Sleep never found me that night. After I shed the last of the tears my body appeared capable of, I simply lay on the damp and bloodstained foam mattress and stared blankly at the bleak pale yellow wall of my sleeping berth, waiting. It would only be a matter of time before Grinder sent more members of the boosterherd to come and finish me off.

According to the illusionary clock hovering in the corner of my vision, it was just after two in the morning when the door to the apartment was finally opened by the visitors I’d been expecting. A collection of hooves, paws, and talons―of both the organic and the arcanetic-sounding variety―strode purposefully into the room behind me.

Despite knowing that they would be coming for me, and believing that I’d sufficiently prepared myself to meet my end, I found myself wincing at the sound of the footsteps. I shut my eyes firmly so as not to chance accidentally catching sight of any of them. I didn’t want to see my end coming.

I silently prayed that they would just shoot me right there and then, make my ending a quick one, and not seek to prolong my torment with pain and torture. Not that I really believed Grinder or the goons he’d sent would actually be quite that charitable. The stallion had promised me no small amount of suffering even before I’d been involved in the deaths of six members of my―now former, I supposed―herd. Surely that further transgression hadn’t earned me a cleaner death.

No, there was going to be a lot of pain coming my way in the next several minutes. Maybe even hours, I thought to myself darkly. I suspected that I was soon going to be wishing that I’d had the courage to end my life on my own terms.

I didn’t have to see my ‘guests’ to know that they were standing huddled around my berth, staring at me. I could feel them looming over me. The seconds of silence dragged on, feeling like minutes to my slowly panicking mind. The longer I went without feeling the pain I knew was coming my way, the more dread I felt at the prospect of it as my brain entertained ever growing expectations regarding the intensity of the torment I was about to undergo. I felt my hooves trembling as the fear in me began to rise.

“I want to look her in the eyes,” a voice declared, presumably to the others around them. Though distinctly gravelly in nature, it was not Grinder’s voice, I was surprised to discover. The creature speaking was female.

My thoughts very briefly dallied on the realization that Grinder hadn’t come here himself to end my life. I actually felt a little relieved by that revelation. No other creatures in the herd came to mind that gave me the impression that they had a deeper sadistic streak running through them than our dear leader did. Perhaps that meant that my suffering wouldn’t be quite as great as it might have been had the crimson stallion come down to dirty his own hooves with my death.

I felt that it was odd that he’d delegated my execution though. He’d given me the impression earlier that making me suffer with his own hooves was something that he’d been looking forward to doing…

A strong set of talons wrapped themselves in my mane and yanked me off of the mattress, curtailing further pondering of the discrepancy. I couldn’t restrain the pained yelp as I was dragged roughly from the berth and cast to the floor of the apartment. Still having no desire to watch what was going to be done to me, I stubbornly kept my eyes firmly shut and my head turned away from my soon-to-be-executioners.

Somepony straddled me, standing imperiously over my body. Something cold and hard reached out and cupped me by my right cheek, forcibly turning my head so that it was facing straight up. I kept my eyes shut, a whimper escaping my lips despite myself. I guess I knew where they were going to start with the beatings.

“Look at me,” the feminine voice growled, sounding like it was only mere inches away. I could smell the heavy reek of alcohol on her hot breath as it slammed into my muzzle. Her words quavered with barely contained rage. “Open your eyes and look at me, you fucking bitch.”

I felt myself shake my head in refusal even as I tried to pull back from her. Not that I had anywhere to go, with her having me trapped against the floor beneath her body. Maybe if I pissed them off enough they’d lose their patience and kill me quicker?

“I said: look at me!” The command was punctuated by something slamming into the floor next to my head with enough force that it made my ear ring. Whether it was the intensity of her words sounding right in my face, or the reverberation in the floor by my head, my eyes sprung open involuntarily and I finally glimpsed the face of the creature who’d come to end my life.

My fear was immediately adulterated by the intrusion of profound confusion as I discovered that I recognized the creature standing over me, but not in the way that I’d expected. While I might not have known the name of everycreature in the boosterherd, I at least knew all of them on sight. At this moment, I found my gaze being reflected back at me by the mirrored surface of a pair of sunglasses being worn over a leering mud-brown face framed by black greasy strands of mane. This was not any creature that I recognized as being a member of Grinder’s herd. All the same though, it was a face that I had seen before. Earlier that evening, in fact.

If I had any further doubts as to the identity of the donkey straddling me, the glimmer of polished silver planted off to my right side served as ample confirmation of her identity. “...Silverhoof?” I heard myself mutter aloud, my confusion manifesting itself in the form of the single spoken word. What was she doing here?

My eyes darted away from the furious features of the singer to seek out the other creatures who’d come to the apartment with her. Sure enough, though still to no small amount of surprise, I recognized the others around me as being the rest of the members of the band that had been performing at the underground concert Hash Stack had taken me to earlier that night. What had been the name of their band again? Samurai? No, that wasn’t right―

“Eyes front, bitch!” Jenny Silverhoof snarled. Her signature limb slammed into the floor once more, startling my gaze back onto her. She gave a firm nod of her head, sending her sunglasses slipping down the bridge of her muzzle in a deliberate move to shift them out of the way so that she could stare down at me unimpeded. I met those icy blue eyes and felt my chest grow tight as I beheld the burning rage within them. That fury was not alone either. In the back of my mind, I noted that there was a faint shimmer to them around the edges. It was a feature I recognized well, having seen it plenty of times staring back at me out of my own eyes in the mirror:

She was hurting.

“Tell me why you did it,” she seethed at me through gritted teeth.

“Jenny―” Another voice spoke up, the griffon tiercel, but the donkey wasn’t interested in whatever he had to say.

“Shut up, Gerry,” she snapped without taking her glowering eyes off mine. “This is the fleck of shit that zeroed Hash. I want to hear why she did it before I paint the walls with her brains.” The griffon grunted but said nothing further, instead seeming to take the opportunity to step away and distract himself with something else in the apartment.

I felt my face crease with confusion once more. They were here about Hash Stack? I hadn’t even processed the threat which followed the revelation before I noticed the jenny’s right hoof moving. A second later, I felt the cold hard steel of a gun barrel press up against the side of my head. There was only a flicker of thought that passed through my mind which took note of the lack of any sign that the donkey had activated her arcanetic talisman before the inevitable dread of imminent death took hold. My eyes clenched shut once more, another whimper escaping my lips as I braced for the end.

Silverhoof didn’t demand that I open my eyes this time. “Tell me why you did it,” she said in a voice that sounded as brittle as it did cold. “Tell me why you killed her.

“Hash took you in,” Jenny went on, still in that same hard tone that was underpinned with just a touch of grief that manifested itself as a slight trembling in her words. “She gave your worthless flank a home. And you iced her for it.

“Now you’re going to tell me why.”

With every line the donkey spoke, I felt like I received a fresh buck to my gut. Fresh tears that I had believed thoroughly dried out welled up behind my clamped down lids, sneaking their way onto my cheeks as I pictured Hash greeting me with her warm smile when I’d get back to the apartment. It was a sight I knew I’d never get to see again. A sob racked my body. “...It was an accident.” The words were barely more than a choked whisper.

Jenny canted her head, her face still wearing the scowl. “What was that? Speak up! Why’d you kill my friend?!”

