Fallout Equestria: War Bird

"ATHENA!!" I bellowed with all the menace and anger I could muster. "Show yourself like a REAL fucking mare and give me a fight worth my fuckin' time!"

I was livid. For all she was made out to be, I was at least hoping for some sort of civility or…I suppose ‘fairness’ in how she hunted us down. Maybe not all spaghetti western with a quick draw in the main square to finish off a climatic chase sequence but…something better than this. Any cheap knock-off fuck with some caps could weasel their way into getting a StealthBuck amulet and make their money that way. For Firefly to call someone a local legend, well…I was expecting something better. In a way, I got what I wanted as the cloak of invisibility was lifted and I was finally given the chance to look at her and the dangers she brought along.

The first and most obvious danger she had uncovered was the nearly inch wide gaping muzzle of the fluted barrel of one of the ultra-rare AMR-25s, cocked and loaded pointed directly at me. The heavy armor of the user behind this monster of a rifle was equally as unique and rare, the top of the line when it came to the M-CAP Ranger line of armors of which Firefly was on the bottom rungs. Thick impact plates of Celestium alloy over a Kevyarn bodysuit, a similar hermetic seal system to my Power Armor against toxic environments, multiple magnification and imaging systems in the helmet and a sturdy Dragon leather duster to complete the iconic look. With its desert print camouflage pattern, the Mrk. IV was truly a sight for sore eyes in its own way…even if it was being worn by my mortal enemy.

"Peekaboo you fuck, you!" She laughed, her voice tinny and muffled. "Sorry about this Firefly, this ain't personal I promise."

"You let him the fuck go, bitch!" I growled, keeping my sights fixed on the cheap-shot bitch who had a hold of Firefly and holding back the urge to open fire on the spot. "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… Besides, I like having the ball in my court." She sighed which only added fresh air to the smoldering blaze in my veins.

"You want the ball in your fucking court?” I smirked, feeling the urge to put her in her fucking place the old fashioned way. “Well fuck you, how about this then?"

With just a thought the back of my Power Armor hissed open in sections allowing me to climb my way out in order to face her as I was. I had grown to trust Firefly and, with nothing more than his word to go on, I had to run with that concept of honor amongst these so-called Hitmares. I was gonna offer her the most fundamental and yet decisive challenge any warrior could pose to another. A test of raw martial skill with no tricks, no weapons and limited armor. It would take too long for us both to strip down completely so I felt I was being kinda lenient as it was by climbing outta Steel.

"One on one bitch! Show me some real fighting!” I bellowed at her once again, this time showing off a lot more skin than before. “He says you're a legend? Prove it then."

There was a moment of silence before she released her captive and finally replied, "Fine, we can do it your way then. Firefly, this ain't your fight and if you make it yours..."

"Yeah, yeah...Ah know." He grunted nervously while collecting himself before standing to the side and out of our way. "Ah get marked ah target fer standin' in yer way. Ah know th' rules, Crete."

After another moments’ pause, she again replied. At the same time, she lowered her rifle away from my face and began to withdraw her weapons from their holsters.

"Fine big guy. I'll fight you on your terms.” She laughed softly, slipping a long and unusual curved sword to the ground on the pile near Firefly whom she then addressed directly. “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 bit his lip in visible worry and made an effort to step back as far as he could from the pile, not letting us out of his sight or allowing himself to walk backwards off the cliff behind us. While he took his time looking after his own personal safety, the mare in question systematically took off her outer layers of defense and set the pieces on the pile of weapons. The external spaulders and bracers were magnetically attached to the reinforced duster which itself acted as a classy veil over the main body of armor underneath. With the literal centuries since I had last seen a set, I had forgotten how well designed even the heaviest in this line of armors were. Neck-to-hoof was encased in a system of overlapping metal impact plates, each sporting a well-worn tan desert print that was gouged and scraped to hell and back. Very little of the Kevyarn bodysuit could be seen under all the layers of defense, a testament to how often they found themselves wrestling with blade-happy Zebra elites. If there was something I could say wasn’t coming back to me, it was the number of bags, pouches and holsters that came standard with the built-in tactical rig. I couldn’t put an exact number if I tried but the number this bitch had dotting her armor was excessive…

