One Last Mission

San Palomino Megaspell Testing Site, San Palomino Desert

Day 11

Our destination was… different than I had expected it to be.

Similar to how we had arrived in Nowhere, our arrival at the megaspell testing site was closer to the day’s end. A beautiful red sky shined on what looked like the start of a town not far in the distance. It was bigger than the mining camp we had spent the previous night in, but not as big as Underside. Unpainted, unfurnished, lacking any features that might differentiate a house from a work space or otherwise. Purposefully generic, considering what it went through.

What was most surprising, however, was the lack of Ministry buildings on site leading up to the town. Considering the sheer power of the spells they were testing here, I had expected shelter. Perhaps it was merely out of sight, on the other side of the town, or perhaps it had all been disassembled. I felt more confident in the former than the latter; mega spells had been too important to the war's end for a site testing them to have been abandoned.

Yet whatever it had once been didn’t matter anymore. What did matter was who was here, and what it meant. My eyes drifted to my novasurge rifle, momentarily grabbing the grip with my… magic. Was still getting used to that, same with the idea that I didn’t need a battle saddle to use it. For a moment, I questioned if I had actually managed to hit anything the night before. The sight of the craven was more present than any shot that was released that night.

Still, for comfort sake more than anything, my novasurge sat in my battle saddle. Tension had grown thick enough to taste, and the closer we got to the doom town the more powerful that taste got. Eyes went from building to building, looking for any sign of possible ambush, guns drawn in preparation.

“I know that Nowhere was literally a ghost town too, but this feels a lot accurate to what ponies mean,” Dead Hooves said. “Just to make sure, ponies didn’t actually live here, right?”

“By Celestia, I hope not,” I said, whispering quietly. The farthest out building passed by me, neither E.F.S. or my eyes catching anything. “No ghosts so far. That’s good, I think.”

Stardust, curious filly that she was, showed none of the hesitation or tension that the rest of us did. Where the rest of us were watching each building closely, expecting at any moment for a changeling or pony to appear and start shooting, she was a lot less careful. She jumped to see through windows, ran around and out of sight only to appear from other directions. Getting to explore an area like this must have been a foal’s dream scenario.

I picked up my pace just the slightest bit until I was directly behind Day Glow. He nodded at me, and I nodded at him. I turned around so we were flank to flank, watching our six while everypony else watched elsewhere. It was quiet enough for somepony to hear a pin drop. If Lucky Shot and these Equalist ponies were around, we’d hear them.

Either that, or they would end up finding us.

“Any idea how many there are with him?” I asked my fellow pegasus, keeping my voice quiet. “Changelings, I mean.”

“No clue. All we know is that he was sighted trespassing on the Hurricane, and that he was heading in this direction,” he replied.

“So he might not even be here.” I let the words sit for a minute, noting the subtle dilation in Day Glow’s pupils. “You better hope this wasn’t some wild goose chase, Day.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Me? No, but those two?” I motioned with my head towards Sharpshot and Gold, the latter’s eyes turned in my direction. He was listening, because of course he was. “One has issues controlling their anger, the other has his own agenda.”

“And both of them would be more than willing to kill me for it.”

“Wouldn’t say that,” Gold chimed in, giving a rather coy smile to Day Glow. If an incoherent, under-the-breath swear didn’t make it clear he didn’t notice the griffon listening, the further dilation of his pupils did. “Kill gives Shattered Moon reason to hunt us. Disappearing? Different story.”

“And he did warn you when we met, didn’t he?” Sharpshot shouted. The venom in his statement was strong enough to kill a hellhound. “There would be repercussions if our time was wasted.”

Day Glow’s head swiveled to me. “Why the fuck are you keeping company like this?”

“Because, despite everything, they have a damn good point,” I explained. An inner piece of me winced at my own words, but my mouth kept moving. “I trust you because we were in the Enclave together, fighting side by side against what we thought was a twisted, malformed corpse of a world. These ponies live in that very world, and considering how we pegasi have treated them….”

I let him figure out the rest, because I knew Day Glow was smart enough for it. His eyes searched my facial features for any sign I was joking, coming up empty again and again. A piece of me found it pathetic. Another reminded me that, not even days earlier, I was in his hooves.

