The Last of Equestria: New Beginnings

A gust of wind rolls in through the broken windows of the old Garden Street Diner. The old bells attached to the front door- left ajar- jingle and clank against one another. Dirt, grime and various dark stains cover the black-and-white checkered floors. Grass and weeds are growing through several of the cracks and grout lines between the tiles. Thick layers of dust have settled over every surface available. Chairs, tables, counters, napkin holders, even abandoned bottles of condiments. The entire place is in a serious state of disrepair.

At first glance, the diner appears to be just simply abandoned. Looking closer, however, the state of the diner tells a chilling story. Although the diner is a part of the Canterlot QZ, the long-dried blood on various spots of the floor indicate the places where a few unfortunate souls had been attacked by infected and likely died. Many vinyl bar stools and diner chairs are knocked over from where many had fled during the attack in the early days of the apocalypse. According to Sapphire, the Garden Street Diner was once outside of the Wall before MEDRA expanded the Zone at some point before my arrival.

I look over at Sapphire, who had crawled into one of the booths near the door and is now pressed up against the window and peering out at the music store across the street with her binoculars. She holds her pistol in her mouth as she spies on the music store as we patiently wait for Ocean Breeze and her team to arrive. I roll my neck and then sigh loudly, my patience starting to grow thin.

“For somepony who made it sound so urgent, she sure is taking her sweet ass time,” I say as I kick a bottle of mustard left lying on the ground.

It skitters across the floor, crashes into a booth bench and then rolls away until it stops near an overturned bar stool.

“Mmhm,” Sapphire hums.

Sapphire holds her binoculars with one hoof as she grabs her pistol with the other and places it on the table.

“I guess when you’re Canterlot’s Most Wanted, you move a little more slower and cautiously through the city,” Sapphire says with a shrug.

“I suppose,” I reluctantly agree.

“There! Finally!” Sapphire exclaims as she lowers her binoculars.

“They’re in the music store?” I ask as I step closer to the table she sits at.

“No, they’re in the barber shop,” Sapphire says sarcastically as she rolls her eyes “yes, they’re in the music store. She just gave me the signal indicating they’re there.”

“We walking or am I teleporting us over there?” I ask as I also roll my eyes.

“Well, it would minimize the chances that Cobalt might see us, so… yeah, teleport us over there,” Sapphire replies.

“Alright, one sec. You might want to stand up, though,” I say before trotting over to the door.

Sapphire shoves her binoculars into her bag and grabs her pistol with her mouth. She scrambles to get out of the booth as I open the door all the way and silence the bells with my magic. I step outside and get a good look at the alleyway next to the music store. Sapphire is at the edge of the booth bench and moments away from getting out when a sudden flash of dark magenta light envelopes us and whisks us away from the diner. We appear just outside of the busted out windows of the music store that face the alley. Sapphire yelps in surprise as she falls straight onto her ass and then onto her side.

She growls angrily as she stands up and dusts herself before holstering her pistol. Sapphire glares at me and doesn't break eye contact as she walks up to the window and climbs through it. I smile smugly at her as I follow after and climb through the window. We trot past shelves of haphazardly placed and long forgotten cassessets, records and CDs as well as various musical electronics and accessories. Sapphire and I meet Ocean Breeze over by the checkout corner in the back-middle of the store. She certainly wasn’t kidding when she said she would bring a small team.

Besides Ocean Breeze, there are two stallions, a mare and female hippogriff. A total of five pathetic pests and all of them are armed considerably well. One stallion is an older unicorn while the other appears younger but instead is a pegasus. The mare with them is also an unicorn and looks to be around the pegasus’ age. As for the hippogriff, she looks rather young but I’ve never been very good at guessing the ages of hippogriffs and griffons. Not that I’ve needed to have the ability to do so. I truly could care less.

“I’m sorry you had to wait. We had to go the long way around. Too many soldiers on the normal route,” Ocean Breeze says apologetically.

“You’re here now. Let’s get this show on the road before MEDRA comes sniffing this way,” Sapphire says as she gestures to the door with her head.

“Right. I know Rapid Punch and his gaggle of misfits hang out at the bar just down the road from,” Ocean Breeze says “Ophelia, Dazzle Spark and I will start there and push our way to Sew-And-So’s.”

Ocean gestures to the unicorn mare and the hippogriff as she informs us of her plan. She gestures to the stallions- who she refers to as Kite Winds and Neighthaniel- and informs us that they will secure Sew-And-So’s. Sapphire simply informs Ocean that we’ll take care of the office and that we’ll meet back up with her afterwards. Ocean Breeze and her bug-lings exit the music store through its back entrance and promptly disappear. I look over at Sapphire, who looks over at me at the same time. She smirks, does a half bow and gestures for me to lead the way.

With me in front, we exit the music store through the windows opposite of the ones that we came in through. I lead us to the edge of the neighboring building between Bolderoll Studios- the music store- and Goldstone Global, the office building. I cautiously peer around the corner and look around. I see absolutely no one nor any signs of 'sentries’ guarding the street. I snake around the corner- still hugging the in-between building- and carefully make my way to Goldstone Global.

We approach the black-bricked, two story building and preemptively drop into a crouched position. I peek in through the massive glass windows in the front and see zero signs of Cobalt Blue or his scummy henchmen. Sapphire and I ease up to the revolving front door and ease our way inside. Sapphire goes off to my left and takes cover preemptively behind a black pleather couch in the lobby. I follow her lead and take cover behind a different couch a few feet away. Although it’s been long abandoned like numerous other buildings, the office building of Goldstone Global still retains the elegance and class it had before the apocalypse.

Before it all went to hell, I had never even heard of Goldstone Global, so I’m not entirely sure what kind of business was done here. Whatever it was, it clearly brought in enough money and investors to make this place high class- even for a place like Canterlot. Dark, rich wooden counters, marble countertops and floors, high quality pleather furniture, fancy, intricate rugs, glass tables, gold and silver chandeliers with diamond festoons and floor-to-ceiling windows in the middle of the room, among other things. All this in just the lobby area. I feel poor just existing in this place.

