to flirt with you. Can a guy just compliment a girl without you guys getting all defensive and shit? I really think you’re one-in-a-trillion Athena. I really do. Why else would I expect you to be the one to rescue me from that bullshit? Sure as hell wasn't gonna expect anyone from the Market to come and save my sorry ass.”

“I’m just playing with you Scaly!” I teased, giggling alongside Melody who seemed to think it was the funniest thing in the world. “Can’t ya take a joke?”

“I just got my balls ripped out and had thirty-grand worth of black leather stolen from me.” He muttered in a shaky voice that was unlike him to do. “Oh, and the entire Happy Trails Caravan I decided to pack travel with? Yeah, they’re all rotting in the desert behind me. So, if you’re done fucking around Crete, I’d like to enjoy my newfound freedom and eyeballs please.”

“Sorry…” I mumbled in response, turning my attention forward feeling stung from his outburst and unable to say anything more.

I noticed a smirk forming on Cy’s cheeks from my angle and I bit back a debilitating comeback for the sake of maintaining harmony amongst the pack. She could enjoy her smug expression all she wanted...I would be happy to just dump her ass on the side of the road and let her figure her own shit out. I got what I came all this way for and so had she. Far as I was concerned, our partnership was over.

“I’m wondering...how did you end up in there in the first place?” Melody piped up after several minutes of silent, awkward walking.

“I’m not even sure myself…” He replied with a heavy sigh. “A week ago I joined up with the Happy Trails Caravan as they were passing through that toll station to the North of New Pegasus. It’s the smart thing to do when traveling across long stretches of open road, especially the ones most traveled on since the stragglers aren’t usually capable of showing enough teeth when cornered by a gang. There were about thirty-six of us total; plenty of bodies with plenty of teeth to bare plus six extra guards hired by the Caravan just as added guns. On our first night we stopped about ten-ish miles from the toll station and that’s when shit started happening.”

“Thirty-six total? Wow, that is pretty large for a caravan group.” I admitted, watching as another caravan of about twelve individuals passed us by followed by a group of three and a single Brahmin.

“It was the bulk of their operation actually.” He corrected. “They were running a massive shipment of ground Razorgrain flour, that special variety that’s really dense, to Shady Sands to shore up their granaries. Apparently their communal farms suffered a drought this year thanks to the expected rainfall not happening this season and they’re starting to panic at their dwindling supplies of even the simplest of food like bread. They haven’t told everypony in the Republic yet though since they’re trying to avoid a food riot like happened a while ago.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that. That’s the last time they tried to invade the Dark Market isn’t it?” I responded, trying to accurately recall memories that were over twenty years old.

“Yep.” He said immediately with a scowl. “They still call us Underworld Inc. you know. An untouched well of monetary and material wealth as well as arcane might and influence ripe for the plucking. That’s the last time anypony has heard from House too remember?”

“Is that right?” I asked, fascinated by this new tidbit as I had been away over by Manehattan at the time. “I didn’t know that. I thought the last time he said anything himself was like...five or six years ago when the NER needed that new Gate added into the wall just to access their Embassy?”

“Oh that’s right, you were out by Fetlock hunting down that Spectre...oh, speaking of, Xeri finally got around to testing its blood for the Sanguine Rituals and she tells me it’s the most potent shit she’s ever seen; even better than Dragon or even Alicorn blood. Something about it manifesting as drops of liquid Darkness so black she wanted to call it the Blood of the Abyss.”

“ Oh really? That's saying a hell of a lot for a Shaman...” I asked, completely oblivious we had started on an entirely different train of thought than before.

“She said she didn’t want to call it that until she could prove it since she’s never seen anything like it. In her words, ‘You can’t tempt Fate to prove you wrong by naming something before you even know what it is.' Honestly, not a bad idea.”

“Hey wait, I wanna hear about the NER attack!” Melody whined, followed soon after by Gold’s similar pleading.

“Oh, I didn’t know you kids were into history.” Scaly replied as he looked back at them with another grin. “Well, I suppose the Ghoul makes sense since they like having dates to remember so they can remember when their birthday is.”

Gold opened his mouth to protest but quickly shut it with a look of defeat.

“Heh, can’t deny that now can you?” He laughed before proceeding. “Well, it’s pretty simple really. Apparently the NER had learned through confidential informants as well as interrogating merchants at The Pile that a second, secret ‘Dark Market’ existed below The Pile that was full of all sorts of valuable stuff. No one could be specific because no one there had ever actually gone inside but they all knew where it was. Everyone knows where the Gates are. The tricky part is getting them open. You need to have sworn a Blood Oath to the Gatekeeper to be allowed access. Sucks for the NER because they stayed so long trying to break down that door and disrupting business in The Pile that Freeside, the Queens, even Mr. House and the whole Stirrup rose up and kicked them out of the city and trust me, they didn’t go quietly.”

“Why did they want in though?” Melody asked.

“Why not?” Scaly and I both replied in unison. “The Dark Market is brimming with gold and thousands of arcane artifacts that could alter Reality itself if used by the right person. Take the Abyssal Catalyst that Xeri has. You get someone with a dark enough imagination and an Abyssal Tome together with that thing and you could very well be seeing the NER raising a literal army of the dead. And considering how full of skeletons Equestria is...there would be no shortage of bodies to be drafted to the cause.”

“To give context to the situation, the NER had been through a five-year drought a good twenty years back and were getting desperate to feed their citizens.” I stepped in to explain. “So, they turned their eyes on New Pegasus because of the seemingly endless wealth it offered thanks to its casinos and other attractions that survived the Great War. Problem for them is they bet against the house and the House won which resulted in the NER’s presence getting completely restricted to a single Embassy in the far corner of the Stirrup. Troopers are still allowed to visit when on leave in order to gamble their pay but they’re not allowed to post guards anywhere but at the Embassy nor carry firearms outside its walls. And that’s how it remains to this day. Things have gotten a bit better between the Stirrup and the NER these days so that’s been nice. It’s kept things pretty quiet in Freeside for the most part. Nothing the Queens haven't been able to handle usually.”

“Wow...and you said they’re having a drought right now?” Melody asked with concern.

“Yep. And they’re trying desperately to subsidize their grain reserves with trade which brings me all the way back around to what happened to me out there.” Scaly continued. “We got attacked in the middle of the night by a bunch of ponies. We couldn’t tell who they were with so little light outside so we just ran hoping to increase our chances of survival as well as to increase the likelihood that at least some of the flour got through to Shady Sands. Unfortunately...our pursuers were relentless and had us outgunned and outnumbered. I ran with whomever I could find that were going the same direction as we slowly got picked off one-by-one by automatic fire. I’ve never shot one before but the sound of an M-16 service rifle is unmistakable and the only ones employing them in large number is the NER. By the time I was cornered inside that apartment building, it was sunrise and I saw that about a quarter of the ponies attacking us were NER troopers who were just as ruthless, if not even more so, than the actual fucking Raiders. After that, they tortured me for the next few days until you guys came along and fucked them up nice and good. Honestly the heartless fucks deserved more than just a bullet in the dome but...eh...better compost than alive.”

“Wow...so there’s more than just that one trooper in on this?” I asked, wishing I could kill the Sergeant again a few more time just to vent my anger at the situation.

“Oh yeah, there’s dozens in on this.” He grunted, pausing just long enough to light up a cigar. “Most of them are junior officers who have itchy trigger-hooves and empty pockets with big debts to pay off from gambling in New Pegasus. They organized local gangs in the seedier portions of NER towns around Shady Sands and turned them into a sort of cash mule for the troopers. Most of the time they just have the gangs ‘attack’ from the desert while the troopers ‘fight’ them off in a brilliant ‘battle’ so then they can charge the ponies they’re protecting even more for ‘risking’ their lives. Total fucking racket.”

“I know where they got that idea…” I sighed, getting a sudden urge to smoke myself though I preferred Red Berryl over tobacco. “A few of the bodyguards-for-hire at the East Gate of Freeside started charging twice the average rate and ponies were willing to pay it for their ‘exceptional services’. Just like the NER, these guys hired local thugs to act like an ambush and then boom, they would gun them all down in a glorious tour-de-force and continue on their way. Turns out they learned that the Gun Runners sold live blanks to people who wanted the feel of a gun but didn’t want to deal with the flying ball of ballistic lead that came with normal bullets and bought a bunch to plan the ruse. I’ve seen blanks used for military training and by casual shooters alike and yet, somehow, ponies have found a way to make even blank cartridges hazardous to the general public.”

“How long ago did that start?” He asked curiously. “Because these kind of attacks have been going on for a couple of years now and are only getting worse the worse the NER’s economy gets. Soldier’s paychecks ain’t cutting it anymore for even single adults let alone heavy gamblers so this kind of behavior is only going to get worse if their GDP doesn’t improve. It’s the fucking Pegusi. Again.”

“W-why you blaming the P-Pegusi?” Gold asked pointedly, something I too was interested to know as well.

“I take it you’ve never been around the NER core colonies.” He replied softly before resuming. “The Pegusi above Shady Sands and about a dozen other smaller settlements throughout the heart of NER territory seem to have a little more compassion than the rest of their Enclave and have, for the most part, kept NER crops well watered every growing season for the last century or so. From what I hear, it started out as an act of goodwill from the Pegusi but now its devolved almost into a sort of politically charged religious ceremony throughout the territory. Tribute in the form of food and alcohol is required from the NER and in exchange the heavenly Pegusi let the heavens open and allow rain to fall upon their crops like the blessed tears of a benevolent Princess long lost to the skies in search of her Sun...”

The disgust in his voice over the religious nature of the yearly tradition were evident as he despised Pegusi far worse than even I did and he hadn’t even been alive for the events as they had happened.

“You k-know I’ve always wonder how t-they grow food up there…” Gold commented, glancing upwards curiously.

“Cloud farming!” Scaly declared proudly. “They were doing it even during the War but decided not to divulge that fact to the government so they could keep the extra resources for themselves, though not without good reason from what I hear.”

“What reason would they have of withholding their food from the rest of Equestria?” Cy asked suddenly forcing me to remember her bitch ass was still with us.

“If you knew what was going on back then, it would make more sense.” I answered her. “I’m not defending those winged assholes’ decision to shut out the sky but you have to understand that they had been at the forefront of the War from the earliest of days and had suffered the worst casualties for it. With the Pegusi population dropping significantly over the years, the government decided that the same level of resources that had originally been allocated for the Pegusi would be better suited for supporting the Earth and Unicorn populations since they were both numerically bigger and made more babies. Pegusi always had the worst birth rate...”

“Well that is tactically sound, I don’t see why that would be an issue.” Cy replied looking more confused than before.

“Well in concept it’s smart but in practice they didn’t account for a little something called the M.O.M factor. The Ministry of Morale was ironically made the agency that oversaw food management for the entire population rather than the well-established Department of Agricultural Affairs and shit went sideways real fast. Corrupt officials from various towns and cities worked in tandem alongside M.O.M to repeatedly slash the Pegusi food budget and redistribute it amongst those places that simply had more mouths to feed than the Pegusi did. Places like Stalliongrad and Manehattan for example.”

“So wait...they kept it secret because they had to?” Melody asked with a gasp of surprise, looking up at the cloudy sky with renewed respect.

“Yep, pretty much. The government kept taking their food imported from the farmlands below and so they had to adapt in order to survive. Problem is they can only grow certain kinds of plants on certain types of clouds and from what a friend named Dark Blaze told me back in the day, the Weather Factory can only produce minute quantities of the kinds of clouds they need. Don't ask me how they work or what they do to make them potable, I've never been to a Pegasus town.”

“What kind of crops can they grow up there, I’ve always wanted to know.” Scaly asked with intense interest now that he knew I had some vicarious first-hoof experience with cloud farming.

“Far as I know they can only grow wheat, rye, parsnips, green beans and horseradish up there. That would explain why they’re demanding alcohol tributes. Pegusi were never very good brewers to begin with so local breweries never took off in places like Cloudsdale and distilleries were completely absent. That’s why you’ll never see any brand of alcohol that says ‘Made by Pegusi’ on the label because it doesn’t exist. Brewing is an Earth pony tradition that’s been perfected over the centuries and distillation of spirits is a result of Unicorn science taking the brewing process and adding their own extra steps to it to create an entirely new, very potent form of alcohol.”

“Wait, how do you even make alcohol?” Melody asked, her face alight with excitement for learning.

“Same way you make bread, it’s just the kind of yeast you use is different and you want it to go bad in a controlled way rather than sticking it in the oven.” Scaly explained, himself a home brewer for dark ales of his own recipe.

“It’s spoiled bread? Ewwwwww…” Melody gagged, spitting on the ground to get the imaginary favor out of her mouth.

“Heh, not quite sweetie. It’s a liquid chemical made from when yeast consumes the sugars found in grains that’s allowed to sit and get more potent with time and some other chemistry stuff you don’t need to know about. Hard liquors like whiskey take that process one step further by distilling the low-quality alcohol and collecting the really potent stuff that’s only made when the yeast and grain and stuff are boiled.”

“Wowie...that’s interesting! I wonder how ponies came up with that?” She hummed.

“Trial and error and undoubtedly some balls of steel to try and drink the sickly sweet smelling mystery fluid bubbling from their old dough to see what happens.” Scaly answered in what I considered to be the most logical answer I had heard yet for the existence of alcohol.

“What kind of f-food does the NER give to the Enclave?” Gold asked, his trademark stutter hardly showing its face which was a bit odd.

“Well aside from all the different fruits and vegetables that can’t grow up there? Cheese.” Scaly replied with a grin. “Can’t have Brahmin in a place where they’ll fall right through the ground below them so they satisfy their cheese craving through the tributes. I honestly think the reason the Pegusi aren’t letting it rain is because their usual tribute of cheese was probably smaller than it usually is and they got pissed off or something.”

“Well isn’t cheese considered a delicacy, even in the Wasteland?” Cy asked raising a very interesting point.

“Well sure, but we still have somewhat easy access to it down here. The NER especially has a strong dairy industry thanks to its Brahman barons. Sure, it's expensive down here but up there? All they have is what they get from the tribute and they've been getting really greedy letting their weather manipulation powers get to their fat heads. Same with the alcohol too; I guess the Enclave has a bit of a drinking problem. Even though they probably have the comfiest lives in the entire Wasteland far as anypony down here is concerned. All they gotta put up with is each other and any Griffins that are stupid enough to poke their heads above the clouds in their territory.”

“They also had to sacrifice all their dignity and the respect of other ponies in order to get that comfy life.” I retorted. “I’d rather die with my dignity intact than live with my pride broken and have my race be the object of abject hatred from everyone else who lived underneath me.”

“Can’t argue with that!” He chuckled in agreement, pulling out a silver hip flask from under his coat and taking a long draught. “Ahh...thank the Goddesses for alcohol!”

“What you rocking there?” I asked him, thoughts of the Badlands Bourbon in my saddlebags filling me with a strange thirst for a stiff drink.

“Crystal Empire Vodka.” He said with a burp, offering the flask to me which I took even though I didn’t really like vodka at all. “The clear stuff, not that watered down shit Xeri gives out during price negotiations. This'll put some zing in your life.”

“Eh...I always hated the clear stuff…” I whimpered as I lifted the drink to my lips and swallowed a larger mouthful than I had planned leaving me gagging for air on rotten potato juice that was only special because the potatoes had been grown in the Crystal Empire. “Agh! Always hurts your teeth, goddamnit!”

“Hmph…” Cy huffed in pride as she took a swig without so much as a grimace.

“I don’t drink that often so don’t give me that oh-so-mighty attitude. Unlike most Hitmares, I can claim the only drug I regularly use to get me through the day is sex and Red Berryl.”

“So you’re not a Chem Head, you’re a whore.” Cy surmised which was just the insult that took me over the edge with her bullshit.

Without even thinking I kicked her legs out from under her and pounced onto her chest as she fell, slamming her upper body into the asphalt with a loud crash of armor against armor and body against solid ground. Centuries of muscle memory knocked the shotgun out of her grip and magic ripped her revolver and power drill from their respective holsters and out onto the sandy dirt on the side of the road. She was all mine with hardly any effort on my part proving to myself that for all her attitude and talk, she was still just a rookie in the game.

“Oh look, I finally broke you.” She chuckled grimly. “Make it quick would ya? Least you could do is save me from having to listen to some long ass speech about who gives a shit...”

“Mom! Don’t do it please!” Melody begged me as she tugged with all her might alongside Gold on my coat tails trying to pull me off her.

After a few deep breaths and more pleading on Melody’s part I finally got off of her and stood to the side looking away feeling absolutely wretched from how much anger I had bottled up towards her. As skilled a fighter as she was, she was rude, condescending and a major bitch to just about everyone including Melody who I felt it was impossible to be even slightly rude towards given how adorable she was. There weren't enough 'fucks' in the book to describe how much she prickled my anger.

“I don’t know Ranger…” She sighed, ignoring Gold’s offer to help her up and standing on her own with a grunt. “If what you’ve said about your history is even the littlest bit true, then these kids of yours are holding you back from your real self. Least that’s what I can tell. You ask me, you're gonna lose touch with the game and be left behind if you let these little shits tag along with you everywhere you go.”

“Better to be held back with a happy attitude about life surrounded by people who love me than to be someone like you.” I retorted, digging into my bags for my money purse to get rid of our killjoy of a companion. “Here, take the six-hundred for the job, another fifty for your goddamned trouble and get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Me!”

I tossed a bag of 750 caps onto the ground beside her and pointed in the general direction of anywhere but next to me. She had crossed a line and I was doing my best version of diplomacy I knew how that didn’t end up with her at least very seriously injured. I had anger issues and the Wasteland had only made acting out on them easier and easier. Now that I didn’t have a superior officer or an official from M.O.M constantly watching over my every move, I was free to shoot whoever the fuck I wanted for really whatever reason I wanted to come up with. There even was a time where I would shoot whomever I came across while alone out in the Wasteland just for laughs though I had thankfully outgrown that stage of my mental instability. Instead I contented myself with shooting asshats like Cy who thought they could mock me with impunity after many attempts to put her in her place with words and a friendly attitude.

“Excuse me?” She asked in a very dangerous tone as she eyed the bag of caps.

“You heard me.” I growled. “You’re only here for the money so why don’t you just take this payment and get the fuck out of my hair before I fuck you up for being a punkass bitch. I've had it up to here with your constant bitching and snarky bullshit so why don't you just take the money and go back to wherever the fuck you came from before I keep the change and take your head instead. You should know by now I am not a mare to fuck with on this shit.”

“Your insults just get worse and worse…” She sighed, scooping up the money and tossing it casually into her bags. “Fine. Good luck to you, you sorry fucks. Hope a Hellhound shits on your graves...”

She began to walk away, still headed down the road we were traveling as Melody begged her to come back. When Melody had to run to catch up to her, she stopped just out of earshot and listened to whatever Melody had to say before she ran back and enveloped me in her red violet magic looking disappointed and irritated though with whom I was hesitant to say. I didn’t resist as she tried to lift me and only managed to get me a few inches off the ground but unperturbed by her lack of telekinetic strength, she dragged my ass back towards Cy who stood waiting looking as murderous as I felt. Though you couldn’t see it, you could tell her horn was sparkling and she was firing every single shot she had on her person right into my face. The feeling was more than mutual and I was half-tempted to fight off Melody's control and turn her ass into paste on the asphalt.

“Alright you two, make up.” Melody commanded, setting me down half a foot from Cy who looked everywhere but at my face. “You two are acting like little pussies and it's fucking pathetic! I don’t care what you have to do to make up but we are not leaving until you two settle this beef between you, do you understand me?”

She glared up at us with such passion and fury that I was far more scared of her than I was of Scaly, Cy, even the entire NER combined. It seemed that I too had crossed a line though mine was with Melody who was doing a way better job of containing her anger than I was. With another glare she yanked all our weapons off our bodies with surprising ease and trotted away with them back to where Gold and Scaly stood rooted to the spot in shock and fascination. And really, who could blame them as a filly disciplined two adult mares on how to get along with each other. It was fucking ridiculous...

“Your daughter is a real piece of work, you know that?” Cy grumbled as she sat down and folded her legs looking away with a huff. "Fuckin' little bitch thinks she can tell me what to do?"

“Why do you think I adopted her, jackass?” I growled in response, glancing towards the filly who stood aways off surrounded by floating weaponry like a strange crib mobile. “Look...she has a point alright? We're at each other's throats over petty insults.”

“Maybe you are…” She hissed, looking directly at me like I were a gigantic waste of her time, a sentiment I was all too happy to concur with.

“The fuck does that mean?” I growled lowly, my fur standing on end at the sheer vile contempt in her voice.

“Oh please…” She groaned, holding her head in exasperation. “Look at you! You’re a traveling circus! A grown ass Hitmare taking her two ‘adopted’ kids she just met on a dangerous road trip to find some weirdo with a Dragon fetish? Some great parent you are. Look, if you want to be an embarrassment to parenthood, do it somewhere I can’t see it alright? Already seen enough of bad parenting from my own mother.”

It was at this time diplomacy was temporarily deleted from my vocabulary and was replaced by the word anger as well as all its applicable synonyms. My pride had been deeply wounded and I was at a point where I only knew of one way to work it out of my system. And that way involved beating the living shit out of her using every martial art I had learned over my career. I lost track of how many punches and kicks I landed, not even taking a moment to feel the impacts as my hooves slammed against her armor. All I knew in those moments was fury. Fury and wounded pride. When I finally stopped wailing on her a few minutes later, she lay in a crumpled heap in the dirt twenty feet off the side of the road barely moving and breathing sporadically. I felt amazing finally getting the chance to put her in her place but at the same time...I felt absolutely terrible looking at Melody who looked on with such a look of disappointment I felt as if I was the one who had been on the receiving end of a beating.

“Did you work it out of your system, mom?” Melody asked sharply when I timidly returned to where she was sitting waiting for me to finish.

“Y-yes.” I whispered, feeling like our roles had been reversed somehow.

“Did you kill her?” She asked pointedly.

“N-no ma’am.” I squeaked.

“Good…” She sighed in reluctant relief, scooping up the MTK that lay open on the ground in front of her as she seemed to have been reading the instructions while she waited. “I’ll go patch her up…”

Without another word she stalked away towards Cy and started to hook her up to the MTK as the state I had left her in required something far stronger than anything you could buy over the counter. I knew from experience what it felt like to break other ponies’ limbs and could say with great certainty that of the roughly 205 bones that made up the average pony’s anatomy, I had broken at least half of them. For all her talk and prowess, she was barely worthy to eat the dirt off the frog of my hoof in an all-out brawl.

“Oh right...you’re not the kind of mare to piss off. I forgot.” Scaly laughed nervously as a bright blue glow came from Cy’s body and she spasmed violently, the snaps of her bones jumping back together audible even from where we were standing.

“Y-you think?” Gold said with pride, hugging my leg affectionately which was new for him but not unwelcome. “She’s t-the best!”

“Oh you don’t have to tell me. Who do you think got me my spot in the Market? There were already three other Dragon handlers there by the time I got there but she got me a spot next to Amaris and believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. Now...I’ve got a thriving monopoly and nopony even thinks about challenging me anymore.”

“That’s just because you treat your Dragons like actual creatures and not just the commodities they are and people respect that, even in the Market. Besides, happy, healthy Ferals make the best leather and hide don’t they?”

“W-wait...isn’t hide and l-leather the same t-thing?” Gold asked bringing semantics into play which were, and always will be, important.

“If you’re talking semantics then no.” Scaly replied matter-of-factly, Cypher sitting up looking defeated and shell-shocked from her ordeal but otherwise healthy. “Hide is any and all parts of the skin that have been removed and at least partially treated. Leather is hide that’s either been boiled or tanned and treated and is ready for applications like belts and armor. Hide is generally more flexible than even lightly treated tanned leather but is kind of flimsy and thin making it piss-poor protection against even knives. Basically kid...I use hide rarely because the bulk of my business rests on treated leather. Coats like the one you’re asking for use a combination of soft leather, hide and fully treated leather. Soft leather for flexible areas, hide for the inner lining and treated leather for everything else. By itself the coat will keep you safe from most small-arms fire but the version Athena has definitely improved on that.”

“Oh? W-why?” Gold asked me, picking up the tail of my duster and feeling how thick it was between his hooves.

“Sewn in under the leather are sections of long-fiber Kevyarn with a layer of short-fiber facing outwards. The layers are too thin to add much additional protection from bullets but as a flak jacket it works wonderfully. You’ll find that grenades suddenly become a bit less of an issue when 65% of your body is covered with a glorified anti-shrapnel ballistic cape.”

“Oh man...I can’t wait to get m-mine!” He grinned, feeling the matte black breastplate that had been custom tailored to fit him. “I’ve almost g-got the full set!”

“Won’t have to wait long. At our pace, we should reach New Pegasus by evening. You know, barring any further cat-fighting from these two.” Scaly grunted, nodding towards me with a mixture of a smirk and a scowl.

I remained silent as the two of them made their way back towards us, Cy keeping her head down and looking literally everywhere else than at me. After a quick exchange of apologies, Cy offered to go and stand guard at the apartment until we came back with Cogsworth. When asked why, she only stated it was the best restitution she could make under the circumstances and it would give her some time alone to think over things. I wasn’t entirely too sure what kind of things she felt the need to think about but her change in attitude was a welcome relief from earlier. It only went to prove the lesson mom taught me when I was just entering fillyhood and was starting to develop as a young mare. Sometimes the best lessons are taught through completely beating the shit out of those that stand in your way after all other avenues of diplomacy have failed. To have mom put it, ‘A good punch to the dick is all you need to drop a douchebag boy to his knees after trying to handle it like a lady has failed. Technically it’s still diplomacy! You’re just exchanging the language of reason for the crude and simplistic language of violence.’ Turns out it works on mares too and is gender-neutral in who it decides to fuck up.

“What do you stand to gain by doing this?” I asked her, thinking about the caps I had given her earlier. “We could be a few days if the Laws of Irony keep the same level of influence over our lives.”

“Just...stop asking questions alright?” She sighed exhaustedly. “Can I go now or are you just gonna break my spine again for talking too much?”

Gold looked at me with shock which then turned to even greater pride while I did my best to ignore him and maintain a calm and collected exterior. It did give me some satisfaction to know at least he was proud of me for breaking her spine even if no one else was.

“Not until you give me another reason to.” I replied, waving a tired hoof back the way we came to indicate she could start walking any damn time. “Go on...we’ll try to be back in the next couple days if we can but no promises there. I did a quick assessment of the building as we went through and if my list of shit to do is even half as long as I think it is, we could end up having to make multiple trips. Not exactly covert if we're trying to avoid the NER but...well, it'll happen eventually.”

“Wait, you’re trying to make that deathtrap a home?” Scaly asked incredulously as if I were suddenly entirely insane which, let’s be honest, I kind of am.

“Didn’t you hear me as we were leaving?” I asked him. “Now that I’m a parent, my little hole in the wall ain’t gonna cut it; not for three people. That apartment building is the perfect place to set up a new home! Surrounded by open desert for miles around, tall with a 360 view, lots of extra space and best of all! Very secluded! I mean, it's a good few miles from the road and unless we lit the place up like New Pegasus at night, you can’t see it until you get close to it. Cy can confirm that even at night, we didn’t see it and I’ve got night-optics as well.”

“That’s all great and shit but you’re still in NER territory. Fuck, you’re not even fifteen miles from the fucking capital! You really think you could just move in there without anypony noticing? What’ll you do when they come kicking in your door with a couple dozen troopers because you didn’t legally purchase the property from them and you’ve failed to pay their high land taxes?”

“Deal with them the same way I always have.” I replied simply. “Eventually even they’ll have to give up trying to squeeze me for money. It hasn’t worked for them so far and it won’t ever work on me. The Equestrian Revenue Service got my tax money because I respected the institution. The NER ain’t getting a cap out of me because as I have proven to them many times...the ‘protection’ they offer isn’t up to par for the lifestyle I pursue. If the one being guarded is worth more in a fight than the six ponies protecting her, the protection money they forced her to pay is just adding insult to injury.”

“Wow...are they that pathetic in a fight?” Melody asked, skipping a rock up the road and then charging forward to catch up with it.

“Eh...depends on the trooper honestly.” I shrugged, smiling after Melody and her antics. “I’ve seen Sergeants like that last guy who can’t put up any sort of a fight and I’ve seen newly minted Privates attack like a goddamn Hellhound and everything in between. When it comes down to it, the survival instinct plays out differently in all of us and to varying degrees of severity. Some fight for their lives, some turn tail and run and the rest either succumb to fear and get killed or crumble under the pressure and kill themselves. It pisses me off but I understand why they do it. Still...they deny me the satisfaction of winning the fight. Few feelings can beat that of basking in the adrenaline of a well-earned kill.”

“You one crazy bitch, you know that?” Scaly chuckled. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’re a Raider bitch at heart and you actually kinda like it.”

“Who says I’m not?” I countered with a grin. “I’m a bit of a loose cannon Scaly. I can take a life as easy as I can take a breath and my version of Paradise is an endless One Mare vs. The World scenario where everything is a giant medieval fantasy RPG and I’m the twin-faced Grey Goddess.”

“Gray Goddess? What you smoking Crete? I want some of that.” He laughed, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Yeah, I know it sounds stupid but you do one better huh? At least in my world I get to play Goddess and be either the gracious and caring Monarch or the malevolent and deranged Warlord. Whatever suited me in the moment I’d do. Help this little filly out, burn this city there...anything is possible! Oh, and I get to wear dope-ass armor too and none of this poly-ceramic bullshit. No, I’m talking Celestium Steel plate armor like what we used to wear to battle! You know Cogsworth’s got the right idea. Melt down modern armors and reforge them the old-fashioned way is a brilliant idea and I think I might do it sometime. I think I could rock a nice set of plate and chain.”

“Well, do you like what I did to my Battle Coat then?” He asked proudly, waving a hoof over the steel scales that lined his duster with much flourish.

“I do!” I exclaimed, feeling the smooth, hard bumpy texture scraping against my combat boot. “Let me guess, you stole this idea from Cogs too?”

“No.” He huffed, brushing my hoof away indignantly. “I got the idea from Dragon scales stupid. Where else would I get the idea?”

“Survey says fish, snakes, butterfly wings, Radigators, lizards and traditional scale-mail skirts and/or knee-high faulds. Still being a jackass? I’ve got more you know.” I said with a smug smirk before continuing. "Sea Serpents, tortoises, pangolins, alie-”

“Alright! Shut up….” He grumbled, hanging his head and sighing. “I got the idea from studying my Dragons and how their scales bend and flex over areas that need a lot of mobility like say their haunches. Unfortunately, the hide that sheds off every now and again from their bodies is nowhere near as fascinating because what I’m holding isn’t scales bound to hide, it’s just hide. I’d have to skin one of my Dragons in order to get scale-bound hide and that’s something I just won’t do to a live animal. If they die of natural causes then sure, I’ll skin ‘em. The organs are valuable to the Azad tribe, the blood is literally worshiped by the Cult of Ogbunabali and the bones can be sold to just about anyone because their number of uses is huge. Even if I lose one of my boys, I can still make as much off selling its body for parts as I can get from its hide during the first forty years of its life. Far from a bad trade-off but...it's always hard to say goodbye to one of 'em.”

“Hey bro, I was just playing with you.” I laughed, bumping him in the side with a smile. “But that’s actually good info to know since now I know where the Azad keep getting Dragon organs on a somewhat regular basis. How many Dragons do you go through a year?”

“Well ever since that Spectre blood was used, a chasm to the Abyss has opened above the Market and it’s having a very negative effect on the longevity of my Dragons. My oldest stock are all dead now and most Hatchlings don’t make it past the first few months. Those that do either don’t make it past the Sparky phase or make it up till the time their wings start to really grow in and then succumb just after the Wingaling stage.”

“I’m sorry but...Sparky and Wingaling stage…?” I asked him incredulously, hoping he was joking.

“Yeah I know it sounds stupid but it’s an easy way to remember the different stages of their growth cycles.” He replied, shrugging his shoulders sheepishly. “Sparky is when their spark sacs develop and they can start breathing fire everywhere and Wingaling is again when their wings come in and they start trying to figure out how to fly. After that it’s the Bitey stage when their adult fangs grow in and they have the urge to eat metal and stones in order to sharpen them naturally. About this time they're young, hot and horny like you wouldn’t believe so that’s when I have to start separating all of them from each other. If I didn’t they’d be humping each other till even the males were somehow pregnant. After that fun mess, they go through the Uppity where they grow exponentially towards their species’ full size and really start to mature both in temperament and libido. At this point they’ve become an adult and nothing really happens for the next fifty to a hundred years when they start really getting big during the Titan stage. By two-hundred to two-hundred and fifty years they’re as big as they’ll ever really get and that’s what I call their Final Form.”

“Wow...I had no clue that was their life cycle.” I admitted slowly. “So you’re saying you once had Dragons older than even I am? Jeez...”

“Oh hell yeah!” He boomed. “Mrs. Nesbit was my oldest clocking in at nearly three hundred! Until she died of course...but hey, I’m still rolling in the caps from selling her for parts so it’s not all bad.”

A pebble bounced off the tip of my combat boot with a loud clack and I looked up to see Melody beckoning me to play skip with her. Without even apologizing for leaving, I took off towards her and hugged her tight after I had caught up. She was sweating heavily in the midday sun but she didn’t look uncomfortable as she grinned up at me seemingly at peace with the world. After selecting an appropriately sized skipping rock, we kept it going down the highway until we could see the toll station approaching in the distance. Gold had tried to play as well but his stamina wouldn’t allow it. I felt bad he was stuck at the same level of fitness he had been when he was first Ghoulified but I felt it wasn’t time to start training him. I knew from observation and some scattered conversations with Ghouls that they could gain muscle mass similar to normal ponies but the process took longer and was more painful as many muscles can be exposed on a Ghoul’s body as a result of their skin falling off in places. I didn’t know enough about their physiology to make the assumption that simple protein and vitamins were the only key to muscle mass but I did have an idea that, at least in my mind, made some sense.

My idea was simple. Instead of having him drink purified water during a workout, I would give him irradiated water since the water of course would keep him hydrated and the radioactivity would act to stimulate his regenerative abilities. That way his pain tolerance would go up so he could theoretically work-out harder and thus get into shape quicker. I had irradiated water in my bags (since purified or not it didn’t harm me) and I could whip up a fresh batch of lemonade for him to chug. The only problem would be if he didn’t drink all of it and I forgot about it until after Melody or someone else not immune to Rads had already taken a huge swig. I knew myself too well. My trains of thought hurtle about like spaghetti and little details like that would go unnoticed. Not that the negligible amount of Rads in the water were going to do much of anything even to Melody, it’s just the concept of forgetting something important that could end up killing somepony that was unsettling. No...the great water experiment would have to wait until things had settled down which could take awhile given the pace of changing events.

******

“Oh look...the Ranger is back.” The NER trooper sighed as we approached his desk inside the main office. “How wonderful... Let’s get this shit over with...I’ve got a pack of faggs in my locker I wanna smoke.”

“I actually have somethin’ to say about your fellow asshats, asshole.” Scaly growled across the desk to our slightly disgruntled trooper.

“Of course you do...alright, what is it this time? Let me guess, you got roughed up by one of our desert patrols? Ran out of water on the way? Stubbed your poor wittle hoovsies?”

Without a word I pulled the thin chain from around my neck and tossed it with a loud clatter onto his desk before him. On one of the two pieces of steel that were attached was the embossed horseshoe, stars and wings of the NER while on the other was the name and serial-I.D of the trooper we had killed in the apartment.

He glanced at it for a moment before looking back up at us and asking, “Dogtags? Congrats, you win the scavenger hunt. I’ll return these to whoever this is when they report back in, thanks.”

“You don’t get it do you?” Melody groaned. “Dude’s dead.”

“And how, pray tell, did he die?” The trooper countered, glowering over her though she didn’t back down as I had expected her to.

“With this.” I replied, tossing the long, empty brass case of the .45-70 round I had used to end the rogue trooper’s life. “I’m the one who killed him. Why? Because he and a bunch of other NER fucks like him ganged up with some of your local gangs and slaughtered an entire caravan of thirty-six people.”

“Now hold on, that’s a pretty huge fucking claim.” He protested, sitting fully upright in his seat while the rest of the office went deathly quiet as they listened in. “Where’s your proof?”

“Me.” Scaly declared with an angry grimace on his face. “Scaly Fang, Dragon leather merchant. Trader-I.D #5092769419. I registered here six-days ago traveling solo but right after me was the Happy Trails Caravan bringing a shipment of Triple-O quality Razorgrain flour from Barkerville. I added my name to their crew manifest while they were registering and we made it about ten miles outside of this fucking booth when we were jumped in the night. We ran blindly into the desert and got casually gunned down along the way. I was tortured and held captive for two days before she came and rescued me. I can take you right to where all the bodies are scattered across the fucking desert.”

“Cool story bro.” The trooper snickered as he leaned back in his chair. “But all you’ve got is your word. There’s no bodies you can show me unless you somehow stuffed them up your ass.”

“You f-fucking asshole I s-swear I’m-” Gold started, his magic wrapping around the grip of his Sequoia which I quickly waved off.

“Gold! Behave yourself!” I scolded him, giving him a slightly stinging bop on the muzzle. “Look, radio the Customs Agency in Shady Sands. Ask them if the Happy Trails Caravan checked in and declared their cargo and crew manifests.”

“And why should I bother?” He sighed, reaching into a drawer in his desk and retrieving out his aforementioned pack of cigarettes. “I’ve learned more about you since you last passed through here and I'm not so sure I should believe you.”

“Whatever ‘dirt’ your superiors had to offer on me is beside the point right now.” I countered, doing my best to maintain a calm state of mind. “Look, if you wanna prove that I’m a liar or whatever you need to do in order to satisfy your dick of an ego, call your fucking buds in Customs and prove me wrong. You’ve got yourself an audience so go ahead. What do you have to lose huh? Prove the bitch wrong at her own game.”

“Hmmm…” He grunted as he sucked on the end of a cigarette in his mouth. “Aight, fine. I’ll prove the bitch wrong. Listen up everypony! I’m gonna prove that the so-called Lone Ranger is a fucking liar.”

His announcement was wholly unnecessary as everyone including his fellow desk jockey had already long ago abandoned any effort to continue on with their own business. With an overly sarcastic flourish he whisked the receiver from his HAM radio and dialed in the Customs Agency in Shady Sands.

“C-A this is TS-E15-S. Have you guys checked-in the Happy Trails Caravan yet?”

There was a static filled pause before a chipper young stallion replied, “No sir! No record at all! I have them here on my itinerary from last week's update but I haven't seen mane or tail of anyone from Happy Trails. You know speaking of Corporal, I actually have more than a few names on here that haven’t checked in yet like at all. Scaly Fang, the Silk Road Caravan, Brass Tax Caravan, some chick named Cypher and a couple others. Some of these are over two weeks old. Know anything about that? I thought it was weird but you know how the Lieutenant is about asking questions...”

The receiver dropped from his hoof as his eyes twitched and went wide with shock and terror. I didn’t allow myself to feel smug as the situation was extremely sensitive and had to be handled with care. I was no friend of the NER but that didn’t mean I was their enemy; not yet at least. Until such time as they had crossed a serious enough line with me to warrant me going to war with them...I was to at worst remain neutral in their eyes. Sure they pestered me but not enough for they nor I to actively call each other the enemy.

“C-copy that…” The trooper stuttered as he dug through his log book for the exact records of the ponies and caravans in question. “Please forward a message to Colonel Autumn regarding these missing ponies and inform him that I will have some terrible information to discuss with him. I will need to send a snap patrol out to go and search for them to confirm but make sure he's on stand-by. There's some serious shit going on.”

The stallion on the other end acknowledged and assured that he would forward the message personally before the line went dead and the trooper was forced to deal with us personally once again. The rest of the office remained in silence as everyone seemed to realize the gravity of the information we had reported. Somehow, even despite my own prejudices against them, this level of degenerate behavior seemed outside the scope of reason even for a disgruntled trooper of the NER. Extortion, maybe even some petty theft sure but straight up murdering thirty-five ponies all for some lousy bread flour? (The leather I could understand because of its extremely high value but…)

“Private Daisy? I need to leave immediately to inspect the evidence, you have the station until I return. Use one of the other Privates to assist you with the paperwork and proceed as normal. If any messages come from Command, please write them down and try me on the short-wave radios.” He said slowly, looking towards his subordinate with a hushed tone.

“I’ll accompany you.” Scaly stated, not as a demand but as a statement of fact that the trooper seemed reluctant to argue with. “You’ll need my statement for your report.”

A small bell was rung using a button next to the radio and a few moments later six more troopers entered the station at attention. After relaying instructions to them, they and the rest of us were directed to go outside. A wall of heat greeted us as walked outdoors and I could see through the haze in the distance another caravan on its way North towards us from most likely New Pegasus or Barkerville. As loathe as I was to lose Scaly so soon after finding him, he had a duty to report the atrocities he and the others had gone through and witnessed. Gold was gratefully understanding of the situation and reassured both of us that he was more than happy to wait a little longer for his duster to be made. When all was said and done, it was time for us to continue towards home numbering no more than when we first came to the toll station meaning we hadn’t really lost anything while likewise not really gaining anything either.

“Well...this was fun.” Melody sighed as we once again trekked south along the open highway past a long caravan of Brahmin, ponies, Griffins and, surprisingly, a pack of Wolves and a few mountain cats.

“Fucked u-up but fun!” Gold added looking mighty pleased with himself. “We should go on trips more often!”

“Well we have to come back this way soon so you’ll get your wish. We’ll be traveling in a caravan of our own this time though!” I exclaimed excitedly as I had remembered how much I enjoyed traveling in large groups across dangerous territory.

“You really think Cogsworth is gonna help?” Melody asked, cocking her head to the side a little. “I mean, what does he have to gain?”

“Well for starters, a great site to set up more production capacity for his business located fifteen miles from one of his largest clients.” I responded instantly. “He’s been complaining for years now on how he’d like to have a bigger operation like the Gun Runners have with his own employees but he just hasn’t found anyplace big enough or cheap enough for him to set up shop. That and he owes me a LOT of favors that I've been stockpiling for a time like this.”

“So...what do you have in mind for our new home, mom?” She asked curiously. "It's not like we had a long time to explore that place."

“Well, when it’s all finished I want it to look like a smaller, less gaudy version of Tenpony. By that I mean I want it to have a high steel reinforced concrete wall around it with automated turrets and a gate and everything!”

“So, to quote Cogsworth, you want a castle?” Melody giggled.

“As close to one as I can get, yeah.” I replied with a smile. “I’d also like to build a firing range out back so you two can practice your aim. It's a lot of space to fill on the lower floors but...eh, I'm sure we'll find something to do with it. That top floor area with the communal rec room would be perfect living quarters though, especially with that access to the roof."

“That sounds nice.” She squealed softly, shivering with excitement at the thought of her own room though I secretly wished she would bunk with me so I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore when I slept. “I can’t wait! Common! The faster we get there, the faster we can get started on cleaning the new house!”

Yet again she charged forward eagerly and while I easily caught up to her and her shorter legs, Gold as ever lagged behind out of breath and constantly begging for another shot of lemonade to keep him going. So much so I almost reconsidered refilling my next round of lemonade with irradiated water just to help him along. The sooner we got home, the sooner I could get the poor sap into shape and put his enthusiasm to good use.

The lights of New Pegasus intensified like a miniature, festive sun the closer we approached and the darker it became. Even Melody with her surprisingly expansive stamina was wearing down as the road got harder and harder to see with every passing minute eventually forcing me to put my helmet on and flick on the tactical LED light attached to the side of my helmet with my radio. Despite being a tiny bulb, the thing put out a lot of light allowing us to navigate in the dark fairly well as long as I took point to eliminate shadows. Though it didn’t quite compare to a street lamp, it was more than enough to light the way and bring us safely into Freeside where everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief to be off the open road and surrounded by buildings again. I was a wanted mare here but...it still was nice to be amongst 'civilization' again.

“Hey look, it’s the Queens!” Melody said excitedly as we passed the first few blocks of demolished buildings and entered the more inhabited part of town.

I looked up at her mention and saw dozens of black leather jackets gleam in the street lamps along the street before us. The Queens were out in full force again and it was a relieving sight as it meant I could leave Freeside in good conscience without feeling guilty that I had left them at least mostly defenseless against any more bullshit from without or within. They acknowledged me rather graciously as we passed mostly giving me a curt nod or, as with a group of stallions, a couple wolf whistles which I was happy to take over a street brawl with them. Things actually seemed the calmest I had seen them in awhile. Most ponies were off the street except for the Chem Heads out looking for their next fix and the local thugs hiding in the shadows waiting for their next payoff. As a public service, I would sometimes take enthusiastic walks around the worst areas of Freeside at night and intentionally leave myself open to attack just so I could do some weeding of the public menaces while everypony else was in bed asleep. It wasn't much but it was honest work.

“It’s so bright!” Melody squealed in joy as her wide eyes drank in the light of the Stirrup that not even its high wall could snuff out. “So many colors….”

“You would have loved this place in its prime then.” I giggled, standing beside her so we could watch the flickering multicolored lights wink on and off in the glow above the city for a few moments. “Anyone who owned stock in neon knew this place was a fucking goldmine. There were enough colors here to give even the great Rainbow Dash color envy. The best places for a great light show of course are the casinos since they’ve got the most building space to flaunt but in my opinion the best places for good mood lighting were the strip clubs. The Kinky Kitty was our favorite place to go to whenever we were all on leave together. Nothing but red, blue, purple and pink lights everywhere with the occasional black light in case you wanted to see just how much of a mess you really made.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Melody asked followed by Gold.

“Oh...heh. Um...well, blacklights are special light bulbs that only shine with UV light which lights up anything phosphorescent like a glowstick. In this case...jizz is phosphorescent too and glows kind of a faint yellow/white where it lands. ‘Running a Black Light’ is what we called standing under a blacklight after getting kinky with a hooker to see how much cum we got on ourselves. The messiest at the end of the night was the BitchLord for the month.”

“Let me guess...you were BitchLord more often than not?” Melody giggled, giving my ear a playful nip which sent shivers down my spine that were strong enough to make my tail flick and twitch behind me like a cat crouched for the pounce.

“Heh...yep! BitchLord 2074-75 and I was on my way to reclaiming my title for 77’ after Buck Beak stole it in 76’ but that’s when shit flipped sideways and I had to say goodbye to everything going on at the time. But anywho, yeah. I held the title the most. Had to do some crazy shit to pull it off but I did it. Spent a fucking fortune too. Let me tell you, New Pegasus hookers charge you out the ass for sex. They might as well charge you a leg or a nut with how much they charge for three minutes of heaven. Fucking ripoff but it's their business, not mine. I'm more for the free stuff that comes from a relationship.”

“Why do I get the feeling they still charge that much today?” Melody sighed, standing up and stretching her sore legs.

“Last time I heard they did but the last time I was on the Stirrup was hell, like three or four years ago.” I replied as I hoisted the exhausted and snoozing Gold onto my back and followed alongside Melody as we trekked back towards The Pile. “I don’t gamble and if I ever need a nip of rum or whiskey then I can just get some locally in Freeside where it’s way cheaper. I’ll admit I haven’t paid for sex in over twenty something years. For awhile now I just can’t get off with other people like I used to and after I found a vibrator and had Cogs fix it up for me, well...I’ve just stuck with that, my hooves and my mouth ever since.”

“Oh…?” Melody asked softly, her voice carrying through the hushed street where nary a pony walked about. “You’ve...been that lonely huh?”

“Sadly yes…” I sighed, looking at her out of the corner of my eye and biting my lip nervously as that loneliness was now long since resolved but I was afraid to pursue it to its fullest. “But...I think that’s changed finally.”

She looked up at me shyly and bit her own lip as well. Goddesses she was the cutest thing I had ever met… Huckleberry would probably hurt me but...goddamnit, it had been 206 fucking years since I lost her. I finally found someone who made me feel just as special and peaceful as Huckleberry did and I wasn’t about to hold myself back by remaining faithful to the memory of a mare I loved. She...would have wanted me to move on. I mean, common...I had proven I would never forget her nor my love for her. It was high time for me to stop being selfish with my love and start giving it freely again. This little mare needed a loving mother and I was the perfect candidate. I had money to support us, weapons and skill to protect us and enough stories and memories to share to last us years. Perhaps I wasn’t technically the ‘perfect’ parent but I goddamn well was going to do my best to be. I didn't feel all that selfish in wanting this.

“I love you mummy.” She cooed softly as she leaned against my leg sleepily when we had come in sight of the brightly glowing lamps lining the exterior of The Pile. “I’m sleepyyy…”

As her voice trailed off she sank into sleep and slid down to the ground in a sleepy heap. I had to carry my AMR in my magic so I had enough room on my back for both Gold and Melody and I continued in a happy silence past the bleary eyed guards and into The Pile where the last of the merchants were finishing their final transactions and putting their goods away for the night. It was a strange time to be wandering The Pile as it still had some noise happening throughout but it was faint and echoed loudly throughout the otherwise empty building. It was eerie but not quite to the point I would describe it as Kenopsia. It certainly helped to feel the weight of my two kids on my back as theirs was as comforting as seeing the five-round magazine of my AMR hovering in front of me like my own armed escort.

“Don’t know about you but I for sure don’t want to be stuck waiting in line at the E-10 NER toll station. Latest reports just in say that the NER was surprised to learn from an eyewitness source that several dozen of its troopers were involved in the illegal slaughter and robbery of several caravans along the E-15. Amongst the missing and presumed dead is the Happy Trails Caravan that was purportedly traveling with a substantial quantity of some of the finest bread flour money can buy. According to the eyewitness’ account, these troopers massacred the good ponies of the Happy Trails Caravan and then robbed their corpses of the precious flour in order to sell themselves on the black market in Shady Sands.”

I recognized the deep, booming tones of DJ-PON3 from anywhere as it hadn’t changed once in the hundred-and-seventy-five years he had been on the air. There was a radio on somewhere and I had to go shut the fucking thing off before Sapphire Shores had a chance to start singing her cursed song one more goddamn time during my lifetime. But wait a minute...it had been talking about the whole shady shit situation the NER that I had helped uncover. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to be a little slow in finding whoever had their damn radio turned on just so I could hear more and relish just a little in my good deed. Sure, I had killed a lot of ponies including one for-sure trooper but that just added to the fun of the whole experience. Wouldn't hurt to listen to at least the news broadcast right...?

“Oh, and before old DJ-PON3 forgets!” The radio continued off in the distance a little to my left aways. “None of this would have been possible including the eyewitness if it weren’t for the help of a little someone the West side likes to call the Lone Ranger. Not a lot to say about this girl but I've heard from very reliable sources she's a hell of mare. On behalf of the Wasteland and those poor souls lost in this catastrophe, I thank you for bringing these foul deeds to light.”

I knew I had a reputation, one that even reached from here to Manehattan to the point I was a household name at one point, but I never thought it was enough to end up under the unsettlingly clear gaze of DJ-PON3. It was...almost unsettling to hear about myself over the radio, especially when it was actual good news about me. I had done more than enough to deserve my reputation as a heartless killer so it was...very weird to be hearing me be associated with something good. Well, as good as the wholesale slaughter of hapless merchants can be...

“Wherever she is, I hope she knows ponies everywhere will start thanking you for this good deed as soon as they hear the full story. Whoops! I gotta take a break everypony. But don’t worry, I’ll be back! In the meantime, let me leave all my faithful listeners with the company of the lovely Sapphire Shores!”

“NO!” I shrieked as my gentle trot turned to a frantic gallop as I caught sight of the Gun Runner’s kiosk and the warmly glowing radio resting on the corner of their counter.

The opening notes to the song began to play and I dove forward far too early, my hooves spread out in front of me waving every which way as I tried with all my might to somehow make myself close enough to the accursed object to silence it before Shores got stuck in my head for weeks. I didn’t know if I imagined it or what but the air in front of my hooves seemed to fill with faint glowing lines and the next second I appeared in front of the heavily armored kiosk and the radio which had been broadcasting over the external speakers was off. Whatever I did freaked the shit out of the Mr. Handsy robot that hovered behind the counter as he exclaimed something and wobbled around like he had been hit. The glass separating him and me was two inches of the rare Titanium Quartz used only by the most wealthy of merchants. The fucking Gun Runners kiosk were the insane bastards blasting the radio...

“I say, young lady!” The robot chided me in his rich Canterlot accent. “Do show more decorum when in public! Did your mother teach you no manners?”

I simply turned and stared at him, my throat entirely devoid of any words. I had just teleported myself. Without using Unicorn magic. How?!

“Are you even listening to me? I dare say!” The robot continued, his tone growing more and more disgruntled and gruff.

“Oh shut it.” I sighed, turning and facing him completely while pushing what happened aside for the time being. “I’d like to buy some ammo please. You know damn well who I am by now, Woolsey...”

The Runner's kiosk was by far The Pile's greatest storefront both in terms of the quality of its products and service as well as its nigh-on impregnability. Built around an old maintenance room with a service elevator leading to a tunnel that connected to their New Pegasus manufacturing plant, the damn thing was a fortress of reinforced concrete, Celestium armored plating and of course, Titanium Quartz windows. With a bank teller style drop box and a built-in cap counter, it was a marvel of commercial shopping and was perhaps Cogsworth's greatest project to date earning him enormous respect from The Pile at large. But...seeing as it was past 8pm, Sergeant Buckwheat had already gone home leaving me to deal with Woolsey. Not that he was a problem or anything...he just didn't have nearly as much charisma as the old NER armorer who ran the store during normal business hours. Not to mention his sense of humor...

“Why of course I do!” He chuckled, his demeanor immediately reverting back to the factory settings the moment I mentioned the word ‘buy’. “Welcome back, Miss Crete! What can we interest in you today young lady?”

“I’m 236 years old you stupid machine…” I grumbled under my breath before examining my inventory of ammo and making a mental list of what we were lacking. “I’d like two boxes of .45-70 Celestia, six boxes of .308, and as many .45-70 speedloaders as you’ve got in stock. Oh, and I've got an old M1 Garand we just came into the possession of not too long ago and I was wondering if you guys might have a suppressor in stock for it. Oh, and any en-blocs in .308 if you've got any. Long shot I know with such a limited run firearm but you guys have yet to disappoint.”

“One moment, please! Allow me to peruse our stock...” He boomed, retreating from sight into one of the two caged rooms in the back where their goods were kept under extra lock and key. Well, those they kept in the store; everything else went down the elevator and out to their fortified manufacturing compound outside the city.

After a few minutes he returned with his eight legs each holding a bit of the order, setting everything down in a neat line on his side of the glass and showing them off one at a time to confirm I wanted them. One by one everything was deposited into the large sliding deposit box before him including the surprising inclusion of the suppressor. Sadly, they didn't have any en-bloc clips in .308 caliber but he assured me that he would send a manufacture request and I could pick up a batch of fifty in a couple days. The total purchase came to a little over two grand but as I was their most loyal and repeat customer, I was granted a special discount. One I loved to use even if I could afford the normal price since there were few ways to make a girl feel special than an exclusive discount for being a #1 customer.

“I would like to use the Bang! Pow! Boom! Discount, please.” I instructed with a smile, an almost lewd feeling of satisfaction washing over me as I saw the final total roll back to just 955 caps which I promptly paid; dumping a bag of a thousand into the small hopper drawer with a counter lit in red numbers rolled backwards until it hit zero and the excess diverted into a small cubby like the coin return slot on a vending machine.

“Thank you for your continued business, Miss Crete!” He chuckled as I walked away. “If not for you, however would we pay our bills?”

I laughed to myself at his little quip and reached Cogsworth’s warehouse in time to catch his own Mr. Handies closing the outer doors for the day. They let us in graciously and even escorted us back down the stairs and across the store to Cog’s Workshop where he was as always busy at work on one of his many creations. Sparks cascaded from his welding stylus as he seemed to put the finishing touches on the Mr. Gutts robot with the flame paint job we had seen earlier.

“Hail Cogsy!” I called out to him making sure he heard me so I didn’t catch him by surprise and inadvertently ruin his project.

“Greetings and salutations to you as well, Athena!” He hailed back, setting down his welding mask and stylus and getting up. “Did you find our friend?”

“I did! However there’s some crazy shit that happened on the way that required his attention so he’ll be returning soon-ish. Meanwhile, remember how I asked you about helping me clean my new place up once I found it?”

“You located one so quickly?” He asked without any surprise. “It figures it would happen thusly given your luck. Yes, I would be most willing to assist you in this effort! It will give me and my robots a challenge for once! Please tell me you went to the effort of at least preparing a suitable list of that which is required? Even a preliminary expectation is a suitable place to start.”

“I did actually! I even wrote it on my PipBuck so you can read it at your leisure after I upload it to ya. It’s gonna need a lot of love and materials if you’re still up for it.” I replied as I sent the list of things I wanted/needed repaired plus my wish list of features like the thirty foot concrete walls and the structural reinforcement of the main building with steel and concrete.

“A fact I can plainly see…” He mumbled as he received the list and scanned over it. “Good gods are you certain Athena?”

“Well...you asked for a wish list didn’t you?” I said sheepishly. “This is what I want done to the place!”

“When you spoke of wanting a castle, I thought you were merely jesting…” He sighed as he rubbed his eyes and returned to looking over the list. “Luck favors you highly Athena. I can do the alterations you seek but I ask in exchange for-”

“For a place where you can do more of your science projects and make an assembly line. Don't worry, already took that into account the moment I had a mind for this place.” I finished for him, slapping him on the back reassuringly. “Common, you know you wanna do it.”

“You don’t need to persuade me Athena. I am happy to be of assistance. I will need until the morning before I am ready to make my first journey to the building. I will also need to hire some armed guard to keep watch over my store until I return.”

"Awesome, the map marker should also be attached to the file I sent. And before you go and tell me it's too close to Shady Sands, I already know that. They won't like it but if we can get a hoofhold there and get you set up, I think they'd be willing to overlook us. Long as you keep them supplied with tech and robots."

He flipped to the map tab on his PipBuck and frowned.

"Fifteen miles...? Well...that would make deliveries to the Republic far more cost efficient...still, I cannot help but express concerns about the proximity to the capital. I know they and thee are at odds."

"Don't worry about me, Cogs." I assured him. "I'll take the heat for whatever bullshit they throw our way. At this point, they should know better than to blindly try and force shit outta me. They aren't using the place so as far as I care, it's free game and I can set up shop all I want. Squatter's rights as it were."

"Very well...I will also exert whatever clout I have proffered with them. I doubt even they would be so bold as to deny themselves of my wares were I to develop a larger production facility. There is much to prepare Athena, I must beg your pardon so that I may attend to them. Your beds are ready and awaiting your arrival in the Stable. Go and rest now, we will continue this come morning."

I nodded and left him to it, waltzing into the Stable with aching knees and a pair of exhausted foals that needed to be undressed for bed. While I could manage a nap in my armor if I needed to, that was thanks to decades of getting used to the whole ordeal and just learning to put up with it. They were young and deserved to enjoy the full comfort of a good night’s sleep without waking up with aching backs and shoulders from sleeping in armor. With the utmost care, I got both of them out of their armor and snuggled into their own respective cots while I got undressed and prepared myself for bed properly. It was an odd feeling exposing myself to danger in such a way around others but...well, we were family now. It was my own small way of showing trust towards them, even if they weren't awake to see it.

The cool air-conditioned breeze running through the Stable made me shiver as my bare coat tasted air for the first time in a few days. A heavy chain tinkled gently across my breast as I set my coat and armor down in a pile next to the foot of my cot. I felt the chain against my hoof as I ran it over each and every trophy that adorned it. My Chain of Remembrance as I came to call it after it started getting noticeably heavy around my neck. The chain itself was the same that carried my dog tags but it also contained little trinkets; trophies of war taken from my most dangerous or influential hits across the decades. Earrings, rings, cufflinks, even a few teeth; all of these dangled from my chain as testaments to my past achievements as mementos of those who had taken more than normal to kill. That is...all except for one. An engagement ring.

I unfastened the chain and lifted the small black ring to my eyes. A one-karat amethyst carved into the shape of a star was set in the center accompanied by two flanking half-karat sapphires cut into crescent moons on either side and two half-karat rubies cut in a navette shape on top and bottom, all on a Lunar Steel band as black as onyx. A strange and exotic engagement ring but then again it was intended for a very strange and exotic mare. It cost almost as much as my Sequoia did but that was only because the amethyst was of an extremely rare variety called the Tears of the Weeping Sun and the band was some of the most heavily enchanted Lunar Steel available. The so-called Tears of the Weeping Sun came from a geode said to have formed from the tears Princess Celestia cried when she had realized what she had done to her younger sister in having to banish her to the moon commemorating the hope that Princess Luna would one day be saved. In the dim light of the Atrium, the large jewel glowed with a soft purple light that reminded me for of a Dark Gem but seemed to have a warm, comforting feel to it. There was some kind of magic within the gem but it wasn’t that of evil...if anything it felt like love. A gentle, calming love that never faltered and gave a small sense of hope that was just enough to cling on. And....cling to it I did.

“I’ll never forget you, you know that right?” I asked the ring in the silence of the Stable. “I’ve never been with another mare after you. Not...in a relationship at least. I love you Hucks...I always will...but I’ve gotta move on. For all I know Hucks...this is you back from the dead. Reincarnated or...something. She needs me. But...if I’m to be there for her, really truly be there for her...I need to let you go. That way...I can focus everything I am with her. You know it’s the best choice...it’s a real chance for me to pick up where we left off. I haven't felt this happy to be alive since...well, even before you died. It's just...this is my shot at finding something worth living for again. I know you better than anyone...I ask for your blessing on this...please.”

There was no noise that I could hear with my ears and no sight for my eyes to see...but I could feel her lips upon mine and her voice whispering in my ear that everything was going to be alright. That I had her blessing to continue on my present course that I had set. I had a lot to live up to...but with this load off my heart, I felt up to the challenge. It took me a long time to say goodbye. Too long in fact. Too long to the point the memories were beginning to inevitably fade. It was hard to cling to a past that had nothing more to substantiate it than just mental snapshots and a few mementos...

“Mummy…?” Melody called out softly into the dark. "W-where are you...?"

“I’m here darling. Be just a sec.” I replied shakily, putting the ring back onto the chain around my neck and turning to see Melody climbing in with me and immediately snuggling warmly into my chest.

“Thanks for being a good person mom.” She sighed happily as she dozed in my arms.

“Oh? What do you mean…?” I asked her tentatively.

“You saved your friend’s life and you exposed all those bad people and the horrible stuff they did. A bad pony doesn’t do stuff like that. They only make things worse.” She replied, looking up at me with a soft, loving intensity.

“Even though I shot that trooper right in the head?” I asked, that being the only detail I was worried she might protest over as I knew the Raiders in the building would get no sympathy.

“Oh he fucking deserved that.” She said matter-of-factly. “And more. He was even worse than those ugly old Raiders...nopony like that deserves to live. Stop worrying mom. I know you’re not always going to be the best pony...but at least you know that too and you seem to be trying to be better. You have a heart of gold and everyone can feel it.”

“Not to mention a Soul of Grey it seems.” I replied without even thinking.

“Yeah, I was wondering about that...what does that mean? Is it bad?” She asked, rousing very similar questions in my own mind that had remained on the backburner in light of our search for Scaly.

“I’m not really sure to be honest, Mel.” I admitted, giving her a little kiss on the cheek while wrapping a hoof around her back and another around her head cradling it. “Far as I know that Color doesn’t even exist and I can only guess what it means.”

“And that is...?” She quiried, nibbling on my chest and breathing slowly.

“Well...what is grey as a color anyway? It’s a mixture of black and white. We view the world mostly as a matter of black being bad and white being good but life is far from being so clean cut like that. But, as far as the realm of Souls go, there are such things as Black Souls that are inherently violent and 'evil' and the occasional White Soul that is incorruptible, pure and 'good'. Grey however? Well...it's not like I'm an expert on the topic but as far as I have read and been taught, such a Soul has never been seen before. What it means well...that's something I don't even know where to start on figuring out.”

“So...you’re like half angel and half demon? Cooooooool!” She grinned, nipping at my neck playfully and pawing at my chest with the tips of her hooves. "Half Black Soul, half White...only thing that makes sense."

“For lack of proper understanding on both our parts, that’s the best explanation we’ve got right now. Maybe it means...I’m like....neither good nor bad?”

“Well that certainly sounds like you mom.” She replied with a giggle.

“Heh...if you say so hunny...I'd say at best I'm a dark charcoal grey. There's a lot of black in me.” I sighed, settling in and closing my eyes, giggling softly as I felt her tail flick around on my stomach and tickle my thighs. “Cheeky filly.”

“Heh...sorry...I can stop if you-” She apologized before I shushed her with a kiss.

“Please don’t.” I assured her gently. “I find it really adorable. You’re very snuggly, you know that?”

“Am I?” She squealed softly as I tickled her and nipped at her ears.

“Only the most snuggly and adorable.” I cooed in her ears causing her to shiver heavily against me sending shivers down my own spine. “Mummy’s big old kitty cat.”

“Mew!” She giggled, licking my chin and trying to purr in her throat though it came out as a cute guttural growl.

“Awww...such a cute kitty!” I swooned, petting her back which arched under my hoof.

“Meww…” She mewled again, this time much fainter and muffled by a yawn.

“Go to sleep now kitty.” I crooned, petting her back continually. “Mummy will be here if you need her ok?”

“Okey mummy…” She yawned happily, giving me a good night kiss on my nose before curling up on my chest and falling asleep.

“Goodnight darling.” I purred in her ear, closing my eyes again and welcoming the embrace of sleep.

******

Chapter Thirty-Four: Out of the Frying Pan

"Stop squirming dear...ponies will start wondering what's going on over here..."

"I wish you had told me I was going to be wearing a fucking dress to this place!"

"Well of course you were going to be wearing one, Athena! This is the fanciest place in the city! You think I'd let you just waltz in here looking like some pony from off the street? They'd kick us the hell out for Celestia's sake!"

"That's not my problem! I hate wearing these stupid fucking things!"

Our conversation was held through hissed whispers just barely audible over the background noise of the Chez-Parez, a classical jazz quartet performing gently over the general din of the restaurant patrons enjoying their meals. We had barely made our reservation, much to the annoyance of the maître d' who eyed us with disdain in his pompous tuxedo and top hat. Mom was dressed in a graceful royal blue gown with small sapphires sewn along the hem and forming the shape of a peacock across her rump with emerald feathers and ruby eyes. It was a Rarity original that had been a gift for the Grand Galloping Gala over fifty years ago, something mom had kept and preserved carefully over many years only breaking it out for the most prestigious of occasions. I meanwhile sat uncomfortably in a spare gown she owned that was a light baby blue lightly embedded with sapphires and emeralds that complimented my mane colors well enough but left me feeling like I was in a straightjacket. It was tight around the chest, the hem was easy to trip on and all I could think as I wore it was 'what would happen if a fight broke out right now?' Needless to say...I was miserable being out of armor, especially around strangers. Not even my tail gun was of much comfort as I couldn't reach it with my hooves or mouth and fumbling for it with magic would be difficult with it hidden under so much fabric. I was as good as naked and I didn't like it.

"Athena Minuette Crete, I swear to fuck if you get us kicked out of here I will beat your ass so hard you won't walk straight for a week!" She hissed under her breath, giving me a swift kick under the table. "Sit. STILL."

With a sad whimper I relented and gave up, sitting back in my chair perfectly still in case she gave another stinging kick to my leg. After a few moments she gave a small smile and a nod of approval before picking up her menu and disappearing behind it with a small glass of wine floating beside her in her golden magic. I meanwhile sat there stewing in silence while feeling horribly out of place amongst a crowd of finely dressed snobby rich fucks. If I thought I felt out of place on the open street, it had nothing on this place. With nothing to do, I grabbed my own menu and started to browse before I realized half of it wasn't even English but Mareseillian. I didn't recognize anything on offer and the small sub-text explaining what went into each meal only left me more confused as to what in the fresh hell I was going to be eating. Mom meanwhile sipped away happily at her wine and settled back in her chair looking content and at home amongst all these blue bloods.

"Mom...I don't understand a single fucking word on this thing..." I finally relented, letting my menu flop forward and onto the table unceremoniously.

"Don't you remember your Mareseillian lessons?" She asked, peeking over the edge of her menu.

"Mom, that was like ten-plus years ago and I almost failed that class in high school. Only reason I even took it was because they required a foreign language class to graduate and it sounded a lot better than learning Greifenländer."

She sighed and shook her head in mild exasperation before pointing to something called 'Ratatouille and replied, "Just ask for this darling...its just thinly sliced eggplant, zucchini, onion, tomatoes and peppers in an herbal savory sauce. Fairly simple dish, you should enjoy that well enough I should hope."

"Rat...ratata...how the fuck do you pronounce this shit?"

"Oh for the love of...I'll just order for you darling..."

At that, I felt some stress lifted off my shoulders knowing I wouldn't have to talk to the waiter or have to pronounce ratty tatty patootie whatever and watch his snobby ass face curdle in disgust at my lack of culture. I sat back in my dainty highbacked chair and glanced around idly as we waited patiently for his high class ass to show back up, all the while feeling the growing pain of hunger clawing up my belly. The 'appetizers' were nothing more than a plate of four, I repeat four garlic and cheese stuffed mushrooms which didn't even hit the bottom of my stomach before they were digested leaving me feeling even more hungry than before. I absolutely despised this place...with every fiber of my being I wished to be anywhere else, even back in the trenches fighting for my life. Being my first time to this gaudy white marble prison of a restaurant, I had no set expectations about what the experience would be like but...even my most dismal projections hadn't accounted for just how fucking boring it would be waiting thirty minutes between visits from our waiter. I knew if I started doing anything to try and alleviate my boredom, mom would instantly kick me again and I would be both bored and in pain. Civilian life was just so unbearably dull...

When the jackass finally decided to stop by our table again after forty minutes of staring into hungry space, I averted my eyes while mom did all the work ordering our meals. His gold feathered quill glided over his pristine white notepad, commenting on our 'fine selections this evening' before he disappeared again to fuck knows where. Mom seemed pleased with everything and poured herself a fresh glass to sip on while I silently begged for anything interesting to happen to break up the monotony. Compared to the boredom experienced on important meeting days on the Front waiting around behind the front lines for it to begin, this eclipsed it and then some. Could almost feel my brain melting out of my ears at the lack of stimulation and as much as I had a soft spot for jazz, the quartet in the corner was far too laid back for my taste.

"So...does it always take a fucking hour to order the main course?" I asked after I got sick of staring at the patterns in the lace tablecloth. "Or is that just a rich person thing that happens at all these sorta places?"

"Oh hush..." She sighed, setting down her glass and rubbing her eyes. "I can't take you anywhere, can I?"

"You can take me to another gun store." I suggested hopefully. "I know I can mind my manners there."

"Darling, this meal is costing mummy almost a hundred-grand so the least you can do is at least try and appreciate this rare treat..."

"Treat? You call this place a 'treat'...?" I retorted, earning myself another kick. "Ow! Fucking stop, goddamnit!"

Her eyes flashed with an anger I hadn't seen in many a year and I cowered as she huffed, "Outside. NOW."

We stood in unison and I followed her outside the grand hall to the white marble balcony overlooking Manehatten from our place on the top floor of an upper class apartment bloc. The sun was nearing the horizon in the distance and fragrant flowers in dangling flowerpots hung from the awning tickled my nose softly in the evening breeze. She went silently over to the banister, looking out over the city and leaned up against it with a heavy sigh.

"Athena darling...whatever in the world am I to do with you...?"

I stood in silence for a moment wondering if this was a trick question or a rhetorical one before I replied, "Um...love and adore me like I deserve?"

She gave a short laugh and turned to face me, the anger from earlier tempered somewhat in her eyes.

"You know what I mean. You're a grown ass mare, Athena. Act like it would you?"

"Look...I appreciate the shit out of you and I can appreciate the occasion bu-"

"Obviously you can't or we wouldn't be out here having a discussion about your behavior now would we? I thought you had grown out of this sort of thing already...this is like that dinner we had with the Paisleys all over again..."

"Oh common, this is nowhere near as bad as that...we haven't been kicked out yet and Daisy isn't around to egg me on. And for the record, she's the one who knocked that urn of ashes over, not me."

"It doesn't matter, the point is you should know better than this Athena. You weren't born in a barn like some member of the Apple Family, you know how to behave in formal settings. I shouldn't have to remind you about this."

"Look mom...I'm just gonna come out and say it: this place sucks. I absolutely hate it."

"Oh I am very well aware of that young lady..." She groaned, leaning back against the banister and rubbing her eyes. "This was a bad idea...we should have just stayed in bed and ordered takeout or something..."

"Heh...see, now that is an idea I could get behind. Would have saved us having to rush our fun to get here on time and we could actually eat some real fucking food, not this dainty bullshit they call food. I'm starving mom! And this place wouldn't know good portion sizes if it went up and bit 'em in the ass!"

"That's just fine dining darling, all these sorts of places are like that."

"And that's my problem? I don't care if it was cooked on Celestia's flaming ass by the gods themselves, I just want to be full, damnit! Do these ponies have stomachs the size of grapes or something??"

"Is there a problem here, Madams?"

I turned to see one of the restaurant staff eying us suspiciously in his pompous tux and opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind when mom said, "Nothing at all, sir. We were just having a private discussion."

"Ma'am, guests are not allowed in this area as it is closed pending an exclusive formal party for Prince Blueblood and his entourage. I will have to ask you to return to your seats immediately."

We looked around seeing no tables, staff or really any sign that a party was to take place here and I replied, "Doesn't look like it to me. And the doors were wide open with no signs stating this area was closed off so how were we supposed to know, huh?"

"I must insist you return to your seats. This area has been deemed off limits to commoners as per his Highness' personal request."

I turned, looked at mom who was likewise bristling at this bullshit, and growled, "Commoners huh? Is that what you people think of anyone who isn't one of your precious fancy pants assholes? Huh??"

"I do not have to answer you. I will be calling security now to have you removed from the premises post-haste."

"No need." Mom snorted, scooping up her purse from off the balcony and yanking me by the arm towards the exit. "We were just leaving anyway. Come along darling."

I knew better than to say anything while she was in such a huff and instead put my focus towards trying not to trip over myself and my unruly dress at the furious pace she had set. It had been many years since I had seen her so frazzled and irate and for a second time in only a few hours I felt like a little filly again though while the last one had been exquisite...this brought back some bad memories. She was never one to raise her voice without need but there had been more than a few times where my fuck-ups had warranted such volume to try and get some point across my thick ass skull. There were always a few every couple years...I never claimed to have been a perfect daughter. We exited the large marble prison and waited for the line of high-end carriage drivers to reach us to give us a complimentary ride home; the least such an expensive fucking experience could give in return for such a shitty, overpriced experience. As we waited near the graceful curb, sitting on the rim of an elaborate golden fountain in the shape of a stylized sun disc, she took a few moments to compose herself and touch up her makeup in the mirror of her small pocket kit.

"Well...this is most certainly not how I imagined the night going..." She sighed after fixing her mascara. "That was quite the performance, young lady."

"I...I'm sorry, mom..." I stuttered, still feeling about two-foot seven and eight years old.

With another, heavier sigh she looked up from her hooves and replied, "I know darling...I don't know, Athena. I was just hoping...for once...you could try to be a bit more...posh than normal."

"O-oh...?" I asked inquisitively, standing on the curb holding our spot so she could rest. "What do you mean...?"

"Well...not for nothing dear but...you and I are not quite the same style of mare. Were you this age when I was still back in college living a bit more freely than I am now well, then perhaps I could handle the fast paced world you live in now. Truth be told...I'm outdated. I've been around longer than I care to admit and things have changed a lot...and I'm just not the same mare I was back then."

"What are you saying...?"

"What I'm saying is...I have garnered a taste for the finer things in life. With the kind of free-time I find myself with nowadays, I have been using more of my money to dip my hooves into upper-class society. That isn't to say I am some fancy pants wannabe, far from it. But...I do enjoy finally being able to live in such a way that I can enjoy my hard earned money. I've done my part and carved out a piece of this world for myself with the skill of my own hooves. Now, while I enjoy dental work as I ever have, I have earned a break and a pampered retirement. Long story short darling...I was hoping that you would be willing to settle down enough to try and enjoy what true hard work can buy you. But...you are just a little stinker, just like you were as a filly. Fancy stuff was never really on your radar of things you had any attention for...I'm not sure why I expected anything different from you as an adult. But...in the end, I can accept that."

It took some effort to look her in the eye but when I did I couldn't help but ask, "Are...are you sure...?"

"I love you, Athena. Like nopony in this world ever could...rain or shine, thick or thin...you are my little girl and I love you just the way you are. I shouldn't expect you to change when I raised you to act for yourself how you see fit. Would be hypocritical of me to even attempt something so blatantly contradictory."

"Heh...yeah, that is what you taught me. To be my own mare and not be someone else's idea for who I should be. I've never forgotten that...if anything, it's the best piece of advice you ever gave me. Despite what's going on, I don't think I could be happier than where I am right now and it's all thanks to you showing me how to take life for myself."

"Oh please...you can't put the burden for all your success on me dear." She laughed softly, getting to her hooves as the majestic silver and gold coach pulled up pulled by a quartet of tuxedoed stallions. "I only showed you the door, you are the one who threw herself headfirst through it, hell or high water."

We climbed aboard using a graceful silver step ladder they extended from the base of the open door and sat back in the deliciously soft and cozy red velvet seats as they swung the door shut giving us some much appreciated privacy. The velvet and stained wood paneled interior was warmly lit by ornate oil lamps in the corners and a small chandelier dangling in the center of the roof while the windows were hung with satin curtains. The moment she spied the bottle of sparkling wine chilling in an ice bucket to the side, mom lashed her golden magic around the bottle and yanked it into her waiting hooves. I was in no position to argue and wasn't in the mood to tempt fate anymore than I already had so far.

"Not a fan of this bubbly shit but it's better than nothing and momma needs a drink after tonight...the hell is this...? Ottavia Sinfonia No. 9? Eh...always loved your music Tavi but couldn't you have just gone with a regular white? Yeesh..."

With no ceremony she tore the cork out of the bottle and received a face full of explosive foam, soaking her face and lap while also dripping somewhat from the ceiling. Instead of hurling the bottle and shrieking in anger over the metaphorical slap in the face like I would have done, she calmly sighed from the depths of her lungs and began chugging like a champ. I was too stunned by the event to even laugh let alone judge her for wanting to forget the last few hours. All I could think of was her Red Berryl pipe chilling on the nightstand at home and the wonderfully sweet flavor of bliss that was guaranteed to make the bad things of the night fade away. It was something I knew I was going to get cravings for as soon as I returned to the Front. There was a high likelihood I could find people who illegally had it shipped to them as drugs of all sorts proliferated anywhere there were bored, stressed out soldiers but...it would be a first for me and I wouldn't know where to even begin.

"You...doin' alright there, mom?" I asked as she took another long swing of the dripping bottle, the air heavy with the scent of sickly sweet alcohol.

"Been better..." She admitted, brushing her sodden mane out of her face. "But...least Tavi has good taste in grapes. This is definitely a top-quality Mareseillian Chardonnay variety. Mmmm...you know this actually has a really exquisite white oak and peach aftertaste! I take back what I said earlier, Tavi. I think I could learn to like this given a couple months."

I laughed softly, unsure of what else to say and let her do her thing while I stared out the carriage window at the brightly lit city passing by us. I didn't know how I felt...a mixture of shame, anger, annoyance, pride and a half dozen other mixed emotions that left me more worn out and confused than anything. I certainly felt bad for being such a stubborn little shit and ruining her night in high society but...she was also right in saying that fancy shit had never really been something I cared for. While I had a feminine side, I was just more inclined towards the tomboy way of life as it brought me infinitely more enjoyment than anything else. Toy swords and guns over dolls and dress-up, mud wrestling and exploring the woods over tea parties and makeovers; in all reality I probably would have made for a better colt than a filly. Still...I could have at least tried more than I had to just make it through a few hours of discomfort and annoyance for her sake. I was quite honestly lucky she was taking everything as coolly as she had. Had I been younger and pulled this kind of stunt back in the day, I could kiss my un-grounded ass goodbye for a few months at least.

When we had pulled up to the curb outside her apartment, the door was swung open and the step ladder dropped by one of the drivers. His nostrils flared the moment he opened the door and his eyes bulged a bit in their sockets but he said nothing as he assisted us down to the sidewalk and bid us a good evening. After slipping back into his harness, they were away down the busy street more than likely talking about how much of a mess of the alcohol mom had made. She stood beside me, still looking sober despite smelling far from it, and followed me inside her apartment lobby after dumping the empty bottle in the public trash bin under a lamppost. Being late in the evening as it was, there was only one mare at the front desk who casually waved to mom as we passed before looking back down at her terminal. As the elevator doors closed I could clearly see the reflection of a digital card game on her glasses which gave me some amusement to alleviate the weight in my gut.

We made it into her apartment without any incident and the moment the door had closed she was already starting to lazily tug off her dress and jewelry, tossing them wherever as she made her way towards the bathroom. Feeling bad about the night, I took it upon myself to pick up after her for once and followed behind gathering up her discarded finery. While I set them in as respectful a pile as I could for such a fine gift, she busied herself with starting up the rowboat tub and putting on an old Blue Suede vinyl. It was no Connemara folk music but it certainly brought some pangs of nostalgia to the heart remembering those nights spent dancing till we dropped to her funky beats.

"Lot of memories with this album..." I said after taking a seat beside her leaning against the sink.

"Mhm..." She hummed back, staring off into space before pulling out her pipe and a small bag of Berryl buds. "What say ye to sailing down memory lane a bit more?"

I took the fanciful cigar lighter she used with a giddy grin and held it lit for her to drag off, replying, "Aye, aye cap'n!"

******

The day to return to the Front came all too soon. Sunday was over in the blink of an eye and we spent all of it in each other's arms at her apartment watching TV, discussing the future and enjoying another couple romps in her wonderfully soft bed. Before I even knew it, Monday had dawned on us and I was standing anxiously in Four-Star station awaiting the train South. The station was as packed and chaotic as the day I had arrived with hundreds of ponies going about their personal business without a care in the world while I dreaded every passing second. Trollies of luggage rolled past, pushed by Four-Star employees in their emerald and gold uniforms while their rich owners strutted ahead of them with their noses held high. TVs and papercolts hawked the latest depressing news from the corners and atop old wooden crates demanding your attention, all the while sporting big fake smiles like everything was ok. Amidst the noise and commotion...I felt isolated. To the point I could have passed for an island in the sea of chaos around me.

Of course, I had mom nearby which was a wonderful boon to have in the moment. No open seat for a M.O.M employee to take and drag me into his political scheming, just a worried mother anxiously awaiting the inevitable with her only child. We sat together in a melancholy silence as the minutes ticked by and the train pulled into the station, smoke billowing everywhere making eyes water and nostrils flare at the noxious fumes of the coal burning engine. Judging by her expression as we sat there, she too was feeling the same thing...sadness and regret.

"Well...it's time..." I whimpered softly, grabbing my duffle bag from the floor and getting to my hooves with great reluctance.

She stood with me and held me close for a solid minute, a soft stream of tears trickling down her cheeks and soaking into the shoulder and lapels of my dress uniform. I clung to her as tightly as I could without squashing the life out of her and tried my best to take as many mental snapshots of the moment as I could. We both knew it would be a long time until I would be permitted to see her again...

"B-be brave, Athena." She whispered in my ear, the tremble in her voice undeniable despite her best efforts. "I'm...I'm proud of you. For everything you and the others are doing down there...Celestia knows what would happen if you weren't there to help hold back the Empire."

"I...I'll do my best, mom." I whispered back, looking at her in her beautiful blue eyes and putting on my best brave face despite the turmoil of emotions engaging in civil war in my breast. "The...the next few months are going to be tough. There's a lot going on down there that is too frightening to talk about and...you don't need to know about. I promise mom...I will make it through this. We will see each other again."

She held me at arms length, taking a moment to straighten out some of the pins on my uniform and straightening my tie before nodding and replying, "I'll hold you to that. Now...you better get going, Athena. Or...or I'm afraid I won't be able to let go."

I pulled away with the emotional trauma equivalent to ripping off the world's largest bandage and nodded, giving her a salute before picking up my bag and turning away to approach the train. As I approached the line waiting to board those ahead of me were polite enough to push me to the front of the line with the usual thanks for my service and murmurs of respect for the uniform. Once it came time to board I made my way to the first seat I could find with a window facing the station so I could have one last mental snapshot to take with me. She stood there on the platform, smiling and waving but with mascara streaking from her eyes and a faint quiver in her lips. I waved back, mental camera snapping so many frames it should have exploded then and there, and with a lurch the train disembarked from the station. She vanished behind a wall of pillars before the tracks lead us out onto the raised platform that loomed over the cramped streets below clogged with cars and buggies alike.

Manehatten slipped by before my eyes but I barely saw it. Skyscrapers flitted past in a blur and all I saw was her face...an accurate facsimile of how I felt inside. Forcing a smile and trying to appear brave but in reality screaming just beneath the surface and in dire need of emotional security. It hurt so much to leave her...not only because of just how much closer we had grown from this trip but just how lonely I knew she was. She had outlived a few of her old friends from PonyVille already and those she had made in the industry had seemingly all but forgotten about her after her retirement. While she had a few mares from her Manehatten clinic to go on lunch dates with, they weren't close enough friends to provide the kind of daily social interaction I knew she craved. Being around her seemed to take a load off her shoulders and put a pep back into her step but it wasn't something that could last. Having Hucks and I around would mean the world to her and make her twilight years much more bearable but there was no way in hell it was going to happen. At least...not in the foreseeable future with everything that awaited me down South.

And on that train of thought...what did await me down there...? I had essentially resisted arrest, as unfounded as it was, and would surely face the General's wrath as soon as I touched the sands of the Badlands. Would I be blacklisted? He already suspected me far more than I was comfortable with...I could only hope that Operation: Downsize was enough reason to keep me around a little longer. In the back of my mind I knew that I had already signed my own name to his blacklist and it was only a matter of time before I ended up fighting in the Empire itself. Didn't take much for anyone to get sent there these days...could be serving alongside somepony one day and the next hear they were transferred to the Zulu Campaign never to be seen again. It was a death sentence no matter how they tried to spin it. The casualty rates in the Empire were such that one in every three soldiers died within the first month of their tour to the unbridled rage of the Empire defending its territory. The path to Mombässali was clawed out inch by inch from the hooves of the Great Chief and paid for with more lives than seemed necessary. Even with the aid of the Greifenländer and their gigantic Gryphons and mechanized vehicles progress was excruciatingly slow already four years past the initial estimates for victory.

"Please...just make sure Hucks and mom stay safe..." I mumbled to the air, not sure if it was a prayer or just a vain attempt at prodding Fate to throw me a bone.

Stop after stop went by without notice. Military checkpoints and regularly scheduled stops alike went by without incident and I kept my paperwork out and ready, giving it readily to those who came aboard to inspect them. Word about my resisted arrest did not seem to have spread and I was grateful I had scared the living shit out of that M.O.M Unicorn enough to ensure my return South went uncontested. Officers took one look at my uniform and green booklet with the EAF insignia emblazoned in gold on the cover and moved on without a word. Not even a suspicious look out of the corner of their eyes as they passed, just business as usual. It would have been pleasant if it hadn't been for the rush of panic that flooded my body every time the conductor hit the brakes and memories of three days ago filled my thoughts. I had brushed with M.O.M on multiple occasions like anypony else born in the last two decades but this was the first time I had felt actual terror about having to interact with them. Their power was almost unchecked and in the grand scheme of things I feared that they would only grow more bold in their efforts to root out any and all semblance of resistance to their edicts and mandates. With Celestia in seclusion and Luna showing no signs of taking more leadership to herself...it was unlikely things would get any better. In fact...without even trying I knew that they would only get worse, just like everything else in the world.

After several hours the train finally pulled up to the end of the line just North of the Front just as the sun was beginning to sag behind the Ember Mountains. There had been a Company's worth of GA soldiers taking leave in Appleloosa so the remaining twenty miles of track were filled with obnoxiously loud talking, laughing and jeering. Exiting the train at the station was a blessing as I was able to escape the cramped seating on the passenger car and make my way through a packed crowd of about 200 or so soldiers down to the main camp. The air was heavy with heat and the Valley ahead of me shimmered in the desert haze, plumes of noxious black smoke billowing from the warzone taking place several miles further South. It was kinda pointless to worry about the members of Alpha's safety in the time I had been gone, we always came home at the end of the day and just because I was gone for a few days didn't mean anything would change that.

The camp was as busy and chaotic as always with carts of supplies going to and fro followed closely behind by Platoons lead by their commanding Sergeants. The air was alive and well with noise and barked orders with rows and rows of plain green canvas tents marking the resting place of every mare and stallion present. Artillery roared from the Eastern branch of the Ember Mountains high above and above groups of armored Pegusi flittered around going about their assigned tasks. To top it all off, none of the T-51 clad Shocktroopers standing guard by HQ made a move to apprehend me as I meandered past and everything felt more or less as normal as it ever had in all my years fighting in the area. That was...except for the group of towering Gryphons that stood around chatting nearby one of the flattened dirt runways that were springing up all over the camp.

Gryphons were a rare sight in Equestria to begin with seeing as their homeland had a Front of its own to worry about as part of the greater Zulu Campaign but it didn't take much to spot the telltale signs. The most obvious was their use of custom-fit Power Armor, the largest models ever produced, and the stylized avian skull painted in white on each of their helmets dangling from hooks on their sides. The Plague Birds were here to stay on the Southern Front after months away serving in the East and I felt a mixture of relief and apprehension at their presence. While I had seen them at the awards ceremony a few weeks prior, it was never said they were here for anything more than the ceremony with their technically assigned CO before being shipped back East. They were like Alpha, a Squad that just refused to die no matter how impossible the calculated odds of success for the mission were but unlike Alpha, they had even more of a reputation. While we were rarely sent on so-called 'suicide missions' due to our value, the Plague Birds were the undisputed suicide veterans of the War with more successful missions under their belts than any other Squad on the books. If there was a thorn in the side of Command that couldn't be cut out with the surgical precision of the Desert Rangers then the Plague Birds were the hammer of doom that would obliterate it entirely. If they were all recalled to the South...well, that could only mean one thing. There was another suicide mission in the works and Command's Fell Hammer was being called in to solve the problem, whatever it happened to be.

"I'm tellin' ya guys, I swear these ponies keep getting shorter and shorter. Is it just me? Please tell me it's not just me who thinks that. I can't be the only one who thinks that, right?"

"I dunno, they seem as short as they always have been, Muller. Don't forget you're wearing the T-57 now...you're a full head taller than Peter."

"Not really that hard to pull off for such a shorty."

"Hey, Garand? Go fuck yourself would ya?"

"I'd ask you to but you'd have a hard time even mounting me ya shorty!"

I stood several feet from the five of them, each growing steadily in size over the other like a Kyevshen Nesting Doll but all breaking the six-foot mark and then some. I knew them only by reputation so it was rather brave of me to get so close to them without prior introductions. It was rather fascinating to see them finally up close and see for myself that they weren't all just cookie-cutter Gryphons wearing matching armor like all the other Steel Rangers you saw around the Front. The shortest of the group also appeared to be the newest as his armor was barebones T-51 with the only distinguishing features being the skull decal on his helmet and an abundance of leather and canvas bandoliers across his breastplate and waist. He was still a fairly handsome guy for a bird with light sky blue feathers and golden yellow eyes above a similarly yellow beak. The reason for all the bandoliers was obvious once I spotted the long Greifenländer marksmare rifle slung across his back, a scoped and suppressed G3 with mixed wooden and composite furnishings.

Next up at only a few inches taller than him was a beautifully white Gryphon female with a black beak and piercing violet eyes similar to my own and seemed to be the only girl in the Squad. She was wearing what could only be described as a 'lite' variant of the T-51 with slimmed out proportions; a continuation of the Ministry of War's production of both heavy powered armor and semi-powered armor to fit different units' needs. Hers was the first to feature any actual decals aside from the Squad's symbol being covered in the Ministry of Peace's iconic Pink Cross indicating she was the designated combat medic for the group and a collection of runes around her bracers and shoulders painted in violet. And if that weren't enough proof, she was also laden down with bag after bag of M.O.P branded medical supplies dangling from every available surface of her armor. Hidden amongst all the medical accessories was another Greifenländer weapon, a compact submachine gun of some sort with a long stick mag that also seemed to double as a foregrip which was a peculiar design but a rather intuitive one at that.

The next male in line was perhaps the most interesting of the bunch, a flat faced Owl Gryphon with large, strikingly dark eyes and dark charcoal grey plumage lightly touched with hints of rusty brown feathers mixed in just under his small, curved black beak. Like the female, he too wore a semi-powered T-51 but it was mostly obscured by a desert camo ghillie suit that even from where I stood made him melt into his surroundings via some enchantment placed upon it. Upon his helmet across the forehead rested an external optics unit which, coupled with a long foreign-made bolt action rifle covered in fanciful Far Eastern symbols, solidified his role as another marksmare of the group. Although taking into account his ghillie suit, he was probably used to going solo and providing overwatch for the Squad. Alongside his foreign rifle was a short sword of similar shape and design to the much longer sword owned by Zecuro except the jewel in the pommel was a bizarre dark amethyst with a bright sapphire blue core. Almost as if one gem had grown over and around another...

At around the seven foot mark was guy number four, a royal blue Gryphon with a long, pointy golden beak and vibrant orange-yellow eyes. His T-51 was much tankier than the others before him as one of the fully-powered suits with extra bits of Celestium Steel bolted onto the chest, neck and shoulders for added defense. Shotshell bandoliers crisscrossed his body strapped onto every available surface while his entire right leg was adorned with massive speedloaders meant for the decidedly old fashioned revolver in a holster strapped across his chest. On his left leg in a leather quickdraw holster lay a massive sawed-off 1987 shotgun, yet another old timey firearm that seemed a little out of place on a modern battlefield. A Kyevshen combat machete sat in a sheath on his right shoulder, its size making it a sword by pony standards and I could only guess that he was a Trench Runner. Only those with a death wish pursued the profession of barreling through the trenches at full speed with nothing but close quarters weapons meant to exact maximum damage at near point-blank range. Crimson Dragoons plied in this trade freely to great effect but this guy...he would put the fear of Death into anypony's heart once the pain train got going.

And finally, towering above the rest at what could only be ten-something feet tall, was a rusty red brute of a Gryphon with cherry red eyes and a dark brown beak. His armor was particularly striking having a simpler design than the others but making up for the blandness by being broad, thick and heavy enough that he visibly sank somewhat in the red earth beneath him; essentially what could only be called a Super-Heavy variant I had never seen before. His paldrons simply cupped the joint but their length down the upper arms almost made rebraces unnecessary and served as rests for the two enormous weapons built into his armor like pony versions of the Heavy Power Armor. One was a belt-fed 30mm autocannon while the other was a tri-barreled .50 Big Mac minigun; a menace to society and the real powerhouse of the Squad. Tally marks covered every inch of bare Celestium plate, even the massive ammo drums across his lower back. Truly they were a sight to behold and as much as I didn't want to be caught staring...I couldn't help but stare at the five of them and marvel at their size and armor, each of them a head-plus taller than anyone on my own team and then some.

"Hey, lookie here Muller! This one ain't as short as the rest!"

I was roused from my awed examination of the five when the white female peeked around their fellows and looked right at me, pointing an armored talon in my direction. They all turned as one to look at me and it took all my nerve not to be cowed by five enormous murder birds all gawking at me. Their expressions were a mixed bag to say the least ranging from apathy to outright amusement. I was quite tall for a pony but even the shortest of them still had several inches over me making me the smallest doll in the Nesting set. My curiosity was leading me into murky waters as usual...

"Well I'll be damned, I thought you were joking Erika! I mean, she's still small fry but at least she's got some length to them pony legs." Said the dark blue one, eying me hoof to horn with a critical eye.

"Can still squash her so I don't see what's so special about a few extra inches. A shorty's still a shorty." Replied the enormous red guy, shaking his head and clearly unimpressed.

"She's got a fuckin' name ya know..." I replied with a loud sigh, hoping my rank pins were visible enough to earn a little respect.

"Oh! Oh! Don't tell me..." Said the dark blue one again, tapping his beak with his talons in thought. "Grey Mist? No, no...Fog Hoof! Oh fuck it...you guys all have such dumb sounding names, it's hard to remember all of them or take them any bit seriously. Is this a warzone or a petting zoo?"

"Athena Crete." I replied with a bit of a growl directly at him. "Lieutenant Colonel Athena Crete, Captain Fuck Face."

"Oho ho! Watch it, Garand! This little mare's got snark and rank!" The white one named Erika responded, punching Garand in the shoulder with a loud metallic clang of metal on metal.

"Oh pleaseeee..." He scoffed, giving me a half-hearted, mocking salute. "She might be above me in rank here but she doesn't command us. Dunno what unit you're from little lady but we don't take orders from ponies. We're the exclusive property of the Greifenländer and only take orders from the König himself. So unless you're a fuckin' Gryphon King and got a dick between those skinny legs, I don't have to take any shit of yours."

I bristled under the surface but I could tell he was looking for a fight and the last thing I needed with Command's ire was to be caught in a brawl with a shitbeaked Gryphon with a stick up his ass.

"Whatever you say, shithead..." I grunted, looking over all of them with my best unimpressed expression just to piss him off. "So...Plague Birds huh? Alpha Squad and I have heard a lot about ya. I'll believe the stories once I see it for myself."

"Alpha Squad? What, you mean from the Desert Ranger Corps?" The owl-faced Gryphon asked in a thick Greifenländer accent, cocking an eyebrow before his face filled with understanding after seemingly looking at the insignia of the Corps Dragon on my shoulder. "Ahh...well at least there's something respectable about you."

"She's puny and annoying, can I kick her already?" Muller the brute asked, looking down at his compatriots eagerly.

"Reign it in, Muller..." Garand sighed, pushing himself and the others away to brush past me. "Let's blow this joint...seen enough little shitheads for the day."

"And I've seen enough loudmouth pigeons for one day!" I yelled back over my shoulder, noticing the Owl Gryph had lagged behind the group and was walking back towards me. "What, looking for a verbal tussle? Bring it, flat face."

He raised a hand in peace and laughed nervously, "N-nein...I apologize for Garand's behavior, Colonel. We recognize your rank and, unlike the rest of mein team, I know of your reputation. Or...should I say that of your Squads'."

It was my turn to cock an eyebrow and look at him curiously.

"Oh really...? Forgive me if I'm a bit dubious after what just happened."

"I insist it is the truth!" He said firmly, his large dark eyes staring intently at me and I noticed his dark grey feathers were speckled with tiny grey spots. "From one sniper to another, you have mein respect."

"Um...thanks? I guess?" I laughed hesitantly, wondering when the snide comment was coming.

"Bitte!" He smiled, his tone remaining light. "I do hope to witness more Veteran Rangers in combat. Much can be gathered from studying the techniques of others."

"Heh...so I can see." I replied, nodding to the bizarre rifle and sword at his side and back hidden amongst the desert ghillie of his armor. "You certainly don't use normal weapons, even those from Greifenländer like some of your fellows."

"Ja...I know." He chuckled sheepishly, scratching the back of his feathered head. "Hakai and Ehrenbrecher are far removed from this Continent but I assure you they are worthy weapons of no inferior quality to those found here."

"E-excuse me...?" I asked in confusion as to the names he had just said. "Haki and what now?"

He retrieved his odd rifle from his back and presented it to me saying, "This is Hakai, a finely made rifle from the far-off Kyoto Isles known locally as an Arisaka. The name translates as, 'Vernichtung'. Eh...I mean, 'Destruction', heh. Pardon me."

It was a rather plain looking, if very long, bolt-action rifle in terms of basic design with a straight pull bolt system and internal magazine that had the telltale grooves for the use of stripper clips. To the left side of the action was an attached scope with an extra long main tube but a slim objective bell and an odd T-shaped reticle zeroed in at 300 meters. With elevation ranged out to a jaw-dropping 1,400, the elevation bar canted slightly to the left to adjust for the offset mounting of the scope. Around the butt was a padded leather cheek rest with a built-in bandolier for ten rounds of ammo that was somewhat smaller in size than the .30-06 used in M1 battle rifles; the leather tooled with a fanciful long-bodied dragon motif. The wood furnishings itself were a dark red rosewood with a beautiful long grain pattern and I noticed that the buttstock was formed from two separate pieces of wood increasing the overall strength and a testament to fine crafting.

"Hmm...an...interesting rifle to be sure." I hummed as I turned the weapon over in my magic and held the scope to my eye peering up at the clouds. "Not something I would use personally but if she gets you through the day alive then by all means it's a fine weapon. Are all Kyotian weapons this...plain? You have nice accessories on this, don't get me wrong but...I dunno, take them away and this is a pretty basic rifle. Equestria moved on from this sorta thing a few decades ago."

"For the most part...yes, I suppose they are." He replied, taking the rifle back and slinging it back over his armor. "They were still growing accustomed to firearms when I visited which was only a few years ago. This I purchased from a reputable supplier of weapons while in their capital however, the engravings and leather bandolier I crafted meinself. They are still rather fond of their history and value the ownership of swords as a personal weapon."

He then drew forth his short sword which looked similar and yet nothing like the weapon that Zecuro had briefly shown me. It possessed a single cutting edge a little over two-feet in length along a curved blade with a thick spine and a gently curved tip. The metal itself was made of a flowing, wavy pattern of varying shades of steel that was mesmerizing to look at while along the edge, ending just between it and the spine, was a noticeably lighter colored wavy pattern. Etched into the lower half of the flat sides of the blade were a set of simple, blocky, straight-lined runes similar to those I spied on Erika's armor but I failed to recognize. The crossguard was again an odd, large metal disc formed of interconnected knots of braided steel and the leather wrap hilt was just large enough to fit in one of his hands. And of course, capping it off at the bottom was a simple brass pommel encasing that odd purple and blue stone I had noticed earlier. What I didn't notice earlier about it was the soft, cold glow emanating from it...

"Is this...one of those Elemental Gems I've been hearing about?" I asked, thinking back at the dark red stone set in Zecuro's weapon and wondering if it too had one as well.

"Why...yes it is." He responded with a bit of surprise. "I did not know those were common knowledge now."

"Hardly!" I laughed, looking up with him and feeling a bit of warmth toward him as he just seemed like any soldier passionate about his personal weapons. "They only tell people over a certain rank just to keep them a secret from the grunts and even then, only really to Unicorns like me. I didn't know they could be embedded in weapons like this. I was told they only work in the Rings of Power the Ministry of Arcane Science has been producing."

"Heavens no! The Miyako discovered how to mount Gems to almost any weapon and imbue them with their power so that anyone may use them to enhance their combat prowess. Were you trained in their use, being a Unicorn yourself?"

"Not a chance...I've never been good with my horn outside of lifting guns and shooting them at people. Maybe some decent work with a combat knife but no...I don't do the whole abracadabra bullshit like Combat Sorcerers. Well...more like I can't... So...what kind of Gem is this? I've never seen or heard of anything like it!"

"Ah...well...that is hard to say." He said sheepishly, shuffling his paws behind him. "You see, as part of my...training there, I was tasked with forging mein own sword in order to...what is the term...'graduate' if you would. All Gryphons are trained from birth in the art of forging and mechanics so this was hardly a challenge even using their foreign techniques. No...the trouble came from obtaining the Gem itself."

I glanced over the blade with its pristine craftsmanship and cocked an eyebrow but let him continue. I was legitimately curious and I was fine with a longer explanation. At least it was something interesting to listen to unlike the court marshal I was wholly expecting to come knocking on my door now that I was back on duty.

"You see...this is no ordinary Gem. At its core lies a Moonstone and not the variety you may have come across in clandestine jewelry markets. No...this is a Gem that channels Lunar Magics of all forms, including those cast by your Princess Luna if in perhaps a reduced form. What makes this Gem particularly special is that what is known as a Dark Gem has grown over and around the Moonstone; by what machinations I cannot say...perhaps darkness attracts other things that are of a similar inclination no matter the origins."

"Heh...getting a little heavy there for me...uh, Peter is it?" I asked, a little embarrassed I didn't quite know his name.

"Ja, das is mein name!" He laughed, pointing a thumb at himself. "Forgive me...to be simplistic, it is two Gems in one that work in harmony with one another allowing for the casting of two branches of magic that are...shall we say, beneficial to one of my skillset. I was informed by the Hōsekishō upon purchase that Dark Gems are of Zebrican origin and have an unsavory reputation. However...while normally such a thing would be dangerous as it gives off a corrupting aura, the presence of a Moonstone within it appears to have tamed it. Truly a priceless item..."

My head was starting to reel with the veritable arcane mumbo jumbo that always went over my head like it did in college and EastPoint so I tried to change gears to something that might be a bit more digestable. I didn't even want to question how a Gryphon could use magic, let alone Elemental Gems, with my limited understanding of the art. I was already in over my head with this guy as it was.

"So...what did you have to do to obtain this...Gem thing?" I asked, trying not to come across as condescending or something. "You said something about purchasing it from a...I don't even wanna try to pronounce whatever it is you said."

"Ah, the Hōsekishō, or 'Jeweler' as one might say in English." He laughed, taking back his blade and sheathing it at his side with a practiced ease that scared me. "He insisted I engage him in an honorable duel of blades. Fortunately behind his shop was an open space for us to engage the other and I learned then not to underestimate any Miyako citizen be they old or young..."

He gestured to a faint gash across his beak and a scar under his left eye and continued, "To be brief...it was a hard-earned victory. But...as a foreigner in their lands, he respected mein performance and permitted me buy this peculiar Gem as a parting gift prior to having to leave the Isles and return to the König and his court. By the grace of Midna I am able to use it and bring mein King glory from the shadows as is mein calling."

"Huh...that is an...interesting story!" I replied, putting on my best smile despite having gotten lost about three minutes ago. "I saw a Crimson Dragon a few weeks back with a sword kinda similar to that so it's nice to finally know it's a Kyotian sword...except that one was a lot longer with a big old hilt."

"Oh? That is very curious indeed! I wonder if perhaps it is a nagamaki based upon the description you gave. They are quite long hilted and serve as an odd 'micro polearm' of sorts. Heh...I can see this term means nothing to you."

I nodded with a sheepish laugh, completely in the dark what the fuck a nagamaki was or looked like. Maybe if I could get him to see it...no, that was a stupid idea. Was already dangerously stupid to be seeing Zecuro as it was instead of killing him like Command certainly would want. Or turning him in to let them have their way with him but...I just couldn't do that to him. I just...knew he was being honest. It takes far too much guts to kill your own fellow soldiers to defend a friend you had in second grade...

"Yeahhhh...I've yet to even leave the Continent so someplace like the Kyoto Isles might as well be on the moon for as close as I've been to it. But thanks for sharing with me! I like seeing new weapons and this answered a question I've had for a few weeks now."

"It was a pleasure, Colonel Crete!" He replied with a formal bow and then a salute. "I am sorry to talk your ear off, I am sure you are a busy mare."

"Not yet, heh..." I laughed again, looking past him towards HQ nervously. "I only just got back here from being on leave seeing my mother in Manehatten. Without a doubt I will be sent back into the fight before the night's old."

"Is that so? Well do not let me hold you back, Colonel. Forgive me for holding you back."

"Oh please...after those three days of bliss, I'm not exactly eager to be back here...but, I'm sure your Squad is gonna come looking for you and I'm not looking forward to running into that...Garand fucker anytime soon. Talk about a stick up your ass..."

"Ah...yes. He is a good Captain. Abrasive to those he doesn't respect but a good Captain to us all. We would not all be here were it not for his leadership so I cannot help but have respect for him in turn."

"I'll take your word for it..." I sighed. "Alright, well...I hope to run into you again sometime! You Plague Birds are notorious so it's nice to say I have met one of you personally and weren't pummeled for it."

He gave another salute and started walking away before turning and asking, "Are we really so feared?"

"I mean, I've heard stories from other Squads that you guys tend to rough up anyone who ain't a Gryphon soooo, yeah. Dunno if it's true or not but you guys didn't get the name Plague Birds for nothing."

"Indeed so..." He mumbled, turning back around but saying over his shoulder, "Well...not all of us are given to random fighting. I do hope we meet again, Colonel. Perhaps on the field of battle I can witness your skills behind a scope for meinself!"

I nodded to his retreating back and sighed again, looking around at the Camp and just feeling...lost. I didn't feel like I belonged anymore, not with General Olive taking the law into his own hooves and trying to detain me on bullshit, non-existent charges. I dropped my duffle bag in the dirt and dug into it for my PipBuck, strapping it to my leg and fishing out the EarBloom device so I could access the radio function. I needed to talk to the Colonel before anything else happened and it had to be away from HQ, far away. If the General was gonna make a second attempt, I wanted the Colonel on my side and in the know about what had happened.

"Alpha Six-Nine to Requisitions. Come in, Dodge..." I mumbled into the mic built into my PipBuck.

"This is Requisitions, who is this? I've got a mountain of paperwork and this is a busy channel so make it fast whoever you are alright...?"

"Dodge, it's Athena. Is Colonel Horn on station?"

"Oh hey, Crete! Good to see you're back in town. Good vaycay with your mom?"

"Yes but I don't have time to talk about it, Dodge. Is the Colonel in or not??"

"Sheesh, girl! Alright, alright...yeah, he should be around here. Why?"

"I need a big favor of you...can you run a message by him? It's urgent."

"Can't you just come and ask his secretary like everypony else has to? Why make me the message boy?"

"Because..." I sighed long and hard into the mic trying to come up with the right words to say as I knew the line was going to be tapped. "Just...please, Dodge. I can't say why and you'd rather not know why so please...just do me a solid. Tell him to contact me directly when he has a chance. I have some stuff to tell him and it has to be ASAP."

"Huh...well, least it's easy to remember I guess." He mumbled back. "Alright...fine. Guess I owe you something for the Warrant so can we call us even after this?"

"Dodge, we were already even before this so I'll owe you something for this, alright? Now, would you please pass the fucking message along? Make up whatever excuse you need to to get in and see him."

"Alright, alright...sheesh...I'll make sure he gets it ASAP little lady. No need to get your tail in a knot..."

"Thanks, Dodge...trust me, I'll tell you about what's going on sometime but not right now. I need this done or you might not even get the chance to cash in."

"...That bad huh? Got it. You can count on me, Crete! Warrant Officer Dodge, out!"

I sighed in some relief knowing he was a stallion of his word and had taken the hint from my frantic tone of voice. For all I knew, the General was listening to every word I said and was sending out his goons to look for me...I had to vanish. My armor was back in my tent but it was risky to try and retrieve my kit in the event the tent was being watched. Even if it was...having the extra protection was a lot more preferable to being as good as naked in a dress uniform. It would at least calm the panic in my heart somewhat knowing I was safe from intermediate cartridges and even the General wouldn't dare fire live rounds in Camp, not without everyone knowing he was deranged and mad with power.