“I fucked up!” I screamed, startling myself almost as much as the other creatures in the apartment. My eyes were wide open now, tears streaming freely down the sides of my face as sobs distorted my words. “She told me to stay down and I didn’t! I was in the way and so she―” I was forced to swallow back the lump which suddenly filled my throat as I pictured the anguished look on the pegasus mare’s face when she realized she wasn’t willing to take the shot with her revolver, for fear of hitting me by accident. “I blocked her shot,” I said with a ragged breath.

With that breath came a great release, as though all my will to do, well, anything left my body with it. I let my head lay back on the floor, my eyes stared up at some arbitrary spot on the ceiling as they unfocused and I saw the end of the fight playing out in slow motion in my mind. Hash’s hesitation. The hippogriff shouldering her rifle, oblivious to my presence. The sight of the pistol laying at my hooves…

…The barrel swaying in my magic as I squeezed the trigger.

Hash collapsing on the sidewalk with a hole in her neck. A hole that I’d placed there.

“...It was an accident,” I repeated. “I tried to save her.” I wasn’t sure if I was referring to the attempt to shoot the hippogriff or calling for help while Hash lay bleeding. It hardly mattered, I supposed. I closed my eyes and waited to receive my justly-earned leaded judgment from the donkey.

“Jenny.” The griffon’s voice pierced the silence that had fallen over the room. No other words were spoken.

Several agonizing seconds later, I heard the donkey curse under her breath. “Fuck you, Gerry.” The barrel was removed from the side of my head and slipped back into a holster on her flank. Jenny Silverhoof all but snarled as she stepped off from over me, stomping with clear frustration over to the apartment’s window, joining the gold and alabaster griffon who was already there, staring out into the lit cityscape beyond. The other three members of the band similarly backed away from me, meandering over to the couch and taking sullen seats away from the pair.

“She wouldn’t have wanted that anyway.” The griffon said in a consoling tone.

“She’s dead,” Jenny all but spat. “Who gives a fuck what she’d have wanted?”

“You,” the griffon quipped with a tiny mote of levity. The donkey propped up next to him sighed, shaking her head as her arcanetic hoof tapped irritably on the window sill. “Me. I care.” He glanced over his shoulder towards the other members of their group seated nearby. “Any of you care? Show of limbs.”

The griffon didn’t actually wait to see the three forelimbs rise up into the air before turning his attention back to the jenny beside him. “Besides, regardless of who pulled the trigger, you know who’s ultimately to blame.”

“Grinder.” Jenny growled out the name like it was an epithet in its own right.

I felt my ears perk up at the mention of the earth pony. They knew about his involvement? That fresh question quickly took a backseat as my brain―no longer being held back by thoughts about my impending execution―was finally able to catch up on the last few minutes, and even put together other pieces of information that I’d learned several hours earlier.

“You’re friends of Hash?” I blurted from where I was still laying on my back on the floor where Jenny had placed me. Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, I realized it was a bit of an obvious observation. In my defense, there was still a lot for me to work through to catch myself up. “You’re that band from last night, right? H-something. Hassle?”

“Hussar!” The purple unicorn stallion sitting over on the couch corrected me with a fair amount of annoyance in his trottingham-heavy accent. I glanced over and saw him scanning the walls of the apartment before leaning over to the hippogriff next to him. “Is it okay to be a li’le offended that Hash ain’t got a single one of our posters up? I know I gave her one of my signed headshots―”

“Zip it, Dandy,” Silverhoof snapped.

“Zippin’ it!” The unicorn shifted a little lower on the couch, exchanging glances with his two nearby companions and muttering much more quietly to them in a tone too soft for me to hear.

The donkey glanced over her shoulder now at me, her sapphire eyes still glaring daggers into me, prompting me to swallow back a nervous lump in my throat. While it was a pretty safe bet that neither she nor any of the other members of the band were going to kill me, it was clear to me that I wasn’t exactly her favorite pony in the city either. She seemed to be debating something with herself and was silent for several long seconds before finally reaching a conclusion about what she was going to do; which was apparently to ignore me and turn back to continue her conversation with the griffon next to her.

“We should have moved on him faster,” Jenny grumbled with a resigned sigh.

“It was never about him, not really; or any of the other smallfry,” the tiercel reminded her, earning an acknowledging nod from the donkey, if a bit reluctantly. “It was always about Elysium Properties, and we weren’t ready to do anything about them yet.”

My ears perked again. I was surprised to hear the name of the corporation that owned my building come up in a conversation about Hash and Grinder. Well, ‘owned’ wasn’t entirely accurate, I supposed. Technically the Light City Municipal Council ‘owned’ the megasilo my apartment was located in. In fact, the city owned every one of the dozen or so megasilos which played host to the apartments that many of the less affluent denizens resided in. However, the city wasn’t about to play landlord for the better part of a hundred thousand creatures, so they contracted out the upkeep of the buildings to a property management company. Specifically: Elysium Property Management Services, LLC.

Elysium was responsible for ensuring that any installed appliances in the apartments were repaired―hypothetically in a timely manner, though their definition of ‘timely’ seemed to be rather broad―that trash was collected, and that utilities and rent were paid up on time by all the tenants. Basically, while the city owned the building, Elysium was who got all of our money.

As I understood it, a lot of that money was supposed to make its way back to the city, since it was their building, but Elysium got to keep a cut. That was how Hash had explained it to me once. What she hadn’t explained to me is what connection Elysium had with the leader of my former boosterherd. It wasn’t like Grinder dabbled in investment properties…

Jenny’s arcanetic hoof slammed against the window, barely leaving a scratch on the reinforced crystal laminate, and wheeled on the griffon. “And when exactly will we be ready to move on them, huh? We know what they’re doing, and we know where their corporate office is.”

“But we don’t have the security protocols,” the tiercel pointed out. “Without those, we’re not going to make it very far once we’re inside the building. If we even manage to get that far.” The griffon let out a resigned sigh of his own now. “Hash said she was going to get them tonight and meet us after our set. Obviously that…didn’t work out,” he said softly, doing his best not to make it obvious that he was eying me while he said that last part.

Great. Not only had I managed to get my best friend killed tonight, apparently I’d also distracted her from some very important work that she was engaged in with her favorite band. I really was just finding all kinds of ways to ruin the lives of everycreature around me, wasn’t I? Even creatures I didn’t know. Who else had I managed to fuck over just by existing?

“So then we get the protocols ourselves,” Jenny insisted, her tail flicking in the direction of the occupied couch. “Harriet can grab them.”

The hippogriff mare’s ears perked up at the mention of her name even as the edges of her mouth beyond her beak pulled themselves into a frown. “While I find your faith in me inspiring, boss, I’m nowhere near good enough to crack ICE like the kind Elysium is rocking from the outside. Once we’re already in I can fuck with their network plenty, but Hash was our ticket past their main wards.

“We’ll need to find another nettrotter on her level if we want to stick to the original plan.”

Jenny seemed to find the revelation less than thrilling. “Oh, well then; Gerry? Would you do me a favor and reach under my tail and pull out the backup preem trotter I just happen to have shoved up my ass?”

“She’s def got something up ‘er ass…” I wasn’t sure who on the couch had made the whispered remark, but it seemed to have been spoken quietly enough that the donkey didn’t hear it.

“Easy, Jenny,” the tiercel said. He rested a set of talons on her shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze. For her part, the donkey seemed to accept the gesture and let out a frustrated sigh, shaking her head in resignation.