Sapphire makes a ‘psst’ noise to catch my attention. I look over at her and mouth ‘what’ as I furrow my eyebrows.

‘Why .. .. so empty .. here?’ Sapphire mouths.

‘What?’ I mouth back ‘you know I can’t read lips good.’
‘Why. Is. There. No-pony. Here? It. Is. Too. Quiet.’ Sapphire mouths much more slowly than before.
‘How the fuck should I know? Maybe they’re all at the bar?’ I mouth back.

Sapphire shakes her head and facehoofs before mouthing something I can’t make out at all. I roll my eyes at her before raising up just enough to peer over the couch. I take in a deep breath and hold it as I pour all my concentration into listening to our surroundings. I don’t hear anything at all, not even hooves clopping against the floor or faint voices having a conversation. By all appearances, the first floor is empty, completely devoid of any of Cobalt’s goons. I let out the breath I had been holding, then- as quietly as I can- stand up and walk to the middle of the room.

I look around for something to throw and spot a half-drank bottle of Rowdy Colt IPA branded beer. I pick it up, pour out the remaining liquid onto the floor and then chuck it as far as I can. The bottle sails across the room and shatters on impact with the floor. I unholster my revolver as a precaution and listen carefully. I expect the sound of yelling and hooves galloping across the marble floor, but instead, I’m met with a continuous silence. It’s suspiciously quiet in here. Even if some of his goons had left to party at the bar, Cobalt wouldn’t leave the first floor entirely unguarded.

We’ve had the unfortunate displeasure of knowing Cobalt for a few years. He does a lot of stupid, annoying shit, but I will give credit where credit is due. He’s sly and cunning, a master at taking advantage of every opportunity he can get his grubby hooves on and making it work for him. He’s greedy, insufferable and- overall- a sexist little weasel who thinks with the wrong head when it comes to matters outside of ‘business’. In other words, something isn’t right here. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it’s too early to tell if we should be worried or thankful.

Knowing Sapphire is watching my every move, I gesture for her to follow me as I make my way to the otherside of the lobby. A set of elevators face the lobby, but are completely inoperable thanks to the hydraulic door blockers installed by MEDRA. This side of the lobby branches off to the left and right, with the right side ending in a dead end where the public bathrooms are located. Our only real option is to proceed left until we find the stairwell leading up to the second floor

I wait for Sapphire to catch up before leading us down the left hall. We continue to see and hear absolutely zero trace of anypony on this floor. It’s like everypony just vanished or something. We can hear faint shouting and gunfire as Ocean’s team fulfills their end of the bargain. I find the stairwell a shortways down from the elevators and open the door, which creaks as I do. I hold the door open for Sapphire using my magic as I quietly climb the black metallic stairs. I stop on the landing outside the metal door to the second floor and look back at Sapphire, who merely nods at me to continue.

I open the door and cautiously peer out into the hall. It’s just as quiet as the first floor and equal in the fact there is no sign of anypony ever even being here. I lower myself down just a bit as I slink into the hallway and make my way down to the left. We come across a bunch of cubicles and pause. The only way to get to the other side of the hallway to get to Cobalt’s office is by going through them. Although we see no signs of any of his underlings, there’s a possibility that they could’ve boobytrapped these cubicles. Then again, perhaps I'm giving these idiots more credit than they deserve.

With more caution than before, I wind my way through the maze of cubicles in order to avoid anything that looks like it could be a trap. Perhaps I’m being overly cautious, but Cobalt can be very unpredictable, especially in times of duress. I make it to the ‘end’ of this self-made maze and look around some more, starting on my right. As my gaze sweeps the area, I notice a big puddle of blood gathering in the middle of the hall. By the looks of it, the puddle is fresh. Probably no more than an hour old, if even that.

Against my better judgment, I go over to the puddle to see if I can find the source of it. I can just barely see something reflecting in the puddle, but there isn’t enough light for me to make it out enough to be able to tell for sure what it is. I flinch slightly as something warm and wet drips onto my cheek. I reach up and wipe the mysterious liquid from my face and look down at my hoof. It’s… blood? I look up at the ceiling and jump back a bit in pure shock.

“Holy shit,” I mumble as I stare at the sight before me.

“Well… that explains why it’s been so quiet,” Sapphire says quietly “if we didn’t do this and neither did the Fireflies… then who did?”

“I guess we’ll find out soon, won’t we?” I ask.

“I guess so,” Sapphire replies.

Pinned to the ceiling with what looks to be the detached metal legs from an office chair is a stallion with a look of pure terror plastered onto his pale, dead face. The legs of the office chair are stabbed through his head, his forelegs and his torso. Sapphire taps on my shoulder and gestures to the carnage down the hall on the left side, where I hadn’t yet looked. Corpses litter the hall, blood everywhere from the ceiling to the floor. It’s a downright massacre, not just your average, casual office bloodbath. It’s what we came here to do, though, but somepony has clearly beaten us to the punch.

Judging by how some of these assholes have died, whoever did it was- and likely still is- very, very angry. A lot of malice and thought went into this slaughterfest, more than what Sapphire and I would’ve given. Not only is this pony angry, but they’re smart. The messages are loud and clear; “They fucked me over and paid the price. Don’t underestimate me. Leave before this happens to you, too”. So I assume, anyway. When you spend years alone and miserable, you get pretty good at overthinking shit.

There’s probably enough blood on this floor to paint an entire house and enough bodies to keep a cannibal fed for the rest of the year. We make our way past the carnage- unphased by the strong smell of blood permeating in the hall- until we reach where the CEO and founder of Goldstone Global tucked away his office. As we approach the door, we hear the sound of a struggle. More accurately, the sound of Cobalt begging and pleading for his life and for somepony to stop whatever it is they’re doing to him. Sweet, sweet music to our ears.