Day Glow’s futile search ended, his eyes filled with a mixture of loss, confusion, and anger. He took several steps away from me – from all of us – head turning forward slowly. No words were needed for me to understand what was going through his head. He still didn’t believe my words in the mine, about me still being the same Rhapsody he had looked up to in the Enclave. To him, that mare was dead in mind, body, and soul.

“It’s like looking in a mirror,” Dead Hooves and I whispered simultaneously.

It barely hit me that she had mimed my words for a few seconds, and when I did I gave her a stunned expression. It took the ghostly mare a few seconds to realize what she had done, her brow briefly shooting up before her head hung sheepishly. Her ears went sideways against her head, one of her forelegs rubbing against the other.

“It’s so hard to tell the difference between you and me at times,” she said. She gazed at me with a soulful, foal-like look that would turn many a stallion and mare into a squeaking mess from pure cuteness. “Just to make sure, I… I was the one that killed you, right?”

I blinked as I heard her words, head tilting in slight irritation. “Dead Hooves, that’s not a good joke.”

The ghost mare had a dumb look on her face, staring blankly at me as if what I had just said made no sense. Her ears bent even further against her head, the sheepishness seeming to grow more and more by the second. She laughed, I withheld a groan, and the question bounced around in my mind without leaving. Not entirely sure why, especially when the answer was so simple.

“I know humor can help with shit like this, but right now isn’t the time,” I reminded her. “Besides, nothing about it all really… sits right with me.”

“Right, yeah, got it,” the ghost mare replied, nodding subtly as she turned her attention forward. “Sorry DH. Lucky Shot comes first, existential crisis after.”

I nodded back, eyes trailing off to the many buildings. I was waiting for anypony to reveal themselves and take aim. They were taking materials that Shattered Moon saw as their own, and whether or not it was these Equalists knew openly admitting to such thievery would only enrage their enemies. Whether they had the means to bite back didn’t matter, nocreature playing politics like a game of chicken – egging your opponents on and on till they struck – was idiotic. Only the Enclave played that game and got away with it.

I’m positive the only reason we did was due to the cloud cover.

After a quick check to make sure the Novasurge battery was at sufficient charge and the atomizer was unloaded, (this place was but another battlefield unfit for such a weapon) my ear twitched. It was nearly impossible to tell with the amount of hooves, or in Gold’s case paws, treading the sandy ‘streets’ of this dooms town, but something felt off. Not the quiet – it would make sense for our enemies to be silent if we had been spotted approaching long before we could see them – but rather the number of hoofsteps. It felt off greater than there were ponies currently present, but I didn’t see any unknowns nearby.

“Miss Rhapsody,” Stardust called out. I looked down to my hoof, noticing the spectral filly doing everything in her power to nudge my hoof to gain my attention. “I saw something behind us.”

My head immediately swerved to look in that very direction, pupils darting all over the place in search of what she had said. Nothing showed itself, either having picked up on the fact that I was catching onto them or not being there in the first place. Stardust didn’t have a reason to lie, and ignorance was an easy way to get a pony killed on the battlefield.

Always, always, prepare for the worst case scenario. In this case, that was an ambush from all sides.

“Hold up,” I said quietly, stopping in my tracks. Everycreature followed suit, looking back to me as I did one more scan. The vague sound of additional, distant hoofsteps was all I needed. “We’re being watched.”

That was all I needed to say. Guns flew up, trained in as many directions as we were able, with me watching our six like a predator ready to pounce. Our sudden readiness didn’t lead to any ambushers revealing themselves, but a red dot did appear on my E.F.S.. Two of them, in fact, both from either side of me.

Sharpshot and I shared a look with each other, and with no words we moved so that our positions lined up with where each of those dots were. For me, that was at the corner of a building to what had been my left. I curled my lips inward the slightest bit, waiting, tunnel-visioned, yet still somehow distinctly aware of ever sound around me.

“Attention Equalists scum!” Day Glow shouted, his voice piercing through sudden standoff and breaking my concentration for less than a second. I chastised myself as I focused back on checking for hostiles. “We are with the Shattered Moon. You have been sighted confiscating property that does not belong to you, and are within borders that do not belong to your so called “messenger.” Drop your guns, come out into the open, and we will not shoot.”