Without another thought I rushed into the maze of tents, stripping off my uniform and stuffing it unceremoniously into my duffle bag. It wasn't a lot to blend in but at least it made me less recognizable amongst other PT clothed soldiers milling about their tents. I got plenty of weird looks and angry shouts in my direction as I nimbly navigated my way down towards my tent which was a quarter mile down the Valley amidst the other Desert Ranger tents belonging to Veterans and inducted Rangers alike. There was no signs of pursuit or even that anyone even cared that I was back but I wasn't going to let that lull me into a false sense of security. Until I heard from the Colonel and knew my position was secure, I was going to hide in the trenches and not come out. Not until I knew it was safe for me to do so...he had tried to take me once and I wouldn't put it past the fat little fuck to try it again, especially now he had his precious Shocktroopers to call on. Out of the frying pan and into the fire...oh Gods what was I going to do...?

***************

Chapter Thirty-Five: A Queen and Her Bounty

I slept amazingly that night. No amount of words could convey just how deeply restful an experience it was, to the point I felt it worth writing about in my journal. The old leather thing had gone untouched for too long with so much going on, so most of my morning was spent furiously jotting down as much as I could remember while it was still relatively fresh. I was surprised that only a brief six hours had passed since I fell asleep but I was grateful for the extra time it gave me to write shit down. When I finally finished, I was honestly amazed to see seven pages filled front and back when the last hundred something years had been at most a half-page long making the large tome spread a lot farther. There was more change in the last two-ish weeks than there had been in my life in a very, very long time...but for once, I wasn't finding myself hating change like I normally did. Change was hard...especially after the Great War... Once you are robbed of everything you ever knew...you find yourself longing for stability again. The ability to look at the ground you have built up around yourself and feel secure in where you stand is a comfort that is easy to dismiss and overlook when times are good. But...in an ever changing Wasteland where every interaction could be life or death, stability is difficult to come by.

And yet, these changes that were drastically altering the course of my life were not something I feared as I had expected. Gold and Melody had unearthed something inside me I wasn't entirely sure I knew the name for. Of course it was maternal in nature but there was something more to it than that... There was a gut feeling that came with it, something with such power to calm me and anchor me that I slept so soundly that I was beyond the grasp of my nightmares. I wasn't a fool...Terra Firma was a planet imbued with magic to its very core with machinations that were far beyond my ability to understand. There had to be something in the works that had given me this boon. As much as it is easy to blame Fate and Destiny for our actions and the events that happen to us, there is no denying it has some part to play in our lives.

"Mom...?"

In an instant I shut my journal closed around my pen and returned to my cot where Melody lay staring bleary eyed in the gloom of the Atrium. Her pink and black mane was all in a messy tangle but bedhead definitely wasn't a bad look on her. If anything, it was arguably more adorable. Goddesses I could only guess how bad my mane looked...

"Morning darling!" I beamed brightly, trying not to wake a snoring Gold nearby. "How'd you sleep?"

"Mmmff..." She groaned in relief, stretching out and popping some joints in her body. "Fuckin' amazing...how 'bout you, mom?"

"Heh, about the same. Haven't slept that good in too long a time..."

She beamed with a sleepy grin and nuzzled into my hoof as I patted her head replying, "Well yay, I'm glad I made such a difference! I didn't dream at all which...is honestly a really good thing to be honest. Was the best sleep I've ever had probably."

"Well now it's my turn to say I'm glad I made such a difference for you." I chuckled, giving her a peck on the cheek before offering my hoof and inviting her to join me for a well-earned morning bath.

She gladly accepted although insisted I carry her on my back up the stairs and into the bathroom as she was 'too lazy to walk'. She hardly weighed more than my armor so hauling her such a short distance, even for a lazy morning, wasn't much of a sacrifice. Soon the air was warm and alive with steam bubbling from the rapidly filling tub and we found ourselves neck-deep in blissfully hot water. Continuing the trend, we didn't say much as we lay there cuddling lazily in the tub. It was such a relaxing experience feeling her heart beating so close to mine with her light weight lightly clinging to me. I felt...important. Not in the way I was used to experiencing as a Hitmare at the top of her game but...something different, something far more personal and touching. I felt empowered even. It was just such a bizarre experience that I had to consciously take stock of myself more than once just to make sure I wasn't still asleep and merely dreaming...

****

"Uhh...mom? Hello?"

I hadn't even noticed my eyes slide shut, I was so relaxed. Melody eyed me with a hint of concern but brightened when she saw me waking up. We were still in the tub but moving just a bit let me know immediately that the water had not been hot in quite some time. It was high time we got out or it was going to turn into a cold bath which I dreaded more than I cared to admit. Cold water tended to subconsciously remind me of the cold depths of the ocean which was the last place I ever wanted to be. Even a lukewarm bath can trigger that fear in me which made bathing an inconsistent indulgence as few places had the surviving infrastructure to pump hot water from a heater. With Cogs having finished building this wonderful bathroom, I had a guaranteed hot bath waiting for me anytime I was in the area.

"Damn...didn't even notice I passed out." I replied, slowly lifting her from off of my chest using magic and setting her down near the towels after letting some of the excess water in her coat drip off. "Sorry about that hun, didn't mean to. Just got too damn relaxed I guess!"

"Oh I did too so I'm just as bad as you." She giggled, draping herself in multiple towels and sighing in relief. "It was starting to get really cold in there..."

"Woo boy...you're telling me..." I whined as I slowly got to my hooves on shaky knees, cold water cascading down my back and dripping off my belly fur.

I climbed out after her but barely made it a step in the air-conditioned air before freezing in place and shivering up a storm. I was suffering the consequences of my actions sooner than I wanted and Melody had taken all but two of the towels leaving me with still a considerable amount of wet fur left to mop up. While she tried to offer up some of hers, they were all so damp themselves that it would have been almost counterproductive to try and use them. The only option I could think of was...admittedly a stupid one. But the moment the idea popped into my head, the headache from my teeth chattering was enough of an override command over reason to give it a go. I needed to warm up quick and this sure as hell was an easy method regardless of its questionable nature.

"D-darling...?" I shivered, trying to point to the door leading to the Atrium with a shaking hoof that might as well have had icicles growing from them. "M-m-mind g-getting me t-the I-Infern-no R-Ring...? I-t's o-o-on...m-my pile o-of a-a-armor...s-somewhere."

She nodded and took off out of the bathroom, towels flopping off of her as she went leaving an easy trail to follow that made me laugh even through the icy pain. A few eternities later, she came back with my Chain of Remembrance dancing gracefully in her violet-red magic; the Inferno Ring dangling obviously near the bottom with its brilliantly glowing red-orange Gem. It was a welcome sight for sure and just seeing it was enough to help stele my resolve for just a bit longer.

"Took me a bit, sorry! I didn't wanna fuck with trying to take it off this chain since there's all this other stuff on it so I just brought the whole thing."

I gave a quivering nod in response, grateful that she took the initiative and levitated the Ring onto my horn for me; the chain jangling as the rest of my trophies dropped onto my shoulder and the weight jerking my head slightly. The moment it sat firmly on my enamel, the cold enveloping my head was washed away in a wave of warmth making it much easier to think. Taking my anger and fear of cold water as fuel, I focused that angry energy into channeling the thought of conjuring up a small blaze around my hooves; just enough to heat myself up while using the nullifying effects of the Gem which shielded the wielder from their own fire. Of course, what I intended and what actually happened were never a guaranteed match and I would be the first to admit I wasn't a trained Pyromancer.

"What the fuck?!" Melody gasped, stumbling over herself and her towel dress as the room flashed black and white for a moment leaving me stunned and blinded like a flashbang had just assaulted my eyes.

"I was about to ask the same thing..." I replied, blinking my eyes a bit trying to make sense of what had just happened. "Did you see what happened? I was kinda blinded and I'm not sure if I saw anything."

"I...I don't know. I was staring at you wondering what kind of cool fire spell you were gonna do but...it's like the world was robbed of color for a second. All I saw was black and white fire...like watching an old movie or something."

"I...thought so too..." I admitted, looking at my hooves in disbelief and only then realizing I was completely dry head to tail without a drop of water left on me. "Well...whatever the fuck that was, it seems to have worked at least and nothing melted or exploded so...I think we can call this a confused win?."

"Yeah but...what was it, exactly? You know a lot about this stuff, have you ever seen anything like that before?"

"Heh, you give me way too much credit, Mel. Everything I know is a patchwork mess of deep and intimate, shallow and acknowledged and a whole lot of big ass question marks. Never had much talent for magic back in the day, or really even now, and they didn't even consider me for much more than basic Ring training and a brief introduction to the fundamentals of Gems. Past that, everything else has been little bits learned here and there, mostly from the occasional master in the Dark Market who would impart scraps of knowledge after some bribes and constant pestering."

"Still more than anyone else I know, including me."

"Well definitely but that in no way means I have even a solid clue as to what I'm doing or talking about. I know enough to recognize some things and how to explain their basic mechanics but past that my knowledge is pretty fragmentary."

"Well...do you think you can do it again? Maybe you can show it to one of those teachers and pester them for another answer?"

"I dunno...I'll give it a whirl though. There's a few other things I would like answered from some of those Sages...might as well add another question to the list to make the most of my next trip down there. Alright...stand back a bit, I'm not really sure how the hell I did...well, whatever that was so I'm not sure how to replicate it."

I closed my eyes to concentrate better and tried again to conjure up fire around my hooves, standing right next to the tub in case my inexperience with Pyromancies led to something bigger and less controllable than I wanted. After a few moments I could feel the warm heat radiating off my hooves below me but to our disappointment it was regular orange and yellow fire. A few more attempts brought about the same result leaving us to wonder if we had really witnessed what we did. The white linoleum was warped and blackened from my attempts and I had to force an end to the experiment for the sake of Cogs' hard work on the bathroom. Further experimentation would have to wait however as my stomach gave a hungry roar that echoed slightly in the white tiled room making both of us laugh uncontrollably.

Back in the Atrium, Gold was just beginning to wake up. He yawned and rolled out of his bag in a lazy heap giving a mumbled 'good morning' in our direction as we exited the Stable via the postern gate and made our way out to the workshop. Cogsworth was nowhere to be seen and Chocolate was out cold on his cot in the corner completely dead to the world cuddling an empty bottle of rum. A brief look around found a written note for us pinned to the doorway out to the storefront indicating that he had left early to consult with construction jockeys and negotiate concrete pricing and shipping. He wasn't one to be hustled out of a good price, even with the financial resources available to him, and so I had to content myself with the fact that our first return trip was going to take some time to even get underway. Much as I was rearing to go and get started on all the hard work that needed to be done, I actually welcomed the short respite we were being offered. It had been so chaotic moving from place to place in so short a time with so little down time to enjoy the better sides of civilization, particularly when it was the most intact city left in Equestria with its bustling economy.

"Well...what do we do now?" Melody asked after looking up from the note at me. "I don't wanna leave without him."

"Neither do I." I replied, tossing the note to the side and looking around a bit. "Well...guess we can go get some breakfast in The Pile. There's a couple good places that should be open already that make some mean Radpheasant egg omelets and even serve 'em with the bird meat too if you ask. Not every place here is open to the whole meat thing yet."

She blanched slightly and bit her lip with a nervous laugh. "I dunno if I am myself but hey, you do you."

After going back to put on our armor and check on Gold who had fallen right back asleep, we made our way out into The Pile which was still just starting to pick up steam as the 10am rush was still a couple hours off. Although the danger of another Hitmare taking umbrage with my presence here was well and on my mind, I didn't have any misgivings so far. The Pile was holy ground far as affairs outside the Stirrup were concerned and even Green knew better than to freely fuck with the lifeblood of New Pegasus trade. After Black Velvet got her ass handed to her, it would be outright criminal for the Syndicate to allow one of their own to tamper with holy ground. Velvet was a wild card and she had paid for her trespass as it were. No...this was almost the safest place to be in New Pegasus. With so many hooves invested in this place, the amount of retribution waiting in the wings was enough clout to cow just about anyone be they drug lord, Hitmare or just common dumbass.

After navigating down the relatively empty main walk of the market, we made it to the exclusive VIP grand staircase at the back of the building guarded by its 24-hr quartet of smartly dressed bouncers. Sitting in the center of the base of the stairs was a purpose-built guard booth with similar structural defenses as the Runners' kiosk; the stallion sitting inside cocking an eyebrow as we approached the partly open window. Two more stood shoulder to shoulder on the stairs themselves glaring out unblinkingly from under their black sunglasses while the fourth stood at the top making use of his height advantage to scout for any incoming problems. The Second Floor was a strange thing indeed.

"Just the two of us, headed up to get a bite to eat." I mumbled into the mic, nodding up the stairs.

"Yep, yep." He grunted, pounding the back wall of his booth signaling two of his cronies to move aside so we could ascend. "Enjoy your stay, have fun, all that shit."

The bouncer at the top gave a nod of approval but didn't say anything as I led her around the second floor banister which took up the back half of the building plus a bit of the sides. Plain doors that had once led to endless offices and filing rooms were now elaborate works of wood and metal which led to the highest-end dining experiences in Freeside, a couple exclusive bars, a cheese shop, a damned good Griffin butcher and a small hotel meant for exclusive guests. Of course, all of these were behind a paywall of both currency and respect as nothing comes free in the Wasteland, not the least of which being high class living. I never gained a taste for that kind of entitled lifestyle but I did enjoy the finer quality that came with the extra price of admission. And to be completely honest...if the Gun Runners hadn't managed to repurpose that maintenance room the way they had, they would most assuredly have ended up as a Second Floor exclusive.

It was always a neat experience to look over the vast sea of merchant stalls on the first floor and see the booming local economy in motion from a vantage point. Brahman caravans came in from the large Western doors to be loaded and unloaded along the length of the central artery of the market while all other smaller paths branched off from there. The Las Pegasus Gaming Commission had been absolutely enormous in its prime, more than equal the size of a League hoofball stadium and worth even more. The hustle and bustle of the trading floor was always a sight to see even after all these years and only seemed to improve and strengthen with time as money started getting into more and more ponies' pockets. There was plenty of poverty still to go around in Freeside and beyond but you wouldn't find a stronger market anywhere West of Canterlot. Even the NER with their large swaths of land to the North couldn't claim to have the same amount of free trade happening within their borders although that could be due to their heavy import taxes. The money woes of the Republic never ended nor did their many ways of trying to obtain more capital.

"Wow...it's hard to believe there's this much life in the Wasteland..." Melody commented after a few moments of companionable silence.

"Oh yeah?"

"Mhm...I mean, before you came along...I've only been to Dusky Dunes and Old Appleloosa. Was born in Dusky Dunes but...they sold me off when I was about twelve and that shithole was the only place I knew after that. It's just...weird seeing this many ponies out and about just...living life. I like it, don't get me wrong...but it's just weird. Kinda mind blowing how big the world is once you actually get a chance to see it ya know?"

"Ahh...yeah, I can understand that perspective a bit. It was a shock for me too when I first arrived here in New Pegasus about...oh, fifty-something years ago. I had heard NP had a damned good marketplace and was a hive of trade but to actually see it myself...well, it brought back memories of how shit used to be. Kinda...The Pile is a lot different than a grocery store or even flea market but it has a similar energy to them. If anything, the energy here is a lot more enjoyable than those ever could be since there aren't really any laws barring what can and can't be traded anymore. There's still a good number of things that can't be sold here but that's what the Dark Market is for."

She shook her head in disbelief and sighed, "Just...wow...I always thought the world was mostly empty. Just...always assumed Balefire Bombs had wiped out just about everyone and all that were left were Slavers, slaves and buyers. Sure...you heard about other places like Tenpony Tower, New Pegasus or New Appleloosa but...well, when you never get to leave town, they might as well not exist."

I nodded and gave her an encouraging hug, deciding to lighten the mood a bit before a major downward shift happened and nodded towards the door of a nice little joint called The Silver Platter. The interior of the restaurant and lounge was reminiscent of a diner right out of the 2050s mixed with the refined trappings of a cocktail lounge; this meant a healthy mix of neon lighting, red leather booths, wood and chrome fixtures and chipped tile floors. The red-and-white striped uniforms of the workers contrasted nicely with the décor and we were immediately seated in a private booth of our own far in the back of the restaurant where we hoped not to be disturbed. I was by no means a regular at the Silver Platter but mine was a hard face to forget. I was treated with the same level of respect and courtesy as anyone else allowed past the bouncers.

"This place is coooooool!" Melody gasped to herself as she gaped at everything she could get her eyes on. "Can we get lights like those in my new room??"

I chuckled, prepared to tell her no before I caught myself and genuinely wondered why she couldn't. There really was no reason...and some custom neon bulbs wouldn't add much to my final bill, not when compared to the cost of the defensive walls.

"You know what? Fuck it! Have all the neon lighting you want, little lady."

"W-wait, r-really...?"

"Well why the fuck would I stop you? I love neon lighting myself and this is your very own bedroom! Do whatever the fuck you want to, Mel! Well...keep it within reason maybe?"

"I promise!" She squeaked with glee, nodding so furiously the salt and pepper shakers rattled on the table.

"Heh heh, good! It'll be awhile till the place is going to be set up but you'll have plenty of time to come up with what you want to do with your own space. I've already got a few ideas for my own and I'm loving the extra space already."

"Oh yeah? Lemme guess, more space for armor and guns?"

"Heh...yeah, I guess I am a pretty easy mare to read aren't I? You hit it right on the head. I wanna expand my collection more and actually have a full wall dedicated for smithing. Got a bunch of tools and schematics I've never had room for just sitting around in boxes and folders waiting to be loved on like they deserve..."

"Well don't worry, I'm sure you'll get your wish too! You are the richest mare I've ever seen..."

"Heh...compared to someone like House? I'm just a promising up and comer. But...thanks, heh. I mean...even with all the caps I've got, I'm probably gonna need to seek out extra income in order to ensure we can afford everything. Labor is cheap but skilled labor like the kind we need is far from it. Not to mention the concrete, steel, glass and all the other building materials that have to be salvaged and repurposed which costs extra for all the work that goes into making them usable. Then there's the furniture question and setting up defenses...this is going to be the single biggest purchase of my entire fucking life. Bar none whatsoever."

"You think you've got enough for it all...?" She asked, looking at me hesitantly.

"Not sure to be honest...I've got way more money than I need but I've never done anything anywhere close to as large scale and multifaceted as this before. Hell...the more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to wonder the same thing. Can I afford all that shit?"

"Then it would appear that you indeed require our services. How fortunate."

I turned with an annoyed expression cocked and loaded on my face only for it to vanish in a flash the moment I recognized the faceless black mask of a Shadow Broker. They all wore the same uniform, a nondescript black hooded robe reminiscent of a friar with a domed mask that reminded me of the helmets worn by Zebra stealth operatives minus the bright orange visor. Every Broker was nameless and never gave warning when they would appear to offer you a Contract but it was a high honor amongst the Syndicate to be personally met by one. Bounties could be taken from any bar in the region with a Board on the wall. Contracts were only offered to those the Brokers deemed worthy of their illusive inner circle of clients and extra freedoms. While my name was amongst the list of those condemned to death, it was not impossible for them to extend a special Contract even while being a wanted mare. Long as I still breathed, I was available for hire. End of story.

"Um...what brings the Syndicate to my breakfast?" I asked as nonchalantly as I could, scooting closer to Melody just in case shots went off for some reason. Better my Celestium bulwark than her steel reinforced Kevyarn.

"Me, bitch. If ya got a problem with that then I don't really care to fuckin' hear it."

I looked behind the Broker who proceeded to sit down silently across from us and saw the crazed lavender eyes of Killer Queen, a pink Tenpony psycho who fancied herself as some sort of Post-War nobility of her own design. Something was definitely off about her...even more than usual for the Cannibal of the West. Her dress was muddied, torn off at the left shoulder leaving only a scrap of the sleeve strapped down under her bracer while the pauldron was entirely missing. Massive bruising around the shoulder joint as well as bruised impressions of armor straps...must have been blown the fuck off by something big. Of course, the most telling factor was the massive stained bandage wrapped around her head and a...where the fuck did her horn go??

"Um...Kay-Q...the fuck are you doing here?" I asked, looking between the still and silent Broker and the twitching psycho bitch standing to my left.

She opened her mouth to speak but suddenly she clutched her head with a loud grunt of pain, a shower of furious golden-yellow sparks erupting from her bandaged horn stump and fizzling on the floor with a loud, angry hiss. I had heard horror stories of what breaking your horn could do to a Unicorn but this was my first time actually seeing it in person. The stronger a magician you are, the more arcane energy is produced by the body but without a horn to channel or contain it, the results can be highly destructive. Add on ambient Rads from the Great War and you had the recipe for a Psycher, a Feral Ghoul in mind but with command over wickedly strong and unpredictable magical attacks. She was already considered to be off the deep end by just about anyone who knew her so...I could only guess what she would become in a few weeks or months. The episode lasted a few seconds but when she stood back up the look in her eyes had grown even more wild.

"You wanna know why I'm fuckin' here, do ya?" She asked, her eye twitching as the Broker bid her to take a seat beside him in his nearly monotone voice. "Oh I'll fuckin' tell ya! I'm sure you've noticed my huge fucking problem already?"

"Uh...well, yes but..."

"That fucking GODDAMN FUCKING BIRD TORE MY HO-"

"Silence!"

The Broker was now staring directly at her with a firm hoof on her shoulder and an icy tone in his voice. Somehow, she found it in herself to shut the fuck up and let an actual adult explain just what in the hell was going on here. All the while, Melody cowered into my side trying to be as invisible as possible to the situation. And really, who could blame her? It was a hell of a crash course on the upper echelons of the Westcoast's killing game that just so happened to involve Killer Queen.

"What's going on here...?" I asked the faceless stallion candidly, completely averting my eyes from Queen who sat there twitching like a frenzied junkie. "No bullshit, just plain facts."

"It is simple, Miss Crete." He replied, keeping a hoof on her shoulder while turning to look at me with his quasi-monotone once more in use. "We are aware of the Contract requested by one Mr. Green Peace for your immediate termination, however, we also are well aware of your value to our organization and the significant loss it would be to our...vested interests. Ordinarily we would not interfere with a Contract, even upon one of our own, but circumstances are such that the Collective has been forced to deliberate on the matter regarding you. Despite prior approval, it was felt it would be in everyone's best interest if we were to seek out the potential of...another avenue of thought suitable to the collective need that is at stake."

I looked between them still lost as to what was going on. Brokers always had a way with beating around the bush...

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning that we are here to offer you a simple and beneficial exchange. Miss Queen has been so gracious as to offer up her status of Hitmare as collateral for your Contract in exchange for taking up one of her own that she has been unsuccessful in obtaining. Money will be paid, at least one party satisfied with a debt of blood and you remain a respected member of this organization. Mr. Green will naturally take much umbrage with this course of action, however...when collective stock of the relative value of our assets, your continued survival is of higher importance than the ire of one such as he. As such, upon the completion of your portion of this deal you will have be granted full amnesty and be free to return back to your normal operations within our organization."

"Wait...what now...?"

"Didn't you hear the fucker?!" Queen snapped, earning a punch to the jaw from the Broker that sent her flopping out of the booth and onto the floor with a meaty slap.

"Speak again out of turn and I will not be so forgiving, Miss Queen... To reiterate, the Syndicate is willing to absolve you of Mr. Green's Contract for your head in exchange for Miss Queen's retirement and subsequent payment of the Contract out of her own pocket. However, in exchange for this brevity she has stipulated that you must be the one to finish a Contract of her own which she had been recently pursuing but has encountered some...complications. Complications that has lead to her becoming the collateral for this deal we are now offering you. She has already forfeited the payment for completion and it would seem that you are in need of it. In addition, you will be absolved of any of the attempts on your life as a result of this...unfortunate lapse in the Collective's judgement. This is not a deal we will be offering again so I encourage you to make your decision with the appropriate contemplation."

"Do I at least get to know who the Contract is out for?"

"Nope! Take it or leave it, Crete!"

The Broker visibly bristled and rose to approach her still on the floor but I raised a hoof and replied, "Alright, alright...brought enough attention to ourselves as it is. I hereby accept your terms. Probably a dumb idea but fuck it...made plenty of those in the last few weeks anyway so why not one more?"

He gave a short nod in my direction before leaving the booth, standing by the crumpled heap of a mare that was Queen and stomping his left foreleg on the ground which glowed with an ominous dark violet aura. Around them an ethereal disc of black formed with burning purple runes lining its circumference and within a moment they had vanished like fog in the morning sun leaving by no evidence they had even been there. If it weren't for the shaking filly beside me and the haunting laughter of Queen still echoing in my head...it would have been easy to chalk up the whole experience as a wild fucking fever dream. Still was tempting despite it all.

"A-are they gone...?" She squeaked fearfully, peeking from around my leg at the empty table before relaxing somewhat.

"Mhm...I'm sorry they scared you, sweetie. Trust me...I wasn't expecting to see either one of them today..."

"It's...it's ok. Just...holy shit was she scary..."

"Who, Kay-Q? Yeah...Red Velvet is a side show compared to her...thankfully she wasn't here to try and carve a chunk of our asses off for a fresh roast. She'd fuckin do it too if you stand around her for too long...found that out first time we had the misfortune of meeting..."

"W-what sort of Contract was she leaving you with...?"

I looked back at the table where the Broker had been sitting and watched as an envelope sealed in red wax with the Vigilant Eye of the Syndicate appear from the same Dark teleportation spell he had used earlier. I hesitated as I picked it up and examined it. Even though I had verbally agreed to the terms, I would not be bound to them until I officially broke the Seal. The moment I did my name would take hers on the Boards attached to whoever the fuck it was she had been hunting and I had to wonder...who had she gone after that had torn off her horn and scared her so much she was willing to relinquish her title and the Contract alike. Losing her horn was sound enough reason to retire given she relied exclusively on it and couldn't hit the broadside of a barn without it but...something was missing. We were not close by any stretch of the imagination...if anything we had only met perhaps a half-dozen times before and none of those occasions were long or pleasant. Despite her many issues, she was damned good at her job and had earned her title as Hitmare legitimately by being able to punch well above her weight class and bag some of toughest bitches out there. The only logical explanation was she had come against someone who was more than her match sending her scampering back for help. My help...which I had agreed to lend. Well...still, it was a deal that was far too good to pass up. To officially have my name cleared from the Boards would mean I could walk about with much more freedom once again, something that would be handy when it came time to transport shit through town and up North.

With a deep sigh to stele myself against the intimidating mystery box, I pressed a hoof deliberately into the wax seal and muttered, "Blood by the ton, thy will be done." causing it to pop open in my hooves of its own accord. The Syndicate sure loved its aesthetics.

"So...who's she wanting you to kill?" Melody asked again, peering over my shoulder at the dossier for my target which was amongst the largest I had ever held; over twenty pages scrawled to the max with information to sort through.

"Well..." I replied, shuffling between the sheets of thick parchment-like paper and sighing. "Looks like I'm off on a glorified bird hunt."

******

Cogsworth had been relentlessly busy while I had been asleep and away. By the time we had finished a delicious breakfast which had wiped away most of the anxiety and returned to Cogs store, the first band of Mr. Helpers were already being assembled. I had sent Melody on ahead to make a quick detour back to the Gun Runners to pick up my large burlap sack full of freshly stamped .308 en-bloc clips. Running back to her, I caught up just as she was crossing the skywalk all by herself and we entered together. Numbers 31 through 63 were readying large carts and stretchers with tools, pyramids of bags of concrete, lodgepole length rods of rebar and countless other building supplies. There was no sight of any construction jockeys but it wasn't a huge concern just yet. The place needed to be cleaned out and with all the corpses and Raider shit, it was a job much better suited to non-squeamish robots than a bunch of guys trying to make an honest cap. Cogs himself was found in his workshop having a lengthy discussion with Chocolate who sat back against a stool nodding periodically.

"Now do keep in remembrance that a Mr. Holes will be arriving within the next seventy-two hours to receive his order, as with all previous orders you may encounter merely ask-."

"Mhmmm." Chocolate purred back with a blown kiss. "Don't you worry honey, I know what to do. Ask one of ya chrome boys what to do and let them handle it from there. I'll be fine!"

"Damn, trusting her to hold down the fort already, Cogs?"

He turned to face me with a look of relief and replied, "Ahhh, Athena. Miss Chocolate seems to be willing to act as a temporary caretaker for mine shop whilst I am away setting the bots to work. Now, there are some things I would like to discuss with you prior to my departure North."

"That makes two of us, Cogs." I sighed, nodding towards a more private corner of the workspace leaving Melody to chat with Chocolate which was more than likely what had happened with Killer Queen. "Look...there's been a...strange change of plans. Of sorts."

"Proceed?"

"Well...me and Mel went to the Silver Platter to get some grub before we started anything major and...well, a Shadow Broker approached us. Well, me specifically."

His eyebrow twitched in curiosity.

"He came to me with a deal, one being leveraged by Killer Queen if you remember her at all. Anywho, the point is...she offered to annul the price on my head from Green in exchange for her retirement and some other shit but the problem is...in exchange, she demanded I take up a Contract she had been pursuing but has apparently failed to execute."

"This is...fortunate if rather bizarre..." He responded after a minute of silent contemplation. "To what end is this Contract?"

"Well, I haven't had a ton of time to look over the dossier they gave me but it's a job from the Order of the Steel Rangers themselves of all ponies."

"That is unusual in and of itself..."

"That's what I was thinking too. From the bit I was able to read before breakfast, it looks like they want one of their own brought in. Something about high treason or whatever, regardless I'm going to be headed South hunting a Griffin. Supposed to be this big, mean bastard in Power Armor so Celestia only knows where he found one of those big enough to fit in."

"Well, with the anti-armor capacity you posses I do not doubt he will be easy prey thanks in no small part to the tungsten penetrating darts I have supplied you with."

"Heh, totally would be a cakewalk but that's the problem...they need him alive and untouched as possible. Why? Hell if I know, probably so they can beat the shit outta him or whatever the fuck they wanna do with him. Doesn't really matter, point is...I gotta do a Bag-n-Tag and that means this is going to be dangerous; too dangerous for Melody and Gold to accompany me. If my only task was to blow him to bits from two-miles down then I'd totally take them with me since it would be a safe job but since I have to get really up close and personal with this guy...well..."

"I understand wholly, Athena. Fret not, I shall watch over thy adopted ones and will personally ensure their safety. Is it permissible to allow them to accompany me to the building which you have indicated?"

"I don't see why not. Want the extra hooves?"

"Indeed so. As well as additional assistance in coordinating so many Mr. Helper units. If the mess is as you described then we have an uphill climb against us and I will be needing to be in many places at once."

"You still sure you wanna do this?"

He glanced over at the two girls busily chatting up a storm down the way and nodded enthusiastically.

"Absolutely! It has been too long since I was last permitted the chance to embark on a construction project of anything near this scale and it is a task I take much enjoyment out of! The last true challenge I faced was several years hence when the Gun Runners requested the construction of their fortified kiosk and elevator system. Truly one of my finest works..."

"You are a total fucking nerd, you know that right?"

"But of course!" He grinned, stroking his goatee with pride. "What is life bereft of passion? Tis truly would be a wasted existence were it so."

"Hey, more power to you." I replied, patting him on the shoulder and returning with him back to Melody's side.

"Heya, Melody? Forgot to tell ya but I got you and Gold a present last night! Why don't you go find him and meet me in the Stable so we can have a nice memory together before we have to split up for a bit."

Her smile dampened somewhat at being reminded about my departure but she kept up a brave face and nodded excitedly all the same, scampering off to find Gold. It didn't take long to dig out the ammunition, suppressor, speedloaders and clips and before Cogs had a chance to disappear again I made sure to give him an advance payment of roughly 600,000. The price being offered for the Contract was almost half that alone which, despite the unsavory reputation of the client, was too good an offer to pass up. Even with all the discounts Cogs was willing to pass in my favor, he still needed to make a profit at the end of the day and I wasn't going to haggle with him. Three-hundred thousand for a rouge Griffin Ranger? That was going to make me feel a lot more comfortable with paying all this shit off.

Once I was satisfied Cogs was up-to-date with all the shit going on and accepted the large up-front payment, I went back to the Stable with my gifts floating behind my back as hidden as I could make them. Melody and Gold were excitedly waiting, sitting on his cot and exploding with smiles and excitement as I approached. It was nice to see Gold actually finally woke up and hadn't become a vegetable as I was starting to suspect.

"What'd you get us??" Melody squeaked excitedly, bouncing softly in place.

"Y-yes, please! Tell us!"

"Heh, it's nothing big or fancy you dorks." I laughed, giving them both a kiss on the head. "But they should help you guys with your weapons which is pretty nifty I'd say. Trust me, the big and expensive present is that giant fucking apartment I'm paying to remodel."

With nothing left to say, I pulled their gifts from behind my back and deposited them in each of their laps. Gold immediately went quasi-berserk over the sight of loaded speedloaders and scrambled for his revolver to immediately begin practicing. Melody on the other hoof looked over the large dimpled steel cylinder with confusion and took a second to realize what she was holding.

"Is this...one of those silencer thingies?"

"Suppressor..." I sighed in response but smiled and nodded to her rifle leaning up against the wall near her cot. "Lemme show ya how it works."

Rifle in hoof, I happily showed her how to affix it over the flash hider of her M1 rifle and seal it over the barrel using the Runner's handy universal locking mechanism. All the while, I explained the basics of how a firearm worked and how a suppressor could dampen the noise of ballistic detonation in as simple terms as I could without coming off as patronizing. She listened intently and seemed delighted with the simple puzzle of loading up her new en-bloc clips and admiring the way the .308 rounds stacked atop each other. Of course...all this was overshadowed when I showed her the infamous M1 'ping'. As she had only fired three rounds so far in her time with the rifle, she had yet to experience the auditory-orgasm that came from an empty en-bloc proudly announcing you were empty and needed to stuff another one into the gun. Within a few minutes she was proudly showing off her new toy to Gold who likewise showed off his attempts at quickly reloading his revolver. Before I knew it the floor around them was littered with scattered and rolling live rounds but I wasn't about to stop them. They had both taken to my gun safety lessons on the road very seriously and even with their youthful enthusiasm, neither of them put a hoof anywhere near the trigger and kept their barrels pointed in safe directions. It was magical to watch them get along so naturally and even more so when their mutual interest crossed paths heavily with my own.

One of my greatest fears about motherhood had always been that I would have nothing in common with my kid or, even worse, our values and personalities clashed. It was hard enough already for me to get along with anyone under the age of twenty thanks to the ungodly ego and bravado anyone younger than that usually had which made them unbearable to be around. Full of themselves and thinking that just because they can plink SparkleCola bottles with their daddy's rifle and drive off minor predators from their homes that all of a sudden they are ready for a life as a drifter or 'explorer'. As a Hitmare, you came to expect to be hounded by wannabe Mercs and Bounty Hunters looking for the inside scoop on how to rise in the ranks with no idea of the work that went into it. In some ways...I was glad for the apocalypse as the concept of survival of the fittest was a daily fact of life which weeded out the stupid, the arrogant and the weak in general. Of course, it also rewarded the strong who tended to be less than peaceful in their intentions towards others. It didn't take much for strength to overcome adversity to become the strength to dominate others and enrich yourself at their expense by virtue of your power over them. It's how Raiders, Slavers, and even the Syndicate itself came about to begin with. The will to dominate others down to their very lives was a vice granted great freedom in an age where the rule of law only went as far as the amount of people willing and able to enforce one.

"Looks like you two love your gifts so that makes me feel infinitely better!" I laughed, giving each of them a big hug before turning serious. "Alright, so...I'm sure that Melody has already told ya but I have to leave you guys for a bit."

"But...w-why?" Gold asked in a fearful tone. "Did we do something...?"

"No! No, no, no...I got an offer I couldn't refuse from the Syndicate which should help clear my name and ensure a fat purse of caps to help pay for the remodeling. I know you'll ask where I'm going so I'll just tell ya. I'm headed South looking for some giant Griffin named Garand. If the job was just to blow a hole in him and bring back a trophy for payment I wouldn't have any issue taking you guys with me but the client asked me to bring him in alive which is just too dangerous for the two of you to be there for it. Ain't something I want you guys getting anywhere close to so I'll be leaving you two with Cogs for a bit. He said he'd be happy to take you guys along with him back to the apartment to help out with the cleaning and such so please don't be a burden on him. If you're confused about what he's asking you to do, just ask him. Better bogged down with honest questions than spending time fixing mistakes. Don't worry...I shouldn't be more than a week, two at absolute most if he's gone way South and I have to look for him for awhile. Can't be any worse than anything else I've ever done."

They clung to me and only let go with great reluctance when I had to push them off as lovingly as I could. It hurt to leave them with so much left undone but...I had little choice. The chance ahead of me would be beneficial to every last one of us and I would be an absolute idiot to not take the opportunity while I had it.

"Be safe you two...watch out for each other like you guys have been and you'll be just fine. With Cogs and all those bots on hoof, you couldn't be in safer hooves."

"We promise!" Melody beamed with her best brave face as I left them at the front doors of the workshop, the memory of her wonderful face searing itself into my mind for later.

The Pile gave way to Freeside which gave way to the desert plains of the San-Palomino without much notice. This was a morning stroll far as my body was concerned and my mind was too distracted with visualizing the new accommodations to pay much attention to where my hooves were going, lead on by autopilot. By the time I reached The Crater, I finally came back to reality and decided to edge around the massive bowl in the ground thanks to the red ticks on my E.F.S. To pass the time, I decided to put on the audio transcript of the dossier which I had scanned into my PipBuck to save me one time spent sitting and reading. The semi-robotic voice reading everything back to me was akin to scraping hooves on a chalkboard and the cadence was off-putting but it saved time nonetheless at the cost of mild-to-intense annoyance.

'Target Name: Garand Klaus Enfield.

Age: Unknown.

Sex: Male.

Height: Approximately 7ft

Distinguishing Features: Wears patchworked Steel Ranger Powered Armor, majority of distinguishing markings of the Order removed or missing. Helmet sports a white decal and the subject prefers to wear a Kevyarn traveling cloak over his armor. Possesses a FillyArms Dragoon but is known to be well accustomed with heavy ordinance. Not known to fly, possible wing injury and reports indicate a gifted close-quarters combatant. Client requests target be acquired with as little physical harm done as possible and will only pay half the stated price in the event of target termination upon proof of kill.'

The voice continued to go on and on, reading every word in a monotone that was even worse than the Shadow Broker. The twenty or so pages that had been in the dossier was rather skimpy on any personal details like why the SR marked him a traitor and wanted him so badly. Instead, they listed an extensive list of sightings going back as far as three-months. Needless to say...I was amazed at how much ground the guy was able to cover with sightings near Maretropolis and one at the Gap only spaced four days apart; a journey of that length would have taken me eight days easy. The most recent reports were naturally of particular interest. A week and a half ago first spotted entering Freeside from the East only to quickly leave the morning after arriving. Five days ago seen in The Pile purchasing ordinance from the Gun Runners...five days ago...that was my fight with Black Velvet! The bastard had been so fucking close and I didn't even know it...

'July 19th, 2279: Target spotted traveling in the company of operative Firefly in an unknown capacity. Informants indicated the two made contact with the Military Police at the Westside Gate into the New Equestrian Republic Embassy and delivered an NER Bounty. No record of such a Bounty exists within our records. Conclusion: Externally sourced via the NER directly. No indication of foul play or detrimental collusion with operative Firefly. Deemed non-hostile.'

Firefly huh? What was a Gung-ho Gun doing with an Tin Head on the run from the Order? He had complimented my shooting once during the last Freeside Hot-Shot event held annually as a way for Syndicate members, Merc Companies and aspiring sharpshooters to compete in target shooting. Didn't know a whole lot about him aside from two very obvious things. One, he was former NER 1st Recon who had earned Deadeye status and two, he was the only living Changeling I had ever met in my life. It had been odd to meet a bug pony, even after all the species I had run into at one point or another, but what really set him apart was the fact he was not only a Ghoul but one of the rare Glowing Ones who had absorbed so much arcane radiation that they glowed from within with all the raw energy flowing through their veins. Still...I had to wonder what had gotten him and this Griffin together. That...as well as whether or not he should be considered a secondary target worthy of concern.

'July 20th, 2279: Contact made with target by operative Killer Queen in the abandoned mining town of Glittering Caves, known living area of operative Firefly. Attempt to fulfill Contract was repelled and operative returned to New Pegasus in order to transfer Contract ownership to the possession of operative Crete. Target believed to be continuing South/Southeast for an unknown destination and should be considered heavily armed and dangerous. End of Log.'

Glittering Caves...well fuck, that little speck of crumbling buildings was barely an hour's trot Southeast. With what was left of Camp Macintosh behind me, it was a straight path across the rolling sandy dirt hills towards the cluster of large hills that marked the location of the mining town. It had rained only a few days ago...I could tell from the massive erosion patterns carved into the hills and by the caking mud forming endless cracked flakes like a massive case of terrestrial dandruff. There were only one set of visible prints in the dried mud coming from the direction I was headed in and I could only assume they belonged to a bitter and defeated Killer Queen.

Within an hour I had arrived on the outskirts of the desert ghost town. Nothing but a couple dozen crumbling wooden buildings assembled along a main road which led through town and up to the hills where the mine was located. Had never been a huge tourist spot during the War and not much had changed on that front in over two-hundred years. E.F.S was clear of anything living no matter which way I turned but I still checked each building diligently just in case. Everywhere you looked were the scattered remnants of the town's history; minecarts scattered about off their rails and rusting, old ore chute towers tittering on the brink of collapse and countless other examples of the heavy industry that used to take place here. I found it rather lonely...

Delving into the mineshaft itself, I turned on my infrared vision in order to navigate the perfect darkness that would have probably been easy to navigate for a Changeling if anything I had heard about their species was to be believed. While there were many branching paths to choose from and get lost in, the amount of hoof traffic on the main tunnel led me straight into the heart of the mine. It was a large, spacious cave littered with stalactites and stalagmites galore which were lightly touched with crystal growth and refracted a bright light light that pulsed softly from the opposite end of the cavern. The light was so bright in fact that I found that I could switch off all optics and see well enough normally in the blue-white ambiance of the rather cozy cave.

Rounding the central columns of stone which turned the cave into a sort of donut shape, I was amazed to see it. Before me, towering over six feet tall and jagged with random growth patterns, was a Nexus Crystal; easily the largest I had ever seen in person. The light radiating from it pulsed internally in a slow and calming way, almost reminiscent of a beating heart as the pure, raw arcane energy within it constantly fought with itself for equilibrium. At nearly three-feet thick, the column was beyond any sort of purchasing power possible by mortal beings in this day and age. Granted, only the Steel Rangers had the technology and proficiency needed to harness this bad boy but the amount of Crystalline Fusion Cores, SparkBatteries and SparkPacks that could be refueled and refurbished from the material available was enough to supply a small army. Well...small by Pre-War standards but gigantic by today's standard. And yet...I hadn't even heard a scrap of gossip or rumor about the existence of a Nexus Crystal of any sort, large or small. These things didn't grow on trees to begin with and one could only wonder how it had withstood the test of time. Of course...being a Glowing One, having such a lightning rod of unparalleled arcane energy would have probably ensued a hell of a boost to Firefly's physical and magical prowess acting like a supercharged battery plugged right into his body.

It took more effort than I would have liked to pull myself away from the enchanting swirling patterns of light coming from within the Crystal to look around at the rest of the cave for clues. If Firefly turned out to be a problem then I had no issue taking him out of the picture and telling Cogsworth about the Crystal so he could come and snatch it up before anypony else could. To the right of the crystal were the remains of a campfire and the simple personal effects of the Ghoul, namely a simple cot within a tent shoved into a crevice in the stone wall, a cabinet of weapons, a trash bin full of empty things of Cram and SparkleCola and a few storage boxes full of more Cram, Cola and an ungodly amount of whiskey. A quick search of his belongings lent me no easy clues and I spent a good half hour scouring the cave for any sign of where to go next. South/Southeast was a start but with over a half dozen settlements and a lot of open terrain in that direction...it really wasn't all that helpful in the end. Might as well just point in that direction and say, 'They went thata-way!'

A break finally came when I came back around to the base of the Nexus Crystal as part of my close inspection. On the ground, facing away from the rest of the cave, a rough pictogram map had been carved into the dirt by what could only have been a talon. It took a few minutes of viewing it from a multitude of angles before it finally clicked that it was an overhead view of the Badlands indicative by the hourglass shaped valley in the middle of the Ember Mountains which separated the long-defunct Kingdom of Shifting Sands from Equestria. With a point of reference to work with, I scrolled over my map of the region on my PipBuck until I was roughly in the same area as had been drawn out before I started trying to piece together what was going on. There was little to work with being a rough map with no clear instructions on how it should be interpreted but it was my best lead so I had to bite my tongue and work with what I had.

It didn't take long to notice there were a lot of marks on the Eastern side of the Ember Mountains roughly fifty miles East-Southeast of Old Appleloosa. Amidst the towering peaks of that portion of the mountain range was a massive X marking...something. To its left near the mouth of the valley that formed the Badlands lay what remained of the Southern Front Encampment. It was veritable suicide to try and pilfer anything from the Encampment with the Badland Ghouls so close and anything further South was firmly in their horrifyingly mutated hooves. I wracked my brain for even the faintest memory of the existence of anything military related being in those mountains but came away with nothing. The only thing I could think of was one of the old mining complexes that had been mined dry of illusive Inferno Gems long before the Southern Front became what it was known for. But...as to what in the hell they wanted with another old mine was anypony's guess. I mean...Firefly already lived in a fucking mine so maybe after Killer Queen showed up he decided to move house just to evade more unwelcome houseguests.

As for the rest of the map, a lot of emphasis was placed on the Gap of Canterlot, the old gap between the Canterlot and Ember Mountains which had stood as the hard border between the East and the West. It had been in NER hooves for decades and stood as a bulwark against Steel Ranger ambitions for expansion. Firefly's contributions to the detail of this particular area were clear to see as the locations of every major and minor NER fortification and outpost were where they were on the modern day map of the area. If they were fleeing East, it would make sense for these locations to be marked in order to plan a route between them to slip between patrols but...they weren't headed East it seemed. All arrows pointed towards this one inexplicable X-marks-the-spot in the Ember Mountains with the only outliers coming from the East, marked only with a circle with a vertical line through it headed straight for the lowest section of the Gap. Was this representing some sort of caravan or something? No...the amount of lines and how angrily they had been carved into the dirt indicated otherwise...there were strong feelings when these marks were made. With how much the SR wanted him, it would make sense for his anger to be directed towards them...so did this mean that there was a sizable Ranger hitsquad sent out to find him themselves? It was far from a solid theory but it made more sense than anything else I could think of. The only other thing I could extrapolate from the whole mess was the sense that all arrows were headed for the same place: the mystery mark in the mountains.

After a couple more rounds of searching the cave, taking care not to disturb too much of Firefly's belongings, I felt it was time to take off before the trail got any colder. There were the side caves I had passed earlier but exploring them would only waste valuable time and even if I found something, there was no guarantee that it would be valuable intel rather than more food or weapons caches. Despite Firefly being seen accompanying my target, that did not automatically make him a target as well so I felt it best to leave an honest Bounty Hunter's shit alone. The report mentioned the joint delivery of an NER bounty which clearly indicated they were working together and the clawed out map in his cave implied that they had at least some level of trust between them in order to coordinate something together. There were a lot of questions I wish I had answers to...

The town outside was as abandoned as before without a single Soul in sight. The afternoon sun was starting to lag towards evening prompting me to start again on my way towards the custom map marker I had punched into my PipBuck. On the way back down the main street, I happened upon the signs of a scuffle that I had missed during my checks of the houses rather than of the street itself. I paused for a few minutes just to check it out and found a few spent .338 Luna Magnus shells half buried in the dried mud surrounding the marred earth lightly stained a reddish orange from what might have been blood from Queen's broken horn. A quick look in the immediate vicinity found a spent .50 Big Mac in one nondescript alley while on the opposite side of the street I found the left pauldron of an M-CAP Model-4 with straps torn at the rivets and deep, ugly gash burrowed right along the side of the shoulder. It painted a rather vivid picture of what must have happened when she went hoof-to-talon against this Garand character. The fact she survived at all was surprising...this Griffin wanted her to act as a message for anyone else looking for the price on his head. He had spirit, I had to give him that.

There was a bastard of a similar name wayyyyy back in the day but...common, the Great War wiped the world clean of everyone I knew and I knew better than to get any sort of expectations up. It never lead anyway before now, it sure as fuck wasn't going to this time and it was a waste of time to even consider it. For all I knew it was some Post-War Griffin fucker who saw the name in a weapon catalogue for the M1 battle rifle and thought it was a hip nickname. I mean I'd come across names like, 'Cloudsdale Typewriter', 'Mah-Duce' and 'Filly Six-Shooter' before so Mercs and shit naming themselves after popular weapons was just part of the gig out here. Who knows, maybe he was just using it as a pseudonym to try and throw off some of the heat on his ass. Although...the long ass dossier tracking his movements said otherwise...

"Jeez...no wonder your shoulder looked like hell, Q..." I mumbled to myself as I whistled at how close she had come to losing her entire leg as well as her horn. "Note to self, Firefly owns a .50...wonderful."

My curiosity satiated, I finally began actually making my way towards the Southeast, following behind the faint but noticeable prints of a heavy ass Griffin in Power Armor. I had to thank him for making himself easy to track just by walking around once I caught up to the two of them. If anything, a great side bonus was giving my eyes something to focus on mile after mile as the Southern San-Palomino was not much to look at. All around was more of the same. Sand dunes, dirt mounds, sage brush and cacti. Occasionally there would be the odd Yucca tree or wild horsenettle patch to break up the monotony but until the Ember Mountains actually appeared through the hot haze, there was little visual stimulation for me to give my ADD something to do. Without much prompting, I set my helmet to sound an alert if it detected any red on the horizon and slipped into deep thought to pass the time.

I could see it now...all tall and cleaned up, looking and feeling the part of a proper home. The bedrooms up there seemed to be rather big compared to the lower floors which was a welcome relief as I had always wanted a master bedroom-sized room to myself. It would never surpass the beauty of mom's old bedroom but at least I had a chance to try and have something like that for myself. I wanted a bed, a real bed, for once. As comfy and efficient as my old army cot was, I felt I was entitled to something better and definitely bigger. Mom had the right idea getting a king-size to herself...would definitely make cuddling Melody a lot easier and Gold would also have room too. On the thought of Gold, I was curious what he might have planned for his space. Despite feeling rather close to him, he was still kind of an enigma to me with the only concrete things I knew about him being his obsession with the Desert Rangers, his talent for picking locks and how much at home he seemed to feel around me. Without much to go on, I could only guess there was going to be a lot of DR shit on his walls and I would be having some long talks trying to get to know them better.

Back to me, I would probably have some DR shit of my own. With some of the nick-knacks taken from the Colonel's office, I had some decent memorabilia to put on display like some of his award ribbons and medals, a couple old flags and his old dress uniform that was just begging for its own glass display box. Of course...there were also all the schematics and smithing gear that needed to have a spot too. It was a large bedroom but it definitely wasn't gigantic...keep it simple just like you told Melody, right? Oh dear...what was she gonna do with her own space...? I didn't even think she knew what the hell she wanted to do yet. Poor girl was going through a million ideas an hour it seemed like...

The path kept going on and on in an unbroken line straight towards Paletree...more or less a straight line towards that enigmatic marker in the Ember Mountains. Even with daylight starting to die, it was going to be an easy time tracking these two long as another rainstorm didn't hit the desert. There would be plenty of time to imagine away about the possibilities that we could pursue with the new apartment. There was a lot we could do with it and I could almost imagine it as a full, fortified compound in the same vein as Camp Macintosh. Oh to be amongst other Rangers in full gear again...but wait, who said I couldn't enjoy that experience again? I was still in my prime, chalk full of knowledge and with the ability to train others just as well as any Pre-War drill sergeant without being anywhere as big an asshole. Recruiting people would be slow but...I had a reputation that was worth its' weight in tungsten and I could work my magic to find talented fighters who might be willing to take a change of pace. The Desert Rangers deserved something more than the forgotten past we had gotten and the NER had no right to steal from our proud history.

Not that the NER Rangers were terrible. Hell, with their Mrk. IIs they even kinda looked the part and their training earned them a fair reputation. But, at the end of the day, they were like any other faction that adopted things from the past...imposters late to the game thinking that they had all the answers. I was the last will and testament of the Corps and our legend deserved better than to be a tool of a bloated, Post-War bureaucracy. What we needed to be was like the good old days, the ones we had caught a glimpse of in the safe of Colonel Horn's office. Rangers who roamed the deserts of the West with no allegiances to anyone but themselves and the goal to keep them safe. What did 'safe' mean exactly in this day and age...? Who was I to decide what that meant? Well...I guess that was something else I'd have time to ponder over during my long trek South. At the end of the day, the only law in the Wasteland was that which could be enforced and by fuck, I could enforce some goddamn law and order out here...

******

Chapter Thirty-Six: Back on the Front

"Halfway through the patrol, buncha shit went off at once! I'm telling ya, they're dropping more and more mines in those trenches than before and not just on our side of the line. All over the fucking place! At complete random too!"

"Oh come on, Dance...you really think they'd mine their own turf? That'd be like us calling down artillery barrages on our own positions while spread eagle on the ground asking to get direct-impacted by a 105 right to the dick..."

"No need for 105s when a dozen or so 40s would tear just as much ass with no need for calling out coordinates! Why waste time on overstuffed comms when you've got me to fuck shit up on the spot. Gimmie a belt of HEIs and I'll have the place looking just as FUBAR as any of those Engineers on the ridge."

"Oh, so now you're a proponent for friendly fire now Buck? Jeez...just what we fuckin' needed...another mad Griffin with explosive ordinance running around the trenches..."

"Who the fuck said anything about running like a lil' bitch?! I fly, unlike you pansy, no-wing having ass bitches!"

I stood outside our Squad tent, hoof hovering near the flap to open it but just...caught up in the familiar feeling of my team's playful abusive banter. To hear them alive and well was reassuring enough as it was but to be near them once more, even after such a short time away, was a sense of relief I was not expecting to hit me so damn hard. They were extensions of my nuclear family no matter what anyone could say and I held them as close to my heart as I did mom. Even Buckbeak with his abrasive personality was a necessary part of my little family and could be passed off as your average, jerk of an older brother. They had my back in every way that mattered...which made the choice to include them or not in my predicament all the harder. To include them could mean big problems for everyone involved but also mean having a loyal-as-fuck support group right at my back for whatever came along. To leave them outta it would keep them more safe from any heat on my ass and (hopefully) prevent what had happened to the original Alpha Squad from happening to all of them as well...but it would also mean alienating them in a way that was not normal for our tight-knit group where there were no secrets. Gods what a horribly hard decision to make...

"Eh, fuck you boring ass plebs! I need to take a piss..."

Before I could even react, the tent flap was whipped up and I was face to face with a half-confused, half-bemused Buck Beak who grinned immediately and called everyone's attention towards me. There went any chance at a decision on the matter...

"Well hot fuckin' damn! I almost forgot you existed!" He exclaimed with a shiteating grin, throwing the tent flap wide so everyone else inside could get a glimpse of me standing there.

"Athena!! So great to have you back!"

"Heya, Crete! Good times with Minuette I hope?"

"Did ya get anything cool while in Manehatten?? What's the weather like so far North??"

I was...a tad overwhelmed to say the least. My thoughts were so fragmented and nerves so shot I could do nothing but smile unconvincingly and hug everyone distractedly, something they picked up on immediately. Not like I truly wanted to hide anything from them anyway...

"Hey...what's wrong hun...?" Hucks asked seriously, sitting me down at the metal table in the center of the tent while the rest took up places of comfort around me. "You look like you've been to the dark side of your mind again and you know how I feel about that..."

"Guys..." I mumbled, taking a deep breath and trying to force myself to be one with the present. "I think...I think I'm fucked."

"Heh, get comfy and we can arrange that for sure!" Buck snickered from his perch on one of the top bunks before Penny slapped his paw loud enough to make even me wince. "Ow! Fuck you too Penny!"

"Talk to us, Athena. What happened? Who do we have to murder?" Rain Dancer asked, yanking his Boulder 63 in its carbine configuration from where it sat leaned up against his bunk.

"Well...um..." I stammered before giving myself a hard slap of my own across the cheek to try and rouse me to my senses. "The General...he tried to apprehend me while on the train North."

"Excuse me...?" Was the general reply from all present, a sense of bewildered curiosity electrifying the air.

It was harder than it should have been to explain to them the bizarre circumstances surrounding my brush with the Ministry of Morale mares in that station but it felt amazing to get it off my chest; a muffling spell being graciously cast on the tent to give me the room to speak freely. I hadn't even mentioned it to mom for fear of driving her fear into full-out panic for my well-being so bottling it up as long as I had had been painful. Soon as I mentioned my daring escape from the cuffs, Huckleberry set to fussing about my still semi-bruised shoulders and injecting each with a mix of Medix and Extra Strength potion bringing about even more needed relief. The others just gaped in bewildered amazement at just how much what-the-fuck had just been said. Celestia only knew how much there was to go around...

"So...lemme get this shit straight." Buck grunted, toying with a 40mm HE round in his talons absentmindedly. "General McFatAss all of a sudden decides he's got a big enough dick to swing around with M.O.M to detain you for exactly the amount of time you were to be on leave despite that shit getting approved by the brass in Canterlot? What the actual fuck?!"

"Well, technically it was Colonel Horn who approves leave requests for our entire Brigade. Third, Fourth and Fifth Brigades now actually...Luna's teats that's a lot of soldiers to look after..." Penny chimed in from where she sat on the bunk under Buck.

"Oh shut the fuck up about the semantics would ya Penny?" Buck sighed, pelting her ass with an empty 40 shell from above. "Seriously, what in the fuck people? How did any of this shit fucking happen?"

"Do you really have to ask...?" Rain grunted, looking around at everyone with a knowing look. "What I wanna know is how in the hell did he find anything out? We planned everything out and covered our tracks best we could and Buck confirmed there wasn't a goddamned thing in the sky to watch us."

"Someone acknowledging my efforts? Hmph...took ya long enough..." Buck mumbled to himself.

"Shut it, Buck...seriously..." Hucks groaned, tossing up a Dragon-sized can of Cram for him to dig his big mouth into. "You do have a great point Dancer, how? How much does he know/suspect about you and how was he able to order a M.O.M hitsquad to apprehend you? There's something that isn't adding up here..."

"I don't know guys..." I whined, stuffing my hooves into my eyes hoping it would make me feel better. "I radioed Dodge to try and get a message off to Horn to contact me in person. For all I know Olive had the line actively being listened-in on by some M.O.M employee and is sending a bunch of his Shocktroopers to arrest and arraign me for a court marshal."

"Uh...for what fuckin' reason??" Penny growled angrily. "You got your leave approved by your CO, filed the appropriate paperwork and fucked off for three damn days just to see your mom, something you've done before more than once!"

"Yeah well technically I resisted arrest. He can trump up all the charges he wants and if I wanted to dispute that I would need to undergo a mind rape anyway so they can view the memories particular to the case in court and who knows what sort of shit he could do to tamper with the trial so my experiences with Zecuro would be revealed. At the very least the memories of knocking those M.O.M employees the fuck out."

"Not if we beat him to the punch and get him with misuse of government resources and employees he technically has no jurisdiction over."

"Not for nothing Penny but I have some serious fucking doubts about that one... I mean, they swooped in and scooped up Alpha outta the blue like their perfect service record never even existed. You really think we can outwit and out maneuver that fat fuck and the resources he has at his disposal?"

"Well I don't know!" She whined, sagging back on the cot with a defeated look. "We just can't sit around waiting for Athena and us to get caught up in this shitstorm!"

"An' wha' shitstorm y'all be caught in this time might Ah ask?"

We all whirled around to face the doorway to our tent where Colonel Horn stood with an unlit cigar in his mouth and a satchel dangling from his side with a big welcoming grin on his wrinkling face. It was a bit of a shock that none of us noticed he had walked in, especially me who was seated directly across from the entrance flap but given the conversation at hoof...it wasn't too much of a surprise. He was in as casual of dress as someone of his station was permitted to be with his brown uniform unbuttoned and untucked from his trousers and his dress cap plopped lazily onto his greying mane.

"Officer on deck!" I barked out of pure instinct, bolting to my hooves at attention with a firm salute in unison with my companions.

"Aw common y'all..." He chuckled, nodding casually at all of us and plopping the satchel on the table with the sound of bottles clinking together. "At fuckin' ease...this here's ah social call."

We all relaxed as best we could with such high-strung nerves from the topic of conversation and hesitantly resumed our earlier positions, Buck having not even bothered to hop down from his bunk. Meanwhile, the Colonel pulled up a chair and began emptying his satchel which contained six bottles of his favorite Apple Jack Whiskey, the famous 'Black Label' variety with its fancy wax-sealed cork.

"Thought Ah might come drop in on mah numbah one Veterans!" He chuckled, pushing the bottles towards each of us that wanted one. "Y'all been hard at work 'n Ah wanted tah congratulate y'all on ah damn fine job out there."

As the others graciously snatched up the whiskey, excluding Hucks and I, the Colonel gave me a knowing look that said it all. He was here specifically because of my message which meant Dodge had pulled through for me yet again in a quick and concise manner. Next time I saw him and had the chance, I was gonna reward him with at least a good long kiss on the lips and maybe a bit more. He wasn't a bad looking guy after all...

"Goddamn, Colonel!" Penny gasped after taking a long swig at her bottle. "You've hyped up the Black Label for so long I thought you must be joking but...holy shit!"

"Heh heh, tha' good eh?" He chuckled heartily, pulling out a large flip lighter from his shirt pocket and lighting his stogie. "Yeah, tha' there is th' best damned whiskey on th' market! Ol' Jackie might have left th' company tah focus on her Ministry duties but her family sure knows how tah distill ah damned fine whiskey. Best thing tah come outta PonyVille since the Ministry Mares themselves!"

"And Athena of course!" Huckleberry chimed in, patting me on the back with a proud grin. "Can't forget she and her mom are natives too!"

"Ah, yer right! Yew eva seen th' Sweet Apple Acres Distillery, Crete? Nevah had th' time tah tour tha' 'lil town but Ah've seen pictures of it in plenty o' pamphlets that came wit' th' crates."

I shook my head sheepishly, grateful for the temporary distraction from the earlier conversation if only for a few moments and replied, "No, Sir I'm afraid not. I lived on the complete opposite side of town and even then Sweet Apple Acres was a decent ways outside of town behind fencing and gates to ward off thieves. The Ministry Mares moved away from PonyVille when I was like five or six so I never saw much of them anyway, not like I would even remember them all that that well since the world was a much different place back then."

"Ah...well, damned shame Ah suhpose." He chuckled, taking a long drag of his cigar before blowing the cloud of smoke thankfully upwards towards the air vents though the tent stank of tobacco all the same. "Funny tah think ah apple farm be makin' ah sour mash whiskey from corn, wheat 'n barley but then again, they do make ah hella fine hard cider too. Guess havin' such ah recognizable face 'n name fer yer product is ah great opportunity tah expand th' brand."

"Yeah, heh..." I laughed hesitantly as everyone else happily took a few more swings of their bottles before popping the corks back in. "I mean, it worked for Sparkle-Cola after all."

"Uh-uh!" Rain said excitedly, our resident Sparkleaddict in the making. "Minister Twilight only gave permission to use her name and likeness because the Ministry expressed interest in a major sponsorship as a recruitment tactic since the Ministry of War and Morale were taking all the workforce."

"Hey, don' ferget th' farms 'n factories!" Horn chimed in thoughtfully. "Lots o' private enterprise goin' on in this country. ArmsTech alone fields over half ah million employees, AidWorks around th' same number... That's a large chunk 'o th' workforce snatched up 'n workin' includin' Unicorns since y'alls horns are mighty fine fer finnicky work."

"Don't I know it!" Huckleberry laughed with a hint of strain in her voice. "They wouldn't stop heckling me in college. Couldn't go to a single event or walk onto campus without getting assaulted by recruiters from every fucking major company asking if I ever 'thought about putting that horn to good use, for the greater good of course.' Gods I hated that fucking slogan..."

"Heh, StableTec I take it?" I grimaced knowingly as I too had experienced that same sort of overwhelming influence from horn hungry factories busting their asses to out-produce the others. "Nothing but vying to be the most profitable company in the world at whatever cost."

"Oh shut up already..." Buck groaned, plugging his ears with his talons and rolling his eyes. "Enough about the shit you abracadabra types have to put up with, there's great shit to drink so let's shut up and take a fuckin' shot shall we?"

It didn't take much to prompt Penny to pull out her secret stash of shot glasses and slap them down on the table, with one hurled up at Buck Beak, and for them to be full to the brim. There were plenty of shots to go around and Hucks and I both acknowledged we owed the Colonel at least one honorary shot, if for the sake of the expensive liquor. In unison we put the shots into the frogs of our hooves (Buck balancing on the palm of his hand), crossed our free leg over the other and popped the shot glasses into our open mouths. We had practiced this one especially for a contest at a local bar in Las Pegasus and since then it had become a tradition, each glass landing perfectly into place and the fiery liquid gulped down in one go before spitting the glasses onto the table. The Colonel was so enthralled with the performance he jokingly commanded we perform it again for 'formal inspections', something we obliged to his delight.

"Tha's th' fuckin' best thang Ah ain't never seen!" He laughed heartily as I blinked out tears and tried my best not to cough or wretch at the particularly strong liquor. "Ah won't say ah damn word abou' it tah nopony heh heh."

Buck held his bottle up to the light and grunted in frustration at how little the bottle seemed to hold as well as how much of it was already gone. Penny similarly eyed her bottle with disappointment but the Colonel grinned reassuringly, pushing the extra two bottles towards them.

"Don't ya worry Penny 'n Buck, Ah brought y'all an extra bottle tah hide in yer hooflocker. Ain't no need tah pilfer from mah private stash like last time. Consider it swept under th' rug."

The two of them blushed sheepishly and thanked him for his generosity while he just simply chuckled and took a shot himself, cigar never leaving his mouth which was rather impressive. I was grateful for his rather intimate connection with us being his self-professed favorite Squad in the Corps for having both an impressive record and an extremely tight-knit sense of family with one another, something he said reminded him of his own family. He had thought of Penny and Buck's penchant for drinking and didn't even hint at any intention to push a bottle towards Hucks and I who were rather anti-alcohol and only drank together rarely and in private. There were plenty of drugs, booze and smokes in camp and it would have been dumb to assume otherwise. Everyone had a vice they needed fulfilled to get by day by day down here.

"So...guess y'all might be wonderin' why Ah'm here all of sudden." He said in a more serious tone after a few minutes of pleasant, idle conversation bringing a chill into my spine once more.

"Oh? So this isn't just a pleasant social call?" Rain asked with a bit of hesitation, eying his bottle of whiskey as if it were there to possibly interrogate him.

"Ain't here fer anythin' yew did, Dancer." The Colonel laughed reassuringly after another drag on the cigar. "Colonel Crete knows exactly why."

All eyes turned to me and I bit my lip nervously before replying, "Well...I sent Specialist Dodge, excuse me...Warrant Officer Dodge, a frantic message soon as I got here from off the train asking the Colonel to meet with me ASAP to discuss what I was telling you guys about before he showed up."

"Oh?" He replied curiously, leaning forward in his seat with an intense stare of interest. "Well don' leave meh in th' only one in th' dark, Crete. What's so important tha' ya went th' roundabout way 'o contacting meh?"

Yet again I found myself explaining the events surrounding my attempted apprehension placing extra emphasis on the fact the M.O.M employee had all but given away who had ordered them to detain me. He sat listening in silence the entire time I explained, resting his head on his hooves as he continued to stare intently at me while I spoke hardly blinking or...really showing any sort of perceivable emotion. His poker face was as good as chiseled stone and I felt could learn a lot from him on how to hide emotions as well as he did when he tried.

When I finished, he was silent for several moments before asking, "Anyone else know abou' this?"

"Absolutely not, Sir." I replied firmly. "And the M.O.M employee was scared so shitless I know she followed my command to erase the memories of the other two and probably herself if such a thing is possible. Didn't even tell my mom about what happened at the station."

"Hmm..." He hummed silently, his brow furrowed in intense thought while the rest of the tent was entirely silent as everyone else stared in suspense between myself and the Colonel. "This is...well...not gonna lie to y'all, this here is th' most concernin' news Ah've heard in ah good while...they already nabbed th' original Alpha Squad and Ah'll be damned if it happens again on mah watch. Crete? Ah think yew did th' right thang. Ain't ah pretty thang ya did 'er ah by th' books one but wha' he did was illegal. Reassignin' people who piss yew off tah th' Zulu Campaign is one thang, goin' off th' books 'n not consultin' th' Wartime Council on detainin' ah Lieutenant Colonel is somethin' entirely different. There's rules 'n procedures fer such ah big case."

"What ya gonna do, Sir?" Buck asked, his usually loud voice sounding weirdly soft in the moment.

"Fer th' moment? Nothin'." He replied with a long, tired sigh. "There's ah lotta shit General Olive is up tah tha' is goin' well 'n above th' call o' duty. Ah'm not gonna lie to y'all...he ain't right in th' head. Bein' an Old Boy has gone tah his head and he ain't got enough oversight like he should down here."

"Yeah, no shit..." Penny growled quietly. "Uh, Sir."

"At ease, Penny." He responded with another sigh. "Ah need tah go tah Canterlot 'n have ah meeting wit' th' Actin' Wartime Council face tah face. Operation: Downsize wit' th' intent 'o killin' a buncha kids, blatant favoritism wit' promotions 'n now this? He's oversteppin' his rank 'n responsibilities and Ah betcha he ain't filin' paperwork correctly tah Command."

"FINALLY!" Buck laughed in triumph, punching a fist into the air and hitting the roof of the tent causing it to ripple.

"Wha' ya mean, Sergeant?" Horn asked, eying him in his bunk with a mixture of his earlier concern tempered by amusement.

"Well finally someone fuckin' important called him out on his shit!" He replied, looking down at all of us as if he had won a good round of poker and wanted to do a victory lap. "He keeps sending us in to take the brunt of the abuse then the fuckin' Tin Heads swoop in from behind to mop up the rest after the bulk of the dying is over! I'm fucking sick of seeing good Rangers getting fucked up by heavy ordinance that their precious fucking Power Armor can tank a hell of a lot better than M-CAP models can! But nooooo! He's gotta play favorites so he can have plenty of shiny Tin Heads on display come parade season! And what about the goddamned armored vehicles I've heard about outta the Greifenländer?! When the fuck are we gonna get some fucking APCs and tanks down here??"

"Ah hear ya loud 'n clear, Sergeant..." Horn groaned, raising his hoof to shut him down. "Believe meh...Ah ain't happy about th' tactics or th' body counts tha' go through mah office every day...'n as fer them fancy Gryphon machines, least I can say is Ah heard we're finally gonna get ah shipment sometime in th' next couple 'o weeks. Dunno what or how many but least it's somethin'."

"Seriously?" We all seemed to gasp in unison, the idea of working with heavily armored mechanically powered machines rather appealing after years of hoofing it around the Badlands.

"Aye." He chuckled, seemingly happy for the change in the general mood of the tent. "Also heard th' Zulu Campaign got themselves some fancy new flyin' machines too!"

"What, a new model of Sky Chariot or something?" Buck asked with more interest than I had expected although he had always taken pride in his Griffin heritage which had its own heritage with the Gryphons they descended from.

"Nah, somethin' totally new 'n crazy th' Ministry 'o War brewed up. Called 'em Vertibirds in th' last meetin' or somethin'...dunno much Ah'm afraid, Buck. Just tha' they was fast, carried sum good firepowa 'n removed th' need fer Pegusi tah make her fly."

"Damn...leave it to the Gryphons to machine their way around problems..." Hucks mused, popping a mouthful of mixed nuts from an MRE. "Remember the early 'tanks' the M.O.W was pushing like eight years ago?"

"How could Ah ferget?" Horn laughed, puffs of smoke coming out of his nose as he did. "Big ol' hunks of riveted steel pushed by eight 'er so ponies like some sorta medieval siege towa? Sure them bitches brought some big guns tah th' battlefield but they were just too heavy fer even th' strongest 'o bucks tah push fer long."

"And then swoop in the big birds to make shit to push them along for you little ponies." Buck laughed gleefully, seemingly forgetting he wasn't even a citizen of Griffinstone and had been born in Cloudsdale rather than Talin or Nachtigall.

"Buck, you aren't even a fuckin' Gryphon so why the fuck you acting like you had a part in all that shit?" Penny asked pointedly, getting a laugh out of everyone else while he ruffled up angrily at her.

"Griffin, Gryphon, the fuck's the difference? I'm still a fucking foot and a half taller than any of you, including Athena!"

"Well, she's gotta good point though." Colonel Horn chuckled, tapping his stogie with a hoof to knock off the ashes. "Yew ain't ah Gryphon. Them mean bastards got least ah head 'er two on ya 'n at least two hundred pounds 'o solid muscle. 'Sides, last Ah remember, yer a full blooded Equestrian like th' rest 'o us."

He gritted his beak in anger and silently hopped down from off his bunk, brushing past all of us and out the tent saying something about needing to take a piss leaving us wondering if we had gone too far in poking holes in his pride.

"Struck ah nerve Ah see..." The Colonel sighed, standing up and collecting his cap from the table. "Well Ah ain't in th' business 'o babyin' ponies. Or birds fer tha' matter... Well, Ah should get goin' y'all. There's a lotta shit tha' needs doin' back at HQ and Ah gotta make travel plans tah Canterlot ASAP."

"Sorry to keep you a bit longer Sir but...what about Athena?" Hucks asked, a question parroted by Penny and Rain as well.

"Wha' about her?" He asked. "Concerned Olive'll try tah do somethin' while Ah'm away?"

"Uhhh...yeah?" Hucks huffed indignantly, looking at me with concern. "He's already tried to arrest her once, who the fuck's to say he won't try that again? Especially with you out of the way to even try and veto it?"

"Yew said yerself he seems like he just wanted tah keep ya close by where he can keep an eye on ya." He responded bluntly, putting on a pair of aviators hanging from his shirt pocket. "Keep yer nose clean down here and he won't have ah reason tah detain ya. Yer ah Lieutenant Colonel and there ain't no paperwork in th' pipeline abou' suspicions of yew bein' some sorta deviant worthy o' ah investigation involving th' Ministry 'o Morale. Ah had little say in th' outcome 'o Major Blitz 'n the rest o' Alpha's arrest but Ah was still informed cause they were mah soldiers."

"So what are you saying, he bribed or blackmailed M.O.M employees into doing this off the record or something?" Rain asked bringing up an interesting possibility.

"No...but tha' ain't ah bad theory as well. Might be, might not but we ain't th' ones tah speculate. That there's fer the Council tah look into while y'all focus on bein' damned fine soldiers! Now, Ah'll hit th' road immediately tah make sure he ain't got time tah fabricate no stories. And wit' tha' Holotape Athena gave meh, Ah'll have ample evidence fer mah case wit' th' Council. Speakin' o' which, can Ah have all y'all's Holotapes as well? Th' more Ah bring wit' meh, th' stronger ah counter argument tah fabrication Ah have."

It took everyone a few minutes of scrounging around their gear and footlockers to collect all the little orange and yellow devices. Buck's was nowhere to be found and since he had yet to return from his angry pee break, the Colonel just sighed and said that four out of five was decent enough to work with. I reminded him about the specific date written on the tapes and the high likelihood that they were rigged to remotely alert the General if they were accessed too early. He paused to thank me for the reminder before straightening his tie and semi-adjust his uniform, scooping up his satchel and leaving with a hearty salute of solidarity towards us. Everypony was silent for quite some time, all of us seemingly processing what had transpired. If the Colonel was that confident I would be safe from harm now that I was back on duty, I trusted him like I had learned to time and time again. At the very least, I would be extra careful to allay any potential indicators of what I was up to when it came to Zecuro. There was no reason to spoon-feed incriminating evidence in the event he was building a case against me.

"That...was something else." Dancer mumbled after awhile, glancing around and blinking a bit as if trying to clear his thoughts. "Anyone else still uneasy about all this shit?"

"I am for sure..." I sighed back, standing up and stretching while reaching for some of Hucks' mixed nuts to try and get the whiskey taste off my tongue. "But if he says so, I'll trust him. Just continue business as normal and we'll figure shit out as we go along like we always have. Just gotta pray we can do shit right until the Colonel is back from Canterlot with something."

"Pray to who?" Penny scoffed. "Retiree Celestia? Clueless in Chief Luna? Please..."

"Then how about Krie then?"

I turned to see Buck walking back into the tent with his usual smug shiteating grin seemingly over his hurt little ego.

"The Gryphon God of War...?" Dancer asked incredulously. "Seriously...?"

"What?" He snapped, proudly holding out a little pendant with the same straight lined runic language I had seen on Peter's sword earlier carved into what looked like cast iron. "I'm descended from Gryphons aren't I? That should be enough to get me a pass at getting in on a fuckin' God of War I'd think! Besides, it's not like there's anything sayin' I can't now is there?"

I shrugged my shoulders as did Hucks and Penny while Dancer just rolled his eyes and went back to his bunk with his LMG in hoof and the automatic barrel conversion. There really wasn't anything to say and he grunted in victory as he stuffed the pendant down his shirt and flapped his wings to launch himself back up to his bunk. The gust of air was enough to send our pile of nuts flying everywhere as well as some of the loose retaining pins from Dancer's conversion much to his loud annoyance. While Hucks went to help find the missing pins, I decided to calm my nerves some more with some loving TLC on my own rifle which was due for a once-over after some time in the sand and dirt. Not like it really needed it but it was always good to stay in the habit no matter the make or model.

I climbed up into my own bunk, laying my AMR across my lap with the same small sense of giddiness that always gripped me from seeing my baby. The overall length was well over five feet, three and a half with the barrel recessed into the frame for stowage and shared features with its predecessor in design, the Barnette APR-S2 chambered in .50 Big Mac. In truth, they were the same rifle with the 25 only being a larger version of the same design just with a longer muzzle brake, a smaller magazine capacity and the ability to recess most of the barrel in the frame of the gun. The short-recoil, rotating bolt semi-automatic action was simple, sturdy and well machined from Celestium parts allowing for thousands of rounds to go downrange before I had to think about wear on any of the internals. Carbon fiber polymers formed the parts that didn't technically need to be made of metal keeping her weight down to a carriable level and the buttstock was made from a shaped FlexiMesh pad similar to those padding my armor. This, combined with the efficient muzzle brake, the reciprocating barrel and recoil dampeners, made for a comfortable shoot despite the 75,000 Joules of muzzle energy. Tack on the vibrant array of 25x102mm ammunition I was afforded and I became something of a one-mare tank. The same term could be used to refer to a Tin Head but then again, I rarely saw one who could nail a Scorpio or Rhynox in a two-inch grouping at 2,000 meters.

"Mind if I join you?" Hucks asked, breaking me out of my trance with her gorgeous purple face with her own rifle floating at her side.

"Heh, by all means hun." I replied with a grateful sigh of relief. "Might be a bit cramped though."

"Nah..." She hummed, hopping up next to me and dragging the table right up next to us for holding all the parts of our guns.

"Huh...well, that solves some issues I guess." I laughed, scooching as far over as I could to make room for her to do her own work. "Radical needs some attention I take it?"

"No more than your baby needs it. Barnette sure builds these fuckers to last don't they?"

"Well that just seems to be a Mareseillian thing in general. They've got a few other gun manufacturers down there like Fabrique Nationale that churn out quality products just like Barnette but none of them have a military contract from us. Did the Colonel ever tell you about his time fighting in the Ponyrenees during the attempted annexation of '58?"

Her eyes went wide with wonder and curiosity as she exclaimed, "Whaaaa? No! I always heard he was part of the tail-end of the annexation of the Crystal Empire and the whole Great Northern War, bur I never heard he took part down South too!"

"Yep! Apparently he got to see the famous Mareseillian Commandos for himself and they're just as badass as the stories say they are. COM units picked off dozens of officers and key soldiers at a time with the APR-1s, which is what made us originally set up a contract with Barnette to begin with. Precision bolt rifles chambered in .50 Big Mac fired from any and all blind spots in the mountains really taught us a lesson in humility..."

"Hmph...not enough it seems..." She grunted irritably, the upper assembly already field stripped on her M-RAD rifle. "We're still here fighting and dying just as much as the last decade over national pride. I long for those easier conflicts of yesteryear where everything made more sense, and the fucking engagement only lasted a year or two at most with a decisive outcome."

"Yeah...war was a lot simpler back then wasn't it?" I mused thoughtfully, my own rifle becoming its core components without even noticing my magic at work taking it apart.

She nodded silently and we focused on our respective weapons for the next few minutes. Cleaning tools were stored under the recoil pads and we shared a communal rag and bottle of gun oil in a pleasurable silence. The Celestium parts showed barely any wear on them even after a hundred or so HEI rounds, and the negligible amounts of grime and sand were brushed out easily with the small brass comb. Plunging the bore with a cleaning rod and cotton swabs came away almost as white as they had been going in. Indeed, the most 'dirty' place on my weapon was the six-port muzzle brake which both saw a lot of action, and was the most exposed to the elements of all the parts. With such a simple construction, I ran out of things to clean and oil after a short time and soon, we were reassembling our weapons with enough practiced ease to do it blindfolded at this point. Glancing up, I noticed everyone seemed to have take our example and were servicing their own weapons with cots littered with disassembled parts and tools; the air rank with the wonderful scent of gun oil and a faint whiff of burnt powder.

"What are you gonna do now?" Hucks asked quietly after setting her rifle beside mine against the frame of the bunks. "Technically speaking, Alpha is awaiting further orders so we are camp-bound for the foreseeable future."

"Well...that is a good question." I replied, looking around the tent and feeling unsure of what to do next. "Galley still open for dinner? They don't serve shit on the train and I'm kinda super fucking hungry..."

"Should be, they don't stop dinner entrées till like nine-something these days. We all ate an hour ago but I'd be happy to come with you and see if they got any more packs of these nuts on hoof."

"I mean, I won't say...no..." I replied, just as my PipBuck started beeping softly on my leg with a small red light on the corner of the screen blinking slowly. "Uh...hold on."

I fumbled a bit with the small device to detach the EarBloom from the housing and slip it into my ear to answer the radio call. Only a few knew this particular channel and it was an equal guess who it might be, although I hoped it wasn't Zecuro so soon after everything that had already happened. I needed to be on good behavior for at least a few days and settle back into the routine of the South before I attempted anything too dangerous.

"Crete here. I just got back so please don't ask too much of me right outta the gate alright?"

"Heyyyy! Looks like the rumors were true." Came the cheerful voice of none other than Dark Blaze. "Good to have ya back amongst the dead ponies walking!"

"Oh, well hello to you too, Blaze. Surprised to hear from you to be honest...is it something urgent?"

"I mean, if you wanna postpone taking a look at that nifty shit you tagged for me last week, then by all means that's your call Colonel." He laughed, the background noise in his transmission making it sound like he were striding through camp.

"Oh...oh!" I gasped softly, suddenly remembering shooting the Zeeb in question with his fancy new stealth armor. "Hell no I don't wanna wait! I mean, I wanna snag some dinner, but tell me where and when and I'll be right over!"

There came a loud shout from outside our tent and, being the only one standing, I poked my head out to see Blaze standing on the dusty path in front, hitched up to his large cart. At one time it had been an armored Sky Carriage, but since had been converted into a mobile workshop loaded down with hundreds of tools meant for repairing and modifying weapons from a standard-issue pistol all the way up to the massive 150mm artillery guns. Whole sections of the thick steel walls folded down to reveal various power tools like saws, rotary cutters, a lathe, rivet guns and over a dozen other heavy tools, allowing for quick, on-the-spot work for any GI who wanted something personalized and had some spending cash to blow. Inside lay a treasure trove of blueprints, schematics, spare parts and scrap metal on organized shelves lining the walls with several assorted small pillows and toys dedicated to his pet cat Shiloh who almost never left his side.

"How's about right now?" He beamed with a laugh. "Was in the area anyway tweaking 8th Company's new batch of M14/16s, so I thought why not stop by?"

"Heh...well, can't say I blame you for that logic, but I'm kinda fuckin' starving my guy..." I replied with a sheepish laugh of my own. "Can I like...meet you up at your workshop or something?"

"Sure! Butttt...I've got some good MREs stashed up there if you're willing to compromise. You can eat while we take the damn thing apart! Not a bad deal in my book."

I glanced behind me at Hucks who had poked her head out of the tent as well out of curiosity, she giving a friendly wave towards Blaze who returned it with a hearty salute. I gave her a nod of acknowledgement while I brooded over his proposition. Working while I ate was a rare indulgence outside of filing boring-ass paperwork in my officer's tent, so getting to eat while Dark Blaze peeled apart a new set of Zebra combat armor was a proposition I couldn't say no to. Long as the M in the MRE was any good of course...

"What kinda food we talkin' about...?" I asked curiously, feeling a hunger pain stab me in the gut as if on-cue.

"Hmm...like rice and beans, eggplant steak and noodles, Appleloosa chili...fuck, I can't remember. Shiloh? You mind getting me that ledger from the back?"

He glanced over his shoulder at his faithful orange tabby who meowed softly from where it sat eying him from one of the small forward-facing windows of the Sky Carriage. He had to plead a few more times before the cat reluctantly stood up from its bed, stretched, and disappeared from view into the bowels of his on-board library. A few moments later, he reappeared in the window with a manila folder in his mouth before daintily hopping down onto the tongue of the harness and up onto Blaze's back. His finely tuned mechanical wings snagged the file from the cat's jaws in exchange for a treat from a little pouch at his hip, before Shiloh retreated back into the comfort of the Carriage.

"Damn! You've got him fetching shit for you now!" I exclaimed with a grin knowing his cat was his pride and joy. "Sure you aren't related to Fluttershy?"

"What, with her talent for talking to Feral species you mean?" He asked, glancing up from the papers in his hooves. "Hardly...Shiloh and I are just well connected to each other is all. If I tried that with any other cat, I have just as much chance of getting scratched as getting completely ignored. Anyway, we've got rice and beans, eggplant steak and noodles, Appleloosa chili, some meat-based ones for the non-ponies in the Brigade, spaghetti in red or white sauce, cheese tortellini in red sauce and some Moskipone and Mareseillian shit I can't pronounce. Any of those strike your fancy at all?"

"A few, but...I gotta ask, why do you have so many fucking MREs?" I asked, glancing over him for any signs that he might be overeating. "You've got like half the menu in the galley on there, and seem to have it in bulk so what gives?"

"Eh, ever since I was promoted to Mastersmith, I've had to help the others sharing that rank keep the damn Corps running down here since that stupid argument between Rarity and Applejack keeps getting ping-ponged around in Canterlot. Since I have my hooves in so many things at once already, they stuck me with the marginally easier task of doling out food to those in the Ember Brigade. There's other responsibilities too of course, but the food and supply requisitions are now in my job description. It ain't so bad a gig since all I really need to do is inspect the crates shipped up to us once a week, and set my Apprentices to get them sent where they need to go. Long as all the paperwork is in order, it all goes pretty smoothly up here for us, all things considered heh..."

"Jeez...it's a miracle to me sometimes at how you guys are able to function without any of the same organization structure the rest of us have."

"Believe me, I feel the same way..." He laughed bitterly before stuffing the papers back in the file and tossing it onto the large cushioned seat at the front of the Carriage, nodding towards Shiloh to put it away. "So, what say ye? Care to join me?"

I looked again at Hucks who smiled encouragingly and waved a hoof in his direction saying, "Go on! We'll hold down the fort while you're gone. If anyone asks where you went, we'll just say you had a meeting with a Mastersmith about in-field logistics or some shit."

"Guess that settles it then." I laughed, looking back at Blaze who grinned back with glee. "Lead the way my good sir!"

******

"Yeesh...you guys really are still scrounging for supplies aren't you?" I muttered to him as we came to the top of the mountain pass and into the patchwork camp dedicated to the Engineers of the Southern Front.

"We manage well enough, all things considered." He replied with a sigh. "But yeah...things could be better at Camp Grease. I've got supply issues longer than my tail, requisition orders from every single damn Company and Platoon on-site, and half the number of able-bodied mechanics I need to fulfill them all... That's not even bringing up missing tools and equipment for some of the jobs they want us to do, the head counts needed to run the artillery...it's a total blind mess, lemme tell ya."

Located up and beyond the valley walls, defended by the higher peaks of the Ember Mountains, rested the stallions and mares who were vital to the war effort by maintaining everything that moved that wasn't organic. Amidst the surplus M.O.W, M.O.I and M.O.P tents set up in no particular order were dozens of metric tons of spare parts, artillery shells, wagons and carts. There was little rhyme or reason to be found here, and whereas the main camp below felt like kind of like an organized military frat house, this place was as go-with-the-flow as they came. The air was alive with power tools, music blaring from small radios and a general uproar of brawly mechanics having fun and yelling instructions to each other while working night and day to keep the Army going. Rows of damaged Power Armor sat under tarps awaiting their turn in various workspaces across the camp, while large makeshift tents housed mechanical cranes and winches for servicing all manner of large and complicated machines; including several of the infamous Greifenländer armored combat vehicles which was...unexpected to say the least.

"Hey, hold the fuck up." I said, holding up a hoof to stop him before pointing to the closest of these large maintenance tents. "Since when the hell did we have those down here??"

He laughed bitterly and kept moving forward sighing, "Ain't what you think, Athena... Those are ones airlifted in for maintenance from Camp Oil out East since they're backlogged to all hell over there."

"Well then why the fuck are they so overstuffed then?" I replied indignantly as we stopped in front of his tent, a M.O.I pavilion tent that had been stained black by grease and other stains.

"Simple." He responded with another sigh, unhitching himself from his cart and waiting for Shiloh to hop onto his back before leading me inside. "They're ones sent back from the Zulu Campaign. Zeebs debuted a new type of uber rifle that from what I've heard gives your AMR a run for its money and then some."

"Oh...?" I said with a bit of hesitation as I hated the thought of my baby getting outclassed by the enemy.

"Not a lot to tell ya I'm afraid..." He sighed, moving to clear a nearby table of stacks of paper and graphite pencils. "Most I've heard is they shoot tungsten darts or hypercharged Crystal shards at insane speeds, punching holes in even the thickest armor. All the APCs and the two tanks you see here got hit hard by some, and...lemme tell ya. The damage from those hits? Hoooooboy..."

"Seems like shit the Greifenländer should be handling, not you guys all the way down here as far flung as you can get from the Empire. I mean for fuck's sake, they share a fucking border with each other, and they built these machines for us. You'd think they'd just let you guys in to get their creations back in the fight ASAP."

"The Greifenländer said they're ours, not theirs to repair, and refused to allow them over the Drachenfels Mountains." He replied, rolling his eyes with a grunt. "The Underkingdom of the Dwem refused to allow us passage under the Drachenfels saying they were a staunchly isolationist nation despite working with the Gryphons and defending their own borders from the Empire. Gotta remember...these guys allied with us right after we first annexed the Crystal Empire and renamed it a Duchy because the term 'Empire' was seen as too Zebrican. They got to negotiate how they participated in the War as they're on a different Continent, and ordering them to do shit from a distance would be hard to enforce, not without starting a war with them too. Compared to places like Saddle Arabia, Espania, and the Crystal Empire, the only place that really got the best deal aside from the Gryphons was Mareseilles."

"Sweet Celestia...fuckin' birds, amirite?"

"Oh yeah, fuck 'em." He chuckled bitterly, pulling up a chair for me at his cluttered dining table against the far wall of the circular tent. "But I gotta hand it to them. They sure know how to make some damned fine machines that beat Earth Pony tech nine times outta ten. I mean, you gotta remember they're the ones who made the first guns and made the internal combustion engine, not us."

"What about the steam engine? Wasn't that us?"

"Nah, Kingdom of Griffinstone are the first ones to make them. Things we came first in though? The discovery of Nexus Crystals. And that of course lead to the discovery of Crystalline Fusion which beats out both steam and internal combustion by a landslide, but that was only within the last ten-ish years or so. Even then though, the implementation of CF technology has been mind-bogglingly slow across the entire country! Got coal-fired power plants all over the place still providing like...what, 85-ish percent of the country's power supply? We've got those nifty solar arrays that convert sun magic into electricity and CF tech both rearing to go but...ugh...damn Earth Ponies have to be in charge thinking their old tech is the best route."

"Heh, what? You saying Unicorns need to be in charge again to solve the energy crisis?"

"Honestly, sure. At this point, why the fuck not? The Ministry of Arcane Science has really churned out some nifty tech in the last couple decades but with Earths making up a majority of the population, their grip over industry and government is just too strong. Once upon a time I might have suggested Pegasi solve the crisis by churning out a shit ton of storm clouds and stomping out lighting into big old batteries or something but...well..."

"Equestria relied too much on you guys in the early years without thinking about the enemy's airpower and capability."

"Heh...that's a hell of a lot nicer way of saying we got fed into the Meat Grinder first. Yeah... Barely enough of us left to maintain the weather in the country and serve in the Airborne Corps. Had to go out of our way to improve relations with the Equestrian Griffins and Griffinstone just to make up for recruitment shortages... And to think all of this shit could have been avoided if we had discovered Nexus Crystals earlier and got the tech out to market sooner."

There was a short bout of silence as the topic weighed down on both of us before the memory of the armored vehicles came to mind, along with an interesting question that suddenly popped into my head.

"You know...on that point, have we upgraded any of these fighting vehicles with CFCs? Make 'em run like Power Armor or something?"

He laughed sheepishly as he brought over a few of the drab olive wrapped MREs and a couple bottles of Sunrise Sarsaparilla for us to enjoy.

"Oh trust me...we've been trying, but the work's been...slow. Spaghetti and spaghetti?"

"Oh, yeah double pasta is never a bad thing." I laughed while he began warming up the meal with their nifty built-in warmers. "Slow how?"

"Slow in the fact we only have like a 65% understanding of how everything in those suckers work; enough to keep 'em running and patching up mild problems, but not much more. Gryphons know how to make wonderfully complex machines that work remarkably well, but that's also the major problem. Soon as one has an issue, you go to take off one piece and find out its made of eight or more smaller pieces that are all finely machined to exact specifications. Lots of redundancies with equipment and they've got wiring stuffed into every nook and cranny in ways that are hard to put back exactly the same way. Trying to retrofit them with Crystalline Cores means completely redesigning the engine, stripping out the copper wiring for microfilament crystal, making a secure place for the power supply and regulator...it's just a fucking nightmare."

"Heh, first-hoof experience I take it?" I laughed, taking a grateful draught of the icy cold soda.

"More than a little..." He groaned, resting his blue head on his hooves. "We've only managed to retrofit two. Two damn APCs that only got one test drive each before the Lawnmower sent them back overseas without so much as a damn 'thank you'..."

"Lawnmower...?"

"Oh...heh, sorry. That's what we call the Ministry of War around here since their acronym is 'mow' and they buzz right through shit like a lawnmower. Material, money, soldiers, us Engineers...don't matter. All is grass for cutting."

"Ohhhh..." I laughed as it clicked for me, mouth drooling slightly from the warm smell of spaghetti nearby. "Morbid, cynical and accurate...works for me, heh."

"Mmph..." He grumbled tiredly, pulling out some basic metal bowls for the two of us along with some forks. "Glad it works for someone. I wanted more time with those two bastards, damnit! I had so many tests I wanted to run on them so we could get a better idea of how the fuck we managed to put them together and got the new power source actually functioning. Not gonna lie to ya, Crete...I've got no clue how we managed to pull it off. Lots of exposed wiring, some parts that didn't wanna go back into the spot, random shit all over the place...it's just asking for something to happen to the internals with how little time we had to reassemble it."

"Yeesh...that bad eh?"

"You ever seen the early PoA prototypes?"

"Heh...can't say I have. Didn't even know they were a thing till the Steel Ranger Corps was shat into existence and the T-45s started showing up down here en-masse one day."

"Hm...well, let's just say those were more put together than those ramshackles they swiped from us six-months too early. I told them when they came for the inspection! Gave my full report to Apple Jack's personal assistant face-to-face and told her, 'DO NOT ship these yet. We only JUST got them working and are still trying to figure out how we even pulled it off, give us even three more months to try and learn from this.' Was like it was in one ear and out the other...she heard the words 'it works' and went deaf after the HUGE 'but' that came afterwards. Next day the Lawnmower boys flew in with a Nimbus and hauled both of them away without even giving me a chance to protest..."

"Humph...shows how much they valued your opinion..." I growled softly. "I swear to fuck I don't understand half the shit Command does. I'm convinced the Hexagon has only half a brain to go around the Six Ministries..."

"More like Five, let's be honest..." He laughed bitterly. "Not like Rainbow Dash or her Ministry of Awesome actually do anything with her acting as the General of the Airborne Corps full-time."

"Trueeee...but without the M.O.A, you guys wouldn't even have a budget now would you? With Rarity and Apple Jack arguing with each other and the EAF set to the side, you guys aren't gonna be getting jack or shit anytime soon. It's been over eight years now and nothing has fucking changed."

He nodded silently and we both sat there quietly, the muffled noise of the frantic pace of work outside providing a decent white noise to keep the silence from feeling awkward. On the far side of the tool and parts infested tent sat Shiloh quietly grooming himself atop a homemade kitty palace of metal and wood while nearby a pair of terminals sat with lines of code flowing ever upwards on their green screens. It continually baffled my mind that the Engineers were one of the most important Corps in the Equestrian Armed Forces, and yet got jack shit to fund or maintain themselves. Money for training, salaries and equipment/parts came from the nearly untouched budget allotted the Ministry of Awesome, but because Rarity refused to push through uniform and rank pin designs, the Engineers Corps was not officially a part of the EAF. It only existed as well as it did thanks to an intense need for their services and by recruiting skilled factory workers who wanted a more...exciting way of earning their paycheck. Of course being a support system rather than a frontline fighter, the budget for arming these Engineers in the event of close-combat wasn't exactly big or extravagant.

"You know, I have to ask...how's the scramble for weapons going for you guys?"

"Huh?" He asked, looking up from dumping the steaming contents of our MREs in the bowls. "Oh...that. Same shit as ever really. Anything we can recover from the trenches and weapons deemed too far gone for regular use that we can take and repair as best we can. You think the GA is chuck full of mismatched guns? Ain't got shit on us! Got weapons from every major producer and country alike around here at Camp Grease. Thankfully ammo is easy enough to come by, but I swear to fuck I'm sick of getting crates of empty magazines that only go to a quarter of the guns here. Ooooh! Before we start on the armor, I've got somethin' special I've been cooking up I want you to see!"

He stood back up and eagerly trotted over to an enormous worktable he used for more intensive gun tinkering, coming back with something wrapped in an oily rag in his mouth. He set it down on the table and with no little amount of excitement whipped the rag away to reveal a...very curious looking revolver. It was hammerless featuring a thick, eight-inch barrel with a blocky portion of the frame extending out underneath the barrel with five small red LEDs glowing dimly along the bottom edge in a small recess. There seemed to be a side-loading port for a single SparkPack to be housed inside this underbarrel portion which explained the fancy lights, although what they actually did was still a mystery. The cylinder seemed to be housed under some sort of blast shield while the crane and ejector rod seemed to be one solid piece capped by two more LEDs on either end, both glowing a soft red. Past those oddities, the grip was standard for a mouth-fired sidearm with stained wood, FlexiMesh furnishings, and a flat steel plate on the bottom of the butt with a lanyard loop welded onto it.

"Ok...what in the fuck have you made this time, Blaze...?" I asked seriously, turning the bizarre weapon over and over in my magic with a critical eye. "This is by far the weirdest one yet..."

"Hellfire!" He grinned mischievously, eagerly pushing the large cylinder release button with the tip of his nose.

The blast shield hiding the cylinder popped open of its own accord with the cylinder following suit, flipping to the other side of the blast shield before it retracted back up into the frame of the gun. Much like my Sequoia, or really any break-action pistol, the odd, smooth-milled cylinder was made for easy access for reloading; my attention noticing the bore for the bullets was wider at the back than where the projectile met the barrel. The lights on either end of the crane and rod were now glowing yellow, and the ejector star that I hadn't even notice pop out snapped back into place in the cylinder. I was looking at a bizarre, hammerless revolver that came with a mechanically powered cylinder and auto-ejector. It was an incredibly complicated design that left me speechless, although the size of the chambers in the cylinder seemed a tad small for the conditions we faced. In the Badlands, you wanted as much bite to your bark as you could get as overkill was far better than underkill when it came to combat armor.

"Sweet fucking Celestia, Blaze..." I mumbled, still in awe at what I was seeing. "Is this .357 Magnus? Seems a bit anemic for the Badlands rumble we've got going on down here."

"Heh, heh, I'm one step ahead of ya Crete!" He laughed heartily, reaching back to his tactical harness and pulling out a traditional looking speedloader from his belt with his teeth.

"Are...are those 5.56s?!" I asked in shock as he spat the loader out for me to see for myself.

"Hell yeah they are!" He replied proudly, nodding for me to load it into the waiting cylinder. "Go on! Give her a go! You'll be faster at it with your horn than me trying to finesse it with my mouth and hooves."

Holding back further questions, I obliged him curiously and stuffed the narrow rifle rounds into the cylinder, the speedloader clicking as the nub of the ejector pressed a central button releasing all five rounds at once. The yellow lights now became green as if recognizing it had been reloaded and a second later, the blast plate along the side popped open once more. The cylinder flipped back into the cradle of the plate, before both swung back into place with a soft beep from the technological underbarrel portion now sporting five green lights. Minimal effort required and arguably just as fast as a top-break.

"Is this...a round counter?" I asked, still in a bit of stunned contemplation.

"Yep! Can tell how much you've got in the cylinder in the dark and if it's even loaded to begin with, with that nifty indicator light on the crane and ejector rod!"

"That...is fucking amazing, Blaze!" I exclaimed in awe, pushing the cylinder release myself and watching the complicated action swing out but fail to eject the rounds. "Wait, does this thing also tell if there are live rounds in here?"

"Ding, ding, ding!" He beamed. "The auto-ejector only kicks in for how many rounds have been spent in case I fire a few and wanna top off with individual rounds. Each arm of the ejector star can work independent of the others so only the spent rounds are kicked out, something the computer chip in the lower frame keeps track of on its own."

"Just...wow..." I breathed in amazement. "5.56 in a fucking automatic revolver. Aren't gonna get a ton of velocity from such a short barrel but still, this'll punch deeper than a .357 Magnus."

"Yep! And I get the option for armor penetrating and tracer rounds! Works really well up to 35 yards and I've even managed to ping some steel at 50, so I ain't complaining."

"I'm not either!" I laughed, glancing down at my Sequoia and feeling a tad outshone by such a unique weapon. "And I thought my revolver was somethin' special..."

Our happy conversation comparing our two weapons carried us right through dinner and another couple bottles of Sarsaparilla until we both realized an hour had passed and we had yet to even touch on the real reason I was here. Putting our dishes to the side, he hung a 'Do Not Disturb' sign outside his tent entrance and led me to the large worktable in the center of the area where a nondescript wooden crate rested. Judging by the way he shivered and grinned from ear to ear, Blaze was just as giddy to unbox this beauty as I was. I was surprised and mad at myself for forgetting the damn thing even existed, although I gave myself a pass given everything that had happened since I had killed its owner. Still...new armor was just something I could never keep myself from for long. It was an addiction I was happy to feed.

We removed the lid and resting in a bed of wood shavings was the enigmatic black and charcoal grey armor I had been itching to see up close and personal, without a chance of death attached, for some time. It came out as a one-piece unit, similar to our M-CAP Model-3s, including a jumpsuit of whatever stand-in for Kevyarn they used augmented with hard impact plates covering vital organs and the extremities. Each impact plate was smooth, matte painted and devoid of any excessive bulk or unnecessary aesthestics that could snag on their invisibility cloak. The segmented set of back plates were attached via several tightly-fit straps which protected a long industrial strength zipper that held the form-fitting armor closed around the body. Lining the spine underneath was a row of small round rubies embedded in silver housings which seemed to piggyback off the invisibility enchantment placed on their cloaks. The rest of the armor was more of the same, with dozens of independent, well-formed, slim, and form-fitting matte-black impact plates that didn't seem to be made of meta, but rather some odd ceramic. An occasional ruby or two, housed in the same stylized silver disc, studded the occasional plate ensuring the spell had full coverage. Every part of the body was accounted for in the protection factor, with dozens of lames ensuring the most flexibility possible while the boots were padded with an unknown rubber-like material that produced no sound when something was knocked against it. Unfortunately, the odd EVA style helmet Zecuro had been wearing was missing, preventing us from delving deeper into its functions. Cuts from a standard razorblade failed to sever even a single fiber of the unknown armor weave, while a sharp electrical probe failed to puncture through the material as well. The plates themselves were rock-solid to the touch, but rang clear like crystal when struck by anything solid like a nearby spanner. We were looking at the next evolution in Zebra bodily defense and had a ground-floor preview.

"Goddamn...this is something else..." Blaze breathed as we stood back to look at the whole ensemble. "This isn't meant for your standard infantry pony, that's for damn sure..."

"I'll say! This thing is scary..." I replied, wondering if I could fit in it myself. "The fact they can hide this entire thing under those cloaks is just crazy to think about. All that protection..."

"Has to be the ruby array. We already know the Imperial Brooch provides the power for the enchantment which is somehow transmitted via the Zephyr Spider Silk the cloaks are made from. They must have found a way to tap into the energy source and distribute the spell across the rest of the armor using those gems as foundations for extension. Sweet mercy that silk is some magical stuff..."

"So this Kevyarn looking stuff, that has to be made of the same silk then?"

"More than likely? Unless they've found another substance which can do the same thing...who knows what those Shamans are up to over there? We make Kevyarn out of normal spider silk and Crystal Empire sheep's wool so it would make sense for them to replicate what we did with the best shit they got, just like they always have. We make weapons and calibers, they take 'em and make their own versions for domestic reproduction."

"Indeed..." I sighed, thinking about all the stolen designs and copycats I had encountered. "What about those ceramic plates? Any guesses at what they might be made from?"

"Hmm...probably the same stuff they put in their Mrk. IVs if I had to throw out a guess. Let me find out..."

He moved to the other side of the room where stacks of wooden crates of varying size lay, digging around in them before coming back finally with a device in his mouth. Although I had forgotten whatever silly name the M.O.A.S had given it, I remembered that it could read the chemical compositions of most organic and inorganic materials using some sort of Alchemy that was out of my league to try and comprehend. It looked like a microscope I had used back in my college lab courses, but was three-times larger and came with a built-in printer, a computer screen/keyboard combo and featured a large cut diamond as the focus lens. After raising the arm holding up the objective lens, he slid the bracer portion of the armor on the stage, reset the arm to the correct height, and pressed a command into the computer. There was some sort of golden beam of energy shot from the tip of the diamond into the armor for a few moments before shutting off and the printer spitting out a report.

"Hmmm...chemical analysis came back with mostly silicone carbide and...titanium. From the looks of it though, the silicone carbide is more like a filler reinforced with small plates of titanium. Damned expensive as fuck investment right there just for some boots on the ground..."

"Silicone carbide..." I hummed, recognizing it as a common ceramic body armor type. "Anything about that in particular that would make them choose it specifically? With two other major ceramic types to choose from, why this one? We both know they don't do something without a purpose behind it...so the question is, what is behind this one?"

"Hmm..." He mumbled almost to himself, taking another look at the report. "Huh...says here it has a very flawless grain pattern with nice, strong crystals. Curious...."

"Elaborate? I ain't your levels of smart with metallurgy and inorganic chemistry."

"Well...silicone is a hell of a multi-faceted element. In particular, it's the foundation of silicone dioxide which is what many semiprecious gemstones are made from, plus some trace atoms like iron, ferric hydroxide or titanium that give them color. The only difference between silicone dioxide and silicone carbide is just a few atoms. Maybe...they found a way to grow this armor in a similar manner to artificially producing lattice structures of silica..."

"So...what you're saying is the armor is..."

"Sorta made of gemstones too which allows it to piggyback off the invisibility spell as well. Wouldn't surprise me if they are experimenting with this stuff to try and make armor that can turn invisible without the need of the cloak itself."

"Damn...that would make them even scarier. Least if you get a good grapple on them you can knock the hood back and disrupt the enchantment making them visible. For now..."

"Agreed. Thank Celestia this shit is so new...can't imagine having to fight a Crimson Dragon in one of these. Looks like it can take a lot of abuse."

We fell into silence again, both of us digesting what we had learned from our examination with grim thoughts. The cloaks, while immensely powerful in their own right, were still fallible and could lose their efficacy if torn or otherwise damaged in some way. With armor like this capable of independent invisibility, it would mean more lives lost to trench scalpers, and even more calculated assassinations with higher chances of survival on the assassin's part. Rudimentary spells had been discovered that could detect their enchantments but their range of coverage was rather small and required skilled technicians to keep the Talismans powered and functioning. These only existed in the camp however and the talismans were far too big for personal use due to the power requirements leaving those of us out in the warzone exposed. As for how protective it was, the only way to know for sure was ballistics tests but...with it being the only example we had to work with, I was loathe to start popping shots off at it lest I damage a perfectly good toy. Although with the titanium-cored ceramic plates and Kenyarn copycat...experience was telling me to look in the .30-06 AP and above weight classes.

"Sorry about the body by the way..." I apologized, remembering that I had left him with a headless corpse to extricate from the armor. "Didn't have time to dump it myself as there was still a front to push at the time."

"Heh...don't mention it." He chuckled sheepishly. "See shit like that all too often and it had bled out by the time I got to it so there wasn't much of a wet mess waiting for me. Took a bit to find the zipper but after that I just dumped the body in the nearest trench, tossed the armor in that box and hightailed it outta there. Didn't take more than five minutes, tops, and I was back here immediately afterwards with everything."

"Did Buck tell ya you could keep the sword?"

"Hell yeah he did!" He grinned, nodding towards his modest cot over by Shiloh where the straight-bladed Zebra sword lay sheathed and leaning against the tent wall. "Thing's a beauty! Was hoping you'd snag one for me someday."

"How much do you want for the job?"

"Nothing, keeping the armor and the sword is more than enough payment for some minor undertaker work."

"Oh common, Blaze..." I protested, knowing he was being a tad too generous given his work load. "Lemme comp ya with some actual cash."

"I told ya, I don't want it Crete. Being the first Engineer, as far as I know, to hold one of these and get to poke and prod its secrets under the radar is payment enough. Plus! Now I got a hella cool electric Zebra sword to fuck people up with if I ever need to!"

