The afternoon rays of fading sunlight bounced off a motionless blue suit of equine armor. It lay face first on the water-kissed coast only slightly sunken into the sand. Besides the faint rising of the armor’s chest, the only other sign of motion on it was a flashing half full ring of purple lights, which were on the armor’s half-buried chestplate. Suddenly, a larger wave from the ocean’s tide came in and swept over the armor, rudely waking it’s inhabitant in an instant.

Storm Surge jolted awake only to groan in pain while his senses crawled back into his body. His returning vision swam, making all of the sharp rectangular fracture warning notifications on his helmet’s heads-up-display appear as red blurs. He could not discern which fractures were related to his own physical state or to the suit itself. Meanwhile his sense of feeling, touch, and taste all had their own nasty surprises to spring on the wounded stallion. Storm attempted to stand up, only to instantly fall back down with how sore and unresponsive his limbs felt; especially his back right hindleg. It felt sprained.

With another attempt, the grey pegasus managed to flop onto his back with a painful grunt. His injuries - a copper taste leaking down from his nostrils to his mouth, a stinging hind leg, and the worst headache than all of his hangovers combined - made it hard to think. But he didn’t have to for long when instinct started to slowly take over. His eyes went wide and he sprung up to a sitting position.

“Dash!” He called out before his wounds caught up with his sudden action, causing the stallion to curse and grip his abdomen, where a piece of what looked like steel or rock was wedged inside. He got no response so he tried again. And again. And again, louder each time. His throat was drier than a desert and yelling out the name of his companion didn’t help.

Storm wrapped both hooves around the piece of shrapnel stuck in his abdomen. With a deep intake of breath, he gripped the object tight and slowly yanked outwards. He did his best to muffle the cries of pain, which now sounded like grunts, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. He had already probably alerted everything within a three mile radius while verbally searching for Rainbow.

The stallion checked his suit’s clock to see that it was nearly time.

4:49… Come on! He mentally cursed the inanimate object lodged in his body.

The shrapnel piece finally gave way, allowing Storm to toss it aside and clutch his small wound. He looked down at his chestplate’s segmented ring and noticed the half of the bars were black rather than their usual glowing purple.

“Injuries aren’t critical… yet...” He muttered in a relieved manner before grabbing a bandage from a pouch on the suit’s inventory.

In a few seconds time, the bandage was secure around his waist and had effectively stopped the slow trail of blood. Storm sighed and checked the clock again. Only a minute had passed. Seven more to go…

The grey pegasus attempted to bring up his Tethertech’s holographic screen to call Rainbow Dash, but all he received was a still image with a single warning message.

Electrical fracture detected. Multiple non-tether functions are offline. Please contact support at ATS Help and Hardware.

Storm groaned in a mixture of pain and frustration while finally pushing himself up out of his sitting position and onto all four limbs. A couple sharp intakes of breath and swears later, the stallion was properly upright. But for how long he had no clue. His hindleg was actively trying to detach itself from his body to spare the pain and his crude bandage work wouldn’t last forever. He had to find more medical supplies. He had to find his weapons. But most importantly, he had to find Dash.

Luckily, as his mind started to piece itself back together with the fading headache, Storm devised a quick plan to complete the first of those three tasks. It would be night in… nine minutes! Meaning, he would need a way to defend himself very, very soon. He activated and then retracted his hoof-blade to check if it still worked, which it did. According to his HUD as well, the tethered helmet assembly system, main console and even his suit camera still worked. His thrusters, filtration system, and flash module were all different stories however.

Then there were his weapons. Besides the blade, Storm had no idea where his shotgun or Sweeper rifle had ended up after the fall into the close watery grave. He only had one hope of finding his lost gear now - his Tethertech. All weapons built before the fall of the world had Tether-links on their grips which acted like magnets or sorts that automatically ‘snap’ a tethered appendage towards them in the event the weapon’s user needs to grab and fire in a pinch. Since the tool worked with the user’s mind, the links acted like a priority option but weren't forced in case they were trying to grab something else. Nevertheless, Storm activated his tethered appendage again but thought about the link, making the purple digits jump towards the thick forest in front of him before resting back at his side when the link was deemed too far away.

There was something about the forest before him that made the pegasus anxious. It was often said that literally everything to ever exist made him feel that way, but this time felt especially justified. The brush was too thick; the spaces in between the leaves were too dark. No sounds came out of the forest either. No birds, no rustling of said leaves, nothing but the oceanic tide at his back made any noise. Additionally, the sun had now resolved to peak over the horizon and would be completely gone in a matter of seconds.

Storm’s purple-overlayed night vision flickered on within his visor in sync with the setting sun. A small crack down the middle right visor plate bugged the stallion as it slightly drew his attention away from what mattered until his vision would become accustomed to the minor fracture. He was also surprised that the NV worked even after being submerged, but his extensive upgrading to the internals must have finally paid off. Regardless, he pushed onward by entering the forest at a small opening between the trees.

Along the way, he began to hear muffled sounds from all around the brush as if something or multiple somethings were trying to keep quiet but miserably failing. Storm whipped his head and bladed hoof around at any semblance of a disturbance, but he couldn’t find anything. When he did spot a source of the noise, it was revealed to be a small critter like a squirrel or bunny fleeing into their respective hiding places for the night.

After about five or so minutes of stumbling through the forest and yelling out Rainbow’s name wherever he felt bold enough to do so later, the stallion finally found what his earpiece was trying to connect with. In a small clearing of the forest, a wooden canine-like creature was slowly creeping along with Storm’s slab-barreled Sweeper rifle in its jaws. The creature nearly blended in with its surroundings but the lighter branches and glowing green eyes gave it’s position away. It suddenly dropped the weapon and raised its head before letting out a few yipping sounds. This was when it fully occured to Storm what the creature was.

A timberwolf.

He had only read about the creature in old books about the wildlife of Equestria, so he knew the potential danger these things had possessed to the ponies of the old world. But now, they were little dogs in a bigger dog’s world. This was apparent in the timberwolf’s compressed, slim stomach. Each motion it made appeared forced as if it hurt to breath even. It looked like the creature hadn’t eaten in days or even weeks. As he looked onward, Storm noticed a slight shuffle in the wolf’s movements as well - a sign of fatigue and possible illness - while it sniffed his weapon.

Storm held his breath and activated his blade silently.

The wooden wolves started licking their wooden lips, revealing discolored yellow tongues that resembled the yellow-green hue of chunky puke. Then all three timberwolves bent down and began to aggressively lick at the Sweeper. Storm raised a brow before zooming in on the trio with his visor. With the help of his purple night vision, he was able to see darker discolorations on his weapon that each creature was lapping away at.

Dried blood.

They were licking up whatever dried crimson splotches were left on his weapon that had survived the fall in Fillydelphia. It must have been the closest thing to sustenance that these carnivores had received in forever because some of them started to let out blissful moans and heavy breathing as they all took their fill.

Storm found himself shaking his head subconsciously. Of course these beasts were starving. The bigger beasts - The Damned - had taken everything not just from ponies, but from all forms of life. Both civilized and wild. Upsetting the natural order affected everything - predator and prey alike. If the war-torn stallion was still capable of empathy, he would have felt sorry for the creatures. Instead he only felt anger for what the Damned had done. For what this ‘Warden’ had done. All he knew was that he would need his weapon back to make sure the beasts didn’t take away the one thing he had left.

Storm started to creep forward when his hindleg reminded him why taking on three desperate animals would be a bad idea. He disappeared back into the brush as the gears in his mind turned at a hundred miles an hour with each possible solution to his current predicament.

His thoughts of how to approach the situation were interrupted when one of the Timberwolves was unexpectedly launched into the air and then slammed into the mud face first. It whimpered upon hitting the ground, but quickly turned the pitiful sound into one of a starving, rabid beast defending it’s meal. The other two wolves were looking around urgently for the source of the attack - as did Storm from the shadows - but neither canine nor stallion could find it.

Then another blow landed, this time on the second Timberwolf. Storm watched as it’s head was suddenly forced down into the muck. The creature attempted to get up but was stuck with double the force of the initial blow, which effectively knocked it unconscious. Meanwhile, the first Timber wolf had gotten to its claws and began to snarl into the darkness before suddenly yelping in surprise and falling to the ground.

It took Storm a moment to figure out what had just happened, but when he saw the tiny tranquilizer dart sticking out of the snoozing beast’s neck, then he understood. Someone was there. He couldn’t see them but he knew it was a living attacker. Damned had no need for little ordinance like tranq darts or knocking their foes out. The third and final Timberwolf decided to take a shot in the dark - literally - and leap out with it’s jaws snapping. It landed on something as a deep, feminine grunt of pain and surprise rang out through the forest. Then the Timberwolf recoiled as something rough collided with its fangs, making a horrible scraping sound, before it was also sent into the muck and struck unconscious.

Through his helmet’s night vision, Storm was able to barely make out a small dropping trail of blood coming from… nothing. Or at least nothing he could see. Then it appeared. An equine-like figure standing over the downed wolves seemed to flash into existence like a Hunter being forced to decloak. But this ‘flashing’ was so static-like and rough. It was calm and elegant as if it was meant to happen or at least not a violent transition from invisible to visible. Despite the cloak being gone, the equine shape was all the stallion could make out. The figure was wearing a full set of brown animal pelts with a raised hood on top of that. But he did get a look at it’s weapon. Tethered in a neon green appendage at its owner’s side, a steel double edged staff weapon was present. It had one spiked end - like a spear - stuck in the mud. The other end had a smaller tube with holes that stuck out towards the top of the main tube’s hollowed out end. It was a blowgun - most likely where the dart was fired from.

