Fallout Equestria: A Light Shining in Darkness

Chapter Nine
“Let’s see just how much promise you really have…”

Did I mention I’m an idiot?

My first crush was when I was just starting out as a gunsmith, his name was Honey Bread, he was an older stallion who worked in the Kitchens back home. He’d always sneak me extra food in my rations, a bread roll here, a few extra apple slices there, he was always so nice to me. My crush started small but it quickly grew and grew till I told my Grandparents.

They weren’t very supportive, mostly because Honey was much older. I know they meant well, but I’ve always had the feeling that they were uncomfortable with me liking a stallion. My crush for Honey dwindled into more of a sense of admiration, but a new crush would replace it when Cobalt admitted her affection for me.

I had always wondered why Celestia and Luna chose me to be equally attracted to both stallions and mares. What did I do to them to be the butt of their confusing joke? I fought myself over it for many years before I finally understood that it wasn’t the Goddesses’ fault, in fact I couldn’t blame anyone for it. I slowly started accepting myself for who I was, despite the problems it caused me back home. Cobalt didn’t really like that I was the way I was, but she did silently tolerate it.

Tolerated, but not accepted.

Honestly I felt like shit for what I did to Umeme, I should’ve known better than to force him. Obviously he didn’t feel the same way because he preferred mares, or maybe he preferred other zebras? Either way, I shouldn’t have pressed him like I did. And now debt or not, he definitely didn’t want to come with me.

And I couldn’t blame him.

I rubbed my jaw and muttered, “Still hurts.”

I couldn’t sleep that night, so I spent the hours repairing and cleaning my guns. The Ashes hadn’t been gentle to my revolver or shotgun, but again Light was somehow fine after a light dusting. The revolver took me a lot longer, ash was stuck in every damn crevice and spring, the mainspring was severely rusted, but by the end I had cleaned the heat stained metal parts enough to reveal a brass engraving of oak leaves between the cylinder’s chambers and along the barrel. I put the revolver to the side and moved on to the shotgun.

As I disassembled the shotgun’s mechanism I was surprised to see just how many parts looked hoof-made: the interceptor sear and spring, the bigger half of the cocking limb, the bridle, and the mainspring were all expertly hoof-fitted. I was very impressed at the engineering but slightly apprehensive, if any of those parts broke it would be hard to replace them since I couldn’t hoof-fit with my minimal tool kit. I refocused on cleaning away the ash and dust. It took most of the night, but when I was done the receiver’s metal bits revealed a breathtaking heat stain that complimented the dark wood.

When I was done the sun was starting to rise and my guns were radiant in the early dawn light. I packed up my gear and checked my map for directions. New Mondawmin was south and west of The Heights and according to a soldier was the old zebra district before the Last Day. Apparently roughly thirty-five percent of the old city’s population were zebras or were of zebra descent, hence why there were so many zebras in Baltimare today.

*** *** ***

Bird songs sparkled in the morning ambiance as I slowly walked down the broken overgrown street. As the hours dragged on I stumbled across a few mildly interesting sights, a billboard that once advertised a brand of cigarettes with a jazz musician playing a saxophone outlined by a large blue moon called Blue Note and a small park with overgrown grass and weeds, at the center was a small rusty statue of a pony colt offering a small silver flower to a bashful zebra filly.

The sorrow in my gut grew slightly.

I was alone.

But perhaps it was for the best?

“I’m hopeless,” I muttered to myself.

Suddenly I got this creeping feeling that I was being followed, fearing it was the Beloved Daughter or even the Soul of War I whipped around on the spot pulling out my shotgun…

And saw nothing but the overgrown street I’d come from.

“Just hearing things,” I sighed, holstering my weapon.

“Thought you could just leave me behind, did you?” Umeme’s voice suddenly asked behind me.

I would’ve been halfway to the fucking moon if Umeme hadn’t grabbed ahold of my stubby tail to keep me from running in surprise. Once I had calmed down enough I sheepishly glanced at the stallion’s forehooves, not wanting to look him in his eyes.

“I… uh… figured… I mean after your… uh reaction last night,” I started sheepishly, cheeks flushing with embarrassment, fuck I wanted to avoid having this conversation, “That maybe you… uh… wouldn’t want to-”

“Ozzy, just stop,” the stallion interrupted, holding up his hoof for me to stop, “I’m not mad at you.”

Anything that I was about to say lumped up in my throat and my heart lifted slightly at his words. He wasn’t mad? After what I did, why wasn’t he mad?

I looked up at him, he raised a hoof to rub the back of his neck awkwardly, “If anything I should be the one apologizing for striking you.”

“I…,” I couldn’t really think of anything to say that didn’t sound really dumb.

“It’s just that…,” the stallion continued, “Such relationships are… complicated among the Roamani.”

Was he really trying to comfort me?

“Hey, if you don’t swing my way that’s alright,” I tried to reassure him, “I promise not to try anything else.”

There was a very long super awkward pause before he spoke again, “It’s not that simple, Ozzy.”

“What do you mean? Either you’re attracted to me or you’re not. Seems pretty simple to me.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he reiterated, blushing a deep crimson, “I was telling the truth that I feel like I can rely on you, and I intend to pay back my debt.”

“Look I said we’re-” I started but stopped, he was dead set on the subject, “Okay, if you insist.”

“Well, good,” he responded, before reaching into a saddle bag, “And here, you forgot your half of the bucks.”

“Oh, right,” I forced myself to say, I’d left the bag behind for him… as a half assed way of apologizing, “Silly me.”

*** *** ***

It was late in the afternoon when we reached the border checkpoint of The Heights and New Mondawmin. It was built in the middle of a couple hundred foot long marble bridge connecting the banks of a wide river with sparse sandbar islands offering ground for crawdads swimming around in the flowing current. The checkpoint was made up of two sheet metal buildings with flags fluttering in the breeze on either side of the bridge with a high metal wall with a gate spread between, blocking the road.

“What now?” I whispered, nervously.

“Just follow my lead,” Umeme whispered back.

A number of soldiers were standing guard and they watched us as we approached the soldier in front of the gate. He was a zebra with twisted, convoluted, corn yellow colored stripes like Ophia, his Old Guard uniform had a white shawl crossing over his chest and thrown over his left shoulder, a curved knife in a gray snakeskin sheath tied to his belt, and a cybernetic forehoof shaped into a black griffon’s claw.

“Checkpoint’s closed for the night,” he said dryly, “You’ll have to come back in the morning.”

“Salve, Sir,” Umeme greeted the soldier friendly, “Am I glad to see you.”

“And why is that?” the soldier’s tune darkened, clearly not caring.

“A caring heart?” Umeme asked rhetorically, pulling out his knife for the soldier to see, “I’m with the Legion of Outcasts and my Rosa, Ophia Fila Aonitus, died in battle recently, I promised her that I’d bring her knife to her father.”

I looked at my friend very impressed, where did this acting skill come from?

The soldier looked down at the knife for a long silence before silently reaching under his armor, pulling out a key, turning, and unlocking the small door in the gate, “General Aonitus saved my life during the Siege of Barenstein,”-he looked down at his mechanical hoof-fist, flexing the fingers-“We were all saddened when Ophia was banished. It’s good to know she made it down to you.”

“What’s your name, soldier?” Umeme asked, holstering his knife.

“Second Lieutenant Oskar.”

Umeme patted his shoulder, “You take care of yourself, Lieutenant.”

When we were a good distance away I leaned close to Umeme and whispered, “That was some good acting.”

“Every good lie has a nugget of truth in them,” he chuckled.

“Wait…” I glanced back to the checkpoint, “then….”

“Ophia told me about how her father campaigned in Buhrvaria against the Buhrlin Republik in the Baltimare-Buhrlin War about seven years ago. She told me that he killed their leader Führer Adalwolffe Hurenfluch at the Siege of Barenstein.”

“What did Buhrlin do?” I asked, trying to figure out why Baltimare would attack another country so far away.

“According to Corporal Ruhe, the Buhrliners believe themselves to be the only pure race left because they came from one of those stables and everyone else deserves to be enslaved for labor or to be slaughtered.”

I gawked in disgust at the thought, slavery already greatly disgusted me, but the concept of superiority based on something like what group you were born into felt so ridiculously stupid I wanted to vomit. Then I felt a sick twinge of guilt remembering home.

*** *** ***

As we walked down the overgrown cobblestone streets I looked around at the buildings. New Mondawmin’s architecture was very distinctive compared to The Heights. Most of the buildings were made from cracking and crumbling light gray marble or granite revealing their weathered wood and rusty steel framing. Many had columns and arches and other features that blended with modern electrical and plumbing services under the thick covering of greenery and trees.

I noticed a couple of marble statues cleared of greenery surrounded by five fluted columns. The statues showed a zebra kneeling before a pegasus, who I recognized as Flash Magnus. The zebra was wearing a suit of armor made from small rusty bronze scales, a long flowing cape, and had a long sword spear like the one used by the Soul of War.

I stepped closer to the plaque and read,

Here on this hill, two thousand years ago, Orthius of Elysium swore loyalty to Flash Magnus of Cloudsdale in his quest to kill the Eternal dragon, Bahamut, and the defense of Baltimare against his dragon horde for over forty years before his heroic sacrifice to kill the Eternal dragon, Viinturuth, at the Battle of Seaward Shoals.

May he walk the Golden Walls.

Dedicated to the city by Lord Khronos

A zebra stallion called Orthius had sworn loyalty to the dragon hunter Flash Magnus and fought the dragon horde at his side for decades before he died to kill an ancient dragon.

I thought about how that was possible, Saluem had said that zebras had first set hoof on the Equestrian continent roughly twelve hundred years ago, but this memorial claimed that a zebra warrior was involved with the dragon hunter army that would become the Old Guard over twenty-two hundred years ago. That was almost a thousand years of difference.

Was Saluem wrong? Or was this memorial wrong?

“Ozzy?” Umeme pulled me out of my train of thought, “Are you alright?”

“I… yeah,” I said, turning away from the statues.

*** *** ***

It was in the evening when we reached a town that my map called Rhebun-El. We showed our papers to the gate guards and were let in. A number of zebras with a range of colored stripes walked about doing their daily business, there were even a few ponies and griffons in the mix too, shopkeepers and merchants were selling their goods to the crowds. As we walked through the town I noticed that every sign was written in two or more languages, Ponish and one of what Umeme told me were the six main zebra languages: Roamani, the three main Atoli Dialects, Sahaani, or Starkatteri.

We stopped at a marble building with a couple of floors and a large sign hanging above the door that read, Hospitium, below that was a smaller sign that said, Vacante. The entry room had floor and wall tiles that were painted with rich, vibrant colors that reflected the hanging ceiling lights. At the end of the room was a small wooden desk with a large book and a shelf of keys beside an open door leading to a small courtyard with a tall branching oak tree behind it.

“Salve?” Umeme asked, stepping up to the desk and ringing a small bell, “Are you open?”

“I’ll be right with you,” a voice called out from the courtyard.

There was a loud crashing sound followed by some cursing before a zebra mare with blue stripes on an incredibly fluffy coat and an apron that was stained in a rainbow spectrum of colored paints.

“What was that sound?” I asked.

Just then, a pegasus worker wearing the gray jumpsuit and blinking collar stumbled past the doorway, but what was distressing was the word ENCLAVE literally carved into his face so deeply that I saw bits of his skull poking out and his wings were surgically mutilated leaving them as useless stumpy limbs. I felt a cold shiver run up my spine as he glanced at me with glazed over brown eyes.

“Oh it’s nothing,” the mare muttered, brushing the question aside, “Just can’t find any good help these days.”

She opened the book to a page filled with thousands of names, she picked up a small pencil, “What’re your names and how long are you staying?”

“Umeme and Ozzy,” Umeme answered, “Just for the night.”

“That’ll be sixty bucks,” the mare said, reaching behind her to pluck up a key to give us when we paid, “Room Two-Seven. And there might be some leftovers from dinner if you’re hungry.”

My stomach growled loudly, earning a laugh from the mare.

The courtyard had a number of rooms with a set of stairs connecting the two floors. A number of patrons were relaxing and enjoying the evening under the large tree. We climbed the stairs to the second floor, I glanced back at the Enclave worker who had picked up a mop and bucket and was slowly stumbling back into a side room on the courtyard’s first floor.