I look at Sapphire, who gestures towards the door with her head. Using my magic, I slowly and carefully open the door. I’m not entirely sure what I expected to see once the door was fully open, but a teenaged unicorn mare repeatedly stabbing Cobalt in the nuts wasn’t in my top ten list. Maybe in the top twenty, though. The mare has a pink coat, a curly crimson mane and bright turquoise eyes. A small- but growing- puddle of blood gathers underneath Cobalt as the teen tortures him. Blood pours from his right eye and I notice he’s missing one of his ears. I glance to my left and realize that must’ve been what the blue lump was I saw while opening the door.

I lean against the doorway and casually watch the torture continue. The mare is pinning this pathetic grown ass stallion down with her just magic as she grips the knife tightly and tortures him. Just behind them, I notice a desk shoved halfway out one of the large windows in the back-middle of the room. It has a thick rope tied to it, which is fed through a homemade pulley. At the other end of the rope is noose carefully made with spite and malice, judging by its craftsmanship alone.

Cobalt squirms in her grasp and is desperately trying to get free. He’s begging, he’s pleading and he’s making all kinds of grand, empty promises and excuses. Somehow or another, I catch Cobalt’s attention and- in between panicked huffs- exclaims the funniest joke I’ve ever heard in my entire life;

“Honey Cake! Help me! PLEASE!!”

“I knew you were a clown, but that’s pretty fuckin’ funny,” I say in an icy tone.

The mare pauses her torture and slowly looks over at Sapphire and I. For a moment, she retains the cold, murderous look on her face as she scans us over. She seems to realize we're on similar sides and switches out the ‘casual torture-centric’ look for a more kind and sweet one. It would be alarming if I gave a shit or two, but… I don’t. It’s like they say; the enemy of my enemy is my friend… more or less. I won’t be letting my guard down, though.

“Good afternoon. How are you?” The teen greets politely.

She switches which hoof she holds the knife in and waves at us with the newly freed one.

“Absolutely splendiferous,” Sapphire says, her words a bit muffled because of her pistol.

“Sorry to have interrupted your… fun,” I say as I gesture towards Cobalt.

“It’s alright, no worries. It just means he gets the pleasure of suffering for longer than intended,” The teen says with a dismissive wave of her hoof “oh, sorry, did you need him for anything?”

“Nah. To put it simply, we’re here to take his shit and put him six feet deep,” I say with a shrug.

“Ah, I see. What did he do to you?” The teen asks, tilting her head slightly in curiosity.

“Tch, what didn’t he do? Lie, cheat, backstab, fuck over, you name it, he did it,” I reply in a casual, matter-of-fact tone.

“You’re just gonna let ‘er do this to me?!” Cobalt exclaims, his voice full of anger and pain.

“Shut up,” I hiss apathetically.

I aim my revolver at his flank and callously pull the trigger. With a resounding ‘bang’ and with a wonderful scream of pain from Cobalt, we continue our conversation as if this was a totally normal situation. The mare didn’t even flinch, just looked down at the wound and then back up at us. Normally, I despise teeangers, but she’s clearly no ordinary teen. I think the pleasure I derive from seeing Cobalt in so much pain caused by her is overriding the automatic hate that bubbles to the surface. In other words, I’m momentarily too impressed to care about her age… for now.

“Well, I was just about done here, so… if you want, you are more than welcome to help with the- er- grand finale as it were,” The mare says as she gestures to the contraption behind her.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed it by now,” She adds.

“I like you, kid. We’re gonna be best buddies before long,” Sapphire says with a giddy cackle as she holsters her pistol.

“I like you too, Miss… uh, sorry, I didn’t get your name,” The mare says as she stands up.

“Sapphire Sparkles, but you can drop the ‘Miss’ and just call me Sapphire,” Sapphire says with a small bow.

“A lovely name. I’m Zephyr Hearts,” The mare says “my former loved ones called me Zeph for short, but you can- within reason- call me whatever you’d like.”

Zephyr and Sapphire both look at me expectantly. I glance between the two of them and arch an eyebrow. Sapphire reaches out and lightly shoves my shoulder as if to say ‘come on, it’s your turn’ or something similar.

“Honey Cake,” I say simply “call me whatever you want, I guess, as long as it’s nothing gross, mushy or endearing. I don’t do feelings.”

“Fair enough,” Zephyr says with a small shrug “now, back to business here. You two can have the pleasure of hanging him.”

“Hell yeah!” Sapphire cheers.

Zephyr smiles as she gestures to Cobalt as if he were a prize we had just won and then backs out of our way. Sapphire excitedly trots over to Cobalt, who looks up at her and continues to beg and plead. She hacks up a big spit loogie and hocks it right in his face before stomping hard right in his genital area. He flinches when she spits on him and then groans loudly in pain. I walk over to the two of them and place a hoof on his forehead. I force his head back and demand him to smile. He hesitantly smiles wide for me. All of his teeth are unfortunately still intact. How horrible. I should immediately rectify this issue.

“You won’t need these where you’re going,” I say before using my magic to try to rip out one of his teeth.

He cries out in pain as I struggle a bit to yank it out completely. I succeed- causing him to cry out even louder- and then cram it down his throat. He gags hard and tries to cough it out, but fails. I repeat the process until the majority of his teeth are missing and either down his throat or scattered around him. He coughs and sputters as he tries to avoid choking on his teeth. Sapphire grabs the noose and slips it around his neck ceremoniously. Zephyr claps as she watches and offers words of encouragement. I trot over to the desk hanging halfway out the window and place a hoof on it.

“Can’t say it was nice knowing you, Cobalt. See you in hell,” I say with a mock salute.

He spits out a few of his teeth as he screams and begs us to reconsider our actions. Zephyr releases him from his magical bonds at the same time I use all of my strength to push the desk out of the window. It scrapes and clatters against the brick exterior and I can hear the rope groaning from the pressure. Cobalt is snatched into the air seconds after the desk leaves the window. His head smashes against the ceiling with a loud crack as the rope visibly tightens around his neck, which also audibly cracks. He struggles for a few moments before falling still and limp, his body slightly swaying.

