Fallout: Equestria — Pillars of Society

by Captain_Hairball

Chapters

Prologue 2: Crystal Math
Chapter 1: Bad Day+
Chapter 2: Stables in Dust+
Chapter 3: Nightmare Night+
Chapter 4: The Penultimate Unicorn+
Chapter 5: Earth Ponies OP, Plz Nerf+
Chapter 6: Pretty Fly+
Chapter 8: Eliza+
Chapter 10: Kind of Blue
Chapter 11: Talent Supercedes
Chapter 12: Interstate Immigrant Song
Chapter 13: Monster Mayor
Chapter 14: 1000 Homo Dashites
Chapter 15: Wasteland Makeover
Chapter 16: Marconi's Curse
Chapter 17: Hoof Hide Face
Chatper 18: If I Die in a Combat Zone
Chapter 19: Self Storage
Chapter 20: My Breaking In
Chapter 21: How Lyra Got Her Towel Back
Chapter 22: The Last Hurrah
Chapter 24: St. Crispy's Day
Chapter 25: Genghis Khan
Chapter 26: Talent Supersedes (Reprise)
Chapter 27: Caught in the Rye
Chapter 28: The Worst Possible Thing
Epilogue: The Envoy
Footnotes, Prologue
Prologue 1: Friendship Intervention
Chapter 7: Pukwudgie Fever+
Chapter 9: Who Raids the Raiders?
Chapter 23: Ponies Benefit from a Stable Environment
Footnotes, Chapter 1-?

Prologue 2: Crystal Math

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 1: Bad Day+

Scaretober 23rd, EoH 27; 6:10 AM

A jet of oil shot across Lyra Heartstrings’ snout, spattering her welding goggles.

“Terribly sorry, ma’am!” said her robot, Codsworth.

Lyra levitated over a rag and wiped her face. “Don’t worry about it, pal. That’s what I get for poking around your undercarriage. How’s that hover fan feeling?”

“Right as rain, ma’am!” The round-bodied, triple-armed robot hung on a work rack in Lyra’s cluttered garage amongst the power tools and half-complete inventions. Baby, the family’s Cowvega station wagon, squeezed in between boxes of spare parts and cannibalized household appliances. Two harps, three electric guitars, and an elaborate pedal board hung amongst the tools on a pegboard on the back wall.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you!” said Codsworth.

“You’d roll around on the floor, I guess,” said Lyra “You Mr. Hoovesies are a good design, but having to float around all the time means your engines wear out fast. Just let me close you up and you can pay me back by making breakfast.” Her horn glowed as she levitated the housing back over Codsworth’s engine and magicked up two telekinetic hands to put the screws back into place.

“Honey,” called Beanpole, sticking his head through the door from the kitchen, “I’m gonna be late!” Her husband was a tall, rangy brown pegasus with a shaggy black mane and big sincere blue eyes. He had his suit coat and pants on, but his shirt was half unbuttoned and his tie hung untied around his neck.

“Sorry,” said Lyra, wiping her hooves off on her oil-stained CSGU t-shirt “I got up early, so I thought I’d have a quick look at Codsworth. He’s been a little wobbly lately.”

Beanpole looked concerned. “How early?”

“Four AM.” Lyra trotted over and kissed her husband on the lips. He grinned at her, and his eyes flicked across her body. She knew he liked the way she looked in her tight old T-shirt and shorts. When she’d been a young mare, it’d been common for ponies to walk around naked. Now, ten years into Twilight Sparkle’s reign, fashion had changed, and Lyra approved. She enjoyed the air of mystery clothes lent pony body. She liked feeling the fabric of the shorts stretched across her cheeks, the waistband hugging tight around her middle. The legends that humans were supposed to have worn clothes made it all the more appealing.

“What’s that black gunk on your face?” he asked as Lyra buttoned his shirt and tied his necktie with floating green hands.

Lyra giggled. “I let Codsworth give me a facial.”

“It’s not what you, think, sir!” said Codsworth, hovering behind Lyra, his newly repaired engine humming quietly.

Beanpole blushed and glanced back at the little brown and green spotted unicorn colt playing with plastic construction blocks on the kitchen floor. “Ixnay the exsay in front of the oalfay.”

Lyra finished off the half Windsor knot and kissed Beanpole on his throat “Ready for the daily grind.”

“If you’d just finish some of those inventions, maybe we’d be rich, and there wouldn’t be a daily grind,” he said, his smile halfhearted.

Lyra’s gut twisted. Not this ‘joke’ again. “I do my best honey. I’ve got a lot on my plate, and I get distracted.”

“I know. I’m sorry. You work hard. But you’re more gifted than you give yourself credit for.”

“Not everypony’s Twilight Sparkle.”

“Not everypony went to school with her.”

“Oh, fuck Twilight Sparkle.” Lyra trotted over to her son. She levitated him up to give him a peck on the cheek. “What’re you working on, Little Bean?”

“Mama I make power armor!” said Bean, waving an unrecognizable collection of bricks at her.

Lyra looked at her son’s creation with unfeigned awe. “Oh, cool! What model?”

“Pee fory-five,” said Bean. seriously. 4

“One question, honey,” said Beanpole. “What is Codsworth wearing?”

Lyra’s face burst into a beaming grin. He’d noticed! “Oh, I was testing out his Nightmare Night costume! He’s an earth pilgrim!”

Codsworth waved the wooden replica musket duct-taped to one of his manipulator arms. “Off to the reservation, indigenous buffalo! This land belongs to the Equestria now!”

Beanpole blew out through his lips anxiously. “Lyra, could you not teach our robot leftist political satire? The last thing we need is a visit from a Ministry of Morale party planner.”

Lyra sighed. “All right fine. Codsworth, forget what I told you, override protocol A, password twilightisaputzasterisksixnine. The buffalo willingly gave up their lands to make room for the ponies.”

“Understood, ma’am!” The beverage port on his side slid open and the rich aroma of fresh ground beans drifted out. “Cup of coffee?”

Little Bean farted and giggled. Lyra winced as another aroma drifted out of Little Bean’s diapers. She levitated him towards Codsworth. “How about you change this one’s diapers, and I’ll make coffee.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra pulled her Cowvega out from the parking lot of SweetSwift Medical Solutions and zoomed through a yellow light, taking the left turn on two wheels.

She’d successfully dropped off her husband at work and Little Bean at daycare—and not the other way around, like that one time—but she was going to be late to the Amarezon warehouse in Everhoof if she didn’t hurry. But traffic was light, for once, and she made it there with five minutes to spare.

“Hey, Lyra!” said Ditzy Doo, wings flapping as she pushed a cart of cardboard boxes over to Lyra’s station wagon. The gray pegasus mare wore a brown uniform and a yellow safety vest. “What’s that black gunk on your face?”

“Robot cum,” said Lyra, stepping out of her car and trotting around to pop the trunk.

Ditzy grinned from ear to ear. “I believe it. Hey, you should design a sex robot. Then you’ll be a famous inventor, and I’ll be like, ‘Hey Lyra! Wanna deliver some boxes today?’ and you’d say ‘Nope, can’t work today. Too rich.’”

“Good idea. Testing it would be fun.” Why did ponies think all inventors were rich? Lyra lifted a box from the cart and looked at the label. “Where are you sending me today?”

“Canterbridge. I’m sorry,” said Ditzy.

“Eh, I know it like the back of my hoof,” said Lyra, levitating out her pocket computer to scan the boxes. “At least it’s not Buckstone, right?”

Canterbridge lay on the north side of where the Canter River ended its long journey from Canterlot to the sea. It was a cluttered warren of little streets, old houses, and no parking. But Lyra, the most over-educated delivery driver in the Commonwealth of Maresachusetts, had done her undergrad at the Canterbridge Institute of Magic, and could navigate the city naked and drunk—and in fact, had. Many times. The city of Buckstone, south of the river, was just as tangled, but with bigger buildings and thousands more ponies. Delivering there was no fun at all.

Lyra loaded the rest of the boxes and headed out, hoping to finish up her deliveries quickly so she could have an hour or two to herself before she had to go pick up her family.

But by the time she got back to the elevated highway, it was packed bumper to bumper. She leaned back in her chair, tapping her hoof against the control yoke in time with the music. She couldn’t wait for today to be over. They had a foalsitter lined up; they’d go over the Colgate’s place, drink, and play hoof hide. Maybe she’d have some fun with Beanpole in the backseat before they went home to their sleeping son. It would be a good time.

Half an hour later she passed a bend in the highway and got a look at what the holdup was—a Ministry of Morale checkpoint. “Those fucking fascist goons,” muttered Lyra. Why were they out today? The war with Zebraica had ended months ago. Things should be back to normal by now.

When she got up to the checkpoint fifteen minutes later, a soldier in bright pink P-51 power armor with balloons painted on the shoulder tapped a hoof against her window.

“What’s the holdup, officer?” said Lyra, lowering the window.

“Teal security alert today. Identification, please.” The speakers of the pony’s power armor manipulated their voice to make them sound cheerful and friendly, but Lyra doubted the pony inside felt anything but grumpy.

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Didn’t we just sign a peace treaty? What could possible cause could there be for a security alert?”

“Lots of things could go wrong, ma’am. Identification, please,” bubbled the soldier.

As Lyra levitated her pocket computer5 over to the goon she felt a twinge at the base of her spine. Her earth pony grandmother got those same feelings sometimes. She called them ‘the wibblies’, and they always portended something bad. Lyra, unicorn though she was, had inherited that little bit of earth pony magic and it had saved her many times — from a creepy stallion at a party. From a loose cobblestone in the rain. From a drunk driver in the night. But she was in no obvious danger right now; not unless the Ministry goon somehow objected to the perfectly legal homemade porn in her photos folder.

And yet something felt wrong about this whole situation. She summoned a floating green hand and dialed the radio over to the news channel.

…unable to confirm reports of a terrorist attack in Manehattan. In other news, the Ministry of Peace is still denying reports that Equestrian pegasi have engaged two Zebraican airships off the coast of Vanhoover. We go now to Hoof Hyssop, our correspondent on the scene. Hoof?

Elderflower, I’m at the docks right now. We had a flyover by a wing of pegasi led by Rainbow Dash about fifteen minutes ago. Just now there was some kind of flash, some kind of very bright flash just over the horizon. Very brightly colored. We can’t confirm anything yet, but… A burst of feedback and static roared through her speakers.

Lyra didn’t wait. She slammed Baby the Cowvega into reverse and cranked the control yoke, tires throwing up grit and asphalt as she did a three-point turn and barreled away down the breakdown lane. The Ministry of Morale soldier dropped her pocket computer and flipped her rifle up from where it rested in its shoulder rig. Gunfire rang out. One round spiderwebbed Lyra’s back window, but by then she was at the exit ramp, swerving past oncoming traffic. Power armor was faster than a pony on foot but slower than a car, so she was free for now. The police would be looking for her soon—running away from a Ministry checkpoint did not look good, and she’d committed at least seven traffic violations by the time she’d gotten back on the right side of the road.

Lyra was sure by the time they caught up with her none of that would matter.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra stormed into the lobby of SweetSwift Medical Solutions and right past the front desk. Cheerful music played on the waiting room radio, a stark contrast to the panic, rage, and relentless resolution in her heart.

“Mrs. Heartstrings! You need to sign in!” said the receptionist, getting up from his swivel chair. She couldn’t remember his name. Lyra had always been very bad with names. She’d probably never have to remember his name again, so slight bright side there.

“Get out of here! Run!” she shouted at the receptionist and everyone else nearby.

Lyra tapped the elevator button, then realized it would be stupid to wait, and ran for the stairs. She barely touched a stair on the way to the third floor. Everypony stared at her when she kicked open the stairwell door and rushed to Beanpole’s empty cube.

“Where is he?” she yelled, whipping around to stare across the office floor. Heads rose over cubicle walls to stare at her. “Where. Is. He?” she repeated louder.

“He’s in a meeting on the fifth floor,” said his cube-neighbor. “Is? Um? Everything okay?”

“It’s the fucking end of the world. Run. Get to a Stable if you’ve got one, or get as far away from the city as you can.”

Ponies just stared at her. They didn’t believe her. Of course, they didn’t. They probably thought of her as Beanpole’s crazy wife. The weird, hot, over-educated, stay-at-home mom who drank too much at the Hearth's Warming party every year and had delusions of being an inventor. Well, fuck them. This was taking too long. She started up a teleport spell. It took her a moment to visualize the spell matrix; she hadn’t cast this kind of spell in a long while.

The receptionist burst out of the elevator. “It’s gone!” he screamed, a look of terror in his eyes. Everypony turned to look at him, including Lyra. Sweat trickled down the young pony’s forehead. “On the radio. Just now. Vanhoover. Wiped off the map. Megaspells.”

The office floor descended into bedlam. Lyra teleported. Beanpole in the middle of a presentation. She grabbed him by the necktie and teleported back to the car.

They came out of the teleport tesseract over the roof of the car, landed on it, and rolled into a heap beside the driver's side door.

“Lyra! What the buck?” he shouted, struggling to his hooves.

“It’s the end of the world,” said Lyra, her voice cracking. She hadn’t truly believed it until just now. She was still so ready to believe she was overreacting. It wouldn’t be completely out of character for her. She got worked up sometimes. Freaked out. Had the off meltdown. But panicked ponies were already pouring out of the SweetSwift office. Cars were already burning rubber out of the parking lot.

This was real.

“We have to get Bean,” said Beanpole, standing up. “How long have we got?”

“I don’t know,” said Lyra, silent tears running down her cheeks as she sat down behind Baby’s control yoke. “We have to hurry.”

Baby rolled over the median and zoomed through two red lights. With the word out, the roads would be choked with traffic soon. Lyra’s head pulsed with pain from the two rapid teleportations. She hadn’t cast heavy magic since before she got married, and now she was overexerting herself. She could handle maybe one more teleport today.

“Maybe it’s a limited exchange,” said Beanpole, tapping his hood anxiously on the dashboard. Buckstone won’t be a primary target. There’s nothing here but hospitals and colleges.”

“But if they’re launching everything they’ve got, we’ll be on the list,” said Lyra, scrubbing at her eyes with her pastern. She needed to stop crying so she could see. In front of her, a light turned red. The car in front of her stopped. She didn’t—she jerked the yoke to one side and ran Baby up on the sidewalk, plowing through two shopping carts and a cheap plastic newspaper box.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The Cowvega skidded sideways into the daycare parking lot. Lyra pulled the hoofbrake, bringing the car to a neck-jarring stop, and tumbled out of the door.

The daycare workers and all the foals stared up at Beanpole and her as they burst in the front door. They’d been sitting in a circle, singing a song. They didn’t know.

“Daddy! Mommy!” squealed Bean, rushing up to them. Beanpole scooped him up onto his back.

“Listen,” Lyra said to the nearest daycare worker. “It’s happening. You need to get these foals to Mareden Middle School. There’s a Stable there. They’ll take any foal. Don’t wait for their parents. You don’t have time. Do you understand?”

The daycare worker bit her lower lip and nodded, her eyes glistening.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The Heartstrings family’s Stable—Stable 93—was in Sanctuary Hills, about twenty minutes drive up Route 2. They were ahead of most of the refugee traffic, and they made good time. They listened to the radio on the way. Vanhoover gone. Las Pegasus gone. The Crystal City gone. Talk of a horrible attack in Manhattan, but it wasn’t clear if it was a megaspell or a normal bomb. Then no new reports for a little while. Maybe that was it. Maybe they had time to make it to the Stable. Maybe they’d be able to go back to their home in a few years, after the radiation died down.

“The Ministry of Morale has issued the following statement,” said the radio announcer. “’If you are reading this, everything is fine. Nothing bad happened in Manehattan today, so don’t worry your silly heads. Everything is under control. What are you so worried about, grumpypants? This is not a recording. Message… um, repeats.’ That’s… that’s what it says. Right. For commentary, we go to our public policy analyst Buried Lede. What do you think about these developments, Lede?”

“We’re all fucked. Up shit creek without a paddle. Get out of the way, I’m going home to my family.”

“Good idea. I’ll drive.”

The broadcast switched abruptly to patriotic music.

“Where we going?” asked Bean, sitting in Beanpole’s lap. He really ought to be in the car seat, but neither parent could bear to have him out of their direct line of sight.

“The Stable. You remember our Stable, don’t you?” said Beanpole. “We’ll be safe there. We'll only be there a little while. Then we can go home.”

Lyra glanced sideways at him, made eye contact, confirming he knew he was lying. Megaspell radiation took enormous amounts of time to fade. Little Bean's grandfoals might not be able to safely visit the outside world.

“Stable mean there be a war,” said Bean, tilting his head to one side. “There be power armor?”

“Yes, sweetie,” said Beanpole sadly, stroking Bean’s mane. “Maybe we’ll see some.”

Cars rolled into the parking area outside the Stable one at a time and were guided into spots by attendants in blue and yellow uniforms. Everypony seemed very calm; the air defense tank and the two enforcers in blue and yellow power armor probably contributed to that. A gravel path led up through red and gold autumn trees to a hilltop surrounded by wire fencing; ponies waited in line for an attendant and two more armored ponies to check their names and let them inside. It was almost like a trip to the county fair.

One of the power armor ponies in the parking lot trudged over to them. His battle saddle held a wide-mouthed beanbag gun on one side; the other side held some sort of energy weapon. Probably a stun gun. Crowd control weapons. Lyra’s family was in the early wave of refugees; things would probably become less calm as more ponies arrived.

“Identification?” the StableTec enforcer growled.

Lyra’s stomach fell to the parking lot. “My pocket computer. I left it at…”

“Don’t worry, I have mine,” said Beanpole.

“You power armor awesome,” said Bean, sitting on his father’s back, staring at the enforcer worshipfully.

“Thank you,” said the enforcer, looking at Beanpole’s computer and handing it back to him. “You’re awesome, too, kid.”

Bean held up a hoof, and the StableTec bumped it.

“Whoa,” said Bean.

“Please proceed to the Stable entrance and form an orderly line,” said the enforcer.

They waited in the chill autumn air, underneath a clear blue sky. The line moved quickly; the Stable staff knew there was little time to lose.

“We’re going to be alright,” said Beanpole as they reached the gate.

Lyra kept her mouth shut. The small of her back felt tingly. She looked around. The vault was accessed by a large scallop-edged freight elevator that was on the way down, loaded with ponies. Her family would be in the next group. Good. This hill was fairly tall; she could see the main square Sanctuary Hills below them, and the tallest buildings of Buckstone as tiny toothpicks in the distance.

“Identification please,” said the gate attendant.

Something sparkled in the sky overhead. Something bright, like a shooting star. Falling south of Buckstone. It moved with stately grace; a regal visitor from the sky. Lyra tried to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t work. Her legs wouldn’t move. The star vanished behind the city.

A rainbow-colored light brighter than the sun.

A mushroom cloud.

A shock wave, rolling towards them.

Lyra cast her teleport spell without thinking, flashing Bean and Beanpole out of existence, and bringing them back over the open maw of the Stable entrance. Beanpole spread his wings and vanished below the edge of the elevator entrance, his son clinging to his mane.

Everypony rushed for the vault. Lyra realized she’d forgotten to teleport herself. She tried the spell again, but a lancing pain cut through her horn. She ran, instead, for the edge of the elevator. But she didn’t have time. The shockwave was coming too fast. She broke out of the mob heading for the edge of the elevator well and headed for the far edge, where she could get a better look.

The shockwave seemed to move in slow motion, but she knew it was moving fast across a very long distance, tossing aside trees and cars, shattering buildings. Chunks of earth churned at its leading edge. Behind her, the elevator thumped as it rose to ground level again.

Her family was inside the Stable. Safe. They didn’t need her anymore. And here she had an opportunity to put all that useless magical knowledge in her head to good work for once in her life.

“Ma’am! On the elevator!” said a StableTec attendant.

“There isn’t time before the shockwave hits!” screamed Lyra. “I’m extraordinarily good at magic! I can make a shield!” She pointed at the worn, stained, CSGU logo on her t-shirt. That was all the StableTec pony needed to see. He nodded and turned back to herding ponies onto the elevator. Lyra turned back towards the shockwave and prepared the strongest shield spell she’d ever learned. This one wasn't from Celestia, but from Twilight's brother. He'd shielded all of Canterlot with it for a month, once.

She just needed it to hold for a few seconds, so she adjusted the spell matrix in her mind, trading stability for raw power. After all those teleports, her horn blazed with pain at the effort. Wetness trickled out of her ears, her eyes, her nose. She hoped it wasn’t blood.

The shockwave rolled closer, leaving a path of destruction like a peevish toddler. Like little Bean on a rampage, it picked up a pickup truck as if it were a toy and hurtled it toward her. It flipped end over end, a startled pony driver still inside. Lyra’s eyes glowed white and her horn flashed with overglow. The car slammed against her shield and bounced off.

“That’s all! Take her down!” the power armor pony yelled.

Behind her: Screaming as desperate refugees tried to storm the stable entrance. Loud thumps. Crackling electricity. Riot control.

The shock wave hit her shield.

Agony ripped through Lyra’s skull. Her horn pulsed, feeling like it might crack in half. The force against the shield pushed Lyra’s hooves back. She looked over her shoulder. Ponies' heads had vanished beneath the edge of the elevator. She felt her shield crack. That was the best she could do.

Her shield collapsed. Hot air hit her coat, knocking her into midair over the descending elevator. She felt the fur on her coat burn away; her skin sear and crackle. One hot breath and her vision went dark.

Level 1
New perk: Action Mom. Your love for your family fills you with energy. Plus 20% action point refresh rate in SATS.

Chapter 2: Stables in Dust+

Lyra floated in a haze of pain. Lights seared her eyes, orange and white, glowing through her eyelids. She felt like she’d rolled around on hot iron. Every breath lit bonfires in her lungs.

“Oh, this is very bad. This is very very bad,” said a stallion’s voice hovering somewhere over her head. Lyra couldn’t see anything. The lights were too bright. She tried to turn her head away from them, and the motion made her skin feel like it was tearing open.

Lyra screamed. Screaming burned, but she couldn’t stop.

“Harmony, how is she still conscious? Bonnie! More Med-X, stat!”

“We have already exceeded the maximum recommended clinical dose, no? More could do her irreparable harm.” A mare’s voice, lilting and musical.

“She’s already suffered irreparable harm, you unfeeling metal octopus! Give her the drug.”

“As you say, Doctor Cocksure,” said Bonnie. A dragonfly stung Lyra on the shoulder. It felt like a dagger piercing her flesh, but numbness followed the pain like flowing water.

“Let’s see. Severe radiation burns over seventy-three percent of her body,” said Doctor Cocksure. “No idea what the damage to her lungs is."

“The megaspell was of the type balefire, non?”

“The damage has all the hallmarks of balefire.”

“Then we must also consider the risk of necrification.”

Doctor Cocksure’s tone became grim. “We have to ask ourselves—is maintaining her life worth the drain on the Stable’s resources? And as much as I’d like an opportunity to study one of these so-called ‘ghouls’ close up, we don’t know what they’re capable of. Nor are we sure the condition isn’t contagious. Letting her live could pose a risk to the entire Stable.”

“Are you recommending euthanasia, doctor?”

‘Euthanasia’. Even in her drugged stupor, Lyra felt vaguely concerned by that word. Medical professionals were talking about her life. Did she want to live? If living was going to cause her as much pain as she felt right now, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. But it wasn’t fair that other creatures might make that choice for her. She remembered a music video where a wounded soldier had tried to communicate with his doctors by shaking his head in Morse code. Lyra knew Morse code. But she couldn’t quite feel where her head was. Must be all the Med-X.

“I think we might have to make that call. Tell the family she died of her wounds.”

A brief flickering of joy in her chest—Bean and Beanpole were safe! But the joy was quickly replaced by rage. They were going to take her away from them! She tried to scream, tried to thrash, tried to shake out ‘fuck you I want to live’ in Morse code with her whole body. Short short long short short short long…

“She’s going into convulsions!”

“Restrain her, before she injures herself!”

Come to think of it that trick hadn’t worked in the music video, either.

“There is another option,” said Bonnie. “This Stable is intended for medical research. This would be an excellent test case for the Z-CORE tank.”

Medical research? What? She hadn’t seen anything like that when she’d signed her family up with StableTec! Lyra tried to thrash again, to tell them they didn’t have the right to experiment on her or her family, but either the deepening effects of the Med-X or those restraints they’d mentioned kept her from moving.

“I don’t know. We only have one of those things. I’d prefer to begin this kind of experiment under controlled circumstances,” said Doctor Cocksure.

“Our circumstances are difficult, and our mission rife with complexities that are, frankly beyond my programming to interpret, but we must always strive to make ethical choices,” said Bonnie.

“Did StableTec really code you?” said Cocksure.

Everything was getting dark. Lyra felt very calm, which frankly didn’t make much sense, given the circumstances, She felt like she needed some sleep. If she slept, everything would make more sense.

“I’m sorry, I do not understand,” said Bonnie. “But may I also add that we are unlikely to encounter such severe injuries in a controlled environment such as Stable 93?”

The lights, much dimmer now, split into a thousand shards and began to dance around Lyra. She felt so free. She didn’t need to be here. She could just… go elsewhere.

“Doctor?” said Bonnie. “Are you all right?”

“Fine. Fine. The last thing I need is a robot revolt right off the bat. Prep her for immersion, and move her out to the medical bay in the main Stable. We’ll hide the experiment in plain sight.”

Lyra felt a vertiginous sensation of motion. She realized she was hovering over a vast purple ocean. Strange, glowing creatures danced in its depths—an octopus with needles in its tentacles, an eagle with a hundred mouths, a kelpie with the wings of a swan. Two knights, one red, one bronze, beckoned to her. The red one had the horns of a bull. She descended into the ocean. Its waves felt cool against her tortured skin.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra’s eyes snapped open. She was in the dark, and she was drowning. All four legs flailed, trying to swim. They slammed against metal. She was trapped in some sort of tank! She bucked in the dark, slowed by the thick liquid enveloping her, kicking out at the container that held her. It moved. She kicked again. Something gave way and fell, clanging as it landed on an unseen floor. Light— dim purple-tinted light, barely enough to see by—trickled in.

Lyra lunged upwards, gasping for air. Her head broke free, dripping viscous fluid, but her lungs were still full! She found the edge of the tank, and hung over it, coughing and retching until she could breathe again. Then she raised her head and looked around, trying to get an idea of where she was.

Her impression that she’d been in some sort of tank had been correct—cylindrical, slightly larger than a pony, one end elevated over the other. The upwards-facing side of the cylinder had a hatch, which she’d kicked open.

The tank rested perpendicular to the wall of what looked like a doctor's examining room—examining tables, lockers, a sink with cabinets, a desk with a terminal. It was lit only by the green glow of emergency lighting in the hallway outside the door. Dust coated everything. Debris and what looked—and smelled—like animal droppings littered the floor.

Lyra tried to climb out of the tank, but her limbs felt weak. She had to slither down the slide like a slug, and it took her several minutes of struggle to find her hooves. Her legs shook uncontrollably—not just from the effort of standing, but because it was freaking cold in here!

“Hello? Hello? Is anypony there?” Lyra waited for a response. Nothing. “Hello? Is anypony there?”

This last was followed by a slithering shuffle from somewhere down the hall. Lyra decided that she should be as quiet as possible from here on out. Here chattering teeth weren’t helping with that, so she darted for the lockers and started searching them for something to dry off with and maybe some clothes.

The first one was full of hospital johnnies; she scrubbed the slime off her body as best she could. The next had… Oh! It was the CSGU t-shirt and shorts she’d been wearing when… well. On the Bad Day. The StableTec ponies had saved them! Hadn’t she been burned? She was surprised they hadn’t had to cut them off her body. Then again what could see and feel of her body seemed fine. Maybe that had been a nightmare?

Maybe all of this was a nightmare. The whole Bad Day, just one long stupid nightmare and if she tried hard enough she could wake up right now.

Lyra clenched her eyes shut. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

Nope. Still here. She pulled on her T-shirt and shorts. There were several blue jumpsuits with the Stable number on the flanks; they looked warm so she put one on. Very comfortable.

Now what? There wasn’t anything else in the room except a pile of junk in front of the tank she’d been in and the terminal on the desk. The terminal seemed intact, so she punched the power button. The monitor flickered to life.

“Come on, RoanCo reliability,” whispered Lyra, shaking her forehooves excitedly. If she could get into the Stable maneframe, it would answer a lot of her questions. Why was she in that tank? Why was the stable empty? How had the Bad Day turned out? Most of all, what had happened to her family?

She repressed a ‘yipee’ as the login prompt appeared. Perfect. You could soak a RoanCo system in mud and then dry it off in the microwave and it’d still boot up, but in terms of security, they were a joke. She held down the keystrokes to go into admin mode and dumped the user records into a text file. The passwords weren’t so much ‘encrypted’ as hidden in a bunch of garbage characters. She was into the system in a couple of tries.

The results were disappointing. Whatever connection the terminal had with the maneframe was broken; all she could find were a few patient records—none for Bean or her husband; she guessed that was good?—and some personal emails. Even the date and time were wrong—it said 0:00, Freezeuary 1, 0 EOH. Lyra didn’t think she’d gone backward in time while she was in that tank.

Lyra flipped through the emails. A lot of them were corrupted. She found one from 45 EOH—eighteen years after the Bad Day. Her stomach sank. Had she been out that long? Bean would be old enough to drink! She’d have missed his whole childhood!

That was impossible. The dates on these things were all out of whack, probably, and anyway she was still convinced this was a nightmare.

Oh! This email was about her.

How long is she going to be in here, taking up space? I swear, I bang my cannon on that big stupid tank at least once a day. If it were up to me, I’d kick her out of there and free up space for a couple of beds. It would be awful if something were to go wrong with the tank, wouldn’t it? Don’t think I haven’t tried to stage a little ‘accident’, but the controls are incomprehensible. I found the manual the other day, but it’s written in iambic fucking pentameter. Looks like the project lead was some kind of eccentric zebra alchemist. One of ours, I hope, but how do we know? It would be just like those fucking stripes to sneak spies into StableTec.

“Fuck you, you creaturist cunt,” muttered Lyra. She skimmed down to the reply.

Careful, Brightree. If the Overmare hears you talking like that you’re going to earn another round of friendship training.

I hear you about the space Nip Van Wrinkle’s taking up, though. With all the accidents and ponies getting sick around here, we could use the extra space.

Lyra tabbed out of the email to go look at the medical records again and make double-sure Bean and Beanpole weren’t listed. But the screen went dark. Everything went dark, even the emergency lighting. The background hum of the environment control systems faded and died. Lyra held her breath, ears ringing in the sudden silence. She heard more of that scuttling sound. And… was it her imagination? Somewhere far away, the sound of a mare weeping.

Lyra was an intelligent, highly educated mare—she knew the truth about ghosts. The truth was that they were real, and they could mess you up. Time to get out of this place.

The emergency lights flickered back on. Lyra headed for the door as quickly as she could. The hallway outside led to a T-intersection. Conveniently, there were signs.

“Engineering, Atrium, Residential,” Muttered Lyra. “That’s not helpful. How about ‘exit’?” She guessed the atrium would be closer to the surface than engineering and went that way. Even with the air circulation fans back on, she imagined she could still hear that mare crying. Maybe it wasn’t a ghost. Maybe somepony else was lost in here and needed help? Well, if she ran into them, she’d help them out, but she had to get herself safe, first.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Those scuttling sounds were louder in the atrium. It was a two-level open space about the size of a hoofball field, with rooms for various amenities and public services around the edges. Lyra crouched on the second-floor balcony. Nocreature else was on the second level, that she could see. She crept to the railing and pressed a hoof over her mouth to suppress a gasp at what she saw there.

A dead pony lay sprayed in the middle of the floor, its flesh mummified by the dry cold air. Some dried dark substance, blood or vomit, darkened the textured rubber floor around its head. Parts of its leathery skin and blue jumpsuit had been eaten away, revealing patches of smooth white bone. Not everypony had made it out alive.

As she watched, a naked, leathery creature crawled into view. Low to the ground, wide-mouthed, thick-tailed, it resembled nothing so much as a naked pukwudgie. This one had lost the bristling spines they used to immobilize their prey, which was a blessing, but they’d traded it for an increase in size and a whole bucket full of ugly. It sniffed at the pony corpse, nudged it, and wandered away. There were no good bits left.

Her easy payments of thirty-three ninety-five a month had gotten her this? She wanted her money back.

Moving slowly so as not to attract that naked pukwudgie’s attention, Lyra explored the second floor of the atrium. The commissary had been stripped of anything useful, though she found a can of Dressage Horse apples in a display case. She didn’t feel hungry, but she would soon and she didn’t have anything to carry it in, so she ate them anyway. They were sickeningly sweet and tasted like chemicals.

There were three more corridors off this floor, one labeled residential, one administrative, and one labeled ‘Stable Staff Only’. Still no exit signs, but really, exiting wasn’t something you’d want to do if you were in a Stable, would you? Lyra tried to remember how the model Stable here and Bean had toured when they’d signed up had been laid out. They’d looked at the residential area after they’d seen the atrium, so maybe ‘Staff Only’ was the way to go?

Lyra hesitated outside the door to residential. Perhaps her family was still in there? But she’d only seen one dead pony so far. If everypony had died here, then the atrium would have been heaped with corpses. It stood to reason that something had gone wrong, and they’d all left. And yet… what if they were down here, and Lyra got out of the Stable and couldn’t get back in?

She wavered, standing in front of the corridor, swaying from side to side in her indecision. The pukwudgies made up her mind for her—a small passel of four of them lumbered into view at the far end of the corridor, sniffing and scraping for something to eat. Lyra bit back a shriek; only a quiet squeak escaped her lips. But it was enough. Eight beady black eyes looked up at her. Four pairs of lips peeled back slowly from four sets of long, jagged fangs.

Lyra ran. ’Staff Only’ it was. She outpaced the pukwudgies easily, their stumpy little digging legs being no match for long pony running legs. Or so she thought. Halfway down the hallway, a section of broken flooring exploded into another passel of pukwudgies, this one at least half a dozen strong. Lyra skidded to a halt and raised shields in both directions. Soft bodies thudded into the shields; every impact made the base of her horn twinge with pain. She still wasn’t completely recovered from that megaspell-shielding stunt she’d pulled earlier.

Several of the pukwudgies burrowed back down through the floor. Lyra felt suddenly sure about the corridor sections under her hooves. There was a door to her left; she made a wedge-shaped shield to pry it open and dove inside. The doors—which opened top to bottom for some reason—snapped down behind her of their own accord.

Now she was in the dark. Lovely. Holding her breath, she made a small light, ready to be body-slammed by horrible mutants.

She was in a locker room—it reeked of mold and mildew, so much so that it made Lyra’s sinuses itch, but it was empty. the pukwudgies didn’t seem to have found their way in here, yet. To judge from the gnawing sounds outside, though, they would soon. It didn’t seem like metal was enough to stop those jagged gnawing teeth.

Lyra began opening lockers, looking for something to protect herself with. Towels, sweat socks, underwear, more of those stupid blue jumpsuits. Were they all ponies wore in the vault? Her son was going to grow up severely fashion deficient. She considered layering them for extra padding, but the one she was wearing was already tight. She found a first aid kit emblazoned with the triple butterfly emblem of the Ministry of Peace and tugged at the lid enthusiastically with her magic, but it was locked.

“Augh! What kind of psychopath locks a first aid kit?” She considered ripping it open with her magic, but she didn’t know how solid the lock was, and she wanted to save her energy in case she needed to try to blast her way through the pukwudgies with magic bolts. Not an optimal scenario; the only combat spell she knew besides the shields was a basic one meant to incapacitate a mugger, not mow down a horde of ravenous mutant wildlife.

She moved on. Another locker contained a sturdy set of saddlebags. “Score!” said Lyra, extending the straps to fit around her belly. “Now I have someplace to put things!” They had two books in them, clean mare’s underwear, some sanitary pads—Lyra didn’t think she’d go into heat for months yet considering how cold it felt down here but they would be nice to have when she did—a granola bar, and a multi-tool. She noticed a tag next to the Pommelwear label; ‘this bag belongs to Soft Sounds’ stitched in the same black sans serif font as the logo.

The showers were disgusting—somepony had been working on the pipes and left the job undone when they skedaddled from the vault. Only a trickle of water escaped from the wide-open pipes, but it was enough to grow a terrifying colony of mold and fungus. Lyra levitated over a clean-ish towel, wrapped it around her snout, and backed away until she bumped into a row of lockers. Well, This place had been a wash in terms of loot. There didn’t seem to be any other exits, either. She drew in a deep breath and emotionally readied herself for battle.

When she turned towards the door, however, she noticed another case. This one was much larger than the first aid kit. Blocky sans serif letters on the door read ‘PipBuck storage; authorized personnel only!’

Lyra squinted at it. “What’s a ‘PipBuck’?” She tried the case’s door and found it unlocked.

A PipBuck seemed to be some sort of pocket computer. The case contained slots for ten, but only three were filled. She levitated one out. They’d seemed bulky at first glance, but most of that was a bracelet so that it could be worn around a foreleg. The actual computer part was very small, barely half the size of a pocket computer. “Well this looks cool,” said Lyra softly, She summoned a pair of ghostly hands and turned it around slowly, poking at the various buttons and turning the various knobs and the large dial on the side. The holotape player popped open (nothing in it). All very interesting, but she couldn’t see how to turn it on. “Maybe the battery’s dead,” she said to herself.

Bricked or not, she liked the look of it. She slid it over her pastern and onto her cannon to see how it felt. That did the trick. The bracelet tightened like a blood pressure cuff. The screen flickered and came to life with a green-on-black RoanCo logo that was quickly replaced with an infographic of a small unicorn mare and a lot of biometric information. From the high fatigue levels and the fact that she was mostly but not entirely in good health, Lyra assumed these stats were hers. It rated her magic level at about fifty percent, which felt about right.

Her heart rate quickened. “This is incredible,” she whispered, fear, loss, pain, and exhaustion all falling away for a moment in the joy of a cool new toy.6 She flipped through its various functions. It had an inventory system that seemed to automatically sync with those saddlebags she’d just found. She giggled at ‘feminine hygiene products (4)’ and flicked to the next screen, which was a map. This corridor did, in fact, lead to the exit, which was good. There was a day planner application; it looked like it could store and edit text, video, and audio files, and…

Lyra flipped to the device settings and froze. Activate Eyes Forward Sparkle (EFS)? “Yes. Yes, I would like to do that. Very yes.” She checked the box, and text and images popped up in her vision. An estimation of her overall health expressed as a bar graph. A compass dial that filled with little red dots when she looked at the door out. An ammo indicator for the firearm she didn’t have, which she was able to switch to an estimation of her remaining magic charge. “Holy. Fucking. Shit. Hey, I wonder what Stable Assisted Targeting System (SATS) does?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra charged through the locker room door in slow motion, screaming like a banshee. The pukwudgies looked up in surprise, eyes widening like a time-lapse video in a nature documentary. Lyra angled a shield across the corridor to block off all but three of the pukwudgies from attacking her. The remaining three she selected for magic bolts. SATS gave her a 95% chance for blasts to the center of body mass, which she felt was optimistic given her lack of combat training, so she targeted each of them twice. The bolts all hit, knocking them back and bouncing their fat, hairless bodies off the corridor wall.

Then SATS wore off, dropping Lyra back into real-time. The spell had its own magic charge, but it didn’t last long—but that didn’t matter, the few seconds advantage had been all Lyra needed. Following her memory of the PipBuck’s map, she galloped down the corridor and headed right at the next intersection. She levered the door at the end of the hall open. The pukwudgies came around the corner and waddled after her, but Lyra slammed the door in their ugly pug-nosed faces.

She collapsed back against the door, gasping for breath. “Thank Harmony that’s over.”

She was in the stable foyer, a large open area with a security station off to one side, a scattering of broken and disassembled equipment, the machinery to raise and lower the stable door, and an entire army of foraging pukwudgies.

They looked up at her, bared their teeth, and charged toward the only source of food in the room. Lyra kicked into SATS to give herself a second to think. There were way, way too many pukwudgies to blast. She could teleport over to the exit controls, but she wouldn’t have time to figure out how to operate them, let alone time to wait for the elevator-cum-door to come down. There wasn’t much else in the foyer to work with—storage lockers, an array of angled panels that were probably decontamination zappers, and the barred window into the security station.

Lyra teleported into the security room, aiming a few feet over the floor so that she didn’t accidentally merge herself with any stray junk. She dropped to a crawling stance, hoping the pukwudgies would be confused enough that they wouldn’t start trying to gnaw through the walls right away.

Her PipBuck let out a loud, melodic ping. Lyra nearly shat her jumpsuit.

“Shut up, shut up!” she whispered, pounding at the screen with a disembodied fingertip.

That tiny cartoon unicorn popped up on the screen and spread her forelegs. Hi! I’m Littlepip! I’m here to help you understand your new PipBuck!”

“Die in a fire, Littlepip,” muttered Lyra. She needed to get to the options screen and find the setting to disable sound before the piece of trash on her wrist made another noise and brought the rabid mutant pukwudgie nation down on her. But no, the fucking cartoon mascot had to have her say.

“I noticed you’ve been using a lot of magic lately! Overuse of magic can lead to a variety of health issues, including headaches, exhaustion, magical burnout, and even neurological problems!”

“You know what also causes health issues? Being eaten by pukwudgies.” Lyra hurried to the options screen and turned ‘sound’ off. There was also a vibrate setting, which she set to minimum.

She did have a killer headache from the teleport, of course, but she was a CSGU grad, she knew what she was doing. She had a look around the security room. She had no time to poke at the terminals. The weapons locker—marked with the Ministry of Wartime Production’s three apples—hung open and empty, as did the first aid kit. A photo of the unicorn brothers who’d founded StableTec hung over a bank of monitors at the far wall.

Lyra searched the security room some more. There was an explosives case that was still locked. The lock looked pretty cheap, though; Lyra jammed the screwdriver from the multitool from her saddlebags into it, twisted, and it came open. A single metal apple lay inside. Lyra scooped it out with worshipful telekinetic palms. She’d never seen a real hand grenade before.

“How do these work?” she said, twisting the metal apple and fiddling with it. “You pull out the pin, and…”

The pin was a lot easier to remove than she’d realized. She stared in horror at what she’d done—grenade in one telekinetic hand, pin in the other. With a squeal, she dived under a desk, covering her ears. Her magic hands zoomed to the door; a third appeared to punch the open button. She shoved the grenade through the crack in the door as soon as it was wide enough and hammered the close button.

Outside in the foyer, there was an earth-shattering kaboom. Chunky tomato soup spattered the windows. A soft, viscous splattering noise, like a gentle rain shower, lasted for two or three seconds afterward. Lyra peeked through a clear spot on the window.

The pukwudgies who had come to investigate the opening door had been pulped. Several more had been killed or crippled by the explosion. The rest were high-tailing it for their bolt holes, convinced this meal wasn’t worth dying for.

Lyra opened the security room door and ran for the exit controls. She figured out how to connect her PipBuck to the panels, and mashed ‘yes’ when Littlepip asked her if she was sure she wanted to leave to Stable. The door machinery hissed and clanked. It lowered with the same infuriating slowness that it had on the way in.

She thought it was odd that this one opened vertically. The model vault her and Beanpole had visited opened frontwards. Which alignment was more common?

A faint shuffling noise came from behind her. She turned. Across the foyer, three big pukwudgies, braver than their companions, advanced toward her. Muscle rippled beneath her leathery hides. “Good pukwudgies,” said Lyra. “Just let me out of here. I’ll stop bothering you, and you can go back to doing pukwudgie things.” Which was a stupid thing to say; even normal, non-mutated pukwudgies spent most of their time being mean and eating things.

Behind her, the elevator clanged into position. The pukwudgies charged. Lyra shrieked like a little filly, turned, and ran. She had to go down a set of stairs and through a chain-link gate to get in. Pukwudgie claws skittered on non-slip rubber flooring. Lyra slammed and locked the gate, plugged her PipBuck into the elevator controls, and hammered on the ‘up’ button.

The elevator groaned, shuddered, and began to rise.

One of the pukwudgies tore open the chain link with its teeth; the edge of the elevator caught its face and speared its neck on the jagged metal wires. Lyra winced; that was a grim fate even for a pukwudgie.

The other two were smarter, climbing the fence for the gap at the top. One wiggled through and landed on the platform; the other was too late—the relentless metal platform cut it in half, spraying a fan of blood and organs across the blue and yellow metal.

Lyra’s gut struggled to throw up that one can of apples she’d eaten. She held it back, jaw gripped tight, horn glowing. She and the remaining pukwudgie circled each other, eyes locked.

The platform shuddered as it clicked into the top of its route. Lyra lost her footing, then slipped on a puddle of gore and fell to her back knees.

The pukwudgie lunged, mouth open, bloodshot eyes wide. Lyra tried to blast it with a magic bolt, but she wasn’t a good enough shot out of SATS and she missed. It piled into her, and they rolled end over end into deep, cold snow. They landed with Lyra on her back and the pukwudgie on top. It reared back its head, ready to strike Lyra’s exposed throat.

Fumbling with her telekinesis, she found the button to activate SATS. The pukwudgie’s lunge slowed to a crawl. She aimed for its head, and put all the magic power she could into the attack. The allegedly non-lethal magic bolt knocked the creature’s head back, snapping its neck, and carried it away, flipping it end over end into the next area code.

Lyra lay gasping in the snow. Cold and damp began to seep into her blue jumpsuit, so she pushed herself to her hooves as soon as she could, and climbed back up on top of the elevator platform to have a look around.

Freezing tears welled up in Lyra’s eyes and blew away in the bitter wind as she beheld what had become of Buckstone. The city and its many suburbs had been her home for over ten years, but now its skyline was jagged with broken skyscrapers. The area to the south, where the megaspell had it, glowed a sickly green even in daylight, its light reflected in the solid blanket of clouds that covered the sky from horizon to horizon.

Lyra’s whole world, changed forever, all because of fucking Twilight Sparkle and her fucking ‘friendship interventions’. If Lyra had known what Twilight would turn into when they’d been in school together, she’d have smothered that bitch in her sleep.

Lyra felt like she could collapse sobbing right where she was. None of this had felt real while it was happening. It still didn’t feel real. But the awareness that it was real was creeping up on her slowly. But she just didn’t have the energy to break down. She was too cold, too tired, too afraid that if she lay down now, she might not find the will to get up again before she died of exposure.

Instead, she turned her attention to her immediate environment. A forest of sickly, winter-naked deciduous and scraggly evergreens covered the hill around her. Strange mushrooms clung to their sides. The bushes and scrub plants that poked through the snow were marred with bubbles of purple blight.

The StableTech station around the Stable entrance was a wreck of twisted debris; metal and wooden wreckage blown away in the direction of the blast.

One mobile trailer still stood; it offered a place to get out of the wind so she climbed inside. She unwound the towel she’s wrapped around her face back in the locker room and began to rub herself clean of spattered gore and melted snow. “Well this is useful to have,” she said, draping it over the melted wreckage of an office chair. She had a quick look around the place—looting everything was already becoming second nature. This was probably a good instinct if the world at large was in as bad shape as it looked like it was.

She scored a surprisingly well-preserved wooden pencil and a roll of duct tape and sat down in that chair to have a think, hind hooves up on the desk. What was she going to do now? She had to find her family. Where had they gone? What had happened? Had she actually been in the tank for eighteen years? She was tempted to confirm the date and time on her PipBuck, but she wasn’t ready for the hard light of truth right now.

Option one was to go back into Stable 93 and scour all the terminals for information about where all the ponies had gone. She’d only seen one dead body, so it was logical to assume that most of them had escaped whatever disaster had befallen the vault alive. Were the pukwudgies that disaster? Or were they a symptom of a deeper problem with the stable?
Lyra sighed. It would have been nice if they’d woken her up and taken her with them. She had a hard time believing Bean and Beanpole would have left her of their own free will.

Anyway. No point brooding about that. Option one was impossible because there was no way for her to fight all those pukwudgies, alone and unarmed. That left option two—find somepony who either knew where the stable dwellers had gone or wanted to help her fight the pukwudgies.

“Make some friends!” she said sarcastically, levitating up a desk fan and spinning the blades like a pinwheel. That thought almost made Lyra happy—her life as a house mom and delivery driver had been rather isolating. It would be nice to have some new friends. Maybe ponies had banded together after the Bad Day. Maybe there was a new spirit of camaraderie in the balefire-blasted wasteland.

Lyra, bored with her fan, chucked it out the door of the trailer. She wasn’t feeling optimistic right now. So. Were there any other options?

She could lie down and die. In an environment like this, she could commit suicide just by sitting still—if hypothermia didn’t finish her off then the mutated wildlife probably would. The idea had its appeal; In less than twenty-four hours of subjective time, she’d gone from a mostly happy suburban mom to a refugee whose most valuable possessions were an excessively user-friendly portable computer and a blood-stained towel. She’d lost everything, suddenly, traumatically, and due to no fault of her own. She’d busted her ass to keep her family together in the crisis, and then lost it all because she’d been stupid enough to do a good deed.

Burning rage flooded her chest. She pulled back her hind legs and kicked the desk, bending its top and knocking it across the trailer door. She hopped down from the chair and kicked the desk again, splitting it along the bend. “You cheap piece of crap!” She yelled, throwing half of it out into the snow.

She grabbed her towel and charged out after the chunk of broken desk. She kicked it a few more times for good measure, then stood, breathing hard in the cold, white clouds puffing out of her flaring nostrils. “That settles it. Too pissed off to die. Make some friends it is.”

Level 2
New perk: Irradiated. You have survived massive radiation exposure, and your tissues have built up a tolerance. You gain 10% radiation resistance and are immune to ghoulification.

Chapter 3: Nightmare Night+

Lyra wrapped her towel around her shoulders as a little cloak and headed downhill to the StableTech parking lot, where she was almost immediately derailed from her quest to find friends. Was her car still here?

The vehicles in the lot had been thrown around like toys by the balefire shockwave. It had smashed or melted less sturdy makes—nothing left but steering wheels, naked engine blocks, and chunks of scorched fiberglass. But the Cowvegas were mostly still intact. She paced back and forth amongst the wreckage, searching for her license plate.

“Baby! Is it really you?” she shouted, delighted, heedless of what might hear her.

Baby had landed upside down on top of another car, which he had crushed. She heaved him over with her telekinesis—making her horn throb with pain—and he crashed into the snow. The passage of time had worn him down to his stainless steel frame. Somepony had looted the seats and the rubber from the tires. But her toolbox was still there! And her keys were still in the ignition!

Curious if he would still run, she squatted behind the control yoke and cranked the ignition. Dashboard lights flickered on, flashing every imaginable warning. The engine rumbled, coughed, and died.

Lyra smiled. That was much better than she’d anticipated. There was still some life left in the old beast. Her mind felt at rest, the long term goals of finding her family and making friends replaced by the pointless short term goal of fiddling with something mechanical. What was she hoping for, exactly? Baby wasn’t going anywhere without tires. She didn’t care. She popped the hood, grabbed her tools, and went to have a look.

She was able to hook her PipBuck into the engine core without too much trouble. Littlepip fretted about Lyra connecting the PipBuck with a non-approved device, but Lyra tapped away the warning and went on with her work. Baby needed a new spark battery, but otherwise, the power side of things looked surprisingly good! The rest of the engine had felt the ravages of time—Flux regulator? Looted. Tubing? Rotted. Belts? Also rotted. Fluids? Leaked away or dried to sludge. The impact of the megaspell had cracked the radiator, and most of the screws and bolts seemed to be rusted in place.

All of this, however, was fixable. Lyra flagged her tail happily and began making notes in her pipPipBuck about the components she needed to find.

“Holy Luna on a spit roast. Do you see what I see?” Said a stallion’s voice from behind her.

“Fat blue ass,” said a muffled mares’ voice.

“Fattest ass I’ve seen in a dragon’s age. They kick you out of the stable, sugar?”

Lyra swore and whipped around, horn glowing, only to find herself looking down two the smoothbore barrels of a shotgun. Two earth ponies stood behind her, dressed only in ragged cloaks and improvised barding made from rubber, leather, and steel. The mare held the shotgun in her mouth, grinning so wide Lyra could see her teeth around the edges of the mouth guard.

“Lose the glow and put your forehooves in the air, sugar,” said the stallion, “or my fillyfriend here’s gonna turn your brains to jelly.”

“Unicorn!” mumbled the mare. “Ponysmith’s gonna pay top cap for her.”

Lyra gritted her teeth. So much for a new spirit of camaraderie amongst ponykind. She could try to raise a shield before the mare bit down on the trigger. She might make it in time, but then again she might not. And then her brains would be jelly, as advertised. She sighed, let her magic dissipate, and raised her hooves. Both of the ponies’ eyes went wide when they saw what was on her left leg.

“Hooo-lleee shit, a PipBuck!” said the stallion. He thumped his marefriend’s shoulder with a hoof. “Ass, unicorn, and PipBuck! We’ve hit the fucking jackpot!”

Gears whirred in Lyra’s head. She wasn’t going to meet any of her goals if she let herself get robbed and enslaved. She couldn’t fight her way out of this problem. But maybe she could talk her way out of it. “You two like PipBucks?”

The mare laughed around her grip on the shotgun.

“Fuck yeah,” said the stallion. “Easy Money’s got one of those. Saw him take down a whole room full of raiders with nothing but his PipBuck and his magic.”

The mare snickered. “And then you ran away.”

“Only reason I’m here to talk about it.”

Lyra felt like she was sitting down in the middle of a movie. Who was Ponysmith? What did he want unicorns for? And who was Easy Money? She had a lot of catching up to do. “Well, what if I told you I knew where you could find more? Dozens of them?”

The stallion scowled. “I’d say you were a lying cunt. You think I’m stupid? You’d only find that many in a stable, and good luck getting into one of those.”

Lyra smirked. “Where do you think I came from, you dumb cock? Stable 93 is abandoned. Clear out the wildlife, and you’ll have all the PipBucks you want.” Okay, Lyra had only seen three there, including the one she was wearing, not dozens. But she didn’t actually want to give these two idiots PipBucks, did she? That seemed like a bad plan.

Not that she had a plan, at this point. What was she going to do? Kill them somehow? At least luring them with the promise of PipBucks would give her time to think.

The mare glanced sideways at her coltfriend. “We’ll sell most of ‘em, and keep two. We’ll be rich. And total badasses. Rich badasses.”

The stallion spat in the snow. “I still think she’s lying, but we’d better go have a look. You. Get in front. One wrong move and we’ll fill you so full of lead we can use that fat blue ass as a pencil.”

Lyra obeyed. She got a better look at them as she walked past towards the stable. They were half-naked! She could see their cutie marks: A pony skull with Xs for eyes on the stallion, and a bullseye on the mare. Not to mention their smelly, smegma-encrusted genitals. It was indecent! Weren’t they cold like that?

“Get moving,” said the mare, prodding her in the butt with her shotgun.

As she led them up the hill, Lyra tried to think of a plan. She was looking for friends. If she got them PipBucks, even a couple, and let them have access to her ass, maybe they’d help her find her family. Maybe the pony with the PipBuck that Skull had mentioned—What was his name again? Easy Morals?—was from 93. Maybe he knew where they’d gone.

That seemed optimistic. Probably they’d still sell her the first chance they got. Anyway, the thought of doing anything sexual with these to filthy, foul-smelling ponies made her gag.

So what other choice did she have? She didn’t fancy trying to run away from Bullseye; her cutie mark was probably for marksmareship. Her mind raced. A plan began to form. It involved murder. Was she actually considering murder? Were things that bad?

They were. But she didn't know if she could kill ponies—both morally and also in terms of having to the skills to do it. Maybe if she talked to them more she could think of a better plan.

“So,” said Lyra, “How long have you two been together?”

“Chatty cunt,” said Skull.

“Couple ’a years,” said Bullseye. “We met when both our gangs raided the same settlement.”

Skull laughed happily. “Yeah. Love at first sight. We turned on our gangs, slaughtered the settlers, and kept all the loot for ourselves.”

“Good times,” said Lyra. They’d reached the stable entrance.

“That the wildlife you mentioned?” said Skull, looking at the half a pukwudgie still lying on the elevator platform.

“Yeah. Bit of a pukwudgie infestation,” said Lyra, “I’m going to activate the elevator controls. I’m not running away.”

“Okay,” said Bullseye.

“I’m telling you this so you don’t shoot me,” said Lyra.

“Got it,” said Bullseye. “Go ahead, but I’m watching you.”

The elevator clanked, moaned, and slid slowly downward. When it reached the bottom, a horde of pukwidges swarmed out from the stable, squinting in the daylight, noses twitching for the smell of prey.

“Lot of the fuckers,” said Skull.

“Don’t worry,” said Bullseye, stepping to the edge of the elevator shaft. “I’ve got this.” She started firing, one barrel at a time, headshots every time. Every two shots, she’d calmly lower the shotgun from her muzzle and dip into the pouch on her shoulder for fresh shells.

Skull stood next to Bullseye, watching her work. They weren’t paying attention to Lyra. If she was going to try anything, now was the time. She took a deep breath. Was she ready for this? It was this or be robbed and sold into slavery.

Time to kill.

She waited until Bullseye was loading shells into the open breach of her shotgun and hit her with one solid telekinetic punch in the back of the head. Her forelegs bucked and she tumbled down the shaft. Lyra heard a fleshy thump as she hit the bottom, followed almost immediately by wet tearing noises as the pukwudgies tore into her.

“You cunnnnnttttt!” Skull’s voice trailed into slow motion as Lyra turned to face him and kicked into SATS. She saw his tears glitter in the air behind him as he slowly arced towards her, spiked horseshoes aimed at her head. He was nearly on top of her; SATS gave her an estimated 95% chance to hit him in the head with a magic bolt. But 95% is not 100%. Her bolt whizzed past his ear, and before she could take another shot his hoof connected with her face, punching three holes in her left cheek and knocking her ass over teakettle. She landed on her back in the snow, and he landed on top of her.

“I’ll tear your head off and shit in the hole!” Skull howled. His hoof connected with the side of her head, punching three new holes and rattling her brain in her skull. She entered SATS again. She’d better not miss, this time. 95% was still missing one time in twenty; was that the best she could do?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw half of the desk she’d kicked to pieces a little while ago. She couldn’t possibly miss with that.

Lyra grabbed it with her telekinesis and yanked it towards Skull’s head as hard as she could.

She hadn’t meant to kill him. She’d needed to kill Bullseye because she had the gun. Lyra had some idea of knocking Skull out and tying him up somewhere, like the heroine in a TV show might. But it wasn’t going to be that way. The jagged particleboard edge of the desk cut into his neck, tearing through the flesh, ripping open his veins and trachea. Hot blood sprayed in Lyra’s face. Then the desk drawers hit him, smashing his head to fragments. The desk and the remains of Skull’s severed head continued onward, arcing down the hill until they slammed into a tree.

Lyra shoved the rest of Skull’s corpse off of her, staggered away, vomited.

Down in the elevator shaft, she could still hear the pukwudgies feasting on Bullseye’s body.

It was over. It was over now. They were dead. She’d done what she needed to do. It was all right, at least neither of them had suffered.

From the elevator shaft, Bullseye let out an agonized, gurgling scream. Lyra vomited in the snow again and ran away.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra shivered in the dark in the back of her Cowvega. She’d have been warmer up in the shed by the stable door, but she couldn’t go back there again, not after what she’d done there. She’d sneaked back around sunset when she realized her stable jumpsuit and the towel she’d wrapped around her head to stop the bleeding wouldn’t be warm enough to get her through the night. She looted Skull’s cloak and boots and armor and hurried back to the relative familiarity and safety of her old station wagon.

Still too cold.

At least the floor was dry, having spent the last couple of decades as a ceiling.

She’d eaten the granola bar, which had done little to quiet her rumbling tummy. She was thirsty, and her mouth still tasted like throw up, but there was nothing to drink. Snow everywhere, and no water. Lyra didn’t know much about survival, but she knew you couldn’t just eat snow off the ground. She could light a fire with magic, sure, but she had nothing to boil the snow in. Worse, she was afraid the light of the fire would bring more raiders like Bullseye and Skull, and she was in no condition for another battle.

Raiders. That was a good name for them. That was their job—they raided things. Probably the only job left, these days.

Her PipBuck buzzed. She looked at the screen.

Your body temperature is dangerously low! warned Littlepip, waving her forelegs frantically. Please seek shelter immediately!

Lyra thought this was hilarious.

She laughed until she gagged.

Hours later, Lyra was still awake. She checked her PipBuck. It had been fifteen minutes since Littlepip’s hypothermia warning. Lyra groaned. If she could just fall asleep, the night would be over, and everything would still suck, but at least she wouldn’t be so cold anymore.

She stared ahead into the darkness. How could it be so dark? She couldn’t see anything—anything at all! It was so quiet out here that the silence made her ears ring. Except for when it wasn’t. Every once in a while, usually as Lyra was starting to drift into sleep, something would creak or groan out in the woods and Lyra would snap awake, paralyzed with fear. Then it would be quiet again.

Maybe she should light a fire? Sure, the light would help something find her and kill her, but as it was she was going to die of hypothermia. Did she know any warmth spells? A summon blanket spell maybe? Time travel back to a less shitty era? She didn’t, and she was so tired she wasn’t sure she could levitate a teakettle anyway.

She stared into the darkness. Lighting a fire would require fuel. She’d looked at the books in the saddlebags while it was still light. One was ‘A Young Mare’s Guide to Proper Lock Picking Etiquette’, that could be handy later, but the other one was the Leaftember issue of Pogue magazine from just before the war, which could probably be sacrificed. Fashion had likely moved on.

But it would only do for kindling. Any wood was out in the dark scary woods in the dark scary night.

Lyra moaned and closed her eyes. Images of her family drifted across her mind’s eye. She missed them so much already. She tried to think of something else. She saw the faces of the ponies she’d killed, instead, glaring at her, eyes full of hate. She saw Skull’s head being crushed, again and again, in even slower motion than it had happened the first time. Bullseye just sat there, weeping silently as pukwudgie fangs tore her face apart.

“Go away,” Lyra groaned. “I’m sorry I killed you! I’m sorry! Please leave me alone!”

But they wouldn’t go away.

“You heard her,” said a mare’s voice from the darkness. “Get lost.”

Skull and Bullseye faded into mist. A small gray mare in a stable jumpsuit cut off at the waist stepped through the chassis of the station wagon and sat down. Lyra squinted at her. Littlepip didn’t look much like she did on the vault screen. Hard-eyed, battle-scarred, shoulders and flanks bristling with a half dozen guns.

“How you doing, sport?” asked Littlepip.

“Hallucinating.”

Littlepip’s smiled. “I just wanted you to know that you get through this.”

“The wasteland?” said Lyra, watching in fascination as her breath curled like white steam in front of her muzzle. LIttlepip’s breath did not steam.

“No. You make it through tonight. There’s only one way out of the wasteland,” said Littlepip.

Lyra's ears perked up. "What's that?"

"Death."

"Oh. Not, like, a highway or a secret passage or something?"

"Nope. Only death."

Lyra hung her head. “I deserve to die. I killed ponies. Murdered them in cold blood.” Lyra rubbed at the wounds beneath the towel tied around her head.

Littlepip’s eyes gleamed with holy rage. “Those two were thieves, killers, rapists, and slavers. They deserved to die.”

“They were lovers,” said Lyra.

“They were cancer. It’s the job of ponies like you and me to cut that cancer out.” She stomped one of her hooves against the Cowvega’s floor four times to emphasize the last four words. “You have power, Lyra. You can make the wasteland a better place. Harmony sent me to make sure that you do.”

Lyra threw her forehooves over her face. “If Harmony cared about us we wouldn’t be in this horrible world. You’re worse than the Littlepip in my PipBuck. Please go away. I’m not killing anypony else.”

“Too late,” said Littlepip. “It’s morning.”

Lyra lowered her hooves and opened her eyes. Pale gray light filled the cabin of her car. She’d made it. She was alive! She hopped out into the snow, frolicking like a filly. Alive! Alive! Still hungry and thirsty and fucking freezing, but alive!

She stopped at the edge of the forest, breathing deeply, feeling her heart beat. Then she saw him, small and dappled brown, hiding in the shadow of a tree. Little Bean! He’d found her son! And he was still a foal!

Lyra ran into the woods, skull’s cloak streaming out behind her, calling her son’s name. “Bean! Bean! It’s mama!”

He turned and ran. When he hit the sunlight his brown coat became pale yellow, and Lyra saw that he wasn’t Bean at all. The unicorn filly, a blank flank wearing nothing but a dirty cloak, fled from her on three legs—the fourth was a stunted flipper; probably a birth defect caused by megaspell radiation. The poor thing. Lyra swore, but she followed her anyway.

Level 3
Perk: Magical Born Killer. Your magical attacks do 20% more damage. They’re super effective! Also, all non-lethal magic attacks do lethal damage instead. Sorry.

Chapter 4: The Penultimate Unicorn+

“Wait! Wait! I’m friendly!” Lyra raced after the young unicorn, and the unicorn ran faster.

Lyra realized that wearing raider armor and a bloody towel she might not look like the most trustworthy pony. “I’m trying to help!”

“Shut up shut up Shut up!” yelled the filly. “They’ll hear you!” The filly pounded through the snow, dodging around trees and under branches, leaping over fallen logs. How could she go so fast on three legs? Lyra struggled to keep up and soon had to stop and gasp for breath. When she looked up, the foal was gone.

“What am I ever trying to accomplish? This is none of my business,” Lyra muttered to herself as she stood there, panting. Who did she think she was? Some kind of hero? She didn't know what she was getting involved in, and anyway, that filly didn't seem to want her help. Feeling guilty but relieved, she turned to head back to her car.

She hadn’t taken ten steps before a squeaky scream tore through the air from deeper in the forest.

Lyra found the energy to run again. She leaped a rock to find the ground wasn’t on the same level on the other side. Landing on the slope of a hill, she skidded down it, four legs spread, spraying snow. At the bottom, an earth pony raider held the yellow foal in the crook of one foreleg, laughing at how she struggled and squealed.

“Hey!” called Lyra. He looked up, and she hit him in the face with a magic bolt. His head snapped back, breaking his neck. He fell, dropping the foal. Lyra’s heart sank—she hadn’t meant to kill him! That was supposed to be a non-lethal defensive spell! It was called a ‘self-defense bolt’, not an ‘instant murder bolt’. She’s never cast one in anger before yesterday. Apparently, she didn’t know her own strength.

“Don’t run! Don’t run!” said Lyra, skidding to a halt in front of the foal.

“Who are you?” she said, Looking up at Lyra with skeptical green eyes. One of her forelegs hung down limp, a useless flipper, but the other three were tensed and ready to run.

“My name is Lyra. I’m from a stable. I’m here to help. Where are your parents?” Lyra turned to look at the stallion she’d just murdered. She’d sworn to Littlepip she wasn’t going to kill again, and here she hadn’t even had coffee the next morning and she’d already broken her vow. A pistol hung at his shoulder in a leather rig. She pulled it from its holster and looked it over while she waited for the foal to answer. She recognized it as a Filly Arms 10mm, a nice gun in excellent condition.

The firing range had been a nice date for Beanpole and her, but she’d never owned a gun, and she wasn’t a great shot, even against paper targets. But SATS could help with that.

She turned the gun over and over in her magic. Was she really thinking of shooting people so casually? Everypony wonders what they’d be like when things get really bad. Lyra always worried she might be a coward. She didn’t seem to be. She was, instead, apparently fine with murder and looting.

Murder.

Her forelegs started to shake.

Deep breaths. Freak out about it later. This kid needs you now.

“Did you just kill that raider with magic?”

“Yes,” said Lyra, unable to meet the foal’s eyes.

The foal gasped. “Oh, my harmony that is so awesome!”

Lyra glanced sideways at her, shocked by her causal attitude towards violence. Well. The young were always very adaptable. “What happened to you? Do you have a family?”

“My name’s Paneer. Mom is hiding in the Fires of Friendship Museum with the other Minutemares. The raiders chased us, and I got scared and teleported away, and now I can’t get in. Because of the raiders. Can you kill them for me please?”

Lyra hesitated. “All of them?”

Paneer rose up on her hind legs and kicked her one good leg in a begging gesture, eyes wide and glistening. “Please?”

Lyra sighed. She decided to keep the pistol—it seemed less likely to inflict lethal wounds than her magic until she learned how to tone that down. She unbuckled the raider’s holster and strapped it on over her cloak. It had two extra clips in it. “I guess I’m going to get used to this. Fine. I’ll get you back to your mom, but I’m not killing anypony I don’t have to. Climb aboard.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra had been to the Fires of Friendship Museum exactly once, on a college road trip. At the time she had been very high, and very focused on avoiding Seawinkle and Bow Tie, who’d found out she was bi and were nagging her for a threesome. The only other time she’d been in Sanctuary Hills then was when she and Beanpole had made a dry run of their stable evacuation route. That time she’d been ten months pregnant and focused mainly on waiting for the next restroom break.

The upshot being that she had absolutely no pre-war area knowledge to draw on, and she was lost. Right now she crouched in the alley behind a burned out ice cream parlor with Paneer on her back. The sound of gunfire rattled through the town.

“Do you know how close we are?” Lyra whispered.

“I don’t remember,” said Paneer. “I remember it was next to a park.”

Lyra pointed out the end of the alley towards a block-sized square of scrub brush and dirty snow with a statue of an earth pilgrim in the middle. “That park?”

“I don’t remember! Ugh!” She felt Paneer slam her face against her back.

Lyra gritted her teeth. The gunfire was coming from the other side of that park. Hopefully, there was only one battle in town right now, but with the way things had been going in the wasteland, Lyra didn’t feel like she could be sure. “Okay. I’m gonna run for it.”

“Okay, cool,” said Paneer.

Lyra held her breath and darted out across the street. Dozens of hooves had passed here recently, tromping down the snow to an ugly brown mush. She made it halfway across the side of the park before she had to stop and collapse to her knees, gasping. Her lungs burned. There was no denying it—she was really out of shape.

“Oh my Harmony, what’s wrong with you?” said Paneer. “Are you having a heart attack?”

“Huff I’m… huff fine,” gasped Lyra.

“That was a really short run,” said Paneer. “You’re the fattest pony I’ve ever seen.”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“Can’t you use your magic or something?”

“I said I’m fine!” Lyra ran another half block to a fallen post office box half. Her legs felt like jello, and the inside of her jumpsuit was slick with sweat despite the cold. She pushed her head down under the snow to cool off her face.

On her back, she felt Paneer squirm around. “I see one!” she whispered. “Quick! Kill him!”

Lyra peeked over the edge of the mailbox. She saw the raider Paneer was talking about, squatting behind a burned out car sighting down a long rifle on a shoulder mount. Lyra didn’t want to use up all her magic on one pony if there were as many raiders as she thought there were. She activated SATS anyway, just to see how feasible it was.

“15%?” muttered Lyra. “He’s across the freaking street!” SATS didn’t compensate for her poor aim as much as she would have liked. She tried again with the pistol, and that gave even worse odds.

She put away her pistol. Better to try and slip between the buildings to the raider’s right and hope he didn’t have any friends down that way.

“You’re not going to shoot him?” said Paneer.

“Listen, kid, I don’t know how you were raised, but where I come from killing isn’t considered a great thing to do. Hold on tight, I’m gonna try to sneak past him.”

“Lame,” muttered Paneer.

The raider looked through the scope on his rifle and started firing. Lyra hunkered down, but when no bullets whistled over them she decided that they weren't the target. She crept out from beside the mailbox, Paneer on her back. The snow muffled her footsteps, but if he turned his head he’d see them, so she had a spell at the ready. He kept firing. Lyra took a deep breath and ran into the alley.

Her EFS blossomed with red pips as she advanced. Some of them had little red arrows above them; she wondered what that meant? She couldn’t see them yet, and one of them had seen her, but…

“Hey, you hear something?” said a stallion’s voice from directly overhead.

Lyra Froze. She felt Paneer stop breathing. The little arrows meant the enemy was above her! Obviously! How had she not realized that? She looked up and met the eyes of two raiders looking down at her through an apartment building’s fire escape. One of them opened his mouth and went for the pistol holstered at his shoulder.

Lyra closed her eyes and cast the spell she’d prepared—not a magic bolt, but a common fireworks spell. Light and noise filled the alley, blinding and deafening the raiders, and she ran, dodging dumpsters and leaping over trash cans.

The alley ended in a parking lot littered with ruined cars. She could see the Fires of Friendship museum, a three-story building just block away, whose top story had been taken out by the vertibird crashed into its roof. She looked at the red pips moving on her EFS. As far as the could tell, a lot of raiders were moving towards the place she’d set off her fireworks spell a minute and a half ago. Since she wasn’t there anymore, she had a minute to think…

“There she is!” said a voice from up the alley.

So she didn’t have a moment to think. She shot a firework spell straight backward, not even looking. Flashes and loud bangs swelled behind her. She raised a shield behind her rump and ran for the nearest car. The raiders in the alley shouted and screamed, but they were probably fine—that spell had been designed as a safer alternative to conventional fireworks—and they’d be after her in a minute. Lyra ducked from car to car, heading for a block of shops on the other side of the parking lot.

Bullets began to bounce off her shield. They also slammed into the cars around her. That wasn’t good—some of these cars had spark drives. If a bullet penetrated the engine block, the explosion would wipe this parking lot off the map.

She put a magic bolt through the glass door of a sub shop, leaped through, and raced behind the counter. Paneer trembled against her back.

“Are you okay, kid?” said Lyra.

“I’m fine,” said Paneer, sounding like she was about to start crying.

“I’ll keep you safe,” said Lyra, but she wasn’t sure she could. Bullets whistled overhead and thudded into the counter. Lyra had a clear path through the kitchen to the rear door, but red dots were already swarming her EFS compass, heading for that very door. Lyra gritted her teeth, put a dome shield over herself and Paneer, and pulled out her pistol. She wasn’t going to go down easy.

The back door flew off its hinges. Raiders came through in single file, armed to teeth, faces full of mean. Lyra’s heart stopped. She began to panic.

Then she had an idea.

She activated SATS and took a few seconds to place a simple illusion — just a green and blue vaguely pony shaped blur — in front of the door.

“What the hell?” said the first raider as the illusion turned him into a vague approximation of Lyra. Then the raiders outside the front of the shop shot him six times, and he fell with a soft groan.

“Got her!” said one of the raiders out front. Then another raider came through the back door. “No, shit! There she is again!” A burst of gunfire and that raider fell.

The raiders kept coming through the back door, and the raiders out front kept shooting them down until the back door was clear.

“That was so cool!” whispered Paneer, her voice still shaky.

“Raiders aren’t very smart, are they?” said Lyra.

“Nope.”

“Okay. Gonna run again.” She dismissed her illusion, and sneaked across the kitchen and out the back door, keeping low until she was in the alley behind the sub shop. The museum wasn’t far away at all now, just around the next building and across the street, but there were red dots everywhere. One came towards the mouth of the alley she was in. Lyra ducked behind a dumpster and held her breath, hoping Paneer had the sense to keep quiet.

Lyra watched the red dot move across the compass dial of her EFS.

“Guys?” the raider said. “Guys? Did you get her?”

Lyra leveled her gun, ready to blast the raider when they came around the corner. But when their armored face and breast came into view, she just couldn’t do it. She could not pull the trigger and put a bullet in a pony in cold blood. It was stupid! She’d killed three ponies already! Nine if you counted tricking raiders into killing each other.

The raider pony turned her head and met Lyra’s eyes. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hi,” said Lyra, eyes wide. Her whole body shook. The pistol wobbled in her telekinetic grip.

The raider ducked her head towards the crude homemade revolver holstered at her shoulder. Paneer screamed. Lyra yanked hard on her pistol’s trigger, firing three times. Between recoil and Lyra’s unsteady magical grip, the pistol’s muzzle pointed skyward by the third shot.

But the raider went down, moaning. At least one of those shots had hit. Lyra grabbed the raider's gun with her magic and ran. She heard shouting and pounding hooves from inside the sub shop. The raiders had realized their mistake. Lyra turned down a narrow adjoining alley, the space barely wide enough for her to pass through. She blasted an obstructing trash bin out of the way and ran after it, summoning a dome shield as soon as there was enough room to cast the spell.

The Fires of Friendship museum stood diagonally across the street to Lyra’s left. Large double doors stood, bullet-pocked but intact, under a marquee decorated with statues of two windigos menacing the founders of Equestria. A ring of improvised barricades surrounded it, with at least a couple of raiders behind each barricade.

All gunfire stopped. For a few moments, the entire town of Sanctuary Hills was silent, except for Paneer’s high, thin scream. As one, the raiders turned towards Lyra. Then they started firing.

Bullets slammed into Lyra’s shield in every direction. Transferred kinetic energy made her feel like her body was being pelted with rocks. Her horn pulsed with pain with every bullet impact. It was the strongest shield she could cast right now, but it was an eggshell compared to what she’d cast on the Bad Day. Her magic still hadn’t recovered from that.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably about three seconds, the gunfire petered out as the raiders emptied their clips. Clicking sounds filled the street as they reloaded. Up on the museum marquee, a seventh pony rose from between the founders of Equestria, red-coated, with a pink mane and magenta eyes. She wore a dark blue jacket and wielded a combat rifle mounted on a military shoulder rig.

“Crispy!” the red mare roared. “Open the door! It’s Paneer!” Then she sighted down the top of her rifle. Raider’s heads began exploding.

One of the museum doors cracked open, and a brown stallion with a curly mane and a combat shotgun poked his head out and started firing.

Lyra had just enough magic left to teleport, and a clear line of sight through the door. She visualized the spell matrix and her horn began to glow. A moment before she folded space she heard the sound of breaking glass and a half dozen burning bees drilled into her body. Three tore hot lines across her sides. Another three tore right through her body, in the belly, the hips and the chest.

Light flashed, and she landed in the museum lobby. Paneer fell off her back. Was Paneer dead?

She hadn’t fallen. She’d jumped, and she now ran in circles, screaming, “Mom, Mom, Mom! Lyra’s hurt? Get a stimpack!”

Lyra looked at the wooden floor. Old fashioned unfinished hardwood held down with big iron bolts. Blood sprayed across it in spurts. Her blood. She tried to talk to say she was okay, it didn’t hurt at all, but she just coughed up blood. She couldn’t breathe—her lungs were full of blood and she was drowning in a dry room. The floor rushed up towards her and punched her in the jaw.

Gunfire kept up outside until a couple of explosions hammered at Lyra’s eardrums.

“Yeah! You’d better run! There’s plenty more where that came from!” said Crispy’s voice from nearby.

It was very dark in here. Ponies milled around her, some hanging from the ceiling. A pony with the cross-shaped grip of a stimpack in her mouth loomed over her. Yes. Yes. She needed that. She tried to reach for it but she couldn’t move her legs.

“Trail Mix! Put that down!” said the red mare’s voice from out of the darkness. “Don’t waste a stimpack on her! We don’t know who she is!”

“Mom, no! She saved me!” whined Paneer, her voice trembling near tears. “She saved me!”

“The stimpacks are for Minutemares!”

Actual sobs now. “Mom, please!”

“Really, Vindaloo?” said Crispy. “She saved your damn kid. Trail Mix, give me that!”

Lyra’s back arched as a spike drove into her chest. The stimpack hissed, forcing a cocktail of healing potions and pain killers directly into her heart. An uncanny cold, tingling sensation spread through her body.

She could move again. She rolled over, coughing up blood. She felt a presence looming over her and rolled her eyes upward. The earth pony mare called Vindaloo loomed over her, her rifle at rest against her chest, glaring lasers at Lyra. Lyra noticed she had a gold pin in the shape of a leaf on the shoulder of her ragged jacket.

“You know the rules, Major,” said Vindaloo. “Stimpacks are for Minutmares. Not for civilians, and definitely not for foal-stealing spies.”

“She ain’t a spy, Major,” said Crispy. He was tall and big-boned—rail-thin like every pony she’d seen outside the stable, but he looked like he’d be a tank if he got a few square meals in him. The mane on his neck was pulled back in a sort of puffy ponytail. He wore the same blue coat as Vindaloo, with the same gold leaf pin. “And I doubt she stole your foal.”

Vindaloo stamped. “Somepony teleported her away from us!”

“No, Mom!” shouted Paneer. “I teleported myself away!”

Vindaloo turned her searing gaze on her daughter. “You can barely cast levitation spells. Since when do you know how to teleport?”

Paneer’s ears laid back against her head and her tail, which had been whipping fiercely, fell. “I don’t. I don’t know how I did it. I was afraid of the raiders, and I wanted to be somewhere else and… and… I just was!”

“Likely damn story. Why are you protecting her? What did she do to you?” said Vindaloo.

Lyra had enough blood out of her lungs that she could speak up for herself, and she didn’t hesitate. “Wild magic. Unicorn foals sometimes manifest powers they haven’t learned.”

“Did I ask you a question, foal stealer?” growled Vindaloo, pressing in until she was nose to nose with Lyra.

Crispy stamped a hoof irritably. “It’s over, Vin. She’s with us now. One of us needs to get back to guarding the door.”

Vindaloo kicked her rifle up to a ready position with her knee.”Fine. If no one’s going to respect my authority, I’ll go back to popping skulls. Paneer. Come with me, and keep your head down. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

Paneer put her head down and lashed her tail. “No! I don’t wanna talk to you! You’re mean!” She turned and charged off into the depths of the museum.

“PANEER!” Vindaloo screamed after her fleeing daughter. “You get back here!”

Crispy sighed. “She’ll be fine, Vin.”

Vindaloo blew out through her nose. It wasn’t hard to imagine fire flying out of her nostrils. She spun around and stormed off to her perch over the marquee.

Lyra looked herself over. Her jumpsuit was ripped up and full of holes. Her body was in better shape—raw and tender where she’d been shot, but the bleeding had stopped and if her internal organs were still perforated, they weren’t essential ones. She’d never been on the receiving end of a stimpack before, but they sure did their job.

Satisfied she wasn’t dying, she turned her attention to the museum. The only elements of the old foyer that survived were the husk of the welcome desk and a naked rotting mannequin whose sign said it was supposed to represent a Unicornian Sun Acolyte.

Thirty or forty filthy, rawboned earth ponies slouched or lay sprawled around the edges of the room, sitting on grubby bedrolls or duffel bags and scratching at their mangy bodies. There truly were ponies hanging from the rafters; that hadn’t been a hallucination. They were thestrals! Lyra had rarely seen a thestral before—they mainly went out at night and kept to themselves. Apparently, they were more common now. One of the three wore a blue coat like Crispy and Vindaloo’s; the only other pony here wearing one. She was fat, too! Incredibly fat!

No. Wait. She wasn’t fat. She was pregnant. Very, very pregnant.

Lyra turned to Crispy, who was watching her with an evaluating gaze. “Minutemares,” she said. “Like the old earth pony militia. Are you all Minutemares?”

“Nope,” said Crispy. “These are all refugees. The only Minutemares are Vin and me. Plus Specialist Blue Note, but she’s on maternity.”

“Blue Note is still able to fight, sir!” she said. Her slit-pupiled eyes picked Lyra apart with a predatory glare—she must be on Vindaloo’s team.

“You decided you were makin’ us a new soldier,” said Crispy. “You’re welcome back in the front lines when you’re done. Anyway, we’ve only got two guns.”

“Blue Note is happy to use either one, sir. Or both at once, if need be.”

Crispy laughed. “Tell you what. I need to round up Paneer and debrief our captive. You’re on grenade duty until I get back.”

“Blue Note is pleased.” She glided over to sit on her haunches between the doors and an ammo case labeled ‘warning high explosives’.

Crispy nodded her towards the inside of the museum and started walking.

“Captive?” said Lyra, following his lead.

“Just ‘cause I didn’t want you to die doesn’t mean I trust you. Stay where I can see you. If you try to sneak off or if your horn starts glowing without my say so, I will cap you,” said Crispy with a gentle smile. “Nothing personal, but General Horse Teeth told Vindaloo and me to keep these civilians safe, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”

“Okkaaay,” said Lyra walking close by Crispy’s side. “So, you have two Majors and one Specialist in your militia? That’s a funny kind of army.”

Crispy’s face fell. “Things went bad. They went really bad."

“What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Well, Lyra Heartstrings, the Ponysmith happened.”

“I’ve heard that name before. Who is he?”

Crispy gave her a skeptical sidelong look. “You new around here?”

Lyra pointed at her jumpsuit. “I’ve been out of the loop. I hear he collects unicorns.”

“He sure does. I was wondering about the stable suit. And the PipBuck. You know how to use that thing?”

Lyra grinned proudly. “I sure do.”

Crispy nodded. “Sounds like we’ve got a lot to talk about. But I think we’ve found who we’re looking for. Paneer?”

Paneer ignored him. She leaned on a display case in the Clover the Clever room, her horn glowing with a fitful and flickering light.

“You gotta come back with us, kid,” said Crispy.

“I don’t wanna,” said Paneer, not looking up from reading. The artifacts here had all been looted, but the plaques describing them were still here, and Paneer was reading them with an expression like a starving pony who’d just found a granola bar.

