Fallout Equestria: Burdens

Chapter 9- Prospects

“What are the odds of this panning out? The same as them not…”

A tearing, burning sensation yanks me awake. The air’s like fire; thoughts of water flood my mind, shock my senses alive.

My head is racking. I can’t stop coughing, and every hoarse one threatens to close my windpipe for good. I grab myself, trying to control it all.

“It’s okay…You’re okay… You’re okay…” her voice— Avie’s voice— reaches my ears. I can feel a pressure along my back, moving along my spine; going up and down at a steady pace. “I’m sorry, Ward.”

“S—” The coughing chokes my thoughts out. My ears pick up the familiar sound of dripping water beside me. A sponge is in her mouth, soaked.

Taking a deep breath reminds me of how raw and dry my throat suddenly is. The water dripping from the sponge makes my mouth ache for relief. Avie brings it to my lips, and they hang on for a desperate suckle. Feeling the water rush from the tiny holes onto my tongue—calling it the greatest feeling can’t do it justice.

I have to tear myself away, nearly taking a bite from the sponge itself. Breathing heavily— savoring the moisture and leaning back, I look up to see pointed rocky teeth growing out of the ceiling. Everything else, everything around us… It’s all stone; a small outcove and a barred wall and gate behind Avie. This isn’t the Mountain...

“Avie… Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” she tells me, drinking her own fill of the water before bringing her hooves to my head. “How are you? Does it hurt?”

I’m still processing her questions as she brings my head down gently. She prods around an area that makes me wince from the pain— from the memories it brought, getting clearer and clearer until it cracks the wall of my skull. “Fuck!”

Avie pulls her hooves away, “I’m sorry. I guess it’s still sore… I know it’s there, but I can’t find it. There isn’t even a scab.”

“What do ya mean?” I ask, looking for what she’s talking about myself and feeling nothing out of place. Checking my own hoof, a memory of crimson trimming flashes over, but goes away the minute I blink. “Right…”

“Ward, don’t be upset.” She tells me.

“I’m not upset—”

She nods, keeping her eyes level with me, “Your words sound heavy, again.”

“They are?” I ask, ears folding and my eyes looking down at my bare self— covering the more delicate areas. “I don’t remember all of it, but I remember how heavy I was; how I slowed ya down when ya needed to be quick—”

“Stop, Ward.”

“Avie—”

“I know where this is going. Don’t blame yourself for this.”

How can I not? It’s been stuck with me for a while, and the more I think about it, the deeper this feeling of inadequacy digs its claws into me. It’s been nothing but me, and my memories are showing me that; Diamond Dust is telling me that as if she were here…

“Ward, please,” Avie rubs one of my forehooves gently, “remember what I told you? That day we were about to leave for our mission? What I’ve been telling you even before that?”

Her questions settle in my gut like bricks. I try looking away from her, but she pulls herself into my view.

“I need you to tell me, Ward.” She pleads, “Please.”

“Ya weren’t…”

“Hmm—”

“Ya weren’t supposed to be here, I mean— you’re not supposed to be here!” My heart was on the verge of popping. I needed to get those words out, but I couldn’t get them out sooner. Now the lament is replaced by fear and the great, disturbing irking in the back of my mind: I fucked up. Hard. That can be said for all of this…

I said it right this time…

I said it right this time… Right?

Right…?

“I didn’t mean to sound so…” My words are dying on me. The thoughts aren’t holding together. “I didn’t mean to— I didn’t— I’m sorry.”

The heavy silence weighs on my heart. My gaze falls right after my ears fold, and I look down at my uncovered self, pinching my hindlegs together when they’re too far apart.

I hear her sigh, and I feel the room open itself up; the walls pushing themselves outward, making me small and cold. My chest is bare; no pockets; my talisman’s gone. Damn it… Damn it…

Something doesn’t feel right. The blood in my veins feels weighty, sluggish. Everything’s feeling cold and numb right after. My heart won’t stop pounding to keep it from hardening, and the rush is building up; going up into my head. I keep my hooves to my temple and eyes, trying to think of other things while hoping nothing explodes.

I can’t ignore it. It’s too loud. Creeping in and taking hold…

My talisman…

My talisman…

Where is it…

Where—

Something brushes over my head and down the back of my neck. My lungs start to work, again; the room pulls itself back to the way it was; and my head’s not wanting to explode, anymore.

Turning to Avie, it hurts to see her eyes look so crestfallen; the twinkle in her eyes going cold; her smile a small frown. “Ward, we have time. Please, talk to me. I’m here. I’m right here.”

Trying to look into her eyes is like scurrying in the dark to look for a light. Rising panic saps the color from my surroundings, and steals my breath.. Her eye’s color doesn’t fade, and the longer I look into them the easier it is for me. I look up from them, seeing what’s missing atop her head. Regret digs itself up from the depths, and I feel it in my stomach. They’re gone… “You’re here because of me…”

“Ward—”

“I shouldn’t have asked for ya at the Mountain. Things would’ve been different— ya wouldn't be here right now!” The words turn my stomach. I want to hide from the feeling; from the look in her eyes. It digs deeper, bringing up more of the same thoughts torturing me until I acknowledge them…

“Ward, I’ve been in that quarantine for… months. Maybe one; maybe two, I can’t remember. I don’t know why you asked, but I’m glad you did. We saw each other again; you were alright, and that made me feel better inside than the hope I’d get out and away from the General. You know what I’m trying to say, Ward? You saved me.”

“Maybe I did, but it led us here. We’re not where we’re supposed to be, and I couldn’t help the way I wanted,” saying these things is like tearing gashes across my heart. “I was dead weight when… when… We were attacked, right?”