“Thank you for your assistance. It was an enjoyable moment. Maybe we’ll see each other around sometime,” Zephyr says as she bids us a farewell.

She gets about halfway to the door before Sapphire stops her.

“Woah, woah, woah. You can’t dip on us like that, Zeph. We’ve got a moment, tell us about, uh, this little spree of yours,” Sapphire says as she gestures for Zephyr to stay.

“Ah, okay. Well, I’ll try to keep it nice and short for you,” Zephyr says

Zephyr trots over and sits before us. She explains to us that her dear old grandmother fell ill a few years ago and it changed her completely. Zephyr’s grandmother went from strong and constantly working double shifts of hard, manual labor to frail and too weak to get out of bed, much less leave their house. MEDRA’s shitty doctors never gave them a direct diagnosis, but started treating this mystery illness with various medicines until they found one that seemed to be working. However, just when things seemed to be turning around and her grandmother was recovering well, Zephyr explains that MEDRA stopped treatment altogether and refused to give them more of that medicine that seemed to work.

Zephyr goes on to explain that she left her brother in charge of caring for their grandmother one day and went sniffing around the shady parts of the QZ in hopes of finding a smuggler or anypony willing to help her. She had the unfortunate displeasure of running into and meeting Cobalt that day and told him her sad tale. In true Cobalt fashion, he agreed to help her find that medicine outside of the Zone for an initially low price and made good on that first delivery. Afterwards, he raised his prices after each delivery, citing bullshit reasons, until he was forcing her to pay way more than she could afford and having her pay him in sexual favors in addition to the exorbitant amount of ration cards.

Then, one day, Cobalt apparently grew tired of Zephyr and backed out on their deal. He refused to give her the pills her grandmother needed, blacklisted Zephyr and when he found out she was trying to see him again regardless to get him to reconsider, Cobalt sent some of his goons to her house to tell her- in an essence- to fuck off. Cobalt had a bad habit of thinking he was a badass and that he put the fear of God in others. That couldn’t be further from the truth, but even worse, he had a nastier habit of sending his hired help to beat the point across and then believing it would never come back to bite him in the ass.

While Zephyr was out working, Cobalt- believing her to be home- had sent a pack of his asshats to her house. Not only did they beat her brother so horribly that they ended up putting him in a coma so bad that doctors don't believe he'll ever wake up, but they scared Zephyr's grandmother badly enough to the point she suffered a massive heart attack that killed her.

Zephyr explains that she, her brother and their grandmother had- much like me- spent most of their lives outside of the Canterlot QZ before being accepted inside. She more or less leaves it at that, but implies she learned the skills necessary to pull off today’s killing spree from wherever they used to live.

“So, yeah. That’s my tale,” Zephyr concludes with a small nod “what about yours?”

“As in why did we want to kill Cobalt and take his shit?” Sapphire questions.

“Yes,” Zephyr answers simply.

“Well, he did a lot of things, really, but today it was because his life and his shit- among other things- is our payment for helping the Fireflies smuggle something out of the city,” Sapphire explains.

“You’re leaving the city? When?” Zephyr questions, her eyes now wide with excitement.

“Tonight, I do believe. Why?” Sapphire answers.

“Can I come with you? Please? I don’t need to be babysat or anything and I also have a bit of medical training outside of the bare basics,” Zephyrs pleads.

“No-”

“Yes-”

Sapphire and I give completely different answers at the exact same time. She looks over at me and gives me a glare that screams ‘shut up’ before looking back over at Zephyr.

“Yes, you can come with us. We could use somepony like you,” Sapphire says, although the way she says this seems more directed at me than at Zephyr.

“We can’t take a kid with us. She’ll be a liability,” I protest “how old are you, anyways?”

“Me? I’m seventeen,” Zephyr says “you won’t have to worry about me, I promise. I can take care of myself.”

“Clearly,” She adds as she gestures to Cobalt’s swaying body.

“What about your brother? Won’t he need you?” I question.

“Nah. He’s never waking up. I’m pretty sure the only reason they’re even keeping him barely alive is so that they can milk me of every last ration card and bit of manual labor they can get,” Zephyr answers with a nonchalant attitude.

“We’re only going to Ponyville and coming right back,” I say, hoping to dissuade her from wanting to come.

“That’s alright. Get me to Ponyville as well and I can find my way back to my old stomping grounds from there,” Zephyr says with a smile that tells me nothing I say will change her mind.

“See? Everything works out. She can come with us and you can stop your goddamn whining,” Sapphire says with a roll of her eyes.

“Hey! We’ve got a big problem!” Ocean’s voice suddenly exclaims from behind me.

I flinch a little at her sudden appearance before turning around to see Ocean flapping in place just outside the window. She has a look of concern and fear on her face as she stares at us.

“What? What kind of problem?” Sapphire questions.

“I don’t know if it was us, Cobalt or your friend there, but MEDRA is swarming the place. I already sent my guys with everything of Cobalt’s they could take into the sewers,” Ocean quickly explains “we need to get the fuck out of here now.”

“Did you at least grab the weapons and ammo?” I question.

“Yes. Here, take this and grab what you can out of the safe… or leave it, but that’s up to you,” Ocean answers as she tosses a pocket-sized notebook to us “we’ve got a minute tops before MEDRA is down our throats.”

Sapphire catches it and briefly flips through it.

"Shit. Alright. Here's your first task of the evening, kiddo. Take this and grab everything out of that safe over there," Sapphire says as she tosses the notebook to Zephyr.

Zephyr catches it and quickly goes over to the safe. She opens it with relative ease and grabs the entirety of its contents using her magic. Zephyr returns just as quickly and shoves the fat stack of ration cards she took into Sapphire’s saddlebag.

“Either one of you unicorns know how to teleport?” Ocean asks as she glances over her shoulder.

“Yes,” Zephyr and I reply in accidental unison.