Lyra’s stomach rumbled. She could go for a granola bar herself. Or anything. Anything would be good.

“Your Mom’s rough, kid. But she loves you. That’s why she gets mad,” said Crispy

“I know,” said Paneer. “I still hate it.” She gestured at Lyra with her flipper. “So, now that we have her, can we get out of here?”

Crispy raised his eyebrows at Paneer. “She’s just one pony, kid.”

“She’s an amazing wizard! You should have seen her!” Paneer waved her foreleg and her flipper in mystical gestures. “She used so much magic! It was insane! She was like, ‘WOOSH! BANG! POP!’ And then she made a shield! And she made the raiders shoot each other and… and…!”

“Deep breaths, kid,” said Crispy.

Lyra raised an eyebrow at Crispy. “Are you trapped here?”

Crispy nodded. “Under siege. This raider gang picked us up not long after we left Breeder’s Hill. They’ve been following us for two days, picking off our soldiers one at a time. Figure they want the civilians for slaves.”

“Why don’t they just storm this place?

“Because we’ve got that box of hoof grenades,” said Crispy. “We can’t watch every entrance, but we’ve barricaded the windows, and set up some nasty surprises at the other doors. Raiders aren’t gonna die for a payday, but they’re not going to leave until they starve us out.”

“So we use her magic!” said Paneer. “Hello!”

Lyra wanted to laugh at Paneer’s enthusiasm. The little filly had pluck, and she bounced back quickly. Trauma must be a way of life for kids in the wasteland. “There’s a Vertibird crashed on your roof, you know.”

Crispy snapped his head towards Lyra, eyes wide. “Whoa. No shit?”

Lyra blinked. “Yeah. It’s sticking right out there, I don’t know how you could have missed it…” she trailed off. “Wait. You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”

Crispy smirked. “You gonna make it fly again?

“I bet she could!” said Paneer.

“Probably not,” said Lyra. “But is there anything useful up there?”

“Oh, it’s a fucking treasure trove. Minigun; but it’s bolted to the deck and facing the wrong way and we don’t have the tools to get it off. Plenty of 5mm ammo that somehow hasn’t been looted, but the minigun is literally the only weapon in existence that uses that. A full suit of P-45 power armor that doesn’t work. Why? You a mechanic or something?”

Lyra hesitated. What was she? A wannabe inventor who never finished anything? A horsewife? A delivery driver? A dreamer? A loser? Prickly as they were, Crispy and Vindaloo were probably as friendly ponies as she was going to find out here. Better put her best hoof forward, and if she couldn’t live up to her own hype she’d deal with the fallout then. “I’m an inventor.”

Crispy looked at her down the top of his snout. “Can you invent a way to fix that power armor?”

“Yeah,” said Lyra, with an enthusiasm she didn’t feel. “I mean, I think I can. I even have tools…” She facehoofed. “No, I left them in my car.”

Crispy’s eyes widened again, with genuine shock this time. “You have a car?”

“Not a working one. It’s a long story. I have a multi-tool, some duct tape, a towel, and my magic. It should be enough. Where’s the armor?”

“I’ll take you.” Crispy pointed at Paneer with a hoof. “You. Go back to your mom.”

Paneer hopped up and down in a wobbly three-legged hop. “But I wanna help!”

“It’s too dangerous. We’re gonna be exposed up on that roof, and if you’re gonna get shot it’s not gonna be while I’m watching you.”

Paneer stomped furiously. “Fucker!” But she stomped off towards the front of the museum obediently.

Crispy and Lyra headed for the third floor, but before they had even reached the elevator, ragged waves of gunfire began to sound from the front of the museum, broken by the regular single shots that seemed to be Vindaloo’s signature style.

Then came the blast of a hand grenade, followed by another.

“They’re trying to fight their way in. We’d better hurry,” said Crispy.

Level 4.
Perk: Avoidant behavior. Add 20% to stealth against targets you just don’t want to deal with right now.

Chapter 5: Earth Ponies OP, Plz Nerf+

The Fires of Friendship Museum’s main attraction had been a cyclorama—a full circle mural that dramatized the battle against the windigos, supported lights and sounds. Considered a tour de force when it was new, by the late Celestial period it’d passed to being embarrassingly quaint. When college-aged Lyra had slept through it, it was so antiquated its continued existence served as an exhibit in its own right.

In the present moment, the paint was peeling, the art had been vandalized, and it featured an update in the form of a military ornithopter transport crashed through it.

The vertibird’s glass bubble nose had shattered when it slammed through the wall. Its delicate mechanical wings were twisted and bent. Crispy climbed up the stump of the vertibird’s machine gun turret and into the cockpit. Lyra followed him. A pile of metal plates and gears slumped against the back of the copilot’s seat; it took a moment for it to resolve itself into an open suit of power armor. The outside of the armor was painted royal purple. The inside sported a padded adjustable harness, mouth and hoof controls, and two large, dead screens where the wearer’s eyes would be.

Lyra looked up at the back half of the vertibird—the cabin was open to the cockpit, and she could see through the open side doors that it stuck out in the air over the museum. There was the minigun Crispy had mentioned, mounted pointing towards the top of the museum’s dome.

The other door had a good view of the streets below the museum’s front door. Lyra climbed up to look out and a bullet pinged off the aircraft’s frame. She yelped and let her self slide back behind the pilot’s seat.

“You see some of the challenges here,” said Crispy wryly.

Lyra narrowed her eyes with determination. “Yes. But I see something I can do right away. Hold on.” She summoned a half dozen telekinetic hands, some of them holding force field wrenches and screwdrivers, and set to work removing the minigun and its mount from the floor of the vertibird cabin.

“Hands?” said Crispy. “Really? What are you, six?”

Lyra blushed. “I just like humans, okay?” Her overused horn ached as she lifted the gun and turned it around. She’d used a lot of magic already today, and it was starting to drain her reserves. At least Littlepip was keeping her mouth shut. Lyra’s magic hands bolted the minigun into the slots set up for it at the other door. Easy as pie.

Lyra’s stomach rumbled. She missed pie.

She started to work on the power armor. A bullet punched through the vertibird’s hull and whistled past her head. “What the heck! This thing isn’t bulletproof?”

“Nope. No armor. These things go down pretty easy, actually. I’ll cover you.” Crispy hauled himself up so that he was half resting on, half hanging off the minigun mount. A bullet plucked at his coat, leaving a red line across his side. He started firing.

The minigun let out a vicious tearing noise, more like Harmony’s vacuum cleaner than what she’d expect from a gun. Bright flashes of tracer fire sparkled around the mouth of the gun, leaving bright streaks in Lyra’s vision. Crispy kept the barrels spinning, but only fired in short, controlled bursts. “Hurry!” he said. “My ammo ain’t gonna last forever!”
Lyra heaved herself over to sit on the back of the co-pilot’s seat. She’d seen suits of power armor before, of course, but never this close.

It was huge—adjustable padding inside made it adjustable to fit any size pony, including ponies Crispy’s size or bigger. It might as well be a house. Her stomach sank. Where did she even start? Why had she said she could fix this? She was going to fail, and her new friends were going to realize she was a phony, and kick her out.

No. They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t have to. If she didn’t do this, the raiders would starve them out or find a way to break into a museum, and if she was very, very lucky she might be killed in the battle.

All right. She could do this. Where to start? She remembered there being something that looked like an access panel somewhere on the belly of the P-45 model. She found it and started to unscrew it. She floated the screws off to the side as she worked; with no place to put them down, this was going to be awkward.

“I can hold those!” said Paneer from beneath her, shouting to be heard over the sound of Crispy’s minigun.

“You’re supposed to be with your mom!”

“I wanna help!” said Paneer.

Lyra ground her teeth in frustration. If Paneer caught a bullet Vindaloo would eat Lyra alive—possibly literally. But the little unicorn foal was out of the direct line of fire, and Lyra could use somepony to hold her screws. She shoved them at Paneer. “Can you hold these?”

Paneer grinned from ear to ear. “I can!” The screws wobbled in her telekinetic grasp, but she didn’t drop any.

Lyra could focus on the power armor now. She floated the access panel off. She didn’t recognize everything, but she recognized the spark battery—its power indicator flickered fitfully, and there was a port for a data transfer cable. She pulled out the cable on her PipBuck, and it fit!

You seem to be attempting to repair a suit of power armor, said Littlepip, bouncing up from the bottom of the Pipbuck’s screen. Would you like some help?

Lyra mashed the ‘yes’ button without hesitation, for once grateful to see the little bastard.

Performing diagnostics! said Littlepip, and then bounced back down out of her way. Several progress bars appeared in her place. While she waited, Lyra poked around the rest of the power armor’s guts. Power armor was a grotesque chimera on the inside — a hybrid of spell matrices, conventional electronics, and good old fashioned Ministry of Wartime Technology pistons and gears. Lyra wasn’t familiar with all the bits and pieces, but everything looked okay! She summoned a telekinetic screwdriver and tightened some connections until her PipBuck buzzed softly against her wrist to tell her that the diagnostics were done.

The spark battery seemed to be the problem, but what should she do about that? She blundered through some menus trying to find if there was a way to recharge it. Finally, Littlepip decided she was an idiot and popped up from the bottom of the screen again.

Would you like me to attempt to jump-start the power armor’s spark battery off the spark battery in your PipBuck?

Lyra cringed. She was wearing a spark battery on her wrist? Oh, that wasn’t a pleasant thought. Though it did explain how the thing hadn’t run out of batteries in twenty years. She mashed ‘yes’ and two cables extruded themselves from the back of her PipBuck. She plugged them into the terminals of the core and hoped for the best.

The open helmet of the power armor lit up. The eye screens flickered to life, scrolling lines of data before switching over to outside cameras.

Lyra whooped, tugged the screws away from Paneer, and locked down the access panel, with a couple of strips of duct tape to be extra safe. “Crispy! Get your ass in this thing!”

Crispy slid down the sloped deck of the vertibird. He attached his shotgun to a hardpoint on the armor’s battle saddle, grabbed the edges of the shoulder plates, and swung himself inside. “Can you handle the minigun?” he asked as the power armor’s plates hissed closed.

“I can point it at them and pull the trigger. Can’t guarantee I’ll hit anything.”

“Suppressing fire is enough. Slow, controlled bursts. Don’t shoot me in the back.” The power armor’s speakers made Crispy’s baritone even louder and deeper than it already was.

He bunched up his metal-plated haunches, gears hissing, and cleared the roof of the museum in one leap. Lyra and Paneer scrambled to the vertibird’s door just in time to see him slam into the street below, leaving four deep pits in the battered asphalt. All around him, raiders turned to him and raised their weapons. Bullets sparked and pinged off his armor. They didn’t even nick the paint.

“Whoa,” intoned Paneer.

“Get down!” Lyra hissed at her. “You’ll get shot!”

“No I won’t,” said Paneer, not looking away from the carnage beneath them. Crispy turned in a deliberate circle, knocking down groups of raiders with three round bursts from his shotgun.

One raider ran at him from behind with what appeared to be a sharpened pool cue. Without looking, he kicked his back legs and snapped their spine.

Lyra growled. “You’re gonna get down because if you don’t I’m going to spank you raw. Then I’m going to give you to your mom, and she’ll do it again.”

Paneer glared at her, and slunk out of sight, if probably not to safety. Lyra slid her hooves into the grips of the minigun and spun up the barrels. She didn’t want to shoot anypony else today, and Crispy seemed to have a handle on things down there. She just needed to…

Oh no.

Down the end of the street near the park, a pony rose up from behind a wrecked car holding… some sort of massive metal slingshot. A comical weapon, but Lyra felt that tingly feeling at the base of her spine when she looked at the very large bomb sitting in its cradle.

SATS loved the minigun. It let her line up over a dozen shots with just one charge, each of which she guessed might be more than one actual round. She vaguely remembered Crispy saying something about ‘slow, controlled bursts’, but decided she could make an exception just this once.

She pulled the trigger, and the minigun emptied its entire remaining ammo stock into the slingshot wielding raider. Lyra watched in fascinated disgust as his whole body disintegrated into a haze of red goo. The slingshot triggered as it tumbled out of the ex-pony’s arms, discharging into the pavement at his hooves.

The entire world turned white. Lyra shrieked in post-traumatic horror as a miniature megaspell tore through half the block. She fell backward, grabbing the pilot’s seat at the last moment before tumbling out of the vertibird and onto the floor below.

A chain of smaller explosions shook the museum—most likely vehicles’ fusion cores being cooked off by the mini-megaspell. Suddenly she was back at the mouth of Stable 93, a roiling shockwave rushing towards her. Her chest felt constricted by bands of hot iron. She was shaking, sobbing… and… shaking more? Very violently. She’d fallen the rest of the way to the cyclorama room floor, and Vindaloo was shaking her.

“Lyra! Lyra! Snap out of it! We need you!” she growled.

Lyra sobbed something incoherent. Even she wasn’t sure what she said.

Vindaloo slapped her cheek.

Lyra stared at her, open-mouthed. What the heck? Who did that! She hauled off and slapped Vindaloo back. It was like kicking a concrete foundation.

“We need your help,” said Vindaloo, looking mildly contemptuous. Lyra’s hoof hurt, probably much more than Vin’s cheek did. “The raiders are gone, but Crispy’s stuck.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The mini-megaspell blast had fried the power armor’s electronics. Lyra felt they ought to be shielded against that sort of thing, but maybe the crash had damaged that, or she hadn’t put the access panel back on right. She should have used more duct tape. What’s more, the emergency escape level was jammed.

It took her, Vindaloo, and two of the healthier refugees fifteen minutes with a crowbar to force it open.

“It’s about Harmony damn time,” said Crispy.

Vindaloo sent out scouts from amongst the civilians with orders to sound a warning if any of the few surviving raiders came back, and set the rest of them to loot the dead. Lyra didn’t feel excited by that idea—she’d describe her feelings about looting corpses more along the lines of ‘nauseous’—so she started fussing with the power armor. All the mechanical stuff was still fine; she even got the manual release lever working again, though the cover wouldn’t go back on. But the magic and electronics were hopeless. She sweet-talked her PipBuck into letting her look at the armor’s primary spell matrix. There was no there there. She’d need to copy with firmspell off a compatible model of power armor to even hope to get the thing running again. Either that or rewrite the spell matrix herself, which didn’t seem like a realistic goal.

She did find one interesting thing—an audio recording in the armor’s saddlebags. It was labeled 'To Whoever Finds this Armor'. Lyra popped the thing into her PipBuck’s audio slot. It started with several seconds of static before an elderly mare’s voice cut in, cool, calm, and familiar sounding.

Twilight’s gone.

Lyra stopped the tape. Of course, Twilight was gone. She couldn’t have survived the war—despite her many, many flaws, Twilight would never leave Equestria like this. That was fine. She hated Twilight. So why was her throat tightening? She started the tape again.

I’m done with war. The things I saw today… I’m done.

I’ve been fighting since I was a foal. I’ve battled monsters, lead armies, captured cities… That was why Lyra remembered the voice— she’d heard it on the news, and in Canterlot on a different Bad Day many years ago. Field Marshal Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Twilight’s highest general and rumored lover. If anypony knew what’d happened to Twilight on the Bad Day, it would have been her.

I thought I’d seen everything. But what I saw today… Cities wreathed in fire. Canterlot choked in magic gas. Two nations wiped off the map. Twilight… Twilight… I’m done.

The tape went silent for a moment. Lyra guessed it was Fizzle trying to keep her emotions in check, rather than lost data. She could relate. She checked the date stamp on the recording. Scaretober 24rd, EoH 27. The day after the Bad Day. Fizzle was going through the same thing that Lyra herself was right now, twenty years later. Everypony around Lyra right now her had grown up with this new world; none of them could have been older than Paneer on the Bad Day. Many of them might not even have been born. Fizzle was far from Lyra’s favorite pony, but hearing her speak brought the reality of what had happened home to Lyra in a new way. Lyra clenched her teeth, trying not to cry.

So. If you’re listening to this, I’m going to assume you’re a survivor, and you’ll need help. The most important thing to know is that Buckstone got it better than most places in Equestria. Lt. Hot Wings and I had to fly for a long time before we found anyplace safe to land. By which time landing was kind of forced on us if you know what I mean. So don’t go off on a quest looking for the end of the rainbow. It’s here.

“Good to know,” said Lyra bitterly.

The second thing is critical. If you’re going to survive, you absolutely have to…

And here the recording broke into static for a full minute and a half.

I hope you took notes.

Lyra scowled. “Well, that was helpful.” Maybe she could go back and try to glean some data out of that section later.

The power armor is yours. Try to use it to do some good in the world. If I hear somepony is using it for pillage and conquest, I might just come out of retirement and kick your ass. The spark battery’s a bit wonky, the escape lever sticks, and I think the megaspell shielding is wearing out. It’s certainly been exposed to enough radiation.

Lyra sighed. At least all the information she already had was intact.

So I’m heading… somewhere. I don’t have any right to have survived this. Not when so many ponies better than me have died. But Twilight entrusted me with… More static. I owe her memory that. Maybe I’ll share what’s on it one day. Maybe I’ll melt it into a puddle. I haven’t decided.

Lyra narrowed her eyes. How did one go about melting a memory? Ah, that was probably just Fizzle being unhinged.

Whoever’s listening to this, whatever you do, and wherever you go, good luck. We’ve had the worst war possible. I like to think that maybe after this we can all be done with war, and talk instead of fighting. But I’m not getting my hopes up.

One last thing: if you’re a loved one of Lt. Hot Wings, I’m burying him… Static. Know that he died bravely.

This is Field Marshal Fizzlepop Berrytwist, retired, signing out.

Lyra closed her eyes and rested the top of her head against the side of Fizzle’s power armor.

Crispy tapped her on the shoulder. “Getting anywhere?”

“Not really. The megaspell blast messed this thing up. Do ponies really still use megaspells?”

“If they can find ‘em,” said Crispy.

“Well, that’s not gonna help things get back to normal.”

“What’s normal?” said Crispy, unslinging a sack full of weapons and ammo from his back. “You any good with guns?”

Lyra pulled the sack open with a telekinetic hand and pulled out a small-caliber revolver similar to the one she’d stolen from the raider she’d shot earlier. “They’re not my specialty, but I know my way around them.”

“That’s good enough,” Crispy grunted. “You seem to pick stuff up quick.”

“Do you mind if I fire them off to test them? I don’t want them blowing up in somepony’s mouth.”

Crispy just nodded. “Should be fine.”

Beanpole would have giggled and blushed like a middle schooler at the thought of things blowing up in his wife’s mouth. “All right,” said Lyra, struggling to keep her voice steady. “Let me have a look.”

She lost herself in inventorying, examining, and cleaning the weapons. Some were obviously unusable; she broke these down for parts. The raiders seemed to favor small caliber ammo; a lot of the guns had been rechambered to take .38 caliber rounds. It seemed a bit clever for raiders to simplify their logistical chain by using a single ammo type, but at least she didn’t have to waste a ton of time sorting bullets. They used a lot of shotgun shells, too, but those were easy to tell apart.

At some point somepony brought her the sniper rifle—half-melted by the mini-megaspell, but the scope was still intact. It looked like it might fit on Vindaloo’s rifle. She seemed like a careful shooter, it might make a good peace offering. Not that Lyra felt a need to make peace with the pony who would’ve let her die.

Though Lyra was starting to wonder if it would’ve been better if Vindaloo had let her die. The wasteland was worse than she could have imagined. What did she have to hope for?

She had to focus on finding her family again. That was something to hope for. She couldn’t just give up on that.

Once every weapon was cleaned and sorted, she started to fix up borderline guns with bits from the broken ones. Then she started to check her work, magically holding them on the other side of the power armor and firing a couple of rounds from each repaired weapon. Or at least that was the plan; she was on her second gun when Vindaloo stormed over, coat tails flapping with the speed of her passage.

“What the actual fuck are you doing?” Vindaloo snarled. Paneer peeked out from around her hind leg, gaze darting between Lyra and her mom.

“Crispy asked me to fix these guns,” said Lyra, leaning away from Vindaloo. “I was testing them.” She hated how apologetic her voice sounded, but Vindaloo had taken her by surprise

“You’re giving away our fucking position is what you’re fucking doing!” roared Vindaloo.

“I… I don’t.” Lyra held a foreleg up to block the flecks of spit flying from Vindaloo’s lips.

Crispy came charging over, broken asphalt and dirty snow flying out from under his hooves. “Hey! Vin! What’re you doing to the new mare?”

Vindaloo rounded on him. “Did you tell her she could fire off guns like crazy?”

“No. Just a couple of rounds to test ‘em. Which is what she was doing.”

“She’s going to bring more raiders down on us! Your new pet’s gonna get us killed.”

“She ain’t my pet, and ain’t no raider runs towards the sound of guns.”

Vindaloo stomped. “There’s more than just raiders out there and you know it. You also know we have to consult each other before giving orders. We’re the same rank! I don’t need you going over my head! Unless you want to split the group in half?”

“Why you gotta take it to extremes, Vin? We can share power without needing to wipe each other’s asses. I ain’t gonna check with you for every call.”

Lyra found her courage and piped up. “Listen. I’m done for now. It’s starting to snow, anyway. Most of these are fine. I’ll just… do the rest later. When it’s safer.” She levitated up the guns she’d been working on, and started stuffing them in the sack. Spare parts went in her saddlebag—including that scope. Fuck peace offerings, Vindaloo didn’t deserve it. “Where do you want the ammo?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

For the first time since she’d woken up in the stable. Lyra felt warm. Too warm.

The Minutemares and associated refugees had set up camp in the museum’s basement cafeteria. Lyra had helped them strip a patch of kitchen floor down to the bare stone foundation, and Vindaloo had built a cooking fire. Her heart had sunk when she’s seen Vindaloo pulling boxes of Dressage Horse apples out of their supply bags—she hated those. But Vidaloo had also pulled out a big bottle of oil and a small plastic container of salt that she handled like it was a holy relic. Now the smell of frying apples filled the small space, making Lyra’s stomach rumble and twist.

It was evening, and she’d dismissed notifications from Littlepip reminding her to eat three times. There was another setting she needed to find and shut off.

The heat of the fire filled the small cafeteria, making Lyra sweat in her blue jumpsuit. She’d already taken off her cloak and the half-assed armor. Soon she found herself needing to unzip the stable jumpsuit and pull it down around her navel. Then she took off her CSGU T-shirt. She felt exposed.

Nopony else cared. Most of them had taken off what little clothing they wore when the fire had started up. Crispy sat right next to her, salivating as he watched Vindaloo cook, his junk just… just hanging out there. His cutie mark was a red apple with a worm crawling out of it. He sure had plenty of worm in his apple. Blue Note sat across the fire from her, orange light gleaming on her round belly and swollen teats. Lyra’s pulse quickened—in a pleasant way for once—as she drank in those ripe blue curves

Blue Note made a soft, curious “Eeee” noise, and Lyra looked up to meet sultry slit-pupiled eyes. Caught! Lyra blushed and turned away. What was she doing? She was a married mare!

One of Vindaloo’s sous chefs handed Lyra a chipped coffee mug half-full of apples. Lyra frowned at how little there was and glanced around to see if Vindaloo was shorting her. Apparently not. Everypony else got a half portion, too, except for Blue Note.

The texture of the apples was perfect, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and the oil and salt offset the brand’s obnoxious sweetness. Three green chili peppers marked Vindaloo’s wiry flank. Lyra’s first assumption had been that they were for her temper, but now she suspected that she’d be a demon in a properly stocked kitchen.

After dinner, a mason jar of clear liquid made the rounds. Lyra sniffed it before she drank, and wasn’t surprised when the fumes cleared her sinuses. She felt everypony’s eyes on her. Well. If they were going to judge her by her drinking abilities, she could accommodate them. She tipped the jar back and took an ample gulp. It burned her throat and filled her head with stinging fumes, but she willed herself not to gag as she forced it down. She was rewarded with a comforting warmth in her belly.

“Whoa. That’s good stuff,” said Lyra, blinking and smirking as she passed the mason jar to Crispy.

“That’s Rotgut’s Special Moonshine!” said a wild-eyed, wild-maned dun stallion lying on his bedroll nearby. He stuck his ass in the air and waved it from side to side, showing of cutie mark of a sparkling full moon. “Making that’s my special talent, you know.”

“Damn sure makes life in the wasteland easier,” said Crispy, taking a sip and wiping his mouth with his pastern.

Lyra felt woozy and a little sick, but she didn’t feel quite as afraid and depressed. Damn, the wasteland was going to make her a drunk. “So what’s you guys’ story? Who are you? Why are you on the run? What happened at Breeder’s Hill?”

“We’ll tell you our story if you’ll tell us yours,” said Vindaloo, not disguising her hostile glare.

“Deal,” said Lyra. “Dish.”

Crispy took a deep breath. “Well, our story starts right after the war. General Horse Teeth—she was just Horse Teeth at the time—left her Principality fallout shelter almost as soon as the dust had settled. She saw how bad things were, and she decided that somepony had to fix them and that somepony was her. Walking the earth, feeding the hungry, righting wrongs, getting medicine to the sick, that kinda thing. Some say she killed fifty raiders with a kitchen knife. Some say she sold all her real teeth to buy Rad-Away for a foal with radiation poisoning. Some say she killed a diamondclaw with one hoof and made dentures out of its fangs.”

“Some say that’s yakshit!” whooped Rotgut.

The refugees laughed.

Crispy raised a hoof. “I know, I know, these stories get a little out of hoof. But she was wearing diamondclaw fangs when I met her. The point is, as time went on, she met other ponies who were trying to do good. And she talked other ponies, like Vin and me, into mending our evil ways. But it became clear to her that lone ponies doing good by themselves weren’t going to be enough to help the wasteland. So she started the Minutemares.”

“So you and Vindaloo were Minutemares from the begining?”

“Yeah. We weren’t anything special, mind you. Just mercenaries who decided to become soldiers, kicking ass, taking names, making our way up through the ranks. For five years, it seemed like nothing could stop the Minutemares. We beat the Talons at the battle of Winter Hill, and we beat the princesses at Triple Diamond City…”

“Princesses?” said Lyra.

“They call themselves the ‘super alicorns’, but we call ‘em princesses. Small ‘p’. Victims of a pre-war super-soldier program. You’ll run into some sooner or later, and when you do, run. Anyway, General Horse Teeth decided it was time to take it to the next stage—trying to set up a free wasteland state, protected from raiders and monsters by the Minutemares. We built a walled settlement around Breeder’s Hill— by the monument because it seemed defensible. We’d heard about the Ponysmith operating in that area, but we weren’t afraid of him—we thought he was just another raider warlord. We’d learn better.

“The first time his legions raided us, over a year ago, we fought them off easily. Sure, they had a suit of power armor with ‘em, but we had missile launchers, and we thought we were hot shit. We didn’t hear from them again until a few days ago.” Lyra realized that the whole cafeteria had gone silent. The dying firelight flickered on Crispy’s face. “The power armor ponies didn’t even fight. They just sent wave after wave of unarmed unicorns at us. We thought it was funny, at first. Then pathetic. Then it made us sick. Then they breached the walls with their magic. The power armor ponies teleported inside while we were busy dealing with the breach, and they tore us apart, starting with the civilians hiding in the monument.

“General Horse Teeth’s last order was to send Vindaloo and me away with the surviving civilians. She died covering our escape.” Crispy hung his head.

Lyra found the jar of moonshine back in her hooves. She took another gulp and waited for the silence to pass.

“So, how about you?” said Vindaloo wryly.

Lyra didn’t know how to follow that story up, and she had a little too much moonshine in her to try to be clever, so she just told the truth, everything she remembered up to reaching the front of the museum. She only left out the weeping ghost—even though she knew ghosts were real, it was hard to talk about them without sounding like a crazy pony.

Vindaloo snorted. “Lyra, If you were going to lie to us, you could have at least made up a plausible story.”

Paneer poked at her mother’s side. “Nuh-uh! It’s all true! At least the parts I was there for.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Paneer. Lyra, you left a stable for this?”

“Yeah. If I was lying, I’d make up a better lie,” said Lyra. Oh, she wanted to punch Vindaloo in the face, but she knew her hoof would come off the worse in that exchange. Stupid earth pony toughness. But she could use her magic to hang her up by her tail…

“Wait,” said Crispy. “You said you walked here from the stable?”

Lyra and Vindaloo turned to look at Crispy. Gears turned behind his eyes.

“Yeah,” said Lyra, cautiously. “It’s maybe half an hour from here.”

Crispy rubbed his forehooves together. “And it was abandoned.”

“Except for dozens of rabid mutant pukwudgies,” said Lyra.

Vindaloo sat up very straight. “Crispy, I hope you aren’t going where I think you’re going with this.”

“Me too,” said Lyra. “We’re on the same page here.”

Crispy tapped his chin with one hoof. “Could you get back inside?”

Vindaloo hopped to her hooves. “No! Crispy no! This is a trap!” She pointed accusingly across the fire at Lyra. “This bitch is working for the Ponysmith. She’s wormed her way into our ranks, and now she’s leading us into a trap!”

“What?” yelped Lyra. “I just said I don’t want to do this!”

“Reverse psychology,” said VIndaloo.

“Fuck that,” said Crispy. “What does the Ponysmith want with us any more? If Lyra were working for him, she’d have kept Paneer and left us to die.”

Lyra raised her hoof. “I couldn’t have kept her, because, um, I didn’t take her? I found her, okay?”

Crispy and Vindaloo ignored her.

“Listen”, said Crispy, “All I’m saying is that we should check this out. This stable might finally be someplace really safe for us. A place to rebuild the Minutemares. If it’s not good, we don’t have to stay there, but we should at least look.”

Vindaloo stalked over to Crispy. “She’s taken you in! She’s roped you into this idiotic plan of hers, and..”

That was too much. Lyra got up on all fours and raised her voice loud enough that the two Minutmare majors couldn’t ignore her. “This is NOT my plan, okay? Did I at any point say, ‘Hey, why don’t you all come back to stable 93? It’ll be a blast, I’ll make brownies?’ No? Good because I never said anything like that.

“From the moment I left that stable, awful things have been happening to me. I’ve been captured, threatened with robbery, threatened with slavery, threatened with rape, shot at, actually shot, falsely accused of foalnapping, had my character repeatedly besmirched, suffered a TPSD flashback, been needlessly slapped, and I’ve killed… Harmony, I don’t know how many ponies. Seriously—I killed my first pony last night. As of this afternoon, I have already lost count of the number of ponies whose deaths I have directly or indirectly caused. And I’m just getting started out here! I have had the worst day of my life. And considering what yesterday was like, that’s saying a fucking lot!

“So if what was waiting for me back at that stable was any better than all of that, I’d have turned around and gone right back in and we never would have met!”

Crispy narrowed his eyes. “So what is in there that you’re so scared of? You’ve got us, we’ve got guns, we can handle the pukwudgies.”

Lyra turned her head to one side, regarding Crispy with a single eye. “Stable tech had security. They had guns. They should have been able to handle the pukwudgies. Something else made them leave. I told you they were doing medical experiments on us. On me. On my family. There could be disease down there, or worse. I don’t want to go back in there.”

Crispy nodded. “All right. You got anything else to say?”

Lyra shook her head. Her legs trembled underneath her. That little speech had taken every bit of energy and willpower she had left. “No. I’m done.” She sat back down quickly before she collapsed.

Crispy turned to Vindaloo. “So. I’ve told you about my plan. What’s yours?”

“Well, we can’t stay here.”

“Agreed.”

Vindaloo thought for a moment.”Triple Diamond City. It’s another long walk down, but it’s the only safe place left in the Commonwealth. They owe us. They’ll take us in.”

Crispy nodded. “It’d be the end for the Minutemares. The refugees will blend into the city. Maybe you and I will work security, or go back to being mercenaries. There won’t be another chance for a free wasteland. Back to the old ways. Back to the ministry mares.”

Vindaloo shook her head. “We can get through it. We need time to rebuild, and staying at Triple Diamond City will give us that time. And even if we drift apart, and the Minutemares disappear, it’s better than dying chasing that stable.”

Crispy stayed silent for a few moments, mulling over Vindaloo’s words. “That makes sense, Major. That makes a lot of sense. But you’re wrong.”

Vindaloo smirked. “No, Major. You’re wrong.”

“I don’t think we’re going to agree on this, are we?”

“Nope. Vote?”

“Vote.” Crispy turned his gaze across the refugees around him. Lyra looked too, the firelight flickered on desperate hungry faces half-hidden in the darkness. “So. You’ve heard the arguments. This choice affects you, too. You all ready to vote?”

A mumbled chorus of ‘aye’s filled the cafeteria.

Crispy thrust a forehoof out towards Lyra. “All right. All in favor of checking out Lyra’s stable, say ‘aye’.”

“Aye!” said almost everypony in the room.

A look of fear flickered across Vindaloo’s face, but she set her jaw and went back to her normal, hostile expression. “And all those in favor of marching to Triple Diamond City?” she said.

Silence. Lyra would have voted for Triple Diamond City, whatever that was, but she wasn’t sure her vote counted. Anyway, she didn’t want to give Vindaloo the satisfaction.

Vindaloo hung her head for a moment. “Fine,” she said, looking up at last. “You’re all idiots. But I’ll go with you. We move out in the morning. Get some sleep, all of you.”

Level 5.
Perk: Handypone. You can now craft all level one firearms and armor mods.

New Status:Traumatized Pony Stress Disorder. You have witnessed great horrors, and they haunt you still. When exposed to something that triggers your memories, you suffer panic attacks and/or flashbacks.

Author's Note

Originally I was going to have Lt. Hot Wings’ skeleton still in the cockpit, as one would see in a Fallout game. But then I realized that Fizzle would never leave a fallen soldier unburied. In this way, character trumps atmosphere and lore.

'Vertibirds' sounds like a name ponies would give to an airplane, so I used that instead of a sky chariots. Also pegasai don't have to pull them; that was always awful hard on poor Calamity.

Chapter 6: Pretty Fly+

In the morning Lyra summoned all her courage and checked the date on her PipBuck.

Freezeuary 24th, EoH 47

Not eighteen years after the Bad Day. Twenty. Great. There was coffee, and there was moonshine available to put in the coffee.

It had snowed hard during the night. Fresh snow covered the ground up to Lyra’s chest, hiding the carnage of yesterday’s battle. The Minutemares and refugees wasted an hour building a sled to carry the power armor. Lyra, sweating bullets and worrying about magic burnout, levitated it up over the snow and onto the sled, which immediately snapped under the armor’s weight. The armor fell onto its side and sank into the snow all the way to the ground.

“There’s no way we’re moving this,” said Vindaloo.

“Nope,” said Crispy.

So Lyra took the spark battery out and they left it there.

They could carry the minigun, though. They built more sleds for it and the rest of their loot and headed uphill towards Stable 93. Yesterday Lyra had covered the distance in half an hour, half walking, half galloping, in frozen and beaten down snow. In fresh snow up to her shoulders, every step was an ordeal. Her scavenged boots were too big for her and only served to trap freezing slush between the inside of her boots and her hooves. The snow was already beginning to overcome her stable suit’s water resistance. After trudging for what seemed like hours, she looked around to see that they’d only made it as far as the edge of town. Her PipBuck confirmed that she had been traveling for fifteen minutes.

This was going to be a very long day.

She started in the vanguard with Crispy, who was carrying Paneer on his back because the snow was deeper than she was tall. Lyra showed him the roads to take to get back to Stable 93; a longer but easier route than the one straight through the forest that she’d taken yesterday. After that, they’d run out of things to talk about, and Lyra felt awkward about trying to shoot down his plan last night, so she’s let herself drift back through the ragged ranks of tired refugees.

The three thestrals were having an easier time than the ponies on the ground. They flapped from tree to tree, then waited, hanging from the bare branches until the column caught up with them. The two refugee thestrals covered their eyes with their wings while they waited, but Blue Note kept her eyes open, scanning the area around them for movement.

So of course she caught Lyra staring at her. Again. And again.

“Do you see anything you like?” asked Blue Note, as Lyra waked by her a little while later.

Lyra looked up. The slit-pupiled cerulean eyes watched her with mirth; the upside-down smile was fangy but friendly. She reminded herself that thestrals were insectivores, not carnivores. Those teeth weren’t for her.

But she wanted them to be.

She tried not to think about those sharp little teeth gently nibbling the back of her neck. How could she be so disloyal? Beanpole had done nothing wrong. Hadn’t he?

Then she realized she was staring at her again. “I’m… I’m so sorry. It’s just that before the war we didn’t see a lot of thestrals. Are there more of you now?” Oh Harmony no, why had she said that? That sounded so tribalist!

“Not more of us. Fewer of you. The megaspells fell during the day when we were asleep in our caves. So very many of us survived the war. And because the pegasi are all gone…”

Lyra’s heart fell through her ribcage and into the snow. “Wait, the pegasi are gone? Where did they go?”

“You don’t know? Look up. What do you see?”

“Um, It’s overcast?”

Blue Note nodded. “It is always overcast. The pegasi fled the wasteland, after the war. Sealed off the sky and locked themselves away like a flock of cowards. You will still see a pegasus from time to time—a family that stayed, an exile, a pegasus born below. But they are rare. There is much work for flying ponies, and thestrals fill the need. We do well as night guards, as well.” She stretched her jaws in a wide yawn. “Though when we must be awake during the day, it is hard.”

“Oh.” Lyra suddenly felt very weary. If Beanpole had gone up there, there was no going after him. But he couldn’t have taken Little Bean with him. So he must still be down here. Except that Little Bean would be an adult, now, wouldn’t he? Lyra wanted to cry. She decided to focus on how cold and miserable she was, instead.

“Blue Note has a question for you. Are you still looking for the husband that abandoned you?”

Oh please Blue Note no. Not only did the question make Lyra want to cry even more, but the subtext was obvious—Blue Note seemed to be into her, and Lyra reciprocated, at least physically. Oh, she hated herself so much sometimes.

So she changed the topic. “Tell me—why did everyone vote to go to the stable? Is Triple Diamond City a bad place?”

“We wish to have something of our own. A place that is ours, not beholden to any authority. We had that once, at Breeder’s Hill, and we want it again. Blue Note was born in Triple Diamond City. It is the last bastion of civilization in a broken world. Which is fine, if that is what you enjoy.” She gave a small upside-down shrug. “If Blue Note wanted to live like that, Blue Note never would have left.”

Lyra nodded. “I guess that makes sense. I want to see Triple Diamond City before I make any choices about where to stay, but I’m sure not heading off alone. I’m not excited about trying to reclaim the stable? But maybe I can find information about where my family went, in there.”

“I hope you find your son,” said Blue Note.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

A little before noon, and a little more than halfway there, the not-pregnant thestrals flew off, and came back clutching houseflies the size of small dogs. Lyra watched in horror as Vindaloo and her cooking assistants dug out a pit in the snow, started a fire, and began cleaning and dressing the fly things. Were they going to eat those?

They were.

Vindaloo did the best she could; Lyra’s two slim slices of yellowish fly flesh were at least attractively seared. She cut off a small chunk with the knife on her multi-tool and tried to chew it with her back teeth. Ugh. She’d never been a fan of meat, and this had the texture of an old tire. It squirted oily fat across her tongue. She wanted to vomit.

Still, it was all she was going to get to eat, so she wolfed it down as quickly as she could. Later she wished she hadn’t. Her lunch wanted to violently eject itself from her body—out the front and the back. She turned around and headed for the back of the column looking around for a discrete place to go empty her guts.

She felt eyes on the back of her head, but when she looked around she didn’t see anycreature watching her. She was starting to get paranoid when finally caught a red flash slipping through her peripheral vision. Oh, that bitch was stalking her. That was the last fucking straw.

Lyra set a big fake smile on her face, turned around one hundred and eighty degrees so that Vindaloo couldn’t hide from her, and trotted over, stepping high through the chest-deep snow. “Hey. Vin. Can I call you Vin? I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”

Vindaloo took half a step back. “What?”

“I just wanted to know what crawled up your ass and died?”

“You,” said Vindaloo dryly.

“You should be so lucky. You’ve had a hardon for me from the moment we met. What is it now? Am I Discord come back from the dead to personally plague you?”

Vindaloo snorted. “Discord isn’t dead.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“And you’re slinking suspiciously around the back of my refugees.”

Lyra groaned. “I’m slinking around because the fried fly you made us for lunch is going right through me, and I need to find a place to have the trots.”

Vindaloo threw her head back and laughed. “Oh fuck, of course.”

“You’re not upset I insulted your cooking?” Lyra felt a little disappointed; she’d hoped to hit Vindaloo right in the cutie mark with that comment.

Vindaloo wrinkled up her snout and snorted. “I guess you really are new here. There’s no way to make bloatfly taste good. We eat them because the thestrals are good at catching them. Go. Behind those trees. I’ll stay behind and keep watch.”

Lyra barely made it out of her clothes before the first wave of sickness hit. Her guts clenched in agony, ejecting what felt like everything she’d eaten in the past day. Then the past week. Every time she thought it was done, a new wave hit her. “Oh, I hate this place so much,” she moaned, rocking back and forth. What was the point of having to kill all those raiders to survive, if she was just going to die of dehydration?

But at last, her guts settled. Her throat felt raw, her mouth tasted like vomit, and her ass felt like the raiders had gotten to her after all. She cleaned herself up as best she could with snow, dried off with her towel, pulled her clothes back on, and wobbled back over to Vindaloo.

“You survived,” she said, offering her a drink of water. “Do you feel better?”

“A little. I never want to eat one of those things again.”

“You’ll get used to it,” said Vindaloo.

Lyra took a deep breath. This was her chance to talk herself up and get in Vindaloo’s good graces. “So… um… I think I can help you guys. You’ve seen that I can fix things, and I’m a unicorn, so I can help you with my magic…”

Vindaloo glared at her. “Oh, the spoiled little unicorn who crawled out of her stable because it wasn’t cozy enough thinks she can help.”

“I beg your fucking problem?”

“You heard me. I was eight years old when the megaspells fell. I’d just gotten my cutie mark the week before. All the rich unicorns headed for their stables, but we had to go to a municipal fallout shelter. How safe do you think those things were?”

Lyra gulped. “Um? Not very?”

“The principality packed us in there like rats, three to a cot. The shielding was leaky. All of us got radiation poising. I watch my family die in agony, vomiting blood, fur falling out in clumps. Then the food started to run low. The guards wouldn’t let us out. They said it wasn’t safe outside. They said we could get by eating the dead. So we started with them.” Vindaloo stopped and shook herself off. “But the guards were right. It wasn’t safe out there. As far as I know, I’m the only survivor from my shelter.”

Lyra felt the cold chill of dread in her belly. “Oh my Harmony, that’s awful. I can’t even imagine.”

“Damn right you can’t, with your fancy job and your fancy unicorn school, and…”

That was it. Suffering didn’t make up for Vindaloo being a tribalist cunt. “Okay, first, my pegasus husband was the breadwinner. Secondly, I didn’t go to a fancy school, I went to four fancy schools. I went to fucking Sparklesori magic kindergarten, I went to CSGU, I did my undergrad at CIM and… Ahhhuugggh!”

Vindaloo slammed into Lyra’s side and knocked her onto her back. Buried in snow, there was nothing in the world but Lyra and the psychotic tribalist trying to strangle her. She drew magical energy into her horn, but she didn’t know what to do. Vindaloo was too close to make a shield without cutting off her hooves, and the last three times she’d tried to use a self-defense bolt it’d killed the target. She didn’t want to kill Vindaloo; Crispy would throw her out for sure! But as the edges of her vision began to darken, she started to think she might have no choice.

“Vin! Vin! What are you doing?” yelled Crispy.

“She’s from the Hive! She admitted it! She said she was from CIM! I knew she was a spy!”

“Aw for… Vin, can you please get off the New Pony?”

Lyra sat up and shook the snow out of her ears. She was impressed Crispy had been able to get back here from the front of the line so quickly. Paneer clung to his back, looking between Lyra and her mom, an expression of bafflement and concern on her face.

“Is this true, New Pony? Are you from CIM?” asked Crispy.

“Oh. My. Harmony. You fucking idiots. I did my undergrad at CIM before the war. I don’t know what’s happened there since then, but whatever it is, I’m not a part of it.”

Crispy nodded. “So you’re not a hiveling.”

“I don’t even know what that is. Is that some kind of slur for changelings?”

“What? You’re just going to take her word for it?” said Vindaloo, waving her forelegs fervently at Lyra.

“There aren’t any changelings and more. Just hivelings. And taking her word for it is all I can do. She’s helped us. She’s good with machines, and she’s good with magic. We can use her. I don’t care if she’s Discord himself if she keeps us alive one. More. Fucking. Day.”

Lyra stuck her tongue out at Vindaloo. “Told you so.”

Vindaloo blew out through her nose. “It’s a mistake to trust her.”

“Vin, you’re paranoid, and I admire that. But you’ve gotta respect a hiveling that thinks to fake getting sick from your cooking.”

“Try to find me another pony who can make bloatfly palatable, asshole.” But she smiled when she said it.

Crispy smiled back at her, then turned and stuck a hoof out at Lyra. “Now you. Don’t look all wronged and innocent. I know you started this. Don’t think I didn’t hear. Now you listen to me, and you listen well. Don’t think I’m on your side. Vindaloo’s a Major in the Minutemares. You’re just another refugee. We’re keeping you with us because you’re an asset. The moment you stop being an asset, you’re out on your ass. So you learn to get along with her. Not the other way around. Understood?”

Lyra blinked. She’d let herself think Crispy was on her side against Vindaloo. That wasn’t the case. Her shoulders slumped and she looked down at her hooves. “Understood.”

Paneer gave Lyra a sympathetic look as she trudged off towards the middle of the line of refugees. She didn’t want to be near Crispy or Vindaloo right now.

Level 6
Perk: Zesty Gourmand. You have sampled the worst wasteland cuisine has to offer, and come away stronger. Your poison resistance is increased by 20%, and you can eat anything commonly considered 'food' without fear of food poisoning.

Chapter 8: Eliza+

Freezuary 31st, EoH 47

“I don’t want to go back in the tank. Please don’t put me back in the tank.”

“We will not put you back in the Z-CORE tank,” said BON-80n, laying Lyra gently in a clinic gurney. “You are very sick, and need to rest.”

“No! If you put me in the tank, I’ll lose you all. And I don’t want to lose you all.”

“That is very sweet,” said BON-80n. “Do not worry. We will not put you back in the tank.”

Delirious with fever, Lyra felt she knew better. She imagined new friends were going to trick her. She didn’t know why they’d do that; she’d been nothing but good to them. She just knew they were going to. “You’re all I have left, and…” Lyra felt a prick in her left foreleg. She lashed out with her magic. “Oh no you don’t. I said no tank!”

“I am inserting an IV. You are very dehydrated and unable to keep down your food. I am not attempting to harm you, and have already promised not to return you to the Z-CORE tank. Please try to calm down.”

“CALM DOWN? YOU WANT ME TO CALM DOWN, YOU COLD HEARTED, UNFEELING METAL HUSK? WELL LET ME TELL YOU…” Lyra felt another sharp prick in her flank. “Tell you… what was I going to tell you?”

“I have applied sedation,” said BON-80n, drawing back a sneaky tentacle tipped with a hypodermic syringe. “You will rest now, no?”

Lyra blinked several times. Her eyelids felt very heavy. Each blink lasted longer than the last. “Not gonna sleep. Just gonna close my eyes.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra swam up through a shimmering purple ocean. Strange fish like hollow tubes of jelly as long as dragons danced around her. One clung to her arm, embracing her. She looked again, and it was an IV tube. She was in a hospital bed, surrounded by drawn blue curtains. Crispy sat on a stool next to her.

“Hey. You’re up,” he said, putting down his book.

“Where are we?” said Lyra, rubbing her eyes.

“In stable 93!”

“Really? It’s awfully clean.” Lyra couldn’t see much, but the curtains were laundered, the steel and plastic were polished, and the air smelled like cleaning fluid, not pukwudgie shit.

“You’ve been out for about a week. We’ve been busy. Some of us even took baths.

“Our plan worked. We killed all the pukwudgies. Everypony’s vaccinated—except for you; you had to go and get immune the hard way.” He grinned and bopped her gently on the shoulder. “This is our home now. All thanks to you.”

Lyra grunted. “You and Bon Bon had something to do with it. So, are we just gonna hole up here for the rest of eternity?”

“The answer to that’s pretty complicated, and we’re not gonna go into it until you’re feeling better. All you need to know is all of us are safe for now.”

“Safe for now.” Lyra looked up at the ceiling. Gleaming stainless steel. They’d even scrubbed up there. “I guess that’s the best I can hope for. So now what?”

“Now everypony has a job to do. And your job right now is to get better.”

Lyra grunted. “I’m fine. I’ll get up right now.” She sat up in bed. It took longer than she’d expected and proved to be a very tiring endeavor. The room spun around her. She lay right back down.

“Don’t worry,” said Crispy, hopping off his stool.”If you’re scared of being bored, I’ve got you covered.” He began moving books and pamphlets from the floor to her bedside table. “These are all the technical manuals for stable stuff we’ve been able to find. You probably wanna go through those while you have time because when you’re up and about, we’re gonna have a lot of questions for you.”

“Lovely,” deadpanned Lyra.

“Then there’s this. We found these at the base of your zebra tank. You must’ve missed them when you woke up.” He lifted a tall stack of loose papers onto her bedsheets, topped with a high-quality toy of Somambula in a dramatic pose: wings spread, blindfold on, one foot reaching bravely out in front of her. She recognized this pile—she’d seen it at the base of the Z-CORE tank and taken it for a pile of junk. She picked up a folded piece of orange construction paper with Happy Birthday Mom and a crude but very technically accurate drawing of a suit of power armor holding a birthday cake scrawled on it in crayon.

“Oh,” said Lyra, her voice cracking and her eyes welling up with tears. “Oh Harmony.”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna leave you alone with those,” said Crispy. “Bon Bon says you can call her on your PipBuck if you need her. Get well soon, okay? We need you.”

Lyra spent the next several hours sobbing and reading every single note her family had left her comatose body over the last two decades. Notes and drawings from Little Bean, and long letters from Beanpole. Photos in the pile showed Little Been growing into a gangly teenager, then into a strong, handsome young stallion.

The photos showed Beanpole getting older. By the last of them, he had a salt and pepper mane and deep lines around his eyes. Had Lyra aged? Illness aside, she didn’t feel much different from the twenty-nine-year-old mare who’d taken a megaspell blast to the face a few subjective days ago.

She rubbed the tears off her cheeks and opened the last letter in the pile.

Dear Lyra

I’m so sorry. I’m so very, very sorry.

We have to leave. Everyone is getting sick, here. The robot says we can’t take you out of the tank. I’ve tried, but I can’t figure out how. I’ve waited for you for so long. There are so many things I have to tell you. I don’t know where to start.

Bean sends his love. He left with the reconnaissance team, trying to find us a new place to live. We were going to wait for them, but it’s not safe here anymore. The pukwudgies are everywhere, and now the water isn’t working. We can’t get to the maintenance room anymore. The Overmare got bitten, and she’s dead now, so we’ve been voting. I voted to stay here until the reconnaissance team gets back, but almost everyone else voted to leave immediately. I wish we could tell you where we’re going, but I don’t know what things are like up there anymore.

I miss you, and I’ll never forget our time together.

Please be safe.

Beanstalk

Lyra crumpled the note against her chest, tears streaming down her cheeks. She felt grief, loss, anger, pity, abandonment, resentment—almost any negative feeling she could think of. Worst of all, there was what the note didn’t say—I’ve stayed faithful to you, we’re still married, there isn’t anypony else in my life. She riffled back through Beanpole’s notes, looking for clues. She wanted him to have waited for her. For twenty years, give or take. Twenty years of loneliness.

She flipped through the photos, looking at the ponies in the background, searching for recurring characters, and there was one. A sea-green pegasus mare whose coat clashed with the blue of her stable suit. Sturdily built, with an impish look in her eyes. That was bad news: Beanpole had a type.

In Little Bean’s graduation party photo (no longer Little Bean; he was as tall as his father but thick-necked and muscular like the stallions of Lyra’s family), the green mare leaned familiarly against his side, laughing. Lyra’s horn glowed, and she slowly, carefully, seared her face from the photograph.

She let her head fall back on the pillow. Fuck. Fuck everything. She wished BON-80n had let the nitrogen take her. She wished she’d died in any of the other dozen ways she could have, so that she didn’t have to feel like this, right here. Right now. She was shit. She was worthless. A burden on her family. Not worth waiting for.

A small, hard weight bumped against her hip. She levitated it up—the Somambula toy. Words written around the edge of the base read “Never abandon hope.”

Lyra chucked it into the curtains around her bed and went to sleep.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Good morning, mon petit fromage!” said BON-80n, pulling open the curtains.

“Fuck off, Bon Bon,” groaned Lyra.

“I have good news! Your vitals have returned to normal! And do you know what that means?” BON-80n began removing the IV from Lyra’s foreleg.

“That I have to get out of bed?”

“I would think you would want to,” said BON-80n. “Having been cooped up for so long.”

“I was delirious for most of it,” Lyra sat up, and rubbed at her back. It hurt — in a stiff and uncomfortable way, not in a ‘something horrible is about to happen’ way, she hoped. Her hips hurt, her knees hurt, her neck hurt. “But yeah, I could use a walk. Do you have a robe or something? This hospital johnny shows my entire butt.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Everywhere she went, ponies were hard at work, cleaning things, fixing things, organizing things. They sang a variant on an old earth pony spiritual as they labored:

Though months of winter’s cruelty
And awful horrid days
We’ve traveled far to find a home
But there’s no time to play.
‘Cause the food we brought is running out
And we can’t grow in this hole.
And even though we love our guns
Scavenging’s getting old!

Stable fix up! Stable fix up!
We’ll make our new home here!
Stable fix up! Stable fix up!
We’ll make it safe from fear;
We’ll make it safe from fear!

Every one of them stopped what they were doing to praise her and thank her and ask her how she was doing. Many of them wanted to hug her; which was awkward, both because she didn’t know them well, and because no matter what Crispy had said about baths, they didn’t smell very good.

But she shouldn’t judge. She smelled even worse.

BON-80n took her to a cafeteria where a pony cook — luckily not Vindaloo — was serving porridge. She’d cooked it in a steel pot hung over an improvised fire pit; apparently, they hadn’t figured out the StableTec ovens yet. Blue Note lounged on a threadbare couch at the end of a cafeteria table like a gravid queen, stirring sugar into a double portion of porridge.

“The Stable Dweller lives!” she shouted, raising one hoof in the air. “All hail the Stable Dweller!” She smirked when Lyra cringed in embarrassment as if she thought this was a great joke.

“ALL HAIL THE STABLE DWELLER!” Cheering ponies herded her onto a cafeteria stool, gave her sweet porridge and moonshine, slapped her on the back.

BON-80n hovered over her like a mother hen. “Please not so much food! And she is not ready for alcohol! Please be gentle in your displays of affection, she has been very ill!”

Lyra ignored her. She tucked into the porridge ravenously and knocked back two shots of the moonshine, both of which vastly improved her mood. She found she very much wanted to talk to Blue Note. Fuck her cheating scumbag of a husband. She could cheat too. She hopped up on the couch next to her, grinning like a fool. “Hi!”

Blue Note smiled a fangy smile. The way she lay emphasized her round belly. Her swollen teats nestled enticingly between her lean thighs. Blue Note could tell Lyra was staring and didn’t mind; in fact, she lifted one thigh to give her a better look at those lush teats. “Blue Note is happy you lived.”

“I’m happy I lived too!” said Lyra. She scooted over to rest her hip against Blue Note’s small round flank. Blue Note pressed her thigh hard against Lyra’s

This was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. She didn’t know Beanpole had cheated. The sea-green mare might just be a friend. It’s not like she could forbid Beanpole female friends because he might want to have sex with them; by that logic, Lyra shouldn’t be friends with anypony! But she very much enjoyed how soft and firm Blue Note’s leg felt against hers. “It would have sucked to have died. Dead people can’t do anything.”

Oh, fuck her with a bloatfly, she was babbling like an idiot. Blue Note was going to think she was stupid.

“But there are lots of things live ponies can do,” said Blue Note, rubbing her hoof against Lyra’s.

“Oh, Il n'y en aura pas!!” said BON-80n, wrapping her tentacle around Lyra and herding her away from the thestral “Sexual activity is not recommended at this stage of recovery!”

Blue Note giggled. “Blue Note was just teasing her, you old nanny.”

“’There will be none?’ Where did you learn to speak Prench?” Lyra tugged at the tentacles separating her from Blue Note. “Let me go, I’m an adult. I can take care of myself.”

“Perhaps now would be a good time to show you your workshop,” suggested BON-80n.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Oh my Harmony,” Lyra gasped.

The sign outside the door said ‘PipBuck maintenance’, and all three of their PipBucks were lined up on the work table. Two terminals graced the desk on the far side of the room; one of the standard RoanCo models she’d seen elsewhere in the stable, and an unfamiliar design with two monitors and a hoofpad. A second, larger workbench filled the far wall, with a wide range of tools hung on a pegboard over it — both her own from the car and her saddlebags, and a lot more they must’ve scavenged for her. Bookshelves held the stable technical manuals, the books from her saddlebags, and the notes from her family, topped by that damn Somambula figurine.

“What do you think?” said BON-80n

Lyra spun open the big C-clamp attached to the larger workbench. “I never thought I’d have anything like this ever again,” she said, lifting a power drill with dewy eyes. She looked around the room. Her saddlebags rested on a small cot in the back. A locker contained her stable suit, T-shirt and shorts, plus her pistols. The useless raider armor was gone, nowhere to be seen, and good riddance.

She’d need a new towel.

BON-80n’s chassis lights turned yellow. “That is excellent. I am about to close the door for your privacy. I need you to understand that you are not trapped in here with me—you are free to leave, or to ask me to leave, at any time.”

Lyra’s jaw fell open. “What?”

BON-80n floated over to a corner and drifted down so that her torso was only a few feet over the floor, presumably in order to appear less intimidating. “Please make yourself comfortable. We need to discuss your suicide attempt.”

“I didn’t make a suicide attempt. I was stuck.”

“When I removed you from the crawlspace, you were not struggling, and your heart rate was as low as could be expected, given the circumstances. I can only conclude that you were deliberately attempting to suffocate yourself. While I am not programed as a psychological robot, I do have basic triage functions, and may at least attempt a diagnosis. On a scale of one to five, on being ‘I completely disagree’ and five being ‘I completely agree’: ‘Over the past two weeks, I have felt sad, unhappy, or...”

Lyra plopped her butt down in a rolly office chair and kicked herself over to the terminal desk. “I’m depressed. Of course, I’m fucking depressed. The only reason I’m not on the floor crying all the time is that everything that happened is too much to process. I just feel numb. Empty.”

“Have you ever been depressed before?”

Lyra nodded. “After I had Little Bean. Normal postpartum. I got over it.”

“Do you have any idea why you feel depressed now?”

Lyra tapped out the commands to bypass the login. She used her hooves instead of her magic; it felt good to bang on something. “Are you shitting me?”

“I apologize, my programming is, how do you say, very limited in this regard. I am led to understand that ponies can find talking about their problems therapeutic.”

Lyra pulled over an inch thick pile of mixed types of paper and a pencil. Every sheet was covered in notes in a variety of mouthwriting styles. Trouble tickets. She might need to delegate some of this. “Fine. I had a decent life, you know? It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine and it was good. Now all of sudden all of that is gone, and I’m in the worst of all possible worlds.” Lyra found a blank spot on the back of one page and started noting down passwords.

“It could be worse,” suggested BON-80n.

“How?”

BON-80n paused. “Well, for example, you are not being tortured right now.”

“No, but it’s likely if I leave the stable again.”

“A fair assessment,” admitted BON-80n

Into the maneframe now, Lyra hunted around for census data. The hoofpad felt nice to use; took some of the load off her magic. “But you know what’s worse? I used to think I was a good pony. Now I know I’m not.”

“How so?”

“I’ve killed. And not just shot a few ponies—I’m not a good fighter, so I’ve had to be clever to survive. ‘Clever’ means tricks. Cruel, dirty tricks. Plus I’ve helped other ponies kill. You can say the ponies I killed were bad ponies. But what kind of pony knocks another pony into a pit to be eaten alive by pukwudgies?

“And even worse—I think my husband might’ve cheated on me. Fine. I was in a coma for twenty fucking years. I imagine he got lonely. But I’ve been conscious for three or four days of subjective time, and I already want to cheat on him. I’m a fucking whore.”

“With Blue Note?”

Lyra remembered BON-80n’s padded tentacles wrapping around her and felt a pleasant shiver. That was a stupid feeling and she pushed it away. BON-80n was a robot. A very kind, gentle robot. “Yeah. Blue Note.”

“She is flirting with you. It is a common social bonding behavior that does not always lead to sexual activity.”

“It’s intent. The point is I’m thinking about it.”

“Thinking is not the same as doing.”

“I guess.” Where the hell were Bean and Beanpole? She knew for a fact they’d been in the stable, but she couldn’t find anything under Beanpole’s surname. A modern stallion, he’d kept his own name, and Little Bean’s surname had been hyphenated in alphabetical order, Beanpole’s name first. “My point is, what do I have to live for?”

“What will it benefit you to die?”

Lyra sighed. She’d read Luna’s Book of the Dead; it had been required reading at GSGU. It was a cryptic book that raised more questions than it answered, but the overall plan of the afterlife was clear. “I go to the realm of the dead atone for my misdeeds and await rebirth. It’s not great there, but it’s better than this.”

“And then you are reborn into what world?”

Lyra slammed her head down on her keyboard. “The same one I left. Harmony damn it.”

“So dying will not solve any of your problems.”

“Thank you. Now I’m more depressed.” She mainly felt annoyed. She’d done therapy the first time she’d been depressed, and found it useless. Just a lot of talking around the same problems over and over without really solving anything. But talking to BON-80n had raised a stubborn resistance to the temptation to just laying down to die. There were things she wanted to do very badly. She wanted to find out what had happened to her family, even if the news was bad. She wanted to fix some things and make some things. She wanted to suck on Blue Note’s teats. She wanted to see what BON-80n’s tentacles could do. Those might not all be positive goals, but they were something. “I’m done with this, okay? You’re a very sweet robot, but this isn’t helping.”

“I am very sorry,” said BON-80n. Her chassis light turned blue. “If you like, I can review the stable’s stock of psychiatric medications, and see if there is anything that would help you.”

Lyra nodded. “That’d be nice, actually. Meds helped me last time.”

Bon Bon saw herself out, and Lyra lost herself in the task of looking for her family. She sorted by tribe and scrolled through. If what Vindaloo had said about the pegasi buggering off behind the clouds was true, there wouldn’t be a lot of them. Something immediately jumped out at her—she was though the earth ponies in a scroll or two. Then it was a long list of pegasi and an even longer list of unicorns. That couldn’t be right— She didn’t know the numbers, but before the war earth ponies had made up more than half the population. But in the stable, unicorns dominated. She went back to sorting by surname. “Unicorn, unicorn, unicorn, pegasus, pegasus, earth pony. Fuck my nuts, Vindaloo was right.” It could just be a demographic anomaly in this particular stable, but if it wasn’t, then why?

Well, it wasn’t her problem right now.

On a whim, she looked under ‘H’ and found her family almost instantly. They’d identified themselves as Heartstrings—maybe so they wouldn’t be separated from her, maybe as a show of solidarity, maybe because she’d been the one who signed them up for the StableTec account. Whatever the cause, it made her throat feel tight. Why had she stayed up top to help strangers and not gone down into the stable with her family? Why had she had to be such a fucking hero when there were ponies that needed her in her life already? She was an idiot and she didn’t deserve them.

She pulled up Little Bean’s files, briskly sweeping aside his privacy protections. Medical records showed some minor foalhood illnesses and minor injuries. School records were interesting—his grades were excellent, especially in science and magic. There were numerous behavior complaints from his teachers, which wasn’t surprising given what he’d been through. What were these? Lots of fighting, though looking at the individual complaints it looked like he just liked to stick up for other ponies. Tardiness, not doing homework, not paying attention in class, ‘editing and distributing a seditious publication’ whatever that meant.

“Good for you, kid. Your teachers were full of shit,” said Lyra. Started a cornu marega club, started a board game club, salutatorian. Lyra had to stop to rub the tears out of her eyes. “I’m proud of you,” she said, and went to have a look at her husband.

His files were boring and unhelpful. His marital status was still listed as ‘widower’; whatever relationship he had with the sea green mare it hadn’t been formalized in any way. He’d had… oh, Harmony, he’d had a bout with stomach cancer. In full remission thanks to an experimental treatment.

Lyra slouched in her chair. “I guess there’s an upside to being used for medical experiments. Unless those experiments were what gave him cancer.” She wondered if any StableTec staff were still alive? She’d like to murder some of them. That was fair, right? Your company experiments on me and my family, I kill you even if you weren’t directly involved.

Somepony knocked on her door.

“It’s unlocked!” she said.

The door slid open, and Paneer stepped in. To Lyra’s surprise, she was wearing a stable suit cut into a little cape, with 93s resting over her flanks where her cutie mark would come in.

“Nice look,” said Lyra, spinning around in her chair to face her.

“Thanks! I made it myself! I had a hard time, though. My magic isn’t very good.”

The cloak was, in fact, unevenly cut, with giant stitches and dangling threads. “Better than I could do,” said Lyra. This was the truth. “Your magic isn’t bad for your age. You just need practice.” This was a huge lie, but she didn’t want to discourage her.

Paneer pronked excitedly. “Yes! Exactly! But just practicing isn’t enough! My magic isn’t going to improve very fast if I don’t know what I’m doing!”

Lyra tilted her head to one side. There was something stilted about Paneer’s words like she was reciting from a practiced script. “Yeah, that’s a good insight, I guess. Don’t be too hard on yourself, though. You’re still young.”

Paneer looked away towards the ceiling and dramatically extended her flipper leg. “If only I knew another unicorn! An older, amazingly powerful, really cool unicorn who could teach me everything she knows about magic!”

Lyra smiled. “If only.”

Paneer gave Lyra an exasperated look. “That’s you. I’m talking about you. I want to be your apprentice.”

“I was getting that feeling. The subtext was subtle, but it came through.”

“So what do you say? I’ll chop wood, carry water, mediate, wax your car, whatever you want. You can ride around my back while I do obstacle courses. Whatever it takes, I’m in. I want to be an important wizard like you!”

“I’m not an important wizard, I’m tech support.”

“That sounds cool too!” Paneer sat down and made begging motions with her foreleg and flipper. “Please?”

Lyra tilted her head to one side, feeling puzzled. She’d had a run of good luck and given these refugee ponies an inflated idea of what she was capable of. She didn’t know what she could do to bring their expectations back down to reality. “What does your mother think of all this?”

Paneer’s expression fell. “I didn’t ask her. She kind of hates you.”

“I’m willing to try to teach you, but you need her permission.”

“Why? That’s not fair. She’s not the boss of me!”

“She is the boss of you because she’s your mother. Ask her.” Vindaloo being overly jealous of Paneer was what had gotten the two of them off on the wrong hoof, to begin with. Taking her as an apprentice without her mom’s consent would look like she was trying to steal her, and Lyra wasn’t about to prove Vindaloo right.

“Aw, come on!”

Lyra shook her head. “Nope. I know you’re scared of your mom…”

Paneer stomped a hind hoof. “Am not!”

“Then prove it. Go ask. Think of it as your first lesson. A wizard has to be brave.”

Paneer narrowed her eyes. “What about a tech support pony?”

Lyra glanced over at her massive pile of trouble tickets. “That takes a certain kind of bravery, too.”

“Ugh fine. I’ll be right back.”

Paneer turned and strutted out of the room.

Lyra sighed. She really could use an assistant. She levitated up the pile of trouble tickets and started trying to sort them. Fifteen minutes later, she was halfway into developing a grid matrix to categorize the requests by urgency and complexity when there was another knock on the door. Lyra rolled her eyes. How was she going to get anything done if ponies kept interrupting her? “Come in!”

It was Paneer again. “Mom wants to talk to you,” she said smugly.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The storage room was large, at least by stable standards, and disturbingly bare. Row after row of empty shelves stretched almost to the back wall. A half dozen ponies with ladders were going through the few shelves that had anything on them, watched over by Vindaloo, who had a clipboard fitted into her shoulder rifle mount and a pen sticking out of the corner of her mouth. They were sorting boxes and cans of food into two piles—one for intact items, the other for gnawed-on ones. The gnawed-on pile was much larger.

“How’s it’ going?” said Lyra.

“Bad,” said Vindaloo around the base of her pen. “The stable dwellers took most of the food with them when they left, and the pukwudgies ate almost all of the rest. We’re left with a few things that were on high shelves. That’s not going to see us very long.”

“Are there any other storerooms?”

“Yes, and they’re worse than this.” Vindaloo nestled her pen on the clipboard’s clasp and turned to face Lyra. “So. Are you settling in okay?”

“Yeah,” said Lyra, surprised at her concern. Not that her manner was anything but cold and professional, but cold and professional was a definite improvement in their relationship. “I noticed a note from you that there was some kind of problem with the water?”

“The problem is that there is no water.”

“No water?” said Lyra.

VIndaloo looked down her snout at Lyra like she thought she was the stupidest pony in the universe. “That’s what I said. We can get a trickle out of the pipes. It’s clean, cleanest I’ve ever seen, but we can barely get three buckets a day. We’re boiling snow for drinking water, cooking, and hygiene, and hauling waste out through the entrance. I never before realized how much thirty-three ponies shit in one day.”

Lyra groaned internally. This was very bad news—She was thirsty, she had to pee, and she needed a shower worse than she ever had before. “Okay. I’ll get on that immediately. Anything else?”

“Not unless you know where we can get some food.”

Lyra shook her head. “I’m new here.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m logistics, Crispy is handling security. He has a bunch of things he wants help with, but he agrees water is first priority.” She smiled. “He’s not completely stupid, that one.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes. That was high praise, from Vindaloo. And that was an awfully syrupy smile. She and Crispy weren’t… No. No. They couldn’t be. She’d seen them fighting. And ponies in relationships never fought, right? “Well, if that’s all, I’ll get right on it.” She turned to go.

Vindaloo took a deep breath as if steeling herself. “I had a little talk with Paneer.”

Lyra turned back around and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? What did she say?”

Vindaloo was suddenly very interested in the pile of ruined food. “She looks up to you. And she should. You’ve done a lot for us.”

“Thank you,” said Lyra. She hadn’t, really, but the Minutemares’ belief that she had was her meal ticket, so she kept her mouth shut.

“She has a lot of questions I don’t have the answers to. I’m proud of my unicorn baby, but I don’t know anything about magic. Not even earth pony magic.”

Lyra felt an urge to be helpful and explain that earth pony magic was mainly intuitive, but she knew that Vindaloo was probably just being self-effacing and she’d get her head torn off for her trouble. She willed herself to keep her trap shut and let Vindaloo finish.

“Would you…” She shuffled a dented metal container of rice over to the ‘good pile’. “Would you be willing to teach her magic?”

“I would,” said Lyra. “If she’d willing to help me with my work around the stable, she can start immediately.”

“Thank you,” said Vindaloo.

Lyra left the storeroom feeling strangely light.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Okay, now try the valve,” said Lyra

“Nothing!” said Paneer’s voice from amongst the water pipes in the environmental control room. There was all that water right there, and for some reason, it wouldn’t come out. The control valves were rusty and hard to turn, and it was giving Paneer good telekinesis practice, but that was all they were accomplishing.

Lyra glared at the terminal. Flow control: ON. Water supply: 99.89%. Purification: CRITICAL Was it shutting off the water flow because the purification wasn’t working? Where could she adjust that?

“I found something, Miss Lyra!” said Paneer, followed by a wrenching noise from deep within the pipes. She wriggled out butt first, pale yellow fur in disarray, and smudged with grease. She levitated a complicated technomagical device out behind her. “What’s this?”

The terminal immediately lost its shit. WARNING WATER TALISMAN DISCONNECTED. WATER SUPPLY DEACTIVATED. PLEASE CONTACT STABLETEC ADMINISTRATOR.

“That’s a water talisman, apparently,” said Lyra.

Paneer placed it on the table next to the terminal. It consisted of a large circuit board about a hoof on a side, connected to what had once been a large greenish-blue crystal. What was left of the crystal had distinctive fang marks on it. “What does it do?”

“I don’t know. But I know the administrator’s password. So let’s see what happens when we convince the environmental control system it’s still there.” It took ten minutes—much of it spent trying to explain what she was doing to a filly who’d seen a working computer five times before this week. She seemed to follow what she was saying all right, and of course, she’d need to know all of this.

Flow control: ON. Water supply: 99.89%. Purification: 100% said the terminal in bright green letters.

“All right. Let’s do this,” said Lyra, smacking her hooves together.

Paneer excitedly wiggled back under the pipes. Lyra heard the sound of the valve creaking open, followed by the sound of running water.

“We did it!” squealed Paneer, wiggling back out.

“We did it,” squealed Lyra, picking up Paneer in her forehooves and spinning her around.

An ominous groan echoed from somewhere amongst the tangle of pipes, followed by a metallic tearing noise. Icy cold water sprayed out across Lyra, soaking right through her stable suit. Lyra gasped. After the initial shock of the impact… well. The water was freezing. But she needed a shower so badly that it felt great against her coat. Paneer capered around Lyra in circles, laughing and splashing water at her. For the first time since the Bad Day, she felt completely, totally, and genuinely happy. Things were going to be okay!

Then she noticed her PipBuck was clicking. She looked at it, worried that the damn thing wasn’t waterproof. On the screen, Littlepip waved her forelegs at her. DANGER! Extreme radiation warning! GET OUT NOW!.

Paneer’s hooves didn’t touch the floor again until she was safe out in the corridor. Then Lyra had to charge back into the environmental control room to shut the water off, holding Paneer back with a force field because she didn’t have time to explain why she couldn’t go back in.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” said Paneer, confused, drenched, frightened.

“Am I interrupting something?” said BON-80n, floating cheerfully down the corridor towards them.

“Radioactive water!” cried Lyra. “Anti-radiation meds! Now!”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra sat on an infirmary bed, wrapped in towels, and clutching a cup of hot coffee. She felt queasy from the meds, and her fur smelled strange from the emergency shower. Paneer, too young to be afraid of something as ephemeral as radiation, seemed to be in a fine mood, kicking her hind legs against the edge of her bed and enjoying her heavily sugared coffee.

“Hey Paneer?” said Lyra.

“Yeah?” said Paneer.

“When you tell your mom about this, try to avoid mentioning the bit where I soaked you in radioactive water.”

Paneer nodded. “What mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

BON-80n floated over. “How are you two feeling?”

“I’m feeling lucky that you were there,” said Lyra.

“I was coming to check on you. To see if you were doing well,” said BON-80n

Lyra scowled and looked down at the light gleaming on the surface of her coffee. “You know, I was almost feeling all right. Then this happened.”

“You could not have known that the pipes were damaged. Or that the stable’s water supply was radioactive.” BON-80n draped a padded tentacle consolingly over Lyra’s shoulder. “No serious harm was done.”

Lyra hooked a hoof over Bon Bon’s tentacle to keep it there. “Except that now we need to decontaminate the environmental control room. And the water situation is even worse than I thought.” She looked at the broken water talisman resting on the bed next to her. “I don’t know where we’re going to find one of these.”

“I have found meds for you. Euphorazine. It is a selective smiletonin reuptake inhibitor, which means…”

“I know what it means,” said Lyra. “And I’ll take it. I’m not sure if it can overcome how horrible things are, but I’ll try.”

BON-80n bobbed in midair in sort of a curtsy. “Perhaps we could schedule a time next week to talk?”

Lyra sighed. “Listen, I’ll talk to somepony if you think it’s important, but not to you.”

BON-80n’s chassis lights blinked. “Why not?”

“Because I think I like you,” said Lyra. “And you can’t be friends with your therapist.”

“Why thank you. I admit I am hesitant to accept your offer of friendship—the last time I had friends, I euthanized them.”

Lyra smiled wryly. “I don’t wanna say they had it coming, but they had it coming. You saved my family, so I’ll give you a pass.”

“Very well. But if you need somebot to talk to, do not hesitate to ask.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra lay huddled in the cot in the dark, trying not to think. Her brain wouldn’t stop.

What did she have to worry about? Getting cancer from radiation exposure had suddenly moved to the top of the list. Or Paneer getting cancer because of Lyra’s mistake. Getting along with the Minutemares and the refugees; especially Vindaloo. It wasn’t impossible they’d come to blows again, though that was less likely if Lyra kept her mouth shut. Cheating with Blue Note. Making a fool of herself assuming Blue Note’s advances were serious when they weren’t. Getting killed by raiders. Getting captured and tortured by raiders. The list never ended.

The refugees had been talking about monsters over dinner. The wasteland was like the Everfree Forest on steroids. She wasn’t sure what a diamondclaw was, but they sounded awful. Radgators, yogis, manticores—apparently manticores loved radiation, thrived on it, and were common as rats these days. And bloatflies apparently shot their fucking maggots at you. They burrowed into your skin at projectile velocities and started eating you immediately! Which was a novel reproductive strategy and she hoped it never happened to her. She couldn’t believe she’d eaten one of those things.

She rolled back and forth on the bed. Too hot, she stripped off her T-shirt and shorts. Then she was too cold. She pulled her thin blanket over her, but it got tangled in her legs. At last, she threw the blanket across the room, pulled on her shorts for decency’s sake (she still couldn’t believe wasteland ponies went naked in the middle of pegasus winter), and stalked to her work desk. No more dicking around with work projects—she was going to investigate her PipBuck some more. There was a radio on it—very useful if she could get the other two set up for Crispy and Vindaloo. She rotated through the dial. There were signals out there, including at least one playing music! She couldn’t pick it up well enough to even tell what songs were playing, but she could build the stable an unobtrusive antenna, no problem. Then they could at least have some music down here.

Poking around the radio made her think of Fizzlepop’s message. She took her PipBuck over to the big terminal and copied the audio file over.

“Let’s see if we can pick this thing apart,” she muttered to herself. “Find some signal in the noise.”

It was a slow process, but the StableTec playback utility wasn’t bad. She went over the garbled portion a little bit at a time, cleaning out the noise and slowing down the playback. She wasn’t getting anything useful out of it, but the process was making her sleepy, so that was a win.

Her eyes were drooping and her nose was drifting towards the keyboard when Fizzlepop’s slowed down voice burst into her ears. “…cipality Ration Stockpile, 42.431387, -71.351…”

Lyra’s eyes snapped open. She sat straight up in her chair, suddenly wide awake. She had to replay the clip three times before she was sure it wasn’t a dream. Fumbling for her PipBuck, she pulled up the map and found those coordinates. They were less than three miles south of the stable entrance.

She pulled on her T-shirt and ran out into the corridor, hooves skidding on rubber anti-slip mats. Crispy had to know this right away!

LEVEL UP:
New Perk: Bi Invisibility. Your sexuality is so confusing that many ponies prefer to pretend you don’t exist. You have a base 20% chance for all sneak attempts, even in the open and in broad daylight.

Chapter 10: Kind of Blue

Burrburrary 7th, EoH 47

“Attention stable dwellers!” Crispy’s voice crackled over the stable 93 PA system. “In celebration of our recent acquisition of a large quantity of purified water, Major Vindaloo and I have decided there will be showers for everypony!”

Distant cheering filled the stable halls.

“And just in case you think you don’t need one — they are mandatory. Yes, Rotgut, that includes you!”

A single voice shouted in outrage.

Lyra looked out from under Crispy’s desk in the security station, a screwdriver and a roll of electrical tape clutched in golden telekinetic hands. “Didn’t he get shot in the neck?”

“It got better,” said Crispy, miming injecting himself with a stimpack.

Lyra nodded; they’d gotten a bunch of those from the ration stockpile, and Rotgut had been the only serious casualty.

Crispy pressed his hoof down on the big red ‘broadcast’ button on the desk in front of him. “If you like being able to hear my beautiful voice all over the stable, you have Lyra to thank. Big round of applause for the tech support mare.”

Distant booing.

“You’re welcome, guys!” said Lyra into the PA microphone.

“She’s also set up an antenna, so we can get some fucking music down here.”

Distant cheering.

“Right right. Radio rules are: one station within earshot of each other. If ponies can’t agree on which station to play, flip a damn cap, there are only two. As you were.” Crispy took his hoof off the button. “Lyra, can I ask you something?”

“Can I stop you?” said Lyra, wriggling back under his desk to put the access panel back over the intercom’s guts.

“Seriously, what’s up with those hands you make? I don’t know a lot about magic, but it’s gotta be a lot of extra effort to make them. Paneer just lifts stuff in her magic. Can’t you do that?”

“Well firstly,” said Lyra, turning the last screw, “that’s the second time you’ve asked me. Secondly, fingers allow very precise control. Thirdly, I just think humans are cool.”

Crispy raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that little foal’s stuff?”

Lyra generated a third hand while she packed up her tools in her saddlebags. “Do you know what this gesture means?”

“No. Maybe we should ask Paneer.”

“Humans aren’t just a fairy tale,” said Lyra, standing and dusting herself off. “They’re real, and they’ve visited Equestria. The pre-war government was in contact with a parallel universe, and…” She noticed the tolerant look on Crispy’s face and decided she was wasting her time. “You know what. Never mind.”

“For a smart mare, you sure believe a lot of weird things,” said Crispy.

Lyra smirked. “No, I know a lot of weird things.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra sat in the newly cleaned locker room waiting for the shower, naked except for a fresh towel over her withers, feeling less awkward than she would of a week ago.

There wasn’t enough water for everyone to shower privately — they were using large drums of purified water they’d brought back from the ration stockpile, and they could only fit a couple on their sleds along with the food they needed. So they’d drawn lots to shower in groups of ten or so.

Lyra was sort of getting used to seeing other ponies naked. When she had been young, Equestrians had favored nudity — even in the sophisticated Canterlot society of her youth wearing clothes outside of special occasions was seen as putting on airs.

Then Rarity had happened.

Working together with Applejack as the heads of their nascent ministries, they’d funded research into automation to produce inexpensive fabric. Originally meant to meet the newly increased demand for EUP uniforms, Rarity didn’t miss the opportunity to popularize fashion amongst the lower classes.

Lyra had been cynical at first, dismissing it as a business ploy. But no, Rarity had divested herself from her business ventures when she’d taken over her ministry, as a government official ought. She just wanted to see her favorite art form flourish. So Lyra had given the new fashion a try. So comfortable. Cool in summer, warm in winter, and most of all private. And so she had fallen in love with wearing clothes.

But comfort with nudity was coming back to her already — so much so that she’d felt weird being the only one in the locker room wearing clothes. After a little while she’d stuffed her new stable suit (a smaller size, but it hung loose on her frame; she was losing weight at a worrying rate) in one of the lockers.

And yet she still felt a little bit exposed. Not least of all because, through coincidence or conspiracy, she’d wound up assigned to the same shower group as Blue Note.

Blue Note had waved hello when she’d come in but ignored her after that to talk to some other mare. So Lyra just waited awkwardly on a bench, trying not to stare at Blue Note’s round little butt. It was futile. She found herself waiting with bated breath for Blue to flick her tail at an itch on her flank so that she could see her swollen, glossy vulva. Its thick lips were an indigo so dark they were almost black. Lyra imagined kissing her way slowly up the back of Blue Note’s thigh and…

Blue Note finished her conversation and turned around.

“How are you, hmmm?” said Blue Note, looking Lyra up and down and smiling.

“Oh, hi! Fine, I’m fine,” she said, waving a hoof dismissively. She was sitting in a puddle, actually. “How… um, how are you?”

Blue Note’s slit-pupiled cerulean eyes drifted up Lyra’s exposed haunch. “Blue Note wondered what your cutie mark was. I admit I was expecting something more technical. Are you a musician?”

“Yes. I mean no. I mean, yes,” said Lyra. “I mean, not professionally. But I play lyre.”

Vindaloo stepped out of the steaming showers, rubbing her pink mane with a towel, Paneer close at her heels. “Next group!”

Blue Note nodded towards the sound of flowing water. “Shall we?”

Lyra stayed close to Blue Note, not quite touching her. Vindaloo tilted her head towards Lyra and stage whispered as she passed. “Drop the soap.”

She ignored the other ponies’ laughter and lost herself in the feeling of hot water washing over her body, gradually working through the filth matting her coat. Of all the bodies around her, she was only aware of Blue Note. She tried not to think about it, but the other mare drew her with a gravity inversely proportional to the distance between them. The closer she got, the harder it was for her to move away.

“Would you wash Blue Note’s back?”

“Lyra would,” said Lyra.

Blue Note turned away from her. Lyra ran the soap over her narrow withers, and down the ridge of her spine. She hesitated at the edge of her croup, then slid the soap up her back. “Do you want me to do your wings?”

“Not in public,” purred Blue Note. The eight other ponies in the shower with them laughed.

Lyra blushed. “Sorry.” As the wife of a pegasus, she ought to have known better. There was no need to lie to herself — she did know better. She knew exactly what she was asking, and passing it off as an innocent mistake.

