Birds of a Feather

"-been- one week since you looked me! Tossed your head to the side and s-" Stepping beyond the door's threshold, the contraband radio's music faded in around the corner. It was mostly acceptable for Talons to have some types of contraband such as radios, but the presence of one griffon whose reputation preceded her caused the radio to quickly be shut off as she entered the room. Things went silent and the mercenaries stood at attention. Stern narrowed her eyes, looking over the griffons in the lounge, "Who's radio did I just hear?" she asks in a venomous tone to a very silent reply.

After letting her question sit for several seconds she walks across the room, the clatter of her talons muffled by the short and scratchy carpeting that seemed to both be everywhere and never wear out. Stern grabs the small box that was silenced and looks it over. It wasn't a radio so much as a speaker designed to play music stored on old data cards one could find around the wasteland. It was an expensive commodity, which is why Stern wound up an arm and threw the speaker across the room, narrowly missing an unprepared griffon's face only to shatter against the wall. "You know the rules about contraband apply to Talons too." her quiet warning contrasting the violent outburst she'd just dealt. "Everybody, get the fuck out of here. Break's over."

Stern was well known for just how uptight she could be about discipline. If her subordinates wanted to drink and party, they could work for another Talon company. Stern's Talons were the last stand for her species. In the halls of the Alpha-Omega Hotel, there lurked agents of the greatest threat to all non-ponies, casually walking about and more often than not, escorting Red Eye. With a silent and searing hatred, Stern averted her gaze from the alicorn as it passed her by in the halls. The green beast paid her no mind, staring blankly forward. She'd learned early on that at least her thoughts were safe from prying while Red Eye's were not. 'There was no unity for non-ponies' those words, from the moment she first heard them as a younger and more naive Talon, haunted her. If the Goddess grew in power enough, she'd wipe out everything.

Reaching the higher floors of the hotel, Stern was granted a view through the large windows of what was once a restaurant. Maybe a rooftop view of Fillydelphia would have been nice before the war, but now it served as a grim reminder of what life had become for the tens of thousands here - slavery. Even outside of Fillydelphia, ponies were slaves whether they wore chains or lived in fear or fought to survive. You only had the rights you were able to fight for, or what right were given to you by others. Stern watched as the crimson smog moved into position to further block what little sunlight came through. She had to be here, she couldn't leave Fillydelphia out of a duty to griffonkind. In a way, Stern was as much a slave as any pony; though she never showed it, it's why she could empathize with their plight. Even Red Eye was a slave to his duty to Equestria. A heavy sigh fogged up the glass as she looked over the city, in the distance she could see the main gate to Fillydelphia opening up, a new group was being brought in. She knew what she'd be doing later today.

"How does one fall so far?" a voice in her head asked Stern, she stared at the remnants of a reflection in the smudged window, she scowled, knowing she was right - how does someone end up the exact thing they'd never hoped to be? From a folded leather pocket in her coat, Stern produced a decade old photograph and stared at the younger griffon in the picture. Below it in hasty marker writing, 'first patient saved'. Stern forced herself to tuck the picture back away before her eyes wandered to the pony on the medical cot beside her. The title was misleading, written years ago by a naive griffon who thought differently. In reality, it was Stern's first breach of a contract and her first unforgettably painful lesson in loyalty to the contract.

Stern focused her eyes beyond her reflection in the window, past the voice that questioned her actions, back to reality: Fillydelphia. Today was Sunday, time to set up scheduling for patrol routes and dig through records from the slavers and merchants to further stamp out inefficiencies. Then, she'd have a bit of time to herself to work out. After that... She was to be at the gate. Paperwork, she could assign it to another, but that invited treachery. She went back to her office with a stack of reports. The foundry was having an issue with the scrapyard, who was having an issue with the factories. In turn, productivity was down 20% from the schedule of peak efficiency she'd laid out for them so graciously. Twice she'd sent a fellow Talon to investigate and twice he'd returned with a promise to return to efficiency. This was the third time this discrepancy had made it to her desk, Wicked Slit wasn't getting her deliveries out fast enough and causing hold-ups all down the supply chain. Stern's feathers bristled, the report shivered in her grip. She didn't need this right now! There was always something that needed her attention, even without these uneducated slavers ruining her perfect systems! She still had schedules to assign to the Talons and patrol routes to set up and the issue of rapes all of Fillydelphia and contraband still getting in and sh had to pretend to crack down on the slave market without actually stopping it but still stop contraband at the gates and- and- and-! Stern dropped the report on her desk and gripped her head in her talons with a muffled squawk. She had to go yell at Wicked Slit now, which left her no time to check in at the hospital until the end of the day if, and only if, she could make some amount of headway on any of the million tasks Red Eye assigned to her. She signed the contract thinking she was going to help save ponies, rebuild Equestria, and help griffons stop some eldritch horror from wiping out all life, but here she was micromanaging a bunch of idiots, pushing pencils in the most nightmarish city to ever exist surrounded by griffon who only cared about the Goddess so long as Red Eye kept the caps flowing.