“Good. Now follow me,” Ocean instructs before flying away.

She hovers above the roof of the fabric store and gestures for us to hurry. Zephyr disappears in a quick flash of turquoise and appears on the roof just below Ocean. I follow suit and bring Sapphire and I over to our temporary companions. We follow Ocean rooftop to rooftop, avoiding the soldiers shouting and sniffing around down below. We come to a stop at the end of the block and watch as Ocean lands next to us. Sapphire and I peer over the edge of the roof, then back away and turn to face Ocean and Zephyr.

I sigh in a mixture of annoyance and frustration. Down below, several MEDRA assholes patrol the area and block the manhole we need to go through in order to escape. Following her to ‘safety’ has turned out to be more like ‘follow her to get caught in a restricted area by soldiers’ instead. The afternoon sun glares down on us as we form a huddle in the middle of the roof as we figure out our ‘Plan B’.

“Alright, now what? We can’t get to another manhole without catching MEDRA’s attention,” Sapphire says in a half-whisper “I’d be surprised they haven’t caught us yet if I didn’t know they were complete idiots.”

“We need a distraction to draw their attention elsewhere,” Ocean says at the same volume, as if that wasn’t already obvious to the rest of us.

“No shit, sherlock. This brilliant escape plan was your idea, tell us how we should accomplish that,” I snap, matching their volume “or do you expect us to solve all of your goddamn problems?”

“Where I used to live, we had a lot of ponies coming through who wanted to hurt us. We got good at making distractions in one location to escape to another,” Zephyr says with a prideful smile.

“You offering a solution? Spill it before MEDRA spills our brains on the sidewalk,” I say impatiently.

“Grumpy much? Yes, I’m offering a solution but I’m not sure how well it will work,” Zephyr says as she rolls her eyes “back home, these distractions were ‘premade’ I guess you could say. For emergencies.”

“Anything is better than just standing here. Do what you have to do,” Ocean says as she gestures towards the soldiers down below.

Zephyr only gets a few steps away before the familiar phewmp and twinkle of a unicorn teleporting comes from behind me. My body tenses as I watch my companions do the same. Out of the corner of my eye, I see another unicorn appear to my left, who then brings an earth pony friend up along with her. A pegasus soldier flies up and over the edge of the roof carrying another earth pony soldier with him. They land just behind Sapphire, who swishes her tail away with a look of disgust.

They surround us with zero hesitation and practically shove their guns in our faces. A couple of them simply glare at us while the rest wear petty, prideful smirks on their faces that I wish I could just punch off. The tension between both Sapphire, Ocean and I as well as the between the four of us and these MEDRA bastards grows almost unbearably strong. I want to kill Ocean just as much as I want to snap the necks of these uniformed idiots around us.

“Sorry ladies, but you won’t be making any elaborate escapes or distractions today,” The unicorn standing behind me says with a chuckle.

Her voice is velvety and low, exuding pure- and frankly annoying- confidence.

“You didn’t think you’d get away that easily, did you? I know most of you living in the Zone think we’re a gaggle of massive idiots with god complexes, but c’mon…” The mare trails off as she slinks up to the left of me with a look of faux hurt on her face “you really thought we wouldn’t notice you blinking from one rooftop to another? Or flying? Not even just one of us?”

The mare hit us with a ‘tch, tch, tch, tch, tch’ after sucking air in through her teeth while she shakes her head disapprovingly and places a hoof on my shoulder. It takes every ounce of mental strength not to haul off and punch her in the face. I can feel my left eyelids twitching involuntarily from the amount of anger and irritation coursing through my blood. The mare removes her helmet and tosses her dark mustard mane back into place. The way her mane, bangs and tail are styled reminds me of a lightning bolt, all of which have stripes of lighter shades of yellow following the shape of her hair. The lightest shade is thinner and goes through the middle of the other stripe below it.

The mare has a dark lilac coat and pastel green eyes, one of which is slightly- but noticeably- crossed. She smirks pridefully as she wraps a leg around my shoulder and pulls me close to her. She lightly rests her head against mine as she uses her free hoof to pat my shoulder. I glare daggers at her as the twitching of my eyelids worsens.

“Good efforts, though. Truly, I mean it. I dunno about this little squirt with ya, but… you three? Some of the smartest- and slippery- sons of bitches in Canterlot,” The mare praises with another chuckle “oh, how rude of me. Terribly sorry, I forgot to introduce myself.”

“Captain Electra Stormshield’s the name. Well, not ‘Captain’, that’s just my title, but you can call me ‘Fuck You’ since it’s what you’ll be saying before we blow your brains out,” She adds, emphasising the last four words slowly and loudly.

This annoying fuck of a ‘Captain’ cackles proudly at her own joke. She exudes such a strong energy of smug cockiness and prideful confidence that it makes me sick to my stomach. She acts like she’s the hottest, baddest piece of shit in town, but given that MEDRA has such incredibly low standards they might as well not exist, this bitch probably did one slightly useful thing and got promoted. Although, I’d bet money she probably sucked a lot of dick to get promoted to captain.

“You better not hurt a hair on her fucking head. She did nothing wrong,” Sapphire says in a stern, angry tone as she gestures to Zephyr.

“She’s my niece. Cobalt was extorting her and keeping her held here for his pleasure. I had to save her and needed help,” Ocean says matter-of-factly as she gestures to Sapphire and I “and before you try to call bullshit, do you really think she’d go around telling ponies- much less MEDRA- her aunt is the leader of the Fireflies?”

Sapphire gives me a look that screams ‘she can’t be serious?’ as Zephyr slightly droops her head in embarrassment, likely on Ocean’s behalf at such a stupid claim.

“I won’t lie, you do have a solid point there, but…” Captain Electra trails off as she shrugs and gives a fake, overdramatic apologetic look.

“You know what they say, ‘guilty by association’ and all that,” She continues with another quick shrug “and as much as I would love to continue this conversation, I- wait, no, actually I don’t. Hehe, sorry. Time to go! No funny business now!”