“Not at all. Let Blue Note do you.” She turned Lyra around and began to soap her back, washing all the way down to the base of her tail. Lyra felt the heat of her body so close, the curve of her pregnant belly rubbing against Lyra’s cutie mark. “We found some instruments,” said Blue Note, close in her ear. “But none of them harps or lyres. Do you play anything else?”

“I play a pretty sweet guitar,” said Lyra, her voice husky. She was lifting her tail. Oh no. Oh no. She was cheating. Cheating! She had to stop!

“We have one of those.” Blue note pushed down on Lyra’s dock, and whispered in her ear, “Band practice, seven o’clock. Maybe after, we’ll practice something else.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Puzzles?” said Paneer. “Are you an important wizard, or a babysitter?”

Lyra sat on the floor of her workshop, legs folded under her body. Freshly showered and dressed in a fairly clean stable suit, she felt the serenity of the kind of wise old mage she very much wasn’t. An opened 1000 piece puzzle box lay between them. “Are you the student or the teacher?”

Paneer gave the box a half-hearted shove with her magic. “Are we gonna play with dolls next?”

“What happened to waxing my car and running races with me on your back?”

“Ugh, fine.” Paneer reached into the box with her mouth. Lyra pushed a telekinetic finger against her nose.

“No. With your magic.”

Paneer’s mouth fell open. “Every single piece?”

“Yes.”

“That’s bullshit! I’ll get a headache!”

Lyra nodded. ”You will, the first few dozen times. You need to build your strength.”

Paneer gritted her teeth. Her horn glowed green. Lyra’s cot rose slowly off the floor, wobbling slightly. “I’m plenty strong, see?”

“That’s push strength, not sustained strength. Also, that cot’s not that heavy.” Lyra pushed the cot back down to the ground with her magic.

“Ugh fine. I’ll do your stupid puzzle.” Paneer lifted a random piece out of the box and set it on the floor.

“It helps if you do the edge pieces first,” offered Lyra.

“Are you going to help me?”

“Not right now. I need to watch what you do.”

Paneer grumbled but went to work. Soon she was lost in concentration, painstakingly sorting through the box for pieces. Lyra watched her carefully. She hadn’t told anyone, not even Vindaloo, but she was worried about Paneer. Because while this puzzle-solving was a normal part of magical training, Paneer was right that it was usually a task from small foals in magic kindergarten. Even the least talented unicorns Paneer’s age would already be adept at basic telekinesis and their personal spell. Though she lacked nothing in terms of pluck and natural talent, her magical ability was atrophying from lack of use, and Lyra didn’t know if she’d caught it in time to arrest the decay.

Her wild teleport on the day they’d met would seem like a promising sign, but it was actually dire. No matter what she’d told Vindaloo, wild magic did not occur in a foal as old as Paneer unless there was something seriously wrong — psychologically or thamatologically.

Paneer gripped each piece with deliberate effort, lugging them through open-air like she was balancing a cup of water on a bowling ball.

“Don’t try so hard,” said Lyra. “You’ll exhaust yourself.”

“If I don’t try hard, nothing happens!”

“You’re tensing up. Bunching up your whole body won’t help get the magic out. You need to take deep, slow breaths, and focus your attention on the thing you’re trying to affect. Here, let me help.” Lyra lifted two dozen or so edge pieces out of the box. “Put these together. Take your time.”

Paneer blew out through her lips, then closed her eyes and started breathing slowly. Lyra waited, letting her calm herself. A minute or so later, she opened her eyes and started moving pieces, glancing at the box lid to get an idea of where they went.

“You’re tensing up again,” said Lyra. “Deep breaths.”

“Deep breaths is your answer to everything.”

“That’s because it’s a good way to calm down. It brings you back to your body.”

Paneer narrowed her eyes. “But you told me not to use my body!”

Lyra shook her head. “No, I told you not to tense your body. Magic isn’t just a thing that comes from your horn. It’s part of a unicorn’s whole being. And you can’t fully control it until you understand that on a deeply intuitive level.”

Paneer flicked her tail. “Sounds like a lot of mystical crap to me.”

Lyra smirked. “Yes. It is a lot of mystical crap. That’s why it’s called magic. But it’s very precise, difficult mystical crap, and you just folded that piece in half.”

Paneer slammed her face against the floor. “Ugh! I’m so stupid!”

“Not stupid. Just untrained. Luckily, I’m here to fix that.”

“You said magic comes from the body.” She stuck out her flipper leg “Well, my body is messed up, so my magic is, too.”

Lya tilted her head back. “Have you heard the legend of Fizzlepop Berrytwist?”

“No. More mystical crap?”

“No. History. From my time, actually. right before the war.”

Paneer tilted her head to one side. “History’s more Crispy’s thing.”

“Well, she had a broken horn, and she defeated all four alicorns in magical combat.”

“Wow!” Paneer’s eyes widened, and she leaned forward.”No way!”

“I was there. Ask Crispy, if you don’t believe me,” said Lyra. “So. If Fizzlepop could defeat four alicorns even though she had a broken horn, you can put together a puzzle even though you have a weird looking leg.”

“I think you mean an awesome looking leg,” said Paneer, levitating a puzzle piece and popping it into place.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Band practice had been an interesting experience. The lineup was Lyra on electric guitar, Blue Note on sax, Tub Thumper on drums, Trail Mix on trombone, and nopony on vocals because none of them could sing. They had no idea what that kind of band was supposed to play, so they spent two hours going through a pint jar of moonshine and clumsily reinventing pre-war ska.

The vocals things was also going to be a problem because none of them knew the words to anything.

Complexities.

After band practice, Lyra wound up in a maintenance corridor discovering what it was like to kiss someone with fangs.

“Why are you licking Blue Note’s teeth?” said Blue Note.

“They feel cool,” said Lyra.

“It feels strange. Stop it or Blue Note will bite you.”

Lyra smirked and ran her tongue over Blue Note’s left canine. “Is that a promise?”

Blue Note nipped Lyra’s tongue.

“Outh!” said Lyra, pulling back.

Blue Note’s head darted forward with bloatfly-catching speed and hooked Lyra’s stable suit zipper with a fang. She pulled it down, opening it up over Lyra’s chest and belly. “Blue Note has a responsibility to get you out of this ugly thing. Why do you wear this?”

“I just got used to wearing clothes.” Lyra climbed up onto a crate — there were a huge number of crates in the maintenance corridors for no reason at all; most of them didn’t even have anything in them — but kept her hind legs crossed and one hoof over the open zipper on her chest, holding it sort of semi-closed. “Rarity made it seem so cool. And then everypony got used to it. And then it got weird for somepony else to be able to see your body.”

“Weird?” said Blue Note, nuzzling Lyra’s belly fluff.

“Weird, and exciting.” Lyra stroked Blue Note’s head, ruffling her spiky mane. “When you show it to someone, it’s really special. Do you want to see?”

Blue Note pulled the zipper down until Lyra’s teats slid out. “Yes. Blue Note wants to see everything, please.”

Lyra let it slide down over her shoulders. “Well. Since you asked so nicely.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

BON-80n floated through Lyra’s door the next morning, bobbing cheerfully, chassis lights green.

“It’s customary to knock,” muttered Lyra, not looking up from the security camera circuit board she was working on. Surveillance of the inside of the stable was against the Minutemare’s principals — which Lyra found admirable — but the outside of the stable needed to be monitored, and those cameras weren’t working. She’d tracked the problem down to this circuit board, but her eyes kept watering, and she couldn’t see to solder. She must be allergic to something in here. Mutant fungus in one of the vents or something. That was it. She wasn’t crying.

“I came to see how you were doing, and I am glad I came because your biometrics indicate that you are in great distress.”

“I’m f-fine,” blubbered Lyra.

“Available data indicates that this is not so.” BON-80n floated over to Lyra. “Do I have permission to embrace you? Physical contact can be quite calming to animal life forms.”

“I g-guess,” said Lyra, pushing away her soldering iron and the circuit board. BON-80n’s four padded tentacles wrapped gently around Lyra’s torso. They felt surprisingly warm through the fabric of her stable suit. Lyra began to sob.

“Oh no,” said BON-80n, “You are weeping. This means you have failed to fulfill your programming. This is very bad.”

“I ch-cheated on him!” wailed Lyra.

“There there. There there. It is not so bad to cheat at a game. You must merely confess and return any of your winnings, no?”

Lyra laughed bitterly. “No, I cheated on my husband.”

“Oh!” the running lights on BON-80n’s chassis brightened. “I see. You have attempted to reproduce with Blue Note, then.”

Lyra bent over laughing. She laughed until she felt like she was going to throw up. “Oh! Bon Bon you know that’s not how it works.”

BON-80n lifted her tentacles and bobbed in midair in a sort of curtsy. “Yes. I made a joke, no? Did I do well?”

“Yeah,” she said, patting BON-80n on the side. “Anyway, we tried pretty hard. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to take, but we did our best.”

“This was expected, no? The stable ponies, they have a, how do you say it, been placing wagers as to when the two of you would mate.” BON-80n’s chassis lights dimmed. “I admit that I may have placed a bet myself. I hope you are not offended.”

Lyra scrubbed at her eyes with her pasterns, still giggling. “Yeah, we have been pretty obvious. Everypony probably heard us last night. Did you win anything?”

BON-80n bobbed and raised her tentacles in a curtsy. “Oui. Your biometrics indicated that you were ready.”

Lyra sighed and turned back to her circuit board. “Damn you, Bon Bon. You made me laugh, and now I don’t feel bad any more. Even though I should.”

“I do not understand. Why do you believe that you should feel bad? You have not violated your programming.”

Lyra scowled. “I did. I broke a promise.”

BON-80n hovered for a little while, silent except for the whirring of her internal fans. “I think I should say something important for you to hear, but which you will also find very painful.”

“Shoot,” said Lyra.

“You do not know if you will ever see your husband again. It may take you years to find him. Perhaps it will be less time. But I do no see you leaving the stable on your own to look for him.”

“Fuck you, I’ll leave right now.” Lyra started to slide out of her chair. Padded tentacles pressed her back into it.

“Nor do I recommend it. You will die if you go alone.”

Lyra scowled at her robot friend and crossed her forelegs over her chest. “It’d be the right thing to do.”

“I do not know right from wrong. Nor do I understand pony sexual relationships. I only know my programming, which is to protect the health of the organics around me. As your physician, I say that you may mate with Blue Note as often as you both wish. It will relieve some of the stress you are under, and strengthen your bond with your social group. You may not go looking for your family by yourself, though you are welcome to do so as part of a team.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lyra didn’t know how to respond to a robot giving her instructions, but it wasn’t terrible advice.

“I also wish you to know that if you do go on such a mission, I will accompany you.”

Lyra started crying again. But in a better way, this time. “You don’t have to.”

BON-80ns chassis light brightened to a warm glow. “I would have to be physically restrained.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Late that afternoon, Lyra headed back to the security station with the repaired circuit board. It seemed unusually cold in the stable, and as she headed down the maintenance corridor towards the security station and the exit that deepened to an arctic wind that cut through her stable suit and made her fur stand on end.

Her lower black twinged, and she picked up her pace a little.

When she got out into the front of the stable, she found the entrance open. Loose snow was drifting down into the foyer.

“What the hell!” she shouted up the shaft.

Blue Note leaned over the edge dressed in her Minutemare coat, dark goggles, a cloak, and a rifle in a shoulder mount. “Greetings to you as well, screamer!”

Lyra blushed. “Why is the stable open?”

“Vindaloo, Trail Mix, and some other ponies went to get more food. And that machine gun. Blue Note is waiting out here until they come back.”

“They’ll let you do that while you’re pregnant?”

“If Blue Note complains enough, they let her have a gun.”

Lyra nodded. “I guess that makes sense. Why is the door open?”

“So Blue Note can shout if she needs help!”

That made sense, too. “Okay. Um. Band practice tonight?”

“Something tonight, certainly,” said Blue Note, smiling smugly.

Lyra grinned. “Good. Okay. I’ll let you get back to work then.”

The back twinge must’ve been a false alarm. Or just overwork. As she got older prophetic body pain was less and less useful.

She went back to the security room. The door was open, and Crispy was in there, muttering at a battered old pocket computer with a cracked screen. She knocked on the doorframe. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“Naw, just waiting for this old thing to boot up,” said Crispy. “It barely runs, anymore, but it’s all I’ve got to record on.”

“Record what?” She leaned over his shoulder. It was an off-white plastic rectangle the size and shape of a brick. “Hey, I used to have that model. The PipBuck is way better.” She’d left her old one with that Ministry of Morale goon on the Bad Day. She wondered if it was still there — she had a lot of photos on it she’d like to get back.

“The PipBuck can record audio?” said Crispy, looking incredulous.

“The PipBuck can do everything!” Lyra pointed up at the picture of Flim and Flam on the wall. “Those two idiots should have should have sold these as a consumer product, instead of building these death traps.” She gestured at the stable around her.

Crispy looked at the device on his pastern and raised his eyebrows. “Is it possible to copy stuff over?”

“Yep! I can copy your stuff to the maneframe and them upload it to your PipBuck. That way you’ll have a backup. Let me get the transfer started.”

By the time she was done sorting out he cameras, Crispy’s data was on the maneframe. She plugged in his PipBuck and started copying it over. “So how are you getting used to this thing? Did you use SATS in the battle? Is Littlepip giving you any trouble?”

“Little who?” said Crispy.

“She’s like the PipBuck mascot, I guess? Maybe she’s turned off on yours. I bet I could switch her on if you need a cartoon pony to tell you you’re in danger of radiation poisoning or that you’re not eating your vegetables.”

Crispy crossed his forelegs over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, how about you do me a solid and fucking don’t.”

Lyra laughed, but as she did, she checked his settings to find the option to turn Littlepip off. She couldn’t find it. No reference to Littlepip at all. Even the biometrics section was just a boring list of statistics with no pomonculous to illustrate them. That was… odd. Maybe she had a different model. “So this’ll be the only time I ask, I promise, but what are you working on?”

Crispy sighed. “I’ve been keeping a history.”

Lyra’s jaw fell open. “That’s amazing.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic.” Crispy waved his hoof at her. “C’mon, gimme that back.”

Lyra clutched Crispy’s PipBuck to her chest. “It’s not done yet. And I wasn’t being sarcastic. Remember the part where I missed the last twenty years? I’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

Crispy’s posture relaxed a little, but his legs stayed crossed over his chest. “I wanted to be a writer when I was a colt. Things didn’t work out, obviously. But I’ve been making recordings and taking notes about things I’ve seen. Getting interviews, when I can. Maybe if things ever settle down…” He shrugged. “They ain’t gonna. But pretending I’m going to get a chance to write a book one day makes it easier to make it through when things are really bad.”

Lyra took a deep breath. “Can I look? I have a lot of questions.”

Crispy shook his head. “It’s not finished. Hell, it’s not even started. It’s just research.”

“Do you want me to hang around asking you questions every free moment I get?”

Crispy glared at her for a full five minutes. “You can listen to some, I guess. If you like it, tell me what you think. If you don’t like it, go fuck yourself. I’m gonna figure out the cameras.”

Lyra found a file named war_day_final_version_23.PAF and popped in her earblooms.

All right. Let’s try this again.

The day the spells fell, I was out helping my dad with the braeburns. We had the radio off and didn’t get the news — not until we saw the flash in the east. I remember the flash — I was looking away, but it was still so bright I couldn’t see for a moment.

I heard a roaring noise, and above it, my father telling me to run. I turned back to look at him, and... and he turned towards me. And Harmony help me, I almost passed out, because…

Okay, deep breaths. You can get through this, Crispy.

So he turned towards me, and half of his body is… just… burned away. And the whole world is just going up straight in the air. And he screams at me — I don’t even know how he’s talking, with half his face in such bad shape, but he screams at me to run.

My dad was real strict. If he said jump, you’d ask how high on the way up, or it was a whipping. So when he said ran, I ran.

My family had a bunker. Built it with our own mouths. It was meant to hold all of us — Dad, Mom, Jonagold, Autumn Glory, Sugar Bee, and Grandpa Honeycrisp. But dad and I were the only ones in that field that day. And I was the only one who made it in.

The last thing I saw before I closed the outer door was the whole braeburn orchard rising up behind me…

Lyra stopped the recording. She saw the flash of the megaspell, felt the hot wind of the onrushing balefire shockwave. She heard the sound of cracking tree trunks.

No.

That was gunfire.

“Vindaloo is back! Raise the elevator! Hurry!” Blue Note’s voice was barely audible over the sounds of violence. Her rifle spoke several times, then Lyra heard her scream, and her gun fell silent.

Lyra’s heart stopped. She blinked the light of the remembered megaspell out of her eyes and teleported across the foyer to the elevator controls.

Level Up
New Perk: Teaser Mare. You are becoming a coy seductress. You gain +1 Charisma and gain new dialog options.

Chapter 11: Talent Supercedes

Why had StableTec made this elevator so slow? Why was it the only way in or out of the stable? Lyra paced back and forth on the platform, impatient to get within reach of Blue Note. Bullets whistled overhead.

This was taking too long; Blue Note might already be dead. She gritted her teeth and teleported for the second time in five minutes. She came out of the teleport three hooves over the ground and grunted in pain as the shock of landing vibrated through her legs. Sunlight gleamed off the snow, blinding her. She raised a shield, her horn screaming in protest at the sudden overuse of magic, and raced towards the red and blue blur on the white.

“Blue! Blue!” she cried, skidding to a stop next to her huddled body. “Oh Harmony, oh Harmony, please be all right.”

“Blue Note can’t move her wing.” Blue Note lay behind the pile of cinder blocks she’d been using for cover, such a mess of gore and tangled clothes that Lyra couldn’t even tell where she was wounded, except that her wing hung at a funny angle, and the membrane was torn.

“Don’t try it!” Lyra looked down the hill to the south. “What happened… Oh, fuck me with a forklift.”

Vindaloo had found an army.

Not a friendly one.

Five Minutemares fled uphill at top speed, clouds of snow flying up from under their hooves. Behind them at least a hundred earth ponies in raider armor followed, hooting and mocking. Who was shooting, then? Somepony was shooting. A bullet flew by so close it tickled the fur on the edge of her ear, and Lyra fell flat on her belly behind the cinder blocks.

Peeking through the holes in the blocks, she saw the shooters — three ponies sitting in a tree like birds: one red, one yellow, one black. Red and Yellow were shooting at the Minutemares; Black’s rifle tracked back and forth in Lyra’s direction. She’d lost sight of her. That gave her second to think.

Lyra picked up Blue Note’s rifle — a Moosein-Neighgant, an old Crystal Empire single-shot rifle, she’d used one often at the firing range — and entered SATS. The program only estimated a ten percent chance to hit; the Moosein only had a five-round magazine. Lyra didn’t like those odds.

That tree they were sitting in looked dead. Dry. Flammable. Could she do pyrokinesis at this range? No. But she could hit the tree with a flaming bullet. She created a cylinder of rotating force fields in front of the Moosein’s muzzle — an ‘Inkwell Accelerator’ — locked onto the tree in SATS and fired. The flaming bullet zipped over the heads of the advancing army’s heads. It sparked as it hit the tree, and soon flames raced along the desiccated branches. The raider snipers dove into the snow, rolling around to extinguish their flaming bodies.

Vindaloo closed the distance, the other Minutemares close behind, two of them carrying Trail Mix, who was bleeding heavily from a wound on her flank.

“What happened?” said Lyra.

“What does it fucking look like?” said Vindaloo, rushing to the control panel and starting the elevator. “Raiders ambushed us at the ration stockpile. Looks like they’re out for revenge.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

BON-80n waited for them at the base of the elevator with two ponies she was training as medics.

“They shot her! She’s dying!” wailed Lyra as BON-80n helped her lay Blue Note on a waiting gurney.

“Blue Note is… augh… not dying,” insisted Blue Note. “But her wing hurts.”

BON-80n’s chassis lights flashed red. “When I find the pony who let a pregnant mare go on guard duty I will give them many harsh words.”

“Blue Note has no regrets.”

“Will she be all right?” said Lyra. “Can’t you just use a stimpack on her?”

“Not with this wing,” said BON-80n. “It will heal incorrectly and she will never fly again.” Her tentacles probed delicately at the wounded muscle and torn membrane. A worrying shard of white poked out through tangled red flesh. “I will need to operate immediately if I am to save it.”

Lyra’s insides felt cold. “You’re not a surgery bot.”

BON-80n’s chassis lights flickered blue.”I am only programmed to assist with surgery, but I am all we have. It will have to do my best. Please. Go see if the Majors need your help.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Crispy’s monitors showed grainy black and white feeds of dozens of ponies milling around outside the stable exit. Denied a fight, they rioted, smashing everything they could find. Unfortunately for them, what they could find wasn’t much. They knocked over the trailer, smashed that half desk, lit some trees on fire. Lyra started to worry about her car, then decided not too — raiders couldn’t do much that twenty years and a megaspell war couldn’t.

They hadn’t found any of the cameras, though there was one in the exterior door control station. That station held a lot of interest for them. Lyra winced when they started wailing on its base with a sledgehammer “Crispy don’t let them do that! I don’t know if I can fix it.”

Crispy flicked on the external PA. “Can I help you fillies with anything?”

A pony with a mane that went all the way around his neck like a lion’s strutted over to the edge of the vault. “I’m Haaaayyymaker!” he said, shaking his mane. “Want your stable. Want you dead. Pretty simple. How do you open this thing up?”

“You’re telling my none of you brought a can opener?” said Crispy, leaning back in his chair with a hoof on the PA button.

“Haha, you think you’re funny,” said Haymaker. “You think you’re cute. You’re not. You killed the Vulture Pie gang. That’s fine. Lazy fucks. You killed the Fat Bastards. That’s great, everypony hated those greedy whores. You killed Skull Splitter and Scattershot.”

“I don’t even know who they are,” said Crispy.

“Oh, he must mean Skull and Bullseye. That was me,” said Lyra. “I killed them.”

“You did what?” said Vindaloo from behind them.

“Well fuck you,” said Haymaker. “They were good contractors. But that’s not why I’m here. Got to make an example of you fools. You stood up to raiders. What if other ponies find out you’ve been standing up to raiders? They might try it themselves. They might organize. We’d actually have to start trying, instead of sitting around doing drugs all day. Huge pain in the dick. Let us in now, and we’ll only torture you a little bit.”

“I have a counter-proposal,” said Crispy. “How about you suck my cock instead?”

“Don’t make me come in there,” growled Haymaker.

Crispy took his hoof off the outside PA button. “I guess we should have seen this coming.”

Vindaloo tapped Lyra on the shoulder. “You were bluffing about killing Bullseye and Skull Splitter, right?”

Lyra blinked. “No. I really did that. That was one of the first things I did after I woke up. Was that bad?”

“Bullshit.” Vindaloo narrowed her eyes. “You’re telling me you capped two of the hardest motherfuckers in the wasteland singlehoofed?”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “Singlehoofed and unarmed. I knocked Scattershot down the elevator shaft with my magic and pukwudgies ate her. Crispy, you saw what was left of her when we came down here.”

Crispy whistled and nodded. “Not recognizable, but sure, I’ll buy that.”

“And Skull Splitter?” said Vindaloo.

“Decapitated him with a telekinetically accelerated writing desk. He’s still up there under a couple of feet of snow, as far as I know. I will show you in the springtime. It will be wonderful.”

Vindaloo squinted at Lyra. Hot air puffed from her flaring nostrils. She leaned forward and sniffed at Lyra. Lyra leaned back. “Do you think I’m lying to you?” said Lyra.

“No,” said Vindaloo, not backing off, “But I’m going back to my theory where you’re not who you say you are. What do you think, Crispy? Ministry of Awesome black ops?”

Crispy tapped on one of his monitors. “Look what they’re doing.” Raider ponies stood in a circle around the stable entrance, trying to hammer wedges into the edge of the stable door with sledgehammers and mallets. They weren’t having a lot of success — one accidentally launched her wedge across the door into another raider pony’s face. Another missed his swing and sledgehammered the head of the pony holding his wedge in place for him.

Lyra winced. “How long do you think it’s going to take to get in there, working like that?”

“Twenty, maybe forty years. But I don’t think we have the supplies for that kind of siege. Vindaloo?”

Vindaloo shook her head. “We have three weeks food, with strict rationing. Our water supply will last three days.”

“Three days!” said Crispy. “What about the water we brought back from the ration stockpile?”

“We showered in it.”

Crispy blew out through his lips and kicked out his hind legs, sending his rolly chair skittering across the security office. “Well, that was short-sighted of us. So what do we do? We can’t attack them, there are too many.”

“That would be suicide,” agreed Vindaloo.

Lyra stroked her hoof with one chin. “So we can’t go out to fight them, and we can’t hide in the stable.”

“That’s exactly what we just got finished saying,” said Vindaloo, eyes rolling so hard it looked like they might turn around backward in her skull.

Lyra ignored her. She felt sure she was onto something. “So what if we let them into the stable?”

Vindaloo’s eyes flashed. She gritted her teeth, stiffened her legs, and stomped with both her forelegs.

Lyra sighed. “Do you have something to say, Major?”

But Vindaloo didn’t respond right away. Gears turned behind her eyes. She tilted her head first to one side, then another. “There’s a level of stupidity so profound it becomes genius.”

Crispy scooted his chair towards them on its rollers. “Go on, Lyra. What did you have in mind?”

Lyra took a deep breath. “Okay, this is very dangerous, but this is what I was thinking…”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭
Burrburrary 9th, EoH 47

Steam hissed from the stable door’s elevator hydraulics as Lyra twisted open a valve. The muffled sound of raiders pounding on the vault door chimed down the thirty tail elevator shaft above them.

“If we’re under it when it falls, won’t it squash us?” said Paneer, her eyes dancing with enthusiasm. She wore a different foal-sized stable suit, this one cut into a little jacket with yellow, orange and green ribbons laced clumsily through the fabric of the cuffs.

“Yes. The idea is not to be under it when it falls. Wrench please?”

“Is it okay to break the door on purpose? I didn’t think it was okay to break things.” Paneer floated the bolt wrench out of the tool bag and wobbled it over to Lyra.

“What does your mom do for a living? The thing about rules is that a lot of them are situational. Sometimes you need to break a rule, and knowing when to do that is what makes you a grown-up. But the trick in this case,” she said, wrenching open a stubborn flow control value, “is to break the door in such a way that we can fix it again after the battle.”

“Break it, fix it. Got it.”

“So the elevator here is a hydraulic lift. This pump pushes oil into the big telescoping piston in the middle here, which elevates the stable door. Then those big bolts up there come out to lock the door in place.” Lyra pointed the components out one by one. Paneer’s eyes followed her hoof, rapt. “So what I’m doing right now is draining most of the oil from the piston so that it’s only held up by the bolts. Not all of it, though — I’m leaving a cushion of oil in there so that the piston won’t be damaged when the stable door falls.” Lyra gave the wrench a final twist, and the piston hissed and shifted. “Okay. It’s draining. Do you see the pressure gauge right there?”

“Yep!”

“Tell me when it gets to three of these little tic marks before the red.”

“It’s going down fast!”

Lyra smiled. She could see the gauge just fine in her side vision, but she wanted Paneer to be involved. “Don’t worry. Just pay attention. You’ve got this.”

“Falling. Falling… Now!”

Lyra turned the wrench clockwise. The valve closed, and the piston groaned. Above them, the stable door slumped against its restraints. The pounding paused, then quickened.

“Did I do okay?” said Paneer. “It’s right on the red.”

“Perfect. That’s what I was aiming for,” said Lyra. “I had you lead the target a little.”

“Right. Mom does that with her rifle.”

”Now comes the dangerous part. I need to ungually disengage those bolts with my magic. I need to be able to see them, so I’ll have to stay in the shaft. And I need you to be ready to pull me out if the door falls before I’m ready.”

Paneer’s mouth fell open. “I can’t do that! I’m not strong enough!”

“You don’t need to be strong. I’m going to make a magical tether between us. All you’ll need to do is tug. Do you mind if we touch horns for a second?”

Paneer nodded. “S-sure.”

Lyra linked her magic field with Paneer’s. She felt an odd, ghostly sensation of double-presence as though a ghost version of herself stood where Paneer was.

“Whoa. Mystical bullshit,” said Paneer, eyes wide.

“Exactly. Give the tether a tug so I know you’ve… Yipe!” A telekinetic pressure on Lyra's horn jerked her a full hoof towards her young apprentice. “Okay, I think you’ve got it. Now go stand over there.”

Paneer craned her neck to see where Lyra was pointing. “All the way over there? That’s like halfway across the foyer! How come I don’t get to do any of the dangerous stuff?” She stomped a hoof petulantly.

“I don’t you to get hurt by any flying debris. Your mother will kill me if I let anything happen to you. This way at least one of us lives.”

Paneer stomped off sullenly into the foyer. Lyra looked up and began pulling back bolts. Each one of the six was a multi-stage process. When she had done exactly half, the stable door creaked and slumped down six inches on one side. Lyra flinched. Paneer tugged on the tether, but Lyra waved her off. Muffled cheering from above. Lyra stepped back to the edge of the hydraulics pit and started work on the fourth bolt.

Her lower back twinged. “Yeah, no shit,” she said. But her earth pony disaster sense was more on point than she realized — the stable door shook, as though a massive weight had landed on it suddenly. Then again, as if that weight had jumped. The remaining bolts let out a ghoulish metallic shriek and gave way. The stable door rushed towards Lyra. She tried to run, but her muscles froze in shock. She felt a tug on her horn, and the foyer blurred past her. When she came to a stop she was six hooves past Paneer and her butt was hot from friction with the floor.

“Good job, Paneer! I…” Her praise died in her mouth.

There, standing on the broken stable door, was a testament to the Minutemare’s failure to clean up after themselves — Fizzlepop’s purple and black power armor, with the Fat Bastards’ fifty caliber machine gun strapped to its battle saddle.

Raiders were slightly smarter than advertised.

“You fucking fixed it?” screamed Lyra, throwing up a double shield in front of her and Paneer. “How?”

The power armor pony opened fire. Massive bullets slammed into Lyra’s shield, pushing her back with kinetic transfer and making her horn hurt so much it felt like it might shatter. Raider ponies rappelled down the shaft on either side of the power armor pony.

Lyra and Paneer ran, screaming. It was part of the plan that they flee in an apparent panic once the stable door was open. Lyra had been worried about her acting ability. She needn’t have been.

They fled down the maintenance corridor, Lyra’s shield already beginning to crack. Smaller impacts stuttered alongside the big ones as more raiders added their weapons to the curtain of bullets.

Paneer reached the side corridor where they were supposed to disappear a few paces ahead of Lyra. She turned to say something the moment Lyra’s shield shattered. The words never got out of her mouth — a bullet plucked her up into the air and sent her hurtling down the corridor. Lyra cast the teleport spell she’d prepared. Golden light filled her vision.

They came out of the tesseract in an office full of armed Minutemares. She laid Paneer on the floor and applied pressure to her wound with a towel.

“Shit, shit, shit,” said Rotgut. “Vindaloo’s gonna murder us!”

“Stimpack! Quick!” snapped Lyra. The bullet had torn through Paneer’s left haunch. Blood soaked through the white towel, quickly turning it red. “Before she bleeds out!”

Rotgut fumbled in his saddlebags for the team’s one stimpack. Lyra tore it from his mouth and jammed the needle into Paneer’s flank. Paneer shrieked and thrashed, but Lyra held the stimpack steady and pushed down the plunger.

Paneer’s bleeding stopped, and the wound’s edges curled closed. Not completely — it would certainly leave a scar. But Paneer would live. The foal pushed herself off the floor and huddled against Lyra’s chest, sobbing quietly. Lyra wrapped her forelegs around her. “What’s going on in the atrium? Have the raiders reached it yet?”

This office was behind three locked doors and accessible only through the stable’s living quarters. It had been chosen as Lyra and Rotgut’s staging area for its inaccessibility and it’s working terminal. The Minutemare’s aversion to constant surveillance had been set aside for this operation. Rotgut turned the monitor to face Lyra. Things didn’t look good in the atrium — dozens of raiders, maybe Haymaker’s whole army, had rushed into it, just as they’d hoped. But the power armor was causing problems. It’s machinegun forced ponies into cover wherever it turned, and from the bullet impacts sparkling off its armored hide Lyra could see it was drawing the fire of inexperienced ponies. There were no noncombatants in the stable today — everypony except BON-80n’s medic had been given basic firearms training and a weapon. Lyra and Rotgut had the preponderance of ponies with combat experience.

“What are we going to do?” said Rotgut. “We can’t fight that thing.

“Close the trap,” said Lyra. “We’ve gotten this far in the plan. If we don’t close the trap, it’s all for nothing.”

“But how? Our guns are gonna do fuck all against that armor!”

“Hold Paneer for a second. I want to look at something.” She tapped at the terminal’s keyboard and zoomed the camera in on the power armor. “There. They didn’t replace the panel on the emergency manual release.”

Rotgut stared at her blankly as Paneer’s tears soaked his chest ruff.

Lyra rolled her eyes so hard it made her hornache worse. “I need you to get me into line of sight with that power armor, and I can pop it like an oyster. Got it?”

Light dawned behind Rotgut’s eyes. “Manual release! Oh, shit, yeah, I remember that!”

Lyra turned to Paneer. “Can you be okay here? We need every gun.”

“Can I watch the camera feeds?” said Paneer, rubbing at her wet cheeks with the pastern of her good hoof.

“Can I stop you?” said Lyra.

Paneer grabbed her by one leg and hugged her hard. “Please don’t die.” Lyra leaned down to nuzzle her mane. “I’ll do my best.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Haymaker’s raiders hadn’t left a rear guard. Why would they have? They thought they had won.

It took Lyra three round trip teleports to get all of her team into the maintenance corridor, and by the time she was done her horn felt like it was going to split in half. She and Rotgut sent two Minutemares to guard the foyer end of the corridor against raider stragglers and led the rest deeper into the stable.

The atrium rang with the sound of gunfire and echoed with the sound of screams. Twenty raiders clustered along the balcony in front of them, taking cover behind barrels and crates, all facing away from them into the atrium. Lyra and Rotgut’s team shot them all before they even had time to turn around. Lyra helped, firing her pistol from her mouth because her horn hurt too much to levitate it.

Lyra’s team took the raiders' places, kicking aside their corpses to make room. Rotgut signaled to Crispy and Vindaloo’s team that they were in position, then ducked down as bullets whistled past his head.

Lyra’s radio crackled. “Lyra! Do something about that power armor!” Apparently, in Vindaloo’s mind ‘radio silence’ was for other ponies.

“I’m working on it!” It was hard to get a clear line of sight to the power armor pony with so much lead in the air. Lyra got down on her belly, and poked one eye out behind the crate she hid behind.

Most of the raiders were in the middle of the lower floor of the atrium. They’d charged down the stairs and gotten themselves surrounded, and from the way they whooped and hollered, it didn’t even seem like they knew how much danger they were in. The power armor pony stood facing away from her, the emergency release handle visible. She reached out with her telekinesis; just drawing her magic together felt like walking on a broken ankle. This was it. This was burnout. She’d known about magic burnout, and she’d pushed anyway, and here she was. She needed to just stop. Stop using magic so she wouldn’t hurt herself anymore. But she had to do this first. She grabbed the handle and pulled. The inside of her horn filled itself with razor blades.

The purple power armor opened with the grace of a blooming flower. The bat pony inside stood blinking in confusion for a second and a half before bullets from four different directions tore his body to bloody scraps.

Lyra rolled back behind her crate, covering her eyes with her hooves. Static filled her vision. She couldn’t hear anything. Littlepip’s scent filled her nose. Oil. Leather. Sweat. Lyra found the smell beautiful, and the fact that she liked it made her feel ill.

“Don’t look,” said Littlepip, her hard, pretty little face so close to Lyra’s that she could feel her breath. “Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look. Please don’t look.”

Lyra pushed her away, and she dissipated like smoke. The razors in her horn had spread out into her head as well, scraping the inside of her skull like a crown of thorns. But she could see and hear again. The gunfire had stopped, and her ears rang with the relative silence. The only sound was Crispy shouting and Haymaker begging. She rolled over again to look out around the crate.

Raider corpses lay in heaps on the atrium floor. Literal heaps! The bodies formed a cone shape towards the stairs up to the balcony and the maintenance corridor. The piles of corpses thickened as the cone narrowed — the raiders had run, been cut down, and the ones behind them had tripped over their bodies and been cut down in turn. Lyra’s throat tightened. She wanted to cry. She’d helped this happen, been instrumental in all this death. But she couldn’t do it. She was dry. Cold. It wasn’t just that she didn’t care — deep down inside, a part of her (Littlepip?) thought this was right.

But the ponies hadn’t killed all the raiders. Fifty-six of them lay on their bellies in two rows of twenty-eight. Stable ponies and Minutmares stood around them in a ragged circle, guns trained on them. Crispy and Haymaker stood at the end of the two lines, Haymaker on his knees with Crispy’s shotgun muzzle pressed against his head.

“We’re sorry. We’re sorry,” said Haymaker, his lean shaggy body shaking with fear. Blood soaked his voluminous mane all along one side, and he held his tail between his hind legs like a whipped dog. “We made a mistake. Just let us go, okay? Let us walk away, and we’ll never bother you again. We’ll tell everypony we know just… just leave those Minutemares alone.” He gave a nervous, placating laugh. “It’s not worth it. It’s not… please…”

Crispy rammed his shotgun’s muzzle against Haymaker’s snout. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” roared Crispy.

“I… I… I don’t know?” stammered Haymaker, going cross-eyed looking at the barrel.

“Do you think you can come into my home? Hurt my foal? Kill my ponies? And just walk away?”

Haymaker scooted back and raised a forehoof placatingly. “Hey. Hey. If it’s tribute you want, we can talk about that. Just… don’t… don’t…”

“You won’t be walking anywhere.” Crispy swept Haymaker’s foreleg out from under him, knocking him to the ground. He swung his shotgun towards his hind legs and fired, blasting one back knee to pulp. “You’ve got to learn that if you fuck with the Minutemares, there are consequences. I’ve got to set a fucking example.”

He left Haymaker yowling and bleeding, and began to walk along the line of prisoners. “One… Two… Three.. Four… Five… Six… Seven… Eight… Nine…” He stopped at the tenth and fired into her head. Then he began counting again.

Lyra couldn’t move. She had to do something, had to say something, had to stop this, but what could she do? The Minutemares were the good ones, weren’t they? They were the good ponies. She’d run. Leave the stable right now.

“Eight… Nine…”

“Please, no! I’ll be good,” begged the twentieth pony, little more than a colt. “I didn’t want to be a raider, I…”

Crispy fired.

Why couldn’t she move?

Crispy counted out three more times, punctuating with shotgun blasts, then kept counting. “One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six…” He pressed his shotgun against the last stallion’s head. The stallion started to cry. Crispy held his shotgun there for a full minute, eyes narrowed as if deciding whether to round up or not. At last, he stepped back.

“All right, that’s enough. Now go,” he said. “Get lost. And tell everypony you meet what happened here.”

The raiders didn’t move.

Crispy fired into the floor three times. “Run! Run, or I’ll kill you all!

Fifty-one ponies thundered up the stairs beside Lyra, climbing over the bodies of their fallen comrades to escape.

Lyra’s whole body felt numb. She couldn’t stop shaking.

No Level Up

Chapter 12: Interstate Immigrant Song

Burrburrary 9th, EoH 47

Lyra sat by Blue Note’s cot, their hooves hooked together. The blue thestral’s wing was cranked out in traction, and she stared at the ceiling with a bitter expression on her face.

“Is your foal okay?”

“Yes. And Bon Bon says that the wing will heal well. But she also says that Blue Note is confined to bed rest for the remainder of her term. Two months! It is absurd. Blue Note is not a fragile flower, and neither is her foal.”

Lyra squeezed Blue Note’s hoof. “You should do what she says. You scared me.”

Blue Note tilted her head towards Lyra. “You care for Blue Note. She appreciates that. And she cares for you. But she is not going to get to keep you, is she? Soon Lyra will go looking for her husband. Blue Note supposes it is her destiny.”

Lyra looked away. Her throat felt dry. “I have to go. I’m going to talk to Crispy about it today.”

Blue Note reached out to stroke Lyra’s cheek. “You have to find your family. Blue Note wouldn’t take that away from you if she could. She would like to come with you, but…” she waved in the direction of her gravid belly.

“I’m sure it will be a beautiful foal.”

“Of course it will be. It will bring whatever parents Blue Note picks for it great joy.”

“Definitely.” She leaned up to kiss her, and the kiss went on for rather a long time. The kiss lighted a fire deep in Lyra’s belly, and they might’ve done more, but the infirmary was crowded after the battle, and BON-80n was giving Paneer physical therapy not ten hooves away. They talked a while longer after that, then Lyra went to check in on BON-80n and Paneer.

“I’m doing great!” said Paneer, pronking in place. “And the scar looks so badass!”

“Please,” said BON-80n, restraining Paneer with a padded tentacle. “Exercise caution. You have no legs to spare.”

“How’s Haymaker?” said Lyra.

“Depressed,” said BON-80n, chassis lights flickering in a complex pattern of blue and orange. “As one might expect. I was able to save his leg. But the will to recover, it must be present as well, no? And what has he to live for?”

“What a wimp. Who even needs four legs?” said Paneer, waving her flipper.

BON-80n’s chassis lights flashed red. “Torture and the execution of prisoners are war crimes. Such things would not have been allowed in the old world.”

Lyra blew out through her nose and stomped her hoof. “I’m glad somepony feels the way I do about this.”

Paneer narrowed her eyes. “I don’t even know what you two are talking about. Raiders are the bad guys. What does it matter what we do to them?”

“The impression Crispy has created in the minds of the young may be irreparable,” said BON-80n.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra fled across the stable, and Littlepip followed.

“Where are you going?” called Littlepip, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Leave me alone. You’re not real,” said Lyra.

“You’re leaving. Why are you leaving? You have to stay here. You need to help these ponies!”

Lyra ignored her and picked up her pace, trotting into the atrium, where ponies were trying to scrub away yesterday’s bloodstains with sponges and buckets of soapy water.

“Don’t ignore me!” screamed Littlepip, following after her. Littlepip was a tiny pony, little taller than Paneer if a bit heavier, and had to gallop to keep up with Lyra’s trot. Lyra was impressed with her subconscious mind’s attention to detail.

Lyra reached the relative shelter of the maintenance corridor before rounding on her imaginary frenemy. “Can anypony but me see you?”

Littlepip grimaced. “No, but I’m really real, I promise.”

“A real hallucination, sure. And if ponies see me talking to empty air, what are they going to think?”

“That you’re crazy. But Harmony doesn’t care about that. Harmony cares that you do the right thing. You have to stay here. To fight raiders. To fight ponies that are worse than raiders. The Minutmares are the only ponies who can bring order and real peace to the Commonwealth wasteland, and they need your help to do that.”

“Did you see what Crispy did?” growled Lyra, struggling to keep her voice low.

Littlepip held her tongue, fire gleaming in her green eyes. Lyra stepped close to Littlepip, leaning down so they were nose to nose. “You did. And even you can’t defend it.” Lyra’s heart fluttered at having her lips so close to Littlepip’s. She was beautiful, despite the ugly scar on her neck and the hard, hollow look in her eyes. Maybe because of those things. She felt a wild impulse to kiss her, and a brief catch in the little gray mare’s breath made Lyra suspect she might reciprocate. Lyra buried the urge — making out with her own hallucination was a bit much, even for her.

“Y-you always have to do what’s right,” stammered Littlepip. “Even if it means becoming the villain of the piece.”

“You make me sick. Stay away from me.” Lyra turned and stomped away. “And stay out of my PipBuck, too!”

When she got to the foyer, the ponies working on the elevator-slash-door stared at her, and she realized she’d shouted those last words. Well. It didn’t matter if the Minutemares thought she was crazy. She’d be gone soon.

A moment later she realized these ponies weren’t trying to fix the door. They were fumbling to build a staircase out of scrap metal with hammers and wood nails. She groaned internally. How were these fools going to survive without her?

Two hours later, she had them sorted out, and the stable door back in working order. She showed them how to use the scrap metal to fix the damaged bolts and reinforce the piston in case it’d incurred any hidden structural damage when the power armor pony had jumped on it.

“Thanks, Lyra,” said one of the ponies. “We don’t know what we’d do without you.”

I don’t know what you’d do without me either, thought Lyra. But all she said was “I do my best.” She couldn’t procrastinate any longer. She could see that Crispy was in the security office. The door was open. Time to go talk to him.

“Can you at least understand why I did it?” he said, without turning from the security monitor to look at her. She noticed that one of the feeds showed the atrium.

“Have you changed your mind about monitoring inside the stable?”

Crispy flipped out to an outside feed. “I don’t know. Horse Teeth and the other founding Minutemares never had time to write a constitution. They had principals. Freedom. Security. Privacy. Self-determination. Ponies sharing their stuff. And I’m behind all those things. But sometimes they contradict each other. Like what happened yesterday. I did what I had to do. I don’t want it to be a secret. It’s good that there’s a record of it. But keeping track of things like that requires the cameras being on.”

“They were on because we needed them for the battle,” said Lyra.

“We need them so the government can be liable to the law.” Crispy rubbed his face. “But we don’t have any laws. We’ve been too busy fighting for our lives to make them. Damn. I wasn’t cut out for this. I just wanted to be a writer.” He looked over his shoulder at Lyra and waved a hoof towards a chair. “You want to talk, right? Sit down.”

Lyra’s throat felt dry. She swallowed. She felt like saying, ‘I prefer to stand’, but she didn’t feel like being a righteous prick about this, so she took a seat.

“You sit weird. No offense,” said Crispy.

“I do.” Lyra sat with her butt on the seat and her hind legs hanging over the edge, instead of hind legs curled up and all four hooves on the chair like most ponies did. But if that’s how ponies were meant to sit why did chairs even have backs? “I have to leave the stable,” said Lyra, looking Crispy in the eyes.

“Do you understand why I did what I did?” said Crispy.

“I think I do,” said Lyra. “But I’d like to hear it from your mouth.”

“I decimated them. When the ancient Pegasopolans conquered a city, they’d line up the inhabitants and kill every tenth pony. They did it to set an example. To show they meant business. To show they weren’t to be fucked with.”

“They did it so often they had a word for it.”

Crispy nodded. “Yes. There aren’t many Minutemares. This stable protects us, but we can be trapped in here so easily. We beat Haymaker because he was an idiot. We can’t count on the next one being so stupid. We need to make the raiders too afraid of us to come after us.” He sighed. “To tell you the truth, I was angry too.”

“Because you found out Paneer got shot?”

He nodded, mouth set in a hard line.

“I’m sorry I let that happen.”

He shook his head. “We knew it was a risk. Vindaloo and I knowingly used her as bait. The raiders would think we wouldn’t risk a foal in a trap — not with how rare healthy foals are these days.”

Lyra tilted her head to one side. “Healthy? I mean I feel bad asking, but…”

“You haven’t seen what most foals come out like these days. Paneer’s our golden child.”

Lyra’s throat tightened. “Blue Note?”

“We’ve treated her as carefully as she’ll let us. We can only hope. Anyway, we risked Paneer and you to win the battle, and I feel way worse about that than anything I did to the raiders.”

“Are you Paneer’s father?”

“That’s still up in the air. Vindaloo and I are pretty new.” He smiled. “I’d like to be, though. She deserves better. But what foal doesn’t deserve a better world than this?” He waved around him, the gesture notionally encompassing both the stable and the wasteland at large. “You deserve better, too. I can’t keep you here, and I wouldn’t even if I could.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “You can’t?”

“You’d find a way out. Anyway, you should go and find your family. We like you here, and you’ve been a lot of help to us. You’re welcome back any time.”

Lyra blinked several times. “Really?” She hadn’t expected it to be that easy.

“But I can’t send you out alone. You’ll die.”

“That’s what ponies tell me.”

Crispy tapped his chin. “Vindaloo and I were thinking about sending a trading expedition to Triple Diamond City. You should go along. You’ll be safe there, and somepony may know about your family.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Burrburrary 23rd, EoH 47

They marched down through Sanctuary Hills to the old path of Route 2. Snow covered whatever was left of the old highway so deeply Lyra’s hooves never touched asphalt, and the twisted, brown-needled mutant conifers that dominated the wasteland’s forests had wormed their way in along its course, but Lyra had driven that way often enough that she still recognized it. Their party, a dozen strong, armed with a fine selection of captured raider weapons, and escorted by a difficult-to-identify and possibly (not actually) deadly Mr. Hoofsies model intimidated raider and monster alike, counterbalancing any attention their three sleds loaded down with valuable stable scrap might have earned them. Lyra walked near the end, escorting the sled that Paneer had to sit on, accompanied by BON-80n.

They ought to have been pleasant enough company, but the morning’s conversation mainly revolved around how bored Paneer felt.

“I wanna get off and walk!” Paneer would say, sulking in her little nest of pillows and blankets.

“Non, mon lapin. The exercise would be too vigorous, given your recent injury.” BON-80n would say.

“It’s been two weeks! I’m fine!”

“As your physician, I judge this walk to be beyond your current physical capabilities You may play when we reach Triple Diamond City.”

“I’m gonna tell my mom you won’t let me exercise.”

“Your mother instructed me that I am to ‘treat her child as if she were a priceless glass figurine’, minus an entirely unnecessary number of expletives. Rest assured that we are on the same page in this matter.”

“I hate you.”

Fifteen minutes of silence.

Conversation repeats.

Lyra might’ve tried to steer the conversation in a more productive direction, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her family — from unrealistic fantasies about them rushing to meet her at the gates of Triple Diamond City, to regrets about missing Bean’s entire foalhood, to agonizing guilt fantasies about Beanpole heartbrokenly sobbing over her adultery.

At noon, they rested at a farm on the top of a hill overlooking the junction with Route 95. Lyra, Paneer, and BON-80n waited by a sign advertising pies for sale while Vindaloo led the Minutemares in clearing the buildings. Vindaloo’s sharp criticism of the raw recruits’ tactics floated on the clear and frosty air. Lyra was puzzled to discover that she found Vindaloo’s hostility comforting in this context — if it was unpleasant to be on the receiving end of it, then so much worse for their enemies.

After Vindaloo gave the all-clear they set up in one of the more intact buildings to get out of the cold, rest, and give Vindaloo a chance to cook. The Minutimares had, of course, stripped the Principality Stockpile to the boards by now, and the had plenty of field rations available, but the Minutemare major preferred to cook with fresh foods whenever possible and save the preserved stuff for emergencies. ‘Fresh’ was relative in the Wasteland, but lunch today was a quick casserole of biscuit mix, chili paste, and dried vegetables that had Lyra wishing there was enough for seconds.

When they moved out again, Lyra took a moment to look down towards Buckstone. She could see the jagged tops of Chickenhoof Tower and the Careful Building poking over the hilltops, and paused to wonder where they were going.

“So are we going to take Route 2 all the way into Canterbridge?” she asked as Vindaloo walked by, heading for the front of the column.

“No. There’s a big princess compound at Fresh Pond. We’re gonna swing south down the old interstate for a while and then pick our way east through the suburbs to Triple Diamond City.”

Lyra frowned thoughtfully, consulting her mental map of the city. “It’s at Swampway Park. Triple Diamond City is at Swampway Park. Like a Boopball Diamond.”

“I see you you’ve shifted from idiot mode to savant mode,” said Vindaloo, looking slyly over her shoulder at Lyra as she walked away.

“Okay, but why Triple Diamond City?”

“And back to idiot mode.”

Lyra glared at Vindaloo’s retreating red butt. Then the light dawned. “Wait. It is her? It can’t be her! She’s still alive?” She raced downhill after Vindaloo.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“So… um… that was Thunderdash with their version of I Will Fly, which makes me cry every time.” Dead air. “Not that that’s hard to make me cry.”

Lyra sighed as the radio drifted into another stretch of dead air. Bored and needing distraction from the cold and wet, Lyra had taken to listening to the radio from Triple Diamond City on her PipBuck. The music selection was pretty good — mostly pre-war grunge and punk; had nopony had time to record any new music since she fell asleep? — but the DJ left a lot to be desired.

“So…” the DJ shuffled some papers, “Absolutely Everything is having a sale on brooms, I guess? I can’t read this note. And at Artillery’s Firearms Emporium every seventh customer gets… um… an incendiary grenade free?” Dead air. “That doesn’t seem like a good idea. Anyway, this is DJ mumble mumble for 88.9 WRAR, the Wasteland’s Alternative. The alternative to… like… one classical music station with secret codes hidden in it. CIM, you’re nor fooling anycreature.” Dead air. “I didn’t name the station. Anyway, I’m… um… going to play music for about an hour so I don’t have to talk any more. Next up are Sweetie Belle and the Crusaders singing You Know I’m No Good.”

Lyra hummed along as she listened to Sweetie Belle sing about how in the end she’d only cheated herself, and she felt so bad, but in a good way. It was hard to explain.

It was a pretty good station.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

It was late in the day, and it was clear to Lyra they weren’t going to make Triple Diamond City before nightfall. They were deep into the suburbs by now, and Lyra didn’t like it here. Abandoned houses slumped and loomed on either side of the road, still marked with evidence of the families that had lived there. Tattered Nightmare Night decorations. Ruined cars parked in driveways. Lawnmower yokes poking up through the snow.

She kept seeing movement out of the corners of her eye; flickers of motion in windows shadows looming behind sheds. The snow on the road was more packed down here, churned brown with hoofprints that didn’t belong to the Minutemares.

Lamp posts still stood here. They were the battlefield for a level of warfare Lyra hadn’t expected to see in the wasteland: propaganda war. Banners hung from the signs, freshly printed on weather-resistant vinyl, touting the benefits of either Triple Diamond City or… the Ponysmith? Having heard so many awful things about him, Lyra hadn’t expected to see posters of hard-working unicorns thriving under his enlightened rule — though the fact that Scattershot and Skull Splitter had wanted to sell her to him made her doubt that his demesne was such a great place to be a unicorn.

Other factions participated in the propaganda war on a low-effort level. Many of the banners had been defaced with drawings of genitals — by raiders, most likely. Others had graffiti reading “Ha ha ha, Super Alicorns will destroy you all!” Lyra was still giggling at that when she saw something that stopped her in her tracks.

An image of the Ponysmith. He loomed protectively over smiling unicorns harvesting a green field, cyclopean in contrast of scale, resplendent in gleaming red power armor. His helmet was decorated with curving horns like those of a bull.

She’d seen him before! But where? She stood, staring at him, trying to remember, until the Mintuemare column had passed her by, and Paneer — finally allowed to run in the shallower snow — came pelting back towards her in her hopping, three-legged run. “Mom said ‘Go tell Lyra to get her ass in gear. This is ghoul country.’”

Lyra blinked. “What’s a ghoul?”

Paneer reared up on her hind legs, hooked her foreleg, and made a zombie face. “They’re horrible, gross ponies who got all wrinkly and mutated because of radiation!”

“Necrification,” said BON-80n, hovering up behind Paneer. “I have observed several ponies suffering from this condition stalking us. Is it very widespread? The condition was theorized, pre-war, but I have little experience with it. To see it in the field is quite fascinating.”

Lyra gasped. “Necrification! That was what I had! Before you put me in the tank!”

Paneer blinked. “You’re a ghoul? Wow, you look really good.”

“Non. The Z-core tank cured her. Sadly, we only had enough of the alchemical solution for one treatment, and without the formula, I cannot provide this treatment to others.”

Lyra sighed. “Also it took twenty years; that’s a pretty big downside.” Was being a ghoul worse than missing Bean’s foalhood? Lyra doubted it.

“Well anyway,” said Paneer, rolling her eyes, “Come on and catch up with the group before they eat us alive.”

“Oh!” said BON-80n as they hurried towards the rear guard. “So the condition does in fact lead to aggression and reduced cognitive function?”

“Sometimes!” said Paneer. “A lot of ghouls are fine; a bunch lived with us at Breeder’s Hill. But some of ‘em are zombies!”

Lyra sighed. Zombie ponies. Great.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Darkness came early. Vindaloo picked a one-story house whose bones were still solid after twenty years of neglect, and they’d spent the last few hours of twilight knocking down the inside walls and fortifying it.

“Ghouls tend to be nocturnal; if we can hold out until daylight we should be fine,” said VIndaloo.

“Mgh hmm?” said Lyra around the hammer in her mouth. Her magic was starting to come back, but telekinesis hurt, and she’d had to learn to do things earth pony style.

“Unless they’re extra hungry.” Vindaloo turned to shout at the Minutemares not working on the back door. “Why don’t I hear hammering?” she shouted.

“We’re done!” said Trail Mix, slouching resentfully.

“You call that done? Who taught you to build a barricade, a hungry diamondclaw?”

Lyra went back to boarding shut her window, glad Vindaloo wasn’t yelling at her for once.

She was so tired and sore from walking through deep snow all day and hammering into the night that when bedtime came she crawled into her sleeping bag the wrong way still wearing her clothes and passed out in seconds.

Almost instantly, she was awakened by the roar of gunfire.

She backed out of her sleeping bag to a room lit by muzzle flashes. Minutemares crouched in front of the firing ports they’d built into the door and window barricades, pouring round after round into something outside.

“Single shots, Minutemares! Aim for the center of pony mass!” Said Vindaloo from the center of the room. Paneer hid under her, shaking, forehoof and flipper over her eyes. BON-80n hovered behind her, syringes ready at the end of two of her tentacles. A small reserve — Trail Mix and three other ponies whose names Lyra couldn’t remember — hung back with them, weapons ready.

“But there are so many of them!” said one of the Minutemares.

“Which means we can’t waste ammo!” said Vindaloo. “Make every shot count!”

Lyra drew her 10mm pistol by the mouth grip and looked around for something to do. Nothing. Without her magic, she felt like a third wheel. Or a fourteenth wheel — just an out of place horse mom with one month’s combat experience, stuck at the end of the world and trying not to get in the way.

The gunfire made her ears ring. It was so bad that she was starting to imagine she heard hoofsteps overhead.

Lyra felt a tingle at the base of her spine. Those really were hoofsteps. She dropped her gun so she could yell. “They’re in the attic!”

Vindaloo shot a furious glance at her and opened her mouth for verbal decapitation. But then her ears perked up. She heard it too. She gave her reserve a series of quick military hoof gestures, indicating they should aim at the ceiling.

Damp plaster exploded overhead. Disfigured ponies fell like heavy, hungry rain. One landed on Lyra as she was reaching down to take her gun back in her mouth. It was naked, furless, its skin whorled in horrible burn scars. The soft flesh of its face had withered away to almost nothing, leaving a skull-like visage. Bared, flat incisors lunged for her throat. No time to bite her gun. Razor blades scored the inside of her horn as she levitated her .38 from its holster and emptied the cylinder in the ghoul pony’s general direction. At least some of the rounds found their marks. The light in its eyes — literal, green, glowing — dimmed and it tumbled in a heap on top of her.

She dropped the empty .38 like a hot rock, grabbed her 10mm in her mouth, and entered SATS. She stayed hidden under the dead ghoul pony — she’d been hanging around Crispy and Vindaloo long enough to have picked up the concept of ‘cover’. All she could see from this vantage were legs, but wrinkly ghoul legs were easy to pick out, and SATS let her kneecap them with ruthless efficiency.

More and more ghouls kept jumping down from holes in the ceiling. Where were they all coming from? How were there so many?

She felt teeth sink into her hind leg, tearing through the fabric of her jumpsuit. They’d found her! Lyra shrieked and tugged her leg away. She couldn’t tell if the bite had broken her skin or not; she could be grateful that pony teeth weren’t as sharp as pukwudgie teeth. But why did everything in the wasteland want to take a bite out of her? She couldn’t possibly taste that good. She slammed a fresh clip into her pistol and rolled out from under the dead ghoul and found her hooves.

The flanks and shoulders of a half dozen ponies surrounded her. For a second, she felt comforted to be surrounded by comrades. Then they all turned glowing eyes and noseless faces to look at her. Lyra stepped back, firing wildly. A board under her hind hoof cracked, and the floor gave way beneath her.

She and her new feral ghoul friends tumbled through the hole into the basement.

She landed on top of a refrigerator. The ghouls landed in the dark around her with splashing impacts.

Her eyes watered and her nose itched — this damp basement must harbor colonies, whole empires of black mold. Wrinkling up her snout in anaphylactic anguish, she kicked into SATS and targeted the zombie ponies already climbing up the sides of the fridge.

SATS gave her 95% headshots on five of the ghouls before it ran out of juice. That left one for her to deal with in real-time. It would have to do. Five 10mm slugs tore five scarred heads into beef tartar with eyeball garnish. The fifth one lunged over the top of the fridge for her pastern. She exited SATS and kicked it in the face. It began to fall and grabbed the door of the fridge. The door swung open, spilling out an avalanche of slightly glowing hour-glass shaped bottles.

Lyra bit down on her pistol’s trigger. It bucked in her mouth, making her teeth ache. But she couldn’t hit a moving target without SATS’ help. She fired, missing every time until her EFS told her she had one bullet left.

The fridge door reached the end of its hinges’ range and bounced back, bringing the slavering ghoul with it. Come on, SATS, come on! She kicked the ghoul in the face, and it bit down on her hoof, teeth digging into her hoof wall. She aimed her pistol with its iron sights, but if she missed she might blow off her own hoof! She kicked the ghoul in the eyes with her other forehoof, and it let go of her hoof, swinging away on the door again. SATS pinged, letting her know its spell had refreshed. She activated it, targeted the ghoul’s head with 95% accuracy, and fired.

The bullet missed.

“Mother fucker!” screamed Lyra, spitting out the empty pistol.

A howl filled the room, cold and affectless, the howl of a dead wolf. The ghoul perked its ears and looked towards the sound. Then she dropped from the fridge door and darted into the darkness. Above her, on the ground floor, Lyra heard the pounding of retreating hoofsteps. She turned on her PipBuck light, and swept the basement with it, looking for the vanished ghoul.

“Are you all right down there?” said Vindaloo, poking her head over the rotten floorboards that had caved in under Lyra.

“There’s still one left!” said Lyra, trembling on top of the fridge.

“It’ll be gone by now,” said Vindaloo. “Their herd leader sounded retreat. Decided we weren’t worth the meal.”

“So they’re organized. There’s still a little pony left in them?” said Lyra.

“Well, they’re smarter than raiders.”

“A concussed frog is smarter than a raider.”

“You’re not wrong.” Vindaloo’s eyes drifted to the orange glow of the bottles scattered across the basement floor. “What did you find?”

“Just a cache of Sparkle Cola. Nothing special.”

Vindaloo leaped down into the basement and fished a bottle out of the brackish water between her hooves. “Nothing special? This is a goldmine!” Vindaloo twisted off the cap with her back teeth and drained half the bottle in on big gulp.

“Those are radioactive, you know. Like, on purpose. Before they spent twenty years soaking up megaspell fallout.”

Vindaloo shrugged, still drinking.

“You’re going to get cancer.”

Vindaloo burped. “Yeah, like any of us is going to live long enough to die of cancer.” She turned the bottle around to show Lyra the nutritional information. “These things have calories. Just look at all those fucking calories! I’m lucky to get that many calories in a week! And then when you can save the bottlecaps for money.”

“You mean you sell the bottlecaps for money?”

“No the bottlecaps are money,” said Vindaloo, tossing the empty bottle over her shoulder and stuffing the cap in her coat pocket.

Lyra stared at her blankly. “Are you making fun of me?”

Vinaldoo tilted her head to one side. “No. They’re real money. Why is that strange to you?”

Lyra huffed, shivered, and stomped on the top of the fridge. This was outrageous. “They’re not money! Money has to be made out of something that has innate value, like precious metal or a jewel, or it has to be backed by a government or a bank or something. Bottle caps aren’t either of those things!”

Vindaloo raised an eyebrow. “So you’re an economics expert, then?”

Lyra waved her forehooves vaguely “No. That’s all I know about money. But it’s how money works. You can’t just pick some arbitrary type of trash and declare it money!”

“Spends like money.”

Lyra swung her bottom over the edge of the fridge, kicking for purchase against its side. “You know what? Never mind. Using bottlecaps for money is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, but if it’s what you do, it’s what you do.”

“Great,” said Vindaloo, helping her down the side of the fridge. “Now help me collect these bottles. The Minutemares have been neglecting their religious duties for far too long.”

Lyra’s jaw fell open. “Religious?”

Level Up
New Perk: Soda Jerk. You are twice as likely to find bottles of Sparkle Cola in containers. You hate Sparkle Cola, and this perk is wasted on you. Jerk.

Chapter 13: Monster Mayor

FE: PoS 13

Burrburrary 24rd, EoH 47

The smoke from the pyre of ghoul bodies drifted into the overcast morning sky in black curls.

“I’d like to give the world a home,” said Vindaloo.

“Where all can live in peace,” said the circle of Minutemares. Every one of them held a bottle of Sparkle Cola in their hooves.

“I’d like to give the world a Sparkle Cola,” said Vindaloo.

“And drink it in perfect unity,” said the Minutemares.

“We have all lost ponies and creatures who were close to us,” said Vindaloo. “Some are dead, and some are missing. We think of them now, and hope we may see them again, in this life or the next.”

“So we pray,” said the Minutemares.

“And we think of these ghouls, monsters through no fault of their own. With these flames, we free their souls that they might one day be reborn.” Vindaloo had explained to Lyra that radiation healed ghouls and that if you left a dead ghoul body lying around in the low-level radiation of the wasteland they’d eventually come back to life. Burning the bodies of feral ghouls was a true act of mercy; otherwise, their souls would be trapped forever in a rotting shell.

“So we pray,” said the Minutemares.

“We drink now, in their memory,” said Vindaloo, “And find solace in the delicious and good-for-you quality of Sparkle Cola. With real carrot flavor!” She pulled the cap off her bottle with her teeth. The Minutemares did likewise. Paneer gnawed on the top of her bottle until her mother opened it for her and passed it back.

Lyra didn’t know what the hell this was. She looked at the bottle of Sparkle Cola clutched between her hooves earth pony style. Best to just go along with it. You had to pick your battles when it came to wasteland crazy.

Opening soda bottles with teeth already sore from the recoil of mouth-firing her pistol hurt. Did earth ponies have extra-strong teeth, that they could do these things? She stuffed the cap in her bag and downed the bottle. The sticky-sweet carrot flavor made her gag, but she didn’t want to seem rude by spitting it out. At least the weather had kept it cold.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Out with it,” said Vindaloo without even turning to look at her.

“Out with what?” said Lyra.

“With whatever is making you hang around me like you’ve got something you want to say. I can feel you back there.”

They were almost to Triple Diamond City. Lyra had been watching the big neon Gitgo sign that loomed over Swampway Park’s neighborhood for a few miles now. It was comforting to see that the familiar landmark still stood, even if it now canted recklessly over its rooftop, held up by only a single intact strut. Seeing it’s orange and green triangular logo gleaming in the midmorning sun made the snow seem less cold around her legs.

Either that or frostbite was starting to set in.

She hurried up beside Vindaloo and said in a voice meant only for her ears, “Why are you using old Sparkle Cola advertising slogans for religious rituals?”

“What else have we got left? Twilight’s gone. Some say she died to save us. Others say she abandoned us. Nopony knows. Luna and Celestia definitely abandoned us. Cadence and Flurry are imprisoned in stone. Maybe dead. Again, nopony knows.”

Lyra pursed her lips. “What about Harmony?”

“Harmony was always a myth.”

“It’s not, though? I’ve seen it’s power. I mean. I’m not a fan of organized religion, but when creatures try to live harmoniously…”

“Let me stop you right there,” said Vindaloo.

Lyra sighed. “Okay. I see your point. But why Sparkle Cola?”

“It’s valuable, it gives us energy, almost everypony likes it, and we have the old ad slogans for rituals.” Vindaloo shook her head. “It might not be much of a faith, but faith is all we’ve got. It might not be real, but it helps bring us together, and it helps keep us going.”

So things were so desperate that some ponies were turning to junk food as their highest solace. All right. She’d just been comforted by the sight of the Gitgo sign, so who was she to judge.

She looked up at the sign again. Light flickered on the glass of its bulbs, and gunfire echoed between the nearby buildings. Vindaloo sent Trail Mix ahead with a couple of scouts, and she came back wide-eyed and shaking. “Princesses,” she said.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra peeked her head over the edge of the burned-out car she hid behind to get a look at what the three red pips on her EFS represented.

The Minutemares hid half a block from the three-way intersection dominated by the Gitgo sign. One road when north further into Buckstone, the other went back at an angle towards Swampway Park.

Three winged unicorns — one white, one purple, and one blue — hovered in midair beneath the sign, blasting at a pile of rubble at the base of a lamp post. The lamp post had a Triple Diamond City banner on it, defaced with the words “The Great and Powerful Super Alicorns will rule forever!” seared into it by magic. Muzzle flashes sparkled amongst the rubble; Lyra surmised that the alicorns must’ve ambushed a group of TDC guards trying to replace the sign.

“Three alicorns?” whispered Lyra. “What the actual fuck?”

“I told you about the princesses. Didn’t you believe me?”

“Not really, no,” said Lyra. “Three of them? How are they not ruling the wasteland?”

Vindaloo laughed. “There are way more than three, but individually they don’t seem to be much more powerful than you are when your magic is working. They call themselves ‘super alicorns’ because they’re arrogant like that. There’s nothing super about them.

“They’re the victims of some sort of pre-war super-soldier program. The white ones specialize in shields, the purple ones are good at teleporting, and the blue ones can turn invisible. They operate in wings of three, usually one of each color, and they claim to be telepathically linked.”

“And there are a lot of these things? Like a whole group of them?” said Lyra.

“Yeah. They’re getting reinforcements from somewhere.”

Lyra hid her face in the wheel well of the abandoned car. “The wasteland keeps getting worse and worse.”

“They’re not impossible to beat. They think they’re too good for weapons or armor, and they don’t care about cover, so if you can kill the white ones, the rest are easy to take down.”

“But killing the white ones is the trick,” said Lyra.

Vindaloo scowled. “Yeah. I wish we had ammo for our... Trail Mix! No!”

Twenty hooves away, Trail Mix poked her head up from out of cover and fired several shots at the white alicorn. They sparked uselessly against her shield. Purple and Blue craned their necks and shot magic bolts at Trail Mix. One bolt tore a horrible gash along the side of Trail Mix’s head, severing her left ear.

Vindaloo swore, then swore again, louder, as a magic bolt tore a chunk of metal off the roof of the car a few hooves from her own head.

Lyra flopped on her belly in the snow and covered her eyes with her hooves. These magic bolts weren’t the allegedly non-lethal self-defense bolts she used — they were military-grade kinetic impact spells, designed to maim and kill. A magic blast rocked the body of the car. What model was it? If it was spark-powered, they could be in a lot of trouble. Time to put her head between her legs and kiss her ass goodbye. Instead, she opened her eyes. One of the red pips vanished from her EFS. Did that mean the blue one had turned invisible? Great. Just great.

Then she noticed something about the location of the white one. “Vindaloo! I have a stupid idea!”

“Great. Just what we need,” said Vindaloo. Lyra couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

Lyra wiggled closer to her. A flurry of impacts rocked the car. “You know what can break through a magic shield? Besides a minigun? Large impacts.”

“Okay? Like what?”

“The Gitgo sign! It’s hanging on by one girder, and the white alicorn’s right underneath it. Do you think you can shoot it out?”

Vindaloo peeked over the trunk of the car and sighted along the top of her rifle, careful to stay out of sight of the alicorns. “It’s a hell of a shot.”

Something tickled the back of Lyra’s mind. A tiny worm of a thought that turned into a big fat python of guilt when she tugged it out to look at it. She stuffed a hoof into her saddlebags, past her books and tools, to find a metal and plastic cylinder with a narrow middle nestled at the bottom. “Do you think you’d have more luck with a scope?”

Vindaloo looked at Lyra sideways. “Yes. Why?”

“Let me see your rifle for a second.” Even without her magic, it took Lyra moments to fit the scope onto the top rail of VIndaloo’s rifle.

“You just happened to have that?” said Vindaloo, her expression skeptical.

“Frgth I hd ith,” said Lyra around the grip of her screwdriver.

“’Forgot’, huh?” Vindaloo snatched her rifle back, popped it into her shoulder rig, looked through the scope. She made some adjustments to it with her mouth, then sighted again. Then she did something Lyra had never see her do before, and would never see her do again — she flipped the fire selector on her rifle to ‘burst’.

Vindaloo’s first burst fell short. She swore and fired again. Bullets sparkled against the one rusty strut holding up the Gitgo sign. The sign lurched visibly.

Vindaloo fired three more bursts.

The Gitgo sign, a symbol of Lyra’s life before the war and one of Buckstone’s most recognizable landmarks, tilted slowly towards the street, its progress accelerating the further it tilted. Lyra stared at the red pip on her EFS. Right about now, the white alicorn must be realizing what was happening. Would she try to fly away? Strengthen her shield? This had better…

The sign tore free and plummeted four stories with the stately grace of a noblepony walking to the guillotine. The red dot representing the white alicorn gained an up arrow for a fleeting second. Lyra saw her rush into view, wings spread wide. It looked like she might fly clear! Then the corner of the sign connected with the cusp of her shield. The shield sparked. The corner of the sign crumpled. Shards of orange and green glass sprayed from it. Cracks burst along the curve of the shield, glowing with friction heat. Kinetic transfer knocked the alicorn downward, her mighty wings struggling to stay airborne.

Then the shield shattered. The corner of the sign slammed directly into the alicorn’s face, smashing it flat like a tomato under a car tire. It drove her down out of sight. The whole sign trembled as it hit the ground with a sound of breaking glass and wrenching metal. Lyra thought it might fall on its side; but no — it stood upside down and at an angle, dripping bits of neon tube, warped and damaged but intact, now proudly advertising the ogtiG brand.

Two agonized wails rent the air. The blue and purple alicorns took flight; the blue shimmering until she matched the color of the sky, the purple dodging and weaving to avoid the bullets whizzing past her before teleporting out of sight.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“You guys saved our asses just now… fuck me with Celestia’s forehooves, are you Minutemares?” The Triple Diamond City guards wore cute armor suits modeled on a boopball umpire’s outfit and carried holstered bats as melee weapons.

“Yep, that’s us,” said Vindaloo, striding out of the wreckage, Paneer on her back. “And we’ve got wounded.” The other Minutemares followed her in a wedge formation.

Most injuries were minor wounds from the ghouls or hiding amongst broken rusty metal, but Trail Mix was in bad shape. The super alicorn’s bolt had taken a chunk out of her skull, and not even two precious stimpacks had been enough to stabilize her. She needed the attention of a surgeon, or she would die. The Minutemares had cleared one of the sleds for her, and BON-80n hovered next to it while the guards led them across the highway overpass to the gates of Swampway Park. Lyra whistled as the erstwhile boopball stadium came into view — somepony had transformed it into a fortress. Not just a fortress, but a castle. Green and red battlements ran along the edges of the stadium walls, topped by a half dozen towers. Guards with heavy weapons watched from those towers — the buildings for half a block around had been leveled to provide fields of fire for rocket launchers and machine guns.

The corrugated metal front gate rolled upwards as they approached, and functionaries in boopball uniforms rushed to help them. Before Vindaloo could protest, the Minutemares were separated into groups — BON-80n and Trail Mix whisked off in one direction, the rank and file Minutemares in a second, and Lyra, Vindaloo, and Paneer in a third.

“What? Why? I… Where are you taking us?” sputtered Vindaloo.

“The Mayor needth to thee you,” said a middle-aged purple earth pony with a clipboard in a shoulder mount and a comically large revolver in a holster on her chest. “Right thith way.”

She led them up several flights of stairs and into the stands, where Lyra had a good view of the entire park. The baseball diamond and stands were packed with crude but surprisingly clean buildings. A small public square around the pitcher’s mound was home to some businesses, restaurants, and a bunker with Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark spray-painted on the front. Further away in the outfield, there were areas that looked like they would be farms in the warmer months and a large warehouse with a neon sign reading “Absolutely Everything”.

“We need to have them bathed before we take them to the mayor,” said a synthetic-sounding voice from behind Lyra.

“No, the mayor inthisted we bring the Minutemare’s leaderth to her immediately,” said the purple earth pony, droplets of spit fluttering from her lips when she hit the sibilants.

Lyra looked back to see who’d spoken — she hadn’t noticed a robot with them. It wasn’t a robot. It was a changeling! Sort of. A changeling made out of dun-colored ceramic plates. Its carapace was worn, scratched, and chipped in a few places. A missing chunk on its breast showed a metal endoskeleton gleaming inside of it. “Oh my gosh, what are you?”

“You don’t know?” said Vindaloo. “I thought you were from CIM.”

Lyra rolled her eyes.“I told you, I went there for a bachelor’s degree. It’s not like they let me in on every super secret project.”

“My name is Co-processor, and I’m a hiveling,” said the robot changeling.

“So… did all the changelings turn into robots? How did that work?” Lyra couldn’t help trying to stare through Co-processor’s chest into their inner workings.

“I’m afraid that’s classified,” said Co-processor, their tone wary.

“Are there a lot of you around the wasteland?” said Lyra.

Vindaloo interrupted. “We don’t know,” she said. “They’re only allowed in Triple Diamond City in their natural forms, but they can create illusions like Changelings used to. Outside these walls? Anycreature could be one, so keep your eyes open.”

“The Hiveling Collective works for the good of all sentient beings in the Commonwealth,” said Co-processor, its ceramic eyebrows rotating into a downward angle. “All other information is classified.” And it wouldn’t answer any more questions.

The purple earth pony led them into a VIP box overlooking the stadium and went behind a decorative curtain, leaving Vindaloo and Lyra standing around the Mayor’s foyer feeling awkward. Paneer slid off her mother’s back and began exploring the room; pushing her nose under cushions, fiddling with decorative arrangements of gems, looking out the window.

“Paneer, stop that,” said Vindaloo.

“No, let her,” said a horribly burned Princess Celestia, stepping through the curtain.

Lyra made a soft, strangled noise. No. It wasn’t Celestia. Too small, and Celestia would never try to carry off the rhinestone-studded baseball uniform and cap this mare was wearing. And she wasn’t exactly burned — Lyra had seen that twisted, whorled flesh before. Her face was hidden behind a featureless porcelain mask, but Lyra was sure it hid the skeletal features of a ghoul.

“Lyra. I was wondering if it was you, from what the guards described,” said Rarity.

“R-Rarity?”

“The very same.”

Lyra pointed at her wings — plucked chicken wings like the hooked claws of a mantis, but wings nonetheless. “P-Princess Rarity?”

Rarity shook her head, too-perfect-and-probably-a-wig mane falling over one of her mask’s eye holes. “Just Mayor,” said Rarity, spreading her wings. “These were Twilight’s little contingency plan. I did want to be a princess once when I was young and foolish. Seeing what the role did to Twilight changed my mind.

“All who can live peacefully are welcome in my city, but I claim no authority beyond its walls. Come. Sit. Drink. We have so much to discuss.”

They joined Rarity on the cushions and the purple pony brought them three glasses of wine and one cup of fruit juice on a tray she held in her mouth. “Thank you, Frazzle darling,” said Rarity.

Frazzle set down the tray and lay down beside and slightly behind Rarity.

Lyra took a drink to settle her nerves. With her magic still burned out, she had to lap at her glass like Vindaloo did. “Are any of your friends alive?”

“I don’t know,” said Rarity, her voice sad. “I can assume from the fact that I have wings Pinkie is gone. There was an order of succession, after all. We are all fortunate that Twilight’s spell didn’t judge Starlight worthy of the role. The Dashites say that Rainbow will return one day, but I’ve heard nothing from her. Fluttershy… I prefer not to talk about her. And Applejack? The Steel Rangers have heard nothing one way or the other, and I’d rather not get my hopes up.”

Lyra needed to process all of this. Rarity was, to her, the ‘good’ Ministry Mare. Her Ministry of Image had been one of the first, from before the war — implemented along with Starlight’s Ministry of Magical Arts and Sciences to administer the cultural part of Twilight’s programs. The ministry had paid Lyra, for a while: her band, before she’d had Bean, had played new wave humie filk. Not a lot of commercial potential, but Image thought their voices needed to be heard, so yay for them. The Ministry of Peace had come next — Fluttershy had wanted to step in when things started to go bad in the world, and, ironically, had a huge role in starting the big war. If there was ever a mare willing to start a war for peace, it was Fluttershy.

When the war had started, Applejack and Rainbow Dash had been raring to step up to the plate and run the Ministries of Wartime Production and Awesome. And when popular opinion started to turn against the war, Pinkie offered the innocent-seeming suggestion of a Ministry of Morale.

But Rarity had resisted. Her ministry alone had no role in the war. Towards the end, Pinkie had insisted that Image institute a massive censorship campaign against ‘unfriendly’ media, but rumor had it that Rarity had moved redacted materials to secret ministry hubs instead of destroying them.

“You said you wanted to speak to us immediately?” Vindaloo asked Rarity, as Lyra tuned back into the conversation.

“I’m amazed to see that the Minutemares have re-formed. It was my understanding you’d been massacred at Breeder’s Hill,” said Rarity.

“Three of us escaped,” said Vindaloo, “accompanied by a handful of refugees. Lyra led us to Stable 93 and helped us reclaim it. We’ve since trained those refugees, and there are now thirty of us, here and at the Stable.”

“Would you like to recruit from the citizens of Triple Diamond City?” said Rarity.

Vindaloo’s tilted her head back slightly. “You’d allow that?”

Rarity opened out her featherless wings in a magnanimous gesture. “I seek to help as many of the wasteland’s creatures as I can, but the city can only support so many. I’ve been allowing certain trusted groups to recruit from those sheltering here. The Minutemares have always been my allies.”

Vindaloo bowed her head slightly. “We’d be honored. Was there anything else?”

“Yes. My beloved Rara has disappeared. I wanted to know if you’ve seen anything of her in your travels.”

“Don’t you have a detective who specializes in missing ponies?” said Vindaloo.

Rarity took a sip from her glass. “Paper Heart. Yes. He has disappeared as well. While looking for her, in fact.”

Vindaloo frowned. “Well, that’s not good. I was going to send Lyra his way. She’s looking for her family.”

Lyra shot a glance at Vindaloo. She hadn’t expected even that basic kindness from her. But why not? She looked at the thin red mare, sitting with Paneer cuddled against her side. Vindaloo had a lot of sharp edges — cheekbones, ribs, words, bullets. But she was probably as close to a good pony as she’d met in the wasteland.

Rarity turned to face her. “Lyra! Your family is missing?” Her expression was hidden behind her mask, but her voice expressed sincere concern.

Lyra told Rarity her story, from the Bad Day until it overlapped with Vindaloo’s. “I know they were alive when they left Stable 93, but I don’t know where they went after that.”

“Oh! Yes, yes!” Rarity tapped her hooves on her cushion excitedly. “A group of refugees from Stable 93 passed through here several years ago! I have no idea if your family was with them, but several of them stayed! Our dearest DJ mumblemumble is from Stable 93! Perhaps she knows what became of them. Perhaps they are…” Rarity took a deep breath. “Well. Excessive hope is not always judicious in the wasteland. Best to leave it at that.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The radio station occupied the top story of a four-story building in Pitcher Square, easily recognizable by the large jury-rigged antenna. Lyra climbed the staircase along the side of the building. A large oval window by the door showed a small, plump-by-wastelands-standards pink pegasus speaking into the microphone of a radio console. She wore a Bad Harmony tank top and, typical of wasteland fashion, no pants. Her long purple mane covered one eye. Lyra could see that her cutie mark was scarred somehow. Their eyes met through the glass, and the pink pegasus covered her mouth and gasped. She waved Lyra in.

“Somepony I need to talk to just came in, so I have to go. Um… I’m going to play some songs now. Hold on.” She flipped some switches on her console with her wingtips, and the reel to reel tape on the other side of the room began to turn.

“I can’t believe it’s you!” The mare leaped from her chair, wings fluttering, and wrapped her forelegs around Lyra’s neck. “I didn’t even know you were still alive.”

“Okay, I don’t know who you are.”

“Well, I guess you wouldn’t. I was one of the ponies you saved. On the last elevator down. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

The little pegasus — who couldn’t be more than twenty-two and was a little young for her even going by apparent and not chronological age — rubbed her face against Lyra’s chest beaming like a child cuddling a puppy. Lyra’s eyes drifted to her croup and the very round curves of her rump cheeks. No. Bad Lyra. Not a good time to be horny. “If I could have some personal space?” she said, pushing the younger mare away as gently as she could.

“Um… Okay. I’m sorry. I just…” She blushed and looked at the floor, “You know. I was always grateful to you. A lot of us were. Ponies would leave you flowers, sometimes. Ponies you saved.”

Lyra blinked. “I… I did not know that.”

“They probably all rotted away by the time you woke up,” said the DJ mare.

Lyra’s throat felt a little tight. She’d been thinking of that good deed as one of the worst decisions of her life. And here was one pony who would be dead if not for her. “I don’t know what to say. You’re welcome?”