Our room was set in the courtyard’s back corner behind the tree. Opening the door, I flicked on the light and we stopped when we saw that the room had a single double bed in the center below a small window in the wall letting in the cold breeze.

“I can sleep on the floor,” I offered awkwardly, remembering yesterday’s events.

“It’s alright,” the stallion murmured, “Just stay on your side of the bed.”

“Okay,” I squeaked, “I’ll try not to touch you in my sleep.”

We undressed, putting our gear to the side on the floor, and left the room to get a late dinner. The kitchen was in a bigger side room on the street side of the first floor, a couple of coal burning stoves and pots and pans were being cleaned by some workers (these ones weren’t Enclave). The head chef was a Swampfolk stallion with lumpy limbs with large healed surgical scars running from his bulging shirt up his neck to the back of his head. His balding blue mane was tied up into a topknot and his scarred face was greasy and he rolled a lit cigar in his sparse stained teeth.

“Whatchas be wanning?” The stallion barked when he noticed us, “Ki’chen’s closed till morning.”

“We were told there’d be leftovers,” Umeme calmly responded.

“Fine,” the chef gestured to a couple of large soup pots on a countertop, “Bowls and spoons in dat cabinet, ten bucks a bowl.”

We paid and went out to the tree to eat the cold stew of soggy potatoes and carrots. It tasted terrible, but it silenced my growling stomach at least.

After we finished up we went back to our room and got ready for bed, I took off my eyepatch and placed it with my gear, Umeme flicked off the light, and slid under the covers beside me. I focused my magic on the window shutters and closed them as much as possible. We laid there in the near darkness for a long time and I was finding it hard to sleep when the silence was broken.

“Do you really find me attractive?” Umeme asked, his voice seemed a little hesitant.

I nodded like he had asked if the sky was covered in stormy clouds, it felt beyond fucking obvious that the stallion had a certain rugged charm that I liked. He scratched under his chin and made a face that said he’d never really considered it before.

“You’ve never been with a stallion?” I found that a little hard to believe.

“Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?” I sat up, “Is it illegal?”

“No…” He rolled over to face me better, “Such relationships, platonic, romantic, or purely sexual, are considered to be natural and even beneficial for young zebras to mature. All tribes have their own outlooks, but for Roamani… we view these things as a display of social power. The one who gives is in more of a… dominant position than the one who receives.”

“Wait,” I interrupted, holding up my hooves, “You’re saying that when I kissed you… I was actually raping you?”

I felt my heart plummet and my skin went clammy at the horrifying thought of molesting or even raping the handsome stallion. Images of the kids I had saved from the Foalbanks flashed in my mind.

I felt like I was about to vomit up the cold stew.

“No, no, I wouldn’t go that far,” he clarified, my shoulders lifted in slight relief, “Because you were the one who gave the kiss, you were the dominant one in the act.”

“So… the problem isn’t that we kissed, it’s that I was the one who started it?” That didn’t make much sense.

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” he said, rolling away from me.

What? Zebra relationships were weird, I facehoofed and laid back down to go to sleep.

“But I don’t think you’re bad looking,” Umeme quietly murmured.

I couldn’t help but smile.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

There were soft rhythmic sounds that slowly drifted and out of my focus, electronic beeping, fan blades slowly spinning, hooves typing on a keyboard.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” a feminine voice with the same accent as the Beloved Daughter stated frustrated, “How is he growing this quickly?”

Something was typed into a computer before some paper was torn and there was a heavy sigh, “I can’t say, Ma’am,” a second voice responded, “But so much growth in just a month suggests-”

“No, it’s impossible!” the first voice almost shouted, slamming something on a surface, “He wouldn’t have!”

What were they talking about?

“Look at… Ma’am,” the voice shot back, equally frustrated, slamming a hoof on the keyboard, “Three fragments… twenty-eight days, the others couldn’t… twice that… not even Anaita.”

“But I know Him,” the first voice repeated stubbornly, venom lacing her words, “He’d never… not with Her.”

“It takes a strong mind to deny what’s in front of your eyes-”

“Stay your tongue!” the first voice shouted angrily, there was a very long silence before starting again, “None of this leaves this room, Doctor.”

“Yes, Ma’am. You can trust me.”

“I know I can, Doctor-” kla-click BANG! “-Now, let’s see just how much promise you really have, Ozymandias.”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

I bolted upright in a cold sweat, lungs burning as I panted for air, my body tingling as reality slowly re-established itself. Soft pink early morning light was drifting in from between the window shutters. Umeme was missing but his gear was where he’d left it.

I looked down at my hooves, a thousand questions whirled through my mind. Who were the voices? What were they fighting about? What did they mean by fragments? How did they know my name?

As I slowly tempered each question I came to one undeniable conclusion.

Whoever that first voice was… whatever they wanted… however they knew about me… they were watching me now.

And I didn’t like that idea.

*** *** ***

Umeme and I stopped at a small street side restaurant across from the hotel for a breakfast of omelets made from chicken eggs, goat cheese, and spinach. After the cold watery stew last night, this omelet tasted heavenly.

A small band was setting up to entertain the gathering crowds. After they checked their instruments the drummer started with a single rhythmic beat for a few seconds before the bassist joined in with a swooping jazzy beat for about half a minute before the singer started singing in Roamani,

“Estne Color in tuis genis?
Umquamne mirum timorem sentis
Qui diu manet tamquam res in dentibus?
Mirane et apta excogitare vales?
Num nescis te omnino in re esse?
De te singulis noctibus nuper somniavi
Quot secreta tibi sevare potes?
Nam ecce melodia quam inveni
Quae facit ut in mente mea maneas
Donec tandem obdormio, fundens potiones supra lectulum”

The bassist joined in with Ponish,

“(Do I wanna know?)
An tu me qouque ames?
(Sad to see you go)
Sperabam te mansuram
(Baby, we both know)
Noctes praecipue exstare ut dicamus quae non poterimus cras mane”

“Crawling back to you
Umquamne me vocare voluisti post potiones quasdam?
Nam ego semper volo
Fortasse nimis mihi placet
Esse tantum tuus
Quam ut alteram amen
Rem bene deliberavi iam
Crawling back to you”

The singer grabbed the microphone and held it close,

“Visne igitur audere?
Estne apertum tum cor
Scire velim quando claudatur
Animum tempera et para labra
Ignosce mihi quot tua intermitto
Est tantum quod iugiter te osculari volo
Nescio an tu idem sentias quam ego
Sed una esse possimus si tu velis quoque”

“(Do I wanna know?) An tu me qouque ames?
(Sad to see you go) Sperabam te mansuram
(Baby, we both know) Noctes praecipue exstare ut dicamus quae non poterimus cras mane”

“Crawling back to you
Umquamne me vocare voluisti post potiones quasdam?
Nam ego semper volo
Fortasse nimis mihi placet
Esse tantum tuus
Quam ut alteram amen
Rem bene deliberavi iam
Crawling back to you”

“(Do I wanna know?) An tu me qouque ames?
(Sad to see you go) Sperabam te mansuram
(Baby, we both know) Noctes praecipue exstare ut dicamus quae non poterimus cras mane
(Do I wanna know?) Fortasse nimis placet
(Sad to see you go) Umquamne me vocare voluisti
(Do I wanna know?) Visne ut reptem denou ad te?”

As the song ended the crowd clapped their hooves or hands in applause as the band started another song. Umeme reached into a saddle bag and pulled out a small envelope of tan paper, he opened it up and poured a purple colored powder into his coffee.

“What’s that?” I asked, curiously.

“Medicine,” he flatly responded, mixing the powder into the drink, “I sometimes get distracting headaches so Saluem made me a recipe to help dull the pain.”

“What’s in it?” I asked, sniffing at the envelope, it smelled a tiny bit like raspberries and cinnamon.

“Just some herbs I can find around the North Shore, nothing crazy,” he downed his coffee and suddenly slammed his head against the table, dropping the mug to crack on the cobblestones.

“Shit,” I stood up and came around to his side, helping him up, “You okay?”

“Just… need a… moment,” he wheezed, rubbing his head, “I… yeah, I’m fine now.”

“What was that?” I pulled my chair around, “An allergic reaction?”

“No,” Umeme breathed, “It just tastes awful.”

Must’ve been really awful for him to slam his head into a table. We paid for breakfast and the broken cup before heading out.

*** *** ***

It was around noon when we reached a large oddly shaped hill covered in vegetation, dozens of strange looking trees that were made out of a strange oily black glass instead of bark and wide bloody red leaves and vines on the drooping branches, and the occasional oily black rock jutting out. An oddly shaped street wrapped around the hill’s base and connected with the state’s two main trade roads, the Fosse Road going north to south and Deere Street going east to west. On top of the hill was a ring of tall columns and pillars with a long set of stairs winding down around the hill.

My PipBuck pinged, my map had labeled this place as Dezaakir’s Rest.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Something I was hoping to do,” Umeme mumbled, climbing the stairs.

After a moment of confusion I silently followed.

When we were finally at the top I stopped to catch my breath. Collapsing down on the cold stone step, I looked out over the overgrown ruins of the state… I could see for miles and miles around, there were occasional smoke columns trailing up into the dark gray cloud cover high above, marking either towns or maybe outposts or something.

It all looked beautiful. Almost worth the thousand step climb.

KLA-CLICK!

“Hold there,” a stallion’s voice said behind me, “You two aren’t desired here.”

I slowly looked over my shoulder and found a pair of zebras, a stallion and a mare, both wearing plain looking wine red hooded robes with matching silver chain necklaces. The mare was holding up a zebra pistol in a cloud of purple magic emanating from her stubby horn and the stallion had a medium sized wild looking dog with splotchy black spots on a ginger red base and large pointed ears that snarled at us, yellow teeth bared.

“This is hallowed ground, state the reasons for your meddling!” The mare sternly ordered us.

“My name is Ama- Umeme… formerly of the Legion of Outcasts,” Umeme said with a calm tone, “I wish to pay my respects.”

Pay his respects? What was he saying?

The zebras exchanged looks before the stallion said, “Pay them quickly then, but say nothing to the Acolytes, they are in Study.”

The way he said Study implied it was important.

I noticed a very large willow tree covered in oily black glass bark sitting in the center surrounded by three more rings of columns and pillars with the outermost ring having thirteen animal shaped pedestals set up like a clock. Ten more zebras in similar robes surrounded the tree under its long drooping branches and bloody red leaves and vines.

Umeme thanked the zebras and slowly walked toward the large tree, I got up to follow.

“Not you!” the mare harshly snapped, blocking my way and pointing the pistol’s muzzle into my face, “You are not permitted!”

“Wh-what?” I asked, stepping back a few steps.

“I apologize,” the stallion clarified, “What Sister Eloisa means to say is that non-followers are not permitted near the tree’s inner two rings.”

“Non-followers?” I asked, confused, “I thought it was illegal to discriminate in Baltimare.”

“Do you follow the Spirits?” the stallion asked, I shook my head, “Then, by the laws of our faith, you are not permitted within the tree’s inner rings.”

“So it’s not because I’m a pony?” This still felt like discrimination to me.

The stallion reached up and pulled down his hood, revealing pale blue stripes on his face that loosely resembled the elliptical orbital paths of planets that complimented against his pale orange coat.

He was a pony/zebra hybrid.

You know I needed to find a good word for that, but I hadn’t really thought of one that didn’t seem a little bit insulting. Like Zony felt too much like zombie-pony for my liking.

“If being a pony mattered,” he said calmly, “My parents would not have been wed.”

“S-sorry,” I sheepishly apologized, my hoof rubbing the back of my foreleg awkwardly.

“It is no worry,” the stallion replied, pulling up his hood, “You may stay, read the pedestals, gain a better understanding of our faith.”

“But stay away from the tree,” I finished, the stallion nodded.