Captain Electra releases me from her grasp and shoves me towards the edge of the roof as the other soldiers herd my companions after me. They get us to the very edge and stop us. Captain Electra squeezes between Sapphire and I before turning around to face the direction we had come from. Rather casually, she jumps off backwards and teleports herself to the bottom after a couple seconds’ worth of freefalling. Before we even have much of a chance to react to her theatrics, Captain Electra teleports all of us- including her soldiers- to the ground.

We should have never agreed to help Ocean’s stupid ass. Did she really think saying Zephyr was her niece was going to save her? Stupid, stupid, stupid! And how stupid were we to put any amount of trust in Ocean Breeze? And stupider to agree to help her to begin with? We’re minutes away from being red paste smeared on the sidewalk in front of our neighbors. I don’t see these three coming up with anything to get us out of this jam. Ocean and Sapphire can’t perform feats of magic and Zephyr is clearly too green to get us all out of this on her own.

Looks like it’s up to me to save us because I refuse to let this be how I die. When I die, it’s going to be on my terms, when I’m good and ready… if I can help it. My demise will most certainly not be at the hooves at MEDRA. They took my fucking son, but they’re not going to take me too. What to do, though? I need to catch them off guard before I try anything. Celestia knows they’re just itching to pull the trigger at the slightest twitch.

They like to make a spectacle out of their executions, setting a reminder to the other denizens of the Zone what MEDRA will do if they disobey. Hmm. Being such high profile targets as it were, they’re not going to kill us now at any rate, but if we get in their trucks, it’s over. We won’t be able to escape after they split us up and I will not abandon Sapphire. I glance down at the ground as we’re herded towards their fascist ‘chariots’. We’re almost to the edge of the sidewalk and from there, it’s a very small drop down to the road.

Not much of a drop, but if caught not paying attention… I purposely stumble and trip over my own hooves as I go to step down onto the road and fall hard on my side onto the warm, rock solid pavement. The grunts of pain I let out are authentic as I lay there momentarily regretting my decision. As I was hoping, this catches Captain Electra and her subordinates off guard as they all look at me with genuine concern and focus their weapons on me. Even Sapphire, Ocean and Zephyr look at me with concern for my well being at this sudden turn of events.

Captain Electra offers me a ‘helping’ hoof that I quickly dismiss in favor of pretending to greatly struggle to get up. She gives me a look that tells me just how pathetic and old she thinks me to be. Alright, I’ve caught them off guard… now what? Shit. I really need to start thinking things through a little bit more before I fucking do them. I wipe the snot from my nose that I quite literally knocked out of myself and get a new idea. They weren’t expecting me to fall and now- as they watch this ‘pathetic old hag’ struggle to get up- they won’t be expecting me to ‘sneeze my head off’ either.

Clearly, I'm an absolute genius. I need some kind of goddamn medal or award for it. I get about half way up before I fake a rather convincing sneeze and mutter something about my ‘damn allergies’ and dirt before sneezing a second time. This second sneeze ‘knocks’ me back down as I hold my head and continue to mutter and ramble like the ‘old mare’ that Captain Electra thinks am. Mother always did tell me to act my age and Ivory always did tell me I should get a job as an actress. As I prepare to sneeze for the third and final time as I ‘attempt’ to stand once more, I suddenly recall the firework spell I learned specifically to perform for Larkspur- per his request- when he had turned four.

If I launch it prematurely just as I sneeze, hopefully it will act like a flashbang of sorts and temporarily blind everypony caught looking in my general direction. It will probably also hurt and-unfortunately- if it works, it will also catch my companions in the crossfire. However, if the next part of my plan that I’ve cooked up is successful- they’ll have enough time to recover and all will be forgiven. Hopefully.

As I reel my head back before sneezing, my horn quickly glows hotly and at an already blinding level of brightness. In seconds, the magic around my horn expands to a size slightly bigger than that of a beach ball. Before anypony has a chance to react or stop me, I prematurely launch the firework. It whistles up about a foot from my horn and then promptly explodes with a deafening pop. Not only is it very bright- despite having my eyes closed- it’s also very hot and the shockwave of the explosion burns me just a little.

Small embers of magic fizzle down and burn me a little as well. I quickly open my eyes and survey the results. Captain Electra, the soldiers within the radius of the explosion as well my companions are all moaning and groaning in pain and shock as they rub their freshly assaulted ocular orbs. The soldiers left unaffected by the dazzling distraction concocted by yours truly shout and rush over as quickly as they can to aid their injured comrades. I take a very brief moment to relish in the success of my quick thinking before executing the final phase of this absolutely whackass plan of mine.

This probably won’t hurt me as much as it will likely end up hurting MEDRA, but I have the feeling I will still probably regret this afterwards. Every single soldier within my current line of sight- including Captain Electra- becomes enveloped by my magic. I struggle and strain against lifting so many ponies all at once, but not even for a moment do I give up as they’re all whisked into the air. I grunt and groan loudly as I put my entire body into throwing the bastards as far away as I can physically manage.

They all scream and shout as they go flying far in the direction of Goldstone Global. I’m not sure how far exactly they’ve gone, but hopefully it’s far enough. A wave of intense dizziness knocks me off of my hooves. I stumble and this time fall genuinely by accident. I at least land on my haunches as opposed to by side like before. I feel like I’ve sprained something in my noggin’, but this shiny new headache giving my two pound’s worth of soggy meat a good thrashing doesn’t allow me to pinpoint what or where. I grab my head with a hoof as extreme lightheadedness befalls me.

Oh, yeah… I’m definitely going to regret this when-

Thwunk.

***

“... escaped, didn’t we?”
“Just barely. Because of your poor planning, Honey had to-”

“Shut up. Just… shut up.”

