One Last Mission

by Lusaminia

Rating: mature
Tags: Drama, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Other, Changelings, Adventure, Fallout, Suicide / Self Harm, Profanity, Griffons, Violence, Crossover, Death, Alternate Universe
Length: 383050

Classified documents were stolen from the Enclave. One pegasus mare is sent to the surface to fix her mistake and ensure that information contained inside those documents don't compromise her home in the process.

Singing Rhapsody: proud Enclave mother turned roaming spirit of dashite vengence.

When friendship with a member of the Grand Council allows her squad to steal sensitive documents, she's forced to choose between being discharged or branded a dashite. The first option would let her stay with her family, but the second could give her sweet vengeance. If her dignity hadn't been so harmed, she might have just let it slide... maybe.

Unfortunately, her pride was skewered by those she trusted. Now it doesn't matter if her squad hid in the city of her nightmares or in the balefire-washed ruins of Las Pegasus. The safety of those she loves is on the line, and as a proud member of the Enclave she will fight even into banishment to make sure they aren't put in harm's way.

She has one last mission: find her traitorous squad and keep those documents out of the hooves of those who would use them for evil.

One Last Mission is a side story to kkat’s Fallout: Equestria.

Current cover art done by NightmareNeko

Published 2023-03-29 19:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2025-02-13 16:19:23 UTC

Act 1 – Chapter 1: Branded

Train to Trotson, Southwest Equestria

199 years after the Last Day

Four pegasi stabbed me in the back.

While it is metaphorical in this case, it might as well have been physically. Honorable discharge, like hell that was really a choice given what I had allowed to happen. Perhaps they thought it a kinder fate than exile, but I knew that they and everypony else would have judged me worse for it.

The same could be said for being branded a Dashite, but at least this way I had what I really wanted. How much it hurt having my flank getting branded with that traitor’s cutie mark didn’t matter.

What mattered most was revenge. Revenge for playing me for a fool, for endangering my husband (or ex-husband now) and foals, and endangering the GPE.

My own squad had turned traitor when I hadn’t realized it, using my good standing with General Ironsight to steal codes to classified information. Among them are blueprints for vehicles, weapons, and more that I’m certain I don’t know. Any of it getting revealed would be bad for the GPE, and the council even more so. Anyone in the Enclave finding out it happened would cause a stir up too.

That is the real reason I was given an ‘honorable discharge’ by the council. It wasn’t out of the good of their hearts, but as a way of trying to keep it under wraps. It was also why, since I chose exile instead of discharge, I had to be branded a Dashite. To make sure I don’t come back shouting about all the things I’ve seen or learned in taking my revenge. Killing me would have been an admittance that something has gone wrong, and they didn’t want any chance at losing support.

So honorable discharge or exile were my choices. In the end I choose the one that put me on a collision course with those backstabbing fucks I had once called squadmates. It meant that I was just Singing Rhapsody now and not Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody.

A shame, considering I liked how the rank sounded when attached to my name, but it is what it is. It was nowhere near as bad as being separated from the stallion I loved.

Oh Anchor, I’m so so sorry for leaving this suddenly. I can only hope you understand how much of a wound this all was to me. Don’t worry, I’ll have it fixed soon, and you and everyone else in the Enclave will never have to worry your little hearts. Our secrets will be safe.

“Let's go over everything one more time, Rhapsody.”

I turned my attention away from the passing landscape, the voice of Ironsight Bullseye cutting through the rhythmic thumping of the train. He wasn’t actually with me, sad as it was to say, but I had a radio to contact him by. Dashite or not, I had agreed to deal with the confiscated information and the council wanted to make sure of it. I had to check in weekly with Ironsight, now my only connection to the land above the clouds, and he would relay any new info found about my former squad. If I missed even one check in, my name was on a list next to the rest of those responsible for this to begin with. I only go completely free once the mission is over.

“Yes. Let's.” I replied, giving an involuntary nod. It was a shame; beforehoof we would do briefings like this face to face.

I already missed that.

“You already know the names of your targets: Angel Hair, Lucky Shot, Dew Leaf, and Medicine Ball. Rank doesn’t matter, they aren’t Enclave anymore,” Ironsight explained. While it might have been unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, this was an official briefing. Things had to be done right. “Dew Leaf and Lucky Shot’s current locations are unknown. Medicine Ball and Angel Hair are on opposite sides of the wasteland. The former is in Manehattan, the latter in Trotson.”

“Considering two of them are spread so far apart, it would be likely to assume that the same will go for the others as well. Perhaps it is to spread the confiscated info further, but we can’t be sure. What we can be sure of is that Angel Hair is the biggest threat right now due to who, or rather what, controls Trotson: Shadow Corp. We know nothing other than the fact they are the cause behind the sandstorm that keeps Trotson separated from the rest of the wasteland, and that they have the means to control weather.”

As Ironsight spoke, it hit me that this was more than just a brief. This was a full survival guide. The GPE was no longer my home, and I would likely never return to it unless some miracle occurred. Every bit of intel I got on the area I was heading into was just as necessary for completing the mission as it was for simply living here. Even with it, there was no guarantee it would be up to date or correct. The Enclave liked to keep as much knowledge of the wasteland unknown to the public as possible.

Just like with keeping me quiet, that was to make sure pegasi stayed loyal.

“I remember the name. We had a skirmish with them a few years ago,” I said, leaning back on my train seat. “It still sticks with me, what happened then. That storm and the screams still haunt me. It's the only part of the wasteland with an S.P.P. tower not linked to the central hub, though how is unknown.”

“Which is why the stolen files can’t be allowed to fall into their hooves,” Ironsight continued on. I gave yet another involuntary nod. “Angel Hair must have had a run-in with Shadow Corp on a mission in the past. Possibly offered her something we couldn’t, though we don’t know what that is. If they gain that intel, their already staggering control over the region's weather could be used to harm the whole of the GPE.”

That thought was terrifying, and the only reason said terror didn’t worm its way into my expression was due to years of military service. Get into enough life threatening situations or watch enough comrades die and one finds it hard to call upon the terror in one's mind.

Even if I wanted to call it up, something in me found it impossible. It did give off the impression of a cold, contemplative, and perfect soldier though. Very few ponies had been lucky enough to see that break, Ironsight being one.

Iron Anchor, my ex-husband, was the only other pony I was certain hadn’t been fooled by it. With him I felt the ability to cry again, to express the emotions I felt deep down. Even if those emotions were still dulled, the fact I could feel them made me feel a way I didn’t with anyone else.

It… actually makes me regret my decision to some extent. A part of me wishes I could go back.

Yet one look to my flank – my cutie mark – reminded me that this path couldn’t be turned back from. Her mark was over mine, and it would stay there for the rest of my life. More than a physical symbol of my decision to leave, it was a symbol of what I had given up; what I had failed to protect.

“Your mission is simple: find Angel Hair, eliminate them, and destroy the info they hold,” Ironsight said, his words sidelining my inner conflict. I couldn’t call him insensitive. Excluding the fact he was my superior officer, he wasn’t even physically present to see what I was thinking. “As you are a Dashite, the means don't matter as to how you achieve it. Befriend the goddesses-damned Steel Rangers if you have to. Just know that the Enclave shall be offering no assistance outside my calls. Any questions?”

I sat in silence for a couple of seconds, looking up at the train car’s lights. This was my first time in one, and I found it to not be that enjoyable.

The cabin I had been given was clearly not up to date. The bed had a damn spring sticking out of it! Perhaps this was the wasteland’s form of hazing a new Dashite. Gone was the comfort and security of the clouds, replaced instead with the run down hand-me-downs from a time long gone. Couldn’t tell if it was working or not.

“Rhapsody?”

I had gotten lost in my thoughts. Thankfully, I did have questions ready.

“Outside of Shadow Corp, anything you can tell me about the ponies in Trotson?” I asked, looking at my reflection in the window. In a better world Enclave armor would have covered me, but instead all I saw was the magenta mare with blue and white mane and tail I woke up to each morning. She had a Novasurge next to her. “Surely Shadow Corp isn’t the only faction in the city.”

“From what intel we have, most factions are warring raider groups. The most prominent in the city are run by a stallion calling themselves Bone Breaker. His group might be good to get in leagues with,” Ironsight explained. He paused just long enough after speaking to fool me into thinking he was done talking. He started talking again as soon as I opened my jaw. “There is another pony of interest, if our intel is correct. A unicorn ghoul called Sharpshot. He owes the Enclave three favors for saving his life three separate times one hundred and twenty-four years ago.”

I felt obligated to raise my eyebrow as Ironsight told me that. Several more questions entered my brain, all surrounding this ‘Sharpshot’ that my old friend spoke of. It felt almost absurd, to tell the truth. The idea that any wasteland pony could end up that indebted to the Enclave in the span of one year was crazy. That was to say nothing about the fact the Enclave had had enough contact with this single unicorn to begin with. There had to be a story here.

“Any idea why he owes us several times over?” I asked. In my head I sounded amused, but my delivery instead came out flat.

“He was responsible for aiding the Enclave in some horrid business back then. There was a duo of ponies back then responsible for over two hundred deaths in two years. Over a quarter of them were Enclave citizens,” Ironsight told me. My entire body shuddered at two ponies being able to cause that much death. “His debts came from a group of soldiers first saving him from the Las Pegasus No Mare’s Land, then an incident involving a dragon, and finally an assault on the Bucklyn Bridge when he attempted to attack the Steel Rangers with…”

Ironsight’s sudden quiet caught me even more off guard then the fact a grounder owed the GPE. Though I could hear his voice through the radio, most of it was either groans or too quiet to make out. It took a lot to make Ironsight as speechless as he was now, to the point I couldn’t begin to think of what he might look like at this moment.

After a bit, he forced a cough.

“Well, what you need to know is that he owes us for pulling his ass out of several fires and we’re cashing in one of those favors,” He finished. “That is all I can be certain of, other than the fact he has recently been seen in Trotson. Tell him we sent you and you should be good.”

“Understood,” I replied, yet another involuntary reaction making its way out. Instead of a nod, however, this time I saluted. “I think that is all the questions I have for right now.”

“Good, then I can ask a question of my own,” Ironsight said. “Rhapsody, are you okay?”

I blinked too many times to count after he asked that. I opened my mouth to answer only to realize I wasn’t entirely sure what to tell him.

Physically I was fine, save for the fact I had my cutie mark covered by the traitor’s mark. Mentally, outside of the pain of not seeing my family, friends, or anyone else in the Enclave face to face ever again, I thought I was holding up well. As well as any other ordinary soldier, at least. I knew my answers and what I wanted to say, but for the life of me I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“I can’t believe this is how your career ended. Of all the soldiers I know you were the last I thought I would ever see branded a Dashite,” He explained further. “Undying loyalty to the Enclave, even now that you're branded. A great record, follows orders well, but most importantly determined. To have that all thrown ou–“

“If you hate me for leaving, just say it,” I said, shifting my position on my seat so I was laying on it. My head hung off the side, eyes returning to watching the lights. “Enclave hates us Dashites, right? No reason to act friendly with me now if you don’t want to.”

“You know damn well that isn’t what I’m trying to say,” Ironsight replied. The exasperation in his voice was clear as day… though I guess the day wasn’t as clear any longer, seeing as I now lived below the clouds instead of above them. “I’m worried that you are letting this consume you. We both know you worked your ass off even harder than most. Need I remind you your talent isn’t even in a military field to begin with? To work your way up to Lieutenant Colonel and then just have it thrown away. Even if you hide it, I know it hurts you more than you let on.”

I… couldn’t deny any of that.

The scar my former squad had left on my pride was the reason I was down here. I could face Anchor fine but my mom and dad? Every other pegasus in the Enclave? Even if they never knew how I fucked up I would feel a hidden judgement in there eyes. The guilty feeling of not taking the opportunity to fix my mistake wasn’t something I wanted to live with.

“The GPE needs those stolen documents destroyed. I need to restore my own honor,” I explained to him. “This was the only way. What I give up is nothing compared to what I’m trying to save.”

“If you say so. Ironsight out,” Ironsight said.

The radio went silent, leaving me with nothing but the sound of the train, the landscape rolling by, and my own thoughts. I wouldn’t hear from him again for seven days, as long as the Enclave didn’t just straight up abandon me from this point onwards. I could easily see them doing that and just putting my name on some wanted list.

Well, whatever they decide I’m sticking to what I came down here to do. No amount of ponies hunting me will change that.

As far as I could tell, I still had some hours before the sun set. It would be even more hours till I arrived in what remained of Trotson station. That left me with time to do something, which my stomach told me should be lunch. I guess I need to find if there was any food on here in the first place. If not I would have to hold out till Trotson and hope that I found something edible there.

Considering half the city has been buried in sand since the Last Day, I would rather take my chances on the train.

I stored my radio in a saddlebag I had taken before heading to the wasteland, threw my rifle’s strap around my neck, and left my cabin. Even outside of the cabin, the train as a whole had seen far better days. The fact it ran at all was nothing short of a miracle. Must have been hell to maintain with the raiders, ghouls, and other things that might want to rip it apart for unknown reasons. Had to give these grounders props for managing that.

Out one car, into the next, and nothing really changed. The entire train seemed to be in the same condition, as did everything outside the train. The Equestrian Wasteland had an endlessly dour demeanor, and the train seemed to take inspiration from it in presentation. It didn’t hide what it was, and that was something I could respect. Honesty was one of the elements of the old world, after all.

It took several train cars and the dismissing of the few other passengers I came across to reach what was clearly the dining car. It had seen better days, but I had said that about everything so far down here. No reason to restate it after this.

What was worth stating was the bar that sat not too far from me had drinks in it. Like, not empty bottles of soda and wine but actual filled bottles!

How in the world did they manage that?

Well, they had drinks and I was definitely feeling a decent bit parched. I hopped onto one of the barstools and then onto the bar counter. I looked in curiosity at exactly what it was they had. Plenty of alcoholic beverages were displayed before me but this wasn’t the time to get drunk. Outside of that was various flavors of Sparkle-Cola and Sunrise Sarsaparilla. My squad had actually found some of these during a mission in the Fillydelphia area two years ago. It was the only time I had ever had one…

“Left hall clear!”

“Room clear!”

My rifle remained trained on the hallway before me. Clear or not, we had dealt with enough trouble already in this accursed city. Steel Rangers and raiders were everywhere, and by getting to this one factory we had already killed more than a few of the latter. Not that anyone would miss them or the junk that command had asked us to grab. All most grounders did was kill.

We weren’t entirely sure why command had asked us to pick up a bunch of old, spare parts. Seemed more like something those damn rangers would be after than the GPE. A soldier didn’t question what they were told, though, so we followed orders and did it. That was the life I lived, and damn if the rhythm of an operation wasn’t enjoyable. Perhaps that was fitting, considering my cutie mark was meant more for a musician than a soldier.

I remember that those first few rooms being clear was the first bit of relaxation we had had since arriving in that dump. These raiders were far too organized to be some unnoteworthy group of murderers and killers. That wasn’t even mentioning the oddity of slaves and raiders actually running the factories. I wouldn’t find out until a mission a year later why it seemed that way: the entire city was under control of some grounder named Red Eyes.

I felt even more proud of our success afterwards when I learned that. Fuck him, his alicorns, and everything about him. He made every mission his followers interfered with hell.

Anyways, the factory in question didn’t seem like it had been activated yet. Red Eyes must not have had the pony power at the time, because it most certainly was when the next squad was sent after something in the same area. We must have led his forces right to it. We found what we needed to, secured the parts that were needed, and then Dew Leaf showed up with five bottles of Sparkle-Cola out of nowhere.

“Look what I found!” She had said playfully, placing the five bottles on the ground. “Untouched, seemingly rad-free. Possibly pre-Last Day too.”

“Were those on the list?” I asked.

“Nope. They’re for us,” Dew Leaf said. She slowly panned her hoof between us all. “Figured it would make a good story. You know, to bond us together and stuff. It would be a waste to let these raiders have it. As far as we know it might be our only real chance to ever have some.”

“Leaf, I think your head is in the wrong place at the moment,” Lucky Shot said, stepping up to the mare. “We are currently deep in raider territory, on a mission. This is not the time for us to have a ‘bonding moment’.”

“I say take that stick out of your ass and allow yourself to have a little fun,” Dew Leaf replied, getting a snort out of Medicine Ball.

We all knew it was her, but the moment we looked at the pony in question she turned her head away. I could tell her eyes were scanning the factory sheepishly under her helmet. I couldn’t deny that what Dew had said was rather funny. Of all of us, Lucky Shot was the only one who seemed unable to turn off ‘soldier mode’. I was right behind him in what Dew affectionately called her workaholic ranking, which she had actually made a full list of on her terminal.

It took me a year and a half later to admit to her that, yes, I was that bad.

“I am curious how it tastes after all this time,” Medicine Ball stated. She reached down and picked one of the bottles up in her hooves. “Though if it truly is from before the Last Day it has to be rather unsafe to drink, right? This city was directly hit, after all.”

“Even more reason to not drink it,” Lucky Shot said. “I don’t want a third hind leg growing out of me.”

“I think you mean fourth hind leg. You already got a third one,” Dew replied. That one got both her and Medicine Ball laughing, and I had to actively suppress joining in.

Lucky hit her over the head in vengeance. “Fuck all of you.”

As the laughter died down I stepped forward and grabbed another bottle. The bottle itself was glass, and the sound of it against my power armor didn’t sit right with my ears. Dew and Medicine had made me very curious, however, and this was one of the few times my curiosity won. I took off my helmet, an action which Lucky visibly flinched at, and forced up smiled at each member of my squad as I put it on the ground.

“If we are gonna have these, then we do it with cheers towards home,” I told them. “I think that is enough reason, if command is truly gonna ask us about having some century old drinks.”

That was something we all agreed to, each pony taking off their helmet and grabbing a bottle of Sparkle-Cola. Dew’s almost childlike wonder filled her face as she picked up her bottle. Lucky mumbled something under his breath as he grabbed his. Medicine already had hers and was waiting patiently. Angel, quiet as ever, had picked it up some time earlier. When everyone had their bottle, I lifted mine into the air.

“Cheers to the Grand Pegasus Enclave! Cheers to the sole, pure race!” I cheered. Seconds later, my squad did the same.

“Cheers to the Grand Pegasus Enclave! Cheers to the pegasi!”

As we weren’t allowed to tell anypony about up in the clouds of the surface, this event became our little secret.

“Ahem!”

I looked down from my position on top of the bar counter. There was a grounder (earth pony I believe, given I didn’t see a horn) looking up at me with the most disappointed look on her face. I raised an eyebrow, then looked back to the drinks.

It quickly came to me that I had been standing on the counter for that entire trip down memory lane. So, with the knowledge the pony below me was likely the bartender, I stepped off the counter and back onto the bar stool.

“Sorry. Some of the drinks got me reminiscing,” I said. My thoughts on grounders aside, I would have to learn to tolerate them to some extent. There would be more of them than pegasi down here. “You're the bartender, I take it?”

“Yep. Odka’s the name,” They said as their head peaked over the counter. I don’t know why they were under the counter, and I don’t care enough to ask. “Never seen you on board. First time to Trotson?”

So they wanted to get friendly, eh? Fine, as long as it had nothing to do with the mission proper.

“Technically. Last time I was here I was still part of the G.P.E.,” I said. Odka tilted their head, which was odd. Even if most ponies in the clouds didn’t know what a Steel Ranger looked like, I expected the surface was different. “You’ve… you’ve heard of the G.P.E., right!? The Enclave?”

“Oh, so it’s an acronym!” Odka replied. She sounded like more of a foal then Dew Leaf, and considering she was tending a bar that made me worried. “Never heard a Dashite refer to it as that. Might be my new favorite way to say it.”

It was my turn to tilt my head. “You’ve never heard anypony refer to it as the G.P.E.?”

“Nopers. To be fair, not a lot of pegasi come to Trotson. Even fewer ever return,” She told me. That was definitely concerning, but I had been told worse things. The horror stories I had heard of the world below the clouds those years before joining the military being one of them. “I think those ponies in the Shadow Corp scare most of them. They don’t like to have things that can mess with the weather around when weather control is what gives them so much power. You pegasi can control weather to an extent, so you can figure out how bad that is for them.”

That was about the same reason the G.P.E. was so worried about them. The fact that they had some way of overwriting the S.P.P., even if only in a limited area, made them a threat. If they ever realized how much they could fuck us sideways with that technology, the Enclave might collapse.

That was what everypony had been told, at least. When most ponies knew nearly nothing of the surface it was easy to make something up about it to keep your subjects in line.

“So, considering you were looking at my merchandise, I take it you're thirsty?” Odka asked me. I gave a firm nod to the… mare? I think they are a mare at least, given the mane style and voice. Their actual build said otherwise. “Well then what can I get for you today, miss…”

“Singing Rhapsody, and I’ll take a Sunrise Sarsaparilla,” I told her.

She gave a cheerful nod to me and went back below the counter. I winced at the sound of glass clinking against each other, unable to tell where it came from. She came back up with a bottle and held out a hoof. I knew what she wanted, but I was going to sit and wait till this idiot realized she had not said the price to me. It was worth it, watching the grounder get increasingly more confused as we stared at each other for what she probably assumed was no reason.

It took her a total of forty-eight seconds to finally get the hint. Give or take a second or two.

“Sixty-nine caps. Technically seventy but the last cap comes from your bottle,” She said, tapping the bottle cap of what was my drink. I dug out the necessary caps (provided by my ex-husband. He claimed his collection would be more important to me then him now) from my saddle bag and handed it over. She collected it and stored it somewhere, then opened my bottle. “Enjoy yourself Rhaf… Rhath… uh…”

“Just Singing will work,” I said with a groan.

Hopefully not everyone down here has the long term memory of a vegetable.

I took a sip of Sunrise Sarsaparilla, the first one I had had in my life. They had it up in the Enclave but I grew up in a rather poor area. That had been my main reason for going military at the time, and patriotism came later.

Far better than trying to become a singer, because starving artists was a great way to lift your family out of near poverty. I spent so much time making sure I was a perfect soldier that I gave up a lot, and fun little drinks like this was one of them.

It probably wouldn’t have stayed that way if it wasn’t for the Sparkle-Cola incident I had reminisce on. Something about that day was special, and while Anchor and my foals enjoyed the drink I couldn’t bring myself to pick up a bottle. It was both the first and last time I had ever had Sparkle-Cola.

Now that I think about it, that day hasn’t been soured. Despite everything Dew, Medicine, Lucky, and Angel Hair had done, the event still made me a little joyful.

Not only that, but Angel Hair hadn’t really done much that entire time. I guess that makes sense, seeing as how they were right behind me in Dew’s ranking. Probably just didn’t have much interest in joining in.

“Hey, Odka,” I called after another sip. Her attention snapped to me like a pet being called by its owner. I really hoped that was only metaphorical. “You see most everypony who comes onto this train, right?”

“Yep. Most everypony,” Odka replied as she rested her hooves on the bar. “Why do you ask? Looking for somepony.”

“Two ponies. One is an old friend and the other is a bounty hunter,” I explained. Odka gave me a nod, as if what I said was enough description to tell who they were. I didn’t think it was enough, so I explained further. “First is a pegasus named Angel Hair. Not a Dashite. Yellow fur, slightly lighter yellow mane and tail.”

“I think I remember somepony like that,” Odka answered. “They didn’t talk much but they liked their whiskey. Like, really liked their whiskey. Never seen a pony, much less a pegasus, drink that much and stay sober.”

I think my face twisted into a smile, but I was definitely laughing internally. That was Angel Hair alright. Mare had a stomach made for a dragon, and I had seen her eat and drink like one. I swore I had never seen her get drunk in my time knowing her. Made her Tartarus to go up against in a drinking contest.

That actually reminds me of when I challenged her the fir- no, not now. I can reminisce later. I still had a grounder to ask about.

“That is her,” I said. “Second pony is a unicorn ghoul named Sharps–“

“Sharpshot?! You’re looking for him?!” Odka shouted. I winced at the sudden rise in her voice’s volume. She leaned in closer, suddenly seeming a lot more serious than I thought possible. “Let me guess: he killed a loved one of yours. Rough way to start your life down here, but it is probably a good idea to give up.”

Well, that was a little concerning. Sounded like this Sharpshot pony had managed to piss off the entire wasteland and then some. Not sure if I should be impressed that someone like that would be on my side or worried. I would have enough to worry about with raiders and Shadow Corp in this city.

“I take it he isn’t that popular?” I asked. I think my voice actually managed to show the concern I was feeling deep down for a fraction of a second.

“Pretty much every pony wants him dead, and he and that alicorn he calls his wife seem to rather enjoy it,” Odka answered. It took me a few seconds to realize the oddity in what she had said “Steel Rangers have wanted him dead for a long time. Lots of slavers and raiders do too. Not sure about Red Eyes himself but I’m positive they want him dead. Unity? Definitely wants him dead.”

“Hold a moment, go back,” I requested, motioning with my hoof across the counter. I was certain a bit of emotion had found its way into my voice that time. “His wife is what?”

“Oh, yeah. Guess that would be a shock to someone who just recently came down from the clouds,” The grounder replied, giggling madly. “Yep. Don’t know the story but the two have been together as long as I’ve worked. Sharpshot is pretty good at picking fights and giving me messes to clean up. Willow Wisp, the alicorn I mention, isn’t any different. She does have a love for blood that I would call concerning.”

I held the urge to facehoof in, despite how tempting it was. That would certainly explain why Ironsight seemed so confused earlier. I had had to fight an alicorn in the past, though thankfully it was just one. Second worst experience in my entire life. It had wiped out two other squads and nearly killed me. Lucky Shot lived up to his name that day. The idea of meeting another one was certainly not going to be fun, but at least they weren’t working for Red Eyes this time.

Again, fuck that stallion.

“So, was I right? He killed someone you know?” Odka ask, her voice a little too cheery for such a dark question.

“Opposite actually. I need his assistance,” I explained. That was all I was going to say about my mission to her. “Heard he was in Trotson.”

“Never saw them board the train to head back to the central wasteland, so yep,” She replied. “Honestly, despite everything I’ve heard, they aren’t all bad. They’re actually quite cu-“

The sound of the door to the railroad car opening caused both of us to look in its direction. I expected to see a grounder, and instead was met with a rather old looking griffon. He looked like he had been to Tartarus and back several times, with rather large scars all across his body. He also had a fake right eye, and a synthetic left talon.

Back home he would have been given a medical discharge, and I’m sure a medic would diagnose him with PTSD. Probably would have been deemed to mentally unstable to carry a firearm.

Down in the wasteland whether you had PTSD or not meant jackshit. Everyone needed a weapon and by the goddesses he was armed. I don’t think I've seen anyone carrying so many slugs before. Slugs no doubt meant for the two shotguns he was carrying on him.

My mind screamed he was a raider, and that I was nowhere near armed enough to fight him if necessary. I had a rifle, yes, but without a battle saddle I didn’t trust myself to fire before he did.

He came up to us, limping badly, and took the bar stool next to mine. He noticed me looking at him, and in an attempt to avoid confrontation I immediately looked down. I could see my hoof had been bouncing to the rhythm of the train. I gave a quick glance to Odka. Poor mare seemed ready to faint.

“Vodka,” The griffon said, placing what I assumed was the necessary number of caps. He sounded like his voice had been destroyed by smoking.

Odka got to work quickly, the sound of glass clinking together driving me mad. Closing my eyes and trying to focus on the sounds of the train didn’t help.

The sound of coughing caused me to open my eyes and look at the griffon. He was leaning away from the counter and myself, the coughs quickly gaining a wheezing nature to them.

It sounded almost painful.

After what must have been a full minute of hacking and wheezing he stopped. His drink had been placed on the counter. At first I thought he was turning to it, but his head stopped on me instead. His working eye was taking in my body, as if sizing me up.

Did he see me as a threat? No, he was too well armed to see a pegasus as under armed as me as a threat. He looked away when he was done.

“Smart pegasus. Smarter than most,” He replied. I had no idea what his words meant. “Many are cocky. Like to cause trouble. Invisible Mare gets them. Never seen again. You keep your head down. She won’t get you.”

The ghastly sound of his voice mixed with the slowly, incomplete way he worded his sentences were unnerving. Add that to the fact most of what he said seemed rather incoherent and out of nowhere and I felt like I was looking at some creature out of a ghost story. A young colt or filly would likely have run away in tears. Probably traumatized too, given the state of the griffon who spoke it all. I was more curious as to what he meant by it all.

Especially since I could take at least one thing away from his rambling.

The name he had mentioned, ‘the Invisible Mare’, wasn’t new. It was the title of the Shadow Corps leader, and the only thing any pony knew about them. Well, only thing outside of the fact they seemed to see everything in the city. They were the reason why the Enclave’s efforts at destroying them failed. All our plans had been known, and they outmaneuvered us like some chess grandmaster. The fact any pony got out of there alive was a miracle.

“I’m not here to cause Shadow Corp trouble,” I told the griffon. I took another sip of Sunrise Sarsaparilla. “Don’t worry about me. If all goes well I’ll be in and out within the week.”

“If pegasus says so,” the griffon replied. He too took another sip of his beverage. “Gold. Been around. Pegasus’ name?”

“Rhapsody,” I answered.

For a supposed raider this griffin, Gold as he called himself, was being rather civil. He probably wanted to talk more. Sadly the last sip of Sunrise Sarsaparilla had just gone down my throat and I had gotten some of what I needed. It wasn’t food, but it would hold me for the time being. I got off the bar stool and turned my attention to Odka.

“Thanks for the drink. Might be back later for food,” I said. I didn’t see them turn to me, but I definitely heard it. The horrible sound of glass seemed to follow her every movement.

“If you would prefer to eat in your cabin, just ask one of the attendants,” They called out.

I decided the grounder deserved a nod. They weren’t bright, but they had given me the info I needed.

Act 1 – Chapter 2: Trotson Station

As I mentioned, this wasn’t my first time going to Trotson. Five years ago the G.P.E. had attempted to infiltrate it and find out how Shadow Corp controlled the region’s weather. I was a Sergeant Major back then, and one of a hoof full of ponies that made it out. We had learned quickly that Shadow Corp didn’t play around, and when my squad leader died I did everything I could to get everypony else out. I was the highest ranked pony there, after them.

I… I didn’t do that great. Six total ponies made it out, and the only one of my current squad that was present was Lucky Shot. I fucked up bad. I tried to send you straight through the Shadow Corp’s pony-made sandstorm and got so many pegasi killed. I refuse to remember what happened there and how they toyed with me. Even if the screams don’t leave I’ll make damn sure the images do.

The worst part is that, despite it being a failure, the upper brass congratulated me for it all. According to them the fact I had managed to get anypony out of there with how bad things went downhill was something to be commended. I got a medal for getting most everypony killed, and the only reason I didn’t tell them to shove it up their ass was because I wasn’t fully there. My body was present, but my mind was distant. I was in pain, even if how it hurt wasn’t the normal type of pain.

The only pony I told that all too was Anchor…

It takes a lot to get me to cry. It was hard back then and near impossible now. That day was when it became the latter. The brain sees everything that possibly can go wrong become reality and it stops caring. The world becomes duller, distant, less… there, then it had ever been in your life. Every other sound becomes muffled to the screams of the recently deceased.

Oh goddesses the screams. They followed me through the entire medal ceremony, and didn’t cease when I returned home. I remember staring at myself in the mirror for an absurdly long time. The sound of my two foals, Rainy Day and Clear Skies, didn’t seem to reach my ears. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even acknowledge them, considering my state at the time.

The screams themselves weren’t coherent but I could feel their intent. Tartarus, I still feel their intent. The difference was back then it was all consuming, like being pulled under by the wasteland’s ocean waves. I didn’t have anything to pull myself out and I was waiting for the moment my head struck a metaphorical rock. I definitely would have too, if it wasn’t for Anchor.

A lot of what happened before he snapped me out of it was a blur. The first vivid memory I had since the sandstorm was him standing next to me. We were in our bathroom, the sound of our foals playing suddenly much more clear to my ears. Anchor had this concerned look on his face, and that look became a sort of… grounding point I’ll call it. A point where I always went to pull myself out of that horrid space whenever I fell into it.

“Do… Do you want to talk about it?” he asked me, his calming tone a piercing javelin to the key containing me.

I didn’t respond in words. I remember just looking around at everything, from the cloud walls to the cloud floors, the mirror and shower. For the first time in hours I recognized where I was. It was home, a safe place where nopony could hurt me. A place where my mental and physical anchor was. An anchor not meant for ships, but for healing those like me.

“You’ve been in here for an hour, just staring at yourself,” Anchor explained. He placed a hoof on my shoulder as my eyes absently trailed up to his face. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been off since you came back from that mission. These past few days you’ve been… somewhere else.”

“A few days? You mean I didn’t just get back?” I had asked.

The question frightened him a bit, I could tell. Anchor was always more open emotionally than I was. I’m not entirely sure how a pony could just forget whole days but it had happened. I knew because he nodded. My jaw hung open, eyes lost on something that didn’t exist. We sat there in silence for an unknown period of time before I spoke again.

“How many days… has it been?”

“You and the survivors came back four days ago. You got a medal for your actions today,” He told me. He spoke softly, voice dripping in melancholy. All I could do in response to learning about the medal was blink. “They consider you a hero for getting your fellow soldiers out of that situation. I… think you were happy about it.”

“I got a medal for it? I got them all killed and I got a medal?” I questioned. Anchor didn’t respond, and the question wasn’t meant for anyone. I took a step away from him. “Why? I saved nopony. So… so many are dead now. They knew we would flee from there and…”

Anchor suddenly hugged me. I don’t know why he did, cause I didn’t deserve one, but his hooves had wrapped around me like a blanket. That was all I needed for tears to fall from my eyes. I rest my head on his shoulder, letting my tears fall onto him. His hug was the only hug that ever managed to get my emotions to truly blossom. It was his special little power that I never truly understood.

I called it ‘the touch’. The name came from a power one of the ministers from the war apparently had.

We stayed there together for a long time. I wasn’t sure if he wasn’t willing to let go of me or if I was afraid to let go of him. I stained my face and his body with the water my eyes refused to hold down. For a day that I came to hate, that cry was something that I hold close to my heart. Under his heart and our foals, allowing me to weep that day was one of the greatest gifts he ever gave me. He was the best stallion a mare could ask for…

… and I abandoned him.

My eyes refocused on the world around me. Looking back on that would have put any other mare into a state of despair. They would have cried. I know one of the soldiers that had gone on that mission succumbed to the screams. The rock under the waves meant for me took out them instead. That should have gotten a reaction out of me.

Instead it all stayed inside. The emotions were there, but they couldn't be called upon willingly. Those events were five years ago, and I was about to enter the very place that had made me like this in the first place. A small part of me was scared of that but the numbness that kept the rest of my emotions hostage held that feeling in check. With its silence, I gazed upon the coming wall of sand without worry. The sandstorm that separated Trotson from the world around it.

There were two ways into the city, at least for the sane pony. The first way was over the sandstorm, which was how I had done it five years ago. It reached as high as the cloud curtain created by the S.P.P. Towers. Theoretically all pegasi, griffons, or any other sapient creatures had to do was fly as high as the lowest cloud. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, and that was what the Enclave had been led to believe.

Going over had one major problem, however: Shadow Corp hated it. Trotson was like a board game to them, with its residents as its piece. Now imagine if some other pony started trying to use pieces from a different board game out of nowhere. They saw going over the sandstorm the same exact way, and that was how the G.P.E. had managed to piss them off. We played by our rules, not theirs, and we paid for it with blood.

The second way in, not including the suicidal act of heading through the storm itself, was train. There was a tunnel in the sandstorm, crazy as if might sound, formed specifically so the railroad wouldn’t be covered. Shadow Corp was also immediately alerted by means I don’t know. They had time to add you into their board game, making you as much a piece as everypony else. Angel Hair had taken this method, and I was doing the smart thing in following her.

That would actually explain why the griffon, Gold I think he called himself, had called me smart.

I watched from my cabin as the storm got closer, closer, and then surrounded us. The entire outside world gained an orange tint to it, and visibility dimmed greatly. I felt the memories of that day five years ago try to resurface, so I looked away. It wouldn’t be long till I could see the city itself, and the last thing I needed was to end up in an awful reminiscence at the wrong time. All that really had to distract me was the rhythm of the train and my rifle.

I need to make sure it was good and clean. It was likely to get a lot of sand in it once we reached the station.

Trotson station

Day 1

If a pony found anything about Trotson from before the wartime, they would know the city had once been given a nickname. The Desert Jewel, if I remember correctly. It had started as a mining hub due to the wealth of minerals located over it. It was also home to easily the largest quarry in all of Equestria, the city providing the marble for many old official government buildings. When the war started it became a production hub, and much like Fillydelphia it got hit on the Last Day because of it.

That was the most I knew about it, but perhaps some time in the city was going to shed some light about other sides of it. If I was gonna return to the place that gave me PTSD I might as well find some way to enjoy it.

Granted the city seemed like it was in a far worse state than I was. Building looked ready to crumble or had huge chunks of them missing. That was kind of the norm for the wasteland. What wasn’t the norm was that literally everything was draped in a blanket in sand. It didn’t drown the city but as soon as one exitted the storm surrounding it they saw just how much the little specs covered the streets, buildings, skeletons, and anything else around. I was glad I had taken the time to clean my rifle; it was gonna hate this place.

Thankfully the station was closed off… or had once been. From outside the train cabin, I looked at the building I was about to step out into. Some of the roof was still there but holes were showing. I couldn’t tell who was to blame: Father Time’s or the bomb. Those holes allowed for sand to find its way into the station proper. A station that, while still used, had nopony manning it.

When I say no pony, I mean no pony.

As the train came to a stop, I noticed there wasn’t a single grounder there to greet us. Back home you get off a ship, military or civilian, and there were always other ponies around. Trotson station, however, was just… empty. Nothing but sand, stone, and brick. A far cry from the comfort at arriving at whatever pegasus city one was heading to. The train was likely several times safer.

That wouldn’t do me or the G.P.E. any good though, so as soon as the doors opened I stepped off. The immediate crunch of sand underneath me drew my attention downwards. I couldn’t see what the floor was actually made of here, so I wiped some away to get a look. The floor was marble, most likely from Trotson Quarry. I lost interest in it as I looked to the only other pony that had gotten off the train with me.

Though perhaps saying pony was incorrect, seeing as how the individual in question was Gold. We looked at each other for a bit, and then he started to slowly plod his way into the station. I looked up at the holes in the ceiling, which were plentiful but too small to fly out from. The sound of someone clearing their throat brought my attention back to Gold.

“Head out together. Don’t always have company. Would be nice,” He said, the echo of the station making his voice sound even more ghostly then it already had. “First time here, right?”

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. I looked at his wings, then shrugged. “Not a grounder, so sure. I won’t have to worry about leaving you behind.”

He didn’t say anything about my words, which was good. I made my way to his side, not taking my eyes off him. He still had the style of a raider about him, so I had to be cautious. Last thing any pony needed was a gunshot to the skull when not looking. That wouldn’t help the G.P.E..

The sound of the train behind us drowned out any hooves as we moved away from the platform. That meant I was stuck within the city now. I swerved my eyes between everything around me, from Gold to a faded station map and the little filly and colts room we passed. All of it led to stairs heading up, far more light seeming to be present there then it was down on the platform. That meant windows, which would give me a good view of the city.

“You know if Shadow Corp clears the station? Wanna know if I should expect hostiles,” I inquired.

Perhaps that question was putting a bit too much trust in this griffon, but a soldier needs info on the enemy they are facing. Specifically, how many there were and how to best handle them. I was far more used to fighting ponies than feral ghouls, hellhounds, or whatever other creatures dared to pop out of this horrid place. Fresh information would be necessary for survival, and it was just the thing Ironsight couldn’t give me. I doubt he had been down here anywhere near as much as I.

“They don’t. You can’t kill, not worth having around. That is their view,” He said as we started climbing the stairs up. “Could find nothing, could find tartarus. Prepare for both.”

“I am, don’t worry,” I assured the griffon. It's nice having someone who is used to how things worked on my side. “Granted I would prefer to have a battle saddle, but I can fire this thing without one.”

Gold gave a firm nod. “Good. Stay close.”

We reached the top of the stairs, and I found myself staring at a massive glass ceiling. It was a glass ceiling, anyways. The feeling of something crack under my hoof telling me it too wasn’t spared by the balefire bombs. Along with chairs going down two main central walkways, there were several shops lining both the walls and middle of the station. They had seen better days; nopony had bothered to settle inside it, so everything still in it was two centuries old.

I probably could fly through the shattered ceiling and into the Trotson streets, but that wouldn’t get me anywhere. I needed help finding either Bone Breaker or Sharpshot, and Gold was my only option. He wasn’t flying, so I wouldn’t as well. Perhaps his wings didn’t work that well anymore, given his age. I remember my grandma could barely get off the ground during her last few years.

“What a sight,” I whispered. “Must have looked even more amazing two centuries ago.”

“Yes. Won’t ever see that. It's long gone,” Gold replied. He turned his head towards a nearby trash can, seemingly untouched by the balefire compared to the destruction around it. “Will stay that way, with these around.”

He grabbed one of his shotguns, brought it up, turned the safety off, and loaded a slug. I looked to where he was aiming, seeing nothing but random items before me. I was pretty damn sure at that moment he was going senile, taking a few steps back for my safety. I watched as his eyes narrowed on the trash can, wrapped a talon around the trigger, and pulled.

I expected to see the obliteration of a perfectly average metal trash can. I did not expect it to morph into something else. I didn’t get a great look at what it looked like before its entire lower section was ripped apart. Gold loaded another slug and fired at what I assumed was the creature’s head. The sound of both rounds rang through the entire station several times before fading. I heard something shift to my side, and saw what it was that had nearly fooled me.

It was a giant bug-horse thing, glowing radioactive green. That, and the fact it was lunging at me was all anypony needed to tell it was hostile and feral. I got up on my hind legs and raised the novasurge rifle I had on me, the beast’s open mouth closing around its barrel. It wasn’t what I expected, but it worked, allowing me to pump three shots into it before throwing its lifeless body off my gun and far across the floor. The laser shots didn’t create the same mess as the slug rounds Gold had, but anyone could see the point where they exited out the back of its mouth.

I kept my rifle trained on it long enough to be sure it wasn’t alive, then lowered it. The creature’s insectoid eyes glowed blue, a unicorn-like horn was sitting on its head. It wasn’t any pony species I had ever heard of, leaving me to believe it was the cause of some balefire mutation. Certainly looked like it had been burnt to a crisp, but instead of burnt flesh it had the exoskeleton of any other insect.

“Guessing you know what it is?” I asked Gold, turning back to the griffon. He still had one of his shotguns in his talons, telling me we weren’t done with these things just yet.

“Shifters. That is what we call them. Not sure what they actually are,” He said as he started slowly walking through the right side of the station. I followed him, back turned to watch for any more of the insect creatures. “Nothing from before the bomb. Showed up after. Likely a mutation. Shapeshifting is odd, however.”

“Yeah. Seems more like a naturally-born ability than one given through over-exposure to radiation,” I said, keeping my movements in sync with that of Gold. It wasn’t fun using this rifle this way, but without a battle saddle I had to stay on my hind hooves. It was the only realistic way to fire this thing. “Guessing they have a tell, considering how easily you picked that one out.”

“The item they shift into is in mint condition. Anything new or shiny should be shot first,” Gold explained.

As soon as he said that, my eyes caught a magazine that seemed as if it had been freshly printed in the store to our left. I kept my eyes trailed on it, ready to shoot if the shifter attacked me. It made the wise decision to leave me be, and as the next shop cut my vision off from the one it was in. I returned to scanning everywhere else as I did.

The sound of two slugs being loaded and two shots being fired told me everything I needed about what Gold was doing. While I hadn’t shot anything that had left me alone, he was ready to clean the house. Any shifter he noticed was eviscerated with two shots. That was all he ever loaded, and that was all he ever seemed to need. The G.P.E. would have approved of the efficiency, and I most certainly did. He was as good with a gun as Lucky had been.

I noticed a shifter to my right, having tried to attack me as soon as my eyes had started looking away from them. Quick as can be I snapped back to them and fired twice. The first shot missed, the second hit dead in the skull. It died mid lunge, body knocking into me and nearly sending me to the ground. It was easy enough to push off.

Near immediately after I got the dead shifter off me, my ears went ringing. I felt something hit me that was warm, wet, and most definitely not a living creature. I turned my attention back left, to what remained of a shifter right next to me. Its blood, which was more black and not red, covered my rear. The feeling was gross, but it was better than getting bit.

“Up stairs. Exit is there,” Gold yelled, pointing at a flight of stairs leading to the station's second level. It was more an attempted yell than anything. He started hacking as soon as he finished talking.

“Understood. I have your six,” I replied.

We picked up speed slightly, keeping our eyes out for any shifter dumb enough to come near us. That proved to be none as we passed station shop after station shop looking over every possible item that might be an enemy in disguise. They were smarter than I had given them credit for, and maybe not as feral as I had originally believed. They were clearly still animalistic, but it was entirely possible that, before the Last Day, they hadn’t been. A twisted version of a once intelligent species, like so many things on the wasteland surface.

The last shop passed by, and we had reached the stares with no injuries. Considering how encounters with enemies usually went, I would say that was far better than I ever would have expected. I didn’t want to know what would happen if those things bit me, and for now it would stay that way. Gold was the one to thank for that more than anything, though his unwillingness or inability to fly was also the reason we had been in harm’s way in the first place. If info wasn’t so important I would have just flown through the roof.

As long as they didn’t have wings under that chitin, of course. Then they were still a bit of a problem.

“Not out of woods. Only safe outside. Even then, shifters might be around,” Gold explained as we headed up the stairs. I had to drop back onto all fours to climb, feeling my balance starting to fail and not wanting to tumble down to the first floor. “Bite is deadly. Incredibly radioactive. Ghouls and Alicorns? Safe. We? Not so much.”

“Don’t get bit. Simple enough,” I said. He gave me a grunt as we reached the halfway point of the stairs.

The second floor wasn’t as crowded with things as the first, though that seemed to be on purpose. I could see what had to be a reception desk on the far side of the room. It was likely where ponies would get their tickets back when they were needed. The other side had a sitting area, the skeletons of ponies lucky enough to die instead of turning into a ghoul visible from where I stood. Perhaps such a fate was better than going to the clouds or ending up in a stable. They were blind to what the world had become.

Unlike the first floor, which had been filled with the shifters, the second felt barren. I caught maybe one total as we made our way from the stairs to the door leading outside. It had taken the form of a Ministry of Morale poster that looked a little too freshly printed. Considering they were on the far end of the building, I didn’t see them as worth the shot. They seemed to think the same as they let me get to the door without any problems.

Gold opened it for me, so I exitted first. He followed right after. We quickly checked the area around us, searching for anything that might be deadly, and then lowered our guns. I let out a sigh, happy at how smoothly things had gone even if my face refused to show it. Then I just… stared off into the city before me.

I had seen it while coming in on the train, but it felt different standing in it. The cloudless sky allowed the sun to shine, revealing how everything had seemed to lose its color to decades of neglect. If something did have color, the sand no doubt hid it from view. Any wastelander or Enclave soldier knows that their being actual sunlight in the city was unnatural. Some would ask what caused it.

I, however, could see what had the origin of the cloudless sky.

Off in the distance, sticking out like an Alicorn in an metaphorical orgy of earth ponies, was the mangled husk of an S.P.P tower. It wasn’t damaged in any way, but transformed. Where other towers were white, the bottom section of it had been encased in a black building. I know who it belonged to and why it had been built there.

That was where Shadow Corp was.

“Enjoying sunlight?” Gold asked me. I nodded as I glared at the mutilated tower. “Wasteland cloudy. Very sad looking. Less controlling, though. Here, Invisible Mare watches. Tower is hers.”

“As I should expect. No wonder she knew we were coming five years ago,” I replied, not noticing the griffon had made his way to my side till his shadow covered me. I glanced at him, and then back out to Trotson. “Was part of the Enclave force that came here five years ago. We went over the storm instead of through the tunnel. You can guess how the Invisible Mare took it.”

“I remember. Was here,” Gold replied. I winced at the knowledge he had seen, or at least been made aware, of how bad that had gone. “Horrid business. Sorry for your losses. Most don’t like Enclave. I’m not different, but loss of life is always sad.”

“It’s fine,” I told him, turning away from the tower and instead towards the city streets around me. “I’m guessing you got somewhere to be.”

“Yes. Visiting a friend. Young mare, only fifteen,” Gold explained, the faintest glimpse of a smile worming its way onto his face. “Stable dweller. Name is Lucky Heart. Bit loopy, but good where it counts. Hates cutie marks.”

I blinked at that last comment, wondering how in the goddesses bosom any pony could hate such a big part of them. There was a story there, but I wasn’t gonna delve deeper into it. For his raider-like appearance Gold seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. Better and smarter than any other grounders I’ve met, that is for sure. If I wasn’t on a mission, I probably would have had interest in joining him.

“I’m also looking for a pony. A few ponies, actually,” I said. Now was the time to ask for directions before we part ways. “The names are Angel Hair, Sharpshot, and Bone Breaker. I heard the second and third ponies could help me find the first.”

“You’ll want the Quarry. Breaker’s group is there,” Gold said, pointing out into the city. I could make out what looked like a giant hole. Up till then I had assumed that was where the bomb had landed. “Never heard of Angel Hair. Sharpshot? No clue. He likes to disappear after being found.”

“Got it. Thanks for info, and for sticking with me at the station,” I said, taking a step forward as I prepared to leave.

“One more thing.”

As soon as I turned to look at the griffin, I felt something jab into my neck. Reflexes kicked it, swinging one hoof hard at Gold’s talon, disarming him. I took a step back, the griffin looking at me calmly and stepping forward. The smile on his face grew as I felt the area that I had been jabbed, not knowing what it was.

That was when I noticed a syringe where there hadn’t been one before, laying on the ground in an unassuming manner. I looked back to Gold, then back to the syringe, the back of my neck stinging. I felt my head throb a little, but I ignored it as I tried to aim my rifle. He was already too close at that point, because by the time I had started raising the rifle up he had put his talon on it.

With me as close to his face as I was then, I could see the truth of his smile. I had originally thought it to be joyful, but now I saw otherwise. It was a somber smile, one that I couldn’t quite piece together. I felt the pound of my head grow, closing my eyes and bringing a hoof to my forehead. My gun hung in front of my neck. I stammered back in a sudden loss of balance, feeling weak and tired.

“What… What did you put in me?” I asked, the fright in my mind actually coming through my voice. Of course my emotions actually showed up now that I had been drugged.

I couldn’t stand, first falling onto my rear and then laying down on my side. I swore I was seeing code in the top left of my vision, but I couldn’t be sure; everything was blurry and reality felt a bit distant. The only thing I could be certain of was the existence of Gold looming over me, looking sad. I tried to open my mouth in an attempt to speak, but it did nothing. I was drifting to sleep for a reason I didn’t know.

“Welcome to Trotson.” Gold said. His voice sounded muffled and far away, but I could hear him.

Those were the last things I heard before my mind drifted to sleep, but not before I caught a glimpse of what looked like an EFS in my vision. It had a single, red dot on it.

Message from IM incoming…

…

…

Message received

I can confirm that our new arrival, subject P-1, has had the MentaBuck integrated without any complications. That is good, because it means whatever was keeping Pegasus bodies from accepting it into their biological system has been eliminated. Took enough of them for it to work. It means we won’t have to bury another body… hopefully. We still have no clue if it will have long term effects on the subject's body. That is why we have field testing. Our agent will also be keeping a close eye on her once he is done with his visit. Minsters always said friendship was important.

He is taking her to the test site now. Time to see if a pegasus reacts any differently to the MentaBuck than Unicorns.
As for the other pegasus we’ve been keeping an eye on, it seems she isn’t Enclave. She probably doesn’t know we’ve been copying the data she has with her. Oh boy is some of this juicy, and perhaps a little dangerous. Doesn’t seem to be complete though. A shame, but considering test subject P-1 is looking for her we may learn something about it all soon enough.

Also, to the big purple pile of scales I know is peeping at these logs, I have three words: she is mine! You don’t get to have this one, okay! Trotson is my city, and if I find you trying to hack a single Sprite-bot I’m gonna get real mad. You won’t like me when I’m real mad.

Act 1 – Chapter 3: MentaBuck (edited)

“What? Why are you being branded?”

“I-I can’t tell you, Anchor,” I said. His hooves were on my shoulders, which was more than enough for some of those hidden emotions to come forth. “I did something stupid. I can’t take it away and they don’t want me around anymore. What I did… it might possibly hurt everypony here.”

Having to tell Anchor about the council’s decision was hard. Even if he hid it, I could feel how he was judging me. He had never done that before, or at the very least never so harshly. The tone of his voice held the same disappointment that I had given to other soon-to-be Dashites. Being on the other side of it all almost made me feel bad for how I treated them.

Almost.

Just like five years prior, tears were falling down my face. I had told Anchor before the kids, hoping he would have some idea how to explain. What was I going to say to them? I couldn’t promise them I was coming back, cause I wasn’t. Most Dashite’s didn't have this chance, and it was probably some form of a blessing. Less to regret on their way down to the surface.

“I understand if you hate me. I’ve been bad,” I replied, head hung in shame. “If you want, I’ll leave. It’s what I deserve for betraying the Enclave, and for betraying you.”

“Singing…” He whispered, letting go of my shoulders. He stumbled back, shook his head. He refused to meet my eyes. “I’m not… forgive me, I’m having a hard time processing all this. Am I really never going to see you again?”

“Yeah. Never again,” I muttered.

We could both hear Rainy Day and Clear Skies playing outside our room. Their joy, while usually a cure to our sadnesses, hurt in that moment. My hind legs collapsed under me, both of us staying silent as we tried to work through what was happening. I was waiting for him to tell me to leave, because who in their right mind would want a Dashite for a wife.

What I didn’t expect was for him to come back in for another hug. It got the tears going again, and I wrapped my hooves around him. I didn’t understand why he was being good to me, especially when he had sounded so judging earlier. Everything in me told me that he was making no sense.

“Why? Why aren’t you telling me to leave?” I asked through tears and stuttery breath.

“Because Dashite or not, I love you,” Anchor answered. “I’m not gonna hurt you like that, not when you clearly are already in pain. What kind of husband would I be if I did that?”

“Thank you,” I said. As our hug continued, my eyes looked to our bed. This was the last chance I would likely ever have to do this with him, and I didn’t want to lose it. “Hun, before we tell the kids, would you be up for… a small session.”

He pulled away so we could look face to face. The look in his eyes made it clear what he was thinking. He wanted to but… he was worried about me. Worried that what I wanted in this instance is the right thing. That worry came through in the next few words he said.

“Are you sure?”

I gave a nod, doing my best to force a smile onto my face. Anchor helped me to my hooves, and before we moved to our bed we kissed Then, he led me to our bed, and he tackled me down. What we did then is too private, somewhat embarrassing, and messy for me to ever talk about. Some ponies are open about their sex life.

I’m not one of them.

When we finished we both laid in bed, exhausted and staring at each other. His beautiful hazel eyes still lay there in my mind's eye to this day. It helps me get to sleep sometimes, and other times it helps me cry. It was probably the most important night of my life, but not the best one. I’m not quite sure what I would consider the best night above the clouds.

“Singing. Do you want us to come down with you?” Anchor asked me. If I wasn’t tired I likely would have raised my eyebrows. “I’m sure it would be better than, you know, never seeing you again.”

“Hun, the wasteland isn’t a place for foals,” I reminded him, leaning into his chest a little. “I would love it, but… Rainy and Clear deserve a better place to call home.”

“What they need is their mother there, by their side,” Anchor told me, wrapping one hoof around my back. “They’re gonna be devastated about not having you around any longer.”

“And I’ll miss all of you, but I just can’t take the chance of them getting hurt down there,” I said, shaking my head. “Rainy is nine, and Clear is only six. Bringing them both down to the wasteland would be a big mistake.”

“Then, when they are older, perhaps,” He said. “When they are old enough, we will join you down there. Does that work?”

I stayed quiet for a time, feeling Anchor gently caress my back with his hoof. I was more than ready to fall asleep on top of him, hoping to find out everything was a dream. It wasn’t, and I knew that back then, no matter how much I tried to fool myself. Perhaps that was why, as I drifted to sleep on top of Anchor, I gave him an answer.

“Yes. That… would be fine.”

Trotson Grand Hotel

Day 1

Every single cell in my body hurt.

That was how bad waking up that night was. Of course I had no idea at the time it was night, as when Gold had jabbed me it was still daylight. I was also on the sandy ground back then, paved road under my hooves and making falling asleep on it very uncomfortable. I’m surprised I wasn’t burned from the scorching heat on the hard black road.

The first thing I realized outside of how everything felt on fire, was that I wasn’t lying on the pavement. It wasn’t comfortable, but whatever I was on seemed decently soft. I think there was also a spring poking my rear, but I didn’t bother to check when I finally opened my eyes. Everything else about my current whereabouts was more confusing.

When last I had been awake, I was outside with the city before me. Now all I saw was a pillow and the wall it was leaning against. I was inside, and in my sleep idled state I had no idea why I was. Thankfully, according to the E.F.S at the bottom of my vision, there weren't any hostiles around. I could wake up at my own speed.

At least I would have been able to, if I hadn’t noticed said E.F.S.

My brain jolted awake, and then my body followed after me. My eyes didn’t take notice of what was in the world around me, but what shouldn’t have been in it. An Eyes Forward Sparkle system found typically in power armor and PipBucks was in my vision. It shouldn’t have been there, because I saw no PipBuck on either of my forelegs, and I certainly didn’t have my old power armor. The E.F.S being there made absolutely zero sense.

“What the fuck,” I said, waving my hoof in front of my face. It was then that I remembered how I had ended up asleep in the first place. “That griffin. What in the world did he put in me?”

It had to be Gold’s fault. It was the only thing I could think of that made sense. Whatever he had put in that syringe must have made me some sort of walking PipBuck. That was the only real explanation I could give, and even that felt like it made no sense. Still, in terms of things a grounder could have done to me, that was probably one of the better ones. Knowing whether ponies had hostile intent or not was important, and an E.F.S was a shortcut to finding that out.

With my current predicament made more strange and confusing, I turned to look around where I was. It was a hotel room. There were two large windows with the glass long since shattered, a decent-sized bed, a few chairs, and a desk. It seemed to be a number of floors off the ground too. The view from the window gave me a wide glance at Trotson, even if the sun had set and the moon had risen. Not gonna lie, it was actually quite gorgeous.

After looking around a bit, I found my saddlebags and Novasurge rifle underneath the desk. Checking the saddlebags, I found my extra spark batteries for the rifle and the hoof radio. It seemed Gold had the manners to at least not take my things with him. It just made his actions feel even stranger than they already were. What had been the point of doing any of this to me?

I think I was starting to see why Odka said pegasi had a tendency to disappear in Trotson.

I gave my rifle a quick check, just to make sure Gold hadn’t mangled it in any way. Thankfully, that did not seem to be the case; everything was where it was supposed to be and going the right way. That meant I wouldn’t need to scavenge for replacement parts. There was some sand in it, but not enough to do any real damage. Even if it did, novasurge rifles were easy to maintain and fix up. That was why they were the standard issue rifle of the G.P.E..

I put it back together, tossed on my saddlebags and made my way over to the window. I leaned out, spreading my wings to be ready to fly, and then noticed something felt wrong. I looked back to my wings to see that, much to my dismay, many feathers had been plucked. Most of them were primaries. If everything else hadn’t made it clear something funny was up. All of which point to the one thing watching over all of Trotson – and likely myself – at this very moment.

“Shadow Corp. That griffin had to be working for them,” I said to myself. I turned my head away from the window, took a few steps, and then put a hoof to my head. “Whatever they did to give me this E.F.S must be an experiment of theirs. So the entire city is, as we thought, their personal testing grounds. Given they have control of the S.P.P. tower…” I looked out of the corner of my eyes to the desk. “Yeah, I’m being watched.”

It certainly wasn’t comfortable knowing ponies had eyes on me when I couldn’t see them, but I could deal with it. I was a soldier; privacy was a rare commodity, at least before I became an officer. You get used to somepony watching you at all times. Whether said pony was of a lower or higher rank didn’t really matter that much, because there was always at least one other pony around.

I turned my attention to getting out of wherever I was. As if feeling my mind's desire to know said location, my entire vision was suddenly consumed by that of a map. I flinched, blinked several times, then shook my head. On the one hoof, I could now confirm I was in what remained of the Trotson Grand Hotel. On the other, I had just found that Gold hadn’t just given me some form of natural E.F.S.

He had put an entire PipBuck in my brain! Actually somewhat impressive, but I knew my mind had to be on getting out at the moment. I banished the thought that Shadow Corp’s technology was somewhat intriguing and tried to figure out how to get the map out of my vision. If it was small I wouldn’t mind but everything I saw was encompassed in a neon green map. Finding the mental off switch was a priority.

A priority that took five minutes to figure out. Shorter than Shadow Corp probably expected, longer than I had hoped. That was all assumption though. As far as I knew, the grounders might have just been watching and laughing.

With that squared away I turned my attention to the door out of the hotel room. It opened with a horrid creaking sound that filled my eardrums, but I refused to let something as simple as that stop me from moving forward. Walking out of the room and into the hotel hallway, I found that whatever floor I was on seemed to be rather intact. The idea I was just on the less crumbled side of the hotel didn’t hit me until later.

I watched the area around me carefully as I moved up. None of the doors moved, and there weren't any obvious threats such as radroaches or bloatflies. As far as I could tell there weren’t any shifters either, but after the station I wasn’t gonna take any chances. Anything I saw that looked even the slightest bit clean was eyed heavily as I made my way passed it. Being poisoned by shapeshifting radioactive bugs didn’t sound like a pleasant way to go.

I kept my eyes open for a set of working stairs. There had been a door to a stairway halfway down the left side but it wasn’t usable. Not if I didn’t want to plummet and break several limbs, that is. Outside of that stairway each of the doors had been locked, meaning either nopony had bothered to break them down since the balefire struck Equestria or Shadow Corp didn’t see whatever was in there. For the moment, that was fine; I had come to Trotson to take care of Angel Hair, not look at secrets that could get me killed.

As I turned the corner into the next part of the hallway, I saw a door that was slightly ajar on the left side. I quickly made my way to it, and then looked to make sure it hadn’t been trapped at all. No string seemed to be attached, so at the very least opening it wouldn’t set off a grenade or something.. I kicked the door open, ready to bolt to either side of the wall in case anything shot at me. What met me instead was silence, which I perhaps should have expected. I doubted any creature would go up that high to find its daily meal, which would likely be me given the amount of things in the Equestrian Wasteland that seemed to want us dead.

I stepped into the room and scanned it over, eyes stopping at what I saw laying on the desk. It was a statuette – her statuette to be specific – laying on its side and rolling a bit. I stared at it, and somehow I knew that it was staring back at me. I wrote it off as a side effect of Gold putting a PipBuck in my head, and stood on my hind hooves. I could mentally feel her looking at me with wide, terrified eyes as I aimed my rifle at her with dulled anger and hate. Without a second of hesitation, I fired.

The traitor’s statuette, or at least the part of it showing the pony who had betrayed the Enclave, was turned to nothing but ash. Everypony knew why the term ‘Dashite’ had stuck, and what the pegasi it was named after had done. It was one thing to have her own cutie mark stuck on me for the rest of my life, but to see a pony-made toy of her was sickening. Dashite or not, I was and always will see myself as a part of the Enclave; whatever blessing she wished to give me was unwanted.

“I’m not like you,” I whispered as I turned back to the door and walked out. “Your judgment means nothing. What loyalty is there in a pony who abandons her own?”

The next set of stairs I found had thankfully been intact. Not completely intact, but I could get to the next floor. Before heading down I smashed the glass case holding a fire axe I had seen on the wall, just in case I needed something to help myself up close. I had had some dangerously close calls in the station with my rifle, and I didn’t want to chance that again. Especially when a shifter could be anywhere or anything.

With that I worked my way from one floor to the other. I spent some time judging if I could jump the rest of the way down without hurting myself before heading through the door. It was worth checking but I want to get through this place intact. Just because nothing dangerous was on the floor I was formerly on didn’t mean it would be the same on the next one. Something I was glad for as I heard a wet, ripping sound down the hallway from me.

It was a ghoul, trying to eat what was left of a carcass nearly picked dry.

I first questioned why one was up here, and then thought about the events of the Last Day. I imagined a pony, maybe a couple of ponies, unable to get into stables or get back up to the clouds for one reason or another. Knowing their life was likely over, they hid away in their hotel room hoping it would save them. It was as effective at saving them as a piece of paper was at stopping a bullet.

That was what led the creation of the ghouls. That was likely why a ghoul had been in the hotel. Probably recognize it on some animalistic level as their territory. Anything that walked into it would be theirs to feed on.

Not wanting to risk turning my back to a feral ghoul, I decided to test something. I felt something inside my mind clink, and the world slowed to a crawl. It wasn’t completely still, but one could easily mistaken it as such at that moment. Just like how whatever Gold put in me gave me the E.F.S. and map of a PipBuck, it also gave me S.A.T.S. A life changer when it came to my survival, and a sure sign this ghoul was about to die.

I raised the Novasurge rifle, lined my shots, and cued two for their back and one for the head. The spell released, and each one ripped through the ghoul with ease. Any chance I had to get a better look at them was also gone, their body disintegrating from the rounds. It was probably for my best in the end; I didn't want to get sick at what was a should-have-been-long-dead pony.

The lack of distant snarls or growls told me that no other ghouls had heard the shot. The rest of the floor was either safe, or I had just lucked out in not grabbing their attention. With that in mind I made my way over to where the ghoul had once stood, noticing its meal had been that of a pony. I couldn’t be sure, but the skeleton seemed small enough for the unfortunate grounder to likely be either a foal. Probably thrown in there by Shadow Corp, same as I had been.

It had what seemed to be a cloak around it, likely as protection from the sand. I grabbed it, watching as the skeleton collapsed under it, and put it on myself. It would protect me far more than it would a pile of dead bones. Shame to not have armor still but that could be easily solved when I met Bone Breaker.

Not wanting to waste any time I immediately started looking for the next flight of stairs. It was almost eerily quiet, the only sound being my hooves against the two century old, carpeted floor. Most doors I tried to open seemed locked, the few that weren’t had no floor behind them. It was clear that, as I was moving further along, the building seemed to be getting less and less intact. Something that came to ahead when I rounded the corner, and found myself suddenly greeted by cold night air and a view.

I had personally seen the Fillydelphia crater during that mission two years earlier. The crater that I saw before me looked very similar, if a bit less wide and deeper. Pieces of buildings on the edges of it could be seen on its sides, and it was glowing heavily. No doubt it was still increasingly radioactive, and I told myself to do everything in my power to not have to go there. Considering two of the ponies I needed to meet were a ghoul and an alicorn, I sincerely hoped that wasn’t where they were hiding out.

I looked down, noticing how the debris of the Grand Trotson Hotel seemed to have been stacked nicely into a ramp. I made my way down it, eyes occasionally glancing back to the Trotson crater. The more I looked at the city, the more of Fillydelphia I saw in it. Replace Red Eye and his raiders with the Invisible Mare and their Shadow Corp scientists, and the only real difference is that one is covered in sand. Not entirely sure if that comparison is good though, considering I never met him.

The ramp took me from the third floor to the ground floor. The space the improvised ramp led me to was a dining area, dishes on tables and on the floor. I could imagine that ponies had been eating here like any other day, only for them to hear that balefire was inbound. They left in a hurry, and what I saw now might have been the last meal a few of them ever had. I only hoped that said meal proved to be good.

I made my way from the dining area into the lobby proper. Nearly everything around me was dark, save for the light of a terminal behind the staff area. I looked out the door, and then back to it. While I could leave, I knew there was some possibility of medical equipment and otherwise being located there. Especially useful if trying to meet Bone Breaker went badly. He was a raider, after all.

After a trot over to the receptionist counter and jumping over it, I looked into the back area. Truth be told, there wasn’t that much outside of the terminal, a sweet, and an old empty box of party-time mint-als. There was also a skeleton next to said mint-als, the story so obvious it didn’t need explaining. No medical equipment could be found, but there was still one thing of interest. Shoving the skeleton to the side, I turned my attention to the terminal. It wasn’t locked, so I decided to help myself to a little war-time history lesson.

Entry 1

Our shipment finally came in today. About time too, because I swear my vision has been getting worse without it these past few days. Sometimes I can’t tell when my hoof is in front of my face or the terminal is anymore. Perhaps it is time I visit Ocular, like ponies have been telling me, but I swear the mint-als help more than any doctor ever could. Glasses would probably look stupid on me anyways.

We stashed it in room 414 for the time being. I’m gonna go take a couple of mint-als and stash them at my place just in case the MoM comes knocking around. Even with my vision beyond fucked, I can tell there has been more Sprite-bots around recently.

Entry 2

Yep, just as I expected someone was a little bit too loud about us getting a shipment. Got a visit from the Ministry of Morales today, and they went straight up to room 414 and started tearing it apart. When they didn’t find it, they questioned all of us about it and then left. Glad I had decided to relocate them the previous night just in case something like this happened. I think they would have been okay if it was just the mint-als but the rage, dash, stampede, and cloud nine would have not been good for them to see.

The drugs have been moved to room 207, and I told the others that I’ll be hoofing out anything anypony needs from now on. Can’t take any more chances with ponies screaming about the location of our goods. It does leave the possibility that I’ll have to move them again in case someone is checked into that room, but it is what it is. We ever want this place to get the funds it really needs to be fixed up, then we need these drugs. It’s better than this place becoming a tourist destination.

“Cloud nine? What in tartarus were they doing, selling that kind of stuff?”

To say that shit was dangerous was like saying a bullet to the brain would kill you. Cloud nine wasn't used in the military or medical field like the others, but rather a mix of something with the specific purpose of being addictive and dangerous. Ponies used it to get high in the same way they would off of other drugs, but unlike drugs like mint-als that made it harder to function if addicted, cloud nine was a killer. The production of it was illegal for a very good reason.

I… had some history with the drug. Didn’t ever have it myself but my mother had started selling it back home before she was jailed. It was her way of trying to help get us out of poverty, but all I remember was watching a filly die during my birthday party. She had been selling it to the filly’s parents, and they had been careless enough to leave it out for her to find. That is something no foal should ever have to see, and I had watched it all with my own eyes.

I think seeing the drastic measures mom had taken was why I didn’t go into music like my cutie mark wanted. I wanted to get out of poverty, and the military was far better than my chance at becoming a successful artist.

There was one more entry in the terminal. It was on the Last Day, but a pony wouldn’t know that considering how casual the one who had made the log spoke.

Entry 3

Had to move them again today. A family, Stable-tech employees by the looks of it, came and were given room 207. It will be in 401 for the day but I’m gonna see if I can’t figure out somewhere better to put the goods that aren't in one of the hotel rooms. Last thing anypony needs is to find out somepony is stashing drugs in the room they paid for. A lot of explaining that needs to be avoided unless the MoM comes knock again.

I have to say, those Stable-tech ponies I mentioned are actually really nice. The parents are, anyway. Something about their kid makes me uncomfortable and I’m not entirely sure what it is. All I can really say is that there is this weird look in their eyes. I’m sure I am just overthinking things right now. No foal can be that bad, r

It was unfinished. I know exactly the word he was about to type, but if he never finished the log that meant one thing: the balefire had made themselves known. I stepped away from the terminal and looked down at the skeleton. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the pony, knowing that if they had had wings they would likely have lived. Instead, like many grounders, he had died that day with no hope. The rest of his kind became impure from the radiation of the zebra’s vile magics.

I considered what I had learned from the terminal and looked up. I personally had no interest in taking any of what that pony had, and I would like to see whatever cloud nine he had incinerated. However, Bone Breaker was a raider. I had learned from past missions how much raiders liked to juice themselves up and that addiction was part of their job description, if one could call raiding a job. Having those might make it easier for me to get it.

“Room four-oh-one, right?”

“Four-oh-five. Four-oh-three. Four-oh-one. Here it is!”

The climb back up was as uneventful as the way down. As soon as I returned to the floor I woke up on, I started counting down the doors. The room I was looking for was on the opposite side of the building, and somehow still accessible. Most of the missing wall and floor was on the outer part of the hallway. Room 401 was on the inside, and while the door was locked I knew a way to open it.

“This better not break. I don’t want to have to shoot the lock off,” I said to myself as I took the fire axe I had grabbed earlier out from my saddlebags. Probably not the best place to carry it but it was the only storage I had. “As far as I know it could be a waste of time.”

Gripping the axe in my mouth, I started swinging into the door. I took small chunk after small chunk out of it, the axe breaking through it easy due to the door’s age. The same could be said for the axe, as the wood felt softer than I expected in my grip. I found out why that was as I wound up to strike the door, only to hear something snap. I looked, and I noticed that the axehead had broken off and had flown into the city below.

“Fuck,” I spat as I tossed the rest of the axe in the same direction it had gone. I turned so my flank was to the door with my mood soured. “Let's hope what I did was good enough.”

I bucked the door, watching as the area’s I had stabbed the axe gave way and fell apart. The lower half of the door was gone but the upper half remained. That was all I really needed, and better than I would have expected. I didn’t have the strength of a mud pony after all, and if the door had been in any better shape that buck would probably have hurt me more than it hurt it.

I dipped my head as I made my way into room 401, eyes ignoring everything but the bed that sat along the left wall. I trotted up to it and got low to the floor, noticing a large case under it. Even before I pulled it out from under I knew what I had found. The literal case worth of drugs I saw when opening it only confirmed it.

Then my eyes laid on a couple packs of silvery white powder put in plastic wrap. That was cloud nine, the thing that caused my mother to kill a pony and kept her out of my life since I was eleven. I remembered well what the substance looked like, my teeth grinding together in anger as I looked at it. An anger I knew not to let control me, and I tried my best to do that by closing both my eyes and the case of drugs before me. I took steady, regulated breaths, and then opened and looked at it.

“As soon as I found a way to start a fire, I’m burning you,” I whispered, as I stood up. I flipped whatever mental switch in my head brought up the map from earlier, watching as my vision got taken over by any normal PipBuck’s neon green. “Time to find where the Trotson quarry is now.”

After figuring out the mechanics of zooming out the map and moving it with my mind (a process that took longer than I’ll ever admit), I found it. It was a decent distance to the east, and I could see Trotson station marked not far from it. If I had been able to fly I could get there within the hour, but Gold had robbed me of that capability for the short future. I would have to make my way there by hoof and then hope the raiders didn’t decide to just shoot at me.

Acting as a narcotics salesmare wouldn’t work if they already wanted me dead.

Act 1 – Chapter 4: Sandstone

Streets of Trotson

Day 2

Apparently finding a place to burn the cloud nine packages wasn’t that hard. Somepony, most likely a merchant if I were to guess, had set up a bunch of old, unused canisters along the road to the quarry with flames burning bright. Considering the apparent lack of anything that could be considered civilization, it must have been used to make a safe path across the city. As safe as it could be, anyways, with the surface as fucked as it was.

After tossing the cloud nine into one of the canisters I backed away and used the cloak to hide my nose. I watched as the smoke grew quite large, creating a small blanket above the canister before spreading out into the air. I wasn’t quite sure if I had gotten rid of it the right way, but it seemed to prove effective enough. Nothing in the package of cloud nine had exploded too, which I was more than thankful for.

With the most dangerous of the drugs destroyed and out of the way, I turned my attention exclusively to reaching the quarry. I looked up at the stars in the sky, knowing for a fact what I was looking at shouldn’t have been there. The night sky was beautiful, belonged only to the pegasus, and here it was being shown to ponies unworthy of seeing it. That was what I had been raised to believe.

Wasn’t as bad as knowing I was being watched, and I didn’t mean by Shadow Corp. Some time after leaving the Grand Trotson Hotel I noticed something flying over a building in the distance. That alone wouldn’t have been weird, and I even considered the low possibility of it being Angel Hair, but then I saw it again. It hopped from distant rooftop to rooftop a couple more times, always staying in sight of me but far enough away where I couldn’t make out a decent silhouette. My only real guesses were that it was a pegasus or griffin, but seeing as they hadn’t attacked me yet I decided not to attack them.

As for how I was so certain it wasn’t Shadow Corp: they had somehow separated control of an S.P.P Tower from the central hub; that had long been considered an impossibility. It was the only way they could clear the cloud layer and make the sandstorm, and that meant they didn’t need somepony following me. They could do it all from their base of operations, and this mind-PipBuck-thing was likely sending them information.

When I had gotten relatively close to the quarry the barest amount of light had started to peak out from the horizon. I had been lucky to not run into anything wanting to kill me. I looked at my mind-map (I had nothing else to really call it at the time) again, noticing that the Trotson quarry wasn’t actually listed as a quarry. Instead it was called ‘Sandstone’, which was as accurate a name for a settlement if I had ever heard one. Far more sophisticated a name than I had expected.

Something else caught my eye, however. There was another location labeled on the map, right next to Sandstone. My eyes went wide as I saw the name of the location that was marked before me: Stable 71. I’m honestly not sure why I hadn’t expected there to be Stables in Trotson, or just on the ground in general, considering there had been ones in the clouds. A piece of me wanted to ask if ponies got to it in time, if it had actually saved ponies from the bombs, and if those still inside hadn’t been twisted by the world outside of it. Considering the kinds of experiments I later learned that Stable-tech had put in some of those places, I highly doubted it.

When I closed the map, I got the first actually good look at what was before me. There were two mud ponies guarding the entrance wearing armor that could only be described as mangled metal and leather. Behind them was the path leading down to Sandstone, though you couldn’t see much of a settlement from the ground. The marble and stone in the quarry built a natural wall around it that protected the Sandstone from everywhere but directly above.

“Guess it is time to say hello,” I muttered as I looked up to a far off building. The creature watching me was still there. “Perhaps then I’ll find a space for some true privacy.”

The hope was that I wouldn’t need the drugs currently occupying my saddlebags. If they just let me through without question everything would work out. I wasn’t exactly good at pretending to be somepony I wasn’t. I took a deep breath as I approached the gates, noticing that both the grounders were eyeing me. Calm and unflinching, I walked up between the guards silently hoping that they would leave me be.

It didn’t happen. The moment I was almost past a hoof stuck in front of me and one of the guards sniffed the air. His eyes looked me up and down, and then scanned the road behind me. Perhaps he also sensed the individual that had been following me up, thinking we might be up to some trouble. After a couple of moments, he looked back at me with a devious smile on his face. There were two possible things he was about to ask, one more perverted than the other.

“Whatcha got in those bags, sweetie?” He asked me in a young voice that was clearly meant to sound sultry and alluring. Considering how bad such a simple line came out, anypony could tell he had no idea what he was doing.

“Dash, Mint-als both normal and party-time, and some other things,” I replied, countering his putrid attempt at a pick-up line (at least I’m pretty sure that it was meant to be a pick-up line) with a stone cold stare. “What do you want and how much are you offering?”

Instead of backing away, the guard leaned in. “As much as it takes for two mint-als and a night with yo–“

“I got a husband,” I told him, looking away from him and to the other guard. They rolled their eyes and started moving around me to their friend. “And I’m not polyamorous.”

“Aw come on. You say that now but I bet you’r-“ The young colt’s words were cut off as his friend dragged him to the side. “Hey! Come on Guardian you’re ruining me.”

“Shut up you fucking moron,” Guardian replied as he smacked his friend over the head. “Listen, she’s a Dashite. Clearly not one that came down here willing. She probably still has it in her head that she might be able to see him again somehow,” As happy as I was to see him get the young stallion to stop, I couldn’t deny his words made my eyelids twitch a little. “Just let her figure that out and then act like the creepiest motherfucker this side of the wasteland.”

“Heh, if I do get with her that would be literally.”

Guardian gave him another hit on the head for that. With that he turned away and started walking back to his position, letting out an irritated sigh. The difference in both experiences in professionalism was jarring and surprising, considering what I had expected from Sandstone. The Enclave would have knocked that mindset out of the colt quickly if he had tried to join.

“Apologies about Razor. You know how colts can be,” Guardian said. I gave him a nod, inwardly chuckling as I remembered the few stallions I had dated before Anchor. “He’ll learn one way or the other. I just hope the way he learns isn’t gonna cost him his life.”

“Some ponies here would really be that bad?” I asked.

“Miss, Sandstone might be the most civilized area in Trotson but that doesn’t mean we have any written laws,” Guardian explained, Razor sheepishly nodding along as he returned to his post. “It’s mainly a mix of ‘don’t fuck with Bone Breaker’ and ‘don’t fuck around, or you will find out’, if that makes sense.”

“Anything is technically permitted, but not everything is smart,” I summarized. Guardian smiled and gave a nod. I looked past the hodgepodge gate that led to Sandstone, and then back to him. “Don’t worry, I’m not interested in finding out what happens to those who cause trouble. I’ll likely be in and out within the day if all goes right.”

“Whether it be a day or more, stay on your best behavior,” He replied, holding a hoof out. “Also, uh, if you wouldn’t happen to have some Buck on ya, I’m willing to pay for it.”

A short exchange later, and I found myself short two containers of Buck and a couple caps richer. I bid Guardian goodbye and made my way through the gates, letting out a sigh. It had gone better than expected, though I made a mental note to tell Bone Breaker about Razor’s choice of welcoming words. Guardian himself had said it was only a matter of time till he tried to woo the wrong mare.

As I worked my way down from the top of the quarry, I got to see Sandstone for what it was. The first thing anypony would notice was the sudden increase in ponies wandering around before them. While there weren't many awake due to it still being earlier in the morning, it became increasingly clear that all of them were grounders. There wasn’t a single pegasus in sight. It lends more credence to what Odka had said back on the train about the lack of pegasi in Trotson overall. I felt like, to reuse an earlier analogy, an alicorn in an orgy of grounders, and while not at all shy it certainly made me more aware of my wings.

There were only a few pony-made buildings in the quarry, and judging by the signs hanging from most of them they weren’t residential. I didn’t bother to read any of the shop names, but for what Ironsight had called ‘raiders they seemed surprisingly more civilized than I had expected. I quickly realized I would need to reevaluate how I talked and interacted with most of them. The drugs would likely still work out in my favor, given things at the gate, but talking with Bone Breaker might not be as uncivil as I originally thought.

One building was a little bit bigger than the others, and had a pony with a battle saddle on the outside of it. I knew immediately that I had found Bone Breaker’s place of residence. Looking up, a pony saw a barely illuminated sky, the rising sun still not reaching high enough to turn it from black to blue. It also left the entirety of Sandstone cold and dark. Nopony would likely be awake for some time still. Didn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying to get the discussion over with now, at least.

I closed the gap between myself and building, using the time to consider how I would explain why I needed to see her in the first place. No written rules or not, Bone Breaker was still the one in charge. She would be a busy mare, and some fresh-of-the-clouds Dashite like myself would need a very good reason to get her audience. By the time I had reached the guard in front of her residence, I had a decent idea of what I would do.

“Excuse me,” I said, instantly getting the guard’s attention. “Is this Bone Breaker’s place? I need to talk to her.”

“Yeah, but she is still asleep,” He replied with an exceptionally harsh and exhausted tone. He clearly was too tired to deal with anypony’s shit. “Like every other reasonable pony in this place is doing this early. If you want I can pass on whatever you have to say but I’m not about to let you make the boss cranky. Ponies tend to get hurt when she gets cranky.”

“Fair enough,” I said as I started to turn around. “Let her know a pegasus needs her help finding two ponies. I’ll come back at a better time.”

He nodded, and I trotted off into the rest of Sandstone. If I had time to explore, might as well use and maybe see if any shops had a battle saddle available. Goddesses know it would make using this damn rifle far easier.

“I know the map said one was close by but… I didn’t expect it to be here.”

All the shops had turned out to be closed, which I should have expected given the time of day. It led me to wander aimlessly around checking out every nook and cranny of the quarry. It had been uninteresting at the start, with the only things around me typically being the marble walls. It made for great defense, especially since they didn’t have to worry about the GPE attacking from directly above. Didn’t make for an interesting surroundings.

Then, I turned around one corner and found something very clearly not made of marble before me. It was a giant, metal, cog-like door with ‘71’ in giant, faded letters. It was slightly ajar, allowing me to see a bit of what was inside. It was placed in an alcove, a marble ceiling sheltering it from the light of day. I knew exactly what I was looking at, a part of me curious as to how the stable door had managed to get stuck in a half-open state.

A curiosity that was immediately driven out of my head as I felt something staring at me. I turned around and looked up, watching what I assumed to be a unicorn go wide eyed. All I could make out was a pure white coat and a long mane that was a white at the top and dark blue at the bottom. That was all I managed to see before their horn lit up and they vanished from sight. At the time I had believed it to be teleportation, and thought it was just a local intrigued in me being here. No way it could have been the individual that had been following me earlier that day, given they had horns instead of wings.

Well, I had thought so anyway, but I’ll get to that later.

I turned my attention back to Stable 71, the first stable I had seen in my life. Considering how they were typically placed in more out of the way locations I never saw them on any missions to the surface. The sheer size of its door alone would have intimidated any civilian, but all it did to me was make me feel small. It was huge, probably so it could allow multiple ponies in at a time. I doubt anyone was calm down here minutes before the Balefire Bombs hit.

I wasn’t entirely sure how long I stood there, taking in the wartime wonder before me. All I knew was that I was pulled out of my stupor by a meek yet harsh sounding voice.

“Quite the spectacle, isn’t it?” A pony said from behind me. I looked to see an earth pony, brown coat and blond mane, making her way to my side. “The current Invisible Mare said this is where she came from. Apparently they hooked her up to some machine, and spent most of her time inside it in a fake version of the stable,” I raised an eyebrow, something she took notice of and snorted at. “Yeah, makes no sense to me either.”

“I’m surprised you met the Invisible Mare,” I commented, looking back to the stable door. “Didn’t think anypony would know what she looked like.”

“The current I.M. has been in charge for only five years. I owe her a lot,” the mare explained, a small smile on her face. “I’m free because of her. Most of us here in Sandstone used to be slaves meant for the personal pleasure and enjoyment of one group of raiders or another. When she and that griffon of hers freed us, she asked us to watch over her parents grave.”

“That grave being here?” I asked, getting a nod in response. I closed my eyes for a second, and then looked at the mare again. “My condolences. Nopony, even you grounders, should live like that.”

I heard her chuckle, then mutter quietly. “Yep, definitely not down here willingly.”

The two of us stood there, my mind turning to learn more about the Invisible Mare. There was clearly a bigger story behind them than I was aware of. My interest in learning it would have been higher if I hadn’t realized a few correlations. Namely that the current Invisible Mare took over around the same time as that disastrous mission. Whether they were responsible or the previous one was, I wasn’t sure. The fact she had a griffin companion, however, gave me a decent idea of how it was.

“The name is Bone Breaker,” the mare to my side said. “You are the pegasi that was looking for me earlier?”

“Singing Rhapsody, and yeah that was me,” I said, looking up at the sky. Light was starting to make its way into the old quarry. “Apologies if I woke you early. First day here has been… quite the experience.”

I took a step to the side and spread my wings, showing off the area Gold had plucked my feathers. I could see Bone Breaker flinch at the sight, letting out a sound that was a mix between a hiss and sigh. In the short amount of time I had been talking to her, the mare had shown herself to be nothing like I imagined. She seemed a lot saner than I figured anypony named Bone Breaker would be.

“Yeah, Gold ain’t exactly the most gentle of individuals,” She said. The grimace that had formed on her face from the sight of my feathers shifted into a soft smile. “Hey, you're alive at least, and I heard you got a MentaBuck. Most pegasi here can’t say the same thing.”

“MentaBuck?” I asked, hoof reaching for my forehead. “I’m guessing that is the name of the device Shadow Corp shoved into my head.”

“All the convenience of a PipBuck without needing to actively carry it,” Bone Breaker explained. Her face shifted into one that I couldn’t place as a frown or a smile. “That is what Shadow Corp says, anyways. You are the first pegasi who has been given it and not suffered the affliction known as death.”

I blinked a couple of times, not quite sure how to gauge what I had just been told. Even when it hit me that I could have died yesterday my brain refused to compute what it was being told. That was, and probably still is, the most lowkey near death experience I had ever had in my life. I did now know I had been more correct than expected earlier about Gold shoving a PipBuck into my brain.

“Huh, got it,” I said after several seconds of silence. I shook my head, clearing my brain of the fact I had nearly died and focusing on what was important. “Anyways, I need your assistance finding some ponies. Think you can help?”

“Maybe. I don’t know everypony in this city,” She said. Bone Breaker turned around and motioned at me with her head. “Join me at my place. We can discuss things there with assured privacy. Had anything to eat today?”

I shook my head as I started to follow her back to Sandstone proper.

Bone Breaker’s hooves slammed into the table, and to my surprise it didn’t crack. I had certainly been surprised at the action, as she had been calmly listening to me recount the reason I was down here. She got up from her seat, paced around the table for a bit, and then sat back down. Her muzzle fell in between her forelegs, a position she decided to stay in as she slumped forward.

“A raider,” She spoke, defeat clear in her voice. “The Enclave thinks I’m a goddess damn raider.”

“I take it you have an issue with that,” I replied, taking a casual sip of the Sunrise Sarsaparilla that I had been given. She had tried to give me a Sparkle-Cola but I couldn’t bring myself to say yes.

“Yes, because I do my literal best to be the opposite of that,” Bone Breaker replied, slumping even further. She spread her forelegs slightly so I could see her face better. “I mentioned I was a slave to them, right? I have no interest in becoming like the murdering, abusing piles of garbage that owned me half a decade ago.”

“I will say, it has definitely seemed incorrect for what little time I’ve known you,” I told her, taking another sip. A somber smile made its way onto her face as I said that. “I’m guessing it is either the name or the fact you are well known in Trotson that led them to that conclusion.”

She went from slumping forward to leaning back in her chair. “The first one I can see. Bone Breaker isn’t the name I was born with. I took it to make myself seem scary and intimidating. I wanted to feel less weak.”

I let out an involuntary ‘hm’ at her words, setting down my Sunrise Sarsaparilla. The name made a lot more sense with that in mind, as did the behavior of the pony before me. Until she had started talking it had definitely played me for a fool, and I’m sure she had an act that she put on when in public. Would explain the way the settlement’s guards talk about her.

“The second reasoning confuses me,” Bone Breaker said. “Mind explaining what you mean?”

“You heard of a stallion in the east named Red Eyes?” I asked her. The mare gave a confident shake of her head. “He’s a raider, and the reason that slave trading is as big as it is in the east. He also has his own radio station. In other words, he is a really well known pony, and not a good pony.”

“So because he was really well known, when my name came up the Enclave thought of me as similar,” She stated, getting a nod from me as confirmation. Bone Breaker looked into the distance for a bit, then looked back at me. “Anyways, I hate to say I haven’t heard of another pegasus in the area. Can’t help with Angel Hair. What about the other pony you are looking for?”

“A unicorn ghoul named Sharpshot. Apparently owes the Enclave a favor or two,” I said before closing my eyes, breathing in, and preparing for the far more ridiculous part of it all. “He also, apparently, has managed to hook up with one of The Unity’s alicorns.”

“This is where I step in and say that Willow is not a member of The Unity,” Bone Breaker said, the sheer speed at which she responded caught me off guard. It was enough for the new name to not immediately register. “I’ve talked with Sharpshot a few times before, and got to know his wife. From what I know something caused that alicorn making thing in the east to malfunction on her. Made her ‘defective and uncontrollable’ apparently.”

I leaned in, my interest having been piqued by Bone Breaker’s words. I didn’t know a lot about the alicorns; a lot of what the mare before me said was new information, but I knew the basics. They had a hivemind of sorts, came in three flavors, had no cutie mark, and had an extremely limited spell pool. We had to fight one of the ones with the shielding ability a few years ago on a scouting mission gone wrong. I think I mentioned it before.

Another moment where I survived instead of better, more emotionally adept ponies. We had been sent to investigate a war-time military facility and were told to scavenge a list of parts if we found them. It went FUBAR, we encountered an alicorn, and next thing I remember it had killed twelve ponies. The things were utterly terrifying, and to this day the events are such a blur that I don’t know how we actually took it down. Perhaps it was better that way.

“Has he ever told you what caused this defectiveness in her?” I asked.

Bone Breaker shook her head and shrugged at me. “Nope. All he said when I asked him was ‘long story’ and refused to elaborate further.”

“Then I guess I’ll ask him when I find him,” I muttered to myself. I allowed silence to envelope the room for a couple of seconds before speaking again. “Do you know where I might find him? The Enclave is cashing in on one of the favors he owes us.”

Her eyes darted to the ceiling, a slight chuckle coming out of her throat for no reason. Bone Breaker got up and made her way over to a makeshift countertop behind me. She grabbed a paper and then trotted back over to me, dropping said paper in front of me. I looked at it, noticing that not only was the paper far newer than expected but that it seemed to be a letter. It was clear Bone Breaker wanted me to read it, so I did so.

Ponies of Sandstone, your next dropoff will be located at the Whickerbury Apartment Complex. This will contain food, water, ammo, as well as spare material. All raiders and other sapient creatures of Trotson have been informed of the drop off as well. You know what to do if you want it.

Invisible Mare

“This came in late last night. In case it isn’t clear, everypony in this city is the Shadow Corps plaything,” Bone Breaker said, a downtrodden look on her face. “Trotson doesn’t have a lot of places to grow food, and even less to collect water. We do what we can with Stable 71 to make us somewhat independent, but we are as reliant on them as the raiders here.”

If I could see the S.P.P. tower at that moment, I’m sure I would have stared at it. Gold’s treatment of me and my wings already made Shadow Corps’ beliefs clear enough, but Bone Breaker had been bold enough to say it. Sandstone, the raiders of Trotson, and everypony else was a rat in the Invisible Mare’s city-wide maze. That would include both Sharpshot and Angel Hair too. They would need the supplies just as much as Sandstone.

“You want to meet them, then you help me secure this package,” Bone Breaker replied. “I have no doubts the son of a bitch will be there. Be prepared for things to get bloody.”

I couldn’t say no, especially when it was likely my only path forward at the moment. I looked at my rifle, which I had been very surprised to have been allowed to keep as I met her. I had ammo, but not a lot of it. If it was likely we were going to run into a giant mess of raiders, I needed to be as prepared as possible.

“If I’m gonna do this, I’ll need a battle saddle,” I explained getting up from my seat. “That and a gun with more common ammo.”

Bone Breaker gave a warm smile and nodded at me.

“I’m guessing you're happy to have one again.”

I smiled and nodded at the earth pony next to me. The weight of the battle saddle on my body as I walked out of one of the stores was comforting. It made me feel like I was prepared to fight for the first time since descending from the clouds. On one side was my novasurge rifle, fully loaded. On the other was a newly acquired semi-auto rifle that I had purchased myself from one of the shops. It wasn’t in great condition, but I had more than enough ammo to use it in case the novasurge ran out.

It was the best thing I would be able to get next to Enclave power armor. The chance of finding anything like that in Trotson was close to zero. For the mission in question what I had would serve well enough, however, and it wasn’t even my only resource. Bone Breaker had similarly armed herself with a pair of odd, seemingly electrical horseshoes and a double barrel shotgun. The usefulness of the former would be decided based on if we encounter raiders at the supply drop or not.

“You could say so. This is how these weapons are supposed to be fired after all,” I replied, allowing my smile to grow. It wasn’t typically good to show cockiness but with all the shit that had happened over the past few days I was taking what happiness I could. “You sure you want to come along. You’re the leader of this settlement after all.”

“Yeah, especially since Sharpshot and Willow will likely be there,” Bone Breaker said, a just as cocky smile on her own face as she holstered her shotgun. “Besides, these ponies need a leader of action more than a leader of words. If I stand up and fight, then so will they.”

“Many of us leaders in the Enclave think the same,” I said, turning away from the mare. “I doubt a surface pony like you could live up to them, but I like where your heart is at.”

She walked past me, taking the lead as she knew our destination. She turned her head back and flashed a look that was a strange mix of disappointment and confidence. The expression left me confused, not knowing what was wrong about the words I had said. She turned her attention forward after a couple of seconds, the only thing I was able to see being her eyes closing in thought.

“Let's get moving,” She said before opening her eyes again. “The sooner we get there, the better chance we have of encountering those two outside of a firefight.”

I didn’t nod, but I followed her hoofsteps as we made our way back up the quarry. As we reached the gate, I watched as she turned to the stallion that had advanced on me earlier. The stallion's expression fell, as did Bone Breaker’s. For some time I had thought about the two lovers, which was surprising considering the age gap. Then she rubbed the poorly made helmet he wore as if ruffling a mane. That told me everything I needed to know about the relationship the two had.

“Momma is heading out. Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone,” She said, her son giving her a quick and firm nod. Bone Breaker then turned to Guardian. “Keep him out off any of the fillies. You fuck up, and we have ourselves a little talk.”

The tone in her voice had shifted from that of a loving mother to cold as ice in a matter of seconds. I was impressed at how quickly she got her guard in line; her act seemed less like a performance and more like a darker half of her. If that was how she portrayed herself, it only made sense that ponies stayed in line. I think, while she obviously wasn’t as bad as an actual raider, there was a little bit of that mindset in her. Likely due having spent so much of her life being a slave to one.

With whatever business she had at the gate taken care of, she motioned me to follow her. We left Sandstone behind, my eyes watching every direction possible for anypony eavesdropping. I couldn’t see anyone, including the unicorn that had been following me, but I still felt a pair of eyes staring into the back of my head. Whoever it was, I made sure to keep both my guns prepared in case of an ambush.

“So that was your son back there?” I asked as I watched Bone Breaker’s flank. Not literally, mind you, but I’m sure some mares would say it was a very nice flank.

“Yes. It wasn’t my choice to have him, but he is my boy,” She replied, her voice setting back to her normal town now that nopony was around. “I wasn’t happy to have a foal forced on me, but I couldn’t find it in me to abandon him. I felt like if I gave him up I would become like those I hurt.”

I fell quiet, unsure of how to respond to the information put before me. Rainy and Clear, my own foals, were my choice to have. I couldn’t quite imagine the situation Bone Breaker was in. A part of me felt unable to tell her about what Razor had said to me earlier, and after several seconds of attempting to speak I gave up. Another part of me asked if she had made the right choice in the end. Perhaps it would have just been better to abandon a foal that she had had no interest in calling her own.

As a parent, a part of me found that hard. As a mare, I understood her plight.

Act 1 – Chapter 5: Defective

Streets of Trotson

Day 2

If anypony had told me I would be discussing parenthood with a wastelander of my own free will, I would have said they were high. If they continued to insist that they had, I would have asked why a member of the Enclave or any other pegasus would associate with a grounder. Typically those were the ponies you were counting down the days for, waiting for the moment that the Enclave suddenly seemed like a villain and turning coat. Some would chase after love, or a sense of justice, and in time all would succumb to the cruel reality that the surface is and always will be hell. That had been what I was raised on, anyways.

Still, I can talk about what the Enclave would and wouldn’t want forever; it didn’t change the fact I was indeed having a conversation with Bone Breaker concerning parenthood. I was more than aware that not everypony had a child of their own volition, especially on the surface, but hearing it all from a pony who had dealt with it was something else. The struggle of trying to love something you didn’t really love, of trying to be a good parent for an accident, was a struggle I didn’t know. Both my foals were my choice, and I had gone through my whole life never regretting it in any way. Now I realized I was just a bit blind to the pegasi who had been dealt a bad hoof.

Conversation turned from Bone Breaker’s woes to parental advice rather quickly, because she didn’t trust any grounder to give it. Given the state of the world around her, I can see exactly why she would go to somepony from the more civilized land above the sky. Ponies aren’t taught right down here, and that causes twisted morals and beliefs to flourish forth. Not that said things aren’t impossible up in the clouds, but we certainly do our best to make sure our fillies and colts become respectable members of society. Talking to a dashite must have been the golden opportunity she had thought would never reach, thanks to the damnable device that had been jammed in my skull.

If only her biggest concern was one I could actually give advice on.

“Singing, be real with me,” Bone Breaker said as we walked through the oddly empty streets of Trotson. Even well into the morning there were no raiders or otherwise present. “When you arrived, did Razor say anything stupid?”

The topic I had been avoiding since we left made me groan, which was a dead give away to the mare leading me. Aggravated, Bone Breaker stopped walking and nearly let her electrified right hoof meet her face. Instead it hovered just in front of her face for a couple of seconds before it hit the group with a clop. She shook her head as she started to walk again, mumbling something I couldn’t understand but could harbor a fairly good guess at. She turned back to me, ears folded against her head and looking even less like the Bone Breaker I had pictured before arriving in Sandstone.

“A couple days ago, he tried to force himself on another mare as well,” She explained, defeating the core of her very existence at that moment. Her words led to me shaking my own head and causing my next to be far louder than I intended. “He’s a lot like his father, and that scares me. I’m not quite sure how to tell him how he is acting isn’t okay, and how to get it into his skull that trying to fuck everything that moves isn’t a good idea.”

My eyes wandered to a nearby building as I replied. “I wish I could help, but I don’t really know how. Neither of my foals were old enough to do anything like that.”

“Hopefully, they never will,” Bone Breaker said. Her attention went to the concrete, then to her left, then right, and back to me. “Did I do something wrong? I mean, his father wasn’t around to affect him too much so the problem has to be me.”

I couldn’t give her an answer, because it was something I had asked myself. Far, far away, in a place I would never see again, were two young foals whose mother had abandoned them. Yes, Anchor had said that he would join me once Rainy and Clear were old enough to go with him, but there was a chance I wouldn’t be alive then. The possibility that they journeyed here, branding themselves as traitors just to find my decaying corpse was far too likely. As if the trauma of me leaving hadn’t been enough for them as it was.

“We’re nearly there.”

Not completely trusting the navigational skills of a stranger, I opened up the map on the MentaBuck. She was correct, Whickerbury Apartment Complex was no less than a block away according to the new indicator on my map. It was the same boring square shape as everything else around it, only important because it was one of the many sites Shadow Corp used to drop off supplies. Ponies would come to obtain the goods they left, groups would clash and fight, and they would observe form on high. I’m sure that was the original intention of whatever previous mad scientist that had been the former IM, but now it was some insane adolescent’s sandbox. Nothing had changed, just shifted from being based in science to based on fun.

Minister Pinkie would probably love them.

One block further and a corner turned, and we were greeted by more streets and our first signs of other ponies. There were about ten of them in total, all before the door to the apartment complex with a gray unicorn messing around with the lock on the door. One stallion raised a pistol, and I aimed my novasurge rifle in turn. It wasn’t long before we had nearly a whole battalion of rather disheveled, cranky looking grounders facing us waiting for somepony to make the wrong move. I could also make out the glint of a rifle far off in the distance, no doubt belonging to someone just as unfriendly as those directly before us.

“I’d recommend buggering off, fillies,” The lead stallion said, taking a brave step forward. “Though if you drop your weapons, get below my belly, and satisfy my needs well enough I might be willing to offer a bit of what we have.”

“Well aren’t you a real gentlemen,” Bone Breaker replied. “Sorry, but I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime.”

“We’re just two ponies, we don’t need too much,” I said, taking a chance on their intelligence being close enough to sub-brick for something like that to work. My eyes glanced behind them, swearing I had seen some white appear for a moment. “How about we put down the dangerous objects and talk this out like civilized ponies.”

The stallion laughed at me, meaning he wasn’t buying my bluff. Despite it, a glimpse out of the corner of my eye to Bone Breaker showed her motioning for me to continue talking. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to buy time for, and I know that we currently were outnumbered to even attempt a fight like this, but I was willing to do as she suggested. I took a step forward, and a bullet hit the ground less than an inch at where I had placed my hoof. The stallion had stopped laughing, giving me a smirk that was far too confident for my liking.

“Civilized? Fresh off the clouds sister?” He asked me. The taunt might have worked on a mare with more emotion than myself.

“Maybe, but I know a few things that you probably don’t expect,” I told him, looking towards the unicorn standing closest to the door. “Shadow Corp wants ponies to fight over these supply areas, so why lock the door? Only thing I could guess is that you aren’t the first ponies here.” I paused to see if my words caused any reaction. When I saw they didn’t, I continued. “You don’t have to worry about pegasi, since I’m one of only two and they wouldn’t have reason to lock the doors. That means whoever is inside not only has the supplies we both want, but has fortified. I can help you break those fortifications.”

“Ah, intriguing offer,” He said with a slow, clearly sarcastic nod. He briefly pointed the gun at the unicorn I had been looking at. “However, I’m still more interested in getting rid of all this built up tension in my groin. Same with all you boys?” There was a collective murmur of agreement at his question. “Sorry to say honey, but your skills are required with a very different barrel. Perhaps you’ll be better than this worthless slut we brought along. Can’t even get a lock up.”

I ignored the recoiling mare and turned my attention to Bone Breaker.

“This all they’re ever interested in?” I asked.

“Eeyup,” she answered immediately, voice and face as deadpan as could be.

I sighed. “Well, fuck it, if it keeps them going then I’ll–”

Any attempt to speak was stopped as I saw a new, large figure loom over the raiders like the night. It was an alicorn, though not like any I had ever seen in my entire life. Where all others were green, blue, or purple, she was white from the torso to her horn. The rest of her faded into a dark blue, along with lower parts of their tail and mane. She was smiling like a foal in a candy story, a lick of her lips making it across the handle of the sickle she was holding in her making it more than just an analogy.

It was clear the horror I felt inside somehow managed to, and the lead raider grew confused. He looked behind himself, and the rest of his gang followed suit. Each grew terrified at the sight of the alicorn, the only one not afraid being the mare right next to me. I didn’t know it, but this is why Bone Breaker asked me to buy time.

She had been waiting for the previously invisible alicorn to get close enough.

“Seems someone else was intrigued by your offer,” Bone Breaker taunted. I couldn’t help but look at her in shock at how calm she was. “Go on, Willow. Do what the nice stallion said and bury yourself in him.”

The entire group of raiders start to back away from the alicorn, whose childish smile twisted into something far darker. Each step of hers was more than enough to make up whatever distance had been built between them. I went to aim at her, but Bone Breaker put a hoof in front of me. I started to judge the mental capabilities of the mare to my left.

Then, to my horror, a sugary sweet voice went through my mind.

“Nine little ponies, standing in a line. The butcher comes to claim their lives,” it said. It was all said in the manner of a nursery rhyme, the alicorn bobbing its head upon every other syllable. Her eyes caught on one of the stallions, the grin she gave him absurdly uncanny. “One of them screamed and begged to his last….”

The sickle came down upon the power colt, a single shot of an assault rifle ringing before he was silenced. Her weapon had pierced his neck, blade going through one end and out the other. She raised his now lifeless body into the air for everyone to see, the lockpicking unicorn screaming in terror. All that, while the alicorn’s eyes slowly guided their way in my direction.

“… knowing full well he would be the first to pass.”

Tartarus broke loose when she was finished, Bone Breaker and I watching as a flurry of gun shots descended up the alicorn. Nothing they did seemed to affect her, the wounds she got seemed like gruesome decoration rather than serious injury. With a swipe of her hoof, she removed the dead body from her sickle, jumped forward, and then bent down. Tilting her head leftwards, she sunk her sickle into another of the raiders body, this time cutting open his chest instead of piercing his neck. He wasn’t dead yet, but he was bleeding badly.

Then, out of nowhere, a shot rang out louder than the rest around us. The poor sap to be hit by it was the stallion that had been talking earlier, and I watched as he suddenly burst into flames. His screams unsettled some of the companions around him as he suddenly dropped to the ground and started rolling in a futile attempt to save his life. Bone Breaker saw this as her opportunity to enter the fray, using the panic and distraction the stallion was causing to get in close. A bang from her shotgun, and the head of an earth pony had been taken clean off.

I knew I had stood around long enough at that point, and I wasn’t gonna complain about the alicorn being on my side. Four of the ten were down, the fifth had been heavily injured, and the odds had been evened. Sticking back and activating S.A.T.S., I checked to see where Bone Breaker and the alicorn were turning their attention. The former was near moments from getting into a fist fight with another earth pony, while the latter had two terrified unicorns backed up to the wall. Another had turned to fire right behind her, and while I doubt an alicorn needed any assistance it might give her reason to not kill me right after.

Trusting my aim more than that of some system, I disengaged S.A.T.S. and fired a round from the novasurge rifle. It hit their hind leg, the pain and disintegrated bone causing them to be thrown off balance and drop their weapon. The grounder looked at me in rage, but I had already fired three more shots. Each hit her chest, and with the final one I watched as her being turned into nothing but ash on the floor. I would have turned to my next target if a flying body hadn’t suddenly collided with me. Apparently the alicorn didn’t really care where it was throwing the bodies it was removing its sickle from.

It didn’t knock me off balance, but the weight of a corpse did cause me to drop into a more rooted stance. When I got it off me, all the action had died down, the only raider alive being that still burning stallion crawling towards Bone Breaker in a desperate plea for help. The alicorn had become as still as a statue, looking down at the unicorn mare who the stallion had called a slut. Their eyes were closed, no doubt waiting for the end to come. It never came, Bone Breaker walking up to her and holding out a hoof.

“Hey, you’re safe now,” She whispered to the unicorn. I watched her pat the alicorn’s side, who continued to do nothing but stand there and stare.. “Willow here ain’t gonna hurt you. She’s not like the others, correct Willow Wisp?”

I blinked as I heard the name, turning from the earth pony to the newly dubbed Willow. “So that’s the defective alicorn Sharpshot married? Then that bullet must have come fro–”

“You said the word,” Willow said within my mind, though a look at where her eyes were now directed showed that it wasn’t me who was the target of the statement. Shame took over her whole being, which was something I didn’t even think was possible for an alicorn. “Why Boney? Why did you say the word?”

Hearing her voice, the way she talked, and so much else made it feel like I was looking at a foal, not some terrifying alicorn. Her voice reminded me of how Clear sounded whenever she did something she knew she shouldn’t; a foal who felt genuinely sorry, but not sorry enough where you knew they wouldn’t try it again. It only further added to the oddities, and the claim she was deemed as defective by the Unity made a lot more sense. I wasn’t looking at the cocky, taunting bastards that had heart so many ponies in the wasteland in recent years.

I was looking at a filly. An incredibly old and powerful filly, but a filly nonetheless.

“I… oh goddesses I did say it,” Bone Breaker said, appalled at herself. She stumbled back, the unicorn mare she had held a hoof for blinked in confusion at what was going on. “Sorry Willow. I didn’t even think about it.”

“It’s okay. Boney is forgiven,” Willow replied, perking right back up. She looked as if she was giggling, but not a single sound came out of her mouth. “Besides, the slaughter was fun, and it is nice to meet new ponies.” She turned her attention to me, waving a hoof. “Hi there!”

“Uh, hey,” I called out, tentatively raising a hoof and waving back. “Willow Wisp, right?”

“I’ve been called that a time or two,” She replied, literally skipping over to me without a care. She took what I had used to wave to her and started shaking it profusely, the strength of it lifting me off the ground once or twice. “Sometimes been called the Bloody Angel, other times a defect, and a long time ago I was just called a slave. None of those are really nice sounding though so I decided on Willow, but then I couldn’t talk anymore because of killing joke. Long story right there, I’ll tell you about it some time.”

She let go of me and I wobbled back, the alicorn mare getting distracted by the rather charred stallion not too far away. It was the first time I or anypony else had paid him any mind, and the fact he was somehow still alive despite looking more like a walking corpse than even most ghouls did. They at least looked like they could be functioning ponies, even if most of them were horrifying feral monsters. He was doing his best to cry in pain, every movement looking as if it was pure agony as he raised a hoof to the alicorn above him.

“H-ha-help me!” He said, words laced with desperation. He looked like he wanted to scream, but the fire had destroyed his body to the point that talking hurt as badly as the simplest motion. “Pl-plea… please k-kill me!”

“Oh, a very tempting offer,” Willow said, tapping one of her hooves against her muzzle, head inclined. “Though I’m not sure you really want that. I’ve been told I’m a very messy killer. It might take rather long.”

“P-p-please,” He pleaded again.

Without moving her head, Willow Wisp looked down at the burnt stallion before her. There was excitement in her eyes, and just like she had earlier Willow licked her lips in anticipation. I fully expected her to kill him right there, but instead she turned her attention to us. She smiled larger than any pony I had ever seen, her eyes closed to further give off her foalish nature. Though, now that I was seeing what she was excited about, and what it was she seemed to enjoy, comparing her to that of a foal felt horrible.

“I would recommend looking away everypony,” Willow instructed. “Sharpy has said I get a bit carried away with stuff like this.”

The unicorn mare looked away as suggested, Bone Breaker doing the same while also holding a hoof out where the aforementioned mare’s face was. I didn’t understand why they were acting that way, my mind concluding that a simple shot or snapping of the stallion’s neck would be enough. I watched on, long desensitized to the horrors of the wasteland from missions that had both gone as good as possible and those that had gone FUBAR. It wasn’t until she reached for one of his four hooves instead of his head that I realized that had been the wrong option.

I couldn’t look away fast enough as the sound of skin and muscle tearing greeted my ears, closing my eyes for good measure. The stallion screamed as much as his brittle body would allow, though it was more like a pained whimper than anything. I could hear Willow’s joyful laughing in my mind, filling half my thoughts in disorienting me beyond belief. The lack of vision only allowed me to envision what she was doing and made her laugh worse, so I opened my eyes and dared a look. As I had expected, the ripping sound came from Willow ripping his hoof clean from his body, blood pooling out from the wound and shattered bone visible for all to see.

“Now I could have just killed you, but that isn’t what you do to those you capture,” She said to the stallion, either blissfully unaware or not caring that the rest of us could hear her. “I would know. Long ago, when I was just a pegasus, you ponies did the same thing to me. You roughed me up, dragged me through the mud, and used me as much as you saw fit. You don’t deserve a quick death,” She leaned her head in the direction of the unicorn mare. “Miss unicorn, I assume you are one of those. Can I have your name?”

“G-Gemini. Shining Gemini,” She quickly answered, the fear in her voice clear as day.

“So scared. Look what you’ve made little Gemy into,” Willow replied, pressing a hoof into the stallions back. “How could you do all of this to her? You’re a big meany mister, and that means that you deserve twice the pain you put her through.”

“Hun, just kill the bastard.”

Eyes snapped from Willow to a new grounder making his way to us from the same direction the alicorn had come from. It was hard to get an idea of what he actually looked like, his entire being bundled in clothing. The three things I could make out were the thin fragments of what used to be a bright red mane, the equally red horn on his head, and his violet eyes behind broken goggles. His body was nowhere near as interesting as the two strange weapons he had on him, however.

One was rather similar to that of a zebra sniper rifle, but the color of the stripes were different. White was changed out with orange, and red replaced black. Outside of that it looked relatively normal, but the second was far stranger. The grip and trigger already marked it as being gryphon made instead of pony made, with two rather differently sized barrels at its end. There seemed to be a switch of sorts on it similar to that of firing select, and to my utter horror it had two optics instead of the standard one. It turns an odd weapon into a monstrosity.

“But Sharpy….” Willow pouted, puffing cheeks out in an adorable yet rather uncomfortable pout.

“No buts. The audience isn’t interested in watching you torture him,” The newcomer said, who I instantly realized had to have been Sharpshot. The way he and Willow talked to each other certainly sounded like some twisted wasteland couple. “Just kill him already.”

I expected the smile on Willow’s face to drop after hearing those words, but instead she gave a joyful nod to her husband. Not wanting to waste any time, she reached for the stallion’s head and, instead of simply snapping his neck, started to pull. Sharpshot sighed and brought a hoof to his head as the anguished grunts and moans of Willow’s victim vibrated through the souls of everyone present. Then, with enough force, his head was excised from his body, leaving his corpse limp under the alicorn. His eyes danced one way or another, mouth flapping uselessly like a goldfish for half a minute before all movement had ceased.

“Next time, when it is just you and me, I’ll let you have a little more fun,” Sharpshot told his wife. Willow gave a nod, but she was far more interested in the head she was now caressing with her hooves. He then turned his attention to Bone Breaker. “Hey. Guess you're here for the supply drop?”

“That, and looking for you,” Bone Breaker said. She looked at me, and I saw Sharpshot look at me as well. “She came here to find you.”

I saw that as my cue to step forward, only for the horribly disfigured rifle the unicorn had to point at me. Bone Breaker stepped away from Sharpshot, and suddenly all eyes were on me. Despite the obvious warning there was by pointing the gun at me, I stepped closer to the clothing wrapped ghoul with confidence. With a strong stance, I met his untrusting stare with a look befitting one of the highest ranking personnel of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. If that didn’t make it clear how much more important I was then him, the next few sentences would.

“Sharpshot, correct?” I asked, just to make sure he was indeed who I thought.

“Yeah, what about it?” He questioned back. His high, gravelly voice made him sound more like a teen than a century old zombie, the clearly threatening nature he was trying to place into his voice not coming out correctly. “You're here to kill me, right? That’s all anypony seeks me out for, and I’ll let you know that I don’t go quietly.” The zebra sniper rifle was also pointing at me now. “Go on and try then. Learn why I’m the most wanted stallion in the wasteland.”

I ignored his little temper tantrum and continued with what I had been meaning to say. “I am Lieutenant Corporal Singing Rhapsody of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. I hear that you owe us a favor, and I am here to cash one of them in.”

My words were followed by silence, Sharpshot’s eyes going wide as he lowered his weapons in genuine surprise. He looked to his wife, who gave him a quick shrug of her wings before returning to… whatever she was doing with that decapitated head at that moment. There was a yell of frustration, and then a zebra rifle was telekinetically thrown against the ground in anger. Sharpshot turned around and took a few steps away from everypony, took deep breaths, and then muttered to himself. I’m pretty sure he didn’t intend for me to hear any of it.

“They remembered, of course they fucking remembered,” Sharpshot said to himself.

“Is he okay?” Gemini asked, the first time she had spoken up in quite a while.

Bone Breaker nodded her head. “This is just how he is. Stud was only thirteen when he entered unlife after all.”

“You do one good thing to the wasteland. One! You save the lives of a few ponies, get on the good side of some pegasi, and you hear nothing for fucking years of your life,” He yelled out, not caring at all for his volume. “I thought I was safe and didn’t have to be dragged back into any crazy adventures. Figured I could just cause a bit of chaos for the rest of my days, but they remembered. Of course the Enclave fucking remembered. The worst part is that I can’t even blame anyone but myself for this.” He started stomping the ground like a colt who wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Fuck. This. Stupid. Fucking. Wasteland!”

I temporarily considered if this was a pony I really wanted help from, and if they were really the pony Ironsight had told me about. The name was correct, as was the fact they were connected to a defective alicorn, but I didn’t feel like I was talking to an adult. How could this grounder manage to piss off the entire wasteland, with the apparent exception of the Enclave, and still live while acting like this? I had expected a pony far more cold and calculating.

“Well, might as well see what it is she wants,” Sharpshot said, defeated. He turned his attention back to me, clearly less than satisfied with the situation before him. “Okay, Enclave big shot. Given your a pegasus at least part of that is believable. Guessing you aren’t that big of a shot anymore though, right?”

“You’re… not wrong,” I admitted, eyes wandering to the distance for a second before I looked back at the ghoul, stepping forward. “Exiled though I may be, I am still a proud member of the Enclave. What I have come to ask of you is of great importance, and not for prying ears.”

“Then I guess we better make sure ponies don’t pry,” Sharpshot replied, eyes going to Whickerbury Apartment Complex. “Get in, clear the building, split the supplies, and then Bone Breaker in the stranger with her can leave us to talk.”

“Doors locked,” Gemini told him, getting hastily to her hooves. “I was working on unlocking it before you all arrived. I’ll get back to it straight away.”

A motion of his hooves stopped Gemini from standing back before the door. Raising that abomination of his up in violet, telekinetic glow, the ghoul made his way to the front entrance. I already knew what he was going to do, but the earth pony and unicorn to his right seemed a bit more unsure of it all. The barrels rotated, he aimed for the hinges, and two deafening shots rang out into the empty streets of Trotson. All it took then was a nudge of his hoof, and the door fell inwards.

“Who needs lockpicking when you can just shoot it?” He asked. He turned his attention back to me. “You got my back. Bone Breaker will stay here with little miss scaredy-pony, and Willow will get herself cleaned up.”

“And who gave you permission to just decide how everypony goes about everything?” Bone Breaker asked. I was making my way up to Sharpshot’s side, just as pissed but believing he was in the right. “And why am I not going in with you?”

“Because I want to be in charge, and because I don’t fully trust her,” Sharpshot spat back, pointing a hoof at Gemini. My judgment of him was falling further by the minute. “Now if you don’t mind, a pegasus and I have to make blood chaos.”

I could have stopped him at any point, but the effort didn’t seem worth it. His cockiness and ego had been made abundantly clear, and I knew a fair few drill sergeants that would absolutely despise him. The effort it would take to make that ego of his more bearable would probably take long then any military service he would enter. Typically big talkers were that and that alone, but if everything about his reputation held true it would not be that simple.

“I’ll make sure the colt here doesn’t get himself killed,” I said, hoping those words would quill the argument. Looking behind me, I gave a faux smile to the alicorn watching us. “He’ll make it out with all limbs attached. That’s a promise.”

A promise that I fully intended to keep, even if I was going to absolutely hate this unicorn ghoul by the time we were done cleaning house. Willow gave me a nod, and to my relief chose not to say anything via telepathy to the rest of us. Tossing the charred head she had been playing with to the side, she got to her hooves, and I finally noticed just how badly the alicorn had been beat up. She was covered in more bullet holes than any normal pony could live through, yet she was acting as if it didn’t hurt at all. Even as blood stained her white fur red, there was not a hint of worry on her head.

Then, with a single flap of her large wings, Willow was airborne. She rose higher and higher with each flap, all but Sharpshot watching her in interest. I was waiting for the moment that the pain she had to have been feeling from those wounds brought her back to earth, but that didn’t happen. She was either so used to the pain or had a tolerance for it so unbelievably high that her wounds probably felt more like a mild nuisance than anything. As she darted off and out of view over the apartment complex, I was left to question if she could even feel pain.

“Where is she going?” Gemini asked. All things considering, that was probably the more intriguing question to most of the ponies around me.

“Troston Crater, if I were to guess,” I answered. The unicorn mare’s eyes went wide in horror, which clearly meant she likely thought alicorn’s were threatened by balefire radiation the same way most others were. “Alicorns regen from radiation. No idea why.”

“Seems you’ve done a decent bit of studying up before you got chucked down here,” Sharpshot said, a chuckle escaping his muzzle. He held up the abomination, rotated the barrel’s, and looked at me. I could tell he had the smuggest of grins under that cloth mask he seemed to be wearing. “Ready for the fun part?”

Turning my attention to the inside of Whickerbury Apartment complex, noticing the multiple red dots on my E.F.S. “A soldier is always ready.”

There was no way he wasn't smirking at those words.

Author's Note

Willow Wisp and Sharpshot are both characters from Reminders, the earliest story I still have up on this site and my first attempt at ever writing anything Fallout: Equestria related. While that story leaves me a bit embarrassed, there are a decent number of characters that I actually felt I did quite well with. Not great, but considering how knew I still was to writing at the time that is to be expected. I'm hoping to redeem them with this work here.

Act 1 – Chapter 6: Kill and Secure

Whickerbury Apartment Complex, Trotson

Day 2

Out of the strong heat of the sun and into the slightly more manageable heat of the Apartment Complex. I didn’t realize just how awful it had gotten till the shade overtook me. The only thing keeping me from letting out a sigh was the knowledge that dangerous ponies were all around us, and I didn’t want to test their listening comprehension. It had felt the same when I had left the station, now that I think about it, but so much happened in that short span of time with Gold I didn’t give the daylight's warmth much attention. I knew I would have to put the coolness of the shade behind me as well, for I had a job to do.

The entranceway was small, and getting inside with a battle saddle was rather awkward. The only two objects were stairs that twisted at the end of the hall and a door to our left, our hooves echoing loudly. I looked up, seeing at least five floors worth of stairs above me. The supply drop could be on any of them, but the word “supply drop” got me thinking that it might not be in the building but rather on top of it. It was a possibility I needed to consider, especially when it meant the enemy possibly heard us instead of just saw us.

The sound of moving clothes brought my attention to the ghoul next to me. He had pulled the mask covering his muzzle down and took in the air with a giant inhale. The gross, disfigured look of his undead skin hid what was likely a rather strapping young colt. Once upon a time he might have been a looker for a decent amount of the wasteland, but now he was just a mess. If he wasn’t helping the Enclave and had a goddess-damned alicorn for a wife, I would have just killed him. I’m sure he would have appreciated being released for life.

“Well, soldier mare,” He said with all the cockiness one would expect of a teen. “Rules of engagement?”

While this wasn’t an actual Enclave operation, I did have to give him some small credit for asking that question. Perhaps he could be corralled, even if it was only to some minimal extent.

“All life is expendable. Show these grounders no mercy,” I told him, making my way over to the first door. I placed a hoof on it and looked back at him. “I couldn’t care less if they are slavers or slaves.”

Sharpshot gave me a tooth grin. “Speaking my language.”

To my delight, he did actually stack up on the door instead of standing right in front of it like an idiot. The abomination was at his side, and I had to consistently remind myself that discussion of what in tartarus he had done to it would be better left for later. I slowly opened the door, making sure that my novasurge peaked out in preparation for whatever lay inside. We were met by a combined kitchen-dining-living area, wallpaper peeling and floor looking more like a storm cloud. There were no immediate hostiles right before me, but the sixth sense of every soldier had come in as I eyed what was blocked by the door.

I leapt forward as the center of the door was blown open, splinters flying everywhere. Getting immediately onto my hooves, I aimed the semi-auto rifle on the other side of my battle saddle at the pony who had tried to blindside me. He was met with a trail of bullets going from the base of his neck up to his head, those final few shots putting him down. My eyes then flicked to right in front of me, finding myself on the end of a barrel from another grounder that had hidden itself behind the counter. I’m sure they had met to fire at me, but their head was suddenly ripped apart by the firing of an auto weapon to my right.

I turned my attention to Sharpshot, about to ask where he had gotten an automatic rifle until I saw what he was holding. The abomination had been pointing exactly where the bullets had come from, the ghoul not even looking at where he had shot. He strutted into the room and motioned my attention back to the room we were in. I followed his gaze, and had just enough time to duck as a unicorn blind fired over the couch. Sharpshot slid behind the kitchen counter as I used what little cover the table and chairs gave me to hide my figure.

When the fire stopped, I took my chance and jumped on top of the table. Another jump and flap of my wings, and I was high enough to see over the couch at the hostile. Freezing time with S.A.T.S., I cued two shots from both the novasurge and the semi-auto rifle, and then allowed the world around me to resume. The poor idiot didn’t even have time to let the pure terror in his face come to life before his body was filled with lead and then turned to not but dust. Wings spread out, I allowed myself to fall back to the earth, shaking my head out how pathetic the grounder’s fight was.

“Okay, yeah, definitely see the soldier in you,” Sharpshot said. Every word the stallion said to me sounded either sarcastic or like a deliberate attempt to get a rise out of me. Unfortunately, he would be getting no such thing from the pegasus before. “Been a while since I’ve looked alongside them. You lot always did have more competence then the rest of this Celestia forsaken shithole.”

“Are you referring to how you ended up indebted to us?” I asked as I rounded the corner of the room, finding nopony within the rest of the common area. There was a door to the left of me, the apartment’s bedroom most likely behind it. “I heard about it a bit from a friend. Something about a dragon, Las Pegasus, and a battle on the Bucklyn Bridge?”

That wiped the smirk right off his face, practically growling at the mention of it all. Then, his ears folded, and there was an unexpected look of sadness in his eyes. He was certainly an expressive ghoul, which probably came from having died at the most emotionally troubling time in any ponies life. As if noticing that I was watching his ever changing expressions, Sharpshot immediately hid any insecurities I had conjured up behind a wall of unbridled arrogance.

“Long story,” He answered.

I probably could have pushed him about it, but I had no interest in doing so and it wasn’t what was important at the moment. We needed to make sure everything was clear, and talk of the past and how ponies ended up where they could be left till later. Approaching the door, I placed my back to the wall and went to slowly open it. Unfortunately, the pony inside had been ready for that.

A nice row of bullets exited the door, and one had found its way through my hoof. I gritted my teeth, recoiled my hoof back, and refused to let it touch back to the ground for a good second or two. I looked back to Sharpshot, the ghoul pointing his abomination at a point in the door. He motioned for me to open it, and with a deep breath I reached my injured hoof out. I pushed the door as open as I could and as quickly as I could, the sound of exchanged fire filling my ears for just a moment before the apartment went silent.