The mare herself was…better looking than I was expecting. Grey fur, violet eyes and a green and blue mane pinned up in a bun to fit inside her helmet. Her face showed the dirt and grime from however long she had been on the road looking for me but I couldn’t say that was a bad thing. This was far from the first time I had come across a battle-hardened chick, especially in a country infamous for its female gender disparity, but few looked as at-home in her armor as she did. She looked young too, a lot younger than most of the hardened Mercs I had encountered over the years. Aging a pony wasn’t a skill I had or tried to work towards but this bitch had to be in her late 20s, maybe early 30s.

Once she had patted herself down once more to be completely sure she was unarmed, she took up a fighting stance and barked out, "Ready when you are, big guy. Show me what you got!"

Her taunting words fell on deaf ears as I was already lunging at her halfway through her sentence. Up close she was a full head or so shorter than I, which was my first mistake. Like I had been taught, I opened up with a couple of quick jabs towards her center of mass but she was already moving by the time my first fist went flying. Before my arm could even acknowledge the command to return back to my side, she struck. The world went painfully upwards as something doubly hard clocked me from below under my jaw. Out of instinct I sent out another pair of jabs in her general direction, followed by a swipe of my elbow as I used offense to buy my vision time to settle. A hard, solid defense batted away my fists and my elbow struck nothing but air but I could feel that I had bought myself a little space. This was a promising start.

‘Now this is more like it!’ I thought to myself in the privacy of my own mind. ‘She’s got more bite to her than the average bar brawl.’

With my distance regained, I could finally get a hold of my daze and brought her grey face back into view. She was crouched low, taking up a fighting stance I was unfamiliar with but knew to be wary of given her show of speed and accuracy. In response, I threw out the standard playbook, opened my fists into proper claws (as dulled as they were) and slapped together as many techniques as felt seamless with each other. Swipes, chops, kicks, jabs and slashes as fast as I could throw them at her in as wild a pattern as I could throw together on the fly. She was getting my best performance in years and it started to pay dividends the harder I pressed the attack. For every four or five blows of my own, she could only let out one or two with the rest of her time spent on the defense against my onslaught.

I felt good about my chances. At first. Punching her armored person was far from pleasant against my fists, but the number of bone-rattling impacts jarring my body was satisfying nonetheless. I had size and strength over her scrawny ass and it showed by how much I buffeted her around with each and every hit I sent her way. That being said, she was making herself a hard target to actually land one of those hits on. Her hooves, all of them, were a whirlwind of defense batting away my paws and talons like a spinning top. I knew I got in a few good solid whacks against her torso and sides but with how fast we were pushing each other to move, there was little time to parse details from our combined chaotic dance. That was…until she snuck another stinging blow directly under the tip of my beak. Not enough to chip anything, thank fuck, but it made my eyes water and set the nerves in my face on fire which was more than enough of an opening for her to take advantage of. Even through the flurry of pain and whirling sensations I knew I was off balance and not hugging my limbs close enough to my center.

What happened next was over almost in a flash as I felt her grapple onto my exposed right arm and wrench it violently upwards. In flash images through a pained veil of tears I watched in near slow motion as she sailed overhead with my arm under her complete control. The next moment the shoulder that was unfortunate to be attached to that arm erupted in mind-numbing pain; the feeling of the socket dislocating a particular type of suffering I hadn’t felt for some time. Before I knew it she had rolled across my back and over my left shoulder, dancing out of the way of a frankly pathetic attempt to swipe at her back.

"OW! Godfucking damnit you fucking cum-sucking pussy!" I hissed at her, sitting back to coddle the dangling, excruciatingly floppy limb at my side.