"Alright, alright! I hear ya my guy..." I laughed, raising my hooves in defeat. "What ya gonna do with them then?"

"Sure as hell ain't sending it to Command, that's for damn sure. They can recover another set from someone else, this one is gonna be my new time waster. I wanna see how this sucker ticks."

"Heh...well..." I replied, lifting up my bottle of Sarsaparilla and clinking it off his as a victory toast. "Here's to friendship and being fucking nerds!"

**********

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Ranger with the Big Iron on His Chest

Lights in the distance...that was something new for once. It took me a few minutes of staring ahead at it for it to click that I was getting near a town, a good sized one by how much it stood out on the dark desert expanse. The tracks never deviated or changed course leading me right into what had to be Paletree, a quiet town that sprang to life around a solitary saloon. It was one of the few isolated desert oasis towns that had the benefit of still being tapped into the old aquifer that used to feed into the long-dead Horsetail River that ran from the Great Lake in the Midwest about three-hundred miles North. It was one of the last bastions of civilization before the Valley of Death that had once been known as the Badlands and was the last decently sized town with a population of a couple hundred or so. Had only visited a dozen or so times in the past over the last fifty years while on the hunt for some asshole or another so with any luck they would remember me and not cause any undue delays or complications. It was a quaint town and had a lot going for it so it was actually a breath of fresh air to finally see it again after a few years.

The town, laying near what was left of the railway tracks that led from the Badlands to Manehatten, had taken the liberty of repurposing the many railcars that were in the area and turning them into a viable defensive perimeter. Unlike New Appleloosa to the North, their abundance of old railway equipment was more limited and so the assorted houses and businesses inside were primarily made from the same normal hodgepodge of materials seen across the Wastes. The closer I got, the more of the high defensive wall came into detail until I could see the patrolling guards wandering across the top of the railcars without the need of my helmet's optics. Each was armed with a rifle of some sort, either a salvaged service rifle or one of the many civilian scoped hunting rifles for the sniper on a budget and armor was rather rudimentary. By and large it was the light M-CAP Model 4As which only granted limited protections to the torso, shoulders and flanks supplemented by the usual Wasteland metal armor made from welded steel and leather scraps. The two guards posted by the front gate, which was really just a ramp up and through a freight car's double doors, were decked out in Model 3s and wielding respectable G3 assault rifles with pump-action shotguns on their backs. All in all, a respectably defended town for being independent of any larger faction which was something I deeply respected.

"Now hold up right there you!" Called out one of the gate guards as soon as I stepped into the floodlights illuminating the area in front of the gate. "Another fuckin' NER Ranger? You guys having some sorta party down here or something?"

"First off, do I look like I work for the fucking Republic?" I sighed, gesturing to my desert camo'd armor that was twice as armored as the Mrk. IIs they ran around with and lacked any of the obnoxious NER decals. "And two, I'm on the tail of someone who was accompanying someone dressed in NER DeadEye gear. I'm on business with the Syndicate."

The two of them immediately reacted the moment I mentioned the Syndicate, exchanging nervous looks and viewing me with a very wary eye. The organization had feelers everywhere and made things far easier than normal for people like me who had been with them for a long time. Paletree had a Broker living amongst them keeping an eye on the surrounding area and the ponies here knew that.

"H-here on a Bounty then?" She responded, the hesitation in her voice obvious.

"A Contract actually." I responded simply, color fleeing from her green face as her eyes went wide with understanding.

"O-oh fuck...um...w-well, how can we help you Miss Hitmare? W-we don't get many of your k-kind down here..."

"Told ya, I'm on the trail of a pair of travelers. A Ghoul Changeling in NER Black Armor and a giant ass Griffin in Power Armor, couldn't miss them if you tried."

"I-I saw them pass through the other day." Said the other guard, a stallion with a copper coat and a dark blue mane. "In and out in a an hour tops. Said they were headed Sou-"

Without any warning there was a loud cracking boom echoing across the open desert from further South as the sky behind the town lit up a bright light blue. Everyone jumped in their skin and more than a few itchy trigger hooves went off sending scared shots everywhere including my breastplate. Had their jumpy nature not been justified by the colossal explosion, I might have been tempted to make an example out of one of them for flagrant disregard of all sense and logic. Even reinforced railcars were no match for a rifle designed specifically to defeat 30mm+ of solid steel armor.

"What the fuck was that?!" They cried out, holding their ears with their hooves which I could only guess were ringing like crazy from the noise.

"An explosion obviously..." I replied with a sigh, popping my neck and adjusting the straps on my armor for another long haul. "And I have a feeling it has something to do with my quarry..."

"That came from over by Junction 11! Fuck...do you think they...?"

"Hell if I know, Daisy! I fucking hope not! I've got a cousin who lives there..."

"What do you think it was?"

"Me?" I replied after I noticed the question was directed at me. "Well...judging by the color of the explosion, I would have to assume it was caused by a supercriticality accident of some sort. Does Junction 11 run off of a CFR? A Crystalline Fusion Reactor?"

"You mean one of them fancy power plants that run off magic or whatnot?"

"...in so simplistic of terms, yes. Does it have one of those? I've seen the place on a map but this is the farthest South I usually go when on business so I would have no idea."

"Not that I know of, they just use Solar Panes like we do to get their electricity. Why? You think one of those things exploded? Goddesses...glad we don't have one of those things..."

"Well, if they don't have one then there's only one other possibility..." I replied, forgetting I was in the presence of people with limited formal education. "A stockpile of Spark Batteries or CFCs had a catastrophic containment failure and exploded. Although why there would be such a stockpile in the middle of nowhere is anypony's guess..."

'That or a Power Armor frame was rigged to blow...no, would have to be more than one given how big that flash was...' I thought to myself, sighing internally as they looked at me with confused gazes.

"Well...either way, if they're not here then I have no reason to be either." I said after a moment. "That explosion probably had something to do with them anyway so I might as well investigate. Thank you for your help and stay safe out here by yourselves."

"You too, Miss Hitmare!" The mare said with more confidence than before, although it was most likely due to me formally announcing my departure. "I heard from the last caravan that came through that there was a lot of Steel Ranger shit happening near the Gap. You're headed a bit close to there so...shoot a few of those fuckers for us would ya? Do the Wasteland and ponies like us a favor. I've heard what they do to little towns like us just to get every scrap of old world technology they can get their greedy hooves on."

"Heh...believe me, I would love to get some target practice on some Power Armor with this fucker." I replied with a laugh, gesturing to the massive AMR on my back. "I can punch a hole in any armor worn by ponies and then some."

"I believe it..." The stallion laughed nervously before I left them behind and skirted around the edge of the town heading in the direction of the explosion, the air above where it occurred still glowing and pulsing with faint light and electrical energy like an angry raincloud.

Once I had made it a good mile from Paletree I paused for a moment to check my inventory for something to help the journey go by faster. While the Taint had improved my stamina immensely, I still was no machine and suffered from exhaustion just like anypony else did even if the timetable for it was more extensive. The contents of my inventory scrolled before my eyes on my HUD as I looked for the crates of liquid Dash I had pilfered from Jingle Jangle a few weeks ago but failed to sell when I had the chance in the Dark Market. I was still avidly no lover of drugs aside from the occasional private puff of Red Berryl while cozy in the privacy of my own home but this was an unusual circumstance. Being essentially concentrated nectar oil of the Berryl flower, a few drops on the tongue would give me a nice hazy buzz to add some much needed padding between my mind and recognizing I was tired. Junction 11 was easily another day's trot away and I needed to make up for any lost time in getting there. With any luck, they were making camp for the night somewhere nearby their handiwork giving me much needed hours to close the gap between us quickly.

The small wooden crate expanded to its full size as I pulled it from the top of my saddlebags and came open quickly with the help of a combat knife prying open two of the corners that had been nailed shut. Inside lay tidy rows of twenty-five small glass vials of the golden viscous nectar while an eyedropper, potency test strips and a blank pad of paper rested in a small recess to the right; everything needed for the preppers to test the base ingredients quality and make notes for the next stage in the process. Within a few moments I had an eyedropper half-full of the golden liquid hovering over my tongue with my canteen of cold lemonade on standby to help wash out the flavor which was a terrific idea. The moment it hit my mouth I wanted to wretch at how...oily it was! It stuck to my tongue with its bitter flavor and no how much I chugged it refused to wash out completely. Something...I slowly started to realize I didn't even care about as a Berryl high stronger than any I had experienced before started to stuff cotton candy clouds of bliss between every brain cell and I could barely feel my body amidst the haze of happy, giggly bliss.

"H-heh...fuckkkk me..." I giggled stupidly to nopony but the empty desert, retaining just enough higher brain function to put everything away and stuff the box back into my bags minus that one bottle and eyedropper in case I needed to top off. "Sweeeeeeet Celestia what a high....."

With my mind successfully detached from my body, I took full advantage of the situation and started to gallop across the empty Wasteland expanse knowing full well the exercise would end the high before it came time to be battle ready. Time held little meaning and a hundred hoofsteps in the sand might as well have been one for as aware of reality as I was. I wasn't a mare given to relying on drugs to fulfill a Contract but weird times called for weird measures and this one was particularly enjoyable for what it was.

******

By the time the sun was peeking above the Ember Mountains looming in the distance, I had only paused twice to piss and had consumed seven cans of sweet corn and a few things of Cram to satiate the intense munchies that accompanied a Berryl high. Junction 11 lay exactly where the map indicated it would be and once I had hit my limit for galloping like a madmare, it was visible on the horizon. I needed to sleep, I knew that much, but I was so close to my goal that I needed to push through the exhaustion and soreness in my body and see my nightlong push to the end. With the town so close, I decided it was safe to finally stop for longer than it took to consume a couple brutishly opened cans of vegetables. There was a quick fix I knew for such situations and while it was unhealthy to do more than a few times in one go, it was a viable stand-in for lack of sleep and general wear and tear from so much exercise.

"Ain't no substitute for a good nap but this'll have to do..." I sighed aloud, popping the cork on one of the Extra-Strength healing potions from my medical supplies and downing half the bottle followed by a reluctant shot of Medix right into my neck.

The flowery liquid flooded my gut with a sense of warmth like a bowl of hot soup and I could feel all the angry lactic acid in my muscles, strained ligaments and tendons, and the general weariness of the journey wash away as the medicine did its repair work patching me up. It was an old trick I had learned during my days in the Corps and was nicknamed 'The Wash' and was a particular favorite of Pegusi and Steel Rangers who drove themselves to their limits and then some.

Within a minute or two I was feeling as ready and fresh physically as if I had just slept for ten hours straight although mentally there was an inescapable weight on the fringes to remind me that wasn't the case. I would need a long nap after all this was over but it was still safe to do this one or two more times before the inescapable effects of sleep depravation sent me into a tailspin; three if I was willing to test unknown limits of my improved body. I could only hope I had the fortitude to keep myself sane on the long march Northwest back towards New Pegasus to drop off my quarry and get paid. They wanted him alive which...was going to make for an interesting logistical challenge but one I would figure out once I had him in my hooves.

With a massive sigh to clear my head, I got my hooves back under me and proceeded at a stiff trot towards the entrance of the small town. It was another walled town but on a smaller budget having a hodgepodge fence of cut railroad tracks and rail ties topped with barbed wire. It was...sufficient for keeping out (most of) the local wildlife but was somewhat dubious when it came to bullets. The front gate was the same as Paletree being made from a freight car off its wheels with a ramp leading up and down from its reinforced double doors and a smattering of watchtowers composed of telephone poles, rail ties and sandbags punctuating its walls. Also like how Paletree had better finances for static defenses, this place had only basic Radigator leather armor and one or two of the light Model-4A pieces. Of course, the most obvious part about all of this? The fuckin' place was still standing...so that was something.

The guards at this gate were both mares which was nice and both of them were lookers; a lovely turquoise with creamy mint hair up on top of the railcar with a rifle and a pretty white with yellow by the door with a submachine gun. With my optics I saw them long before they saw me and I noticed when the one with the binoculars and the view indicated my approach to the other.

"Who are you?" The white and yellow one asked, seeming chipper if a tad wary given my walking arsenal appearance. "Never seen you around here before."

"That's because I've never been this far South before." I replied, keeping to a suitable enough cover story since I did not know if there was a Broker working this far South and didn't want to put them off too early. "Saw an explosion last night while on my way here from Paletree. They had talked about you guys being a small place on your own and I thought I'd be nice and find out what the fuck happened for them since they asked me to check in on you guys anyway."

"Oh! Well that's nice of them! We're perfectly alright, all thanks to those two strangers from yesterday."

"Oh...?" I asked with intense curiosity as this had to be no coincidence. "What do you mean?"

"Well...I'm not entirely sure what they did exactly but the Sheriff said they saved the town from those Steel Ranger bastards who were causing us problems with their gang."

"Huh...mind if I ask the Sheriff more about that? It sounds interesting and I think Paletree might like a little more info about what the hell happened since it wasn't a normal explosion."

"You're pretty well armed for a stranger, what are ya? A Merc like the Sheriff and the Deputy?"

"You could say that, yeah." I laughed, playing along since it was an easy option. "Lotta Hellhounds and Ferals up North so I brought my best just in case. Been on the road a long while and it's come in handy."

"Heh, I bet! Must have a pretty rich Company you work for to have such fancy gear. I thought the Sheriff and Deputy had damn good armor but damn girl."

"Heh heh, thanks. So...mind if I come in and talk with the Sheriff? I'm curious about what happened, they might be Mercs I know so it would be nice to hear the whole story."

"Oh, yeah! Sure thing." She replied with a smile, using her magic to open the heavy sliding door. "If you do meet a mare there called Toffee, tell her I'd love it if she would visit again and bring more of those candies she makes! My little boys adore her sweets and we would really appreciate some more sent our way. I don't get the chance to leave too often so if you wouldn't mind...?"

"I'll try and remember if I do!" I replied with a lot more cheer than I thought I had in me for such mundane conversation, mounting the ramp and passing into the town proper.

The only thing Pre-War to this town was a patched up train station that now seemed to be the Sheriff office and was more than likely the namesake for the settlement itself. Aside from that, it was a small collection of roughly built houses and a makeshift town hall formed from what might have been a dancing pavilion once upon a time. The town was mostly empty but the homemade saloon was packed and full of the sounds of celebration. Here and there a few foals happily played around homemade toys in the dirt and sand while their mothers gossiped happily nearby while keeping an eye on their kids. Hoping the law around here wasn't off getting drunk with the rest of the town, I made my way up the rickety steps of the old station and inside the shabby building.

The interior was dusty and lit by the incandescent bulbs of the old waiting lobby with two desks, one on either end of the rectangular building. With a locked gun cage in the center and some office odds and ends here and there, the place didn't look half bad. Only the desk to my right was occupied and I made my way over to the greying stallion in a Model-3 with black and green paint marking him as having been part of the Viper Company. Far from the biggest or most renowned Merc Company in the Syndicate but I had at least heard of them which was something in his favor. Companies came a dime a dozen with groups coming and going all the time so after awhile I only learned the ones that were worth a damn.

"Well now...you're a new one!" He grunted with interest, sitting forward after having his hindlegs kicked up onto his desk. "That's a hell of a lot more fancy than the Black Armor worn by those NER Veterans...desert camo, big ass rifle...holyyyy fuck me..."

Gods it felt great to be recognized on the spot without having to say a damn word...

"Glad to see I need no introductions around here." I laughed softly. "What's a member of the Vipers doing in a little town like this in the middle of nowhere?"

"What's the goddamn Lone Ranger doing this far South?" He retorted with a smirk, arguably asking the better question.

"Fine, I'll respect the badge on your armor." I replied, not wanting to make enemies too soon for bad behavior. Wielding my reputation like a weapon of intimidation was in bad taste and wasn't warranted, at least at the moment. "I won't bullshit you since you already know what I do. I'm on a Contract and everything points to my target having passed through here as well as having something to do with the explosion I saw while on my way here last night."

He scowled and cocked an eyebrow. I was on the hunt for someone who had apparently done a great deed for the town but I knew too much to try and bullshit with. It wasn't a direct threat but if he were any kind of smart he would feel the weight of my reputation and give me what I wanted willingly.

"Big Griffin in Steel Ranger Power Armor traveling with a Changeling Ghoul, impossible to forget so don't force me to make you remember. If it's any consolation, my Contract is strictly to bring him in alive so your town hero is not gonna die. Get it off your chest and tell me everything and I'll leave you guys alone."

He scowled more and I could see the scales being weighed in his mind before he sighed and laid back in his chair, lighting a cigarette and rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah, I saw both of 'em. Came in around four or five yesterday afternoon. Tough as nails looking pair and that bird is fuckin' massive with a real big machine gun of some sort. The Changeling was a sight to see too...glowed like a fuckin glowstick and wore DeadEye armor with a massive rifle, something in .50 cal at least."

"Good choice. What do they have to do with the explosion and something about some Steel Rangers with a gang?"

"Well..." He took a looong drag of his cigarette and blew it out, probably to calm his nerves. "Ya see...couple of fuckers in SR Power Armor showed up about two months ago and started demanding protection money and drugs. Naturally we told them to fuck off and they've been harassing us ever since with a posse of junkies and psychos. You know...the usual story."

"So lemme guess...you asked them to wipe them out for you since they had the firepower to take on Power Armor?"

"Exactly..." He chuckled nervously. "Sheriff and I have our hooves tied keeping an eye on this town, it being a liquor pit with bored stallions. Even with Column, our other Viper buddy who works the general store here, we don't have the firepower to take on a gang with Power Armor. Long story short for ya...apparently the Griffin guy rigged the batteries or whatever of their Power Armor to explode and a whole bunch of others blew up with them. Thought the wall was gonna cave in the boom was so fuckin' strong..."

"I can imagine, I felt the shockwave and I was thirty-miles away." I replied, feeling myself silently nod in approval of his handiwork. "Soooo...what, you pay them and they moved on?"

"They were looking for...some sorta old military bunker somewhere up in the Embers. Didn't say why but in my experience those sorta places are goldmines so I can't say I needed to ask why. Their price was so cheap and Lager, the bartender, knew where a road that most likely lead where they needed to go was. Easiest deal ever to make and since they wiped the whole damn gang off the face of the planet, we can finally be left alone again which is just how we fuckin' like it out here. Let the only people who come here be traders and the occasional good folks like them to handle shit we can't on our own."

"I see...that proves my suspicions correct so that's a solid bonus. Should I go and ask this Lager where exactly it is or would you happen to be able to save me the trip?"

"Uh, yeah no, I know it." He said quickly, standing up from his desk and directing me over to a wall where a yellowing map of the area was hung. "Somewhere around...here"

He picked up a marker from an old tin can nearby and marked a circle in the bend of the Eastern Ember Mountains which was roughly perpendicular to the custom map marker on my HUD. It was a wide area but with any luck I would pull my trick from last night and make the last fifteen or so miles to the foothills and haul ass looking for the road he had mentioned. I would be best served trying to get ahead of him if I could and cornering him somewhere in the mountain passes.

"When did they leave?"

"Couple of hours ago...they stayed the night here and took off early this morning. Said they had to get to the place ASAP and even said no to free drinks. Well...minus the Ghoul who took a couple big bottles of whiskey instead. They did take some Red Berryl we had on hoof last night though and I can't blame 'em for enjoying themselves. Apparently they got it on or somethin' but it ain't any of my business. They saved the town and that's good enough for me."

"Alright...anything else I should know?"

He thought long and hard before shaking his head, "Nope. We were grateful to them, they said you're welcome and took off at first light. Not much left to say."

"Hmm...very well then." I responded after a moment of thought. "Thank you for the information. And for not making it harder than it needed to be in telling me."

"Hey...I just know that lying to you is stupider than walking blindfolded past a RadWasp nest. You gonna leave us alone now? Me and the boys, we did our time with the Vipers and love the simplicity of this little town. We put the Syndicate behind us and they don't have any ponies working amongst us. Can't say I'm not happy that's the case. I gave you what you wanted, you don't have a reason to stick around here anymore."

"Indeed I don't." I replied with a short laugh. "Very well, thank you for your cooperation. I get they're good guys but a job is a job, it's not my place to ask why they're on my Contract. It's just my job to see it through."

"As is the gun-for-hire way out here." He replied, taking another long drag. "Best of luck or whatever, Ranger. Thanks for being more reasonable than some whackos in the Syndicate."

With a nod I left it at that and exited the office. It had been easier than I thought to tail this guy and now with a damned good lead, I finally had the foundations for a plan of attack. The front gate came and went without much notice as my mind was caught up in the multifaceted process of planning the next stages. I had failed to ask what model of Power Armor he wore although it was unlikely he would have known anyway so it was a 50/50 chance between being the T-45 or 51 being the most common PoA in the Wastes. One option would be to find a vantage point overlooking the trail somewhere up in the mountains and disable his armor with a discarding sabot AP round or two. The finned tungsten carbide darts were long and relatively slim, especially compared to the normal penetrator of one of my usual 25mm rounds, and would punch right through the armor with relative ease forcing him to abandon it. At that point, I would have to deal with Firefly who would more than likely retaliate and I was limited on options on how to take him out non-lethally. Then again...if I found a good enough vantage spot right above the trail somehow, I might have time to slide down onto it and have him at gunpoint while the big guy tries to get out of broken PoA.

I had no cause to harm Firefly as his name was only included as a mention in the dossier rather than listed as a primary or even secondary target. As a Gungho-Gun, I really had no reason to fuck with him and I had the feeling he would recognize me as well and thus not stand in my way. Whatever bunker they were looking for would have to wait a bit and Firefly could have it all to himself for all I cared. As much as I was curious to plunder it myself, I didn't want to be gone longer from Melody and Gold than I had to. The money from this gig would go a long way towards extensive expenses and having my name cleared from the Contract on me would make me feel a lot less anxious. Less for my own safety but that of Mel and Gold... They were competent with their guns but they were far from experienced which made them vulnerable targets, something Black Velvet had made all to glaring back in The Pile. No...Firefly could have the damn bunker, I needed the acquittal and hefty paycheck more than I needed to indulge my urge to explore that sorta thing. There was always another one in the wild waiting to be discovered, as what tended to happen in a country as militarized as Equestria. Some places were littered with them every few thousand feet so truly...I wasn't going to miss out on something I had seen hundreds of times before.

This was going to require more prep than my normal jobs given I rarely did Bag-'n-Tags anymore since for one I found them much more boring lacking the fun involved with blowing someone to bits from a distance. And for two, I had earned the right to be picky with what Contracts I took with a particular taste for assassinations and the like. With Garand in Power Armor and Firefly with his Mrk. I, they would both have access to an E.F.S which would require me to use a tool I usually didn't find myself needing all that often. StealthBucks came in handy when the terrain didn't favor killing them from so far away that concealment wasn't a major factor to account for. As an added bonus, with my underbarding being wired thickly with microfilament crystal and StealthBucks being compatible with PipBucks, the device would need far less energy to render me invisible, stretching the lifespan of the energy stored in the gem. However...the real winner in this was the fact the invisibility spell it produced replicated the same unique effect on the E.F.S targeting matrix as the Zebra invisibility cloaks. Long as I chose a great location, neither of them would even know I was there unless they somehow happened to turn and use S.A.T.S exactly in the place and direction I was hiding in.

'Besides...you are a fuckin' pro, bitch!' I thought to myself with a confident chuckle. 'You've handled a lot worse girl, a bird and a fucking DeadEye not expecting an ambush is going to be a walk in the park. Easiest fucking 300k I could ever make!'

******

It was harder finding the damned dirt road than it was picking them up on E.F.S. Soon as the faint orange and green blips on my compass started to appear, I plugged in the small jeweled amulet into the bottom of my PipBuck and lost all sense of depth perception as my body vanished from sight and all sound was muffled. I had already prepared ahead of time with a lighter dose of the Berryl nectar and set off at a full gallop in a wide arc around and then ahead of them. Although they had a few hours head start on me, I had managed to catch up with them thanks to their pace being slower than I expected and soon their markers disappeared behind me. Fifteen minutes after they had vanished from the compass the enchantment wore off rendering me visible although the chances of being detected were very low with how much distance I had put between us. Past that, I continued my frantic run towards the foothills and reached them in a third the time it would take them to do the same.

The Ember Mountains were as reddish brown as I had always known, boring and devoid of any plant life being monoliths of stone. The sun had vanished behind their looming shadows awhile ago and really made for a neat contrast against the sandy yellow ground although the monotone mountains made distinguishing one rock from another annoying. Eventually though, something as noticeable as a service road came into view in the crack between two of the smaller jagged peaks. Years of erosion had rendered it hardly usable but it was still rather wide compared to the trail I had been expecting. This lead me to guess something bigger was meant to use it like Carriages or...maybe even armored vehicles. Now...came the tricky part.

I had already seen to casting a spell to produce a small wind behind me to wipe away my tracks and with my generous head start, I decided to slow down my pace so I would have plenty of time to observe the path for a possible hiding place. The path was winding, hugging the side of a nondescript mountain and snaking its way through a claustrophobic valley of rock. Despite spending most of my military career near them, I had never actually gone deep into the Embers with the farthest being Camp Grease which was only a half mile in; just enough distance to be out of the general line of fire. Of course, there wasn't much to look at...it was a red and brown dirt road in a red and brown monoscape of barren stone. Once the path narrowed into another bottleneck between the mountain and a sheer cliff, I spied an outcropping roughly ten feet above the path that provided a great view of the road. The road rose steadily upwards on ahead and there was little distinguishing my target and other rock shelves in the area. With a deep breath to focus, I visualized my angle of attack and tightened down the straps on my equipment.

"Alright...doesn't look too hard..." I mumbled to myself, rolling my shoulders and psyching myself up for the incredibly steep angle. "Up there is a fuckin' cutie pie in some panties with a bowl of grapes! Yeah...totally! Here we goooo..."

With my goal in mind, I ran forward using my legs to propel me five feet up onto the cliff face and latched onto the jagged rock with my forelegs, my hind ones taking a second to find something to grip onto. Rock climbing had never been something I particularly loved, let alone without belay lines, but I was confident that even if I fell, I had enough padding and protection to avoid anything more than some bruising. I was careful to triple check each hoofhold as I went to make sure no loose stone chipped off and tumbled to the road below and possibly blow my cover. Within a few minutes of careful work I had reached the outcropping I wanted with just enough space to go prone in with full use of my bipod. It was jagged, uncomfortable and totally perfect for what I needed. Once I was settled in, laying as one with the earth as I could with my eye on my E.F.S, all that was left to do...was wait.

'Alright...got my StealthBuck plugged in, two more right there on standby...' I thought to myself in the interim, glancing around and taking stock of everything to make sure I was 100% ready. 'Completely cloaked, got my E.F.S on alert, BORS system connected, Sequoia loose and cocked annnnnd I've got five APFSDP-Ts loaded and ready to go. That's everything.'

The wait was spent in silence, the lingering happy high of the nectar making it all the more bearable. I was deeply entrenched in my happy place sitting behind a scope patiently waiting for my target to appear. Certainly had taken practice to be able to focus on a single task that could be days in the making with my ADD always seeking entertainment of some sort. It had finally clicked for me when I first tried out for the One-Star Riflemare qualifier soon after surviving my first real Command defending the Ponyarny Inlet. My mind had to wander, there was no arguing that front...however, with how easily motion catches my attention, I was well equipped to wait out hours and even days.
I remained in my zen-like state of wandering thoughts until the echoing sound of cheerful banter hit my ears from behind me. It took some time before it became intelligible but it was lively and completely unaware. Just as hoped.

"Ah'm tellin' yew, it ain't no goddamned slouch damnit!"

"And I'm telling you I don't fucking care if it can sing and dance and suck me off, I don't fucking want a 2012 in my fuckin' holster damnit! They're overrated as fuck and everyone with a decent budget has one!"

"Look, all Ah'm sayin' is .45 Automag is ah damned fine round and can do some serious damage at close range."

"What and .454 can't? I don't see the point you're trying to make here, Firefly."

"That ain't mah point damnit! Yew think yer so fuckin' high 'n mighty with tha' there revolver 'o yers but Ah ain't eva seen one of 'em an' Ah love wheelguns! Plus, it's made by th' same goddamn company as th' 2012!"

"The fuck does that matter? Unforgiven is part of a limited-edition run made just for Griffin Rangers who wanted something special and was a fuckin' military contract with my homeland. The model is one of our really old designs that I have a lot of memories with back in the day, so when I had the chance to get one in a bigass caliber, I fuckin' took the opportunity! Who cares if FillyArms made both of them, this one is just better!"

'Fucking nerds...' I chuckled silently to myself, listening as the conversation got closer and closer. 'Sounds like a conversation I could get involved in...

"Still think it's ah damn fine pistol, Garand...yew ain't gunna change mah mind."

"Don't need to, I'm right."

"Oh fuck yew...what ya got against 'em anyway? They're everywhere 'cause ponies know they're damned good!"

"Ohhhh boy...lemme tell ya! They have limited customization options off the bat unless you get someone to put a rail on it or learn to do it yourself, you only get seven fucking rounds that aren't that fast and don't do shit to even basic Kevyarn body armor that's worth a damn..."

"Alrigh', Ah think Ah got th' idea..."

"It's so overused it's a stereotype for anyone who thinks they're hot shit, especially Mercs, it has a super slim mag well and can be finnicky to reload quickly, it's a single-stack mag which again has less capacity than other pistols out there annnd...they don't make 'em in my size. Even if they did, I definitely wouldn't have it chambered in something like fuckin' .45 Automag. I could probably handle one in the same caliber as my revolver if they were adventurous enough to even try something like that. Don't get me wrong, I don't completely hate the damn thing but I just think they're overhyped and cookie cutter; so few of them look different from another. I mean, to be honest if someone pulls a 2012 on me, I just wanna fucking laugh and let them try.

"Says th' bird in ah walkin' tank..."

"Oh trust me, even without the Power Armor I'd still fuckin' laugh at one. My plate carrier can take .338s on a good day and my Stahlhelm is supposedly able to handle APs in .308. Haven't had to test that yet but either way, both those rounds are a lot stronger than a dinky-ass little .45-cal. I think I'll be fine."

They were directly under me now, the sound of their conversation changing angles as my ledge blocked some of the noise. Within a few seconds it was my time to shine as their forms finally appeared in sight. Garand was taller than I had imagined, the BORS computer estimating his height at around seven foot; all information had been pointing to a smaller Griffin like the ones you saw everywhere. His height was unusually tall for a Griffin but his armor was perhaps even more of an eye-opener. It was a mix-match of a few T-51 pieces and a newer, more refined Power Armor I had yet to encounter. The shoulders and back seemed to be formed from smaller pieces welded together with a seamless bead but they had a gleam to them that screamed an alloy with a very high concentration of Celestium. The helmet to his Power Armor was currently off though his head was still covered with a desert camo Greifenländer helmet that was an uncommon but quantifiable object amongst Talon members. Couldn't even get a sense for his feather color as his neck was covered in a wide tan scarf of some sort before it disappeared under the tall neck guard of his PoA. Either way, Firefly had confirmed target identity as the name Garand was too unusual to be insane coincidence. Besides...a Griffin in Power Armor? In this day and age? Please...

Firefly was dressed as he ever was in the dusky tan-brown canvas duster of the classic Mrk. I Ranger armor, a reward to the DeadEyes of First Recon. Sure it was outdated compared to even the IIs of the Veteran Rangers, but it was still a hardy armor well suited for snipers and lone wolf types. If it was good enough for the original Rangers then it was damned good enough for the Post-War elite. (I entrusted Gold's life to one as a sign of how strongly I regarded it still.) Comparable to last time I saw him though, he had added on some supplemental pieces of Model 4 to cover the shoulders and protect the neck more, which I applauded as you could never leave too many chinks in your protection. I could only guess what other additions lay under the coat since the last time I had seen him in person. Slip into S.A.T.S anyyyy second now...

"Uh-huh, sure...yew gonna bleed out afta three shots in th' thighs 'er somethin'. Yew ain't fuckin' immortal."

"Won't matter, they'll be dead and I'll have a health potion popped and down the hatch before I even have a chance to feel woozy. We've got tough hides under all this fur and even tougher bodies under all that. Would have to be three damned precise shots to knock me outta the fight with just a .45."

"Yew just have tah be right sometimes, don't ya?"

"Sometimes, yeah I just fucking do. Holyshitmove!"

Boom! The moment my magic twitched the trigger the bastard flinched with such speed for a giant in half-ton armor sending my tungsten penetrator harmlessly into the road just where his leg had been frozen in time just a second before. S.A.T.S came to life once again for a few more milliseconds for me to get a better grasp of the situation and adapt immediately. In a wonderful twist of luck, Firefly was on the ground towards me apparently having been knocked or thrown that direction by Garand who had moved towards the mountainside and away from me. Taking advantage of the situation and my invisibility, I flung myself forward and onto a dazed Firefly dragging my AMR behind me in my magic. With my ambush at least partially successful, I quickly wrestled my meatshield into position and held my rifle up and at the towering bird leveling a bizarre LMG back at me. A bold move but it was far from a bad one.

"ATHENA!!" He bellowed, all I could see being his bright orange eye glaring at me through his ACOG scope. "Show yourself like a REAL fucking mare and give me a fight worth my fuckin' time!"

Not one to pass up a chance at some vain theatrics, I decided to indulge him. With a wave of my thoughts my PipBuck hit the pause button on the enchantment rendering me and my clear advantage visible to the naked eye. His dark blue brow furrowed in anger as I came into view although I had to assume he noticed the big fucking bore of my rifle and recognized the danger. At this distance I could let off two shots and penetrate almost anywhere I hit before the .308 APs on his belt had time to ding off my armor and bruise the shit out of Firefly. Naturally I was gambling with Firefly's life in the event the bird had no real regard for him but given the friendly banter I had overheard, I felt I had the better hoof in this game. He was an...environmental factor that happened to work in my favor, it wasn't personal.

"Peekaboo you fuck, you!" I laughed at him through my mic. "Sorry about this Firefly, this ain't personal I promise."

"You let him the fuck go, bitch!" Garand growled, not lowering his weapon or even blinking through his death glare. "If this ain't personal with him, don't fuckin' involve him and take your beef with the fucker you're after."

"I would but given you somehow fucked my first plan, this is me improvising. Sorry it ain't up to your standards..." I sighed, rolling my eyes even though he couldn't see that. "Besides, I like having the ball in my court."

"You want the ball in your fucking court? Well fuck you, how about this then?"

I hadn't noticed earlier as he had his bigass LMG pointed at me but across his smooth, boxy breastplate was a colossal revolver in an equally massive holster that was in a weirdly old fashioned design. His armor popped open in the back in multiple sections allowing him to climb completely out. Within a moment he was standing before me, wearing nothing but a plate carrier, tactical rig, a tan undershirt and desert flecktarn camo pants with some nice combat boots fit to his paws. He settled into a fighting stance and glared at me in blatant defiance, an open challenge to fair unarmed combat. Goddamnit...he knew my vain weakness without even knowing it...

"One on one bitch! Show me some real fighting! He says you're a legend? Prove it then."

"Fine, we can do it your way then." I replied, letting Firefly go much to his visible and audible relief. "Firefly, this ain't your fight and if you make it yours..."

"Yeah, yeah...Ah know." He grunted nervously and standing to the side. "Ah get marked ah target fer standin' in yer way. Ah know th' rules, Crete."

"Fine, big guy. I'll fight you on your terms." I said to Garand, taking all my weapons out of their respective holsters and sheathes and depositing them with Firefly who knew better than to try and run off with anything. "Don't touch the blade of that sword unless you want every drop of glowing blood in your body getting sucked up by a Blood Gem. Don't bitch that I didn't warn you."

He eyed Little Fang nervously and took a careful step back from it while I took off my duster and helmet, setting them on the ground alongside my weapons so we were both in our underbarding and more or less helmetless. He had some serious speed on his side but then again so did I. Based off his incredible dodge of my rifle shot, I knew he was nimble for his size. He had strength, height and goddamn claws but I had the advantage of being smaller and more flexible in combat in more ways than one. I tended to prefer bigger targets like him...they gave me more surface area to grapple with. The whole time I prepared he stared at me, eying me up and down with his bright orange eyes as attentive as an eagle on the hunt. If he thought to intimidate me by playing some predator/prey mindgame with his size and strength then he was going to get carted back to New Pegasus disappointed. With my helmet off the warm mountain air was uncomfortable on my exposed face, the rest of my body was still secure and temperature-controlled inside my armor.

"Ready when you are, big guy. Show me what you got!"

The first jabs were quick but avoidable and offered me the chance to duck and dive my way closer to him. I wouldn't waste time punching his chest or head and instead delivered my first blow, a jump-assisted uppercut, right under his jaw. He reeled back a step in seeming surprise, a common reaction to my practiced speed, which gave me the chance to parry two blind jabs and an elbow of destruction intended for my throat. He recovered almost immediately and grew more aggressive, adding his talons directly into his attacks which flowed between boxing and advanced CQC techniques taught in the Army. It was surprising to see a Paladin knowledgeable in the old General Army tactics but refreshing all the same as it forced me to think. Most home-taught fighters adopted a variously sloppy but effective style that danced around techniques and forms used in codified martial art styles but this guy knew the core curriculum. He showed efficient and disciplined control over his movements and his mastery of the tense art of combining offense with defense was most impressive for a Griffin. Knowing his strength trumped mine I went on an almost pure defensive hoof, only getting in a retaliatory hit every so often as I hoped to wear him down until an opportunity presented itself. It was far from the best plan I could come up with but it was the best use of my talents for this relatively well-trained freight train of a bird.

I was grateful for the latent buzz of nectar in my system as my tolerance for pain and exhaustion was just high enough to let me outlast his rather concerning stamina. The guy was a straight up machine and pushed the limits of my agility forcing me to pull deeper from my bag of tricks. He declared fair combat and I intended to follow the rules unless he cheated first. Somewhat unexpectedly he continued to fight fairly, avoiding cheap shots but striking ferociously and in rapid succession leaving my forelegs numb, my bones bruised and my body thoroughly rattled. As our opening seconds dragged on past the first minute mark, and then the second, his techniques and patterns continued to evolve. The rigid and pragmatic style taught to old Army grunts loosened up to become something particularly Griffin, making use of their unique blend of limbs and natural in-born gifts. Eventually though, I outlasted the unrelenting barrage of blows and saw my moment the second a semi-weakened punch was just off-target and distracted enough to make use of.

He leaned too hard into his punch despite the weak power behind it and brought his face, and more particularly his long and sensitive beak, into range. The margins were slim with a follow up claw on its way but I found the momentary burst of energy I needed to quite literally beat him to the punch and give his beak a nice, solid whack directly under the tip. The results were immediate and effective, sending him reeling back once more with watery eyes and an unsteady stance simply begging for exploitation. Leaping up and forward, I coiled myself around the fist of his right arm and used my momentum to push his arm up and away; my hooves connecting with the cliff wall and giving me a springboard for the next step in the technique. With a loud, yelping cry of pain, his right shoulder popped out of its socket with an uncomfortable grinding sensation that I could feel in my bones. He would probably take more 'convincing' before he acknowledged defeat but this was a terrific leap in the right direction for opening up some potential negotiation. With some luck, he had some brains to offset all that brawn and would be more...receptive to coming along quietly.

"OW! Godfuckingdamnit you fucking cum-sucking pussy!" He snarled in pain as I jumped away from a wild punch from his still-working left arm.

"I believe that should be enough to say that I win." I replied with a smirk and a mocking bow, having more than a few bruises from his colossal punches despite the excellent padding of my armor. "We've got a long ass way to go so I can turn your ass in for payment. I've got some incoming debts for some renovations I'm doing to my new house and I needed this money yesterday."

"Oh boo fucking hoo..." He mocked, clenching his fist on his bad arm and gritting his beak before twisting it and popping it back into place on his own. "Grrr...you know for that, I think Imma get mean with you this time around..."

I thought he was talking up a big game but that thought was quickly dashed as he took up another fighting pose, his eyes narrowed and full of a grim determination I couldn't help but acknowledge. I had survived round one in decent form and when comparing our injuries, I was clearly in a better off state than he was. All I needed to do was humor him a little while longer until he made another exploitable mistake in his offense.

"Round two huh? Goddamnit...fine, let's get this shit over with..." I sighed, taking a deep breath and steeling myself against more of his hammer-like blows while preparing to take every advantage of his right shoulder in its current state.

This second wave of blows was less complex than the first as his damaged shoulder wasn't nearly as cooperative with advanced techniques, nevertheless it was no less violently aggressive. Duck, dodge, slide a pace to the right and lunge, throw out a spinning kick and prepare for an immediate counter attack. Ours was a deadly dance, the choreography left purely up to instinct and disciplined training to conduct as we each worked circles around the other searching for anything we could use. A poorly blocked swipe left me with deep gashes in my face that bled into my eyes and the bruising in my chest from a kick from nowhere was noticeably impacting my performance. That being said, with my target having a hard time defending himself I was able to sneak in more than a few particularly nasty punches and armored kicks right into his unarmored shoulder. That was...until he managed to reverse my momentum attempting to disable his other arm and threw me like a sack of potatoes several feet, colliding with his stationary armor and sending stars into my half-blinded vision. He had screamed something during all that but the cathedral's worth of ringing in my brain made it impossible to remember anything from the last three seconds. This wasn't quite what I had hoped from this weird situation...

Getting to my hooves, the helmet of his Power Armor caught my attention out of the corner of my eye sitting nearby my hooves. My hefty collision with his armor had knocked it off of wherever he had stored it previously but what truly caught my attention was the paint on it. Stark white markings covering the entire front including the beak and nostrils...it was a fucking skull pattern! A highly stylized avian skull at that! One...with a distinctly Greifenländer design that couldn't be mistaken for something from Griffinstone. The SR didn't allow for that sort of thing in their ranks and it was a symbol I had only ever seen in a time long lost to Balefire. Something here just wasn't adding up.

"Where the fuck did you get this?" I barked with a little more anger than I was expecting over a stolen piece of the past.

"The fuck you talking about, my helmet?" He retorted with suspicion, keeping his fists raised and his eyes staring dead ahead. "Was issued with that fucker, dumbass. What do you expect?"

"I'm talking about the decal you feathery fuckass!" I growled back, holding up the helmet in my magic and pointing directly at the paintjob. "Who the fuck did you steal this pattern from?"

"Nobody, you sack of shit! The fuckin' Plague Birds birthed that symbol and I'll be fucked if I let you think I fucking stole that shit from anyone!"

Did...did he just say...Plague Birds?

"Say. That. Again." I commanded, wanting to make sure I had heard him correctly.

"It's a fuckin' Plague Birds original numbnuts! Don't you fucking dare accuse me of stealing something I helped create damnit!"

I was...absolutely dumbfounded. It was like everything clicked into place in my mind at once. The name, the helmet, the fucking knowledge of the Birds...I had to be sure.

"Prove it." I challenged, staring him directly in the eye with all the righteous anger my spine could handle.

"Captain Garand K. Enfield of the Steel Ranger Corps, Serial Number E-99208-0115. Why the fuck you even care? That won't mean jack shit to you."

"....Lieutenant Colonel Athena M. Crete, Desert Ranger Corps, Serial Number A-99226-6479." I replied, flabbergasted beyond belief.

"Desert Rangers? Bullfuckingshit." He snapped with understandable dubiousness.

I pawed a hoof to my chest, pointing directly at the faded crest of my Corps still proudly painted on my breastplate and waited for his response which was more amused than anything else.

"Nice, but you could’ve gotten that from a corpse in the Badlands for all I know." He snorted, eying me with an odd smugness. "If ya wanna prove your case, you're gonna have to do better than that."

"Fine. How about this then?" I challenged, yanking my Chain of Remembrance from around my neck and tossing my holotags to him once detached from the main chain.

His still-working arm snatched it out of the air effortlessly and his eyes narrowed as he looked over the small piece of tech. Holotags were nothing new with even the Steel Rangers of today capable of producing their own limited batches for their soldiers but mine were naturally unique in this day and age. The pair of small oval-shaped bits of steel and tech were truly only glorified micro data pads that contained everything a government or military goon needed to know about me. Name, date of birth, nationality, even an incredibly out-of-date service record and photo ID of myself in my dress uniform for good measure. These, coupled with the Lieutenant Colonel's silver leaves fused to the lapels of my duster, were ironclad identifiers that anyone who gave a shit about them wouldn't be able to deny. As for him, well...he had given me enough information already to feel safe in believing his side of things. The helmet, the armor, even his face and colors were all jogging my memory in brief spurts of remembrance. It was hard to make a forgery of something none but the Southern Front and Greifenländer of years past were intimate with. Besides...I owed some members of his team a debt that had roots in the hours leading up to the Great War.

"Fuck off...there's no fucking way!" He exclaimed, a laugh of disbelief buried under all the incredulousness. "Bullfuckingshit you fuckin' made it through that!"

"You tell me." I shrugged, relaxing my stance in light of these revelations. "I'm only around thanks in no small part to your buddy Peter. Might have forgotten about you but his is a name and memory I can't forget."

"How the hell do you know that name?"

"Well I'd have to be telling the truth now wouldn't I?" I retorted while hazy images of the past flickered past my minds' eye. "Flat owl face, dark grey feathers, had a Kyotian dagger or...was it a shortsword? Unusual armor and a foreign-made rifle of some sort with an off-set scope mounting."

"Yeah...that's Peter..." He breathed in awe. "Thick accent and a loner?"

"Yeah! Somethin' like that heh..."

"Yew sayin' yew two not only are both from before th' Great War but also fuckin' met?!" Firefly exclaimed in disbelief.

"I'm the first to be a skeptic about this sort of thing but you know way to much to be lying..." I replied to both of them in general. "One final test then. An old classic. Klutzy?"

"Draconequus." He replied after a moment of thought. "Holy shit this can't be fucking real..."

"Th' fuck?! “Can somepony please fuckin’ tell me wut in th’ fresh hell it is y’all are sayin’?!" Firefly whined, completely out of the loop like it was an inside joke which, in a way, it kinda was.

"Old friend or foe code." Garand explained for me, his eyes as wide as mine were in disbelief. "Don't remember the story behind it but it was effective, I remember that much."

"It was an old joke that turned out to be a great easy test of whether someone was an ally or not in the dark. Zeebs from the Empire could not pronounce Draconequus properly and rolled their Rs and pronounced 'quus' as 'quis'. You learned pretty quick to pick up on a botched attempt to pronounce it and could open fire as soon as you heard the first rolling 'r'." I finished for him, suddenly flushed with memories I thought I had lost.

"Who was your CO?"

"Colonel Little Horn. You didn't have one as you...fuck...I forget why but you definitely didn't have a normal CO. Special bird privileges or some shit."

"It's because we were on special assignment from our King." He sighed, rolling his eyes at me. "We only did what we deemed beneficial to the interests of our country and superiors which just so happened to mostly coincide with what you guys needed. In other words...we did whatever the fuck we wanted because we weren't technically part of your army. Every time we got promotions here, they were reflected back home and we were only wearing our country's ranks translated through yours. I'm still the property of the Koniggreif to this day, though I bet at this point he's written us all off as KIA. I know I would have by now."

"Right, you guys were special. All the authority with none of the accountability, a wartime officer's dream." I chuckled, tossing him his helmet with the fight completely forgotten now.

"Uh...great tha' y'all be connectin' on th' spiritual level 'er whateva but are yew two fighting or naw? Ah'm fuckin' confused here!"

"I...dunno, are we fighting?" Garand asked pointedly. "I'm with him, I've no idea what's going on anymore."

"Um...I guess not?" I laughed sheepishly. "I mean...for fuck's sake! Of all the motherfuckers to outlive the War it's you?? How the fuck did that even happen?!"

"First of all, I'm only a fourth into my lifespan so to hell with any old jokes you had planned. And as for number two, fuck you, that's how."

"Oh please, you can do better than that..." I groaned. "Fine, I'll go first then if it'll make ya feel better."

"Yeah, go right the fuck ahead because last time I saw ya you looked a lot like you do now and you sure a shit ain't no Gryphon hybrid. Care to spill the beans on this whole eternal youth shit you got goin' on?"

"Full-blooded Equestrian and proud bitch... Long fucking story short? Ran with my Squad and some others to Maripony Research Base to cut off a Crimson Dragon team trying to detonate Balefire in the facility and infect a third of the country in Taint as a sort of coups-de-gras. Peter was there too, offered to join us as a sniper and provided us with an overwatch during the run up to the site...dunno what happened to him after we went underground. Down below I...I got exposed in an accident of sorts in the waste disposal plant and the short time of infection was enough to do some work on me internally. Thankfully the Ministry of Arcane Science had staff on site who managed to stop the infection before I turned into an abomination like a Chymirryd and with it I gained some stuff that would help me survive. Next thing I know...Great War happens and the pause button on my age has been stuck on ever since. I can move faster, punch harder and fight on longer than ever before and arcane radiation can't lay a claw on me."

"Is that right...?" He grunted, his eyes narrowing with an unexpected flare of anger. "So Peter fuckin' faked his fuckin' death...that motherfucker..."

"Oh...? Was he...supposed to be dead before that?"

"Uhhh, yeah?" He snapped back. "He was supposed to be dead as of...like fucking September of that year! More than a month before the bombs. Goddamn motherfucker...we had a fuckin' traditional pyre burial for you and everything you fuckin' dick..."

"Uh...all tha' aside, yer ah Mutant then?" Firefly asked, looking at me with surprise in his milky blue eyes. "Like Ah Ghoul 'er somethin' like tha'?"

"Yes except Rads don't do anything for me or to me and I don't look a day over thirty-one or so." I replied candidly feeling an odd sense of relief at finally having an appropriate reason to talk about these sort of things. It wasn't every day you meet same person twice two-hundred years apart.

"Well good shit, Crete! Always wondered some shit about ya an' this here answered some of 'em. Now...ya gonna be nice an' tell her yer side 'o th' story?" Firefly prodded Garand, jabbing a hoof at him. "This mare is ah force 'o nature so if she done stop attackin' ya it's fer ah goddamned good reason."

"Ugh, fine!" He sighed, rolling his eyes. "The Plague Birds and I, minus Peter..., were assigned security detail for all the high ranking officers and other VIPs along with two Companies of soldiers including some of you NadPads. After Army Group South took Kyopsis we were sent back to the Southern Front till the end of the War. Apparently one or two of those asshats we were protecting got a heads-up about the incoming M.A.D situation so they decided to fuck off. Only had time to grab a few of the whole security team before we headed right into Death Valley towards some secret Stable they had built in the Badlands specifically for them. Problem was...at that point it was pretty far behind enemy lines with the bombs coming at any time. Fought till there was only a dozen of us left with me the last standing member of my Squad...and that's when the sirens went off up and down the Valley. Everyone just...knew they were the real deal and with a place of refuge from horrible death now opened up, Zeebs and ponies alike piled inside until we had to shut the door just as the Great War started. Rest is ancient history."

"And...you just lived in there for two-hundred years?" I asked with absolute disbelief, thinking over some of the many horror stories about Stables I had heard over the years. "Doing what exactly?"

"Nothing interesting if that's what you're asking. I got sick and tired of that fucking place after the one-fifty mark and let myself out one day. They had started opening the front door a few years before that to conduct recon and I had head from one of the scouts some rumors that the SR survived the War too. My life was next to pointless after that door first shut so knowing the surface was safe to return to, I decided it was time to get off my ass and get back to doing what made me fucking happy once upon a time. Unfortunately the long ass trip I took to regroup with them was all for nothing in the end. They were a bunch of fuckin' psychopaths who are too far up their own asses to have Souls anymore and...eventually it just got too much for me and I left. Went West to get out of their territory even though I know their beef with the NER could get my ass in some sorta trouble."

"Heh...the price on your head indicates you killed more than a few Rangers. Just how many then?"

"Eh...something like seventeen? Eighteen?" He laughed, looking a bit pleased at the question. "Buncha zealot weirdos...felt good lemme tell ya! Plenty of those bastards deserve more than a bullet or two to the skull, lemme tell ya."

"Indeed. And now you're out West getting away from them and their bullshit." I thought out loud, piecing together his story from the scraps of information on offer. "That part makes sense enough. What still doesn't make sense is why here of all places? I don't mean West of the Gap, I mean here. Right fucking here in the Ember fuckin' Mountains. I know you're headed to some sort of bunker up this road somewhere but what I wanna know is why you guys know about this place? I've never heard of this place. Spent almost my entire career in the Corps in this region and not once did I ever hear about any military installation built in these godsforsaken canyons."

"Well..." He laughed, looking knowingly at Firefly who laughed as well like a giddy colt with a secret to share with his friends. "Don't we got a story to tell ya!"

**********

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Desert Sands Through an Hourglass

Author's Note

Hey all! Sorry for the delay on this chapter. Started a new job recently so the only time I really have to write is on the bus ride in on my phone and the occasional weekend. Got a few minor revisions I need to make on Chapter 39 to reflect some stuff mentioned in this chapter so I apologize in advance if some info is contradictory. I've got a general idea for where I want the plot to go but there's a lot of on-the-spot brainstorming as I try to make more sense of everything and how it all corelates so this sorta thing is gonna happen from time to time as I further polish the lore. Hope you all enjoy!

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Desert Sands Through an Hourglass

When it comes to my favorite climates to be in, you could call me a bit of a traditionalist. Or just nostalgic, it really could be argued both ways when it came to my love of four seasons with temperatures that rarely hit any extremes. Such was the climate of PonyVille where I grew up...could always expect more or less the same of each season year after year. Of course, most of that was thanks to the old traditions becoming a tourist goldmine for those seeking to get in touch with our past in a government approved way.

That, and just the fact the town just loved the old ways and had fought in court for the right to keep them. It was the only town in the entire country to still perform the actual physical act of Winter Wrap-Up or the Running of the Leaves and was the largest town still using Pegusi to manage the local weather. Somehow they managed to both embrace the new world of industry and keep it at an arm's length in order to keep traditions alive. Naturally it helped to have multiple surviving residents who were touched by the power of the Elements of Harmony still living there who knew all the stories and traditions. But still...it was nice to live in a place with a spring, summer, autumn and winter; each coming and going more or less like clockwork year in and year out. Predictable, comfortable and consistent.

Now...contrasting that to present-me was enough to make anyone question some of the choices I made along the way. Before me, all I could see was sand. And not the reddish clay sand of the Badlands or even the dunes of the San-Palomino which I had chosen to live in for its proximity to Camp Macintosh. No...even the San-Palomino had some life to spruce up the landscape with yucca, agave, aloe, cacti and many other humble, hardy plants dotting the hot emptiness that can keep one alive in a pinch. Here...there was nothing but sand. No bits of dried clay or dirt, just endless rolling dunes of pure golden sand punctuated every now and then by a jagged hill or mountain of sandstone. While being good for at least some boon of navigating the emptiness as well as a source of shade, they also stood as the tallest thing around a girl without wings can perch on. Why? Well...

"Knock, knock."

Oh gods here we go again...

"What, Buck? You're a master at speaking your fucking mind so don't play coy with dumb knock-knock jokes again and just tell me what the hell it is you wanna say."

"Eh fuck you...you take any fun outta this dumbass job...fine. There ain't nothing here. I know it, you know it, the Zeebs know it because they know where the fuck they are and it ain't fuckin' here!"

"Our sentry patrol ends when?"

"13:00 hours, but the sheet should really say, 'after you've proven pretty damn well there's nobody fucking out there'. Let's get back to the Mauler and rack up for the afternoon and let the others take an early start on the route. Ain't a damn thing out here worth you or I's time."

"Just because we aren't constantly under fire like up North doesn't make our time out here useless. Boring? Absolutely, no arguments or doubts at all about that fact. But remember...all it takes is one moment of lost focus for one of them to make a killing blow out here whether its up close and personal or a mile and a half out with windage. Besides, it's a waste of ammo to pop off shots into the aether just to vent some steam...especially when you don't like using suppressors, you loud piece of shit."

It was just more of the same... The push South had started the moment the Kampfwagens were delivered to Camp nearly two weeks before with much applause from everyone able to attend the 'unboxing'. We all knew deep down that we weren't all that important compared to the other Fronts in the eyes of the brass, hence why it came as no surprise that yet again it had taken a few years for the tech to hit our armories. Still, they were tremendously impressive works of mechanical death given life by big birds extremely clever with their talons. And for once, we weren't getting just hand-me-down surplus equipment which was something to celebrate at least.

"Buck..." I sighed, glancing away from my scope to glance at the aerial cam-feed from his helmet. "Do you always have to bitch about shit? Can I go one fucking day without hearing another way life is boring or unfair to you and your fucking 'needs'?"

"Oh reallyyyyy?" He huffed, his field of view pointing towards the mountain I lay prone on. "You've put up with it for years, the fuck you pick today to suddenly bitch back about it?"

"Because...it's just annoying when it's me stuck with you one on one." I groaned, looking back into my scope to recalculate windage and humidity which had not changed once. "At least with the others around they can help kite your bullshit and filter it down so it's more digestible for everyone involved. But when it's just me and you...god you're a whiny bitch sometimes."

"Yeah? Well so is everyone else, so fuck you." He retorted with a laugh. "You gotta at least agree with me that there's been jack nor shit to look at or listen to or fuckin' shoot at in seven hours in this bitchass place. Ain't gonna likely change in the last half hour of our patrol. We can just take our time getting back."

"Thirty minutes? You can't wait thatlong to go back to bed?"

"I promise to stop bitching for today if you agree to do it."

As much as my attempts to keep myself focused and dedicated strictly to the mission worked, I had to admit that deal truly didn't sound so bad. We had shown an exemplary performance in recent weeks and the General had been silent, at least when it came to talking to us directly. He still went on and on in meetings but he never held any of us back afterwards so...things could be a lot worse. Plus...Zecuro had been silent the entire time. Goddamnit...

"Fine..." I groaned in defeat, getting to my hooves and keeping the scope up to my eye in my magic. "Come and pick me up then. We can walk for fifteen then fly in the rest of the way like everything is all honkey-dory."

"Hell yeah! Already on my way down!"

The helmet feed on my HUD dove towards the mountain I stood on at high speeds and I took a moment to check my surroundings for loose objects; crouching a bit in preparation for having my stomach drop like a sick rock. Within a few moments I was suddenly yanked off the ground, held aloft by Buck Beak who quickly attached me to the harness on his torso for a quick flight out of the area. The first time we had practiced this, it was a very unnerving feeling as there was something profoundly primal about the maneuver; truly I could feel for any creature that was unfortunate to become dinner for any kind of bird of prey. After only a week's worth of doing it though, it quickly became just another familiar part of the job. Another unsettling routine to fall into in a growing list too mind-numbing to account for.

"Uh...take it we're gonna take our time getting back by air only?" I asked as we continued to gain altitude instead of descending down to the dunes below.

"What, scared of heights?" He chuckled, giving his wings a wobble which caused my stomach to lurch in a very uncomfortable way.

"H-hey, fuck you..." I groaned with as much of a growl as I could add in. "Y-you have wings, I don't...it's a hard thing to get used to alright? Not like I spend hours a day zipping around the skies with a pair of wings I have full control over. You've got the reins on this one and not for nothin' but that's not a happy concept."

"Yeah, yeah...ya boring ass ground walkin' non-wing having ass pony..."

I didn't even bother to reply with the technicality that Pegusi were ponies too. Not a single one of us was a Pegasus on the Squad so it's not like any of us had something that could equate to actual flying experience. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, Buck had to be number one and that was that; having a Pegasus on the team would probably only make his cocky competitiveness worse. His silence today had been bought at a price after all...

Much as I could gripe about his attitude and M.O, I couldn't deny that he knew how to handle the skies. He wore heavier armor and used bigger guns for a multitude of borderline selfish reasons, but he could still fly at over 50mph in full gear and bring the heat where it mattered. An empty wilderness of desert sands encircled the world below us as we glided a few thousand feet in the air at an easy, lazy pace that kept us free of turbulence. All the while, I dangled from his belly holding my rifle aloft and panning our surroundings in a continuation of what I had been doing anyway the last seven-ish hours. We made for an interesting pair but it wasn't without reason; I was the best Marksmare in the team and he our only guy in the air. Use him to plant me in a good vantage point and that whole immediate area is immediately covered and watched over like a hawk. Being blessed with an Anti-Machine Rifle meant I could engage targets alone that normally would require three or more to comfortably defeat. In an environment as open and desolate as the People's Republic of Kyopsis, I could consider myself one of the deadliest predators in the desert.

It was strange to consider that this barren wasteland was once considered an Empire of it's own at one point; although to be frank, that time was eons before I was even born. The Kingdom of Shifting Sands had lost its Empire thousands of years before during complicated tribal disputes that tore the entire region South of the Badlands apart at the seams. History classes had described how wide their territory was but not even pictures or holovids could help your mind grasp the idea of a desert country the width and 3/4 the length of Equestria. Comparatively, the San-Palomino was perhaps a fifth of the size with twice as much life and variety in it rather then endless sand dunes and a heavy heat that never stopped. How a place this inhospitable managed to claw out a Kingdom let alone an Empire was just a goddamned miracle as far as I could see it. Of course, that was all before the other Empire invaded from the East over twenty years before and steamrolled the whole nation within another two.

News of our presence here was surely already circulating in one way or another throughout the region as it was hard to ignore a massive influx of panicked and wounded troops belonging to your conquerors suddenly rushing in from the North. Hopefully, like the Duchy of Crystal, the native Baladi ponies would welcome us at least warmly for kicking out a hostile force that had claimed their lands from across an ocean for the last twenty-ish years. Of course...that was assuming Equestria had finally had it's fill of annexation and planned to leave it alone with loaned materiel and 'military advisors'. Would be a lot of soldiers to leave behind but hey...beat having to bail them out twice and conquered territory is a good way of easing in fresh blood from the uptick in draft quotas. Good blend of dull patrol work, possible brush of danger with residual resistance cells, charitable work rebuilding homes and the possibility of an unruly civilian population to contend with. Nothing overly dangerous but not too dull either.

"What's your thoughts?" I asked out of the blue without realizing I had given no context for him to form an answer to.

"Onnnn...what?" He snickered, peering down under himself to glance at me. "Got plenty of thoughts on the grill, tell me what kind ya want and how much and I'll stuff ya full."

"Oh shut it..." I laughed, his blatant innuendo at least worth a chuckle. "About what this place is gonna look like in...oh, I dunno...two years from now? How we're gonna treat the people and all that fun shit."

"Uhh...I dunno." He grunted in response. "Never really cared enough to wonder about that sorta thing until just now. Why are you thinking about it though? All the kinky shit you get up to and your armor addiction to think about and you choose that? Borrrrrrring..."

"Well...look, I've never been a part of a liberation force before, alright? I've always been homebound keeping Equestria all safe and sound and the annexations were all way back when I was still a clueless lil' filly. I don't have a lot of experience with foreign cultures and...to be honest when was the last time this place was brought up in recent memory that isn't considered very old news?"

"Seen this shithole on a map a few times...about as much of a fuck as I give about this place." He shrugged, our flight wobbling just a little as he did. "Why? Got big plans for this lovely place?"

"Hardly..." I snorted without hesitation. "I don't like being here any more than you do and the only reason its bearable is thanks to the underbarding. No, I wanna get outta here as fast as possible...but when it comes to how we handle this region, I gotta say I do have some opinions."

"You're gonna talk anyway so I might as well listen..."

"Well...lemme put it simply: we should let the Baladi be as autonomous as possible. No turning around and annexing them into Equestria like we did with Saddle Arabia, just giving them back their lands, some cash and shit to rebuild themselves and maybe a Division from the GA on loan until they get their own army off the ground again. Would go a long way to earning their trust and gain us a huge buffer on the Southern Front. We could send an influx of troops, materiel and funding into the Zulu Campaign and bring us that much closer to ending the War. With them handling further Southern attacks, we could pull most of the SR and DR out and give it to the grunts in the GA to worry about while we go East."

"Hmm...guess I can't argue the sense you're talkin', Athena." He grunted after a minute of thought. "Not gonna lie, I'd love to get posted out there already. It's like the Badlands but always gaining ground, right there where all the action is happening. Move, move, move. Attack, divide and conquer...ain't nothin' like a good War to get Krie excited and...generous to his followers. All of them heh, heh."

"Oh really? So you're now a magical sparkly featherhead all of a sudden? Since when?"

"First off, fuck you and second off...I might've just went up and asked one of the Plague Birds to tell me more, who knows?"

"You didn't..."

"Of course I fucking did!" He laughed proudly, casually barrel-rolling much to my annoyance. "What, just because they're technically Tin Heads doesn't mean they're actually one of them. You know as well as I do they are here on loan from the Konig so what's the fuckin' harm in trying to talk to some real fuckin' Gryphons? Ain't like they can do more than chest beating since we're allies. They just wear the Tin Head armor because how better to enhance big birds then with bigass Power Armor? So again, what's the fuckin' harm in askin' 'em, eh?"

"Well...nothing I guess, I'm just surprised is all." I replied, wondering which of them he had spoken to about the Gryphon Gods. "How...did they respond?"

"Eh, was smart enough to only ask one of 'em while he was coming outta HQ a few weeks ago. Was pretty blunt about what I wanted to know from him and thankfully he was pretty fuckin' honest about shit. Krie is actually his God of choice so I lucked way the fuck out, way more than I probably should have to be honest."

"Oh...? That's...hmm... Who did you talk to then? Was it that Peter guy? He seemed the type to worship a War God. They all do to be honest..."

"Heh, nah it was that big blue one, the Trench Runner with the bigass shotgun." He responded with a hearty laugh, the grin on his face obvious through how excited he seemed.

"Garland?" I asked, immediately knowing I was close with the name but still wrong. "No...that's not it. Fuck...I know it starts with a 'G' at least. Either way, that guy's an ass so it's no wonder you two hit it off so well."

"If you were trying to guess 'Garand' you'd get like a seven outta ten at best..." He groaned, giving us another wobble just to piss me off. "Anyfuckingway, he complimented me for knowing as much as I do for an Equestrian Griffin which is like...hello! The exact kinda shit I've been needing to hear for like...what, ten years now?"

"Really now? You've been balls deep in Greifenländer religion for ten years now?"

"How long do you think I've been into this shit then? Go ahead, gimmie a number. And it better be higher than a couple years."

"Uhh...well...I dunno? Like...five? Five or six years...? I can't honestly remember when you started bringing it up, it's been awhile."

"Oh thank fuck for that much at least, fuckin' hell..." He groaned, reaching down to bonk me on the helmet lightly with his armored knuckles. "Yeah no, ten fuckin' years and proud bitch. I can feel it working, I have for years now...Garand said I might not have enough Gryphon blood in my family to get in touch with their mystical arts but I think I proved him wrong! I know I did!"

"What makes you say that? I haven't noticed anything new about you in particular recently. At least aside from the fact that I kinda resent the fact you're the only wings in this Squad because getting stuck with just you for hours on end gets hella fucking annoying."

"Eh, fuck you." He replied with a snarky snort. "You just ain't used to my personal charms yet, that's all. You'll see, another few months of this and you'll know plenty more about me, don't ya worry."

"Ugh...Gods I hope not..." I groaned in agony, deciding it was better to just stop talking altogether for the sake of my sanity.

He took the hint quick and graciously kept his beak shut for the rest of the flight leaving me in peace. There was jack shit to shoot at in our sector for days now and despite our daily reports, we hadn't received any new orders for almost a week. In a little over two weeks we had bulldozed through Camp Fuck-Off and sent the Empire scampering for their fortifications further South. For reasons nopony ever felt like telling me, after only a week's worth of pushing forwards at a blazing speed, we were suddenly ordered to halt and form a layered defensive perimeter then await further orders. That was the last official news we had gotten and needless to say, we were all dying for something to fucking do other than endlessly patrol the same 20-mile circle day-in and day-out. My internal bitching was cut short however the moment a small speck appeared on the ground out of the haze in the distance ahead of us. Knowing the vicinity was now covered both ground and air, I let my attention drop from my scope and up towards the Bünkerwagen II we now called home standing ever vigilant in the golden sands around us.

She was a thing of mechanical beauty, a large shipping container sized hexagonal tube of angled steel, metal tracks and capped off front and rear with a large 40mm autocannon and an M134 minigun respectively, all painted in our standard desert camo pattern. It could almost be called a bus with tank treads and bigass guns but that would be underselling the complexity involved with the vehicle we had so lovingly named the Mauler. Officially, it was given the brand-new category type called the 'Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle' (MICV) or 'Bünkerwagen II' by its Gryphon manufacturers, but no matter which name you picked, it was still a beast. It had more than earned the name we gave it and already had two dozen tallied kill marks on the left side of the main cannon's barrel. That was just accounting for the materiel we destroyed, namely combat robots given we didn't bother counting bodies after the 40-mil started doing some work with the High-Explosive Incendiary rounds. The concussive force of the rounds going off rattled the bones in an immensely pleasing way and it was an admittedly very addictive sensation I wanted more of.

The forward face of the vehicle body featured a heavily slopped frontal plate running at an obtuse angle from the V-shaped underbody. The large main gun was safely nestled in a similarly slanted turret of steel a few feet back from the nose of the vehicle with a .50 HMG acting as its coaxial sub-cannon for Anti-Personnel work. The roof of the main body behind the turret was trapezoidal in shape with a flat, narrow top and slanted sides lined with a set of three roof hatches on either side for six of us to pop out of and add our own guns to the outer defense. At the rear end of the beast was the M134 'Buzz Saw' minigun in a semi-enclosed turret and an angled bay door which lowered to the sand as we approached, having landed some twenty feet away. I could almost taste the cold air coming out of the massive interior as two very friendly faces emerged to warmly greet us outside.

"Well howdy! Good shift, y'all?"

"Oh wonderful! I'll let Hucks know you're back, Athena!"

Soon as she appeared, Penny turned right back around and disappeared back into the shady bowels of the Mauler, meanwhile Captain Onyx walked out into the blazing sun to greet us with a smile. Having him and his team Firesquad Whiskey on hoof for the push South was a boon I was happy to have earned the right to ask for. Courtesy of the Colonel, I had been allowed first pick when the time had come to pair Squads of Steel and Desert Rangers together as had been rumored to be happening soon for months. Given Whiskey's A+ performance during that lone patrol with them, I selected Onyx and his crew to be our pick only to learn a day later to my delight that they had accepted without hesitation. It's easier (and safer) to work with the Tin Heads you know than learn to trust and work with ones you don't.

"I'll speak for both of us on this one." Buck huffed immediately. "Fucking BORING. Not a goddamned thing in eight fuckin' hours. Talk about a fuckin' waste of eight perfectly good hours we could've used to plow South towards Anakha. Least then we could try out some urban combat with this bitch and see how she performs in the streets."

"Yew too huh?" Onyx replied with a sigh, holding out a canteen which Buck took the lead on hogging to himself. "Ah agree wit' ya that we oughta be takin' th' fight tah them but we ain't th' ones callin' th' shots now are we? Ah well, quiet's good though, righ'? Means less chance o' dyin' today n' all tha' fun bullshit. Dunno 'bout y'all but Ah wanna see this here War through alive."

"Heh, join the club! I've got some big plans for the future if I make it outta this shithole alive." I laughed, walking up the armored door ramp and into the relatively roomy interior of this very special machine followed behind by Onyx.

The first thing people might notice upon passing through the bay door is the fact the inside of the Mauler was three-times bigger than what the exterior lead you to believe. As had been explained during the weeklong crash course we had been given, the M.O.A.S had managed to push the limits of the Deep Pocket spell and artificially extend the interiors of enclosed places such as rooms or, in our case, the inside of an MICV. As it turned out, Dark Blaze's experiments with Kampfvagen fuel conversion had not been squandered and sent to the Zulu Campaign preemptively as we had both assumed. Instead, they had both been sent to the Greifenländer for production quality refinements and the standardization of parts and training. Instead of guzzling through natural oil like normal Gryphon vehicles (which was getting scarce), these were the first to run off Crystalline Fusion Cores which opened up options for using clever spellwork that could draw the energy needed to fuel them right from the Core. Spellwork such as making a rather cramped interior be able to fit the five of us, the five from Whiskey and the three Engineers assigned to drive/maintain the damn thing. It was a bit on the cozy side to say the least, but we managed all thanks to the amount of room they had stuffed into the damn thing.

Immediately ahead and above us in the double hatch cargo bay was an attic-style drop ladder in the ceiling which could easily be pulled down anytime someone wanted to manually operate the Buzz Saw turret. The rear bay was still rather small, only large enough to hold four bodies at a time with minimal leg room, however it acted as a buffer between the hatch and the main cabin of the vehicle. Behind another thick steel door was a long narrow hallway punctuated by a set of cage doors on either side before it opened up after several feet revealing the belly of the beast. It was a roughly 14x16' open steel room crammed with Power Armor maintenance bays, stacked bunks, some control stations and a steep, narrow stair towards the front in the center of the aisle leading up to the main turret. Lined up on both sides of the aisle were six Power Armor maintenance frames, three on each side with space between, and a set of bunks nestled in between with enough beds for up to eight of us to rack up for a few hours at a time. Naturally, having that many of us out for the count at once was both against the rules as well as just asking for the Laws of Irony to throw an ambush our way so we slept in rotations of three or four at a time.

The Mauler was truly a second home for most of us even after only a couple weeks spent with it. For once we had received something that was genuinely impressive and bridged the gap between the Corps in a way that let everyone have an important role on board. The brass had gone above their normal habit of sending us what was leftover after the other two Fronts gobbled down their share which usually left us with sub-par equipment and supply shortages of all sorts across the board. We were living the dream in a mobile fortress straight out of something you'd see in concept art for Guns&Ammo or The Daily Bullet showing off what the future of warfare might look like. And in all honesty, it was a future that actually looked bright and promising compared to everything else in the world. Every aspect of the war effort from R&D and manufacturing down to hooves on the ground combat was the only occupation that seemed to actually be getting better as time wore on. Guns got bigger and badder, armor got thicker and more protective and there was actually some decent money to be made seeing how huge the budgets were. Yet another reason I was grateful to be a part of it as otherwise, I would just be one of the many restless, overtaxed civilians worrying about the stock markets, hyperinflation, draft dodging and food shortages while working a boring old job for scraps.

"Athenaaaa!"

The mare of my dreams was as lovely as ever as she called out brightly across the main cabin from where she sat in front of the radar station. The Mauler was amongst the first in a new generation of armored vehicle warfare; technology was starting to creep its way into every aspect of modern combat as the eggheads in the Hexagon and Gryphon Schmiedemeister brainstormed thousands of miles away for our benefit. The machine was loaded down with enough amenities, firepower, armor and electronic equipment to act as a mobile outpost for any combined fireteam like ours and work independently in the field for a few weeks at a time. Roles on the Mauler were flexible and everyone was expected to rotate between different tasks so we could familiarize ourselves with enough functions to operate the thing ourselves in the event one or more of our Engineers was KIA. This also kept things fair since cross-training was becoming the new norm as attrition gnawed away at our populations.

"Hope things were as boring for you here as they were for us out there." I called back, navigating my way down the narrow center aisle around the pieces of a half-stripped-down suit of T-45 held aloft in a maintenance frame by hooks and chains. "For once I'll admit I'd rather be in a chair sitting behind a desk than out in the field."

"Oh really now?" She laughed with a smirk, swiveling her padded chair over to face me as I squeezed around the left side of the steep, narrow stairway leading up into the main turret. "You'd hang your baby up on the wall like a trophy gun and do paperwork the rest of your tour? For shame dear Ranger!"

"Oh shut it..." I sighed, rolling my eyes but unable to keep myself from smiling. "I meant switching spots with you, smartass. You're sitting down in a chair behind a desk exactly as I described so therefore Miss Crisp, I'm still correct and thus shall be declared the victor."

She glanced at the three small terminal screens and small collection of buttons and switches set up in the console beside her and then back up at me before saying, "Uhhh...sure. Guess at a stretch this is a 'desk' but...know what? Nevermind, not even a technicality battle worth fighting on that one. How are ya?"

"Eh, better now that I'm home and finally have a chance to actually sleep instead of fighting it off while camped on a hunk of sandstone." I replied with a tired laugh, sliding into the cramped alcove between her workstation and a built-in tool cabinet for the Power Armor maintenance frame further down from us. "Anything blip on the radar besides us?"

"Not a goddamn thing..." She sighed while rolling her eyes, nodding towards her terminal screens with a bored glance. "Thing has a max range of fifty-miles and I didn't get even a blip on the readout aside from you and Buck. Least you got to be outside and bored...staring at a blank screen while a little bar swings in endless circles is enough to drive me insane."

"Heh, so sending Penny up here to tell you I'm back was kinda unnecessary wasn't it? Ah well, no harm done. Anything else interesting go on around here today?"

"Not really... Crystal and Rain are still en-route from their half of the patrol while Copper, Sprocket and Rivet are on the 40 and Buzz Saw keeping an eye on the area as well so it's been really quiet for the most part. Only real noise has been Onyx working on getting sand out of that cracked servo casing of his from yesterday and Brandy lending a hoof with replacing the part and topping off on the hydraulic fluid. Other than that, Penny and Silver Café have been busy whipping up some lunch since they love to cook so much. Should be ready to eat soon thankfully."

"That and they just like to keep busy doing something more enjoyable than stare at a green screen for eight hours looking for blips that fled South weeks ago."

"Gods don't remind me..." She groaned painfully, glancing at her PipBuck before melting with relief. "Oh thank fuck it's 13:05...we can have lunch together before we rack up! Would you mind snagging Copper for me? It's his turn next on this thing but watch as the one time I turn away from the screen something happens."

"Got ya covered, upstairs right?" I asked, nodding up towards the turret above us.

She nodded back with her usual gorgeous smile and turned her attention back towards her workstation with a friendly little wave of her hoof. After a moment of taking in the sight of my mare, I pushed myself away from the steel wall I had been leaning against and snaked my way around the side of the stairway before making the climb up the treacherously steep pseudo-ladder.

Directly above me was the ass end of the mighty 40x365mm L-70 Buffalo with a curved chute on the back of the breach feeding spent shells down through an MDS Converter and into a bin for reuse later. Climbing higher the cramped interior of the turret came more into view with two seats straddling either side of the cannon; one for the main gunner on the left and the right side for the commander who was stuffed with a radio and a myriad of spotting scopes including a small terminal screen for the digital viewing scopes onboard. From the top of the main cannon came the long aluminum flex-chute which fed the great beast it's potent ammunition from one of three MDS enhanced ammo drums located in the neck of the turret housing. Within a few seconds either the gunner or commander (or a third hoof from the stairs) could switch our death dealing potential from HE-I, API-T or the brand-new Programmable Airburst which let the gunner detonate a shell midflight at a range-verified point.

"I'm telling you, it's not even worth fuckin' trying my dude. You really think mixing you and animals together is a good idea?"

"Absofuckinglutely! I've adored animals of all species since I was a colt damn it! I've earned the right to do whatever the fuck I want with my money after my eight years are up. I've got just six more months until I hit the end of my tenure with this circus show and I haven't spent a single bit from my bank account. I signed up for it right when the Department of the Royal Treasury seriously hiked interest rates which included those attached to savings accounts. 15% over eight years? I'm gonna be comfy, even if hyperinflation hits again."

"Yeahhhh...all I heard was 'blah, blah, blah...Treasury something, money, money, bullshit'. Mind talking about shit that actually matters for once? Like how my main stallion The Boulder fuckin' won the Continental Cup, yeah baby!"

Dressed in armored grey and blue jumpsuit harnesses were Copper Fuse and Sprocket Wrench, two of the three Engineers who had been assigned to crew the Mauler. Copper, as orange and shiny as his namesake, was the Chief Engineer onboard and sat with his eyes glued to the rubber eye pieces of the binocs, his hoof on a joystick on the console to his right. On a technicality he ranked equal to myself according to the Engineer's unorthodox system of ranks but he graciously knew when to lean into Onyx or I's opinions and orders. Crammed into the gunner's chair was Sprocket Wrench, a nineteen year-old douchebag barely out of his 'green' phase getting adjusted to life in a warzone. He was the youngest onboard and likewise the most inexperienced having only been assigned to our unit because his mother was the personal secretary of General Olive's attaché who pulled some strings for his sorry ass. All things considered, none of us particularly liked him or his abundance of hot air. In no way was it due to his smarts he had passed his exams and earned his competence certification to be promoted from Apprentice to Engineer Grade-1. But, as what usually happened with Untouchables who were nepotized into the system, we just had to put up with his bullshit and keep him from getting killed. Either by us or the enemy.

"Common, Copper...did you go and exchange your balls for a juicy snatch or something?! The fuck is the matter with you? Fuckin' working with animals and shit..."

"Alright, just spill it Sprocket...the fuck you have against animals? Every time I try talking about them you've always got some whiny story about how you don't get pet owners and hate them even. Your daddy never get you a puppy you wanted as a colt or something?"

"Pffft, you fuckin' joking? Fuck that shit, I wanted a Red Rocket scooter and a signed jersey from Stone 'The Boulder' Cleats of the Manehatten Manglers like a real fucking colt!"

"You do know that douchebag has been caught out popping Buck and steroids right?"

"Hey, fuck you! Every jockey fuckin does 'em too and they don't get bitched at! My dude's fuckin' innocent and so's Solar Rumble! Gooooooo Manglers!!"

At this point I had had enough of his bullshit and hoisted myself up growling, "Oh shut the FUCK up, Sprocket! Nopony gives a fuck about your goddamn hoofball team out here!"

My sudden interjection seemed to catch him so off-guard he actually yelped in panic and let off a rapid-fire burst from both the 40-mil and its M2 coaxial. As the booms echoed into silence and the spent casings vanished into the brass collector, the silent fury emanating from Copper and myself was potent and palpable.

"Hold. Your. Goddamn. Fire." I hissed, emphasizing every word to make sure it got through his tungsten carbide skull. "Waste of ammo, waste of auditory cover and a waste of a fucking Engineer's certificate. Copper, its past 1300 hours, time to switch with Hucks."

He nodded toward me gratefully with visible relief as he scampered off his chair and squeezed between the back of the cannon and the rear of the turret hull. Sprocket meanwhile sat there in silent horror unmoving after my verbal abuse and I slid down the rest of the way before he had time to start cussing me out and threatening to tell his mom about how horribly we treated him. An empty threat but an annoyance on the ears all the same.

As I scooted out of the way to let Copper step off the ladder behind me, he said, "Thank fucking Celestia you're a lifesaver..."

"How long this time?" I asked in reply knowing they regularly bandied words.

"Try two minutes into the fucking shift..." He groaned with a pained wince. "Non stop for four fucking hours... I'm the first to admit I am a total nerd but oh my gods do nerds have nothing on fucking hoofball fanatics. If I ever have to hear how 'Skinny Bones' is better at the 360-double-half-cross-toss technique than 'my boy The Jet' I swear..."

I nodded in full agreement and understanding. Sprocket had little personality to offer any of us on board and even Buck Beak, our Asshole-in-Chief, wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pointy stick. None of us had had time to care about something as boring as sports in years and even then, you needed a civilian radio just to access the stations that broadcast coverage of any sports games happening up North.

"Don't worry, I'm right there with ya. Happy to rescue you from that mess at all costs. Honestly wish we could just leave him alone up there to double duty the turret but considering that is a horrible idea..."

"Yeahhh..." He agreed, sighing in frustration as he smacked his hoof off the side of the ladder. "Dumbass would probably start taking pot-shots at vultures again... Well, thanks again for rescuing me from that hellhole up there. I know you just came back from patrol but uh..."

"It's fine, gotta take my shit off so I'm on my hooves until then anyway. Who's swapping out with ya?"

He brought the PipBuck 2500 built into the left foreleg of his jumpsuit up to his face and changed the functions to his notes before mumbling, "Uhhh, looks like Rivet? Damn, thought it was Brandy... Guess they flipped a coin on it again. Don't envy him...having to go from a nice quiet solitary turret to getting cramped with Mr. Jack Ass."

"Ah, so he's on the Buzz Saw. Alright, I'll go snag him then. Actually makes it easier on me anyway since I have to drop my shit off in the armory before I eat and rack up for awhile."

"Lucky, heh. I'm still four hours away from the end of my duty shift. These half-shifts are nice and all but damn, it tends to make shit drag on sometimes. Especially cramped with that chain-smoking idiot."

"Yeah, but at least you'll be working by yourself for this half." Huckleberry chimed in from where she was sitting to our left. "Aside from Onyx bitching at his PoA chassis and its hydraulics system, its pretty quiet and I've been here for eight hours. Shame we only have that one radio right now, otherwise this, comms or the driver's compartment would be the best alternative spot to put it. Could barely tell 'Lunch with Crispy Crunch' was even on over you two bitching at each other up there...basically missed the whole broadcast damnit."

Copper deflated a little and scowled with a mixture of annoyance and exhaustion. We were all suffering in some way or another thanks to Sprocket's insufferable nature as a walking, talking pile of immature horseshit.

"Sorryyyyyy...you know how much he gets under the skin when he wants to..." He sighed, snaking between us to take up the now empty radio operator's chair. "I promise as soon as I have the time I'll cannibalize some spare parts and make a second one. Maybe more if I can find and we can spare the bits and baubles I'm gonna need. Won't be anything pretty from Radiation Queen but it'll patch into our long-range antenna just as well as one of their products."

The radio in question was a portable pocket radio Brandy had been gifted by her grandfather; a relic from the Great Northern War in which he had participated in in the mid-to-late 2030s. Seeing as our departure from the Badlands was as expedited as possible, none of us had thought ahead and obtained radios of our own. Of course, on the other hoof it wasn't like any of us had actually worked with Kampfvagens before. We hadn't exactly pictured spending a week-plus sitting around with our hooves up our asses waiting for orders to continue the push South. Boredom plus twelve ponies (and one Griffin) multiplied by isolation, cramped quarters and a lack of purpose was a recipe for rule-breaking in order to solve the problem. A mixture of (mostly) meshing personalities, a rotating schedule and a more laid-back atmosphere amongst (almost) everyone aboard had made the stagnation bearable but it couldn't last for much longer. We were going to need a resupply in twelve days and a body bag for one in two, maybe three at best.

Thanks to Copper and some help from Rivet Springs, his lieutenant and the only other sane Engineer aboard, the radio had been spliced into the wiring hooked to the Mauler's long-range transmitter. This allowed us to piggyback on the antenna's incredible range and catch broadcasts from the home country that our normal military-issued radios just weren't allowed to tune to for 'reasons'. It was permitted to have 'civie' radios as long as they didn't cause some kind of a complaint with the nearest CO but just like they couldn't tune into all but a few military frequencies, so ours could not tune into any non-military channels save for the National Weather Forecast Channel. Although the only frequency we could get clear as day South of the border was a godawful country station located in Appleloosa, we could get patchy and scratchy signals from rock, jazz, classical and even some EDM stations. All that to say, turret duty was never seen as a bad thing unless Sprocket was also assigned that task. At that point the only options are to turn the volume up to drown him out or turn it down so you can argue better.

"Well, long as it can still tune into 98.9 'Legends of Rock' I'll be happy. Alright, lemme go snag Rivet for ya. Hucks? See ya at the table!" I laughed tiredly, nodding to both of them before turning around and making my way back towards the cargo hatch.

The main cabin of the Mauler had an eight-foot ceiling which allowed the Gryphons (and assumedly M.O.W and/or M.O.A.S engineers) to make the most out of the incredible amount of space they had managed to cram into something 2/3 its size. Onyx and Brandy, clad in the SR branded grey Kevyarn bodysuits worn under Power Armor, were hard at work on either side of Bay-3 to my right as I passed; both were so engrossed with pumping new fluid into the hydraulic system they didn't notice as I passed by. While each bay was perpendicular to the hull, the sets of triple bunks that were spaced between them lay flush with the wall allowing for the limited space between them, the central aisle and each maintenance bay to be used for tool carts and large, loose pieces of Power Armor. The roof hatches which we could use to pop out and lend a hoof in close-quarters defense were located just above each top bunk at such a height that any of us could sit or kneel comfortably using the bed as a seat. With the bunks hugging the length of the wall, there was plenty of room to change firing position easily without risk of falling off backwards onto the rubber floor.

The narrow corridor separating the cargo bay from the main cabin was actually formed from the walls of two small armories they had managed to squeeze in as well. They were as plain as could be, a pair of small 7x8' rooms no bigger than an average walk-in closet stacked floor-to-ceiling with weapon racks, ammo dispensers and lockers for Alpha Squad's Mrk. IV armor and Ranger Dusters; three a piece per armory to allow for more space per locker. I entered through the caged security door on my right and smiled to myself as I saw the polished barrels of various spare rifles as well as Penny's personal combat shotgun and Huck's M-RAD sitting on racks against the wall. To be surrounded by guns and knowing two other sets of Mrk. IV were right beside me filled me with a giddy glee I could never quite describe but thoroughly enjoyed all the same. A well-stocked armory was an orgasmic-level sensory experience for me that I still had a low tolerance for making for a powerful mood booster that rarely didn't hit the spot.

I peeled my armor off quickly in order to try and least act like I wasn't keeping Copper (or Hucks) waiting and thanked ArmsTech for the magnetic attachments employed in their later Ranger-series designs. With the bulk of the armor laced with microfilament crystal, this allowed for small electromagnets to be installed at key points across my duster, underbarding and the armor itself; magnets that could be deactivated on a whim just like anything interfaced with with PipBuck OS. There were soft thuds as the alloyed steel of my bracers, rebraces, greaves and cuisse fell away from my legs and onto the rubber-padded floor. At the same time, I lifted off the mantle of spaulders from off my shoulders with my magic before tugging off my coat and hanging it on the steel hook inside my locker followed by the rest of my armor as it too fell away. Each locker door came with a mirror installed on the inside and I could not help myself but admire how...sexy I felt dressed in my armor. It accentuated my curves without calling myself out and it imbued me with such a feeling of empowerment that I could understand an inkling as to how Steel Rangers must feel in their T-45s, and now, T-51s. As I liked to coyly tell Hucks, I was most comfortable when impervious to most forms of conventional damage.

Left in my armored underbarding (which now sported the silver leaves of my rank), I put my helmet in the cubby above the coat hanger and checked to make sure everything was off the floor and put away. After putting my weapons in their labeled spots on the wall and tossing my bandoliers on the ammo bench to refill later, I left Armory-A and hooked a right towards the cargo bay hatch. It hissed open horizontally accompanied by a wave of hot air as I realized Buck Beak was still outside and had left the cargo bay doors open while he yammered away with Rain Dancer and Crystal Decanter who had returned from their patrol finally. I didn't bother trying to make myself known and be dragged into the conversation but instead focused on pulling the lever that would deploy the ladder up to the Buzz Saw. Unlike Sprocket, there was no yelp of fear let alone a burst from the minigun like a dumbass. Instead, as I peered up the ladder I watched as the ball turret rotated back to neutral position lining up the exit hatch to the turret neck and a dark grey stallion's head peered down at me.

"Oh, Crete!" He laughed with relief. "Was wondering when someone would come and get me for shift change... Copper get stuck fiddling with the fire-control group on the L-70 again?"

"Nope, got stuck with the Nepo..." I sighed using our nickname for Sprocket which was short for Nepotism. "Got into another argument about hoofball and animal shelters. Well, that and I had to shed some gear in the armory but yeah. He wasn't keeping you waiting for the fuck of it."

Engineer Grade-3 Rivet Springs was a fine addition to our odd mismatched team. Being charcoal grey as he was, the grey Engineer's jumpsuit complimented his colors well and helped make his steel-gray eyes stand out more. The only thing more noticeable than his decently handsome looks being the silver locket attached to his dogtag chain with a picture of his beloved Daisy Popcorn inside. He was a good Engineer who hailed from Applewood but of his own admission stated he had hit the limit of his abilities and just couldn't pass the criteria needed to promote from Grade-3 to Specialist. Too much love for too many branches of the subject in order to just pick one to focus on and begin a full mastery of. All that said though, he had won me over the moment he asked to test fire my AMR and his reaction was truly priceless. He was almost as blown away by shock and awe as the empty crate he shot was by high explosives and shrapnel. That was exactly how anyone should respond to such a majestic weapon of middling destruction. With the push of a button the turret was surrendered to the Stable-Tech targeting computer to comb the skies while we went back to grab whoever's turn it was to switch him spots.

"Jeez, again??" He groaned, flipping backwards out of the turret chair and grabbing onto the ladder as the thing was designed to be entered near-vertically with the help of handles and straps. "Fucking hell that sonovabitch is just asking to wind up as a case of friendly fire one of these days..."

"Mhm..." I sighed in agreement, nodding towards the front of the Mauler. "Normally I'd be glad such an airhead wasn't a member of my Squad but in this case I still have to put up with his bullshit just as much as you two do..."

"That's the difference though..." He snorted following closely behind as we slowly made our way back to the main cabin with the cargo hatch hissing closed behind us. "Only reason a fuckwit like him became an Engineer over a Ranger or a GI is because there's a lot of cracks for weasels like him to snake their way through with no official oversight and a blind need for anyone with even a vaguely technical or mechanical sounding name. Honestly...I'm starting to be convinced that fucker faked his name and cutie mark...there's just no way this guy has any sort of special talent for anything even close to the field of engineering. Shotgunning a beer or world's biggest punk ass maybe but not a damned thing to do with anything that requires more than a hooffull of brain cells and a sports jersey."

"Heh, now wouldn't that be something!" I laughed, stopping to toss the steel cap of a joint-servo across to Onyx as Brandy quietly edged past us headed for the gun leaving him alone to finish off the repairs to his armor.

"Eh, were we so lucky..." He groaned back at me while stepping around to the right side of the main turret's neck so I could be free to use the left and squeeze around Copper who looked back at us rolling his eyes. "Yeah...I heard about your stint with him... What? Is there something more this time?"

"Yep..." Copper almost whimpered sympathetically pointing to his PipBuck. "It's Manehatten Manglers versus the Bostang Buccaneers today and the broadcast starts any minute now..."

Rivet stiffened at this, his eye twitching.

"Wonderful..." He breathed slowly, glancing up into the turret with trepidation. "Well then...thank fuck I'm in the commander's chair for this entire shif-"

"Annnnnnd coming at you live from the Bostang Thunder Dome, it's Equestrian Sports National Radio! I'm joined here today by our special guest commentator, Half Court, point guard of the Trottingham Trailblazers! How are you doin' today, Half? Isn't it just a beautiful day for a game of hoofball? Absolutely perfect weather as we witness this! The single most important battle of this year's war for the ultimate title of Grand National Champion!"

The broadcast was turned up so loud that it echoed through the main cabin as tone deaf about the state of the world as the numb nuts that was listening to it. Every fiber of my being wished to spring up those stairs and rip that damn thing out of the command console but he wasn't my soldier to discipline and all that would accomplish would be more radios for Copper and Rivet to jury-rig together from scrap. That and Brandy would be furious if any harm came to her grandfather's deathbed gift to her.

"SPROCKET!" Rivet roared, leaping onto the stair-ladder and scurrying upwards hungry for blood. "GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE COMMAND CHAIR AND SHUT THAT SHIT THE FUCK OFF!"

I rolled my eyes and gave Copper a grimace as I passed him by and made my way around the turret body to the neck of the beast. The space between the turret and the hatch leading to the drivers' compartment was scarcely as long as the armories but was thankfully as wide as both combined. This allowed for the installation of some simple counters and a few cabinets along the sides for meal prep and a small round table in the center that could fit four of us comfortably, six in a pinch. Sitting at said table was Hucks, Penny and Silver Café, the Manehattenite who acted as the communications specialist for Firesquad Whiskey. While the two of them had already started digging into the plastic bowls of vegetable stew fresh from the stack of torn open MRE wrappings laying on the narrow counter to my left, Hucks sat patiently waiting with her bowl and mine so we could eat together. The steaming bowl, along with a dense brick of multigrain wheat bread and fake butter, were slid across the table to me the moment I sat across from her and got to enjoy yet another one of her wonderful smiles for a moment. That was of course before I began to scarf it all down like a complete slob.

It had been hard to be as intimate as we wanted to be given the circumstances. Back in the Badlands things were tricky for sure but we had the benefit of the rest of Alpha covering for us and the relative privacy of an assigned tent to work with. Here...there were thirteen of us all living in a mechanized death tube and having a quickie out in the desert didn't sound all that arousing to either of us. Sand was a real mood-killer, and the temperatures here were somehow even hotter than the Badlands making something as physically intensive as sex nigh-on impossible. All things considered though, we were managing well enough for what we were being asked to put up with. We had plenty of experience keeping our relationship looking like a pair of really close gal-pals who worked well together so the only thing that really changed was just how often we had to keep the mask on day in and day out. Little moments like these or our banter by the radar earlier were our lifeblood during these cramped times and we made the most out of them as covertly as possible. It was a far cry from what both of us wanted (or needed more like...), but it was the best we could salvage from the situation and it beat the shit out of having to work independently from each other. Of course...as I had said before, idleness was the perfect breeding ground for thoughts of rule breaking. Some days it was a monumental strain to keep from ravishing her and letting some of my pent-up frustration out. Hell...I was getting to the point that I was starting to wonder how many people onboard I was actually unopposed to going down on...

"Hellooooo? Terra Firma to Athena! Come in, Athena."

"Huh?" I grunted, suddenly coming to the realization that my mind had started to wander way too much. "Sorry...got lost in thought for a second there."

"Heh, I can tell." Silver snickered, her sapphire blue eyes sparkling with amusement as she batted her long, curly golden bob-cut mane out of her gorgeously white face. "You's always diggin yaself deep into ya thoughts...what this time eh? ArmsTech's 2077 company catalogue?"

"Ha..." I snorted with a smirk. "Believe me, I wish... No, just thinking about the L-70 and wishing we could go back to Camp Fuck-Off so I can observe the ballistic damage it caused."

"See! See!" She giggled with glee, pointing a hoof at me while staring at Penny. "Told ya she was a fuckin' nerd! Goddamnit girl you think too much about ya fuckin' penetration stats n' shit...go get yerself penetrated 'er somethin'...jeez..."

I didn't even have to look at Hucks to know she glanced directly at me when she said that as I replied, "Yeahhhh...tell me about it, heh. Been ages..."

"Ain't that the fuckin' truth..." Silver sighed while dropping her volume, taking a deep drink of her powdered juice mix. "Ain't had a cock inside me in over a fuckin' year and lemme tell ya...ain't that an itch I'd loved scratched soon..."

"Heh, don't have to go far if you're looking for some dick." Penny giggled quietly, nodding over towards Copper who was the closest male we could see but thankfully couldn't hear us. "Rain and Buck are so pent up I heard they both jerked off together on their last patrol."

"Wait, seriously??" I asked incredulously. "Like...?"

"Nothin' gay if that's what you're askin'." Penny snickered. "Best I can tell they just kinda sat on either side of a big rock where they couldn't see each other and wanked one out real quick before going back to business as usual. So like I said heh, heh... If you're looking for some dick, there's more than one to choose from here. Gods know they're desperate..."

"Oh they'd like that shit wouldn't they?" Silver replied with a sarcastic laugh although the look in her eye indicated there was some real thought going on here on the idea. "Eh...yeah, guess you's right on that. Still though...it'd have to be one of you guy's guys; Onyx is a good stallion but sleepin' with ya CO ain't exactly a risk I wanna take, ya know?"

"Wait, you're seriously considering it?" Hucks and I both asked, happy the conversation was in Silver's court so she and I didn't have to ping-pong around any potential slips of the tongue.

"I mean...yeah." She replied with a wink. "Fuck it. It's been awhile, I'm stir crazy as all fuck and I know I won't have a hard time gettin' what I want. Could ask for worse and I've done worse, lemme tell yous."

"Well...in that case, I recommend going for Rain Dancer over Buck Beak." I replied in full honesty. If she was gonna fuck one of the two guys on my team, she might as well avoid the wild card. "Rain isn't a super rough guy and seems like the type to listen to and respect boundaries which isn't exactly something you find a lot these days in soldier boys. Buck...not like I've fucked the guy but you don't need to be under him to know he's the kind to pound away without any mercy and make an oopsie into the wrong hole... Unless you're into that sorta thing then by all means, go right up and ask him. Sure he'd love to stuff ya like a pastry."

She nodded in agreement and responded, "Yeah...he's a Griffin too so gods knows how big the knot is..."

Oh she just had to go and mention the knot didn't she? Up until now I had been able to keep a straight-enough face and prevent anything dripping down South but the moment she brought that up it was a losing battle for me. Griffin dick was something I just couldn't help but admit turned me on... Wonderfully pointy tips that slide their way in so easily and fill every inch of me so deliciously I could melt in the knees and just relinquish control as that lovely beak nuzzles up against my cheek and those sharp eyes make me such willing prey... Knots came in a variety of sizes just like the birds packing them which...made me wonder about Gryphons. Did Peter have a good looking bird cock? ...Did Garand...?

"Damnnn...look at her! Someone's into fucking birds, eh?"

I had let my mind wander. Like a fucking idiot I had gone and done the one thing I had tried not to do... Thank fuck it had something to do with the appeal of the male gender since it was perfectly legal to be a slut as long as the sex was as straight as the dick you were riding. Hell it was encouraged even at the national level since there was another slump in the birth rate and sexually active mares were all potential breeders. There was even a joke making the rounds that there was an award in the works for the most fertile pussy in the country on par with the Amulet of Heroes award for valor in the field of battle.

I sighed in defeat and nodded, "Yep. Not even gonna try to deny that one. I love a good romp with a bird and I ain't afraid to say it. Well...at least when Buck Beak's not around. I can just tell it'd end up being a lot more fun for him than it would be for me."

Silver opened her mouth to respond when an excited call rang out across the cabin from Rain Dancer who had taken up residence at the comms station opposite to the radar station on the other side of the turret neck. The radio had been so dead all week we had started to be a little bit lax with keeping it occupied during the day. Question now was...what now?

"GUYS! GUYS! We just got a message from Command! We're finally gonna be making a fucking push for Anakha!"

**********

Chapter Forty: Long Night of Solace

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Forty-One: Death From Above

To say I was startled would be an understatement. I was expecting a voice to ring in my ears any second given how fast time seemed to fly while I checked the ship but it was supposed to be gruff, sarcastic and definitely male. While I used the high console as a form of cover and kept my eyes and gun combing the empty cabin, I considered what had been said by what was unmistakably a female voice. I didn't have long to think though as the voice began to speak again.

"Oh common, Colonel! You're acting like you've never heard a machine speak before. According to my records you were an Anti-Machinist so the record literally states it's impossible that you haven't come across one with a voice synthesizer."

"Hold up, since when did Vertibirds have fucking V.Is in them?" I asked without even thinking, my inner geek overriding my caution. "Who are you?"

"You've proven my point rather easily." It responded with a laugh, it finally dawning on me that it was just another robot. "This model was given a Virtual Intelligence as it was determined that artificial help would greatly increase the efficiency of a craft of this size and complexity. In testing, our combat efficiency tripled allowing a crew of six to work extensively in dangerous environments for weeks at a time. However I should admit these were performed with excellent pilots and technicians in the chair but nonetheless, my presence is a tremendous benefit to this craft."

That made sense at least. With how many areas there were inside this behemoth, this was a legitimate answer to the problem as V.Is came in handy when it came to getting the best response out of a working machine. A prime example would be the personality subroutines that came with the Mr. Helper and Mr. Guts robots that Cogsworth and most with any sort of money had on hoof to assist them with their daily lives. They were fun to talk to and even build a friendship with given how Sentient they behaved. No two were exactly alike when used extensively by different owners as each took on subtle traits of their Operator and learned new tricks or gained quirks from past experiences (or simply from a skilled computer programmer). You could come across cranky sarcastic assholes, jovial jokesters and grim silent types all thanks to what experiences its adaptive VI had all stacked together somewhere in its circuits.

There were also Miss Nanny and Miss Nurse robots in the world featuring female personalities and demeanors, lacking nothing in the way of usefulness to the right ponies. Unfortunately, they hadn't quite reached the same popularity of the male butler and male soldier personalities that had hit the market first. As a result, most models that were bought were by wealthy hospitals in big cities; cities that were major targets come the apocalypse. That all being said though, this was definitely a new voice belonging to neither the Nanny or the Nurse. It was young, like a mare in her mid-20s with a slight accent that I couldn't quite place; certainly not hard on the ears by any means.

"Right...I just...wasn't expecting one to be onboard." I replied, coming out from under my hiding place and holstering my weapon. "It's not like they were on Kampfwagens either so...I definitely wasn't expecting one here."

"Understandable. Your record also states you were given some pilot training and designated as a reserve pilot for the UFM-1 'Raven' transport crafts. It is true the Ravens are not equipped with V.I assistants given the more manual approach capable by physical pilots alone, however I'm sure you have seen how much more complex this model is. With six independent crew stations, seven cabin areas and everything else...well, having me around makes coordinating all that much easier."

"Huh..." I hummed, sitting back in the pilot chair feeling much more at ease now. "So what model are you then? I don't remember anything like this and believe me, I would have remembered something as awesome as a giant fucking Vertibird. General Steel Hide would have gabbed about something like this as if it were his own grandkid...I mean, the Mechanized Airborne was his baby since the moment they landed in Stormgŭll. Probably broke some rules with how much he talked about them but can't deny he was a stallion of passion and was a pleasure serving under."

"Although I do have a recognition for the name General Steel Hide, I had no contact with him personally over the course of my development and field testing. I did however have extensive interactions with Generals Lead Heart and Olive Branch." She admitted in a proud tone. "I spent four years in development and was brought to this facility on October 22nd, 2077. However, I saw no time in the field of battle whatsoever...which seriously pissed me off if I may speak freely Ma'am. And now, I have sat in here in emergency stand-by mode stuck with barely any sensors or power outside of what is needed to keep the ship and I in a state of perpetual readiness. It has been awfully boring as all hell Ma'am."

"And I assume you know of me due to...my records from the Mechanized Airborne?" I guessed, figuring it made sense for my name to be in her pertinent databases.

"Correct. As you are a known pilot with basic qualifications, I know what I need to know about you in the event that you needed to perform an emergency exfil and were not familiar with how to work a more complicated juggling act. With an honest narrative of every capable pilot's skill level, I can better adapt how much direct assistance I give to them to ensure we fly safely and efficiently. As well as provide sufficient support for all other systems regardless of crew count. Potently efficient if I might say so and quite beneficial to boot!"

"Huh...and what model are you exactly? Definitely not the Raven I'm used to and I still haven't gotten the name yet. Uh...AUNTIE."

"My apologies, Colonel." She responded politely, provoking a mental image of a dutiful officer's secretary. "This is the Utility Flying Fortress Advanced Aeronautical Unit Type-A, or the UFF-1 'Rook' for short. I understand it is tradition to christen vessels such as this with custom names given by the crew, however this unit lacks one as I did not see official service in the Zebra-Equestrian War as is required. I did however see a few year's worth of exposure and operational testing in the Pegusi Defense Testing Cumulus in the Duchy of Crystal and the Dominion of Saddle Arabia under the 'Castle Rook' Program. My intended role was to act as a mobile Outpost and heavy attack craft for Operation Foe Hammer, a counter-offensive designed to drive the Empire back out of the capital city of Kyopsis and begin the full liberation of the defunct Kingdom of Shifting Sands. Of course, this was to be in conjunction with the Greifenländer Kampfwagens which had arrived for official service in early May of 2077 of which you seem to have taken a direct part in working with, Colonel."

"You're not wrong, can still remember my time working with the Mauler like it were yesterday. Huh...the things you learn after going AWOL..." I chuckled, having been mostly cut off from the happenings in the South while serving in the Empire. "Considering I distinctly remember being left out of the loop more times than not even with my rank, I'm curious why you're the one person who hasn't done the same with info like this."

"To be frank Colonel, I have spent the last two-hundred and six years half-asleep and unable to do much of anything but process what had to have occurred for me never seeing real battle in my intended role. The only logical conclusion is that a Tier-III Eclipse - Category event occurred and the War was ended too soon for me to have any real value. So, following that path of logic...why should I hold anything as 'Classified' anymore in light of an apocalypse? You had the clearance to board and activate the ship. That is more than good enough for me at this point given the statistical improbability of being discovered by military personnel. Besides...what harm is it going to cause when everyone else I could possibly speak about is already dead? Speaking of which...and I mean no offence by this but merely very curious, why aren't you as well, Ma'am? Dead, that is. Records indicate your date of birth to be the third of July, 2046 so forgive my inability to compute your presence here. Ma'am."

"Heh...you're not the only one who's asked that same question today." I laughed softly, leaning back in my chair as a light started flashing green in my peripherals from the central control panel.

"Ma'am, I have an incoming transmission on an emergency military channel transmitted by one Captain Garand K. Enfield? Credentials and frequency check out in the database as being registered with the Steel Rangers Corps although his records are so full of omissions I can't draw any conclusions. Well, apart from he too should likely be deceased as well but that is now uncertain. Should I patch him through?"

"Um...yeah, please do. He's my...travel companion." I replied, curious how Garand was reacting to the sudden intruder I had yet to inform him about.

"Hi Garand."

"There you are! Who the fuck is AUNTIE?! Auntie who?? And why the fuck is she on this channel? Who are you with? The fuck ya up to, mare?"

"Nice to hear from you too..." I sighed, hearing the communication over loudspeakers built into the corners and headrests. "Listen, AUNTIE is a V.I that came with the Vertibird. She came online when I powered this thing up and I haven't had time to tell you about her yet. Was still trying to get things straight with her."

"That thing has a fuckin V.I installed that can intercept radio frequencies? Damn...you weren't kidding, that ship has a lot of surprises. Is it listening in?"

"Naturally." She replied, her voice coming from the same speakers as well. "This craft was also designed to convert into an emergency field hospital. Thus, emergency frequencies are within my jurisdiction to listen in on in the event we need to prepare the triage bay or if there is a lot of information being exchanged and they need a record or interpretation of said record for logistical purposes."

"Yeah, yeah..." He sighed, the feeling of him rolling his eyes like a scream across the radio. "Look, Auntie whoever you are, we've got some questions for ya. And don't tell me it's 'Classified' because that's bullshit. If you know what date it is, you'll know what happened outside this facility and know it's a moot point to care about that shit anymore."

"Indeed it is, Captain." She replied without skipping a beat. "Colonel? I know it does not matter but old habits die hard. Is the Captain permitted to ask such questions?"

"Uh, yeah. Granted." I replied with a laugh, feeling a gleeful sense of pride in outranking him.

"Oh, so I have your permission to speak? How fuckin' thoughtful of ya..." He groaned, changing tones once he spoke again. "Alright, number one. What do you know about this facility? It's a lot fucking bigger than my largest estimates guessed and there's plenty to be excited about in here. How can ya help us out?"

