“If you can feel your heartbeat, you're not done yet. You can’t be. On your hooves soldier, you're not spent yet.”

We were coming in hot, low down to the ground, as their wings strained in the flight harnesses the vertibuck strained almost in sympathy as it rushed to the mission, our second one of the night. I had been assigned to sabotage and clear another listening post, destroying all the equipment and neutralising the staff, which had been completed flawlessly. Upon extraction we had been contacted by Project Lead Spellwright and re-routed to assist two other operatives, 901 and 908 with their own mission.

They had been dropped behind enemy lines to disrupt a resupply point, to blunt the zebra’s advance in this sector, but it seemed that a zebra tank cohort had arrived unexpectedly looking for resupply. The short missive from 908 had identified it as the Ghost Cohort, the group commanded by the influential commander Velox Armoured-Storm and one directed so tightly and swiftly that oftentimes neither us nor the zebra themselves knew precisely where they were. With the disruption in plans, 901 and 908 were forced to ‘go loud’ as the missive said, and I was being redirected to complete their original goal while they provided a distraction.

As two ponies against a tank formation, no matter how depleted, time was of the essence.

The vertibuck hopped a rise and I saw the station and the crowd of zebra tanks circling just south of the buildings, trying to bring their sponson weapons to bear on their targets, but the flash of the tanks guns was countered by great gouts of flame.

I slid the side door open and tensed as we approached the huddle of buildings and crates that made up the supply point, the pegasi pilots on marginally pulling back their speed.

“Three, Two, One...” one of the pegasi called out, and they banked the vertibuck slightly, giving me a little encouragement before I let myself drop out of the open door.

I rolled with the impact, bouncing once on the loamy ground before digging my hooves in and trying to bleed off the speed, while aiming to take cover behind one of the supply crates.

It seemed like the other two operatives had at least made it inside the hastily constructed building before the tanks arrived, as it had clearly been bust open from the inside. Likely by a heavy telekinetic blast from 901. Slipping inside I found the outpost in shambles, everything was overturned, crates had burst open spilling their contents everywhere and near the burst out timbers were a set of hooves, bloodied stumps bound in red cloth.

Thankfully, though it was on its side, a zebra terminal was giving still giving off the flickering glow of an active screen. Righting it I tapped through the sequence I knew to break into the firmware, hunting for any information. Manifests, inventories, orders-there! Troop movements, largely to this outpost, but it showed where a number of divisions were scattered around the front. This was useful intel.
There was an extra note, that some prisoners had been locked here in the resupply point to be picked up by a courier from Roam. They had been picked up a fair way into the Zebra territory, last survivors of an expedition that had struck deep.

I cast my eyes around, no sign of ponies here. Not enough hooves for them to have been collateral in 901’s blast. My gaze did catch a cage though, the bars buckled and the door open. I guessed they got out.

I turned back to the terminal, staring at the intel, trying to burn it into my brain, to be retrieved later when I returned to a base.

A crackle of static caused one of my ears to flick around, my eyes following a second later and spotting the broadcaster sitting on the floor. It looked to be sturdy, military grade, though the design and the interface was distinctly pony in style, not zebra. Trotting over I scooped it up, noting the frequency range and giving the dials a little turn.

The display flicked through numbers before i settled on 140.85, our designated frequency. I looked for some kind of scrambler function, but failed to find anything. Lips pursed into a straight line I frowned. I gave three short transmission blasts, to indicate the line was not secure, then tapped out ‘9-0-9’.

A pause, then, “Line unsecure, routed via vertibuck. Report”.

“Mission complete,” I said briefly, “extraction requested”.

A pause, behind the crackling radio I could hear the guns and fire and impacts from my fellow operative’s fight. Control seemed to reach a verdict.
“Negative. Extraction too hot. Literally.”

The line went dead.

Looked like I had to lend a hoof to my fellow operatives.
Sneaking out of the shattered station I made my way towards the battle, trying to spot which tank was the commander. The cohort was weaving around, trying to encircle the operatives, but not end up in each other’s firing line. Without infantry support, they were having difficulty catching the two smaller forms, but it wouldn’t be long, even with their dented hulls and melted cannons.
One of the tanks was hanging back from the rest, weaving slower as it tried to survey the battle, the melted remnants of communication antenna sticking up from its hull. The commander.