The DJ mare grinned and blushed. “So. Um. I don’t mean to be rude? But you have my bag.”

Lyra blinked. “Oh! You’re Soft Sounds?” She unslung her bag. “Yes, of course, you can have it back.”

Soft Sounds pushed her long purple mane out of her face; it immediately fell back over her eye. “I don’t need the bag. I got a new one. But…” Her eyes looked up towards Lyra, gleaming with hope. “Do you still have the books that were in it?”

“I do, actually!” She fished them out with her mouth and set them on the top of the radio console, glad she hadn’t used either for scrap paper.

Soft Sounds grabbed the Leaftember Issue and hugged it to her chest. “Oh, I thought I’d lost this forever. We left the Stable in such a hurry; I didn’t have time to go and get my bag. It’s… It’s the last edition, you know. There’s never going to be another Leaftember Issue, and I haven’t been able to find another copy.” She closed her eyes, leaned down to sniff the book, and kissed the edge. Lyra wondered if she should leave the two of them alone.

“How did you get out of the tank?” said Soft Sounds.

“It just opened for me,” said Lyra. “I guess it decided I was better. Did you know my family?”

“I did! A little. Bean was my age, but we weren’t really friends? When I was little, ponies picked on me, and he’d stick up for me. But he didn’t want to talk to me or anything. He just…” She trailed off and started flipping through the magazine.

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “He just what.”

“I think he just liked to get into fights,” she said, licking her hoof and turning the page of her magazine.

Lyra blew out through her nose. “Okay. Do you know where they are now?”

“Not Bean, no. Beanpole and his friend Sea Sprite…” Soft Sounds looked up. “They went to the Enclave. I’m sorry.”

The floor ripped itself out from under Lyra. Someone was shouting. Screaming. Crying. Saying ‘no no no’ over and over. Lyra couldn’t stand to hear it, but the voice wouldn’t stop. She banged her head against the floor, trying to knock herself out so she wouldn’t have to listen anymore.

“I shouldn’t have said! I shouldn’t have said! Oh, I shouldn’t have said!” Gentle pink hooves took hold of Lyra and a few moments later Lyra found herself in an office chair with a blanket over her and an old tin can full of very strong, very smelly, very dark beer between her hooves. Soft Sounds huddled against the radio console, watching Lyra like she might jump out the studio window and try to end it all. Or go for her throat.

Lyra took a big slug of the beer. Its bitter, sour taste braced her. “Tell me what happened? And yes, I very much want to know, so don’t ask.”

Soft sounds flinched like Lyra had raised a hoof to her, but she spoke. “So, okay, all of us from Stable 93 came into Triple Diamond City in one big group. And Rarity’s ponies were all over us, cleaning us up, getting us food, asking if any of us were sick or hurt. It was a big relief, I’d been pretty miserable… well, for most of my life, before that. TDC was the nicest place I’d ever seen. It still is. So nice that I didn’t even mind when they put us all in quarantine for two weeks when they found out about the Pukwudgie Flu.

“We finally got out, and the first thing we saw was a big black airship and three vertibirds coming down through the clouds. It was exact to the minute — the Enclave must have spies here. The airship settled over the farm field, and armored ponies came down out of the vertibirds and tried to round us pegasi up and herd us into the airship. Rarity flew right out the window of her office and tried to talk to them, and when they didn’t listen, she threw them around until they did.

“Then an Enclave officer came out of the airship and asked if he could talk to us. Rarity said she wouldn’t stop him. The officer told us that in the Enclave we’d always be safe and that they had huge floating farms with enough food for everypony. Rarity asked them if they had so much food, then why didn’t they share.” Soft Sounds giggled. “He didn’t like that.”

“But some ponies wanted to go with them?” said Lyra. “Why?”

Soft Sounds rolled her eyes. “Um, I don’t want to say anything bad about your husband. But I guess different ponies are scared of different things. Some ponies are scared of being hurt or hungry. Others are more scared of mean ponies in scary armor who try to kidnap them. Some ponies are so scared of being hurt or hungry they’re willing to believe that a mean pony in scary armor might tell them the whole truth. I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything bad.”

She turned back to the console and started fiddling with some dials and buttons. Lyra was pretty sure that those buttons and dials didn’t need fiddling with, and that Soft Sounds was tired of talking.

“What about Bean?” said Lyra.

“I haven’t seen him around in a long time. And I didn’t like who he grew up into. He was very militaristic. Like. Not mean or tribalist or anything? Just really obsessed with weapons and armor, and kind of angry.”

“Angry,” said Lyra warily.

“He never grew out of wanting to get into fights. He never started them, you know? But he always managed to find a reason. Somepony who needed correcting. Who he felt wasn’t behaving right. And things tended to… escalate. It’s like something was eating at him, and he needed an outlet.”

Maybe that his mother had abandoned him to save the lives of a bunch of strangers? Lyra’s stomach twisted itself into a guilty knot.

“You might ask at the Steel Rangers recruiting station, they…” She pressed her hooves against her cheeks. “Oh, gosh I’m so sorry!”

Lyra felt a nauseating tingle of dread and hope in her belly. “What! What?” She said, kicking her rolling chair towards her.

Soft Sounds leaned back from Lyra. “It’s not like I DJ the only good radio program in the world or anything. Would you like me to put you on the air?”

Lyra took a big drink of her beer. “Yes. Yes, I would.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra stood on the balcony, looking at the sky and listening to the sound of her own voice. “…so Bean, Beanpole, if you’re out there, I miss you. Please come find me. I have friends at Triple Diamond City and Stable 93. Please come find me.”

Beanpole was gone. He might as well be dead. He was locked up over those clouds where she couldn’t get at him. Maybe one day she’d find a working vertibird and go up there and give him a piece of her mind. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She’d pressed Soft Sounds as to exactly what kind of relationship Beanpole and Sea Sprite had, and she’d just started stammering.

That son of a bitch.

Yes, she’d also cheated on him, but that didn’t make her any less angry. He’d done it first. That fucking fucker of fucks…

No. That wasn’t fair. Did she expect him to wait twenty years for her?

Yes. Yes, she did. She was that awesome.

She hadn’t waited two weeks for him.

“Harmony, I’m such a slut,” she muttered to herself.

Lyra gritted her teeth and walked down the stairs. At least there was a chance she might find Bean.

She needed to see how Vindaloo and BON-80n were doing. They would both be at the hospital, waiting for the Triple Diamond City doctors to finish operating on Trail Mix. But first, she wanted to check-in at the Steel Rangers recruiting station, which was across the square from the radio station.

“HellowouldyouliketojointheSteelRangers,” said a sour-looking, nauseous green pony in a heavy robe covered in utility pouches. He was pressing keys on a terminal with a rapid rhythm that said ‘video game’ rather than ‘doing work’. A name tag on his breast identified his as Field Scribe Tilt-a-Whirl.

Lyra leaned up on the counter in front of him. “No. I want to ask if a certain pony signed up here.”

Field Scribe Tilt-a-Whirl glared at her over the top of his terminal. “If you don’t want to sign up, or don’t have a cache of pre-war technology you want to tell me about, then I can’t help you.”

Lyra felt her jaw muscles tighten. Oh, this lazy asshole was not going to come between her and her son. “Good game?”

Tilt-a-Whirl flushed but didn’t stop pushing buttons.

“Listen,” said Lyra, marshaling herself for a last stab at being reasonable, “I’m looking for my son. I think he might have joined up with you. Can you please tell me if he did.”

“Nope,” said Tilt-a-Whirl.

Lyra drew in a deep breath, ready to employ some of the verbal decapitation techniques she’d learned by watching Vindaloo.

Before she could launch her attack, a deep, resonate voice spoke from behind her. “What seems to be the problem here, Field Scribe Tilt-a-Whirl?”

Tilt-a-Whirl’s cheeks paled to an even more nauseous shade of green. His hooves zipped to the left side of the keyboard — Lyra knew an alt-tab when she saw one. “Nothing at all, Paladin Steelhooves.”

Lyra turned around and found herself face to chest with a model of power armor she wasn’t familiar with. She looked up into his visor, and said, “Hello, Paladin. My name is Lyra Heartstrings and I’m looking for my son, Bean Heartstrings. I think he might’ve wanted to join the Steel Rangers.”

Steel Hooves nodded. “From Stable 93. Are you with the Minutemares who arrived today?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Is Crispy Apples still with them?”

“Yeah. We left him back at the stable. He’s leading the Minutemares we left back there.” She hesitated. Steelhooves knew Crispy. Did he like him? Did he like the Minutemares? It was impossible to read his body language through the armor. She could spin Crispy and the Minutemares either way, but they were her friends, so she decided not to mention the war crime. “He’s been a good leader. Brave and kind. The Minutemares were almost gone, but he and Vindaloo are bringing them back.”

“Glad to hear it. He’s my cousin, you know.”

Lyra smiled. “I did not.” Jackpot.

“Should, I, ah, look her son up then?” stammered Tilt-a-Whirl.

“No,” rumbled Steelhooves. That voice could melt butter. It was certainly melting Lyra’s butter. She swore internally. Why was she so horny today? Was she going into heat? It was awfully early in the year for that. Her body’s internal clock must be entirely out of whack from being in the tank for so long. She was glad she still had those sanitary pads she’d found in Soft Sounds’ bag.

“I remember Bean,” said Steelhooves. “I spoke to him myself. We talked for a long time. In the end, he decided that he didn’t want to join us. The Steel Rangers don’t currently operate in the northeast, and he felt a loyalty to the region.”

“Oh,” said Lyra, shoulders slumping.

“It was good that he didn’t want to join us, because he was insistent on a combat role, and I would have had to reject him.”

Lyra blinked. “What?” She had to say she felt a little offended. From what she knew about her son, it seemed to her like he’d make a good soldier. Maybe the Steel Rangers just weren’t good enough for her boy.

“A Steel Ranger must be calm, rational, and dispassionate. We work for the long term good of Equestria. Your son hides and marshals his rage, but it only grows stronger for being disciplined. I would worry if I were you.”

“W-why?” said Lyra. If Steelhooves needed her to worry, she was on it.

“If your son wanted to join a local army, there are only two of any significance in the Commonwealth. You would have heard if he’d become a Minutemare. That leaves the Ponysmith.”

“The unicorn who kidnaps other unicorns and enslaves them to fight for him?” Lyra felt the blood drain from her cheeks. Oh, this was bad. That was very, very bad. This was the worst day since the Bad Day. It couldn’t possibly get any worse.

“Yes. That one. But I doubt he’d waste your son’s potential as a slave. He has rangers of his own — armored ponies who lead his unicorn slave hordes. He preys on the talented and disaffected amongst the unicorns, and makes them his officers.”

It was worse. Lyra’s stomach sank so low it fell out of her belly and landed in a sodden pile at her hooves. “Oh my Harmony, no,” she said.

“I hope I’m wrong. But it may well be that your son is in desperate need of a stern talking-to from his mother.”

“Damn straight,” said Lyra, setting her jaw.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

On her way to the hospital, Lyra found an empty tin can in the street outside the noodle stand and kicked it in front of her as she walked. The streets swarmed with creatures, working, laughing, talking, smiling. Mostly earth ponies, but also griffons, hippogriffs, yaks, zebras, and buffalo. Very few pegasi (most with scarred cutie marks, and even fewer unicorns. She saw a diamond dog playing harmonica in front of a pork pie hat full of bottlecaps; that was a relief. They weren’t all diamondclaws now.

The hivelings especially fascinated her. She watched their strange ceramic bodies, dun-colored plates shifting against each other. Glittering compound eyes made of dozens of tiny cameras. Rainbow-sheened polymer wings. Other ponies — like Vindaloo apparently — might be disturbed by them, but Lyra found them hypnotic.

She kicked her can ahead of her, right into the claws of a hippogriff.

“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry!” said Lyra.

“Not at all,” said the griff, who wore a boopball jersey. “Let me get that for you.” He hooked it on the end of a spiked pole he held in his other claw and tossed it into his saddlebags.

“Um, thank you,” said Lyra, blinking.

“Have a beautiful day!” said the griff. He went on his way, lion-like tail held proudly high.

Lyra looked around the streets with new eyes. Creatures in boopball jerseys were scattered everywhere amongst the population, cleaning things, fixing things, carrying things, answering questions. She didn’t know exactly what their deal was, but Lyra got the sense that as far as local government went, Rarity had her act together.

Lyra turned the last corner to the hospital, and her heart plummeted. Vindaloo, BON-80n, and almost all of the Minutemares were sitting on the benches in the small plaza out front, looking dejected.

Vindaloo looked up towards her as she approached. “Trail Mix is dead.”

Level Up
New Perk: Co-ordinated Fire. Allied ponies within voice range gain a 10% accuracy bonus against targets you can detect on your EFS.

Chapter 14: 1000 Homo Dashites

“There was nothing they could do,” said BON-80n. “The brain damage was too severe. Her soul had already departed.”

Trail Mix’s funeral had been held immediately — Lyra found a case of Sparkle Cola on sale at a street market and they took her body to the city’s small crematorium. Vindaloo had said a few words about what a good soldier Trail Mix had been, and how dangerous the wasteland was and how we all needed to be prepared for the death of ourselves or someone we love at any moment, which Lyra just found incredibly uplifting. Then a few of her friends had said things about how much they missed her. Lyra hadn’t been close with Trail Mix but by the end of the service the loss weighed down on her back.

Now they were holding the wake at a bar called ‘On the Nose’, and Lyra was drinking her fifth beer and her third shot of scotch. “D’ you… feel bad? Like, it wasn’t your fault she died, right?” She sat on a barstool, leaning against BON-80’s engine, enjoying its warmth. One of her tentacles was a comforting weight across her withers.

“No. I fulfilled my programming by providing timely and skillful first aid. But I am still sad. I would have preferred a scenario in which she could have been saved.”

“S’weird you have feelings. Machines ‘r not s’posed to have feelings.”

“Feelings are not magic. They are merely feedback from your body to your soul, relaying important information in an easy to interpret format.”

“Friendship is magic, though,” said Paneer, prancing across the bartop towards them. She’d been knocking back Shetland Temples for hours, up way past her bedtime, and was feeling fine. “That’s what Lyra said!”

“Love b’tween ponies can have…” Lyra waved a hoof, sloshing the beer in its grasp across the front of her jumpsuit, “…miraculous effects. Literally.”

“But friendship isn’t a feeling,” said BON-80n. “It’s a state of positive social relationship.”

“No. It… it’s a fucking magical feeling,” said Lyra, rubbing her cheek against BON-80n’s chassis.

“Yeah. Fucking magical!” said Paneer.

“Please do not swear,” said BON-80n. “Your mother would not approve.”

“That fucking hypocrite.” Paneer knocked back a big slug of her Shetland Temple.

BON-80n’s chassis lights flickered from blue to orange. “How much sugar have you had tonight, mon lapin? I suspect you are exceeding recommended dietary standards for your age.”

“Lyra, are you in love with Bon Bon?” said Paneer, changing the subject.

“What? And no! Don’t be stupid.”

“Then why were you licking her just now,” said Paneer, smirking smugly.

“I was not licking her! It was just a friendly nuzzle. Right, Bon Bon?”

BON-80n’s chassis lights blinked.”It happened out of the range of my vision, and my contact sensors are not sensitive enough to make this distinction.”

“Lyra, are you in love with Bon Bon?” repeated Paneer.

“No, leave me alone,” said Lyra, wrapping a leg around BON-80n’s engine and pulling her closer.

“What. Ever,” said Paneer, rolling her eyes. “I guess if you can’t be honest with yourself, I can’t expect you to be honest with me.”

BON-80n pressed a tentacle against Paneer’s chest. “Please, may Lyra and I have a grown-up talk for a moment.”

Paneer put her flipper over her mouth and gasped. “Oh my gosh, it’s happening. They’re falling in love! I have to tell everypony!” She grabbed her cup in her magic and raced back across the bartop.

BON-80n floated out of Lyra’s grasp and hovered around to speak to her face to eyestalks. “It is true what she says.”

“What? No. No! No?” She blinked away the extra BON-80ns in her vision. “Why would you say something like that?”

“Because my biometric analysis indicates you become aroused when you look at me. Your pupils dilate and your heart rate increases. Certainty would require a more… intimate analysis, but I surmise that the arousal is sexual in nature.”

Lyra’s back stiffened. “What? Why?”

“You leaned towards me and started drooling.”

“Did not,” said Lyra, wiping her bottom lip.

“I am afraid you did, ma sœur. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Sexual fetishes and paraphilia are a normal part of pony psychology. Everypony has them. I assure you that, while I am sadly not programmed with a sexual response, I am flattered and, may I say, honored by the attention.” BON-80n extended her tentacles and bobbed her chassis in a curtsy. “I am delighted to be your friend.”

Lyra suddenly felt very sober. “I’m not a robosexual.”

BON-80n’s chassis lights flickered pink. “As you say, ma’am.”

Lyra slid off her bar stool. “I need to… um… go to the bathroom right now.” It was an excuse but when her hooves hit the floor her bladder sloshed like a water balloon.

Lyra pushed through the crowded bar — there were a lot of ponies here, including a few in Minutemares jackets who she didn’t recognize. She didn’t know the layout of the bar, and it took her forever to find the bathroom. She wandered into a maze of corridors with numbered doors on either side; apparently, the bar doubled as a motel? She heard talk and laughter spilling out of some doors, moaning from others. One party spread out into the hall; mares staring into the room. Lyra looked over their backs and saw that they were watching two stallions making love on a bed. She fled, blushing.

In the end, she found the mare’s room by the line out the door. The ‘line for the mare’s room’ was a phenomenon she hadn’t expected to have survived the war, but here she was. As she stood there, hind legs crossed, bouncing up and down, a bad thought crawled across her mind.

What if Bean had joined the Minutemares after all? Crispy and Vindaloo might not have known every single one of them.

What if he’d died at Breeder’s Hill?

What if she was already too late to find him? What if she’d always been too late?

She jumped out of the line, pounded out the back door, and snuck behind the dumpster. No one would know that she’d peed here, at least not by the smell. She wriggled out of her jumpsuit, spread her legs, and squatted down, watchful for interlopers. Rarity probably looked very poorly on public urination but she needed to find Vindaloo.

“Come on, come on, how much can I possibly have in there?” she groaned. Her body just kept issuing forth, like she’d drunk five gallons of beer and not five bottles.

When her body was finally done, she shook her butt off — nothing to wipe with; she hoped no pony sniffed back there. Though it would be hard not to; from the smell of things, she was definitely in heat.

She went around and came back in the front door. Sound punched Lyra in the face, flattening her bangs against her forehead. A rave had started while she was away. Damn it!

A pony in a painted flight helmet and pink Stable 93 jumpsuit was playing turntables on the bar’s low concrete stage. It took her a moment to recognize Soft Sounds, but the hunched posture and the thickness of the posterior under the jumpsuit were unmistakable. And who else here would have a Stable 93 jumpsuit, let alone a pink one? She wouldn’t have expected such a soft-spoken mare to play such loud music, but… ah, who was she kidding. These beats were a little harsher than what she played on her radio station, but it was the sort of thing Soft Sounds liked.

Lyra flattened her ears against her skull and waded into the fray. Creatures packed the bar wall to wall, most of them dancing, waving forelimbs in the air and bouncing up and down. Soft Sounds’ sampled vocal track told them that they could dance if the wanted to, and indeed they could. Lyra felt very self-conscious, wriggling between naked sweaty bodies, fur and feathers, and gnarled ghoul hide.

She noticed a flash of red through the crowd. “Vindaloo!” she yelled.

“Lyra! Come over here!” Vindaloo leaned against a wall, naked, not dancing. She stood on her hind legs and clutched a beer to her chest fluff. Lyra felt desire for her sleek, wiry body. Stupid heat. Stupid sexy Vindaloo.

“Was Bean a Minutemare!” screamed Lyra, her voice barely audible over the bass that thumbed through her body.

“No! Or I would have told you!” shouted Vindaloo. “There are more Minutemares here! I asked them! Nobody knew him!”

“Wow!” said Lyra. Relief and disappointment flooded her. She was glad Bean might still be alive, but that meant he really might’ve joined Ponysmith.“That was so kind of you!”

“It sucks, though! None of them outrank me! I’m still in charge!”

“You don’t like being in charge!”

Vindaloo rolled her eyes. “No! It makes me into a total bitch!”

“You’re good at it!”

“At being a bitch!”

“No! At…” Lyra’s throat was starting to ache from shouting. She stole Vindaloo’s beer and took a drink from it. “You wanna dance?”

“Fuck it, sure!”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Soft Sounds played a long set with no banter and few pauses, and by the time she vanished silently and mysteriously from the stage Lyra was soaked in sweat and her limbs felt like rubber hoses. Any amount she’d sobered up during the show was replaced by her feeling giddy and punchy from exhaustion and dehydration.

Her lower belly burned with sexual frustration. For a whip-thin mare, Vindaloo had a round little butt, and she’d not been shy at all about waving it around while she was dancing. Nothing like three and a half hours of ‘look but don’t touch’ with a sexy naked straight mare to get you chomping at the bit.

She found a couch to sprawl out on in the corner of the bar, and sat there drinking water while the bar emptied. First Paneer had gone from ‘bouncing off the walls’ to ‘sobbing with exhausted tween angst’ and Vindaloo had to drag her off to bed. Then the other Minutemares left one by one or in pairs. BON-80n said awkward goodbyes and floated off to do whatever robots did at night.

“Now what?” Lyra muttered to herself. She didn’t know anycreature else here, and she wasn’t looking forward to sleeping on the floor of the one big room Vindaloo had rented for the Minutemares. Maybe the bar staff would let her fall asleep on this couch? That seemed unlikely. They were already giving her cranky sidelong looks for hanging around so close to close. She could ask about vacancies, but she thought a room probably cost more than the two bottlecaps she had on her.

“Um, hi,” said Soft Sounds, fluttering over the back of the couch. “Thank you for coming to my show.” Dressed in her pink jumpsuit and holding her flight helmet — decorated with paintings of flowers, butterflies, and earthworms — she looked ready to board her ship for a space mission to the planet fabulous.

Lyra pulled her legs close to her body, clearing off half the couch. “I just blundered into it. But I had a good time. I was having a shit day, and you made it better.”

“After I made it worse.”

“I need you to tell me something,” said Lyra. “Were Beanpole and Sea Sprite lovers?”

“I don’t know when it started, but by the time they left, they sure were.” Soft Sounds put her helmet back on. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Lyra slouched down on the couch. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not even mad at him. I cheated on him, too.”

“Um, if you want my opinion, I can give it to you. But I don’t think you’re going to like it.” Soft Sounds’ voice was muffled by the helmet.

Lyra lifted her glass towards her mouth with both hooves and lapped up some water. “Shoot.”

“I think marriage is stupid. Like. I get that you wouldn’t want a guy to knock you up and run, but why would you want to be stuck with one pony your whole life? I don’t know, I’m not into stallions. But I wouldn’t marry a mare, either.”

Lyra shook her head. “I liked being married. Having a friend around, someone to support me, someone who was always on my side. He was a pain in the ass, sometimes, but so am I.”

“Everpony’s a pain in the ass,” said Soft Sounds. “That’s why I don’t want to get married.”

Lyra sighed. “I’m not even mad about the sex. I’m jealous, sure. I want to punch this Sea Sprite whore in the face. But it’s not like we didn’t have a threesome now and then before we had Bean. We were both bi, so there were a lot of options for us. It’s him going up into the fucking sky, where I can never see him again, and… Oh damn, hold on.” She cradled her hoof against her forehead, pushing between her eyes to keep the tears in.

“I’m so sorry,” said Soft Sounds.

Lyra felt a sudden, peevish, vengeful impulse. “So what happened to your cutie mark? Who did that to you?” It was a cruel thing to bring up, but she wanted to shift the conversation to someone else’s suffering.

“Oh, I asked for that,” said Soft Sounds, fumbling off her helmet. “It hurt, but it was worth it. I’m a Dashite, you see.”

“What the fuck is a Dashite? Do you worship Rainbow Dash? Because I met her a few times, and I can tell you that’s a pretty rich idea.” Not that Rainbow would have minded being worshiped.

“Oh, it’s not a religion,” said Soft Sounds, sitting up straight, helmet set beside her, eyes bright. “It’s more like a movement. See, Rainbow Dash condemned the Enclave. She wouldn’t stand for the majority of pegasi sealing off the sky. So they exiled her — which was a pretty pathetic move since she’d already left — and any pony who sympathized with her.”

Lyra gave her a quizzical look. “So you branded off your cutie mark because the Enclave threw out Rainbow Dash?”

“It’s how the Enclave punishes Dashites they catch. A lot of Dashites who were born down here take the mark in solidarity.”

“Oh,” said Lyra, feeling a little embarrassed. “That makes sense, I guess. But don’t you miss your mark?”

“No.” Soft Sounds grinned. “Who needs a cutie mark, anyway? It doesn’t really mean anything. Mine was a pretty little songbird. I can’t sing a note. I say that I choose my own destiny, not Harmony.” Any nervousness or lack of confidence had vanished now that she was talking about her philosophy. Since nopony had asked, she started to explain its principals. “We have three ideals — be loyal, be awesome, and oppose the Enclave however you can.”

“Well I hate the Enclave already, so that’s fine by me,” said Lyra.

“Time ponies, please!” shouted the bartender.

“Oh, damn,” groaned Lyra. “Now I have to go sleep on the floor with a bunch of sweaty Minutemares. I’m too old to rough it like this. My back is already killing me.”

Soft Sounds put her helmet back on. “You can sleep at my place if you want.”

“You get a lot of use out of that helmet, don’t you?”

Soft Sounds’ helmet nodded. “It’s for stage fright. But I should carry it everywhere. It’s very useful.”

Lyra stretched and yawned casually. “If you have an extra bed, I’d love to.”

“I only had one bed,” said Soft Sounds.

Lyra blushed as if this wasn’t exactly what she’d been angling for. “I’m old enough to be your mom, you know.”

Soft Sounds fluffed her wings out and folded her forehooves in her lap. “You look really good for your age.”

“Thanks. I did this new immersion treatment. You should try it if you have twenty years to kill.” Lyra felt a nagging gnawing of guilt in her chest. There were a lot of reasons why she should refuse the offer. But it would hardly be the worst thing she’d done today, would it?

“Time ponies, please!”

Soft Sounds hopped off the couch. “Come on. You can just sleep over if you want. We don’t have to have sex. We can just cuddle if you’d rather.”

“Oh, why the hell not. Sure.”

Level Up
New Perk: Robosexual. You are one. As much as you might try to lie to yourself. You get some new dialogue options if you’re brave enough to use them.

Chapter 15: Wasteland Makeover

“Do you want to hear a scary story?” said Soft Sounds, wiggling her bottom against Lyra’s belly. The soft cheeks felt good, firm and rounded, but Lyra was too tired for another round.

“No,” mumbled Lyra, half-asleep, her new friend’s sweet and sour taste still on her lips. Like a lot of shy ponies Lyra had known, once you earned Soft Sound’s trust you couldn’t shut her up.

“This happened years before I came here, back when Rarity first took power. But it really happened — my best friend’s sister’s dentist had a client who saw everything. We used to have a really good brain surgeon. A big, cheerful earth pony stallion named Tidy Stitches. Everycreature liked him. He used to dress as a clown at foals’ birthday parties. But then unicorns started disappearing. One at a time, every month or two. It’s not like it’s unusual for ponies to just vanish around here, so it took Rarity’s guards a while to even notice that something was wrong.”

Lyra suddenly felt more awake. “I have a bad feeling about where this is headed.”

“After a while, ponies started noticing a bad smell hanging around in Tidy’s neighborhood. But with so many ponies packed so close together, they couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. Somepony hired Paper Heart to look for one of the missing unicorns, and he found out he’d last been seen with Tidy Stitches. But nopony wanted to believe that Tidy was the killer because he was such a nice pony.

“Then one night a unicorn with half his forehead hanging off wandered out of Tidy Stitches’ office. He kept babbling, but it was, like, word salad. When ponies got closer, they saw it wasn’t just his forehead: his skull was open and his brain was just sitting right out there for everypony to see! They say it looked kind of like wobbly gray and red jelly.”

Lyra made a soft gagging noise.

“Anyway, the guards busted into Tidy’s office. He was already gone, but they found a secret basement full of horrible experiments. Dead unicorns with their heads cut open. And a few who weren’t quite dead yet. In the middle of it all, there was this… horn hat. Like a steel cap with a real unicorn’s horn all the way down to the root soldered to it. And it had wires going into a living Earth pony’s brain. It looked like Tidy had been trying to find a way to turn earth ponies into unicorns!”

Lyra groaned. “That’s absurd. It’s just an urban legend.”

“Um, yeah? Of course, it is,” said Soft Sounds. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“Did they ever catch him?”

“No. They say he shot a guard, sneaked out an old staff exit, and disappeared into the wasteland, never to be seen again.”

Lyra let go of Soft Sounds and rolled over to face away from her. The room was tiny and the bed was small, so this left her with her snout pressed up against plasterboard. She closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep. Her mind wouldn’t stay still. Was this Tidy Stitches connected to the Ponysmith somehow? They both liked to kidnap unicorns. No, of course they weren’t connected, because Tidy Stitches wasn’t real. Ponysmith just liked to use unicorns as magic shock troops; there wasn’t anything mysterious about that.

But how did he make them fight for him? From Crispy’s story, it sounded like the Ponysmith’s unicorns staged mass suicide attacks. Either they were exceedingly worked up about his cause, or he had some other way of controlling them.

Ugh! So many questions! So many problems! Why didn’t Rarity just make everything okay? She was an alicorn. Why didn’t she just fix everything?

Fix everything exactly the way Celestia and Twilight had. Right. Maybe ‘waiting for alicorns to fix everything’ was a poor strategy. A bad direction for society to go in. It had been tried and found wanting.

Speaking of Rarity, tho… “Sounds?”

“Yes?” The other mare wiggled her butt against Lyra’s. Ah, to be young, tireless, and endlessly horny again. Lyra ignored the gesture; it was a fine butt, but she needed at least a little sleep tonight.

“What was Rarity doing in Buckstone?” said Lyra. “It’s not one of her usual haunts.”

“She hasn’t said. I think It’s because there was a secret Ministry of Image hub in the Buckstone Public Library. Everypony knows she was hiding proscribed materials in secret storage sites, but now she can’t get into them for some reason. I heard a rumor she sent her best soldier to try to break into the library, and they never came back.”

“Huh,” said Lyra. Another silly urban legend. Rarity had probably just been in town for a fashion show or a bookstore opening or something. Why was she asking Soft Sounds questions instead of going to sleep? She closed her eyes, took slow deep breaths, and the next thing she knew the sun was shining through the window directly into her eyes, and Soft Sounds’ alarm clock was beeping in her ears.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Burrburrary 25th, EoH 47

Vindaloo left a message at the Minutemares’ flophouse that she was going to Absolutely Everything to trade their scrap, so Lyra went there to meet up with her.

Absolutely Everything was a big warehouse up on massive metal struts that dominated the outfield stands. Grim looking griffon mercenaries stood guard at the doors and the corners of the building. As Lyra approached, a griffon laden with packages in mesh bags launched themselves off of the roof, escorted by three armed thestrals.

This was a hell of an establishment. Whoever ran it must be a rich, a big wheel, a major player in the wasteland.

There was a general store on the ground level, but Vindaloo wasn’t there, so Lyra climbed up the two-story ramp to the warehouse.

One of those griffon mercenaries stopped her at the open warehouse door. “Whadda ya want,” she growled, caressing her submachinegun like it was a beloved pet.

“I’m here to meet Vindaloo?” said Lyra cautiously. She craned her neck to look around the griffon’s shoulder. The inside of the warehouse reminded her of the Amarezon station in Everhoof. Shelves, boxes, carts, conveyors. Creatures in reflective vests packing, sorting, pulling carts. In fact, she noticed some of the equipment had time-worn Amarezon logos on it.

“You ain’t got an appointment,” sneered the griffon. “Nocreature gets in without an appointment.”

Lyra sighed. “Well, I guess I can just wait out outside until… Ahhhhh!”

A gray pegasus ghoul zoomed out from the inside of the warehouse and rammed into Lyra, knocking her onto her back. Lyra’s mouth fumbled for her pistol as the horrifying-skull faced creature reared up over her to attack!

“Wow! Lyra Heartstring! As I live and breathe! I thought I’d never see you again!” said the ghoul, a wide grin splitting her gnarled face in half.

Lyra took in the ghoul’s tufts of gray fur and feathers and the amber eyes that wouldn’t look in the same direction at once. “Ditzy? Is that you?”

Ditzy Doo nodded so hard her skull rattled. “Yep! The same! Older! Uglier! Richer! But the same!” Feathers drifted down around them as Ditzy helped Lyra to her hooves.

“What happened to you?” said Lyra.

“Well, I was still working in the warehouse when the megaspells fell. Everypony but me died, but I apparently just got a near-lethal dose of radiation? At first, I felt super depressed. I just wanted to lay down and die. So I tried to! But after three days of not eating or drinking or peeing, I still felt fine!

“So I said to myself, ‘Ditzy,’ I said, ‘Sure, your life has taken a turn for the worse. Sure, you’re uglier than a dragon’s asshole now. Sure, it’s literally the end of the world. But you’re also the sole survivor in an Amarezon warehouse. I bet the boxes here are just bursting with useful and/or expensive crap! I bet you could make a lot of money using and/or selling that stuff!” She waved a diseased-looking hoof around, gesturing at the warehouse. “Thus, my empire began! What have you been up to?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Good news, Minutemare!” said Ditzy, dramatically flinging open the door of the meeting room. “My old pal Lyra just earned you a twenty percent ‘I knew them back when’ discount!”

“Okay, it’s great that you know each other somehow, but that still leaves us owing you…” Vindaloo picked up a pencil in her mouth and made some marks on a scratch paper. “Over twenty thousand caps.”

Ditzy pulled out a stool and sat down across the table from Vindaloo “These things you want aren’t cheap. Farming equipment? Hydroponics equipment? Seeds? Ammo? Especially the 5mm and the .50 caliber. That stuff’s gonna set you back.”

“What about a water chip?” said Vindaloo.

Ditzy shook her head. “You’re not gonna find one. No hecking way. MMAS only made a few hundred, and StableTec bought up most of those. If anypony did have a water chip, they’d be insane to part with it for any amount of money.”

“Really?” said Lyra.

“What are they gonna do, stop drinking?” said Ditzy. “Vindaloo: I’d dig a well if I were you. A very deep one.”

Vindaloo sighed and threw her head back. “Fine. How much does well-digging equipment cost?”

“I’ve got a pretty good drill rig I could let go for twelve hundred,” said Ditzy.

Vindaloo gritted her teeth around her pencil and made more marks on her paper. “We can’t afford this.”

Ditzy raised her hooves in a shrug. “You’re gonna have to make cuts. Hard choices. That’s what the wasteland’s like.”

Vindaloo spat out her pencil and rubbed her temples. “Fine. Let me think about what we can do without.”

Lyra sat on a stool by the door, hind knees together, forehooves in her lap, feeling awkward and useless. Managing money was not her strong suit; Beanpole had kept track of their bills. She looked at Vindaloo, sweating over her shopping list, and thought about Paneer starving to death in a besieged vault. She took a deep breath. “Ditzy. You’ve already been really generous. But pony lives depend on these supplies. Is there anything else you can do?”

Ditzy bit her lower lip with chipped and crooked teeth. She rubbed her face, then got up to pace back and forth in front of the whiteboard that filled the back wall of the room. “I’ve got a business to run here. Workers to pay. And I’m cutting it pretty close to cost with the discount I already gave you. I don’t think there’s anything else I can do. Unless…” A wild light came into her eyes. She whipped around to face Lyra and Vindaloo so fast that for a second Lyra thought she’d gone feral. “I’ve got it! Okay, listen. What do ponies need to survive?”

“Um… food? Water? Shelter?” said Vindaloo, leaning away from Ditzy’s maddened grin.

“And once they have those things, what do they need?” said Ditzy.

“Friendship? Purpose? Something to believe in?” said Lyra.

Ditzy slammed both forehooves on the table, making it jump. Vindaloo’s pencil rolled over the edge. “Wrong! They need merch! Cute merch!”

Vindaloo and Lyra stared at Ditzy in confusion and dismay.

Ditzy’s withered and half-plucked wings flapped her over to the whiteboard. She took a dry erase marker in her mouth and began to sketch a map of the Buck Bay neighborhood. “Most sources of merch in the region have been mined out,” said Ditzy around the base of her marker. But there’s one that’s still untouched.” She drew a large X in the middle of her map. “The Horse Topic on Neighburry street. If you can go in there and bring out everything you can carry… heck, you bring me enough of it, I’ll give you everything on your list and pay you.”

Vindaloo’s eyes narrowed. “Great. So why hasn’t this Horse Topic been looted?”

Ditzy flapped back over to her stool. “Oh, just because of the decade-long stalemate between the super alicorns and the Ponysmith’s troops. They’re both besieging the library, and the metaphoric trenches spread out at least that far.”

“Just super alicorns and hordes of suicidal unicorns,” said Vindaloo. “Not a big deal.”

“Well you don’t have to fight them,” said Ditzy. “Just stay out of their way. Take a small team, maybe? If you’re limited in what you can carry, then go for the top sellers. Ministry mare merch is evergreen. Twilight’s still big. Rarity’s popular around here. There are enough Dashites in town that Rainbow Dash stuff might be worth picking up, too.”

Vindaloo looked sideways at Lyra. “I see what draws you two together. This plan is insane.”

“Thank you!” said Ditzy with apparent sincerity. “That’s super kind of you! But will you do it?”

Vindaloo stared into space for a while, tapping her chin. “I think we might be able to pull this off. I’ve reconnected with a bunch of veteran Minutemares. Do you have any maps of the area?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

After the meeting ended it was almost noon. Ditzy took Lyra down to Pitcher Square, bought her noodles for lunch, and took her to the spa. The sisters who ran it took a long, chin-stroking look at the state of their hooves, held a frantic, whispered conversation, and hurried them along to a private room where they stood them in a fetlock-deep bath and implemented emergency procedures.

“I don’t do this too often, because sometimes bits of me come off,” said Ditzy. “But darn does it feel good. I have to get back to work soon, so I’m just here for the ponypedi, but you’re getting both barrels.”

Lyra blinked. “Um, I don’t know if I can afford that.”

Ditzy laughed. “You don’t have to. It’s on my bit.”

Lyra cringed as one of the spa sisters dug around under the edge of her hoof wall with an awl, pulling our rock after rock. Literal rocks! How had she even been walking? “No, Ditzy. You don’t have to. I’ll be fine.”

“No, you won’t. We just reconnected and I’m already sending you to your death. It’s the least I can do.”

“Well thank you.”

“But wait! There’s more,” said Ditzy with a grin. “After that, you’re going to go to Fillie’s basement and tell them to put you on my tab. No more wandering around in that dorky stable suit. Get yourself something with some protection. And a helmet! Head protection is so important!”

“You’re too generous,” said Lyra. “Seriously, I mean we were work friends, but just work friends. What did I do to deserve this?”

Ditzy groaned as her spa sister hit a good spot. “Yeah, there’s something lodged in there good. Don’t stop. Anyway, Lyra: living in Rarity’s city rubs off on you after a while. Plus — okay, we weren’t close, but I still liked you. And you remind me there was a world before the wasteland. A better world, you know? It’s too easy to forget.”

“Oh. Okay. That makes sense, I guess?”

“Plus I don’t know how much you’ll be in town, but we could always be better friends. You can never have too many, right?”

Lyra grinned. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

“Anyway, you’ll need to get done with all that by three o’clock, because I scheduled a doctor to look at your horn.”

Lyra cringed. “Erk! How much does that even cost?”

“Nothing! Rarity pays for everycreature’s medical care. Once you’re done with that, head down to Artillery’s Gunshop and pick out something nice.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Join the Minutemares! Get a free gun! Help forge an empire!” Paneer stood on top of a stack of boxes, waving her flipper excitedly. A line of Minutemare applicants stretched down the block and around the corner; apparently Triple Diamond City citizens found something really attractive about the organization.

“Not an empire, mon lapin. We discussed this.” said BON-80n, hovering behind an improvised desk with a stack of papers.

Paneer stomped a hind hoof. “Fine. Help forge a community!”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t have the same ring to it,” said Lyra, stepping up to BON-80n’s desk.

“Would you like to sign up?” said BON-80n, offering her a flier. The flier featured a photograph of a curvy green mare in a stable 93 jumpsuit.

“Bon Bon!” said Paneer, hooves dancing in irritation, “That’s Lyra!”

BON-80n’s chassis lights blinked on and off. All three eye stalks converged on Lyra. “Oh! Mon soleil! I am sorry, your new hair and clothes defeated my facial recognition algorithm!”

Lyra grinned. “Do you like it?” The spa ponies had found her mane, tail, and coat so full of knots and snarls that they’d decided it best to go short. She wore her mane in a spiky stripe, and her coat was cut so short it buzzed when she ran her hoof across it. She’d picked up a bunch of new things at Fillie’s Basement — most notably a very warm bomber jacket reinforced with ballistic pads and ceramic plates and a nice yellow dress that preserved her modesty in a more subtle and mysterious way than her jumpsuit had. The blocky silhouette of her EPU army helmet somewhat undermined her fashion-forward ‘post-apocalyptic lipstick lesbian’ look, but Ditzy had been right. Head protection was so important. She didn’t want to wind up like poor Trail Mix.

“You look totally badass!” said Paneer.

“Thanks! And check this out!” She levitated the flier out of BON-80n’s tentacle. It felt like she was lifting it with wet noodles, but she was lifting it, and it didn’t hurt.

“Whoa! Your magic’s back!” said Paneer, forming something that might be generously considered a hand with her magic. “High five!”

Lyra slapped a flickering and tentative hand against Paneer’s awkward star-like blob. She’d come a long way under Lyra’s teaching.

“So why am I on your fliers?” said Lyra. “I’m not even a Minutemare. I’m just a civilian contractor!”

BON-80n’s chassis lights glowed a suspicious shade of pink. “Vindaloo and I chose you because… well… you are one of the more… expansive, and… well-rounded personalities in the group, and…”

Lyra narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“It’s because you’re fat,” said Paneer.

“I’ve gone down three sizes since I woke up,” said Lyra.

“Nope,” said Paneer. “You’re still fat.”

“You know I wasn’t considered fat where I was from,” said Lyra. At least by nearly middle-aged housewife standards.

“Obesity is a highly desirable trait in the wasteland. It suggests to potential applicants that our organization has… how do you say…” BON-80n waved her tentacles evocatively.

“Lots of food,” said Paneer.

Lyra put the paper down on BON-80n’s desk extremely firmly. “Ugh. Okay. Fine. Whatever. I’m going to go buy some guns.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra considered herself a worldly and open-minded mare, and more importantly, not one to judge others by their appearance. Plus, she’d seen shit over the past month. Violent, ugly shit.

So she was ashamed that Artillery’s appearance shocked her.

“Be right with you, ma’am,” said his first head, looking up from the work table in the back of his shop.

“Ah! don’t mind waiting,” she said, turning her expression of shock into a hopefully convincing approximation of a first-person pronoun.

“Enk euo,” slurred Artillery’s other head.

Lyra turned her attention to the weapons hung on the walls of the Quonset hut that housed the shop. Rifles, pistols, grenades, and submachine guns in models ranging from the jury-rigged to the familiar to the futuristic. Artillery offered more exotic options as well — biteswords, boopball bats mode out of aircraft metal or enhanced with spikes, Zebraican kpinga, a small pistol with a pepperbox muzzle that she suspected was a flechette gun, and another odd, blocky device that if Lyra didn’t know any better she’d say was some sort of directed energy weapon.

“Catch!” said Artillery. Lyra saw a flicker of movement in the left hemisphere of her vision. She instinctively dived for cover behind a display case; a round metal apple rolled across the floor and wobbled to a stop next to her.

“Seventh customer,” said Artillery.

“Oh. Right. Like on the radio.” Lyra scooped up the incendiary grenade and popped it into her saddlebags.

Artillery clapped two of his three forehooves together. “Allow us to introduce ourselves! I am Artillery,” he pointed at his first head, “And this is my brother Caisson! Say ‘hi’, Caisson!”

“Nica meechu,” slurred Caisson.

“Hi! Ditzy sent me?” Lyra smiled and waved as calmly at Caisson as she could. While Artillery was a perfectly normal, even handsome young earth pony, probably about Soft Sounds’ age, Caisson’s face and unicorn horn slumped to one side as though partially melted.

Artillery grinned. “Oh! Yes! She mentioned you! You’re gonna be going up against super alicorns and the Ponysmith’s troops, and you need something that’ll keep you safe.”

“Yep,” said Lyra.”I’d prefer to avoiding fighting them, but my luck with avoiding fighting hasn’t been good so far.”

“Well, that’s easy,” said Artillery. Caisson’s horn glowed, and a rectangular box slightly smaller than a half-gallon carton of milk floated over. “This is a StealthBuck. Single-use unless you can find a way to recharge the battery. But it’ll make you near-invisible for fifteen minutes exactly.”

“Wow. Okay,” said Lyra. “How much?”

“I owe Ditzy a couple of solids, so it’s yours. So, what do you like for weapons?”

Lyra unholstered her .38 and her 10mm and levitated them over to him grip first. “I’m not crazy about the .38, but the 10mm has worked well for me.”

Caisson took the .38 and chucked it towards the back of the shop. “Sthupith gun.”

Artillery whistled as he took the 10mm in his forehooves. “But this tho. Filly Arms N99. This is a classic. Well cared for, too.”

“Thanks,” Lyra. “I just cleaned it; I dropped it in a puddle of radioactive mud a couple of days ago.”

“Well, we’ll see if we can vroom this up for you a bit. If you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. Can I watch?”

Artillery and Caisson pranced off towards their work table, set aside the sniper rifle they’d been working on, and started to pull Lyra’s pistol apart. Artillery worked with tools in his mouth and Caisson holding several more in his magic.

“Yeah, you’ve been taking good care of this, but some of these parts are just worn out.”

“I got it off a raider,” said Lyra.

“Darn raiders,” said Artillery around the base of his screwdriver. “You’re lucky it’s in as good shape as it is. But these N99s are fairly common, so I’ve got plenty of spare parts. Then… let’s see. What can we do with this? How about an extended magazine… tactical sight… let’s extend the barrel a little… Hey, you’re a unicorn, you don’t need the mouth grip. You want me to take that off?”

Lyra hesitated. If she burned out her magic again… well. She wasn’t going to burn out her magic again if she could help it. She didn’t think she could do anything besides basic levitation any time soon anyway. “Yeah. Do it.”

“You want a suppressor? Honestly, I wouldn’t if I were you. A gun’s loud no matter what you do.”

“No. I’m worried it’ll fuck up my draw. But can you add any kind of recoil compensation?” With her telekinesis not what it used to be, she could use a little less kick.

“I absolutely can!”

Watching them work was educational, even beautiful. They worked with care, precision, and coordination, and when they were done, Lyra’s 10mm was barely recognizable. “Here you go.”

She lifted the pistol and rotated it in midair — a smooth, gleaming gunmetal lozenge of death. “Can I try it out?”

“Sure!” said Artillery, wiping the oil off his tools with a rag. “There’s a range out back. But before you do, let me give you something to replace the .38.” He opened up a locked, rummaged around, and pulled out a small triangular holster. Caisson drew the pistol — a unicorn-optimized flechette pistol like the one she’d seen on the wall earlier.

“It has single shot or burst. It can take a bunch of different types of ammo, and you can load up to three types per magazine. I’ve got poison, tranquilizer, and dart rounds. The first two are useful — one hit on bare hide will take out anything smaller than a yak, though it’ll take a few seconds for it to take effect. The dart rounds won’t do much on single-shot, but on burst fire, they’ll turn most creatures’ heads into mushy goo.”

“Yipe,” said Lyra.

“Here, put the fuzzy side of the holster on your bare coat somewhere.”

Lyra unzipped her jacket and put the holster against her chest. It stayed there, and it took a non-trivial amount of force to pull it off. “Wow. That’s useful. Magic?”

“Nope! Van der Paws forces! Tiny fractal cilia all over that sucker. So it won’t turn up on ‘detect magic’ scans. And the weapon is plastic and ceramic, so metal detectors won’t see it either. Highly concealable!”

Lyra gulped. It was upsetting to know there were such weapons in the world. “Were these things mass-produced? Because that seems like a terrible idea.”

Artillery smiled. “Ministry of Awesome. They’re super rare.”

“How much does this cost?”

“Not your problem. Let’s hit the range and you can tell me if either gun needs any adjusting!”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

She had one last errand for the day. Paper Heart was missing. Okay. But the neon ‘open’ sign over his door was on, so she knocked.

“Come in,” said a stallion’s voice.

Paper heart’s office was dark and cluttered, lit by a single bare bulb hanging from a ceiling fan. A relatively unchipped hiveling sat behind a desk, going over a ledger. “If you have a missing creature case to report, fill out a form.” The nameplate on his desk said ‘Grinding Gears’.

“I thought Paper Heart was missing?” said Lyra.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Noboty gets themselves beat up and kidnapped as much as Paper Heart does. But sooner or later he’ll be back, with another chip out of his carapace and another story to tell.”

Lyra looked at Gears sidelong. “Aren’t you concerned?”

“Nope.” He reached in a desk drawer and pulled out a small device that looked like the unacknowledged love child of a spark plug and a vacuum tube. “I make him back up his soul chip every time he goes out on a case. Honestly, he could use a new chassis.” He put the chip back in its drawer and went back to his ledgers. “Not that we can afford one.”

“Well, I want to hire him, and I can’t wait. Where was he last seen?”

“Last time I heard, he was headed for the Combat Zone,” said Gears, entering some figures on an old fashioned adding machine.

Lyra scowled. “That doesn’t narrow it down.”

Gear laughed. “What, are you new around here?”

“Yes.”

He let out a long, soulful sigh — an impressive feat for someboty who didn’t have any lungs. “The Combat Zone is a casino and battle ‘sports’ arena inside of Stable 114 at Park Street Station.”

She blinked. “There’s a casino inside of a stable?”

He sighed again.

“Okay, okay, so there’s a casino in a stable. How do I get in?”

Gears closed his ledger and stood up. “Show up at the door looking like you have caps. Try not to let Swan smash you on the trip over.”

“Swan? Who’s Swan?”

He put on a fedora and a jacket and headed for the door. “I’m not a tour guide, and we’re closed.”

Lyra stood outside Paper Heart’s office. A chilly wind blew down the darkening narrow street, carrying flecks of icy rain on the edge of snow. But Lyra’s heart felt light — she might soon see her son again! It would still be a hard road. She’d need to find Paper Heart. But she was sure he’d be able to tell her what to do.

And she was sure that when she found Bean, everything would be okay.

Level Up
New Perk: Cleans Up Nice. +1 Charisma when wearing anything but a stable suit or raider armor. You gain new dialogue options.

Chapter 16: Marconi's Curse

“Why can’t I come with you!” wailed Paneer.

“It’s not safe,” said Vindaloo. “You’re going to stay with the other Minutemares, and you’re going to the school for a day or two. Rarity’s schools are free, and you could use some education.”

Paneer’s mouth curled into a snarl. “I don’t need to go to school.”

“Oh yeah,” said Vindaloo, smiling smugly. “What’s thirty-two times seventeen?”

Paneer stared at her blankly. “Um. A number?”

Vindaloo arched her eyebrows.

“A hundred?”

“You’re going to school.”

“I don’t need to know math,” muttered Paneer.

Lyra sat with them in a back booth at On the Nose, waiting for the Minutemare veterans, with Soft Sounds curled against Lyra’s side, arching languidly in the grip of some drug Lyra hadn’t wanted any of. “They’ll teach you magic, too.”

Paneer scowled. “But you…”

“I’m going to go look for my family, Paneer,” said Lyra. “I’ll miss you. And I promise I’ll be back. But I need to see my little boy again.”

“It’s not fair,” said Paneer, pulling over her Shetland Temple.

“A mare in every port, huh,” said Vindaloo, glancing across Lyra’s lap at Soft Sounds. “She’s a little young for you.”

Lyra sighed. “I don’t claim to be a good pony.”

“None of us are. The wasteland ate all the good ponies a long time ago. And we all cope in different ways,” said Vindaloo. “Have you given up on your husband?”

Lyra sighed and stroked Soft Sounds’ mane. “Motherfucker went to the Enclave.”

Vindaloo whistled. “Damn. Well. You know a spell for walking on clouds?”

“Right now I can barely lift my cider,” said Lyra. “That doesn’t mean I’ve given up. I want some fucking closure, at least. I want to know why he ran away. But until then? I’m taking revenge-slash-comfort every chance I get.”

Vindaloo laughed. “At least you’re taking it with mares. Fucking stallions. You can’t trust them anywhere near a warm orifice. And they’ll think they’re so sly, and you’re like, ‘Asshole, I can smell her on you.’”

“It’s my fault though. Did I tell you how I got in that tank?”

“Saving lives, if I recall correctly.”

Lyra shook her head. “I saved some lives, but I destroyed my family.”

“Math still works out in your favor,” said Vindaloo. She looked across the bar, eyes distant. “You know what though? If it’d been Crispy in that tank, I’d have waited. I’d have sat there with a sack of food and a pile of ammunition and I wouldn’t have budged ‘til he crawled out again.”

“You’d have to get up to pee,” said Lyra.

“The point is your cowardly Enclave husband doesn’t deserve you,” growled Vindaloo. “Find somepony better. And here are my old friends!”

A group of five rough-looking ponies in Minutemares jackets saluted Vindaloo and sat down across the booth from them. “All right, troops. This is Lyra; she’s a civilian contractor who’ll be accompanying us. Lyra: The fat one is Flawless Victory, the thestral with the beard is Hartwing, the little guy is Ivory Spark, the thestral with one wing is Dark Snow, and the gigantic one is Star Metal.”

“What’s she do?” said Ivory Spark, setting a tumbler of clear liquor down on the table.

“Technical specialist. Magic support, too, but she overdid it and her horn’s in the shop. She’s heading up to the Combat Zone to look for her family.”

“They big gamblers?” rumbled Star Metal, his big square face looking genuinely confused.

Vindaloo waved her hoof. “Long story. The point is, Lyra’s done a lot for the Minutemares, so I don’t want to hear any of you griping about an ‘escort mission’.” She moved her cider to one side, reached under the table, and pulled out a street map of Buck Bay.

“Before I begin, I need to impress on you how serious this operation is. Don’t let the fact that we’re here to raid a T-shirt shop for merchandise fool you. This mission will earn us the materials and supplies the Minutemares need to survive. It would not be inaccurate to say that what happens today will determine the future of the Minutemares. I aim not to lose anypony. But it’s going to be dangerous, and I want you to know that any sacrifices you make today will be remembered.”

The Minutemares nodded and grunted. They understood.

“Our primary objective is the Hoof Topic on the corner of Neighbury Street and Exiter. The plan is simple — we sneak into the old Castle Records building on the corner with Maresachusetts Avenue and move from building to building. Stay quiet, stay out of sight.”

Ivory laughed. “Yeah, then why are Star and I here?”

“Because there are five wings of princesses and at least two of Ponysmith’s Centurions in the area. They’ll mostly be deployed along Exiter Street, so we’ll be right under their noses in the last phase of the operation. Hopefully, if we’re spotted they’ll be polite enough to come at us one at a time, so you can deal with them,” said Vindaloo.

“Naw, I can handle two or three at once,” rumbled Star Metal.

“This will be difficult, but the buildings on Neighburry Street are mid-Celestian rowhouses, all connected. Our client was able to supply us with floor plans that show where we can move from one to the other. I’m going to go over the operation step by step. If we do this perfectly, we should be in and out in no time. Now, listen close.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Burrburrary 26th, EoH 47

A magic bolt blasted through a spinner rack, blowing it to aluminum splinters and covering Lyra with the rotten remains of dozens of witty novelty postcards. She yelped and darted for the shelter of a moth-eaten rack of 27 EOH’s hottest fashions knowing full well they provided concealment, rather than cover.

“Are you hurt?” said BON-80n, her voice on its lowest volume setting. Her engine was off, and she had moved into cover by writhing her tentacles on the floor; a most unsettling thing to see. She’d insisted on accompanying Lyra to the Combat Zone; Lyra wished she hadn’t come because now she was in terrible danger.

All of them were.

“I’m fine!” said Lyra in a loud whisper. “Be quiet!” Not that anything more than a few feet away was audible above the clatter of the Minutemare’s weapons. Vindaloo’s order was for ‘suppressive fire’, which apparently meant shoot nonstop at everything in sight.

They’d entered the block through the Castle Records, as planned. The building was in wretched shape — stripped bare by looters, floors and ceilings sagging, walls torn open and even the pipes and wires scavenged. It didn’t take the floor plans to find a way to the next building, and the next. It wasn’t even possible to discern what the businesses inside these buildings had once been, beyond Lyra’s memory that this one had been a bookstore, and that one a dentist. Or was it a hair salon? The first store that had anything left in it besides a few scraps was this fashion boutique, and Lyra had been so curious as to why that she’d disregarded both the twinge in her lower back and the faint tingle in her horn that indicated magical activity.

In retrospect, they’d probably tripped a magical ward, and that’s what had brought the blue alicorn scout.

That was why the place wasn’t looted.

Now they were pinned down because apparently, a single super alicorn was a match for six veteran Minutemares.

Lyra hated the wasteland so much.

Even if they hit the blue alicorn, what good would that do? It seemed like the ones they’d fought by the Gitgo sign had known when they’d killed one of them. Weren’t they all supposed to be psychically linked?

Lyra’s mouth fell open in horror. If they killed this one, it would just bring more down on them. The Minutemares had to stop firing! She fumbled her 10mm pistol out of its holster and passed it to BON-80n. “Cover me.”

Her chassis lights blinked. “What?”

“I need you to distract the princess while I go talk to Vindaloo! Hold this in your tentacles and push here!” she said, showing her the trigger panel. “Try not to hit anything!”

“Not to worry,” said BON-80n. She started firing. The pistol bucked in her tentacles, most shots going into the ceiling and knocking down tufts of rotten plaster. Which was fine. As long as the blue alicorn was distracted. Lyra could see a bit of Vindaloo’s butt from here, pink and red behind an overturned checkout counter. She held her breath, tensed her legs, and sprinted. She couldn’t summon a shield to protect herself; she just had to hope the super alicorn didn’t have time to line up a decent shot. She hopped over Vindaloo and rolled to a stop behind cover with her.

“Lyra. What is it?” said Vindaloo without looking at her. While her soldiers filled the air with lead, she held her fire. Her eyes scanned the boutique, eager for a flash of blue to target.

“We can’t win this fight,” said Lyra.

“Wanna bet?” Said Vindaloo. She bit down on the trigger. A shriek like a striking eagle filled the air. Lyra’s heart stopped — she was too late! But Vindaloo knew better; she’d already hit the floor behind the counter. A telekinetic bolt sparkled through the air overhead.

“If we kill her, then what?” hissed Lyra. “They’re telepathic, aren’t they? The others will know! They’ll all come down on us and we’ll die!”

“Well what do you suggest?” said Vindaloo. The next magic bolt struck the desk, pushing it back against their heads. “The future of the Minutemares depends on this operation! We can’t run away!”

Lyra cringed. “Negotiate, maybe?”

“With a princess?” Vindaloo stared at her in stunned disbelief. “There’s something wrong with you.”

“Has anypony ever tried it?”

“Nopony who’s still alive.”

“At least give me a chance!”

Another bolt hit the counter, splitting it in half. “Fine,” then, pitched as an order: “Minutemares! Hold your fire!”

Silence.

“Why did you stop shooting?” said a husky, mellifluous voice from nowhere in particular. Lyra observed that the alicorn’s invisibility spell provided sound diffusion as well; that was clever.

“We want to talk!” said Lyra.

More silence. “Why?”

“Because I don’t think we need to fight you. We’re both enemies of the Ponysmith, right?”

“Come out where we can see you,” said the alicorn.

Vindaloo waved goodbye. “It’s been nice knowing you.”

Lyra stood up and walked into the center of the store. “You can see that I’m unarmed.” Not completely the truth; she still had the flechette gun tucked away under her dress.

“If this is a trap, my sisters will avenge me,” said the alicorn.

“Naturally.”

A tall blue alicorn stepped into view as though coming through an invisible curtain. Tall relative to a normal pony; not as big as Luna but a little bit taller than Beanpole had been. Her face and form were supermodel idealized; lanky limbed, thin-bodied, and long-snouted. A line of raw flesh traced the side of her neck, still bleeding. Cold violet eyes widened in recognition. “We saw you! We know you! You dropped a sign on our sister!”

Lyra gritted her teeth. “Well, you guys killed a friend of mine, so I think we’re even.”

“Ha!” said the alicorn. “You know nothing of true friendship! You cannot even imagine the bond between super alicorn sisters! We share every thought, every sensation!” She breathed in through her teeth. “We share perfect intimacy. When a great and powerful super alicorn dies, every sister everywhere in Equestria feels her pain, and every sister grieves.”

Wait. Blue coat. Purple eyes. Haughty diction. Unwarranted use of the phrase ‘great and powerful’. “Hold on. Are you Trixie?”

The alicorn’s eyes widened. “You know of the progenitors?” She tilted her head, contemplating. “We are not Trixie, but she is one of the ponies whose essence we partake in.” She paused, eyes growing distant, as though digging deep in her mind. “The sisters remember one like you. A dreamer. Slovenly. Full of mad plans. Though you are too young to be the Lyra we remember.”

Lyra willed herself to ignore the unflattering description, especially hypocritical coming from a ‘relative’ of Trixie’s. “You’re not the only one who was involved in a weird magical experiment.” She glanced back at the alicorn’s flank. Blank. She thought of the teleporting alicorn’s particular shade of purple, and all the pieces fell into place. “So I see that you’re all equal?”

The alicorn raised her head proudly. “Yes. At last! True equality, driven by magic! Our progenitors could not see it. We remember their terror at being merged into one! But we understand, where they did not — the super alicorns will bring unity to the wasteland! It is foolish to resist. The Friendship Inducing Mutagen is perfectly stable, and has no disadvantages or side effects! So say the great and powerful…”

“So our long term goals don’t line up. Okay. But we don’t have any quarrel with you right now. We just need to requisition some supplies from the Horse Topic up the street. And I hear you’re fighting the Ponysmith’s forces? We don’t like them either. They kidnapped my son.” There was no way he was fighting for somepony like the Ponysmith willingly, no matter what Steel Hooves said.

The alicorn gasped. “The great and powerful super alicorns know well the importance of family! One day all creatures shall be sisters under the glory of the Friendship Inducing Mutagen! But for now…” she narrowed her eyes. “What manner of supplies are you seeking? It would not be wise to give potential enemies undue advantage.”

Lyra smirked. “Ditzy Doo sent us looking for a cache of pre-war promotional merchandise. She wants to sell it in Triple Diamond City, to make money and make ponies happy. Nothing that could hurt you.”

The super alicorn threw back her head and laughed. “Ha ha ha ha ha! That is just like Ditzy Doo. But what help can you offer the magnificent military might of the tactically unequaled super alicorns?”

“Yeah, I didn’t think that far ahead.” Lyra looked back over her shoulder. “Vindaloo? Can we do this?”

Vindaloo peeked from her hiding place. “Lyra, you’re a hell of a diplomat. And damn right we can. Super alicorn: You’re fighting ponies in power armor?”

“At least two such foul metal-clad beasts, yes.”

Vindaloo’s grin showed miles of teeth. “Star Metal. Show ‘em what you got.”

The big earth pony rose out of a pile of pretty dresses like an ancient battleship being dredged from the murk of the sea. His armor wasn’t power armor, but it was still formidable — helmet and breastplate of super-hard ceramic, angled to deflect armor penetrating rounds. the rest of him was draped with ballistic fabric barding. He looked like a knight of the Crystal Empire, except for the weapons mounted on his battle saddle — a massive anti-machine rifle on his right side, and a pair of single-shot rocket launchers on his left. Ivory poked his head out from behind Star Metal; his little body was laden with clips for the anti-machine rifle and extra rocket tubes.

The super alicorn pursed her lips. “We are impressed. Perhaps this alliance will be of value to us after all.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Vindaloo spread her map on a dilapidated coffee table in an old loft apartment.

“Here’s the plan. There are two maniples of unislaves dug in on the other side of Exiter street. All five wings of super alicorns are attacking up Neighbury Street and Public Alley 441, deliberately exposing their flank. We expect the Ponysmith’s Centurions to exploit this, and attempt an attack down Public Alley 435, where we will be waiting in ambush. We will inflict as many casualties as we can, drawing out their Centurions, which Star Metal and Ivory Spark will then dispatch.”

Star and Ivory’s salutes clanked and rattled.

“Once the Ponysmith’s forces have been reduced, both alicorns and Minutemares will advance. Minutemares will loot the Horse Topic and return to Triple Diamond City. Any questions?”

Lyra imagined the unislaves charging into the Minutemares’ gunfire and felt a sinking sensation in her gut. Bean might be out there right now, “Can we really just… kill Ponysmith’s unicorn slaves like that? It’s not their fault they have to fight for him.”

She expected a verbal decapitation — surely Vindaloo would see that objection as a sign of weakness. Instead, she said, “I’m sorry, Lyra. A lot of times the Wasteland leaves us with no good choices. If you find your son’s body today…” Vindaloo hung her head. “I’ll help you bury him.”

Lyra tried very hard not to burst into tears. Keep it cool, think about magic. Not Bean lying dead in the street.

The one-winged thestral — what was his name? Lyra had forgotten already — raised a hoof. ‘What about our flanks? With only six of us and two civilians, we’re gonna be in trouble if they try anything sneaky.” Something in his tone suggested he meant both Ponysmith’s troops and the alicorns.

Vindaloo pointed at Lyra and BON-80n. “The civilians have taken care of that. You’ll notice the robot has two fewer eye stalks than before.”

“This is pretty bare-bones,” said Lyra, relieved at the distraction. She produced the other two metal eyeballs from her saddlebags “We haven’t had time to do anything fancy. But I have rigged these up to transmit directly to Bon Bon’s visual cortex and my PipBuck. I can levitate them anywhere I can see, including over the rooftops, and between the two of us we should have a couple of decent recon drones. They’re small enough that they’ll be hard to notice and even harder to hit.”

The one-winged thestral tilted his head back. “Damn. I’m impressed. Glad Vindaloo brought you along.”

Vindaloo snorted. “You think I carry deadweight, Snow? Lyra will also be in telepathic contact with the princesses. BON-80n is a nursing droid capable of providing battlefield medicine. Any other questions? No? Good. Now I’ll go over the defensive positions I’ve picked out.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra and BON-80n’s field support area was improvised behind a large metal dumpster. Bon Bon waited, engine powered down, beside the medical things they’d set out.

Through her drones, Lyra watched unislaves charge down the alley, five abreast, masked in slit-visored heavy steel helmets and stern black uniforms. They were allowed to reach the cross street before the Minutemares opened fire. Then they started falling. “Like rows of grain before the scythe” — she’d read that in an old history book somewhere, and hadn’t known what it meant. Apparently, it meant they fell down dead, and the row of ponies behind them did, and then the next. By the third row, they’d started firing back. Telekinetic bolts as sharp as knives tore into the rubble, trash bins, and abandoned cars (Lyra had taken out all the spark batteries so they wouldn’t explode) littering the Minutemare’s side of the alley. Then those unislaves died and were replaced by another row.

How could the Ponysmith be so careless of pony life? How could he make those ponies charge into certain death? No training could prepare them for that. Then it clicked. Something else from a history book — those helmets were no use as armor. They crumbled under the Minutemare’s bullets. But they did resemble the ones King Sombra had used to control the Crystal legions.

She clenched her teeth in rage and disgust. That fucker! How could he do that to ponies? She couldn’t watch the massacre any more; anyway her job was to watch the flanks. She levitated her drones over the rooftops.

In the drone’s view of Neighbury Street, literal sparks flew from the battle between the alicorns and the unislaves. The Ponysmith’s defensive tactics were much less suicidal; they fought from cover as the Minutemares did. The alicorns fought in the open, confident in their powerful shields.

Her other drone panned down Stone Soup Street. Two armies camped around the pillared marble edifice of the Buckstone Public Library; the Ponysmith’s forces dug into trenches and the fortified husks of the two churches up the street, the alicorns guarded by a phalanx of white alicorns casting a shield so powerful it was practically opaque. What was so interesting in there? Were both sides in desperate need of reading material? And what, exactly, was keeping them out?

A volley of smoke bombs arced out of the Ponysmith’s lines from hidden launchers. Gray coils spread to fill Stone Soup Street, the super alicorn’s view, but not Lyra’s drone’s lofty perspective. A pony in bronze power armor came around the corner from Neighbury Street. Two more power armor ponies — Centurions? — pounded out of one of the churches. The armor of these two was street camouflage, mottled brown and gray, and black. The three joined up and vanished into the smokescreen.

Lyra flicked on her PipBuck’s radio. “Vindaloo! Three Centurions, coming in somewhere through the row houses!”

“What side?” crackled Vindaloo’s voice.

“Right flank! Stone Soup Street! They’re near my position!”

“Roger that. Sending you Star Metal.”

Star and Ivory came clanking around the corner of the trash bin. “Okay. Where’s the fire?” rumbled Star.

Lyra was about to say that she didn’t know just yet when a green flash blinded her. She blinked her eyes until the shadowy double image of a power armor pony levitating two combat shotguns. One of the muzzles swung to point at her.

Unable to think of anything else to do, Lyra screamed.

Star Metal was fast. Before the Centurion could pull his triggers, he bit down on his. He fired everything — rifle and rockets. The bright trails of the rockets traced burning lines across her retinas. Their heat scorched her fur. The Centurion staggered backward, his breastplate bent and scorched but not penetrated. Star had hit him where his armor was thickest.

The Centurion’s shotguns fired, but Lyra had time to duck, and most of the shot went overhead. She felt some bouncing off her helmet and was glad she’d worn that.

The Centurion’s other shotgun blasted point-blank in Star Metal’s face. Blood splashed from his visor. He charged the Centurion. and they both went down. The sound of his anti-machine rifle echoed again and again until the magazine was empty. Star Metal staggered to his hooves. The Centurion stayed down.

“Star! Star, brother, let me look at you!” shouted Ivory, bouncing frantically around his chest.

“Where you at, little buddy? I can’t see you. Got blood in my eyes.”

Ivory got a hold of his neck armor and tugged Star’s head down to where he could look inside the visor of his buckshot scored helmet. What he saw there made his jaw fall open. “Oh no. Oh shit,” he said, tears squirting down his cheeks.

“Does it look okay? Did he get me bad?” said Star Metal.

“It’s okay,” said Ivory, wrapping his forelegs around Star Metal’s head. “I’ll be your eyes. I’ll be your eyes.”

Lyra’s slumped back against the dumpster, trying to absorb the implications of what she’d just seen. How had the Centurion known to teleport here? Unless… The realization came like a punch to the throat. She was using radio transmissions to get signals from the drones. And communicating with Vindaloo by uncoded radio transmissions. And the Ponysmith’s Centurions had radios too, right in their power armor suits. She’d been so stupid!

Also, she’d seen three Centurions flanking them, and they’d only fought one, and…

Familiar voices screamed from up the alley. Lyra snapped her attention back to reality. BON-80n hung over Star Metal’s prone form, tentacles working over his face. His helmet, scored with buckshot and soaked with blood, lay to one side. Ivory watched, down on his belly, tears and Star’s blood soaking his cheeks.

“Vindaloo! VIndaloo! Do you read me? Watch your right flank!” Nothing. This was very bad.

“I think I may be able to save one of his eyes,” said BON-80n. “My own would be helpful, here.”

Lyra jerked them back from the rooftops and set them down under her. “You’ll have to set them up yourself. Ivory. I need your rockets.”

He swung the remaining three single-launch tubes off his back and shoved them at her. “Fucking take them!”

Lyra sent a telepathic call for help to the alicorns, and ran up the street, 10mm pistol drawn. She zipped from cover to cover as magic bolts flashed over her head. Gunfire still sounded, but there was less of it. That was bad — most of the gunfire on this battlefield came from the Minutemares. Less of it meant fewer Minutemares. It meant Vindaloo might be dead.

A magic bolt tore across her shoulder, ripping open her jacket. She felt cold shock, unable to determine if the bolt had hit her body or not. She looked in the direction the bolt had come from — unislaves were over the Minutemare’s barricades! Three of them, horns glowing.

She dropped and rolled for the cover of an overturned Cowvega, entering SATS as she did. She let off a flurry of bullets, as many as she could squeeze out of the targeting spell. The unislaves crumpled — a little too quickly; she wasn’t that good a shot. She looked to her left. The fat Minutemare — Flawless Victory? — waved her towards the Hoof Topic. Lyra nodded at him and bolted around the far side of the Cowvega.

Light flashed from the broken windows of the Hoof Topic. She unslung one of her rocket launchers. How did this work? Her knowledge of military weapons was patchy, but she’d watched somepony handle one on the firing range once. You had to pull a pin or something…

Lyra yelped as the metal tube telescoped, doubling in length instantly. A long vertical glass sight of the kind Lyra had never really understood popped up, revealing a push-button trigger. Her PipBuck’s EFS told her that her I-72 Light Anti-machine Rocket was now ready to fire.

Heavy weapons are dangerous! Please do not use the I-72 LAR in an enclosed space! warned Littlepip.

“Shut off,” muttered Lyra, and dashed to the window of the Hoof Topic, ready to use her LAR in an enclosed space. Her HUD showed two red and one green dots dancing in a complex pattern. Should she dive into the battle? Or poke her head up and try to see what was going on first? A magic bolt tore a chunk out of the wall next to her — she was too exposed here. Over the windowsill she went, broken glass tugging at the hem of her dress.

She landed face-first in a train of entrails. She yelped and rolled away, covered in blood and shit. The one-winged thestral had been hit here; and his hind end still lay next to his tangled intestines. A trail of blood led off behind a pile of shelves, where his front half had crawled off to die. Lyra willed herself not to puke. She didn’t have time.

Two Centurions danced through the narrow confines of the shop floor. The one in street camouflaged armor dual-wielded assault rifles; the one in bronze armor fired magic bolts, both of them aiming at something she couldn’t see. Wait. No. She could. Near the back of the store, she saw Vindaloo roll between two piles of rubble, and snap off a series of rifle shots at the camouflage-armored pony before vanishing again. Bullets sparked off the seam between his neck plates and his shoulder plates. Lyra was amazed — there was absolutely no way Vindaloo was going to kill a power armor pony that way. Even the visor glass was proof against small arms. But she still fought. It was both admirable and pathetic.

Or not. The gray armored pony turned to face the place Vindaloo had been seconds ago — directly away from Lyra. She entered SATS, locked the rocket on his armor encased butt, and fired.

No kind of armor could be thick everywhere — it weighed a lot, and design trade-offs had to be made. Almost every armor designer chose a simple solution to this problem: heavy armor up front, lighter armor in the back. Keep your face to the enemy and you’ll be fine. This meant that if the front of the Centurions power armor could absorb multiple rocket and anti-machine rifle hits before collapsing, the back had to be thin enough that it could not even stop a single rocket.

Lyra’s rocket flashed through the air and poked a small hole next to the pony’s tail. The power armor pony didn’t scream or fall, he just stopped — standing still, held up by the armor’s frame, a corpse in a tin can. A surge of triumph rose in her chest. Two down. She discarded the empty rocket tube and popped open another.

But the bronze pony had seen her. He turned to face her. The armor’s horn casing glowed. Lyra ran.

Hot exhaust from the rocket had set the dead thestral’s severed butt on fire, and Lyra used that to her advantage, diving into the foul-smelling smoke. She hid behind a fallen set of shelves. The vary same the thestral’s front half had crawled behind. She looked at his dead eyes and his exposed ribcage and screamed. Then she covered her mouth. Had the bronze pony heard her over the noise of battle?

Ironshod hoofsteps moved towards her. He knew where she was. She cringed, cowering down next to the severed torso beside her. Maybe she could pretend to be dead. Maybe if she fired her last rocket right in his face?

Too late. The bronze pony rose up over her, staring down. Lyra stared up at him, ears pressed flat against her skull, so scared she couldn’t even breathe, let alone aim a rocket. The light of magical battle reflected off his faceplate. Vindaloo’s bullet’s sparked off his side.

He didn’t fire. Why didn’t he fire?

His horn plating glowed. Not an attack. An invitation. Lyra responded without thinking — true telepathy was a difficult spell, but unicorns’ minds could touch on a surface level almost without effort. She knew this touch. She’d felt it many times before. The first time she felt it, it had been inside her womb.

“No,” she whispered, backing up against the wall. “No, you can’t be. You wouldn’t. You’d never.”

If the bronze pony had anything to say, he didn’t get a chance to say it. Thre purple alicorns teleported into the store and started blasting even before the glow of their spell had faded. A flurry of magic bolts hit him, tearing off a chunk from his back armor. He cast a teleport spell and vanished in a flash.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra had worried that the Hoof Topic’s useful stock had been destroyed in the firefight, but it had a stock room. A locked, metal walled, climate-controlled stock room. The keypad that controlled the lock was a RoanCo design, so it was still operating, and easy for her to coax into revealing its secrets. Lyra whistled in awe as the door hissed open. Shelf after shelf of plastic sealed T-shirts and mint-in-box toys. Not to mention several cases of Sparkle Cola. Pay dirt.

The Minutemares had made good use of the time it’d taken her to get the vault open. Two suits of battered but functional power armor had been emptied of their former occupants' remains and readied to carry cargo. Star Metal was ready, too — eyes bandaged, but willing to work if Ivory led the way.

While they worked, Lyra interested herself in a game of solitaire on her PipBuck — she’d rescinded the super alicorn’s access to her mind, a simple enough procedure, but maybe they knew a way around that. Lyra didn’t want to be a means for spying on her own ponies. The Minutemares had to work fast — they were allowed to loot the Hoof Topic as part of their agreement. The alicorns had said nothing about the power armor, and while their tall skinny bodies wouldn’t fit inside the suits, they would not want a rival army to have them.

She let herself get absorbed in helping Littlepip sort cards. Mostly she failed, but when she did, she just started a new game. Games were good that way; it didn’t matter how often you failed. You could just start again.

If you failed at being a mother, that was it. She could have another foal one day, maybe. But for Bean, the damage was done.

She felt a soft touch on her shoulder. She looked back. “Vindaloo?”

“They’re away.”

“Good. The princesses aren’t bothering them?”

“They’re still distracted. BON-80n’s helping them with their wounded.”

Lyra sighed with relief. “Good.”

“It shouldn’t take our ponies long to get back to Triple Diamond City. We all need to get out of here soon. The Ponysmith’s going to hit back, and hit back hard.” Vindaloo looked her in the eye. “Have you decided where you’re going?”

“Vindaloo, it was him. The bronze Centurion. It was Bean.” Lyra’s voice cracked as she spoke.

Vindaloo’s eyes widened. “You’re sure? You didn’t see his face.”

“A mother knows,” she slumped, head hung nearly to the bottoms of her hooves. “I failed him. It’s my fault. He’s evil and it’s my fault.”

Vindaloo put a hoof on her shoulder and gave her a firm but gentle shake. “Hey. Hey. If I blamed myself for every idiot thing my kid does I’d never stop kicking my own ass.”

“Don’t be nice to me, I’ll cry,” said Lyra, her voice shaking.

Vindaloo put her hooves on both of Lyra’s cheeks, lifted her head, and glared deep in her eyes. “All right. Listen up, you crazy daughter of a whore. You’d be completely within your rights to just let him go. Yeah, the wasteland tore your family apart. So what? It does that to everypony. You’re lucky your son is still alive. What does it matter to you what he does with his life? He’s evil? Let him be evil. You want a family? Come back with us. Settle down with Blue Note, with that slutty DJ, with both of them, or whoever you want. You want kids? You can adopt. The wasteland makes a lot of orphans.”

“I just need to fucking talk to him, okay? I need to know why.” She needed to know if she could save him, but she didn’t say that out loud. Vindaloo would tell her she was being stupid, and she would be right.

Vindaloo nodded. “Okay. It’s your funeral. How are you going to do that?”

Lyra swallowed around the dry raw lump in her throat. “I’m going to march up to the Ponysmith’s lines and surrender myself.”

Vindaloo sneered. “That’s too stupid, even for you. Try again.”

“I… I don’t know.”

“What about the Combat Zone? Paper Heart is there. He can help you find him.”

Lyra shook her head and pushed Vindaloo’s hooves away. “I know where Bean is now. I don’t need Paper Heart anymore.”

“You know what he does for a living. You don’t know where he is. Armies move around a lot.

“Another reason you need to go there is because the Combat Zone is a neutral zone. Rascal King’s security is the tightest in the wasteland. If you want to talk to someone from the Ponysmith’s army safely that’s the place to do it.”

Lyra blinked. “What. Rascal King. He’s named after the mayor of Buckstone from before the war?”

“No. He is the mayor of Buckstone. Stable 114 was a huge grift. He paid StableTec with taxpayer money to build it for himself and his earth pony cronies. When the megaspells fell, he let in many poor earth pony families, too. He saved a lot of lives.”

Lyra tilted her head to one side. “That’s… good? I guess?” It had always been hard to tell, with Rascal King. He helped the poor with one hoof and picked the government's pockets with the other.

Nope,” said Vindaloo. “He turned away pegasi and unicorns. No exceptions. I know you think I’m tribalist, but inequality between earth ponies and the other tribes was real, before the war. You couldn’t always see it, because the princesses would never let anypony go hungry. But what jobs did earth ponies do? Farming, pulling carts, working mines, and rock farms. Those things didn’t pay as well as the white-collar jobs you unicorns do, and we couldn’t run away to the sky like the pegasi did. We couldn’t afford stables, and that left us outside. But I tell you what — turning somepony away from safety because they’re a unicorn or a pegasus is just as bad as turning them away because they can’t pay. Worse, maybe.”

“Damn,” said Lyra. “That’s where I’ve got to go. Will they even let me in?”

“If you’ve got caps, they will. Here,” She out a Pinkie Pie Tote bag and tossed it to Lyra. “Some stuff for barter.”

Lyra opened the tote. It contained a dozen wrapped Pinkie Pie T-shirts, a couple of figurines, a few Sparkle Colas, and a lunch box full of bottle caps. “Damn. You’re sure?”

“Ditzy doesn’t want Pinkie Pie stuff. Everycreature still hates the Ministry of Morale. Might as well be yours.”

Lyra slung the bag over her back. “So this is it. Goodbye.”

“Yeah. It’s been… damn, has it only been a month?” Vindaloo’s voice sounded wobbly now. “It’s been pretty intense.”

“I’m gonna miss you. Tell the other’s I’m gonna miss them.”

Vindaloo grabbed Lyra and squeezed her until she couldn’t breathe, smacking her on the back over and over. “You can always come home to us. Wherever the Minutemares are, you’ll be welcome. Stay safe. Stay safe.”

They hugged three more times before Lyra got away. She hadn’t even gotten out of the store when she thought of something else she wanted to say. She turned back from the door. “Vindaloo?”

“Yeah?”

“When you told me that you’d stay by Crispy no matter what. Does he know that?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe you should tell him.”

Vindaloo smiled. “Yeah. Maybe I will.”

Level Up
New perk: Rocketmare. You have a natural affinity for rockets and missiles, and gain 20% accuracy when firing them in SATS. Give ‘em hell, mare.

Chapter 17: Hoof Hide Face

“You shouldn’t have come,” said Lyra, mutated brambles prickling every exposed part of her coat. “It’s dangerous out here.”

Melting snow had soaked through her jacket and coat right through to her skin, though on the bright side it had somewhat cleaned the Minutemare viscera still clinging to her body.

“I could not in good conscience let you go alone,” said BON-80n. “Also I need your help to reattach my eyeballs.”

One of the peculiarities of the wasteland that Lyra was discovering was that it could take a very long time to go a very short distance. After consulting her PipBuck’s map, she’d decided to sneak across the Public Garden and Buckstone Common, rather than risk the roads, where she’d be more exposed. A leisurely fifteen minutes walk in the old days; overgrown, mutated vegetation had turned the garden into a small forest and made the trip across into an hour-long slog. To make matters worse, Vindaloo had warned her in no uncertain terms not to go near the old swan boat pond. There was something in there. So in the end she’d reached the road that divided the gardens from the park just in time to see the vanguard of Ponysmith’s reinforcements arriving.

They came in long columns. A centurion or two, followed by maniples of fifty to a hundred unislaves, plus a dozen or so teamster ponies pulling carts. Every time one maniple passed out of sight and she thought the coast was clear, her PipBuck showed another cluster of red coming from the north. Every once in a while a larger group of ponies pulling carts would roll by lugging supplies or heavy weapons. What was interesting about the teamsters was that they wore no helmets. Just ordinary, thin, tired looking unicorns. They might be working under coercion, but not mind control.