"I believe that should be enough to say that I win." She grinned through a wince, giving a slight, mocking bow in my direction."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..." I mocked with a hiss of pain as I wrenched my shoulder back into the joint as carefully as I could under pressure. "Grrr...you know for that, I think Imma get mean with you this time..."

"Round two huh? Goddamnit...fine, let’s get this shit over with..." She sighed after a moments’ pause before adopting another defensive stance.

This time around I was far less confident about my chances in the ring against this little fireball of a mare. She was good. Scary good. We paced around each other in a slow circle for a moment or two, her violet eyes scanning me up and down with a stern and intense expression until all at once we were at it again. Despite the pain shooting through my shoulder with each and every movement, I couldn’t help but feel…exhilarated. With every blow we exchanged, whether or not it even fucking hit its mark, I was alive with energy and passion! Here was a proper combatant! Not another of your run-of-the-mill Raiders or even veteran Merc of the Wastes, this was a true professional working the height of her game. Every assault thrown my way was no less vicious than the last with some absolutely wild attacks making it through my defenses And if there was one thing becoming all the clearer to me through all this…it was that I was nowhere near the level I should be.

That being said, I refused to go down without a damned good fight and intended to give her my all, my shoulder be damned. I threw myself into every attack I felt comfortable with, even getting a couple talons to graze her face deep enough to draw blood and a respectable full-bodied kick directly to her torso. She kept managing to sneak in plenty of hits of her own, almost all of them going for the giant target she had made of my right side, but I could tell I was wearing her out. To her credit, she was fighting harder and longer than anyone I could bring immediately to memory and she was the more technically proficient between us. However, when she feinted and tried to go for my left arm as well, I felt it deep within me that I had found the one chance I needed to act.

“Oh no you fucking don’t!” I bellowed as I yanked on the arm she was attempting to latch onto, using her own momentum to spin and hurl her into the hardest and heaviest thing standing nearby.

The solid metallic clunk of her slamming up against my stationary Power Armor was more than a little satisfying and I allowed myself a moment to enjoy my handiwork. She didn’t even need to groan to tell me that one fuckin’ hurt; the way she stumbled up to her hooves wit her eyes blinking like a machine gun from the daze. It felt good to have done a genuine number on her after my earlier humiliation and I wanted to take in every second of hers. After a moment of breathing however, she stood up fully once again, raising her hooves ready to fight until…

"Where the fuck did you get this?" She barked at me accusingly, holding up the helmet to my PoA that her own scrawny ass must have knocked off.

"The fuck you talking about, my helmet?" I retorted with suspicion, keeping my fists cocked and loaded in case she was gonna try to use it against me in some way. "Was issued with that fucker, dumbass. What do you expect?"

"I'm talking about the decal, you feathery fuckass!" She growled back, hoisting up the dilapidated piece of steel in her magic and jabbing a hoof at the painted decal. "Who the fuck did you steal this pattern from?"

Steal? Steal?! Just who in the fuck did this bitch think she was to accuse me of stealing something I helped design! The Totenmaske meant many things to the Plague Birds and I but above all it was our shared symbol as a team, a family even. Death’s Mask was our defiance, our refusal to go quietly or bloodlessly into the arms of Tōt and the icy plains of her realm. The rest of us might have already passed into Her care but I alone still remained and by Krie I would keep our name alive even if it were in spirit. If she only knew the history she might have thought better than insult the only family I had left to me.

"Nobody you sack of shit!” I bellowed at her, the rage building up inside worth using for round three. “The fuckin' Plague Birds birthed that symbol and I'll be fucked if I let you think I fucking stole that shit from anyone!"

I was expecting her to go off on some off the walls story that was somehow related to the Totenmaske or even just to throw it at me as a distraction to start another round. Instead, she surprised me by…getting really suspicious and giving me a very critical stare.