I crept my way toward them, trying to move between patches of shadow and grass as I crossed the expanse, aiming to keep the tanks back pointed at me. The heat was perceptibly higher, drying my throat as I approached and clambered onto the tank as softly as I could, hooking my hooves onto a ladder added for just this purpose. Trying to keep steady I could see a hatch on the top of the hull, and a melted tube nearby, a periscope. If those inside wanted to see the top of the tank, they would have to come out.
Preparing my spell, I rapped three times on the hatch, and crouched back, visualising the space above it and judging where the occupant would be.

The hatch clanged open and a let lose my spell, the rippling air more visible in the fire-glow as it tightened around the neck of the zebra that had come up to check the knock. I had judged the gap a little poorly and a third of the silent blade bit into the hatch itself, scoring a deep line in the metal, but not cutting through. There was a grunt from the zebra, who spun around as locked eyes with me for a second.

The expression in those eyes was hard to read, partly surprise, anger and... resignation? They seemed tired, sunken and bloodshot. They flicked up, possibly to my cap, possibly to the sky above, before momentum caught up with them.

With a sickening squelch, the zebra’s head continued to rotate, spinning around the remaining strip of flesh the silent blade had not cut through, until it separated from the stump of remaining neck, blood welling up in a hot torrent.
As the head went one way, and the body dropped down, I noted what the zebra had been wearing. The usual commander’s helmet, with its signifying short, red mane bristles, wouldn’t fit into the confined body of a tank, instead this zebra was wearing a sloped cap with a symbolic stripe of red along the centre. The commander, Velox Armoured-Storm.

I could hear yells from inside the tank as the commander’s body dropped down and glanced up at the other operatives. 901 had a wisp of light floating by their head and was standing there, firing off blasts at the tanks surrounding them, but 908 was looking at me, her image wobbling through the heat haze. She seemed to be saying something. I squinted and focused on her lips.

Get. Down.

My eyes widened as the head haze intensified, the mounting pressure all around me coincided with the air temperature spiking. I ducked back down behind the hatch then, considering the size of it, let myself slide further along, back down to the ladder.

As I caught myself on the rungs there was a sound like a building growl, a herald before the blast that emanated from the other operative. The howl of a gale ripped through my ears as the wave of fire crashed against the body of the tank and rocked the solid machine. I hung tight to the ladder, hauling my hooves up and squeezing as small as I could to avoid the flames. The ground below me looked like lava, the sky was ablaze, and the ladder itself began to burn as the heat conducted through the metal beast.

Through the burning pain I held fast to my perch, enduring the heat, knowing that moving would be the death of me. The firestorm lasted maybe a few minutes, but felt like an hour as the rungs of the ladder burned into me and the air drew the breath from my lungs. Eventually, the flames stopped and died down, taking with them all sound it seemed, except for the light crackle of some remaining burning detritus.

I peeled myself off of the ladder, dropping to the still warm ground, bars of fire still burning in my legs and barrel where i had pressed to the hot metal. Looking back up at the tank I could see the open top hatch had bent and twisted, melted by the flames, and from the stench emanating from the hole in the top, I could guess what had happened to the crew.
Walking to the epicentre of the blast I found 901 and 908.

Or, what remained of them.

They looked like sculptures made from charcoal, pony shaped rocks frozen in a final burst of power.
With a lump in my chest I returned to the resupply point to pick up the radio again and gave the blasts on the frequency.

Three blasts. 9-0-9.

Three blasts. 9-0-9.

Three blasts. 9-0-9.

I was being shaken, pretty roughly, and there were voices calling for me. ‘Razor,’ one said, ‘New Guy,’ came the other. My mind was fuzzy, and I could feel the burns across me still, sinking into be flesh.

Hey, come on, up, up, upupup!

I’m getting there, I thought, just need-my eyes snapped open as yesterday bucked its way back into my brain.

“I’m up!” I yelled, “I’m up. What... What’s the situation?”
I found both Neon Dream and 901... Dee, looking at me, then Neon threw himself forward, wrapping his forelegs around me in a hug.