Storm’s attention was ripped from the figure and moved to what it was also gazing at. His now crimson-free Sweeper. The cloaked figure made its way over to Storm’s discarded Sweeper. Then it stored it’s own spear on a slot in the coat. Storm felt his blood start to boil as the stranger picked his weapon and examined it. It may as well be the last thing that would keep him alive and assist in finding Dash. And he wasn’t going to let that be taken away from him.

Not again. Never again.

But the stallion wasn’t stupid. He knew attacking this figure now was hopeless. Even without it’s disappearing ability, he was still battered, beaten, and with the exception of his blade - defenseless. He eyed the lethal-looking spear weapon that had another end that looked more like a flute or some type of blowgun. Storm also knew that this figure - who had just easily taken down three creatures in seconds - wasn’t one he wanted to tangle with at the moment. He had to be smart and-

The screaming started.

From varying distances all around the forest and further, the howls, roars, and cries signaled that the hunt had begun for the real beasts of the world. If Storm’s suit clock was still working he would have known that it was now five o'clock exactly. The hooded equine knew this as well because it quickly threw the Sweeper over its shoulder and onto its back, tethered its spear, and plucked something off of the downed wolf’s body before it began to slowly retreat back into the brush.

Storm was already in the process of putting his quickly fabricated plan into play. He activated his camera device and sent it after the figure at a distance where it would not be discovered. He dedicated a small window on his heads-up-display to view the camera’s feed while tracking the figure himself from an even further distance.

Another minute or two later of the most tense game of cat-and-mouse later, the figure finally stopped in front of a massive tree. Storm was a few trees behind, and was going more anxious by the second as he knew those abominations would be out any second now. Thankfully, his camera let him see clear as a purple day in his pursuit.

Now in front of the massive tree, the figure stopped and looked to all sides as if checking how clear its surroundings were. Then it began to walk towards the tree.

And went through it.

The hooded figure just disappeared into the bark like it was never there in the first place. The tree, however, remained like nothing had happened.

“What the fuck?!” Storm muttered. He winced at the sudden verbal slip up and quickly scanned his surroundings in case anything heard his whisper.

“W-what… th-e… f-u-uck…” The raspy voice of a closer-than-comfort Mimic repeated as the monster searched for the source of it’s newest sound in it’s vocational library. The tendril and cloth covered Damned was wrapped around a trunk roughly three trees in front of the stallion as it scanned with those haunting blue ‘eyes.’

Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me! Storm mentally swore, still hidden from the searching Mimic’s sight. He knew the thing - or one of it’s brethren - would find him eventually, so it was time to roll the dice and hope he didn’t get struck the second he snuck through that false door. A couple stuttering, paining wheezes of the Mimic later, and the stallion decided it was a better fate than what he had out here. Now all he had to do was get the damn thing to look away from his path.

Luckily he had an idea.

Using his camera device, Storm tethered it over to the Mimic’s location before turning on the emergency flashlight on it’s side. The creature stopped mumbling and growled at the floating object. But it didn’t attack.

If what that Warden-thing had said was true, it was actually behind every single one of the creatures. It knew Storm was trying to pull something. The Mimic started to let out a wheezing chuckle while looking around and completely ignoring the floating camera.

The stallion then used the device to snap a picture of the Mimic with the flash on, making the monster shriek and swing at it. The swing missed, so the creature unsheathed its dark blue and fleshy tendrils to assist in the effort to take the annoying device down. While it was focused on that, Storm rushed out from behind his hiding place and leapt onto the Mimic with his blade drawn.

He didn’t allow the blue eyes enough time to spin around before swiftly slicing through the creatures in their place. Half of his own body started lighting up with pain like an inferno but he made sure it was dead without turning around. If it couldn’t identify him, then it couldn’t turn that fucking horde around to find him. Hopefully.

Storm disregarded the corpse, checked his surroundings quickly to hear some closer rustling - a sign that the others had known something was up the second their mumbling friend went dark - and then moved to a different set of trees as stealthily as possible.

The stallion made one more quick scan of the treeline then he ran - or more accurately limped - as quietly as he could for the large oak. He slowed down upon arriving at the base and stuck at hoof through slowly, hitting something solid. His hoof, however, did go through the bark. It had just struck something solid inside.

With a string of mental curses, Storm reached his head into the fake bark...

-and bumped into a decorated door.

Thankfully, it was a slow bump at most, which meant nothing was alerted - both inside and out - and that it wouldn’t do any visible damage on his helmet. Storm examined the door to find that it had a horseshoe knob and a few strange glowing symbols on it, but other than that, it was just a door. He then quickly shifted his attention to the contents of the building from the window. Through the window, he managed to make out a large, candle-lit room within the tree. With only limited visibility, he was able to see a shelf with a bunch of potions and books. There was no sign of his weapon or the secretive figure, meaning Storm would have to get closer to retrieve the object of his desire.

The stallion had no time for this. He needed to get his Sweeper back and find Rainbow Dash. Every second he had been trailing this figure made another imagined scenario of her being drowned at the bottom of the sea or gutted on the shore while unconscious filled his head. But he knew this carefulness was necessary otherwise he would meet one of these feared fates a lot sooner than his female counterpart.

Storm’s hindleg was killing him, but from what little he could tell, his build was bigger than the hooded figure. This meant that he could overpower it if push came to shove - and he knew it would. But this also meant that the pegasus had to act fast before his strength was completely sapped from his stricken body. With a shard of a plan in mind, the stallion made his way towards the hidden door.

A Few Minutes Earlier...

Rainbow Dash’s eyes wearily fluttered open. The first thing she felt was a gentle motion underneath, which rocked her stinging body back and forth. The cyan pegasus looked down to see that she was partially submerged in a river and the only thing keeping her afloat was the thick branch of a tree that had fallen over the running body of water. Her left foreleg was wedged in between said branch before the mare yanked it out.

She let out a faint gasp when the combined weight of her suit and still slumbering sore body nearly submerged the rest of her body. Once Rainbow grabbed onto the tree trunk again, she found a steady pace to push herself to the shore. There, she plopped her aching body down onto the sand and stared up at the setting sun.

Using her forehooves, Dash grabbed her helmet and roughly detached it before throwing the visual obstruction next to her on the shore.

Celestia, I hate those things… She thought as the dying light was finally able to kiss her sweat-caked coat.

Rainbow’s mind was in a haze. The mission to break one of Twilight’s seals easily came back, but processing the fact that she had just gunned down a giant twisted version of AJ choked her brain in its place. This was wrong. So fucking wrong. Rainbow was supposed to be with her friends! All of them! They were supposed to be going on crazy adventures! Safe Adventures! Well, maybe not safe, but this hellish wasteland was nothing like the action packed dreams of kicking bad guy flank that the mare had envisioned some many nights prior.

Though she had managed to put on her usual brave, fearless face of determination, Rainbow was scared shitless. She had been for the past two days, but the rollercoaster of emotions of seeing half her friends die or turn - or both - managed to distract her at the very least. Now? Now was different.

Now was wrong.

Now was the time that Rainbow hated the most. When everything was quiet and she was alone. It was one thing she would never openly admit to anypony but being alone was her worst fear. It took every ounce of her amazing ego to detour her friends and strangers that she was not afraid when first moving out of her parents’ place, but at least that was doable.

This was not.

She was hurt. Confused. And alone. Again. The armored suit sure as Hell didn’t help her shove away these bubbled-to-the-surface emotions. In fact, it made her feel worse. Like she was slower, more of a target and vulnerable. That she had to rely on an oversized rusted coat to not get her throat torn open or head ripped off.

And then there was Storm.

Dash wasn’t even sure what to think of him anymore. A new friend? An unwarranted mentor? A pain in the ass who actually cared? Well, yes to all of the above. But that was just scratching the surface. Rainbow hated going deep on these things. She was the type of mare to take things on a surface level and deal with them as they were. Thinking made things complicated, so she went with her gut. Always. Sure, it got her called compulsive or brash by outsiders, but never by her friends or herself. Regardless of whether or not she wanted it, the gears in Rainbow’s waterlogged mind had already begun to turn and there was no stopping them.

She couldn’t decide what he was. For every positive thought that came to mind, another negative or brutally honest one did. If he hadn’t come along, she would have suffocated in that damned city in the beginning. Then how they actually met, which ended up with Dash getting tased five times over and tied to the couch for a panic attack. Her mind wasn’t in a healthy spot then. It got like that at times ever since the incident…

No! Snap out of it! Rainbow mentally scolded herself, slapping her face with a mud-covered hoof by accident. She quickly wiped the sludge off and sighed. This was no time to bring back… those memories. Listen to Storm! Stay focused and-

“Wait! Storm!” Dash blurted out her thoughts while shooting up simultaneously. She winced in pain at her injured hindleg and sore body, but managed to stay upright.