“We were this close, Gerr,” she muttered. “Tonight was going to be the night. Hash was going to sneak into Grinder’s place, snatch his access runes, and pass them to us. That was going to be our way around Elysium’s wards.”

I blinked in shocked surprise as Grinder’s name was dropped into the conversation once more. As well as the mention of breaking into his apartment. I couldn’t begin to understand what the leader of my former herd and the company managing my megasilo had to do with one another though. However, it was clear that these creatures believed there was an important link that existed between them. It also seemed like they weren’t entirely aware of how Hash Stack had spent her last few hours yesterday. I supposed that made sense. She’d left the concert before the band had finished playing, and then died not long after trying to save me.

They didn’t know that she had broken into his apartment last night. I’d been under the impression that it had all been for a simple robbery. But maybe gibbies weren’t the only thing that the pegasus mare had managed to snatch from Grinder’s terminal that night…

“Now the plan’s shot to shit and we don’t―”

“Hash and I broke into Grinder’s place.” I blurted, finally finding the will to intrude into their conversation even as I slowly rolled back onto my hooves.

Everycreature’s eyes were focused on me once more, though with significantly less murderous intent. Which felt like a substantial improvement of my situation. The attention was enough to keep me from rising the rest of the way off the floor though, so I simply remained on my belly. Of all their gazes, Jenny’s was the most intense―and also not quite as devoid of violent inclinations as the rest. “...Say that again?”

I swallowed, feeling myself wilt slightly beneath the piercing glare of those sapphire eyes. “L-last night,” I inwardly winced as a stutter infected my words. Jenny was quite the intimidating figure. “Hash took me on a job she had,” I continued to explain even as the donkey began to slowly approach me, regarding me as if she was still deciding whether or not I was worth allowing to live. “I thought she was robbing some random donk. Learned later it was Grinder’s place.

“She hacked a terminal in his apartment. Did it with a deep dive. Big cable, ice bath, the works. She didn’t say anything about you guys or Elysium or anything,” I admitted with a slight grimace, acknowledging that everything I was telling them might be entirely worthless information for their purposes. Still though, if they were friend’s of Hash, they should know what she’d been up to if it was something that might have been on their behalf. “She definitely took a lot of money though. At least twenty thousand gibbies.”

“Hash wouldn’t need to ice up for a simple money grab.” The hippogriff mare said, a meaningful lilt in her words as she cast an aside glance at their band’s lead vocalist. “If that filly’s telling the truth…”

Jenny glanced briefly over at the jade-feathered pseudo-equine before returning her gaze to me. She seemed to be deciding whether or not I was delivering honest information, or if I was just feeding them something they wanted to hear in an attempt to ingratiate myself to them. I could understand her hesitancy. She didn’t know me from Celestia, and had only minutes ago been holding a gun to my head because she thought I murdered her friend. I wouldn’t trust me either if I were in her position.

Before she could come to any sort of decision though, the door to the apartment suddenly slid open. Every eye in the room turned and locked onto the door, and the pair of ponies who were standing there wearing confused expressions on their faces. I felt my throat tighten as I recognized them as being members of my former herd. There was no doubt in my mind that they’d come here to kill me. However, it seemed that the pair of ponies had not anticipated my place being nearly this crowded when they arrived.

I’d recall later that I gasped in alarm and recoiled away from the door, very nearly huddling beneath the donkey who’d been looming over me earlier. As intimidating as I found her, I knew that she had elected not to end my life. Grinder’s lackeys, on the other hoof, were probably not going to be quite as merciful. I watched as the confusion on the newcomers’ faces at finding a crowd of creatures in the tiny apartment finally gave way to action and weapons began to rise, held aloft within glowing fields of telekinetic magic from their implanted talismans.

Silverhoof was quicker though.

In a singular, fluid motion, the donkey’s right hoof snapped back to her hip and slipped through the grip well of the pistol in her holster. Her limb then flicked out ahead of her, lining up with the chest of the earth pony mare standing on the right side of the doorway. Two twitches of her fetlock set off twin cracks of thunder in my ears. I watched as the mare’s chest exploded beneath the impacts, pitching her lifeless corpse back out into the hallway beyond and crumpling against the far wall. I was barely aware of several scattered cries of shock and surprise from bystanders outside.

The second boosterherd member didn’t fare any better, though they weren’t put down by Jenny. A thrum of sound and flash of brilliant ruby light forced me to wince away. When I looked back, I saw that the unicorn stallion was still standing there, but approximately a third of his head was missing. It was as though something had reached out and simply carved half of their skull out of their head, like running your hoof through soft clay. The portion of the pony’s face which still remained was locked in an expression of shock. Their shotgun clattered to the ground, now that the talisman which had been levitating it no longer existed. His body dropped a heartbeat later.

My eyes were torn from the grizzly sight by movement nearby. Specifically, the diamond dog who was retracting her outstretched arm. The arcanetic limb’s covering was in the process of closing back up around something that I couldn’t identify. Nor was I given an opportunity to ask about what she’d just employed as Jenny shook me off of her hoof.

“We’ll continue discussing this somewhere else,” the donkey announced as she holstered his pistol, not seeming the least bit fazed by the sudden intrusion and ensuing violence. It was like this sort of thing wasn’t the least bit out of the ordinary for her. Or any of the others for that matter.

What kind of rock band was this?!

“Gerry, grab the filly. Barkly, take point.”

The diamond dog grunted an acknowledgement and stepped over to the doorway which was still being propped open by the mostly-headless corpse of the unicorn stallion. She leaned out and peaked down both ways of the corridor beyond. She lifted a paw and motioned for the others to follow.

It was around now that I noticed a set of talons had been firmly―but gently―urging me to rise up onto my hooves. I glanced up to see the griffon standing nearby, a reassuring expression on his face. His emerald eyes betrayed no hint of malice in them. He was here to help me. Still shaken by the recent display of sudden violence, my legs weren’t as stolid as I might have hoped that they’d be, visibly wobbling, but they supported my weight. “You’re safe; don’t worry.”

An odd thing to hear from a creature whom I knew full well had come to this apartment in the first place to execute me because he’d believed―albeitly technically truthfully―that I’d killed a good friend of his. Apparently we’d moved past that now and I was considerably more valuable to them alive. This was, uh…this was going to be an interesting day…

A short while later, I found myself once more sitting upon the plush velvet cushions of the ‘green room’ at the not-so-dilapidated building where the band had been performing last night. Daisy was finishing up delivering everycreature their drinks―I’d opted for just water this time―and was out the door before the band decided that it was time to finally get down to business. Said ‘business’ consisted of extracting everything I knew about what Hash got up to yesterday. I did my absolute best to answer their questions, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be nearly as helpful as they hoped.

The fact was that Hash had kept a lot of the details from me and what little I did know, I didn’t have the foundation of knowledge to fully understand the implications of. I was only now realizing that the reason for that had probably been as much about keeping her affiliation with the band and their clandestine activities a secret from me as it had been about making sure I wouldn’t back out at the first mention of Grinder’s name. I still didn’t know what the crimson stallion had to do with Elysium, but I also figured I wasn’t in any position to ask for details either. I wasn’t part of their group and the moment they were done with me, I was sure I’d be out on my flank on my own again.

“How long was she in their system?” The hippogriff mare asked me.

I shrugged, “I don’t know exactly. Less than thirty minutes, I think. I wasn’t watching the time,” I admitted. “I kind of got distracted when Grinder’s marefriend or whoever showed up in the middle of it. She didn’t notice anything though. At least, I don’t think she did. She didn’t react.”