Considering Sharpshot was alive and giving me the smuggest look he could muster, I had a feeling it was safe to look. With a wobble in my step, I entered the bedroom. The front of the bed had a newly made corpse in front of it, a look of anger, the final emotion of the pony it belonged to. The amount of bullet holes in the would have made a normal pegasus lightheaded. The fact there were no stray bullet holes in the bed was also rather impressive.

“Good kill,” I complimented.

“Well, precision is my talent,” He replied, playfully swinging the abomination around with his magic before resting it on his shoulder. “I would be upset if I couldn’t hit something from this range. I ain’t one of your green cadets.”

He was trying to push my buttons. Considering the corner of my mouth twitched at the bravado and overbearing self-confidence of the colt with me. The worst part was he saw it, and it seemed to make the skip in his step more pronounced. Forcing myself to calm down, I turned my attention to the rest of the room and limped onto the bed. I still had those drugs from the hotel on me, and spent a small amount of time fishing for something to null the pain. The injury wasn’t bad but it definitely stung.

Except there weren't any painkillers among what I was carrying. All the pills they had carried on them were meant for recreation and fun. The closest thing to it might have been Buck, but I knew better than to take something in hopes that it might simulate what I really need. That was idiot and would lead me down a slippery slope that I did not need at the moment. With a grunt, I got off the bed and looked for where Sharpshot had gone, the rummaging of a pony in a room next to me telling me they were looking through the apartment's bathroom.

“Cleared out. Anything useful in here is on the ponies,” he shouted at me. “Assuming it wasn’t empty to begin with.”

His words were my best hope for something, so with a nod I started to disturb the recently deceased. Working off the make-shift armor the pony responsible for my injury had been wearing – which had been made useless by Sharpshot’s talent as a markspony – I rummaged through their saddlebags for whatever I could find. I was greeted with ammo, some bandages that I immediately used to wrap my leg up, and some Dash and Buck. No painkillers, but at least I could halt the bleeding.

The sound of something approaching brought my attention from the corpse to the bedroom door. I slid up next to it, ready to shoot as the sound of hooves first got farther and then closer. The sound of hooves filled the apartment, two sets of them if I was hearing right. They grew closer and closer, and then I heard them stop. There was a wail of agony, no doubt at seeing their friends dead, and then the hard stomp of a hoof on the ground.

“Where the fuck are you, murderers?!” A gruff voice called out. “You’re gonna pay for this. I’ll nail your body onto the walls of this and let your guts hang.”

For a raider, I would say that was on the friendlier side.

I’m sure a few might have felt pity for him, because the way he was shouting his heart out caught me as someone who had just lost family. In fact, I think the other pony with him had tried to calm him down, but his voice was so grating on the ears I was more focused on not wincing in pain. His voice hurt me in the same way the sound of glass against glass did, and it took all I was not to close my eyes at the pain of hearing it.

A pony suddenly burst into the room, and I acted. I charged and bashed into his battle saddle first, eyes noticing the other pony that had been behind him as I passed by the door. They aimed at me, and thinking quickly I wrapped a hoof around the first grounder’s head and forced him in front of myself. The rounds that came at me were taken by my meat shield, which I then promptly shoved into the second grounder. He didn’t move in time to stop the bleeding body of his friend from falling on him. There was an attempt made for both to get back to their hooves, but that was quelled by empty half a mag of bullets into them both.

A whistle told me Sharpshot had watched it all, and that he was impressed. I ignored him, instead checking to see how my semi-auto’s mag was faring real quick. Three bullets were left, which would be enough for at least one more pony. I loaded it back up, and then checked the two newest corpses for anything of use. All I got was ammo, and none was right for what I was using. Sharpshot was more than happy to take the shotgun shells, which led me to notice yet another horrifying fact about the monstrosity he called a firearm.

It had two magazines. As if it wasn’t horrifying enough.

Ignoring that, I motioned for him to follow behind me, more than confident he would watch my back. He did more than just that, not doing what many dumb recruits would and making sure his abomination wasn’t pointed at me. I doubted ninety percent of the wasteland, excluding the Steel Rangers perhaps, wouldn’t have understood the common sense there. Competence was clearly helping the two of us make up for our lack of numbers.

Out the first floor apartment and up the stairs we slowly threaded. My eyes watched for the sign of guns pointed down at us from above. The temperature rose slightly, and would likely only get higher the more floors we claimed. Whether that meant we would more or less ponies didn’t matter, they would be cleared out through death and blood. I gave the briefest of checks towards the E.F.S. in my vision, but it proved ineffective at the given moment. Too many hostiles clumped together in similar places on different floors.

Sixth sense said to look behind me, and I did just in time. A raider had been cheeky enough to wait on the stairs heading to the third floor, and the gun he held was pointing at my head. Still on the stairs, I found my best hope was to duck. The bang that followed didn’t matter as much as the feeling of air parting just above my ear. Two shots from Sharpshot caused him to duck behind the stairway, and if he was smart he would have relocated at the top of the stairs

Fortunately for me, he didn’t have the time to think about that.

Using the railing and bearing through the pain the action caused my injured leg, I propelled myself right up in front of the raider. A twist of my wings and I barreled into him, knocking his gun into the air right as he pulled the trigger. Then I aimed, pulled the trigger on the semi-auto three times, and found myself staring into a corpse. One shot had pierced his skull, another his eye, and while the third had missed it didn’t really matter.

“You know, I wouldn’t call some parts of your fighting style military,” Sharpshot taunted from the second floor, one corner of his mouth raised far higher than the other. “Was expecting something more… uniform, I guess.”

“If dealing with Steel Rangers or other groups like them, I probably would act more along those lines,” I replied, searching the corpse below me real quickly. Found some ammo, changed magazines, and then made my way back to the second floor proper. “Raiders are not like them. You don’t beat a rule breaker without breaking rules yourself.”

He hummed at my answer and lost interest in the conversation. He probably expected me to be strict with protocol or something like that, but that doesn’t keep a pony alive. How many battles during the war centuries ago were turned by the abandoning of morals? How many operations were filled with violations of Equestrian law, and simply classified? What Sharpshot saw was the public image, not the truth. Glorify the victory, seal away the black spots, and support and patriotism is obtained; propaganda in its simplest of form. It’s half of why I got the medal I did for that shitfest in Trotson years ago, I’m sure.

“Three hostiles in the room beyond, one right next to you behind the wall,” He explained as he stacked up against the door. I gave him a look of frustration, and he rolled up a sleeve on his shirt. I could make out a PipBuck on his leg. “The one good thing my home gave me.”

“Didn’t expect you to be from a stable,” I replied.

“Most stables have functioning air filtering talismans. Helps make ‘em less dead looking,” Sharpshot replied, eyes turning from me to the door. “Don’t ask why it never got fixed, cause I don’t know.”

Even if I had planned to, our conversation was promptly interrupted by the door opening right in front of me. Sharpshot, seeming rather pissed that said charter had been interrupted, took this one. Using his magic he gripped the gun the pony before us was holding, a burst of shots going into the ceiling above us. That was followed by the abomination’s barrel rotating out, and two slugs being fired into the grounder’s midsection and neck. There was nothing left of both when he was done, splattering myself and the walls around us with blood, muscle, and organ. He then shut the door with his magic, snarling.

“Fucking asshats,” He whispered. “Can’t allow a normal, civilized conversation.”

With the wink he gave me, and the way he stressed “civilized” agitated me, but I continued to let his attempts to rile me up slide. He motioned to the wall, trying to gauge if the pony that had come at us was them or someone different. I got a nod, and just to make sure I wasn’t being fooled I looked down at my E.F.S. to crosscheck what he was telling me. Sharpshot was telling the truth; he was still there, though there were two other red dots moving right above him. It was hard to separate them with the way the red of each dot blended into each other. The other one stood farther to the right, off on its own, but there was no arrow indicating they were on a separate floor.

I gave Sharpshot a nod, and his horn came to life. The door opened, and as a coordinated unit the two of us entered and immediately opened fire. Knowing a grounder was hidden from view by the door, I pointed myself at it and emptied several rounds into the door, filling it with as many holes as I could. The red dot still stood, to my discontent. My ear twitched at the sound of gunfire to my left, but my eyes instead landed on the three shots that came at me from the other side of the door. One missed, one grazed me, and the last of them found its way into my shoulder. Biting my lower lip and the trigger as hard as possible, I fired back at them until I saw the red dot disappear from the bottom of my vision.

My heart thumped, eyes strained forward and ears ringing as silence came upon us. I went to move but found a clothed body sitting me down as I finally let go of my lower lip. Neither of my injuries felt life threatening, but they hurt enough to make my breathing feel more labored than anything. Adrenaline should have kicked in, but with no fighting to immediately focus on that wasn’t a possibility. I heard the door closed, and violet eyes suddenly met my own.

“You good?” Sharpshot asked. He wasn’t asking out of concern as much as he was asking out of intrigue.

“Hurts like tartarus, but nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” I told him. A rare chuckle left me, the thrill of battle having awakened a true emotional response within me. “You should see some of the other hits I’ve taken. Especially… fuck!”

I closed my eyes as I felt something inside my shoulder move, unsure of whether I should squirm or not. It was even heard not to vocalize the pain I was feeling as the object was forcefully pushed forward, though it seemed content to simply slide itself through the hole already made in me. After a minute of pure agony the cause of said pain exited my shoulder, a squeal of discomfort tearing its way through my throat and out my muzzle. My eyes opened, the ugly form of a bullet coated in blood levitating between Sharpshot and myself.

“Feeling worse doesn’t stop it from hurting like a bitch,” the ghoul replied, voice less taunting and more melancholy. His magic brought a health potion he kept in nicely camouflaged saddlebags up to my lips. “This might help a little bit.”

“You kept that from me… till now? I asked, swiping the potion and bringing it to my lips. I nearly gagged, the citrusy flavor a bit too overpowering with this particular bottle. As soon as I was empty I threw it at the ghoul, who simply slipped himself to the left to avoid it. “Fucking zombie.”

He frowned at me, but his reply had nothing to do with my insult. “You’re a tough mare. I figured a shot to the leg wouldn’t do you in that much. Reminds me of an idiot I knew a long time ago, except you're actually smart and have four working hooves.”

I scoffed, getting to my hooves as the potion did its thing, feeling my shoulder sow itself back together with precision. Precision that Sharpshot had just shown in a very different, more impressive form. I couldn’t tell if it was as a show of camaraderie or if he simply wanted to show off, but throughout the bullet removal I had borne painful witness to the fact that he hadn't damaged any more of my shoulder than was already ruptured. I could imagine that, if he had stayed in whatever stable he was born in, he would have likely been a medical pony. As I removed the bandages, I noticed him looking over me for some odd reason.

“Did the potion miss something?” I inquired.

“No, it’s just….” he tapped his muzzle, smiling at me. “You react a lot differently, seeing as it took multiple proddings to get even the tiniest true reaction out of you, but you really are like her.” He took a step away as I rose to my hooves, and horn swinging the door open. “You have a pony by the name of Star Chart in your family.”

I raised a brow. “The fact you know their name worries me. They died a long time ago, but she was considered one of the Enclaves best.”

“Huh, what are the odds,” Sharpshot replied, his smile growing ever so slightly. He started to walk out of the apartment. “Your comment can be overlooked then… for now.”

“It can be forgotten,” I spat. “We got a job to do.”

I heard him mumble something about me “having a similar temper”, but ignored it in favor of getting back to work. As I made after him I rolled my shoulder and stretched the hoof that had been it earlier, feeling like they had never been ripped open. Better than another damn scar, which had become more common with the more pegasi picked apart the wasteland. One can only find so many out there, pre-war potions typically significantly less guarded and more safe than anything a grounder could make now. Judging by the lack of any immediate side effects, this one was pre-war. Probably the real reason he had held off.

We climbed the stairs up another floor, guns trained at where our next destination lay. When our hooves stepped off the stairs, the E.F.S.indicated that none of them were supposedly present. To be exact, none had given the E.F.S. any belief that they were hostile. There had been an usually large group on the first two floors, with more above us, and I wasn’t about to be the soldier who stupidly moved past a door without checking it. I motioned Sharpshot to the door for this apartment and stepped in front of him.

What we found was emptiness, a pleasant surprise after two floors of contacts. I didn’t relax, staying steady as I watched every object for movement. There had been ponies in here, but they had left earlier. I wagered that the two on the ground floor were from here, and perhaps the one that just to sneak up on us at the stairs. Now it was as abandoned as it had likely stayed for the last two centuries.

“Cleared?” Sharpshot asked.

“Clear,” I answered. “Next floor.”

Out of that apartment and back to the stairs we went, the only sounds either of us could hear were our hooves echoing against walls. My eyes glanced right as we reached the fourth floor, noting the way both the wall and ceiling had collapsed in. There wasn’t enough room to squeeze through, but one could see the light of Celestia’s sun try to peek through. I managed to find the one spot where the shadow of rubble couldn’t keep the light and heat of day from hitting me. I had firmly believed I wouldn’t see or feel the sun again after Trotson, so I enjoyed what I got.

“Two marks here, two marks above,” Sharpshot said, telling me what my E.F.S. was already explaining. “Must be some other way to the fifth floor, unless they were stupid enough to collapse their only way out.”

“Wouldn’t be the dumbest things raiders have ever done,” I responded. I followed that up by tapping my head with my hoof. “Oh, and I see it too. They shoved Stable-tech shit in my brain.”

He gave me a quick glance, nodded, and then turned his attention towards the apartment. “Remind me to break it for ya later. ArcanaTech doesn’t care about pony privacy.”

I raised my brow at the name. “ArcanaTech?”

“That’s the real name of the ponies who run this city,” He explained, doing a quick inspection of his abomination. “Don’t know much about them, but what little I’ve gathered has told me they’re descendants of the ministries. Specifically the Ministries of Arcane Sciences and Wartime Technology.”

How a group of wastelanders had managed to hijack an S.P.P. tower suddenly made significantly more sense. I was still unsure as to the how or why, given they shouldn’t have been able to even with those skills, but it was a mystery for later. The more I learned about them, the more dangerous they seemed, and the more sure I was that the stolen documents couldn’t end up in their hooves. Especially considering what I knew my former squadmates had been specifically looking for.

“I’ll tell you more when I’m certain they are not watching,” the ghoul said quietly. “We both got S.A.T.S., so I’ll blow the door down and we’ll take the two out simultaneously.”

I looked at the E.F.S. and noted the position of both hostiles that lay behind the door. As long as they weren’t already behind cover, and they hadn’t heard us, that would work. I gave Sharpshot a nod and stacked up one more time, ready to enact our plan. Two slugs to the hinges, a bolt of pure magic, and the door separating us from our enemies was blown inwards. Wasting no time I entered the room and immediately activated S.A.T.S.

The slowing of time allowed me to see my surroundings, catching not only how light poured in from the crumbling back of the apartment. Then there was the poor grounder who had received a flying door to the face, and his friend was surprised and left all to under prepared. I could have easily taken them both before they fired, but I decided to test Sharpshot’s ability to follow his own plan.

The pony who was currently kissing a door was the pony on the left, so two shots were cued for their legs. Time resumed, a quick flurry of ammo met my ears to my right and a pony fell to the ground with an incinerated leg via energy rounds. They didn’t have time to cry out before another shot from the novasurge met their skull and silenced them. Another body dropped next to theirs at the same exact time, belonging to their friends.

It had all gone perfectly. A rarity that I wouldn’t overlook, given how most plans died right at the sound of gunfire.

“Eyes up. E.F.S. is showing movement above us,” I said, looking at what was exposed on the floor above us.

The room had been made uneven by the half-collapse of the roof and fifth floor apartment. Given that only a pegasus could probably get to stable ground on the fifth, it was ruled out of possibility; no grounder could reach that. It was definitely not where the supply drop was so there was no reason for one to be there anyways, even if they were a unicorn. Doubt they felt very safe in such a confined space… though you always had to be prepared.

I trotted backwards up the large chunks of rubble, eyeing everything as I made my way up. Even as I saw nothing on the fifth floor I refused to remove my eyes. All that was behind me right now would be a slope and a five floor drop. Flank was technically too the wall, but something told me I had no reason to worry. If they hadn’t come to help their friends, it meant they were likely scared of us. That judgment was correct, given that as soon as the top of my head was over the roof a shot whizzed by me.

A very bad, wildly off target shot at that.

“Y-you fired? Why the fuck did you–“

“I-I-I panicked okay! I don’t want to die like the others. I thought if I shot we might be safe from whoever it is.”

They were younger ponies, likely in their early twenties and having thought whatever they were doing was cool. Either that, or they were from some settlement I didn’t know or care about. As soon as they saw us, they dropped their weapons and started to back up, leaving a large fortified case unguard. Stretching my wings and seeing that the healing potions had brought back my snipped feathers, I jumped, flapped twice, and landed on the roof. My face was stern, giving a look that most anypony would cower at. I’m positive it was only sheer will that kept them from stepping off the building .

Up till now I had only mentioned failures, but one doesn’t become a Lieutenant Colonel by failure. I was high up the chain of command, a member of the damn council that gave me my exile, and none of that was because I got ponies killed. Through those few failures was a line of successes, missions seemingly unimportant to most had guided my path up the chain of command. Through it, I became that which had given me that damn medal for Trotson and became respected and feared. When my former squadmates took those documents, they robbed me of a lifetime of work.

So to see two ponies terrified of me left a numbed but noticeable joy in my heart.

“P-please don’t kill us. I’m sorry for shooting you,” one coward pleaded.

“W-w-w-we had to. It wasn’t our choice. If we didn’t they might have killed us,” the other coward lied. All of what he claimed was impossible, for all other targets had been eliminated.

Sharpshot, mask put back on at some point, rolled his eyes at them as he came up next to me, doing what I was too formal to. That was followed by a disappointed shake in his head and the click of his tongue. He trotted past, laying his abomination on the ground and letting go of it with his telekinesis. One of the cowards tried to move back, only to nearly fall off the building yet again. He let out a small chuckle and walked back to my side seemingly satisfied with whatever he had wanted. I didn’t learn until later what he had been eyeing: the kind of fear I put into their hearts.

“Well, all life is expendable,” He said, magically gripping his abomination and resting it on his shoulder in just the right way. The barrel was now pointed at the second coward. “Kill them?”

I watched their eyes widen. Content, I aimed my novasurge rifle at them. “Of course.”

With that, bullets flew. Two corpses fell off the building to be forgotten as just another of the wasteland’s victims. There was no true reason to kill them with their surrender, but there was no reason to save them. They were the blighted remains of the once great old Equestria, lost forever. Killing them was a mercy.

Act 1 – Chapter 7: Alethophobia

Whickerbury Apartment Complex, Trotson

Day 2

“This is gonna feel pretty bad once I’m done, so bare with me,” Sharpshot told me, horn alight before me. “Tried to take it out of a pony once, and while it didn’t kill them it destroyed the functioning adult aspects of their brain. They were a newborn in the body of an adult.”

With the knowledge of why simply removing the MentaBuck shoved away in my brain was a really bad idea, I stood as still as possible. The only piece of me that moved was my eyes, looking over to Bone Breaker as she checked the contents of the supply drop. Gemini was currently nursing a horrible migraine and resting in the apartment complex below us, which was Sharpshot’s sign whatever he had done worked. If it wasn’t for the worry of ArcanaTech using me to spy on the document’s contents, I wouldn’t care.

It was odd, being the pony having their privacy revoked after doing the very same for the year previous. Of course the Enclave pried, looking for ponies who plotted against the safety of the pegasi and the Enclave’s control over them. A particular incident, rather relevant to my being here, came to mind. A pegasus that had been sworn to only tell of the horrors of the wasteland, instead shouting free to ponies around them. If he hadn’t been cast out, the Enclave would have been greatly damaged.

The paranoia it caused in some of the Enclave council members was a different matter, but that isn’t important.

Suddenly, my eyes felt as if something was tearing them apart from the inside. The sunlight on my vision hurt nearly as bad, and I found myself curling up and covering my eyes with a hoof. Along with it all came a strange, unsettling feeling. It was like an out of body experience, but I didn’t even realize I had been experiencing one until I was snapped back into full control. It was reassuring, but also troublesome.

“Okay, you’re good. ArcanaTech can no longer see through you,” Sharpshot said as I writhed on the floor like I had been punched in the gut. Not the best look for a military pony. He turned away from me and started to walk over to Bone Breaker. “I’d recommend resting your eyes or taking a fuckload of water, both would be best. The migraine will pass in time.”

I wasn’t going to argue, but I also didn’t say I was going to listen to a damn grounder. For the longest time I did neither out of pure stubborn pride, believing that taking orders like that from a wastelander would be my bitter end. That led me to laying there, dealing with the worst migraine I had ever dealt with in my entire life, just to show what I was. Even when I finally allowed myself to sit back up and look away from the rooftop I was on, groaning at the torment of trying to look at anything in the sunlight.

I got to my hooves and slowly made my way over to the zombie and former slave that was with me. Before both Gemini and I’s brain had been disconnected from ArcanaTech, the two had briefly touched on the supply split. The decision ended up being a thirty-seventy split with Sharpshot and Willow getting the former while Sandstone got the latter. I spent that time seeing what lay inside, and it was both impressive and incredibly terrifying to see. The foodstuffs, water, and other more necessary materials were expected but the ammo… sweet goddesses the ammo.

These supply drops were made rather regularly if I could guess, and that meant the surplus before me was considered regular to them. Hollow point and armor piercing ammo made up the bulk of it, with some frags, mines, and standard ammo as well underneath it all. There was even ammo for the novasurge, though it was in far lower quantities than everything else. This was how ArcanaTech kept Trotson under control, toying with grounders and making them reliant on their good will. I won’t lie, it was threatening yet very inspiring. Reminded me of how the Council sometimes did things back home, but we controlled through patriotism instead of confiscation.

“Pretty damn impressive,” I said, a grunt leaving my muzzle as I turned my head just a little too fast away from the supply drop. Sharpshot rolled his eyes, grabbing a water bottle. “This the standard for them?”

“Yep. Shadow Corp views it as a big reward for us all, so they always pack it to the brim,” Bone Breaker said, patting the top of the box. “Typically I would bring multiple ponies with me. I and one or two other earth ponies would carry it back while we’re guarded. However, I plan to enlist the help of a certain alicorn to speed that process up.”

“My mare ain’t your work mule,” Sharpshot spat, spinning the water bottle around in his magic. “Though she also doesn’t know how to say no, so there isn’t much I can do. What I can do....” The ghoul approached me, forced my muzzle open, and shoved an open water bottle in it. “…. is this.”

It didn’t take long for the water to hit my gag reflex, standing there in shock for a moment or two. Shock turned to anger, and I batted the water bottle out of my mouth, its contents staining my coat and roof. I paid no attention to the fact that a bit of water had actually really helped the ache in my eyes, glaring down Sharpshot. He did the same to me, that momentary understanding we had during the sweep of the complex having been thoroughly undone.

“Never do that again,” I told him.

“Oh I would. Especially for little fillies who are too stubborn to take care of themselves,” Sharpshot replied, lifting the water bottle back up magically. Not all of it had spilled out, much to my surprise. “Now be a good little soldier and drink your Luna damned life liquid!”

I gave in, swiping the bottle from his magic and glaring ten thousand daggers into his skull. I could tell he wanted to waterboard me and I wasn’t about to be humiliated in that fashion. I sipped as supplies were sorted between both parties, one substantially bigger than the other. Time passed, the piles had become as big as they likely were going to be and Bone Breaker made some negotiations to take some more of certain things. All the while the invisible pony tugging on my eyes from the inside slowly gave up on their quest, having gotten bored of the pain.

“So, all the stuff there is taken care of. Only thing we need now is for you and Gemini to go somewhere your ears won’t reach,” Sharpshot said. “Private Enclave business. Doubt she wants you to overhear it.”

“Just as long as you don’t go fucking with the piles we’ve made,” Bone Breaker said. With the way the cloth on Sharpshot’s muzzle moved, it was easy to see that he was smiling. “Don’t you even dare try and deny it. I know what you did the last time we ended up at a drop at the same time.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Sharpshot replied, obviously knowing what she was talking about. He turned her away from the supplies and forcefully guided her over to the collapsed section of the roof. “Now how about you give this ghoul and his cloud-fallen friend some room.”

“Fine, but if I find out you switched anything around, it is on sight,” the mare said.

She pointed a hoof at her eyes, then to Sharpshot’s own, and when they returned to the ground she had already taken a step away. Sharpshot rolled his eyes and turned away from her, muttering to himself about power. Judging on how Bone Breaker’s ears twitched and the grimace that graced her face, she either knew what he was talking about or had heard it much clearer than I had. Clearly he was a stallion of some difficulty to talk to for most ponies… which was probably an understatement given how many want him dead.

As soon as she was out of sight, Sharpshot sat down. He was looking out at Trotson in the direction his wife had flown off in.

“Well, now that that is taken care of, let’s get this started,” He said, sounding both interested and upset at the same time. It was actually quite impressive to see both of those expressions conveyed at the same exact time. “How about we start with a friendlier greeting, eh? Get to know each other, call ourselves friends, and then discuss what is needed.”

“You think I want to be friends?” I asked, trotting up next to his side. I sat down and joined him in looking out at the city expanse. Even blown to tartarus and past its time, Trotson was damn impressive. “Clearly you’ve read me wrong.”

“It isn’t about if I read you wrong or not,” Sharpshot replied, inclining his head to look just below the sun. “We’re gonna be working together, right? We’ll have to learn to tolerate each other, so let's break the ice.” he chuckled at that. “Of course we’re in the southwest, not the frozen north. Can’t exactly do that in a literal sense anywhere but home.”

Deciding to play along, and knowing he wasn’t exactly wrong, I raised an eyebrow. “Your stable was in the frozen north?”

“Just below it. You can see Canterlot from Stable 17’s entrance,” He explained. He knocked on the rim of his goggles, and I eyed them with more interest than before. They were fused to his skin. “One of the first places I went. That's how this happened, but we’re jumping ahead. Redo introductions?”

“Sure, why not,” I replied, shrugging my wings. “Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody… or at least I was a Lieutenant Colonel.”

“Yeah, can’t imagine that feels good after a long career,” Sharpshot replied, eyeing the dashite brand on my flank. I flicked my tail to the side, covering it up. He seemed to understand the shame it brought me, and averted his eyes from it. “Name’s Open Heart, but everypony calls me Sharpshot. Nickname I got for being a good – sometimes too good – markspony.”

“Bit of a story behind that, I’m guessing?” I asked, looking from the buildings to the sky above.

“Yeah. A long one, like most of my life it seems,” He growled, eyes closed. A front hoof crashed into the roof. “Been around long enough to know this is how Equestria is and always will be. More than a century of living and it feels like fuck all has really changed.”

“Seems we can agree on that, even if I haven’t been around nearly as long as you,” I replied. It was nice to have somepony down here that understood how bad it truly was. “Not to mention your entire existence being just wrong.”

“Hey, shit on us ghouls all you want, but you want to know something?” He asked rhetorically. “I’ve actually worked with your Enclave before. Yeah, nothing about it went right, but how many ghouls can say that they were personally thanked for avenging the Enclave’s dead? One, and that is me.”

That drew my attention, mostly because I couldn’t be sure if he was lying or not. No, something in my lineage told me that he was telling the truth. Ironsight’s mentions of him, the fact he knew one of my ancestors in Star Chart, he couldn’t be lying. It was entirely possible, but the unlikeliness of it all made me hesitate to completely trust that piece of me. That was one question I would ask Willow later, when I hadn’t been taken off guard by the alicorn suddenly appearing behind me.

“Willow Wisp,” they said, dropping their invisibility and making me baffled how the “pop” of teleportation never reached my ears at that moment in time.Sharpshot almost jumped off the building in fright.“Sharpy’s eternal companion, former pegasus, and maybe did some serial murdering in the past. Don’t worry about that at all.”

“Sweet alicorn spitroast, don’t do that to me hun!” Sharpshot said in an unusually terrified voice. I had to blink at his words; stable dwellers always had the most creative of swears. “Though, good to see you are all fixed up.”

“The magic of radiation!” She cheerfully declared, taking a more regal posture and spreading her wings proudly. It might have been the white that the top parts of her coat had, but I swore I saw a bit of Celestia in her. “It’s always nice to know that killing joke didn’t make me that defective, you know? Would likely have died long ago otherwise.”

Sharpshot chuckled at that, but my thoughts were on a specific thing Willow had mentioned.

“You’re a serial killer?”

Two sets of eyes turned to me, and the ones belonging to Willow looked away. It wasn’t out of shame or guilt, perhaps not even embarrassment, but longing. Her gaze had quickly been cast off into nothing in particular, the smile telling me whatever it was made her feel proud. Sharpshot grabbed my battle saddle, which I had taken off due to belief that the current threat was over, and pushed it to the opposite side of the roof via magic. He then stepped in front of me, as if he felt I actually could kill an alicorn on my own, with a stern look in his eyes.

“Look, Willow’s a little messed up in the head, but she’s not who she was back then,” Sharpshot assured me. “I know that might seem hard to believe, but we’ve worked through it a lot. Her old slave master’s trigger word still works on her, though, so don’t go saying b-u-r-y, otherwise she reverts to how she was then.” His ears lulled, eyes locked on the floor. “The damage can’t be undone, but Willow is a good pony. As good as you can get around here, anyways. We all got skeletons in our closets.”

While it felt more like she had a bedroom full of them compared to just a closet. His words match the smile that rested on his wifes face, clearly looking back on her past happy with what she had done. The worst part was that he wasn’t wrong too, given literally everything I had been through. I doubt he would be happy to know how far things for my family fell after Star Chart’s generation passed. I was the sole bright spot in a family tainted by the reputation of our forebears; my mother being a drug dealer was proof of that enough.

“You can follow orders?” I asked Willow, waking her from her moment of reflection. She gave me a nod.

“Just know that I’ve never exactly been one to do things the militaristic way. I’m more raider than anything,” Willow explained as she turned her body and plopped her flank down on the roof. See hid a giggle behind her hoof. “Though you kind of saw that earlier, I think. I had planned to rip them apart even before Boney said that word… but she said it was by accident so you don’t need to do anything, Sharpy.”

Sharpshot’s attention snapped to his wife upon hearing what Bone Breaker had done. He calmed himself and returned to staring off into the city beyond. “Yeah, and Appleloosa isn’t filled with slaving scumbags.”

“I can handle some unorthodox and suboptimal tactics, especially when the pony at the center is a bit more resilient than the rest of us,” I spoke up as I turned away from Willow. I could hear her clapping in excitement behind me, clearly eager for whatever I was planning to put her through. “I suppose this is where we move onto why I need your help.”

“Yeah. Got no problem helping you, but typically one wants to know why they are helping a pony,” Sharpshot replied. I could tell he was smirking behind those clothes of his. “Besides, something is telling me you are quite an oddity. You claim the Enclave needs my assistance, but you are also a Dashite. What could be so important that you would help a home that cast you out?”

“It was necessary, given the part I played in these events,” I explained. I glared at them both, lowering my voice in case Bone Breaker or Gemini was defying Sharpshot’s wishes and listening in. “What you are about to hear can’t reach the ears of others, okay? It’s top secret Enclave material.”

“Lips are sealed… metaphorically speaking,” Willow said, moving a hoof across her muzzle as if zipping her mouth closed.

“As are mine, in a more literal sense,” Sharpshot replied.

I gave a nod of approval, and briefly focused my mind on how best to bring forth everything. I could tell them the bare minimum, but Sharpshot was clearly the prodding type; he would have haggled information out of me if I didn’t explain everything. Besides, the more info they had up front, the less I had to worry about somehow having crossed the lines later on. More than a few Dashite had been formed via withheld information, and this entire situation happened because of that. It was best if it was all explained from the very beginning.

“A year or so back, an officer of the Enclave got a bit too loud,” I explained, eyeing the ever-visible S.P.P. tower that was off in the distance. “He had been told to say nothing about the surface save for its dangers, and he did the exact opposite. It damaged the Enclave council’s reputation, caused a great deal of paranoia in a few of my friends, and made pegasi start to question the G.P.E.’s purpose,” I let out a sigh of frustration. “He was quickly branded a Dashite, and for most members of the council damage had been controlled.”

“Not all of them, however,” Sharpshot predicted.

“You get a bunch of military ponies – some of which rather past their prime – and simple paranoia turns into absolute terror,” I told him, grinding my teeth in frustration. “Those ones were all screaming “what if one Dashite turns into ten?” and the like. They didn’t feel safe as long as pegasi saw the surface as an okay place,” I looked at the ghoul, viewing him shaking his head. He was as embarrassed at it as I was. “One of these was an old friend of mine. Ironsight, a general whose life has been nothing but service and more service. He saw the fear of more ponies turning on the Enclave because of Calamity’s little stunt and wanted to stop it by any means.”

“Hang on, you say Calamity is the one who did this?” Willow asked. I hesitated to answer, fearing that the two were friends with the pegasi. I wouldn’t be able to reach my guns to stop them from shooting me if this made things go south. “Sweetie, wasn’t there a pegasi that showed up in New Appleloosa some time ago with that name?”

“Maybe. Don’t remember and don’t care to remember,” Sharpshot replied, shrugging his shoulders. His eyes trailed towards the saddlebags on his flank. “What’s the point in remembering names? They’ll all just die in a matter of months.”

Willow and I let his words hang in the air for some time. A clop and shake of his head ended it.

“Anyways, this Calamity harmed the Enclave and your friend got worried about more like him,” He said, acting as if that sudden sourness in his voice had never manifested.

“Correct. He got a team together, and they started to research ways of making sure that wouldn’t happen while upping the propaganda machines,” I said, looking away. If he was gonna pretend it never happened, I might as well do the same. “Except… some ponies I knew found out about what we were working on. I had apparently been a bit too loud talking to him about it, and a former squadmate of mine named Medicine Ball heard what we said.” I closed my eyes and did my best to not let my inner anger get the best of me. “They had been swayed by Calamity, and saw what Ironsight was working on as a threat. They and other old members of my squad stole classified information through unknown means, the council I had joined blamed me, and in an effort to make it up to them and keep my family safe, I’m here”

“Well… fuck,” Sharpshot replied. There was no condensation in his tone, sounding distraught and saddened by my tail. Pity wasn’t something I had expected to gain from a ghoul. “Okay, yeah, that’s… fucking tartarus. That’s all really tough.”

“I know exactly what being stabbed in the back like that is like,” Willow replied, reaching a hoof out to try and pat me on the back. I shoved her away with the combined use of my hoof and wings, which seemed to be enough to get how little I wanted her comfort at that moment. “Not in the exact same way, but I know the feeling. It hurts so, so much.”

“I appreciate the attempt to connect, but don’t bother,” I told her, getting up and trotting away from them. “You now know what it is we need to stop. Those documents they stole is the research for what Ironsight was working on, and he sees their thievery as reason to believe what he was working on is wrong. I don’t know what they plan to do with it, but know that what they carry is a danger to the entire wasteland.”

“A danger that we need to stop if we want to keep living,” Sharpshot stated. I never gave him an answer on if he was correct, and he didn’t exactly seem to care. He got up, rolled his shoulders, groaning in discomfort as I heard his body pop from stretching it out. “Well, I think I would prefer to not die just yet. What say you hun?”

“I’m rather happy with being alive myself,” Willow said, dancing in excitement. Clearly she was more interested in the body count she would rack up from whatever resistance we came across. “You got yourself a deal.”

I allowed a smirk to dawn my face, knowing that the first of many challenges was indeed over. Compared to all to come it would be small, but these wastelanders didn’t have much reason to truly aid the Enclave. From their angle, we had never really made much of an impression. I doubt that Dashites rarely spoke good about us too, but these two had been surprisingly easy to convince. I wasn’t sure whether to be thankful or cautious, knowing it could mean they planned to stab me in the back in much the same way.

The military side of my brain won that time, and the smirk faded as I turned back to them. “Now, we should probably take care of business with Sandstone first and foremost.”

“Leave that to me,” Willow said, giving me a playful salute. “You two should get everything to our little camping spot anyways.”

I tilted my head ever so slightly. “So we really aren’t going back to Sandstone?”

“I break ArcanaTech’s… tech. We aren’t much liked around here by them,” Sharpshot explained, wrapping up the supplies meant for ourselves. All the while his abomination and the strange zebra rifle he had left down stairs (which Bone Breaker had brought up), spun around fancily and then rested on his shoulders in his magic. It was quite a lot of magic he was using at once, but he wasn’t looking that tired. “So we hide out somewhere. I’ll show instead of tell, in case our requested privacy has been disturbed. Bone Breaker and Gemini might not have a MentaBuck like you do, but they have been fucked with by ArcanaTech. I give it a day before they realize what I did to Gemini, kidnap her, fix that camera inside her, and then plop her down in the middle of who-fucking-knows-where.”

Much like simply learning I was being watched, learning what ArcanaTech would do to Gemini was upsetting. Not anywhere near upsetting enough for me to actually want to help the grounder, but the fact my gag reflex had activated from what I had been told said everything. Propaganda, keeping info a secret, playing up the good while the bad got swept under was all a much more civilized way to control ponies. I’m sure even a Dashite would agree to that if Sharpshot educated them. I… actually felt less hostile about Angel Hair and more worried, thinking like that.

“Well, in that case, let's say our goodbyes and get the move on,”

“Got to say, if all you Enclave types are that good in a fight I hope to see more around here in the future,” Bone Breaker replied, a smile on her face. “Now that we know the Shadow Corp has gotten the MentaBuck working on you winged folks, I can only hope to see more of you.”

I wasn’t sure if I should be worried or happy at those words. On the one hoof, the idea that ponies down here could actually appreciate the Enclave was not something I had expected. It made the less militaristic side of my brain wonder if the G.P.E. could be more down here. On the other, however, that would mean they were in the hooves of ArcanaTech, and most likely without the super precision of a unicorn like Sharpshot wouldn’t be able to break whatever invention was keeping tabs on everypony in the city.

We had taken everything back to street level, Willow holding a bag of supplies for Sandstone in her mouth to Bone Breaker’s right. Gemini stayed silent, out of the way, and overall uninteresting to myself. A part of me wondered why we hadn’t just killed her like the rest, especially since it seemed likely our saving her was only temporary. I highly doubted Sandstone was a safe haven from ArcanaTech.

It was a bit too late to fix my mistake now, however.

“I’ll make sure to put in a good word to any squads or Dashites I meet,” I said. She reached a hoof out, which I decided to take and shake. “Your service to the Enclave won’t be ignored.”

With a final nod and a surprise salute, Bone Breaker and her group headed off. Willow gave Sharpshot a playful wave, which he returned with the stiffest one I had ever seen. A small hint of jealousy coursed through me as I watched them. Watching a couple happily work together, being happy around each other made me crave for the same. I was getting homesick not even a week into being on the surface. Not a great sign.

“Well, they’re on their way. We should be heading out too,” Sharpshot said, turning in the opposite direction of where Bone Breaker was going. “Drop this shit off, then we’ll figure out how to start searching for this friend of yours.”

“Sounds good,” I replied, turning to follow him. I gave a brief glance back, noticing the distance already put between us and Willow. “So you two just camped out in an old park or something?”

He chuckled at my question. “Maybe if this was the central wasteland, but when you got pre-balefire wonders all around you, you got to make use of them.”

Message from IM incoming
…
…
Message received

These last twenty four hours have been… okay, where do I start? They haven’t been terrible, because that would be me saying that things haven’t gone almost perfectly. That doesn’t mean it’s been pleasant, because I’ve learned that even the most pleasant of days has a way of bucking you in the head. I guess the best word would be… frustrating? Yeah, frustrating makes the most sense in this instance. Let me start with the obvious first frustration, because that pile of scales is far more sensitive than I remember at times.

I know you're reading this Watcher, or Spike, or whatever your name is. I’m sorry, okay! Go ahead and talk to P-1 if you want, but know that I’m still gonna need her at the end of the day. You are completely unaware of how useful this one little pegasus could be to remaking some semblance of order. I’m pretty sure P-1 isn’t what you are looking for, but stranger things have come from stranger places. Just don’t be surprised when I give you an “I told you so” when she turns out to not be a bearer.

Yes, I will still be borrowing your Sprite-bots. No, you can’t stop me.

On to the most important frustration, being the MentaBuck. I’m gonna make it rather blatant: we fucked up. I should have known it would happen when we found out she was searching for Sharpshot, but any chance at friendly introductions was gone. Granted Gold didn’t make a great first impression himself, but he’s my friend so he gets a pass. Still, her knowing about the Mind’s Eye function and said function breaking is gonna make things more difficult. I can already tell any chance at P-1 willingly helping us is a lot less likely.

That does not mean we are shit out of luck, however. As long as P-1 is searching for the documents, we can obtain them. The M.A.M. is turning out to be really juicy, and the power this would give us can not be understated. Nopony would threaten Trotson with it in our hooves, but what little that other pegasus had on her didn’t give me everything I needed. They clearly split it up with the intention of making sure not everypony could obtain it. Considering the M.A.M.’s original function, fair enough.

I’ll just need a new set of eyes and ears to be at P-1’s side. Eyes and ears that I can trust, and I know just the griff for the job. Should help me from getting in over my head again. I’ve already made that mistake trying to undo the literal circle that is ArcanaTech’s lineage.

Act 1 – Chapter 9: Call Not the Watchers Name

Alibi Street Cinema, Trotson

Day 2

“Watcher,” I mimicked back to the Sprite-Bot. I wasn’t sure if that was his real name or a fake one. My eyes drifted to the right slowly, only for me to snap my attention back to the Sprite-Bot. “Name is definitely accurate. I’ll pass up your offer.”

“Are you sure? I’ve heard living down here is different then just being on deployment from Dashite’s before,” he said. His voice sounded more monotone than my own, and the metallic orb he was speaking through didn’t make for many interesting gestures. “You're doing a pretty good job so far, though. I would recommend a bit more friendliness to your companions.”

I asked, rolled my eyes, and looked away. A few red flags had already shown themselves to me, one major one being they seemed a bit too friendly. Sharpshot wore the fact he was an ass on his sleeve, and while it made him infuriating it made what friendliness he was showing believable. The fact Watcher knew I was with Sharpshot and Willow was also a mark against them. They weren’t with me now, which means they had been spying on me earlier. If they wanted me trust, they had severely fucked up.

“I’ll remain as friendly as I see fitting. Right now you're not inspiring the most friendly version of me,” I told him, glaring at them as if he was a hostile in a rifle’s scope. “So I recommend leaving me alone or coming clean about what you are really here for.”

Watcher remained quiet, and for a few seconds I had believed he had given up. Instead he came back swinging with info that weighed like a dark age warhammer.

“The Invisible Mare is interested in you. She says you might know about something called M.A.M.,” He replied. I felt my wings suddenly go wide in fear. “She thinks you’ll lead her to it. They're a young but dangerous pony. I figured you might want a warning.”

It was like ice water had been poured on my body, my chance to calm myself. That acronym, M.A.M., had led the windigos to my body and frozen it in their hateful cold. Nopony should know of it, tartarus most of the Enclave did know it existed. There should have been no way the Invisible Mare could have found out about it by pure happenstance. No chance… unless somepony had stolen those documents.

The theft had happened two weeks ago, and I had only been on the surface for two days total. In hindsight having gone down sooner would have saved us this pain, but politics and procedures got in the way. That was with the court marshaling process speeding up to an insane degree. Of course things could have happened in those two weeks! Everything had taken too damn long, and now one of the wasteland’s most dangerous had what Ironsight had been working on in her hooves.

If shit hadn’t gone sideways at the station, it most definitely had now.

“Luna damn you, Angel Hair,” I said, stomping a hoof and flapping my wings in rage. I look at the Sprite-Bot. “How the hell do you know what it is?”

“I only know she is looking for it. Whatever this M.A.M. stuff is, I’m unfamiliar with it,” Watcher answered. That put my mind at ease to some mild extent. “If you’re gonna have ponies like her on your tail it is even more important to have friends. Thankfully you have two good ones.”

“Right,” I growled, a hoof connecting with my forehead. “Look, I don’t know how you found out she knows about it, but I don’t care. Nopony can know about it.”

“Lips are sealed,” the stallion on the other side said. At least I was pretty certain they were a stallion, making myself an absolute foal. “Well, best of luck. If you need anything, just call me through one of these.”

The hoof I had placed on my head flew outwards, waving Watcher off. “Yeah, sure.”

With that, old and rather unpleasant music greeted my ears. It wasn’t that it was a genre I didn’t like, it was literally just putrid. Perhaps whatever was playing it had distorted pieces of the score, but even then the instrument composition and the– I was getting caught up in shit that didn’t matter. The music didn’t matter, my talent didn’t matter. What did was the knowledge laid out before me.

Outside of her being a traitor, there was nothing attached to killing her now. She was just another dashite out in the wasteland, much like myself. The major difference was that Angel didn’t have an Enclave general – and on a more worrying note the leader of ArcanaTech –keeping track of her. Still it would be easy to come up with an excuse for me not to kill her, and it would get me a headstart on finding my next target. That was the smart choice in that instance.

Pride, however, was a great counter to intelligence.

I was down here because of her, I was away from my family because of her, and years of living were thrown away just because of her. Even if the Enclave didn’t need her dead, I wanted her dead. No, want was not the correct word. I craved her death, much like a raider craved blood and the defacing of purity. My career – my pride – was destroyed by her. I would have her blood on my hooves, and the thought of vengeance calmed my nerves.

Getting up and turning back to the cinema, I grinned. It was a smile made both in imagining the vengeance I wish for, and the less serious matter of the film reels we believed were viewable. I had left them waiting to be viewed long enough.

To my relief, my absence had not been long enough to cause any questioning from Willow and her grounder husband. The two had mainly spent the time talking, Sharpshot making sure his beloved was as comfortable as could be. Considering the tension and continuing consistency of her swallowing, that was not exactly great. She had the will in her to eat, however, which had sent a sigh of relief. I wouldn’t want one of my own to be unable to perform a basic function of life like that just because of some cruel plant.

We set the film reel on the projector, the time it took for us to figure out all the hows and whats greatly shortened by the terminal. It wasn’t too hard to figure out, truth be told, but it was technology none of us had toyed with before. Knowing we had some way to make sure we couldn’t further damage the film or projector was comforting. When all was said and done, we had our first film ready to play. All we had to do now was start up the projector and look out into the theater below.

“Ready everypony?” I asked.

“I am, soldier mare,” Sharpshot said, Willow excitedly dancing behind her. It was so easy to forget she was dealing with an eternally burning throat, seeing her like that. “Hit it!”

With a nod, I flicked the projector on and my eyes found themselves glued to the light before. It rhythmically clicked along, film passing through the device and into another, empty reel. We were greeted not by music, or the start of the film itself. It was a statement that in my day and age meant nothing, but during the war meant so, so much more.

The following has been approved by the

Ministry of Image

It faded away, and was then replaced by bombastic music and a title card. It showed a cartoon colt with the biggest, happiest grin on his face and a unicorn filly with a similarly over-the-top cheer in her expression. I could see something foal-like ignite in Sharpshot’s eyes, clearly recognizing the two from somewhere. If I was to guess, it was probably from Stable 17; must have had more films or comics with these two in it.

The cartoon characters were placed above giant bold letters.

BUTTON AND LILY IN… LOVESTRUCK LUNACY!

“No shit, these two were film characters too?!” Sharpshot shouted, leaning forward the slightest bit more. “I remember finding some old newspapers years ago that had them. Figured they were just anti-stripe comics.”

“Anti-zebra?” I questioned, looking at the cartoon. It had actually started, showing the colt and filly now blabbing at each other in annoying, overly foalish voices. They sounded too fake to truly be voiced by foals, but the fact old Equestria could do this was rather amazing. “Not seeing how they could turn this into war propaganda.”

“You’d be surprised. The Ministry of Image practically required some patriotic showing in anything published,” Willow explained. “Zebra’s tried the exact same thing. Did you know they had the Power Ponies creator under their hooves for a time?”

I had no idea what Power Ponies were, so I just shook my head at the alicorn and watched along. From what little I could tell, Lily was a very stereotypical filly with a love for all things cute and easily fell for anypony she saw. Button was similarly stereotypical, hating cute in favor of the cool and not using his head. The two could have been friends, or they might have been dating. All I did know from watching the short was that Button definitely had a thing for his friend, and that Sharpshot was somehow right about something as simple as this having anti-zebra ties to it.

All of it was tied to a pegasus colt, arrogant and prideful, who Lily fell for the moment she saw him. The colt was enjoying the attention, and went to overly comical levels to keep her attention. Button was clearly jealous, and he quickly tried to one up his fellow colt. Thus began a series of hilarious hijinx that managed to get a laugh out of all of us. The slapstick nature of most of the comedy made it sit in rather well with the wasteland environment of the present day.

It all led into the rather powerful but clearly pro-Equestria finale. A few zebras wanted Lily as a captive and had called out to both foals for help. What quickly proceeded was, to be frank, absolutely ludicrous and completely impossible. The two foals absolutely demolished their enemies, making the zebras look as incompetent as a feral ghoul in negotiations. Effective or not, the point of it had been made exceedingly clear.

“And that is how most wartime cinema went,” Willow stated as the short ended, Lily rolling her eyes as Button and the pegasi argued about who truly saved her. Not even half a minute later, that same music that opened the short originally appeared again, and we were back at the title. “Must be a collection.”

“Makes… makes sense,” Sharpshot said, recovering from his laughing fit. I’m not entirely sure when he had collapsed onto the floor, but he had pulled himself back up to make sure he could watch the next one. “The film on the reel wouldn’t have been so big otherwise.”

I’m not entirely sure how long we had been there, watching short after short. Sharpshot seemed to enjoy it the most, clearly finding the slapstick nature of it all to his taste. Willow would silently giggle with him, the laugh fake but the smile on her face real. The cartoons were not entirely my thing, though I did manage to pick up on a few of the more dirty jokes. Those got me, like they had for pretty much my entire life.

It proved to be a nice, hour long distraction, but at the end of the day that was all it was. My intrigue in the projector had done nothing but turned our minds away from more important matters. The laughter was also a double-edge sword, heavily reminding me of home. Especially Willow’s laughter. Clear was also a silent laugher, though the reasons were likely different.

Thinking like that made me realize: Clear and Rainy would have absolutely loved this.

“Eight… nine… ten! Ready or not, here I come!”

I turned around and looked at our living room, noticing a distinct lack of foals in the immediate vicinity. It was amazing how fast those two could move in such a short amount of time, but it always made hide and seek very interesting. Especially since they could fit almost anywhere with how small they currently were.

Hide and seek had been a favorite of mine growing up, and knowing Rainy and Sunny enjoyed filled me with joy. They were pretty good at it too, having gotten to the point where the more obvious spots were not always the first thing they go to. Sometimes I would find them in the cabinet under the sink, where all the plumbing was. Other times they would try and pull a fast one and hide behind the curtains. I couldn’t help but giggle whenever they tried to pull that one. I remember Rainy once tried to simply hide behind me.

She was caught instantly, and proceeded to pout for the rest of that round.

The round that immediately comes to mind was a round much like. Typically the two of them were rather good at knowing that staying together was not a good idea in hide and seek. It’s like what happens when you cluster up on the battlefield and the enemy is smart enough to throw a grenade, though with less blood and far more cuteness. It was an easy way for the round to end before it even began, especially when the hiding spot was not so stellar.

Though, now that I think of it, perhaps it wasn’t the hiding spot that was really the problem. Perhaps it was the fact that, upon turning into the kitchen, anypony wouldn’t notice the high-quality cutlery or the wonderful stove, but the two tails sticking out of a cabinet. One had my light blue and a streak of black, while the other was pure gray. They could hear my hooves enter the kitchen, giggling at what I’m sure they thought was a brilliant hiding spot.

There was a roll of the eyes, and then the opening of the cupboard. I watched as two pegasus fillies froze up and looked behind themselves. The blue and white tail connected to a yellow body, making up the first of my two foals: Clear Skies. Obviously the second tail belongs to Rainy Days, a dark gray coat matching her tail. Next to my dear Anchor they were my biggest treasures, and ones I had helped bring into the world besides that.

“Aw.” Clear Skies said. “She got us.”

“Indeed I have,” I said, giving a devious grin to the two. “Now, come here you two.”

Much to their displeasure, Clear and Rainy were pulled out of the cupboard and brought into a warm hug. They squiremed within my grasp, but like a dragon with its prey I refused to let it escape. I giggled at their attempts, squeezing them a bit harder and nuzzling their cheeks. Rainy groaned in embarrassment.

“Mom, stop it,” she whined.

“Okay, okay,” I replied, letting go of them both. I watched them both turn to me, that joy in my heart swelling as I saw them both pouting at me. “Next time, make sure your tails aren’t sticking out.”

I watched Clear turn to Rainy, pushing her with his hoof. “Told you we were forgetting something.”

“No you didn't!” Rainy shot back in that tone of voice only a foal could manifest. A hoof was pointed at her sister. “You were laughing the entire time!”

“Was not!”

I couldn’t help but shake my head as the two descended into an extremely petty argument. Even like this, my foals were just far too adorable. I wish I could see them again, but I know I lost that chance. I was on the surface now; I likely would never see them again.

“Equus to soldier mare. Equus to soldier mare. You still with us?”

I shook my head, eyes looking at Sharpshot. The ghoul was looking at me with a raised brow, and Willow was watching me with a great amount of concern. The reminiscence bug had gotten to me again, it seems. An unfortunate effect of having so much shit, both good and bad, happen in my life was that I found myself looking back at it a lot. I shook my head, trying my best to remove the thoughts of my foals and old life from my head, and then gave Sharpshot a nod. He seemed less than convinced, but shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, you ready to see what this next film is? Seems to be a decent amount shorter than what we watched previously,” He said, slapping the projector like it was an old world bug.

“Uh, yes. Ready,” I replied.

He walked back over to the otherside of the projector, but Willow joined me by my side. She didn’t say anything at first, watching Sharpshot set up the new film for a time before turning her attention to me. Her smile was somewhat different from her usual one, a mix between gleeful and sympathetic, and I was the subject of it. She sat down to my left, eyes momentarily turning back in front of us before returning to me.

“You were remembering something,” She said. Sharpshot didn’t react, so I assumed he was left out of the telepathy. “It seemed like you were ready to cry.”

“I… was,” I responded, voice quiet. She wanted this to just be between the two of us, so I did my best to lower my voice enough where it would be both audible and understandable. “Thinking about what I left behind, and what I’m trying to save. I got two foals and a husband still up in the clouds.”

“Foals?” She asked. I gave her a nod. She turned away from me, eyes staring at nothing. “I won’t deny, kind of jealous of that. I would love to have children but, well, I can’t. Even if I could, it wouldn't be from Sharpshot.” She giggled, a hoof covering the front of her muzzle. “His banana is a little broken.”

“Too much information,” I whispered, face heating up a bit. “I am sorry you aren’t able to, however.”

“You’ll have to tell me about them during our time traveling together,” WIllow Wisp replied. “It’s strange, I’m jealous but at the same time I don’t know if I really want foals. Perhaps hearing about the experience from you would help me figure out if I do or not.” Her smile faded away, head drooping. “To add one good thing to the world sounds very nice.”

I wanted to say that her foals would have hated the surface, and that it was probably better she didn’t have any, but I couldn’t. Instead, words of understanding and sympathy left my muzzle.

“I’m sure you would have made a good mother,” I lied. Truth be told, the idea of somepony like her being a parent terrified me; the child wouldn’t be mentally okay. “You got everything set up, ghoul?”

“Yeah yeah, just give me a second,” Sharpshot replied from the otherside of the projector. “Okay, everything seems to be set up. Let's start it up.”

I gave a nod, and we started the next motion picture. At least, it was supposed to be, but I could tell immediately that something about it was off. There was no music, no title card, and no assurance from the Ministry of Image. Instead what we got was a crescent moon, shattered in its middle by a lightning bolt. My eyes briefly flicked to the terminal, remembering the audio recording.

The loud sound of hooves brought my attention back, watching as a pegasus sat down. With the lack of color, a lot couldn’t be made out about her appearance. What was clear was that she was missing her front right hoof, a metallic prosthetic making up everything below the shoulder blade. Her expression was pure gloom.

“To friends new and old, welcome,” the mare said, her tone as sour as the look on her face. “I’m sure you all know who I am, and why I have asked you to join me here on this day. To those who somehow do not, then allow me to make it perfectly clear.” Her hoof went to her chest. “I understand that the zebras have done horrible things to our Equestria, and I understand why our princess and our ministry fight for what we do. I once did, at least.”

The mare’s voice turned cold as she continued on.

“I was there on the fields of Zebrica some time ago, fighting for what I believed was right. I nearly died there, and I watched a lot of other soldiers die as well. Good soldiers, better ponies.” She shook her head. “When I was discharged, I was left to think over why I was still fighting – why we are still fighting. I knew the reason this war had started but… we did need those resources anymore. We don’t need to fight this war, or do more terrible things, or live in a constant state of fear and terror of what we’ve made the zebras to be.”

A stomp of a hoof echoed through the recording’s mic. It had become extremely clear at this point that what we were watching wasn’t a film, but something else.

“Equestria. Was. Wrong! I was wrong. Everypony is being led to believe this is for something and I quickly realized it was for nothing. I was once all too gungho to be out on the front lines,” She continued on. “Now I realize that the bloodshed is pointless, and that we soldiers are but cattle for the slaughter. Ministries of Equestria are sending ponies to die for no real reason. They’re begging, no, pleading for the world to end. We cannot allow them to do this!”

I hadn’t realized she had sat down until she stood back up, another powerful stomp of her hoof hitting our ears. Her words felt both scripted and unscripted, as if she had forgotten her lines midway through and was trying her best to get back on track. Lines that reminded me of the mare we had heard on the recording earlier. They weren’t the same pony though; the one from earlier had a deeper and more… maternal tone to her, for lack of a better word.

“To you, members of the Shattered Moon, I have brought you here today because I fear that day is far sooner than anypony would want to admit. The end is possibly nigh, and we must prepare for any possibilities that may come our way. I know until now our focus has been on the end of the ministries, and if their downfall would possibly save our nation I would do it in a heartbeat, but the worst must be prepared for. I wish that I could tell you everything in detail, but Minister Pinkie is on my trail and I must hide. The explanation of everything will be left to Miss Tempest Shadow.”

Her entire body sagged, ears folded back.

“Thank you all for your services, and let us hope that the end isn’t truly the end.”

It ended, and we were left with the mechanical clicking of the projector. Overall the recording hadn’t been all that important to today's world, but the mares' words left me wondering. She was a soldier just like me, scarred in a manner similar to what had happened to her hoof. Where I had doubled my efforts in service to the Enclave, she found herself questioning the authority she had come to trust. It was like looking at a reflection of my own self.

That reflection had seen the end of the world, and it left me silent and confused.

I can’t recall what the third film was about, or what was in it, or anything else. Something about hearing that mare speak caused the dead to return to tormenting my soul once more, their raging drowning out the world for a time. I’m not entirely sure how long, but when next I felt truly conscious the projector had been turned off and we were in the theater room proper. Sharpshot had prepared a fire, and Willow was lying down watching him do his work.

That lost frame of time caused me to look back towards where the curtains should have been, wondering how I had gotten here. I was quickly drawn back to the fire by the feeling of flame heating my face, and I turned back. In this cold, desecrated place, that fire offered a much needed color to the world around us. The red both it and Sharpshot wore, along with the white and blue of the alicorn across from me, were the perfect contrast to our environment. It all came together to offer a tiny, beautiful sign of life.

“So, you haven’t told us exactly who it is we are chasing down first,” Sharpshot piped up, laying down next to his wife. “I doubt you came all the way to Trotson just to get us. One of them is close by, I take it?”

“Yes. Her name is Angel Hair,” I explained. Perhaps a piece of me was still stuck in the screams of the damn, cause I sounded far more robotic then I wished. “Good soldier, and good at getting you to talk. Not that hard when her parents run a bar.”

“She’ll know you went after her then, and that you are down here,” Willow Wisp stated. I gave her a nod, and watched as her face grew contemplative. “That will make tracking her down rather tricky. Probably avoiding settlements to keep her off your tail.”

“Only way I could think of getting in contact would be through ArcanaTech themselves,” Sharpshot said. He threw a hoof up in the air, before it returned to the zebra rifle in front of his hooves. “Shit chance that will happen. As far as I know none of them leave their little base of operations, and I’m not about ready to lead a suicide charge through there front door.”

“The implication that you have thought about it is worrying, but hopefully we shouldn’t need to,” I told him. I grabbed my battle saddle, took both the novasurge rifle and semi-auto rifle off its frame, and placed them before me. I needed something to distract my brain outside of the conversation before me, and a weapons inspection seemed perfect. “Sharpshot, you said they would come for Shining Gemini, correct?”

The ghoul gave me a nod, and I found myself smiling as I started my inspection. “We won’t be able to tail them, though. They won’t want anypony seeing them.”

He was correct. All of Trotson called ArcanaTech “Shadow Corp '' after all, meaning ponies likely knew nothing more than the bare minimum about them. Tartarus, it was more than possible they knew we were in Alibi Street Cinema at that very moment. No way any standard pony would be able to get their attention unless ArcanaTech wanted to talk themselves.

Thankfully, one of us wasn’t a standard pony.

“Willow, judging by your coat and how you snuck up on Sharpshot and I earlier, you can turn invisible, right?” I asked.

“Feels like second nature,” She answered indirectly, the more direct form coming in the form of a quick nod. “Can keep it up for a decent amount of time, but it is finite.”

“It still leaves you as our best choice,” I replied. A hoof reached up to the underside of my muzzle, closing my eyes. “As far as I see it, either Willow managed to catch them in the act of kidnapping or they came for me. That Sprite-Bot did say I.M. was interested in me.”

“Wait, Sprite-Bot? You’ve met Watcher?” Sharpshot asked. I looked at him surprised, but nodded my head. “So he is still kicking. Haven’t heard from him in a decent period of time.”

“To be fair, you weren’t his favorite pony,” Willow reminded him. A coy smile graced her lips, and she gave the ghoul a brief nuzzle. “A shame. You're quite the wonderful little thing once somepony gets to know you.”

His eyes drifted to the floor, and I’m sure there was a visible blush underneath those rags of his. If a ghoul was still capable of blushing anyways, considering they existed with a few hooves already in the grave. The sight of love twisted my stomach, so I coughed in order to bring my focus back.

“The point is, Shining Gemini is currently our best option at finding where Angel Hair is. Whether it is through her having seen them, or her getting us in contact with ArcanaTech is up to the dice,” I explained, setting the novasurge to the side; it seemed the sand hadn’t harmed it just yet. “That will be our goal for tomorrow. Hopefully, if everything goes well, we will have the first of the traitors dealt with by the end of the week.”

“Then you two should probably get some shut eye,” the ghoul replied, standing up and raising that abomination of his upwards. “Don’t need to worry about sleep, so I’ll make sure nopony comes in to bother us.”

“Be safe hun,” Willow replied.

The two kissed, my stomach twisting a little more at the sight. It hurt so much to see these two grounders happy together, but I refused to let that envy take a grander form. I listened to the sound of Sharpshot’s hooves as I did a quick check of the semi-auto, not wanting to look at the joy before me. When I was done, and the rifle was set to the side, I laid there for a time in frustration and sadness. If Anchor had been there, I’m sure his touch would have gotten tears to flow.

If only Anchor was there…

“Singing, could you be his friend?”

I looked up at Willow as she spoke those words, raising an eyebrow. “You want what?”

“Sharpy. Outside of me he doesn’t have anypony,” She told me. Her head rested on her hooves, and she stared into the fire. “He tends to self sabotage when ponies get close to him. I think he is scared of losing a friend again, but I… I want him to have someone.” She closed her eyes, clearly ready to fall asleep. “I might not be around forever. My coat wasn’t this blue when I became an alicorn; the killing joke won’t hold her back forever. I’m worried that once I’m gone, he’ll go feral.”

I stared at the alicorn for a bit, unsure what to make of her proposal. I understood what she was asking, but me? I wasn’t sure how to answer, but as I rested my head and closed my eyes for the day, words managed to escape my mouth.

“No promises it’ll work out,” I said.

I couldn’t see how her smile grew from my response, but something in my mind felt it. “That is all I can ask.”

Author's Note

I'm a bit of a Drakengard fan. Even if the reference doesn't fit Watcher at all as a character, I couldn't help but make the first chapter they appear in a reference to it.

Act 1 – Chapter 10: Prideful Idiot

Typically, in my dreams, I’m myself. I know some ponies see a version of themselves more true to their soul, but I wasn’t one of those. My coat was always magenta, my mane and tail were always blue and white, and I was always a pegasus. My age would fluctuate but who I was never changed. Singing Rhapsody was and always would be Singing Rhapsody.

Which made it especially strange that night when I found myself no longer as Singing Rhapsody.

Even before getting a real look at myself I knew something about this dream felt off. It felt both too real and too unreal at the same time, like a horrible night terror. I couldn’t feel my wings, I was shorter, my hindlegs felt like cement bricks, and my mane and tail felt way too damn long for Enclave regulation. There was also a little extra weight on my head, but I couldn’t reach my hooves up to check.

Lack of control, feeling like I was not in my own body. If I was a unicorn it would have been easy to say I was inside a memory orb, but I wasn’t. I had never been in one, or laid eyes on one for that matter. Besides, as far as I know there aren’t any memory orbs from after the war, and it was clear for the shoddy shack I was in this was after the mega spells hit. Wherever it was I didn’t know and truthfully I didn’t care.

I want to say “who am I?” What I got instead was a higher pitch and rather whiny yell.

“Dad? You done yet?”

The voice wasn’t mine, the body wasn’t mine, and this dream was definitely not mine. I would have panicked, but I was at the hindrance of this mare’s emotion. I pouted, more pissed off than anything else.

“Just one more minute, Dead,” somepony called out. The voice was low, gruff, but had a gentle aura around them. “What in Luna’s name did you do to this?”

“Nothing! I was just doing some target practice,” Dead replied. Of all the names for a grounder to have.

“Target practice? Like tartarus this was from target practice!” her father shouted. He sounded mad, but he still sounded rather gentle. “Did you drop it in mud or something? Roll it around and clog it up like some small brained raider?”

“Apologies for being clumsy,” Dead shot back, rolling her eyes. She shifted into a laying down position, though her legs refused to help her. “Ain’t that easy to pick up something you drop when your legs don’t fucking work. Kept accidentally pushing it farther away from me.”

A grounder entered the shoddy room I – or Dead, technically – had been laying in. He gave a disapproving look to her, but the unicorn I was trapped inside of seemed undeterred. This was clearly their family dynamic, and while greatly different from my own it didn’t seem hostile. He leaned down so that he was on eye level with his daughter, who was currently wearing the smugest of smiles,

“Dead Hooves, who taught you those kinds of words?” her father asked. To my disbelief, the grounder didn’t seem shaken by the question, but somehow became even more smug.

“Well, let me think here…,” She said, tapping her hoof to her muzzle. After a couple of seconds she proceeded to boop her father on the nose. “I only know one pony. I would say it’s his fault.”

Her father couldn’t keep a straight face, lowering his head and shaking it as he chuckled to himself. That was followed by him ruffling Dead Hooves mane, which she immediately whined at. Her attempts to push his hoof off her head proved fruitless, and after a time she simply pouted and let him do his thing. The glow of his horn made me aware the grounder was a unicorn, which made it clear what the small weight I was feeling on Dead Hooves’ head was.

A double barrel shotgun floated in and rested into the mangled corpse of a shelf next to the bed his daughter was laying in. If I was guessing correctly, that was what he had been getting on her for dirtying up.

“That’s my little soldier.”

I wanted to laugh at his choice of words, but I had no ability to. What a joke, a grounder calling another grounder a “soldier”. He was probably some idiotic Steel Ranger who still saw himself as keeping the peace, forgetting that such a thing didn’t exist down here.

I watched him sit down on the mattress with his daughter, his expression gloomy yet proud. Dead Hooves’ lips curled down, and she looked to her own hind legs. Her father took her cheek and forced her to look at him instead of them, a sigh escaping his daughter’s mouth. My vision quickly found itself far lower, Dead’s head touching the floor.

“A real soldier wouldn’t be stuck sitting around all day,” She grumbled, eyeing the rickety wooden floor beneath her. “A real soldier would be able to walk.”

“We’re all soldiers in different ways,” her father said. She refused to look at him as he talked. “Not all of our wars are the same. Some of us battle others, but so many more war against themselves.” I felt his hoof on her back, caressing it. “You're fighting hard, and that makes you as real a soldier as any other.”

Dead scoffed at his words. “You know, you don’t have to give me these little pep talks.”

“You are my daughter and I know you need to hear it. I don’t mind cheering you up.”

Dead responded with a dry laugh and looked back to her father. She wasn’t quite smiling, but she also wasn’t quite frowning either. It felt like she was stuck in a state of denial, unsure if she really wanted to accept his love or not. I wouldn’t get an answer to what she decided, because the world around me soon blurred.

I was waking up.

Alibi Street Cinema, Trotson

Day 3

The first thing I saw upon returning to the waking world was an incoherent blob of tan, black, and red. At first I thought it was just my eyes not feeling completely focused, but it shifted a bit to show two small circles of white on both sides of my vision. It then vanished, and I was left staring at the clear but decrepit walls of Alibi Street Cinema. The fire had died down, Willow Wisp was asleep, and Sharpshot wasn’t around.

I considered what the dream was I just witnessed, and then shoved it into the corner of my mind. It was not important; it was just a dream. It was strange, yes, but the mind worked in mysterious ways. Dreams rarely made sense, and even when they did it was typically surrounded by weirdness that couldn’t be explained. In this case, that weirdness was more grounded than normal, but it was just the same.

Getting up, I checked to see if the MentaBuck had a simple clock feature. Strangely enough, for all the little conveniences it had, that part seemed to be missing from its functions. I stretched my limbs and then made my way over to Willow. I reached my hooves right next to her ears and started clapping them together. There was an immediate flinch.

“Wake up princess! Your subjects await your orders!” I shouted from right about her, watching as she started to wiggle and groan in dissatisfaction.

“W-waah,” She spoke, whatever word she had attempted to say turning into a whimper of pain. When she had recovered from the spike in pain, she looked at me and spoke telepathically. “You know, there are nicer ways of waking a pony up?”

“Don’t care,” I stated, shrugging. “Now get up. I’ll grab Sharpshot, we’ll have something to eat, and then will start this long ass day of traveling and tailing.”

Willow didn’t nod, but instead reached her hoof back to her throat. A simple glance was enough to tell me that the pain wasn’t completely gone, which made sense. Killing joke was possibly the craziest, scariest plant I had ever heard about in my entire life, and was known to get ponies killed both directly and indirectly. The fact Willow was still holding on was honestly remarkable.

Didn’t make the discomfort she was in any worse, and it seemed whatever was helping her was now wearing off. She glanced around her, and then pointed to a saddlebag that Sharpshot must have removed during that time my memory had gone completely absent.

“I think the cloud nine is wearing off. Can you get some more for me?”

“Cloud… nine?” I whispered to myself. Hoping I had heard wrong, I nodded and sped trot to the bag in question. I opened it up and there that terrible white powder was, much to my horrid dismay. “Willow, why the fuck are you have this stuff?”

“Because it helps with the pain,” She said. I was about to call bullshit, but then she shook her head and corrected herself. “No, it’s not the pain it helps with. It’s the killing joke that it stops, even if only for a bit of time. Apparently being an alicorn made me more resistant to its more negative effects so when Sharpshot and I found out we…,” She looked towards the theater room’s exit. “... it was the best we have. If we didn’t find it I… I would rather die than live in that much pain.”

“It doesn’t help completely though,” I replied. She looked at me confused. “Fucking grounders. Okay, look, if it helped you complete you wouldn’t have to keep taking it. It would flush the killing joke’s magical effects out and you wouldn’t have to take it again, right?” She started to nod, stopped, and then finished it. “Willow, you're just getting high or… something. Never been high myself so fuck if I know if it helps with pain, but its just numbing your nerves.”

She blinked, then looked at the bag. “So can you grab it, please?”

“Willow.”

“You don’t know what it is like!” She screamed at me. Typically a shout wouldn’t have unsettled me, but none of those had been through telepathy. That mind scream was more visceral than any spoken word ever spoken, and more terrifying than any howl. “I don’t want to, okay? I don’t want to have to take it, but it is the only damn thing in this wasteland that helps. The only thing that doesn’t give her immediate control. So please, before it wears off, just give me the cloud nine!”

I looked back to the bag, and then to Willow. A picture of a pure little filly, dropping dead to the floor, entered my mind. I couldn’t believe what I was being told was true, seeing what these could do. However, the idea that underneath that horn lied a fellow pegasus, I couldn’t burn it either. A small piece of me asking “what if she’s telling the truth?” and with that I kicked the bad just the slightest bit towards her.

“You want your fix? Don’t ask for my help,” I told her,

I stepped over the bag of drugs and made my way over to my battle saddle, getting it all fitted up for the day. The feeling of eyes glaring into the back of my head did its best to burn a hole through my flesh, but gave up after a few seconds. I got the battle saddle on, and then turned to see Willow snort some cloud nine. She looked at me, and I stared her down the best I could.

“If your only choice was constant pain, or feeling high, what would you choose?” She asked me.

I couldn’t give her an answer, for I simply did not know.

“So, you thought she was one of the ponies you are looking for? Hold on, I can guess the answer: she isn’t.”

“This is why the two of us stopped talking in the first place. You are right, though.”

I recognized both the voices that hit my ears as I opened the door outside, one expected and one slightly unexpected. Sharpshot looked to me as Willow and I stepped outside, a Sprite-Bot turning its attention to us as well. My hoof didn’t let go of the door, having not expected to see Watcher again. I figured he would have just left me alone.

“Speak of the devil, and lo and behold! She has appeared!” Sharpshot said dramatically. One of my eyes twitched at his words, and I could see the slight change in his eyes that meant he was smiling. “Got the rest you needed?”

“To face the day? Yes. To hear you? No,” I answered, turning to the Sprite-Bot. “So you all know each other? Friends or something like that?”

“More familiar acquaintances than anything else,” Watcher answered. The Sprite-Bot turned from me to Willow, who gave them a small nod. “It’s nice to see you’re still around, Willow. Best of luck to you all.”

With that, he let the Sprite-Bot return to that absolutely horrible music that it had, and the ball of metal floated off. My ears folded against myself in an attempt to keep the awful noise out, but that didn’t save me from the sound of horribly distorted music. It was only when the bot floated out of my hearing range that I felt any form of comfort returned to my being. It also, sadly, left a certain ghoul looking far too smug for my liking.

“Old world blues too much for you?” He asked me.

I groaned my teeth, holding back the urge to slap him again. “Shut the fuck up Sharpshot.”

“No ma’am, I will not,” he replied. The pure confidence in smugness of this ghoul made me want to throw him to the surface, from the clouds. That might just be enough to make that snark of his disappear. “Seriously though, you two have a good night’s sleep? Outside of some radroaches I had a rather boring night.”

“Outside of a less than jolly wake up, pretty good!” Willow said. She walked over to her husband, the two shared a quick hug, and then she motioned to me with her head. “We should have told her about what I was using to help with the pain.”

The ghoul looked to me, then back to his wife, and then to me once more. A part of me expected him to be angry but he looked oddly… understanding, perhaps? His entire body had sagged, head lowered. The grounder knew exactly how dangerous cloud nine was, which made the fact he let his wife have it annoy me. At the same time, it also meant that she was correct; Sharpshot had some clear medical skills. More than I would have expected of a normal grounder.

Then again, he was a stable dweller. Was he training to be a medical pony, before he ended up where he is now?

“Trust me, if there was another way to help her without losing her, I would do it,” he told me. He planted a hoof on his chest. “I introduced her to cloud nine. It’s a long story but….”

“You were an addict,” I summarize.

“Sweet Luna, I wish it was that simple,” He replied, shaking his head and stepping away from the cinema. “I did use to take it though, yeah. Fell into a pit for a while after some bad shit happened. Willow and I found out it helped with the pain by complete accident.” He turned his head back to us. “It’s what we got. Guess you’ve seen what it can do to a normal pony.”

I gave him a nod. “At the worst time, in the worst place.”

The first step was getting back to Sandstone, a task which would have been easy if it wasn’t for the unicorn traveling with us. Willow and I could have flown off, but apparently Sharpshot and all the shit he was carrying was a bit too much weight for her. I hadn’t expected that, with her being an alicorn and all, but it was what it was. Perhaps it was another small show of how the I.M.P only half did its jump. It was starting to become very clear she had gotten exceptionally lucky to not turn into some hideous abomination.

Without flight technically off the table, we were forced to chat with each other to stave off boredom. I think I was starting to prefer the time I was alone to the time with these two. Half of it was because Sharpshot couldn’t keep from saying something that made me want to dent his skull. The other half of it was due to being the center of conversation.

“So part of the reason so many of you Enclave wear your power armor when coming to the surface is because of the radiation?” Willow asked. I can’t believe it was a question I had to answer, but I gave her a nod. “Is the difference in resistance really that high?”

“Yep. Granted we’re still more resistant than anypony in a stable,” I explained. A cough brought Sharpshot to my attention, and my expression turned deadpan. “You’re an exception, and you know that.”

“So I’m not worth a mention?” the insufferable ghoul asked. I decided to ignore it.

“The Enclave has beaten into a lot of pegasi’s heads that the surface is far too inhospitable and twisted for us ponies to truly survive down there. All of you are so twisted with radiation, and that is what makes you all hostile and fucked up,” I continued on, waving a hoof dismissively at the grounders behind me. They may have been giving me disapproving looks; I didn’t care. “So we’re suited up to deal with the radiation, mainly to protect us from the affliction called “getting shot”, but also to protect us from becoming horribly irradiated. It also helps keep strong the all important ‘p’ word: propaganda.”

“Which you believe,” Sharpshot guessed.

“I wouldn’t call it propaganda if I thought it was the truth,” I told him. “What I do believe is this: the Enclave keeps pegasus-kind safe and mutation free. My foals are safe up there, as is my husband.” My vision found itself nowhere in particular, stuck half between the waking world and the world of my memories. “So many ponies, safe from the tartarus I’m now forced to endure. That you two have been forced to endure.”

“It is pretty sucky down here at times,” Willow said with a nod. “Though, I think I would prefer to be down here than up there.”

I looked at the alicorn… no.

I looked at the pegasus under that I.M.P paint job the Goddess had given her, and let my mouth hang. From a unicorn, earth pony, or zebra I would expect to hear such things because they literally knew no better. This, however, was a fucking pegasus! She had to have lived in the Enclave some amount of time ago. A time before she became a slave, before she became a murder, before the Goddess twisted her form. She should know how much safer it is up there.

“Ignorance isn't bliss, soldier mare,” Sharpshot spoke up. My steps stopped, and my companions soon followed suit. I turned around and trotted up to the ghoul as he explained. “You see all this? You can’t ignore it forever. Before long something is gonna happen that will send you all down here, and many a pegasus won’t be ready to deal with the shit it throws at them.”

“So that is your reasoning? Ignorance isn’t bliss?” I asked. “Okay, but what about those who can’t handle it?”

He raised an eyebrow, as if the idea was so foreign that it came from before the original union of the three tribes. I already couldn’t believe that I had to explain this to explain this to Willow Wisp, but Sharpshot? The Enclave had defectors, sure, but there was no good reason for a pony from a stable to leave without being forced to. He should have understood.

“Imagine a stable dweller, Sharpshot. A pony who lived in safety, underground, and away from the tartarus that was the surface much like you once did,” I said, a hoof motioning wildly to emphasize my points. “They are safe, and have never had to worry about anything that could possibly harm or disrupt their daily routine outside the odd scuffle here or there.”

I pressed my hoof into his chest, hard enough to feel his mutated skin push inwards under his getup.

“Then, for some dumbass reason, they decide to leave the safety of that stable for a world ready to kill them. A world that could break them over and over again, take away who they truly are, and leave a damaged shell behind. A world they weren’t made for. They need that ignorance, Sharpshot. The pegasi above the clouds need that ignorance.”

Harsh glare met harsh glare, my eyes staring into the blood red of the grounder before me. He removed my hoof from his chest, and placed his own on me. His stare grew more hateful.

“You're asking for ponykind to stay stagnant,” he said in rebuttal.

“No, I want my kind to be untraumatized,” I replied. “You want to break everything.”

“You’re assuming we aren’t all broken to begin with.”

“Um, can this ethics discussion wait till later perhaps,” Willow spoke up. Our attention turned to the alicorn, sheepishly watching us from afar. “We kind of have a pony to find.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. “Yeah. We’ll continue this later.”

As Sharpshot shrugged and started to trot again, my eyes turned to a specific building. I recognized it yesterday, because Sharpshot and I had cleared it. Whickerbury Apartment Complex looked like it hadn’t been touched, as did the streets outside it. That didn’t make sense though, at least the latter part. It was entirely possible that I was also fritting over nothing, but I couldn’t help but wonder…

… where had the bodies gone?

Thankfully, unlike my first time arriving in Sandstone, there were no complications with getting to Bone Breaker. No colts trying too hard to get me in bed, the sun wasn’t too low in the sky, we could meet her immediately. With nowhere else to go, Shining Gemini had stayed the night at her place. Considering the grounder seemed rather relaxing, Bone Breaker had to be keeping his son from making any dumb moves.

“Honestly, I’m kind of surprised I didn't die along with the rest of them,” Gemini said, looking at the sparkle-cola in her hooves. Drinks had been passed out for each of us, and I had once again chosen a sunrise sarsaparilla. “Or end up back in chains for that matter. They brought me along as a piece of bait; they knew we weren’t the first ponies there.”

“Better to lose a slave then lose an actual friend,” Sharpshot said. Gemini gave nervous glances around the small shelter Bone Breaker counted as her home, then shook her head. “It sucks, but that's how the world works. You would have been better off with Red Eyes, if you were going to be a slave to anypony.”

“I have no idea who that is,” Gemini replied. She took a sip of her soda, and placed it on the table. “They definitely would have just tossed me into the gunfire, but I was chosen for my special talent. I’m an illusionist, or more specifically I’m good at making doubles.”

“I could imagine a non-living decoy could be exceptionally useful in combat scenarios,” I stated. “Judging by the fact you know how, you weren’t born into that life.”

“Settlement destroyed, parents killed, and I was turned into what you see today,” the unicorn grounder said. A sad chuckle escaped her. “I… I get to have an actual life now. I was scared shitless of you all at first, but now? Now I can figure out what Shining Gemini the pony can do, instead of just Shining Gemini the slave.”

“Got to appreciate an upbeat attitude!” Willow replied, giving the former slave a big smile. She flinched at the alicorn’s voice, which made Willow shy away in sadness. “I’ll just stay quiet.”

“S-s-sorry, it's just… everything about you is so different for me. There is nothing wrong with you wanting to talk,” Gemini said, hooves flailing in front of her. Her eyes briefly turned to me, before going back to the alicorn. “I mean, I didn’t know ponies could have wings until a few days ago. It seems there is a lot I don’t know about the world.”

My ears went to attention at that sentence, body straightening up. If she saw a pony with wings, and she had never seen somepony like Willow before, then the only thing it could be was Angel Hair. We had a lead, even if that lead was a few days old. It didn’t matter, I had her.

“I’m not the first pegasus you’ve seen?” I asked, just to make extra sure that yesterday didn’t count as “a few days ago” to the mare before me. A smirk found its way onto my muzzle when she gave me a confident nod. “What did they look like? Yellow on yellow?”

“I… think so?” Gemini replied, giving the door a side glance as it opened. Bone Breaker had left earlier to take care of something in Stable 71, and I hadn’t bothered to pay attention. “I only caught a small glimpse. Was hard to tell what she looked like. She freed a few others like myself, though I think most of them died trying to escape.”

“Good idea, poorly executed,” Sharpshot stated, leaning back in his chair. “She’s lucky to not be in chains herself, or dead.”

“I doubt either would happen with her,” I said, shaking my head. “That mare is tough. We use to joke about her being part dragon.”

“Doesn’t make her any less vulnerable to the wasteland,” Bone Breaker said, sitting down with the rest of us. “Trotson may be a weird place in it, but it is still part of the San Palomino Desert, and therefore still part of Equestria.”

She had grabbed a rather old looking cup, probably with some purified water from the stable in it, and sat down. It was obvious that she had meant to drink from it, but Sharpshot’s horn had lit up. His telekinesis grabbed her head, and with no mercy she slammed into her table. Gemini yelped, Willow looked to Sharpshot in horrified shock, and I just sat there stunned at what had just happened.

“Sharpy!”

“That was the sixth damn time you pulled that shit Breaker!” He yelled at the earth pony, ignoring his wife’s yelling. “The sixth damn time! Stop playing with her for fucks sake!”

“Sharpy, please. She apologized for it.”

“She did the other times too!” He shouted, his voice causing Willow to wince a bit. As soon as he saw that reaction, he seemed to relax a bit. I could see the smallest hint of shame in his eyes. “She keeps saying your trigger word. How long until she uses it to kill the wrong pony?”

“That doesn’t mean–“

“No… no, he is right.”

Everyones went to the earth pony, a hoof holding a badly bleeding nose. Red was starting to stain her hoof, running down it like a river. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was furious through all that pain. Instead she seemed sincere, or as close to sincere as a liar could be.

How much of what she had said to me yesterday was the truth?

“Guess it was only a matter of time till I got burned,” she said, more to herself than any of us. I could see a smile hiding behind that hoof. “You don’t have to like me, but the matter is I’m housing your only lead. So either play nice,” the sound of guns caused my eyes to swirve behind me. A group of guards was now surrounding the room. “or mistakes are gonna be made, one way or another.”

“You knew something like was gonna happen, didn’t you?” I said, looking at the smiling raider before me. Yes, raider. A very reasonable raider, but very clearly as low as those we had killed the day prior. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or furious.”

“I’d go with the former. Rage gets you nowhere,” she said, getting up from her seat. The growl Sharpshot gave proved her point. “I know you two could possibly handle yourself, but as long as I know her trigger word it’s best you sit and play nice.”

“Don’t play with my wife like that!” The ghoul yelled, standing up. Every single gun was pointed at him, and upon realizing this he chose to sit down. “You're a bitch, Breaker.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she replied. All she needed to do was wave, and the ponies behind us lowered their guns. “Now, as much as I would like to help Rhapsody reunite with her friend, I’m gonna need to have the town's medic look at my nose. Can’t have that go without some form of recompense.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You need us to grab something?”

“I need you and Willow,” Bone Breaker answered, joining us at the table. She motioned to her guards, and then to Sharpshot and Gemini. “These two are being tied up and thrown in the stable until you finish. You won’t have Angel Hair’s location till then.”

“Like tartarus you–“

“Hun, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but don’t,” Willow said, shaking her head. “I think this is a situation where we just need to do what we’re told.”

Sharpshot went quiet as he was forced to his hooves, Gemini shakily getting up on her own free will. The couple stared each other down for a moment, and then there was a sigh of resignation. Sharpshot knew just as much as Willow Wisp, Bone Breaker, and myself that blood and arguing wouldn’t do much. He wanted to fight, because that was what the grounder was used to doing, but this wasn’t the time. So, with a drop of his head, he gave up.

“Don’t get yourself killed.”

“I won’t. I’m a tough mare, and you know that.”

The two were escorted out, and Bone Breaker’s abode had become significantly quieter. The grounder was using a rather well used towel to try and clean up the blood. Considering it was starting to get rather red and she was still bleeding, Sharpshot had done a lot more damage than it originally seemed. His telekinetic control was honestly rather frightening, but considering his talent lied somewhere in precision that made sense.

“I would apologize to you two, but I doubt it would be believable right now,” the raider said, a groan of pain hinted in her words. “Let's get this explanation over with as soon as possible. I’m not fainting because of blood loss today.”

“And so you don’t have to hold my husband hostage for too long,” Willow stated. Bone Breaker nodded at the sentiment. “And, Boney, while I am hurt for you never meaning your apologies, I forgive you. I forgive you, and I’m sorry for what my husband did.”

“Don’t apologize. I had it coming, but I don’t regret any of what I said.”

Bone Breaker put the old towel down, but her muzzle was still scuffed up. Without anything to hide it, one could make out the fact that a tiny bit of her lower jaw was showing through her skin. Ding up like that, she was correct about needing to hurry up.

“Rhapsody, I told you that we use the stable for farming, right?” She asked me. I gave her a nod. “Well we’re in need of some things. Specifically, we need a new water purification talisman. I’m pretty sure I know where one is, and I was already sending ponies to get it,” She gave a smile, and pointed at her muzzle. “Then this happened, and I found the perfect excuse to not send my own ponies into the jaws of death.”

“That wording is concerning,” I replied, resting back. “I’m not gonna be dealing with some raiders in an apartment complex, am I?”

There was a chuckle at her words. “If only it was that easy. The place I need you two to head is the Ministry of Arcane Science hub here in Trotson. I know from some ponies that there are still talismans there, and with any hope it will be what we are looking for.”

“Oh yeah. Sharpy and I have passed by it once or twice. I know where it is,” Willow chimed in, doing her best to lighten the mood with cheer. It did nothing but feel off given the situation. “Though, do you really think they would have anything like that there?”

“Stable-tech’s building here in Trotson was supposedly the dead center of the balefire explosion; nothing but a crater there now. The Ministry of Arcane Science is your best call,” Bone Breaker said, her eyes unable to lock onto those of the mare speaking to her. “Get us a talisman, or if not give me substantial proof you were there, and you’ll be free to go.”

“With Gemini’s knowledge of where Angel Hair was,” I reminded her. The raider gave me a firm nod. “Then no reason to keep sitting on my ass.”

Willow gave her own nod, agreeing with my line of thought. We got up from our seats and made our way out, Bone Breaker following behind us. She only went as far as the middle of Sandstone before breaking off, likely heading to the town medic. The eyes of my alicorn companion had drifted in the direction we both knew Stable 71 was located in.

“I could just… no. They wouldn’t see me, but they would see Sharpy and Gemini,” she said, lowering her head in defeat. “He was trying to protect me. I know how he did it was wrong, but he was trying to stand up for me.”

“Any good husband would do the same,” I told her. I couldn’t be sure if my words would really help at all, but I could hope. “You're a lucky mare, Willow. Most grounders don’t have what you two do.”

She looked at me, an expression of sadness still gracing her face. That wasn’t the time to call Sharpshot a grounder, even if I was only speaking the truth. I knew I would feel upset if somepony I trusted made fun of Anchor. They would probably have received far worse than what Sharpshot had done to Bone Breaker. The fact I wasn’t suddenly dealing with a broken leg from an angry wife could only be called luck.

Luck, or heavy restraint.

I did my best to think of how to distract her. My wings unfolded, and I knew immediately what my answer was. “Wanna fly there? I haven’t been able to since I came to the surface

Despite how I knew she was probably feeling inside, Willow gave me a smile.

Message from I.M. incoming…
…
…
Message received

Damn me and my secrecy. I should have taken the dumb pile of scale’s Sprite-Bot when I had the chance yesterday. I was hoping to do this all at once; have Gold and myself introduce who we are, my griffon friend apologizes, and then to business. Of course when you're dealing with unwanted pieces things go unexpectedly. Fuck that dumbass ghoul for literally every single minor inconvenience he has sent my way in the span of twelve hours.

Okay, calm down now Lucky. Things aren’t too fucked yet. Yes I would prefer to not have to do this, but I have no choice. Besides, I’ve been holding off on it for long enough. That stable has become enough of a mass grave.

I can’t let Bone Breaker continue this path anymore. Disrespecting my parents was one thing, but getting in the way of what I want? A lesson will need to be taught.

Author's Note

I hope you've all enjoyed your normal length chapters. If chapter 11 continues on for as long as I think its going to, this next one might be a little bit longer than every other chapter so far.

Act 1 – Chapter 11: Power From A Dead Star

M.A.S. hub, Trotson

Day 3

I closed my eyes, taking in for the first time in days how it felt to have the wind against my face. It brushed against my body like a blanket, the chill feeling just right under Celestia’s star. The way it hit my wings, the sound it made as I cut through it, everything felt right. It was probably the most right I had felt since getting off that damn train three days ago, and with no vision it was easy to imagine all of it had been a bad dream.

Then I opened my eyes, and was greeted by sand, desolation, and a city trapped in a weather-made bowl. It felt opened and enclosed at the same exact time. In the Enclave it was possible to fly from one city to the other so if you felt you had the stamina for it, the entire sky opened to you. Here that was far less possible, restricted even if it wasn’t the original intent. Sure, you could fly over the sandstorm, but looking at it now made me wonder just how possible that was.

I realized that said sandstorm was larger than I remembered. Had they changed it since that mistake of a mission five years ago? As if the G.P.E. needed more reasons to not come back here.

Still, for all the restrictions, the ability to finally spread my wings after days on the ground felt so nice. It was like finally being able to walk again after a leg injury, without the need for any support. I would enjoy it for all its worth, because I knew the ability to fly without a care like this would be taken away the moment Sharpshot and Gemini were unshackled. Curse grounders and their lack of wings.

Willow led the way before me, remaining quiet for the majority of the flight to the Ministry hub. I could feel in my heart that this search was doomed, but maybe that was the point. Bone Breaker had made it clear she was sending us into death, and perhaps she wanted us to die. It was all too possible she was going to try and kill Sharpshot as well. I had to chuckle at that, because I could tell in only knowing that shit-talking ghoul for a day that wouldn’t go well.

“You wanna know another little thing that I had to do that most alicorns don’t?” Willow asked me. I looked at her, the blank expression seeming to be a yes for her. “The Goddess helps give most other alicorns the knowledge of what they didn’t have before, as well as adjust to their new bodies. I didn’t have luxury, so along with figuring out how magic worked,” her head turned to the left, clearly embarrassed. “I had to learn to fly again.”

“It can’t be that different,” I shouted through the wind. “You still had wings before hoof.”

“Yeah but alicorn Willow isn’t the same body type as pegasus Willow,” She answered. “Try flying when you're suddenly far taller and your wings are larger. Not like a growth spurt, but an entirely different body.”

I had no reference for what Willow was talking about, so I just gave her a nod. My eyes found themselves looking down towards a particular building not far in the distance. A building that seemed in far better condition than nearly all those around it. There were still signs of age on its hulky, steel exterior, but it felt a lot like the projector room back in Alibi Street Cinema.

The MentaBuck didn’t need to tell me its name, I knew what I was looking at. The giant logo of a star with wings behind it was enough. We had reached our destination, the Trotson crater far in the distance from us now. I couldn’t help but find it strange, seeing this building still standing strong while so many others looked to be on their last legs.

Ominous would be the best word to describe it. The building had an aura to it that made me feel incredibly concerned.

“You think the front door will open for us?”

“Probably. From Sharpy’s and I’s experience, these places typically hold their most important stuff in the places no regular pony could touch,” Willow answered, her hooves touching down on the lot just in front of the entrance. I landed right behind her, taking notice of how I needed to actually crane my neck up to look her in the eye. It wasn’t something I had really noticed until just then. “It’s been a while since we’ve entered an M.A.S. building, though. Sharpy tends to avoid these places.”

“He doesn’t like them?”

“Brings back a lot of memories that he tries his best to forget.”

Hooves on the ground, our conversation was pushed to the side as we trotted up to the hub’s main door. We opened it, and were greeted not by decay or rot, but darkness. The dark metal walls and lack of working lights made the sunlight’s effect less useful than back in the cinema or apartment. There was a bit of a chill too, meaning that whatever talisman or machine was keeping this place cool was somehow still running after two hundred years.

Either that, or somepony had bothered to replace it for no reason.

The room itself was large and empty, clearly meant to house more than just two ponies. If the cinema had led our hooves to echo, this place caused them to boom. Darkness would have surrounded us if not for Willow’s hornlight.

“Never thought the day would come where I set a hoof in a place like this,” I whispered. I switched my vision to the MentaBucks local map, only to swear under my breath and immediately turn it off. “We’re gonna be shooting in the dark. This damn tech in my brain isn’t gonna help navigate this place.”

“So you aren’t a walking flashlight?” Willow asked. Her words made me pause, and I briefly played around with the MentaBuck. After a bit I shook my head. “Would probably damage your eyesight anyways. For the best.”

We reached the front counter not too long after that exchange. An elevator wasn’t too far behind it, along with a hall to our right. My focus didn’t fall to those, but rather the terminal that was on the other side of the counter. A jump and flap got me over to the other side, Willow choosing to just casually walk around it. I pressed the power button in hopes of it turning on, thinking of the smallest possibility of there being a map on it.

In hindsight, I should have known the chances were zero. While it did turn on, the only thing on it were logs for employees punching in on that final day of civilization, and an entry called “IMPORTANT!” with the caps and all. All the punch-in dates were centuries ago, so I ignored them in favor of whatever was so important that needed to be in all caps.

With Project Nebula now under way, access to the underground laboratories is off limits for all visitors and family. It shall remain this way until Princess Luna believes our work is ready to show.

Short, simple, and perfectly clear in its intent. Clearly whatever they had been working on was still in some form of infancy when balefire hit Equestria. I looked behind myself to the elevator, confident that what we were looking for wouldn’t be below us. I looked up at the alicorn behind me, and pointed towards the hallway. She gave me a nod, and our focus turned back towards the task we had been given.

I pedaled back as Willow forced upon a door, the rusted screeching it caused piercing into my very soul. It was necessary in order to take a look inside, but her having to pry open door after door was starting to get to me. There had always been a good collection of noises, some many ponies considered normal, that didn’t sit right with me. Once the horrific screeching was gone, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I pleaded hopelessly that it would be the last time we needed to, but I was confident that was nothing but naive hope.

Willow took the lead, only to stumble back as a shifter that had come to call the room home jumped at her. Its fangs bit into her neck, but they weren’t deep enough to do any real damage. With the grace of a sick, elderly bird Willow slammed the creature against the door frame, knocking it off. She tried to stomp on its head, but it had managed to get to its hooves far quicker than intended.

It lunged, Willow dodged, and I found myself clotheslining the disgusting thing. It got pinned to the ground under my hooves, one holding its head so it couldn’t sink its teeth into my flesh. A couple of blasts from the novasurge to its chest region, and then a shot to the brain with the semi-auto, made the shifter a non-threat. It wasn’t dead yet, convulsing wildly on the floor like a fish, but I had wasted enough ammo on these things. They were proving to be everywhere in the facility.

Whoever had told Bone Breaker this place would have talismans needed a bullet put in them, because so far it had been more risk than reward. The upper facilities had been completely gutted, labs to conference rooms to offices missing nothing but what was too big or useless to carry. Even if there was something that could be useful it was either used, broken, or a shifter waiting eagerly for its next meal to arrive. They were starving too, because as soon as either Willow or I stepped in their line of sight they flung themselves at us. A far cry from the more stealthy ones back at the station.

All of this to say that, just like every other room in this damn building, the one we had just opened had been ransacked of anything useful. I held in the urge to yell, taking the magazine out of the semi-auto to count how many rounds I had left. The answer was twelve, the place so filled with those shifters I had chewed through ammo like a new recruit. The novasurge was fairing similarly, the charge on its battery nearing zero.

“She sent us to die, didn’t she?” Willow asked, picking up on what I had figured out a decent amount of time ago.

“Yep. Must have thought we were bigger threats than was worth keeping alive,” I said, putting the magazine back in the semi auto. I started checking the drawers, knowing I was gonna find nothing. “Which means Sharpshot….”

“Is gonna shoot up all of Sandstone,” Willow said, her words filled with exhaustion. “Why does it always end up like this for us?”

“This isn’t the first time he has done something like this?”

“He’s a wonderful pony. Difficult, but wonderful. He would journey from Manehattan to the farthest corner of Zebrica if it meant keeping me safe.” She shook her head. “He’s also the exact thing he hates most in a pony: spiteful. You punch him, he’ll remember it for the next two years and throw an even harder one back.”

I turned to the alicorn, tilting my head. “I’m surprised you aren’t concerned he might die.”

Willow looked back at me, doing her best to smile. “We wouldn’t be alive this long, with half the wasteland wanting us dead, if he wasn’t beyond exceptional. He got the name “Sharpshot” for a reason.”

I nodded and turned my attention back to searching for anything that looked vaguely like a talisman. Every draw was overturned, every shelf ripped apart in desperation to find the one thing other ponies missed. It was fruitless, and as pointless as this entire endeavor. We were trading bullets for air, and getting jack shit for our effort.

“Nothing here again. Please tell me you’re having more luck then I am.”

The alicorn shook her head, and the scream I had been holding in found its chance. I slammed my hooves into a nearby countertop, question why the fuck I was doing this. We didn’t have time to be searching for something I didn’t care about. Angel Hair was out there, she knew I was following her, and it was more than likely any trail Gemini had would be too cold now. Consequences be damned, I needed to scream.

A scream that was responded with a loud, horrific screech. The sound of hooves and the near-rabid howling of something clearly not a pony caught my ears. I had just alerted a shifter, possibly more than one of them, without thinking. Another roar of emotion found its way out of my throat.

“Rhapsody?”

“Not! Now!”

Barely anything had really happened, and I was seeing red. In both blind anger and uncontrollable stupidity, I found the closest item to me and hurled it as far as I could. The item in question was a rickety wooden stool, a loud crack reverberating through the room as one of the legs snapped off. Willow had decided to make herself small, which made her more around my height given her size, and watched as I looked at what I did yet again.

That time it wasn’t Sharpshot or Willow who had gotten an over reaction out of me, but myself. The second time in two days. I wanted to calm down but the sound of hooves getting closer told me that wasn’t going to happen. The shifters were starving, and they had heard a meal.

It was only one, but Gold had made these things seem dangerous enough. It's charge did nothing but fuel the anger I had lit inside my own heart, and without thinking I dumped five shots into it. It was only when it fell to the floor, dead, that I realized I had used three shots too many. All I needed was one or two shots to the head, but instead I had wasted nearly half of the remaining bullets I had for my semi auto. I wasn’t acting like a soldier, and I needed to get my head in gear.

Just like when I had stepped outside yesterday, I performed a simple but effective breathing technique. Inhale for three seconds, hold for one, and then a slow exhale over the course of five seconds. I repeated it a few times, watching the doorway just in case anything else came traipsing in looking for food.

“Singing, are you okay?” Willow asked. I nodded without thinking, watching both my vision and the E.F.S. for any sign of movement. “You… you kind of reminded me of somepony for a second.”

“Sharpshot said something similar,” I replied. There was no red, which likely meant no other shifters had been attracted. “Hard to imagine Star Chart would be that hot headed if she was a hero.”

“So he wasn’t lying about you having family connections to her,” She replied, walking up to me hesitantly. “Though, uh, Star wasn’t the one I was talking about. It was a different pony. A unicorn called Dead Hooves.”

I blinked and turned to her, the dreams I had had last night so far in the back of my mind they were practically forgotten. The name sounded familiar either way; I could faintly recall Sharpshot mentioning a “Dead” the day prior. It was a rather unfortunate and ironic name, that was certain.

“She was a good pony, even if she wasn’t always the brightest,” Willow explained, smiling brightly. “Had quite a lot of fight in her for a pony without working hind legs, and was really scary when angry. She was my first real friend,” I couldn’t tell if the few tears in Willow’s eyes were from her throat pain or her looking back on her life. “and I could appreciate how she spoke her mind. Not many ponies have ever been as honest as her.”

Something moved out of the corner of my eye, and turning to look at it I saw a… blob, next to Willow. It was meant to be a pony, I think, with tan fur and some shades of red and black I can only assume was her mane and tail. It was entirely possible the black and tan were mixed around, however. Trying to discern what I was seeing felt like looking through glasses that weren’t the right prescription.

The strangest part was I could hear a voice. It was like a motherly version of the kind that haunted me at night.

“You give me too much credit, Willow,” it said. There was no malice, no hate. There was sadness, but there was a lot more happiness too. “A better mare wouldn’t make the same mistakes I have.”

I watched the blob until my eyes needed to blink, that simple motion causing it to dissipate from existence. I looked back up to Willow, and then to the doorway. I motioned for her to follow me, and we made our way out of this specific lab. I had no idea how many of these we had gone through so far, but it was probably best we gave Sharpshot time to clean up the mess he was no doubt making back in Sandstone.

“How did you two meet? Dead Hooves and you, I mean. Not Sharpshot.”

“Somepony tried to frame her for the murders my old owner and I committed,” Willow explained. My hooves stopped moving for a second, her words earning a look of shock from me. “When you have ponies who are willing to put caps out for your head, it’s gonna happen. I was there too, actually, but whoever had captured her had convinced those who had taken me that I wasn’t responsible.” She shrugged. “Idiotic, but saved my life. Could have left her to die but I had killed so many for no reason. I wanted to save just one life.”

I gave her a look that lied somewhere between disappointed and worried. “Please don’t tell me it’s common for friends to meet via near death experiences down here.”

“That’s how it usually goes,” the alicorn answered, nodding. I could tell she was holding in a giggle. “Trust me if you think that was bad, Sharpshot was even worse. Though instead of him nearly killing us we nearly killed him.”

I regretted asking about Dead Hooves, having been firmly reminded of how backwards the wasteland was. I’m pretty sure the ministry mares would be rolling in their graves after hearing such an answer. Even excusing them, a civilized society would probably have their collective jaws dropped at admitting such a thing.

Then again, civilized was probably not the right word to use to describe the surface. I learned that yesterday.

Instead of another lab, we had made our way around back to the M.A.S hub’s entrance. We both let out a sigh, the thoughts of everything we had just done being pointless filling our souls. All that time, ammo, and searching had been nothing but a waste of time. I did my best to hold in my anger, knowing it would do nothing.

“If it was just me, I would understand using this place to off me,” I said, walking out into the middle of the room. My eyes looked up, noting that the roof of the building had been made in such a way where a star could be seen on the top of the room. “With you, however, it doesn’t make any sense. She knows how tough you alicorns are, right?”

Willow gave a reluctant nod. “It doesn’t matter. As long as she knows that… dang word, I’m pudding in her hooves. She probably allowed me to tag along to make it seem….”

The lights over the main counter suddenly turned on, drawing us away from conversation. I dropped into a ready stance, both guns aimed in the direction of the lights while Willow jumped several feet into the air. She stayed up there, flapping her wings as we checked around us for what – or who – had turned them on. The building had seemed long without power; it hadn’t responded to the flicking of a light switch. My ear twitched as a sound greeted my ears, one I recognized from my time among the Enclave council. A terminal had just received a message.

Somepony else was there, on a different floor. That was the only answer I could come up with for the front terminal receiving a message. I did one more scan around me, looking for anything that could be hostile. I then did a second with extra attention paid to my E.F.S., but the only dot belonged to Willow Wisp, which was yellow.. Nopony but us was present, meaning that merely approaching the terminal would likely be safe. The question lied in what would happen after that.

“Willow, go invisible and keep to the air,” I told her. “If I touch that terminal and something bad happens, either get out of the way or take out whatever hits me.”

She nodded, lit her horn, and she was gone. If she had moved from her spot by then I had no idea, but that wasn’t the important thing. With careful steps, I walked over to the terminal. My eyes scanned around me for anything that could be taken as hostile, but all I got was dark metal walls. That hadn’t changed with the lights coming on; the outside of this building probably baked like it was on top of a volcano.

When I finally did reach my destination, I did a once over of the room one more time just to make extra sure there wasn’t an obvious trap. Nothing showed itself, so I turned to the monitor. I froze up, the sight before me far beyond normal for any terminal I had seen. Large digital letters filled the screen, but the problem wasn’t that the formatting was off. It was what the letters said.

Hello, Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody.

It is great to finally meet you.

It knew me. It, no, this pony had seen me at some point during Willow and I’s escapade through the hub’s ground floor. No, that was still wrong, because the word “finally” meant something more. My stomach twisted, and I bit my lower lip to hold back a swear that wished to grace the world. It wasn’t hard to figure out who, given the city we were in and the ponies who controlled it.

“The Invisible Mare,” I whispered. I had hoped that they couldn’t hear me, but the words on screen changed. I couldn’t help but feel that it was just to spite me.

Lucky Heart will be just fine. I’ve been waiting a long time for this conversation, and I would like to think we can be friends. That is, if you can deal with the knowledge it was a ten year old foal that caused you so much trouble, five years ago.

I wasn’t sure whether to call her a cocky little shit or dig my teeth even further into my lip. I decided on the latter, taking a step away from the terminal. The Invisible Mare was talking to me, taunting me, and yet there was no hostility in the words she typed. There was something about the name they had given me, Lucky Heart, that led me to pause and think. It took me all too long to realize the connection: Gold had said he was visiting somepony with that name.

The MentaBuck’s heads-up display became more clear when thinking about that griffon, or more precisely what he had done to me. I should have made the connection when Bone Breaker told me about Stable 71, but I didn’t. After all, the chances of them being the same pony couldn’t be that high… right?

“What do you want? Why have you contacted me?”

Tell your alicorn companion to become visible and I’ll explain. Be assured, you are not in any danger. Quite the opposite, in fact. I want to keep you out of further harm.

“Willow!”

“Right next to you,” the alicorn replied, reappearing right at my side. I stammered to the side in surprise, watching her face go red in embarrassment. “Sorry. I should have thought that out a bit better than I did.”

“Just don’t do it so close next time,” I told her. She gave an understanding nod, only getting more embarrassed. I turned back to the terminal. “Okay, so you’re gonna explain shit now, right?”

I think I should first apologize. I am sure that I didn’t make the greatest first impression, or rather my dear friend didn’t. Trust me when I say I would prefer to do this all face to face but I can’t. Not anymore. I can’t leave the tower, now that I’m connected to it.

My eyes went wide, and my neck looked in the direction I believed the S.P.P. Tower to be in. “You’re connected to it?”

I felt dumb mimicking what I had just been told, but hearing where Lucky was shocked my system. Even ignoring her, the question of how these grounders had managed to take the tower for themselves. For my family’s sake I needed to find out just how much of a threat this foal was; how much of a threat ArcanaTech was. If she was willing to tell me, then I could relay it to Ironsight and the Enclave could take preventative measures.

I am. I have been since Gold and I brought ArcanaTech to our hooves. The tower was never finished before balefire touched Trotson, ArcanaTech finished it, and have used it to keep the city. I can assure you that I am of no harm to the Grand Pegasus Enclave. I already have enough on my hooves getting Equestria’s greatest remaining minds out of their own incestuous pit, and I can’t connect to any other towers.

I can explain everything better once we can chat voice to voice. The elevator is operational, take it into Project Nebula labs. Feel free to take what you want, as an apology, but stay in the rooms with lights. Nebula ghouls are indestructible, don’t fight them. I’ll be waiting for you.

The terminal turned itself off, and the sound of a mechanical door brought Willow’s and I’s attention to right behind us. With a will of its own, the lifeless elevator that had been behind us both opened its doors for us. I saw Willow to a different, far more intentional gulp. One not born of pain, but of fear. That pain was similarly formed not out of the possible dangers that awaited below, but of the cramped space that would be our travel there.

“I-is there a stairway we can go down? Or perhaps some outside entrance?” She asked me. I wasn’t aware a pony could stutter in telepathy till then. I gave her a deadpan look, hiding that I was feeling just as uncomfortable with the space in question. “We have no choice, do we?”

“No, we don’t,” I told her. “Something tells me the unicorns of the M.A.S. weren’t expecting pegasi to go down there.”

They definitely hadn’t expected pegasi to use the elevator, nopony ever did.

The entire elevator ride down was a battle for the tiniest of wing space, leading to my belief it was stupidly made for only one pony. That or they hadn’t expected an alicorn to go down the elevator with them, which was just as likely. Willow’s wings draped over me once or twice, blocking my vision while I was stuck with no way to stretch my wings. I didn’t even know I needed to do that until the elevator started moving.

With a ding, the elevator stopped its descent and opened up for us. Willow immediately ran out into the heavy darkness before us. I took a few steady breaths in the elevator before following her out, my arrival signaling the lights to turn on. The silence of the world around us was heavier, the air thinner too, and the echo more oppressive than ever. Before the open space known as “outside” wasn’t that far away, but now it was one heavily claustrophobic ride up. This place – this lab – smelled like a pegasi’s worst nightmare.

I looked around myself to the room we had entered, though it was more a hallway than anything else. Our only options were left or right, but only the latter’s lights had been turned on by Lucky Heart. Before us was a window, but we couldn’t see what lay on the other side; the lights of whatever room it was looking into were off.

I briefly entertained going down the left hallway, but the Invisible Mare had been clear about sticking to the lights. I motioned Willow to follow behind me, and we started our way down, refusing to allow curiosity to bring me off the light’s path. It was boring, yes, but after dealing with all the shifters on the top floor it was a wonderful change. It was only when we reached the end of the hallway that we reached the lab proper.

One of the labs, anyway.

The first thing that hit me was the heavy mess that made up the lab, this area clearly nowhere near as heavily overturned as those on the ground floors. Several more thick glass windows looking into dark rooms, a single door left darkened by a lack of light to the side. Willow walked past me, eyes on what looked to be a far less bulky terminal not too far away.

“What do you think they were working on down here?”

“No clue, and it isn’t important. This technology never saw the public eye,” I told her, eyes scanning every inch it could. Despite what I had said, I was also interested in what the M.A.S was working on here. “Must have been something to do with the stars, given they called it Project Nebula.”

“Were they planning to try and enter space or so– holy crap,” I turned to Willow, watching her jaw drop as she stared into a terminal. “It’s… the colors… how did they do this?”

“Willow?”

“It’s not just green. I-It's not just green. Sweet Celestia, the screen isn’t just green!” she said, her hooves unable to stay still. The alicorn turned to me in excitement. “Singing, it isn’t just green! It’s got blues and whites and other colors too.”

I gave her a questioning look as I walked over, eyes on the grounder the entire time. Even as I had to crane my neck up slightly from being right under her, my eyes didn’t stray. When I finally did turn away, I found myself put into a trance, body locking up as the terminal’s immediate oddities.

Willow wasn’t joking; the terminal had colors!

It was still just a terminal, yes, but from it being thinner and the rainbow showcase it was doing I couldn’t help but find myself slightly entranced. Whatever they had been working on, I could somehow tell this was a display of it. The very first message was a show of that, simply saying “HELLO WORLD” both as its title and content. I have no idea where they were gonna go with it all, but I couldn’t deny that it was rather pretty.

That simple message was not the only thing on the terminal, however. There were several entries on it too, spanning past what we knew as the last day. It would be a bit of a pain to read with all the rainbow waves of colors, but it could be done. Lucky Heart never gave us an exact time to meet her, and she had said we would be fine as long as we didn’t enter any areas she didn’t light up.

So I started with the first real entry that was on the terminal.

Entry 2

We did it! We actually did it!

When we received this assignment from Minister Twilight and Princess Luna the idea was only a pipe dream. We all knew why this was asked of us, and we all knew that it could make the energy of the future so much safer, but none of us actually imagined we would succeed. Yet here we are, months later after perfecting our first pressure reactor, having managed to somehow make it small enough to power this simple terminal!

Equestria is close to having the power of a dying star in its very hooves. With just more testing, fine tuning, and experimentation, we can make ourselves a future without balefire energy. A future where magical radiation isn’t a constant worry to have in the standard household. It might even help turn the tides of this war.

In fact, I’ve heard a division has already been given the okay by both Minister Twilight and the princess to start work on a megaspell.

Whoever had made that first entry, that was the only one by them. From the next entry onward, a different and far less impressed individual took over.

Entry 3

Since nopony is using this for anything else anymore, I figured I would use it to share my grievances.

I’m ecstatic that I was assigned to this, don’t get me wrong, but some of these ponies are playing around more than they should. All this talk of different things they could do with black hole energy, of the applications it can be used for are intriguing, but some have gotten horrible distracted. We aren’t meant to be toying with the fabric of dying stars, we are supposed to be developing a new energy system.

For example, a few of the scientists here talked about using it for a firearms platform. That isn’t what we should be focusing on right now! Yes, perhaps after we showcase the pressure reactor to the public we can think of the military power it can have, but nopony is focused on that. Everypony is more interested in pursuing their own little personal projects to be focusing on the major event coming up.

This must have been why I was put in charge. Twilight, you won’t be let down.

Entry 4

It’s gone. Everything above us is… everypony is gone!

We only felt the tremor the megaspell caused when it hit Trotson. Nopony down here was hurt, but one of the older, larger pressure reactors was damaged by being left in a less than safe place. We sent a few up to check and see what happened but they didn’t come back down. They managed to send us a message saying that above ground was too radioactive, and that this was the only safe place.

Today was one of the first days of my life where I found myself thinking about more than the big project I was working on. I found myself thinking of other ponies. It was… I think it was two days ago we sent those ponies up now to look at what had happened above? I’m not sure. I let two brilliant, still living ponies get themselves killed for absolutely nothing.

Is anyone else still alive out there somewhere? Did the stables work? Did some ponies escape the end of the world above ground? So many questions, but the surface is too dangerous. This is my home now, as is the rest of my team.

Minuette, Lemon, Twinkleshine, Twilight, are any of you okay? I know I wasn’t a great friend, if you could even call me that. Heck, none of you probably even remember me. You’re all doing your own things and one of you even runs a ministry! Why am I just now thinking of everything I’ve done wrong? How could I be so stupid?

No, I can’t think like that. These ponies need a leader, and I’m what they got now. I need to figure something, to hopefully keep us alive. To keep ponykind alive.

Entry 5

Something weird happened today with that old reactor I mentioned. We knew it could possibly be harmful so we locked down the area it was in as soon as we could. It was causing the few geiger counters we had to act weird too, and if anypony gets too close to the door it stays that way. There is no way to explain other than it both is and isn’t giving off radiation at the same exact time. The geiger counter says zero, but it beeps as if there is radiation on the other side.

Then one of our team, Aleph, started to get violently sick. It was like a horrible fever, worse than any I’ve ever seen. We’re doing our best to help him, but who knows if there is anything we can do. There isn’t enough supplies down here to last us that long, we need to find out if the surface is safe or not.

“Ghoulification.”

I looked to Willow, raising my brow at the alicorn’s words. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me that she would have figured it out, but it stuck out to me how quickly she had pieced things together. I looked back to the terminal entry, and then to the alicorn once again.

“Glad to say I don’t know how it works. Sounds to me like it was just radiation sickness. Couldn’t that be what we are hearing about?”

“That is also possible,” She answered, nodding her head to me. “Yet she said it wasn’t irradiated… or that it was and wasn’t at the same time. I don’t think they would have absorbed enough to get radiation sickness, but that would probably mean it wasn’t enough to become a ghoul.” Her words confused me, and I could tell she was becoming less and less sure each moment she spoke. “I… I guess it doesn’t make sense. Only way that much radiation could occur was if a megaspell was set off in here.”

“Which we know they were working on,” I said, biting my lip once again. “This… this doesn’t sound good.”

“No,” Willow admitted as I turned back to the terminal. “It doesn’t.”

Entry 6

I take back what I said about how the team shouldn’t be playing with black hole energy to make a weapon, it just saved my life.

Whatever happened to Aleph, he wasn’t the only one who got infected. Some of them are still themselves but others… they can’t be called ponies anymore. They look like ponies, but they aren’t ponies. They act more like feral animals, or perhaps monsters is the better term, then what they use to. We didn’t think of it much at first when Aleph was still himself, though he seems practically indestructible now (he personally volunteered for those insane tests we put him through), but the others…

They started attacking ponies, killing ponies, and then eating them. We locked a few of them in but didn’t have the same luck with others. Then Junction came in with this laser rifle which literally ripped right through one! It gave us time to get some ponies up to the surface – because dying up there seemed like a better idea than dying down here – but it broke. Prototypes I tell you.

Though maybe it is for the best, considering he had called it the “Spaghetti Gun.” Apt, but it sounds dumb.

We’re gonna try and find someplace safe above, assuming we don’t die immediately. Maybe we’ll try and take the unfinished tower near the city’s center. If anypony sees this, leave immediately. These labs are too dangerous. Do not open any doors, and if you are stupid enough to risk your life, don’t fight the infected. You won’t do anything.

We couldn’t do anything.

That was the last entry.

I looked away from the terminal and towards one of the nearby windows, taking everything into account. It was exceptionally clear these idiots had been playing with things they should have, and paid the price for it. Whoever wrote the entry had described a ghoul in some aspects, but not one born from balefire. Balefire ghouls were most certainly not indestructible.

Believing the glass was more than enough to hold whatever was inside back, I rapped my hoof on the window as if it was a door. I watched the darkness closely, waiting for something to approach and try to lunge at me. A few seconds turned into a minute, and nothing happened. Willow, having grown curious at it all, proceeded to follow my example and knock on the window. Hers were a significant amount more forceful, but we still seemed to be getting nothing.

“Perhaps something cl–”

Thud!

Willow jumped and screamed, only to then groan in pain as her head hit the lab’s ceiling. My eyes were not on the grounder who had stupidly hurt themselves, but on the creature that had slammed itself against the window. It could be called a pony in some ways, given its general shape, the fact it had hooves, and the fact it had clearly once been a pony. It even still had its horn, though the jury would remain our own if it knew how to use it.

It was not, however, what I would consider a pony anymore. The intelligence that had once been its eyes had long since faded away, leaving nothing but an animalistic shell behind. A shell that seemed made out of skin far smoother and shinier than any ghoul I had ever seen in my life. It screeched at me, and if I hadn’t had this window in front of me I would have probably been terrified.

“What is it?”

“A ghoul, even if not like any that have ever seen above,” I said, having not been paying attention enough to realize it wasn’t Willow who had spoken. I turned to the alicorn, a small smile on my face. “Seems you were right.”

“Why does being right feel more like a throbbing pain in the head than a victory?” She asked in rhetorical lack of amusement. “Do you really think it is indestructible?”

“Are you feeling lucky enough to find out?”

“Yes!”

“I think I would prefer not to, thank you very much.”

My eyes went wide, realizing that the first voice I heard had been the same one I had heard talking to Willow earlier. I looked around myself, only to notice that same blob of tan, black, and red floating over towards the darkened door. I didn’t care if I was possibly going crazy, I knew what it was about to do and I felt a drive to stop it.

Without explanation, I dove forward and tried to grab the pony-shaped ethereal blob. They passed through my hooves, and I hit the floor hard. Ignoring the discomfort in my jaw, I tried to grab what I thought was its tail with my teeth, but it was useless. I couldn’t touch it, though perhaps that was good. It meant that it couldn’t actually open the door.

“Uh, you alright Singing?” Willow asked. I turned back to see her looking at me skeptically. “You kind of just flung yourself into the floor.”

I ground my teeth, realizing I had just heavily embarrassed myself in front of a grounder. I forced a false calm onto my face, standing up and looking at where I had seen the blob. It had disappeared again, which I took to thinking was a good thing.

“You didn’t see it, did you?” I asked. Her brow rose in confusion. “I saw a blob of tan, black, and red. I saw it earlier too, and it was talking to you.” I looked to where it had been, and then back to the alicorn.”I thought you knew they were there.”

Her jaw hung, a look of horror and fear on her face. “Tan… tan, black and… no, it can’t be. She’s been dead for over a century, there is no way it could be her.”

She stumbled back, and then fell onto her rump. Her eyes darted around, as if looking for something that could disprove what I had told her, or what she was feeling deep down. Her wings danced between folding at her side and spreading wide, a small hint at the fullbody discomfort my words had given her. She opened her jaw further, quaking as if she had had something far too cold to eat or drink.

“I-If… if you… are yo–” She tried to speak, only to fall over in a fit of horrid coughs and pained moans. I grimaced, her discomfort having transferred over to myself. To my horror, she tried again. “Deaaad… D-Deaaad H-Hoov…. Hooves. Are… are…”

She coughed again, tears falling from her face as she tried and failed to speak. I went to shout at her to stop, not thinking whatever she was trying to say was worth it, but froze. The blob appeared again, though it was not heading towards the door anymore. It walked over to Willow, who was still writhing in pain as desperately tried to speak. I didn’t know why, but as the blob turned from the alicorn to me, I realized that it knew.

“You can see me, right?” It asked me. I took a step backwards for my own safety, pointing my gun at it despite knowing it wouldn’t work. “Tell her to stop attempting to speak for me. It hurts seeing my old friend like this.”

Old… friend?

I wanted to call what I was seeing some surface-made delusion, but I couldn’t think of anything that had the power to make illusions. So instead I focused on the blob, doing my best to try and discern what it really looked like. I didn’t actually expect it to do much, but to my surprise the mists that seemed to cover their true self parted away, allowing me to see what I was really talking to. I felt my heart sting at the sight.

Before me was a grounder, a unicorn, with a look of longing and desperation in her eyes. Her light tan fur was see through, as was the black and red mane and tail that made up the rest of her. She seemed unsteady on her legs, as if any moment they would collapse out from underneath her. Most suprising of all, she lacks a cutie mark.

“I… I know you’re confused. Trust me, knowing somepony can actually see me is… I never thought it would happen,” she said, walking forward. I couldn’t help but notice how her front hooves were the only ones that moved; her back ones sat as still as a pony in a photograph. “We can discuss this all later, though. Please tell her to stop calling out for me.”

“To stop calling out for…,” I didn’t need to finish my statement, because it had become painfully clear who this must have been before me. “Dead Hooves?”

The mare or ghost or whatever she was gave me a nod. I looked to Willow, and then back to her.

“Willow, Dead Hooves says to stop,” I said, voice monotone as my brain scrambled to figure out what was going on. The alicorn did as I asked, though not before a gasp came out of her muzzle. “She…she’s here somehow. I can see her.”

“Wh-what?” She asked, even her mind’s voice sounding as if it was still on the verge of tears. “How? Sh-she’s dead.”

“I don’t know Willow. I don’t know how I’m still here,” Dead Hooves replied, laying down in front of her friend. Horn touched horn, the dead mare’s eyes closed as her lips found themselves stuck unable to decide whether to smile or scowl. That touch, while I doubt Willow could truly feel it, caused the alicorn to calm down and look in Dead’s direction. “I think I’m somewhere in between. I didn’t think anypony could see me until today.”

I took another few steps back as it finally hit me what I was seeing. This pony hadn’t been alive for decades, possible tagging along with her old friends the entire time and neither of them knew. She was correct; nopony should have been able to see her. Seeing the dead wasn’t a normal thing. Yet here I was, looking at a dead mare.

This was all too much. My head was spinning and I needed to sit down.

“Lucky, if you’re listening, we’re gonna need to stop for a second,” I said, walking back in the direction I had come from. “The surface is making me see things.”

I wasn’t entirely sure how long I had sat in that hallway, looking up at the fluorescent lights. All I knew was that I had been given a few, comfortable minutes of wonderful silence. Silence that I desperately needed, because my head hadn’t stopped spinning since… I’m not sure. It had started sometime after reading the terminal entries, but that was all I could put together. Either way I needed it, and I doubted a certain metal ball would be able to find me down here.

My brain had too many questions, and absolutely no answers for any of them. The oddities and strange occurrences were starting to get a bit too much with this damn building, and if it wasn't the Invisible Mare herself I would have turned and walked right back out the building. I could take terminals with more than one color, unusual ghouls, and fillies with more power than usual in their hooves. Seeing the dead was a whole different matter.

Seeing the dead. How in tartarus was I doing that?

Didn’t matter how many times I stated it to myself, or how much I tried to explain. The simple idea that I, a pegasus, was able to see and talk with dead ponies left me confused, put off, and disturbed. It didn’t matter that it was a grounder; this kind of shit shouldn’t be possible! Had I been able to do this my entire life and it had taken me over thirty-six years to realize it? Were there ponies I considered friends who were not really alive?

The screams that I heard, when the world shut my trauma out, were they more than just the manifestation of one mare’s damaged psyche? I didn’t know, and couldn’t answer.

I’m not sure what Willow Wisp and Dead Hooves did in the laboratory. The two couldn’t exactly talk to each other in a manner befitting a conversation, but perhaps that was for the best. Willow needed to rest up, especially since Sharpshot was the pony with the cloud nine on them; aggravating her throat wasn’t gonna do her any good.

I’m not sure how long it was until a pony came talking to me, but like with Watcher I heard their voice before I saw their face.

“Um… excuse,” they said. I looked at them, silently swearing as I saw the ethereal form of Dead Hooves next to me. “Singing Rhapsody, right? Willow is ready to get moving again, she’s just waiting for you.”

I stared at the ghost for a couple of seconds, and then turned my attention to the wall. “I’ll let her come get me. It’s you and the surface’s fault that my head is hurting, after all.”