Additionally, in her swift standing, the midsection of the mare’s suit - where the least amount of steel plating and mostly fabric was - finally snapped in half due to a rip prior. Rainbow glanced over her shoulder at the doomed armor and groaned. She got to work tearing the lost cause of a suit off and tossing it aside, leaving the mare with only her gun and earpiece.

Back to the important task, Rainbow turned on the earpiece’s flashlight and scanned the coastline in search of her companion. He was nowhere to be found. So she tried calling him instead but only received a few sparks from the Tethertech.

“Awesome. Fucking Awesome.” She muttered, absently kicking up some sand and muck. “How in Equestria am I going to find hi-”

The screaming started.

In an instant, her cyan ears drooped down and she felt her muscles tense at once. Rainbow knew what that sound meant. But now there was no ‘walking encyclopedia’ for those monsters to help her survive this time.

She was alone.

Rainbow fumbled with her machine gun’s safety nervously. Thankfully, the weapon survived the fall and dip in the ocean without any problems. Unfortunately, however, she only had one magazine and the machete - which she kept strapped on her good hind leg with its respective sheath.

Dash didn’t know what to do. She needed to get out of there, but go where? As far she knew, she was at the edge of the Everfree. There was no telling what types of terrible hellspawn were created here. Would the coast be safer? Could these fuckers swim if it came down to that?

She didn’t know. Rainbow only stood with her bruised back to the ocean and the weapon's flashlight pointed forward. Rustling came from the bushes seemingly from all around. Moans, groans, and occasional shrieks of one of those things finding something to gore continued to ring out from varying distances.

Then she saw it.

A light.

Not a glowing blue or a Damned’s ‘eyes’ or her own lights, but an actual fucking light.

The first thought to pop into her mind was Storm. It had to be him, right? Nopony else could possibly or willingly be out here this late besides the only other living thing to get washed up here too. Right?

Dash was about to find out.

In turn, she raised her own beam in the direction of the light and prayed it was the crankly stallion and not some new monster that learned what a flashlight was. Eventually, her thoughts were answered when the bushes nearest to her moved and out stepped…

A pink and white unicorn mare.

The unicorn’s teal eyes flashed a look of surprise upon spotting Rainbow, but it was quickly replaced by fear when she noticed the weapon. Her desaturated, sweat caked pink - more on the white side - mane was tossed over to one side, which gave Rainbow a clear view of her charging up horn. The blue aura sparked in place and was clearly ready to use if need be.

“W-who are you?!” She half asked, half demanded. Her tone attempted to be strong, but the fear still bled through it’s cracks.

Rainbow shared a look of surprise on her own face. She didn’t expect to see another regular pony out here, let alone somepony who was unarmed. The fact that her brain was still processing the whole turn of events didn’t allow her to register the threatening horn. “Uh… I’m Rainbow Dash…” She finally responded.

“Are you one of the mayor’s scavengers?” The pink mare huffed out, clutching her chest and making it obvious she had been on the run for a while. “What happened to the town?! Those things are crawling all over it! Please tell me you’ve seen Wind!”

“W-what? Slow down!” Rainbow replied, taking a step forward only to have the unicorn take one back.

“Please! Just stay back! Have you seen my dau-”

A roar pierced the same brush that the unicorn had come from. Both mares whipped their heads in it’s direction just in time to see a winged monstrosity spring from the forest and onto the coast. It’s sharpened, bone-like hooves dug into the sand and it's never still piercing blue orbs swayed back and forth between the girls. Between the soon-to-be fresh converts.

Rainbow Dash immediately started shooting without taking the time to aim at the thing, ending in her nearly hitting the innocent mare, but the pink unicorn ducked out of the way the second the gunshots started to echo. The Slicer, however, wasn’t so detoured. The creature raised it’s two bone-encrusted wings to protect its face from the torrent of gunfire.

“Get behind me!” Rainbow ordered the pink mare, who scrambled to her hooves to do just that.

Suddenly, the Slicer was joined by four other Damned that emerged from the same brush. Dash recognized the decloaking, spiked tail Hunters, but the other two types she had never seen before. One resembled a Timberwolf while the other looked like a few Timberwolves and a Manticore had been fused into one pile of rotten flesh.

“H-how many shots do you have?” The unicorn meekly asked from behind her protector.

Rainbow grit her teeth and eyed the snarling creatures. “Not enough…”

The Slicer took to the air with a shriek, the Hunter cloaked itself once more, while the Timberwolf and Manticore creatures slowly approached on foot. Rainbow took the opportunity to shoot at the closest threat - the winged beast - and managed to take out both of it’s ‘eyes’ in a spray of bullets. The Slicer slammed into the ground and kicked sand up around everyone.

“Is there a plan B?” Rainbow asked over her shoulder while still focused on locating the Hunter.

“Yes! Just keep them back for a bit longer!”

It was then that Rainbow could see the faint glow of the unicorn’s horn peeking around from behind her own back and shining on the weapon she was holding. Dash decided not to break the mare’s concentration of whatever she was doing and instead would focus on keeping their heads attached to their necks for the time being.

A bone-fragment was suddenly headed straight for the prismatic pegasus. Rainbow had just enough time to get her weapon raised, which blocked the incoming fragments as they slammed into the side of her rifle. Now that she knew the Hunters location, Dash pulled the trigger-

The gun didn’t go off. It just made some sputtering clicking noise, causing Rainbow to look down and see that the broken up bone shards had broken the weapon by inserting themselves into the magazine well and the chamber. The cyan pegasus let out an annoyed huff to mask her growing fear and discarded the machine gun in the sand. Then she tethered the machete to her muzzle.

“We don’t have all night!” Rainbow announced with the blade gripped in between her teeth.

“Almost!” The pink unicorn replied. “There! Done!”

Rainbow’s focus on the monsters in front of her was interrupted when a blue glow crept around from behind her body and in the corner of her vision.

WARP!

Then the two mares were engulfed in a flash of blue light and were gone, leaving the three remaining Damned to howl in the anger of their failure.

Storm slowly put a hoof against the would-be surface of the tree only to have it pass through as if nothing was there. He then stuck his head through to confirm for a third time. Now at the door’s base, he began to peek through the glass and look for any sign of the figure, but found none.

With his heart ravaging against his chest, Storm gently cracked open the door and poked his head inside. When he did not find any sign of his target, he fully stepped inside before gently closing the door behind him. Now he had a better view of the buildings contents in their entirety. From the looks of things, the building he was in wasn’t actually divided up. It was one whole room with a couch in a small cutout in the wall. In the room’s center, a large cauldron sat - small pink bubbles danced up and over it’s lip before evaporating into thin air - which was also the source of the bubbling sound he heard earlier. On the wall opposite the bed, an entire bookshelf-like cutout held multiple hard covered books, flasks, beakers, and other brewing instruments. But the most unsettling part of the interior was the multiple dreamcatchers and symbols dangling from a huge stone candle-lit chandelier.

Storm pushed past the bubbling cauldron, which reeked of death, and did his best to ignore the voodoo-esk home while approaching a winding set of stairs in a cramped stairwell. Then he began to hear the soft patter of hoofsteps above his head - a sign that the figure was on the floor above. His care of said figure’s location ended upon noticed the object of his desire in front of him.

The Sweeper was absently lying on a wall table next to a couple of crude tools, worn out weapons and a few firearms that looked as if their owner had no idea how to field-strip or clean them out. Storm took one last moment to pause while listening to the activity upstairs before approaching his weapon and picking it up. In his haste, the stallion didn’t realize that a bottle of screws had been sitting next to the slab barrel, which shattered on the floor with the Sweeper’s removal from the table.

CRASH!

Storm cringed and his heart skipped as the hooves upstairs halted completely. He didn’t even have time to inspect the weapon before it was in his tethered grip and aimed at the curving slim staircase. Storm fully expected to hear a set of thundering hoovesteps running down and ready to engage him, but it never came.

Only silence.

What the fu-

WHACK!

A blunt force roughly slammed into the side of his helmet, making the metal collide with his already bruised head and staggering the stallion. He had no time to react before a second swing of the unseen force connected with both of his hind legs and sent him to the floor. Storm swung his armored head up to look for the source of the attack, but found nothing.

Taking a chance, he forced his battered body to roll out of the way of another strike as shown by the audible clanking of metal against the wooden floor where he would have been. Additionally, the pegasus rolled into something that fell down with him. He heard a gruff feminine grunt of surprise, letting him know that he had just taken his attacker down to the floor with him.

Using one hoof to pin the invisible attacker down, Storm raised his Sweeper to where he felt the pinned creature. He pulled the trigger but only received a clicking sound followed by sparks from the weapon. And then he received a sudden swift buck to the helmet. The stallion was knocked onto his back and thought he was seeing stars in his swimming vision.

He activated the hoof-blade and weakly raised the weapon in front of his downed form. His whole left foreleg was roughly stamped into the ground beside his body and effectively pinned a moment later. Then he felt a sharp, unseen point stop at his throat.

Finally, the cloaked figure revealed itself. It was indeed wearing the same forest-themed hood and rags and was holding him hostage with the pointed end of the tethered spear blow-gun combo weapon. Storm couldn’t see the figure’s face or eyes underneath the cloak’s hood in the dimly lit room, but he sensed it was staring back at his equally concealed facial features as well.

“Explain yourself and try anything I advise you don’t! Otherwise I’ll put this through your throat and bury your corpse in a moat!” The figure demanded in a deep, yet oddly rhythmic female voice.