There was no immediate reply, at least where words were concerned. Day Glow's words, a clear attempt at de-escalation, only proved the opposite as several more red dots appeared. No one came out of cover, no shots fired, the stand off continued as if nothing had ever been said in the first place.

“Fuck,” Sharpshot growled, his voice exceedingly harsher than usual. “I think you managed to piss them.”

“Counting seven dots on E.F.S., possibly more,” I replied. “Possibly more, some are on the very edge of the compass.”

Willow scowled, her horn lit as if ready to go invisible at a second’s notice. “Me being here probably didn’t help. They shot us alicorns on sight. The Goddess hates her.”

I’m not sure how long I stood there, eyes plastered forward in preparation for when the contact in front of me took initiative. Not that he needed to; we were surrounded on all sides, nowhere to go but up, and that didn’t work for all of us. These creatures had wings too, so it wasn’t like flight was a surefire getaway either. All they had to do was wait for one of us to drop our guard. That meant one of us was more than likely to drop dead.

I wasn’t going to let that happen, or let it be me. Dying once was enough for a lifetime, and I refused to let the unavoidable second death come this soon. Gritting my teeth, steeling myself for what I was about to do, I decided to make the opening move.

“Lucky shot!”

My voice was louder and reached farther than Day Glow’s had, to the point it almost hurt to speak with. DH stared at me, a looking screaming ‘what the fuck are you doing’ written on her face for me alone to read. I lowered my weapon ever so slightly, not dropping my guard but showing the slightest sign of vulnerability.

“I know you are here, and you have a lot to answer for,” I said, keeping my volume consistent. I’d deal with the consequences of ruining my voice later, if it reached that point. “The Enclave High Council has charged you for treason, though I doubt you care. I don’t either, not anymore.” Day Glow turned to look at me, horror overriding any other emotion that had previously been in his eyes. “I just want to talk, from one soldier to another. I hope you have enough pride in that bug-like body for this much.”

There was a brief pause in all sound, even the wind staying silent as I waited for any form of response. The sound of nearby whispers caught my attention, too quiet for me to hear anything outside of the hissing ‘s’ sounds that came with their hushed voices. Discussion, leading into another small respite, and topped off with the clop of hooves.

A single red dot disappeared, another turned an off-yellow color, and more joined with the latter. That was new, at least for myself. I looked back to Sharpshot to gauge how he was reacting, seeing his stance drop ever so slightly. Still tense, ready to shoot at the first sign of danger, but just relaxed enough to give the impression he might consider other options.

“Before I step out, I want your word that I won’t be shot,” a familiar, deep, and stoic voice called out. My eyes turned in the direction it had come from; the building directly next to the one I had been watching, as featureless as all the others. “No offense ma’am, but you got known heretics with you. I don’t feel safe.”

“Aw, the little bug thinks I want to kill him,” Willow replied. I got the distinct feeling her telepathic message reached a bit farther than just the immediate group, given the hate that filled her voice. “How sweet. If he’s a good little insect I’ll merely leave him a crushed leg, a torn apart wing, and his disgusting fangs lodged in his own chest!”

“I also request keeping her on a leash,” Lucky Shot replied. “I’m being considerate, Rhapsody. You know how it feels seeing you walking around with one of theirs in your midst?”

“This coming from the creature that walked in one of my squadmate’s skin?” I asked. My hooves shifted position so that I was facing in his direction. “I have orders, ‘Lucky’, and disobeying them might mean the difference between safety for my husband and foals. There is no reason for me to be trying to converse with you right now, but here I am, doing it anyway. So come out, weapons low, and I might do the same.”

…

“And you blame me for wearing the skin of a pony who never existed.”

A creature – a changeling specifically – stepped out from the doorway to the building I was watching. It didn’t look too different from a shifter, same black chitin and same large, blue eyes. The thing stared at me, just as much as I stared at it. If it wasn’t for the fact I had heard somepony speak earlier, and the bright, somewhat extravagant looking cloth that was draped over his armor, I wouldn’t have been able to tell it apart from its ghoul-like cousins.