She nods, “You hit something because of it.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and my chin drops a little, “That’s what I thought…”

“Ward, you’re not dead weight. That is not what I was referring to, at all.” She nuzzles me, “You are somepony who means something to me— not just a soldier. You already showed me that, remember? I didn’t abandon you before, and I won’t start now. It’s just life; we take the good and the bad, but in the end we face it. Only this time— and I hope for a long time— we continue facing it…together.”

“Why, Avie?” I ask, feeling her words squeezing at my heart. “Why would ya be willing to go through the bad if it’ll only get worse?”

She brings my head closer to her warm, soft fluffy chest and her heart, “I already told you, you silly mustang. I already did.”

Everything’s turning hazy, and my throat feels like it’ll close up. I hold onto her, burying my muzzle into her and trying not to show the welling up in my eyes. Her wings unfurl in the background, and I feel them come around as she holds on and rests her head onto mine.

My ears flick. The hold Avie has me in stirs a little, and I feel her head lift off mine. I look up at her to see she’s looking behind her. I pull away gently to see what’s got both our attention. It’s coming from the dark, poorly-lit hall— I can’t tell where it’s coming from.

A brief glimpse of something coming from the shadows to the left; first I thought it was my mind playing tricks. Whatever it was came into the small light hanging from a bulb wedged into the rocky cavern, and the yellowish glow shows what’s coming. It’s a beak, then a feathered head; barrel-chested in black-metal armor. A white talon grasping upwards is emblazoned on the chestplate, and the steel gashes are as easy to spot as the chiseled scars along their neck and face. So these are the griffins…

They come up to our gate, staring at us with the grayest glassy eyes I’ve ever seen, and drops his bag and rifle along the opposite wall. He stands on his hind legs— the legs of a… lion, I think— and leans back with crossing forelegs— foretalons?

He doesn’t say anything, just staring at us with a narrowing gaze that leaves me thinking he’s either really tired or he’s trying to look for something from where he stands. The latter thought has me wanting to cover myself.

“What do ya want?” I ask him. He doesn’t say anything. I fight back the urge to press the question; something’s just telling me I won’t get anywhere trying. I put a hoof on Avie’s shoulder to get her attention, “It’s them… right?”

She looks back to me and nods.

I vaguely remember the details from the attack, and I do remember the silhouette. This griffin fits the hazy memory like a puzzle piece.

Two more griffins come from someplace off to the left. One of them opens the gate to our cell, and the other stands up on her hind legs and puts her gloved talons over a holster in her belt. They move into our space in succession.

The first griffin immediately ignores me and moves towards Avie, grabbing at her as she tries to back away. They yank and she yells, “Wait— Wait!”

I swing at the hassler, but he pulls back and shoves me into our bowls of water. Avie’s protests and her desperate wing flapping rile me.

“C’mon you fuckin—” The grappling griffin’s insistence is met with a blow from one of Avie’s air kicks. A roar shakes the room and he smacks her across the face.

I spring to my hooves with my blood boiling, head still pounding. A deafening crack retorts and I flinch as fast, snappy whizzing goes all around us. In the griffin at the door’s talons is a smoking pistol. Something between a squawk and a roar fills the room immediately after, “Watch it, Galea!”

She snorts and nods her head curtly before asking, “We can’t just do away with the mare here, boss? Would save Garz the trouble.”

“It’ll make the air stale. Can stand to be without the smell after the raid.” The griffin— the boss— points right at me, “Yew stay perfectly still. With all the crap my unit’s gone through to get just the two of you, I’m wantin’ the full bonus.”

My eyes shift between the griffin with the gun, and the one Avie’s struggling against. Everything in my being is telling me to jump— run— tackle— bite and break for every bruise she gets.

“Ward!” Avie screams as she’s put in a submission lock. The longer I stay put, the more the rage will eat me alive, and it gets worse with every second that passes.

I engage, throwing my hooves right in his face with all my weight to get him off. He tumbles and falls back, and I stand over Avie. My wings spring open and I lower myself as close to her as possible.

“Bastard!” The grappling griffin growls after rolling onto his talons and paws.

“We should’ve left her with the others, boss.” The gun griffin retorts.

“Leave us alone!” The words are venom leaving my mouth, with a growl coming up from the back of my throat, and my breath getting hotter.

“Stand aside, pegasus.” The boss— orders.

“No y’all back the fuck up!” I seethe. “You’re not taking her!”

“Boss? Orders?” The gun griffin asks, raising her pistol towards me.

“Our contract only needs the one, alive and unharmed,” the boss says, “I never questioned high-payin’ contracts, but this might be my first. Yew, pegasus, give me a reason to not see it through? Why shouldn’ I have Galea here shoot her from under yew?”

I snort, looking down at Avie as she stays under me, “Who sent ya after us?” Deep down I feel things clicking. With little information, I’m already having a feeling as to who would do this.

“I’d keep to my own things,” he snaps, “yew recovered, and that’s all that matters; obligation’s not complete until the money’s in my talons. She isn’t a part of it, anymore. Now here yew are givin’ us a hassle, and I’d like to know why it’s even worth any of our time. ”

“What— Who— is paying?” Who…

“Give me a reason, pegasus.” His words are reinforced with the gun griffin checking her pistol from the ready position.

A pause. My mind, racing; pulling up everything and anything I know about Avie. C’mon… Think of something. There’s something there, I know there is— But no. No, that would mean that— it’s the only way. She’s valuable as that! Too valuable to lose…

If I say nothing they’ll kill her, if I don’t and say it I know I’ll still lose her. I don’t want to lose her— I have no choice—She’s…

“She’s a pilot.”

The boss’s brows raise, “A pilot, yew say?”

“The best I know— the best in the Enclave.”

His eyes dart about, and a subtle nod starts to come to him.