The stallion didn’t respond. Instead, he quickly used his Tethertech to knock the hooded mare’s own earpiece off of her ear, disabling the appendage that held the spear to his own throat. The mare must have been surprised at the sudden cunningness because she was unable to react for a moment, allowing Storm to quickly kick her back into a nearby table.

He forced his battered body to spring up and swing his blade at the assumed mare. The figure was already back on its hooves and was now holding the spear in one of them. It met Storm’s own attack with the staff, making a resounding clanking sound of steel on steel. The two elegantly and roughly clashed back and forth until the hooded mare met the stallion’s blade before swiftly unleashing a follow-up attack to the chin of his helmet.

Her attack’s force sent him staggering back momentarily, but that was all she needed. The mare quickly swept the floor with her spear, knocking Storm completely off balanced and onto the floor once again. Before he had time to react, she jabbed the blunt end into his only-clothed abdomen, causing him to grunt in pain and clutch the even more bruised body part. The mare tossed his telekinetic earpiece to the side and stamped a hoof down on his chest to force the pegasus onto his back.

“Had enough?” She asked while brandishing the pointed end where his visor’s slit could see it. “If you keep this up, I will be forced to go further than just playing rough!”

Storm glared back up at her. His bladed-hoof started to rise weakly, which the hooded figure watched carefully. Then he set it back down against the wooden floor with a pitiful clank. His foreleg was slightly bent at an angle where the bland still extended skyward, but it was no threat to the mare now. The once rapid rising of his adrenaline-filled chest was now slowing noticeably.

“I…” Storm began but his dry throat failed him. The mare cocked her head to one side while he cleared it. “I just wanted my gun back…”

“Are you referring to the device I picked up in the forest? If so then your methods for negotiation are the poorest.”

Storm let out a dry chuckle.

“Never have I seen somepony so sly before the likely chance their hostile and intruding actions cause them to die.”

“Sorry,” Storm composed his brief humorous outburst, which turned into his trademark gruffly serious tone. “You thought this was a negotiation?”

Before the mare could question the cryptic line, Storm’s blade was launched from it’s holster and upwards. It missed the mare’s head by a mile, but she still flinched on instinct regardless. She was about to either tighten her grip or finish the stallion off for his attempted murder once again until she heard it.

Snapping.

The creaking and then crunching of a steel object being pushed to its limit before breaking in two. The hooded mare looked up just in time to see her huge stone, segmented circular chandelier plummeting down directly on top of her position. She attempted to deflect the incoming object with the spear only to have her forehooves and neck caught in one of the segmented cutouts of the chandelier. Thankfully, the candle lit flames had all gone out in the object’s descent.

A few strained grunts of escape effort later, the mare finally lost her balance on her hindlegs and fell to the ground face first. Upon landing, she rolled sideways at the complete mercy of her once decorative ceiling ornament. In her urgency, the hooded figure didn’t stop to carefully shimmey her way out of the circular chandelier, which kept her stuck as the armored stallion slowly stood back up.

Storm picked up his Tethertech and placed it back on his ear before feeling the rush of connection from the device to his brain through his clothed ear. He tethered the Sweeper to his back and looked down at the mare. Then he reached down for her face, causing the mare to thrash her neck from side to side as she feared the worst.

With a rough yank, Storm tore the rags off of his makeshift hood to reveal the wide teal eyes of a zebra mare. He discarded the rags and leaned down dangerously close to her face, so close in fact, that the reflection of his purple visor bounced off her facial features.

“I’ve seen your face,” Storm said in a low growl. “I won’t forget it. Is that understood?”

The striped head nodded after a moment of delay. Storm got up and headed for the door when both his injured hindleg and bruised belly decided to punch his nerves at once, forcing him to stop and catch himself from toppling over. He grit his teeth and swallowed the throbbing pains, which were pouring into his form now that the adrenaline had completely worn off.

“Where are you headed?” The zebra asked from behind. “Those beasts will have you shredded!”

Storm ignored her and took another step, but a weird feeling in his hindleg that could be compared to a boa constrictor instantly tightening on it overtook his need to move. If it wasn’t sprained before it definitely was now. Hell, it could be broken and his desperation was the only thing that had overridden the pain until now.

“You won’t last long! You need a remedy to cure your wounds and make you strong!”

Not wanting to move his whole body, the grey pegasus turned his head in the mare’s direction to find out that she had managed to roll herself around to watch his exit prior. “You’re offering medical supplies?”

She nodded.

“What’s the price?”

“You have already paid. For not killing or defiling me, I will gladly be at your aid.”

“Bullshit. Everyone wants something.”

“Getting me out of this chandelier and then the payment will be clear.”

“Works for me.”

Storm limped over to the downed zebra, wincing with every horrible step he had to take. He gripped the circular stone with a forehoof and a tethered appendage to allow the mare to reposition her head to escape. She set the chandelier against the wall of the hut, picked up her rags and threw them onto the table, and then returned to the stationary stallion.

“My name is Zecora,” She extended a striped foreleg to him. “It is a pleasure to see another being of the living in the flora.”

“Storm.” The suited pegasus replied, not raising his own to accept the gesture of greeting. “And I won’t be here long. Just give me the medicine and I’ll be on my way.”

“What do you mean? Are you not afraid of those beasts made of bone and spleen?”

“I don’t have time to be afraid. There is somepony out there I need to find!”

“I’ll make the remedy stew. Meanwhile, why don’t you tell me about your predicament while I prepare the brew.”

Storm explained the situation with his forced separation from Rainbow to the intently listening mare. His constant pauses for breath or to wince made Zecora get up somewhere in the beginning of the rather brief story. She made her way to the central cauldron and flipped open a book located on a nearby podium. A couple of tossed-in ingredients and herbs later, she finished brewing a light pink substance around the same time as Storm finished recalling the day’s events.

Zecora grabbed two smaller bottles off the massive shelf. The mare dipped both bottles into the pink substance and then returned to Storm’s side. She proceeded to sip on one of the pink bottles while holding the other out to him. “Drink this brew to feel brand new.”

Storm robotically accepted the bottle while watching her. He paid attention to the spots on her striped body where he had bruised to determine that the potion did indeed work. The minor injuries slowly healed themselves up and looked like the skin had never been broken in the first place.

Normally, it would have taken an hour of convincing and three tests to get the stallion to drink anything offered from a stranger, but his screaming body and visual confirmation that the potion was harmless was enough. For now.

Storm deactivated his helmet, causing a few of the plates to spark before they successfully folded into one another and were tethered into his backplate. Zecora finished off her own bottle while examining the grey stallion’s sweat and blood caked face. She looked into his tired and indifferent purple eyes as he stared at the bottle.

The stallion took another hesitant look at the pink liquid before finally putting the glass to his lips and downing the whole thing. At first, he felt nothing but soon a warm, fuzzy, almost tickling sensation started to travel down his throat, into his chest, and then it spread throughout the rest of his body until all the pain was gone. Storm looked down to see his segmented chest plate lights were now back to a full purple ring.

“Holy shit.” He muttered as the blissful feeling and pink glow wore off. The grey pegasus didn’t feel any pains, aches, Hell - even his sprained hindleg was fully functioning. He lightly kicked the ground to test and confirm it was completely healed. Additionally, the stallion’s feeling of fatigue due to two days without sleep had seemingly been replenished, as if he had the best rest of his life.

“The remedy feels heavenly, does it not?” Zecora chuckled.

The stallion didn’t share her excitement over the feeling. He wiped his lips and handed the bottle back to the mare before grunting his gratitude. “Beats a tourniquet.” He sighed and stretched before facing the doorway once again. “Thanks, I’ll be going. And don’t worry about your home. Secrets safe with me.”

“Wait!” Zecora stopped him with a hoof on his shoulder, which was quickly shrugged off. “Allow me to help!”

Storm ran a fore hoof across his forehead and through his sweat-caked mane. “How? Patrolling the woods with two of us might speed things up, but it's just going to increase our chances of getting spotted-”

“I know a spell.” Zecora interrupted. “One that will locate your friend and I can assure you it works quite well.”

Storm’s eyes narrowed. “What do you gain from helping me? We just tried to kill each other a second ago.”

“That was my mistake. I was thinking that my life was the object you wanted to take. Anyway, It has been many moons since I have seen somepony without devious intentions. There aren’t many left in the world and I want to return this sort of kindness to it’s attention. Starting with you if I must.”

Storm let out a grunted scoff. “In my experience, the world takes more as long as you keep feeding it.”

Zecora frowned. “You and everyone else are blinded by grief and rage. With those emotions in the way, you cannot see what is in store on the next page. It is a truth which I rejected for much of my youth, so I do not fault you.”

Storm rolled his eyes and then sighed. “Look, I just got done talking with my dead father who is actually a vessel for a rejected god of some sorts. I don’t feel like hearing any more prophetic bullshit about truth. Just spit it out.”

The zebra mare gave him a weird look before clearing her throat. “What I mean is that, everything living is blinded by what depravity they have seen. It has consumed them and altered them out of fear but we must not falter! We can change and bring about a new age!”

“Okay, I’ve had this same argument with three separate ponies in the past two days, so believe what you want to.” Storm said dismissively, his concern regarding his prismatic friend overriding the argument. “How does this spell work?”