“Oh yeah, sure, it’s my fault. Totally mine,” She replied sarcastically. She sounded nearly as cocky as Sharpshot did. “And you aren’t getting rid of me. Where Willow and that jackass goes, I go.”

“Your opinion of her husband isn’t that high?” I asked. Given how young the pony before me looked, it was a lot easier to cast aside my anger. She must have been in her late teens when she died.

“Sharpshot is an asshat, you know that just as much as I do,” Dead Hooves replied, sitting down on the opposite wall from me. I snorted in amusement, because she was right. “I don’t exactly approve of them, but there ain’t anything I can do about it on account of me being as dead as my name suggests.” She looked as if she had started to chew on something horribly sour. “Possibly could have stopped them from choosing to make Willow a fucking alicorn. What were they thinking?”

I couldn’t place it, but hearing this dead mare speak felt… comfortable for me, like I was talking to a friend I never knew. She was still a grounder, and the mere fact I could talk to the dead put me on edge, but there was something about her that felt different. She seemed more sensible, more understanding, perhaps even a bit smarter than the rest of the ponies around me.

“Ponies will do absurd things to stay with the ones they love sometimes. You ask me those are the type of relationships you need to be most careful of,” I told Dead Hooves, swirling my hoof around in a circle motion. “That's a dangerous type of love. Sure, going far for your loved ones is important but there are cases where it can be a bit… extreme. I feel like that is the situation we are dealing with.”

“Exactly! You get it!” Dead Hooves exclaimed. She clapped her hooves together, but they made zero noise. Her eyes then darted to the floor. “I mean, they do both seem to love each other, and I do approve of Sharpshot trying to stick up for Willow, but he has made her life so much harder. I think it would have been easier on them both if the killing joke had managed to actually kill her, though saying that makes me sick.”

“It’s a tough situation. Like a mother having a child she doesn’t love, but wants to raise right,” I said. The dead grounder nodded at me. “I know some pegasi back home that deal with stuff like that. It sucks, but you can’t get rid of all the bad.”

Dead Hooves gave a nod, but her eyes refused to meet my own. We sat there in silence for a time, though only sounds that broke through came from either me shifting wear I sat or the occasional movement of my tail. It was the ghost that broke the silence.

“You have somepony you need to talk to, right? Somepony important?” Dead Hooves asked. “It would probably be best if you got moving then.”

“Yeah, probably,” I admitted, getting to my hooves. I started to walk back towards the lab, only to stop and look at Dead Hooves. Unlike every other time I had broken eye contact with her, she was still there. “I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other. Just don’t get in the way too much.”

“I won’t. Don’t worry,” She replied. Then, much to my surprise, she gave me a salute. “Glory to the Grand Pegasus Enclave, Miss Rhapsody.”

My eyes went wide at her action, because none of it was in mockery. This grounder actually meant it! I wanted to ask where she got the salute from, but she vanished from view as if she wasn’t there in the first place. I stared at where she had been, as if it would somehow give me anything resembling an answer.

“Uh, right back at you,” I said. I wasn’t sure if Dead Hooves was actually there anymore, but the subconscious urge to salute hit me. I gave in to that urge, but where the ghost had done it with her hooves I more accurately did it with my wings. “Glory to the Grand Pegasus Enclave.”

Act 1 – Chapter 12: The Invisible Mare

M.A.S. hub, Trotson

Day 3

After briefly contemplating what a grounder knowing an Enclave salute could possibly mean, I shoved Dead Hoove’s entire existence into the back of my mind. It was a mystery, and one that I personally felt I needed to solve, but that wouldn’t happen right now. The Invisible Mare was waiting for us, and I didn’t want to test a foal’s patience. If she was anything like Rainy and Clear, that wouldn’t be fun.

When I found Willow in the labs she was an absolute mess, face stained with tears and laying in a corner. She looked up at me as I made my way to her, doing her best to wipe the stains from her cheeks to minimal effort. A sigh left her lips, failing to get rid of the burden holding onto her. A burden that I had likely caused.

“I couldn’t see her, or hear her, and I couldn’t even talk to her,” Willow explained. “Yet I could tell she was there. I could feel her, even if it… even if….”

“She wouldn’t want to see you like this,” I replied. The alicorn’s muzzle opened just the slightest bit, her head tilted slightly to the left. “She’s your friend, right? Even down here on the surface you ponies must understand how important having ponies you can trust is. She stuck with you and Sharpshot all these years because you’re her friend.”

I’m not sure why I was bothering to explain it all, but it gave a desirable effect. After lowering her head, seeming to lose herself in thought, her hooves shuffled. Standing up, still breathing heavily from the crying she had done, the grounder did her best to give me a smile. She couldn’t keep it up for longer than a few seconds.

“Yeah, it is nice. I’m glad to have a friendly face here,” She said, looking at a random spot on the floor. No doubt that was where she believed Dead Hooves to be, but they weren’t there. I wasn’t quite sure where they were, now that I think about it. “Thanks Dead Hooves. I know you probably disapproved of a lot of things Sharpshot and I did, but it is nice to have you around.”

We left the lab not long after, entering back into another hallway and entering momentary silence. My eyes wandered to the windows, wondering if any ghouls trapped in opposite rooms were possibly watching us as we walked around. I understood that Lucky using the light as an indicator was probably her best option, but I couldn’t help but feel a target painted on my back. If any of these things broke out, they would know exactly where we were.

I didn’t want to find out if they were truly indestructible or not.

The next lab we entered seemed very similar to the first, except Lucky had to darken two doors instead of just one this time. Another few terminals, most of which seeming to be in far too much disrepair, could be seen next to windows. They were probably meant for keeping tabs on the experiments being run down here. Experiments meant in good faith, but would never see the light of day.

A few were working, but outside of two they all seemed to have been corrupted in some way. Perhaps a bad wire or something inside them had been messed with just right, but the contents on them came up as gibberish. I would have probably checked them if something else hadn’t caught my interest quicker.

Laying nice and out in the open for anypony to pick up was what seemed like an experimental firearm. A laser rifle if I was to make a more in depth guess. Its dark blue, glowing receiver stuck out nearly as much as the clear battery that was slotted in for ammo. Inside was something strange, seeming to warp the space around it and doing it damndest to pull what it could in. It had taken hold of my fascination, and by Celestia it was refusing to let go.

I picked it up and looked it over, noting how some parts of it felt home-made while other parts were far too intricately designed. It was a prototype, that was for sure, and while it no doubt worked I doubted any military service would want it. The firearms in use by the Enclave were reliable, easy to maintain, and easy to use. This looked like I needed seven pages of a user manual just to understand how the magazine unclipped.

If this thing got dirty, that was likely it.

“Is that the gun that scientist mentioned in the rainbowy terminal?”

I looked at the alicorn, who was currently sifting through a terminal since I had busied myself with the prototype rifle. As I turned my attention back to said rifle, I willed up a part of the MentaBuck I hadn’t played around with: being the storage manager. A move which caused my intrigue to turn into disappointment at the sight of the name written on it. Sweet princesses, they had actually decided to call it “the Spaghetti Gun”.

As if either the MentaBuck or Luck Heart felt how upset the name made me, I watched as the letters changed. Its name had been changed from the… Spaghetti Gun, to the Atomizer. I felt the tiniest sliver of hope in ponykind be restored at the sight, only to have it crushed immediately after as I remembered what the surface was like. It was nice having it for what little time I did, however.

The terminal had mentioned it was broken, and one look at it via the MentaBuck confirmed that. It only looked like it could function because it had been built more intricately than a pre-war watch. I sat it back down on the table, frustrated that I wouldn’t be able to at least try out a firearm that nopony had ever seen before. That also might have been for the best, cause I didn’t want to find out if this thing being made by scientists made it liable for explosion.

“Anything of interest over there?” I asked the alicorn as I started to make my way over to her.

“Not a lot I understand. I don’t recognize a lot of the words on the screen,” she answered. Her words seemed to make herself self-conscious, a hoof twirling through her mane. “My owner taught me how to read, but only the basics. Said he didn’t have any use for a slave who couldn’t tell which version of “where” was being said.”

I wasn’t sure how to voice my feelings about that all, so I simply gave her a nod. “Anything interesting you do understand then?”

“It mentioned something called Nebula again. Not Project Nebula, just Nebula,” she explained. She gave me a shrug. “Seems the entire purpose of this place was to make a new energy source.”

“One that didn’t involve magical radiation,” I replied. I looked to the terminal for a moment, and then started walking towards the only lit up door in the room. “It doesn’t matter anymore. None of this matters to our world today.”

As I reached the door and opened it, I looked behind me to see Willow staring at me blankly. She averted eye contact as soon as I noticed her staring at me, turning back to the terminal. Her blank expression shifted into a frown, and a solemn nod was given to me. As she trotted over to me, I found myself curious as to what had her down. Did the alicorn think this still had meaning for our world today? Or did she wish that it did still matter?

I leaned towards the latter, because it felt more sensible.

Our journey led us to a single door right in the middle of a hallway, nowhere near as big or sturdy as the others. Everything to the left slowly faded into darkness, and a look at the local map on my MentaBuck (which was still ridiculously hard to read) showed no other doors in the room beyond. This is where Lucky Heart had wanted us, but why here I had no real idea.

Willow and I shared a look, and then the former opened the door. As we stepped in, we were greeted by the first real signs of centuries having passed down here. The walls, floors, ceilings, and a large majority of the lab equipment had remained intact and in good condition throughout most of the facility. This was a very different environment compared to the rest of the labs. I saw multiple bookshelves filled to the brim with material that, while not as horribly discolored and moldy as what was typically found above ground, were clearly aged. A terminal with a microphone and radio sat to one side, and sitting out on top of it was something that gave me a major pause.

A statuette.

I could save it for later, because it was not the traitor’s statuette. My eyes instead turned to the pile of sheets strown along one corner of the floor. A makeshift bed if I were to guess, given that I had learned ponies had indeed called this place home for a small span of time. The only reason most of this stuff hadn’t been taken with them was probably due to the ghouls that this place held prisoner. They definitely felt like an intellectual.

“So where do we go from here?” I shouted out, feeling pretty sure that Lucky would hear me. “As far as I can tell there isn’t anywhere else to go.”

The radio next to the terminal came to life, my expression forming into a grimace despite my best efforts. It wasn’t the low static hum of the Sprite-Bots or a terminal, but the kind one got when in between radio channels. Willow had turned her attention to it long before I did, the radio seeming to tune itself without any outside help needed. At certain points I could hear the faintest signs of a feminine voice coming through, but it took some time until I could actually hear what was being said.

“Okay, this thing should be working now. The bitch was right, should have worked that out beforehoof.”

“I would prefer it if you used my real name. Profanities are unnecessary.”

I blinked, having not expected two different voices to be coming through at once. One sounded far younger and more playful, though with a hint of annoyance hidden behind it all. The second was more robotic, but something in my gut said it wasn’t actually a robot. There was a more natural, authentic tone in their voice I didn’t believe a machine could emulate. With hesitant steps I stepped closer to the radio, watching the walls around me.

I couldn’t be sure that everything in here was actually safe. Something felt off.

“Hey, she’s my pony of interest. Let me take care of this,” the younger voice said. There was a pause, and then she spoke up again. “Apologies Miss Rhapsody. My associate doesn’t feel that kind about the ponies of today, so disregard anything she might say.”

“Do not worry. I feel the same,” I told the voice, ignoring the annoyed huff and pout my words received from Willow. “I can wager a guess at who you are. Lucky Heart, correct.”

“Yes. Apologies for stringing you along like this,” they replied. I could hear her smirk from the other side, making me doubt the validity of her apology. “I would have simply contacted you from your radio, but Enclave tech isn’t something I have much control over. It’s weird to experience that, after five years of being able to control everything.” She laughed as if what she had said was a joke. I didn’t find it funny. “I’m sure you know how it feels, being afraid of something which you don’t know.”

Her attempts at being friendly put me off. It was exceptionally clear that friendliness was only surface level, and as such I treated it as I would anything surface related. I walked over to the radio and stared down at it with fury and confidence, chest out and posture straight. Clearly the filly thought of me as an easy target; I couldn’t allow that.

“I didn’t come here to entertain conversation with a grounder-born filly, especially one playing princess,” I stated, voice stoic and unmoving. “You want something from me, and if I’m guessing correctly, it's because you have the documents Angel Hair had on you.”

“ArcanaTech has what?!”

“You know why I'm here, and what I’m looking for. I can already take a guess at what you want, so don’t bother trying to be friendly. Now go on, explain yourself.”

The radio remained silent, and for a second I expected it to stay that way. Then a different voice, the one that sounded more robotic, chimed in.

“I highly discourage you to act like you have any authority here, lieutenant colonel,” she said, as if those simple words would be enough to shake me. “Allow me to be clear, I personally do not know this city inside out. I know it better than the filly, and know how to take control of everything within the Project Nebula labs and turn it against you.”

I gave the radio a disappointed look. “And you claim this because…”

“That information isn’t important. All you need to know is my name: Moondancer,” the second voice said, the slightest hint of hate present within every word she spoke. “Now you will listen to your better, twisted amalgamation of ponykind. I doubt you have the intellect and ability to fight a nebula ghoul.”

A snarl escaped me for a moment, but I caught myself and hid it as quickly as possible. The wound to my pride hurt, and I would typically not let a fucking wise-ass grounder ever think of me as there better, but this wasn’t the time. The term “nebula ghoul” clearly referred to the ghoul Willow and I had seen through the window, and the only known way to kill it was broken. As much as I hated to admit it, I had no choice but to shut up.

“Now, let's go over what I’ve got collected, feel free to take that statuette by the way,” Lucky said, her last few words getting a grumble out of Moondancer. “I can assure it is real… just like the one you destroyed in the hotel.”

Given permission to piss off the grounder, I did as I was told and grabbed it. The statuette was of Minister Twilight Sparkle, “be smart” written on the plaque. I knew it was meant as encouragement, but in the given situation I couldn’t help but find it a double meaning. If I wasn’t smart here, I would die. That would do the Enclave any good, and it wouldn’t be good for Lucky.

I placed it in my saddlebag and turned my focus back towards the Invisible Mare.

“Incredibly standoffish, cold, and thinks little of us here on the surface. Better at killing ponies than she is at small talking them if the events in the apartment complex are anything to go by,” Lucky listed off. “Slight intrigue in pre-last day history. Has a husband and two daughters, all of which still live above the clouds, and looking for a pony named Angel Hair. Now, question, is there any reason you destroyed that statuette back in the hotel?”

“It was an image of a traitor, one despised by all sane pegasi,” I explained, considering the information well known enough both among the clouds and surface to be okay to explain. If this had been any city besides Trotson, I might have been shocked at the question. “Rainbow Dash forsaken her kind in their time of need. That is all there is to it.”

“It’s like we thought then; deep seated hatred and resentment built up from two centuries of near-isolation,” Lucky responded, interest clear in her voice. “Funny, so many ponies saw her as a hero. Guess like everypony with a damn cutie mark she was more caught up in herself than being right.”

While I couldn’t but agree with her assessment of the first dashite, there was a hint of something more. A sadness, a desperation that what she felt deep down wasn’t actually true. What I had said had been the final nail in a long constructed coffin filled with dead beliefs.

“The name Moondancer, it showed up on the other terminal I checked,” Willow said. A gave her a brief side glance, telling her I was listening. “It can’t be the same pony; that was two centuries ago and they sounded nothing like a ghoul. Has to be offspring or somepony unrelated.”

“Now then, I have other questions but those can wait till later. Everypony else is in position, it's showtime!” she replied, pulling both Willow and I’s attention back to more pressing matters. Who this Moondancer pony was could wait. “Now, I’m sure you're already aware of this Miss Rhapsody – most likely due to a certain mutual acquaintance – but to summarize I have interest in the tech the Enclave was working on. It’s rather nasty stuff in the form you were all making it in, but I can see it applied in more… useful ways.”

“That isn’t the reason I’m down here to collect it and you know it,” I stated, leaning down against the desk. “The G.P.E. wants it destroyed. You are part of that reason.”

“And I need to remind you that my reach only extends so far. Without connection to the S.P.P. main hub, I am no threat to the Enclave,” Lucky explained. I stood firm, showing with only body language she hadn’t changed my mind. “Miss Rhapsody, I can understand the apprehension you must have for working with me – with ArcanaTech as a whole – but I can assure you we are no threat. In fact our beliefs align. We understand the Enclave’s hatred of today’s Equestria, and the danger it possesses. Thus why we seek to control it… and perhaps better it.”

“You amalgamations have wallowed in uncivilized chaos for two centuries,” Moondancer chimed in. “In time, ArcaneTech plans to fix that. Those documents hold information that will be vital to the making of a new Equestria. Restoration of civilization, a decent goal worthy of forfeiting allegiances.”

“Your motives do not matter, and do not compare the pegasi of the Enclave to yourselves,” I said, allowing a small amount of displeasure to seep through my voice. “We are more than you grounders ever were, more than you can be now, and more than you ever will be. Do not act like you are anywhere close to as glorious as the Enclave, and don’t try to toy with one of its soldiers.”

The door leading out of the office suddenly opened back up, and I turned my head ready to fire on whatever entered. Instead we were greeted with darkness, only able to see the wall across from the door due to the lights directly above me. It was a threat, and a look at the alicorn next to me shrinking in fear told me it was half working.

“I can understand your displeasure, Miss Rhapsody, but I think it is important to tell you we weren’t asking for your assistance,” Lucky said, her voice far less playful than it was before. That well-hidden annoyance had taken center stage. “We’re requiring it. You want to leave alive? You want your chance at vengeance? Then you will undermine your own and help ArcanaTech. Am I clear, soldier?”

If she was physically there I would have slapped the filthy grounder, filly or not. Instead I was forced to endure, grind my teeth against each other, and do as I was told. I didn’t want to help them, but I also didn’t have any say about if I could or not. With that in mind, I gave them a faux sigh to hopefully make them think I was willing to cooperate.

First chance I had to get out of their grasp, I was taking it.

“Now then, allow me to make this forced arrangement good for you: I know where Angel Hair is, and I’m willing to give you her location.”

I then proceed to do the dumbest thing I could in that moment: I let my reawakened emotions show. I beamed, a grin bordering on psychopathic gracing my muzzle at the news given to me. I wasn’t won over, but false cooperation had turned into willing cooperation in the span of a single statement. The Invisible Mare had me, and I could only assume she was smiling like a predator who had just caught their first meal in days.

“All I ask is that you fulfill a little request. Do not worry, you can do it right here, and it can not harm you or your companion,” Lucky said, her voice making me realize my mistake far too late. I did my best to hole up the glee I was feeling with stoicism, but I doubt it did anything at the end of the day. “Two actually. I’m sure you remember Gold. Close friend of mine, made a bit of an unsavory first impression if I’m guessing correctly.”

“The griffon that stabbed me in the back as soon as we were out of Trotson Station,” I replied, giving a mechanical nod. “Why do you bring him up?”

“I’m sure your alicorn companion would want to hear this too. Come close, Miss Willow Wisp,” Lucky requested. I looked back to Willow, who in turn looked at me. She slowly walked up to the desk, giving me a cautious glance. “You are the wife of a Mister Open Heart, right? You’ll be happy to know he, as well as Miss Gemini, are safe. You can thank Gold for that; it was his form of an apology.”

Willow let out a long breath, her body releasing tension neither of us knew had likely built up in her body. “Thank Celestia.”

“That is only the start of his apology. I’ll be having him tag along with you, and this isn’t negotiable,” Lucky explained. One corner of my lip bent down, but I kept my mouth shut. “The first request is you make sure he doesn’t die. He’s the closest thing to a father I have anymore.”

“Deal,” I replied. “Just don’t expect me to be friendly.”

“He’ll win you over in time trust me,” she said, a bit of that cheer she had lost earlier coming back. “Now for the second one. You know I spent time in Stable 71, and that it is where my parents died. Sandstone was given express permission to use it as long as they don’t do anything that I don’t like.” She paused. “The garden was okayed by me personally. I didn’t expect it to last long, given the lack of real soil and nutrients. When it managed through a couple of months I took a bit more interest, and discovered how: they incinerate the dead or captured, and use the ash to feed the soil.”

I refused to react externally, but the loud inhale Willow did next to me spoke how I felt. The incineration of the already deceased did not disturb me, that was simple cremation. What did was the doing the same exact thing to living ponies, whether they were grounders or not didn’t matter. I subtly scraped the tip of my hoof against the office floor, remembering Bone Breaker’s statement about wanting more Enclave to come to Trotson, and seeing it in a far different light.

“Were they going to do this to Sharpshot and Gemini?” I asked. Willow looked at me as if I had gone insane, the slight hope that Bone Breaker had something resembling a heart still burning in her.

“It’s incredibly likely. They did send you to die, after all,” Lucky answered. Willow’s head lowered at the confirmation. “Don’t feel sad, Miss Wisp. Your husband is safe, that is all that matters.”

“I know but… I wanted my gut to be wrong,” Willow replied, despite Lucky and Moondancer likely having no ability to answer. “It can't hurt too much to try and find the good in ponies, right?”

“The Invisible Mare’s has been broken, and a pony must face punishment,” Moondancer spoke, confirming that they indeed couldn’t hear the alicorn. “It will be decided by you, Singing Rhapsody, who receives it. The choice is between Bone Breaker or her son, Razor. Who do you choose?”

Most ponies would have likely asked why they had to pick or what the punishment was. I didn’t, because it was the only other thing necessary to get Angel Hair’s location. All I had to do was speak a name, and their first leg of my journey for vengeance could be considered nearly complete.

“Before the technological boom and the union of the three tribes, pegasi would amputate in order to get rid of infected wounds,” I explained. “The same solution comes here. Punish Bone Breaker.”

For just about a minute, there was silence. It was broken not by myself, Willow, or Moondancer, but Lucky.

“She isn’t in Trotson anymore, so I can’t give you the exact coordinates, but I know where she is heading. It’s a place called Our Haven. She’s looking for her father and believes they are there.”

I felt a flame of rage light in my heart. The implication made Angel’s treason even worse.

“Her… father? Why would he be down here?”

“Cause it is her blood father she's talking about,” I answered, turning to Willow. “Her mother had her before getting married; a fling during a surface deployment.” I glanced to the left, eyes seeing bookshelves. Lucky wasn’t there, I knew it, but it felt better than staring at a radio for much longer. “You told her, didn’t you?”

“She came to us, offering valuable Enclave resources in exchange for finding her father. An earth pony named Molten Glass, apparently,” Lucky explained. I felt the fire inside my chest grow, wanting so badly to scream in rage at what such sensitive information had been given up for. “Funny isn’t it? When you Enclave ponies came five years ago you were talking about how high and mighty you were compared to us. Turns out you're just like the rest of us.“

Without any hesitation, a roared out and slammed my hoof down onto the radio. It didn’t hold up to the force, caving inwards and spark slightly. I heard the clop of hooves behind me, no doubt Willow taking a few steps back in fright. She had all the right to be afraid, and I had every right to be angry. I had endured Sharpshot’s idiotic world view, the same unicorn throwing our entire plan into the gutter just to spite on fucking mare, and now the continuous insults and exploitation of the Enclave by ArcanaTech. All of that was endured just so I could gain some idea of where one fucking traitor was.

The mark against being a pure pegasus, about being no better then some filthy mud-rolling cretin that’s first emotion was psychotic glee, was the snapping point.

“I am not like you!” I screamed at the broken radio, knowing that Lucky could still hear me. “You and your fucking “organization” is nothing compared to the Enclave! We have education, a military, a government that has maintained for two entire centuries. We have more than you will ever have. We are more than you will ever be! So how about you go ahead, keep your cavity-filled mouth shut, and learn your damn place!”

My response came in the form of darkness, sudden and all encompassing. If I wasn’t so angry, I might have realized how much shit I had just put myself in, but it was too late. There was a soft blaring of warnings in a far off room, a sign something had gone horribly wrong. If I had been in a better mental state I probably would have realized what that meant. Instead the aggravating noise just rose by temper further.

“Rhapsody I think it might be a good idea to quiet–“

“Shut up! I don’t want to talk to you right now!” I exclaimed, turning around looking at where I assumed Willow to be. I couldn’t actually see anything. “I shouldn’t even know you! I should be back up in the clouds with my family, enjoying a forced retirement. Instead I left them and… and…,” my legs suddenly lost all ability to move, emotions swapping from anger to sadness like I was a teenager instead of a grown mare. “and I decided to abandon them. I shouldn’t have left them. I’m a terrible mother.”

I felt two hooves, one feeling not completely there while the other pressed down from above. I wanted to cry, but I could. Anchor wasn’t there, and neither of the ponies behind me held their special touch. So I just sat there, questioning, languishing in self-made torment until somepony broke the silence.

“Thinking about “what if” won’t do anything. We make decisions, deal with the goods and bads of it, and move on,” the first pony, Dead Hooves I quickly realized, said to me. I had no idea when she had shown up, and I wasn’t in a state to be thinking about such questions. “You’re already down here, with us. No reason to linger on untraveled roads.”

“You’re here because of your family, Singing,” Willow said, her words somewhat overlapping with Dead Hooves own. “You want them to be safe and happy. You’re battling for them. I’m sure they are happy, knowing that.”

Dead Hooves’ words did more than Willow’s. I understood the alicorn was trying to help but she was wrong about a lot. Anchor, Clear, and Rainy knew nothing about why I had actually come down here. They weren’t aware of anything, outside of the fact that I was branded. Anchor had comforted me, but my foals likely saw me as a villain.

Yet thinking about it all would get me nowhere. I could save it for later, when my anger wasn’t causing myself problems. I initially reached a hoof to wrap around Dead Hooves, but was quickly reminded that she wasn’t really alive. The next hoof correctly went around Willow, who pulled me up off the ground.

“Not gonna lie, didn’t expect you to try and cheer me up,” I said.

“I spent twenty years of my life being told “kill” by a pony I didn’t like. It caused me to see all the bad in ponies,” She replied. Through the darkness, I could see the slightest sign of a smile. “When Dead Hooves and I traveled together, I had the ability to look at ponies through another lens. I learned that what I had been seeing was just the worst parts of ponies, and I wanted to change that.” Having determined I was more than able to stand up by this point, Willow let go of my hoof, allowing it to stiffly meet the floor. “I decided it was best to start finding the good.”

I blinked, then tilted my head. “I doubt you found any down here, outside maybe Sharpshot.”

“You would be surprised. I learned a lot from that experience, even if I’ve become a bit easy to manipulate because of it,” I watched her outline start to pace through the darkness, my eyes slowly adjusting to the lack of light. “I met Dead Hooves, Sharpshot, this doctor named Stitches, a Zebra named Joy, and of course Star Chart. Sure, not all of them were good, but they had good in them. Finding that did a lot for me, even when things went wrong with the Goddess, because I could see that there was some good in her goals.” She looked at me. “I know it can be hard, talking to ponies you don’t understand, but maybe it can help you down here. It certainly did for me.”

I couldn’t give an answer, because something about admitting she was right or wrong felt off. I likened it to a song that I couldn’t quite place, or a memory just out of my reach, but somehow worse. If it hadn’t been for the radio suddenly stirring back to life, even if only on the edge of it, I probably would have sat there trying to figure out what it was.

“Hel… you t… er m… Moon… ry… let ou… ele… rry!”

It was hard to tell what the pony on the other side – likely Lucky – was saying, but now that my emotions weren’t controlling me I didn’t need to hear them. The lights were out, the exact thing that Moondancer had threatened us with when I tried to remind her of her place. No, it wasn’t the lights itself that were the threat, but what her control of the labs meant. The alarm blaring far in the distance had stopped, and I had a feeling it was to draw something out instead of make us run.

“I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“Yep.”

As if the MentaBuck itself found the need to reply, multiple red dots started to show up on my E.F.S.

“Great,” I replied, holding in the groan that was trying to surface. “Let's take the way we came here back. I’m not entirely sure, but that way seems far less dense.”

I couldn’t tell if the silence was our friend or enemy, and the same went with the darkness. One made our hoofsteps far too loud, and the other left very little vision of the world around us. I constantly found myself checking the local map, cause even with my eyes well adjusted to the lightless world around me things were impossible to see. The only reason I knew we had reached the door of a lab was because we had reached a dead end. The same exact lab the Atomizer had been found in. If there wasn’t a door next to us, then my lack of vision had clearly been worse than before.

While there had been red dots earlier, the E.F.S. had blinked them away as soon as it was clear I wasn’t in immediate danger. That meant that, if there was something on the other side, I wouldn’t know it was there until it saw me. Taking into consideration that I would likely not be able to fight it, I did my best to line myself up just right so that not a single part of my weapons or myself were visible through the door.

I looked to the alicorn across from me, who was far too large to hide on the doors side. Of course, being both an alicorn and having the ability to turn invisible, she wasn’t in anywhere near as much danger as myself. She opened the door, only to stammer back with it only half open as something wailed at her. Thinking quickly, Willow turned invisible.

I rushed out of cover in an attempt to close the door, but closing it wouldn’t have stopped the beast. Like a frag grenade, the door suddenly burst open, knocking me several feet away and away from the lab.and onto the hallway’s floor. Getting my hooves back under me as quickly as possible, I unloaded two rounds into the ghoul, only for them to bounce off its skin like a pebble. It screamed at me, not from rage at being harmlessly shot but for sheer intimidation.

As if to add to the fear created by me wasting two of my six remaining rounds, the E.F.S.’ right corner suddenly became alight with red. Only one red dot was directly in front of me, and the subject of its existence was stampeding towards me with hooves that sounded more like a mini earthquake than a simple clop.

The only reason it didn’t reach me was a sudden invisible force suddenly picking it up from the ground and chucking it into the lab. Lost to the darkness of the lab we had tried to enter, all I got was the loud thud the ghoul gave against it’s wall, and then another as it fell down. Willow lowered her invisibility, a manic excitement in her eyes, drooling at whatever she saw. If it wasn’t for the mass amount of red dots shifting in my lower vision, I would have asked her about it.

“Willow just leave it–”

“It’s sturdier than me,” A chill went through me as her voice bordered on foal-like wonder. “but I can still make it bleed.”

Shock and fear mingled inside my mind as she charged the beast. It charged her back, matching her pained battle cry with a banshee scream, not carrying that it was facing an alicorn. Willow turned mere moments before collision, slamming her hoof into its head.

It did jack shit, the ghoul continuing to barrel into her, nearly managing to knock her over if she hadn’t bent her hind legs. It nearly knocked over an alicorn, and judging by the fact Willow was getting pushed back it was significantly more powerful. As Willow tried to push it off, it sank it into her shoulder. She wasn’t getting out of this without outside assistance.

I need to get it off her. I need to hit its eye.

Only three bullets remained in the semi-auto, but it would do the job significantly better than the novasurge. Not wanting to miss or chance hitting Willow, I burst in and ran up, using my wings to gain a bit of altitude as I closed the distance. As I activated S.A.T.S., I aimed for the head and readied a shot. Time picked its pace back up, a bang deafened everypony present, and a feral scream joined it as the ghoul let go.

I hit the ground with a thud, watching as Willow punched it as hard as she could. To my surprise it was still alive, the shot apparently not hitting its brain… or maybe it did. Clearly whatever megaspell created it had caused its body to become insanely strong. Could that go for its insides as well? A question for when I wasn’t fighting for my own life.

Willow grabbed a terminal from the nearest counter, not having any care for the information that could possibly be contained on it, and hurled it at the ghoul. It did more damage to the machine then it did to her enemy, its muzzle not drawing even the smallest amount of blood. With even more force than she had used to throw the terminal, she proceeded to slam its head into the ground with both her hooves and put all her body weight on top of it.

The beating that proceeded would have killed anything else, haymaker after haymaker thrown at the undead abomination’s face with strength only an alicorn could muster. She held absolutely nothing back; the shadow’s of absolute darkness made it impossible to see her hooves from a punch being unchambered to then being unleashed upon the unsuspecting foal under her. It took several dozen strikes – the insane look on her face keeping me from getting closer or telling her we were wasting time – but then I saw it: red on the ghouls muzzle.

“Yes! Bleed! Bleed!” Willow commanded, sounding more like an insane dictator then the wonderful, sane mare that had pulled me from somber realization. “Show me more. I want to see more!”

The creature was on the floor, and now that it had been bloodied once it was easily bloodied more. The seemingly endless string of punches did find an end, coming in the form of Willow slamming both hooves down on its face with. It’s face was barely dented inwards, the meaty squish and the crash of bones was enough to quench that blood craze that had obtained my companion. I’m not sure if her silently getting off, seeming a bit embarrassed by what she did, was nearly as shocking as the fact it was still breathing. It didn’t seem conscious, but it wasn’t dead!

“I, uh, got a bit excited. Sorry.”

“It’s… it’s fine.”

Willow nodded as I made my way up to her side, my eyes on the slow, heavy rise and fall of the nebula ghoul’s chest. Its hooves flailed, though it wasn’t anywhere near as fast as the typical panicked animal; a likely result of the beating it had just received. As soon as I noticed it wasn’t unconscious I picked up my pace, Willow matching it with much less effort. My eyes stayed on it, allowing me to see the moment the ghoul managed to get a hoove back underneath it.

Willow’s ears twisted at the thundering sound its hoof made, followed soon by her neck as she gave a gleeful stare at the creature she had spent the past few minutes beating into the ground. I got into the air and proceeded to smack her clean across the nose, breaking whatever spell the ghoul’s movement had put her under.

“Get the door open. We don’t have the time or bullets for an extended fight!”

She looked between the ghoul and me several times, each one allowing the barely-killable monster in front of us more time. Then she nodded and took off towards our exit. I joined her a second later, landing on the ground and watching from behind as the ghoul finished the process of standing up. I briefly glanced towards the nearest table, knowing the Atomizer was right there. The moment my eyes turned back to the nebula ghoul, it was glaring at me with drunken fury.

“It's open!”

“Go!”

The ghoul lunged at me the moments my wings flapped, sending me back into the air. It crashed into the floor below me, the concussion it was suffering causing it to have more trouble getting back up then usual. A sharp turn sent me to the table, picking up the prototype gun in one hoof with one hoof before banking back towards the door. It hadn’t recovered by the time I was back out into the next hallway, flying as fast as I could in such tight corridors.

All I heard was its hooves upon the ground joined between the sound of Willow’s own. My focus stayed right ahead of me, the speed I was moving making the dark halls and labs near impossible to see. Small corrections were the only time I slowed, typically happening because I had come inches away from a head on collision with a wall. The fact all the red dots on my E.F.S. were behind us was the only comfort, because it assured me that as long as we were going forward we were fine.

Time blended together, the first lab we came across turning into a small blip as we came back across it. One moment Willow had shoulder bashed the doors to it open, all care for quiet gone. The next she was doing the same thing to get out of the lab. Eyes solely on her and ignorant to my surroundings, it didn’t even occur to me we had just passed by it till we were outside the lab.

As we reached the elevator, my hooves finally touched down on the metal floors. I glanced from one end of the hallway to the other, looking for any sign of nebula ghouls approaching. Willow, in the meantime, was slamming her hand against the elevator’s call button as furiously as possible.

“Who called the fucking thing back up?”

It didn’t dawn on me till now just how odd it was hearing her swear.

The sound of hooves started to boom from both sides of us, an animalistic cry sounding at different times from different sides. I looked down at the atomizer in my front hooves, then back to the elevator, and then back down one side of the hallway again. I aimed down one end of it, doing my best to stay calm even as the sight of two nebula ghouls appeared from the darkness. An all to calm ding came from my left, followed by the parting of the elevator doors.

Willow entered first, slamming her hoof down on the ground floor button as I got it. The doors started to close, but they weren’t quick enough. I hadn’t stepped far away from, and as I turned around to look out into the hallway my face found that of a smooth, pale white unicorn ghoul right in front of me. All I saw was its body, because its head had been lowered to use its horn as a dark age jousting lance.

A lance that broke through the skin in my chest, much to my shock and fear. It used its head to block the elevator door, keeping it from closing and practically tossing me around like a ragdoll as it tried to get its hooves through the crack to reopen it. No unicorn, ghoul or otherwise, should have been that fucking strong. When I managed to get its horn out from inside of me, a wet noise accompanying said action, Willow rammed head first into the beast.

The doors closed, the elevator started to move, and I collapsed onto the floor. The claustrophobia of the occupied elevator, the lack of light, and the agony that had come with forcibly removing the beast’s horn from my body caused an anxiety spike. The pain of the wound itself wasn’t actually terrible, feeling more like a horrible cramp, but by dropping the atomizer and clutching my chest with both hooves I could feel the warm, wet blood staining my fur.

That Celestia my coat color hid the stains.

“You okay Singing?” I looked up to Willow, the alicorn kneeling down and staring at me with worry.

“Had… had worse but… fuck.”

“Singing?”

“Are all unicorn horns able to pierce skin?”

She gave me a nod, and I let out a stuttered breath. At least one part of those damn things were still like a natural unicorn. Granted I would have preferred to find out in a less hooves on way. Maybe a textbook, though I doubted its ability to keep my interest.

As the elevator doors opened and we found ourselves back in the entrance room of the Ministry of Arcane Science hub, I smiled. “I think finding out where Angel Heart is makes up for a hole in the chest.”

I grabbed the atomizer in one hoof, ready to limp my way out only for Willow to stand in front of me. She put a wing under me, laid down, and then flicked it up. I found myself put onto her back, the alicorn giving me a smile as she got back up. I blinked once, twice, and then a third time before looking down at my chest. It was staining her coat red now.

“You don’t have to,” I told her, looking back up from the blood stain forming on her back.

“Hey, friends help friends. Besides, being bloody is attractive down here.”

I laid my head back down. “I think that’s just you Willow.”

She responded with a giggle. As we reached the doors leading out of the M.A.S. hub, Willow’s smile turned more melancholy. She reached a hoof out to the door, looked back to me for a second, and then faced forward again as she opened it. I was blinded by the sunlight, gritting my teeth and closing my eyes as the wind hit my wings. I spread them out, letting out a sigh at nearly the exact same time Willow did.

“I did this with Dead Hooves. I carried her from place to place since she could only crawl, and it allowed me to see the world differently. It allowed me to appreciate what was along with what still is.”

I looked down to her front hooves, the blood on them drying up. “Yet you still kill. You seem to enjoy it.”

“It was basically all I knew for twenty years. Felt if I didn’t learn to enjoy it, I might do something bad to myself when it was all over.”

…

“Hey, Willow.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re insane.”

The melancholy on her face fell away, leaving a smile of pure contentment in its place. “Consider how you usually talk to ponies, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

I snorted. “Good. That’s what it was supposed to be.”

Act 1 – Chapter 13: It Looks Worse Than it is

Trotson Streets

Day 3

We choose to stick to the ground, figuring Sharpshot, Gold, and Gemini would likely find us easier than we would find them. If it wasn’t for the wound that fucking ghouls had rudely given me, Willow and I would probably have stuck around the M.A.S. hub. Considering how ransacked the ground floor was, and how dangerous the underground labs were, it wasn’t our best bet for getting me patches up.

Thus Willow and I wandered through the city streets in search of a place that might have medical equipment. I kept my sight on my MentaBuck, acting as Willow’s navigator so I didn’t feel completely useless on her back. It also helped distract from the fact I was currently bleeding, since it blocked my peripheral vision. Granted I could still feel it under me, but it was better than nothing.

Truth be told, the wound itself didn’t actually seem that horrible. It was bleeding badly, yes, but the ghoul hadn’t really cut much. Emphasis on “much”, because the muscles its horn had hit were certainly doing a fair amount of complaining. I wasn’t sure if a horn cutting muscle was normal, but then again those ghouls were anything but normal. Extremely durable, strength to rival a fucking alicorn, and possibly sharper horns.

Can whatever megaspell they were producing really cause all that? I didn’t want an answer.

At least we got out with Angel Hair’s location… or destination. Selling the Enclave’s secrets for a father she didn’t know, who likely didn’t know her, and wasn’t a pegasus. None of it made a lick of sense to me. She liked her step-dad, and her relationship with her mother was incredibly strong. Whether she agreed with Calamity or not doing everything she did made no sense with that all taken into consideration.

Of course, it was entirely possible the problem didn’t lie with her parents. Perhaps the problem was me, and how I had reacted upon learning she wasn’t purely a pegasus.

I tilted the cup around on its bottom edges, watching the liquor within move in bored fascination. It was a habit I had picked up upon seeing my dad drink when I was younger. Of my parents he was easily the better of the two, though that wasn’t saying much when he was always drunk. I know that, when mom had landed herself in prison after that horrible incident at my birthday, he had been given enough of an excuse to divorce her. Maybe she was the reason he had started in the first place, but even after she left the picture he continued to drink.

I did my best to not be like either of them for Rainy and Clear, because I knew my only family weren’t exactly role models. Didn’t mean I was sober non-stop, but I watched myself carefully and always had somepony else there. Usually it was Anchor, but at times my old squadmates would take his place. One of them was more common than the rest, but considering her mother ran the bar in question that made a lot of sense.

That night, Angel was right there next to me. She was lost in thought, head on the bar counter. I was on my second glass of the night, but she hadn’t even touched her first. That was probably the strangest part of it all, because nopony held their liquor better than Angel and nopony I knew enjoyed it as much as she did. To see her sitting there, eyes looking past the glass before her, behind the counter, and even still behind the taps to something far off in the distance.

Whenever her mother passed by her eyes moved. She had joined me to get her mind off of something, but it was more than clear that “something” had become all encompassing. After minutes of her melancholic stare into nothingness, I pushed my cup away and faced her. The movement got her attention, but only long enough for her to glance at me. She immediately turned back to her stare off with the abyss.

“Okay, the fuck is on your mind corporal?”

Her muzzle sunk lower into her hooves, though I had no idea how that was possible. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

“Just cause you don’t want to, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. You’re acting like somepony just broke up with you, and if I’m remembering correctly you aren’t the romantic type.”

“There is a difference between being aro and not being romantic.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I think you’re saying words you don’t completely understand,” she pushed herself up, giving me a deadpan look. “You're a good soldier boss, but not always the best at understanding ponies. Telling you wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Pegasus stared at pegasus. A very different wound from the one I was currently sporting in Trotson formed in me at my own friend's declaration. She wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t about to admit that. Place a hoof on my chest, I let my expression slowly shift from the mild curiosity that had started our conversation to mild frustration.

“So you just don’t want to tell me.”

“I don’t want to tell anypony. I doubt most of them would understand; I’m still trying to grasp it all. It’s just… well ....” Her head collided with the bar counter. “I have a lot of mixed feelings right now.”

This wasn’t typical Angel Hair, though that had been clear the moment she had started talking. She was a lot less stern than usual, and her being this indecisive was even more shocking. We were soldiers; we were conditioned to follow orders, not question them, and never speak up against the pegasus giving them. Angel had practically been born to play such a role, which made her current state worrying.

I looked at the glass I had been playing with beforehoof. Grabbing it, I gulped down a decent portion of its remaining contents and then put it back down. My eyes then turned to the rest of the bar, noticing how every other pegasus around us was too preoccupied with their own conversation. That, combined with the general noise of the bar on a busy night, made discerning one's voice near impossible unless you were right next to them.

“Angel, listen,” I whispered to my fellow pegasus, getting her attention. “We’ve been through a lot together. You, Lucky, Medicine, Dew, and I have fought and lived through a lot more than most Enclave soldiers could imagine. I can promise you this: whatever you are dealing with, I won’t judge you for it.” I reached out a wing and gently patted her on the back. “Nopony else is listening. Tell me.”

Her eyes looked from pony to pony, trying to find some excuse to not talk to me. Her attempt ended with a sigh of defeat, her ears flattening as she looked back in my direction. Never in my life had I seen her so nervous.

“You promise you won’t tell anypony?”

I made an x over my heart with my hoof. “As your friend, sister in arms, and superior officer, I promise.”

For a brief moment, her lips twitched upwards. Her right wing pushed her liquor glass closer to her, and with a quick swipe she brought it to her lips. The entire thing was gone within seconds, and Angel slammed it down with a force no pegasus should have been able to. A telling moment for the words that next left her mouth.

“I’ve got grounder blood in me.”

My jaw tried to hang but my lips refused to part, several confused blinks at the mare next to me. I slowly brought my wing back in, eyes suddenly finding the bar counter far more enticing than the pony next to me. Everypony around me suddenly sounded a lot quieter, but I knew it was just a trick of my mind. Nopony heard, and for Angel’s sake that was a good thing.

“You’re… you’re sure?” I asked.

I wasn’t sure how to handle this situation. Angel was Enclave, but she wasn’t fully pegasus, and pieces of me had immediately flipped my perspective of her. Where once was a shining example of pegasus might, I now saw a pony desperately trying to be more than they were. Her strength scared me more now than it had before. I did my best to keep it all inside like I had promised.

The hurt look on her face was enough to tell me I had done a terrible job.

“According to mom and dad, yeah. My mom was pregnant before they met, and she didn’t know.”

My eyes went wide, and my outlook shifted again. “Why did you never tell us?”

“I didn’t know until recently. My mom… everything with that officer happened and my mother and father felt they had to tell me. I’m not sure how to feel about it all. Should I be upset that I was never told, or angry that I’m… what am I?”

Her question was emphasized by a look of terror, one gained not through the fear of what is happening but what could. The damage her blood could do to her career, her standing, was immense. Perhaps the Council would declare her unfit to be part of the Enclave, and instead of running off with classified documents she would be branded. The truth had made her scared for her own life.

“I think you're still Enclave, even if you aren’t the pony I originally thought you were deep down.” She winced at my words, but I wasn’t watching her. My attention had returned to my glass, and I had started playing with it again. “You know, a fair few of those promotions you got would likely have been denied to you if anyone knew.”

“Y-yeah, I’m aware.”

“You ask me, the best thing to do is just forget all about that part of you. Act like you never learned and nopony will ever find out. Besides, who the fuck would want to say they have a grounder for a father?”

I gave her another firm pat on the back, not noticing the look of indecisiveness on her face. While Angel no longer stared off into nothingness, her gaze lingered on me. A gaze of somepony who hadn’t gotten the answer they wanted, and maybe not the one they needed.

Was I… no, I wasn’t the cause behind this all. Sure, it may have been my words that sealed it, but Calamity is the one responsible for putting the seeds of doubt in her mind to begin with. Besides, no matter who was responsible for what it didn’t change the fact she had sold out her home to find a grounder she didn’t know. Just thinking about it was sickening.

“Hold up.”

I removed the MentaBuck’s map from my vision, Willow stopping. I looked at a building to our right, smaller than most others around us. The sign on top of it was too faded to read, but the MentaBuck had told me what it would say: Nature Care. Judging by the fact it was marked with the Ministry of Peace’s logo in the MentaBuck, they either were associated or trying really hard to fool ponies into thinking they were.

Either way, if we were gonna find a place to patch ourselves up, there was no better place than either a clinic or a pharmacy. This seemed like the latter.

“You think it’s been looted yet?”

“Only one way to find out.”

I leaned my head as Willow turned to walk inside the building. She opened one door, but we hadn’t actually entered the building proper just yet. We were in a small square room, two more doors that had been made mostly of glass stood before us. Willow stepped through the door frame carefully, wings tucked tightly at her side and bending her legs so that her head didn’t get cut by the small pieces of glass still hanging above us.

That alone told me my guess had been wrong, and the first real room in the building was proof of it. It was a lobby, one door leading into the rest of the clinic, a window with the receptionist area behind it, and overall not in the greatest shape. End tables, chairs, and paintings had either rotted to the point of collapse, fallen over, or otherwise. The remains of ponies who had come here on the last day still hung around, though none of them could be called whole. There was also a small area with what seemed to be books and toys meant for foals. Outside of some wooden blocks and the faded remains of jigsaw puzzles, age had twisted a decent chunk of them into forms unrecognizable.

Despite nopony being present and the lack of society deeming it necessary, Willow walked up to the counter. She smiled, giggled at something unseen, and placed a forehoof on the counter. I looked to see if there were some ponies' remains or a dead ghoul in front of her. All I got was desks with moldy and faded paperwork, terminals.

“Hello, I have an appointment for my friend here,” She said to nopony, giving me a grin more cocky than even her husband was able to manage. “Somepony put the wrong horn into a hole that shouldn’t be there.”

At first I was shocked, then I tried to scowl, and finally my sense of humor got the better of me. A barely audible chuckle left me, a hoof going to my head to hold. It was so dumb, but I couldn’t help myself. It helped distract my thoughts from the fact there indeed was a hole in my body that currently shouldn’t exist.

“You seemed like you needed it,” the alicorn explained.

“It helps,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Not as much as getting it patched up, but it does help.”

“Good. That’s what I was hoping for. At least it isn’t a life threatening situation… yet.”

I looked over to the door no doubt leading into the rest of the facility. “Let’s keep it that way. We should probably look somewhere other than the lobby.”

Willow nodded, and trotted over to the door I had eyed. Opening it, we followed once-white hall on the other side. She followed it around the corner, my eyes catching onto what looked to have been a station for doctors or nurses in the past. Outside of the broken terminal in the alcove’s leftmost corner, I recognize very little of what I was looking at. So I looked away and watched Willow enter yet another room.

It was on the smaller side. A raised bed was in one corner with three chairs, none of which were still standing, and with a counter directly across from it. Willow turned so that she was side to side with the bed, and then motioned for me to get on. Clutching the atomizer tight to my chest, I did as she asked. A small hop, a flap of the wings, and then I tucked my hooves under me as I hit the bed.

It wasn’t the most comfortable bed in the world, but it would do. With me off her back Willow turned to rummaging through the cabinets and counter for anything of use. After a time she tossed an old Ministry of Peace med kit at me, smacking me in the face before falling comfortably in front of me. Hopefully anything inside would be fine, if its contents hadn’t been pillaged at least.

“I hope you don’t mind me waiting till Sharpshot gets to us to take care of anything substantial.” Willow said, turning away from the cupboards she had overturned. “He’s the pony who has actual medical experience.”

I gave her a firm nod. “That’s fine. Some bandages should be good enough for right now anyways. A healing potion too, though considering the time that has passed...”

Willow walked over to the medkit and myself, willing the bag open via telekinesis. Her expression turned into something between being upset and confused.

“We got bandages. Somepony already took the healing potion though.”

“It’ll work. Just means I’ll have to be a bit more careful for some time.”

Once my front was all wrapped up, we returned to the lobby and spent the rest of our time there. Moving would only make it harder for Sharpshot and the rest to find us, and the clinic provided us with protection from the scorching desert sun. Willow spent a majority of that time relaxing, though it was clearly not helping. The cloud nine’s effects were starting to wear off, and tears were in her eyes. We didn’t have any on us, and there was no way in tartarus Nature Care had any lying around.

I, meanwhile, started the long and absolute idiotic task of trying to take apart and fix a prototype weapon. It gave me something to do, even if I knew the task before me was impossible. The only thing that seemed easy to do was take off the strange energy cell that was on it, but that was what a magazine was designed to do. Nothing else about it was standard, though considering this was made by scientists and not a standard old world arms company that made sense.

As if it might help, I had taken out the statuette of Twilight and held it to my chest. All it did was make me seem younger than I was, a foal at heart instead of one of the Enclave’s best. The piece of junk still didn’t make a lot of sense, showing that even the power these strange little figurines contained were nothing to scientific stupidity. It was a real shame, because it sounded damn useful.

“Doesn’t even make sense to you too, huh?” I asked the statuette, holding it out in front of me. I tapped Twilight on the head. “It was your grounders that made this, you know. I figured you would be able to help me figure out exactly what they broke.”

“You’re talking to a statuette?”

“Sometimes you want a one-sided conversation with the pony unable to tell you whether you're right or wrong. Correct Twilight?”

I shook the statuette so that it looked like it was nodding, fully aware that I had to look rather crazy. I was high enough up in the food chain to know these things had some strange power to them, and if they couldn’t help me take apart the atomizer then it was a lost cause. I put the statuette away, kicked the prototype towards my battle saddle, and walked over to one of the broken chairs.

It may have been missing all of its legs, but it still had a cushion on it. A sat down on it, getting off the old, uncomfortable carpet that the rest of the room’s floor was drenched in. Willow came over and joined me moments later, though choose to forgo a chair of her own on account of most of them being in much worse shape. We sat together in silence, the alicorn watching the door to the clinic like a pot of water.

As her gaze wasn’t focused on me, I decided to take in her form as a way of passing time. I didn’t understand Willow, how she seemed so sane and yet crazy. Blind optimism and cheer mixed with bloodlust and the standard wasteland crazy. She was everything I expected of the surface, but at the same exact time she wasn’t. Perhaps it was the fact she had once been a pegasus, but I felt some light in her that many ponies didn’t have.

“Hey Willow. Do you know anything about your family?”

Her ears went flat, a heavy breath releasing from her nostrils. Her eyes first looked back towards the rest of the lobby, and then to me. The sadness that dripped from her form could practically be tasted.

“I should. I really should. I can’t remember them much. After he bought me I never saw them again,”

“You were quite young I’m guessing?”

“I think I was a teenager. I’m not sure why we were below the clouds, but things happened and… I’m not sure. Maybe they were killed, or perhaps they were also sold to somepony. It’s so long ago it isn’t easy to remember.”

“Yet you still remember Dead Hooves and those other ponies you mentioned. Stitches and Joy I believed you called them.”

“Yeah, but that was because my travels with them… they were some of the happiest moments of my life.” She snorted, shook her head, and dared to smile. “Dead Hooves, as I mentioned, was our little leader. She couldn’t walk, but she had a sense for right and wrong unheard of in the wasteland outside of perhaps DJ-PON3. She was rather brutal with how honest she was at times, and there were some screws loose in her brain, but that just made her fit in.”

A deeper chuckle brought my attention to the chair next to me. Dead Hooves had shown up at some point, sitting on the chair’s backrest and letting her hind legs dangle free. It turned out ghosts could blush, because her face was bright red from the compliments Willow was throwing her way. How she could hear them I didn’t know.

“Perhaps a bit too honest for my own good,” she said, a front hoof reaching behind her head as she looked away from Willow and I sheepishly. “Though that one Sprite-Bot liked me a lot.”

I turned back to Willow, ignoring the ghost for the time since she wasn’t the one I was talking to.

“Stitches is where Sharpshot got most of his medical expertise. He was training to be a medical pony in his Stable but that never exactly worked out. She was typically rather calm, though anytime one of us would get hurt she would get really upset. She wasn’t happy to have to save us all the time.”

“All the time?”

“We got shot at a lot.”

Dead Hooves nodded. “Kinda impossible not to have a gun pointed at your head when you’re a wanted mare.”

“Fair enough,” I said, answering both ponies as simplistically as possible. “Now how about Joy. You mentioned she was a zebra.”

“One dumb enough, or perhaps smart enough depending on how you see it, to leave Stalliongrad,” Willow explained.“Most ponies there didn’t believe anything existed outside the city anymore. She gave them the closest thing to a “fuck you” anypony can and journeyed out here to prove them wrong. She never went back.”

“That’s one way to abandon the ponies you care about. Guess she was in her adolescence when she decided to do that.” Willow gave me a nod and grunt. Something told me the latter was because of her throat pain and not my statement. “Stalliongrad must be a shitfest if they thought everypony else was dead.”

“With how she described it, I wouldn’t be surprised. Pretty much everypony lives underground, and most everypony who heads to the surface dies. Joy was one of the lucky few who didn’t.”

It checked out with what little info I had on Stalliongrad from the Enclave. Even to the council the place was an enigma. Grounders were rarely seen, and there were creatures that existed in Stalliongrad that were in no other parts of Equestria. Then there was the lack of radio signal in it and the many reported hallucinations and other phenomenons reported. I think I would rather fight an alicorn again then find out what is true, what isn’t, and what hadn’t been discovered.

“I’m guessing she didn’t get out of Stalliongrad unscathed.”

“Definitely not. We met her because she was working for the pony that framed Dead Hooves. It was his way of making her pay off the debt she accumulated for saving her life. Something like that.”

My expression went blank. “In other words, you met her by getting shot at.”

“As is wasteland tradition!”

I groaned. Getting shot and becoming friends with the one responsible being considered a “wasteland tradition” was not a good sign for the future. Grounders truly were as backwards as the Enclave thought they were. It just so happens that the one I was talking to at that moment was both more and less backwards in ways I could deal with.

“All of us changed because of that time together. Sure, how we all ended up working together wasn’t great, but neither Sharpshot or I would be the ponies we are today if it wasn’t for them.” She turned away from me. “Except, none of them were like us. Dead Hooves died before the rest of us did. She got her revenge on the pony who had set her up, but it cost her her life. Joy and Stitches died after I became an alicorn. Seeing that did another change in Sharpshot, and while he was still the same to me, he started acting like the pony you are probably more familiar with.”

I turned to Dead Hooves, who in turn looked at me. The frown on her face said it all, but she felt the need to give a more vocal answer.

“He was an ass. We had a bit of a love-hate sort of deal between the two of us, though at the end of the day we were friends. I… I didn’t get to say goodbye to either of them, and when I found them Joy had gotten herself killed. The effect it had on him was hard to watch.” She hung her head as if it was attached to a ghostly cinder block. “He became a lot worse. Stitches left them, and not long after they learned she too had been killed. Sharpshot felt it was for the best. The less he had to care about a pony dying, the better.”

The quiet that followed said every word that needed to be said. Some soldiers, after finishing the required amount of service they had signed up for, turned worse. The friends they had seen died, the things they had seen on the surface, all proved to be too much. Sharpshot needed a therapist, but down here he wasn’t going to get one.

“Becoming his friend isn’t going to help him, Willow,” I told her. My voice was harsh, but I deemed it necessary for what I had to say. “Sure he needs ponies around him, but he is the issue. Everypony has a point before they break, that goes for friendship just as much as it does for sanity.”

“I have to try something!

Her hoof slammed into the ground, her angry voice filling my mind like a song I couldn’t completely remember. She tucked her head in, brought her hoofs over her, and curled up. Dead Hooves got up from her position and trotted over to her old friend. She looked like she wanted to cry, but her ethereal form forbade her the ability. All she could do was give Willow Wisp a hug, her form bound enough to the corporeal plain that she didn’t phase through.

“I know what you mean, and I know you don’t mean anything hurtful by it. Sharpshot is a part of the problem, but he isn’t the whole problem. I love him, I care for him, and I want to stay by his side but… it’s because I’m alive he is still like this!” Her front hooves slammed into the ground again, sounding like thunder booming just above our heads. She cried for both herself and Dead Hooves, even though she was likely unaware the latter was there. “And I’m not going to be there forever. Either I stop taking cloud nine and the pain becomes too much to bear, or I someday assimilate into the Unity. The killing joke wins no matter what happens, and he loses me either way.”

“So what am I supposed to do? I… I don’t want to think about either situation so I was hoping that you could have some secret third solution. A pony he could latch onto so I… so I… so I can die, and he won’t miss me as much.”

The silence that came from her words stayed, my being too shocked at her words to give any real response. I sat there, still as a statue, watching a grounder – a wife – cry at what she saw as unavoidable. Telling her it was wrong would have been a lie. Comforting her would have given her false hope, and doing that felt wrong.

So instead we sat, and Willow cried. Dead Hooves stayed with her for a time, but vanished from sight after a time. All the while I waited and rested for Sharpshot, Gold, and Gemini. At some point, exhausted from the day's events, I fell asleep.

My dream was similar to the one I had the night prior.

My body was no longer mine, but this time I was certain who I was: Dead Hooves. I was seeing her life, or at least portions of it. The question of why would probably forever be unanswered, so instead I asked a different question.

Where the fuck was she?

Everything she felt, I felt, and in this case I felt fucking disgusting. My… her coat felt like it had been dragged through all the muck a grounder could wish for, mane and tail horribly disheveled. My front hooves also felt like they were in horrible shape but that was probably because grounders didn’t take care of them. My hind hooves were numb, as if they weren’t there to begin with.

Considering Dead Hooves was a cripple, that made sense. Even as a passenger in her body it made me feel significantly weaker than usual. I was unable to run, unable to hide, and without wings unable to fly out from wherever this horrible place was. I was what every predator wanted: the sickly prey that couldn’t escape.

I felt a headache hit me as Dead Hooves tried to move her head. It didn’t stop me from taking in where we were: a building. I recognized, in fact. Not because of the actual building itself but because of what I could see outside the window. A tree and building all in one was visible, one of the center pieces of the place once known as Ponyville. In the current time, the place was practically an ever expanding pool of blood; you stepped in, you died.

Whether it was the same back then remained to be seen.

There was another important detail about the outside world: the sky was red, and gray clumps were falling. I had heard of this, but they were so rare in the present wasteland that I had never seen them before. It was an ash storm.

The balefire megaspells couldn’t pierce the cloud layer once we pegasi had closed the sky up. They were able to absorb it, however, in some way similar to how they could absorb water vapor. When the immediate effects of the balefire bombs ended, their power stayed within those bottom clouds, raining ash upon the landscape below. They were somewhat more common a century ago, and that lined up perfectly to when Dead Hooves lived.

She pushed her torso up with her hooves, looking around in confused terror. The environment was unrecognizable to her, and she started twisting back and forth to look for something familiar. Her emotions started to affect mine too, causing me to feel her same terror. It was irrational – I knew where I was and what was going on – but during that time I didn’t feel like Singing Rhapsody. In fact, it might be more correct to have said that, the moment the terror took root in her body, the pony known as Singing Rhapsody ceased to be for a period of time.

I was Dead Hooves in body and mind. I was the scared little grounder who had know idea where they were. The idea that I had been somepony else was as foreign as walking.

“What the f–”

Dead Hooves, Singing Rhapsody. I contemplated both names to find out which one was the correct one name… yes. I knew who I truly was.

I, Dead Hooves, gasped and looked down at my hooves. Shoddy, rusted chains bound all four of my hooves, which was incredibly funny. Who the fuck would bind a pony as worthless as myself? They must have not known my hindlegs were even more worthless. I tried to pull them apart, but without the ability to operate all my hooves that was impossible. Instead I looked like a flailing feral ghoul who was so damaged in the brain it couldn’t remember how to stand up.

“Off! Off you useless piles of shit!” I yelled.

I lifted one front hoof as close to myself as possible and bit down on the metal with all the strength my jaw could muster. All I could was rather unhappy teeth. It hurt like tartarus, and I’m damn sure I chipped one or two of them. Fuck, might as well have been all of them; I didn’t exactly take care of myself after dad passed away.

Thinking about it hurts. He died and I… no, don’t think about it now. It was necessary to survive; I wouldn’t be alive right now otherwise.

“Just give up and stop flailing.”

My attention turned to the rest of the room, though I didn’t find the voices cause immediately. The room was bare, ugly, discolored from years of neglect. In my fright I looked around the same spaces over and over and over. I was sending myself spiraling into a temporary insanity.

“Behind you.”

I turned around, my jaw dropped. A pure white pegasus with a filled grave for a cutie mark was behind me, or at least she was supposed to be pure white. Blood, new and old, had dirtied her figure and caused my stomach to churn. The cuts, bruises, marks, the fact half of her left ear was missing. Had she been mangled by Cerberus when trying to escape the pits of tartarus?

“Just sit still,” she said. Her voice was deep, avoiding emotions and hope. Despite that lack of hope, I could sense a fire in her eyes. “Want to live? Do as I say. Go against my words and I’ll shoot you.”

My eyes widened, ears folded back, and heartbeat quickened. “Want to li- what the- where the fuck am I?! Who the fuck are you?!”

“The pony they thought was the Bloody Angel before you arrived. Apparently they think I’m just some pegasus slave now,” she replied, a small smirk gracing her lips. “That’s good. It means they’ll probably be more interested in you than me.”

“That explains… nothing!”

“It should explain everything. You grow up under a rock.”

I gave her a shrug. “More a decrepit house in the middle of fuck-alls-where, but it still explain nothing!”

I stared at her, the first pegasus I had ever seen in my life. I knew what they were – dad had told me about them – but I didn’t expect to ever meet one. The lifeless glare she gave me, only broken by infrequent blinks, scared me. She wasn’t terrifying, but there was something about her. The word to describe it… I’m not sure it exists.

I shifted around into a more comfortable position, facing towards the pegasus. “Dead Hooves.”

“Willow Wisp.”

“So the ponies that captured me are in some other room I take it? I doubt they would want to be outside right now.”

My vision shifted back to the window, which was still in decent condition and somehow not shattered. The red haze of the world outside was of immediate alarm, and the falling clumps of ash made it worse. Nopony in their right minds would go outside in this sort of weather.

“Either another room or another building, yeah,” Willow Wisp said, nodding her head. “Negotiations probably stalled. Unfortunate for both them and myself; we will have to wait for a while to be free.”

I fell backwards on purpose, wincing at the discomfort the hit gave my back but not regretting it. Willow’s gave me a look that embodied disappointment, but I ignored her. With a groan, My eyes bore into the ceiling.

“Great. I traded a casket of solitude for a slightly prettier casket.”

“You're being dramatic.”

“You got wings, I don’t,” I explained, tapping my thigh. “You have four working legs, I don’t. It’s not being dramatic when it’s practically fate. I’ve only survived these last few days because of my fathers….”

I grimaced, trailing off in shame and sorrow. Willow opened her mouth to respond, but the door behind us opened instead. An earth pony wearing a hodgepodge of parts walked in. A rusted knife was holstered on his forehoof. He was eyeing me, or trying to at the very least. He started violently coughing ash falling from his back.

This stallion had just walked through that ash storm. His lungs were no doubt very pissed off at him for a decision like that.

“Well… well well, the bitch is awak–“ he started to hack up again, but his pupils never strayed from me for too long. “Fuck, there goes my imposing entrance.”

If I wasn’t glaring back at him I might have laughed. “Who are you? Where the fuck am?”

“None of that is information you need to know,” he replied. With his coughing subsided, he trotted up to me with a smile that screamed psychopathy. “All you need to know is that we got a bunch of fun little toys to play with by capturing you. “

I acted before I thought. My horn lit up, grabbing his knife in my telekinesis and starting to raise it out of its sheath. A flash of pain to my right cheek ended my idiotic escape attempt, clenching my teeth together. That was the first time somepony had ever hit me, and it hurt so bad it made me want to cry.

Only thing holding tears back was the fact I didn’t want him to know how much of an advantage he had over me. As soon as they realized I couldn’t walk, with or without my chains, I was a goner. So even as he took his knife out himself, staring at me with amusement. I kept a face of steel. One that was already fractured, given my eyes were starting to water.

“You’re a feisty little filly I see. That’ll just make killing you all the more fun!”

His hooves stamped down on my neck and stomach, my breath taken away in multiple means. I struggled to get out, but then I screamed. The earth pony had sunk the knife into my shoulder, experiencing the third worst feeling in my life. The tears couldn’t be held back anymore, and I started to cry.

“You know, I don’t know how he managed to fool those idiots in Tenpony into thinking you're the Bloody Angel, but oh boy was it all worth it.” the stallion said, the insanity within his eyes filling my vision. Dread and anxiety mixed together as I weakly slapped him, but he took every hit. “The things he gave us, the armor and weapons, the caps, it was all worth it! Even better, I get the permission of making these last few moments of your life as painf–”

I let out a gasp, his hooves suddenly removed from my body and lifted into the air. Looking above him I saw Willow flapping her wings as hard as she could, the chains binding her wrapped around his neck. He struggled, trying to find some way to free himself from his attacker. Lighting my horn, I decided that would only happen with his carcass on the ground.

Pain erupted through my body as I tried to take the blade out of my shoulder, only to gasp and shudder as it was freed. With a thrust of my magic, the knife sailed through the air and into his chest. He started to scream, but Willow then slammed him into the ground at full force. His neck bent in a fashion I was pretty certain wasn’t normal, the pegasus would the chains that bound it flapping her wings to keep on her hind hooves.

When we were both certain his breathing had stopped, she fell back onto all fours. My eyes stayed on the corpse before me. A few days prior I would have been terrified at the sight, but instead I just felt empty. They were the second pony I had killed in a few days, and the second I had killed in my life. I probably should have felt sick at what I had just helped Willow do, or maybe angry or ashamed of myself.

While their was the slightest bit of shame, it was aimed at myself for every reason besides the murder. His dead body left me empty and somewhat relieved.

“Not even a century and ponies have forgotten how to bind a pegasus,” Willow said. “Quite sad, but incredibly useful.”

She searched his body, a smirk growing on her face as she removed something from his possession. It was a key, one she tossed my directions. I watched it land between my hooves, missing the look of shock she gave me. Wincing, I reached my injured hoof out to paw the key closer to me, looking between it and the chains to see if they were the correct ones. They certainly seemed correct.

Looking back up to Willow Wisp, I noticed her gaze was on the wound in my shoulder. As I lit my horn, grabbing the key and fitting it into the locks for my hooves, she grabbed something else from his body. A healing potion, though it was only half full. She shuffled over to me, chains binding her movements. I only looked away when a click sound manifested below me. The chains around my front hooves had come off.

“Undo my chains, and this is yours,” the pegasus offered.

I gave a nod and levitated the key towards her, sliding it into the lock and turning it. Another click and the first set fell away, a repetition of events with the second set leaving her free. Seeming satisfied, Willow held out the potion to me. I took it in my hooves and lifted it to my lips, emptying the container. I instantly felt it getting to work, the cramping in my shoulder unpleasant but necessary.

“Thanks,” I said, giving Willow a smile. I did nothing to hide my tears, having held them in for long enough. “You didn’t have to. I’m sure most ponies would have just left.”

The world started to blur. A blur I now remembered from a night before. A blur I remembered not as Dead Hooves, but as Singing Rhapsody. It quickly dawned on me that I was dreaming, and was on the verge of waking up.

Before it all ended, however, I heard one sentence. It came from Willow.

“You’re right, but I wanted to know what it felt like to save a life instead of taking it.”

Nature Care, Trotson

Day 4

When I awoke, the world was dark. Night had fallen on Trotson, though how early or late into the night it was evaded notice. Willow Wisp, the one I had gotten to know, slept on the floor. She squirmed every now and then, either from a nightmare or the killing joke. Sharpshot hadn’t arrived before she had fallen asleep, and the plant’s effects were no doubt getting worse and worse with each second.

I stared at her, thinking about the dream I had just witnessed. Unlike the one I had had yesterday, I decided it was best to shove it aside. Like I did with reminiscing about my own memories, I had felt myself get absorbed in by the pony whose head I was in. Going even further, small parts of her memories mingled with my own for some inexplicable reason. I knew now her father was dead by whatever time those series of events accord, but mine was still alive.

I felt grateful, knowing that I could still separate which was which in my mind. Having the memories of two separate ponies was uncomfortable.

Then there was the matter of the pegasus I had seen, and the alicorn before me. Willow and Dead knew each other, that was long established, but the Willow Wisp I had just met seemed like a different pony entirely. She lacked most of her emotions, hope, possibly the will to live. In some ways it felt similar to how I had been the days after my failed mission in Trotson. Lost, not completely there, but she seemed significantly more attuned with the world around her than I had been.

“Fuck, your parents suck,” Dead Hooves said to my side. My body went rigid, head snapping to the ghost laying down next to me. No amount of angry glares made that look of sympathy that was etched on her face fall away. “Alcoholic father and drug dealer mother? I’m surprised you’re as right in the head as you are.”

My glare intensified. “Where the fuck did you learn that? I didn’t tell Willow or Sharpshot anything about my parents.”

“I had a talent for mind magic when I was alive. I got curious what you were like. Since you were joining my old friends I thought I would get a look at your history,” the ghost looked away sheepishly, rubbing her front hooves together. “D-d-don’t worry, won’t use it on you… a lot. You can’t blame me for–”

“You were peering into my mind?!”

“I take it you aren’t exactly happy about that.”

“You were peering into my mind!”

“Th-they kept on saying you were related to Star Chart, okay? I wanted to know if you were lying or not,” Dead Hooves said, inching away from me in fear. “It’s been a long time since I’ve even considered having a living family member, okay? Well, not close family, but family nonetheless. You can’t blame–”

“Even ignoring the fact you used mind manipulation magic on me without my permission, you don’t just enter someone's head! That isn’t how… wait what?”

My anger faded into confusion, fear, and disbelief as one word she said came to the forefront of my mind: family. I stayed focused on the ethereal unicorn before me, who in turn couldn’t bring it upon herself to meet my gaze. She inched even farther away, resting her head against a still standing chair. She rubbed her forehooves together faster and rougher than she had previously.

“It's… it's like with Angel Hair, ya know?” She explained, voice timid. “Pegasi comes to surface on deployment or whatever, fucks a cute stallion, and then you get a foal. Star Chart was like that too.”

I growled at her, lips peeled back in a snarl. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not lying I sw–“

“You heard me mention Angel Hair’s origins and thought you could win me over to you grounders side by making me think I was just like you.”

“What? No! I’m telling the honest to Luna truth ri–“

“And to make it even more believable, you flooded my dreams with your memories! All in some desperate bid to turn me into some crazed, mud loving, freak like the rest of you grounders are!”

“I swear I’m tell- wait you saw what?”

She seemed terrified, intrigued, and a little embarrassed when I was all done revealing her plot. I allowed myself to be a little smug, crossing my forehooves and puffing out my chest in victory. Oh how good it felt to put a dirty, disgusting grounder in their place. After letting my temper get the better of me back in the M.A.S. hub things going right felt so good.

“You… you saw my memories? How in tartarus did you see my memories? That makes no fucking sense,” Dead Hooves said, a hoof rubbing the area just above her horn. My smugness fell away as I saw the genuine confusion and worry on her face. “Am I rusty from years of not casting? Did I forget some part of the memory peering spell? Maybe me being a ghost has something to do with it because that never happened when I was alive.”

I blinked. “You… didn’t mean for me to see your memories?”

“Oh course I didn’t! Why would I want you to see all the highly embarrassing and dumb things I did.” Her eyes turned to the floors. “All the ponies we- I used.”

There was a brief pause in conversation, and then Dead Hooves looked at me again.

“Look I… I should have asked first. I fucked up royally, and I apologize for that. Still I… I just want to make sure it’s the same Star Chart. I want to know if you are family or not.”

I blinked, and then turned my attention to Willow Wisp’s still sleeping form. While I was certain the ghost had been wrong about me having any familial ties to them, I was curious about the alicorn’s story. How had that pegasus I had seen in Dead Hooves memories become the pony before me? I desired an answer, and I wouldn’t get that any other way.

“Okay, you can continue to search my memories. Just know some of them might be rather unpleasant,” I responded, turning back to the unicorn. She had a big, dumb grin on her face. “Just know I’ll be looking through yours as well. I’ve got my own questions that I wish to answer.”

Dead Hooves nodded. “That’s fair. I’ll just give you the same warning you gave me. I did a lot of stupid, horrible things.”

“Since we got that all figured out, I got a question for you.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Why do you think you are related to Star Chart?”

She stared at me for three seconds, and then looked up at the clinic’s ceiling. She smiled, her ghostly spirit mimicking the motion one would make while sighing. The grin on her face grew the smallest amount.

“We met her and a bunch of other Enclave during our travels. They were the only ponies not fooled by Twister, the pony who had convinced everyone I was the Bloody Angel,” she explained. “They knew it was another pegasus, and they had also figured out I couldn’t walk. We both wanted the real bloody angel dead, so we worked together.

“Over that time I got to know both the Enclave and Star Chart well. They weren’t always nice ponies, but they were good ponies. They weren’t in it for infamy or caps, but rather justice. Many of them had come down to avenge somepony they had known. All were victims of the same pony. Star Chart was no different; her mother had been killed by the murderous pony.”

I looked over to Willow Wisp. It wasn’t hard to piece together who the Bloody Angel must have been, and it explained a bit about how they acted in Dead Hooves memory. My face wanted to frown and smile at the alicorn all at once, seeing who they once were in comparison to how they had become.

“Did you know it was her?” I asked.

Dead Hooves followed my eyes to Willow Wisp, and shook her head. “No. She seemed constantly on edge every time we worked with the Enclave, but none of us had any reason to believe it was her. She was always nice, if a bit distant.”

“Yet you did have reason to believe it was them.” Turning back to me, Dead Hooves tilted her head. “The memory I got absorbed in was the day you two met. She made it clear she had killed a lot of you grounders.”

Once again she was rubbing her hooves together. A nervous tick no doubt.

“I didn’t know what the Bloody Angel even was back then. I spent a large chunk of my life in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and dad told me nothing of the world around me. It was Willow that told me about this wanted pony I was being pinned as. I kind of just trusted it wasn’t her.”

My disappointment in the mare was indescribable, but I was coming to terms with her intelligence. To be more exact, the seeming lack of intelligence, at least upon leaving home. She had taken out the knife that was stabbed in her, after all. There was no better way to lose blood than to take a bladed weapon out of your own body.

She was damn lucky that stallion had a potion on him.

“Anyways, a good number of years before Star’s mom died, she learned about her birth. Her mom met a stallion while deployed on the surface, the two got drunk, sex happened, and two months later she found out that she was pregnant with me… and the stallion responsible was named Arcane Glyph, my father.”

I felt my heart halt for a second, taking in the shame and disgust that Dead Hooves had on her face. It was what I had feared Angel Hair’s father would be, and according to the grounder… no, it was all from a grounder. This had to have been a lie and the only way I would be able to prove that is by allowing Dead Hooves to continue peering into my mind.

“I still call bullshit on your story Dead Hooves. After my meeting with Bone Breaker earlier today…”

“That was yesterday by now.”

“The point is I don’t trust what I’m being told. You have nothing to hide, you’ll continue to show me your memories every single night until I either believe you’re lying or learn you are telling the truth.”

“Alright, sounds good.” To my surprise, the dead mare was giving me a rather smug look. I had expected her to back off immediately, but the twisting of a knife in my heart told me there was at least some truth to her story. “I mean, can’t blame you anyways. To be clear, Bone Breaker wasn’t lying about her son but, well, take a guess at who was the actual slave.”

I narrowed my eyes on her. “Is her real name actually Bone Breaker?”

“Yep.”

“Then her lies tell me everything I need to know.”

The sound of a door opening drew my attention away from the ghost, a large shadowy outline visible through the darkness. A light, or two to be exact, soon illuminated the area around them, the darkness only fading enough to make a decent size dome around the creatures. It was still bright as tartarus, a hoof going in front of my eyes to shield myself. Dead Hooves faded from my left, and Willow didn’t stir from her sleep.

“I’m telling you, that filly is sending us on some wild goose chase for her entertainment,” a stallion spoke up. I instantly recognized it as Sharpshot’s voice. “Bet your scarred ass they’re back at the cinema. This place is far too creepy to sleep in.”

“After today, you judge Invisible Mare?” Another familiar voice replied. It was Gold. “Not sure whether that’s dumb or braindead.”

“Hey, I got all the right to not trust her, okay? I knew those were more than just cameras.”

Griffon and ghoul looked each other in the eye, neither seeming willing to back down. Another, far more tired sigh sounded out as one of the lights moved away from them. It was Gemini, the bags under her eyes saying everything that needed to be said about her. In her grasp was also a pistol, her telekinetic grasp seeming ready to press the trigger on the first thing that jumped out of the shadows.

Unfortunately for myself, I was too tired to realize that she was heading in my direction.

“Fact you're familiar with it is concerning. Not hiding horrible spells, I hope,” Gold said, a talon pointing at Sharpshot. “Hm, might be too dangerous. Controlling minds is bad.”

“Trust me, I’ve seen what that kind of magic can do to ponies. I wouldn’t do that myself,” Sharpshot replied. His anger had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Seeing other ponies get hurt by it brings back some not-so-great memories.”

Gold raised his brow, head tilted slightly to the left. “Want to talk about it?”

“No. You got as much of that story out of me as possible,” The ghoul answered, walking past the elderly griffon.

I sat up, opening my mouth to announce myself to the individuals who had just walked into the clinic. Instead I found my eyes blinded as Gemini’s, having to close my eyes at the sudden change in brightness around me. There was a scream, a bang, and I felt my right shoulder erupt in sudden pain. Collapsing to the ground and using all my willpower to not scream, I grabbed my shoulder with my left forehoof and looked up at the pony responsible.

Gemini had a look of horror that many fresh recruits would wear on their first trip to the surface. Disbelief at what they had just seen, or in this case at what they had just done. She canceled her telekinesis, dropping her gun and dashing towards me. Sharpshot and Gold quickly followed as soon as they saw me on the floor, Willow rousing from her slumber due to the sound of the gun firing.

“Oh sweet Celestia I’m so, so sorry!” Gemini said. She looked at my shoulder, gagged and then looked away in shame. “I didn’t know it was you and…”

Sharpshot shoved her out of the way, the mare nearly falling onto her ass if Gold didn’t catch her. I turned my attention to my shoulder, trying to get an idea of exactly what damage she had done. All I could see was a bullet hole going clean into me, but trying to move my foreleg proved more had happened. A wavey breath left me as I tried to roll my shoulder, the bone inside fractured by the bullet in question.

“And you were doing so fucking well,” Sharpshot whispered. He briefly turned back to Gemini, the mare cowering as he pointed enthusiastically at her. “Consider yourself damn lucky you didn’t hit an organ.”

“I-I know, and I said so–”

“That does nothing if she's dead!”

Gemini hung her head then nodded. Sharpshot turned back to me and hit me over the head with his hoof. I glared at the unicorn, my dislike for him renewed quickly with every word he said.

“Perhaps let us know you’re here next time,” he told me. Even in his anger there was an ever present smugness in his voice. “It helps keep twitchy trigger hooves from doing something stupid.”

“Good to see you again,” I said, gritting my teeth as my injured shoulder flared in pain.

Then it suddenly went completely numb. I looked at it, I didn’t see anything immediately off with my shoulder that would cause it. Then I noticed it wasn’t responding to my wishes to move it, locked in place like it had been turned into steel. Sharpshot patted me on my other shoulder, grabbing my attention.

“Incredibly simple stasis spell. It should keep the muscles and cracked bones from doing anything done for a bit,” he explained. He once again turned back to Gold, who was doing his best to calm down a terrified Gemini not too far away from us. “I’m gonna go search for medical supplies. If Willow wakes up, tell her I’ll be right back.”

“I would actually prefer it if you all were a bit quieter,” the alicorn said, drawing everycreature’s attention to her. Gold was taken aback, likely from hearing Willow’s voice in his head for the first time. “Though some of my medicine might also help right now.”

This time it was Sharpshot’s turn to be scared, his horn immediately lighting up as he looked between me and his wife. “Right, uh, fuck I’ll take care of miss trigger happy’s mistake in a moment.”

My jaw dropped as I watched him go to Willow’s side. He had just given his wife drugs over fixing my fucking leg! He dared to consider himself a doctor with actions like that?! With a shake of my head I did my best to calm my nerves, though it was impossible to look away from the husband before me. In the same exact manner she did it earlier, Willow inhaled a bit of cloud nine. Sharpshot stood up and turned back to me.

“Okay, you’re next. If the stasis spell ends before I get back just keep from moving.”

I watched him sprint off, bounding easily over the chairs and into the darkness of the clinic. I stared at where he had been, and then to the griffon who had been doing the same exact thing. Gemini, though still clearly shaken over her horrible mistake, was doing the exact same thing. After a couple of astonished blinks, I managed to get my mouth to move.

“Did he just… my bone was shattered and he…”

“Prioritized addiction over healing,” Gold finished. Seeming rather troubled.

“As far as I can tell,” Gemini said in a quavering manner. “Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

Growling like a rabid animal, I slammed my unfrozen hoof on the ground. Gemini tried to flinch back, but was stopped by Gold. He was far less shocked at my action, as was the fully awake alicorn laying down to my left.

“That dirty mud-fucking horn head!”

“Kind of hard for him to fuck mud if his banana is–”

“He’s still a mud fucker!”

Act 1 – Chapter 14: Ashes to Ashes

Nature Care, Trotson

Day 4

The stasis spell ended before Sharpshot got back, the effect on me pain-wise making me whimper like a filly. Incredibly uncomfortable, unable to hide the grimace that was on my face, I found a comfortable position to lie down in. There was still a constant throbbing in my shoulder from the fracture, and no doubt I was dealing with some external and possible internal bleeding from the veins Gemini had punched through, but I would be okay. I’d be roughed up worse than that during my days serving the Enclave.

Granted I was still serving the Enclave, but I think I’ve gotten what I meant across.

Gemini had calmed down some time ago thanks to Gold’s touch and my own assurances that I was alright. The griffon was surprisingly good at it too, reminding me of a father more than a brute responsible for putting weird things in my head. It was a bit surprising, but Lucky had referred to him as her father figure. There was definitely more to him than his beaten, scarred exterior let on.

Willow had fallen back asleep, likely to get a more comfortable night’s rest. When the immediate anger from Sharpshot choosing to help her first went away, I allowed myself to consider his position from a more familial standpoint. The two had been doing this dance with cloud nine for a while, and it was pretty clear Willow was the only pony in his life he cared about. Her pain must have been one of the hardest things he witnessed, and his worry for her was certainly touching. It made his choice more understandable, even if I still personally fucking hated them.

At some point, after Gemini had fallen asleep herself, Gold had walked up to me. While it wasn’t the first time we had stared at each other that night, it was the first time nopony had stepped in the way. He knew what I was thinking, and the way he would briefly evade my eye contact told me he knew what I wanted to say. I’m not sure how long it was until our silence was broken, but it came in the form of a heavy sigh.

“Sorry. Not a great impression,” He said, sitting down right in front of where Willow slept.

“An impression that a simple apology isn’t going to make go away,” I said, keeping my voice low for the sleeping unicorn and alicorn in the lobby with us. “I thought I was dying, and who the fuck just sticks a needle in someones neck?”

“Yes. I made mistake. Now here to make up for mistake. Till we no longer work together, I ask you deal with me.”

I blinked. “That’s… okay it still doesn’t make up for everything but that was a better apology then I expected.”

He chuckled, and then started to cough profusely. They slowly turned into wheezes, his face growing less and less joyful with each second they continued. Once they faded, he regained his composure and started to pound his chest with a talon. That was followed by him clearing his throat, and then completely disregarding that coughing fit ever happened.

“Might have practiced in mirror.”

“Not a lot of apologizing goes on out here, does it?”

“Hard to apologize. Most ponies have shoot first mentality. Even more griffons have shoot first mentality. Apology is rare, accepted apology even rarer. Becomes myth to griffons who fight for money.”

“You are referring to the Talons.” He gave me a nod. “You’re one of them?”

“Long ago. Not anymore,” He explained, motioning with his talons in a somewhat dramatic fashion. “Something felt… wrong. Not the business, but me. Felt out of place, so went on my own. Met many ponies, good and bad. Saved and killed ponies. All to look for answer. I know it now, what I looked for.” he sighed. “Too late. Considered too old for relationship.”

“You wanted a family, a partner. Somepony to stick by your side through thick and thin, like a brother or sister in arms.” He gave me a nod. “You found them, didn’t you? You found that griffon you were looking for, but you were too late to be with them.”

“Worse. He was taken, and he swung wrong way. Was good to find him nice hen before leaving. Haven’t seen them in years.”

My breath hilted for a second, and then was let out as I took in what he was saying. I actually knew what that felt like. I had felt the same way about Ironsight, and the same exact scenario had occurred. The difference likely came not just in age, but in will. Gold’s eyes showed how much recounting the events hurt him. He had seen this griffon as his one chance.

He just… gave up. Gave up on love, on partnership, and that was the part that felt off to me. Was the wasteland so horrid that everycreature gave up on love that easily? It made me hate this megaspell riddled world even more, but also sad. Love, even if not the romantic kind, was a beautiful thing. A thing that had kept me going, even in the darkest times of my life.

My light in the dark. My guiding spirit. My anchor, keeping me from getting lost at sea.

“You didn’t stay by them?” I asked, voice quiet. I still despised him, but the hurt in his heart had gotten to me.

He shook his head. “Was too tough. Felt weird around them. I left and… not sure what's next. Many memories, all a blur. Never felt conscious till met her.”

He reached into what I initially had believed to be an ammo pouch, but what came out was not ammunition. A cigar, bulk and filled with fresh tobacco, slid its way through his talons. I was certain there was a lighter in another of his pouches, but he didn’t grab it. This one he flipped around, the slightest sign of a smile on his beak. One familiar yet different to that finding my own light in the dark.

“Ponies are odd. Foals are even more odd, but none are unpleasant. Find right ponies, find good company.” It was in the middle of speaking that his other talon finally reached into another pouch. As I had expected, an old lighter came out, the cigar it was meant for being present to me. “Find many of these in wasteland. Doubt these are up there, so take it.”

As soon as he finished offering the cigar, I reached out my hoof. He thought it was a sign I was accepting his offer, but instead I pushed his talons back to him. He was surprised, as if the action of not taking it was unknown to him. There was a clear attempt to ask me again, but I shook my head as an immediate reply. Gold took that as his definitive answer, but he never put the lighter or cigar away.

Instead he brought the roll of tobacco to his beak, lit the end, and chomped down on it. The horrid smell it gave off hit my lungs, but due to my shoulder moving to cover my nose and mouth was pain. A couple seconds passed, he took it out of his mouth and blew the smoke away from me.

“Lucky entered my life, and things became clear. Parents dead, hates cutie marks – mentioned that already – and out of time.”

I tilted my head. “Out of time?”

“Difficult to explain. Lucky from wartime.”

My face first showed disbelief, and then switched to frowning. I fully expected him to say that was a joke, but his expression didn’t shift. Instead he brought the cigar back to his beak, the slight spark of embers glowing and dimming with his breath. He wasn’t lying, at least as far as he was aware. Lucky must have been the liar in this scenario.

“Saw world die, and parents with it,” he said, pulling the cigar out again. He released another cloud, watching it like it with nearly hypnotic amounts of wonder. “They weren’t lucky to join her in stable. She blames old world, hates it. Believes cutie marks are to blame for them not being allowed in.”

“Yet I’ve seen more than enough proof that her family weren’t the only ones denied,” I replied. My mind thought to the pony in the hotel, getting high on the last day of their life, and the mare or stallion that had given up any hope at Alibi Street Cinema. “Does she know that? That others were hurt?”

“She did learn. More fuel for her hate. Cutie marks separate ponies. Can’t become anything else, because of talent. Get treated better or worse, because of talent. When foal gets it also impacts them. She was late, incredibly late.”

“And when she did get it?”

His entire body suddenly looked ready to fall over, having to place the talon holding his cigar on the ground to steady himself. “Harm. Lots of harm. Very little harm to others, and mostly to herself.”

My eyes searched the darkness of the clinic’s lobby as I tried to process those words. My mind spiraled, thoughts of Clear or Rainy doing the exact same thing to themselves filling my head. Even if so much else of what Lucky told him was a lie, I could be certain that those words weren’t. Lucky saw him as a father, and he clearly cared for the little filly. No father would lie about their child self-harming themselves… at least, I hoped not.

Gold, wanting to get away from such a sensitive topic, turned his gaze away from me. I followed his eyes with my own, and found he was looking at my equipment. He got up and walked over to it, the only thing keeping me from going with him was my swollen shoulder. As he reached them, I saw his claws reach out.

“Break them and I’ll…,” I said, wanting to find some means of threatening retort. Sadly, with a fractured shoulder and no guns on me I came to the conclusion I just looked desperate and turned my head away. “It would be counterproductive.”

“Wasn’t going to break any,” he told me, reaching down towards the Atomizer. “This ones broken already. Familiar with design, to an extent. Early version of ArcanaTech weaponry.”

“Arcana Tech weaponry. ArcanaTech… weaponry.” I played with the words, feeling something strange about them. Gold waited patiently, and was rewarded with a hanging jaw moments later. “We found that in the Ministery of Arcana Science hub. The ponies who were down there, they made ArcanaTech?”

“See themselves as last of old world,” Gold answered, slowly plodding back over to me. He placed the Atomizer down between him and myself. “Continued with their work after seizing tower. MentaBuck one invention, but most focused on black hole energy. Inventions like this.”

His left hoof reached back to his holster, and for the first time I noticed the odd little bracelet he wore on it. I didn’t focus on it for long, instead turning my attention to the pistol that I was positive Gold didn’t have on him the first time I met him. It shared similar design cues from the Atomizer, but where one was made for ponies this one was made for griffons. It had the same strange battery – though it was not entirely made of glass – same dark blue lighting, but it was also far simpler.

He motioned for me to take a closer look, and I was more than happy to do so. Being extremely cautious with how I was moving my body, I placed a hoof on the pistol and brought it closer. I expected every little piece of it, noting that it took a lot more inspiration from standard firearms compared to the G.P.E.’s energy weapons. That didn’t make it any less fascinating.

“Named it Roche Limit. Made for me. Shot rips things apart atom by atom. Direct shot not needed to damage enemy, but death sentence if you do.”

“Sounds gruesome.”

“It is.”

“Have you shot somecreature with it?”

“Quire a few. No ammo for it out there, though. ArcanaTech restocks me when able.”

“How about armor?”

“The more layers, the harder to get through. Can pierce most armor, though, but will weaken impact on flesh.”

I nodded, not sure how some of that made sense but the gun was probably a one-of-a-kind. I can’t imagine any other black hole based energy weapons out in the wasteland, especially ones designed for griffons as a matter of fact. Either way it was clear he and ArcanaTech had given the gun more care than any Enclave soldier ever did. That could be appreciated, and it just made me more curious about what the Atomizer was capable of.

“You think they could fix it?” I asked, turning my head to the prototype rifle.

“Better. They’ll improve it,” Gold answered, grabbing Roche Limit and holstering it once more. “Not agree with all ArcanaTech does, but they got Lucky. May not seem it, but Trotson greatly improved from before she arrived.”

“Their previous leader was not a good pony, I take it.”

“Yes. ArcanaTech scared of outside, like stable dweller but worse. Moondancer, former leader, sees world as twisted beyond repair. Caused mistakes no genius should make. Very few survivors from labs, so inbreeding became common. Now their minds bright, but their bodies are dumb.”

“Just because they wanted to keep as separated as possible from the world outside?”

Before Gold could answer, a door was battered open. We turned our attention to Sharpshot, the ghoul carrying an entire cloudships worth of medkits, equipment and otherwise behind him. I couldn’t see his eyes due to both the broken goggles stuck to his face and the lack of light, but I could feel how tired he was. Every step was drawn out, slamming down into the floor with the force of a megaspell.

He reached us, looked at both Gold and myself and then cut his telekinesis. Every piece of equipment fell to the floor in a jumbled heap, and he joined them moments later. His horn only lit once again, and my injured shoulder was once again numb and locked in place. Gold opened his beak to speak, but was promptly quitted by Sharpshot raising a hoof at them.

“You know, I’ve had a lot of terrible days,” he said. “Some good, some bad. Some of those bad ones were self-inflicted, some of them weren’t. This day is firmly going in the former category.”

“I would have been okay with you breaking her nose if it was after we got Angel’s location from Gemini,” I told him, doing my best to give a look that was both sympathetic and deadpan. In the end I only got the latter. “Cause I get it. If my hubby had been used continually by her for her own gain I would also want to beat the shit out of her.”

“Would do same for make believe lover, and for Lucky,” Gold replied, giving a nod to the ghoul. Sharpshot glared at him. “Before becoming Invisible Mare. We know she don’t need it now.”

“You can say that again,” Sharpshot said. After a long breath, he looked at me. “So how has your day been?”

“Nearly got killed, met the Invisible Mare, and earned two new holes in my body,” I explained. I looked to the bandages on my chest, noticing the blood covering the bandages. “Surprisingly only one of them is from a gun.”

“Ah… and the other one?”

“A unicorn ghoul tried to stab me with its horn. It was more effective than I expected.”

There was a brief pause, Gold and Sharpshot looking at each other in astonishment before the latter spoke. “That’s… okay, as I’m working on your injuries you're going to tell me everything that happened.”

While a healing potion did end up fixing a lot of what was ailing me, it wasn’t perfect. The hole from the unicorn had been around for more than long enough for the potion’s effects to be overall mitigated, and to some extent the same could be said for the more recent shoulder wound. That meant Sharpshot had more than enough work on his hooves, with bandages being changed and added, magic to make sure the bones in my shoulder healed in the correct way, and other things.

All the while I explained the day’s events to both the ghoul and the griffon lazing about next to us. He was clearly on the verge of passing out, exhausted from whatever they had gone through to get to us, but was doing everything in his power to stay awake. Sharpshot tensed up more each time I mentioned the M.A.S. hub, though he continued to work as if nothing was wrong.

Then, I mentioned seeing Dead Hooves ghost. He went uncomfortably still.

“Ghosts rare. Many ponies ca… can’t see them,” Gold said, a yawn and nearly closed eyes signaling how close he was to passing out. “Not unheard of, however. Zebras more receptive to plain of unlife, griffons not so much, and ponies in middle.”

“Huh, so it isn’t just me then,” I said, not noticing the death glare being given from the other side of me. “Guess you learned this all from your time as a Talon. Can’t think of how you would know otherwise.”

“Learn lots, protecting and killing. Info more useful than caps at times,” he explained, closing his eyes completely. “Is blessing and curse. Not every ghost seen is friendly. Not every haunting is out of hate.” An exhale, his mind no doubt approaching the point where the waking world was fading away. “Not every spirit is free. Some live eternally in their dying moments.”

I had no response, because there wasn’t any way to respond. My first thoughts went to the screams of anguish and torment that I heard. The screams I had long associated with those I had failed to protect in Trotson, and those who never made it back on other missions. Till now I had always believed them to be the result of PTSD. The thought I could be haunted was… distressing.

Then I thought back to everypony I knew, everypony I had ever met up until my exile from the Enclave. I needed to know if Dead Hooves was the first time a ghost had actually been visible to my eyes. I came up with nothing, because everypony in my memories seemed too alive. If they were dead, it was impossible for me to tell.

Questions. So, so many questions. I couldn’t answer any of them, because nopony around me knew me from my days above the clouds. My only chance at answering any of them was Ironsight, and I wouldn’t hear from him for three days.

Having noticed a significant lack of burning pain in my shoulder for the past few minutes, I looked to Sharpshot. He was still glaring at me, something between rage and despair present in his eyes. Whether that was his true emotions couldn’t be gaged; the various cloth rapping and darkness hid it from being viewable, even as close as I was.

“So are you going to finish your work on my should–“

“Why you?”

His voice was barely audible, but the words were so simple it didn’t take long to figure out what he was saying. Nothing in his eyes changed, but it felt like any moment he was more than willing to take one of his guns and reopen my shoulder.

“Why you? Why the fuck did she show herself to you? Why can you fucking see her and not Willow and I?!”

Dead Hooves stepped into my vision, holding her forehooves out as if to hold the ghoul back. “Now listen here you insufferable bitch she–“

“We were with her through the best and worst moments. We were her friends! We are the ponies who should see her!” Sharpshot shouts all came with a step forward, easily pushing the ghost back as if she was an ant. “So why in the name of all the gods and goddesses of the ponies, zebras, and griffons does she show herself to you?”

“I didn’t exactly plan on seeing her,” I said, pointing to Dead Hooves. While he couldn’t see her, the various glances between me and the spot the dead mare was standing in showed he understood what I was doing. “I didn’t even know I could see ghosts until today, okay? So shut your muzzle and don’t get on me for things that are out of my control.”

“Yes. Makes too much noise,” Gold mumbled, shifting a bit in his nearly asleep state. “Griffon would like sleep, thanks very much.”

Sharpshot watched the griffon, and then let out an exaggerated groan. He started to walk off, telekinesis holding his zebra rifle behind him. Before reaching the door, he turned to me.

“Don’t put too much pressure on your shoulder for a few days and no flying till I say so,” he said. “Now if you don’t mind, I want to be alone till the sun rises.”

With that, he walked out of the clinic.

I returned to sleep not long after, and once again found myself in one of Dead Hooves memories. With the wish to simply watch it all play out, I allowed myself to sink back into believing I was the crippled mare. Rhapsody would simply return once I woke up.

Willow and I were still in Ponyville, still in the same building. Two more dead bodies had joined the one in the room next to us. We had stripped them of everything on them from weapons to ammo to clothing and, most importantly, their gas masks. They were the only way we were getting out of this town with the ash storm still brewing outside. With everypony inside houses, this was probably the best chance we had without spilling a settlements worth of blood.

Willow, rather reluctantly, helped me fit into the leather (a moment of silence for those poor brahmin) clothing that we had confiscated. It was almost suffocatingly closed in when the mask was put on over it, but it felt a bit secure too. I had spent my entire life around one little hut, and the fact the clothes hung tightly to my body made me feel like I was home.

Willow was clearly less alright with the clothing, and all for one reason: there was no room for wings. They pushed against the sides of the leather, making it look like some monster was begging to be freed. The wishes of her wings were denied for their own safety; if Balefire ash touched her coat or feathers, she would burn.

“You know how to use it, right?” She asked, pointing to the double barrel I had in my hooves.

“About the only weapon I’ve ever fired. Dad didn’t let me use any of his others,” I explained, breaking open the gun and slotting two of the six shells I had for it in.

To prove that I knew what I was doing, I pointed it away from the pegasus. Her eyes went from me to the submachine gun she had. One of the two magazines she had taken for it slid in, and she turned her attention back towards me. She motioned from me to her back, and with some help I managed to climb on top of her.

“So, any idea where we are heading?” I asked. “Don’t exactly know anywhere nearby.”

Willow rubbed her hoof against the underside of her muzzle, humming. With a nod, she started to walk up to the door leading outside.

“Closest place with civilization would probably be Appleloosa, though that isn’t exactly close. As long as this ash storm clears up within the day we should be able to make it there without much problem.”

“Why does the ash storm clearing up matter?”

“The filters on these masks don’t last forever. It won’t last through the day.”

With a gentle push of her hoof, the door opened itself. Willow quickly lowered her own mask as a blast of hot air and ash came through. It wasn’t a horrid heat, but it was far worse than anything the wasteland threw at a pony on a standard day.

“We’re going to need water badly,”

“This is what it’s like traveling in one of these things? How do you all do it?”

“Forty years ago, apparently we didn’t.” Willow stepped out of the door, the heat instantly making our clothes as uncomfortable as possible. “Ash storms were basically the normal weather back then. They’re still common, but ponies can actually travel outside now.”

“You think there will be a day when they're completely gone?”

“Perhaps. Pray to Celestia that day comes within our lifetime.”

Outside of the wind, the world around us was quiet. I could hear the crunch of ash with each step Willow took, the gray soot doing its best to cling to our masks and clothing. Each little piece did their best to ignite upon hitting the ground, but like all the others they quickly died. It made it difficult to tell what color the buildings around us were, but their shape was all we needed.

After a time we made our way to an interesting looking building that was close to the center of town. It was themed after a gingerbread house, though a lot of what had given it that appearance had disappeared. It was a crumbling mess, much of the outside decor had fallen to the ground, vibrant pinks, yellows, purples and other colors had worn and faded from time and lack of care.

“If we’re looking for a liquid of any kind, it would be here,” Willow explained. “Be ready to open fire. There might be ponies inside.”

I gave a nod and lit my horn, opening the door for the pegasus so she could train her gun on what possibly lay beyond. We were greeted by a red light filter from outside, the floor as clean as one could get in the wasteland. Nopony immediately showed themselves, and that gave us our cue to enter the building.

With a kick, Willow closed the door behind it. It wasn’t subtle, but then again if anypony was hear they would have heard the creaking of the door when I opened it; stealth wasn’t an option. With a sense of dread and foreboding, I held the shotgun up to our left side.

Wherever we entered used to be a bakery, though the baked goods were probably not the best to eat anymore. A lot of what was in the display case had turned to moldy dust, and those that weren’t had been twisted so horribly by the passage of time I felt the rising urge to vomit. I looked away from it and to the rest of the bakery. The tables, chairs, faded paintings, and otherwise were a lot less stomach churning though far from pleasant. I highly doubt any of them would be able to take a ponies weight anymore, and neither Willow or myself were interested in finding out.

There was an out of sync clop of a hoof, and Willow froze in place. Feeling like I would slow the pegasus down more if I was on her when shots flew, slid off her and onto the floor. I landed on my side, and while it certainly hurt, the fall had done nothing more than bruise. Quickly getting my front hooves under me, I slowly started dragging myself towards the display case in preparation for when the first shot flew.

Except, what came wasn’t a shot but a stern glare from the pegasus I had just fallen off of. I gave her the goofiest smile I could, but with our masks still on that proved ineffective at first. Actually, no, even once I had lowered the mask she was looking at me like a disappointed parent. The only thing keeping her from openly scolding me was the sound of hoofsteps not far away.

“I’m positive that it was the door I heard. There’s no way it wasn’t.”

Willow briefly looked at where the new view, clearly belonging to a mare, had come from. She didn’t hide, didn’t flee, didn’t even take cover. The sound of approaching enemies was what finally put a smile back on the pegasi’s face, stepping towards where she knew they were coming from. Something about her in that moment scared me, as if it had managed to put all the blood that stained her coat in a very different lightening. The feeling that it wasn’t all hers.

“You’re imagining things,” Another mare said. They were coming from far closer to me than the other one was. “Nopony would be dumb enough to go out right now. Not with the ash storm overhead.”

“You’re wrong and you know you are wrong,” the first mare replied. “First off, you have those travelers idiotic enough to prove Equestria is safe once again. Second, you have the striped from Stalliongrad with the biggest fucking death wish I’ve ever seen. Third, Boulder.”

“Boulder wouldn’t g–”

“He would, you know we would. You think that wheezing and hacking he does all the time is due to the amount of physical excursion he puts himself through?”

“No! He’s built like a brick and has the endurance of wartime machine… in more ways than one.”

The second mare was blushing. I have no clue why but she was very blushing, but she most definitely was. She was right above me at that point, on the other side of the display case. As she was in the middle of a conversation, her ability to both search for me and talk caused her to look straight and not down. It did nothing to stop the loud thumping of my heart, waiting for her to either turn away or spot me.

“... really?” the first mare said, breaking the few seconds of silence her companion had left her in.

“Oh well if you want to get on me about my choice in stallions,” she turned her head away from me, and I knew this was my chance. I raised the double-barrle up as she continued to speak. “then perhaps I should get on you about your choice in mares!”

BANG!

I missed. I fucking missed. The shotgun had been directly leveled with her head and yet somehow I missed!

The world slowed as the mare turned to face me. My ear rang, leaving me unable to tell that Willow had just engaged the other enemy. For the second, maybe third time that day I felt certain I was gonna die. The rising of a pistol between my eyes only further proved that, but I had one more bullet

With a silent prayer to Celestia I gave what I thought might be my final actions, and fired.

BANG!

I didn’t realize I had closed my eyes until I needed to open them. The shotgun had deafened me, leaving me in near absolute silence. I thought I was dead until the sound of gunfire graced my ears. With the knowledge I wasn’t yet dead, I dared to open my eyes and see what had become of the mare I had shot.

I was met with the returned urge to vomit, not at what lied within the display case but what was behind it. Blood, tissue, bits of gray matter, anything else that possibly made up what used to be her head. My eyes trailed from where the gore was at its worst to the body. There wasn’t anything that could be called a head anymore. Just a broken mess of bone and skin, clinging onto a limping spine.

My tongue momentarily started to run against my lips, but I pulled it back in. Fear at what that initial stomach churning display had turned into overwhelmed me. Head to the ground, hooves covering my ears, and eyes hidden behind eyelids, my body shook. What it wanted frightened me to no end.

“I won’t. I won’t do it again,” I muttered in terror. “That was an exception. I won’t do it again.”

My words didn’t calm me down, but they did stop the twisted thoughts going through my head. Refusing to look back through the display case, I crawled forward. I brought the shotgun towards me, ready for whatever might show up. My ears somehow caught the muffled sound of body blows being exchanged between ponies, grunts of discomfort and pain hitting my ears.

Then a body flew past me, out the bakery window, and I yelped. I tried to fire a shot but all I got was the click of the trigger; I had forgotten to reload it. A figure stepped forward, Willow Wisp to my relief, motioning me to put my mask on. Lifting myself up as high as my forelegs could, using the display case for support, I looked to the window and saw why.

My hearing was still shot, so I hadn’t heard the sound of glass shattering. I quickly put on the gas mask as the air outside made its way in, ash joining it. A mare, battered, bruised and lacking any protection (she must have wrongfully thought she was safe in the bakery) stood up. She yelled at the pegasus, but I couldn’t make it out. Not until she looked at her hoof and started to scream.

The return of sound to my body was filled with the terrified cries of a pony, and the cackling of fire. It had suddenly lit up in flames, her other hoof going to put it out only to somehow ignite itself as the flames traveled up her. She reached out for us, but I was too scared to approach and Willow was watching in prideful elation at the sight before her.

“Help! Please, help me!” The burning mare replied, her voice becoming more terrified and loud as the flames consumed her more and more. “I’ll do anything, everything! Just please for CelestiaaAAA!”

Her cries for help turned in loud, horrified screams as the flames reached her face. Looking away was impossible, my terror at the sight only slightly dulled at one putrid though: she would be too burnt to eat. Dispelling that horrid thought was as impossible as looking away, even as my vision blurred and the dream started to end.

The urge to vomit hit me as soon as I woke up. Half asleep, Dead Hooves’ grotesteque thoughts still at the forefront of my mind, a foreleg found its way around my muzzle. I quickly went from barely awake to fully aware of all my surroundings. Bile rose, and it refused to move its way back down. As quick as my barely awake legs could carry me, and half-walked half-waddled towards the reception area. Throwing my forelegs over it and batting my wings as quickly as I could, I leaned into the receptionist desk and hurled.

Thank Luna none of the ponies supposed to be behind it were alive to see that.

I was all too thankful that there wasn’t much to throw up at that point, but it was more than enough to leave the disgusting taste of puke in my mouth. I waited to know if I was done before sliding off the counter and back to the floor. My ears turned as they heard hooves, and turning around to see who it was led me to the forms of Dead Hooves and Shining Gemini. One of them I was not happy to see.

I gave the ghost a death glare, leading her to stumble. With her silenced, a let out a sigh and looked at a grounder I was the tiniest bit more willing to talk to. Though, to be honest, I had no desire to talk to anypony at that moment.

“A-are you okay?” Gemini asked. With every step I took forward, she took a step back. I smirked at the knowledge she was afraid of me, something I was more than happy to see after everything that had happened the day prior. “Do you… do you need RadAway? I could grab it for you if you need it.”

“No,” I said, briefly glancing at the radiation counter on the MentaBuck just to be completely sure. I was the slightest bit irradiated, probably from being near the Trotson crater, but not to the extent I felt I needed to take anything. “That was because of something else. Fucking cannibals.”

“Fu- what?”

“Nothing. I don’t want to talk right now,” I said, placing a hoof in the direction of the door into the rest of the medical center. “None of you grounders are intelligent enough to understand.”

Gemini froze still, on the verge of tears just from those few simple words. If she couldn’t handle the truth of my words, then she really was even less worth my time than the rest of these dirt covered mistakes that surrounded me. If only it got rid of the one I was actually trying to get away from.

I didn’t need to look behind me to tell Dead Hooves had followed every step I took. I needed a walk, silence, and my own thoughts at that given moment. I need some semblance of common sense and none of these ponies were gonna give me it. Especially a pony eating ghost.

And to think she claimed to be family!

It was ridiculous, insulting, and too corrupt for me to even consider. The ghost following the serial killer alicorn and the wasteland’s most wanted was a cannibal, cause of course she was! The closest thing I had to a sane pony around me was probably the freed slave I had just yelled at. That was not a good sign.

“Singing, I don’t know what you saw but Gemini didn’t deserve that.”

A cannibal, claiming to be my own blood. Very distant blood, but blood nonetheless. Anypony related to me that was down here would have been a saint compared to the tartarus pit they had put themselves in. What I got instead was some grounder who thought they were far smarter than they actually were.

“Is this because of something in my memories? You saw me eat somepony, didn’t you?”

Fuck, the spirit had just admitted to it herself! I did my best to ignore her existence, my legs carrying me to nowhere in particular. All I wanted to do was be left alone and Dead Hooves was trying her best to deny me that. The worst part was that, despite everything, I was actually listening to what she was saying.

“Look I know it's bad but I swear if I had another option I would have. I didn’t ask for that hunger.”

“You ate ponies,” I said, finally caving to the spirit’s wish of acknowledgement. I never stopped walking. “You think there is a good explanation for that.”

“A good one? No, but there is an explanation. It’s… my mother was one as well, okay? She left when I was young because the hunger was too much and she didn’t want to hear my dad and I.”

“That’s not an explanation. That’s you trying to buy time to create an excuse.”

“Or perhaps you are being difficult because of, what, heritage? Is your family tree really so important?”

I halted, spun around and slapped her with enough force to throw her into the wall. I’m not sure if the fact I had managed to hit a ghost was as surprising as how hard I had managed. Turns out that ghosts had the strength of a six year old unicorn foal, who knew?

“Do you have any idea how half-unicorns or half-earth ponies are treated in the Enclave?” I asked her. She hadn’t responded, more interested in standing back up and rubbing her bruised cheek. “They’re the dregs of Enclave society, the impure unwanted who the Enclave deals with to show we’re better. They’re the last who are looked at for jobs, the lowest paid, and don’t even get me started on how one is treated for joining the military. If I’m that, then… I can’t be like that.”

Dead Hooves narrowed her eyes at me, nose twitching. “You can’t be, or you're scared that you are?”

“I am not scared.”

“Okay, but if having relations with a cannibal doesn’t scare you, then why are your eyes so unsteady?”

It was a trick, her words had to be a trick, but damn it she got me. I became more aware of how I was looking, glaring daggers into her. I looked furious, but in truth I had been terrified because… because I was. She had me. I refused to say it but this pony, who Willow had called an idiot, had me.

Dead Hooves' talent in life had been manipulation. I had witnessed that ability first hoof.

“If you’re not scared, then considering me your great great auntie Dead Hooves shouldn’t be anything to gray your mane over,” she said to me. There was no smirk on her face, instead looking as cold and emotionless as a soldier at attention. “You have some unicorn in you. Deny it all you want, but you do.”

“I’m not connected to a cannibal,” I stated, more a reaffirmation for myself than anything else.

“You don’t have to like it, but you are,” Dead Hooves replied. All confidence in her voice evaporated following her words, ears pinned against her head. “So, let me just tell you about it. About that piece of myself, because I wanted it to exist as much as anypony would want cancer.”

I had no obligation saying I had to listen to her, but the way she pleaded reminded me of Clear. I looked over Dead Hooves for a moment, remembering that, despite no longer being alive, she also wasn’t some crazy old mare. She was young, around the age I had joined military service. Her nonexistent heart was worn on her just as nonexistent sleeve, and as Willow said she hadn’t actually lied to me. Me seeing her memories was clearly not her initial intent, even if it was what we were doing.

Then there was the fact that, as if having an out of body experience, I identified with the unicorn before me in a way that can’t quite be explained. I knew I wasn’t her, that I was a pegasus and not a unicorn, but her memories still lingered in the back of my head. I wasn’t worried about the fact they had left, because they felt as much a part of me as all the memories that made me Rhapsody. A desire to know more about those memories had been placed deeper in my heart.

So, though it may be a mistake, I decided to give a nod as my answer. Dead Hooves gave me a solemn smile.

“Mom was a zebra. When she was still with dad and I, she told me about myths and legends from her homeland. One of the few actual real legends she mentioned was something called “the gluttonous one”. It is some sort of strange old spirit far different from myself. It was believed to have once been a normal zebra, but for reasons either desperate or malicious it ate its sister.

What followed for the zebra was a slope, one so slippery yet so enticing it couldn’t and soon didn’t want to come back out. They’re hunger for flesh soon became something separate from normal hunger, like how… no there has to be another analogy.”

“If it’s something gross and dark, don’t worry,” I told her, tapping my chest. “Enclave soldier, remember?”

Despite still being rather unsure of the words, she gave a nod. “I was gonna say it was like how… somepony else getting you off can feel stronger compared to doing it yourself.”

There was a good fifteen seconds of silence, the grounder’s ethereal form unable to hide her blush. I did not laugh, because it was not the time to burst into hysterics at some adolescent mare’s attempt to make a sex joke. That was really hard though, especially as I realized that the analogy did not work as well as Dead Hooves thought it did.

“A-Anyways, he kept eating zebras. Didn’t matter how he got the bodies or if they were alive or dead when he found them, he ate and ate. It changed him, made him something darker and more insidious. The only reason he didn’t rampage in the world of the living was because an old and wise shaman named Perseverance struck him down. Most were saved, but those like my mother and myself were not.

“To those who have tasted blood, that gluttonous one always knows. For the sins of eating one's own, no matter the reason, life's embrace can not protect you. He whispers in your ear and warps your perception, goading you on and asking you to give in. My mom felt it and feared him, and I battled his hunger since I first tasted pony flesh. I wish I could assure you I only did it once, but that would be a lie.”

She capped off the story with a look, one that both commanded and pleaded at the same time. There was truth to it – there was always some truth behind myth and legend – and she wanted me to just take her word and not find out if it was true or not. This was one case where I was more than happy to agree, as I was not damaged enough in the frontal lobe to eat somepony.

“I want to point out, your little talk didn’t make what you did sound any better,” I explained, turning around and restarting my mindless walk through the medical center. “In fact you just made it sound several times worse.”

“That’s what I was hoping for,” Dead Hooves replied, once again refusing to leave me alone. “I made a mistake. A mistake I felt was my only choice at that time, but in the long run it just caused my friends and I a hard time.”

I nodded mechanically, and for an unknown length of time we walked together in silence. Despite having wanted to be alone, and who was robbing me of that wish, I found myself appreciating the company.

When I returned to the lobby, Willow had woken up. Gemini was sitting not too far away from her, though clearly guarded. The alicorn wasn’t in anywhere near as much discomfort as I had seen her in before, which was good. Gemini might have been the only other sane pony here, but Willow was the only one I felt I was actually getting along well with.

They both acknowledged me, and then went back to whatever they were discussing. I sat on one of the many broken seats on the other side of the lobby, Dead Hooves doing the same right next to me, and I eavesdropped.

“It’s just… nice, you know?” Gemini said, forehooves close to her chest. “I won’t lie, I didn’t expect somepony like you to be a freed slave. I mean, you seemed just like Celestia and Luna. How could somepony control you?”

Willow snorted in amusement. “Well I’m pretty sure that was part of the intent Minister Sparkle had for us, and I wasn’t always an alicorn.”

“I know but… you just seem so unlike me, I guess. Its like you were never enslaved in the first place. How did- well- I’m not entirely sure how to word the question I’m trying to ask.”

“Slow down. You’re getting scared over nothing.”

“But this isn’t nothing, it's…,” Gemini’s motions were starting to become slightly erratic. Her pupils flicked in multiple directions, shrinking in fear of an unknown predator. “I-I’m not supposed to be here. You know this, I know this, that pegasus knows. If I don’t seem like I have things together I–”

“What did Sharpshot say to you?”

The rise and fall of Gemini’s chest became slightly more erratic as she looked up at Willow. The alicorn was disappointed, but none of it was pointed at the freed slave before her. I had held that same look at Anchor when he did something, and Anchor had done it to me for the same exact reasons. The lack of an answer from Gemini did nothing but make it even worse.

“Damn it hun. You’re ruining yourself,” she whispered, though with her voice in our head the point of whispering became more freaky then useful. “Gemini, whatever he said to you, I’m so so sorry.”

“Sorry? Why are you sorry for me?” Gemini asked, shuffling backwards a bit. “I missed up last night. I almost killed somepony by complete accident.”

“It was a dumb decision, yes, but have you ever used a gun before yesterday?”

“N-n-no.”

“Who put the gun in your hooves with nary a lesson on how to properly use it?” Gemini clammed up, eyes slowly trailing down Willow Wisp’s body and to the floor. “It was Sharpshot, I know it was Sharpshot. You pulled the trigger, yes, but he was the pony who gave it to you.”

“Y… yeah, I’m sorry.”

“Hey Singing.” I straightened up as Willow called my name. “You think you have time before we leave to show her some proper gun safety? You’re easily the most qualified here.”

“Y-you don’t have to,” Gemini said, hooves waving frantically in front of her. “I know I messed up, a-and I’m sure you don’t really want to talk to me right now.”

One side of my lip scowled, the other remained expressionless. As much as I hated to admit it, Willow had a very good point. Getting shot in the shoulder last night was not part of the plan, and if Gemini was with us – against her will or not – she would need to learn to use a gun correctly. I looked to Dead Hooves, not so much in confirtmation but more in intrigue as to how she felt about it all.

All she did was give a smile and shrug.

“If I’m going to teach you how to use a gun, then you will do exactly as I ask,” I told Gemini, emphasizing my last few words by pointing at her with my hoof. “Do you understand, grounder?”

“Y-yes Miss Rhapsody!”

“I’m married.”

“Sorry.”

I threw a hoof up in the air. “It’s fine. Just don’t make me repeat myself later.”

“You see? You have no reason to be afraid of us,” Willow said, clapping her hooves together and smiling brightly. “So open up. You got ponies right here willing to listen to what you’ve been through.”

Two quick glances to each side of her body, and Gemini shook her head. “I-I-I’m… I’m not sure I’m ready yet. I mean I literally met you all, what, three days ago? I don’t want you all to just… I don’t want pity.”

“You won’t be getting any from me,” I said to her, leaning back. She looked to me like a filly that knew they had just gotten in trouble. “All you unicorns and earth ponies got issues, and that's why you’re down here and not up in the sky. Can’t pity what's basically a normal upbringing.”

“And where does that put you?” Willow asked.

I gave her a shrug. “Fucked up beyond repair? Sure I didn’t get branded for the reasons most dashites do, but I’ve been on missions no Enclave soldier would ever want to be on. Citizens see us as heroes, but we… Celestia knows what condition the so-called heroes head is in.”

“So you’re a lot like me then.”

I narrowed my eyes at the Gemini, and she turned away. The urge to address how wrong she was barely held in check. Gold yawning was part of the reason why, the griffon’s old eyes barely open. He was as awake as a goldfish was intelligent for a small period of time, but as minutes added up and he became more and more awake that became more offensive and less apt.

“Noisy lot. Can’t a griff awaken in peace?”

“S-sorry Mister Gold,” Gemini replied,

The griffon looked to the window, weakly scoffed, and then stretched his talons out. “Not unicorns fault. I… slept in.”

I willed up the MentaBuck, checking the clock that I had barely acknowledged was there since getting the damn thing. He was correct; it was currently around 0900 hours, far later than then I had originally suspected it to be.

“Guess our little walk-and-talk earlier was longer than I expected,” Dead Hooves said, forehooves rubbing together. I raised one side of my brow at her. What kind of nervous habit was that? “And it’s probably gonna be a bit longer with you having to, well, give a one pony weapons class.”

“I fucking hate that you’re right,” I replied. Standing up, I looked at Gemini. “Alright, we’ll get some food and then do some gun safety 101. Does Sharpshot still have all the food and ammo on him still?”

Willow gave a nod. “Well we certainly didn’t take it with us to the M.A.S. hub.”

I allowed myself to bare a malicious grin at my memory being confirmed as right. “Perfect.”

Sharpshot was leaning against the building right next to Nature Care, staring at me like I had mud on my face. That was definitely because of the grin I was baring, unable to wipe it off my face as much as I tried. I had been given a proper reason to do what I had been wanting to do since I met him. A reason beyond him playing with my emotions like I was some robot.

“So you trying to creep my out or–“

I twisted around and bucked him in the face, earning a pained groan. Happy with what I had gotten, I swiped some rifle ammo, food, and headed back inside without a second thought. My grin was far beyond the line of being natural.

After a wonderful meal the large group I had gained out of seemingly nowhere left Nature Care. We weren’t heading anyplace specific just yet, be allowing those of us with wings to stretch in a more open area. I set up a small makeshift firing range with the help of Gold using practically anything we could find around us. Cans of Sparkle-Cola and Sunrise Sarsaparilla lined the street not too far away, with some precariously on top of fire hydrants, window sills, and the like.

If I was gonna teach a grounder the basics of fighting, I was going to do it in the most official way I could. Gemini wasn’t a soldier, and I doubted that she had the mental fortitude of a soldier, so I was already going to be more lenient overall. If she hadn’t fucked up my shoulder I might have even demonstrated for her. Instead I had the help of a very disgruntled ghoul.

He called it a waste of ammunition. I called it vital instruction.

“Alright, before we put a gun in your hooves there are three things that need to immediately be made clear. Three things that will keep you from fracturing any more shoulders by accident in the future,” I explained, pacing back and forth in front of her. Gold chuckled at my wording, though Gemini didn’t seem to get my sense of human. I swear she is a foal in a mare's body. “The first of those is to never look down the end of a gun, even if you think it isn’t loaded or broken. That’s a one way ticket to Celestia, and she would be very disappointed if you showed up through such means, grounder or not.”

“D-don’t look down the place where the bullet comes out,” Gemini said. She gave a nod. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Then the next two should sound even more sensible: don’t point a gun at somepony who isn’t a threat.” I grew more stern in my delivery, as this was one she had technically failed last night. I was going to ignore the fact it was pitch black, because it didn’t matter for teaching somepony gun safety. “If you pull that trigger at the wrong time or by complete accident, then you could very well kill somepony you didn’t mean to. That also brings me to number three: don’t put your magic – or however you plan to pull the trigger – on the trigger until you are going to fire. That keeps incidents like last night from happening.”

“O-o-of course.”

“Answer with confidence, grounder!”

“Of course!”

I smiled. Gemini was clearly scared, but she was doing everything in her power to not show it. Her legs shook a little, and her words were not the most well articulated, but by Luna she was trying. Perhaps I was wrong; maybe there was the hint of a soldier underneath the trauma. I made a mental note to prod and see.

If it was possible to turn a scared little grounder into something resembling the Enclave’s finest, perhaps this place wasn’t beyond hopeless.

From there I moved on to putting a gun in her hooves. Her nervousness popped up again and again, with me having to rip the pistol from her magic and remind her of the basics. She did get it down with a bit of instruction, using a voice that bordered more on maternal then drill sergeant.

All the while the crowd of three gave unnecessary banter and, in the case of Sharpshot, generally horrible advice. When I loaded Gemini’s pistol so she could finally get some practice shots in, they started betting. If I wasn’t so focused on the unicorn before me, then each of them would have earned the most disappointing stare a pegasus could muster.

“So Sharpshot says she’ll hit none, Gold says two, and I say five,” Willow said. I only hoped Gemini had kept out her telepathy; they were putting unnecessary pressure on the mare. “You want to join in Singing?”

“I do not, and will kindly ask you all to shut the fuck up!” I yelled at them. I looked back to Gemini, leaning in and giving her a pat on the back with one of my wings. “Pay no attention to them. I don’t expect you to be perfect on your first attempt. Take one shot at a time and all will be fine.”

The unicorn nodded. “One shot at a time, right.”

She aimed down the makeshift firing range, the fast rise and fall of her chest contradicting how focused she was trying to look. The pistol has fourteen bullets, and there were seven glass bottles laid out before us. A bang, and seven were still standing. Another bang, and one sitting on the road shattered. Every shot that followed fulfilled one of those two outcomes, and when the pistol had been empty we had our verdict.

Fourteen bullets, four bottles still standing, three destroyed. While I had said she didn’t need to destroy all of them, the fact a good number of them were still standing was disappointing. It was also more than I had expected, which left me conflicted. Gemini simply looked relieved.

“I actually hit one of them,” she said, turning to me with the barest amount of bravery. “No, I hit sever–”

“You’re pointing it at me.”

Her bravery disappeared as soon as I pointed out her mistake, lowering the pistol and flattening her ears. “Sorry.”

“You did good though,” I gave the ponies and griffon behind me a smug look, leaving me unable to notice the small smile Gemini had gained. “Looks like none of you won. Does that make me the winner?”

“You didn’t pick a number, so no,” Sharpshot replied. His words were laced with venom, probably from me kicking him in the face earlier that day. “Congrats, noponies a winner. Who knows when you’ll get your chance for another victory.”

“Victory comes in the form of the Enclave’s – and by extension your – safety. That doesn’t happen till my old squad is dead,” I reminded him. I took a few steps forward, standing in the center of our little group. “Which means it’s time to put our focus back on Angel Hair. The good news is that Lucky told us her location, the bad news is she isn’t in Trotson anymore.”

“She sold ArcanaTech the stolen documents for info on her biological father. Apparently they are in Our Haven,” Willow explained further. She frowned. “Betraying everypony you know, for a pony you’ve never met. She deserves the most painful death a pegasus can be offered.”

“Which is why our next stop is Our Haven. Gold, I assume yo–”

Sharpshot stepped forward, waving one foreleg around in perfect 4/4 time. “Whoa whoa whoa, you want me and Willow to go into Our Haven?”