My mind’s a little clearer now, and the details from before start to come back to me. The smallest things in all their banter start to come together like puzzle pieces, “You’re talking about bonuses and paydays. If I’m your target and she isn’t, then do something with what I’ve shared—”

“Don’t yew dare be patronizin’ me, pegasus!” He squawks. “That whole operation could’ve gone smoother. That whole time watching the armored monster of a train smoke and spark with hailfire and lead, it should’ve been easier with the AA out of commission; a whole fireteam of loyal, tough-as-nails griffins, traded for two small pegasi and some Aridians.”

“I’m giving ya an option for compensation—”

“I said shut yer yap— we know yew want her alive!” He roars, “I’m not blind to the facts or the opportunities! My problem is yew shovin’ it in my face when I’m considering it!”

A lasting silence fills the space, and almost all of us refuse to move from our place. Avie stirs under me, and I look down at her. Those amethyst eyes meet my vermillion, and I try to tell her without a word to stay down.

“Right, it should be enough…” The boss mutters aloud, “Gaela, Grits, one of yew report to HQ about the new prospects. It’s time we earn bonus and more with a new contract for our extra.”

“Sir.”

“Sir.”

Both of the griffons closest to us leave back through the door, slamming shut and locking. I step off Avie and help her up gently. The first thing I’m pulled to is the tinge of red bleeding through her soft white cheek.

“Be glad it wasn’ a bullet,” The boss comments, “Enjoy the time yew have with one another. It’ll be the last.”

The griffin leaves us alone, and I start brushing off all the dirt and gravel from Avie. She pulls her mane back, “...thank you.”

“It’ll be the last time they do that,” I mutter, looking at her reddened cheek. Her ears flick, and my eyes focus on the lack of leather and goggles on her head. “We’ll get out of here. Somehow.”

She falls on me. All those thoughts once kept frozen in the back of my mind… There is still hesitation, but… It doesn’t feel as bad as before. Still…

A hoof over her head, and a gentle stroking of her chocolate mane.

She nuzzles, slowly, and I wrap my wings around her.

What a mess…

* * * * * *

The bars are long rusted but deceptively sturdy. Every one of them is probably more than two inches thick and rooted far into the ground. Kicking at them hurts me more than it does the bars, and if the spacing between them is enough to stop a single hind hoof from going through, there’s no way we’re squeezing our way out.

“Who do ya think put these things here? Way down here?” I ask.

“Corpos, I’d think.” Avie answers.

“But why?”

“Anything. Supplies that are dangerous, redundant, or not— maybe it was always a jail cell.”

The Pipbuck tells me where we are: ‘Quarry Junction #5.’ Toggling map features doesn’t do anything— the display is hard locked on local settings, and there’s nothing on the screen but everything I’ve already seen in this room.

“Damn thing,” I mutter. “For everything it’s good for, it never has what you need.”

“What do you mean?” Avie asks.

“Look at this,” I show her what the screen has been showing me for the past hour or so. “Nothing. The damn Pipbuck knows this place, but it isn’t even sure where on the ‘World Map’ we even are. ”

‘Pinnacle of Arcane Technology’ my ass… Can’t figure out where it is— where we even are— and it can’t even pick a lock with its myriad of features.

Avie brings the Pipbuck closer to her, toggling through the features and backtracking on all of them, “The Aridians gave you this, right?”

“The Zebra.”

“Where’d they even find something like this?”

“There’s Stables out here, right? I mean, there’s gotta be.”

She shakes her head, “Well, kind of. I did cargo runs for the Aridians, and sometimes they would take me to places I always thought were like the Stables far off the tracks. I mean, they looked like the bunker we grew up in, and they almost match the old Stable-Tec Stable layouts we had laying around.”

“And this is leading to?”

“Where there are Stables there’s always Pipbucks, but I haven’t seen any come around on the manifests.”

“Ya mean the ones ya would’ve been allowed to see?”

“I know what you’re saying, and I’d think the same thing too if it weren’t for the fact that Aridians actually pay… a lot, for something like this.”

“And that means?”

“Kaerauh, this Corpo I met often, mentioned something about rarity and availability. There just isn’t enough of them.”

K-Rough? Oh, my head… I try to disperse the growing feelings of discomfort, and push down the thoughts that want to escalate just who this Corpo is, “So… Stable-Tec is all the way out here?”

“They worded it like they were here; compared them to a weed that died before it even bloomed. Unmarked Stables and few working Pipbucks; no dwellers. If the Aridians have them, then they must have a means to track the identification tags of a corresponding Pipbuck.”

“Maybe that’s what got the griffins in a hurry.”

She nods, “All of that being said, I’m glad they didn’t take it.”

“Yeah? They probably thought trying to remove it would upset somepony. It’s practically fused to me.” That or they have a counter means to disrupt its tracking…

There isn’t much to go on, but all that’s been said— all that’s happened— it’s not hard to figure out just who caused this series of events.

She looks up at me, “You think—”

I can see it already: me, hobbling on a wooden peg to the old Nag. Her cold deposition burning up. The griffons wanting their pay, and she makes them pay for it, “It wouldn’t surprise me, Avie. Not one bit.”

One of her ears flop to the side. Those searching eyes come back, too, and I can’t stand to look at them. My hoof drops, but hers is on my other cheek. I freeze, but she doesn’t pull it towards her. Instead, she keeps it there and gently brings herself into my field of view.

“I wish you said something sooner, Ward.” She tells me, sounding so sullen. My ears droop from the guilt welling up a little on the inside.

Until now it’s all been me trying to unravel the mess inside. The years we had, the days I remained cold and distant; coming close to death on at least one occasion and earning the rump mark for it… All because of you... “I… I already told ya. I thought if I ignored it— ignored your prodding, pretended like ya didn’t know already… That things would be okay…”

The Outpost Incident… The quarantine… Chains and shackles, neglectful spite from a Nag… Ya didn’t deserve any of it, Avie… I told ya…

“We could’ve ran, Ward,” Avie says, “We would’ve just needed the right time, a Vertibuck, and then—”

“Then spend the rest of our lives running from that Nag? What about the rest of Aridia bound by that stupid oath? We’d have nowhere to go.”