Using her earpiece, Zecora levitated a strange looking flower from a nearby drawer. “We must seek what you aspire. This flower is known as a Heart’s Desire. I will mix it in my cauldron with a few other ingredients after your mind is connected with it.”

“... A flower can read minds?” Storm asked with a skeptical look. “Still not the weirdest thing I’ve heard, but it's up there.”

“Not precisely. It absorbs emotions and thought much like other flowers absorb sunlight and nutrients to survive. The Heart’s Desire takes a small fragment from you to focus on the one thing or pony you desire and will lead you to it if that is what you require.”

“It is.” Storm shook his head at his mental list of all that have been inside his head. First Cadence, then this ‘Warden’ and now a fucking flower. “I’m not just exactly hyped about letting something else screw with my head today.”

Zecora gave an understanding look before leaving the stallion’s side. She began shifting through drawers and shelves until a few more herbs and unidentified ingredients were in her tethered grasp. Then she approached the cauldron and threw everything except the Desire into the pot. When that was done, the zebra mare returned to Storm’s side and dug into the stem of the flower where a pulsing single pink ‘root’ was.

The mare tethered this pink root towards Storm’s forehead, causing the pegasus to flinch involuntarily. When he realized what she was doing, Storm did his best to calm his nerves and stand still as the root was gently placed on his forehead. He felt small fibers attaching to himself like glue. They didn’t dig into his head, but just stick themselves on top of it.

“Now,” She said while turning back to Storm. “Close your eyes. Clear your mind. Only focus on the pony and then their location you will find.”

Storm was reluctant to close his eyes around anypony, but he had no other choice. He was well aware that he had broken rules ‘A’ through ‘Z’ just to find his companion but he didn’t care. He had to do this. With Zecora’s concentrated stare and flower filling his vision, Storm closed his eyes and sank into the visual abyss. Doing just as the shamare had requested, everything else was blocked out and only Rainbow remained.

He saw her determined, yet vibrant magenta eyes that held a light he didn’t know present in any survivor. He saw her unkempt, prismatic mane. He saw her clean, cyan coat - every detail down to her wrapped wing and scar next to the wing’s base from the Mimic. And her smile. That smile which somehow made him both irritated but also at peace. Like somehow everything would pull through regardless of how deep in shit she was.

“You can open your eyes. Wait and watch as I conjure up our prize.” Zecora’s instructions made the image of the cyan pegasus disappear as the black returned.

Storm opened his eyes just in time to see the pink glow in the root become a shimmering beacon of light. Then Zecora removed the flower from his head and returned to the pot where she dropped the Heart’s Desire into the cauldron as well before it began to bubble and turn green. Not a deep, dark green like a toxin but a vibrant neon.

The concoction bubbled more aggressively before turning into one large bubble that popped, leaving a green square floating over the cauldron. This square started to become transparent as a multicolored image started to form inside. Storm raised an eyebrow as he watched the colors turn into a scene. Sure enough, the cyan outline and prismatic mane swirled into Rainbow Dash.

The first thing that Storm noted was her lack of suit. She was walking around bare with only a Tethertech and machete with the removed sheath on her good hind leg. The lack of armor was the least of his concerns the second he realized that she wasn’t on the shore or in the forest, made him filled with relief - however temporary it may be. Instead, Rainbow was at the guarded entrance in a blended town of what many would call western. The buildings were mainly wooden with clear signs of refurbishment by slapping newer and discolored boards or even bent steel in place.

Surrounding the town was a massive wall of wood and sandstone that was put to shame in comparison to Ponyville’s easily. From the magical window’s limited view, Storm was able to make out at least four guards on wood catwalks that hugged the top of the walls - and all of which had weapons ranging from mid to long range engagement distances. Additionally, a green glow lazily peeked over the walls, which was the same effect that could be seen from the interior of Zecora’s own door.

The next noticeable difference was an additional guest walking and talking beside his prismatic friend. She was a pink unicorn mare maybe in her mid thirties and probably just a bit younger than him. The pink mare looked uneasy and jumpy, in a hurry almost. Her head cranned from side to side and building to building until she saw a duo of armed guard stallions standing in front of a fort of sandbags and hay bales near the front gates. She waved them over.

Suddenly, the green magical window started to drip down into the cauldron at a faster rate. It’s contents became more distorted and the image of the two maress walking up to a building next to a set of train tracks started to fade into the warping pictures.

“Whats happening?!” Storm asked, turning to Zecora, who seemed indifferent to the fading picture.

“The spell is wearing off. Something has thrown your concentration aloft.”

“Can you bring the spell back?!”

“That I cannot do.” Zecora calmly replied. “The spell is not something I can continue on cue. And to recast this soon would be less than pleasant for you.”

“Then can you make a potion to teleport me there? I’ll trade anything!”

Zecora shook her head. “Potion magic and unicorn magic are two different things. Unicorn magic reads off of the caster’s mind combined with the magical presence that flows through all creatures, and allows them to do things such as appear in the location desired. Potion magic is more manual and component-based, meaning you have to drop a start and end point for the spell to do what you require.

“Great, so without a drop of that shit in the town, I can’t get there like that?”

“I am sorry.”

“Fuck!” Storm cursed. He slammed a hoof into the nearby table, which caused a few glass bottles to jump momentarily and return to the wooden surface unharmed. The stallion looked up at the sound, which made his gaze meet the shelf full of potions. “Huh… Hey, what about an invisibility potion?”

Zecora’s eyes widened for a second. “I am getting what you are suggesting, but are you sure betting your life on a timed potion is the best thing?”

“Depends,” Storm shrugged. “How long does it last?”

“Five minutes if uninterrupted.”

“So enough to leave this place and the forest undiscovered. I’ll take the shortcut through Ponyville and follow the tracks to Appleloosa. I just have hope nopony recognizes me...”

The conversation continued with Storm forming a plan as he went and Zecora trying to convince him to abandon the suicide run at every problem the plan ran into, but the stallion’s answer of “Then I’ll deal with it” was always the same.

Eventually, the striped mare hung her head while slowly shaking it from side to side. “It appears as if no matter how much I rationally protest the trip’s unpleasantness, there is no overcoming your stubbornness.” She tethered her spear from a nearby rack where a fishing rod was also lazily hanging from. The zebra explained that she only had one potion ready, so she would need about five minutes to brew another.

Storm took the forced downtime to quickly scan over his Sweeper at the wooden table in what felt like the world’s smallest stool to him. It soon became clear to the stallion that he wouldn’t have enough time or parts to repair it here. Same went for his Tethertech’s electronic functions. His frustrated gaze went from the weapon to a nearby window where the pile of discarded weapons sat underneath.

“Hey,” He said, turning Zecora’s head away from the almost finished potion. “What’s with the guns?”

“They are what I scavenged from the bodies of those less fortunate than me. I trade them at towns when purchasing ingredients for a reduced fee. Feel free to take anything useful for our survival they could be most helpful.”

Storm tethered some of the weapons to the table one by one. Most of the weapons were unimpressive household defense grade like pistols or shotguns. Adding to the disappointment, nearly all of them were only worth anything if a buyer decided to smelt them down for parts. They would be useless in actual combat. The stallion was starting to lose hope until he got to the middle of the pile where he found a weapon that stood out to him.

A revolver.

It looked like a Royal Guard military-grade model with what looked like flames or lightning bolt designs engraved into the gun’s main body. Storm tethered the six-piece in front of him and examined it to determine it was in the best shape of everything he had seen so far tonight. Military-grade equipment was supposed to be able to last longer in dry deserts or mucky swamps, so sitting in a dust pile wouldn’t be a challenge for the impressive piece. He pressed the release to open the cylinder of the revolver, which he found a pleasant surprise of five bullets inside. Using a rag stored in his suit, the pegasus quickly ran over the weapon to clear the dust off of it. He then ran it through the barrel, took out each bullet and cleaned each cylinder chamber, and replaced his ammunition and snapped the cylinder shut.

A few seconds later, Zecora came over with the second potion ready in her grip. She gave it to Storm, who had just finished placing the sidearm on the magnetic lock where his nonexistent cutie mark would have been underneath the suit. The zebra pulled her hood up over her head and Storm activated his helmet’s assembly process. He followed Zecora’s example of pouring the spell over his own body as she did her own. He waited for a moment but nothing changed except for a brief purple flash across his vision.

“I don’t think it’s working. I can still see you and myself too.” He stated.

Zecora chuckled in her deep, melodic voice. “It is working I can assure you. Users of the same exact spell can see one another due to it being from the same brew. Also, being able to see your own form is normal too.”

“But nothing else besides you can, right?” His uncertainty was definitely not subtle.

She nodded. “Let’s go. The effects duration will not disappear slow.”

Storm inhaled deeply while putting a hoof against her door. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

He pushed open the door and the two exited into the night...

“Forgot something, Clear Sky?” One of the guards asked in a casual gruff voice. His tone made him sound like someone who had just been pulled back into work in the beginning of his long overdue cigarette break.

“Has a young mare named Wind Sprint passed through here?! Violet coat, purple mane with pink stripes?! Please tell me you have seen her!”

The guard shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am, can’t say I have. What happened?”

“We got separated in Ponyville! The town is gone and those Damned were there instead! I couldn’t teleport! My horn’s magic was on recharge after teleporting back to Ponyville’s outskirts! That’s when they cut me off from Wind!”