“Yes, because I recruited you two to deal with traitors of the G.P.E.. Doing otherwise would be going against that.”

“Yes, and I’m willing to do that, but Our Haven!” His hoof swung outward. “Nu uh. No way. They tried to kill Willow once already and I’m not letting you send her to her death!”

I raised my brow, and looked at Willow in hopes of an explanation. She sighed, then looked at her husband. The sorrow on her face wasn’t pointed at him, but rather at me.

“I… I don’t want to step hoof near it again. I didn’t mention it when we were at the M.A.S. hub, but if you’re going there then I need to stay outside. They really, really hate alicorns.”

“What? Why?” Gemini asked, tilting her head. “I mean your… messy, but not a bad pony. Did… did you do something to a pony there?”

Willow shook her head. “No. There reasons are religious. Alicorns built the ministries, alicorns started the war. Alicorns brought the world to an end. All alicorns are sin incarnate, and we must be purged to avoid the same mistake from occurring.”

Gemini gasped, Gold allowing her no time to recover as he replied.

“Our Haven is cult. Powerful cult too, like old Nightmare Moon fanatics. Controls much of food in San Palomino due to clean water source. Want food? Follow Our Haven code. They protect San Palomino decently well, but are cruel.”

“There is another group called the Shattered Moon, but they are more bandits than a nation,” Willow explained. A brought my hoof to my muzzle realizing how familiar that name sounded. “They mean good, but siding with them means a target on your back.”

“I see. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to put your wife in that sort of harm. You can stay outside of Our Haven if you desire,” I said, motion to Sharpshot and Willow. “I’m still going in. Angel needs to die.”

“Not really.”

I looked back to Gold, the old griffon lazing back with a half-empty bottle of Sparkle-cola. He took another gulp, lowered it, and stared right back at me with lackadaisical intrigue. It was the look of someone who had seen everything, and already knew what response his words would draw.

“Angel unimportant. Already got rid of documents, so just normal pegasus. Nothing gained from killing them.”

I took a slow step forward, leaning my head forward. “Are you trying to convince me to not go after her?”

“Would save time, get us to other pegasi with documents. That's important for the mission, correct?”

“What's important is what I messed up. I let the documents get stolen, I got betrayed, I need to set things right!” I gave one hard stomp after another towards the griffon. “That aligns with what the Enclave wants, not ArcanaTech.”

“W-wouldn’t the Enclave pre–” I gave Gemini a glare, freezing her in place. Her eyes looked away from me. “I-I mean yes, right with you missus.”

“None of this is necessary, Rhapsody,” Sharpshot said, stepping forward. “Like, I’m all up for killing ponies but you seem… back and forth I guess? What do you want? Your family's protection, or revenge.”

“I want both damnit, and they go hoof and hoof,” I said. “My revenge lines up with what the Enclave wants, and if M.A.M. falls into the wrong hooves then… then….”

Willow tilted her head, Sharpshot’s eyes narrowing at me. “M.A.M.?”

I gritted my teeth, mentally beating myself as they mimicked that acronym back at me. Stepping back would only cement that I had let slip something I hadn’t meant to. Stepping forward felt impossible, because I had just made an unfortunate blunder. My choice ended up being to turn away and mouth “fuck”.

I was hoping what I had told them back at the apartment complex would have been enough. That no longer seemed to be the case. It was time to see how much they would allow me to keep under wraps.

“It’s unimportant. You don’t need to know about it.”

“No. It’s what you came here for,” Gold said. I glared at him in warning, but the griffon didn’t care. “Among blueprints was a device. Its purpose: destruction. Similar to balefire spells, yet different. Technologically made, instead of magic.”

Outside of the rushing wind, there was no sound. All eyes were on me, Willow’s glee contrasting heavily to the horror on Gemini and Sharpshot’s faces. Gold continued to laze back without a care, watching with intrigue as Sharpshot and I took a step back from each other. Gemini would have probably stepped away from me if she wasn’t frozen in terror.

“Singing, what the geezer is saying,” Sharpshot said. It was odd to hear him genuinely terrified. “don’t tell me it is true. Tell me he is lying.”

I closed my eyes, lowered my head, and shook it. “No, he’s telling the truth. Ironsight’s plan was to destroy the world again. He saw it as the only way to undo the damage Calamity caused, until everything he built was undone by my squad. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t stop him.”

I lifted my head back up and opened my eyes. “He was higher up in the Enclave than me; a General instead of a Lieutenant Colonel. I simply went along with it, content in the idea it might keep some revolution from happening.”

Another few moments of silence followed, only broken by words that hurt far more than they ever should have.

“You’re a fucking monster.”

Act 1 – Chapter 15: Long Gone Things and Desperate Clings

Outside Nature Care, Trotson

Day 4

“I know it sounds horrible but you must remember–“

“No, no. No! You don’t get to “but” anything!” Sharpshot replied, his anger in equal measure to his terror. “You were going to destroy the world again? That was the answer your friend had come up with?”

“While Calamity was the spark that ignited Ironsight’s paranoia, it was not the match,” I explained. It was already too late to save whatever trust I had mustered, so I might as well explain the basics. “That honor belongs to you all. You, your horrible little wasteland, and your lack of civilization. The only way to extinguish Dashites is to extinguish the wasteland. M.A.M. was Ironsight’s answer, until fate stole it from him and made him rethink his beliefs.”

Sharpshot made a rare step forward. “So you would have willingly destroyed the lives of tens of thousands, no matter how much they deserve it, for that?”

“I didn’t think you would care.”

“You didn’t- of fucking course I care I live down here! My wife does too! Why wouldn’t I be pissed about you dropping a bomb on us.”

“W-w-w-would it even affect you two?” Gemini asked. Sharpshot glared at her, the mare letting out a yelp and backpedaling quickly until she fell on both her physical and metaphorical rump. “I-I mean you’re a ghoul and she’s an alicorn and from what I can gather radiation doesn’t do anything so I figured, well, uh–”

“No. Would still kill them,” Gold explained, holding a sole talon up and wagging it back and forth. “Ghoul and alicorn result of magical radiation, not chemical. If blast didn’t kill, chemical radiation would.”

That was news to me. Truth be told, I didn't think it would be possible for Ironsight to kill everything, and I still didn’t believe Willow would die from it, but that was far more terrifying than I originally believed it to be. If I had still been up in the clouds, none of this would have bothered me. Unfortunately, that was not the case. If somepony down here figured out how to make even a single M.A.M…. no, don’t think of it. That train of thought was terrifying.

“You see why I’m down here to stop it now, right?” I asked Sharpshot.

The ghoul said nothing, boring his eyes into my chest with enough strength that it could probably reopen my wounds. The fury he held was only matched by his fear, one causing the other to grow greater and greater. His zebra rifle was lifted up in a violet aura, pointing at me. His intent was clear.

“I’ve told you I can’t miss, right?”

“You’re going to shoot me.”

“Yes. Yes I will, and it will do the entire wasteland a favor. You were going to kill everyone here before you got thrown from your precious cities in the sky and I have every right to not trust you.”

I scowled, tilting my head at the sad creature before me. “And then what? That won’t fix anything. ArcanaTech still wants it, so you’re going to have to shoot Gold too.”

Sharpshot looked at where Gold had once been laying around, but he was no longer there. To both his and my own surprise, the griffon had at some point during our little conversation moved behind the ghoul. He placed a talon on the zebra rifle, pushing the telekinetically held weapon down till its barrel was pressing against the ground.

With the immediate threat to my life dealt with, Gold gave a small laugh and shook his head. “Nopony should die here. Rather unnecessary. Not to mention bad for wanting to stay alive.”

Sharpshot jabbed the front of his hoof into the griffon’s chest. “I can still hit her.”

“I see that as rather unlikely.”

“Oh yeah? Then I’ll tell you exactly what is about to happen. You will keep the muzzle pressed against the ground, and I’ll pull the trigger. Against all logic, that bullet will find its way out of the gun, through the air, brush up right against her wing, and go through her tail.”

“You speak of scientific impossibility.”

“Then allow me to repeat what I told the soldier mare.”

The trigger was pulled on the zebra rifle. Just as Sharpshot said, against all logic the bullet found its way out from the ground, whizzing past me. My hearing deafened for a moment, but I could feel something solid brush against my wing and through my tail. One of the bottles Gemini hadn’t destroyed suddenly exploded. My jaw hung open slightly at the absurdity I had just born witness to.

“I. Can’t. Miss.” Sharpshot said. “Do you know how strong curses are? Do you know the lengths they will go to in order to make sure they can’t be broken? Perhaps I need to prove it again!”

Sharpshot shoved the griffon away just enough so they couldn’t hold the rifle down anymore. He aimed it at me once again. This time it wasn’t Gold but Willow who blocked him, having leaped over her husband and blocked him with her body.

“Willow, out of the way!”

“This isn’t worth it hun. Killing her isn’t worth it!”

“I don’t care if it’s worth it, it’s what I want! Why are you even defending her? Her and the Enclave tried to cause a second Celestia-damned apocalypse.”

“And now they’re trying to stop other ponies from doing the same. Yes, what they did was bad, but they’re trying to make up for it. What does Dead Hooves think of it?”

She looked at me, leaving her unable to notice how tense Sharpshot had gotten from her words. Dead Hooves appeared next to me, the mere mention of her name all it seemed to take to summon her. Her eyes scanned her surroundings, her expression turning more and more dour as she looked at her old friends.

“Rhapsody’s not a good pony, but she’s trying to do the right thing,” the ghost said. A tired sigh escaped her lips. “Besides, after just learning I have a living piece of family out there, I would prefer for them to not–”

“What she says doesn’t matter,” I replied. Dead Hooves winced as if she had been struck by an invisible bullet, but didn’t retort. “You can’t see her. You can’t take anything from her as the truth because it’s coming from me. All I can say is this: I’m the only pony here who knows what my old squad looked like, and therefore the only hope you have for keeping M.A.M. out of the wrong hooves.”

Willow looked at Sharpshot, and then looked back at me. She stepped out of the way, her husband lowering his weapon. Dead Hooves’ eyes locked with the ground, letting out a sigh before looking back up at me.

“I know why you said it, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

She faded away afterwards, a rather terrified and confused Shining Gemini taking up my vision. The mare gave a quick glance around where she was standing.

“Who were you talking to?”

I threw a hoof into the air, exhaling harshly through my nose. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve wasted more time than needed standing around pretending to threaten me.”

Leaving one unicorn behind, I focused my attention on the undead one staring at me. While he was no longer pointing a deadly weapon at me, his words and earlier demonstration left me on edge. His temper was as fragile as a stick of dynamite, and just as destructive. As I stopped directly in front of him, motioning for Gold to take a step back, I spoke.

“You hate me.”

“Yes.”

“She hates you too, you know.”

“Dead Hooves? Yeah. I’ve known that for a long damn time.”

“Then you’ll be happy to know that it goes all three ways. No matter what we all think of each other, though, we’re all in this together. Can you at least tolerate me enough for one assignment?”

He pressed his hoof into my nose, which I instinctively batted away. The only ponies allowed to boop me were Anchor or my foals. It didn’t stop him from shoving a hoof back into my face moments later.

“Promise that you won’t try and destroy the surface after it's all done. Pinkie promise it. That way, as a descendant of the Ministry of Morals, I’ll know if you go back on your word.”

I raised my brow. “Pinkie what?”

“You never heard of it?” Willow Wisp asked.

When I nodded, she smirked. That smirk transferred to Sharpshot, the couple sharing a look of understanding before turning back to me. There was an odd, unnatural fear placed in my being at that moment, as if the term “pinkie promise” was some ancient blood ritual and I was the sacrifice. As husband and wife raised their hooves to cover their hearts, I spread my wings in reflex and…

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

It ended with Willow and Sharpshot putting their hooves right in their eyes. My wings went limp, jaw hanging at the foalish actions performed before me. This is what I had felt so scared of? It didn’t make any sense… but somehow it still scared me. It was like Minister Pinkie Pie was there, boring into my soul.

It fucking scared me.

“Now you do it!” Willow said, pointing at me.

“Pinkie promise you won’t blow everything up, and all will be forgiven.” Sharpshot was clearly enjoying this too much.

“I… do I have a choice?” I asked.

My eyes flicked from alicorn to ghoul. They gave joyful expressions that eradicated the answer “no”. I looked to Gold, the griffon motioning for me to settle down; not the answer I wanted. In one final effort to find somepony who could get me out of it all, I turned my attention to Gemini. She just shrugged.

“Okay, fine.” With a shaky hoof on my chest, I recited the chant. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a… cupcake in my ey- ow.”

I accidentally hit my right eye with my hoof. Sharpshot snorted, then slowly crumbled to the ground like his legs no longer worked. His laugh was only emphasized by Willow's muffled snickering, Gold shaking his head in amused disappointment, and Gemini doing everything in her power to hold in her own laughter. As I rubbed my eyelid with a foreleg, I looked between the grounders before me with the most deadpanned look possible.

“Please tell me I don’t need to do it again.”

“Pegasus should be fine. Just don’t hit yourself in eye often,” Gold joked. If I had talons instead of hooves, I might have strangled him.”Also don’t break pinkie promise. Never ends well.”

“I… think I can do that,” I replied, giving a slow nod to the griffon. “Anyways, now that the possibility of you all shooting me has been diminished, back to Our Haven.”

“You’re… you’re… one second,” Sharpshot called out from his position on the ground, having just recovered from his laughing fit. He placed his hoof on my uninjured shoulder, using it to get the rest of his hooves back under him. Tears were in his eyes from how hard he had been laughing. “We’re… we’re still going to Our Haven?”

“Yes, because I still have something I need to settle; a wrong that needs to be made right,” I told him. “They destroyed my career, took me from the top of the Enclave to the bottom. I think I rightfully deserve vengeance for all that they did to me.”

Sharpshot looked at his wife, getting a nod to his wordless question. The same hoof he had placed on my shoulder went to his face, letting out a big sigh. After grumbling some words that were too quiet for me to pick out, Sharpshot’s attention turned back to me.

“Willow and I aren’t going in.”

“That’s fine. You two can wait outside, and Gold and Gemini will help me deal with this.”

“Then I guess the only question left is how we’re going to get there,” Gemini replied, shuffling up between Willow and myself. “Anyone been there before?”

“Nope, but Sharpy has a PipBuck,” Willow said, vaguely motioning to the barely visible device wrapped under the cloth on his leg. “I’m sure that it already has it marked. Same with your MentaBuck, Rhapsody.”

I blinked, then pulled up the map. I zoomed out until the green-tinted map of Trotson became much more. The surrounding area seemed like an endless ocean of sand with how empty it was on my map. That was the case, until a landmark finally caught my eye far, far away from the city. Its logo looked like a house, but it was cut down the middle in such a way where one could easily see it as an equal sign. That was Our Haven.

“Well, who's up for a road trip?” Sharpshot asked. “Go through the sandstorm or take the train, it’s going to be a long ass journey there.”

“Train far safer. Pegasus can tell you that from personal experience,” Gold said. “However, the sandstorm is likely quicker.”

Attention turned to me, the group of grounders seeming to have decided I was the leader. Guess I was the leader of our little band, at least for the time being. Closing my eyes, I thought about the two options put before me. Unlike five years ago, I had the time to think my decision through, and I was going to use that to the best of my ability.

To my surprise, it didn’t change my answer.

“The sooner we take care of Angel Hair, the better,” I said, opening my eyes. “We head through the sandstorm.”

The decision to go through the sandstorm wasn’t purely about the difference in time, but it helped give it more meaning. Heading back to Trotson Station would have been a day and a half trip on hoof, possibly more with the size of our group. In contrast, with how close the M.A.S. hub was to the east border of the sandstorm, so we could easily reach it within the day. There was also the fact that there was no way to tell how far away we would be from Our Haven from the other train station.

Time was not the only reason for my decision, however. The Trotson sandstorm still haunted my nightmares, and I wanted them to go away. Quicker travel to Our Haven was the perfect excuse to face a demon from my pass, and with it I swore one thing. No matter what I think of these grounders, no matter what came at us, I would get all of them out of there alive.

With all that decided, and with all our equipment on us (Willow Wisp took my battle saddle so it didn’t put unnecessary weight on my shoulder) we headed out.

We had one stop to make on our way there, highly recommended by Gold. Apparently there was an ArcanaTech research station in the area, studying the strange creatures that lay inside the sandstorm. They also had confiscated Enclave technology, likely from the soldiers who had died within the city itself.

“With some talk, I’m sure they will give some of it back,” Gold said. “You’ll like the upgrades, trust me.”

“Am I going to be knocked out like the last time you ponies gave me an “upgrade”?” I asked, voice as monotone as possible. “I would prefer to not have my brain tampered with again.”

Gold let out a heart chuckle. “No. No knocking pegasus out this time.”

I let out a “hmph”, and turned my attention down the road. The sandstorm was getting closer and closer, the S.P.P. tower far behind my flank now. The road led downhill, leading to a piece of the city far more open than most of what I had encountered so far. This had to have been the poorer side of Trotson before the bombs fell, the lack of excessively tall, still standing buildings made way for collapsed, shoddy housing and fields covered in sand. Perhaps there had been more here, once upon a time.

I could see plumbs of smoke not too far in the distance. Gold’s eyes watched the buildings around us as they got smaller and were made more of wood than brick and stone. He hadn’t drawn Roche Limit yet, but he seemed ready at the first sign of contact.

I joined him in checking our surroundings. “Places are burning to the south. That isn’t where you’re taking us, right?”

“No. No way they could find a research station anyways. Underground, no standard entrance.”

“No standard entrance?” Sharpshot asked, leaning his head forward. “What, you scan your cutie mark on something and the ground opens from under you?”

“Ha! Ghoul is funny,” Gold replied. “Would only work for ponies, and I’m no pony. You shall find out when we get to place.”

The longer we walked, the more and more dreary and drab the surroundings became. What could be considered a standing building changed quickly as they got shorter, many seeming to be more piles of rubble than anything else. The once distant sandstorm now felt like the towering wall it truly was, my heart rate increasing. There was a whisper in the air, familiar yet not at the same exact time.

I felt I was making a mistake, but I had already said I was doing this. No going back now.

“This area feels completely different to the rest of Trotson,” Gemini whispered, keeping her head low. “Is this what small towns look like?”

“Oh, they can look far, far worse than this,” Sharpshot explained. “You should see what they did to Ponyville. Place is strung up like it’s ready for some twisted, backwards heartwarming festival.”

Gemini’s muzzle hung up dumbly. “Heartwarming?”

“You’ve never heard of it?” I asked the mare. She shrinked even more, giving a frantic shake of her head. “It was the event that brought Equestria together. In the Enclave we celebrate it by remembering the princesses and the old world. All the pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies that died before the world ended, and you all were tainted by this irradiated pit need to be remembered in some way.”

“Remembering that which is gone. That’s actually rather sweet of the Enclave,” Willow said smiling.

“Somepony has to. None of you ponies did, after all.”

“In Stable 17 we celebrated it the old fashion way; decorations, presents, holiday cheer and illusionary snow,” Sharpshot replied. His voice turned sullen as his head fell low. “I… I miss snow. I really, really miss it.”

“What’s snow like?” Gold asked. Sharpshot’s head fell even lower at the old griffon admission. I had to admit, I was curious now myself; I had only ever seen it in old books and faded pictures. “From what I know, it only exists in Stalliongrad now. Nopony goes to Stalliongrad.”

Sharpshot stopped in his tracks and looked to the sky, everycreature stopping afterwards and looking back to him. He raised a hoof, and then reached out to the sky as if he could capture it within his hooves. He lowered the cloth covering his muzzle, allowing him to stick his tongue out at nothing in particular. The longing – the sadness – was infectious.

“It’s… small, white, and a single pellet of snow melts as soon as it hits the ground. The more there is, the easier it can cover the ground, and the colder it seems to get. You could make snow angels out of it, making snowponies and throwing snowballs at each other for fun. I would try to eat it; it always tasted like milk for some reason. You pegasi use to make it, you know? When I was younger I dreamed that I could ask a pegasus to make some real authentic snow for me.”

“It's never going to happen. Not as long as magical radiation taints the land and the pegasi seclude themselves from society,” Willow stepped in. “I tried to make it for him, but it all just melted and turned to rain immediately. The wasteland can’t handle snow anywhere. Anywhere but the odd, unnatural remains of Stalliongrad.”

Sharpshot pulled the cloth back over his muzzle, shaking his head back and forth. “And I’m not suicidal enough to head there.”

I briefly turned to the sky, raising my hoof up so that its underside could be hit by the sunlight. Sharpshot’s description had become more of a moment of mourning for what Equestria now lacked. We pegasi and the weather we brought really meant that much to the ponies down here? It must have been incredibly rare to see us down here, to the point where it was possible many had forgotten what our purpose to Equestria was and why we were so much more important than the rest of them.

Gold, a moment more like a griffon chick than an old geezer, stuck his tongue out to catch the invisible flakes of snow. Willow joined him, followed by a confused by curious Gemini. I stayed with pretending to feel it dance around my raised hoof. The cold wind helped, but it wasn’t satisfactory. Sharpshot’s description had given me some basic idea of what snow was like, but I had to ask: what was snow truly like? How did it feel, what purpose did it serve, and could it really do everything the ghoul said it could?

A foal-like curiosity had settled in me. Maybe I’ll travel to Stalliongrad one day, or perhaps I’ll find some way to form snow for myself and only myself.

“We… we should get moving again,” I reluctantly said. A piece of me wanted to just stand there, imagining myself in a comfy blizzard, but time didn’t allow it. “Snow won’t come in a place like this.”

It was a depressing thought, but one ultimately true. With our imaginary snowstorm out of reach, we continued down through Trotson’s east side with quiet and sadness. I found myself looking up to the sky, not wanting to spread my wings but to see tiny little specks of white fall before me. It was impossible to remove from my mind as long as the sky stayed above me. It would explain why Gold made a sudden change of course.

“Through here. Taking shortcut.”

He veered to the left towards a house that was mostly still standing. As I entered the building, my eyes finally found the ability to look away from the sky above me. Instead I was occupied by a living room and dining room hybrid, an old battered up sofa. The remains of a circular table with three chairs made up the dining space, broken picture frames littering the floor around it.

“Oh, the poor thing.”

At the sound of Willow’s voice, I looked for wherever she was. The alicorn had separated herself from the group, making her way to the kitchen while the rest of us were following Gold to the backdoor. One of the cupboards was open, the barely visible remains of what had once been a hoof meeting my eyes. My vision fooled me, the gray of the bone leading me to believe I was looking at Clear.

With hurried steps, I joined Willow. I nearly screamed out for my foal, but the sight of what little remained of a filly or colt’s skeleton stopped me. It wasn’t complete, the only things remaining being a single leg, half their skull, and what I assumed was their ribs. A sigh of relief left me, the sight hurting significantly less.

“Come on,” I told Willow, patting her shoulder with a hoof. “Let's allow them their rest.”

“R-right,” She said, slowly shuffling away. I followed behind her, eyes lingering only the unfinished skeleton in the cupboard. “Fillies, colts. They were the things I always felt the worst for killing.’

“You’ve… you’ve killed foals?”

“I would prefer not to talk about it.”

With our alicorn reunited with the group, we exited from the back of the house single file. I took up the rear, Gemini holding the door open for me to exit. I took a single step out of the house and…

“Please don’t go.”

I looked back inside, searching desperately for where the voice had come from. It was young, likely elementary school. The fear of thinking I had found my foal’s own body had been rekindled, maternal instincts kicking in.

To the confusion of the unicorn holding the door open for me, I re-entered the house. It was easy to tune out the grounder’s call for me, both due to her talking so quietly and my focus being somewhere else. She didn’t understand, none of them did outside of perhaps Gold. There was a filly crying out for us somewhere in this house. The mother in me had to find her.

“Hello? Where are you?” I called out as my eyes trailed along all points in the living area. “I promise I’m not a raider. You can trust me.”

“You… you can hear me?”

My ears twisted towards one of the rooms we had ignored. It was a bedroom, and given the size it wasn’t the master bedroom. A twin size bed took up a decent portion of it, an old rickety dresser on its right side. What little remained of the paint on the walls was an off color pink, no doubt far more brilliant two centuries ago. The sounds of crying reverberated off of the walls of the room, all coming from a little, transparent filly with a teal coat and green mane.

She was dead. The filly I had heard, the same one that now sat on the floor crying, was dead.

I felt somepony move up to my left, noticing the form of Dead Hooves next to me. With her there, I was able to take notice that the filly seemed… off. While Dead Hooves was merely herself, granted with a bit more ability to walk then in life, the filly seemed drowned in fear and sorrow. It manifested in this feeling that pierced the core of my being, every little movement she made gained a sobbing, pained after image.

“So I can see more than just you,” I whispered. I took a step forward, Dead Hooves mimicking my every step forward. “Hello there, are y–”

“Soldier lady, the fuck are you doing?”

I looked behind myself, noticing Sharpshot and the rest of my group staring at me. After a couple glances back and forth between the spectral filly and the ghoul, I scowled at the latter.

“You don’t understand. A mother can’t just… there’s a filly here that needs me.”

“There is nopony there!” He practically screamed. Something about his anger seemed to set the spirit filly off, her wails gaining volume and echoing worse in my eras. “You all up there in the head?”

“You can’t understand this,” I said, stomping a hoof in affirmation and a show of power. The only ponies it did anything to was Gemini and the spectral filly, the latter’s unnatural wails getting worse. “A good mother wouldn’t abandon a hurt filly, dead or not.”

“I don’t fucking care about what the dead think!” He screamed at me. “There are so many dead now that one foal's crying fit shouldn’t matter. Just leave it so we can get out of here.”

I shook my head, turning away from him. “You can’t understand. You won’t ever understand.”

Gold kept whatever Sharpshot was going to say next forever unknown, clamping she their muzzle with his talons. I looked back to Dead Hooves, giving them a nod before we both made our way to the filly. Soft whimpers had turned into newborn cries, making every other sound indistinguishable.

With perfect synergy, Dead Hooves and I reached out to touch the form of the filly before me. I opened my mouth to speak, but instead my vision became unfocused, everything blurring into one big mass of color. Multiple voices filled my head, some repeating while others never appeared again..

“Mom, where is the food?”

“I’m sorry miss, but your husband won’t be coming home.”

“What do you mean? We’re military, how are we being denied residence in a stable?”

“She’s right. Miss Dust is right! The ministries need to be dealt with!”

“Mom, you’re scaring me.”

“All we have is bread and butter. Mom stopped getting rations days ago.”

“Mommy has something really important to do sweetie. If anypony you don’t know knocks on the door, don’t let them in. You can do that for mommy, right?”

The sound of a wicked siren pierced the conglomerations of voices and sounds, overwhelming the other bits and pieces. It grew louder and louder, overwhelming more and more… and then stopped. All I was left with was the soft crying of a young foal, and the barely audible repetition of one word.

“Mom, mom. Mom? M-mom?! Mom!” A pause. “Mom? M-mommy? Mom? Mom… mom.”

The world faded back into focus, the cries of the ghost filly having turned into whimpers. I looked at my hoof, and then to the dead mare at my side. She seemed just as surprised as myself at something, likely meaning we had shared that strange experience. No matter what it was, though, it was clear who it had come through.

The sole word she muttered through her cries was proof enough.

“Mom… mom.”

“Are you okay dear?” I asked, laying down on filthy carpet flooring so I wasn’t towering over her. The filly didn’t respond, so I placed a hoof under her chin. It made her gasp. “It’s okay. You got ponies here for you now. Tell me what’s wrong.”

"I… what… you,” she stammered, a small hoof shakily reaching out to it. She wrapped one small hoof around it, looked at me, and then went back to my hoof. She placed her other foreleg on top of it. “You… have you actually heard me? You can see me?”

“Of course dear. How could I not notice a filly in need,” I answered, giving a comforting smile. “I’m Singing Rhapsody.”

Dead Hooves laid down in front of the filly, looking more playful than maternal. “And I’m Dead Hooves. Who are you?”

The filly didn’t answer, leaning what little weight her ghostly form had into my hoof. While she could no longer produce tears, the expression she wore told me exactly what she was trying to do. I reached my other forehoof out, caressing their mane. It felt like I was petting the air, but it was clearly keeping them calm.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.”

Dead Hooves nodded her head. “We both are. You wanted us to stay for a bit right?”

“I… I thought you were mom,” the filly said, shifting her position so she was looking at me. “You sound so much like her. She’s who I wanted, not you.”

My heart stung at her words, forehooves retracting to my chest. The voices I had heard, one of them was clearly her mother but they didn’t sound anything like me. They’re voices were more vibrant than my own, even when they sounded broken by the world. Was Equestria really so far gone at the end of the war?

“I… I don’t think your mother is around anymore,” I explained. “I think she’s been gone for a long, long time.”

She flinched away from me, scared. “Y-you don’t know that! She could still be out there somewhere. I mean she’s been working a lot and hasn’t come home in a while, even if the ponies in question don’t seem great. Maybe then I will have some money for food.”

My breathing paused, only restarting when I started to feel the world fall away. This filly, this pony of the old world, didn’t even remember that the world had died. Is it possible that they had sat here in this house all that time? Were they waiting for a mother that would never come home? A mother that was possibly dead and grieving in the same way as her filly, never being able to see them again.

“You’re mother, what does she do?” Dead Hooves asked. Running a hoof along the filly’s cheek. A bit of life was restored in their eyes at the touch, leading their attention to linger on the spectral unicorn instead of me. “Her work must be very important if she’s away all the time.”

“Yes, she said it was. All she told me though was that it is making Equestria a better place,” the filly replied.

“I’m sure it is. She’s probably working with the ponies in the sky now, right Rhapsody?”

Dead Hooves eyes met mine, and I instantly understood where she was going with it all. The ponies in the sky weren’t us pegasi, they were something far more sobering. This filly needed to go there, to her mother. I wasn’t sure how, but it seemed that Dead Hooves knew the answers.

It took me a few seconds, but I figured out how the mare wanted me to do this.

“Yeah. She’s up there now, among Celestia’s sun and Luna’s beautiful night sky,” I said, craning my neck to look at the bedroom ceiling. “She’s up there with a lot of other ponies now.”

The filly sat up, looking first to me and then to the ceiling. “Really?”

I gave a nod. “I’m positive.”

“Then… perhaps you can show me how to get there?”

I lowered my head to reply, but my voice got caught in my throat. Dead Hooves shuffled back as the filly’s form started to untangle into threads. Those threads reached out for me, lightly prodding my hooves and chest. I flinched away, wincing as I felt my wounded shoulder ache. The tendrils couldn’t reach me after a moment but they didn’t retract back, what remained of the filly’s form bordering on crying. There was no malice, no hate, just pleading and desperation.

“Please miss. You’re a pegasus, you can show me how to get there, right?”

I wanted to cry just as much as the filly there, but I was firmly denied it. How was I supposed to respond? Saying yes felt just as bad as saying no, especially when I considered… when I considered my foals in their place. That was a horrible, soul crushing thought, but it crossed my mind. If They had asked me to get them to the stars, where all ponies go after resting, I would do it in a heartbeat.

So, against my better judgment, I made a lie.

“Yes. I’ll get you there,” I told her, reaching my hooves out to the threads of her form. They wrapped around me, painlessly sinking into my skin. “Just tell me your name, please? I would like to know the name of the filly I’m helping.”

A somber smile appeared on the filly’s lips as her form undid itself more and more. Her lower body had completely dissipated, the tendrils that made it up entering me. The sight still made me nervous, but I was certain the little ghost before me meant no harm. Dead Hooves simply stared at the interaction between us, terrified and intrigued all in one as I absorbed the essence of a dead pony. As the filly’s head started to unravel into ethereal strands, she spoke.

“Thank you.”

Without ever learning her name, she disappeared.

I stared at where she had been, being met by old carpet and the bottom of a dresser. She was gone. Had my words helped her move on in some aspect? That didn’t explain how she disappeared within me instead of up into the sky, but it felt right. A soul from days long gone, finally able to move on. One of many, many who were likely dealing with the same exact thing.

“What did you do?” Dead Hooves asked, her hoof pointing at my own. “I’ve never seen that before. How did you do that?”

I looked down at my hooves, and then back to her. “I have no idea.”

“Down with the ministries. Down with the moon.”

After those odd events, we left the abandoned home and started back on our journey to the ArcanaTech Research Station. We started traveling through houses, backyards, doing everything we could to stay off the street. It was likely all a means to avoid raiders, though it came at the cost of seeing many, many more grounders who died on the Last Day.

No more ghosts showed themselves, though I doubted it was because they were peacefully resting. This entire area of Trotson had a feeling to it, like a spell had been cast that caused the mood of everypony in it to feel twice as sad as normal. The number of skeletons, the state of the houses and how much more messed up they got the further in we traveled. This place showed not just the worst of time’s passage, but how depraved grounders had become.

Which led us to stopping next to a shed and reading what had been sprayed on it. There had been more than enough crude graffiti during our walk through Trotson’s east-side, many depicting the brutalized remains of ponies or things far more heinous and sexual. Words that I would never let leave my own mouth were written around them, typically spelled wrong or looking more like scribbles. The lack of literate ponies among raiders was already more than known, but this settled it.

That was off topic, however. The point of bringing up the graffiti was due to the piece before us seeming radically different to the rest. Along with the words Sharpshot had read off it, it depicted a lightning bolt rupturing the moon down its center. My immediate thought was that it was related to Minister Rainbow Dash, but that would make no sense. The lightning bolt came from somepony else.

“Hey geezer, did the Shattered Moon exist before the Last Day?” the ghoul asked, looking behind himself to Gold. They had lit themselves a cigar, Gemini covering her nose from the unpleasant smell.

“Possibly. Must have been small, unknown. No knowledge of them exists before end of world.”

“Or perhaps it was because the ministries didn’t want ponies knowing they would exist,” I said, rubbing one of my hooves under my chin. I could feel stray specks of sand flake off them, the ground in this part of the city more thoroughly covered than the more well off areas. “Remember the cinema? The pegasus that was in one of the films, talking about bringing down the ministries?”

Willow gasped dramatically. “Oh yeah, this piece of art and that little film have a lot in common, didn’t they?”

“I’m sorry to ask but, um…,” Gemini spoke up, taking the smallest of steps forward. Sharpshot, Willow, and myself looked at her, the unicorn avoiding eye contact with us. “What are you all talking about?”

“Right, you and Gold weren’t with us that night,” Willow said. “The day my hubby and I met Singing, we spent the night in an old world cinema. The projector still worked, and there were still a few working film reels, so Singing and Sharpy got it all working and we watched it together.”

I nodded to show Willow had remembered it all right. “One of them was less a film and more a call to action. A pegasus – a war veteran – calling for the death of the ministries. She knew the world was coming to an end, and she seemed certain it was unstoppable.”

“They also called themselves the Shattered Moon, right?” Sharpshot asked, turning back to the graffiti.

“Maybe. I’m not sure,” I replied. “With all the traveling, the injuries, and the weird shit I’ve dealt with in the past twenty four hours it didn’t really stick.”

Gemini eyes it again herself, tilting her head. “So they were a group of ponies who were anti-Equestria?”

I raised a hoof. “Anti-ministry, not anti-Equestria. Though I do wonder if they would have been satisfied if the ministers stepped down.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” Gold replied. “World never know. That path, history didn’t write.”

We seemed to have exhausted the amount of chatting we could make out of a single piece of graffiti. It was more thrilling the number of more recent gory or sexual pieces ponies had left in recent years. The only other thing I knew was this: the piece we had witnessed had to have been made on or just before the Last Day. No way in tartarus Minister Pinkie would have allowed this to stay, and would probably have had the residents tried as Zebrican spies.

Maybe that actually is what happened, and I just didn’t know it.

Entering through the back of the next house, Willow in front and Gemini in the back, the change in scenery was made far more clear. Where the first house with the ghost filly had been left in simple disrepair, this one was mutilated beyond recognition. The walls were covered in indecent art,, the stench of blood infecting the room due to the bloated, decaying limbs of ponies around us. At its base the room had the exact same layout as the first house, but it felt nothing alike.

To further sell that feeling of dread, a bullet passed through my mane and nicked the top of my ears. The moment I realized what it was, the moment I felt the pain in my ear, I turned around. Without a proper explanation, I grabbed Gemini and forced her to the ground. Every other pony backed away from the room’s three windows, one leading from where he had come, another facing the opposite building from the living, and one that looked out over the street.

“S-Singing, your ear!”

I looked down at Gemini, then placed a hoof at the ear I knew was injured. When I brought the underside of it back to my face, I was greeted by a small trail of blood. “It’s nothing. Anypony see where it came from?”

“Nope, and I’m not about to fire a shot to find out,” Sharpshot replied. “Just cause I can’t miss, doesn’t mean I’ll hit my intended target.”

“Personal experience?”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

The E.F.S. showed nothing, likely meaning whoever shot at us was either too far for it to be picked up, or that they had disengaged the fight immediately after. It made it impossible to track their location, and even harder to find a safe place to move. That was the case for most of us at least; I was currently on top of the only mare who could help us.

“Gemini, you said you know illusion magic, right?”

The fearful unicorn gave a nod. “It’s one of the few things I was able to learn. When those ponies you saved me from learned I could do that, they would make me constantly cast it so they had somepony to shoot at, and when I got tired they–”

“Continue telling me later, when we aren’t in danger,” I requested. “How does it react to being shot at?”

“I-Its realistic. Like, really realistic. They would put ponies they captured in front of me and make me watch them get shot up or butchered. It hurts to watch, but it's hard to tell the difference until it is dispelled.”

I clenched my teeth together for a moment, inwardly swearing at how despicable grounders were. “It’ll work. We need you to send it out the door, make it take a shot so we know where the pony in question is coming from. Do that, and I swear I’ll figure out some way to get you a therapist.”

“What’s a therapist?”

“I’ll explain later, just do it!”

Her horn lit up, and an exact replica of herself suddenly appeared right next to me. I removed myself from on top of Gemini, eyesing the pony looking illusion with intrigue. Their face was blank, an odd look for a mare I was coming to know as panicky and constantly confused. Without a single word, the illusion made its way towards the door and reached a hoof out to it, only for said hoof to pass through it.

The knob glowed a violet, matching Sharpshot’s light up horn. “Here. Allow me.”

As soon as the door opened, the illusion stepped outside. As soon as it was in the street, its head turned into a mist of red before fading from existence. Before it did, however, the body lurch to the right, in the direction of the sandstorm. I turned back to Sharpshot with this newfound knowledge.

“They’re between eight to ten o’clock. Do you see anything?”

Bringing the zebra sniper rifle up into the windowsill looking out at the streets, the ghoul scanned. We all waited patiently, Willow mouthing words in prayer, no doubt for the safety of her husband. The ghoul ducked, a shot going over his head and leaving a hole in the wall to my right. He stuck his tongue out the side of his muzzle, biting into it likely out of stress than anything else.

“Yep, they are there,” the ghoul replied. “Competent bitch too. Sadly, she’s dealing with me.”

He brought the sniper back up first, and then his head. One second passed, and nothing. Two seconds, and I ducked low to the ground in preparation for another bullet.. Three seconds, and bang rattled the air, Sharpshot letting a smug “heh” leave his muzzle. Voices could be heard far in the distance, but the ghoul seemed too giddy to care.

“All of you seem to still be free of a new bullet hole, meaning I must have hit my–” his words turned into a pained groan as a bullet grazed the side of his muzzle, causing him to collapse. “F-fucking… fuck!”

“Regretting your cockiness, zombie?”

“Shut up you winged… fuck this stings.”

“Out the back door, now!”

“I can still take them- ow ow ow.”

Gold had to practically drag out by the ear, following behind the rest of us. As soon as we were back out, my eyes flicked towards the shed, or rather the fence that separated it and the house across. There were two red dots in that direction, slowly moving back and forth in search of something. I briefly pulled up the MentaBuck’s map, noting that the opposite direction of them would lead us into the middle of the street as well.

I felt the shoulder that Gemini had shot up the day prior, noticing how it was still tender and sore. I wasn’t fit to carry my battle saddle, and that meant I wasn’t going to be able to fight. If it was just me then the only option to me would be heading away from the enemy. Much like with Willow Wisp in the M.A.S. hub, however, I was finding myself thankful to not be alone down here.

“Gold, how close were we to the research station?”

“Not far now. If street was clear, would have only been a couple more minutes.”

“Okay. Heading… east of us won’t do good at this moment; there is an intersection there and the lack of cover is clearly a death trap now.” I pointed in the direction we had been shot from. “Our best option is heading towards the gun shot, eliminate them and whoever is with them. There is more than one though, so be careful.”

“So I get to rip them apart!” Willow replied, facing beaming with joy.

“Yes, just don’t use any of the shit attached to my battle saddle as a skyball bat, okay?”

“Here then,” Gold said, taking out Roche Limit and presenting it to me. “For temporary use, since shoulder is too fucked for something bigger.”

I took the ArcanaTech pistol, examining it in my hooves before gripping it with my muzzle. “Thanks. Now we just need to get everypony over the–”

“Don’t act like it has to be complicated.”

Willow walked past all of us towards the fence leading towards the sniper’s position. She let out a forced cough for reasons I didn’t completely, and turned so her rear was facing it. With a sturdy stance, she did a little hop, her front hooves hitting the ground as her hind ones bucked the boards into pieces, one shard logging itself in the opposite fence.

I made a mental note to not be that fence in the future. I also noted that nopony here should ever complain about an injury, because Willow would make sure it was five times worse for them. The sight of her beating down that ghoul in the labs gave me a small chill.

“That wasn’t even as hard as I could buck,” She said, sheepish yet proud at the same exact time. “Honestly we could probably have leaned against it and it would have fallen over.”

Gemini gulped, giving a nervous laugh. “I’m very glad I didn’t do that, then.”

If fences had the same intelligence as ponies, they probably would have wanted Willow dead from crimes against all fence-kind. The alicorn held no sympathy for the old, moldy collections of boards and nails, bucking through them like a knife cut butter. It wasn’t the quietest way to do things, but then again this was Willow Wisp; her quite typically involved a fountain of blood and several ponies heads on the surrounding walls.

I had to withhold the urge to chuckle after every single broken fence, the red marks of ponies on the E.F.S. constantly blipped in and out of existence. The sheer force with which she broke fences consistently sent splinters flying everywhere. It even found its way through the broken windows of one of the houses, and judging by the sound of it annihilated a bloatsprite.

Oh, right, the bloatsprites. Yeah they were around here too.

The blood, severed limbs decorating the houses, and otherwise attracting lots of bugs. While the radroaches found the wisdom in flight instead of fight, bloatsprites proved themselves to be more a constant nuisance. Gemini was the only pony really afraid of them – something that obliterating it with a bullet didn’t fix – and its barbs proved ineffective on Willow Wisp, who seemed to consistently be their main target.

“I don’t understand why you all hate them,” She said somberly, looking for the tiny, ruptured remains of one particular bloatspirte. “They’re really cute!”

Sharpshot shook his head, chuckling. “Babe, no offense but your definition of cute is kind of off.”

“What? We all have our own definitions of cute. I mean, yours in mine after all.”

Though nopony could see the pout that formed from those words, the way his head immediately turned away from her spelled everything out. “I wanted to say that about you.”

“Can we please keep the lovey dovey talk until after we’re at the research station?” I whispered, eyeing both of them with disdain. A large majority of it was at Sharpshot and not Willow Wisp.

“Perhaps you should take out the S.P.P. tower shoved up your ass,” Sharpshot said, momentarily showing his muzzle to stick his tongue at me like a Luna damned foal. “We’ve been alive for so long this kind of chat is normal in these situations. Deal with it.”

I snarled at him. “You cocky shit.”

Sharpshot smirked as he covered his muzzle back up. “Says the bigot rubbing her “high and mighty” status as a pure pegasus all over us. Pfft, you wish bitch.”

The next step I took could be considered more of a drag than anything, my anger leading to my hooves digging through the ground. He was talking a lot of shit for someone who had had one side of his muzzle made just a little bit wider than it was supposed to be. My eyes glanced to Gold and Gemini, the griffon and freed slave choosing the wiser course. An intelligent mare would have kept her mouth shut.

Once again, pride was a great counter to intelligence.

“The fuck did you just say to me?”

“What? You’ve been speaking with the spirit of miss limp legs, right? You should know by now that you–”

“I am not some part-grounder castoff. I am a fucking Lieutenant Colonel of the Grand Pegasus Enclave; it’s impossible for me to be some mud-bound cretin like you and your wife and this dumbass unicorn who shouldn’t even be here!”

I glared at Gemini, the unicorn shrinking as we stopped moving. Willow decided to ignore my constant back and forth with her husband, making her way towards the next fence with an all to giddy look. When I looked back to Sharpshot, I got the immediate impression of his smirk under his clothes.

“Guess it's fitting you couldn’t keep it then.”

“The fuck do you mean by that?”

“Well you got a little bit of unicorn in there, right? Dead was one, her father was one… Star was half one.” The emphasis he put into her name made me want to beat him into paste. “You got a bit of horn-head in you, lady. Suck it up and shut up.”

“I am not part unicorn!”

“How can you be so sure? You never asked the question before coming down here, did you?” He brought himself up next to my ear, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Did you ever ask yourself this until now?”

I went quiet, Sharpshot having given me zero room to respond. Every option for a response ended with me admitting I’ve got grounder blood. The option I came up with at the end of everything was forcing his muzzle away from my ear. If only it did anything about the ugly foal that stared back at me.

“Don’t act like you know me,” I told him. “Don’t act like you know Star Chart. You all are liars and deceivers. That's how you fool pegasi into coming down here.”

“Heh, and I thought you were beyond your Enclave’s precious propaganda.”

“It’s not propaganda if it’s accurate.”

A beak, followed by the rest of a griffon's face blocked my view of Sharpshot. He gave me a look of disappointment. No rage, just pure unfiltered disappointment at how I was acting. The worst part was he wasn’t wrong; I was acting very unbecoming of my station. What the fuck had been up with my temper the past two days? Whose emotions were these, because they certainly never felt this vivid before.

“Save for later,” he stated.

He drew back afterwards, no more words necessary. As Sharpshot scoffed at the griffon, mentioning something about his age, I took a few deep breaths. A soldier had to remain calm in enemy territory, praying for the best but expecting the absolute worst. Plans never survive first contact, check all my surroundings, and every other piece of training I was capable of recalling entered my head. None of it made me very happy; outside of grass and sand the lawn I was currently in was about as bare as a feral ghoul’s flank.

“If you want, we can have a more physical scuffle over this all later,” I told the ghoul.

He snorted, turning his head away. “Sounds good to me.”

“Then I think it’s about time your wife knocks this fence down.”

Those words earned two red dots on my E.F.S., both coming from directly behind the fence. My left wing snapped out, which I used to motion Gemini and Gold back as I gave Sharpshot a knowing look. He turned to me and gave me a similar one, raising up his abomination. As my attention went to the fence, I gave one final measured breath to prepare myself for what was no doubt an encounter in the making.

“I would highly recommend you don’t, unless you want lead in your lungs,” A gruff, masculine voice called. “Or do! Been a while since any of us have had real fun killin’.”

“You do realize what you are threatening, correct?” Sharpshot said, a hint of ego behind his suddenly cold voice. “Let me put it simple, you all lay down your arms, beg for mercy, and I may just ask my girl to have mercy on your poor souls.”

“Ha! Like you would ever keep me from sweet, sweet blood.”

Sharpshot’s shoulders rose and fell in a show of silent laughter. “You are outnumbered, outgunned, are dealing with some really dangerous ponies, and one of us is an alicorn. I would highly suggest you learn common sense and–”

The barely audible sound of a grenade pin being pulled hit everyponies ear.

“Everypony back up!”

He didn’t need to tell any of us; even Gemini knew what the sound meant. With as much speed as possible we dashed away from the fence, a tiny metal apple being lobbed over from the other side. I mentally counted down from when the pin was pulled to when the explosion would trigger, grabbing the idiot unicorn I had mentioned earlier and shoving her and myself behind fencing. Almost everypony else got behind in time… everypony except for Willow Wisp, who was the closest to the fence.

I hadn’t paid attention, covering my ears as the deafening boom of a grenade unleashed tarttarus on the surroundings. Fragments littered as much of the immediate area as possible, and Willow was unlucky enough to not have her full body behind cover. She let out a guttural yelp as the left side of her flank and the appropriate hind leg was ripped open by shrapnel. The front of her body fell forward, Sharpshot catching her and dragging her behind cover.

“You broken grounder?” I called out.

Willow looked at me out of the corner of her vision, giving a smile that felt less pained and more masochistic. “I’m fine… mostly. This is not the worst I’ve been through.”

The image of a pegasi Willow Wisp, bound, cut up, and bloodied, resurfaced from Dead Hooves memories. I frowned, knowing that even those injuries were probably nowhere close to the worst she had ever had. If I hadn’t felt the rotted wood above me give way due to bullets raining upon us, I might have contemplated that.

I got as low to the ground as possible, the sight of what I originally thought was the original Gemini galloping into the open like some idiot. When it was met by bullet fire, ripping apart into chunks before disappearing, I found myself not caring; illusion or not, Gemini had taken the fire off me for a moment and that was all I needed.

S.A.T.S. activated, I quickly rose up from the now hobbled remains of a fence. I briefly caught Gold’s form leaping over the fence, using his wings to help not put so much weight on it that it broke. Clearly he had the same idea I was, and that meant I needed to make sure one target was too thrown off to think about shooting at him. These were grounders after all, not trained and disciplined Enclave soldiers.

A pulled Roche Limit’s trigger once, queuing a shot on the left raider, and S.A.T.S. ended. I ducked down as his companion pointed his gun back at me, but the rain of bullets stopped after a second. There was a momentary scream, followed by a gurgle and then a thump. Peaking my head back up, I was greeted with what looked less like the handiwork of a pistol and more that of a machine gun.

A large, clean hole had been placed where the middle of his chest should have been, his a thread of muscle and skin all that was connecting the bottom of his neck to the rest of his body. There was no sign of blood splatter, no bits of muscle, organ, or bone anywhere. Everything that had filled that hole was just… gone.

It was enough to unsettle his friend, who had started to scream before stifling it in some vague attempt to seem tough. Gold didn’t care, the lack of bullets flying leading to an easy opening. He didn’t give the raider a chance to react, shotgun held point blank to their face.

A powerful, earth-shaking thump, the slight kick of said shotgun, and there wasn’t a face left to speak of. Their frontal lobe was firmly destroyed, very little of what could count as a muzzle remaining under it. It was visceral, unlike Roche Limit, but that felt so much more right.

Guns took away the more personal aspects of killing that had come from the Equestrian dark ages. Spears, swords, axes and otherwise all involved personally interacting with the enemy to bring them down. It's my belief that the brutality of those weapons led to a greater understanding of the lives being taken. It allowed the actions to feel more regrettable.

Archery took away some of that personal touch, but they hadn’t done it near the extent firearms had. A pony could fire a shot from the top of a Manehattan skyscraper to the streets below, killing someone from so far away there was very little personal touch to it. The only bit that remained was the splatter of blood and innards bullet impacts created, no matter how big or small.

Roche Limit had no real impact, no kick, was far more silent than expected, and while it left a gaping hole there didn’t seem like any real impact. Nothing about it felt personal; nothing about it felt right.

At the end of the day the only pony it mattered to was myself, most likely. I’m sure raiders didn’t care about how personal it felt and just enjoyed spreading death and misery. With that in mind I walked over what remained of the fence, giving a passing glance to Gemini. Acknowledge it was an illusion that had drawn their attention, I then turned my attention to the body I had created.

“Pretty damn quiet for such a big mess,” Sharpshot said, walking at a slower pace than usual for his injured wife.

Gold looked behind him, a sharp breath leaving his nostrils. “Direct shot. Makes sense it looks like this.”

“The damage doesn’t matter. Dead is dead, and that’s what counts,” I replied, renouncing that piece of me unsatisfied with the kill in the most indirect manner possible. Willow Wisp was a more important subject anyways. “How bad is it?”

“For any other pony this probably would be pretty bad,” she said, wincing as she stomped her injured hoof. There wasn’t a rhythm to the stomps, pain no doubt causing her to pause without meaning it. “Nothing a bit of healing or radiation won’t fix.”

“If you say so.”

Never judge an alicorn’s healing ability. The things they can come back from and live through borders on absurd.

With Willow injured, Sharpshot rudely delegated the task of breaking fencing to Gold and myself. His wife complained she could still do it, but he wasn’t about to put her in that amount of danger until she had healed. As much as I hated being talked to like some recruit, I did understand where he was coming through. I would do the same for Anchor; Anchor would do the same for me.

“Two houses away now, so let's discuss this a bit,” I whispered, ignoring the corpse under my hooves, staining this particular backyard with a pool of blood. It had felt as unsatisfactory as every other kill with Roche Limit. “They likely know we are coming, so it is possible they’ll have something rigged up on the fence. Mines, some grenade trap, maybe a friend of two waiting in silence to put a bullet in our heads. They are likely expecting us at this point.”

“So we can’t get to them through the back,” Gemini summarized. It was good to see she was smart enough to figure out that much.

I gave her the faintest signs of a smile as a form of reward. “Correct, so we’ll do the one thing they aren’t expecting: go through the front.”

Gold looked at me with curiosity, rubbing his beak with his talons. “Unsure if good idea. They could still be there.”

“Which is why you and I will be the only two heading in. Hit ‘em fast, hit ‘em hard.”

“Not the worst idea, even if it is simple,” Sharpshot said with a shrug. He rose the abomination up to Gold, the griffon dismissing it with a wave. “Really? It’s griffon in origin, you know.”

“I’ll keep to normal guns, thanks. Simple typically better.”

“Your lost geezer. This might be your only chance in your twilight years.”

Gold chuckle, grinning. “At least I have death at the end of the road. Can you say same, ghoul?”

Whatever reaction Sharpshot had to that, I didn’t care. Gold turned away from him and to me, the two of us stepping away from the group for the moment. All I did was smirk, holding in laughter. He may have been a backstabbing piece of shit, but Gold certainly had a respectable and fun sense of humor. A quick glance to my wings reminded me that I technically wasn’t supposed to fly. Looking up to the roof, I made the quick rationalization that I wasn’t flying, just jumping really high.

“I’ll meet you on top.”

With a jump and powerful flap of my wings, I “jumped” onto the roof. It resulted in me inhaling through my teeth, eyes narrowing slightly. With a roll of my shoulder, I composed myself and glanced down at the house directly next to us. The sounds of wings in motion, followed by the scratching of claws on the old as fuck roofing told me Gold had joined me. He kept his body low for safety reasons..

“No immediate threats. Onto the next roof.”

“You know I said not to- nevermind she’s in the air again.”

Sharpshot’s advice had once again been given merit as I landed on the next roof, grabbing it as well as possible after landing. With a slight limp in my step, I slowly trotted up to the roof’s crest, allowing me to look down on the road below. It was here that it turned in the shape of a “u”, a building that still had the faintest amount of white paint on its front, the last looking down the road. It was also the next closest house to me.

Laying down, using the angled roof to hide me, I watched for any sign of movement. As my ears twitched at the sound of Gold landing behind me, I noticed the slight protrusion of a gun barrel out of the window of the off-white house. That was the sniper no doubt, unable to see me and with no clue I had seen them. With their position identified, I checked the rest of the street to see if there were any other hostiles in my line of sight.

“Pegasus okay?”

I briefly glanced at the griffon laying down next to me, then back to the road. “Yeah. I’ve had worse, just like Willow.”

“Really? Mind sharing?” He looked at him, noticing the comforting smile on his face. “Share one of yours, and I do the same. We both have lots, even if yours are hidden better.”

“Proper doctors and medical procedures help with that.”

“Certainly. Wish I had that, during time as Talon.”

“For instance…,” I I trailed a hoof along my body, stopping at the top of my stomach. “Right here, first trip to the surface as a recruit. Command wanted us to know how bad you fuckers are and… well… sometimes I think I can still feel fragmentation.”

“Must have been scary.”

“Like a trypanophobe seeing their blood get drawn. I didn’t feel it at first but once I saw the blood, the punctures ....”

“Lost supper?”

“Was breakfast, actually.”

His eyes went away from me to the pile of two century old houses that made up eastern Trotson. A talon drew my attention to a particularly nasty bare spot in his neck feathers, showing malformations where long, thin marks were. They weren’t from a bullet, they weren’t from some pony else. I’d been around enough depressed and suicidal soldiers to see the marks of a pegasus harming themselves for unknown reasons.

“Why did you do it?”

In hindsight, it was definitely not the first question Gold wanted to hear. The way he frowned showed it.

“Job went bad. Protection for merchants, simple affair. Got unprofessional, got dumb, and then death. They were… foals. All three of them were foals.”

I leaned away. “You got their foals killed?”

“No. They weren’t merchant’s children.” He closed his eyes, deeply inhaling before loudly exhaling. “They were merchants. One foal looked like Lucky. Fuck up, got them killed, fucked myself up.”

There was regret on his face, but it didn’t seem to be drowning him. The memory hurt, I’m sure, but instead it strangely made him more… determined? Confident? Something like that. He didn’t want to make the same mistake, though whether the mistake was about beating himself up or getting ponies killed wasn’t clear for a moment.

Then I remembered the cigars, and it hit me that it was most likely the latter.

“The surface is a complicated place,” I mumbled, rising up a slight bit to look over everywhere that wasn’t the road. “For foals to have to work… let the goddesses protect them; let Luna guide those who are no longer with us to the atara above.”

Gold cocked his head, and then rose to his full height. He straightened his head, and then gave me a firm nod.

“Let Great Egg bring them to happier places.”

As enlightening as the conversation was, this wasn’t what we needed to be focused. “Not seeing anypony, which should mean it’s either just the sniper, she has friends inside the house, or there are ponies down the street I’m not seeing.”

Gold got the hint, a pop greeting my ears as he stretched. Luna, I was not looking forward to my bones and muscles doing that on a constant basis. My body already wasn’t in the best shape from the few surgeries and shit I had gotten once entering the more political side of the Enclave.

“Still “hit fast, hit hard” plan?” He asked, wings spread wide. Just one of them could be draped over my body and hide me, like a filly hiding under blankets.

I nodded. “We get the jump on them, we avoid getting shot. Sounds like common sense, but I’ve trained enough soldiers to know how easily it can be forgotten.”

“Heh. Just like new Talon.” He took a step forward, then looked back over his wings to me. “Want help getting down? Will help shoulder.”

While my injured shoulder pleaded for me to take his offer up, my brain spat on what had been a pleasant – if a bit dark – conversation. I flicked my wings out, marched over the center of the roof in perfect tempo and rhythm, and took flight. The fact my shoulder protested my stubbornness with pain as I landed on the concrete sidewalk did not matter. The wound was still close, I’m sure my shoulder was fine, and I was fit to fight.

Take that you self-centered walking corpse!

Holding the piece of disappointment Gold called Roche Limit at the ready, I limped forward. Gold choosing to nearly land above me caused me to move to veer left for a moment. I looked at the shotgun in his talons, wishing I had it instead. Thankfully, I was smart enough to know that probably would be far less kind to my shoulder than the roofing and concrete had been.

As we reached the off-white house, I steeled myself for whatever was to come. I briefly eyes the door, and then shook my head. Those were a deathtrap when dealing with raiders; you never knew what was on the other side. I looked at the window the rifle barrel had been through, noting how it pointed upwards.

They were away from the window, or at least didn’t have their hooves on the rifle. There was no red dots, meaning they weren’t an immediate threat and I couldn’t tell where they were. I looked to Gold, motioning to the window. We both knew the risk, especially if the sniper was on the other side, but it was a risk I was willing to take. Slowly and steadily, I crept up until the rifle was almost right above me.

First thing to do: make sure the deadly weapon was not an immediate reach in case they were right there. They couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t see them, meaning the moment I reached up to grab it I would know if they were watching or not, so I had to be quick. With that in mind, I reached up, wrapped my hooves around it as far away from the end of the barrel as possible, and yanked.

Right as the receiver entered view, somepony yanked back.

If they said something, I didn’t care. A logical piece of me reprimanded my plan, but the rest of me said that this was not the time to be talking about stupidity. Ignoring the ache in my shoulder, I stood on my hind hooves and tugged again. Gold reached around me, and joined in, our combined strength overpowering the mare's own.

She let go. As smoothly as possible, I turned the rifle around until the extremely heavy sniper rifle – very likely chambered in .50 – was pointing at the bitch who had shot me in the ear earlier. The look on her face was priceless, pure horror and shock mixing together into a beautiful cacophony of dread. If only I had gotten to watch it longer, because as soon as I pulled the trigger…

Chunk!

… I screamed.

In my haste, I rested the rifle on my wounded shoulder before firing. What several small flights were unable to do, this rifle had done as quick as the original dashtie herself. I felt my already fractured shoulder completely break, shards splintering and cutting through my muscle tissue. None punched skin, but fuck it hurt. I was just glad my neck was still holding my head to my body. The mare I had taken the rifle from had learned that was as fatal as it sounded.

I dropped the sniper rifle, quickly hurrying myself up against the wall and away from the window. Gold looked as terrified as the new corpse had, though for much different reasons I assumed. Regret didn’t begin to describe how fucked my shoulder felt. Sharpshot was gonna be pissed, and worse of all for a damn good reason.

“We got her,” I said in a strained tone. “Not how I imagined but we got her.”

There was another red dot on my radar, but I wasn’t exactly paying attention. All I know is that Gold looked up, brought his shotgun up, loaded three rounds, and fired. The lack of a red dot afterwards was enough to make me believe in that moment, allowing me to put all thoughts into gripping what I had broken.

Gold suddenly filled the majority of my vision, letting out a sigh before taking Roche Limit back. The back of his talon faced me, looking ready to give me a hit with the back of his fist. I’m not sure what stopped him, he quickly switched to lifting my uninjured forehoof around him. A shake of his head was how he decided to show his disappointment when physicality and words failed.

“I wanted to show him up, after insulting my lineage like that,” I explained. “I wanted to make it clear I wasn’t what he thought I thought.”

Another sharp breath from the griffon. “Showed him good, it seems. So good, you broke yourself.”

I smiled through the pain, each throb of pain causing the frown that really wanted to show take over. “Can’t break what's broken.”

“You consider yourself broken?”

“Yes. Perhaps not as bad as someponies, but I do.”

I looked at where he was taking me. It was back in the direction of the rest of the crew we had gathered up. Any fight I had was focused on bearing through the pain, leaving what emotions and memories I had to come through the forefront. One particular memory burst forth through the foggy haze of memories. A memory I didn’t usually think about.

“Eighteen years old, just made it through basic,” I stated quietly. He stopped moving, looking at me. “Figured he would be proud of me for the first time. He got angry, all the fear that had disappeared over basics came back, and I felt small again. Called me a retard, blamed me for absolute nonsense. One moment we were eye level, the next… heh, Luna he tried so fucking hard but I wasn’t having it anymore. Showed that fucker up for what he did to me, in a lawful way of course.”

I laughed. None of what I was saying was a laughing matter, but I laughed anyway. Goddesses, Dead Hooves was right about those two. I never really denied it, but I always liked to pretend it was better than it was. What I said about him being better than my mother stands though. For all the hurt, he never killed anypony.

Gold looked off into nothing. “Many in wasteland have that struggle. Bad parents make bad ponies. For your faults – your bads – pegasus is better than expected.”

“If you're expecting me to give you some compliment in return, I’ll remind you that you stabbed me in the back.” Despite my voice originally being filled with hate, in the end it lingered away to forlorn recollection. “He… both of them were horrible. When I found Anchor – when we decided on foals – I told him I to keep an eye on me. I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything they would do.”

Up until five days ago, the last day up in the clouds, I had succeeded at just that. Then I left them, and nine years of success had gone down the drain. Willow was right about me doing this for them, but that doesn’t excuse me leaving them. It didn’t excuse the fact that it was entirely possible Clear and Rainy would never have a mother. It didn’t excuse that I had left Anchor.

I’ll spare ponies the horrid task of having to listen to Sharpshot – justifiably or not – barrage me with insults and questions. The point is he was correct about almost every single thing he said about me. What I had done was dumb, self-destructive (self-projecting much), and most of all really, really bad. What healing my shoulder had done had been effectively ruined by several bad decisions, all because of pride.

I’m sure he thought about asking me to pinkie promise that I wouldn’t ever ignore a doctor’s orders again, but he didn’t. Probably because he didn’t believe I would listen to him, and also because not every doctor in the Equestrian Wasteland was a good doctor. Plenty of posers exists, using illiteracy and lack of basic education to get the better of ponies. More than a few addicts, well known raiders, and horrid deaths had been created by such ponies.

At least the job of clearing our way had been taken care of, though that doesn’t make up for me shattering my shoulder into far too many pieces. Sharpshot forced me to ride on Willow Wisp for the rest of the trip. It gave me time to think about what Gold had said about me. These “bads” that he claimed I had.

I wasn’t perfect. Anypony who thought they were was delusional beyond the point of saving. It didn’t make the exact faults he was talking about easier to pin down. My pride? Hardly thought of it as bad; everypony needed a little self-esteem and I considered myself decently within check ego-wise. Did I resemble my father in some way?

No. No way in tartarus I resembled him. I drank far less than him, and I had never thrown the anger he used at me towards Clear and Rainy. Even in abandoning them, I had never gotten that horribly angry. A look to the radio nestled into my saddlebags, having survived every encounter so far.

Ironsight’s voice would come through it in three days' time. That was my best shot at getting an outside, trusted opinion.

Until then I was a mare with a broken shoulder, laying on an alicorn, walking towards some secret societies’ hideout. If the rest of the Enclave council knew what I had gone through in four days on the surface, they’d either shit themselves or laugh their asses off. Maybe both if they weren’t too busy fearing more Calamity-like ponies popping up.

“You know, I was looking forward to our little one-on-one match too,” Sharpshot said in the most guilt trippy voice a ghoul could muster. I’m damn certain he had said that exact same line twice by now, like the script he had in his head didn’t know how to take my silence. “Would have shown ya some things I’m certain no G.P.E. mare has ever seen. Kick your ass like the Enclave kicks out the unpatriotic.”

“That is a very heavily kicked ass,” Willow replied rather unhelpfully.

“And everypony would have watched as the most civilized mare in the wasteland,” I felt my eye twitch “got her butt whooped by some lowly ghoul. How is that for wasteland pride?”

“Your pride is explosions, dead bodies, and debauchery,” I told him. “Don’t be proud of it, especially in the presence of somepony who had to horribly deal with two of those.”

I gave a knowing look to Shining Gemini, the mare’s eyes flicking away from me as soon as I was. As long as I looked at her, she trembled. The words I said when Sharpshot sent my anger boiling over must have hit her rather bad. It didn’t matter if I was correct, she didn’t deserve it.

Until basic, I had been a lot like her. Everything felt terrifying, but when Ironsight and I were in training something about that just… faded. Parts of it sucked – I couldn’t call myself “in shape” at that point in time – but I came out a more intelligent, brave mare. I came out of it a soldier, not mentally stable but the Enclave didn’t have the room the pegasi to say otherwise.

A little harmed filly had turned into a member of the council. It was an inspirational story for all pegasi, easy to turn into propaganda. Just it being another pegasus to some raider, and nopony would be the wiser. Too bad it never got told, because that council mare was now a Dashite.

“My words earlier weren’t pointed at you, Gemini,” I said. She gave me a very brief glance before looking away. I used that brief moment to find the best words to apologize in the most roundabout way possible. “Forget about them. The things I said weren’t necessary.”

“Oh, um, okay,” she replied. “Though, uh, can I be honest about something?”

“Of course. Honesty is a good thing.”

“You… you’re terrifying.”

I blinked, confused. It wasn’t that I didn’t expect it, because in a way I wanted to be terrifying. I want to make sure anypony who dared to ever become my enemy was scared out of their mind. It would make them easier to take down, or downright avoid me all together.

Yet here I was, likely as vulnerable as I possibly could be, and she was still scared. I looked at my broken shoulder, and then back to Gemini in intrigue.

“I wouldn’t call myself that scary look at the moment.”

She lowered her head, ears flattened. “I-I know, but you look scary when you're really angry. You also get angry really easily, and then this M.A.M. thing you built, and what you made Miss Breaker do in Sandstone and–“

“Miss Breaker?”

My question seemed innocent, but nearly the entire group recoiled at me mentioning Bone Breaker. Since I was already looking at Gemini’s her reaction was the one I took in the most. Her jaw quivered, eyes wide and staring at some invisible monster that had appeared from nowhere. Similar, if far more subdued was Sharpshot, though that may have just come from only seeing his eyes. Gold simply closed his eyes, scowling.

That left me and Willow suddenly in front of all of them. All this, just to mention the mare who put us in this situation. A gasp brought my attention to the alicorn I was riding on top of. She looked at me, scared. The fear was not pointed at me specifically, but it surrounded me like a cold wind.

A cold wind that turned to below zero temperatures in a nanosecond, remembering how I had gotten Angel Hair’s destination out of Lucky Heart.

“Gold.” I said to the griffon. He opened his eyes, giving me a knowing look. “Lucky asked me to punish either Bone Breaker or Razor. I choose the former.” He nodded, already knowing this all. I think he appreciated me telling my side of it all, given the tenseness in his body changed. “What did she do to her?”

He closed his eyes again, bringing one talon to his chest in prayer. I watched him mumble in a voice too quiet for me to hear, Sharpshot and Willow looking at him. Gemini tried her best to focus her eyes, but whatever she wanted to look at proved too difficult. She stared at the invisible monster her own voice had created as Gold opened his eyes once again.

“I was told to save Sharpshot and Gemini,” He said. His voice was slower, his sentence feeling fully flesh out for the first time since I met him. I thought he didn’t have a good grasp on Equestria, but it seemed I was wrong. “Did it. Spilt no blood too. Walked out of Stable 71 and they were all just… everyone in Sandstone was there. Bone Breaker and her son were front and center. Then she mentioned retribution for the dead and… brought her shotgun to her lips.”

My body felt as cold and heavy as a corpse, pure horror filling every vein in my body.

“Remember how I broke some shit they installed in you?” Sharpshot asked. I wanted to nod, but my body refused to move. “Now you know why.”

With most of my muscles locked up, all I could do was look in the direction I believed he was in. “You mean, the reason she killed herself….”

“While it was her hooves that pulled the trigger, the voice that came out of her mouth was most definitely not hers,” He explained in a solemn tone. “She was being used like a puppet, and the puppetmaster had decided it was time to cut her strings.”

“And the pony who cut them?”

A heavy sigh left Gold’s beak. “Lucky Heart.”

Willow eyes went wide, mine following suit. “She… she made Boney… so Sharpy was right?”

“They’re sneaky fucks,” Sharpshot said. Drawn out steps hit my ears, and I forced my muscles to turn towards the ghoul. “They want control, plain and simple. They control the food, water, ammo, guns, but that wasn’t enough apparently. They wanted the ponies' minds as well, and one of the little pieces of tech is some M.o.I. and M.o.M. project that allows just that.”

…

I… I killed her. Indirect as it may have been, I just killed Broken Record. She had lied to me about things, tried to get me killed but… she was a mother.

I killed a mother.

No words could express my horror, and even calling the feeling I felt horror felt wrong. The world felt like it stretched, everything becoming distant as my eyes tunneled into the same exact monster Gemini had likely seen. Though, monster was not the right word. A thinner, less focused illusion was between Gold and myself, pony in shape and yet not at the same exact time. It was red one minute, blue the next, and looking right back at me with all-knowing eyes.

“MoNsTeR. MoNsTeR. YoU’rE a MoNsTeR!”

Those words were said with a distorted soul-wounding wail that could not be placed. Its form encompassed all my sight, keeping me stock still. I was a soldier, a member of the Enclave, this fear it placed in my heart shouldn’t have had any hold. Yet, like with those who died in that disaster of a mission five years prior, I know well that voice and that form belonged to somepony I know. Somepony who I had hurt horribly.

“Bone… Break…er?”

“WhY? WhY? WhY?!” She screamed at me. “I wAs HaPpY. SaNdStOnE wAs AlMoSt InDePeNdEnT. WhY dId YoU rUiN eVeRyThInG? WhY dId YoU sElL hIm To ShAdOw CoRp?!”

“I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know.” The words felt more mouthed than spoken with how quiet and small I suddenly felt. “I didn’t mean to kill you.”

“YoU kIlLeD mE. YoU hUrT eVeRyPoNy I lOve. WhY dOeSn’T mAtTeR! DiE! DiE! D… d….”

Suddenly, Bone Breaker was much farther away from me. She wasn’t some crazed all encompassing monster anymore. It was just her and myself, the world around us seeming like a void rather than the city it truly was. The spirit sat there, crying in much the same way the ghost filly had earlier. Except, while the filly had looked perfectly normal when she looked up at me, Bone Breaker had long dark tear trails on her face… and blood dripping from her face.

“Do you know what they do to those who fuck with the Invisible Mare?” She asked me, not giving me time to respond. “Then I hope you’re ready to find out. I hope it shows you the wrongs that might never, ever be righted. The pain and suffering you have caused.”

Then my entire face went cold.

As if waking from a dream, I lurched up as much as possible and immediately regretted it, closing my eyes and grasping my broken shoulder. My face was soaked, cold, was oddly sticky, and for some reason I smelled carrots. When I finally reopened my eyes, I found I was still on Willow’s back. Gold had a now half empty bottle of Sparkle-cola, which seemed to be tilted towards me.

We hadn’t moved an inch, still in the middle of the road surrounded by falling down houses and the like. I was also still on Willow Wisp, her looking at me with clear concern. Sharpshot was off to the side, seeming less worried and more interested in watching me. Then there was Gemini, mane drenched in the carroty smell of Sparkle-cola just like me. We both seemed shell-shocked, meaning that she must have also seen the ghost of Bone Breaker. Though that did bring up the question on how she hadn’t seen the filly or Dead Hooves.

“Good. Pegasus still with us,” Gold said, a sad, half-assed chuckle leaving his throat. He was talking in broken sentences again. “You stared off. You okay?”

The simple thing to do was say “I’m fine” and be done with it all. Then everything I had just seen would shove into the darkest pits of my mind to never be touched again. That felt impossible. Both ghastly forms the spirit of Bone Breaker had taken were stamped into the front of my mind like an image burned into a projector screen. On top of all of it, my brain was overthinking and the lukewarm liquid that soaked my face hadn’t helped.

“Y-you all saw that, right?” The blank stares I got gave me my answer. “It was… I think it was her. There was nopony else it could have been. She… I think she wants me dead.”

“But…but you didn’t know. I didn’t know. We didn’t mean to kill her!” Willow replied, lowering her head. “We didn’t mean to. She was a meany in some regards, but she didn’t deserve that. She isn’t like a lot of other raiders.”

“That hasn’t stopped ponies before,” Sharpshot called out. He was playfully resting the sniper responsible for my broken shoulder against the back of his neck. Apparently it was to remind me to never question a doctor’s orders. “It’s always easier to shift the blame onto others. From the sounds of it, Breaker was playing with fire and got burnt.”

Gemini took a small step forward, her eyes refusing to remain on Sharpshot no matter how much she tried. “You… you don’t even feel bad.”

He shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, it sucks for everypony else around her, but she kept fucking around with my wife’s trigger word. Lucky did what I wanted to do, but was holding off on for Willow’s sake.”

“Not sure if I should thank you for holding back or be upset you wanted to kill her too.”

As they continued to talk, Gold came up to me. I looked the griffon in the eyes, and he looked back down at me before letting out a long sigh. He patted me on the head, sorrow as clear on his face as possible for a creature like himself.

“Was always told lack of ghost seeing was good things by those who had it. You now see why.”

I briefly looked at the road below us, and then backed up to him. “So what I saw is normal?”

“Unfortunately. In old times, Zebras saw it as important gift. Helped lay dead soldiers and, when war came, would sometimes be used to convince them to come back,” His wings shifted uncomfortably, tail momentarily going straight from chills. “Zebra spirits trust these zebras to put to rest, so was easy to convince dead to accept necromatic life. As time went, ghost sight made these zebras feared. More forceful means were necessary to bring dead to life.”

“If it was an important part of Zebra culture, I can’t imagine ponies having it would be considered good to the Equestrians.”

He gave me a nod. “Always believed to be Zebra spies. No ponies trusted them.”

“Then the world ended, and everything went to tartarus.”

“Making ghosts dangerous. Violent. Destructive. Saw one griffon, originally lucky to gain gift of ghost sight, reduced to vegetable from ghosts destroying their minds. We… put her out of misery”

I stared blankly, feeling void of emotions. There should have been terror placed in my heart but instead I just felt… empty. That could happen to ponies? That could happen to me? My heart was thumping harder than a bass drum, the picture of me unable to do anything. It was all too possible.

“This… I’m not sure, but I’ve dealt with spirits like her before,” I told him. “Sometimes I can hear the Enclave soldier that died here in Trotson scream at me. It was especially bad those first four days after; I have no memory of it, and by the sounds of it I didn’t really exist.”

“To have the dead hate you is undeniably unpleasant,” He commented. I nodded at him, knowing all too well how right he was. “Yet not vegetable. Mind is still there. How?”

I thought about it for a bit, then smiled. “Iron Anchor, my husband. He broke me out of it, brought me back to the waking world. Perhaps it is less that they break somepony’s mind, and more they overwhelm it. Everything is drowned out, the only thing you can hear being their hate and anger.”

“Would like to believe that, but I don’t. Pegasus just lucky. Griffon didn’t move, needed help to eat, bath, shit. You not like that.” Despite the dread his words provided, he smiled. “Though, perhaps there is hope in there. If you can be broken free, then not all lost. Just need your anchor.”

“He’s in the Enclave still.”

“Then find another.”

“You realize what you just said, right?”

He briefly glanced away in shame and embarrassment before looking back at me. “I’ll rephrase. Find new anchor. Pony, grffon, or zebra who free you, in case you are ever overwhelmed that way. Somepony you trust and stand by, no matter what.”

He moved away from me and in front of the whole group, clapping his talons together to draw attention. I drowned his words out, needing only to take the sudden movement of the ponies around me to know what he had said. Instead, I thought about what he had said. A piece of it still felt wrong, but I knew what he was trying to say.

The idea of finding a new Iron Anchor left me conflicted and confused. It felt like he was asking me to betray the pony I loved. Even if I would never see him again, Anchor and I been in a relationship since I my early twenties, back when he was a cloudship pilot. That couldn’t be taken away or changed so easily, and leaving him had already hurt so much.

I didn’t want to completely abandon him.

Yet, for all the wrong things the grounder had said, he was right about the basic idea. If ghosts could turn me into an unthinking mass of organs and skin, then I needed somepony to be there for me. A friend that would be there when ghosts tried to make me disappear. It was unfortunate I only had grounders around me to do that with, but I didn’t have a choice.

Especially if, when I entered that storm, I witnessed more than just the screams of those I had gotten killed.

Author's Note

Well this chapter was a marathon and a half to write. I had originally planned for it to be longer but the longer this all went on the more I realized it was best to shift what was going to be the latter half of the chapter into a separate chapter.

We are almost at the end of act 1 though, for all curious. Hope you all have been enjoying the ride so far, and that you continue to enjoy it as time goes on.

Act 1 – Chapter 16: What Remains of the Arcane Sciences

Eastern Trotson

Day 4

The rest of our trip to the research station was silent, the news of Bone Breaker’s death casting a spell that left us all mute. What Gold claimed to be a couple more minutes had turned into a long, drawn out slog that never seemed to end. Being stuck on Willow’s back didn’t help, because it meant the only thing I had to distract me were my thoughts. Thoughts that found themselves continuously looping back to what Gold had said to me.

Nopony down here could replace Iron Anchor in my life, and yet I was being asked to do just that. He was half of what made me who I am, the stallion that had managed to finish the puzzle known as my heart, despite it missing so many pieces. Thinking of him made me happy and sad, whole and empty. I didn’t want anypony else, I wanted him.

I could no longer have him.

It was a truth that ripped me open and so, so desperately made me want him to unleash my floodgates. How many times in just four days had I wanted to cry? How many times had I wanted his touch? It was all yet another moment that made me regret my chosen course.

I… I needed an anchor. I hated to admit, but I really, really needed it. Sadly, I didn’t have Ironsight around this time to actually help with any of that. He had been such a huge help in those first few weeks. Especially that first date… oh Luna that first date.

Sixteen years earlier

I was such a different pony then I’m certain none of my grounder companions would have recognized me. In the current day, I have been at the top of the world and above nearly everypony in terms of power. Back then, everything my parents had done had created a young soldier whose brain panicked before it thought. I had been in the military for two years, seen some shit, got fragmentation stuck in my stomach, and other wonderful things a normal pony would definitely not be okay with.

Emotions didn’t help with that. Sweet Celestia, my emotions were strong back then. They were why I was currently pacing back and forth outside a café, anxiously waiting for him: a stallion named Iron Anchor. I didn’t think I deserved the chance I had before me but here I was, getting chances. The only reason I hadn’t passed out was because another stallion had promised to stand by me while I waited for him.

That was Ironsight, the oldest friend I had. A coat the color of an oak tree, with a pink mane and tail contrasting from the rest of him. His cutie mark was twin assault rifles crossing each other at the receiver, barrels pointed up with a star behind him. He was wearing that stoic look, being calm in hopes it would help me do the same. It was… sort of working.

“You do think this dress looks good, right?” I said, my worries having circled around to the point I was asking questions that had already been answered. Ironsight rolled his eyes at how I was acting. “What? It’s a genuine question. I’ve never had a coltfriend before.”

My face felt so hot it might as well have been pressed against Celestia’s sun. Until getting away from dad I hadn’t really thought about having a love life. It was more important I got the bits to get the fuck out of there and to my own, safer place. When it finally did happen, I hadn’t really thought of what else to do and sunk myself into just being a soldier.

All up until a group of fellow Enclave soldiers, having caught Iron Anchor glancing at me, dared him to ask me out. That led to me, my brain not completely functioning because I had just learned somepony liked me, saying yes, and everything spiraled. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea why the fact Anchor liked me made me a blushy mess, but here I was pacing back and forth in self-made terror. It was… really sad.

“Yes, the dress is fine. Your sense of fashion isn’t anything to worry about,” Ironsight replied, trying his best to not laugh at me. I greatly appreciate the sentiment, though him eyeing the bright pink dress I wore did give me some worry. “I’m not sure if it is the same for straight stallions, but he’s gonna be less focused on the outfit and more focused on you.”

My anxiety skyrocketed, my worries continuing to circle around and around like a merry-go-round. “That just means I’ve been focusing on the wrong shit this entire time. Are my hooves clean? How about my coat? My mane isn’t a mess, is it? Did I–“

Ironsight placed a hoof on left shoulder, leading to me freezing up and staring into his vivid green eyes. “Rhapsody, listen: you are heavily over thinking it. He asked you out when you were drenched in sweat with a mane-style not even a mother could love. You’ll be fine.”

He withdrew his hoof, leaving me frazzled and dazed. I pointed at him with a hoof.

“That is your attempt to be encouraging?”

“Eh, more or less. I’m telling you the truth, and the truth is that you could show up in your dress whites and he would be more than okay with it.”

“And you are sure about this because…”

“I’ve talked with the stallion in question. Iron Anchor isn’t a bad pegasus.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

I glanced off to the rest of Aery, watching pegasi of all ages pass by on their way to one thing or another. The city was truly a testament to the strength of pegasi-kind, bustling with life and color. Many grounders assume that everything is just clouds, clouds, and more clouds, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It hadn’t been like that before the Last Day, and even before unification of the three tribes. Sure, we used clouds in a lot of our support structure, but we used brick, stone, marble, wood, and every other material a pony would expect of a civilized nation.

When shit fell apart, we turned to the world below for the materials to replace it. Those weren’t common, but they were typically the more dangerous missions we were sent on. It meant we would likely be dealing with more grounders and radiation than normal. It was necessary for the Enclave’s survival, however, and the reward was always worth the risk. I know the piece of Enclave power armor had so many parts replaced before I got it that it could be considered both new and old at the same exact time.

That was after I had become an officer too.

“Do you… do you think we’re a good fit?” I asked him.

“I can’t decide that for you,” Ironsight replied, looking out over the city of clouds just like I had. “When you said yes to this date, did you want it to work out?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. He’s… I don’t know, you’ll think I’m crazy if I tell you why I like him.”

“You know the way I swing, Singing. If anypony here would know it's me.”

I chuckled, because I knew he was right. My eyes looked left, right, up, down, all as I tried to find the perfect words to describe how I was feeling. Thinking about Iron Anchor, from his voice to his body, gave me this strange and wonderful lightness. He made me smile and laugh, and I felt I could be more vulnerable around him than anypony not named Ironsight.

“He’s… his eyes are beautiful, and his mane is cute, and…,” My face was so, so red as I realized what I was about to say. “And he has a nice ass. He’s got muscle but it isn’t bulking, ya know? He also talked so gently.”

“So strong and gentle, that’s your type eh?” Ironsight asked. I gave him short, rapid nods, all too happy when he walked back up to my side and patted my back with a wing. “Let me guess: you feel like you can be yourself around him.”

“It’s a lot easier being Singing Rhapsody the soldier than Singing Rhapsody the abused filly,” I replied, unsure if I should smile or frown. “Acting tough feels easy. Acting like me… I spent the past two years pushing that away.”

Ironsight drew his wing away. “I don’t think the two are as separate as you think, and I can’t blame you for taking everything a bit more seriously. Right, “Splinter”.”

“The fact Domino told you that fucking nickname still pisses me off,” I said, pouting a little. “A pegasus messes with a grenade one time.”

“You seem to have bad luck with those.”

“I don’t!”

“You definitely do.”

“No, I… ugh, okay maybe I do. Shouldn’t it be good luck though if I’m somehow still alive and in active duty?”

Ironsight smiled that same, mischievous smile. “Ah, but who ever said that was the same bit of luck? I wouldn’t call it good luck to constantly end up near death's door, or bad luck to come out of it alive.”

“The reaper definitely wants me, but I keep parrying his shots like the grounder filth he is.”

Ironsight chortled, and moments after I joined him in laughter. It was nice, uplifting, quickly turning what had been a rather dark conversation into something… still dark, but relieving. My laughter stopped, and I looked at the rise and fall of my chest through my dress. I was calm, relaxed, any other synonym a pegasus could come up with to describe being the opposite of stressed. Ironsight, the wonderful bastard he was, had done exactly what he said he would.

“You know, sometimes I feel your talent is less related to firearms and more related to calming ponies down,” I said, looking briefly at his cutie mark. I compared it to my own, a bar of music consistent with a set of triple notes. Even if I had abandoned the course it had assigned me, knowing it would be replaced by her mark still hurt. “Perhaps both of our callings were off.”

“So you don’t play bass anymore?”

“Oh, no, I do. It’s just… music isn’t what I want to do anymore. The Enclave will always come first for me.”

He snorted, smile growing even wider to the point it was nearly uncanny. His eyes focused on somepony down the street, raising a hoof up and waving it to somepony. I looked where he was looking, only to let out a tiny, uncharacteristic yelp as I saw who it was.

Black coat, gray mane and tail, an old blimp steering wheel for his cutie mark. It was him. Oh sweet Luna he was right there and watching us casually for not that far away with the most reassuring smile on his face. The kind of smile that said “I heard everything but will act like I heard nothing.” He knew why I liked him now… and had learned that damned nickname.

“Sergeant Ironsight.”

“Anchor.”

Anchor turned to me, a nervous smile on his face. “Singing.”

His voice along making any real greeting near impossible. I had a goofy smile on my face, looking at the stallion before me. That lightness in my heart expanded, my wings threatening to snap open at him. While Ironsight looked at me more concerned, Anchor silently waited for me to respond. His eyes nervously flicked from side to side; I think he was worried he broke me.

In an attempt to prove those possibly-not-true thoughts wrong, I finally spoke. “H-h-hi.”

“Have just as little clue what you are doing as I am, eh?” Anchor asked, face red… oh my goddesses his blush is adorable. “I’ll try and not make this too awkward.”

“N-no, I mean, same or… fuck.”

What in the world was this stallion doing to me?

We stood there in awkward silence, Ironsight doing his best to not laugh his ass off at the lack of smoothness between both of us. I appreciated it, but also wanted to hit him for even wanting to laugh at the two of us. His laughter did free me, at least momentarily, from my Iron Anchor-induced hypnosis. How did a single pegasus make me this completely hopeless?

“So, I see you two are still figuring out the “talking to each other” stage of things,” Ironsight said, stepping forward and putting his hooves on us both. It allowed us both to break our prolonged, accidental staring contest. “Guess that proves how perfect you are for each other.”

“Wha- I- damn it Iron!” I said, batting my foalhood friend over the head. He only laughed at my actions. “This isn’t the time for- I mean you can’t just….”

My eyes looked at Anchor, noticing how his hooves were covering his mouth as if… no, no, stop reminiscing. Stop reminiscing!

“Singing, your face is really, really red.”

“It. Is. Not.”

I buried my head in Willow’s back, inwardly swearing at myself for choosing that of all memories to go back to. By Luna’s wondrous sky how had I wasn’t even able to the actual date before it had become too much. How could twenty year old me be such an absolute mess for everything concerning it to go that fucking poorly? It’s almost a miracle that Iron Anchor had actually stuck with me after it all.

Though, the fact he stuck with me did warrant a sad smile. I had been an absolute mess of a mare that day and he ended up coming back for a second date. Then a third, and then we started hanging out in our off time, and then more dates, and after three years of dating we married. He stayed by me, never once abandoning me for somepony else.

Yet I had gone and abandoned him.

Thinking about him stung my heart and healed it at the same time. I wanted him, but couldn’t have him anymore. His hooves, his wings, his touch, felt so far away and it left me cold… empty. He was the reason I smiled, the reason I lived, the only thing that allowed me to cry. Why in Celestia did I come down here instead of staying with him? Why had I refused to stay with the family I loved, knowing full well I would likely never see them again.

“When they are old enough, we will join you down there. Does that work?”

He meant it, and I wanted it, but I desperately hoped he… found somepony else. Somepony that was as good to him as he was to me, and wouldn’t leave Rainy and Clear like I had done. The only thing I could give either of them anymore was safety and comfort up in the civilized world of the pegasi. That was the only thing that might allow me some form of forgiveness.

“This it. Though, not as beautiful as I remember it.”

I looked up, noticing we had stopped at the fallen carcass of a building. Gold mumbled something more before stepping forward, removing collapsed wood out of the way of what was once an entrance. Gemini tilted her head in timid confusion while Sharpshot and Willow looked at each baffled. The ghoul pawed at his cheek with a hoof, and for the first time I noticed how it seemed to move more like skin than. It seems the goggles weren’t the only piece of clothing stuck to him like an even uglier, more deformed skin.

“You gone senile geezer? Seeing nothing before me but a pile of rubble.”

“Not yet. Still got few years, I think,” the griffon forced a smile at Sharpshot. “Told em “build better entrance”. They said “would invite unwanteds”. Now look at place! Mess of rot and mold.”

“S-so the entrance is in or under this all?” Gemini asked. She looked away from Gold before he could give her a nod, instead looking at Sharpshot and Willow. “W-would it help if we lifted it all out of the way?”

“Help of unicorn, ghoul, and alicorn would be greatly appreciated,” Gold replied. “Just, perhaps let pegasus down first.”

Though I knew the answer I was going to receive, I looked at Sharpshot. “Helping isn’t an option, is it?”

He gave me a nod, and I groaned in frustration. After being carefully lifted off Willow and placed on the ground, everypony in my group except for me got to work. My teeth ground against each other as I watched the grounders work. Knowing I was the only pony sitting out, that in this moment they were able to do normal things I couldn’t, angered me. If it wasn’t for my damn shoulder – tartarus even with it broken – my pride begged me to do my part. The fact Sharpshot and Willow were both injured and able to drive me wild.

Yet it was my pride that broke my shoulder bones in the first place, and neither the husband or wife were suffering from wounds as debilitating as me. Sure, Willow had a clear limp, but she also had magic that allowed her to lift boards and debris out of the way. I was useless, incapable, just like I had been before joining the military.

Just like Dead Hooves.

As if knowing I was thinking about her, the tan mare appeared at my side. She eyed my shoulder, seeming unsure of what to make of my injury. Afterwards she flinched and looked into my eyes with an apologetic look.

“How bad is it?”

“Fucking annoying is what it is,” I whispered. “It’s actually less painful than the fracture… when I don’t move it at least.”

“And when you do?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Well, hey! You got Willow and Sharpshot looking out for you. One more willingly than the other, but it is still something.” I scowled. “What?”

“I don’t want that. I shouldn’t need you grounders helping me.” I looked at Gemini, the freed slave more nervously and carefully removing things with her magic compared to the alicorn right next to her. It seemed even magic-wise Willow’s style was strength and brute force. “I’m a member of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. I should be several times better at not fucking up my body, and look at me. Sitting on the ground watching these grounders do the work instead of me.”

Dead Hooves raised her brow, head slightly tilted. “You’re upset about ponies doing the work for you?”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t be?”

“Perhaps when I first met Willow, but you know what I learned? It’s so much simpler having others do the work for me.”

She smirked, the glee she spoke with placing a rather uncomfortable feeling in my chest. There was pride in her stance, her voice, and her eyes. It was like she was gazing at Princess Celestia, the spirit of the long dead monarch right there in front of her. Instead she was staring at nothing, content.

“I mean, look at me! Just a helpless young mare who can’t walk without some form of support. Through one way or another, ponies just want to help in their own unique way. You see it for long enough… and you find ways to take advantage.”

“So you started manipulating ponies?”

“Only those not in my immediate friend group… and Sharpshot. For some reason it doesn’t seem to work on that insufferable bitch.”

I looked at the ghoul, and then back to her. “You do know he is a stallion right? Calling him a bitch doesn’t really work.”

“Don’t care. A bitch is a bitch, and as far as I’m concerned Sharpshot fits that description perfectly.”

There was a brief pause, and then I looked back at Dead Hooves.

“Perhaps that works for you grounders, but up in the clouds we do things in a more socially acceptable manner. Enclave is one big family and every pegasus has to play their part. Even unicorns with shit legs.”

“As if I would ever be allowed up there. I mean, it has to be absolutely amazing.”

A small amount of my own pride started to swell within me as she acknowledged the Enclave’s greatness. Yes, it really was that amazing. A place where everypony was safe and worked together for a better, brighter future. A place where society hadn’t died, culture flourished, pegasi lived their lives safe from the horrors of the surface. When I became a soldier, it was that which I had sworn to protect, and I still did.

“And I can’t blame you for not wanting to sit down,” Dead Hooves said. I wasn’t paying attention to the fact her voice happened to be just a little too happy for the given moment. “You’ve worked your ass off for your fellow pegasi. I can’t imagine ever living up to you, the image of pony-kind perfected.”

I brought my uninjured forelimb to my chest. “That’s pegasus kind, Dead Hooves. You can’t compare yourself to me and mine.”

“Of course, sorry.” To have a grounder treating me like this felt wonderful. After the horrid past few days a bit of confirmation that I truly was better than them all was wonderful. “So, given you are such an incredible pony, don’t you think it would be better to just sit and relax for a little bit? Let the “filthy grounders” do all the work for you.”

You know, for being one of those grounders herself, I had to give Dead Hooves some credit. She was right, I didn’t need to do anything for the moment. It stung to not be actively taking part in my own mission for a bit, sure, but it was all deserved. Nearly four days of tartarus with barely any relaxation could definitely wear on a mare's mind. She was a pretty smart unicorn.

So smart, she had played me like the patriotic fiddle I was.

“Yes, I think some relaxation is exactly what the doctor ordered,” I replied, shifting a little bit. I stretched my wings along the dirt and dead grass of an old front yard. It was right across from where everypony else was doing the hard work. “Good thinking Dead Hooves. Let them do all the work. A bit of R&R before shit hits the fan never hurts.”

“Glad you think so,” She replied, allowing a little more malice into the smirk she was wearing. While I had noticed it, it was so quick that I never thought about what it truly meant. “Oh, and since we’re family, feel free to call me DH. It’s what Star Chart called me. Something about the name being too cruel and seeping with irony for her to say it.”

“I think you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself… but DH does indeed sound better than calling you Dead.” A wince led me back to my broken shoulder, my constant shifting to try and get comfortable not agreeing with the thing. “Alright, DH it is then.”

Her look grew more sympathetic, reaching a hoof to my mane in wanting to ruffle it. I felt nothing, and I have a feeling she felt the same. Sympathy turned to disgust, then sadness, and then she faded away. I was left alone to relax, the only sounds greeting my ears being the moving of boards or a distant gunshot.

It made me wish I had brought my bass with me, actually. Ironsight had bought me one when I was nineteen, a little “congrats on finally getting away from your family” present. He joked about the two of us starting a little band together with him as the singer. For all the good in that pegasus, singing was most definitely not one of them. He was more of a speaker than a singer, and I personally preferred to have the latter in my music over the former.

Out of curiosity more than anything, I flipped the MentaBuck on and explored it some more. If Sharpshot had gotten radio signals on his PipBuck, then maybe they had something similar for me. After a bit of going through menus and figuring out as many little commands as possible, I did actually find a radio option. Right there was DJ-PON3, along with Red Eyes station and one other.

S.M.R.. I wonder what it sounded like.

“– ther news, it seems some pegasi are calling the Las Pegasus airport their home. They arrived just a couple days ago, wishing to take back what the “stripes” took away from them. Funny, considering how they’re treating Cloudsdale, and the fact we all know our zebra friends are not responsible for what happened to the City of Artistic Creation. Though, hey, if any of you Enclave folks want to help shit on the false star we would be more than willing to have. You.”

“Speaking of the Enclave, let's give them a welcome with an old pegasus classic. Have you ever heard of Songbird Serenade? Well, let me introduce ya.”

“An F.O.I. in Las Pegasus? I should ask Ironsight about it when he calls in.”

I remember the Enclave council had been talking about taking back Las Pegasus for some time, but this seemed to be the first active steps towards actually doing so. The question, however, was why?

While we have long led the general public to believe it was the zebras who were responsible, that wasn’t the case. No, Las Pegasus was the result of unicorns being allowed into the clouds. On the last day, when Cloudsdale fell, though members of the M.A.S. who had called Las Pegasus home fired off a megaspell. Their target was supposed to be the zebras, like every other megaspell Equestria fired on that day.

Instead, it blew up within Las Pegasus itself, sending the city tumbling from the sky and into the edge of the San Palomino desert. When the newly formed Enclave had learned of what had happened, it only further cemented that they needed to distance themselves from the grounders as much as possible. Thus the truth was covered up, in some strange vague notion that the public learning the truth would damage a reputation that had been fragile at the time.

It seemed idiotic, but then again a civilization could not truly be called smart. It was the dumbest that tended to speak their mind the loudest, not the smartest, and at that period in time the dumbest pegasus had to have been really, really stupid. It didn’t help that Minister Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo had abandoned us as well not long before. Them leaving the Enclave must have made the councilors at the time terrified. If they had revealed the truth about Las Pegasus it would have led to chaos.

Revealing it was all a lie later on would have possibly fractured the Enclave. Societies were fragile things.

With the uplifting tunes of Songbird Serenade in my ears, I closed my eyes and started to hum along. Compared to the dour tracks played by DJ-PON3, reminding of how fucked up the surface was, I felt myself lifted back to the clouds. Even centuries later Songbird’s music had remained extremely popular within the Enclave. To know even grounders appreciated her tunes was nice.

“Hey, soldier mare! We got it!”

Opening my eyes, I saw everypony staring at some device Gold had in his talons. With the way he was holding it, I wasn’t able to tell what it looked like. He shared some words with Willow, and the alicorn nodded before trotting over to me. With Gemini’s help I was lifted onto her back, and promptly led over to everypony else. I had to turn the radio off; it took over so much of my hearing that it had taken Sharpshot screaming at me to get me to hear him.

“So are you going to tell me how it works?”

“No.”

“I'll let you use Flash Fire.”

“Answer still no. Join others please.”

With a scoff, Sharpshot did as Gold asked. The griffon took a few steps back, eyes never straying from the device on him. Now that I was closer, it was possible to make out two details concerning it. The first was it shared that same blue glow both Roche Limit and Atomizer had. The second came in the form of a wire that dug into the collapsed house's floor. Any attempt to get a better look was stifled by how the griffon held said device and its small size.

“Will send you all first. Recommend touching each other for safety.” I snorted against my own will, causing Gold to look at me disappointedly. “Really?”

I smirked at him. “Choose your words more carefully. This mind isn’t that clean.”

“Point still stands. Less chance of things going wrong if ponies touch each other.” His eyes had started to return to the device, only to look up at me. I managed to hold in my amusement that time. “Willow biggest. Recommend holding onto her.”

Before Gemini or Sharpshot could say otherwise – though I doubt the latter would complain – Willow spread her wings and scooped up both unicorns. They were dragged close to her, Gemini shifting uncomfortably underneath her while Sharpshot leaned in lovingly. Willow gave the griffon a nod, and the top of the device was pointed our way.

Before anypony was able to ask what was about to happen, my vision went black.

“So this is the pegasus that survived the implant? I have to admit she looks a lot less impressive in person.”

“Arti, please give it some space. Last thing we need is the creature getting scared and killing one of us when it wakes up.”

“She’s not a “creature”, Redwood, she’s a pony. A little bit of radiation in her, yes, but she certainly isn’t as bad as the ghoul or false princess.”

Those were the first things I heard when I woke up, though that only left me with the question of when I had fallen asleep. I was laying on easily the softest thing I had been on since exiled, the sounds of the decaying city of Trotson was nowhere to be heard, and the air felt stale. Testing to see if I had been bound to anything, I unfurled my wings and flapped them about. It led me to discover I had a blanket over me.

It also led to the voices getting a little more irritated.

“Damn it Arti, you woke it up.”

“She is not an… nevermind. Just give her some space.”

A heard the clop of hooves against metal, slow and methodical like a foal sneaking up on their sibling. When it stopped, I considered that the sign I would no longer find two ponies leering over me like a demon in my nightmares. Opening my eyes proved that to be correct, a dull metal ceiling in similar design to the secret M.A.S. lab above me.

The room itself was something between that and what would be found in a stable, though smaller and more residential. A relatively new mattress with just as new sheets and covers lay below and on top of me. The latter's sea green helped add a bit of color to what was just… gray. Bookcase, desk, everything was the same boring shade of gray.

“This ceiling needs a mural,” I whispered, congratulating myself inwardly for deciding to focus on the least important thing in that particular moment.

“See Redwood? Even the pegasus thinks this place needs a bit more color.”

I looked in the direction of the voices, which happened to be around the exit to the room. Both were unicorns, a green one with a purple mane staring at a maroon one who was hiding on the other side of the door. The stallion was the green one, and the blank look on his face said everything.

“Really? All that talk and the moment she wakes up you act like this?” His response earned an overexaggerated glare. She shuffled in regardless, looking her hate filled eyes on me. “Sorry about that miss. Redwood here is rather judgemental.”

“Am not!” The mare, or filly now that I saw how big she actually ways, replied. She turned her head up like a stereotypical rich pony. “I have every right to feel scared of her.”

“Again miss, I’m very sorry.”

I looked between the filly, and then at him. They overall seemed normal, but a closer eye could spot small oddities. One of Redwood’s eyes was oddly bigger than the other, and the stallion’s muzzle was just barely in the range of what would be considered unhealthily short. One was a bigger concern than the other, but it put me off for a moment.

Then I remembered what Gold had said back at Nature Care.

“Very few survivors from labs, so inbreeding became common. Now their minds bright, but their bodies are dumb.”

If this was what they looked like on the outside, I didn’t want to imagine how fucked their organs or bones were. Did stables also have these problems, or were there enough ponies inside of them to keep bloodlines separated enough? Only pony I know who could give an answer was Sharpshot. Speaking of which…

“I’m fine. Where am I? Were there others?”

The stallion smiled at me. “ArcanaTech Research Station E, and yes there were. While some of them had injuries, none were severe enough to the point they passed out from the pain of being stripped apart and put back together.” The smile fell away to blankness again. “Gold really should know better.”

“I passed out from pain?”

He gave a nod. “Yes, though you shouldn’t have to worry about that. That corpse, Sharpshot he calls himself, already seemed oddly capable for a waster without tools. To see him work with them and an extra set of hooves… well, I think the lack of pain and gravity cast on your right foreleg speaks for itself.”

Gravity cast?

Needing an answer, I slowly sat up and found zero pain in my right shoulder. It also didn’t have any feeling in it, yet it wasn’t numb. Instead it was this weird in between, having just enough feeling to be able to move without actually having any feelings in it. Sliding the blankets off my body, I beheld the culprit of that in between feelings.

A strange, malleable thing was that recognizable ArcanaTech black and glowing blue made it up. It covered my entire right foreleg, from my shoulder all the way down to my hoof. I expected it to restrict my movements, but instead I was greeted with my full range of motion. In fact, doing so didn’t even hurt! Something about it had to be keeping the shattered remnants of what was my shoulder bone from moving apart.

Given the name the stallion had for the device, what it was became very clear.

“You should consider yourself lucky, P-1,” Redwood said. As I didn’t know who this P-1 was, I didn’t respond. “You are one of a hoof full of wasters lucky enough to use the forefront of civilized healing methods. Do thank Minister Heart for that when you next talk to her.”

“What she means to say…” the stallion replied, once again eyeing the filly with contempt, “is that you won’t need to worry about your shoulder too much. I would still highly advise against too much strenuous activity, but it is far better than lugging around a worthless limb for the rest of your life.”

“Too right about that,” I whispered, looking over the thing as much as possible. “Consider yourself one of the few grounders to have ever received thanks from the Enclave mister…”

“Artificial Synthesis, though please call me Arti. The full thing is a mouthful. Gold already filled us in on why you all are here, and we are getting everything ready for your excursion into Trotson great natural wall.”

Certainly the talkative type. Then again, many a genius do seem to enjoy the sound of their own voice.

I slowly got myself out from the bed I had been placed in, stretching my back and wings. As shady and rude as these ArcanaTech ponies seemed to be, they were definitely good at what they did. Two centuries of pure technological improvement at the cost of even their bodies was a sign of that.

“If you are wondering where the rest of your irradiated friends are, they’re all over the place at the moment,” Redwood told me. Her tone was filled with hate and disapproval at me even being here. “I know that the unicorn mare, the one that doesn’t look like they’ve been burned alive, has been wandering around and the Alicorn has been answering some of the questions of the scientists here. Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go somewhere that feels a bit cleaner.”

I scrunched up my muzzle. “Who taught you that language, filly?”

“Why should I tell you?”

Redwood left the room, her hoofsteps echoing down the hall. Arti groaned, his hoof meeting his face as he shook his head. He clearly understood that she was greatly upsetting a former member of the Enclave council. If the opportunity arose, a talk with her parents would be in order. They needed to be given her proper discipline for how she acted.

“I apologize for Redwood, P-1,” Arti said. His gazing at me gave me a sudden realization at who this P-1 pony actually was. I scowled at the idea he was referring to me as a number. “I’ll also apologize for how other ponies are doubtless to respond to your presence. A lot are still think less of the ponies outside ArcanaTech facilit–”

“Singing Rhapsody.”

“-ies… wait what?”

Walking up to him with purpose, I let all emotion fall away from my face and voice except displeasure. I rose my head a bit, just to let him know that I was far beyond what he was. He took a single step back with his left hoof, allowing my right to step forward. I towered over him, giving the same glare as an officer would a traitor of the Enclave.

“My name is Singing Rhapsody, Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody to be specific.” I placed a hoof on his chest and pushed down, forcing him to shrink underneath me. The fear in his eyes was delicious. “I am not called P-1. Refer to me by a number again, and I’ll make sure your leader knows my displeasure with my treatment, understood?”

“Y-yes miss.”

A shifted my attention away from him. “Good. Now if you excuse me, I have some more important grounders to talk to. Oh, and I would like it if you told me where my weapons were.”

Turns out the reason the research station felt in some ways like a stable was because it had once been just that. The original inhabitants were either a part of ArcanaTech, left for the surface, or dead, leaving it for these ponies to move in. They had dressed it up for themselves, destroyed the stable door since they apparently didn’t need it, and had turned it into what it was now. That meant it had every little accommodation that a stable could have, from a cafeteria to a medical bay (which I was likely in for a time earlier) and an armory.

An armory that housed not just my shit, but a bunch of other guns. Another stallion, an earth pony named Dissonance, was the “guard” for it. It seemed more a courtesy than anything, because nopony in here actually wanted to touch the damn things. The only proof anypony needed to see that was how he opened the locker my shit had been stuffed in: brute force.

“The fuck you getting so prissy about?” He spat at me. The words were the result of me decking him in the snout after he had actually opened it… and heavily damaged the locker in question. “You got your toys, did you?”

He sulked away from me, mumbling about something concerning wasters. If I had the energy in me, he would have been corrected for lumping me in with the likes of raiders, slavers, and cannibals but it wasn’t worth it. One walk across the stable and at least a dozen dirty or nervous glares told me all I needed to know.

I looked to the row of rifles, pistols, and shotguns kept being casing all around the room. I had a better way of lording over him then scaring him, in this instance.

“Have you ever done a maintenance check? Make sure it won’t explode in someponies hooves when they try and use it.”

He turned back around to me, looking at me like I had grown a second mouth and an extra pair of wings. “No. Why would I?”

“Then open the cases up.”

“Pardon?”

“The weapon cases.” I took a step forward so I could motion to with a simple tilt left. “Open them. We’re doing maintenance.”

“Why should I care? Nopony is ever going to use them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Wrong answer.”

I stomped up to him and slapped the grounder, sending him reeling left from the force.

“What in tartarus you dum–”

“I don’t care how secure you think you are. You’re a guard, a soldier are you not?” He didn’t answer, but the way he leered at me was enough of an answer. “Death finds a way to your front doorstep, and she ain’t as kind as the pony or bullet that will lead you to her. You want to make sure your loved ones are safe, then you will open these cases, you will let me see if they still work, and you won’t complain.”

He scowled at me. “Ya know, with the way you are talking, I should kill you.”

“Go ahead and do it,” I replied, grinning widely. “I’m sure you would like to explain to the Invisible Mare how the pegasus helping her got shot trying to make sure her ponies were protected.”

A stare off commenced, my yellow eyes bearing into the dull brown of the pony below me. His composure was very similar to that of Sharpshot, meaning he matched me second for second up until two minutes had passed. Then he literally spat in my face. As quickly got his saliva off my face with my cast-covered leg, he started to unlock the cases.

“Still don’t see why you want to, but knock yourself out,” He replied, “and to be clear, I don’t give a shit if you got some fancy title or whatnot. The moment I think you don’t know what you are doing, I’m looking the toys up and kicking you out of this room.”

I grabbed a pistol and immediately pulled the slide back. A 10 mm casing popped out, and I caught it in my hoof. Forcing a cough to grab that stallion's attention, I showed him what I had discovered. The drop of his jaw told me everything I needed to.

“I think you're the one who doesn’t know what they are doing.”

During those early years as a soldier, I had been in charge of repairs and replacements. While my talent related mainly to music, there was a certain… rhythm, about checking and repairing weapons that scratched that musical itch. With novasurge and other such magical weapons I had found that perfect, preferred tempo, time signature, and otherwise to turn monotony into a song of its own.

When stationed on the surface for a bit, I had learned how to take care of weaponry that I had otherwise been told to just throw away. They said a material rifle was nothing to what the Enclave factories produce, and while I prefer magical weaponry myself they couldn’t be more wrong. While I did always give a soldier another novasurge rifle to replace the material one they had picked up in the field and broke, I secretly used that time to learn every little detail about them a pony could.

Was it an example of me being a good soldier and following orders? No, but repairs and maintenance scratched the rhythmic itch that military life left me. Perhaps if I hadn’t been so stubborn about not wanting to learn an instrument outside of the bass guitar I would have joined the marching band. I was not picking up drums, and the only brass I used involved embedding them in the bodies of the Enclave’s enemies.

All that to say that, with an entire armory free to do an impromptu round of maintenance with, along with my own weaponry, I was having the time of my life. Dissonance watched me from a distance, clearly intrigued and confused about how dedicated I was to this simple mission. Only time I ever looked at him was when moving from one gun to the next, and after a time he wasn’t alone in his watching. More than a couple had come to watch me, the odd “waster” who had been doing menial work for absolutely no reason.

Among them was Gemini, the only pony to step forward into the armory and actually grab my attention for longer than a millisecond. She sat down to my right, the constant nervousness in her face as she watched me work. Funny, I didn’t expect what military ponies would consider boring as hell to entertain so many.

“You know, that pistol of yours should be checked too,” I whispered to her. It was impossible to tell if the look in her eyes came from the joy she heard in my voice or the fact I had noticed her at all. “It might be a good idea for you to learn how to do this all. Willing to learn, grounder?”

She looked at the pile of already checked weapons, and then back to me. Forcing a smile on her face, she gave me a nod.

“– then I put the magazine back in, do this and… did I forget something?”

I chuckled as I looked at the unicorn, looking between her pistol and me confused. “Nope. That’s everything. Good job.”

For the briefest moment, the young mare’s entire body seemed to become ten times more alive then it had ever looked. It went away as she placed the pistol down in front of her and scooted away. There was still joy visible on her face, but it seemed she was doing everything she could to wipe it away.

While she was still a filthy grounder, there was something different in Gemini compared to the rest around me. Perhaps it was that she reminded me of myself when I was younger, or hearing about everything she had been through. When I got away smiling was both the best and most difficult thing I had ever learned to do in my life, because I was always waiting for the moment my parents would do something to make me feel like I was nopony special. It was the same exact thing with this little unicorn right here.

Dare I call her a kindred soul? Perhaps, if it was indeed possible to shape that nervousness into something greater.

“Now, let's do a bit of a refresher to make sure you remember how to use it properly,” I said. “Pick it up. It’ll be easier to do this that way.”

Once I finished my impromptu maintenance check and had put all the guns back in their cases, I left the armory. My battle saddle rests on my back, helping the feeling of nakedness I had been dealing with since my shoulder was originally fractured. The cause of that fracture, Gemini, was at my side with her pistol holstered. She consistently kept herself a step behind me, lining her head up with the base of my wings.

She didn’t know where Gold had gone, but she was aware of Willow’s. That alicorn had scarcely left the medical bay since we had arrived down in the research station, but not because of her injured hindleg and flank. No, it was because she had been bombarded with questions and was more than willing to talk.

I’m sure some of it had to be Unity secrets. I wonder how mad the Goddess was at her.

“I didn’t really pay attention to what they were saying. I didn’t know a lot of the things they were talking about or what they meant,” Gemini explained, eyeing the metal piping that snaked along the walls. “I… don’t know a lot, now that I think about it.”

“Then consider this journey you ended up on your chance to get some of those street smarts you grounders seem to have.” I looked back at her and smiled. “And I’ll fill in what they can’t.”

“Uh, sure.” Her pupils flicked to me briefly before returning to the walls. “You’re… you’re still scary though.”

“I’m fine with that. Needed it with my position in the Enclave.” A tilt of the head. The rise of a brow. “I was a member of the Enclave council. Consider them the… gang leaders, I guess.” The words burned my throat like boiling water. Gemini seemed to understand but it still felt so wrong calling them that. “We make the rules and punish those who break them. We give the others to the Enclave itself.”

“Not every pegasus is in the Enclave?”

“Nope, because the Enclave is the actual military force of the clouds. The only way to become a member of the council? Join the Enclave. Want to know if the surface is truly the irradiated cesspit that we’re told it is in school? Join the Enclave.” I turned my attention to the ceiling, wishing the sky was there instead. “Want to get away from home, where all your worst memories and all your foalhood was burned and broken? Join the Enclave. That last one was me.”

A sound left her mouth, not matching any letter I knew, before real words left her mouth. “You… didn’t like home?”

“Mom was… the closest thing you would think of is a raider. She sold some horrible, horrible white powder to ponies that just wanted to not think. Got a filly killed from her actions.” A strangled-sounding gasp caused me to look behind her. When I saw Gemini was merely shocked, I continued. “Dad was just a piece of shit. Anything I did was undermined because… I don’t know why, he just hated me. He was almost always drunk. I can feel the phantom bruises he would sometimes leave on me when he was mad. On my face, my legs, my… he left a lot of bruises.”

“He… did he fuck you?”

I halted, looking back at her. I frowned not because she was right, but because that indeed is what it looked like. A sullen laugh left my throat and shook my head.

“I just didn’t want to talk about the bruises anymore. Sorry for making it sound worse than it is,” I said, clutching my stomach for a moment with my left foreleg. “The ponies that we found you with, did they rape you?”

“Rape?”

A twist in my stomach. The rise of bile into my throat. “Did they put their dick in your vagina without asking you?”

She looked up to the ceiling, an expression of loss forming. She then looked back to her flank, and then to me.

“Do… Do ponies ask up there? In the clouds, I mean.”

“Good ponies always check for consent before they have sex. It’s one of the most basic parts of a pegasi’s sexual education.” My throat felt clogged, but I forced my mouth to speak against its will. “If they don’t ask for consent, and force themselves upon you, it is considered rape.”

Her face attempted to shift into shock, but all she could muster was tears. The gears were turning in her head for all to see as the slow realization of what I feared – and what she never knew – hit her like a four gauge slug. Gemini took one step back, then another, followed by a shake of her head as tears started to cascade down her cheeks, and then one final step backwards.

“I… you can’t mean… there is a good way to fuck? There is a way that isn’t…,” Her words caused me to take my own step back as I heard what she was saying. “You mean… you mean… you mean I should have had a choice?”

A step back turned into multiple steps forward. I made to reach out a hoof, but stopped as I considered if she would take it the wrong way at that moment. Instead, like I had done to Rainy and Clear when they were sad or scared, I spread my wings and covered her with them. I was careful to not touch her body, instead just allowing her to stare into my chest, sobbing.

“They never asked. Nopony ever asked me.” Her head dropped down, leaving me unable to see her expression. The tiny plop of teardrops on the floor was enough. “Ponies are supposed to ask and they… and they…”

“Ponies like them are why the Enclave stays above the clouds – why they lie about the surface still having pony life,” I explained to her. “No matter what you are, you don’t deserve this. Nopony, stallion or mare, deserves it. All I can say is that everything is okay now. They are dead; they can’t touch you; you are safe.”

She struggled to lift her head to face my own, an invisible chain forcing her neck down. After half a minute, she finally broke it and slowly showed me her tear-covered face. My hoof subconsciously lifted up to her face to wipe away the tears, only to see how her fear grew at the feeling of my nail against her cheek. Realizing my mistake, I forced my hoof back to the ground.

I wasn’t sure how to help her in this instance. When I was hurt by my family, the loss of soldiers, or the terrible things I had seen in the wasteland, I went to ponies I trusted for physical comfort. Iron Anchor, Ironsight… Medicine Ball, all willing to wrap me in both wings and hooves and help me when needed. So the fact that what I wanted to do felt like the worst thing to do left me lost.

It was when the tears finally stopped that I decided to speak again. “I can’t promise nopony will ever try that again. What I can promise is to teach you how to use the tools needed to defend yourself if anypony does.”

“You mean… make me terrifying, just like you?”

“Trust me filly, you don’t want to be like me.” I removed my wings from around the unicorn’s body, taking a step back as the folded up at my side. “Up on your hooves. No matter how hard it is, the most important thing is to always walk forward.”

“Keep… keep walking forward.” She took a step forward, looked down at her hooves, and then back to me. “Right. I’ll keep that in mind.”

I turned away, allowing my smile to fall into a grimace. The smart thing to do would be to figure out some way to keep her here; her presence in the ground would clearly be a detriment to the mission as a whole. The only thing keeping me from doing that was the fact she and I had come from different, yet somehow disgustingly similar cloth. A cloth I would have known was a fake right away; you can’t fake somepony who's lived the experience.

Besides, helping her felt like a promise to myself in some odd way. A hope that I could save her from becoming as numb as I had.

“You still want to see Willow, right?” She asked, hastily trotting up to my side. I gave her a nod. “I’ll lead you to the medical area then.”

“Thanks… Gemini.”

She tilted her head with the tiniest smile on her muzzle. “I should be saying that to you, Missus Rhapsody.”

I wish it was possible to say the research station’s infirmary had some different look to it. That would be a lie, however, and anypony from a stable would immediately tell you how wrong I was. Even worse the white sheets on the beds, metal tools, and otherwise just meant it was more gray than the rest of the damn place.

The moment we walked in I spotted Willow Wisp laying casually in the bed. The way her head and hooves moved told me she was responding to the question of the two unicorns before her. One was a black mare with a snow white mane, cutie mark hidden by the scrubs she wore. Looking at the other pony led me too…

“Everything okay Missus Rhapsody?”

Gemini’s voice brought the attention of those who had already been in the room to us, including the ghoul that had caused me to freeze. They looked exactly like ones that had attacked Willow and I down in the labs, down to the shiny white skin that replaced their coat. They had their mane still, though it seemed like it was made of something far denser than what mine or anypony else present had. My chest went to where I had been stabbed by the horn of one of those ghouls.

Willow gasped the moment she saw me. My vision found itself suddenly unable to focus as a force of pure alicorn might barreled into me. Before my brain was able to figure out what had actually happened, I found myself getting constricted to the point I thought my spine would break.

“Oh my gosh oh my gosh, you’re awake!” Willow exclaimed. “You had us all worried. Like it was easily the most worried Sharpshot has been in over a century. I’m so glad to see you okay.”

“Breathing… hard. Let….” Any further response was stamped out of me, turning into the croaking not unlike a dumbass amphibian.

“Missus Wisp,” the nebula ghoul said, voice low and booming as if someone had cranked the bass of a song far too high. “I think you're killing her.”

“Oops!”

I collapsed to the floor, mind finding itself unable to function. Laying on my back, wings splayed out, and hooves twitching in the air above me, I stared helplessly at the alicorn and former slave above me. The latter looked terrified for my well being, while the other seemed more shocked, holding a hoof to the end of her muzzle.

The other unicorn joined them moments later. “Oh dear. I think you may have broken the poor thing.”

“Strange. Sharpy typically takes longer to go into this state.”

Gemini looked at the alicorn in horror. “Y-you do this to him?”

Willow shrugged. “He’s never stopped me. I doubt he would have waited over a century to tell me he didn’t.”

“You wasters certainly are intriguing folks,” the other unicorn mumbled. “Still, let's try and not knock her out for a few more hours. Sounds good?” Willow gave a nod. The unicorn’s attention turned to me. “Are you alright dear?”

I blinked, taking several seconds in my dazed state to realize that the question was directed towards me. “I… think? Was I just hit by an alicorn or a balefire bomb?”

Willow’s wings shifted at her side as she looked away sheepishly. “Hehe, sorry Singing.”

“It’s… it’s fine, I guess.”

Gemini and the other unicorn held their forehooves out to me. Grabbing hold of them with my own, I was brought up into a sitting position. After shaking the after effects of getting bulldozed by the strongest pony I know I looked around for what had distracted me in the first place.

They were there behind everypony, keeping their distance. The nebula ghoul watched me curiously, his metallic looking fuschia mane acting less like a collection of hair and more one singular mass.

It makes a lot more sense when you actually see it.

“It’s wonderful to see you up… Missus Rhapsody?” The unicorn asked, looking at the alicorn in front of me. When Willow nodded, she turned back to me. “I do apologize if many of us haven’t been using your name. Minister Heart specifically said that subject P-1 was making her ways towards us. I didn’t know your real name till Missus Wisp told me it.”

“Same here,” the nebula ghoul said, bringing my attention back to him. The way his voice thundered was certainly unsettling. “I’m Aleph Null. The normal mare who just spoke is Careful Procedure.”

My eyes stayed glued to Aleph, needing three different speaking attempts before my mouth finally cooperated. “It’s… nice to meet you.”

“Missus Wisp told us about your experience in the abandoned Ministry hub,” Careful Procedure replied. “While I doubt you really need the assurance, Mister Aleph is not like those we left behind.”

A frown flashed across Aleph’s face, only to be quickly buried by a gentle smile. He took a hesitant step forward, Willow stepping to the side so that he could join the little group around me. I decided to use that time to get completely back onto my hooves, standing up and stretching my wings just in case. Strangely, Willow's death-grip hug had actually made me feel significantly less tense in the body.

“Willow, did the idea of being a chiropractor ever cross your mind when things didn’t work out with the Unity?”

“Nope. Not really my type of thing.”

“A shame. Perhaps in a more civilized world it would have been.” When my body felt all stretched out once again, I looked to Aleph. The dark, void-like eyes of the nebula ghoul met my own, their unnatural nature more than unsettling enough. “Aleph Null, right? You were there when the bombs fell.”

“You know? I take it you took to thoroughly explore the Nebula labs then.” His eyes narrowed as I nodded. “I’ll admit, the thought of somepony with no relation to the Ministries exploring it doesn’t sit right with me, but I don’t make the rules. If Minister Heart trusts you, then I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

A smile graced my muzzle, forced though it may be. “Appreciated. Though I must ask who Minister Heart is. I can take a guess but…”

“If you are guessing they are the pony you wasters call the Invisible mare, that is correct,” Careful explained. “She’s the first flesh and blood leader we’ve had in over a century and a half. Exceedingly young, a bit eccentric, but the kid wants nothing but the best for ArcanaTech and you wasters. It’s been a change but I won’t say it has been terrible.”

A young, unstable filly in charge of an entire community. Honestly the fact it was still standing after five years was incredible, and showed that Lucky might not have been as hopeless as her age would leave one to believe. I also surmised that, given the lack of care given to the weaponry ArcanaTech possessed, I imagine the filly’s takeover might not have been that violent. All she and Gold needed was to figure out how to get to the ponies in question, deal with whoever was in charge beforehoof, and voila!

“Anyways I mainly came to check up on you, Willow,” I said, shifting the conversation. “Your leg doing okay?”

She turned around to show me her now healed flank, shaking and then stretching it for me. “Good as new. I’ll say though, teleporting in here made the pain flare up horribly. Made it seem a lot worse than it is.”

“Mister Sharpshot mentioned the same thing happening to him, I believe,” Gemini explained. “And, well, you just passed out suddenly.”

I gave Gemini a nod. “So I’ve heard. It’s… well, I wouldn’t say it is good we all experienced something similar but it’s nice to know I wasn’t alone in my experience.”

“You’re damn right it isn’t good! I saw you collapse and we all started to panic.” Willow’s ears flattened, head low as she eyed me with concern.“Sharpy… didn’t handle it so well. When they took you in here he volunteered to help the doctors. Once the cast was on your leg he started getting antsy and… well.” Her head lowered even further. “I think he was worried he might have killed you. He doesn’t show it, but I think he cares about you a lot more than he lets on.”

I blinked, trying to put together what Willow had just said. Sharpshot was… worried about me? Was she talking about the same pony I had gotten to know over the past three days? The ghoul was an ass, the two of us sharing a mutual hatred that had kept us at each other's throats since meeting. The only kind thing that could be said about the wiseass was how good of a shot he was, and I wasn’t sure how much this curse of his played into that anymore. It felt more likely he would end my life than save it.

Yet, for all of Willow’s insanity, she wasn’t a liar. Crazy, bloodthirsty, a rather skewed sense of what is adorable, but she was an honest soul deep down. If she said Sharpshot was worried about me, then logic be damned he was worried about me. Which meant the polite thing to do when I saw him was thank him, which would no doubt lead to some cocky response that ended with me trying as hard as possible to break his muzzle.

Still, figure out why he was genuinely worried first. That mystery had to be solved.

“I find it hard to believe that he suddenly likes me after Gold spoiled the details on M.A.M.”

“Oh, no doubt. I may forgive you because you’re doing the right thing now, but Sharpy is as stubborn as the Goddess. If he says he hates you, than he hates you.”

“Then why was he worried about me?”

Willow’s lips curved down, her eyes averting their gaze from me. “Because you’re related to Dead Hooves. Distantly related, yes, but related nonetheless.”

“He was worried because I’m related to a pony he hates?”

“No, because she was the first friend his curse ever killed.”

Hooves pressing down on my neck, a familiar red shape eyeing me passed an enemy through the lens of his scope. The pegasus told him it was too dangerous, he said he had no choice. A bullet fired, the pony above me unscathed.

My neck erupted in agony.

I stared dumbly at Willow Wsp, which the ponies around me most likely took as me being surprised at what the alicorn had just told me. I had felt the sudden absence of wings on my back, my hindlegs heavier than they normally would. My right forehoof went to my neck to feel for an injury; it was fictional. The hoof made its way to my head in search of a horn that wasn’t there, and was firmly reminded of my wings as they fluttered up and gave a small flap. They closed up right after.