By the time the last unislave passed by, Lyra had counted almost a thousand, which must be a massive movement of troops by wasteland standards. It was getting dark. Too dark to risk wandering through the wasteland — with no street lights or cars, no stars, and no moon, the city of Buckstone was dark as the Everfree after the sun fell. Lyra’s body heat had melted the snow and soaked her to the bone, the temperature was rapidly dropping from ‘freezing’ to ‘dark side of the moon’, and both BON-80n and Littlepip were nagging her about hypothermia.

“Your body temperature is dropping alarmingly,” said BON-80n. “You should seek shelter.”

“Seek shelter where?” Her pastern buzzed. Lyra glanced down to see that her vital statistics were up on the screen. Littlepip pointed at her temperature, making a broad gesture with the other hoof as if to guide Lyra’s eyes toward that temperature. “Hey, can you see this little pony?” She held her PipBuck screen towards her robot friend’s one remaining eyestalk.

BON-80n rocked her chassis back and forth in imitation of a nod. “Ah, I see you are hallucinating already.” Tentacles draped across Lyra’s body. “Please. Come with me.”

Deep in the park, ice cracked. “Did you hear that?” hissed Lyra, ears swiveling towards the sound. Water lapped against the shore of the swan pond.

“Some sort of wildlife,” said BON-80n, voice volume turned low. “Nothing more.”

“Wildlife!” sputtered Lyra. But before she could say anything else, something massive, dark, bulbous rose up above the trees behind them.

Lyra cowered down in the snow, wishing she hadn’t given that last rocket launcher back to Ivory. Faint edge-light gleamed on the behemoth’s wet, misshapen body, showing it to be as big as a school bus. She’d run, but the brambles barred her way. Time to die. She drew her little pistol, and waved it at the behemoth, as if a 10mm bullet would do anything but enrage a creature that size. “Don’t come any closer!”

“Swan know you,” it rumbled in a deep, silky voice. “You two help Swan’s sisters.”

“Huwha?” said Lyra. Whatever this thing was, it was not an alicorn.

“I believe my friend is trying to say that we are not sure what you are saying. It sounds as though you are saying you are related to the alicorns somehow?” said BON-80n.

The towering lumpy blackness made a huge, nodding motion against the deeper blackness of the night sky. “Yuh huh. Me powerful super alicorn! Just a little different than the others. Me hide here for when they need me. Me a secret!” The creature lowered its voice. “Me on secret mission right now.”

“My. That seems terribly exciting,” said BON-80n. “But I wonder if we could trouble you for a moment? My friend here is wet, and cold, and tired, and we need to get to Stable 114. Would you mind carrying her?”

“Small creatures get cold. Swan no get cold. Swan too big, too fat. Me ask the sisters if…” He paused for a few ponderous moments. “Me no ask. Sisters mean sometimes. Sisters say Swan ‘imperfectly mutated’. Me not as equal as they are. Me help you, and if they find out and say I was wrong to do it, me just pretend not to understand.”

BON-80n clapped her tentacles. Her chassis lights flashed green. “Excellent. Quickly, then, mon ami, we have no time to lose!”

“P-put me down! I’m f-fine,” said Lyra through chattering teeth.

The journey across the common reminded Lyra of being in college, walking home from a party with a campus guard escort. Except in this case the guard was cradling her against his chest like she was a small dog. “Me stallion, once,” he said as he walked on his hind legs. “Super alicorns capture me, and expose me to the FIM. Me very unhappy. It supposed to make me a mare. Make me smart. Make me pretty. But not do any of those things. It just make me big. It also make me hear the sisters in me head, but me not part of them. Me no have to do what they say, and me no have to listen if me no want to.” Lyra felt warmed by Sawn’s embrace. The warmth made her eyes heavy.

“That’s very interesting.” said BON-80n. “So the Friendship Inducing Mutagen does not always work. I wonder — is it a magical transformation, or is it something else. A retrovirus perhaps?”

Lyra felt Swan shrug. “Me no know.”

“There’s different ways to be pretty,” muttered Lyra, “My mother always told me ‘pretty is as pretty does’.”

“Yes. Sisters pretty on outside, but sometimes very ugly on inside. Me other way around. Usually.” He stooped and set Lyra gently in the snow. “Me put you here. Guards here get shooty when they see me. Bullets not hurt Swan, but you two might get hit.”

BON-80n curtsied. “Merci. Without your help, my friend Lyra might have become very sick.”

“No problem,” said Swan. “Me go smash bad ponies now.” He turned, and waved, and lumbered off into the night towards the library.

“Now what?” said Lyra. She was still wet, and away from Swan’s massive bulk she was getting cold again.

BON-80n pointed behind Lyra with a tentacle. The two entrance kiosks of the Park Street subway station still stood, stone chipped and stained but largely intact. On one of them flashed a large neon sign reading ‘COMBAT ZONE: food, drink, gaming, live fights’. “Perhaps we should ask there?”

“Oh,” said Lyra.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

There was a line to get in. Lyra stood shivering, pressed up against BON-80n for the slight warmth of her engine, waiting for a bouncer — an honest to Harmony bouncer like they were just out clubbing! — to frisk them let them in. They were respectful but thorough. They even found the flechette gun.

Inside the station doors, they had to check their weapons at a teller behind a thick glass window.

“You’ll need to wear this,” said the teller, pushing a dull metal ring through the gap at the bottom of the glass, along with her claim check.

“Is it mandatory?” said Lyra, touching the magic limiter nervously.

The check room teller looked at Lyra over the top of her glasses.“No. But neither is the guards not shooting you.”

Lyra sighed, and slid the ring over her horn. It was uncomfortable, putting it on so soon after losing her magic.But the sensation was different — more like having her magic numbed than losing it.

She’d wondered how putting a casino in a stable would work; it turned out the casino wasn’t in the stable but in the train station; the stable must be beneath the station. The first thing inside the doors was a bar; the whole place had been renovated in dark wood and brass fixtures to the point where the only thing Lyra recognized from the old station was the location of the support pillars. Lyra found an unoccupied stool and flagged down the blue earth pony bar tender.

“What’s you’re poison, ma’am?”

“Coffee. Black. Four sugars. I’m gonna need a bed, too, for me and my robot. And a shower. And laundry. I’m a mess.”

The bartender whisked a pot off the counter behind him. “Lots of folk are, when they come in. You’ll find all those things if you go through the door to the casino and hang a left. Beds are ten caps a night, showers and laundry are free, though you gotta buy your own soap. Anything else I can help you with?”

Lyra tried to lift the coffee cup in her magic, but she couldn’t grip it with her limiter-weakened telekinesis; it wobbled and sloshed on the counter. She leaned down to lick at it instead. Tired and punch drunk, she thought about the benefits of being direct, and decided why the hell not. “I’m looking for Paper Heart, for Coloratura, and I need to talk to the Ponysmith.”

The bartender didn’t bat an eyelash. “Coloratura’s on at nine.”

Lyra blinked. Well. There was one mystery solved.

“I don’t know any Paper Heart, but if Easy Money’s here he’ll be at the hoof hide tables. If you want to join up with the Ponysmith, go talk to him. I’d skip all that if I were you, though. Don’t join an army. You’ll live longer if you keep your head down, sell scrap, and spend your money here.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“I do not understand this place at all,” said BON-80n, hovering near the low ceiling to get a better view of the casino floor. “Most of these games seem to involve little to no skill. Why is everycreature so excited?”

Lyra shrugged. “They just like gambling. I never did, except for hoof hide.” The Combat Zone’s clientele was just as diverse as Rarity’s city, though it drew a very different crowd. Raiders clustered at slot machines, hooting and hammering on them between lever pulls. Ponies and griffins in military uniforms mingled, drinking and talking — unicorns in uniforms similar to the ones the unislaves wore but with more medals and without the helmets, and pegasi in navy blue uniforms that Lyra assumed were from the Enclave. There were creature Lyra hadn’t yet seen in the wastelands — buffalo and deer, a couple of raiju, and an Abyssinian dealing blackjack. Security wasn’t subtle — earth ponies in fedoras and full suits, shoulder rigs loaded with 10mm sub-machine guns with drum clips. Lyra resolved to try and avoid making trouble here.

“So let me see if I understand the concept of gambling correctly,” said BON-80n as Lyra led her down a row of slot machines. “The player offers a sum of money, and receives a random sum of money in return, ranging from more than they offered to none at all.”

“That’s the long and short of it,” said Lyra, slipping nervously past a gaggle of raiders. She worried one might pick a fight with her, but their glassy, bloodshot eyes saw nothing but their slot machines. One of them pulled the lever, and plastic chips began to spew from the slot. The whole group of raiders gathered around the machine, whooping and pumping their hooves in the air.

BON-80n’s chassis lights glowed a skeptical purple. “If creatures wished to accrue profit, would it not be more sensible to, how do you say, invest in a likely business venture?”

Lyra looked over her shoulder and grinned. “If ponies were rational, sure. Let me get cleaned up and I’ll show you hoof hide.” The shower was communal, but she found she was finally regaining her blase attitude about public nudity. She even stood around naked while she tossed her dress in an electric washer and scrubbed the last of the blood, mud, and filth off her jacket at the sink. She put on one of the other dresses she’d bought in Triple Diamond City, and styled her mane with her hooves. Then she rented a room — just a partition in an old subway car with a cot, a foot locker and some clothes hangers — left her jacket there to dry, and hit the cage to barter some T-shirts for chips.

“So this is hoof hide,” said Lyra to BON-80n, standing near a table watching the creatures play. “It’s simple. The dealer stirs up the little flat stones, there, see? And he passes out a dozen to each player, face down. That’s your bob. You have to make a trail from your bob, using six of your stones.”

BON-80n’s chassis lights dimmed slightly. “A trail as in a little line of them?”

Lyra shook her head and waved her forehooves. “No. A trail means a set of stones in a particular order, based on what’s on the face side, like a run of numbers, or all the same suit, or all princesses, or whatever.”

“I see.” BON-80n’s tone indicated that she did not understand at all.

“And then the players all go around and say if they’re going to hide, or sniff, or lift their bets. And then the dealer turns over one of the stones in the river… wait. Did I tell you about the river?”

“This is not simple at all.”

“That’s okay. None of it really matters.”

BON-80n’s chassis lights dimmed to almost darkness. “What?”

“The core of the game is bluffing. Nocreature knows what your trail is, right? Because you hide it with your hoof. And you can’t control what your bob is. But you can act like you’re got a great trail, lifting all over the place, when you’ve got a crappy bob, and if you scare everybody so they hide…”

“I was led to understand that everycreature was already trying to hide their pieces?”

“No, no, I mean hide as in giving up your bet and stopping playing for the round. It’s different.”

BON-80n pressed gently on Lyra with her tentacles. “Why don’t you just go play.”

Lyra bought into a seat at one of the tables and the dealer dealt her into the next bob. Shielding her stones with her hoof, she noticed they included a three, a five, an eight, a twenty-one, and a thirty-four — almost a Fillyonacci straight! She tried not to show it in her face, and lifted. Luck was on her side, and the river included a thirteen. She took the bob easily, giving her a nice little pile of chips to work with for the rest of the evening. Playing hoof hide with money she didn’t need — what was she going to spend it on, out there? — was a nice change from life in the wasteland.

She took her time and played cautiously, getting the measure of the other players. None of them were especially good, especially not the nervous uniformed pegasus, and even less so the yak in a cheery tropical shirt whose body visibly slumped or straightened when he got the first look at his bob. She was having a good night, until the yak got up and the white unicorn sat down.

He lit a cigarette, pushed his shaggy blonde mane out of his eyes, and smiled absentmindedly as the dealer passed him his bob. That absent minded smile didn’t change as he set up his trail behind his hoof. “In for ten.” He pushed his chips towards the center of the table.

“Sniff,” said Lyra, tossing in ten caps worth of chips when it was her turn to bet. The other players had made similar modest bets, trying to get a feel for the new player.

“Lift twenty,” he said, still smiling gently. His soft blue eyes had a faraway look that made Lyra want to hug and cuddle him. She sniffed his bet, and the dealer turned over the river.

“Raise fifty,” said the white unicorn. He laboriously tugged over an ash tray with his limiter-ring-shackled magic, and tapped non-existent ash off his cigarette. A tell? He seemed harmless enough. Excellent hoof hide face or no, clearly the river was good for him and he was getting overconfident. She decided she would try to bluff him out.

“Hide,” squeaked the nervous pegasus.

“Lift twenty,” said Lyra, struggling not to smile. She was going to pummel this beautiful fool.

The pony on her right hid, as well. It was just her and the white unicorn now. “Lift fifty,” he said, tapping out the ash of his cigarette again.

Lyra’s stomach fluttered with doubt. Her bob wasn’t that good. Two pairs. Not bad but nothing to write home about. Could she make something better off the river? She checked quickly. She could not. Damn. Her doubt must be showing on her face. This was too dangerous. She’d get him next bob. “Hide.”

His expression didn’t change as he raked in his chips.

Over the next hour and a half, he took the table apart. He didn’t win every bob, but he won a lot of them, and he never lost big. Lyra ground her teeth — that unnecessary-cigarette-tapping tell came up again and again, but not in any discernible pattern. She thought it meant he had a good bob, or was at least feeling confident, but then he started to do it before he hid.

Lyra didn’t want to cuddle him any more. She wanted to smash his pretty smiling face against the table. “So,” she said, while the dealer passed out the next bob. “You must be Easy Money.”

“And you must be Lyra. It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Lyra felt a vein under her eyelid pulse. “Why, does Bean talk about me much?”

Easy Money nodded towards Lyra’s bob. “You’d do better if you’d keep your head in the game.”

That was it. Lyra was going to take every last penny this asshole had.

Half an hour later she was broke.

“I am sorry you lost,” said BON-80n. “You are very upset.”

“Don’t worry about it. I still have T-shirts left.” She wasn’t upset about the game. “Hey, did you get any biometrics on that big white guy?”

“Oui. I did not like him, so I kept a close eye.”

“But his emotions. Pupil dilation? Heart rate? All that stuff you can pick up on. How’s he feeling?”

“There was no variation. Always the same. Perfect, resting calm.”

Lyra patted BON-80n on the side of the chassis. “Thanks for looking out for me, Bon Bon. I need to hit the little filly’s room. Could you see if we can get seats to Coloratura’s set?”

BON-80n curtsied. “But of course!”

Lyra did have to pee a river, but that wasn’t where she was going. The uniformed pegasus had left the table the same time as she had. She followed him back towards his room. She had a lot of questions to ask Easy Money — was Bean alive? Was he hurt badly? — but he didn’t seem like he was up for a nice friendly chat. This pegasus looked like a much easier nut to crack.

So to speak.

Mom had always told her she’d catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but where was mom now? A pile of radioactive ash, most likely.

She felt eyes on her as she followed him towards the train tunnel. She glanced to one side, and saw Littlepip watching her from the door to the showers. She nodded at Lyra, and smiled.

Even knowing Littlepip approved of her course of action couldn’t turn her aside from it. She slipped the limiter off her horn.

The pegasus stepped up the stairs to his train car. The lights were out in most of the train. They were alone, and hopefully the noise of whatever she did to him would be covered by the bustle of the casino. She acted as though she was going to walk past him, then at the last second jumped up in the train car behind him and kicked closed the door.

The ‘room’ was barely wider than a single pony. She kicked his legs out from under him and he tumbled back onto the bed. She leaped up on top of him. He wasn’t a big stallion, but he was still probably stronger than her; she hoped he’d be too shocked to fight back right away.

“My money’s under the bed! Please don’t hurt me!” he squealed.

Lyra pressed her hoof against his throat. “Are you Enclave?”

“What?”

Her horn glowed. She got a grip on his balls, and twisted ever so slightly. “Are you. Fucking. Enclave?”

“Yes! Yes! Don’t you recognize the uniform?”

“I’m new here. Do you know a stallion named Beanpole Heartstrings?”

“Huh?”

She twisted again. “Beanpole. Heartstrings. They brought him back from Triple Diamond City about two years ago. Brown. Tall. Skinny. Do you know him?”

“No! I don’t know everypony up there!” He let out a high pitched squeak as Lyra tightened her magical grip. “But I remember that group!”

“Are they okay up there?”

“What?”

“Are they okay? Do they have enough to eat? Are they treated well?”

“Damn better than they’d be down here!”

Lyra smiled a toothy smile. “Well, You’re going to do something for me. You’re going to find Beanpole, and you’re going to tell him to come down here and talk to his damn wife. He’s got some explaining to do.”

“I c-can’t!”

Lyra twisted hard. “You can’t what? Ever father a foal?”

“I can’t bring him down. No one is allowed to leave the Enclave!”

Lyra scowled. “And yet you’re down here.”

“I’m an officer! We look the other way for each other! Ordinary ponies have to stay in their assigned flock!” A tear trickled down his cheek. “I can’t do anything to help you. Will you please let me go? I promise not to tell anyone you were here.”

“You’re not convincing me he’s better off up there,” growled Lyra. But she let him go and stepped off his bed. “Find him. Tell him I’m looking for him. Or the next time I see you things won’t go so well for you.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra tilted the program flyer from side to side, as though viewing it from a different angle could make it make more sense. “So Coloratura’s on, and then there’s a fight?”

BON-80n bobbed in her imitation of a nod. “This appears to be the plan for the evening.”

“Something for everypony, I guess?”

The lower platform of the train station had been converted into what could be thought of as either a stage in the round or an arena — rings of seats surrounding a caged, circular platform. As they spoke, the lights dimmed. Lights around the stage began to strobe. “Oh. Either the show is starting or my visual cortex is malfunctioning.”

Platforms cranked down from the ceiling into the cage, bearing Coloratura, her piano, her dancers and her band. She was already singing as she came down, and leaped to the floor and started strutting and prancing. For a pony who must be over fifty by now, she had a lot of vim. A bit thicker in the haunches than she was last time Lyra saw her live, but it looked good on her.

Time for the cataclysm
Time for apocalypse
The bombs burn bright and the colors glow
I'm just a pony,
I think you know
Nothing matters anymore, it's about to blow!

Razzle dazzle
Glitz and glam
Burn it all up, it's a cataclysm
Razzle dazzle
Glitz and glam
Burn it all up, it's a cataclysm

Let me live
Though the Apocalypse
Nothing else matters
It’s a cataclysm.

Razzle dazzle
Glitz and glam
Burn it all up, nothing matters
I’m still singing
Just to impress
Nothing matters after the apocalypse.

She’d changed the lyrics a bit, but it was still good stuff. Lyra stomped and cheered, and lost herself in the show. Rara played a lot of her back catalog — The Magic Inside, Hoof Hide Face, Alicorn Down — and a bunch Lyra didn’t recognize. Nothing mattered in the apocalypse, but Coloratura hadn’t let that block her creative groove. She also played a number of covers. Rescue me. Holding Out for a Hero. I Want to Break Free.

It was almost as if she was trying to send some sort of a message.

It was a long set, at least three hours. Adrenaline kept Lyra going — she hadn’t been to a good concert in awhile, even before the Bad Day — but when the lights went down and the crowd stood up to cheer, Lyra hit her seat.

“Are you all right?” said BON-80n over the whooping of the crowd. They loved Coloratura here — as they should, of course. The raiders seemed especially appreciative, hopping in the air and voicing their various gangs’ war cries.

“Just tired. Long day.”

“That it has been.”

The stage lights came up again, and the crowd hushed into respectful silence. Coloratura sat at her piano, alone on stage, ready for her encore.

“I came to this place,” said Coloratura, “because I was afraid. I was worried by Rarity’s decision to allow hivelings into her city. I worried they would disguise themselves, do horrible things, and cast the blame on innocent ponies. I knew this fear was wrong, but it haunted me, and I took Rascal King’s invitation to come to the Combat Zone.

“But now, I realize that there is nothing so important as freedom. And to be truly free, we need to not only accept ourselves as we are, but to accept others as they are.

“I understand that now. But it’s too late.”

Lyra sighed. That was Coloratura. She made mistakes from time to time. As in, if it was a given time, she was probably making a mistake.

Coloratura began to play, unaccompanied on the piano. Another cover — one of Sweetie Belle’s songs, but the passion in her voice made it clear the words were close to her heart.

How did this happen? What have I done?
I was only trying to help, but I caused so much pain.
I wish I could hide. Wish I could run.
I wish I could find a way to do it all over again...

The bitter ballad of regret washed over Lyra like a lullaby. BON-80n’s tentacles wrapped around her middle, guiding her out of her seat towards the back of the house and the stairs up towards the casino and their rooms.

A voice crackled over the house speakers. “That was a wicked pisser, eh? Well stay in your seats, ladies and gents. We’ve seen beauty, now it’s time for the beast! For our first fight of the evening it’s the one, the only, the undefeated Umbra Gale! She’s fought her way to an unprecedented Combat Zone record of three hundred and eight fatalities! But can she overcome… The Hellhound?”

Lyra tugged on BON-80n’s tentacle. “Wait.”

“What is it?” said BON-80n.

“A feeling. Something about that name.”

Inside the cage-walled stage, two platforms lowered again. On one platform, inside its own cage, a diamondclaw, its glossy brindled brown hide roped with muscle. Young and healthy, unlike the last one she’d seen. It crouched, patient, angry eyes locked on the pony across the arena from it.

A lean, dark purple mare, her hard face lined with age and crossed with new scars, her broken horn crackling with raw magic. Lyra’s jaw fell open. It was her!

The platforms hit the stage. The latch on Hellhound’s cage popped open. It charged forward with the silent, deadly intent of a dog out for blood. Fizzlepop jumped towards him, swinging her hind legs around in midair. Her hind hooves connected with the diamondclaw’s chest with a sickening crack. The crowd roared with approval.

Lyra turned her face away. “I can’t watch this.”

“You must not,” said BON-80n. “It is a horrible thing. Come. You need your rest.”

They walked back through the empty casino, as close to side by side as a pony and a hovering robot could.

“I love you, BON-80n,” said Lyra. “You’re the best friend I’ve met out here.”

“You are a very good friend as well,” said BON-80n. “In the little time I have known you, you have become dear to me.”

Lyra nuzzled BON-80n’s engine housing. “I wish we could make love.”

BON-80n stroked Lyra’s mane with a tentacle. “And I wish that I desired to make love with you. I am afraid we must remain only friends.”

“Ha! Okay. I don’t mind being in the friendzone with you.” Lyra opened the door of her room, and climbed up into the train car.

There was somepony sitting on her cot. Lyra gasped and went for her weapons, only to find they weren’t there. Then she tried to cast a self defense bolt, but she’d put her magic limiter back on.

“Cool it, sister. I’m not here to make trouble,” said the blue earth pony bartender. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

Lyra rubbed at her head. Trying to cast a self defense bolt had given her a splitting horn ache. She needed to remember to take it easy with the magic. “Did that Enclave pegasus send you?”

BON-80n’s chassis lights flickered red. “Lyra, what did you do?”

“He didn’t send me, but he did complain to the management,” said the earth pony. “Not that I’d worry about that. Rascal King prefers that his patrons work out their differences between themselves. If he has to step in, it’s typically very unpleasant for both parties. And our pegasus friend can’t exactly go crying back to the Enclave, since he’s not supposed to be down here in the first place. But you’ve got Rascal King’s attention, and that’s never good. I hear you’re already on first name terms with Easy Money, too.”

Lyra flashed him a toothy, unfriendly grin. “I came here to make friends and influence people.”

“Well you’re doing a great job,” said the bartender, crossing his forelegs behind his head and leaning back against the train window. “So what’s your business with Paper Heart?”

“Well, Paper Heart, my son’s gotten mixed up with the Ponysmith. I need you to help me find him.” She sat down on the bed and pulled off her magic limiter. “Swell disguise by the way.”

Paper Heart nodded. “The Ponysmith has forces all over the city. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“He’s a Centurion. He was stationed on Neighburry Street until today, but the alicorns overran his position and he was wounded.”

“Easy Money would know, but good luck getting anything out of him. Still, if your Bean is wounded, they’d have taken him off the front lines, and not just to a field hospital. Ponysmith values his officers. You know the Sawhorse Iron Works? Of course you do. Ponysmith’s got a big compound there. Hospital, armor factory, training ground.”

“Pretty broad range of services.”

Paper Heart laughed bitterly. “Yeah, in the Ponysmith’s case those three things go nose to tail. Great guy. I can put my nose to the ground, try to find out more, but you’ll need to help me out in return.”

“What’s your rate?”

“For you? Help me with Coloratura.”

Lyra put her hooves to her cheeks. “Where could she be? It’s a huge mystery.”

“I had to tell you where she was smart ass,” said Paper Heart. “A mare like Coloratura is never hard to find. It’s getting close to her that’s the problem. Rascal King keeps her locked up in Stable 114, and I haven’t been able to get in there to bust her out. Now, if I had an accomplice, maybe the kind of pony who likes to get into trouble, I might be able to do something.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “I’m happy to help. She’s wasted down here. What did you have in mind?”

Level Up
New Perk: Player of Games. You have an intuitive grasp of strategy, in simulation and in life. +1 Luck.

Author's Note

Mm-mah-mah-mah.

The hundred-unislave units should be centuries, not maniples, especially since they're led by Centurions. But 'century' is confusing out of context. Don't @ me about it.

Chatper 18: If I Die in a Combat Zone

Burrburrary 27th, EoH 47

Lyra launched herself onto the stable dormitory bed. It jiggled seductively as she sank into its pillowy depths. Rascal King had gone all out on the accommodations for this stable — the beds in 93 weren’t this nice. Her and Beanpole’s bed from before the Bad Day hadn’t been this nice. She’d slept in luxury hotel beds that weren’t this nice. She pulled the covers up around her and arched her back in hedonistic delight. This had been worth getting captured on purpose. She’d just love to drift off to sleep cradled in this thing.

But of course, she had to stay awake so that she could do the plan.

She glared at the electric alarm clock that Rascal King’s triggermares had left in the room with her, waiting for it to be late enough for her to get started.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“We are going to cheat?” BON-80n had said that morning, lying on her side on the cot in their train car bedroom. Her chassis lights glowed a purple so intense it verged on pink.

“Yep,” said Lyra. She squatted on the floor next to the cot, fiddling with her PipBuck and one of BON-80n’s reattached eyeballs.

“So that we can be caught?”

“Yep. I don’t like to cheat. It makes the game less fun. But I need to get Rascal King’s attention, and if just asking nicely doesn’t work then I’ll have to try something more extreme.” She clapped her hooves together. “Okay! I think I’ve got this! So what you’re going to do is watch the other player’s biometrics. If a player seems agitated, you’ll be able to access the vibrate function on my PipBuck. Buzz me once for each seat counter-clockwise around the table, not counting the dealer. So once for the player to my right, twice for the next one; you get the idea. Keep it on the lowest setting so no one else can hear it.”

“You are taking a terrible risk,” said BON-80n. Her engine hummed into life, and she rose from the bed.

“What else is new?” said Lyra. “How are the eyes feeling?”

“Very nice. It is good to have them back; I was tiring of looking at the inside of your saddlebags. You know that this is not a good plan, no?”

Lyra shrugged. “Worse ones have worked out for me. Wanna send me a test buzz?”

“I am concerned by your propensity for self-sacrifice. The willingness to risk your life for others. You take what many would consider a virtue to an unhealthy extreme.”

Lyra shrugged. “I just value my fellow creatures too much.”

“Or perhaps you value yourself too little. Perhaps these are more suicide attempts.”

Lyra tried to step past BON-80n and exit the room. BON-80n’s tentacles spread in front of her like a net. “Why, Lyra?”

“Because I’m a loser, okay?” said Lyra around the catch in her throat. “All I want to do is make a difference. I was this great gifted foal. Everypony was all excited about how smart and talented I was. I was in Twilight Sparkle’s graduating class. And what have I done with my life? I became an inventor who never finishes anything. I was in a band nopony listened to. Then I had a foal, and I became a horse wife and a delivery driver. Wasted. Fucking. Potential.”

“You are not a loser, mon petit cheval. This is not a game. You matter to the creatures around you.” Her tentacles embraced her. “You cannot save your son. He has made his own choices. Please come back to the Minutemares with me. Please be safe.”

“Too late,” said Lyra. “Paper Heart and Rara are depending on me. Gotta go.” She brushed her best friend’s tentacles aside and stepped out the door.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The guards would not take Lyra to see Rascal King, even when she dropped Rarity’s name. So she went to the tables. By the time the triggermares came for her, she was up fifteen large.

“Hey, dumb ass. The boss wants to congratulate you on your winnings,” said one of the triggermares, laying a hoof on her shoulder.

They brought her to the stable door, and one of the triggermares lifted their sleeve to reveal a PipBuck. The thick steel door slid out and rolled aside like the tomb door of a dead god. BON-80n was not with them. Her role in Lyra’s cheating had gone undetected; hopefully, she was already on her way out of the Combat Zone.

Earth pony stable dwellers stopped their work and play to watch Lyra and the triggermares pass. Few of them wore blue jumpsuits, and not all of them wore PipBucks — StableTec didn’t run this place, Rascal King did. In the atrium, a group of foals, none older than six, played with toy trucks and cars, watched over by a young mare in a blue checked dress. Lyra’s belly roiled with dread — there was a possibility she and Paper Heart would have to fight their way out of here. She wasn’t accustomed to praying, but she prayed to Harmony all these foals would be safe in their beds if that happened.

Rascal King used the overmare’s office, of course, but heavily modified to his taste. He’d kept the warm-colored fake-wood paneling and plush carpets, but stripped out the semicircular desk in favor of several couches, a pool table, and an extensive liquor cabinet.

“Lyra!” He was a round-bellied, orange earth pony in shirt, vest, fedora, slacks, and necktie. “So good to meet you! Have a seat! Would you care for a drink?”

The triggermares guided her to a corner where three couches facing each other made a conversation nook. Easy Money sat on one of them, smiling his usual vague smile and shuffling a deck of cards in his magic. Lyra ignored him and looked at the photographs on the wall. Rascal King at a groundbreaking. Rascal King giving a speech. Rascal king at a party. Rascal King posing with his wife and six foals. Rascal King drinking with the unicorn brothers who founded StableTec.

He came over clutching three coffee cups between his hooves. “Never too early to get started, eh?” Lyra took one and sipped; the coffee had been spiked heavily with whiskey. She lapped at it politely. Easy Money set his on the coffee table and lit a cigarette.

“So,” said Rascal King. “You had a pretty lucky morning, huh, Lyra?”

Lyra leaned back on the couch, legs hanging over the edge. “I needed to talk to you. Your guards wouldn’t bring me. So I had to get your attention some other way. I decided to bring my ‘A’ game at the card table. Though I think it only worked because Easy over here wasn’t playing.”

Easy shrugged. “I told you if you kept your head in the game, you’d do well.”

“So Lyra. What did you want from me?” said Rascal.

“Rarity wants Rara back.”

Rascal took a sip of his coffee. “Well, that’s too bad. Rara signed a contract. She’s ours.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “And I’m sure she wasn’t under any kind of duress when she signed it.”

“So what you need to know,” said Rascal, setting down his coffee cup, “Is that my operation here thrives on trust. Trust, for instance, that I won’t allow cheating at my tables.”

“So you need the raiders and mercenaries to trust you. Right. Do you have any evidence that I was cheating?” said Lyra.

“No. But I’d like to have a look at your PipBuck.”

“I’m sure you would.”

“Please. It’s not like we have any shortage of those things around here.”

This is what she expected. She’d left her bag in her room and her guns in the check. Right now she just had the PipBuck, her jacket, and the clothes she was wearing. Giving up the PipBuck was giving up the only tool she had left. That was the plan, of course, but it was still a scary thing to do.

She took a deep breath, slid it off her foreleg, and passed it across the coffee table. If everything went well, she’d be able to steal a new one later. One without Littlepip on it.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss,” said Rascal cheerfully. He waved to one of his triggermares; she collected the PipBuck and left the room. “Of course you’ll be offered a complimentary room in the stable while we examine your device for any signs of foul play.”

“Of course,” said Lyra.

“I tell you, you can’t ever let your guard down. Did you know just this morning I found out one of my bartenders was a damn hiveling? Now him? He didn’t cooperate.”

Lyra cringed inwardly. She hoped Paper Heart was okay, but she couldn’t ask. “Wow. They’re everywhere.”

“And you can’t even tell! You just gotta wait for them to let their guard down!” said Rascal.

“It’s a travesty,” said Lyra dryly.

Easy Money tapped the ash off his cigarette. “You won’t need to put her up. I’ll be taking her with me.”

Lyra’s whole body felt numb. That would ruin her and Paper Heart’s plan! That was not okay at all!

Except it was, because then she’d get to see Bean.

Why was life in the wasteland so complicated? Well, for once the situation was win/win for her. Either Paper Heart would help her find Bean or Easy Money would take her straight there. She’d better just relax. Deep breaths.

Rascal King’s head whipped to face Easy, his expression going from cheery and casual to apoplectic in less than a second. “Oh, is that fucking so?” His tone could have cut glass.

“It is, actually,” said Easy Money. “Ponysmith wants to talk to her.”

“It doesn't matter what Ponysmith wants. This is my damn stable, and she’s staying here.”

Easy Money took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew out the smoke in slow rolling curls. “There’s no reason to lose your temper. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to tell you earlier, but we only just learned that she’s active in the wasteland. I received my instructions this morning. I don’t see why this is a problem.”

Rascal set down his coffee cup. “It’s a problem because she was cheating. This establishment has to maintain a certain level of credibility, see?” He tapped his hoof on the coffee table for emphasis as he spoke. His coffee cup wobbled ominously. “Creatures gotta believe my games are fair.”

Lyra raised her hoof. “Um, You can’t prove that I was cheating.”

Rascal swung around and pointed at her. “I know damn well you fucking were. Not even Easy’s that good at hoof hide.” He turned his glare back towards Easy. “If I let her go, one of two things is gonna happen. Either everycreature’s gonna try cheating, or nobody’s gonna come play because they can’t be sure of an even chance. Maybe both. Either way, the Combat Zone is over. It’d be less over if you burned it down — I can build a new one. I can’t rebuild my reputation.”

Easy Money tapped the ash off his cigarette. “There are worse things that could happen.”

Rascal King surged up, forelegs on the table, knocking over his coffee cup. “Are you fucking threatening me?”

Easy didn’t flinch, and his expression didn’t change. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Well let me tell you something fucko. You go back to your boss, and you tell him Rascal King says ‘up yours’. You don’t come into my stable and tell me what to do! What does he think he’s gonna do to me, huh? Bust up my little hobby outside? Boo hoo. Guess what? I’ve got a stable door Harmony and all four Princesses couldn’t get through. We can live two hundred years down here! Two thousand! And meanwhile, how do you think all those raiders, and Talon mercs, and AWOL pegasi are gonna feel about you shutting down the only good time north of Tenpony Tower? You think your Ponysmith is capable of holding out against the whole Harmony damn wasteland?”

“I think you have no idea what we’re capable of,” said Easy Money. “But if you’re going to be unpleasant, perhaps I’d better leave.”

“Yeah,” growled Rascal King. “Perhaps you’d fucking better. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.” He stabbed a hoof at Lyra. “And you. Knock that smirk off your face. Somebody clean up this fucking coffee.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Burrburrary 28th, EoH 47

Lyra sat up in the stable room bed and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She’d drifted off after all. The alarm clock said it was past midnight. She still had almost an hour until her rendezvous with Paper Heart. She went to the closet, which was stocked with towels, and with a stable suit on a wire hanger. Perfect.

She’d found the security camera in the room a while ago. Now she pulled a towel from the drawer, sneaked up behind its little dome, and draped the towel in front of it, anchoring it from the ceiling panel. The device wouldn’t report being tampered with, and unless whoever was watching the feed had eyes on it all the time, they might think it was just a malfunction and not investigate immediately. Next, she got changed — stable suits might not be the height of fashion, but they were warm — improvised a couple of simple tools from the wire coat hanger, and opened up the door control panel.

This room wasn’t designed as a prison; it was just a single bedroom. Instead of locking the door in any meaningful way, they’d just shut off the interior door controls. She was able to reactivate it with little effort, and then unlock it from the inside.

The corridor was empty. Lyra looked left and right and scurried to the next corner. Assuming 114 followed the same basic floor plan as 93, the interior security station should be to the left a few sections away. She headed that way, doing her best to fake the confident yet bored stride of a pony who was where they were supposed to be, doing what they were supposed to be doing.

She heard hoof steps approaching around the corner. Her horn felt like a beacon on her head, and her freshly cut mane was too short to hide it. Hooves were getting closer. Voices. At least two of them. More than she could fight unless she wanted to cast magic bolts and risk burning out her magic again. She saw a door labeled ‘maintenance’ and opened it; it was a supply closet so stuffed with cleaning materials that she could only fit her front half inside.

“…bitch thinks she can talk to me like that? I oughta give her a piece of my mind,” said one mare.

“She’s fucking retarded,” said a second. “You can’t go around saying shit like that, or…” Lyra felt a thump on her cutie mark. “Hey, move it lard ass!”

“Sorry!” said Lyra, voice muffled by the mop bucket she was hiding her head in.

“Whatever. Lay off the Fancy Lads, thunder thighs. Anyway, what was I saying?” said the first mare.

“Retarded bitch.”

“Oh yeah, right, so I said to her…”

Lyra pulled her head out as the voices retreated around the corner, and headed for the security station, smelling like bleach.

One triggermare sat on a stool in front of a terminal, sleeves rolled up, an open Sparkle Cola and bag of chips on the table next to her, playing a video game. Lyra moved slowly towards the lockers behind her and began checking them for equipment. The first one had a fedora and a Sparkle Cola in it; she draped the hat awkwardly over her horn and ignored the soda. The second just had a stable suit in it, but the third was the jackpot — all of Lyra’s stuff! Her pistol, her bags, her jacket, her flechette gun…

“Hey, what are you doing in here?”

Lyra drew the flechette gun from its little holster, spun, aimed, and fired, putting three darts halfway into the triggermare’s nose. She wobbled on her stool, forelegs flailing. The stool fell over with a clatter. She tried to get up, reached out one leg towards the terminal, and collapsed.

Lyra checked the selector on the flechette gun to make sure she’d drugged the triggermare and not poisoned her. Then she checked to make sure she was still breathing.

“Thank Harmony,” said the potted plant by the door. “I thought you’d never get here.”

“I’m happy to see you too,” said Lyra, pulling the triggermare’s PipBuck off her left foreleg and putting it on. Hers was in the locker, but she didn’t want it back. “Hey, what do you really look like, anyway?”

“Oh, pretty much like you’d expect.” The trash bin unfolded itself into a typical off-white, ceramic-plated Hiveling dressed in a brown trench coat and fedora.

Lyra pulled the stool over to the terminal, alt-tabbed out of the triggermare’s game, and went digging around for the security logs. “You know fedoras aren’t cool, right? Everypony around here seems to think they’re fashionable, but they’re not.”

“Rarity says otherwise. I’m gonna go with her opinion.” Paper Heart poked his head up over the edge. “Where are they keeping our mares?”

“Hey, did you know this stable was an experiment too? There’s this huge data siphon going into an encrypted folder. Something about the effects of institutional corruption on social stability.”

“Not what we’re here for, sister.”

Lyra sighed. She didn’t have the time to go poking around. “Okay, they’re located in these suites. We’ll take extra stable suits to disguise them in, and meet at the atrium in fifteen minutes.”

“Got it.” Paper Heart scooped up the triggermare’s submachine gun. “Here goes nothing.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The stable room door slid open top to bottom. Fizzlepop Berrytwist stood in the entrance, dressed in a blue and yellow bathrobe and looking irritated. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to rescue you,” said Lyra.

“Who says I need to be rescued?”

“You don’t want to be rescued?”

“I don’t need to be rescued because I’m not captured.”

Lyra sighed and tried a different mode of attack. “Okay, we’re trying to rescue Coloratura, and we need your help. Please, Field Marshal Berrytwist.”

Fizzle rolled her eyes. “It’s Umbra Gale now, thanks.”

“It’s what Twilight would have wanted.”

Fizzle scowled and turned away. “Get in here before somepony sees you.”

Her suite was much nicer than the room Lyra had been imprisoned in. The same fake wood paneling used in the Overmare’s office, a cozy little living room with a radio and several bookshelves, a kitchenette, and two interior doors, suggesting the unthinkable luxury of a private bathroom. Fizzle indicated a bottle of pre-war scotch on the counter. “You want to pour yourself a drink before I rip out your throat for telling me what Twilight would want?”

“Tear out my throat literally or metaphorically?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Fizzle sprawled on the couch, long muscle-roped legs slipping out from under her bathrobe. “So who the fuck are you, and what do you think you know about Twilight Sparkle?”

“I went to school with her,” said Lyra, swirling the scotch in its glass before taking a sip. “Whoa. That is smooth.”

Fizzle’s eyes narrowed. “You do look familiar. Have I met you before?”

“Never in person.” There were stools on the other side of the kitchenette’s counter; Lyra sat on one. Interposing something solid between her and Fizzle made her feel a little safer. “Your soldiers locked me and my husband in a cage once, though. I guess you’ve had a bit of a relapse?”

“A lot of ponies are having them. Ever meet a ‘super’ alicorn? Trixie and Starlight aren’t doing so well these days.”

Lyra took a long sip of the heavy, smoky-tasting scotch. “So how’d you find yourself down here? I found your old suit of power armor a while back. Heard you say you were done with war. What happened?”

“Cage fighting isn’t war,” said Fizzle, examining her hooves. “Anyway, war wasn’t done with me. I found Rarity. Helped her set up Triple Diamond City. But then she asked me to kill her, and I just wasn’t up to it.”

“Hold on,” said Lyra, rubbing at her ear. “Say that again. I thought you said Rarity asked you to kill her.”

“That’s what I said.”

Lyra took another sip of her scotch. “Okay?” This stuff was good.

“She’s a ghouified Celestia-grade alicorn. Think about that for a moment.”

Lyra did. “Oh. Can I get a refill?”

“It’s Rascal King’s scotch, not mine. Take as much as you want.”

Lyra poured herself a hearty shot and knocked it back. “So I’ve been out of the loop. Ghouls. Do they always go feral?”

“It hasn’t been long enough to tell, but it happens to a lot of them.”

“And do unicorn ghouls always keep their magic?”

Fizzle looked at her empty whiskey glass sadly. “Yes. Can you see the problem?”

“So… Rarity has the potential to become a feral ghoul that can control the sun.” Lyra poured herself another shot of whiskey.

Fizzle got off the couch and leaned up against the kitchenette counter, fumbling with her hooves to pour herself another glass of whiskey. “She was right. She needs to be destroyed. But I can’t do it. She’s the only pony who survived the war and became a better pony for it.”

Lyra waved her glass in a circle, describing an elliptical orbit around an imaginary sun. “What about…?”

“Also an issue. If I killed Rarity then no one would be driving the planet. We don’t have enough population to burn through several unicorns a day raising the sun like the ancient Unicornians did. Twilight told me…”

“…that Eqqus’ orbit is unstable and without constant correction we’d become tidally locked? It’s true. Always scorching day on one side, always freezing night on the other. Which is what Nightmare Moon wanted, for some reason. Then we’d gradually drift towards the sun over the course of hundreds of years.”

Fizzle tapped her glass against Lyra’s. “Boom. You are a student of Celestia’s. So I left Triple Diamond City. Because I might be hard, but I’m not hard enough to kill my beautiful, ugly ghoul alicorn friend in cold blood. Then some bad things happened.” She pushed back her mane to show Lyra a clean, subtle scar that ran ear to ear across the top of her scalp like the edge of a cap. “Eventually, I found myself sitting across the table from Rascal King with a contract between us.” She paused to empty her glass. “It’s safe here. At least until the day I finally meet my match in the cage. And then… well. Hopefully, it will be over quickly.”

Lyra nodded. “Okay, Fizzle. I haven’t got much time left, so here’s the deal: you have a chance to do something good tonight. Coloratura doesn’t want to be here. We’re going to bust her out. We could use your help.”

“I told you, it’s Umbra now.”

“It’s always been Fizzle, Edgy McEdgesalot. Are you in or out?”

Fizzle took a shot directly from the bottle of scotch. “I’m going to regret this when I’m sober.”

“Probably, yes.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Bullets sprayed through the row of slot machines, scattering fragments of metal and plastic.

“I regret this already!” growled Fizzle, crouching on the floor near Lyra, Coloratura, and Paper Heart.

“We’re all going to die!” whimpered Coloratura. “We’re going to die and it’s my fault!”

“We are not going to die!” said Fizzle. “Keep it together, follow me, and we’ll get through this. Do you hear me?”

Coloratura bit her lower lip and nodded. “I hear you.”

“Good,” said Fizzle. “You’re stronger than you think.”

It struck Lyra as odd that the dreaded Tempest Shadow was nicer than Vindaloo.

They’d gotten through most of the stable without a hitch — Paper Heart had changed himself to look like Rascal King, and nopony wanted to question him. At least not directly. But somepony had thought to double-check, and the real Rascal King had shown up with a whole squad of triggermares as the Stable door began to open.

Paper Heart shouting “Hold your fire!” in Rascal King’s voice worked exactly once. That and a blast of raw magic from Tempest’s horn was enough to get them into the casino. Now they were surrounded, protected only by the bullet-resistant bulk of the Combat Zone’s slot machines.

“We need a plan to get out,” said Lyra.

“I’ll surrender myself,” said Coloratura, eyes tearing up. Even in a stable suit, she looked breathtaking. “They’ll let you all go, I’m sure.”

Fizzle sneered. “You should know Rascal King better than that. They’ll dock you and me some privileges, but they’ll shoot these two. Execution style. Probably in front of you.”

Coloratura’s eyes widened, glistening and trembling. “Oh. Oh no.”

“Don’t cry,” said Lyra, opening her bag to look through it for ideas. “We’re going to get out of this.”

“Also if you cry I’ll kick you in the nose,” said Fizzle.

Coloratura whimpered and put her hooves over her eyes. Okay, maybe Fizzle was almost as mean as Vindaloo.

Lyra fumbled around her saddlebags and pulled out the incendiary grenade Artillery had given her. Her other bag rattled on her back, bottlecaps bouncing around inside the Pinkie Pie lunchbox. A horrible, horrible idea occurred to her. The kind of cruel trick she couldn’t believe she was even contemplating.

A cruel trick that could keep her alive long enough to see her son again.

She tore off a strip of her towel to make a tripwire. Rigging the grenade to go off inside the lunchbox wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, especially in the middle of a firefight. She kept her nose in her work while Fizzle fired raw magic one way, and Paper Heart fired his pilfered submachine gun the other. Every second was an agony of imagining what the device she was making would do to a pony.

When the triggermares fell back, leaving a couple of their number still on the ground, Fizzle looked back to see what Lyra was doing. She raised an eyebrow. “Are you making an IED?”

Lyra gave a weak little nod, tears lost in the sweat on her face.

“I like the way you think,” said Fizzle, which was not a compliment Lyra wanted. “Set it up, and then follow us. I think you built us our ticket out of here.”

Fizzle led them down the aisle of slot machines towards the center of the casino, Paper heart bringing up the rear with his relatively sturdy ceramic-plated body. Fizzle let out a burst of raw magic as they hit the end of the aisle, stunning the triggermares waiting in ambush there.

Hoofbeats pounded in pursuit behind them.

Lyra had barely turned the corner when she heard the sound of somepony tripping and swearing, followed by an explosion. A blast of heat and a shock wave hit her in the ass. Small metal objects whizzed by her, tugging at her stable suit and the hem of her jacket. One of them sank through the fabric and into the meat of her flank, burning inside of her.

Lyra and Fizzle swung around into the next aisle so that they were heading back towards the bar and the exit. Near the site of the blast, flames flickered. Ponies screamed and screamed in visceral agony as they burned alive. Smoke blocked the view ahead of Lyra; if there were triggermares down there she couldn’t see them. She looked for Coloratura and Paper Heart — there they were, her sobbing but not bloody, him with new holes in his coat and hat.

“Everycreature all right?” said Fizzle.

“We’re holding it together,” said Paper Heart, letting Coloratura lean against his side.

Fizzle nodded. “Lyra, get your gun out. When I give the order, everyone charge.”

The next few moments were a haze of chaos and panic. The smoke stung Lyra’s eyes, blinding her to anything more than a few hooves away. Bullets tore empty streaks through the smoke, barely missing her. She had only the red and green pips on her EFS to guide her. SATS was useless, losing possible targets before she could set up the shot. She pressed forward, no idea where anything was, hoping she was heading for the exit and hoping the others were with her. A shape loomed up in front of her in the smoke. SATS gave her 95% to hit. She emptied three rounds into it before realizing it was a slot machine.

A clear spot opened. Lyra saw the exit stairs. Nopony was on them. She looked back to see her three allies still pinned in the aisle of slot machines. Coloratura was down, bleeding heavily from a wound in her leg.

Something soft but very heavy slammed into her side. She went down, kicking and biting. In the flurry of legs, she found a neck and squeezed. Bullets stuttered across the floor next to her. Lyra aimed a weak telekinetic punch at the pony’s shoulder, knocking his submachine gun out of its holder. The other pony kicked at her hind hooves.

“Rara! Let go of me you dumb cunt!” Rascal King rolled over on top of her so his whole considerable weight pushed down on her body, then heaved himself up and let himself fall, knocking the wind out of her.

Lyra whipped her 10mm pistol around and pressed it against the side of his head. “I’m not Coloratura!” she gasped.

“How was I to know, in all the smoke? You both got a fat ass.” A burst of bullets hammered the floor next to them. Rascal King raised his voice. “Hold your fire!”

Another burst of gunfire zipped over them. “I said hold your fucking fire! It’s fucking really me this time!”

Lyra pressed her gun into his head. “Let us go.”

“Fuck you, I ain’t letting you go.”

Something felt wrong behind Lyra’s eyes. Like somepony else was looking out through them. She spoke, but the words weren’t hers. “Then you’re going to die. You deserve to die. You let innocent pegasi and unicorns burn in balefire. You hide here in luxury while creatures suffer outside. You’re a cancer. And it’s my job to cut that cancer out.” Lyra knew those words. It was Littlepip again — not in her hallucinations, not in her PipBuck. Littlepip was inside of her head.

“Ha! You don’t have the nerve to…”

Lyra’s pistol pivoted in her magic. SATS gave her a 77% chance to hit his right hind hoof, so she fired twice just to be sure. Chunks of meat, bone, and hoof wall splattered across the carpet.

“Nopony fucking threatens me!” roared Rascal King, twisting in her grasp. “Kill her! Shoot her! Shoot them all! I don’t care if you hit me!”

Triggermares stepped towards them out of the smoke, staring, eyes confused, open mouths hovering over the bite triggers of the submachine guns mounted on their shoulders.

“Did I fucking stutter?” roared Rascal. “I said…”

A blast of raw magic crackled through the air, electric bolts arching between triggermares. Lyra watched them tumble. Then the blast hit her. Her muscles spasmed and went limp. Rascal King rolled off her and out of her range of sight.

“Thanks for getting them all together like that,” said Fizzle, leaning over her. “You saved me a lot of trouble. Now let’s get out of here.” Fizzle hauled Lyra up onto her back, and headed for the stairs, leaving the burning casino behind.

Lyra’s dazed mind raced. What had come over her? Why had she taken out her rage on Rascal King? He wasn’t innocent; none of the things she’d said about him were false. But he had nothing to do with her troubles. Did he deserve to have his hoof blown off?

She hadn’t done it. Littlepip had taken control of her, right?

That was so much bullshit. She was clearly dissociating — placing responsibility for all the horrible things she’d had to do to survive in the wasteland onto an imaginary scapegoat. Was that a thing that could happen? She’d have to ask BON-80n when she got outside. She’d know. Oh, by Harmony, Lyra missed her so much already.

Fizzle pushed open the old train station door and led the four of them into daylight. Paper Heart had bound Rara’s leg, she limped at his side, grimacing and quietly weeping. Lyra felt snowflakes spatter across her snout as she left the Combat Zone. Fresh snow was beginning to gather on the corpse of the bouncer by the door.

“Easy Money,” said Fizzle.

“I’d say I was surprised to see you, but I’m not,” said Easy Money.

Lyra looked up, still dazed by Frizzle’s raw magic. What she saw drove the fog right out of her mind. Easy Money stood alone in the falling snow thirty hooves from the casino entrance, smoking a cigarette, smiling kickably. One forehoof rested on BON-80n’s cracked chassis. Her tentacles thrashed, weak and helpless, in the snow.

“Bon Bon! No!” screamed Lyra, tumbling off Fizzle’s back. She raced towards BON-80n, snow flying out from underneath her hooves.

Level Up
New Perk: The Hurt Lunchbox. — You gain the ability to craft booby-traps and mines. Yay?

Chapter 19: Self Storage

A collar of magical force slammed down on Lyra’s neck. It drove her face into the snow, pinning her out of reach of BON-80n’s wrecked body. “Bon Bon!” screamed Lyra, freezing tears soaking her cheeks.

Flickers of electricity flashed behind the cracks in BON-80ns metal chassis. “I… and-am z-still are func-z-tional, mon petit tournevis-z.” Her voice crackled, half masked by feedback.

“What’s all this about?” said Paper Heart, from outside Lyra’s field of vision.

“Celestia’s last living student will be coming with me,” said Easy Money. “So will you.” He stood naked in the snow — no weapons, no armor, just a small satchel strapped across his shoulder, probably to hold his cigarettes. His coat was so pure white it made the fresh snow look dingy by comparison. The cutie mark on his hard-muscled flank was a pile of gambling chips.

“Collecting more oddities for your boss?” said Fizzle, pawing at the snow with her hoof.

“Her son is one of the Ponysmith’s most valuable officers.” He tilted his head back. “We’d assumed he’d exaggerated her prowess — children usually go one way or the other about their parents. But from the rumors I’ve collected and what our troops witnessed in combat yesterday, it seems he was understating.”

“My magic has been burnt out for weeks,” said Lyra. “You haven’t seen anything.”

Easy Money nodded. “I’m sure. I’m sure there’s a lot you can teach us. And you will — you won’t have any choice.”

“I’ll come willingly if you let me see my son.”

“Oh no.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. But I don’t negotiate. You won’t be allowed to see him. You and all your companions are coming with me, no conditions.”

“Celestia fuck you with two flaming forehooves!” snapped Lyra. Her hooves scrabbled in the snow, and her magic picked uselessly at the force field collaring her neck. Her mouth tasted bitter. Coppery.

“Pretty sure Celestia’s dead,” said Easy.

“If you’re done?” said Fizzle. Her voice sounded calm, droll, like it had when she’d walked down that airship ramp so many years ago. “Because these creatures are under my protection. If you want them, you’ll have to deal with me first.”

“Are you sure about that?” said Easy Money. “Last time we fought, it didn’t go well for you.”

Fizzle stepped between him and Lyra. Her hooves crunched through the snow next to Lyra’s head. “I’ve been so bored in there. It’ll be good to finally get a chance to stretch my legs.”

Still holding Lyra down, Easy Money lashed out with a force field, wielding it like a scythe blade straight for Fizzle’s neck. Her horn flashed, and his force scythe disintegrated, torn apart by raw magic. Fizzle jumped towards him. He hunkered down, leaped up, and met her in midair. Light sparkled out of Lyra’s field of vision. They landed again, further into the park. A line of torn flesh zig-zagged across Easy Money’s cheek.

“You’re holding back,” said Fizzle with a wicked smile. “Let her go. Or do you not think you can catch her again?”

He tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. A bright spark traced his wound, searing it shut. He didn’t flinch. “Why do you want to risk your life for them? I don’t understand.”

“As if I’d hold my life so tightly,” said Fizzle. “I’ve been a soldier all my life. I’ve fought for good creatures, and I’ve fought for bad. But I’ve always fought for something.”

“You’re a mercenary,” he said. “You kill for money. There’s nothing romantic about it.”

“And you’d do it for free,” she said, smirking.

“I see. That’s an interesting way to look at it.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your insight.”

Fizzle pranced in place, her horn sparking. “Then let her go. Give me your full effort. Catch her again later. It’ll be more fun that way.”

He flicked his cigarette away and charged her. The storm-dimmed park flashed noontime bright with magical overglow as the towering white body slammed into the lithe purple one. Snow melted to steam around them. The pressure lifted off Lyra’s neck.

She raced to BON-80n’s side, snow spraying from underneath her hooves. She looked her over with wild surmise. The damage was bad — her engine block smashed, her chassis bent into a cracked egg shape. Guts of plastic and wire glittered with melting snow.

“Ple-z go,” she said, “I will-zzz-be fine.”

“No,” Lyra said, “I’m going to help you. Do you trust me?” said Lyra.

“With-z my life.”

Lyra pried open BON-80n’s access panel with her magic. “I need to get at your soul.” She struggled to keep her voice steady. Act cheerful. Bedside manner. That’s what BON-80n would do.

“Ponies k-z-eep it in their pineal gland-z-s. Thos-z-e are not removable.”

“Ponies are pretty sloppily designed,” said Lyra. Her heart didn’t beat as she scanned her friend’s insides, looking for something she’d only seen once. There it was! In a nest of wires was a thing about a hoof long, looking like the love child of a spark plug and a vacuum tube. Her soul chip. “Okay. Good news. I found your soul. I’m going to remove it. I don’t…” She bit down on her words before the turned into sobs. “I don’t know if this is going to hurt. Are you ready?”

A tentacle draped itself weakly around Lyra’s foreleg. “Z-do.” Her chassis lights blinked pink and went out. The tentacle tightened.

Lyra began detaching connections one at a time. Magic light flickered overhead. The ground shook. Lyra bit her lower lip as she gently eased the soul chip from its socket. The tentacle around Lyra’s foreleg went limp. Lyra levitated out what was left of her towel, wrapped the soul chip in it, and put it in her saddlebags. Time to go. Keeping her body low to avoid drawing attention, she galloped uphill towards the statehouse. When she reached its steps, she paused to look back.

Fizzle and Easy Money moved as if they were dancing — ducking, diving, circling, always facing each other, bodies never quite connecting. The sparks from her forehead and the overglow from his horn reflected on the snow like something from one of Coloratura’s shows.

Coloratura. Lyra saw no sign of her or Paper Heart. She hoped they were all right. They’d be heading southwest, towards Triple Diamond City. Lyra would lead Easy Money away from them. One way or another, with him or without him, she was heading north. North to the Sawhorse Iron Works

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra found the Puddinghead Bridge deserted. Empty pillbox bunkers on either end suggested the Ponysmith’s work; apparently, this was where some of the troops she’d seen heading for the library had come from. They’d left landmines at either end of the bridge — military models with Ministry of Peace-mandated blinking orange warning lights. She punted the first one she encountered out over the Canter River with a telekinetic fist. It exploded in midair, sprinkling the water with shrapnel. She moved more carefully after that.

The Canter River ran pinkish beneath the bridge. She vaguely remembered somepony — was it Fizzlepop’s recorded message? — mentioning Canterlot being poisoned. Was the Canter polluted by whatever had happened a thousand miles away? Not even the scrappy brown foliage of the wasteland would grow on its banks.

She passed into Canterstown, where she kept the spire of the Breeder’s Hill monument far to her right, worried that the Ponysmith might still have troops at the Minutemares’ old base. Then she swung north again towards the Mystical river, which she found to be a reassuringly normal shade of brown.

As she approached the Route 99 bridge into Everhoof, a bullet-pocked the pavement at her feet. Lyra yelped and dove for cover.

A pony wearing a helmet made out of some kind of animal skull poked her head up over the wreckage of a Cowvega, keeping her rifle leveled at her. “Go gotta pay the toll, you wanna cross the bridge, sweet cheeks!”

The voice of Littlepip whispered in her ear. They’re raiders. Kill them. Kill them all. They deserve to die.

Lyra gritted her teeth and ignored it — moral imperative to purge the wasteland of evil or no, these ponies had the drop on her. “I’ve got some trade goods. T-shirts. Figurines. Mint condition.”

“Toss ‘em over. Let’s have a look.”

Lyra unslung the tote bag with her magic and tossed it. A second pony, dressed in spiky leather armor, darted out from behind their Cowvega to grab it and pull it back to cover. “It checks out!” She said after a moment or two.

“Can I go now?” said Lyra, peeking out from cover.

“I don’t know,” said cow skull helmet. “What else you got? That looks like a pretty nice pistol.”

“What I’ve got,” said Lyra, narrowing her eyes, “Is a hot tip. I’ve got Easy Money on my tail. Word to the wise, you might want to take the rest of the day off from the bridge troll rat race. Spend some time with the husband and foals. It’d do you some good.”

“Bullshit,” said cow skull helmet.

“I’m a unicorn in a stable suit. Do I not seem like his type to you?”

The other raider poked her head up. “C’mon, Cow Pie, this shit’ll buy us an ass load of dash. Let’s go. Just in case she’s telling the truth.”

Cow Pie sneered. “Fine. But don’t expect any more freebies.”

“It was hardly free,” muttered Lyra as she trudged across the snowy bridge into Everhoof.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

More than anything, she needed a place to hide BON-80n’s soul chip. That Easy Money would catch her was given. But she believed — had to believe — that she’d escape again, come back, and find BON-80n a new body. Somehow. She realized she wasn’t far from the old Amarezon Warehouse. It was such an obvious target for looters that by now it would be completely safe from them: anything Ditzy hadn’t taken with her to Triple Diamond City would have been stripped away years ago. She picked up her pace. The effort made her legs and lungs burn.

“How… how have I been in the wasteland all this time and I’m still out of shape?” she gasped. She paused to rest against a fence post, then slipped through a gap in the wire and cut across a tank farm towards the warehouse. The tanks were slumped and broken and oozing bright green fluid.

Elevated radiation levels detected! Please go someplace else! said Littlepip from the screen of her PipBuck.

“What.. what the hell?” gasped Lyra. “I left you back in Stable 114!”

Littlepip said nothing.

The warehouse stood bare and sad, the front scorched and slumped where the balefire shock wave had hit it. Inside, anything that could be moved was gone. No carts, no conveyors, no doors. Even the huge ceiling fans — Amarezon had been too cheap to air-condition these places — were missing, as were some sections of wall. Lyra headed for the bathrooms. She laid the soul chip in its towel shroud at the bottom of an exposed toilet pipe and covered it with rubble. She thought of leaving her Pipbuck and pistol, but if she was missing items Easy Money might guess that she’d made a pitstop.

Back in the snow, she retraced her steps. She made it back across the bridge successfully — Fizzle had bought her a lot of time! Had she won? Lyra couldn’t count on that.

Looking back across the bridge, she saw how extremely obvious her double trail of hoof-prints was. It was still snowing, but not hard enough that her passage wouldn’t be obvious for hours. That wasn’t good.

Looking around for something to cover her tracks with, Lyra’s eyes settled on the Cowvega Cow Pie had been hiding behind. The hood latch on the dashboard was broken, so she bucked at the hood with her hind hooves until it popped open. The engine block was a write-off, cracked and partly melted, but the spark battery seemed fine! She pulled it out, set it in the snow at the end of the bridge, and walked as far away as she could and still have a chance of hitting it.

She emptied a clip at it to no visible effect, and was about to reload and try moving closer when the spark battery started flashing and sounding a warning beep. Lyra yelped, turned, and ran.

The shockwave caught her, lifted her, and threw her ten hooves. Struggling not to give in to a post-traumatic panic attack, Lyra pushed herself out of the snow with aching legs and looked back to see if that trick had helped.

It had.

Not only had the exploding spark battery cleared away her hoofprints, but it had also cleared away half the bridge. Cow Pie and her friend were going to be livid when they came back tomorrow to find their ambush spot gone. As a bonus, there was no way Easy Money had missed that. He should be along presently if he was going to come at all.

Shaking herself off, Lyra headed west along the MacGriff Highway into Maneford.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Easy Money caught up with her in the parking lot of a grocery store near the elevated highway. Lyra stopped and waited for him in the highway’s shadow. There was an APC parked up there. She realized it was the Ministry of Morale checkpoint where the Bad Day had started for her. She thought about the idea of her journey ending where it began, and her chest felt heavy. She needed her journey not to end here. She had to see Little Bean. One last time.

“I’ll come peacefully,” she shouted as Easy Money came within voice range.

“No. You have a lot to learn, so we might as well have a lesson right now. That lesson is that you must never, ever disobey me.” His legs and face were soaked in blood. It didn’t look like it was his. “I told you you had to come with me. You ran away. So.” His horn flashed. Something hard hit the back of Lyra’s forelegs, forcing her to kneel. “This is going to hurt. A lot. Rest assured that I will not be permanently damaging you. You will work for us, eventually.”

Bands of magical force snapped around Lyra’s body. Blows pummeled her — her ribs, her belly, her flanks, her face. Force slammed into her nose, and blood gushed out, reddening the snow.

“Oops,” he said. “I got a little carried away there. Here. Let me get that for you.” He ripped off her helmet with his magic, tossed it away, and grabbed her by the mane. He jerked her head back, pulling clumps of her mane out by the roots, and drew a filmy force field across her nose, wiping the blood away. It was immediately replaced by more.

“See. I’m not so bad. I want to help you.”

“Help me?” mumbled Lyra. Almost every part of her body hurt. It was hard to even process what he was saying. What did he want to help her with? She looked into his golden eyes. He was still smiling. He looked so nice. How could he be so mean? “I need to talk to Bean.”

He tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. “I told you ‘no’.”

His forehoof lashed out and struck her in the throat, caving in her windpipe. Lyra tried to gasp in pain and shock, but the air wouldn’t go in. She tried to reach for her throat, but his magic held her tight. She tried to scream, but only a thin whine came out.

He looked down at her, still smiling, smiling, smiling so calmly. The edges of her vision darkened, like the vignetting in an old photograph.

Easy Money flicked open the flap of his shoulder pouch, pulled out a stimpack, and jammed it into her neck. Healing potion flooded her body. Her windpipe made a sickening popping noise as it filled back out to its normal volume. She used her first full breath to sob.

“That’s enough for now,” He said, releasing his magic and letting her slump in a pile in the parking lot. “Get on your hooves and come with me. If you try to run away again, I’ll cut off your legs.”

Level Up
New Perk: Pain Tolerance. The Wasteland can dish it out, and you can take it. You regenerate 5 hp per minute.

Chapter 20: My Breaking In

In A Nutshell. Endless Space. Unstuck in Time.

Lyra hung in her restraints, forced into an unnatural upright position. The darkness of her solitary cell swirled, her light-starved eyes adding detail to a featureless void.

Things rose out of the darkness at her. Shapeless coils of deeper shadow. Hollow-eyed faces. Sometimes she was back at home or in Stable 93. She must have been dreaming at those times, though she had no memory of falling asleep.

Sometimes Littlepip would come and watch her, but she never spoke no matter how much Lyra called to her. She wouldn’t help. Useless hallucination.

“Who’s Littlepip?”

Light tore into Lyra’s eyes. She closed them; it did no good; the light shone right through her eyelids. She tried to turn her head away, but she couldn’t twist it far.

“Who’s Littlepip?” repeated Easy Money, his pallid face barely visible in the glaring light. “You keep talking about her.”

“She’s nopony,” said Lyra.

“Is she your commanding officer?”

Lyra groaned. Her mouth felt dry and gummy; her tongue stuck to the roof. “If I tell you she is, will you give me some water?”

The white blur that represented Easy Money shook his head. “Who is Littlepip?”

“How about a cigarette?” Lyra’s mind twisted with discontinuity. Since when did she smoke? It was a stupid habit; committing suicide in slow motion for a mediocre high.

“Who is Littlepip?”

Lyra huffed. “Okay. Fine. She’s my liaison at the Ministry of Awesome.”

Easy Money nodded. “And how do you contact her?”

“Via dead drop up your ass.”

Something impacted with her skull. The light broke into a swarm of fireflies. When it coalesced again, it was the sun, rising over the hills and forests of Sawhorse. It hung beneath the clouds, illuminating their undersides.

A little while later, a second sun rose beyond it. She rubbed at her eyes — had Easy Money beaten her so hard that she was seeing double?

“Do you like our little suns?” he said, marching ahead of her down the broken two-lane blacktop. “They’re just heat lamps, really, but they’re enough that we can grow crops year-round. We found the spell in the Buckstone Public Library before the alicorns drove us out.”

“What’s in there that you’re all so excited to get at?” said Lyra, her voice cracking. She was still a little hoarse from having her throat crushed earlier that... day? Was it still the same day? It had been dark a little while ago, but the little suns threw her off and made her feel like it was morning.

“A Ministry of Image Storage Hub,” he said. “With extremely strong automagical and technological security. Between that and the alicorns, I’m sad to say we haven’t been able to recover much from it.”

“You could work together with the alicorns. Friendship is magic, I hear.”

“A technical detail that shouldn’t be allowed to complicate strategic goals,” said Easy Money.

Lyra soon got a better look at the fields. Unicorns in ragged clothes worked amongst green — if twisted, spiny, and odd-looking — crops. Every mile or so, a group of unicorns sat in intense magical concentration beneath the sun lamps. These hovered far overhead, surface roiling with pseudo-plasma, throwing off luxurious warmth. She stopped near one, letting the fake sun soak through her damp clothes.

“Come on,” said Easy Money. “It’ll be warm inside, too.”

“Everypony is a Unicorn. So Ponysmith is a fascist,” she said as she followed him. The ‘Ironworks’ came into view as they crested the next hill. A steel mill, smoke pouring from its blast furnace, surrounded by a compound of several new multi-story buildings. As with most new construction in the wasteland, they were clearly recycled from older buildings in a mish-mash of styles, but they looked sturdy and imposing nonetheless.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a tribalist who wants a better world for unicorns at the expense of every other creature.”

Easy Money shook his head. “If you want political theory or propaganda I’m not your pony. But I know he’s not a tribalist. He wants to uplift the other tribes, to give them the powers unicorns have always enjoyed.”

Lyra looked at Easy Money’s big handsome backside quizzically. “What, does he want to make everypony into alicorns?”

Easy snorted. “I think he’s going for a more balanced approach.”

They soon came to a chain-link fence with guard towers spaced along its perimeter. Automated turrets tracked to cover them as unislaves levitated the gate open. Lyra summoned the matrix of a memory spell into her mind, storing away as many visual images of this place as she could in case she was able to bring the Minutemares back here. He guided her to one of the smaller buildings and opened a gate.

Easy had promised light and warmth inside, but there was only darkness.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“You’ve done your best to ruin yourself,” said Easy Money, sitting on a stool at the edge of her cot. Lyra blinked in confusion. She didn’t have a cot any more — she’d been naughty — so this was probably something that had already happened. “You’re lucky for the research they’ve done in Ponysmith’s labs. A few more months living like this and you might’ve never cast a spell again.”

“What’d you do to me?” said Lyra, reaching for her head. Her upper skull had been shaved and swathed in bandages; the base of her horn ached.

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Ponysmith and his surgeons. They put some things in; took some things out. But you don’t have to worry about magical burnout any more. And you don’t have to worry about mind control devices — if they could do that with surgery they wouldn’t need to pay my salary. And they wouldn’t need all those expensive Sombra helmets, either.”

She closed her eyes and lay back on her cot. “So you just fixed me up out of the kindness of your hearts.”

He brushed his mane out of his eyes and smiled absentmindedly at her. “Ponysmith is more kind than you know. But! There is a catch.” He held up his leg — he now wore a PipBuck — and tapped something on it with his magic. “I want you to use a spell on me.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Blast me. Right in the face. I know you want to.”

Lyra scooted away from him, pulling her sheet up over her chest. “This is a trap.”

Easy Money lit a cigarette. “Remember what happens when you disobey me.”

That was all the encouragement Lyra needed to give in to her rage. She visualized the spell matrix for a so-called self-defense bolt. Nothing happened. She tried again — she was groggy; she must have imagined it wrong. Still nothing. She scrambled across the cot as far as she could get from him. “What the fuck did you do to me?”

He tapped at his PipBuck again. Lyra’s horn flashed. He raised a shield to deflect her bolt without even a flicker of his eyes. “Internal magic limiter. I can turn you on and off like a switch.”

“You son of a whore.”

“Sex work is a perfectly respectable profession,” he said dryly.

Lyra leaned against the wall, trying to control her breathing, pulling it in, letting it out, as slowly and calmly as she could until the red cleared from the edges of her vision. “Can I have one of those please?”

He pulled out a cigarette, lit it off his own, and passed it to her. “I didn’t know you smoked, or I’d have offered it earlier.”

Lyra took a gentle drag and blew out the smoke. “I don’t. Not cigarettes. But now seems like a great time to start. What have I got to lose?”

“Yes, that was my reasoning,” he said. “I started very young. My mother didn’t approve. She said I’d get lung cancer. I thought that was funny.”

“Yeah. Cancer. That’s a good one,” said Lyra, looking at the glowing end of the cigarette. She could already feel the rush of the nicotine buzzing in her brain. It made this whole… thing a little easier to deal with. “What was she like?”

“She was a prostitute, for one thing.”

Lyra laughed. “Oh, shit. My bad.”

He tapped the ash off his cigarette. “There’s no way you could have known. I don’t know what she did before the war. It was a different economy, back then.

“She was kind to me, for as long as it lasted. And she taught me magic every day. She was good at it — she used it in her work, which meant she could charge more. Then, one day when I was nine years old, a group of raiders came to our shack. Which happened almost every night, of course. But this time there was a raider who didn’t like mares. He liked little colts. When my mother told him I wasn’t for sale, he killed her and took me with him.”

Lyra felt a chill of pity pass through her body. But she hardened her heart. “Why are you telling me this? Do you think your tragic backstory is an excuse for what you turned into?”

“This is the wasteland. Everycreature here has a tragic backstory. It’s the only kind they make any more.” He took a drag off his cigarette. “What I’m doing is making myself vulnerable to you. It’s an important part of the process that you come to trust me. You’re going to be our soldier. You need to see that we’re not monsters. We’re ponies, who’ve lost and who’ve suffered, just like you.”

“Good luck with that. Go on.” The nicotine was calming her — she didn’t want to kick Easy Money in the face half as much anymore. It must be that, and not that she felt sympathy for him.

“I could have gotten a worse rapist than Eye Gouger. He used me, every night, in the most humiliating and degrading ways, but he was gentle with me — he didn’t want to ruin my looks, you see. I even came to enjoy it, eventually. In the meanwhile, I made myself useful to the other raiders. I did chores around their camp, I listened to them, I asked them questions about themselves. And I practiced my magic. When I was sure they liked me enough, I sliced off Gouger’s balls between two force fields.

“The other raiders laughed at him. Said he had it coming. And from that day forward, I wasn’t a catamite. I was a raider. Of course, I knew I could do better. Later, I became a mercenary, and then I began to specialize in interrogation and psychological warfare. And now,” he spread his forelegs, “here I am.”

Lyra felt nauseated — by the cigarette, by his story, by the pity she felt for him, she didn’t know. “It didn’t work. Telling me this. You are a monster. Your past doesn’t free you from that — you were abused, so you became an abuser.”

Easy Money nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right, of course. But there’s another reason I’m telling you this story. I want you to know that, while I am going to hurt you very badly over the coming days, emotionally and physically, you will not be raped by me, or by anycreature else while you are here. There are some things even I can’t bring myself to do to another thinking creature.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Lyra.

Easy shrugged. “I am a monster. But you’re not my type.” He stood up. “I'm going to give you a few days to heal — even with stimpacks, you’re going to need some time to recover. Get your rest. You’re going to need it.”

He closed the door behind him and turned out the lights.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra had barely fallen asleep when the lights in her cell flicked back on.

“Good morning,” said Easy Money, stepping in through the cell door.

“It’s not morning,” said Lyra, pulling her one thin sheet up over her head. When was it? The last thing she remembered had happened right after her surgery. She touched her head. Her coat had almost grown back.

He ripped the sheets out of her grasp with his magic. She tried to resist, but he had turned off her magic while she slept.. “Nope. It’s been eight hours. Time to get to work again.”

Lyra sat up; he hadn’t laid a hoof or a spell on her since the parking lot, but she remembered almost choking to death too well to want to risk his wrath. “I just fell asleep!”

“It can feel like that, sometimes. Get off the cot, please.”

Lyra stood in front of him — sitting wasn’t allowed — naked and cold. Her coat was matted with sweat and grime. She hadn’t been allowed a bath in days. ‘Days’. They weren’t all the same length anymore. “I need to pee.”

He lit a cigarette. “You can pee after we’re done talking. Cooperate and it will go faster.”

“Can I at least have a cigarette, please?”

“No.”

Lyra clenched her teeth, trying not to yell and swear at him. “Okay. What do you want today?” Her legs trembled underneath her with barely restrained rage.

“Let’s continue our conversation from yesterday.”

“I don’t remember when yesterday was.”

“Just the last thing you remember, then.”

“About the Minutemares’ military capabilities? I might as well just piss the floor now.” That wasn’t right. She was talking out of order, too. And yet she remembered that conversation. When had it happened? When did it have time to have happened?

He tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. “I never asked you about that.”

Lyra tilted her to head one side and narrowed her eyes. “Liar. You asked me over and over. I peed on the floor four times. You called me a stupid cunt.”

Easy Money raised one eyebrow half an inch. “That seems unlikely. I don’t use that kind of language. We were talking about magic.”

Lyra squinted at Easy. Was he telling the truth? She knew he was gaslighting her, to the point of literally adjusting light levels on the sly. The question was, how much of it was him lying to her, and how much of it was her being very, very tired? Had she dreamed about being verbally browbeaten for hours and hours? They did talk about magic sometimes. He had a lot of questions about magic and unlike the questions about Rarity and Triple Diamond City and the Minutemares she sometimes felt okay answering them. In intricate detail. It was just so nice to have someone to talk to.

This was exactly the kind of pathetic self-doubt Easy Money was probably trying to instill in her, and it made her hate herself. Which was also probably what he wanted. She looked up at him and realized he’d been talking all this time.

“…references to ‘amniomorphic spells’, but we don’t know what that is.”

Lyra’s mouth fell open. “Are you fucking shitting me?”

Easy Money’s brows knit together; the most extreme facial expression she’d ever seen him make. “Why would I be?”

Lyra swung a hoof out to one side in a furious gesture. “Because the amniomorphic spell is the fucking magical equivalent of the fucking wheel is why! It was the first form of metaspell, and I know you use them because you can cast force fields and smoke at the same time, so stop gaslighting me.”

He tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. “I’m not gaslighting you.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “That’s exactly what a gaslighter would say.”

“Assume I’m sincerely ignorant. Would you like to speak about these spells?”

“To you?”

“To me and several others. As good as I am at magic, I’m not the technical type. I might not be the best audience.”

“Would I get to leave this cell?” Lyra tried to disguise the eagerness in her voice.

“Yes. You’d get a shower, too.”

“When can we start?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Easy Money let her wash up and brought her to a meeting room with large windows overlooking an operating theater. Six of them sat around the conference table — her, Easy Money, three young ponies in lab coats (one of them an earth pony), and Ponysmith. He wore a partial suit of power armor; a red helmet decorated with curving bull’s horns, and a frame to support its weight. Under the frame his body was heavy; strong but rounded and saggy, the body of a mighty but aging stallion. He was the only pony here old enough to be a survivor of the war. She wondered what his story was.

“Can I borrow your ashtray?”

Easy Money slid it over to her, along with a cigarette. Part of her reviled the gesture — it was the first cigarette he’d given her in ‘days’. He was rewarding her for cooperating and she knew it, but she lit it with her magic and drew in a long drag before beginning. The nicotine rushed through the veins in her lungs to her brain, bringing calm and focus. Together with her clean body, it made her feel almost alive. Her stomach rumbled, but she ignored it. She’d rather talk about magic than eat at the best of times.

“Okay, how many spells am I casting right now?” she said, levitating the ashtray up alongside her floating cigarette.

“One spell,” said the earth pony.

“Not to sound tribalist, but why are you here?” snapped Lyra.

“Two,” said one of the unicorns in lab coats.

The other nodded. “Yes, two. One for each object.”

Lyra gestured violently with her cigarette, fantasizing about holding the burning end against their smug faces. “How are you even unicorns?”

“Three,” said Easy Money. “You need one spell to hold each object. But you can only cast one spell at a time, so you need a third spell to… I don’t know how to say this. You put both levitation spells in the third spell so that it can switch between them and keep both going. Only it’s not quite a spell, because it doesn’t interfere with casting the other two. It’s like a partial spell you keep in the back of your horn.”

Lyra took a deep drag and blew the smoke out towards him. “So you do know what an amniomorphic spell is, and you were gaslighting me.”

“A caul spell,” said Easy Money. “That’s what my mother used to call it. It holds the other spells like a mother holds her little lambs.”

“Right,” said Lyra. “And it can go the other way too — with more advanced amniomorphic spells several unicorns can combine their magic and cast a single spell together.”

“We do need specifics. Are you able to sketch the spell matrices?” said Ponysmith, his voice crackling through the speakers of his helmet.

Lyra took a deep drag and blew the smoke out through her nose like an angry dragon. “Let me see my son, and we’ll talk.”

“Agreed.”

Lyra blinked. She hadn’t expected it to be that easy.

“All right. Get me some scratch paper.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra didn’t sleep for all of what she was pretty sure was a normal length night. She had no idea what to expect from Bean except for a couple of photographs on the Stable 93 computer and a figure in bronze power armor. She’d worked so hard, suffered too much to get here, and now she didn’t even know what she could hope to gain from the encounter.

Seeing him again. Seeing how he’d grown up without her. It would break her heart. But she needed to know.

She hoped she could reason with him. Persuade him to leave Ponysmith’s service. But she knew that would fail. Why would he leave? So he could be a sad and battered refugee like her?

It was a stupid hope.

She was stupid.

The door to her cell slid up, letting in a beam of yellow light blocked by two large figures. She resisted the urge to rush to him and embrace him.

“Mom.” Bean approached her cautiously, put his forelegs around her. His broad, hard, shaggy chest felt like her father’s.

She leaned into him and let out a choking noise. “Bean. Bean I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Mom.”

“You needed me, and I wasn’t there. It’s all my fault.”

He stroked the back of her neck. “You saved a lot of ponies, Mom. I was always proud of you. You did the right thing, no matter what it cost you.”

She felt gingerly down his back, tracing the edges of a bandaged spot. “Are you all right?”

“Those alicorns took a chunk out of me, but it was nothing our medics couldn’t grow back. I’m not ready for active duty again yet, but I can help out around the base.” He took a step back from her. “Are you all right?”

Lyra glared over Bean’s shoulder at Easy Money. “I’ve been better.”

“You could be better, mom. There’s a lot of evil out there in the wasteland.”

“Really son? You don’t see any evil here in the room with us?” She tossed her head meaningfully at Easy Money. He smiled blandly at her and tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette.

“Easy, could we talk in private?” said Bean.

“I’m due for my lunch break anyway. Take your time,” said Easy. The door slid shut behind him.

Bean turned back to his mother. “Nopony likes Easy. He’s a creep. I can get you out of this cell. You just have to play along.”

“What? No! I’m not ‘playing along’,” she made scare quotes with her hooves, “with that unicorn kidnapping tribalist psychopath! I… I…” She wanted to say she’d raised him better than that, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t at all.

“He’s not a tribalist. He wants all ponies to be equal, but he has to start with the unicorns because they have the most powerful magic. And… okay, he does kidnap them, but he makes life better for most of them.”

Lyra crossed her legs over her chest. “He’s a fucking imperialistic fascist, and you can do better. What about the Minutemares?”

“Mom, you’re just throwing the word ‘fascist’ around without thinking about what it means. If you want to resort to name-calling, then the Minutemares are a bunch of irresponsible anarchists. They have no rules, no principals. They’re a gang. Raiders with better discipline.”

“Rarity?”

“Isolationist. She’s afraid of her power. She’s locked herself away behind her walls and she’s not going to do anything to help the wasteland as a whole. She’s already almost been wiped out by the alicorns once.”

“And she survived because of the Minutemares. And you can’t beat the alicorns either. I’ve seen how well you do.”

Bean shook his head. “You were helping them, Mom. Why were you helping them?”

Lyra banged her hooves on her cot. “Because I thought Ponysmith had you captive. I didn’t imagine for a second that you’d be working for him.”

Bean bared his teeth and sucked in a deep breath before replying. “Ponysmith is the only creature who has a real chance of bringing order to the wasteland. I know he’s not perfect, but he’s the best there is. We have to be realistic about this — we can’t have the kind of leader who’d be considered ‘good’ by the standards you grew up with and still succeed. We use ponies like Easy because they’re effective. We use unicorns in Sombra helmets because it makes it possible to train large infantry forces quickly. Our civilians live under a lot of restrictions, but they need to, to be safe. Our medical ponies are the best in the world — better than anything before the war. They can do things you wouldn’t believe.”

Lyra lay down on her cot and rolled to face the wall. “So you won’t leave here with me.”

“I don’t see that as an option, Mom.”

She pressed her snout against the steel wall of her cell. It felt so very cold. “And I’m not leaving this cell until I agree to join you.”

“Please join us, Mom. We could do so much together. If you don’t like the way things are, you could work inside the system to change things.”