“You weren’t waking up,” he said with a sniff, “I’ve been trying for about half an hour, I woke Dee, and she couldn’t get you up either and you started shaking and,”

The other operative cut off the pegasus, “It was a little worrying, not gonna lie.”

I frowned, that dream, or memory, did seem to have run for much longer than the others, and lingered too, I rubbed the phantom burns on my side as Neon released me.

“I’m alright, just, bad dream. I think,” I looked up at Dee, seeing, momentarily, the carbonised statue from the memory, “Tank Cohort, Velox Armoured-Storm.”

Recognition bloomed in the other pony’s eyes, she gave a shudder, then a nod, “yeah, I remember that one. Up until the fire”. Turning back to Neon Dream she gestured to the piles of blankets, “right, lets get some sleep, if we can after that excitement.”

As the other two settled down I left the warm enclosure and stepped out onto the balcony, letting the cool night air wake me up. I thought back to the many flashes of memory I had seen in my dreams, at least I thought they were memory, but they didn’t all seem to tally up. Maybe this one was affected by whatever restrictions Dr Muse had lifted, maybe that was why it had been longer and, apparently, deeper.
I gave the horizon, and then the clouded skies, one last scan before I settled down to watch. Given the time we got here it now occurred to me that we might not get to third watch my morning, and checking the chronometer on the pipbuck seemed to confirm that. I shrugged, I would push longer through watch and let the others sleep.

Looking back at the pipbuck I saw a little blinking notification, hoofing over to it with the controls I saw new messages and files had appeared.

[Magical signature detected: FT-909. Files unlocked]
[Magical signature detected: FT-901. File unlocked]

The file was an audio message again, so this time I made sure to release the earbloom and put it in my ear before playing the file.

“Framework Trooper briefing number 1: Context,” Dr Muse’s accented voice filled my ear again, “I will be recording... Brief (?) notes about the project, and the individual operatives, for you Razor Wind. While you were given a grasp on the capabilities, I have some more... Un-clinical observations to note.”

I nodded, I did have some knowledge of each trooper’s skillset, but further info would be appreciated. This file was not quite that though

“I began my journey to the project from, shall we say, an odd starting point. I began the war at the Ministry of Peace, of all places,” she nickered sadly, “the Dr in my name is, nominally, medical. My training is in biology, anatomy, physiology, genetics and neurology, my expertise, however, is in memory. The Dr in my name is also for my PhD, a thesis on memory; viewing, extracting, modifying and potentially replacing memories. If you wish to be specific, in Horstrian parlance I would be Frau Doktor Doktor. I chose to spend my wartime helping, first in a medical capacity but as the war progressed, I found myself dealing more with cases of Wartime Stress Disorder."

It seemed an odd image to imagine, the august Erinnerung Muse talking gently to WSD patients.

I don’t remember her.

Shushing my rogue thoughts I let the recording continue.

“My skills and knowledge of memory magics saw me recruited by the Ministry of Morale instead. While I had done a lot of work with memory orbs, they wanted a way for non-unicorns to interact with memories. I led a joint team from the MoP and the Ministries of both Arcane Science and Wartime Technology that created the recollector technology, to better manipulate memories. That was where I first encountered the OIA as well.”

Made sense, with multiple ministries working on the project the OIA would definitely want to be involved. I recalled the recollectors from a hazy patch of my memory, they were used to debrief operatives post-mission. That was why I had stared so intently at the info in the terminal, so it could be extracted and transcribed later.

“I... Never inquired as to its use beyond its creation. Clearly it was going to be used by the MoM to extract intelligence, but the ethics of it, and my specialism, eluded me at the time. Now, however, I doubt that these ends justified the means.
My next step came following the death of Big Macintosh. He was seen as a hero, a great soldier and commander, leading his marauders to victory time and again and I thought that his sacrifice need not be in vain. As I said, I have some grounding in genetics and with my skills in memory magics honed with the recollector project I wrote a proposal. ‘Le Poulain Terrible’ to quote a book from Prance, the terrible children. A plan to create clones of Big Macintosh, raised isolated, artificially aged and given knowledge of combat via implanted memories. We could have had dozens of Big Macintoshes, an army of artificial ponies who could strike and fall in secret, sparing brothers and sisters and parents and children the pain of loss.”