I followed him to the pedestal ring, each pedestal was about two feet tall and each had a small foot tall statue made of the same oily black glass as the tree. We started at the twelve o’clock position and went clockwise, first wasthe Achu’s lion god of defense, Taerus, second the Atoli’s wolf goddess of trade, Turs-Alo, third the Zencori’s spider god of storytelling, Anansi, fourth the Roamani’s two headed minotaur god of order and chaos, Gurzil, fifth the Mendi’s winged feathered snake god of healing, Patecatl, sixth the Propoli’s gorilla goddess of construction, Datia, seventh the Eschatik’s falcon goddess of philosophy, Otix, eighth the Sahaani’s bear goddess of art, Paeyus, ninth the Tappahani’s hyena god of festivities, Qrurris, tenth the Logos’ owl goddess of the written word, Hoosen, eleventh the Carnilia’s rabbit goddess of agriculture and fertility, Ala, twelfth the Orah’s jaguar god of hunting, Ah Tabai, and finally the Starkatteri’s raven goddess of death and rebirth, Hecate.

Each pedestal faced away from the tree and were decorated to best fit their individual purposes. I looked up at the tree, its red crystalline leaves rustled in the breeze like wind chimes.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s an Ordu tree,” the stallion answered, “They’re a symbol of unity across all zebrakind in the Old Empire.”

“Unity how?” I asked, looking at the stallion.

“It's said that when the First Caesar banded the twelve plus one together to find a new home it was done under the leaves of the first Ordu tree.”

“I’ve never seen one before,” I quietly said, looking back at the tree, “It has a certain beauty.”

“You can only find them where Eternal dragons were slain,” the stallion explained, reaching up and touching a leaf with reverence.

“I’ve heard that term a lot, Eternal dragon, but what makes them unique?” I asked in confusion.

“Eternal dragons are said to have been the first dragons. The children of the sky father, Caelus, and the earth mother, Terra, when this world formed. They were covered in a skin of living black rock which gave them protection from death itself.”

“But after the hero Flash Magnus famously killed Bahamut, it’s said that the surviving Eternal dragons were hunted down until there were perhaps just a dozen left, scattered across the furthest wild reaches of the world.”

“So to prevent their extinction they gave birth to modern dragonkind: drakes, wyverns, wyrms, hydras, and basilisks.”

“What’s a basilisk?” I asked.

The stallion grimaced, “A relative of dragons native to the southern deserts between Equestria and the Old Empire. They’re like hydras, but with dozens of tails instead of heads. They have lost their intelligence and are now little more than wild animals driven by instinct.”

“Creepy,” I grimaced, “So, what’s an Ordu?”

The stallion looked up to the tree before starting, “Ordu was an Eternal dragon that led her own dragon horde that drove Elysium into its destruction, the earth became hungry, the water dried up, volcanoes erupted with lava and ash that blocked out the sun itself.”

“It’s said that a legendary hero called Zhandris led the twelve plus one against Ordu in a last ditch effort to save their crumbling homeland. It’s said that the fighting was apocalyptic in its savagery… for every dragon killed the legions lost three scores of their own.”

I thought about that, Saluem had told me about Elysium and how it was destroyed. She hadn’t mentioned it was caused by dragons, but upon thinking about it I supposed it made more sense.

“When the war was won Zhandris had sacrificed himself to kill Ordu by splitting open her stone scales with the power of Caelus, driving his sword spear deep into her heart. Ancient magic poured out saturating the battlefield and Ordu trees sprouted as a monument to the war-”

So Ordu trees come from Eternal dragons? I ran over the thought as the stallion continued his tale.

“-but that’s mostly conjecture. Anyway it’s said that Dezaakir had attacked Baltimare during the later years of the Great War and she-”

“Wait,” I said, snapping back to the conversation, “We’re standing on a dragon?”

“Yes, weren’t you listening?” the stallion asked sternly, “Where do you think the Wall of Baltimare came from?”

“Ready to go?” Umeme asked.

I nodded and we headed back down the hill’s winding path before starting west down Deere Street. As we left I looked back at the shrine hill and noticed it did vaguely look like a massive dragon skull.

If you squinted and tilted your head to the side.

*** *** ***

The cloudy sky was darkening into the evening hours when we reached sight of Pylon Eleven, the neighborhood had transitioned into buildings that looked more like ones in The Heights. The base was nearly three times as big as Pylon Twenty-Eight and made out of the remains of dozens of buildings across three whole city blocks.

“Papers,” the gate guard said. We took out our books and he opened the gate, “Welcome to Pylon Eleven.”

Once the gate guard let us in we headed for the towering pylon. A few thousand Old Guard soldiers were milling about doing their duties or relaxing by playing games or drinking, I also noticed that roughly a few hundred of them were wearing odd looking Old Guard uniforms that along with black trimmings instead of white had black quilted padding around the upper arms, shoulders, and upper chest, a blazing dragon skull engraved on their silver belt buckles and as small silver pins on their black berets, and armbands on their left sleeves featuring a blue rose in a white circle.

The Pylon’s airlock door was locked up tight and a couple of surly looking griffons in power armor stood guard, their machine guns at the ready.

“Good evening,” I greeted the airlock guards, “My friend and I were hoping that you’d be able to let us into The Fringe, we have permission.” We pulled out our badges and showed them, the griffons exchanged looks before one stepped over to an intercom by the door.

“General Brantley, sir?” he started in a low voice, “The two mercenaries Colonel Basken radioed about are here. What did you want to do with them?”

“Wait what?” I sputtered, concern washing across my face about what was happening, “I thought we had permission.”

The other griffon raised an armored hand for me to be silent. There was a short pause before a low, gravelly voice replied, “Send them up to my office, Lance Corporal, I want to see who managed to acquire Basken’s badge.”

“General’s upstairs,” The other griffon gestured up a steep flight of stairs.

“I thought we had permission,” I repeated insistently.

“Don’t worry,” the intercom griffon responded, “the General just want’s a word.”

That didn’t improve my concern much.

When we finally reached the top I found a scene similar to Pylon Twenty-Eight, there were hundreds of machine gun emplacements between two large artillery pieces behind sandbag walls. Heavy troopers were standing at the ready while squads of soldiers patrolled between the emplacements or delivering ammunition crates.

What was different though was the view of a massive battle-ruined city that lacked the abundant amount of vegetation of Baltimare or the seas of rainbow colored ash of The Ashes. Deere Street emerged out from the airlock door and stretched out toward the distant horizon.

Standing beside an artillery piece near the obelisk was a dragon that looked similar to Captain Fafnira.

He was much much longer than Captain Fafnira, nearly fifty feet long I think, with muted light sky blue scales and a black underbelly. A rainbow of multicolored feathers ran down his spine to his long swooping snake-like tail to a large feathery plume and his jaw had frilly fins that somewhat resembled fish gills that faded from deep purple to light pink at the edges.

Unlike Captain Fafnira, he wore a rather large Old Guard uniform jacket with a few medals pinned to the lapel and four colored braided cords on his left shoulder (red, yellow, blue, and white), he had a small silver seven pointed star on both of his collar tabs, and had a pair of dark leather gloves over his massive hands. By the way he carried himself, I had a sneaking suspicion that he was the General.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked, looking out over war torn ruins almost like it was a garden.

“What did you mean?” I asked.

“The Church of Fyre preaches that Baltimare was under a heavy siege when the Old Empire launched a balefire bomb against us. The Fringe remains as a reminder of what our city could’ve ended up as if the Good Father hadn’t shielded us from the necrotic flames that burned most of Equestria.”

“Church of Fyre?” I asked, a cold apprehension building in my spine.

“The prevailing religion of the city,” he explained nonchalantly, “They worship the Good Father like a god… I’ve never understood that.”

The words hung in the cold air, the Good Father was a god?! Did he mean like the Goddesses? The cold spot in my spine grew. How could anyone have such a claim?

He turned to us, “But I didn’t call you two up here just to discuss ancient history or religion. Hello, I’m Brigadier General Brantley.”

He shook our hooves before leading us into his office in the obelisk. The room was mostly barren with a couple of chairs and a desk in the center with a terminal, a white officer’s cap, and a small framed picture of a younger looking General holding up a number of colorful eggs each nearly as big as my head. The General slithered around the desk and sat down on a small cushion, even with his tail coiling up below him he was still a bit taller than us standing.

“Now, why not explain to me how you got Basken’s badge,” he requested, gesturing to the chairs.

“Why?” I asked, sitting down, “Is there a problem?”

“No, I’m just curious,” he replied, opening a drawer in his desk and pulling out a rather large bottle of alcohol with a faded golden apple on the label and three small glasses, “You see Wall Pylon Commanders are permitted to dispense just five of those badges per year.”

He poured a little bit of the drink into the glasses and corked the bottle, he picked up his glass and downed it. I picked up mine and tested it, sour apple whiskey splashed on my tongue.

“Colonel Augustus Basken is easily one of the most tight-hoofed bastards I know,” the General leaned forward and slightly lowered his voice, “Do you know how many badges he’s given out since he took command of Pylon Twenty-Eight?”

We both shook our heads, the General continued, “Just five in twelve years, including yours’.”

I exchanged a glance with Umeme, we must’ve been super lucky.

“So how did you convince that old Tribal?” the dragon asked, pouring some more whiskey in his glass.

“We did a job for him,” Umeme answered, taking a sip.

“Fair enough,” the General nodded, but continued pushing the question, “Must’ve been pretty damn impressive.”

There was a moment of silence before I alberated, “We fought some Ashbourne and tried to rescue his second.”

The General chuckled into his glass, “How is Fafnira anyway?”

The room went cold, Umeme and I exchanged troubled glances. The General noticed and asked what was wrong.

I took a long moment thinking over what to tell him, “Well… she… um….”

“She’s dead,” Umeme interrupted, his eyes downcast.

The dragon lowered his glass and quietly asked with a shaky breath, “R-really?”

We nodded silently. The silence grew thicker with each passing second before he spoke again.

“I-I see,” he muttered, quietly looking into his glass, he didn’t speak for the better part of an hour before asking, “How… how did she die?”

Umeme and I exchanged looks before I answered, “Defending her company.” Leaving out the Soul of War and the strange stallion.

The General was very quiet again before he poured another round of drinks and raised his glass, “To Fafnira… may she return to Mother Terra, and feel her fiery embrace.”

We raised our own glasses in toast.

“How did you know Captain Fafnira?” I asked, curiosity eating at me.

“Are you serious?” the General asked, his words filled with a dark acceptance, I nodded, he looked down into his glass, “We are… we were siblings. The only ones with the same parents, all of my other siblings have different mothers.”

“How many dragons are there?” I asked quietly.

“In Equestria?” he asked, I nodded, “Well, not too many survived the Last Day… maybe less than a few dozen at most? Fewer have survived the radiation and two centuries of chaos, see balefire affects us just as badly as it affects you smaller lot, so many have deteriorated into mindless monsters. I’ve heard of possible dragons hiding down in The Heartlands, but nothing too concrete. Mother Chundia owns a gem farm in the Lake Trott Basin over in the Griffish Isles, but she’s so old she hasn’t been seen outside of her cave since the Last Day. There was a dragon in the hills up near the Chicoltgo River, but I’m pretty sure they were devoured by The Myre.”

Memories of the rainbow fungus plant in The Ashes sparked in my mind, the way it writhed under the Ashborne’s skin like snakes before erupting out like an eldritch monster. My spine shivered and my stomach flipped at the painful thought of being devoured by some mindless plant.

“But to answer the question for Baltimare, it’s just my father, Lord Felldrik of Fell’s Point, my sisters, Azaris and Fedrill, my brothers, Bonyh, Mezorth, and Vazryt, maybe a dozen unhatched eggs… and myself now.”

There was another long silence that stretched uncomfortably. I felt a connection with the dragon about my own family, for all I knew it was just Mom and I now. “We’re sorry for your loss.”

There was a long silence before the General got up and picked up the picture, “I was born during the Great War, my parents helped the Old Guard to liberate many cities from zebra legionary forces including Los Mustanga and Monacolt. But Mother… she… she didn’t make it out of Horsolulu.”

The name Horsolulu rang a bell in my memories. A photograph from Doctor Orion’s dreams or maybe fragments, the photograph of the mare and colt on a sandy beach.

“What happened?” I asked, putting my glass down.

The General brought over the photograph, “The war was turning for the worse, the Old Guard was losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers… Some provinces were even rebelling against Canterlot and the Six Ministries. My Father was sent out to end the rebellions… by any means necessary.”