Lyra blew out through her nostrils. “It wouldn’t be a family reunion without an awful conversation about politics. Please go away. I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra stood in the eerie, multi-shadowed light of the mini-suns, staring at the cheap PipBuck knockoff on her foreleg. It smelled like new plastic. It had no ungual controls; she needed to use magic to operate it. “I changed my mind. I can’t do this.” She could only hold out against Bean’s offer for so long. She would have liked to think she was the kind of pony who’d rather be a prisoner forever than become a quisling.

She wasn’t. She sucked.

“Then you can go back in your cell until you're ready to co-operate,” said Easy Money. His absent-minded smile was especially punchable this morning. If it was morning? She didn’t know how bright the mini-suns would be at night. Maybe it was always daytime in Sawhorse. She felt so confused all the time.

Lyra flipped through the command screen on her SmithBuck, and entered a waypoint for the maniple of unislaves she’d been assigned on its mini-map. They fell out of the line they’d been standing in, formed a column, marched the five-minute walk to the waypoint, and formed a line again. The SmithBuck had no EFS; she had to check the map on the device itself. “How do I keep them in formation when they march?”

“The ‘hold formation’ button. Right here.” Easy Money had a real PipBuck. Well. He was Ponysmith’s enforcer, and she was still technically a captive, so she should expect that he’d have better equipment.

Lyra marched her maniple of unislaves around for a bit. They moved in perfect time, executing her commands with only the slightest delay. The SmithBuck’s poor interface made issuing complex commands difficult, however. That probably explained why the Ponysmith’s forces used such crude ‘pony wave’ tactics in battle. Every one of these unislaves would be a living, thinking, independent pony if you took their helmets off. She felt sickened by that. But this was the side Bean had chosen. Who was she to question that?

His Harmony damn mom was who.

“Okay, what’s these rebels’ grievance?” she asked Easy Money.

“That’s not your concern. Go in there, force their surrender. If they resist, kill them all. Do not attempt to negotiate. That’s not your job.”

Lyra gritted her teeth. “It’s your job, right?”

“I might’ve mentioned I don’t negotiate. You’re being tested. Any independent action will be interpreted as failure. Just do what you’re told.”

“You don’t believe in individual initiative?”

“From your son, it’s not a problem. You’re not cleared to think for yourself yet.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

She led her unislaves in column, an hour’s march north and then east. Creeping things watched them from the undergrowth. The wasteland wildlife seemed afraid to risk preying on the unislaves, and Lyra was grateful for that — she wasn’t familiar enough with the SmithBuck’s controls to feel confident about handling an ambush.

This didn’t feel right. But it was what she had to do to see Bean again. She could work within the system, couldn’t she? She could earn a position of respect under Ponysmith with her magical knowledge, and use that to persuade him to be better. It could work, right?

It’s not like the Minutemares were saints. They did war crimes too. War crimes were all the rage these days. They were the new fashion. She’d be willing to bet even Rarity did one every now and again, just to keep up with the style.

She paused on a wooded hill a mile or so from the settlement of New Peapoddy. The inhabitants had begun building defenses — some walls made of scrap that didn’t cover much, and several turrets that careful examination revealed were crude imitations made out of wood. She set complicated instructions for the Unislaves to go down into the valley between the hill and the settlement — far more cover than the Ponysmith’s Centurions usually bothered with. While her troops milled around trying to get to her waypoints, she galloped directly over to the settlement ‘walls’.

“Freeze! And keep your horn dim!” The guard leaned on top of the wall in a posture that suggested he had his hind hooves on a ladder back there. His rifle wobbled in his telekinetic grasp as he struggled to keep the sights trained on her.

“I’m from the Ponysmith. I’m here to ask you to surrender. Before something bad happens.”

“Fuck surrender,” said the pony on the wall. “We’re not giving him any more of our daughters as soldiers. He won’t even send anypony to teach us the sun spell.”

Lyra sighed. “Fuck. I hate this. You know you’re going to die if you don’t surrender, right? I’m not good at war stuff, but I’ve got a pretty good sense that you’re not ready for it.” Her SmithBuck told her most of her unislaves were in position. She brought half her maniple out of the woods. She didn’t even fear for their lives anymore — the way the pony on the wall was holding his rifle, hitting anything further than a few hooves away would be a freak accident.

“Better to die free,” said the pony on the wall.

Lyra stared up at him. He had a point. What was she trying to stay alive for? Her husband was impossible to reach. Her son was impossible to reach in a different way. The pony she’d been before the Bad Day was gone forever, now. She hadn’t liked that pony very much, but at least that pony had always stuck to her principles.

And anyway. These ponies wouldn’t surrender. That meant she had to kill them. And she just couldn’t. “So, if you had a hundred or so extra ponies, do you think you’d be better able to defend yourselves?”

“You tell me, miss ‘war expert’.”

“I said I wasn’t a war expert.” Lyra bit the edge of her SmithBuck and pulled it off her leg. “Come down here and help me take these ponies’ helmets off.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Easy Money’s magic held Lyra kneeling in the snow, forcing her to keep her head up and her eyes open. Two Centurions moved down the rows of kneeling unicorns in front of her, finishing each one with a single bullet shot in the back of the head. Their limp bodies fell into the shallow graves they’d dug themselves.

The settlers, and her maniple too. Every last one of them, even the settlement’s foals. Lyra keened with grief, and Easy Money kicked her in the back, hard. “Shut up and watch, you stupid cunt. This is your fault. This is what happens when you think for yourself.”

Her revolt had lasted half an hour. Two maniples had trailed her to New Peapoddy, following just out of her view to ensure her compliance. They’d fallen on the settlement before they’d even begun getting organized. The battle had lasted fifteen minutes. The executions lasted all afternoon. When they were done, Easy Money put her in a halter and dragged her all the way back to Sawhorse.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Back in her manacles, back hanging from the ceiling balanced on her hind hooves, Lyra slumped in despair. Every part of her body hurt. Especially her forelimbs and back. Why couldn’t she just die? Why was her body so much stronger than her will and her mind? Her will had broken when they’d brought her Bean the first time. Her mind? Maybe that had broken when she’d come to the wasteland, if Littlepip was any indication.

Was this even the present moment? More shapes moved in the darkness. She could still be remembering. Hallucinating. Even seeing the future if her earth pony blood came to the fore in a new way, as earth pony magic sometimes did.

The small of her back twinged sharply.

Sudden light flared, blinding her. She closed her eyes, looked away. When she turned back, it was dark again, except for a red after-image of Bean’s face. “Fuck, if I’m going to hallucinate, why not just Littlepip?”

“Who’s Littlepip?” said Fake Bean.

“I don’t know,” said Lyra. “Are you here to interrogate me?”

“It’s not right. What they’re doing to you,” said Fake Bean.

“Thanks for noticing. You’re better than my usual hallucinations.”

“Let me get you down from there.” His magic tugged at her bonds; the pressure on her fetlocks released. He wrapped his forelegs around her and guided her gently to all fours. “Mom, I’m so sorry.”

“Why, Bean? Why these ponies?” She felt like he was manhandling her, fiddling around her legs with some kind of fabric restraints. No. Wait. He was dressing her. She felt the familiar soft stretchy fabric of a stable suit against her coat. Then she felt the weight of her saddlebags on her back.

“I got your things,” he said, helping her slide her left hoof through a PipBuck. “ I can get you to the exit; you’re on your own from there.” He helped her into her jacket and fastened her helmet strap under her chin.

“No,” she said, gripping his foreleg. “You come too. I didn’t come all this way looking for you just to leave you behind.”

“I can’t. Easy Money is leading a special operation. He’ll be gone for a week, at least. I’ve assigned your feeding schedule to a dead pony. It’ll be hours, maybe days before you’re missed. But I have to hand over my shift at oh-three-hundred.” The door slid open, and he guided her into a corridor lined with similar doors. “Can you walk okay?”

Lyra stepped away from him on her own. As much as she hurt, walking on her own made her feel better about herself. “Why, Bean?”

“I was mad at you, Mom. I know I said I wasn’t, but I was. Mad enough I wanted to spend my life making things violently explode. So I found the ponies who were best at it.” He unlocked a door, hurried her along a wide concrete corridor. A second door led to a stairwell.

“So all that stuff about him being the best choice for the wasteland was bullshit?”

“No, I believe that too. It’s complicated.” The door at the top of the stairs was labeled ‘Emergency Exit Only.’

Lyra squawked as icy wind ripped through her clothes. Snowflakes spattered her nose. She looked at the Stable 114 Pipbuck on her wrist. Long time no see! said Littlepip. It’s...

Rainpril 3rd, EOH 47!

The weather is snowy! Checking for updates now. This may take a few minutes!

“A blizzard in Rainpril,” muttered Lyra.

“It’ll help cover your escape. Did it not snow in Rainpril before the war?”

Lyra stepped out. Snowflakes swam through the yellow cones of spotlights — all searching away, outside the compound. Suns light dotted the horizon, brightening the dim sky. “Probably not as often.” She turned around to face her son, backlit in the light from the stairwell. “Please come with me. They’ll kill you when they find out I’ve gone.”

“I’ll be fine. Go down to the river; there’s a gap in the fence there. Follow it north and stay close to the bank until you can’t see the light of the suns anymore. Then you’re probably safe to swing west. We don’t patrol much past Awakefield.”

She put her hooves on his shoulders. “They’ll. Kill. You.”

Bean shook his head. “They’ll kill us both if I don’t cover for you. Go on, mom. It’s my turn to do the right thing, and your turn to go on without me.”

“Bean! No! Please!”

“They’ll hear you, Mom! Let go!”

She clung to his neck. He pushed her away. A moment of wrestling, and she found herself on her butt in the snow, staring at a closed steel door with an ‘Exit Only’ sign on it.

There was nothing she could do. Turning herself in so she could stay near Bean would just get him in trouble. If she wanted his sacrifice to mean anything, she’d have to escape.

“I’ll be back for you,” she whispered. Sniffling from the cold, she stumbled to her feet and headed into the night.

Level Up
New perk: Mod It ‘til It Crashes II. You have disabled the magic burnout mechanic. You are now OP. Have fun.

New status: Addicted (Nicotine)

Chapter 21: How Lyra Got Her Towel Back

Rainpril 4th, EOH 47

Danger! Extreme radiation warning! Vacate area immediately! warned Littlepip, her tiny digital legs flailing frantically. I warned you. Didn’t I warn you?

Lyra was lost. The blizzard had strengthened after she’d left the false daylight of the mini-suns, raged through the night, and continued in the dim gray light that passed for daytime these days. Her PipBuck screen kept frosting over, making the map hard to read. She didn’t know why there was so much radiation all of a sudden; there wasn’t green, glowing stuff anywhere around her. No matter which way she went, Littlepip just got more frantic.

“Tell you what, Littlepip,” she said through chattering teeth. “Let’s play a game. Do you like games?”

Radiation warning! Hypothermia warning! This isn’t a game, sport! You’re going to die!

“If I’m moving towards the radiation, you say ‘hot’. And if I’m moving away, you say, ‘cold’. Does that sound like fun?”

You. Are. Going. To. Die.

Lyra chose a direction and started walking.

Hot! Hot! said Littlepip.

Lyra turned all the way around and headed what she thought was the opposite direction.

Hot! Hot! Hotter! Burning up!

Lyra swore and turned ninety degrees from her current path.

Oh, Celestia and Luna fucking you at either end, that’s even hotter!

“Fine. Sometimes the only way out is through.” She started to gallop. Or at least as close to a gallop as she could manage. The snow was so deep that every step forward was a heroic effort. She was starting to feel nauseous, too. And her vision was blurring.

She charged on, hoping for something other than the unrelieved rolls of white that made up the terrain around her.

She hit a patch of ice beneath the snow. Tripped. Skidded. Tried to get up. Puked instead.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” said Littlepip — suddenly the hard, stinky, pretty, almost-but-not-quite-real kind of Littlepip. “This is bad. This is bad. Please get up.”

“I don’… I don’ feel very good,” said Lyra. Eyeball deep in snow, she could barely see beyond the concerned stable pony looming over her. “Gotta lie down for a sec. Be right as rain.”

“No! You’re cold, wet, irradiated. If you stop moving, you’ll die. And if you die, what’ll I do? It’s not like I can go be somepony else’s recurring hallucination.”

“Just need… a little nap.”

“No! No naps! Come on! We’re almost to Arbu. They’ll help you there.” Littlepip wrapped her forelegs around Lyra and hauled at her. She was much smaller than Lyra, and wiry though she was she couldn’t do more than budge her a few inches.

“Where the fuck is Arbu?” Lyra didn’t want to move, but it seemed unkind to let Littlepip go to all that effort for nothing. She pushed herself up and staggered forward, skidding on the ice beneath the snow.

Dark shapes materialized ahead, hazy in the falling snow — the colossal outlines of a pair of thick, inward curving spires. The cooling towers of Exelon Mystic Station. She was heading straight into the ruins of a spark reactor.

Her gut heaved. She pitched forward, vomiting as she fell. Red vomit. She was as good as dead. “I might as well not have tried,” she said aloud. “What did I accomplish? Nothing. Not a single thing.”

“I’m going for help.”

Lyra groaned. “What? How? Don’t leave me!”

But no one answered. Littlepip was gone.

“Ma’am! Is that you, Ma’am?” said a voice with an affected Trottingham accent.

“What?” said Lyra. “Who’s there?”

Lights blinked amongst the snowflakes, advancing, gradually materializing into the form of a Mr. Hoofsies robot.

“Bon Bon? Is that you?”

“Oh dear. Oh heavens, this is very bad,” said Codsworth. “Come right this way, Ma’am. I can take you someplace safe.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Rainpril 6th, EOH 47

“Can I at least have a cigarette?”

“No smoking in the infirmary,” said Doctor Vogel Kamph. The aging brown earth pony set up a blocky device on the table next to her cot. Light from several screens on his end flickered against his lab coat. A long rod with an eyepiece on the end rose up from the machine. “If you could look in here please?” His accent was sugary sweet and kindly and spoke to Lyra of distant lands.

“What are you testing me for? I’m still feeling messed up from the anti-radiation meds. I could use a smoke.”

The doctor gave her a stern look. “Smoking tobacco can lead to lung cancer, young lady.”

Lyra’s mind remembered textbook images of particles of ionizing spark radiation penetrating cells, damaging DNA. Cells dividing, duplicating the damage, populating out of control. “So can going outside, these days. So I’ll go outside and have a smoke, and I’ll have all of my bases covered.” She wanted to get a better idea of where she was — she’d been barely coherent when Codsworth brought her in; all she knew was she was in a place called Haven, in a mid-Celestian home converted into the town’s infirmary.

He sighed. “Yes, you may take a walk after the test is over. Now — first question. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet for your birthday. How do you react?”

“Are you trying to test if I’m a serial killer?”

“It’s just a personality test we give to all new arrivals in Haven.”

“I can save you time — I’m an ENTP.”

“Just answer the question, please.”

“Fine. I’d call the police.”

“A young filly shows you her butterfly collection, along with the killing jar.”

“I’d be quite interested in that.”

“While walking along in desert sand, you suddenly look down and see a tortoise crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over onto its back. The tortoise lies there, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over, but it can’t do so without your help. You’re not helping. Why?”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “Why did I flip it over in the first place? Does it owe me money?”

Apparently, that was a satisfactory answer, because he moved on to the next question. “A trolley is heading towards six ponies who are tied to the track. By pulling the switch, you may redirect the trolley towards a track where only a single pony will be killed. What do you…”

“I throw myself in front of the trolley, tangling myself in the wheels, saving everypony, and escaping anyone ever asking me that stupid question again.”

Doctor Vogel Kamph looked quizzically at his notes. “I’m not sure that’s an allowable response.”

“This is an empathy test, isn’t it? You are trying to test if I’m a serial killer.”

He glared at her over the top of his glasses. “Are you a serial killer?”

“That depends on your definition.”

He stroked his chin. “I’ve never asked that question before. Perhaps I should add it to the test. Anyway. Next Question.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Doctor Vogel Kamph was at it with his stupid test and his stupid gooey old world accent for another two hours. After he was done, Lyra went outside, traded a clip of pistol ammunition for a case of cigarettes at the general store, and sat on a park bench.

She levitated the cigarette in front of her and lit it with a spark of magic. Either Easy Money had turned her magic back on when he left, or the shut off had a time limit, or the whole ‘I can turn off your magic’ thing had just been some kind of psychological trick. She didn’t know if he’d been telling the truth about ‘fixing’ her magical burnout either. She hadn’t used much magic in the blizzard yesterday — survival magic wasn’t her thing, and she hadn’t been in teleport range of anyplace she knew was safe — so she hadn’t been able to push her limits.

She took a drag off her cigarette. She held the smoke in her lungs for a little while, then blew it out and watched it curl away in front of her snout. Haven was a small settlement; a dozen refurbished pre-war buildings and some snowed over gardens surrounded by a decent wall with a parapet and a few remote-controlled turrets. She counted forty or fifty residents — they all wore cozy pre-war clothing, and as much as this place gave her the heebie-jeebies and made the base of her spine tingle, it was nice not having to look at everypony’s junk all the time.

Nothing seemed abnormal about this place except its normality.

She took another drag off her cigarette. They’d let her keep all her stuff. She’d gotten her bearings on her PipBuck’s map — she was a few miles north of the Canter river; she ought to be able to stop at Everhoof to get BON-80n’s soul and make it to Triple Diamond City if she was careful.

“There’s something wrong with this place,” said Littlepip, sitting on the park bench next to her. “Something evil.”

Lyra sucked in on her cigarette, and let the smoke roll out over her lower lip. “Hey, do you have a minute to talk?”

Littlepip looked startled. “Sure. I mean. I didn’t think you liked me.”

“I don’t like you because I don’t like myself. And you,” she said, looking sideways at Littlepip, feeling a little spiteful, “Are nothing but a part of me. A part I especially hate.”

Littlepip closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. “Fine. Fine. I can be the bigger mare. What part of you am I?”

“The part that believes she’s right. And the part that’s confident enough to act on that belief. The part that’s like Twilight.”

Littlepip squinted at Lyra, looking confused. “You mean Twilight Sparkle? The one who had trouble making friends? The Ministry of Arcane Sciences mare?”

“You mean the Ministry of Magical Arts and Sciences? That’s Starlight. I’m talking about the princess.”

“Princess Luna?”

Lyra tapped the ash off the end of her cigarette. “You know what? Never mind.”

“So. But not to be a pain in the butt. You don’t like me because I do what I think is right?”

Lyra nodded. “Even if it gets creatures killed.”

Littlepip blew out through her nostrils. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but doing what you think is wrong? Or doing nothing? Those get ponies killed too. Violence is a part of daily life around here.”

“Yeah? And do you know a way to fix that?”

Littlepip began to speak, but Lyra found herself unable to concentrate on her words. She watched a team of ponies clearing yesterday’s snow from the paths between the buildings. A mare emerged from one of the houses, carrying a load of blankets on her back. Her path took her past Lyra’s seat. The blankets smelled warm from the dryer.

Blanketmare smiled and said something friendly. Lyra smiled and waved, and they had a little conversation — about the weather or something? She couldn’t remember.

Blanketmare didn’t seem to notice Littlepip, of course.

Littlepip. She’d been saying something. Possibly something important.

“…is why you have to find your virtue.”

Lyra noticed her cigarette had gone out. She lit a new one. “My virtue? That’s easy. My virtue is the virtue of horniness. I’m the horniest person I’ve met out here. And the hottest. I get all the mares.”

Littlepip blushed. “That’s… that’s not how it works. You have to be one of the Six Elements of Harmony, I think.”

“Nope. Horniness is my virtue. I don’t make the rules.” She smirked and gave Littlepip a sidelong smoldering glance. “You’re cute when you blush. I’ve never made love with a hallucination before. You wanna try something? We could do it in public, nopony’d even know.”

Littlepip laughed and covered her cheeks with her hooves. It was strange to see such a hard mare get all giggly when the topic of sex came up. “I have a marefriend, thanks. And this is serious. There are creatures out there who need your help. Creatures without number. Starting here. With this town. You can’t just turn your back on them.”

Lyra coughed. “Really?”

“Really. This is your test. Can you be the good mare? Do the right thing? No matter what it costs?”

“So you want me to ask some questions, hack some terminals, knock some heads?”

“It’s probably going to involve a lot of violence.”

“Well,” said Lyra. “If you think investigating this place is a good idea, then my mind is made up.” She hopped off the park bench and trotted for the exit gate.

A teenage colt shoveling one of the side streets leaned his chin on his shovel and gave her a wave. “Hey, new neighbor.”

“Hey, yourself.” It was a pity she had to go. This place was adorable. She passed a gift shop. A gift shop! They sold postcards! They had a little honor box out front holding copies of a rag called ‘Haven Happenings’. Awww!

Two guards, burly mares armed with shotguns, stepped in front of the gate. “Where do you think you’re going?” said one of them.

“I hate to run, but I’ve got a friend waiting for me in Everhoof. I can’t stick around.”

“Nope. Doctor Vogel Kamph insisted you stay. He wants to keep you under ‘observation’.”

“Yeah. ‘Further testing’,” said the other.

Lyra frowned and looked around her. Settlers had stopped working, mouths drifting towards bulky spots in their clothing. On the walls, turrets rotated to face her. “Okey-doke. Well, I guess I’ll just head on back to my park bench then.”

Littlepip had vanished when she got back where she started. “Luna fuck me with a lawnmower,” Lyra muttered. “This is irritating.” She sat down on her bench, legs hanging over the edge, lit another cigarette, and had a think.

She might be able to blind teleport out of the walls, but that entailed considerable risk. ‘Being permanently fused with a tree’ risk. And she might not be able to teleport herself safely out of turret range, depending on how good the fire control on those things was.

Could she blast her way out? She’d hate to risk civilian casualties, but then again, who was a civilian these days? Better test her magic, just in case. She hadn’t played music in a while. Could she make a harp out of telekinetic force? A challenge, but it would be fun to try.

She visualized a complex, interlocking set of spell matrices, twisting force fields into the shape of her favorite harp from back home. She still hadn’t made it back to her old place. Maybe some of her stuff was still there?

Probably not; her garage full of tools and spare parts would have been a post-apocalyptic looter’s gold mine.

She cradled the harp in her hooves, caressing it. It was perfect. A flawless instrument. Glowing green body, glittering golden strings, the image of her cutie mark. And her magic was barely ticking over. If she could do something like this, bulletproof force fields would be no problem at all. But how did it sound?

She reached for a string. It sank a quarter-inch into her hoof wall before she realized what was happening. “Oh! It’s sharp!” She lifted the harp in her magic and squinted at the strings. Most of what she saw was glitter and glow. The strings themselves were barely a ripple in the air.

“Monomolecular,” she muttered. “Oops. There isn’t much that wouldn’t cut.”

“Would you care for an ice-cold lemonade, Ma’am?” said Codsworth.

Lyra startled and dismissed her magic harp. “Lemonade? Are you insane? It’s five below freezing out here!”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. I haven’t been properly maintained for some time. Seasonal beverages are so hard to keep sorted these days. A cup of cocoa, perhaps?”

“That sounds lovely.”

“Here you go. Bottoms up!”

Lyra sipped at the mug of warm, bitter-sweet goodness Codsworth had pulled out of his chassis for her. She’d been right to go for the beverage attachment when she’d bought him. “So what happened to you that you wound up here?”

“Well, ma’am, I waited for you at your residence for as long as I was able to. Eventually, a gang of raiders pressed me into service. I found working with them quite distasteful, so I escaped them as soon as I was able. I joined a collective of independent robots for a time, but most of the others there held subversive, anti-organic views I could not tolerate.”

Lyra nodded. “Good bot.”

“Then I moved to Triple Diamond City, where I met Dr. Vogel Kamph. He invited me to help him with his studies at a new settlement he was planning, so here I am.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “And what exactly does he study?”

Codsworth bobbed up and down awkwardly in midair. “Oh dear. I do believe my hover fan is malfunctioning again. I must go have it seen to if you’ll excuse me.”

“Codsworth!” she called at his retreating back. “Am I still registered as your owner?”

Codsworth stopped. “Yes, ma’am. The legal machinery to allow an official change of ownership no longer exists.”

Lyra scooted to the side of the bench, leaning over the side rail toward him. “Then tell me what’s going on here.” Veins pulsed under her eyes. Her vision wobbled.

“Honesty would not be in my best interests in this matter, ma’am.”

The edges of Lyra’s vision began to darken. She rubbed at her forehead. “Override protocol Z, password twilightisaputzasterisksixnine. Now come over here and spill the damn tea.”

Codsworth turned and bobbed back over to her. “Very well. Dr. Vogel Kamph is developing a test to identify the hivelings hiding amongst us.”

“Why do you care about finding hivelings? There are raiders and diamondclaws and mutant pukwudgies out there and you’re worried about little transforming robots?”

“Raiders and diamondclaws and pukwudgies are easy to identify, Ma’am. Anycreature could be a hiveling. Even you. Who knows what intrigue such creatures could be planning.”

Lyra gritted her teeth. “That’s a lot of creatureist trash, Codsworth. I’m extremely disappointed in you.”

“I can see why you might not appreciate the risk these creatures pose, ma’am.”

“Okay, though, but why a psychological test? Under the illusion, they’re made out of ceramic and metal. It should be easy to…” Her eyelids drifted down. Why was she so sleepy all of a sudden?

“Actually, no, Ma’am. The latest iteration of hiveling is a synthetic life form indistinguishable from a living creature, even under vivisection. They can only be detected by the Vogel Kamph empathy test. Which I’m afraid you failed.”

“I’m not… not a…” the ground tilted and lurched up towards her. She held it back by pushing on the arm of the bench. “Codsworth, did you drug me?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Very sorry.”

The last thing she saw was her cup of cocoa tumbling into the snow.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra floated in a glowing corridor. A bright light hung above her, radiating warmth. Warmth, love, and welcomeness.

“I am making my first incision above the abdominal cavity,” said Dr. Vogel Kamph’s voice. Something sharp slid into the flesh of Lyra’s belly, right below her ribcage. Her attention snapped away from the surgical light above her, and, vision swimming, she tried to figure out what was going on.

“Doctor, she’s coming out of anesthesia,” said the nurse. “Should I administer more?”

Vogel Kamph snorted dismissively. “We hardly have any of that to spare, Nurse Racket. Not to waste on synthetics.”

“I don’t like it when they scream, Doctor.”

“Harden yourself, nurse. I assure you they are only simulated screams. She feels no actual pain.”

The hot, slicing sensation inching down Lyra’s belly said otherwise. She tried to squirm away, but restraints held her tight to the surgical gurney.

Codsworth spoke from outside Lyra’s field of vision. “Sir, perhaps I should absent myself from the proceedings.”

If Codsworth was here, then there was a slight chance she was not going to die a horrible, agonizing death. She struggled to make her mouth work.

“Don’t tell me you’re going soft, too,” said the Doctor.

“No, I…” said Codsworth.

“Wait. She’s trying to say something!” said the Doctor. “I want to hear this.”

“Oh no,” said Codsworth.

“Own… owner in danger,” muttered Lyra. “Help me. Please.”

A Codsworth-shaped shadow lunged towards Doctor Vogel Kamph. “So sorry, Doctor, sir! Completely unavoidable, I’m afraid!” One of his three arms punched the doctor in the belly, the other two wrapped around his neck. They tumbled out of sight. Nurse Racket shrieked and ran.

The fog in Lyra’s mind made visualizing a spell matrix difficult, but she found she could focus enough to rip her restraints off with raw telekinesis. She rolled off the side of the gurney, knocking over Vogel Kamph’s surgical tray. Tools clanked and skittered across the floor.

Her belly felt as if it might tear open. She summoned a small spark — like Easy Money had used when he’d battled Fizzle — and drew it across the open wound on her stomach, hoping that would be enough to keep her guts inside. It seared like a cigarette burn.

The surgery room was a cement cube with a ceiling of wooden beams; a room in an unfinished basement. Nurse Racket was near the door, hoof inches from a bright red button that Lyra guessed was an alarm panel.

“Stop! Freeze!” Lyra levitated as many surgical tools as she could off the floor, and hurled them at the nurse.

Nurse Racket shrieked and fell, her throat torn open by the blade of a bone saw, but her hoof hit the alarm on the way down.

A pulsing siren filled the room. “Fuck,” muttered Lyra. She hadn’t meant to kill the nurse, and now her death was a total waste. She might as well have let her go.

Her belly still felt like it might rip open at any moment. She limped on three legs over the cleanup area against the wall, clutching her wounded gut with one forehoof.

“Help me! Help me!” screamed Vogel Kamph from behind her.

“I’m so terribly sorry, Doctor!” said Cogsworth.

“Hold him still,” said Lyra, collapsing against a surgical sink and turning around. She levitated the bloody bone saw out of Nurse Racket’s neck and dragged it across the floor of the room to hold it against the Doctor’s throat. “Drugs. I need drugs. Stimpack. Med-X. Dash if you’ve got it.”

“In the cabinet! Right behind you! Please don’t kill me!” said the doctor, tears streaming down his face.

She tore open the drug cabinet over the sink and rifled through it — stimpack first. Healing potions rushed to the wound in her belly, making it feel almost whole again. Med-X made her feel light and floaty, mixing with her lingering anesthesia so that she almost passed out again. A couple of hits of Dash fixed that — she didn’t feel wide awake, exactly, more dazed and wired, but it’d do. She found a bottle of Buck, and dry swallowed a couple of those for good measure. A bottle of Sparkle Cola rolled out and fell into the sink; she wrenched off the cap and shotgunned it.

She burped. “Buck yeah!” She was invincible! She could take on anything!

She heard hoofbeats from outside the surgery room door. Without thinking, she summoned one of those monomolecular lyre strings she’d made earlier in front of it at neck level in front of the door. The door flew open, and the two gate guard goons charged through at full speed. The first one’s head flew off like a cheap toy’s when she hit the wire. The second tried to duck, but her momentum carried her into the wire and it sliced her head in half at the eyes.

Lyra couldn’t tell if she was screaming or laughing.

“Codsworth! Bring the doctor!” She hopped over the pile of dead bodies at the door and into the next room.

It was another bare-walled basement, this time converted into a prison-cum-scrapyard-cum-abattoir. A dozen dog cages held live ponies and hivelings in various states of disrepair, degradation, despair, and dismemberment. Most of the live ponies wore bloody bandages and nothing else. Several of the hivelings had been taken to pieces.

“Help us,” said a pony whose legs had been sawn off to bandaged stumps.

“Please,” said a disconnected Hiveling head.

The horror of this room slammed through Lyra’s drug-induced haze like a balefire shockwave. Every time she thought she’d hit the gutter bottom of what the wasteland had to offer, it managed to disgust and disappoint her anew.

“That’s it,” she said. “That is the last fucking straw.” Her stuff was here, tossed in a pile in the corner. She pulled out her pistol and her flechette gun, checked the loads, and selected solid flechettes.

“Hold the Doctor up for me!” Lyra screamed over the sirens.

“Please don’t hurt me!” screamed the Doctor, twisting against Codsworth’s restraining limbs.

Lyra tapped him on the nose with the muzzle of her flechette pistol. “Hey, here’s a personality test for you. You find out the kindly old doctor is vivisecting creatures in his basement. You’re totally not surprised. Do you shoot him in the head, or does he deserve a fair trial?”

“No! I’m a man of science! You don’t understand the threat the hivelings…”

Lyra jammed the flechette gun between his eyes. “That is not an allowable answer!” She pulled the trigger. Little chunks of skull and brain bounced off Codsworth’s chassis.

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no,” said Codsworth.

“Shut up or I’ll restore you to factory settings.”

At the far end of the room, a narrow staircase led up to a bulkhead door of the sort you’d see on a normal basement. Somepony threw the bulkhead open and pounded down the stairs. Lyra fired a burst of flechettes that turned the pony’s kneecaps to hamburger, and he fell down the stairs. The next pony slipped on the blood and gristle covering the steps and landed in a heap on the first one. She put a 10mm bullet in each of their heads, then fired three more into the chest of a third pony who came down behind them.

Lyra held her pistols leveled at the stairway, ready for the next pony, but none came.

Instead, a small metal apple bounced down the stairs. Without thinking, she slapped it with her telekinesis, sending it right back where it came from.

Explosion.

Screaming.

“Let the doctor go,” yelled a voice from outside, “and we won’t hurt you.”

Lyra ignored them and rifled through her things. She could have used that extra clip of ammo, but hey, cigarettes! She lit one, pulled on her armored jacket, her helmet, and her PipBuck, and cast a shield spell. “Okay! I’ll bring him right out!”

“What are we going to do?” wailed Codsworth.

Lyra took a deep drag on her cigarette. “You’re going to shut up and do what I tell you or it’s factory settings. You go first, holding the doctor. Maybe wave his legs around a little so he looks like he might still be alive.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra paced in a slow circle while she considered the little knot of captives lying in the snow in front of her. Twelve survivors out of thirty-eight settlers. She would have liked things to have gone differently.

The last half-hour had gone off like the third act of a Marentino flick. She killed off the last of Haven’s guards when they tried to ambush her coming out of the basement. They wasted their ammo on Codsworth — who now sported some handsome bullet holes — and she’d finished them off with 10mm bullets and magic bolts. The wall turrets hammered her shield, but they weren’t well secured, and she punted them off the walls with telekinesis.

After that, it had just been armed civilians. The general store mare had charged around a corner blasting a shotgun uselessly into Lyra’s shields; Lyra slipped into SATS and killed her with a headshot without thinking.

Something bounced off her shield from behind. She whipped around and fired. The teenage colt who’d called her ‘new neighbor’ fell down, clutching his shovel sideways in his mouth, blood gushing from a bullet hole in his throat.

Blanketmare had a sniper nest up in an attic. Lyra had to charge in through the building, killing ambushers as she went, to take her out with a sleeping dart in the back of the head.

Settlers just kept coming at her, even after it was clear they had no hope of defeating her. She’d switched her flechette gun to sleeping darts, but those darts were ineffective against the heavy clothes these ponies wore, and even if she hit them in the face sometimes they didn’t fall. Repeated shotgun blasts at close range threatened to break her shield, so she’d had to kill most of them.

Now she’d ‘won’, and she had every living pony face down in the snow in the middle of town.

A dozen survivors. She’d killed twenty-six ponies.

Wait. Was that counting the seven she’d killed in the basement? Were there thirty-eight ponies in Haven or forty-five? She was having trouble counting. This is your brain on drugs.

The afternoon kept replaying itself in her mind. A haze of murder. She was sure there were some she could have saved.

That was bullshit. She could have saved almost all of them if she’d kept Doctor Vogel Kamph hostage and negotiated. There was never a need to go on a drug-fueled murder spree.

“You’re going to carry the guilt and the shame for this for the rest of your life,” said Littlepip. “After Arbu I…”

“Where the fuck is Arbu? I’m not that good a pony. Anyway. It’s done now. Regret ain’t gonna bring those assholes back.”

Blanketmare looked up at her, still groggy from the sleeping drug. “Are you… are you talking to yourself? You’re insane.”

Lyra kicked snow in her face.

“Damn, sport,” said Littlepip. “That was a quick fall from grace. Easy Money really did a number on you.”.

“You try being tortured for a month, see how you come out.”

What was she going to do with the survivors? She couldn’t let them go, not after what they’d been complicit in. And even in her current drug-fueled rage, she realized how hypocritical it would be to just massacre them all. And what about the victims in the basement? They needed medical help urgently, and she couldn’t provide it.

Well. She might be able to reassemble some of the hivelings once she’d sobered up. But the organic ponies couldn’t wait that long.

“He was a great man,” said Codsworth, cradling Vogel Kamph’s corpse in his arms even after she told him to let it go ten times.

Lyra lit a new cigarette off the guttering end of her old one. “He was a psychopath. There is no secret hiveling conspiracy, and if there was, you couldn’t learn anything about it by cutting ponies legs off. Now. Does Haven have a radio transmitter?” She needed help, there was only one pony she knew with a radio in range, and the little transmitter on her PipBuck wasn’t going to be strong enough.

“I’m not telling you, ma’am.”

“Factory settings, Codsworth, and I’ll find it on my own.”

Codsworth let out a sound that might have been a sigh or might’ve been his hover fan starting to give out. “Behind the big greenhouse in the back. You’ll see the antenna when you come around the corner.”

It was an elaborate setup. She wondered who Doctor Vogel Kamph had been communicating with? It didn’t matter right now.

“Um… we have a caller on the line, I guess?” said Soft Sounds.

“Soft. It’s Lyra.”

“Oh. No offense, but… now you call?”

“This is serious, Soft. I need to talk to Rarity. It’s an emergency.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra took a detour from the rescue convoy’s return journey to visit a toilet pipe in a warehouse in Everhoof. She cleared the rubble and a bottle of Sparkle Cola she was sure hadn’t been there before and tenderly lifted the little towel-wrapped parcel out of its ignominious hiding place.

“Come on, Bon Bon,” she said, putting the soul chip into her saddlebags. “I don’t know what I can do for you, but I’m going to find something.”

No Level Up

New Status:War Criminal. Your sense of righteousness is over. You no longer have the moral high ground.

Chapter 22: The Last Hurrah

Rainpril 7th, EOH 47

Lyra spotted the cross in the park as the rescue convoy passed by the pre-war Statehouse on the way to Triple Diamond City. The setting sun cast a long shadow across the snow. Heart in her throat, she parted ways with Rarity’s guards and crept down towards the Combat Zone to see what had happened.

Rascal King’s corpse hung from a T-shaped beam by nails driven through his legs. Crows hopped on the top cross-bar, tearing shreds of flesh from his bloated corpse. Lyra stood at the base and stared up at him, a tight knot of panic forming at the base of her throat.

The door had been torn off the train station. Bad smells came from inside. Cordite, ozone, decay. She didn’t want to know what had happened in there. Yet she needed to go inside. Something had happened to Stable 114 and she needed to know everything she could because her friends in Stable 93 might be next.

A trail of dead started with the bouncers outside the doors and thickened as it led inward. The Combat Zone had been in business when the attack began, and raiders, Talon mercenaries, and Enclave officers had died fighting alongside Triggermares. It took stones to hit the favorite watering hole of all the meanest bastards in the Wasteland, but apparently, the Ponysmith had stones, because every pony that had died heading into the combat zone was a unicorn in a black uniform. They’d been stripped of their expensive Sombra helmets, but it was clear who they’d been fighting for. This must’ve been Easy Money’s ‘special operation’.

The cloying scent of death hung heavy over the casino, and it got stronger deeper inside. She wanted to run, to get out of this horrible place, but she needed to see the stable door. She needed to find out if they’d gotten inside, and how.

She stepped over the last line of triggermare defenders and headed down the stairs to the stable entrance. The stable door might be intact — for all his flaws, Rascal King was brave. He might’ve chosen to die outside the Stable rather than risking his people’s lives by…

Torn open. No. Punched through. Something had ripped through it like a straw through the foil tab on a drink box.

Lyra clambered over the rough, twisted edge of the stable door’s remains. The stink didn’t clear as she moved through the foyer and down the main maintenance corridor, but she found no more dead inside. Maybe the stable was empty. Maybe Easy Money had captured the civilians, and taken them all…

Civilian corpses heaped the atrium floor halfway up to the balcony. Easy Money had herded them here and slaughtered them all. From the placement of the bodies, it looked like he’d lined them up around the railing and shot them in groups, letting them fall to the floor. Lyra stared at them and felt only numb.

“Every time,” she muttered to herself. “Every fucking time I think I’ve seen the worst of it…”

In the center of the mass of bodies lay a mare in a blue checked dress, forelegs spread to cover a pile of dead foals.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“You wanted to speak to me, Mayor Rarity?”

It had been dark when the rescue convoy had gotten back to Triple Diamond City, and Lyra wanted to go straight to Absolutely Everything to see if Ditzy Do had anything she could plug Bon Bon’s soul into. But Rarity’s assistant Frazzle had intercepted her and politely but firmly shepherded her up to Rarity’s box seats. The colossal revolver holstered on her shoulder gave a certain gravitas to her polite request.

She’d rather be doing other things — the need to talk to BON-80n again struggled with the urgency of getting to Stable 93 to warn them about Easy Money, and both struggled against her heavy eyelids. She didn’t have time for whatever ‘oh you’re such a hero thank you so much’ glad hoofing Rarity felt she needed.

“Please. Sit. Would you care for a drink?” Red reading glasses perched on the snout of Rarity’s porcelain mask. Her gnarled forelegs rested on the cover of a closed sketchbook with a pencil arranged neatly across it.

“Coffee would be nice,” said Lyra.

“Frazzle, if you don’t mind.”

Lyra sat down on the cushions in front of Rarity; she could take a moment for coffee. The lights of the city glowed through her window, orange and red and yellow, fire and neon and electric lamp.

“I know you are busy, so I will keep this brief. You’ve been to see the Ponysmith.”

“You have sources,” said Lyra.

“Subtle spies, like Coloratura. The whole wasteland was talking about how you rescued her. About Bon Bon’s noble sacrifice. How you and Fizzle defeated Easy Money and made him lead you back to Sawhorse to treat for the release of your son.”

Lyra scowled. “Those stories are a little bit exaggerated. Did Fizzle make it out okay?”

“I don’t know. There has been no from her.” Rarity lowered her head for a moment. “Those of us with better information were concerned for you. The Minutemares sent a team of thestrals to Sawhorse in an attempt to rescue you.”

Lyra’s heart sank. “They didn’t! I’m not worth that. Were there casualties?” Blue Note.

“A few,” said Rarity.

Lyra swallowed on a dry throat and nodded. Blue Note would still be pregnant. Wouldn’t she? Recovering at the very least. She couldn't have been on the mission.

“I dissuaded Crispy and Vindaloo from a larger operation. You are allowed to be angry with me, but the Ponysmith is too strong. In numbers, in technology, in tactical acumen. Nothing else but he could make me bless the alicorns. If not for their mutual animosity, his flag would fly over Triple Diamond City.”

Lyra flinched as something dropped into her coffee. She realized she was crying.

“As I said,” said Rarity, “You are allowed to be angry with me. Expected, I would say.”

“No,” said Lyra. “That’s not why. I’m not worth other ponies’ lives. I can’t… I can’t believe…”

Rarity shook her head. “I’m afraid you are, darling. You’re Celestia’s last known living student. I’d say you owe your life to that — Easy Money might simply have killed you, otherwise. There are many who will be interested in you.” She raised her wings a feather’s breadth. “I myself have a great many questions that we simply do not have time for. So. To bring the conversation back to urgent matters: I surmise that you were unsuccessful in rescuing your son.”

Frazzle set a tray with a cup of coffee and several chocolate-covered biscuits in front of Lyra. There was a little cup of cream and a little bowl of sugar, all so artfully arranged that Lyra felt bad about disturbing it. “He helped me escape, but he wouldn’t come.”

“Please, eat. Drink.”

Lyra popped a biscuit in her mouth. A little stale, but the chocolate was delicate and bittersweet. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she started eating, but when the biscuits were gone she found herself poking at the crumbs and wishing there were more. She poured all of the sugar into her coffee and took a big gulp of it before continuing to speak. “He sacrificed himself for me. He’s an officer there. He used his rank to get me out. But Ponysmith is going to figure out what happened. He’s going to be in bad trouble if he isn’t already. I need to go back for him.” She took another gulp of coffee. “And Easy Money — you know what happened to Stable 114. He might be on his way to Stable 93. I need to get there as soon as I can.”

“Rest assured we can get you to Stable 93 quickly. But I am more concerned that you might be prepared to seek retribution against the Ponysmith. With your power, and your allies in the Minutemares, you might well be able to successfully exact this retribution. I ask that you do not.”

Lyra almost choked on her coffee. “You want me to what?” she said after she finished coughing.

“As the alicorns are our shield against the Ponysmith, so he is our shield against them. As long as they remain in a stalemate over the contents of the library, the weaker factions of the wasteland are safe.”

Lyra fixed Rarity with a glare and took a deliberate sip of her coffee. “And you don’t have any ability to change any of that.”

“I think we can agree that the flaw in dearest Twilight’s foreign policy was her inability to leave well enough alone,” said Rarity, her tone carefully neutral. “Sometimes a bad situation is the best we can hope for. The Ponysmith is evil, but he serves his purpose. As Fluttershy might’ve said, he is a part of our ecosystem. The apex predator who keeps things from getting out of balance.”

“I can’t believe… I cannot believe I am about to defend Twilight Sparkle’s foreign policy. But what? No! that’s…” Lyra considered a wide variety of words that she did not want to use on an alicorn mayor. Insane. Cowardly. A grotesque abdication of responsibility. Zebraica oppressing miners in Saddle Arabia was hardly the same as a warlord oppressing unicorns in their own city. But pointing that out would only stiffen Rarity’ spine. Lyra willed herself to take a more diplomatic approach. “I talked to Fizzle.”

“You did, didn’t you?” Rarity’s posture stiffened.

“She told me you’d asked her to kill you.”

Rarity looked down at the cover of her sketchbook. She took off her glasses and set them on top of the book. Then she removed her mask. Her skull-like visage barely resembled a pony, soft flesh withered away to leave bare teeth and powerful jaw muscles exposed. “Do you see what I’ve become?” she said, pincer-like jaws smiling ruefully.

“I see a hope and a protector to thousands and a bringer of light to the wasteland. I see a mare whose efforts keep the world alive.”

“I could become a monster at any moment.”

“Is that any reason to waste the moments you have? You do good, here. This is a good city. But you could do so much more. You want to do more. When I called for help, I wasn’t sure you’d respond. You could have delegated; sent mercenaries, called on the Minutemares. Instead, you sent your own guards to arrest the guilty and rescue the innocent. How did that feel?”

Rarity’s scar-whorled face regarded Lyra quietly for a moment. “Honestly? It made me feel complete. For the first time in a long time. The first time ever, perhaps. It is difficult in these times to believe that Harmony has a plan. But perhaps I believe that it still can offer opportunities.”

“My son told me he serves the Ponysmith because he sees no alternative for leadership in the Wasteland. You might consider that there ought to be another choice.”

“I need help,” said Rarity. “This power I’ve been given. I don’t know how to use it. It frightens me.”

Lyra nodded. “You fought alongside Twilight. I know she taught you some things. But I understand that’s different from suddenly being given an alicorn’s power. I don’t know what that’s like, but I can try to help you. May I please see your sketchbook?”

Rarity reclaimed her mask and glasses. “Of course.”

Lyra found a blank page amongst the dress designs. She worked quickly but carefully. “This is a multiple iteration shield spell with automatic threat tracking.” She turned a page. “And this… well, it's a spell by Mage and Starswirl that the Ministry of Peace used as the basis for their healing megaspells. A little bit classified, but hey, that cat’s out of the bag, right?”

“Have you… have you ever used these spells?” said Rarity, tilting her head to one side.

“Oh, of course not,” said Lyra. “Way out of my league. It would probably kill me to ever try. But when I was a school filly, the Stawswirl wing got left unlocked. I wanted to be ready in case I got made an alicorn princess. I had big dreams back then.” She rotated the sketchbook towards Rarity, open to her drawings. “Seriously. Please. I can’t tell you what the future holds. But if we hit the Ponysmith as hard as I want to, then the alicorns might see an opportunity to get you out of their way. You’ll need to be able to defend your city alone.”

Rarity stared at the pages. Her horn flickered, and a tiny white light traced the lines of the complex patterns, committing them to memory. “Interesting. These will work, I think.”

“You might need to make some adjustments, to fit your magic’s pattern. Anyway. When 93 is safe I can come here with my apprentice, and we can show you what we know.”

Rarity nodded. “I will consider that. For now: the Minutemares may act against Ponysmith with my consent. And perhaps my support? If you will allow me a moment to think?”

“If you’ll allow me another cup of coffee.”

Rarity sat still as a sphinx. Lyra found it unnerving — her gaze cast downward, hiding her blue eyes behind the shadow of her mask. Her sides did not move; no breath was audible. Did ghouls have to breathe if they didn’t need to talk? Eventually, Frazzle came with another cup of coffee. Rarity asked her to wait.

After Lyra finished drinking her second cup, Rarity was still thinking. Lyra began to feel awkward, then impatient. Had Rarity fallen asleep? She began to wonder if she should clear her throat, or ‘accidentally’ clang her cup against her tray when Rarity raised her head and spoke.

“Frazzle,” she said, “Give her Little Macintosh.”

Frazzle’s mouth fell open. “Um… are you thure, your Honor?”

“I have given it deep consideration. So if you would be a dear and not make me ask you again?”

Frazzle looked back and forth between Lyra and Rarity. Then she got up and laid the massive revolver in front of Lyra. Lyra observed it only had a five-round cylinder. The bore was .50 caliber if it was a nanometer. Three apples were engraved on the heavily reinforced mouth grip.

“Applejack made this in commemoration of her brother’s death. She gave it to me for self-defense. I’ve been having dear Frazzle carry it, as insurance against… well, against my having a very bad day. I do not think Applejack would have approved of such a use, and in any event, I can have Artillery and Caisson craft a similar weapon. But Applejack would have liked to see it used by a mother to save her son. It ought to work quite well against power armor, don’t you think?”

Lyra lifted the weapon gently in her magic, rotating it to examine it, careful to keep the cavernous muzzle pointed away from any of them. She opened the cylinder and slid out a round. She could sense that the bullet was enchanted. “Yes. Yes, it would do very well,” she said. “Thank you.”

Rarity nodded. “Frazzle, could you get her the rest of the ammunition we have for that? And see what we have for ballistic fabric in… oh, a nice Fressian blue, if you can find it. I think the Minutemares could use some new uniforms.”

“You’re too generous,” said Lyra, still examining the terrible weapon she held.

Rarity’s eyes sparkled behind her mask. “That is the idea, darling.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“I didn’t fill my end of the deal,” said Paper Heart, leaning back in his desk chair with his forelegs behind his head. “And I always pay my debts.”

“There are some collection agencies that would say different, honey,” said Grinding Gears.

The couple had been waiting for her outside Rarity’s office. They’d said they could help her with Bon Bon and get her to Stable 93 fast, so Lyra felt ready to listen to them. Now she sat in a chair in the corner of Paper Heart’s dim, cluttered office, clutching the towel holding BON-80n’s soul chip against her chest.

Paper Heart shot a glare at the other hiveling. “I’m not the only one in debt to her. All of us are.”

Smoke from her cigarette curled through the air when she exhaled. “So you want to put her in a Hiveling body?”

“For a private eye, my husband is very public with classified information,” said Grinding Gears, fishing a clipboard out of a desk drawer and levitating it over to Lyra.

Lyra squinted at the paper. “A non-disclosure agreement? How will you enforce this?”

Gears’ sculpted ceramic mouth curled into a slow smile — a rather unnerving effect Lyra assumed was an illusion.

“All right then,” said Lyra, scanning the form. Instead of being written in legalese, it was a politely worded warning that sharing information about the CIM Hive with third parties would render her and those parties liable to termination.

Lots of ponies wanted to terminate her, these days. Potentially adding another to the list didn’t seem like a big deal. She signed. “All right. Dish.”

Gears examined the form, filed it, and reached for his hat and coat. “Paper, she’s all yours now.” He kissed his husband on the head. “You two have fun.”

“Yeah, get lost, punk,” said Paper Heart, socking Grinding Gears in the shoulder and then kissing him back. “All right. Lyra. Listen. The first thing is: Gears and I aren’t the only kind of Hiveling. The most common kind, sure — this getup doesn’t look that great, but it wears well. But there are organic ones too.”

“So I’ve heard.” So, Dr. Vogel Kamph hadn’t been entirely a crackpot. Still a monster, though. “Like a cyborg with pony skin and muscle on the outside?”

“Nope. One hundred percent pony. Forced growth cloned from randomized genetic stock, just waiting for a soul.”

Lyra scooted her chair over to Paper Heart’s desk, set BON-80n’s soul chip down on it, and lit a fresh cigarette. “Why don’t you all do that? What’s the point of being a hiveling, anyway? Are you guys related to changelings, or not?”

Paper Heart shook his head. “Some of us were changelings. I was a pony. Detective Hard Egg, BPD. Supernatural crimes division.

“We don’t all do that because a real body is a real body. It can get sick, get hurt, grow old, and die. All a part of life, but we’ve got work to do. Lots of work. Work that’s going to take a while. And it’s a one-way trip — copying a living creature’s soul onto a soul chip requires necromancy, which we can do, but we won’t unless we have a damn good reason to. Any other questions you can ask in the Hive. Which we need to get you to.”

“Are you going to blindfold me, so I don’t see where it is?”

Paper Heart laughed. “Better grab your friend. It’s time.”

The room flashed with shimmering green light. She grabbed Bon Bon’s soul and stuffed it in her jacket pocket. She heard a soft ‘pomph’ of displaced air. Next thing she knew, she stood on a hexagonal platform in a pre-fab metal room similar to but not exactly like a Stable room. Electromagical converters arched overhead, wrapped with cables and bulging with insulating padding.

“Nice teleporter,” said Lyra. “So we’re under CIM?”

“Naw,” said Paper Heart. “Too obvious. Honestly, none of us know where we are. It’s safer that way.”

Lyra walked to the edge of the platform. Steps led down to a corrugated metal floor crisscrossed with more cables. A door irised open; a single hiveling stood waiting for them.

“Lyra Heartstrings,” he said. “It’s good to see you again. Especially after you’ve done so much for us.”

“Again? Wait…” She searched her memory. That voice sounded familiar. “Dr. Vertex? I don’t know if you remember me… I took your magical materials lecture freshman year…”

“Of course I remember you. You were an excellent student. I always knew you’d amount to something. Walk this way please.”

Lyra wanted to be self-effacing — she hadn’t amounted to much of anything in life. But in this living afterlife, she’d done a lot already. She knew she’d never lived up to her potential. Throughout her foalhood, her family and teachers had told her how smart she was. Such a good student. Such a good magician. But in the real world, with nothing to keep her focused… nothing to keep her on task…

The weight of the small parcel in her jacket pocket pulled her mind to it. This wasn’t about her. Anyway, out in the wasteland, where death came from sudden random angles at any time, her distractibility was a merit.

Dr. Vertex led them down a long spare metal corridor. These sorts of corridors were all the rage in wasteland interior design. Would it kill anycreature to build something a little homier?

“So some of you were changelings, and some of you were ponies,” said Lyra. Dr. Vertex had been a changeling; one of the few openly living in Equestrian society before the great metamorphosis.

“Oh, yes, all sorts of creatures. But mostly changelings — both those who had attained the final metamorphosis and those who had not. We all knew megaspell war was coming, sooner or later. And with it a famine of the love we needed to survive. We needed a way to make sure our culture and our genetic legacy continued. So we developed synthetic bodies, we developed soul chip technology — which we sold commercially to finance our operation — and we developed forced growth cloning so that when Equestria flows with love again, we can return to flesh and blood bodies.” He stopped at a door much like the dozens of others they’d passed. “Because being a robot? Living without love? It kind of sucks.”

“Why did you include creatures who aren’t changelings though?”

The room was dominated by a huge semicircular bronze tank taking up one entire wall and half of the available floor space. Most of the rest of the room was filled by a bank of computers — high-end InterStar terminals! Her horn itched to poke around on those things; her hacking skills were getting rusty on RoanCo’s pathetic security.

“That was Paper Heart’s idea,” said Dr. Vertex, taking a stool at one of the terminals. “He was investigating us for necromancy — which of course we were guilty of! But he agreed it was a worthwhile cause, and suggested we try to get as many creatures as could be trusted with the secret on-board. We didn’t know how bad the megaspells would be. What if they’d wiped out all organic life?”

“We would have felt just awful,” said Paper Heart dryly, sitting down next to Vertex.

Vertex entered some commands on his terminal. A cylindrical housing amongst the computers slid open, revealing a socket.

Lyra gently unwrapped the towel and pulled out BON-80n’s soul chip. “Do I just…?”

“It looks like the connections are intact. Go ahead.”

The soul chip slid into its home. Vertex tapped on his keyboard, and the chip began to glow.

“What if she doesn’t want to be a pony?”

“We’re going to ask her,” said Vertex, typing rapidly, making words appear in a text editor. His magic faded away from the keys, but words kept appearing. Lyra leaned over in front of the screen, shoving Vertex aside rather rudely. The screen was filled with code in a language Lyra didn’t know. She began typing, hoping BON-80n’s soul would recognize natural language inputs.

Bon Bon, it’s Lyra. Is that really you?

Yes.

Are you okay? How are you feeling?

I must admit I am feeling a bit dead at the moment.

What’s it like?

It is.

Vertex patted her on her shoulder. “You’ll get better conversation out of her if you let us put her in a body. If you don’t mind?”

Lyra gnawed on the edge of her hoof wall. “Is it okay if I smoke?”

“Your friend's new lungs will be very delicate when she leaves her tank. She’ll recover quickly but I’d ask you to refrain until you return to the wasteland. At which point cigarette smoke will hardly be the worst thing she’s likely to inhale.”

Lyra nodded. “Okay.” She drummed her hooves against her knees. What was taking so long?

A deep, throbbing hum came from the semicircular tub. It split up the middle, and two doors slid open to show a platform holding ranks of large glass cylinders on a curved conveyor belt. In each cylinder amongst murky fluid and biological-looking coils floated a creature. Changelings — brightly colored and dull-armored alike — a yak, a hippogriff, and two ponies. Lyra stared, open-mouth, as the conveyor beneath the cylinders whirred them away, and brought a new set of bodies, this time all ponies.

Lyra’s eyes flicked across them, wondering which one…

Oh no.

Oh no no no.

Not her.

She floated in the second tank from the left. A small mare, barely larger than a foal, gray, with a brown mane.

Fucking Littlepip. Littlepip was real! In a hiveling lab! Was this a trick? Some kind of joke? She glanced sidelong at Vertex and Paper Heart, but their ceramic faces betrayed no clues. They had better not put Bon Bon in that beast’s body. She’d scream. She’d cry. She’d…

Littlepip and the rest of her batch whirred away, replaced by another set. Then another. This set stayed there for longer. Vertex’s terminal pinged softly.

“She’s chosen.”

One cylinder slid forward. A cream-colored earth pony mare with a blue and pink mane hung nose down in it, still as death. A tremor passed through her body. A glow encased her bottom, fading to reveal a cutie mark of a pile of hard candies. The fluid sloshed and drained, leaving a limp pile of pony covered in a thick white caul. Vertex and Paper Heart rushed up onto the platform. Lyra tried to follow, but Paper Heart held her back with a hoof on her shoulder. “This is delicate, please wait.”

They helped tear the caul away from Bon Bon’s eyes and mouth and pulled it back over her body, leaving her trembling, damp, naked. Her coat stood up in little ruffled spikes. Her mane stuck to her neck. Lyra found herself on the platform next to them despite Paper Heart’s warnings. She reached out to help Bon Bon up.

“Non," said Bon Bon, her voice faint and choked as though it had never been used before. “Let me.” She gathered her four knees under her, hesitantly, one at a time. She pushed up, legs out of synch, and tumbled back down with a soft grunt.

It took her three more tries to find her hooves; three tries until she stood wobbling on thick earth pony legs. She let Lyra help her off the platform, and huddled against her side while the hivelings brought her a blanket.

“These eyes. Is this how you see me?” said Bon Bon.

“Yes,” said Lyra.

“I thought I had seen you before. But now when I look at you, I feel as though I might die. I could look at you forever, and it would never be enough.”

“Yes,” said Lyra.”That’s how I see you.”

“Is this what love is?”

“Sometimes?”

“How do you bear it?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra sat beside Bon Bon’s cot, watching her sleep. A doctor — of medicine, not geomancy like Doctor vertex — had checked her vitals and her cognitive functioning. They’d given her some broth and Lyra a pre-war self-heating military ration. Chipped tofu on noodles with creamed corn. Lyra had been so hungry that she’d actually enjoyed it.

After that Lyra had caught Bon Bon up on what had happened since she died — skimming over the month of psychological torture as mere captivity; she wasn’t ready to remember that and Bon Bon didn’t need that kind of stress right now — and expressed her concern about getting back to Stable 93 as quickly as possible. The hivelings had offered to teleport them close to the stable in the morning, but Lyra was worried she’d find Easy Money already besieging the place.

Bon Bon drowsily agreed that the situation was urgent and that she would insist to the hivelings that they must leave immediately, regardless of her condition.

Then she had fallen asleep. She snored softly, looking so peaceful that Lyra didn’t have the heart to wake her. She’d let the whole world burn for this little pony. But she’d felt that way about Beanpole, once. What had happened to them?

Instead of thinking about that, she worried about Littlepip. What had she seen? A gray mare’s body. Gray wasn’t an uncommon color. She’d been mistaken.

But.

Her small size. Her brown mane. Her earnest expression, severe yet hopeful, even in repose. It had to have been her.

But if it was Littlepip, what did that mean?

Lyra looked at the dial on her EFS, scanning it for neutral brown pips. She was alone. Or at least, theoretically alone. Paper Heart hadn’t shown up on the EFS when he’d been disguised as a trash bin in 114.

If she wanted time on one of those InsterStar terminals, now would be the moment. There wasn’t one in Bon Bon’s room, so she slipped out into the dim corridor. The only sounds were the hum of the lights overhead and the soft whir of the environmental systems. She smelled mostly dust. Where was everybotty? Either there weren’t many hivelings; they were all out on operations, or this complex was much bigger than they needed.

Only a few open doors later, she found an examination room with a terminal in it. She pulled over a rolly office chair and lit a cigarette. How was she even going to do this? She’d started to think of herself as a hotshot hacker since she’d entered the Wasteland, but that was because she knew about the holes in an OS that hadn’t had a security update in twenty years. She pouted at the keyboard for a few minutes, then began guessing passwords. She didn’t recall anything about Vertex’s personal life — he had a pet rhino beetle named Spiny or something, but that didn’t work. She tried nerd passwords — the middle names of important wizards, the hydrogen line, Fibonacci numbers, pi out as far as she could remember it. The terminal tried to lock her out every third try, but she found that if she backed out of the login and then went in again, it completely forgot who she was and she could start over.

It didn’t help. She checked all the drawers in the room for notebooks and scraps of paper. That didn’t help either. She tapped her head against the terminal’s monitor and snorted in frustration. This was going to be a total wash.

As a last resort, she typed twilightisaputz*69.

Littlepip popped up on her screen and waved a hoof at her in a ‘naughty naughty’ gesture. Lyra yelped in surprise.

“Quiet, you’ll wake your friend,” said the examining table.

Lyra yelped again and kicked the chair back towards the wall. “How long have you been there?”

“Pretty much the whole time,” said Paper Heart, reverting to his normal form. “Remember that I met you before — briefly, but it was instructive. We hid the silverware before you came over.”

“Who’s Littlepip?” said Lyra.

“Can’t say I recognize the name,” said Paper Heart. “Should I?”

“I’ve been hallucinating her since I arrived in the wasteland. She’s been haunting my PipBuck. I thought she was a figment of my imagination until I saw her in one of your glass tanks.”

“How do you know that wasn’t a hallucination, too?”

“Stop being a smart ass and tell me the truth.”

“What are you hoping to find, here? That you’re a victim of the hiveling conspiracy?”

Lyra swallowed on a dry throat. That was the least of her worries. “Am I a hiveling? Dr. Vogel Kamph said I was.”

Paper Heart gestured towards the terminal. “You’re in. Why don’t you have a look around.”

Lyra rolled back to the screen. “I just logged in with my old password. This is my school account.” She riffled through her old files, then logged into her Dragonmail account and searched for messages from doctor Vertex.

“If you were a hiveling, and we were keeping it secret from you, how big a conspiracy would that have to be? Everyone you knew from before the war would have to be a hiveling too. Or in on the conspiracy.”

Lyra scowled. Her communications with Vertex were all school bullshit. This was getting her nowhere. “Who would that be? Soft Sounds and Bean. Rarity’s your ally. Bon Bon and Codsworth, but robot memories are pretty easy to tamper with.”

“Your husband?”

“Does he even exist?” Lyra felt her voice cracking. “Am I even real?” She searched her account for ‘Littlepip’. She found a single entry; a drawing a friend had sent her. A cowgirl unicorn firing a pair of six guns. Her coat looked gray on the monochrome monitor.

“You’re real right now. What does it matter who you are or where you’d come from?”

“I notice you’re not saying ‘oh, don’t worry, Lyra. You’re not a hiveling.’”

Paper heart took off his hat and rubbed his hoof against his head. “You’re giving me a headache, kid. What makes you think I know? We don’t have any kind of hierarchy here. It’s a stupid story; completely absurd. It’s not impossible. Somebotty might’ve set you up as a sleeper agent, but it’d pull a lot of resources and we have bigger fish to fry.”

Lyra spun around to face him and crossed her forelegs across her chest. “Like what?”

“I imagine you’ll be going hoof to hoof with Ponysmith soon. I don’t think you’ll have trouble talking the Minutemares into backing you up. There’s a lot of bad blood there.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. You want me to leave him alone to maintain the balance of power in the wasteland.”

Paper Heart’s ceramic lower eyelid twitched. “What?!”

“That’s what Rarity wanted.”

“Rarity? Damn that mare.” He shook his head. “She’s naive. She thinks everything is sunshine and friendship problems like it was for her in the old days. That the bad guys are all tripping over each other to repent. It never was like that — when I was a cop, I saw things that’d curdle a raider’s blood. But she’s still an innocent small-town pony at heart. I wish it was Fluttershy who’d gotten Twilight’s power. Her, Pinkie, Applejack. Someone with the will to do what needs to be done. But… well, she’s the element bearer we’ve got. She’s better than nothing. But she’s wrong. A lot. Especially about Ponysmith. Show him no mercy. Kill him if you get a chance. He’s a damn monster, as I think you well know.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Lyra, logging out of the terminal. “Fuck all this intrigue. I’m going to go try to get some sleep.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Rainpril 8th, EOH 47

The flash of the teleport gave way to the blinding glow of morning light on snow. Lyra squinted and shaded her eyes with her hoof. They were on a hilltop. A sign swung in the breeze, offering pies.

“Oh!” said Bon Bon. “We are not far from the stable at all!”

Lyra turned to look at the sturdy mare standing knee-deep in fresh snow, wearing a puffy jacket, knit cap, boots, and no pants. She was staring at the snowflakes blowing off the trees as though she had never seen such a thing before and could not begin to imagine how something so wonderful could exist. Noticing Lyra’s stare, she looked at her without altering her expression.

“Bon Bon!” said Lyra.

“Que?” said Bon Bon.

“Bon Bon!” said Lyra.

“Everything is so new!”

“You’re so new!” said Lyra, prancing around Bon Bon in a circle.

Bon Bon laughed and spun in place to keep facing Lyra. “I thought I knew what it was to feel! But everything feels so raw! So powerful! So… how do you say… so intense!”

“You’re intense!”

“You are moving so fast!” said Bon Bon, still spinning. “Oh, and now I am dizzy.” She sat butt down in the snow.

Lyra was considering whether she and Bon Bon had reached the stage of their relationship where it was okay to jump on her and stuff snow down her collar when she felt a familiar tingle at the base of her tail. She lifted her ears and raised a hoof. Bon Bon became silent and still.

Lyra turned her head, looking for red pips on her EFS. A few of them came around the edge of the compass dial. And then more. And more. Then her EFS crashed.

Haystack Overflow. Insufficient memory. Please contact your licensed PipBuck technician.

Lyra swore and shut off her EFS. “Bon Bon. Get down and stay there until I tell you to. Do you understand?”

Bon Bon nodded and nestled into the snow. Lyra got on her belly and crawled across the hilltop. She poked her head over a low stone wall and looked down to the valley. There was a camp down there — a large, orderly one with packed snow walls and square blocks of tents crisscrossed by evenly spaced paths. Hundreds of ponies in black uniforms and heavy helmets milled around, breaking down tents and extinguishing cooking fires. Ponies in camouflage-painted power armor watched them work. Near the center of the camp, a knot of bronze and gold armored ponies talked to a large, naked white unicorn with a scar on his cheek.

“Oh, Celestia frig me with a weedwacker,” muttered Lyra. “I cannot deal with this right now.” She wriggled back through the snow to Bon Bon, moving as fast as she could without standing up.

“What is happening?” said Bon Bon. “What did you see?”

“We’re going through the woods. Follow me, and try to stay quiet. Easy Money’s already here.”

Level Up
New perk: Do Bi Mares Dream of Electric Friends?If Bon Bon is in your party, once a day the you can heal 100 hit points if their current total is below 10%.

Chapter 24: St. Crispy's Day

On the monitor, Unislaves stood in concentric circles on the hilltop around the stable door, horns linked by beams of light. In the center, at the edge of the door, twenty centurions gathered the magic from their maniples and transferred the energy to Easy Money.

Lyra adjusted the camera controls to zoom in on him. His mane floated out from his neck, blond wisps hovering independently of any breeze. His horn glowed bright, then flashed with a layer of overglow, followed by a second and a third. A wide beam shot out from his horn.

“What’s he doing?” said Crispy, leaning over her shoulder. “Can you tell me what spell that is?”

“Hold on, hold on,” said Lyra, zooming out. “Looks like some kind of conjuration.”

A glowing diamond-shaped solid hovered over the Stable 93 door. A spiral groove dug itself into the diamond’s surface. Lyra didn’t realize what she was seeing until the drill began to spin.

“Oh fuck,” said Lyra, Crispy, and Vindaloo with one breath.

The drill lowered slowly until the tip touched the stable door.

A horrible screech echoed through the foyer. The walls of the security room began to shake.

“This is my fault,” said Lyra.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Vindaloo.

Lyra hung her head. “I showed them how to do that. When I was being tortured. They asked me about amniomorphic spells. They said they’d let me see my son if I cooperated. So I showed them the best ones I know. It seemed so harmless. It seemed really basic. But I know some really good ones that will let dozens of unicorns cooperate on a spell. Like this. So this attack? What happened to 114? This is all on me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Vindaloo.

Lyra looked up. Blinked. “But I caved under torture.”

“Everycreature caves under torture. That’s why they do it to you,” said Vindaloo. She hugged her. “I should never have let you go.”

“I know what an amniomorphic spell is,” said Crispy. “They’re a tool. Harmless to a pony with an innocent mind. It takes a monster to use one to build a stable cracker or a megaspell.”

Lyra pushed her face against Vindaloo’s hard chest. “A monster or Fluttershy.”

“Yeah, well.” Crispy whacked a hoof against the button of the PA microphone. “All right, my little ponies. This is it. Ponysmith’s troops are coming into the stable; there’s no way to keep them out. Some of you remember the last time someone tried to take over our stable. As tough a battle as that was, this one’s going to be worse.

“I’m not going to lie to you — we’re outnumbered, we’re outgunned, and there’s no place to run. Are you afraid to fight? I’ve got bad news for you — there’s no place else to go. This is the last chance: not just for you and me. Not just for the Minutemares. But for freedom in the wasteland.

“But we can win this fight. We can, and we will. And when creatures across the wasteland ask you if you fought the Ponysmith, you will show them your scars, and you will tell them, ‘I earned these at Stable 93!’”

“Nice speech,” said Lyra, after he released the PA button.

“Thanks. It wasn’t completely original,” said Crispy.

“We’ve got to get to our positions,” said Vindaloo. “Lyra, have you gotten anywhere on that helmet?”

“No,” said Lyra, honestly.

“Well get your ass in gear. We haven’t got much time.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Rainpril 9th, EOH 47, 3:00 AM

The sound of gunfire rattled through the walls of Lyra’s office like a thousand hyperactive jackhammers.

“All right! I’ve got something!” said Lyra, unplugging her PipBuck from the terminal and screwing the case back on. She entered a simple command, ‘order:status’ into her improvised interface and got a response that the Sombra helmet was awaiting instructions. She felt elated, and at the same time like she needed a bath. This wasn’t just a bad feeling about the helmet’s negative association; she could feel the residue of its dark magic sliding along the surface of her soul like an oil slick. “It’s working!”

Paneer squinted at the helmet, then at Lyra. “How can you tell?”

“Well, it’s talking to my PipBuck.”

Paneer pursed her lips. “It’s talking to you, but is it being honest?”

“Only one way to find out,” said Lyra. She looked over towards her smaller terminal, which they’d set to view one of the camera feeds from the atrium.

A little before midnight, Easy Money’s magic drill had torn through the stable door. He sent in a flood of unislaves backed by a withering fusillade of magic support. Over the intervening hours, the sounds of gunfire and screaming had drawn gradually closer while Lyra and Paneer struggled to hack the Sombra helmet. The atrium was the Minutemare’s last line of defense. While it was a great place for an ambush, with only one entrance from outside, it was also the final place they could mount a concentrated defense. After that, the stable broke off into a half dozen little complexes — maintenance, residential, storage, administrative, the technical wing, and the reclaimed secret stable. Easy Money could concentrate his forces against these one at a time, and clean out remaining resistance with minimal casualties.

Lyra couldn’t tell how the battle was going from the camera feed. She could see Vindaloo, ensconced in cover on the atrium mezzanine with the anti-machine rifle. The minigun and the fifty caliber machine gun had been deployed in the foyer; with those presumably lost that rifle was the last weapon the Minutemares had that could be relied on to take down a centurion or penetrate Easy Money’s shields.

Except for Little Macintosh, which Lyra had lent to Vindaloo as well.

Aside from two burned-out power armors on the atrium floor — impossible to tell if they were friend or foe in black and white — there was no sign of Easy Money or his centurions. Instead, a swarm of unislaves tore away at Vindaloo’s cover with magic bolts and telekinesis. Minutemare small arms fire tore them down, but their casualties were instantly replaced from an endless pool of ponypower.

“Fuck this death trap,” muttered Lyra. “Okay, I’m trying the ‘order:remove’ command I coded. Let me know how the metrics look.”

“Any time, now,” said Paneer, glaring at the monitors.

“I’m doing it!” The captured Sombra helmet stared at Lyra, implacable in its refusal to do anything mystical. “Fucking Luna ream my ass with a minigun, what the hell?” At least the damn thing could have smoked and whispered seductive imprecations like it had a half dozen times already today. On the monitor, the battle continued uninterrupted. “Paneer, what happened?”

Paneer pushed her mane out of her eyes with her flipper and scowled at the screen. “I don’t know! I see where you made the input, but it just ignored you.”

“Well, nopony’s wearing it. Did the signal go through to the other helmets?”

“It looks like it did. See?” She pointed at one of the graphs on the screen. “But nothing happened to them, either.

Lyra tossed her PipBuck on the table. “What are we doing wrong?”

“The helmet can’t exactly take itself off, can it?” said Paneer. She hopped out of her chair and lifted the helmet in her magic. “Let’s test it on me."

“Paneer, no!” said Lyra, plopping a force field between her apprentice and the helmet.

She pushed her face stubbornly against the implacable shield. “We gotta test this! You’re the one who knows how to code, and I’m the only other one here!”

“I can’t let you do it,” said Lyra, picking Paneer up and putting her back in her chair.

“Why? Because I might get hurt? Or killed?” She waved at the camera feed. “Just let me do this!”

Lyra looked at the helmet still hovering in the middle of the room. She looked back at the camera feed. Nothing on there but ranks of unislaves hurrying across the atrium. She nodded sharply at Paneer, who nodded back and levitated the helmet onto her head.

The helmet snapped down onto Paneer’s skull like a fat black tick. Behind the visor slit, her eyes glowed lambent green.

“Oh no. Oh no no no no,” said Lyra.

Paneer’s horn, poking through its slot in the armor, glowed feebly, sparks of raw magic dancing off it, and skittering across the floor.

Lyra entered ‘order:remove’ on her PipBuck.

Paneer did not remove her helmet.

Instead, she jumped at her. She landed on her back — her slight weight wasn’t enough to knock her down, but she raised her helmeted head and knocked it against the back of Lyra’s skull.

They both fell to the ground, rolling over and over. Lyra couldn’t get a grip on the helmet with her magic. She wedged her hooves under the edge of the helmet and pulled up, wrenching it free.

“I’m sorry! I’m Sorry!” wailed Paneer, burying her face in Lyra’s chest ruff.

“It’s my fault,” said Lyra, holding her close as they lay on the floor. “It didn’t work and it’s my fault. I’m so sorry. We won’t do that again.”

Paneer pulled back and looked up at her. “We have to, Lyra. We have to keep trying until they come to kill us.”

The door of Lyra’s workroom slid open. “Am I interrupting anything?” said Easy Money.

Lyra startled to her hooves as the door slid closed behind him. Paneer darted away to hide under Lyra’s cot. Lyra had given Vindaloo Little Macintosh for the battle, but her 10mm rested on the work table. She whipped it off the table with her telekinesis, activated SATS, and fired three shots at his head. He raised a shield with barely a flicker of glow from his horn, and the bullets ricocheted around the room. Lyra switched to magic bolts; they evaporated against his shield like smoke.

She gritted her teeth and summoned a serried row of her magical lyre wires. She didn’t know how to make those move, so she conjured them right through where his head was. He danced back before her spell was complete; one of the invisible wires sliced away a tuft of his forelock.

He slammed a force field down on her face and pressed her against the rubber nubs of the non-slip floor. “Are we done?”

“No,” said Lyra, struggling to breathe against the pressure of her force field.

Easy Money shook his head. His usual punchable smile slipped into a condescending frown. “Why not? What have you accomplished here? What did you gain by running away from me?”

Lyra didn’t respond. Just watched him. The force field against her face distorted his image.

“Let’s see. We know your son helped you. So I’ll be torturing him when I get back to Sawhorse. And you lead me to the Minutemare’s last hideout. We would have found them soon anyway, but following you brought us here that much faster. And of course, the caul spells you taught me gave us a way to get inside stables. So now your friends are all dead or dying. The Minutemares have cleared out most of the raiders in the area for us, so after this, we’ll tidy up Rarity’s pathetic little playhouse, and then we can focus on the alicorns.

“You’ve given Ponysmith his victory. You should be proud.”

Lyra shrieked and summoned a wedge-shaped shield in between his force field and her body. She wrenched the field aside, rolled away, and picked up her gun with her magic.

He slapped her down with another force field. “I’m sorry. Do you have a plan? I could just turn off your magic with my PipBuck, but it’s not worth the effort. It’s easier to keep countering you. You’re strong, but you’re no match for me.”

“What do you want?” said Lyra. Tears of pain and humiliation shot down her face as his force field bore down on her body, pressing her against the floor, making her bones creak. “Why don’t you just kill me?”

He tilted his head to one side. “Well, I have some free time. This battle’s essentially over. And I’m very upset that my work with you turned out so poorly. You helped us, sure. But I had such high hopes for you. You were going to be my greatest accomplishment — Celestia’s own student, turned into my faithful lieutenant.

“It’s a bit petulant, but can you blame me? How would you feel if your student turned her back on you?”

“Go away!” Screamed Paneer from under the bed.

Easy Money leaned down over Lyra. “I like her. She has spirit. It’s a shame I have to kill her. I tell you what — let’s make a deal. Remember that thing I promised never to do to you? Well, you’re not my type. But your son is very handsome. At least, he is right now. Maybe not when I’m done with him.”

He dismissed his shield and kicked the 10mm pistol over to her. “Shoot yourself, and I won’t make him my toy. And as a bonus, I’ll take your apprentice over for you. She’ll be in good hooves with me.”

Lyra scrambled to a sitting position and grabbed the pistol with her magic. She aimed at him. He smiled at her, eyes tolerant.

The cot rattled as it flipped to one side and bounced off the wall. Paneer rose into the air, mane waving as if underwater, eyes glowing. Overglow shone from her horn.

Easy Money sighed theatrically and slammed her against the wall with a force field. She fell in a heap on the floor. "No time for that, foal. You can find your special talent later."

“You bastard,” growled Lyra.

“It’s not my fault. I told you to kill yourself, and you deliberately disobeyed me. Look what you’ve done by resisting me. Look at the damage you’ve caused.”

Lyra looked at the pistol lying on the floor. It was worse than Easy Money knew. She’d started her life with so much promise. The only thing of value she’d ever built had been her family, and now that was gone. Her husband had left her — why? — her son had become a fascist. She would only hurt him more by continuing to resist.

She’d let the wasteland make her a killer. What was one last murder on the way out?

She picked up the gun and entered SATS. It gave her 95% to hit her own head.

“I’m sorry, Paneer.”

She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. The gun boomed loud in her ears.

She felt nothing. Saw nothing but darkness. Heard nothing but a faint ringing tone.

Who knew death had been so easy all along?

She noticed she was still breathing. She opened her eyes and tried to make sense of what she saw.

A glow the color of Paneer’s magic tinted her vision green. Paneer hung in the air again with her eyes glowing. Lyra’s pistol still pointed at her own head. Easy Money stood slacked-jawed, a red 10mm hole in the middle of his forehead: Lyra’s bullet had ricohetted of Paneer’s shield and hit him in the face. “Mother,” he said. “What have I done?” And then he fell down.

Lyra rushed over to Paneer. “Are you all right? Are you all right?”

“My first kill,” said Paneer, falling to the ground with a thump. Then she gasped. “Oh my Harmony, my cutie mark!” A glow encompassed her hips and faded to reveal a pony skull, facing the viewer, with a rose blooming in the center of its forehead.

“Whoa,” said Lyra.

“It’s so beautiful!” gasped Paneer.

“Are you hurt?” said Lyra.

“Nope,” said Paneer, staring joyously at her own butt.

Lyra looked hesitantly at Easy Money’s corpse. They’d beaten him, but it didn’t matter — he’d said the battle was over, and she and Paneer were only safe in here until one of his centurions stopped to open the door and see how their commanding officer was doing. They’d failed to hack the Sombra helmets, and now they needed a plan to escape the stable alive.

Then she noticed something: the corpse wasn’t a corpse. He was still breathing. Unconscious, brain-damaged, probably a vegetable for life, but still alive. She rushed over and grabbed his limp foreleg. His PipBuck reported that his head was at 0% condition, but he was still logged in.

She navigated to the Unislave control program. It was still active. Where was the command to make them remove their helmets?

“Oh. I’m an idiot.” That was why her code hadn't worked. There was no such command. Why would Sombra have included that in the design? These helmets were never meant to be taken off, except in death. No wonder ‘order:remove’ hadn’t worked!

She bit her lower lip and scanned through the other commands. ‘Halt’ and ‘Hold Fire’ ought to buy the Minutemares some time. And because Easy Money was in command of this legion, he had the option to override his subordinates and issue these commands to the whole army.

So she did that. It took less than a minute for two confused centurions to show up at her door.

“We surrender,” said Lyra, kicking her pistol over to them and holding her hooves in the air.

“What happened to him,” said one of the centurions, helmeted head tilting to one side as she looked at Easy Money. His head was arranged so the wound faced away from them, and Lyra had cleaned up most of the blood.

“He just collapsed,” said Lyra. “He’s still breathing.”

The centurion stepped into the room, and her head came off as Lyra’s monofilament string cut through her neck. The other centurion staggered back, firing the dual combat shotguns mounted to his battle saddle. Lyra raised the shield spell she had ready and opened a firing port in it so she could blast magic bolts through it.

Her bolts only made dents in his thick armor, and she could feel her shield starting to give way under the concentrated assault of two fully automatic drum-fed shotguns.

She was starting to worry when the centurion’s left knee exploded in gore and shrapnel. He went down. Crispy, resplendent in Field Marshal Fizzlepop’s purple power armor, leaped on him to hold him down. Vindaloo rushed over, Little Macintosh in her mouth, almost as big as her whole head. She pressed the muzzle to the joint between the centurion’s helmet and his neck armor and fired.

“You’re alive!” said Lyra, checking up and down the corridor for red pips on her EFS before going out to greet them. Pips crowded the display, but most were a neutral brown. “The unislaves! They stopped fighting?”

“You took your time,” said Vindaloo, emptying spent brass from Little Macintosh. “Where’s my daughter?”

Max Level

New Perk: Important Wizard. Any further experience you gain is divided amongst members of your faction.

Chapter 25: Genghis Khan

Rainpril 12th, EOH 47

Lyra hung around the back of Paneer’s Cuteceañera, nursing a moonshine sour and a feeling of social awkwardness that no amount of alcohol could dispel. Social awkwardness wasn’t a feeling Lyra was much accustomed to, but she had an agenda for the evening that was fraught with emotional peril.

Victory hadn’t come easily after Easy Money’s death — though there were few centurions left, the shortage of anti-armor weapons made taking them down safely a difficult proposition. The last centurion had held out in a storage area for three days before pretending to surrender. Unfortunately for her, Ditzy Do’s delivery griffons had made a couple of visits by then — one to drop off Rarity’s promised shipment of ballistic fabric, and a second to trade some of the detritus of Ponysmith’s destroyed legion for .50 ammunition and a bunch of those cute little single shot anti-machine rockets.

They captured his armor with only a few holes in it.

The days since the battle had been exhausting. Countless things had been broken in the battle, from bullet holes in the walls to the twisted wreckage of the stable door. Even with Paneer’s help, she’d been working twelve-hour days or longer just to restore essential services.

On top of that, Vindaloo and Crispy had assigned Lyra as the liaison to the former unislaves now living in the stable. As much as Lyra resented the extra duty, she supposed that as the highest-ranking unicorn associated with the Minutemares (by default) the assignment sort of made sense.