When she said it with such conviction, Dr Muse’s plan sounded almost ideal, but what life would those foals have? Bred only to fight and die.

“The project was almost approved, though at the last minute an OIA operative stepped in and confiscated it. All my notes and proposals and evidence base, taken by this Dr Trueblood for his own secret project. But on the panel for my proposal was one Mana Magusavich Spellwright, who had his own project in the works and saw a use for my skills.
This was the Framework Trooper project, a combination of his own research into spells, my memory manipulation skills and the possibilities presented by the MoP’s Megaspell development. Why create and train clones when you could create an operative as a spell, built from arcane science, trained on memories and imbued into an existing pony. A better use for those traitors and insurgents the MoM was dealing with, or so I was told.”

Did... Did that mean I wasn’t... Real? Was I just a spell cast on a body? I stared down at the pipbuck on my foreleg as the file finished up.

“Each Framework Trooper is a carefully, mostly, crafted megaspell framework detailing their abilities, skills, training and memories that is applied to a pony, overwriting the host with the operative. The operative then feeds back into the spell framework, incorporating their experiences and memories and, after the first application, physical form into the spell, so that when it is reapplied, that same operative is continued.

What this means to you, Razor, is that you are a distinct, self-reinforcing, personality that while born from a spell, are an ongoing, self-developing existence. Philosophy aside, I at least believe you all exist as yourselves, and so I... Regret, everything I have put you all through. The needs of wartime drove us far beyond what we might have done under peace, but to what ends? We believed that if it would help end the war, then everything was justified, but now...”

She trailed off, leaving the answer unspoken as her accent thickened and voice wavered and in my minds eye, I thought could see her tearing up.

“Es tut mir lied, meine kinder, Dr Muse, signing off.”

I was left with silence as the file ended and I let the earbloom fall from my ear and retract back into the casing. I spent the next few hours in a bit of a fugue state as I processed what Dr Muse had said, one part of my mind tracking the erratic movement of a few bloatsprites down below, and twitching an ear towards the distant tubas that signified a spritebot. The sun had risen behind the cloud layer before I headed back inside, the warmth of the enclosed snug banishing some nights cold that had seeped into my coat. I found Neon Dream sprawled out across a blanket, but Dee had roused and was waiting for me.

“You didn’t wake me,” she said, head tilted questioningly.

I nodded, “I was... Thinking. And I already cut into your rest time.” I paused, “There was another message from Dr Muse. It... Well...”

I stopped, trying to find the words to explain. Instead I scooped out the earbloom and offered it to the other operative. Dee took the peripheral and put it her ear, listening to Dr Muse’s report. When it had finished she let out a sigh and returned the earbloom to my pipbuck.

“Ahh New Guy,” I frowned as she used her nickname for me and her eyes softened, “sorry, Razor, I’ll give you a little advice, as the oldest operative.” She paused again, “it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how we came to be, we just are. Back then, that was the justification I used to get on with what we had to do. Now, we don’t have the mission, we don’t have the war, we’re just going to have to survive, and existential angst isn’t going to help with that.”

She put a hoof on my head, “I’ll admit, I’m jaded, I’ve been re-applied so many times I stopped getting too attached to my bodies, but you, you are still pretty fresh. Think you were only re-applied once.”

As she took her hoof away, I re-adjusted my beret with a frown, “and now? I don’t think we have the option to be ‘re-applied’ out here”.

A sad smile came to Dee’s lips, “then we are just like everyone else, we get one life to do what we want with”.

I was about to respond to that, but we were interrupted by Neon Dream letting out a big yawn as they woke up, their mane splayed out at odd angles giving a rare look at the whole of their muzzle. I looked back to Dee as Neon shook his head and at next glance his mane had fallen back into its usual concealing curtain.

How does he do that?

Magic? I guessed, with a shrug. Strange, unknowable inherent pegasus magic.