The voices arguing cease as I let out a loud groan of pain that turns into the word ‘fuck’ as I reach up and rub my temples with my hooves. I lift my head up and realize my face had been buried in Sapphire’s mane. No wonder the combined scent of ginger, cucumbers and shea butter mixed with sweat I had been smelling was so familiar. I take a moment to soak in my surroundings and see that my plan was a resounding success and that the four of us have managed to escape into the sewers. Good. I’m glad all that effort wasn’t wasted. Totally worth making myself pass out, though. Egh, maybe…

Sapphire carries me on her back in a manner very reminiscent of the way I used to carry my children. Ocean is leading the way as Zephyr walks alongside Sapphire and uses her magic to light our way. The teen looks up at me and gives me a thankful smile. Her eyes are a bit bloodshot, presumably from where I blew up a firework in her face. I’d feel bad if I gave just a smidge more of a shit about her than I do currently. Which is, like, a third of a half a shit… because that math totally checks out.

“How are you holding up?” Zephyr asks.

“Other than a killer headache and a few bodily pains from where I fell, I’m doing fantastic,” I say with only a slight bit of sarcasm.

“I’m going to ask you a series of questions, okay? For medical purposes to make sure you didn’t ‘break’ anything, so to speak,” Zephyr says in a professional tone of voice “ready?”

“I guess,” I say with a shrug.

“Do you know where we are?”

“The sewers. I’m not sure specifically where in the sewers… just in the sewers.”

“Good. Do you know what day it is? What time is it?”

“Assuming I’ve not been unconscious for nine years… Tuesday, March 21st. I have no clue what time it is, but somewhere in the afternoon area?”

Zephyr hums as she nods her head approvingly. She’s quiet for a moment before resuming her assessment.

“Alright, I want you to remember the following words; Cat, House, Fish.”

“Uh… Okay?”

“What do you remember just before you passed out?”

“I remember picking up every soldier within my line of sight and tossing them as far as I could manage with my magic so that we could escape.”

“Thank you for that, by the way. We’d be toast without you.”

“Mmhm.”

“Do you remember what happened? In general?”

“Yeah. Matter of fact, I do. Ocean’s stupid ass almost got us caught and killed by MEDRA until my quick thinking and wonderful acting skills saved us.”

I look over at Ocean and glare the sharpest of daggers in her direction. She looks back at me and rolls her eyes, but doesn’t bother arguing with me… much to my disappointment.

“How did you get here?” Zephyr asks, resuming the assessment.

I turn my attention back to her and give her look that hopefully gets my thoughts of ‘what in the actual fuck kind of question was that’ across nice and clear.

“That’s a stupid question. I was unconscious, how the fuck would I know? My best guess is Sapphire scooped me up and carried me as the three of you escaped into the sewers,” I reply harshly and with a shrug.

“Fair enough. Can you tell me the days of the week backwards starting with today?” She questions.

“Tuesday, Monday, Sunday, Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday,” I answer rather quickly.

Between working at the post office once upon a time and having two young children, I eventually got pretty good at memorizing the days of the weeks in any order asked of me. Not much of a brag-worthy skill, but it is what it is.

“Repeat the following numbers in reverse order for me,” Zephyr instructs “ninety-six, thirty-six, three-hundred-forty-six, forty-two, fifty-two.”

What? Does she mean ‘in reverse order’ as in swapping the numbers around or just reverse in the order in which she spoke them? I have a feeling it’s the former… probably?

“Uh… Sixty-nine, six-hundred-forty-three… twenty-four and twenty-five…?” I say in a rather unsure tone.

“Nice! Good work, Ms. Honey. You’ve done wonderful,” Zephyr praises “just one last question.”

“And that would be?” I question.

“Can you repeat to me the three words I asked you to remember earlier?” Zephyr asks.

“Uh… Cat… House… Fish,” I reply with a bit of hesitance.

“Excellent! You don’t seem to have any major brain-related damages, but that headache will probably last for a while,” Zephyr says with a proud smile “do you have any medicine to help with that?”

“Not with us. I’ll take her to a safehouse of ours and get her some pain meds,” Sapphire says, answering on my behalf.

“What are you, my mother? I’ll be fine. I don’t need anypony to doctor me up,” I say in an annoyed tone as I roll my eyes.

“I’ll take her to a safehouse of ours and get her some pain meds,” Sapphire repeats, putting a great deal of emphasis on her statement.

“Whatever,” I grumble before essentially faceplanting back into Sapphire’s mane.

I allow Sapphire to continue to carry me as we make our way through the cold, damp sewers. I doze off at some point and am awakened by Sapphire nudging my shoulder. She instructs me to get off of her, to which I comply and slide off her back. My headache has eased off a bit, but it still feels like I’ve been run over by a freight train. I look up to see Ocean opening a manhole cover and then watch her climb out.

Despite the pain, I start to gather the necessary magic to teleport myself up, but am quickly stopped by Zephyr. She gently reminds me I need to refrain from using magic until my headache goes away before offering to help me and Sapphire up in my stead. I reluctantly agree and even more reluctantly wait as she teleports herself out first before bringing Sapphire and I along with her. I look around and notice we’re in territory unfamiliar to me. We must be in Firefly territory.

“I can point you in the direction of your piece of Canterlot from here if you want,” Ocean says with a small smile “also, I just want to apologize real quick. I was trying to go the same way my group went and…”

“... and I was worried about them and nearly jeopardized everything,” She adds.

“If it happens again, I’m blowing your brains out,” I hiss.

“Is our deal still on?” Ocean questions, ignoring my threat.

“For now,” Sapphire answers “you better make sure your friends made it to safety with our goods.”

“I will. Give me directions to find wherever it is you’re going so I can deliver the news myself,” Ocean says with a small nod.

“You’ve been outside the Wall, right? You know where the Imperial Crowne Hotel is?” Sapphire questions.

“I have and yes, I’ve had a few rooftop rendezvous there,” Ocean Breeze answers.

“Then meet us there. A few realizations have come to me, so for the time being, we’re laying low outside of the Zone,” Sapphire says “it’s less likely that MEDRA will come sniffing around out there.”