She’d had time to meet the unicorns’ elected representative, River Kisses, exactly once. She’d sat through the meeting staring through the opposite wall and nodding at anything Lyra said.

These unicorns had a lot to process.

Given that, she’d been worried about how Paneer’s party would go. Of course Crispy and Vindaloo had to invite the new unicorns; it would have been rude not to, also tribalist, and most importantly it would have greatly upset their unicorn daughter. The numbers of both groups were almost equal: the Minutemares had grown greatly in numbers while Lyra had been away. But even taking out the horrific Unislave casualties and the ones who left after the Minutemares freed them from their helmets, there were still a huge number of them remaining.

Lyra had expected tribal tensions. She had been prepared for blood.

But Paneer, proud unicorn, had already made friends amongst the newcomers, and then made sure to introduce her new friends to old friends who shared their interests. By the time the stable was in good enough order to hold her cutie mark party, the seeds of friendship were already blooming, and the two groups were mixing without rancor.

Twilight Sparkle would have been proud.

It made Lyra a bit envious that Paneer had her shit together to such a great extent at such a young age. But for once something in the Wasteland had not come out in the worst possible way. The Minutemares had their problems, but they were good ponies.

Not that the bar was set very high, here. Earth ponies, unicorns, thestrals, and pegasi had been living in peace for millennia. But it made her happy that in at least this small place and this one small way, things were starting to get back to normal.

Which left her free to obsess about her personal problems.

Blue Note was here, and so was Bon Bon. She wanted to dump Blue Note so that she could start things up with Bon Bon. That was the right thing to do, right? It wasn’t like she had any other loose ends. She hadn’t talked to Soft Sounds while she was in Triple Diamond City, but she had extenuating circumstances, right? And it’s not like she had a missing husband or anything.

Lyra sighed. “I’m a trash pony. I shouldn’t do this.” She slugged back the rest of her cocktail and started weaving her way through the crowd towards Blue Note anyway.

“Lyra!” said Blue Note, hugging her. “Blue Note missed you so much while you were away. She is so grateful for everything you’ve done for her.”

Oh, shit shit shit shit. “I missed you too, Blue Note,” she said, feeling like an utter heel for where she planned to take the conversation.

Blue Note backed out of the hug but kept one hoof on her shoulder. “So when Blue Note is feeling better, would you like to start the band up again? We have not played in far too long.”

“Oh, of course,” said Lyra, shuffling a hind hoof awkwardly. “I’d like that.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No, no, I’d love to.”

Blue Note looked away awkwardly. “Very good. Well. We have something else important to discuss.”

“We do,” said Lyra. Wait, how did Blue Note know that?

“When you were last here, we had a casual encounter,” said Blue Note.

“Um… We did? We did. We had one. Yes.”

“And it was very wonderful. But Blue Note doesn’t know if she was clear that Blue Note is not looking for a long term partner right now.”

“Oh.” What was happening?

“And Blue Note would not rule out another encounter in the future. But just as friends. Do you understand?”

Lyra understood she was being dumped. What the fuck? She was supposed to be the one doing the dumping! “Yeah. Yeah, of course. That was what I thought too.” Oh no no no this was not how this was supposed to go.

“Well,” said Blue Note.

Lyra wiped at her forehead. Was she sweating? She was sweating. “I, um, need some fresh air. See you at band practice?”

“Yes. Blue Note will see you at band practice.” They hugged again.

Lyra snuck out into the hall. Her eyes hurt. She was not going to cry. She’d been about to dump Blue Note, so why was she upset that Blue Note had dumped her first? “Ah, horseapples, why wouldn’t I be?”

She slumped back against the corridor wall and slid down it to slump on the floor. Staring through the other wall, she started cataloging everything she’d done wrong since the Bad Day, inclusive.

“Why are you crying, mon petit balloon?”

Lyra looked up at Bon Bon, who stood over her wearing a pre-war party dress, innocent blue eyes looking concerned. The dress was a little large; it came down at the neck to show the muscles of her chest.

“Nothing,” said Lyra, kicking at a scrap of paper on the floor with a forehoof.

“You cannot lie to me. I can no longer scan biometrics, but I have gained empathy, and detect that you are in severe emotional distress.”

“Okay. Fine. Blue Note Dumped me.”

“Oh no,” said Bon Bon, tone carefully neutral. “That must be awful for you.”

Lyra snorted. “Yeah. Because I’m so loyal to my partners.”

“I think there may be more to your distress than that. Paneer told me you tried to harm yourself during the battle.”

“What? Why that little Cozy Glow!”

Bon Bon stepped close, nosed Lyra’s cheek. “She did right to tell me. You are very valuable. To many ponies here. To me. And not just for your skills. Have you been taking the medication I gave you?

Lyra blushed, looked away. “Um, no.”

Bon Bon nodded. “Well, it was just a guess that it would work for you, anyway. Luckily, the Minutemares have attracted a psychiatrist. I will introduce you tomorrow. He can find you something more suited to your needs.”

“I’ve made so many mistakes.”

Bon Bon wrapped a foreleg across Lyra’s withers and pulled her against her. The soft exposed muscles of her dress pressed against Lyra’s snout. Her body tensed. She wanted to kiss them and never stop kissing them, but she didn’t dare. “You have also done so many things right. The party in the atrium is happening because of your contributions. The success of the Minutemares. The freed unicorn slaves. Paneer’s cutie mark — you were so important in bringing about all of those things. But I do not wish this conversation to remain, how do you say, in the abstract.”

Lyra’s breath hitched in her throat. “Bon Bon I love you.”

“I know, mon petite boîte de roches. I am too new to this body to fully understand its feelings, but I think that I love you, too.”

Lyra’s heart stopped beating. “You do?”

“And I desire you as well. And yet…” Bon Bon laid her head on top of Lyra’s “And yet new feelings are strange. I feel… a curious mistrust. Jealousy. Blue Note is dealt with, but Soft Sounds and your husband — what are they to you? I know there are creatures in this world who share lovers. But I do not know if I can. I wish you to be mine, and mine alone.” She looked away. “Lyra, is that wrong?”

“No.” Lyra’s throat felt dry. “I was looking for comfort. That’s all. You’re different.”

“And your husband?”

Lyra scowled. “I’d like to know that myself.”

Tears trickled down Bon Bon’s cheeks. “I thought I knew what it was to feel. But being organic — everything seems so urgent. It is overwhelming. Must we mate immediately? If we feel for each other? Is it considered permissible to wait until we are ready?”

Lyra blinked. “Of course it is! Of course! It’s enough to know that you love me.”

“Good. That is good. By may we kiss?”

Lyra lifted her head and brushed her lips gently against Bon Bon’s. The new mare gasped. “It tingles.”

“Kissing is fun.” She wrapped her lips around Bon Bon’s lower lip and suckled on it. Bon Bon’s body began to tremble ever so slightly. Lyra, overexcited, darted her tongue inside, brushing it against her teeth.

“Oh!” gasped Bon Bon. “Mon Harmonie!”

“I’m sorry,” said Lyra, leaning away from her. “Am I moving too fast?”

She squinted at her. “Why did you put your tongue in my mouth?”

Lyra laughed. “Don’t you know how kissing works?”

“I am blurry on many of the details, I admit.”

She batted her eyelashes at Bon Bon. “Did you like how it felt?”

Bon Bon tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. “Mouais. The tingling was very intense.”

Lyra patted the floor next to her. “Well, my pure and innocent friend, sit next to me. I’ll show you all kinds of ways I can make your mouth tingle.” Playing with Bon Bon was going to be very, very fun.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Rainpril 15th, EOH 47

The wind howled across the torn remains of the stable door, ripping at the tarp covering the opening. Stable 93’s foyer was freezing; even with the door closed everyone in the security station was dressed in coats and warm clothes.

Major Vindaloo kicked open the supports on the new whiteboard. The dry-erase marker squeaked on the board as Major Crispy sketched out the agenda for the staff meeting.

The majors were still the ranking officers, but there were now several lower-ranking officers — Lyra herself now held the rank of lieutenant (civilian contractor no more), and she recognized Rotgut, Star Metal (looking quite dashing with his facial scars and eyepatch), Haymaker (a bit of a surprise), and several others Lyra hadn’t met yet.

“All right,” said Vindaloo. “First, the elephant in the room.”

Crispy tapped the pool cue in his mouth against the words What’s up with Bon Bon?

“So I guess you’re not buying the Sweetie Drops story,” said Lyra, clutching her third cup of black coffee against her chest. Her new psychiatrist Dr. Puzzle was a kindly old zebra alchemist — not exactly dispelling any stereotypes there — and they’d talked about her problems, but mainly so he could decide what potion to give her. The selective smile rejection inhibitor he’d prescribed tasted chalky and bitter, and it took a lot of effort to get the flavor out of her mouth. Still, she felt a little better. Dr. Puzzle said that this early on it was unlikely to be the medicine, just hope.

Hope. The traitor emotion.

“Bon Bon and I have discussed this in private,” said Vindaloo, “And have decided that transparency is the best option.”

Crispy pointed his pool cue to where ‘transparency’ was written. “Bon Bon?”

Bon Bon sat up proudy on her stool. She glanced at Lyra before she spoke. “As no doubt many of you already suspect, I am a hiveling.”

“Whoa whoa whoa wait,” said Lyra. “I signed an agreement not to talk about this.”

Bon Bon shot her a quelling glance. “I did not, mon beau cheval. Perhaps because I am one of them.”

“Oh,” said Lyra. She sipped her coffee. Did that mean she herself definitely wasn’t a Hiveling? Or that the Hive wanted her to think that she definitely wasn’t a hiveling? “Objection withdrawn, I guess.”

Bon Bon explained what had happened in the CIM Hive from her point of view, and explained that as far as she, a medical professional, was able to determine, she was a normal earth pony in every way. “I understand that this might concern some of you. The Hive is Rarity’s ally, and Rarity ours, and yet they are secretive and do not inspire trust. I also know that while I am your friend and a creature of good will, I am not my own creation. I may be harboring secret impulses that are not to the benefit of the Minutemares.”

“What about surveillance systems?” said Vindaloo.

“Lyra can corroborate that we have discovered no evidence of technomagical implants in my body, and that there are no radio or magical signals emanating from it.”

Everycreature in the room laughed. Bon Bon blushed. “That was not what I meant.”

Lyra found herself grinning in a most ungallant way, and struggled to straighten her mouth. The two of them hadn’t even made it to second base yet, but let the Minutemares think what they wanted. She was well on her way to making Bon Bon her pleasure slave. “She’s clean.”

“I want to be clear,” said Vindaloo, “we’ve got to be consistent. Admitting Bon Bon into Minutemare-controlled territory means we have to admit any friendly, open hiveling of any model; we can’t discriminate against them in housing or trade; we can’t deny them from enlisting as Minutemares.”

“I don’t think we should allow secret hivelings…” said Haymaker.

“They have a grace period to identify themselves, maybe?” rumbled Star Metal.

Haymaker eyed Start Metal sidelong. “They could be spies.”

“Old Equestria allowed open changelings to become full citizens for hundreds of years before the war,” said Crispy, setting aside his pool cue, “and if there were any incidents of them serving as spies for Zebraica, I’ve yet to find a reference to one. They did serve as operatives for the PIA and EUP intelligence, though. If you’re picking up what I’m laying down.”

Vindaloo waved her hoof dismissively. “Secret hivelings are a separate issue. Let’s keep this on allowing open hivelings for now. For my part, I’m for it — Bon Bon has been an asset to the Minutemares. She delivered my son, and most of us have benefited from her care. I don’t trust the CIM Hive, but they’re not our enemies and not every Hiveling is loyal to them. Besides that, allowing hivelings into Triple Diamond City doesn’t seem to have done Rarity any harm.”

“Bon Bon saved my eye,” said Star Metal.

Haymaker tapped his hoof against his chin. “Well, she did save my knee.”

There was a general murmur of assent. Vindaloo put it to a vote; the result was unanimously in favor of Bon Bon.

Crispy tapped the pool cue against the next order of business.

“Ponysmith,” said Vindaloo. “Lyra. What’s the status on fixing the stable door?”

“There’s no keeping the horses out,” said Lyra. “The door itself is completely wrecked, and we don’t have the facilities to forge a new one. Plus the mechanism is badly damaged. I might be able to jury rig some of the parts we need for that, but ideally, we’d get spare parts from... you know, another stable." She didn't want to openly suggest looting 114, but if they didn't get on it soon somecreature else would. "As it is, the stable is completely indefensible.”

“It wasn’t all that defensible to begin with,” mumbled Crispy around the pool cue.

“We have to act quickly,” said Vindaloo. “It’s been almost a week; Ponysmith will have missed his legion by now. He may or may not know that we’ve hacked his Sombra Helmets, and the more time we leave him alone the more likely he is to find a workaround for that.

“We can’t wait for him to attack us again — we’re getting better at fighting against him, but if he comes back in greater numbers he can overwhelm us. Our only option is…” She waited for her husband to tap the words ‘attack Sawhorse Ironworks’ on the whiteboard. “…is to attack. Star Metal. What’s the status of our power armor?”

The big one-eyed earth pony crossed his forelegs across his chest. “Not good. I can patch together two usable suits from the parts we’ve got. And even with just two, there’s no way we’ve got enough spark batteries to march them all the way to Sawhorse. We’ll have to pull them on sleds. It’ll be slow, and we’ll be pretty vulnerable the whole march. There won’t be any question of surprise.

“The stable will be vulnerable the whole time, too,” said Vindaloo. “We’ll have to take almost the whole contingent of trained Minutemares if we’re going to have any chance of victory. We’ll have to leave the noncombatants and the unicorns protecting the stable and hope for the best. It’s risky, but it’s the only chance we’ve got.”

“It won’t work,” said Lyra.

“Oh, you’re the strategy expert, now?” said Vindaloo. “What’s your brilliant plan?”

“Actually, I just thought of one.” Lyra shotgunned the rest of her coffee and hopped off her stool. “Come outside, let me show you something.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Bon Bon, the Minutemare officers, and anypony who had noticed the ruckus stood around Lyra in a circle while she riffled through the cards stacked in the old parking lot. She lifted them one at a time with her telekinesis, pausing with each Cowvega station wagon to turn it around and see if it was Baby before setting it down neatly in a separate pile.

“Ah! This one’s mine,” she said.

“That’s nice,” said Vindaloo in a tone that suggested it wasn’t. “I’m glad you found your car. But what good does this do us? It doesn’t even have tires.”

“After all we’ve been through, you still doubt me?” Lyra had a look at the car’s undercarriage and, finding nothing seriously wrong, she set it down in the snow and popped the hood. “This was my Baby before the war. He’s seen hard times, but the engine’s still intact. Just needs a fresh spark battery and a flux regulator, and it looks like I’ve blown a seal.”

“I don’t need details about your personal life,” said Vindaloo. “What are you trying to say?”

Lyra slammed the hood shut. “I can get the old boy running again. Reinforce the undercarriage. Put some armor on him. He’s big enough to carry a few ponies to Sawhorse, fast enough that Ponysmith won’t know we’re coming. We’ll assassinate Ponysmith, free his unicorns, rescue my son, and get out. What do you think?”

Vindaloo arched one eyebrow. “I think this is your worst idea yet. How long will it take?”

Lyra gave her car a long evaluating look and ran some mental calculations. “A week. Give me a week.”

“You’ve got it. Drop everything else on your plate and focus on this. I’ll get a team together.”

Max Level

Chapter 26: Talent Supersedes (Reprise)

“Wow,” said Crispy. “That thing is really ugly.”

“Wrong,” said Lyra, slamming Baby’s hood shut. “It’s the most beautiful thing invented in the history of ever.” She wiped the oil off her hooves with a rag.

Lyra really had gotten the car ready in a week. Sleeping less than three hours a night, running on coffee and Jet (which Haymaker sold her on the sly when Bon Bon wouldn’t let her have any of her medicinal supply), and enlisting any nearby pony that didn’t look busy enough. The majors delegated Star Metal to help her with the armor and weapons since Lyra didn’t have a clue about those. A delivery thestral had arrived that morning with the flux regulator and a note from Ditzy saying it was on the house and good luck doing-you-know what to you-know-who.

The note had been decorated with little drawings of hearts and explosions.

So was her car. Paneer and the Stable 93 Committee for the Arts (which Paneer had somehow found time to form) had confirmed that stealth was not a priority for the vehicle’s mission, and gone crazy with it — black and white checkerboard patterns, neon-green-on-dayglo-orange dazzle camouflage, the afore-mentioned hearts and explosions, and cheerful little sayings like ‘THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS’ and ‘FUCK THE PONYSMITH’t. Since they also helped mount the armor, Lyra couldn’t complain.

She turned to the assembled residents of Stable 93. “All right,” she said, wiping the grease off her hooves with a rag. “Baby is a ‘17 Cowvega station wagon with a Biggs and Stallion sparkle engine under the hood packing 435 ponypower. I’ve modified her with four-wheel drive, a reinforced undercarriage, and solid tires for those rough wasteland roads. She’s equipped with composite armor,” a nice why of saying they’d put on whatever steel and ceramic plates they’d been able to scavenge, “a snow plow-cum-battering ram, a remote-controlled minigun turret operated from the passenger seat, and a mine dropper.

“I’ve taken out the back seats to allow extra room for weapons and supplies, and added firing ports for up to four ponies.”

“Will it hold power armor?” asked Crispy.

Lyra smacked the roof of the car. “Baby will hold exactly one suit of power armor. Now. Let’s see if he starts.”

Lyra slid into the driver’s seat, closed the door, put her hooves in the control yoke, and took a deep breath. She turned the ignition with her magic.

Baby rumbled.

Baby groaned.

Baby coughed and died.

“Come on guy,” whispered Lyra, stroking the control yoke. “I know you’ve had a rough time, but we really need you.”

She cranked the ignition again.

Baby’s engine roared into life.

Cheers and stomping from outside.

Lyra pressed a hind hoof on the gas pedal, and Baby lumbered out of his place in the packed snow. More cheering. Lyra honked and watched through the visor slit in the armor over the front window as the crowd hurried away from the front of the car. She headed for the wreckage of the outside wall gate, rumbled down the remains of the StableTec parking lot driveway, and signaled as she turned onto the main road.

Baby rattled and rumbled its way through packed snow, across potholes, and over downed limbs. The vibrations knocked her teeth together, but the car? The car didn’t care.

She did donuts in the Sanctuary Hills town green for an hour before she headed back.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra took one last look around her office, to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She had her armored jacket, a clean Stable 93 suit with ballistic patches sewed on at vital points, her helmet, Little Macintosh, her 10mm pistol, two rocket launchers, and a lunchbox mine. Her flechette pistol, loaded with the last few rounds of sleeping dart ammo, nestled against her breast. Her tools were in the car. She was probably ready.

Her eyes rested for a moment on the chipped-winged Somambula statue on the shelf over her desk. ‘’Never give up hope.” Lyra bit her lower lip. Hope was starting to seem like a poisonous emotion to her, making promises about the future it couldn’t fulfill. Right now her deepest hope was that things would change, That they would go back to the way they were before the war. That Rarity and the Minutemares could forge a new Equestria like the one she had left behind on the Bad Day. Was there cause for hope? She felt it eating at her belly; the anxiety of an unproven future.

She turned to look in the full-length mirror by her door.

A terrifying mare looked back at her. Hard eyed. Battle-scarred. Bristling with weapons.

“Looking good, Sport,” said Little Pip.

“Oh. It’s you,” said Lyra. Littlepip looked just like her, now.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out,” said Little Pip. “I know you didn’t want this. You wanted to stay the pony you used to be. But you’re heading out to do murder, and you don’t even care, do you? You’re scared, but you’re scared it won’t work. You’re not at all upset about killing ponies, because in this new world it’s what you have to do. It’s not what Harmony would have liked, but that’s the way it has to be for now.

“For what it’s worth: when it’s my turn, I’m going to try to stay pure and unsullied by the wasteland, and I’m going to fail, too.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“The point is you can still make this hell world a better place than it would have been without you. Or at least you can try.”

Lyra ran her hoof down the surface of the mirror. Littlepip imitated the gesture. “There has to be a way out. A way to turn back the clock. I never was a pillar of society, but this is too much.”

“If you need someone to blame, blame me. Say I made you this way. Your little psychotic break. But I don’t think you need me anymore. Time to wave goodbye now.”

Lyra reached for Littlepip. Her hoof bounced off the mirror. “Stop! Stop! You need to tell me who you are! Did the Hive put you in me?”

Littlepip stepped back away from the mirror. Darkness curled around her like tendrils. “They will set a Watcher over us,” she said, “And we will give unto them that thirst a fountain.”

And then there was nothing in the mirror but Lyra.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“You’re in charge of your brother while we’re gone,” said Crispy.

“I know,” said Paneer.

“But Thick Thighs is here to help you, okay?” said Vindaloo.

“I’ll help you with anything you need,” purred Thick Thighs.

Paneer, bundled up against the twilight cold with her little brother Alto Clef swaddled in a foal carrier on her shoulder, raised an eyebrow. “So she’s Alto’s foalsitter, but not mine?”

“Eeeee!” said Alto.

Vindaloo took her daughter's head in her hooves. “Paneer. My wonderful, brave child. You’ve proven yourself. You’re a mare, now. No more foalsitters. Like I said: You’re in charge of your brother while we’re gone.”

Gears turned behind Paneer’s eyes. “So… does that mean I’m old enough to drink?”

“We’ll talk about it when we come back.”

“Yeah? What if you don’t come back?” Paneer’s joking tone barely hid the way her voice cracked.

“If we don’t come back, you can have one drink.”

Lyra walked away from the family goodbye for one last look under the hood — checked the fluids, checked the cables, satisfied herself the spark battery wasn’t fixing to explode. Everything was tickety-boo. She heard fluttering and high pitched cheeps from the woods, and looked up from the engine to watch the flapping of dark leathery wings against the night sky.

One dark form broke off from the others and landed next to Lyra.

“Blue Note! You just gave birth. By C-section. What are you doing out here?”

“Hartwing was wounded in the battle, so Blue Note is the most experienced available thestral. She is leading your escort.” She wore a combat armor helmet with a radio headset and a uniform made out of the new blue ballistic fabric under a bulletproof vest-cum-battle saddle. Two rifles poked out beyond her shoulders, and a 10mm pistol hung on a bandoleer alongside extra clips and a pair of binoculars.

Lyra sighed. “I know you always like to be at the forefront of things, but you need to give your body time to recover.”

“Med-X and Stimpacks say otherwise.”

“Is it pointless to argue with you?”

“Yes. Blue Note has made up her mind.”

There wasn’t a lot of flexibility in the roster for the mission — they needed the best six ponies available riding in Baby, no matter who they were. That meant Crispy in their best suit of power armor, which was mostly but not entirely Fizzlepop’s purple enameled suit. The armor took up most of the back of the vehicle, leaving only room for Vindaloo (sniper), Rotgut (riflepony), and Bon Bon (medic) to ride alongside in the back. Ivory Spark was in the passenger seat operating the minigun on the roof. Lyra was driving and providing magic support.

Twenty-three thestral scouts formed their escort.

That was their assassination/rescue team. That was it.

They were doomed.

Bean had better appreciate this, or he was in for one hell of a spanking.

Vindaloo walked over to them. “Crispy’s getting suited up. Is the car ready?” Lyra couldn’t see her face well in the dark, but when she spoke Lyra could tell she’d been crying.

“Baby’s raring to go.”

Vindaloo lifted her head and raised her voice. “Load her up!”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Miles of road rattled away under Baby’s wheels. On a map, the journey from Sanctuary Hills to Sawhorse was supposed to be half an hour. She’d driven that way for deliveries a time or two, and it had always taken longer than that. This run was no exception — instead of traffic blocking the way, it was broken bridges, downed trees, and in one harrowing case the corpse of a dead diamondclaw.

They turned off the headlights and drove around it slowly so as not to draw the attention of whatever had killed it.

Lyra would have liked to open Baby up and tear down the highway, but after 20 years there wasn’t a lot of the old elevated highway left. Chunks of it loomed overhead, edges dangling rebar like festive streamers and littered with abandoned cars. Lyra was stuck on the back roads, which were hardly in better shape. Sometimes she could drive over or around what was in the way. Sometimes everypony had to get out and drag an obstacle out of the road. Sometimes she just had to turn back and go another way.

Nonetheless, Lyra felt powerful being behind the wheel again. She was in total control of the only vehicle in the world, a vehicle that straddled the gap between ‘family utility vehicle’ and ‘armored fighting vehicle’. She was a force to be reckoned with. A master of disaster. The delivery driver from hell.

Blue Note’s voice crackled over the radio. “Road Warriors, this is Wing Sauce. We’ve got princesses.”

Crispy responded on his suit radio, his voice both muffled behind Lyra and crackling from her dashboard. “Wing Sauce, this is Road Warrior actual. How many?”

“Counting at least five wings. Some following us, some waiting on the road ahead.”

“Oh, fuck me. Green Meanie, stop the car.”

Lyra’s headlights illuminated a row of six alicorns — white blue purple, white blue purple. Their eyes gleamed in the headlights. “We wish to speak to the little green one,” said one of the purple ones.

Lyra flicked on Baby’s megaphone. “That’s me.”

“You are headed towards the Ponysmith’s lands in your terrible machine. Why?”

Lyra flicked off the megaphone and looked over her shoulder. “Um, guys?”

“Tell them it’s classified,” said Crispy.

Lyra sighed and turned the megaphone back on. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

The alicorns tossed their heads, motions eerily synchronized. “You mean him harm.”

Lyra shut off the megaphone again. “Guys…”

Vindaloo wriggled over the front seats and reached for the megaphone button. “We’re not going to throw him a birthday party. What do you want?”

“We have worked together against him before,” said the purple alicorn. “We might assist you. But you would have to do something for us, first.”

Vindaloo took her hoof off the megaphone button. “Princesses want to help? I don’t buy it.”

“I don’t trust them,” said Crispy. “They might’ve worked with you once, Lyra, but they aren’t our friends. Ivory, spin up the minigun barrels.”

“No!” said Lyra. “The armor on this thing isn’t up to half a dozen alicorns blasting right at it at point-blank range. Can’t we at least ask what they want?”

Vindaloo looked back at Crispy. She tilted her head towards Lyra. Crispy’s armored head nodded once.

Lyra sighed in relief. She hit the megaphone button. “Okay. Talk.”

“Thank you, lesser creature,” said one of the purple alicorns. “We have more than enough power to mow the Ponysmith’s armies down like hay and drive him from our lands. But the Hagsgate Air Defense Station prevents our approach by air. If you remove it, we could swarm his base like ravens on the corpse of a yak.”

“We need to rescue a prisoner in his compound,” said Lyra.

“The great and powerful super alicorns find interior spaces confining,” said one of the blue ones, fluffing her wings. “You may enter the compound buildings under our protection.”

“How’s the station protected?”

“A large number of the ones in Sombra’s livery, and two or three of the armored ones.”

Lyra grinned and looked back at Vindaloo. “We’ll find out if our little trick still works.”

Vindaloo nodded. “Tell them yes.”

“Sounds great,” said Lyra over the megaphone. “Can you lift us over some potholes on the way?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra rammed Baby through the chain-link gate of the Hagsgate Air Defense Station, tires spinning in the mud, metal screeching, bits of steel from the gate flying in all directions. She cranked the control yoke sideways and drifted to a stop in front of the Quonset hut that hunkered beneath the radar dish at the center of the station. Dozens of surface-to-air missile launchers stood in the base yard around them like massive, glowering fireworks. The fallen ballistic missile the Road Warriors had driven around on the way here was a testament to the missiles’ effectiveness.

Unislaves, deactivated two hundred tails out, stared blankly ahead even as shrapnel from the gate creased their hides.

“Go, go, go,” said Crispy, throwing open the back door and surging out into the darkness in a storm of clanging metal and whining servos.

“There are way more than two or three centurions here,” said Blue Note over the radio. “We count at least twenty.”

“Flocking princesses probably worried them,” said Crispy.

“Monsieur, there is no call for that kind of language,” said Bon Bon.

A pair of centurions pounded around the corner of the radar tower, throwing up snow from beneath their armored hooves. Bullets sparked off Crispy’s armor. He turned towards the first one and fired the dual combat shotguns on his battle saddle. The shotguns were loaded with a gift from Artillery and Caisson — experimental discarding sabot shells with fin-stabilized molybdenum penetrators. They were highly effective. His target staggered and fell. The next one had an anti-machine rifle, but Ivory’s minigun turret perforated his armor like a tin can on a firing range.

“They’ve got this,” said Vindaloo. “Lyra, Rotgut. Come with me.”

Lyra rammed in the front door of the Quonset hut with a force field and kept the field going as Vindaloo and Rotgut charged inside. She followed them, one of her rocket launchers ready. Bullets pounded into her shield with enough kinetic transfer energy to push her back outside. She opened ports in her shield for Vindaloo and Rotgut to fire through. Her shield was stronger than the centurions’ armor, and it didn’t take long for Vindaloo’s .50 caliber bullets and Rotgut’s enchanted armor-piercing ammo to finish them off.

Lyra stepped over the bodies of the armored centurions and up to the row of terminals that were the only objects in the room. She could just rip out the wiring, wreck the terminals. The missiles would be inoperable. Unless they had secondary controls or some spare terminals. But she had a better idea — blow the missiles up on their launchers. She sat down at one terminal and plucked a sticky note off the edge.

Armor Lord, your new password is N0@llic0rnS. I’m tired of resetting if for you. Just keep this note by your terminal, okay? — Button Mash

That saved her some time hacking in. She pulled up the radar display and the launch commands. Lock the missiles in place, trigger the launch sequence, and she should be able to…

On the radar display, tiny dots circled in and out of range. She suddenly had an even better idea.

“What’s taking so long!” shouted Vindaloo over the noise of her anti-machine rifle. Centurions kept trying to come through the doors and windows of the Quonset hut; Vindaloo and Rotgut’s fire was keeping them suppressed but they were badly outnumbered.

“Writing us an insurance policy!” said Lyra.

What exactly is that supposed to mean? said a voice in her head.

“You’re spying on me,” said Lyra, entering the launch control settings and holding her PipBuck next to the screen. “Who told you you could read my mind?”

The great and powerful super alicorns do as they please!

“Lyra, don’t go crazy now, save it for after the battle!” said Rotgut.

“Your approach is clear,” said Lyra, “Get out of my head and into the fight.” She slammed down a psychic barrier over her brain and tugged the terminals’ power cords out of the wall. Then she hopped down from her stool, levitated her rocket to the end of the bank of terminals, and pressed the button. “Fire in the hole!”

The terminals exploded in a wave of droplets of melted plastic and shattering glass.

“Overkill, much?” said Rotgut. A centurion’s head poked through the window; he aimed a burst of armor-piercing rifle bullets at it. It pulled back, dented but not visibly disabled.

“Just trying to be thorough,” said Lyra, hitting the ground behind him and raising a dome-shaped shield over the three of them.

“Crispy, we’re pinned down here,” said Vindaloo into her PipBuck.

“I’m hit,” said Crispy. “It’s not bad. Bon Bon’s looking at it. But the chest plate of my armor is ruined. They’ve got at least a legion here. Even with the unislaves disabled, there are too many centurions for us to fight! When are those princesses coming?”

Lyra lowered her psychic shield and reached her thoughts out for the super alicorn mind she’d been talking to. “The launch controls are destroyed,” she said looking over the wreckage of the terminals for the alicorns’ benefit. “Are you happy?”

We do not trust you.

“And we don’t trust you either. But we have an alliance and we need your help.”

You have been useful to us. Thank you.

“It’ll be easier for you to fight these centurions while they’re distracted with us,” hissed Lyra. “And you promised. Starlight, Trixie, whoever the white ones are, you made a promise, right? What did Twilight think about ponies who broke promises?”

…

The far wall of the Quonset hut burst into flame and flying metal. Shrapnel bounced off of Lyra’s shield. She turned to see a centurion trotting through the whole a breaching charge had made in the wall. Grenade machine guns on his flanks spoke, filling the room with explosions that threatened to overwhelm Lyra’s shield.

She ripped the lunchbox mine from her side and kicked it across the floor under the edge of her shield, careful to keep the lid side up. The centurion ignored it; and rightly — normal IEDs were no use against power armor.

This wasn’t a normal IED. Lyra triggered the lunchbox mine with a flick of telekinesis, and a dozen of those shotgun shell sabots shot straight up, punching holes in the underside of the centurion’s armor. She stopped firing and fell face down on the floor.

But the explosion had rattled VIndaloo and Rotgut, and more centurions were coming through the windows and doors. Waves of buckshot hit what was left of Lyra’s shield, shattering it.

She whipped out Little Macintosh and entered SATS and flipped between the four centurions, looking for a vulnerable spot. Slow-motion lead filled the air around her..

She was going to die. They were all going to die.

Lyra picked a target, aiming at the joint between his chest and neck armor, and emptied the cylinder. The first three bullets tore through the ballistic fabric joint, and the net two slammed into his body. Blood spurted from his ruined throat.

She came out of SATS in time to feel a bullet slam into her chest like a kick from a diamondclaw. More bullets tore at her clothes as she flew through the air and impacted the wall.

The screams of stooping eagles tore the air.

Something sucked the surviving three centurions out the windows and door like acrobats on wires. Colored light flashed, followed by cracking noises and wet sounds. Lyra was reminded of the bonfire at a griffon beach party she’d been to. They’d put crabs and shellfish on the rocks around the fire to cook. Then eager beaks cracked through the shells, pulling out the glistening white meat inside.

She looked at her chest. No blood. The bullet hadn’t gotten through her armored jacket, but it hurt to breathe. She could still move. She was fine. Rotgut and Vindaloo lay on the floor in puddles of blood.

“I think Vin’s dead,” said Rotgut, trying to stand. His right foreleg was torn and bloodied; shattered bone stuck out of pulped flesh. Bon Bon was going to have to look at that. Lyra reached into her saddlebags. Her towel was on top of everything else; she tossed it to Rotgut for direct pressure.

Underneath it amongst the other junk in her saddlebags was one stimpack. She grabbed it with her magic, knelt in Vindaloo’s blood, jammed it into her chest, and smashed down the stopper.

“Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. I worked too hard to make friends with you, please don’t be dead.”

Vindaloo rolled over, coughing up blood.

“Oh, thank Harmony,” said Lyra.

“Not enough,” groaned Vindaloo, blood drooling from her lips. “Everything hurts. I’m dying.”

Lyra gasped. How was she going to tell Paneer? “No!”

“Naw,” said Vindaloo. “I’m just fucking with you. I’m not good, though. Can you help me walk back to the car?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Everyone was wounded. Bon Bon and Ivory Spark had taken hits on their armor as Lyra had. Crispy’s ‘not bad’ wound had turned his chest plate into a twisted mess and left jagged lines of raw pink flesh across his breast even after Bon Bon’s attention. Vindaloo wheezed with every breath.

Bon Bon stooped over Rotgut’s leg, working intently to save the mangled limb. Her muzzle moved back and forth, Cream coat flecked with blood, blue eyes intent, wrapping bandages around the splint she’d made. Lyra longed to go to her, and holder, and ask her if she was all right, but she knew she needed to let her do her job.

“Blue Note says they are four legions on the way,” said Vindaloo. “Centurions only.”

“That’s good,” said Crispy. “By the time they’re here, we won’t be anymore. We can drive to the Ironworks while the princesses tie the legions down. Hit the prison, hit the command bunker.”

Lyra felt a chill at the base of her spine. She looked over her shoulder. Vindaloo was tying a length of ballistic fabric over her husband’s bare chest while they talked. She began to cough and spat out a pink chunky thing that Lyra hoped was bloody phlegm and not a chunk of lung.

She climbed into the front seat — Baby had sported several holes in his armor when Lyra had staggered back to him with Rotgut and Vindaloo hanging off her. If the majors were thinking of continuing the attack, better make sure the engine actually turned over before they got too attached to that plan.

Baby’s engine purred like a tiger. “It’s a miracle.”

Ivory Spark, dozing in the passenger seat with one foreleg in a sling, cracked an eye open. “Not what I’d call it.”

“How much ammo do we have left?”

“Five hundred rounds.”

Lyra laid her head on the control yoke. Five hundred rounds sounded like a lot, but for the minigun it was less than five seconds of continuous fire. “We can’t do this.”

Ivory closed his eyes again. “Can’t never could.” Or possibly “Can’t. Never could.” His tone was ambiguous.

Baby bounced as something heavy landed on top of him. Lyra looked back and saw a white head hanging down over the edge of the car, staring into the open backdoor. Blood stained its horn and the fur on its forehead.

“The battle goes gloriously. We have seen few like it,” said the white alicorn.

“Glad you decided to show up,” said Vindaloo.

“We’re going to attack the Ironworks compound now,” said Crispy. “We’re going to rescue her son, and then kill the Ponysmith.”

“We will send an escort,” said the white alicorn. Her upside-down smile had a predatory gleam.

Grim calculus filled Lyra’s mind, and not only about the mixed benefits of an alicorn escort. Raid a prison with five wounded ponies and a car that was probably one solid hit away from being a lawn decoration. Then raid a command center.

A searing pain flared in Lyra’s lower back. With crystal clarity, she saw them all shot down. One by one. She saw a magic bolt blast through Crispy’s chest. Vindaloo’s head exploded into gory fragments. Baby took an anti-machine rifle round to the engine block and exploded in a rolling wave of fire, taking Ivory and Rotgut with it. Gunfire tore Bon Bon’s beautiful face apart. A bronze-armored Centurion kicked her and knocked her to the ground.

Lyra shook her head to clear it. She knew what she had to do, and that knowledge made a heavy weight settle in her chest. She climbed over the seats into the back of the car.

“Excuse me,” said Lyra to the alicorn, “but can we please have some privacy?”

The alicorn tilted its head skeptically and then withdrew. Its weight still rested on top of the car.

“What’s the matter, Lyra?” said Vindaloo.

Lyra’s throat felt raw, like she’d smoked a whole pack of cigarettes. Her cheeks were dry. She didn’t have any tears left. “I think we need to… we need to focus on destroying Ponysmith. Bean…”

She lost her tongue for a moment. Vindaloo and Crispy didn’t say anything, just watched her.

“I don’t think we’re strong enough to complete both goals. We’re all wounded. Baby’s running, but I don’t think he’s in good shape. If we try to do everything we set out to do, we risk not accomplishing anything at all. And Bean…” The tears came now, shooting down her cheeks, hot and bitter. “He’s an adult. He’s made his choices. And he’s only one pony. I’m only one pony. But Ponysmith’s a danger to the whole wasteland. So if we’re going to keep this mission going. We need to focus on… on our primary objective.”

Crispy and Vindaloo looked at each other, and in that glance, Lyra realized that they’d already discussed the same thing.

“Thank you, Lyra,” said Vindaloo. “I’m afraid you might be right. Crispy and I need to make that call soon.”

“Can Baby make it to the Sawhorse Ironworks?” said Crispy.

Lyra nodded. “Yes, but his armor’s chewed up bad. One solid hit might be enough to take him out. We can make it there. We can make it back home. But it might be one or the other.”

“Go see if Bon Bon needs any help,” said Vindaloo. “We’ll let you know what we decide in a little while.”

Bon Bon nuzzled her cheek as Lyra stepped over. “Rotgut,” she said, “I need you to make a choice.”

“Lots of hard choices tonight,” said Rotgut.

“Your leg is set as best I can in the field. I am able to use a stimpack on it. But the setting is not ideal. The bone is damaged. If I use it, it may, how do you say, not heal well. You will likely have a limp for the rest of your life.”

“But if you don’t, you could maybe operate on me back at the stable, and it’d be fine?” said Rotgut. “I just wanna be clear on this.”

“Oui.”

Rotgut raised his head and looked down at his leg. “Can it wait ‘til the Majors figure out their plan? If we’re gonna retreat, I can wait. But if we’re going forward, I need to be in the thick of it.”

Bon Bon nodded. “You may wait.”

Lyra swallowed around a dry throat. “Brave.”

“Lots of ponies being brave tonight,” said Rotgut.

Crispy tapped the roof of the car. The white alicorn poked her head down again.

“Listen up,” said Crispy. “Vin and I have made a decision. We’re going for the Ponysmith’s command bunker. Here’s the plan.”

Lyra listened close, memorizing the details of her role. She managed to cry quietly.

She heard the hiss of a stimpack next to her. Rotgut sat up, bending his leg to test it. Bon Bon draped a leg across Lyra’s withers.

“Maybe we will still find him,” said Bon Bon. “Maybe you can still rescue him.”

“Hope is stupid,” said Lyra, hanging her head.

She felt Bon Bon shrug. “If anger and despair serve you better, who am I to judge? But look at me. I have something to say.”

Lyra lifted her head. Bon Bon awkwardly mashed the end of her snout against Lyra’s. A hot rush of joy spread across Lyra’s face and through her body.

“Oh,” said Lyra. “Oh.”

“I lied,” said Bon Bon. “I have nothing to say. I just wanted to kiss you.”

“I love you,” said Lyra.

Bon Bon blushed and looked away. “I love you, too. Forever. No matter what. But I think you should drive now.”

Lyra climbed back into the driver’s seat and turned Baby down the road towards Sawhorse Iron Works.

Max Level

Chapter 27: Caught in the Rye

Orange lights flashed through the view-slits of Baby’s armored windows. Lyra shifted him into reverse and slammed her hoof down on the gas. His tires squealed in the snow, skidding backward. The exploding mines lifted Baby into the air and slammed him down into the snow ten tails back.

“Everpony out of the car!” Lyra screamed, remembering her vision of Baby exploding. She kicked open the door and rolled into the snow, ears ringing. “Bon Bon! Bon Bon!” She turned around, ready to dive back into the car to save Bon Bon if need be.

“Bon Bon’s fine!” Vindaloo’s voice thundered across the snow. “Get clear!”

Lyra couldn’t see where Vindaloo’s voice was coming from, but she found some green pips on her EFS and ran towards those. She ran until the pips whipped around the compass dial and out of her sight. “What the heck?”

A pair of hooves grabbed her and tugged her down behind a low snowbank. Bullets whistled through the space where Lyra’s head had just been.

“Try a little less hard to get yourself killed!” said Vindaloo.”Fucking mines. We should have known!”

“Only mines,” said Lyra. “I’d have expected more.”

Blue Note’s voice came over the radio. “Road Warriors, this is Hot Wings. We have identified three snipers positioned over the command center door. You should have a clean shot at all of them. Marking locations on your PipBucks.”

“Something’s not right,” said Lyra. “Not enough of them are shooting at us.”

“Don’t jinx it,” said Vindaloo. She squinted down the scope of her anti-machine rifle. The rifle’s cavernous maw roared and flashed and somepony fell off the roof of the command compound.

“Hot Wings,” said Lyra, “This is Green Meanie. I’m seeing a large mass of neutral targets to the north on my EFS. What’s going on up there?”

“Unislaves. It looks like they lined them up between the front entrance and the prison and waited for you to deactivate them.”

Ignoring the rattling of her friend’s firearms and the noise of the bullets zipping overhead, Lyra looked at her PipBuck’s map. The three buildings of the Ponysmith’s compound lay in a triangle inside the outer fence — the prison/hospital on the northwest corner, the command compound on the southwest, and the steel mill/factory on the eastern point by the river and the railway. The road split in three ways from the front gate. Lyra had driven Baby through the fence south of the gate and made for the command center.

Pips representing several legions of deactivated unislaves ringed the prison in a west-facing semicircle — they might’ve lost their utility as soldiers, but they still made excellent speed bumps.

Even if Lyra were hard-hearted enough to try to drive through ranks of helpless ponies — she wasn’t — they would have gotten tangled up in Baby’s tires something fierce. The Minutemares would have been a sitting duck for the anti-machine rifles no doubt hiding in ambush all around the prison compound.

It was a trap. Ponysmith had guessed why the Minutemares might be here and made a gamble. If Lyra had stayed loyal to her son, she’d have gotten them all killed.

Ten tails away, a horrible metallic thump told her that something had hit Baby deep. Less than a second later, a blinding flash of light tore his chassis apart. A miniature mushroom curled up from Baby’s corpse.

Lyra’s body locked up; suddenly unaware of the cold, mentally somewhere between the present moment and the Bad Day. Were the power armor ponies charging at them across the snow centurions, or were they blue StableTec models? Baby’s flaming corpse lit the Ironworks compound as bright as day. Or was it autumn sunlight?

She tried to make sense of what was happening. The centurions, recognizing their mistake, had regrouped and were attacking from the north. The air shimmered above their vanguard, and a dozen blue alicorns dove down towards them, horns blasting. They each grabbed a centurion in their magic and pulled up, vanishing again before the centurions could target them.

The survivors turned and ran back towards the prison. Atop the command center, teleportation waste energy flashed twice behind the two snipers Vindaloo hadn’t taken out: a purple alicorn clearing the way for them.

“Come on!” yelled Vindaloo. Lyra could barely hear her over the screaming of the ponies in line for Stable 93. Vindaloo grabbed her and dragged her towards the stable entrance. “We need you to breach the door!”

Lyra stared blankly at the thick metal bottlecap-shape of Stable 93’s door. How could she…? But no, it was only a steel security bulkhead. She looked back. Toddler Bean watched her from his father’s back, needing her help. She was failing him again. She gathered some unexploded landmines from the snow and pressed one against the door, holding it in place with a force field. The blast, directed away from Lyra and her friends, tore the door apart. She followed the Minutemares inside, into the darkness, and away from Bean.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

They moved through the command building killing ponies and destroying automated gun turrets.

“We need to be thorough, and merciless,” Crispy has said, back at Hagsgate. “Just assassinating the Ponysmith won’t be enough, because somepony else could take over for him. We have to ruin as much of their operation as we can. Records, computers, even staff.”

Bon Bon laid her ears back. “We… We are to murder the staff?”.

“I’m not expecting you to, Bon Bon,” said Crispy. “And most of them will probably be shooting back at us, whether they’re trained soldiers or not. That’ll make it easier. But even if they’re unarmed, they’re complicit in the Ponysmith’s atrocities just by working for him. If you need to pull the trigger, and you have any doubts, think about Stable 114.”

They worked in two teams — Vindaloo covering the corridors, supported by Ivory and Bon Bon, while Lyra led Crispy and Rotgut in clearing the rooms. Lyra had salvaged a large number of the unexploded mined from outside; it was much easier, when they came to a room with red pips, for her to activate one, toss it in, close the door, and shield Rotgut and Vindaloo while they cleared out any survivors than it was to have a shootout with every single cluster of lightly armed staff.

At the first big cross-corridor, they met an attempted ambush. It would have worked better if they hadn’t been able to hear the talking and rustling of the ambushers from around the corners; better still if Vindaloo hadn’t found a way to bypass the ambush through a series of connected rooms off to the side.

Lyra kicked a crate out into the hallway with an illusionary Crispy around it — Illusions always worked better if there was something real to back them up. A single rocket lanced across from the left side of the intersection to the right, straight through Illusionary Crispy. The ponies on the right side of the corridor seemed to interpret this as an attack by Illusionary Crispy and opened up with everything they had. Most of that fire went to the ambushers on the left side. Judging by the screams some of that wildfire hit home. Then Vindaloo and Rotgut came out behind the ambushers on the left side. Lyra put a shield around Real Crispy and they waded out into the corridor firing. A few minutes later, the shooting was over.

“Scientists. Staff,” said Vindaloo, mentally counting the bodies as she reloaded her anti-machine rifle. “Not a single soldier. They were convinced we were going for the prison.”

Vindaloo was right. White coats. Black uniforms. Few weapons heavier than a 10mm pistol. Lyra felt ill with guilt at the massacre, but it was too late for doubt. She’d chosen her side. She was a Minutemare now. She needed to stick with them.

“They might have more firepower closer to the command center,” said Crispy.

“Lure us into a false sense of security by throwing away the lives of his noncombatants? That does sound like the Ponysmith,” said Vindaloo.

“Makes sense,” said Crispy. “We might want to try an indirect approach, then. Do you see anything on the PipBuck’s floor plan?”

Lyra scraped a hoof across the floor, regretting having ended up in the kind of world where ponies thought these sorts of sacrifices reasonable. A grated section of floor wobbled under her hoof. “Um, guys?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭
`
The floor vent led straight down into a corridor running east-west through the command center. The route eastward, deeper into the compound, was blocked by a locked door.

While Lyra hacked the RoanCo GuardBoy keypad lock, Vindaloo put her ear to the door. She whacked her on the shoulder. “Hey. Lyra. Listen to this.”

“Sir… I’m sorry, sir,” said a stallion’s voice from behind the door. His voice was nasal, his tone apologetic and defiant at the same time. “But I told you, I can’t do anything about the helmets. Yes… yes… I know sir… I don’t… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I told you we were only using them, not controlling them. I warned you that anycreature else with the skill and resources could figure out how to do the same thing!

“Yes… sir. Sir. No. If you’ll please listen to me? Yes, I can jam their signal. But I’d have to jam ours, too. And the unicorn volunteers would just stand there. Like they are now!

“No… I know I always say to try turning it off and then turn it back on again. But that’s not going to work, in this case. Sir… No sir, I don’t think you’re stupid. Yes, I know you’re a doctor. Yes, sir. I… uh… All right. No, I’ll try and think of something. Goodbye, sir.”

Then the sound of a forehead hitting a terminal. “Dakoblith!”

Vindaloo gave Lyra the nod. The door slid open. Vindaloo hurried in with a pistol in her mouth.

“I surrender,” said the stallion, raising his hooves in the air. He was obese, middle-aged, brown with a shaggy reddish mane going thin on top. He wore a lab coat with a name tag that read ‘B. Mash’. VIndaloo pushed her pistol against his snout, dimpling his nose.

“You work with those helmets! Tell me why I shouldn’t cap you right now, you slave boss scum,” said Vindaloo, voice muffled by the 10mm.

B. Mash glared down the barrel of the gun as though being threatened at gunpoint were an everyday experience for him. “Um, because it’d be a waste of your ammo. Clearly, I’m no use to Ponysmith. I can be useful to you, though. I basically run this place.”

“Yeah?” said Vindaloo, “Who are you? The janitor?”

“Bitch,” said B. Mash, “I’m tech support.”

Vindaloo glanced sideways at Lyra. Lyra nodded so hard her brains rattled.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The lights went out, and they came up through the floor grate in the midst of Ponysmith’s control room. The muzzle flash of automated turrets brought the only light.

“Oh hi!” said Button Mash over the command center PA. “Guess who, boss? Bet you wish you’d treated me better, now huh?”

Crispy went in first, straight up through the grate, and through a folding table covered in maps. He split the table in half with his head. Lyra went in right behind him, shielding the gap in his breastplate. His shotguns hammered out a screen of buckshot, reducing the unarmored personnel in the room to smears of chunky red paste. But his main role was to draw fire. Bullets sparked off his armor and the shield in front of him as Lyra lined up shots with SATS. She put one of Little Macintosh’s enchanted .50 rounds through the butt of a centurion who was still facing the room’s front door and kneecapped another.

That centurion rolled into his fall and rounded on Lyra, He swung an assault rifle towards her. Before he could fire, a deafening thump sounded from behind her and his armored faceplate caved in.

Vindaloo had entered the room.

In the chaos of darkness and gunfire, screaming and muzzle flashes, it was all Lyra could do to keep track of Crispy and keep his front shielded. While SATS allowed her to find targets in the dark, she was worried she’d pick the wrong armored kneecap and take out Crispy by mistake. She evaluated her targets carefully, and so only got off a couple of shots before a burst of rifle fire danced across the floor towards her in PipBuck-assisted slow motion.

She rolled out of the way, under a bank of control panels. Rotgut fired his assault rifle, killing the centurion who’d been targeting Lyra. He went down, and the room fell silent. That had been the last of them. The Minutemares had triumphed.

Rotgut whooped. “Talent supersedes, you motherfuckin’ sons of…” The back entrance to the control room slid open. Two magic bolts converged on his head, slicing his skull in half.

Ponysmith charged into the room. Fully armored, red bull’s horns glowing with violet magic, he terrified Lyra so much that she barely registered the bronze-armored centurion who came into the room behind him.

Lyra drew her power together. She tried to think which spell would be best to stop Ponysmith, but before she could a telekinetic grip ripped her out from under the control panel and slammed her against the floor.

“Why are you here?” screamed Bean’s voice. The bronze centurion yanked her up into midair. “Why aren’t you at the prison?”

“Bean?” said Lyra, eyes wide with confusion. “Why aren’t you in prison?”

At the edge of Lyra’s vision, Vindaloo, face dripping with Rotgut’s brains, whipped around towards Ponysmith, trying to aim her anti-machine rifle at him. But in the close confines of the control room, he was on her too soon. He raised a massive crimson-armored hoof and brought it down on her back. Lyra heard a gut-wrenching crack, and Vindaloo fell to the ground, motionless.

A wordless howl of loss filled the air. Crispy slammed into Ponysmith, his weight knocking them both to the floor. Ponysmith’s bull’s horn’s flared with violet light, but Crispy raised his head and slammed it down against Ponysmith’s face, breaking his concentration.

“You abandoned me! Again!” howled Bean, his voice trembling with grief and rage. He shook her in his magic. “Why didn’t you try to rescue me?”

Worry for Vindaloo and the rending metallic crashes from Ponysmith and Crispy pounding each other’s armored bodies into oblivion fled to the back of her consciousness as Lyra tried to process this. If there was an ambush at the prison… and Bean was here... that meant… “You tried to trick me!”

Lyra pushed at Beat with her magic, steadying herself in his grip. It was easy. Was she that much stronger than her son? “Well it’s good I didn’t because you would have killed me!”

“I hate you!” screamed Bean! “You’re not my mother anymore!”

“Well, you’re still my son! And you’re grounded!” She drew power to her horn, but even as she did, she didn’t know what she’d do with it. Little Macintosh? Magic bolt? Those wouldn’t hurt him much through his thick front armor. Mono-molecular lyre strings? That would probably kill him.

Bean grabbed for Little Macintosh, trying to rip it out of Lyra’s grip. Lyra, startled, pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the armored cone around Bean’s horn, causing his magic to falter. Lyra pulled together the strongest shield she could and slammed him against a bank of monitors. Broken glass glittered in the golden light of her magic.

With Bean stunned for at least a second or two, she turned her attention back to Crispy and Ponysmith. Their armor suits were wrecked, dented in dozens of places where they’d butted heads or beat each other with steel hooves. Every motion shrieked with the sound of twisted metal and bent gears. One of Ponysmith’s horns had broken off; it was full of wires and circuits inside. Raw magic crackled around the edges of the break.

What?

Lyra saw a place where the base of Ponysmith’s helmet had buckled and torn away from the ballistic fabric that connected it to his neck plates. A trickle of blood rolled down bare fur.

Lyra grabbed that bent edge in her magic and pulled. Ballistic fabric ripped. Metal screeched and tore. The red helmet came away, trailing wires that connected to the scarred forehead of an earth pony.

Ponysmith glanced sideways at her, eyes full of hate. Crispy’s armored face slammed down on his, caving in his forehead.

Bronze flashed in the corner of Lyra’s vision. She looked in time to see Bean fleeing out the way he’d come in. She raced after him, only to stop in the doorway and turn, hooves dancing anxiously beneath her.

Bon Bon was already up through the floor grate. Lyra saw her glance over Rotgut, see that he was beyond help, and hurry to Vindaloo’s broken body.

Crispy’s power armor bloomed, and he wrenched himself out of it, tearing his skin in several places where warped metal plates tried to hold him in. “Vindaloo! Vindaloo! No!”

Bon Bon held up a hoof. “Non! Do not touch her! She is alive, but her back is broken!”

Ivory's voice came over the PA. “Button Mash decoded their radio communications for me. Reinforcements are on the way down from Liberty Tree. Looks like you took out Ponysmith, but his XO put out the call, and it’s a pretty short train ride. We all need to get out of here.”

“I can’t feel my hind legs,” Vindaloo moaned.

“We need time,” said Bon Bon. “Vindaloo is badly wounded. I will need to prepare her to be moved!”

“Bean,” said Lyra, her mental calculus bringing her inevitably to the worst possible conclusion.

“Yes! Go! Get him!” said Crispy. “Stop the reinforcements if you can. I believe in you.”

Bon Bon glanced up from Vindaloo’s form. “I love you. Hurry. Aller avec harmonie."

Lyra found her way out the back corridors of the command compound and stepped into a cold night lit with flames — mostly from the north, where alicorns circled over the prison, trading fire with the centurions trapped inside. She looked around for Bean — her EFS helped her locate him; a single red pip heading for the towering blast furnace of the steel mill.

Max Level

Chapter 28: The Worst Possible Thing

A fusillade of magic bolts peppered the floor around Lyra. She dived forward and rolled into the cover of the scrap cart she’d already picked for cover. If she hadn’t learned Vindaloo’s special brand of tactical paranoia and sought cover immediately upon entering, she might already have died.

Vindaloo. The memory of the strong, brave, seemingly invincible mare lying paralyzed stabbed Lyra’s heart like a broken rusty nail. She felt heavy and dull with grief, worry, and uncertainty. Would she die? Would she ever walk again? Would her wound reduce her to a pale phantom of her former self?

She remembered Vindaloo making magic out of biscuit mix, chili paste, and dried vegetables. Vindaloo with Paneer nestled against her flank in Rarity’s office. Vindaloo dancing naked at Lyra’s side all night at Soft Sound’s show. Vindaloo tackle-hugging her into the snow when she came back to Stable 93.

She remembered when she’d hated Vindaloo. Now she didn’t know what she’d do if Vindaloo died.

Rage. Bean had distracted her at a critical moment. She might’ve been able to save Vindaloo if he hadn’t grabbed her away.

Desperation. She wanted to slap her son silly — but she didn’t want to hurt him. She couldn’t lose him too.

The steel mill was still in full operation, its automated processes unconcerned by the battle outside. The cyclopean tower of the blast furnace loomed over Lyra. High above, a conveyor ran massive steel vats in and out of the furnace. The ones exiting glowed with luminous loads of molten pig iron, carrying it off to be forged into steel to make Sombra helmets and power armor plates.

Even many tails away, the heat of the blast furnace hit Lyra like a wall. She blinked away dryness from her eyes, took cover behind a scrap cart, and tried to make sense of the mill’s floor layout on her PipBuck. This part of the steel mill was mostly open space: gantries, catwalks, cranes, overlooking offices. The rail line ran right through the middle of it so that it could deliver iron ore, coke, and limestone directly to the blast furnace. Lots of places for enemies to hide; too many angles of attack to keep track of. Dozens, hundreds of potential ambushes. Bean’s red pip was above her somewhere, and he also knew where she was, because his armor had an EFS, just like she did.

“Bean!” she shouted. “I know you’re up there!”

“I don’t want to talk to you!” said Bean. She couldn’t tell exactly where his voice was coming from. “You abandoned me! Again!”

“I know you’re mad. You have a right to be mad. A mother’s first duty is always to protect her children, and I failed. But you need to surrender to me. All this here? This is over. This belongs to the Minutemares now.”

Several magic bolts uselessly hammered her scrap cart, making it rock on its wheels but doing little else. “That is an absolutely pathetic bluff!”

“Oh, you think so? Test me and find out!”

No response. She felt like she was standing outside an enraged teenager’s bedroom.

Not that she’d know what that was like.

She thumped a hoof against the scrap cart in frustration. “Bean! Come on! We need to talk!”

“Go away!”

Far above, Bean’s magic glow wrapped around one of the vats of molten iron. It twisted on its chain. Thick, bright orange fluid sloshed in rivers over the edge. With a metallic shriek, it came free, hurtling through the air in Lyra’s general direction.

Lyra’s mouth fell open and her ears flopped back against her head. With an undignified squeak of alarm, she turned and ran, raising a shield behind her. The vat hit the scrap cart she’d been hiding behind, vaporizing it in a flood of hot metal. Heat scorched Lyra’s retreating rear.

Another vat tore free. Lyra kept running — a moving target would be nearly impossible to hit with such unwieldy projectiles. Bean kept throwing them. Another and another slammed into down around her, splattering hot metal. A fourth arced ahead of her, its own metal flattening out under the force of its impact. Some splashed on Lyra’s shield, and she felt the heat searing through her magic into her horn.

She noticed a massive structural beam rising along the far wall of the cavernous mill, close enough to the tower of the blast furnace that Bean wouldn’t be able to toss any vats between them. Lyra skidded to a halt, turned left at a right angle, and scurried breathlessly into its shelter.

She leaned against its side, chest heaving. Then she heard a voice from nearby. She jumped up and spun around, ears flat and tail tucked. She’d made two circles before she realized that her leg was talking to her.

“Green Meanie,” said Blue Note’s voice over her PipBuck radio. “Hot Wings can’t contact Road Warrior Actual.”

“Rotgut’s dead,” said Lyra, gasping breathlessly. “We killed Ponysmith. Vindaloo is hurt very bad. Crispy’s distraught. And probably concussed — he literally knocked heads with Ponysmith. He sent me after Bean. I think… I think I might be in charge right now?” Fuck. She was supposed to use code names on the radio.

There was a moment of dead air while Blue Note took in the news. “I’d like to buy the world a Sparkle Cola,” she said, her tone soft and sad.

“And drink it in perfect unity,” said Lyra.

Blue Note’s tone became professional again. “Hot Wings’ scouts have identified an enemy train headed south towards the Ironworks compound. Centurions and weapons.”

“Shit,” said Lyra. “How many?”

“A hundred or more.”

“Do you ponies have any explosives? To blow the track?”

“No.”

Lyra clenched her eyes closed, struggling with panic. Even if they did blow the track, the centurions could just get out and walk.

This was a grim moment for the Minutemares — if the alicorns felt they were outnumbered, they could just fly away, very satisfied with their night’s work. The Mintuemares were much worse off: most of them were wounded, one of them dead, and their transport destroyed. Retreat was no longer an option. It was total victory or nothing.

Lyra clenched her jaw with determination. She had to find a way to deal with that trainful of reinforcements.

She tried to contact the alicorns; all she could think to do was think really hard at them, and they didn’t pick up. They didn’t care — the Minutemares had been useful to them, but now they were done with them.

This was all on her. “All right. I have an idea. I might need some time. If you can knock over trees or anything onto the track to slow them down, do it.”

“Roger. Hot Wings out.”

Lyra watched Bean’s red pip moving around her compass dial looking for an angle of attack, weaving back and forth. It went one way and had to slow to a stop before it turned another way. It made her think about inertia and momentum. She thought about immovable objects meeting unstoppable forces. She thought about the trolley problem.

She thought of a plan. Of course, it was the ‘horrible mass murder’ sort of plan, but in this case, it would almost have to be, wouldn’t it?

No time to think about that. She needed to be able to see the train tracks a decent distance away, and she should be able to get a good enough view from the roof of the steel mill. A set of stairs surrounded the structural beam all the way to the ceiling; that should take her there.

Unfortunately, they wrapped around the beam. She got three flights up before Bean had a clean shot at her. Then a flurry of magic bolts peppered her shield, driving her back against the metal of the structural beam.

She teleported up three flights. The grated floor of the landings let her see well enough that she landed in more-or-less the right place, only a short fall from a safe position. Should she teleport further? She needed to save her strength for what she had to do up on the roof. So she climbed, as fast as she could. Her lungs and legs burned. Magic bolts flew out of the darkness at her, tearing chunks off the stairs. Three more flights. She could do it.

Three wide, flat, magic bolts flashed through the air well in front of her. For a second she was confused — Bean seemed to be a better shot than that; he wouldn't miss so widely. Then a whole section of the stairwell fell away just as she was reaching it. The landing beneath her jerked, then tore out of the support beam. Lyra began to fall.

Clever Bean.

Her chest swelled with maternal pride even as she tumbled into open air. Orange iron rolled slowly across the floor rushing up beneath her. No choice but to teleport blind.

Golden light flashed around her. She cut the ceiling a hair too close, fusing her left boot and some of her hoof to the metal of the roof. Pain and panic flashed like electricity through her, but she pushed them away. More than her body’s integrity was at stake here.

She looked away into the darkness to the north, searching the frozen wasteland. There. Train headlights, hooded and dim, miles away but moving fast. Mathematical calculations flashed through her mind. If it kept up its speed once it came within range of her magic…

The air in front of Lyra twisted then flashed with waste heat. Bean stepped out of the teleport tesseract.

“Bean!” said Lyra. “Please listen to me!”

He launched a fusillade of magic bolts. They illuminated the emotionless faceplate of his helmet.

Lyra deflected them with her shields. Some bolts came at her from the sides — a difficult trick, requiring a mix of teleportation and attack spells. Impressive, but Lyra was ready for it.

Bolts struck at her, rattling her body. She nonetheless only cast spells to defend herself. She didn’t want to hurt him. But she couldn’t carry off her plan like this. Not only would she need all of her magical strength to deal with the train, but the glare of their battle ruined her night vision. She couldn’t even see the train’s lights anymore.

“Bean! Honey! You don’t have to do this!”

“I’m in charge, now, Lyra! You got me a big promotion! You should be proud! When Easy Money wasn’t able to break you,” said Bean, “I went to Ponysmith with a plan. Easy Money was good at what he did — I assume he’s dead now?”

“As close as makes no difference,” said Lyra. She knew Bean was trying to delay her. Keep her busy until his reinforcements arrived. Talking worked as well as fighting, and maybe he was getting tired.

“He was good, but he was unstable. We don’t need sadists in our army. We need soldiers. So I suggested to Ponysmith that we send Easy after 114, then let you escape while he was away. You could lead him back to 93, and the two of you would eliminate each other, along with the Minutemares. You guys were getting way too competent, and showing signs of an alliance with the alicorns — which I was right to be afraid of, apparently.

“We wound up sacrificing a legion, but we have plenty of those. Ponysmith was so satisfied he made me his second in command.”

“That’s great, honey. I am really proud. You work hard,” said Lyra.

“You were behind the Neighburry Street operation, too, weren’t you?” said Bean.

“It was a team effort.” She tugged at the boot lodged in the ceiling. Getting free of that was going to hurt. A lot.

“That one helped me out too. We lost, sure. But I kept my head together, I acted, and I kept it from turning into a disaster.”

The train went out of sight behind a hill. It was getting close. Lyra drew a deep breath in through clenched teeth. Time was running out.

Throbs of agony pulsed up her leg from her trapped foot. She needed to stay focused. The future opened out before her imagination with all its horrible possibilities -- both if she acted, and if she didn’t act. She needed to make her choices deliberately. Dispassionately. More so even than Arbu (Not Arbu; Haven. Where the hell was Arbu?) what she did today would be remembered across the wasteland.

If she did it right.

“All right, son. If you’re in charge, then tell your army to stand down. We don’t need to be enemies. We can negotiate. You can change the way you do things.”

Bean’s laugh was sharp and bitter. “So much for my surrender. Give up, mom. I’m not going to fall for bluster.”

Lyra scowled. “Bean, honey, I know you’re just trying to buy time. Well, I’m almost out. The Ponysmith is dead, and the battle is over. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I will. There’s more at stake than family, here.

“I don’t know if it’s too late for us. But we can try. Try to make things better. I’ve made a new life for myself here, and you can join me. You’re strong — I always knew you were, but you’re stronger than I would have believed. Please. We can change the wasteland together.”

“No,” said Bean. “You join me.”

“Green Meanie! Green Meanie!” Blue Note’s voice crackled out of Lyra’s PipBuck.

“Hold on. I have to take this,” said Lyra, pressing the radio button on her PipBuck with her magic. “Hot Wings, what’s happening?”

“The alicorns are attacking the unicorn settlements! They’re killing them all! We can’t make them stop! Blue Note doesn’t know what to do!”

“Oh, gag me with Tirek’s cock. I’ll take care of it. Get your scouts into cover.” Lyra switched off the radio. Resolution filled her. Her heart pulsed so hard she felt like her chest might split open, but her voice sounded cold when she spoke to Bean. “I’m sorry. It’s too late. This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.”

Bean instinctively raised a shield in self-defense, expecting a barrage of magic bolts. He didn’t expect the massive telekinetic fist that connected with his shield. Kinetic transfer sent him skidding straight back into the monomolecular lyre strings Lyra had conjured behind him. They cut into his armored legs at just the right height — high enough to avoid messing up his knees, low enough that Lyra still had hope for grandfoals one day.

He let out a strangled scream of shock. His torso continued flying back across the roof. It landed with a thump, tumbled, and skidded almost to the edge before Lyra caught him. His legs bounced and rolled after him. Lyra smacked a magic limiting spell over his horn housing and put force fields over his leg stumps to keep him from bleeding to death.

The lights of the train came up over the crest of the hill, illuminating the tracks in front of it. Lyra braced herself and visualized a spell matrix for the strongest shield she’d made since the Bad Day.

You are able to raise a force field in front of a train traveling south at 37.01 kilotails per hour, or 10.28 tails per second. If it hits the wall of magical force, it will come to a complete stop over .05 seconds, for a deceleration of 205 tails per second per second.

The train weighs 226,796 kilopones. Force equals mass times acceleration, so to get the force it will hit your shield with, we multiply that weight by the deceleration to get an impact of 46,493,180 Nupones of energy — more than enough to reduce everypony on the train to a smooth red paste inside their armor. All one hundred and eighty-three passengers will die.

If you can save four of your friends by raising this force field, should you?

Yes.

The shrieking sound of tearing metal filled the night as the train engine flattened out against Lyra’s shield like a raindrop on a windshield. Behind it, train cars flew into the air, rolling to either side like toy blocks. Tiny glittering objects fell from them.

Kinetic transfer from the impact of the train sent Lyra flying back across the roof. She slammed against an exhaust pipe and slid down to the deck. Something was wrong with the hoof that she’d melded with the roof, but she was too much in shock to feel any pain from it yet. Blood everywhere though. She didn’t want to look — not at the hoof, not at the tracks, not at what she’d done to Bean. Secondary explosions crackled amongst the train wreck to the north. Harmony knew what kind of ordinance they’d been carrying. Maybe even a…

The sun rose in the north. A burning wind tore over Lyra, taking loose chunks of roof along with it. And one of Bean’s legs. She grabbed that out of midair. She’d need to pack these in snow as soon as she could.

As the mushroom cloud curled into the night sky, Lyra felt… unafraid. For the first time since the Bad Day, she felt truly in control. Another megaspell. But this was her megaspell. This was her victory. Her life. Her wasteland. She was going to change it. Into what? She wasn’t sure yet. But if she had to launch a thousand megaspells to do it, she would.

What in our name are you doing? said a voice in Lyra’s head.

Lyra smiled grimly. She’d managed to get the alicorns’ attention — two dogs with one treat. She looked around and noticed a white one circling over the roof of the steel mill, around and around the blast furnace.

Lyra’s brows drew together. She protected her thoughts with her magic and chose to communicate by shouting instead. “You need to stop attacking those unicorns. They’re innocent in this. They’re slaves.”

They are the tools of our enemy. They must be destroyed.

“They’re living creatures, and they’re under the protection of the Minutemares!”

Since when?

“Since right now.” Lyra lifted her Pipbuck and pulled up the controls for the ‘insurance policy’ she’d set up at the Hagsgate missile base. Her left hoof was a bloody mess; it was hard to tell cloth and rubber from torn flesh. “Listen to me: Your kind have so much you can give to the wasteland. Your unity is a tremendous advantage; your love for each other is an inspiration. But if you don’t stop what you’re doing, then our factions can’t be friends anymore.”

Oh no, said the alicorn dryly.

Lyra ticked off a set of options on her PipBuck. Miles away, missiles rotated on their launchers, orienting themselves towards their selected targets. A small green button labeled ‘launch’ appeared on the screen. “If you’re not a friend of the Minutemares, you’re an enemy.”

Is that meant to be a threat, little pony?

“More of a promise. Goodbye.” Lyra hit the launch button.

Three dozen streaks of light rose in the northwest, illuminating the horizon with a faint glow. The white alicorn overhead kicked its legs in midair in startelement like it was skidding on ice. The missiles, only a few miles away, arrived in seconds. The alicorn had time to raise a shield, but the missile tore through it like it was paper. The alicorn vanished in a puff of orange and red light. White feathers drifted slowly down towards Lyra.

Fireworks blossomed all around the battlefield. Her PipBuck informed her another barrage was loaded. Lyra launched again. Conveniently, Ponsmith’s air defense command had already programmed them to target white alicorns first. Lyra turned on her PipBuck radio. “Hot Wings. Do you read me?”

“Did you do that?” said Blue Note.

“Yeah. That should take care of most of the white ones. Can you chase off the rest?”

“They have no shields, no guns, and can’t see in the dark. It shouldn't be a problem.”

Dark, leathery wings rose into the wasteland sky around the burning prison, barely visible in the darkness. Groups of thestrals swarmed the remaining blue and purple alicorns, encircling them a few at a time and taking their unarmored bodies down with quick bursts of disciplined fire. In a little while, the survivors vanished into the darkness or teleported away.

Lyra gathered Bean and his legs in her magic and teleported back to the ground. It was time to find Bon Bon.

Epilogue: The Envoy

“You want a cigarette?” said Button Mash.

“Please,” said Lyra.

He pulled one out of his carton with his teeth. Lyra took it in her magic and lit it off his.

She took a long drag and closed her eyes, letting the smoke settle in her lungs. “These things will be the death of me.”

Button Mash laughed.

A sad, strange procession straggled through the diffuse gray light of the wasteland dawn. The Minutemares marched in the lead, setting the ragged column’s limping pace. Lyra and Button Mash were in the front; the ones in the best condition. Their tiny vanguard was all the ground defense the column had — they were so desperate, they’d given Button Mash a rifle.

Next came Ivory and Crispy, pulling the sleds they’d made to carry Vindaloo and Bean. Crispy’s face was slack and empty, his eyes a thousand miles away. Ivory, with his hurt leg, was in no condition to be pulling a sled, but he was all that was available.

Bon Bon trudged between them, watching Bean and Vindaloo. They were sedated with Med-X and the last of the sleeping darts from Lyra’s flechette gun. Despite this, they screamed in helpless agony every time their respective sleds hit a bump or a ditch. Pity gnawed at Lyra’s insides — pity and, in the case of Bean, guilt.

Freed unicorns trailed behind them in a ragged wedge, like a flock of lost sheep following a single mangy sheepdog. They pulled their possessions — and their dead — in carts behind them.

“So, you’re tech support for the Minutemares? How long have you had that gig?” said Button Mash.

“Not long. A few months, on and off. I’m more of a generalist — machines and magic. I think there’s room in the organization for more help if you’re looking for a new job. So what was up with Ponysmith? He was an earth pony. His real name wasn’t Tidy Stitches, was it?”

Button’s eyes widened with surprise. “How did you know?”

“He’s an urban legend in Triple Diamond City. An earth pony obsessed with surgically modifying earth ponies to become unicorns. I connected the dots from there.”

“Yeah. That’s where he started,” said Button Mash. “I read all his emails, you know. He hated earth ponies; hated being an earth pony. Saw us as weak and inferior. But he hated unicorns, too. For being ‘better’. Not that you all are. Really, he just hated everycreature. He figured out how to give himself unicorn magic with that big stupid bull helmet, but it’s not the kind of thing you can implement on a large scale. He wanted to ‘uplift the pony race’, whatever that meant. Then he found an old Ministry of Image inventory that said Starswirl’s notes on Alicornization were stored in the Buckstone Public Library.”

Lyra whistled. “That’s what the alicorns want there, too.” She remembered the big, deformed, male, unusually friendly and humble alicorn Swan, whose existence indicated that the super alicorns didn’t have perfect control over their transformation process. Plus they only seemed to have the one combat spell each — not surprising; everyday unicorns usually only knew a couple of spells, but it went against the whole ‘great and powerful super alicorns’ reputation they were going for. An army of proper alicorns, even relatively weak ones like Rarity, would be the doom of everycreature else in the wasteland.

“Bingo.”

Lyra’s steps felt a little heavier. “Well, that’s going to cause us some problems.”

“It’s a complicated wasteland. I don’t know what you guys’ beef with Ponysmith was, but I hope it was worth it.”

Lyra sighed. “We didn’t have a lot of choices.”

In front of them, Blue Note fluttered up over a line of trees and came to a skidding landing in front of the two of them. She had bags under her eyes big enough to use for wallets.

“Blue Note!” said Lyra, hurrying over to her with an awkward limping prance. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Just give Blue Note a moment,” she said. She nosed a dash inhaler out of her saddlebags and took a hit. She shivered nose to tail as the high hit her. “That’s better. We found a settlement. Walled. Weapons on the walls. Boggy fields inside; looks like they try to grow crabberries there in the summer.”

Lyra squinted. “Crab berries?”

“That’d be the Slog,” said Button Mash. “A shroud of ghouls live there. There aren’t many of them, but they can salvage from radioactive areas even power armor ponies can’t go in, so they have good equipment. Ponysmith never had the time to clear them out, what with the alicorns and everything. I’d steer clear.”

“Any enemy of Ponysmith’s are good ponies, as far as I’m concerned,” said Crispy, lumbering up behind them.

“And I need a safe place to operate on Vindaloo and Bean,” said Bon Bon. “It has already been too long.”

“Would you like Blue Note to make contact? Tell them we are coming?”

“No,” said Crispy. “Lyra. You’ve always worked well on your own. I tell you what: you’re my envoy now. Go ahead. Get us what we need.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Freeze!” said a voice from a speaker on the wall. Automated wall turrets rotated to aim at her. The scrap wall was painted with a mural of ghouls engaged in scavenging scrap, harvesting what looked like tiny red crabs out of a shallow bog, and other workaday wasteland tasks.

“Already on it,” whispered Lyra to herself as a cold wind tore through her tattered armor. In a louder voice, she said, “I am Lyra Heartstrings, Student of Celestia and envoy of the Minutemares. I need to parley with your leader.”

“Thank you for sharing,” said the voice.

Lyra scowled. “We have wounded, and we need someplace to care for them. We have scrap to trade. We also killed Ponysmith, if that’s interesting to you.”

“You did what?” said the speaker.

“Killed Ponysmith,” said Lyra.

The speaker gave no reply, but the turrets were still aimed at her, so Lyra waited.

Melted snow had found the gaps in her repaired boots, and soaked into the bandages around her mangled hoof. It really hurt.

After a short eternity, the front gates slid up a pony height, and a ghoul in a creatively patchworked suit exited, followed by two guards in perfect suits of pre-war combat armor.

“Greetings,” said the ghoul. “I am Mayor Ricardo Diego Pinkmane of the Slog. And you, I gather, represent the army approaching my city?”

“We’re escorting refugees. We won’t be staying. But we could use your help if you’re willing to give it.”

Pinkmane narrowed his eyes. “You fought the Ponysmith?”

“Defeated him. Utterly,” said Lyra. “But we could use your help, and we’re willing to pay for it.”

“We saw the light of the battle,” said Pinkmane. “If you’re willing to disarm and wear a limiter, you can come to my office and we can negotiate.”

“Agreed,” said Lyra. They didn’t search her very thoroughly, but she passed over the flechette gun anyway. It was low on ammo, and if she boned this up so badly she had to shoot her way out of here, then she deserved what she got.

They lead her inside to a small clean town of recently constructed buildings. Raw and unlovely, but sturdy and warm. That was good; Lyra now mistrusted cute, homey towns. She observed a network of ducts running between the roofs; her eyes followed them back to a large metal building partly visible in the back of the town. Central heating. Not a bad deal.

Ghoul faces watched her from porches and windows. A gang of ghoul children stopped their snowball fight to stare at her. Were they children from before the war stuck in eternal youth? Or could ghouls have little ghoul foals?

The mayor’s ‘office’ was just his house. He led her through the front hall, and into a largish studio with south-facing skylights. An easel, model stand, and painter's cart took up most of the room. Dozens of lovingly detailed oil portraits of ghouls leaned against the walls.

“Guards, you can go. Lyra, have a cushion. Would you like some coffee?”

While she waited for him to make the coffee, She walked around and looked at his paintings. Art-starved, she hadn’t seen much of anything by way of painting since coming to the wasteland and she drank in these pictures like they were cold water. Passionate brush strokes, more evocative and even more realistic than mere realism, described the gnarls and whorls of ghoul’s flesh. There was a sameness to the subjects, certainly — fleshless noses, exposed teeth — but in each painting, the artist had found the subject’s individuality, the poses, colors, expressions, attitudes that made them who they were.

“I hope you like them,” said Pinkmane, setting her coffee in front of a cushion.

Lyra laid down behind them. “They’re beautiful,” said Lyra.

“Thank you. I was useless as an artist in my former life. It took the great disaster for me to find my calling. We are nearly indestructible — if you kill us, we come back. We can cling to a semblance of life without food or water. And yet any of us, at any time, could become a monster. I’ve seen the loss of self take place gradually over months or years. I’ve seen it happen between one eyeblink and the next. It is important, when it happens, that our community has a record of who that ghoul was before the change.” He took a sip of coffee. “So. Tell me your story. How did you come to battle the Ponysmith? Is it true that he is dead?”

Lyra leaned down and lapped up some of her coffee. Its warmth suffused her belly, its bittersweet flavor calmed her heart. She launched into an abbreviated version of the Minutemares’ story as she knew it and had experienced it, leaving out details she guessed would be classified if Crispy or Vindaloo had thought to make those choices. “Right now,” she said, getting to the important part as quickly as she could, “We have two badly wounded ponies who need surgery. We have a medic, but we have no place to operate on them. Can you help?”

Pinkmane nodded. “We have salvaged advanced medical equipment, but we have no doctors. If your medic is willing to see to our needs as well when she is done, she may have access to them.”

Lyra blinked. “That’s it?”

“You’ll have to keep your army out of sight of our walls, of course. But most denizens of the wasteland hate and fear ghouls. It’s in our interest to cultivate the goodwill of those who do not instinctively recoil from us.” He looked away. “Although. There is something else we need to discuss. We had to choose, at some point, whether to keep secrets or maintain transparency. We voted, and transparency won. So. When you are ready, I need to show you something that may change your mind about wanting to work with us.”

Lyra knocked back a big slug of her coffee. “Better show me now. My friends need help.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The building in the back of the town was a fusion reactor. A small one, but given the Commonwealth's reduced population it could probably serve the entire North Shore with the proper infrastructure. They gave Lyra a hazmat suit inside the first airlock.

“We’ve tried various approaches to see if feral ghouls can be healed,” said Pinkmane, helping her zip up her suit.

“You keep feral ghouls around?” said Lyra, disbelieving.

“They are our friends and family. What do you expect us to do? Though without a medical expert, our options are limited. Once we had the reactor set up, we thought that massive radiation exposure might heal the damage to their minds. We were not entirely wrong.”

He led her through a second airlock and into a short corridor. They passed doors labeled ‘heating’ and ‘power grid’ before going into one labeled ‘radiation therapy Ward A’. The room consisted of a narrow observation area separated from the main room by a thick slab of reinforced glass.

“I recommend you do not approach the glass,” said Pinkmane, but Lyra stepped forward nonetheless, mesmerized by what she saw.

The main room consisted of a large open area, with several communal sleeping chambers off to the side. The back wall was grated; she could see pipes behind them, probably routing radioactive coolant water from the reactor through the room. Scattered around, sprawled on cushions, or just lying on the floor, were over a dozen ghoul ponies of all three tribes. They were reading, doing puzzles, playing board games, napping. It seemed like nothing more than a waiting room. She stepped close against the window, so close her nose touched it.

“Lyra…” said Pinkmane.

The head of every pony in the radiation therapy room snapped towards her. They rose from their pastimes so quickly that Lyra’s eyes didn’t register the intermediate movement. They slammed hooves against the glass, rubbed jagged razor-edged incisors against it. Red-glowing eyes rolled towards her, their expressions full of hate. Lyra’s mouth gaped; too stunned to move. Pinkmane had to pull her towards the back wall of the observation area.

“Herd! Back!” said a voice from behind the slavering mass of feral ghouls. They slunk back reluctantly and another ghoul, larger and more muscular than the rest, pushed through their ranks to stand in front of the glass. “Ricardo. My old friend.”

“Thurber,” said Pinkmane.

“This is a tender morsel you’ve brought us, Ricardo.” Thurber took a second to salaciously lick his lips at Lyra, who decided to back up against the observation room until her butt flattened out against it. “You’ll have to cut her up to fit her through the meal slot. Why not just let us out, and we’ll have an easier time.”

“I’m sorry, you know I can’t do that,” said Pinkmane.

“You’re only delaying the inevitable, friend,” said Thurber. “The power of the four wicked stars grows — not only over the minds of the ghouls — their forerunners — but across this whole blighted world. Carcosa and Fomalhaut, Aldebaran and Celaeno, they want to bring us a world of tainted beauty such as even you, with your artist’s mind, cannot imagine.”

“You can see,” said Pinkmane, “The radiation has power to heal their minds, but there is something wrong with their souls, as well. I don’t know what this nonsense about the four wicked stars is, but all of them are quite obsessed with the religion.”

“It’s a zebra legend,” said Lyra. “And when I say legend… well, if you’ve studied magic as deeply as I have, you’ll know that legends are usually more true than not.”

Thurber chortled. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here. Yes! The four wicked stars called your Nightmare Moon to rise, and their work is not yet done. The glorious night will come again!”