Breakfast was a quiet affair as I contemplated Dr Muse’s message, and Dee’s advice, while Dee stared at the 901 beret as she chewed on some of the supplies we had brought from Ditzy Doo back in New Appaloosa. Neon kept looking at the both of us between bites and I could almost hear the cogs whirring in his brain as he tried to interpret the mornings atmosphere.

Hunger kind of satiated, I pulled up Dr Muse’s map and scrolled over to the mark for Station 1.

She did say you could just call her Muse.

I feel she deserves a certain level of respect, she earned the ‘Dr’ so I’ll use it.

You just like people having ranks and hierarchy.

Stow it Private Rogue Thoughts.

Touché.

I shook my head a little, trying to get back on track, a glimmer of green and teal in the corner of my peripheral vision.

“Is there a problem with the route?” Neon Dream asked me, squinting at the display of my pipbuck.

I shook my head again, “no, just getting my thoughts straight. The marker on the map looks like its inside a mountain, there’s got to be a route in somewhere”.
Black and white slid into my other periphery.

“Where are you looking to go?”

I looked over at Dee, noting she wasn’t wearing the barding retrieved from the station. Or the beret. Just that flight jacket. I twisted my foreleg to show her the screen of the pipbuck.

“Station 1. On the last day Project-ahem, ” I paused, and gave a small cough before forcing myself to drop a word, “Mana contacted Dr Muse and directed her to Station 1. Given both of us, there might be a chance she is still there, in stasis. We should free her. What?”

Dee was grinning at me. I repeated the ‘what’.

“Someone is exercising free wiiiiiil,” she said in a little sing-song voice. Then the amusement dropped out of her face, “but, really, you’re going into another project Station?”
“I think he’s just wanting to check them all off a list.” Neon Dream chipped in from my other side, “you’ve done, what, two now?”

My head slowly swivelled to face the pegasus, bringing my glower to bear, “Neon...” I began, before he ducked away into his mane with an ‘eep’. I sighed and turned back to my fellow operative.

“Its really the only direction I’ve got.”

She sighed, and gave a shrug, “Ok RZ, we go.”

We packed up our meagre possessions and squared away the blankets, leaving one wrapped around our skeletal companion and their beans, before heading out to the upper gantry to be lifted down by Neon Dream. I noticed again that Dee was just wearing the jacket, looking back I saw the operative barding neatly folded in the corner of the room, topped with the beret.

“I want a clean break,” Dee’s voice cut in just behind my left ear, “like we discussed this morning, we’ve only got one life out here, and I’m electing to put my past behind me”.

It makes sense.

I know that, it just feels... Odd. Probably because I desperately needed that thread of belonging to anchor me. Still, I trotted back in and grabbed the beret, complete with cap badge, stuffing it into my saddlebags.

We said nothing more about it was Neon Dream gave us a quick descent to the ground below and, after a quick perimeter sweep, we returned to following the tracks, away from Canterlot and back towards Ponyville.

While I took point, Neon Dream trotted up next to me and whispered in my ear, “what was up with you two this morning?” I declined to comment, “it was really weird. Did you... Did you hit on her? Or something?”

I stopped in my tracks and craned my head around to look at the young pegasus, unable to make sense of the expression that had stamped itself on my face, and neither could he as he staggered back.

“what?” I started, but then Dee’s voice cut in,

“Oh yeah, definitely. He was chatting me up all night long”, my head snapped round to look at the grinning face of our companion and I half expected my pipbuck to flash a medical warning for whiplash, “RZ was all like ‘oh we only have one life’ and ‘oh there’s not many of us left’ but I was like ‘it doesn’t matter what bod I’m rocking...”
She pranced forward, swinging her rump from side to side to punctuate her words, “I only like mares.”

I stared at her, any words forming just becoming sputters as the red in my cheeks could surely be seen through my dark green coat. Dee turned her head back to look at the pair of us, flashing a smile.

“Joking.” She said, “Just joking. RZ needs to lighten up”.

We cannot let her meet Roulette!