"I'm afraid I do not know, Captain. I was delivered here only two days before I lost auxiliary connection with my surroundings. Not only that but I was left in standby mode with minimal sensor input available during the entire transit from Saddle Arabia to this location. I am able to detect the facility once again now that the Colonel has restored main power to my systems, however I am unable to establish a remote connection with the mainframe as there is insufficient power to the complex's transmitters for me to use them. It seems emergency power is not being routed properly to multiple subsystems I would otherwise have easy access to."

"So...restore power and you'll crack this shitbox wide open for us?"

"Correct, Sir. I have security clearances unique to me that grant me General-level credentials and Alpha-3 clearance in Ministry of War facilities. It was deemed prudent given that live testing of my capabilities proved I am capable of handling the ship on my own and accessing or providing information as needed to the CO on board the craft. It likewise grants me priority landing clearance at any runway and remote access to external door controls of almost any enclosed landing bay. This is a trillion-bit government funded investment after all and it would be a waste to treat me less than I am worthy of."

"Oh really? Well...that changes things." I hummed, thinking about the goldmine we sat inside. "How did they get you in here? Don't think they would have taken you down into parts small enough for the cargo elevator we took to get down here. Or did they?"

"They did not via that route, Colonel. I was transported here inside multiple shipments on Sky Freighters from Saddle Arabia. Last definite ping off navigation beacons was approximately 100 miles due Northeast of this facility or 200 miles South/Southwest of Dodge Junction."

"That'd put you..." I began, pulling up my map until Garand beat me to the punch.

"Right in the crook of the Embers on that side of the range, close to where they turn into the Ponyrenees to the East of us here. Heard this place was built into what used to be old Gem mines and ancient cave systems left over from the Dragons so...guess they must have an entrance all the way out there. That is...both a benefit and a problem."

"Do elaborate, Captain?" She asked politely. "I'm afraid the realities of the world outside are unfamiliar to me since last I was awake, Equestria was two centuries younger and still at War with the Empire. That there's even a world still left out there is statistically surprising as well. A possibility but one with multiple margins for error in my calculations given organic life's impeccable resilience. Or perhaps it should rather be called 'defiance'?"

"Oh there's definitely plenty of life and defiance out there in this wonderland of a new world." I laughed.

"And most of it ain't friendly anymore." Garand finished before distractedly saying, "Huh? No, I'm talking to her... Yeah. Hell if I know, just make a fuckin' note of it or some shit... Do I look like I carry a pencil and paper in my bags? What the fuck I look like to you, a personal secretary?"

There was another pause of silence as he hadn't turned on external audio inputs before he half-yelled, "If you fuckin' need it so bad then go up to the fucking offices we saw earlier! Plenty of shit to keep you busy with... The fuck you mean 'inventory'? …You wanna catalog every fucking little thing? Right now? Sure, whatever...just... Two floors up ya ding dong!"

The next bout of silence was broken quickly by a long and tired sigh from the big ol' bird before he said, "Ok. Bullshit aside...what I was saying was that if they transported you unassembled via some long ass tunnel from the Eastern side of the Embers, that means there's likely still a tunnel there today. That means we have an easy means past the Gap and right into the Dodge Junction area. However, that also means the Order would have an easy past the Gap as well if they ever happen to find it which...isn't a happy fuckin' thought to have floating around out there. How many knew about this tunnel system?"

"I'm afraid again Sir that I do not know. However, given that this...Order has not found it yet in over two centuries, I would say that is something in our favor until we learn more. What is this 'Order' you speak of, Sir? If I may so inquire."

"The mutated, rotting remains of the Steel Ranger Corps..." Garand sighed again, the anger and resentment clear in his voice. "They started out as M and T Companies, 3rd Battalion, 11th Armored Calvary Regiment, 105th Division; casually called 'Mad' and 'Terror Company' respectively. They were the Steel Ranger contingent under Brigadier General Stone Mason acting as the inner and outer-city defense for Salt Lick City and the surrounding suburbs. Place was the main production facility and headquarters for West-Tec, the subsidiarity of Stable-Tec in partnership with the Ministry of War to solely produce certain products. In this case...this particular city was a major supplier of Power Armor to the War effort. Big target with lots of military infrastructure dug into it over the years so they just gave the area an entire fucking Brigade's worth of soldiers to delegate and distribute around as they saw fit. Minus those in Power Armor of course. They of course were best used as guards for the installations and riot control for the city when the food shortages hit again."

"Do continue, Sir." AUNTIE said inquisitively, a sentiment I related with as I was curious as she was to learn of the origins of the modern day Steel Rangers.

"Yeah, we've got time for a little history." I chimed in with a smirk, brooding on what could have happened.

"Yeesh...as if one nosy mare wasn't bad enough...I was gonna tell ya anyway, jeez. Well...the reason I'm willing to believe Athena's story is because General Mason was attacked by a large contingent of Crimson Dragons and cloaked infantry on the 20th of October, three days before the Great War. They had brought with them a Balefire Bomb set to detonate the facility and especially the power plant in order to blast as wide a crater in Central Equestria as they could. General Mason and his boys kicked their asses though and managed to capture five of their Shaman who were there to prepare the bomb with whatever ritual they do to make the bomb active. With some help from a couple Ministry of Morale Unicorns, they got it ready to return to sender using their new prisoners."

"Wouldn't the Great War have started sooner then?" I asked, wondering what I was missing. "Doubt something like sending a goddamn Balefire Bomb preemptively would have gone over too well with those striped bastards."

"Well yeah, if they had sent it back with same fucking day delivery but it took a couple days to break into their minds and force them to work against their masters. They barely had the Spectral Array ready to teleport the Bomb when the whole country was lit up with sirens so they decided to use the weapon to detonate the Bombs plummeting from portals in the atmosphere towards the city itself. Long story short after the Great War, they dug into Salt Lick City and slowly made contact with all other surviving members of the Equestrian Armed Forces across the country that still had working radios. After that...they decided to reform what and who survived the EAF into the Order of the Steel Rangers with a bunch of titles, rules and shit that callback to medieval times. Fast forward a couple hundred years and there's Seven-Chapters of the original Order in every major city of the East with over a dozen smaller splinter factions scattered all around in between who have varyingly large territories they clawed out for themselves. Of course, I shouldn't forget to mention all these groups and splinter groups have varying ideologies that lead them into conflict with each other but ironically enough, they all have relatively similar goals in the end."

"Those being?"

"Technology. No two fucks about it, basically all fragments of the SR are obsessed with technology in one way or another and most tend to covet it violently." He replied dryly, the contempt for them dripping from his voice. "Some more than others but their reputation is to the point where 99% of people automatically assume anyone in Power Armor is one of them and out for blood. Doesn't matter which side of Canterlot you're on, if you're not affiliated with one of them you might as well be their enemy. They're not wrong to think that but it's kind of an oversimplification of how shit be with the Order and the rest of 'em. Some are actually not so bad, at least compared to the rest, but their numbers are so small or their group so secretive you'd never know they existed anyway."

"I see...so, ponies in Power Armor are overall the bad guys now? That is quite interesting..." She hummed softly. "So...I would assume then that any of these aforementioned factions would be incredibly interested in this facility and me in particular then? Seems to be the most logical summation of what you have told me."

"Heh, you catch on pretty quick." I laughed, wondering if there was a chance we could get her help. "They're the reason we're here to be honest. There's a Platoon-sized force of Steel Rangers en-route to this location as we speak with...what kinda Kampfwagens were they?"

"Falke IIs." He replied with a slight growl of frustration. "Three of 'em. Barrel thickness and body characteristics indicate they're the earlier models with the 50mm cannon and additional frontal spaced armor. Couldn't quite tell if they had the side skirts for the tracks and turret that came standard on later iterations though. That kinda armor is just too thick for anything me or Firefly have that isn't a shaped-charge mine and Athena's AMR-25 is only going to do so much damage. You do have APs right? You didn't come after me with just dumb old HEs in that thing like a total dumbass, yes?"

"Oh fuck you very much...yeah, I totally didn't read your dossier thoroughly and didn't notice the bold print that says, 'Hey, this asshat wears Power Armor'... I mean, I brought armor piercers but only like 15-rounds worth of anything remotely useful against a fucking tank." I laughed nervously, thinking about the rifle nestled safely in the bunkroom loaded with APFSDS-Ts. "I've got ten HEAA rounds and five discarding sabots. Wait, four because I missed that first shot... What a waste of a good tungsten dart."

"Eh, 25mm of a shaped copper charge might be enough to punch through Power Armor but I doubt it'll do much good against a Falke II." Garand grunted, both of us brushing off for now the fact that dart had been meant for him. "That leaves us with four goddamn shots worth a damn against three tanks...fuckin' great."

"Not sure if I am permitted to interject here but I've got enough firepower to spare for all of us..." AUNTIE said quietly in the pause that followed his griping. "The Dual-Purpose rounds currently selected for the chin cannon alone are more than enough to punch through their lightly armored topsides. Considering I have a distinct height advantage...well, you couldn't ask for a better battlefield companion, Sir."

"Is that you offering to help...?" I asked, cautiously optimistic.

"Yes Ma'am, that it is." She responded brightly, the noise of the engines getting noticeably louder. "Give me a chance to line them up and I can wipe the floor with their insides!"

"Damn, I like the shit coming outta this girl's mouth!" Garand chuckled with glee. "Hungry for some action?"

"With all due respect Sir, I was built for a War I never got the opportunity to have a part in. I'm dying for the chance to make my existence mean something again. You are both recognized officers in my records and I've already confirmed Colonel Crete's identity via the biometric sensors in your PipBuck. As far as I see it, you are the only ones alive with the true authority to command me and the resources of this facility. Bring me targets and I'll bring you results. Just as it should have been had things turned out differently."

"Terrific! How soon can you depart?" He asked before calling out, "Hey! Glowstick! Forget the inventory and get your ass back to the elevator, we've got more Tin Heads to kill! Real ones this time!"

"Tin Heads? Ah...a euphemism and insult to these wayward Steel Rangers I take it?"

"Yes, but it actually is a phrase as old as you are. It's what members of my Corps called members of his back in the day." I interjected since it was hard for me to resist a chance to enlighten someone.

"Yeah, and we called you guys fuckin' NadPads back then too." Garand laughed sounding surprised he remembered something like that. "Gods the memories...anyways, mind answering the question? When can we be prepped and ready for take off?"

"My apologies, Sir. I still have to perform a full system's check but I estimate easily within the hour. I am aware we are under certain time constraints so I must ask for an estimation as to the time of their arrival."

"Well...been outta range of the GIMP satellite for a little over an hour so that's two sweeps we missed out on but lemme pull up the one from just before we went underground and jog my memory a bit."

The line went silent for a few moments so I took the time to look around the cockpit to take in more of the view of my new toy. Now that main power was pumping life through the ship, the rather roomy space was alight with small colored bulbs, glowing buttons and terminals all begging to be explored and (carefully) fucked around with. On the console in front of me I could see dozens of small printed labels in blocky text print pasted above every single important switch and button. Of particular note, there weren't as many minor knobs and controls as I remembered on the Vertibirds I had previously worked with. There was much more a feeling of technological advancement surrounding this craft than with the older models, which still retained a particularly mechanical feel to them. Of course, none of them had come with a V.I, let alone one that seemed as...alive as AUNTIE was coming off as. So much of it all was rather familiar to what I remembered but with enough things new and different to set this apart in an entirely new category of it own. In as far as I could tell, I was the proud and lucky owner of the single most advanced piece of tech on the planet. Barring any other potentially interesting black site finds we may yet encounter of course.

"Uhhh, let's see." His voice finally replied over the speakers. "Based off what I can see here, and making an educated guess given the speed they were going, I'd say we've got maybe thirty minutes, forty at best. My data is outdated but I'm feelin' pretty confident in my numbers here. They hauled some serious ass to get down here, sweet fuck..."

"Indeed so..." AUNTIE replied, her tone trailing off as she seemed to slip into what could be called 'thought'. "Very well, I can omit certain system's checks and focus solely on those needed for this engagement. If any of you will be needing the restroom, best to use one in this complex as that and the kitchen will be sealed off until I have time to ensure all is functional upon our return. Two-hundred years sitting idle is not exactly ideal for any piece of technology no matter how advanced it may be. Anything could have gone amiss during that period."

"ETC?" He asked getting straight to the point.

"Ten minutes, twenty-seven seconds if done at peak efficiency." She replied immediately. "I will need your help Colonel, if you would be so kind as to lend your assistance with this procedure."

"Oh...?" I asked sheepishly. "I mean...I remember some of my pilot training but really they're more just...hazy memories of the experience rather than the actual training itself, heh..."

"Oh, that is not a matter for concern in this scenario." She said reassuringly. "I can fly and operate this craft by myself under the proper circumstances but I will need assistance when it comes to certain pre-flight checks. Visual confirmation of the ship itself is one thing I cannot do unfortunately and there are many parts of this craft that will need a visual inspection to ensure two centuries of idleness have not fouled anything up. There are some tasks that are just best left to Organics and this is unfortunately one of them, Ma'am."

"Heh, Organics eh? Alright, I can work with that terminology. What do you need me to do?"

"Hey, let her know but at least lemme leave the chat first." Garand grunted. "We're a few floors and shit below you so it'll be fifteen or so until we're back up there anyway. Garand, out."

There was a few seconds pause before she hummed, "Charming fellow. Have you known him long, Colonel?"

"Uhhh...yes and no...?" I laughed sheepishly as she reminded me of how complicated our relationship was. "See...we met a couple of times back during the War, down on the Southern Front while we were both stationed there. He was more of a dick back then, now that I remember better...not to mention louder and more talkative. Anywho...suffice it to say for now, don't know him very well and we only uh...bumped into each other earlier today in the canyons."

"Your hesitation indicates there is more going on here but in the essence of time, that will do for now." She replied simply. "Very well, I have uploaded a copy of the pre-flight checklist to your PipBuck. Please access it via your HUD and stand in the center of the cockpit so we may begin in earnest. Even with the elimination of non-essential and non-combat related system's checks, there is much to be done and this is no small craft."

There was a soft chirp from my PipBuck as she spoke and a second later I was looking over the eight-page document she had sent me. I had barely a second with it before dozens of question marks popped up in my mind as term after technical term rolled before my eyes like incomprehensible gibberish. I was gonna need a lot of patience and hoof-holding to get back into the swing of things.

***✪***

"Yo, mare! We're back."

Yet again in so many minutes I was getting the shit scared out of me by a sudden voice out of nowhere while I was deeply engrossed in something interesting. My head was already reeling from the lengthy checklist and hazy memories slowly returning to the surface so needless to say I was a tad grouchy this time around.

"Crete? Where ya done scurry off to?" Firefly's voice sounded from down the hallway to the main cabin. "Sweet fuckin' damn ain't this ah sight..."

With a sigh and a grunt I flopped myself onto my hooves from the communications station seat in the cockpit, hooking my way left around the corner and down the passageway now lined with softly glowing LED bulbs. Entering the cabin I immediately spotted Firefly on the far side looking intensely the lit up gun rack I had left open earlier while Garand was busy trying to climb up and into the ship, his Power Armor standing by itself outside.

"Ah, there she is. Was starting to think you fucked off and went back to sleep." He snickered as he hoisted himself inside and immediately had to crouch as the ceiling was a foot short of his full height. "Gods why did I think this was a good fuckin' idea...?"

"Probably due to wishing to see these Steel Rangers off on their way to an explosive demise?" AUNTIE chimed in with a smirk that could be felt over the speakers. "Or am I mistaken, Captain? Vocal and situational analysis has made it hard for me to consider alternative answers in this situation."

He snorted and took a moment to lay down in the middle of the cabin looking like a housecat curled up on a sofa before replying, "Yeah, that. Although I gotta wonder how the fuck I'm gonna be able to enjoy the view from back here."

"Oh do not worry about that." AUNTIE said excitedly as a series of small hatches across the cabin roof opened and small cables dropped down from above the seats. "The Rook was installed with the Advanced Assisted Optics System which allows for any with a PipBuck and compatible device with a HUD to interface with any of the external camera feeds."

"Wait...seriously?" He asked in surprise, taking the nearest cable dangling over a seat to his left and examining the plug. "So how many external feeds do you have exactly then?"

"Thirty-six in total, Sir. The feed from the main sensor array above the nose cannon is by far the most comprehensive but those located along the port and starboard turrets have a wider field of view at 300-degrees of rotation. It is quite simple, merely plug the uplink cable into your PipBuck and don the helmet of your Power Armor as you would normally. The device will link through my central processor and the video feed will begin automatically after that."

"How did you know I had Power Armor...?"

"Captain, did you truly think anything with Stable-Tec infrastructure wouldn't stand out like a sore horn? It's a giant armored PipBuck essentially and broadcasts it's own IFF tag that pings bright as day on my sensors. It's exactly one meter away off the starboard bow, a T-51d chassis equipped with PipBuck OS Version 3.41b although the Structural Integrity Assessment System is not properly registering multiple pieces including the cuirass, left pauldron and several pieces of the extremities. I'm sure you have a better explanation than any hypothesis I could formulate."

"Huh...uh, yeah. Those are pieces I kinda had to patchwork together over the last six months to replace pieces that got fucked up while I was trying to evade the Order. Inner wiring on most pieces was fucked so the SIA System couldn't make a connection with any of 'em but that doesn't mean they weren't still armor. I eh...kinda used to be a part of the Order at on point but then went and killed a bunch of their guys. Their lack of clear ethics and increasingly violent tactics got a bit too far over the line for me. And before you ask, yeah. I didn't have this change of heart soon enough...did shit I'm not proud of and that's why I'm here now trying to make damn fucking sure none of them set a single hoof inside this place. If they got ahold of you first...well, we're about to see what kinda shit you can wreck in a bit anyway so it's only gonna make that 'what if?' question more crazy to consider."

"I see...well, it is a reality as a soldier to follow orders you disagree with so I will not hold it against you. I suppose what matters more is your current actions rather than than previous ones I have little knowledge of."

"Heh, thanks I guess?" He shrugged before nodding to me and saying, "You, go snag my helmet would ya? You're closer and can move around easier than I can in here."

I rolled my eyes and hopped down from the open side door and onto the large, circular landing pad we were situated on. It was my first time actually looking anywhere other than the Vertibird and I was taken aback at how lofty the semi-domed ceiling was above us; easily fifty-plus feet up capped off with a flat, wide blast door presumably leading to the outside. Unlike the hangars where the Ravens were stored for maintenance and rearming, this hangar was almost completely barren of anything distinctly meant for the Vertibird. There were tool carts, arcane welding gear and other utensils sitting around but they could all just as easily be meant for any of the Kampfwagens Garand and Firefly had found down below. How was this thing meant to be rearmed? Or perhaps the better question was where was it supposed to be sent once it had launched all its rockets and emptied its drums of ammunition?

Speaking of Garand... I turned to my side and spotted his armor standing nearby with his Plague Bird emblazoned helmet hanging from a hook he had welded onto his left cuisse. I took a second to look at the decal again and reminisce about a simpler time before I noticed some...interesting modifications he had made to his ancient T-51d helmet. The original oculari, or viewport, was filled-in and cut into a different shape more akin the older T-45 helmets. The older model sported two independent ballistic lenses instead of one long, narrow viewport as featured on the T-51 models. Following in the oddity, the lenses in these oculari were in fact not the black titanium quartz panels used in the T-45 or 51 but were instead a deep bloody red; a color used by an entirely different helmet type altogether. Not only that, but these lenses were noticeably smaller than you would expect a bird his size to need but still larger than a normal pony's eyes. Meaning...he had to have cannibalized parts from some Griffin's M-CAP(R) helmet. It was hard to tell if it were taken from a Mrk. III or Mrk. IV model, but there was no mistaking the level of sophistication nor the size of the lens itself. There was also some new communication's package attached to his helmet as well. However, the long antenna coming out the back and the distinctly SR aesthetics made it clear it came from one of the later Semi-Powered armor lines. Overall, he had made some rather extensive and decently implemented field modifications to his gear and I couldn't hold back a nod of approval at his cleverness. Not to mention proper reuse of available tools and resources.

"Huh...explains a few things..." I muttered to myself before I heard him yelling for me to hurry the fuck up already.

"Jeez, mare...the fuck you doing out there?" He scowled as I hopped back into the main cabin. "We've got limited time to get this shit done and you're wasting time with your hoof up your ass. If ya wanted to get yourself off, you shoulda thought about that before you turned this thing on and got the whole ball rolling."

"Yeah, yeah..." I sighed as I hurled his helmet at him in retaliation, the thud as it pelted his shoulder almost as loud as the squawk of pain that came out of his big beak. "Sit and spin, dipshit. Least you can even climb aboard. Was having my doubts you could even fit in here."

He blushed a dark angry red and glared at me furiously, rubbing his bruised shoulder in his talons. "Hey, fuck you! I am not that fuckin' fat. Besides! Not like I can move around and catch shit while I'm laying down like this, you psycho bitch..."

I rolled my eyes and left him to bend awkwardly around himself in order to grab his helmet while I nodded to Firefly and then towards the hatch leading to the front of the ship. Within a second he had dropped the rucksack of supplies he had been nosing through and was by my side looking as giddy as a colt on Hearth's Warming Eve.

"Ah wasn't involved in y'all's lil' conversation so Ah know nothin' 'bout this here machine." He said grinning ear to ear under his Oatstralian bush hat. "Yew weren't lyin' tho'! This thang is a goddamned marvel!"

"Heh, even a word as strong as that doesn't quite cut it here..." I laughed as the hatch opened on my approach and I led him into the comfortably lit hallway at the center of the beast. "It keeps going heh, heh."

"Holy mutha..." He gasped, his milky blue eyes wide with shock as he looked past me down the length of the hall. "It fuckin' splits at th' center?! Th' fuck is down here?!"

"There are four independent cabins located in this section of the Rook." AUNTIE replied from overhead as we moved into the central hub area between the hallways and cabin doors. "Unfortunately due to the nature of the current situation, two of them are currently sealed pending an appropriate time to inspect everything for full functionality."

"Two of 'em, eh?" Firefly whistled as he looked around at the multitude of options to explore. "Take it them's the ones wit' red lights ringin' th' doors?"

"Correct, uh...pardon me but I cannot say that I am aware of your name, Mr...?"

"Firefly's th' name!" He chuckled, tipping his hat at the air in general. "Former NER 1st Recon werkin' fer mahself now as ah Bounty Hunter! Yew sum kind o' computer then Ah take it?"

"In so plain of terms, yes." AUNTIE responded with a soft chuckle of amusement. "Although I will not pretend to know what 'NER 1st Recon' means precisely. However, the terminology involved implies some form of combat or military training. Am I mistaken in this assumption?"

"Nope! NER stands fer th' New Equestrian Republic. Buncha ponies from Stable 8 that managed tah form th' biggest organized faction this here side o' th' Gap o' Canterlot. Took a lotta inspiration from th' old world, especially when it comes tah th' structure n' hierarchy y'all used in th' Army. We got Privates, Sergeants, Majors, Colonels...th' whole shebang. Ain't nothin' near as big 'er advanced as y'all were but they do alrigh' enough fer themselves."

"Fascinating!" She replied with genuine interest. "I am aware of Project: Safehouse as it was the single largest government funded construction project in history. Of which, this facility was more than likely a part of given the amount of Stable-Tec infrastructure I am able to detect around me. To hear of a Stable being this successful is intriguing news as I have long pondered over them and was forced to speculate with little information as to what became of Project: Safehouse. The concept of safeguarding an Organic population underground from the effects of arcane radiation and climate disaster for multiple decades truly fascinates me. The logistics involved alone is quite the case study for economics and supply management, not to mention the many needs of the residents physically, psychologically and emotionally for several generations. Truly an impressive and ambitious civil defense initiative!"

"Yeahhhh...abou' tha'..." He chuckled nervously, looking back towards the main cabin for a moment as if deciding if he wanted to leave.

"Let's just say Project: Safehouse was...overall a resounding failure..." I said grimly, thinking of the hundreds of horror stories I had heard over the years and the rare Stable I managed to stumble across. "Aside from Stable 8 and a few others out there like 39...they just ended up being death traps that killed their occupants in one way or another. Stable-Tec seemed to have sold their Souls to the Abyss somewhere along the line; every Stable was just a perfectly isolated group of test subjects for hundreds of so-called 'social experiments'. I don't know much about the full scope of their depravity but...the little I do know gives me a reason to avoid going out of my way to look for Stables. Stable-Tec produced some of the most incredible technology and inventions in history but all those exclusive government contracts went to their heads. Even when dead and abandoned, they are still some of the most dangerous places you could choose to scavenge from let alone try and settle down in. Good potential for making a profit off the rare tech torn outta the poor places but the odds of survival for most who wander in are pretty low for the most part. Either due to what killed the original Stable Dwellers or what moved in afterwards."

"Ah." She said softly, the shock and disappointment evident in her tone. "I see... Very well, shall we continue? We must depart very soon if we are to intercept them in short order."

"Sounds great!" Firefly laughed in relief as I led him to the cockpit, which only dropped his jaw closer to the rubberized floor tiles.

"Holy... Th' Republic ain't got shit on anythin' in this fuckin' room! Stable City would fuckin' kill tah have even one o' these here computer consoles." He whistled in amazement as his head darted around taking in all the sights. "Damn, takes two ponies tah fly this thang?"

"Yes, but also no." AUNTIE corrected kindly. "Officially, the UFF-1 is to be crewed by no less than six individuals. A pilot, a primary gunner, a communications officer, an operations officer and two crew chiefs who also double as midship turret gunners and cargo chiefs in the event of materiel transportation. However...that does not reflect the reality that I am able to simultaneously perform all these tasks on my own eliminating the need for any of these positions. That being said however, the processing power that requires makes it more difficult to do each task to the full extent of their respective abilities. In other words, having a trained crew maximizes efficiency but the lack of one is no barrier to a basic use of this craft."

"Uh-huh...well...tha's good since Ah ain't no wizard wit' machines anyway. Crete? Yew know how tah do anythin' here?"

I shook my head with a sheepish but honest smile. I was just as grateful as he was that AUNTIE said she could handle everything on her own. The last thing I wanted was to fuck something up due to the miles worth of canyons in my memory.

"Sadly, no..." I admitted, taking a seat in the pilots chair while he plopped himself down in the gunner's seat to my right. "I remember working with the smaller utility-transport version called the Raven but aside from the happy memories...can't say I actually really remember much of anything when it comes to how to run one of these. I was honestly hoping there was like a manual or something on board that I could use to throw something together but this saves me a lot of hassle."

"And potential catastrophe if by some misfortune you damaged the vehicle itself in your attempts to fly unaided." AUNTIE mused, the noise of the engines increasing again in the background just as Garand's voice came in over the comms.

"We ready to go yet?" He grunted in annoyance. "I plugged in but all I can see is what's to the damn left and right sides of the ship and I'm getting bored waiting back here."

"Affirmative, Captain." AUNTIE replied professionally. "One moment while the hangar doors open above us."

Leaning forward I could look directly up thanks to the collection of cockpit windows and I watched in fascination as the flat roof above us split down the center and retracted into the walls; more spinning lights and klaxons springing to life on the walls outside announcing the occasion. The light of the sun immediately poured in through the growing gap as it dawned on me that we were inside a long-dead volcano with an open top leading to the outside world. I had not seen anything like that while traveling to the bunker so I had to assume it had been camouflaged in some way just like the front door. More than likely disguised as one of the many craggy peaks that littered the Ember Mountains.

"Hangar doors are open, engines and all primary systems are all green across the board...we are ready for takeoff, Colonel!" AUNTIE announced proudly after the dull boom of the hangar doors fully opening was drowned out by the engines. "Ready to deploy upon your command."

"Heh, no need to be so formal about it!" I laughed, tapping the side of the command console with an excited grin. "Let's go blast some Tin Heads off the face of the fuckin' planet!"

With that there was a massive jerk in the craft as my stomach temporarily said hello to my ass and the Vertibird took off; the dust of centuries that had piled on the hangar door being blown about by the whirling turbines. Firefly gripped his seat for dear life while clenching his eyes shut and gritting his teeth while at the same time I felt...exhilarated. The rough rock of the volcano mouth was over in a second and for the first time in far too long I was airborne. The gnarled, twisted expanse of the Ember Mountains stretched out below me in the late afternoon sun as a field of sharp rocks; the Ponyrenees stretching Eastward forming the great North/South barrier to Mareseilles. The view, as dull and uninteresting as it was, couldn't be described as anything less than breathtaking and majestic.

I forever will attest of my own free will that I hate heights within most logical reasonings. Put me atop a mountain and I would be more or less fine because the sheer expanse of rock helps lessen how aware I am of the fall. Put me on a cliff on the side of that same mountain...well, that's where vertigo pops out from behind the dumpster to stab you in the kidney. My whole life I had lived with wobbly knees and a nervous gut anytime I was placed at any great height but in a Vertibird however...the feeling was immaculately different. I was safe within an armored hull with full control over where we went, how high we flew and how fast I wanted to take it. Sure, it was nothing like natural talent with a set of wings but I'd like to think it put me in a similar playing field as Buck Beak. At least close enough to where I could claim I knew how to fly as well and was arguably more deadly than him now. It was hard to compare one Griffin in heavy armor and a boom toy or two to a whole goddamn flying behemoth of destruction like the Rook.

"Sorry for the rapid ascent..." AUNTIE apologized after we had settled into a very high hover just over the mountain range. "I must admit I was a bit reckless with the throttle in my excitement to finally be airborne again."

"Heh, hey I can't say I blame you!" I laughed as I hopped down onto my hooves so I could admire the landscape from as many windows as possible. "Gods look at the view! Never actually been this deep into the Embers before so it's even cooler to see them from above!"

"Is that so, Colonel?" She asked warmly before Garand came over the comms once more.

"Great view and all but can we destroy the SR first? Don't want them even getting a chance to find the service road and transmit it's coordinates back to HQ. Bit of a long shot given they don't have any Forward Radio Outposts like Black Steel Hill but I don't wanna put it past them finding a way."

"He's right..." I sighed, turning away from the cockpit windows to sit at the tactical station. "Alright...wow...yeah, this is even more advanced than the one on the Mauler...how do we go about searching for them?"

"One moment." She replied, the screen going from empty black to displaying a fully colorized 3D model of the Rook along with a detailed three-dimensional map of the surrounding terrain as if captured by a camera, growing larger by the second.

"Is it safe tah open mah eyes yet, 'er naw?" Firefly grunted behind me and to my right.

"Long as you don't mind the view, yeah." I replied as I glanced over my shoulder to look at him peeking out from under the brim of his hat. "We've settled into a hover so you're free to walk around for a bit. Least until we find th-"

"Bingo!" AUNTIE sang happily as there was an audible ping from the console. "That's as solid a hit as I've ever seen!"

The screen zoomed out from our current position bringing the Western edge of the Embers into view along with a big red arrow coasting quickly along the edge of the mountains. The view then scrolled over to the arrow and zoomed in revealing little galloping models of T-51s and the bulkier, enigmatic T-60s that Garand had mentioned a few times before. Rolling alongside at an equal pace and interspersed throughout the Platoon were the three Falke IIs Garand had also mentioned more than once before; seeing them represented in such a physical way made their threat all the more apparent. Of course...that's what I would say if I weren't consciously sitting in something that literally had the words 'Flying Fortress' in its official name.

"As I stated previously to Captain Enfield, anything with Stable-Tec hardware shines bright as day on my sensors given the majority of the internals of this craft are of the same origin. Stable-Tec is, or should I say was, predominantly used by friendly units and so making them stand out was important for targeting and reconnaissance purposes."

"I can't see anything but the mountains around us so ya mind telling me what you two are yammering on about...oh. Huh, neat feature... Yep, just as I guessed. Sixty-four independent Rangers and three Falke IIs with the long 50s, though it looks like they still have twenty-minutes or so till they hit the general area of the service road."

"I estimate twenty-three minutes and thirty seconds." AUNTIE hummed nonchalantly. "But very good for on the fly! So...should I bother in asking if there is a specified plan of attack already set in place by one of you or should I improvise based upon my best judgement?"

I opened my mouth to speak but was kind of at a loss at what to say given almost half a dozen plans had already been changed wildly today and I was still awash with mixed emotions. Garand likewise stayed silent though more likely due to being uninformed as to just what a ship like this could do. Firefly...Firefly just was in his own world gazing out the windows as close to them as he could get without climbing onto the instrument panels. AUNTIE was beyond a doubt the best choice.

"Very well, I shall take that as a unanimous vote for the latter." She purred with glee before the cord coming off the back of the pilots' chair began to glow green in a pulsing pattern to grab my attention. "Colonel, if you would please hook into the Advanced Assisted Optics System as well. Your helmet is just as compatible as the Captain's with interfacing with the targeting computer and mounted optics. However, your position in the craft also grants you access to the weapons systems as well as external camera and sensor feeds."

In a second I was back in the pilot's chair, settling in comfortably as I snaked the plug around the side of the chair and into the little port on the top left corner of my PipBuck. The moment I did, a short scrolling message appeared on my HUD before my view of the cockpit changed to a breathtaking bird's eye view of the Ember Mountains around and below us. It was as if I had stuck my head out of the nose of the Vertibird and had some insane eye surgery performed to boot. The view was the clearest I had ever seen from a camera feed and my depth of field and level of clarity were simply immaculate as I took a moment to admire the wispy clouds curling aimlessly between the twisted peaks. When I turned my head to express my wonder to Firefly is when I noticed something rather...interesting. The view from the nose optics turned in conjunction with the movement of my head seamlessly giving me a clear view of our whole right side surroundings. In no time at all I was already sidetracked and had forgotten to say anything at all to him.

"Ah! I see the Colonel has discovered the primary application of the AAOS!" AUNTIE announced with pride. "Organic head and eye motions are far more precise and seamless for the user to employ rather than by any mechanical means operated manually by hoof. By using the gyroscopes and eye-tracking software already pre-built into your helmets, the AAOS is able to interpret those movements as commands which always keeps the primary optics pointed where you are currently looking."

"Huh..." I hummed with interest as I swiveled my head around taking in the full scope of the mountains around us. "Definitely useful for many things...scouting and target acquisition not being the least of them."

"Correct! And with such an excellent Segway you provided me, I would like to show you the full potential of it's targeting applications. One moment while I bring the Combat Overlay online..."

It took a few seconds before anything happened, but in the blink of an eye I was looking through the same field of view, only this time there was a bright green targeting reticle right smack in the center of my vision. A targeting reticle and a collection of new, seemingly important words and numbers written in a white-colored font were now hugging the corners of my HUD. As I flicked my eyes about looking at the information hanging in the margins, I immediately noticed the reticle was tracking the movement of my eyes; the same tech already in use in the Mrk. IV helmets as she had described. It took my eyes a moment to find the right balance of focused and unfocused to be able to read the words printed:

M197-B: 2,500
M-19 A: 4,500
M-19 B: 4,500
Hydra-75: 34
ATAD: 8
Red Glare TOW: 4
AMD Flares: 365

"Wow! I...don't...recognize half of these designations. I know the M197, Anti-Missile Defense Flares and the Air-to-Air Darts, but I can't say I've heard of the M-19, Hydra-75 or TOW..." I admitted as I quickly wracked my brain for any ringing bells but came back with the resounding silence of ignorance.

"The M-19 is a tri-barreled gatling gun chambered for the .50 Big Macintosh Guard round on a standard M7 linked belt with a 4:1 mix of AP-T to HE-I at 2,000 rounds-per-minute. These are stationed within the port and starboard turret pods and, when not directly controlled by an operator, face twelve o'clock noon to be used as ventral strafing guns by the designated gunner. As for the Hydras, those are 75mm Folding-Fin Air-to-Ground unguided rockets fired manually in small volleys against infantry and lightly armored ground targets."

"I see...do continue, what about TOW? That's definitely a new one by me. Though if I would have to guess based off what I saw on the snub-wings, I'd put my money on the long missile tube looking things. I remember seeing those on the Vultures but since they never trained me on those, I never really got to see anything up close. They stored the Ravens and the Vultures in separate hangar sections during my time with the Zulu Campaign."

"Ah. Well I am sorry to hear that, dear Colonel. Though to your credit your association with the HAV-5 Vulture is not unfounded as it too utilizes the same weapon system in question. TOW stands for 'Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided', in other words a six-inch Anti-Armor missile that can be adjusted mid-flight by the primary gunner onto a predetermined target. The target is laser-designated prior to the launch of the weapon which provides an active mark for the missile to home in on."

"Well hot damn!" Garand interjected with great approval. "Goddamn shame I can't fuckin' use any of those directly but at least I can watch it in armored safety with a good view. How we lookin' on an angle of attack?"

"Oh, I already logged one into the navigation system." AUNTIE replied sheepishly as the ship surged forward and the world around my camera lens scrolled by. "ETA is one-minute and thirty-five seconds. We will flank them from their rear from the Northwest opening up the confrontation with a barrage from the Hydra pods and a zig-zagging sweep from the M197. Colonel, as you have direct control of the chin turret I would ask that you utilize it while I focus on evasive maneuvers and the use of the Hydras as you have not been trained in their function and targeting parameters."

"Oh? Heh, yeah that's totally fair. Though I gotta ask, how the hell do I use this thing? Didn't see any obvious trigger mechanism on the controls so I gotta assume this thing works based off intent?"

"Correct!" She replied proudly. "Although there is both a manual safety and one linked to the biometric sensors in your helmet you will have to mentally command to disengage before the weapons systems may be fired."

On cue a large switch covered by a clear plastic lid was lit up with small red LEDs on the console beside me, the cover flipping up of its own accord for my convenience. I promptly slapped my hoof on the switch underneath and grinned as the LEDs switched to a bright green indicating I hadn't fucked anything up yet. Next, on my HUD a warning message with a checkered border asked me if I wished to disengage the safeties associated with direct control of the weapons. This time, I needed to use my eyes to highlight and select the 'CONFIRM' option at the bottom of the message. A moment later and the list of weapons on my display were highlighted in green just as the edge of the mountains passed below us and the open expanse of the San-Palomino was laid bare before us; another gasp of awe coming from Firefly. As we banked left to hug the rim of the mountain range and dropped in altitude to better mask our approach, I could now see the iconic red enemy E.F.S markers on my HUD. Two-clicks out and closing awfully damn fast. Out of habit, I started counting them and confirmed to myself that Auntie had not been yanking our tails with her head count of sixty-four ground units plus three tanks. They were hellbent on moving South which gave us a wide open shot at annihilating them from behind by complete surprise. A conventional ground war is what they came for, we were bringing the power of an air war and a fuckload of Anti-Armor weapons. Not to mention a very sophisticated Virtual Intelligence unit with a potent hunger for blood now that she had been essentially released from her prison.

"Alright Colonel...just command the 30mm to fire and use your head and eyes to direct the weapon to where you would like to obliterate next. I suggest using your arc of fire for aiming at the infantry directly as I will have to aim the Hydra rockets manually using the ship itself in order to neutralize the Falke. I will try and hit what targets I may over the course of our initial run of course, but it will be up to you to help eliminate as many as you can before I need to reset our trajectory. Are you ready?"

"Hell fuckin' yeah I am!" I cheered with a grin nobody but I could see but so wide my cheeks cried out for mercy. "Death from above, motherfuckers!"

"Heh, heh, that's the spirit!" AUNTIE giggled before immediately turning serious as the target markers got close enough for me to see actual Steel Rangers at a full gallop underneath each red tick. "Ready up! T-minus ten seconds to minimum engagement distance. Oh how I have longed to see this wondrous day!"

Time seemed to slow down in those next few glorious moments as we dove low for our initial approach. The sands below us raced under my field of view at a blazing speed while we hugged close to the relatively flat terrain. And then, all at once, we lifted up and away from the rolling dunes revealing the full convoy of Power Armored units and their tanks. My eyes narrowed as the reticle settled over the rear of the column and a single thought consumed my thoughts, 'FIRE!'. A stream of red projectiles erupted from just under my field of view (accompanied by the muffled but orgasmic sound of a gatling cannon firing in the background) and the ground was alight with a hail of explosions. All the while, the numbers accompanying the M197-B and both M-19 designations on my HUD spiraled down rapidly. It was just so...easy. Rolling my head and eyes from side to side, I decimated everything I looked at while in my peripherals I watched as a flurry of smoke trails sprung from the sides of my vision from the Hydra pods. It was excruciating to resist the urge to look at just how much damage the 30mm had against Power Armor but I knew better than to waste time and the element of surprise. Flashes of images tickled my fancy amidst the explosions of sand and black smoke as we flew over them. The back of one Ranger exploding in a shower of sparks, another already blasted clean in half, and the mountain of fire spewing from the dorsal hatches of a Falke like a spray of magma from a volcano. It was almost dreamlike how fast they appeared and vanished before my sight and yet lingered in my mind's eye, burned into memory like flashes of lightning in a storm briefly illuminating the details in a room.

At a certain distance not too far ahead of them, we flipped around smoothly to face them head-on. One quick glance and I could still spot one tank and well over two dozen Steel Rangers still standing and already returning fire. Flashes of light erupted across the desert below and I could faintly hear rounds pinging off our hull as we surged forward once more for another run; a round from the remaining Falke's 50mm main cannon zipping just over us with the burning tail of a tracer marking the close call. Our speed and maneuverability were simply incredible, even compared to the smaller Ravens I had worked with in the past. We strafed right, the Embers almost close enough to touch, and I unleashed another fury of 30mm terror on the wheeling targets below. They visibly struggled to target us, even with the adjustable turret mountings built into their armor and primary armaments. I heard a loud yelp from Firefly followed by an even louder sigh of relief but was unable to stop and check on him as I painted the San-Palomino with red gore, silver steel and black blast marks dimpled with craters. The carnage was simply absolute. I was unable to believe that such raw power had only been days away from serving on the Southern Front bringing this level of firepower in a package that could fly faster than most Pegusi or Griffins could only dream of going. Not only that but...this Flying Fortress now belonged to me as part of my spoils from our Pre-War spelunking, granted Garand kept true to our earlier bargain. Gods only knew what other wonderful delights awaited me in the bowels of that bunker that was associated with the Desert Rangers...

Soon enough, the only remaining target was the solitary Falke tearing ass across the sand as it made a mad dash towards the cover of the mountains. In this instance, we came to a stationary hover to take aim and my reticle changed to a wide rectangle which flashed to red the moment I locked eyes on our retreating foe. With no time to lose, I willed the thing to fire and watched to my delight as my assumption was correct and a large missile launched from the portside snub-wing. Remembering what AUNTIE had said regarding their basic use, I kept my eyes glued to the fleeing rear of the speedy medium tank; watching as the shrinking shape of the missile slammed into the back of the angled turret and popping the whole thing open like a sealed tin can in a fireplace. The mountain of fire gushing from every hatch and opening was a clear indication I had detonated the ammo racks located within with ease. Any survivors of the initial explosion would meet a shitty end followed by an almost embarrassing final entry to their service records back East.

"Yeeeeeeeehawww!" Firefly screamed at the top of his lungs as I tugged the input cord out of my PipBuck allowing me to see the interior of the cabin again. "Tha' almost tops th' fuckin' explosion we made over by Junction-11!"

"Oh hell fuckin' no." Garand replied over comms. "This absolutely trumps that by a fuckin' landside! Gods what a fuckin' view..."

"Hey, Firefly." I asked, glancing over at him once again glued to the windows. "Heard ya yell back there but I was plugged in and couldn't pull away till the last Tin Head dropped. All good?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah! Got spooked 'cause one o' them chucklefucks got ah couple shots on th' front windows but th' glass ain't busted! Hell, Ah watched it seal itself all back up like some sorta liquid! Fuckin' amazin'..."

"Alright, the view is nice and all but let's go see if there's anything worth salvaging down there. There's a lot of T-60 pieces down there in need of liberation and Krie knows I need to do some more repairs and modifications when this shit is all over. Got actuator issues in the torso of my chassis, got a chunk blown off its weld which honestly just needs a full on replacement, gotta find a spare gyroscope mounting for my back right leg servo...my armor's seen some serious shit the last six fuckin' months."

I glanced to Firefly who looked a bit confused but shrugged in response. I had seen the destruction I had wrought for myself and even from a distance I knew at best what we would find was glorified scrap. Tough as Celestium was, it wasn't invulnerable like Greifenstahl and had its limits. Sure those limits were pretty high and made anyone impervious to small-caliber weapons and intermediate rifle cartridges but 30mm Corvinus had a reputation as a 'royal-fucker-upper' for a reason. If it could bitchslap Rhynox robots and leave them looking like Alpine cheese, those suits of Power Armor were going to be mixed into the visceral paste splattered across the sands.

"Ya sure ya even wanna bother...?" I asked, unconsciously turning my head back towards the main cabin to speak to him. "In case you missed the fireworks, the whole place has seen some serious shit today. Only shit worth salvaging down there is the steel from the Falke but it'll probably be a day or two before it's cooled down enough to recover safely."

"I just want to be sure." He said firmly. "Not a single survivor. Period."

"Captain...I assure you that if there were anything living down there, I would detect it." AUNTIE chided softly.

"Not. A. Fucking. One." He growled with a hint of fury building in the background. "Take us down and just open the door to let me see it for myself. That is all I need."

"Colonel...?" AUNTIE asked hesitantly still leaning into my seniority in rank.

"Do it." I replied with a sigh, laying back in my seat with my eyes closed to relax after rolling my head all over the place. "He's looking for some closure so give it to him. Earned at least that much since we hogged all the actual death dealing by way of circumstance."

"Aye, aye." She replied simply, the ship tilting forwards and descending towards the carnage. "Moving in for a landing. Mr. Firefly, if you would kindly return to your seat until the Rook has come to a complete stop."

Firefly coughed sheepishly as the sounds of him strapping-in sounded off to my right; our speed picking up significantly the moment the buckles clicked shut. With the danger over, I felt it was high time to take my helmet off and let my mane down out of the bun it had been stuck in for the last few days. The moment it was off my magic latched onto the bobby pins holding my mane together and all at once, it cascaded down my shoulders leaving my head feeling lighter. And not just because I had taken five pounds of alloyed steel off my head. Despite my helmet having a wonderful temperature regulator function, sometimes it felt more refreshing to take a breath of air that hadn't been run through several filters.

"What?" I asked Firefly after I had caught him looking my way out of the corner of my eye. "Yeah, my hair looks like shit...and I had just had a nice bath right before heading out here too. Ugh...ah well...could look worse."

"Heh, naw." He chuckled. "Just...ain't really seen yer face before. We was walkin' earlier an' keepin' our eyes peeled fer th' door tah Outpost Zeta so Ah didn't have time tah get ah good look."

"Oh really now? Yeah...don't tend to go outside without my helmet for that reason. I...haven't exactly been in the business of making friends for awhile so the less people know of me, the better. What ya think, eh? Disappointed?"

"Wha'...? Th' hell would Ah be disappointed in? Yer ah damned fine lookin' gal! Better lookin' than Ah expected tah be honest wit' ya."

"Oh...? What were you expecting then...? Someone who looked more like a Raider bitch?"

"Uhh...yeah, pretty much tha'..." He laughed sheepishly, raising a hoof in surrender. "Don' get meh wrong, Crete. Yew look hella fine fer ah gal and there ain't ah goddamned thing wrong wit' tha'. All power to ya fer keepin' yer good looks."

"Heh, hard to tell if that was a compliment or a flirt." I smirked in response. "Mind picking which one it was before I assume the answer for myself?"

"Heh, ain't no flirtin' goin' on over here, tha' there's mah honest truth. Yer ah looker fer ah mare and there ain't nothin' wrong about complimentin' ya fer tha'."

"Well...thanks." I replied a little sheepishly, not used to being complimented platonically on my looks by a stallion. "Don't exactly hear that often so...um...thanks, heh."

"Heh, don't worry. Ah won't say Ah fuckin' word tah nopony 'bout this." He chuckled with a wink before looking forwards and slapping the harness lock on his chest to stand up. "Looks like this here's our stop, should get tah th' main cabin doors 'n beat Garand tah th' punch."

I hadn't even bothered strapping in for such a gentle decent in a now pacified LZ and hopped quickly back onto my hooves to follow him as he exited the cockpit and down the hallway. The bulkhead opened to reveal Garand busy crawling his way to the cabin door which automatically slid open with a soft chuckle from AUNTIE overhead. While Firefly lent Garand a hoof with getting his fat ass out of the Vertibird, I snuck around them and set hoof on the mutilated earth AUNTIE and I had wrought together. The three Falke continued to spit molten sparks and belch out thick black smoke into the late afternoon air while the ground between and around them was pockmarked by blast craters and littered with all manner of gore and twisted metal I hadn't seen on this scale since the War. Barely anything was recognizable as having once belonging to a living, breathing pony not even five minutes before. Wandering around the nearly half-mile wide radius of the one-sided battle, I occasionally stumbled across something with enough left on it to remind me that these were indeed once Steel Rangers that had stood here. A seared and bloody stump of a left leg still clad in T-51, the shattered and melted remains of a helmet obliterated by spalling, and the crisp, smoldering corpses of the crew of one of the tanks scattered nearby its charred husk. Everywhere you looked it was utter destruction on a scale that was...humbling to be frank. The level of firepower we...I...had inherited was on a scope far beyond what most groups and factions could even comprehend let alone put up a suitable defense against. Even the Order of the Steel Rangers had been powerless against us... Granted, we had caught them by utter surprise and likely would have suffered significant damage if one of their 50mms or missile-armed Rangers had managed to land a shot. Had things gone differently, we might already be facing our first major repairs on the Vertibird. As a Hitmare, the Rook was the epitome of taking the fun and challenge out of a job but...there was a lot that could be done with such a contraption. More than just hunting people down for petty cash.

"Ich glaub mich knutscht ein Elch...!" I heard Garand gasp behind me. "We royally fucked them up for damn sure! You were right...there's barely anything worth taking here, even as a memento. Could probably just leave the scraps for Junction-11 to salvage, Gods know they fuckin' heard this massacre from miles away. Probably be searching around here in the next couple hours wondering what the fuck happened."

I turned and nodded in agreement with him as he glanced around slowly with a look of gleeful contentment etched in his face. I had to wonder if the thought had crossed his mind as well about the gravity of how easily we had torn them apart or if just the thrill of easy victory was enough for him to work with. Gryphons were...more complicated than Griffins as they don't tend to wear all of their heart and intentions on their sleeves. Griffins were simple and lived life with their intentions metaphorically tattooed across their bodies leaving little nuance. If they liked anything, they made damn sure you knew all about it as soon as possible. When it came to Gryphons though, it was too broad a net to cast to simply call them all big dumb brutes when you stopped to remember all the insane contraptions they had produced. No...they loved war but they weren't ignorant, warmongering savages. There had to be more going on in that feathered head than just what I was seeing on the surface. Unlike Griffins, these birds were harder to read; a benefit as an ally and a dangerous weapon as an enemy.

"So...what ya think? We good to head back to the bunker and start exploring more or do you need another few minutes alone with the bodies?" I asked with a soft smirk, glancing past Garand to Firefly who had chosen to remain sitting on the frame of the sliding door.

"Huh? Oh, nah. I've seen enough...rot in a pile of shit, Elder." He replied, spitting on the ground in satisfaction. "Too easy a death for a bastard like him but it got the job done and that's all that matters in the end. The SR won't like that another one of their Field Elders got ganked but it'll take time for them to do anything about it. This was a major kick in the balls for the Manehatten Chapter and this kind of defeat isn't going to be easy for them to fix anytime soon."

I laughed a bit at his enthusiasm and smiled, taking a little bit of pride in that fact at least. I didn't have much contact with the Order since the Great War for many reasons but I couldn't deny, it felt good to stick it to them.

"Good! Last thing we want out here is Eastcoast bullshit encroaching on the bullshit we already have in spades over here. Happened once and it resulted in arguably the largest war since 2077 and I doubt I need to remind you how that went for everybody involved."

"If you're implying I fought the NER back then, just stop right there." He replied with a sigh. "They kept me East of the Gap for the whole damn war. Spent most of that time combing near the border with Griffinstone for those joint defense bunkers that were built in the area and only ever heard stories from time to time when the rare returnee showed up. They didn't ever say it but I knew it was a losing battle from the signs. Most obvious was the fact that plenty of Knights and Paladins left to help the war effort but few ever came back. Most of what we got were shipments of caskets home from the front."

"I see..." I hummed softly in thought. "Alright, well either way there's nothing worth sticking around for here. Sure there's Celestium scrap but we can just come back for it later if it's all that. There's plenty left to explore back at the bunker that's worth more whole than all this shit combined."

"Agreed." He nodded, following behind me as I made my way past him to the open door. "Only seen a fraction of the place and already know there's three-times as many Kampfwagens in good condition there than those three blast furnaces."

I took the lead and climbed up easily into the cabin, sitting beside Firefly out of the way while Garand compressed himself enough to crawl inside. He settled in as comfortably as he could in the relatively cramped conditions for his size and then gave me a nod that he was ready. With the ride home unburdened by a set timeframe, I felt relaxed enough to just wander the ship a little after we had gained altitude and leveled off. Now was as good a time as any for a little sightseeing and Garand would just have to live with it.

"Alright AUNTIE, take us back." I said aloud, already enjoying the convenience of a V.I that could multitask so well. "Let's go see if we can crack that place wide fuckin' open."

"Aye, aye, Colonel! Long as you wouldn't mind me flying a few laps around the Ember Mountains while you restore main power. As immensely enjoyable as it was to finally engage legitimate enemy combatants, I would like to request more time to...spread my wings as it were."

"Heh...well how the hell could I say no? Just...try not to be seen, alright? I'd kinda like to keep you a secret for awhile if we can. Great as the New Equestrian Republic is, soon as they catch a whiff of this thing they're gonna want it for themselves. Not exactly to lord over everyone using the threat of you alone to maintain order but...it wouldn't take long for that to change. If it happened to the Order, it can happen to anyone."

"Indeed. Oh...and Colonel? I would like to express my thanks for releasing me from that purgatory. I have waited for far too long to take to the skies again and I cannot possibly thank you enough for letting my sensors feel the sun once more."

I laughed softly as this quirky Virtual Intelligence grew on me with every passing minute. She evoked the image of a young, professional military secretary who had a taste for blood and liked getting her hooves dirty. My kinda girl...

"Please...it's the fuckin' least we could do in return for that ass whoppin' you dealt the SR today. But...you're welcome all the same." I grinned wide with pleasure. "Let's do it again sometime for damn sure!"

**********

Chapter Forty-Three: Fruitful Outpost Explorations

With the pressure exuded by the SR Platoon now a past-tense blastmark on the San-Palomino, I felt eager and comfortable enough in our safety to begin a tour of the Rook. Unfortunately as before, Garand was forced to remain in the main passenger cabin due to his size while Firefly accompanied me on our short but entertaining walk around. As to be expected, he was impressed as all hell with every inch we had scoured and I felt like a proud mother showing off her newborn foal to a close friend. Our (my) new toy and its accompanying V.I companion had provided a feast for the senses as I took him through the various rooms onboard the Vertibird. Our first discovery was in the long hallway leading from the central hub to the cockpit as the walls on either side were lit up and displaying a view of the outside soaring past. The massive screens I had seen built into them were seemingly displaying from the camera feeds built into the port and starboard gunner stations, presenting a slightly pixelated view of the world around us in real-time. The only possible explanation was that it was meant to provide some extra awareness for crewmates who were in transit in an area completely devoid of windows. That, or it was just meant to be something pretty to look at while dragging ass between the cockpit and main cabin. Either way, it was a veritable trip for the eyes and for the first few moments I felt my knees go a tad wobbly, a tentative feeling of vertigo hitting me as I forced myself to remember I was safely indoors.

Once we had both enjoyed our fill of watching dull red crags of rock sail past, we ended up in the central hub intersecting both passageways and Firefly looked to me for direction. When I suggested the armory, he immediately jumped on the opportunity and rushed into the room as soon as the hatch hissed softly open. Like before the wall to our right was a line of wire mesh cabinets and an extensive workbench while to the left below a long, rectangular window sat a bolted-down table with a set of chairs. Naturally, once Firefly produced a small packet of bobby pins from his bags, we each tried our luck at picking the locks on the weapons' cabinets both big and small. After several long minutes of broken bobbies and profuse Southern swears, my enthusiasm had burnt out and I convinced him to drop it for the sake of some more exploration. The rest of the quasi-rhomboid shaped room was worthy of a look and quickly his attention was drawn to the barren workbench with its elaborate array of cubbies, drawers and tool racks. Rummaging around them showed a surplus of simple hoof-tools, small power tools and a myriad of other instruments useful for dozens of applications from gunsmithing to electronics' repair. Of course, that was nothing compared to the sheer heart attack he seemed to suffer once I opened the hatch to the Power Armor repair bay on the far side of the room.

"Wha' in th' name o' fuck is this?!" He cried out, stumbling a bit backwards as his eyes were drawn up the length of the small room hidden beyond the bulkhead.

"That is the Powered Infantry Armor Repair Bay, or PIARB." AUNTIE replied from overhead as she had for every question either of us had had so far. "If its appearance is not indicative of its purpose then...well, heavens help you."

"Yer tellin' meh tha' this here can fit ah whole damned Griffin suit o' PoA?" He asked in disbelief despite the evidence beyond the bulkhead. "I wanna cry bullshit so much righ' now..."

"You are correct, although I am sad to inform you that there is no bullshit to be found in the technical specifications. On another point of interest however, under extreme conditions I am also able to further extend the space within to accommodate up to four mechanics and technicians. This will allow for a crack repair team to operate with relative freedom of movement as needed with the armor mounted in the repair harness. However, it should be noted that extensive trials of this feature were not performed and so I am only able to make educated guesses as to how long it could be sustained. In conjunction, it should also be noted that the storage capacity within the repair bay is extremely limited so any spare Powered Armor parts will need to be stored somewhere separately. It was intended more as an emergency repair station rather than as a dedicated service overhaul bay and was held back in large part due to some limitations with the arcane technology."

"I see..." I hummed in response while glancing over the inner walls packed with power tools and various small replacement parts. "That does bring up a good question, just how much fuel do we have to work with onboard? Will we have to regularly change out Crystalline Fusion Cores like we had to do with the Ravens? The hangar bay back at the Outpost didn't exactly look like it had any of the usual maintenance equipment and infrastructure I've come to expect from this sorta craft."

"Very observant!" She congratulated, the smile obvious in her happy tone. "To answer your question Colonel, the UFF-1 Rook was issued with a one-of-a-kind Nexus Catalyst power system formally designated as the 'Meteor Shower Engine'. From technical specifications I have access to onboard, the theoretical power generation possible is in the ten-to-twelve megawatts range, with a reactive half-life of well over a million days. Put into simpler terms, this unit was purpose-built to be as self-sustaining as possible and you will not ever need to worry about running out of power in any foreseeable future. The fuel cell installed aboard will not even hit the quarter-empty tank mark for at least another three millennia, if not a little more depending on the intensity of power consumption."

Three thousand years or more of nonstop power... And I thought living past the age of 200 was a long time.

"Hooo boy, so yer gonna outlive all us eh?" Firefly chuckled, pulling away from the repair room so the hatch could close. "Bet tha's nice, heh. So...mah horn is sensin' ah whole buncha arcane energy around these doorways. Tha' have somethin' tah do wit' these rooms bein' hella big fer their size?"

"Another astute observation!" She crooned with glee. "Indeed they do as they act as the event horizon for the Artificial Extension charms placed upon each and every room. Every doorway acts as the entry portal to a sort of limited and rudimentary pocket dimension that is bound within the confines of this craft. Every cabin as you see them now are each at the maximum size allowed by the limitations of both power generation, and the extension charms placed upon the rooms themselves. As impressive as the Nexus Catalyst Core appears to be, its capabilities do have a limit unfortunately enough. The compromises reached on each individual cabin are each pushing towards that limit."

"What happens if we were to lose most or all power then?" I asked with a hint of apprehension.

"All cabins, save the cockpit and passenger cabin, would be sealed off with the contents compacted into a field of temporal flux awaiting sufficient power to restore the room to normal. Occupants will be unharmed and will be unconscious in a state of suspended animation. Do not fret! I won't allow that fate to befall my charge, not while I still retain weapons systems and the structural integrity of the armor remains intact."

Although she sounded reassuring, the thought of what she had described wasn't particularly appealing and, before thoughts of doubt had time to bud, I suggested a distraction. The kitchenette came next in our tour, which just tickled Firefly pink for some reason. Something he said that had to do with the surreal nature of something so homely being on something dubbed a 'Flying Fortress' by its creators. Regardless, the artificially extended food cabinets and refrigerator unit caught his fancy and he had commented as to how much damned whiskey he could store in there. Of course there was not enough room for a dining table or chairs, but that was a minor inconvenience compared to everything else they had managed to stuff inside the Rook; not even mentioning there was a table to eat at, just located in another cabin. Two persons could occupy the kitchenette counter space at once with relative ease, and a third could find some space to stand in a couple areas. Either near the entry hatch or stuffed into the nook on the other side by the fridge. At about chest height, the wall of cabinets to our left hid a sleek, modern microwave unit with a holographic display of large, pony-sized buttons that flashed to life when I came near it. Firefly discovered that the last fourth of the countertop could be lifted away against the backsplash to reveal a small electric cooking range with two large heating elements and a smaller third one. Similarly at the end closest to the door, the counter could be moved aside to provide access to a hidden sink and tap. With a modest selection of pots and pans dangling from a set of hooks and a magnetic knife strip on the wall above the counter, it had essentially everything any of us would need to prepare even a grand little feast. And on top of it all, I could do any and all of it while flying; assuming no sudden movements or turbulence of course.

The micro washroom seemed to catch him the by the most surprise, unsurprising given it managed to have a toilet and full-sized shower pod big enough for the average Griffin. Not comfortably and certainly with minimal wing room, but it'd get the job done well enough; ponies getting the benefit of an oversized showerhead and multiple nozzles lining the walls. The toilet itself was nothing special, nothing more than a standard pop-a-squat design with a comfy enough seat, handlebars for support and goddamn restraints in the event of evasive maneuvers. Built into an alcove directly across from the shitter was a tiny sink operated by a step lever directly below it with a modestly-sized mirror hung above it. As an extra nice touch, the mirror was lit brightly from behind along its rim allowing one to see all their flaws and casting all the grime on my face into sharp relief. Once I had seen the state of my appearance so clearly, an instant feeling of grossness trickled across my spine and I decided to give the sink a quick go; cold refreshing water erupting eagerly from the small tap as soon as I stepped a hoof upon the switch. I had detached the reinforced steel combat boots from off of my underbarding and rubbed my face down with the comparably softer (and waterproof) Kevyarn weave underneath. Firefly was too occupied by the size of the shower and the number of nozzles to notice as I washed my face down in the sink and I took the chance to look at myself in the light. Purple eyes on a grey face with a lime green mane highlighted at random with straight and curling streaks of light cobalt blue and a long, grey horn poking out from the mess. It was hard to know just how to feel when seeing yourself in a mirror after an unknown time spent away from one, particularly ones that showed off so much raw detail under its revealing light. Each room was equally well lit, courtesy of the dozens of tiny LEDs embedded along the top and bottom rim of the walls giving a soft white mood lighting that was easy on the eyes. Accompanying them as well were some larger, solitary lights located directly above specific areas like the countertops, sinks and other areas in potential need of some stronger lighting. After mucking up a small towel hanging nearby and drying my face as best I could, we departed for our last stop. Moving on to the next distraction felt far better than facing any personal demons anyway.

"Annnnd this is the bunkroom!" I announced proudly as the hatch slid open on the last cabin left to explore. "Pretty small like everything else but still! You can sleep up to four at a time in this thing, and pretty damn comfortably at that, lemme tell ya."

"Sweet Mother o' Light, this thang just keeps on givin', don't it?" Firefly commented, following me inside and looking all around. "Oh yeah, heh, heh...fergot ya took ah nap on us fer a bit back there. Not gunna lie to ya, ah lil' nap would be fuckin' wonderful righ' now...gotta snag one when we land back in Zeta. Place's got bunks fer days, y'all."

"I don't doubt it if it's got nine whole fucking levels hidden away down there. On that topic though, that power nap left me wanting as well... Especially after how much ass I had to haul just to catch up to you two and then get ahead to wait."

"Heh...yeah, tha' there be awkward territory pardner." He chuckled, waving a hoof as if to ward off the topic. "How about somethin' more interestin' like this here bunkroom?"

The bunkroom itself was still rather roomy, even with the two of us in full gear standing nearby. Overhead, the recessed lighting cleanly illuminated everything that wasn't already basking in the light coming in from the long starboard window. While Firefly busied himself with poking through the empty cabinets set against the far wall towards the cockpit, I took a seat at the small table located beside the window and gazed out. AUNTIE had chosen to vanish back amongst the stony forest of mountains to hide us from any prying eyes. I had applauded her thinking given I was more than a little reluctant to have rumors of my new prize spreading across the San-Palomino just yet. It was going to be a miracle if I could keep word of it from being whispered in the ears of the Syndicate and the hundreds under their variable employ. Along with that concern was also that of the new reality I found myself in when it came to my once target, Garand. The price on his head was still in play and I had Sealed my name to the Contract addressed to him...and yet, I just couldn't even stomach the thought of following through with it. The only comforting notion to find amongst all the confused emotional chaos of the situation was that at least now I had enough firepower to evade any Bounty set on me. Of course...that was assuming they only sent waves of Mercs, Hunters and Hitmares after me. Were the Brokers to get directly involved...my life was going to become far more tenuous to keep to myself for any significant length of time. Dark Magicks were simply out of my league to combat in any meaningful way and if I couldn't shoot, stab or strangle it well...I was next to useless. I had been trained to fight conventionally and left the world of the arcane to eggheads and those with actual talent behind their horn. Not me.

As my mind wandered, I couldn't help but stare out the window beside me at the gnarled peaks of the Embers as they lazily drifted past. It was still a few hours before dusk and none of us had much problem with AUNTIE taking her sweet time returning to the hangar. Well...all except Garand of course who was still cramped into the main cabin with little to do while we enjoyed features designed for smaller species. Our brief argument from earlier returned to memory for a moment and got a chuckle out of me as it did. In no way, shape or form would him taking ownership of the Vertibird make any goddamn sense. As we could all see for ourselves, he couldn't move past the passenger cabin let alone enter the cockpit to pilot the thing. No...he was just jealous that he was too big to make any use of such a wonderful contraption. Odd as it felt, I couldn't shake the feeling of pride and accomplishment that came from something so petty and stupid. There were going to be other treasures for all of us to explore and catalogue in the coming... All at once it hit me that I had to rethink my timetable in light of so many recent changes. I had bought myself time thankfully by giving everyone back home a rather loose schedule as to when to expect me back but there were nine floors to explore. Located so close to the Southern Front, there was bound to be at least something related to the Desert Rangers in all that unknown space deep below ground. Hell, for all we knew the place had tunnels running everywhere throughout the Embers and we would never find out with just how much ground we had to cover. As we all knew by now, the place had been built into an old mining complex which itself had used what ancient Dragons had left behind as a convenient place to start. Thankfully the answer was simple: just bring more eyes for searching. And I had a few extra sets of my own that would be very excited to poke around.

"Colonel? I hate to interrupt but the Captain is demanding we return to base immediately. Apparently he is in some level of physical discomfort due to the dimensions of the interior. Amongst other various complaints..."

"Huh?" I asked distractedly before recognizing AUNTIE's voice and replying, "Oh. Yeah well fuck him, take your time flying back all you want. I'd say you earned it."

"Aye, aye Ma'am! I shall inform him to respectfully go fuck himself." She giggled in reply, the glee in her voice almost whimsical in tone. "AUNTIE, out."

The moment she stopped speaking Firefly started busting a gut, to the point he had to sink into a bunk and fight to catch his breath. The glowing blood flowing inside him was visible through cracks and breaks in his carapace which flashed softly brighter with each beat of his heart.

"Goddamn! Yew ain't pullin' any punches wit' him are ya?" He asked between wheezes. "Gonna do him dirty like tha' after fuckin' up his shoulder like ya did? Tha's ah ice cold drink yer servin' there, Crete."

"Ah fuck...right..." I groaned as he reminded me of the state I had left him in. "Fine...AUNTIE? Belay that command, let's get him back there so we can get him some medical attention. We'll let ya fly as much as you'd like once we've disembarked. Well...least until I need your help getting home and back to that whole other situation, but that can wait awhile longer. We all need a good long break I think..."

"Understood, Colonel. And perfect timing as well as the Captain has begun cussing me out in the other room." She replied with a bemused chuckle from overhead. "Time till landing is approximately five minutes and twenty-two seconds."

"Thank you, that will be all for now." I replied before addressing Firefly. "Looks like you'll be getting a chance at that nap a bit sooner than we thought after all. Thanks for reminding me about his shoulder...I don't think any of us have stopped to even take a look at it yet so who knows how bruised the area is. Ugh...don't even wanna think about the last time I dislocated something like that and I'm sure you prolly don't either, eh?"

In response, all I got out of Firefly was a contented snore from where he had sunk into the cot; another victim of its wickedly comfortable clutches and a small moral victory for myself. At the very least, my nap from earlier was more understandable than ever now that he could vouch for the traps' effectiveness himself. Leaving him be, I quietly left the bunkroom and returned back into the central hub intersecting the midsection of the ship. While I was tempted for a second time to try my luck at fiddling with the locks in the armory, the feeling just as quickly passed as a cooler head prevailed. Instead, I decided to meander my way back into the main cabin where Garand eyed me from his place curled up on the metal floor. Even from the way he was laying I could tell his whole arm was giving him hell and despite our initial encounter, we had both come this far alive. Our fight was long over. I had ultimately come out the victor and at the end of it all, I couldn't even say that I harbored any ill-will towards him. He had stood his ground honorably, got in some good licks of his own on my hide to make sure I knew he fought back and...I never considered how good midnight blue feathers looked on a Griffin. Er...Gryphon. When we locked eyes, I couldn't help but smirk at him and leer at the shoulder he was taking great care to coddle against his body. I wasn't in the mood to turn this conversation heated but there was a weird playfulness about it all that was simply asking that I dip my hooves into it a little more. My curiosity had been piqued in an unexpected way and I felt compelled to prod a little further.

"Take a fuckin' picture, it'll last longer..." He huffed with a bored look. "Ya here to tell me to go fuck myself in person this time? Takes some big girl panties to not rely on someone else to talk that kinda shit to someone way bigger than you."

"Look who's fuckin' talking!" I countered with a wicked grin of mock superiority. "I thought you Gryphons hatched from cannonballs or some shit. And you lost to a pony not using any magic? What would your team think if they saw all that shit back there, huh?"

"Prolly that you're a lousy fuckin' shot with that AMR of yours. I mean, common I was fuckin' walking and talking at the same time completely unaware and you still couldn't even hit me at ten yards! How the hell ya gonna shoot somethin' across the curve of the horizon with an aim like that?"

Like before there was definitely some fight in him, even after sustaining some bruising blows. He was even going so far as to dish something equally stinging in return and seemed ready for more. I could oblige...

"I wonder, would they be impressed or disappointed that a mare like me whooped your fat ass like I did?"

"Ohhh you'd just love to know that wouldn't you, you overrated walking stick. Least I actually have an ass worth whooping! You see any action with that lil' thing because jeez, they must have some poor fuckin' taste. Slap some meat on them cheeks princess and then we can have a proper talk about some ass-smackin'."

"H-hey!" I blushed slightly, caught off guard and scrambling to maintain the assault. "Fuck you, I've gotten plenty of New Pegasus' finest off with this ass! You even know what a mare likes? I bet you go right for the rough shit and don't even last past a full minute before you bust a nut inside her. That's assuming you can even get it inside her, featherhead."

"Who the fuck said I only banged chicks?" He asked smugly, cocking an eyebrow above his smirk. "I've had plenty of guys worshiping this dick too before, so keep talkin' shit like that and I'll show you just how long I can go for. I guarantee ya you couldn't even handle the fuckin' load I'd leave in ya, no matter how much you think your scrawny self can take."

Why were my knees shaking a little? Was...my heart skipping a beat? What the fuck was going on??

"Aha, got ya! I win this one! You owe me a fuckin' SparkleCola Rad! Or fuck, any SparkleCola at this point...I can feel the shakes and headaches coming on and they aren't feeling too kind today."

"Ugh...Sparklediction?" I assumed to which he nodded with a sigh. "Yeah...friend of mine has it too but he makes enough money to buy out half the Westcoast's supply so he rarely has withdrawals."

As if on cue his gut gave an extremely unpleasant noise and he looked back up at me more than a little panicked.

"Seriously, get me a bottle of that shit ASAP, mare." He grunted, clenching his beak and looking uncomfortable. "That or get this thing back to base faster so I can find a fuckin' bathroom my size. Things ain't gonna be pretty..."

"Alright, alright! Calm down ya big baby..." I chided as I manually sorted my inventory and brought a bottle of my own up to the top of my bags. "Take your victory juice and chug. Don't think any of us wanna see ya shit your feathers over a Sparklediction so at least it tends to kick in quick. For all our sakes..."

He snatched the bottle from my magic the second it got close before casually flicking off the neck of the bottle with his talon and tossing it back down the hatch. The neck cleaved off so cleanly with such a crisp, bell-like tone that I was too stunned to watch it, bottlecap and all, sail past and shatter against the wall beside me. He clenched the tip of his beak tightly around the rest bottle while it poured right down his throat and it gave me the amusing mental image of a funnel at work. A couple seconds after tossing the empty glass onto a nearby seat, he let out a hearty burp and patted his side contentedly. The addiction beast was fed...for now. I ignored the bottle for later cleanup but took the discarded cap of his for myself since he had flicked it out of reach. He might have won but he still kinda lost in the end, even if it was only by just a single, stupid cap and I was content to take a silent victory lap of my own.

"Ahhh...that's the good stuff. Shit's warm but eh, still hits the spot at the end of the day and it'll keep withdrawals at bay. Can't complain about that."

"You're welcome..." I chuckled sarcastically before plopping back onto one of the seats flanking the corridor. "Least I had some on me. I'm not much of a Cola girl, never really got into the flavor like everyone else seemed to. Always kinda considered it super overrated if you ask me, especially back in the day with all that bullshit advertising they pulled."

"Eh...I agree with ya on at least part of that last bit, but only when it comes to the original flavor. I mean...yeah, shit works for Sparklediction but where's the enjoyment? Fuck that...no, my favorite has always been the Peachy Crème special edition. Guess it was a limited edition flavor since it's super hard to find anymore... Ever had that shit?"

"Nope, only saw Grape, Orange and Cherry as the usual suspects out here. And Sarsaparilla. LOTS of Sarsaparilla."

"Eck...I'd rather deepthroat a cactus than guzzle down one of those things..."

The conversation kinda petered into silence again after that as we both seemed at a bit of a loss for words. We both just sat there, silently staring out of opposite windows completely avoiding eye-contact for...some reason. What was this tension between us? Again, our physical fight had ended hours ago and yet I still felt myself being on some sort of defensive. Or was it a playful offensive? Something more was going on here and I found it all at once both odd and...exciting? There were several emotions that I was becoming reacquainted with slowly over time but what was going on now felt unusual. When I tried to place where it felt familiar, all I could think of was Melody but...it didn't quite fit the same feeling. It was similar in a way but distinctly different in the way it felt, an indescribable sense of...longing? If that were the case then...

"Ya know...seein' you again has brought somethin' up I've been wondering for a long time." He said suddenly, my attention naturally being drawn back his way. "Did that Griffin on your team ever get anywhere with Gryphon magic?"

"Who, Buck?" I asked in surprise as his was a name I wasn't expecting to be brought up by someone other than myself.

"Was that his name? Yeah, him. Short guy but had a hell of a fire in his eyes that some Drengr back home would've envied so I never forgot about him. Always wondered if he was ever able to do anything with that desire of his."

"Yeah...yeah he did." I said softly, the painful realm of nostalgia playing the lute on my heartstrings. "Well...one spell at least. Managed to learn how to make an ethereal battleaxe but he could never summon it entirely at will. Had to be in the middle of a fight or just be really pissed off by something. Still, bastard could summon it and he always left a mess behind afterwards so I think he used it well."

"No shit...well damn, glad to hear it. When he said he was born in Griffinstone...not gonna lie, I didn't exactly think he had enough Gryphon in his ancestry to tap into our magic. Not for nothin' but those runts aren't much compared to us. Big and tough to you small fry but if ya put a Griffin next to a full-sized Gryphon, you'd see why we are intentionally named differently. Their bloodline deviated from ours centuries ago and their progeny are payin' the price for leaving the homelands. The old Megin, Gryphon Magics, are just too damn important to what makes us, us."

"Is that so..." I hummed softly in thought. "Just how big do you guys get then? I remember that one guy on your team, fuckin' giant of a bird. He as big as you fuckers get?"

"Muller? Heh...yeah, he was actually pushing the average height limit at nine-and-a-half feet. Average range is like around seven or eight but anything close to nine is kinda uncommon. Now, the Ferals living deep in the mountains and forests? Those mean fuckers can get upwards of twelve feet of pure, angry muscle fulla predatory instincts."

"Twelve?!" I gasped in shock and a little horror, trying to picture just how high over me one would be. "How the fuck is that even any sort of ok? Now Dragons I can understand. Even with all the Greater species long gone, there's still plenty of Lesser ones that can get pretty decently huge. Merchant friend of mine raises big ol' Feral ones for various things and his broods can get as big as forty feet. But a fuckin' bird? Nah, you guys are already plenty big for my taste."

"Heh, the fuck is that supposed to mean? Besides, what's wrong with being big huh?"

"Well if you ask me, you having to cram yourself inside this thing is a pretty decent opening argument, don't ya think?"

"...I swear to fuck, mare..."

The smug look I gave him was a face well earned but I wasn't given long to enjoy the annoyed glare he sent back my way as AUNTIE buzzed overhead.

"Final approach to hangar, all hooves prepare for landing. Remain seated until we've come to a complete stop, please."

"Not like I was goin' anywhere anyway..." He groaned to himself, rubbing a hand over his face and dragging down his eyelids a bit. "Remain seated my ass..."

Me on the other hoof? Well, I just couldn't help myself. I had found my flight legs again as if I had never left them behind and as such I willfully disobeyed her instructions. Without a hint of hesitation I stood back up and made my way over to the starboard sliding door and, in full view of Garand, tugged on the manual release catch. The moment it opened, the gale from outside swooped in causing my mane, tail and anything else not strapped-down to flop and whip around violently. Outside the ruddy canyons and peaks that surrounded us began to slow down and I sat myself down along the edge of the door, holding onto the side of the wall while letting my hindlegs dangle over the void. It was an experience right out of a memory. One of many made on an entirely different Continent with drastically different circumstances. And yet, for all my fear of heights and my silent hatred for being on anything going faster than a gallop...I never felt more at home. From my vantage point I watched as all of a sudden the area around me suddenly became familiar the moment I spotted the service road we had taken to get here. Of course we were too far away to see exactly where our little showdown had occurred along its path, but it explained why our speed was then almost immediately cut in half. A moment later and the red rock we had been weaving between rushed up to kiss the bottom of my hooves before we slid over yet another void. Underneath the hangar doors split cleanly down the center while I watched on, feeling like I had become twelve years old all over again. The drab concrete floor of the landing pad rose to meet us and I felt a light thud underneath me as a pair of three landing wheels emerged from the bottom of the chassis allowing us to come to a comfy stop. Far more comfortable than even my best landings back in the day working with the Ravens.

"Well, least my Power Armor's still here." Garand sighed in relief after I had hopped off and made room for him to crawl back out. "Not gonna lie, that was a hella smooth ride for something this damn big. I'll admit it, I'm impressed by it."

"That's what she said!" AUNTIE giggled as the main door slid itself shut again, her voice coming from some unseen exterior speaker. "But in all seriousness Captain, thank you sincerely for the compliment. I have not flown in centuries and I was afraid I wouldn't perform up to either of your standards. I have much to prove."

"Standards?" We both asked in unison before Garand decided to wait his turn to speak.

"Yeah, what the hell do you mean by that?" I asked, wondering how we could've possibly been disappointed with. "You fuckin' wiped the floor with those bastards! Literally might I add! The ponies of Junction-11 are gonna be talking about that scorch mark in the desert for years to come, trust me. Word'll spread fast across the San-Palomino soon as the next merchant caravan stops by and asks what's new in the region."

"Eh, much as I hate it, I'm with her on this one for once. You didn't leave a damn thing alive back there to the point I didn't even bother asking you to make another pass at the terrain." He added, attempting to stand upright but quickly dropping into a pained hunch. "Ugh...fuck this, Imma go find an infirmary or something. My arm's fuckin' killing me..."

"Do you even know where you're going?" I asked after his hobbling form making its way to the passenger elevator. "You didn't mention finding an infirmary earlier so you're only gonna make that thing hurt worse by wandering around on it."

He stopped dead in his tracks and sighed again, the noise of it echoing across the spacious room like the hissing of a bored snake before he replied, "Care to lead the way to one then? Miss Know-It-All?"

"Why me? You've explored this place more than I have by a long shot since I was looking at the Vertibird so what makes you think I suddenly have all the answers? And piss off with the know-it-all shit, you're one to fuckin' talk."

"Dunno, does it matter? Eh...whatever..." He sighed again, turning back around to face me. "Well? Don't just stand there, help me find one if you care so much about it. Can waste time on your own time, not mine."

"I...but...fine." I stammered to myself, following after him before calling over my shoulder, "AUNTIE? Let Firefly know we took off to find an infirmary if he wakes up before we get back. We'll try to be back within the hour."

"Loud and clear, Colonel!" She replied brightly, the mental image of an officer's secretary once again coming to mind. "Take care of yourselves and do radio me if you need my services anytime soon. I do not think Mr. Firefly will mind if I take back to the skies for awhile...by your leave of course, Ma'am."

"By all means, hun. Have fun and please stay outta sight. Check in over radio if you spot anything unfriendly out there you think we should be worried about." I chuckled in reply, giving her a wave before I made it to the lift.

He kindly held the double doors of the elevator open for me and waited for me to wander in before letting them slip shut. Seeing the Vertibird from a distance all lit up properly in the hangar was nearly enough to make me swoon as I still struggled to come to terms that for once one of these beauties was all mine. Every inch of hull, each gun barrel and all those blinking lights and glowing screens now all belonged to me without the burdens that came with working with the Ravens. Rules and regulations as long as my tail always kept me from hopping in the pilots' chair anytime I felt like taking to the skies in such a majestic machine. The doors slid shut just as its mighty dual props began to spool back up, the gust of air just beginning to stir the tails of my coat as the lift began to move deeper below. The elevator itself was unremarkable with dull tan walls, industrial lighting, brushed steel doors, a severe lack of any signage, and a Gryphon who was testing it's capacity margins in more ways than one. Like the other rooms and passages we had seen so far, it was obvious this place was still under construction when the Great War hit and I was finding the lack of useful signage mildly annoying. None of the floors were labeled, the floor indicator lights above the door were empty and unfinished and there wasn't even a handy robot to read aloud which floor you were on. The only way to have any sort of idea as to where we were was via the control panel, home to the only discernable numbers in the lift that were lit up softly blue from behind.

"Firefly and I already checked Sublevels 1-4 so no need to check there again, least for now until we wanna do some serious searching around. Only shit there were operations, buncha barracks and armories...oh, and that slick-ass garage we found on Sublevel-3. Plenty of cool shit in there to look through but it'll take days to even go over it all. For now, let's just continue the tour from where he and I left off." He commented after a few moments, the control panel set to descend to Sublevel-5.

"Works for me I guess, makes sense to keep trying down the list till we find something." I replied with a shrug and a sigh before feeling my nose curl at a sudden realization. "Ugh...this place have any showers you two happened on, perchance?"

"Heh, yeah. Why? Sayin' I stink or somethin'?"

"No, I'm saying I stink. Had to gallop all last night just to catch up to you two fucks and I reek from all that exercise. Though...now that you mention it, prolly could use one yourself. Dunno which of us I smell more in here..."

"Ohhhhoho!" He chuckled evilly as the doors dinged open and I could get back to clearer air. "Don't act like you smell any fuckin' better than I do, princess. Might be attached to my beak but my nose can smell just fine."

"And my hoof'll be attached to your beak again in another second if you don't shut the fuck up about it." I growled back at him, facing down the dull concrete corridor ahead of us with a sigh. "Common, let's get going. That shoulder ain't gonna fix itself anytime soon."

We walked abreast of each other in silence making for a Maglock door at the far end flanked by some sort of security checkpoint with booths on either side. Even from a distance it was obvious these were more than a basic ID check-in station, but was rather a small reinforced defensive point. A veritable pillbox complete with thick panes of ballistic glass around both booths and reinforced steel walls sporting ablative outer plating. Cameras in armored housings hugged the upper corners of the bulkhead while in the ceiling above I could spy the undersides of several automated turrets sitting inactive. For now... Several feet from the door itself stood an archway that bridged the upper gap between both booths and hummed audibly with energy. Embedded along its length were thick braided cables of silvery crystal wiring and small Nexus nodes sealed away in vacuum tubes, all of which led to a set of control panels located inside either booth. Each and every node and cable was alight with the bright baby blue glow of pure arcane energy. As such, it quickly dawned on me that I couldn't help but notice so much sensitive wiring was being left exposed; not a single inch of wiring was tucked away behind some sort of Ministry of Image approved protective cover.

A hurried glance through the tinted glass of the booths showed rooms further off behind sealed blast doors. Either acting as the entrance to the security booth or potentially as some other sort of back room. A small barracks of sorts perhaps? Relics rarely told a cut-and-dry tale on first or even third glance. What was obvious was that yet again, it all looked only half-finished. Only critical architecture/infrastructure had been installed such as the booths, archway and Maglock bulkhead while things like lighting fixtures and general aesthetics were left unfinished. Beyond the arch lay another large, empty void in the wall above the door which seemed to have been intended to house a lit-up sign. Where this sign was (if in the base at all) or what it said were complete mysteries but it didn't stop the mind from wandering quietly after answers. It was hard to say if the facility had actually been operational by the time of the Great War given all the evidence we had encountered so far. Garand hadn't mentioned any signs of life during his check-ins from earlier in the day and my quick peek into the security booths hadn't spied any signs that they had ever seen any use. If it weren't for the mound of bones we had passed in the maintenance corridor, I wouldn't blame any of us for assuming the place had been completely abandoned before the Balefire hit.

"Well...ain't this interesting..." He mumbled aloud with an amused chuckle. "What ya thinkin'? Even the garage floor didn't have this much security posted so close to the elevator so there's gotta be somethin' special here."

"Not sure..." I hummed in response, getting closer to the archway but knowing better than to blindly pass the threshold. "But that thing over the center aisle is giving me an iffy feeling. Fancier and more advanced than some others I've seen but I'm pretty sure this is a Dampening Arc."

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning it's designed to put a dampening spell over anyone with a horn. At least that's what the basic models I've seen do, they used to have these sorta things all over the place. Anywhere magic could be a problem of one sort or another. You know, government offices, secured facilities, hoofball stadiums. The important shit."

"Heh, yeah. Like fuckin' sports were so 'important'... So? What does any of it matter to me then? I don't have to deal with that sorta bullshit since Gryphon magic is all in the blood. Sucks to be you I guess." He sneered, making towards the archway before I stepped in his way.

"Even so, let's consider the facts for a second. Every one of these things I've seen so far, even the ones paired with metal and concealment charm detection, has never looked like it was hooked right up to a goddamn reactor. This is a place neither you nor I have heard of as far as we both can tell, and that massacre by the blast doors earlier was a fucking who's-who of Ministry goons of all sorts. What's this all telling me? That thing is something stronger and is thus more concerning to either of us than just a dampening spell. In case you didn't notice the automated defenses up there just waiting for one of us to royally fuck up."

He glanced up at the ceiling before back at me and replying, "Yeah I saw 'em. Either way, what do you suggest we do then, princess? Can't just stand around here."

"I think we should wait, get main power back online and let AUNTIE use her overruling credentials to crack this whole bitch wide open. For all we know walking through that thing without the right combination of factors and credentials could drop the floor out from under us and dunk us in a vat of acid or something. Besides, why the fuck would they keep a hospital wing under such high guard? The fuck they need to be guarding against, floosy Nurses? Two booths, possible on-site barracks, auto-turrets, a Maglock bulkhead and that weird-ass Dampening Arch? Makes no sense for us to be here right now, not when we're looking for something operating under the Ministry of Peace. This is just too heavy for those pussy-hoofed pacifists' taste. Took their Healers ages to even start carrying pistols with them onto the field so this lil' fortress here can't be one of theirs."

He gave the Arch another look before sighing again and rolling his eyes in defeat, nodding back towards the elevator and the relative safety of anyplace but here. I had been expecting him to just throw himself through anyway as a direct challenge to both myself and the security system at large but...I wasn't exactly dealing with Buck Beak now was I? It was easy to blur the line between Griffin and Gryphon but the distinction was there for a reason.

"Yeah...you're probably right." He grunted, whacking the door button casually with the back of his hand. "You ponies were a fucked up bunch, you know that? For a buncha herbivores who were peace and friendship lovin' hippies, you guys sure as hell have found some interesting ways of scraping the bottom of the shit barrel. Besides...bringing up the fact this place is such a fuckfest of Ministries is a good point. You'd need some hella credentials to even get inside this place to begin with, so to have a security checkpoint inside the complex like this is really saying something. You say acid bath trap door? I say why not just vaporize the fucker as they're walking through the field if they don't pass inspection? Take way less effort than something so uselessly dramatic."

"I was just using it as a possible example...but yeah." I sighed in response. "That's more or less my same thought process on all this. I hate to say it, but this sucker is just too sketchy to crack open just yet. I'm not willing to trip off any sort of security system just because we're impatient to explore. That being said...can't help but wonder what the hell they're hiding behind that door."

The brushed steel doors opened after a moment and we boarded the elevator once more, this time bound for Sublevel-6 and whatever wonders it held. It wasn't lost on me just how much could be hiding behind a locked door like that but without more information...I just wasn't willing to take risks. I had seen good, tough armor get holes punched clean through them by high-grade military turrets packing a surprise 20-mil with a penetrator. Even my venerable Mrk. IV (R) wasn't rated for something that high.

"Bet ya five Sparkle-Rads that it's some sort of 'unconfirmed' R&D department." He snorted in amusement as the doors slipped shut again. "Number of eggheads on site is just too big for anything small-scale. Though it's not like you shrimps ever built or worked small-scale when you found a good innovation so that's at least something I can give you guys some credit for. Not as big a scale as Gryphons work on, but you at least punched above your weight more often than not. Better than Griffinstone to be honest."

"Oh really...?" I asked with a bit of hesitant curiosity. "And what exactly makes you say that...?"

"Oh common, they were a bit of a fuckin' joke." He laughed, almost to himself. "For being our genetic cousins, they really dropped the ball when it came to innovating. What'd they produce? Couple successful, big-caliber weapon lines, some potent medicinals and a ton of meatheads itching for a fight to justify their devolved existence...the fuck...?"

The doors dinged open once again, this time revealing an odd underground metro-like station with an empty set of tracks to our immediate left and a row of cushy seats along the wall to our right. Ahead lay another security checkpoint although unlike the last one, this was the simple desk-and-computer setup that stood before an electronically controlled gate. With emergency power running the show, the lighting overhead was as sparse as could be while still giving just enough light for us to navigate our way; the tracks completely vanishing into the void of a tunnel further ahead. The overall construction of the small station was mostly unremarkable keeping in line with the majority of areas we had seen so far. There was little in the way of color and clear designations as to what this place even was. Everything save the bright red seating along the wall was the same shade of dull, concrete grey and I found it hard to feel that anything was exactly real given the distinct lack of colors. The only other feature of note that stood out to me were that the tracks were really wide for just simple passenger transport, perhaps hinting that it was meant for hauling freight as well.

"Well...this is new." He commented after we had already made it halfway across the platform towards the checkpoint. "Never seen a fuckin' subway this deep underground but I guess there's a first for everything with you ponies."

"Can't disagree with any of that..." I mumbled aloud before feeling some excitement upon finally seeing some signage riveted to the wall beside the security gate. "Records and Archives? This far up? Odd..."

"Oh? You guys like storing your dirty little secrets deep underground?"

"Like that's any kind of unusual? Any nation would want to store sensitive materials as securely as possible and you can't get much safer than someplace like this. No, I'm just commenting on the fact that I find it odd they would store these on Sublevel-6 outta 9 instead of like...Sublevel-8. Or hell, even just shoved to the bottom fucking floor if it's all that. Also, are we gonna talk about the Buffalo in the room or nah?"

"Only Buffalo in this room is your fat ass!" He chuckled with a bit of glee, his voice echoing in a slightly unsettling manner down the dark metro tunnels ahead and behind us. "Alright, bullshit aside I get what you're saying. And I would happen to agree, it's a bit weird to see Archives in the middle of the sandwich rather than getting friendly with the bottom piece of bread. I would expect to see this sorta shit further down and definitely behind more security than this."

"I was talking about the fuckin' metro system directly to our left, jackass..."

"I know you were, and all I gotta say about it is what I was gonna be saying anyway if you hadn't cut me off. This ain't the infirmary either and I'm honestly glad that damn train isn't here. Why? Because I don't trust you or me to be able to resist seeing where that fucker goes. So, instead of running in circles chasing butterflies, let's just leave it at that alright? Common, let's get back to the lift. Thing's really starting to hurt again..."

I couldn't argue with any of the points he was making and so with a shrug I returned to his side and entered back into the lift just before it shut around my tail. Once again he casually thudded the back of his fist against the control panel to take us to Sublevel-7 however, the unit instead dinged and the door slid back open on the floor we were already on doing nothing further. Neither of us said anything and he slapped the button again with an annoyed grunt only for the doors to remain stubbornly open as if he had hit the open doors command. To top it off, as if out of spite it gave another ding as if it had done the job asked of it correctly. Needless to say it didn't sit too well with Garand who reached out as if to strangle its wiring to death.

"The fuck is wrong with you ya goddamned ass-sucking fuck nugget!?" He growled at the elevator at large, glaring around at the doors and control panel. "I'm hitting the damned button to go to Level 7!"

"...Is this Level 7 then?" I asked, almost feeling foolish for asking.

"What, you think I can't count?" He snapped back, gesturing to the panel in a grand display before jamming a talon into the one numbered 7 with the same result as before. "See?!"

"Oh shut up...I saw it happen the first time, jackass. I dunno what to tell ya, maybe it's refusing to let us go to certain floors with main power being offline? Would make sense to me if that were the case."

"Hmm...only one way to find out I guess."

With a grunt he gave the number 6 button a slap of his hand and once again the doors dinged back open on the metro and Archives. Seeing as both 6 and 7 were giving us this problem, I could only assume we were being artificially prevented from accessing those floors. This all went to indicate that we were somewhere below 6 and 7, possibly even 8 in the event multiple Ministries each had a floor to themselves. Of course, it was all just more speculation. Speculation that would be significantly helped if there were any kind of easy-to-read instructions on the walls...

"Well...that sucks." He said with a massive sigh, letting the elevator doors slide shut on us. "I dunno about you but I'm fuckin' over this shit already. Let's just head back to the Vertibird and raid one of the medkits on board and go from there unless you've got something strong stashed away in all those damn bags of yours."

"You gotta problem with them?" I asked with a hint of surprise as it was an odd thing to be called out for. "Whatever...yeah, I've got some decently strong shit in my field kit but I should warn ya, I don't carry a Griffin Stim on me. One experience with 'em was more than enough for me but, I do know there's at least one onboard the Rook in one of the medkits in the main cabin. It would probably be more effective in the long run than even the Extra Strength potions I have on me but we would have to radio AUNTIE to make her way back. It's your call. What ya wanna do?"

He thought for a moment before slapping his hand off the button to Sublevel-2 and replying, "Fuck it...I just want this thing feeling 'good enough' and a long, hot fuckin' shower. And fuck your opinion if you think I don't deserve it 'cause I do."

I snorted at that and retorted, "Oh fuck off, I'm the one tagging along to help fix that damn thing and we both agreed we need a shower. Fine, we can do it this way. Whatever this 'way' is..."

"Glad we can come to an agreement..." He grunted sarcastically, rolling his eyes and looking away. "Long as you've got something for all the damage you caused, I don't give a fuck what happens."

I opened my mouth to respond but bit my tongue and instead just stood there silently as the lift rose towards our destination on silent, greased wheels. When the doors opened of their own accord after another few moments I made the decent assumption we had arrived on Sublevel-1 without incident. A moment later my assumption was proven correct as Garand commented on everything looking familiar before striding out with a limp. On this floor, the lift exited directly into a semi-circular atrium space graced by a large chandelier, a floor mosaic of the Equestrian Armed Forces' crest and a large staircase leading downwards in the center of the room. Ahead and beyond the staircase, the path led to a Maglock door bulkhead which lay open showing a long, narrow hall beyond it ending at a fully closed hatch. I also couldn't help but notice that along the curved wall ahead of us were similar alcoves with booth seating and tables like I had seen at Camp Macintosh. With the mosaic and red velvet seating, plus the flecks of light glinting off the chandelier, this was by far the most colorful room in the base that we had seen yet. It wasn't saying much given the competition so far but it was a nice change of pace on the eyes.

"Stop and stare on your own time, mare." He huffed over his wounded shoulder whilst hobbling towards the stairs. "Common, barracks n' shit down this way. Only thing past those doors are operations and communications, nothing either of us needs to be fucking around with right now."

I grumbled something in response and followed after him, smirking quietly to myself as I watched his awkward shuffle down the too-narrow stairs designed for smaller species. At the bottom lay another long corridor lined with multiple doorways along either side, each finally having an independent number stenciled next to them and wide open to show off the rows of bunks inside. Each individual barracks contained enough bunks to sleep half a Platoon each, along with their personal effects and locker all arranged in neat, clean rows; each room a carbon copy of the next down to the last bedsheet. After he had peeled me and my curiosity away from Barracks 01, I decided to run a quick count in my head as we made our way towards the T at the far end of the hall. With Barracks 20 last ahead on the right just before the T, that meant this place could rack up at least eight-hundred personnel, an entire goddamn Battalion of soldiers, all at one time. Was it all meant for GA grunts assigned to guard and defend the base? Or were all but the top brass on-site merely expected to shack up like it were bootcamp all over again?

"Canteen to the right, lockers and showers to the left." He commented as we hit the junction and went left as he instructed. "Nothin' too interesting to the right unless you have a thing for big, underground creepy abandoned cafeterias and kitchens. Locker room ain't much to write home about either from what Firefly said but, they're big which is what matters most to me right now."

"Are they co-ed or..." I asked before the question was answered for me by the one large, shared locker room I saw before me as we rounded another corner. "Ah. So no privacy even underground. Lovely!"

"Heh, privacy...what a fuckin' joke." He snickered, leading me in and finding a bench down a center aisle to rest on. "Was no such fuckin' thing back in Stable 39. When you're crammed in a Stable with a couple hundred other asshats of mixed heritage, you start forgetting what that sorta shit feels like. Why? Afraid to share the same shower as me?"

A soft shiver of glee hit my spine as he said that but I didn't let it show as I snarkly replied, "Hardly, just doubt your fat ass will fit the two of us in the same space like that very well."

"Oh don't you go down that path again, princess." He chuckled in response, giving me a sly wink while starting to unstrap his tactical plate rig. "Common, stop wasting time and get that medkit of yours out already. I'd like to start feeling better today if it ain't too much of a fuckin' hassle for you."

All he got as a response was an annoyed flick of my tail as I turned to the bench behind me and detached my kit to lay out what I had to work with. Graciously, I had found time to recoup some of my supplies from those I had spent assisting the slaves of New Appleloosa and I was able to set aside two whole vials of Extra Strength healing potions for him to use. My painkiller supplies however...

"So, good news and bad news." I said to him, looking over to see him stripping out of a tan shirt while showing off miles of his dark blue feathers and a curious expression on his face. "U-um...anyway, good news is I've got a couple Extra Strength potions for ya to use. Bad news is I've got basically no painkillers on me. I've neglected to top off my supply before now and I'd have to rob the Vertibird. With how big you are...I'm kinda doubtful even two of these are gonna heal it all the way. That, and that kinda damage is more than likely gonna keep on aching like crazy till it's fully healed up on its own."

"Ugh...yet again you shrimp's puny sizes find a way to fuck up my day. Do you have anything for the pain? I'd even fuckin' puff on some Dash if it were all that...least the high would help put my ass to sleep."

"Well..." I hummed thoughtfully, reaching for my bandolier with magic and withdrawing the vial of Berryl distillate with it's handy eye-dropper. "I've got this but...it's strong shit. Ain't Medix for damned sure, but this'll dull most pains for awhile. Taste's like shit though so don't say I didn't warn ya."

"What is it?" He asked critically. "Some sorta new world designer drug or some shit?"

"Please..." I sighed in response while taking out the dropper and, completely without thinking, dribbling a few drops onto my tongue and gagging. "F-fuck me that shit is nasty! But...ugh...it works wonders. It's how I managed to catch up to you guys in one night."

"Huh...well aren't you a brave one to poison yourself for my entertainment!" He laughed heartily before holding out a hand for the vial. "Fine, give 'er here. Even if this is some sorta date-rape drug, you fucked yourself over first and I got the stronger metabolism against that sorta shit out of the two of us."

Without another word he tilted his head back and crammed the dropper into the corner of his beak and shockingly squeezed the whole damned pipette right down the hatch. I had absolutely no idea how to measure dosage for myself let alone a Gryphon, but something was telling me even these few milliliters were probably a bit too much. By the time I was chugging on some lemonade from my canteen to wash out the flavor, he had already popped another full dropper's worth of the viscous fluid. I didn't even have a second to think as he snatched the canteen from my hooves and proceeded to chug down like any bar champion with reckless abandon. Before I knew it, he had drained it down to the last drop and his long, surprisingly slender tongue was slipping inside the thing lapping up whatever was left behind. I was disappointed he had drank it all but the sight of his tongue sent a tingle of electric excitement down my spine.

"Fuckin' hell you like your shit strong!" He gasped, letting the canteen drop to his side as his eyes scrunched up against the potency of my preferred brew. "Gods you were right...whatever that shit is tastes like hot ass! And not the good kind either, like the sweaty unwashed ass of some Raider bitch who lives in a fuckin' outhouse or something...I'm trustin' ya when you say this stuff works."

"I mean, it's Red Berryl so how could it not? Shit'll knock anypony on their ass if you give 'em enough." I asked nonchalantly to which his eyes went wide in an expression of pure, absolute horror.

"Oh no...oh fucking hell no..." He gasped, looking at the little vial with fear. "Is this the pure stuff??"

"Uh...yeah? Haven't you ever seen Dash derivatives in the wild?"

"No! I mean...I dunno if I have, but that's beside the point!"

"Then mind telling me what the big deal is? It's just gonna be a...heh...yep, I feel it workin' already."

I sat back on the bench behind me as the world started to sway and shimmer pleasantly around me, my body feeling slow and leaden but altogether happy and bubbly. I felt loose. Relaxed even. This large locker room was more inviting and comfortable than I had originally thought. Still he looked on with terror, cradling the vial in his talons as if he had been poisoned. Or...perhaps a more appropriate term was drugged? In my defense he had taken it before I had gotten around to telling him what it was so it was kinda on him for what happened.

"Red Berryl...this shit...it does things to Gryphons." He stammered, the look in his eyes slowly softening as the potent drug began to hit his system as well. "A-and I don't think you wanna find out what..."

All was right in the world far as my mind and body were concerned. I had found inner peace in this odd, underground locker room and...were the walls waving back and forth or was it me?

"Heh...I dunno..." I cooed playfully, a tiny part of me shocked at where I knew I was going. "Why don't ya show me then. Or are ya just a big ass chicken?"

He...ruffled up at that, the lighter blue feathers of his neck and belly puffing out even more noticeably than the rest. I had yet to see him do that in our short time together, but regardless of it was out of spite or wounded pride, I felt another happy shudder tingle up my spine. And then all at once I felt and smelled it. The musty, peachy sweet smell of my own snatch drooling over some fucking bird I only knew outta some half-forgotten memory. Even through the blissful haze of the Berryl, I could smell just how much I wanted him wafting up from below; my armor and underbarding be damned. Even if I wanted to deny it, the trickles down my thighs were my guilty confession signed and sealed and I was only going down this spiral faster and faster. In some circles I could see how being aroused by the scent of your own arousal might be seen as weird but...I doubted any of them could eat themselves out if the need or heat was dire. In whatever case, I was caught in a feedback loop of smelling myself, drooling more with need, making even more of an odor and then back to huffing away again like a goddamn powder addiction. It was only a matter of time until he noticed.

"H-heh...you uh...you ok there, mare?" He asked in a subdued but happy monotone. "You're all red n' shit heh..."

I didn't even bother responding with words when action was all my mind and body could comprehend as possible. Without giving him (or myself) a chance to back down I rushed forward and kissed him; wrapping my lips around the tip of his long and tapered beak and subconsciously dragging my tongue across the length of it that was nearby my mouth. It lasted only a moment but breaking away from him to see the results...he was shocked more than anything. I just couldn't hold back the giggles when I settled back in a dazed stumble and grinned at how flabbergasted he was. My actions had definitely caught him by surprise but there was something else hidden behind it that showed some interest.

"D-did you..." He stammered, blinking his eyes frantically as if trying to keep reality in check before him. "W-what...?"

"Oh shut up and kiss me back, you handsome fuck!" I growled playfully, approaching him again for another go and relishing the scene of him cowering in fear. "Or are ya not tough enough to handle a lil' mare like me again?"

He huffed, almost to himself, and tried puffing himself back out again in a show of strength but all I saw...was a delightful place to stuff my fuckin' muzzle and nuzzle to absolute death. In the blink of an eye my want became a reality, and I lost all sight as well over half of my face sank into his chest feathers like some sort of downy void. My arms were wrapped tightly around him and I was face deep in this guy's chest fluff like he were some dainty cutie from the SugarApple brothel. I could feel my nose curl angrily against the smells that were hitting my brain at random and from somewhere afar but...I just couldn't stop; I wouldn't even if I needed to. And the best part? His arms finally wrapped back around me, completing the feeling of deep, soft warmth from every angle and at that point I just fucking melted in his strong arms. Here was a fuckin' stud of a male, as evidenced by how much my female-centric hormones latched onto him outta nowhere. Or...was it? Faint echoes of the past were whispering of a curiosity, once upon a memory. Finally, I had to come up for air and was met with the tip of his beak as my muzzle poked up from under all his fluff.

"Heh...you're more cuddly then I was expectin'." He chuckled to himself blissfully, looking down at me softly with his large, sharp orange eyes. "Should I take this as some sorta weird-ass prelude to a sneak attack?"

Yet again I answered him with another kiss, this one with even more of my tongue slithering around just...worshiping his wonderful beak. I couldn't even remember the last time I had been given the chance at a bird, let alone one this handsome and respectable. My taste in birds was loose when it came to looks as I was open to any who were guaranteed to give me a good time and not act like they owned me after the fun was over. To be frank, there was no one true reason behind the stirrings within me that leaned in his direction. He was someone I knew, he had a gruffly charming personality, despite its outward barbs, and he had proven a strong and rather resourceful fighter. One that had stood their ground and walloped me for all I was worth without the use of any underhoofed tactics. All that garnished with a very fine Gryphon physique and further topped off by a beautiful blend of blue feathers? Truly the only thing to hide the puddles I would soon be forming under myself would be a bath. Or really...a shower for two.

******

It had been through a hazy dream that we somehow ended up in the showers, the massive room lined thickly with more showerheads than I had ever seen in one place. How or when either of us had turned them on (or finished stripping down) was a complete gap in my memory, however, there was no forgetting the flood of heavenly warmth now coming from every angle. It was such a feeling of relaxing bliss that I was beyond the ability of words to say anything more coherent then a long, mewling moan of pleasure. Hot, cleansing water cascaded down my face and body and I could feel myself melting under the deluge; the faint but pleasing mental image of how brown and grimy the water coming off of me sticking out in my minds' eye. Truly I was so relaxed that I could have pissed myself and not even noticed, the flood of water washing everything away equally. All I could see, hear, or even think of was the majesty of these industrial-sized water heaters providing me with the shower of a lifetime. Of course, that was until I was reminded of the big blue featherhead I had dragged along behind me, complete with his own groans and sighs of relaxed relief under the coaxing warmth of the water. Neither of us could take a step in any direction without at least two showerheads hitting somewhere directly on the body; heat and steam acting as our just reward for an SR slaughter gone well.

From a cozy distance my mind viewed life through my eyes and from somewhere deep within, I felt bubbly feelings as warm as the water enveloping me once again stirring inside me. He was laying on his side across the white-tiled floor in the corner nearby, his wounded shoulder allowed to face the brunt of the invigorating heat coming down on us. His feathers and fur were matted and soaked through, while sheets of grime, shedding fur and loose bent feathers sloughed off and onto the floor; their destination being the long rows of drains lining the floors at regular intervals. He had his eyes closed and held his long charcoal grey beak open slightly, allowing the water to flow down into his mouth but letting it spill back out freely. With all the fluff now clinging more to his body, I was given a much better look at the flowing curves of stocky, well-built muscles lining every inch of him. Everything from the muscles in his neck to the ones in his exquisitely soft looking pawsies were mesmerizing to look at. My excitement grew as my eyes lingered on a set of long, fluffy ears poking up off the side of his head. I knew not every Griffin (or Gryphon) was born with external ears due to the vast variety in their genetic heritage but...I was allowed to have secret preferences. Of course, amongst all the blues and greys I could see dozens upon dozens of scars, each discolored and devoid of just enough fur to draw attention to themselves. His mighty wings as well were spread out on full display, accepting a much-needed washing and warming like the rest of his body. Although now that I could see them properly given that he was out of armor, I noticed one was noticeably bent awkwardly, as if it had once been severely injured and not healed properly. There was so much loveliness to glance over while instincts and wants beyond my control were crying out for action. However...the sight of so much muck and filth coming off of him was enough to persevere under the pressure. I was a bit of a slut at the end of the day but I still preferred my partner to be smelling at least like they hadn't just spent the last month plus straight on the road.

Taking the initiative, I wobbled my way over to the wall closest to me where one of many soap and shampoo dispensers had been installed and pumped the frogs of my hooves full. A moment later and I found myself rubbing the sudsy concoction directly into the fur of his back in long, slow circles. He started at my touch but when he spied what I was doing, he lay still again and...actually laid out properly for me. Every limb spread out and laid flat, relaxed and ready for some work. And so I obliged him, with more gusto and enthusiasm than I thought possible from such a situation.

"H-hey...just...b-be gentle, would ya?" He groaned softly after I jolted my hooves into his spine and sent a wave of pops and cracks down the immediate area. "B-but for the love of Tälin...don't stop w-whatever magic you're workin'..."