Stern stared at last week's payment of caps, all freshly printed by Red Eye himself. Bottlecaps! Luna-damned bottlecaps! Little pieces of metal used to keep soda from spilling out of glass bottles, that's what held all this power in her life. They initially held value in their scarcity, Stern understood the economics well enough, but they weren't scarce if Red Eye could print thousands every week. Then they just became scrap metal.

Stern felt the dull ache beginning in her brain, just the metaphorical icing on a metaphorical cake that was going to be an awful day. She threw her talons up in the air, every single day in Fillydelphia was awful for every single pony in Fillydelphia. Wicked Slit would pay for this...

"I... I'm alive?" the raider breathed heavily, "But the... Where am I?" he tried to sit up but was laid back down on the cot.

Above him sat a young griffon in a colorful uniform, yellow bearing a pink Talon insignia. "Holy shit it worked." she gasps upon hearing the raider brought back to life and setting aside the spark battery she'd used to restart his heart, "Lay back down, stay still please." she urged with a caring firmness.

"This is... We're still outside." he says, "The mines... My legs..."

The griffon hushes him, "Hold still for a little while. I put them all back on for you, but you're kind of held together with bandages and staples until the hydra salve kicks in."

The raider shifts a foreleg slightly, feeling the hoof back in place, albeit a bit numb. "So you did..." he closes his eyes and breathes a sigh of relief, "I can't pay you much, h-how much of the gang survived the attack?"

The griffon went quiet. "Uh, it's just you. I followed you into the minefield when you ran."

A silence held for a bit before the raider spoke up, "We didn't expect them to have Talons with them, life's full of surprises, huh? ...Why'd you save me?" the raider laughs, hiding his suddenly dropped mood.

The young griffon smiled brightly, "Talons are Talons, but I'm a medic. We help everyone."

"You're a lifesaver, kid."

"Actually, do you mind being in a picture with me?" The griffon asks, eagerly clutching a Ponoroid camera. "You're actually my first patient and I wanna remember this."

The raider smirks, life was full of surprises, "Why not? I've never been in a picture before."

She holds the camera at arm's length with a wide grin, the raider next to her in the cot smiling tiredly. A momentary flash hits them both and the camera prints out a laminated sheet.

"I look pretty good." the raider jokes, getting a look of himself in the photo.

A flap of wings overhead catches both their attention as a senior officer descends onto the improvised operating room. "Stern! What in the fuck are you doing?!" An older Talon merc barks, dropping into the scene. "Who is this?!"

"Sir, h-he needed help, sir." The medic replies, her youth shown in stark contrast to the battle scar covered captain.

The Talon looks the raider over closely, "One! Nowhere in your contract does it state you are to issue medical assistance to anyone but our client! Two! You have wasted enough of your issued equipment that your payment for this mission will go towards restocking what you have used here! And three! This filthy raider was part of the attack on the caravan you were assigned to help guard!" the drill instructor-esque Talon shouted directly into the medic's face before pulling a combat shotgun from his side and turning to face the raider who was in the process of trying to get out of the cot.

BANG

The loud crash of the foundry doors broke Stern's focus as she landed in the dirt, the loud metal doors were misaligned and always ground against the frame when opening or closing. As she was about to storm into the foundry and squawk Wicked Slit's ears off, she spotted something peculiar; a dirty little green filly pulling a cart of scrap metal far too large for her.

Yet again, Stern felt herself getting angry for a multitude of reasons. What kind of brainless idiot makes a filly pull a loaded cart? They don't magically get lighter for weaker ponies. The foundry guards scrambled to get out of Stern's way as she barged through the doors into the sweltering heat of the foundry. She looked up to see the building had no ventilation and immediately broke a sweat, the windows were all boarded up. Her feathers bristled angrily as she looked around for a guard, she climbed up the catwalk and cornered a slaver who seemed was rightfully nervous to be approached by Stern. "Where is she?"

The slaver points across the warehouse to a door, "Her office, ma'am."

The handle was locked, so Stern did what she normally did and gave the handle a much more forceful twist. The internal mechanisms of the 200 year old lock cried out in anguish for the final time as the components shattered and the handle was forced to hang limp and defeated. The door opened without any further protest revealing Wicked Slit at her desk with a fearful look that only intensified when she saw who it was that had crushed the door's lock.

"O-oh, Stern? What are you doing here?"

"I would have sent Kaz to talk to you, but this is the third time I've gotten complaints about the foundry failing to meet work quotas." Stern found a certain serenity in just talking business. "I figured I'd pay you a visit and talk to you myself."

Wicked Slit sat up in her desk, telekinetically pushing out a chair, "H-have a seat, please. I'll get my reports a-and we can talk."