I shivered imagining fighting a fully grown dragon, the General poured another round before continuing.

“He had my other siblings to help with the war effort, but none of the eggs could be hatched in time. I was training to fight when… when the Old Guard pulled out from the war and were called back to Baltimare. Lord Khronos had declared that the Horseshoe Bay was succeeding from Canterlot and Equestria. The Steel Rangers mustered an army of thousands and sieged us for nearly two months… before the Last Day.”

There was a very long cold silence as the General stared down at the photograph, “Some days… I wonder if my Mother would be proud of me. Proud of the wyrm I’ve become….”

There was another very long silence, he put the photograph back in its spot and coiled up on his cushions. He poured the last of the whiskey into his glass and downed it in one gulp.

“Well,” he sharply said, putting his glass down, “If you two are headed through The Fringe I’d suggest heading out in the morning.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, finishing my glass.

“It’s the better part of a day’s walk to Fort Colton and The Fringe is full of ancient ordnance from the Great War and the First and Second Emergence Wars. It took the better part of a decade and hundreds of lives to clear out Deere Street alone. So it’d be very beneficial of you to stay on the marked paths.”

He had a point, frankly I'd had enough of active war zones after The Ashes.

“And if we don’t?” Umeme asked.

The General took off one of his gloves and rolled up his uniform’s sleeve, his right hand up to his bicep was completely cybernetic and styled to look somewhat like Mark One power armor, “Have you ever tried to disable a mine so rusted that the timer doesn’t sound? Have you ever picked up ancient missiles or grenades only for them to explode and bring a building down on you?”

I shuddered involuntarily, just how much force did it take to rip through a dragon’s scales, flesh, and bone? A new fear of the Soul of War sparked as I stared down at the shiny metal limb.

Umeme shook his head reluctantly.

The General rolled down his sleeve, “I suggest you two leave in the morning then, there should be some beds you can borrow for the night.”

*** *** ***

Umeme and I stood in the airlock the following early morning, the gate behind us slowly hissed closed. I was getting flashbacks to The Ashes, well at least this time we were in our own gear instead of those bulky environment suits.

There was a bit of a wait before sirens blared and flashed red lights as the heavy metal door in front of us slowly slid open with a hiss. Cold heavy fog rushed in that sliced through my suit and armor to my bones.

Umeme and I stepped out trying to look around, I understood what the General meant by marked paths, red dashed lines had been spray painted on the ground designating where it was safe. Most of the skeletal buildings looked like they were about to collapse from age and neglect and a few of them were even held up by old metal support beams.

My PipBuck’s radiation detector started ticking, the dial was slowly edging toward the line between green and yellow sections. I briefly wondered how Baltimare could remain so clean when it was so dirty just outside their walls. Surely the residue from the balefire would’ve permeated into the city’s ruins after almost two hundred years, right?

I pushed the thought aside as I followed Umeme. Thankfully Deere Street was cleared out and safe, the ancient remains of vehicles had been stripped of anything useful long ago and pushed to the sides to rust and decay.

It was the better part of an hour before we finally made it out of the ruined foggy neighborhood and into a hilly landscape of blasted sandy farmland that stretched out to the horizon with the occasional cluster of blackened tree husks or the remains of a farmstead. A number of birds flew far overhead and the occasional animal that scurried away into underbrush. In the silence I noticed that my radiation detector had stopped ticking, the dial firmly in the green. Otherwise the day was very long and very, very boring, the hours ticked by slowly as our hooves clicked on the broken road.

In the cold silence my thoughts drifted toward unpleasant thoughts. What would I do if I found Mom? Would she even want to see me out here? Where would we even go after I found her? We couldn’t just go back to Stable Fifty-Two, could we? I was losing myself in ever darkening thoughts that didn’t have any promising answers.

“Your path will get darker before you reach its end,” a deep stallion’s voice suddenly sliced through the dark cloud, “But you can still be the Light in the Darkness.”

“What?” I asked.

“I said we’re here,” Umeme repeated.

We were standing on a high ridge looking down on a large town built on the eastern and northern banks of a river leading to a roughly egg-shaped lake with a large tower built up on an island in the center that was connected to the town by a long bridge. Docked to the tower and looming over the island and most of the town was the massive cloudship from Neightick, Song of the North, its massive storm clouds matching the calmer grays of those high above. The occasional dot would fly out and descend to the town or shoot out in a seemingly random direction.

We walked down the high ridge to the fort’s main gate. Five soldiers stood guard with two heavy troopers wearing dark blue and black woolen robes over their armor silently watching us as we approached, weapons at the ready. My PipBuck pinged an alert at me, we’d found Fort Colton.

A door in the gate opened and an equine wearing a featureless mask made out of a strange silver mirrored glass and a long overcoat made of dark blue leather walked out to meet us.

“State your business,” a low mechanized voice sternly ordered.

I noticed that their uniform matched the strange padded uniforms back at Pylon Eleven and their weapon looked like an upsized 12.7mm pistol that had the magazine in front of where the grip and trigger should’ve been. Umeme and I brought out our papers and badges… but the equine waved them away dismissively.

“Those won’t help you,” they stated dryly.

“Why not?” Umeme questioned, adopting a similar tone, “I thought these-”

“Fort Colton and The Fringe are under lockdown by order of the Council,” they clarified, shifting their coat a bit to better show a silver badge on their chest of a blue rose, “And travel after curfew has been strictly prohibited by order of Pontiff Selene, so-”

“Who?” I asked, confused.

“So, you two will be taken to the Grand Master of my order to explain yourselves,” they continued, ignoring my question, they gestured to the heavy troopers.

“What happens then?” Umeme asked, his voice a barely contained growl.

The equine’s featureless mask looked in Umeme’s direction, reflecting his face back to him, “You will explain yourselves to my Grand Master… he will then decide your fates.”

“Fine.”

*** *** ***

Fort Colton was a bustling hub of activity, dozens of civilians and soldiers intermingling and enjoying the brisk evening air. The buildings looked to be in rather good condition compared to the skeletons around the Wall and most were in states of active repair. The two heavy troopers thudded beside us, armored hooves cracking the old street with each step. The crowds parted as we were marched toward the cloudship looming over the town.

“What’s gonna happen to us?” I tried asking one.

“QUIET!” the mechanized voice sternly ordered.

I turned my eye toward the ship hovering above the town, it looked like a giant animal waiting to pounce on its prey. Our escorts led us to the bridge gate and across the lake, which my PipBuck helpfully informed me was called Lake Colton, into the fort proper.

The fort had four main buildings, a command office, a medical center, the tower, and a barracks. A flagpole stood in the central courtyard with Baltimare’s flag at the top with a smaller flag below that with the fiery dragon skull on a blue field fluttering in the cold breeze.

A single griffon wearing the padded uniform stood beside the flagpole, their face hidden behind a mirrored mask.

“That’s far enough,” they called to our escorts, flicking a mechanical claw into a salute, “Report back to your posts.”

The heavy troopers saluted back and turned to leave. When the armored giants had left, the griffon approached and looked us over for a moment before their mask’s mirrored surface slowly dissolved into a clear glass revealing a female griffon’s face that had red feathers, a black mouth piece covering her beak, and solid black cybernetic eyes that had glowing pupils.

“I’m Iudex Captain LaGarde,” her mechanized voice said, extending her non-mechanized hand to shake our hooves, “The Grand Master is in a meeting at the moment so you’ll be taken to Iudex Major Kadaer for questioning then you will be taken to the Grand Master when he’s free.”

Umeme and I exchanged glances before I said, “We were assured that our badges allowed us passage through The Fringe.”

“They do,” LaGarde explained, “You two will just be questioned about your travel intentions and if your answers satisfy the Grand Master then you will be permitted to continue on your way once curfew is lifted in the morning.”

“So, you’re not gonna kill us?” Umeme asked cautiously.

The griffon turned her cybernetic eyes to him, “The Iudicium does not kill without acceptable reason, we are not the Old Guard.”

I felt a chuckle threaten to come up at that. Neightick must’ve been a really fucking acceptable reason then, but I kept that thought to myself.

We must’ve had confused looks because the griffon clarified, “If you just follow me everything will become clearer.”

She led us into the command office, the small lobby was T shaped with a small metal desk in front of a small painting hung up on the wall of an elderly looking pegasus mare with a long white mane with streaks of light gray, a light amber coat, and light malachite green eyes that held a tempered strength that only came with age. She wore a black suit with a horizontally striped tie with seven colors: red, blue, green, white/black (diagonally crossed), pink, gold, and gray and a small pin of Baltimare’s seven pointed star on her lapel.

A small brass plaque at the center bottom said,

Hyacinth Dawn,

15th High Councilor of the

Horseshoe Bay Union and

its territories.

I vaguely remembered hearing the name somewhere before, but I couldn’t quite say where.

Sitting at the desk was a soldier reading a book, giving no indication that she’d noticed our entry. LaGarde gave a mechanical noise that sounded like a cough and a static shriek. The soldier jumped out of her chair, pulling out a compact submachine gun and looking around frantically before noticing us.

“Oh… uh,” she stammered before lowering her gun and saluting LaGarde, “Iudex Captain, ma’am.”

I chuckled under my breath at the soldier’s sudden discomfort, I was no stranger to slacking off at work so I could sympathize.

“As you were, Private,” LaGarde ordered, perhaps with a hint of laughter.

She led us down the left hallway to an unlabeled door, opening it we stepped into a bare gray room with a table and three chairs in the center in front of a mirrored window.

“Please sit down,” she gestured to the two chairs opposite her as she opened a cabinet by the mirrored window.

We did as told and the door opened again, an equine in a matching uniform stepped in, closing the door behind them. They exchanged salutes with LaGarde before turning to us, their mirrored mask dissolved into a clear dome revealing a pony stallion with a grayish turquoise coat and solid black eyes with glowing pupils like LaGarde. There was a sudden string of garbled mechanized radio static like noises that seemed like a code, LaGarde nodded, handing him a clipboard with paper.

He turned back to us, “I’m Iudex Major Kadaer,” a mechanized voice stated in Ponish, “I will be conducting the questioning while the Grand Master is in his meeting.”

Their mechanized voices were starting to make me feel very uneasy, why did they have them? Was it just the intimidation factor? It was certainly working on me.

The stallion took off his overcoat and hung it on a wall peg before pulling out the chair and sitting down. LaGarde placed a small radio shaped device in the center of the table.

“This is a truth spotter,” Kadaer explained, “It’s similar to a lie detector, but far more reliable, it will flash green if you’re telling the truth, orange if you're withholding something, or red if you lie.”

“How can it tell?” I asked, looking down at the strange device.

“It will know,” he answered sternly, “Now do you have your papers?”

We nodded and dug them out, Kadaer looked them over before putting them aside, “Now for a couple of testing questions, please say your names for the device.”

“Umeme.”

“Ozzy.”

The device flashed orange.

“I meant your full name.”

Umeme and I exchanged glances before I said, “Ozymandias.”

“Amandla Orthius Umeme Octavius.”

The device flashed green.

LaGarde scribbled something down on her clipboard as Kadaer continued, “What are your occupations?”

“Unemployed,” Umeme answered.

“Uh, freelance?” I offered.

The device flashed orange for me, but green for Umeme.

“Freelance is not a recognized occupation,” Kadaer addressed me.

“Fine,” I muttered, “unemployed then.”

The device flashed green.

LaGarde scribbled something again as Kadaer continued, “Now let’s start the real questions. Are you now or have you ever been a raider?”

We shook our heads.

“Please voice your answers.”

We both said no, the device flashed green.

“Are you now or have you ever been a slaver?”

“No,” we both answered.

The device flashed green.

The questions continued in this weird way, some were throwaway, while others were super personal… like super uncomfortably personal. It felt like hours, I was struggling to keep my eye open, but eventually Kadaer put down the clipboard.

“Okay, last question.”

I pulled myself together and readied myself for anything, just this last question then we were done. What would they ask? What is my hoof size? What is my favorite drink? My favorite music genre?

“Are you in contact with an earth pony mare called Doctor Applerose?”

My heart stopped. I certainly wasn’t ready for that.