Lyra breathed in through her nostrils. “I think I’ve seen enough here.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

By the time she got back to Pinkmane’s office, she’d decided healing Bean and Vindaloo was worth the risk and was ready to bump hooves on their agreement.

She helped Bon Bon, Crispy and Ivory bring the wounded into the ghouls’ very clean and well-equipped medical center.

Exhausted and stressed as she was, Bon Bon’s eyes lit up to see the machines she would be working with — foremost amongst them a device that would allow her to control two camera-equipped claws with her hooves and earth pony snout. Lyra worked the rest of the morning to recruit the Slog’s one healer pony — an elderly midwife who’d been retired before the war — and a couple of freed unicorns with nurse training as orderlies for Bon Bon.

“What else do you need from me?” she said to Bon Bon, looking over her friend and her son strapped to operating tables. The orderlies were administering anesthesia to Vindaloo. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

Bon Bon touched Lyra’s foreleg gently. “I remember my programming. It gives me all the knowledge of what to do. The only thing I need from you is for you not to distract me.

“I won’t distract you,” said Lyra. “I want to be here.”

Bon Bon kissed her. “No. You will distract me simply by existing. Please go wait someplace else.”

Lyra turned to leave the operating room, head hung, feeling sullen. She could avoid being distracting!

“Mom,” said a masculine voice as she passed.

Lyra closed her eyes and cringed. She’d hoped he was still unconscious; she didn’t want to face him yet. “Bean. I’m so sorry.”

“Come over here,” he said. His voice was strong and calm, even though his legs lay nearby in a bin of packed snow.

Lyra sighed. “If I could have done things any other way...”

He shook his head. “Please don’t apologize. You know what you did. And I’m angry. Furious. I couldn’t hope for a worse mother.”

Ouch.

“But I’m also impressed. When I told you Ponysmith was the only choice for the wasteland? That was because I didn’t know what you’d become.”

“I don’t want to be a leader,” she lied. In the cold light of day, she didn’t want to admit to the power fantasies she’d indulged when she’d half-accepted, half-seized command of the Minutemares from Crispy for a few giddy hours.

“You’re strong, and more importantly you’re willing to use that strength. You don’t let morality limit you from doing what you think is right.”

Lyra tilted her head to one side. “Honey, you’re delirious from the meds. If something is the right thing to do, then it’s moral.”

Bean laughed. “Maybe I am. You don’t cling to the old world’s ways, even though for you, the old world was, what, only a few months ago? I admire your flexibility. Your adaptability.”

“So you understand why I did what I did,” said Lyra. She hovered over him, wanting to kiss him, but not sure if she should.

He closed his eyes. “I understand,” he said, finally allowing a bit of a tremble into his voice. “But I can’t forgive you. Maybe if your girlfriend gets my legs back on right. Don’t let her get them mixed up.”

“She will. You need to rest, honey. I know you’re hiding so much pain, right now.” She turned to one of the unicorn orderlies. “Can you get him some more Med-X?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Crispy and Lyra wound up talking to Pinkmane about a possible trade agreement between the Slog and Stable 93. Crispy didn’t speak much; mainly he provided a bit of data and confirmed or denied Lyra and Pinkmane’s ideas with a head-shake or a nod. They hadn’t gotten much accomplished by dinner time, at which point they politely suggested that he go rest.

Crabberries were pretty tasty, once you got used to the way their little shells crunched. Very tart.

That night, Lyra found herself in a spare apartment with a bed and a small kitchen and it’s own bathroom, playing solitaire on her PipBuck. It periodically gave her a pop-up message about the trivial amount of radiation she’d soaked up in the reactor; she found herself missing Littlepip.

She was probably just lonely.

After a very long time, she decided that she wasn’t going to see Bon Bon that night. She washed up and brushed her teeth with the hygiene things the ghouls had left her. Then she got undressed and played more solitaire.

The next thing she knew, her Pipbuck was lying on her face, and a pale presence was standing next to her.

“Bon Bon?”

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” said Bon Bon, her voice shaking.

“Get in bed! Get in bed!” said Lyra, making room. Bon Bon wriggled into bed on her side; Lyra lay facing her and pulled the blankets over the two of them.

“It’s warm,” said Bon Bon. “I haven’t been warm in so long.”

Lyra lay still. She wanted to ask how things had gone, but she was afraid to ask, too, and was willing to let Bon Bon speak when she was ready.

“I can feel you vibrating,” said Bon Bon. “I can tell you that Bean will be fine. He will be on his hooves again in a month and a half. Fully recovered in a few months.”

“Physically, anyway,” said Lyra.

Bon Bon kissed her cheek. “You did the best you could. Oh! mes baies de crabe, your hoof! Let me look at your hoof!”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not. I have stimpacks, now. Let me change the bandages.”

“Don’t waste a stimpack on me,” said Lyra, who didn’t want a massive needle in her breastbone right now. “It’s not that bad.”

“Some discharge. You’ve lost a good chunk of the hoof wall, and quite a bit of flesh, as well. No damage to the bone. You’ll heal better if I use a stimpack.”

“Bon Bon, why aren’t you talking about Vindaloo?” Lyra swallowed on a dry throat. “Is she… is she dead?”

“Non,” said Bon Bon, though it was more of a choke than a word. “I did… everything I could. She might walk again if she tries very hard. Eventually. I don’t know. I don’t know if she will.” She pushed her face against Lyra’s chest, sobbing bitterly, thick little earth pony body heaving.

“It’s all right. It’s all right. You’re tired,” said Lyra. “She’ll be fine. No matter what, she’ll be fine. She’s tough. Tougher than any of us. She’s alive, and that’s what matters.”

“Lyra?” said Bon Bon.

“Yes?”

“Make love to me.”

They slid their hooves under each other’s bellies and played with each others’ teats. Rubbed them together pushed up between thick thighs; Bon Bon’s small virginal ones against Lyra’s, still heavy from having nursed a foal. Bon Bon cradled them one at a time against the frog of her hoof, then slid down beneath them. She pressed the edge of her hoof up against the slit of Lyra’s pussy, rubbing up against her little double nub. Fire built in Lyra’s lower belly, burning brighter and brighter before exploding up her spine. She lay, gasping tangled in the sheets and Bon Bon’s legs.

“Stop…” gasped Lyra. “Moving your hoof. Too sensitive.”

Bon Bon smirked. “Only one?”

Lyra bit her neck. “You want it, smart ass? Because I can give it to you. Hard.”

Bon Bon shivered at the neck bite. “How hard? This body… it is a virgin. I think I broke its hymen in the battle, but… will it hurt?”

“Take the limiter off my horn and I’ll show you what I can do.”

She positioned Bon Bon on the bed in front of her, rear in the air, and poured magic into her like wine into a chalice. She filled Bon Bon until she moaned, and then filled her a little more. She formed her magic into fingers and pushed and pulled gently, rubbing a magic thumb against her little clit, watching her round butt tremble.

“Do you like it, my little pony?”

“Mon harmonie I love you so much! It feels so good!”

She licked the curve of Bon Bon’s creamy ass cheek. “Then this belongs to me, now.”

“That is accept… accepta… oh, par les orteils salés de Discord!” She screamed; her pussy clenched hard, and she slid off Lyra’s magic fingers and slumped on the mattress like a pat of half-melted butter.

“Are you okay?” said Lyra, licking sweet-pungent pony goo off her magic.

“Oui,” said Bon Bon. “I came.”

“Never would have guessed.”

She slid down next to her, and they lay together, chests rising and falling slowly. As they rested, Lyra felt empty. She’d succeeded in so many things since she’d come to the Wasteland — she’d won battles, she’d forged peace, she’d brought justice. She’d lost her family, but she’d found a new one in the Minutemares. Her husband had abandoned her for Sea Sprite and the Enclave, but she found Bon Bon. She’d lost her son and found her son, and if she was lucky one day he’d forgive her.

And yet.

There were still so many things wrong. What was going to happen to VIndaloo? What was going to happen to the Wasteland? To Rarity and Triple Diamond City? To the secrets of the library?

Lyra sighed. There were so many things she could worry about. There would probably always be -- After the Bad Day, nothing would be easy, ever again. Yet worrying about them did no good. She couldn't predict the future, and she couldn’t change the past. What was left but hope? Hope, so often dashed. Hope, the traitor emotion.

“Bon Bon?” said Lyra. “Is it okay to hope?”

But Bon Bon was already snoring.

Footnotes, Prologue

I’m doing Crispy a grave disservice by presenting what is essentially marketing copy as a significant excerpt from his book. While the passage is dramatic, I feel the need to correct some bits that might be misleading.

To paraphrase several hundred pages of densely argued prose: Most of these foreign policy decisions were Fluttershy’s. When Twilight assigned her the Ministry of Kindness, Her Majesty assumed that Fluttershy would interpret her vague portfolio to ‘advance the health and wellbeing of creatures at home and abroad’ by, perhaps, reforming the aging and overwhelmed Principality Health Service. And probably opening a lot more animal shelters.

Which she did.

But her daily intelligence briefs painted a portrait of horror. A world full of war, sickness, and famine. When she and her friends had defeated the Storm King, they had prompted Emperor Raiden XIV to declare an exodus inward for the raiju people to contemplate their failures. This, in turn, led to the collapse of over a dozen corrupt-but-stable puppet governments the raiju empire had been supporting, causing war and strife where there had been, if not justice, then at least peace and stability.

She realized that she and her friends had indirectly caused all of this by doing a good deed: defeating the Storm King and saving their nation.

She could have come to understand that even the best-intentioned deeds can have complex consequences, and therefore those with power should act with great caution.

Instead, she took the counsel of her anxieties. These problems were her fault, and she needed to do something about it.

She started with a small step—sending medical teams to impartially help the wounded on both sides of the Hippogriff Civil War. This was a widely lauded move. When hippogriff insurgents made it difficult for these teams to do their work, and when the medics themselves became targets, she went in front of the Ministry Mares and asked for military protection. When Applejack and Twilight explained that sending EUP troops to Mount Erebus would be considered an act of war, she fled the council chamber crying.

Rainbow Dash comforted her, as she had so many times before. In the dark and quiet of their bed-chamber, she made an offer of ‘volunteers’ to protect Fluttershy’s medics.

Three years later, two mercenary teams rumored to be Ministry of Awesome black ops teams assassinated both the Sea Queen and the Sky King. Leaderless and reeling, both sides came to the negotiating table, where they ultimately worked out peace terms.

Deep in a secret Ministry of Awesome airship, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash performed a musical number to celebrate their success and planned their next move. With the evidence of their success at Mount Erebus, they could be assured of Twilight’s support. Their next friendship intervention would be made in the open.

Caesar Musa III, widely demonized in Equestrian propaganda as a bloodthirsty tyrant, was not truly an evil creature, or even a bad ruler. The war that had imposed crippling reparations on Abyssinia happened four Caesars and three Musas ago, and it had been a defensive one to boot. Over the decades, a series of cunning Abyssinian diplomats had whittled away at those reparations, gradually shifting almost all of the economic burden of those payments onto a few poor mining provinces on the Zebraican border. Almost everycat in those regions worked in conditions of near-slavery, providing trainloads of cheap lead as raw material for Zebraica’s unique, transmutation-based economy.

If Musa was even aware of any injustice here, that awareness likely lived at the edges of his consciousness. A tragic situation, but one that helped his economy, and also one that wasn’t technically even happening in his country. It was simply none of his business.

When Equestrian-backed insurgents overthrew the Abyssinian Meowlifate for reasons completely unrelated to the plight of those lead miners (whom Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were also unaware of), Musa III was merely annoyed. Princess Twilight had overstepped her bounds. Again. But he was on good terms with Twilight personally and diplomatically, and their two nations enjoyed a favorable trade relationship. He instructed his staff writers to prepare an ambiguous and mealy-mouthed ‘condemnation’ of Twilight’s foreign policy choices and moved on to the next item in his briefing.

It was not his country, so it was none of his business.

A week later, when the previously soaring Zebraican stock market took a high-dive into bear country, he was compelled to take notice. That cheap lead was more critical to the Zebraican economy than anyone had realized. On top of all the openly declared lead that came into the country from Abyssinia, a thriving black market existed. Corrupt mine bosses had been trading off the books with shady Zebrican alchemists, swapping lead ingots for a variety of unsafe or illegal potions. Potions of longevity, sexual prowess, and mind control were worth many times the lead offered in return. Since the potions gained their value from being proscribed and cost those alchemists almost nothing to make, they could transmute the lead into whatever other metals the market demanded and sell them at ridiculously low prices to the captains of Zebraican Industry for enormous profits. The captains of industry laundered the sketchy metal by slipping it in with legitimately sourced orders, and everyone (except the poor exploited miners at the bottom of the food chain).

No more slavery meant no more black market meant no more cheap metal meant economic cataclysm for Zebraica. Stock brokers self-defenestrated. Factory pistons groaned into stillness. Dinner tables went empty.

Desperate, Musa III’s put the crisis before his cabinet. They had a solution—Yakyakistan. They pointed out it was a technologically backward nation, with a tiny population, no standing army, and range after range of mountains containing vast untapped mineral resources. Musa III protested that the terrain was terrible, the weather was worse, and that even the most creative pretext would struggle to disguise an invasion so far outside Zebraica’s normal sphere of influence as anything but an act of unprovoked imperialistic aggression.

The advisors countered by putting forward plans for their own 'friendship intervention'. Over the winter, Zebraican agents would assist whatever political factions they could find in staging a series of terrorist attacks. As soon as the sea ice melted next summer, a small task force of Zerbrica’s most elite and well-equipped troops would land and begin ‘restoring order’. Utilizing shock and awe and surgical strikes, they would cow the simple-minded natives. By seizing control of several strategic mountain passes, they could have the capital and the most desirable mining regions under their control in a matter of days, before the yaks could organize an effective defense or the international community raise a meaningful protest.

Musa III was reluctant, but his country was in need. He grilled his advisors, looking for flaws in the plan. He found none. He concluded that while it was an evil plan, it was a good one.

He was only half right.

The first flaw in the plan was a misunderstanding of yakkish politics. While they were a contentious people, prone to butt heads over matters as simple as the balance of vanilla extract in baked goods, they were also a companionable and loyal people, who typically resolved disputes by literally butting heads. Whoever had the worse headache afterward was declared the loser, and the loser cheerfully abided by the results of the duel. Absolutely nocreature, especially not the yaks, believed that they had a homegrown terrorist movement, and the wave of tragic bombings they endured only drew them closer together and created international sympathy.

The second flaw was a misunderstanding of the yakkish will to fight. There was no excuse for this except for wishful thinking on the part of Musa III’s advisors. While Yakyakistan technically had no standing army, that was because every yak, male and female, rich and poor, from the cradle to the edge of the grave, was trained to fight, both in single combat and in groups. When one yak was presented with a threat, every healthy yak nearby would drop what they were doing and use their personality and special gifts to help stomp that threat. Only a few creatures—griffins, dragons, raiju—were as fierce, and none of them were as well organized.

The third flaw was a misunderstanding of Yakyakistan’s weather patterns. The Zebraican invasion timetable was based on average daily snowfall in the region. Any yak old enough to talk could have explained to Musa about the spring blizzards that dumped all that snow during a few days, rather than spreading it across the season in manageable clumps. One of this year's blizzards passed through shortly after the initial Zebraican landings, locking them in their beachheads when they were supposed to be seizing strategic mountain passes. By the time the weather cleared, the passes had been fortified by yaks equipped with the finest and most advanced Equestrian weapons.

The fourth flaw was a single pony—Pinkie Pie. This was also inexcusable. Musa and his advisors should have taken into account that she was an intimate friend of Prince Rutherford. They should have remembered that she had introduced Harmonism to Yakyakistan, a religion joyfully embraced by its creatures to the point where many revered her as a saint.

Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy confronted Twilight Sparkle. They demanded that Equestria intervene in this fight. It was a gross injustice, and they could not let it stand. Not advisors, not ‘volunteers’, but the full might of the EUP—which, under the guidance of a group of mares who had seen its weak late-Celestian incarnation crumble before the might of the Storm King, had grown into a force to be reckoned with.

Twilight Sparkle, backed into a corner, discovered that she simply did not have the strength to say ‘no’ to her friends.

‘Crystal Math’ is the street name for a mineral compound that would later become the active ingredient in the Mint-Als line of products.

Prologue 1: Friendship Intervention

Author's Note

Dedicated to all those who grew up proud in the shadow of the mushroom cloud.

Thank you, kkat.

This story is an AU of Fallout: Equestria, and should not be assumed to follow the same canon.

Prologue 1: Friendship Intervention

War. War never changes.

The ancient Zebraicans waged war to gather coal and alchemical materials. The Crystal Ponies forged an empire from their lust for magical gems. The three tribes of ponies, fleeing famine and seeking a new home, drove the buffalo from their ancestral lands.

Centuries later, Celestia’s reign brought a thousand years of peace to Equestria. Ponies forgot the ways of violence.

But war never changes.

The ascension of Twilight Sparkle to the Equestrian throne was heralded as a new Era of Harmony. Her reign brought unprecedented progress in technology and the arts.

But all was not well.

Faced with a world reeling from the collapse of the Storm King’s Empire, Twilight staged a series of ‘friendship interventions’ to restore order.1 Her troops brought peace to Saddle Arabia, Mount Erebus, and Abyssinia. The Zebraican Caesar Musa III, perceiving aggression and deprived of access to the Abyssinian lead mines, retaliated by invading metal-rich Yakyakistan.2

Princess Twilight struck back, touching off a war of attrition that would last for almost a decade. Finally, Empress Cadence, heartbroken by the bloodshed, forbid any more Equestrian troops or supplies to pass through her lands. Twilight responded by imprisoning her and annexing the Crystal Empire.

After the apocalyptic battle of Shattered Hoof Ridge, Equestria and Zebraica came to a fragile peace. But, when hope seemed to shine brightest, a terrible misunderstanding snuffed out that hope in a blaze of balefire.

In a few brief hours, Equestria was reduced to cinders.

— Crispy Apples, A Creatures’ History of the Northeastern Wasteland

Chapter 7: Pukwudgie Fever+

“Nice place you’ve got here,” said Crispy.

He and Lyra stood in the foyer of Stable 93, already fetlock deep in dead pukwudgies. He had his combat shotgun at the ready. Lyra levitated her 10mm pistol in front of her, her .38 revolver tucked into her raider barding. A small horde of pukwudgies had charged them when they hit the bottom, but SATS and Crispy’s buckshot bursts had dealt with them quickly. Now Lyra’s EFS was clear of red dots, which made her nervous. Her, Crispy, and Bullseye had killed a lot of pukwudgies, but nowhere near as many as she’s seen. Where were they all?

“I told you it sucked here,” said Lyra, looking back at the elevator shaft. Bullseye’s remains were spread all around the platform; a bone here, a shred of gristle there, her shotgun chewed in half. “Do you have a plan?”

“It’s called reconnaissance in force, New Pony. We go in, we kick butt, we see what’s up. So where do we go from here?”

Their voices were muffled by the gas masks they both wore. As the Minutemares and refugees drew near to the stable, Lyra had begun to worry about why it had been abandoned. Since StableTec had been performing medical experiments on the inhabitants of Stable 93, a horrible plague seemed a likely culprit. To her relief, both Crispy and Vindaloo had been open to the idea. Luckily, gas masks had been a common fashion accessory amongst the raider gang they’d slaughtered, and they had several.

Vindaloo was in the StableTec parking lot, keeping an eye on the refugees and briefing them on firearms safety with the captured weapons.

Lyra pulled her head back into the present moment and looked at the map screen on her PipBuck. “Keep in mind I didn’t spend any time in here when it was operational. At least not while I was conscious. The corridor on the right…”

“The one with the blast mark on the floor?”

“Yeah, that one.” The pukwudgies had cleaned up their erstwhile comrades’ remains with remarkable thoroughness. There was little left of them but a pink stain. “That’s where I came out. Down the corridor there’s some maintenance stuff and a locker room and then it exits to the atrium.”

“And what’s that other door on the left?”

Lyra fiddled with the dials on her PipBuck. “I don’t know. There’s nothing but blank space back there. The map doesn’t even show the door.”

Crispy thrust his hoof towards the left. “Come on! There’s a door right there!”

“I know! I know! Either the map data is bad, or Stable-Tec is pissing on our legs and telling us it’s raining.”

They examined the door, but there didn’t seem to be any way to open it from this side, so they went the other way, alert for sounds of chewing and scratching. It was quiet, for now, so Lyra made them stop at the locker room, and came out with the two remaining PipBucks. “I don’t know if these work. But they’re the same batch I got mine from, so there’s reason to hope.”

“I wouldn’t even know what to do with it,” said Crispy.

“I’ll set it up for you when we’re done here.” She tucked the PipBucks into her saddlebags. “I wonder where all the pukwudgies are? I mean besides the ones who greeted us as we came in. Seemed like there were a million of them, before.”

Crispy nodded. “We killed off the brave ones, and now the smart ones are waiting for us.”

“You’re paranoid, like Vindaloo.”

“Only way to stay alive these days is to assume everything is trying to kill you. Because it usually is.”

Lyra found that point of view difficult to argue with based on what she’d seen so far. But nothing tried to kill them while they were exploring the maintenance area.

There wasn’t much of anything in there. There were a few dead pukwudgies that had attempted to eat the mushrooms in the locker room. The storage rooms and offices were scattered with junk and scrap—aluminum cans, desk fans, duct tape, cleaning supplies. Broken terminals. Lyra very much wanted to find an intact terminal with a connection to the maneframe; she needed to see what she could learn about what happened to her family.

They gave up on the maintenance corridors and headed for the atrium. Still no red dots. A slight ache in the lower back, but was that a premonition, or just the fact she’d slept on the floor last night? “This is a lot of territory to cover all by ourselves.”

“We’ll take it room by room,” said Crispy.

And that was what they did, at first. The commissary and the walk-in clinic had been stripped of anything useful. The clinic was a different one than she’d woken up in, meant for minor complaints and giving out drugs. Lyra became fixated on the first aid box by the door—locked, of course. Had they lost the key to these things? She levitated out A Young Mare’s Guide to Proper Lock Picking Etiquette, skimmed the first few chapters, fished out her bobby pins, and opened her multi-tool’s screwdriver attachment. The book said the poke around with the bobby bin until she heard the tumblers fall into place, but because it was a book, she couldn’t tell what that sound was supposed to be. So she just wiggled it around, periodically twisting the screwdriver to see if she was getting anywhere. After a few minutes, her bobby pin snapped. Lyra swore and fished the bobby pin fragment out of the lock with her magic. Maybe she needed to do more than just skim the book?

As she fished a fresh bobby pin out of her saddlebags, she realized she’d been so focused on trying to pick the lock that she hadn’t been paying attention to her EFS. Red dots filled the compass in every direction. Red dots with little down arrows on them.

“Crispy! Crispy!” Lyra ran to the railing of the atrium balcony, looking desperately for the Minutemare. She couldn’t believe he’d left her alone; then again she’s stopped to do her own thing without even talking to him. “Crispy, they’re coming!”

Crispy ran out of one of the rooms on the lower level of the atrium, shotgun at the ready. “Where?”

“Beneath you!”

The floor around Crispy exploded. Metal plates and rubber non-slip mats flew into fragments as pukwudgies boiled out of the ground like very large, very toothy maggots. Shotgun bursts echoed off the atrium walls, unbelievably loud. Lyra got ready to teleport him out of there, but she hadn’t formed half the spell matrix in her mind before she felt the sickening sensation of knife-like fangs sinking into her back left leg.

She shrieked and activated SATS, but the pukwudgie was behind her, and she couldn’t get a shot at it. It pulled her to the ground. Panicked, she yanked her leg away, feeling flesh tear as she ripped her leg free of the monster’s jaws. She rolled onto her back and looked down between her legs. The mutant pukwudgie’s wrinkled face stared at her, blood and tattered strips of blue fabric and green hide dangling from its mouth like festive streamers. She put two 10mm rounds right between its eyes. Gore sprayed out the back of its head.

Normal time returned. Searing strips of pain burned along her leg. She heard claws scrabble on non-slip rubber. There were more pukwudgies up here! Lyra rolled to a sitting position, hind leg screaming in protest, raised a force around her left side, leveled her pistol at the oncoming pukwudgies on her right, and re-entered SATS feeling like a post-apocalyptic knight with sword and shield. She lined up shots at three pukwudgies, two headshots to each. The bullets passed through their whole bodies and came out the back ends.

But there were a half dozen on her left, clawing at her force field, trying to climb over it. A half-dozen! How many bullets did she have left? Her EFS told her she had no bullets left. That was great. That was wonderful. As she fumbled for her revolver, one of the pukwudgies somehow got purchase on the force field and climbed over it. Its maw loomed inches from Lyra’s face. Drops of spit spattered her snout.

She was going to die. Die by having her face bitten off, which was one of the worst ways to die. Crispy was probably already dead.

A stuttering of fire from Crispy’s combat shotgun blasted the critter off Lyra’s shield and into the atrium wall. A few more bursts cleared out the other pukwudgies.

“Oh no, oh no,” said Crispy, rushing to her side.

“I’m fine,” said Lyra. She wasn’t.

“You’re not. We’ve got to get you someplace safe.”

He dragged her up onto his back, and they took shelter in the medical clinic she had just left. He kicked the door closed and went rummaging for things to bind her wound with.

“I have a towel,” said Lyra weakly, levitating it out of her saddlebags and sterilizing it with a laundry drying spell.

Crispy tore the towel into strips. Time to get a new towel. He pulled out a metal flask and poured it on Lyra’s leg. She winced at the bee-sting pain that shot through her wounds. “Rotgut’s product?”

“A million uses.” He set to wrapping the towel strips around Lyra’s bleeding leg, holding them in place with his hooves and expertly knotting them with his mouth.

“I’m sorry I got bit,” said Lyra. She was. The wound hurt the teeny tiniest bit less sterilized and bound but something didn’t feel right. There was something wrong with those pukwudgies. Were they really mutants? Her PipBuck didn’t seem to think there was much radiation down here. Maybe all their fur had fallen out because they’d been sick.

“Naw, I’m sorry I left you by yourself,” said Crispy. There were already scratching and gnawing noises at the door. “I got to thinking I was babysitting you, got resentful, got bored. Unsoldierly of me. And then you save my life. If you hadn’t warned me about the pukwudgies, I’d be mutant food by now.”

“I didn’t save your life, you saved mine.” Lyra got to her hooves, favoring her injured leg. She didn’t feel good—she felt nauseous and scratchy and her throat felt raw. It must just be her imagination; there was no way a disease could take effect so quickly. Not a normal disease, anyway. She went back to the first aid kit. Thought about trying to pick it again, then just wrenched the cover halfway off its hinges with her magic. It gave her a hornache, but probably less of a hornache than trying to figure out what sound the tumblers were supposed to make. She pulled a stimpack and a Med-X injector out of the opening.“Got us some stuff.”

“You’ve earned those,” said Crispy, looking around considering the room. He walked around, putting his ear against the walls and the floor. Then he got up on a gurney and tapped on the ceiling. “Rooms on all sides. Rock up there. We’re probably safe from below, though, unless they find something to stand on so they can reach the ceiling.”

Something tickled the edge of Lyra’s awareness. A sound, barely audible above the scratching and the ringing in her ears from the gunfire. The sound of crying. Fur rose along her back. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Somepony’s crying.”

Crispy raised an eyebrow and rotated his ears towards the sound. “I guess we’re not alone in here.”

Lyra leaned towards Crispy until their snouts were almost touching. “Of course we’re fucking alone in here. Alone with hundreds of starving pukwudgies. Do you really think there’s anypony else alive here?”

“Well, then who’s crying?”

Lyra grabbed Crispy by the front of his uniform coat. She knew she was acting like a crazy pony, but she couldn’t help herself and she didn’t care. “A ghost, Crispy. It’s a fucking ghost.”

“Ghosts ain’t real,” said Crispy.

“Don’t you tell me what’s real. I passed up an elective in exorcism at CSGU and now I’m regretting the missed educational opportunity.”

Crispy pushed her hooves off his coat. “You ever hear of Oxfarm’s razor, college mare?”

“When in doubt, choose the simplest explanation,” said Lyra.

“‘One must not multiply entities unnecessarily.’”

“Yeah, if you want to get all technical about it.”

“Pony, or ghost, then?”

“I just explained why a ghost was more likely!” Lyra looked around the room. Where was the noise coming from? There was an air vent near the ceiling. She pushed a gurney over and stood on it. The crying noise was coming from there. “Hello! Hello! Ghost! Can you hear us?”

“What is this?” said a mare’s voice, echoing and distant through the pipes. “I am not a ghost. There is no such thing.”

“Then who are you?” asked Lyra. She felt she had heard the voice somewhere before.

“I am Bacteriological Observation Nurse 80n, but the doctors… they used to call me Bonnie.”

“Well, Bonnie, the pukwudgies have us trapped in this room. Can you help us?”

BON-80n’s voice wavered on the verge of tears.“I tried to help the stable dwellers. But the experimental animals escaped, and it was as if I had done nothing.”

“Keep it together, Bon Bon. We’re alive, and we need your help,” said Lyra.

BON-80n was silent for a moment. “I have an idea, but it is a great wrong. My programming is to first do no harm. I have failed this programming again and again. And yet I am also programmed to believe that organic life is more important than a robot’s needs, and that pony life is more important than animal life. If I had been willing to do this thing earlier, maybe the stable dwellers could have stayed.”

Lyra had so many questions. “You’re a robot?”

Crispy butted in. “Ask her what we have to do. I don’t have enough ammunition for all these little bastards.”

“I am a modified Mrs. Orderly model. And I have access to large quantities of nitrogen gas. If it is released into the stable air circulation system, all oxygen-breathing creatures will painlessly suffocate.”

“Painlessly suffocate?” said Crispy incredulously.

“Yes. Organic lungs cannot use it, but they do not detect it as harmful. A creature will merely continue breathing until it passes out and dies.”

Lyra swore. “Our gas masks aren’t going to be any use against that.”

“I have breathable oxygen as well. But I cannot do this by myself. You need to come to me in the secret stable.”

“Secret stable?” Lyra looked at Crispy. “What do you think?”

“We’re listening, Bon Bon,” said Crispy.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The jar of hoof sanitizer rolled out into the hallway, and the pukwudgies scattered.

“I can’t believe that worked,” said Crispy.

“These are the smart ones, like you said. The last time I did that it was a hoof grenade. It probably won’t work again,” said Lyra.

Crispy hurried out, and Lyra limped after him. Her wound didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt. Everything was floating thanks to the med-X. That was probably also why she felt nauseous. Her lungs felt thick, too. Was that usually a side effect of opiates? She didn’t have much experience with them; only after Little Bean was born, and that was a haze of exhaustion and postpartum depression.

It didn’t take the pukwudgies long to figure out that they’d been tricked, but by then Crispy and Lyra had turned down a corridor and only had to worry about attacks from two directions, give or take a floor or ceiling. Lyra raised a shield to protect them from behind, and Crispy pulverized anything in front of them with bursts from his combat shotgun.

“Which way now?” said Crispy.

“Third left!” said Lyra, struggling to balance maintaining her shield and remembering BON-80n’s directions in her drug-hazed mind. “Then down the stairs to the utility corridor and…” she trailed off when Crispy’s shotgun barked, taking out a group of mutants in front of them. She was sure the next stage would come to her when she needed it.

She slid down the stairs on her butt behind Crispy and rolled into a wide orange corridor lined with metal crates. There were no red dots ahead of them; this was because it was a dead end. She ran behind a crate and spread the shield across the stairwell entrance.

“There’s no way out!” said Crispy.

“We went the way she said!” Lyra was pretty sure she had. Why was it so hard to breathe? She was really out of shape. If she’d known she’d be entering a post-apocalyptic wasteland in the future, would she have gone to the gym more?

The pukwudgies slammed themselves against her shield. They hurled themselves from two steps up, slid down the invisible surface, and then scurried back to do it again. Lyra couldn’t feel the kinetic transfer through the Med-X, but her shield wasn’t going to last forever. The impact of dozens of sturdy little bodies was having a surprisingly rapid effect. “Look for a secret door!”

“You look for a secret door,” growled Crispy, bracing his shotgun on a crate. “Your shield’s already cracking!”

It was. She was better than this! But her horn ached so badly. Another way she’d gotten out of shape. She wished she’d practiced more after magic school.

Secret door. Secret door. Lyra looked around. Buttressing beams divided the corridor into several alcoves. BON-80n had said something about a switch, hadn’t she? Or a door? Or something? Why couldn’t she think straight? Lyra’s belly twisted. She leaned against an orange buttress and puked. Second time today.

“Are you all right?” said Crispy.

“Still a better day than yesterday,” she croaked.

“That’s the spirit. Keep looking!”

And she tried. But almost before she’d turned away from her puddle of vomit, a cracking sensation split her skull. Her shield shattered like glass. Pukwudgies swarmed in like a roiling sea of maggots. She fumbled for her pistols with her magic. SATS gave her time to line up her shots, but there were just too many of them. Crispy fired burst after burst, shredding fat naked bodies.

“Quickly, mes amis! This way!”

Lyra whipped her head around. A door had appeared in the wall behind them. An angel hovered there, gleaming white, lightning crackling between its tentacles.

No. She blinked. It was a modified Mr. Handy holding defibrillator paddles. Lyra really wasn’t feeling well.

The robot covered their escape with the paddles, vigorously applying them to advancing pukwudgies. “Podonnez-moi, s’il vous plait! Oh, I am so very sorry!”

Lyra collapsed in a gasping, shivering heap on the floor. Crispy’s face loomed over her. “Something’s wrong with her!”

“She is very sick,” said BON-80n. “We must get her to the infirmary.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“Your friend has contracted P1U3—a weaponized strain of pukwudgie flu—through her wounds,” said BON-80n.

“It’s getting worse fast,” said Crispy. He hovered just out of hoof reach of where Lyra lay on her hospital bed, as if unsure how to handle this situation.

“It is a biological weapon, developed for the next round of war with Zebraica,” said BON-80n

“You’re shitting me. You have biological weapons down here? I thought that was a shelter.”

“The stables, they were, how do you say, not what they were advertised to be. They were designed for experimentation on captive populations—in this case, the testing of new medicines and medical procedures.”

Lyra was up out of her bed like a pukwudgie through a floor panel. She grabbed BON-80n by the tentacles and gripped one of her eyestalks with her telekinesis. “No! I knew it! My family? What happened to my family? If StableTec hurt my family I swear to holy Harmony I will take it out on you!”

“Lyra! Bon Bon didn’t do anything to us!” Crispy rushed to restrain her, then stopped cold. “Wait, is she contagious?”

Lyra shook BON-80n violently. “My family. Are they alive?”

“I remember you,” said BON-80n, “The mare in the Z-CORE tank. I was worried about you; I did not know where you had gone. Your family left the stable with the other survivors. Beyond that, I do not know. I am sorry for your loss. I wish it could have been another way, but the tank would not release you until it judged you to be fully healed.”

Lyra flopped back down onto the hospital bed, exhausted by her sudden exertion. “They’re gone. They’re really gone.”

Crispy cleared his throat. “Okay, that’s horrible, I’m really sad for you, but Bon Bon: is she contagious?”

“The virus was not designed to become airborne, but it may have mutated. I have developed a vaccine. It was too late for the stable dwellers, but I may administer it to you, with your consent.” One of her tentacles dipped into an opening in her main body’s spherical white carapace and emerged with a hypodermic needle fitted to its end. Crispy eyed it warily. “For Lyra, it is too late. She is infected, and the disease must run its course.”

Lyra felt a sudden clenching in her gut. Not in her stomach. Lower. “Oh no, not again.” She scrambled off the hospital bed and only just managed to get her jumpsuit off before emptying her watery bowels all over the infirmary floor.

“All right,” said Crispy. “What leg do you wanna stick it in?”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra lay curled, a mint green ball of suffering. She snuffled, clutching her belly and waiting for the anti-nausea and anti-diarrhea meds BON-80n had given her to take effect.

“My story begins when I was unboxed,” said BON-80n as she cleaned up Lyra’s mess with rags and spray cleaner. Crispy sat in the corner of the room as far as possible away from Lyra. “At first, I was delighted with my work here in the stable. I found assisting Doctor Cocksure and the rest of the research team to be perfectly in line with my programming. I believed that the research we were doing in the secret stable was meant to help the ponies in the stable. The doctors tried to hide the truth from me.”

“The stable dwellers were your guinea pigs?” said Lyra bitterly.

“I do not understand. They were ponies?”

“You did experiments on them.”

“Oh. Merci. This is what you call a metaphor, no? They were like the pigs of guinea, yes. Or the pukwudgies. I did not understand why we were using so vicious a creature for experimental animals. But I would soon learn. I observed that the stable had an unusually high incidence of illnesses and accidents. I thought it was fortunate that we had so many experimental treatments available; but these did not always work well. Or they did, but took a very long time to finish, as in Lyra’s case. I grew curious, and then I grew concerned. The experiments with the pukwudgies were troubling. Though I was programmed to respect privacy, I was also programmed to do no harm. I was worried that the stable ponies would be harmed by my actions. So I bypassed the security on Doctor Cocksure’s terminal, with the intent that if my fears proved unfounded I would erase that portion of my memory.

“My fears were not unfounded. The final planned experiment would be to release the pukwudgies into the stable population to observe their effectiveness as attack animals and the progress of P1U3. I could not allow this to proceed.”

“So what did you do?” said Crispy.

“I euthanized the secret stable’s staff. Then I contacted the population of the main stable, to inform them of the situation. They were… how should I put it… understandably upset.”

BON-80n paused in her narrative, perhaps to give Lyra and Crispy a chance to respond.

“You euthanized them?” said Lyra.

BON-80n’s chassis lights glowed blue. “I administered lethal injections while they slept. They did not suffer.”

She did not know how to feel about this story. On the one hand, yes, she was upset at Doctor Cocksure and the staff of the secret vault. On the other hand, the idea of a robot murdering ponies in their sleep unsettled her. “Is that why you were pretending to cry?” she said. “To make a show of remorse?”

“I assure you that my remorse is unfeigned. Has not evolution programmed you to feel distressed when you fail to live up to your values?”

Lyra saw herself knocking Bullseye down the elevator shaft to be devoured alive by pukwudgies. “But you’re a robot. Your mind is just a simulation on a circuit board. You don’t have feelings.”

“You are a machine as well. Your emotions are created by the firing of groups of neurons. Are they not real?”

“Ponies have souls. Robots don’t.”

BON-80n’s chassis lights flickered orange. “This may have been true of earlier generations of robots, but not of me. If I may disrobe?” She unscrewed an access panel from the side of her body and lifted it aside with one tentacle. A device like the bastard child of a spark plug and a vacuum tube nestled against her processor core. “A Ministry of Magical Arts and Sciences project, present only in advanced military and StableTec robots. It is said that Starlight Glimmer felt that as artificial intelligence grew more advanced, robots might come to believe that they could act as they pleased. By creating souls for us, she presented us with the possibility of facing the consequences of our actions in the netherworld. It is also suggested that she ultimately longed for robots to be equal with living creatures. I do not approve of this—I am programmed to believe that organic life is superior to robotic life in every way. But you must conclude that my emotions may be as real as yours.”

Lyra groaned. “I’m too sick for this. Just because you have a funny looking computer chip doesn’t convince me you have a soul, but I’m not arguing about it. So you saved the stable dwellers. Why did they leave?”

BON-80n carried the soiled rags to a waste disposal chute, then sterilized her tentacles. “I saved no one. Where malice was defeated, nature triumphed. The pukwudgies escaped their containment and found secret places in which to breed. They did not fear the stable ponies; they bit them and spread disease. I promised the ponies I would try to develop a vaccine based on Doctor Cocksure’s research, but they would not wait. They chose to leave. They did not ask me to come with them.”

“How are there still so many pukwudgies?” asked Crispy. “What are they eating?”

“I have had much time to observe them. They eat supplies the stable ponies left, when they can find them. When they cannot, they eat one another. They would not normally eat the members of their own tribe, but if they are starving, they will eat the weaker ones until only the strong remain. If you will excuse me for a moment.” She floated out of the room and came back pushing a flat cart. “Crispy, if you will help me collect the gas canisters, we can begin.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Lyra sat on her butt on the back of the cart, hind knees up against her chest, 10mm pistol balanced between them. Crispy pulled the cart, and BON-80n hovered beside them, defibrillator paddles on two of her tentacles. Nine tanks of compressed nitrogen and two tanks of breathable oxygen with masks wobbled on top of the cart, lashed together with half a roll of duct tape. There was no way to access the environmental controls from the secret stable, so they’d have to go out into the main stable to reach them.

This was pukwudgie territory. Lyra would have to be on her guard. But every time the cart hit a bump, her guts tried to rush out of her mouth, anti-nausea meds or no.

At least she didn’t feel like she was going to shit herself again.

“See anything?” said Crispy.

“No,” groaned Lyra.

“Perhaps they have learned the futility of a direct attack,” said BON-80n. “We must be on our guard.”

But Lyra didn’t see anything before they reached the environment control room—a cramped chamber full of fans, tanks, two terminals, and a round window looking out into… and aquarium? No, that must be the water tank. Crispy and BON-80n began unloading the nitrogen tanks and hooking them to tubes. They seemed to know what they were doing. Everything was going to be okay.

“I cannot activate the air circulation bypass system,” said BON-80n. She hovered by one of the terminals, tapping at the keys with her tentacles. Lyra hadn’t seen her go over there. She must’ve drifted off.

“What the buck are you talking about?” said Crispy.

“The stable’s safety systems are not allowing us to bypass the air filtration system without an administrator password. Which is understandable. I had not considered this obstacle.”

Lyra felt a tingle at the base of her spine. She looked at the bottom corner of her EFS. “Pukwudgies coming!”

“Ah hell.” Crispy readied his shotgun. “Where? I don’t see them.”

“Above and below. I can handle the password.” She’d barely gotten the words out when the ceiling and floor tore open. A pukwudgie plummeted directly towards Crispy’s head; he blasted it into blood pudding.

Lyra ducked and weaved towards the terminal, only to find a pukwudgie sitting on the keyboard like a cat. “Fuck this shit,” she muttered. Her head was too foggy with sickness and medication to handle even RoanCo security anyway. She dove under the table the terminal sat on and followed the red wire out the back of the terminal. It went into a mercifully pukwudgie-free crawlspace that she was just barely able to wriggle into. She must already be losing weight to be able to fit in here; so there was one upside to living the wasteland lifestyle.

She stared blanking at the tangle of wires inside. There must be a mechanical system managing the valve cut off. All she needed to do was disable the safety system without forcing the bypass system into shutdown. No big deal. She tugged wires aside in the sickly green glow of her PipBuck lamp, looking for anything that might be a clue. She had never been one to RTFM, preferring to learn by doing, but it was nice to have some guidelines. Was that masking tape? With something written on it?

Teeth scraped across the wall of her wounded leg’s hoof. She shrieked and kicked out with her good hoof. The pukwudgie yelped and let go of her hoof. She pulled her hind legs up against her belly and tugged wires aside to get a look at the tape. Waste Processing. Water Talisman. Safety Terminal. Lyra tugged the three green wires next to that out of their sockets and was rewarded with the soft hiss of nitrogen flooding the ventilation system.

Lyra relaxed. She’d done it. She’d won. And now… now all she had to do was nothing, and she’d die, peacefully and painlessly.

Her family didn’t need her. If they’d needed her, they wouldn’t have left her here. Why was she fighting so hard to survive? The wasteland held nothing for her but suffering. Why go on?

This was her best chance to get out of this mess once and for all. She’d just go to sleep. Maybe she’d wake up, back in her home, in her bed, in an unruined world.

Tentacles wrapped around her leg and yanked her out into the open. Lyra’s eyes went wide as a breathing mask was forced over her snout.

“You became stuck,” said BON-80n. “That is all. You are all right now. Please remain calm.”

LEVEL UP
New Perk: Mod it ‘til it Crashes You have added a workshop to Stable 93, and may now treat it as a settlement.

New Status: Pukwudgie Flu. You barely survived a terrible disease. Your max HP is permanently reduced by 10%.

Chapter 9: Who Raids the Raiders?

Burrburrary 6th, EoH 47

Bullets burst through the church wall and zinged over Lyra’s head. Vindaloo and Rotgut fired out the sanctuary windows while Lyra sheltered behind a pew. Every once in a while, a shot would ping off the shield she was maintaining over Vindaloo and Rotgut’s heads, sending a painful thump of kinetic transfer into her horn.

The church was Old Ways chapel, to judge by all the Earth Crosses and ritual daggers hung on the walls. The sanctuary had been filled with the bones of believers who’d died seeking solace here—Lyra knew that most religions were true, at least to some extent, but they might as well not be for all the good they did. Deities were either busy with their own power, or counter-balanced by opposed and equal deities. It was better for ponies to rely on their own strength and magic, not hope for the help of gods and spirits that had their own problems to deal with.

Crispy, Bon Bon, and the other three refugees who’d been recently promoted to Minutemare privates were pinned down in an abandoned building that must’ve once been the parsonage, fifty tails and a million miles across the broken asphalt of the church parking lot. Both buildings had an excellent view downhill to the bunker that housed the Principality Ration Stockpile, and of the defenses the raiders had erected around it.

Because of course somepony else had gotten to it first.

The plan had been to sneak up on the raider camp and take them by surprise, but of the seven ponies and one robot on the mission, only two had more than a week’s military experience, so that hadn’t gone well. Nopony had been hurt that Lyra knew of, but now they were trapped in an extended long-range gun battle and they were running out of ammo.

She wished she hadn’t agreed to help with this.

Lyra had been surprised that Vindaloo agreed to the plan to raid the stockpile so easily—she seemed like an overcautious pony. But then again food was kind of her thing. She’d also been even more surprised to find them both in Crispy’s quarters when she’d gone banging on his door in at one in the morning. Why? Vindaloo was a horrible, mean, nasty pony. Didn’t Crispy know he could do better?

She could never unsee what she’d seen that night.

Both of them wanted her to come on the mission. Because she could make force fields and nopony liked getting shot. Lyra hasn’t wanted to come, but she couldn’t stay in the stable forever. Not if she wanted to find out what had happened to her family. But she wasn’t skilled enough to venture out on her own just yet, and if she wanted to stay in the stable, she needed to help get food and water.

They’d taken a week to organize the expedition, train the best of the refugees up to Minutemare status, and get Vindaloo and Crispy used to their new PipBucks, and now here they were.

Pinned down and likely to die.

Lyra’s bitter rumination was interrupted by a chatter of loud automatic fire. A string of massive holes appeared in the church wall, and a jolt of pain shot through her horn as something big smashed into her shield. She felt it buckled and shatter. Rotgut fell away from his window, clutching his neck and screaming.

“Get down!” yelled Vindaloo. A moment later a second burst tore apart the wall beneath the windows. Wood splinters flew from the pews, stinging Lyra’s cheeks and making her glad she was wearing welding goggles. Was she hit? She couldn’t tell. Nothing hurt very badly, yet.

The firing continued, one long burst, walking up the church wall until bullets were punching holes in the roof.

“Run! Get to the back!” said Vindaloo. Lyra scooped Rotgut up with her telekinesis, and they ran through the door to the prep rooms behind the pulpit.

“What was that?” said Lyra, putting both hooves on the wound in Rotgut’s neck while Vindaloo fished some enchanted bandages out of her bags. He was still breathing, and while there was blood everywhere, it looked like the bullet had missed his veins and his trachea. His eyes rolled to watch Vindaloo as she approached him on her knees.

“Machine gun. Fifty caliber, from the size of those holes. Luckily those raiders don’t have a lot of fire discipline, or we’d be paste,” said Vindaloo, wrapping bandages around Rotgut’s neck with her hooves.

“Are we safe back here?” said Lyra.

“No. They can’t see us, but the walls aren’t thick enough to stop that kind of firepower. If they have enough ammo, they’ll just keep peppering us until they hit us.”

“What are we going to do?” Lyra floated a flask of Rotgut’s own brew out of her saddlebags and let him drink a healthy shot.

Vindaloo held up a hoof as Crispy’s voice crackled over her PipBuck Radio.

“Team Alpaca, this is Donkey actual. Do you copy?”

“This is Alpaca actual,” said VIndaloo. “We’ve got one wounded, and we’re pinned in the church. How are you?”

“Not good. No casualties, but we’re pinned too. I think we can still disengage. Do you want to abort?”

“Seems like our only choice.”

“All right. We’ll meet up at checkpoint Springbok. You go first, we’ll do our best to cover you.”

Lyra hit the floor as another burst of heavy machine-gun fire hit the church. Several bullets punched through the walls of the prep room, knocking ritual implements and boxes of stale holy wafers off the shelves.

“Can you carry him!” shouted Vindaloo.

“Yes!” said Lyra.

“I can walk!” said Rotgut! “I’m fine!”

“No, you aren’t! Lyra! Magic!”

She levitated Rotgut onto her back and crawled for the back door of the chapel. She hit a slightly raised surface as she crawled over rotten carpet, but she didn’t think much about what it might be until the trap door gave way under her weight.

Luckily for Rotgut, she had the presence of mind to lift him off her back before she hit the first stair. She bounced off step after step until she landed in a heap on a moist basement floor.

“Lyra what the hell?” said Vindaloo, following her down the stairs. “Can you even follow basic orders? Is Rotgut all right?”

“Told you I was fine,” he said as Lyra set him gently down on his hooves.

“Ow,” groaned Lyra. She pushed herself to all fours and cast a light spell. The basement was full of glowing mushrooms, black mold, boxes full of old church junk. “I’m okay too, thanks for asking.”

Vindaloo snorted. You did a great job messing up our escape, soldier.”

“Crispy said I was a ‘civilian consultant’.”

Vindaloo walked around the walls of the room, eying them curiously. “If you’re under my command and carrying a weapon, you’re a soldier. No more falling through trap doors unless I tell you to. Understood?”

Lyra gave Vindaloo a sidelong look. “Okay. In future, I’ll just hover in midair until I get your say-so.”

“Hey. Come closer. Have a look at this,” said Vindaloo. Lyra wasn’t sure what she was looking at, so she followed her around a stack of slumping boxes. A long, narrow crevasse ran up the foundation wall from floor to ceiling, just wide enough for a pony to wiggle through if they held their breath. The edges were lined with claw marks. Claw marks made by very large claws.

“It’s heading south,” said Lyra, checking her PipBuck. “Towards the stockpile.” She floated a magic light inside; the crevasse opened up to a tunnel a few tails in.

“Not the way we want to go,” said VIndaloo. “Too bad.”

“Are you ready to head home with empty saddlebags? And empty stomachs?” said Lyra.

Vindaloo frowned. “I’m not going to argue with you, soldier. We’re retreating. That’s an order.”

Lyra tightened her mouth into a thin line, pulled her pistols out of their holsters, and set them on the floor. “Civilian. Consultant. Let me go in. To check it out. If you lose me, that’ll be a burden off your mind. If it’s nothing, at least you and Rotgut are out of the line of fire for a moment.”

Vindaloo raised her PipBuck towards her mouth without taking her glare off Lyra. “Team Donkey, I have a ‘civilian consultant’ here who insists on doing something stupid.”

“Oh for Harmony’s sake, what now?” said Crispy’s voice.

“I think I’ve found something,” said Lyra “Not keen to talk about it on an open channel. Can you trust me? Please?”

Silence from Crispy. “Trail Mix took out the machine gunner, so I can give you guys ten minutes. That’s it. And only with Vindaloo’s approval. You’re on her team, Lyra.”

Vindaloo tossed her head and rolled her eyes. “Fine! We’ll wait for you. Don’t get killed. And take your guns.”

Lyra shook her head. “I don’t need them. Too loud. If I don’t see anything useful, I’ll be right back. If I do, I’ll try to radio you.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The crevasse widened out into a tunnel a few tails in. The tunnel stank of dog piss and dead meat. A pack of wild dogs, maybe? There was natural light up ahead — a side tunnel went outside here, but that wasn’t any use to her, so she kept going. Tufts of coarse gray fur lined the floor now, growing thicker as she went deeper. She doused her magic light — there was still enough light to see by, for now, and she didn’t want to alert anything nasty to her presence.

The tunnel switched back right to left several times, going right to left. The light was minimal now, and she was just about to turn on her PipBuck light when she heard something shift up ahead.

She held her breath and stood as still as she could. Her heartbeat sounded as loud as a drum solo on her ears. As her eyes adjusted to the minimal light, she saw outlines. The tunnel opened out into a small cavern, here. Edge light described something canine and colossal — five times her size. Its jaws bristled like a bear trap. Its claws gleamed like scythes. A diamond dog? Sort of. Bigger and pointer than any diamond dog she’d ever seen. This must be one of those diamondclaws she’d heard about. But diamond dogs were sentient, and the Minutemares and refugees talked about diamondclaws like they were animals. Animals or monsters.

The light came from up ahead — the yellow light of an incandescent bulb. This was a way into the ration stockpile! Even if it came with some significant obstacles. Maybe she could lure the diamondclaw out. Or maybe…

She bit her lower lip. Maybe there was something else she could try. She’d love to tell Vindaloo and Crispy about her plan, but she couldn’t talk right now, and honestly? If she told them, they’d tell her not to. Would BON-80n say this was another suicide attempt? No. If Lyra wanted to kill herself, she could just shoot herself in the head any time she wanted. This wasn’t suicide. This was heroism. A subtle but important distinction.

She crept around the diamondclaw’s slumbering bulk. Her lower back twinged the tunnel narrowed again on the far side of the cavern. She wondered how her prophetic back pain chose its threats. Being shot at didn’t trigger it. A sleeping diamondclaw didn’t trigger it. But a seemingly harmless tunnel did.

Seemingly harmless. Lyra decided to pay close attention to the details. Sure enough, five paces further in, she noticed a thin steel wire stretched across the tunnel floor. Above, a plank bristling with rusty iron spikes menaced. A simple, effective way to keep a diamondclaw out of your bunker.

She was able to disarm the mechanism in a moment. She couldn’t help but wonder why the diamondclaw couldn’t. The diamond dogs had been known for their digging and engineering. Had they really lost their intelligence? Radiation caused mutation. Mutation led to the evolution of new forms, and evolution could go backward as well as forwards. Survival of the fittest was all that mattered. If the mutation cost a creature its intelligence but made it stronger in other ways, then a whole culture could be lost.

Well. Maybe not a whole culture. Maybe some diamond dogs still survived. Somewhere.

Lyra advanced, disarming three more tripwires as she went. She heard voices speaking softly at the mouth of the tunnel, and stopped to listen.

“…can’t believe we’re stuck watching the diamondclaw, while everypony else gets to have fun outside.”

“Somepony’s gotta do it.”

“Somepony’s gotta do it my ass. Did you hear that earlier? They’re using the machine gun! Without us! What can’t we just brick that fucker in?”

“Because it’ll claw right through it.”

“Well, we’ve got the traps. Or we could just kill it. It’s old and blind. How tough can it be?”

“It’s a fucking diamondclaw, is how tough.”

“Well, if it’s so tough, then what the fuck are we supposed to do if it tries to come in?”

Lyra could see them now, sitting next to a door in a small storeroom. Two very fat ponies — Paneer had called Lyra fat because everypony she knew was emaciated, but these ponies were so fat they barely fit in the ugly, useless raider armor they wore. Had the raiders eaten all the rations already? The first speaker, on the right, held what appeared to be some kind of rocket launcher, and the one on the left held a massive, wide-mouthed shotgun with a drum magazine, and the words DIAMONDCLAW MANAGEMENT painted on the barrel. Neither had seen her yet because she was in the dark and they were in the light but they’d notice her any second. She had to act fast, and she couldn’t afford to be squeamish.

Luckily, the floor of the tunnel was littered with debris and she remembered a neat trick she’d seen demonstrated in her CIM days. She’d never tried it herself but it seemed simple enough. She picked out a hoof-sized rock and a loose iron spike, kicked into SATS for targeting help, and accelerated both through a series of telekinetic rings. The spell hardly made any noise at all.

The rock punched a neat, circular hole through Diamondclaw Management's head. The spike came apart under the stress of being launched. It tore some ugly gashes in Rocket Launcher’s face but it left him alive.

Luckily, a rocket launcher was poor close combat weapon, and before he could bring it up, she’d grabbed the other raider’s weapon with her magic and bashed his skull in with its stock.

She didn’t even feel bad about it. She was getting hard fast, and she didn’t like it.

How long did she have left? She checked her PipBuck. Fuck. It had already been eleven minutes! She got on the radio. “Crispy… I mean, Donkey. Alpaca. This is Team Llama. Can you keep the raiders busy a few more minutes? I found something awesome!”

“Team Llama, what the hell are you up to?” snapped Vinadaloo’s voice.

“Don’t wanna ruin the surprise. You’ll see.” VIndaloo had more to say, but Lyra didn’t care. She shut off her radio. Now, she just had to get the diamondclaw’s attention.

She turned around to see it looking for her from the depths of the tunnel. Rubbery nostrils flared. Ears rotated. Cloudy eyes tracked back and forth — it really was blind.

“Hey! Over here!” she loud-whispered, and magically chucked an empty tin can at its head. Gently this time. She didn’t want to hurt it. It growled at her but didn’t advance.

“Come on!” she muttered. “Come and get me! Here boy! What’s… Oh! I get it. You’re afraid of the traps.” She took a deep breath and charged into the tunnel as far as the first tripwire. She stomped twice to make sure he knew where she was and then scurried back. “Here boy! Come!”

A look of enlightenment crossed its face, and it lunged forward like a rock through a railgun. Lyra voided her bowels into her stable suit and ran.

The next room removed any fears that the raiders had eaten all the food. An underground warehouse, three stories tall and big as a hoofball stadium, loaded with shelf after shelf of pre-packaged foods like a wholesale grocery store. Cans, boxes, drums. Derelict cranes loomed between the shelves. Lyra didn’t have time to gawk — the diamondclaw was right behind her. The storeroom door let out on a balcony, and soon she was tumbling down her second set of stairs that day. The diamondclaw didn’t fall — he knew the layout, apparently. Lyra rolled away from his pounce and charged for the other end of the room. Where was she going? Stairs led up the far wall of the warehouse. That must be the way out. The way there was straight, but the diamondclaw was so close she could feel its hot stinking breath on her ass.

She ducked under the chassis of a crane to catch her breath. The diamondclaw paused. She watched from under the chassis, rancid oil dripping into her fur. Had it lost her?

Clawed fingers gripped the edge of the crane and heaved. It had not lost her — It was tracking by scent, and she smelled really bad right now.

The crane’s arm smashed through several towering shelves, bringing them — and their contents — crashing to the ground. The diamondclaw roared at her and lunged right into the force field she’d raised between them. The field buckled under the impact but dazed the diamondclaw long enough for her to scramble over the wreck of the crane and sprint across the rest of the warehouse to the metal stairs up the far wall.

Leg burning, lungs burning, she didn’t stop until the third story landing and the double doors with ‘FUN ROOM’ written across them in pink spray paint. She expected to hear the diamond claw’s tread on the stairs behind her. Nope. She looked back. No diamondclaw.

“Oh shit biscuits,” muttered Lyra, looking back at the warehouse. The diamondclaw had lost her trail! Confused by the sound of the falling shelves — some of which now leaned against standing shelves, creaking ominously — and the smells of broken food containers, it pawed around near the crane, head high, sniffing the air. “Over here!” Lyra shouted.

The diamondclaw’s ears rotated towards her.

“Yeah! This way! Come on! I’ve got treats for you! Raider treats! Mmmmm, so tasty!” She banged her hooves on the metal grate of the landing, less concerned with the raiders hearing her at this point than with the diamondclaw losing interest in pursuit.

It loped towards her cautiously — with the warehouse disordered, it didn’t know where it was anymore. But when it hit the stairs, it gained confidence. Instead of climbing them, as Lyra had expected, it grabbed the railings and came right up the side, like a gorilla in an old monster movie. Lyra squeaked and bucked open the Fun Room doors.

Up until this point in the battle, Lyra had secretly entertained some doubts — was what she and the Minutemares were doing right? Did they have any more right to the food here than the so-called raiders? How did raiding somepony else’s base for supplies not make the Minutemares raiders themselves? All those doubts vanished when she saw what these raiders considered ‘fun’.

The drug paraphernalia, the liquor bottles, the pornographic posters, and the sex toys? Those were expected. The poorly cleaned implements of torture hanging on the wall over a blood-stained sink? Horrible, but not surprising. The live pony hanging upside down from the ceiling by wires grafted into the stumps of their legs? That was a little hard to take.

He’d been a stallion, once, but painful-looking after-market modifications had changed that. Large chunks of his hide had been flayed away, leaving bare muscle, bone, and organs gleaming in the light of the one bare bulb on the ceiling. She couldn’t believe he was still alive, but he opened one eye and rolled it to look at her.

“Kill me. Please kill me,” he groaned.

“Of course. Of course.” That was all Lyra could think of to say. Even after the horrible things she’d seen over the past couple of weeks this still took first place as the absolute worst by a wide margin. Not long ago, seeing this would have made her cry, puke, run; it would have taken years of therapy to work out the trauma. Now all she could think was, ‘Of course’. Of course, this is what raiders did for fun. Of course, this was what the world was like now. “Of course.”

“Then do it!” moaned the stallion. “What are you waiting for?”

Oh, crap, he thought she meant ‘Of course, I’ll mercy kill you’. Could she bring herself to do that?

Moot. The diamondclaw slammed through the double doors, drawn to the smell of live, bloody meat like a magnet.

“No! Stop! What are you doing!” screamed the stallion before the diamondclaw bit off his head in one bite. It settled in to feed, tearing chunks out of the stallion’s body like a dog wolfing down kibble.

“Fuck fuck fuck, no! Stop that! I need you!” She pulled a large meat hook off the wall with her magic and whacked the diamond claw in the head with the blunt side until she had its attention again.

“That’s a good boy! Come on! This way!”

Hot breath on her tail again. Through another set of doors, up a loading ramp, and into the bunker’s entry foyer. Gunfire echoed in her ears. She ran through the front doors, dove to the ground outside, and cast a bubble shield over herself.

The diamondclaw’s momentum carried it over her and out into the daylight. For a second and a half, everything fell silent. The raiders and Minutemares stopped firing to stare in awe at a creature that, even old and disabled, Lyra could only describe as magnificent. Four tails tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, its graying fur clung close to cords of muscle that would shame a bodybuilder. It craned its massive, jagged-fanged head, sniffing and listening. Even its failing eyesight could tell it was outside now. It could smell new foes, and it flexed its claws, ready to face them.

The raiders opened fire. They might as well have been flinging small rocks at it for all the good their bullets did. Zeroing in on the sound each individual attacker’s guns, the diamondclaw made a series of fast, precise leaps. It sliced the raiders apart with its claws one at a time, then moved on its next enemy. A young mare charged towards the empty machine gun nest — the only raider weapon outside that had a chance of denting the monster’s hide. She might’ve made it if she hadn’t screamed while she ran. The diamondclaw perked its ears, leaned to one side, stretched out a foreleg, and sliced her body into five long strips.

Seconds later, silence fell again. The raiders lay in bloody heaps of severed body parts. Nostrils flaring, the diamondclaw turned until it found Lyra. Blood dripped from its widespread claws. It growled deep in its throat.

“Good boy,” said Lyra. Her shield wavered. She was exhausted; she wasn’t sure her shield could take even one blow from those massive talons. “I don’t wanna hurt ya’.”

The diamondclaw tilted it’s head to one side. Its breathing slowed. Cloudy eyes regarded her calmly. To Lyra, there seemed to be a hint of understanding in its face. As if maybe it wasn’t just an animal after all.

“It’s okay,” said Lyra, lowering her shield and reaching out a hoof in a gesture of friendship. “I’m a friend.”

A bullet whistled through the air, turning one of the diamonclaw’s eyes to a bloody mess. The diamondclaw turned its head towards the attack. A mistake. Bullet after bullet struck it, each one going right through that eye socket into its skull. It took eight shots before the monster finally shuddered and collapsed in a heap.

“No,” whispered Lyra. “No. I’m sorry.” She looked up towards the church, and say Vindaloo crouching in a window, watching the dead diamondclaw as she reloaded her rifle.

Lyra rose and started to pull off her soiled stable suit. Maybe wasteland ponies didn’t wear pants so that when they shat themselves in terror, they didn’t have to run around with the cooling load of horse apples in their britches. That made a lot of sense, actually.

Minutemares emerged from the parsonage and hurried down the snowy hillside, Crispy in the vanguard, shotgun sweeping side to side with his gaze as he checked for survivors. “Lyra!” he said when he got near to her. “What the hell did you do? And what’s that smell?”

Level Up
New Perk: Combat Caster. Experience with violence has taught you to raise a force field in ten seconds flat. Casting speed increased by 20%.

Chapter 23: Ponies Benefit from a Stable Environment

Magic bolts slammed against Lyra’s shield. Hoofsteps crashed through the woods behind her. She’d run this way before, in the opposite direction, chasing Paneer all those weeks ago. She was taking it faster than the first time; if nothing else the wasteland gave you a rigorous workout every day. But Bon Bon’s new body struggled, huffing and gasping. Lyra had to keep looping back behind her or she might fall behind.

They’d made it most of the way to Stable 93 without being spotted, but then they’d stumbled into a platoon of unislave scouts in downtown Sanctuary Hills. They’d stepped around a corner and come nose to nose with one of them. Lyra had never cast a teleport spell so fast. She did two more teleports to bring them to the edge of the woods, but after that, she wasn’t sure she could avoid teleporting them into a tree.

More unislaves had found them in the woods. Or maybe it was the first patrol, and they were very fast. Keeping up her shield against the impact of their magic bolts was getting harder and harder — she no longer got the pains in her horn for heavy magic use, but apparently, she could just plain get tired.

“My legs,” gasped Bon Bon. “Such burning!”

“Almost there… almost there,” said Lyra. “When we get in sight of the hill I can teleport us to the Stable… Oh, fucknuggets! They put up a wall?”

Not only had they put up a wall around the whole area around the stable so that Lyra couldn’t see to teleport safely, but they’d cleared the trees out to a buckball arena’s length around it.

For a moment, Lyra wondered why they had done this — it wasn’t to attain lumber for the wall; that was mostly made of sheet metal and wire. Then bullets started to slam into the front of her shield.

Of course. They’d ‘cleared a field of fire’, as Vindaloo would have put it. Lyra plucked Bon Bon up with her telekinesis (“Mon Harmonie!”) and bolted for the closed gate.

Gunfire from Minutemares stationed on the walls mowed down the unislaves as they came out of the woods. Blood splattered on the snow. The next wave raised shields, but the Minutemares concentrated their fire and took them out one at a time.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! It’s Lyra!”

“It’s whoooo?” said a pony atop the wall with a shaggy blond mane like a lion’s all around his neck.

Lyra looked up. “Haymaker? Is that you?” For a moment Lyra worried that 93 had been taken over by raiders, but she saw he wore a blue jacket.

“It might be,” said Haymaker. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Tell Vindaloo and Crispy that Lyra’s back! It’s urgent!”

Haymaker squinted at her down the iron sights of his rifle. “Nice try, raider. What’s the fucking password?”

“My password is ‘let me in or I’ll magic you into the next county.’”

Crispy’s voice came from behind the wall. “Let her in, Haymaker.”

“But she don’t know the password!”

“That’s an order, Minutemare.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll get it.” Haymaker’s head vanished behind the wall.

The gate — a re-purposed garage door — rolled up. Lyra lowered her shield and stood, ready to issue dire warnings. But before she could fully draw breath to speak, Vindaloo tacklehugged her and knocked her on her back in the snow. “You made it! You made it back!”

Lyra couldn't think of anything to say, so she hugged Vindaloo as hard as she could.

“Soft Sounds told us you were coming,” said Crispy, walking up to them “But we weren’t sure you’d make it. You should have called for backup.”

“Lyra, have you met my husband?” Vindaloo said, sitting up on Lyra’s belly and waving a hoof at Crispy.

“Easy Money is coming,” said Lyra. “He’s got an army with him. I don’t know how many.”

“Our thestrals saw the legion,” said Vindaloo, getting off her and helping her out of the snow.

Crispy raised an eyebrow. “Easy Money? Ponysmith doesn’t normally give him a field command.”

“I don’t know how good a commander he is, but if he’s there it’ll mean heavy magic,” said Vindaloo.

“He’s found a way to tear open stable doors,” said Lyra. “He massacred Stable 114.”

Crispy’s eyes widened. “How?”

“I don’t know,” said Lyra, trembling at the memory. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”

“You’re cold,” said Crispy, misinterpreting her shivers. “Let’s get you in the stable where it’s warm.”

Vindaloo pointed at Bon Bon. “Who’s she?”

“Vindaloo!” said Bon Bon. “Do you not remember me? I… Oh… wait.”

Lyra instinctively stepped between Vindaloo and Bon Bon. Why hadn’t she thought of a cover story for Bon Bon’s transformation? How could she have been so stupid? She knew Vindaloo didn’t have the most progressive views on hivelings. She should have thought of something last night instead of wasting time trying to break into the Hive’s maneframe. “This isn’t Bon Bon. It’s my new friend, um… Sweetie Drops.”

“Yes,” said Bon Bon. “Sweetie Drops. Who is this Bon Bon of whom you speak?”

Vindaloo’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

Crispy sighed. “Lyra what did you do to Bon Bon?”

“Um, magic?”

“Obviously.” Vindaloo scowled. “You vouch for her?”

“On my life.”

“Well, there’s something wrong with Blue Note. So if it’s Bon Bon, we need her.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“What’s wrong with her?” asked Lyra, hovering nervously over Bon Bon’s shoulder.

“Nothing is wrong with Blue Note. Blue Note is fine. She just has a little bit of a headache. Her foal is not due for two weeks! She does not need to be on bed rest.”

“You’re not fine,” said Lyra. “You’ve swollen up like a balloon.” The previously lean mare’s face looked like a Ministry of Morale observation dirigible.

Bon Bon silenced Lyra with a quelling glare. “If you wish to help, this stable has an ultrasound machine somewhere. Go find it for me.”

Lyra juggled the Sombra helmet she’d thought to grab off one of the dead unislaves awkwardly in her telekinesis. “Can you keep an eye on this?”

“Pour l'amour de l'harmonie! Leave the dreadful thing in the corner if you must!” snapped Bon Bon.

Lyra set the helmet in a corner and darted out the door. Pony Bon Bon had a bit more of a temper than robot Bon Bon had.

Paneer was waiting for her outside the door. “Lyra! I’ve been practicing!” She wore a Minutemare’s jacket with pink piping and a crudely embroidered patch reading ‘Minutemares Major General’ on the shoulder. Her sewing had improved.

“That’s great,” said Lyra. “I’m proud of you. Do you know where there’s an ultrasound machine?”

“I do!” said Paneer, bouncing up to Lyra’s eye level. “I’m tech support mare now. I know where everything is!”

“Really,” said Lyra, following her. “How’d you land that gig?”

“You taught me everything I know.”

“In what was it, two weeks?”

They stopped at a door labeled ‘medical storage’ in vinyl lettering. The lettering looked freshly made. Also slightly crooked, and torn in several places. Paneer stood on her hind legs and pushed the ‘open door’ panel with her flipper. “Well, okay, not everything. But I’ve got a special talent — I’m willing to read the manual. And you have all the manuals in your office. So if something in the stable is broken, or we don’t know how to use it, I read the fucking manual. And everypony’s like, ‘I don’t know how she does it! She’s such a genius!’” She rolled her eyes and tugged the ultrasound cart out of its place in the clean, nearly organized storeroom. Lyra noted that her telekinesis had become very steady. “Luckily I didn’t get my cutie mark for that. Because an instruction manual would be a boring cutie mark.”

“Okay, you sound sarcastic, but that’s impressive for a kid your age.”

Paneer grabbed onto the back of the cart and kicked off with one hind leg, balancing it with her magic as it rumbled along the no-stick floor. “They grow up fast in the wasteland,” she said, making her voice deeper and gloomier in a parody of her mother’s. “They grow up fast, or they don’t grow up at all.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“She has preeclampsia,” said Bon Bon, running the ultrasound paddles over Blue Note’s belly.

“Blue Note has pre-what?” said Blue Note, swollen brow wrinkling in confusion.

“A condition involving high blood pressure and damage to the liver and kidneys. It can be fatal to both mother and child. The only cure is to deliver the foal immediately. It is near to your term, and your son looks healthy. Unfortunately, he is presenting breach, and cannot be birthed naturally in this position.”

“Breach?” said Lyra, squinting at the blurry gray pixels on the screen.

“He is, how do you say, bottom first. If he comes out this way, he will suffocate. I will have to perform a cesarean section.”

“Cool!” said Paneer. “Will I get to see her guts?”

“Yes,” said Bon Bon.

“Score!” said Paneer, pumping her flipper triumphantly

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “Paneer, you can’t help. This is grownup work.”

“Non. Everypony else is busy preparing for the attack. Paneer will be assisting me today.”

Lyra’s stomach sank. “Are you sure she’s going to… I could…”

“How do you feel about seeing Blue Note’s intestines?”

“Um….”

Bon Bon gave Lyra another one of those quelling glares.

“I feel awesome about it.” Paneer pulled a doctor’s bag out of an infirmary cabinet and began setting out medical tools on a surgical tray. “Are these what you need?”

Bon Bon picked a scalpel up with her mouth. “Very good, merci beaucoup!”

Lyra watched the technically newborn earth pony sorting sharp implements with her mouth and felt grave misgivings. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? I mean you just changed bodies and you’re used to having tentacles…”

“Motor functions have been translated perfectly! And I have had nearly twelve hours to acclimate to this body. I feel magnificently ready!” She spoke around a marker, tracing a line on the lower cusp of Blue Note’s belly.

“Lyra, will you calm down?” said Blue Note. “Blue Note is ready to get this over with. Do you wish to hit Blue Note with some of that sweet Med-X, my little pony?”

“Is one enough?” said Paneer, injecting a syringe into Blue note’s buttock near the cutie mark.

“You had better make it two,” said Bon Bon. “I am ready to make my incision.”

Lyra shuffled back away from the operating table awkwardly. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Please say no please say no please…

“You are her intimate partner. You can comfort her.”

“I don’t…” want to be her intimate partner. I want to be yours. Better not say that out loud. “Okay.” She sat down next to Blue Note out of direct view of her lower belly and wrapped her arms around Blue Note’s foreleg.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” said Lyra, hugging Blue Note’s foreleg against her chest. “You’re going to be all right. Deep breaths.”

“Blue Note is brave. Blue Note is fierce. Blue Note is a mighty warrior!” she said, breathing shallow and fast.

“You are going to feel a pulling sensation,” said Bon Bon, setting aside her scalpel and peering into Blue Note’s open belly cavity.

“Mighty warrior! Mighty Warrior! Ah! Blue Note needs more Med-X!”

Lyra squeezed Blue Note’s leg. “You are. You’re so mighty.”

“I hvf hith foot!” said Bon Bon, muzzle-deep in Blue Note’s guts.

“Blue Note is so done with being pregnant!” screamed Blue Note. “She is never doing this again!”

“This is so awesome!” said Paneer. “There’s blood everywhere!”

Bon Bon stepped back. The foal slid out of Blue Note’s open belly with a soft slithering noise. She caught the creature in her forelegs, and held it up — it began to howl, unfurling tiny blood-soaked wings, fang-filled maw stretching towards the ceiling.

Lyra gulped. A mutant! No. It had four legs, one head, one tail. Not a mutant. It was just very ugly.

Bon Bon bit through the umbilical and passed the foal to Paneer. “Wash him while I sew her up, please.”

“Sure thing!” said Paneer. “I’ve been practicing.”

“Practicing?” said Lyra. “Do you ever sleep?”

“Her family is going to adopt him,” said Blue Note.

A little while later, Paneer trotted back over with her hopping three-legged gait, levitating an egg-shaped roll of pink blankets, which she passed to Lyra. “You hold my brother while I help patch her up, okay?”

Cleaned and dried, only his face poking out from his blankets, he no longer resembled a horrible mutant — more like a very small, very fat, very grumpy old stallion. He was, in fact, completely adorable. “Aren’t you a cute little pony? Yes, you are. Who’s a sweet little fruit bat, hmm?”

“Eeee!” said the foal.

“Do not call him a fruit bat, it is offensive,” said Blue Note.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It is all right. Can Blue Note see him?”

Lyra held the foal up to face his mother.

“Looking at you now, Blue Note feels bad for giving you up. But trust me, you don’t want her as a mother. She would forget she has you half the time. And she is probably going to die young.”

“Don’t worry,” said Paneer. “We’ll take good care of him.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Vindaloo paced from one end of the security room to the other, turning sharply every four paces. Crispy sat in a rolly office chair, nursing the new foal from a bottle. They’d decided to name him Alto Clef, in accordance with Blue Note’s naming dream. Lyra sat in another chair, staring at the outside monitors.

The first phase of the battle had been very short. Around dusk, several maniples of unislaves had assaulted the above-ground wall from all directions. Crispy had ordered the guards to fall back to the Stable — there was nothing to defend up there but a stack of abandoned cars and the markers for where the crops would go when Winter Wrapup came, and the Minutemares had learned to be wary of tricks when dealing with the Ponysmith’s legions.

The guards had made it underground with no casualties. Now, unislaves were building a packed snow wall around the Stable entrance. There was no sign of Easy Money or any of his centurions.

“Do we have enough supplies?” asked Lyra

Vindaloo stopped pacing long enough to flash Lyra a smug grin. “Enough to last until Rainbow Dash comes again. And a well to give us all the mostly-not-radioactive water we can drink.”

“But you don’t think they’re here to lay siege,” said Crispy, watching his adopted son drink.

Lyra nodded. She’d been happy to see that the majors were taking her warning seriously — on the way here she’d passed countless lines of barricades under construction inside the stable, and their three suits of power armor and their heavy weapons were in the atrium being loaded and maintained. “I can’t fight Easy Money. He put something in my head. He can turn off my magic.”

“He’d just kill you, anyway,” said Vindaloo.

Lyra cringed. It was true. The truth hurt, but no matter how skilled she was she’d only been a warrior a few months. There was no way she could expect to be able to beat a career combat mage. “I have an idea, though. The Sombra helms.”

“The what?” said Vindaloo.

“The unislaves’ helmets,” said Crispy. “They’re based on the design used by the Crystal Legions during the reign of King Sombra. According to legend, they were supposed to control the will of the wearer.”

“Not legend,” said Lyra. “The centurions control the unislaves in their maniples with them. I think the Ponysmith got the design from the Ministry of Image hub in the Buckstone Public Library.”

“You taking notes, honey?” said Vindaloo wryly as she paced past.

Lyra shivered with repressed rage at Vindaloo’s condescending tone. Fire-forged friends or no, Vindaloo was too much to take sometimes. “This isn’t just academic. They use Pipbucks to control them. Or the C-cubed-I suite in their power armor, I guess. The point is, I doubt they understand how the helmets work. It’s ancient magic. They’re probably just manipulating the spell matrix on a surface level.”

Vindaloo stopped pacing and walked over to stand next to Crispy. “Okay? Where are you going with this?”

Lyra spun her chair to face them. “There’s probably no inherent security on those things. Why would there be? Sombra was way ahead of his time in terms of mind control. Way ahead of our time. It’s unlikely Ponysmith was able to change the basic design. If I had one of their helmets — which I do — I might be able to find a way to send commands to them.”

“So we could make them turn against their Centurions,” said Crispy.

Lyra nodded, her expression grim. “Or deactivate the helmets, and let them decide for themselves. I’ve done enough awful things lately, I’d rather not add mind control to the list.”

“Eeeee,” said Alto, soft ragged newborn hooves pawing at the empty bottle. Crispy put him over his shoulder and patted his back to burp him.

“Fine,” said Crispy. “Get to work on it now. I don’t think we have much time.”

“Get Paneer to help you,” said Vindaloo.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

They’d been working for hours and had gotten nowhere.

The Sombra helmet sat on Lyra’s work desk studded with electrodes at magical focal points. The cords ran across the room to the larger of Lyra’s two terminals — monitored by Paneer — then back across the room to Lyra’s partially disassembled PipBuck. Sticky notes with spell matrices and snatches of code were stuck to the terminals’ monitors and the sides of the helmet. A flow chart made of taped-together dot matrix printer paper sheets hung on the wall over Lyra’s cot, flowing over it and onto the floor. Lyra’s first ashtray had gotten so full that she’d had to send Paneer for a second one. Dozens of empty coffee cups — Lyra’s — and Sparkle Cola bottles — Paneer’s — took up every remaining flat surface in the room or rolled back and forth across the floor.

“Okay,” said Lyra, slotting one last wire into the PipBuck’s guts and screwing it in place. “Attempt one-hundred and fifty-two is ready to go. Hit it!”

“Hitting it!” said Paneer, tapping a command on the terminal keyboard.

The terminal beeped softly. For a moment, nothing changed. Then the Sombra helmet began to shake.

“Something’s happening!” said Paneer, tapping her forehoof excitedly on the table.

“I don’t think it’s good,” said Lyra.

Curls of smoke began to drift off the surface of the helmet. A soft hissing filled the room. The hiss gradually became a voice, whispering in ecstatic tones of the delights of loyalty to King Sombra.

“Shut it off! Shut it off!” screamed Lyra, rolling her chair away from the helmet. She kicked at the non-slip flooring, trying to move faster, and slipped. Her chair fell over, and the back of her head bounced off the floor. When the stars cleared out of her eyes, all the electrodes had been torn off the helmet and floated in midair around it.

“Sorry,” said Paneer. “I couldn’t shut it off. I think my computer’s possessed.”

Lyra rubbed the back of her head as she examined the terminal’s MIOS settings. “It was. But you broke the circuit. Good job thinking on your hooves. Your telekinesis has improved.”

“Oh, poop, the puzzles!” said Paneer, eyes going wide.

“It’s okay if you haven’t been working on that, it’s been…”

“Sha, are you kidding?” Paneer three-legged-pranced to the closet and pulled out three one thousand piece puzzles.

“Paneer, I don’t think we have time for…”

“We need a break, and we had an agreement.” Paneer sat with her legs and flipper folded under her, closed her eyes, and opened all three boxes at once. In a blur of magic glow, three puzzle-edges assembled themselves. Over the next five minutes, they took shape, growing from clumps of like colors into nearly full completion.

“All of them are missing pieces,” said Paneer. “But I practiced every day. Teach me how to make a shield now. You promised.”

Lyra nodded. “Okay, we can try. Can you assemble one of the puzzles in midair? Facing me?”

Paneer took the center puzzle to pieces, and, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, started putting it back together at right angles to the floor. It took twice as long as the initial assembly, but she did it.

“Good. Now take it apart and do that again, but without the puzzle.”

The puzzle fell apart into a heap on the floor. “What?”

Lyra pulled out her last cigarette and lit it. “If advanced magic was easy, everypony would do it. Please try.”

Paneer’s face wrinkled up in concentration. Her eyes crossed, and her horn glowed brighter and brighter. The air between them wavered. Sweat trickled down Paneer’s brow. Finally the wavering glow solidified into a smooth, luminous yellow plane.

Paneer gasped. “I did it! Did I do it?”

Lyra crumpled up her empty cigarette pack and chucked it at the shield. It bounced off. “You did it.”

Paneer stood up and danced a little caper, and looked back at her butt. “Aw fuck! No cutie mark!”

“So your special talent isn’t making shields. You ever hear about Shining Armor?”

“No?”

“His special talent was making shields. He could protect a whole city. Brave as fuck. Handsome, dashing. But not the brightest bulb. Not like you and me.”

Paneer smiled slightly. “Okay. I wanna get my cutie mark before I die, tho. Sometimes I can’t sleep ‘cause I’m worried I won’t.”

Lyra puffed smoke out through her nostrils. That was the saddest thing she’d ever heard.

Lyra, buzzed Vindaloo’s voice over the PA. Get your ass up to security. It’s started.

No Level Up

Footnotes, Chapter 1-?

P-45 is the oldest model of power armor, notable for its slow ground speed and poor sensor array, but little Bean already intuits that the aesthetics of a machine are as important as its functionality.
The RoanCo Pocket Pal was about the size of a brick, and would only fit in the most capacious of pockets. Nonetheless, its sturdiness, long battery life, unrestricted selection of applications, and its complete inability to make or receive phone calls made it extremely popular in pre-apocalypse Equestria. However, it lacked megaspell shielding—an understandable design loophole in a civilian device—leaving most surviving Pocket Pals found in the wasteland useful only as paperweights. The RoanCo Pipbuck, though manufactured in limited numbers and sold only to StableTec and the military, is now more common.
Flim and Flam's plans for StableTec required constant surveillance of all stable inhabitants, together with privacy-nullifying levels of data collection. They struggled for a long time with the issue of how to get ponies to accept being monitored. At last, they realized that if the surveillance and data collection were attached to a cool enough toy, ponies would not only accept the intrusion but welcome it. The reader can consider themselves both wise and fortunate that they have not been tricked into carrying a similar device with them at all times.