"Say. That. Again." She commanded, the growl in her voice filled with a fire of conviction.

"It's a fuckin' Plague Birds original, numbnuts!” I challenged again, pointing a very angry talon directly at her. “Don't you fuckin’ dare accuse me of stealing something I helped create, damnit!"

She went even quieter this time, her eyes narrowing critically as the wheels and cogs behind them spun overtime trying to keep up. In a moment our epic clash was brought to a screeching halt, all over glorified 200 year old face paint! There was not a single goddamn Soul alive on this Continent that could possibly know that decal or even what a Plague Bird was. The past had been flash-fried in a Balefire flambé and with it everyone and anyone that had ever seen or interacted with my team all those decades past. All at once I was aware that I was just as confused and curious about her as she was about me in this situation. She knew a hell of a lot more than she was letting on.

"Prove it." She huffed indignantly, her amethyst eyes sharpened into pointed tips ready to strike. If she wanted to know so damn badly, I was gonna give her something only those in the know would be able to understand.

"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 in this day and age."

She stared at me with such intensity I could almost feel them burrowing deep into my skin before she replied, "...Lieutenant Colonel Athena M. Crete, Desert Ranger Corps, Serial Number A-99226-6479."

"Desert Rangers? Bullfuckingshit." I snapped back at her without even thinking, the sheer absurdity of her words making it hard to comprehend their meaning.

Wordlessly she pointed to her breastplate where I was able to spy the faded and abused symbol of a stylized Dragon clutching a large rifle. It was hard to mistake the Corps’ insignia but at the same time, I was no stranger to the concept of finders-keepers in the post apocalypse. Anyone could impersonate anything from the past if they knew enough about it and had the right equipment. The best conmares could do a lot with very little.

“Nice, but you could’ve gotten that from a corpse in the Badlands for all I know.” I replied with a hint of smugness, the possibility of this being an elaborate ruse still on the back of my mind. “If you wanna prove your case, you’re gonna have to do better than that.”

“Fine! How about this then?” She challenged, reaching for her neck only to pull out a chain weighed down by small trinkets and tossing something at me.

My left arm was already out and snatching it out of the air before the thought even crossed me to catch whatever it was. Rolling it between my talons until it was comfortable to hold, I knew the shape and texture immediately and another pang of shock rocked my body. Laying in my hand were a pair of original holotags, miniscule data pads that contained everything a commanding officer, medic or otherwise needed to know about a soldier. It was a useful tech that survived amongst the ranks of the Order but theirs were notably different, simplified and more cheaply produced than the originals issued back in the day. I knew the look and feel of the real-deal from decades of thumbing my own during my decades spent underground and there was no mistaking what I had in my talons. A quick glance at the small blue screen embedded within the steel frame showed me what I expected, the list of personal identifiers listed out in tiny print beneath an image of the mare before me but wearing a dress uniform. When she pulled out her duster and showed off a pair of Lt. Colonels’ silver oak leaves on its lapels, all shadows of doubt flew out of my mind for good.

"Fuck off...there's no fucking way!" I blurted out, almost laughing at the sheer lunacy of the situation. There was just no way in hell a Nad Pad had made it out of the War alive, let alone as young looking as her. "Bullfuckingshit you fuckin' made it through all that!"

"You tell me." She replied with a shrug as she dropped her fighting stance and stood up normally. "I'm only around thanks in no small part to your buddy Peter. I might have forgotten about you, but his is a name and memory I can't forget."

Now it was my turn to act suspicious and completely bewildered. It was one thing for me to swallow down my pride and accept the impossibility of her existence but she was asking me to deepthroat something I was entirely unprepared for. To hear his name after so many goddamn years brought back too many memories to count, and not all of them were pleasant. Particularly towards the end… So how in the fuck did this chick know about Peter?

"How the hell do you know that name?"

"Well I'd have to be telling the truth now wouldn't I?" She snorted with a bit of an amused smirk. "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. Could literally shoot the wings off a parasprite with that thing."