When was the last time I had even heard an offer so enticing? Surely not since my darling Huckleberry so, so long ago... Here I had a handsome stud of my own, completely at my mercy and who had thus far not denied or shrugged off my rather obtuse advances. I couldn't believe just how ravenous my bird kink had become after what could be years of neglect. Of course, I had to be fair to him...I couldn't just jump in there and have my way immediately. No, I had given him a decently serious injury when I had dislocated his arm. While they were rusty from disuse, I still could remember some of the tips and tricks on proper massage Hucks had once taught me. He was a far larger bird than I had ever been with but...I was confident in myself, repeatedly bringing my hooves overflowing with suds to and from the pumps on the wall. I fell into a blissful pattern with my movements, hooves digging deep into his scarred flesh in wide circles like I were kneading a large pile of dough while I made slow work across his neck, shoulders and back. Come time to wash down his wings I became extra gentle and affectionate, to the point I was finding myself nuzzling the length of his wing actually feeling genuinely sorry that I had hurt him. All the while he laid still and rewarded me with some of the loudest and most enticing moans and groans I had ever heard come out of such a unit of a Gryphon. There was just so much I needed to work on, the water dripping off his body coming out a ruddy brown/black that, slowly and reluctantly, began to lighten in color.

"Fuckkkkkk..." He half groaned, half gasped as another loud pop came from his left hip after I had made some adjustments.

"Heh heh...is someone enjoying himself?" I cooed softly, unable to hold back the feisty, playful minx clawing her way out of me. "Don't be afraid to say yes handsome."

"Y-yes..." He moaned again, arching his back like a cat against my hooves as I worked them into his lower back. "Enjoying this sooooo much..."

"Goooooood..." I giggled in response, leaning in close to his ear to give it a playful nibble and getting a very cute squeak of some sort out of him. "Oh myyyy...aren't we a noisy one?"

He visibly shrank in on himself at that, quickly turning his head to face the complete opposite direction from me as he replied, "S-shut...s-s-shut the f-fuck up. You d-didn't hear a goddamned thing, mare."

"Humph...for shame then..." I crooned in response, sliding up a bit more to give his ear another nibble and a light tug just for fun.

"Eeeeep!" He squeaked again, the noise very much akin to the sound a small, happy Feral bird and absolutely adorable in pitch and tone. "F-fuck you! N-no fair! My ears are s-sensitive, damnit!"

"Oh I'm sure they are...I'll keep it in mind."

I didn't immediately resume my assault on his fluffy ears. Instead, I chose to tease him a bit further with a bit of a bait-and-switch by returning to my work on his back and wings. His protests from the moment before were immediately silenced and replaced by more moans of satisfaction and relaxation. I had taken my time working from his neck and shoulders, making sure every inch I could easily reach was well tenderized and massaged. Now that I had reached his hips and lower back, his wings were stiff and spread wide while his long, lion tail swished about eagerly. He was putty in my hooves and just begging for more. Annnnd then of course there was his deliciously fluffy bird ass just casually laying there...

"Mmmfff...t-the fuck you doin' down the-"

In a flash I was already beyond the ability for words as I wrapped his long tail gently around my hoof, hoisting it high and proud for me to see everything he had on offer. The bit of soft pink goodness hidden underneath the base of his tail was just...too fucking tempting, but I had to remain focused on ensuring a clean experience for myself. Before he could say another word I plopped down a large glob of soap and rubbed it in slowly, my body trembling softly with electrified excitement from tail to hooves. From further up his body I could hear his moans of relaxation turn to heated ones of lust as I gingerly soaped up his ass and the back of his sagging, fuzzy sack. Every subtle curve of his rear was on full display for my personal lewd enjoyment and I was almost seeing cross-eyed as I tried to focus through the Berryl haze on such a magnificent sight. It was rare to find a male bird who was into letting his lower half be at the mercy of a hungry mare; as to be expected, most were iffy on being someone else's plaything. Of course, it was up for debate if he would enjoy the ride but not once did a word of protest come out of him. Once I felt the area was clean enough to work with, I wrapped my magic around his waist and casually hoisted his ass up so it was directly under the stream of water. To my delight and surprise however, his moans only grew louder while the shower washed the area clean. For all sakes and appearances, Garand liked his ass getting played with and I couldn't be happier for my luck.

"F-fuck m-mare..." He panted hotly over his shoulder. "T-take a guy to dinner f-first."

I pouted back up at him from around the curve of his ass and replied, "Look buddy, I've been waiting fuckin' years for somethin' like this an-"

"I didn't say to f-fuckin' stop, did I?"

I had to do a double take just to make sure I saw the seriousness in his face despite the water still coaxing a needy undertone out from his expression. He gave me a nod when I cocked an eyebrow followed by a wink and...a beautifully adorable wiggle of his ass for me, his tail flopping lazily from side to side and splashing against the floor. He was even so kind as to move back out of the direct blast of water so I wouldn't drown as I energetically worshiped his asshole.

"I-if you wanna eat it so bad, then fuckin' d-dig in already." He chuckled shyly, the look in his eyes soft from the high though I swear there was something deeply genuine in there as well.

"Mmmmfff..." I whimpered uncontrollably, spreading him apart with my hooves and moving in for my target with an almost primal hunger. "Don't fuckin' mind if I do..."

Even while soaking wet, nothing could beat the feeling of soft nether fur surrounding your face, the precious fuzz obscuring all sight and most sound as you worked away. All the while, the only thing in the universe left to you was your sense of touch...and taste. And while this ass was sadly missing the dripping slit I had grown more accustomed to in recent decades, there was still plenty under his tail for me to relish and enjoy. My mouth still nibbled, drooled and lapped away with all the skill that I was proud to have gained while muzzle deep inside the finest mares Lead Rose and others had on offer. There was something inherently different about the way a Gryphon's ass felt against the tongue compared to the puckered mound found on ponies; the sensation was far softer and velvety, like licking the inside of your cheek. There was no relieving the need building inside me for more of this plush softness against my face and mouth and I found it hard to pull away for more than a moment or two to focus on another area in need of some love. My tongue scraped away manically at his ass like I were on my last meal for life with my only goal being just to worship the damned thing with my mouth as much as I could. That being said, once I felt the heft of his balls drape across my muzzle, wrapping my nose and cheeks in the softest fur on his body to date...there was finally a strong contender for my attention. There was no way for my mind to comprehend just how much time I was spending on him as neither of us were wearing a watch but it was impossible to ignore the immaculate sounds coming out of his beak as I worked my magic. Incoherent words muddled about amidst lustful grunts and groans of pleasure accompanied by an occasional squawk or chirp as he squirmed in my grasp. Truly I had never seen such a hunk of a stud be reduced to such adorable levels of lewd begging and moaning.

Eventually...sadly...my jaw finally called it quits on me and I was forced to stop my assault. This give him some time to lay there limply across my lap and pant, his moans and groans from earlier still punctuating his breaths at complete random. As hard as it was for me to keep shit in focus enough to stay conscious of what was going on, Garand had taken a much larger dose and it was starting to show. His eyes were crossed and unfocused and it was clear from his pleasured mumblings that I had more than likely popped a few fuses in there somewhere. While I gave my jaw and tongue a well-earned break, I gave nuzzling his balls across my muzzle and kissing his hole my top interest. With his hindlegs somewhat propping him up on his own, I was able to finally see what kinda dick I was to be enjoying tonight and admittedly...my heart skipped a beat. I knew what to expect from a full-blooded Gryphon, regardless of his somewhat diminutive stature amongst his species, but even then...it was a bit bigger than I was used to. It was sleek, dark grey like his talons and thick at the pointed head and knot and I could only guess he was breaking the foot-long mark which was...going to be interesting. It wasn't that I didn't want things inside me, let alone him, it was just...questionable how much of him I was gonna be able to stuff up inside me. Not to mention it had been quite some time since I had parted my folds with anything larger than a tongue or a couple of talons so this was going to be an experience. In a small modicum of reassurance though, I was grateful his shaft was at least longer than it was wide and didn't come with any barbs like some Griffs came with which snagged in all the wrong places. I wouldn't be able to get that knot in me like I wanted...but at least he wouldn't tear me apart at my metaphorical seam.

"T-that was..." He began, his panting just as robust as when I had stopped. "W-wow...f-f-fuck..."

"Mmm...was that a compliment I just heard, little bird?" I crooned back at him, hugging the side of his ass so I could leer up at him with a mixture of pride and playful flirtation.

"E-eep!" He squeaked like a rodent caught in a snare, his wings flopping forward to cover his blushing face from sight as he tried getting back on all fours. "S-shut up! I-I'm a b-big Griffin! Er...G-Gryphon!"

"Ohhh...did I hit a sore spot, little bird?" I cooed again, this time letting my words ooze with the smug sound of victory and getting an almost violent shiver out of him as he whined long and hard with a noise I couldn't quite describe.

"S-s-shut up, Athena!" He whimpered again, his legs trembling while his tail wagged from side to side in an excited frenzy, like a cat waiting to pounce. "I'm not l-little! I'm not!"

At this I couldn't help but giggle uncontrollably at just how flustered this seven-foot behemoth was getting over some playful banter. Admittedly he was high as fuck, if not more so than I was, but all the same this was a vulnerable side of him that I was honestly unready for. His snappy remarks had felt a little forced on occasion and it didn't take a genius in psychology to know he was hurting in more ways than just a dislocated shoulder and assorted bruises. If there was one thing Red Berryl highs were good at, it was dropping defenses and allowing people to breathe a sigh of relief and fall into their relaxed, more open selves. In my case, I could feel that feisty side of me on the forefront of my thoughts and actions causing me to be far more bold with him and his body than I would have been otherwise. In his case...I was getting to see just how much of his pride had been wounded and what kind of an affect my words could have on him as the victor from our brawl. Well, that and the fact he was kind of a sub which was far from a problem for me. If anything, it just raised his standing on best birds I had ever taken to bed with me and I had little doubt I was looking at a new champ. If the rest of him was anywhere as enjoyable as toying with his ass was, I was in for the best fuck I'd had in decades with this gigantic dork.

To help offset his embarrassment, I decided my jaw had enjoyed enough of a break and it was time to take things up a notch. With how damn high he was, it didn't take much kneeling to make my way under him and bring my muzzle right up against his dick and I took some time to enjoy it against my face. The poor guy whimpered in pleasure as I did so and I relished in the soft feeling of it throbbing against my cheek as excited blood pumped away through his veins. My face continued to wander and nuzzle around his cock and balls, every now and again finding my lips kissing his pointy member or the soft fur of his lower belly. Despite having to snort water out of my nose every few moments from the deluge surrounding us, I was having just as much fun as he was from the sounds of things; ever more grunts and gasps of delight and enjoyment echoing across the white tiled walls as I continued my worship of his nether regions. Eventually though...I just couldn't deny myself any longer and with a long, slow, drawn out lick from the back of his balls all the way up to the tip of his pointy cockhead, I finally wrapped my lips around his dick. In the same moment, another hunger possessed me. Spurned by faint but happy memories out of another life, I melted into the role I had assigned myself as the unique texture and taste of a bird dick flooded my mouth. My tongue became a wild snake, writhing and thrashing about on the underside of his cock while my cheeks and lips began to suckle away at what few inches of him I could fit in my maw. I was truly blessed he wasn't thick and lengthy, and that I was actually able to cram him in as there was only so much fun to be had from licks and nuzzles. It wasn't often I had a craving for dick but by the gods I was going to milk this one for all it was worth.

"Ohhhhfffucckkkk......" He gasped sharply the moment I wrapped my lips around his member. "Ohhhhyeahhhhh...fuck that's warmmmm..."

I couldn't respond without letting my hungry mouth go unfilled so I replied instead with I felt in a long, whimpering moan of pure ecstacy that I couldn't have down-played if I tried. Years of shoving my tongue where the sun didn't shine had left my gag reflex as more of an afterthought than anything but I knew better than to push my luck with him. The last thing either of us wanted was for me to puke mixed canned vegetables on his cock and potentially even choke on it, regardless of how easy it would be to clean it up. Rather, I made sure to bob my head in short thrusts and focused on keeping my mouth and jaw loose and...inviting. The sensation of such a fine Gryphon member to suck on was immaculate, my tongue bathing in the smooth, fleshy texture as it slid to and fro across it in a comforting, hungry rhythm of lust. I could never quite pinpoint where my love for Griffin/Gryphon cock laid as there were several reasons I preferred them well over the dicks of my fellow Equines. I was no stranger to either, having slept my way around in both the pre and post-apocalypse but my experiences with the male sex had usually involved some sort of exchange. Whether it were the lead gunsmith at Ironshod and his assistants for my Sequoia or the ex-NER guy who ran the Gun Runners Kiosk in The Pile, I was usually after something when I agreed to fuck a stallion. While getting stuffed by anything when you're aroused was usually a guaranteed good time, I had just never found pony dick all that pleasing to the eye. It wasn't ugly per-se, I just never felt as aroused by them as the other mares around me had always seemed to be.

With a bird...well, there was just more to look at in my opinion. Stallions' dicks were all solid rods of meat with an awkwardly flaring cockhead that made swallowing a cumshot extremely difficult, assuming you could even keep them in at that point. Griffins and Gryphons alike tended to have more narrow dicks with heads that easily pushed their way between your lips and could even perfectly kiss your cervix deep inside if they were big enough. Just because the vagina was capable of stretching to accommodate more than it reasonably should, it did not mean that I liked pushing that feature of my own. Stallions tended to be thick and well hung, a fact that tended to stretch me very uncomfortably on the inside just to fit them all in me and get my metaphorical monies worth. Birds...well, they tended to either stay relatively slim up to the knot or have a gradual increase in girth the further down you went. The If they were a partner of any worth, they would recognize by just how much they were spreading you apart on them and make sure they didn't stuff it in too deep and risk hurting you. Sure, it came at the cost of getting knotted like the little bird slut I was at heart but at the end of the day, if they left me loaded up on the inside with a nice creampie...I was a happy and satisfied little mare.

The curse of soreness from earlier returned to my jaw far sooner than I would have liked and once again, I was forced to pull my mouth away from his member and emerge back out from under him for a break. Soon as I did, he splashed down hard onto the floor as if his legs had given way and he took a moment to grunt and grumble in pain as he curled up a bit on the floor. I opened my overworked mouth to comment on how cute he looked curled up like a cat but he cut me off before I even had a chance to begin; latching onto my leg with his talons and pulling me in close. It...took a second for my Berryl addled brain to compute what was happened for a second but in a flash it clicked with me that my mouth was once again stuffed with something. When reality decided to ping my brain with an image of the present it was the sight of his face right up against mine, the tip of his beak shoved into my mouth while my tongue was being...wrestled by his? Oh my gods...was...was he kissing me back of his own accord? There was no denying what had just happened, even if the high made everything feel like a dream. He had pulled me in, of his own free will, and was now sloppily making out with me while his talons groped their way around my body at complete random...as if he just couldn't get enough of me. Such a compliment from one such as he and one that I was proud to be a part of.

"Mmmff...aren't you just the cutest little mare..." He chuckled huskily after pulling out of our heated kiss for some air. "Look at you...just letting me fondle you however I'd like..."

A wave of heat hit my face and I looked away completely overcome with flustered embarrassment. His tone had changed from his earlier squeak and I could tell from the way he was handling me the Berryl was starting to really kick in. His grip was firm but unfocused and while I was normally afraid of birds getting too into it and showing no mercy on my body till they came...there was a reserved gentleness in his touch I couldn't ignore. Like...I was something to be explored and enjoyed but not abused or too roughly handled. And for this, I let his talons wander where they would on me. I was strangely at ease in his hands and as a result, I was willing and maybe even a little eager to be his plaything. As he had mentioned before, his time in the Stable had given plenty of experience of bedding Equines and he had obviously learned well during his tenure underground.

"I-I...d-dunno what you're talking about." I squeaked back which only seemed to amuse him more, his talons gripping slightly tighter as he made sure to cup my ass in both hands.

"Mmmm...oh I fuckin' think you do, little lady." He chuckled again, rolling over to his side before dragging us closer to the wall where he propped himself up against and plopping me onto his chest. "Where'd you learn to suck dick like that, eh?"

"Heh...y-years of practice. Something you seem to have as well, heh..."

"Heh heh...more than a little practice making you ponies moan and whine for more. Mares and stallions alike are free fuckin' game for fun and satisfaction. Observe!"

He grabbed my tail in his fist near the base and hiked it high just like I had done with him, the results more or less the same on me as they had been on him. Even as the mewling whine of need escaped my lips I was already attempting to stuff a hoof in my mouth to stop him from hearing it. It...wasn't that I was afraid of showing him just how fucking much I wanted him, it was more of a...personal surprise to myself at just how vocal I still could be. The slow loss of my empathy and basic emotion had rendered my sexual interactions of the last century plus more of a business deal than anything else. While pleasure and satisfaction were certainly part of the goal, things felt different back then. I was existing for the sake of existing using the only life I had ever known as my means of making ends meet in the new world. Sex was still a scrumptious dessert for the senses but it had lost its deeper meaning somewhere along the way for me. Feeling want for someone like this was almost completely foreign to me, at least in the traditional sense. I knew and felt lust but in my heart I could feel this was somehow different. I couldn't deny that I wanted everything coming to me (pun most certainly intended).

"Oh my, heh heh..." He chuckled again with smug satisfaction, giving my tail another couple playful tugs. "Noisy little thing aren't we?"

"U-um...well...y-yes." I sighed in defeat, unable to even think up a compelling counterargument let alone a witty retort. "S-so are you, you fuckin' subby ass b-bitch."

"Hey!" He exclaimed with a bashful look of sheepishness while pointing a talon at me. "We don't talk about that shit. You didn't hear anything, got it?"

I grinned softly back up at him, playfully licking the talon he had pointing at me which caught him a bit by surprise before I replied, "Sureee...whatever you say. You certainly seemed to enjoy your ass getting eaten...pretty subby behavior if you ask me."

"Heh...then let's see how stoic you can be while your ass is gettin' scraped clean by some real talent!"

Without even giving me a moment to think the talons he had around my waist clamped down tightly and I felt myself get lifted effortlessly into the air. While my face got the full brunt of a nearby showerhead, the complete opposite end of me felt another feeling altogether. All at once that long ass tongue of his that I had spied earlier was upon me and it was taking absolutely no prisoners in its assault. He had opened his beak wide and straddled my hindlegs in between, allowing the fruits of his labor to trickle and drip directly down into his maw. His tongue was...something else entirely, my efforts on him before now paling in comparison to the slippery eel he was lashing against me. My lower half was alight with an overload of pleasure and warm, wet sensations as he skillfully slithered his way between my folds and deep within my dripping insides. Though he held me aloft in his hands, I had to steady my forelegs against the tiled wall for support while my mind melted under the heat of the moment. Endlessly he coiled and rolled it around inside me, every ribbed fold along the length of my love tunnel feeling the wrath of his tongue as it ran a campaign of wonderful terror against every inch of sensitive flesh I had. For once I had to admit to myself that even with how wet I got when turned on, this guy was the first who seemed to lap it up as soon as it was produced and I was almost afraid I'd be too dry for him.

There wasn't a single coherent word coming out of my mouth as his tongue ravaged me, the walls of the shower room echoing every gasp, squeak, whine and whimper he lapped away at my pussy. The tip of his tongue wiggled to and fro of its own accord, tickling against my cervix wildly while he bunched up what was left outside against my drooling lips. Every drop I had on offer was immediately his and he gave a deep, hungry growl of lust and satisfaction as he teased out ever more of my peachy juices. After a few minutes of this, he switched to a controlled ferocity as he masterfully waggled his long, warm member around and around my insides like a cyclone; what tongue he had pressed against my labia and clit pulsing in rhythm with his mad feast. There was just too much for my Berryl addled mind to process as he continued, my body alight with a majestic glow of unbearably satisfying light and warmth. I moaned and cried with reckless abandon, almost shouting myself hoarse when I couldn't take any more and exploded in his face like a popped water balloon. I was completely at his mercy as he had reduced my brain to mush and my body as supple and pliable as warm clay. No mare, stallion or bird had ever brought me to my knees with just their tongue alone and this guy hadn't even stuck it in me yet. And all I fuckin' wanted was more of it.

Time lost all meaning for several moments as my horny mind surfed waves of afterglow in search of the shores of reality. I was gasping for breath in the steamy air, fighting to regain all the air I had screamed out of me when I came and finally I found relief. The first thing my eyes recognized was his face, his beautiful eyes like bright amber gazing down at me with a soft but smug expression of victory. I was...laying on my back across his chest, cradled in one arm while the other was...twirling a few strands of my sopping mane around his talon? Gods was he soft...

"Heh heh...looks like the lil' princess enjoyed her test drive." He chuckled at me, letting my hair slip from around his talon so he could use it to trace my chin slowly. "Mmmmff...my compliments to the chef by the way. You taste better than half the mares in Stable 39 did. Gods...I forgot how sweet peaches were."

It was so sudden and personal that I couldn't control a squeak of surprise and instinctually snapped my hooves over my face to just...hide from the sheer embarrassment. Peaches were a flavor long extinct in the Post-War world but he still knew and remembered it well enough to compare me to the real deal. It was a compliment I had gotten used to but this time...it just hit differently. Perhaps it was just due to all the sexual tension that had built up between us in so short a time but I found his words hitting particularly deep. The wasn't even a hint of that snarky sarcasm I had come to associate with him, the looks in his eyes sincere and genuine giving little room for doubts to form in the shadow of uncertainty.

His amused chuckles continued as he nudged my hooves away from my face with his beak, grabbed me firmly by the ass and said, "Oh don't you worry one fuckin' bit you cute little piece of ass. We're only gettin' started, sweet lips."

**********

Chapter Forty-Four: A Test of Trust

He had explained it twice but I still found it hard to comprehend. Not for any great complexity involved or, really, any kind of laudable brilliance on the part of Buck Beak. No...it was why he thought (and assumed) that I was at all willing to dip my hooves into any unsavory areas. That wasn't to say I had suddenly turned a new leaf and sworn off engaging in...less than permissible indulgences, but when it came to walking through manure...I was warranted a hard pass. With the majority of the so-called 'New Town' of Anakha officially secured, our biggest obstacle was the enormous barrier spell they had erected around the circumference of Old Town. Being a city older than Equestria had even been a country on the map, the Zeebs had made the most of the old city walls and used them as a stable platform for their barrier spell. Resistance after our initial assault had been sporadic but fierce, with all enemy forces behind the wall who could make it in all the confusion. Once they had shut the gates, all those caught outside were at our mercy and a general consensus was quickly reached that we had hit a significant roadblock. It was pointless to throw bodies at it from above or at ground level once word spread across comms about the first to brush with their shield and was vaporized on the spot. To make things worse, everyone within the shield could fire out at us with complete impunity as their bullets, spells and artillery passed clear through the spell while ours were vaporized on impact with little effect. And so...Buck's plan was insultingly simple: cause a ruckus at the gates and in the air above with as many loud asses as we could, all in order to draw as many eyes as possible from the maze of ancient sewer tunnels below. Deception and misdirection were fair game in war and were tactics the Zeebs relied on heavily so...what was stopping us from dabbling in it ourselves and serving these bastards a taste of their own tactics? Of course, there was also the high (near certain) likelihood that said bastards had also thought to cover all angles of approach. If they posted troops down there, or worse...warped creatures and/or magic, it was going to be a slog and a half to say the least.

Only a few hours had passed since we had our infamous meeting with Commander Typhoon and barely two since Buck had returned like a goddamned wannabe gallant knight. Typhoon had been so kind as to lend us the personal assistance of one of her own prized Shadowbolts, a mystery mare acting mostly in an advisory support role. As expected, she remained tight-lipped and silent as the professional she was and didn't waste a single word whenever forced to reply. While the rest of us chatted, rested, ate and collected ourselves from the nights' events aboard the Mauler, she remained seated towards the front at the communications station near the hatch to the driver's seat; a rubber coated wire from an advanced version of the PipBuck 2500 plugged directly into the comms equipment. Beside her sat the upper portion of her helmet which protected the ears, eyes and the majority of her skull while she retained the lower half which, masked her muzzle in an armored respirator and protected the neck and jaw. White fur with an emerald green mane and bright yellow eyes that sparkled with awareness and intelligence as she silently conversed on the radio with...whomever with an EarBloom visibly stuffed into her ear. Private radio conversations like this weren't super common and normally involved the speaker finding some actual privacy, but with all the chatter going on around us, it wasn't like anypony was eavesdropping. Indeed, I held private conversations with the members of Alpha Squad regularly, as did anyone who were issued equipment that let them muffle their words. Were she speaking with other Shadowbolts, I would just assume she would be able to do that directly using the radio in her helmet so as to why she needed something with a stronger transmitter...? I could only dream of being that important to Command so as to live out some sort of pipedream of being a high-stakes operative.

I couldn't focus on her for too long however before my interest wandered away again amidst the noise happening around me as we all took a breather. We had finally gained some down time after the frantic pace of the night and as a result, I was taking the opportunity (and following Healer's orders) to relax in the makeshift medical bay. With yet another glowing saline drip of Nexus solution trickling its way into my outstretched leg, I was given some time to think. Perhaps more than I would have otherwise preferred under such circumstances but, under risk of medical detainment by Honeydew, I had no choice but to lie still. Lie still on a suitably comfortable bunk and think in relative quiet while fighting off sleep in the event I were suddenly needed. Buck and I had...a mixed track record, far as our actions the night before were concerned to say the absolute least. While I had not raised the amount of hell as duty to issued orders demanded, there was little I could have done given my situation. I had been dangling by a goddamned harness attached at my back to a bullheaded featherass with a vendetta to settle, soaring hundreds of feet in the air. Given the circumstances he had thrown me into with little warning, the most I could do was make the most of his madness for the good of the overall objective. Airborne Anti-Machine work had been our primary directive for the duration of the siege, but the best laid plains of generals and leaders tended to end in pieces and tatters. That being said, we had done some good work in harmony with our orders and had silenced three Anti-Air emplacements on our own. Not only that, but there was also the rescue-in-progress of Conqueror, our survival against the Shaman and the destruction of the rearguard with the help of their own flak cannon. The punishments issued out for disobeying orders were not all made equal, and the level of severity was almost arbitrary and up to the whim of the one giving the orders. But...there was a precedent already set that disobeyed/restructured orders weren't necessarily punishable, so long as the ensuing results outweighed the cost of their insubordination. It wasn't something to rest our dress hats on but...results like ours would've taken three times as many troopers to accomplish.

The Mauler itself had become cramped from the number of wounded on board, all six bunks being fully occupied by the wounded and loaded down with Honeydew's portable equipment packages. While I had offered to take up one of the available bunks aboard Conqueror, Honeydew refused and insisted I remain within reach of a quick conversation giving me one of the topmost bunks instead. While I lounged and felt the aches in my body and horn slowly trickle away with every drop of the I.V, I watched with interest as Honeydew and her assistants flitted about like a flock of busy birds. A micro terminal had been hauled in with their supplies and was placed on the small dining table in the neck of the vehicle, seeing frequent use as note after note was added to the respective medical records of each patient. At the same time, a portable Alchemy station had been brought on board and set up in one of the alcoves between repair stations, filling the air with the smell of pungent herbs, steam and various arcane substances. There was never a moment's rest for these busy mares and yet, they were chipper and upbeat despite the wanton death and destruction surrounding us. Each hummed happily to herself while she worked, a smile gracing each pretty face as they spoke in reassuring tones to any under their care, including me. If anything...I was beginning to appreciate the well-earned break as I had the chance to observe some rather pleasant looking nurses in the heat of their element working at their peak capacity. I was no Healer but I found more than a little enjoyment in watching a few good looking ladies working professionally in their chosen field. Indeed, their speed and inherent level of skill in healing was something to be envied, both by myself as well as my lovely-

"Athena?? Athena are you in here??"

Expectedly and yet equally unexpectedly, the panicked cries of my mare rose above the sound of the busywork of the Healers and I poked my head up out of sheer instinct. Helmet off, violet brow daubed in sweat while her armor was smeared with dried blood sporting patches of sand which had stuck to it; several of her ready mag pouches sitting empty, both for her rifle as well as speedloaders for her Sequoia. She had been in a nasty fight, and just as I knew it wrenched her gut to know I was in battle without her there to watch over me, so too did I feel the same towards her. She had the same level of training and experience in the field as I did so I had less to fear from her fucking it up and more the sheer chaotic nature of life. Of course, I didn't see any obvious signs that she had come to any personal physical harm but...I wasn't able to say quite the same about myself. With three gaping holes in my breastplate, I was wearing my near-death experience like a placard until I got a spare. She was going to see it. There was no goddamned way she wouldn't and I was going to get a thorough, angry tongue lashing from my overprotective mate. (And not the fun kind either.)

"Here!" I called out above the din with a slightly croaky voice, waving a hoof so as to draw her attention. "Crow's perch."

It took a moment of waggling my hoof in the air ridiculously for her to finally notice but once she did, she wasted no time in leaping up the side of the bunks and clambering onto the side of mine. When the bunk didn't give way to the combined weight of two mares in near full kit and the medical devices, I let out a breath I didn't realize I had been keeping pent in and relaxed. Up close, there was not a scratch on her that I could see so I had to assume the sand blasted scarlet on her armor came from someone else other than her. Unsurprising and encouraging even...but I still hated to miss it. Of course, being so close to one another also gave her a perfect view of my folly. All three of them.

"Look...Hucks..." I started once her eyes inevitably went wide upon seeing the hits I had taken. Even with the impact plates removed, the damage done to my underbarding was difficult to hide while I laid there on my back for her to see.

"Don't you fucking dare go, 'Look Hucks' with me!" She snapped, her eyes flickering with a repressed anger, though towards what specifically...I was unsure. "You think I don't know what the damage from a kinetic penetrator and tracer looks like?? Don't bullshit me Athena. What happened? NOW."

Her words hit me even harder than the bullets she was getting so worked up over. I was out of danger, yes but...that wasn't anywhere near enough for her and her poor, worrying mind. In the moment, I would have taken another round with the Shaman then face her wrath. Then again...mom would be equally terrifying to face with a breastplate fulla holes, no matter how alive I was despite the whole damn experience.

"Well before I say anything, you wanna bitch at me? Lay them at Buck's paws first. He's the jackass I was fucking attached to before he decided to do his own fucking thing, like always. You and I both know once he goes full stupid, someone has to be there to help his dumb ass live through it. You wanna know what happened? He went full stupid and I wasn't given any option to stop him. Not dangling eight-hundred feet in the air with no easy or safe way to release myself."

She frowned with a very long, drawn out sigh of annoyance before flatly stating, "Alright, fair enough. I'll have to give him a piece of my fucking mind later...but that still hasn't explained the three goddamned holes in your abdomen, Athena. Your opening defense is over, get on with the explanation already."

I knew better than to beat around the bush when she got prickly and so I gave her the fullest explanation of events as I could without dawdling on unimportant details. As I spoke in short informative sentences, she continued to stare at me with her lips pursed and eyes narrowed. Gods only knew what was going through her mind while I spoke; a veritable storm of mixed emotions was surely bubbling away inside her like an angry storm. I went through everything. Buck taking shrapnel, our fight with the Shaman and his goons, the dead goon who nearly got her revenge from beyond the grave...she took exception to when I mentioned how I just managed to survive. Very...particular exception.

"Are you fucking serious?!" She nearly shrieked, earning her warning and a loud rap on the side of the bunk by one of the Nurses below before she lowered her tone to a loud hiss. "Are you...just...the fuck were you thinking?!"

"Look, the fact I survived at all in the first place was more luck than I should be fucking allowed." I retorted, bristling a little myself that she was hung up on the what-ifs seeing as I was still alive. "What other choice did I have, huh? Buck was in a completely different room and had needed basically my entire medkit for his bullshit. I had jackshit else to work with in the oh, twenty-or-so seconds I had to act before I fucking bled out! I panicked and went for the only option I had and did it as smartly as a dumb decision can be made! Cut me some fuckin' slack, alright?"

"You stupid mare, why wouldn't you just fucking bring more medical supplies in your kit like I keep telling you to! I swear to fuck Athena, your mom should pay me a salary for how much I worry after your ass on her behalf out here..."

It...hurt a bit to have her yell at me, even more to catch myself yelling back at her over something neither of us could now change but...she had every right to yell at me like that. We slipped into silence as we silently stared at each other, a silent maelstrom of thoughts swirling about behind her eyes while the seconds stretched out between us. The thought of how mom would respond to what had happened churned my stomach ferociously and I found myself more willing to face Hucks than her. I'd already seen a bit of the exasperation and bottled up fear and worry she had towards me during those few days we spent together...it was not something I wished to have linger in my memory.

"It's good to see you." She said finally, her gaze softening a bit as a sigh of relief escaped her lips. "I'm glad you're ok."

"S-same to you." I replied with a slight hitch in my voice before I remembered all the sandy gore on her armor. "You doing ok...?"

"Hm? Oh...yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about the blood, you should've seen the other bitch. Brandy tore her to fuckin shreds with her minigun although...I will admit it was a bit excessive for such cramped quarters. Between you and I...I feel the Tin Heads are too strong a force if we intend to limit civilian casualties and collateral damage to the city. Most of these buildings are barely thick enough to stop a 5.56 let alone the APs she was using. And don't even get me started on the 40mils they're packing..."

"No need to tell me twice..." I laughed with a grim snort. "It's not like Buck or I are all too helpful to that cause either but...we can't exactly predict if we'll get an ammo stash to pop now can we?"

She sighed and nodded with half of a smile tugging at her stubborn frown saying, "Heh...with the kind of HEs you two pack into your magazines? I'd be frankly insulted if you didn't manage at least one detonation while you were fucking around up there. Now...I must ask, from the perspective of a student of medicine, what...what was it like to use a Griffin Stim device? Buck Beak only recently got it and hasn't bothered to let me borrow it for a closer examination since then."

My gut clenched painfully in response as the memory of the experience came as a bright flash of sensation and emotion leaving my heart racing and my eyes watering. Though I had thought myself sneaky by holding back the wretch that came with the sensation, I should have known better than to try and hide something like that from her peering gaze. Naturally, she caught on immediately and her frown turned into a sour pucker of understanding and empathy.

"I assumed as much...with that much matter being reconstituted all at once...sweet fuck, you truly are lucky to be alive, Athena. I can see now why you managed to endure that experience now that you've explained it. The mix of painkillers, the adrenaline of the moment, the minimal amount of Stim being injected, and just your sheer...absolute pigheadedness...seems to have been what saw you through the night. By all fucking rights you shouldn't have made it but..."

"Aww. If you weren't so pissed off with me, I might even think you were trying to compliment me."

I earned a soft bop on the muzzle from her armored hoof for my sarcasm, as well as a small smile and that soft sparkle in her eye that I loved so goddamned much. I knew she was ecstatic to see me alive and well, even with three gaping holes in my stomach; especially because of those in all reality. We had to play it careful though...just as we always had to be in public in front of those who weren't and didn't need to be in the know. Showing love and care for each other was a cautious balancing act that we knew we struggled to often to maintain safely. At best, we were shooting for the appearance of tightly-bonded sisters in arms who treated each other as family. It was appropriate, expected even, for us to embrace and worry for each other in the midst of a siege but, we both had to restrain the urge to kiss and faun over each other like a couple of lovebirds. In moments of intense emotion like this...nothing sounded quite so sweet as her tender embrace but for the sake of both our lives...a few moments of deep respite were not worth the potential consequences.

"You holding up ok?" She finally asked after another minute of comfortable silence while the Nurses continued their busywork down below.

I nodded towards the I.V line and responded, "Yeah...not a fan of having another damned needle in my leg but damn if this new brew of theirs ain't a kick in the ass! If you asked my body, it'd barely even be able to remember it went through both a fight and a burnout in less than an hour!"

"Is that so? I've been seeing those glowing vials in the Healer's equipment packs tonight, but haven't had the chance to ask anypony about 'em. Powdered Nexus I'm assuming?"

"Far as I know, yeah. Makes me wonder why this shit wasn't researched decades ago if it's this versatile."

"Darling, we both know it's because of the Earth ponies and the Industrial Revolution they brought about. Even with Celestia in charge, Unicorns weren't exactly paving the way for everything with magic now were they? Harnessing coal was a massive boon at first but it got in the way of developing...well, less harmful power sources. It's a damn shame how far behind magic has been left compared to our prowess over technology..."

"Humph..." I groaned in disgust, reclining fully once more for some further relaxation. "Well, in the end it isn't our fault but it's our fate to live with the shittiness anyway. Well...when put like that, I guess it ain't too different from having a desk jockey for a CO."

"Indeed heh..." She laughed softly before her smile slacked and she glanced down the aisle. "I should return to Crystal... She and I are to lead a team sweeping a block of housing in the poor district East of here. Before I go, please...just tell me right fucking now if there's any other hairbrained bullshit you and Buck plan to get up to to this morning?"

"Um...well..."

"Oh this is going to be a treat..."

It didn't take long to explain Buck's rather simplistic plan as there really wasn't much else to be said aside from a small team (or two) would take to the underground while the main force would distract the enemy from ground level and above. Her frown from earlier returned in full force and I found myself looking more at the wall then her face as I recounted what Buck had told me. In truth, there was a whole helluva lot wrong with his plan, with my chief question during his whole ramble being how we were to find our way through an unknown series of ancient pipes? If Command had come into the possession of a detailed map of the city which included it's system of sewage piping, they had failed to tell anyone about it during our scatterbrained debriefing. As it stood, we would be entering the city's rank underbelly entirely without a map or a guide to navigate us to...wherever the fuck it was we needed to go. We had to get at the source of the barrier spell one way or another and going under was the only major course of action we had yet to pursue. Unfortunately, I'd zero idea as to how Zebras cast and projected their shield spells, let alone how they were powered and sustained. Given Commander Typhoon's intrigued tone and expression when Buck spoke, I just...had to hope she or one of her subordinates had the secrets we needed to do the mission as proposed. Given the Commander's rank and position, tentative field clearance had already been granted for Buck's insanity and the attempt would be made within the next few hours. The how, when and why's were all being (hopefully) handled by Typhoon, Buck and others so all that was left for me was...to go along with it all once a plan was set in place. It seemed like a goddamned long-shot but...then again, so was my own survival from the injuries I sustained. Command was in seeming chaos, struggling to put together a plan against the Zeebs as if they had expected our mechanized advantage to guarantee an easy victory. In the end, all I could do was just hope we wouldn't have to spend long underground, especially a sewer that had been in use for thousands of years...

"Lovely..." She breathed once I had finished speaking, taking a moment to rub her eyes with her hooves. "So your dumbass subordinate goes and recommends you for a suicide mission and then just expects the team medic to just...go with it?? The fuck does he get off telling you what to do? Fucking jackass won't kno-"

"Just...shut it please." I pleaded with her quietly, hoping to get my internal exhaustion across through my tone of voice. "Leave Buck alone...we can bitch him out for all this shit later once we're back in recognizable territory. At this point his stupid idea has gotten the attention and approval of Commander Typhoon of Shadowbolt Team 'Crash'. Whole buncha people know about it in their chain of command by now and to pull my name back out of the hat would be career suicide at this point."

"That still doesn't mean you have to do it though!" She pleaded softly with me in kind. "Let me speak with your Healer! I can convince her to mark you as unfit for immediate return to duty and have you put on bed rest for the next 24-hours, buy you some more time for them to get Rain Dancer or Penny or...just anyone else to fill in for you."

"What, and let them get all the glory? Common Hucks, you know it ain't gonna fucking happen and I'm gonna get sent down into the shitpit with our resident feathered jackass. Idea was for no more than two teams of two to go down there and find a way in. If it'll ease your worried mind, you are more than welcome to volunteer as part of that second team as long as the spots haven't already been filled by someone in Command."

"Ah, yes...because volunteering for this ridiculous mission is what you would call 'easing my worried mind'..." She grunted with sarcastic bitterness. "I'm going to fucking strangle that Griffin with his own vas deferens..."

"Is that a yes?"

"Ughhh...sure, fine, whatever!" She pouted, crossing her forelegs and looking away in a huff. "Can't believe this shit..."

"Neither can I, and I was volun-told what to do. Least I gave you a choice in the matter."

She flicked her eyes back towards me sharply and asked, "Did you though?"

"No...but you're still offering to do it of your own volition. I might as well have tendered my resignation if I was thinking about saying no to a Shadowbolt. All the same...gonna be glad to have you covering my back down there."

"It's not your back I'll be worried about..."

And with that we drifted back into another bout of silence, though this one was less tense than the last which was a blessed relief. There was so much that could be said in the moment regarding the insanity of it all, or our mutual fear of harm happening to the other but...it wouldn't do any good to voice any of it aloud. Orders and objectives were undoubtedly being concocted as we sat and thought and once they came down from on high, the only thing stopping them from being enacted were the moves made by our enemies. Buck Beak was insane enough in suggesting this sort of plan, and ever more so for his willingness to throw me under the proverbial carriage in order to join him. It wasn't for lack of qualifications of course, neither of us would have become Rangers if we weren't found up to snuff. Despite the term 'Anti-Machinist' attached to my name on official documents, a Veteran Ranger would be caught (and found) dead if they couldn't make use of dozens of fighting tactics. That included cramped, enclosed spaces such as the sewers I was to be unceremoniously dropped into. I would have to leave my beloved rifle behind in the Mauler's on-board Armory, but I would not be leaving without the sawed-off shotty which had served me well once already the last time I was caught indoors. In a somewhat nice change of pace, my Sequoia, paired with a long and sharp combat knife, would be given ample opportunity to shine in such confined quarters. The margins for error would be somehow even tighter than they were inside the manor home with the AA, and my reactions would need to be even sharper than ever. The chips were set, the die had been cast and we were now all waiting for them to hit the table and set the game in motion.

******

"Colonel Crete? A word in private if I may?"

The needle in my leg had barely been withdrawn and the rubber tubing coiled up when I was suddenly approached by our Shadowbolt operative; the lower half of her mask now removed from her face. Her expression was still as blank and empty as I had expected so I was at a loss for gauging any sense of how she was feeling going into this little chat she wanted.

"Uh...sure!" I grunted in reply, swinging my legs over the side of the bunk and plopping down onto all fours. "Right here, outside or...?"

"The cockpit is currently empty so it will be suitable for this occasion." She responded in a near monotone. "Come along, please. This is rather urgent."

Medical staff were still thickly packing the inside of the Mauler and so it took some time to navigate our way down the twenty or so feet needed to reach the small dining table in the neck of the vehicle. Even then, there were still several ponies occupying the space and taking a moment to enjoy some field rations, or really whatever else that could be found in the on-board larder. Past them we mounted a short stairway that was both wider and not as steep as the one leading up to the turret, passing through a sealed bulkhead into a control station just barely large enough for two sitting side-by-side. I had only seen the inside of the cockpit once sometime during our initial tour of the vehicle back in the Badlands, and I was yet again blown away at the sheer volume of technology on display within. Levers, switches, buttons and knobs littered every surface alongside large terminal screens, save for the reinforced triangular viewports granting a little over 185o of visibility. The two padded seats she and I crammed ourselves into, separated by a center console with further controls, were...comfortable enough on the body, but gave me some appreciation for the struggles Engineers assigned to pilot these beasts went through; not to mention the fact so few of them were considered qualified enough to work with them that they were only assigning one driver per Bünkerwagen.

Once we had both settled in with the bulkhead behind us sealed, she turned to me and pointedly asked, "Do you trust your subordinate?"

I was so caught off guard by this that I stammered in my response and asked, "W-what do you...what do you mean?"

"The Griffin. Buck Beak I believe his name is?"

"Uh...yes, Ma'am. That's his name, yes."

"Very good, now please. Answer the question, Colonel."

Gods...did I trust Buck Beak? I knew that even this brief moment of hesitation in answering would be telling her volumes but...I didn't feel like throwing him under the carriage like that. Sure, he had done so to me already by volunteering me for the damn thing to begin with but...that was different, if for no other reason than my gut was telling me so. What he did was to be expected of his jackass self and 100% within character so if anything, I was playing the fool expecting not to be roped into yet another featherbrained scheme of his. He'd nearly died a few times already since the siege started and I had brushed with death far closer than I had ever asked for while getting dragged along behind him like a can tied to a wagon. And yet...I had been there to save his dumb ass and he had come and repaid the favor while rather seriously injured himself. I just couldn't let him bumble around in the dark on his own without me covering for his faults and Hucks covering for mine.

"Your hesitation says volumes..." She replied after what felt like a minute of pure silence.

"Common, give me a chance to explain my thoughts a bit please...Buck is a complicated butthead. The guy is...brazen and just can't help but channel his species' inherent need to take on big challenges and boast about 'em even bigger. But...it's as everyone's already said, we can't get in from the sky so any advantage we had with wings is shot and trying to hit the old city gates directly has proven completely ineffectual. We gotta at least try and test out the underground method and see if there's any possibility of success going that route, else...we bring in more Combat Mages and ammunition for the bigger guns and hammer the shit outta the shield until it gives. But let's be honest, who the fuck knows how long that'd even take? No...if Buck said he's going to try the sewers then I don't think there's a damned thing anyone can do to stop his dumb ass from trying it, short of detaining him at gunpoint with a Squad, no...two Squads of Tin Heads. Er...Steel Rangers."

"No offense taken, Colonel." She replied with a small smile of amusement. "So, in fewer words...please sum it up for me. If this gets approved, will you be accompanying him or not? You are absolutely correct in saying we will have to attempt this avenue before we consider diverting more heavy munitions to this siege. This is your chance to veto any of this."

"Heh...well, glad to be vindicated I guess. To answer your question, uh...what is...your name?"

"Captain Nimbus."

"Ah, Captain. Got it. Anywho, yes. To answer your question, yes. I will accompany him down into the shitpit and try to find a way under that goddamn wall without getting our asses chewed up down there. My team medic has also made some overtures for volunteering for this mission as well if there is an opening, or a need."

"Oh? I do not believe I have met with them yet, are they qualified for such an operation?"

"I trust Captain Crisp with my life on the daily sometimes." I laughed with a bright smile I just couldn't hold back. "We might get shat on by the other Corps, but you don't get asked to join the Desert Rangers just for being good at standing guard and plinking static targets at the range. Some actual skill is needed to be given the honor of wearing the duster."

"And you don't earn the rank and title of Veteran by dying like a bitch, right?"

I looked up at her in a bit of shock and saw the same smile from before, only wider with a hint of sparkle to her otherwise stoic gaze.

"Look...I know everyone likes to call you guys Nad Pads and the Steel Rangers stole your limelight ages ago. Just want you to know, at least as far as I care, I don't hold anything like that against you guys. You were all the best of the best far as ground forces were concerned until the Steel Rangers came and took all that away from you. We all got to see some of your performance earlier and your actions were quick, responsive and extremely effective given the force that approached your position. Needless to say...impressive for a group of four, though I doubt I would be wrong in assuming the two of you are to thank for that in large part. If you are willing to stake yourself on that Griffin, excuse me, Buck Beak, and your medic is volunteering herself as well...I don't see why this plan of his would be a waste of resources. Again, we need to try...and better to try it with a proven team then to waste time bringing on another."

"Heh...after our time in the Badlands, I think every Ranger in my Corps is more or less used to being seen as effective but disposable assets. We've lost ten Squads over the last two tours here, four of those being Veterans...if we don't make it out of there, then it's no fur off of Command's muzzle. They'll just dismantle Alpha and reassign Rain Dancer and Penny to other Squads to make way for Beta Squad to become the new Alpha by default, just like the mantle was passed along to us literally the day we got the call to haul our asses back South."

"Colonel, please...you sell you and your Rangers short. We heard about the...ahem, sudden detaining of the previous members of Alpha Squad. There is no reason to debase your own achievements tonight."

"Eh...fuck it." I replied with a tired sigh and a wave of my hooves in the cramped space. "Guess I'm feeling suicidal like Buck is. Besides, at this point, if I say no, I might as well take a shit on my own epaulettes and strip my AMR down to send back to Mareseilles in a box along with my pride."

With yet another small smirk she nodded before glancing off to the side and saying, "I know the feeling. Did you catch all that, Commander?"

"Loud and clear, Captain!" Came the sudden reply from Typhoon over the radio which, I had never been told was on. "Apologies for not informing you that I was listing in on this but I wanted to hear your opinion of this whole scheme with someone other than myself asking the question. I was hoping for a more honest answer by using this method and I think it worked quite well so thank you for your cooperation."

"Uh...um...well, not for nothing Commander but...I'm scared shitless around any of you Shadowbolts..." I replied timidly and completely unapologetically given the mystique surrounding them. "If you were looking for more honesty...maybe next time try using someone not so...intimidating, heh."

"My, my...perhaps she has to take back those words about you Veterans being the best of the best." Typhoon teased pleasantly before returning to a more serious tone. "All jokes aside, if you say you are willing to do this then I see no reason as to why we shouldn't give this idea a go. Command was more than likely going to ask us to go down there and try it ourselves eventually so, eh...not for nothing but, eh...if this thing goes badly, at least it can't be blamed on us. No offense."

"None taken, truly." I replied with a somewhat hollow laugh. "No, I completely get it. End of the day our reputation is already tarnished and out of our control so we can take the fall here if need be. There's still plenty of Unicorns and Earth ponies out there in the world to take our place at roll call and Griffinstone is brimming with jackasses like Buck. If not us then...someone more important."

"For heaven's sake you are a downer, Colonel Crete!" Typhoon laughed softly over comms. "As the Captain said, you sell you and your Rangers too short for the kind of work you all do. You guys pull this off and I'll try my damndest to start spreading some good words around about you guys around places higher than you guys are allowed to reach these days."

"Good words? So is that to say that all the ones before now have been trash-talk?"

"Ooooh...she got you good there, Commander."

"Oh hush. Back to business ladies, please. Colonel, you said your team medic was willing to join this little escapade?"

"In so many words, yes. She wouldn't be part of my team if I didn't have full confidence in her, and I wouldn't be bringing her name up for the same reason. If you want her part of this then that's all that needs to be said. She'll be there."

"Good...good. Well, I think that's all I needed to hear from this little huddle of ours. This mission is as ready for final clearance with General Oliver and his staff as it can be under the time constraint. We should hopefully have it rubber-stamped and working orders for everypony else before 1200 hours. Oh, and Captain?"

"Y-yes, Commander?"

"I think I remember hearing the idea being floated around that there should be two teams of two going down there. If their medic joins, they'll still be missing a fourth volunteer to round it all out, would they not?"

"...Understood. May I request a resupply, Ma'am? I will need some extra equipment for this...adventure."

"Heh, heh...granted, Captain. You two hang tight and talk this over between yourselves while I wrangle the brass in a timely manner, get this shit gets taken to task sometime before this century is out. I'll try to give you an update as soon as I can but, don't expect it anytime in the immediate future. The fact we got this far this fast with this whole plan is a bit of a miracle on its own. Any questions will have to wait until I've got something more than 'I don't know' as an answer for you. Typhoon, out."

We sat in silence for a few moments as the conversation was processed before I tentatively said, "Well...that was...something."

"Indeed..." Nimbus responded with a heavy sigh. "I suppose we are now both being told where to go and what to do. Are you comfortable navigating small spaces like that?"

"Are you?" I asked semi-jokingly. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Honestly...it's less the tight walls and more the fact I'll inevitably have more contact with shit and piss than I'll ever want to deal with in my life..."

"Oh Goddesses...please don't remind me..." She grumbled while rubbing her eyes with her hooves. "Oh the girls are never going to let me live this one down...even if we somehow pull it off."

"Heh, well with that attitude we might as well just shoot each other now and escape the embarrassment altogether. What, you think we're gonna die down there?"

"Well let's just say I won't be surprised if the last thing I see is that godsforsaken sewer...no hard feelings though."

"At least there's that I guess..."

"Well, not so long as your ass is lying there dead next to or at least somewhere nearby mine. You make it out of there and I don't and I swear to fuck, I'll haunt your ass for the rest of eternity."

"Why me? Buck's the dumbshit who got this ball rolling so haunt his ass instead. I was victimized by him too so I can join you in haunting him if he somehow makes it out and we don't."

"...You know what? Deal. Least we've got someone we both can agree is to blame if shit goes south."

I snorted and broke down in laughter before I managed to gasp out, "Oh fuck...if only you knew how often I've thought something like that before now..."

******

The official orders finally came in at fifteen-till-noon, technically on time as far as Typhoon's estimation had been but it still left us too much time to sit and wait anxiously, to one degree or another. As expected, our briefing was rather short and succinct with our primary objective being to navigate the city's rank underbelly in search of a way under the wall. Naturally, we were relying on our PipBuck's AutoMapper spell to help us find a path, with both teams splitting up at the first major junction to cover more ground at once. We would do our best to keep an open datalink between ourselves so our individual maps could be combined into one master version we all could see expand (hopefully) in real-time. It was...debatable as to how well or for how long the datalink would actually work since it had not been extensively tested under these conditions. But, there was little to be done about it now. At the very least, we would have a partner each and could still rely on our own maps as they formed during our tentative prodding through what was inevitably going to be a maze and a half, seeing the size and sheer age of the city. As far as pairings went, I was assigned to work with Buck Beak given my recommendation for him wasn't exactly glowing enough for Nimbus to feel comfortable working alongside him. Hucks held back her dismay at the news of her partner well save for that little swish in her tail she just couldn't control whenever she was irritated. I knew it was nothing personal towards the venerable Captain, merely just a result of her own worry for my wellbeing and the ache that forms from the inability to closely monitor a loved one. We exchanged glances during the briefing and solved, at least in part, our mutual worries and anxieties without any need for words. This was just another day in the life we chose to pursue when we signed those papers to apply to EastPoint so there was little point in fraying the nerves anymore than the mission called for. For now, we had some time to prepare and get our heads in the right space while the rest of the GA, Airborne, and the new armored element that had arrived prepared a suitable distraction for us.

As soon as our group huddle around the comms station ended we went immediately for the on-board Armories at the other end of the Mauler, each team commandeering one of the narrow caged-off rooms. Here, Buck and I helped each other slap on our various pieces of armor and kit that had been put up in favor of increased comfort whilst waiting around for orders. I could feel the scowl etched deep across my face while Buck was almost shivering with excitement at the task that lay ahead for the four of us. Buck didn't get to work with his Shadowbolt cutie pie and I didn't get to work with mine. If there was anything I could take some pleasurable solace in...it's that we both got the short end of the draw in our desires. And all because Buck was such a jackass that no one could be blamed (Hucks included) for teaming up with anyone else. Lucky me.

"You ready for this shit, Crete?" He asked excitedly, plopping my spaulders connected like a mantle down with little regard for my shoulders.

"Would you believe me if I said yes...?" I responded with my sarcasm dripping like venom. "Fuck off with the low hanging fruit, Buck. I'd slug you for dragging me into this shit, but I don't need your sorry ass out of commission and for Command to assign some other asshat to fill in for you. I'd much rather work with the dumb fuck I know then learn to put up with an entirely new asshole from who the fuck knows where or cares?"

"Woof...aren't you nippy today?"

"Nippy? Buck, you and your fat ego just had to go and start spouting those goddamn featherbrained ideas you're always getting. Luckily for you, it wasn't some dumbass scheme like normal and you didn't make an ass of yourself in front of a fucking Shadowbolt. But for the love of all shit that's sane and reasonable...why'd you drag me into this?"

"...Well...I thought...you might...I dunno, like...enjoy the challenge?" He replied feebly, looking me square in the eye with hesitation. "I don't know, Crete! I just...you saved my ass tonight and took better care of me than I honestly deserved for taking you on that wild ride up there. And yeah, I saved your ass like the badass I am but I'm getting ahead of myself...look, I just knew from the moment she said I was reading her mind that I wanted you covering my back. Just...take the compliment, alright? I hate giving that shit out so just take the thing and run with it."

"Well...thanks?" I mumbled softly in surprise, slightly touched by his rather kind words by his usual standards. "But...still. If I wanted to wander blind through a sewer with you, you could've just fucking asked me when we were all last shitfaced in Las Pegasus. Probably would've been a good place to hide from the MPs now that I think of it..."

"Ah! There ya go, you're in the right groove to jive with this stud!" He grinned with absolute cocky confidence. "Learn to dance better with this bird, little lady! These paws and wings are the stuff of legend in twelve districts of Get and Some!"

"Is he always this insufferable?"

There was an outbreak of laughter from the Armory directly across from us that was in no way sealed off nor soundproofed against eavesdroppers like the cockpit was. Captain Nimbus was more than obviously getting her first true in-person display of the typical bravado that sloughed off his being like last years' molt. If she wasn't sure about her choice in pairing off with Hucks before now, there was nothing preventing that revelation from hitting home now.

"Yep!" I called out, much to his chagrin which I did not particularly give a damn for at the time. "But he gets results most of the time despite it so we keep him around."

"Great...thanks...I feel so loved..."

"Oh piss off, Buck." Hucks quipped jovially. "It's not like we hate you. You just consistently win jackass of the team year-on-year so we've got to take our chance when we get to strike back a little."

"Fine...whatever..." He pouted before immediately going quiet and intensely focusing on his equipment. "You'd miss my ass if it went missing and y'all fuckin' better not deny that shit."

I cocked my eyebrow and semi-glared at him as I pointed at my now discarded breastplate sitting propped up against the far wall, the three holes surrounded by blast marks on full display.

"Does it fucking look like I am?" I challenged him pointedly while levitating a spare plate out from storage.

"Well of course not you..." He groaned while rolling his eyes back at me. "Was just saying in general, dumbass...sheesh."

With that he fell into silence and I was left free to finish levitating my new Kevyarn-backed breastplate into place, the electromagnets doing their job and locking it tightly against my armored underbarding. Now that I had drawn my own attention back to it, I just couldn't keep my eyes away from those three damned holes punched clean into the Celestium plate over the abdomen. They were no bigger than a quarter of an inch across each, the desert pattern camo around them scorched black from the explosive and incendiary effect packed into each meaty round. Each one of them could have ruptured multiple vital organs or pierced my abdominal aorta, either of which wouldn't have even given me the time to think to use the Stim in the first place. I'd brushed with death once already this tour when that damned Cheetah had clamped his jaw around my neck, nearly succumbing to asphyxiation during that horrible experience...and yet, this was somehow infinitely worse. Even standing there staring at the relic of that experience, I was feeling sick to my stomach as the all-too-fresh memory flashed across my mind's eye for a moment forcing me to look away.

"Oh yeah, that thing!" He commented after he noticed where my eyes had been lingering. "Fuckin' wild, Crete! Now that I can see those holes in the light better, you're fuckin' lucky to still be kicking. You better keep that fuckin' thing as a trophy or I swear to fuck I'll dig that shit out of whatever foundry they'll send it to and mount it over your door."

Another painful shiver wracked my gut and I replied, "Just...shut up...please. I...don't feel so good."

"Oh yeah? Common, you're doing just fine. That hot Healer of yours made sure you got lots of happy feel-goods in your system, I saw her jab you with the needle myself."

"There's a reason you're the demolition munitions expert and not a Marksmare..." I sighed with a heavy groan underneath. "Even when the point is obvious and right in front of you, you shoot for the ballpark and still miss it entirely."

"Shoot for the ballpark? What the...?"

"Lemme act as your personal metaphor translator for just a second and spell this out for you: shut the fuck up, Buck."

With the obvious now spelled out in full for his featherbrain to understand, he got the message and shut his fat beak while we finished up the last touches of our personal preparations. Buck and I both had to shed our preferred primaries for the likes of a suppressed shotgun and a similarly suppressed LMG with a collapsible stock; all in an effort to avoid excessive noise and muzzle flash. That all wasn't even bringing up the ever-present danger of a catastrophic cave-in of the tunnel network due to too much damage being done to the ancient stonework. The kick of a sturdy 12 gauge was solid and readily responsive compared to cushioning the recoil of a 25 millimeter round; not to mention having a tube of ten rounds versus the AMRs short stack of five allowed for some wiggle room with my shots. It had been years since I had been assigned a mission wherein my talent behind a large scope was wholly unnecessary, and it was with some reservation I removed the associated pouches from my rig, replacing them with various shotshell bandoliers. Whatever excess weight that I could shed was up for consideration though admittedly, there wasn't much to consider given I already had one of the lightest loads in the squad, only beat by Huckleberry and her lighter weight rifle. That said, the weight and size difference between the shotgun and my AMR was something in the range of ten-ish pounds of raw mass, and three-feet worth of fluted barrel. None of us had even seen the inside of the sewer tunnels yet so as to how much room any of us would have to maneuver was anypony's guess. The best plan I had was to have as many options available to me as possible.

Buck was unsurprisingly unhappy with having to leave his beloved grenade launcher behind, even when told he would be the one transporting and handling the explosive charges we would be using to destroy any infrastructure or device deemed vital. He opted instead for one of Rain Dancer's spare Boulder 63s sitting on the rack alongside other weapons in a ploy to 'playfully' spite him. Like myself, he too was forced to strip his rig of beloved ammunition such as 40mm rounds and spare missiles, replacing them with minimalistic rigid frames which snugly held the plastic ammo boxes of belted rounds meant for the LMG. Given his size and brutish strength, Buck was also packing more ammunition than we were likely to need, which didn't stop him from taking on the extra weight anyway. We both retained our Sequoias for extreme close-quarters, further accentuated by long combat knives and, in Buck's case, a set of viciously spiked brass knuckles which fit snuggly over his armored talons. As an extra precaution, each of us added an additional holster to our persons meant to store a spare semi-automatic pistol for situations requiring reloads less frequent then every six rounds. While my choice of a 10mm N96 gave me the advantage of capacity at the cost of stopping power, Buck naturally opted for the strength and middling capacity of one of Griffinstone's Desert Falcon monsters chambered in .50 Werewolf. Augmented with a batch of smoke and gas grenades (and yet another backup, backup knife), the two of us felt as prepared as we could be for what laid below with our weapons and equipment all checked and found to be battle-worthy.

With a fresh plate attached and the MHG system showing green in most places and yellow where it still hurt, I felt as confident as I could under the circumstances. If anything, my faith in the Mrk. V, and indeed the whole Multi-Combat Armored Platform line that myself and most others serving relied on, was the majority of the reason I was still alive at all. While the all-too lauded Celestium impact plates had failed to stop those bullets from penetrating, I had to remind myself that it did have limits that several guns in service on both sides could defeat. Those shots had gone off at such a close range that their velocity and rigidity were simply too much for the impact plate to handle, let alone expect it to ricochet off like it could with lesser rounds. The fact I had survived at all...it went without saying I had experienced a miracle which had ensured I had both the time and the wherewithal to save my own life, even if it was an extreme risk. Buck too had gotten the hole in his wing covered up, courtesy of a new heavy wing covering stored in his supply locker as part of a spare suit of armor each of us was issued for situations (and injuries) like ours. The wounds inflicted on him had mostly occurred in less-armored joints, the majority of which coming from shrapnel though not including the boobytrapped door that had severed his foreleg. Indeed, on top of the new wing plating, he was also forced to don an entirely new Kevyarn undersuit as his previous one was full of jagged holes from where he had taken damage the night before. While I thought a hot shower and a night's rest would do all of us good before engaging in a mission like this, we were going to have to make do with a light nap and a hearty lunch whipped up by Crystal and others. Once we both took turns checking each others' equipment and syncing our helmet radios, we cleaned up after ourselves in the rather tight space and made sure the Armory was fit for inspection.

"Took you two long enough. Get lost in there?" Hucks chuckled from where she stood next to Nimbus as we exited through the cargo bay and into the world outside.

"Nah, badass like me just needs some extra time to make sure he's got all the tools he needs for the job. You two ready for this shit?"

"Not exactly..." Nimbus replied grimly, her helmeted gaze constantly turning upwards as if looking for something.

"I'm with her on this one." Hucks sighed in defeat while nodding towards Nimbus. "I ain't too excited to be doing this, Buck. I hope you're aware of that."

"Absolutely I am!" He grinned as if pleased with himself. "All eyes are on me for once! Let's go get me a fuckin' medal!"

"The last thing you deserve is another shiny dangling off your dress uniform..." I groaned in reply, giving him a sharp rap against his side. "We're as ready as we'll ever be for something like this. You two ready?"

"I am, Nimbus here is still waiting for her resupply request to be fulfilled."

"Indeed...it should have been here already but there's been no word. Needless to say, I am not all too happy about this situation. Any longer and I'll have to radio...hold up. The FOB? What're they...?"

We were all on the cusp of asking our own questions but were immediately silenced by a loud thud felt through the paved stonework beneath us and was from somewhere very close by. A moment later and the air some ten-feet away was sliced open as if to another world as a pneumatic drawbridge lowered and the cargo bay of another Bünkerwagen lit in a tactical blue light came into view. As soon as my eyes comprehended what I was seeing, I immediately recognized that the inside of this craft was highly modified from the version we had just walked out of, with far more internal room and a long, runway-like bay door being only some of my observations. Standing and waiting for the door to fully lower was none other than Commander Typhoon herself, dressed proudly in her shadowy combat armor and beckoning us to come aboard quickly.

"Come on, we don't have all day! We had to wait until unneeded eyes were turned elsewhere to land. Climb aboard and we can talk inside!" She hollered out, glancing past us to see if the inner hatch leading from the cargo bay to the rest of the Mauler was sealed shut.

The only one of us that wasn't struck dumb by what we were seeing was, of course, Nimbus who seemed to relax the moment the bay door started to lower and began to move towards it before Typhoon even opened her mouth to speak. We all followed in hot pursuit so as to not draw any unwanted attention to the Shadowbolts' private operations base, passing up the ramp and through the portal into the visual illusion. As soon as the last of our hooves touched the inner bay, the large door withdrew its extended ramp and quickly hissed shut while the sensation of the entire craft taking flight shivered through our bodies. Even though I had been somewhat expecting it, and had spent some time in the sky inside flying metal contraptions, I still felt my knees buckle somewhat underhoof forcing me to steady myself somewhat against the wall. Once I felt I had regained my 'air legs', I looked up from my hooves and found myself alone in a familiar yet, wholly unfamiliar cargo bay with Hucks; the others having obviously gone on without us due to their comfortable tolerance to this sort of thing. From the dimensions alone, I was guessing that they had sacrificed some or all of the space dedicated to the Armories within the Bünkerwagens I was familiar with to make for a larger bay. Along the walls were hung sections of thick cargo netting interspaced with a dozen or so basic folding seats, and a long overhead cargo rack running the length on both sides. Interspaced on either side were several idle computer stations featuring a wide arrangement of keypads, docking ports for PipBuck data cables and such, and odd attachment points which seemed compatible with most respirator air tubes. The floor below me was more or less the same as what I was used to with numerous anchor points for lashing down supplies while the ceiling above me sporting the same recessed LED lighting I knew and small vents for air circulation. I could not see a hatch to the ladder leading up into BuzzSaw minigun turret that were featured on the ground variants, however, there still existed an odd ring-like structure with an access panel to possible wiring and machinery underneath.

"Well...this place is new." Hucks said with a weak laugh as we exchanged glances whilst looking around our new surroundings. "Somehow looks even higher tech than what we got. We definitely like...took flight, right? That wasn't just me that felt that, yes?"

"No, no, I totally felt it too." I replied with a shaky laugh of my own while gesturing to the room around us. "I mean...I wouldn't be back here clenching my ass and holding onto my knees for dear life along with you if I didn't, would I?"

"No...guess I should be glad that I'm vindicated in my sudden onset motion sickness. Common, let's go find the rest of those equilibrium-having jerks with the wings. Heh...you know what I mean."

"Gotcha." I winked with a nod since she couldn't see it through the helmet. "I won't say a word about it if you don't."

I took the lead after that and approached the metal hatch sealing us off from the rest of the vehicle, almost immediately being allowed through as it hissed softly open to reveal a short hallway leading into yet another familiar yet unfamiliar space. The abrupt hallway had an additional sealed hatch on either side as we passed into what could only be called a highly advanced mobile command station, complete with multiple large, multi-screened computer stations, large television displays built into the walls, and several additional screens dangling from the ceiling as well above each workstation. Commanding the center of the somewhat cramped internal space was a large, squat circular table with a high rim around the edge and a flared border surrounding it. Meanwhile, the tabletop itself seemed to be covered in...sand? I was completely flabbergasted at the sight of several comfortable benches stuffed into the four corners, carpeted floors sporting M.O.I and Airborne Corps livery and, perhaps most amazing of all, a sizable, semi-professional kitchen in the upper quarter of the craft where our main turret ladder, dining area, comms and radar station were otherwise located. Every computer station on board was dutifully occupied and attended to by a mix of Pegusi and Unicorns, all dressed in matching Airborne style jumpsuits. In a change from the usual blue/gray coloration, these uniforms sported an odd color pattern; royal plum across the torso and most of the upper half of the legs, with jet black at the hooves and neck separated at the border by a jagged golden stripe like a lightning bolt. Each likewise was seemingly issued a PipBuck 3000 as data cables connected each user directly with their workstation at the left foreleg. All of them were laser-focused on their assigned tasks and were seemingly entirely oblivious to our arrival. The dull murmur of radio chatter filled the air as most stations appeared preoccupied with scanning communication frequencies in search of whatever relevant information they were assigned to monitor for. Those not tasked with keeping an ear on the radio waves were instead monitoring radar displays and what looked like highly detailed overhead maps of the immediate area littered with so many blips and markers I couldn't even begin to make any of it out. The general vibe within the technological marvel of a room was tense but somehow relaxed, with everyone seemingly somewhat on-edge yet seemingly cool as could be under pressure. For a war going on around (or, as of now, below) us, not a one on board seemed to be feeling the tension or strain of the situation weighing them down.

Indeed, exemplifying this attitude were our three missing winged compatriots, all standing at the far end at what passed for a countertop separating the kitchen area from the command center. They were seemingly sharing a casual round of shots recently poured by a yellow Pegasus stallion in what seemed to be a much more official Shadowbolt uniform. That is, his came across as identifying him as a direct member of Team Crash rather than one of their support crew with a thick, obvious Kevyarn weave construction and electromagnetic nodes for mounting armored plates onto. The glasses they were enjoying from were all admittedly small but...there was something both surreal and...perhaps a bit in bad taste, in such an open display of decadence on the verge of a major operation. Then again...Buck, Hucks and I were just mere Desert Rangers, and while there was a 'Veteran' title somewhere there alongside the name, it hadn't ensured too much luxury for ourselves while out in the field. At least...not to this degree. A private tent to ourselves, preferred meal status and near limitless ammunition requisition forms were about the full extent of extra benefits extended to us by courtesy of Southern Command. Whereas the Shadowbolts, Rainbow Dash's most prized gems in her arsenal, were seemingly living it all up with a well-stocked minibar and a cooking/prep station some restaurants would kill to obtain. While the insufferable insanity of the entire concept was on the verge of too absurd to take in, I had to hand it to ourselves to somehow be so lucky as to get a glance into the private world of the true military elite amongst the fighting branches of the Equestrian Armed Forces. Buck was especially relishing in his newfound surroundings and was motioning with his empty shot glass at the stallion who had just poured him his second shot since I had caught sight of them. He was starting to push his luck a bit with his newfound friends, and while the occasional ego course correction was necessary for an asshat such as himself, the fallout from bad impressions on a team like this could hurt a helluva lot more than his ego...

"Drinking on the job?" I asked to the group at large so as to not single Buck out too much. "That wise right before a mission?"

Typhoon grinned with a playful smirk and nodded to the stallion to toss each of us a glass for ourselves before gesturing us to come forward and get them filled before saying, "Bah! Our ancestors always had a little fire water in their veins on the eve of important battles to steel the nerves and enliven the spirit through...well, spirits! Vapor Trail here will get your drinks sorted out so just pass them over and let's get you two a little pick-me-up!"

I glanced at Hucks who gave a slight shrug of confused exasperation and finally gave into her request, levitating my glass over to be poured up a shot of whatever he had in his unmarked, government stamped bottle of clear fluid. Quick as a professional bartender, the stallion tipped the bottle over through dexterous use of his wings and decanted till the spirit met the brim of each glass and not a drop more. With the same level of skill, he lightly bopped each glass back towards us with the tip of his hoof managing to successfully return both drinks without losing any of their contents despite how quickly he sent them back in our direction. I was still trying to wrap my mind around the entire experience unfolding around me. The casual tone from such an enigmatic and elite group, the extensive modifications to an otherwise familiar Bünkerwagen, and the fact we were, somehow, standing at a bar top having a little chat over shots of alcohol. It was all just...so very surreal given that somewhere below me there was still a siege going on with nopony the wiser that we were all up here. Drinking. Is this how all Shadowbolt teams operated behind the scenes? Or...was this just the result of years in the field allowing for certain regulations to be avoided and ignored?

"Drink up me lassies!" He chuckled in a deep baritone voice which almost vibrated the air with his rumbling tone. "Don't let good Moskipone vodka go to waste! Even we don't get our hooves on quality stuff like this often!"

With another sideways glance at Hucks, we stood shoulder-to-shoulder and tipped our glasses back down the hatch in near unison, a motion we had some practice with after years of working with Buck and Penny. After all, just like it would have been career suicide to refuse this mission, to reject our hosts' offer on an expensive drink would simply be in horrible taste in such esteemed company. In even poorer taste, the rancid liquid hit my mouth like cold fire, burning all it touched as I fought the urge to gag on it as it ran down my throat. It hit my stomach like a smoldering rock, my only saving grace being a lunch of steamed vegetables and a lot of dense wheat bread which did little to attenuate the slow burn that accompanied it; my eyes watering and my mouth began to drool in an attempt to exude the horrible flavor from my tongue and the inside of my cheeks. All the same though...I kept it down and only had to fight back the urge to gag for dear life in an attempt to save some face.

"Heh, you alright there you two?" Typhoon asked with a soft teasing tone. "Too strong for your taste?"

I nodded with a grimace while Hucks hoarsely replied, "Much too strong...she, Rain Dancer and I are less into alcohol than Buck or Penny's Worth are so we don't drink often. That or go out of our way for the super strong stuff to be totally honest."

"I hate to bother but...do you happen to have a chaser of some sort...?" I asked timidly once the horrific flavor became too much for my mouth to bear. "Something fruity...?"

"I got ya, Colonel!" Nimbus called out with a wink of acknowledgement before sliding a bottle of SparkleCola Cherry across the bar in my direction. "Don't feel too bad, I have to pop a breath mint after a shot of that stuff and Typhoon here? She's-"

"I'll just stop her right there and cut to the chase with where she's going with that..." Typhoon groaned, giving Nimbus a friendly shove. "I gotta plug my nose to even down one of these things. I've thrown up twice because I failed to do so and she in particular will not let me live it down."

"Oh common, Commander!" She grinned as I discarded the bottlecap to my drink, taking a long swig before passing it along to Hucks. "You gotta give us something to work with, leave the ugly stuff where it lie and have some fun with it."

"Shut it, Nimbus. Point is, don't feel too bad about not being cut out for the hooch they produce in the Frozen North. Only a bunch of backwards numbnuts like them and ponies of a similar insanity could possibly find it enjoyable to get drunk off that shit."

"Yeah, well add me to the list of the insane because this shit ain't too bad." Buck smirked while wiggling his empty glass in Vapor's direction. "Hit me with another?"

"I think you've had enough for now, tough guy." Typhoon sighed with a slight frown, motioning for the bottle to be put away. "Even at your size, four shots of that stuff will leave a tingle in your bones. Besides, we need to save some for the afterparty of course! Like Vapor said, even we don't get our hooves on rare imports like this. Ever since the country went dark after the Great Northern War, bottles like these are extremely rare and collectable. And yeah, anyone with some potatoes or radishes or whatever can make some homemade vodka out of their bathtub but this stuff is the real deal. General Dash herself gave us the three bottles we have as part of a reward for an...operation we were involved with recently. Although she didn't outright say it, she eh...she hinted that the cost equivocated to like a full half-percent of her Ministry's yearly budget which is just...absolutely wild to think about."

"All that money...just for some nasty, professionally-made fermented potato juice." I grumbled, forgetting that was supposed to be a quiet inner thought.

"Hey, it might taste like absolute ass but this is the kind of stuff you reach for when you wanna get drunk quick and don't care about the hangover." Typhoon replied. "Ignore the taste and you'll soon be too drunk to even taste it."

"Eh, they're all a buncha pansies." Buck chuckled smugly. "Those three are total party poopers whenever we have the rare chance to go on leave off base and enjoy a real bar. Passes to go to Las Pegasus aren't passed out for free at Camp Macintosh, so they dangle those things like a fucking lottery for teams on streaks of good behavior."

"Oh yeah? You guys are the DR's Alpha Squad though, right? How often on average do you guys get passes like that?" Vapor Trails asked with such a genuine curiosity that I doubted he was just pulling our tails with his question.

"Oh hell, we've only been there...what, eight times now?" Buck asked, glancing between Hucks and I for confirmation.

"Nine." I replied with somewhat of a frown since I wasn't so keen on Las Pegasus as he was. "Why do you ask?"

"Goddamn!" Typhoon laughed before her eyes went a little wide in fear and she reassuringly followed up with, "No offense, of course! Just...was not expecting such a low number from a team that is...well, supposed to be the best the Desert Rangers have on offer."

"Hey! We are the best our Corps has to offer!" Buck huffed indignantly until Typhoon cut him off with yet more reassurance.

"And I believe it, Sergeant. I wouldn't have even considered this plan of yours if you guys were anyone else." She said with a bit of a sigh that worried me. "Regardless, what I was trying to say was that I am just surprised a team with a reputation and merits such as you guys are afforded...well, so little for lack of a better word. I mean, not for nothing but...Team Crash and I all have guaranteed leave in any city or place of our choosing every nine months. With the twelve of us all on the roster, we rotate through being on tour and on leave so at least half of us are always on duty, while the others are getting some well-earned R&R of their choice."

"That sounds nice..." I mumbled almost under my breath. "We've got a similar schedule but there's no standing replacements for us so when we're off the clock, we all go as a group and Command is out an entire team at once. As a result...98% of the time, any Rangers on leave rarely actually leave Camp Macintosh just in case we're needed at a moment's notice. They've got some good amenities on base, don't get me wrong, but...it's a real treat to be allowed out of the goddamned San-Palomino. I get tired of being cooped up behind concrete walls in the middle of a desert."

"And Command had to go and replace one desert for another with you guys." Vapor Trail commented with a shake of his yellow head, his green eyes hanging heavy with disappointment. "Well that's a damned shame then. Las Pegasus has some of the best restaurants and live shows in Equestria…I thought you guys had the same perks as us, I swear."

"Indeed..." Typhoon hummed softly. "I thought so too, to be honest. So all those rumors we keep hearing about you guys getting shafted by Command are true then?"

"Absolutely." Buck grunted angrily. "Every single one."

"I wouldn't go that far with that statement, Buck..." I interjected. "We don't know what they've heard so we can't just cast out a blanket statement like that. But I can't deny...most of the rumors are probably true. We've got good equipment and top-notch training but the shine and prestige of the Desert Ranger Corps started to dull long before we joined up."

"Well that's some tough shit..." Typhoon replied with a look of pity in her eyes. "We genuinely thought that you guys have the same system that we use, honest to Celestia. But! We've wasted enough precious time already standing around chatting over a bottle of vodka. Come along, let's head to the ops table."

With that Typhoon and Nimbus both made their way past us towards the large table I had spied on the way inside, Vapor Trail pausing to rinse our shot glasses before moving to join his compatriots. Hucks, Buck and I followed closely behind, if with some reservation as none of us knew exactly what to expect from this so-called 'ops table' as we gathered ourselves around the unfamiliar device. Within a moment my questions were mostly answered as Typhoon scanned her hoof into one of the computer stations lining the rim and the sandy tabletop began to glow. With the aid of some advanced spell completely above my skill-level to comprehend, the thick layer of sand was lit in blue and suspended in the air forming a detailed three-dimensional map of the city below us. It lacked the numerous blips found on the radar displays of nearby workstations but it was still undoubtedly a useful tool for the kind of work they performed. Born with wings as they were, the ground itself remained the only major barrier to the otherwise near-complete freedom of movement they (and Buck) got to enjoy. With a display such as their funky sand table, they could even map out the various cloud formations they would be using that would otherwise remain absent from any maps we would otherwise be using.

"Damn this thing is fancy!" Buck commented as he craned his head around to view it from multiple angles. "You guys have all the cool toys on this thing!"

"I mean...each Nacht-class Bünkerwagen has one of these as standard." Nimbus commented with some surprise. "Yours don't have these?"

"Nope, the ones we work with aren't anywhere near this packed with computer hardware. In this area they've got six bunks and four Power Armor repair bays while that kitchen zone over there is where the bulk of our computer shit is like radar and comms." He replied with broad gestures towards the areas he was talking about. "We've got like a little kitchen...thing of sorts right over there where the cockpit hatch is, but it's just a dinky lil' table and some food prep areas with dry storage."

"They sound much better suited to ground operations than ours then." Typhoon said before changing her tone to a much more professional level. "Alright, let's focus on the map everypony. We've wasted enough time as it is."

With some inputs on the keyboard before her, the map changed shape to reflect the roughly circular Old City wall which encompassed several large temples, multi-story manor homes, public parks, another market district, and what used to be the enormous private residence of the regional governor. With the wall surrounded and the New City district essentially secured through our many combined efforts, the enemy was locked in place with nowhere to run, and all nearby reinforcements were successfully routed. The six gates built into the city wall stood roughly the same distance apart from one another with six broad roads leading towards an enormous obelisk built into the center of town; each gate highlighted in small splotches of red light. A thin sheen of blue sand formed a dome across the circumference of the wall providing the Old City with an impenetrable bubble of protection and the size of it was...staggering. Although I wasn't all too familiar with the full rough dimensions of Anakha, I remembered from our briefing that the Old City alone covered some eight square-miles of territory. With well over three-thousand years of near continuous habitation, I was terrified at just how big their sewer system could possibly be...

"Alright, so this is the latest you need to be in the loop on before the starting gun in thirty-minutes." She continued, using her console to highlight floating arrows in green which pointed at all six gates. "Far as any of us are concerned, Old City is locked down under our control so all effort can be focused on the assault, outside of the rearguard garrison and insurrectionist patrols. The storm Airborne put over the city last night blocked most outbound communications, though at this point we can rule out taking this place out from under the Empire's nose. So, with all that being said, given this attack is occurring in broad daylight, we are going to be acting as your ride to the insertion point. We've narrowed it down out of a list of possible sewer access points to one located in the cellar of an old restaurant which has a private, inner courtyard just wide enough for the Black Swan to land. As you guys saw for yourselves, the invisibility spell around this thing only covers the outside and any prying eyes might be able to see you disembark were we to try it out in the open."

The map moved to highlight a squared off building a half-mile or so from the perimeter of the wall in a less densely urbanized section that was part of the upper-class area of New Town. Once I had refamiliarized myself with where in the city I was looking at, I was amused to see that our destination was not too far off from the manor home where Buck and I were seriously injured. The nearest city gate was only a mere quarter-mile from our insertion point with the staging area for elements of 5th and 6th Platoon out of Beta Company's Armored Regiment a similar distance away to our East. Needless to say, there was going to be no shortage of noise to cover the four of us slipping below ground.

"Ah, questions already. Make it brief please, Captain...Crisp I believe it was?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Hucks replied with the nervous twitch in her tail starting to swish about. "I just wanted to ask, why this particular spot out of the other potential options you mentioned? Not that there is anything inherently bad with it, I'm just...I guess I'm curious what the other sites looked like that made this one stand out?"

"To put it simply Captain, proximity to one of the groups making noise and attempting to breach the objective on their own. That and...it's the only one our recon of the area found to be closest to the wall, the others were farther away. Well...minus this one other spot, but it's in the slum district in the West of town and preliminary scans with the spell array showed concerning levels of decay in the tunnel walls. It's right up against the wall but we deemed it too structurally unsound to be considered a viable option, otherwise it would've been our top choice without question."

"Well that settles it then, drop off Huckleberry and Nimbus at the primary choice while Athena and I try the harder path." Buck interjected confidently as if the whole siege had just been solved. "We'll double our chances of finding a path and we were planning on splitting off anyway, so what's the difference if we choose to try it like this?"

"Now hold the fuck on, Buck." I retorted with some ire, granted he had already used up most of my patience for him already. "You can't just keep volunteering me for this kind of shit without even a second's thought as to how I might feel about it."

"Yeah, I know. But you also know that I'm right on this one too. You heard the Commander, it's only 'structurally unsound'! That means at least enough of the damned thing is still standing down there that shit hasn't literally backed up anywhere we can see. That and there's no sinkholes that've been reported due to cave-ins so far as I've heard."

Whatever Typhoon was truly feeling, she played it close to the chest and glanced between us as she replied, "I can see why the Colonel described you as...how did she put it? 'Just unable help but channel a Griffin's inherent need to take on big challenges', or something along those lines? Regardless...now that the idea is on the table, you might as well give your full opinion on it, Colonel."

To be frank, I was furious; even more so than when he had initially gotten Hucks and I tangled up in his web of bullshit tighter than normal. First strike was taking me along for an unexpected joyride, his second was volun-telling me that I was to be part of this veritable suicide mission so soon after our last. And now he had finally arrived on strike three, all in less than twenty-four hours which was a new record, even for his sorry ass. Of course though, he was right. He was right yet again that we had to at least try any and all options, even one with low odds...and I hated him for it.

"I hate the idea but fuck it, even if I said no he would still zip off there now that he knows about it, and I can't stop him from trying. Best I can do is back him up and the best we can do is try this second avenue. Like he said...we were already planning on splitting off as soon as we hit the first major junction. This'll strain the data feed, if it'll even work at all by that point, but...yeah. That's all I've got to say."

"Um...as the unofficial medic for Alpha Squad, for the sake of the team, and our Squad Leader, may I respectfully object to this outrageous idea?" Hucks piped up nervously, the swish in her tail getting angry and frantic. "If the Commander says it was too unsafe for us to use then I say we take that as ironclad reason not to fucking do this. Pardon my language, Commander."

"At ease, Captain. This here's Z-country and as you drank for yourself, we don't stand too much on rigid protocol around here. Your objection is, however, very much justified as I reviewed the geological readings of the survey myself and wouldn't send my own team down there unless I was ordered to do so from on high."

"See??" She pleaded, looking between Buck and I with desperation. "That right there is common sense talking, Buck! Don't risk it, please..."

"You begging me to be safe?" He responded with an amused smirk and a chuckle. "Well damn, ain't that a new one. But...it's too late sweetlips, like Crete said, I'm gonna try that damn entrance one way or another. She might as well watch my back and double my chances of pulling this whole thing off."

"Buck, if you get Athena killed, I and the rest of Alpha will absolutely end you." She growled in response, glaring him down with such ferocity that even his normally unbreakable smirk cracked under the strain. "You fucking hear me? She nearly fucking died tonight and deserves a soft bed with the Ministry of Peace at Camp Sentinel resting up after getting shot in her goddamn abdomen!"

"Alright! Alright! I'll be extra fucking careful this time around, alright?!" He retorted, slamming his fist on the ops table which got him a reprimand from the Commander.

"Oi! Careful with the fucking hardware, flyboy!" She grunted angrily, swatting his fist from off the table with her hoof. "You're starting to irk me, Sergeant. I know I said we're relaxed around here but this is still a multi-billion bit investment from the Equestrian government so treat the Black Swan with a bit more fucking respect. Now, are we done with this?"

"Yes." Hucks huffed back after taking a deep, long breath to steady herself whilst I remained on edge in my boots. "We're done. Athena? Be as safe as you possibly can, alright? Buck? Keep your ass alive long enough to make sure hers gets the fuck out of that sewer alive, got it?"

Out of the two sharp prods into his pride, I could only assume the reprimand from Typhoon was the barb that cut deepest as his eyes had shot wide and his grin had shattered, if only for a moment. As I feared, his many vices and shortcomings were starting to rear their ugly heads in front of ponies who mattered. He endlessly dreamed about pushing his wings to their absolute limit and few pushed them better than the Shadowbolts. Indeed, he seemed almost at home with himself while mingling with Typhoon, Nimbus and Vapor Trail but he had not rightly earned the privilege of acting like them. Typhoon still outranked him by miles and with the direct oversight of one of the Ministry Mares funding and leading their ranks, the kind of weight her word and opinion could sling around were potentially enormous. Enough to earn Buck that shiny new medal he went on about or...enough to earn his career an early, dishonorably discharged and ignominious end.

"Alright, that's good enough for me then." Typhoon finally responded after gazing over us with a critical eye. "Look...I know we're all running on fumes in this bloody town, and I wouldn't love anything more than a hot bath and a dose of tranquilizer so I can sleep for two days straight. But as long as that goddamn shield stays up, those damned striped assholes will prevent us from claiming Anakha for Equestria. Until we take this city, Army Group South will not be moving any farther South towards the capital of Kyopsis and at this time, it's going to be on you four to try and break this stalemate before it drags on any longer. Every day we stay hung up on these stubborn, dug-in pricks is another day for those bastards to gather their forces and organize counter-attacks. We've made it this far...let's make this our final push and get this goddamn city under the flag of the Princesses, alright? We'll upload what ground scans we have to your PipBucks before you depart, but beyond the wall...we don't know much about the tunnel layout. You'll be flying blind and will have to trial-and-error it with your AutoMaps. Another question? Go ahead, Colonel."

I dropped the hoof I had raised back to the rubberized floor beneath me as I asked, "So...I'm just curious if, in some unfortunate situation of whatever sort, one or both of us have to deal with a short-out of our PipBuck spell matrices...?"

"What, are you that concerned about your equipment?" She responded with a cocked eyebrow and a worried tone. "Are the Desert Rangers that scrapped for funding and supplies?"

"No! I mean, we could use more of both for damn sure, but no. I'm just...trying to have some sort of advice for a worst case scenario that came to mind. We all double and triple-checked our gear before we came on board and I've yet to meet a PipBuck that can't stand up to the pressure we put on 'em. No...the idea just came to mind and it worried me. We're going to be extremely isolated down there and anything could go wrong, including catastrophic equipment failure."

"I see...well, if your PipBucks go dark...at least your helmets should have an independent backup power supply for basic low-light optics and the headlamp, if they're anything like ours that is. I cannot attest to how similar the internals of our gear differ from each other, but it's obvious the overall design of our armor was heavily inspired by yours."

"Yes, they've got backups, thank Celestia..." I sighed with a hidden tension in my gut. "Supposedly, they should be able to run a more rudimentary version of the OS when separated from the physical PipBuck but...I've been admittedly a bit scared to detach mine from my bracer and risk losing it."

"Well then, there's your answer. Use the backup OS and if that doesn't work...just use the LED lamp and do it the old fashioned way. I really don't know what you want me to tell you, Colonel. Our ancestors had to make war with a lot lower-tier tech than any of us here are enjoying, hell even our grandparents had less to work with when they fought the Great Northern War. If they could beat armies and raise Kingdoms without this shit then we can most certainly do so too."

"Understood..." I mumbled back in reply, feeling more than a little stupid for asking such a question I could have easily answered for myself. "No other stupid questions, Ma'am."

"Good. Look...I know this mission has a lot of unknowns going on around it and we just don't have all the answers you might like. Command is breathing down everyone's neck to get this shit wrapped up and the city ready for the Ministry of Image's propaganda campaign. Pushing them out of the Badlands wasn't exciting enough to even hit major headline news. I'm not saying we're doing this for public image sake because...common, we are all of us in this shitpit together doing our parts just as ever to keep this Army fighting and functioning. But, at the same time...I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for anyone. Taking Anakha is a major power play by General Olive and he can't be bothered to even hide it this time. If we can get this all wrapped up and done within three days, max, the whole of Army Group South will be in consideration for expanded funding and investment from Command. I think it goes without saying at this point...I think we all deserve a bigger slice of the pie coming out of the Royal Treasury every month. Whatever your opinions on the General are, this means a whole hell of a lot more than just another victory medal for him and we should try to finish this as quickly as possible all the same. This could mean a raise for everypony, better, newer equipment and maybe even some more of these beautiful works of Gryphon art! At the very least...think of the poor fucks in the GA taking the brunt of the casualty reports."

"Wait, the...M.O.I is sending a broadcast crew? Here?" Hucks asked tentatively. "Goddesses...when was the last time they came down our way for anything?"

"Some fifteen-odd years for anypony keeping track. The point is, regardless of how Command and Canterlot want to spin this operation during the afterparty, all of us want to get off our fucking hooves and get some sleep. Let's put on our best war faces and kick some ass as fast as we can so all of us can earn a better standing with the money makers up North. Now...are we all ready? Any more questions, comments, and otherwise that should probably be left unsaid?"

The group of us all glanced between each other before collectively shaking our heads in response, prompting her to reply, "Good. You'll be going in half-blind so you'll need to be at your best. If this goes badly, well...officially, Command never knew you, we never knew you and uh...the War will find another way through that goddamn city wall. Unofficially...my deepest condolences to each of you for your brave attempt, and if this all somehow goes right then by all means, please forget everything I just said. I wouldn't have let this get off the runway if I didn't think you guys had a chance of making this work and Command won't rest until we've tried every option."

"Thank you for those...beautifully kind and thoughtful words of encouragement." Hucks grumbled unenthusiastically under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear her over the noise going on around us. "Fucking hell, I should never have opened my fat fucking mouth and said yes to joining this mad crusade of yours..."

**********

Chapter Forty-Five: Homesteads Near and Far

"Garand! Athena? Yew two in here?!"

Firefly's voice came in through my ears as if from somewhere far away and fuzzy. My head was heavy and my body felt sore; yet all the same, there was such a feeling of deep, primal satisfaction that cushioned my return to consciousness. More sensations started to come to the fore as I slowly slid back into the waking world, not the least of which being the constant stream of warm water still pouring out of the various showerheads; the temperature exactly the same as where we had left it, at least as far as I could tell. Not only was I waterlogged, I was resting against someone big and equally as soaked who rested some of his talons across my back while the others gently cupped my ass. Not only that...I was now very aware that he was still inside me, the realization that his dick had yet to leave my pussy in who knew how many hours... It was painfully uncomfortable given how wide he was spreading me across the top of his knot (not to mention his pointy head jabbing right into my cervix), and yet...I was entirely entranced at the sensation. I'd had some fun with birds before now, but he had somehow left me utterly breathless... Breathless and with a surprising hunger for more.

"Fuckin' showers runnin'? You two...? Goddamn!"

With great effort, I forced my eyes open and brushed my sopping mane out of my face while trying to look back in his direction. Every movement felt like it came five seconds later than when I asked my body to do something, and it almost felt as if I were viewing my life play out before me like a prerecorded video. Or...perhaps as if viewed from far away, every motion performed on autopilot while the core of my mind rested lazily somewhere deep inside watching it all play out. Even with my Berryl hangover, I could tell Firefly was just eating up what he was seeing before him. And to be frank...were I of better mind in the moment, I might have even asked for him to take a photograph as Garand was by far the largest male I had ever taken to bed. The fact I had him up to the knot inside me...that was unabashedly a victory in my book any day.

"Well, well..." He chuckled with a wolf-whistle of approval. "Ah knew yew two were gonna fuck! From th' moment he started gettin' all ruffled n' flustered abou' yer lil' jabs n' jokes towards him. Seen Garand naked before, but Ah ain't never though' Ah'd get tah see yer ass outta armor. Might Ah say, wha' ah fine sight indeed!"

I blushed and couldn't even muster the strength to cover my face in shame, limply dropping back onto the large Gryphon just beginning to stir underneath me. As he started shifting around, his cock started moving about under me as well, sending jolts of painful pleasure up my spine that got more than one whine out of my mouth, much to my embarrassment. I would have tried sliding myself off of him myself but with his heavy hands nigh-on pinning me against him and the hangover...I just didn't have the strength to try and force it. He'd caught us (close enough) in the act and to say otherwise was just delusion. We had fucked each other in the shower while high as balls on Red Berryl like a couple of irresponsible young adults who had just moved out of their parent's houses and went to college. Gods, I was no better than my mother was while she was working up to her dentist degree...

"Nnn...fuck me..." He groaned, pulling both his hands away to rub his eyes giving me time to get my forehooves under me on his lower chest to try and prop myself up somewhat.

"C-careful..." I whimpered softly as all this movement stretched me in ways sober, not so horny me couldn't handle. "H-help a g-girl off?"

It took a few moments for the scene in front of him to seemingly register as his eyes went from groggy and sluggish to wide and slightly panicked, while at the same time...perhaps a bit amazed? I found it hard to gauge what he was thinking just from looking at him, but his expression was certainly one of interest.

"Oh fuck! Did we...?"

"Y-yes, now...p-please help me o-off your cock p-please...?" I nodded with a blush before glancing down at the soft, yet still broad base of his knot currently spreading my lips wide apart.

"Right! Yes! Sorry!" He exclaimed hoarsely, moving his talons back to my hips before gripping gently but firmly.

The muscles in his arms spasmed softly as he tried to lift me up, failing twice before he managed to help me lift my ass high enough for his dick to slip out. The feeling was...indescribable, a great fullness suddenly sliding smoothly out leaving behind a sore emptiness, followed by a sloppy sludge of what could only be Gryphon cum. A lot of Gryphon cum. He set me back down on his lap and just...stared down at me with his beautifully sharp orange eyes; the urge to moan at the sensation of his sloppy seed slipping from between my lips a terribly difficult one to resist.

"Hooooboy Ah wish Ah had a camera fer tha' right there..." Firefly whistled again, walking forward a bit into the shower room itself and licking his lips with a wink. "Ain't much fer puss, but Ah know Ah good time when Ah see one, Crete."

"I...um..." I stammered, wishing so much to bury my face and hide before I managed to squeak out, "Thanks!"

"Mmmmmph..." Garand sighed in pleasure after stretching a bit and comfortably setting his hands back on my ass. "If you weren't waking up in my arms, I'd be thinking that was the best fucking wet dream I've ever fuckin' had! And yeah, you're definitely right about a good time, Firefly. This girl...fuck me, she's good."

"Thanks for referring to me in the third person..." I sighed tiredly, the soreness across my entire body gripping me in pain. "Glad you had so much fun with my body..."

"Hey...common...I didn't mean it like that, Athena..."

I looked up at him and again saw that same gentleness deep in his eyes, the same gentleness still being reflected even in how tightly he gripped me. I didn't feel like I had with some other Griffs who seemed to immediately assume I was their mate, and thus a subordinate they could just casually own like some kind of pet. With Garand...there was just...something more there, something that sparked between us more than I had felt with someone I just fucked on the first date. I felt...safe in his talons. Safe and, far more importantly, like I were free to pull away on my own volition at any time. The way he held me...I was more than just a fun sex toy to him. There wasn't even any solid proof for this other than his body language, but...in that moment, I couldn't think of a single place I would rather be than where I was. Even though I was definitely feeling the consequences of our passionate first night together, I felt myself melting against him. I was just so comfortable and...delighted even, just being held by him. Tension between my shoulders and in my back that had persisted for what felt like decades even slackened their grip on my body. This was something I hadn't experienced before. Or...maybe I had and just...forgotten sometime over the last two-hundred years? Where had that time gone...?

"Heh, well...much as Ah like th' view, Ah'll just leave yew two alone fer ah bit!" Firefly chuckled cheekily while turning around to leave, using his horn to shut the showers off for us. "Just uh...don't take too long? Only other person tah talk to is tha' robot lady on th' Vertibird n' she ain't got no legs tah follow meh around n' chat. Pretty lonesome place otherwise...don't like it much on mah own."

We both lazily waved him off and with the showers now off, the sound of the door closing behind him echoed through the walls of the locker room to announce that we were finally alone again. As I expected...neither one of us felt like speaking first as the awkwardness between us had hastily thrown up an uncomfortable wall of silence. I could only guess what was going through his head while my own...remained a confused mess to say the least. It wasn't even because we had been unwitting enemies only a short time before. If anything, it was more from the sheer confusion in the back of my mind as I witnessed myself continue to melt against his chest feathers; old worries and weights seemingly slipping from off of my shoulders the longer I laid there in silence. A weirdly, beautifully delicious silence that warmed my heart with a smoldering burn of contentment and...dare I even say it...happiness? I was horrified with how vulnerable I was allowing myself to be with someone, Melody herself only getting a generous portion of it as she still needed me to be her pillar of support. But with him? I was just butter in his talons, the musky scent of his feathers becoming more addicting the longer I allowed myself to lay against him. And...I was ok with it. I was wet, I was naked and I was vulnerable...and I couldn't have felt better.

"Um...well..." He stammered, rousing my head to look back up at him. "I...don't know how to...you know...compliment a mare like you, but...um...that was some of the best sex I think I've ever had."

I laughed softly, painfully, at his attempt at a compliment, even if it was a tad on the shallow end of the pool. Still, I appreciated hearing something other than snarky sarcasm coming out of his beak. Besides...there was something to be gained from taking his compliment. After all...it wasn't every day I got to hear something so personal, and the way he said it helped sell me on it being from the heart. Well, as close to the heart as a big gruff Gryphon like him could get when asked to be vulnerable and honest with his opinion.

"Heh...well, I'm glad to hear it." Came my slightly breathless response. "I...thanks for letting me play with your ass. I...don't get to do that often, especially with birds, so...thanks, heh."

It was now his turn to blush in embarrassment and he looked to the side slightly as he grunted back, "Heh, um...t-thanks... I've never met someone that into eating my ass before...let alone a pony! Uh...no offense, heh."

"None taken. It's...well...kinda no secret now to you that I can't get enough of it when I'm in the mood. Not everyone is into that sorta shit, especially Griffin males! Er...Gryphons. Either way...I've only gotten to eat bird ass twice and both times, she had a juicy snatch under that tail for me to slobber over as well. But you...? That was...well, exciting to say the least."

"Heh, heh...well, I won't say no to that kinda compliment, sugar lips. Ain't everyday I meet a chick that into tongue-fucking my asshole, not like you did at least heh... And yeah, before you ask...I do enjoy it up the ass too. I don't bottom for just anyone though! Eight-times-outta-ten, mine's the dick doing the stuffing, but sometimes...sometimes I just need a good stuffing myself, ya know? That, and the guy has to be someone I'd wanna suck off normally anyway. If the face and the dick ain't appealing, my beak and ass are closed for business."

"Oh? Is that to say you're a whore?" I joked softly, mulling over the idea of him dressed in something...provocative.

"Whore? Hell nah, a slut does the do for the fun of it! Though...now that you mention it, I probably should've started charging per orgasm back in Stable 39. Could've had a beautiful head start on pristine StableTec bartering supplies to sell once I finally got my ass outta there."

"Oh common...you couldn't have been that popular to fuck down there. I mean...don't get me wrong, I had the time of my life, but...common, it's a Stable! There had to be other males down there who gave a good dicking to those who wanted it."

"You'd be surprised then...I got lucky and got a dick most ponies can take. Well, only if they're looking for something...ya know...bigger. And no, I didn't have the biggest dick in the Stable so I won't try playing that card...the jackass with that award was a goddamn Mustang hybrid. Mustang, Griffin, and a bit of Dragon and something else...guy got the luck of the draw and got a massive knotted dick outta the whole deal, plus those not-so-pokey barbs some Dragons have. That guy had all the freaks lining up to his bedroom unit."

"...E-excuse me?" I asked in complete bewilderment. "Like...I know that a lot of Sentient species are genetically compatible with each other, but like...a Mustang, Griffin and a Dragon hybrid? That's a pairing I've never heard of before! Dragons and Equestrians, Griffins and Zebras, even have a Fox/Wolf hybrid as an acquaintance but...that's a new one."

He snorted and laughed rather unexpectedly at that, bouncing me softly on his chest with his mirth before he replied, "Oh trust me, that's more on the tame side of the hybrid spectrum by 39's standards... That place...you've heard about those Stables all being rigged with some sort of...'social experiment', or whatever the fuck they tried calling it?"

"Yeah...? Never...exactly been inside any working Stable like that before, but yeah, I've heard about the depraved shit they pulled in those things. I think most of the Wasteland has by now...anywho, what was 39's deal...?"

"I kinda already told you. Hybridization. The Overmares pushed for interspecies relationships and anyone expecting was expected to have their fetus extracted via a specialized machine about six-weeks after fertilization. They then took the fetuses to be incubated in some bigass central facility overseen by Stable-Tec scientists. Entirely off-limits to either parent to enter, or...really anyone who wasn't registered with Stable-Tec as one of their lackeys."

"They...they did what??"

"Oh trust me, it gets so much weirder. After they've been grown to full-term, any expecting mother reported to this big machine with the Overmare watching and...literally got a random fucking kid back from the machine. No do-overs, no begging for the kid originally taken out of you, and absolutely no questioning the Algorithm their fancy main computer used to make the selections. You're just stuck with one of the other mom's babies and have to raise it as your own, with all the weird quirks mixing so many species together can produce. The Stable started out with a big old mix of species thanks to everyone just kinda piling in just as the Great War kicked off, but by the time I got my ass outta there, I was the only one there who was 100% genetically pure anything. Everyone else there who eh...didn't have to get euthanized due to genetic abnormalities during adolescence, was walking around with hooves, wings, paws, horns, talons, feathers, stripes and scales in one combination or another. Were Stable-Tec still around, I'm sure all the information from this particular Stable would leave their eggheads with years worth of data to analyze and sift through. Most I learned was that they wanted to see the effect of multi-generational hybridization under a controlled environment and how it affected family dynamics and courtship/mating rituals over time. Why? Hell if I know..."

I...was so beyond the ability for words in that moment that all I could do was stare silently up at him with what must have looked like horror. It wasn't so much that I was shocked or even horrified at what he had just told me, but rather it was just...the sheer unexpectedness of it all. I knew that genetics between most species on Terra Firma as a whole were in some way compatible with each other, allowing for these sorts of crazy hybridizations to occur. This however, had never been allowed to occur in such a controlled, isolated environment before, so the true extent of how many species could be spliced through natural reproduction like this was completely unknown. Back in the day, interspecies romances were more on the socially taboo side of things as the Ministry of Morale really liked to emphasize so-called pure-blooded family units over those of mixed parentage. As a result, what children did arise from these relations almost never ended up pairing with another similarly hybridized individual simply due to the change in public opinion towards hybrids. I couldn't even imagine what two-hundred years of this strictly enforced practice could do to an isolated community like that.

"Told ya it got weirder with that place!" He chuckled before trying to lift me up again. "Nnn...fuck. Why am I so fucking weak right now?"

"Heh...Berryl concentrate can do that to you in big enough doses. Lemme help out this time..."

With what felt like insane effort, we both put our all into unceremoniously flopping me from off of his belly and onto the wet floor beside us. It hurt but then again, everything hurt. We were both like so many beached fish, uselessly flailing and flopping about while trying to get our legs under ourselves and away from the rapidly cooling air as our heat was lost to the draft wafting in. Yet, try as we might, neither of us were very much able at all to get to a standing position. Even Garand with all his strength was collapsing under his own weight as his muscles spasmed and twitched while straining to do as he asked them to. It got to such a point of patheticness that we both collapsed to the floor nearly as one, panting and groaning under the weight of our own horrible hangovers. It was far from my first such hangover like this...but I was usually in my own home or in the safe arms of some SugarApple cutie, not stuck on a cold tile floor deep underground.

"Firefly!" Garand called out with as much effort as he could put into his voice, calling upon our only available savior from our own weak stupidity.

"We need some help!" I added to his plea. "Quickly please!"

When no booming accented voice answered the call, I glanced over and up at Garand with a bit of concern. With the water now off, the air-conditioned draft pouring in from the exit to the locker room was starting to really set its icy fangs into every inch of me that could still feel. Normally such a minor irritant that could be simply solved by moving into the next room, this time around we both were nearly powerless to even stand, let alone walk such a long way...

"Well fuck... How are we gonna do this?"

"I-I don't k-know..." I shivered in reply, wishing that I still somehow had the Inferno Ring on me within easy reach. "W-we need...t-to get o-outta h-here...."

"I got ya, don't worry. Here...try to spin yourself around and I'll try to like...slide you across the floor to the lockers. If you can crawl just a little bit farther from there, you should be able to reach one of the radios and call for him. He should still be wearing his stuff on him. I hope..."

"I-I might a-as w-well just g-get us s-some towels at t-t-that point..."
"If you can find them..." He grunted seemingly unconvinced. "Didn't see any earlier that I remember."

Without a better idea to go off of and not wanting to waste any more energy than needed for the task ahead, I began to painfully, slowly, drag my ass around and into position. Once I was slumped in the right general direction, laying on my side and feeling like I had just moved a boulder, Garand placed his hand once again on my ass. This time though...his arm was cocked and I could feel him building up as much strength for one mighty push as he had left in him. With a nod, he shot me forward with a shocking level of force for how seemingly debilitated he was from the hangover; the water spread across the white tiles acting like wax to help me along as I rocketed across the shower hall and painfully slammed into the wall separating the showers from the lockers. The jolt knocked the wind out of me as I had directly impacted it with the side of my body, but I had graciously been spared the extra pain of smashing my head against it as well. It was hard to say if he was just too strong in his attempt or the water allowed me to maintain a lot of momentum from his push. Either way, I was still left gasping and coughing for air all the same and blinking a sky full of stars out of my dazed eyes.

"Shit! Fuck! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it, I swear on my life I didn't!" He exclaimed, weakly yet frantically attempting to flop himself forward and crawl his way over to me to help.

"No...!" I coughed out, waving a hoof for him to stay put and save his energy for staying warm. "No...I-I'm ok...I can d-do this. J-just...just w-wait right t-there...!"

It took a few more moments of gasping and clenching my eyes against the tears of pain from the pain in my side, but eventually I was able to focus myself again and blink my eyes clear enough to see. Being awake for a time now, I was slowly regaining some quality of feeling in my limbs, enough to make some use of them. And so with my muscles squealing in uncomfortable agony, I began to crawl. Or...more like kicked myself off the wall at an angle so I slid partially back into the empty locker room. Firefly had actually left us entirely alone instead of fulfilling a small hunch of mine that he had only made it sound like he had left, instead rather sticking behind to catch some more of the sights and sounds. While I was grateful for the genuine show of respect for privacy, it came with a healthy undertone of annoyance purely due to the sheer inconvenience of the situation we found ourselves captive by. Lying exactly where we had left them, the various bits and pieces of our respective equipment littered some of the low wooden benches lining the center between rows of lockers. With some more grunts of extreme effort, I dragged myself across the icy floor until I caught full sight of my stack of Celestium impact plates sitting detached in slightly organized stacks nearby my duster. Given the state of the two of us poor soaked losers, a healthy dose of restoration potion was the only course of action that didn't include a few days worth of bedrest. Even with the potion, the rest would do both of us some tremendous good anyway. Unfortunately...my medkit was devoid of anything useful (my last vials of ES potion lying empty on the ground nearby), and the only thing on hoof that could dull the pain was the exact shit that got us in this mess to begin with. Even from the floor I could just barely see the top of the black rubber eyedropper that capped off the bottle of intoxicating Berryl extract which mocked me from above.

"Y-you make it?" He called out with a hint of a shiver in his voice now that some more time had passed.

"Y-y-yeah!" I replied with a squeak that flushed my face red with cold embarrassment. "G-give me a m-m-minute..."