What… what had just happened?

“There was this really bad pony named Nightshade, the same pony who had sold Dead Hooves out as myself. We tracked him down, Dead Hooves tried to fight him herself, but the supports we had made to allow her to walk broke during it.” Willow’s words woke me from the strange stupor I had put myself in. “Sharpy tried to save her but… his curse had chosen a different target. Her neck was… I’d prefer to not actually talk about it. It’s one of the few times I hated seeing a pony's blood.”

“Of… course. Sorry to bring up bad memories.”

“You didn’t mean anything bad by it Singing. You didn’t know, no need to apologize.”

Okay, no, seriously, what the fuck had just occurred?

I took a step back and allowed my thoughts to focus all their attention on the odd flash I had just witnessed. My body had briefly felt so wrong, like some unnatural out of body experience. I looked myself over, as if I needed confirmation that I was indeed the pony that I believed myself to be. I spread my wings, noting every little feather until that questioning piece of me was satisfied.

That was followed by a frown as I realized how much they needed to be preened.

“Well, Missus Rhapsody,” Procedure spoke up, bringing my attention to her. “Since you are awake, perhaps it would be a good idea to do a little health check up? We’ll have to go a bit more in depth than usual, given I have no medical records.”

I mulled over the proposition before nodding. “Good idea. If my foreleg is feeling as good as it does, I’m sure your word can be trusted.”

“I don’t think this is part of normal for a check up doc,” I said, looking at the wires attached to the side of my head.

Careful Producer smiled at me, eyes lighting up like a lighthouse. “I know, but you must understand this from ArcanaTech’s perspective Missus Rhapsody. You, much like Missus Wisp and Gold, are the first of your kinds we’ve had contact with since the Last Day. Everything is out of date and I would really appreciate it if you lended us your aid. All for science, I assure you.”

The glee in her was a bright contrast to the deadpan stare I gave her in return. Gemini, Willow, and Aleph proved to be absolute zero help, watching with similarly innocent looks on their faces. I was already hooked up to the machine, nopony was coming to my rescue, and I doubt Careful cared about my consent. I let out a long, overdone sign to hold it off for just a bit longer.

“This won’t hurt, right?”

“I can promise you it won’t.”

“Fine. I consent.”

“Huh?” Gemini replied suddenly, blushing. “You two going to… right here? In front of us all?!”

My eyes went wide, head turning rapidly from one unicorn to the other. My face flushed as it landed back on Gemini. As terrified as I wanted to look, I think the panic had overwritten it on my face.

“Gemini, consent isn’t just a sexual thing!”

Her eyes grew exceptionally wide, the blush overtaken more of the gray on her face. “Oh… heh. Whoops?”

“I personally think I would say yes if Rhapsody consented to me.” Willow said, giving me that kind of look. She spread her wings and swished her mane around, turning once again so I could see her flank. “I mean, she looks good in blood already, and I’m certain my “horn” is the perfect–“

All I heard was the awful sound of hooves being dragged across the floor. My face had buried itself in the mattress below me, hiding my blush. It didn’t hide it well, but it did well enough. I wouldn’t have blamed Careful Procedure for doing the same.

“I think it would be best for the patient if you two stayed out here,” Aleph Null said. I heard something mechanical activate, some more skidding of hooves, and a similar mechanical noise afterwards. “Okay, you two are safe. I swear, non-intellectuals really have nothing else on their mind at times.”

“A-are you sure this a-a non-intellectual th-thing or a waster thing?” Careful asked back. I lifted my head to look at my ghoulish savior, witnessing how odd a scowl looked when a pony had no fur. “No offense, Missus Rhapsody.”

“I’m not a “waster”, so don’t lump me in with them,” I replied. Any chance at coming off as pissed was deemed impossible by the fury of my blush. “So, please, just pegasus is fine.”

“But you come from the outside world,” Careful replied. “Everypony we meet from the outside world is a waster, since you all have been exposed to its effects. Not to mention the evolutionary elements.”

“Before this transforms into an argument, I believe there is an easy way to show what we mean,” Aleph said. He looked at me attempting to smile, but it looked as unsettling and odd as the frown from earlier. “Missus Rhapsody, would you please show us your teeth?”

My brow raised. “My… teeth?”

Aleph nodded. “While Equestrians have always had the ability to eat meat, since the Last Day some changes had occurred. To those who have lived in it for those two centuries, the magical radiation along with available food has slightly accelerated evolution.

“That only goes for those who have been on the surface for a long time. Look at the teeth of any of the non-ghouls here and you will notice their teeth are still flat; lack of evolutionary need for canines has led to us not having them. Same goes for those who have turned to ghouls earlier in this post-war world and those living in stables also don’t have these forming canines.”

“Missus Wisp and her husband do not have canines, though the latter could go for brushing their teeth occasionally,” Careful further explained, unable to hold her amusement at her joke. “Miss Gemini, however, does. They aren’t pronounced, but they are there.”

“Well, if that is the case, I think you will find I don’t have them,” I replied confidently, head high and a hoof to my chest. It helped hide the fact my tongue was trailing along my teeth in fear. “The Enclave grows its own food. We have no real reason to eat meat.”

Aleph’s smile grew a little. “Then there will be no need to fear me taking a look.”

He was clearly confident, and I felt the same. Opening my muzzle, I let him peer at my teeth for any signs of the wasteland’s evolutionary effects. It did feel a little invasive, but to prove I wasn’t the same kind of pony that Gemini was, any discontent it brought could be brushed aside. After two minutes he stepped aside with an expression of pleasant surprise on his face.

“Well, it seems you don’t have that evolutionary trait. I must give my approval to the Enclave for holding true to that much,” Aleph said, grabbing a clipboard and jotting something down with a pencil real quick. “Speaking of which, I’m sure Minister Heart has already said it herself but I’m sorry that our first meeting ended up so… bloody.”

I grimaced. “If you ponies start mentioning it less, I’ll accept the apology.”

“At the very least, it shows that the effects of magical radiation haven't harmed the pegasi to the same extent as the earth ponies or unicorns you abandoned,” Careful explained. She didn’t face me, the end of her statement ending with a poignant glance from the side. “That doesn’t mean you are completely clean, however. Along with checking your brain for any abnormalities, there are some other tests that we should do. Minister Sharpshot mentioned you being rather sure about your heritage, for instance.”

“He claims I have a unicorn ancestor. I believe he’s trying to turn me against the Enclave.” I laid my head down on the bed, grimace still present. With a sigh, I crossed my forehooves. “A pegasus with grounder blood would never be given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. It's too dangerous to have them that high up the chain of command.”

Aleph tilted their head. “Reason?”

“Those with grounder blood have dangerous beliefs and ideals. They tend to be more mentally unstable and have led to more Dashites than those of pure pegasus blood. Need I say more?”

Careful and Aleph looked at each other, the former looking like they had eaten something way too sour. They were the looks of two pones distressed, contemplating information just thrown before them. Surely none of what I had just stated could be that new though, right? They must have learned something about the Enclave from other grounders.

“So you don’t believe it?” Careful asked. “Or is it more you don’t want to believe it?”

I hastily sat up, giving her an offended look. “What kind of question is that? Of course I… of course I don’t…”

No matter how much I wanted to say it, a small piece of me denied it. I didn’t want to believe it was the latter, because a piece of me felt that was admitting I was part unicorn. That left me saying I straight up didn’t believe Sharpshot, but somehow that felt the same. Either way, I would be roped into an ancestry test. There wasn’t a decent out in front of me, and if the test came back…

…

Ironsight couldn’t know. If I was part unicorn, and I told him, any contact with the world above would no doubt be severed. I didn’t want to lose the last thread I had to my home. I didn’t want to lose my friend, because if Ironsight knew… oh Luna what would he do if I was part unicorn?

Is… is this how Angel felt, when I told her to forget what she was that day?

“You realize I’m not going to be staying here for that long, right?” I told them both. “Even if we took the test, it would take around a month to get all the results, right?”

“Using old school methods, yes,” Aleph answered. “However, ArcanaTech have spent two years advancing science while the rest of you violate and murder each other. Allow us to do this, and at worst it will take a day's time.”

“If you leave before then, we can ask Minister Heart to give the results to you,” Careful continued. “Speaking of which, when we told her of what happened upon arriving she was dead set on speaking to you. We’d recommend talking with her personally. She was worried that she had gotten you killed.”

More like Moondancer had wanted me dead. As much as I wanted to say that, I kept the thought in my head in case she was listening in. I didn’t trust the walls to keep my thoughts secret in this city.

“Alright. Get it out of the way, prove that piece of shit he is wrong, and all works out.”

“You were in there for a long time,” Willow replied as I exited the infirmary. “Careful didn’t take no for an answer, did she?”

“I think a check up was just an excuse to prod me with everything she had,” I replied, letting out a heavy sigh at seeing them both. It did nothing to relax the tension in my body as I thought of what might come up in the ancestry test. “My personal space feels thoroughly violated.”

“She didn’t do anything that invasive to me, outside of checking my teeth,” Gemini said, a hoof poking at the corner of her mouth. “They seemed rather upset that a few of them were pointy. Is there something wrong with that?”

The unicorn was promptly scooped up by the alicorn next to her, pupils shrinking in fear. Willow didn’t notice or care, squeezing the life out of the Gemini as is she was a radroach who had tried to steal our lunch. The satisfied smile – the way Willow’s entire body seemed to relax the moment physical contact was made – made me realize that she was also a pony who valued physical affection.

Considering her love for blood, how good that was is up for debate.

“Of course not! It just means you're perfect for the world around you,” Willow explained, her words no doubt going in one of Gemini’s ears and right out the other. She let go off the mare a second later, leaving her with barely the wit or time to get her hooves under her. “I mean, many of the ponies Sharpy and I have met had them. At this point it feels weird to see ponies who don’t have them.”

I gave her a deadpan look. “So we are the weird ones.”

She gave me a nod. “Eeyup!”

With a shake of my head, I started down the hall. Aleph and Careful had given me the directions to what had once been the Overmare’s office, now turned into a communication room. It connected to the other two research stations ArcanaTech held, though the doctor, ghoul, and even my MentaBuck refused to tell me where they were. The research station I was currently in wasn't listed on it either, much to my annoyance.

ArcanaTech certainly enjoyed its secrets.

“You two can come along if you want. Just telling the Invisible Mare I’m alive,” I shouted back to Willow and Gemini.

The sound of galloping met my ears, Willow’s larger form hitting my vision before Gemini’s own. It made me realize just how thin the unicorn was; if she was going to be traveling, then making sure she’s getting enough to eat was incredibly important.

Turns out, they had lied about it originally being the overmare’s office. The communication room was both the overmare’s office and the radio room, the walls having been broken down between them to make them far bigger than they originally were. The reason I was told to head to the overmare’s office specifically was due to both sides pertaining to whether you were making the call or receiving it. In this case, Lucky Heart was calling me, so the former overmare’s office was the location given.

The set up, as well as the technology that allowed them to do this all, was certainly impressive. The Enclave had ways of sending terminal messages to different terminals, but voice calls were not something widely available to the public. It was specifically for military use, and helped alleviate any fear of pegasi somehow contacting the surface. Doesn’t matter if the cloud layer made that near impossible; us military leaders are told to plan for the worst, and we run the sky. A single pegasus talking to grounders could rupture the Enclave.

It would be impossible to tell that the communication room had once been an office of any sorts. While still the basic stable set up that I was growing especially bored from (there is no way anypony would stay sane with this amount of ugly gray) they had tried to dress it up a little . It was divided down the middle with multiple booths depending on whether a pony was calling or not, with waiting space just in case they really needed it. It was the bare minimum, but it was something different.

The gray stayed however, like some tumor too close to its soulless mechanical brain to cut out. Luna, Celestia, somepony please just add a dash of blue or pink! I’d even take yellow, despite the fact the entire place looked like it had been pissed on.

With my mind slowly going insane, I didn’t immediately hear the two voices talking in one of the booths. When I did, I stepped towards it with both Willow and Gemini still flanking me. The first full sentence I heard was from Gold.

“Egotistical, racist, but somehow not completely despicable. Unsure if good idea to give it to her, given current experience.”

“We are fully aware of the danger, but we also trust you enough to control her.”

I wanted to burn a hole into the steel wall of the booth, and Willow seemed to feel the same. “Is that….”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Moondancer.”

“Goldy, she’s a dashite. They forsaken their cutie marks for what they believe is right,” Lucky Heart’s voice suddenly popped up. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize it was me they were talking about. “I mean, yeah, she is definitely a lot meaner than I expected a dashite to be, but there is good inside her.”

“Highly doubtable.”

I ground my teeth at Gold’s assessment, unsure of why in tartarus I even cared about what he thought.

“Just trust me Goldy, there is. Perhaps not the good of the Ministers before they became the Ministers, but still good, and need I mention she got rid of her cutie mark.” Lucky’s words brought my attention to my flank. A piece of me stung as I looked at it, unable to see how the mark of a traitor could possibly be seen in good light. “As I said, just give her a chance.”

“I am. Doesn’t change stance.”

“Your concern has been noted and promptly dismissed,” Moondancer replied, her voice as sharp as a dagger. Gold’s back paws stumbled back slightly at her tone. “We have decided it would greatly hasten the acquisition of the documents, and haste is paramount before the fall too far into the wrong hooves. You will accept this reality, deal with it, and that is that. Am I clear, merc?”

Gold didn’t respond, the sole talon visible from my view behind him scraping loudly against the metal floor. He punched something, stepped away, and momentarily went wide eyed at the sight of the three ponies that now stood in front of him. He quickly regained his composure, choosing to remain silent all the way up until I was about to enter the booth.

“To be clear, not being good isn’t bad.” My eyes flicked over to him, the rest of my body stationary. “Just means… nowhere to go but up.”

I scoffed. “Tough words for a back talking shit.”

“My point remains. You might want to consider… tidying self up. Doing yourself no favor right now.”

“Just shut up and leave.”

He mocked me with an all-too-formal bow before doing as I requested. I swear to Celestia, I do not know whether to hate his guts or appreciate him for being the most normal creature around. One minute we are having an intellectual conversation, and the next I find out he is talking shit about me behind my back. It’s why mercenaries couldn’t be trusted; their loyalty was only true until your back was turned or somepony offered more coin.

Lucky deserved a better surrogate father.

“I would apologize to you, Singing Rhapsody, but I think we both know I don’t mean it,” Moondancer spoke. My attention turned back to her. “You should be thanking Lucky Heart for you being alive. I found it fit to leave you for dead down there, but it seems she doesn’t see you as a lost cause.”

“Moondancer sent the elevator from the labs back up and turned the call buttons off,” Lucky replied. “I manually sent it down when I realized Willow was trying to call it.”

“So she wants us dead,” Willow stated, as if it wasn’t already blindingly obvious. “Careful Rhapsody. Don’t trust everything she said.”

I kept my mouth shut, giving Willow a subtle nod. I took a step into the booth, steeling myself for whatever insults Moondancer or Lucky would throw the Enclave’s way. I didn’t care if this place was significantly safer than the nebula labs, I was in an ArcanaTech facility. Behaving brought less possibility of injury, and I didn’t need another after what my right shoulder had gone through.

“Judging by the silence, it seems you will not let bygones be bygones,” Moondancer spoke. Her voice was carried through a metal box on the wall, as featureless and dull looking as everything else in the research station. “Quite idiotic if you ask me. You’ve seen more of Equestria’s future then most of your kind would in their lifetime. You should consider yourself lucky.”

“One hole in the chest and a dead mother tell me otherwise.” My response left silence on the other side. I held down the urge to smirk. “Death was not a just punishment, forced suicide even less so. If that is what you call Equestria’s future, then I would point to the clouds and tell you of a land where peace still reigns.”

“We are not having this conversation. A problem was dealt with, and you will have to deal with that.”

I snorted in affirmation, the urge to smirk growing ever stronger. Either she didn’t care, or had no good way to defend her actions. Given what little I’ve spoken with Moondancer so far, the former seemed the more likely explanation.

Gemini glowered at the words. “Sh-she wants… but the blood. Her son’s screams.”

“Miss Shining Gemini, right?” Lucky asked, gaining the mare's attention. “I will speak with Moondancer about it later. I’ll have to reevaluate how we deal with ponies who betray my trust.”

I forced a cough, looking at Gemini with as gentle of an expression as possible while still carrying the message to stay silent. “The Enclave personally uses Equestria’s old judicial system, with some changes to account for population control, traitors, and the removal of the death penalty. Perhaps, instead of taking the laws into your own hooves, Minister Heart, you should consider what making a future Equestria–”

“She does not need a traitorous pegasus telling her what to do,” Moondancer spat at me. “Your kind abandoned us, your former Equestrians, to toil instead of trying to help rebuild. What use could your advice be compared to mine?”

I scrunched my muzzle, my wishes to smirk being wiped away by the condensation in this piece of shit’s voice. She blames us for abandoning a world about to die? For not saving ponies who could not be saved? There was no reason and no way to save the grounders, and while unicorns and earth ponies panicked and screamed we got off our asses and saved as many of our own as possible.

If Moondancer and Lucky Heart weren’t already a clear threat to me, I would remind them that the pegasi had managed to keep civilization while the rest of ponykind sunk into anarchy.

“Then perhaps get on to why you are contacting me. I’m pretty certain it wasn’t so we could argue,” I said instead.

“Yes, it wasn’t,” Lucky growled. It didn’t feel like it was pointed at me. “The main reason we wanted to talk with you had to do with your plans. I’m sure you remember what lies inside that sandstorm.”

“Yes, balefire fossils. I can assure you I won’t be making the same mistakes I did five years ago.”

“Good. That means that the form of natural and physical protection Moondancer and I are returning to you will be worth it.”

My eyes narrowed on the metal box. “What do you mean returning?”

“Is your brain made of rocks?” Moondancer mocked. I gave her the silent treatment. “When your team made that idiotic move on Trotson five years ago, not everypony made it back. The dead that were left behind were retrieved, their technology confiscated for the purpose of study so that we could recreate and modify it. We’ve decided that two of the newly named NB-2 power armor will be issued to you and Shining Gemini. Don’t worry, hers has been outfitted for a horn.”

My brain briefly short circuited, leaving the clear danger Moondancer was presenting from coming to my brain immediately. Promise of more firepower was nothing compared to the mixture of anger and sadness at learning how the bodies of my fellow soldiers had been treated. They weren’t research material, they were proud pegasi who had died in service to their country. They deserved to be cremated like all pegasi, not cut apart and studied like filthy animals!

Yet, was that really all that surprising at this point? What was clear, civilized logic was as backwards to the wasteland as their views of problem solving. Their bodies had already been left behind in the escape from Trotson, leaving their families with nothing but pictures to mourn them with. For grounders to not give two shits about that made since, especially considering what they had put Gemini through. There were no words that would undo the damage done to the bodies of the dead. Just had to look ahead and keep moving, like with so many things today.

Which led me to finally realize they were giving Gemini a set of power armor.

“Moondancer, you’re giving an untrained…,” I briefly looked back at Gemini, the word I was trying to say caught in my throat “civilian a dangerous weapon they don’t understand. I don’t agree with this.”

“Too bad; you’re working for Lucky, not the other way around. She wanted to give it to Gemini, and that is what we are going to do. Just think of it as more reason to kill ponies, you wastelanders seem to enjoy that.”

Gemini opened her mouth and then immediately closed it, gritting her teeth and looking elsewhere. With a heavy heart and heavy sigh, I know there wasn’t a good way of getting her out of this. Soldiers follow orders, no matter what they are, and if Lucky was going to give a pony with no combat experience power armor, I would have to deal with it and help her. Thank Luna she had somepony around that actually knew how to operate it.

“Okay. Thanks for the assistance,” I replied half-heartedly. “Is that all?”

“Yes… though I do want to say that I’m glad you are alive,” Lucky replied. “Also, sorry about your shoulder.”

“It’ll heal. Don’t worry about it.”

The silence that followed told me everything was done. I fully turned around, briefly looking at Willow and Gemini before my hoof collided with the top of my head. It slowly moved its way down and around my face until meeting my lower jaw, disconnecting with my body afterwards.

“Going from top to bottom isn’t fun,” I muttered to them both. “I’m so used to being in charge that it’s hard remembering that I’m not anymore.”

Gemini managed her best sympathetic smile. “I don’t know what the former is like but… yeah it sucks being down here. I can imagine that being on top is a lot better.”

“Hey, at least you got two ponies that won’t do that to you here, right?” Willow replies. As soon as I smirked I felt a shiver cross my spine. She was wearing that same seductive look again. “Also, I’m more than willing to be on bottom if you ever want to… you know.”

The sudden red in my face made it impossible to stop myself from giggling. Willow joined in moments later, Gemini watching us both slightly uncomfortable. Given her own experience that wasn’t shocking.

“Fucking tartarus Willow, how do you manage that?” I asked. All she gave me was a goofy grin. “Thanks though… and is Sharpshot okay with you joking like that.”

“Eh, he understands. A really broken banana makes a mare rather irritated at times so we’ve come to an agreement on this stuff. So… consider that my invitation, though if you're straight that is A-okay.”

Her statement caused me to think for a moment. Truth be told, I had absolutely no clue if I swung just won or both ways, and the fact she was able to make me blush showed there was a chance, right? I filed that under “things to find out when the traitors were dealt with” and gave Willow a shrug. She seemed to get what it meant.

“So, um, what do we do now?” Gemini asked. “I don’t think there is anything else important to do, right?”

“A well prepared, unspoiled meal? Would be treated before we head back above ground.”

All eyes turned to the communication room’s entrance, a certain griffon leaning against the wall on only his hind legs. I glared at him, but the cheerful expression on his face refused to go away. He had to have planned it; there was no way he didn’t plan it.

“I thought I told you to get lost.”

“Ears were clogged. Didn’t hear it,” He lied. He looked at Shining Gemini, the unicorn staring back with the least amount of fear I had seen in her eyes yet. “I’m rather surprised. Made friends with a unicorn when nocreature looked.”

Gemini and I looked at each other. I broke eye contact first, looking back at him.

“Grounder though she may be, she is a victim and not the cause. Truth be told,” I turned back to the unicorn again, glaring melting away into compassion “if you were a pegasus of the Enclave, I would have called us one in the same.”

Gemini blinked. “One… and the same?”

“Don’t think too hard about it.” I told her, taking a step forward and flicking attention back to Gold. “So, fresh food? I doubt ArcanaTech has fertile land out here, especially underground. You grow it in the S.P,P, tower? Cloud seeding?”

He chuckled at me, as if hearing about how we pegasi made our food was somehow amusing. I paid it no mind, instead thinking about getting to taste something similar to the cooking of my home once again. Cloud grown food wasn’t the tastiest without spices, which were decently expensive, but it was home. I doubted anything was better than it.

“If pegasus expects cloud food, be prepared,” Gold said, kicking off the wall and landing back on all four. “About to witness the fruits of ArcanaTech labor. Food tastier than you ever knew.”

I grinned at him. “Somehow, I highly doubt that.”

Gold was right.

I hate to admit it, because he was giving me a look that said “I told you so” from across the circular metal table, but he was right. All that was in front of me was a simple cheese pizza, with none of the usual and absurd amount of spice that would typically litter it up in the Enclave. Nothing but crust, tomato sauce, and cheese, two of which I had forever thought had little to no taste or texture to them.

It’s almost hilarious how much I was wrong; that was easily the best thing I had tasted in my entire life. No cloud grown food could ever top it, and no wasteland shit would ever be as fresh. I looked up at Gold, then back down at the slice before me, and then back up at him in uncontained shock. That was when he had given me that aforementioned look, and while I wanted to hate him for it I really couldn’t.

This was just… so fucking good. I clearly wasn’t the only one.

“Oh Celestia, this is one of the best things I’ve tasted in my entire life!” Willow replied, barely able to hold her telepathy together in ecstasy. “I don’t ever want to go to outdated rations and canned shit again!”

“Make that two of us,” Gemini replied, belly already full after a single slice. A stomach that small wasn’t a good thing. “I want to taste this for the rest of my life.”

“Food makes good argument for ArcanaTech, no?” Gold asked. For a moment I leered at him, only to realize it was clear sarcasm. “Result of relaxed scientific rules and continued work on Project Nebula. Allows for incredible technologies.”

“One of which has to do with the food we are eating?” I questioned back.

The griffon shrugged. “Supposedly. Something about making miniature sun. Makes no sense to me.”

“I imagine it is something that might have been taken kindly by Princess Celestia. After all, the sun is hers to control.”

I held a hoof up to Willow. “Was might be the better word. Unless her spirit is still keeping it going I strongly doubt she makes the sun turn anymore.”

“Then the same goes for Luna and the moon right?” Gemini asked. I gave her a shrug; being alicorns, Celestia and Luna, technically could still be alive. That said, I doubt they would have let Equestria stay in this state this long if they were. “I wonder who is controlling them now?”

“Considering you didn’t know what heartswarming is, I’m surprised you know Luna and Celestia’s roles in old Equestrian society.”

“I-I’m not a complete idiot, just mostly one.” Gemini shuffled a bit, possibly meaning to scooch away from me but going nowhere instead. “Mama taught me about some things before those bad ponies put her down. Not a long of things, but her lessons got me my cutie mark.” She looked down to her flank. “She was so happy for me. Said my talent would mean I would be more than she was. I remember asking what she meant but… she didn’t answer.”

“A life as a raider or a life as a slave. Neither could be considered ideal.”

“Yeah. It is why, despite how scary this all is, I’m glad to be here instead.” the unicorn’s eyes trailed from her flank to my own. I flicked my tail over my brand, hiding it out of shame. “What does your cutie mark mean, Missus Rhapsody?”

Such an innocent question, and yet it hurt so much. As worthless as the talent that had been marked on my flank was, it was several times better than the mark of a traitor. A traitor Gemini didn’t realize was a traitor, along with the stigma that came with having her mark branded on my leg.

“Perhaps it would be better to ask her how she got it,” Willow replied. I looked up in surprise, Gemini following my gaze to the alicorn smiling behind her. “Her real one. The one hidden beneath a nasty chemical concoction and branding iron.”

Gemini tilted her head. “What do you mean, Willow?”

“When a member of the Enclave leaves to permanently live on the surface, willingly or not, they are branded a “Dashite”, or perhaps a traitor is a better term.” Willow’s slightly changed, looking for confirmation. I moved my head down in a half-nod to help hide the fact she had been unsure. “The thing you think is her cutie mark is that brand. The brand of the most famous pegasus to ever leave the Enclave: Minister Rainbow Dash of Equestria.”

Gemini’s head moved back and forth, back and forth, digesting the information. The further she digested it, the more it seemed to unsettle her. Her head first turned to the table, and then fully to me with a look of understanding and sadness.

“You… weren’t sent here willingly.”

“That easy to see, huh?” I muttered with a frown. “If it wasn’t me, it would likely have been Ironsight. I… I took the blame for him; it would be easier to get rid of me, given I hadn’t been in the council as long as him.”

She shifted her attention back to the table. “And the… brand, does it hurt?”

“Now? No, at least not physically.” My vision slowly turned back down to the horrific sight that had been burned onto my flank. “Yet knowing her mark is forever engraved on me is wounding. I failed my country, my friends, my family while she left us all for nothing but radiation and death. Where she took loyalty and spat in its face, I stayed loyal and ended up the same. I just… I don’t get it.”

My focus found itself unable to stay on the mark of my failure, and for the first time since arriving I found the gray on the stable’s ground pleasant.

“Not all things deserve loyalty.”

The sound of Gold’s talons and paws hit my ear as he walked around the table and up to me. Both his left talon and left wing were placed on my body, the former on my shoulder while the wing rested against my back, as he sat down right next to me. While his words felt like they were meant to lead to something encouraging, they did nothing but widen the wound I had been refusing to close. Still, he was clearly trying to say something, so I decided to listen before spitting back at him.

“Loyalty can come to wrong things. You won’t know till those you are loyal to stab you in the back.” His right talon went to his chest, trailing a scar that led from his collarbone to right before his stomach. “Can seem impossible to understand, and perhaps it will remain that way. Nonetheless, we must move on. We must.”

“My… owner, even though I hated him, had conditioned me to a point where I was loyal to him like a fanatic,” Willow spoke up, examining her own flank. “He ordered me to kill, I did it. He ordered me to bu- put the dead in graves, I wouldn’t stop until every dead body in sight was six feet under. I’m sure I would have driven a bayonet through my abdomen if he asked.”

She chuckled weakly, smiling despite her somber tone.

“Then, one day, he hooved me off to some ponies and said he was done with me. I didn’t understand, because I thought I meant something to him. I continued to think that for so, so long, and just wanted some form of an answer. Instead of an answer, I got killing joke shoved down my throat.”

I frowned as I stared at the alicorn. “Why… are you telling me this?”

“Because… I guess it proves we are no different in that way. Both cast off by something we had undying loyalty to, only to be treated like mud at either a single mistake or an–”

“The mistake I made warranted it, Willow.” She flinched at me, cutting her off, but didn’t rebuttal. “I’m not questioning a betrayal. I’m asking why I have to share the cutie mark of a traitor. A traitor that I share nothing with, outside of leaving the clouds for a life on the surface.”

A piece of me wanted to point out the differences between her old owner and the council. What that unknown pony did to her was despicable and without reason from start to finish. I had endangered everypony I loved and protected, and it was my decision to come down in one last bid to save them from a possible future threat. Everything that led to me being here now was my fault; Willow had been played like she was a puppet, and while blood was on her hooves she wasn’t the main culprit.

Yet the shame that overcame Willow’s face, wiping away that smile and gloomy cheer, kept my words at bay. Seeing her sad hurt, especially when I was so used to the joyful psycho that I had come to know and, in some small ways, appreciate. It didn’t fit the mare named Willow Wisp.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I assured her, flicking out my right wing to brush Gold’s talon off my shoulder. “A simple misunderstanding. Besides,” I shifted my gaze to Gemini “I have no problem with explaining my true cutie mark.”

Adding a curve to my lips as I spoke had surprised the unicorn to the point she nearly fell off her seat. It took both her and the combined wings of a pegasus, alicorn, and griffon to get her back up, though I’m positive it was overkill.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, just don’t expect it to explain my previous choice of career.” I took a breath, briefly wishing I had some water to prepare myself to speak. “My cutie mark was music related. Specifically, I was exceptionally good at playing the bass.”

“Music?” I nodded at Willow’s question. “So you’re like Sweetie Belle or Rara then?”

“Not that familiar with the second name, but considering you paired her with one of the most famous Equestrian artists…,” I shook my head “you all are giving me far too much credit. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I’m a military mare. Have been for my entire adult life. Music was just a side hobby.”

“It's too bad. Might not be down here if that path was chosen,” Gold replied. “Lot less hurt in life. Music seemed better option.”

“Perhaps to you ponies it would seem that way. To me, it just seemed too hard a life. Just like you need caps down here, we need bits up there. Music is an easy way to end up with very, very few bits.”

Gemini shuffled slightly closer to me. “But you still play, right?”

I gave her a nod. “If I had one, I wouldn’t mind playing a little something. Probably isn’t a skill you see a lot of down here.”

“I’m sure musicians exist in stables or within places like Tenpony, but overall you are right.” Willow grabbed the last available slice of pizza, taking a bite as she continued to talk telepathically. “Most ponies don’t have the luxury or knowledge to pursue it though. Other things are, unfortunately, more important. Guess it makes you special, in your own wonderful little way.”

A burst of pride hit me at her words, puffing my chest out in joy. My brain quickly ran through my younger years, strumming a school-loaned bass and singing with Ironsight by my side. While it wasn’t his talent, he was definitely not a bad drummer. Something about Willow’s words made those moments more vibrant then they had felt in years, though why wasn’t something answerable.

“It probably seems pretty obvious, but I don’t know a lot about music,” Gemini spoke up suddenly, her front hooves clopping together in front of her. As if glue had stuck them together, she found herself unable to move them further. “I mean, mama explained something about it to me, but that is mostly. She used to sing me a little song before I went to sleep. I remember a little of how it went.”

I noticed the tears building in her eyes as she took deep breaths. A strained sound left her mouth, her attempt to sing halted by none but herself. She continued on, trying desperately to get more than wordless noises out as the three of us simply watched. When the tears finally started to fall she gave up, clenching her eyes shut.

“I-I… I-I-I can’t. Sorry.”

Gold snaked around me, lifting her muzzle up with the top of his beak. “The memory hurts?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Is fine. We all have painful memories. Some are just too much.”

He stepped away, deciding to remain standing behind the rest of us as Gemini moved a hoof to below her eyes. Wiping the tears out of her face, Gemini did everything in her power to hold in the wave of water overtaking her eyesight.

“B-but I still want to sing it. I don’t want to be sad when remembering her.”

“Then give yourself the time to recover,” I told her, deciding to get up myself. “We’ll have a long journey together, the five of us. Don’t force yourself to heal. Let it be natural, like the movement of the clouds in a long forgotten era.”

She did her best to look at me confidently. “I’ll… I’ll try.”

“Good to hear… recruit.” I smirked. Gemini seemed confused at what I had called her, but the smile never faded; she seemed to like it. My attention then turned to Gold. “So, Lucky and that bitch of an assistant said we got some rather heavy protection on the way. Do you know where we will find it?”

Gold nodded, then turned and started to walk. I motioned with my head for Willow and Gemini to follow, though my gaze only watched the latter get up. We started off after Gold, only for me to stop when I realized we were missing a pony. Swiveling on my right hoof, I looked back to see Willow still at the table, staring at a slice of pizza before her.

“You coming along?”

Her eyes flicked to me, and then back. “I need a moment to myself. Nothing any of you said, just some… personal things we… I need to take care of.”

Satisfied with the response I was given, I turned around and caught back up with Gold and Gemini.

Message from Dr. Procedure incoming…

…

…

Message received

Minister Lucky Heart

As asked, I did the requested tests on subject P-1. Thank you so much again for allowing me to do this; the chance to examine a living pegasus is a dream come true. Aleph feels the same way, though he won’t express it themselves.

Anyway, the data will be sent in a follow up message. I would take this time, though, to tell you that I noticed something exceptionally odd about her. P-1 is overall fit and stable, don’t worry, but there is something about her hippocampus and amygdala that seems weird. Can’t quite pin what it is, and I don’t have the necessary data on pegasi to see if it is normal. Figured you should know either way.

One last time, thank you so much for this chance Minister.

Dr. Careful Procedure.

…

…

Message from I.M. incoming…

…

…

Message received

Thanks, Dr. Procedure, for your hard work. Miss Moondancer and I will look over it and try and see what is going on. Rest assured that whatever it is will be figured out. This scientific mystery won’t remain a mystery for long.

Now, I know you have mentioned interest in a foal. We have a fine young colt who we believe will work nicely. Do note that he might need a bit of care before hoof, however. He did just lose his mother after all.

Author's Note

9/23/23: Changed the city shown in the flashback from Thunderhead to Aery. It feels better having an original Enclave city, instead of borrowing one from PH.

Act 1 – Chapter 17: Lies Made Me

I don’t think I was prepared for just how much ArcanaTech had fucked around with these piece of G.P.E. power armor. I expected them to still look the same from scorpion tale to metal muzzle, the upgrades unseeable to the civilian eyes. What can be said is that it was indeed mostly the same general shape that Enclave power armor had. The tail and wing slots were indeed still there but the rest of it…

… I’m still not quite sure if I was awestruck or terrified, looking at the twin pieces of power armor before me. This wasn’t just an upgrade, it might as well have been an entirely new suit type! The fabric that made up everything under the armor was still the same, but the metal was different. Approaching it, I noticed how every hair on my body seemed to suddenly stand on end at some ambient force that seemed to exude from the piece before me.

The helmet was completely sealed, more akin to that of standard Steel Ranger armor. In fact, it overall looked far more pony-like now compared to what an Enclave soldier wore, leaving me to wonder just how heavy the wing armor was and how well it was suited for flight. Pegasi needed their armor to be light and dexterous while still being effective. This seemed to only have one of those qualities.

“Built by grounders alright,” I muttered as I circled around it. I took the tailpiece and held it up, taking in how out of place it looked compared to the very pony-like look of the rest of the armor. “Built like a brick house. Does she genuinely think I’m going to get any lift in this thing?”

“Pegasus will be surprised. More mobile than one would expect.” I briefly looked at Gold. I was so focused on the NB-2s that I hadn’t noticed the somewhat similar griffon armor that he was putting on. “Arcane science grants many benefits. Among them, extremely powerful weight reduction talismans.”

“So these aren’t anywhere near as heavy as they seem,” I replied, turning back to the NB-2. I tossed the center of the tail section around in my hoof like it was a skyball, though I doubt this one would be used for sport. “No way it's that good, and it probably doesn’t seem that bad to you because you're a griffon. More weight in your body and all that shit.”

“Great. Getting called fat now.”

I ignored his nagging and turning to the other set of NB-2 armor in the room. Gemini was staring at it all with a similar look of terror and amazement, though likely for very different reasons. Briefly looking back to my own, I trotted up to the helmet. Closing my eyes, I rested my head on it and wrapped my wings around the armor’s body as much as possible. I swore that, in that moment, I felt hooves and wings wrap around me.

“I swear this: as the mare responsible for your death, and the pegasus now using your armor, the same mistakes won’t be made again.” My voice was quiet and filled to the brim with pent up regret. I leaned into the armor as those invisible limbs grew tighter around me. “I’m sorry you died here, and I’m sorry for not being able to bring your body back to your family. Know that, no matter who it is you fought for, I will carry the burden and fight for you.”

The invisible warmth left, and a chill ran through my body. I swore I heard a thank you of some kind, though it wasn’t actually audible. Opening my eyes, my hoof trailed along the mangled, unrecognizable piece of Enclave armor before me. Whatever soul had died in this, something told me they had forgiven me for what I had done. Whether it meant they were gone was something nopony could answer.

“Gemini, I’m going to ask you to wait a moment before putting yours on.” The unicorn’s head swerved, watching me from where she was. “The armor is unfamiliar to me, so let me figure out if anything about it is different or problematic before you put yours on.”

“O-okay, that’s fine.” Gemini turned back to her own NB-2, tilting her head. “Just… uh, just gives me time to realize how I’m gonna look a lot scarier than I really am in this.”

“That is part of the point, recruit. The intimidation factor keeps civilians in line or lesser threats neutralized without the need to fire a bul… oh!”

The NB-2 was designed for pegasi, meaning the wing slots were naturally fitted into the armor and simply removing them wasn’t an option. Gemini was not a pegasus, she was a unicorn. Unicorns tended to need a bit more space on their head and not their body, meaning the helmet I had wouldn’t fit her. Therefore, her helmet was made with her horn in mind.

A helmet that, when combined with the wings on the body, made her armor look suited for an alicorn. A smaller alicorn than Willow or any of Unity, but an alicorn nonetheless.

Suddenly her words had a different meaning to them, even if only slightly. Gemini was right about the armor looking several times scarier than the pony who was supposed to wear it. There was something funny about the situation, which I decided to show for the sake of hiding my jealousy and a slight wound to my ego. It was far more fitting for a pony like myself, who was actually properly terrifying, but destiny’s dice had decided to roll this way. There was nothing to be done but deal with it.

“What’s the matter Princess Gemini,” I teased coyly. “You’re royal battle armor not in your preferred colors?”

“I’m not a- but this is for-” Her head spun back and forth between the armor and myself so many times I swore it was going to come off like a screw. Finally, after long moments of sputtering, she pointed at the body of the NB-2. “Wings! I don’t have wings!”

“And they likely didn’t have enough time to work with. Twenty bits – or caps I guess – on the horn slot being hastily made and likely uncomfortable.”

Walking up to her armor, I tapped my hoof on the welded horn-piece, noting how it felt rougher than the rest of the helmet. A piece of me flashed back to getting stabbed by that feral ghoul’s horn, which brought my attention to where that wound used to be. Only then did I take notice that the bandages Willow had put on me were gone.

“It’s what you got, and trust me when I say you don’t want your face exposed in that storm. Sand is flying, it's able to give ponies papercuts.” I took a step back. “If that doesn’t work for you, think of this as a way to feel a bit more confident. Nopony will be able to see you shake in that thing. They’ll all be worried about the dangerous unicorn who dressed themselves as an alicorn to think you’re a recently freed slave.”

Gemini followed my gaze, giving the power armor a questioning look. Her mouth opened several times, but like with her earlier attempt to sing all that came out were sounds that made it seem like life was getting choked out of her. Just like with singing, she gave up and hesitantly reached a hoof out to the armor.

“You said it was scary. I was actually thinking, pretty.” She frowned. “No, that’s not right. What’s… what is a word for pretty but more than normal pretty? Like pretty enough for… I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem normal pretty.”

I cocked my head at the unicorn, and then at the NB-2. Pretty? The fuck about this ruined piece of military equipment was pretty? This was nothing like what a piece of Enclave might look like. It seemed ugly to me more than it did pretty.

“You grounders make zero sense,” I muttered, turning around. “If you think it’s pretty now, you won’t when you see the damage it is capable of. You’ll think of it differently then.” I gave her NB-2 a quizzitive lokkover. “We’ll have to attach our guns to it, I’m guessing.”

“It can do that?” Gemini asked.

“While meant for heavy weaponry, power armor can use anything,” Gold said, walking over to us with all but his helmet on. “Only makes sense. Think of it like really heavy battle saddle.”

“A snuggly, full body battle saddle,” I added, smiling. “Perhaps that is still true. Only one way to find out.”

Gemini watched as I walked back to the other NB-2 and started to enter it. The weight of the thing was felt immediately, though it was significantly lighter than I had expected. Hooves were where hooves should be, wings settled into their little slots at my side. Then, with a happy sigh, I placed the helmet over my head.

While a lot more sealed than standard Enclave armor, it was still just as I thought it was: snug like a blanket. I spread my wings, lifted one hoof off the ground, followed by another, flicked the tail, and then checked the heads up display. While it had been desecrated on the outside, the inside was absolutely perfect.

“Well, while I do not appreciate how it looks from the outside, it is perfect on the inside,” I said, looking at the scorpion-like tail attached to my armor’s end and giving it a few flicks. “And it will get the job done.”

I turned around to face Gold and Gemini. The griffon nodded and put his helmet on, sealing him in it just like myself. Gemini took a step back, eyes the size of dinner plates as she looked at me. It seemed seeing the actual thing moving was what had finally put fear into her. If I didn’t know the cause behind why she was so skittish, I would have smirked maliciously.

Then I realized she wasn’t able to see my face, so I did it anyway.

“Seems to work like every other set of armor I’ve used. Time for you to hop in yourself, Princess.”

The way she stammered and hid behind her mane in embarrassment told me the nickname was perfect. All recruits earn them eventually, and they are almost always due to little incidents such as this. Gemini should be glad that it was Princess and not something more demeaning… like Syrup.

You overload your pancakes one time and nopony ever lets you hear the end of it.

“I, uh, right,” She replied, nodding her head as she shuffled up and placed her hooves on the armor’s back. “So… how do I open it up?”

I blinked, then groaned. Of course she didn’t know how to open power armor; she didn’t even know what heartwarming was till hours ago! I turned to Gold, the griffon looking back to me with a hint of disappointment. While I couldn’t see it with his helmet on, I was certain he had the same look of disappointment on his face.

“Help me with this and I’ll apologize for the weight comment.”

“So you were calling me fat.”

I ignored the remark, and he seemed to be okay with that. With delicate instruction and constant supervision, we guided the young unicorn before us into the NB-2 armor. It took longer than I expected, but not so long that it aggravated me. Once everything except for her head was out of the way, we found ourselves with an issue that I very much should have expected. An issue in the form of a gray unicorn’s sea green mane hanging far too low out of the armor.

“We’re going to have to cut it.”

Her pupils looked to the few strands of her covering her face, and then back to me in shock. “Wait, what? Why?”

“We leave it at this, and when you put your helmet on you're going to feel rather uncomfortable. You’ll be swimming in your own mane, and it is more than like strands will get caught in the middle of it.” I reached a hoof out to her mane but didn’t touch it, keeping my eyes on her. I wasn’t even touching her and there was this look of discomfort in her eyes. For the moment, my outreached hoof went back to the floor. “Gemini, I know you don’t like contact, and I understand why. However, I need your permission for Gold and I to cut it, assuming he has a knife on him anyways.”

“I do. Don’t use it much, but there just in case,” Gold stated, showing me a sheathed knife attached to his armor’s front left leg.

“Do I… I mean I know you said….” Gemini scuttled to the right till she was up against the stable walls. “H-how do I know it won’t go further than that? How do I know you won’t just…”

“I don’t swing that way and Gold doesn’t either.” The griffon gave a nod. “Neither of us are going to hurt you. Again, I understand why you don't like it. If you want, you can cut it yourself… assuming you are comfortable with it.”

As Gold took out the rather rusty combat knife he had with him, I already knew the answer I was going to receive. He tossed it up, catching the tip of the dagger in between his talons, and held the handle out towards Gemini. Everything about her face as she stared at the rusty knife screamed confliction. She wanted to grab it in her magic, do it herself, but there was also a clear fear. Fear that she would mess up, that she’d perhaps miss a spot.

That she would cut herself.

“I know you- it’s just… promise me that will be it.” Gemini said, pupils flicking back to me in fear. “Like, do that pinkie promise thing Sharpshot showed us… yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” I asked. I looked at the clock on my MentaBuck. She was right, it was two seventeen in the morning now. “How long was I out?”

“Who knows. Hard to tell when no sun or moon above you,” Gold answered. He brought his knife to his chest, having flipped it around so he was grabbing the handle again. “Anyways. pinkie promise? This time without hitting self in eye?”

“If I manage to do that, I’ll have to talk with Lucky Heart about her quality assurance team,” I replied, only half jokingly.

My armored left hoof went right below my neck, my posture subconsciously going to attention. I eyed Gold, something he didn’t see but definitely seemed to feel. After a nod between us both, we said those terrifying, accursed words.

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” we responded, my wings unfurling upon saying the word “fly”.

Gemini still seemed conflicted, but she lowered her head and gave us the okay. I took off my helmet, letting it hang limp in front of me as I walked up to Gemini. I motioned for her to sit, and like a trained animal she obeyed without hesitation. I sat down too, only taking my eyes off her to see Gold doing the same, looking to me for instructions.

“You’ll be the one to actually cut her hair.” I instructed. I didn’t see if he nodded, instead looking back to the unicorn we were acting as barbers for. “Gemini, no matter what the reason might be, don’t stop looking at me.”

“Wh-why?”

“Just trust me. Gold, you can start.”

I didn’t watch Gold at all, all my attention focused on distracting the distressed unicorn in front of me. A distressed unicorn whose breathing quickened as she felt Gold gather up her mane in his talons. Quickly thinking, I raised my right hoof and brought it out to the side, watching her eyes follow it for a time as it made slow circles. It didn’t keep her attention for long, but it was long enough for me to notice a far shorter mane touch the side of her face.

Thus did Gold and I settle into a nice simple rhythm as he worked from the top of Gemini’s mane to the bottom of it. Her breathing was never steady, and each time she felt her mane get grabbed her body stiffened and shivered a bit, but all I had to do was shift my position or wave my hoof to draw her attention momentarily away. She really was like a foal in that aspect… which she probably was. I had never gotten her age.

“There. Should do it.” Gold said after a time, resheathing the knife.

Gemini’s entire body seemed ready to go limp, her forelegs going out a bit further to brace herself. It hadn’t been cut to Enclave military standard, but it was significantly shorter than it once was. The unicorn looked at the clumps of green mane on the ground, and then eyed where they had once been attached to her.

“It’s… so much shorter.”

Gold nodded. “Might have missed strands here and there. Unicorn should be good overall.”

“Definitely not professionally done, but you work with what you got. You look good with a short mane though,” I said, smiling. “Now, Princess, let us make sure your helmet fits.”

Gemini’s face turned just a little bit red, something that made her all too eager to do as I requested. With fumbling haste, Gemini took the NB-2 helmet and placed it over her head. Nopony would be none the wiser that a rather terrified filly was what laid underneath it, currently blushing from being called royalty. Instead they would see an alicorn, powerful and destructive. It… didn’t fit with Gemini’s voice.

“So, uh, the little horn piece is a bit scratchy,” she said., a hoof rubbing the aforementioned part of the armor. She then took the helmet off, taking several large breaths in. “I really don’t like how closed in it feels. Having my head covered makes me feel…powerless?”

“Trust me when I say that, with your completely on, you are more terrifying to the average grounder than any raider.” I allowed a bit of smugness to roll through me, pacing back and forth like the proud soldier I was. “Though I completely understand not liking the helmet. Grounder armor is made as if its meant to go up against a tank blast, typically ending with it failing miserably. Enclave power armor is designed for maneuverability, flight, and most importantly the ability to not get hit.” I raised a hoof up, posing for them both. “The perks of not being tied to gravity, right Gold?”

“I don’t like flying.”

“Yeah exa-” I gave the griffon an expression that radiated shock and betrayal. “you don’t like what?”

“I don’t like flying.” He parrotted, looking back at his wings. “Prefer being on ground. Always have, always will. My sister always said I was weird.”

While I didn’t personally know his sister, I had to agree with them that, yes, that was indeed weird. Actually, weird wasn’t the best description. Bafflingly backwards was a better way to describe it. A griffon, a creature with wings just like myself, didn’t like flying?

“That makes no fucking sense.”

“To you perhaps.” Gold shrugged. “Not to me.”

…

With purposefully heavier hoofsteps, I climbed out of the NB-2 armor and stormed past both the unicorn and the griffon. “I got somewhere else I need to be.”

“You do?” They both asked. I deemed the idiotic question unworthy of an answer.

If only the place I needed to be was going to put my mind at ease.

As soon as I was out of sight of Gold and Gemini I had intentionally slowed my steps to make the walk to the infirmary as slow as possible. Agonizingly slow in some aspects, but it helped me stall for what I might be about to see. My heart felt all too present against my ribcage, and far too fast for how slow I was moving. It was silly in some aspects, because a piece of my brain knew the heritage tests would come back as one hundred percent pegasus, but the rest of me didn’t. It left a horrible, agonizing question in my head.

If I truly did have some unicorn in me, then what did that mean for… everything? I had lived my entire life with the knowledge that I was better than the ponies on the surface, uncorrupted down to my genetic code. Since coming down here I had flaunted about how much better I was then the ponies around me. The grounder ghost saying I was of the same blood as her, and the ghoul and alicorn that backed her claims up were just the wastelands ways of trying to destroy everything I knew with lies.

Yet in that moment, when I should have been certain beyond a matter of doubt that I was as pure as a pegasus could be, I didn’t feel confident. Instead fear coursed through me like the lifeblood that my heart pumped. A heart that maybe was a little different then other pegasi, or perhaps that honor belonged to my lungs? Was there some clear mark on me that now signaled “half-grounder” that I had gone my entire life not recognizing? Maybe even that useless appendix was somehow irradiated.

Why was I worried? Why could I not stop worrying? Everything should have been fine and yet that piece of me that said I was fine was so quiet compared to the piece of me terrified at what might be there. It felt at times like I wasn’t actually moving, that my hooves were bolted to the floor and the corridor before me was endless. I wished that the latter part was true at least, as it meant that I would never reach that dreaded infirmary.

Yet, somehow, I reached it.

It took every ounce of my strength just to open the door inside, with it thudding back to the ground as if tar had covered it. Three ponies were talking inside, all three of them recognizable. The first two were Careful Procedure and Aleph Null, who I had expected due to them having apparently being decently long friends (how she dealt with a ghoul in her life was beyond me) and the ponies I needed to talk to at this moment. The third was an unwelcome and far more familiar face.

Fucking Sharpshot.

“You’re… about time you woke up,” he replied, his voice snapping for genuine relief to his standard arrogance in milliseconds. The fact that genuine relief even existed though was quite a surprise. “Got worried we would need true love’s kiss to break your little sleep spell.”

I narrowed my eyes on him, that surprise quickly swept under the rug and replaced it with loathing. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“None of your business. Off doing what I wanted to do without hearing you complain for a couple of hours.” He turned away, pursing his lips. “Really gonna miss it. Was rather nice.”

“Doctor Heart was updating his medical knowledge. He is quite well learned for a waster,” Aleph explained, giving his fellow ghoul a side glance. “You don’t see many like him out there. Till today I thought we were the only true practitioners of our art.”

“Yeah yeah, I’m the biggest fucking surprise in this tartarus pit since the Goddess showed up. Don’t act like it’s some old world miracle.” Sharpshot bit his lip. “Ponykind ran out of those a long, long time ago.”

I groaned at his incessant whining. In the same way he had enjoyed not hearing from me, I had enjoyed not hearing from him. Of all my companions to be present for this, he was easily the one I wanted around the least. The obvious thing to do was shoo him out in some fashion so that he didn’t learn why.

Unfortunately, Careful had forced herself into being the center of attention with a single, loud clap. The pure joy on her face as she looked at me said everything.

“Well, you are here for the test result’s right?” She asked.

Sharpshot tilted his head at his fellow doctor, intrigued. “Test results? Do you think she got knocked up or something?”

“I can assure you I most certainly was not,” I scoffed. “Haven’t done anything like that since the day before getting branded.”

“So… you’re saying there is a–”

“She isn’t pregnant, Doctor Heart,” Careful said. “Missus Rhapsody had a hereditary test done.”

Sharpshot looked shocked at Careful’s explanation. His eyes focused back on me, and I gave him a nod. If my stomach didn’t feel coiled like a snake around prey, his bewilderment might have been amusing. Instead the fact he knew why I was here only made that feeling worse.

“I told her I would get the results quickly.” She gave me a closed eye smile. “I’m happy to say that they are indeed in. The perks of two centuries focused on science.” Opening her eyes, her smile turned more sly. “Far better than the needless killing of your lot.”

“We get it, y’all don’t give a fuck for us “wasters” and our more dirty lifestyle,” Sharpshot said, throwing a hoof up in the unicorn’s direction. Then he turned his attention back to me. “You’re really that desperate to prove me and Dead Hooves wrong?”

I gave him a nod. “Of course, because I don’t trust you and DH could merely be thinking of some other pegasus named Star Chart.”

“Is this because of the little argument that spawned between us when you told my wife and I to shut up.”

I leered at the cloth-covered ghoul, only for him to look off to the gray stable ceiling as if it held far more interest. The urge to bite down on some part of my lips was strong, but I managed to hold myself back just enough. He wanted me to get angry, the smug aura he gave off made that extensively clear. I wouldn’t let him win.

Not at getting the better of my temper, but at being right about who I truly was.

“Doctor Procedure, the results,” I requested in a firm, militaristic manner.

Her horn lit up, floating some papers over to me with an innocent smile on her face. I snatched them midair with a hoof, dispelling the magical hold on them in the process. A smile of my own showed her how thankful I was before looking down at the results. My mind briefly entertained itself with how I would rub my petty victory in Sharpshot’s face…

… and then the twisting in my stomach tightened into a vice grip.

“Doc, this is a joke… right?” I asked, eyes shaking working their way up to Careful’s face.

A look of concern graced her features. “I can assure you it is not. That would be an absolutely horrible thing to do to a patient, especially one so important to Minister Heart.”

“But… how? How?” I asked, voice rising in crescendo with my terror. “For Luna’s sake mare how the fuck can this be accurate? There shouldn’t be- I mean if this is true… how?!”

The papers dropped out of my wing, drawing Sharpshot’s attention to the cause of my distress. I felt that shit eating grin of his rising under the fabric covering his muzzle as he looked from it… to me. My eyes went unfocused, darting anywhere they could in hopes that something would do… something! Yet at the end of it all my eyes found their way back down to the floor; to the papers; to the proof that I was not who I thought I was.

Sixty three percent pegasus, thirty one percent unicorn, four percent zebra for some damned reason, and two percent of something these ponies only put with question marks. I didn’t care what the question marks meant, I didn’t care about the little bit of striped blood that ran through my veins, and somehow that cursed thirty one percent didn’t matter either. What mattered was the sixty three percent. The sixty three percent that I knew. The sixty three percent that I had proudly worn as if it was one hundred my entire life.

It was only sixty three.

“Well, what do you know,” Sharpshot said, words dripping with superiority. “Turns out the biggot was targeting themself. Am I right, fellow grounder.”

“Shut the… don’t call me that,” I replied, softly. Another anxious step back. “That’s… I’m not a grounder. I swear upon the council, the husband, my foals my….”

The mere thought of Rainy and Clear made my entire being seize, my vision leading nowhere as my hearing was taken over by a slight ringing. I was part unicorn, and that meant they were part unicorn, and possibly also had that same small amount of zebra in themselves too. My foals weren’t pure pegasi, I wasn’t pure pegasi, one or both of my parents weren’t pure pegasi, Star Chart… Star Chart was not a pure pegasus. The ground didn’t seem to exist, my very being feeling like it was stuck in some void, falling downwards, unable to spread wings.

Wings that weren’t like so many of my Enclave brothers and sisters. They no longer felt comfortable or right, and for a second my mind imagined the added weight of a horn on the top of my head. The void took me, my body collapsing into a spiraling heap that lost all thought.

Then, for a reason I didn’t understand, the void was gone.

Careful, Aleph, and Sharpshot all stood over me, but only two actually seemed concerned. Sharpshot had that “told you so” look in his eyes, all too satisfied with my state. As Careful and Aleph helped me into a sitting position, he just stood there taking in his victory. A victory that quickly came back to my head as I saw the scattered papers on the floor.

A victory that made me… impure.

“Are you okay, Missus Rhapsody?”

I don’t know whether it was Careful or Aleph that said that, and I didn’t answer. My head was still trying to figure out… everything? It certainly felt like everything. I had spent my entire life thinking of myself as Singing Rhapsody, a pure pegasus and pride of the Enclave. Simple, easy to understand, and most importantly welcomed by those around me. Ironsight, Iron Anchor, every soldier, officer, or councilor that I had met knew that lie.

That was all it was though, wasn’t it? An elaborate lie that had been placed into my head the moment I left my moms womb. A lie that had all consumed me, shaping me into this belief I was like so, so many other pegasi in my life. Did I really want to believe that every single insult aimed at the surface… also meant I was now insulting myself?

Careful leaned in. “Rhapsody?”

“It has to be wrong.”

She blinked dumbly at my response. “What?”

I wish to say my next course of action was done without thinking, but the truth is I knew full well what I was doing. I needed an out from the truth placed before me, given how horrible and eye opening it was. I needed a reason to return to that lie and keep it going like this was some mad god’s joke.

So I grabbed Careful’s shoulders, and forced her muzzle up against mine in absolute terror.

“Please tell me it can be wrong. Please please please say it can. It has to be. It has to be!”

The voice that left my body was one of a terrified filly, not some full grown mare. It was pathetic, ridiculous, and yet at the same time it was somehow me. I no longer felt like the almighty, unbreakable Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody, standing proud and looking down on the ponies of the surface.

Instead I was just… Singing Rhapsody, a filly hiding trauma and insecurity under layers of protocol, training, and even more trauma. That worked its way into the very way my body was now acting, pupils the size of pin needles and breathing exhilarated in panic and confusion. My hooves shook in a manner more akin to what somepony would see from Shining Gemini instead of Singing Rhapsody.

All of which led to the most unbelievable sight: Sharpshot expression morphing from one of gloating victory to terrified discovery.

“Please say it. Please say it. Please for the sake of Luna and all the true alicorns to ever existed just fucking say it!” My begging was terrifying the doctor before me, causing both herself and Aleph to stammer back in confusion. Without her shoulders to hold onto, my forelimbs fell forward, the only thing before me being the result of the heredity tests.

Sixty-three percent. Sixty-three.

The number looped around in my head like the hook of a song that refused to leave the brain. Sixty-three. All I could think about was those numbers and what it meant for myself. That number was me. I didn’t want it to be me, but it was. A pony was able to change their opinions, personality, gender, and so much more, but that core never did. The core of a pony never changed.

That sixty-three percent pegasus, thirty-one percent unicorn? That was me.

Sharpshot took a brave step towards me in that moment of weakness, holding a hoof out. “Rhapsody, look–”

“Don’t you dare talk to me,” I spat, the slightest feeling of rage returning to me as the ghoul’s voice hit my ears. I lifted my head just enough to meet the sorrow in his eyes with fear created disgust. “You wanted this. Con-fucking-grats.”

“No.” He shook his head. “This isn’t what I wanted.”

“Bullshit!” I shot up, wings going wide in an attempt to make myself feel stronger than I did at the moment. “You’ve been waiting for this, I fucking know you have! That moment you knock me down and… and learn I’m the same fucking filth as you and your entire damned world! So go on, revel in your victory! Just do it while keeping that irradiated trap of yours shut!”

Sharpshot’s eyes went wide. “Are… are you crying?”

My anger faded, wings only half folding back up as I felt something warm and wet on my face. It didn’t feel like a tear running down my face, but the aftermath of a flood of them. One wing came and wiped a bit of it off, allowing me to see the remnants of a tear trail now staining the very tip of my wing.

This was the first time I had cried without Anchor. In my mixture of fear, confusion, insecurity and the hurt that lay underneath all of it, I turned to Sharpshot a look of anger fitting something more akin to a teenage filly than the thirty-six year old I was.

“Fuck off!” I shouted, before immaturity took over and sent me running from the room.

Adrenaline carried me around the research station’s many halls until I finally couldn’t run anymore. The emotional hurt didn’t leave, but festered like an illness that refused to leave my body. When I stopped running, I didn’t feel powerful or okay, I just felt exhausted. An exhaustion which led my hooves collapsed under me, and the tears returned more powerful and sickening than I had ever been.

When Anchor touched my body, and I found myself once again able to cry, I was relieved. It was like all the stress and heartache within me was being vented out in the form of the tears that ran down my face. I loved it, and cherished it so deeply that I had long linked crying with relief. Relief unlike what any hobby or bit of sexual fun ever compared to.

This crying I was now experiencing was not that. It was ugly, sad, downright depressing to the point that the few ponies that found where I was immediately turned and left. I was a fucking mess, and I hated it. I didn’t like being a mess; I had been that the first eighteen years of my life, with Ironsight as the only highlight in a sea of familial drama and abuse. Returning to it was an unpleasant reminder that the trauma never fades. It’s just dealt with.

Between my tears and the mess of conflicting and unnamed emotions that I had become, a hoof found its ways to my saddlebags. For the first time since I had left the hotel, I become instantly aware of the buck and party time ment-als I had been carrying on me. Neither would get rid of the pain, and while I was certainly in the right mind to take the escape they offered me neither were what I wanted. Ment-al’s made the mind clearer, focused, and the last thing I wanted was the kind of high they offered.

Which led me to realizing the only thing that might offer it to me that I had come across was that horrible white powder I had burned in some barrels along the road. How accurate was the name? Did it really make ponies feel like they were on cloud nine?

“No. No no no no,” I quietly blubbered out, shaking my head. “That doesn’t help. It… it can’t. It can’t… nothing can.”

My hoof touched an odd non-drug shaped lump in my saddlebag. Bringing it out, I was met by the innocent, proud smile of Minister Twilight Sparkle. I had forgotten she was just sitting in there, doing nothing but look pretty. Now her lifeless eyes were staring at me, and for some unrecognizable reason I felt… something, come out of it. A feeling, perhaps a fully formed emotion.

The emotion a pony felt when they wanted to put their hoof on your shoulder and tell you everything is going to be alright.

I shoved her back in the saddlebag and out of my sight. The tears had stopped falling, but they didn’t help like they usually did. I looked at the fluorescent lights above me, the clop of hooves getting closer and closer. Whoever they were didn’t matter to me, and I prayed to Celestia and Luna that they moved on without a single word spoken. Unfortunately this was not the case, because it wasn’t some random ArcanaTech pony who had found me.

It was Sharpshot.

“Didn’t think I would find you for a bit there. Made a pretty convincing disappearing act,” He replied, nowhere near as cocky or smug as his usual self was.

The attitude change didn’t matter to me. “Fuck off. I want to be alone.”

“Yeah, and that sounds like a fantastic idea for you right now.” Again, no cockiness from the ghoul, just frustration. “You look ready to drown yourself in the entire wasteland supply of Wild Pegasus right now. Need I tell you what will happen if you do.”

I choose not to answer, closing my eyes and pleading that he went away. Instead the clop of his hooves signaled him getting closer, not farther away. The ghoul sat down beside me, and I felt his magic open up the saddlebag I had placed the statuette of Minister Twilight in. A half-hearted chuckle left his lips as he pulled her out. For some reason that is what got me to open my eyes.

“Funny seeing you here, little Miss Sparkle,” He said to the statuette. “Where did you find her?” I kept my mouth shut, which led him to roll his eyes. “There are only so many of the real ones out there in the wasteland. The feeling I get just holding this with my magic tells me it's real. Congrats on starting your collection.”

“Why are you here?” I ask. Sharpshot lowered the statuette till it was touching the floor, his magic fizzing out as he looked at me. “To gloat? To shove it in my face that I’m no better than you? Go on, say it. I’m not moving.”

“All this, just because you're a little bit less of a pega than you thought?”

“Guessing you find it funny.”

“I don’t.” I finally turned to him. “Making ponies angry, seeing what makes them tick, that is funny. You’re not angry right now.” He placed his hoof on the statuette’s horn, using the old world figurine to trace the inside. “You're confused. You're confused because a fundamental piece of your very identity was just turned on its head and you don’t know how to act. Am I correct?”

“And I’m dead certain you wanted it,” I muttered back. “You’ve been waiting till you found out I was related to Star Chart, and probably even more so when I blew up at you yesterday for insinuating that I could… be this.” I motioned to my body, my hoof finding itself stuck in midair, knowing what I had just admitted. “This body isn’t what the Enclave wants. We got other pegasi like my… myself up there, but we aren’t treated well. Second class citizens; the unwanted trash; the irradiated mistakes. All different names, but all impure in the eyes of the council.”

“I wonder how shocked they would be to hear that one of their own was one of the things they hated oh so much.” Sharpshot laughed at me, my head falling a little bit. “You fooled everypony so well that they were none the wiser. Bravo soldier mare, bravo.”

My wings unfurled and hid my face, something they hadn’t done in years. That fragile, uncertain pony that was the true Rhapsody was coming back so quickly it just further heightened my fear. Emotional stiffness subsided into a conglomeration of different, conflicting feelings that were far from pleasant. There were so many I didn’t have a name.

“So this is the true mare behind all that soldier-ness?” Sharpshot asked, leaning forwards so that he could see past my wings to my face. “Gotta say, not what I expected.”

“Well I’m sorry if you were expecting me to take everything with more grace!”

I stomped both of my forehooves on the ground, wings parting just enough so that I could give the stallion before me the look of terrified rage I wanted. Sharpshot didn’t flinch, instead just watching me like a parent who was disappointed in their foal.

“Yes, I’m confused about my identity. Really, really confused. Imagine going your entire life hating something because everypony around you has told you that it's bad, and then imagine being told you are a part of that something. I’ve been seeing myself as a symbol of Enclave pride since I was eighteen, having just completely boot camp, and now I learn everything about myself is a lie. I’m not that symbol of pride, I’m not what I should be. I… I don’t know what the fuck I am right now and it fucking scares me.”

“You are right about me being no different. Dead Hooves was right about her being some distant ancestor that I never knew I had! That means I’m connected to a fucking cannibal, and yet somehow that doesn’t explain who I am. The more I think of my life above the clouds, the more I start to doubt how real everything was. Was my love for Anchor real or was it some other lie my brain was telling me? Would Ironsight still see me as a friend if he knew? Who the fuck am I? Who?! I have no idea and that’s… that’s fucking terrifying!”

My forehoofs had lost connection to the ground, pulling them close to myself as the fear inside me started churning anew. My vision seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, every cell of my body suddenly far more sensitive to touch than it had been previously. The void from earlier begged to swallow me once again.

“Then perhaps it is time to figure it out.”

That sentence was what pulled me out of it, or at least it did enough for me to understand everything else around me. Sharpshot suddenly felt a lot clearer to me than everything else, the ghoul pulling the mask on his face down to give me a sad smile. His horn lit up, and the statuette of Twilight Sparkle floated over to me. A held out my hooves to it, Sharpshot’s magic fizzing away and dropping it into them as I did. Despite how much more vibrant the unicorn was compared to the cloaked ghoul before me, the latter was still more interesting.

“I’m going to go through each of your questions one after the other, show you how you are being a paranoid nutjob, and tell you how I think you should take this all. I’m not you though, so it’s your choice how much of this you take in.” He cleared his throat, an act that felt extremely odd to me considering how infrequently he showed his own face. “Let’s start off with you mentioning your husband. I can assure you that, if he is a good pony, he would still love you.”

“But I’m part-grounder which mea–”

“He. Would. Still. Love. You.” Each word he spoke was matched by a step, ending with a poignant point at myself. “If he doesn’t, then fuck him. His loss, and you wouldn’t want him around anyways. That sort of toxicity in a relationship only leads to one or both sides hurting each other.” The hoof pointing at me went back to himself, pounding his chest three times with the side of it. “Take it from somepony who has been married for over a century now. A good, healthy relationship is formed on trust, honesty, and loyalty, right hun?”

His eyes flicked away from me to what initially seemed like an empty hallway. My own eyes widened as my wings fell back to my side, watching as Willow let go over her invisibility. Her face was overwhelmingly cheery for the situation she had found herself in, rubbing one foreleg with the opposite forehoof in embarrassment. The only sign that she regretted being there before she spoke was her flattened ears.

“Sorry, I know this wasn’t the best conversation to eavesdrop on,” she replied, sheepishly. “Sharpy is right though. After all the stress of military life and raising two foals, if he doesn’t love you unconditionally by now he isn’t worth it. I’d even be willing to go ahead and rip him apart for you, if needed.”

“Not the time for crazy, Willow,” her husband chastised. She simply giggled and sat on the opposite side of the hallway right across from myself. “The basic parts of what she said are right though. If he would abandon you just because you are a bit more hornheaded than originally thought, he isn’t worth having around.”

If I hadn’t felt as vulnerable as a newborn, I might have gotten angrier at him. Instead I allowed the words he and Willow said to sink in. They were, as much as I hate to admit it, right. If Iron Anchor was even half the stallion I saw him as, he would stay at my side no matter what…

… but then I remembered the Enclave’s propaganda. It had been burned so heavily into everypony that the purer the pegasus, the better. Was he free enough from those lies to not have them dictate his thoughts on the true me? On his foals, who were no different.

“Now, Ironsight, the sonuva bitch that is half the reason you are down here in the first place,” Sharpshot continued, not caring at all for my inner conflict. “The pony who wanted to destroy the surface… again. The pony who managed to find a way to make radiation kill an alicorn and ghoul. The pony you were perfectly okay with doing all that before your friends-turned-enemies brought you down here.”

My head dipped, and I managed to call upon a tiny piece of the anger that laid inside me. “You done.”

“Maybe….” He stared at the ceiling for a moment, contemplating. He then closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay, yeah, don’t have anything more to add there. Mainly want to say that he doesn’t seem like a pony you can trust… unless he takes you being part-unicorn well. He’s clearly a supremacist, and sooner or later he might have found out about what you are anyway.” He opened his eyes, growing a tiny bit more smug. “I’m certain that wouldn’t have ended well for you.”

Willow held up her right forehoof “Or perhaps learning you are part-unicorn is the wake-up call he needed! That’s a far more optimistic point of view.”

“Sure, I guess.” Sharpshot shrugged. “Hate to say it hun, but I’m gonna have to disagree on that. Ponies like that don’t really change unless something earth-shattering happens.” He pointed at me once again. “An example of that lies before us right now.”

I looked off to the side, looking for a counterpoint. I found nothing. “I… yeah, this has definitely been a lot to take in, and unfortunately I’m gonna have to agree with Sharpshot on this.” I felt myself shrink a slight bit. “How am I gonna talk to him in two days?”

“Hey, lying for a single conversation is better than lying to yourself for the rest of your life,” Sharpshot replied. “Besides, it's not lying if you never tell him. It's just… avoiding the topic.”

“I guess you are right… So what now?” Both of them tilted their heads at me. “I mean, I don’t think I can continue how I was. As much as I want to, I certainly can’t hold myself above you ponies anymore.”

Sharpshot’s face shifted, the expression of solemn understanding and sadness turning into a more clear hate. “So you still want to be that same, ignorant foal you’ve been acting as this entire time.”

My mouth opened to respond – to say that yes, I would have continued to act as I had for most of my adult life because it was a beautiful, if sickly unjust, lie – but something about Sharpshot kept my voice silent. He stepped up to me and placed a hoof on my head, applying just enough force to keep me from getting up without extra effort. Effort that, in my current state, I lacked the will to call upon.

Then he just… leered at me. No words, no gesture to show whatever it was he was trying to get across, he just stared down at me like an Enclave councilor would to half breed. Disgust mixed with disappointment blended with an unhealthy dose of discontent were the ingredients that made up his stare.

“Rhapsody, I’m only going to say this once so you better perk up those ears, shut up, and listen,” he said. “I’ll put it frankly, you are no different than Ironsight. You are a supremacist, looking down on everypony not you for the sole reason of them being different. Up till now you’ve flaunted what you believed to be the pegasi body “perfected” in front of all of us as if you were making ready to have a statue built. You were more than willing to let every. Single. One of us. Die. I figured that it might have made that switch labeled “realization” in your head switch the other way.”

He leaned it, no change in his expression even as his words gamed a serpentine quality to them.

“Except now, when faced with the idea that you were wrong about yourself, your heart wants to change nothing. You want to embrace your little “ignorance is bliss” belief when ignoring what you are would have possibly gotten you killed! Here I am hoping that maybe, maybe Star Chart’s family line might have proven to be better but your just like that fucking cripple you call an ancestor. You want to know what to do now? Wake up, realize the roses are dead, and start. Fucking. Over!”

With no restraint and my entire being focused on looking into his eyes, I had no time to react as the hoof holding my head suddenly thrusted down. My world was suddenly filled with not just emotional and mental pain, but the physical variety of it as well. My hooves held my muzzle, ears ringing as if a gun had just gone off right next to them.

“Sharpy, what are you–”

“Not now Willow!” My eyes clenched shut, I only heard the clop of hooves moving away. When they stopped and Sharpshot spoke up again, I knew who that bit of movement belonged to. “I can’t miss Rhapsody. The only reason you didn’t die on that street is because I was targeting your tail and not you. Knowing now everything you do, consider yourself on a short leash.”

I opened my eyes, vision blurry from the force of the blow he had left on me. I somehow managed to find the blobs of brown and red that made him up.

“Make it clear that it was worth using my life saving skills instead of my life taking ones on you, and I won’t put a bullet between your eyes.”

Then he walked off, the blurry form of Willow taking up my vision as she brought me back into a sitting position. As my vision became clearer, the worry in her eyes became more substantial. She glanced at her husband, her lips unsure whether to push back into a snarl or simply curl downwards.

“I… why? Why?!” She yelled telepathically at the ghoul. He didn’t turn around, continuing to walk without care. “Yes, a lot of what you say is true but… but… Sharpy…,” Her back half collapsed, head hung. “Why are you being this hostile? Singing isn’t a good pony,” for some reason, that jabbed at my heart “but she didn’t deserve all that. Nopony deserves all that… please answer me, Sharpy.”

He didn’t, refusing to even look his wife in the eyes and walking out of sight. Willow’s face told all, shoving confusion and sorrow together. Their earlier mentions of being in a healthy relationship felt hypocritical, the only wrong thing in a sea of truth. The only lie in Sharpshot’s entire argument.

Yes, deep down I wanted to continue that lie, to hide my newfound insecurities away and be an imperfect, perfect picture of what a pegasi should be. How possible was that though? Every insult thrown at grounders now included myself. So much of the Enclave was built around the belief of pegasus purity that I can’t say I would have felt safe. Going back was an option, but I was smart enough to know it would simply hurt me in the long run. That left only one option: Sharpshot’s option.

Wake up, realize the roses are dead, and start over.

How did I start over when the idea of telling anypony I was wrong about myself felt… terrifying? No way in tartarus was I explaining my heritage to Ironsight, and since Gold and Gemini weren’t around I wanted to make damn sure they didn’t. So much would change upon admitting what I was to others that telling the truth felt impossible.

That was too much change. Too much.

Eyes briefly cast down to the floor, to the sight of the Twilight Sparkle statuette that had been in my hooves before Sharpshot had slammed my muzzle into the metal floor. The words “be smart” felt bigger, bolder, scarier. Yet in them I realized a simple yet powerful truth: I didn’t need to do this all at once. A complete one-eighty felt impossible but little changes that added up over time? Maybe I could do that. It was worth a shot at least, right?

“Thank you,” I whispered to the statuette. Willow looked at me, unaware that I was speaking to an inanimate object. As I scooped up Twilight in my wing and placed her in my saddle bag, I slowly moved my head upwards till it was looking Willow dead in the eyes. “Your husband’s a real piece of work, Willow.”

The deepening sorrow in her eyes told me this whole change thing was immediately off to a bad start.

“Moments like these, I wonder if Dead was right about the two of us,” She said. “That Sharpy isn’t good for me. I never really understood why she hated him, or why he hated her. Does painting her as some villain help him deal with the fact he killed her?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Singing. No matter how bad you are, you didn’t deserve all that.”

Again, her backhooved apology made me wince. “I’m… really not a good pony, am I?”

“Yep. You’ve kind of been a piece of shit since I met you.” Another stab to the heart, and from one of the only groun– wastelanders that I didn’t hate. “You're egotistical, a bit of a bitch, yet under all that I see a pony that can shine brighter than they allow themselves to. I had a bit of a talk with Gemini while you were getting your check up earlier and… she doesn’t see you the way Sharpy and I do.”

I blinked twice, mouth hanging open desperately wanting to ask what she meant. Unfortunately her harsh truths had left me completely speechless. Fortunately, she continued to talk despite it.

“I won’t deny that I inquired about you a bit. The picture I have of you now is really different from the one from when we left those labs two days ago.” She raised her left forehoof. “Back then I merely saw a mare who, while rather awful in how they saw ponies, was also a mother. A mother doing their best to help their foals.” Then her right forehoof. “Now I can recontextualize that. You aren’t just a mother who separated themselves from their family, you are a pony who has been through things. Things that you don’t need to tell me or anypony else, but they led you to be the parent you never got yourself.”

“You didn’t pry Gemini open too much, right?” She lowered both forehooves and looked at me. “She isn’t exactly emotionally stable.”

“Of course! Call me crazy all you want, but I can be sensitive… sometimes.” Her eyes darted off down the hall. “I’ll admit I’m not the best at this all and I’m probably boring you with how long I’m taking getting to the point, but I try when I feel I need to. That isn’t the topic of this conversation, however.’

Willow’s hoof reached out to me, causing me to flinch in preparation for her to hurt me just like her husband did. Instead, I felt the slightest touch of her hoof against my chest.

“This is about you, and how those qualities you have don’t need to be changed. They just need to… shift and find themselves in a new context. A better you is what I’m looking for, not a new you.”

“A better me,” I repeated. My gaze went off into nothingness for a moment, before sighing. “That’s kind of what I was thinking anyway. I… I’m not sure about all this still.”

“I can understand. I mean, I know being nice was certainly a challenge for me when I first met Dead Hooves,” She explained, pawing the ground sheepishly. “You can do it though. I know you can, Singing.”

“Th… thanks,” I replied. Allowed silence to take over for a minute, then stood up. “Well, I think I have some doctors to apologize to. Good first step, right?”

Willow smiled brightly, giving me a nod.

Perhaps it was the fact they hadn’t dealt with me for the number of days Willow and Sharpshot had, but Aleph and Careful took my apology really well. I won’t deny it being hard, as well as being excessively more emotional than I would like to admit, but the simplicity of it was welcomed. It was an incredibly tiny but necessary step towards that personal shift Willow had mentioned. One I conquered far better than the next.

Granted the next step was optional but I felt I had to do it. The papers that had caused this entire outbursts were still there on the floor, and I deemed it necessary to both read them over and discuss the findings with Careful and Aleph. Willow stayed at my side, both of us finding comfort in the other at that moment.

“The point is that your mixed heritage actually makes you physically healthier than what a pureblooded pegasus would be,” Careful said, ending off a rather long explanation full of science I don’t make much sense of even today. “Still questioning this,” she motioned at my body, “is still a bad thing?”

“I know there is a lot of science and such behind it, but it’s all just… it’s hard to believe,” I replied. A piece of me hated how vulnerable and weak I sounded to the ponies before me, but Willow was certain this was an important thing to do. So I continued on with it despite everything. “I mean, the Enclave always said there was science proving the opposite too. It’s hard to believe it when–”

Aleph silenced me with a raised hoof. “Did they ever give reasons behind it? Did the public ever get more than just the results? Any scientist worth a damn would make sure to back up their results with an explanation.”

“They… they didn’t.”

The nebula ghoul didn’t grow smug like Sharpshot found out he was correct. Instead he frowned, and if he was already frowning from the heaps upon heaps of Enclave propaganda they were uncovering and proving wrong it grew deeper. Each time it did, another small part of myself shattered to pieces. I didn’t even need an explanation at this point to know my beliefs were again wrong.

“I don’t understand. I really don’t understand,” I said. “There are some I get; keeping secrets can keep pegasi safe. Yet so much of it all is lie after lie after lie and it never seems to stop. I’m a lie, the good in being pureblooded is a lie. There has to be something that isn’t a lie. It can’t all be wrong. It can’t.”

“Unfortunately, it can,” Careful replied. “After a time it becomes worthless asking how much is true, because that little bit of truth is wrapped up in so many lies that grasping onto it means nothing. A nation built on lies is a nation destined to fall. “ Her eyes drifted from me to Aleph. “Lies meant not to keep a populace safe, but controlled. Obedient, unquestioning, conditioned. After all you have told me of the Enclave, those are the best words to describe it.”

The truth didn’t make me angry or upset, but exhausted. The metaphorical building that represented my world had been torn down brick from brick, revealing hypocrisy after hidden truth somehow managing to rot it. Upon joining the council I had imagined that I was above the propaganda that the rest of the Enclave were led to believe, but that no longer seemed true. Each member of the council from myself to Harbinger to Ironsight was nothing more than a puppet under some long created falsity. A falsity that the other two still believed.

Was I… lucky?

It felt sickening to think. Never before would I have called a Dashite lucky, especially given the state of the surface and the heightened chances to die compared to above the clouds. Now that I knew that safety was kept by detrimental lies the idea of living up there felt the slightest bit wrong. Just wrong enough where, despite the large portion of me wishing to return to my family, I’m not sure I could.

I’m really sorry Anchor. I love you and I’m sure you love me, but the feelings of betrayal now went both ways. Both the council and those who put me down here to begin with were now enemies, even if the former didn’t know it… or maybe they did. It didn’t matter.

“If you do want a bright spot, we can confirm your family has a rather splendid history dating back to before the Last Day,” Aleph explained, piercing through my thoughts in the same way the horn of his could pierce my flesh. My first encounter with nebula ghouls was still a bit too fresh in my mind to look at it and him and not feel slightly on edge. “Though I guess I would like to first ask if you are aware of it.”

“Nope. Farthest I know my family line goes back to is a pegasus named Star Chart,” I answered. My wings shifted uncomfortably behind me. “Though given the zebra and something else mentioned in those charts, I can’t blame her for all my heritage.”

Aleph nodded. “Quite right. That’s probably the most correct thing you’ve said since this conversation started.” Another backhooved compliment, another reflective wince from my body. “Anyways, the aforementioned bright spot. With the limited database we have of ponies from materials taken from Trotson’s Ministry of Image and Ministry of Morals hubs, we were able to find a distant ancestor. An ancestor with connections to the Shadowbolts.”

My eyes lit up, the past hour or two of emotional turmoil temporarily subsiding. A shadowbolt in my family history? That might have been more prestigious than being connected to an Enclave hero in terms of bloodline, purity be damned.

Willow was a bit more perplexed at it all, however, tilting her head. “I’m sorry that name is new. What are the Shadowbolts?”

“You’ve heard of the Wonderbolts I’m sure. Before the war they were stunt flyers, and in the current day they are considered the best of the best in the Enclave military. You piss off the council enough, consider yourself dead,” I explained to the alicorn. After getting a nod to show she understood what I was saying, I continued. “During the war, the Wonderbolts traded out their stunt flyer identity from something more militaristic. Much like today’s Wonderbolts they were considered the absolute elite of Equestria’s air forces. The name was changed back when the Enclave was founded to distance ourselves from all of you, given it was the Ministry of… Awesome, that gave them that title.”

“A societal traitor naming your elite fighting force. That would certainly give it some bad blood,” Careful replied, mostly mumbling to herself. “They also tended to test experimental military equipment if my old teacher’s classes on wartime Equestria were correct. Quite fitting, considering the power armor you are wearing getting field tested through you.”

“Really? So that makes Rhapsody some kind of modern day Shadowbolt!”

Willow wrapped a wing around me, pulling me close to her against my own will. I pulled away as quickly as I was able, moving to the left until I’d managed to place enough distance between the alicorn and myself for my own comfort. There was not enough space in the room for complete comfort, though what I did get was manageable.

“I, uh, still don’t know if I like Minister Dash enough to find being called one a good thing, but I’ll take it as a compliment nonetheless,” I informed the big blue and white pony to my side. She simply smiled, making it unclear whether she understood my discomfort or not. “Anyways, I’m connected to a Shadowbolt.”

“Yes. I’m sure the name Spitfire is at least passingly familiar to you, Missus Rhapsody?” Aleph asked. At first I only nodded, it took several seconds for what the nebula ghoul was saying to click. I don’t think there was enough room on my face for how wide I wanted my eyes to be when it did become clear. “I wonder how she would feel, knowing what her descendant is like.”

“I’m connected to a soldier as acclaimed as Admiral Spitfire?” I questioned back. No head motions were needed to answer it, just knowing smiles. The floor was suddenly far more interesting. “Huh. Makes a mare wonder how her parents managed to seem like exact opposites.”

Careful clearly found my sudden sheepishness hilarious, considering she didn’t bother to hold back her laughter at it. “It should be noted your connection to the Admiral is not direct, but you do indeed share a bloodline with her. We figured it was close enough that you would want to know.”

“She did have, what, three husbands?” I whispered to myself. “That’s fair enough. She had to have had a foal with at least two of them, so I’ll take it. Even if it was one of the assholes she divorced.”

I stood there for a time, glowing in a slightly renewed sense of pride. It was nowhere close to what the heritage test, Sharpshot, and the two doctors before me had destroyed, but it was better than nothing. Being connected to a pegasus as prestigious as Admiral Spitfire was a nice blanket to comfort me from the invisible glass shards that seemed to surround me. The only thing I can glad say I don’t share is her luck with stallions. Thank Luna for striking gold with Anchor.

“Anyways, as wonderful as this conversation was, I have somewhere else I need to be,” Careful explained. “Got myself a little date with a cute stallion.”

“Best of luck with them, Doctor Procedure!” Willow cheered. “I hope they are as wonderful as you think they are.”

“Aw, thanks.”

With that she left us with Aleph, who then did the same for work related reasons. With nopony else around to distract her, that distance that I had put between myself and Willow suddenly started to close. The alicorn had the look of a filly trying to be way too sneaky, every single moment she moved more than clear. Once I was within reach of her wingspan, she scooped me up in one and pulled myself to her.

“See? You’re doing better already! You’ve started your shift into becoming a better pony.”

“I… I guess? I think I’m just riding high on the one good discovery that this mess brought.” I went rigid. “I-I mean–”

“Hey, your world got turned upside down. You're dealing with shit as best you can.” As her wing pulled me even closer, her opposite forehoof was wrapped around my neck. I was pulled into a hug against my will. “Just you wait Singing, soon you’ll be the happiest you were in your entire life! A lawful Shadowbolt among a lawless wasteland!”

“Still not sure about the whole Shadowbolt thing, Willow.”

“Just give it a try. Maybe as a sort of “fuck you” to the Enclave for all the lies.”

I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but it just made me feel worse. Despite knowing so much of that life was a lie, a piece of me still held on. There was still one good thing about the Enclave, and that was knowing they would protect Anchor and my children in my absence. It was the only truth I had of that life.

A few hours later, the five of us had all reunited at what had once been the entrance into the stable. It certainly didn’t look like it anymore, given that there wasn’t a door to be seen. The natural cave walls that made up at least half of its walls and ceiling helped a bit with the overwhelming gray, even if it was just being replaced with a darker gray, and where I assumed the stable door used to be was now a solid wall. We looked trapped in, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

That stallion that called me “P-1” when I had just woken up in the research station? Artificial Synthesis. He had given me a rather simplified version of how it worked while the other four talked with ponies they had met while I was out.

“ArcanaTech was founded with the results of Project Nebula, a look into using the stars as a safer, less irradiated option for energy. When the world ended, we used our newfound knowledge of stars and the blackholes they create on death to make our own safe haven.”

While his voice wasn’t stuttery, there was a clear tremble in his body. It was most likely due to the anger I had spoken with when he called me a new more befitting test subject then a pegasus. For all that had happened since then and now – the horrid, inconceivable truths I had learned of my home most of all – putting that bit of fear in him still felt good. It was a tiny bit of control after a few hours of vulnerability, and it relaxed me.

“As we found out, it is possible to replicate the sensation of teleportation using blackholes. The big problem was having them lead to where we want it to go but once it was complete? There was very little need to step outside again. The need was completely eliminated when we figured out how to hook up our inside greenhouses to the S.P.P. tower, using its weather altering capabilities to grow things typically impossible with the client.”

“That isn’t too different from how the Enclave does it,” I replied. A hoof went to my throat at mentioning the Enclave, the side of me more disgusted at their actions finding the act of addressing them revolting. “We have to use clouds for most of our plants though. Typically we save stuff like potatoes or herbs for the few peaks that pierce the cloud layer.”

He beamed like I had never seen a unicorn beam before. “You’ve found ways to grow plants on clouds? Fascinating! I must ask, do cloud grown foodstuffs taste like anything?” I shook my head to answer, the slightest hint of disappointment working their way onto Synthesis’ face. It quickly disappeared and was replaced by a shrug. “Disappointing, but that makes sense. They would likely be made of far more water than their ground grown counterparts.”

“Yeah, and I don’t think I could go back to that food if I wanted to. Even if most of it isn’t as fresh as what I had here, surface food is…,” the word I wished to say refused to leave my muzzle “it’s good.”

“I’ll make sure the chefs know.” Synthesis looked down, his eyes passing over the NB-2 power armor that I was once again wearing. The way he puffed his chest out made it a clear mark of personal pride. “I never thought I would get the chance to make something like this, you know. It’s not often ArcanaTech makes anything that can fit in the late Minister Applejack’s field of expertise.”

It was my turn to frown, looking down at the hunk of metal I was wearing. “It feels wrong.”

“How so?”

“This armor used to look so different, and in some ways it feels like I’m wearing somepony’s tomb.” I lifted my hoof to my right shoulder, examining the metal that encased it. “I was there five years ago, when the pegasus that once wore this was killed. A piece of them still resides here, I think Not their whole spirit, just a piece of it.”

Synthesis had the gall to narrow his eyes at me as if I was some crazy old hag. “You can just say you feel guilty.”

While I hadn’t been looking for a way out of the conversation, I got one. Hoping it would make the stallion think a bit, I promptly turned away and walked back over to my actual companions. Gemini and Gold wore their power armor, but only the latter wore their helmet. Willow and Sharpshot, on the otherhoof, were instead garbed in as much clothing as possible to help shield their bodies; they didn’t need the radiation protection that we more normal creatures did, just something to keep the storm from scraping them up.

What we did share was a sufficient amount of firepower. I gave the semi-auto rifle to Gemini since her pistol wouldn’t fit into the armor’s battle saddle. Sharpshot had his zebra rifle and that abomination of his, having at some point discarded the sniper rifle that had broken my shoulder (apparently it was too normal for his liking). Willow had been given her sickle back, something that I felt she was far too happy about. Then there was Gold, who was easily the most armed out of anycreature present with double shotguns, a knife, and Roche Limit.

It would have been ridiculous, but then there was me. I still had my novasurge, battery replenished and looking as good as the day it was given to me, but its lightness made me infinitely more aware of the weight on the saddle’s left side. Gold had said they would get the Atomizer back into working condition, and apparently those repairs had happened while I was out. Carrying around a highly experimental piece of weaponry was definitely one way to put myself on par with the old griff.

“Guess we’re all ready, then?” My question was answered with a nod, Gemini a bit more hesitantly then the rest. Briefly turning back to Synthesis, I waved a hoof to him. “Send us up!”

I have no idea what he did, but the next few moments brought about an uncomfortable deja vu. The void once again overtook my sense, the only solace in my heart being the knowledge I hadn’t trapped myself in my own emotions this time. The only sense I seemed to keep is hearing, because a voice called out to me. Barely coherent, but the voice was there.

It’s words were the more standard blessing that most pegadi gave. Pegasi who hadn’t been raised like I had, with the belief Celestia and Luna were pegasi ascended. Pegasi far more pure than myself.

“Winds guide you, Sergeant Major.”

It had been five years since I held that rank. Synthesis was wrong; a ghost haunted my new armor. That knowledge filled me with dread…

… and I was all too right to feel it.

Act 1 – End Shift: Five Years of Festering

The Eternal Sandstorm, Trotson

Day 5

I had long remembered that horrid day.

A towering storm of irradiation, filled with horrid creatures found only in the wasteland’s deserts. A storm that took the lives of ponies when none were looking. A storm whose irradiated residents would piercing and kill even the best of armor. In a way, the fact I had managed to get ponies out of it alive was deserving of a medal. That we had entered it in the first place should have revoked it.

Twice now I had the chance to choose a better, safer exit from this damned city. Five years ago I was too panicked to make the better choice, and it led to the dead screaming in my ear. Screams that five days in this city had revealed were more than the trauma of a soldier.

Five years later, and I was once again staring at that same sandstorm. Me and four others dared to brave its body for what lay on the outside. The situation was different, as were the ponies, but the end goal was the same. We were leaving Trotson. We were leaving, and none of these creatures were dying. Not Gold, not Willow, and while I hated his guts I would make sure Sharpshot didn’t either.

Didn’t make staring up at the swirling wall of sand, irradiation, and ear-grating sounds any worse to look out. Immediately one of those annoyances had been dealt with thanks to the NB-2 armor, thick and heavy yet also extremely tight. It was a miracle that I was able to breath in it, but I wouldn’t look the gifts of highly advanced arcano-tech in the mouth. The NB-2 kept the irradiated air out, and that was a welcome blessing.

I never mentioned it, but I know how horrible radiation sickness was. When I left the sandstorm that day, five years prior, I had no idea what it was doing to my body. The same went for the other survivors. We all were quarantined, nursed back to rad-free health, and only then allowed home. Most of it was a blur to me, as was most things until my dear Anchor woke me from my trauma-ridden stupor days later, but the feeling was still there. I was thankful to have survived it… not everyone was.

Which made the sight of Willow Wisp, wings spread wide, exposing her face to the storm that had given me the worst illness I had ever dealt with in my life, irritating. Only irritating though. Gemini was… sweet and nice, but Willow was capable of listening to trauma without being burrowed on her own. It made her easy to talk to, like a friend.

Identifying Willow as a friend left that piece of me still clinging to the Enclave furious. That conflicting feeling was what kept the irritation in my heart lit. It stayed in my heart, where it was unable to boil to the surface. The appreciation for the unfortunate alicorn that had been born in the more accepting half of my brain kept it at bay. If not for her, that acceptance wouldn’t feel as okay as it did.

Thus the Enclave side of me added more tinder to the flames of hate. A cycle of love and disgust, the latter fed off the former as the former defended its existence from being consumed by the latter. It was an invisible war.

An inner war I was far too aware of. I wanted to hide from it, but couldn’t. Ignorance was stolen from me the moment the war started.

“The magical radiation feels wonderful,” Willow said. Her ears went from perked up to folded against her head in a flash. “It’s too bad the sandstorm means I’ll have to hide from some of that warmth.”

“Is there really something on the other side?”

Eyes turned to Gemini. Despite having her helmet on, each and every one of us sensed the fear in her words. I’m damn near certain she was shivering under that armor, and if she wasn’t it was rather impressive. Her head turned to each of us, moving her hooves dramatically to accentuate her nervousness. Since nearly everypony – save Willow Wisp for the moment – had their armor on, it was her best way to express it.

“Of course. More to world then one city,” Gold explained. He tilted his head at her. “Unicorn didn’t know? Odd.”

Gemini shuffled backwards. “I-I guess, but you get told by those around you that there isn’t anything out – that there isn’t any place safe to escape to – and it makes you wonder.” She turns first to Sharpshot, Willow, and Gold, and then to myself. “Before I find out, what is it like out there?”

“Tough question. Never really visited San Palomino proper on any missions; most of the time I was stationed in the Hoof or Neighvarro.” I motioned back to the sandstorm as I talked. “One was a more pleasant experience than the other. Anywhere you go, something in the wasteland wants you dead. Trotson, Manehattan, Luna-damned Canterlot, all with two hundred years to breed fantastic ways to kill you.”

“It’s not all bad though. You got your Friendship City and New Appleoosa type of places too,” Willow spoke up, covering her face back up. “Places safer but still somewhat dangerous. The wasteland is not the old world; you can’t call anywhere truly safe.”

Gemini’s head moved down, contemplating what she had heard before giving a nod. “That's still better than what I had before.”

Our attention once again turned back to the Sandstorm… or rather the rest of them did. I turned my attention to Dead Hooves, the spiritual unicorn joining in with the gawking of the great wall of sand before us. She did not speak to me, and I did not speak to her. I was thankful for that, because of all of the unsettling revelations she was easily one of the most unsettling.

I had a cannibal for an ancestor.

With a shake of my head, I looked away from the ghost and instead behind me… to her. Dead Hooves was fucked up, but she wasn’t out for blood. Bone Breaker was, and her spirit was watching me with a gaze that made my entire being feel weak. Looking away broke that feeling, but the knowledge she was there, watching and waiting made me more than aware of what, or more accurately who I might find inside.

“Gold, I’m guessing you’re aware of how balefire fossils work, right?” I asked the griffon. He gave me a nod. “Good. Anypony else familiar with them?”

Willow and Gemini considered a shake to be a clear enough answer. Sharpshot decided it wasn’t.

“If you could tell us what it is, we might be more prepared to deal with it,” He remarked, voice still holding echoes of hate from our conversation in the hallway. “Some kind of ghoul?”

“Worse. Far worse,” I answered plainly,an involuntary shudder passing through my body as memories long pressed down slightly surfaced. Skin melting off bones, screams of pain, blood, the constant ticking of radiation. I forced them back down. “I’d prefer not to explain. Gold can if he wants. Everypony, stay behind him and me. Stay close; we won’t be able to see shit until it is just in front of our muzzle.”

I didn’t wait to see what their response was, taking as confident of a step forward as possible. I heard everycreature behind me fall into line, Gold quickly making his way to my right side as Dead Hooves’ did the same on my left. With as confident a march as possible, we quickly drew closer to the beast of a storm before us. With each step, my heart got the tiniest bit faster.

All the while, Sharpshot did as I suggested and asked Gold for an explanation.

“So if they aren’t ghouls, then what are they? Balefire means necromancy is involved, but outside of that I’m getting jackshit.”

“Walking balefire generators. They are living, but not like you or me. More feral, but not animal. Look like behemoth made of bones.” A talon nervously clasped at the asphalt beneath him, desperate for something to cling to but finding nothing. “Terrifying. Will melt you. If ghoul or alicorn, will spear you. Only reason unicorn, pegasi, and I safe? Armor.”

“Ah, so just a bunch of really irradiated bones.”

“No. More than just bone. It’s–”

My eyes clenched shut as, in a single second, I was overwhelmed by the sound of sand hitting metal. Not just a couple flecks of sand that the stray wind had picked up, but a hurricane of particles moving so fast and so forcefully the only reason they didn’t dent the armor was their size. Something about the sudden shift in the storm’s volume as I went from outside it to within unsettled me. Something more than the soft – yet horribly constant noise – noise that made it up.

All I knew was that it was connected to the soldiers I failed. Any attempt to search those memories were disregarded, but not because it wasn’t importanted. The sound of nature around me left reminiscing impossible, like the villain of a horror novel that stayed in your mind before you fell asleep. Even knowing it wasn’t there, it felt like it was watching, waiting, grinning in anticipation for when you fell asleep. Both staved off sleep, but while one did it through fear the other did it through sound.

That constant noise, along with how much they had to raise their volumes to talk to each other, made listening to Gold's and Sharpshot’s conversation impossible. It didn’t matter, because I knew the things that awaited inside for me already. Though a piece of me wanted to pull my ears against my head in some vain hope of ridding the constant, overpowering mix of sand and wind in my ears, that was truthfully a horrible idea. I had to keep an ear open for the clicking of the suit’s radiation counter, but not for the general ticking; that had started the moment we entered the storm.

No, I was looking for a sudden, drastic spike.

With my more immediate vision nearly non-existent – barely able to tell there was a griffon to my body right, I found comfort in the MentaBuck’s map. It showed what the storm hid: the outer limits of Trotson. It allowed me some idea of the buildings around me, though I was certain none of them were more than pieces of collapsed rubble by now. What caught my eyes was the distant, northern outline of what was a major old world highway.

“Follow me!” I shouted over the storm. “And stay close!”

If I was lucky, the highway had a still standing access lane, was not broken, and was elevated off the ground. Was it really the best choice though? I told myself it was the safest place to be, away from the ground while still having something under my hoofs. The truth is that I had found a seemingly recognizable shape leading out of the sitting and had just gone with it. The sound of the sandstorm and the emotional turmoil that refused to settle in my mind made thinking about any sort of plan outside of “leave Trotson” hard.

The highway would have to be done, because everypony was following me. Whether some of them hated me or not, they treated me as a leader. I only wish I felt like it at the moment.

The turmoil inside me did not show in my stride, hiding behind a soldier’s facade for… someponies sake. I’m not entirely sure it was for myself, since thinking of soldiers – of the Enclave in general – left me confused and turned upside down.

“She’s still following us.”

My eyes turned to DH, the dead mare’s head consistently watching behind her. Following her gaze led me to see nothing. Whatever the storm showed was for her eyes alone. Uncertainty settled on her ghostly features, and it left me unsettled. Even without being able to see the pony in question, there was only one individual I imagined she was talking about.

“I figured she would leave me alone after we found out she…,” I shook my head, unable to say it. Nothing about Bone Breaker’s death felt right. “Never mind.”

“She isn’t going to listen to reason, I can tell you that from one conversation,” DH replied. She had no need to speak up, something about her supernatural nature carrying through the storm as if they were one. “Her anger and sorrow has consumed her ghost so greatly that there is nothing else in there. My attempt to tell her of what happened turned into her begging and then screaming at me to turn against you.”

“And you didn’t because…”

“Your family, Singing, whether you want to admit it or not. That is all the reason I need.”

Whether I wanted to admit it or not.

My mouth opened, but then immediately closed. I wasn’t ready to tell her just yet. Without much thought, I bottled my feelings up and continued to walk, a piece of me believing that, if I ignore her, Bone Breaker will simply go away.

Tick, tick, tich, tich, ticktickticktick-

I took three steps back and held a hoof out to Gold. The griffon instantly stopped, and with any hope the ponies behind us did as well. One second of increased radiation was all I needed to know what lay in front of us, even if the storm made the creature itself invisible. I took another step backwards, just to be safe, and then motioned to the right.

“Gold, you take the lead. We need to head around,” I ordered.

The griffon gave a quick nod to me. The ponies behind us were more perplexed, looking between each other as they begrudgingly followed along.

“I didn’t see anything, Singing.”

“Good,” I replied, momentarily looking behind myself at Willow. “If you saw one, then it’s probably too late.”

Twice more we had to change our route due to the sudden uptick in radiation, but the NB-2 armor was good enough to shield Gold, Gemini, and myself from the armor. We were also lucky to have never stepped into a fossil’s radiation zone for too long to actually grab its attention… as far as I was aware. What mattered was that we were safe, or rather that the others were safe.

Maybe my mind was making things up, or perhaps the wind was messing with me, but I swore I heard voices. Voices that didn’t belong to Sharpshot or DH or Gold. Voices that seemed to have no owner. It put me on edge and made me more desperate to get out of here as soon as we could. The knowledge that Bone Breaker was likely still following me, and who might be waiting within the wind made my heartbeat quicken.

Thank Luna I had a helmet on to hide my fear.

After a time, we arrived at the access lane for what I now knew was Equestrian Highway 66, at least according to the MentaBuck. Reading any of the signs was impossible due to rust and low visibility. The latter was so bad that all I could gander from an immediate look was that, as I had predicted, the highway was off solid ground. At least I felt pretty certain that was the case, considering the access ramp went up.

Forgoing language for a simple wave of my armored hoof, I stepped in front of Gold and ushered everycreature over to the ramp. My eyes looked over absolutely everything, the question of what laid ahead enough to keep any voice in the wind out of my ears. The sight of overly rusted carriages and pieces of crumbled road helped significantly there. The idea the road might collapse underneath me was simple enough that the sound of the storm couldn’t break it.

“None of the original color remains on any of these things,” Dh said, tapping on with a hoof. My mind figured it couldn’t be too far off of what tapping the side of a cloudship sounded like, and played its best approximation of it in my head. “I’ve never seen one of these working. They needed, what, gas or steam to work? The train here to Trotson runs on the latter.”

“Not sure, and not important,” I replied, far less sure of myself than I wanted to sound. “Keep moving. If we keep moving, they won’t find us.”

DH’s face turned contemplative as she looked at me. Clearly she had heard the uncertainty in my voice, but she didn’t push further. I was thankful for that; whatever my tone had caused me to ponder could wait till I was able to think again.

Up and up we went, until the incline turned into a steady, straight road. Highway 66 was reachable, and it provided a nice easy path out of the city for all of us. With it, though, the mind was subjected to the aftermath of a long forgotten carnage. A carnage brought by the final days.

In an age long past, ponies would be setting their sights upon the Trotson skyline on this highway. With it being one of the larger cities it only made sense that, on the final day, many ponies might have come to visit it, and likely bore witness to the end of the world. The evidence lied in overturned, smashed, carriage piles. I felt my hoof crush down on something as I took my first step onto the highway. The victim of my accidental attack was a skull.

“These are remarkably well preserved,” Willow replied, picking up another bone I didn’t recognize. She inspected it as if it belonged to some ancient creature that pony-kind had never seen. Though, ancient might be the right choice to describe the ponies of a better era. “Must be the balefire energy doing it.”

She was likely right. Even the one I had crushed under my hooves didn’t have any signs of mold or other decay. The sand and balefire had worked as one, preserving the remains of the pony, even if those remains were so scattered one would never find every piece of it. Perfect for balefire fossils to turn into its weapons and armor.

“Rhapsody.” I turned from the bone I had shattered to Dead Hooves, who looked up and down the highway with her ears pinned. “Is there a siren in the wind?”

I shook my head as we started moving again. DH scanned the surroundings before scurrying to me, the look on her face hinted at something that was best described as dread. She seemed certain something was wrong with the environment, but the radiation counter in the NB-2 was ticking at the same rate as usual. There was no balefire fossil to worry about.

With a steady, but rather slow pace (the wind was far stronger than I remembered), we marched further and further along. More scattered bones across the ground, more rusted carriages piled up or blocking the way. The latter was little to no work for Sharpshot, Gemini, and Willow, and the ear grating sound of sand hitting my armor muffled the screeching of rusted metal. What holes there were on the bridge were easy enough to spot and avoid, making for a smooth experience.

Which is probably why, after twenty minutes of walking, the world threw a curveball at me.

It is not often I find definitive signs that point to the wasteland itself being alive, like some believe it to be. Most of the time it was easy enough to choke up to coincidence or inevitability. Ponies who never got the mental health help they needed degraded into barbarism, betrayal of trust, the ravenous hunger of one of the land’s many mutated wildlife. All just mentioned is easily chalked up to being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or a frayed string snapping.

When the sounds of a siren climbed loud enough to pierce the storm, I found one of the few true examples of the area around me being alive. Everycreature stopped, staring back at where we had come from. I turned around completely, then took a step back in search of what was possibly making that noise.

When the sound of the siren started to fade, I thought the strange happenings had ended. Instead the siren’s wail started rising again, but it was no longer alone. Panicked, incoherent voices started to pop up, along with the sound of auto carriages whizzing by. Panic turned into scream, the roar of carriages ending with a horrific class of metal against metal.

“Rhapsody?” Willow called out telepathically. “Is that what a balefire fossil sounds like?”

I shook my head, refusing to turn back to face her. The sound was familiar, but it wasn’t because I had heard in the storm before. No, I had heard it merely a day ago, talking to the spirit of a young filly who had perished alone. The same siren wailed in the nearly incoherent voices that had filled my head upon touching her.

A siren I was now certain belonged to one event: the dropping of megaspells on Equestria. We were hearing a remnant of the last day. What had taken place on this highway as ponies desperately fled for the nearest stable.

Most, if not all of them, were likely dead.

“K-keep moving!” I ordered with an uncharacteristic stutter. DH caught it immediately, her earlier concern growing. As I started to turn around to continue walking, I restated my command. “I don’t know what is causing it, so for the love of Luna keep mov–“

I nearly screamed as I faced forward, a petrified look of utter terror meeting my eyes. A stallion was there before me, translucent like DH and the aforementioned filly, but with none of the movement. Though his eyes were bearing into me, they clearly weren’t looking at me. They were focused on something else. Something far more terrifying than one armored pegasus.

“There are so many.”

The nameless spectral filly’s voice briefly caught me off guard as she appeared from nowhere. They had clearly caught DH off guard too… but the filly was only a prelude to the real terror. A terror that took the form of at least two dozen spirits, just as frozen as the first stallion. Some stared off in that very same direction at such great, unseen horror. Others fled in fright.

“These aren’t like any other spirits I’ve met,” DH whispered, her voice barely audible over the time-displaced calls of the megaspell siren. “What is… what is going on?”

Neither the filly or myself had an answer. We were both too frightened at this final, frozen moment of terror. It was like some ghastly 3D photograph of Equestria’s final moments as balefire descended upon them all.

Balefire.

“The balefire energy never faded. The storm must be keeping it active somehow, like an ash storm,” I stated. “It’s keeping them frozen in their moment of death. It’s probably played out so many times by now that…,” despite knowing it was the likely truth, the words still took far too long to leave my mouth. It was too terrifying a truth, “… there is nothing left of them. Their forms are here but their minds? Gone.”

“Gone?” The filly asked. She faced me with a look of horror, as if this was the first time she had ever considered the possibility of death. “You mean, they are dead?”

DH looked at me in hopes that I would take the question. I’m certain she saw my petrified stare, because immediately after she gave the spectral filly a nod.

So much was weighing on my soul already. Telling a filly she and everything around was gone was suddenly pushing myself way too far. Twenty-four hours ago, a more ignorant mare might have been able to do what I could not.

“Pegasus okay?” Gold asked, bringing my attention to the four living ponies watching me. “Memories too much?”

I shook my head. “It’s… too much to explain. W-we got to keep moving. Resting here isn’t safe.”

Before any of them were able to stop me, I started walking at a much faster pace than I had before. I needed to get out of here. I should have taken the train. Everything about this situation was becoming too much and the siren in my ears was doing nothing more than make the building anxiety within me worse.

Tick… Tick…

I didn’t care that I might have been leaving my companions behind; thinking about anything other than getting out of the storm was too difficult. The sounds of siren, along with sand hitting armor, had finally taken any attempts of rationality away.

I just had to go forward. Keep going forward till the sound is gone. Keep going forward till the spectral filly couldn’t find me. Keep going forward till I am safe from the past.

Tick… Tick… Tick..Tick.. Tick

The siren never stopped, and every look around me just revealed more spirits. The frozen faces of terror, the screams the wind accompanied each face with, every piece of their remaining being etched its way into my mind. When I looked at a new one, it didn’t replace the pony before. They just blended into each other, further distorting their mental image until what I saw wasn’t a pony. I’m not sure what it was but… the way their muzzle stretched, the deformation of the eyes, none of it was equine.

None of it was right.

Tick.. Tick.. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I didn’t stop walking until I collided muzzle first with a spirit I had somehow not seen. My entire body froze up as I felt the world blended together. There was nothing to focus on visually, just like when DH and I had touched the spectral filly the day prior. All I got was sound. Gasps, screams, pleads, all incoherent yet at the same time more clear than they had been previously.

All save for one voice, and two very simple sentences.

“Run! Run!”

“It’s okay. Papa is here. Papa is here.”

Ticktickticktickticktickticktickticktick.

I fell forward at the same time as the mindless specter I had accidentally come into contact with. It was too much. It was all too much. Being here was so much more than I ever should have thought myself able to handle. I was so encompassed by the siren that I never saw the shadow darkening my armor or the group of creatures, both dead and alive, that came up to me in worry.

Everything about them to their cries of worry (or annoyance, more likely) to their forms were impossible. The siren and screams had wounded me… but the cry of a father – a genuinely good father – left me unable to continue. The wasteland had done it. It had proved itself to be alive. It did it by destroying what tattered remains of pride and bravery I knew.

As if satisfied with the tartarus it had put me through, the siren faded, and the spirits likely did as well. It was only then some semblance of me came back, only for the first thing for me to hear being Sharpshot as he stomped on my armor.

“Oh for fuck sake will you just get up!”

“Hun please.”

“You think you're done? You think whatever the fuck is going on is enough for me to allow you to just crumple up and die. No!”

He stomped on me again, before suddenly using the power of both his body and telekinesis to lift me back onto my hoof. As I steadied myself, mind still trying to untangle itself from the horrors and events I had just taken part in, both of his hoofs reached for my helmet. Gemini moved forward to stop him, but Gold was both closer and faster to it by putting an armored claw on his hoof. The ghoul briefly looked at the griffon, the latter giving a shake of his head.

Boundaries set, he settled with a slap to the helmet… which he instantly regretted as he pulled it back with a visible wince. For some reason that was the sound that managed to rouse a reaction from me, taking a faltering step back as I looked at the group before me. Dead Hooves and the spectral filly stayed off to the side, but their faces of terror were the only ones I was able to make out.

In my state, the first thing that the helmeted and hidden faces of my living companions made me think of was disappointment. Then embarrassment at being near me. The final thing, and the one I mostly linked with Sharpshot, was anger.

“What the fuck was going on with you?!” He exclaimed. I took another step back, only barely holding in the urge to shrink and cower.

“I-I-I can- I don’t… spirits and….” I shook my head in hopes that it might help me speak. Instead it just made me aware of how much I could feel my heart pumping in my chest, as well as the way I breathed. “So much. Too much. I-I need to get out. Storm is making it har…”

Ticktickticktickticktickticktick

Completely oblivious to my somehow still heightening fears, Willow took a step forward. “Singing, you’ve been distressed since that siren started wailing. Are you really al–”

“We have to move!” I screamed out, lurching forward. “Have you all noticed? I fucked up. I couldn’t think and–”

The ground trembled. Both Willow and Sharpshot’s ears perked up, facing my direction. Those of us with power armor became far too aware of how rapidly the radiation counter ticked. Turning to face the highway’s left railing, I backed away.

It was just far enough for a large appendage made of bones to not grab me. I didn’t have names to give to any of the bones save for that which made up the appendage’s claws: broken ribs, turned into point. Instead it clutched the railing and used it to pull itself further up.

Daring to look away from it, I glared at the living creatures behind me. “For Luna’s sake run!”

“No need to say it twice,” Gold said.

He took off like a lightning bolt, followed by Gemini, and then Sharpshot. His wife’s awe at the creature's side momentarily caused her to step forward, but Sharpshot’s magic gripped her tail hard enough that he was able to drag her away from something she no doubt saw as a worthy challenge. That left me at the rear, and going against my own words I instead looked at the beast that was climbing up to meet me.

Attached to the appendage of bones, an inconceivable mass of bones, all broken and jagged. Inside it all, a ghastly green orb of pure necrotic magic could barely be seen pulsing like a heart. As the mass landed on the highway, the bone-claw it made rejoined its main body. In an attempt of intimidation, its bones instead formed into the pale imitation of a hellhound’s face.

Then with all its strength, that face roared at me. A roar that turned the screams of the time frozen specters around me into its own, making one long, harrowing banshee wail to end them all. I knew this scream well, it had haunted my dreams for years.

It was the scream of a balefire fossil.

It stood stock still, one thought going through my mind: make sure the others make it out alive. That meant this thing had to be slowed down, and I had a brand new toy I had the use of. As the head it formed melted back into its mass, I readied the Atomizer and aimed it directly at the beast.

“You… you think you can actually kill that thing?” I heard DH say from one side of me. I was too focused to pay attention to which.

“No, but if Synthesis was right.” I took a single, nervous step back as the beast of bone and balefire once created that clawed appendage, just barely missing my armor, “then this should definitely slow it down.”

The pull of the Atomizer’s trigger happened right as something grabbed my tail and dragged me backwards, causing my shot to go wildly to the left. DH and the spectral filly rushed to me as I was dragged a good yard or two back until I saw the rag covered hooves of Sharpshot. I looked up at him, and found he was looking back at the balefire fossil.

“In my defense, I thought you had gone back into your little mental episode,” he yelled at me. “Was trying to save your ass.”

“Attempt appreciated,” I replied as I reloaded the Atomizer.

The distance he had given us had given me the chance for another shot, but that was all this thing had. One claw turned into two, and with frightening speed the fossil closed in. Loaded, aiming at its body, and ignoring the slight glow of the ghoul next to me, I took my chance and pulled the trigger.

A mass of dark energy left the gun as soon as DH passed me, and I wasn’t going to stand still in case my plan failed. Turning on my hooves, I tapped Sharpshot’s shoulder. Neither of us wanted to know how big the blast radius was, and neither of us wanted to be close to the fossil when the shot impacted. An impact that came a mere second after accelerating into a gallop, the pull of something behind me nearly knocking me off my hooves.

Daring to look back as we ran, I expected to see the fossil grasping onto one of my legs. Instead I bore witness to it breaking the asphalt with its claws. A hole of pure nothingness swirled just behind it, some of the smaller and less tangled bones sucked into it. The core of the balefire monstrosity, however, seemed untouched.

Reality collapsed in on the hole of nothingness, unleashing a surge of energy that destroyed even more bones. Again the actual core of the fossil lay unscathed, so I looked back in front of me and kept on running. I ran and ran, dodging and jumping over carriages and other debris that tried to block our path. They may not have truly stopped us but they definitely slowed us down, and the fossil didn’t need to maneuver around them.

The sounds of metal being thrashed and more asphalt being broken signaled how much force its calcium-made and balefire-infused armor/weaponry was able to withstand. It shouldn’t have been possible to hear it with the storm, but the force in which it slammed the ground each time it cracked the road told me the opposite. Even worse, it was quickly getting louder.

“I’ll stop for a moment and hit it again!” I shouted over the tantrum. I followed it up by quickly reloading the Atomizer. “Don’t stop running. No attempts to save my ass.”

Sharpshot nodded. “Trust me, I don’t want to look at that… thing again anyways.”

As soon as he finished his unnecessary witty comment, I slammed a hoof into the ground and spread my wings. Lifting my other three hooves off the ground, I turned myself around on the ground like I was in midair. As if viewing my hoof-slam as a challenge, balefire fossil crashed its formed claws into the ground, cracking it with the ease of glass.

“Hey bitch, recognize these things?” I said with a flap of my wings. It formed that head again, this time snarling at me. “This ones for the soldiers you made sure never saw their home again. This ones for the Enclave!”

It raised one claw up, and I pulled the trigger. As it fell towards the ground, an orb of pitch black sored towards it effortlessly. I started flapping rapidly, letting the wind pull me away from the beast’s attack and nearly over the edge of the highway. I only remained on due to hooking my injured foreleg around the railing.

As I grabbed the railing, the orb impacted a bone. There was no explosion, which initially made me worried that the round had been a dud. Then, where the orb impacted, existence itself seemed to fold in, taking pieces of not just the bones surrounding its core, but pieces of the core itself!

A core I knew was nigh invincible. The screams of the dead returned, far more harrowing and unnatural than previously. Even with it managing to damage the balefire fossil’s core – particle upon particle of its being being torn away – it wasn’t enough to wipe it from existence.

A moment of calm hit as the miniature black hole stopped, pulled everything around me towards it, and I relaxed my hold on the railing. It proved to be another severe lapse of judgment in a day full of them, as a burst of energy suddenly bursts outwards, further destroying what defenses and weaponry the fossil had… as well as flinging me completely off the highway.

My wings opened in an attempt to catch me, but the gales of the sandstorm saw it more fitting to toss me about like a doll. Knowing my options were either to plummet to the ground, likely breaking my spine in the process, or flailing about in some faint hope that I was able to steady my flight. As seconds ticked by, I did everything within my power to gain some manner of control as–

Magic rushed through me, centering on a point on the top of my head; my horn. The wellspring of power inside me is called forth. I gaze into the eyes of the pegasus before me. They are dull, filled with life but without will. It hurt to see, and it made me falter. I couldn’t do this to my step-sister. It wasn’t right.

So I stopped channeling, allowed the tears on my face to do the talking, and hugged her. I repeated again and again that I was sorry for nearly using her. She hugs me back and forgives me.

“We can’t change who we are,” she says. “We can only shift into a better version of ourselves.”

My body seizes, and where there had once been feeling from supposed limbs on my back was now nothing. My helmet felt both like it didn't fit and did at the same exact time, and a slight numbness briefly passed through my legs. All of it managed to briefly distract me from the fact I was currently airborne. I was airborne, my forgotten wings had gone limp, and because of it gravity found its hold on me.

I started to plummet.

Instead of trying to flap wings, I instead found my limbs flailing under me. I foolishly tried to conjure up that same feeling of magic, and it was then I remembered that I had no horn. My wings returned to me, but at that point it was too late.

The ground met my head, and black filled my vision.

“So you made it back home… just to end up back here. Back where you should have died with the rest of us.”

Those were the first things I heard when consciousness returned, though they didn’t register. My head felt like several bells were ringing far too loudly, and the sound of the storm made that ringing worse. Everything hurt, and my limbs felt both responsive and unresponsive at the same time. Even opening my eyes felt difficult, the light of either the MentaBuck or NB-2’s E.F.S. sending another wave of nausea and pain to my head.

A sensible pony would realize the concussion they suffered and not try anything stupid. Unfortunately that wasn’t how ponies with concussions liked to think, and right now that was me.

My hooves moved mindlessly, as if the nerves in my body were feeding them random and opposite signals compared to what I really wanted. Even if I did get one hoof under me, the hoof didn’t stay there. It felt like I was dreaming, but the way my head swam was too real for that to be possible.

“Take your time, Sergeant Major. We want to talk to our murderer face to face before shoving her back down.”

The words were clear, yet at the same time they didn’t fully reach me. Instead I focused on the fact the voices wanted me to get up, and get up I did. It took serious effort, but with time I had managed to get two hooves under me instead of just one. The third was easy, and the fourth hoof felt like a victory lap.

I was standing. Now to see who was actually speaking to me.

Head still ringing, I dared to open my eyes the tiniest amount possible that didn’t lead to my headache worsening. That proved to be not at all; the armor’s lights felt that intense to my brain. For a brief moment, my hooves moved to remove the helmet in a desperate attempt to free my horn.

… horn?

My wings snapped open, all feeling having returned to them. With the reminder of their presence, that nagging sensation I had a horn faded. I made the mistake of shaking my head, causing the bells within my brain to ring even louder. I stumbled back, hindlegs nearly buckling under me with how unsteady I felt.

“Singing… Singing Rhapsody,” I muttered to myself. “I am Singing Rhapsody. This headache is nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Please don’t fuck with us, Seargent Major. We both know that landing wouldn’t kill you. The fossils couldn’t.”

This time I actually paid attention to more than just pieces of what was being spoken to me, and my body tightened up. Knowing how much it would hurt but not caring, I opened my eyes and braved the stinging it sent into my eyes. Even then it was impossible to open them fully, and I settled for half-open. It wasn’t as much as I had wanted, but it was more than enough for me to get a vague outline of the ponies – the spirits – before me.

Four pegasi, all dead, stood in front of me with amusement fixed onto their expression. An expression that was a flimsy wooden mask even a concussed mare like myself was able to see past. The amusement didn’t create a true smile, and the way their eyes narrowed and brow remained low told me it was hate that fueled their smirks, not joy. One stood closer to me then the rest, a white stallion with an odd mix of blue and green in his mane. I did not need to see his flank to know his cutie mark, given it matched his name perfectly/

“Domino.” I slurred, barely managing to catch myself as my body tried to take itself back to the ground. Though he was unable to see it, I smiled in an attempt to disarm the hostility in the air before me. “It’s… it’s been sometime. Good to see you again.”

My greeting only served to make the air of hostility before me increase, Domino’s smirk turning into a frown. He took a step forward. “I’m afraid the feeling isn’t mutual Splinter. I had hoped to never see your face, or that you would be just like the rest of us.”

One of the ghosts behind him took a step forward. I recognized her too, but then again of course I did. Every one of these pegasi were individuals I had failed. In this case the failure came in the form of a forest green mare with a barely seeable red and pink mane. She seemed to be on the verge of crying. I expected her to speak, but Domino continued.

“So you actually made it back, stayed alive. I’m not sure whether I want to congratulate you or not, considering those you killed.”

“Domino… Mistletoe,” I looked to the orange mare as I spoke, noting how her spectral form froze up. I then turned to the last two, stallion and mare; one with a dull brown coat with an equally duller brown mane and tail, the other a vibrant pink with a mane and tail of violet and a single strand of blue. “Hard Landing, Fair Breeze, I’m sorry. I don’t know if it’ll change anything but–”

“You haven’t changed, so why would it?” Mistletoe replied. Her words sent a freeze chill into my spine, making me the most still I had felt in my current state. Overly large, black tear trails went down her face, just the same as Bone Breaker. “Why Rhapsody? Why did you come back? When did you betray us? The Enclave? Everyone you loved and cared about?”

I managed to open my eyes a little more, an uncertain breath filling the helmet of the NB-2. “You know? Then you’ve been watching me?”

“Why would we? We didn’t know you were here until a grounder told us,” Domino replied, his attention turning from me to somepony at my right. “I almost feel pity for the poor thing.”

I followed his gaze, and the frost Mistletoe’s questions had placed over me thawed. I tried to step back as I looked to see Bone Breaker staring at me, rage and hatred contorting her ghastly expression into something near incomprehensible. I fell backwards, unable to tear my eyes off of… whatever it was she was becoming. The face didn’t belong on a pony, it didn’t belong on anything. What in tartarus was her rage doing to her?

“You remember the stories about windigo’s, Splinter?” Domino asked me. I couldn’t answer; Bone Breaker’s expression had me in its grasp and kept my vocal chords from doing anything. “Spirits of ice, filled with hate and nothing else. I can’t help but wonder, is it possible for us to become that? But then again, they also disappeared when the mega spells hit.” He finally turned back to me, stepping in front of Bone Breaker and freeing me from her grasp. “Still, what you have done to this mare. Death truly does follow you, doesn’t it?”

“I didn’t know this would happen to her,” I replied. It sounded more like I was about to plead for my life, and considering my head had found itself between my front hooves its quite possible some part of me believed the end was near. “I didn’t even know she was going to die. She’s a mother Domino, and for a g… grounder,” Why was that word so hard to get out now? I had been saying it my whole life, “she was a good one. I didn’t mean to do this to her, to her son.”

“And yet you did. Just like you did to us,” Fair Breeze replied softly. She hadn’t moved, staying next to the still silent stallion staring at me. “Which leads back to Mistletoe’s question. Why Rhapsody? Why did you abandon the Enclave?”

“I didn’t!”

I hadn’t meant to yell, and a small part of my brain called myself a liar as soon as I did it. Didn’t make the harsh wince from the spirits before me any less immediate, Domino specifically taking several steps back as my head suddenly surged forward. The action hurt, but it had been the most in control of myself I had felt since before getting the results of that heritage test.

“You know I’m a dashite, but in my heart I still yearn to protect my home. You call me a traitor, but you use that name on the wrong ponies.” Despite the struggle, I managed to lift myself under my own power once again. “Four pegasi came down here with secrets they shouldn’t have, and I already got proof from the pony truly responsible for killing that they have a piece of it. Those secrets could hurt the ponies I love, and the family you still have up there.” I nudged my head upwards into the sand-riddle sky. “That is why I came down here. I didn’t abandon the Enclave, I martyred myself.”