"Yeah...that's Peter..." I breathed out, almost too shocked to say anything in response. "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 as he frantically looked between the two of us with absolute confusion.

"Hey, I'm the first to be a skeptic about this sort of thing but you know way too much to be lying about this shit..." She replied before looking like an idea had struck her. "One final test then. An old classic. Klutzy?"

Klutzy… Klutzy what? Was she taking a chance to make fun of my sub-par performance during our bout or… Oh my gods, she wasn’t…

"Draconequus." I replied with a flurry of jumbled emotions in my gut. "Holy shit this can't be fucking real..."

"Th' fuck?!" Firefly whined in understandable confusion. “Can somepony please fuckin’ tell me wut in th’ fresh hell it is y’all are sayin’?!”

"Old friend or foe code." I said quickly while my mind grappled with the situation. "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.” She stepped in for me. “Zeebs from the Empire could not pronounce Draconequus properly and rolled their Rs and pronounced 'quus' as 'quis'. You learned pretty quickly to pick up on a botched attempt to pronounce it and could open fire as soon as you heard the first rolling 'r'."

"Yeah heh…worked wonders back in the day… Who was your CO?" I asked, suddenly filled with a desire to learn more about her now that this can of worms had been blown wide open.

"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." I sighed, rolling my eyes at her obvious jab. "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 would have by now."

"Right, you guys were special." She laughed with a hint of mocking in her tone. “All the authority with none of the accountability, a wartime officer's dream.”

"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!"

He brought up a good point now that my attention had been brought right back to what had started this whole…situation. The moment I saw her holotags in my hand, my whole world had shifted in an instant; a Discord’s Chest of chaos flung wide open while throwing my thoughts into the jumbled gale. Not for nothing but her first reaction to seeing me was shooting so I expected some slack for being a bit unprepared for this complete 180 in intentions. If she were going for the long long con, she was putting on a performance that could convince Lōk themselves.

"I...dunno, are we fighting?" I asked, taking the initiative to save the awkward silence. “I’m with him, I’ve no idea what’s going on anymore.”

"Um...I guess not?" She laughed with a sheepish grin. "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..." She 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…” She huffed with a frown before continuing. “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 th-”

There was that name again! Only this time the information that came along with it was particularly rank with the stink of something fishy. The Plague Bird’s first casualty in the field had been our quirky and slightly awkward owl-faced Peter, beyond a doubt the best sniper on the Front. Then came the ‘accident’ at the end of the summer dry season in the South, confidential in nature to the point of lunacy. No warning and complete with an absolutely shit answer when we had demanded an explanation as to what just happened to us. He was just up and gone. We were never the same as a team after that day, especially Ericka…and we hadn’t even been given a corpse to give a proper passing to. So what in the hell was Athena doing saying he was providing her with overwatch just before the Great War?!

"Is that right...?" I managed to grunt out through gritted teeth, my mind reeling from this unneeded assault from all sides of the past. "So Peter fuckin' faked his fuckin' death...that motherfucker..."

"Oh...? Was he...supposed to be dead before that?"

Her sincere look of confusion was convincing enough, she wasn’t pulling my tail on this one.

"Uhhh, yeah?" I snapped back, my rage from earlier sparking up a bit once more though for a wholly new reason than before. "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..."

Their conversation continued on in the background but I was entirely deaf to it as this latest suckerpunch left my dilapidated mental state in a state of chaotic freefall. He had the gall to fake his death to his own family and then go off and have an adventure with an entirely different team altogether. Of course we had nothing for his pyre to burn but the effigy we crafted in his name was made with all the honor and respect he deserved. We had laid to rest one of our own in full confidence. It hurt each and every single one of us to the core but we had all accepted it. Ericka, our team medic, took his loss the hardest. A battlefield crush was a double-edged sword and that day she felt its ferocious bite turned on herself. Of course, he was too damned shy and awkward to even be aware to her flirting over the years but tha-

“Now...ya gonna be nice an' tell her yer side 'o th' story?" Firefly chided all of a sudden in my ear, his hoof jabbing hard into my side to get my attention. "This mare is ah force 'o nature so if she done stop attackin' ya it's fer ah goddamned good reason."