Why would they ask about Mom? Was this connected with the Beloved Daughter? She was with them back at Neightick and asked Sturmkaller about Mom’s whereabouts. I couldn’t just bluff it, could I? The device would surely flash red! Then what would happen?! Would they shoot me? My mind raced for a possible answer….

“No,” Umeme answered, the device flashed green.

Kadaer looked at me for my answer.

Just then LaGarde placed her non-mechanized hand on Kadaer’s shoulder, there was another string of the garbled mechanized radio static as the two conversed before Kadaer looked back at me for my answer.

I deeply hated myself for this, but I had no other choice.

SHIT!

My mouth ran bone dry and my heart thundered in my ears as I opened my mouth and answered.

“No.”

The silence was deafening as time stretched into an eternity, the tension was thick enough to cut with a chainsaw as the device sat in silence as it seemingly examined my answer….

It flashed green.

“Alright then,” Kadaer said, picking up the device, taking his overcoat, and stepping to the door, “Thank you again for your cooperation.”

The door closed behind him.

Umeme gave me a reassuring look as LaGarde finished scribbling on her clipboard, when she was done she addressed us, “If you’ll follow me please, the Grand Master is ready to receive you two.”

We followed LaGarde in silence as she led us to the other side of the command office to a door labeled, Grand Master Iudex of the Order Blue Rose Aeternus.

“Stay here,” LaGarde told us before rapping her knuckles on the door, a string of mechanized garbled static, there was a long silence before another string answered, LaGarde slipped inside, leaving us in the humming silence of the overhead lights.

“Are you alright?” Umeme asked me, “You looked like your brain froze at the last question.”

My body felt cold and clammy, I was still trying to figure out why they asked about Mom.

“Let’s… talk about it later…” I whispered back and quickly added, “When we’re not around here?”

He silently nodded, offering a soft smile. I felt a slight bit of relief wash over me.

The door opened and LaGarde ushered us in. The room was sparse, with a wooden desk in front of a small window offering a nighttime view of Colton, a small blue banner hung on the wall that showed a blue rose on a fiery dragon skull with words Innocentia Nihil Probat printed below, a small collection of old books, a terminal, and one of those strange upsized 12.7mm pistols mounted in a frame hanging on the wall. Sitting behind the desk was a pegasus stallion who must’ve been the Grand Master.

He looked to be in his late sixties, with a shaved mane, coffee beige coat, a long savage looking pale line of an old scar that sliced from his left outer brow, swept along the outside of his left eye socket, down his cheek and jaw, and disappeared under his mask’s hood.

The super distracting part about him were his cybernetics, he looked like the unholy union of equine and machine. His eyes were solid white with glowing pupils, there was a small black device embedded in his forehead, several skinny surgical tubes and hoses trailed out of the corners of his mouth and connected to a fancy respirator in his mirrored domed mask that was set on the desk, and his feathers were replaced with serrated blades that were surgically grafted into his wing stumps.

He turned from LaGarde to look at us as we stepped in, his brow furrowing.

“I’m Iudex Aeternus,” his lips moved, but a mechanized voice came from his mask, “As I have been informed there seems to have been a slight misunderstanding about your… situation.”

The way he said ‘misunderstanding’ reminded me of Overseer Nail.

‘You could say that,’ I thought to myself, but actually said, “Well, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, uh… sir.”

He picked up LaGarde’s clipboard, “While you two were in violation of curfew, this isn’t the first time Iudex Recruit Fiddyrson has jumped the gun by demanding a questioning.”

So you were just wasting our fucking time?! I resisted the urge to yell.

“So, I’m dropping any possible charges he’s tried to place on both of you and I will assure you that Fiddyrson will be removed from my order and sent up to the Seven Sisters, it’ll be more fitting to his professionalism.”

My anger eased slightly as he continued, “Additionally you two will be permitted to leave without the need of your badges, I’ll inform my order of your descriptions so you won’t be bothered again.”

Well, that was a better start, but something felt a tiny bit off, “While I’m appreciative of you offering to do all of that, I can’t help but wonder if there’s another reason why you wanted to speak with us.”

Umeme nodded in agreement.

The Grand Master leaned back in his swivel chair and grinned slightly, “Well, well, well, mercenaries with brains, perhaps you two could be of some help after all.”

*** *** ***

The following morning we woke up early, pulled on our gear, and left the small hotel to find some breakfast. Colton was starting to wake up too with a small diner opening for the morning crowd. Umeme and I ordered something quick and simple, the chef whipped us some plain oatmeal with apple slices. It wasn’t fancy, but when the steaming hot lumpy meal slid down my throat and silenced my growling stomach, it felt almost heavenly.

With breakfast done we headed toward the town’s south gate. The street led us past some shops that were starting to open. One shop that caught my attention was an everything store with a big sign on the old window,

Ammo,

Guns,

And Gear!

I was thinking about finding a holster and bandoleer for my shotgun. I pointed it out to Umeme and he nodded, gesturing to an apothecary store across the street.

We parted ways.

The store had the look of a shady pawn shop, with glass displays showing off unusual items that I couldn’t recognize and a few larger items mounted and hanging on the walls. I stepped over to the counter and noticed a small brass bell with a sign that said, Ring for Service. I rang it.

“Just a moment,” a gruff sounding voice called out from behind an Employees Only door.

I looked around and spotted an old looking newspaper in a frame on the wall beside the door. It showed a picture of a unicorn mare that I recognized as Princess Anastasia from my odd dreams. She was kneeling before Princess Luna herself and offering up a crown in front of thousands of people. I climbed up on the counter to better read the page’s small print.

Baltimare Times

Stalliongrad Joins Canterlot!

For the better part of the last seven hundred years, the United Tsardoms of Stallgaria, or more commonly known by its capital city of Stalliongrad, has stood between the borders of the North Shore and the swampland of Zebrinica under the fair rule of the Royal House of Rohmarov, playing a neutral part in the politics of the world. And for the last fifteen years the Tsardom has held to its neutrality, neither helping nor hindering either the Princesses or the Caesar as the war has carried on.

But in a shocking turn of events following the death of Tsar Feodor Nikolaevich the Second several Imperial Legions have invaded the Tsardom’s southern border, sieging the cities of Kzivsky and Valandovo. Civilian casualties are estimated to be in the tens of thousands already. The Caesar of Roam has issued the following statement to the new Tsarina, Anastasia Feodorovna:

“If you do not submit your pathetic kingdom to my rule then my legions will purge your heretical excuse of a civilization from the pages of history. We will kill every last stallion, mare, and child. We will rub salt into the very earth so nothing will ever grow again. There will be nothing left.”

The new Tsarina is said to have sent back the following message:

“If.”

The story dominated the page pushing aside other stories like Worker riots break out across the Griffish Isles as gemstones becomes scarce and Gun fights rip across the provinces of Neighvada and Marizona as local Desert Rangers and pro-republic forces clash in the streets of Tailahassee and Puerto Caballo and Volcanic eruptions smother the border cities of Canter Creek and Pondpii, no survivors found.

“The world was really falling apart back then, huh?” I muttered to myself, leaning back, “It feels like nothing has changed.”

After a bit of time, an older zebra stallion stepped through the employee door revealing a set of steep stairs leading up and down.

“Good morning,” I greeted.

The stallion grumbled something before glaring at me, “Whatcha want?!”

“I noticed your sign, do you have a shotgun bandoleer?”

The shopkeeper grumbled something again before stepping through another door at the end of the counter. There were a few loud crashes before he came back with a bandoleer in his mouth.

“Try this,” he placed it on the counter for me to see.

The bandoleer was made out of thick gray cloth with about sixty looping slots for individual shotgun shells, a black leather shotgun holster, and a brass belt buckle. The price tag said it was eighty bucks.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, examining the equipment, “My shells could fall out of the slots during combat….”

“The slots are rated to fit all types of 12 Gauge,” the shopkeeper argued back, clearly not wanting this.

“”I don’t know,” I repeated skeptically, “I’ll give you thirty.”

“Seventy-five,” the shopkeeper haggled back.

“Thirty-five?”

“Seventy.”

Dammit he was stubborn, “Forty-five?”

“Sixty,” he said, grinning in slight triumph, “Last offer.”

Fucking Luna dammit!

“What’s taking so damn long, Love?” a female griffon’s voice suddenly called out from the shop’s stairs.

“Just finalizing a deal, Honey,” the shopkeeper answered.

A sneaky thought brightened in my mind.

“Fifty-five,” I said, reaching into my saddle bag and pulling out the griffon pornography magazine, “And I’ll throw this in with it.”

The shopkeeper looked the magazine over before glancing over his shoulder to the stairs, he leaned over the counter and muttered in a hushed voice, “Alright, fifty-five bucks.”

I gave him the money and clipped the bandoleer in place with my revolver and carefully loaded it with shells from my shotgun magazines as I stepped out into the street to join Umeme. We followed the street to a large bridge spanning the Colton River, on the other side was the town’s southwestern gate.

The crumbling road led to a slightly sloping hill bordering the town, giving a nice view of the landscape. It sloped down the hill and weaved between dozens of small hills at the bottom as it trailed west toward the distant fuzzy shapes of the occasional farmstead dotted periodically. Early morning sunlight peeked out from the eastern horizon filling the air with pink, lighting up my clouded breath with each exhale.

“Are we really doing this?” Umeme asked, yawning, “I mean we barely survived The Ashes as it is.”

I couldn’t really argue with that, checking my map there was a small marker where the town of Drybed was supposedly located. By my math it was at least five hours of walking.

“Well, we did survive raiders… and that,” Umeme nodded begrudgingly as I continued, “Besides we’re just checking on the town, nothing more.”

I started down the road, Umeme grumbled something under his breath in Roamani before trailing behind.

Despite what he said I was feeling rather upbeat. The Grand Master said he’d reward us if we did this job for him and it was already on our route. Drybed was close to The Fringe’s western border. He'd even given us a radio signal to call him when the job was done.

“I’m telling you, Umeme, things are really looking up for us.”

*** *** ***

Did I mention I’m a bit of an idiot?

The town of Drybed lived up to its name being on the banks of a dried up swampy lake bed with a swampy river that led to the Neighagra River. The town itself was built out of an older decaying town with most of the ten brick buildings patched up with sheet metal or plywood along the crumbling road, surrounding the town was a small collection of farms and gardens that were in the middle of being harvested.

The town was quiet… save for me sprinting between the buildings desperately trying to outrun the hordes of mutated spider-like creatures the size of dogs nipping at my hooves with snarling knife shaped pincers that glistened with venom.

So otherwise… It was shaping up to be a rather normal day up here.

“I JUST HAD TO FUCKING SAY IT!” I shouted, all of my guns blasting away at the spiders.

Umeme was perched on a roof with a few of the surviving townsfolk taking pot shots at the spider horde chasing me. His standard bullets sliced into their pale green chitinous armor, but even with the armor piercing enchantment they did very little overall damage.

“Hey Merc!” the Acting-Mayor, Sugar Petal, shouted at me from the roof of the barricaded town hall, “Try to get them to the lake!”

I jumped over a ruined barricade and shot out from the buildings. Sprinting across a small potato farm to the swampy grass. The horde was right on my tail though, their small size allowing them to slip between the openings.

“Fucking good idea!” I shouted, lungs burning, legs screaming in protest.

My hooves were getting caught in the deep swampy mud slowing me down. One of the spiderbugs jumped on my back, driving its pincers into my shoulder pauldron. Another grabbed my hindleg. I was dragged face first into the muddy grass, my hooves flared every which way, striking spiders.

I was certain of my death when suddenly I noticed a black shape looming in the cloudy skies. The shape swooped down with lightning speed close enough for me to see it was a pegasus wearing augmented silver power armor. The spiders grabbing me let go of my limbs and turned to the pegasus, their pincers snapping angrily.

“Get down!” he shouted with a mechanized voice as he pulled out an upsized 12.7mm pistol in a cloud of pink magic.

“Holy shit!” I shouted, rolling to the side just in time.

The pegasus shot through the spider horde, serrated wing blades slicing through their armored exoskeletons like wet tissue paper. The monstrous pistol erupted in thunder with each shot taken, bullets ripping through the remaining spiders. Blue blood was spilled everywhere, coating me and every inch of the ground around me. I slowly stood up and dredged to the bank.