“Makes sense. I’ll meet you there whenever I hear back from my subordinates,” Ocean says as she unfurls her wings “I’ll be up on the rooftop when I find something out.”

“Alright. See you then,” Sapphire says before turning to me “can you walk or do you want me to carry you some more?”

“Nah, I can walk,” I say as I softly shake my head.

Ocean Breeze bids us a farewell before taking off and quickly flying away. I wish I had an appendage of some kind to properly express my current feelings towards her. Within seconds, she’s a tiny dot on the horizon. Sapphire lets out an pissed sounding huff as she shakes her head. She looks like something is eating away at her thoughts, something that’s making her angry. She said something about realizations, but what did she mean exactly? Come to think of it, something about the whole ‘almost getting caught by MEDRA’ thing isn’t quite sitting right with me.

Sapphire and I certainly didn’t go in guns blazing. In fact, we only spent a single bullet between the two of us and that was me inflicting more well-deserved pain on Cobalt. Judging by her handiwork, Zephyr was quick, brutal but efficient, only using her magic and her knife. Ocean and her crew weren’t exactly quiet, but surely, there’s no way a little over thirty soldiers would show up to investigate just a small bit of gunfire…

“Somepony tried to whistleblow us. They weren't after Ocean, she was just a bonus," I say, furrowing my brows "we've flown under the radar for so long. Why? Why give up our identities now?"

"Somepony so upset that we're working with the Fireflies they'd be willing to throw everypony involved in the Underground under the bus, including themselves?" Sapphire questions with a shrug.

"Has to be. We've had no problems until now," I answer.

"I have a sneaking suspicion of who it might be and they'll get what's due soon, but we need to think about the bigger picture now," Sapphire says as she shakes her head "we had a good thing going, but sooner or later something like this was bound to happen."

"Like is it worth it to continue operating the Underground? Worth it to keep living in Canterlot?" I question.

"Exactly. With the way things have been going between us denizens and MEDRA, a revolt is going to happen soon. I mean, living here has certainly been marginally better than anywhere outside the Zone, but…" Sapphire trails off and sighs.

"But… you could start your own community elsewhere. Sounds like you have the resources and bodies to do so. The QZ is shit and yeah, maybe it's a little better than some other places these days, but think about it like this," Zephyr says encouragingly "four of the seven Quarantine Zones set up by MEDRA are completely dismantled, nothing but husks of a life that once was. Not a very good one because three of those Zones were destroyed or abandoned because of revolts and one was due to literal starvation and disease."

"It won't be long before the same happens here, Cloudsdale or Fillydelphia. I think that says something more about MEDRA than it does about the assholes who live in those remaining Zones. No offense," Zephyr adds.

"I suppose you have a point. Won’t be much business for a smuggling company if there’s nopony here,” Sapphire says with a small shrug “or if there’s no authority cramming suppression down our throats.”

“We can worry about that after we finish this job. The sooner we get this done, the better,” I say in a huffy tone “the sooner we have no ties to the Fireflies, the better.”

Sapphire looks over her shoulder in the direction Ocean had left in. She stares in that direction for a few moments before looking at Zephyr, then at me and then at the ground. Her eyes trace random patterns as she seems to lose herself in thought. She better not think too hard. She’s liable to break something like that. After what feels like a thousand years, Sapphire finally speaks up with an unusually serious look on her face.

“Alright. Here’s what we’re going to do. Zephyr, I want you to go with Honey to the Imperial Crowne Hotel. I don’t care how much of a fight she puts up, knock her out if you have to, but make her get some rest,” She sternly instructs “and Honey, for fucks sake just sleep, alright? Don’t be stubborn, don’t be a bitch. I need you in the best condition possible.”

“While you do that, I’m going to go find out which of my dogs are still loyal.” She adds.

“Okay… and then what?” I ask as I raise an eyebrow.

“Well, once I gather those who still follow me… us… I’m going to have them take our shit and- in a sense- evacuate the Zone. We’ll start fresh elsewhere. I don’t care where, just not here,” Sapphire replies “I know four individuals who’ll follow us to the depths of hell and back. I’ll start with them and figure out where to send our doggies from there.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” I tease sarcastically.

Sapphire smirks as she chuckles at my words. She bids us a farewell with a promise of returning in one piece before cantering off in the general direction of the Underground’s territory. I can’t help but smile a little as I watch her leave Zephyr and I alone. Alone… with a kid. Just like that smile is gone and replaced by an annoyed frown as my ears droop downwards. Begrudgingly, I slink off in a slightly different direction with Zephyr in tow.

“Is she your marefriend?” Zephyr asks.

“What? No, no she is not,” I reply in a flustered tone.

"No? She seems to care an awful lot about you. A lot more than just a friend would~" Zephyr teases.

"Shut up! How would you even know, anyways?" I ask, my tone growing more flustered.

"Mm, well, much to Ocean's dismay, Ms. Sa- er, Sapphire talked a lot about you," Zephyr answers matter-of-factly.

"All good things, I can assure you... well, mostly," She adds with a wink.

My face grows hot as my mind ponders the very idea of Sapphire and I being anything more than just friends. There were a few, er, instances where we… but we were very drunk. We’re just best friends! Best friends do gay shit together all the time… or, at least, that’s what Star used to tell me about her and one of her old friends. I shake my head vigorously to get rid of the very much unnecessarily perverted thoughts creeping into my mind. I quickly play it off as if some bug is harassing me to hopefully avoid arousing Zephyr’s suspicion. I don't think it works, as she continues to tease me... and piss me off.

“You sure?” She questions in a teaseful tone.

“Yes,” I answer curtly.

“Okay,” Zephyr says in a tone that implies she doesn’t believe me.

She sighs like she’s a little disappointed, although I’m not sure why she expected the answer to be yes. I roll my eyes as I quicken my pace.

“We’re just best friends. Keep your nose out of places it has no business being in,” I say harshly “capiche?”

“Capiche,” Zephyr grumbles before sighing rather dramatically.

I’ve never looked more forward to a nap my whole life than right now.