I think that’s inevitable. Though, one question,

“RZ?” Neon Dream asked my question for me.
The white coated troublemaker gave a shrug, “I nickname ponies, it helps having short names. High Temp was always HT to me. Like CT, and FT,” she nodded at Neon Dream, “lotta ‘T’s now I think about it. And ‘W’s don’t work, so Stone Wall became ST. And now, you’re RZ.” She gave a nod of satisfaction and turned back around, resuming the march to Ponyville.

Grumbling I got moving again, passing Neon Dream and the goofy grin on his muzzle.

We retraced our route back along the tracks, coming back into sight of the Ironshod distribution centre which was still a hive of activity. The New Appleoosan train was back in front of the warehouse, ponies hefting crates onto the flatbed carriage. My mane itched and I looked up, spotting a circling griffon in some kind of body armour, one of the guards Roulette had mentioned in her negotiations with Railright. I dipped my head, encouraging our little group to press on.

“But what about” I cut off Neon’s protest with a look.

“not now, later.” I wanted to give the guard griffon no reason to come down and investigate us. He gave one last look at the warehouse, presumably trying to glimpse cream and red.

As we came up to Ponyville I halted the group, taking a quick sweep with the binoculars. While it had been deserted last time we passed, there was no guarantee new raiders hadn’t moved in. It looked clear from here, but given the ruckus we had missed previously, I wanted to look a little closer. I gave over the binoculars to Dee and snuck my way through the ghost town. No raiders around, but someone had definitely been through here, judging by the hoofprints. There were two sets, or, well nearly two as one of the ponies seemed to only be walking on three legs, they were also strangely deep, like the ones that made them were heavy.

Steel Rangers?

No, didn’t seem like it, the prints lacked the distinctive marks made by their anchoring cleats, these seemed smaller than power armoured hooves. Dainty almost. I shrugged, whoever they had been, they weren’t here now, though they had wandered off in a similar direction to where we were headed. Looked like they were headed to what looked like an apple farm on the hill, we, however, were falling back to the rail line and following that.
We hit a switching point and turned northwards, cutting across the route Neon Dream, Roulette and I had taken to reach the warehouse. The track we were following headed into the small mountain we had circumvented, the mouth of the tunnel visible in the distance. As was something else.

The hooks, chains and gore chic that seemed to characterise Raiders.

There was a cluster of them around the mouth of the tunnel, around some kind of barricade stretching the width of the tunnel, funneling anyone approaching into a single small entrance. As we looked, we saw that a group had approached the tunnel and were regretting their decision as as they sat at the points of a variety of sharp implements. Eight patchwork, leather strapped raiders were surrounding a group of about five other ponies who seemed laden with travel gear. One stallion was trying to block the raiders’ advance on the mares, two of them fillies, and seemed to have taken a few nicks from the rusted weapons aimed at them. I could see one of the mares, strapped up with a pack, slowly reaching for a holstered weapon.

Don’t you dare say-

No, it is the mission. We need to get by and,

“We need to protect those ponies,” Neon Dream was also observing through his scope, though I couldn’t see them, I could already feel his puppy dog eyes readying behind the ground glass lens.

I cast a look over at Dee, “not the mission?” she asked with eyes narrowed in a frown.

I shook my head, “no-” she seemed about to yell before I continued, “-our mission is to protect ponies”.

She flashed a grin then jumped a little as I tossed the binoculars at her, “we don’t have much time before this becomes a bloodbath,” I looked again at the décor, “possibly literally. I’ll push in close, try and thin the pack, but when I do, it’s going to go loud.” I quickly glanced between them,” you think they’ve made me, or they start for the civilians, you engage”.

A quick nod from them both and I started away, scrabbling down the slight incline and trying to make for some cover. I managed to slide in behind a crate of some kind, largely shot to pieces, but enough of the structure of it remained to shield me from view as I looked at the scene before me.

The raiders were in a loose horseshoe shape around the travellers, not completely encircling them, but leaving them no escape route, and were armed largely with melee weapons; bats with nails in, a large knife and a few big hammers (one of which had railroad spikes attached to the face).

That’s gotta be some real shoddy welding.