The desert finds the weak, and it will grind deserters, oathbreakers to dust. They would not have to chase us, but they will. Nopony leaves the Enclave, and the old Dashite branders were scrapped for their metal— save one. The Nag hangs that one in her quarters somewhere.

“I don’t want to run away.” I tell her, “I want to run towards something better without the worst things behind me— behind us— every step of the way. That’s not living, it’s worse than just trying to survive.”

“I think you don’t give the Aridians a lot of credit.” Her voice is softer than usual. I don’t know if what I heard just then was a small treble trailing her words, or if it was an echo bouncing off the walls. I don’t know what hurts worse: not knowing and wanting to ask about it, or knowing and not wanting to talk anymore about it.

* * * * * *

How long since we’ve decided to wait? How long until the inevitable? The questions will start getting more personal, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Asking to stop… I don’t know who to ask — not myself or Avie or… or if there’s anything that actually listens out there. I can’t bend my knees to something that I can’t say is really there, and I’d rather not feel I’m being watched anymore than I like.

Something’s coming. My ears hone in on distant shuffling and clatter getting closer and closer. Avie notices as well and she pulls herself up from me until we’re side by side watching the steel bars. From the left are familiar griffins, armored and armed— an odd number of five. One’s talons rattle with a hoop of keys, and they jingle at the lock to the door. It swings open and two of them come right in, flaking the both of us.

“Come along now,” The one on my right, a stocky griffin with a bandana, flicks his head towards the door.

I take a step alongside Avie, and the one on our left, a white feathered griffin, follows close. Bandana comes up behind us, and his partner is the first out of the cell where she immediately turns around and unslings her rifle.

We’re finally outside the cage and Boss is here to greet us, “No nonsense. Stick close and don’t try a thing less ye want a new necklace for that neck of yers—”

“What’d ya say?” My eyes start searching, trying to find any sliver of seafoam green in the blackened steel of his armor, and the speckled feathers that—

The door slams shut behind us and I’m shoved from behind, tripping on the uneven rock and nearly losing my hoofing and a few teeth. Avie manages to catch me before I can bite the rock. I growl all the way back to my hooves, hearing subtle chuckles, like a familiar group of bullies.

“We’re movin’ out. Remember what was just said: stick with us and there’ll be no problem. Divert or try anything, the collars come on and yer hobblin the way to delivery. Now move!”

I anticipate another shove, but it doesn’t come. The moment I try looking for the wise griffin who did it, one of them barks, “That’s not a suggestion— move!”

Not another word is said as Avie and me are herded by the griffins to and fro. It’s nothing but the lanterns and candescent bulbs swaying, playing with the shadows all around. The shapes are never the same as we pass them.

The quiet is held back by the tapping of our hooves on the rocky floor beneath us; the swaying and muffled clanking of armor and equipment hanging from the griffins, themselves; and the occasional echo of ruckus coming from someplace.

Is there a way out of this? Something to throw them off and get away, maybe? It comes to me as a fake fall, maybe a little dramatization to get their guard down before swinging; wrestle them for their guns, knock them out, and take what we can carry. We are smaller than them, and in the tight tunnel there may have been a chance…

No chance at all… Just wishful thinking… We wouldn’t have made it….

Another shove from behind, but I manage to keep myself from falling. I turn around to hear bandana snort, “You’re slowing down. Don’t.”

Beyond a door and into a massive cavern, griffins are moving with haste— taking what they can and breaking the rest— from tools too big to carry to raw materials being dumped into inconspicuous holes. Many of them are still standing guard, on their hind legs and talons on their rifles; every one of them giving us a stink eye as we pass them up.

Where ya’ll going…

“Eyes to yourself, Pegasus.” Bandana barks from behind. A stone ker-plunks into my stomach.

“We’re not goin’ to miss our window, sir?” A new voice from the escort, a helmeted griffin from in front of us.

“We won’ if we keep movin.’ It’d be faster if some griffins wouldn’ stop for breaks in the middle of the fuckin’ tunnel!” The Boss’s words almost turn into a beastly screech while we pass the very thing he’s complaining about: two other griffins catching their breath, sitting on the bulkiest crate I’ve seen pass through. All of us in this escort are hugging the wall, slowing down to let others through, and the Boss is letting his frustration seethe through the cracks and holes in his beak.

“Shit’s heavy, sir!” One of the slacking griffins throws their talons up like they didn’t deserve the sharp criticism.

“Not my problem!” The Boss roars like a drill sergeant, “Get yer ass— both yer asses— movin’ and stop congestin’ the traffic! Remember quota! Falk wanted us out ten minutes ago!”

Both these griffins getting yelled at, they give an air of delinquency that remind me of the bad batches from preparatory; the sour looks, frustrated groans, and the forced way they pull themselves up are all very familiar and reminiscent of those kinds of backward fillies and colts. I guess it’s everywhere in some form…

The Boss snorts, then turns to Avie and me, beckoning curtly, and giving the two aforementioned griffins another seething set of words, “What’re yew sittin’ still for?! Move!”

Part of me feels like it’s an order meant for all of us. Soon enough, the tunnel gets easier to traverse, and there are less of these mercs being seen the farther down we go. The shadows are dancing in the swaying lights, still, and now there are carved out holes in the wall; rooms that are irregularly spaced between one another, and each of them are as empty as a gutted living room.

The light is still fighting with the crevasses and pools of dark along the walls, but there are fewer lamps than last time. Every one is more spaced out than the last. There are stands sitting in nestled alcoves, and each of them has a reflective disk that points to another one further down the line; to one another, throwing the light further down the way. Looking into one of them while passing them up burns my eyes, leaving dark patches dancing in my vision.