"Ugh, fine!" I sighed, rolling my eyes while trying to ignore the ‘force of nature' comment for the sake of my own wounded pride. "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?" She asked with disbelief, looking me over as if looking for something odd or unusual. "Doing what exactly?"

"Nothing interesting if that's what you're asking.” I chuckled weakly. “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 then to conduct recon and I had heard 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."

She listened carefully and nodded as I spoke, her expression showing interest but with the cogs behind the scenes spinning wildly. It was a pleasant change from her actively trying to dislocate every bone in my body and I wasn’t getting the feeling she were about to strike again.

"Heh...the price on your head indicates you killed more than a few Rangers. Just how many then?" She asked with a smirk, her hate for the SR just oozing from her words.

"Eh...something like seventeen? Eighteen?" I replied with a satisfied laugh, feelings of pride tickling through my feathers at the memories. "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 all their bullshit. That part makes enough sense. 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 Equestrian Armed Forces in this region and not once did I ever hear about any military installation built in these godsforsaken canyons."

"Well.. Don't we got a story to tell ya!" I grinned, looking right at Firefly who grinned back knowingly.

******

We had started moving again after more time spent standing around chatting. While it was nice to catch up with someone from the old days, I didn’t let myself get too distracted from the real reason we were here to begin with. With the SR hurtling inevitably towards us somewhere to the North and closing fast, we had no other choice but to keep making our way deeper into the Ember Mountains. How much farther up the road and deeper into the canyons Outpost Zeta laid was an enigma until we made the trip in full. However…the journey was easier to ignore with such an interesting traveling companion to talk your ear off.

Athena was…surprisingly charming and energetic now that she wasn’t on the hunt for the Bounty on my head. She laughed often, spoke with her hooves even as she walked and had a mind as sharp as a dagger. I had thought her familiar when she had first taken off her helmet but the fight that immediately followed that did a thorough job of scrubbing that from my mind. With our fight concluded (and ignoring the outcome), I had the time to realize I had met her before. Not for any great length of time but we had spoken face to face at least once or twice a long, long time ago. What we talked about was something only the past itself would remember but it was much harder for a face to escape my memory. Either way, I was finding it difficult to find reasons to chuck her little ass over the side of the cliff beside us.

“...and boom! He shoots, her entire spaulder goes flying off and she’s shrieking like a banshee!” I recounted fondly, watching with a quiet sense of pride as she lit up at my tale.

“Huh…yeah, I saw some of the leftovers from your fight while I was snooping around Glittering Caves. Spent casings, old blood and even the spaulder you blew off her shoulder! Miracle she didn’t lose the whole leg too.”

“Well tah be fair, mah line ‘o sight had ah shit loada rain fuckin’ wit’ it. Ah was shootin tah kill if ya want mah honesty…” Firefly groaned regretfully, pulling his bush hat lower over his brightly glowing face. “Never got th’ chance tah make up fer it ‘cause Garand here goes ‘n grapples onto th’ bitch like ah goddamned wrangler ‘n snaps her fuckin’ horn right off!”

“Yeahhh…” I chuckled sheepishly, feeling…embarrassed by the way she looked up at me like I had genuinely impressed her. “In my defense she had really pissed me the fuck off by aiming her gun up at Firefly instead of me. Well, that and…you know, the fact she was hunting my ass down to begin with, heh.”