Jenny was rolling her eyes at my mumbled ramblings and glanced over at her backup nettrotter. “Would that be long enough to get the runes and skim his account?”

“Skimming the gibbies probably took her less than a minute,” the light blue mare said with a dismissive wave of her talons. “That would have been an afterthought on her way out of the system. As for snagging bypass runes?” This time the hippogriff mulled the prospect over in her head for a bit, idly waving her hand in the air. “...Yeah? If she didn’t feel like being gentle about it she could grift ‘em that fast.”

“Grinder knew we’d robbed him,” I offered again, not sure if what I was saying was helpful. “He put a curse on me that lets him track where I’ve been, but I doubt he’s got an eye on me twenty-four-seven just for shits. Something had to have tipped him off and make him check who’d been around his place. Like I said though: the unicorn mare didn’t notice us, I don’t think. Maybe Hash triggered some kind of alarm thing while she was in?”

“Hash isn’t that sloppy,” the hippogriff countered with a firm shake of her head. “Even being reckless, she wouldn’t leave her imprint on anything…” the mare’s words trailed off, as though she were lost in thought. Then she cursed under her breath, earning expectant looks from the others. “The gibbies.

“Hash can hide her trace, but she can’t hide that gryphusbits aren’t in the account they’re supposed to be in anymore,” she elaborated. “If some number-muncher at Elysium noticed, then they would have pretty easily identified Grinder’s access runes being used to make the transfer. No doubt they’d want to hear from him why gibbies are suddenly flowing the wrong way.”

“I thought you said Hash wasn’t sloppy?” The griffon, Gerry, said.

“Normally that wouldn’t be ‘sloppy’,” the hippogriff countered with a shrug. “The whole point of using Grinder’s terminal is that the transfer would have had his hoofrprints all over it. He could tell Elysium that he didn’t access their systems and take their money, but there’d be no way he could explain away his runes being used to initiate the transfer. It’d be his word against the system logs.”

“‘Two-bit boosterherder rips off client’ would hardly be a newsworthy revelation,” the purple unicorn stallion piped up. “Wouldn’t even make the lower-third crawl on a slow news day.”

“He’d have no way to prove anypony else was there to do the transfer,” the hippogriff nodded before sighing and gesturing at my hooves. “Normally.

“Elysium would have been too busy looking at their scumbag rent-collector while we raided them for what we needed.”

I found myself slumping into my seat and sulking once more as it was further reaffirmed that Hash was only dead because of me. The only reason that she’d taken the money from Grinder was so that she could give it to me, and the only reason that she’d had me along in the first place was so that she could hide her charity behind the thin veneer of ‘paid work’ because I was too much of a prideful little shit to accept help from a friend. If not for my involvement, Hash would have gone in there on her own, gotten exactly what she was these guys needed for their mission, and gotten out without Grinder being any the wiser.

But, because I was a loser and a coward, the pegasus had tried to help me out of a tight spot. And now she was dead because of it. I wiped at my eye and tried to hide the sniffle from the others, but it didn’t seem to work. I jerked with surprise as the cushion depressed with the weight of somepony sliding in beside me, a hoof slipping comfortingly over my shoulders. My nostrils tickled at the not-so-subtle aroma of a potent cologne wafting around me.

“There there, love,” the purple unicorn stallion murmured in my ear as he pulled me close to his side. “Dry your tears; Dandy-boy’s got you―”

A forceful clearing of a nearby throat drew both mine and the stallion’s attention to the tiercel sitting across from us. The griffon was glaring daggers into the unicorn beside me. I felt the hoof snaked around my shoulders tighten in a defiant squeeze. “What? Can’t you see this li’le bird’s in pain? I’m just le’in’er know iffin she needs a shoulder to cry on, mine’s always available!” The griffon’s aside glance at a mostly disinterested Silverhoof suggested that the tiercel concerns weren’t assuaged. “Also…if she needs a bed to crash on, mine’s big enough to―”

“Nip it, Dandy,” Jenny finally growled, earning a satisfied nod from the griffon next to her.

“...Nippin’ it,” the stallion relented with a resigned groan, rising off the cushion next to me and returning to where he’d previously been sitting next to the diamond dog. The much larger canine’s lips were spread in a wide grin as she watched the lavender unicorn reseat himself at her side with what seemed like an exaggerated pout.

“Okay,” The donkey said, clearly intent on refocusing the discussion, “so Hash probably snagged the access runes to get us into Elysium’s corporate network. She didn’t drop them off here, although it’s clear she meant to.” I couldn’t meet the glare that she flashed my way. Fortunately, it was not a look that lingered long before she turned her full attention back to the rest of her bandmates. “So, unless Hash dead-dropped them somewhere else…” She let the caveat linger for a moment as she surveyed the faces of the others for their opinions. When it was clear that the other members of the group doubted this was the case either, she continued, “...Then those runes have got to still be with her body.”

“A body that was conspicuously missing from Angelo’s Diner,” Gerry sighed.

“Hash was full of preem arcanetics,” Harriet pointed out. “Grinder’d make some fast gibbies scrapping her for tech.”

“It’s more likely that Elysium wants her so they can confirm if their network’s still secure or not,” Jenny countered. “Either way, we need to get her back, and fast.”

“Something tells me that you don’t intend to knock on the front door and ask politely,” Gerry said with a lopsided smirk at the jenny.

“More like: kick in their front door and knock a few heads around,” the donkey retorted, smacking the pistol holstered on her flank.

“As much fun as ‘storming the castle’ sounds, I’d like to suggest a course of action that won’t get us all zeroed.”

“Grinder’s goons are all chumps!” Silverhoof quipped with a derisive snort, leaving little doubt as to how she felt about the quality of the boosterherd’s members.

“But there's a lotta ‘em,” the diamond dog, Barkly, said in a register that was so low that it felt like it was teetering on the limit of organic hearing ranges. “Incluso idiotas son peligrosos si hay muchos.”

“Barkly’s right; we can’t go in all hot and bothered,” the unicorn stallion spoke up. “I fancy livin’ long enough to break this story, you know?”

Gerry lay a talon on Jenny’s shoulder, gaining the donkey’s attention. “If we knew the layout of the place, exactly where Hash’s body was being kept, and where his goons were, it would be a different story. We’d be able to hit them by surprise and with a tactical advantage. As things stand…” He shook his head.

Jenny looked like she wanted to argue with the griffon just on principle. However, in the end she appeared to accept what he’d said and started to nod her head. Then her eyes landed on me again and she paused, her expression creased with thought.

“...What if we had a mole on the inside?”

At Gerry’s questioning glance, she elaborated, gesturing at me as she did so. “We send her in. Harriet can hex her talismans so they let us scout the place from within. See through her eyes; ping with her personal network. We’ll have the layout of the place and a headcount within minutes. Using that intel, we can storm the place at their weak points. Maybe even get lucky and just need to do a smash-and-grab if Hash’s body is alone.”

“Assuming they don’t just off her the moment they see her at the door…yeah, that could work,” the hippogriff mare agreed.

“Eh, Grinder’s a sick fuck; he’ll want her alive when he’s ripper out her talismans,” Jenny said with a dismissive wave of her hoof in my direction. “Her screams might even mask our approach.”