Stern approached the desk from the side, boxing Wicked into the corner of her office, "No, I think I'll stand." she knew exactly how to increase the tension. Stern noticed Wicked had a large knife and pointed a talon at it. "May I?"

Wicked nodded, and Stern pulled the angled dagger from the desk, "Balanced... So, can you tell me what's going on out here? Because I keep getting reports from the factories that you're not keeping up with your quotas."

"I've just been having issues getting good workers, they're not sending me-"

"Huh, that's odd. With that work plan I helped you lay out, factors like inexperienced slaves or understaffing would be accounted for by keeping the workload at 70% with three overlapping 10 hour shifts for constant and even output." Stern pokes at the blade with her talon.

"Working at 70% just isn't-"

Stern finally snapped, plunging the dagger into the desk up the the handle, "WHAT DID I SAY?!" she shouts, closing in on Wicked Slit, "How fucking hard is it to follow a simple plan! I laid out all the answers for you! I wrote you a fucking booklet about how to run at a peak efficiency that aligns with the production rates of the other facilities! Do I have to run this fucking place for you?!" Stern's shouting could be heard across the foundry, prompting silence. "What the fuck are you doing?! Let me see your schedule requests!"

Wicked's horn sputtered and flared, pulling open her desk's drawers as she dug through her messy bookkeeping for the paperwork she sent to the Fun Farm to request ponies for shifts. She pulled a manila folder out and began to open it up before Stern yanked it out of her grasp.

The unorganized stack of papers laid out, time blocks filled in to account for the ponies in the foundry. Stern looked over the paperwork with increasing frustration. "It looks like you arranged for two 12 hour shifts. I specifically told you three shifts of ten hours. I wrote it in the booklet!" Before the slaver mare is able to speak up, Stern goes back into the papers, "I see you haven't arranged for equipment maintenance. There's no janitory work being done either, scrap metal all over the floor." Stern's talons drummed on the desk impatiently, digging up bits of the presswood.

"We've been running short on finding good slaves to do the work." Wicked Slit rubbed her hooves together anxiously. "Too few and too weak."

Yet again, Stern's rage boiled over, "Do I have to explain eveything to you?!" her fists slammed on the desk, rattling the room, "You talk with ALL the slavers, not just your buddies at the Fun Farm! You pick the ones for the jobs you need done and YOU make sure the shifts are split the way I fucking tell you to do it! Your production is falling short because the factory halts while one set of slaves trades out for the next!" Stern held up the booklet titled 'Foundry Operations Guide' and jammed it into Wicked's face, "If you followed my instructions there would be six hours in any given 24-hour cycle that you would be staffed with twice as many ponies as needed! The other facilities are doing it and they meet my quotas! You keep fucking up my charts, Wicked!" Stern's avian biology allowed her to shriek at volumes that could be heard from outside the foundry, leaving Wicked's ears to ring in the silence between words.

"There are currently two forges out of commission, when did you plan on telling maintenance?!"

"I-It's only been a couple da-"

Stern's rage again boiled over as she grabbed the desk and slid it to the side to remove the barrier between her and the mare, she closed in, backing Wicked into the corner of her office. "Equipment breaks! It always does! It breks faster when you throw PONIES in with the molten metal! Are ponies made of metal?!" Stern held herself back from just killing the mare, before she answered.

"N-no..."

"That's right... You broke the foundry equipment because you seem to be under the assumption that this is in fact your personal sadism playground." Stern's talons wrap around Wicked's neck, then tightened further to strangle out the magic flare from her horn, "THIS IS A FACTORY!" she screeches right into the mare's face, letting go as it turned a shade of blue. Finally, Stern calmed again, "If I find out you're fucking up again, you will not survive to get a fourth warning." Stern kept her threats sweet and simple, leaving the office on that note and stepping onto the catwalk above the foundry. All eyes that were on her scrambled to get back to work.

Stepping outside, Stern gripped her face in her talons, her headache had only gotten worse from shouting at Wicked Slit. The stifling Fillydephia heat felt cool compared to the foundry as she distanced herself from the building. Again, she saw the filly struggling with a loaded cart of scrap metal. Stern needed to head back to assign routes to the Talons for the week, but this should take only a minute.

Stern saw the filly pick up the pace to back the cart into the bay as she noticed Stern's approach. Stern grabbed the harness and the filly slipped out, "I'll take this." she says, having an easier time with pushing the cart. The filly slips off without a word, much to the annoyance of the slavers watching. "Bet's off." one calls out, "No, gimme the cigs." another says.

Stern looks past the cart, "Find her something else to do, filly's too small to drag carts." the slavers all burst into laughter, "Aww, we gotta start calling him a filly now!" one laughs. Stern rolls her eyes and turns back around to head back to the Alpha-Omega Hotel. How does anything even survive to adulthood, much less start a city, while being this stupid?