It’d be good enough to kill someone. One had one of those pipe weapons which, somehow, screamed automatic from the short barrel and long magazine. I doubted it would be able to cycle the whole magazine, but would rather not take chances. The last one, possibly the leader, was armed with a cut down hunting rifle held in a telekinetic grip. I presumed he had some telekinetic skill as using it would require him to hold it and cycle the bolt at the same time. Again, I doubted it, but didn’t want to take chances, he would be the first to go, shortly followed by the mare with the smg.

I could draw a bead on the riflepony, though the shot would pass very close to one of the traveller’s ears, but the smg mare was being blocked by the stallion at the front of the civilians. A pair of raiders with melee weapons, a hammer and a bat, were standing quite close together on this side of the group, close enough that I could probably catch them both in a horizontal sweep of a silent blade. But could I do both a blade and a shot at the same time?

I quietly hoofed the Operator from its holster, my pipbuck hud displaying the word ‘Memento’. It was Dr Muse’s Operator. The mouth grip felt a little strange with the gems inlaid into it, but the trigger felt just as light as any other Operator. I lined it up on the riflepony by eye as I reached out with my horn, preparing a silent blade, unlooping and flattening it out, ready to strike.

“Come on Longshanks, just pay your toll and the rest of you can go on your merry way,” the riflepony was talking to the stallion, his weapon floating menacingly, “its a cheap deal today, we only want one.”

“yeah,” one of the others, the one holding the knife, said, “one of the little ones.” They liked the blade held in a telekinetic sheath, staring at fillies that were cowering behind the mares’ legs.

Memories of Peach Lemonade and her cousin Rose snapped across my mind as my eyes narrowed, slipping into S.A.T.S. and targeting riflepony’s head, aiming at the convenient scabrous patch of lighter fur between his eyes.

As S.A.T.S. engaged, and I tongued the trigger of Memento, I released the silent blade as a horizontal plane, aiming away from the civilians. There was a tingle on my tongue as some kind of magic was mixed into the round as it left the barrel, striking the riflepony just below his horn. He was clearly dead the second the bullet struck, but with a ripple of magic his joints all seemed to lock up, like rigor mortis had immediately set in, and he did not drop to the floor, only his rifle. The other two however dropped like sacks of stones, heads tumbling after them, melee weapons dropping from their mouths. Their blood coated the floor, inching towards the hooves of the civilians.

There was silence for maybe two seconds before chaos exploded from both groups, the raiders yelling and the travellers screaming.

I had to move fast, and encircled the pointed top of a wooden stake in the ground on the far side of the group from my hiding place. The tip was sheared off, the dark, dried blood exploding in a shower of flakes which drew most eyes and gave me the opportunity to dash to another hiding spot, galloping to an overturned piece of scrap that looked like it had once been a train carriage.

These are definitely bogies.

Combat situation. You shut up.

I peeked my head around the cover, trying to track my other targets. The raiders were scattering, trying to spot where the attack was coming from, I could see the remaining bat wielder and the custom hammer pony sticking together going right, the mare with the smg had ducked behind a rock, making her harder to get a bead on and the knife wielder was kind of just standing in the middle yelling and swinging the knife around. A knife that was waving close to the paralysed fillies and the mare they were sheltering under.

I queued up S.A.T.S. and aimed for the knife wielder, with their head tossing about it was hard to get a great target, but anything in the head would be sufficient. Still, I stacked up two shots, just to be sure, and was just about to engage the spell when I spotted something in the periphery of my eye.

The last hammer pony had gotten the drop on me and was closing fast, having rounded the train car as I was evaluating targets. I tried to tag them for a shot as well, but I had already begun letting go of the spell and it had decides now was a great time to glitch.

Memento fired twice, but I’d been turning my head, so the shots went off course, one missing completely and the second tagging the target in the neck. That magic tingle was on my tongue again and I saw them lock solid, the magic sheath holding the knife vanishing. Unfortunately, the swinging knife kept its momentum, sailing over to the civilians and burying itself into the rear flank of the dull pink mare that was protecting the fillies.

I saw all of this in slow motion as I tried to turn to intercept the pony rushing at me with a hammer. The reduced pace of time, to my perception, gave me a moment to think. That hammer was coming in swinging and nothing was going to stop that, my only choice was really to try and get out of the way though my options were pretty limited. I grit my teeth and made my choice.