Ice cold fear gripped my heart again, threatening to stop it from beating any longer with the weight of its dread alone. These creatures were genuinely weighing the merits of serving me up to Grinder so that I could be butchered in order to serve as a distraction for their mission to recover Hash’s body and the access runes likely contained within it. They were doing so with almost casual abandon too, as though my life had absolutely no more value to them than a piece of cheese being used to bait a mousetrap. I felt my hooves starting to tremble again as I listened to the details of my fate being worked out among the bandmates.

Why was it that every time I caught sight of even the faintest glimmer of hope, fate saw fit to snatch it from my grasp at the last minute and once more send me swinging over a pit of despair? First, Hash sent me the gibbies I needed to soothe Grinder’s ire; then it turned out they were Grinder’s gibbies and he knew I’d been involved in their theft. Then Hash came to save me; only for her to die in the attempt. Then Silverhoof and her band rescued me from more of Grinder’s goons at my apartment…

…Only to now consider trussing me up and passing me right into his clutches in order to get them what they really wanted.

Maybe that was actually right and proper, I supposed. This whole mess wouldn’t even exist if not for me. If Hash hadn’t been distracted by my need for help, she’d have gotten Jenny Silverhoof and her group exactly what they wanted without Grinder being any the wiser. Meanwhile, I’d probably already be getting dragged back to the warehouse as we spoke in order to suffer the punishment for flaking out on getting the stallion his gibbies. Looking at it that way, these creatures weren’t ‘sacrificing’ me. They were restoring balance and putting the world back onto its proper track.

Everything would go back to being how it would have if I’d never existed. Just as it should be.

“...I’ll do it.”

A hush descended over the deliberating band members as they all turned to face me. Jenny narrowed her sapphire eyes at me. “What was that?”

“I said: ‘I’ll do it’; I’ll go to the warehouse so you can get what you need to do right by Hash Stack.” My voice didn’t waver nearly as much as I thought it would as I sealed my own fate. I doubted that it was a sign of bravery or anything though. Bravery probably didn’t make you feel numb inside.

The donkey was silent for several seconds and then snorted. “I don’t recall giving you an option, but alright.” She looked over at Harriet. “Hex the filly. We need to move fast on this.”

The hippogriff nodded and slipped off the chaise lounge that she’d been reclining on. She strode past me, gesturing for me to follow her out of the room. I swallowed back the lump of fear in my throat and followed her out with a stilted gait brought about by a numbness in my hooves. I already felt like I was marching towards my own death, and I wasn’t even at the warehouse yet.

She made a motion for me to stop when we got into the corridor outside. The building was a lot quieter without the cheering crowds. Only a few creatures still lingered. It was hard for me to determine whether they were ‘staff’ or just groupies who didn’t feel like stumbling their way home quite yet. “Turn your head,” Harriet said, motioning to my left.

I did as I was told and looked to the side, presenting the ports recessed in my neck to the nettrotter. I heard her extract her link cable from her forelimb and winced as I felt pressure and a slight pinch just behind my jaw. “First things first…” The mare murmured under her breath as she got to work. I saw notifications warning me that my personal network was being intruded upon by an outside entity. Too much information was flickering in front of me to properly comprehend, but I did catch one alert which flashed in front of my eyes in glowing golden letters:

CUT13M4P.HEX DISPELLED

“Pfft, fucking runekitty garbage,” the mare snorted derisively as she continued to work. “I hate seeing programers who don’t take pride in their work.” A moment later I was presented with a similar alert, but this time in brilliant scarlet lettering, accompanied by an appropriately foreboding auditory chime:

WARNING! UNLICENSED CHARM DETECTED: ALLYOURBASE.HEX

PLEASE CALL FF.INC SUPPORT FOR ASSISTANCE! NOW ONLY $10GB/MIN!

A few additional lines of information flickered by afterward, but these too were too fast for me to fully process. There’d been mention of “superuser accounts” and “permissions”, but the prompts were closed out before I could glean any details. Then, without warning the illusions blinked out completely, only to reassert themselves a heartbeat later in accordance with a fresh casting. The hippogriff’s silver eyes shimmered briefly. “Good feed…we’re all set.” She disengaged her link from the port on my neck and took a step back. I gently massaged the access port to soothe the irritation I was feeling. The excessive magic at play had caused a slight burning sensation, but it was fading away quickly.

Harriet waved her hand in front of the panel beside the door leading back into the green room and it obediently slid open. “The filly’s runed up. Ready to go when you are, Jenny.”

I heard movement from within as the other four members of the band rose out of their seats and made their way out. “Good. Let’s head out,” the donkey said, barely even acknowledging my presence as she brushed past me. We didn’t head to the exit immediately, instead swinging by another secured room on our way out. This turned out to be an armory of some sort. At least, that was the best way I had to describe a repurposed janitor’s closet whose walls were packed from floor to ceiling with guns.

Jenny herself didn’t pick out anything, appearing to be perfectly satisfied with the chrome-finished pistol holstered on her flank. The others, however, all grabbed a pistol and at least one other firearm. Except for Barkly, who slung no fewer than four weapons on her body, in addition to the pistol tucked behind her back and the artillery piece masquerading as a ‘shotgun’ that she held in her paws.

Seriously, what kind of ‘rock band’ was this anyway?!

Jenny bucked me none-to-gently on my hind end, putting an end to my gawking as I stumbled forward until I caught my balance again. “Move it.”

I glared briefly at the donkey, but I wasn’t able to hold the look for long when confronted with her own potent stare. Her demeanor left little doubt that she was indeed a jenny you didn’t fuck with. The expression she cultivated would probably have made Grinder pause if he was confronted with her face-to-face. She sure wasn’t going to be intimidated by the likes of me. So I bit back any smart remark that I might have been tempted to utter and just headed for the same rear entrance I’d used last night.

There weren’t any lookouts this time, I noticed as we left the building and turned down the road. Jenny took the lead, with the griffon walking at her side. They were talking about something, but I couldn’t make it out from here. Behind me, I saw the diamond dog and hippogriff watching over the group’s rear. That purple unicorn stallion was walking beside me.

“Don’t take it personal,” he whispered in my ear.

I glanced over at him. “What?”

“Jenny,” Dandy clarified, “how she’s bein’ right now. It’s nothin’ personal. Hash was a nova mare. We all loved her. Her death…” the stallion’s features clouded briefly before he sighed and did his best to reattach a smile to his face again. “It hit us hard, y’know?

“We’re gonna do right by her though,” he assured me, “and we ain’t gonna leave your flank hangin’ in the breeze neither. I can promise you that!” He reached out and drew me in briefly to his side with a hoof for a quick hug…that wasn’t quite so ‘quick’. His cologne started to tickle my nose again and I shrugged him off me, eying the vest he was wearing―and its cluster of cutie mark patches―with a slightly wary expression.

“...I appreciate that, I guess.” I didn’t believe him, of course; and not just because he struck me as a rake who would tell any mare nice things on the off chance he’d get to add a new conquest to his collection. Frankly, I felt like any of them would tell me whatever they thought it would take to make sure I didn’t back out of this at the last moment. So far they hadn’t resorted to coercive threats, but I highly doubted those were completely off the table as a means to get me to cooperate if I balked at any point.

I was responsible for the death of their close friend. It didn’t get much more ‘personal’ than that, did it? At least Jenny was doing me the courtesy of wearing her disdain for me on her sleeve, and not hiding it in order to manipulate the ‘scared little filly’ into doing what they needed me to.