“Heh, yeah I got to see a bit of your handiwork when she and a Shadow Broker just appeared in front of me the other day offering me a deal.” She replied, giving me a smiling nod of approval. “Her head was all bandaged up like something outta the Kyopsis crypts but the stump was definitely still oozing. I remember seeing it staining through all the gauze…”

“Oh really?” I asked, simply dying to hear what she was like after her humiliating defeat. “Do tell!”

“Well ain’t somebody nosy…” She giggled before continuing all the same. “Trust me, you left a hell of a mark on her. Never, ever in my life have I ever seen anyone with the balls to talk over a Shadow Broker. Let alone multiple times! He decked her good after the second or third time…fuckin’ felt good to watch that shit in real time. She couldn’t stop talking about you and what you did to her so I’d say you left the impression you were going for with her.”

“Mmmff…” I sighed happily in pleasant satisfaction over her words. “No higher honor than to be obsessed over by an inferior rival! Anythin’ else?”

“I dunno, it all kinda happened so fast. It’s still kinda hard to believe it was real and actually happened to be honest.”

“Ah well…that was more than I was expecting to get outta that so I’ll count myself lucky. Didn’t exactly think I would hear from her again after all that so it’s good to hear just how fucked up I left her. She already seemed like a psycho but there’s no way she manages to keep it all together as time goes on. Not the first horn I’ve snapped off one of you small fry, I’ve seen what can happen.”

“Oh yeah, that was already happening during that whole conversation.” She confirmed with a furious nod. “The stub started sparking wildly there for a second and she seemed to have a massive migraine the whole time. No telling how long it’ll be until she’s naked and hissing at the sky like a Feral but I wouldn’t give her long. There wasn’t a lot of brain left to rot in there to begin with…”

“Yew’d think so but Ah’ve seen some fight against it fer years ‘n years. Ah strong enough mind can stave off more than yew’d think. Met ah poor fucker years back who lost his horn in ah bar fight. Th’ rage ‘n anger from tha’ loss kept his ass in one piece fer over three years till he finally cornered th’ bastard in Rock Town. ‘Course, this is when he couldn’t hold it in anymore ‘n exploded on ‘em. Like literally exploded. Whole town, ‘er wha’ was left of it, blown off th’ face o’ the map.”

“No idea where Rock Town is so I can’t exactly say I give a shit about it.” I responded. “Either way, we’re far away from that whore and good fuckin’ riddance I say. If she turns into a Psyker wandering the wastes like a rabid dog then good for fuckin’ her! Let her whole pink ass rot into a pile of shit in the coldest pits of Hel. I kicked her ass fair and square and she’s gotta live knowin’ that!”

“Indeed! It was nice to hear the full story finally.” She laughed softly with another smile. “I had most of the pieces already but some of the specifics really needed this sorta explanation to puzzle it all together. You guys tell an amusing story, even if I would personally still be wary of Kay-Q.”

“Mah pleasure!” Firefly chuckled, tipping his hat in her direction. “Story time is mah favorite part o’ bein’ on th’ road heh, heh. Gives meh ah chance tah tell some good tales.”

"So...that explains the talk of SR activity near the Gap..." She mumbled aloud to herself. “They're all looking for this place too and the only path in they can take is on this side of the Embers. Lovely."

"Yep." I replied nonchalantly. "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 across from me to my right on the wide dirt road. "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." She sighed with an audible groan underneath. "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." I said in reply. "Only reason we happened on this shit was we were already at a relay station called Black Steel Hill where an NER Bounty target that Firefly was after had holed up in. The station was in SR hooves a few years ago and the radio equipment had been locked tight against those dumbasses who moved in so I took advantage of the opportunity and tapped into the radio frequencies. 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."

"Right, that's our job." She laughed while patting the butt of the massive rifle on her back. "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."

"Yeah...lucky..." I grunted with a nervous chuckle, my mind immediately coming back to her ballistic greeting from earlier. "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.” She sighed quietly, looking away from either of us for a moment. “Everything you've said so far 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 with his hoof reaching back up for his hat. "Nice tah see Ah'm visible from th' top."