I dared to take a step forward, doing my best to keep my voice both powerful and neutral. It was strange, having all this strength suddenly come surging into me after hours of self-doubt and questions, but it felt good. Despite everything that had happened, hearing myself talked down upon – to have what faith I still had remaining in the Enclave tested – still angered me.

The moment made me realize that it didn’t matter how I was born, because I was where I needed to be. For the sake of my family, my fellow soldiers, the council, and all the ponies who no doubt would hate me if they knew who I truly was, I had chosen to fight. The protection of the citizens I had once served depended on me; this was not the time to let questions of who I was get the better of me.

That would remain for later, when I was back with Willow. I had to keep pressing for now, regain control of the discussion that up to this point had been entirely one-sided. I may not have been as good of a politician as Ironsight or Harbinger, but I was on the high council. You don’t get that high up unless you can hold your ground in an argument.

“Hate me. Despise me. I understand. I’m sorry I got all of you killed. That never should have happened.” If they were surprised at my words, none of them showed it. They just kept staring. “But the past is the past and I can’t change it. What I can change is a possible course to our home’s destruction. If you still love the ponies up there – the ones you cherish, and that I foolishly led you all to never be able to see again – I ask that you believe that much. For the good of pegasi all across the sky. For the good of the Enclave. I beg you to accept that much.”

In any other situation, I might have been convincing. To a hippogriff, zebra, unicorn, or any other manner of surfacer, that most definitely would have been enough. I’d seen Ironsight win ponies over with less, both in words and truth, and while I wasn’t as good as him I certainly wasn’t terrible. That alone allowed me to feel confident about my words, until I remembered one small detail.

Bone Breaker had told them about my brand. They knew I was a dashite, and as the realization dawned on me that everything I had said was for nothing all four spirits put those feelings into an expression. The one most clear to read was Mistletoe, lips curving downward to an unnatural degree. She was an oil puddle waiting for a match to set it to flame, yet she was not the one to ignite.

That honor belonged to Hard Landing, who I hadn’t even seen move until he was right in front of my face. More than any of the other ponies present, his expression was mixed with both hate and fear in equal measures. The former was directed at me, but the latter? It was directed at something else.

“Rhapsody,” he replied, propelling the name from his lips like it belong to a demon more than a pegasus, “how fucking delusional are you? Do you think we’ll buy your lies as much as the grounders down here?”

Before I was able to respond, three things happened. The first two were connected with each other, with something in Landing’s expression glare changing without physically showing and this… warmth growing in my fur. Not the kind of warmth you get with a blush or baking under the sun, but more like the beginnings of a fever. A fever that I recognized as not being normal.

I briefly checked the radiation counter on both the NB-2 and the MentaBuck just in case the former had been damaged from the fall. Both read zero, which only made the fact I recognized it even worse… especially as it slowly seemed to creep as Mistletoe’s stare gained that same quality Hard Landing’s had.

The third thing that kept my muzzle shut was Domino choosing to speak.

“I doubt you know the full length of the suffering we’ve been through. You managed to live through it, after all,” I tried to take a step back, but as Fair Breeze’s gaze gained that supernatural hold over me, the heat finally reached fever levels; a really, really bad fever at that. My hind legs, both from said fever and the concussion, gave out under me. “We are more than happy to make you aware of it. Just stay still.”

“Dom… Domino please I… I… what?”

That little moment of clarity I had when I had told them of my commitment to the Enclave fell away as Domino’s eyes gained that same power. The way my eyes blurred it was hard to tell I was falling until I hit the ground, a sensation that felt like being thrown against a brick wall at mach one. Everything was warm, too warm in fact, as if my body wished to burn into flames. It didn’t, the coals inside just getting worse and worse.

Earlier, a siren, the sand hitting my armor, and the ghastly screams of ponies long dead had taken my thoughts away through overstimulation in terror. I started to feel something similar happen here, but it wasn’t because of the wasteland. My entire body felt unusually heavy, my chest rising more dramatically as I took laboured breath after labored breath. I was aware and not at the same time, and everything seemed to shut down…

…

… and then my jaw opened in a sudden, silent screaming.

They had timed the switch of my torment perfectly. The worst fever of my life was lessened and replaced with something going through my chest, stomach, and gut at the same exact time. The moment my brain nearly shut down from a false experience, the real one took its place. A rapidly advancing death from radiation sickness was replaced with my body being ripped open by a beast I hadn’t seen.

I felt something oddly cold leave the points of impact. Even with my brain working at nowhere near full capacity I knew what bloodloss felt like. Yet the fact it felt cold rather than hot was deeply concerning. I tried to move my eyes, but the sickness doubled and brought me back into a state of least resistance. I just laid there, thinking that surely this, this experience was real…

…

… but of course it wasn’t.

This time I did scream. Sickness turned into a painful, sizzling sensation all across my skin as I realized that I hadn’t been impaled thrice over either. No, that initial heat I felt became a personal inferno. My eyes widened as best they could, positive I was burning alive in my power armor and trying desperately to get it off. Get it off and roll on the ground to put the fire out. Get it off, and truly expose myself to the radiation of this tartatus-damned sandstorm.

Instead all I did was thrash about like a pony having a night terror. There was no coherent word, though I’m certain Domino and the others knew I was begging them to get my suit on me. They didn’t, and without the blurriness the first false experience brought I saw the look on my face every time my flailing head looked in his direction.

Contempt. Pure, simple contempt.

He was enjoying seeing his supposed murderer suffer, and while none of it was truly comprehendible at the time I hate to say I can’t blame him. To see the one who ruined your life squirm for you? That was my most selfish reason for accepting a dashite branding.. All of it was hell, and twisted, and fucked like very few other things could be considered fucked. Yet I understand on some morbid, terrifying level why.

From there everything just… blurs together. Accelerated radiation poisoning, skewered and left to bleed out, burned to near death by the fire portion of balefire. It was a cycle, and one they had seemingly rehearsed and readied. Whether any of the others shared Domino’s happiness at seeing me suffer was unknown. I’m not sure how long I was put through it, or how many times they looped back to that start of the sequence.

All I remembered was being so tired that, even with them changing from one former of torture to the other, I was fading into a state of mental nothingness. It was so strong that even the hope it would end was kept from me.

Yet somehow, it did.

The clearing of the fog wasn’t revitalizing, nor did it give me strength. Mental and physical exhaustion weren’t something the equine body was able to bounce back from unless adrenaline hadn't been allowed to set in. When the torment abruptly ended during yet another session of false radiation poisoning, I just laid there. No ability to question who saved me, no ability to question why they had stopped. I was on the verge of falling into a deeper sort of sleep. The kind between death and the sleep we experience every standard night in our lives.

Though my vision was a blur, I was able to make out a form standing over me. All that presented itself to the blobs I associated with Domino and Hard Landing was half blotted out by a streak of tan. A more conscious Rhapsody would have put the dots together. I wasn’t thar Rhapsody.

“Repeat after me,” it said. It wasn’t a request or a suggestion, but a demand. “You won’t hurt Singing Rhapsody.”

The blobs that were my torturers tried to speak. The voice spoke up again, but this time harsher and even more demanded.

“Repeat after me: you. Won’t. Hurt. Singing Rhapsody!”

The first demand made something in my brain click, but the second locked the pony’s words into place… though ‘words’ didn’t feel accurate. It was more like a law had been coded into my brain like the prime directive of an old world machine. It didn’t matter so much to myself at that time, but it wasn’t me the law was actually pointed towards. It was for the blobs that made up Domino Effect, Mistletoe, Hard Landing, and Fair Breeze.

Blobs that disappeared right after this mare had spoken law.

Nothing made a lot of sense after that; all my senses were numb and I was minutes away from passing out. What I was able to make was the pony before leaning over, and starting to make a shoving motion at me. I think she was trying to move me, get me up, but I didn’t have the energy to do it. From their motion blurred into motion, and in it all only two things stood out.

Two new blobs showed up, colors mixing together between them to the point it was recognizable. Everything was just masses of color, nothing made sense. All I knew is that I felt some form of relief at seeing these colors, and it allowed me to drift off.

Sleep took me over.

…

…

…

“Dead Hooves?”

…

…

“Dead Hooves?!”

…

“Dead Hooves!”

“Dead Hooves, wake up!”

Author's Note

And with that act 1 – and our time in Trotson – comes to a close. I hope you've all enjoy this first stage of Rhapsody's journey, as strange and wild as it may get at certain point.

I will see you all in act 2; in San Palomino.

Audio found...

Audio files found on public Enclave terminal

Play audio?

Yes No

Playing recording…

Unknown 1
So, things haven’t been well.

[Glass clink]

Unknown 2
No. No it hasn’t. I know things would be bad after Rhapsody left but… are you sure you want to be seen with me Ironsight?

Ironsight
And leave you with no one to talk to? No one to vent your frustrations too? No way in tartarus I’m allowing that.

Unknown 2
Even given your approval ra–

Ironsight
Even given my approval rating. Besides, it's the least I can do as an apology.

Unknown 2
Apology?

[Sip]

Ironsight
For being the reason your wife got branded. She had the chance to take an honorable discharge.

Unknown 2
Wh-what? So you mean she didn’t actually–

Ironsight
Betray us? No, Anchor. She had a slip of the tongue; said the wrong things around the wrong pegasi.

Anchor
…

Ironsight
I tried my best, I did. You know if I had the ability, she would still be here with us but… you know how she takes an insult.

Anchor
Her trust got betrayed.

Ironsight
Exactly

>> Fast Forward >>

[Thud]

Anchor
Fucking Calamity. Of course this all is because of him.

Ironsight
He was the catalyst, but we can’t blame him for everything. He has already been punished. All of this is at the hooves of pegasi she trusted with her life. The loyalty – the trust – didn’t go both ways.

Anchor
And killing him directly wouldn’t have done any good. It would have just proved his point to the weaker minded.

Ironsight
Correct.

[Tap tap]

Ironsight
Miss Gin, a High Rise EPA for my friend. On my tab.

Gin
You got it General.

[Glass clink]

Anchor
You don’t have to.

Ironsight
I know, but I want to. Allow this politician a moment to do something more selfless, instead of selfish.

[Object slides against wooden surface]

Gin
Here you are, sir. Iron Anchor, right?

Anchor
Yeah.

Gin
You have my apologies. I’m certain your next partner will be a better pegasus.

[Hoof clops]

[Heavy slam]

Ironsight
You have my apologies too.

Anchor
And I should accept yours because?

Ironisght
I took your wife away from you. It may have been my choice but… no, that’s me trying to excuse my own actions. I took away the most important pony in your life, and have made the life of both you and your foals tartarus.

[Sip]

Anchor
…

Ironsight
…

Anchor
Do you… can you begin to understand what Clear and Rainy are going through? At school? At home?

Ironsight
…

Anchor
I don’t accept your apology. Thanks for coming clean but… I can’t believe you, Ironsight. It would have– I know the security risk it would have otherwise entailed– I just want her back.

Ironsight
I know.

Anchor
If you did, you wouldn’t have sent her down.

>> Fast Forward >>

Anchor
…

Ironsight
…

Anchor
…

Ironsight
… Iron.

Anchor
…

Ironsight
After everything I’ve done to you… who do you believe more? The high council… or Calamity?

Anchor
G-General?

Ironsight
Don’t worry, I won’t tell anypega if it is the latter. It’s just… I’ve had time to think, since the M.A.M. documents were stolen. about what I was doing; about what I was going to do. It makes me wonder, and leads the mind to make comparisons.

Anchor
I’d hardly compare an uncivilized land of death to a country with a functioning government and military.

Ironsight
Just… humor me for a second, Iron.

Anchor
*sigh*. Okay, sure.

Ironsight
I’m not saying either side is right or wrong, but… Calamity’s words about helping the surface came to me during the course of Rhapsody’s court martialing. A better pegasus wouldn’t have jumped to where I did in the wake of Calamity’s speech, and wouldn’t have had their project okay’d. I was willing to murder every single grounder I could just because of one pony. How is that any different than what the filth down there does?

Anchor
I see your point… but that doesn’t make him correct. One pegasus can’t demolish anarchy. What Calamity wished for is optimistic to the point of ideal.

Ironsight
And yet, since his speech, more than a few pegasi have found something in his words that made sense. He played a chord that, while on its own was quiet, grew in volume thanks to his banishment. We leave him be? He wins. We imprison him? He wins. Banish him? Calamity. Wins!

[Heavy slam]

Ironsight
It’s just… every piece of it is frustrating. Maybe… maybe I am saying he is right. We wouldn’t be here discussing this now if we had listened to the truth… right?

Anchor
If you don’t mind me saying, General, that is a… worrying line of thought.

Ironsight
I’m aware!

[Heavy slam]

Ironsight
But, winds damn it, I have enough of a conscience compared to some of those working around me. Enough to look back at on the past few months and say to myself “Bullseye? What the actual fuck were you doing?” Thus, I return to my original question.

Anchor
…

[Sip]

Ironsight
It really is good stuff. You should have at least a little.

Anchor
I’ll pass, General.

[Skidding of a chair]

Anchor
Oh, and as for the answer to your question?

Ironsight
…

Anchor
I... don't know.

[Hoof Clops]

Author's Note

This is, without a doubt, the most experimental chapter I've written.

For those of you familiar with Cytus 2? The way the chapter is styled is probably going to be familiar to you.

Act 2 – Chapter 1: Black Licorice and White Feathers

Sweet Apple Acres, Ponyville

Day ???

“Dead Hooves! Wake up!”

Waking up to the sight of a blood-stained mare looking down, an odd predatory nature in her eyes, nearly made me scream. A hoof swung out to meet her face, and was shoved back down without looking away. The action brought a smile to her face, hungry. Not the “I need to eat her” kind of hungry I felt when staring at a corpse. It was the “you’re my type” kind of hunger… I think.

It was terrifying how clear the raider nature was in this pegasus. Any other pony would justifiably shoot her or try again for another punch. Then again those ponies had a working pair of hind legs and more wasteland experience. Since I didn't, I had no choice but to just sit there and hope this was just a standard for the crazy pegasus before me. She was my legs, and if her claims about wanting to know how it felt to save somehow held true, I wasn’t as dead a mare as my name suggested.

Didn’t mean her raider nature would be kinder just cause she wanted to know the feeling.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve been standing there since I…,” my words trailed off, eyes shifting from the lively violet of Willow Wisp to the rickety old boards that made up the nearest wall. “Where are we?”

“Just a little farmhouse retreat,” the bloodstained pegasus replied, pulling her head away from me. Her entire figure still towered over me, her stance giving a little reminder that she was the one in charge, not me. “You fell asleep some time after we left the bakery. This was the closest place for us to settle down while the storm passes.” She turned her attention to a window, the clouds notably less red then when I was last awake. “We should be significantly safer now. Most ash storms aren’t that long these years.”

I tilted my head. “So Equestria is finally being allowed to heal?”

“I would hardly say that. Not while master and I are around,” Willow said with an amused snort. The second sentence was quieter, the hunger that fueled her smile turning into something more resigned. “I… guess I’m free now. To an extent, at least.” A shake of her head, and she joyfully pranced over me and towards the door leading out of the room. “Take your time, get your bearings. Still some canned pastas in this place, so I’ll go prepare some bowls.”

With that, Willow disappeared out of my sight and left me alone. Alone with nothing but my thoughts and the silence of the world around me. The only sound that greeted my ears for a good few minutes was the slight whistle of the wind as it brushed against the outside of the farmhouse. I was in some random farmhouse, in a world I didn’t know, and a body that was not made to live in it.

I felt like I was on death’s row. It wasn’t a matter of if my legs were going to get me killed, but how soon. Probably as soon as Willow got sick of playing foalsitter. The novelty of saving a life would wear off sooner or later. She’d likely just leave me stranded in the middle of some field as food for some critter.

Whoever had kidnapped me and brought me to this town extended my lifespan, but not by much.

Rolling onto my side, I stared dejectedly at the old wooden floor board, the black and red of my mane blocking my vision. I didn’t bother to move it; it felt like too much work, and I was still able to examine this one particular plank with… fascination? No, not fascination. It was just a lame excuse to distract myself from destined death.

“Maple maybe? Oak? Probably not birch,” I murmured. My voice was so quiet half the syllables didn’t have any sound to them.

A groan of frustration left my throat, raw and far louder than any word I had spoken so far. Most ponies would have been justifiably happy to still be alive, but every thought I had was drowned out by a timer ticking down in my own head. The joy of still being alive was blocked out by the certainty that next time was the end. Next time a pony would place a bullet in my skull, or an axe through my ribcage, or worse.

I shivered. The thought of a fate worse than death was too unsettling. Even in my state, thoughts of the ways the worst of the wasteland could make somepony like me suffer was too much.

Forcing myself up with my front hooves, I dragged my ass over to the nearest corner of the room. The joining of both walls helped me get into a rather awkward sitting position. It wasn’t the most comfortable I’ve ever been, but it was what I had at that moment. Nothing about it made me look stronger, but it was better than nothing.

I sat there for… fuck if I know how long, but it was apparently long enough for food to be called ready. My ears turned to the door, the clip clop of hooves alerting me to Willow’s presence long before she stepped inside. As the should-be-pure-white pegasus entered, two ceramic bowls on her back, I dared to flash a smile. She smiled back.

“Probably going to taste worse than a bloat sprite rolled in shit, but it will work,” she warned me, gesturing towards the bowls with her head. With a gleeful yet cautious canter, she pranced over to me and slid one of them down her wing to me, catching the other with her left hoof. “Enjoy, blank flank.”

I briefly eyed the tombstone that she had on her own flank, then looked at my bare one. When I turned back to her so I could grab the bowl, an involuntary sigh found its way out of me.

“Fuck do you expect? I didn’t really have a chance to find out what I’m good at back home,” I responded, lifting a ravioli up with my magic.

Shoving it in my mouth, I felt myself nearly gag at the texture. It didn’t taste moldy or rotten, but it certainly didn’t taste right either. After a series of slow, horrid chews, I swallowed. I think the piece of heavily processed wheat tried to climb the back of my throat, considering I gagged even worse afterwards.

“Told you it was bad,” Willow said. I shot her the nastiest look my face was able to muster, but it didn’t scare her. The look of amusement on her face told me it did not work. “Still, it's what we got, so eat up.”

I grimaced at my bowl, resigned myself to my fate, and started eating. Each ravioli brought with it a series of gags that were quickly wearing on the pegasus before me. It must have been ravioli number seven that she swiped it away with a wing and a hoof. She wore a smile the entire time, though nothing about it gave off a friendly impression.

“Tell me, Dead Hooves,” she responded, her smile growing more maternal and unhinged at the same time,” do you value any organ in particular? Your kidneys, your stomach,” and the maternal-ness fell away to pure and sanity, “your lungs?”

Knowing my time was already short, and desperate for this to not be how I went out, I bobbed my head up and down as fast as possible. She held the bowl back out towards me, her gazing piercing flesh, muscle and bones to look at the purest essence of what made me Dead Hooves.

“Now eat. Quietly.” She thrust her hoof forward a bit more, her face the most understandable yet twisted joy she might have ever felt. The most in control she might have ever felt, and it was definitely going to her head. “Keep your whining till after you're done.”

She never finished her earlier threat, because she didn’t need to. I know what she was implying. It was fine; I was used to having no control of my own actions. The difference lay in the fact my dad at least tried to make me feel more powerful than I really was. Willow? She was just basking in a power trip that she had waited a lifetime to accomplish. I just had to live with the fact she was my only lifeline.

With her half-spoken threat hanging in the air, we went back to filling out stomachs. The pasta still tasted awful, but I held my gagging back as much as possible as we ate. There was one thing at home I missed, I guess. Dad had a little farm with tatos and carrots and the like, built in such a way that the ash couldn’t smother it. Those would have tasted at least three times better than this.

When the food was gone I set my bowl down, and took the opportunity to voice my disapproval of my meal. That came in the form of opening my mouth, letting my tongue lull out, and giving a “bleh”. Willow rolled my eyes, but since I had waited till after finishing my meal, as she asked, I didn’t find a lung on the floor and a hole in my chest.

Speaking of holes, I gave my previously injured shoulder a once over. It was well bandaged, a blotch of extremely dark red having formed where the entry wound was. I lit my horn on the bandages, believing it had done its job and that the wound would be gone. I only got as far as grasping the bandages before a cold, feathery appendage covered my horn. Turns out wings make a good magical insulator.

“I would recommend keeping it on until we either find a healing potion or get some more bandages,” Willow replied. How the fuck did this mare move so fast? “We got none of those right now. Keep that on until then.”

I nodded hastily. “O-okay, yeah, got it.” That was enough to get her wing away from me, and allowed me the chance to speak further. “So, uh, those ponies in that town there – the ones that tied it up and stabbed me – you know them?”

“Tartarus no,” she replied, a rather adorable snort escaping her.

This mare was all over the place; was she sane? Insane? Was this how all ponies in the wasteland are? I didn’t know at the time and I was terrified of the latter being true. It meant my dad was the only normal pony around, and even that was debatable. I’m pretty sure most normal ponies don’t stick their dick in a cannibal, but that was as far as his crazy went.

Willow wrapped her already extended wing around to her chest, placing it over her heart. “If I knew those ponies they wouldn’t have lived as long as I had. Hay, would have escaped sooner if I wasn’t trying to figure out why master ditched me.” The wing suddenly straightened, pointing to me. “Then you came along and, well, saw an opportunity that I’ve never gotten. Save a life and end a few more at the same time? Must be heartswarming day!”

“I’m… sure it is,” I replied, forcing a smile onto my muzzle. I needed her to like me, so my distaste of her apparent affection for bloodletting was probably not a good thing to voice. “And thanks again. You’ve given me a few more days of life at the very least.”

“It wouldn’t be called “saving a life” if you were a corpse right now.” Those words were followed by the most comfort and care her smile had carried so far. How did she manage to do so much with just one expression? “Though that does leave a question: why did they grab you? What could you do to anger ponies enough that we managed to meet in the first place?”

“I… I wish I knew,” I answered, ears folded. “Is it weird to say I’m grateful, though? I mean I know jackshit about the world. If they hadn’t come along I’d still be there with no food, no knowledge of how to grow food, and… his corpse.”

My stomach grumbled at the mention of my father. I clenched my eyes shut, shook my head, and forced down the fear that laid inside me. More than fear, actually; there was something else trying to whisper in my ear. A voice I knew from mom’s old stories. I had no choice! A pony needed to eat and there wasn’t anything around! If I didn’t do it I would be dead.

Each minute may be my last, but that didn’t mean I wanted to die!

“Do you know the ponies responsible?” Willow asked. I shook my head. “Can you think of anything you, your mother or father did that pissed ponies off?”

“Not really. I mean, mom ate ponies but she tried to hold the hunger in. She left us for my safety a couple years back, so I doubt she’d tell anypony about me and dad.” I ignored the slight horror that dawned Willow’s face as I spoke, looking forlorn into the ceiling. “Dad is a former Steel Ranger, and Steel Rangers are really good ponies. Maybe someone from back then had a grudge against him?”

“Steel Rangers are good ponies,” she mimicked back, tasting the words like they were a meal she was trying for the first time. “When he left the rangers, did he bring anything with him? Some rare weapons, a suit of power armor, perhaps a Pi–”

“Power armor. He had his power armor.”

Her eyes had trailed a bit with each item spoken, but the moment I confirmed one of her guesses as correct her eyes zeroed in on me. She tapped her hoof against the underside of her muzzle as she mumbled. I leaned in as much as I was able to without falling over, but it wasn’t enough to grasp what she was saying. Best guess I had was that she was considering whether a piece of power armor was worth killing over.

“Well you can figure all that out on your own,” she said, standing up. Her hoof placed the bowl she had been holding top-side down as she made her way over to me. “All I have to do is drop you off in Appleloosa and I can figure out more important things. Like figuring out why the master hooved me off to those ponies.”

I gave a nod, though it didn’t really matter. Her wing grabbed the gas mask I had used the day prior and flung it over to me, which I leaned over even more to catch. As my chest and stomach hit the floor, I pulled its strap over my neck and allowed it to hang loosely under my muzzle. The only filter I had was the one already in it, which was not exactly a good sign. It led to me giving a quick prayer to Celestia and Luna, in hope they would either see that I reach Appleloosa safely or make the trip to the Everafter quick and painless.

Willow took that time to quickly prepare herself for the possibility of another ash storm; while she had kept the clothing we had stolen from our captor on for myself, she had taken it off at some point between after I had fallen asleep. It took the length of my silent prayer and then a little bit more for her to be completely ready.

Once she was fully dressed, though definitely not comfortable given her clothing wasn’t designed for wings, she turned to me. “Ready?”

I only managed to get halfway through a nod before a new voice pierced our ears from the window.

“Hey, prisoner! Your yard time is up!”

Our attention turned to the window. Willow, in an attempt to get a look at whoever had spoken without being seen, got just enough airtime so that she could peek out from the window’s upper right corner. Her hooves thumped against the ground immediately after. While my heart start to thump in my chest, feeling certain based on this new pony’s words that, Willow simply chuckled.

“Ironic line for a stripe.”

While I didn’t approve of the term, the knowledge of what was outside actually caused me to beam a little. A zebra, other than my mom, right outside this little farmhouse we were currently located in. There was a brief excitement at the prospect of meeting one half of what made me “Dead Hooves” again for the first time in years! Excitement quickly squashed at the zebra’s next few words.

“That means come on out and show your face fuckwad!” they said. I had no idea what a fuckwad was but with how angry they sounded I wasn’t about to find out. “And do it quickly, unless you want to find out how a stalker causes property damage. It will hurt. Really, really hurt.”

The earlier fear compounded tenfold, and it only got worse when I saw that Willow was now the one beaming. She craned her head just enough to the left where she could see me. My heart skipped several beats at the hungry, animalistic intent that laid in her iris and pupils. I didn’t need a medical degree to diagnose her as mentally unstable.

“Well, Deady? Shall we go say hello?” she replied, that same maternal tone from earlier creeping back into her voice. “It’s rude to not greet a guest, you know.”

“Uh, y-y-yeah,” I stuttered out., shrinking as much as my body allowed me. It was not enough to hide me from her gaze.

A gathered shotgun and climbed onto a psychotic mare’s back later, and Willow and I found ourselves trotting down stairs, through a kitchen, and to the front door. Neither of us knew if the zebra outside had really set up explosives, so I was told to leave the shotgun just out of sight from the door. Close enough for my magic to reach, but far enough out of sight for me to grab in case things turned deadly.

That was probably the most surprising thing about the situation. Instead of deciding to kill the zebra, we were going to take a gambit. We knew from that stallion that talked to me when I woke up in Ponyville that I had been set up, and whoever I was being loaded off to might not know they had the wrong mare. The ever present friction between the zebras and pony tribes also made it possible that she was kept out of the loop. As for how we went about it… we were going to just tell the truth and hope their brains weren’t as malformed as a bloatsprite.

Willow opened the door at just the right speed where it didn’t seem like either of us were sweating buckets, which I was, and gave me my first glance at the zebra before us. They were a mare, the same age as me, wearing a jacket and combat vest on their front. The dreadlocks that made up her mane were cut short, revealing that her left ear was entirely missing, a nasty scar traveling from her right cheek to half way up her muzzle. Her left hoof held onto some round piece of black gum

Behind them laid the twisted form of an orchard, lightly covered in ash from the most recent storm. Dead trees covered every corner of the horizon, not a single apple in sight. The grown was similar coated in ash much like the town was, though with the ever moving wind it was quickly being blown into the distance. The magic in the ash wasn;t active anymore, making the way they constantly brushed against my face more an annoyance than anything.

The zebra ripped off a piece of it as she looked at us, and started to chew. The fire and rebellion in her eyes matched the manic happiness of Willow’s. Then she looked at me, and I once again found myself trying to shrink.

“So, you are the one the boss went through all that trouble to track down,” she replied, continuing to chew the entire time. With the way her lips peeled back as she looked at me, I was certain she wanted to snarl. “I’ll admit, you look a lot more pathetic than I imagined.”

I tilted my head at her. “Boss?”

“You don’t need to know. Earth pony!” She pointed a hoof at Willow. “Drop her. You’re not involved in this unless you resist.”

Willow and I shared a moment of understanding, knowing our educated guess had turned out to be correct. World might have ended, but the hostilities between zebras and ponies were still as strong as ever. If she knew what was truly going on, then no doubt she would know Willow was locked up with me.

Like a fish out of water, gracelessly flopped onto the ground. When I didn’t immediately stand back up, the zebra ended up raising her brow. She stepped towards me, looking past my head to my hind legs. The gears were starting to turn, but not everything was in place just yet. Her anger grew quicker than her brain was working. As long as she didn’t spit out the gum and grab her gum, I was fine.

At least, I thought that was the case.

“You’re supposed to get up,” she told me. “Come on, the longer I’m out of his sight the better reason he has to think I’ve betrayed him. So get up and–“

“I can’t walk, idiot!” I spat back at her. “Kind of hard to stand when your own body wants you dead.”

Instead of that fictional dawning of realization, she continued to chew her gum. Then, she circled me. When her body blocked my sight of Willow, her attention snapped to the pegasus instead. A feral energy had shaped their facial features into something predatory when I next saw it. Time was running short for this zebra mare.

“Is that what took you two so long to get out? Trying to pull some dirty Equestrian trick over me?” She asked. When neither of us gave an immediate answer, she pointed a hoof at me. “I want to see the bandages. Clothing off, now!”

My eyes went wide. “You think I shot myself!”

“Clothing! Off! Now!” She shouted louder.

Willow took a step forward, but I held a hoof out in a vain attempt to tell her to stop. To my surprise she actually did listen; probably a bit of conditioning kicking in from being subservient for so many years. I made a mental note to be careful about making darker jokes aimed at her, and then did as asked.

I was used to mom or dad helping me get everywhere and do anything, so declothing wasn’t that embarrassing. It was agonizing slow, especially the pants, and during the entire process I saw the zebra’s expression morph into something new. The fact I hadn’t moved my hind legs the entire time, how much I was struggling. I didn’t blame her for calling me a liar, given how we Equestrians treated her people during the war.

“Stop. Stop.” She ordered, the rage in her voice shifting into shame at the speed of light. I did as requested, letting my pants hang uselessly off my tail and fetlocks. “You… you really can’t walk, can you?”

“Eeyup,” I replied. Deciding to gamble on her shame and surprise, I brought a foreleg to my mane. “Oh, and the black in this? It ain’t an Equestrian thing.”

She took a step back, her constant chewing paused for a split second as she thought through what I said. The gears in her skull turned, and turned, and turned, and then something clicked. She momentarily spun around and spit her gum as far as possible.

“Nothing can be simple, can it?” She asked herself. She briefly bit her lower lip, shame fading back into anger. It boiled over, and she roared as long and as loud as possible. “Spirits forbid I just have one honest individual in my life! I mean, seriously, how can you ponies preach about honesty if you’re always holding a knife behind your back?!” Her words emphasized with a point towards Willow Wisp, followed by a groan of frustration as she threw her head up. “Become a stalker, I thought. See what lies outside your home, I thought. It’ll be fun, I thought. I swear, I never should have left the station.”

A decent amount of what she said went over my head, but I think I got the gist of what she was saying. The zebra moved toward me, helped me up into a sitting position, and then helped me put the clothing back on. Had me being half zebra really mattered that much to her? No, she probably just felt bad about treating me like shit.

“There. Sorry, about all that,” the zebra replied, bringing my attention back to her. “It’s, uh, nice to meet one's own out here. Even if… well…”

She motioned at everything that wasn’t my mane and tail. I sighed, expecting it but having no will to comment on how insulting it was. If the black streaks in my mane were saving my ass right now, I’ll take it. Probably shouldn’t tell her how big of an “maybe” it is that they are actually due to me being a zony.

“It’s fine. Though, uh,” I briefly turned back to Willow, and then to the zebra, “who is your boss Miss…”

“Joy,” the zebra finished, holding a hoof out. I reached out with one of my own, shaking it roughly enough where I nearly fell over. Joy was the only thing keeping me upright. “You are?”

“Dead Hooves.” I dared to smile at that moment. She was the most normal pony I’ve met so far. “The pegasus behind me is Willow Wisp.”

Willow dipped her head. “Charmed, stripe.”

Joy’s muzzle scrunched up, only moving her eyes as she addressed the blood-covered pegasus. “Yeah, really charmed.”

My ears went flat, my muzzle mouthing “no” over and over as I realized what was going on. Perhaps I should have felt a bit lucky that they seemed to hate each other more than the fact I wasn’t fully zebra or fully Equestrian, but it didn’t matter. The timer to my death felt like it had just been cut in half. Last thing I needed was to be caught in a reenactment of the Equestrian-Zebrica war.

I didn’t think, I just spoke in an attempt at self preservation. “Look, I understand we are not exactly on the best of terms, but perhaps we can save hostility till a later–“

“Oh hush, Deady,” Willow said, a hoof ruffling my mane as she stared at Joy. Her words sound so motherly, and yet it just served to make them even more terrifying. “The adults are talking.”

Joy snorted. “Adults?”

“What, stripe? Is that not accurate?”

“I’m just surprised you could manage to compliment me. Actually living up to your Elements of Harmony for once?”

“Well it is only kind to talk to a pony before killing them.” The timer cut into a quarter. “Might want to finish your last meal. Would hate to see it go to waste.”

Joy’s expression grew devilish. “Your funeral.”

As the zebra took off another chunk of gum, I attempted to make myself as small as possible. This was it, the end. Stuck between a psychopath and an angry zebra. I whispered yet another prayer to Celestia and Luna, asking that the end be swift and painless.

Then my ears gripped onto a symphony of hoofsteps not too far away. A group of ponies, five in total, dressed in the same way leather and makeshift armor as my original captors. Willow and Joy both turned to meet them, a grimace forming on the latter’s muzzle. The timer in my head cut from a quarter to an eighth.

“Alright zebra, good job corralling the merchandise,” the leader of this group said. “Now just bring them over, and we’ll make sure they don’t escape their chains.”

Joy contemplated her position for a moment, her chewing gaining an odd rhythm to it. A piece of me hoped she didn’t do as she was asked, and another hoped she would. Both seemed like terrible options, marked with either death or a fate possibly far, far worse. Judging by the side glance Joy gave Willow, it was going to be the quicker of the two fates.

“Rain check, Equestrian?”

Willow’s smile grew way too wide to be natural. “Just as long as you keep up.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Joy spat her gum in the direction of the group before us. “I will.”

She spun around, kicked up dirt, and an explosion appeared from out of nowhere. Before anypony was able to comprehend where it came from, Joy had grabbed the pistol, aimed it through the debris the explosion had kept up, and ran ahead. She was almost fast enough to out speed the pegasus that rocketed through the sky next to her. Emphasis on almost.

Just like back in Ponyville proper, Willow was frighteningly efficient. The first pony she targeted barely had time to register her, grabbing his own rifle and firing three shots leading from the back of his neck up to his brain. He dropped dead without any chance to defend himself. His armor had been useless.

All attention had turned to the bloodstain pegasus already upon them, which left Joy with no immediate resistance. Two shots went off, both hitting the armor of one light blue unicorn mare at the edge of the group. Neither made it to skin, but they did crack the rusty metal she called protection open.

Joy’s third shot was in sync with the unicorn mare’s submachine gun fire. A single bullet to a spray of bullets, one perfectly placed where the now useless armor was while the other riddled a zebra’s upper right foreleg. Joy didn’t scream, and she didn’t fall over, she just kept charging. Another shot in the same exact place finally sent put her target down.

In that time Willow had taken out two more with swift and relative ease. A stallion had managed to get a pump action shotgun out and a shot, but the pegasus was faster than he was. She forced his shot high, took five shots at the pony behind her meat shield. One pony fell to the ground, and another joined soon after as her shield received a shotgun blast through the underside of his muzzle.

In about fifteen seconds, two mares had taken down four of the five ponies before us. The last pony, the stallion that had told Joy to bring his merchandise over – which I assumed meant me in this instance – still seemed to be registering the out-of-nowhere explosion when two guns were pointed at each side of his head. He looked left to Willow, the pump-action she had stolen from her last kill aimed right for his eye. He then looked right to Joy, her hoof-made pistol aiming at the same spot.

“What. Please. No–”

His pleas fell on deaf ears. A thundering thump from a shotgun, and three more bullets from a pistol, and a stallion was replaced with a headless corpse. I followed his body as it slumped onto the ground, and the world briefly fell silent. Five dead in twenty seconds. A pegasus and zebra soaked in blood.

Either I was lucky to have them on my side, or I was lucky to know my death at their hooves would be swift. The timer to my death had been extended for the moment, so I decided that the former was worth believing.

Her adrenaline rush reaching its end, Joy suddenly winced. Where all the blood on Willow’s body was from other ponies, the zebra mare’s left foreleg was covered in her own. It had been well torn apart, and as pain flared up she doubled over. It did not stop her from briefly checking her pistol’s magazine and mumbling a swear.

What did stop her was Willow rummaging through the last of their corpses, and pulling out an undamaged healing potion. “For being a damn fine shot.”

“Heh, like I was anything special compared to you,” Joy replied, swiping the potion from the pegasus and downing it without a second thought. Once it was empty, and her thoroughly beaten limb started regenerating, she looked at the pegasus with a smile. “You pegasi are more terrifying than stories depict you. Do all of you move like that?”

“I live to kill, eat to kill, and serve to kill.” Willow’s own smile turned sly, standing proud before the injured zebra. “Master wouldn’t allow me to be anything but the best, so that is what I am. I doubt even the goddesses can kill me.”

“Now that,” Joy threw the empty potion bottle over her body, “is something every zebra would pay to see.”

While there was still clear bad blood between them – each smile carrying with it an undertone of hate and fear – I was surprised at how casually they were talking with each other. Perhaps their threats to each other had been empty? No, they definitely didn’t like each other. They didn’t seem to want each other dead at this moment, though, so the timer extended once more.

I sighed, and allowed my eyes to trail to the bodies they were bonding over. Something at this darkest corner of my brain whispered, but it wasn’t loud enough for me to know what it spoke. It didn’t need to be. My mouth watered a little just looking at the fresh meat. The ravioli earlier hadn’t filled me, but those would.

My eyes went wide, and I shook my head. Shame filled my heart as I told myself how wrong those thoughts were. At no point, however, did my stomach quiet, or the whispers disappeared. The whispers only seemed to get louder the longer I stared at any of the corpses. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had the ability to look away from them.

“Speaking of things we would like to see, how did you manage that little explosion back there?” Willow asked, both completely unaware of my losing mental battle. “It would be really useful.”

Joy chuckled. “Consider that a Stalliongrad secret. I’m not revealing that to an unaware Equestrian.”

“Oh come on, stripey. Please?”

“Nuh uh.”

“Pretty please?”

“Answer is still no-“

“Get me out of here.”

My interjection was soft, terrified, but more than enough to grab the attention of both mares. I did everything within my power to pull my eyes away from a succulent corpse to either of them. I managed to do it for a second, but like a hypnotic swirl the dead drew me back to them. The whispers were no longer unintelligible. They didn’t offer real words but they coerced my spirit to do something beyond regrettable.

My resolve was nearing its breaking point.

“Deady?”

“Get me away. I-I need to get away.” I once again managed a brief glimpse at one of my two saviors. Willow to be specific. “It’s calling me. Please. Get me away from here.”

Willow tilted her head, confused at how something dead could make me so scared. Joy, however, caught on instantly. Maybe there was some hint at the deeply-ingrained, unnatural hunger with me on my face. I remember mom’s eyes would lose their white when her urges bordered on all-consuming. The same was happening to me.

I briefly considered the possibility of her killing me. It might seem like a mercy to some zebras, but Joy’s first response wasn’t to kill me. With a limp in her step, she made her way over to me. Her head and mane blocked my vision. I should have been happy about it, but instead I felt angry. Angry, she was blocking my view of a meal.

“Oh spirits. He is real,” She said, a horrified finality in her tone. I don’t know if she needed an answer, but I nodded anyway. She turned back to Willow. “Get her out of here. There is a traders post a couple of hours away, but it should be quicker to get there if you fly.”

“Is she-“

“I’ll answer your questions later, Equestrian. Just get her out of here!”

The whispers wished to take hold of my mouth, telling her that she didn’t know what I needed. Willow, having been given an order, acted without a shred of hesitation. She flung herself at me with the speed of a bullet, tossed me onto her back, and then took to the air. Each movement was so fast that it was impossible for me to focus on the corpses that had caused the whispers to gain hold.

Whispers that faded as the wind brushed against my mane, my tail and mane flailing wildly. I wasn’t able to pay attention to anything around me with the way strands of hair battering my face, so I simply closed my eyes and held onto Willow’s neck. With sight temporarily gone, my hearing was the only thing I found easy enough to grasp. A sigh of relief left my muzzle, followed by a shiver.

“I’m sorry mom,” I muttered. “It seems we are both his now.”

Author's Note

Joy and any further depictions of things from Stalliongrad are based off of Lone Writer's All Roads Lead Home. Please give there story a look if you haven't. He's helped me improve my writing a lot since I started working on OLM, and his writing deserves more attention.

Act 2 – Chapter 2: Where Loyalty and Light Would Later Meet

Central Equestrian Wasteland

Day ???

Unicorns weren’t meant to fly. We didn’t have the extra layer of fluff that pegasi had, or the feathers of griffons. Considering I was riding on a pegasus, the fluff should have helped. Instead it just made half my body warm while the other half was battered by the freezing cold wind. At least it helped distract me more… pressing concerns.

Mom told me about the gluttonous one, and her own battle against him. A battle she knew she would lose, despite all her efforts otherwise. I knew that the hunger would get worse, that his whispers would only grow more constant. Yet I also knew mom, despite having lived with that hunger for years, was still very much a sane zebra. I would still be the same pony, even with his whispers in my mind.

Joy had to have known that, because she wouldn’t have kept me alive otherwise, right? Her choice to keep me alive didn’t seem to make sense, but the constant brush of cold air against my coat reminded me that I was, indeed, alive. I was either incredibly lucky, or the gluttonous one had some amount of will on others to keep them from killing me. Pray to Celestia it was the former, and beg to the Infinite that it wasn’t the latter.

Could the Infinite even hear a zony like myself? I have absolutely no idea. Mom barely talked about her own beliefs, so I had no idea what they were like. I just knew they existed.

I’m not sure how long I laid there, on Willow’s back, shivering from the cold that surrounded us. All I knew was that, after a time, we landed in a field overlooking a small patch of buildings made from train cars. We were close enough to see a small number of ponies in the distance, but the color of their coats and whatever they said to each other was impossible.

“Before we walk in,” Willow asked, turning her head to look at me. She dusted off the bloodied clothing on her chest, and then messed with her mane, “what was it that was scaring you and the stripe? I was kind of just going off instinct back there.”

I briefly considered lying, but neither that nor telling the truth seemed like options that would end with me lasting more than a few hours. I lied, Joy explains the gluttonous one to her and Willow most likely kills me out of mercy or due to her being the definition of insane. If I was honest, there was just as likely a chance she might kill me. At the end of the day, words leaving my muzzle meant I was fucked.

Actually, I was fucked either way. A deadline to my end had been set, all because I had eaten my dads corpse. It was wrong, but was it really so bad to want to live just one more day?

Apparently I had been quite for a while, because Willow spoke back up before I did. It was preempted with a smile, and a hoof moving to caress my mane. By anypony else it might have seemed like a mother caring for their child. To me it felt more akin to a predator playing with its prey.

“It’s okay. I’ll hear it later from the stripe.” Just like that, my path to death had been chosen for me. “We should get out of these though… or at least you need to. They’ll think you are a raider if you are wearing leather.”

I blinked, and then looked down at her. I hadn’t realized it, but between Joy giving her order and Willow carrying me off, she had removed the leather clothing she had been wearing. With a quick series of rapid nods, Willow went about temporarily getting me off her back, and then getting the clothes off of me. The more my coat was exposed, the more I became aware of the light breeze that ripped through the open field. It was pleasant, warm, nothing like what I had felt while Willow flew.

“I would like to say that we can get something to finish your shoulder’s healing process, but we don’t have anything to sell,” Willow said. Her hooves clomped against each other as she eyed me over. “Blood suits you at least. It isn’t too noticeable once it is dried, thanks to your color.”

I tilted my head. “Th-thanks?”

She patted me on the head, and then once more I found myself climbing onto her back. It was actually extremely comfy when half your body wasn’t being assaulted by windigo levels of cold. With notice to do as she trotted down to the trader’s stop, I looked her body over. So many scars and marks of dried brown mixed into her coat, that it might have seemed impossible to tell there was something cute under it.

Cute by pony standards at least. Griffons would probably be salivating over a mare this brutal.

For a moment I closed my eyes and tried to picture a Willow without the permanent stains of blood; without the scars and bruises that riddled her features. There was something there that might have been radiant in a better time. A time where Celestia was still alive, and the world hadn’t ended. A world where she had been very different, but still recognizably Willow Wisp. She might have been a mare I was able to form a crush on.

Yet the attitude, the way ponies had fucked with her both mentally and otherwise, made it feel impossible. She terrified me more than anything else. The pieces fell differently, she would have ended up as my death instead of being my lifeline. For as unfamiliar as I was with the emotion called “love”, I knew nopony should fear the love of their life… or at least in this manner.

Dad was definitely terrified of mom when she got angry.

After a moment of watching each individual scar on Willow’s body, and each hair that made up her coat, I looked before her. A brown stallion and rather disheveled looking gray pegasus were talking with a blue earth pony. The latter of the three was the one to first take notice of us. Her eyes looked ready to pop out of her eyes at the sight of Willow’s battered form. Words were spoken, and while I didn’t catch exactly what was spoken the sudden drawing of a serrated blade and carbine made it clear what was going on.

This time, I was glad my mouth managed to speak without my consent. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! We aren’t raiders!”

The disheveled pegasus was the first to act… though the closer I got the term “disheveled” started to seem like more of an understatement. Mare looked like she had walked out of a mega spell impact site. Words were exchanged between the three before us as Willow stopped. She turned back to me, a desperate want in her eyes. She wanted them dead, apparently thinking these ponies were far less negotiable then Joy. Easier to just kill them.

I disagreed, and continued to move my mouth. “We need medical treatment. Both of us do. A town a few hours away tore us up. We’re only alive because of the last ash storm.”

The blue earth pony shoved the gray pegasus to the side. “And how do we know you’re not lying? How do we know you aren’t from some raider gang trying to attack us?”

“My legs don’t fucking work. Why do you think I’m riding on a pegasus?!” I shouted, pointing towards my flank. “Does that sound like a raider, or a raider’s breeding stock?”

I shudder at the mere thought of what I had just called myself. It was true, everypony present knew that, but it didn’t make what I said any worse. Another wordless prayer was sent upwards to Celestia, thinking she would listen to me more than the Infinite. Speaking of what I might have become made it feel far more real than merely thinking about it.

“I won’t allow you to become that,” Willow said. My eyes darted to her in surprise, her hoof once again patting my own. “Would defeat the purpose of saving a life.”

There was something solemn in her statement that made my heart sink. Her words suddenly felt less crazy and more… broken. Apparently I had hit too close to home.

“Thanks Willow.”

She smiled, and then turned her attention back to the ponies before us. The blue earth pony mare was slowly making her way towards us, blade still ready to cut either of us open… which would likely end up with her dead, instead of either Willow or myself. Willow had widened her stance and stretched her wings out, ready to defend us at the first sign of attack. The mare barely paid the pegasus any attention, instead focusing on me.

“Okay, you two are clear,” she said suddenly. Her tone alone was enough to tell me it wasn’t a change of heart. “Stay within my sight at all times until I’m damn sure you are a hundred percent honest. Got me?”

I bobbed my head as quickly as possible; Willow didn’t. The pegasus instead put her muzzle to the mare’s ear and whispered something. It was another series of whispers I didn’t understand, but I didn’t need to. All that mattered was that the mare’s eyes had gone unsteady, and her mouth had gripped the blade she held tighter. After a moment, the mare nodded, and Willow started walking with a satisfied smile.

The earth pony followed behind us, seeming the slightest bit angrier than before now that Willow wasn’t looking at her. The timer in my head was cut off by a third at the malice in her eyes. I dared to greet her with a smile, in hopes it might alleviate the hostility in the air around her. She didn’t return it.

“I-I’m Dead Hooves,” I said in another attempt to save myself.

“Stitches.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Radio silence. I smiled a little harder, but it seemed to have minimal effect. First impressions were a lot harder when the pony wasn’t crazy or made explosions out of nowhere. I thought I had hit all the correct ques as well.

I did take the time to give Stitches a bit more of a look over. She was a hell of a mare, taller than anypony else I had known and built like the brick house I had always heard earth ponies were. This brick house was not keeping the fire inside it hidden at all, and more than a little unnerving. Dark gray irises nearly blended into her pupils if somepony wasn’t focused on them, and along with that long, straight purple and green she almost looked straight out of a nightmare.

Thinking about it more, perhaps “normal” wasn’t exactly a term that could be used to describe her. She seemed ready to stab somepony.

“Well, you two definitely look like you walked through Ponyville,” the stallion said, letting out a whistle before his statement. “You two escaped slaves?”

“I wouldn’t say I’ve escaped just yet. Not till master is dead,” Willow replied, a bit of her inner psychopath sneaking into her voice. The stallion before us flinched at her voice and tone. Strangely, the rather deceased looking pegasus next to him did not. “You are all fine as long as you don’t hurt Deady. Don’t worry.”

Stitches came up to our side, eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening my brother?”

“N-no! She’s just being… protective,” I explained sheepishly to the angry mare before me. I gave Willow a pat on the head, much like she had given me, being surprised at how she tensed up at my attempt for affection. “Willow’s a good pony. I promise.”

To my surprise, given her consistent manic nature up to that point, Willow wilted the very moment I had called her good. I did bother to hide my shock and worry as she hung her head, her smile the only constant that remained on her face. Here it showed itself clearly as a mask of sorts, unlike the more natural – if unsettling – smiles that she usually wore.

“Just don’t hurt, Deady. She’s the good pony here,” she replied, sitting down and allowing me to slide down her back. “Give her attention first. She needs it.”

Before I had a chance to respond, Stitches spoke up. “You are still coming with me. Trudge mama that I got a bit of unexpected work. I’ll need to have lunch in the medical car. Ditzy, if I could have your help with the blank flank.”

“Of course!” the deceased looking pegasus said with a friendly nod of her head. She made her way over to me and flashed me a friendly smile. Thankfully, her appearance didn’t seem to draw out the gluttonous one’s whispers. “Name’s Ditzy. Nice to meet you.”

“D-Dead Hooves.”

“Okay, the other pegasus goes in front of us. I’ll guide you all to the medical car,” Stitches replied as she and Ditzy lifted me up. I doubt she needed Ditzy for help, given she was an earth pony, but I wasn’t about to say anything. Stitches still had that blade in her mouth.

It was clear the moment we had stepped inside the medical car that it clearly wasn’t originally meant to be used as one. It was, like every other train car around us apparently, a passenger car. They had derailed during the Last Day, a graveyard for many and a place of horror for the few that had managed to survive. Earth ponies and unicorns had worked together to turn it into the little traders hub we knew it as now.

By wasteland standards, the car we were currently in was clean. Windows had either been completely boarded up or duck taped together to prevent ash storms from invading it. Luggage compartments turned into areas for medical supplies, seats made into makeshift beds. Along with it were hoof-made tables, shelving, chairs, desks and otherwise. Anything they had managed to get from traders passing by.

I was plopped down onto a seat-turned-bed. Willow was told to sit down in the one right next to me, Ditzy went off to somewhere else and Stitches got to work. A lot of what she asked me to do went over my head, but I followed along. That included her asking questions about drinking, smoking, and other things that I all said no to… with the exception of my eating habits. Truth be told, outside of my dads corpse and that disgusting canned ravioli, I had barely eaten anything in the last four days. The hunger had gotten so normal I didn’t even think about it.

Turns out my lack of strength, having gone a few days with barely anything to eat, and a chosen tumble was what undid the healing potion’s effects. In other words, me deciding to fall off Willow’s back, back in the bakery was not especially bright. The glare she gave me then also made a lot more sense… especially since that same exact glare was being leveled at me right now.

“What is with ponies and thinking that those little Ministry bottles are some magical cure all,” Stitches replied, looking at the reopened wound on my shoulder. I swear, this mare was angrier than Joy seemed to be. “It’s a good final measure, but the body doesn’t always heal correctly. That goes doubly so for less pure bottles, or those made after the Last Day, and so on. I’m guessing you had one of those.”

“I have no idea what most of that means, but it hasn’t hurt too much since drinking the potion so that is good, right?” I asked with a large, fake grin. All Stitches needed to do was look at me, and through a combination of shame and embarrassment I found myself unable to meet her eyes. “Sorry.”

She went to her desk, grabbed cloth from the cabinet, and brought it back to me. “You might want to bite down on this for what's coming.”

Deciding to trust the earth pony before me, I took the cloth in my magic, twisted it up, and placed it in my mouth. Willow leaned over, seemingly waiting in anticipation for whatever was about to come. I didn’t understand the excitement.

Then, with gritted teeth, I clenched down on it as the earth pony did… something to my shoulder. I had no idea what, and I was far too scared to look and find out. I was too busy clenching my eyes shut and groaning in pain to do so anyways. No matter what she was doing, no matter how bad the pain was, it cemented on clear thing in my mind: I had fucked my shoulder up more than I realized.

“Yep, broken bone. Believe it or not, Miss Hooves, but you are not the most delicate pony I’ve ever had to work on,” Stitches said, something in her mouth slurring her words a little. Whatever it was, I think it had just opened up my skin. “Pegasus, keep the blank flank steady for me. Something tells me she ain’t going to like this.”

My jaw fell open, a nervous shiver coursing through my body. “L-Like wha–”

Willow’s forelegs wrapped around my own, and bit down as hard as possible into the cloth again. Willow’s strength was the only reason that my entire moveable body wasn’t squirming around. Pained groan after pained groan escaped my muzzle as I tried anyway, but I was locked in place. Whatever Stitches was doing, it was worse than anything I had ever felt in my life.

It must have been normal though, because she was rolling her eyes and muttering about foals under her breath.

I’ll just… skip over the rest of the experience. It wasn’t fun, I never want to relive it again, and hopefully I never will. The good news was that, after everything was put back in place, all it took was a healing potion and suturing to close the reopened wound back up. Thank Celestia for small blessings.

That was all that needed taking care of myself, so Stitches moved on to the “bigger problem”. With all the cuts, bruises, and bigger wounds Willow had on her, it was apparently going to take a decent chunk of today plus a bit more tomorrow to get her in top shape. It was good, but also slightly unnerving. The idea Willow wasn’t in top shape made everything she had done far scarier.

I didn’t watch the Stitches work, partly because it was clear the moment she started doing it that Willow was enjoying it. Like, really enjoying it. As if the mare wasn’t a boatload of messed up already. It led my eyes to wander elsewhere. Far too many things to really settle on a single object of attention, but that was probably better than staring at the wooden planks in a farmhouse.

The door to the train car opened, and that brown stallion from earlier walked in. Three well age bowls came in with him, two sitting on his hoof, the last on his rump. He and Stitches shared a brief, silent conversation that seemed to involve nothing but eye motion, and the latter returned to Willow. The stallion first went to Stitches desk and placed down two of the bowls, then came up to me.

“You I believe, but are you positive that pegasus there ain’t some raider?” He whispered. “Enclave perhaps?”

I shook my head. “I-I don’t think so. She mentioned some master. Maybe a slave to raiders, but not raiders themselves.”

“Well if she is the slave, I don’t want to meet the pony who was holding her leash… though I guess now that is you, eh?” The smile his words ended left a bitter taste in my mouth. Lifeline or not, I didn’t want to think of myself as Willow’s new master. “Mud Trudge. That’s my sister, Stitches. Nice to meet ya… Dead Hooves, right?”

“Yes Dead Hooves,” I replied with another nod. “That’s Willow Wisp. There might be a zebra named Joy coming along later, with us… kind of. Let her know we’re here when she arrives?”

The timer got shorter as soon as those words left my mouth.

The mere mention of a zebra seemed to make that smile of his less sure. Telling him I was a zony was a clear no-go. He didn’t realize or bother to shore up the slip in this expression as he placed the bowl down in front of me. I briefly watched the steam, then took a breath in.

I think my eyes rolled into the back of my head, but it was more than understandable. Of my parents, mom was the better cook, and this instantly reminded me of the heavenly aroma her food would always carry with it. The actual food itself might not look like it belonged in a high-end Tenpony restaurant, but the taste was far beyond anything those places could ever carry anyways.

With tears slowly starting to roll down my face, and not wanting to wait another minute, my face hit the food inside. I didn’t look at what it was, and frankly I did not give a shit. It was heavenly, creamy, soft, and the tastiest thing I’ve had since mom left. Any fear of Joy explaining my less noticeable condition went away as I gorged myself on the meal before me. Tartarus, I even started licking the bowl just to get every last bit of food I was able to.

“So uh–”

I snapped back to Mud Trudge as he stood there, my movement freezing him up for a moment. His lips and tongue moved in very odd ways, taking several seconds to figure out how to form words again. It ended with him giving me a rather sheepish smile.

“I take it you enjoy mama’s cooking.”

“Mama’s… cooking,” I mimed. I briefly looked back to the empty bowl, and then up at Trudge once again. “Y-yeah. It’s good. Really good. I haven’t had anything like it in… in a long time.”

Trudge tilted his head at me. “Are you okay, Miss Hooves?”

“Y-yeah. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just, your crying and it always seems that ponies crying mea–”

“Trudge.” Our attention turned to Stitches, the earth pony giving her brother a dirty glare as she held a blood soaked rag in her mouth. “If you're trying to be smooth, you are doing it wrong.”

He got exceptionally more sheepish at her words. “O-oh. Right. Sorry, Miss Hooves.”

“It’s…it’s fine.” I rubbed my tears away with a foreleg. We turned our attention away from Stitches, allowing her to work with only one masochistic pegasus watching her movements. “Also, it’s just Dead Hooves. Besides, I think I’m younger than both of you.”

“Really? I’m twenty-four, Stitches is twenty-two. You?”

“Seventeen.”

Trudge’s eyes went wide, and sheepishness turned into horror. He took a few steps back and turned away, leaving me confused for a good ten seconds or so. Seconds that saw gears turning, turning, and turning more before finally they clicked into place… and suddenly I desperately wished they didn’t. Mom and dad had given me enough education to know what wasn’t okay here.

The good news is his crush was destroyed immediately. The bad news was that it had appeared in the first place.

“No offense, Mud Trudge, but even if I wasn’t seventeen, I don’t think I swing that way,” I explained to him. “Granted my experience relates to just my own… w-well I don’t swing that way.”

“Oh my,” Willow said, both as seductive as a siren and creepy as fuck. “Do you mean you liked your–”

I snapped my attention to her eyes, anger sparking up from out of nowhere. “Yes, my family is fucked up. You already knew that. Next topic!”

A pleasant, if rather awkward silence descended upon the medical car. I was thankful for it, and was certain I had squashed any desires still left in Trudge. Whether that was due to liking the same sex or my… discovery of liking it was not important.

“Well, Dead Hooves is still kind of a cruel name. I feel a bit bad calling you it,” Trudge replied. His words earned him a leer. “S-s-sorry. It's just that your name seems in poor taste.”

“Well, Mud,” I replied, emphasizing his own name in disdain. “I’m sorry my name is so horrible. Didn’t realize it came with a fuck ton of radiation attached to it.”

“That isn’t what I–“

“Even if it does, I consider the name my loving and wonderful mom and dad gave me as my own,” More and more venom seeping from my mouth as I continued on. “Speaking of the ponies who gave me my name, I love them. They loved me. Don’t ever, ever call their care for me “in poor taste” again. They took years out of their lives to keep a dead weight like me alive, so don’t act like you know them.”

Apparently my words alone were enough to make him stumble back even more. His ears were pressed against his head, tail tucked in shame. Stopping there would have been enough, but I wanted to twist the dagger. The best way to do it, according to my brain? Hate-filled advice.

“Next time you talk to a mare you want to get lovey-dovey on, consider complimenting them. I hear it works a lot better than insults.”

For a moment, the gloomy look on Trudge’s face made me grin. I felt justified, a little proud, and definitely content at the work before me. The twist of the dagger had worked perfectly. It was easily the most powerful I had felt in my life, even if it was just words being spewed and not bullets. As Trudge seemed to grow more and more downtrodden as my words set in more and more, I grew happier and happier.

Then, a blue figure stepped in front of me, disgust morphing their expression into a grimace. Stitches bent her neck till her breath was on my ear, warm and carrying a horrible smell to it. That was enough to destroy that tiny bit of pride in me, my own muzzle twisting in terror. The timer was shorter before a single word was spoken; she didn’t need to do anything else.

She spoke anyway.

“Right or wrong, I expect a little respect for my own family too,” Stitches muttered. “Continue to disrespect them, and I’ll see to it your forelegs no longer work as well. Am I clear?”

A full body shiver crossed my form. “Should a doctor really be saying that?”

“Healing ponies isn’t the only way for a doctor to help ponies,” she replied, getting her nose just a little closer to my ears. “Sometimes we have to remove dangerous individuals. You and your pegasus are looking real dangerous right now.”

She stepped away from me. A few hushed words between her brother and herself, and she returned to patching Willow’s bloodied, battered form up. Trudge wasn’t happy, but there was a clear improvement in his demeanor. One of his forehooves went to the back of his neck, ruffling his mane a slight bit. Stitches’ words to him must not have been kind either.

“Sorry, Dead,” He said, quieter. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have implied anything. Forgive and forget?”

“I think I can do that first part,” I told him, holding my right foreleg out to him. He gave it a light shake. “And I’m also sorry. These last two days have been Tartarus to live through.”

“I can imagine.” There was a slight sign of amusement. I scrunched my muzzle up in distaste at the tone, but went no further; Stitches was still in the room. “Well, either way, it is still a pleasure to meet you.”

Trudge left to go eat with his mom, keep her company, and that left me without anypony to converse with. Willow was too distracted by Stitches’s continuous work on her to offer a pony to talk to. Stitches didn’t seem in the mood for small talk. It left me with nothing to do but take in every little detail available to me once again. If I wasn’t so used to it after all these years, it might drive me insane.

What it did do was drive me to darker thoughts. No distracting thoughts made the timer to my death tick louder and my heart beat a bit faster. Telling Trudge to send Joy here meant Willow would learn about the gluttonous one sooner. The sooner she learned, the sooner my neck got snapped, or received a bullet to the skull. My brain saw it all as certainty.

Here I was, spending my last few hours among the living doing jackshit with my life. How fitting. Guess ponies really do tend to die as they live.

I was so wrapped up in my own self-pity that I didn’t notice the gray, dead-looking pegasus enter till she was right in front of me. My head shot up as two uncentered eyes did their best to look at me. I didn’t yelp, and she simply smiled at me. In her hooves was what seemed to be a book, paper old but the stuff on it significantly newer. To my surprise, she held it out to me.

“I hope this proves useful, wherever you and your other pegasus friend go,” she said. She sounded dehydrated, but exceptionally sweet. “It’s a bit out of date, I’ll admit, but a large chunk of what is inside it should still stand.”

I took it and looked at the cover. Mom and dad gave me as much of an education as possible, but it wasn’t much. Literature wasn’t something I knew anything about. I doubt either of them thought I was going to leave home and find books to read. It wasn’t necessary. As I opened my mouth to tell Ditzy this, she ended up pre-empting me.

“I’ve made it with a lack of reading skill in mind. That is what the pictures are for.”

It turns out Ditzy was responsible for something called the Wasteland Survival Guide, a book to help ponies survive in post-war Equestria. It covered everything, from the different beasts that roamed the wastes, to what kind of ponies were most likely friend or foe, and locations that made up Central Equestria. It was free for every family, and apparently Ditzy thought Willow was a member of my family. I decided it was best to not correct her and go along with it.

It didn’t really matter in the end because, thank Celestia, this actually gave me something to distract my mind. The timer faded into the background, present but significantly less noticeable unless I actually thought about it. It held that the pictures Ditzy made were both informative and pleasing to the eye. I took in each and every page, gathered as much information as I was able to from pictures alone, leading me to not notice when Stitches finished up.

It took halfway through for either of them to pull me from the survival guide. Both of them had turned to eating the food Stitches’ mom had for everypony, the two sharing some small banter all the while. Nothing really took my interest for a time, meaning it must have been boring medical stuff, until the earth pony doctor inquired in a little detail from when we had first arrived at the trader’s stop.

“For a slave you certainly don’t seem weak, and while there are clearly some mental issues I’m not qualified to solve, you seem to be a lot more there then the few other escapees I’ve met,” she said mid-chew. “Have you been free for a while? It certainly seems like you have managed to pick up the pieces the bastard left.”

“As I said, I’m not free yet. Won’t be until I have his severed head cradled happily in my hooves,” Willow answered, looking far better despite the numerous scars that still covered her body. Her tone turned dreamy near the end, her hooves re-enacting both the act of pulling his head from his body. “Also, technically it’s only been three days since I last saw him, and today is my first day not in physical chains.”

Stitches had no visible look of horror from any of the pegasi’s words, instead giving an affirming harrumph. “Really? Then you were this way while under his care? Surprised he was okay with that.”

“No reason he shouldn’t be. He didn’t want some submissive worker, he wanted a weapon. That’s what I’ve always been, and it is something I’ve learned to love. Better to enjoy the killing that fills so much of my everyday life.” Willow looked at me, a wicked grin crossing her face. “Of course, I have somepony truly worth doing it for now. The first pony I ever saved.”

“I-I appreciate the sentiment, Willow,” I said, hiding my muzzle nervously under my hooves. “But I’d prefer not getting into danger. I-It’s far safer for me.”

“Good luck with that, blank flank.” Stitches pushed her bowl away from her, lying back on the chair behind her desk. “No place is really safe in our world. Hasn’t been since the Last Day. If she’s offering you protection out of her own wish, take it.” She looked out the duct-taped window to the world outside. “Not all of us are that lucky.”

My eyes went between Stitches and Willow, until a small but noticeable change occurred in the latter’s expression. The wickedness faded into something more… pleading. I half expected her to suddenly bow and beg that I allow her to protect me, because Stitches’s word made that seem most accurate for somepony with her background. Instead, the longer she went without a response from me, her smile faded into a frown, and her eyes became watery.

“Please, Deady. I-I know there is a lot wrong with me, and that I’m not okay, but this gives me a purpose. I need it.”

The dagger I had placed in Trudge earlier found its way into my own heart. “Won’t I just slow you down on your quest to kill him.”

She shook her head. “No. Actually, you’d be a big help. Master had ways of keeping me under control, but with your help I might be able to break some of those control mechanisms.”

A means to remove the deadline stood before me. I had to take it.

“I can’t promise that I will be of much help, but I’ll try,” I told her.

Willow’s face lit up at my words. The look of hope, relief, and joy mixed into a single expression made my chest tingly. She got up from the train-seat-turned-bed and rushed over to me, ignoring the repeated yells from the doctor even as they grew harsher and louder. With no available escape, I allowed the pegasus to pick me up and hug me. Her squeals of joy were oddly cute, despite how terrifying she was.

“Thank you, Deady. Thank you so much,” she said, refusing to let go of me. “I promise, not a bullet will touch you as long as I live.”

The timer greatly extended. Our worlds blended together.

Act 2 – Chapter 3: Under the Desert Sun

San Palomino Desert

Day 7

Darkness. Cold. Whistling wind.

To say I was confused when I first woke up was an understatement. My brain was still somewhat stuck in Dead Hooves’ memories, leading me to wiggles as I tried to squirm out of Willow’s hug. It was enough to show the difference between DH and myself to the ponies around me, but not enough to make things click in my head. Not until I felt my wings do a little flutter underneath me, the first reminder that I had them to begin with.

While my eyelids were heavy, my wings were enough to send my brain all it needed to wake up and remember what body it was piloting. Using what power my body held within it, I managed to open my eyelids just enough to see the sky above me. A clear, starry sky that, to most of the wasteland, was nothing but a myth. We were out of the storm.

“Wh-wha–”

My attempt to speak turned into a dry, hacking cough. My mouth and throat felt absolutely terrible, like somepony was trying to cover it with sandpaper. One hoof went to my throat, the other searched for anything nearby that would work to wet my throat. A combination of bad coordination and having just woken up led it to seem closer to drunk flailing.

Which made the fact it worked a surprise. My right hoof, having searched the same area at least, found a bottle of water that at first seemed to appear from nowhere. My dehydrated, sleep-addled mind didn’t care for how it got there, I just knew it was what I needed. I popped the cap off without a second thought and proceeded to down the entire bottle in less then a second. Fresh, pure, unirradiated water… immediately ruined by the scratchy voice that chimed in right after.

“If I can give a small suggestion to you, soldier mare?”

My good mood evaporated quicker than a feral ghoul on the other end of an M.E.W.. I tilted my head away from the sky, taking notice of the group of sleeping ponies – plus a griffon – that made up my company. Among them, awake and seemingly bored out of his mind, was Sharpshot. I was unfortunate enough to be the thing to break his boredom.

“Next time the doc says “don’t fly for a couple of days”, they typically are trying to help you,” he told me in a mocking tone, leaning towards me with his hooves precariously placed on the barrel of his rifle. “You are damn lucky that the armor ArcanaTech gave you is built like a stable, and that the cast’s magic kept your bones from breaking through your body. Judgemental shits they might be, but their work is damn good.”

“You done?” I asked weakly, brow furrowed.

“No, not quite.” The ghoul cleared his throat before continuing. “Long story short, you got a cracked rib, a small fracture in your left wing, and a concussion. Surprisingly your skull is fine, and so is your spine.” His hooves spread outwards, the abomination falling to the sandy ground beneath us. “There you go. Now I’m done.”

Despite my best effort, my muzzle found itself hanging open. “You figured all that out without any medical equipment?”

“Almost no medical equipment. Still got this little thing.”

He slid up the sleeves on one foreleg and tabbed the screen of his PipBuck. His admission didn’t make what he told me any less impressive. Was I going to admit that to Sharpshot of all ponies? Fuck no. Anything that made his ego bigger was staying in my head.

“So everypony made it out? Willow is alright? How about Gold and Gemini.”

His eyes flicked between the sleeping forms of each pony I mentioned. One of those glances was directly behind me, and it was the one I decided to turn my attention to first. I was met with the anxious, sleeping form of a certain gray unicorn. Her muzzle and horn were less than an inch from my back, close and safe while making sure to never actually touch me. For her, that was fine.

“Filly was worried as fuck when she saw you. Stuck to you like super glue,” Sharpshot explained. “You’ve made an impression on her. Less because you are one of the ponies that saved her, more because you are like her.” I turned my head back to Sharpshot. He shrugged. “Her words, not mine.”

I frowned. She figured it all out on her own, didn’t she? What I meant by bruising, and why I acted so much more careful around her. She knew something that I had only ever told two other ponies the complete truth of. The fall of my chest felt a lot heavier during my next exhale, vision descending towards the sand below.

“You want to talk about it?” My eyes instantly shot back up to Sharpshot, glaring at him. He instantly threw his hooves up and looked away. “Hey, just offering.”

My glare softened, then faded into something far more somber. I sighed. “Anypony ever told you that you make no sense? Emotionally, I mean.” His head turned, not looking at me but showing I had his attention. “One moment you act like you genuinely care, the next you are grounding my head into the closest hard object. Not exactly how a doctor should act.”

“Are you expecting emotional stability? From me of all ponies?” He asked, acting far more offended than I expected. “Of course I’m an emotional basket case. We all go through puberty, we all deal with the hormonal stress it causes, but most ponies get the chance to grow out of it.” He placed his left forehoof on his chest, glowering at me. “I didn’t get that. I hit puberty, and not too much later I’m this. Mentally, I matured. Emotionally? My crinkly body never got to escape it, even after escaping that grave.”

His last few words went from nearly shouting to almost a whisper, and once again he turned his head away. The wind brushed against my coat, giving my mane and tail just enough of a gust to make me realize I was out of the NB-2. For a few seconds, I figured he was done talking. I started to check over the nearby, slumbering form of Gold when he suddenly piped back up with a voice so soft and unghoul-like that it almost felt like it would fit on Minister Fluttershy.

“That’s… well, that’s half the reason.” That alone was enough to grab my attention. “It’s not everything. Yeah, emotions can cause ponies to do things with very little need for reason but… what I did? Back in the research station?” He hung his head. “There is more to it. A lot more to it.”

His eyes alone turned to me, which I thought was him waiting for approval. “Go on. I’m listening.”

As soon as he had that, his eyes turned to the sand near his hooves. “I told you about my mom and dad, right? Descendants from Ministries of Peace and Morals?” I gave a nod, even though he wasn’t looking at me. “Mom was a doctor, dad was a security officer. Both were always busy, because when the talisman for the Stable’s air filter broke a lot of ponies started getting sick. Many died, but others turned into ghouls like me… but more feral. Mom and dad both were terrified.”

“I can imagine. Escape the apocalypse just to see it come to life like a zombie novel.” He tensed at my words, but didn’t shoot me any glares. I continued onwards. “They were trying to help ponies though, right?”

“Yeah, of course. I was with mom trying to fight it,” Sharpshot said, nodding his head. “I originally told you my talent lied in precision. Not true; it just tends to work with me always hiding my disgusting figure and curse,” he looked to his flank. “The truth? Surgery. I have a talent for surgery. It’s the reason I was there fighting with mom inside the quarantine zone, not like it actually did much. It wasn’t some plague, it was irradiated air. Can’t escape that.

“All of which leads to… predictable results. A foal with a still developing immune system, constantly exposed to radiation no matter whether we were suited up to deal with patients or not, and eventually I got sick.” He shuddered. “Mom was scared, especially since I seemed to be losing my fight with radiation sickness. Dad and her fought about putting me out of my misery. Then, three days later, I seemed to just magically feel all better… well, except for the fact I look like shit.”

His hoof trailed up to his muzzle, removing the cloth that hid it away. He sat there in silence for some time, more than aware of what he wanted to say but scared to actually say it. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and immediately hid his muzzle back under fabric.

“I was scared, mom was scared… everypony was scared. I was both myself, and very clearly not myself anymore. I became this ugly heap of dead and rotting skin, and with every other ghoul we saw being feral the reactions weren’t stellar.” He finally managed to look at me again. “That day, I found out what it felt like to end up on the other side of a gun barrel. The pony who was pointing it at me? My own father.”

…

A piece of me feared what was coming next, but he was too far into his explanation. A very roundabout one, but it was clear this was all part of whatever point he was trying to make. No lies, no excuses. The fact he clammed up after mentioning his dad’s reaction told me whatever was coming next hurt a lot worse than just being on the other end of a barrel.

“Did he shoot you?” I asked.

“He… he tried,” Sharpshot answered. He momentarily turned to Willow, whose hooves held his tail to the earth. “Mom knew I was different, but she couldn’t convince him to lower the rifle. He shot… she shielded me.”

Just like that, any wish to know what happened next was immediately overcome with shock. It felt unbelievable. A father wouldn’t try and kill their own child, who they spent years of their life raising. Even my own parents weren’t that bad; my mother hadn’t meant to kill that filly and I don’t think my father was ever sober enough to consider the option with me. The very idea of a parent wanting to kill their child felt wrong.

Yet that is exactly what I was hearing, coming from a pony who had once lived in a place spared the horrors of the surface. There had been enough sensible grounders to try and protect what made them civilized, and it had failed. Many, many other Stables offered more horrible, systemic or self-inflicted signs of this, but Sharpshot’s birthplace? Stable 17? All it had taken was one small thing going wrong, and the disease of those above ground had infected them.

Having it all presented to me like that made me briefly question how safe the Enclave, and my family by proxy, was from the same. Just briefly, because I still wanted to believe in my own kind. I wanted to believe that we pegasi were still above the grounders in some way, even if the gap had closed significantly with things I had learned about myself.

“The last thing I remember mom saying to me was that she loved me, no matter what,” Sharpshot said, petting Willow’s mane in an attempt to comfort himself. “Everything else was just… noises. My mom was dead, my dad had killed her, and he was trying to kill me. Something in me snapped and… and I made a choice that I can’t go back from.” A humorless laugh left his lips. “I killed them. All of them. I have no idea how, and I didn’t get out of it without getting pretty badly roughed up, but I did it. In my young, adolescent mind, they had decided I wasn’t one of them. That wasn’t going to change.”

His head suddenly snapped to me, sadness mixing with hate in a far different way than usual for the ghoul. Perhaps I had just always read it wrong, but where before I saw hate simply because he was an unstable nightmare, there was suddenly a pinch of jealousy. Just enough to make it visible on his face, but not enough for anypony to notice unless they really look.

“You got your worldview destroyed a few days ago, and you still want to believe in it despite everything that would entail for you and your family,” he said, finally bringing everything home. “It’s dumb. Really really dumb, but what actually got to me was the fact you had that choice. You had the choice, and you chose the one that seemed worse for everypony you love.”

“Is it, though?” I chimed in. I held a hoof up to silence him before he was able to give a preemptive retort. “What price would you pay to go from anarchy, where there is nothing keeping ponies and other creatures from inflicting the worst damage to you physically or emotionally, to safety? Even as a… half-unicorn, I would take safety and comfort over the wasteland.”

“Even if it leads to actual pureblooded pegasi to treat you like a radroach.’

I gave him a nod. “It’s not perfect, I know, but it's better than waking up every day wondering if you are going to die.”

Sharpshot snorted as he stood up and walked over to me. I did my best to sit up as quickly as possible, wincing at the pain that sprung up from my ribs. It was not as bad as it could have been, meaning Sharpshot had probably done some work on me while I was out cold, so the pain wasn’t bad enough to send me back to the ground. Unfortunately, in the time it took for me to get through the pain, he was already on me.

The ghoul’s following action was both expected and unexpected at the same time. He jabbed me in the rib, enough to make me grit my teeth from how horrible it felt but not so bad I fell back to the ground. The jab wasn’t anything close to how he had slammed me into the floor back in the stable, but it was still born out of malice. Just a more controlled malice.

“I know a fair few ghouls, zebras, and otherwise that would be disgusted to hear you say that.”

“What in tartarus does that mean?”

His eyes narrowed. “That question serious?” I gave him a nod. “Then you can figure out the answer yourself.”

I sighed, and dared to look away from him and back to Gemini. The moment I had sat up, her sleep had started to grow slightly more troubled, like I was her zebra dream catcher or something. Deciding that sitting up wasn’t best for my beaten body, I shuffled so that I was able to lay down facing her. Certainly beat looking at Sharpshot.

“You might want to tell her you're already taken, before she grows too attached,” Sharpshot said.

“Already have. Besides I… I don’t know if I swing both ways.”

“You don’t?”

“Never experimented. Had a lot of other things to worry about as a foal,” I smiled, “and Anchor asked me out, not the other way around. Didn’t really think about settling down with somepony until I met him.”

“That’s… actually kind of sad.” The ghoul had made his way around Gemini and myself, his glued to me. “Even I had a filly or two I liked before I met Willow, both back in the stable and out of it. And you are in the Enclave! What kind of shit did a supposed “pureblood” like yourself have to deal with where you couldn’t think about love?”

“An alcoholic dad with no control over his anger and a drug dealing mom that was absent most of my life.”

There was the briefest flash of surprise in his eyes, followed quickly after by a small fit of laughter. My brain immediately took it as an insult but, rather quickly, it became clear that it was born of something a bit more… real. It was more like the laughter was born out of my circumstances, and less myself.

“That explains a lot,” Sharpshot said. I shot him a glare. “You are an educated pony, so I assume you know that who we are just as much from nature as it is from nurture.”

“Yeah. It’s why I never yelled at Clear and Rainy,” I replied, nodding. “It’s why I tried to not act like my parents; I don’t want them to go through any of that.”

“Huh. Guess there is a bit of gold hidden in there.” Sharpshot’s eyes hinted at a smile behind his rags. As soon as I realized he meant that as a compliment, he had moved on. “Nevertheless, you are the result of the ponies who birthed you, both from a genetic standpoint and otherwise. I hear the kind of parents you were raised with, and your behavior makes a lot of sense.” He tilted his head. “Joining the Enclave was how you got away from them, wasn’t it?”

It was my turn to be shocked, which just made the joy on the ghoul’s face shine even greater. He wasn’t entirely wrong – getting away from my father was definitely a huge part in joining – but money was still as big of an aspect. Still, just the fact he had figured out half of my reason from nothing but a vague description of my parents was surprising. Actually made his claims of being any sort of doctor a bit more believable.

“Seems I nailed it on the head,” he said after about five seconds of silence. “You didn’t want to live that life anymore, so you went somewhere you would become tougher, stronger, less vulnerable. It worked to the point that you almost seem reckless at times. All that, because of how your parents treated you.”

“Does that really count for the nurture part of your argument?”

“This isn’t my exact area of study, so perhaps not, but it definitely feels like it fits.” He tapped his muzzle for a second or two, then clapped hooves together. “Yes, it is, I’m certain. In books they tend to talk about it in a more broad sense, but this is definitely the case for you. It also explains the version of you that appeared when you learned you weren’t pureblooded.”

“I’m guessing being taught surgery at such a young age would explain why you deal so well with blood and injuries, if that is how we are treating all of this,” I guessed, lowering my muzzle onto my front hooves. The way he puffed his chest out was a clear sign he took that bit of nurture as something to be proud of. “I… I guess I can accept all of that. You’re the doctor here after all, despite how little you seem like one at certain points.”

“Blame the mentor I had after leaving my stable. Could send a raider screaming for his mommy nearly as quick as Willow,” his eyes went past me, no doubt eyeing his wife’s sleeping form. “We were a terrifying group of ponies. Dead Hooves especially; mare gained a heck of a silver tongue over the course of our adventure. The group we got here? It feels similar in strength.”

“Are you… giving me a compliment?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be.”

I decided that, in this instance, it was indeed a compliment. Sharpshot was still an asshole, but for some reason he wasn’t trying to make me tick right now. Perhaps this was his way of showing he cared while also keeping his distance. It lined up with Willow saying he was worried about me back at the station.

“There… is something that doesn’t line up though.”

I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”

He got up and started pacing, mumbling to himself as he did so. I watched him closely, wondering what was going on through his head. After a time, with Sharpshot standing closer to Gemini’s tail than her head anymore, he spoke.

“Rhapsody, the Enclave places a lot of weight in being pureblood, you make that clear,” he said, continuing to pace back and forth. “I’m assuming they have the equipment to run an ancestry test, much like ArcanaTech did, to be able to claim who is and isn’t a pureblooded pegasus. I assume that everypony newly enlisted is tested, right?”

“While being pureblooded isn’t a requirement to become part of the Enclave, you are correct,” I answered. Sharpshot stopped pacing and looked at me. The look alone was enough to make me realize what was wrong. “Wait, they should have known.”

“Exactly,” Sharpshot replied, clapping his forehooves together once again before pointing his left one at me. “If they have the ability to run an ancestry test, then they would know you got unicorn and zebra in your blood.”

“But that–”

In my surprise and confusion, I had tried to stand up so I was facing Sharpshot down and not the other way around. Instead I aggravated my injured ribs, and collapsed back into the sand. Almost instinctively, the ghoul took a single step forwards as if he was about to help me, but then took two back to hide that urge. He didn’t need to help me, because I pushed through the pain and brought myself into a sitting position on my own power. It was just slower and less reckless than my previous attempt.

“That isn’t possible. Officers can’t be part grounders. It's supposed to prevent harmful ideas from possibly reaching the council,” I explained, one foreleg wrapped around the area I was certain the damaged rib was located in. “I couldn’t have become an officer if that was the case. I couldn’t have been inducted into the council.”

“Which means, somehow, they didn’t know,” Sharpshot replied. He closed his eyes and lowered his head, only to immediately snap the former back open and raise it enough to reach my eyes. “There are two possibilities.”

My heart rate was increasing, but I chose to hide fear behind confidence. “Alright, shoot.”

“First option: they lied about having the tech.”

“I highly doubt we would make these claims if we didn’t.”

“You’re the former councilmare, I’ll take your word for it… with a heavy grain of salt,” Sharpshot didn’t try to quiet his voice. I glared at him. “Option two: it was somehow changed after the fact. Possibly by somepony higher in the chain of command, possibly by somepony who knew you.”

I scowled, not because he was wrong but because I didn’t like what either option entailed. Yes, it was possible somepony had changed my records, but what reason would they have for doing it? Pegasi like myself weren’t supposed to be officers, but numbers like the common soldier. I… I wasn’t supposed to be on the council.

…

I wasn’t supposed to be on the council. I wasn’t supposed to be an officer. How much of my life up until last week would have been void if they knew? How likely is it that Iron Anchor would never have asked me out just due to knowing I wasn’t pureblooded? That meant Clear and Rainy would have never existed. Who was willing to see past that? Who had enough say in the Enclave military to somehow change my docs, either through bribery or forgery?

There was only one pegasus I was able to think of, and the entire idea it was them made me chuckle and close my eyes. It was Ironsight. There was nopony else that could possibly. He was the only foalhood friend that I had, and he had entered the military before I did due to a two year age difference. If anypony had changed the ancestry test, it had to have been him.

“Guess he isn’t as much of a supremacist as you said he was,” I whispered, just loud enough to get Sharpshots attention, but quite enough where he still didn’t catch what I said. All I was going to give him as a hint towards what I said was a smile.

As the early morning went on, I periodically asked Sharpshot more about certain things that had occurred while I was out. To be more accurate, what happened after my wings had strangely ceased to function – something we both knew was worth a look into if we ever came into contact with ArcanaTech out here – and how long had passed. As far as I was concerned it might have been over a week, and if that was the case it meant the Enclave had taken my no-call as a sign I had died or gone rogue. My last link to anything up in the clouds would have been cut off.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case.

There was a lot, but I’ll sum it up everything I missed the best I can. After I had been blasted off the building from the force of the Atomizer’s grenade, the others had been given enough space to escape the balefire fossil. I never showed up, leading Gold and Willow to volunteer to try and find me. I was found unconscious after a decent amount of searching, brought back to Sharpshot and Gemini, and they made their way out of the sandstorm.

In other words, I had technically gotten everycreature out alive, but it had nearly cost me my own life. Sharpshot had taken time to ask what actually happened to knock me unconscious in the first place. I recalled what I could of my encounter with Domino Effect, Mistletoe, and the other soldiers that blamed me for their death. A lot of it went over his head, but what had made sense was the damage spirits were able to cause mentally. Neither of us wanted to consider what might have happened if I had never been saved.

From there, the rest of it was simple. For about a day and a half they had been traveling San Palomino proper, heading towards the nearest water source on Sharpshot’s PipBuck. From there, finding a settlement shouldn’t be too complicated. Willow had carried me in that time, and my armor had been carried by Gold to keep me from cooking inside it. That was certainly appreciated.

Between it all, more miscellaneous topics had come up about their travels over the past couple of days, but it was enough to get us to sunrise. Compared to any wastelander not from San Palomino, the act of watching the sun rise into the sky didn’t seem that special. To ponies like Sharpshot, Willow, or anypony eastward, watching the clear sky turn a vibrant, beautiful shade of orange. An orange that can’t be seen anywhere else, and many only knew from faded pictures or memory orbs.

To anypony wondering why the Enclave didn’t have any control over San Palomino, there are two reasons. One was Trotson having control of one of the area’s two S.P.P. towers, therefore rendering us pegasi incapable of cutting grounders off from seeing Celestia’s beautiful sun. The other was technically our, but one simple thing kept us from ever acknowledging its existence: Las Pegasus.

The more pegasi thought it was lost to an overly irradiated hell, the better. To anypony not in the Enclave military, this region of the world no longer exists. We left an S.P.P. tower to its own devices, whatever clouds it made being used for reasons outside of the Enclave’s controls. Nopony had bothered to look into it; up until recently I had described everypony around me as a raider. Gemini made me doubt that.

Thus, San Palomino had been left to its own devices, with the news of a new F.O.B. near the Las Pegasus ruins the first ever sign that the Enclave actually wanted it. If at all possible, and if Ironsight’s reasons behind it didn’t prove enough whenever he radio’d in, I would travel there myself. Dashite or not, I wanted to know why we were setting up in the ruins of Las Pegasus.

All of that, however, could be momentarily tossed to the side in favor of watching the sunrise. San Palomino may not have had the cityscape of Trotson, but the light of Celestia’s star reflecting off the sand made it mystical, casting shadows over what dunes lay nearby. One such dune served as our resting place, something I hadn’t taken notice of due to my conversation with Sharpshot. I felt bad not noticing the world around me now.

The sky looked ripe for a morning flight, and that desire briefly overrode the state of my body. It didn’t take long for me to learn something was wrong; the mere attempt to open my wings was met with a sharp pain from one of my wings, into my back. Sharpshot was, unfortunately, correct about my wing. Moving proved to be as good an idea as sticking your head in a hellhound's mouth.

So I got comfortable with just watching the sunlight fall upon the desert. It wasn’t too long after that a certain unicorn started to rouse from her sleep. My attention turned to Gemini, watching her hooves paw the air in search of something. One brushed my wing, and the hoof recoiled back to her. It was cute and upsetting at the same time.

“Morning Ms. Trigger Happy,” Sharpshot teased. I scrunched my muzzle and glared at him. “What?”

“Getting shot isn’t a joking matter.”

“Here in the wasteland it is.”

“Yes cause getting shot by somepony is a really a good way of making frien–“

“M-Missus Rhapsody?”

My eyes fell back to the young, adorable pile of gray and sea green at my side, as if her speaking my mane was enough to prove me wrong. Her eyes looked up at me, a tired look of happiness filling her visage. It was enough to make my heart melt, the only thing keeping me from petting her mane was the acknowledgment she wouldn’t like it.

She would tell me if I was allowed to. I’m certain.

“Th-that’s really you, right?” She asked, her words slurring slightly.

“Yes, it's me,” I replied. I let my tone slip into something soft, motherly, and kind. It felt almost instinctive. “Sorry to scare you.”

Tears built up, and the floodgates opened just the slightest bit. It wasn’t an ugly cry. It was far more accurate to call it a release of stress, one caused by me being asleep for over an entire day. Knowing those tears were directed at me was… it hurt just as much as it comforted.

“It’s good to see you awake,” she said. She slowly got to her hooves, stretching out as she yawned. “I-I’m sorry we weren’t there to save you. It was… i-it was really scary. Even with Sharpshot saying you were alright I thought… I thought…”

“Hey hey hey, don’t think about it,” I assured her, waving my hooves over her as if I was going to pat her back. “You couldn’t have done anything, so don’t think about it. I’m here, I’m awake. Think about that instead.”

While it didn’t stop her tears, she gave me the bravest nod she was capable of. Her expression grew confused, as if thinking about what could have happened was far more powerful than seeing the brightside. It was both a good and bad thing; expecting the worst was how any soldier or military officer was expected to think, but with Gemini’s mental health it did nothing but send her mind spiraling into darkness. She deserved to think happier.

“I’ll… I’ll try,” Gemini responded after a few seconds of silence. “Sorry.”

I smiled back at her. “Nothing to apologize for.”

The sound of an extraordinarily loud yawn behind us brought out eyes to Gold and Willow. The former was stretching as well, his bone creaking so loud it was impossible to not hear. The latter was less than thrilled about the griffon’s noisy wake up, glaring up for a decent while. Her throat pain probably didn’t help in any way.

Gold briefly flashed me a smile before turning to his mechanical arm, shaking and hitting it in order to get the sand out. As he did, Sharpshot made his way to Willow, pulling a packet of cloud nine from his saddlebags and giving it to his wife. It still felt wrong, but arguing with the couple about it had already proven to be futile.

Deciding to try and join everypony in the act of truly getting up, I pushed myself up. Immediately, I could tell something was off with my body. Not the off that I had experienced in the research station or the sandstorm, but a more clear off. A day and a half asleep, not using my body in any way, had caused a slight bit of atrophy to step in. I was still able to stand, but my legs did not hold the strength that they should. I sighed.

“You okay?” Gemini said, tilting her head with a worried expression.

“Yeah. Nothing self care can’t fix,” I replied, giving her a reassuring nod as I tested out a few steps. I was a bit unsteady, but it was possible. “Just not at my usual strength at the moment.”

“Lack of sleep does that to you,” Gold chimed in. He smiled at me as he continued to check and clean his artificial limb. “Happy to see pegasus awake.”

I motioned for Gemini to follow me as I walked over to the griffon. “Happy to know I was the only pony hurt. Better me than the rest of you.”

“Pegasus is definitely lucky. Recommend not gambling with lady luck, though,” he responded. “She fickle thing. Next grenade or fall might take you.”

I snorted. “I’m pretty sure a grenade isn’t going to be the thing that does me in.”

“You’ve definitely taken a beating these past few days,” Willow spoke up. I leaned my head in her direction, giving her a smug look. “If it weren’t for your wings you could easily pass for an earth pony.”

“And remain grounded? No way in tartarus,” I responded. I opened my uninjured wing, giving a small flap. “As soon as I’m able to, I’m not leaving the ground again. Barely had any time to fly these past few days.”

“Make sure to tell me when you do. You were wonderful to fly with back in Trotson.” Another nod, this time directed towards the alicorn. She got up and shook the sand off her body, Sharpshot quickly shielding his face. He glared, she giggled. “Whoops. Sorry sweetie.”

Any attempt to be angry at his wife died in seconds. A sigh of defeat led into a hug between the two. Words were shared between them, they kissed, and then separated. Any jealousy I felt towards the couple turned into content at seeing them happy with each other. They must have talked about the events back in the research station while I was unconscious. It would definitely explain why Sharpshot had been a lot less of an ass this morning.

“So, Sharpshot informed me of our current course,” I said, taking a few steps into what could best be considered the midway point between each member of my group. “Head to the river, follow it to the nearest settlement, restrock and figure out our way to Our Haven from there.”

“Ghoul left details out,” Gold replied. He gave the ghoul in question a disappointed look. “Not good to leave details out.”

“I just didn’t feel up for it. Besides soldier mare and I discussed more interesting topics before the sun rose,” Sharpshot explained, giving a shrug. “Long story short, we have a destination already. Some of ArcanaTech’s ponies told me of a place called Underside, probably the closest location to Trotson and only a few days out. Apparently some of them have been there for one reason or another.”

I raised my brow. “I thought ArcanaTech stays completely underground.”

“Mostly correct,” Gold said, crossing his talons. “We work for ArcanaTech. Therefore ArcanaTech is out here. Other ponies also work for ArcanaTech.” His expression grew… uncomfortable sly. “Like pony who ripped off pegasi a week ago.”

“Pony who ripped me o–” My eyes widened, jaw hung. It was so obvious I should have known it sooner. “That cheeky bitch.”

Gemini looked between the sly elderly griffon and myself, her confusion growing as quickly as her concern. “I-I’m guessing something happened before I met you all?”

“Train Rhapsody arrived on only working train in Equestria. ArcanaTech’s train, to be precise,” Gold said, eyes staying on me. It was the kind of look that screamed that I should have known something was wrong. “Uses different engine than old world trains. Moondancer designed it. ArcanaTech employed wastelanders to man it. Earth pony scammed pegasus for sunrise sarsaparilla.”

If everycreature’s eyes weren’t already on me, they were now. Something had to have knocked loose back at the research station, because I didn’t feel like my usual stoic self. A blush mixed with a scowl, my mouth letting out sounds that meant nothing but certainly sounded angry. It didn’t help that I knew, even without looking, that Sharpshot was on the verge of laughter.

I had thought trusting Gold back in Trotson Station was my first mistake here on the surface. Turns the notes that Ironsight had concerning how grou- wastelanders operate, and my admittedly rather warped perception of them, had led to some slight miscalculations. How was I supposed to know the prices for drinks when I wasn’t used to bartering? That isn’t how things worked in the Enclave.

“Well geezer, don’t keep us in the dark,” Sharpshot said, his cockiness growing with every word he spoke. “How much did she pay?”

In a moment of desperation and weakness, I silently mouthed the elderly griffon a plea. Unfortunately, it was for naught.

“Sixty nine caps.”

There was a brief silence, followed moments later by a snort. It proved to be a floodgate to a storm of laughter loud enough that I’m certain Red Eyes himself could hear it. Most of the corpsing was caused by Sharpshot and Willow Wisp, to nopony’s surprise, but Gold quickly joined in with far more controlled wheezing. The only one not partaking in my embarrassment was the only pony here that likely wasn’t well versed in letters or numbers, being Gemini. Poor mare was looking both worried and confused.

“Is… is sixty-nine a lot?”

“I’m guessing it is,” I answered, sighing. The laughter hadn’t ceased, and it was starting to make my temper rise. “Can you three stop already!”

They didn’t, at least not at my command. My companions’ corpsing went on for at least two more minutes, my eyes choosing Sharpshot specifically to glare at, if for no other reason than he was the wastelander I liked the least. When their laughing fit finally did end, he was the last to finish up, though I’m certain he was faking most of it by the end anyways. It certainly didn’t sound real anymore.

With a renewed silence, I sighed and allowed my eyes to wander, which led to my landing on Willow Wisp. Sharpshot’s wife was currently grimacing, throat pains no doubt overriding that joy she had felt from the burst of amusement beforehoof. Searching back on what memories of Dead Hooves I was able to recall – which was starting to seem like a decent chunk of her life both before and directly after she had ended up in the wasteland proper – that suddenly seemed weird.

Apparently her masochism hadn’t survived contact with killing joke. Outside of her obviously being an alicorn, it was probably the clearest difference between the Willow of years ago, and the Willow of now. Considering her situation, and how the rest of the Unity acted, that spoke to just how free she was of their hive mind; of having who she was washed under a sea of consciousness so chaotic even the strongest wills were no doubt broken by it.

“You all done now?” I asked. The lack of verbal response was enough of an answer. “Okay, so not everypony in ArcanaTech stays underground, that is very clear now. I’m surprised that they allow wastelanders to live with them.”

“True. Typically employment involves a series of tests. Medical, education, the like,” Gold explained, a bit of wheezing in his voice. Seems his age and smoking habits were leading to a longer recovery time for him. “Even then, those born in ArcanaTech treated more respectfully. Seen more pure than us above ground.”

“Sharpy and I have done some odd jobs for them ourselves.” My attention swerved back to Willow. She was still grimacing in pain, but her telepathic voice certainly didn’t reflect it. “Grabbing equipment, recovering research from ministry hubs in other cities, things we are qualified to do. Allows her to keep her ponies safe for some plan they have while getting what they want.”

“And let me tell you, Moondancer was a bitch of an I.M. to deal with,” Sharpshot chimed in, sitting down and crossing his hooves. “She hires and pays well, sure, but she makes it clear that she doesn’t trust or care for the ponies she hires. Would seem like an easy way to drive off mercs, but then you realize how she keeps ponies under control.” He tapped the side of his head. “I know she has the ability to make ponies do what she wants, or off themselves for her. I know she can plant spells to watch through your eyes, placed with equipment much like your MentaBuck. Lucky Heart is better over all but,” he looked to Gold, “I’m not always sure she is in charge.”

The implication made the griffon’s eyes narrow. “She is. We made it so. Lies not good in merc work.”

“Oh, I have no doubt she is ‘in charge’ from a literal standpoint, geezer. I’m questioning if she is the one actually calling the shots.”

“Moondancer is not in charge. Merely assistant now. Decisions by ArcanaTech are Lucky’s too. Guarantee.”

“Okay, fine, but I hope you realize that isn’t the defense you think it is.” For a brief second, it seemed like Sharpshot had submitted completely to Gold’s words. Then, he looked at me. “By the way, soldier mare, the armor that ArcanaTech gave you and Gemini? It had an incredibly advanced tracking spell on it. Same for the geezer here. You’ll thank me later for… tampering with it.”

I allowed myself to frown.

Before the union of the three tribes, life expectancy was around the same as the current day wasteland. Lots of ponies died at younger ages, leaving young foals in their teens or possibly younger on the throne. These foals gained advisors to help train them in the art of diplomacy, conduct, warfare, and otherwise. At least that is what it seemed on the surface; young minds were easier to warp than older ones, and advisors had a tendency to hold agendas that both gave them power and led to the foal thinking like them. In many ways, it created a spiral of ruling families going further and further down darker paths due to having the wrong ponies at their side.

If it wasn’t clear enough, that leads to a very different view of monarchy than any pre-war pony would have you believe. Celestia was the exception, not the rule. That only made it more clear when Luna took her place on the throne, and the nation started its descent towards Tartarus’ gates. It can be easily summarized that corporations, or establishments that act like a corporation, act under the same principle.

All of that to say the same thing was happening now in ArcanaTech. Knowing who was truly in charge put a lot into perspective, and made it clear that all further communication with Moondancer was to be treated like a member of the high council; an enemy just as much as they were an ally.

Breakfast involved oatmeal and nothing else, but I didn’t care. I was hungry as sin – no doubt a result of having not eaten in an entire day – and that led to me devouring my portion like a rabid animal. I had never felt that hungry in my entire life. Probably sounds stupid to anypony who lived down in the wasteland their entire life, and certainly would have sounded dumb to a much younger Singing Rhapsody.

Guess military life, for all the twists and turns it sent me through, had spoiled me a bit. The memories of a time when I wasn’t sure if father would actually put a meal down on the time, or grab out rations, or anything like that were there distant. At times it seemed to belong to a different pegasus entirely, despite knowing for a fact that it was indeed me. As they say, time mends all wounds.

I made sure to grab the radio from my saddlebags, which had been kept with the NB-2 armor, so that I knew when Ironsight would contact me. I imagined it was probably too early for him, probably eating much like we were. Sharpshot had also put DJ-PON3 on for the others around me, but I wasn’t that interested in whatever they were saying. Especially when I had other stations to listen to.

For example, S.M.R..

“After announcing their plans to start stripping the E.S.S. Hurricane a few months ago, I am happy to finally announce the Shattered Moon has finally managed to get it into port. The operation to right the capsized vessel was a long, arduous one, but it's finally back at home. “

“Now, I don’t need to tell you all to stay out of our protector's way while they clean it out. There is no telling what irradiated creatures lurk within its hull still, after all, and I doubt anypony with eyes for loot alone would want to go out that way. Besides, if we want the false star dealt with, it's best that the Shattered Moon have it, and not some random pony like myself.”

“Now, I hear you all are liking Songbird Serenade, eh? Seems the Enclave has good taste. How about another round of some of her greatest hits.”

Whoever the pony on the other end of the radio was, their voice was the epitome of calm. They refused to give their own name over the radio, strange as that was considering Enclave stations always did and we at least had a nickname for whoever DJ-PON3 was. This radio stallion was just some random wastelander as far as I was concerned.

Striping what I assumed to be an old equestrian warship… after two hundred years.

I understood the intention, but it seemed like a waste. Not because it wouldn’t have anything on it, because that was a lie – a warship certainly would be filled with shit wastelanders would be interested in. The problem lay in the fact it had clearly been capsized, had sat in the water for over two centuries, and no doubt been rusted and decayed to tartarus. Half the ship, possibly more, was useless to the Shattered Moon. How much could they really get out of the other half?

At first it seemed easy to wave off as desperate ponies searching for something, anything, to give them an edge over an enemy. The calm, serene nature of the pony over the radio painted a different picture. There had to be more to this. Something wastelanders – or at the very least the Shattered Moon – knew was on E.S.S. Hurricane that was important.

The question is what is that damn important to remove a two century old ship from its resting place. Best guess a pegasus could make? A megaspell. Would a group possibly formed from an anti-ministry group want one? Who knows.

Still, grounder-made or not, I felt some excitement at knowing an old Equestria warship was at shore. The military mare in me couldn’t help but feel excited to see such a relic. I made a mental note to keep it in mind, in case we somehow ended up at the port while searching for my traitorous squadmates.

The sound of the S.M.R. radiostallion filled my ears for a decent portion of the day. We started our long journey to Underside directly after breakfast, with me having to fight with Sharpshot for the right to walk on my own for just a bit. It certainly wasn’t comfortable with my still-mending ribs, but my body needed the exercise. It took two hours of walking till the ghoul finally made me give in, and I found myself on Willow’s back.

While at first being to ride on another pony when I didn’t think I needed to was embarrassing and more than a little shameful, there was this other feeling attached to it I would never admit to any of them. A strange nostalgia, like I had done this for years upon years of my life. It made no sense, especially since four days ago was the first time I had ever done it, but the feeling was there. It stayed, and it refused to leave.

Then, over midday, it happened.

“Rhapsody. Are you there?”

Everycreature stopped, and all eyes fell on me. As soon as I heard Ironsight’s voice, an excitement and reassurance hit my entire body. No tears, thank Luna, but by all the good in the universe his voice was there. He wasn’t abandoning me! The filly in me surfaced as I held the radio up, turning the MentaBuck’s own off simultaneously.

“Yes, I’m here!” I said, probably with the most pure, foal-like enthusiasm that he had ever heard in his entire life. “That is you, Ironsight, right? I-I’m actually hearing your voice?”

A pause, followed by that similar familiar voice carrying a certain degree of surprise. “Rhapsody? Is… is everything alright?”

“Yes!” I replied instantaneously, pressing the radio against my chest and rubbing it against my coat. “Yes, everything is alright. By Celestia, I’m just happy to hear you after literally everything that happened this past week.”

I didn’t care that I was being watched, mainly because a piece of me wanted these grounders to see how close I was to Ironsight. Foalhood best friend after all, and neither my parents or duty had been able to break it. Tartarus, I’d say that both of them just made our friendship that much stronger.

“I… well I wasn’t quite expecting to hear this side of you again,” Ironsight said, embarrassment filling his voice. Behind it, however, was his own, more subdued joy. “I’m happy to hear from you too. It felt wrong not having you around here in Aery.”

Okay, so perhaps hearing that made me wish I was able to cry. Sadly, or maybe fortunately depending on how you saw it, there was no world-view shattering event like last time. I was more than okay to just close my eyes, and continue hugging the radio as if it was truly him. It was the closest I’d ever get, for the rest of my life. I’d have to take it.

“It’s… it feels wrong without you too,” I whispered, just loud enough that I was certain the radio had caught it. “You, and Anchor, and Rainy and Clear and just… Luna let me just take in all of this for a moment.”

…

…

“Okay, I… I think I’m ready to actually talk now,” I replied, opening my eyes. They were so watery, and yet left every time before the ability to let them fall was gone. “Sorry Iron. As I said, the week has been a lot.”

“I can hardly imagine,” he responded, a sigh coinciding with his words. “As much as I want to just chat with you like old times, we should get the “official” stuff taken care of first.”

My head nodded on instinct, despite knowing he wasn’t able to see it. “Of course, sir. Perhaps I should start off by introducing you to some individuals I’ve met.”

“As in, more than Sharpshot?”

I ignored the glare said ghoul gave the radio, and looked specifically to Gemini. I snorted in amusement, and shook my head.

“A lot more.”

“So to summarize the important bits: Angel Hair was out of Trotson around the same time you entered, and she sold off classified information to find a father that doesn’t know she exists,” Ironsight said. “Plans don’t survive contact with the enemy, I know that, but… fuck!”

“Not all bad. Know where other pegasus heading. Planning to take care of her there,” Gold replied. He was reveling in the distress Lucky, Moondancer, and himself had given my friend. “Surprised councilor isn’t worried about friend's injuries.”

“Oh, trust me, work a month or two with Rhapsody and you’ll realize it's near impossible to put her down.” I puffed my chest out at Ironsight’s words. Everyone else seemed a bit more worried at the statement. “She’s as durable as tungsten. Seen very few pegasi as tough as her.”

“Yeah. She’s got the grit of an earth pony,” Sharpshot replied, the insidious twist his expression took making it clear it wasn’t a compliment. At least, to him it wasn’t. Clearly he hadn’t figured out who had changed my medical files yet. “And the hardheadedness of one too. Outside of the day we met I haven’t seen her without some form of injury.”

Ironsight remained silent for a second on the other end of the radio. When he did finally speak, their was the slightest hint of venom hidden within his response.

“I’ll… choose to take those as compliments for her. She’s tough, yes, but far tougher than any earth pony I’ve fought.” A snort. “They don’t get back up after being shot at.”

Sharpshot rolled his eyes. “Clearly they just haven’t shot in the right place yet.”

“Or perhaps some random grounder is nothing compared to a trained soldier,” I shot back, giving the ghoul a taste of his smugness. Somehow, it just seemed to make his own expression more apparent. “No matter where they go, Ironsight, I assure you of this much: they will pay for betraying the Enclave.”

“With you the one giving that reassurance, I have no doubt,” Ironsight replied. “I’m afraid I can’t offer any updates on their position. The Cloud Guard as well as the Sky Force has not been cooperative. The reason why is obvious, but it doesn’t make the lack of help any easier.”

Sharpshot rolled his eyes. “Mind filling in blanks for the ponies here who aren’t born with wings.”

“The Cloud Guard is responsible for threats above the cloud. Sky Force is our navy, and what you all are probably more familiar with,” I looked at Gemini, “unless you grew up not knowing pegasi exist.”

“I figured one of them might know about where your targets are. Unfortunately, given your status as a dashite, that hasn’t worked out,” Ironsight explained with a sigh. “I hate to say it, but I’m as good as useless. Almost makes you wonder if–“

“You are already doing more than you need to, Iron. Don’t question yourself,” I told him. Sweet Celestia, I wish I was able to hug him. Instill a bit more confidence my absence must have taken away. “Have faith in yourself, and in the Enclave.”

“A-as Miss Rhapsody said, we got this!” Gemini said. I flashed the young unicorn a smile.

I expected her to take my back. I didn't expect everycreature else to do so as well.

“With you as long as Sharpy is with her I am,” Willow replied, leaning her head towards her husband.

Sharpshot snorted. “Well she needs someone to patch her up and watch her flank.”

“Pegasus has me too,” Gold replied, tapping his chest with one claw. “Shall make sure she is prepared for wasteland. Show her how bartering works?”

“Haha, very funny,” I responded, crossing my hooves across Willow’s back. My disapproval at his joke proved to be fleeting as I looked between all of them, an expression closer to confused relief taking its place. “Thanks, though. Wasn’t really expecting it from all of you.”

“Well, trying to be a better mare wouldn’t mean anything if we didn’t treat you well,” the alicorn replied, swaying back and forth happily. I had to wrap a hoof around her to keep myself from falling off her back.

Ironsight obviously wasn’t able to hear Willow’s response. I knew that, if it was anypony but myself that had told him of the alicorn's existence, he likely wouldn’t have believed it. Not that I blame him; she was the metaphorical needle hiding inside a mountain of storm clouds. A needle that I… well, I think it was safe to consider her a friend at this point. How strange that thought was, considering everything I was unaware of a week ago.

“I don’t trust any of you, but it’s clear Rhapsody does,” Ironsight told them all. “I’m putting a lot of faith in you all. Far more than any grounder has ever received and more than you likely deserve. Keep her safe, for me and the family she has up here.”

As everycreature else gave him a collective nod – which was done more out of respect for his station then who he was, given some of the unpleasant expressions around front my companions – his words caused me to go deep in though. A piece of me wondered if it was really a good idea, given how my emotions had been since leaving the clouds, to ask about Anchor and our foals. Yet, at the same exact time, not inquiring about how well they were doing seemed even worse. One line of thought battled another, wishing to take control and give into them.

“Well, while I would certainly be interested to hear about what actually living on the surface is like, I have to go. I’ll radio you all again in seven days. Ironsi–”

“Ironsight, wait.”

All eyes turned on me, and my mind started to spiral. I had hoped asking him to wait would be the key to turning the tide of my inner war in one direction. Instead, it felt like I had just made everything worse. Now I had no choice but to say something.

“Is something wrong Rhapsody?” Ironsight asked, the tone of his voice overwhelmed by concern.

“I… I, uh,” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath in, and said the first thing that came to my mind, “I’m glad I got to hear your voice again.”

My stomach was twisted into a knot. My muzzle had failed me.

“It was good hearing you too Rhapsody. Ironsight out.”

With that, the radio went silent. I bit into my bottom lip, refusing to open my eyes because I knew damn well just how close to tears I was. Seeing my companions through watery eyes felt like too much. I dropped the radio onto Willow’s back, and then brushed it down to the desert sand, a soft thump signaling my success. Then, to hide the emotions that any better soldier would easily lock into a mental cage deep within their mind, I lowered my head onto the fluff of the alicorn beneath me and crossed my hooves over my muzzle.

Only then did I open my eyes, revealing my magenta hooves covering my vision. My one chance for the next week had passed with me failing to do the simplest of tasks. Anchor, Clear, and Rainy would no doubt hear about me from Ironsight, but I would hear nothing about them.

The fuck kind of mother is too scared to learn about how their own foals are doing?

“Rhapsody?” Gemini called to me. She was clearly afraid of what she was about to ask, but she was far braver than I was right now. “Are you… i-i-is everything–”

As I was able to tell where her voice came from, I moved my head to look in the opposite direction. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Singing, we aren’t going to make fun of you for–”

“I said that I don’t want to talk about it,” I told Willow, just a little more aggressively than I had said it to Gemini. I buried my head deeper into her coat. “End of discussion. Just get moving.”

Act 2 – Chapter 4: An Exchange of Feathers

San Palomino Desert

Day 7

I think, at this point, I’m more than allowed to call myself a pathetic excuse of a mother.

Don’t for a second think that means I’m worse than the mare who brought me into the world. She was a disgrace the likes of which even some raiders probably couldn’t imagine. No, I was pathetic because I was too scared to learn how my own offspring was doing. What good mother would be so scared of them she wasn’t even able to ask how they were fairing?

In hindsight, the answer to the question of which side of the argument had been right or wrong was simple. If only the pony brain thought such simplicity was a good thing. Now I had to live with the understanding I wouldn’t know a damn thing about my family for another seven days. This was less a dagger to the heart and more a spear through both it and my lungs. I regret to say I sulked and moped for more hours than I would like to admit.

When I finally did stop, I no longer wanted to be on Willow’s back. By that point the day had made its way past noon. I kept a bit of distance as I tried to sort my thoughts out, get a hold of my own emotions before I blew up at someone again. That was another piece of me that was pathetic, come to think of it. I’m a grown mare just entering her late thirties and I was dealing with emotional turmoil closer to how a teenager would. Certainly doesn’t give the impression of a military officer.

Everycreature allowed me the space I needed, thankfully… or at least they did for a time. I’m not sure what decision they had come to – tuning them out had helped with steadying my own line of thought – but after a time Gemini and Willow had made their way over to me. They were quiet for a little while, baring into me from both sides as if that alone would be enough to unsettle me. Clearly they had never been in a military parade, with everypony you know watching you in awe.

It was also clear they had forgotten I was a mother, and therefore had an immunity to that look. Parents, you know the one I’m talking about. It’s the kind a foal gives somepony when they really, really want something. I’ll give credit where it's due, though, it would have worked against literally anypony else. I can’t help but wonder how often Willow must pull this type of maneuver on Sharpshot.

After they finally realized their puppy stares weren’t working, I quickly found myself swiped under Willow’s wing. I had practically no option but to at least listen to her after that, and as time went on I ended up responding. Gemini quickly joined in, and the funk I was put under was temporarily forgotten about. My thoughts on myself didn’t change, but I was no longer drowning in my own doubt and hate.

The day went on, and as night fell upon Equestria we had hit the river Sharpshot told me about. Everypony settled down for a night of rest, the gentle caress of water on sandy banks filling everyponies ears as they went to sleep. Well, everypony but Sharpshot and myself. He didn’t need to sleep, and I… I was just scared.

It's kind of funny, given how tough and proud I’ve felt but… different. I’m not sure how else to explain it other than a heightened fear of death. I wasn’t sure if it was my encounter with Domino or something else that had caused it, but it made me inwardly tremble at the thought of sleeping. That sandstorm had been another close brush with death, to the point that I had been unconscious for over a day.

What if, next time, I didn’t wake up?

I shook my head, searching to get the thought of death off my mind. Thankfully, somepony was willing to help with that.

“You know, seeing the sun and moon is really weird,” Dead Hooves said. I wasn’t sure when she had decided to make herself known to my eyes, but there she was. “I think San Palomino is the only place to see them. It’s strange, but also kind of cool. I get to see a part of the world a lot of ponies don’t.”

We pegasi were responsible for that.

I shook my head, temporarily banishing that line of thought. No use getting upset about something that couldn’t be changed, though the fact I was looking at the cloud cover differently now certainly was interesting. Did I appreciate it and the safety it gave to most pegasi-kind? Of course. Didn’t mean it was impossible to realize what we had stolen.

It was something I never really thought about before being branded; every trip to the surface was typically short, and I always knew home was visitable. Now? I think I speak for the majority of dashites, stable dwellers, and wastelanders when I say being able to see the sun or moon in the sky was lucky. Nowhere else in Equestria could the pure beauty of day and night be seen… except in San Palomino.

A place where most of the wasteland probably didn’t exist.

“They look… both the same and different to what the pictures show.” She paused, and then chuckled. “Now that I say that, it’s pretty dumb. Of course they look more beautiful in person compared to within pictures. Still, I don’t think I would ever have known how beautiful they are.” She reached a hoof up, and then turned to me. “You pegasi get to see this every day? That’s amazing.”

Her words were both reassuring and sad. Seeing her memories have allowed me a look into her mind, the clock in her head counting down to when she felt was her next closest death. She acted… not exactly mature, but rougher than your average teen. There wasn’t a lot of time for her to act as young as she truly was.

This moment was possibly the first time I had seen the wonder of a foal inside of her. She wasn’t a grounder scraping by, holding on for life and expecting her next moment to be her death. She was a child just like any other, finding magic in the simplest of things. In this case, that was the ball of plasma and glimmering rock that filled the sky. Something that she had not seen while she was alive.

The “alive” part was, obviously, the sobering one. She wasn’t alive anymore. It had taken death for her to be able to enjoy the sky’s beauty.

“I’m glad to see you awake, by the way,” she said, smiling at me. “I’m not quite sure what they were doing to you – those ghosts, I mean – but it scared me.”

“So you are the reason I got out there,” I whispered. DH’s nod told me I had been heard. “Thanks. I don’t remember much, after a time, but I remember the pain. Gold was right; ghosts can’t kill you, but they can do a lot of damage to you mentally.”

“Good thing I was there then,” DH replied with a dry chuckle. “Did you know them? I mean, I assume you did, considering they were pegasi. I imagine everypony is rather tight up there.”

I shook my head. “Worlds too big for that, but yeah. They were ponies I had served with, once upon a time. Domino Effect, Hard Landing, Fair Breeze, Mistletoe…”

“Don’t sound like military ponies to me.”

“Well you all don’t have mandatory service down here, at least in the same way. I imagine the wasteland itself does the job of the G.P.E. there.” There was no response in vocal or motion form, so I decided to continue talking. “Some pegasi stay in the military after mandatory service is done, some don’t. All those pegasi are like myself; we stayed on because we liked the comfort blanket military life provided. Those like us are trusted to keep the knowledge that the surface is habitable secret, and up until Calamity that remains true.”

“That sounds like a lot of responsibility.”

“You have no idea.”

“So why were they hurting you like that?”

DH’s innocent-looking head tilt didn’t get rid of the sharp stab of guilt her words caused. It took a deep breath in, and a moment of closing my eyes and listening to nothing but the coursing river helped settle me down. Funny, back one week ago my emotions had been so nullified that something as simple as that didn’t get to me. Now? Not so much, even if I was both perfectly okay with what they had done to me, and felt deep down that it was deserved.

“Five years ago, a mission sent me to Trotson with those ponies and others. I don’t want to go into details, its not fun to talk about failures,” I explained. DH nodded in understanding, which earned the faintest of smiles from me. Below the many messed up things I now knew about her, she wasn’t a bad wastelander. “As far as I know, one of my targets and myself are the only ponies still alive from it. Some died in the sandstorm to the radiation or the balefire fossils, which were either impaled with bones or melted by balefire. Some lived through the initial event but died of radiation poisoning, or fell so far down the rabbit hole of depression they thought the only way to see light was…”

A simple twist in the stomach kept me from saying the word I wanted, but DH was a smart unicorn. The look of pure sadness that took over her face was all anypony need to know she not only understood what I couldn’t say, but that she understood the gravity of my failure. The inability to keep the sandstorm from claiming lives, directly or indirectly, the bitterness of living to know I had outlived so many of them.

The guilt of being rewarded when I should have been judged.

“I received a medal for what happened,” I told the ghost. The near instantaneous drop of her jaw and dilation of her pupils were all I needed to know. “A reward for bravery – for going through tartarus to get ponies home – and even before the count of survivors was two that side fucking stupid. I got ponies killed, and their response was that!” I chuckled like a pony gone mad. “Oh, how perfect! I was already so close to the edge myself, unable to recall full days of my life because my brain wanted desperately to just turn off. If I didn’t have Anchor I’m damn near certain I wouldn’t be here.”

“Rhapsody I… I’m not quite sure what to say,” DH said. Pupils snapped from one thing to another, her mind clearly churning to figure out what she could say. I’m damn near certain she was just looking at different bits of sand over and over. “I want to find something I can relate it to but–”

“Going senile already, soldier mare?”

Both of us turned to see Sharpshot trotting towards us, body and cloth slightly soaked. I frowned at the side of the latter, feeling inwardly frustrated at the fact he didn’t take anything off. Did I understand why he hadn’t? Of course; his experience with pink cloud had fused it in the same manner that his goggles had, just not as completely. Didn’t make the sight less aggravating.

“No. Just venting to DH,” I explained, motioning to the ghost’s current position for his convenience.

As his brow furrowed, the aforementioned ghost looked to him smugly. “Hey bitch.”

“She says hi, by the way.”

Her exact words?” He asked. I shook my head. “Do you mind if I ask for them then? Proof this ghost sight of yours is real.”

I let out a sigh. “It was “hey bitch” if you really have to know.”

Sharpshot’s face tried many different expressions after that. First anger, then simple joy, followed by shock, and so on. None of them stayed for more than a millisecond, before he landed on something a bit hard to read. It was like he was expressing everything, and yet nothing at the same exact time.

“And she calls me insufferable,” he said.

DH grew ever slightly more sly. “Only speaking the truth, Hearty.”

That was the first time I had ever heard somepony actually use his real name, outside of Sharpshot and I’s initial meeting.

“I want to talk with her,” he told me, suddenly exhausted. “I’m gonna trust you to translate for me with full accuracy. At the very least, I can be certain that it is her.”

“Just from a two word greeting.”

“DH is DH. I’d know if you were pulling that out of your ass.”

While I gave a scowl to his choice of phrasing, I also nodded in assent to his wish. I motioned with a hoof for him to sit right across from where Dead Hooves was, and he did so. The tension in the air was palpable, both the living and the dead excited and unhappy to know each other were there. I wasn’t certain there would be words spoken at first, but as soon as Sharpshot crossed his hooves that doubt faded.

“So, I can't see you, but you are really there,” he said. Dead Hooves gave a nod, despite its uselessness. “I guess… I guess this is where I say hello. Fucking tartarus, I figured you’d be off in the everafter by now.”

“Heh, I was surprised to still be around too,” Dead Hooves replied. As asked, the translation was word-for-word, and it stayed that way the entire conversation. “Both glad and shocked to see some of my friends still kicking.”

“Glad to still be alive,” Sharpshot said, his magic grabbing a lost piece of clothing and wringing it idly. “You seen Stitches or Joy at all after they passed? What about Star?”

My ears perked up for a moment at the mention of DH and I’s shared ancestor. Unfortunately she shook her head solemnly.

“I assume two of them are in the everafter, and Joy is… with the Infinite or something.” She bit her ethereal lip and looked skywards. “I really wish mom taught me more about her beliefs, sometimes.”

“The same mom that ate ponies?”

“Only ever had one.”

“True…,” Sharpshot’s eyes drifted off to the desert sands, “I’m sorry, DH. She lost her battle. Willow and I… we put her down.”

“Thanks, and I know. I’ve been walking alongside you two for a long time now; you don’t have to catch me up on details.”

Sharpshot’s eyes went wide, briefly looked at me, and then back at where DH was. I’m positive a piece of him wasn’t certain my words were really hers there. The ghost looked at me, I looked at her, and both of us silently agreed that he needed hard evidence. Evidence only he and Willow would know.

“Splendid Valley. Maripony. The Goddess lies deep in there, and she came to you and Willow through a non-alicorn contact,” Dead Hooves said. Sharpshot tensed at her words. “You did her a favor getting rid of Nightshade, and she wanted to reward you two. That’s why Willow is an alicorn. You killed one of the very first she created, in fear that your wife being a defect would lead the Goddess to kill her.”

Sharpshot didn’t move, respond, or do anything. It was impossible to tell how he felt, from how stoic he held himself. When he finally did react to her words – which I’m damn near certain DH didn’t just choose due to being the first thing that came to mind – all we got was a blink. A single, solitary blink, and then the barely noticeable hanging of his head.

“So, you were there for it all,” he whispered. “We didn’t know there was another cure at the time. When we found out, we were too scared of what the Goddess would do to her… and to me. We saw an option, and took it.”

“I thought you were a doctor Hearty–”

“Don’t call me that!” Both Dead Hooves and I flinched, and he looked at me. “You lost the privilege of using that name a long, long time ago.”

DH frowned, but nodded in affirmation. “Still, I expected a doctor to think things through a bit more.”

“I was scared. I didn’t know how long I could be Willow’s reason to continue living,” Sharpshot replied, his voice growing oddly fearful. This was a level of discomfort I had never seen in him before. “I was young, I saw a cure, I didn’t think of the consequences. I was trying to save my wife. You wouldn't understand, you never fell in love with anypony.”

Dead Hooves flinched again, gritting her ethereal teeth. Her mouth moved to speak, but she didn’t say anything. I didn’t dare to correct Sharpshot for her, less because she didn’t say it but because of the one pony I knew she had feelings for. Bringing up her mother in that context didn’t feel right at the moment… and made me especially uncomfortable.

“I still hate you for it,” she stated after a minute or two of silence. “Willow didn’t deserve her suffering to be elongated.”

“Oh, like you thought it would still stay around after all these years,” Sharpshot spat back, rolling his eyes. “Willow and I certainly didn’t. We thought that all it would fade, like it did for others who had initially survived its effects. Except it didn’t, because apparently something about torturing both of us still entertains at after a full fucking century.” He shook his head. “Let's just… talk about something else.”

The ghost was rattled enough by his outburst that she was more than with that. For a while, things turned into mindless banter between them, neither seeming truly happy with the other. Their hate was as strong as their happiness, care and loathing equaling out. It was a strange sight, and even weirder to feel on the receiving end of, as DH’s translator. There was not really a better word to describe them both, then “frenemies”.

After just over forty minutes had passed, Sharpshot was done. He got up, and walked over to me. Our eyes made contact, and never separated. In that moment, I was able to see past the hate, the spite, and the disgust he held for Dead Hooves deep down, to the full force of regret and grief that lay within. His eyes held so much water, I’m shocked he was managing to not cry.

“So, you really can talk to the dead,” he said, sorrowful but not pained. His voice phrased it as a question, but I knew that wasn’t the case. “Careful around her. No matter how good her intentions, no matter how innocent her ideas, a neuromancer can’t ever be fully trusted.”

“The memories she has shown me give me more than enough reason to already,” I told him. While I didn’t look at her, it was impossible to not feel Dead Hooves’ eyes upon us. “I can’t believe she feels that way about her own mother!”

To my surprise, he snorted. “Oh, trust me, if you think that is bad just wait until you hear about her little condition. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised if you already know about it.” He put a hoof on my shoulder. “You’ve seen enough. Tell her to stop, she’ll listen.”

With that, he made his way off to Willow and laid down next to her. He didn’t need the sleep, being a ghoul and all, but something told me he needed her. That beginning bit of conversation, concerning what had led to Willow meeting the Goddess, was probably more exhausting then everything else combined. It managed to make even a cocky bastard like him tired.

“Sorry, for him sidetracking us,” DH said, making her way to my side. “It was… good to talk to him again. Not nice, but a long time coming.”

“Glad I was able to make it possible,” I replied. “Dead Hooves, what you were saying about Splendid Valley–”

She nodded. “All true. Why do you ask?”

“Just want to make sure I avoid any place that is a bit too nasty.”

“Right, right, gotcha.” There was a slight pause, and the DH’s brow furrowed. “So… you found out how I discovered my sexuality, I hear.”

“Eeyup, and I would prefer to not think about it or learn anything more.” I replied, rubbing my injured wing with a hoof. As I opened it as much as possible and took to preening, something I hadn’t had the space or time to do since arriving in Trotson, the ghost before me started to fidget. “We can stop with the memory sharing. I… don’t need any more convincing.”