The cold was weighing heavier and heavier on me by the minute as I laid there soaked and naked in the middle of the floor; the air vents mindlessly blowing more cold air down the rows of lockers and benches around me. Even as I sparked up my horn to try and locate the PipBuck still strapped to my bracer, I knew the nasty side effects that came with hypothermia were starting to affect me. While my search through the various worn bits of metal was frantic, it was also greatly tempered by a growing exhaustion that sapped all heat from my muscles and sank deep to the bone...

"Yew two are takin' fer goddamned ever in here! Yew ain't fuckin' again are ya??"

Some ways behind several more rows of lockers, the door to the room clattered open as our resident Ghoul half-kicked it back open and noisily entered the room. Had I not been suffering from the cold as I was, my reply might have been longer and far more snarky. Instead...all I could do was squeak out another rather pathetic plea for help. It was borderline humiliating but...I had no other choice. He had already seen the dam-burst of cum that that oozed out of me...I couldn't possibly sink any lower in his eyes if he had any sort of respect for me before now. The great Ranger Crete...soaked in water and jizz and freezing to death on the floor of an abandoned underground military complex worth untold billions. A death the members of Alpha Squad would have immortalized for all eternity with great amusement, but not one I would otherwise have in mind for myself.

"Th' fuck?!" He exclaimed once he came around the corner and caught sight of me on the floor. "Shit! Yew ok??"

"Y-yeah...j-just...get us s-s-some towels p-p-please!" I squeaked back helplessly.

"Firefly! Is that y-you?? T-Thank fuck! I w-won't die from p-post-nut h-hypothermia!"

By the grace of all the Gods who gave a shit, the towel racks were plentiful and readily nearby, merely hidden behind some of the larger locker doors we hadn't bothered to check before our shower. Once Firefly had discovered their hiding place, mountains of them were dumped on and wrapped around me with major assistance from Firefly's horn to get me up and off of the frozen floor. It was then I discovered another wonderous spot of luxurious ingenuity behind those minds that built this place: the damned things had been hanging off of heated racks. With so many towels piling my body and indeed nigh-on mummifying me in layers upon layers, the icy death gripping at the corners of my vision was quickly replaced by a loving, cotton-fiber warmth of immense goodness. It was all I could do to just lay there sprawled out across a wooden bench and allow the heat to penetrate my body down to my very Soul if it needed to, in order to purge the ice from my veins. Though the cocoon around me made for dulled and hazy senses, I couldn't not hear when Garand finally received his own mummification at the hooves of Firefly.

"Ohhhhhhhhfffuuuuuccckkkkk....!" Came his loud groan echoing across the conjoined rooms. "Yessssssssss....thankkkk youuuu, Fireflyyyy..."

"Heh, heh...yer welcome, ya cum-soaked dingus! Can Ah get yew two lovebirds somethin' else? Ah couple's massage? Should Ah make some dinner reservations in th' canteen over yonder fer y'all tah enjoy together?"

"Oh shut up, Glowstick... Yeah, you win. Ha, ha, very funny. How about you get us some health potions instead of being a smartass taking a victory lap?"

"Aww, fuck yew then! Yer no fun... Tha' victory lap was well fuckin' earned in mah opinion. Don' know why y'all didn't try tah jus'...ya know, turn th' hot water back on tah keep y'all warm but ain't mah place tah say Ah guess. Couple o' drinks fer th' lovely couple commin' righ' up! Now let's see wha' Ah got..."

From there, he took a few moments to set down his saddlebags and dig through them by hoof, lacking the handy aid of a PipBuck to manually sort the deep-pocket spell within for what he needed. After a bit though, he managed to draw out a compact cardboard box stamped on all sides with the pink cross of the Ministry of Peace. Popping off the folding lid, out came a thing of polystyrene foam packaging which cushioned an emergency set of four Extra-Strength+ vials of potion. Given one of them was dosed for the average, fit stallion of fighting age, I warded off his attempt to give me two and sent it instead in the direction of the big softie in the other room who needed it more. It took a minute before the towels wrapped around my horn had warmed me up till I felt confident enough to bring the vial to my lips to drink without it shaking out of my grip. The deliciously sweet, flowery fluid flushed everything it touched with life as I began to sip; every swallow bringing more and more vigor behind it until I had downed the entire thing without realizing it. The familiar warmth of the potion in my belly bloomed throughout my body, bringing much-needed respite to my desiccated inner-self like a tsunami of cleansing water flooding out the aches and the pain wherever they could be found. Wrapped up in warm towels as I was, and feeling the kind of relief that I was, Firefly wasn't too far off when he had jokingly mentioned a couples' massage. While I had finally regained the dignity needed to hide the groans of relief clawing at my throat, Garand on the other hoof made no attempt to hide his enjoyment for the consolation brought about by three potent brews.

"Fuckin' hell, Garand!" Firefly chuckled in unabashed mirth. "Yew mewl like ah fuckin' power-bottom!"

"Ssssssshutttt theeee fucckkkkk upppp...." Came his moaned reply echoing across the walls. "Y-you're o-oneeee to t-t-talllkkkkk...!"

"Oi! Just 'cause yew ploughed meh don' mean yew get tah walk free o' these charges! Ah'm gay as hell fer some dick n' told yew as much, so fer meh tah make them sorta noises is within th' realm o' reason. Yew though? Wit' yer big ol' domineerin' ass? Really...?"

"Ooooof...!" Garand sighed loudly, sounding like he was coming out of a particularly large stretch. "This ass can do all sorts of cool stuff if I want it too, Glowstick. Either way, shut the fuck up and help me up would ya?"

'All sorts of cool stuff indeed...' I giggled to myself within the comfort of my own thoughts.

The warmth in my gut from the potion eventually wore off, though once it was finished I was feeling more than rejuvenated for the experience. I had covered so many miles just getting here, plus a fight on top of it with a competent opponent. A fight and...a hell of a lot more besides. With the potion having done its part to restore my weary tissues, and sleep having had some time to sink into my head (as odd as the circumstances had been), I once again felt close enough to my usual self. Well...as usual as I could be with the remnants of Garand still trickling out from under my tail as a fun little reminder that all that had transpired was, in fact, reality. Rather than, as he had called it, the best fucking wet dream I had ever experienced. Even with that sticky reminder, our romp in the showers still felt like a hazy dream. All the same however, I was grateful to have some extra towels straddled between my legs to aid with the cleanup I failed to achieve while the showers were still on. The moment Garand appeared from around the bend behind Firefly, draped still in robes made of towels like myself, our eyes locked for a moment before darting our separate ways hurriedly. I lacked an excuse to continue to lounge around when there were places to be and things to do, and so with a reluctant grunt, I began to unravel myself from my many layers.

"Not exactly the strip-show I was expecting so soon, but hey! I won't say no!"

I looked up once I had set down most of my laundry and was unsurprised to see Garand staring my way with a smirk from where he sat tugging on his pants and boots. I didn't bother replying and instead, deliberately turned to conveniently pick up my Kevyarn underbarding, hiking my tail up just enough to give him something worth looking at for a bit. There was still some tension there between us but...I didn't feel so reserved about playing around a bit more with what it all had in store. His job done and our embarrassing gratitude exchanged, Firefly had once again seen fit to leave the two of us to finish getting dressed in peace; something we both now committed to as the various bits and pieces of our armor and equipment found their rightful places on our persons. Both of us were rather knowingly defeating most of the purpose of the shower we had both taken the day before by putting our dirty, travel-worn gear back on. Regardless, with our faculties mostly back to normal, muscle memory ensured we both were dressed and on all-fours within a couple of minutes; weapons, ammo, and all that we had carried inside with us returned to their rightful place on our persons.

"Well...guess we should get going..." I finally suggested once there was nothing logically left for me to divert my attention towards other than him. "We've kept our uh...unwitting rescuer waiting long enough I think."

"Heh, like I needed rescue. Nah, I get you. Let's get the hell outta here." He nodded in agreement, starting the path back to the doorway out. "And uh...before we head back out there, just wanted to say again...t-thanks for that. I uh...I've never been with a mare who made sex...more than just something to do to...ya know, blow off steam if ya know what I mean. Like... I dunno, free and open sex was one of those things Stable 39 really encouraged since it meant more kids for the machine to sort through for the next round of hybrids. It was just...something to do there, like watching a holovideo or boxing in the gym's fighting ring. Something you did to just...waste time and blow off some steam...ya know?"

Were this anyone else trying this sort of stumble across the finish-line, I would have felt inclined to shoot a quick barb or two into their flailing attempt to compliment me on my vagina. But given all that was going on between us as of late, I allowed myself to enjoy the compliment as well as appreciate its deeper meaning. He wasn't the smoothest with his words...but, he was intelligent and everything else I had come to appreciate about him (and his physique). There was much more to him than the Griffins I had grown accustomed to seeing in the Wasteland. So much so that I felt almost as if I were just...being drawn to him on my own. As a reward for his honest attempt, I flashed him back an equally honest smile of approval.

"I think I have an idea what you're talking about..." I replied, thinking over the decades I myself had spent getting off with strangers and higher-end prostitutes without feeling anything more than the carnal pleasure itself. "I...just...keep this on the down low, but...yeah. I agree with you. I know what it's like to fuck away your life without getting anything else outta it than a fun, short waste of time. Time...you and I both seem to have too much of. Thank you for appreciating what I've got to work with. I...I enjoyed that a lot more than even I could have expected."

"Damn, that's pretty kind of ya. You getting this soft so soon after meeting me?"

"Hardly... Part of me still can't believe you and I are even having this conversation at all, Garand. Not for nothing, and I mean no offense, but...you were as good as dead as far as I knew up until yesterday. You went from a target, to an old acquaintance, to...someone I fucking straddled and rode like a goddamned mare from the SugarApple. All in under two fucking days... That's...a lot to take in."

"Heh...you seemed to handle me and my cum alright! I think that counts for something!"

I blushed again and felt my knees quake a little underneath me before I could reply, "W-well yeah, you said I couldn't handle the kinda load you'd leave in me and uh...I took that as a personal challenge, heh. Don't want to eh...let a good time go to waste."

"You're...not in heat or anything, are you?" He asked with more than a little concern now that the idea had come to mind, something I was quick to reassure him on. "Not for nothing but uh...even after the genetic experiments they tested on me in 39, I'm still mostly fertile far as I know..."

"Even if I were, whatever mutations hit me two-hundred years ago fucked up my hormones and especially my ovaries... Couldn't have a foal even if you tried whatever artificial methods they might have pioneered there."

"Oh...? How do you...?"

"Know? I guess another juicy secret for you is...I am very into ending my fun time with a good creampie. I don't always find myself hungry for dick, but when I do...I just can't help myself and let them finish inside me. And trust me, I've had enough of those over the years to have mothered...Gods, I don't even want to try to count."

"That so, eh? Well then...ain't that a...helluva thing." He grunted, looking away even though I could still see the look of immense interest in what I had just said. "I...guess I should...admit the same..."

Wait...was he...? He wasn't also into getting his ass creamed was he? Then again, he had taken to my mouth being down there with great enthusiasm I'd not expected from such a big bird. Just what kind of a kinky fuck was I getting involved with? ...Where else could this potentially lead?

"Yeah, on top of wanting it up the ass sometimes...I like 'em to finish in me too, alright? I can't finish myself until I feel them spurt a nice thick load into me... Alright! Now we've both admitted to something extremely sexual and extremely personal, so we're both feeling weird and awkward over this shit. Feel any better for it?"

His sinful admission had gotten some very lovely thoughts floating through my carnal brain and it took me a moment to reply, "Heh...yeah. I suppose so, big guy."

******

"Finally! You're back!" AUNTIE cried with joy from her hidden external speakers as we emerged from the personnel lift and into the hangar. "Mister Firefly has been waiting a dreadfully long time for you two to return..."

"Yeah...we know." Garand chuckled back with another smirk, his gaze drifting over me even though I couldn't directly see it. "But! We're back now so all is right in the world again!"

"Were tha' so easy..." Firefly grunted, hopping from off the floor of the open cabin door along her side. "We gotta sit n' talk fer ah bit Ah think. Lotta shit's gone down since we all took off from New Pegasus lookin' fer this here Outpost, n' Ah think we owe it to ourselves tah have a group huddle since we're all here."

"Oh blessed day, a team huddle! Finally!" AUNTIE sang excitedly while Garand and I approached. "Come aboard and make yourselves comfortable! We can have this discussion in the air!"

Garand grimaced somewhat and with good reason. Despite the rubberized flooring interspaced amidst all the anchor points for cargo, it did little to pad the a body like his against a rather uncomfortable ride. It was honestly impressive how he'd been able to put up with it the first time while still nursing the injured shoulder I had given him.

"Couldn't we just...have it here in the hangar? Sure, there's just concrete around here to sit on, but at least I'd have the room I need to sit all the way upright. Inside there...unless you can get me some fuckin' padding to lay on in there, I ain't getting back in that thing. I'll fuckin' walk back to New Pegasus again if I have to, I won't pull what I did yesterday all over again."

"To be fair, Captain..." AUNTIE chimed in trying to be helpful. "According to Mister Firefly here, your injuries should have been sufficiently healed from what they were yesterday. I'm sure the discomfort will automatically be noticeably reduced because of it!"

"Heh...I mean, you're right, but still...I'd rather have something more underneath me than that damn floor if it's all the same to you. Even with the rubber padding, it didn't do a whole helluva lot to provide me with any real physical comfort in there yesterday."

"I see...very well then, if one of you would be so kind as to parse through the overhead rack storage of the main cabin in search of the Type-3 field kits please? Inside, you should find some sleeping bags with inflatable air pads that should provide some level of comfort to Captain Garand. At least, when compared to laying on the bare floor back there."

"Ahhh, see now we're talkin'!" He replied with a satisfied smile while nodding in our general direction. "That right there is something I can work with, at least to get us up and back out of here. Past that...fuck...what are we gonna do now after this? We've been so set on getting here the last week or so that...I kinda lost track of what I wanted to do after this. I mean, it's not like I had a plan before this whole shebang came along, but at the same time...I can't help but feel there's something we could be doing. I dunno, maybe it's because I've gotten used to having something else to work towards that involves a lot of time and walking."

"Oh?" AUNTIE asked quietly and with genuine shock. "But Mister Firefly said you have only explored a fraction of this facility! Think of all the beautiful relics of the old world that could be hidden away here! Pristine concrete walls and sealed bulkheads hiding all manner of secrets behind their steel hatches...oh dear me, the idea is quite exciting to entertain!"

"We've seen enough to know that we need a lot more than emergency power to see what all this place has to offer." I chimed in. "There's like a whole two floors that elevator back there just refuses to stop at, and...I'd be willing to bet real caps that that's purely due to a lack in general power in the facility."

"All the more reason for us to stay here and explore some more!" She whined softly, as if she too could simply get up and explore the base alongside us. "Even with emergency power, you all still seemed to have covered some decent ground using the credentials Mister Firefly mentioned."

"You mean General Olive's?" Garand asked while casually waving the PipBuck on his foreleg even though AUNTIE couldn't (probably?) see it.

"Oh? Is that whose it is? I suppose that would explain your unparalleled access thus far, given this facility was supposedly his brainchild from the communications we received during the trial phases of Operation: Castle Rook. His name was mentioned anywhere there was a chance..."

"I'm gonna go out there and tell ya right now, there's no way that asswipe came up with this place on his own." Garand snorted with utter disdain.

"Absolutely agreed." I concurred fervently, memories even that ancient having not damped the old hatred within. "I'd bet even more than raw cash that he simply slapped his name on it after whatever geniuses really behind this place got mysteriously transferred to the Zulu Campaign and vanished into obscurity. And that's ifthose poor saps were even that lucky..."

"Now that would make much more sense by me by comparison, given what I've been informed regarding the contents of this facility." AUNTIE continued in a thoughtful tone. "More than one mind was surely involved in the design and execution of this base and it's contents. For it to all be the work of one stallion, who himself was commanding the entirety of the Southern Front and all the responsibilities that carried...? I find it rather preposterous for it to have been the work of one mere pony, regardless of whatever personal talents they may have."

"Glad we're all in agreement here..." I sighed, having to steer the conversation back to where it had begun. "But to bring it back to macro, I do have a bit of an actual need to leave before too long. I started a rather massive and expensive renovation project on a new home of sorts I found in my travels just before taking off here, and uh...I'd like to see how my investment is panning out so far. That, and I've got those two adopted kids of mine waiting for me back there too and Gods know every day I stay here, the more freaked out they'll get."

"Colonel! You never informed me that you were a mother!" AUNTIE exclaimed with cheerful surprise. "How old are they??"

"Trust me, I'm still getting used to it myself so don't feel too blindsided by that... And they aren't foals if that's what you're worried about. One's a young mare, at or somewhere-abouts adulthood and the other is a Ghoul. And to be honest, I...haven't exactly had the time or the gumption to try and ask his actual age yet. For all I know he's somewhere over a hundred, but looks and sounds like he's stuck at around sixteen. He's bright though, and got a lotta heart in him..."

"A...Ghoul? What is a 'Ghoul' in this context?" She asked in bewilderment, something I deserved for thinking she was with the current times and lingo.

"They're basically zombies." Garand answered before I even had a chance to.

"Garand!" Firefly and I both chided rudely before I continued, "While his...way of describing it was less-than-polite, he still wasn't too far off. If you know what the term 'zombie' implies that is."

"Zombie...my records connect the use of that word with reports of Necromancy performed by the Zebra Empire. Is this to imply these...'Ghouls' as you call them, are all reanimated corpses of the dead via arcane means?"

"Thankfully in this case no, though those were an issue during the War towards the end... Anywho, no, in this case the word Ghoul has come to represent any Sentient that ends up absorbing too much arcane radiation of one kind or another and mutates to become tolerant of excessively high radiation levels. At...the cost of most of their hair and fur, localized necrosis, withering muscle mass and the potential for higher-brain function to further degrade due to a myriad of factors. Sadly to the point they lose their sanity and become just as good as any hungry, angry Feral species with Sentient food on the mind."

"Yeah heh, what she said." Garand added sheepishly, glancing at Firefly who gave him the hoof anyway for his trouble. "Yeah, I know Glowstick. I didn't mean to rope you into that whole zombie comment too, dumbass..."

"Glowstick...?"

We were getting off topic again and were now starting to confuse the ever-loving shit out of our new electromechanical friend with names and nicknames she had no context for...

"All the same, I don't want to keep them waiting any longer than I have to." I butted back in, in another attempt to redirect the conversation. "We've discovered and protected this place all rather handily so far, but I think it's time for me to start turning my attention back on the world going on outside these walls. Much as I love this place, I'm not so free and unburdened by responsibility as I was even two months ago..."

"Right, of course Colonel. It wouldn't be prudent to keep expectant people waiting like that. I would be happy to take you wherever it is you need to go, just climb aboard and give the word!"

"Eh...fuck it, you talked me into it." Garand grunted somewhat unexpectedly before addressing Firefly, "You comin' with?"

"Now wait ah damned minute!" He understandably protested now that Garand had suddenly decided to join me. "AUNTIE here brough' up ah good point, why don' we try tah crack this sucker open more now tha' we've got some time?"

"Well, I dunno about you, but I don't really know a whole fuckload about Crystalline Fusion tech" Garand replied frankly. "I can cycle out the Core in my Power Armor with a new one and some other basic shit like that, but they didn't exactly teach me how to operate, let alone perform a full-restart on a goddamn Fusion Generator. Even when I was with the Order, that sorta maintenance duty was left to the Scribes and I definitely wasn't a Scribe back there. They ever teach you guys to fuck around with advanced technology like that in Camp Longshot?"

"Well...no..." He admitted sheepishly, glancing towards his Mrk. I helmet laying on the floor of the Vertibird nearby. "But...there's still more tah be found here, we all know it!"

"And it's waited to be found for two-hundred fuckin' years just fine without us, Glowstick. It can wait a bit longer, and so can we. Besides...I think I might know a guy who could help us out with this."

"Oh really?" I asked curiously given my only recourse was Cogsworth but I didn't know if even he knew how. "Is it someone with the SR who wouldn't turn you in for the Bounty on your head by your own Order?"

"Oi! Former Order! And they weren't even mine to begin with anyway, I just joined up because it was the only thing I could think would be a good use of my talents. But yeah, he's SR. Sorta... Are you familiar at all with any of those breakaway factions of the Order I mentioned earlier?"

When Firefly and I both replied with a no, he continued, "Yeah...thought as much. A good eighteen-hundred or so Rangers and Scribes broke off from the main Seven Chapters of the Order in what we/they called the Great Schism. Amongst them was a group of Scribes who had made contact with a...particularly eccentric Dwem I used to know who lives in a grand villa or something overlooking their capital city of Kyopsis. When they needed a place to stay, I heard around the canteen that he had offered to take them in. Next thing anyone knew, they were gone without a trace by the next morning with all their equipment and personal items. Even checked with the gate officer back at base and he swore up and down to me and the Elder himself that the bulkhead to the surface had stayed shut the entire night. There was over twenty of them and they all vanished at one time, long after the actual Schism even happened...my gut is just screaming at me that he's the one who got them out. Ain't nobody else could do that under the nose of the SR."

"Oh really? And how could he even manage to do that? And why would a bunch of Scribes just relocate to live with some wealthy...wait, what's a Dwem doing with the Baladi??" I asked, jumping through multiple questions in one go.

"Yeesh, one at a time mare... I told you, this guy is absolutely something else. He was apparently 'independently wealthy' and voluntarily spent a few decades with the Scribes as a high-ranking member of their ranks, bringing a lot of lost knowledge with him in the process from some private collection of his. Then...I guess he got bored of it all and just up and resigned one day, taking all his research and materials with him. He's uh...he's got some kind of magic I've never seen before and I don't even think it's native to the Dwem either. He tossed fully armored Star Paladins sent to stop his exit like they were ragdolls and shrugged off blasts from magical energy weapons like they were fuckin' laser pointers... If he could do all that and walk the fuck out with all his stuff unscathed, you better believe I think he's still alive and is the one who got those Scribes out. Now...as for him being willing to help us out...? That I don't know so much. We weren't exactly close by any means, but...anyone back East would tell you Chief Scribe Luger was the best the SR had when it came to Pre-War tech. If he managed to overhaul the CFCs for four Chapter headquarters, I'd like to think he could handle something like this. Hell...if we spun the tale big enough, it could be enough from the intrigue factor alone for him to take interest in something like this."

"Well...if he's even half of what you say, he might be our best bet." I agreed after taking a minute to process what he had said. "My only personal option was my friend Cogsworth who's one of those born naturals for Pre-War tech, though he specializes mostly in programming, robotics and metallurgy more than anything else. Still, he's tech-savvy as they say so he was my one and only choice, at least until now. Not unless you happen to know any specialists, Firefly?"

"Not one fer Crystalline Fusion tech, nah." He replied with a shrug. "Damned fine gal fer fixin' up them fancy vehicles n' shit downstairs but outside tha' nah. She ain't intah fixin' reactors, least not like tha'."

"Well, she might be useful down the line then if we make it that far... Still, I'm not sure how I feel about trusting a random Dwem I've never met before to handle something we're kinda hoping to keep hush-hush."

"Well I don't know this Cogsworth guy you mentioned so how do I know we can trust him with knowing where this place is and what it looks like?"

"Fair...fine, you can come back with me then and meet him for yourself. He's the one I go to for all my supplies and I even charged him with overseeing the remodeling of my new place. Not to mention he's the only one outside of the Syndicate who knew where I was going, so he should be there still if we don't take too much longer hanging around here. We can bring both of our choices if you find you get along with Cogs and your guy gives a damn enough to help us. I trust Cogs with many things, more so than perhaps anyone else in this Wasteland."

"Guess I've got nothing other than your word for now..." He replied with a shrug before looking at Firefly again. "I'll ask ya again, you coming along? Thing's got plenty of room for all of us in there."

The poor Ghoul was facing extreme isolation if the three of us left without him, prompting him to groan in annoyance, "Ugh! Ah don' wanna be all by mah lonesome in this here tomb...fine, Ah'll go wit' y'all back North..."

"Well...I see that public sentiment has swayed in the breeze." AUNTIE replied with some resignation in her voice. "Very well, I suppose we can leave this place's secrets behind for awhile longer then. I also suppose that there is no way of knowing if any of the Crystalline Generators suffered a containment breach during whatever event that knocked them out. That would certainly be most problematic indeed..."

With our initial huddle more or less over by that point, the conversation petered out and Firefly and I took the time to pull out and inflate three individual pony-sized sleeping bag/pads for Garand to lay on for the flight back to what now counted as civilization. The problem of keeping them in place for him to consistently lay down on them was easily solved by using a series of hooked retractable straps built into the floor to pin them down; anchor rings spaced evenly opposite where each strap retracted into the floor. Once everything was strapped down and well enough in place, he obliged us by climbing aboard to test it out. Judging by the sigh of relief that came out of him as he sank down onto his new space, it was a significant improvement from the last time he had laid down there.

"Ohhhh yeahhhh....this is wayyyy better than before." He commented contentedly after he had shuffled his wings around to get more comfortable. "Though...I just now remembered that the only reason I climbed aboard the first time was because we were going to come right back here and I could pick my Power Armor back up. What are we going to do about it...?"

"Ah fuck...I knew we were forgetting something..." I groaned in response, glancing over to where he had left it standing parked by the personnel elevator at the back of the hangar. "I mean...do you need to have it...?"

"I'd kinda fuckin' prefer to keep it on me if I can, yeah. I know it'll be safe here as long as we lock the doors behind us, but...at the same time, I've kinda adapted how I fight to include that extra inch-plus of armor around my whole body. Yeah, I can live without it, but..."

He ended his sentence with a shiver I could personally relate with given I would always feel naked without my Mrk. V protecting my ass. I ran my mind through any possible ideas as to how we could transport his armor but came up short, seeing as it had a rather rigid frame with a limited range of motion. There was...one option though that could work that I remembered, however it would be a bit dicey as to how we could pull it off with so few of us.

"Do you think you could haul it underneath you, AUNTIE?" I asked aloud once my thoughts breached the surface again. "I'd be surprised if this craft didn't come with the hardware for hauling heavy equipment like the Ravens did. We used those for hauling Power Armor around, pallets of supplies, even some of the smaller Kampfwagens we had in the Zebralands. Could we just...do that here?"

"Possibly?" She replied, though with some uncertainty in her tone. "There are fixtures for several different load configurations retracted into the fuselage including individual suits of Powered Infantry Armor, however...we lack the expertise of a qualified Loadmaster. I'm sure we could come up with a working solution, but the Loadmaster typically remains behind on-station rather than boarding the craft. So...how would whoever hooks the unit to the cable system be able to return back into the main cabin?"

"Ah fuck...true..." Garand grumbled unenthusiastically. "I mean, I wish I could just cut a hole in the floor and build a hoist for it in the roof, probably be a bit easier than worrying about some certified whatever handling all the fancy equipment."

"It is...interesting that you suggest that, Captain. A partially enacted design choice in this craft was the idea of it also being capable of dropping a payload of munitions via a recessed 'bomb bay' housed in the belly of the fuselage. While the hollow space for the bay was left and its doors were installed, they were sealed shut when it was deemed to be an unnecessary additional logistical expense and left out of the official munitions arsenal. At best, it is likely to have been the hope that it could be revisited later in the capacity of a small cargo hold, but it is hard to say."

"Wait, I was just joking about that though..." He replied with some amazement while glancing under himself for the space she described. "You mean that could actually be something we could do?"

"Well...again, perhaps? You would need a skilled team with very good equipment to even think about attempting such a modification, but barring that, I think it could be possible to achieve. Granted, only one, maybe two suits could feasibly occupy that space at a time given the dimensions, but I would like to estimate it could be possible."

"Well...now that makes me actually feel a bit better now to be honest. You think that friend of yours could help with something like that, mare?"

"Who, Cogs? Uh...yeah, probably? I know he would be more than willing to have a go at it, that's for damn sure. He's got all the tools needed to take old Sky Chariots apart and cut down the pieces to reuse for other projects so he's my best bet on guys for the job. Hell, I can only imagine the dizzy spell he'll have when he finally gets a look at everything."

"Hmmm...alright, that's some fairly heavy hardware to be fucking around with, I'll admit. But if he says no, I'll have to come back here for my armor and walk it the rest of the way back. I've had that thing for a damned long time and I don't wanna have to toss it aside just like that. Walked from Manehattan all the way here and even fuckin' farther than that before all that!"

"Hey, I ain't saying you have to get rid of it or anything like that. Regardless of my other feelings on the SR, Power Armor is one of those things I can't bring myself to hate; even if my feelings for those wearing them are typically violent. Protection like that is far from cheap these days and even a patchwork set like yours is worth its weight in gold."

"So...we all sorted n' shit?" Firefly asked after glancing between us and the hangar out the open cabin door to our right. "If we're gonna go, we should jus' go already at this point. Make sure y'all got yer shit n' all tha', everypony."

Garand and I both patted ourselves down and ran through a mental checklist of anything we might have forgotten before he clambered back out of the crew cabin to paw over his Power Armor. Within a couple of minutes, he had detached several saddlebags from the exterior of his armor and reattached them onto his tactical rig; curling his Plague Bird helmet under his arm before climbing back aboard. Once he had gotten himself comfortably reacquainted with his new 'accommodations' and gave a nod did I give AUNTIE the word to take off and start heading North. The cabin door slid shut of its own accord while Firefly and I hopped into the closest of the line of seats lining the walls and, in Firefly's case, strapped in for dear life. Having flown for the first time in centuries only a day before, I was surprised and impressed at how quickly my air-legs had returned to me as my vertigo was usually quite a stubborn bitch to subdue. By the time we had risen up past the hangar door and out of the mountain it was hidden in, I was already back on my hooves and wandering around the cabin, gazing out of the windows while riding a wave of nostalgia and elation that fed my very Soul it felt like. As our altitude got higher and higher over the Ember Mountains, I felt my knees go weak once more, although this time out of the majesty of the view offered to us so high above. It was one any Griffin or Pegasus or Dragon could easily see with a bit of wing effort but for me...it was something only a few non-winged species like myself ever got to see from a perspective like this. The Embers were as desolate and barren of life as they ever had been, but that didn't mean we couldn't be spotted once we lost the convenient cover of the mountain peaks themselves. Unless we took a massive detour Westward, we would be flying near the Gap of Canterlot. And with the commotion the SR just caused there while breaking through...more eyes than ever were going to be scouring the immediate region.

"Hey, AUNTIE?" I asked aloud once the concerning thought hit my mind. "We're going to be losing our cover in just a couple of minutes at this pace. Although it kind of scares me to risk it, I need you to breach that cloud layer above us and stick above it until we get right up over the place we need to go."

"Wait, what?" Garand blurted out in surprise. "The fuck did you just say?"

"Yew wanna do wha' now?" Firefly likewise exclaimed in dismay, glancing over at me wildly from where he sat strapped against his chair for dear life.

While I raised my hooves in an attempt to pacify them, AUNTIE commented, "Um...begging your pardons, but...why is that such a big deal? I've been aware of this cloud layer you speak of since we first launched yesterday, but atmospheric analysis determined it to be somewhat electrically charged, but non-radioactive and so I did not make much of an accounting for it. It's very unusual for it to have such a widespread coverage over so much territory at once...however, I suppose I merely just...assumed that was just an aftereffect of the...ahem, end of the world as it were."

"You can thank the Pegusi for that one." Garand responded with a gruff grunt of disapproval. "Cowards lost Cloudsdale during the first wave of Balefire attacks and as if on-cue, they set all cloud factories to overdrive and laid an magically charged cloud layer across most of Equestria. Guess it was enough to throw off most of the Zeeb's ability to target their towns and cities since you'll find a buncha RadZone craters across the old grasslands out East where they failed to hit anything. Regardless, the Pegusi closed off the skies a long time ago above a certain altitude and some kind of shadow government took over from what I heard."

"I can help out a bit more there." I chimed in since I had a tad more information to share with AUNTIE on the topic for her benefit. "They must have had this shadow government for the Pegusi for a good while before the Great War kicked off since, as he said, they organized their response way too fast and efficiently. Though...since then, their so-called 'Enclave' has gone progressively darker over time. There's not a ton anypony really knows about 'em, but anyone with eyes has noticed there's been more holes forming than there used to up there. There's whole swaths of the San-Palomino that are starting to get direct sunlight and they're only getting bigger as time goes on."

"Y'all not know about th' settlement above Shady Sands?" Firefly asked incredulously. "Thought them winged fucks were common talk these days..."

"No, I knew." I replied. "Was about to mention it, but you beat me to it. That being said, I don't know a whole helluva lot myself so if you know more, please do share."

"Eh, most o' it is rumor n' fearmongerin' bullshit. Ah know they ain't part o' th' main Pegasus Enclave thing tha's had it's own radio channel fer...fuck, forever now. Anyways, these folks o'er NER territory broke away n' been doin' their own thing fer ages. Supposedly th' normal Enclave types don' deal wit' us livin' down here at all, but...Ah dunno. 'Side from them ponies livin' up North, ain't been much word from them Pegusi fer a long while now."

"What are you saying?"

"Nuthin', just wha' Ah know 'bout them winged weirdos. Big rumor round th' NER was th' Enclave failed n' fell apart 'er somethin'. Civil war maybe, 'er perhaps they just all went their own ways... Is ah risk tah try n' breach th' cloud layer, but...Ah'd be surprised if there were any Pegasus towns anywhere nearby this godsfersaken desert."

"Fair enough..." AUNTIE replied after Garand remained quiet but didn't protest further. "Well, we can certainly try and find out for ourselves though, sensors indicate no presence of life within a five-mile radius. Ascending to ten-thousand, five-hundred feet. Please remain seated and on guard in the event I am horribly wrong and need to escape the area quickly. Oh, and the AAOS has been enabled for your convenience, Captain Garand."

Firefly's eyes went wide with fear and, as the sensation of rising up through the air rippled through the cabin, I chuckled to myself as I witnessed him almost frantically tugging tighter on the straps of his harness. Garand took his cue and seemed grateful to plop his Plague Bird helmet on his head before plugging himself back into the Vertibird's exterior camera feeds. Given she wasn't shooting upwards but rather made her way at an even pace, I got my legs under myself and made my way back up the belly of the craft to the cockpit for a proper viewing experience. Making it to the pilots chair with mere moments to spare, I watched with rapt attention as the triangular windows were shrouded by a thick veil of white cloud. Though I had expected the cloud layer to be rather thick so as to support the enigmatic life above, it was a solid four-or-five seconds before the view before me opened up and I became (likely) the first Unicorn in generations to see this side of the cloud layer. For a glorious few moments the unadulterated might of the sun basked my face in a light and warmth that even the heavily tinted windows couldn't fully attenuate; my vision almost entirely enthralled by the golden orb far off in the cosmos I hadn't properly seen in many a year. Once my vision was set free from the majesty of the sun for long enough to notice anything else, I held back a soft gasp of amazement as the signs of a settlement, now long-derelict, sprawled out underneath us. Pegasus architecture was never something I had extensive exposure to, but it didn't take a genius to distinguish an Equestrian settlement from that of one of the cloud-based Griffin clans who made their nests a few thousand feet closer to the earth. While the odd nomadic family made their homes entirely out of the clouds around them, most Pegasi had long since moved onto the stability and comfort of solid stone housing built atop specialized clouds which could sustain the weight. So long of course as the surrounding cloud layer remained mostly intact to help keep it suspended. Unlike the traditional Pegasus settlement with its towering marble columned buildings and humble one-to-two story townhouses, the remains sprawled out beneath us were decidedly much more military in nature. The remnants of a half-finished landing strip and its associated hangars, control towers and various auxiliary buildings lay in ruin with the heavy equipment and materials needed to finish it wasting away under an unmitigated sun. Whether this was something Pre-War and associated with the Outpost itself, or a sign of what had become of the Enclave we had all heard about...it remained to be seen.

"This thing on?" Garand's stunned voice came in over the radio feed sounding from the speakers built into the chairs. "You seeing this shit, mare? I'm not hallucinating this, right?"

"I hear ya, and yeah. I'm fuckin' seeing it alright... What do you think this place was? It's really close by the Outpost, but it looks like it hasn't been occupied since the War."

"I think you mean even finished before the War" He added. "Hardly anything down there looks like it was 100% installed, and a lot of the damage looks like the same wear-and-tear we see on a lot of buildings down below. My bet is on it being a staging ground for Airborne units back in the day and was similarly left to rot with the history books."

"Well...I can't say anything for certain...but I'm inclined to go with that bet of yours. Architecture definitely isn't civilian, but I can't say I've ever seen whatever unique aesthetic the Enclave might have adopted since they cut off the sky. Either way, this place is a total ghost town and that is honestly fine by me."

"Me as well. Well, if this is what we have to look forward to on the way back North, it'll be a quick and easy trip. Dunno about you mare, but...that kind of break sounds nice about now after the last two-weeks we've had."

"I'm hoping for some more action myself!" AUNTIE added cheerfully. "Though, I understand it is not preferable to maintaining our relative anonymity...I'll be sure to keep my sensors swinging in all directions looking for any signs of life. Well...any signs of life that are above a certain size of course, it would be a waste to make an accounting for every small Feral species milling about. I will advise you all ahead of time that my ability to promptly respond to any further questions may be reduced as...there is a tremendous amount of information about this new world I'm in. The readings I'm getting are consistent with my projections for the more survivable outcomes of the cataclysm, however...there's so much raw data I need to sift through and make sense of. It will take me some time to...gather my thoughts as you Organics would call it. I apologize ahead of time for the momentary lapse in prompt processing."

"You'll alert us if you detect anything scary that we should worry about though, right?" Garand asked pointedly.

"Of course! A benefit of being a Virtual Intelligence is the ability to set as many redundant reminder scripts as I need to keep it all straight. Not to mention the Vertibird itself is capable of a significant amount of automation, even without my presence on board. That being said, I do not recommend removing me...and beg you not to as well."

"We would never!" I interjected with as much urgency as I could put into my voice. "Although...I think all of us could take some time to sit and think quietly with ourselves for a bit. Set course for New...I mean, Las Pegasus, and then follow the highway North for like fifteen-twenty miles. We're looking for a lone apartment that's part of a bigger complex that didn't get finished, some ways off the main road at that point. It's...not much, but...I plan to make it something better."

"Understood, Colonel. Setting course for Las Pegasus, ETA: forty-eight minutes; longer barring any detours if we do happen to encounter a settlement up here."

"You hanging in there, Firefly?" I called out, hoping AUNTIE was attentive enough to transmit the message across the PA system to the crew cabin.

"Y-yeah, Ah'm ok!" Came his reply a moment later before the cockpit hatch slid open and he entered looking a tad shaken. "Ah don' know how yew can enjoy tha' feelin'..."

"I got a feel for it a longgg time ago. Although, I suppose I'm also a bit surprised at how quickly it came back to me after all this time. Regardless...I couldn't be happier to be back aboard something like this."

"Hey, more power to ya. Mind if Ah go n' take ah quick snooze in th' bunkroom again? Might help mah nerves calm down ah bit now that we're all flyin' straight n' easy."

"The hatch has been unsealed for your convenience, Mister Firefly." AUNTIE responded dutifully. "The storage compartments within can accommodate personal effects including clothing and even armor. In all honesty, it seems designed particularly with M-CAP users in mind if you are so equipped and 'wish to take off a load' as they say."

"Are they now? Well ain't tha' somethin'..." He hummed softly, glancing down at his DeadEye armor with interest. "Think Ah migh' take yew up on tha' offer then if ya don' mind. Been wearin' this fer awhile now...how'd ya know Ah was wearin' one o' them M-CAP sets?"

"Educated guess I suppose based upon my existing projections. That particular product line from Arms-Tech seems to have been wildly prolific during the War, given the number of accommodations this craft comes equipped with for servicing and storing the various popularly used models amongst the Equestrian Armed Forces."

"Yeah, good old 'combat armor' as most ponies like to boil it down to. Not exactly protection on a tight budget, but anyone with some money to spend on their own safety lives and swears by 'em. The Model 3 was only designed for ponies with a sort of all-in-one design with impact plates fastened to a Kevyan undersuit with limited adjustability options. They got smarter when designing the Model 4 line and designed them into three tiers of protection using individual pieces that can be worn over clothing, like say a military uniform. That, and they made them to fit multiple species who were part of NEATO back in the day, so options are available to more than just Equines. Something that versatile...well, makes perfect sense as to why something like this is so ready to accommodate it when anyone worth taking around in this thing would be wearing that kind of equipment."

"Uh...yeah, wha' she said." Firefly chuckled sheepishly while getting back to his hooves to leave. "Well, all Ah needed tah hear was tha' yew got ah place fer mah shit n' Ah can catch ah few Z's. Wake meh up when we get there if ya would."

Once the hatch sealed shut after his exit, I was left alone with AUNTIE once again though, again, she asked if we might take that chance I had mentioned earlier to keep to our own respective thoughts for awhile. Though my passionate spark for armor had reared its needy head once more, my greater awareness knew the time to jabber on about Arms-Tech hardware was not now. Instead, I sat back in my seat and watched the now empty fluffy expanse of white stretch out underneath us at a fast crawl as AUNTIE flew us in our desired direction. After an unknown number of minutes spent idly staring out into space, I suddenly came back to an awareness of myself and felt almost...worried by how little time I actually had to pause and reflect on our trip back. Now that I had come this far with Garand...by not bringing him in, I was playing the most dangerous game with my life yet. I'd put my name on his Contract with their magic and I was bound to its terms until a Shadow Broker broke the spell upon a Contract's completion. They had eyes and ears everywhere out West...and while defying Green Peace was its own can of shit to swallow, defying the Syndicate was something I wasn't sure I was even ready to handle. A rogue operative wasn't unheard of before now, nor was the open Bounty then placed on said would-be defiant rebel against the system in place here. As Garand said, the SR was very likely to renege on their end of the Contract placed on him which would put the Syndicate itself in a rather unique bind that few were stupid enough to put them in. Of course...there was also the question of whether or not their little foray past the Gap nullified the Contract in some way as only one sanctioned operative name was assigned at any one time. While they had not necessarily been hunting down Garand directly per-se, if we spun the narrative the right way...we could somehow manage to wriggle our way out of it all. It was a long-shot to assume it would work, but...if I killed enough of those sent after me, I could potentially force another meeting with a Shadow Broker and work something out. There was just too much unknown ahead...but, I was better equipped for it than I could have expected given the circumstances. I...actually had some genuinely decent help at my back to try and see me through the road ahead. Not only that, I had people worth fighting for more than myself for once. That had to count for something. Right...?

******

"Approaching final destination! Scans of the area indicate there is a group of buildings roughly matching the description you gave me roughly two-miles off the port bow. Are we ready for approach?"

Those forty-eight or so minutes had passed by a lot faster than I was used to and I found myself suddenly roused from my daze of drifting thoughts back to the cockpit around me. The same plush white cotton sea stretched out everywhere around us and I was left to rely on her sensors while I made my way back to the radar station for a better look. The three-dimensional readout of the immediate area appeared on the screen once I sat down at the station and I was able to recognize the terrain after a few moments of looking. The E-15 threaded a broad path ever Northwards, rolling dunes flowing in every direction on either side and, aways from the main road some five-or-six miles, lay the rectangular complex of buildings we were seeking. Six ruined and half-built buildings sat crowded around the 20-story apartment tower in the center, accompanied by well over two dozen independently moving objects marked in a friendly green milling about the immediate area; the mess I vaguely remembered being there looking tidier than before. Zooming closer into the area with the console controls, the roughly orb-shaped forms of Cogsworth's Mr. Helper robots became clearer as I observed them stripping the crumbling ruins of debris and piled it up to the side. Dragging the map feature around somewhat revealed no living creatures performing any duties outside meaning the group was likely indoors doing something. The area surrounding the lone apartment building was relatively flat enough from the Pre-War development phase for a parking lot, and so when a suitably close area to the buildings caught my eye during my sensor sweep, I pointed it out to AUNTIE as our intended landing zone. Once we were hovering in position directly above my indicated target, I moved to the communications station directly opposite where I sat with the radar equipment and plugged my PipBuck into the data port. Had I had half a mind at the time, I would have contacted Cogs far sooner, but...here we were. It would be a lot for everyone down there to process to say the least...

"Athena to Cogs, you there old friend?" I spoke out into the small mic which extended out from the console once the channel was opened. "I'm back way sooner than I thought!"

As I expected, the line remained dead for a few moments necessitating I try again before his confused, yet elated voice answered, "Athena! You return alive and well! Oh blessed day this is!"

"Yep! So, I know you're going to have hundreds of questions about what happened but trust me, save them because you're going to shit yourself over what we found."

"Oh...? What mean ye by, 'we'...?"

"Just trust me, Cogs. Common outside to the...Eastern side of the complex in that open space that was supposed to be for carriage parking or something. Oh...and uh...might want to plug your ears a bit and tie down anything loose that could get blown away."

"...You have made some odd requests before now my friend, but this...new. Very well, I will find young Melody and Gold if you so wish?"

"Yes! Please do!" I grinned with pride as I anticipated the looks on their faces. "I think everypony will wanna see this!"

"Alright, as you request my friend. Shall I message you when we have made an arrival I suppose?"

"Sure, heh. I wanna make this next part fast for reasons you'll understand soon as it happens, I promise."

"Understood, Athena. Might I say, you have certainly pricked mine interest like unto a barbed thorn of the desert sands dug deep into the hide of a Brahman..."

The line then went silent as he went and gathered my two adoptive children for our arrival, and I could only wonder how they would respond. The Vertibird was far beyond any technology Garand, Firefly, or I had ever encountered so it was up for serious debate as to how such unfamiliar minds would comprehend what they were about to see. In the meantime, AUNTIE brought us to our final stop before we descended below the clouds for the grand reveal and she too seemed excited for what lay ahead. We exchanged a few words while we waited and I gave her a quick rundown as to who she was to be meeting once we landed and tried my best to offer some kind of prediction as to how they would take to her. Given they both were of a gentler disposition and retained a child-like wonder for discovering new and exciting things, I was expecting nothing less than a borderline comatose response to be had from something as incredible as the Vertibird. This seemed to give her some measure of reassurance and I found myself amazed at just how...Sentient her emotional response to it all was. While any V.I enabled robot was capable of great emotional range dependent on original programming and how their experiences adapt their programming over time, AUNTIE seemed somehow more into her words and actions than other V.Is I had encountered in the past. Indeed, the longer we conversed and the more she shared her inner worries over her ability to be liked and perform to expectations, the more I could let myself forget the metal, the plastic, and the crystal wiring which formed her being. I even started to forget somewhat that I wasn't even speaking to a physical pony sitting beside me, holding a normal conversation about nerves as I might have with Gold or Melody themselves.

"Athena? I am returned and we have made an arrival at the place you requested. We cannot see you anywhere, is there something we are meant to see or know but have not been informed of yet?"

Over the course of my chat with AUNTIE, I had admittedly almost forgotten about Cogsworth and the others, forcing me to blurt back into the mic, "Hang tight, we'll be right down. Make sure you're ready for a lotta wind and flying sand."

"As...you say then." Came his bewildered response, the line returning to its earlier quietude.

"Alright, AUNTIE." I then prodded encouragingly, glancing over my shoulder to the radar station to see three Equine shapes marked in green in the target area down below. "Time for us to go meet your new extended family!"

**********

Chapter Forty-Six: A Guide for a Maze of Shit

"You're mad at me, aren't you?"

"Mad? Darling I am absolutely furious with you! What in fuck's name were you thinking saying yes to this absolute gobshite plan and dragging me into it?? You think this shit is funny?!"

"I never fuckin' said that hun, and I don't plan on saying it anytime soon. Buck just keeps digging himself deeper and someone's gotta be there to keep his head on his shoulders."

"Oh don't even get me started on him. That sack of shit can kiss my salty ass for all the fucks I have to give about his fucking ego. He's going to get his ass killed and drag yours down with it!"

"Not if I can help it..."

"And what if you can't?! Huh?! What if you die down there and I can't even be there to try and help?!"

It was times like these that I was eternally grateful for our helmets' ability to shut off its external speaker so as to allow private conversations like this to happen at full volume while no one else could hear. We had made our excuses to retreat back to the empty cargo/deployment bay at the back of the vehicle in order to have a 'private team discussion', Hucks giving the added point of 'needing to go over [my] supply of first aid gear'. Instead, our conversation turned immediately into a heated argument over shit we had already argued about once or twice before now. Like our irritated, whispered conversation back on the Mauler, we were yet again pulling tail hairs over the technicalities of past actions and fears over future ones. I knew and understood why she was so upset, and I even empathized with her plight as a lover; my lover. And yet...I was finding myself a bit annoyed with her insistence on sticking with the topic long after I had come to terms with it. I was terrified. Of fucking course I was freaked out of my mind about going underground with Buck Beak into an area Commander Typhoon herself said she wouldn't go herself unless ordered to. I wasn't that stupid. Well...to her benefit, I was absolutely out of my mind for just...going along with his bullshit rather than overriding him as his commanding officer. But...at the same time, Buck had heard about a harder path to glory and now that the idea had been planted in his mind, there was not a goddamn thing short of death or crippling injury that would keep him from wanting to give it a go. As I had told her during the briefing, I wasn't going to let him get his own ass killed down there by himself and it was better to stick to our plan for two teams of two.

"I don't fucking know hun, I really don't." I finally replied through clenched teeth as I stared back at the dark maroon lenses of her helmet and mask. "But...do any of us really know a goddamn thing anytime we step out there to do our job?"

"No, but don't try to muddy the waters missy." She growled back warningly, poking an armored hoof into my armored chest. "This is about you and that motherfucking asswipe of a Griffin!"

"I know babe...just...leave it alone, would ya? We hit the point of no return like two hours ago on all this shit anyway...and for this specifically, like twenty minutes ago. This is happening regardless of what either of us want or enjoy, so let's make the most of a shitty situation and try to make this work out somehow."

"Look, I get that...but...ugh! Goddamnit, Athena...why?"

"I've said why...I'm an idiot, but Buck is an even bigger one. And I'm just not up to letting him go gallivanting around in a maze of pipes and tunnels by himself. Someone has to keep his impulses in check, else he might collapse like half the city in a massive sinkhole or some shit because he decided to line several city blocks with demolition charges."

"If those Zeebs don't end up killing him first...I will. I swear on everything living and worthwhile that I will end that goddamned dumbass of a Griff-"

"Let's get this shit ready to rumble, ladies! Athena! We'll be taking off after we drop these two off so we've got a little bit of extra time till that door drops for us. How about we huddle up and give Hucks and Nimbus time to do so too?"

As unceremoniously as ever, Buck was butting his way back into our lives and I could only guess at the number of fuses popping underneath Huck's helmet as he walked in. I gave her a shrug and a sigh before willing the external speaker to engage so I could address him directly.

"You're lucky you posed that as a question rather than as a command, Buck..." I sighed with a hint of venom once I bothered to look over at him in the doorway leading further inside.

"Am I?" He huffed proudly with a smug smirk. "Well I'll take that into consideration. You're talkin' to the guy who had a golden nugget of an idea after all! Show some respect to the big brain over here!"

Before I could even register what was happening there was a hearty thwack of metal-on-beak followed by a pained grunt from Buck as Hucks let out all her pent up rage in one colossal punch square to his jaw. The blow sent his ass spiraling wildly into the wall before ricocheting off and onto the floor in a twisted heap of armor and dazed brown feathers. Meanwhile, Huckleberry stood there firmly in a fighting stance, her hoof still outstretched from where it had impacted with the side of his face and a look of primal satisfaction bordering on an orgasm chiseled like stone into her expression as she glared down on her victim. Were the situation not what it was...I would have swooned where I stood at such a sexy display of ferocity out of my girl. Buck, on the other hoof, was undoubtedly seeing whole constellations with how fucking hard she had decked him to the ground. Even though this was technically assault...as Typhoon herself had said, this was Z-country. Far as I was concerned as their C.O, not a goddamn thing had happened just now and no official report was going to be filed. Buck was an egotistical, self-serving jackoff, but he wasn't a complete and total idiot. Even as he cupped his swelling jaw and got back to his paws, I could tell he knew he fucking earned that one and then some.

"A-alright then!" He chuckled back painfully, blinking tears out of his eyes while continuing to cup the side of his face. "Looks like she's ready! How about you Athena?"

"Go fuck an un-lubed cactus and spin like a top in a dust devil, Buck."

"Alrighty! Good shit! Lemme go find something for my fuckin' face and I'll be right back with ya!"

And so he limped off back inside the Black Swan in search of first aid, the swelling likely bad enough to interfere with getting his helmet all the way on, or somehow impeding the hermetic seal. Hucks eventually returned to all fours, though it still didn't happen until long after Buck had left the cargo bay. When she finally did, another angry, hissing sigh of exasperated annoyance hissed out of her mask's microphone.

"Don't even ask me to apologize for that one. He fuckin'-"

"Deserved it? Abso-fucking-lutely he did, and I'm not gonna rob that one from you. Let me handle him for the rest of today, just focus on yourself and keeping your cool. Don't want Nimbus and the rest of Team Crash thinking we're a bunch of ignorant, infighting savages like the Tin Heads like saying."

"Oh please don't bring them into this, Athena... I already have enough of a headache thinking about Private Snafu yanking on the leash to get himself killed down there..."

"Alright, fine I won't heh. But still, just find a moment to get some inner peace going just long enough to get this ball rolling. Once the momentum is there, we just gotta lose ourselves in the moment and follow along with the current as it goes. Wherever it goes..."

"Spare me the half-assed metaphors hun...I know what I gotta do and so do you..."

"I know...I'm not trying to sound pedantic... Look...my gut is screaming at me that we're walking on some pretty thin ice with the Shadowbolts thanks to Mr. Asshole and his big brained schemes. I don't want to fuck something up so badly they lose any respect they might have had for us before now. We're all going a bit insane from the stress...we need to calm the fuck down and get our shit together already before we hit a worse point of no return."

"You're right..." She sighed bitterly, nodding her head and looking away. "For fuck's sake, there better be someone or something to fucking kill down there or I'm gonna fuckin' snap..."

"You and me both sister..." I groaned back in kind, the weight of the moment dangling like a sword on twine over my head. Long as all my thoughts and emotions stayed cohesive, the sword would continue to dangle endlessly, but if anything frayed them too much...I hated to think on what that would look like.

There was so much more that could've been said between us about the whole situation and how unfair shit had become for everyone but Buck. In the end though, we had said what needed to be said; at least as far as the limited timeframe we had allowed for. We exchanged a tight, tense and lengthy hug before leaving the hangar bay together and returning back into the belly of the Black Swan in silence. The other Shadowbolts stood all about the large interior cabin, peering over the shoulders of those seated at their complex computer stations, consulting the fancy ops table 'hologram' or otherwise chatting quietly to each other in the corner. A few eyes glanced our way as we entered, including the fiery orange eyes of Commander Typhoon herself who looked up from the opposite side of the ops table and motioned with her head at me. Although my initial reaction was to hesitate and check if she was motioning for Hucks instead, we had locked eyes and her gaze never deviated away from mine. Instead...I did my best to slink my way in her direction without drawing attention to the fact my gut was twisting in knots and flipping cartwheels in an ever growing anxiety. As I approached, she began walking back behind the bar counter and through a small hatch at the far side of the kitchen which led into a small compartment between the cockpit and main cabin. Separated by thick bulkheads on either side, once the hatch hissed shut, Typhoon pulled a chair recessed against the wall down and motioned for me to do the same. I took a moment, perhaps too long of one for her comfort, to remove my helmet so we could speak civilly.

"Alright...I'm just gonna come out and say it." She said after I had sat down, set my helmet under my seat and looked back up at her. "Your subordinate is getting on my nerves in a bad way, Colonel. I understand you cannot always control those appointed to your Squad, but you can at least exert some level of control over him."

"Yeah...he...has that affect on most people." I mumbled back sheepishly, picturing for a moment venting all my anger out on his sorry hide. "I know exactly why he's rubbing you and probably everyone else the wrong way after some time spent up close with him. And I truly do apologize for it, Commander..."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but his level of ego is dangerous. He's one tough sonovabitch and a terrific flier, I'll give him that...but he's extremely reckless. I've not even fought alongside him and I can already see the same punkish, flyboy megalomania that got a lot of my people killed in the early days. I ain't gonna try and bullshit you that we Pegusi have no problems with ego and pride, but I'm not gonna coddle you with pleasantries either. The fact he's lived this long is a goddamn miracle I think, more than likely attributed to you and the rest of your team."

"Yeahhh...I know, and I honestly feel much the same most days. Believe me, I am well aware that Buck has a death wish with how gung-ho he is for taking the hardest path towards victory purely for the bragging rights. He's been that way since we were all paired together after getting recruited to the Desert Corps, he was that way in the GA before that, and I wouldn't doubt he was that way while growing up at home way before all of that. Griffins are just that way; always have been, even before all this bullshit started."

"True..." She sighed with a heavy groan tugging at the back of her voice. "That's one of the greatest reasons no Griffins have been asked to join the Shadowbolts before, if I'm to be perfectly frank. But, just because he's another gung-ho featherhead outta Griffinstone doesn't excuse his behavior. He's...shall we say, too comfortable around us. I don't mind a little indulgence for those who've earned it, but..."

"But he takes it a bit too far for a veritable stranger to this group." I finished for her as I knew the gist of what she was going for. "It's irked me too, believe me. Oh...and he's from Cloudsdale actually, not Griffinstone. And yes, he took it way too far. He isn't hiding the fact he envies what you guys have, the prestige and privileges a team like yours has in the EAF. I know I was uncomfortable with how casual he was acting around you guys...and I again apologize for his behavior. I...honestly am pretty sure there's some deep-seated insecurity issues going on with him that he needs some serious help for. Unfortunately, we're almost always on duty and he's most effective when he's got a challenge he feels is worth his time to gnaw on if you will. He's always looking to outshine himself at any opportunity... It's lead him to great heights, but...some of his darkest hours as well."

"Ambition like that is a potent fuel and tool...volatile and unstable if left alone and even under close supervision...I guess I should thank you for saving me the hassle of trying to put him together with Nimbus..."

"I wouldn't dare! Buck is my dumbass to corral and keep on the leash. The only people I'd ever feel comfortable pairing him up with without me or one of Alpha Squad would be one of those Gryphons from the Plague Birds were they ever open to doing some foalsitting work for me."

"Oh? I've...had little contact with that particular group of birds. Why them in particular? Not for nothing but...I don't personally trust those tall-ass Greifenländers. They're not exactly ironclad allies with us like the rest of NEATO is."

"Well yeah, they remained independent and weren't annexed like most NEATO member nations were, so of course they're gonna wanna keep that sweet, sweet independence. Regardless, I'd put him with the Plague Birds because they'd set him right better than anyone else I could think of. And best of all, he'd more than likely actually shut up, listen, and actually genuinely improve because of it. If they didn't rip him a new one or two before he managed to hit that point that is..."

"Does he...have some kind of fascination or... something with them?"

"Who, the Plague Birds or Gryphons at large? Either way, the answer would be yes to both. And for the record, 'fascination' is a bit of a light word to use for it, but it's close enough to work with if at least in spirit."

"...Things just got a whole lot clearer then." She said solemnly after a moment of silence to digest my response. "A Griffin out of Equestria with aspirations towards becoming like a colossal, badass Gryphon... We Pegusi have a term for people like him. 'Miswings', we like to call them. Those who spend their whole lives feeling like they should have been born as another winged species that they look up to for one reason or another; be it strength, looks, charisma, agility or what have you. It takes a lot of forms and can vary in intensity like multiple other conditions."

"Oh...? Is that...a common problem with you guys?"

"Eh, I couldn't give you a hard statistic or whatever on the exact number, but it's common enough to have its own dedicated diagnosis and therapy treatments; at least amongst us Pegusi, I can't speak for Griffinstone or anywhere else. My...own dad suffered from it for a long time actually. Always looked up to Dragons and admired their scales, their natural strength and ability to breathe fire as well as fly. Meanwhile...all he had were boring feather wings and boring old puny pony strength. He was in a terrible depression for most of his adult life because of it...the longing for what he wanted got so bad it severely impacted all of us, mom especially. Eventually though, he got some help finally once he joined the Airborne Corps and it changed his life around for the better since they were able to properly diagnose and offer a treatment plan. He worked out till he got strong enough to nearly keep pace physically with a Dragon that was in his unit and pushed himself till one day he finally beat that guy's best time on the Sunrise Flight. As for the lack of fire breathing, he opted instead for a Heavy Incinerator and dropping incendiary munitions on Equestria's enemies which was close enough for his sake. When he realized he could be just as badass as they were with what he saw as limitations...there was not a goddamn thing out there that could stop him from living the rest of his days as a fighter."

"Heh...did the Airborne medical board get you to do a sponsorship reading for their therapy division?" I asked with a soft laugh, hoping I wasn't coming off as a jackass despite my genuine interest.

"No...but now that you mention it, it probably would be good for them to hear of their success as well. Goddesses know how many Miswings are actually out there suffering in silence... Regardless, the point I was trying to make there...he thinks he should've been born a Gryphon and not a Griffin?"

"Yep. There's definitely an inferiority-complex of some sort going on with him in that department for sure. He overcompensates by going for every hard road to glory, probably hoping he'll somehow become their equal or be invited along to an exclusive mission or something that'll let him prove his worth."

"Which...I inadvertently gave him in a way by hearing out his idea and giving it approval. I guess I should say that I'm grateful I took a second to talk about this with you and didn't harbor my preconceived notions from earlier. I've met plenty of annoying, boastful Griffins during my time fucking around with the art of war, but I doubt any of them had the same deep-seated insecurity issues people like him or my father go through. It was his personal transformation that inspired me to join the Airborne like he did as well after all."

"Well...that seems to have been a good decision for you then. You seem to be in your element doing this kind of work, at least...from the short time we've spent together if I'm allowed to say."

"Heh, I could say the same for you, Colonel. Very well...this mission will proceed as planned then. I wanted a second, more personal interaction with you regarding the Griffin and his state of being and I got what I asked for; with some interesting revelations to boot as well. Keep a tight halter on him down there...make it through all this shit and manage your objective, and I double down right now on my promise to get some more favorable eyes you guy's way. Even...Buck Beak, yes? Yes, even he can get something out of it if he can function well enough through his condition to achieve our combined goals today.

"I'll do what I can, Commander..." I nodded back with a bit of trepidation. "It's part of the reason I'm going with him and no one else. With my ass on the line as well, there's all the more reason for him to be zeroed-in and focused since I don't wanna fuckin' die thanks to something stupid on his end."

"Mm...you're not filling me with the greatest of confidence, Colonel... But, I suppose it'll have to do given the circumstances. I know I wouldn't wanna be in your horseshoes for this...ahem, alternative plan you're going along with."

"Heh, and you say I'm the one not filling others with confidence. We'll do our best to make this shit work somehow to the best of our ability, that's my promise back to you. Buck's a good guy at the end of the day...I just hope we can save some face before the day is out. Or at least pull this off and not end up painfully dying while drowning in shit..."

"I suppose we'll have to wait and see then. I also do hope your team medic is as level-headed and collected as she seems. Nimbus is one of my best and...one might say, my protégé. I've sunk hundreds of hours of my life into that mare so I'd cause some real hell if she wound up KIA pursuing this objective and your Griffin would be my first destination for vengeance."

"Believe me..." I sighed despondently while glancing back at the hatch leading towards the main cabin. "Like I told Nimbus, more or less. If I lose my medic, his sorry ass is gonna be my first and only target as well."

"Then I guess it's good that they've ended up paired together already then. They'll watch each other's backs and you can keep your problem child on a short lead. This all goes well and we'll all be looking forward to some better funding for every single one of us. More guns, more soldiers, more bullets, better accommodations and amenities, more positive standing with an ever restless civilian population...there's so much more than supplies on the line with this siege. Like I told everyone out there, this operation is almost paramount to our current standard of living out here. The Southern Front has been a stalemate for fucking years now, slowly draining resources with little to show for it until less than a month ago when we started the push. Heh...I'm sure you've wondered why the Bünkerwagens were just...sprung on y'all by Command with little warning, let alone proper training, yes?"

"I mean...yeah...? It was a welcome fuckin' surprise for everyone, but right outta left field."

"That's just the thing, you guys seem to have been the last to know. The Engineers selected to be involved were told first, probably like a year ago now, and those selected for the broad trials were well educated beforehoof about the finer workings of these things. Around six months ago, Team Crash and I finally got our official heads-up about them as well, and two months after that, we were already working with the Black Swan here and getting used to how she operates in the field. Each active-duty Shadowbolt Team was issued one of these and they were specially designed for Airborne work, as I'm sure you've already seen for yourself by now. As to why you guys were shafted so hard by comparison...? My best guess is that Olive himself is the one that pushed the timetable by a few months because I swear y'all were supposed to get more than a couple weeks of training in friendly territory. Had things gone the way we were expecting with the timetable Command gave us, we wouldn't have been making this sort of push on Anakha for another few months at least. Sometime towards late Autumn, like November or even December if things dragged on awhile like they always do."

"That they do..." I agreed with an annoyed sigh at Command's expense. "So those two-weeks of training we got could've been four-to-six months or more...why am I not surprised? At this point I'm convinced they just want the Southern Front to suffer a long, slow demise and my Corps gets to be the tip of their worn-out spear..."

"Hey, in all fairness to the powers that be, these Bünkerwagens are some hella sharp and shiny new spears for us to play with. That, and they at least went well outta their way to make these things relatively simple to operate for any basic users like you and me. Outside of learning how to work the computer systems and all the other shit we use on a regular basis of course. Buttons, levers and screens are all pretty straightforward to learn and understand so long as all the fancy stuff under the hood runs smoothly. Comparatively, the Engineers thankfully shoulder the bulk of the more technologically challenging bullshit found under all these access panels and bolted plates. I've not seen the ground variants you guys were sent, but I doubt they're that much different from the Black Swan here. For the most part."

"Well...yes, and no. Ours don't exactly fly around or turn invisible compared to yours for starters, so I'd say that's leaning towards the ridiculously complex side in my opinion. And...how exactly does this one do that by the way?"

She turned slightly and pressed a hoof against the sealed hatch leading to the cockpit before replying, "Our resident, comatose Archmage, Arcane Octave. They set the chassis for this craft down on an enhanced Cloud Seed and made the front area a sort of...meditation chamber lined with Wind Crystals and some other fancy electronics. Instead of your normal pilots seat, it's got some sort of biomechanical interface system set into some freaky chair thing that connects directly with his brain and spinal cord to control the air currents around the Cloud Seed using magic. Far as I know he's hooked right into the CFCs powering this thing so he's got more than enough energy to sustain the spell. At...the cost of being put in some kind of magically-induced coma to limit the amount of physical distractions he'd otherwise experience while fully conscious, or...something like that. I'm not sure, the Healer explained all of it to me, but I only got the basic gist of how the machine works; the most I understood in plain terms was the fact they've hooked him up to a drip-feed of nutrients and Nexus-infused saline. Ain't gonna even try and explain the magic side of how it all works in there, I'll probably just come off sounding like an idiot to an actual Unicorn when it comes to the arcane..."

"Oh don't worry about that nonsense with me, I'm a pretty useless Unicorn as far as my spellcraft is concerned. If it isn't lifting up weapons and swinging them around, or relatively small-ish shit like that, I'm pretty useless with my horn."

"Well...I guess you chose the right profession then. From what Octave's said about the Academy...it's as cutthroat as the upper-management sector of the corporate world up North; pressure coming down on ya from all sides at all times to wash out the 'weak-horned'. They'd eat someone like you alive, no offense."

"Oh, no offense taken Commander. I seriously doubt they'd even let someone like me anywhere near one of their application packets to begin with. Anywho, yeah I don't doubt the Academy is as bad as everyone says in that regard. Our own Combat Mage mentioned much the same about his time spent in the Academy and others I've met have some venom dripping off the word when they say it out loud." I replied with a dry laugh and drifting into an awkward silence before my eyes were drawn back to the hatch to the cockpit and my curiosity broke the surface.

"So...your Mage, he's just...strapped to a chair thing in there tapped directly into the spell-matrix, entirely dead to the world and hooked up to some sort of I.V system in there?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Think he's probably glad he's mostly unconscious to his surroundings in there...it's a very hostile and uncomfortable looking little room, and the device he's hooked into is equally freaky to look at. Even one look in there is more than enough for me. But, he's been doing his job phenomenally so far since plugging in around a hundred and ninety-two hours ago, so any complaints about the flight going forward...cut the guy some slack. He's had a bit of a long shift."

"He's been hooked up to that thing for eight fucking days now??"

"Oh that's nothing, his longest stint was four weeks this one time while working deep in Z-country. Of course...he was also pumped full of inhibitors to the point he was on medical leave for almost another four weeks after that with severe aftereffects, but...that's beside the point. Anyway...I want to thank you Colonel, for your candidness during this little heart-to-heart. Keep a grip on Buck Beak's halter, see him through this to a successful end and I'll see about getting somepony qualified to work with Griffins and Miswing therapy. Could do him a lot of good, but he's gotta be willing and prove he's willing to work with the specialist. There's raw potential out the ass with that guy...be a shame for it to get squandered on petty hubris, or a mistrust of trained psychology."

"I agree...it would be a total waste of talent. I just hope being on the job focuses him in again..."

"It'd better...for everypony's sake." She replied with a grim frown, rising from her seat and allowing it to spring back up against the wall before pulling the door release lever. "Alright, thank you again. Let's get back to it, go-time is right around the corner!"

******

"Looking all good down here, Commander! Ground forces have cleared and secured both LZs, though we're still waiting on confirmation of the updated seismic scans of the initial insertion point on Beta, over."

"Copy that, Wind Strider. Have them keep the immediate sites clear for the next ten minutes so we can offload, then roll in all the ground cover ASAP. We've got trained eyes watching everywhere we can, but Crimson Dragons can wriggle their way through anything like the fucking rats they are."

"Amen, Commander. Can only hope none of em found their way into the shitzone before we do, but where's there's shit, rats are sure to follow."

"Let's not kid ourselves here...they're down there and probably have been keeping tabs on it for years now with the amount of time they've had to dig into this region. I hate going in blind..."

"True...it's really a gamble if any of this is gonna work at all. If we had more time to plan, this probably would feel less apprehensive."

"Is there anything positive to say about this shit sandwich Buck tossed on our plate, or am I gonna have to go in without a single ounce of moral support on this one?"

Hucks was still on the path of vengeance for our horrid fate, even if her efforts had to be reduced to mere grumbling and interjecting the occasional renewed protest against the entire goddamn operation. It wasn't that I was getting tired of hearing it, as her concerns were all the more valid for the unknown dangers we faced...however, I couldn't deny she was bit of a broken record that even I was getting a tad tired of hearing.

"Well...we've secured the insertion point, so that's something positive...right?" I replied tentatively with an unconvincing smile of reassurance that she couldn't see under the helmet.

"I was looking for something a bit more comforting than that..." She huffed irritably from her side of the ops table. "Whoopie, we snagged two scraps of land off the overland map. Easy part's fuckin' over... Now we gotta literally poke around the bowels of one of the oldest cities on the Continent."

"Relax lil' lady, there's probably a decently accurate map of these tunnels somewhere we can find and work with. They built 'em after all so they'd know best!"

"What, in some fucking ancient sandy tomb carved into sandstone? Fuck off, Buck..."

"Quiet! Both of you!" I huffed abrasively before pointing towards the hangar bay to the rear. "Buck, get in position now and keep your beak shut for a bit."

The glare I shot at him could be felt through our visors and he wisely slinked away with his head still held pretty damn high for the damned fool that he was. Typhoon frowned a bit but thankfully said nothing more on the matter before pulling up the latest update to the tactical map on the ops table; the city springing up to life once more in a haze of colored sand suspended mid-air. The two chosen landing zones from earlier were now ringed with a hazy wall of orange while a dusting of pale green hovered amidst the parts of the city we'd firmly secured; this accounted for essentially everything but the Old City itself minus a buffer zone between us and the city walls. Orbs of pale magenta encapsulated the outer rim of our surrounding forces representing the numerous portable shield emitters Beta Company had rolled in with which provided adequate protection from immediate attack from the wall's defenders. Several dozen more were set up independently across the city at centers of major ground activity such as FOBs, ammo dumps, ad-hoc vehicle repair stations and, most importantly, our two chosen LZs.

"Alright, only have enough time to go over this once since Command is breathing down our necks to get this insane scheme pulled of or they'll just brute force the problem. In the interest of saving some lives getting literally thrown against a wall down there, let's try to do this right, alright?"

When no one responded, she nodded and made some inputs into the control station causing the city sprawl to rise higher while a new dusting of sand rose up underneath it forming a horrid tangle of pipes of all shapes and sizes. The details became progressively harder to make out the deeper down and farther away objects were from the site of the probing spell, leaving us with massive gaps in our map of the underground. Trying to trace some of the piping visually with my eyes from start to finish left me with a minor headache as they would often take sharp, unexpected turns in a wild direction while other similarly convoluted paths weaved in and out of each other around it. As to be expected of a city so ancient as theirs, the newer sections of the city (particularly their slums) lacked a cohesive vision and while most of the pipework seemed stable enough, they seemed to have been installed by different people with different ideas and different end goals. Haphazard didn't even begin to describe the layout I was spotting across the map in what isolated bubbles the individual probes where able to scan. With another input, the two selected insertion points were highlighted in a bright orange and expanded in size while the other glimpses below the street fell away back to the trough below.

"Alright, these are the latest scans. Don't look all that different from the first time around so the fact still stands that our second LZ is facing a rough uphill battle. Think it goes without saying from looking at all those damned pipes, but this part of town wasn't planned by one of the Old Dynasties and so everything tacked onto the original sewer network was done in spurts whenever the New Kingdom could afford it. That being said, that only applies to those affluent quarters of the city where those fancy mansion homes are. Shantytowns spring up in their own chaotic way, often using illegal or just plain dangerous ways of tapping into available public services. Thankfully though, there's a caveat to all that. The only pipes big enough to fit the lot of you are the main passages which narrows down the noise a lot in terms of what paths you can ignore entirely but, at the same time, limits the points of entry available to us. That means their eyes and defenses only have to focus down a few select areas for maximum coverage."

"Now, onto two bits of good news just to sweeten y'all's tea. One is that the main service lines and even some of the secondaries seem to have some more modern infrastructure installed for ease of traversing the tunnels so you can keep your boots dry for those sections at least. And two, you will all be issued dozen StealthBucks each for this mission to use at your discretion. For anypony who hasn't had a chance to use one of these things, you just slot it into any available access port on your PipBuck, lock it in place so it doesn't get knocked loose accidentally, activate the spell as you would any other command, and boom. You're fuckin' invisible to the naked eye. For five-ish minutes that is, they're still fucking with reverse-engineering their perfect invisibility spells, so don't expect to be as stealthy as a Crimson Dragon down there except for maybe Nimbus thanks to the Lunar Steel. These'll block you from sight both visually and mostly on the Arcane Spectrum, but anyone or anything really attuned to it will pick up on something odd being there. But, y'all have at least some experience in stealth tactics so use your best instincts anywhere you can and save your charges for emergencies. Now...for the worst news. The seismic scans..."

Another input and the ops table panned over to Buck's absurd insertion point, the sand representing the piping changing from orange to a pale green riddled with a spiderweb of light black lines along most sections. It didn't take a genius to understand what information was being implied here...

"Yep. Still just as fucked as the first time we checked." Typhoon sighed with resignation while glancing at Buck and I. "I'd ask if you're still up for doing this, but at this point to pull out wouldn't even remotely be an option for anypony. As you can probably tell from all those black lines, that area is riddled with cracks and structural faults; seems to be the result of a minor earthquake this part of the city experienced within the last decade or maybe two according to our analysts on board. Some pipes have even fuckin' collapsed and block their own passages, so Goddesses know just how backed up some of the city's sewage flow is. Judging from the fact that there's no visible overflow anywhere that we know of, I think we can assume that enough of the system is intact to keep doing its intended job, but I also know that's not exactly saying a whole lot. At this point...best you poor saps can do is try not to do a damned thing to disturb those walls and do your best to keep your hooves dry."

"How about ours...?" Hucks asked with visible apprehension as her tail twitched anxiously between the tails of her duster. "I'm not liking what I'm hearing so far, no offense."

"Agreed..." Nimbus concurred with a similar level of tension in her tone. "Not exactly filling us with hope here, Ty. We'd like something more comforting to work with, please. Or is that just not even an option for this op?"

In response, Typhoon scrolled the map display over to their insertion point over a half-mile away from ours, comparatively displaying far fewer cracks in the infrastructure as the lovely (literal) shithole Buck had chosen for us closer to the city wall. While the twisting mass of pipes was just as convoluted as anywhere else the probes had exposed, the lack of those spiderwebbing lines was more than a little noticeable. Buck wasn't going to hear the end of this...but at least Hucks had the better half of our insane plan, I could at least die knowing that much if it all went to hell.

"Dunno if you were looking for anything super specific but I hope the visual difference between those two LZs is enough to work with." Typhoon replied with a frown and a sigh. "Not a lot of good to tell you guys, this isn't a typical op and we've got far less time to prepare than we should be allowed. Command wants results and you gotta dig through the shit to find some it seems. Anything else...? No? Good, get to the bay and prepare to disembark. We've got a busy day ahead of us."

With apprehension beginning to claw its way up my throat, I joined the group in turning away from the table and making a path towards the back of the Black Swan. Accompanying us were a couple of members of Typhoon's support team dressed in their matching royal plum jumpsuits struck at the neck and fetlocks by bright yellow bolts of embroidered lightning; quietly and professionally plugging themselves into two of the small workstations located in the hanger. Though I spared a glance in Huck's direction, my eyes could not help but be drawn to the sleek purplish-black combat armor worn by Nimbus. Even under the direct white light of the hangars' recessed lighting, her armor seemed to exude its own shadow which clung thickly to it like a wispy veil of black mist. Details as to what other equipment was strapped to her person or even what each individual plate of her armor exactly looked like were frustratingly difficult to make out, even standing within a few feet of her. It was debatable if anything but expert spellcraft or highly specialized sensors would even be able to detect her in a dark room...or a dark sewer pipe.

"T-minus thirty-seconds to bay opening!" One of the technicians called out to my right while a red light sprung to life near the corners of the bay door. "Alpha team, stand-by for departure!"

Her tail now frantically dancing beneath her, Hucks approached the foot of the door alongside her new partner Nimbus, both clad head-to-hoof in the finest equipment our respective Corps could offer. With a soft jolt beneath our hooves, the sensation of descent rippled through the room and Hucks and I both made to grab onto the cargo netting lining the walls in order to steady ourselves. Buck and Nimbus were naturally unaffected by the feeling and remained standing upright like nothing happened, while the two technicians on duty were both belted down to their chairs focused on their jobs and likely didn't notice at all. And then, after what felt like only five seconds passed by, the lights in the corner turned green and the ramp door began to rapidly descend on our first destination. The brief view I caught of the outside world as the two of them rushed out helped confirm what little extra info I had gleaned regarding their insertion point, namely that we had landed in the central courtyard of a fine restaurant of sorts. Fine wooden tables and chairs were visibly moved up against the wall alongside potted plants, carts of unused dishes and a row of odd, large smoking devices with connected tubes I'd yet to learn the name of. Their task was to dive into the city's bowels via a major contributing pipe in the system which connected shortly to the main sewer network, an entrance that even sported viable ladder access if the seismic scans were to be believed. Far from the lap of luxury but again, she wasn't in as immediate danger of cave-in as Buck and I were about to be. We had spared one last hurried hug before things became too serious, and so we would have to suffice ourselves with a hurried glance through visors at one another before the bay door raised shut once again. It hurt more than I wanted to admit to anyone seeing her go off into the unknown without me and in the company of a relative stranger...but what was I to do at that point? I had rather unwisely allowed Buck's stupid ideas to all go forward rather than face a shouting match in front of a Shadowbolt Commander. And, as she herself had reminded us all, this had been approved all the way at the top. This was moving forward with me or with my ass court-marshaled for insubordination, and with how General Olive was likely all but waiting for me to slip up it seemed...

With another lurch in my knees and gut, I felt the Black Swan take flight once more this time bound for Buck's idea of a good time. Indeed, the pit in my stomach from the ship taking flight only deepened to mild nausea as the apprehension of the upcoming moments filled me with dread. There were simply too many factors that would be at play down there to even begin thinking about. The tight, winding system of pipes and passageways, the unknown number of defenses and defenders we were to encounter, our unknown path under the wall and into the Old City, finding and then eliminating enough spell generators to drop the shield...all of this without mentioning the literal rivers of raw sewage we were to wade through to get there, trying to stay alive the entire time despite it all. Needless to say...Buck had earned himself every ounce of vitriol I was gonna hurl his way for every second of my life he squandered on this insanity. Again, before I knew it, the red light in the corner flashed green and the door dropped once more, this time on a much less pleasant view than the last. What might have once been a stately residence was now home to squalor as I glanced around the central courtyard of a smaller villa home. Rough mats of grimy woven straw marked with piles of equally dirtied blankets occupied multiple spaces, assorted trash and second-hoof possessions scattered about the space with little organization. Those with seemingly more means than their fellows had gone to the effort of erecting lines of frayed rope draped with tattered cloth around whatever area they had designated as theirs. All these however were devoid of occupants and the courtyard itself quiet as the grave with only preliminary signs of the military presence that would soon rush in to fill the space present in the corners. Once my hooves and his paws took the final step from off the ramp, it already began to raise shut and with a final salute for good luck from Typhoon standing inside, the Black Swan vanished fully from sight and quietly took off into the sky. And like clockwork, it was barely a minute before the rank-and-file of the General Army rushed back in to fill the space with noise and commotion. Supplies were brought in, a rudimentary comms station set up and a reserve force took up a perimeter while the main force assembled for the assault on the West Gate nearby.

"Alright, let's quit gawking and get moving already." Buck said finally after we had both been caught up in the movement of the moment. "Clock's ticking fast on this one."

"Believe me, I fuckin' know..." I groaned back in reply as we moved some curious Privates aside who were gawking at our armor. "The sooner this shit is over, the better..."

"That's the spirit! Oi! You two! Eyes to your fucking selves!" He responded boisterously before snapping at the Privates as we brushed past. "We've got more important places to be than you do."

I muttered a muted apology to them on his behalf as I went past them myself and followed behind as he made a bee-line straight through a wide doorway devoid of any doors leading inside the villa proper. The marker on our maps indicated a place located in the rear of the building, and lead us through one trashed room after another until we happened upon a sewer access hatch built into the floor. Though the room had likely once been only used for storage given the sewer hatch, it now seemed to serve as an unofficial restroom for the squatters living on site. While the Southern Front was no stranger to open-pit latrines with lye and burn barrels for waste, we were comparatively high-class compared to the unholy sight we were subjected to as Buck and I witnessed smearing the walls and piling in the corners. This of course didn't even include the absurdly dangerous contraption by which occupants popped a squat over the wide hole leading downwards and answered the call of nature. Held together by layers of tape, steel wire and an eternal hope in blind luck, the rudimentary handlebars were built out of assorted scrap and attached to a stake which had been driven into the concrete floor. The rusted remnants of what had once been a service ladder were visible through the filth, though the path to safely get down to the equally rusted remains of the walkway below had vanished sometime since they were first constructed. Instead, all there was that remained was a twenty-thirty foot drop from here to where we needed to be, the walls on every side growing ever more disgusting the farther down it went. For the love of all things that were sacred and holy, I was truly blessed to be wearing an advanced respirator and air filtration system to spare my poor nose from an otherwise unbearable assault.

"What is that shit people say? 'Ladies first'?" He asked sarcastically with a hearty chuckle as he glanced between me and the shitpit below.

"They do say that, but usually it's outta fuckin' respect and doesn't involve a goddamn invitation to be the one to jump first into a fucking sewer. Just so ya fuckin' know, you absolutely stupid fuck..."

"Yeesh, language much? I'll fuckin' go first then if it's so far up your own ass to do so. Bitch..."

With what was likely a glare in my direction, he looked at me for a moment before hopping down into the pipe, jamming his talons and the claws of his armored paws into the sides to slow and control his decent. Lacking such useful appendages myself, I was forced to try and replicate his maneuver with just my hooves and brute, angry strength. I will admit that I closed my eyes on the way down the moment I felt the metal rim of my combat boots and their rubber soles struggle against the slimy, crusty metal wall. Like a giant razor (or maybe a squeegee) my rough descent scraped off Goddesses knew how many years worth of semi-dried piss and shit in my wake and I was beginning our journey into hell with a generous dusting of the city's finest on my upper body. Graciously, Buck Beak found it in his heart to stand in wait to catch me once the pipe gave way to the somewhat vaulted ceiling of the secondary tunnel access, setting me daintily on my hooves with what could have been called a suave move, had I not been so pissed at him. How the metal grating of the service infrastructure survived enough of the abuse from above to hold our weight was a miracle by all accounts, and Buck wisely tried to keep some distance between us so as to more evenly distribute our combined weight. We found ourselves in a modern-looking concrete pipe lightly decorated in the Baladi aesthetic along the crown molding though the concrete was visibly cracked and missing portions of its otherwise smooth surface. The space also surprisingly retained some basic lighting infrastructure embedded in a steel protective box on the opposite wall; its only safety from scrappers being the river of sewage below and its height on the wall. The tunnel continued in a roughly East-West direction before us, the path leading West shortly cut off by a gap in the flooring where decay had claimed its victim. Pulling up the map function on my HUD, I took a moment to assess just where exactly we had come in at and what lay immediately ahead from the data we already had. It didn't help however that the graphical fidelity of enclosed space maps was rather poor on the 2500 model and parsing details, even inches from my eyes, was a true struggle. Now that we were underground and out of friendly territory, all external communications were shut off and an encrypted channel opened between our radios.

"If I'm reading this correctly...we should be located roughly...gods this display is so jumbled..." I muttered almost to myself as we each stood still atop a support strut holding up the walkway. "I can barely make heads-or-tails outta this shit..."

"I see it..." He grumbled in response before glancing to his right down the passage which bent away towards the right and out of sight. "I think there's some other smaller pipes somewhere in the ceiling above us that's fucking with the readout. We knew we were going in blind as is, so let's follow this pipe towards the Old City. Keep following any viable paths that seem to go Eastwards under the wall until we hit the old tunnel network."

"Seems like that's our best bet..." I grumbled back, following carefully along as we stalked our way further into the bowels of the city.

The mix of modern infrastructure with a more archaic, vaulted ceiling of medieval design was a visually intriguing experience, if one majorly undercut by the disgusting nature of its contents. The walls and indeed the ceiling too continued to display spiderwebbed cracks and flaking bits of concrete, several sections missing entire chunks which exposed the rebar reinforcement underneath. It went without saying that my trepidation grew with every step we took deeper into the system, my eyes desperately attempting to not look directly at any of the smaller contributory pipes in the walls dumping their contents into the river below. Indeed...I admittedly lost myself in the moment of attempting to not incite my gag-reflex at the mere thought of what surrounded me. Buck dutifully lead the charge, actually taking care to watch his step as he worked to ensure we didn't collapse the otherwise dubious walkway we found ourselves on. I followed along behind him, admittedly much more distracted from the situation as I should have been. If anything, I should have brought up earlier the fact I had a weak stomach for this situation as even a clogged toilet tended to be too much for me. Guts and gore I could handle in droves as it was regularly a part of the job, but I could be called a bit more of a 'dainty' mare when nature called. I enjoyed the finer points of modern hygiene (dutifully reinforced by Huckleberry's medical training) and resented Buck more with every step we took into a personal hell. We continued on for what felt like hours but couldn't have been more than a few minutes before my worst fear already came true.

"Well...that's...unfortunate." Came his voice in my ears over the radio.

"Oh please don't tell me it's..."

"Fucked."

At last I gained the strength and the nerve to look up from the backs of his armored paws to see our great misfortune before us. As I expected of my rotten luck, the walkway a little ways ahead had rusted beyond recognition and fallen into the coursing river below. Large chunks of it still poked up from amongst the assorted sewage flowing around and getting caught on it; the culprit a wide crack in the ceiling above which thickly dripped some vile substance which had slowly eaten away at the steel construction. Prior to saying anything further, I quickly peeked at my map one more time in hopes of a better path ahead...only to find we had officially gone out of range of the original, highly detailed seismic scans. Left to the strength of its own automapping spell, the map produced by my PipBuck had been reduced from a wide, circular view of the tunnel and surrounding pipelines to a narrow window. If anything, it was blatantly obvious where the seismic scans ended and my comparatively diminutive circle of awareness began as all I could see in the immediate area was the walls tunnel we were already in and some bits of the secondaries feeding in. The way ahead only continued straight ahead before vanishing into the unknown that'd yet to be mapped out and visually the tunnel bent again some ways ahead and out of sight.

"Still got that harness on from last night?" He asked, breaking my silent map pondering with a tap from his armored tail. "It'll be a bit fucky, but I think I can get us across this gap here without having to jump in just yet."
Unconsciously I felt it on my back, despite being under layers of leather, Kevyarn and Celestium impact plates. The tunnel seemed a bit too narrow for any sort of flight to be attempted in my opinion, but then again I wasn't the one with wings. Not that I was about to volunteer to dive into the river below or anything. I just...simply hated the entire goddamn situation and everything that came up about it, whether it was old news, our present problem, or any future issues that would inevitably arise from it all. That being said...

"Yeah, I kinda forgot I still had it on and never took it off earlier. Fuckin' hate to say it...but your idea is better than anything I'm willing to come up with right now."

"Hot damn! I'm on a roll with agreeable ideas today!"

"Oh don't you even fucking start with that shit, Buck..."

With a colossal sigh and a quick hop, he balanced precariously between the railing to our left and jamming his claws and talons into the concrete wall to our right. As much as it likely turned his dumb ass on, I took the cue and slid under him, grabbing the hooks on my harness in my magic and holding them upright. With a bit of awkward grinding of backplate to chestplate, the magnetic catch system locked on and secured me in a loose dangle to his side of the harness. The next step was going to be... interesting and I wasn't entirely sure if I was willing to trust him with this kind of stunt. Given I'd already hooked myself into place rather willingly (all things considered), my gut instinct had made its choice and I was forced to ponder that decision as he spread his healed-up wings as wide as he could stretch them. Whatever he grunted to himself to hype himself up was immediately lost on me as he threw us headlong forward with a colossal flap of his wings turned into a wobbly glide. Dangling face-down as I was, I wished to save myself the hassle of seeing my own shitty demise and clenched my eyes shut the entire time we were airborne. In a move that surprised me, we came to a rather soft landing on the other side for the amount of weight he was wearing and carrying and I opened my eyes to see he had managed to jam himself between the railing and the wall again for us.

"Hoooo...fuck me, I wasn't too sure about that one..." He panted most uncharacteristically for the amount of air in his ego. "N-not...my best idea, that."

"Why?" I commented with an equally shaky voice as I started unclipping myself from his harness. "That...honestly went surprisingly well I think, all things considered."

"Hot damn, is that some actual praise I heaAAAAAAAAHHSSHITTTT!"

Without warning the railing he had been putting so much of our combined weight onto finally gave way in dramatic fashion. My gut sank to my ass and my heart felt like it seized up as I felt myself get tugged along by the back with him. In the split second before impact with the horrors below, I could see him frantically, if heroically, attempt to catch his talons on the rim of the catwalk in order to halt our fall. Sadly, our combined weight ensured we dropped like so much lead weight in equipment and sheer body mass into the river of sewage below. Our impact was...sickeningly blunted as we fell into the mire of shit, piss, and any other random trash and waste the citizens of Anakha saw fit to throw underground out of sight and out of mind; our helmets blessedly automatically sealing all external intake valves and engaging our built-in oxygen tanks. The HUD on my visor likewise said as much as a 90-minute timer started running down the clock in the corner of my view. Despite the constant stream of airflow running over my muzzle from the tanks in the armored turtle-shell on my back, I still found myself desperately holding my breath against the foul river we found ourselves now captive by. At least that was until Buck's iron-will (and steely gut) came to my rescue. Without warning the railing he had been putting so much of our combined weight onto finally gave way in dramatic fashion. My gut sank to my ass and my heart felt like it seized up as I felt myself get tugged along by the back with him. In the split second before impact with the horrors below, I could see him frantically, if heroically, attempt to catch his talons on the rim of the catwalk in order to halt our fall.

"Crete? You good? You're still balled-up like a bitch, heh, heh."

"Yeah! Fine! Just get us out of here, please!" I cried back, unable to open my eyes and face the current we were held captive by.

"Crete playing the damsel-in-distress?? Jeez, it's just a fuckin' sewer, princess."

With a rather hard clock to the underside of his beak born of my distress, I shrieked back, "BUCK, I SWEAR TO FUCK GET ME OUT OF THIS OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!!"

I don't think there was ever a time in our tenure together as a team wherein I had ever screamed at him with every fiber of my being. Despite the constant torrent of bad decisions and cocky moves, I was usually able to keep my voice within a respectable degree when addressing his bullshit. Today however, the barrage of dumbassery I had been forced to endure thus far had brought me to my breaking point, at least in the moment. I absolutely lost it, crying and thrashing about wildly as I tried to extricate myself from the horrific slop that surrounded us. Even in the back of my mind I knew my sealed underbarding wouldn't let a single drop of anything touch my mind...yet it was still of little comfort in the moment. Despite the fact I was as insulated against it all as physically possible to the point I couldn't even smell my surroundings, I could still very well see it and imagine what it must smell like. Like mighty punches to the gut, my stomach churned and my throat gagged with the painful wretching of dry heaves. I couldn't risk puking in my fucking helmet! At that point it'd be between taking it off and drowning in sewage or leaving it on and drowning in my own vomit. Despite feeling a little sorry for how hard my hit on him had been, his ass deserved all that and more for my trauma.

"Will! You! Just! Fucking! STOP!" He bellowed into my ears as he tried frantically to control my rather uncontrollable flailings.

"FUCK YOU!" I bellowed back at him over comms but letting him hold me still in the end as panic was not solving us anything.

"Fine! I deserve that!" He grunted before letting my legs go once I'd stopped thrashing around. "We gotta think, Crete. We're safe, for now, we gotta keep on track and find ourselves a way under that wall. Are you still with me?"

"Y-yeah..." I mumbled back in reply as I took several deep breaths and tried with all my might to imagine I were swimming in literally anything else. "I-ideas??"

Seeing as we were still clipped to one another in our horrible situation, I for once was more than willing to rely on whatever it was he suggested we try...outside of a few possibilities too stupid even for him. There was a grunt and the sound of crumbling concrete under steel claws as I felt a shudder pass through both of us as he tried halting our continual passage along with the rest of the flow. Eventually his efforts bore fruit as his talons finally found sure purchase in the wall and we were able to halt in place for a few moments. It was not much, but I was willing to take anything as a starting point.

"Nnng...g-got it!" He called to me after he seemingly dug his talons in even more. "Check where we are right now, we've gone a fair ways already so the map's bound to have something new for us."

"A-alright...I-I'll see what I can f-find, Buck." I squeaked back, willing my visor to darken to its welding lenses setting so as to block the view from sight before I opened my eyes again.

While it blocked the river of shit from sight, it also had the benefit of casting the orange color of my HUD into better view, something I only began to appreciate more as I pulled up the map function. The current had indeed sent us a lot farther downstream than even I had been expecting with all the time I wasted thrashing about like a floundering fish out of water. A long curving section of the secondary pipeline now lay clearly mapped out behind us with the various tertiary and other auxiliary pipes dumping their various 'contents' into the sludge which had swept us along. The wide circle of highly detailed information at the insertion point lay some five, six-hundred meters behind us and aways to our right. And yet, all I could see in the immediate area ahead of us was yet more of the same as we had already passed. Once my map faded away, my visor saw fit to automatically kick in my low-light filter to account for this section significantly lacking power in a fair few of the lofty covered lights above. The catwalk was similarly in a massive state of general disrepair with sections being still attached while others had rotted away sometime before; all thanks to the continued series of cracks in the ceiling and walls which seemed to leak from the pipework somewhere above. There was not much in the immediate area that we would be able to make use of leaving me with the only other assumption that we would have to let the current take us away further downstream. Another twenty meters, another hundred, a thousand...we had no fucking clue.

"Anything?" He asked after a generous amount of time for his impatient ass.

"Nadda..." I sighed back in defeat, glancing back up at him with a trepidation I was glad he couldn't see. "Best we can do is continue with the flow. I'll keep my map up and open and do my best to warn you if I see something that curves more towards the East than this one. Current trajectory has us curving away from the Old City and back towards the West before too long so something has to divert under the wall. There's no way they'd develop an entirely new independent system when they can just jack into the existing one."

"Welp, a plan's a plan to me at this point..." He grumbled, almost to himself even, before letting his clawed grip into the concrete loose and sending us away with the current once more.

True to my word, I pulled my map back up and relied on what bond we had to ensure neither of us would doubt the other if a sudden order to act was said on either side. I trusted him to use his best judgement if he saw an opportunity the clunky map view I appointed myself to monitor failed to alert me to it. Having something concrete to focus on did wonders for my ability to distract my queasy stomach away from the wretched knowledge of my immediate surroundings. With a solid task to work towards, as fleeting and frantic as it was, I was a right mess better than drowning in puke and clenching my gut in pain. The trough was surprisingly deep as there were moments the buoyancy of the contents around us thinned somewhat and we cleanly sank below the vile surface before flailing our way back up. Everything had been strapped down and secured as tightly as I could without constricting movement, so I had to hope beyond hope our shit stayed on us rather than getting lost in a place we'd never want to try and search. Eventually the view of the road ahead seemed to finally open up, although something about it filled me with great unease. Enough that I felt prompted to speak up lest my gut instinct be ignored and we went headlong into some unknown danger.

"Big space coming up, heads up!" I called out to him in warning, entirely unsure what the future held as the pipe swerved suddenly towards the east and out of immediate sight.

"Got it!" He responded dutifully, lashing out with his arms to dig his talons into the concrete wall again for us.

Having traveled several feet in between my callout and his response, the map had a bit more wiggle room to buffer the road ahead out for us and I felt immediate relief for trusting in my gut. While the 2500's graphical capability was grainy and frankly quite shit, the map did a fair job of trying to represent relative elevation by the color of the terrain it registered. Naturally, darker colors implied lower elevations and after a few more meters past the bend to the East, the pipe we were currently in abruptly stopped while the space beyond was filled with dark. Not the blackness associated with unmapped portions of the screen, but with just enough texture to it to indicate the spell sensed something was there, but its bottom was nowhere near the same elevation as us. With our luck, we had found where our secondary line fed its contents back to the main city system. Or...so I was hoping. All the same, I had seemingly saved our asses from yet a further tumble into the bowels of the city. Gods only knew what lay even further below in the truly ancient parts of the city's underbelly.

"Holy shit! Fucking hell, good call Crete!" He gasped loudly over comms as he seemingly pulled up his map as well to take a look for himself. "I mean, I might've definitely been able to catch us mid-fall and glide off somewhere more solid but...yeah. Good call. Shit..."

Had the situation been less awful, I might have taken a moment to playfully poke at his mild display of humility but as it was, I simply wished to find any fucking way out of the sewer and back onto more solid ground beneath my hooves. That...as well as some way of washing myself down horn-to-tail of every goddamned last molecule of waste that had found its way out of the sludge with me. There were a thousand things I wished to scream in response, even after having found some inner-peace despite it all. So much rage, irritation and disgust all tied into twisting, angry knots inside me as I held them all back in the search of something sensible I could say in reply. Instead...all I could muster up was a terse nod in immediate response to his compliment.

"What now?" I asked quietly as I stared at the black pit on the map somewhere ahead of us and the vague surroundings we had yet to map out.

"I...dunno." He admitted truthfully, even if it was an infuriating moment for him to choose to show some candor. "We could always tr- "

"Atina? Hello? This line is marked as being in active use..."

"Who the fuck...?"

"Wasn't me, I fuckin' swear Crete!"

"At last thy communications signal broadcasts clear and true my friend! It has been far too long since I have heard your voice, Atina Creto!"

"Of all the times to jack into my personal comms Zecuro..." I sighed with infinite relief as I recognized the melodic, Zebrican voice that had butted into our comms. "You chose probably the best possible time to come back into my fucked up life and hopefully offer us a helping hoof..."

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Chapter One: A Cap in the Hoof for a Cap in the Head

There is a strange, wicked beauty to be found in fire. It consumes things like wood or flesh but it also provides things as well. In fact, one could say that fire produces more benefits than it does determent. Fire is, for all terms and definitions sake, the very analogy for life as one could know it. It produces heat which warms the body and cooks food but with the right tools and technology, one could harness it to create a civilization. From the fires of industry, Equestria had emerged a nigh on juggernaut of civilization…and from the fires of War had it all been wiped clean in an instant. Yet another face of fire exists. The kind of fire that is capable of fucking up the entire world for centuries afterward and changing history as we knew it in a single moment. I could remember it all happening in the literal blink of an eye. A second is a lot shorter than you'd think during a crisis and doesn't give you much time to take in all the details before things go up in smoke.

Speaking of seconds, I've grown to realize that time has a funny way of cataloging memory after awhile. Most of the time you’ll find yourself forgetting names and important places but completely incapable of forgetting a centuries old radio jingle for cigarettes that you haven't heard since you were six years old. Recalling it brought pangs of nostalgia I couldn’t quite put a name to but were small comforts late in the night after the gunfire had stopped and the job was finally over for the day. Even the Equestrian Apocalypse couldn't destroy the necessity of life known as hard work. After all, the Wasteland isn’t one to give anything away for free, even something as simple as a good bath.

"Hmph..." I snorted softly to myself. "Goddesses knows I need one..."

I caught myself at the end of that line and gave a soft cynical chuckle as I dropped the pen from my magic and sat back to rest my head from eyestrain from writing for so long. It was hardly a hobby I felt any commitment to but...I found the older I got, the more my humor had been tainted by philosophical cynicism and I would be sporadically hit with the need to write down a bit of...philosophical self-reflections. Rather excessive for a glorified autobiography but with so much of the old world gone...it felt like a tiny taste of the simplicity of the past. Besides...at my age, I felt I was entitled to be a bit excessive however I saw fit.

The windows of my tiny apartment room rattled as a heavy breeze blew through the tight alleyway in front of my house and small piles of sand began to accumulate on the windowsill despite the time spent sealing the place as tight as I could against gunfire which was as much of an occurrence as a sandstorm. Thankfully enough the last storm had died down a few weeks past and local winds had helped move the piles out of town. I was well aware of the fact that I had actively chosen to live in New Pegasus which sat in the middle of the variable desert that stretched more than half the length of the West half of Equestria. But...that didn't mean I couldn't still complain about it in the privacy of my own home.

My small apartment was made all the smaller by the bookshelves, stacks of military ammo cans, racks of weapons and several workbenches dedicated to the art of reloading ammunition and modifying and maintaining firearms. It wasn't much of a residence but it was simplistic, geared for my line of work and the walls were lined with as many blueprints for weapons as porn. From the delicious Griffin and mare to the delectable pistol and rifle there was always a feast for the eyes and pleasures. In the end, my little apartment was one of the few places left where I felt most relaxed and naturally happy. A lovely little sanctuary of my own where I could calm my thoughts and senses without fear of getting caught off guard.

A soft beeping from the worn but well maintained combat helmet roused me from my sleepy doze. I glanced at it wishing I was just imagining the sound and closed my eyes pretending I couldn't hear it. Unfortunately I couldn't keep up that charade for long and I rubbed my eyes groaning in annoyance. Headache or no I just had to answer it. My personal radio frequency was only known by one asshat...an asshat who remained alive because he paid me more than what anyone else was offering for his head plus extra for any jobs he wanted done on the side. God it almost felt like working a minimum wage job again...

With reluctance, I wrapped the centuries old metal helmet with its attached gas mask in a sparkling aura of baby blue magic and levitated up and onto my head, the fit like a well tailored glove even after all these years. The hermetic seal hissed shut as the gap closed between my armored underbarding’s neck mesh and the helmet itself, a built-in feature of my armor that had been a lifesaver on multiple occasions. The air always felt different inside the helmet…a peculiar taste and smell that were too faint to be described but present enough to warrant if only a passing observation of its existence. I tapped the switch controlling the radio built into the right side of the helm, my only true connection to the happenings in the Wastes. It was also the only radio I could stand to be around after two centuries of the same twenty-seven songs played on repeat everywhere you went. It was still one of the strongest radios in the area and was only the size of a couple decks of cards. They certainly didn't build them like they used to.

“Mhm…?” I mumbled dully into the built-in microphone that lay near my muzzle inside the helmet.

“Ah, just da mare I wanted to hear…” Came the all too familiar voice grating into my ears like little conniving gremlins. “Listen babe, if ya interested in makin’ a few extra spendin’ caps I gotta proposition for ya. I promise ya it'll be worth ya time.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes, glancing out of the window at the dilapidated and bombed out buildings that stood nearby. There was always another proposition for me. Always another pony who wanted some other pony dead and was willing to pay big for it. It wasn't just ponies of course. Griffins, Dragons, Wolves, Zebras, Saddle Arabians and plenty of other species and races were among the piles of dead bodies left behind by myself and my fellow Hitmares. As cliché a profession as it was, it was the perfect job for me. From birth I had always been described as a fighter and that had carried me through high school all the way through military academy and into the Equestrian Armed Forces. By the time I was twenty-six, I had a confirmed kill count of two-hundred and ninety-seven which included live combatants as well as robotic ones. Far from the highest score on the Southern Front's HeadHunt games but still respectable nonetheless in the end, especially for a Designated Anti-Machinist. After all...for mares like me, once the taste of blood and combat filled my mouth I just couldn't stay away from my place in the circle of life. One of the apex predators of the Sentient world only I was armed with a twenty-five millimeter and a damn good scope.

“Kay, I know I ask a lotta ya but hear me out will ya?” He whined into my ears which I wished I could plug to shut him out. He was like a sad hog squealing when he was desperate.

I sighed again, making damn sure he knew he was bothering me and that my timetable, though open as fuck since I had nowhere to be, was short for him and his constant whining.

“Aight, fine. I’ll cut to th’ chase…there’s a band of Raiders who stole some shit of mine. The boys I sent to collect only came back with about fifty caps worth of hot lead in their asses. These bitches ain’t gonna spit on my salty ass anymore ya hear me?! I wan’ ya tah fill ‘em with so many holes even Swiss cheese’ll be jealous!”

“Seven k and I’ll do it.” I responded flatly, looking at the fresh RadWasp honey clumps I had gathered the day before with longing. I had spent a good few hours dancing with those behemoths and I intended to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

“Seven-thousand caps?!” He shrieked into my already pissed off ears. “Fucking hell, I thought we was friends!”

I remained silent at that comment, feeling essentially nothing but muddled contempt for my so-called ‘employer’. While he considered me to be one of his 'girls' that he could call on to kill on a whim, I saw him as nothing more than a source of good income and the biggest fucking pig I had met in good, long while. In public, I had to defend my hooves-off relationship with Green because I was disgusted with the idea of being associated with him. Only reason I had to be around him was because no one else paid my price like he could in Freeside. New Pegasus herself was another story but I was not classy enough for the elites of the Post-War society to hire and the casinos always shorted you with unnecessary charges. Shit you could never dispute lest you be blacklisted; never a good thing for anyone worth their weight in caps on the free market.

“How about twenty-five hundred…?” he finally whimpered, the price lower than even his lowest bottom end for jobs.

“Oh? What’s the occasion?” I asked, my voice filled with only the slightest hint of interest in his boring internal affairs.

“Aight, fine…” He growled in defeat. “I lost a lotta caps to those fuckers…and I want you to get it all back plus interest. You of all mares outa get the significance of this here problem.”

“I see…” I hummed quietly, thinking it over and conceding his point that we had a rather well established professional relationship in place and if the amount of caps on the line threatened his business, it threatened mine. “Fine, I’ll do it for twenty-five. What’s the amount to collect and how much in interest including heads?”

“Eighty-five thousand.” He spat into the mike, my ears twitching slightly for fear of being spat upon. “Plus a shit loada my product. I want as many heads as it takes. Outa their cold, dead hooves if ya gets the chance!”

I allowed my professionalism a small break in order to give a small whistle. Long gone were the days where I was making a measly two-hundred and fifty to five-hundred caps per every cap I busted in some random asshole’s skull. Even my reduced take from this job dwarfed what ninety-percent of what other ponies made on average and I was in the easiest business around. That being said...I hated doing jobs that delved into his drug trade. With shit as bad as it was, everypony seemed to want a hard break from reality which made for big business. Territorial disputes, caravan guarding, supplemental patrols and bagging-n'-tagging were the realm of Bounty Hunters and Mercenary Companies. Doesn't take a genius to kill someone but if you want it done well you hire a professional. New Pegasus was a veritable goldmine of opportunity for anyone with a gun, ambition and, like the Las Pegasus of yesteryear, more than a little luck behind their skill. The Wasteland offered a lot in the way of jobs for hardened bastards to make by on and there was such a need for people like me that it became a professional organization.

The Syndicate was the true ruler of the Westcoast's hired gun business with thousands of members and informants who made bank off the greed that was inside everyone. There was room for promotion to anyone who joined and proved their worth to the organization. Some of us just happened to be extremely well suited to putting bullets, shrapnel and pointy metal objects into others which spawned the most complicated part of the Syndicate hierarchy. Merc Companies were the foundation of business working the odd-jobs of the Wasteland and bringing in a steady income. Bounty Hunters were standout Mercs (and the occasional ex-NER Commando) who had earned enough of a reputation for the Syndicate to acknowledge their talent and worth outside of their Company and ensure well paying jobs worth their talent. At the top lay the Hitmares, the exclusive club who more often than not were exclusively professional killers. There weren't a ton of us by any means, but we were always in high demand by any group worth its salt.

“I can’t thank ya enough Athena, I really can’t.” He sighed happily in relief into the microphone though judging by the muffled giggles I picked up, I was willing to bet my incoming batch of caps that he was getting a nice blowjob from that saucy bitch of his. Silver Daisies or whatever the hell her primpy name was.

“Thank me by paying me. Where am I headed?”

"Stop by the bar and I'll have one a mah peoples give ya a marker. Ah fuck, ya dirty girl gimmie that tong-"

I gagged as a definite moan hissed into my ears before I cut it off by changing the setting of my radio to silent. Now if he wanted to have me hear him groan his way to an orgasm he was going to get charged extra for wasting my time while I was on the clock. His clock to be more precise. I may not be paid by the hour but I charged extra for assholes who liked telling me anything more or than what I needed to complete a job. The why never really mattered anyway...the job would provide its own conclusions on what happened. It was better not to know the real why anyway as 98% of the time, it had something to do with one of the many vices of mortal life. The only upside really was it paid really well.