As my perception re-synched with real-time I finished my turn and pushed off, rearing back into the zebra stance and hoping the extra distance would bleed off some of the force of the swing. I’m not sure it did.

While the point the hammer made contact was one of the reinforced compression seams of the operative barding, the force still pushed into my barrel and almost in slow motion again i could feel the weight of that hammer, and the swing, press into my ribs. They did not endure that force, and I felt them snap like twigs, driving the breath from my lungs and knocking me backwards off of my hooves and out into the open.

The hammer pony gave some kind of gurgling cry from behind the haft of the hammer before they dissolved into sparkling red dust accompanied by a harsh buzzing noise. Neon Dream had engaged.

Wheezing I looked around again, noting eyes swivelling to look at me as I lay on the floor. I had managed to keep my teeth around Memento and so snapped off two S.A.T.S. enhanced shots at the first raider I could aim at, the second batter. A butter coloured mare once, now dull buff and matted with dirt, the raider had bullet holes in her ears and a nasty scar across her face which I noted seconds before two of the uncommon .45 IPC rounds punched through it. Again the body stiffened up, freezing in place and even seeming to tighten its grip around the handle of the bat.
I scrabbled to my hooves as I spotted the custom hammer beginning to charge towards me, the crushing pressure around my lung affecting my manoeuvrability as the hammer bore down on me.

Shoddy welds

I said

It won’t hold up to a solid strike

I threw up a silent blade vertically as the hammer swung, forming that split second shield just as the railroad spike approached, the hammer crashing into that suddenly solid plane of air. I felt an impact in the back of my brain as that energy dispersed. The hammer rebounded with the spike buckled and seemed to be held a little looser as the reverberations shook the wielder’s teeth. Giving my head a shake to clear it I looked back at the pony with the hammer who also seemed dazed, and vunerable. I whipped up Memento and put a round between their eyes.

I expected it to snap off...

I didn’t dignify that with a response as my ears instead picked up the click of a firearm being cocked and snapped my head around to see the mare with the smg standing by the entrance to the tunnel.

“Y’all can suck it!” she yelled before putting the grip back in her mouth and pulling the trigger.

Fire spat from the barrel and the mare just let the recoil thrash her head around, spraying the area with rounds. Everyone dove for the floor or behind any cover they could find as the mare indescriminately hosed the area.

Click.

From the expression on the mare’s face it seemed like an unexpected stop. The pipe gun had jammed. Everyone was still, with a groan coming up from the stallion who had been leading the travellers and had caught a round somewhere. The knife wielding pony that had been frozen since I shot them was still standing in the open and was now bleeding from a dozen holes.

The mare spat the gun from her mouth and turned tail, galloping for the tunnel mouth whilst yelling inarticulately before a high pitched buzz filled the air and a bright red line lanced out and pierced her throat. She collapsed to the floor, her breath whistling through the cauterised hole through her windpipe. I trotted over to her, holstering Memento as I stood over the mare.

She spotted me, rolling her eyes and spitting as she tried to yell obscenities without a larynx. I sighed, wincing against the pain in my ribs before triggering my spell and putting the mare out of her misery.

Turning back I ment to approach the civilians and assess their situation, check what medical attention they needed and find out how to get them on their way, however as I took a few steps towards the group I was halted by a sound behind me. Heavy hooffalls echoed from inside the tunnel, the sound of straining mechanics following close behind.
Out of the dark of the tunnel came a figure that made my heart sink. It wasn’t a Steel Ranger, but it had once been power armour, now stripped back to its basic frame and mechanics, though with the addition of some kind of pony shaped additions strapped to the outside.

Are, are those Fun-Farm animatronics strapped to it?

It was a raider, in power armour, armoured in animatronics.
“Dee?” I called out, stepping back,

No answer.

“Dee?!”

The raider kept coming, bloodshot eyes staring out from inside the armour.

I took a deep breath, fighting against the pain in my lung as I turned my head back towards the hill I had slid down from.

“DEE?!”

Author's Note

Author's Note:
Thanks to kkat for creating this crazy mashup and letting others play around in it.
Thanks to Somber too, I may reference things from Project Horizons and Homelands here and there.