Rainbow averted her gaze from the group upon hearing the reminder of the town’s fate. She started to drown out the conversation between Clear and the elder guard as images of dying ponies she once knew flashed through her head.

The younger of the guards noticed her subtle motion of regret. His eyes narrowed and he nudged his elder partner. “Ponyville’s stood for just as long as we have.” He stated in an almost prepubescent western accent. “It has scouts outside the walls, so there is no way those things would have had time to reach the town before defenses could be prepared…”

“We’re on the clock so just say what you mean, rookie.”

The western stallion spat into the sand. “What I mean is there is somethin’ more to this story! And this pretty little thing knows about it!” He pointed an accusing hoof in her direction.

“Of course I do!” Rainbow stood her ground before taking a step forward. “Those were my friends in there! One of my best friends too! I had to watch her get turned into Celestia-knows-what!” Dash’s lip was quivering and she was fighting back tears of both anger and sorrow.

“Woah, woah, let’s all snuff this candle out before it starts a fire.” The older guard said, putting himself in between his partner and the rainbow-maned pegasus. Both ponies had irritated expressions on their faces as they refused to face one another. “Alright, let’s start over. Miss, you were there when the town got overrun?”

Rainbow exhaled sharply. “Duh, that’s what I said. I didn’t see them break through the gate or the wall or whatever. I was inside when it happened.”

“I did see something strange.” Clear Sky added. “When Wind and I got back, we found some of the perimeter scouts. They were already dead, but I don’t think those monsters killed them.”

“How do you know?” The older guard asked.

“They had… nails in them.” Clear paused while trying to think of a way to describe the weapon of the scouts’ demise. “A-at least I think they were nails, but they were huge and looked like them.”

Rainbow froze. Her face settled on a partially blank and partially shocked expression while Clear Sky continued to recall the day’s events to the guards. There was only one weapon that Rainbow knew could produce the nail-like objects the pink mare was describing. And there was only one pony who had that weapon.

“Storm…” She disheartenedly whispered to herself.

A few seconds later, the guards had finished taking Clear’s statement. The older one told the unicorn that he would inform the rest of the townsfolk at tomorrow's announcements so that nopony would make the mistake of ending up there like the mother and daughter duo before. He then pointed a hoof towards what Rainbow Dash knew as the train station and told the girls to visit the sheriff about Wind Sprint.

Clear thanked him before the two guards returned to their respective posts before she was off towards the mentioned destination herself when she noticed that Rainbow wasn’t following. Instead, the cyan mare was sitting on her haunches - while trying to find a relatively comfortable position for her hurt leg - and appeared to be lost in thought. Clear returned to her side and asked if she was coming.

“I can’t…” Rainbow answered weakly upon snapping out of her inner dialogue. “You’re awesome for the rescue back there but I have to go back! I’ve got another friend that is still out there!”

“In the forest? Nopony can survive out there all night! We’re lucky to even be standing!”

Rainbow shook her head and stamped a hoof into the sand. “I know he’s alive! If anypony can send those things back to Tarterus, it's him!”

“I’m sorry about your friend, but you can’t help him now! Appaloosa has a strict exit policy with the gates. The sheriff won’t allow you to leave on hoof or by flying because you could give away the illusionary spell cast on the town's wall! It makes it look like a formation of sandstone rock so the Damned won’t bother us!”

“Then maybe I’ll have to go have a chat with the sheriff.” Rainbow said with determination and a stretch.

Clear, eager to get the search for her daughter back on track, decided to go along with it to allow the conversation to find a resolution. Rainbow and Clear passed over the rusted tracks and stepped onto the newly refurbished station deck. The train station now had a stone carving of a sheriff’s star hanging above where the old apple icon used to be.

“The train station is the sheriff’s office?” Rainbow wondered aloud while the duo approached the building.

“Oh, yes, the station was turned into the sheriff’s office once the town ran out of fuel for the trains and the pulley stallions left to be with family.” Clear replied, gazing up to the star. “The building’s infrastructure was in better shape than the sheriff’s station and it made more sense to have the town’s defense closer to the normal entrance.”

By now, both mares arrived at the station’s front doors, ending their brief conversation. An armed stallion, who was leading against the wall beside the entrance, looked them both up and down until he noticed Rainbow’s machete. “I hope you understand that you ain’t gettin’ past that door with a blade on your side.” He said in an even more southern accent, nodding towards the weapon.

The cyan pegasus rolled her eyes impatiently before quickly ripping the machete sheath from her good hindleg with her tethered appendage. The guard let out a flirtatious chuckle, “Take your time, darlin’. Watchin’ is the one perk of a job where a pretty, armed mares strip for me.”

Rainbow’s face formed into a disgusted scowl as she roughly slammed the sheathed weapon into the guard’s chest. “You’d better not lose that or I’ll strip something else from your body!” she growled, causing him to snicker before stepping aside to allow them passage inside.

The interior of the station was nothing like the exterior or even the town itself. It was clean, real clean. The benches from the place’s days as a train station still remained, but the counter was a different story. It had been transformed into an office-like cubicle with papers scattered about. Behind the desk, a huge wooden cabinet with a glass window displayed a wide variety of rifles, shotguns, and pistols.

Clear had to verbally nudge Rainbow with a “C’mon” to get the two moving and away from observation. The duo of mares walked through the empty isle of seats until Rainbow noticed something out of her vision’s corner. She turned her head to confirm that someone was sitting on the bench closest to the room’s corner.

The someone in question was clearly an equine figure and possibly a mare judging by its build, but that was all Dash could tell due to the apparel of the figure. It was wearing what looked like a salvaged chestpiece of an ATS suit overlapping a bunch of dirty once white rags. On its head was a helmet that resembled the cyan pegasus’ own gifted helmet. The armored figure didn’t say anything or acknowledge her presence beside staring back at Rainbow’s magenta eyes through it’s blue-green visor slit.

“She’s still here for the night.” Clear Sky said in a relieved tone, snapping Rainbow out of her awkward staring contest with the masked stranger. She waved Dash over to the desk, where a familiar female buffalo was sitting. She was a bit smaller than what someone would expect from a buffalo, but her size was definitely different from the last time Rainbow had encountered her.

“Little Strongheart?” Rainbow said upon realizing who it was.

The late thirties buffalo looked up from a blueprint for a water well-looking device once she heard Rainbow’s voice. “Oh, I remember you.” She stated matter of factly while putting the paper down. “You’re one of the ponies that helped settle the stampeding grounds dispute! Rainbow Dash, right?” The mentioned mare nodded with a small smile. Little Strongheart got up from her desk and approached Rainbow before the two engaged in a brief reunion hug. “What can I do for ya?”

“Well, a few things actually.” Rainbow replied, trying to find out how to handle all of this at once. “Clear Sky’s daughter is missing. Have you seen her?”

“Yes.” Strongheart confirmed as she turned to Clear Sky. “She came through my office about two hours ago looking for you. I told her she could wait here but she insisted on telling Gutterball about you.”

“Gutterball?” Rainbow interjected curiously.

“My ex.” Clear replied with a glance to her side at the prismatic pegasus. “Wind Sprint’s father.” Then the pink mare sighed in relief and sucked in a few slightly shaky intakes of breath. “Thank you, sheriff. I’m heading to his place now.”

Clear Sky thanked Rainbow for her help and wished the cyan mare good luck in finding her friend before rushing out the doors, which slammed back and forth a few times in her wake before shutting. Now that the two were alone, Rainbow decided to do some brief catching up before the question eating away at her could be worked up to.

“You’re the sheriff?!” Rainbow’s jaw dropped. Little tipped her hat with a blush of praised confirmation. “That’s awesome and all! But… what happened to your tribe needing you?”

Strongheart frowned for the first time. “There… is no tribe anymore. We didn’t exactly last long out in the wilderness against those things that everypony keeps calling the Damned.”

“What happened?”

“We were out on the annual stampede when the forerunners of the herd stopped. The rest of us bumped into them and had to scramble to get up just to see the first one tear into Harry. I-It’s… eyes leapt from it’s skull and dug into his face! Then Harry started goring the rest of us in the front! I only made it out because Chief Thunderhooves saved me!”

“Oh…” Rainbow absently kicked at the ground back and forth awkwardly without knowing how to console the buffalo.

“But it’s not all terrible… I guess…” Little continued. “A couple of us made it here in time to defend the town in the beginning. We worked together to hold the monsters back while the Appleloosans constructed the wall. It was enchanted once the creatures were dead. You should have seen it! Appleloosans and buffalo working together for real this time! Now we’re tighter than ever! Ruckus works the counter at the gun store, Tremor Quake is an officer in the town’s guard, and nopony even treats us like we nearly destroyed the town all those years ago!”

Rainbow smiled. It was weak, but it was something. She had always been a glass half full type of pony and it helped that Little Strongheart was the same. Er, not a pony but the comparison made sense to the cyan pegasus and that was all that mattered.

“That’s great. Really, but I need to ask your help for something else…”

“Sure! Anything for the pony who was the first to help me!”

“I need to leave the town.”

“Oh, no problem. Just wait until six a.m. sharp and then the guards will-”

“No, I mean now! My friend has to be somewhere in the Everfree and I need to get to him before anything else does!”

“I’m sorry. I can’t let you go.”