“You look exactly like her, and you aren’t one of us,” it said. The voice was Lucky Shot’s, no doubt about it. This was the changeling that had pretended to be him. “Yet I know my old friends; she wouldn’t be caught dead walking with anyone that doesn’t have wings. Who are you?”

“Your old friend? What gives you the right to call yourself that,” I spat back. Holding back the hate was impossible, looking upon this thing that dared to treat me as a friend. “What the fuck did you do to the real Lucky Shot?”

“Nothing. He never existed,” he replied. It was so… matter-of-fact, the way he said it. It didn’t feel right. “That’s all I can tell you. Just be assured that I didn’t not take anyone from you… at least, not intentionally.”

Several more hoofsteps hit our ears, and more changelings appeared from all sides. All of them looked no different from Lucky, their garbs the only thing differentiating them. Despite the lacking pupils, I was unnervingly aware of the fury coming from every single one of them. Guns were still pointed, and a simple glance made me aware that they were all aiming at a single target.

Willow Wisp took pride in being that target.

“You all are surrounded,” one of them said. “Put down your weapons, allow us to inhibit your magic, and we may let all of you leave here with your lives.”

“‘May’ not good enough,” Gold replied, aiming Roche Limit at the changeling in question. “We desire guarantee.”

“Ha! Like I’d even take their guarantee,” Willow said. Her bloodlust was in full force, a mad grin on her face as her eyes moved from one changeling to the next. “You’ve tried to kill me before. Me, and my dear little Sharpy. I’m not leaving without two things: the sight of your tails between your legs, or more invitingly,” she licked her lips, face twisting even further into the some terrifying realm of malic, “the sight of your organs stringing this town forever more.”

More than a few of the changelings surrounding us stepped backwards, fear overtaking their features. Sharpshot shot a look at his wife, who met it with not a single change to her own expression. He gritted his teeth, and then focused back on a changeling directly in front of him.

“Consider this my wife being nice,” he said. “Most lowlifes don’t get the first option.”

The changeling calling itself Lucky Shot sighed at my companions. “Everything in my body tells me that the mare before me isn’t the same one I served under in the Enclave. Yet here I am, forced to contend with the fact that you are her.”

“And there is nopony to blame for that but yourself,” I replied, taking a single step towards.

A rifle barrel pointed towards my temple, one of a make I wasn’t personally unfamiliar with. It wasn’t Equestrian, it wasn’t Zebrican, and it led to a small deal of uncertainty towards what it exactly was. The only two things I was certain on was it being some manner of assault rifle, and being somewhat cheap. A mass-produced piece, standard issue, and a quick look to the other hostiles surrounding us showed the same weapon was wielded by all of them.

“Since you said you might let us leave, I’ll give my own ultimatum,” I said. “I’m here for what you took, and if you hoof it over I won’t kill you.”

There was a faint sign of sadness in the changeling’s eyes as he heard those words. “So that is why you are down here. He made you take the fall, the coward.”

“Answer the question, changeling!” I commanded.

He didn’t answer, staring me down in wait for me to take his own offer instead. He didn’t have it, not anymore, his silence made that perfectly clear. What he did know was where the M.A.M. blueprints were now, and there were a couple ways of getting that out of him that didn’t involve being friendly. With tension reaching a fever pitch, neither side refusing to back down, I prepared myself for the inevitable.

I activated S.A.T.S. and surveyed the situation around me.

There were nine changelings total, each taking position behind cover whether it be on the inside of a building or its outside walls. Four buildings made up our immediate surroundings, empty of anything noteworthy and therefore barren on the inside, but one had a second story. It seemed useless in terms of this town's true purpose, but it allowed a vantage point on the entire town below. Obviously one of them had already taken a position there for themselves.

Completely surrounded, they had the upper hoof. There was one clear mistake every single one of them was making however, with the sole exception of Lucky Shot directly in front of me: every single one of them was pointed at Willow. The amount of bullets she had taken back in Trotson, when we first met, showed that was a mistake.

They were targeting her out of pure, uncontrolled bias. A situation easy to take advantage of.