“Fucking hell!” I spluttered, trying to clear off my face, the blood dripped down and splashed in the dirt, “Anyone got a towel?!”

“Sorry I’m late,” The pegasus’s mechanical staticy voice said as he swooped down landing beside me, mechanical blade wings folding up at his sides, “Traffic and all that.”

My very tired brain took a moment to register what he just said… Did… did he really really just say that?

The pegasus reloaded his pistol and glanced in my direction, “Are you one of the mercenaries my Grand Master hired?”

“I am,” I said, still wiping off the blue blood, “Are you Iudex Captain Aloysius?”

“I am,” he said, his mirrored mask cleared revealing his solid black eyes and glowing pupils, he glanced at the fresh spider corpses littered around, “It would seem my Grand Master chose wisely enough.”

A small compartment in the side of his battle saddle opened up and he took out a small plastic box, “I trust that this will be a suitable payment.”

I opened it but instead of money I found several boxes of ammunition (45 Auto, 7.62mm, and plain 12 Gauge shells), a couple combat meal thermoses, and a first aid kit. “I thought I’d get money.”

“No he said you’d get rewarded, and he meant it. We’re not allowed to hire mercenaries in locked down areas, still a requisitiation form could go missing and it’s not like the Pontiff is gonna send someone out here to check.”

I nodded, putting the box in my saddle bag, it was better than nothing.

“There was one other thing,” the Iudex Captain said, pulling out a small computer chip, “This chip has coordinates and the key code to an old Iudicium safe house, it was abandoned during the Second Emergence War. Any supplies that still there is your’s for the taking.”

I was about to thank him, but he held up his armored hoof, “Don’t worry about it… I’m sure we’ll be doing this again soon enough, Ozymandias,” he said, before rocketing into the sky and flying back toward Colton.

Wait… how did he know my name?

Umeme came over but then backed up when he caught a whiff of the blood, “Patecatl’s Mercy!” he shouted, holding onto his nose.

“Hey, hopefully things will get better,” I weakly offered.

*** *** ***

You’d think I’d have learned to keep my mouth shut by now.

Umeme and I ducked behind a rusty wagon as a raider griffon wielding a pair of lever shotguns tried to nail us.

“Why yah runnin’?!” he laughed maniacally, “We’s just gonna skins yah!”

“Not if I pluck your wings, you fucking overgrown pigeon!” I shouted back, popping off a couple shots that the griffon dodged around easily.

A couple of raiders charged out of the farmhouse with another one with a hunting rifle who shot off a few rounds trying to cover for her fellows, one bullet skimming my shoulder pauldron leaving a shallow dent.

Sliding into S.A.T.S. I aimed at the grenades on the griffon’s belt.

BLAM! BLAM!

The first two shots nicked the silver shell, but the third set it off.

Ka-BOOM!

The griffon’s scream was garbled as he fell from the air in bloody chunks, two of his fellows charged us with a shovel spear and a pistol while the third tried to cover them with a hunting rifle, I felt a couple of bullets ricochet off my shoulder pauldron and whizzed past my eyepatch.

Though his scavenged metal barding could just about prove against the 45 Auto rounds of Light, it was wet tissue paper compared to the enchanted 7.62mm rounds of Umeme’s assault rifle.

The first two rounds sliced the serrated shovel spear, but the last three punched through his shoulder, foreleg, and ripped through his flank. He stumbled and rolled into a heap, whimpering pitifully. The one with the pistol seemed to be wearing barding that wasn’t quite as sturdy because he was hiding behind a broken stone wall, Light managed to punch through his hoofballer’s helmet and he crumpled behind his cover.

We advanced on the raider with the hunting rifle, she tried to fight us off, but her aim was horrible. Umeme came to the shovel spear raider, he looked up at the zebra with bloodshot eyes. Pressing his rifle’s muzzle against his forehead Umeme fired a single shot.

Unexpectedly, the hunting rifle raider dropped her weapon and ran up to the farmhouse, I felt a slight pang of guilt that I quickly pushed aside, every raider and bandit I killed saved an innocent life, hopefully. I took aim the old fashioned way and shot off the remainder of my magazine.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The first two rounds missed, clipping the farmhouse, but the third and fourth landed, clipping her hindlegs. She stumbled landing face first in the muddy dead grass, but she still tried to reach the house.

“Poppy,” she cried, dragging herself.

Umeme stepped up and pressed his rifle’s muzzle against the raider’s head and fired. I reloaded and Umeme stripped the bodies of supplies and weapons before we entered the house. The door slowly creaked open and to my surprise the room just inside was empty save for a single ratty moldering couch and a broken television. Honestly I was very surprised at the sheer lack of bloody corpse decorations, but then a slight crying caught my ears, it sounded like a baby.

“Is someone here?” Umeme asked, only to get silence.

“Come on out, we’re not raiders,” I added.

The crying continued faintly, Umeme gestured to a hallway, I poked my head around the corner and very nearly got plugged by a griffon raider holding some kind of magical energy weapon that shot off a stream of fucking lightning!

“GIT OUTTA MUH HOME!” she shouted, shooting off more bolts that scorched the moldering wallpaper with thin trails of blackened soot.

“Back up!” I shouted at Umeme.

Before I could react, he pulled out a grenade and pulled off the stem in his mouth and as he jumped across the hallway into another room, throwing the metal apple at the raider. But the raider nailed his flank just below his armor plate, causing Umeme to crumple in pain and spasm on the cracked tiled floor.

BOOM!

The grenade exploded, showering the hallway in ancient moldy drywall and wood splinters, blowing holes in the side of the already collapsing house and flinging the raider back into the room she came from.

“Umeme,” I knelt by his side and held him down as the spasms slowly stopped and he could move properly again.

“Fuck,” he muttered, getting his hooves under him to sit up.

“Are you gonna be ok?” I asked, handing him his rifle.

“Just need a moment, flank hurts like a bloodbug stung me.”

I went to check on the raider, but she was dead. So I picked up the lighting weapon thing, it was rather large and cumbersome almost needing a battle saddle and used some sparkle batteries crudely duct taped together to generate the lightning between a trio of one foot long metal conducting rods that shot out a small ball of compressed gas that arched the lightning at its target.

“Weird,” I muttered, dropping it on the floor.

I stepped over the raider and into the room she came from, the room had a couple of sleeping rolls, a few opened footlockers, and a few ammo boxes, but not much else. I was about to turn around and return to Umeme when my ears perked up at the soft crying. It was coming from a closet in the corner. I lifted Light and my revolver at the ready and pulled back the cover… and saw a pair of very young kids, an earth pony filly guarding a young griffon holding onto a unicorn baby tightly. The filly stared up at me with tear filled bloodshot eyes past the .38 caliber revolver in her trembling mouth.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” I muttered, lowering my guns slightly. I must’ve looked like a monster to them, broke into their home and killed their family.

Luna fucking dammit it was Dela Crow all over again!

“Hey, Umeme!” I called over my shoulder, “Can you come here?”

“Yeah?” Umeme stumbled limped into the room, he had one of the lever shotguns from the griffon outside holstered over his saddle bags for easy access and both bandoliers of 20 gauge shotgun shells crossed over his shoulders over his cloak, he glanced down at the kids cowering from me and his face fell, “Oh… great.”

“How do you wanna handle this?” I asked, hoping he’d be a bit more compassionate than Ophia had been with the Swampfolk.

There was a long uncomfortable silence, my heart thumped in my ears. “I don’t care,” he muttered, turning away and hubbling back down the hallway.

I released the breath I was holding in, it was the answer I’d kinda been hoping for, but at the same time… I turned back to the kids and sighed before leaving the room.

*** *** ***

The sun was probably close to mid afternoon but somehow it was getting noticeably colder. I’d need to find a proper coat soon if it got worse.

We’d truly left Baltimare behind us, the increasing number of raiders proved that. We followed the dried up river till we finally reached the Neighagra River. I spotted The Old Circle across the raging water, but there was no way to cross it. So we ended up following the river for several miles before we reached an old crumbling bridge that allowed The Old Circle to cross to our side of the river and trailed northwest into Haagenheim.

Umeme had given me the hunting rifle from the raider farmhouse, it wasn’t in the best condition, but it could work for now. The rifle bumped against my saddle bag with each step, the spare magazines clinking in my saddle bag.

It was the better part of the afternoon when we neared a small building just off the road with a small smoke trail. Umeme pulled me to the side behind a rusting wagon, probably a couple hundred yards across a somewhat hilly field of drying dirt, large rocks, and dead grass. He pulled out a pair of binoculars from his saddle bags.

“Shit,” he swore, handing the binoculars to me, “Raider nest.”

I looked through the lenses and saw the building was a diner and was reinforced with a scrap wood and metal wall complete with a few corpses hung up as sickening decorations.

“They haven’t spotted us, we could go around,” he planned.

I saw a zebra raider with piss yellow jagged stripes sitting on the roof holding a sniper rifle in his hooves and based on the magazine shape it was probably rechambered for 7.62mm instead of .308. There were also a few other raiders milling about the small base doing things like patching holes in the walls or standing guard. I counted five, maybe six.

“How well do you think you can aim your hunting rifle?” Umeme asked me.

“Probably not that far,” I muttered, lowering the binoculars and giving them back, “He’ll pick us off before his fellows even know they’re being attacked.”

“You could make a distraction while I get closer to take them out,” he offered.

I was about to argue with him, but he pulled up his hood and disappeared, his hoofprints leading up to the nest. I sighed and pulled out my hunting rifle. Loading in a magazine I took aim at the sniper raider the old fashioned way to save S.A.T.S. for when I’d need it.

BLAM!

My first shot missed, the sniper thankfully was looking the other way so he was confused.

BLAM!

My second missed too, by now the raiders were getting antsy and the sniper was looking around for me.

“Dammit,” I muttered, frustrated at my lack of accuracy, I tried to calm my breathing as best I could and fired a third time.

BLAM!

The bullet ripped through the sniper’s scope into his head, he crumpled back and the sniper rifle fell to dangle off the side of the diner because its strap got caught on his barding.

I ducked behind my cover as the raiders searched for me. Glancing out I saw a grenade appear out of thin air as it was thrown into the wall’s entrance as a raider with a shotgun stepped out.

BOOM!

The raider was thrown backwards with the force of the explosion, their fellows started firing their weapons in seemingly random directions. Not sure from where the attack was coming from.

I took aim at another raider, she was firing an assault rifle at a nearby tree. Lining up the sights I fired.

BLAM!

The bullet missed, skimming the side of her helmet. She dove into a ditch for cover, when she poked her head out looking for me a bullet sliced through her helmet causing her to slump to the side.

I crawled out of cover and ran for a ditch a few yards forward, suddenly pain ripped through my foreleg as a bullet skimmed my bicep. Blood seeped down my sleeve, I jumped into the ditch and checked the wound, I wrapped it with a bandage for now before targeting the raiders sprinting at me.

BLAM! click!

I quickly ripped out the empty magazine and slammed in a fresh one and racked the bolt back just in time to fire into a raider with a fucking sword! Time slowed as I slipped into S.A.T.S. to target him.

BLAM! BLAM!

Time corrected the bullets slammed into his metal chest plate, leaving large dents that made him stumble a bit, but the blade stabbed a few inches into my shoulder between my chest armor and my pauldron. Pain erupted as the blade sliced through my flesh to my scapula bone. I slammed my rifle’s muzzle into his neck and fired the rest of my magazine.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The raider’s neck was ripped open, spraying blood across the area. The raider dropped the sword’s grip and pressed his hoof against his neck to try to stop the excessive bleeding, but it was no use. I pulled out my shotgun and fired a slug into his skull.

BLAM!

The raider died, his brain painting the ditch. I focused my magic on the sword blade and yanked it out, quickly focusing my healing spell on the wound. When the bleeding stopped I pulled out my rifle’s empty magazine, but when I reached into my saddle bag for a fresh one I realized that I was out!

“Oh, come on!” I tossed the rifle aside and pulled out my shotgun to fire at an approaching raider with a submachine gun.

BLAM!

The slug ripped through her makeshift leather armor and made her drop the submachine gun and crash into a tree stump. I quickly reloaded with incendiary shells and sprinted across. Umeme was fighting against the other two raiders, one with a shotgun and the other was wearing a suit of metal plate armor and wielding an axe that crackled fire with every swing.