I try to blink the patches away as they saturate everything I see. Avie’s face remains clear, though, and I recognize the concern in her eyes as I try to rub the discomfort out of mine. The more I try rubbing them away with Avie being my crutch, the more anger bubbles up from deep inside—

Somewhere from the back of my mind; an inkling— a sensation. The more I focus on it, the more it festers. It nibbles, then it gnaws harder and harder as I try to pull my focus away from it, but I can’t— I don’t want to ignore it. It’s telling me to not take my awareness off it as it begins to chomp and claw and pound at the walls in my brain. Its incessant drumming burns the inside of my head, and the pressure builds so much I can’t keep walking.

“What’s the matter?!” Helmet’s voice rises— his words gonging in my ears and distorting everything. “Get him up! Now!”

“Ward…” I hear Avie; I feel her presence on me as I brace the floor, and then my head. “Ward, what’s going on?!”

I try to tell her but all that comes out is straining noise; a signal getting worse and worse, lashing out at my attempts to communicate. The noise… The noise! It’s in my head, and it’s howling! A scream that will split my head open with the force of a thousand— “It’s nothing… It’s nothing!”

Buzzing; blaring—claxons and whirring shrills in real time— I hear all of it; I can feel all of them. They’re rolling in from the unseen horizon; creeping out from where it’s been held, and it wants out— it wants that more than anything. It wants to try again, and it will; it’ll scream louder, harder until the cage breaks…

It’s coming…

Murmurs rise from the alarms, punching through the pressure building up. I see it in my vision and on my forehoof; a heart-sinking light; an emblem of danger…

All of the HUD is dying; fizzling, flashing, deconstructing into spazzing lines of arcane code that want to explode…

It’s coming…

There’s too much noise— too much noise— “Make it stop! Too loud! Too loud!”

“Shit! Get him up! In the hole, now!” the words warble in my ears. Everything I see doubles onto themselves; a shimmering outline rippling from our movement, and in the light. It’s like water caustics—

The distortions are flowing in like water and are being shut out by whatever safety measures there are. Avie’s in my face, speaking. I need to say something, but the pressure is pinching the way out for my words. She’s holding my face, and I’m holding my head.

Everything’s so hot; the sweat and tears are almost boiling out of my pores. The drum in my chest distorts everything with its ramping thumps. Every boom in my ears makes the caustics fly away from our silhouettes like dust, but they always stay— bleeding from the light that still is.

The door they shut and line with tape won’t keep them out; the lanterns the helmeted griffin light won’t guarantee safety. I know from training; I know from inside— from the inkling that’s growing and raking into the black matter of my brain. It’s building… Building… Hundreds…Thousands…Millions— Growing—Deafening— Drowning—

Gone… The pain’s not there. Was it ever there? Taking deep breaths, it’s floating away. Going… Going… It’s far from me, but still there— back to where it was. The inkling’s brighter, but far, far away. It doesn’t mean it’s over. I don’t have to question how I know, because everything around me is evident.

The Storm is here…

* * * * * *

The candle light is quivering in the darkest corners of the room. Everytime it flickers too harshly, it pulls the guards’ eyes off us in an instant. They don’t always go out, but when they do there’s always a griffin with a quickmatch.

The door moans all the while. The thinnest barrier between us in the room and them out there rattle with a quiet fear permeating everything. None of us dare to look. It is easier that way for everyone gathered…

One way in… Only true way out…

Avie holds onto me, and the griffin guards— Bandana and Helmet— sit along old crates, rifles always ready, and staring on at us with the door to their back. The Boss taps his talons along his chest guard, and periodically scratches at something underneath. Everytime he does there is… something more… Something I think— Something I know, I should know, somehow.

…

…

…

…

“What was that?” White-feathers chirps. Every other griffin look at him— worry, flabbergast, and cold expression all on their faces. I keep my ears, and so does Avie.

The Pipbuck is all but worthless. What little of it I see in my vision doesn’t stay clear for long. Even the device itself is having a seizure, and it can’t tell if everything’s an enemy, or probably an enemy. The entire bar is flooded with red…

There is nothing out there… There is nothing… Nothing is nothing…

‘They will come in. It can be anything, anyone; it’s none of them, but it’ll seem like somepony ya know… Block it out… Shut it out… You need to… You have to… If that doesn’t work…’

“Sir, there’s someone out there. You all don’t hear it?”

The other griffins look to one another for a moment, and back on their recently chatty teammate.

“You all don’t hear them?” Whitefeather asks, again.

The softest click from a rifle answers his question. Those green eyes dart around the room to everyone else’s focus on him. Not another click, but now the Boss pulls something from his gear— a slick, hefty-looking tube in one talon, and a pistol in the other. The quickmatch comes out, too.

Something beyond the walls. A croak, a groan, getting louder and louder; shaking the room of its dust until the door threatens to come off its hinges. The reverberations peak, and then slope— the noise getting farther and farther away. The room breathes, and Bandana goes to check the door with the longest, mousiest steps he can muster. His glance is quick, and his “okay” gesture is even quicker. Not a word.

…

…

…

…

A shot; a short burst of gunfire rings out from somewhere outside. Bellowing reverberates across the room, and the gunfire is drowned out and then immediate silence settles in. Not a scream.

…

…

…

…

“It had to be a Catalyst Storm,” One of them finally chirped, cutting through the layered silence. Her voice is low enough to hopefully not bring attention, but loud enough for us to hear.

“All the way out here. Another rogue cell, most like,” White-feather chimes in.

‘How long does it last?’ Pegasi couldn’t tape those clouds— none of them, Catalyst or not. Those that did just… vanished, as far as the records told. No natural pattern; a small window of predication and preparation; hunker-down protocols…

The L.T.’s words, they echo out from the back of my mind: ‘Close the door… You’ll let them in…’

The door starts to rattle and grab at all of our attention. It shakes and shakes on the verge of coming off the damn wall. Two of the griffins spring to it, bracing against it and holding into the stone with their weight. Bandana moves one of the weighty crates with straining effort. Avie and I stay where we are as the Boss keeps his eyes on us.