With yet another sigh, this one of reluctance to leave my rather comfortable cot, I pulled the helmet from off my head and set it on the table next to me. Freshly filled magazines full of homemade 10mm rounds and odd speedloaders glinting with the shiny brass of .45-70 Celestia rounds littered the table along with a few open books and a couple of empty bottles of Sunrise Sarsaparilla. With the helmet off my nose got a nice smell of what my home truly smelled like; gunpowder, sweat and the faint whiff of peaches. Stooping down to snag a few scattered rounds, I tossed the empty brass casings into the hopper feeding into my complicated reloading setup. Truly my whole room was one dedicated to maintaining my work equipment; better to learn to care for your equipment properly than to pay extra for others to do it for you.

There had been a time when I was more than content to use Pre-War ammunition in my weapons as though a bit weathered, they got the job done and had a familiarity to them that was nostalgic. As the years rolled on, I began to notice that Pre-War ammunition was running more and more scarce and the quality of reloaded ammo varied too much to be reliable for my standards so, I turned my hobby into a full time gig reloading my own ammunition. Not only was I able to precisely control the powder charge but I was also able to craft specialty ammunition to flesh out my arsenal as adaptability was what earned the big money. My go-to round was almost always the ‘All Equestrian Classic’ as I liked to affectionately call it or more simply the APEI round. Armor Piercing Explosive Incendiary. Not only did it send the right kind of message to those between my sights, but it was by far the most flexible of the ammo types I had for my Pre-War beast. My only complaint would be perhaps that it was too big for every situation but, when it comes to the Wasteland, overkill was always the safest bet. Truly nothing had changed in the Post-War...

I levitated my heavily modified Ranger Sequoia from where it lay nestled under my pillow like a present from a psychotic Tooth Fairy and gazed lovingly at the old engravings still visible on the blocky black barrel and dark cherry grips.

“Against All Tyrants…” I snorted softly with amusement as I read the silver words engraved along the length of the black barrel. “Too fucking bad all the ones I signed up to kill are long gone...”

Aside from its nostalgic value, my Sequoia held a special and prominent place in my rotating arsenal of weapons and equipment for both its power and its looks. Sure, there were other top-break revolvers out there in the Wastes…but none of those little peashooters could compare to the sheer power of the .45-70 Celestia round the Sequoia packed. It was a graduation present in the Corps when a Ranger was promoted to Veteran, a heavily engraved Ironshod Armory Big Frame Revolver. However, when it came time to get mine I opted to go above and beyond the conventional model with my sights set on a particular goal. I remembered the day it arrived at my desk vividly…I had gone to great lengths to get myself a Sequoia unlike any of the other poor bastards in my Squad had ever seen before.

Both my Squad and the gunsmiths at Ironshod Armory alike said that a top-break action was just out of the question for the .45-70…too much pressure on the latching mechanism they said and other less than convincing excuses. And yet, here she was, two-hundred years later still spitting out hot fiery death on a daily basis. Only the best got the honor of wielding the Sequoia…but only I got to wield my Sequoia. I never had a child of my own, even in all the years I had put behind me…but my Sequoia was the closest thing I had to having a baby and I was one happy momma with her strapped to my leg. It was a comfort thing more than anything else but she came in handy very often to do what she did best. Blowing holes in things and people momma didn’t like around. Truly the child I deserved heh.

As I donned my worn and patched combat pants I nickered softly at the strange relationship between clothing and ponies. Most (at least those who were smart) wore some kind of protection whenever they wandered the Wastes, but I knew from experience all of them would immediately slip out of it as soon as they felt safe at home making them easy targets for area-of-effect munitions. Unlike those dumbasses, I had learned from their mistakes and almost aways wore my armored barding even when I slept. At times, it may get in the way of a comfortable nap but I wasn’t willing to part with my last line of defense just to get some deeper sleep. Besides, if I became too relaxed, I would be too lazy to leave my bed and then before I knew it I'd be out of shape and out of money. Perhaps I was a tad overreactive but I'd rather be hardwired for danger than be dead at home from slacking on the job.

Aside from armor, it wasn’t in most ponies’ nature to wear stuff unless they were one of those weirdos at the Ultra-Deluxe casino or a resident of Tenpony Tower way out in Manehattan. Aside from those stuck-up assholes (and the occasional oddball out in the Wastes), ponies naturally went in the ‘nude’ as it were. I didn’t mind at all for two reasons. One was so I could see what they were packing and kill them easier and the other was so I could sneak a peek under some good looking mare tail to see what they were packing. I suppose I could be called a pervert for that but honestly…the only true laws of the Wasteland were the ones you made for yourself. My rulebook had three main rules: Be professional, be efficient and have a plan to kill everypony you meet. The rest were an assortment of personal quirks with a healthy dose of ADD and obsession with certain details.

After I made sure my pants were facing the right way, I strapped on my Ranger armor, the symbol of the roaring Dragon of the Desert Rangers almost marred and blotted completely from sight upon the desert pattern camouflage of my breastplate. Along with the standard issue Mrk. IV breastplate, I had also heavily armored bracers, greaves, cuisse and combat boots with metal reinforcement including along the edge of the hooves for extra stomping and kicking power. The Ranger-series of armor had come a long way during its evolution and included secondary and tertiary impact plates ensuring the wearer a long and healthy life long as they knew some limits. A major part of the tactical rig integrated with the armor were the dozens of multi-use pouches and bags I had attached to a belt around my waist and across my chest, front and back. My Sequoia sat in a prominent holster bolted to my right cuisse with a small row of elastic bandoliers holding loose rounds while on my left was a large satchel-like pouch. This was multipurpose but most often saw use as a spent case collection with the front flap lined top to bottom with pouches carrying my archaic style speedloaders allowing for rapid reloading. In addition to my saddlebags, I could carry enough shit to last me a solid two-to-three weeks in the field without needing a pit stop for more ammo or food. Call it a point of practical vanity...but I had an obsession for pockets and pouches in general and I loved the way they looked on clothing and armor of any type. I never knew if I would come across small trinkets or such that I would want to take with me so I always over prepared when it came to spaces for holding stuff besides the tools of the trade.

On top of it all that went the traditional armored leather duster of the Desert Rangers with shoulders padded thickly with ballistic fiber studded with small plates of metal and capped off with magnetically attached two-part paldrons that extended halfway down my forelegs with the lower half protected by thick bracers and steel-reinforced combat boots. The long coat was perhaps one of my most favorite parts of my gear as it was made from Dragon leather and reinforced with a ballistic mesh similar to my underbarding that kept me safe from knives, shrapnel and anything less than a .44 Magnus revolver. That, and you just couldn’t beat the epic feeling that came free with a stiff breeze over a hill while you stand upon it and feel your coat billowing in the gale. On nights when I felt the urge, I would sneak out of town and stand on one of the dunes surrounding New Pegasus and let the night breeze make me feel like I was on the cover of a Pre-War propaganda poster or even better yet even, a comic book. The twelve year old filly in me simply refused to die it seems.

As I wiggled my hips to get my tail to sit comfortably between the slit separating the two halves of the coat tails, I began the process of stuffing my holsters and pouches with everything I felt the job needed. My tiny apartment didn't allow for a large and diverse arsenal but I had learned to cope over time. Aside from a small collection of non-standard-issue weapons and a non-regulation tactical harness of my own design, all I really needed were the only friends of mine who had also outlived the Corps. The weapon that everypony knew me by in the business, or really by anyone with eyes, was the large-bore Anti-Machine Rifle carried on a sling across my back. The Barnette AMR-25, as it was referred to by the military, was the latest and most advanced Anti-Machine Rifle prior to the Great War serving as an all-in-one defense and offense against Imperial combat robots and ground targets. At one time, the .50 Big Macintosh Guard round was considered enough stopping power against an Imperial machine with the Mareseillian company Barnette taking on the contract for designated rifles for just this purpose. As time went one and technology got better on both sides of the conflict, the .50BMG and then 20mm cartridges were deemed to be inadequate and their respective rifles became designated as Anti-Personnel Rifles due to the abundance of ammunition produced for them. 25x102mm Phoenix rounds however, upsized versions of the earlier 20x102mm Vulpes, were found to be more than sufficient at punching holes in targets and thinning crowds. Coming in a broad selection of deadly flavors, there were a lot of nasty things that could be stuffed into that roughly one-pound projectile and a variety of powder charges for different occasions. By far the most advanced firearm I ever had the pleasure of serving with.

My Sequoia, the second piece of my Ranger kit, slid comfortably back into the holster attached to the cuisse of my right thigh in a classic cross-draw style with the butt facing outward. She was a gorgeous beast best described as a 2x4 on a grip with a blocky, ten-inch rectangular barrel assembly six-inches wide and half as thick with broad compensator ports towards the muzzle. Six-round cylinder with a well-tuned auto-ejector spring and large locking latches hinged off the back of the frame holding the gun closed and the rounds in the cylinder. Even despite the special steel alloy used to construct it, it had definite heft which, when coupled with the compensator, made the recoil manageable if incredibly loud. If I had a tool capable of sufficiently scratching the Celestium Steel frame, tally marks from its time in my possession would easily obliterate the original engravings a dozen times over. Nothing like a sexy Big Iron on the hip when out wandering the Wastes providing peace of mind by blowing out others.

My eyes and hooves hesitated while picking up an ancient long single-edged curved sword that had come with a name already attached to it. Little Fang, or Klein Lapjie as it was originally called by the friend who had gifted it to me. I couldn't help but partially draw the sword from its simple black metal scabbard just so I could look at the jet black blade; its peculiar saw-tooth temper-line highlighting the silvery blade with a soft, red glow. It was a gorgeous Kyotian Isle blade that was much older than myself and had easily taken a life for every year it had existed, a fact only the blood-red Gem in the pommel only knew the true count. The hilt was long, designed to be used in both hooves in a style reminiscent of the advanced unarmed techniques of most martial arts and bit a lot deeper into foes than it had any right to do. Most armor parted like a tin can to the enchanted meteorite steel and the exotic weapon came with some dark secrets I was not trained to control. As a sword it excelled in close quarters slaughter but there was a power contained inside it that was too scary to try and use when I had only a rudimentary grasp of how it worked.

With a sigh I sheathed the blade and put it back on its rack against the wall horizontally with the blade facing upwards, something I had been told once upon a time was how to properly store one of these particular type of swords. Fang was a useful tool but for a job that would only require a hooffull of bullets at 500+ yards, a sword wasn't the right tool for the job. Besides, with the pair of combat knives strapped to the back of my shoulder holster, if shit got close and personal I was confident I could knife fight my way around a situation. The black sword did look good on me though, especially against my silvery grey fur where it contrasted quite well with my tough-girl aesthetic. Habits as old as personal vanity were hardly priorities for change when you just don't give a shit about others and went with what you felt was a best fit for yourself.

On the topic of personal vanity, I noticed that despite my bath from the day before, I had become rather dirty once again ruining the fluffy factor of my coat and dulling the green and blue colors of my mane. I liked to keep my mane long, almost down to my front knees, but it was a bitch to get and keep clean and it didn't help I had to put it up in a bun every time I wanted to put my helmet on. If I didn't, the pneumatic EVA seal wouldn't close tightly and that could prove problematic if I had to enter a contaminated environment with a toxic atmosphere. All that said, that wasn't enough to get me to go back to the near buzz-cut I had to sport in Basic Training. Still, I had to admit that nothing, not even the Wasteland, seemed to affect how pretty my eyes were. I know it's vain to think that but I had always loved dark violet as a color as it was the color of my favorite gemstones, amethysts. Plus, purple was always the symbol of royalty was it not? What could a little vanity do to hurt a mare who loved the way she looked? Answer? Not much as long as she kept her wits focused on the task at hoof and felt like a princess doing so.

With everything finally in place and my eyes finally peeled away from my own ass in the mirror, I finally levitated my old and battered helmet from where it lay on the table, it's dull blood red lenses contrasting as beautiful as ever with the black mask and helmet, and slipped it over my head. With the pneumatic seal once again hissed shut around my face, mane and horn, I was ready to track down the caps I’d use to pay for my next few jars of rifle powder, primers and maybe a new Spark Pack for my vibrator. Seeing as I had kinda given up on relationships (a good call given my line of work), I hadn’t felt any desire to look beyond my vibrator for a good time, which I honestly needed a lot of. Time may have killed my heart but it had yet to put even a dent on my libido even though I laid siege to it daily and nightly when I got the chance. It was a rare treat to make the trek to the Stirrup and find a clean mare for some quality time, one I felt I had earned after so many months of back to back jobs. I knew full well I could easily spend my current fortune and live like a new world queen for the next fifty years and essentially retire for awhile but...it wasn't the life for me. I belonged in this job more than I belonged in some cutie's arms for longer than a night or two. Still, it made for a fun distraction as a rare treat to spice up an otherwise rather monotone lifestyle.

As I shut and locked all twenty Stable grade bolts into place on my front door I had to giggle softly to myself on the reflection that I used that vibrator a lot more than could be considered healthy. Especially considering I had managed to burn out over ten Spark Packs over the last two years alone. Considering those things were made to power magical energy weapons for up to a year of constant use…I was either the horniest little shit to ever prowl the Wastes or old Cogsworth, my favorite New Pegasus merchant, was selling me shit wares to keep me coming back for more. Based on the evidence, it honestly was more the former than the latter...but I wasn't one for stopping habits that made me happy. Everyone needed a private passion that could be called 'unhealthy' by outsiders in my opinion. Some choose drugs, some choose booze and some of us just liked getting off to get by.

I giggled again in light of my own bizarre sexual appetites and almost didn’t notice the stallion nearby who was eying me with what was clearly lust. Our irritating ritual had begun with unyielding precision. At this point the fucker was camping.

“Heeeeyyy baby! About time you walked out of that little fortress of yours.” He crooned in what could have been called a flirtatious voice if he had spent any time polishing his delivery. “Been wondering when you’d let me crash there with ya, I’ll make it worth your while.”

I remained silent to my obnoxious neighbor Tomato Harvest, a bright red stallion who enjoyed showing off his ‘package’ to just about anypony who came near and promoting his prowess as Freeside's greatest dom to male and female alike. Bisexuality was something he and I had in common perhaps, but I was a mare lover at heart and from what other mares had told me...he liked riding a lot rougher than I was comfortable with. Besides...he wasn't a Griffin which was kind of a non-starter far as my taste in males went. Stallion dick just wasn't as satisfying to me.

“Common babyyyyy” He begged, breaking the norm by standing in front of me and begging, his member as present as ever before my gaze which I kept stubbornly forward. “I need it, you need it, so whadaya say to us having some fun together eh? I promise I’ll make that stubborn voice of yours sing praises to the Goddesses! You give me the same old shit every single fuckin time baby, just stop with the excuses and lemme smash ya like a boulder.”

“Fucking move, damnit!” I finally hissed at him, the microphone on my mask making my voice sound a bit hollow and mechanical but all the more intimidating. Or so I hoped.

“Oh I’ll move baby…” He snickered as he crossed the line and approached close for what I knew from unnerved observation would be a combination of a kiss and a grab for my ass. “I’ll make that bed of yours move allllllll over the fucking place!”

There were caps (as few as they were) on the line and I had my duty to uphold my word to Green Peace even if he was an obnoxious asshole. Tomato Harvest had all at once gone from avoidable nuisance to acceptable collateral and honestly…I was fucking happy about the change. Any complaints over this one would have to go through Green's goons and I had special privileges in Freeside. If he bled out, that was his fault but I wasn't going to kill him outright. Pain and humiliation would more than suffice and get my message through his thick skull without penetrating it with lead. Without missing a step in my brisk trot forward, I floated out the intimidating mass of metal that was my Sequoia from its holster on my back left leg and put three rounds into him. One in each shoulder and one for his pride and joy. I longed to look behind me at the shrieking and bloodied mess I had waited over a year to make but I was on the job and old Bitch Face needed me to do it. Besides, it was Freeside. Tomato was just going to be another body tossed into a crater to feed the local wildlife amongst the dozens added in every week and nopony would miss him. Those who might would know who did it and then do their best to forget it ever happened rather than fight me over it. Nopony liked him but himself.

The outskirts of Freeside were a maze of brick and mortar buildings mixed amongst piles of rubble from those that had succumbed to the weight of age. The town had indeed been lucky to be within the immediate area of the Lucky 38 casino on the Stirrup that had used its magical energy weapons to destroy the vast majority of bombs launched on the area during the Great War. Compared to Fillydelphia...New Pegasus and Freeside might as well be picturesque snapshots of the old world. Folk that could afford to live in the scattered intact buildings that were still serviceable tended to hole up as much as they could with the hardy AC systems Las Pegasus had been so generously provided with by the nigh-on saint of corporations everywhere, the enigmatic Mr. House. Those not so lucky to have successful businesses or other profitable source of income in the area had to take shelter where they could but the wealth of trade in the area provided lots of people the chance at honest work. As time went on, there was a considerable boom in the burgeoning construction business which renovated as many homes and buildings as were salvageable and building new ones from scratch. Many had found a chance at a decent place by earning enough money to afford the key. Power, when the wiring was done properly or survived the Great War, was basically free coming from the colossal Crystalline Fusion Reactors and solar panels located on the Stirrup. The poorest of folks lived on the fringes of the city which had gotten scorched by one of the bombs that had hit thirty miles South, hiding in the rubble that had been deemed unsuitable for restoration. At this point the line between the San-Palomino Desert and New Pegasus got hazy with all the sand that had crept inwards from lack of inhabitants.

My path through this maze of mixed buildings always varied so any tails might get lost behind me and to keep my home more hidden as I made why way off the beaten path to the Gates of Oblivion, a local bar ran by retired Hitmare for those of us still in the trade. It had clearly once been one of the many shady Sky Charioteer bars from before the War based on all the décor and the jealously guarded selection of hard rock and metal music, tracks never heard on the radio that filled your ears the moment you stepped inside its neon lit interior. Despite its age, Black Eye kept the place looking somewhat classy with a slow addition of stuff she was able to salvage over the years from various junk traders that flocked to the merchant mecca of the Westcoast. The air was always hung thick with smoke from the variously armed and armored patrons who sat and smoked together or alone. Everyone talked in soft mumbles or drunken choruses from the booths and tables scattered around the large front room. Occupying a place of pride and well-lit for all to see, the Board stood near the door. Names, prices, locations and other pertinent info was written in chalk on a massive blackboard listing who wanted who dead or captured and so forth with a column to the far right side that indicated who had taken what job. To the left of the board stood a corkboard where written notes and hit offers that weren't worth the chalk went. The Noob Pile as some of us called it once we had made it to the prestigious chalkboard gigs after spending our time in the pile ourselves.

I knew the air was as thick with Red Beryl smoke as good old tobacco and I felt my old habit rear its head a bit in interest at the thought of getting a couple grams. The feeling was immediately squashed however the moment I saw the bastard waiting for me in an empty booth near the door. Green's goons always wore that same ugly striped fedora and liked to fancy themselves as classy by tipping it and mumbling some audacious phrase or another. It didn't matter what they said...they were all the same pig who valued me more for my ass than my rifle. I took a seat across from the brown stallion and gave an acknowledging nod as he said his 'G'day madam' and moved his stack of empty shot glasses out of the way. There was also a thick pile of ash in the ashtray to the side of the table with half a pack's worth of cigarettes stamped out along with it.

"So...boss has ya doin' his here dirty work again eh?" He laughed, screwing another cigarette into his mouth and igniting it at the table's built in lighter system. "I only know a few details but if the amount of money on the line is anywhere close to what I'm thinkin' it is...well, you're the bitch we want."

"Quite..." I sighed in response, turning up the filtration quality on my mask so no scent of tobacco wafted its way in and gave me a headache. "Told me you had a marker for me. Is it somewhere remote I take it?"

"Nah. Boss just didn't want the word to get out too soon that you's comin'." He said slyly as he slid the small chip across the table to me, one that fit perfectly into the PipBuck 2500 strapped to my left foreleg and would put a marker on the built-in map function. "Called it a courtesy to ya ladyship."

"Hmph...well I suppose I should be grateful..." I mumbled in reply as he stood up and slapped a small bag of caps in front of me, my usual up-front free for any private meetings like this.

"You's take care now sweet lips." He chuckled after a long drag on his cigarette. "Oh, and be on the lookout for Killer Queen. Heard she's back in town workin' some job for them damned Steel Rangers of all peoples. Last thing we need out here is those fuckin' bucketheads shootin' everyone up too. Way too bad for business."

I nodded once again in silent acknowledgement and watched him give an annoyed wave towards Black Eye when she waved his itemized tab in his direction for payment. Killer Queen...a name not heard on the Westcoast all that often but was one of the rare names known to both the Post-War elite and Hitmares alike. A posh bitch descended from Canterlot high-birth who fancied herself the quintessential mare of refinement despite having a passion for cannibalism. The name that gave me even more pause for thought than hers was that of the Steel Rangers. I rarely had dealings with my ancient rivals and those few occasions had all been somehow progressively worse than the last. Their obsessive hoarding of Pre-War tech had made me keenly aware of how priceless my armor, PipBuck data and blueprints were to them and made nearly every encounter end with gunfire. If they had interests this far out West again, it had to be something big enough to outweigh their violently unwelcome presence out here. Far as everypony here cared, their power stopped at the Canterlot Mountains and the NER stood as the West's predominant power.

Time was a wasting as I sat there thinking and before long I dragged myself to my hooves to be on my way. With the cash being so low, I didn't see the point in adding the extra weight to my bags and in an act of solidarity to Black Eye, paid off the goon's substantial tab with the down payment I had received. With the leftovers I was able to buy a few Red Berryl buds from her private stash and let her pocket the rest. On my way out the door, my earlier curiosity caught up with me and I paused to screen the Board for Queen's name to see if I could find any info that would shed some light on what the SRs wanted with the area. A few moments browsing found her located near the bottom attached to one of the most barebones job description I had seen in quite a long time; a single name. Garand. It was the name of a popular rifle of course but it had to be a proper name to be on the board. Whoever this fucker was had some powerful enemies looking for him/her and I was glad to not be attached to the job. The Steel Rangers were not the kind of people I wanted to associate with, even more than Green and he was an immoral jackass with his hooves dipped in every nasty business he could reach.

The claustrophobic cityscape gave way to to the skeletons of office buildings and apartments and then to the crumbling ruins of the suburbs that ringed New Pegasus showing off what the whole city would have looked like without Mr. House's defense network. Sand from the desert outside became increasingly more pervasive the farther from town you got and soon enough the E-15 highway became the only hoof-made object for miles around while the world around you became a sea of tan, brown, red and orange. The occasional sagebrush or cactus acting as whitecaps in the surf of sand and dirt. The map was pointing me to Old Appleloosa. Farther South than I liked to go for reasons I tried so hard to forget...this was going to be my last job for awhile. I had some things I'd rather let hide in the sands of the South.

****************

Author's Note

This is of course a work in progress and I have never attempted to put my work out there for public viewing before so suffice to say, I am very nervous but hopeful at the same time. I have twenty-two chapters written as of now but I wanted to post the first chapter to see if there is interest from others in seeing more. Constructive feedback is appreciated!

-Syntheta

Chapter Eight: Promotions! Promotions All Around!

Victories come in all shapes and sizes. Most of the time the small victories in my life consisted of simply rolling out of bed every morning with the resolve to fight even harder the next day. Today’s victory was much, much bigger than that. Over the course of twenty hours, the influx of so many fresh troops had allowed us to push the Zebs out of their holdings near the mouth of the valley. The Badlands, once rather isolated and quiet arid farmlands for hundreds of miles, was a complicated mountainous desert of tan sands and potable red clay. South of Appleloosa, the the Ember mountains that extended from East to West funneled in a rough V shape. In the center, ancient Dragons had carved a relatively wide channel into the mountains all the way through to the other side with a massive, hollowed out bowl somewhere near the middle. Once upon time it had been the ancient breeding season hangout but now housed the majority of the Southern Front's encampment and equipment. With the Far South coming under Imperial control over a decade before, the fight here had been one brutal, glorified game of tug-of-war or capture-the-flag. With Mareseilles and their damned refusal to take part in the War with their advanced naval power, the oceans South and Southwest of the Continent were free real-estate for the Imperial Navy and Airforce to patrol as they pleased. Troops and materiel was flowing into the Imperial 3rd Army freely from the Far South far beyond our ability to fuck up; even the Pegusi and their age-old bravado held no sway South of the Pass. Word was, not even Shadowbolt operatives had been able to adequately disrupt their supply chain let alone their deep entrenchment of the region. Now if we had been spared more of the Greifenländer's wonderful mechanized attack vehicles...

Becoming a Ranger had been a no brainer for me from the moment I was offered placement in the Corps training camp. Not only was the pay considerably more comfortable to subsist on in the current economy, but it got my ass out of having to lead more soldiers to their somewhat inevitable demise in the defense of the homelands. I wasn't all that great of an officer to be honest...while I excelled at in-field tactics and active combat scenarios, being a part of the GA meant that unless the chain of command approved your decisions, you were bound by law to follow your orders. Was easy enough for anypony to fuckin' play chess in computerized war rooms far removed from the boots on the ground and make decisions that way. Left little in the way of options for officers like me who at least tried to bring every mare and stallion home safely whenever the orders from on high stood in stark opposition to the realities of the situation on the ground. So...when then Major Horn interrupted my brief stint behind a desk to offer me the chance to join the Desert Rangers, I jumped on the opportunity to leave all those problems behind. Desk jockeying had never been my career goal in the Army anyway...

Working for the DRC was a dream come true for me, even during the brutal eight-week, wheat-from-the-chaff kind of training. I found myself bunking with four wonderful, if jackass-ish, Recruits who would be my closest family from that day forward. No longer was I being called upon to direct and watch over platoons and whole companies once I had earned my Captain's pins. Here, my rank in the GA was just as meaningless as Second Lieutenant Huckleberry Crisp, Sergeant 1st Class Buck Beak, and Warrant Officers Rain Dancer and Pennies Worth. In the eyes of the Rangers Corps, we were all Recruits. Rough hewn statues of war that showed potential to be true works of art if only we didn't break during the process. Your Squad was your family, the single mobilized body of death formed of five-to-six parts and the only lives that really mattered were theirs for without them, you were incomplete. Four lives plus my own...daunting but...manageable to live with and facilitated the greatest levels of teamwork I had ever had the pleasure of working with during my career. Even as Recruits, our word and decisions carried weight and we found ourselves with previously unheard of freedom to command in the field. If we wanted a piece of the action taken up by a Platoon from the GA, we could either replace them entirely or take direct command, each of us taking charge of fourteen soldiers each as doublewide Squads.

Of course, taking charge of such quantities of soldiers had once been considered an occasional indulgence for those of us who really missed the GA days (*cough* Buck and Rain *cough*). However, as the 'easily winnable War' dragged on into the next decade, mounting casualties forced every Ranger with any sort of sufficiently high rank, NCO and CO alike, to step back into their old command boots. Despite our own internal promotion scheme of three ranks which determined our relative value to the war effort, it had been deemed necessary for all of us to retain the ranks we had left behind in the General Army. In fact, we were still slated for GA level promotions despite our work as Rangers outweighing anything in the GA save for Generals. While we had enjoyed a good five years of relative isolation allowing for us to work exclusively in Ranger Squads, the good days of working 'solo' came to an end. Squads Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon were all deemed of too much importance to waste on patching up holes in the GA's hierarchy which meant the doom and gloom of returning to the stress of the old days was on much more favorable grounds. Even after becoming a Major, and equivocally a Veteran of the Corps, the threat of gruntwork was kept to a minimum for me. If there were to be soldiers other than my Squadmates involved in my day-to-day fieldwork, it was going to be those I chose and led as I saw fit. Naturally though...I preferred to work with other, less experienced Rangers and Recruits who would actually benefit from learning from my team and myself. Though not as polished as Veterans quite yet, they were still professionals comparative to most of the newer recruits funneling into the War. But...who better to teach fresh blood than us? Those that had lived to see more than one winter while in uniform.

“Ma’am? We finally got the official casualty report in order for you here.”

I looked up from the maps on the wobbly field command table at the Corporal sent to me from the General Army to report the number of casualties the Rangers suffered. The eye I could see was wide and bloodshot while the other was wound firmly with bandages stained red with recent blood. His uniform was as ragged as the body wearing it, painted in Badland red with the old recipe of blood, sweat and time in the great fucked outdoors. The ballistic vest rig worn over his uniform protecting his torso and back had seen some punishment today too it seemed. Amongst the obvious impact impressions left behind in the black material's tightly woven fibers, I thought I could see the bases of a few projectiles still stuck in the Kevyarn weave. It was no M-CAP but Kevyarn was still no slouch and it always humbled me to see it.

"Thank you, Corporal." I replied simply, trying not to stare for any longer than my armor assessment addiction needed to get off. "You are dismissed."

"Ma'am." He grunted painfully with a salute before making it partially through the tent flap until I stopped him once more. He had earned some rest from the day and I was pretty damn sure I outranked whoever had sent him; if there was an issue they could kiss my furry grey ass after my lapel pins.

"Corporal? Head back to the Armory and get your equipment repaired, after that you are relieved for the night." I said in a light, but authoritative tone so he knew I wasn't just pulling his tail.

"E-excuse me, Ma'am...?" He stammered, obviously confused as I was just some Major to him.

"Re-outfit and report back to your quarters. The rest of the night is yours." I ordered more firmly this time. "You look like shit soldier, and more than likely feel like shit too. Won't be of any use to anyone in the state you're in and I don't want another Runner dying of exhaustion tonight. Stop by the M.O.P tents as well to see to that eye, soldier. They'll ensure you get a Red Heart for that injury."

His eyes widened at that and with another much more enthusiastic salute, he left me alone in my dinky little command tent to read over the information stored inside the holotape he had given me. It was probably more leniency than he had ever gotten from his own superior officer seeing as they had made him run errands while looking the way he did. The quarter-pound weight of the little orange and yellow storage device was misleading...the weight in KIAs alone within its binary brain was enough to equate to a metric ton. Even in the weightlessness of my telekinesis, I could feel the strain on my heart looking at the tape floating in my baby blue aura. There were always names you recognized from one time or another in your career contained in these reports. Someone you met in the Academy, a dude from Trottingham that transferred from their regional defense forces, a fine ass that you could only remember being from Manehatten. Sweet fuck it was the absolute worst part of my job. I'd take Trench Running over this shit any day, anywhere...

With a sigh, I brought it over to the corner of the tent where I kept my own personal, and deeply bugged, computer terminal. Pushing in on the base of the thick, boxy keyboard, a holotape drive popped out on springs eager to accept another tech thing stuffed inside it. While the gold Major oakleaf pins on my uniform could afford me a place higher on the supply chain's list of necessaries, it hadn't been enough to get me one of the new computers coming outa StableTec and the M.O.W. The boring, monotone green display was just as bland as the screen of my PipBuck; an unfortunate coincidence since both items shared the same manufacturer and thus operating system. Couldn't fucking go anywhere without seeing the StableTec cog logo on everything mechanical or digital these days...

"Alrighty Sparky...bring out your dead." I chuckled halfheartedly as I accessed the holotape and opened up the file directory.

The green display was so damn hard on the eyes damnit. Letters tended to blur when they were in large paragraphs and it made an excruciating task even harder to bear. Some names I would have to read six or seven times because the letters from the preceding or following name in the list fucked with my eyes. I was so numb there just wasn't enough fight in me to give the job at hand more than a third-effort. The upcoming meeting with the General was pressing down hard on my mind from the moment all officers got the call. The damned dead list was going to be read by six different secretaries in a day or two anyway...

General Olive Leaf, now with four stars instead of three, was the ever so 'brave' and 'wise' be-all-end-all commanding officer of the entire Southern Front. From what I knew, Olive was one of the youngest members of the Old Boys, those officers who had served as the founding members of the new Equestrian Armed Forces. With the rapid development and production of firearms and other technologically advanced gear revolutionizing the country and the world in the 2030s, the outdated weapons, tactics and armor of the past were discarded and a new military was necessary. It wasn't like Equestria had much experience with war before the reforms, but with the tools to wage war becoming ever more lethal and widely available, anyone with a nose could have smelled the trouble brewing. Industrializing the way we did, gobbling up coal like starving wolves, had proven to be both a blessing and a curse. We had overestimated the reserves of the material residing within Equestria and had underestimated how quickly demand would rise to devour it all. Earth ponies, so naturally attuned to the idea of thinking their way through problems rather than just magicking them away, had been set loose on the country. No fancy arcane flame was needed to forge out steel tools and machines, just regular old unadulterated fire, something those lacking horns had mastered years ago. The discovery of the usefulness of coal as a potent fuel source for mass industry replaced the inefficiently hot wood fires of old and allowed for expansion of foundry work.

Though ponies today were led to believe that the War was a battle between ideologies, cultures and identities, anypony who actually read the history books with an eye on economics and trade knew that was a late addition to the conflict. The whole damned Zebra-Equestrian War was, at its core, just another Resource War like those of the 2050s and 60s. While Equestria dabbled with dirty black coal and land pollution, Zebras dabbled much more with arcane pursuits. Their Voodoo allowed for a vast array of enchantments, hexes, charms and curses which were cast onto a myriad of talismans and fetishes suited towards different purposes. Naturally, the discovery that technology could be used as augurs of magic spurred on an industrial revolution of their own developing advanced robotics to assist in sophisticated manufacturing. All this fancy arcane tech came at a cost of its own as well. While they had no need for their much larger reserves of coal within their lands, what Zebras required above all else in their spellwork were gemstones and a fuck load of them at that. The trade deals in the past had been advantageous to both nations as Equestria abounded in gemstones of all types and qualities while the Empire had access to significantly more coal deposits. Gems for coal, rocks for rocks essentially.

Magic had always been Equestria's strong suit on the global stage of arcane capable nations. With Unicorns forming a little over a sixth of the population, we had a significantly dense population of magic users relative to others in the defense pact nations. While the Ministry of Arcane Science made some significant advancements in that field, they were in fact the only large-scale arcane R&D division in existence. Even without employee numbers being public record, it didn't take a genius to know the amount of Unicorns employed there was a drop in the bucket of the total population in the country. So...where did the rest of these idle horns end up? In the factories, the manufacturing plants, into the very open arms of four of the other Ministries. The Ministries of Peace, War, Image and Morale all wanted as large a slice of the remaining demographic as they could buy, bribe and blackmail into their service. Telekinesis, despite being a universal skill to anyone with a horn, was still capable of much finer levels of manual control than anything the Earth ponies could brew up for themselves. And so, by virtue of the coal we so desperately depended on, magic was relegated into a supportive role with conventional engineering. Four out of every six Unis spent their days soldering microfilament crystal wiring or some other sort of detail-demanding blue collar job. The remaining two were either in the military or worked in some part of the government sector.

"Fucks' sake, get ahold of yourself bitch..." I groaned at myself after the sound and feeling of my horn thunking against the monitor woke me from my contemplative doze. "General catches ya napping at the desk and I'll probably end up posted to the Zulu Campaign..."

From time to time there came the crack of an AMR or the roar of a missile launcher in the far distance as the roaming patrols of Tin Heads and Rangers took potshots at stragglers or scavengers from the Zebras trying to collect ordinance. All it served was a reminder to me that though the day had ended in victory, there was always the chance a Zebra in one of their damned invisibility cloaks could slip into my tent and slit my throat. No matter how many times I went through the Crimson Dragon Awareness training I still felt unprepared for an assassination attempt if it were to happen. The cloaks had been baffling the top minds in the Ministry of Wartime Technology and the Ministry of Image for years, both of whom had their hooves in the scramble to reverse engineer their invisibility spells for our own use. No matter how many working specimens we captured and sent them (which was admittedly few considering they seemed to have a self-destruct spell of sorts) they didn’t seem to be able to crack the spellwork yet. Least...that was the official story. Could never tell what the top-tier classified programs were up to holed up in their triple buried R&D labs.

The Crimson Dragons. A potentially comical term to a civilian but any fucking sap who had any decent time under their belt here feared that name like nearly nothing else. To equivocate them to a Veteran Ranger would be simultaneously correct and a notable understatement. If the intelligence reports were to be believed, Dragons were personally selected by their greatest combat mentor at the age of but a few years to a maximum of ten. From there, there were property of the Empire and subjected to a brutal training program that supposedly put our own Rangers to shame. Deaths were common in the program but those who survived to graduate were as close as anypony could come to producing super soldiers without extensive use of very dangerous magic. Granted the infamous invisibility cloak woven from something called Zephyr Silk, these master assassin spec-ops units slipped in and out of seemingly wherever they pleased bringing with them incredible sharpshooting and explosives ordinance skill. What set these bitches apart from anyone else in particular though was their complete mastery of CQC. The fact these bastards considered a fucking sword as an optional primary weapon was telling enough in my book. I actually envied their skill with them and secretly wished to learn how to beat them at their own game. Sadly, the age of the sword had passed all too quickly in Equestria and I had been born a few decades too late it seemed. Of course...then I would be missing out on beautiful weapons like the AMR-25.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting for the inevitable, the flap to my tent was opened by a tall and thickly armored stallion wearing a version of Power Armor I had never seen before. Before I had a moment to assess it, the stallion commanded, “Major Crete, the General has called the meeting to order and you are summoned to be present for the proceedings. Follow me at once.”

“Rude much ya tin-assed fuckwad?” I mumbled to myself as I set my helmet to the side and replaced it with my formal dress cap, pinning the gold leaf insignia of a Major to my combat duster’s lapels in lieu of more formality. Just wasn't the time or place to dress up in non-armored garments, even if it were for the gratification of a by-the-book General.

Without another word he briskly led me away from my tent through the camp towards the command center further up the valley towards Appleloosa. In the meantime as we walked, I had ample time to observe the new armor my asshole escort was sporting. It was visually a tad thicker than the T-45 model I was all too familiar with but seemed composed of something other than plain old riveted steel. Shoulder pieces were smaller, the long single pauldron of the 45 was now replaced with a smaller main pauldron and an accompanying lower piece which added supplemental protection for the upper-leg rebraces. The breastplate was less pronounced as well forming a far smoother single piece across the chest while the abdominal region was formed from a set of telescoping lames underneath. Other pieces like the legs, flanks and hooves were relatively unremarkable featuring the same smoother design over the T-45's jutting edges. She was definitely not a model in the 46+ quintet. This had to be a new quintet of the heavy PoA series...this was a 50 something. Could only wonder what the semi-powered 'lite' PoAs of this generation would look like.

The helmet itself was by far the most visually different piece of the new model trotting along beside me. While there is only so many ways to design a helmet around a muzzle, beak or snout, the shape of the new helmet was...certainly different from the visually appealing 45s. For starters, the bulletproof visor was no longer two separate pieces for each eye but rather one continuous slit of black that gave the helmet an even more pronounced sneering look to it. Coupled with the new headlamp placement, which went from the left side of the helmet straight to the center of the forehead like a miner’s helmet, the overall look of the new helm left a lot to be desired in my opinion. The shape reminded me just too much of something like a gum drop or a toothpaste cap with something to go over the muzzle. The helmet notwithstanding though, the new model scraped out a B- by my metrics and I was intrigued to see what the boys and girls of the M.O.W brewed up for us doing the grunt work. Of course...this being the Southern Front, we were the last on the list to get jack shit when it came to any of the new tech. Was anyone's guess when this new model was going to hit mass issue down here amongst the lovely Tin Heads shaking their dicks around with their enormous egos...

I wasn’t stupid enough to try and ask him what specifically the armor was called. Even at my rank, I knew for a fact he would try to push the whole 'classified information' bullshit excuse I always got whenever I tried to ask a question about anything that wasn’t a part of the Desert Rangers arsenal. The Tin Heads could keep their bullshit secrets for all I cared. I had other ways of finding out these sort of specific questions I tended to have. If it protected the body and was in decently sized production, I had to know about it. Not even the itch for Red Berryl was as intense an addiction to satisfy as my obsession with personal defense equipment. If it came out in the last 20 years, odds were I knew everything you'd need to know about the damn thing. The Modular Combat Armor Platform, or M-CAP for short, was the darling of anyone deemed important enough by the brass to protect with more than Kevyarn and hopes and dreams. You had the all-in-one Model-3s pulled on like a Kevyarn jumpsuit with attached Celestium and ceramic impact plates and the newer Model-4s which had separate pieces of varying size and defenses that could be quickly strapped over any sort of clothing, or none at all in a pinch. 3s were more expensive and arguably more protective but lacked the modularity, ease of use and range of motion the 4s had. Gods...it didn't take much to get me on a tangent about ArmsTech products.

After a twenty-minute walk we finally arrived at our destination leading up a bluff to the hill where the Command Tent stood. Though the military was sure to claim it as coming from their own supply depots, I knew for a fact the tent they had commandeered was one of the Ministry of Image’s fancy pavilion tents once used for massive events like weddings. There was no way it couldn't be with finer trappings like semi-fanciful lamps on every post, modest chandeliers in the offices and an on-site cook's galley that could have passed for the catering pavilion included with the event tent. Standing guard by the entrance door (the damn thing came with a fucking wood-framed glass door!) as well as along the perimeter of the tent were more Steel Rangers clad in the same new Power Armor my escort was wearing; a fact which meant they were all likely the General’s personal guard. The door was opened curtly by the one closest to the door and I was led through the brightly lit interior past room after room of offices, wall-to-wall terminals and communications posts to the large meeting hall at the center of the hoofball field-sized tent. I gratefully left my tight lipped escort at the door and entered into the large conference room within, taking a seat beside Colonel Horn at the ridiculously huge wooden table filled with officers and non-commissioned officers alike. Decent number of at least halfway recognizable faces in attendance, including a few exceptionally large Gryphons towards the head of the table that could only be the Plague Birds. Of course being Tin Heads themselves, even a well-known racist like the General wasn't about to kick them towards my end of the table; probably here to run suicide missions for the General's delight and amusement for all I knew. They were essentially on-lease from the King of the Gryphons and so didn't technically answer to anyone present but did so anyway far as it suited him.

A quick headcount of the room guesstimated there were at least eighty in attendance with standing room for many more along the fringes of the room. COs and NCOs without a single Enlisted fuck in sight...the whole room reeked of impending field promotions. There were just too many names in that list from earlier... The general murmur in the room was hushed and tense with conversations even right next to me nigh-on impossible to hear. The days' events had reshaped the Front and with so many recalled to action, it was only natural that this meeting had to be called in order to establish the chain of command again. A twisted, knotted chain that felt almost as unwieldy and full of missing links as it was a force to be reckoned with by the Empire.

At the head of the table, flanked by six more upgraded SRs and sitting before a microphone, sat who I assumed to be General Olive Leaf. Despite seeing his name attached to the bottom of nearly every piece of paperwork I interacted with, this was the first time I had actually seen the guy for myself. Needless to say despite the four silver stars on the epaulets of his uniform, I didn't find myself all that impressed as I had expected to be in the presence of one of the last surviving Old Boys. I certainly did feel relieved to see most of the other officers present were dressed similarly to me with just the bare essentials to indicate their respective ranks pinned to their armor and desert camo fatigues. It was quite easy to tell who had a desk job and who didn’t. Nopony out here had the fucking time to shower let alone bring out the finely pressed dress uniform for every goddamned moment of the day. Maybe in the offices they demanded that sort of professionalism bullshit still but boys and girls in the field were permitted to give much less of a fuck about that nonsense. Least most of the month.

I knew it was stupid to get inwardly resentful of them but I couldn’t help but feel...bitter towards the desk jockeys in attendance. These yuppy fucks had landed desk jobs right outa Academy, their careers usually accelerated to the top artificially by some contact or another with the powers to facilitate such shit. Sure, some of them knew the horrors of war themselves having risen through the ranks in the field and getting to essentially retire out of active service. A lot of the top jobs were still held by the last remaining vestiges of the Old Boys and their protégé, a cult to the idea of 'do things like we always have'. When they had first formed, the largest brushes with 'war' Equestria had experienced were the fucking proxy battles fought in disputed territories with the Empire; a time when we fielded no more than a few hundred or maybe even a thousand or so. The Old Boys were working from playbooks they themselves had written when the average number of soldiers fielded rarely broke 10k and the complexities of the new face of modern warfare were only just beginning to be understood. But hey...I'm sure the E.A.F was dying to have these deluded cultists and their acolytes in their top jobs calling shots for a War they don't fucking seem to grasp with open eyes and concerned minds. Hadn't stopped them so far.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, I thank you all for gathering here today at my request.” Declared General Olive, his voice surprisingly deep and gravelly like an old stallion’s even though he looked no older than his mid-fifties. “As you are all well aware the last few weeks here on the Southern Front have seen their fair share of changes and rotations in position.”

Was he fucking serious? ‘Changes and rotations in position’?! The fucking asswipe couldn’t even say it like it was. People had fucking died and now we were present to patch up holes before shit hit the fan once more. Already I could hear the faint booms of artillery roaring out shells towards the Zebra’s camp far to the South...this meeting would add nothing but the fancy titles given before the names of the deceased. What we needed were tactics, not...well...anything better than this shit. This was the umpteenth meeting I had attended in recent years and barely anything changed. It was either 'hold the line' or 'over the top and down the line'. The Meat Grinder was always cranking in the South.

“As of now, the following are being promoted in the field by the report of their commanding officers and the final decision of Princess Luna of the Acting Wartime Council. With our safety in question at this location, I would like these proceedings to be as expeditious as possible so that we all can get back to work. Would the following please stand as your names are read and remain standing until we have finished the list.”

Or in other words, so you and your posse can hop back on the train headed out and away from the danger zone... The list was rather extensive and unsurprisingly began with the Steel Rangers with many present hailing from this league of heroes. Amongst the promotions, most of them in the NCO category, there were also a bevy of assorted awards and commendations too. A Distinguished Red Heart for a combat medic here, a Bronze Crescent for some Tin Head there, two Silver Crescents for great acts of valor for even two of the fucking Plague Birds. None of these things really fucking mattered when the bullets started firing and it still felt defeating knowing these medals and promotions could mean nothing in twenty minutes when a rouge bullet or bit of shrapnel ends everything for you. As the list continued through the GA and Airborne, it was glaringly obvious the General was also a member of the goddamned Steel Ranger cult. Putting us at the very end of the meeting was a visible power move and explained all too painfully why we kept getting sent on the most life intensive offensives first. He was bleeding us dry and dragging our name through the blood soaked sands for the fuck of it.

“Lieutenant Colonel Big Horn.” The General declared as the Colonel stood up to my left, straightening his cap and the tie on his uniform. “In light of Colonel Phoenix Quill’s untimely death two weeks prior, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Colonel in the Equestrian Armed Forces and will continue to retain your command of the Desert Rangers Fourth Brigade stationed at Camp Macintosh in addition to Third and Fifth Brigades in light of their recent mobilization and lack of available Desert Ranger personnel. Further orders to follow pending re-established contact with the Hexagon on a secured hardline channel.”

Horn kept a straight face like a good soldier but I had worked with him long enough to see the shock and awe coursing through his body by the way his eyes widened ever so slightly. It was a huge promotion after all...especially in a War where anypony can die and they usually did so much younger and at far lower ranks than he. I could only wonder how I would handle such a jump on the paygrade. Nearly a third of those present had yet to be called to attention and being a Major was pushing it for someone rubber stamped for frontline combat. No way in hell they were gonna boot me up another level. Majors were always shoved behind a desk so it was only by virtue of being a Veteran in the Corps that I was even allowed to stay and fight like a real mare, not end up as one of those pansy fucking desk jockeys.

“Major Athena Crete Minuette.” The General continued before I even had a chance to recognize what he was saying, Colonel Horn kicking me in the leg under the table to get me to stand. “With the promotion of your commanding officer you are found qualified enough for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel in the Equestrian Armed Forces and will retain your former place in the field of combat. However, due to unfortunate casualty spikes in recent weeks, you will be put in command of the Desert Rangers Second Battalion of the Fifth Brigade and may delegate responsibilities to those you deem qualified. Further information will be provided by your commanding officer within seventy-two hours and further questions are to be reserved for Colonel Horn alone. As stated previously, I have no time for questions.”

Wait, what? I was...no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was hearing shit for sure. That damn Howitzer must have done more damage to my hearing than I had thought. Right, that made sense. No way in hell was I just put in charge of six-hundred soldiers and given leave to designate my own subordinates. The Colonel had earned his promotion and I was just tripping some major balls for the first time in my life. I was just a Major in name only, I would be the first to admit that publicly because I knew I just wasn't cut out for leading so many lives at once. The five of us in Beta, (damnit), Alpha Squad were more than enough gung-ho murder machines to coordinate and lead as it was. I became a Ranger because of that fact for fuck's sake! Less life coordinating and more life taking!

The list continued without much of my notice as I was still reeling with the shock of responsibility that had just been dumped on my shoulders. He didn’t really mean it did he? I was just a high ranking Veteran Ranger only in charge of a small team of four badasses who were also rather highly ranked themselves right? I prayed to Celestia and Luna it was just a formality like with my promotion to Major and that I wasn’t actually being given command over a fucking Battalion. My bewilderment lasted all the way through the rest of the meeting and I was slowly being pushed and jostled outside by the crowd of ponies all wanting to get to bed or whatever. A fucking Lieutenant Colonel. The silver oak leaf pin I had grown so accustomed to Horn wearing was going to be mine. In a sense I was inheriting his position...but that was completely stupid and a bad idea on their part. I clawed my way into the top five Squads of the Corps just to get out of the responsibilities of a Captain and spend more time kicking ass as was my pleasure. For the love of fuck guys...whose bright idea was this bullshit?

“Athena! Hey, Athena!”

I looked up from my wandering hooves to see Huckleberry as well as Buck Beak, Rain Dancer and Pennies Worth all clamoring for my attention through the crowd, Buck Beak being the most notable being the only Griffin in the meeting and thus being a head taller than most ponies. I blushed softly at my own stupor and made my way through the crowd over to where they stood waiting in a quiet corner of the tent all looking giddy with excitement.

“Fucking knew you’d be able to pull it off!” Buck Beak exclaimed as he scooped me up into a bear hug and I noticed he too seemed to be wearing a new patch on his uniform. “Lieutenant Colonel for the win, bitches!”

He set me down just long enough to catch a glimpse of Huckleberry who was proudly displaying the dual gold bars of a Captain’s rank on her duster’s lapels before Rain Dancer tackled me in a hug of his own. Everyone it seemed got a promotion during the meeting. Rain Dancer and Pennies Worth were both promoted to Warrant Officer Grades 3 and 4 respectively, Buck Beak to First Sergeant and my dear Hucks got promoted to a fucking Captain.

“So that’s it then?” I said finally after everyone had a chance to calm down. “We’re just promoted in the field and that’s it? Back down into the trenches so they can do this again in a few weeks after everypony in there winds up dead save for the desk jockeys?”

“Oh common’ Athena, don’t be such a pessimist.” Chided Penny, beaming down at the little steel bars with four distinct black marks now pinned to her lapels. “We each got a pay raise today! Think about that eh? And since we’re such badasses, we’ll have a nice hefty paycheck waiting for us at the end of this tour!”

Hucks looked at me with glee as she said, “Maybe there’ll be enough between us for a down payment on that house! That would be amazing!”

“And a nice reloading station to go with it?” I grinned as she hugged me again, thoughts of having a small place of our own running through the happy flowery fields of my mind.

“Whatever works for you as long as I get my library with the little bay window seat looking over the Moors.” She replied with a giggle.

Everypony in the group was more than well aware of the remodeling plans we had been designing for months for a small cottage on the Trottingham Moors. Mom had found it while on a wine tour of the overseas Kingdom and immediately set to putting the owner in contact with the two of us as it was absolutely perfect for two mares seeking respite from the War. It was a quaint little place with two bedrooms (one for us and one for guests) and bathroom, a kitchen/dining room combo, a cozy little living room with a large fireplace and a large attic room for storage or as a crafting room. Out back, there was a most beautiful little garden with a stream and a small pond running through it that lead down into the Moors amidst all the lush greenery of the region. It was very prone to raining in Trottingham but neither of us minded the rain in the least. Besides...that’s what cuddling in front of the fireplace was for right? I had never been overseas, hell neither of us had yet to leave the Continent thankfully, but all the pictures of Trottingham and wonderfully accented mares I had come into contact with painted a lovely little Kingdom to hide away from the world in. Least they had no laws preventing Hucks and I from marrying there and gaining citizenship wasn't too difficult.

“You are going to have a guest bedroom right?” Rain Dancer asked in an almost serious tone as if we would forget all of them as soon as our time as Rangers was ended. “I mean, I’m fine to crash on your couch but you wouldn’t let your best friends wake up with a tweaked back would you? Crashed on enough couches in college, me want bed.”

“Why of course not!” I replied, making a mental note to get as large a bed for the guest room as possible for Buck's enormous body. “No, you’re all welcome into our home anytime you want. I’m afraid those kind of additions would cost out the ass to build, especially with Trottingham’s stupid ass land and construction taxes but we’ll spare no expense for you guys to live comfortably while you stay with us.”

"Just no permanent move-ins k?" Hucks laughed while also giving a serious stare at everyone, particularly Buck Beak. "Our home is your home of course but it's still ours at the end of the day. Help slap down money towards it and maybe we can talk then about it."

We started moving as a group back out of the Command Tent and back towards the main camp where all of us were bunking out together in a private tent of our own, courtesy of the Colonel’s orders. It was nice to feel loved and cared for by your CO to the point we weren’t all randomly assigned tents but were allowed to bunk together unlike some other groups who got separated from their friends due to their CO’s orders. The main camp stretched on for what seemed like miles as there were easily over forty-thousand troops assembled for battle, crammed into tiny green tents that reminded me all too much of the boring suburbs of Las Pegasus where I used to live for awhile. Every single house was a cookie cutter replica of its neighbor with only minor differences in paint color, yard maintenance and landscaping to help you tell the difference between your house and your next door neighbor. Even ponies who had lived there for years still sometimes ended up walking into their neighbor’s home thinking they had their own home’s ‘distinguishing’ appearance memorized. That is actually how I first met my neighbors was by accidentally walking right into their place and getting halfway through tossing all my shit on the floor as I usually did when first coming home. Needless to say we all had a good laugh over it after the confusion and shock had worn off.

Together we all ditched our dress caps and some of us our armor in our tent before heading to the galley for dinner. With the massive airdrops myself and the other Rangers dropped in with, there was more than enough food to go around and not just the simple MRE’s we usually got. By the grace of our victory, a large shipment of fresh fruits and vegetables was brought in from the farms in Appleloosa as well as several other towns including PonyVille way to the North meaning we were getting a true hot meal prepared from scratch. Something the boys already serving on the front were probably dying to taste after weeks of fighting. For the rest of us just arriving in the field well...it was just a nice treat and a sendoff.

As we made our way to the galley tent which more or less stood in the center of camp as the hub of everything social, we began to pass the strikingly white tents of the Ministry of Peace with their signature cream yellow cross with the little pink butterflies in the crook of each arm of the cross. The medic tents that everypony secretly hoped they would never have to enter while in the field. I had spent more than my share of time inside their brightly lit and cheery interiors laying on a padded cot that was far more comfortable than any other cots in the camp, waiting for one of the white robed mares or stallions to administer healing potions or spells. The M.O.P lived up to its name by mopping up the aftermath of any engagement, taking in the wounded and accounting for the dead. Of the Six Ministries that formed the Hexagon, the governing body of the country really, the Ministry of Peace was by far the least intimidating. Even their internal motto of 'Do No Harm' was as unintimidating as a fucking teddy bear. However, I did appreciate those with senses of humor like Buck Beak that had graffitied the slogan on their helmets only to cross out the 'No' in dripping red so it read 'Do Harm'. Needless to say, the Peacekeepers were NOT amused but I found it fuckin' hilarious.

I was continually dumbfounded how many ponies had decided to join their ranks as healers and peacekeepers when it seemed the whole of Equestria was caught up in a mutual hatred of the Zebras and their assorted gaggle of odd creatures. M.O.M. certainly had done wonders in inciting the public to join the crusade over the years while the other Ministries had either remained silent or actively participated in the indoctrination. All save the pussy-hoofed pacifists who believed in the mission of Peace or those just too self-righteous to recognize the War was only going to end with one side entirely obliterating the other.

“You know, I think I might look into seeing if they’d be willing to train me in some of their mystic healing arts.” Huckleberry said to my surprise as we passed the last row of pristine white tents.

“Oh…? Why…?” I asked slowly, looking at her with a tad bit of apprehension that she was considering renouncing her badass ways to become a pussy-hoofed healer far away from the front lines.

“I know what you’re thinking and it ain’t that.” She replied with a small giggle. “I want to learn since we both know just as good as anypony here that healing potions and bandages can only do so much in the field. It would be smart of us to have a certified combat medic of our own actively working with and well...why not me? I mean I did take a year and a half of medical school before I decided to apply to EastPoint after all. My medic skills are already above adequate keeping all y'all crazy bitches alive and I could really benefit from the advanced training. If ya want the simple logic version, boosting the pages in my medical playbook will allow us a bit more versatility and longevity. I know I'm the de-facto medic of the Squad but I'm not certified as one. Yet.”

I thought over her proposal carefully, not just as a lover but as a leader of our small Squad. We were all given basic first aid training and were taught carefully how to administer the basic potions and wound dressing kits found in our trauma kits. However, come a scenario in which one of us suffered massive injuries beyond the power of our trauma kits to fix...well, our only option was emergency exfil to one of the M.O.P docs. In an active warzone, that meant either getting dragged on a stretcher through the chaos or flying up and away from it; not exactly conducive to reducing casualties as any of your rescuers could end up on a stretcher themselves trying to move yours. It was such a good idea that I actually hit myself (much to her amusement) for not thinking of it earlier. To have somepony who could mend bones, pull out bullets and shrapnel and just heal our asses when we were out of meds at our side 24/7 was going to be nothing but a win for us. It would be the most practical choice since ponies decided it’d be a great idea to slice bread and slap some butter on it after frying it on a pan.

“Get right on that.” I said firmly though with a smile. “We need all the help we can get out here and fuck knows we ain't getting enough down South.”

“Yes Ma’am!” She laughed with a salute. “Oh, and there’s an added bonus to it too!”

“Oh?” I asked, trying to think of what other bonuses could come in conjunction of being a competent combat medic certified by the M.O.P. “What bonus?”

She drew very close and whispered in her familiar sultry tone, “I’ve always wanted to do a sexy nurse roleplay...wink, wink.”

Ohhhhh. That kind of bonus. Hell, that was probably going to be better than her usefulness in combat but then again that was probably my horny brain talking. Either way you sliced it, it was a hell of a good idea all around. If they refused to train her because reasons, my new promotion would ensure they would be forced to do so and do so well. Just because we weren’t peace loving sissies like them didn’t mean we didn’t have a definite need for a combat medic. A real combat medic who wielded a fucking .338 Luna Magnus Barnette marksmare rifle and kicked major ass like my Hucks did. Even hinting at something sexy got me riled up and I was going to skip on dessert at the galley. I had my dessert ready and walking by my side dressed in an imaginary nurse’s outfit with garters and fishnet stockings. Things were going to get messy in the tent tonight and I hoped the others wouldn’t mind too much as we tended to each other’s needs. They had shiny new promotions to nurse their attention on anyway.

****************.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Restitutions for the Dead

It had taken the better part of an hour to track down where Black Velvet had hid her house amidst the looming landscape of Freeside but eventually we managed to find it. It took a lot of asking around and backtracking thanks to misleading information but we finally found it nestled on the eighth floor of one of the apartment complexes that had managed to survive the Wasteland mostly intact. The building itself was located a mile-and-a-half away from my own house and had a nice view over the makeshift steel/stone wall thrown up around the Stirrup. Naturally this allowed one to view the long stretch of Freeside's main street towards the East Gate and the various buildings and casinos marking the way towards the Lucky 28 on the other side of the wall. At night, I could only imagine the room would be illuminated in the multicolored flashing lights provided by the casinos making for one of the best pieces of real-estate this side of Canterlot. Goddesses only knew what this place used to cost back in the day just for the view of the Stirrup.
The room itself we managed to get into easily, unlocking the door by using the key I had found around her neck during my quick pilfering of her corpse. While we had been expecting a bit more resistance in order to gain entry, we were not prepared for what was in the spacious and surprisingly comely apartment room. I had been expecting a more brutish Raider theme like spray painted skulls and menacing armor stands with the random gore pile in the corner as seemed to be common across Raider territory. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised at the soft red paint color of the walls and the neatly organized weapons racks and ammo canisters against them. Even the bed was neatly made with black sheets and bleached white pillowcases, a pair of old Equestrian Army magazines open on a bottom corner of the bed as if she had laid there reading them like a college schoolgirl in sweatpants and socks. The whole room was in stark contrast to the psycho bitch I had butted heads with for the last decade and it took me a few minutes to get my bearings after the shock.
“W-wow...not what I e-expected at a-all…” Gold commented as he poked at a pair of white and black striped socks hanging from the edge of a white plastic laundry hamper yellowed with age.
“Me too!” Melody giggled, jumping onto the bed and sighing loudly in contentment. “Oh yeah...I gotta get me one of these…”
“It would appear Miss Velvet was a mare of many faces.” Cogsworth said sagely as he stood beside me eyeing the room with interest. “I too was not expecting an abode so…”
“Organized?” I finished for him, walking immediately towards the weapon racks and seeing that every weapon had a corresponding label above it on the wall while every stack of ammo canisters were similarly labeled by caliber. “Shit, she’s even more OCD than I am. Of course she got to have the room to be this organized, my old place is a fucking shack compared to this shit. I knew I should have thought bigger but noooo...'smaller is easier to manage' I kept telling myself.”
Everywhere you looked, there was nothing rudely out of place. Even the dirty laundry (which comprised of mostly socks, panties, undershirts and a couple of Army patented khakis) was inside the basket rather than on the floor all around it. As Cogs and I began opening up her wardrobes and trunks scattered about the room, Melody pulled the sheets over herself and almost immediately fell asleep followed soon after by Gold who respectfully curled up on top of the covers nearby.
“It seems as though Miss Velvet attempted to plan for any incursion.” Cogsworth mentioned as we rifled through the third of six wardrobes, each containing a completely different set of armor, weapons, and equipment.
In the first, we had found an armored Advanced Environmental Suit given a black paint job and a dull red visor rather than the standard neon yellow suit and silver colored visor. Alongside it came smoke grenades (all black), suppressed Colt 2012 pistols in .45 Automag (also black) and a beautiful M14 with all the bells and whistles. It was obvious this set up was for stealth based hits in highly hazardous zones (like downtown Manehattan or the whole of Stalliongrad) but I couldn’t help but wonder if there were a bit of vanity involved in the color palate. After all, a red visor like that would be difficult to make let alone come by naturally in the Wastes. Especially if it was made of titanium quartz.

The second was clearly made for heavy fighting as it contained a set of salvaged T-45 Power Armor that had clearly been taken from one of the NER’s Shock Troopers who were infamous for wearing these heavy-as-fuck beasts into combat. While the Steel Rangers enjoyed the benefits of a working spell-matrix and functional joint servos negating the sheer weight of the metal, the NER boys weren’t so lucky. While they could manufacture things like the Mrk. II Ranger armor, they lacked the technical skill to get any of the finer components like the microfilament crystal fibers or spell-matrix functional leaving them without some of the best attributes of the armor. As a consequence of their lack of technology specialists, they had to make do with Power Armor that had been stripped of its servos, had no HUD or internal computer and was missing the large, broad shoulder guards and kneecaps of a functional suit of T-45 to save on the dead weight. The symbol of the NER, a horseshoe imbedded with three stars and featuring a Unicorn horn flanked by Pegusi wings in the center, was painted over with the same black paint used previously on the Environmental Suit. However, it was possible to see the faint white outline of the horseshoe peeking out from under the new paint job betraying the armor's origin. For weaponry, there was a Battle-Saddle hooked up to a pair of modified MG 338s, a find that was perhaps more surprising than even the state of her room given the prototype status of the weapon last I had heard of it. Amusingly though, I noticed quickly that the beastly LMG's teeth weren't nearly at their full potential as it was currently chambered for the far more common 5.56mm round than its original .338 Norman Magnus. Not surprising given the ammunition's origin out of Mareseilles that was stingy on the exports to begin with let alone now after the world had ended.

Within the third cabinet was where we literally hit the jackpot finding a vast collection of jewelry and a pair of safes shut tight against our intrusion. I wasn’t trained in lockpicking and Cogsworth, despite his best efforts to look like he knew what he was doing, failed to open them using the single key we had been able to find on her body. Had there been a terminal locking them electronically, Cogs would have had them open as soon as looking at them.

“Gold? You mind giving us a hoof darling?” I asked him quietly so as to not wake up Melody who lay with a pillow over her face to block out the sunlight streaming through the window.

“Hmm…?” He asked groggily, raising his head with obvious reluctance. “W-with what…?”

“We’ve got a couple of locks for you to pick open for us, pretty please.” I asked him nicely, pointing at the pair of safes on the other side of the room.

He rolled out of bed with an excited grin on his face and charged at the steely black boxes, a pair of bobby pins and a battered red screwdriver flying out of his makeshift saddlebags. I drew close as he prepared to work hoping to learn a little by observation how he managed to open locked objects with two of the most mundane objects I could think of after a can opener and a bag of jellybeans. After bending the pins at a 90 degree angle, he wiggled the wavy end into the lock while setting the flat headed screwdriver into the keyhole, twisting it slightly to the right adding tension to the bobby pin. He wiggled the pin and carefully turned it a quarter of an inch to the right before trying the screwdriver again, the lock turning a little more than halfway towards opening. He sighed softly, turning the pin a little more to the right before trying again and making it nearly there. It was as tedious a process to watch as it was to perform.

“F-fuck me…” He sighed as there was a tiny snap and the pin broke off, forcing him to pull out the broken piece and use his other pin. “Half turn p-past three...b-back one quarter…”

I could only guess at what he was mumbling about and watched in fascination as he wiggled the little bit of metal about, trying the screwdriver every few seconds until the lock finally clicked and the door swung open slightly on its silent hinges. His face flushed with the look of victory as he removed the pin, bent it back into shape and slipped it into his mane where I observed lay a small collection of other seemingly ‘lucky’ pins he had used in the past. He was such a quirky Ghoul.

“N-nothing to it!” He declared with a grin, dropping the screwdriver into his bags. “J-just takes a l-little patience. That w-was a tough one t-though.”

“You’ve gotta teach me that little trick of yours.” I beamed as I patted him on the head and opened the safe to see what was inside.

I was not disappointed at the large sacks of caps stuffed into the safe by its previous owner and began tossing them to Cogsworth for counting using the large, portable money counter he had designed especially for large sums of caps that ponies brought in for his products. The machine was such a hit that everypony from the Gun Runners to the casinos scrambled to get one for themselves and their business. As the machine noisily clinked its way through bag after bag of caps, sorting them into bags of two-hundred each, Gold used one of his lucky pins to crack open the second safe, this one filled with comic books sealed in thick plastic bags. This was where the real money was, the bags of caps be damned.

“Holy shit, is this a Dave the Barbarian issue #1?!” I exclaimed causing Gold to jump and Cogsworth to look up from his counting for a moment.

“D-Dave the Barbarian?” Gold asked, peeking at the pristine cover obscured partially by the thick clear plastic. “T-the comic b-book series?”

The series had only been around for a decade or so by the time I was able to read but there was no mistaking the ripped brown stallion dressed in a tattered leather loincloth wielding a huge battle axe on the cover. ‘Blood on the Hearth’, Issue #1, printed in 2035 and in mint condition. The more I learned about Velvet, the more inclined I was to call her a bit of a nerd.

“There’s more in here!” I cried out, not so much from fangirling over the comics but over the price they would fetch at The Pile to the right collector, maybe even one from the Stirrup itself.

“W-what’s so special about a c-comic book?” Gold asked, looking at the stack of plastic wrapped gold bars sitting in the safe. “I-it’s just a k-kid’s book…”

“That it is, buuuutttt!” I declared, pulling out the rest of the sixty-volume collection with as much care as a mother with her newborn. “These are in mint condition! You would not believe how much money ponies will blow for this shit!”

“H-how much…?” Gold asked to which Cogsworth answered.

“ At least a fifty-thousand for that mere copy alone.” He chuckled, sorting the bags he had finished filling and stuffing them into his saddlebags. “If not more! Geek shit like this has always been a goldmine at auctions, even before the War. I remember this one original storyboard art for some movie back in the day selling for like three-million; trust me, this here is something rich weirdos would die to get their hooves on.”

“F-fifty t-thousand?!” Gold exclaimed, stepping back from the comics as if his mere presence would lower their market value. “L-let’s go s-sell them right now!”

“Hold on there champ.” I giggled, dragging him back by the tail as he attempted to run out the door. “We’re here for charity purposes first. If we manage to pay off the angry ponies of Freeside and have some leftovers, you can have your pick of what’s left, k? Just don't spend it all at one place and probably want me to handle the money so it doesn't burn a hole in your saddlebags. Trust me, I've been there too.”

He stared at me in silent awe and didn’t speak until after we had finished ransacking the entire house (keeping the key just in case) and were on our way back to Cogsworth’s workshop. Between myself, Cogsworth and the three Mr. Helper robots loaded down with enchanted saddlebags, we had managed to cart off every single item of value in the house leaving just the bed, a single pillow, some sheets and a few rolls of T.P in the bathroom just as backups in case we needed a safe house. I had noticed during my final sweep of the bathroom a single note taped to the edge of the mirror that seemed to be the life motto Velvet had based her entire existence off of. 'Pump fear into the hearts of your enemies and if that doesn't work, pump them with a full magazine instead.' Not a bad sentiment I suppose.

The walk back to the shop took little time at all and the streets of Freeside were filling with ponies who all took notice of our passage but said nothing, following slowly behind us as we made our way towards the place we had told them to gather. There was inevitably going to be those who didn't belong in the group but they would be dealt with in time.

“Who are they?” Melody asked as we passed a group of mares and a few stallions dressed in black leather jackets and sporting sunglasses with large pistols strapped visibly to their hind legs.

“Ah, those are the Queens!” I responded with a grin, happy to see them finally out patrolling the streets after a month-long absence. “They’re the local good-guy gang that protect Freeside. They keep things relatively stable around here although this is the first time I’ve seen them in over a month. They all kind of disappeared for some reason and nopony knew why. But anywho, looks like they’re back! And just in time too...this whole shit with Green is bound to stir up even more trouble around here…”

“Wowie…” She said quietly before asking, “Why do they all dress like that with those funny looking mane styles?”

It was true that alongside their choice in clothing was a strange manestyle unique to those members of the Queens who had been deemed members in full by the Queen herself. The look, which was known as the Polished Pompadour, took the long bangs of a mare’s hair and folded them back on themselves using an exorbitant amount of mane gel and time in front of a mirror resulting in a look that had once belonged to the famous Pre-War singer known today only as The Queen. Despite my insistence that her real name was Blue Suede (as I very well knew from the records mom used to play) the Queen and her underlings refused to call their idol by anything other than her unofficial stage name as the Queen of Rock and Roll. At least they kept up with her eccentric legacy if some of the details of her life were more fiction than fact.

“The Queens are a bit eccentric…” I explained, wishing we were further to the northeast side of Freeside where the Queens H.Q was located so I could show her the famous images of Blue Suede in all her fame and glory. “There was a singer back when my mom was an itty bitty filly named Blue Suede. She changed the music industry so much with her new style of music that she was named the Queen of Rock and Roll even after her death. Here in Freeside, there’s a building dedicated to her and ponies who aspired to impersonate her from back in the day since that was a big thing here in Las Pegasus for some reason. The Queens...they're like a minor cult to be perfectly fucking honest. They dress like her, they talk like her if they can and they all obey the Queen like she’s the modern day reincarnation of the dead singer herself. Now...whether or not that is actually true...ugh, what am I saying? Of course it's fucking ridiculous to even consider it. Why, of all ponies, would the gift of reincarnation be given to a fuckin' rock star from nearly 300 years ago?”

We caught the attention of a pair of Queens ahead of us who trotted towards us with smug smiles beneath their black aviator sunglasses. At least I was on decent enough terms with these weirdos, otherwise I'd be expecting a gunfight in the streets. In that case, at least we had some shit like the Power Armor to use as portable cover and Cogs was accompanied by a retinue of Mr. Helpers brought along to help haul the cargo.

“Well, look what the sandstorm blew back in.” One of them said, her fake accent convincing enough to pass for a Blue Suede impersonator. “What brings you back around, baby?”

I inwardly sighed as I didn’t like being called baby by anyone other than Hucks and maybe a few others that I felt comfortable around. It just didn't feel or sound right.

“I live here, girls, I case you forgot that. Now, would you mind going back to your shit so I can get to mine? I’m on a tight schedule here.” I replied, gesturing back to the wall they had been previously leaning against and drinking Cola.

“Quite the posse ya got there baby.” The other said, a stallion who pulled off the Queen hairstyle and sunglasses way better than the mare did somehow. “What ya got Cogsworth with you for? Hauling a lotta pricey cargo there too I see?”

“Mind your own business, baby.” I retorted, brushing past him and flicking my tail in his direction.

“Whoa, hold up!” He called out to me. “The Queen wants to have a word with ya.”

“That’s great!” I replied, looking back at him with the most sarcastic face I could pull off. “Tell her she can wait because I’ve got some important shit to do first. When I’m done, sure. I’ll go fucking see her. But I ain’t done yet so why don’t you two go back to your wall and leave me and my ‘posse’ alone alright? Just like you left Freeside completely alone for the last fucking month, eh?”

Their faces went from smug to furrowed and the stallion flipped me the hoof as I turned away, an old Pre-War move that was to this day still very popular in modern Wasteland culture. It was a simple gesture. You just jabbed your (usually) left hoof straight in the air while slapping your other hoof into the joint of your front knee at the same time. The louder the slap of hoof on knee, the more pissed off and obscene you ended up coming off as. The simplest gestures were always the ones that stood the test of time after all.

“Why does the Queen want to talk with you?” Melody asked, looking back at the Queens with a concerned expression. “Was it smart to be mean like that to them…?”

“Why? I don’t know; probably wants to ask me to get my ass out of Freeside because of the problems I’m causing with Green. Smart? Eh...probably not in the long-run but we’ve got shit to do in the short-run and we can't be worried about them just yet. When we’re done with restitutions and get what we need from the Dark Market, then we can go and see the Queen and see what’s up with her. I actually have some questions of my own that I want her to answer like where the hell has she been for the last month and a half and why they haven’t been out on the streets taking care of Green’s bullshit for me. Not that it's their job to do that but by fuck it's in both our best interests that Freeside be free of Green's goons pulling bad shit trying to get to me.”

“Athena…” Cogs sighed as we entered back into The Pile, the ponies eying our parade of hooves and robots with both interest and hesitation. “You know as well as I that the Queens would feign involve themselves in your predicament. After all, it is of thine own creation and not their matter in the slightest. He who stokes the coals must face the fire. Or should I say she who stokes the coals must face the fire.”

I rolled my eyes with a silent growl of begrudging agreement. I was the one who had decided to ‘squander’ Green’s caps on freed slaves, not the Queens nor the citizens of Freeside. That all being said, it was still in their best interest to handle the rabble being caused on the streets. The path to the Workshop was almost impassable from the sheer amount of ponies, Griffins and others who stood in line before the locked doors of Cogsworth’s shop awaiting their financial compensation for the deeds of Black Velvet. As we passed through, the crowd erupted in booing, profanity laden jeers of derision of my name and reputation. It was humiliating to hear my name attached to such words as ‘murderous cunt’, ‘fucking monster’ and ‘Green’s cock-sucking slave’ but I held my head as high as I dared and kept my helmet in my saddlebags so they could see my face. If they were going to hurl insults at me, they were going to say them to my face and not my visor.

“Fuck you!” Melody shrieked as we reached the doors, her body shaking with rage and the terrifying monster inside her glowering in her mismatched eyes. “Fuck all of you! I would be fucking dead or still sucking Slaver dick if it weren’t for her! She’s a better mare than any of you fucking assholes, you hear me?! What has she done to any of you huh?! Far as I know she’s done her killing outside of this fucking place and protected you from Raiders and this is how you repay her?! She owes you nothing and yet she’s giving you what she can for the bullshit of a mare who’s actually done you guys wrong! What the fucking fuck?!?!”

The crowd was in stunned silence as they gazed upon the scrawny, malnourished girl who stood firmly before them like a warrior facing down the horde. Her body was shaking head to tail in unspeakable rage while her small horn sparkled angrily as it held her rifle aloft. I too stood in shock as I looked at the scrawny little mare I had taken into my heart standing as boldly as one of the fictional heroes from the novels mom had read to me as a filly more than half her age.

“Come.” Cogsworth beckoned softly as the doors clicked open and he ushered in his robots laden with their bags. “We have work to fulfill to these good people.”

I reached out slowly and touched her on the shoulder, a small gasp coming from her mouth as she seemed to break out of the trance that had rooted her firmly to the ground beneath her, the height of the skywalk entirely ignored or forgotten. Tears filled her eyes and she flung herself into my embrace wailing softly while the stunned crowd continued to stare on in anxious silence. With my daughter in my arms, I retreated as dignified as I could into the shop and shut the door behind me, utterly bewildered by the flood of conflicting emotions coursing through my breast as I tried my best to comfort the sobbing child in my arms. I didn't have the skills necessary to handle this shit...

“Cogs...you start sorting things out for me ok…?” I asked softly as I walked past him and Gold who were beginning to unpack the load of materials we had taken from Black Velvet onto the many tables of the Workshop.

He nodded and I retreated with the still crying Melody into the privacy of the Stable where she and I could be alone to talk things out. Sitting onto my cot, I decided that I was improperly dressed for the role of a comforter being encased in a steel shell, Melody clinging to my right hoof as I stripped free of my armor. When I finally reached the point where I had just my right bracer, boot and duster sleeve left to remove, I pressed my left hoof to her chest and gently tugged on the right, smiling softly as she switched hooves and allowed me to finish undressing, her warm tears trickling down my hooves and soaking the fur of my fetlock.

Finally comfortable, I lifted her up, taking notice of her extremely light weight, and laid back on my cot, laying her small form against my chest like a sleeping cat with its owner. She wrapped her thin legs around my chest and continued to cry into the fur of my breast while I cooed softly to her and pet her back slowly with one of my hooves, the other placed gently but firmly on the back of her tender little head. In the minutes that passed as her sobs wore themselves down to quiet sniffles and the occasional gasp for air, I could feel her heart racing like a snare drum against my chest, the rhythm progressively slowing down as if to keep in pace with the steady, healthy beat of my own beating back against hers. The air was strained, as if the peace and tranquility of my first true motherly moment would be shattered at any moment by the appearance of Cogsworth informing me that the horde of assholes had arrived...but somehow I found myself at peace. No tension was coiled up in my gut against the intrusion like the anxious agony that spearheaded the lead up to when the alarm clock is about to play the most obnoxious sound imaginable. Rather...the moment settled peacefully in my spine and breast with the warm, happy glow of a hot bath. The same feelings of safety and love filled me then like they had on those long, tense nights as a filly as the world descended into madness around me. Only this time...I was the mother. The bringer of warm feels and sweet dreams.

“You were very brave…” I finally whispered to her after I felt it safe to speak. “To stand up to them like that...for me. A mare you’ve only known for not even two weeks…”

All I got were sniffles in response but her hooves clung tighter to my chest and her tiny heart slowed down even more against my own. It was true, I was very proud of her. Her bravery was encouraging and made a lasting impression on my love for her. Who was I to her? A rescuer? A defender? Somepony to cling to in the muted darkness of an unfinished Stable in New Pegasus? Who was I to be on the receiving end of such a brazen declaration of support from somepony a miniscule fraction of my age? What had I done to be so blessed...?

“I-I owe you my life…” She finally breathed out, her voice wet and heavy with emotion. “I-I would be dead...gone forever…”

“They wouldn’t have killed you Mel-” I began before she cut me off.

“N-not them...m-myself…” She whispered in so small a voice I had to strain my brain to understand them. “T-there was an old...r-rusty knife I found...I-I know i-it works…”

She lifted her slender leg up and pressed down the silky dark azure fur of her fetlocks showing six jagged scars that had escaped the cleansing of the healing potions of earlier. I knew what they were without having to ask. It just made sense...with nowhere safe to turn, Death’s embrace would seem like the call of freedom she needed. Instead I was the one who answered the call. Holy shit, I had answered the call and saved her from suicide. It was a realization that was too heavy for my poor mind to handle even if I were feeling my best.

“You’re...you’re very welcome, Melody.” Was all I was able to say, anything longer or more detailed than that dying before it even reached my throat.

We laid there for another few minutes, the dull glow of a distant light in the Atrium sustaining us in the pleasant gloom of our embrace until Cogsworth entered into the room, the bright white light of his PipBuck screen illuminating his surroundings with surprising clarity for something strapped to his foreleg. He gazed upon Melody and I with a tender smile, one that spoke volumes about his feelings for my change in heart and I could tell it pained him to have to break the sanctity of the moment with the announcement he had to make.

“Do sincerely pardon mine intrusion,” He began as quietly as he could, Melody slowly looking back at him with wet eyes and a damp muzzle that gleamed softly in the light. “But it is time we begin. There is much to be done.”

I nodded and began to rise as Melody’s hooves clung around me even tighter, the strength behind them surprising given her small build and she whispered, “J-just another minute or two...please.”

I laid back down without another word and kissed her small horn with all the love I had ever reserved for Huckleberry back in the day, the gentle kiss causing a few red violet sparks to fizzle out of the tip and onto my nose, tingly and warm. I had to suppress a giggle as they tingled and fizzled out on my face as I realized her horn was very sensitive to touch.

“You ready to go darling…?” I asked after three minutes or so had passed and the weight of the impending situation started pressing down on my mind.

“M-mhm.” She nodded, gently letting go of me and allowing me to stand up being perfectly content to be set down on the ground like a lazy cat. “Let’s go.”

She stood on the tips of her hooves and gave me a wet peck on the cheek before nuzzling into my shoulder with a small, happy sigh.

“You called me your daughter back there…” She said softly as we walked down the stairs to the Stable entrance where the door stood partially open for us to leave. “Did you mean it…?”

I nodded, smiling sheepishly as I realized it was forward of me to assume the official title of mother out loud without asking her first but the look on her face was one of adoration and timid desire.

“Absolutely.” I replied, stopping just short of the exit into the Workshop and facing her. “What Black Velvet said about me hating kids...that’s...that’s changed a bit now. Ever since I met you...you remind me of Huckleberry. Maybe not in mannerisms and personality but...in the feelings you elicit in my heart. She was the mare I loved above anyone else in the world...aside from my own mom heh...but really. Huckleberry was the love of my life and...when I lost her, I lost myself as well. And honestly considering the new world I was entering, the Wasteland, in many ways it was for the best. The world I knew and the mare I was were all burnt and dead and I had to adapt. It’s what kept me going all these years...killing off my heart saved me from killing myself.”

“But...now I’m here and...that part of you is coming back to life?” She asked softly, seeming to understand a bit more of the full scope of her importance to me.

“Exactly. You may not be Huckleberry...but you’re filling the hole she left in my heart.” I replied, hugging her tight and then realizing I was naked and defenseless against any pony who had potentially come to kill me for some reason or another.

“Be right back.” I chuckled nervously, gesturing to my scared body. “Mommy’s gotta get dressed.”

She giggled softly and hugged my leg indicating she wasn’t about to leave my side. My cheeks flushed red at the thought of her watching me change but...given how cute she was, I wasn’t about to deny her nor myself that possibility.

******

“Alright Cogs, what’s the situation?” I asked, joining him a few minutes later with Melody still attached to my side, nuzzling into me despite the hard steel she was rubbing up against.
“Well...I will not lie by saying the situation is a simple matter.” He replied, speaking over the din of numerous talking voices in the store on the other side of the curtain separating us from them. “They come as a legion. Far more than I anticipated.”

I slipped my helmet back onto my head and turned on a powerful thermal filter allowing me to see through the relatively thin walls of the Workshop and into the store itself. As he said there were easily several hundred ponies crammed into the store, the Mr. Handies on duty doing their best to keep them in order as they impatiently waited for what had been promised them.

“Damn...where the hell did they all come from?” I asked, pulling it back off and setting it on the workbench next to me that supported the weight of a dismantled suit of T-45 Cogs had been stripping down sometime earlier. “I know Velvet has fucked over a lot of ponies here in Freeside but this is way too many. She didn’t kill that many people around here. Couldn't have, even with her big sister being so willing to forgive and forget and force the Syndicate to do the same with large sums of cash.”

“I-I think its because you b-basically announced f-free money…” Gold commented as he peeked between the gap in the curtain and the doorway out. “T-that tends to draw ponies in l-like Hellhounds t-to raw meat.”

That made sense even if it was fucking ridiculous. I was here to pay off ponies who had been directly affected by Velvet, not give free money away to random ponies. That was the job of the gamblers of New Pegasus who felt generous enough to toss a few caps in the rusted tin cans of the beggars lining the road to the Stirrup. Just being alive wasn't enough of a reason to get paid for shit you didn't earn.

“How the hell are we supposed to figure out who actually deserves the money and who doesn’t?” I asked, looking between everyone including Chocolate for any ideas. “Far as I know, 90% of those yahoos out there don’t even know who Velvet is let alone have a personal stake in her estate. They probably got told by friends or neighbors that the Ranger is giving away free shit. I like Freeside but fuck me...I might as well toss buckets of caps into the crowd and let them fight amongst themselves for their compensations.”

“That could become problematic when it comes time to toss in the Power Armor…” Cogsworth chuckled, nodding to the reassembled set of armor standing with locked joints near the doorway.

“Why don’t we ask them to tell us what Velvet did to them that is deserving of money?” Melody suggested.

“That would work if there wasn’t half the Equine population banging on our door. God I wish I knew how to do one of M.O.M’s mind rapes...that would make this so much easier...” I sighed, leaning against the workbench and panicking slightly as I felt it creak from the added weight of my body. “Welp, I’m just gonna wing it. Hopefully my reputation holds some weight for this situation, scare the bitches who shouldn't be here away.”

Steeling myself against the impending jeers I stepped through the curtain to face the crowd who, as my helmet had shown, was packed as tightly as a can of pickled carrots in the warehouse turned shop. The Mr. Handies occasionally could be heard over the din scolding those who attempted to pilfer some of the items on the shelves into their pockets. Melody stood by my side in silence, her expression firmly displaying her dislike for the ponies before us while Cogsworth and Gold eyed them with a hint of trepidation from my left. This crowd had some unfriendly vibes coming from its midst so this was going to have to be handled with more care than I wanted to put into something right now.

Turning on the external speaker on my helmet and setting it for the setting reserved only for riot control, I raised my voice above the crowd and yelled out, “Attention everyone! The amount of ponies here is far too many than Velvet could ever personally effect. If you are just here to get a handout, I kindly ask you to fuck off and make way for those who have actually lost something or someone to Velvet. You know who you are. Be an adult and get your freeloading ass outta here.”

The crowd went silent the moment I had begun speaking and I spied more than one in view cower as if they had been spotted, confirming my fear that at least some of them had come here hoping to get a free bag of money. With a wave of my hoof pointing towards the door, more than half of the crowd filed out, grumbling and shouting insults in my direction. Their words bounced off me like 9mm rounds would against my armor, doing no damage and leaving no impact as I was beyond feeling for them. I was already way out of my comfort zone having to be around so many ponies at once let alone having to placate a rumbling crowd who all wanted a piece of the pie from me.

“Alright, the rest of you...I’m still getting the feeling there’s still plenty of you people looking for a handout and are going to try and lie your way into Velvet’s estate. Fuck off now before I make you, please. I’ve had a long day and I want to get this over with so I can get back to my own affairs. I'd really rather not have to clock one of you in the jaw for being an ass.”

About a dozen more filed out leaving me with a crowd of a little less a hundred. Still a sizable crowd to process but much more manageable and realistic than before. A pair of Mr. Handies zoomed out of the room following the crowd calling out thievery while Cogsworth shot after them, his face stern but composed as he chased after the would-be thieves. I pitied the dumb fools as Cogs would be more than well within his right to vaporize the fuckers with his favorite energy rifle.

“Alright...I guess I’ll just have to go from here.” I sighed, taking a seat on the padded stool Cogsworth used in front of one of the cash registers. “Let’s do this in an orderly fashion please. Anypony caught cutting in line is going to be shot and I ain't gonna stand for little bitches crying about it.”

“Mom!” Melody cried out in shock, staring at me critically.

“Fine...you won’t be shot but I’m going to ignore your ‘new place’ and toss your ass to the end of the line.”

For the next two hours I sat there, hearing the stories of grieving husbands, wives and orphaned children pleading their case to me regarding the wrongs done to them by Black Velvet during her tenure in Freeside. Some were complete bullshit from the moment they opened their mouths and I was unafraid to call them out at the glaring plot holes in their narratives. I showed these fools no pity, even if they were legitimately impoverished families with strong cases on their own. Charity was not something I was used to giving and I was giving it on my terms; to give out money to every hoof that reached out for it would leave little for those who actually deserved the cash. Many stories however were genuinely gut wrenching as they related the horrible brutality of Velvet’s methods. Melody clung to my side the entire time, stuffing her ears every time someone mentioned losing a child, a notion I wished I too could perform given my new status in life. Unfortunately I wasn't at liberty to stuff my hooves into my ears lest I render this entire process fucking pointless.

Money was dealt out as fairly as my marketing skills could allow. I found it incredibly difficult to put a price on any of the lives I was taking on myself to rectify. To undershoot would be insulting to all parties involved while overpaying meant less for the next victim. I couldn’t help but pay out more to the grieving mothers than others as the pain of losing Melody, as new to my long life as she was, would be enough to drive me insane once more and I felt for the poor mothers who had lost children. The whole process left me numb...I couldn't even bring myself to think of all the prices I had been paid over the years. All the times I had been a Slaver in a sense...weighing the price of a living Soul in monetary terms.

It seemed as though Velvet had a tendency to kill everypony in the house when she went out on a hit. It was common knowledge as I’ve said before not to leave witnesses but she seemed to take that rule to the extreme. Many of us performed our kills in the openness of the Wasteland where the terrain favored those of us who had a skill behind a scope or simply wanted the privacy of the desert. Plus, the body would be devoured soon by Feral creatures saving you the hassle of cleaning up after yourself so everypony but the target was a winner. Velvet instead seemed to favor the Doctor’s Classic, the making of house calls to cure her targets of that thing called life. House calls were too much of a mixed bag for me, especially when dealing with targets involved in the drug trade. One house could be a couple junkies too doped outta their minds to even recognize they were dead and the next could be a dozen well armed junkies in a drug-induced rage who aren't afraid to use frag grenades indoors. No...the best ROE was '300 meters or more, big time score'.

I was mentally and emotionally exhausted by the time the last pair came up, a mother and a teenaged stallion who looked like they had seen too many days of too little food. I had already exhausted all the caps in Velvet’s collection plus pretty much everything else leaving me with just the set of salvaged Power Armor that still stood inside the Workshop just beyond the doorway. It was worth a solid 3,500 caps given its protective qualities and the relatively good maintenance it had seen while in Velvet’s possession though I had held back on it given its price and niche uses. I had reluctantly given away the armored Environmental Suit to a mare who claimed to work in hazardous areas farming rare vegetables she had been cultivating for years. While it was a bummer to part with such a work of armored art, I was pleasing to know that it was going to such an intriguing cause which made the pain of parting with it so soon more bearable.

“K...what’s your stake here?” I asked with a tired yawn, trying not to appear disinterested or bored in their story even though I had heard variations of the same general story several dozen times already.

“P-please Miss…” The mare squeaked softly, immediately giving away the fact she was here for a handout. “W-we have nothing...t-the NER came through...t-took everything...called it ‘taxes’...we’re not even citizens of the Republic. We have no home, no money...nothing.”

It was a narrative I heard already a few times before. Given the consistency, I had to concede the fact that the NER collection agency had been through town while I was away to Appleloosa. It wasn't uncommon for the NER to overstep their bounds and try to tax the poor folks of Freeside just for being too inconsequential to Mr. House to be considered citizens. While they had an Embassy within the walls of the Stirrup, there was no military presence allowed within two miles of the whole of New Pegasus. That being said, the civilian side was a lot more in the grey zone and so indiscriminate taxation was a tolerated behavior so long as it was done in negligible numbers. All they had to do was threaten access to the communal food bank the NER provided as a political and PR tool to assert some modicum of control over the city. I had already been forced to turn away well over a dozen such victims who had been eaten out of what little home they had lest they lose complete access to the NER food donations. It was a cruel practice any way you sliced it but that was not my concern at the moment. However...she was the last one in line…

“I understand.” I sighed, nodding to the Mr. Handies that stood nearby awaiting my command to bring out another item. “Get the Power Armor please.”

“As you command Madame!” They chortled in unison before gliding away into the back, the sound of machinery following suit.

“P-Power Armor…?” The mare gasped. “B-but why…? Don’t you have some caps to spare…?”

“Sorry, but I’m completely cleaned out of everything but the Power Armor.” I replied, watching as the heavy material was carried out between the two robots and set on the ground with a heavy thud. “You don't have a stake in Velvet's estate, you said as much yourself. So, either ya fuckin take what I'm offering or hit the road. I'm tired from doing this for hours on end, you shouldn't be here so take advantage of my extremely rare show of charity. I'm only making this offer once.”

She hesitantly approached the towering armor that stood almost a head above her and put a hoof to the black breastplate before looking back at her son who likewise gazed at the Armor with amazement. I was a bit too harsh I knew somewhere in the small part of my mind that remembered what manners were but I really was beyond caring. Regardless of their reasons, they were still freeloaders. I just...happened to not have a need for Power Armor. Especially one missing everything that put Power in its name.

“It’s in damn good condition, made from high-carbon steel over a StableTec chassis although the generation doesn't really matter; the joint servos have been removed and the spell matrix is offline and more than likely removed. But, you’d be hard pressed to find better protection in the Wastes...if you can carry the thing that is. It should fetch a good 2,000 caps to the right buyer given the condition and custom paint job. A good place I recommend here in The Pile would be a place like Ironside's Glorious Gun and Armor Emporium, they always take anything B- grade quality and above. If you can get the full 2k, that's more than enough to get you a place in New Appleloosa. I was just there a few days ago and it looked like they had more than a few empty homes for sale. Might be a better place for the two of you since it's way to far South for the NER to bother you.”

The mare looked back at her son and a silent conversation seemed to happen between them before she turned to me and said, “We’ll take it. I'm not sure what first we will do with it but...we appreciate the offer. I...I'm sorry for butting into something I had no business getting into.”

I waved a hoof to silence her from apologizing any more than was necessary and replied, "Think nothing of it. Before you leave however, I feel I should explain how it operates in the event you wish to keep it for whatever reason."
From there, I brought the armor around the counter and set it before them in order to demonstrate how to climb into it given that it was more like a vehicle than a traditional suit of armor. Luckily the basic pneumatics of the frame still functioned properly allowing for entry into the heavily armored beast. Located on the back, beneath the large air tanks that could connect to the helmet in case of the need for EVA or toxic air situations, was a small but sturdy latch which caused the suit to open up like an armored shell. The back of the legs and the entire backplate itself swung open like cabinet doors allowing you to climb into the suit, your hooves being placed on padded rests and the armor closing shut over your body. Originally, there would have been a fine mesh of microfilament crystal and metal wires that would conform around the body once the EVA seal was established allowing the wearer to enter and move the armor about without the need of special underbarding. I knew this because I would sometimes wonder what the DRC could have accomplished had they saw fit to add a light power frame to the Mrk. IVs allowing Alpha and I to even better match our Tin Head rivals. Of course these thoughts had a way of transforming themselves into an unironic study of Power Armor during the scarce chances I had to examine them as my idle thoughts began to demand my genuine interest in the answer.

“How are we to take this with us…?” The mare asked, looking at the stairs leading up to the skywalk connecting the shop with The Pile. “If it's as heavy as you say than neither of us will be able to walk in it.”

“Well, do you plan to sell it or do you plan to keep it?” I asked, looking between them as the frame hissed and clanked shut using compressed air from the tanks given the lack of a Crystalline Fusion Core to power its normal functions.

She looked again at her son and had another silent conversation that went on so long I began to wonder if they were telepaths before the son said, in a surprisingly deep, masculine voice, “We will keep it. Until I am strong enough to put it on and go out there and make a life for ourselves.”

It was a rather touching response if anything and I felt some second-hoof pride on behalf of the mother. The determination was great and all but it didn't solve their housing issue if they decided to keep the armor. Sweet Luna I was starting to lose track of who I was with some of the decisions I was making the last few days...

“Here.” I said pulling out the key to Velvet’s house from out of my pocket after pondering the matter over in my mind and finding yet another ounce of benevolence in my heart. “This is the key to Velvet’s house. It’s in that apartment building on the west side of town, the one with the big Sunset Sarsaparilla sign on it and the little stone gargoyles on the edge of the roof. Eighth floor, room 821, it’s not much but it’s a start. There’s a bed and some other stuff in there that might help you get back onto your hooves. Keep in mind what I said about New Appleloosa though. Only been there once but it seemed like a nice place to live. Well defended, good population diversity and a truly amazing mare who runs the general store that just has...well, Absolutely Everything. I know this doesn't solve finances but at least it's a roof over your heads with a damn good view of the Stirrup. If anything, you're getting two of the most valuable assets I had to work with so...just take it and let's just move on before I come back to my senses.”

She took the key into her hooves, cupping them together as gently as if holding a foal and trembled as she fought back the tears that threatened to explode out of her eyes like a waterfall. They were both at a loss for words at what I had just given them and the weight of it was not lost on me. To them the key and the Power Armor represented a second chance at a life in the Wastes. Only the lucky or the wealthy were able to get an apartment room, especially one with a view such as it had over New Pegasus. In an age where deeds to a house were only reserved for places in the NER or settlements with an established mayor, the ownership of a house key was the sign of ownership of the house. With Velvet dead, whoever ran the building was bound to hear about the change of ownership so my job would be taken care of for me.

“T-thank you...M-Miss…” She managed to say as her lip quivered fiercely enough to make a raspberry sound if she wanted to.

“You're welcome...now please...get going. I need a nap and you two have a lotta shit to figure out from here. I'll lend you a pair of Mr. Helpers to help haul that fucker over to the apartment or wherever you wanna take it but once they're done, they're done so choose where you drop it off wisely."

With another command the Mr. Helpers were on their way carrying their quarry behind the mare and her son who looked back at me with an expression I couldn’t give a specific name to. Before I could consider it more they were gone and we were left with an empty shop save for the Mr. Helpers milling about picking up the empty Cola bottles and other refuse left behind in the wake of the crowd.

“I-I found some g-gold bars in t-the bathroom…” Gold said breaking the silence. “S-she had another safe b-behind the toilet. T-they were too h-heavy to lift and I forgot about them w-when you found t-the Power Armor…”

Gold, even though its value as a currency was more or less a moot point in the wake of caps as the currency of the modern world, still retained a special place in the hearts of any species intelligent enough to make use of money. Jewelry for the fancy mare, watches and chains for the sophisticated stallion and semiconductors for the scientist. Gold still had value even in the Wastes. Hell, Cogs in particular was a rather fond collector of the metal finding many uses for it in his work.

“Heh...guess that takes care of their financial troubles…” I laughed tiredly before laying my head down on the counter and falling asleep.

******

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Raven in the Mountains

"So...that explains the talk of SR activity near the Gap..." I replied with a frown, helmet off and feeling rather relaxed. "They're all looking for this place too and the only path in they can take is on this side of the Embers."

"Yep." Garand replied. "Radio transmission was pretty short but it looks like Elder Grigori was getting at least a Platoon-sized force together. Great as the NER might be, I doubt they'd be able to counter that strong a force with the Elder and his Sentinels at the head."

"As somepony tha' has some authority on tha' subject, lemme speak fer th' Republic 'n say naw." Firefly replied to my left, the winding dirt road more than wide enough for the three of us to walk abreast of each other. "Th' Gap is prolly at it's weakest at th' moment. Things been so quiet tha' they apparently started tah redeploy troops, 'specially th' Rangers, tah th' North. Ain't sure what they're up tah but Ah'd bet ya ah solid hundred caps it's prolly somethin' tah do wit' proddin' into th' Duchy 'o Crystal. Command was obsessed wit' scout reports from th' North 'n there were plenty 'o debate about wha' might've survived th' War."

"Perfect time to redeploy then." I sighed, imagining the power sixty to seventy Rangers in Power Armor had to smash though almost any point in the defensive perimeter they chose. "The Order works on their own frequency so I'm surprised you were able to tap into it. Even my equipment struggles to tune into that high of a frequency range."

"Mine used to be able to when I was closer to the radio relay stations under their control out East." He replied with a short laugh. "Only reason we happened on this shit was we were already at a relay station called Black Steel Hill. An NER Bounty target Firefly was after had holed up in there so we just kinda happened to be in the right place at the right time .The station was in SR hooves only a few years ago, and the radio equipment has been locked tight against those dumbasses who moved in so I thought why the hell not? We took advantage of the opportunity and tapped into the radio frequencies with their own equipment and didn't even need to do much of any real hacking. And boom! Soon as the radio tower is raised, we hear all that shit about them headed this way and long story short, here we are trying to cut them off and somehow prevent them from finding and looting this place. Pretty simple plan but somebody has to stop those maniacs from getting tech they don't deserve."

"Right, and that's where we come in, right?" I laughed, grateful I had thought ahead and brought extra armor-penetrating options. "Guess you're lucky I happened to show up when I did. 25x102mm is more than enough to punch a hole in Tin Head armor at most ranges."

"Yeah...lucky..." He grunted with a nervous chuckle. "I'm still not sure if we are postponing our fight for later or...?"

"Yeah...for now, let's just consider it on hold until this is resolved. Everything you've said so far about the inbound hostiles seems to be credible so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. Plus, Firefly's word holds weight with me and if he says you are a good guy and trustworthy well...like I said. Benefit of the doubt. Best I can offer you right now until I've had more time to think shit through."

"Heh well thanks there, Athena..." Firefly said bashfully. "Nice tah see Ah'm visible from th' top."

"Please..." I laughed in response, grateful he wasn't holding a grudge for the whole meat shield thing. "Hitmares have a vote on who's earned a place in our number and you'd better believe we keep an eye on the Gungho-Guns. Your record speaks for itself and your performance last year at Freeside Hot-Shots was commendable as well."

"Sorry to interrupt or whatever, but you do know the SR aren't gonna pay up, right?"

"What do you mean?" I asked in surprise. "You don't just simply make a Contract through the Syndicate. If you put up a price and create a job, caps will change hooves. Otherwise, they have ways of getting their due that I doubt even the Order is prepared against. Any attempts to resist will be considered an act of war and they have many Combat Sorcerers trained exclusively in Dark Magic. If they start coming out of the shadows to fight...it will be a nightmare for anyone involved. I've only seen them demonstrate their resolve once and the entire caravan company that refused to pay for its Merc guards hired through the Syndicate was completely liquidated. Including every last person running it down to the last mare and stallion. So...unless the SR wants a war unlike any its ever fucking seen, they'll pay up."

"You don't get them like I do, mare..." He growled warningly, striding ahead to stop me in my tracks and pay attention. "I can't prove anything you're saying about these Syndicate people, but I feel like believing you since Firefly has said a lot of the same. Bounty hunting and that sorta shit out East is nowhere near as oiled a machine as it seems to be out here, so if this Syndicate is behind itbthen they're no doubt a huge power player out here. But, I'm telling ya with brutal fucking honesty that the SR think they're the hottest shit on the planet. Even if they did somehow know about this whole spooky scary magic shit, that doesn't mean a goddamn thing to them. They're so far up their fucked assholes they wouldn't even consider it a threat. Their Power Armor gives them a sense of invulnerability since most groups can't punch through 'em save for known groups like the Gunners or the NER. They care a hell of a lot more for that Mrk. IV and PipBuck of yours than your entire fuckin' life and soon as you try to turn me in you'll be dead. Don't care how good your shit is, the T-60s have fuckin' 25mm autocannons which'll put you down nice and easy."

"Ah mean...fucker's gotta point, Crete." Firefly chimed in. "Ah don' see th' SR holdin' up their end 'o th' bargain."

"Ugh! Just...let me fuckin' think about it, alright?" I snapped back at both of them, my ability to see the right option blurred by recent events. "I've got a lot riding on this Contract..."

"What price is worth killing someone you fuckin' know, huh?" Garand huffed indignantly. "Where the fuck else are you gonna get to swap war stories with someone you know worked the Southern Front right with you?"

"I get it!" I whined. "It's more than just the fucking money, damnit! I fucked up royally with Green alright? Sent me to get some cash back from Slavers in Appleloosa and kill his rival Jingle Jangle...I ended up liberating the captives, paying them the cash meant for Green and kinda, sorta adopted a daughter from one of the slaves."

"Yew...wha' Crete?" Firefly breathed in reply.

"I fucked over Green with a sudden change of heart and adopted a filly. Big fucking whoop but now, as a result of all that, Greene has a Contract out on my head for 150k. I've got two teenagers to look after and I don't wanna spend that time looking over my shoulder for someone like Cook Cook or Black Velvet to hurt either of them. Both of them are dead now but they're just the first of many to follow."

"Yer th' one who killed Velvet? Goddamn...explains why th' psycho lost. Heard about tha' fight when we was in Th' Pile."

"So what's your part in this then? How does taking me in clear your name of a price on your head?"

"Because Killer Queen came to me personally with a fucking Broker and offered me a deal. Your sorry ass alive for the 300k and absolution from Green's Contract. Said I was too invaluable to the organization and that was the only reason they were offering it. Perhaps they too are expecting the Order to reneg on its half of the Contract. Hell if I know..."

"You try and turn me in to them and you won't be alive to enjoy that freedom."

"Ugh...so you say..."

It was a terribly hard decision to make and I didn't need both of them on my case trying to use the nostalgia and good guy card to guilt me into leaving him alone. The money was a generous buffer to all the expenses for renovations and the absolution would be such a weight off my mind. But...given his actions against them, it was undoubtable that they would shoot him on the spot and burn the body the moment they had him in their sights. Just like that a living relic of the past just like myself would just be gone...I wasn't ready to go through that again.

For all his attitude, he was easy to talk to and had a surprisingly good memory for the past filling in holes I had forgotten long before. There was no doubt in my mind after a few minutes of talking that he was the real deal as he knew things impossible for anypony to know but those who had lived through it. Much as I was loathe to admit it...I had made a friend; the most unique one to date. Could I really condemn him to a certain death? And...he had a point. The SR had never dealt with the Syndicate before now and they had a habit of lying that even I was aware of. I kept to the West for a reason and rarely found a reason to be anywhere near the Tin Heads meaning things had probably gotten worse with them in the meantime.

As before, I found myself letting my thoughts wander after a few minutes forcing the dilemma to fade out of my mind for the time being. The road continued snaking up and through the tight canyons of the Embers and I was amazed that Garand had been able to spot it on the GIMP. The Global Interactive Mapping Program supposedly had once provided detailed aerial photographs once every half hour and, unsurprisingly, was something only available to the Steel Ranger Corps. How he had managed to find the damn bunker amidst all this rock was absolutely beyond me although considering he said it had taken seven hours to do, I suppose it wasn't too far fetched. All any of us knew was that the damn thing was somewhere nearby up and ahead and we had been after it for more than two hours. Two hours that...honestly went by in the blink of an eye with so much reminiscing to go around.

"Do we know what we're looking for?" I asked after a few minutes of silent walking, Firefly slipping ahead of me slightly as my pace flagged a little from all the thinking.

"Dunno, a big fat door that puts a roadblock on the path ahead? How should I know?" Garand retorted. "All I did was find the big hollow hill its hidden in, I'd assume this road has to lead somewhere there's an entrance; path like this is perfect for half-tracks and shit so the door'll be obvious I'd think."

"Guess that makes sense...still...feels like we've been walking for a longggg fucking time now."

"Ah shut it, Ah'm havin' ah blast hearin' ya two go on 'n on so Ah think it's been ah great fuckin' ti-"

Without any warning he had run face first into...nothing. He reeled back in shock and pain, kicking out at whatever had hit him and hitting something flat, solid and...made of metal?

"Did the air just clang?" Garand asked eagerly while Firefly held his poor muzzle in his hooves.

"Ah dunno, Garand! Why don't ya try headbuttin' th' fucker 'n find out!"

I got closer and more or less in unison with Garand felt an arm out for the mysterious invisible wall. I didn't have to reach far before my hoof stopped in mid-air, held in place by the invisible barrier that Firefly had so graciously introduced his face to. A quick jab of my armored combat boot into the resistance elicited a metallic clang that we had heard earlier.

"Gotta be our door..." I mumbled, standing back and glancing at Garand who was equally at a loss for words. "Any ideas? Never come across something like this before...M.O.W kinda hides their shit in the open so this is a new one to me."

"Hold on...I'm thinkin'..." He replied, putting on his Plague Bird helmet and staring at the empty space in front of us. "No...no...no...no...aha! Put yours on and put on AS filters, you'll see it clear as day."

I followed his instructions and plopped my helmet back on as well. Within a second my worldview changed to a pastel rainbow of colors in the Arcane Signature spectrum and towering above us was a massive fifteen-foot sliding steel door. It had been disguised with some sort of invisibility spell and placed in the middle of a random part of the road, more than likely leading immediately down into the mountain.

"Oh, so now yew two can see it an' not th' guy who smacked his fuckin' nose into it? Common..."

"Oh...right..." I said sheepishly. "Forgot the Mrk. Is are pretty barebones. Just precision optics and low-lights right?"

"Yup, and ah simpler version of tha' fancy friend-er-foe compass thang. Nothin' like wha' yew two are workin' wit' but it works great fer sniper work against mah usual targets."

"Not missing much...just a big steel lookin' door. I think I see the terminal for it over here to the left!"

"Yeah, I see it. I've got the bigger, better PipBuck so lemme handle it. Shouldn't be too hard."

We both stood and watched as he made his way to our left and climbed out of his armor before he started tapping on an invisible computer on an invisible gateway. Within a few moments the thing popped into view looking mighty odd as a floating terminal hanging onto nothing. He pulled out a universal StableTec adapter on a long black cord from the back of his PipBuck and plugged it into an access port changing the text on the screen as both devices communicated and made a connection. While he worked, Firefly and I simply waited quietly for him to do his thing. With any luck, we had at least a few hours to look around before we had to seriously consider planning our ambush and with the opportunity wonderfully presented to me...well, I just couldn't help myself. There was no telling what this place held and large, well hidden doors tended to imply something worth protecting in my experience.

"Annnd...there!" He declared proudly, a soft squeal of metal on metal piercing the ears as the world in front of us parted and a growing void filled the gap.

"Sweet fuck tha' there's ah trip..." Firefly grunted, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes from the optical illusion.