After observing that, I quickly formulated the best and safest route to cover and dropped S.A.T.S.. I shared a look with each and every one of my living companions, a motionless, wordless affirmative shared between us. My attention then turned towards Dead Hooves and Stardust, the filly hiding behind my hindlegs.

“If I was alive, a spell to momentarily suppress their short term memory would work here, but I’m not taking chances on spells that need a specific target,” DH explained. Her head whipped from one side to the other before focusing back on me. “A simple flash spell might work. Just close your eyes ahead of time.”

With as much preparation as possible put into my plan, my attention shifted back to Lucky Shot. My hoof slid ever-so-slightly to the left, barely noticeable to anyone if they weren’t looking for it. There was no need to discuss a signal for DH to cast the spell; somehow I was certain she already knew it.

“Well ‘Lucky’, if you want to save us all some trouble.”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be making offers, Rhapsody.”

While I physically sighed at his response, a darker piece of me was all too happy for his answer. My horn lit up with DH’s red glow, catching the attention of a majority of the changelings around us. Lucky Shot himself briefly let his jaw drop at the sight, and I found myself unable to hold in a murderous smirk.

“I gave you a chance,” I replied. The spell was reaching the pinnacle of it’s charge. “Now!”

“Open fire!” Lucky ordered.

In order of events, a loud bang was the first thing to go off, followed by me closing my eyes as DH’s spell was let loose. A chorus of agony filled the air, my own scream at a sudden, horrible rupture in my left forehoof coinciding with groans. With the flash at work, we sprung into action, my focus purely on the changeling before me.

Adrenaline temporarily numbing the pain, I let loose two shots aimed at each of his forelegs. Only one hit their actual target, the other barely missing his leg, but it did the job. He bent forward, grimacing as a green blood-like substance started gushing from where I hit. Lucky attempted to force themselves onto their hooves.

That wasn’t going to happen with me around.

I wanted them out of the action first, but dead last. Spreading my wings, I shot forward towards Lucky Shot as fast as possible. All he had time to do was shake off the rest of the headache formed from DH’s spell before I grabbed him. I dipped behind the south-eastern building, planning to drop him off, knock him out, and meet back up with the others.

A snag came in the form of a changeling soldier having followed us, ducking behind a wall to avoid our magic; no doubt they had gone around to try and back up their higher up. With Lucky struggling to free himself under me – actually managing to land a clean hit to the left of my face – and a gun pointed at me, a soft landing was not an option. Knowing full well it would hurt, and that I was likely going to infect the wound in my left leg, I dove head first into the ground.

I flung my wing up mere moments before impact, kicking sand into the air to try and give me just the slightest bit of protection. Lucky Shot’s head hit the ground the same time as my own, but where mine bounced off with only a bit of the skin torn from the hit, my hoof held his head into the dirt. Whether a changeling’s chitin was any stronger than a chitin or not didn’t matter, I wanted to make sure he felt a pinprick of the Tartarus he had put me in.

While the sand obscured me, it wasn’t going to stop bullets, and the changeling in front of us knew that. My ears rang as bullets went past me, one clipping my left ear while another grazed my side. A click sounded from his gun; a way for the world to tell me it was my turn to shoot.

As his horn lit an ugly green to quickly replace the magazine in his gun, I dropped Lucky and stuck the barrel of the novasurge rifle right against his chest. By the time he had it pointed at me, I had squeezed the trigger. A bolt of magical energy tore through him as he shot at me, twin injuries in our bodies. Neither of us carried an exit wound, and his wasn’t deep enough to kill. He was also fortunate enough to not have one of his organs incinerated.

I wasn’t so fortunate.

Adrenaline covered a lot of the injuries I had just procured, but the deflating of a lung was not something it could hide. Even with how hard I was already breathing, the moment it went pop I felt myself take in what must have been the largest breath of my life. It was followed immediately after by a horrible coughing as I exhaled, watching as small spurts of blood red hit the sand below me.

That was about all the time I had to pay attention to myself. The changeling soldier before me had gotten their bearings far faster than myself, and a glimpse up led to me looking down the end of a gun barrel rather than a gun. With a grimace, I lit my horn and…

“Stop!”