The door goes from a rattle to thunderous banging. The wood frame, despite its frail appearance, keeps itself standing. All the noise funnels into my head, and it escalates— getting louder and louder until I can’t hear anything anymore; nothing… but the faintest mangled tune behind all the noise.

It starts to sound like horrible music; a melody that shouldn’t be. Scratching at my brain, worming into the folds in my gray matter and pulling them open. Everything blends together, melting away into a macabre of words I feel; noises I see; and feelings I can taste… Drowning… Drowning…

Air…

It’s stopped. The door has held together, and the three griffins back away from it like the slightest jerk will kill them.

“Hello?”

My heart jumps, pushing my back into the wall.

It sounds like… No.

It couldn’t be… She’s beside me, not behind the door.

“Anyone. Any-griff… Can you hear me? Please, open the door.”

“It’s her…” White-feathers speaks up, “I wasn’t crazy…”

“Gael? Boss? You all in there? Open the door— before it comes back! Please, you have to believe me!” The voice beyond the barricade insists.

“Find a room; light it all around; close the door; not a hoof outside, and not a stranger inside…”

White-feathers looks around at us, “You all believe me, now?”

“Gael? I hear you in there—”

“Don’t.” Bandana warns, rifle ready. “Block it out. You hear nothing.”

“Bullshit, I hear her. What about the gunfire? We can’t leave her out there— she’s one of us—”

“Take it easy, Gael” Bandana warns.

“No, no! She’s just outside the door!”

“Voice down, Gael.” The Boss also warns.

“Are none of you going to do anything?!”

“You know protocol—”

“Fuck protocol! We’re no good if we can’t save some of our own from this bullshit Storm! We can’t lose anymore!”

“Open the door! Open the door, please— Gael!”

Rifles raise the moment the griffin—Gael— lunges for the box. The latter draws his own weapon, changing target every so often, “We’re not leaving one of ours out there to them!”

“There’s nothing there, Gael. Sit down or…” Bandana warns.

“No, you’re not! You’re no—”

A snap silences the room, and a griffin drops like a heavy stack of cards.

“Gael…” One of them calls their comrade, limp and unresponsive.

I look over to the Boss— all of us do. A pistol is in his talon, and the cylinder is affixed to the end of it. He drops his aim and stares at his fallen subordinate.

“I didn’ wanna believe it,” he says. “I thought maybe he’d ignore it. I would’ve wanted that more than anythin’. It was too late for him. Fuck.”

The noise on the other side of the door ceased the moment Gael stopped being alive. Nothing’s changed, and I know the griffins know that.

He walks over slowly to the corpse, and the rest of the team steps back with their guns now lowered to the floor. The Boss takes the time to kneel down and run his talons through the dead griffin’s head— the parts of it that are not soaked in blood and brain.

Three more pops go off, and three more times the fallen griffin’s head geysers with each shot. Avie slinks back into me, and I look away thinking it’ll keep going for a while. It doesn’t.

“That should buy us some time,” Boss mutters loud enough for us to hear.

“W-We can’t leave him like that, sir,” Bandana says. “He’ll turn into—”

“We don’ have the room or space for a fire. The smoke will kill us before the ones outside do, and then it won’t matter. Watch the blood…” The Boss holsters his pistol for now with the silencer still attached. He bends down, looking irritated and rubbing at his chestplate again. My own chest itches just watching him. Without a word he starts to move the body with Bandana’s help, leaving Helmet to turn his attention to both Avie and I.

“I wonder what he heard,” Avie asks. “He sounded so… so worried and longful about whatever he was talking about. It must have meant something…”

“Sounded like a mare,” It sounded like Avie to me, but to the griffin…

She squeezes at my foreleg, and I see worry in her eyes, “Ward… I’m right here. Don’t listen to it.”

The weighing guilt is in my stomach, and my ears fold as I nod. I hold onto her, bringing my forehead to hers and fighting the sudden onset of lethargy. The scent in her mane… Her scent… How long since I’ve slept, for real…

Something strange stirs inside and becomes a yearning. The threads being pulled catch my throat, and I’m forced to take long, deep, almost shaky breaths. My heart squirms, steaming with thoughts coming from someplace in my mind. I can’t stop thinking, feeling, a homesickness that can’t be mine— it can’t be mine. I don’t have a reason too, but—

“Return…”

“Get it off! Get it off!”

Bandana’s screams shake the room. All of us look at the female griffin struggling. Her frustrated grunting quickly becomes fretting, and a horrible glow starts to emit from the one talon she’s worked up about.

The Boss starts to pull his pistol without warning, and Bandana freezes. She raises her talons, showing all of the glow in her right. Curse Crystals have blanketed it, and are crawling all the way down her wrist; pulsing, crackling— everything it does causes her to wince, streams down her face glistening in the candlelight.

The Boss’ talon digit runs along the back of the pistol, and the hammer pulls back with an authoritative click. Bandana’s wavering voice stiffens, and her talons lower with her beak. Her digits glide near her own holster—

Helmet stands sharply, “Sir!—”

A pop and a crack smash into one another. The room reverberates, and my ears ring like mad. The flickering light on the end of that room goes out with a thud, and the Boss stumbles into a nearby crate.

“Dammit!” He hisses, pounding at the crate holding him up. “The light! We need the light! Don’t let the shadows—”

“Boss…” Helmet raises his rifle towards the wall as it feels like it’s getting darker than before. Any light that touches it slinks away, vanishing like the darkness was a rising water level.

Something like claws dragging along a glass window goes off in the back of my mind, making me spring up and off the ground. I pull Avie up and hold her close, watching this thing consume the two fallen griffins.

“...Hello…”

I bite my tongue to hold back a scream— It was in my brain— it was in my brain!