“Why not?! I’ll be fast! They won’t find out about the stupid spell!” Rainbow’s urgency came out somewhere between demanding and desperate.

“It’s not just that it’s-”

“What?!”

Little Strongheart pointed down to Rainbow’s clearly injured hindleg. “The Everfree is under a day’s walk from here and you won’t make it on that leg. I can send a search party out in the morning but that’s cutting it close with the increase in crime around-”

“He’ll be fucking dead by then!” Rainbow screamed, making the buffalo jump and the masked pony behind the two stand up attentively. Dash and Little looked over their shoulders at the masked figure, which was keeping the glow of it’s horn - concealed by a horn module on the helmet - magic on the handle of a pistol strapped to its side.

Rainbow quickly returned her attention to the sheriff buffalo. “Why does she have a gun?! I thought everyone had to be searched before coming in here?!”

“They do. She is cleared for hers.” Little confirmed, motioning for the masked figure to sit down, which she did. “She’s my enforcer. Nothing to worry about.”

“Enforcer? You mean body guard?!”

“More like an officer and special operative of the town. A lot of bad shit goes down in the poorer section of this town. Anyway, don’t worry about her.”

Rainbow snuck a quick glance at the motionless, observing pony behind the helmet. “I’ll go myself! I’ll deal with any monster waiting for me outside the gate and keep your secret safe, I swear!”

“Look, I can get you medical supplies but I can’t let you kill yourself out there! I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash, but I’m having her follow you around for the night to make sure you don’t do anything - for your own sake.” Strongheart sighed in defeat, despite winning the short argument. The buffalo waved a hoof in the Enforcer’s direction, prompting the suited mare to get up and approach.

“Fine.” Rainbow grumbled. “I’ll foalsit your lapdog, but I am out of here first thing in the morning!”

“Once again, I am sorry-”

“Whatever. Just tell me where the stupid doctor is.”

Little Strongheart clearly looked upset about turning her friend off this soon into their reunion, but it had to be done. It was her duty to keep everypony and every creature safe. No matter the emotion. “The last building on the right across from the tavern. Give him this so you can get the pain pills and cleaning kit free.” She handed Rainbow a small wooden card with a star etched into it and the word’s ‘Sheriff’s fee pass’ on the side.

Rainbow begrudgingly grunted in response before snatching the card and leaving with the suited mare only known as the Enforcer trailing slowly behind. The guarding stallion outside was still leaned up against the wall. He was twirling Rainbow’s machete in his magic and was clearly bored out of his mind. Once he noticed Dash, a smug, flirty grin donned his face until he realized who was behind the cyan pegasus. He quickly shut his mouth and handed the machete back without making eye contact with either mare.

When the two were far enough away from the sheriff’s station, Rainbow finally let out a burst of laughter at the previous scene. “I’ve never seen anypony go from all bark and no bite so quickly!” She snickered while playfully punching the masked pony in the shoulder. It, or rather the assumed ‘she,’ didn’t react to the punch at all. Rainbow stopped and raised a brow. “Are you… okay? You haven’t said a word yet.”

“My job is making sure you don’t do anything stupid. Nothing more.” The raggedy suited pony replied in a clearly robotic filter that attempted to hide the voice of a mare.

“Gee, talk about a killjoy. I didn’t know Storm had a sister.” Rainbow grumbled.

In traversing through the western town’s streets, Rainbow failed to notice the masked mare freezing up at the mention of Storm’s name. The suited mare quickly composed herself before catching up with the cyan pegasus. Rainbow and her armored stalker found themselves in front of a dark purple store with an apple-heart hybrid as a logo.

“This is the place. I’ll wait here.” The robotic-sounding voice of the mare echoed. She stood next to the door and sat down on her haunches before leaning back against the wooden wall.

Rainbow entered the building, finding herself in a convenient-store environment. In the building's center, circular isles with stuff such as blankets, clothes, metals and scraps, electronic parts, tools, and nonperishable food, littered the interior. At the very back of the place, an ‘L’ shaped row of freezers stood out with their seemingly glowing contents of perishable food and drinks.

“Howdy!” A familiar male voice rang out to Rainbow’s far left, breaking her out of the store’s examination. “Welcome to-”

Rainbow turned her head to meet the equally shocked gaze of a nearly middle aged yellow stetson wearing stallion. “Brae?” She said while approaching the counter.

“Rainbow Dash… you’re alive!” He slowly found his voice and trademark cheer from his time introducing Rainbow and her friends all those years ago, or for Dash, really less than a year ago. “Say, where have ya been? I haven’t seen ya in like twenty years! Ya look great by the way!”

It was really tempting for Rainbow to tell him that technically they met about a year ago for the first time, but she knew that there were more important things at hoof - like looking for a lost mare. So instead of telling the truth, she gave some fabricated story about being on Twilight’s study crusade to unlock the Element’s full potential and reverse time itself. Eventually, the topic changed to that of Applejack’s status when Braeburn asked with a dim hope in his emerald eyes.

Rainbow stopped and her eyes began to subconsciously drift away from the stallion and down to the floor. It felt like she had been bucked in the gut by a pony made from steel. The chaos of everything had made her numb to the truth about where she was. No matter how many old faces she ran into, it was no secret that everything had changed. Everything except her.

“Rainbow?”

The mentioned mare snapped back to attention upon hearing Braeburn call her name only freeze in place. When she finally looked back up, Rainbow had expected to see the country stallion but instead found her eyes locked in a face to face stare with Applejack.

And Applejacks fifty blue ones stared back…

The creature’s fleshy maw opened fully, revealing the rest of the blue insects inside along with a whole host of distorted bone matter to tear her apart. It lunged and Rainbow couldn’t do anything but stare back at what used to be one of her closest friends.

“Rainbow? Hello? Appaloosa to Rainbow Dash?” Braeburn was back. He was waving a foreleg in front of her face and had a concerned expression donning his own.

Rainbow tried to reply as if on instinct, ending in a sputtered “Wha” sound.

“You were zonin’ out there for a moment, partner.” Braeburn studied her carefully before continuing. “Are ya okay?”

No! I’m not okay! I just took a forced nap for thirty fucking years and have watched two of my friends be turned into monsters and then gunned down for my own safety! Was what Rainbow wanted to say, but all she could manage was a shrug with an averted gaze.

Brae’s own expression matched Rainbow’s in an act of understanding sorrow. “I guess that answers my question about my cousin then…”

Rainbow’s eye twitched and she could feel the beginning of water forming in the corners. She choked down a lump in her throat before clearing it. “I’m sorry…” She whispered. It was so faint, but he heard it.

“It’s not your fault Ra-”

SLAM!

A cyan foreleg crashed down on the wooden counter, making Braeburn jump. Rainbow squeezed her eyes shut tight briefly as if it would somehow suck back the tears. When she spoke again, it was a forced whisper. “It should have been me...”

“P-pardon me?” Brae stuttered, while trying to lay a foreleg on her own in an attempt to comfort her. However, Rainbow had already removed her own limb and was facing out the window to escape what she thought was a judgemental gaze at her sappy breakdown.

Braeburn rushed over to the grieving mare’s side and awkwardly patted her on the back in another attempt to console her. Rainbow continued to mutter on about how it was all her fault and that her brashness got everypony into this mess. Eventually, her faint sniffing was snuffed out with a wipe of her foreleg, Dash finally tried to brush the whole thing off like it never happened.

“Uh, Strongheart gave me a pass for free medicine. If it's cool with you, I’m just gonna get it and go...” Rainbow slowly said, holding out the card and still refusing to allow Brae to see her cry-red eyes. “I’m sorry, Brae, you just caught me at a… bad time…”

“No problem, partner…” He cleared his throat. “Pills are behind the counter and the wound cleaning kits are next to the freezers. I’ll get the pills.” The yellow stallion returned to his position behind the store’s counter where he opened a drawer that only had four pill bottles in it. He sighed at the total inventory and grabbed one of the bottles before placing it on the counter just in time to see Rainbow return with the cleaning kit. “Will that be all?”

Rainbow nodded.

“Okay. Let me see that voucher. Gotta store it until next time to make sure nopony duplicates it. You’d be amazed what some of us are able to do with salvaged techno-stuff…” He stopped the one sided small talk when he realized that Rainbow Dash’s mind was still elsewhere. “Anwho, hope you feel better. And if ya ever wanna talk then I’m always here.”

The cyan pegasus exited the store with a bag draped underneath her good wing. Her suited stalker-slash-escort got up with a stretch and went over to Dash’s side before snatching the bag.

“Hey! What gives?!”

The masked mare didn’t reply at first. She confirmed the two predetermined contents were inside the bag and nothing more. Without an apology, she gave the bag back to its owner. “Had to make sure. Can’t get fired from this position with a single slipup.”

“You can cool it, lady! I already said I’ll follow your stupid curfew! Besides, there is nothing in that store to escape a town!”

Neither mares spoke another word after that. For a moment, they stared back at one another as if daring the other to instigate anything more, but said moment passed when Rainbow heard Clear Sky call to her from the side.

The prismatic pegasus turned to see Clear Sky standing next to a dark indigo pegasus stallion with a bowling ball surrounded by stars. His mane was a light shader than his coat and his build was just underneath Storm’s. Not quite Big Macintosh size, but definitely fit enough to be an effective fighter. The stallion had a small frown on his face, but he seemed pretty composed if his identity and relation to Clear was what Rainbow expected.