I hadn’t expected my command or horn to do anything, yet as the shout went out I felt something… a new release from the protrusion on top of my head. Eyes closed, cowering, the ticking of the clock sounding louder as my end came from the stallion directly in front of me. On the inside, I was at least happy to experience a little bit of the world around me, before death came and claimed me.

At least, that was what I thought.

Waiting for that great, defining bang that would come with the end of my life never came. I sat there, eyes closed, wondering what this pony before me was waiting for, yet too scared to look and see. The only gunfire that hit my ears was from outside, in the streets of Appleloosa proper, not right before me. It was only a matter of time till my curiosity overrode my sense to hide from impending doom, and I slowly opened my eyes.

Before me was the stallion in question, the barrel part of a double-barrel shotgun filling up most of my eyesight. With a quaking hoof, I touched the top of them and pushed it down with ease, the individual who was wielding it putting up no resistance. The clock in my head no longer sounded so close, the short timer that was my life seemed to exponentially increase as I studied this pony’s irises.

A single pony could have a different color for both eyes, but two in the same one? That didn’t seem right, especially when I knew the red swirl that now inhabited them matched my still glowing horn. My magic had somehow done this, and for half a second the corner of my lips curled upward.

“Sit!” I commanded. His flank plopped down, following my orders like a well trained animal. “Give me the gun. Take it back. Roll onto your back. Uh, wiggle around or… something.”

To my amazement, he had followed each and every one of those dumb little commands I had given him. That included the wiggling, despite the confidence that had filled my voice for the others dissipating without a trace. Just like when Willow promised me her protection, the timer to my doom increased to lengths far beyond the immediate future. For the first time in my life, it actually felt like yesterday wasn’t the day I died.

Yet I knew the moment I dropped the spell he would likely still kill me. I knew it would have been incredibly simple to just pick up his shotgun, but I felt the need to see just how far this went. A piece of me couldn’t even explain why such a horrible thought crossed my mind, but in the moment it felt so perfect.

Swallowing my shame, knowing full well what I was about to do was not something to be proud of, I opened my mouth and uttered…

“Kill yourself.”

It didn’t hit me what my words had been till they left my muzzle, horn lit up in a mixture of red and yellow, those same colors now swirling in the changeling’s eyes. He flipped the gun around with his magic, stock pointing to me while the barrel was pointed to his forward. A rising sense of terror and urgency hit my body as I realized I was about to nearly do the same thing to yet another pony.

“Abort command! Put the gun down!” I shouted. The bug did as ordered, and without a second shot I did what I should have done all those decades ago.

I picked up the weapon myself, and unloaded as many rounds as possible into his brain. Very little remained of the changeling’s head; chitin, blood, and whatever else was in him practically exploding outwards. As his lifeless body crumpled into a heap in the desert sands, the sound of his fall hidden underneath a wave of gunfire, a sigh of relief washed over me. It isn’t easy to explain, but killing him myself felt far better than… what I was about to do. The difference was miniscule, but one was still slightly more right than the other.

Reminded of the other changeling that was directly behind me, nearly as badly beaten as I was now, I gripped my Novasurge in my magic and slammed it into his head. I hadn’t even noticed him attempting to get up, but he swiftly fell back to the ground unconscious. That was my immediate problem dealt with, now to just check on the others.

A check of my E.F.S. and I had the location of both my companions and the enemy. Including the two I had taken out of the fray, another three red dots were off my map. Five eliminated or indisposed, four more left to take care of.

If only I actually felt in shape to fight. With all visible threats taken care of, and the knowledge I had four more-than-capable companions at my side, I shuffled up against the wall of the building. Leaning against it, my eyes traveled down to my chest where my uninjured foreleg was doing its best to keep pressure on the bullet wound. Daring to remove it, I found myself glad that my coat hid blood as well as it did. It made the wound look far less life-threatening then it already was.

The same couldn’t be said about my foreleg. Looking at it was horrible enough, with the gigantic chunk missing and the muscle hanging loosely, but it felt even worse. Sand had gotten in it, that much was abundantly clear from how I had thrown myself into it moments ago. I hold no regrets for it, but fuck if the sensation it left on my rupture muscle’s didn’t feel absolutely terrible. Certainly made breathing more of a chore than it already was, given my popped lung.