The shadow ripples the light shining into it, and something inky begins to show itself through it.

“Get the match…” The Boss urges, keeping his breath low as he slowly backs away from it, as more of the room falls into obscurity.

“Sir, we need to—”

“I know what yer about to say! We ain’t got luxury! Get a fuckin’ match, no—”

A horrid, garbled scream lashes out at his words and at the Boss. He struggles against a rampant form of what was the griffin, Gael. What he was, what he now is— Curse Crystals grown over him like a cancerous blight; eyes hollow and full of that horrid color; voice like a busted radio.

Avie slinks back into me, and I cover her with my wings as the Moribund bashes and claws at the Boss, “GET IT OFF ME!” He screams bloody murder.

Helmet raises his gun and fires several shots at his former friend. The bullets shatter through the crystal and rip through hollow flesh like it were a paper tarp. No blood pours from the wounds, only more crystal where the bullet once was— rapidly growing and covering the wounds all over. It didn’t even flinch!

“Fuck!” The panic in Helmet’s voice was rising. He fumbles for another magazine and immediately drops it. “Shit–Shit— Shi—”

Another warped scream turns his words into panic as he’s flung off to the right of us by a blur of terrible light and feathers. The room is full of screams, garbled nonsense, and a curtain of darkness that inches closer and closer to us as the room burns away, unraveling into oblivion and the inky silhouette moving into the both of us.

Something— anything! Anything to try and slow them down. Our backs are against the wall, and the door is lost to the dark— burning away like paper to a fire until there’s nothing but an emptiness.

The room grows silent, and the candles left around dissolve away.

There’s gotta be a way out! The last of the door is gone, and the violent mayhem in the room fizzes away like static in the dead air. There’s gotta be something!

Avie holds onto me closer, “Ward…”

I hold her even closer, putting myself further around her frame as if I can shield her from the force creeping up on us. I don’t take my eyes off it, even with my heart screaming; drumming a ramping, desperate beat into my ears.

Four pairs of glowing eyes light up in the dark. In the dead air, I… think I hear something.

Something strange…

Something familiar…

Something… Like…

“Fall…”

There was a floor beneath us. Above, the shadow and the eyes stare and vanish into snaps of light and shape. Directions— up, down, left— they don’t mean anything anymore. My stomach doesn’t know where gravity is, and the bile is in limbo. Avie’s still with me…I can’t feel Avie’s presence around me.

“AVIE!” Would have been the word heard, if there was anything to carry them out. As hard as I scream— I can feel the strain in my throat, but not a sound leaves my lips. I can’t find the means to use my wings to break my fall; trying to flap them feels like they will shear off.

The oblivion around me feels like it’s tumbling, and in the twisting shadows I swear I see things— hear others— flash by me. Sometimes it’s like the sun breaks through the clouds; sometimes there’s a terror-filled scream of defiance and the sound of clashing thunder making my muscles feel like they’ve exploded; a horned creature stares at me through the darker cracks in the veil, peering at me with one disfigured and pale green eye, whistling a—the— low tune.

I don’t know how I know, but that tune…

Something about it changes in the sudden, lashing static. The melody is being stripped, warped— there is nothing right about it. At the same time, it’s as if hearing it for the first time was what I’ve always known from deep inside; like seeing in a dream I can vaguely remember, but somehow know so well… I’ve heard it before. It sounds like… Feels like…

My HUD sparks back to life in my vision, buzzing and trying to force epilepsy. The Stable-Tec mascot flashes over on occasion, the expression twitching from complacent, then to agony, then to accusative; his face falling into itself until there’s a hole in the code and an angry light destroying the static. A screen comes up at the center of my vision, and a single message spells itself out:

[H-E-L-L-O]
"Hello..."

It’s in my vision— it’s in my head— speaking right into my brain. I think it; it said it. My skin tightens, my blood robbed of warmth. AVIE!!!

An instinct sparks inside. I look around myself with the feeling pulling me in all directions until it’s taut. My eyes wander until I notice a pinprick of familiar light— the sense, warm and fuzzy-like, bringing me closer to it. It gets brighter. Closer?

In the disharmony of the void, there is something peeking through all of it so clearly. It plucks at my heart like a painful nostalgia. I have to get closer. I need to get closer.

This feeling grows, blooming into a mother’s embrace. The pinprick gives itself shape as an uneven, glossy face floating in the oblivion. Mother…

I reach for my talisman with my whole coat feeling three sizes too small…

Almost there… Just a little more… Am I still falling? Are you waiting for me? I’m almost there— Where’s Avie? Can she see you too? She needs to— It’s how she’ll find me in this place— Just let me get to you…

Just a little more… Just a little more… Got you…

“You. We know you…”

That’s not my—

My hooves around the talisman are wracked with tremors that paralyze with hundreds and thousands of cold, burning needles. They burrow deeper, and the grip on my treasure tightens. I scream for my body to stop, but every muscle lashes out in sadistic defiance. The Pipbuck’s screen in the bottom right of my vision burns white, flickering mad until the faintest whine bleeds into my head.

A haunting light pulls itself from the inky glow around my talisman into a vague shape. Its coiling features writhe within the pit in my stomach; becoming fuller and more distinct, my breathing faster and faster.

Pain and terror rise with the form. It ripples like a puddle and something beyond it starts to pull itself out. The haunting glow of the curse crystal pokes out from the veil with scorched metal. The cracked lenses stare right into me; my heart’s desperation bursting, clawing out of my ears.

“We know…”

The lenses snap open; the voice rattles my brain with every echo bouncing off the inner walls of my skull. My mind is seized by the pinpricks of the unknown in those sockets, sending me screaming with the static in my head and in my forehead until a great, tearing force overwhelms my right forehoof into a screaming numbness.

“You know…?”

Gravity pulls me down. My frogs still keep glued to my talisman; the pain is growing, and the numbness sends drool from my lips. I try to flap my wings, but every feather is a brick.