Rainbow Dash swiftly trotted over to the two with her suited stalker calmly walking behind. Clear Sky gave her best forced smile in light of her family’s situation and gestured to the stallion. “Rainbow Dash, this is Gutterball. Gutterball, Rainbow Dash.”

“Hey,” Rainbow casually said while shaking Gutterball’s hoof. Then she returned her attention to the pink unicorn. “Did you find her?”

Clear Sky’s weak smile was immediately extinguished at the question. She wet her bottom lip and shook her head meekly. Gutterball cleared his throat and spoke up. “Windy wasn’t at my place like she told the sheriff she would be.” He stamped an angry hoof into the sand. “Dammit! Why didn’t she wait for me before heading home!”

Rainbow gave a confused glance to Clear, looking for an elaboration. “There are two residential areas for Appleloosans. The main part of the town, with the sheriff’s station, the Salt Block, Brae’s Hays and Graze convenient store, and so on, divides these two areas. The one to the East is where all the store owners and more fortunate folk live.”

“It’s the decent part of town.” Gutterball added.

“The other one, to the West, is the not-so-nice part of town. It’s where those who just make ends meet and have lower jobs live.”

“It’s a shithole, but it’s where my home is.”

“It doesn’t sound very friendly.” Rainbow observed.

“Exactly,” Gutterball replied. “That’s why we had a rule where Windy and Clear Sky wait for me when we walk to my place. It is in the center of the slums, so lots of alleyways and places to get mugged or molested.”

Rainbow Dash swallowed a lump in her throat at the mere thought of the place after dusk. Then she got an idea. Dash turned to the suited mare, who was standing a few steps away from the trio as if trying to give them so nonexistent privacy. The masked mare was also on a call with someone as shown by the holographic window emitting from her earpiece.

“Hey, mute mare, aren’t you supposed to be looking into stuff like this?”

The mentioned pony shut off the call before looking Rainbow’s way. She walked up to join the group. “I already have. I’ve got a contact in the slums who saw Wind Sprint leave with somepony. He doesn’t want to talk over comms. He’s a paranoid freak about that kind of stuff, so I’m going to visit him now.”

“Then what?”

“Then, well… let’s just say I’ll find this pony and have a long chat with them.” The suited mare looked at Clear Sky and Gutterball now. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring your daughter back. Go home and don’t let this one do anything reckless.” She pointed to Rainbow.

“Hey!” Rainbow snapped, causing Clear Sky to let out a light giggle.

With that, the suited mare was gone, leaving the trio of two pegasi and a unicorn to make their next move. Gutterball cleared his parched throat. “Look, I’m on the night shift at the tavern tonight, so you two are welcome to stay at my place.”

“Again?” Clear asked with concern on the surface of her tone. “This is like the third day you’ve worked both night and day shifts!”

“Yeah, I know.” Gutterball grunted. “Wrangler keeps hiring new waitresses and you know how stallions get around any new girl after a few drinks. I’m practically a fighter instead of a bouncer with our daily fights in there. Maybe I’ll be able to move out of this shit hole after all this overtime.”

Gutterball then proceeded to accompany Rainbow Dash and Clear Sky through the slummy community of shacks and a few actual houses from the days before the apocalypse. As they walked, Rainbow continuously swept her head from side to side at any and every sound. A knocked over empty can in the shadows, a group of friends cackling in a not so sober state, pleasured grunts from a nearby house they passed, and so on.

Eventually the trio arrived at one of the actual houses. The porch was practically rotted and held together by newer boards, which were already getting infected by the old. Gutterball reached into his tavern vest and pulled out a set of keys before unlocking the door, which he had to punch inward first before turning the knob. The stallion opened the door and waved the females inside. He scanned the pitch black street before walking in himself and shutting the door.

Twenty minutes later...

Back in the sheriff’s office, Sheriff Strongheart and the suited pony were in what used to be the storage closet of the train station, which was now the station’s interrogation room. A scrawny, beige stallion with a long pink mane was tied to a steel chair. He had a black eye and multiple bruises on his face.

Sheriff Strongheart stood in the room’s shut doorway with a scowl on her face and tethered appendage on the handle of her revolver as a precaution. The masked mare was directly in front of the stallion and continued the information gathering session by delivering another blow to his already bleeding muzzle.

“I don’t like asking a second time!” She hissed through the helmet’s filter. “The purple mare you were with! Where did you take her!”

The stallion weakly looked up before spitting at the helmet. The mare behind said helmet didn’t flinch or even react to the defiant gesture. She just stared him down ominously through the blue visor. “I can’t say.” The stallion coughed. “There ain’t nothing you can do to me that is worse than what he can.”

“He?” Strongheart asked from behind her companion. “We need more than a gender, Frazzle.”

The stallion, Frazzle, shook his head while looking down at the floor. He began to make sounds that could have been taken for either laughing or crying. Neither mare was sure which was the correct answer. “Just shoot me! I’ve already fucked up just by saying ‘he.’ And I know what waits for me now, so please just do it!”

“If you’re already a dead pony, then why not help us stop this?” Little Strongheart asked.

“No! I’m not dragging anypony else into the shitter with me! I’ve already done too much! Fucking kill me! Please!”

“We can stop it.” The masked mare assured.

“You can stop it?” Frazzle repeated before more of the wheezing, crying-laughing sounds erupted. “Nopony can. He’s been at it nearly since the town started! Why do you think nopony knows what happened to Sheriff Silverstar?! That old bastard got nosy and guess where he is today?”

Neither mares needed an elaboration on that haunting answer to connect the dots for themselves. Strongheart sighed. “But we have to try. The crime and shit in the slums is bad enough but if my suspicions of pony trafficking in my town are true then there will be Tarterus to pay!”

“It’s too late.” Frazzle was now clearly crying. “I guarantee one of his guys has already watched this whole thing! They know I’ve told you his gender and are on their way for me right now! Then he’ll get you two as well! And trust me, your fates are so much worse than mine! At least I get to go quickly!”

The stallion resumed his blubbering with his head hung, which the mares took as an opportunity to step out of the interrogation room and discuss the next move. Sheriff Strongheart shook her head. “This isn’t good. I’ve never heard of anyone feared enough to not want to say the sex of a boss until now. Whoever this is must have their game mastered by now…”

“It doesn’t matter.” The suited pony replied. “I don’t know or care who this ‘he’ is. If what he does to others is true then he’ll be dead by my hoof. I promise, ma’am.”

“I know you will. The ponies we’ve saved over the past year couldn’t have been here today if it wasn’t for you.” Strongheart said, putting a hoof on the other mare’s shoulder. “Now, let’s go put Frazzle in a cell for his own protection until-”

SHERIFF-

A masculine scream rang out from the next room before it was abruptly silenced. Both mares drew their respective sidearms before the armored one kicked in the door to the interrogation room. A pool of blood was forming at the now dead Farzzle's tied up hindlegs. The crimson trail was originating from a small hole in the stallion’s skull. His eyes were permanently frozen in the air, looking past the hole and at the ceiling.

The suited mare immediately raised her pistol and followed the corpse’s eyes to a crack in the station’s wooden ceiling, where a black suppressor was immediately retracted from the crack, allowing the moonlight to once again creep through.

“The roof!” The suited mare shouted, sprinting past the elder buffalo and heading out the front door.

She spun around once outside and aimed her sidearm at the roof waiting for… nobody. Not a thing was up there. Her suit’s night vision would have made it obvious that anypony or any creature was up there, but at the moment the wooden roof was barren.

With a growl, the mare returned inside to the sheriff’s side. After explaining the situation over the process of putting Frazzle in a body bag, the two decided that the search would have to resume tomorrow. Strongheart informed the night guards over her earpiece and sent out a few reserves to catch wind of any suspects, but she knew it was too hot right now to go charging in after what they had just witnessed. A small group wouldn’t scare the murderer away, but chances are, the action would come to them first.

All they had to do was be ready.

After locking up the office for the night, the enforcer waved the buffalo goodnight before heading towards the nicer side of town.

He knows I’m close… The armored mare thought as she walked home to the nice side of town. Soon… soon you’ll understand what it feels like to lose everything…

As she walked in the safety of the lit up Eastern sector, the mare pulled up a photo on her earpiece while the emotions bubbled underneath. The photo was small and dim enough so that no one looking outside their windows or passing by could see who was on it.

The contents of the photo in question were three ponies - all of which were barely above the age of teenagers in it. The first pony to the far left was a violet pegasus colt with a shaggy red and black mane. The middle pony was a white unicorn filly with an aqua blue mane. And finally to the right was another pegasus colt.

A colt with a grey coat, blue and black mane, and electric purple eyes…

Author's Note

Happy late New Year!

I know this chapter is long overdue, but I've promised myself that I wouldn't write unless fully inspired and that I wouldn't publish until the quality is up to snuff with my new standards. Plus Zecora's dialogue kicked my ass to the moon and back .
This is more akin to what I expect the remainder of the story will be. Roughly 15,000 word chapters that all have the larger plot picture moving in one way or another or at the very least allow you, the readers, to explore my apocalyptic Equestria. This chapter is more or less the latter while setting the stage for a new problem as Storm and Rainbow attempt to survive on their own and reunite.