Not that I needed them to. I meant what I’d said in there: I was going to help. I fucked up Hash’s plan and got her killed. Fixing it was the least I could do for her, even if it did get me killed. And if my death helped to take down Grinder in the process, all the better.

The rest of the group lingered just out of sight when the warehouse finally came into view in the predawn light. I continued on, of course. Jenny’s parting instructions echoed over and over again in my head: Get into the warehouse as deep as I could. Get eyes on everything, and everycreature, that I could. Try not to die too quickly.

That last instruction had been…well, let’s just say it was less than encouraging.

I shook the thought from my head and let out a long, ragged, breath. It didn’t really do all that much to settle my nerves, which proceeded to ratchet up to even higher levels of anxiety when the lookout at the warehouse’s main entrance finally noticed me. The rifle floating in the grip of their telekinesis leveled at me, prompting me to freeze in my tracks. I briefly wondered if I was going to die before even managing to get through the door.

It seemed that was not to be the method of my execution, however. As much of a mixed blessing as that might be. I saw the unicorn mare on lookout move her lips as she spoke to somepony else via clairaudience. More than likely Grinder. She received an answer and lowered her weapon, motioning for me to continue. I saw the look of bewilderment on her face as I passed her. Like she was trying to understand what could possibly have possessed me to actually come here, having to know full well that there was no way in Luna’s starry sky that I would be leaving again.

In accordance with my instructions, I started looking around as soon as I stepped through the door. It probably didn’t even look all that suspicious, honestly. Now when I started hearing the raucous laughter and jeers being projected in my direction. “Dead mare walking!” “They’re gonna eat well in Santo Dingo tonight!” “Dibs on her legs; I could use an upgrade!” “Do we have to kill her right away, or can we hex her into being a joy-toy for a few days first?”

As I glanced around, I noticed a tiny little box appear in the upper left corner of my vision and then start to scroll with lines of incomprehensible text. A few seconds later, I saw everycreature within view take on a soft crimson glow. In fact, I could see the glowing silhouettes of creatures that weren’t within line of sight, as they lounged and chatted on the far sides of crates and containers. My eyes lingered on some of the silhouettes in confusion for a brief moment, until I realized that I was likely experiencing some sort of spell or cantrip that Harriet was casting through my implanted talisman as a result of the curse she’d infected me with.

It was working. I was getting Jenny and the others what they’d need.

I’d almost lost my nerve by the time I rounded the final shipping container and found myself looking into the grinning face of a familiar earth pony stallion. I froze in my tracks. It wasn’t the sight of the sadistic glint in Grinder’s golden eyes that drew me up short though. No. My attention wasn’t even on the boosterherd leader anymore. Instead, my gaze was locked onto the body behind him.

Even as I stared at it, I noticed more of Harriet’s handiwork at play. A cantrip was cast through me which appeared to evaluate the body of the suspended pegasus. Not that I needed a scrying spell to tell me what was plain to see: It was Hash Stack. I didn’t even notice the flicker of an alert mentioning the presence of a storage crystal still plugged into one of her shard slots before my vision was obscured by threatening tears.

My legs started to tremble once again. It wasn’t fear this time though.

It was rage.

He had Hash strung up like a side of beef, a hook pierced through one of her hind cannons. Her torso was perforated with several dozen more holes than there had been when I’d left her earlier that night, making it look like somecreature had been using her for target practice, just for the sake of mutilating her body. Movement nearby drew my gaze from the abused carcass, landing on the familiar automatic pistol I’d snagged from Grinder’s apartment. It had been reunited with its owner, and was now floating near the stallion. As I watched, the weapon turned and fired another shot blindly into Hash’s lifeless body. A fresh hole was blown through my friend, setting her body slowly spinning on its hook as it started to sway.

“No wonder you sent a couple of these donks to my place to kill me; you’re not mare enough to shoot live targets.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

I’ll never know what possessed me to antagonize Grinder like that. I wasn’t even aware that I was talking until the words were already out of my mouth and the stallion’s expression shifted from a look of satisfaction to a baleful glare of unbridled fury. What was perhaps more surprising to me was that I managed to not flinch away as the ruby red earth pony descended upon me. I did flinch when the barrel of his gun was shoved under my chin though, forcing my head up until I was looking him dead in the eyes. I wasn’t going to give this piece of shit the satisfaction of seeing me cower though. Not anymore.

He could do whatever he wanted to me. I’d made my bed with this stallion already. Not Hash though. He didn’t get to desecrate her like that. Not while I still drew breath. I’d already failed her too many times tonight, by giving up her name, by bringing her into that trap, and by blocking her shot. It was my fault she was dead in so many ways. I’d never be able to make up for that, but I was also through with failing her―even if it was too little too late.

I just didn’t care anymore. The fear was gone, burned away by my indignant hatred for what Grinder was doing to my friend’s body. I was a dead pony no matter what. Grinder couldn’t hold his threats over me anymore. Plus, knowing that Jenny and the rest of the Hussars were waiting just around the corner to finally end this stallion’s miserable life filled me with a sense of calm. Grinder was going to get his, and I would have a hoof in it. I might be dead in the next thirty seconds and not get to actually see him finally bite it, but I’d still have the last laugh, in my own way.

“What did you say to me, cunt?” Grinder’s feted breath wafted over me from between his clenched teeth, his snarled words implying that there was a ‘correct’ answer to his question.

Me, being the uneducated little filly that I was, didn’t have any problem giving him the ‘wrong’ one. “I said: you’re not mare enough to kill anymore. You don’t have the balls for it.” The stallion’s eyes widened in shocked surprise when I didn’t cower like I was supposed to. He also didn’t blow my brains out right away, so I continued. “Did they fall out of your rancid little sack all on their own, or did your skanky input over there suck ‘em out of ya?” I jerked my head in the direction of the unicorn mare from his apartment, who was also looking a little taken aback by my sudden growth of a spine.

“Twice tonight you’ve wanted mares dead, but you didn’t go yourself,” I pointed out, forcing an increase in volume into my words so that other members of the herd could hear my scathing indictment of our leader. “Meanwhile, everycreature you sent out tonight got zeroed. I think you didn’t go yourself because you knew that, if you did, you’d just get flatlined too.

“I helped frag eight of these donks.” That was a blatant lie, of course. I’d only gotten the one hippogriff. However, there was no way that Grinder could know any different. He might not know what happened at Hash’s apartment, but he had to realize that the pair he’d sent there had clearly failed to kill me and were almost certainly dead themselves. “Now ask yourself why I came down here tonight, if not to finish the job?”

It was brief―little more than a flicker that lasted for barely a heartbeat―but I had the satisfaction of seeing fear in that stallion’s beady yellow eyes. Every word I’d said might have been so much vaporware, but Grinder couldn’t know that. Not really. He’d seen the results of Hash’s handiwork though, and I was still standing in spite of the team he’d sent to gank me in my sleep. For just a moment, he’d wondered if perhaps he hadn’t actually managed to underestimate me after all this time. Just for a moment…and then it was gone; but that was enough for me. I’d managed to actually intimidate Grinder, of all ponies. Me!

That seemed like a pretty good note to go out on.