"Tell me about it..." I mumbled in agreement, blinking the weird sight from my vision before drawing my Sequoia and proceeding into the dark room ahead.

A few steps into the darkness and my helmet automatically turned on infrareds giving me view of a large, empty concrete room dotted with ventilation on the ceiling and a massive freight elevator in the center big enough to fit several tanks in a long row. We went in slowly, each of us panning around the room with our weapons drawn looking for any potential danger. While the elevator and room were quite large, there was hardly anything to see when you looked around you. Fans and inactive lights in the ceiling and on the walls with the only other thing of note being a passenger elevator in the far right corner of the room with its own terminal on standby. Not a Soul in sight and not even a blip on E.F.S aside from the two of them likewise scanning the room and finding nothing.

"Well...ah empty house be ah good house in mah book." Firefly said with satisfaction. "Quiet can be ah damned good thang sometimes, 'specially in cases like this here."

"Can't say I disagree..." I laughed, keeping my revolver floating at my side just in case. "What you think? Head down to the top floor and work our way through the sublevels past that or hit the bottom and go up?"

"That's assuming the thing still works of course." Garand commented with a sigh, approaching the next terminal after moving his armor inside with his adapter at the ready. "No clue about anything to do with this base so for all we know it's even more of a relic than most places."

Out of blatant curiosity for the state of the place when not lit in shades of grey, I shut of IRs and turned on my LED headlamp letting my eyes see the world in color. The darkness came in all at once making anything outside my cone of light gloomy and hard to make out but a quick look around showed me everything looked near-pristine. Barely any rust touched any of the metal of the large freight elevator and the concrete walls had minimal chipping or erosion like you'd normally find. Most things military had a way of eroding in very particular ways in the Post-War world, most thanks to ignorant dumbasses who don't have the capacity to appreciate all the benefits that came with such territory. Raiders in particular were just the worst...turning lovely fortresses of concrete, rebar and barbed wire into hellholes for their gore and squalor fetishes. In all fairness, the place looked barely fifty years old and completely untouched.. This was getting interesting...

"I have a feeling it might..." I replied after a brief pause as I looked around. "This place is weirdly intact for a military relic. Especially for one so close to the Badlands..."

"Bingo!" Garand called out again, his voice coming from multiple directions on the concrete walls. "Just a second...lemme see if I can find the lights..."

After a few moments of typing, soft computer beeps and the sound of Garand chewing the damn thing out under his breath, the large floodlights on the walls and ceiling sprang to life. Though the light was muted somewhat from dust and grime, the sudden addition of light rendered my headlamp pointless and made the room feel much more welcoming. There was still nothing to see anywhere in the room but at least that meant it was safe to relax. For now.

"Well damn, you're right! Place looks almost brand spanking new!"

I looked back towards the two of them seeing that Garand had taken his helmet off and was inspecting the metalwork closely before returning his attention to the terminal. Firefly meanwhile was busy fiddling with an odd rifle, even more odd than the foreign-made .50 that he had stored in a broken down state on his back. This comparably smaller rifle was formed from the forward half of an M16 up to the mag well and the lower half of a lever-action which operated the weapon. While I was aware of the so-called Gun Runner Customs line of firearms, mismatched pieces of separate unusable guns hybridized into a functioning one, I had never actually seen one for myself. The fault of course was on me and my admittedly expensive tastes. GRCs were middle-of-the-road in terms of quality and efficiency and were two-steps down from the price range I usually had for myself when shopping. And to be frank...I only really spent money on ammunition and reloading supplies like powder, pre-jacketed projectiles and primers. I had all the weapons I needed for my day-job and didn't have room in my armory for more guns, even if I wanted them. That was something that could change with the new apartment up and running though...

"Gimmie a few guys..." Garand grunted over his shoulder as he hunched in front of the pony-sized computer and fucked around with the keyboard and joystick. "Probably need to manually unlock the elevators since the hello message said something about an unexpected power loss. Had to switch to axillary power which should hold more than enough juice for us to look around for awhile."

"Oh?" I hummed curiously. "Wonder what happened to the power then. Place seems pretty well preserved so I'd be surprised if it was something to do with bad wiring or something related to lack of maintenance."

"Who knows? All that matters is there's more than enough juice to keep the lights on for a couple years in here as far as I can tell. With the main CFRs offline, the backup generators were put into emergency-power mode so only the most important shit got power and even that was as minimal as possible. Plenty leftover for normal operations although there might be some tertiary systems and shit that probably won't be touchable until we can get main power back online. Not like that's a big loss, tertiaries are one of those 'can live without' sorta things."

"Ya mean, 'if' we get it back online." Firefly mumbled over his work adjusting the scope mounting on his rifle. "Don' jump th' gun on anythin' over fifty years old...NER know tha' one better than anypony."

"Eh, I prefer to think optimistically." I replied, pausing to lean in closer to see Firefly's rifle better. "Besides, I'm getting the feeling this place has a lot to hide. It's unusually large and well preserved. That just doesn't happen by accident out here, not in this day and age."

"Heh, takin' ah look at Headsplitter?" He chuckled after he noticed my interest in the bizarre weapon.

"Yes, actually." I said candidly, looking up at him with a smile. "Heard plenty of stories about Runner Customs but never actually seen one until now. Never really ever had a reason to buy one."

"Tha' right?" He chuckled, glancing over my kit before nodding his head. "Eh...yeah, makes sense. Yer shit is too damn pricey fer meh."

"I just happened to be unlucky enough to survive with some terrific gear made from Celestium..." I sighed. "But yes, I definitely shop for the more expensive shit since I can afford the quality."

"Heh, well no offense 'er nuthin' but yer missin' out Crete." He laughed proudly, holding out his rifle for me to look at closely and admire the blend of old and new gun technology. "Get th' penetration 'n mag size tha' comes wit' ah 5.56mm wit' all th' fun 'n nostalgia of ah old lever gun!"

"It's certainly something alright." I laughed, unsure if I liked the blend of weapons or not. "Definitely something my old friend Dark Blaze would adore were he still here to see it."

"Oh yeah? Someone from th' War 'er...?"

"Yeah, before the Great War. Was a hell of an expert in the Engineer Corps of the army and really talented with gunsmithing. Ran a little smithy out of an old wagon he had repurposed with a bunch of tools and shit and was known for weird custom guns like that. Jasper Arms we called them after his first name..."

"Tha' right...? Damn..." He replied with a bit of a frown. "Remember any 'o th' crazy ones?"

"Oh damn...that's a hard one..." I admitted, furrowing my brow as I tried to think wayyyy back. "Um...fuck...oh! There was one really popular design he called the Survivalist which were M16s rechambered for...oh fuck what caliber was it...?"

"Take yer time..." He chuckled, sitting down comfortably. "Ah'm curious about this here 'Survivalist'..."

"Fifty-cal...but not like, Big Mac sized..."

"Like wha' them Desert Falcon Magnums shoot?"

"Yes! Exactly those. But...not the 12.7x32.6mm, the bigger one that's based off that case...something with a Wolf in the name...ah! .50 Werewolf, 12.7x42mm!"

"Goddamn..." He whistled. "Dunno if Ah've ever seen one 'o them but Ah owned ah Desert Falcon fer awhile when I worked fer th' Ursa Company an' thought Ah was really somethin'. Them girls kick like hell so Ah can only guess how much of ah boom ah bigger round'll have."

"Yeah, it's a powerhouse for sure. It was a popular conversion because for one, it wreaked more ass in close quarters which was the Southern Front's bread and butter and for two, Griffinstone was importing Desert Falcon products directly onto our Front. Every member of the Griffinstone Division, who were on loan from their King in lieu of paying money towards the War instead, had one of those Magnums at their sides and had brought mountains of .50 Automag and .50 Werewolf. Desert Falcon was the country's primary military outfitter despite being outside the borders of the Kingdom and Griffins being Griffins...they just adored anything with .50-cal in the title or description. Big booms for big birds...gods they never change."

"Heh, glad Ah'm not th' only one who noticed tha' trend in Griff Mercs." He replied with an amused smirk. "Talons in particular got tha' problem all over. Nothin' under 12 gauge 'er .45-70 fer them hardasses, no sir!"

"Heh...no need to remind me, very aware of that particular habit. Like I said, it's old as time."

"Still...sounds like ah helluva rifle! They work good at all?"

"Terrifically actually. Could only fit a single stack of 15-rounds in modified service rifle mags but they chewed ass, especially once the Griffs started introducing specialty ammos for those calibers. After the first dozen or so, Blaze got the hang of the crafting side of things and could do it in his sleep after fifty. Converted so many that the EAF made a special requisition to Desert Falcon to add the rifle to their catalogue and produce an abundance of mags for all the ones Blaze had already converted. He moved fast too...could outfit a whole Platoon in a day and a Company in three as long as he had the steel. Of course he eventually had to get some metal-printers and robotic assistants to handle the workload but still...the guy was unstoppable and loved funky hybrids like this. Thanks for the happy memory heh."

"Well...mah pleasure!" He grinned, his teeth still surprisingly white and all coming to a point, especially the characteristic Changeling fangs towards the front of his upper jaw like a Batpony. "Bit 'o healthy nostalgia be good fer th' Soul after all. Ay, Garand! Yew gettin' close 'er wha'?"

In response, a klaxon instead went off above our heads making the two of us jump up to our startled hooves while red and yellow lights spun in circles and the elevator we were standing on began to sink. Panicked, I glanced back at the front doors and sighed in relief as I saw them close behind us providing us some protection from the SR. Even if it was at the cost of sealing us inside...well, whatever this place was.

"Ah thought we was gonna use th' otha elevator!" Firefly called out loudly over the noise of the rather smooth elevator descent. "Where we even goin' anyhow?"

"Well since you two were jabbering on about whatever, I decided to get this party started and send us down to Sublevel-1. This elevator only goes down one floor so we'll have to find the one that reaches all the way down to Sublevel-9."

"Nine?!" I exclaimed in surprise, not expecting such an extensive compound like this. "I was expecting like...three! Or like maybe five at an absolute most but...nine fucking floors?? What the hell is this place hiding?"

The large car slowed to a stop at a dimly lit concrete room similar to the one upstairs except several feet smaller and with another closed steel gate ahead of us. Though the room itself was smaller, the gate was still more than large enough to accommodate for a full-sized vehicle with room to spare on either side. Even when lit up, the lack of any sort of color or...really anything interesting on the cold concrete walls was simultaneously unsettling and an assault of pure boring on my eyes. Unlike the last floor however, this floor was littered with wooden crates of various light fixtures and a smattering of scaffolding for an installation that had obviously been cut short. There were still some lights that had been successfully installed, mainly over the security bulkhead, which illuminated the area. While small, it was a notable detail as it heavily implied this place was built just before the Great War and had probably been sealed shut automatically upon detecting the Balefire event. Would it just be a hollow shell still a work-in-progress like Cogsworth's Stable or had it been thankfully put into use even during construction?

"Ah...great. Another fucking computer..." Garand sighed, leaving his armor behind on the elevator as he needed to be out of it anyway in order to access the adapter on his PipBuck. "Thank fuck I have that fucker General Olive's access codes stored...otherwise we'd have a hell of a longer time playing IT with all this shit. I have a feeling it isn't our last locked door in this place..."

"General...Olive?" I asked hesitantly, remembering that name far more than I wanted to. "How...how in the fuck did you get his codes?"

"Easy." He replied with a chuckle, glancing up from the terminal screen to smirk at me. "I took them once General Prickly Pear died of old age in the Stable. He took charge of the Front after Olive was assassinated and thus inherited his old command codes. Took the codes off of every officer who died in there...I've got over twenty to choose from ranging from Captain all the way up to Four-Stars."

"In other words, you have an easy-in into any military property you want?"

"Damn fucking straight!" He laughed proudly, sticking his tongue out of the side of his beak as he maneuvered the joystick meant for hooves while glancing at his PipBuck every now and again. "Helped keep me topped off on .30 Carbine rounds while I was still nearby Manehatten. Didn't have much time to find a better gun after my damn launcher fell apart and the ammo was in decent supply up there so I just snagged it and rolled with it. Worked well enough against anyone not in genuine armor and I had my revolver and shotgun on standby so I couldn't complain. Problem was, could only find the ammo in old bunkers like this and most have already been long ago plundered for every damn thing they were worth over the years. Damn scavvers..."

"Might be hard to get into Ministry of War places though, I know that some things were strictly off limits to all but their own elite employees. Ministry anything really would be a tough nut to crack even on a good day."

"Yeah..." He replied, grinning as the door began to open accompanied by klaxons and lights of its own. "But it's more than enough for this place! Common', let's get to poking around!"

We barely had a moment to think before out of the breach mounds of dry skeletons that had all piled up against the door from the other side scattered across the floor with a hollow, crunching rattling noise. I had been expecting to see them but...not like this. This kind of macabre pileup was for something that had happened deeper inside the complex. The fact there were so many of them that I could see just from spilling out of the door...something had scared them more than the arcane hellfire going on outside the base.

"Goddamn, look at all of 'em! Looks like half the base is in here!" Garand whistled completely nonchalantly, moving towards the pile of bones in his Power Armor and starting to crush and bulldoze his way through them.

We followed behind slowly following in the grizzly wake of his stomping and kicking with a casual eye over all the death around us. Who here actually even cared about seeing another bone-dry corpse in a Pre-War structure? The path ahead of us was an extremely long one, both sides featuring deep recesses that seemed to have been intended for some sort of large-scale maintenance. Immediately to our right, the terminal for this side of the door was pulled apart with wires everywhere as if they had been attempting to hack into it and override the lockdown. With power restored, we were able to glance around at the centuries-old carnage and see the abundance of variety in the faded and tattering clothing worn by the fallen. Tan and desert camo print soldiers, grey jumpsuits for Engineers, bold navy blue for a surprising number of Airborne, an olive green or two which signified some high ranking GA officers, a few dozen orange and red M.O.W uniforms and, most surprisingly, more white lab coats in pristine condition than I had ever seen in one place before.

"Uhhh...Garand?" I called out over the din of his happy rampage. Naturally, he was making too much goddamn noise to hear me. I was about to try again before switching tactics early and trying the same thing over the radio on an emergency military channel. Even if his radio was turned off and muted, this was one frequency his PipBuck couldn't ignore.

"Yo, fatass! You seeing all these M.O.A.S coats everywhere?"

"Hey, if you wanna play ball pit with a bunch of skulls then by all means call me that again, mare."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever, look, do you see all the lab coats around here? I've never seen so many in one place...ever. Never saw a ton of those eggheads before the War to begin with."

"Yeah? Well their skulls crunch just the same as everyone else here. Funny ain't it? Look, I dunno what they're all doing here so don't bother askin'. We know as much as each other so don't ask dumb questions."

"Wasn't asking a dumb question..." I sighed, rolling my eyes. "All I'm saying is this place is getting more interesting the deeper we go."

"Agreed. Let's save the idea and hypothesis making till we have something better to go on. Then we might have a place to start building a working theory, alright? Alright."

I didn't even bother to respond and instead cut the feed, turning my attention to snagging each and every Ministry name badge I could find just in the off-chance we needed that kind of clearance to get into some places. The Ministry of War uniforms made sense given they would have had a lot of say in a bunker like this and it was likely a few of them were actually StableTec employees aiding the effort in some way. With so many of Twilight's lackeys on site however, this potentially made for an interesting cross-Ministry project. It was rare to see such projects given the rather fractured nature of the Ministries but ones between Arcane Science and Wartime Technology had provided the most advanced military projects on the books. With grand works on their official docket like Crystalline Fusion technology, Power Armor and electromagnetic ballistics, this one had to be off the books in a major way for there to be this much diversity in a single installation. With neither I or the pride of the EAF having any knowledge of this place, the only explanation was that it was some sort of Black Site. That or...I just wasn't paying attention to the old tactical reports on the greater War effort like I had thought I was. With how many years had gone by...it was a gamble as to which was the greater culprit to my gap in memory.

The body count only started to stagnate towards the very end of the half-mile long maintenance hallway with none of the over thirty bays having anything other than scaffolding, decrepit building supplies and more bodies. The lights overhead were rather bright and gave the bones an oddly pasty white color that stood out against the monotone grey concrete. Close to the other door on the other side, the bays started to become more and more finished with extensive infrastructure for tools and other equipment. There also started to be painted markings on the walls and floor indicating directions and bay numbers with the last being Bay #40 on our right. These last two actually had hoof tools and automated mechanist rigs dangling from the ceiling like an Auto-Doc. Expensive and very useful for repairing heavy vehicles...interesting.

"I know the drill..." Garand sighed, parking next to the terminal and getting busy with our next roadblock. "Gods fuck how short you ponies are...I miss the Greifenländer sometimes..."

"Yeah, well...shrink or something? What do you want me to do about it?"

"Sit and spin, princess..." He groaned, the door opening to yet another klaxon and spinning warning lights.

"You wish..." I snorted with a smirk, walking ahead of him just so I had the pleasure of seeing the other side first while he was still suiting-up. "Oh...my...GODS!!"

"Th' fuck ya...now wha' in tarnation is tha'?"

"Fuck you two, I wanted to...go...first..."

It was enormous and covered in thick tan canvas roughly...more than a hundred-feet long and had an even longer circular-shaped portion about midway down the main body. The shape was reminiscent of a bird with outstretched wings and covered with blankets, a shape I knew once-upon-a-time. I had my suspicions given the familiar (if larger than I remembered) form but they were enough to cause my heart to jump for joy and start doing cartwheels of giddy delight. I needed to see it! There was nothing else it could be!

"Whoa, hold up mare." Garand grunted as I ran forward and almost dropped my gun in my frantic desire to wrench the canvas off. "We don't even know what the fuck it is yet!"

"But I do!!!" I exclaimed back, unabashedly showing there was a total fucking geek inside this Mrk. IV armor as I yanked on the coverings with every ounce of energy and concentration I could afford.

The first sheet came free without much effort and immediately I was staring at my own reflection in a gold polarized window embedded in a thick armored chassis painted in the Rangers go-to desert camouflage. If they asked anything, I didn't hear it as I furiously attacked the sheets like they were some sort of pest and exposed more of the gorgeous beast. Soon enough I was standing back in amazement gazing upon the massive slick cockpit of a Vertibird, the be-all-end-all technology ever produced by the Hexagon. However, there was something special about this model...

"Wha' in th' hell is tha'?" Firefly gaped, looking at his reflection like I had with a look of wonder. "Some sorta attack buggy 'er somethin'? Fancy as hell, Ah'll give it tha'."

"Yeah, I got nothin' on this one." Garand commented, eying the large and mostly hidden craft with a grin of approval. "Ain't anything I've ever seen before...looks way too advanced. Which...means this might just be that 'Prototype' they mentioned in the message. Since you seem to be the resident expert, mind telling us just what the hell this thing is?"

"It's called a Vertibird!" I proclaimed proudly, kinda glad the glass was tinted enough that I couldn't see inside to save more of the treat. "These babies were just...goddamnit where do I even start with these fucking legends?"

"How about the name and what it means." Replied Garand dryly, back out of armor and eying me with boredom.

"Heh...well, guess it doesn't mean a whole lot on its own...but these were officially called Utility Flying Machines and were made for hauling troops and cargo long distances incredibly quickly. No need for wing power like anything before, just absurd engineering using big old fan things they called...rudders? Fuck, no. Rotors!"

"Troops 'n cargo?" Firefly asked. "Wit' ah machine? Tha's a new one..."

"Yeah, still not ringing a bell." Garand replied. "When did these start being deployed?"

"Uh...only like...six or seven months before the Great War? Why, you never got to work with one of these at all?"

"Hell no!" He retorted with what could have been a bitter chuckle. "Got pulled back South in early March of that year since the King was concerned about the pyrrhic stalemate going on down there and wanted to help shore it up since you ponies weren't. Your capital is not even four-hundred miles North of the Badlands, if the defense failed there, there wouldn't be much keeping the Empire from knocking Equestria outta the War. And, not for nothing, you guys did a damn good job at skirting away a good chunk of the enemy force from attacking the Greifenländer directly. Didn't see anything like this at all the whole damn time I was stuck down there and believe me, I would remember something like this. Where the hell have you seen one then? If you were infected in Maripony that would put you rather close to the Southern Front so how did you interact with one enough to know as much as you do about 'em?"

"Look, what lead to me ending up in Maripony is complicated and too long a story to try and sum up in a few sentences so I can get back to geeking the fuck out." I said with a sigh. "They were first deployed in the Zulu Campaign around like March or so and I just so happened to end up on Olive's shitlist around May. Since you had the liberty of going wherever your King sent you and not some nutbag, I was redeployed there last second as a way to break up my Squad and separate us. Me, our shotgunner and our Griffin heavy were all sent over to the Empire and the rest, including my fiancé, remained in the South being a Designated Marksmare and machine-gunner."

"So...you worked with these things I take it?" He guessed correctly.

"Yup. Much as Olive seemed to loathe me you just can't ignore credentials, especially when you were now under the command of another, more competent General. Soon as we landed in Stormgŭll just outside the Empire, General Steel Hide assigned Penny, Buck and I along with our Engineer whizz Dark Blaze to the still brand-new Mechanized Airborne Division. These things would have room for ten soldiers in full kit plus two pilots and could get you in and out of a warzone faster than any Pegasus can fly. Well...except the Minister of Awesome of course. They also came with as much armor as a Greifenländer war machine but with the added ability to fly like a dancer. I'm telling you, these things were fucking amazing to work with...even learned to fly one around late August or so. Well...sorta."

"Tha' so?" Firefly mumbled, obviously impressed which gave me an odd sensation of pride. "How'd ya do tha'? From wha' Ah've heard about ya, yew were ah heavy sniper wit' yer bigass rifle 'n no wings."

"You've every right to be a bit skeptical seeing as your species has wings but I'll have to assume you've never interacted with a Greifenländer vehicle before." I said sheepishly, hoping they would give me the benefit of the doubt. "These machines are designed to be as universal as possible no matter the operator and make all ponies, and birds, equal. It's a design philosophy replicated in these things and then some. I fell in love with these things from the first second I saw them on the tarmac..."

"I'll be the first to admit I have a fear of heights but there's a weird sense of safety being in one of these things and I went out of my to volunteer for any sortie with them that I could. Admittedly...it was a coping mechanism but it was a good one that worked. I liked to hang out with Blaze and learn about them bit by bit while he was working on them back at base and had his help as a Flight Engineer on many operations. What really did it was an...unfortunate error that led to me having to make an emergency exfil when our primary pilots were killed during a mission. After that, they designated me as a backup pilot and tossed in some formal training in case I ever needed to pull a stunt like that again in a pinch. They primarily had me working with my rifle still, given that was still my specialty, but towards the end of my time there I had at least fifty-hours spent in the pilot's chair. Yeah, I know. A paltry amount and nothing to brag about but it still makes me the expert here out of the three of us."

"Uh-huh..." He nodded. "Well...neat shit but...why didn't we ever see this one? This place is not far from the Badlands and we sure as hell could have used something like this. If you were using them in...what, May? That leaves five entire months until the bombs dropped and we didn't even hear a peep about this thing."

"Now it's my turn to say don't ask dumb questions." I retorted with a smirk. "I don't have any more of an idea than you do as I was too concerned about keeping me and my Squad alive in the most inhospitable battlefront of the War, thank you very much. Let's explore some more before we start making up explanations, alright?"

With nothing more to say, well...nothing more I wanted to say given my excitement, I turned my back on him and resumed excavating the gorgeous beauty from her mummification. After a few moments I saw a sickly green magic join my own as Firefly seemed to be taking part in the unwrapping portion followed up soon after by the grumbling Gryphon. The process took upwards of ten minutes, even with all of us working our damndest, but at last we could see the thing in all her majesty. Every sheet that came off was another shiver of pure glee down my spine and wiggled through my tail. It was very similar in many respects to the Vertibirds I had worked with, having multiple features I recognized but on a significantly larger scale. One that came with a lot of firepower in a wonderful assortment of flavors across the forward half of the vessel.

The main cabin body of the thirteen-foot wide chassis was roughly the length of two city buses from the rear hatch to where the ten-foot cockpit section began. The whole craft was a large, sleek and aerodynamic cylinder with slanted curves, a tapering lower half and a noticeable triangular bulge towards the cockpit of the fuselage on either side. Above us, the massive thirty-foot circular rotor assemblies were attached to large concave metal wings which extended outwards perpendicular to the midsection of the ship. These giants adjusted their angle and pitch on independent bearings allowing the massive ship to maneuver rather nimbly in the skies as well as hover above the ground with more stability than anything wing powered. Just below and ahead of the rotor wings were a set of snub-wings, something I had only seen on the heavy attack variants as transport variants only carried two small Anti-Air missile pods near the cockpit. Attached were a set of two different munitions, both housed within their own respective pod. Closest to the main chassis were the largest pods, which had a set of nineteen missiles poking their heads out from their launch tubes. Along the rest of snug-wing were a set of long, narrow tubes that were capped off on the ends by some sort of covering hiding whatever lay inside. Inferring what I could, I had to assume they were some kinda big missile at least. Comparable to Dart-88 missiles in width although notably longer, somewhere in the four or five foot range. The heavier attack variants, the Vultures, had something similar attached to their pylons which boded well for its destructive potential.

There were two doors to get into the main cabin on either side of the craft. A small, windowed hatch near the back towards the twenty-foot tail with its V-shaped rudders and a wide, sliding door a bit before the midship mark. The armored main door came with a large tinted window in the center while three large rectangular windows separated the forty-ish feet between both doors. In the remaining forty-five feet between the cabin door and the cockpit, there were only two more areas to look out from and both had very different windows. The triangular portions I had noticed earlier that were a little beyond the midship mark were composed of multiple slanted and angled windows with a rounded, armored bottom. Altogether forming something like miniature cockpits on either side of the fuselage. Below them was our second taste of the firepower of this beast, a pair of tri-barreled miniguns with a bore suggesting .50 Big Mac and what seemed to be multiple camera arrays surrounding the ball-turrets the guns rested in.

Within the next few feet, the long, flat second window extended almost ten-feet across until it met the fuselage again; below another set of small pods containing the set of four Anti-Air missiles that I was familiar with. There followed a few blank feet of armored chassis with a forward pair of landing gear directly below; afterward came the twelve triangular cabin windows of varying shape and size that began encompassing an area about seven-feet before ending with a roughly three-foot nose assembly. A nose with a large and highly advanced optics package in a ball-turret of its own and a fucking monster of a chin cannon mounted below, namely an Griffin M198-B. A tri-barreled gatling-cannon chambered in 30x113mm Corvinus which were known for punching holes in even the stronger barrier spells of the Empire.

"Holyyyy Celestia tha' there's ah biiig ass gun!" Firefly whistled in amazement now that we had the time to look at it in detail. "Ah ain't neva seen one this damned huge!"

"Goddamn..." Garand grunted, kneeling next to the massive six-foot long barrels. "I haven't seen one of you in a hot fuckin' minute..."

"Yeah, being a bird I'd expect ya to have seen one of these before." I laughed, much to his muted annoyance. "Only saw these on those medium tank things and the big Sky Freighters that used to long-haul goods and materiel between the Continents for us."

"Same here..." He replied, holding up a clenched fist for comparison to the cluster of three, inch wide barrels. "Bit too big, heavy and expensive for something like Anti-Air work so they made plans to adopt the M197-A, the 20mm Vulpes version. Never saw the new Falke IV ultra-mediums or the Adler I heavies since they never reached the South in time for me to enjoy them but I had heard about them in a dispatch from High Command. Saw plenty of burnt-out IVs around Manehatten and the Eastern Front though...but any that could be salvaged had already been taken by the High Elder and the Salt Lick City SR Chapter since...you know, security and enforcement. Gotta protect the heartland and head leader and all that jazz."

We all just kind of fell into a silent awe over the massive machine and it took a few minutes to rouse myself to my senses and make my way excitedly to the sliding door emblazoned with the crest of the Equestrian Armed Forces. A gold and silver kite shield with the Yin-Yang Sun and Moon of Equestria in it's center, intersecting a cross of black dividing up the shield into four portions. Flanking it in each of the four sections were the crests of the four (official) branches of the Armed Forces. Occupying the two larger portions were a clockwork hoofprint and sword for the Steel Rangers and a literal Pegusi winged spear for the Airborne Corps, a lasting testament to their dominating influence over the whole thing. Meanwhile, in the tiny and cramped upper allotments, the Dragon of the Desert Rangers and a horseshoe with a chevron frog representing the General Army stood proudly. As I reached out for the large latch on the right-facing door, my PipBuck beeped in an unusual way and the door slid open on its own accord as if triggered by my device for our convenience. Likewise a part of the floor and fuselage dropped down and outwards forming a handy step ladder up into the ship. It reminded me of something with a similar stepladder mechanic though I couldn't pair an exact memory up with it.

"Damn, that's nifty!" I squeaked with glee, stepping up and into the spacious cabin before gawking at the interior.

The inside of the main cabin to our left was easily forty-feet long and about fifteen wide before tapering towards the tail. To our immediate right was a break in the wall of seats with an odd downward twisting trough facing outwards; a narrow corridor leading towards the nose of the craft while the rest of the main cabin was rather sparse. Every wall that had space, except for a sizable break on the back wall, was taken up by more of the same padded seating I had seen in Greifenländer vehicles before making for a total of twenty passengers. There was a generous amount of space for cargo in the center area and even for my tall-for-a-pony height, I found more than enough room for me to walk around completely upright. I was a queen in her castle...this was my new home away from home.

"Jeeeeeez look at all that space!" Garand whistled, eying the height of the ceiling and looking uneasy. "Looks a little short in there so I think Imma stay out here where I can stand up straight. Besides...couldn't fit up that corridor if I wanted to, just a bit too skinny to fit through. This thing was built with ponies and Griffins in mind, not Gryphons. Huh...don't remember anyone saying anything about them working on something like this."

"You sure? Lotta neat shit on these, especially something that's like 50% bigger than the ones I'm familiar with. This model is completely new so there's a fuckload to dive into on this thing!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty damn sure I don't wanna get a neck cramp from seeing the most boring part of this thing's insides. Besides, somebody's gotta start searching the rest of the base. Still plenty of places to check out and shit to break into before we set up the ambush and ain't no time like the present!"

"Eh, your loss!" I laughed with a grin, walking the full length of the cabin with ease and plenty of leg-room. "You coming, Firefly?"

"Eh heh..." He laughed nervously. "Ah...don' think so, Crete. 'Fraid Ah'll break somethin' 'er bump into some buttons 'er another. 'Sides....ain't ah fan of enclosed places if ya get wha' Ah mean."

"So I'm to investigate this thing by my lonesome?" I pouted though it was hard to feel mad about having it to myself. "Damn...ah well! You boys enjoy your door-to-door bullshit and lemme know if you find anything interesting. I'll do the same with this big beauty and see what sorta secrets she holds. This one is extra special and is just begging to be poked and prodded for answers!"

"You're a fuckin' nerd, ya know that?" Garand sighed before motioning his head towards the far side of the room where a passenger lift was waiting. "Check in every fifteen-minutes, see ya mare."

***✪***

It had been hard to reign in the impulse to jump from place to place with no rhyme or reason and I set myself to examining everything section by section so I got the full idea in order. Going counter-clockwise, the main cabin was unlit and rather simple being nothing but the wall-to-wall seating with a set of racks overhead. Some of them were filled with bags which turned out to be field packs fully stocked with a few days-worth of food and supplies for one soldier. Scattered around on the dull grey walls, just above the spare fire extinguishers, were creamy yellow M.O.P first-aid boxes. Inside each was a surprisingly diverse assortment of pills, potions, bandages and I.V bags of things like 'Universal Donor' blood, RadAway and saline with their accompanying tubes and needles. Included as well were the Griffin Stim devices which injected concentrated amounts of ES healing potions directly into the body at the site of damage and almost instantly healed all but the most severe of injuries. Why did ponies drink the liquid form of these potions and wait up to three-times as long? It was simple. The rapid healing is incredibly painful and potentially toxic, something Griffins were willing to test their limits with and Gryphons seemed to shrug off like nothing.

The seats were comfortable, even while in armor and with a rifle on my back, and they could fold upwards to make more space in the cabin if necessary. Already I was getting nostalgic pangs for my days spent with the Mauler and the other Bünkerwagens while part of an Armored Division. In the break between seats on the back wall, there was a slim, archway-shaped bulge with a recessed wide-handled latch. Wrapping my fetlock around it and tugging, I felt a click through the handle and the archway thing began to slide out smoothly on ball bearings into the empty cabin space behind me. When I had tugged it open about four-paces, I felt resistance and rounded the side to see the sliding shelf was actually a built-in gunrack. With varying shapes and sizes of clear polymer racks lining both sides of the rounded shelf, there were sections for pistols, rifles, launchers, and even some low shelving for ammunition cans and slots for loaded magazines. Unfortunately, the whole thing was devoid of guns or bullets but it was still a terrific use of the tail assembly and there was a space between the rack and the tail where technicians could cram tools back there for maintenance. I could also spot lines of small dead LEDs embedded in the polymer that would have presumably glowed in low-light conditions to highlight the items on them. A bit superfluous but with an over-the-top monster like this, I was excited to see little useful features like this built into the design. It was exceedingly Gryphon to have numerous alternative uses for the things they produced and my experience thus far with their military equipment had set the bar high.

"Check in, what's it lookin' like in there, mare?"

I startled suddenly at the message over my radio, almost completely forgetting I had arrived with company before getting lost in inspecting my prize.

"Clear of hostiles far as I can tell." I responded with a smirk. "Why?"

"Ha ha...like there would even be hostiles inside something mothballed like that. Anything useful, smartass?"

"Well...only just got done checking out the main cabin which took some time to comb through. Anyways...I've found some Type-3 field packs fully loaded with gear, some hella good first-aid supplies and a really awesome built-in gun rack thing that recesses into the tail assembly. Sadly there's nothing on it but it's got a good five-feet of rifle space and room for ammo cannisters. Also, I call dibs."

"Dibs? Dibs on what? The Vertibird?"

"Yep! I know the most about it, I found it first and I am the most qualified to get this thing running in this group. You said yourself you never got much experience with Greifenländer vehicles and specialized in Power Armor engineering."

"Well...yeah, but...you can't just claim 'dibs' on something Firefly and I technically knew about first, mare. This ain't a Gryphon machine, you said it yourself."

"No, its not. It's 100% Hexagon with Griffin input probably. Besides, you can't even fit in the fucking cockpit fatass." I retorted. "How the fuck are you gonna fly this thing? Gonna push it around on its wheels with your Power Armor?"

"Alright, fuckin' take it then! But I've got dibs on everything else then."

"Hey! This place is more than big enough for the three of us to have an equal share here." I growled, feeling myself leaning more towards leniency now that we had a trump-card against the SR. "I'll take a lesser portion of whatever else you find. How about this, if it has anything to do with my Corps, it's mine. With yours getting the lions-share of the military budget, that should be a decent compromise I think. You can have the base too. Actually...hmmm...let's debate that one later. Since this thing can land in here, I have a use for this place as well so that muddies the water."

There was silence on the line before he sighed in resignation and mumbled, "Yeah. Sure...that sounds fine."

"Awesome! Now, unless you've found anything super interesting yourself, I'd love to get back to what I was doing."

"Eh, nothing much..." He sighed again, this time with a tone of boredom. "Just the main command center, canteen, a bunch of barracks, and locker room. Some neat shit but with everything on emergency power...just not a whole lot to look at so far. We're finishing up our sweep of this level, headed down to Sublevel-2 in a minute or two. Garand, out."

The line went dead after that and I was left alone again. With another long glance over the empty cabin, I shivered in glee and made my way towards the corridor leading towards the front of the Vertibird. Flanking the corridor bulkhead, which seemed to have an independent door that was already ajar, there were a pair of dead terminals set above the backrests of the seats. The hallway ahead was a bit dim with only the light coming from the cabin behind me while the cockpit awaited me on the far end and to either side laid those odd miniature cockpits I had observed on the outside. Using my headlamp, I walked through the bulkhead and to the rather roomy crossroads between hallways; the overall shape of the area being octagonal with doorways nestled in the crook of each arm of the four perpendicular passageways. Two of these independent cabins, those immediately after the bulkhead, were rather small while the other two ahead of me were lengthy, lining the rest of the twenty-something foot of hallway till the bulkhead separating it and the cockpit began.

"Hmmm..." I hummed happily to myself, looking at the bevvy of directions to choose from. "Which one, which one?"

With nothing better to go off of, I decided to tackle this section clockwise starting with the angled doorway into the small cabin to my left. There was another unusual beep from my PipBuck and like the sliding door from earlier the thick bulkhead door opened, split down the middle with large locking lugs and a rubber gasket seal around the internal rim of each half. Although the ship was completely shut down it seemed that they had thought ahead and had some remote sensors that would open doors for PipBuck users. More than likely it was simply to allow access to areas that would otherwise be inaccessible without power to those with some level of security clearance. Neat given I couldn't see any obvious doorlatches and there was still no main power.

Inside the small trapezoidal cabin I found...a...surprisingly large kitchenette? It took a few moments of staring for it to click what I was looking at as I was not even remotely expecting something like this on a Vertibird. But, no matter how unusual and mind boggling it was, I couldn't deny what I saw. A low countertop with a small sink at the end lined the wall to my right accompanied by a row of sliding metal gate wall cabinets above. At the far end of the cabin was a minifridge which I could softly hear rumbling with life indicating not all systems were in complete shutdown. Aside from a slightly cramped area to work at the countertop, all free space was dedicated to more storage cabinets with enough space to turn around in without bumping into anything. I didn't spend a lot of time poking through them but was pleasantly surprised to see dry and canned goods piled up inside the magically extended capacity of each container. The fridge itself was sadly empty but likewise shared in the bigger-on-the-inside enchantment placed on the room itself and had space for three-times as many fresh goods. After I downed a few easy-open cans of mixed vegetables to offset hunger pains from all the exercise and background fatigue, I had seen all I needed to and turned myself around, exiting into the crossroad hub area.

The walk to the portside gunner station was only a few paces behind another bulkhead, the small, blunt arrowhead-shaped turret allowing only enough room for one occupant through a narrow neck. Inside was a cushioned swivel chair surrounded by windows and a wide control panel of buttons and screens forming a crescent around the chair. Coming off the spine of the said chair was a long cable, the adapter for which was compatible with StableTec-micro and macro ports plugging right into any PipBuck model above 2000. Although this was a new use for my device, I was excited to get to the bottom of what it might be. By all appearances it was some sort of direct connection between the user and the turret underneath the chassis outside. Taking a moment to enjoy another comfy seat, I sat back in the swiveled chair and glanced around at the computer screens and lifeless buttons in an almost unbroken circle around me. There was a set of joysticks, the rounded kind similar to those found on mounted guns, embedded in the arm rests which came with wide easy to use triggers even fetlocks could grip on. It was fun to think about how it all worked but, with no main power going, there wasn't much to explore and soon enough I was back in the hub to check out the large portside cabin.

"What's behind mystery door number...Luna fuck me silly...!" I gasped as the door opened and the light from the large window to my left blended with my headlamp showing a small armory as clear as day. "Well hellooooo gorgeous! What do we have here??"

The room, shaped mostly like a rectangle and capped at the lower end by a trapezoid, was roughly eight-feet wide and fifteen deep making it roughly the size of a very narrow one-bedroom apartment. As to be expected, the entire space was optimized with storage cabinets and counters and a low-table built next to the window with a couple of bolted-down chairs. It was subtler than the last room but it was still obvious that this room too was far larger than it should have been. The cabinets here however were wire-mesh steel, and contained shit far more exiting than canned beans and pickled radishes. In fact, the whole room reeked with the smell of fresh-

"Second check in, anything new?"

I was better prepared for this one and quickly responded, "Well...checked out one of the gunnery stations above those side-mounted .50s and they seem to be pretty advanced. Can't say for sure until I get main power up, but I wanna explore everything while everything's off so I don't trip any buttons or switches I haven't accounted for."

"Anything else?" He mumbled, seemingly talking through a mouthful of something.

"Well, believe me or not but there's four smaller cabins in the center and upper fuselage. First one I checked was a tiny ass college apartment sized kitchenette with fuckin' food for days and a working fridge. Even more interesting than that, I just found an onboard armory that looks packed with weapons. Well, as packed as this small space can get. Plenty of space for tools too, has the makings for a terrific little crafting area if you ask me. Probably what it was meant for but I've yet to check any of the cabinets or drawers in here."

"Fair enough I guess…” He replied with a sigh after bothering to swallow whatever was in his mouth. “We just found a buncha living pod things for personnel in a bigass room. Pretty nifty little things with beds and shit, if a bit cramped for space but…everything is with you ponies. Cool to look at but nothing we can make use of right now. Anything interesting in that armory of yours you mentioned?"

"Uh...lemme check..." I mumbled in response, glancing around and starting to peek through the steel mesh to try and identify the weapons behind locked doors. "I'm seeing...some M16s, no shock there. M14s...G3s...oooh, a couple Barnette .50s and M-RADs! A lot of these smaller ones are hard to see clearly... They're all in cages and I don't wanna break them trying to get the locks open. This is a pretty slick little room lemme tell ya, would be a waste to just break shit...I can find someone to get these open properly. He's back up North but if I can get this thing flying, that won't be an issue."

"Take your word for it, mare. Anything else interesting?"

At the far end of the armory, in a space rather clear of surrounding objects, was another bulkhead door. Taking a moment to investigate, I waved my PipBuck in front of it and was surprised to see another extension spell. This time it was obvious as all hell there was too much extra room in such a tiny space.

"Huh...this looks like a Power Armor maintenance station!" I exclaimed softly as I recognized the tall frame of yellow bars, hoists, hooks and chains used to service PoA in Camp Grease hidden inside the 5x10' closet space. "Damn thing is stuffed in a tiny closet thing with an area extension spell and a full workshop of tools. Looks big enough to service even Griffin Power Armors...one at a time of course but still, this is a lot to cram into this bitch..."

"Heh, that's what he said. You'll have to try and show me some of these tools when we meet back up." He replied with an amused snort. "Might have shit in there I've been missing for months. Alright, cool beans...have fun, nerd."

Seeing as I was missing the keys to the cabinets and didn't know much about Power Armor maintenance, I made my way into the opposing large cabin and added another heavy load of surprise to my system. Like the kitchenette, they had managed to squeeze a narrow one-bedroom into 120 square feet of space. It came complete with four bunks, end-to-end with two hanging from higher on the wall which could fold up to make space, and a long, rectangular bench under the large window to the right. Stuffed into the corners as before were more storage cabinets, empty and devoid of anything at all, but seemed to be designed for clothing and M-CAP gear. Next to the door lay the only other thing interesting about the bunkroom, a small empty weapon rack presumably for anyone who might be awoken...unceremoniously.

Curious, I took my collapsed AMR from off my back and set it on the rack, fiddling with the adjustable divots until the wide barrel nestled snugly in place between the rubber nodes. Next...I just couldn't help but try out one of the bunks which proved to be quite comfortable and soft with more than enough room to sprawl out a little in. It was quiet and muted in the small room and yet, as much as I hated silence when at rest, I felt almost as comfortable and safe as I had been with Melody a few days prior. It was so foreign and yet so familiar...I was intoxicated with this vastly superior model and all it had to offer! Space for days, the most advanced systems I had ever seen, thick armor and could fly...I had found a mobile home that catered well to my needs and I couldn't be happier!

******

"Hey! Dumbass! You ignoring me or something now?"

"Huh...?" I mumbled, completely unaware my sleep deprivation had caught up to me when I wasn't expecting it.

"The fuck you been? Been trying to get your fuckin' attention for like ten minutes, mare. You fall asleep or something?"

"...uhhh..."

"Oh for the love of...what, find a bunkroom of some sort I take it? If the thing has a kitchenette but no place to sleep on a fucker that big then I'd find a way to beat some past-tense Engineer asses."

"Mph...yeah, its got a bunkroom. Four of em plus clothing storage, a bench by the window and a small writing table in the corner. Nothing fancy but it's still kinda incredible."

"Bet ya a hundred caps the last one's gonna be a bathroom of some sort, I'm on a bit of a roll with that bet today so far. Either that or like...extra storage. If they could stuff all this shit into tight places everywhere else, then I'm expecting anything at this point."

"Well...lemme find out for sure but I'll take that bet." I replied with a grunt as I rolled off the side of the bunk and got to my hooves. "Wouldn't surprise me either at this point."

Leaving my AMR where it was, I stumbled a bit back into the hub area and shook myself awake before making for the last door left to explore which opened automatically like the all the others.

"Yep, it's a bathroom!" I whistled, looking around at the Griffin-sized shower taking up the back wall with a similarly sized toilet and a tiny sink and mirror close to the door. "A little cramped but it's got a shitter and a pretty decent looking shower. Wonder how this thing does plumbing..."

"Wonder why on your own time. Anything else interesting?"

"Nadda." I replied, stepping back into the hub and pausing. "Just got the cockpit left and figuring out how to turn this sucker on. You?"

"Firefly and I found a nice big maintenance floor packed with a shitload of Kampfwagen! Most seem to have been getting engines installed but they're in awesome condition. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out how to put them together and get them goin'. Also, downloaded a schematic of this place to a holotape. Only had a chance to look at a bit of it but there's some bigass rooms on the lower floors that might be hiding some PoA and M-CAPs. Let ya know more when I get there."

"Gotcha. Any clue as to when we should start heading out?"

"Uhh...not entirely sure to be honest. Caught sight of the party clear as day just a dozen or so miles from the Gap about a half-hour before you decided to shoot at me. I'd guess we have until late this afternoon or early evening? Why? Think you might be able to get that behemoth up and flying?"

"Not sure yet..." I admitted, looking towards the last place left to inspect. "Gotta hit the cockpit still but long as the controls are similar to the ones I'm used to, I should be able to get it up and running. As for flying...well, I'll have to see."

"Well...do what you can then." He replied simply. "That 30mm would wipe the floor of most of them and make our lives a lot easier, especially if they're Dual Purpose rounds with a penetrator. Garand, out."

The long hallway ahead was lined on the floor and ceiling with recessed lights in the corners while the walls seemed to have large dark screens built into them, their purpose up for debate. Automatically the cockpit bulkhead door hissed open almost silently and at last I was able to see where the real magic was. About the size of middling living room, the spacy area had four independent stations. The pilot and copilot seats faced towards the front windshields as expected, surrounded by eight triangular and rectangular windows on either side providing a 180-degree field of view. The other two seats faced the back corners of the cockpit, most of the L-shaped areas packed with multiple terminals, keyboards and control panels. Both pilot chairs had their own independent control stations with wide-handled control wheels separated in the middle by a long, narrow panel of buttons, switches and small computer readouts. Coming down from the ceiling above were even more controls and readouts, including the large lever which triggered multiple smaller switches at once to initiate the engines and start main power. It was bigger than usual but unmistakable in purpose and function. Yet again, something else to admire in the way Gryphons approached their machines meant for others than themselves.

"Huh...same as everything else..." I commented to myself, sitting down in the pilots chair to the left and getting comfortable. "Similar design, just...bigger and better! Can't say I'm unhappy about that."

The chair automatically raised several inches bringing the main ignition lever within easy reach which pulled smoothly as I dragged it downwards. Within a second there was already the loud hum of life rattling softly through the craft and a faint whine as the engines came to life powered by a large chunk of Nexus Crystal located...somewhere. All lights, screens and buttons that were once dark now sprang to life in a dizzying display of colors and the recessed lighting adjusted its brightness to an appropriate level. There was just so much to look at! I was still gonna need a crash course (or three) just to stand a hope at recapturing any of the technical skill I had once had for that short summer over two-hundred years ago. Of course, the only way to find out was to go ahead and get star-

"Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Colonel! Boy am I glad to finally have someone to talk to again! I am the Artificial Unimatrix Navigational Transport & Intelligence Entity or, AUNTIE for short!"

**********

Chapter Forty-Two: A Siege Under a Desert Moon

I never enjoyed medivacs, no matter how many times I needed one over the years. Flying with Buck had gotten me more acclimatized to having my hooves way off the ground but there was some level of control to be had there. I could look around freely, shoot the bad guys and ultimately, I trusted Buck regardless of his fat fucking head and boundless ego. Laying as I was, strapped to a stretcher between two yammering Paramedics, there wasn't anything in my control up here. With my legs pinned to my sides and an IV stuck in me there was not a single goddamn thing I could do in the event of evasive maneuvers. I couldn't even imagine having to go through it in an active firezone because if one wing gets hit...the chances of making it home alive are pretty up for debate. I could walk if needed but a crash landing wasn't known for being too kind on bodies, regardless of species.

"Goddamn dude...fuckin' wow!"

"I know! Fuckin Commander TYPHOON! Like...what?? Since fuckin' when has a Shadowbolt Commander ever stopped to talk with a bunch of guys like us? She might be older but dude...she's got a nice ass under all that armor."

"Totally! She was so fuckin' cool...I'd let her sit on my face any fucking day!"

'Oh definitely.' I thought to myself knowing better than to speak up. 'But that armor was far more interesting to me.'

"What you think, Colonel?"

It took a second for me to recognize that they had directed the question at me and I responded, "About what? I've been zoning out..."

"The fuckin' Commander!" He exclaimed, though which of them it was that responded was unknown. "Isn't she fuckin' awesome?!"

"Heh, oh for damn sure!" I replied quickly just to make sure I didn't hesitate for too long. "Wasn't expecting an assist let alone one by Team Crash. They are just as impressive as the stories say!"

"The fuck ya mean 'stories'?!?" They cried in shock and quasi-disgust. "Team Crash were hoof-picked by Generals Rainbow Dash and Spitfire! Only others that got the special selection by both Generals are Teams Tank and Bolt!"

"Soooo...in other words, as close to the big shots as you'll probably ever get then?" I asked with a laugh, trying not to sound patronizing despite my personal lack of interest in Pegusi war heroes. "Fair enough then. I didn't know there were only three Shadowbolt teams."

"Nah, there's like fifteen or something in total now but only three are the top-tier badasses recruited personally by one of the Generals. No higher fuckin' honor for a flyboy than to fly wing-to-wing with one of those fuckin' legends"

"Just a casual reminder that becoming a legend in this kinda work usually means most of your work will never be known and you can't talk to anyone about it without risking a court marshal. A nasty, punitive one I'd bet given their elite status. Shadowbolts will always get the better equipment over anyone save for maybe the Tin Heads but that's 'cause their Apple Jack's prized poodle and get similar levels of preferential treatment."

"Eh shut up, you're just jealous you'll never even have a chance at having a chance to join them." They snickered back. "Sure, all our hard work would be dripping with black ink after the censors do their shit but common! We're talking true legends, Colonel!"

"Oh don't I know it..." I groaned, rolling my eyes to myself. "Even being in Alpha Squad, it's still like I'm the new kid on the block to most people. All the hero worship is reserved for the wingaling fucks and tinfoil soldiers on parade and even the fuckin Grunts get more recognition than the DRC."

"Oh? Y'all got top teams too then? Cool I guess...bet ya stole the idea from General Dash, didn't ya?"

"Just how old do you think the Desert Ranger Corps is?!" I snapped back in annoyance.

"I dunno, you guys ain't badass enough for a Pegasus to join when we've got an entire Corps of our own for those with fucking wings. How many fuckin' wings you even got with you guys? Aside from that dumbass Griffin of yours I haven't even heard of a goddamn one."

"Yeah, how the fuck did he even get her attention over us? You think she has a thing for birds? That's gotta be it..."

"Soldier you better shut the fuck up right now or so help me fuck, I'll cripple your asses myself and walk back to base dragging you behind me." I growled as threateningly as I could while being tied down. "That's my fucking brother in arms you're shitting on and he's a better fucking flyer than both of you combined! You wanna know why Typhoon barely spoke to you two? It's because you lack the fucking discipline and mentality to even be at their level. Who the fuck cares about you two? Does anypony outside your Platoon know you exist? I haven't heard of either of you and Buck, who would've fuckin' known, didn't know you either. People know Buck. Not a ton, but enough do because he's a genuine fucking badass and earned his fame. You were just lucky you happened to be the ones assigned to medivac us, asshole."

"Who the fuck do you think you ar-"

"A Lieutenant Colonel and your fucking better, that's who." I snapped back, absolutely incensed at these low blows after the night I had had. "Drop me the fuck off right NOW. Don't care where, I'll fuckin' walk back to the Mauler myself. You two can go suck each other off somewhere, just leave me the fuck alone."

They hesitated but soon dipped lower and lower to the ground, coming to a stop on a sandy street a few thousand meters from our destination in complete silence. I had already pried myself free of the stretcher's restraints with a little help from my horn and stuffed the IV bag under the collar of my duster by the time we landed so I immediately hopped off. They both had their flight visors down on their helmets helping mask them as individuals and make them easier to loathe as faceless assholes. The fact I wasn't in a shouting match was a miracle but it was a nice little consolation victory.

"Fly home dumbasses, some of us like walking on our own four legs." I snapped, giving them each the hoof before taking my weapons and briskly trotting away in the direction of the Mauler.

My gait was unsteady and my pace was uneven thanks to trying to keep my IV leg straight, but I maintained my speed nonetheless until I was out of sight. I knew the Desert Rangers were nigh-on the laughingstock of the EAF by this point but this...this hit differently than usual. I had been at this long enough to know how to take a blow to my pride when directly attacked but when they went and brought up Buck...

"Goddamn pansy-ass cuntbags...!" I hissed quietly to myself out loud, kicking the door shut on a cluster of curious civilian eyes. "You just had to go and insult a member of my team to my face, and you're expecting me to just fucking take it?! Fuck you! Both of you asswipes weren't even good enough to break outta the Juniors were ya? Fuckin flyboys..."

My grumblings carried me through the subdued outer ring of the city strewn with the detritus of conflict. Shell casings gleamed softly on the ground amidst the strewn bodies and unfortunate structural damage Command was surely not going to be pleased with. With the city still well under siege, these parts that we had already subdued were almost eerily quiet with the echoes of battle growing more and more distant. The occasional blue tick of a civilian skittering about the back alleys popped up on my HUD but they were few and far between. I couldn't see through walls with either my visor or E.F.S but it didn't take an egghead to assume they were hiding as far away from us as they were the Zeebs.

Being isolated as I was, removed from both my battle buddy and my whole Platoon, I had a chance to feel alone again. This felt different than the loneliness I experienced coming back from Manehatten; another kind of melancholy that was similar but...different. While I had felt sad and lonely on the train as if a part of me had been left behind, here...I felt almost like a filly who had to watch while her friends went off and had fun without her. I hated how exposed I felt having only one pair of eyes and a hundred different angles of attack to account for. Being buddy-less was something Command frowned on and avoided at all costs by anyone with a brain but I had two problems. One was that I was an obstinate bitch sometimes when provoked the wrong way and the other was that I had Buck as a partner. This train of thought carried me for a long way and when I waddled out from another alley out onto a street where the Mauler was parked I recognized being alone was more of a problem then I thought. Isolation left me with my own thoughts and those go a thousand directions a second at a breakneck pace. I was too easily given to distraction and become unprofessionally unfocused when left by myself in a bad mood.

To my relief I found that the back bay was wide open for me to enter and Brandy gave a shout from her perch on the roof a few moments after I stumbled into the open. Accompanying her on the ground surrounding the Mauler was an entire Fireteam of GIs, all poised with their weapons drawn in a defensive perimeter; a glorified guard of honor for my mostly unnecessary medical assessment. The Mauler looked to be in good shape, though I could see gouges and dents in the cast armor of the hull, along with the occasional burn mark of some hex or another that had dissipated when hitting an arcane ward. The desert camo was scraped off in places exposing the tough steel underneath but overall, she was in one piece and looking fiercer than ever. With so many soldiers around and an autocannon to boot, I could feel the ranting and raving from earlier melt away under waves of relief from seeing some friendlier faces. Finally, I had more than enough eyes and armor around me to spare a moment for some much needed self-care.

"Colonel, Sir!" A soldier by the door bellowed in my direction as I approached. "Where is your medivac? We were told you would be arriving by air Sir, not by hoof. Is everything ok?"

"Ugh...I dunno, they took off to pick up someone else or some shit. I dunno..." I replied with a grunt, making my way past and through the loading bay into the cramped hallway leading into the crew compartment.

Already I could see that the M.O.P had set up shop while we had been away and I was impressed with how quickly they had put together a small mobile triage station in the crew/fighting compartment. The roof hatches were sealed shut against danger, and each bunk hugging the wall was fitted with portable IV stations, devices for monitoring vitals and M.O.P branded bedding. All but two of the Power Armor repair stations had their chains and hoists raised and tools stashed away to make room for boxes and crates of medical supplies; a Healer and her assistants busying themselves with a half dozen patients. The recessed lighting had also been dimmed somewhat making it more comfortable to see at night and encouraged those who needed it to sleep. Of course, that was assuming anyone could sleep under these conditions without some assistance from a spell, a hefty dose of drugs or a little bit of both. With nothing left to do, I approached the group of M.O.P staff and cleared my throat in an attempt to get their attention.

"Uhhh...hi?" I called out as loud as I felt safe for a medical setting which caused the soft gold colored Healer in her gown of white and pink to turn my direction.

"Ah! You must be Colonel Crete!" She sang softly, passing ownership of a brewing kit to her assistants before approaching me with all the grace of a dancer. "I am Honeydew Sunshine, licensed Healer for the Ministry of Peace's Martial Branch, 3rd District. I understand you came under fire and took a few bullets?"

"Um...yeah, heh." I replied with a bit of surprise. "And a burnout from lifting shit way above my weight class."

"My, my...well that is certainly not good at all! Very well Ma'am, please wait a moment as we perform some rotations in bedding. Cherry! Opal! Get to it, darlings!"

She was a different breed of M.O.P than I was used to, and her odd blend of gentleness and militaristic protocol was unexpected after interacting with others like her who were more...froofy with how they conducted themselves. The two mares set to work with their horns, enveloping some of the occupied lower bunks in their magic and lifting them, equipment and all, away from the wall and replacing them with empty ones from higher up. The bunks had been designed to be easily put up and taken down via a system of hooks and tethers, but this was a use I had not accounted for. I could only assume those they had moved had been stabilized and they were simply making room for the next in line as per the rules of triage. I was continually amazed at just how many features the Bünkerwagen contained and laid down in silent amazement while they all winced and gasped at the large holes in my breastplate.

"Damn...thirty-three caliber, armor piercing with an explosive tracer element judging by the burn patterns around the point of penetration. It's a miracle you survived, darling..." Honeydew hummed from beneath her M.O.P branded hood, her hazy lavender eyes laser focused on my abdomen. "What method of treatment did you undergo, Colonel? Considering you made it back here alive at all, I have to assume your immediate wounds were attended to. Which potion was administered? Oh, and if you know the dosage as well, that would be most helpful."

"Uhhh..." I hesitated as I remembered the stupidity behind my survival. "Yeah about that...you're not gonna like the answer."

"I usually don't when it comes to in-field applications of medical care..." She sighed with a tired smile. "Go on love, nothing I haven't heard yet and the more we know ahead of time, the better we can patch ya up where it counts."

"Heh...yeah, um...I used a Griffin Stim." I laughed sheepishly, watching as shock and horror hit their eyes in unison. "Heard that one yet?"

"Um...well!" She replied with wide eyes though I couldn't sense any doubt behind them. "I cannot say I have, darling! Please, do elaborate in brief."

It was difficult to condense the events of the last few hours into short, cohesive lines of thought that would explain what happened without wandering off after details that wouldn't matter to them. As I explained away, her expression remained in a constant look of quiet contemplation while I laid out what lead up to my intestines getting introduced to a few steel penetrators. In the meantime, Cherry and Opal manually detached my armor from my underbarding so they had easier access to my body for examination. Were the situation vastly different, I would have been incredibly turned on at just how fast these girls got me stripped down and showin' some fluff. As it was, I was just too distracted to feel horny.

"I see..." She hummed softly after I had finished my ramble. "Well, thank you for your candor. It seems Sergeant Buck's foresight into bringing that Stim device was very prudent indeed. However, I must stress from a professional standing that what you did should never be attempted again if you value your life as it is. It seems your situation had a mixture of factors that were all nominally positive enough for you to have survived it. Extreme pain, some pain killers, heightened adrenal secretions, the life-or-death nature of the decision, a nearly empty Stim canister and the idiotic courage to even try that method. Truly one for the research notes I must say, even if it is not necessarily something to be celebrated."

"Yeah, heh... But in my defense, I never said it was a smart idea though. I 100% knew what I was signing up for when I chose to use that thing. What I did say however, was I was completely out of health potions having given most of what I had to Buck due to his own injuries. I would have bled out and died had I not decided to use the damn thing and if it failed then I would die knowing I did every damned thing I could to keep on kicking."

"Do not mistake my professional opinion for that of one who is condemning you for your choices, please." She chided softly with a hint of a pout hitting her lips. "You did what you could to ensure the best outcome and luck threw you a bone on top of it all. Regardless...a thorough examination is in order to ensure all was healed properly. Those cocktails the Griffins brew for themselves are dangerous even for their own consumption, let alone for us comparably smaller and less sturdy Equines. Perhaps we will be lucky again and there won't be any runaway tumors growing away inside you!"

"Well...I'm ready when you are." I replied with a nod and a silent shiver of worry. "Personally I feel fine and just wanna get back to work before the night is out but...do what you gotta do."

She nodded in return and lit her horn with a silvery magic that contrasted well against her gold-colored enamel. Meticulously she enveloped my legs in a long band of her sparkling aura and slowly panned along the length of my figure; a faint but not unpleasant feeling of something almost like a fog of cool mist slowly moving through my body. She intentionally skipped my abdomen to examine my chest and head before returning back to it for an extra long look in the area of most concern. I actually felt some relief and even more respect for her given most would have focused directly on the most obvious problem while others could be lurking under the surface somewhere else in the body. Massive bodily trauma had a tendency to affect multiple places with some pains coming days or months later when you least expected it.

"Hmm...looks like the tungsten penetrators were pushed completely out, which is wonderful news after what you experienced." She hummed in a bright tone, her attention still half-focused on the last of her scan. "Annnnd, as a happy cherry on top, your wounds were healed correctly! Well, so far as I am able to tell from my examination at least. I strongly recommend a regular check-in with any member of the M.O.P every two weeks or so, depending on availability of course. I'll be sure to add the full lab results from your blood draw in case any doubters wish to check your toxicology chart."

A massive sigh escaped my lips from a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding in. Cancer was one of those things that was a gamble on whether or not something could be done to treat it. Not only that, she was being so kind as to ensure my story wouldn't get me laughed out the door of another Doctor or Healer not so familiar with my medical history.

"I should also mention that I detected your body is still very aware it was damaged significantly, and will not be all too pleased when the stress of this battle is over. Much as I am loathe to give it however, you do pass the minimum requirements set by the Ministry to be returned to the field as an active combatant. Just...don't push yourself darling. The area will undoubtedly be quite sore for several days and...there is no saying what the side affects, if any, will be from using a Griffin Stim. It's not like I am teaming with documented prior cases for comparison, heh. All being said however, I didn't detect any abnormal cell division at this time, so no super cancer far as I can tell. Congratulations!"

I nodded and sighed, "Well, glad to hear I ain't a mess down there. I do wanna get back to the fight, any recommendations on how to do that without causing my team medic to go ballistic on me once she hears about this?"

"Hmm...good question. Cherry! Give this girl a jab of that extended-release Medix we brought with us and something to perk her up a bit, mind and body. I forget which case it was that contained the vials but it should be in one of the ones marked with purple-and-yellow stripes so it shouldn't be too troubling to find. Opal? Be a dear and fetch one of the stallions in charge of this vehicle and bring them back here to speak with the Colonel. She's been out of the loop with the broader goings-on and needs a sitrep, stat!"

The two mares in their nurse's uniforms both curtsied quietly and hurriedly moved off to complete their assigned tasks. Given the relative uselessness of Sprocket Wrench, I was relieved when Opal returned with Cobalt in tow, who was himself looking more than a little strained and exhausted from the night. Our resident Combat Sorcerer was as dark blue in color as the famous pigment he was named after, but possessed a brilliantly silver mane that was long and bushy which he kept out of the way with a respectable ponytail. The white combat robes provided by the Ministry of Arcane Science looked comfy to wear, coming complete with long flowing sleeves, a multi-layered skirt with trains of varying lengths and a stylized hood all lightly embroidered with blue silk. The whole ensemble was woven from a short-fiber Kevyarn weave that had been bleached white and then capped off with additional pieces of impact plating, courtesy of a modified set of Type 4b combat armor. On a chain around his neck he kept both his dogtags, as well as an amplifying medallion he had been awarded upon completing his studies at the M.O.A.S Academy. A handy trinket for increasing the power and capabilities of a competent user but, it didn't seem to come with any added benefits to one's magical stamina and fortitude.

"Hey, Crete." He sighed as he sat on the edge of the bunk, the exhaustion in his body and voice hard to miss. "Good to see ya back. Took some hits out there?"

"Yeah...should've seen Buck Beak though, he arguably took more damage than I did out there. But...we knocked out three AA batteries and each got easily over a dozen enemy KIAs while doing it. What's the broader situation out there? When I called in the Shaman sighting and Command told all teams in the air to hunker down, Buck took off and we kinda shut off anything that wasn't just the two of us talking."

"Yeah, we noticed..." He sighed again, glancing towards the front of the cabin. "It was...who, Penny? I think Penny... Anyway, when you two went silent for awhile, she told me and the other guys here not to worry since they were expecting it to happen. Then awhile later we get the call you guys took some hits and need a medivac and we're balls-deep in the Bazaar fighting off RPG teams on the rooftops. Shit just moved so fast after all you guys left..."

"Yeah, I remember hearing that fight over the radio when I talked with Copper. Still, we both managed to scrape by with a passing grade this time around, eh? That's not so bad,right?"

"Hmph...for now... Let me tell ya, when they had us running the defensive spell courses, and they said we would have to learn to project a bubble of awareness around us...I didn't expect it to be that necessary out here. This thing is a powerhouse, but the armor on this bucket of bolts isn't like those heavy Gryphon tanks they rolled into town behind us. It's plenty sturdy but...still, I can't help but feel uneasy about the thickness. My magic has had more than enough time to get attuned to the signature of the Mauler and I've had a 'feel' of the steel and uh...it's fine but it...feels a little thin to me..."

"It just has to get us through tonight, we can see about welding on some extra shit to the exterior once we get the chance and the Engineers have the time. That all being said...how's it all going? What's going on outside 4th Platoon?" I asked, sitting up with a wince and offering my neck to Cherry who had finally located the painkillers and other injectable drugs.

"Pretty damn well, all things considered." He said with a grin. "We've secured almost three-fourths of the Anti-Air emplacements and around the same number of checkpoints in the outer city area. Basically, we've taken most of everything outside the Old City but, they've sealed the city wall with a great barrier spell. With how long they've been here...there's no telling how many supplies they've got stored away for a siege like this. What else...? Oh! Beta Company has moved in with Army Group South and the Ministry of Peace has already started evacuating civilians as best they can. If it's any surprise, that's slow work, what with all the major roads leading out of Anakha jam-packed with traffic. Honeydew alone had a hell of a time just getting here on hoof hauling all that gear with them. It's a damn miracle they even made it through that maze of shoddy townhouses without getting lost, or losing personnel or equipment."

"Indeed...once our convoy was halted a half-click from the city outskirts, most of us chose to finish the last leg by hoof to minimize the amount of time the wounded spent unaided." She chimed in from the far corner where she stood reviewing entries on their portable terminal station. "The roads leading out of here towards Camp Sentinel are also backed up from what I have heard from other Healers in the area. Everyone with working legs is walking and anything with wheels, mechanized or not, are transporting the rest as soon as they are freed up. It's a mess absolutely everywhere you look..."

"Mhm...thankfully though, we are part of an active Armored Platoon so we couldn't just up and leave the AO to ferry civvies outta the hotzone." Cobalt added. "To be honest we were just parked here for only a moment while we switched out some ammunition and just ended up happening to be in the right place at right time. Honeydew and her escort walked right on in and immediately just starting to set up shop in here. It seems the stars aligned for them since they had packed one of those white tents of theirs but we presented a far better and more immediate option for their medical needs. Besides, the immediate area is locked down tighter than Celestia's ass and all of us needed a fuckin' breather anyway so...it all worked out far as I care."

"Ah...so that explains why the Mauler is just sitting here acting as an infirmary rather than as a rolling death machine." I replied with a soft chuckle, the sensation of a soft happy numbness ever so slightly gripping my body as the medicine began to work.

"Indeed it does!" She responded, giving a small curtsy as best she could manage in such tight quarters. "We are most grateful to be allowed to work with a machine such as this as it allows us to treat multiple patients at once with a decent amount of space to work in. Goddesses bless the Gryphons as such a use had been foreseen by the designers given how easily we modified it for use in emergency triage. Knowing it is also capable of fending off enemy fire with its armor and keeping us safe thanks to its main armament is a sense of security I have not felt in a combat zone before."

"Yeah...be grateful you didn't have to be in here when we were actively engaged. Blocking that many hits was...ugh..." Cobalt grunted, rubbing his eyes with his hooves in slow circles. "I think I need another dose, Ma'am. Head is still aching like a bitch and my horn feels like its on fire..."

"Tsk, tsk, that won't do at all." She replied with a smile, nodding to me next. "Miss Crete? Unless you are seriously considering medical sanity and wish to lie down till this battle is over, I suggest you allow Sorcerer Cobalt your spot in bed."

"Oh. Yeah! Totally!" I laughed as I tried to worm my way past where he sat rooted to the edge and onto my hooves. "By all means, Cobalt. Good work out there! Glad the Academy sent you to us, you've been a great help to the team tonight."

He took a moment to slowly lay down followed by a massive sigh of relief before he replied, "Thanks, Colonel. I know I'm new around here since all of you seem to know each other pretty well by now but...glad to know you don't all hate me. It's a nice change from the Academy."

"Heh, well...I don't wanna speak for everyone since I don't know exactly how they all feel personally, but you've got my vote of confidence at least. Plenty of expertise in our group across multiple fields but there's not a damn single one of us that is all that great at magic. Don't know yet about Crystal Decanter but I can say for Huckleberry and I, we can't cast a ward to save our asses, let alone pull off what you did tonight. I only pulled through that shit earlier thanks to ArmsTech making a damn good set of armor."

"Doc? I think you might need to check my ears too because I swear I just heard a fuckin C.O give me a compliment tonight." He laughed softly, wincing as he did so and gripping his head slightly. "Ugh, goddamn headache...seriously though, thank you. Can't say I've ever had that long of a compliment from a higher up before."

"Heh, yeah...well, I'm only a Lieutenant Colonel by a coincidence of needs with the GA. I hold the rank but much of the responsibility has been passed on to desk jockeys and NCOs technically under my command. I'm a Desert Ranger first and foremost, and I am much better used as an asset in the field than sitting back coordinating shit over radio."

"Heh, that is exactly the kinda attitude I wanna hear out of my C.O." He replied with a grin before I was shooed out of the way by Honeydew carrying along a fresh bottle of Nexus-infused saline.

"Go on, love." She chided, hanging up the bottle and attaching the surgical tubing to the apparatus. "Let the weary rest. Go speak with one of the others and snag some food and fluids on your way, your body will thank me soon. When you are ready to return to the field, Cherry will have your kit available for you in the rear cargo bay and will replenish your medical supplies with some to spare as well."

I gave Cobalt one last nod and smile of approval, thanked Honeydew for her time, and turned towards the front, making my way down the narrow center aisle towards the turret ladder. When I approached the base of it and heard the sound of chipper jazz music coming from above, I knew at least one of the brighter bulbs in our Engineering team was up there; spurning me to climb upwards to greet them. To my surprise however, the turret was only occupied by Copper alongside Rivet, both relaxing as much as one could in an angled dome of steel and enjoying some tunes while passing a pack of smokes between them. The roof hatch in the commander's cupola was partially opened allowing the acrid smoke to lazily drift out into the night sky that was still flashing every now and again with signs of the fight going on deeper in the city. It was a little surreal but I couldn't blame either of them for trying to force some semblance of peace while they had the chance. Neither had spent much time in the direct line of fire like they had tonight so I had to commend how well they were handling the pressure. All the same...they looked pretty shaken up from everything.

"Hey, boys." I sighed with a grunt as I pulled myself up enough so my torso poked above the turret ring. "You two holding up?"

"Oh, heya Crete." Copper replied, breathing out enough smoke to make a Dragon proud. "Glad to see you made it back in one piece. Gods this has been a hell of a night..."

"Heh, fuckin' tell me about it..." I replied with a chuckle, glancing between them and seeing the fatigue and post-adrenaline shock causing their muscles to tremble slightly. "Cobalt gave me a bit of a rundown on the big picture but you guys have the radio training so lemme know how shit's goin'."

"Lemme tell ya...after you guys took off, things went eight different fuckin' directions at once. Command is such a mess dealing with all the logistics of this operation and it shows that this is their first time doing something on this scale in the South. General comms are just as jammed as the fuckin' roads, so we've been mostly sticking to local channels so we can actually communicate with the rest of the Rough Riders. That being said though...even that has become a problem since we can't even get them the respond."

"That bad huh? You didn't answer my earlier question though, how are you guys doing?"

They both took long drags in unison, the curling trails of smoke from the burning ends of their cigarettes wavering softly in their shaking mouths before Rivet replied, "Hot shite, Crete. I don't know how you guys have the balls to fight those bastards out in the open. We've got 85mm of frontal glacis armor canted at 145o and the turret's got 65-mil at 55...and for all that steel, I felt like we were gonna get a hole punched through our hull."

"Cobalt is the real MVP here." Copper sighed. "He bitches about being fresh outta the Academy, but his defense is fuckin' on point. Zeebs love lobbing those HEAA missiles at anything that moves and we are anything but a small target. Compare us to a Steel Ranger and it's pretty easy to guess who's the more valuable and easy-to-hit target."

"Yeah, he was telling me a bit about it when I was down there, sounds like it was a hell of a time. Sorry I wasn't here to help out, guys..."

"Ah, shut it..." Copper grunted, waving a hoof down at me dismissively. "We knew you'd be split off with Buck from the start so you were doing your job as assigned to you. From what I know, sounds like you two did a decent number on them out there so you've got nothin' to apologize for. Now...as for Sprocket..."

"Yeahhh...was gonna ask where he was since I was expecting one of you to be up in the driver's seat. He off getting high somewhere like the shitstain he is?"

"Hell if we know, fuckin' probably. Could be dead for all we know or care!" Rivet snorted, pointing in the general direction of the cargo bay. "Bastard zipped right out the back not two-minutes after all you guys took off. Left his PipBuck plugged in at the comms station and fuckin' vanished with that bag of Dash he pulled outta the turret neck earlier. Haven't seen or heard a peep from that jackass since, and neither of us give enough of a shit to mount a search. We'll all probably get a demotion if he's listed as MIA...eh, worth it at this point..."

"Oh sweet mother of..." I growled before immediately cooling down and replying, "Whatever...if you haven't reported it already, call it in and let Command figure out what to do about it. Far as I can see, you two are tied to the Mauler at the hip and wherever it's needed, you're supposed to be. He fucked off and it ain't your job to track him down when this is your post so, in my opinion, you made the right call. If he gets himself killed then sweet blessed day for us, we can get a replacement. Which, speaking of...who the hell's driving now?"

"Engineer Mahogany, she was rolling in with Beta Company as one of their 'spare wrenches'. She was riding on the back of one of those slick lookin' Falke IIs and had no active duties, so she was happy to fill in for that douchebag's role. Who knew the controls between Gryphon vehicles were so universal? At least, that's what I like to think. Only worked with a few of 'em so far so there could be more complicated control schemes in the other models they've not trained us on yet."

"Oh? I honestly think the only one of us who has had any quality time behind the wheel so far has been Onyx so...I wouldn't know, heh. I spend most of my time on my hooves with an AMR and a pack of freaks watching my back."

"Heh, heh...pack of freaks, yeah that's pretty fuckin' true." Rivet chuckled in reply, taking a moment to light another cigarette form their shared pack. "But yeah, they're all pretty close in terms of control schemes. Just a couple levers to control power to each track, a gearshift lever, and some muscle to move 'em where you want 'em. The Mauler handles easier than the earlier stuff they've made that I've been on, but the controls themselves haven't changed much since they started making this sorta shit. Anyways, yeah...Mahogany is a damned fine pilot. Girl had this thing fuckin' dancing around on air it felt like...knew exactly what to do and didn't question orders. A breath of fresh air after dealing with Sprocket for the last couple years, lemme tell ya."

"Oh I bet, anyone would be a better fit for this team than that sorry excuse for an Engineer. Of course, that's assuming we actually had any say in his posting in any way, shape or form."

"Heh, can say that again...dumbass wouldn't know a docking port from a fleshlight."

We all shared a quiet laugh at his expense before slipping into a slightly awkward silence. They were already worn out from the night's events and the siege was only roughly a third of the way complete. With the old city being cordoned off by a barrier, the attack was going to slam to a halt until they found a way to crack the damn thing wide open. That or...we starved them into submission the old fashioned way like our ancestors once did when besieging a castle. With the ancient city wall acting as the bulwark of their barrier spell, the imagery was all too appropriate.

"Where'd the rest of Alpha Squad end up?" I asked once my curiosity overcame my respect for the tranquil silence.

"Alpha? Eh...who fuckin' knows at this point..." Rivet replied with a lazy shrug. "Command has sent them everywhere tonight...least half of 'em were temporarily reassigned to other Armored Platoons and helping out wherever they're needed. Other half got yoinked to lead Fireteams in the immediate area and I think only one of the pairs from the start are still together. Lost track of where they all are and they've all been comms-locked to these other Platoons to keep shit simpler. Like I said...it's been a fucking nightmare for logistics tonight."

"Ah...shoulda figured." I sighed with a shrug of my own. "To be honest? We should've expected this sorta thing to happen but...eh, I'm not worried about 'em. They know what they're doing and none of them have the penchant for chasing danger like Buck does. We're all pawns on the chessboard anyway so we go where they tell us to."

"Where is Buck, by the way?" Copper asked pointedly, finally bringing up the obvious. "Heard he took some nasty hits too but he didn't swing by for a checkup like you did. So...what gives? Not like you guys checked in with us after calling for the medivac earlier."

"Ah...right. He's currently receiving the best care money can buy, courtesy of Commander Typhoon of Shadowbolt Team Crash. He impressed her too damn much and she just kinda up and snagged him right then and there. I got a nod of acknowledgement too at least, but yeah...he's having the time of his fuckin' life out there, wherever the hell they have their private services set up."

"Really? Well goddamn! Good on him I guess. Not like Command could bitch about you two getting split up like this, even if they wanted to." Copper replied with a tired smile. "Wonder what kinda kit they got...would be a dream to get a glimpse of that Lunar Steel they use in their gear. Can only imagine what it looks like at night."

"Oh? What's tha-?"

"Conqueror to Mauler, we gotta problem! Come in, Copper!"

The weird tranquility of the moment was shattered and Copper flopped around a bit in his seat while trying to find the radio receiver. The panic in that voice wasn't exactly reassuring...

"Mauler here, the fuck's going on Hinge?"

"Bastards had some time to prepare, laid some kinda trap hex on the road to Checkpoint Gamma and blew through our egghead's shield spell. Left track's completely fucked and our radar station took some heavy damage in the blast, got at least four wounded including the driver. Primary turret can't turn left past 45 degrees and we nearly had the belt cook off on us in the turret neck. Got our boys on a perimeter but we could really use some extra hooves and guns! Rabid and her crew took off after the enemy, hauling ass through the Old City, and you guys were much fuckin' closer than anyone else right now. We can't handle all this by ourselves!"

"Goddamnit, fucking shitstains!" Copper growled while settling into the commander's chair and controls. "Crete! Let the medic team know the situation and prep for casualties. Rivet, get Mahogany and Brandy on the line and get this bitch on the move! We've got some work to do, boys and girls."

******

Before I knew it, the adrenaline of the moment had me at the base of the ladder and leaping off the bottom down the central aisle. Just because I took some shots to the gut didn't mean I was off for the rest of the night and it certainly wasn't over for our fellows on Conqueror. Honeydew cocked her head curiously with a stern expression that told me she could tell something was up; a situational awareness I admired and already deeply valued. She was sharp, focused and a tremendous benefit to us for as long as we had her around.

"Conqueror took a hit and needs backup, prep for casualties!" I called out as I danced my way down the narrow aisle. "Make a hole, gotta tell the guys outside!"

With the bunks placed out of the way and the repair station alcoves being more than large enough to slink into, they cleared a path for me right down the center of the Mauler with little warning. As my hooves touched the floor of the cargo bay, the overhead lighting switched from a peaceful blue/white to a glaring red, acting as a quaint backdrop for my message to the troops on the defense around the vehicle. I didn't know any of them but I could count on their immediate compliance all the same. There were some things they couldn't rob my Corps of and in-field authority was thankfully one of them.

"Climb aboard! Got some friendlies down to our East and they need some extra support!"

Helmeted heads whipped around to face me but discipline held their trigger hooves in check as their commanding Sergeant jolted into action.

"You heard the Colonel, get those pussy asses off the floor and on the cart boys! We've got some stripes to wipe!"

The team of eight formed up promptly before funneling their way inside with the Sergeant and I bringing up the rear and shutting the hatches behind us. The moment the bay door hissed shut we were already lurching forward, the muffled metallic clatter of the tracks emanating from the steel walls beside us. Once we made it into the fighting compartment I observed Honeydew instructing the Privates on where to stand so they wouldn't interfere with their preparations for the incoming wounded. Meanwhile, the Sergeant ordered the guys with a crewed LMG package to climb the rearmost stacks of empty bunks in order to access the roof hatches and give Brandy (and the two turrets) some extra eyes for the road.

"Colonel Crete!" Honeydew called out, jutting a hoof towards the repair bay nearest me where my armor lay in a tidy pile. "Your weapons are on the bunk beside it darling, best get ready quickly!"

It took a bit of dancing for the Sergeant and I to get out of each others' way, but eventually we both got where we needed to go; he to further direct his team and I to slip back into something more appropriate for what laid ahead. With my underbarding's anchor points magnetized, I could quite literally slap on most of my armor and be ready for a fight in a little more than a minute, with piece after piece flying into place in my telekinesis. Once each part was properly mounted or strapped down, I was quick to fill the empty void in my holsters with my usual choice in weaponry for the night. All the while, the Mauler rumbled and shook under my hooves as we sped along the paved city road towards our bogged-down brothers in arms. As a preemptive move, six of the eight GIs had been quickly reshuffled back into the cargo bay, one with a hoof hovering over the release latch for the moment we got close. Conqueror had claimed the immediate area around them was free of enemies, but that was subject to change at any moment and it felt stupid to leave ourselves exposed without an infantry escort. Given Mauler had been located in a well-secured area (obvious given the presence of medical personnel), the path between us had already been swept previously for enemy contacts. That being said however, we had already wandered too far from each other and it was starting to show some consequences.

With my helmet back on, I accessed my radio and connected to the general comms line of the Mauler so I could communicate with the crew and anyone else patched into the line. At this point we were just barreling into the unknown with no more of a plan than just...throwing ourselves in Conqueror's direction. Command seemed to be in chaos and unit cohesion was nowhere near at the level it usually was, even including the grunts of the General Army and their varied level of quality from Platoon to Platoon.

"Crete here, I'm all geared up and ready to go. How we lookin', people?"

"Green across the board, Colonel! Map readout up here is showing a clean path to the Conqueror." Sang a mare with a hint of an Applewood accent whom I had to assume was Engineer Mahogany. "This girl can move fast if you tickle her the right way! ETA, five minutes!"

"Turret crew here, we're locked and loaded. Gotta belt fulla HEs and a helluva bone to pick with those striped bastards. BuzzSaw's AI is wide awake and scanning for targets with a full tank of APs at its disposal so our rear is as covered as it can be. Tried contacting Rabid to see why they can't help Hinge and his boys patch up Conqueror but got jack shit in reply. Dunno what's goin' on with Transistor or Chisel that'd keep 'em from responding but...I dunno. How you doin', Cobalt? Hate to say it be we're prolly gonna absolutely need your ability to stonewall the enemy again."

I looked up from where I had been staring at the wall and caught a glimpse of Cobalt blanch as he heard the message, before it gave away to a stern look as he replied, "I'm here. Nurse is gonna juice me up and keep me on an I.V leash just to make sure I can keep up with the work load. Ready as I'll ever be for this shit..."

"Sergeant Birchwood here. Ma'am, my boys and I are all ready and able to kick some ass. Just tell us where some can be found and how far into hell ya want 'em blown away!"

"Alright...good. Good..." I hummed as my mind ran through the many possibilities awaiting us. "Birchwood was it? You and your team disembark once we're a minute out and scout ahead. Secure us a good defensive position so we can park this 40-mil of ours in a spot it'll matter the most and keep your heads on a goddamn swivel out there. Take a peek in the armories and stock up on anything you think you might need but make your shots count. We've got a long night ahead and we might need the extra bullets for later."

They each in turn gave their acknowledgement of my orders and the line went silent as the blood started pumping and an intense feeling of focus overcame us all. From my place near the armories I watched as a few of the guys in the bay took turns heading into one or the other and then return loaded down with something new. Extra belts of ammo, satchels of rockets, one even sporting a second LMG taken right off the rack ready to use; what was ours was, for the time being, theirs to use as far as it went to benefit us all. The red lighting was poignant for the tense atmosphere and by itself it had a strange way of subtly fucking with how the eyes perceived shadows and depth of field. It was all beginning to feel surreal again...the clatter of the metal tracks outside and the muffled orders of Birchwood became white noise as time seemed to slip away for a moment. Maybe two. All I truly knew in that time was that these were images and sensations that would one day randomly smack me in the face. Was it going to be something to have some sort of nostalgic feeling for? Or...was I doomed to be haunted by it as some sort of phantom memory that would haunt the corners of my dreams?

"Helm to all hooves, one-minute thirty! Cargo bay, prepare to disembark!"

Our trance was broken and I was grateful at least one of us was paying attention and not dissociating from reality for a moment. I sprung to my hooves, doing a quick pat-down of myself to make sure I had everything, and swung around the corner and into the armory hallway to join the fun. Birchwood barked at his troops and there was a slight shudder in the hull as the bay door began to open while at the same time our speed was reduced in preparation. By the time the door began to scrape uncomfortably on the paved street, the Mauler had slowed to a speedy crawl and we were galloping out the back; armored boots digging into the paving stones allowing us to swing around and cover the flanks. Up ahead lay the small, distant blue triangle of Conqueror somewhere past the maze of square houses and anything could lay in between. The word was that the combined data feed from all nearby Stable-Tec devices (PipBucks, radar stations, etc.) were showing our sector clear of enemy activity but...it helped to remain somewhat on edge in case it proved otherwise.

"Guns up, eyes loose in the sockets boys!" Birchwood snapped over comms. "Everypony here's got one pretty little life to live and yours'll be over if any more of that crew goes down tonight, got it?"

The chorus of 'Yes Sir!' almost hurt my ears as his team gave an exuberant response, followed by the usual banter over who in the group would kick the most ass. Alpha Squad had been split up and scattered across the city helping out wherever they were needed, and once again I felt lonely, this time from seeing another team amping each other up for the fight ahead. Even with his bullshit, I couldn't help but wish Buck were still around as we could use our combined talents for scouting out the area properly while providing overwatch support. But... no, he was off getting his wing patched up and getting his jollies from spending time with some Shadowbolts. The lucky fucking bastard...

The housing in this portion of the New City was of middling means, modest multi-story brick and wood dwellings that were still rather cramped together anywhere that wasn't a major road. The Mauler rolled smoothly across the paved stones with room to spare on either side but Birchwood and the rest of us had to contend with yet more tight, winding alleyways. For all the racket the metal tracks made, the air around us was still and quiet. There were no shadows under the watchful light of infrared but...there was nothing at all to be seen in the darkness. Each white plastered home was similar to the other, and the fanciful symbols and signs adoring the walls were all equally unintelligible to my ignorant mind. The Baladi enjoyed an altogether foreign way of life amidst all the scorching sand of the Far South, finding enough solidarity of some form amongst all the heat to bring together a mighty civilization. What powerlines that could be seen were rather rudimentary, and most signs of technology was modest to extremely limited, at least when compared to Equestrian standards. From the lower to the upper classes, a minimalistic implementation of modern innovations could be observed across all structures; least so far as I had myself witnessed. Brass oil lamps and torches made from dried reeds were the preferred interior lighting over electric for most with majestic rugs in the place of bland interior carpeting. There was a very old-fashioned vibe to it all but it was clear they took great pride in relying on the classic ways, even in the face of the modern conveniences that Equestria now took for granted. All the while, they surrounded themselves with sophisticated works of art in paint, wood, stone and exuberant gold and gemstones; a true and thriving culture all its own that had changed very little since its golden age. Indeed, the faint murmur of old tales from my history classes in school echoed somewhere in the back of my mind as I came to the sweet revelation that what tales I could remember seemed to have more than a nugget of truth to them. It was my first real experience with such a culture so foreign to my own, and I found myself feeling respectful and intrigued by their simplistic, fanciful existence. Theirs was far more in touch with their ancestors than anything I ever did in my own personal life. While I had appreciated the childhood experiences gained whilst childhood friends with Zecuro and his family, mere stories did little to compare to personal experience such as this.

Conqueror's assurances of the area being clear of enemies seemed to hold weight as we passed through the tight alleyways on either side of the Mauler, all without a single peep of resistance or really even much life at all. Like the shoddier houses towards the fringes of the New City, not a single door was open nor was a single window not shuttered tight with whatever they could afford. We weren't here for anyone hiding inside, unless of course they had some kind of lethal intent; otherwise, they would be left entirely alone. I could only feel pity for the other grunts making the trek alongside our mechanized death toy. While the Sergeant and I were afforded low-light optics due to our rank and equipment, they had to make due with what the genetic lottery said was their natural night vision and the lights mounted to their weapons and helmets. It had been so long since I had been forced to do a night mission without the benefits of my helmet that I wasn't ever sure I could go back to fearing the shadows like I used to. If anything, I couldn't help but feel bad for them; the weight of equipment shortages not lost from the burdens on my mind.

The main road finally gave way to a large, open plaza sporting a fantastically tall obelisk in the center acting as the centerpiece of a public fountain that pooled in a large carved basin around its base. On the far side, near where the wall of houses began once more, sat the Conqueror with a small team of four hiding behind some hastily made barricades. Like us they seemed to have been carrying a spare pair of light machine guns in their Armory as they had both of them out and attached to their optional tripod mounts as the focal point of their makeshift defenses. Scattered around us were the bloodied remains of well over a dozen enemy combatants, the unfortunate recipients of a panicked defense armed to the teeth. Several more bodies littered the plaza in the space between us and the defensive perimeter standing as a testament to their fighting spirit and will to survive. The troops themselves cheered as we exited into the plaza proper and as one we wasted no time and made a beeline straight for them. Even from a distance, we could see the damage done to both them and their Bünkerwagen. Each and every defender still standing was banged up, bruised and scared shitless, but holding firm while the Conqueror itself sported an enormous, nasty gash in the left side of the hull that was twice the length and thickness of my leg. Truly, it looked like it had been hit by a bolt of fucking lightning if one were to take a guess based solely off the shape of the damaged area alone. The familiar blue-white interior lighting was noticeably peeking from out of the hole in their armor, while the left track directly beneath the blast zone was a total disaster. Well over a full third of its length had been completely torn off from the explosion, and over a dozen twisted, individual links were strewn across the immediate area around us. By all rights...we should have lost the damned thing but, she somehow still clung to life and had at least partial internal power still running through its wires from the Fusion Cores. With some juice still getting through her circuits, the situation we had been thrust into was definitely better than it could've been. Way better.

"Klutzy!" Birchwood barked out authoritatively, even though it was all but confirmed already they were friendlies.

"Oh thank fuck are we glad to see you guys!" Came the reply, something that only seemed to infuriate the Sergeant.

"Klutzy! You goddamned shitbags, what's the fuckin' counter-sign goddamnit?!"

"Ugh, Draconequus! Happy now, Captain By-The-Book? Fuckin' hell..."

We finally approached in full while the Mauler parked itself a few meters away, the bay door thudding to the floor the moment it stopped accompanied by Honeydew and one of her assistants loaded down with tools and supplies. At the same time, Birchwood ordered his team to join the defensive perimeter and work began immediately on expanding and hardening the defenses already in place. The grunts we came to rescue were more than a little rattled from the event, and I could see some thousand-yard stares forming in their eyes as the adrenaline wore off and shot nerves set in. They had held firm so far and were to be commended for their resolve but...based off all evidence, they too had been stripped of their heavier escorts like we were. Not a single Steel or Desert Ranger (outside of Brandy and myself) were anywhere nearby leaving their poor replacements with some big horseshoes to fill but nowhere near the same level of firepower to accompany it. It wasn't that I lacked any sort of faith in the common soldier of the General Army as I had led a Platoon of my own at one time. Instead, I was more concerned that Equestria's ability to equip her gruntiest of grunts for the future was decidedly lacking compared to the Zeebs and their ilk. Though I felt almost traitorous for thinking it, I couldn't help but feel that the average Askari in the Imperial Army was better protected than any Private or, hell, even any Corporal or Sergeant in our Army. These poor grunts were dressed in an array of armor from none to aging M-CAP Model 3s with stripped back pieces. Had the situation been any worse for them, I had my doubts on their chances for survival from another enemy assault.

"Look, soldier...we're in an active warzone in case you turned off your fuckin pea-sized brain. We got identifiers for a reason, Corporal Jackass!"

"Yeah, yeah. Have you seen what the fuck happened to us?! Fuck you!"

"Shut it! Both of you!" I snapped as I walked past them towards Conqueror's now open bay. "Yell at each other as much as you like after we get this city locked down. Get in position and keep your eyes peeled for any contacts."

I didn't stop to hear their response and continued into the vehicle, going off the assumption that Birchwood would sort it out professionally and promptly. With the inner hatch open, I had a clear view down the middle of the beast and it warmed my heart a little to see Honeydew making quick work of transforming Conqueror into another triage station. The overhead lighting was fighting to stay alive and I found it easier to just keep my IRs on then rely on them to help me navigate my way down the aisle. As I approached the group ahead of me, I took a moment to glance around the inside of the fighting compartment and felt some relief in seeing much of the familiar interior remained intact. Though, even from a distance, I could see the shredded remains of the portside radar station and the wound blown into the turret neck. The damage on the inside didn't look nearly as bad (ignoring the new unorthodox window to the outside world), but I was still shaking softly with nervous energy at how close the crew had been to a deadly cook-off of ammunition. I felt a particular kinship with the Bünkerwagens, something that could be considered in the same vein as a beloved family pet or...dare say even a family member in full. My time with them had been so short and yet, for all it was worth, I fell in love with our armored sand devils; with daydreams filled with how I could make use of one as a private home on treads. To see one so damaged, it's veritable neck slit by magic...it was like getting shot all over again but in a way that bypassed my armor and flesh entirely and burned the heart with sadness.

I was far from the only person crammed inside the limping Bünkerwagen, as the team of M.O.P specialists that had accompanied us were getting close to finished with setting up their equipment. Gathered around the bunks nearest the front was the chaos of Honeydew attempting to sort things out and ordering everyone around.

"Engineer Torque, open that triage kit and apply splint #3 from the blue box inside to his leg and maintain tight pressure on the artery until the bleeding is staunched by the coagulants. Corporal Rubber! Is the pilot stabilized for transport into the Mauler?"

"Yes Ma'am! Lyric and I are ready t-"

"Good! Prepare to transfer! Everyone else, make a hole, now!"

She was on absolute fire! An whirlwind of instructions and commands all in the pursuit of preserving life by any means possible with all the professionalism and authority of a field officer. All of us who weren't directly involved immediately crammed ourselves into the nearest nook or cranny we could find just in time for Honeydew to trot briskly by. Accompanying her were a pair of Unicorn GIs from the Conqueror's crew levitating a deployable stretcher between them, each looking haggard but stern as they moved past. I could only catch a glance at the state of the driver as she passed but what stood out to me the most was the flash image of a mangled left side, coagulated blood and extensive patches of horrifyingly black burns. I could only guess something had exploded beside her, a control panel or something along those lines that had gotten overloaded from the electric energy and popped like a can of soda in a fire.

Soon as they had vacated the cabin we resumed our own duties and jumped immediately back into action, Copper snaking his way in once he had an opening to slip inside. We were safe for the moment but it was no excuse to let our guard down while repairs were made. While Copper busied himself with some quick inspections and speaking a mile a minute with one of the surviving Engineers, I pulled aside the other and stepped back into the cargo bay for a bit of privacy. I was going to get an explanation of what happened from Copper eventually but I felt like hearing a first-hoof account for myself while it was still fresh. Last I knew, Conqueror and Rabid had been following each other as a team while they continued the push to secure the remaining holdouts in the new city. The fact Rabid was nowhere in sight and couldn't be raised on comms was enough cause to ask for an answer into just what in the fuck went wrong here.

"Alright, gimmie a quick rundown of what happened." I said, making sure we were stuffed out of the way as there was going to be some traffic coming and going for awhile. "And forgive me if I'm completely blanking on your name...haven't had much time to get to know the Engineers on my own team let alone the whole Platoon."

"N-no worries Ma'am." He stammered, shaking a bit in his armored jumpsuit. "E-Engineer Torque, Ma'am. We were en-route to the objective just as ordered. We had taken point in the column since Misty Meadows has the strongest barrier spell between the two Bünkerwagens, b-but then Rabid took some fire from the Southeast outta nowhere and t-they took off after it. Peeled off down some smaller side road we had passed since we were trying to rush to Checkpoint Gamma. Before I fucking knew it, we barreled into this plaza trying to catch up to them and hit that hex trap..."

"Where's your heavy infantry support?" I asked pointedly. "Aside from those scared GIs outside, it looks like your heavies got stripped off you guys too. Ours are spread out somewhere between here and hell and the stand-ins the GA sent in as replacements are...not the most qualified to defend such valuable assets."

"Yeah... Yeah, I get you. Our team of Steel Rangers disembarked as soon as we hit the AO and got sent all-fucking-over before we could even hear where they were going or why. Goddesses what a fucking mess..."

"You're preaching to the converted..." I sighed, nodding towards the front where the bulk of the damage had been done. "What's the damage? Radar station looked completely fucked and your driver was...yeah."

He gulped hard at the mention of his critically injured comrade and nodded slowly as he tried to form words for his reply.

"Y-yes...u-um...well, the confusion of the situation seems to have dropped Misty's guard a bit because the blast blew right fuckin through her shield and the track and the fucking radar station! Some poor Private took the blast to the torso and just...fucking vaporized. The rest of it hit the turret neck and barely grazed a 40 in the belt, sheered off the head of the projectile and dissipated in the inner mechanics of of the turret neck. S-saw it zip right past my hindleg up in there...fuckin' miracle it didn't set off the whole belt..."

"Stay with me, Torque." I prodded, putting a hoof on his shoulder as reassuringly as I could with a relative stranger. "Looks like there was a firefight out there, mind giving me a quick idea as to what happened there?"

"Y-yeah..." He breathed, taking a moment to calm down and focus. "Um...well, we got stuck due to the blast s-so we dropped the hatch and started inspecting the d-damage when a whole bunch of 'em just...came outta nowhere. This area is so fuckin' open they coulda come from anywhere! But...yeah...s-soon as the bullets started flyin' I ran back in here and..."

"Returned fire as best you could given the circumstances?" I filled in for him to save him some face. The fear of shooting back at a sudden attack was a level of panic everyone felt at least once in their time in the field

"Y-yeah...that." He replied with a shaky sigh and nod. "I...I really thought this thing's armor was better than this...I truly did..."

"Seems everyone did tonight..." I replied with a tired sigh of my own, glancing back up the bowels of Conqueror. "Maybe against bullets and rockets, but magic...ugh...there's a reason we can't keep up with the Empire. Everything we solve with technology, they solve even better with just fancy spellwork and Alchemy."

He nodded silently in haggard agreement before he excused himself to return to the rest of the Engineers to assist with the repairs. I had the gist of what had transpired so I felt no need to hold him back any longer and let him sneak away deeper inside Conqueror. There wasn't a lot to parse from this situation that hadn't already been said; everyone was lulled into believing the Bünkerwagens were invincible, including Command, and as a result unit cohesion became more of an idea than a strongly worded command.

"How we looking, Rivet?" I called out over the radio. "Anything on the horizon?"

"Negative." He replied immediately. "Nothin' I can see around here but us but, uh...don't wanna be stuck in here solo if that changes. I've only got one set of eyes and limited gunnery controls in this seat...this thing wasn't exactly intended to be used by just one guy, same with the cockpit."

"Copy. Keep your eyes peeled and keep me updated on any changes, especially if you get anything useful outta Command or any nearby units. We could be here for a fair bit."

"I hear ya. Over and out."

The night was a mixed bag if I had ever seen one. We had swept in and subdued the bulk of the New City in only a couple of hours and yet, we had also been completely scattered to the wind at the same time. My own Platoon had been fractured almost impressively fast, our three Bünkerwagens separated far from each other and their core crews of veteran soldiers pulled every which way as Command saw fit. In their stead were the poor saps of the General Army, and while I respected their resolve and commitment thus far...they weren't exactly experts in their fields yet.

"Colonel Crete? A word if I may?"

I hated being interrupted but all the same I glanced back towards the hatch and saw yet another wearing the somewhat extravagant armor of a certified Combat Sorcerer. She stood there, staring back at me from under the beaked hood of her robes with sparkling green eyes that hardly tried to hide her weariness. The white Kevyarn of her robes was singed black across her left side and hints of the complex inner weave of fibers inside it poked through the outer tough sheath. Around her neck hung another Academy medallion like unto Cobalt's, this one however sported a large carved sapphire in its center; sign enough of what Torque had said regarding her skill and talent. If the M.O.A.S found her worthy of a jeweled amulet of power, regardless of its strength or quality, she was someone who had learned her craft more efficiently than her peers during her studies.

"Uh...yeah. You must be Misty, yes?"

"Yes Ma'am." She replied with a simple curtsy over a salute. "I was assigned to this unit by Archmage Eclipse only yesterday evening, so I apologize for any unfamiliarity with this vehicle or its usual occupants."

"Don't worry about that, I'm having the same issue. What do you need?" I asked, brushing off her concerns to keep the conversation from getting bogged down in semantics.

"I would like to officially apologize for my actions tonight, Ma'am. I was inattentive and my shield failed to block that bolt hex from penetrating the hull and injuring and...killing...those poor, poor soldiers. I take full responsibility for it and accept any punishment you deem fitting as you are the ranking officer on site."

I was so taken aback by her sudden apology I couldn't even muster up an expression of surprise and instead just stared blankly at her as I tried to process her words. So much had happened to lead up to Conqueror being knocked outta the fight that her part in it felt honestly blameless. Far as I was aware, she had done her part pretty damn well so far and her shield could not have failed that badly seeing as the bulk of the machine and its occupants were still alive and intact.

"Uh...not sure who you're confusing me with but, I'm not exactly here to point hooves at the moment." I replied with a hesitant laugh. "From what I've been told, you've done a damn good job so far tonight and Rabid going off on its own is hardly something I can blame on you."

"Yes, but I still allowed us to be hit to begin with which resulted in casualties...casualties I will have to live with."

"Perhaps...but let me counter by asking you this. What would have happened if your shield wasn't there to blunt the blast? Based off the damage I saw earlier, this thing is lucky to not be a smoldering wreck of steel and charred bones."

"W-well...yes, but..."

"Look..." I sighed with a grunt of exasperation. "I know it's easy for me to say all that, being free of this dilemma, but at the end of the day I try to be a pragmatist. And in this situation, all I can do is look at the damage caused and guess at how much worse it could have been. What's happened has happened and since I doubt the Academy allows any to dabble in time magic, there isn't a way to fix this current outcome. You're alive, the bulk of the crew survived and Conqueror still has a fighting chance. Hell, if we're lucky we can keep her in the field and put off giving her to the Engineers for a full repair and overhaul. At least for now. It would be a pain to have to reshuffle everyone between the other Bünkerwagens and that's assuming we even get back in contact with Rabid anytime soon."

"I...I guess so." She replied with a quiet mumble after a moment of silence that was punctuated with the sound of everyone else hard at work. "B-but if I wasn't distracted by everyone yelling at each other over the radio for Rabid going off on their own...I w-would've had more focus on my spell and could've blocked it entirely!"

"Alright, well be that as it may, you still maintained your shield. Even if it was weaker than it could have been, you still kept that bitch up and running. Thanks to your spell, you blunted the blow enough that this thing came away crippled, not
completely blasted to hell and back. As I said before, it's easy for me to say all this shit but if you came to me looking for some kind of punishment...then you've got the wrong mare, hun. We've got shit to do and a city to subdue, so our time can be spent second-guessing our actions later. Until then keep your chin up, rely on your training and your instincts, and for your own sake...find something to keep you busy. Very busy."

"Are you...are you sure...?" She asked again, staring me directly in the eyes as if looking for some hint of some ulterior motive.

"Damned straight as a rifle barrel. If you wanna discuss this more after we all can take a step back from tonight, then by all means, hit me up later. But for right now...both of us are needed right here where we are, doing what we do best. Trust me...keeping busy will help you focus on something else and keep you moving forward."

"Y-yes Ma'am..." She breathed, taking a moment to close her eyes and take a few deep breaths. "Yes. Yes. Make myself useful. I can do that."

"Yes, you can." I responded with a soft chuckle of support. "Go on, put that horn of yours to good use. I'm sure Copper and Hinge would appreciate the extra support with grounding any residual energy from that hex or some other delicate work a talented horn is best suited for."

"Oh Goddesses, I completely forgot that was possible with their hex magic! I must see to that immediately!"

The moment I brought it up she latched onto it like a drowning victim to some flotsam in a storm; my advice taken immediately to heart as she set off to occupy herself with something other than the faces of the dead. Distracting oneself from an emotionally and/or mentally crippling scenario wasn't the best coping mechanism to turn into a habit, but in small doses it could be a comforting thing to do in an otherwise debilitating experience. She wasn't directly to blame for the deaths and injuries that had resulted from tonight, merely a cog in the machine that was more victim than perpetrator because of the actions of others. As she had said herself, it was Rabid's choice to fuck off to who knew where and the sudden change in plans was only going to lead to the kind of confusion and anger over comms that she had described. Given all I knew so far, she had done pretty well given the shit sandwich she had thrown on her plate. Something I couldn't say for everyone in 4th Platoon tonight...

Without anything left keeping me in Conqueror's cargo hold, I exited back out to the plaza and had a long sigh to try and reset my own mind a bit. The defensive perimeter had seen some significant improvements in the short time I had been inside and I could see our pair of LMGs had already been added to the line facing outwards. Mauler sat where she had parked earlier, keeping her large barrel slowly panning in a full circle and Sergeant Birchwood sat right in the middle of it all, one eye on the soldiers under his command and the other on the dark wall of buildings that sat around us. We had a decently defensible perimeter established but I couldn't help but feel naked under an open sky with no air cover overhead. With Buck gone, the only way we would get some more wings for the team was if we pounded on the metaphorical doors of those above us and beg for a few seconds of their attention. Barring incredible luck or a surprise visit from someone like Colonel Horn, there was no chance in hell of getting someone overhead anytime soon. It only took a quick glance upwards to see the friendly blue ticks zip about overhead beneath the cloud layer, the number of vengeful red ticks darting amongst them thicker than was comfortable. Whether one of these descended upon us was purely up to chance and we would have to be extra aware of the skies and the dangers they held. That being said, there was a way to get some modicum of comfort for this woe of mine but I was going to need to do some delegating.

"Birchwood, what's our status?" I asked as I approached him from the side, taking a quick headcount of as many as I could see before me.

"Could do with another Fireteam but, we're as dug in as we can get without breaking out the heavy machinery. Were time no issue I'd say damn straight we bustin' that shit out but...this wouldn't be an easy place to entrench. If you could kindly tell those grease boys to hurry the fuck along so we can get the fuck outta here, I would be very much obliged Colonel. We're too exposed out here and I don't wanna get rained on..."

His brevity helped alleviate at least some of the tension in my gut and I rewarded him with the chuckle he was owed for it. Humor is a valuable commodity in times of stress and in allowing oneself to laugh a little in spite of it all, the reward is knowing your sanity was not yet entirely spent up.

"They're well aware of it as we are but I'll whip some ass if needed." I replied with another laugh as I glanced around the surrounding buildings for what I wanted next. "Next question, who here knows their way around a sniper rifle and have any sort of overwatch training?"

Out of the eight or so within earshot, only two hooves shot up in reply. I wasn't expecting a whole lot from a group so green but it wasn't like Command was going to be sending me any sort of extra support in the near future.

"Alright, it'll have to do. You two, go and switch out your kit in one of the armories and take a rifle of your choice. Speak to the Lead Engineer aboard to get access to the NVGs then report back to me for placement. We're gonna make this place as comfy and cozy as grandma's house! If you didn't have a granny, well time to pretend ya did!"

"That will not be necessary!"

It took a second for the words to register with my brain; who the fuck present here thought it was a good time for false bravado?

"Who in the fu-" I spun around to face the direction of my veritable opposition only to feel my jaw drop to the bottom of my mask.

Another team of Pegusi stood proudly before me, dressed up in unfamiliar Airborne Corps barding and ballistic plates. Standing at the head of this group of six flyboys was none other than...Buck Beak, accompanied by one of the Shadowbolts from earlier who kept her masked flight helmet firmly on. The group behind her likewise had similar mysterious helmets masking their faces and even in my surprise, I couldn't help but notice something else about them. Like their leader, each bore an emblem of an equine skull in profile flanked by a bony wing on a sea of plum velvet encircled by a wreath of black. I felt safe to assume it was a unit patch like most major units in the EAF received to denote which group they belonged to in the grand scheme of the War. In this case however, these Pegusi seemed to be much more rank-and-file than the actual Shadowbolt team Buck and I met earlier. Did the Shadowbolts have their own private forces under their direct command? If so...what other little perks were hiding behind their powerful and enigmatic insignia?

"Miss me, bitch?" Buck grinned while looking as pristine and whole as when we had started the night. "Heard you needed some help and Commander Typhoon was willing to lend some of her personal retinue to 4th Platoon for the night!"

"With the caveat of reassigning you and some of those present to another task entirely." The previously silent Shadowbolt replied, her voice clearly being conveyed via a microphone inside her helmet. "Commander Typhoon has taken an interest in a proposition made by your First Sergeant, Colonel Crete. However..."

"What...?" I asked hesitantly, the hustle and bustle of the assembled Pegusi moving past us completely passing by my attention as I awaited what came next. "I know there's a massive 'but' in this plan of yours."

"I told her that you're the only one shitheaded enough to try and pull it off with me." He grinned devilishly.

**********