Dead Hooves’ eyes went wide, though something quickly drew her attention to her back instead. After rolling her shoulder, a strange sight for a ghost, she turned back to me. She had this puzzled look about her, a tinge of relief hidden in the very corners of her lips and eyes.

“Were you there when I got my hereditary test done back in ArcanaTech’s research station?” I asked, folding one wing and turning to the other. Dead Hooves nodded, rolling her shoulder once again. “Well, I found out I got unicorn blood in me. I’m still not entirely sure how to take all of it, but you were correct. No need for me to search your memories for the truth, so I would like it if you stopped looking at mine as well.” I gave her an awkward faux smile. Even admitting I was related to her didn’t make having her as part of my ancestry any better. “Was kind of nice having you do it while I was unconscious though. I’m certain it made waking up easier.”

I expected her to smile or say something along the lines of “I told you so”. Instead, Dead Hooves continued to stare at me, that puzzled look shifting into worry. I stared at her, expressionless, waiting for her to give me some idea of what was going on within her ghostly brain. Then, she took a step back.

“DH?”

“You shouldn’t have seen anything,” she whispered, words feeling more aimed at herself than me. Her eyes traced the desert sand below as if some hidden picture was visible in them. “Why did- I’ve performed that spell before, both on the living and dead. It should- I should- it’s not continuous.”

I blinked, my heart thumping a bit harder for what I initially assumed was over exaggerated anxiety. “Dead Hooves, what do you mean? You aren’t making sense.”

“The spell I cast on you, the one that allows me to see memories, it isn’t supposed to interact with ponies in the way they have with you,” she explained, continuing to back further and further away from me. “I’m the only pony that should be seeing memories. When you said you saw mine as well, I thought it was just a funny little side effect of using the spell between the living and dead. That makes sense, right?”

“I guess,” I replied, tilting my head. The look she gave me in response screamed “really?”, as if she had expected me to understand. “From the Enclave, remember? Most magical things we have there are energy weapons, not to mention our own weather and flight magic. We don’t have the spells and shit hornheads like you do.”

“Well, to summarize, spells are rigid in how they function, how they interact, etc,” DH continued on, starting to pace. “You need line of sight with an object to levitate it, and if the object’s motion is intercepted by something else, then the spell breaks. Every spell has rules, and things it can and can’t do… or at least that is what I thought.” She took a step towards me. “I’ve used magic on living ponies as another living pony, and on dead ponies after I was killed. I never thought about using magic between realms until I met you. I wasn’t certain it would work… but it did. At least, that is what I thought.”

She stopped moving and looked up towards the sky.

“I’m not sure what happens when a spell travels between the living and dead, but it fundamentally changed how my memory reading spell is interacting with ponies. We already knew about one of the changes when you saw my own memories, but it's going beyond that. You shouldn’t have seen my memories while unconscious because I wasn’t casting that spell on you. Which leads to a rather uncomfortable question, one that… frightens me.”

Her eyes met mine once again, muzzle moving to speak but the words were terrifying to truly utter. There was no need for her to say them, because as blind as I was to how unicorn magic worked, the picture had been painted clear. Two side effects, both new, neither happening when you were in the same state of life as the subject. So, since she was too scared to ask the question, I decided to do it instead.

“Dead Hooves, what other side effects are there?”

Nothing. Me being the one to ask the question didn’t get the spirit’s muzzle working. In fact, it had wasn’t even making movements anymore, stuck close like an overloaded cabinet drawer. DH’s lack of answer did nothing but make my own inner-anxiety skyrocket, chest heaving faster and mind feeling less focus.

“Dead Hoov–”

“I-I don’t know!” She exclaimed suddenly, stepping back further and further. “Spells are rigid but magic? Magic is fucky. All those weird things Joy brought with her from Stalliongrad? What we witnessed in the sandstorm? Us talking here?! These aren’t spells. It’s magic. Pure, chaotic, unpredictable, and absolutely fucking terrifying.” She closed her eyes, inhaling and exhaling like she was a living pony. It didn’t seem to have any effect. “I have no idea what else is going to happen. I’m sorry, Rhapsody. I might have done something horrible to you, and I don’t know.”

There were two main emotions running through my head at that moment, one of which being the already mentioned anxiety. The knowledge that neither of us knew what her spell had done to me, and if we had seen all it had in store, was terrifying. I didn’t know enough about magic to make any predictions either. It would have led my mind to feel too scattered to focus under most circumstances.

Except the other emotion was one anger. Anger at Dead Hooves, to be specific. She was the cause of whatever was happening to me, she was a twisted ancestor that I wish I had never learned about. How much of the past week could possibly be blamed on her? More than she likely was, considering my brain wanted her to take the fall for everything.

With gritted teeth and a determination filled by terrified rage, I looked at her. “You mean, that you messed with my brain, my memories, my very being, and you don’t know how to fix it?”

I didn’t need to raise my voice, just turn it as cold and rough as stone. The tone was enough to make her recoil, backing up even more. A thin, spectral line appeared, slack and currently unimportant to my eyes. All I wanted at that moment was to make it clear that, if DH wasn’t already deceased, I would have made damn sure she was.

“Do you know what you might have done to me? What your memories might be doing to my own?” I asked, leaning forward. I didn’t need to actually step forward; my voice carried my murderous intent well enough. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know you aren’t trying to overwrite my existence with your own?”

“I-I can’t prove it. You just have to trust–“

Her many steps back finally met their end, the line attached to her straightening out. It was connected to both of our chests, but in my current mood I didn’t care about what it possibly meant. All I knew was that, no matter how much Dead Hooves tugged, she couldn’t escape. She was a dog on a leash, and seeing her uselessly attempt to pull said leash off her gave me life.

“Let me make this clear, grounder,” I said, trotting towards her. That sickening feeling that had come with the phrase in the past few days was nowhere to be found. The slur fit both the hate and fear in my heart, and more than anything felt apt for the bitch before me. “You are going to stay out of my memories. You are also going to help me find a way to undo whatever it is you have done. Don’t comply, and I’ll figure out a way to rend your ghost so that your very existence belongs to the void.” I pressed a hoof against her chest, her form caving easily under my strength. “No chance at the Everafter, no chance at seeing your mother’s so-called Infinite. Am I clear?”

She nodded eagerly, the threat to her existence more than enough to form compliance. I smirked, and then shoved her down to the ground. As I turned and walked away, I felt no guilt for how I had treated her. My living companions might not all be likable ponies, but they were far better than the filth of a mare that was my wasteland predecessor. What remorse could a pegasus feel for an individual like her?

If the bile rising in my throat didn’t make it clear enough to me, none. The horrid taste it left in the back of my mouth as I forced it down wasn’t caused by regret, or the slur I had used. It was brought upon me by Sharpshot’s warning less than half an hour earlier. It was meant to protect me from DH, save me from the pain and torment she had supposedly put himself and other wastelanders under.

A warning far too late, unbeknownst to him.

“Why did you say those things?”

The voice of the spectral filly brought my attention to my left. I hadn’t noticed her appear, staring up at me with that same puppy eyed look Willow and Gemini had tried. It was ever-so-slightly more effective, partially due to how young she was. It was enough to earn an answer, but no change of heart.

“Because I had to make sure she didn’t do it again,” I explained.

The look she gave me intensified. “B-but, she didn’t mean it.”

“Intent doesn’t always matter,” I replied, laying down next to her. “There are things that, whether it was meant to happen or not, are right and wrong. That’s even more true now, compared to your time.” Her ears folded, head dropping. She seemed ready to cry. “I… I never caught your name, little one. What is it?”

“It's Stardust,” she replied, pupils glancing in my direction. “I still think you were too mean to her.”

I gave her a faint smile. “I know it might seem that way, but most ponies today aren’t as nice as the ones from your time.”

She only seemed to get more sad. “I… I don’t think so.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because mom and dad would have been home that day, if they were.” Stardust closed her eyes, managing to produce a shiver. “Dad went off to fight the stripes and didn’t come home. Mom… just left one day. I don’t know what happened to her, but it had to be ponies meaner than Miss Hooves.”

A dead father, and a vanishing mother. One I had gleaned from the bits and pieces of her memories I had seen, the other new. Both were likely caused by the ministries in differing ways, the latter more directly than the former. No amount of explanation made it sting any less. If they were going to take the mother, take the child too.

Still, as cruel as the reality was, her statement was incorrect. Perhaps it was true that the ponies of yesteryear weren’t that great too, but there was a difference between them. A civilized society crushed by a corrupt government, everypony watched like a hawk, was still far beyond an anarchistic land where the only way to possibly stop enslavement, rape, or both was a deadly weapon.

She was a filly for another time, talking about things she didn’t know. Smart as Stardust was, she didn’t have context, especially if she had been stuck in a tortured cry for most of the past two centuries.

I gave her a pat on the head and widened my smile. “You know, if you want to see them again, you can go to the Everafter. No need to stick with the rest of us strangers.”

“I-I tried,” Stardust explained. Her muzzle ever so slightly pointed itself up to the sky. “I… couldn’t find it.”

I blinked. “What?”

“The ponies in the sky, the Everafter, I couldn’t find it.” She looked at me. “I am good at finding things. If I can’t find the everafter, mom and dad can’t, so they must still be here.”

No matter how innocently she smiled at the end of those words, it didn’t destroy the inner dread that was formed by her statement. After all, if the dead were unable to find the everafter…

…did it truly exist in the first place?

Sleep did not come easily that night.

The combined terror of not knowing what Dead Hooves spell was truly doing to me, and the existential dread of the idea of no true afterlife existing kept my brain from feeling able to shut off. Not even the nice, calming sounds of a desert river was enough. I felt too awake – too aware – to dream.

Yet, in time, a tired body won out over a worried mind. I laid down near Gemini to give her comfort when exhaustion finally broke through my anxiety. With her nearby, sleep came easy. An idiotic, optimistic slice of me thought a comforting figure might ward off the memory spell’s effects on me.

It didn’t, obviously. Against my wishes, our worlds blended together.

San Palomino Desert

Day 8

I awoke the next morning to an odd sensation. It was clearly not something a pony was capable of, perhaps with the exception of unicorns, and would have distressed a more awake mind. It was like dragon claws were poking my back, very fast, and extremely lightly. If I was more awake, I might have realized how strange that was. Instead, I groaned out and shifted uncomfortably in the grass.

“Gold. Leave me alone.”

If it was him, he didn’t listen. The odd poking sensation continued on, and it left me unable to get back to sleep. Not that it would have been easy anyway; the sun was starting to rise and merely opening my eyes was enough to dispel my sleep-addled minds' desires. Reluctantly, I choose to greet the day.

Even as I stretched, that damn sensation refused to leave. The more I woke up, the more I realized it wasn’t Gold’s doing. It was Sharpshot either, considering he was lazily cuddling up next to his wife, horn not alight. I narrowed my eyes, waiting for any sign that the two had been faking it. Once I was certain they were really asleep, I turned to my back to find out what was poking me.

The sight instantly made me freeze.

I had seen insects before on my journeys to the surface, but most of the time they were the large, irradiated kind. Radroaches, bloatsprits, things like those were exceptionally more common across all of the wasteland, even in a region such as San Palomino. Sure, the balefire bombs and otherwise hadn’t wrecked it as much as the eastern, more densely populated central Equestria, but the water was still decently irradiated and food was far more difficult to grow. Something about the radiation caused the bugs to get bigger, and I was so use to them that they didn’t scare me.

So when I looked on my back to see a small, orange insect with claws and stinger prancing mindlessly on my back, my initial reaction shouldn’t have been terror. After all it was far smaller and likely far less of a nuisance then its mutated brethren. Yet, for some reason, watching it skitter around on me, feeling its leg on my coat, scared me. It’s appearance was creepier than any radroach to ever live.

After a time, it stopped moving. It seemed to look at me, and I stared right back at it. I stayed as still as a statue, as if moving the faintest amount would cause some horrible bloody attack. Seconds ticked by, neither of us doing anything… and then it started crawling closer to my neck.

I wish to say my reaction was reasonable, given my former station and years of service to the Enclave. The truth is… well…

“Sandbeast! Off! Off of me!”

I didn’t care for how it would make me look, I launched myself into my hooves and started shaking and bucking as much as possible. The initial jump had probably gotten it off, but I didn’t know that. I just kept on shaking, kicking, and moving around in hopes of getting whatever tiny spawn of Tartarus had crawled onto me off. The pain in my fractured wing didn’t matter

What did matter, at least to the creatures not on my back, was my whinnying and near-incoherent stammering was too loud. Gemini groaned, Sharpshot opened his eyes half way, Gold placed one earhole in the sand and put a talon around the other. I didn’t pay attention to most of it, scared shitless as I was. I had some unknown creature “violently” attacking me and I wanted it gone.

When I finally noticed that there was no longer anything on my back, my brain froze again. I then stomped the ground with my forehooves and looked around for where the creature had gone off to. I saw nothing, my E.F.S. proved itself useless, and my heart refused to calm itself. Sharpshot and Willow were looking at me like I had lost it, only briefly looking at each other to make sure they were thinking along the same lines.

“Where are you? Show yourself!” I shouted, turning in every possible direction to find out where the beast had gone. “I know you are still there?”

Gold looked at Gemini. “Has pegasus lost it?”

The young mare eyed me, then gave a nervous shrug. Gold followed up by looking at Sharpshot and Willow, hoping for a better answer. Instead, the ghoul kept his attention on me.

“You hit yourself on the head again, soldier mare?” He asked. I met his gaze with an expression mixed between anger and fear. “Some of us would have preferred a few more minutes of sleep.”

“What he is trying to say is, are you okay?” Willow asked, rolling her eyes.

“No. I’m not. Honestly I don’t know why all of you ponies aren’t worried about yourselves!” I answered. All I received was stares, ranging from being blank in terms of expression to worried. “There was this… this thing on my back, and it was crawling around on me and tried to go up to my face–”

Of all ponies, Gemini was the one to interrupt me. “A radroach?”

“No… I mean, I don’t think it was a radroach. It was smaller, kind of orange looking, had claws and a tail like we have on Enclave armor but…”

I claimed up, realizing I was about to admit that I was afraid of an insect. Unfortunately, I had already said too much. Gold groaned in disappointment, holding his talon in his face. Sharpshot followed the latter action, but started genuinely chuckling instead. Willow followed her husband’s example and started giggling.

All of their reactions caused my fear to temporarily subside and be replaced by confusion. Then my face started to flush in embarrassment. Not much was needed for me to realize that I had made a foal of myself… again… for the second morning in a row. The worst part was, a piece of me couldn’t shake how terrifying that weird, clawed, creepy crawler was. It scared me more than any raider, feral ghoul, or otherwise. Merely thinking about it made my heartrate quicken.

“Ah. Look here,” Gold said. My eyes moved to see him standing up… and I jumped back. The beast had found its way to him. He picked it up by the tail, smiling as he examined it. “Neat little guy. Unmutated, interesting color, rather cute. Pegasus scared of this?”

“N-n-no I’m not,” I lied, unconvincingly. My pupils darted back and forth, just making it more obvious how I felt about the creature.

“Ahuh, right,” Sharpshot said, removing the thing from Gold’s talons via his magic.

Any hopes he was going to get rid of the thing was wiped out by the ghoul grinning. He floated it towards me, and I started to trot backwards in a desperate attempt to escape it. Gemini had sidestepped out of the way the moment I had gotten too close, her earlier worry having shifted into disbelief at the sight of me running for a creature three times smaller than me.

“Oh come on, soldier mare, they’re a harmless little fella,” Sharpshot replied. He briefly looked off into the distance before adding, “I think. Here hun.”

The so-called “harmless little fella” floated away from me and instead over to Willow. The alicorn audibly sqeed in joy as Sharpshot placed it on her hoof. She lifted it close to her face, as fearless and insane as ever, and eyed its movements carefully. All he did was crawl around on her leg, any time it nearly fell off being saved by her other foreleg catching it. Sharpshot joined in on watching the tiny menace, wrapping a hoof around his wife.

On the one hoof, the fact they could be happy experiencing the little things together was really sweet. On the other, their choice in small things made me question how badly balefire and I.M.P. had damaged their brains.

“S-so, uh, I take it that thing is normal?” I asked.

“Missus Rhapsody, that’s just a scorpion,” Gemini said. She tilted her head. “Do you not have scorpions in the Enclave?”

“Don’t have much up there, I think,” Gold answered, stretching his back out. “Enclave just clouds. Clouds and scrap.”

“It’s not!” I shouted back. He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, expressionless. “It’s buildings and farms and all other manner of civilized things. A heap of clouds and scrap wouldn’t be able to have a skyball stadium.”

Gemini’s ears perked up. “Skyball?”

With that one word question, my fears of the scorpion would be pushed to the side. I smiled really wide, hopping in place to face the gray unicorn in uncontained excitement.

“It’s a sport, the most popular in the Enclave. Two teams, four bases, nine phases split into halves. One team throws a ball, the other tries to hit it with a cloud bat, and make it around the bases for a point,” I explained. “All the major cities have teams. I grew up in Aery and fell in love with their team, the Blue Bolts. My husband is too; he even commentates over Enclave radio now! It’s what he decided to do with his life after leaving the military.”

No matter how much I tried to hide it, both Gemini and Gold were able to notice how my gaze grew more and more forlorn as time went on. Talking about skyball, mentioning my husband, it brought me back to one of the most wonderful days of my life. A day that no husband or wife could ever forget.

It was the day I got to go to a skyball game in person, for the first time. The day Iron Anchor proposed to me.

Thirteen years ago

I think I’ve made it obvious that the conditions I grew up in were abysmal. Low income family, horrible parents, what good days I had ruined by them. I won’t elaborate, I’ve said enough about those two pieces of shits. Basically I didn’t have a lot of toys or friends growing up, with Ironsight being the one exception. The best exception a filly could ask for.

He is the son of a councilor himself, and grew up with far more love than I certainly did. Where jealousy might have formed in many other circumstances, trust and companionship found itself instead. If he wasn’t so openly gay, I’m certain rumors would have passed around that we loved each other. Not only was that impossible from his perspective, but I was so dense and clueless about love I certainly never noticed if I felt the same.

The gifts he would get me certainly wouldn’t have helped that fact. Every birthday, he always got me one present. He got me my first ever bass, and is greatly responsible for me discovering my talent for it. The most wonderful gift he ever got me, however, was this neat little pre-war radio that had been recovered from one of the cloud Stables. That radio is how I discovered one of my favorite pastimes: skyball.

I would spend hours listening to it over the radio. Living in Aery for all of my life, before and during my military career, meant the Blue Bolt’s home games were always crystal clear. They may not have been the best team in the league, and seemed to have been cursed over the past fifty years, but I was loyal to them even at their worst. I had longed to go to a game in my younger years, but for the longest time that wasn’t an option.

Then, after three years of dating, Iron Anchor showed up with weekend passes and two tickets. He may not have been a Blue Bolt fan himself, but he loved skyball as much as me. My excitement was something uncontainable, and Singing Rhapsody the soldier was briefly replaced by Singing Rhapsody the filly. I got a hold of myself in time but, well, there was no hiding how much this met.

The experience of being physically at a game, watching pros go against pros with my eyes instead of just with my ears, was incredible! To cheer among the rest of the crowd when a home run flew into the stands was even better. Anchor got us damn good seats as well, to the left of home plate. If a ball was fouled, we would be right in place to catch it.

It took till the top of the fifth inning, but it happened.

I remember the details like I do a well made rifle. The foul ball came from a stallion named Jet Stream, the designated hitter of the team at that time, and a future hall-of-famer. Two balls, two strikes. The pitcher threw a curveball, the bat knocked it up in the air and right towards Anchor and I. I jumped to grab it, fully expecting it to be snagged from the pegasi all around me.

Instead, it ended up in my wing. I gasped, then screamed and danced like a foal. It happened! It had actually happened! I had caught a ball! Iron Anchor smiled and laughed, giving a hug with his wings.

“Congrats, hun,” he said, doing his best to maintain his own calm.

“This is… this is… oh Celestia thanks for this,” I managed to reply. It wasn’t easy to form how I felt at that moment. A stronger hug back was the best I could think of to show it, followed by a kiss. “This is the best day. I mean it. You could not have made it any better.”

His smile grew into a knowing smirk. “You sure?”

“Well if you have some way to top it, I’d be happy to be proven wrong,” I said, playfully bumping into him.

My eyes were still on the wonderfully made ball being held in my wing. I had seen one before, but never held it. It just made everything more special. I enjoyed it for as long as possible, as a mare just a few years older than me and garb in a ballpark uniform, came up to us. She smiled happily at the two of us, and held her wing out to me. Reluctantly, I gave it to her.

In the times of Equestria, and earlier on in the Enclave’s life, the skyball the very sport was named after would have been okay to keep. Unfortunately, like many things, they were a far rarer commodity in the current day. The ballparks needed every ball they had, and therefore they had to enforce a policy on retrieving them from the stands. It sucked, but I understood why it was necessary.

To the curious, yes, pegasi have tried to keep skyballs to themselves. Those folks were typically banned from entering the park again. If it got physical, and they hurt ponies? Expect a few months in jail for assault.

“Since you asked, and the top side of the inning just finished up…”

I turned back to Iron Anchor just in time to see him suddenly kneel over. My muzzle emitted sounds, but nothing that anypony might qualify as words. He brought his right wing in front of his face, and my heart skipped a beat. I had ideas of what he was about to do, but I didn’t dare believe it at first. Surely I was just seeing things. He wasn’t actually about to do it, especially with so many pegasi around us!

Except, he did.

He plucked a pinion, retracted his wing, and looked at me. My mouth hung open, as I waited for the words I knew were coming.

“Singing, these past three years with you have been the best years of my life. I can truly not think of any other pegasi I'd wished to have by my side till the end of my life,” he said. He sat up, if only so he could grip one of my forelegs with his own. “So, Singing Rhapsody, love of my life, will you marry me?”

I don’t think I can express exactly what it meant, seeing him say those words, offering me one of his feathers. That wasn’t normal; typically we pegasi wait until our vows to exchange pinions. It was a symbol of trust, that their wings were yours. No unicorn, no earth pony, not even a griffon could understand how important it was.

So the fact he was giving me it now? It wasn’t just unnatural, it was almost unheard of! Iron Anchor was making a statement with it, one that said he trusted me so much that no vow was needed to seal his trust in me. A trust defined in him comforting me later, after my failure in Trotson.

After I choose to brand myself a dashite.

He is, to me, loyalty ponified. More than Rainbow Dash ever was, and more than he will ever be.

There was only one way a mare could respond to that. I spread a wing, and plucked a pinion in turn. My eyes met his as I did my absolute best to hold back my tears of joy. Then, I gave him my answer.

“Yes.”

The pegasi around us cheered, but we didn’t pay them any mind. We exchanged the feathers we plucked, and then kissed.

“Missus Rhapsody?” Gemini called out. Her timid tone was just enough to shake me from my reminiscing. “Are you okay?”

I gave her a smile in return. “Yeah. Just thinking of some happy memories.”

I turned to my other saddlebag. Not the one containing the drugs from the hotel or the statuette, but the one containing my radio. I pulled out a feather, my husband’s feather. I had asked for it, before leaving home for good. It was all I had of him now, besides the memories of our time together.

I dared to look up at that sky, wondering frightful thoughts. Would Anchor be loyal to me? Of course, that was never a question. What about his pride, though? I couldn’t tell him the truth of my exile. As far as he knew, I had done something truly despicable.

Was that forgivable? If he did, someday, make it to the surface for me, would he be okay with the secrets? The lies?

The truths?

Being half-unicorn… it still scared me. Even with the knowledge Anchor was loyal to a fault, that Sharpshot and Willow were right about him still loving me, that fear wasn’t easily destroyed. You grow up believing something is bad, and its hard to accept that it isn’t.

I blinked as the hidden meaning of that final thought went through me, then shivered a little. I had to be more careful of these grounders. The living ones were twisting my mind as much as the dead ones.

“That his?”

I looked in front of me to see Gold eyeing Anchor’s feather, and then gazed at it with my own smile. “Yeah. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Very pretty. Reminds me of… him.” The old griffon gave a somber smile as he lifted his head, eyes locking on me. “I… must apologize.”

“For what?”

“Telling you to forget him. Words were different, message wasn’t. Was wrong.” He looked to Sharpshot and Willow, the two still examining that scorpion creature. “Blame my own run with love. Seeing happy couples is hard. Makes me think of what I wanted.”

There was a slight pause, followed by a sigh. “I understand. How do you think I feel, watching those two? Makes me wish I was back home at times.”

“Can imagine.” The griffon turned away, stretching once more before looking off to the rising sun. “Daylight has arrived. We should eat.”

I nodded in response.

Audio files found in Shattered Moon archives

Play audio?

Yes No

???
Step forward, initiate.

[Clop clop clop]

???
While you have doubtless been told already, you still have one chance to turn back. One chance to hold onto your old identity. Are you sure you wish to join us?

Initiate
Yes I do, lady. I have nothing of my identity I wish to hold onto. What is left I’ve either long hated, or has been tarnished.

Lady
Very well. Liberty, come forth.

[Clop clop clop]

[Thump]

Lady
Tell me, do you know what this is?

Initiate
No. We had nothing like it back home.

Lady
Then I’ll have our lead alchemist explain. The floor is yours.

Liberty
Thanks, lady. Initiate, what I present to you is a truth potion, zebrican origin. None of the… additives that the Ministry of Morals added long ago. We want the truth of the old you, and only the truth.

Lady
You have reached a point of no return. If you drink this potion, we will know everything about you. If not, then we can not allow you to leave. Our zebra associate’s relation with us is too much knowledge for anyone outside the Shattered Moon to know.

Initiate
So there is no going back from this.

Lady and Liberty
Correct

Initiate
…

Lady
A choice must be made, initiate.

Initiate
I know. I’ll take it. I just… know she’ll hate me, when I see her again.

Lady
The friend you mentioned?

Initiate
The friend I was forced to betray, yes.

Lady
If they are truly somepony worthy of calling a friend, they will forgive you. Now go, drink.

[Gulp gulp]

Initiate
Tastes like shit, but there we go.

Lady
I assure you, that is not close to the worst part. Now, initiate, tell us everything!

>> fast forward >>

[Heavy breathing]

Liberty
Slow your breath. It is hard, I know.

[Heavy breathing]

>> fast forward >>

Lady
Is he resting?

???
Yes, my lady.

Lady
Thank you. You may leave.

[Clop clop clop]

[Door Creak]

[Slam]

Liberty
It was indeed where he said it would be.

Lady
Your opinions? Both on our new member and this… weapon.

Liberty
As tough as you said he was, and as dangerous as he claimed.

Lady
Do as he wished, then.

Liberty
And if this “friend” comes?

Lady
We make sure she isn’t a danger to our newest member.

Audio dated for seventeen days ago.

Act 2 – Chapter 5: Past, Meet Present

San Palomino Desert

Day 8

After all the shit Sharpshot has given me since I met him, he finally got his comeuppance. The only unfortunate thing about it was the fact I wasn’t the one responsible.

It started with a simple observation that I made, watching the flow of water as we walked along the river’s edge. I had noticed something within its depths as we traveled, though what it was I’m not quite certain. I had some ideas, for sure, and one a lot more realistic than most of the others, but it seemed absurd. After all, there was certainly no way they had survived if so many other forms of life didn’t too.

Except, as Willow joined me, I found it that they had.

“Hi little fishies!” She said, craning her neck down right above the waterline. The act immediately scared them off. “Wait, no, come back!”

Fish. Actual, living fish. To say I was surprised would be an understatement, not just at the fact that normal, non-mutated fish were still alive but because it wasn’t attacking us. I had long believed everything in the wasteland to be hostile or predatory, from the very ponies around me to the damn scorpions that crawl on you in your sleep. The idea of an animal being afraid of me was a new concept.

That mindset was the result of how drastically the world has changed since the last day. Balefire and other megaspells killed a lot more than just ponies. No doubt the ecosystem was damaged so greatly that the natural order of the animal kingdom had undergone some changes. That, along with mutation via magical radiation, led to evolution of species in manners both large and small. It would explain why Gemini had canines, and therefore far closer to an omnivore than the rest of us ponies around her.

Not that ponies couldn’t eat meat before. The genes for those canines to exist must have been something we were capable of all along, despite our origins as a prey species.

“Must admit, surprised to see them unaffected by… everything!” I said, motioning to the horizon. Something about saying out loud got my brain thinking. “Unless… maybe they haven’t?”

“Pegasus using brain today, I see.” Gold replied. I met his smug look with a stern one, but it didn’t do anything. “Recovering from scorpion scare?”

“I have recovered just fine, thank you very much,” I replied, lifting my head and getting a little sterner in my expression.

Sharpshot shoved me from the side in a more playful manner than I was use to from him. “Sure, soldier mare. Sure.”

I made sure to give him a quick glare before focusing my attention back on the griffon. He lowered his non-artificial arm and talons towards the water, allowing them to glide on the surface. The ripples were small as the current wasn’t incredibly strong, but it was there. I looked down at my power armor-covered hoof, and then to the water once again. I batted the edge of the river, watching the ripples in fascination. I did that a few more times, if only to satisfy some strange, neurodivergent desire that I had never known before.

“The water is nowhere near as heavily radiated here as back east. A single dip in can tell you that,” Sharpshot explained. I pulled my attention away from the water, Gold and myself quickly catching up with the rest as they kept moving. “I’m a doctor, not a biologist, so I can’t be entirely sure if what I’m about to say is right, but the lower radiation levels meant their bodies were able to build defenses for it. Something along those lines, right geezer.”

“Not scientist, don’t understand lots of what scientists say,” Gold admitted with a shrug. “Things adapt, evolve, and overcome. Know that much. Simple, unless you’re pegasi.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, I get it. I asked a dumb question. Still have to admit that nature is amazing in that way.”

At the time, the observation and subsequent conversation seemed like nothing more. Typically it wasn’t something I would note or bring to ponies attention, given everything else that was going on around me. However, as I mentioned, Sharpshot had gotten his comeuppance, and I accept that I am a spiteful bitch. This is important to me, and the aforementioned fish were a key component in how.

Which leads us to what we all saw farther down the river. A sight that made most of our eyes go wide and jaws drop, and for one young unicorn and a certain griffon to stare hungrily. It was a sight that was both astonishing and kind of frightening, because we had no idea what had caused it. All we know is this: there was a mountain of fish before us, flopped on their side, out of the water and in the harsh desert sun.

That isn’t a joke, I’m not making it up. There was literally a giant pile of fish by the side of the river.

Gemini was the first to break free from our group wide stupor, trotting up to the pile in shock. “What… what happened? Why are there so many out of the water?”

“Seems somepony is doing a little bit of fishing,” Sharpshot answered, walking in front of us all. “And was stupid enough to leave their numerous catches unguarded.”

Without any consideration for whether he was correct or not, Sharpshot’s magic plucked a single fish from the pile. He waved it in the air, joyfully smiling at everycreature present. No concern, no checking his flank, absolutely nothing. He was, by all means, robbing somepony in the most stupid way possible.

I gave him what I considered the best possible look for it: pure, unfiltered disappointment.

“You wanna try one soldier mare? I’ve heard these were a pegasi delicacy back in the day,” he said, doing a happy little dance as he spun and flipped the fish around above himself.

“Sharpy, are you positive that is a good idea?” Willow asked. The concern the alicorn had spoke volumes for how idiotic her husband was being. “What if the pony who caught it sees you?”

“You worry too much, hun. What, you think a pony is going to make that big of a deal out of one fish?”

Willow nodded. “I know I would rip somepony apart if they stole my dinner.”

“Again, you worry too much.” He tapped his muzzle for a second, bringing it down. “So how does the pega want it cook. I’m sure you’re simple dying to–”

“Put it back,” I commanded, channeling a tiny amount of my anger to sound as passively threatening as possible.

He looked at me as if I was the one going crazy instead of him. Unfortunately, or fortunately if we look at this from a spiteful position, he didn’t drop it. Instead he continued to stare at me like a predator, not realizing he was already the prey. After a time, he shook his head.

“Soldier mare you are worried about–“

“I said, put it back!” I said, stomping a foreleg on the ground. The motion hurt a little due to my ribs still healing, but I refused to show it. “That isn’t yours, we got food, and we are not thieves. So one last time, put. It. Back!”

“Or what?” He asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. How about you ask the stallion behind you?”

Near instantly, Sharpshot froze. His magic was still active, but the fish he had stolen also went still. Like a victim in a horror novel, the ghoul slowly turned around to face the metaphorical killer in this situation. He jumped back, briefly dropped into a stance to fight, and blinked at the pony he saw.

A nameless pony who, to this day, I have two forms of jealousy for. The first, as can probably be guessed, is the fact he was the one to deliver the aforementioned comeuppance. The second? That is born from something significantly more personal.

To the unaware, let me tell you something about pegasus mares: we are, under most circumstances, exceptionally fluffy. It’s a mature thing, and as any pegasus is able to tell you, we take a lot of pride in having it. Stallions and lesbian mares place a lot of importance on that fluff when it comes to physical attraction. I also happen to know a trans mare or two who mention the lack of it being a place of dysphoria for them.

I mention all this, because I have about as little fluff as a mare can possibly have. The unicorn genes in me? They gave me what griffons and hippogriffs wonderfully refer to as “the middle talon”. As much as I love my body, there was always that jealousy towards my fellow mares for that reason alone.

So imagine how I felt when, not even a minute after Sharpshot had taken the fish, the fluffiest pony I had ever seen walked up behind him. A fucking stallion no less! Dead Hooves memories, her time with Joy specifically, led me to the conclusion he must also be from Stalliongrad. That helped a little bit.

It was too late to quell my feelings though. I was being outdone by the opposite gender for something I was supposed to have and I was grade A pissed. I desired that fluff, craving it like I did the cooking of the chefs back at ArcanaTech, yet I couldn’t have it.

It’s too fucking unfair, I say. Way too unfair!

…

Apologies. Even writing about it gets me riled up. At least be assured that all anger I had for the unknown stallion was redirected to Sharpshot. It was easy to lie to myself that he insulted my lackluster fluff. It seemed in line with what the fucker would say.

Anyways, this new ball of brown and white was an earth pony (yes, even the fucking grounders are fluffier). His eyes went from the fish, to Sharpshot, and then back to the fish for a split second, and finally landed on Sharpshot. His expression was the textbook definition of discontent.

Willow went to take a step forward, but I quickly spread both a foreleg and my uninjured wing in front of her. I motioned for her to back up, and upon seeing the growing glee that was in my eyes. It mixed with my anger, anticipation, and any disappointment at the ghoul before me to create something manic. I think, in that moment, I terrified the Tartarus out of her.

“The floor is yours!” I shouted to the stallion.

His eyes didn’t flick to me, but a held out hoof and a few choice words told me he had heard. His face was tired, having little to no time for any of my companion’s brahmin shit.

The stallion sighed, radiating exhaustion. “Give it back.”

Sharpshot’s shock at the stallion’s appearance disappeared moments later. He dropped out of the fighting stance he had been in, and straightened up till he was as tall as possible. Given his body had not grown that much since ghoulification, it was more funny than threatening.

“I don’t care how quick you think you are. No one is faster than a bullet. I’d never lose to a mudpony like you,” He said, his cockiness getting the better of his common sense.

They snickered. He eyed the stolen fish, far too high up for any unicorn or earth pony to jump and grab. Narrowing his eyes at Sharpshot, a slight hint of lust emanated from somewhere deep inside. “Nah, I’d win.”

Sharpshot only smiled wider. “Prove it.”

The stallion took him up on that offer.

The fish suddenly dropped from the air. Both of Sharpshot’s forelegs went to his sternum, and he crumbled to the ground. My eyes went wide as the ghoul doctor coughed and wheezed. All of that, from a single jab.

Sharpshot’s opponent, satisfied with the results, didn’t bother with the heap of dead skin and irradiation that laid before him. He gently grabbed the fish with his mouth and brought it back on the pile. With a somber smile, he patted his reclaimed catch with pride.

Dead Hooves' memories of Joy left a decent impression of how terrifying Stalliongrad’s ponies were. There was no doubt that stayed true here. He must have been a stalker, whatever that was.

Sharpshot slammed a hoof into the sand, letting out an angry roar as he managed to get all his hooves back under him. He spat onto the ground, turning towards the earth pony with rags and coat covered in sand.

“Alright,” he muttered, grabbing the abomination by the barrel and holding it akin to a hammer, “if that is how we’re going to do things…”

He punctuated himself by rushing forward, hoofsteps giving any element of surprise he had away. The earth pony had turned around just as the stock of a rifle slammed into his flank. They gritted their teeth, and their front hooves folded to the ground…

Their front hooves?

The stalker immediately spun on those hooves, slamming the side of his hind legs into Sharpshot’s jaw. The ghoul was kissing dirt, fast enough that the rest of his body was still in the air, unsure of what had occurred. He wheezed his way back onto his hooves, swinging blindly towards his opponent. One connected with the pony’s lower jaw.

If only his body didn’t have the strength of a young teen.

The ball of fluff calling itself a stallion smiled at Sharpshot before smacking him across the face. Again, Sharpshot was sent spiraling into the sand. The stalker pressed a hoof to his nostril, forcefully shooting out blood.

The stalker recovered first, and that was the deciding factor in the fish-fueled feud.

As Sharpshot tried to get onto his hooves, a fish hit him just right across the eyes. Confused, blinded, and baffled, the ghoul reared up on his hind hoofs and took a step back. The stalker, who had thrown the fish in the first place, casually trotted up to the ghoul. He reached for the fish…

BANG!

With the fish sliding onto his muzzle, Sharpshot had seen enough to fire a single shot. It scraped the barding that covered the stallion’s shoulder and neck, and then across the side of his head. A spray of blood was followed by a thud as the stalker collapsed into the sand, blood running out of the wound fast. Enough blood to make Willow drool like a hellhound in front of a meat-based banquet.

“If you still have enough power in your brain to comprehend words, listen to me,” Sharpshot mumbled, the tone every bit as boisterous as one would expect of him. His eyes didn’t move off the stalker, which made sense; they were still a red dot on my E.F.S.. “Ponies call me Sharpshot, and that is because I can’t miss. Every shot, no matter how absurd, hits a living target.” He lowered his rifle, looking at us. “What?”

“Action uncalled for,” Gold answered. “Was going for fish, not you.”

“Tell that to the blood on my lips.”

“Talking like that, you better hope he doesn’t get up,” I muttered, quiet for those next to me to hear, but not the ghoul himself.

For a bit, it seemed like the stalker indeed was going to stay down. His blood continued to dirty his fluffy form as he laid there. He was breathing, but the will to fight seemed lost. It was anyponies guess how much of this stallion was still function, given where the shot had gone. It went on for long enough for Sharpshot to completely drop his guard, dropping his rifle with a heavy sigh.

As if he had been waiting for that moment all along, the stallion finally rose up. One hoof under him, followed by the other. One side of his face was covered in dark red and black, his blood half blinding him with how it pulled his fluff down. It didn’t stop me from noting the look in his eyes.

It was hate like I had not seen before, otherworldly. Terrifying and beautiful at the same time.

The stalker lunged at Sharpshot. The ghoul reignited his horn, picking up the abomination and firing a shot. It went past his intended target, hitting one of the fish in the pile behind the stalker (the thing must not have died from suffocation just yet) and left him wide open. Sharpshot tumbled to the ground, stalker on top of him.

Then they started wailing on him.

He was no boxer; every single strike was down with no form of control, at least to me. No block Sharpshot could put up doing a thing. Hit after hit after hit, neverending, his hooves quickly growing bloody. I wasn’t sure if most of the blood on Sharpshot’s face was from himself, or the pony beating him to a pulp. Fuck, it was near impossible to see his face with the barrage being unleashed upon him.

It was after half a minute of the doctor getting wailed on that the rest of us decided to save him.

Willow Wisp, being Sharpshot’s better half, was the pony to arrive first. She and Gemini pulled her husband away as Gold and I pried the stalker off from above. He did not want to let go, still throwing blows at Sharpshot even as we got him far enough away for them to stop connecting. The glare he gave us both signaled his willingness to continue fighting, me as his next target. Fortunately, I had an out.

“Thanks for the lesson in humility. We’ll take it from here,” I said, quickly scurrying away from him and to Sharpshot, Willow, and Gemini. The second of the three had gotten their husband up, muzzle bleeding decently well. “Come on. Let's go before he chases us.”

“Yes, good ide–“

“No. Not yet,” Sharpshot replied with a slight slur, shoving Willow’s hoof off his shoulder. The fact he was standing on his own after the beating he had, with a relatively steady stance at that, was honestly a miracle. The fucker looked like he had gotten his face crushed by a tree trunk “I’m not done yet.”

“Y-you do know you are bleeding,” Gemini stated, pointing at his entire face as if we somehow couldn’t see it. His rags were stained horribly, or at least I was pretty certain it was. It was impossible to tell with the amount of crimson on the outside of it “Maybe you should–”

“Well so is he!” He screamed at Gemini, snarling like a rabid animal. Gemini shrunk, cowering as he stepped forward. “I’m not going to be tossed around by some unkempt ball of fluff who wasn’t tossed off the… store… shelf.” He stepped back, eyes wide. “Oh. Oh fuck no.”

I followed his eyes and found that Sharpshot was looking at the earth pony. At a glance, it seemed that the stalker was simply leering back, meeting hate with hate… or was it hate? The stalker held something darker than hate at that point. Sharpshot’s hate was fading into terror.

The stalker’s shadow had extended beyond the equine, but it didn’t seem like it belonged to a pony. It had grown larger than the sun’s current position should have allowed. Whatever it was meant to look like, I didn’t see. What I did see was two large coat-tails, the brim of a hat, and the vague sign of a mocking smile in the direction of the ghoul..

The change in his shadow was all I saw, but Sharpshot saw something worse. There were very few things that made the ghoul visible terrified, and until that moment I hadn’t seen any of them. The sudden up-tempo in his breath, the shrinking of his pupils, he wasn’t making an attempt to hide his fears. The fire of a warrior had been vanquished then, replaced with a need to live. To survive.

That wasn’t normal for him. Sharpshot had shown slight signs of vulnerability, but it was always undercut by sarcasm and wit. It was part of what made him… him. Shit angered him sure, but he was never scared, never ready to turn tail and retreat. Nothing terrified him…

Until now.

Another step back, and then another. A bloody grimace and the vaguest attempt to still seem powerful undone by his body shaking like a shaved dog in winter. He was mumbling to himself, incoherent but clearly desperate. Even the smallest of attempts to trudge forward were met with those coat tails extending even greater, seeming to close around him.

Each time he tensed up, shrinking more and more. The shadow laughed like a madmare, voice echoing like we were within the walls of a cave, no exit to escape it. Sharpshot’s steps became less balanced, eyes darting around as if the shadow was coming from somewhere else. All the while the laughter grew, filling his ears like the tolling of a bell, decimating his confidence more and more.

This led Sharpshot to do one thing I hadn’t seen him do. One thing that seemed impossible. He gave up.

“We’re leaving,” he muttered. He turned to the rest of us. “Now!”

He was the first to take off, Willow following, and the rest of us after that. I turned to the stalker, watching as they shrugged and trotted back to the river’s edge. I snorted, fully expecting him to give me that same hostility. Instead, all I received was a curious look, though for what I wasn’t sure.

As much as I’m sure you would never want to see us again, anomaly of San Palomino, if you are ever in San Palomino, hit me up. I got a seafood dinner and a more professional thanks to give for your services.

I did ask Sharpshot about that sudden bout of fear that night. We were all settling in for one final night in the desert sand before reaching Underside. Gemini and Gold had both fallen asleep, and Willow was curled around Sharpshot protectively as he cleaned the abomination. My voice stayed low so that the sleeping griffon and pony wouldn’t be stirred.

“So about our… encounter today,” I said, unable to hide my smirk. He immediately tensed up, “what scared you at the end there?”

His attention turned to me, all interest in his rifle lost. “You mean you didn’t see anything?”

“Just saw his shadow changing. That’s it.”

His front hoofs rested on the sandy ground, rifle falling over. Willow lifted her head, her expression all the worry that needed to be stated. He looked at her, the two briefly nuzzled, and he managed to smile.

“Just what she… what I’m willing to tell her,” he whispered to her. Willow rested her head again, and Sharpshot focused on me. “If you didn’t see it, then I guess that means you can only see spirits of the dead. Been having a collection of dusty bones following me for some time. Left me alone for a while,” he tilted his head down, “and came back after I met you.”

I blinked. “So the thing going on with his shadow, that was this “dusty bones” thing?”

“Yeah, it was him. Seems the fucker has found others he’s willing to screw over out here,” He looked into the sky, staring at one of the various stars. “I… I just don’t understand. He let her die, he was determined to let me die as well. I didn’t think he cared, and yet in that moment, facing that pony down, it felt like no matter how much we fought he just. Wouldn’t. Die.” I felt a shiver course through my body. “I don’t understand… and I’m afraid to ask him.”

I decided to leave it there. Sharpshot returned to weapon maintenance, and I fell asleep.

Our worlds blended together.

Underside, San Palomino Desert

Day 9

From both Dead Hooves’ memories, my own experience on the surface, and intelligence gathered on the world below the clouds, I had a decent idea of what to expect from a settlement. It would be rather sad looking, houses built out of things they should be or put together by ponies who had no idea what they were doing. Laws would be inconsistent between each, there was always a shady side that revealed itself to those who paid attention, and overall ugly. Expected of grounders that will never know how beautiful towns and cities like Aery, or military bases like Neighvarro, could be.

At least, that was what I had thought, until reaching Underside.

Calling it a “settlement” was not correct, because that name implied it was much like Friendship City or New Appleloosa in the east. Underside was nothing like them, and I was able to tell just from a single glance from the outside. The buildings looked like they had been made from before the Last Day, without any of the signs of decay or mistreatment. No holes, no hodgepodge attempts to fix siding, a surprising lack of broken windows, The only particular thing that screamed “post-equestria” about Underside was the wall surrounding it.

Even that, however, did this place a disservice. Of course there was a wall, this was still the wasteland after all! Danger exists around every corner in the wasteland, and cautionary measures need to be taken. A sturdy perimeter guarded by a wall of metal and ponies made it clear they took this seriously.

Speaking of the guards, they were a strange looking group. They were covered, mane to tail, in clothing with not a scrap of fur, feather, or otherwise showing. Trench coats, heavy boots, and odd skeleton patterned masks made up all I was able to see of them, decorated in ways a military wouldn’t allow. The only clue there was to the identity of who lies underneath was a horn, wings, the differentiating body shapes of griffons, kirin, and hippogriffs, but that was it.

Even then they were completely shrouded in clothing. It was unsettling, but I was above cowering to the likes of grounders.

“That them,” Gold said, motioning with his head towards the guards. I narrowed my eyes at them, trying to understand what he was getting at. When I failed to do so, I looked back at him. “Shattered Moon. They rule southern San Palomino. Match perfectly with ArcanaTech descriptions.”

Looking back, I eyed the attire with a new sense of curiosity and worry. A former anti-ministry group, dressing like this, didn’t seem like a good bunch. They gave me the impression of a terrorist cell more than anything, striking fear into the hearts of old Equestria to get not what was best for the three tribes, but what they wanted. Not the kind of ponies that should be trusted with a nation.

To think, they had been led by a pegasus too. Fucking shameful.

“What's with the masks?” Gemini asked, looking at the old griffon.

He grinned. “Supposedly, way to avoid Ministry of Morals. Pinkie dangerous Ministry Mare. Has strange sixth sense for things, knows everypony, wreaks havoc on those who oppose ministries.”

“I think I get it,” Sharpshot chimed in, tilting his head as he eyed the Shattered Moon guards on the wall. “Conceal who you are, and she can’t pin you down. Certainly would make the pink menace’s job harder.” He gave Gold a side glance. “Did it work?”

“World still ended,” the griffon answered, motioning to the desert around us. “What do you think?”

Hearing all that, I thought a bit more about what we had seen in the theater. I eyed each Shattered Moon member I could see, looking for the odd duckling that broke his rules. There was none, and that allowed me to note something was off.

“WIllow, Sharpshot, think back to the film reel we saw. The one from the Shattered Moon,” I said. “Something seem off to you two?”

Willow gasped. “Oh yeah, you're right. The pegasus back there was showing her face!”

Sharpshot nodded to show he understood the same. “So does that make the geezer wrong?”

“I don’t think so. What does he get for lying about that?” I replied, shaking my head. “You heard how she was speaking. The world hadn’t ended yet she made it sound like a forgone conclusion, like what they had been fighting for had been futile. There was a reason for it.” An idea hit me. “Stardust, you there?”

Sharpshot and Willow looked at each other, and then at me. “Stardust?”

Before I knew it, Gemini and Gold had stopped and started staring at me as well. The spectral filly I had come to know appeared before me, the slightest sign of pouting in her expression gracing her face. No doubt she was still upset at me for how I had spoken to DH.

“Yeah, I’m here,” she said. “What is it.”

“Ponies like those, up on the metal wall, do you recognize them?”

I motioned towards Underside, and Stardust followed it. She let out a gasp, taking a step back. At first I thought she was afraid, but then there was a smile on her face. Without a single word to me, she galloped off to the wall without a single word to me, Gemini and I watched her in shock as I did.

… Gemini was watching her?

That question made me look at the young mare with intrigue. I followed her gaze and, as I had observed, she was following Stardust perfectly. My mouth fell slightly open, trying to figure out how to approach what I was witnessing. Gemini, naïve and having noticed my staring, didn’t give me the chance. She forced herself to walk in front of us, and smiled.

“Well, uh, shall we?”

She quickly started trotting towards the gate placed in the wall, and with one living pony moving the rest of us started to as well. I shared a look with Gold, allowing concern to take center stage.

“Rhapsody saw something strange?” He asked.

“Gemini is like me.”

“What way?”

“She saw Stardust. In case it wasn’t clear to you, the filly is no longer alive.”

Sharpshot’s ears perked up. “You’re certain she saw them?”

“Pretty certain. I’ll take her aside later today and confirm it.”

“I see.” Gold tapped the underside of his beak. “If true, keep eye on her. Unicorn seen lots. Too much for pony her age. Hate to lose her.”

I let out a sigh. “That makes two of us.”

“Did the ghost give you an answer, at least?” Willow asked.

“Not a direct one, but I have a feeling I’ve confirmed one thing.” I looked ahead of me, watching as Stardust jumped around in front of the Shattered Moon personnel at the gate, trying to get their attention. “Her mom disappeared on the final day. I think she was a member of Shattered Moon.”

As we approached the gate, my eyes locked onto the figure of one of the guards. Their eyes, now that I looked, were the only thing about them I was able to discern. It helped a small amount of unnerve brought upon by their appearance fall away. There was a pony under there, but eyes weren't enough to give anypony an idea of who was underneath. Not for me, at least.

Minister Pinkie Pie? That was a different story.

Stardust had stopped jumping around at this point, head hung and ears folded back. She was still coming to terms with being dead, it seemed. Ponies not knowing she was there likely stung a lot.

I briefly checked the time on my MentaBuck before responding. “Afternoon, soldiers.”

“Afternoon,” one of them, an earth pony mare with magenta eyes, replied. “All five of you entering?” I gave a nod. “Give us a second then.”

He motioned to his partner, a hippogriff stallion with dark brown eyes. They brought their hoof to a radio attached to their trench coat.

“Fifty-Five to One-Two-Nine, come in. I repeat, Fifty-Five to One-Two-Nine, please respond.” A pause. “We got five individuals, one pegasus, two unicorns, a griffon, and an alicorn.” Another pause. When he spoke again, it was a lot more hushed. “One-Two-Nine, would I kid about the Goddesses' own being before me?”

I snorted, and Willow giggled at him. With the way they talked, I almost forgot that the alicorn and her husband had never been here. Poor griff must have been having the worst time trying to explain my company to their boss.

“White on blue,” Fifty-Five said after a far longer pause. He chuckled. “Yeah, not normal. Blue means invisibility, not sure about the white.”

“It’s what my coat looked like, before being bathed in taint,” Willow explained to him. The hippogriff eyed her cautiously, but otherwise took the telepathic intrusion rather well. “Nothing special, just a defect. No connection to the hivemind.”

Fifty-Five looked at the rest of us, and got nods. He shrugged, and returned to his radio. “Alicorn is not with the goddess. Companions back that up. Her friends? Grey unicorn, power armor, green mane. White griffon, power armor, artificial left talon. Unicorn ghoul, red mane, looks like shit…”

“Accurate, but fuck you.” Sharpshot chimed in. Fifty-Five ignored him.

“... off-red pegasus, power armor, can’t see if surface-born or Dashite.”

His gaze landed on me, looking for confirmation. “Dashite, as of a week and a half ago.”

He said that into the radio, and then his voice fell into a hush. His eyes never left me, tracing me like an art piece he couldn’t quite understand. I tensed a little, placing a single hoof back in case whatever was going on ended up badly. It was entirely possible one of my old squad mates had informed Shattered Moon I would follow, after all. That meant open hostilities.

Thankfully, my worry was unnecessary. After a little bit, Fifty-Five turned his focus from answering questions for his superior back to us.

“Apologies for the hold up,” he said. “Having an alicorn among you made this all a little more complicated. Spout about the Goddess all you want, don’t hurt anyone, and there won’t be problems.” He looked at Willow. “Understand, ma’am.”

“As I said, not with the Goddess. Don’t worry about it,”

“Just making sure, ma’am. We know how her kind can be and want to make sure nopony gets hurt.”

“We also ask that you hoof over your weaponry,” the other guard said. “Don’t worry, it will be given back to you once you leave. We are just trying to maintain peace here.”

The precaution was understandable, and we did as asked. We all handed over our firearms, the guards before us giving an odd glance upon seeing Roche Limit and the Atomizer brought before them. No questions, however, which simplified things greatly. Then, a few more words were said into the radio, and the gate opened with a horrible squeak. A hoof went over my ears in an attempt to block the sound, but it did nothing.

“One last thing,” Fifty-Five said, shouting over the gate’s ear-drum braking squeal. “Our database shows this is your first time here in one of our settlements. We ask all creatures to make a short stop at town hall. Fill out some forms, put you in our systems, that’s all.” Both guards stepped to the side. “Welcome to Underside.”

The best way I can possibly explain the atmosphere of Underside is relaxed. More relaxed than anywhere back east would ever make you. Sure places like New Appleloosa or Tenpony might have walls and security, but the very nature of the Equestrian Wasteland meant safety was never assured. There was always the chance that the next day, a group of small brained grounders would launch themselves upon the nearest place of safety, killing and slaughtering and pillaging to make it beyond clear that no one was safe. It created an eternal unease, and its entire existence only helped affirm my feelings about why the Enclave stayed where they did.

None of that was present in Underside. In some ways, it felt like time had rewound back two hundred years or more, to a time before the ministries and Luna’s rule. A time when Equestria truly was the land of harmony that it had claimed to be, and would come to forget. Earth ponies, unicorns, and the odd pegasus – both ground born and Dashite – enjoyed the company with smiles and cheer. There was no fear, no unease, no worry that tomorrow this little bit of peace would collapse.

It was made more surprising by the fact it wasn’t just ponies sharing in that relaxation. Anycreature who thought they had traveled back in time would immediately be proven wrong when they saw their first zebra, happily chatting with a unicorn. It would happen again when a hippogriff and kirin clearly showed that they were a couple, kissing on the patio of a café. Everypony tolerated each other, as if the sins of Equestria had been forgotten a long, long time ago.

For a group of terrorists lookalikes, I had to give Shattered Moon credit. It seemed that they did a damn good job at maintaining order.

“So, separate for a bit? Do our own thing?”

Willow asked that question upon reaching the center of town, the five of us sitting on a bunch under what had once been a statue. It had mostly been demolished, the plaque unreadable. The only thing I was able to gather was that it had once been of a pony, given that the legs were still standing. It had to have been demolished after the last day; there was no way this was the result of a megaspell, especially with the distance we had put between Trotson and ourselves.

Besides, the radiation levels had been near-zero for pretty much all our time since leaving the storm. The river was the one exception.

“He never said we had to head there immediately, and it has been a long time since I’ve gotten to be somewhere like this.” Willow smiled as she observed the town around her. “It’s nice.”

“I don’t see a reason not to,” I responded, shrugging with my wings. The action led me to wince a little, but nowhere near as bad as it was days prior. Whatever treatment Sharpshot had given me while unconscious had done miracles in terms of recovering. “We are here to rest, restock, and gather some intel, so splitting up is a good idea anyways. Meet back here around nineteen hundred?” Everycreature tilted their heads at me. I sighed. “That’s military time for seven in the evening.”

“Sounds good. Will explore,” Gold replied. “A wide range of species, a lot of culture to ingest. Will thoroughly enjoy self.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Willow shouted, jumping up and down like an excited foal. She quickly wrapped Sharpshot up in her left hoof, pointing into the distance with the other. “Come on, hun. To adventure, and the tastiest food!”

“Okay! Okay! You don’t need to strangle me over it,” he said, the chuckle he let out at odds with his harsher tone.

The couple headed off first, waving a temporary farewell to the rest of us. Gold followed suit after, tipping a non-existent hat in our direction beforehoof. That just left Gemini, whose eyes darted back and forth, ears folded. Poor mare was frightened. Considering the number of creatures around, and how different this environment must have been to anything she knew, that was understandable.

I gave her a soft smile. “Want to stay with me?”

Her ears immediately perked up, giving a shy nod. “Y-yeah. That sounds nice.”

“Let's head to town hall first then. Do as the hippogriff asked.”

“Sure but, uh.” She shrank a bit. “I don’t know how to read or write.”

I felt a bit of pain in my heart, hearing that. It made sense, given the kind of background she grew up in, but it didn’t make it any better. I forced myself to smile a little wider. If I was going to shape her into something the Enclave could be proud of, that had to be fixed.

“Would you like to learn how?” I asked. She hastily nodded. “I’ll help with the forms. I’m no school teacher, but I think I can solve your illiteracy problem… if you’ll let me.”

“Eel-it-era-sea,” She whispered, tilting her head as she tried to make sense of the word. The blank expression she wore during it was sad but oddly cute at the same time. She then shook her head, then smiled back. “I’d like that, Missus Rhapsody. Th-thank you.”

“No problem,” I said. I nearly ruffled her mane with my hoof, but quickly reminded myself that wasn’t a good idea.

The sheer joy on Gemini’s face as she looked at me hurt in a very different, far better way. I was able to imagine Rainy or Clear caring that same expression. I almost expected to hear an “I love you mom” from her mouth, but it never came.

Of course it didn’t, Gemini wasn’t my daughter. So why? Why does she make me long for her to be just that?

If there was an answer to that question, it wouldn't come to me. Probably for the best too, considering that there were things of far higher priority.

As we were already in the center of town, reaching town hall was not hard. It wasn’t an extravagant building, being part of an old strip mall that had withstood the tests of time. Nopony was inside, save for the clerk that was behind the front desk. The carpet was old, but the walls had been repainted, furniture replaced, and otherwise. None of it was to the quality it likely was at two centuries ago, but it was better than most other places had.

Gemini stayed as close to me as she felt comfortable with, swallowing as we approached the clerk. I chuckled as I took them in, partly because I recognized them. They were a pegasus mare, pink mane so spiky there was no doubt mane gel involved. Her coat was a much lighter shade of pink, seeming white if somepony wasn’t paying attention. On their flank was the brand of a Dashite, one I remember very well, considering I had presided over her trial.

“Welcome,” she said, looking at a couple of papers behind the counter. Her eyes slowly drifted up to meet ours, growing wider as she realized who I was, “how ca-ca-can I h-h-help…”

Her voice trailed off, jaw hanging open as a mixture of shock and fear dawned her expression. I held in my amusement, watching as she tried to comprehend who was in front of her. She looked to my flank, and her pupils dialated to pinpricks. With a nervous gulp, her eyes meant mine.

“Councillor Rhapsody?”

“Funny seeing you here, Lightning Cloud,” I replied, unable to hide my contempt at her fear. “I see the surface has treated you better than we expected.”

Gemini looked between us. “Y-you two know each other?”

“Gemini, this is Lightning Cloud. Lightning Cloud, Shining Gemini,” I said, motioning to each of them at the mention of their name. “We’re here to sign some forms. The guards at the gate said we should.”

Lightning blinked and briefly massaged the sides of her head. “She’s a Dashite, and traveling with a unicorn!” She shook her head following that bit of loud whispering. “Right. Forms. One moment.”

She bent under the counter, and came back up with two pieces of paper and a pen. There was a lack of fluidity in her movements, no doubt still getting a hold of herself after seeing me, but she did her job correctly. I guess the surface had managed to put some sense into her head.

“What in tartarus got you sent down here?” She asked. To my surprise, her voice was filled with a lot more fear than rage. I guess any wishes she had of vengeance had been squashed in the time she had been on the surface. “You were the second to last councilor I ever thought would be branded.”

“Habringer was number one, wasn’t he?” I asked before grabbing a pen in my teeth. I got no answer, probably out of fear that I’d retaliate to some degree. It seemed I had a bit of a reputation among Dashite. “You’re not getting an answer. I don’t want to talk about it, you don’t need to know. At least I didn’t betray my nation.”

“Yet you are down here like me and–”

“Say anything along the lines of “you and I are the same” and I’ll jam this pen into your throat.”

She shivered and took a step back, looking at me as if she had seen a ghost. Her wings fluttered a little from anxiety, and the corners of my mouth briefly curled up a bit more. They likely would have stayed that way, if it wasn’t for the fact Gemini had done the same exact thing. I briefly considered the threat I had just laid out, and the environment I had said them in, before sighing.

I had prepared for raiders, slavers, and lowlives when coming to the surface, not a mare doing a government job.

“S… Sorry, Lightning,” I managed to say, the first word soi hard to get out of my throat I thought it would never be said. “I just… this wasn’t supposed to happen. Being down here again, I mean.” The mare blinked, the shivering in her body fading away as my words set in. “If you really need to know… well lets just say I fucked up real bad. It was either this or a forced retirement.”

Lightning idly glanced around her, her mouth moving but remaining motionless as she tried to find the right words to say. When she did, they locked on me. “Thanks for the apology and well… I’m sorry. Guessing you don’t want to talk about what happened.”

“I expected you to be happy I’m down here, yet you sound upset.”

“You had a husband and foals, right?” The question stung, but I answered with a nod. “Then, regardless of whether they said you had a choice, I doubt you really did. I suppose some other Dashites might revel in one of the councils getting what they deserve,” there was the slightest touch of animosity in her words, but her voice carried a tone far more somber, “but I just see it as proof I was right.”

“Right about what?” Gemini asked, innocently.

“Right that the Enclave was on a path to ruin. Nopony would speak of it out loud up there, but there’s a growing divide up there.” Lightning pointed at the ceiling. “The smart ponies stay quiet about their displeasure. The idiots… well, take a guess how I ended up down here.”

It didn’t take long for the young unicorn to figure it out, a frown forming. “You spoke out, didn’t you?”

“Eeyup. I believed I was doing the right thing, and still do,” she answered, a sad laugh emanating from her throat. She motioned limply to me. “The councilor here caught wind, had me arrested, and found guilty of treason. That’s how I ended up down here.”

“I’m not that dumb, I can figure things out.” Gemini’s frown grew slightly more. “I just… I don’t understand. You know it was dumb to speak up, so why?”

“Because you need the idiots to do dumb things for the smart ponies to get ideas.”

“That, or it sweeps ponies off their hooves, so caught up in believing the forming mob they can’t think clearly,” I said. I let out a harsh exhale as I turned my attention back to the papers before me. “Cause all it takes is one charismatic idiot, much like yourself, to cause the world to spiral downwards.”

Lightning Cloud studied my, trying her damndest to find any sign I didn’t believe my own words. A sigh signaled her failure, letting her hooves fall off the counter. She shook her head, and gave me a near identical look of smugness.

“I guess the idiot in this scenario is you, isn’t it, Councilor Singing Rhapsody.”

I scowled at her. “Gemini, give your form. We’re leaving as soon as possible.”

“You two really didn’t get along, huh?”

I groaned. As much as I was hoping Gemini didn’t broach the subject, she had. Apparently, if her words in town hall were anything to go by, this was a safe subject. Whatever logic went through her brain was definitely questionable, but that was understandable. She was young, definitely intelligent despite her lack of education, and experiencing freedom for the first time in her life.

By all means, she had the ability to leave at any point. She didn’t need to stay with Sharpshot and Gold after my mistake in Sandstone, she didn’t need to brave the sandstorm with us, and she didn’t need to stick with me. By all means Gemini could abandon us here in Underside, figure out a life for herself, and none of us would blame her.

Instead she was here, with me, by her own free will. Whether she understood the concept or not of a kindred soul didn’t matter, because her heart and mind had found one in me. I felt it back, though I was too scared of what saying it to her would do to me. I knew the passive acknowledgment of the subject over the course of our time traveling meant more than the words did anyways.

I saw her as a good grounder, and I didn’t want to lose a friendship. Not after losing so much to banishment. Her question deserved an answer, so I gave her as straight forward an answer as possible.

“Different ponies believe in different things, and there comes a point where a belief is so against your own point of view, it doesn’t matter what the other side says,” I stared back behind us, in the direction the MentaBuck’s E.F.S. told me town hall was. “Different views of how the world works can break friendships. It’s not an easy thing to change.”

“So you don’t think the Enclave needs to change?”

I shook my head. “Oh no, change is inevitable. It’s the exact kind of change that makes me unhappy. Excluding myself and looking at the pegasi still up there? We got some damn good ones in charge. You’ve met Ironsight, but there are also High Spirit, Sapphire Storm… Harbinger.”

Gemini’s ears folded back immediately after hearing the last name. “H-Harbinger?”

“A bastard, but damn good at his job,” I explained. I glanced at the creatures walking by as we wandered aimlessly through the streets, specifically keeping track of the few Shattered Moon members that showed up. “He’s the admiral, and is easily the pony with most control over the entire Enclave. Damn good strategist, amazing speaker, popular as fuck,” I snorted, “and completely tactless when not in front of a stage. Dude is so used to being a politician and legitimately can’t figure out how to turn it all off.”

“Tactless?”

“He’s bad when it comes to emotionally tough situations, when they aren’t involving anything to do with the military or politics.” The scowl I had worn since leaving town hall deepened. “Ironsight was romantically attracted to him. The fucker didn’t let him down, but stomped any good feelings about them into the ground.”

Remembering it pissed me off, so I didn’t allow the memory more time than needed. Ironsight deserved so much better for everything he has done for the Enclave, and for me. If I was able, I would have kicked Harbinger square in the jaw for how he treated my best friend. Unfortunately that was a horrible idea, and would have ended up with me on the wrong end of a scandal.

Being the newest councilor, that was the worst mistake I could possibly make, especially when the pony on the opposite side is as beloved as Harbinger. It almost makes me want to thank the Lightbringer for what she did to him.

Almost.

Gemini decided to leave the topic of the Enclave and its remaining councilors there. Her eyes joined me in taking in Undersides of various homes, shops, and otherwise. Whenever we passed somepony wearing the Shattered Moon’s coat and mask, her eyes would follow them for as long as possible. She always did that same, expressionless head tilt. The kind of look a young foal tended to have when greeted with something they didn’t understand.

“They live like that? All the time?” She asked right after another guard had passed us, voicing dropping to a whisper.

“So it seems. May feel crazy to somepony like you, but it's a bit more normal to me,” I told her. I eyed Celestia’s sun for a moment, shielding my eyes with my good wing. “Though nowhere above the clouds is this hot.”

“It sounds terrible,” Gemini replied, giving a quick glance to me before returning to watching the pony watching. Her nose scrunched up. “It seems really uncomfortable. Their bodies must stink.”

That got a laugh out. A true, genuine laugh for what felt like the first time in days. It felt good, sounded strange, but best of all it made Gemini happy. I’m not sure if her intention was to make me laugh, but she clearly saw it as a plus.

“Yeah, they would stink, wouldn’t they?” I asked, unable to hide the wide smile on my face.

A deer passed by us, the first I had seen since arriving in Underside. The first I had ever seen in my life, though I did know they existed. DH’s memories were to thank for that; Joy’s talks of the many stations of Stalliongrad had made me aware of them. It made me wonder, did they also have yaks here?

The little interlude seemed to give Gemini a bit of confidence, and she resumed our conversation concerning the Enclave.

“So, what is an Admiral? Or a General? Or a,” she scrunched her muzzle, “lewd-tenant-curnel?”

“Lieutenant Colonel, Gemini. It’s a weird word, I know,” I said. This was probably the only situation where such a horrible mispronunciation got more laughs out of me than anger. Gemini’s naivety was just too cute. “It’s a military position, just like Admiral and General. It’s very high up on the chain of command, but not as high as the other two.”

“So you are like,” her eyes went off to the horizon, and with a gasp she looked at me with excitement, “the right-hoof mare!”

“In most normal situations, yes,” I replied, adding a small nod to cap off the sentence. “However, I’m not just a normal Lieutenant Colonel. I was in the high council, chosen by the pegasi majority to lead. All those pegasi I mentioned earlier? Same as me.” I stared longingly at the clear blue sky. “Harbinger looks after the Cloud Guard, Ironsight is in charge of our standard infantry, High Spirit has the Sky Force, and Sapphire Storm is in charge of research and development.”

“So you had something you specialized in too, right?” Gemini asked.

“Yep,” I replied. “I was the head justice of the military tribunal, or court of law. Had spent the last three years before this there, but over the last year? I was in charge of all of it. Standing before me was a sign that you fucked up real bad.” My expression turned stoic, recalling each and every case I could remember in the span of five seconds. “I’m one of the last things every Dashite sees before being branded and exiled.”

“So the reason Miss Lightning Cloud is down here–”

“Is because she did something that deserves this level up punishment, same as I had.” Saying it hurt, but Gemini deserved to know. “The difference? She had done it intentionally. My crime was not.”

“So she’s a bad pony.”

“Yes. Very bad.”

Gemini’s ears folded back. “I see.”

At some point, Gemini and I came across a crowd blocking the street, ponies and other creatures cheering for whoever was on the other side. My eyes met Gemini, and was met with burning curiosity. She was as intrigued as I was about what was happening in front of us. So, with a tilt of my head, I motioned for her to follow behind me.

I pushed through the crowd, managing to find a space for Gemini that didn’t have her rubbing foreleg or flank with the many ponies around her. It didn’t stop the sheer dread and fear in her eyes, the rate of her breathing noticeably increasing as she found her spot at my side. As soon as we were in the front of the crowd, our attention turned ahead to whatever was going on before us. I was expecting a brawl, given the sheer volume of the ponies around me.

That much I got correct. What I didn’t expect was for Gold to be one of the participants.

To be fair, it wasn’t a full on brawl. There were no punches being thrown, no nasty insults, and more importantly no hate. Sure, he and his opponent, a griffon more than half his age, had a look of ferocity and concentration on their face, but nothing malicious. It was the look of friendly competition, of two roosters battling it out not to try and kill each other, but to gain the others’ respect.

The brawl in question seemed more like a wrestling match, both sides trying their damndest to pin the other to the sand and asphalt beneath them. Each griffon had grabbed the other, doing everything in their power to toss the other to the ground. Neither gave in, any sign one was about to overpower the other being proven incorrect as they fought back. In many ways, it was dance. A dance whose beauty was traded for ferociousness, and whose music was traded for the cheering of the crowd.

Even as somepony who knew nothing about wrestling, it was easy to tell our griff was more experienced than the other. The younger griff would grab Gold by the shoulder and try to toss him down. Gold would respond by expertly using both his opponent's force against him. The younger griffon did his best to do the same, but there was always that sign his balance wasn’t completely there.

“Come on Gideon! Keep it up!” A feminine voice called from the crowd on the opposite side of the street. They were another young griffon with a bright mix of orange and yellow feathers. They were younger than Gold, but older than his opponent by likely a year or two. “You got this! Show grandpa you have what it takes to beat an ex-talon!”

My eyes turned to my companion, watching his expression carefully. He was out of breath, wheezing badly. His experience was being marred by time and age. It was the first time I had seen the latter slow him down in the entire time I’ve known him. It seems he wasn’t as immune to the march of time as I had thought.

That, ultimately, was where a ponies' experience didn’t matter. In a battle of attrition, the winner was the side that wasn’t completely exhausted. Gideon ultimately used that to his advantage, ducking under a grab, picking Gold up, and slamming him down. For the first time since we arrived, someone had been pinned.

I had to hold a hoof up to keep Gemini from rushing out. She gave me a look of fear, no doubt concerned for Gold’s safety. I reassured her with a smile, and pointed to a Shattered Moon member who had crouched in front of the two griffons.

They stomped the ground once, twice, thrice.

Gold did everything in his power to get out of the hold Gideon had placed him in. The latter griffon’s grasp and strength stayed.

A fourth stomp. A five, and then a sixth.

Some in the crowd grew louder, others softer. Gideon’s friend, sister, whoever they were was holding her breath. The anticipation was as hard for them as it was for me. Each second felt like an hour.

Eighth stomp.

“Come on, Gold. Come on,” I growled quickly through my teeth, crouching lower then the Shattered Moon member acting as their referee.

“Please Mister Gold,” Gemini whispered. She was enthralled, and her expression begged for her words to be the strength he needed to break free.

Ninth stomp.

He had one more second. A single chance to break free before he lost. Gold fought and fought, his talons searching for some way to remove Gideon’s for the entirety of the past nine stomps. This was his last chance.

…

Tenth stomp.

Gideon let go, raised up into a bipedal stance, and pumped both talons into the air. Gold relaxed, resting on the hot ground below him as half the crowd cheered for his opponent. That griffon pride of his caused him to frown, the fact he had lost feeling like a spear through his chest. Then, a few seconds later, he smiled and laughed a little.

Gideon dropped back down to all fours and turned so that he faced Gold. He held a talon out, and the old rooster gladly accepted it. One griffon helped the other back up, and their ref started to shoo away the crowd that had formed. The griffon hen that had watched from the sideline launched forward as soon as Gideon had let go of Gold’s own talon, wrapping him in a headlock and giving him a noogie.

“Hell yeah, told you my brother is a badass!” She replied, Gideon trying everything in his power to wiggle out. He gave up quickly, exhausted. “Beating one of the best damn mercs the Talons have ever seen. Now that is a story we can tell folks about.”

“Am… glad. Story worth… worth telling,” Gold managed to say between wheezes. Both younger griffons immediately snapped their attention. “Talon future looks… bright. Do parents proud.”

Gideon smiled sadly at his words as his sister let go of the headlock. The two shared a look between each other that said both everything and nothing. Melancholy was the main ingredient, but under it all was that very pride that Gold had just mentioned.

“Thanks. They… would be happy to hear it,” Gideon replied.

“I assume that takes care of business for you three, then?” the Shattered Moon member asked, taking a step forward. All three griffons gave him a nod. “Alright then. Thanks for keeping it clean, we got enough on our hooves dealing with Equalist agents trying to spur up trouble.”

“Of course. Good day, sir,” Gideon’s sister replied.

The masked pony walked off, and Gold tilted his head back. His eyes landed on Gemini and myself, motioning with his artificial talon to come forward. We did just that, with me giving him a look of faux disapproval. He just looked happy.

“When you said you were going to enjoy the culture, this isn’t what I had in mind,” I joked.

“Griffon culture very physical. Respect, strength, intelligence, all important,” he replied. He nodded towards the other two griffons present, both looking at us with intrigue. “Most Talons die younger. Meet old fool, like me, good chance to prove themselves. Only right I give said chance.”

“Typically it would be a lot more brutal, involving a knife and maybe a pistol, but numbers would prefer not to have that in town,” the female griffon explained. “So we settled on this. We respect the numbers enough to follow, and they allowed this.” She pounded her chest. “Name is Gigi. This is Gideon, my brother.”

“Singing Rhapsody, this is Shining Gemini,” I responded. Gemini gave a shy wave to the sibling mercs.

“These two with me. Contract holder is Rhapsody,” Gold half lied. “Good pegasus. Good in fight, paying well. Giving grand adventure.”

“Well you are some lucky ponies,” Gideon said. “Getting a contract for an ex-Talon like Goldlewis Blackclaw? Dude told Red Eye of all ponies to fuck off and lived to tell the tale. No one messes with Red Eye, not with the power he has.”

“Goldlewis… Blackclaw?” I asked, looking at the old griffon. The scowl that came with hearing is full name. My eyes then flitted over to the Shattered Moon member that had acted as their ref, noticing him taking up post at the side of the street corner. “The Shattered Moon ponies, is that who you were referring to as numbers?”

“New around here, I take it?” Gigi asked. I nodded, and she shrugged. “You're right. It’s because no one outside of the Shattered Moon knows who lies underneath those masks.”

Gemini’s mouth dropped open. “Nopony?”

“Yep. They got more black ink than one would find on an Equestrian Black Ops file. Assuming you’ve ever seen one before,” Gigi answered, a smirk on her face. Had to admit, getting ahold of docs like that was really impressive. “It’s said that anyone who joins the Shattered Moon leaves everything in their life behind. Their family, their friends, and their very identity. Nothing remains, not even their name. They are just a number, and they like that.”

“It’s not a life that I or many others would ever want to live,” Gideon explained, looking to the number closest to us. “Giving up that much? It terrifies me.” He emphasized his point with a shiver. “Yet these ponies, these griffons, these zebras and hippogriffs and yaks and otherwise? They are willing to give up everything for us. All so our culture, history, and religious beliefs are safe from the Equalists.”

That same shiver that had passed through Gideon washed over my body. He was right, giving up that much was terrifying. I thought of Ironsight, Anchor, and my foals. I thought about seeing them playing in the streets, but being unable to tell them I was there. That level of abandoning one’s self was too massive for me to pursue that line of thought further. It was a future too terrible to live with.

“So,” I turned to Gold, “Red Eye wanted you.”

“He did. Wasn’t gonna happen,” he explained. He pointed to the sky, closing his eyes. “Good pay, bad gig. Slaver life not for me. Leaves bad taste in mouth.” His expression turned solemn. I was close enough to his body to hear his heart skip a beat. “Seeing communities destroyed hurt. Didn’t want to do that. Was wrong.”

Something about his words got me think. “Goldlewis, what happened in–“

“Just Gold, please,” he chimed in abruptly. “Don’t like Goldlewis. Too long, wastes time.”

“Okay, got it,” he replied. With his interruption, I needed to take a quick breath before feeling able to ask my question. “What happened in Sandstone to Bone Breaker…”

I wasn’t able to finish it, even with a moment to think. Gold sighed, showing he understand exactly what it was that I wanted to ask about. He removed his wing from over me, and hung his head. I saw an attempt to lift himself back up, but he didn’t.

“If I had the ability to stop it, that never would have happened,” he said. Just like when I had broached about Bone Breaker’s fate back in Trotson, he had stopped speaking in his odd, fragmented way. “Lucky should have known better. She knows what it is like to lose parents, and the trauma it can cause.” His pupils drifted to me, the embers of a fire visible in them. “Yes, I didn’t know she was going to kill her.”

The answer was satisfactory, and confirmed something for me: Lucky was not the pony Gold, Sharpshot, and Gemini had heard speak. It was Moondancer, it had to be. The mare was making it painfully clear that she didn’t care about the outside world like Lucky did. Mind controlling a mother to kill themselves? A great sign of that.

It made me thankful that Sharpshot had immediately dealt with the MentaBuck’s “hidden features”.

“Mood dragged down enough. Saw popular pub earlier,” Gold said, voice growing significantly more chipper as he took a few steps down the street. He looked back at us. “Care to join? All four, I mean. Drinks on me.”

“Really? We can join you?” Gideon said, his sister’s ecstatic expression telling me she was just as star-struck as her brother. Gold gave a nod. “Of course! We’ll just tell the boss and join you all. What’s the name?”

“L-Lucky Clover,” Gold replied, his voice wavering slightly. Gideon and Gigi waved a temporary goodbye, and then bolted down the street. He let out a breath I hadn’t noticed him holding. “Falke’s here. Of course he is here.”

“You okay, Gold?” Gemini, the kind little mare she was, asked as she trotted up to him.

“I will be. I will be.” He chanted. It was less an answer and more a piece of self-reassurance. He gave the young unicorn a fake smile. “So, unicorn ready? Try San Palomino’s finest?”

“Yes!” She replied with a youthful bounce.

The wonderful, innocent smile I saw on Gemini’s face as she jumped up and down would have been cute, if not for the context. Time to be the parent and step in.

“Now now, hold on missy,” I explained, giving my best “mom” look as I walked towards the two. I pointed at Gemini, more disapprovingly than in anger. “How old are you?” She blinked slowly, then tilted her head. I wilted a bit. “Right, can’t count.” I spun my focus to Gold. “You really think it is a good idea to give a minor alcohol?”

“She definitely old enough… by griffon standards.”

“She’s a unicorn, not a griffon!”

“Drinking age sixteen for griffons. Unicorn?” He briefly examined Gemini. “Definitely sixteen. Maybe fifteen, maybe seventeen.”

“Wait… are you calling me ol–“

“She’s. Not. A griffon!” I said, hitting one hoof against the opposite foreleg in annoyance. “She can come with us, but she isn’t having anything alcoholic. Got it?”

“Fine! Fine!” Gold responded, rolling his eyes. He quickly turned away and started walking, trying to escape the conversation. “Get her Sparkle-cola or something.”

I scrunched up my muzzle, and then sighs as I followed behind. A drink did sound nice, and it was becoming painfully obvious this mission of mine wasn’t going to be as quick as I wanted it to be. Might as well enjoy the world around me a bit, if I was going to be stuck here.

“Missus Rhapsody,” Gemini whispered, grabbing my attention as she trotted at my side.

“Yes Gemini?”

“Did Mister Gold… did he call me old?”

Just like that, any tension in me was eradicated with a snort of amusement. “No, Gemmy. He wasn’t.”

“Ah okay.” Her ears perked up. “You… called me Gemmy.”

I nodded. “Little nickname I thought up on the spot. Do you like it?”

“I… I do,” she said with a bright smile. “Can I call you Rara then?”

I contemplated her chosen nickname for a second, and then gave her a soft smile and nod. “Yes. Go ahead, Gemmy, call me Rara.”

The sheer innocence and joy that dawned her face in that moment. It was perfect, it was beautiful. It was right.

Author's Note

That first scene you saw was something I had planned with Lone Writer for long time. Yep, its another little crossover with All Roads Lead Home, this time featuring the main character from the story. It was a lot of fun, and thank to him for helping me write his character.

Act 2 – Chapter 6: Lucky to be Here

Underside, San Palomino

Day 9

The Lucky Clover, where do I start with it?

To say I have many, many fond memories of it would be an understatement. It’s probably my second favorite place in all of San Palomino (we’ll get to number one in time) and the place where so many things started and ended. A den that smelled of alcohol and cigar smoke, but had the heart and love of what made the Shattered Moon what it was.

The building itself was from pre-war, but it had been so well maintained the only way to know was to ask the owner. The instead had light always set low, bar directly across from the entrance, and standard booth and tables on the other side. At the far right corner was a stage, various instruments strewn about for anypony with skill to use… or anypony without skill.

Sweet Luna, if you ever see an old gray abyssian get on stage, run! No matter what he says, he can’t play the trumpet.

Gemmy, Gold, and myself entered the place to find it was currently on the quieter side. Not empty, just quiet. A sole zebra was sitting at the bar counter, the abyssian in question managing the bar. Ponies and the like elsewhere, a few numbers enjoying reprieve. The radio was on, turned to none other than S.M.R.. The acronym was so easy to decipher now that it was impossible to not figure out what it stood for.

Shattered Moon Radio, for all your anti-Equalist news. Propaganda wasn’t just an Enclave thing.

“– I recommend caution for all prospectors, travelers, and otherwise heading in the direction of Trespasser’s Will. After investigation by the Shattered Moon, the recent deaths and theft of important mining operations have been pinned on Equalist infiltrators. This marks yet another in a series of attacks of mining towns across the border of southern and northern San Palomino. More information will be revealed when Lady Hash deems it right.”

Not everything was squeaky clean here, even if it was just a thin layer of dirt Shattered Moon had covered themselves and not the mountain of mud those in the central wasteland had. The lack of true details was a clear sign that they didn’t truly have the information to back up their claims. The blamed was laid at the hooves of the Equalists without much true effort. They certainly lived up to the ideals of an anti-ministry group, but being in charge of what was practically a country had opened their eyes. A citizenry that is loyal and complacent to their leaders is a calm and controllable populace.

That was damn good of them.

The sight of propaganda, however, was not the only thing of interest. I had a name, one belonging to a pony and not a group. Lady Hash, a creature with connection to the Shattered Moon no doubt. Someone high up in their ranks, trusted by the populace. Perhaps, just perhaps, they had heard about a group of pegasi who descended from the Enclave without Dashite brands.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the stolen documents and blueprints had been given to them. Angel Hair was smart to get it out of her hooves and to somepony I wasn’t unable to take it from without repercussion. No doubt she had told the others to do the same.

“Three of us, two joining later. Sitting at the bar, if able,” Gold told the host. I had gotten so caught up in analyzing the radio broadcast, I hadn’t seen them walk up.

The host, a young unicorn stallion in a simple green and black uniform, gave a nod. Gold craned his head in our direction, motioned towards the bar with a talon, and then made his way over. Gemmy and I took our seats, the former in between the two of us and the zebra I mentioned on my left. A hot cup of coffee rested between her hooves, her eyes focused on the radio.

“This doesn’t feel like that place we saw in Trotson. The one we had the pizza at,” Gemmy said with a funny look. Her muzzle was scrunched, a hoof over it. “It smells much worse. What is that?”

“Cigarette smoke. Comes from cigarettes. Many have them, helps relax,” Gold explained joyfully. A bit too joyfully for the subject, I must add. “Griffon invention, but ponies like them. Tasty, wonderfully addictive, but not good for ponies.”

“Doubt it is good for griffons either,” I shot back, giving him a warning glare.

He rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t offering, Rhapsody.”

“You don’t deny having some on you, however.”

“Of course! I like 'em!” He took one out of his own bag, showing it off to me. “Can be yours, too. Just say word.”

“In case I wasn’t clear enough back when we re-met, no.” I leaned closer, glaring just a little more. “That shit is poison. You know it, I know it, and I’m not having poison. You shouldn’t either, Gemmy.” I looked the young mare in the eyes as I said her name. “Alcohol is fine when you get older. Cigars? They’re as bad as drugs, and without the… slight upsides.”

“Drugs got medical use–“

I snapped my attention back to Gold. “Not what I’m talking about, griff.”

He sighed like a disappointed father, but with how he didn’t act like one it proved ineffective. No matter how good he was in a fight, he was a terrible influence. It made me significantly more worried about Luck Heart and her own future. If this was what she had for a father figure, then it only made sense that Moondancer used her more akin to a puppet than anything.

Morally, it was wrong. Sensibly, it was right.

“Well, here are some new faces that I have never seen before,” the abyssian behind the bar said, leaning over and looking between each of us with a merchant-like smile. “First time in Underside no doubt?”

“Yes. Not first time in San Palomino… for self,” Gold said, meeting the bipedal creature with a smirk. “Am Gold. This Shining Gemini, that Singing Rhapsody.”

“I’m Basalt, the proprietor of this wonderful establishment,” the cat replied, spreading his arms wide as he happily took in his entire pub. “Welcome to the Lucky Clover! All our welcome… as long as you behave.”

This was a hint of playful seductiveness in those last few words. Nothing harmful, likely just an essence of how exuberant he seemed to speak. He had all the essence of a performer, which made his choice in profession weird. Though, given my own talent, I wasn’t in a position to speak. Nothing about him screamed terrifying.

Yet, just by manner of him being the first abyssian I had ever seen, I felt a bit unsure. I knew bipedal intelligent species existed, but seeing one in front of me was different. Having Gold tower above me was manageable, but this cat? That young, beaten filly inside of me wished desperately to hide.

It took a lot of will to remind myself that this wasn’t my dad. He couldn’t hurt me here. This feline had no reason to do the same.

“If… you don’t mind me asking,” I said, swallowing my fear down. I hoped that, through conversation, that innate reaction would be utterly dismantled, “what is an abyssian doing here? I don’t think a broken and battered country would hold much interest.”

He chuckled at me. “Leave it to the pegasus to ask the million cap question. Surprise you even know what I am.”

“Barely. They didn’t teach much about your people in history,” I explained to him. “Your home wasn’t annexed like Mount Aris and the lower part of the continent, barely anything on politics. We know you exist, but that is it.”

“Not surprised, especially considering how things were back then,” Basalt replied. He rested his beige fur-covered arms on the counter. “If you weren’t a quadruped with a horn, wings, or lacking stripes, then good luck. Equestria’s policies of friendship and harmony was only for ponies.”

“But… that doesn’t make sense,” Gemmy said, furrowing her brow adorably. Anypony close enough could see the gears turning in her head as she thought. “Friendship and harmony isn’t just a pony thing… at least I don’t think it is.” She turned to the griffon at her right. “I mean, Mister Gold is weird but really nice. I consider him a friend, and he isn’t a pony.”

Every feature on the old griffon’s face lit up like a hearthswarming tree. This was a new level of happiness that I had never seen from him. It seems Gemmy’s innocence and simple world view had just as good of an impact on him as it did me.

“So if I can be friends with a griffon, then Equestria is wrong!” She exclaimed, her face adorning a look that made it clear her words were some sudden great realization to her. Then, quick as a blink, she pouted. “Wow, Equestria is dumb!”

Basalt laughed happily at that, paws going to his belly as he did. I noted my own amusement with a snort and smirk, the sight of the abyssian laughing thoroughly dispelling the fears within me. Gemmy looked at the cat, confused at the more expressive way he had reacted. For just a moment, her ears folded back.

“Did I say something dumb?” she asked.

“Dumb? No, no! Little lady your observation is anything but dumb,” Basalt said, managing to get his laughter under enough control to focus. He leaned backwards, paws making motions I didn’t understand in the air. “Then again we are but outside observers, correct? Those who only know about the events thereafter, unable to decipher in full detail what transpired. I’m certain, to those of the time, the actions had some manner of sense.” His paws finally motioned back to me. “Now, we got slightly off track I do believe. Miss Rhapsody here inquired about why I am here, correct?”

“Yes, though given your words I can form the frame of a picture,” I answer. “Your family has been here since those times, haven't they? When being a pony was seen as the only right thing to be and anything otherwise was treated as a threat or scary.” I side eyed Gold, “even if the terror was an ally.”

Basalt’s stance seemed to straighten, smile growing as he heard the theory I had placed before him. Instead of declaring me right or wrong, he closed his eyes and chuckled to himself. When he opened them, he briefly eyed Gold before reaching under the countertop.

“As you mentioned, Abyssia had no wish to take back to the squabble the rest of the world took part in. It had nothing Equestria wanted, had a nearly non-existent pony population, and there were far more useful lands to claim nearby,” Basalt explains as he worked on some kind of cocktail. Every time an action led to the clinking of glass I winced. That simple sound seemed worse than any injury I had ever suffered. “Mount Aris was one of those. Equestria wanted their navy, the hippogriffs refused, so Equestria forcibly took it over. Attempts to flee were halted by… warnings.”

Gemmy stared at the abyssian, unsure of if she truly wanted to ask the question rattling around in her brain. Her curiosity got the better of her. “What was the warning?”

“Nothing spoken, but when the big scary neighbor to your north starts using your water as “megaspell testing grounds” you realize you only have two options.”

I closed my eyes, absorbing the information just put before me. It didn’t completely match with my own history classes but that makes sense; despite the Enclave’s hatred for grounders, our history books are made with Equestria’s view in mind. Mount Aris was annexed late into the war, the reason given by Luna and the ministries being that the Zebrican Empire’s newly unveiled megaspells had attempted to sink some great project underneath the sea. They joined Equestria for protection, thus making their navy just another part of the Equestrian navy.

Obviously, that was now revealed to be a lie.

Basalt’s family may have been in Equestria since before the war ended, but they had no reason to continue the lie. Nopony did, unless they were stable ponies brought up on the righteousness of the ministries and Princess Celestia, and the idea that zebras were the enemy. More than that, we were in an area protected by the Shattered Moon, and they certainly did not have reason to continue the lies of the ministries. Everything said was true, and it made Luna’s rule look even worse than it already did.

“So by all means Abyssia is out there, fine and clean of magical radiation,” I said.

Basalt looked off longingly, no doubt picturing the homeland that he had never seen. “I sure hope so.” He quickly shook his head and returned his attention to us. He placed the cocktail he had made down at the zebra, who gave him a nod as a sign of thanks. “Now, while I am more than happy to continue this discussion, I got an establishment to run and three new faces before me waiting for something to quench their thirst. What shall I get for you three today?”

Three drinks for three individuals, all of which being rather different. Gold got himself a simple beer, supposedly of foreign origins but I didn’t pay attention to exactly where. Gemmy got herself ginger ale, which she was certain was closer to a beer than it truly was. As for myself? Sunrise Sarsaparilla. It was quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

We shared a light back and forth as we drank, laughing here and there at something or other. Gold and I told Gemmy about the world she didn’t know, the one she had witnessed for only a few days now. She was intrigued, excited, nervous, but under it something was building up. Small interests, new wonders she had never known, and as a whole who she was.

The mare was finding her identity. Among it all, and no doubt partially due to being around me, she was finding an interest in firearms. She asked me about the novasurge rifle, how much harder it was to maintain then her own 9mm pistol, that stuff. I did my best to keep the technical stuff to a minimum, at least for now. Didn’t want to overload her brain with things she barely understood.

“Do you think I can get one?” She asked in time. “A novasurge rifle, I mean.”

I tilted my head. “You want one?”

“I think so. I mean, they’re standard issue for the Enclave so they must be good,” she explained. “That and, well, they sound cool.”

“They sound… cool?”

“Yeah. The day we met, I was terrified. Really, really terrified. Willow was scary, as was Bone Breaker and you and Sharpshot and just,” she shrunk, “I thought I was going to die. Blood and that stuff doesn’t really phase me but I really don’t want to die. The only gun or weapon that didn’t have a scary sound to it was your rifle. It sounded less brutal, strangely pleasant.”

That caught my interest. I never really thought of a weapon as sounding pleasant, partially because that didn’t seem possible. Firearms wound, kill. They take a creature out of the universe, making a gap that can not be filled by anything. I’m a soldier, I know that. I lived my entire life in the Enclave knowing that I killed ponies. Despicable, lowly insults many of them were, killing and murdering and assaulting, but they were ponies.

I was trained to follow orders, kill my targets, and get my pegasi home alive. That is a soldier, to a soldier. I don’t regret many of the grounders I’ve killed… but that is because I don’t know them.

…

Though, I guess that is a lie. I knew one, before all this shit happened. Not as a friend, or an acquaintance, but as an enemy. Most of the specifics are locked away deep in my brain, I know that. It helps me not think about it, and as long as I was in the Enclave it was justified.

To summarize briefly, it was my first two kills. She was a piece of shit raider, but she had a son. She begged for her son's life and, well, the others didn’t care. They killed him, I killed her. Perhaps there is a deeper question on if she really was the piece of shit I labeled her as, but I wasn’t interested in an answer. It helps to think of her as a bad guy, and me the good guy.

Funny how somepony you don’t know can affect you so greatly, if you don’t lock it up.

“I don’t exactly see how it is pleasant,” I said, eyes drifting to the fluorescent lights above us, “but if you want one, we can arrange that. After all, I’m sure my targets will have ones on them.”

Gemmy's expression turned sour, shifting uncomfortably. “So my best hope is… taking one from the dead.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” I said, answering her not-question. “Sorry Gemmy, but with me branded and you a unicorn we can’t just walk up to pegasi and ask for one,” I took a sip of a nearly empty Sunrise Sarsaparilla, finishing it off. “Tartarus, can’t do it even without the brand. Enclave needs all the shit it can get, and I was lucky to even bring mine with me.”

Her expression fell, staring into her ginger ale sadly. I was going to apologize for ruining an idea of hers, but then she smiled. Not the innocent, foal-like smile I was used to from her. It was something darker, with a twisted light becoming visible before my eyes. It wasn’t anywhere close to the psychopathic menace that graced the feature of raiders and otherwise, but it was there.

“I… I think I’m fine with taking theirs,” she said, cheerily. She seemed to realize, to some extent, that her thoughts were bad, causing her expression to change back to fear. “I-I mean, it doesn’t matter what they got, because they are dead. Might as well take it, right?”

Ladies and gentlecolts, a perfect example of the nurture thing Sharpshot was preaching days earlier. Gemini, slave as she was, had been surrounded by ponies so mentally unstable they saw the most horrid of acts as okay. She wasn’t close to being like them, of course, but there was a hint of their influence in there. The only reason it was buried so deep was no doubt due to those early years when her mom was still around.

For her to come at as she did, her mom had to be a damn good pony. Thank Celestia for what she had done for her foal in life.

“Careful little lady,” Basalt said, giving both Gemmy and I a jump as he appeared from behind. He had disappeared at some point during the conversation to deliver somecreature their drink. “Those are dangerous thoughts. Slip too far and you are no better than the easterners.”

Gemini followed the abyssian as he moved back behind the bar, the emotionless stare telling me she didn’t understand. Gold and I shared a look as she did, subtle motions and eye movements done in hope he understood that I agreed with the cat. I’m pretty damn sure he didn’t get it, so I switched to a verbal response.

“I’d listen to Basalt on this one, Gemini.” My voice instantly grabbed her attention. “Looting, graverobbing, and shit like that? Screw up your sense of right and wrong.” I pushed the empty soda bottle closer to the other side of the bar’s countertop, signaling to Basalt I wanted another. “I shouldn’t have put those thoughts in your head. Always respect the dead, Gemmy.”

“Even if pony not good,” Gold added on, putting a claw in the air. “If treat bad pony like monster, they get power. Even true for dead bad pony. Never give them pleasure of hate.”

“I… uh… I see,” Gemmy said, still with that same stoic stare. There was something brew behind it though, which I hoped was a faint understanding. She shifted in her seat and took a gulp of her drink. “S-so, the ponies that hurt me and my mom for all those years…”

I raised a hoof towards her muzzle, never touching it but pointing with purpose. “You don’t have to like them, but as Gold said you must remember they are ponies. They are like you, and like me. If we aren’t careful, and the world deals us the wrong hoof,” I scowled, “we can end up just like them.”

“I don’t want to be like them.”

“Then treat both the living and dead with respect, even if they are your enemies.” Basalt hoofed over another Sunrise Sarsaparilla to me, which I instantly popped open and took a long gulp of. I plopped it down on the counter with more force then expected not too much later, letting out a sigh. “That is… not something we did well at.”

“We? Enclave you mean?” Gold asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. We treated you all like shit.”

“Not surprising. Leadership shapes minds. Look who they have on top… and did, in one case.”

“Your jab at my broken beliefs of racial superiority hurt.”

“Good, it should. Means you want to change.”

The door to the Lucky Clover opened. I leaned back, looking to see if it was Gideon and Gigi. They two griffons were indeed there, waving at us, but it was the third that caught my real attention. He was old, dark blue feathers and crimson red fur covering his body. He had those similar signs of mercenary life on him, similar to Gold, his left in particular dealing with some heavy burns.

A sigh brought my attention to my griffon companion, the ex-talon looking at this new one with a sense of great longing. It was that same look many old ponies had when looking back on their life, memories of days when their body was fitter and healthier reaching the forefront. I looked back to the new griffon, and then to Gold once again. I studied his expression a little bit more, and my eyes went wide.

Ironsight’s failed courting of Harbinger had given me a look into what it was like to have love denied to a pony. Gold carried that same somberness in his reflective expression, instead of the joyful one I had seen in many an old Enclave veteran. An expression that told of opportunities long past, and regrets still held. A lovestruck rooster, looking at the griffon that had turned him down.

Gold knew who this was, I knew who this was. He had told me of them, the night Gemmy’s undisciplined trigger discipline had put lead in my shoulder. This was the griffon who he had helped find love, after his own attempts had failed.

“Falke,” Gold whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear over the combined sound of radio music and the others in the pub.

“You going to be okay, Gold?” I asked.

Saying his name seemed to awake him from his reminiscences, eyes scouring the pub before landing on me. Regret and longing still laid inside. “I–“

“Uncle Goldlewis!”

His attempts to speak to me were undone as Gideon and Gigi rushed to hug him as if they hadn’t seen just earlier that day. In the process, Gideon nearly knocked Gemmy off her barstool, the unicorn barely managing to get her balance back. Gold was initially shocked at the hug, but quickly returned it. That seemed to wipe the sadness out of him, the tiniest sign of a smirk on his face.

“Hey, hey, careful now,” Basalt said. “This wood is sturdy but it's also old. I don’t need to replace it right now.”

Gideon and Gigi pulled away, the latter’s eyes lighting up with barely controlled excitement. “You didn’t tell us you knew grandpa.”

“I… didn’t know it was same griffon,” Gold lied. It was such an obvious lie that not even the smile he gave with those words could save him.

“Come on Gold, don’t do your niece and nephew dirty like that,” Falke replied as he came up behind his grandchildren. Gideon and Gigi moved out of the way, watching as Falke took Gold into a one arm hug. “It’s been years man. Good to know you are still kicking, especially after that disappearing act you pulled after meeting Red Eye..”

“I… figured it was best. Red Eye influential, I said no to him.” Gold reached a talon around Falke, a clear shake in it. It ended up calculating into how light his own hug was compared to his old crush. “Dangerous to stay there. Left, went other places. Met new griffons and ponies.”

“Well I’m damn happy to see you alive, old friend,” Falke replied, pulling away from the hug so he could look Gold in the eyes. They didn’t stay there for long as he caught the other griffon’s artificial talon. “Fucking hells, must have been some adventures too. What happened to get you this? Some business in Hoofington.”

“Ha! Likely to most, but incorrect,” Gold said. “Lost in the south, at Trotson. Long story.”

“Trotson still exists?!”

“Yes. You didn’t know?”

“Of course not. I didn’t think any existed in that bowl of sand.” Falkes dismissively pointed a talon to what he believed was south – which was actually closer to east, according to my E.F.S. – treating the city more like a pest than anything. Another knock against whatever Moondancer and Lucky Heart claimed to be for. “Just glad you're alright. I’ve missed you.”

“Y-yeah, s… same.”

Gold looked away. He gave me a look, one that spoke discomfort, likely a wish for some form of privacy. I had a decent idea of what he was asking me, and it led to a knowing smile finding its way onto my face. I looked off to the stage, smiling at what I saw on it.

Among the group of instruments that made it up was a bass, old but incredibly well maintained. Strong, well made strings and a newer set of tuning pegs at the very top of its neck, though whether they were ornamental I currently didn’t know. I had done my best to ignore it since I had entered, not wanting to get my hopes up that it might be available to play. Now though? Now I had a chance to ask.

“Basalt two questions.”

“Of course Miss Rhapsody. How may I satisfy your curiosity.”

“Missus Rhapsody, actually.” I correct, not even turning to face the abyssian. I was too busy drinking in every little detail of the bass on stage. “First off, mind if Gemini and I change seats?”

Their was dawning realization on the abyssian’s face. “Go right ahead! And the second?”

“Can anypony use the instruments on stage?”

“Yes, as long as they don’t trash them.”

“Alright, thanks for letting me know.” I turned to Gemmy, Gideon, and Gigi. “Come on, let's give old friends some space.”

“W-wai–“

If the griffon had any object, it was too late to stop us. I had already gotten up, as had Gemmy, with the two younger griffons leading us towards a booth just far enough away where we wouldn’t be able to hear Gold and Falkes’ inevitable conversation. I momentarily looked back to the former, giving him a wink and a smirk. The old rooster seemed ready to strangle me, but was immediately distracted by Falkes taking the seat Gemmy had been using beforehoof.

Two young griffons and a unicorn sat down at the aforementioned booth. I stayed standing, attention back on the bass. It had been so long since I played, and I felt the urge to play growing more and more.

“Rara?” Gemmy called to me, temporarily removing my attention from my preferred instrument. “Should we really have just left him alone?”

“Yeah. He may not like it, but he needs it,” I responded. I looked at Falkes' grandchildren as I sat down next to Gemmy. “You two noticed it, right? The way he seemed kind of… dodgy.”

I briefly peered around the booth back to the bar. Falkes was speaking with Basalt, Gold nervously fidgeting right next to him.

“Not really, but I guess I wasn’t paying attention to it,” Gideon said, following my gaze and looking behind himself. “Looking now? Yeah. He does seem rather nervous.”

“Any idea what it is all about?”

“Nope. Grandpa has had nothing but good things to say about Uncle Goldlewis in the past,” Gigi explained, leaning against the cushioned back of the booth. “Granted I didn’t know they knew each other. I always thought grandpa was speaking of them as a sort of role model.”

“Which makes the fact they knew each other really cool,” Gideon continued on, practically jumping as he focused back on Gemmy and I. “I mean, we have Goldlewis Blackclaw for an uncle! Not just that, but Goldlewis Blackclaw is alive!”

Gemmy raised her brow. “Y-you thought he was dead?”

“Every talon and non-talon thought so,” Gideon answered, giving a nod along with his words. “A merc of his caliber doesn’t just disappear for years. Getting to learn he is alive and still working is quite the surprise.”

Gemmy’s brow slowly lowered, and her head fell not too much later. She smiled sadly, eyes starting to water up. A wing started to involuntarily open, motherly instincts wishing to wrap her in a hug. I quickly stopped myself, sliding closer to her instead. Gemmy had watched it all, and it made that smile the tiniest bit less sad.

“I… I understand that. I mean, my mom just disappeared one day herself,” Gemmy replied. “The bad ponies, the ones that… took care of me after,” her body tensed, a clear sign she knew those slavers were far worse than she was claiming it, “they said she hadn’t been around for a while. I didn’t believe them but… then she never came back. Thinking back, perhaps it was for the best.”

“For the… best?” I repeated. She nodded.

“Mom didn’t feel or look much like herself back then. It's hard to explain but she was looking a lot angrier all the time. She would shout and scream at those bad ponies, and I remember her voice sounding different near the end.” That dark glint returned, and the smile shifted tones. “Those were the only times they really paid attention to her. They were always shivering. I think they were afraid of her.”

“Sounds like these caretakers weren’t great creatures,” Gigi said, seeming to not notice the glint like I had. Gideon too, given how relaxed he was. “Honestly, I thought the pegasus here was your mom.”

My eyes went wide. “Me?”

Gigi nodded. “You give off mom vibes.”

“Well no, I’m not her… biological mother,” I replied, rubbing the back of my head. “I saved her from some slavers about a week ago. No doubt the same ones who killed her mother.”

“Damn. Good on you for that,” Gideon said, crossing his forelegs. I puffed my chest out at the compliment as he continued on. “Still, depending on how you look at it, at least it was animals or other monsters that killed her. I imagine it was a lot quicker and less painful.”

Gigi looked at her brother, a tinge of anger gracing her expression as she punched his shoulder. “Gideon!

“Ow.”

“The hell kind of reassurance is that?”

“The only kind I can give, Gigi. The kind…,” his words got caught in his throat. He was forced to swallow in order to sleep, his own words coming out scratching and forced, “the kind we didn’t have.”

“The kind we… didn’t…,” Gigi didn’t finish, her features falling. Angry rose with sadness, another punch hitting her brother’s foreleg, but with no force behind it. “Your a fucking idiot, Gideon.”

Despite her best effort, sadness won as the forefront emotion on her face. Her insult was hollow, voice dejected, eyes cast down to the pub floor. The only sign of anger, outside of her words, was the way she curled her talons. While none of it was directed at me, I felt my stomach turn sick at what it all meant.

“My condolences for your losses,” I said quietly. “You are far too young to have watched your parents die.”

“Th-thanks,” the griffon siblings replied simultaneously.

Gideon followed up on his own. “It puts a lot in perspective. It makes you realize how little you matter, you know? One moment they are alive and the next they are just… just gone.”

“And it hurts even more, knowing we weren’t there,” Gigi continued on, resting her beak on the table. “We were too young to help them on contracts. Grandpa was looking after us. The last thing we ever said to them was goodbye.” she forced a laugh. “We didn’t even have bodies.”

Morbid curiosity got the better of me, and against my better judgment, I spoke. “Grenade? Landmine?”

Gideon shrugged. “Don’t know. Grandpa said it was best we didn’t.”

In that moment, two pairs of ethereal forelegs wrapped around the two griffons. My eyes went wide, Gemmy gasped. Two new ghosts, griffons just a few years older than Gideon and Gigi, held the siblings close. Both of them started to relax, though not without tears in their eyes.

Both Gemmy and I looked at each other, and it was at that moment I knew I had to ask.

“You can see them, can’t you?”

“Y-yeah.” She gave a nod. “Is that… am I doing something bad?”

“We can discuss this later, but let's just say it's different,” I told her, before turning back to the griffon siblings. I gave them my best sympathetic smile, something easy with the sight of the ghost griffons hugging them. “I’m sure your mom and dad are watching out for you.”

Gigi’s head tilted up ever so slightly. “You're certain?”

“Positive.” My eyes trailed to the ghost holding her. A griffoness, their identity clear as the skies of San Palomino. “Good parents never leave. They are always with you, even in death.”

The griffonness, Gigi and Gideon’s mom, smiled at me. Their father followed suit right after, clutching his son tighter. Gigi, thinking I was talking in a more metaphorical sense, brought a talon to her heart. She snorted, shook her head, and grinned at me.

“That is probably the most pony thing I have ever heard.”

I blinked, and then tilted my head. “The most… pony thing?”

“Yeah, you know, a phrase that sounds perfectly fit for you ponies.” Gigi motioned to Gemini and myself. She shook her head again, faking laughter as she leaned back once more. Her eyes gazed upward, looking through her mother’s ghastly figure to the ceiling. “You ponies are always the most optimistic ones out here. Just who you are, and why so many of you try to play hero out here. Not that it ever works.”

“So we’re idiots.”

“The best kind of idiot. The kind that looks on the bright side, even in the darkest moments.”

I dared to be a bit more smug. “You must be talking about another group of colorful ponies. You're talking to a former member of the Enclave high council. I wouldn’t call us optimists.”

Her beak hung open. “No shit!”

“Telling the truth.” I leaned back, crossing my forelegs. “I was a Lieutenant Colonel – in other words near the top of the food chain – and most importantly an officer. Need to be an officer to run for a spot on the council.”

The sadness in Gigi’s body had completely disappeared, staring at me in surprise. I rolled my eyes and then leaned to my left, looking back towards Gold and Falkes once more. The two were chatting, the former seeming to be the slightest bit less tense then he had been previously. Didn’t stop him from leering at me for a couple seconds as soon as he noticed.

“Well, optimist or not, councilor or not, thanks for the pick-me up. Not sure how much I believe that “they are always with you” crap, but… yeah,” Gigi said. One talon reached for her still downcast brother, shaking him lightly and bringing his attention to her. “Come on Gideon, time to stop moping.”

Her brother looked away in shame. “R-right, sorr–“

“No need to apologize.” Gigi waggled a talon, shaking her head in amusement at her brother's actions. “Just try to keep a better handle on what to say, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” Gideon brought one of his talons behind his neck, scratching his feathers nervously. The look really doesn’t suit their species. “Still, I brought the mood down so… sorry.”

“N-no! No need to apologize,” Gemmy replied with some sheepish waves of her hooves. “The bad mood was a… a team effort. All of our faults.”

“I think we can all live with that,” I said, giving Gemmy a wink. Not sure if that was the correct time for one, but the goofy look the unicorn gained showed it wasn’t wrong.

It was at that moment that I obtained it, the one thing I was using as an excuse to keep me off the stage: something to play. I don’t mean an instrument, obviously, I had that covered. I mean a song, a collection of notes that was more than just a jumbled mess of noise. Notes placed with purpose, telling a story, bringing a message.

I couldn’t hold myself back. The stage was right there, the bass was begging for me to pluck its strings. It hadn’t been touched in so long. It needed this, and it was telling me that I did too.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I told the three creatures around me. I shuffled out of the booth, eyes landing on the musical instrument calling out to me from the corner stage. “I have something I need to do.”

“You okay Rara?” Gemmy asked, a sudden rush of concern over taking her. She had moved to follow me, hooves on the booth seat where my flank had been moments prior.

“Completely fine,” I assured her. “You wanted to hear me play the bass, right?” She blinked slowly, and then nodded. “Then wait right there.”

Without another word, I sped-trotted up to the stage. My eyes never left the beautiful piece of hickory that rested at the wall, tall and proud. I wrapped my hooves around the bass’ neck, looking at it as if it was my husband. I’m certain I seemed weird to everyone in the pub, but right then I didn’t care.

A pony can stray from the path their cutie mark wishes for them, but they can’t deny who they are. Some pieces of our identities, no matter what, are unchangeable. I understood that more than most; a brand couldn’t fully destroy a cutie mark. Music was still in my blood.

“It has been so long for me too,” I whispered to the bass. “You want to show them we can shine, right? Then let us shine together.”

Clutching the bass like a walking stick, we made our way to the front of the stage. A few eyes had turned to me, Gemmy’s specifically having never left my form. I tested the tuning pegs to see if they were real, and found they were not. I then tested each of the four strings to get an idea for how it was tuned.

Remarkably, it was only slightly out of tune. Just enough that the untrained ear would never noticed.

“I’ll ask Basalt to get you tuned up, don’t worry,” I told it. “Now, let's show these grounders what we got.”

Just like that, I started to play.

The notes came to my head like I had played them several times before, but the truth was they were brand new to me. My hoofs effortlessly glided up and down, from one string to another. I hadn’t played in weeks and yet it felt as simple as breathing. After a time, I closed my eyes and lost myself in this newly made piece.

It was a melancholic thing, yet with that tiniest ray of hope filtering through it. A piece befitting how Gigi and Gideon felt, and no doubt how Rainy and Clear felt up above as well. The kind of piece many down here on the surface probably understood. Love ones separated, lives ended too soon, joy crushed under the ferocity of the world around them.

It was for this reason that music was so important to the world. It helped ponies, zebras, griffons, and more fight the darkness of the world. Even grounders deserved that much, I knew that now.

To my surprise a saxophone suddenly filled the air with an equally dour tone. I opened my eyes and looked to my right, an earth pony stallion next to me. Not the same one who had beaten up Sharpshot though; their coat was far less fluffy. Their purple form swayed in the beat. A short, wavy orange and cyan mane and tail swaying happily. Four flowers of unknown genus made up their cutie mark.

I won’t deny looking there for longer than I had intended. It was a nice flank.

I didn’t know who they were, and I didn’t care. They knew when to start playing, even if they didn’t know the song, and they were damn good at the saxophone. They knew the same thing I did, that a cutie mark was merely one choice of many, not a restriction. While their sudden entrance certainly wasn’t too my liking, I didn’t say anything.

He was following the song, he was hot, and he played well. Nothing to complain about in the middle of a song. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the music once more.

On and on we went, filling the room with sorrowful, soulful music. I led, and he followed. A slight change to the chord progression didn’t catch him off guard, as he easily adjusted to it. It was almost like a dance, but with sounds instead of moving bodies. Like a dance, it was something everycreature could understand. A language for all, and therefore able to soothe even the most cutthroat of hearts.

Then, after so much time, the song came to an end.

I let out a joyful sigh, and opened my eyes to a round of cheers from everyone present. Everyone, from Falke to Basalt to Gemmy and everycreature else present. The praise gave a different pride, similar yet different to the kind I received in more soldiery situations. It isn’t something I can explain.

I gave the smallest grin, and patted the bass. It did good, and I mean really really good. It sounded beautiful, and it had shined just as I said it would.

“Apologies for my sudden entrance,” the earth pony stallion to my right replied, a sly smile on his face as his deep, sultry voice hit my ears. I leaned away a little, unable to hide my blush. “I just felt I could add a little to the beauty on stage. You sounded gorgeous.”

“I-I, uh, well…”

I hid my face from him with a wing, but it did little good. The entirety of the Lucky Clover knew I found him hot, and he knew damn well what he was doing to me. He had that kind of smile on him, the one that said he knew he was sexy and was loving it.

“Come on sugar, I know you can speak,” he spoke, leaning a bit closer. “Can I at least have the name of the adorable mare who I played with?”

I spoke, but I don’t think I can rightly describe any of what I said as words, the blush on my face so great my head was a completely different shade of red. This hunk of a stallion laughed at it all, only further adding to my embarrassment. Then, suddenly, he put a hoof to his muzzle and shouted out to the crowd.

“Is that good enough?!”

My eyes went wide, and I followed his gaze to see who he had been talking to. I found Gold, leaning over the bar counter with Falkes laughing his ass off right next to him. He had a villainous smirk on his face as he looked at me.

“Pretty good. Thanks for help!” The old griffon called out, not caring at all to hide the joy in his face. “You surprise me, Rhapsody. Didn’t expect you be huge bottom.”

“Wait so this was all…,” My head swerved from Gold to the stallion neck to me. Embarrassment faded into mock discontent as he shrugged. With a groan, I looked back to the ex-talon. “Very funny Gold, very fucking fun.” My free hoof hit my temple. “Celestia fuck me.”

“If it helps at all, none of what I said was a lie, you really did sound gorgeous,” the saxophone playing stallion told me, his voice just a hint less sultry now that the gig was up. Just a hint, though, he still had that look of pure, uncontaminated masculine confidence in him. “Amaryllis Bloom, wonderful to meet you, my lady.”

Certainly a more feminine name than expected, but I didn’t really care. What a stallion! He was sculpted like a statue, musculature but not to the point of being a bodybuilder. His flank was tone, eyes as sultry as his voice, and a smile that would make any teen filly faint. A straight mare’s gift in everything… but personality.

I knew his type, and he most certainly knew what he was. I was definitely not the first mare today to fall into the traps he laid. With a slight hold on myself now, I smirked at him.

“You tell all the mares that, don’t you?” I asked plainly.

“Perhaps, but it is never any less true,” Amaryllis replied, giving a shrug. He touched his saxophone to his chest. “So many out there see the world of today as an ugly, mutated thing. I can’t change their opinions on that, but I can make sure they don’t view themselves in the same manner.” I rolled my eyes at his words. “So may I learn the name of the beautiful mare I reassured of their beauty today?”

“Dead Hoo–” I shook my head, “Singing Rhapsody… and I’m already taken, thank you very much.”

There was a slight hint of surprise, followed by an awkward laugh. He got back on his hindlegs, the top of his Saxophone held to his muzzle. “Apologies if my comments were a bit overboard then, Missus Rhapsody. Up for another song with me?”

A stallion who knew when to not push his luck. That kind of control was also very hot.

“Just as long as you can keep up,” I replied.

He smiled lustfully at me, my heart skipping a beat. “Trust me sugar, I’ve been playing since I was a foal. I’m sure I can keep tempo with you.”

…

I spoke too soon.

I’m not sure how long the two of us stayed up on stage, serenading the Lucky Clover. It was for more than just an hour, longer than I had told Gemmy I would be there. A small piece of me felt guilty for going far beyond it, but the larger part of me didn’t truly care. Nothing mattered except for Amaryllis and I, instruments singing in their own, lovely way.

We mainly improvised throughout that time, neither too familiar with the tunes the other did to do anything else. Not that it really mattered, because our duet of brass and string had enchanted the crowd below. A crowd growing quickly, ponies applaud from the end of one improvised tune to the other. All the while we played, only stopping to quickly discuss the chord progress for the next piece… and for him to compliment me endlessly.

Ever heard the joke about complimenting bottoms being a great way to create passwords? Well, let's just say he got plenty of new passwords out of me, and I enjoyed every moment of it. It didn’t help that his voice was like honey, sticking in my head like a catchy song. He got me thinking a few rather dirty, unfaithful thoughts…

Okay, a bit more than a few, but the details aren’t important.

Still, just like how Amaryllis had shown control with his teasing, I showed it by keeping those dirty thoughts inside. It was easy with us constantly going back and forth between playing and talking… even if a couple times I was so caught up in his words that I started playing late. Nothing the crowd caught… or brought up.

After many an encore, with both of us tired and thirsty, we called it done. Our last duet was met with another round of applause all across the now rather busy pub. Sharpshot and Willow had both walked in during that time, taking seats at the bar with Gold and Falkes. I shook hooves with Amaryllis as we placed down both bass and saxophone.

“That was absolutely wonderful,” Amaryllis said, a satisfied sigh passing through his lips. “Absolutely wonderful. The adoration of the crowd, big or small, never gets old.” He took one of my forelegs with one of his, kissing it. I’m not entirely certain how red my face was anymore, the giddy feeling he placed in my chest felt normal. “I have you to thank for that, Missus Rhapsody. Thank you.”

“Th-the pleasure is mine,” I replied, removing my hoof from his grasp, covering my face with it. After a few calming breaths, I lowered it and pointed to where Gemmy, Gideon, and Gigi sat. “Want to join me for a drink? I think we’ve earned it at this point.”

“Well it would be wrong to turn an offer like that down, but I must first ask,” I brought his muzzle close to my ear, a slight hint of worry hitting his voice, “your husband won’t mind, right?”

“He’s not here to have a say,” I replied, ears folding back as I stared up at the ceiling. I pointed at it. “He’s still up there.”

The tail-chasing attitude he had worn previously faded away, a look of genuine sadness taking root. “You have my condolences. No wife should ever be forced from their love like that.”

“I appreciate it, but let's not sour the mood too much.” I wrapped a wing around him, pulling him close. It was the first time I had managed to take him off guard. “Basalt! A round for the two of us! The best, hardest shit you got.”

“Of course! Only the best, for today's fantastic entertainment,” the abyssian shouted from the bar.

Willow and Gold both raised glasses up in the air, smiling at me. While I didn’t have a drink yet myself, I pumped a hoof into the air as if I did, the closest I was able to get to doing joining in their cheers. With a playful slap of Amaryllis’ flank using my wing, I practically skipped my way back to the booth I had been sitting at earlier.

“Damn, if you hadn’t already told us you were a councilor, I would have thought you played professionally,” Gigi said as I reached them, Gemmy sliding over to make sure Amaryllis and I had enough room to sit down. “That? That was fucking awesome.”

“Who taught you to play?” Gideon asked, eyes looking to the bass once again resting up on stage. “I doubt they teach music in the Enclave.”

I chuckled, a bit of cockiness daring to show on my features. “They don’t, and I taught myself.”

The news got a wide eyed look from everycreature but Gemmy, who was gulping down a beverage that she hadn’t had earlier. I narrowed my eyes at it, immediately deciphering that it wasn’t another soda. Cockiness was quickly replaced with concern as I looked at the young mare it was meant for. There was tired warmth in her eyes, an embarrassed giggle emanating from her muzzle as she leaned her side against the booth. Even among the smoke and alcohol that already permeated the air, it was impossible to not miss how some of that smell came straight from her breath.

“Y-you were up there for… for time and I was ne-ne-nerv…,” Gemmy scrunched her nose, crossing her eyes and looking upwards as her beer-addled brain did its best to figure out the long word on the tip of her tongue, “nem… nev… neir–”

“Nervous,” Gideon said, pointing a glass with an exact replica of Gemmy’s drink at her.

The unicorn immediately pointed back. “Y-yeah, that. They got me drink because of nervem… that word griffon said. It’s really tasty. Kind of sleepy though.”

Both forehooves went to my face, hiding my anger until I was able to get it under control and turned towards a better emotion. That emotion was disappointment, and as I lowered my hooves I turned it all towards Gideon and Gigi. The griffon siblings were averting eye contact, marking themselves as guilty.

Amaryllis bent his neck to look at the drunk unicorn, and then straightened his posture as he returned his attention to me. “She wasn’t supposed to have any, was sh–”

“Of course not!” I whispered to Amaryllis, a tiny amount of anxiety flowing out of my voice as I addressed him. “She’s a teen, or at least I’m pretty damn sure she is. You think she should have shit like this at her age?” I closed my eyes, reined my temper back in, and over the table to Gideon and Gigi. “How many has she had?”

“Only two, not a lot,” Gideon replied, eyes turning even further away as he spoke. I knew damn that was a lie, so I transformed my look into maternal disappointment. “Okay, maybe more like… four.”

“Four? You gave a young mare, probably not even twenty yet, four of… whatever that is?”

“A light beer, nothing too strong,” Gigi explained, beak pointed towards the seat.

“That's not the…,” my forehead met the table, “ugh, nevermind. I will be telling your grandfather this though, just so we are clear.” Both griffons stiffened up at that, but I paid no attention. Despite my disappointment in her, I did my best to smile at Gemmy. “So, it taste good? You like it?”

She giggled and nodded at me, grabbing the glass with her hooves and downing the rest of it. “It’s very-” Her eyes dilated as a hiccup went past her lips, only to immediately fade back into buzzed contempt. “Very good. Not hoppy though. Gigi said there was hops in this, but I feel sleepy, not hoppy.”

Amaryllis snorted, and I couldn’t help but follow suit. With a shake of the head, and an amused sigh, I relaxed my body. Even drunk, Gemmy’s lack of understanding in the world around her was adorable to witness. A quick decision was made to not tell her what hops was for the moment, especially since I doubt she’d remember the answer when her brain cleared.

“Glad to hear you enjoyed it. Consider this a preview of what adulthood has to offer,” I told her. She smiled, got shocked by yet another hiccup, and then smiled again.

Amaryllis leaned in once again. “Just to make sure, you two have a place to rest for the night? For after we loosen our minds with liquor, I mean?”

I opened my mouth to answer, and then immediately closed. As far as I know, none of my companions had figured out sleeping arrangements for the night. The hesitation caused a mischievous smirk to find its way onto the stallions face. I knew what he was going to ask, he most certainly had thought this up just on the spot, and I was pretty certain this wasn’t all out of the good of his heart. He was a tail chaser and he made no attempt to hide it.

“Don’t worry about that,” Sharpshot said as his wife and himself appeared from around the edge of the booth. He eyed Amaryllis with hostility, as if they were the Stalliongrad pony from the day prior. “Willow and I got two motel rooms paid for the night. Soldier mare can drink, I’ll get her ass there.”

Amaryllis narrowed his eyes. “And you are?”

“Sharpshot, an… acquaintance of hers.” The ghoul pointed to the alicorn. “This is my wife, Willow Wisp.”

As if it wasn’t clear who Sharpshot was referring to, Amaryllis bobbed his head back and forth, lips curled downward. “She’s not behind you.”

“Oh, no, I’m pretty certain she’s there. Say hello, Willow.”

With an innocent smile on her face, the alicorn waved a hoof. “Hey mister!”

Amaryllis’ mood only seemed to sour further as he was proven wrong. He stared at Willow with malice, as if she was responsible for some great disaster in his past. The alicorn took his stare as a challenge, and started to stare back. Then, without any further warning, he stood up.

“Wonderful to meet you, Missus Rhapsody, but I think it is best I leave,” he replied, all playfulness gone from his voice. “Stay safe, and watch your back.”

Just like that, he walked away, only stopping for a moment to whisper something into Sharpshot’s ears. As soon as he was done, the earth pony shoved the ghoul away from him and made off. Sharpshot instantly lit his horn in response, though whatever spell he was about to cast was immediately thwarted by a wing over the horn. His gaze softened as he looked to the blue and white alicorn said wing was attached to.

“It’s alright Sharpy. Most alicorns aren’t like me,” she said, pulling him into a hug. “I mean, you’ve seen how scared everycreature has been of me. I’m not exactly the most welcomed here.”

“That isn’t the problem, hun,” Sharpshot replied.

He didn’t explain what he meant immediately, resting rags and rotten skin against his wife’s fluff. Gideon and Gigi turned to me, looking for answers. All I was able to give them both was a shrug. Once husband and wife pulled away from their hugs, they took seats at opposite sides of the table. Willow sat where Amaryllis did, while Sharpshot pushed Gideon aside with his magic to give himself room.

“I’ll admit, finding out the bastard you were playing with was an Equalist does slightly ruin your performance,” Sharpshot said. “Not enough for me to say it was terrible though. Almost makes me think music mare is more fitting a nickname, right soldier mare?”

“Wait, wait. Go back a sentence or two,” I replied, flailing my front hooves in front of me. “What did you just call him?”

“An Equalist, like what that ghost from earlier was referring to,” Gigi explained. There was still a tenseness in her body, but the reasons were different. It no longer concerned her brother and herself having given Gemmy alcohol, but something far worse. “They’re… scary folks. Cultists who believe in some divine messenger named Starlight Glimmer.”