The longer I looked at it, the less and less capable I was of making out the details of my injury. A small chuckle turned into a hacking cough as even more blood made its way up into my mouth, and either onto my lips or the sand below. I was perfectly aware of the distinct bang that coincided with Sharpshot’s zebrican sniper rifle, but it felt distant. That was bad; I was losing too much blood.

My uninjured hoof went to my saddlebag, the one that didn’t contain the Twilight Sparkle statuette. I fished around for what lay inside, my head lolling forward, eyes refusing to follow my own command as they stayed focused on the sandy ground. My hooves were unable to grab any of the drugs I knew I had inside them, and with a pained, aggravated groan I removed it from the saddlebag and brought it back to my chest wound.

“Need a hoof?” Dead Hooves called out. While my head refused to turn and look at her, my hearing told me she was to my left.

I gave a nod, and felt the invisible horn on my head faintly glow. She dug into my saddlebags, removing one thing after another for it as she looked for anything that might help. Then, she started to put things back into it, which I hoped meant that she had found something that might at least lessen the pain.

“So, small problem,” she said. “All we got is Ment-als and Buffout. I don’t think any of that is going to help us.”

“Great,” I replied between breaths. Another dot fell off my E.F.S.; that meant only two more changelings left. “We’ll be fine. We might pass out, but we will be fine.”

“You feel it too then? This gut feeling that we aren’t going to die from these wounds?” the ghost asked, sitting down next to me. “Still hurts though. Kind of pleasant to feel pain after all these decades dead, but it also sucks.”

I opened my mouth to talk, but instead was met with another coughing fit. The hoof covering my chest wound went to my mouth to hide it, getting splattered with ever more blood in the process. Another dot went off the map as I brought it back over the wound, forcing a smile onto my face.

“Why… why did I try that?”

DH’s ears perked up at those words. She looked at me, eyes begging for an explanation.

“I know what the spell did. How could I not, when it was the reason behind…,” my head tilted so that I was looking at my cutiemark. Instead of a familiar, black and white swirling pattern, I was greeted by the Dashite symbol on my flank. The smile fell, and a disturbing realization came to me. “Oh, wrong memories… fuck.”

“Is… is everything okay Rhap… sody?” She asked. The name she gave me felt right, but the lack of certainty in her voice placed some uncertainty in myself.

“Don’t worry, probably just the blood loss,” I answered. “Kind of hard right now to tell where Rhapsody begins and Dead Hooves end. There's… there are so many memories in here.”

Another horrible coughing fit, the ground suddenly getting much closer than it originally seemed to be. I figured out why when my head hit the sand, the ghost I was pretty sure was DH standing back up and trying to catch me. Obviously their efforts were futile, but I appreciated the attempt.

“I’m not sure,” the ghost said, lying down next to me. One of her forelegs went to massage her temple. “I’ve been feeling rather confused about it all lately. I mean, you are the one doing magic, and it almost feels like every event in my life is contradicting themselves.” It rests back on the ground. Her head tilted this way and that as if trying to sort through a nonsensical puzzle. “I never answered your question earlier, didn’t I?”

“What… What question?” I asked. Everything about me felt so weak.

“About who killed who. I just asked if you were joking, and that was it.”

I searched my hazy brain for the events she mentioned. Everything was starting to seem a lot blurrier, but I was still able to make out the figure of the ghost directly in front of me. Eyes locked on her, the exact memory she spoke of came to my head. The ability to give her a concrete answer made me smile.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, words slurring together where it was near impossible to tell what I had said. “Well, I asked Rhapsody that. You must be Rhapsody?”

“Which means you killed me,” the ghost said. Her face took on a serious expression as she looked herself over. “Wait, but wasn’t Rhapsody the one with the body?”

Her question was a good one, and one my brain didn’t feel capable of comprehending. Between the blood loss and the jumbled memories in my head, trying to tell one apart from the other was near impossible. It just gave me a migraine.

“I… I don’t know. Was she?”

If she answered it or not, I wasn’t aware at the time. The moment I finished talking, the final red dot disappeared from my E.F.S., and the world faded away.

Our memories became incomprehensible.