I held up my shotgun as I ran up to the raider, grabbing the submachine gun with my magic before running to join Umeme. He’d killed the shotgun raider and was now focusing on the raider leader. I aimed my submachine gun and sprayed a few rounds, peppering the raider leader giving Umeme enough time to disappear.

The leader charged me with the axe in his mouth, my submachine gun’s bullets riddled and dented his metal armor, but did little to stop him. He slammed into me knocking me into the muddy grass, the axe bit into my submachine gun hard enough that I heard the main spring snap. The raider leader brought his armored hooves down on my chest, knocking the wind out of me, he snarled over me with a wicked grin.

Suddenly, Umeme jumped on his back and drove his knife between the plates of armor into his neck, the raider struggled to buck him off before rearing back and slammed both of them into a large rock.

Focusing my magic on Light, I aimed at the raider and shot him underneath his helmet into his muzzle, he collapsed on Umeme. I carefully pulled myself up, hubbling over to help push the corpse off of him. He tried to stand but I told him to stop when I noticed his foreleg was twisted backwards and hanging limply at his side.

“That doesn’t look very good,” I muttered.

“Trust me, I’ve had worse,” he laughed through his clenched teeth.

“Okay, okay, okay,” I grimaced, helping him up as we hubbled into the diner.

The place was clear according to my E.F.S., we entered the main room. The walls were decorated with profane graffiti and a large pile of crates, footlockers, and ammo boxes. Umeme sat down at a table while I rummaged through the stolen supplies.

I found a leaking paper package of sloppy meat disturbingly labeled, KÖTT, one sniff told me it probably wasn’t anything I’d want to eat so I tossed it over my shoulder. I came back with a few magazines and boxes of bullets including 7.62mm, 357 Magnum, 45 Auto, and a strange caliber that the head stamp called 6.5mm.

Despite my extensive knowledge of firearms I’d never heard of the caliber before and the box was written in a language that I couldn’t understand. I put the ammo aside and continued to shift through the supplies, finding a bottle of RadSafe, a large stash bag of bucks, a jug of clean water, some reasonably clean food… and a memory orb?

What was a memory orb doing here?

I put that to the side for now.

Umeme had laid out our medicine on the table, he was removing his gear as best he could, I put the scavenged items on the table and helped lift the stallion’s broken leg out of his sleeve. I quickly mentally flipped through my medical knowledge before deciding on the best treatment given the injury.

“Hey, it doesn’t hurt as much,” he mumbled, mistaking my thought process for hesitation.

“I’m gonna try and twist it back into place, okay?” I asked, preparing myself.

The stallion pulled out a bottle of whiskey and down the whole thing in one go before nodding, he leaned his head back closing his eyes. I focused my anesthetic spell on his foreleg.

“Okay, one-” I quickly snapped the leg around into place, Umeme yelled out in pain and tried to sock me with his good forehoof.

“The fuck’s wrong with you?!” he shouted, holding onto his once injured foreleg, “Shiiit!”

“Hey, you’d have tensed up and it would’ve hurt more,” I admitted, “I was taught that it’s better to do it when they’re not expecting the pain.”

The stallion grumbled, turning to look out the broken glass, ignoring me, then he started snoring lightly.

“Okay, I need to focus on my leg,” I took off my foreleg guard and rolled up the bloody sleeve.

There was a long curved wound just below my elbow, thankfully it didn’t seem too deep, I focused my anesthesia spell on it and slowly the stinging pain lessened to a dull thump. I focused on a healing spell, the wound slowly stopped bleeding and healed into a pale scar. I sipped half of a healing potion and I felt better.

I focused my magic on Umeme’s bullet wound, the shrapnel had gone deep and probably would be hard to get out with conventional tweezers. I locked on to the metal shards and, incredibly thankful that my training focused on many small items, carefully pulled them out one by one. Umeme stirred in his sleep, once all the shrapnel was gone I poured in the rest of the healing potion into the hole and his flesh knitted together leaving a pale scar.

I stepped out into the parking lot and picked over the raiders for their weapons and armor, bringing the small haul back inside and set up at another table. Then I quickly remembered why I’d even attacked the raider nest in the first place. I went back outside and grabbed the sniper raider, magically tugging at his barding, he tumbled down into the dirt.

I stripped him of his gear and his sniper rifle, it was in amazing condition, no signs of rust or even grit, and a small number of tally marks had been scratched into the dark wood stock. The markings on the receiver were printed in the same language, Aslaun-59. I didn’t quite understand the name, maybe it was the designer? Moving on I checked the magazine, but my suspicions were proven wrong, instead of .308 or 7.62mm it took the strange 6.5mm rounds in special ten round, double stack magazines.

I took the rifle inside and started repairing my gear, disassembling the raider barding I selected the best metal bits and carefully wielded them in place on my foreleg guards and pauldrons, I then stripped the leather and stitched it into my barding and suit. It wasn’t perfect, but the repairs should suffice till I found a better repairpony. I started repairing Umeme’s armor and weapons when he suddenly said something in his sleep.

“But I don’t wanna eat my radishes, Momma,” he drozily mumbled, slumping down in the seat.

I continued wielding and working out the bullet dents, then stripping down the raider weapons. I replaced some parts in Umeme’s shotgun and customized the Aslog sniper rifle, removing the broken scope and using the backup iron sights. I went outside to test my new weapon and after a couple of rounds was satisfied with my work.

I ate one of the combat meals and downed a bottle of water while I pulled up my map to check the distance between here and Fort Swelling. If we got moving soon we’d probably reach the place late in the evening.

Finishing dinner I quickly grew bored without anything else to do. I looked down at the memory orb, it sat there tempting me. Despite my reservations from the last orb I had unfittingly witnessed, I picked it up in my hooves, laid down in the booth seat, and focused my magic on it.

The world melted away.

<-=======oo0 0oo=======->

The first thing I noticed was the cold… far far worse than the cold of the North Shore. This coldness sliced through my host’s clothing, coat, and sliced into their bones. The second thing I noticed was the feeling of thunderous drumming of massive artillery firing out their payloads. Each blast rocked my host’s teeth like massive war drums.

My host opened their eyes and I saw that we were standing with hundreds of thousands of soldiers: ponies, griffons, and zebras with a rainbow spectrum of colored stripes, all wearing matching heavy white uniforms with suits of white combat armor with the dragon skull symbol of the Old Guard painted in black on their shoulder pauldrons. My host had a heavy assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

We stood on a concrete harbor on the banks of a swift river of icy black water, on the far bank was a massive city of ruined buildings where flashes of multicolored light burned their silhouettes in the cold darkness. I felt as though I’d seen this cityscape before but I couldn’t recall where.

Dozens of boats were crossing the river, one moored at the dock in front of my host and I felt him rush forward with the other soldiers to board and cross the torrent icy waters. The boat rocked with each wave, tossing my host as he pulled out the cold gray metal dog tags from under his clothing in his golden magic and looked down at them,

Diamond Hide
OG-78126407
Qa NEG
Baltimare,
Horseshoe Bay

One of the soldiers next to my host, a zebra mare with shadowy indigo stripes, vomited over the side into the dark river.

“You ok, Matthia?” I felt my host’s lips move as he asked, grabbing the zebra’s shoulder pauldron, she wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve.

“You know me, Diamond,” she offered a weak smile, “We Orah aren’t meant for the water.”

I felt my host smirk before a blue sky chariot swooped overhead chasing a black and white striped sky chariot back over the city.

A middle aged earth pony mare stood at the boat’s front. She was wearing a heavy black leather coat with a fur lining over dark blue uniform with white trousers with red stripes and a black military officer’s cap with a red and white five pointed star over a golden blazing sun. She had a double barreled shotgun slung over her shoulder with a cloth bandolier of shotgun shells crossed over her chest and shoulder. The officer looked over the ruined city and sighed heavily before turning to the soldiers in her boat.

“Welcome to Stalliongrad,” her voice held a heavy rough Stallgarian accent, “You’re about to start the greatest moments of your young lives. The Caesar has lost hundreds of tanks and sky chariots. His brutal legions are now advancing toward Stalliongrad over mountains of their own dead bodies!”

An artillery shell hit a nearby boat exploding its motor, raining fire and shrapnel everywhere.

“Tsarina Anastasia Feodorovna, our Printsessa Luna, our Ministries, our great nation has given us the task to not let the enemy cross the Stallga-matushka and to defend the city of Stalliongrad!”

A zebra sky chariot swooped down on us, it’s crew firing their machine guns at my host’s boat in a strafing line, peppering and killing a few soldiers around us before it swooped up and turned around to strafe the boat again.

BOOM!

The chariot exploded in a ball of fire and molten metal, crashing into another boat as a pegasus in a purple suit with a pair of miniguns swooped overhead. The surviving soldiers cheered.

The officer though seemed unperturbed by the utter chaos, pulling off her shotgun and pointing it up at the ruined city, “Forward against the enemy! Up into the unremitting battle, Tovarishch, for Stalliongrad, for our great nation, not one step back!” the officer looked back and noticed a few soldiers had jumped overboard trying to escape, she swung around her shotgun, “Cowards are traitors and will be shot!” firing both rounds into their backs, murdering them, “Do not count days! Do not count miles! Count only the number of Imperialists you have killed! Kill the Empire! This is your mother’s prayer! Kill the Empire! This is the cry of Equestria! Do not waver! Do not let up! Kill!”

We reached the docks and the officer held her shotgun high, “Death to the Imperial Invaders!”

“Death to the Imperial Invaders!” Many of the soldiers shouted as we climbed onto the docks, my host sprinted up the bank where a number of other soldiers were waiting to join the fight further up in the city.

Suddenly a deafening explosion behind my host threw him up into the air and crashed down in the cold bloody mud, he looked behind him and the docks he had just been moments ago were in a smouldering crater.

An earth pony mare wearing a rather makeshift looking uniform of a heavy looking brown quilted long coat, heavy black woolen trousers, a cloth bandolier crossed over her shoulder, and an olive drab metal helmet with the red and white star over the golden sun. She held a heavy assault rifle with a long spike bayonet in her cloth wrapped hooves.

“Baltimare tovarishch,” she waved my host over, “I am Corporal Pavlina Kirillovna Balaban, we will be working together.”

My host extended his hoof to shake her’s, “This way to the frontlines.”

We charged up a deep reinforced trenchline leading up the hill to the buildings, Corporal Balaban jumped into a side passage and my host followed. We charged up through the bombed out ruins of a toy factory, zebra soldiers rounded a corner.

Before they could react, Corporal Balaban charged and stabbed one between the plates of his armor with the bayonet of her rifle. The other zebra aimed their combat shotgun, but my host fired his own rifle at her, covering Corporal Balaban so she could get to cover.

A group of Old Guard soldiers charged into the factory from a different way, one soldier helped my host up, an earth pony stallion with a light green coat and a short cut straw blond mane and tail, he held an assault rifle in his mouth.

“C’mon, buck, We were Dragonslayers once!” he shouted triumphantly, following the group.

My host and his guide followed and after charging through twisting broken streets and half buried alleyways. Eventually we came upon a large open courtyard with a large broken marble fountain decorated by bronze soldiers holding swords and shields. One of which was lying half buried in snow and rubble, a bent pipe spewed murky water up into the heavy foggy air. The courtyard was eerily silent compared to the chaos around. A crowd of soldiers were waiting behind broken brick walls waiting for something.

“What’re we doing?” my host asked Corporal Balaban.

“There’s a zebra machine gun nest on the far side,” she explained, “Giving us a hard ass-fucking for days now.”

Before my host could ask further, a high pitched whistle pierced the heavy fog and the Stallgarian and Old Guard soldiers charged across the large courtyard.

“They are heading for the machine guns,” Corporal Balaban told my host, “I know a better way to flank them, this way.”

She jumped up and ran around the broken walls around the courtyard. We came to the machine gun nest, twenty zebras were crewing the machine guns. Corporal Balaban and my host took aim and fired upon the enemy.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

We took down most of them before they realized what was happening, but then they were quickly overrun by the Stalliongrad and Baltimare and Equestrian soldiers who slaughtered them mercilessly.