“Do…?”

My eyes focus on the talisman. Muscles going limp, stretching far beyond what they should; the talisman getting further and further… but my grip… is still…

“Where?... How?... When? You know what we ask…”

Out of my head…

Out of my head…

“Relinquish… Open… See… Submit—”

The talisman’s glow burns a sickly light that shakes me to the core. My one last hoof that holds roars with a greater pain that splits through the numbness. It’s crawling in my veins, rupturing every cell like a monster in my blood— carving, hardening, cracking, banging, churning—

My chest starts to burn with a cold, and it’s forcing my eyes on the mask that stares, demands; caresses and gently lays me into a thousand grasping strands. In the dark around us— falling into eternity— I’m not— I’ve never—

“Embrace—”

A thunderous roar shakes the abyss. The dark mask flashes; wrong sparks fly; foals cry from nowhere. The horrible bliss shatters around me and I fall with the talisman.

“...Ward!”

Avie…

“...Ward! I need you to— Ward!”

Avie… What’s going on…

“Get up…! Please!”

I can’t find the ground…

“Ward! Ward! Please! No! No!”

More thunder rings out around me. My eardrums feel like they’re on the verge of bursting.

“You can run… You can climb… You can fall… You can’t fly…”

My talisman floats about in front of me without the horrible light, only it’s own now. In the wisps around the dark, I can see glimpses; Avie’s face…

The pistol is in her mouth; her mane is sticking to her face like webs. Her gun is holding itself open, clicking furiously, and it drops from her maw. The scene flickers, and I see her from somewhere distant at an off angle low to the ground. There’s something there, inching towards her— fazing closer and further away, settling right in front of her.

“Cannot run… All the roads… All the ways… They come to us…”

It’s flickering closer to her. Her scream shakes the vision and pierce through the dark.

“Get away from her!”

The shadowy visage blinks into my view.

“Join…”

Blackness forces its way down my throat. My screams come from deep inside, coming up from the voiding cold that hollows me out. The crystals nip, and they bite— tearing me inside and out. My body shoots out from all sides, thrashing at its own volition as my voice cries out into static.

It’s slipping away… Joining the rest… My head won’t stop throbbing against it all. Against hundreds, thousands— hundreds of thousands. They’re all inside me, crawling into me— stretching my mind until I vanish into the sea of mangled melodies.

I can hear their tunes, in the smallest of seconds. Every single one of them.

They are me, and I am them. Neither and none, against that which is.

DROWNING in the growing sea, and unable to DO anything... Not WANTING to do ANYTHING…

Which one was I? Who was the me on the floor—

Thousands-of-I— too much of— too LITTLE—

DROWNING…

Burning…

—waking—

A burning inside…

—locked away—

The glow of my time… Burning brighter…

—Need you—

—Need her—

Burning inside. A spark calling to a flame, looking for its light… Slipping through the cracks. Spilling out from inside. Not like this…

Not like this…

It needs— I need—
—I need—

Calling to me… Asking of me… Giving… to me… In the frog of my hoof…
—My heart—
A—Vie—

Our screams… becoming a melody…
—Will not—

Her voice… becoming mine…

Becoming ours…

-–Fading—

A greater melody…

—MY voice—

To find a way…

—TAKE IT—

In my hoof now… Cry all ya want…

—abomination—

Burning… In me… —Release—

“What…”

—You will not have her—

“Different…”

—THE SAME—

“We…”

— Mine—

—MY body—

—MY magic—

—MY heart—

“Submit—”

—Burning— Its shadowy facade shatters, it cries in the dark. The goggles staring…. The light coming back…

—I’m ME—

She’s fighting it… The look in her eyes… Our bodies —OUR— Ravaging…

“You…”

My name… on her lips… fighting the static…

So much more personal. The pain, the crystals… So much more…

“Reject?...”

— She will not be erased—

“Defy?...”

—BURN—

DEPARTMENT OF ARCANE AND ALCHEMICAL SCIENCES-

NULL WATCH DIVISION

MEMORANDUM FOR:

TO:Qulumhil-Na’Thalishin, High Inquisitor Qaluhai’na

FROM:Null Zone Zalef

Watchpost X
Grand Aridia, Region South

SUBJECT: After Action Report, Null Zone Activity Recorded

SUMMARY:

The following is information regarding the duties of Null Watch, itself:

• New report of Null Zone activity from Watchpost X.

• Ambient localized magic through the adders

• Contact made, two new entities emerge from the aforementioned shimmer— one perceived hostile, and the other on its back.

• Agents deployed to investigate new shimmer from the hole in perception following strict assessment and decision procedure. Entity cognisance, questionable.

• Action taken, mitigated. Contact made, expenditure of warding resources minimal to negligent.

• Entities collapsed. Observation and assessment of new arrivals revealed to be two pegasi matching descriptors for missing ponies of interest.

• Both pegasi are being kept for observation until orders are received on the next course of action.

Addendum:
This one was on fire. It walked out of the Null, just like the Blip did when it showed up. It burned a different way from the cleaners. It seemed to understand our requests, but it didn’t talk back or acknowledge our questions. It bled something that turned the sand under its hooves to glass in an instant, but none of those flames erupting out of the crystals spread throughout the body, so much as burned the pony on its back. She was directly in its flames. Hammerdown Protocol was considered, but the burning one fizzled out. It begged. I heard its cries for help before it settled.

I believe it is the best course of action that they are held until the matter of their nature can be assessed properly by the Vhoskilinn or the Arcane and Alchemical Sciences Division. If they are a danger, ma’am, then I’ll humbly accept a demerit for not throwing them both back into the hole sooner. It may be a trick, but I know that the School of Mysticism and the Arcane and Alchemical Sciences Division would want to know if it is something new.

- Kae, Head of Null Watchpost X