Grinder’s hit sent me rolling across the floor. The right side of my face felt like it was on fire. I groaned and started to roll over and get back up onto my hooves, but then another hoof connected hard against my gut. I couldn’t contain the cry of pain as I curled in around my belly protectively, coughing and sputtering as my diaphragm spasmed. Another pained cry escaped my lips as I felt a hoof come down on my hip like a pneumatic piston. I felt something shift beneath my flesh, sending waves of nausea through my body along with the pain. Something pretty substantial was broken down there, I wagered.

“How’s this for ‘mare enough’, huh?!” Grinder shouted at the top of his lungs as his hooves continued to pummel my body. My limbs tried feebly to deflect the blows, but it was a futile effort. I wasn’t actually any kind of fighter, and not all of my legs were working properly anymore. “Not going to be talking so tough without any teeth, you little fucking bitch!”

A hoof came down on my jaw this time, and again I felt something give way. The pain was so intense that the fiery sensation in my muzzle actually looped right back around to feeling numb. It was at least dislocated, but more than likely broken entirely.

Mercifully, the beating paused shortly after that hit, leaving me free to moan and stiffly writhe on the warehouse floor in agony. I forced my eyes open so that I could glare up at the earth pony one more time before the end came. I wanted to burn the image of him into my mind, knowing that he’d be following close behind me when the others got through with him.

Grinder snorted as he leered over me, his lips curled up into a satisfied smirk. He had me where he liked to see me: whimpering in pain at his hooves. Fine. He’d get to enjoy this moment, but only because he was ignorant of what was coming for him. That thought managed to get an amused little chortle of my own out through my shattered muzzle and bloodied lips. The sight of me laughing, even as feebly as I was, in spite of what he’d done to me, wiped that smug look right off the stallion’s face.

He bent down, bringing his face up close to mine. I caught sight of the gaggle of other assorted creatures who were gathering around us; an audience coming in to watch the climax of the night’s entertainment. As my eyes lingered on them though, I noticed that the soft ruby haze covering a few of them began to refine into a yellow color…and then a blue one. The word ‘LOCKED’ appeared above the heads of those sapphire-silhouetted creatures.

My vision was once more dominated by the crimson stallion’s face. “I’m going to enjoy beating that defiance out of you, Pel. Me and the herd, we’re going to enjoy doing a lot of things to you…” His lip curled up into a predatory sneer. To his credit, that threat did have the desired effect of filling me with dread at the prospect of the implications. He started to chuckle when he saw that he finally got to me.

It was a short-lived thing though, and the sound of his mirth was soon drowned out by the jingle of breaking glass raining down on the warehouse’s concrete floor. Heads turned in all directions, as the unexpected noise had indeed come from all directions. On my illusionary HUD, I saw a couple of icons depicting round objects rolling along the floor. Then my vision went suddenly dark.

For one terrible heartbeat, I believed that I’d died. There was no sound, and I was enveloped by blackness all around me. No matter which way I turned my head, I couldn’t see anything. However, I was still able to feel the cold concrete floor below me, and I was certainly still in a lot of pain, so it was at least possible that I wasn’t actually dead.

Then my sight returned just as suddenly as it had vanished. Though I was sure that it had been gone for only a second or two, I was greeted by a very different vision of the warehouse than I’d been looking at only a moment earlier. Grinder was no longer crouched over me. Instead, he was staggering around, blinking furiously with a hoof over his ear, as were the other creatures that I could see. One diamond dog nearby who had one of the curious ‘LOCKED’ identifiers still floating over his head was vigorously rubbing at his eyes as though they’d been suddenly filled with sand. He’d occasionally blink and look around, but his glowing green eyes were unfocused and didn’t seem to actually register anything.

Not that it seemed to matter for all that much longer, apparently. I gaped in wide-eyed astonishment as a trio of holes burst out of his chest in a spray of blood and bone.

He wasn’t the only one either. One after another, in quick succession, every creature who carried with them the fateful word hovering over their head was struck―seemingly out of nowhere―with exactly three rounds, hitting them in either the chest or the back depending on which way they were facing. Grinder caught sight of the carnage as well, staring in shock as the better part of a dozen members of his herd were cut down from an unknown source.

“Weer unner ‘tack! Gennu Coveh!” The stallion’s words sounded slurred, and I briefly thought it was a problem with my own hearing. However, I soon realized that it was actually Grinder who was having trouble hearing what was going on. He wasn’t alone either, it looked like. Nocreature around him looked like they were acknowledging anything he was saying. Though many of them at least seemed to understand that something was terribly wrong.

My ears were working just fine though, and so I was drawn to the sound of more shattering glass behind me. I glanced up in time to see Gerry and Harriet gliding in to perch atop a high stack of crates. The hippogriff was just finishing up loading a fresh magazine into the underside of a very expensive looking assault rifle. Once she was finished, she leveled the weapon down at the crowd of disoriented boosterherders and started squeezing off bursts of bullets that I swore would arc through the air in order to specifically impact dead center in a creature’s torso. Beside her, the griffon tiercel sat up on his haunches, as he shouldered a submachine gun and sprayed down onto the unwitting creatures below.

I saw off to the side that not every member of the herd was quite as disoriented as their fellows. One pegasus mare seemed to have shaken off whatever was affecting the others relatively quickly and noticed the pair of feathered chimeras slaughtering her comrades. She lifted an automatic weapon of her own and took aim. Neither band member seemed to have noticed her yet. I tried to call out a warning, but what came out of my shattered jaw didn’t come close to what could even charitably be characterized as ‘words’; nor could those pitiful sounds I was making overcome the sound of gunfire erupting by their ears. Changing tacks, I desperately tried to cast a clairaudience cantrip to reach out to Harriet.

However, before I could do so, the pegasus mare was unceremoniously bowled over by a familiar looking heavily armed diamond dog, sending the floating assault rifle clattering to the ground right along with her. She struggled up onto her forelegs, wearing an annoyed scowl that suggested she believed one of her more senseless associates had bumbled into her. She whipped her head around to curse them out, only to find her muzzle nearly touching the business end of a shotgun. The expression of surprise on her face lasted for just a moment, and then it was gone.

And her whole head right along with it.

Barkly walked right over the defaced pegasus corpse without missing a beat, manipulating the pump-action of her weapon and sending out another tightly-pack bundle of pellets into the chest of a batpony who stumbled into her line of fire. The leathery-winged stallion was pitched backwards, collapsing to the ground in a bloody heap of viscera and gore.

My attention was drawn once more to Grinder, as the stunned stallion stumbled around in awe of the carnage being unleashed upon his herd. It was impossible to track every death as it happened, with the assault seeming to come from every angle. I couldn’t see Dandy or Jenny yet, but I knew that I was seeing members of the herd drop dead in conjunction with loud claps of single gunshots, so I suspected that a rifle was perched somewhere that was slowly whittling down their numbers even further.

It was a second later that I deduced that it was the purple unicorn wielding the sniper rifle. Because Jenny Silverhoof was currently strutting in through the front door, methodically making her way through the warehouse on three limbs while her distinctive-looking pistol was clutched in the fourth, leveled straight out ahead of her. Her fetlock twitched and the weapon fired. Grinder screamed out in pain from in front of me as his hind end dropped out from under him, a sputtering stump of metal and gems dragging along the ground where I could have sworn his right hind leg had been only a moment ago.