"Please..." She chuckled tiredly, looking back at him with a kind expression. "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."

There was a glaring flaw in the information she was using to form up her inevitable final judgment regarding me. Whether or not she was used to being paid in full or jipped on a regular basis wasn’t exactly known to me but I had to assume she got her money when she had earned it. Far as she knew, the SR was gonna make good on their Bounty like anyone else which is what I knew was giving her pause. Once she knew otherwise however…

"Sorry to interrupt or whatever, but you do know the SR aren't gonna pay up, right?"

"What do you mean?" She asked in surprise, cocking an eyebrow up at me and looking perplexed. "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 organization was completely liquidated, including the people running it. 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..." I growled warningly, rushing ahead in order to stop her in her tracks and listen to me. "I can't prove anything you're saying about these Syndicate people but I feel like believing you since things out here are way too slick and oiled and I'll frankly start believing anything at this point about 'em. But, I'm telling ya with brutal fucking honesty that these guys 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. 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 said thankfully coming to my aide on this. "Ah don' see th' SR holdin' up their end 'o th' bargain."

"Ugh! Just...let me fuckin' think about it, alright?" She snapped back at both of us with what could’ve been tears forming in her eyes. "I've got a lot riding on this Contract..."

"What price is worth killing someone you fuckin' know, huh?" I huffed indignantly, playing the nostalgia card for all it was fucking worth. "Where the fuck else are you gonna get to swap war stories with someone you know worked the Southern Front right there with you?"

"I get it!" She whined loudly with an exasperated gasp for air. "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 too was absolutely silent as she continued to speak.

"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, Green 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."

I brushed him off as that fight was something for another time. All that mattered was that we successfully convince her to rethink her plans on dragging my ass in the wrong direction. We had come too far and done too much to change our plans now.

"So what's your part in this then?” I asked pointedly. “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." I warned, eying her intensely so she damn well felt the certainty behind my words.

"Ugh...so you say..."

After that she just stopped talking altogether and so I decided to leave her alone with her thoughts while we continued meandering through the rocky canyons. She had told me only a tiny fraction of what she had been up to since we had last met so it was hard to say what her goals or motivations exactly were. Well…not all of them. Of her own volition she had let me in on the fact she actually had some decent cause to come after me. A Bounty of her own, kids to look after and a home for them all to live in were better motivators than the greed I had originally been expecting to trail after the 300k price tag on my hide. Were it anyone else…I might still be thinking that but I couldn’t deny I felt strangely at ease around her.

All the same, she only had one logical choice ahead of her and that of course was to let me go on my merry way while she went off looking for another way to finance her housing costs. The thought of tossing her off the cliff or otherwise making her disappear was still on the back of my mind as a backup plan in the event she was deaf to reason and blind to a unique opportunity. What that opportunity was…? I truly didn’t even know myself but there was something unusual stirring inside me. Odd pangs in the chest and heart that made walking a straight line somewhat difficult for a time as we continued to walk in silence. I had no possible idea what to make of it all but I couldn’t say that I felt afraid because of it. When Firefly chose to speed up a little, possibly to give us some space, I allowed myself to slow a little so as to not accidentally tread on the backs of his hooves and legs.

"Do we even know what we're looking for?" She asked after who knew how much time had passed us by.

"Dunno, a big fat door that puts a roadblock on the path ahead? How should I know?" I retorted sarcastically since she knew as well as we did that our intel was incomplete. "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." She groaned, taking a deep breath followed by a bored sigh.

From up ahead, Firefly shouted over his shoulder, "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-"

Clang! In the blink of an eye he was face-first flat up against absolutely nothing. The road still stretched on ahead of us as bland and uninteresting as the last few miles with jack shit to indicate anything was even here aside from the three of us. There was literally nothing else it could've been but exactly what we were looking for.

‘Jackpot!’ I thought to myself with a wicked grin. We had a lot of work to do.