We ran through streets and alleyways, killing zebra soldiers til we entered a building and came into a room overlooking a massive hill that was a few feet short of a mountain, two large battlescarred statues stood at the top, one of Princess Luna and the other was of Tsarina Anastasia offering up her crown to the Goddess, or rather Princess.

My host looked out at the massive hill, a battle scarred flag was flapping in the heavy rain over the mostly ruined monument, the same zebra flag from the Rhoades newspaper. Hundreds of soldiers charged the hill’s trenches, the lower ones had already been taken so the zebras were desperately trying to hold onto what ground they still had.

<“Sharpshooter!”> Balaban shouted, suddenly pushing my host away from the window just as a bullet ripped through her helmet, killing her.

My host stared down at the mare's corpse, her seeping blood coating the floor, he grabbed his rifle and leaned up against the wall. His heart was pounding in his chest after having nearly died.

Suddenly, a pegasus mare jumped down from the upper floor, she was wearing a black woolen overcoat under a set of olive drab combat armor with the red and white star painted over the golden sun on her shoulder pauldrons. Her blonde mane was pulled up into her black fur hat and goggles covered her brown eyes.

<“There you are,”> she muttered in Stallgarian, lifting her sniper rifle and shooting a target up in the fort, <“I’ve been hunting that bastard all day.”>

She turned to my host and nodded her head, kneeling beside me she spoke in Ponish, “I am sorry for your friend, Baltimare tovarishch, her sacrifice won’t go to waste,” she helped my host up, “I am Lieutenant Alenkza Jurgievna Ophelanov, we have to retake Unification Hill, charge up the trenches, I’ll cover you, that filthy flag will fall!”

<-=======oo0 0oo=======->

My eye opened, I was back at the diner raider nest, the skies outside the cracked windows were starting to darken. According to my PipBuck I’d been in the orb for at least an hour.

Apart from the very abrupt ending, that orb was a little better than the last one.

“Umeme?” I asked with a slightly cracked voice, when there was no answer I sat up and noticed the campfire billowing smoke into the dark cloudy sky.

Getting up I stepped outside, the corpses had been removed making the place a tiny bit nicer. I stepped up to the campfire thankful for the warmth, I noticed a meal was frying up in a pan sitting on a large flat stone beside the fire. My stomach growled loudly when I caught a whiff of the roasting meat and canned vegetables.

“Umeme?” but again there was silence.

I sat down and picked up the pan and turned the food over with my magic. As the food sizzled I thought about what we were gonna do, what were the chances that the Enclave would know where Mom may have gone? What were the chances that they’d even care? The North Shore was huge, nearly three times the size of The Heartlands according to my maps.

I couldn’t just wander around till I found her.

“Well, you’re finally awake,” Umeme’s voice called out as he came around from behind the diner, “Just checking on the walls if we’re gonna be here overnight.”

“Oh… right,” I said, snapping out of my thoughts.

“Something wrong?” Umeme asked, sitting down beside me, “I saw you were in a memory orb, what was it?”

I looked down at the food, “Have you heard of Stalliongrad?”

“The Tsardom’s old capital?” he asked, “What about it?”

“The orb showed me a battle there during the war…”

Umeme got really quiet and poked at the food until it was done. We ate in silence for the better part of a half before he spoke.

“Stalliongrad was one of our worst mistakes, you’d be hard pressed to find a zebra that is proud of the Stallgarian Genocide.”

“The Tsardom was neutral, why would you attack it?”

“No one really knows for sure, maybe we wanted to better secure the northern border against the Old Guard. Maybe we thought Equestria was gonna invade through Zebrincia. Maybe we were just getting desperate with the deadlock on the western front and were crazy enough to push through a smaller country to make a new one. Not that the genocide was justifiable… whatever the reason might be.”

“Sounds like the Outcasts and the Swampfolk… or the old Guard and the Ashbourne.”

Umeme didn’t say anything, he took the pan away from the campfire and dished out some of the food onto a couple of small plates and handed me one and a spoon. We ate in silence, when we finished up Umeme spoke again, “Hey, did you repair my armor?”

“I tried,” I said, cleaning off my plate, “I couldn’t really do anything for the plates though.”

“Don’t worry about it I’ll have to replace that later, you did alright with the harness though.

my PipBuck chimed at me, the radio had picked up a new signal.

“This is Command Sergeant Major Ironwing of the Expeditionary Corp of the Grand Pegasus Enclave stationed at Fort Swelling broadcasting on all friendly channels. Fort Swelling is under attack by Blackraven Beastlords, we’ve sustained heavy casualties. All Expeditionary Corps units return to base and assist in defense, this message repeats in five seconds.”

Umeme was hesitant to go, but I managed to convince him.

*** *** ***

Fort Swelling was built much like Fort Colton, the fort was built on an island in the middle of a large lake for protection with a bridge connecting it to a small town on the banks. The problem was that in the two hundred-ish years since the bombs fell most of the lake had dried up and was now a shallow boggy swamp.

Close to a thousand tribal raiders wearing black scavenged metal armor and barding accented by mutated animal pelts were attacking the main gate with mutated animals: wild dogs, radhogs, small lions with short dark brown fur, large scaly birds, and a wide variety of other animals and creatures I didn’t recognize.

The Enclave soldiers were returning fire from atop the Fort’s high walls and swooping down on the crowds, but for every dozen raiders they killed they lost a couple of their own and dozens upon dozens of corpses littered the town leading up to the battle.

Umeme and I climbed a two story building with a collapsed storefront on the outskirts by Highway Twenty, an earth pony mare wearing armor made of scavenged scrap metal scales and accented by a white wild dog pelt laid dead with a serrated machete in her mouth, dry blood pooled on the floor from a massive hole in her neck. I picked her over, finding a healing potion. Umeme placed a frag mine under the corpse before we climbed the rickety stairs and came out onto the roof. We carefully stepped over to the edge, Umeme pulled out his binoculars and looked over the battle a couple of blocks down the main road.

“Ala’s ass,” he breathered, handing me the binoculars to look through.

I looked through the right lense, the main gate was being swarmed and even the Enclave wasn't gonna be able to hold out for too much longer against the raiders and their animals.

Not if we didn’t help out.

“Ready?” I asked Umeme, handing him back the binoculars.

“N-no,” He almost squeaked, “Remember what I said about tribals?”

Ignoring his words, I shouldered my rifle and after taking a moment to warm up S.A.T.S., took my shots.

BLAM! BLAM!

My first round took out a raider in the back of the crowd hiding behind barricades and sandbags, my second shot took out a wild dog which seemed to cause another raider next to it to fall back in the crumbling street screaming and spasming in pain.

Umeme took out a couple of mutated bats and two raiders before the raiders in the back of the crowd noticed they were being flanked. A raider with a shovel spear and his small lion charged up the street to us. With my S.A.T.S. still charging, I took a few shots the old fashioned way, but I kept missing. He was nearly a block away when his head exploded and he crumpled in a heap. His lion however stumbled and clawed at its head roaring in pain. I took my chance and shot it a few times with my third shot killing it. Umeme reloaded his rifle before pulling out a grenade from his saddle bag, pulling the stem he hucked the explosive as hard as he could at the crowd.

Ka-BOOM!

The grenade exploded and threw up dozens of bloody raider chunks from the crowded line, but this also had the effect of gaining the full attention of the surviving crowd. Our perch was suddenly peppered by bullets and bolts of magical energy as hundreds of raiders charged at us, but this took some pressure off of the Enclave.

Umeme and I ducked into the stairway of the store, Umeme pulled out a frag grenade and chucked it down the stairs around the corner.

BOOM!

The metal apple exploded and the heads of giant rats bounced up on the landing. A raider with a knife spear in her mouth rounded the corner with a wild dog. I quickly hip fired my rifle and splattered the dog’s brains against the walls causing the raider to stumble, but their momentum carried her knife’s blade into my shoulder where it caught on a strap of my pauldron, giving me just enough time to pull out my shotgun and jab the muzzle just under her chin, bits of her brain and skull splattered across the wall and ceiling.

Umeme took a couple shots with his shotgun at a couple of scaly birds that were trying to swoop into the stairway. I reloaded my rifle and fired at the raiders trying to climb the stairs.

Suddenly an Enclave soldier wearing a set of black heavy combat armor over a cloud gray and sky blue uniform swooped down, landed on our roof, and fired a magical energy rifle at the raiders down in the stairwell.

I ducked out of the way as the glowing green fire balls melted through the raiders’ makeshift armor through their flesh and bones liquifying a couple of them that coated the walls and stairs. Green mist wafted from the rifle’s emitter as the soldier pulled up their blue lensed goggles and glared down at us.

“What the hell are you two doing here?!” he shouted over the gunfire with an odd accent, “This is a fucking war zone!”

Before we could answer a bullet ripped through the soldier’s neck making him collapse. I rushed forward, pulling off his bulky helmet, I pressed my healing spell against the wound to stop the bleeding. The soldier looked up at me as my spell did its job, his eyes were filled with a range of emotions.

“There, you should be alright for now,” I said, releasing my hold of him, “But you might need proper treatment later for the blood loss.”

The soldier touched a wing to his neck, seemingly in disbelief. He pulled on his helmet and readjusted his goggles before jumping off of the roof and flying away to continue the fight.

“Ozzy, you need to get to cover,” Umeme called, he was firing at the birds in the skies. I hurried back into the stairwell, he glared down at me and muttered, “That was really dumb of you. The Enclave doesn't pay back debts.”

“I wasn’t gonna just let him die,” I shot back, reloading my shotgun.

“Still stupid,” he muttured, firing at a raider trying to climb the stairs.

I was about to berate him for his lack of compassion when another wave of raiders charged up the stairs howling for our blood. I loaded in my last incendiary shells, pulled back the hammers, pulled the triggers.

BOOMF!

Only for my shotgun’s receiver and chambers to explode in a shower of metal and fiery shot. I threw the twisted remains of my weapon down at the raiders and pulled out Light and my revolver as Umeme tossed the last of his grenades. Backing up to the roof I used S.A.T.S. to target the metal apples and fired a couple of shots.

BLAM! BLAM!

The apples disappeared in clouds of fire and shrapnel that coated the remains of the stairway, ripping apart a number of raiders. But they kept coming! How fucking many were there?!

Suddenly a sharp pain ripped through my chest, I collapsed on the floor, looking down I saw blood seeping out from underneath my chest barding. Umeme covered me as I pulled myself out of the line of fire, my breathing was becoming labored, darkness crept along the edge of my vision. I struggled to focus my healing spell, a single thought ripped through the slow fog filling my mind.

I was dying.

Suddenly there was an ear piercing shriek, looking up to the skies I saw a pegasus in midnight black power armor shoot out from the fort into the overhead clouds before dive-bombing the raider infested town. The remaining Blackraven tried to retreat, but the street suddenly erupted into clouds of cracking asphalt, twisted metal, and bloody body parts, both raider and animal, with another ear piercing shriek that slammed into our building shaking the foundations.

I held my ears and shut my eye, Umeme shielded me as best he could. I wanted to scream but no sound came out of my open mouth. When the shaking finally stopped I opened my eye and looked up, the battle seemed to be over. The town was littered in debris and bloody body parts and other unmentionable stuff. I fought back the sudden urge to vomit.

The midnight black pegasus swooped down from the sky and landed on our roof, his majestic armored wings folding to his sides, the gems of his magical miniguns glowing bright orange in the cold night air.

He pulled up his compound goggles onto his forehead and looked us over with a pair of amber cat-like eyes, “I’m Commander Sturmeye of the Expeditionary Corp of the Grand Pegasus Enclave, who are you two?”

Sturmeye? Like Sturmkaller? My mind felt like a sack of bricks as I fought to keep conscious.

“I’m Ozzy,” I weakly pushed myself to sit up, “This is Umeme… we heard your distress signal.”

“Whaddya mean heard-” The pegasus glanced down at my PipBuck, “Well, we appreciate the assistance, even if it was incredibly foolish.”

Exhaustion finally won and I lost consciousness.

Level Up: Gunslinger (level one): You’ve been watching those spaghetti westerns haven’t you? Your accuracy has improved by 10% when using pistols and revolvers in S.A.T.S.

Skill Note: Repair 45% (+10%)