The earth pony’s cry of pain morphed into a snarl of rage as he wheeled on the approaching donkey, the pistol held in his talisman’s magical grip floated in line beside him, aiming at the jenny. She didn’t flinch away. A second twitch of her hoof cracked off another shot and Grinder’s weapon exploded into a mist of sparks and steel. The stallion cried out once more in shock as he was forced to recoil away from his shattered pistol, the side of his face bleeding from where slivers of shrapnel had embedded themselves. A third shot rang out and he collapsed to the ground as his left foreleg was sheared off at the hoof. Shot after shot thundered through the din of the melee raging around them as Silverhoof’s pistol chipped away at the heavily augmented stallion.

All the while, Jenny never broke her stride. On occasion, she would snap her leg out in the direction of a foolhardy boosterherd member who thought to interject themselves into what had the feeling of a nominally ‘private’ confrontation between her and their leader. A flick of her hoof punished them severely for the affront.

Then she’d take another piece out of Grinder’s hide.

By the time Jenny was standing over the earth pony’s ravaged body, the sounds of gunfire had ceased. Barkly and Harriet scanned the surroundings for signs of any additional survivors, but their posture suggested to me that all they could detect any longer were bodies. Indeed, that felt like all I could see too.

Credit where it was due, even as beaten as he knew he was, Grinder managed to maintain a defiant expression as he glared up at the rockerfilly who was towering over him. Severed limbs twitched and sparked, but would be of no help to him. Silverhoof had him dead to rights, but he didn’t cower. “Do you have any idea who you’re fucking with, bitch? I’ve got powerful friends, and they’re going to make you pay for this, you stupid donk!”

Without taking her eyes off the stallion, Jenny snapped her hoof off to the right and fired off a shot. I gaped as the steel hook which held Hash Stack’s body was shattered by the round her pistol fired. The pegasus mare’s defieled body did not drop far, however. Gerry was already standing beneath her and was able to smoothly collect the falling Hash into his arms. He gently lowered the body the rest of the way to the ground and laid her on the floor, his sad eyes lingering on the face of his departed friend, which was mercifully still mostly unblemished despite the mutilations that Grinder had inflicted on the rest of her corpse.

Silverhoof brought the weapon back in close as she let her haunches sink to the floor. Her arcanetic hoof reached up and slapped the side of the weapon, forcefully ejecting the pistol’s spent magazine, which bounced off the side of Grinder’s face, making the stallion flinch away reflexively. The donkey spun the pistol around nimbly with her organic hoof as she flicked it back to her side. I heard a gentle ‘click’ and then the weapon emerged once more into sight, a fresh cartridge of ammunition loaded in place.

“I know exactly who your ‘friends’ are,” Jenny said dryly, regarding the stallion with the same level of contempt which one would typically show to a smear of shit they found on the bottom of their hoof, “and I’m going to be visiting them really soon. I’d ask you to let them know we’re dropping by―” The pistol licked out once more, the end of the barrel hovering mere inches from the earth pony’s face.

Her fetlock twitched.

“―but you won’t be available.”

Jenny spent several more seconds staring into the smoldering hole she had just created in the middle of Grinder’s forehead before she turned her attention towards Gerry. Harriet had joined him now too and was carefully extracting a sliver of amethyst from the side of Hash’s neck. The hippogriff inserted the shard into one of her own slots. Her eyes unfocused for a few seconds before she met Jenny’s questioning gaze and nodded. “This is it; we have Elysium’s access runes.”

The donkey nodded silently. She stood up, turning away from Grinder and closing the distance to where Hash’s body had been laid out. I watched her kneel down beside the pegasus mare and reach out with a hoof, running it gently through the bloody strands of her neon green mane. She let out a ragged sigh and I thought I saw her shoulders quiver for a moment. Then that moment seemed to pass and the donkey stood up, turning away from the sight. Gerry wordlessly watched their band’s lead singer walk away for a short while before once more taking Hash up into his arms. While retrieving the shard might have been the primary goal for this impromptu operation, it was clear that ensuring Hash’s remains were disposed of in a properly dignified fashion was not entirely a ‘secondary’ concern for them.

My view was obstructed by a set of purple hooves slowly stepping past me. I glanced up to see Dandy, a sniper rifle slung across his back, slowly wandering around the warehouse’s interior. Hovering in front of him, clutched in his talisman’s telekinesis, was a video camera. His features were creased in concentration as he regarded the screen, letting the lens of the camera linger on the various bodies of the slain boosterherd members. He eventually noticed my uncomprehending stare and shrugged. “B-roll,” he said, as though that was supposed to mean anything to me.

Then the unicorn stallion did a double-take, as though he was just noticing how bad of a shape I was in. “Whoa! You’re a li’le worse for the wear, ain’t ya? Still alive though; good on ya!” He briefly looked between the camera and me, clearly debating which was a higher priority. I won out in the end, but his barely hidden sigh suggested that the contest had been a close one.

Mares really slept with this stallion? Willingly? Soberly? Maybe not the last one, I hypothesized…

Dandy’s talisman lit with fresh magic as he pulled out an aerosol container and floated it over to me. I managed to focus through the pain onto my own talisman and grasp the offered medication, bringing it to my lips and inhaling deeply of the draught’s contents. I felt the pain lessen almost immediately. My jaw still moved awkwardly, and not in every direction I wanted it to go, and I dreaded the prospect of trying to move my broken hind leg, but it was still a great relief all the same.

“Ank ‘eww,” I managed to mumble.

“Think nothing of it,” the unicorn grinned down at me. Sweet Celestia, he was actually proud of himself. “Barkly? Cleanup on aisle five!” He called over to the diamond dog bassist.

I became aware of something large hulking over me and looked up to see that Barkly was standing at my side, smiling down at me. She slung her shotgun behind her back and reached out for me. I’ll admit, I definitely shied away from her a little. She cut quite the intimidating figure, and the claws at the end of her fingers looked very sharp. I certainly wasn’t prepared for how gentle her grip could be as the massive canine scooped me up in her arms, even taking care to be mindful of my mangled leg.

“Anks,” I said as she brought me close to her chest.

The massive diamond dog chuckled. “No problem, chica.” I could feel the words rumbling through me from her chest. How many packs of cigarettes did a creature need to smoke to get a voice that deep, I wondered? Or did she use cigars?

Jenny walked by, pausing long enough to look up at me. It was hard to read her expression exactly, but I didn’t see any malice there. So that seemed like progress. She glanced behind her, leading me to follow the direction of her gaze. Gerry had apparently managed to find a plastic tarp and had used it to wrap Hash’s body, reverently cradling the precious blue bundle in his arms as he balanced on his hind paws.

“We’ll hit up Doc Shade’s,” Jenny declared. “Then we’ll get some sleep and figure out a plan for Elysium.”

Her piercing sapphire eyes once more found their way back to me. I felt my chest tighten slightly as her gaze began to feel like it was drilling into my very soul. Finally, she seemed to come to some sort of decision that I’d been unaware of and turned to the purple unicorn who’d gone back to filming with his camera. “Dandy, go to Hash’s place and pack everything up. Move it into the loft.” Her eyes made another flicker of movement in my direction before returning to the stallion. “All of it.”

Jenny turned away and headed for the exit. Gerry and Harreit followed soberly in her wake. I heard the diamond dog holding me chuckle deep in her chest just before a massive paw reached up and ruffled my mane with surprising gentleness that belied her size and power. “Welcome to the team,mi pequeño poni!”

Author's Note

Thank you so much for reading! As always, a thumbs up and comment are always greatly appreciated

I've set up a Cover Art Fund if you're interested and have any bits lying around!