“Whoever she is, she fucked with their minds badly,” Sharpshot replied, his temper rising higher with each word. “They claim to be a perfectly equal society, but they sure as hell are anything but perfect. Murdering alicorns out of a false belief they destroyed the world and not the ministries, the expected enslavement of any who doesn’t believe in their god, that shit.” He snarled in rage, looking at me with crazed eyes. “They hoist themselves up as paragons when they are nothing but a backwards, low intellect, parasite of a civilization that–“

“Calm, Sharpy, calm,” Willow said, leaning forward and motioning for him to relax. “He can’t hurt is here, remember that. He tries anything, a guard or otherwise will shoot him.” She leaned her head to the left, a manic yet sorrowful expression taking over her features. “Though, I’d definitely prefer to be the one to do it. Break his limbs one by one, then crush his skull to give him maximum pain for all the other alicorns he has killed.”

Gideon swallowed nervously. “You’ve thought this through a bit, I see.”

“Those meanies are some of the folks that got closest to killing Sharpy and me. I have many reasons to consider how they would die,” the alicorn explained, anger and excitement mixing together into a familiar deranged attitude. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give to just mangle their bodies into abstract art. They’re the worst, acting like no path but theres is acceptable when we know that isn’t true. I mean, look around us! This is the least trouble I’ve had getting into a settlement in over a century!”

“That was before you became an alicorn too. You and Dead Hooves had certainly put a face to the name Bloody Angel,” Sharpshot said, a reluctant chuckle leaving his throat. The griffons next to us looked to me for an explanation, which ended up being a simple shrug. “Either way, be careful around fuckers like him soldier mare. He knows you are friends with an alicorn now, and he likely isn’t going to be friendly.”

“Noted,” I replied. I glanced away to nowhere for just a second, only to look back at him. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea to tell the Shattered Moon as well. They didn’t seem like they wanted those types around here.”

Sharpshot nodded. “Good point. I’ll be right back then.”

He disappeared for a time, leaving the rest of us to momentarily relax in silence. Not that there was much silence to be had with how rowdy the pub was getting, but the ability to just lay back and relax for a time was nice. When Sharpshot returned, he had brought a number with him. Earth pony by the looks, a more feminine frame from what little I could gleam from them.

“Sorry to inconvenience your time, everycreature,” they said, their voice along the lines of androgynous with a more masculine lean. Clearly my guess was off. “You are the folks they were sitting next to? The Equalist?”

“Not just sitting next to, played with them tol,” I explained. I motioned a hoof in the vague direction of the stage. “I was on stage not too long ago. They didn’t seem that bad.”

“They usually aren’t, at least at first. They’re ponies like us after all, only difference is that they’ve been fooled into believing a culture that's more harmful than good,” the pony said, taking out a small note pad. “Still, with recent events, we can’t be too careful. Give me a description and name, I’ll tell my brothers and sisters to keep an eye out for them.”

I did as asked, telling the number everything about Amaryllis I knew. They wrote everything down, asking here and there to repeat or inquire about something I might have left out. Once done, he spoke into a small radio and gave the description. His orange eyes alone were enough for me to tell something he had been told was not ideal. Then, he sighed.

“While I wish I was able to thank you all for your service, but unfortunately it is more than likely useless.”

Gigi tapped the side of her beak. “Is something wrong with it, sir?”

Something in the griffon saying “sir” was enough to make this pony's posture lighter. The air of authorities was still clear, but his annoyance had faded slightly.

“Nopony with that description and name is in our database,” he explained, “and nopony with both has entered or exited Underside’s wall in the past week. By all means, Amaryllis Bloom doesn’t exist.”

“What? How is that possible?” Sharpshot asked, sitting back down next to Gideon. “I’m certain he is real, that much is clear. Everycreature here met him, and those words he said to me were to clear to forget.”

The masked pony looked at the ghoul. “I’m not saying he doesn’t exist, just that it won’t help us find it.”

“Why is that?” Willow asked, a tilt of her head.

While the telepathic intrusion clearly put him off a bit, he managed to remain composure. His answer to the alicorn’s question proved to be simple. One word, unforgettable, and strange at the same time.

“Changeling.”

…

“What?” I asked.

“The thing you serenaded the pub with, the thing you chatted and talked to? It’s not a griffon, or a pony, it was a changeling,” he repeated. “Shapeshifters. They typically look like bugs when untransformed, and they consume good emotions. They can be anything, anyone, right down to their voice.“

My mind wasn’t entirely sure how to process those words, for two reasons. The first is just the idea of what I had talked with, played with, and been teased by not even twenty minutes ago. I had simply thought of Amaryllis – whoever they truly were – as another stallion whose genitals did most of the talking. There were plenty of those out there after all, both on the surface and in the clouds.

If changelings literally fed on positive emotions, as I believe the number was telling us, it put that teasing and behavior in a new light. A very dark, worrying light. What could they have done to me if I had told them more about Anchor?

I banished that thought immediately. There was no way in my right mind I would ever fall for an imitation of him. Fuck, I’d recognize him even when I’m drunk.

That still left the other reason this all remained so hard to process. I recognized the abilities, and a side glance at Willow told me she did too. The appearance, the capability to shapeshift, I knew a creature that could do that. The only difference was in their intelligence.

However, that was easily explained. Shifters were merely the ghoul version of a changeling, insectoid and hungry. At least the latter knew the dead were useless for emotional feeding. That was still a thought worthy of a shiver, however. It had to use its ability to sense and eat emotions somehow.

Most likely scenario? They used it to find the perfect time to strike.

“I’m guessing their existence is a new development to you all,” the number before us all said, having easily taken notice of the general silence from us, with the exception of Gemmy’s drunk giggles. “Understandable. We didn’t know they existed until after the Last Day. Even then it's nearly impossible to actually find one.”

“And the fact they can be anypony means it’s impossible to give a proper description,” Sharpshot summarized. The stallion before us gave a nod, and the ghoul sighed. “Well, guess the five of us are heading to the motel at the same time. Just for safety measures.”

“Yeah,” I responded, Willow showing her agreement with a small smile towards her husband. I briefly returned my attention to the guard. “Sorry we weren’t able to help, sir.”

“None of your fault ma’am, this was completely out of your control,” he replied, bowing his head. “I have to ask, are you Singing Rhapsody by any chance?”

While the noise in the pub hadn’t lessened a bit, the pony’s sudden question made everything feel quieter. How the hell did they know who I am? There was no way whoever they had been speaking to over the radio knew I was present, and I wasn’t flaunting my name to anypony. Hadn’t done that since the ancestry test proved how wrong the attitude was.

“Yes, that's me,” I answered, more than a little guarded. I suddenly really wish I had one of my firearms on me. “Why are you asking?”

“I was asked to give you something. They seemed certain we would cross paths.”

The masked pony searched their saddlebags, revealing the left side of their body in the process. They had been hiding it from us prior, something I hadn’t thought anything about until that moment. I sucked in a large breath, leaning away in fear. Up until that point, I had thought they were an earth pony, much like Amaryllis had disguised themselves as.

That wasn’t the case. The pony before me was a pegasi, but only their left wing was present on their body. Someone or something had taken away their ability to fly, the mere thought making my own wings flutter in discomfort and fear.

“Here it is,” he said, placing something down on the counter. It was a data stick for a terminal or PipBuck. “Not sure what is on it, but the pony was insistent on finding its way to you. Said you would want to hear it.”

“Okay, got it. Thank you,” I replied. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help but keep my eyes on their wings, sorrow and distress in my eyes. “Have a wonderful day sir.”

Despite the mask, I knew something I had said put a huge smile on their face. He saluted me with his left wing, an Enclave salute at that. They were a Dashite, one just like me. Down here for something likely not even their fault. It was more than possible his commanding officer had deemed the loss of a wing enough reason on its own.

Immediately after they’re salute ended, they made themself scarce. Likely had to return to patrolling.

“You’re not worried he’s one of your targets?” Sharpshot asked.

I shook my head. “Impossible, trust me.”

“I don’t mean to judge your judgment Rhapsody,” Willow replied, tilting her head ever so slightly right, “but wouldn’t a group like the Shattered Moon be the perfect place for them to hide?”

“Not saying it isn’t, but that stallion we saw,” I motioned in the direction they had left, “Lucky Shot’s voice is deeper, and he had both his wings. What use would those four have to ground themselves, when they are pegasi?”

Time blends together when you have good times, and all it took was a drink or two for the thought of changelings to drift into the back of my head. While I kept my own drinking to a far lower than those around me, I certainly wasn’t sober. It was only a matter of time till all but Willow were drunk, though everyone present was too preoccupied laughing and yelling like idiots to notice.

Turns out alcohol is very ineffective on alicorns. The more you know.

Most of the events at the pub are hard to recall because of that reason. What I do remember is Willow carrying both her husband and Gemmy out that night as we made our way to the motel. Gold ended up being the individual to help me back, though I didn’t need it anywhere near as much as those two. The griffon was so drunk he appeared completely sober.

I was hoofed a passed out Gemmy when we arrived at the motel, and Gold got the keys to our room. Willow bid us three a good night, and then disappeared into their room. The saucey look they gave each other before disappearing was more than enough to gauge exactly what was going to happen. I was more than happy to not be in the same room as them for it.

“They good couple,” Gold said, staring longingly at where they had been. He was imagining himself in Willow’s place, I’m certain of it. “Am jealous.”

“Tell me about it,” I whispered. Even if our jealousy spawned from different places, the feelings stayed the same. What I would give to cuddle next to my husband, right then and there. “Hey, Gold.”

“You wonder how talk with Falke went.”

I winced. There was the tiniest hit of anger in his words, all focused on me. In hindsight, I had forced it upon him. With a sigh, and prepared for a reprimand of either vocal or physical variety, I nodded.

“Sorry–”

“Don’t apologize. You don’t fully mean it,” he interrupted. He looked directly at me, eyes seeming more predatory than normal.

“I wanted to help, Gold.”

“Yes, but wrong way to help. Wanted out, instead forced to talk.”

“And that is a bad thing?”

“I….” For a brief period of time, he looked at the ground. When he next turned his attention toward me, the anger had been replaced by vulnerability. “Didn’t want it. Silently asked for out. You abandoned me.”

My ears drooped ever so slightly. “Was it really that bad? You two seemed to be having a good time.”

I was asking either the right or wrong, because the vulnerability on the old griffon seemed to increase drastically. I sat down between two motel doors, a far more visible rise and fall evident in his chest. I sat across from hun, back to the rest of Underside and Luna’s moon. It was at that moment his longing and vulnerability took a more intimate, devastating form of expression.

Heartbreak. Every piece of his face was motivated by heartbreak.

“Falke is… wonderful!” He said, staring at the stars. “Handsome, smart, good sense of humor, authoritative. Everything I wanted. Everything I wished for. No wonder love grew in my heart.” He tried to smile as his eyes teared up. “When we were young, I told him. He was surprised, I was hopeful… but then he was sad. He couldn’t return it.”

“Because he’s straight, like me,” I whispered.

Gold nodded, a tear managing to escape his eyes. “Yes. Should have noticed but…,” he sighed after a moment, “Falkes said he understood, but didn’t feel the same. I… I try to understand, but the yearning,” a talon flew to his chest, clutching feathers, “the yearning stays. It still there. Felt it earlier, was scared. Might do something foolish. Hurt him. Didn’t want to. Wanted out.” He finally looked at me again. “Thought you would offer out.”

My ears fell against my head at the state the griffon was in. “Gold, you do realize that would hurt his feelings even more, right?” He didn’t respond. “Did you even tell that you… you know?”

“No,” he said. “He smart, he knows. Besides he’s… he’s not in right place to hear it.” The tears seemed to grow greater as he said that, voice cracking. “Lost wife, lost kids. Gideon, Gigi, all he has. Acts tough but,” he pointed a claw to one of his eyes, “lack of light in eyes. Easy to see. Hurts to see.”

A piece of me wondered if that was a safe enough topic to approach, but as the silence dragged I figured I had to. “I… heard as much from Gideon and Gigi. Died on a contract, and no creature knows what.”

“Not true,” Gold countered. He was doing it a lot tonight, though this time it felt a bit from being a simple reflection of fear. “Falke knows, won’t say. It's best if they don’t know.”

“Definitely wouldn’t be your standard raider then,” I replied. Gold gave a barely visible nod in my direction. “What was it then? Ghouls? Changelings? A roam balefire fossil? S-scorptions?”

Gold suddenly clammed up. He brought a talon to his head and wiped the tears away as quickly as possible. There was a touch of disappointment on his face, but it wasn’t pointed at me or anycreature else I could think of. At least, anycreature not named Gold themselves. There was no way a grounder as old as him was afraid of a few tears ruining some masculine image.

It gave me questions, but before I was able to ask he suddenly spoke up. “Craven.”

His answer had been quiet, subtle, and not loud enough for me at that moment. Yet something about it made my stomach churn, and morbid curiosity got the better of me.

“Can you say that again, Gold?”

After a few more seconds of silence, beak touching his chest, he answered. “Killed by craven.”

Nothing about her looked right.

The zebra’s fur looked to be falling out, large patches of pale skin seeming to consume her body. The same went for her mane and tail, disheveled and falling apart to the point there was basically a large hole on the back of her neck. Her eyes were hazy, the white in them seeming to consume their irises and pupils. Add in the way half her teeth had formed into canines, and the drool cascading from her muzzle, and intelligence seemed completely gone.

Yet, as she looked at me, I found that was wrong. “Dead Hooves?”

I leaned forward, the metal clicking of the walking contraption Stitches made for me nearly silent compared to the fast beating of my heart. I stepped forward, sound drowning as I looked at the mare before me. The only thing I was able to hear was that damned spirit's horrible, insidious voice. Where once his words were indecipherable, I knew well now what he said.

“This is us, kin. This is us.”

Despite the lump in my throat, I managed to get one word out. A name for the zebra that I saw before.

“… mom?”

Craven, I knew what those were too well. The fate of those touched by the gluttonous one. Ponies made monsters by the continual eating of their own kind. Their fur, mane, and tail fell away, their brains becoming closer to that of an animal. Color was drained and metabolism accelerated until they were just a pale, lanky, equine thing. At first they seemed, outside of the craven's more supernatural creation, like any ghoul roaming the wasteland.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. They were smarter than any ghoul, cunning. While blind as a bat, their sense of smell was a dozen times more powerful than the average ponies. While they weren’t sapient, they could mimic speech perfectly. Smell you out, draw you in with words, and then they rip into your throat before you know they are there.

If that didn’t work? They would chase you down with speed rivaling the great traitor herself. It was either you, or them. A corpse had to be made.

Such was the fate of anypony who participated in cannibalism. It was moms, and it was mine…

…

Wait, that wasn’t right.

I looked at my hooves, and was greeted with magenta instead of tan. I reached a hoof to my head, and the feeling of a horn on it dissipated. Instead two weights on the side of my body made myself known. How could I have forgotten about them? I’m a pegasus, my wings are what make me… me!

Realization struck. The memory I had just seen wasn’t mine, but Dead Hooves’. What was she doing to me?

“Rhapsody know of craven?” Gold asks. His voice cut through my fear momentarily, but a look of horror had wormed its way onto my face. He reached a talon out to me, though he was too far to place it on my shoulder. “Are… are you oka–“

“Fine. Perfectly and utterly fine!” I replied, shaking my head at him. I tried to morph a faux frown onto my face, but I failed. My entire being was stuck in terror. “Yes. I’ve… I’ve heard of them. He’s sure that is what killed them?”

Gold nodded. “Positive.”

“I see.” I learned to my right, staring out into the quiet night-time streets of Underside. “I don’t regret making you talk to him, Gold. You had to. Whether you see him again or not after this, leaving on bad terms is wrong.” Eyes gazed at the hundred stars above, taking in each and every light that tried to light it up. “The same goes for feelings, because the last thing you want is for somepony to die without you ever telling them what you needed to. It makes you feel guilty, horrible.”

All the griffon gave for a verbal response was sigh, getting up and moving towards the door. He brought out the key Willow had hooved him, unlocked the door, and then opened it. Instead of immediately heading into the darkness of the motel room, he turned around and looked at me.

“Coming in? Our room.”

“L… Later,” I told him. “I have some things to think about.”

“Will leave door unlocked. Lock behind you.”

After a nod to show I understood, Gold disappeared into the darkness of the room. The door closed behind him, and moments after it shut I was able to see slight signs of light through the cracks. With nopony living around, I laid down on the cold sand below me, closed my eyes, and shuddered. My hooves drew in to shield my chest and stomach from it, but the cold was the cause of my sudden shivering.

What in Celestia’s name was happening to me? What the fuck had Dead Hooves done?!

I had known two days prior that her spells had been acting uncharacteristically. My dreams were still filled with short glimpses of her life, from her time with her mom and dad to after meeting Willow and Joy. I knew far more about her then I should, and some of those things were far too personal. DH’s feelings towards her mother, the near constant way she contemplated death, those unnatural cannibalistic urges, I had experienced them first hoof.

A small piece of me hoped it was as simple as that. I learned more about her life – as the spell originally intended – and the haywire aspects focused on that alone. That clearly wasn’t the case; I knew that was one of her memories I had just seen. Conjured up in my mind while I’m awake, making me think and feel like somepony different, her spell acting up again.

For a brief period of time I was Dead Hooves, not Singing Rhapsody. The only thing saving me was my coat color and my wings, but how long would it stay that way. How long until the lines blurred so greatly where those couldn’t save me anymore. Would my hindlegs stop functioning? Would I lose the knowledge needed to fly? Was I going to lose all I was, and become… her?!

I didn’t want that. I really, really didn’t want that… but was it even possible to stop it at this point?

It was the fact I had no answer to that question which easily scared me the most.

…

“I’m sorry, Rhapsody.”

I didn’t need to look to see who it was. This had to be the moment Dead Hooves arrived.

“You heard Gold’s words earlier. Don’t say sorry if you don’t mean it.”

“But I am. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I told you that.”

“What you tell me doesn’t matter. Your memories are doing something to me. Just a couple of minutes ago, I thought I was a unicorn. I thought I was you.”

“I know. I felt it too, but in a different way.”

I opened my eyes, I tilted my head to look behind me. Dead Hooves' back was turned to me, but I was able to see the discomfort in her eyes. It was the look of somepony in pain, but that didn’t make sense. She was dead! There was no way any of it was–

“Rhapsody… move your wing,” she asked. Confused but willing to play along, I extended my uninjured wing. “No, you're injured one.”

My brow raised. “How did you know which one I moved? You’re not even looking.”

“Just…. Just do it.”

“And hurt myself?”

“You won’t feel a thing. Trust me.”

While I her words had earned a scowl, I decided to humor her. After all, a moment of pain would be nothing compared to everything else going on. Taking a deep breath, and sitting back up, I extended my injured wing.

…

I blinked a few times, and then looked at the wing. I gave it an experimental flap, looking for any sign of the injury. The bones inside it certainly didn’t feel right, but there was no pain. I stood up, gave both a flap and was airborne for the first time in days. For the briefest of moments, excitement and elation took over every piece of my being.

It was only fitting for it to be broken by a pained growl seconds later. Except… it wasn’t from me.

“Stop! Stop! That’s enough!”

I allowed myself to fall back to the ground, looking to Dead Hooves with more concern than I thought myself capable of having for her. The ghost had doubled over, hooves reached and grabbed an appendage that didn’t exist. Eyes closed shut, lips curled back into a pained snarl. It was only when my wings finally rested back at my side that she seemed to relax.

Breath – actual, hearable breathes, coming in sync with the rise and fall of her chest – filled the silence as DH got back up. She was clearly still uncomfortable, but she laughed as she turned to me. It was fake, an attempt to deal with whatever she had just gone through.

No, what she had forced herself through. That was more accurate.

“Guess I should have been a bit more specific. My bad,” she joked, labored breaths leaving her mouth as she tried to slow her breath down. “Wings feel weird. How do you deal with them?”

I met her question initially with a confused look. “I… never really had to think about it.” A pause followed, long enough for my brain to put the pieces together. “Wait. You mean–“

“Yep, I feel your wings. Just like how you seemed to take my horn from me not too long ago,” she explained. A faux frown formed on her face. “Rude, by the way. You don’t just take somepony’s horn from them.”

“I-I didn’t mean to!” I shouted. It sounded a bit more defensive and nervous then I anticipated. “I didn’t want it. Why would I? I’m a pegasus, not… not you!”

“Gee, thanks,” Dh replied sarcastically, her experience deadpan to match. “You admit it, though. You felt my horn on your head.”

I nodded my head, bringing a hoof to the exact point in my head it had been located minutes earlier. “Yeah. Gold mentioned the craven, I had this memory of your mother when she…,” I swallowed, “when she was almost completely gone. When it ended, I thought I was you.”

I felt tears welling up in my face, thinking on the memory. Though she was Dead Hooves’ mother, the ghost mare’s memories certainly made her feel like mine. It was so much easier grabbing onto her as a maternal figure, given how absent my own mom had been. It made it hard to distinguish if the pain and sorrow I felt was mine, or DH’s.

After a time, I came to the conclusion it was indeed my own. Cannibalist she might have been, her mother, Apex, was a sweet mare. It was impossible to not see the love she had for her daughter, how Dead Hooves odd affection for her formed… and how much it hurt both of them, in that moment. There was no need to imagine the pain, guilt, and fear DH felt when looking at the twister creature her mother had become. I had lived it, same as her.

“Of all the moments to see her,” Dead Hooves whispered. With a shake of her head, she let her horn glow. “I’m going to show you her. How I remember her.”

I leered at the specter. “Cast any magic on me and–“

“I’m not casting anything on you, Rhap,” Dead Hooves explained, turning to the small, empty lot that made up the motel’s parking area. This place, like the Lucky Clover, was another piece of Underside from before spellfire rained from above “I didn’t ever need to. If the goal of my memory spell was to show you my life, then I never would have done anything to you. We wouldn’t be having this conversation now, most likely.”

With a swish of her horn, DH pulled a strand of something from… somewhere in her. It floated into the parking area, and then burst into star-like dust. While scattered at first, it quickly began to clump together and a scene formed. A scene of a place far from San Palomino, in that same rickety shack I now recognized as DH’s home. The entire thing aas

There was a pony and a zebra in it, both familiar. Dead Hooves’ dad, Arcane Glyph, was easy to identify from that experience all the way back in Alibi Street Theater. Apex, however… It was like looking at a different zebra altogether. She was still slim, dangerously so at that – a likely sign of how long the gluttonous one had her in their grasp – but not horrifically thin. Motherly azure eyes, a healthy black and white coat more befitting a zebra.

She smiled at memory DH, mouth moving but no words filling the air. They same happened with Arcane Glyph, carrying an expression filled with joy. If only I knew the words they spoke, the conversation happening between these three, but that was impossible. If I had seen this memory it had faded back into the subconscious to never greet the world again. All I was able to do was watch as parents and daughter enjoyed each other's company, current day Dead Hooves staring at them lovingly.

Completely admit, I felt extremely jealous, seeing how happy they all were.

“All her bedtimes stories, all her lessons, every joke she told me,” Dead Hooves said, walking up to memory Apex. Her hoof tried to brush against her moms fur, but it just went through them instead. “I remember them like the back of my hoof. I love her. I wanted to be as wonderful as her. That makes it so, so hard, knowing what the gluttonous one was doing.”

“Did you ever see her spirit, after you died?” I asked.

Dead Hooves shook her head, the glow of her horn fading and, with it, the memory shown to me. “She was completely gone when she died. An eternally hungry monster, no semblance of what made her my mom left. Even if she was still in there,” Her head fell, “the gluttonous one had her soul. As soon as she died, he ate her.”

“I… I see,” I said. “Dead Hooves, I’m so sorr–“

“Who are you talking to?”

A new, vaguely familiar voice drew both of our attention away from that conversation. While it took me a few seconds to understand why their was a Spritebot seemingly staring at us, Dead Hooves recognized who it was immediately. Her mood instantly brightened, a sheepish smile the bot was incapable of seeing appearing on her face.

“Watcher!” She shouted. “Funny seeing you around. Didn’t think you would be alive after all this time. Guess that rules out you being a regular pony.”

Author's Note

Very likely this is gonna be the last chapter uploaded this year, and oh boy is it a long one.

200k+ words in that span of time is honestly incredible, and the fact I have been able to keep at it for this long is even more so. Not sure if I'll be able to keep up that pace, but either way I head into 2024 with a monumental accomplishment under my belt.

Thanks to my friends Lone Writer, Skelter, and Chayn for all the help they have given me, and thanks to all of you for joining me on this adventure. See you next year everypony!

Act 2 – Chapter 7: Beneath the Mask

Underside, San Palomino Desert

Day 9

There was no response from the spritebot, obviously. There would have been several questions out of my mouth if there was, chief among them how he was able to see a ghost through a camera. Even if it initially seemed that Watcher was looking directly at DH, it makes a lot more sense that he was looking through her. Which, in turn, meant that his question was aimed for me.

“Talking to the dead. Didn’t know I was capable of it until… just about a week ago,” I told the spritebot, walking up alongside my ancestor. “Dead Hooves says hi, by the way.”

Watcher stayed silent, his bot floating there in front of us with no clue as to what he was doing. DH and I shared a look, the ghost mare seeming more than a little concerned. It was clear from her statement that whoever I was talking to was on the older side, and I had been in her mind enough to know she was thinking of the worst case scenario. That was confirmed seconds later.

“You didn’t kill him, did you?” she asked.

“If that did him in, he was on his way out to start with,” I replied, voice monotone. I knocked a hoof against the spritebot, as if it might do something. “You there Watcher? Whoever you are?”

That got a response, and with it proof he was still alive. “Yeah, I’m here. Just didn’t expect to be greeted with that.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t ask for any of this,” I replied with a sigh. I gave DH a side eyed glance. “Continue this discussion later?”

“Yeah, later,” she said.

Taking a few steps to the side and looking elsewhere, Dead Hooves gave us some space. There was a glint of worry in what could be seen of her expression, clearly meant for both of us. She wanted to think about what was happening to us as little as I did right now. Watcher’s sudden intrusion had given us the exact excuse we both wanted to put this off, let it simmer. Come back to it a day or two from now when we are more prepared.

Come back to it when some other terrifying thing spawned from the link DH had accidentally forced on us both.

“Sounds like a lot has happened since that first, short talk,” Watcher said, stating the blindingly obvious.

It was impossible to not laugh a little at it all. “You don’t know the half of it. In the span of just over a week, my entire life has basically been flipped upside down. Shit here is… a lot more complicated than I originally thought.”

“It’s something everypony learns rather quickly down here, whether they be from the Enclave or a Stable,” Watcher replied. “Still, its not everyday that we get a Dashite with your background. Never had the chance, your types don’t usually come down here.”

“My type?”

“The most brainwashed, to put it bluntly. Those who would rather die before being branded. At least, most of you are like that.”

I frowned, wishing desperately to counter his claim but… how could I? The more I was down here, the more I thought about the environment that I grew up in, the more flaws showed. Even scarier, I started to think of what Calamity did and why. So many pegasi believed what we did solely because it was all we ever knew. Ideas that we were the superior tribe, both culturally and in intellect, were easy to grasp because it was safe, not right.

Yet not hours earlier, in some random surface town in the middle of a desert, was a pub. A pub with happy faces, pleasant conversation, and good drinks. A place that had seen me get up on stage, play for them, and clapped their hooves, paws, talons and otherwise. The Lucky Clover fit the Enclave, not the surface, but here it was on solid ground.

Lines blurred, beliefs shifted, new perspectives brought with it terrifying ideas. Perhaps Calamity wasn’t the problem, but the council was… which meant I was. Merely thinking about that possibility sent a shiver up my spine, but was it not true. I was a part-unicorn on the Enclave high council, and nopony but Ironsight and I had known.

For the first time, I truly questioned if Anchor, Clear, and Rainy were safe up there. Was that really the right environment to grow up in? For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure.

“I can’t deny it. Not anymore,” I told Watcher in a dejected tone. “Didn’t come down here with any respect or love for you all. Now? Now I can’t help but admit that I was… wrong.”

My entire body felt just a little lighter, a lump in my throat disappearing with it. Muscles relaxed, a heavy sigh left my muzzle, and I closed my eyes. That was it, I had admitted out loud. No turning back anymore.

“We’re glad to have you here. I’m sure your experience in politics would be a boon to the wasteland,” he replied. I’m pretty damn certain I hadn’t told him anything about that personally. Must have been information Moondancer and Lucky sent him. “Have to admit, I didn't expect you to be where you are. Doesn’t strike me as your type of place.”

“Really?” I asked, one side of my brow raised. “Why do you say that?”

“Shattered Moon’s background as an anti-government group.” There was the slightest sign of a growl in his voice. “Certainly not the kind of ponies I would want in charge of the wasteland.”

My brow rose even higher. “Sounds like personal history.”

“It’s more accurate to say I knew ponies who dealt with what they once were, two centuries ago.”

There we go, confirmation of what Dead Hooves thought was true. I briefly glanced at the ghost mare, two sly smiles meeting each other. This Watcher creature had been around for a long time. Ghoul, machine, perhaps a dragon? I didn’t know exactly what he was, and I didn’t care. The point was, he was able to give me more information that might be useful working with or against the Shattered Moon.

It was entirely possible another of the traitors had given their M.A.M. documents to them.

“If you don’t mind me asking then, what were they like?” I inquired. “You must have a some interesting stories from them.”

“I can do you one better,” he said. Contrary to how tired and gravely he had sounded in all conversation up to this point, there were the obvious signs of a smirk on his face. “I can tell you what they were like and who their leaders were.”

My jaw hung, eyes wide, brow unable to go any higher. “That’s… quite a bit.”

“You’re a politician just as much as you are a soldier. I’m certain you’d make good use of the information,” Watcher explained. “And as you’ve noticed, I have no love for them myself.”

Well damn, how could a mare say no to that?! Watcher was gifting me with knowledge that was likely lost to all but the Shattered Moon themselves, and as far as I could ascertain there was no catch. A practically devilish grin began to form, arching forward with eager anticipation.

“Go on then. I’m listening.”

“Good,” Watcher said. “Now, as is practically common knowledge, Shattered Moon was formed in response to Equestria’s refusal to end the war. More specifically, it was made in response to the growing power and control that the ministries had over civilians and the crown. They wanted either Celestia back in power or, if they couldn’t get that, a brand new government.”

“Ministries dismantled, and them in charge,” I added.

“Exactly. It was them or no one, and with the ever growing belief of pony superiority in the country, they had a lot of support,” he continued. “Zebras, griffons, hippogriffs, zonys, any Equestrian who bought what they said. There was truth in what they fought for, but how they went about it? It didn’t give them a popular image.

“Peaceful protest failed early on, Ministries of Moral and Image made sure of that. It wouldn’t do a lot of good for the war effort. None of their members were ever caught – they were damn good at avoiding capture –but it was clear they had to change their approach. Things got… violent.”

I scowled. For how good their first impression was, that certainly left a bitter taste in my mouth. I understood it was the only option they had, but from a political standpoint such things were beyond dangerous. It meant the public was no longer controllable, and the property damage and possible endangerment of life meant more than just the target was affected.

“It wasn’t as bad as the Ministry of Image made them out to be, but the damage done was more than enough to paint them as zebrican sympathizers,” Watcher continued on, giving little room to interject. “It would have been their end if not for one simple fact: almost nopony knew who their members were. They were anonymous, the closest anypony got to completely avoiding them.”

He went silently, sprite bot floating aimlessly. He had queued me up to ask a question he clearly wanted me to ask. Not entirely sure why he needed me to ask, but he was too far into his explanation to stop now. I had to ask.

“Somepony in their organization was found out,” I said. “Who was it, and who got them?”

“To answer the last question first: Minister Pinkie Pie,” he answered. There was a small, sad chuckle as he said her name. “Nopony escaped her. The mare knew everypony, even before becoming a ministry mare. You can dodge all the cameras, hide your entire face, fool every ministry personnel sent to question you, it doesn't matter. Pinkie finds you, and she found Shattered Moon’s leader with ease.

“Their leader was a former Shadowbolt named Lightning Dust. She was removed from active duty after an explosion took a leg from her. No clue what led an extremely loyal soldier to suddenly turn against the ministries, but she did. The last few years of Equestria’s existence, she and one other unknown mare were the leaders of the Shattered Moon. The uniforms, the culture, everything traces back to her.”

Just like that, the unknown mare from the theater had been given a true identity. A small part of me wasn’t surprised at the fact she was a Shadowbolt – what little bit of my beliefs of racial superiority remained felt only a pegasus could so keenly outmaneuver the ministries – but it didn’t solve the big question. No doubt she practiced what she preached to the rest of the Shattered Moon, a good leader always does, which made the fact I knew her face odd. If Pinkie Pie was as terrifying as she seemed to be, then no doubt that was what finally clued the minister in to who the leader was.

Unless… that was exactly what Lightning Dust wanted the ministries to believe.

“I’m not sure about everything else. I was… absent, when Equestria died,” Watcher explained. “What I do know is that Lightning Dust died on the Last Day. Assassinated by the Ministry of Morals.”

“It took that long?” I asked, crossing my legs. “Gotta admit, a little surprised. I figured Pinkie would have taken her out sooner.”

“Me too. Not entirely sure why she waited so long, but Minister Pinkie was a strange mare,” he responded, another sad chuckle leaving his lips. “Of all the mysteries that the Ministry of Arcane Science was ever able to uncover, that mare wasn’t one of them. It made Tw… Minister Twilight angry.”

A resigned sigh left my lips. As if the pinkie promise wasn’t enough confirmation that she was unnatural. Merely thinking of the promises I had made via such mention brought with it the sound of an echoy, foalish giggle. It wouldn’t surprise me if that pink exterior was hiding some strange otherworldly creature. Why else would Minister Twilight be unable to crack what is up with her?

“Clearly Lightning Dust’s death didn’t bring about the end of the Shattered Moon,” I muttered, looking behind the spritebot to Underside. Standing up, I started to pace back and forth a bit. “If she was the mare in charge shouldn’t things have crumbled? They certainly wouldn’t be as large of an organization as they are now.”

“Yes, but as I said I don’t know enough to say what happened with them surrounded the Last Day,” Watcher said. Clearly he noticed how much wider my smile got at that admission. “You know something.”

I’ll give the stallion this, he was great at reading emotions. The spritebot floated backwards a bit, as if he was saying “'he floor is yours, Rhapsody.' I gladly took the opportunity being presented to me. For the first time in days, I was allowed to feel like the smartest mare in the room.

“Back in Trotson, the theater we first talked at – thanks for telling me about ArcanaTech’s knowledge on the M.A.M, by the way…”

“You're welcome.”

“Sharpshot and I discovered the film room still had usable film tapes and film reels; a preservation talisman had been placed on the door. We took a look at some of them, because the projector was also still working. Among them? Footage from a pegasus, unmasked, talking to members of the Shattered Moon. Judging from your description, it was Lightning Dust,” I signaled to him. “You see the problem right?”

“She was unmasked,” Watcher answered bluntly. “I’m guessing you know why.”

“Not entirely, mere speculation, but you are completely right,” I told him, resuming my pacing. “Keeping their masks on had worked perfectly for a long time. The only pony who knew of Lightning Dust’s roles as leader was Pinkie, and as far as we know they were the only one spotted.” I stopped pacing and faced the spritebot head on. “There was no reason to unmask… unless she wanted all focus on herself.”

Though it was impossible to read his expression, due to how Watcher was communicating with me, it was impossible to not see things click in place. “She wanted Pinkie’s attention on her. A red herring.”

“And it worked to perfection,” I said, unable to hold in a little laugh of my own. Turns out, Lightning Dust was one clever pega. “Pinkie focused on her, and leadership was given to somepony else. Lightning Dust was sure that the end of the world was unstoppable, she said as much in the film, so she gave orders to find a place to wait out the end. Maybe they confiscated a Stable, maybe they went someplace else, who knows.”

Closing my eyes, I lowered my head. Hours earlier, I had mentally labeled Lightning Dust a terrorist, and a shameful excuse of a pegasus. Looking at everything before as it was now, with this theory placed before me, that was no longer the case. That mare was many things, but a terrorist wasn’t one of them. She was the closest thing current time had to a hero.

A mare who gave up her life so that San Palomino might not fall to anarchy. It was like something out of an old legend or folktale. Perhaps I was wrong about it all, but for this moment I was more than happy to believe it. A hero, hopefully watching what her ponies had done from beyond the grave.

“Lightning Dust willingly giving herself,” Watcher said, words clearly more for himself than me. “I’m… not sure how much I’m able to believe that. That mare and her group openly sabotaged Equestria, many Ministry projects being delayed or dying because of them. Even if they weren’t allied with the zebras, they were actively attacking Equestria’s efforts to fight. Would a pony who leads like that really give themselves up?”

I shrugged. “Seems likely. Do you have a different idea?”

“No. I just… a piece of me finds it hard to believe there is any good in them.” He sighed. “It’s hard to let go of things when you get to my age. I know what I want the wasteland to be like and leaving it in the hooves of ponies like them feels… wrong.”

“We’ll agree to disagree on this matter then. Still, thanks for telling about their origins.”

“I’ll accept that, and you're welcome. With the group of friends around you, and your skills, I’m certain you will use it right.” There was a small pause, only broken by what I assumed to be the sound of him stretching. “I’m going to lose control of the bot in a moment. Thanks for being willing to talk to me. I was worried you would ignore me after our last conversation.”

“In another time, I might have,” I replied, frowning slightly. With a tilt of my head, I dared to ask one more question. “Why did you seek me out again? Doubt I left a good first impression on you.”

For the first time, I received a genuine laugh laugh from the stallion. It was loud, almost akin to a roar in some aspects, but wholesome at the same time. It was a good laugh, and one I would be happy to hear out of him again.

“No, but you're from the Enclave. I’m used to you pegasi taking some time to figure things out,” Watcher explained. There was the tiniest bit more life in his voice, something that made me smile. “That and… I see a bit of an old friend in you. A friend from all those years ago.”

I blinked. “Who–“

As soon as I spoke, that horrendous music from back in Trotson started to blast. With gritted teeth, I flung my hooves over my ears to try and block it out. It didn’t work, and all I got for it was a face full of sand due to falling over. I immediately pushed myself back up, spitting specks of desert-dirt out of my muzzle. All the while, the spritebot Watcher had once commandeered slowly started to wander away.

With any hope, it got beat up just for having that music blasting from it. Equestria’s propaganda music was trash compared to that of the Enclave.

“You okay Rhaps?” DH called out as she reached my side. She leaned over, watched as I wiped a hoof across my muzzle, a grimace painting my features. “Does it really sound that bad?”

“Never done well with certain noises,” I told her, hoof still running across my face in search of ant sand still on it. “If you think my reaction to that was bad, you should see how I reacted to Reveille the first time.”

Dead Hooves' entire being went pale. Clearly she had seen that memory herself.

Our worlds blended together.

Day 10

Underside, San Palomino Desert

“Just lay down Gem Gem, Sharpy is grabbing some water.”

“I don’t need water, I need a doctor.” Gemmy’s head fell forward, colliding with the bed’s blankets and eliciting another moan of pain. “Why do I feel like there is an axe in my head?”

“It’s called a hangover. You drink too much, this happens,” I told her, gulping down some water in order to deal with my own alcohol-induced headache. “Doesn’t feel that good, does it?”

She rolled around, going from laying on her left to her right. Considering she was groaning from just that, it was easy to tell she had the most of everycreature present. Possibly more than Gold, which did seem to match the level of hangover my roommates were dealing with. The only difference was that I was damn near certain the griffon was used to it, given the lack of complaining from his end.

Everycreature, with the exception of Willow, was dealing with some form of hangover from our time at the Lucky Clover. I clearly had the most mild of them, though the light shining through the motel room window certainly made the term “mild” feel like an understatement. Willow had been grabbing all of us glasses of water since she woke up, only taking time for a quick shower to wash both her husband and herself off. The smell on them both left little to the imagination, and I was happy to have it lifted from the air.

Not that the slight smell of vomit (courtesy of Gold) was better, but a mare takes what she can.

“Why didn’t you tell me Rara?” Gemmy asked grogely. She was definitely attempting to leer at me, but it was more of a cute pout than anything.

“Well, you weren’t supposed to have any to begin with. You shouldn’t have let Gideon and Gigi rope you into having it.” I pointed an empty water glass at her. “Let this be a lesson on the consequences of alcohol. Be thankful responsible ponies were still there with you.”

She rolled over even more. “Wh-why?”

“Ponies do dumb things when drunk. A result of your inhibitions being a lot looser,” Sharpshot explained, relaxing on the only chair in our room. Dude was as exhausted as an out of shape recruit after a day of drills. “You may do things you regret, and sometimes the consequences can be traumatic.”

Gemmy’s eyes went wide, and was immediately followed with a full body expression of shame. She looked at me. “I’m sorry Rara. I was just scared when you didn’t come back and–“

“You’re perfectly fine Gemmy. I fucked up to.”

“H-huh?”

“I’m still getting used to how things work down here. Rules are,” I looked at Gold and Sharpshot, “a bit different down here, even in it's more civilized parts.”

The ghoul snorted. “A bit? Want to underexaggerate it anymore? I’m more than okay with digging that statement a hole.”

“I managed to say that without some backhooved comment towards you all, just fucking take it,” I shot back, voice and face turning stoic. Emotions returned when I focused back on the young unicorn laying in the same bed as me. “The point is, there isn’t as much stopping you from getting beer here as there is in the Enclave. I’m not your mom, I can’t stop you from having any.

“However!” I raised a hoof before anypony could respond. “I think we all agree that you should have one of us around to moderate you… somepony not named Gold.” The griffon practically growled at me. “Keep anypony from doing anything to you. We want you to feel safe, now that you're free.”

“I have a really hard time getting drunk, so I’m typically a safe bet for a moderator,” Willow said as she brought out two refilled water glasses for Gemmy and Gold. “Besides, nopony will try anything to you with the big scary alicorn around.”

Alicorn and unicorn shared a friendly smile as the latter grabbed their glass. Despite the difference in their time as slaves, they had found common ground and felt comfortable around each other. It wasn’t hard to see that the two thought of each other as friends. It was good, she needed more ponies than myself to trust out here.

With my migraine nearly gone, and calm falling over the room, I took it in for the first time. It really wasn’t anything special, but it was more than livable. Two beds, a dresser, and a sofa seat were the only pieces of furniture to be found. Other than that the walls were half red, half gray with two windows and two doors; one led outside, the other to the bathroom.

If this was an Enclave base, boredom would have set in after just a few minutes. That day, however, after many hours traveling on our hooves through the desert sand, it was nice to relax. There was little urgency, even with the knowledge of my mission in the back of my head. Dew Lead, Medicine Ball, Lucky Shot, and Angel Hair were still ponies; they required sleep and rest like any pony.

“If everycreature’s hangovers have subsided enough,” Sharpshot said, magic holding the recording that number had given us yesterday, “I vote for seeing what this contains.”

“Where’d ghoul get that?” Gold asked. He was fairing a lot better at that point, no longer looking like the grumpiest creature in the room.

“The pub from last night. Technically it’s meant to be for soldier mare.” Sharpshot motioned towards me. “Some number hooved it to us. Considering we haven’t been here for even twenty-four full hours, it raises some questions.”

Willow leaned towards me. “Any clue who they were?”

“Nope. Didn’t recognize them,” I replied with a light shake of the head. “The pony in question was a former Enclave soldier, likely a Dashite like me. Voice was unfamiliar to me.” I nestled into the bedsheets a bit, letting their warmth comfort me further. “I highly doubt they are any of my targets.”

“Because they joined the Shattered Moon?” Gemmy asked.

I nodded. “That, and they were missing a wing. You think any pegasus would want to be stuck on flat ground for the rest of their lives?” Willow shivered at the thought, clearly understanding the gravity of what I was saying. “All four ponies had both their wings when they fled the clouds. I doubt they would rip their own wings off just to fool ponies.”

“So on top of their voice not matching, the pony was more disfigured than the ones we are looking for,” Sharpshot summarized. I gave another nod to show he was correct. “Is it possible this could still be about those pegasi?”

“Possibly,” I said, shrugging subconsciously. “Only one way to find out.”

Pulling back the sleeves on his rags and revealing his PipBuck, Sharpshot opened up a slot on top. He slid the recording, shut it, and then got out of the sofa to join the rest of us. After some fidgeting with the screen, and a brief look to all of us, he pressed play. A voice instantly came through the device’s speakers, only muffled with the tiniest bit of static.

It belonged to the stallion that had given it to us.

Hello Sing Rhapsody. My name is Three, a former soldier of the Grand Pegasus Enclave, just like you. Not a Dashite – my stay down here was one of circumstance and not rebellion – but stuck here all the same. I joined up with the Shattered Moon after giving up on going home.

I would have wanted to greet and tell this to you muzzle to muzzle, but that wasn’t possible. Not today, at least; I had other duties I had to attend to. Most I could spare time for was making this and hopefully getting it into your hooves. Guess I succeeded at that, if you are listening to this.

…

Sorry, you didn’t need to know that. Just stalling to find the right words to say.

I’m making this because I know why you are down here. Don’t ask how, that’s something I can only explain if I’m physically there. The point is, I know about what happened to you, and I want to help you.

I know where Lucky Shot is. I can tell you where he has been hiding out.

Only thing I ask is that you let me come with you to kill him. He’s the reason I’m stuck down here, and the reason I’m unable to fly anymore. It would mean a lot to me to get back at the fucker for it.

If you're okay with that, Shattered Moon’s operating base is on the southeastern end of Underside. Just tell the guards I asked for you, they’ll radio me to come get you. Just you, not your friends. They’ll have to wait outside.

Thanks for listening to this, Councilor Singing Rhapsody. Three out.

When it ended, the room descended into silence. The only things that cut through were a heavy sigh and the shifting of sheets. I looked at Sharpshot, and he looked at me. We knew without saying a thing what Three’s message meant. We also knew, like Three probably did, that we would see through the ruse.

“Which one of them is it?” He asked.

“Which one of what?” Willow asked immediately after, tilting her head and raising one side of her brow. “Was there something that I’m missing?”

“Nothing anypony but me might catch,” I answered, turning to her. “Nopony in the Enclave knew who or why I was branded besides the council. The idea of an ordinary soldier knowing is impossible.”

“Yet Three knew. Odd, decidedly unordinary,” Gold said. I nodded, showing he was on the right track. “Few ponies fit description. Those few? Her targets.”

“So Three is one of the ponies Rara is trying to kill?” Gemmy asked. She gazed at me, ears pinned slightly back. “He is an enemy?”

I shook my head. “Not exactly. I stay by what I said earlier concerning my targets. No pegasi would willingly ground themselves for the rest of their life.”

“Which leaves… unwilling.”

Willow’s sentence nearly made me stop breathing for a second. Even if I was more than aware how true her words were, it was another nail hammered into the coffin that held my patriotic feelings for the Enclave. If one of the four had been a hostage, then pegasi had caught them. If pegasi caught them, then we would know for certain they weren’t a traitor. If we knew they weren’t a traitor, then the council had told me falsehoods.

In a way, it made my placement on the high council feel superficial. I had believed myself on top of the Enclave, level with every councilor there. We all worked to keep our home safe from the surface and ensure a decent quality of life for our citizens. That meant no half-truths, lies, or “mistakes.” We were a team, and a team didn’t stab each other in the back.

At least, I didn’t think so, until now. Turns out there was a hierarchy, and as the new blood I was on the bottom.

How fucking lucky of me.

Even worse, Ironsight had told me this. As if my faith in the council being broken wasn’t enough, now the same is happening to my foalhood friend. To add on top of it all, my brain had an immediate click as for who the victim among the four had been. The one with the least reason to turn against our home.

A piece of me felt just as happy for them as I was devastated. Those initial first few days most have been soul shattering.

“I’m heading out,” I told them all, hopping off the bed as I did. “Got somepony I need to see.”

“Not about to kill pony in middle of town, I hope,” Gold replied. A quick glance behind me to the old, content looking griffon was enough for me to identify his words as a joke.

“That won’t be happening, at least not in town today,” I replied. “Meet you all at the Lucky Clover?”

“No drinks I take it,” Sharpshot said, leaning forward.

I gave him a nod. “If all goes well, we head out of Underside, and a traitor dies in the next few days.”

With that, I made my way to the door and exited our motel room.

Perhaps it seems weird that, after everything I’ve come to terms with concerning the Enclave, I would still continue my mission. It was clear not everything I had been told was accurate, and at least one of my targets was actually a hostage. Even then, as a dashite, Enclave matters didn’t concern me anymore. If I wanted to abandon them fully, all I needed to do was get rid of my radio. Ironsight would never hear from me again.

Overall it was simple, easy, and for most pegasi completely painless. Unfortunately, unlike some of the surface’s more notable dashites don’t have, I had something to lose. Two things in fact: revenge for my tattered pride, and the safety of my family. The first one had always been there, and as a spiteful bitch I wasn’t about to let go of it.

The second thing, my family, was something I hadn’t considered till today. The lower my opinion of the Enclave, the higher my concern for Anchor, Clear, and Rainy became. What would the council do to those three if I didn’t go through with the mission? How far down the rungs of Enclave society would they plummet?

I had no way of knowing. For now, that fear kept me complacent and controlled. For a government personnel? Perfect. For the average pony? Tartarus.

“Stay safe you three,” I murmured to myself as I walked through the streets of Underside. “I’ll… I’ll figure something out. I’ll get you three down here.”

Though I didn’t say the word, I knew what I was saying was a promise. I wasn’t sure if it could be fulfilled, or how to even go about retrieving them. All I knew was that the council could – not is, just could – use them as leverage against me. They knew how much my husband and foals meant to me, and that meant I needed to figure out how to keep them safe again.

In other words, I had a new mission objective: play along with the high council until an opportunity arises to grab my family.

“Who are you talking about?”

My attention shifted to the spectral filly happily prancing at my side. I wasn’t too sure when Stardust had shown herself, but she wasn’t alone. Dead Hooves was on my other side, proving to be nice, silent company at the moment. Typically ghosts showed up in order to talk something through, but today? Not the case.

“Glad to know you two aren’t a consistent bad omen,” I half-joked, tilting my head in DH's direction. “That goes for certain unicorns in particular.”

“I understand coping through humor, but please keep that limited to yourself,” she replied. The dead mare hung her head in shame. “Especially since only you can see us right now.”

Wincing, I looked back in Stardust’s direction. “Sorry.”

The filly beamed as she heard my apology. That quickly turned to smug satisfaction, a wordless “told you so” my direction. With a smile of my own, I shook my head at the filly’s antics. Dead or not, foals will be foals.

“You really think we can trust them? Three, I mean?” DH asked. “I mean, Lucky Shot is probably setting up some trap, right?”

I raised my brow. “You think Three is Lucky Shot?”

“I mean, he was the only guy.”

A puzzled look took over my face, and was then changed to amusement. Of course she had no idea who I was referring to, the concept that led to this situation was probably not something she was familiar with. No education, foalhood was in the middle-of-nowhere, her parents the only ponies in her life for all that time. The mare thought romantic feelings for one's mom was a normal thing, just cause they were the only mare around.

Not that I agree with how she thought, but I accept it as fact.

“Lucky Shot is a stallion, but his voice is a lot deeper,” I explained. “Three isn’t him, just know that.”

“You're not going to tell me who?”

“Shattered Moon doesn’t want their member’s identities revealed, and I’ll respect that.” I eyed one such SM member standing guard as we entered the middle of town. There was a casualness in their stance, but I’m certain they were ready to spring into action at the first sign of danger. “I’ll be content knowing it is who they are, but I won’t say a word of their name. Even putting aside the fact they joined the Shattered Moon, they’d hate it.”

Both DH and Stardust tilted their heads. “Why is that?”

“Because they hate their name. It reminds them they were born in the wrong body.” I shrugged my wings, smiling sadly. My hoof brushed along my chest. “I don’t really understand it all, but I know we all have pieces of ourselves we hate. Someponies, like him, have so much self-hate concerning their body that living in it leads to a struggle to feel happy.”

Silence fell over both ghosts, both looked puzzled by hearing this. It seemed my assessment in neither having thought about this was correct. It made sense, given age and circumstances. I’ve heard from some dashites that, of all the things wrong with it, treatment of gay and trans pegasi was one of the few things they got right. Granted the political motivations behind it were less pure, centering around population control and lessening mouths to feed, and it now feels like trying to find gold in an ever growing pile of shit.

I’ll also take the time to give the NCR a moderate amount of respect for upholding all that. Congrats, you expansionist idiots got one thing right.

Don’t let it go to your head.

“Rhaps?”

I looked at DH. “Yes?”

“I don’t really get it.”

I snorted in amusement at the sheer bluntness of her statement. Her words were more than fair. I barely understood it all myself, outside of the desire of not liking something about me. Even that, however, is probably incorrect. Science isn’t my strong suit, and I’ll never pretend it is. I just know that, even after the Enclave fell, that bit of science stood true.

Want a better explanation? Ask a mare who isn’t cis and straight. All I knew was one thing, and I made sure DH knew that.

“That’s fine. All I ask is that you respect his choice.”

While she certainly was still confused, she nodded and returned to silence.

“So Stardust.”

The filly turned to look at me. “Yes?”

“These masked ponies. I take it, you know them?” I asked, tilting towards another SM guard as we made our way through Underside. She nodded. “Mind explaining why they all seem to be watching me?”

The difference from this morning and yesterday was staggering. Obviously there were going to be fewer ponies out around this time, but it was somehow staggering just how few that ended up being. It was almost ghost town-esq, if one ignored SM members patrolling the streets. It meant all their eyes were on me, and it almost seems like that was on purpose.

Whenever I was close enough to see their eyes, they always landed on me. It was like being surrounded by statues, all motionless save for their head and eyes. With all the power inside me, I managed to hold my head high and march with confidence. An outward appearance of power and high station did a lot to lower suspicions.

Yet it did nothing. Their eyes kept watching me like a predator tracking prey. What in Tartarus was with the silence? The constant supervision? Things hadn’t been like this at all yesterday.

Was that all a facade? Was Shattered Moon closer to the Enclave then I expected? All questions I was unable to answer.

“I-I don’t know,” Stardust said, shrinking as she watched the masked ponies gazes. “I’ve seen them, but I don’t know much about them.”

“What do you know?” DH asked, leaning her head forward to see past me. “You were around when they first became a thing, right?”

“I know they were there, before that…,” the filly shivered, “that wailing began. I remember a few coming to our house, and telling my mom that Luna and the ministries were bad.” Her expression turned sorrowful. If she was alive I knew those large eyes of hers would be filled with water. “I remember… I remember mom went with them… a-and she never came back a-a-and–“

I reached a wing out, wrapping Stardust protectively in it. Then I stopped in place, and placed a hoof around her neck gently. Her stuttering faded, but I was more than aware of the fact she was shaking horribly. If I was able to perfectly feel a ghost's body like the living before today? I wasn’t sure. I certainly didn’t recall feeling fur when my hoof had come in contact with her or DH in the past, but I did now.

Not that the question was on the top of my concerns. There was a scared filly in front of me, and she needed comforting. That was all that mattered.

“It’s alright. It’s okay,” I murmured to her in a calm, maternal tone. I ran my hoof and wing across her form, hoping the feeling would further calm her. It was working. “We’re here, and they aren’t able to hurt you.”

“Not that they would do that anyways,” DH said. “They don’t seem like those kinds of ponies these days.”

I wasn’t entirely sure how much that would help, but she was trying. After a bit, I separated from the filly. She shook her head and smiled, the sorrow that had found its way onto her features erased in an instant. It seemed that, despite everything both the wasteland and DH had done to me, those motherly instincts were still there.

“S-sorry. It's hard to look back at those memories and not think about… how long ago that was,” Stardust said, her smile faltering ever so slightly. “Despite them taking mom away that day, they were never mean. They were actually really nice, if a bit scary.”

“Because of the masks?” I asked. She nodded, and I found my eye flicking over to the same SM guard as before. I motioned my head forward and started walking again. “I can see how that can be the case for a filly.”

Stardust quickly fell into pace alongside DH and I. “They were never actually mean though. I think their clothes looked different too.”

“How different?” DH asked.

Stardust adorably scrunched her nose as she thought, head tilting from side to side. “It was more… ugly. Kind of all over the place. Not really sure how else to describe it.” Her eyes lit up, and she did a small hop. “Oh, it wasn’t Equestrian. It was more stripe-like.”

“You mean more zebra inspired?”

“Yes! Just like the mean zebras.”

Uglier, disjointed, with a more zebrican flare to its look. It was more likely that the first of the three was merely bias brought upon by living in wartime Equestria. The rest fit though, since Watcher had mentioned the ministries marking them as zebra sympathizers. Was it really all that important? Not really.

That stuff came upon finally arriving at the Shattered Moon’s base. Just as Three said, and my MentaBuck showed me, it was on the southeastern side of town. It was a decently large brick building, likely the town’s old police station. Now, an artistic depiction of a lightning bolt breaking the moon stood at the front of the building for all to see.

Shattered Moon’s logo. It certainly fits the name.

The entrance was guarded by two ponies, same as the gate into town. While it certainly may have once been a police station, it was a bit more than that now. This was possibly one of the only places its members were allowed to unmask. As such, given how their anonymity was a key part of them, any place they used as a base of operations needed to have civilian access barred. There was no doubt very few occasions that it broke.

I took a deep breath. After a week and a half it was time to finally see one of my targets. A target that shouldn’t have been a target in the first place.

With a confident strut, I made my way to the front of the building. DH and Stardust choose to take positions behind me, likely to just keep from being a distraction. Two pairs of masked faces looked at me, and I met them with a militaristic fire in my eyes.

“Names Singing Rhapsody. I believe I have somepony expecting me,” I told them. “Goes by Three.”

“Ah, he found you. Good,” one of them, a unicorn, said. “Give us a moment and will radio him to grab you.” I nodded, stood at attention, and waited. The guard turned to his radio and started to talk into it. “Ninety-Eight to Three, come in.”

“This is Three. What is it Ninety-Eight?”

I huffed happily at Three’s voice. Listening to it now, through a radio, it was even easier to connect it to one of my old squadmates.

“She’s here. The mare you told me about. The council mare.”

“Rhapsody’s here? Already? Shit, I’ll be there in a minute.”

The guard looked to me to confirm I had heard the call. I nodded and took a few steps back, giving them some space, and sat down. My smile didn’t fall, though my heart rate did rise ever so slightly. That, combined with the silence of morning in Underside, made the wait go on for longer than expected.

“Ask them.”

I tilted my head to DH. “Huh?”

“About the quiet. The lack of ponies out and about. You know this is unnatural.”

“While true, it isn’t any of our business.”

“I know it isn’t, but I need my curiosity satisfied.” She playfully nudges me with her shoulder. It didn’t do anything but, again, the fact I could feel it was odd. “Please Rhaps?”

“Nope, not interested.”

“Come on! Pretty please?”

“I’m not asking them needless questions, now stop asking!” Dead Hooves listened… sort of. Instead of asking, she leaned in front of me and gave me the eyes. I deadpanned at her. “DH, I’m a mother of two, that isn’t going to work.”

She pouted and turned away from me, crossing her forelegs in the process. I rolled my eyes at her antics, the sound of a young filly giggling hitting my ears. The guards in front of us eyed each other, concern clear in their eyes.

“Are you okay, miss?” Ninety-Eight asked.

“Perfectly fine,” I assured him. “I just learned recently I can talk to ghosts, that's all. Got two here next to me.”

My words, obviously, did very little to calm. Stardust illicated more giggles at the confusion that took over the expressions of the SM guards. They had managed to not immediately call me crazy, at least. They just continued to stand at attention, ready and alert.

Then, after a good number of minutes had passed, the door opened. Three stood in the doorframe, the smallest hint of a smile visible through the corner of his eyes. I returned it, standing up and holding a hoof out to the one-winged pegasus. He grabbed it with his own, and shook it.

“Good to see you this morning, Councilor Singing Rhapsody,” he said in an attentive, more serious tone than I had heard earlier. It was clearly his way of hiding that he knew me. “I see you’ve handled the transition to life on the surface rather well.”

“Trust me when I say most of the damage is mental, not physical,” I replied, deciding to play his game for the moment. “You seem like you’ve done even better than me. Interesting crowd to fall into, soldier.”

The hint of a smile vanished, and Three pulled me into a tight hug. Any sign it was meant to pleasant faded as I felt her muzzle graze against my ear. He leered at me, eyes less angry and more… determined. It was the best way to describe the look.

“Lieutenant Colonel, while I would love to catch up this isn’t the place to do it,” he whispered into my ear. “Information pertaining to identity is extremely confidential to these ponies. Speak about who I am under the mask out in the open, and I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“They’d kill me for simply talking to you as a friend?” I asked, similarly quiet and with eyes wide.

Something small and metallic pressed against my head, replacing the feeling of Three’s mask. “If it is deemed too much is revealed, then yes. You don’t want to know how much I gave up, Lieutenant Colonel. Let's keep it that way.”

I nodded, and Three let go of me. I instantly pulled away to get a look at the gun he had put to my head. A snub nose revolver, five round cylinder, double action. With a cheeky smile, Three flicked the cylinder out and faced it downwards. No rounds came out.

“It won’t be me killing you if you fuck up, councilor,” he said. He tilted his head to the guards at the door. “It will be them.”

“Understood.” I looked to the door he had come through, and then turned back to him. “I assume we will be talking about things elsewhere, then.”

“Oh, you will be going inside.” Three brought a foreleg into a saddlebag, and then pulled out a blind. “You just won’t have a layout to tell anypony.”

My steps were small, focused, and most importantly guided step by step. I heard voices, the clopping of hooves, and laughter throughout the halls. Those sounds, the feeling of Three’s remaining wing around my neck, and the smell of stale air, was all I had for a while. Not being able to see, after what had occurred in the Trotston sandstorm, did nothing good for my heartrate and stress.

Being led blindly through unknown territory left me with mixed feelings. It was like being a prisoner, something I had long hoped wouldn’t happen. It gave the slight impression that I was becoming my mom. A criminal, a killer, willing to drop lower and lower for no selfless reason. In a way I guess that was an accurate description of the Enclave military.

At least with them, however, there was the illusion we had fought and killed for something worth protecting. What reason did mom have for selling cloud nine? None, of course.

“Three?” I called out.

“Yes?” They replied.

“I… I wanted to congratulate you.” Three went stone still. I followed suit, our forward momentum momentarily stopped. “From the sound of your voice, you started your transition. I’m happy for you.”

It took some time for Three to reply, and when he did it wasn’t for me. His hoof collided with something – their own radio – causing a click to greet my ears. He let out a sigh of relief.

“One Thirty-Six?”

“Yes Three?”

“It’s really her. She knows about my dysphoria. That’s more than enough.”

“Understood. Continue as you originally planned, then.”

As soon as I heard the button decompress, I looked Three’s way. “You thought I was some imposter?”

“You told me yourself that there was a changeling here in Underside yesterday. We were merely going to check and make sure you weren’t them,” he explained, nudging me forward with his wing. We started to walk again. “Sorry about that, Lieutenant Colonel.”

The changeling; Amaryllis. Now the state of the town earlier made a lot more sense. A creature able to be anypony, aligned with Shattered Moon’s supposed enemy. Common citizenry would certainly be more than put off at the news of one around them. This was likely one of the very few times one had ever been caught while disguised.

It also meant that the eyes on me as I walked through town were due to my warning yesterday. They had no way of knowing if I was really me. The constant supervision, the sudden silence, all caused by one creature.

I… also caused this, didn’t I?

“They are that bad of news, huh?” I asked. What DH had failed to get me interested in, Three had managed in under a minute.

“On their own? No,” Three explained. “I’ve met some changelings who left the Equalists. Not horrible creatures, much like you and I. When it's found out that one with ties to cult up north, however….” Silence hung for a few seconds, leading to an abrupt change in subject. “Thanks, though, for the sentiment earlier.”

“You put it off for years just to stay in the forces a bit longer, and to stick with me,” I reminded him, smiling smugly. “It’s about time you got your happiness.”

A brief pause.

“I wish I took the chance sooner, ma’am,” Three told me, tone faltering ever so slightly. “My happiness… I nearly lost it. These ponies were my only chance down here. I had to take it.”

“You should have done it sooner, as we all told you to.” As soon as the words left my lips, I felt my heart lurch in fear. Was that too harsh? I didn’t know. “If the Enclave allowed active service members to transition, I would have done it in a heartbeat. You know that, we talked about it.”

“I-I know but… I thought what we were doing mattered.” His wing pressed ever so slightly against me. “I wanted my happiness, but I also wanted my family and friends to be safe. At the time signing up for another six years seemed correct but now… now–“

“Now you will never be able to see them again.”

“Y… yeah.” Full dejection clouded any joy in Three’s voice. It was the exact opposite of what I had hoped to here out of him, after such an incredible step had been made. “Lieutenant Colonel, ma’am, before you got shoved down here with me and the grounders, did you check on my family. I want to know how my mom and dad are. I want to know how brother and sisters are.”

A sinking feeling took over my stomach, and my head fell. By Enclave standards, his family was on the bigger side. It wasn’t too big of a surprise; his father was a commissioned officer just like Ironsight. Those ponies were allowed to have more children than the standard soldier. At four children and two parents, Three’s family was as large as the Enclave would allow even at its top level.

A big, happy Enclave family, and yet next to me was their eldest. Three was practically a dashite, despite their loyalty and patriotism. Ripped from the clouds against his will, exclaimed a traitor despite being a victim. The more I listened to him, the more I was sure of all these fact, and the clearer his innocence became.

Three sighed, I had taken too long to respond. The silence told him everything. “I… I miss them. I want to see them again, but that isn’t happening, is it?”

“I’m sorry, Three,” I replied, head falling lower. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“It's… it's okay. I can manage through it.” His lie was as far from convincing as it could possibly be. His voice alone showed his desire to cry. Perhaps, under the mask, he was. “We’re almost there. The blindfold will be coming off shortly.”

A door opened, and I was nudged into taking the lead. Three’s wing fell from my neck to my back, then to my flank, and finally my tail as I walked forward. The door closed and was subsequently locked by my fellow pegasus. My head jolted back around instantly.

“Is that necessary?”

“To protect everycreature else’s identity? Yes,” Three answered. There was a tug on the blindfold as the knot holding it to my head was undone. “Watch your eyes.”

With a nod of my head, the blindfold was removed with an excessive flourish of his muzzle and wings. I squinted my eyes to the point it was impossible to make out anything in the room. It certainly hadn’t felt like I was blind for long enough to be like this, but blinding light proved otherwise.

Once I had adjusted to the sudden introduction of fluorescent lights, everything came into view. The room in question was an office, a simple desk and terminal near the center. No windows looked out into the rest of the station save for a small one at the window, and it had blinds cover it. No way to look outside, no way to know where the exit was.

That, I realized, was very clearly the point. With no clear way to escape, locked in a small room, with several dozen Shattered Moon numbers between me and wherever the exit was, the power lied with them. Leaving before they were done with me was futile, and that meant nopony would stop Three if they decided to kill me. My only saving grace was knowing the snubnose was unloaded.

Despite the position I was in, a smirk dawned my face. Three had me in a position where I had no choice but to do what he said. A perfect way to corner a dangerous subject, and by Luna’s hooves am I a dangerous mare. If it was somepony more unknown, I’d be on edge.

“Now that nopony can hear or see us, time this charade fell,” Three said, reaching a hoof up to the mask. He started to pull it down, the smallest sign of lime green and lemon yellow mane showing through his hood. “Granted, you already knew, but still.”

I raised my brow. “Your higher ups are going to be okay with this?”

“Got the okay from Lady Hash herself,” he replied, pulling the mask even further up till I was able to see the slightest sign of a smirk on dark green fur. “Besides, nopony will know. I trust you to keep this a secret, even if others don’t.”

Without another word, the mask came completely off. Before me stood a stallion, though his body was currently more aligned with a mare’s, a soulful expression in his eyes. A short, green and yellow mane barely reached his eyes, filled with both joy and grief at the same time.

Much to my surprise, he immediately snapped to attention and saluted me. Remaining wing to forehead, stance straight as possible. My jaw nearly fell open, but I managed to close it before my shock was too obvious.

“Lieutenant Colonel, ma’am, it’s wonderful to talk face to face with you again.”

I smiled, decided to not ask questions, and allowed him to have this. I motioned him to ease with a hoof, the salute dropping automatically. The look in his eyes stayed the same, however.

“It’s good to see you too,” I replied. “So, is Three officially your name now? Finally found something to replace Dew Leaf?”

“No, three is just a number. None of us use our numbers as actual names, just callsigns. It’s all the public needs,” he explained as I took the opposite seat. “I did find one, though. Call me Day Glow when it is just the two of us, face to face like this.”

“Day Glow,” I repeated, feeling out the words as if the name was meant for me and not him. My smile grew a little wider. “I like it. Day Glow it is then.”

Day shuddered with a mixture of released stress and tension. I was likely the closest thing he had to home, and my acceptance of the name was as close as he would ever get to his parents doing the same. Even then I was lackluster substitution. How could a senior officer be seen as a parental figure?

“I didn’t bring you here for this,” he muttered in a breathy tone after a minute of silence. The slightest sign of fire was visible behind gloomy eyes. “This isn’t why I sought you out, and we both know that.”

His words made things clear. Pleasantries had turned awkward, he wanted them out of the way. With a nod, my smile fell away to something more stoic and professional. I leaned forward, forehooves on the desk.

“Then it’s time we got to business,” I said. He nodded in agreement. “Lucky Shot, you know where he is, and you want a go at him.”

“Correct. He’s the bastard that did this, after all.” Day Glow spread his wing, eyes looking to wear the matching appendage should have been. “My contract extension was nearly up, you know? You were an officer, the others had moved to different squads, figured it was finally time to myself some good. Had an appointment schedule for four days after the extension ended.” A sad laugh bounced off the walls. “We see how that ended up.”

“He nearly took happiness from you, and you want back at him,” I summarized.

Day Glow’s eyes went off somewhere, watching a scene only he was able to see. “Nearly? Mom and dad likely think I’m dead, home is no longer home, and by all means this? I lucked into this.” He scowled. “You aren’t the only pony that lost something, ma’am. I can’t have that something back, and I want to make him pay for it.”

It was like looking into a reflection. The pain, the desire for revenge, all I felt inside mirrored by Day Glow. It wasn’t healthy, I knew that as much as he did. Better ponies would tell him it wasn’t worth it, that letting bygones be bygones was the best option. Forgive, forget, and move on.

The wasteland doesn’t breed that kind of thinking, however. It didn’t then, and it's still a work in progress now.

“Give me the location, and I’ll make sure you get to put the bullet in his skull,” I told him. “I got a team willing to back you up, if you can deal with grounders.”

“Wouldn’t have joined Shattered Moon if I couldn’t.”

“You're one step farther than I was, until a few days ago.” I reached a hoof out. “Welcome aboard, Day Glow.”

We shook hooves, his fire meeting my own. Two souls reunited and joined in a desire for vengeance, knowing full well it wouldn’t do anything itself. At least, that was the case for Day Glow. I had Anchor, Rainy, and Clear to think about.

“You’ve heard about the ship we pulled into dock recently, right?” Day Glow asked as our hooves separated. I gave an affirming nod. “Word has it an older brown pegasus stallion has been scavenging from it against Lady Hash’s will.”

“Lady Hash being a very important pony, I assume,” I said with an inquisitive tilt of me head. “I’ve heard the name a few times now.”

“She’s the Shattered Moon’s- my leader.” Day Glow scowl turned into something more conflictive. “Sorry, Lieutenant Colonel, wish to say I belong to the Enclave alone but–“

I held my right forehoof up. “No need to explain. You did what was… what was best for you.”

The words weren’t easy to say, but they were true. No going home, Day Glow and I needed to find our places down here. He had already figured that out. It took me far longer.

“Anyways,” I lowered the hoof, “older, brown pegasus stallion. Sounds like Lucky Shot alright.”

“Yes, and if he is confiscating equipment from the Hurricane for unknown reasons, he needs to be dealt with.” The scowl came back in full force. “I got the go ahead to hunt him down. She is certain something dangerous is there, and we can’t let it fall into the Equalist’s hooves.”

“The Equalists…,” my eyes went wide, “Lucky is working for your enemy? You are certain?”

“Positive.” Day Glow shuddered again. “He’s… he’s not a pegasus, Lieutenant Colonel. The one who orchestrated the stolen documents, that broke my wing, who took you and I away from home… was a changeling. I’m not sure I’m not sure what happened to the real Lucky, but they clearly did something to him and… and….”

He closed his eyes, leaned back into the chair, and took several steadying breaths. While he hadn’t finished his explanation, it was more than enough to make my jaw hang. I had trusted Lucky Shot, like I had any other brother-in-arms, and now I wasn’t able to question if it had all been false. The hurt and betrayal that stemmed from that one torturous day suddenly grew brighter and brighter….

Until it manifested into reality in a loud, downright feral growl.

Medicine knew, Angel Hair too. Were they also changelings, or did they simply know his secret? What in tartarus was the purpose of everything that happened? It made no fucking sense and that, beyond anything else, made what those bastards did several times worse. No matter who right or wrong the Enclave was, to feint loyalty for years just to stab it in the back.

I had allowed them to stay in service as long as they had. This was my mistake to fix.

“Where is he?” I asked, voice dropping a full octave as I stared with downright carnivorous anger towards Day Glow. He simply stared back with that seemingly controlled fire as earlier.

“There is a megaspell testing site north of us. We believe he has been stashing confiscated items there,” he responded.

I stood up at the speed of lightning, body tense and posture straight. “Then let's put that bullet in his head.”

Day Glow merely smirked. He liked this version of me, that he had never hid.

Act 2 – Chapter 9: What Lies Beneath

Day 10

Nowhere, San Palomino

When the world returned to me, the moon was comfortably set high in the sky. My back hurt like Tartarus, and my head was pounding like I had just woken up from a night of drinking. I rolled onto my left side, grumbling like an old stallion woken up from a midday nap. Certainly felt like one, minus the stallion part.

I opened my eyes and looked up above. A natural rock ceiling greeted me, a surefire sign we were inside the mine. Tilting my head back led me to see the entrance to said mine not too far away. The pale glow of moonlight left very little illuminated, but the howling wind of the desert made it clear what support beams those were.

“Finally woke up, huh?” Sharpshot’s rough voice sliced through the peaceful night like a buzzsaw. Looking back towards the cave's innards, I found him, alongside Willow and Gold, still awake in front of me. “Had a nasty little episode there. Trauma response, perhaps?”

I was not ready to talk, not with most of my body hurting in one way or another. Wings were stiff, legs didn’t want to cooperate, head aching, the full “everything sucks” experience. Only thing I was missing was a tied up pony and several guns pointed at my head. The pony in question being me, if we wanted worst case circumstances.

I looked back towards the mine entrance. Only now was I aware of Day Glow standing guard at its front. Must have been the current pony on watch, if I was guessing correctly. That meant the others had every reason to be asleep. Why weren't they? I don’t know.

Pushing through the pounding in my head, I got my forelegs under me and pushed up. One immediately went to the side of my forehead, grimacing at how such a simple movement made the aching significantly worse. With a groan, I attempted to look at the three relaxing inside the cave. Must have seemed pathetic at the moment.

“Pegasus all right in head?” Gold asked, tapping his temple.

It took a few seconds but I finally managed to get my muzzle working fully. “What… happened?”

“Fuck if we know. Wouldn’t be asking you these questions if we did,” Sharpshot answered, head pressed against Willow’s neck. “As far as we all understand, you just started screaming your head off. Dead Hooves kind of kept us from getting any answers for the time being.”

“Dead Hooves stopped you?” I asked, full body tilting to the side instead of just my head.

“Your horn lit up, there was a small flash, and you fell to the ground unconscious,” Willow explained. “When we first brought you inside the mine after that, you just started flapping and kicking in your sleep. Were you having a nightmare?”

“I don’t think I dreamed about anything,” I explained, foreleg rubbing my eyes. “Unfortunately, I can’t really say what happened. All I recall is stepping into here and just getting some uncontrollable… feeling? I don’t know.” I lowered my leg and shook my head. “It’s like I was suffering a fatal injury. I just… I was scared, and I needed help, but also like nopony can help.”

Gold squinted at me, scratching the top of his beak. Without any explanation, he suddenly stood up and made his way past us, back outside. He looked around, as if searching for something. Day Glow walked up to him, the two sharing a few words before the one-winged pegasus pointed him up to the top of the mine. Gold followed where his hoof pointed, and the corners of his beak turned downwards.

“What is talisman for?” he thought out loud. He looked to Willow, Sharpshot, and myself immediately after that was said. “Not seen type before.”

“It’s a stasis one, right?” I asked, forcing myself onto all four hooves. “I mean, they wouldn’t want the roof falling in.”

I went to make a step, but a white wing blocked my vision. I have no idea how Willow managed to move that fast at times, and considering her background I was a bit afraid to know the answer. She pushed me down, making me sit against my will. She smiled at me, and I didn’t have much choice but to just pout at the moment.

“If the mine entrance is the problem, you probably shouldn’t go through it till we figure out what is wrong,” she said.

Incorrect or not, wasn’t about to argue with an alicorn as scary as Willow. She looked behind me, motioning towards said entrance. With that she pranced her way towards Gold and Day Glow, Sharpshot making his way past me and joining them. This was an uncomfortably familiar case of deja vu. Only difference was that I was stuck doing jackshit after passing out instead of beforehoof.

With a sigh, I laid back down, head on my forelegs. With nothing else to do, I checked out the inside of the mine a bit more thoroughly, in case that held any answers. It didn’t, our group having set up to the right side away from the minecart tracks. It was the only thing of note nearby, stopping just a bit before the mouth of the mine while its other half descended into darkness.

No minecart, no safety beams, the top of the mine must have been either incredibly sturdy or those supports had been spared time’s cruel passage. There were plenty of small pebbles and the like around, not to mention sand that had been pushed inside by the wind. Deciding to see if what I had done earlier in the day was nothing but a flook, I concentrated on some of them and channeled DH and I’s horn.

Same yellow glow as before, same result. The pebble was brought into the air with ease, levitating before me. There was that same foalish excitement in my eyes at something so mundane and simple for any grown unicorn. It was something though, and that little something was a sign that there was more within me. What was I capable of now, with this newest twist in my life? How much more unicorn magic was I actually capable of? The little filly that resided underneath the soldier facade was giddy at all of this, and I wanted an answer for her.

“DH, do you have anything more than telekinesis for me to maybe try?” I asked the air. I was greeted by silence, much to my confusion. “DH?”

“Over here, Rhaps,” she called out, voice far more timid than normal.

Dead Hooves was standing outside of the mine with everypony else, looking at me with a great amount of concern. I motioned for her to come in, but she took a step back instead. I repeated the motion, she took another step back and shook her head. She might have gone back further, but that ethereal line from nights earlier returned. It was like a rope attached to her chest, refusing to let her get too far away.

“DH, get the fuck over here!” I ordered, my grouchy mood returning in an instant.

“I can’t. Something… something won’t let me,” she said, eyes darting up above. She shook her head again. “No, better way to put it: I don’t want to go in. There is something telling me that going inside is a very, very bad idea. It’s like the closer I get the farther away I want to be.”

Her words caught my attention. Knowing full well Willow wouldn’t be happy I stood back up. The mine wasn’t just screwing around with me, but DH too. Given everything that was happening to the two of us in, and how nocreature else was affected, it was clear she was the reason I had gone through that episode. She knew it too, I was certain.

She couldn’t talk to the living though, which is why she had told me as much as she had. I had to explain the rest, and that meant getting closer so I didn’t have to yell. Sharpshot noticed me pretty quick and pointed in my general direction. Willow’s eyes went wide at the sight of me walking and was over in a flash.

“Singing, you might get hurt if–“

“Dead Hooves knows something,” I told her, looking the alicorn directly in the eyes. “I’m the only one that can hear her, and that means I can’t sit on my ass doing nothing.”

Willow’s expression became conflicted, looking back and forth from the mine’s mouth to me. I understood why she wanted me to relax, and she understood why I needed to talk. With a sigh, confliction turned into disapproval, and her wing shot up before my face again.

“Just… don’t step outside. Not until we know what went wrong,” she said a slight pleading quality in her expression, only visible in her eyes. I gave her a nod. “Thanks Singing. I’m sorry about this, but you are one of the few ponies I really don’t want to see get hurt.”

“Let me guess, that list only includes Sharpshot and I,” I replied, trying to joke a little.

The disapproval fell away from her face, transforming into a soft, not-so-innocent smile. “The list isn’t entirely made of ponies I like, silly little pega. There are some others too, like Gemini for instance, that are just good friends.”

At first, I chuckled at her words. Then, after a bit more thought, I froze up and looked back up at the alicorn. Willow’s only respomse was to lick her lips and give me a wink. As she walked back up to everyone else, I felt my face grow as hot as the desert sun. Thank Luna my coat was red enough to hide most of, if not all, my blush.

With slightly stiff steps, and fidgety wings, I trotted up until the outdoors was mere inches away. Dead Hooves stretched out a hoof, telling me to stop without needing to say so. She blinked, and then smirked at my flustered look Willow had left on my face.

“Just tell her you aren’t up for it. Worked for me, all those years ago,” she said casually. Her words only made my face redder, wings unfurling slightly. DH gave me a goofy smirk, hoofing up to her muzzle as if attempting to hold in laughter. “Oh, I see. Well if you are interested just make sure the insufferable bitch she has for a husband is aware first. They got this agreement about–“

“T-topic change, please?” I begged, glancing to the side at everycreature else.

“Oh, gotcha. Have fun when you do it though, or rather when she does you.” DH’s teasing had done it, wings popping out awkward and stiff. She winced, reaching back to rub a wing that didn’t exist. There was a rather sheepish grin on her face. “Worth it.”

It took far too much strength to get a single word out of my mouth. “DH. Now!”

“Sorry, sorry. Just, I haven’t really been able to get far from the entrance because of this thing.” She tugged on the line connecting her to me. “Not fun, being on a leash.”

With her words, the smirk fell, and the earlier concern came back. She took a few more hasty steps back, as if a strong wind was blowing her away from the entrance. The ghost unicorn closed her eyes, straightened her stance, and then opened them again. She bit her lip near immediately upon doing so.

“When you tried to walk into the mine, I felt a tug at my mind,” DH explained. “At least, that is the closest thing I can explain it as. I realized I don’t want to go inside, that it wasn’t safe to, but I also am aware those thoughts aren’t mine.” She shrugged, huffing in annoyance. “Not entirely sure how to explain. What happened to you? It was like some amplified version of what happened to me.”

I mimicked her words to the others, exactly as she had said them. It was what Sharpshot would have wanted, and left no room for misinterpretation. Gold snapped his talons, and stepped closer so that he may take part in the conversation. It made sense he would be the first one to speak up; he was most familiar with there being something on the other side.

“So pegasus experienced something similar to dead mare?” He asked. DH and I both nodded at him. “I see. Some spirit-bond clear between you two. Pegasus use unicorns horn. Maybe unicorn can fly?”

“Not time for that question,” I deadpanned.

He sat down, waving his talons in front of him. “Right. Right. Observation leads to questions though. This ghost town in figurative sense. How about literal?”

I looked at DH, and she motioned behind her. Glancing past her, I saw that we living ponies had gained quite the crowd. The dead were watching us, though for what reason they were doing so I had no idea. What was clear, is that they held the same concern Dead Hooves had for me. The amount of eyes, both so live yet very clearly dead, was more than enough to put me on edge.

An earth pony stallion, coat light brown and mane slightly darker, cutie mark of a beer mug, trotted towards us. His gait was marked with nervous uncertainty, and the closer he got the more it grew. He wasn’t able to make it as far as DH has, the stallion sitting down with a good three or so yards between us. He forced a smile, and saluted me.

“Name’s Malt. I was a bartender in this little community a long time ago, back when the carts still came up and down and the megaspells hadn’t blown everything up,” the stallion said, a twangy note in his voice. It slightly reminded me of a higher pitch Calamity. “Miss Dead Hooves called you Rhaps. Is that right?”

“Singing Rhapsody. Rhaps is for ponies who know me better,” I responded. The stallion beamed as I confirmed I was indeed speaking to him. As he did I turned to Gold. “Answer is yes. A decent number of them too.”

“Ah, I see. Perfect,” the griffon replied, shifting a bit so he faced more towards the outside. “Introduction from pegasus means ghost did same. What is name?”

“Malt.”

“Got it. Am I allowed to ask them questions?”

I turned back to Malt, the stallion having a rather discontent expression on his face. After a couple of seconds, he sighed.

“I would prefer to not answer the questions of a non-equestrian, but at least he ain’t a stripe,” he answered. “As long as it all goes to getting you out of there. Dead Hooves mentioned it, but the place isn’t safe.”

I translated for Gold, and he nodded before looking in the general direction Malt is located. “Won’t waste time. Time is money. Words take time. Therefore less money if speaking more. What is in mine?”

“Tartarus, I don’t know, but y’all gotta feel it, right?” He asked back. Gold tilted his head at the question. “That… impulse feeling. The mine ain’t safe, I know that but don’t understand why. Surely it ain’t just us on the other side.”

“Afraid it is. You confirmed it,” Gold responded.

Malt sneered, then spat on the ground. “Fucking stripes. Of course they are the ones responsible.”

“Stripes?” Dead Hooves asked, ears perking up. “Zebras have been here recently?”

“Recently? This one bloodline of them has been coming and going over nearly two fucking centuries.” He rolled his eyes, staring up at the support beams. “They’ve been putting those talismans on the mine for a long time. Surprised whatever civilization has formed hasn’t gone and put them all back in camps after all this time.”

Dead Hooves gritted her teeth, clearly holding back the urge to punch the stallion before her. Considering both her impulsiveness and what he had said, I was surprised that she was even trying. She looked to me, an inferno looking ready to break out from inside of her. With a nod I decided to heavily edit that last bit of information, given how much of it wasn’t actually useful.

Sharpshot clearly knew my version was edited, but he kept his muzzle shut.

“The zebra put talisman up. That when strange feeling start?” Gold questioned.

“Right on the money,” Malt replied, throwing his forelegs in the air. “What purpose does that serve? None of us here are alive, we ain’t able to use it. They are definitely the reason Miss Rhapsody was feeling like she was earlier.” He tilted his head at me, confused. “Not sure why… though you can see us, just like the stripes were able to. You a half-breed, missy?”

Dead Hooves and I shared another brief glance at each other before I answered Malt. “Half-unicorn. No zebra in my blood.”

That was a lie, of course, considering what I had learned from that damn heritage test back in Trotson. There was the tiniest bit of zebra in me, but he didn’t need to know that. Doubt he would answer our questions if I said the truth. We did get some information out of his little outburst though; the zebras responsible for this were mediums, just like I was.

“Then I can’t guess why you felt it as well,” he replied, shrugging. “Sorry you had to deal with their magic Rhapsody.”

I didn’t bother with a response, instead looking at Fold. The old griff stood up and walked out of the cave, beckoning Sharpshot and Willow over. The two complied, and as soon as they were close enough he pointed a talon up at the support beam. To be exact, the gemstone that had been crammed inside of it.

“That is culprit,” he explained.

I tiled my head. “So it’s not a stasis talisman?”

“Would be surprised if it was, you need more than just a gem in most circumstances,” Sharpshot said. “Under normal circumstances, talismans draw magic through the gem to power something, I know that from the many Stables and other places I’ve visited. Smacking a powered up gemstone into a plank of wood wouldn’t work for a talisman like that.”

His horn lit up, and he floated over the zebra sniper rifle he had carried with him since we had first met. Malt blanched at the item, but Sharpshot caressed it like one would their significant other. There was a deep level of care for that particular weapon, a story behind it.

“Flash Fire here has a flame talisman powering it,” he explained, lifting it slightly before giving a light smack with his hooves, “but you can’t just shove one into a rifle and think it’ll work fine. A bit more complicated than that.” He looked back to the unknown talisman. “There is also the matter of why a still functional talisman would be here. Mine is empty, right? No reason to keep the entrance up.”

“Empty? Who in Tartarus told you that?!” Malt shouted. I looked to him, hoping for an explanation for his outburst. “The mine is still operational, we all know that. Even after the megaspells, we would still go in and out. Society is going to need ores and shit to rebuild after all.”

Sharpshot leered in Day Glow’s direction, the stallion doing the same back. “Empty, huh?”

“Hey, in my defense, what other reason do you expect a mine to be empty?”

Gold shook his head, turning back in the direction of Malt. “If mine still functional, why stop using it?”

Malt’s disgust fell away, sorrow and pain taking him over as he hung his head. “Because ponies started to disappear when they went in.”

As soon as I said that, all focus was on him. Didn’t matter that none of the living – excluding myself – couldn’t see him, Gold had given a general idea of where he was. All the pressure was on him, and in that moment the hateful grounder before me fell away.

“They started to disappear,” Day Glow repeated as he stepped forward, joining the rest of us. “What does that mean? Did they get lost?”

“No. Not possible, since the eastern tunnels collapsed,” he explained. That only seemed to make the constant stares his direction more impactful, and he grew even more sheepish. “We didn’t have to worry a lot about the mega spells but… San Palomino has a fault line, running through part of it. We are very close to said fault line, same as Trotson, and when the spells went off, there was an earthquake.

“Ponies were in the mine at the time. Some got out but others got stuck behind a cave in. We didn’t have the tools to dig them out so we radioed for help, that’s how we learned the world had ended.” He gritted his teeth, shaking his head as he got more choked up. “I had a brother, Cinnamon. He was one of the ones who got trapped. He died there, because we had nothing to save him.”

Willow and Sharpshot shared a glance, the latter clearing his throat afterwards. “You all made the decision to send ponies back in still.”

“Of course! We wanted to help those still left,” Malt answered, looking at the ghoul with a slight faux anger. He didn’t fool me; in his state, there was no way he really cared that we may have association with zebras. “After a time, though, they started to go missing. Some packed up and headed into San Palomino, looking for others. The rest of us? We stayed here for one reason or another.”

Gold, Willow, Sharpshot, and myself all looked at each other. There was a wordless understanding, a secret acknowledgment of exactly what had transpired. More than anything else, it also explained why DH and myself had reacted in such strange ways to the mine’s entrance.

The type of talisman had been revealed to us: a warding talisman. That was the reason the talisman had hurt me; my bond with Dead Hooves had somehow registered me as a spirit, and not a living pony. The zebras who had put them up must have had a reason, but it wasn’t for these spirits before us. Hateful as they were, they were also harmless. Malt hadn’t done more than make insulting comments or weird looks at their mentions.

So, if the ward was not meant to keep something out… then something was inside. Willow had reached the conclusion earliest of us all, maniacal glee warping her features. Before any of us was able to stop her, her horn lit and she vanished.

“Fuck, hun get back here!” Sharpshot shouted, running off into the mine after her.

“Sharpshot!” I called out. He didn’t listen, disappearing into the darkness of the mine. After a moment, I turned to Gold and Day Glow. “Break the talisman. We head after them.”

“Break the….” Day Glow looked up at the support beams, and then back to me. “Lieutenant Colonel, if we do that then whatever is inside–”

“I know, but DH is attached to me. We can’t get too far from each other,” I replied, horn lighting up and grabbing my novasurge rifle from our equipment pile. I heard more than a few gasps of shock from the crowd of ghosts from seeing the yellow glow above my forehead. “I’m not putting her through what I did.”

I saw a bit of uncertainty in his eyes, but saluted despite that. Gold simply gave me a nod, taking out Roche Limit and aiming it upwards. Holding it by the frame, he flapped his wings and gained just enough height where he was level with the gem. He swiftly rammed the grip of the energy pistol into the gem.

With the sound of a crack, I felt a bit of unknown stress suddenly dissipate. The same happened with Dead Hooves, the former letting her head hang as a forehoof went to her chest. Malt was probably no different, but he was too focused on the yellow glow surrounding my energy rifle. His mouth moved, no sounds coming out but the intended word abundantly clear.

“Alicorn.”

“Are you good to go now?” I asked the ghost unicorn. She gave me a confident nod. With that done, I took a few steps forward and focused on the Gold and Day Glow. “Double time everycreature. Move it!”

The inside of the mine, under most circumstances, wouldn’t have been possible to navigate if not for Dead Hooves’ presence. Her horn glowed brightly on my head, filling the surroundings with enough light to see wall to wall. The space for us to walk was quite decent, given they had needed room not just for ponies but for the minecart that ran down the middle of the cave. We stayed side to side, checking each other’s flanks every once in a while as we did.

I only had my novasurge rifle for this; no way was bringing the Atomizer into a close space a good idea. Gold had Roche Limit ready, a talon comfortably sitting on the safety in wait for whatever comes next. Day Glow? He wielded something that I had not seen before that point, an early griffon fire arm known as a lever action rifle. The sights on it were non-existent, the trigger guard seemed oddly long, but outside of that he had kept it well maintained.

There was also the fact that it, along with the snubnose revolver holstered on his shoulder, somehow gave off a certain vibe. It fits the desert, though I still don’t completely understand why.

The clop of hooves and tap of talon claws were the only thing in our ears. Everything was silent, and that either meant we were alone or this mine’s prisoners were somehow keeping out of sight. Worst case scenario must always be taken in a life or death situation, and that meant believing the latter. A good military knows that better than any common civilian would.

“Oh shit.”

Day Glow’s sudden expletive led us to look in the same direction he had. Before us, to what my E.F.S declared as east, was a nearly blocked mining passage. The top of the cave had fallen in creating a wall of rubble that would be impossible to move with pony hooves in any timely manner. With what Malt had told us, this was likely the mine shaft that had collapsed on the last day.

I tilted my head up to get a better look at the cave roof, see if it looked anything different. There was a hole, small though it may have been, near the left most side. Wasn’t big enough for a grown adult, about the size of a hoof if the skeletal one hanging from it was any indication. It was impossible to question who that was, but I damn well knew what they had been trying to do. With where they had died, it meant one of either two things: they had died of exhaustion, trying to break free, or they had been reaching out for somepony in fear.

Given what we knew, the second seemed the most in line with what we knew. Ultimately they had failed at both, as unfortunate as it was.

“Hole too small. Alicorn not fit inside.” Gold said, motioning forward. I snorted at his choice of words, loud enough to echo loudly off the mine’s walls. He had to force himself not to facepalm, given the weapon in his talon, but was unable to hold back the eye roll. “Really?”

“You said it, not me,” I replied. “You’re correct though. Willow and Sharpshot didn’t go this way.”

“We continue on the path we were already on, then?” Day Glow asked.

He got a nod for his response. I took the lead since DH and I were the main source of light for our group. The cave is slowly disappearing into shadows behind us, leaving us once again to follow a straight path down. It was like walking down a hallway at midnight, nothing but the sound of your own hoofsteps to accompany you. A recruit would go mad in an environment like this, all by themselves.

The amount of nothing around us made everycreature tense. We had thought the monsters that laid inside the mines had broken through the cave-in. With that now impossible, the uncomfortable question of where they had gotten free took over the mind. The ground, the wall, the ceiling, none seemed safe anymore. At what point did we find the hole that had led to their freedom? All we knew was that at some point, our answer would come.

“Concerning your early question, regarding spells and the like,” DH said, finally breaking the silence. Her voice didn’t bounce off the mine’s walls, a small but unnerving detail concerning ghosts that never really sat right with me. “Most I can teach is some simple things. Outside of mind magic that is all I ever learned.”

“Yeah, and considering what good that has done for me, I’d prefer to not mess with the minds of other ponies,” I whispered, allowing the slightest sign of a frown to appear. “Sharpshot said he isn’t that familiar with magic as well, so that option is out.”

“Which would leave Willow but, uh,” DH chuckled, wearing a goofy grin on her face, “I don’t think learning from a pony who practically only knows advanced magic is a good idea.”

“So I’m shit out of luck.”

“Yeah. Sorry Rhaps.”

“Hey, you still said you could teach me the basics. I’ll take that at least.”

The further down we went, the more time seemed to blend together. A half hour without any sign of Sharpshot or Willow turned into what felt like several mores. While the talk with DH had given me the time to think about what spells I truly had an interest in learning, it couldn’t remain my focus. Anything could be lying ahead, and I needed to focus on keeping my ass alive far before anything else.

It led to pure relief when an unmistakable mix of green light suddenly met our eyes. I motioned with a hoof to pick up the pace as I broke into a brisk gallop towards it. Pupils looked back and forth, searching for anything that might try and catch us off guard. Nothing showed as we grew closer and closer towards the green light of a PipBuck. Bright and brighter it grew until two forms finally showed themselves, both familiar, but only one alive.

It was with a breath of relief that it turned out the living one was Sharpshot, though he certainly didn’t seem in a good mood. Something had tried to take a bite out of him, the tissue that connected his neck to his head looking like it had been pierced by a carnivore. Blood pooled and slid down his front, back against the mine wall as his magic effortlessly moved both needle and string through skin.

Day Glow and I held no subtlety in our approach, and Sharpshot noticed us just as quickly as we noticed him. The rags covering his mouth were down, allowing us to see the pain-laced grimace that took over his expression. He tried to hide it, give us a cheeky grin and some witty comments. All he was able to do instead was grit his teeth as he brought the needle back out of his skin.

“Watch the darkness, make sure nothing gets the jump on us,” I ordered the pegasus and griffon at my side. They did just that, Day Glow watching our flank while Gold aimed Rocke Limit into the darkness we had yet to travel. Meanwhile, I sat down right in front of Sharpshot. “You okay?”

“The fuck does it look like?” He spat back, the rhetorical question emphasized by another harsh wince from the ghoul before me. “Bite is likely infected but I can’t do shit about that now. Left any way of cleaning it with everything else, only have what’s usually on me.”

My attention drifted to his attacker, dead on the ground about a foot away. The creature was equine, or at least it seemed like it at a cursory glance. It was like some alien had heard about a pony and tried to recreate it from a vague description. Sure it was quadruped, had a muzzle, a few strands of hair to make up a mane and tail, and the basics but everything else about it was wrong.

That face for instance, there was absolutely nothing correct about it. Jagged, dirty, and excessively sharp teeth laid inside its maw. Their lips were plain gone, the signs of tearing and pulling visible where they should have been. Sharpshot’s blood dripped from the end of its muzzle and down its chin. Its eyes were glossy, wrong in a way I do not know how to describe other than saying they didn’t look right. The cartilage that made up a pony’s outer ears didn’t exist on it, and no fur to be seen.

The last didn’t just apply to its head, but the rest of the creature’s body. No fur coat, just pale, sickly skin on a body so thin that it looked uncanny. Its hooves were chipped and cracked horribly, but more wrong than that was the way they split. Ponies weren’t kirins or deers, we didn’t have cloven hooves, but just like how the metaphorical alien had fucked everything else up it had gotten that wrong. Tartarus, even calling them cloven feels like an insult. It was like they were clumsy, weird talons like one would see on a griffon or bird.

The only side this had once been an actual, sentient pony was its flank. There was a cutie mark there, but what it represented had faded into something indecipherable. This had once been one of the trapped miners, who in some vague hope at staying alive had turned to means that could only be described as monstrous.

Their means of freedom came in the form of five rounds to the chest and one more to the neck. Somehow the dark ichor that was the creature’s blood seemed to be the most pony thing about it. There was the sign of burning as well, no doubt a result of Flash Fire, where the shots impacted the torso. It wasn’t the bonfire that one stallion back in Trotson had been – the creature shone from some form of wet surface – but it was there.

Dead Hooves stepped towards the beast, eyeing it with a look that is best described as lost. Her gaze was both on the dead monstrosity before her, and somewhere else. It was the same look I had worn when Anchor finally woke me from my stupor, days after the mission in Trotson had gone awry.

“Just like you,” she whispered to nopony. “Just like… mom.”

Her words solidified what I had expected this creature was. This was what Gold had referred to as a craven, the end result of the Gluttonous One’s curse upon those who fed on flesh. The only salivation for anypony at this point was death. Perhaps not even that, for no spirit had arisen from the body after death. It was gone, as utterly destroyed as the body now was.

Inside, I knew exactly what DH was thinking. She had once been destined to fall to this same exact fate. The only thing that saved her was an early death.

“That used to be a pony?” I muttered, more out of shock than anything else.

“Surprising, I know,” Sharpshot replied, similarly quiet. “The Gluttonous One isn’t like the Dealer, he made that clear when I asked him about it. Only time I’ve ever seen him pissed at me, I think.” He snipped the thread he was using for his stitches, then tapped a hoof on Flash Fire. “More durable than your average pony under most circumstances, but don’t like fire. Wasn’t in any real danger.”

I looked back at him, face deadpan. “It bit you.”

“Yeah. I’m sure Anchor bit you a few times too, and you’re still standing,” he replied, smirking at me. If we weren’t in danger, that might have gotten more than just a frustrated scowl out of me. “Eh, worth a try. Seriously though, I’ll be fine. This is nowhere close to the worst I’ve been through.”

“Do I want to know what the worst was?” Day Glow quipped, taking a few steps back so he could look at us a bit easier.

The ghoul’s smirk grew. “Run in with some alicorns about half a century back. Yes, they were around back then, though not the public nuisance they are considered now. Nearly died, would have if I wasn’t a ghoul.” He looked at me, his expression falling into stoicism. “There are a few things that would make me not fit to fight, but this ain’t it. I’m good to go.”

With Sharpshot declaring himself fit to fight, I turned my attention back in the direction of the dead Craven. DH was still standing over it, staring down at something unseen with dilated pupils. I stretched a wing out, gently laying it on her back. That woke her up from whatever memory she was trapped in, eyes returning to normal.

“Thinking about mom, huh?” I asked.

“Yeah. About her, and about what I was supposed to become.” She turned to me, half-fallen ears and a down-cast look making her seem exceptionally vulnerable. “It’s hard to look at any of them and not think how this… this was her fate. She deserved so much better.”

A wing was not enough. I wrapped a hoof around her, giving the ghost mare as much comfort as I was able to offer. She returned it instantly, both forelegs pressing lightly on the back of my neck. Somehow this still didn’t feel like enough, but it was all that a pony like me was capable of.

“Thanks,” she replied.

“Don’t sweat it,” I responded, ruffling her mane slightly. It was an odd feeling, but it got a faint smile out of her. That made it all worth it. “Just think of it like this: whoever this pony was, they are free now.”

DH looked at the craven’s body, a brief note of contemplation on her features. She believed it as little as I really did, but nonetheless the smile returned. Somehow, fooling ourselves in moments like this always made things just a little bit easier.

“I… I like the sound of that,” she said, before looking back down. “There are others who need freeing.”

I nodded before turning back to Sharpshot. “Ready to get moving?”

“Possibly. You're done talking to dead ponies?”

He smirked, I scowled, and Gold snorted in amusement. With a dramatic roll of my eyes, I looked away from the ghoul and down into the darkness. All it took was a motion of my hoof, and we were all moving again.

We did eventually find out how the craven had gotten free, but the reason proved to be a bit more shocking than what any of us would have originally believed. A section of the mine's wall had been blasted away, most likely by dynamite, allowing access to a natural cave. It wasn’t exactly spacious, and the far end of the area was practically a cliff. There was a path, however, uneven but traversable up ahead if the pony watched their step.

Sharpshot took the lead as we made our way into a more natural part of the mine. His horn and PipBuck added to DH and I’s own light, perfectly illuminating the surrounding area. The dripping of water alerted us to how far underground we now were. The stream that connected to the well was somewhere above us. It made the cave walls shine from moisture, and the environment feel colder than it really was. It also made sense why the craven Sharpshot had killed shined like it did; the creature had recently taken a dip in that exact same stream.

“They didn’t open this up to the craven,” Sharpshot said, focusing the light to one specific corner. Old, musty, and rusted mining equipment laid in a far alcove, making up a small camp not far away. “They must have mined into the other tunnel.”

“Most likely situation,” Gold replied. “Watch darkness, stay together. We separate, we die.”

“Should we be worried about Willow, then?” Day Glow asked. His hoove tested the ground beneath us, shining from the moisture dripping from the ceiling. “I don’t trust the surface under us. Really wish I could fly.”

“Consider mechanical wing? Know ponies who can make one,” the griffon said, a slight curve upwards at the ends of his beak. “Pegasus doesn’t deserve being grounded.”

Sharpshot and I both looked to Day Glow, waiting to see how she would handle this. His eyes immediately flitted to his remaining wing, giving it a flap. There was pain visible in what little could be seen of his face. He longed to fly, like all pegasi were born to. Gold was right about none of us wanting to be grounded.

Yet an ArcanaTech-made wing, with what I had experienced from their leadership? There were better ponies to get a prosthetic from, who respected privacy far more. Sure, it might take longer and may not allow for flight, but the phantom limb sensation was dealt with. Somehow, perhaps due to the part of me that was more unicorn than pegasus, I felt that was a decent compromise.

Whether it was a decent enough compromise for Day Glow, however…

A lump formed in my throat as we waited for an answer. I saw ArcanaTech as the wrong choice, and I prayed that he saw the same. I won’t deny soundless prayers leaving my mouth, hoping he did what was right.

As a pegasus looked at a griffon, we received our answer. “Shattered Moon requires its numbers to have complete anonymity in public. You all know I have a history with the councilor. That is already too far in Lady Hash’s eyes. For that reason, I’ll have to decline.”

“Right. Will respect wish,” Gold replied, giving a respectful bow to the pegasus.

He started to move again, taking the front and paying little attention to us. Sharpshot and I shared a look, neither of us feeling safe with the answer. He was probably considering what it meant for Goldms loyalty but I? I was thinking about the loyalty Day Glow had just shown to the Shattered Moon.

His transition mattered more than anything else to him. It was understandable, but it meant I needed to watch what I did. If the Shattered Moon came to consider me a threat – and therefore a danger to his happiness – I would have another pony to keep an eye on. It was unfortunate and I didn’t want to consider it, but as long as my family wasn’t safe I had to consider every possible threat.

I’m sorry, Day Glow. With all you have been through, I didn’t want to consider you a possible threat but… I had no choice.

We trotted along the walls of the cave, eyes scanning the surrounding for activity. Our every step was careful, calculated, making sure not to slip. Our enemy was too deadly for us to make mistakes, anycreature falling an easy target for them. That was unaffordable.

A red dot suddenly appeared on the E.F.S., both Sharpshot and myself raising weapons. It moved around quick, too quick for a normal pony. Left and right across the compass it went, keeping distance. That’s what it seemed like, but as time went on the dot got more erratic. It was getting closer, but nothing appeared in front of us.

Which meant the enemy was up above.

All it took was a simple glance up to see the source of the dot. A craven stared down at me, growling. Teeth ready to sink into flesh, ‘hooves’ clenching the rocky ceiling, its hindlegs coiled. It was about to jump.

“Above us!”

The shout echoed off the walls, likely alerting any craven in the immediate area. That didn’t matter; stealth had been broken the moment red appeared on the E.F.S.

Shots filled my ears as we tried to hit the monster. The only one who did was Day Glow, and that was because he was the craven’s target. Two rounds went into its skull as it lunged at him, the audibly crack of bones reaching out ears. That would have killed a normal pony, but the craven didn’t care.

With what little time he had, Day Glow brought his hooves up to his face. It didn’t care; flesh was flesh, and as the momentum from its leap brought both enemy and ally to the ground it sank its fangs into her foreleg. Day Glow tried to kick it off him, hind hooves beating against the craven’s stomach. It only succeeded at lurching their lower body upwards.

Dashing up to his side, flipped the gun around in my hooves, and slammed the stock into the monster’s head. All it did was jolt their head a bit to the side, eliciting a pained grunt from Day Glow. I wound up again, timing synced to Day’s hindleg getting ready to buck again. Then, with all the power we had, his hoof and my gun slammed into the beast with full force.

The kick made it dry heave, and ramming the stock into their head sent the craven reeling away. Day had more than enough strength to then completely shove it off him, wing pushing the lever action close enough for them to hastily grab. He had just enough time to aim and fire.

One round immediately went into the target’s shoulder, blowing it open to reveal muscle tissue and bone marrow. The craven let out a haunting, pony-like screech as it stumbled into the cave wall. Day Glow merely chambered another round and sent a bullet into its neck.

By all means that should have been a killing blow, but it didn’t. It merely howled again, before leaping away with speed nopony was ever able to rival. As such, Day Glow’s next shot hit nothing but rock, a small dent appearing where it landed.

That was where the rest of us stepped in. With my fellow pegasus still lying on the floor, Sharpshot, Gold, and I quickly raised our weapons and fired. The craven leaped and ducked under fire, unable to dodge every round but refusing to die. Roche Limit ripped apart part of its flank, a blast from my novasurge hit it dead in the chest, Day Glow’s lever action continued to take chunks out of the beast. It still refused to die.

It finally stopped moving when an eardrum shattering bang drowned out every other shot, a single bullet landing right in the craven’s left eye. It screamed, and then suddenly went alight with all the speed and fury of a dead tree. Pony-like screams of terror and agony filled the air as we watched it twist and turn, the monster’s skin burning away like it was paper. It collapsed to the ground, rolling in what moisture remained on the cavern floor. The struggle to put out the blaze was futile, and soon it stopped squirming.

I swore that, as it took its final breath, an appendage similar to a hellhound’s paws was visible. Something reaching out to the air, possibly trying to escape. That was the closest I had ever seen to the Gluttonous One’s actual form; not even DH’s memories had that.

Wishing to think of thoughts far less frightening, I reached a hoof down to Day Glow. He grabbed it immediately, and I pulled him back up. There was the brief sign of a smile before looking down to the foreleg the craven had bit, a deep red visible through the trench coat that made up part of his uniform. He refused to put it on the ground, the tiniest grimace visible on his muzzle.

“Hurts like Tartarus,” he explained with a small chuckle. “Those teeth are practically knives.”

“Jaws of steel to match,” Sharpshot replied, Flash Fire rested telekinetically against his shoulder. He wasn’t fooling anypony; we all saw the fresh blood that trailed down his front. He had reopened his wound. “I’ll take a look, you two keep your eyes out for trouble. Other craven definitely would have heard us.”

He levitated Flash Fire to me, which I grabbed ahold of with my own magic. That was something DH and I had tested out on our way to Nowhere. Apparently we were both able to use magic at the same exact time. Was certainly a helpful trick, even if it merely went as far as making things float for now

With the only weapon that seemed to do any real harm to the craven temporarily in my hooves, I scanned the surroundings. Going from a storm of gunfire to near nothing left things eerie. The craven had proven to be perfectly silent in the dark, despite their speed and twisted hooves. The only indication to their approach was the E.F.S.

It remained blank, much to my annoyance. The lack of red did nothing but made me anxious for what might come.

“Roll it up,” Sharpshot ordered. Looking back, I saw he was pointing to Day Glow’s jacket sleeve. The one the craven had chewed through with ease.

“I’m… not sure if I should.”

“Oh yeah, sure, you get bit by what is basically a wild animal and you think that is fine to just walk off.”

“That isn’t what I mean. Did you not hear what I told Gold?”

There was a small pause, followed by an annoyed howl. “You might have an infected wound and anonymity is your concern.”

“The price for breaking said rules aren’t light. If anypony in the Shattered Moon learn that–“

“There is nopony else in your dumbass organization here! Keep your mouth shut, and you’ll be fine!”

The two looked at each other with something bordering on hostile intent. A placed on hind leg back a bit, ready to intercept what I thought might be a hoof fight. I was all too thankful when Day Glow backed down, rolling up his sleeve, and closed his eyes. He opened them moments later, and let out a sigh of relief for what appeared to be nothing. It didn’t erase the sudden fear that took over his eyes.

If that was the only thing that happened at that moment, I might have asked him if something was wrong. A more pressing matter came to my ears, however. A distance sound, close in resemblance to a voice, had barely made it our way. It was deep, feminine, in pain, the tiniest bit familiar.

Willow Wisp?

“Don’t fall for it.”

I looked at Dead Hooves, the ghost mare shaking her head at me. Fall for… what? The voice I had heard? I gave her a reassuring smile before turning back out towards the rest of the case. No way was I going to investigate something all by myself, especially after how hard it had been to kill just one craven.

“That’ll have to do. Once we get back up top I’ll give it a bit more work,” Sharpshot said, taking a few steps back. Day Glow glared at him. “What?”

“You’re a cunt,” the pegasus stated, face expressionless.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I’m trans.”

“I said something I don’t know. I’m a doctor, I figured that out pretty damn quickly.” He patted Day Glow on the back. Flash Fire was ripped from my telekinetic grip with pure ease. “Now get your ass up, I need to find my wife before she does anything stupid.”

“She ran into mine with no weapon,” Gold shot back, the slightest sign of a smirk on face. “Dumb already happened.”

All the ghoul did was huff in annoyance.

Day Glow got to their hooves, and we started moving towards the source of the earlier sound. If DH’s earlier warning was anything to go by, that was the mimicry of a craven. If one of those was further down the tunnel, we would find Willow there. It made the most sense, given how her mind seemed to work.

The closer we got, the more we heard the cries. It was hard to tell if it was one or two voices we heard, given the uncanny valley said cries fit into. Just pony enough to be believed, but also wrong enough for a clever mare or stallion to question it. For those in a state of distress or lowered guard, or for the curious mind too eager to satiate themselves, it was a siren song.

Like a siren, death would no doubt follow.

Across rock and mineral, vanishing darkness with each step, we went on. My ears were peeled for any oddities in the craven’s banshee screams. The scurrying of hooves could be heard, quieter but still echoing through the tunnel. It was only when we had gotten close enough did I hear everything else.

Not sure how to describe the sounds I heard outside of sounding like they hurt. Impacts and the sound of hoove striking flesh, if I was correct. One particularly nasty snap, and the roar of cravens got slightly quieter. These sounds caused Sharpshot to pick up his pace, no doubt believing Willow was half responsible.

Suddenly, Dead Hooves cut her horn light, shroud us living ponies in darkness. Even through the sudden pitch black of the world, I felt eyes on me. Not that of the craven close by, but Sharpshot leering at me with a look of ‘what the fuck’ on his face. He probably would have said something to me, but the reason for turning the lights off quickly became clear.

Before us were three craven, two alive and one dead. I saw the latter first, a shiver running down my spine as I saw how its body bent. It was like the creature had been turned into a bad art piece, limbs going this way and that. The way the back bent was unnatural, folded up like a sheet of paper. The obvious thing to point hooves at, in terms of a cause of death, was its fellow monsters right in front of it.

I wasn’t entirely sure what they were fighting over, given that I could barely see. What I did know was that they had every intention of killing each other. Stomping, biting, kicking, and as one was a unicorn spearing became another option for their battle. We watched it all, keeping quiet and out of the way.

As the unicorn craven threw the earth pony across the cavern, I noticed somepony in the darkness. They would have been impossible to make out, if not for the horn and wings they bared. Willow raised a hoof to her lips, and then vanished like a ghost. She didn’t need to tell me twice.

I watched the craven fight, waiting for whatever signal the alicorn was about to give me. The earth pony craven, having recovered from being thrown, charged at the unicorn craven. A heavy thud sounded as they clashed again, hooves grappling, attempting to overpower one another. Pure instinctive hatred, no sign of higher thought whatsoever.

The earth pony craven, expectantly, won the battle through force. All it needed was to get a hoof on the other's head to force it to the ground. Many animals would simply make a show of power and be done with it. Craven, however? They’re always hungry, always starving, and an animal in that condition doesn’t care. It just wants food.

I had to hold in a gasp of horror as, with the unicorn craven still below it, the earth pony bit into its neck. A sickening wail allowed me to at least let out a shuddered breath, one shared by traumatized looking DH. She took a step back, only to flinch as she saw the monster before us tear flesh and muscle from bone. It quickly chewed and swallowed, heaving from the speed of it all, before biting down again.

Dead Hooves remembered this feeling. It was one she had fought against in life, and failed to control.

I dared to extend the wing around the ghost in some hope of comfort. Her eyes briefly zipped to me, and then to the cavern floor. No smile, no words, all regret from a pony who wished they were still able to cry. It pained me just as much as it pained her now, given how closely intertwined he had become. We could both be happy with the knowledge that these ponies before us were about to finally get their rest.

If only it came from a pony more sane than Willow.

The earth pony craven continued to tear flesh and meat from the unicorn one. The latter never ceased its struggle, refusing to die even as it bled more and more. I didn’t have time earlier to realize the horror of that, but with us all simply watching this thing get mauled alive…

Imagine being on the verge of death, barely able to do anything, yet not being allowed your rest. It was the closest thing to this that came to mind, terrifying yet still inaccurate. The unicorn craven could still fight, but any resistance it put up was futile.

It would die at some point, right? Fire couldn’t be the only way to kill a craven.

The answer came with the earth pony craven getting lifted into the air by Willow, still invisible to all. Its anger never faded, but there was a hint of confusion. The unicorn sluggishly got back onto its hooves, trying to limp away. A blue aura stopped that, dragging them by the hindlegs back towards the pool of blood that marked the places they had been eaten from.

Both craven struggled under the magical and physical might of the currently invisible alicorn. While the unicorn wreathed in its own blood, the earth pony was carried over to the cavern walls. Willow slammed the latter into the rocky surface, and finally revealed herself. Bloodlust in her eyes, smile far too natural for what she was about to do, hoof on the craven’s neck. With the twisting and turning of her toe, she put more and more pressure onto the cannibal monster, screams of rage turning into gasps for air. The sound only excited the alicorn more.

“Knock knock, anypony home?” She asked, tilting her head slowly.

All she got was a craven choking under her hoof. Willow dared to place her muzzle closer and closer to the beast’s own. It did its best to snap at her through what little it could breathe. That amount became zero as the pressure on its neck increased. It was a miracle their neck hadn’t snapped under Willow’s strength.

“Anypony? Anything at all?” She asked again. When nothing came, a snap filled the air, and the craven went limp. “Thought so.”

The craven’s body fell to the ground with a thud. No breathing, spasming, or anything else. There was something nearly comical about how easily Willow had killed it, compared to us. After a gentle caress of the dead body, she turned to us.

“You can turn the lights on. This one isn’t going to harm us,” she explained, trotting over to the unicorn craven.

DH barely got the spell up before Sharpshot rushed towards his wife. He stood between her and her prey, the only pony out of all of us brave enough to stand between her and a kill. Even more surprisingly, Willow didn’t just weave around him. She stopped, looked down at her husband, and then pawed the rocky ground under her.

“I-I needed to kill something, okay?”

Sharpshot merely shook his head. Raising up Flash Fire, he set five rounds into the craven behind him. Its inside’s lit up like an old world fireplace, organs and muscle tissue taking the place of tinder and logs. Both husband and wife stayed quiet as the beast let out its final screams of life.

They sounded less beastlike and more like normal speech. To this day I swear the word “help” came out of its mouth in those final moments.

“That’ll have to be enough,” he said, voice cold and face expressionless. He couldn’t keep that up, relief flooding his facial features as he wrapped his forelegs best he could around Willow. “For fucks sake hun, don’t just take off like that. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry, Sharpy. Sorry,” she replied, hugging him back with a single foreleg. The blood craze in her had died down, leaving melancholy in its wake. “It’s just… it’s been days since I’ve bloodied my hooves. I needed this.”

“We were going to kill some bugs tomorrow. You could have waited till then, I know it,” Sharpshot replied. Willow nodded her head, and the ghoul turned his head to us. “Can you three give us some time? I would like to talk to her in private.”

We spent their conversation out of ears reach, meant going quite a ways back. Through the hole the miners had made into the natural cave, and back up some ways. No danger, so we made ourselves cozy and sat down. Day Glow has a fair number of questions, mainly concerning exactly what he had just killed. The horror that filled the young soldier's eyes as I told him of the Gluttonous One, the cannibal curse, and the slow transformation into a monster, left him temporarily speechless.

Trying to explain how I had lived the experience, through DH’s memories, didn’t make things better. The curiosity Day had was staggering, and against his better judgment he inquired further about what had happened to me in the past few weeks. I hid nothing, explained everything, including that which might forever alter his feelings on me.

That included the truth of my ancestry.

Gold just grinned at me, that alone saying everything. He had already known, of course he had. Saw clear through me like Sharpshot and Willow had, though without knowing about my ties to DH. Either way he wasn’t shocked.

Day Glow’s reaction, however, gave me a major case of deja vu. The sudden silence, the betrayed expression, the stare. It was exactly like how I had been when Angel Hair had told me of her origins. Being on the receiving end of it… it was like a knife I had used a thousand times correctly suddenly piercing my heart. It was awful; I never wanted to see it again.

“Lieuten– Counci– how in the–“ Day Glow’s constant stop and start only made that feeling worse. One foreleg covered his muzzle, the other his chest. “You’re sure? Like, sure sure. They weren’t… I mean the test had to be wrong, right?” He turned to Gold, only to look back when the griffon ignored his question. “Right?”

“Considering they are probably the best minds in the entire wasteland,” I replied, eyes focused on my own hooves, “no. They got it right.”

“You’re part-grounder. You are part grounder.” His words hurt nearly as much as his earlier look. The foreleg covering his muzzle went up to his head. “I can’t. I mean, how did… I voted for you!”

That struck more than just my heart. Pain turned to anger, brow furrowed. He shuffled back as I got up and sped-trot up to them. I didn’t stop moving till we were muzzle to muzzle, forehead to forehead, eye to eye.

“Yes, and I did everything I could to help the Enclave,” I growled. “I served alongside you I fought for everypega’s safety from what we saw as a threat. I didn’t know I was half-unicorn, and just like you or my husband and so many others.”

I paused, taking notice of the sudden fear in Day’s eyes, and took a step back. With a deep breath, I did my best to calm myself to an understandable degree. The anger was still there when I was done, but I had a little more control over it. With a look to my foreleg, I considered everything I had just felt.

This is how Angel Hair felt, wasn’t it? When I had told her to forget her heritage. Only thing that kept her from cursing me out then and there was being in an Enclave bar, and being a commissioned officer.

“Day Glow, listen to me,” I ordered. His ears swiveled manually to show he was. “My name is Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody, member of the Enclave High Council, a proud protector of pegasus-kind, and mother of two amazing little fillies. This is who I was, who I am, and who I will continue to be. That won’t change just because I’m half-unicorn.” I placed a hoof on his shoulder. “I took your induction into the Shattered Moon with no trouble. I ask you to do the same, for something like this.”

It was clear I had hit a chord the moment he hung his head. Shame colored his eyes, a sign that he realized how he had just screwed up. He closed his eyes, steadied his breath, and then lifted his head up to look at me.

“The Enclave was wrong then, about half-grou–” a hardened expression was all it took to redirect his words, “I mean, they are wrong about only purebloods being good officers.”

I nodded and sat down. “It would seem so.”

“Sorry LT.”

“A simple sorry doesn’t cut it with me, you know that,” I replied. “Even in the Enclave, such discourse during deployment would see punishment. It was lenient, yes, but purebloods needed to remember that, in the heat of battle, that shit doesn’t matter. Break orders simply because it involves interacting with a half-breed means punishment.”

“What are you getting at?” Day Glow asked. All I did was smirk, and her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “Um, ma’am, you aren’t going to–”

“Hey, Gold,” I called out. The griffon blinked, and then tilted his head in my direction. “You have an interest in culture, right? How would you like to witness the standard training regimen of an Enclave recruit.”

He briefly looked away and tapped the bottom of his beak, then nodded. “Would be interested. Fought Enclave before, but never studied.”

“You heard him, Day Glow,” I said, playfully nudging my old squadmate. “Gonna put you through the ringer tomorrow, just like old times. Oh, and no complaining about your legs either.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, saluting. Despite the show, it was impossible to not see the way his eyes slanted slightly. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

As the faint echo of hooves hit our ears, eyes turned into the depths of the mine. Gold had gripped Roche Limit, likely for the off chance it was a craven. I followed suit, raising my weapon down into the darkness of the cavern. It proved unnecessary when a familiar white and blue mane came into view.

“Wouldn’t recommend firing. Any bullet that hit me would coincide with the snap of a neck,” Willow said, an innocent smile capping off her threat. “Nopony wants that.”

“Nopony likes being threatened too,” Sharpshot replied, rolling his eyes. The two stopped before us, smiles on their faces. “What did we miss?”

“Nothing important,” I answered. Gold and Day Glow both nodded in solidarity at my statement. “Are we all done with this little impromptu adventure? I'm more than ready to hit the hay.”

“Almost. One more problem on list to fix,” Gold said. “Talisman blocking cave down. Can’t fix, but need to keep craven in here.”

“Yeah, most aren’t as prepared for them like we are,” Sharpshot said, nodding. “Thankfully that shouldn’t be too hard.”

Day Glow leaned forward. “You got some way to fix that.”

Sharpshot walked over to the mine walls and tapped them with the toe of his hoof. “Depends. How pissed will your higher ups be if we cause another cave in.”

“You’re going to what?!”

“Destroy the entrance to the mine, and make sure nopony in it can get hurt,” I explained to Malt, watching my companions as they lined up dynamite across the mine’s mouth. “It’s for the best. What we saw down there needs to be sealed away.”

“But my brother’s spirit! He’a still down there!” The earth pony ghost moved right in front of me, anger having overwhelmed all his facial features. Didn’t blame him, considering how little he knew. “You can’t just lock him down there. If you do, the stripes win.”

I looked him in the eyes, meeting his rage as head on as possible. “You’re brother isn’t coming out of there. His spirit is gone, eaten by a thing that hungers for pony flesh. I’m making sure that creature has less chance of hurting others.”

We stared at each other, Malt’s anger faltering while I remained calm and stoic. He wanted some sign that I was lying about this all, that my claims of cannibal spirits were fraudulent. He was probably hoping it would give him some reason to call me a zebra sympathizer, given our short interaction earlier that night. Easier to point hooves than face the truth.

Yet as we stared, he started to falter more and more. Rage was replaced by horror, realization, and gloom. Finally he took one step back, then another, and then finally sat down. Only then did I allow myself to move, closing my eyes and lower my head.

“I’m sorry, Malt. I wish it wasn’t true, but it is,” I said, voice low and quiet. Opening my eyes, I saw the poor ghost shivering in fright, having finally accepted my words as fact. “You’re brother, along with the other miners, turned to darker means when no help appeared just to live a little longer. They didn’t know of the evil they were letting in.”

“Malt?” Attention shifted to our left, DH sitting down with us after a short disappearance upon leaving the mine. Apparently the amount of magic we had both used had led to a slight horn ache. “My mother died because of the same spirit, and I nearly followed her. The best we can do for them, at the stage they were at down their, was put them in a position where they couldn’t hurt anypony.”

Malt’s head jerked downward once, then twice. He let out a reluctant huff of ethereal breath, the scowl on his face taking on a moodier form. He looked back to the mind entrance, lifted one foreleg to reach out to no one, but stopped midway. Hesitantly, he let that hoof meet the sand yet again.

“Over a dozen lives were lost from that cave in. Too many for you anypony alive to free in a place so large and dark,” he stated, speaking more to himself than DH or I. He looked back to us, a melancholic acceptance clear to everypony. “This will keep them from hurting anyone, right?”

I nodded. “As long as the dynamite we gathered from your village still works.”

“It will,” he said. “Celestia and Luna as my witness, it will do what nopony else here can. What that… zebra had been firmly aware of.” He shook his head, chuckling. “Guess there is one good family of ‘em out there. You ever meet him, tell him thanks for not telling us shit… and trying to keep ponies safe.”

“Not much of a thanks if you ask me,” DH replied, muzzle scrunched up in displeasure.

“More than you’d see most of us Equestrians ever give ‘em,” Malt spat back. “He’ll have to take it. Not giving them more for what they did to Equestria. Tartarus, as far as we can tell Trotson is just a giant ball of dust because of them.”

“Can we at least have their name?” I asked. “Hard to give your ‘thanks’ without knowing if we were giving it to the correct zebra.”

“Fair enough. They go by Liberty, not exactly the most stripe-sounding name I’ve heard but that’s what it is.” He briefly looked behind us, and then back to me. “Oh, uh, I know your none spirit-seeing friends won’t care but you’re all welcome to make yourselves at home. Seeing other Equestrians around has been nice.”

Malt made off after that, joining the rest of his ghostly brethren who were all murmuring in worry at what everyone was doing at the mine entrance. DH and I watched him, the former never really able to get rid of the disgusted look on her face. No need to guess why; even in thanking the zebra responsible for warding the mines, Malt had thrown half her heritage under the bus. The end of the world had done nothing but strengthen his hatred. To those like him, the Zebrican Empire had won.

“Fuck him, am I right?” I asked jokingly, trying to distract her a bit.

Her response was a snort and grin. “Pot calling the kettle black there, Rhaps.”

“Well the pot is trying to clean its act up,” I responded. “Let’s just say what Day Glow said at the end there, back in the mine? Opened my eyes up a bit.”

“So you were fed your own medicine, and found that it does nothing good.”

My ears folded back at the cruel, if incredibly accurate, statement. My growing sheepishness was swiftly dispersed by Dead Hooves throwing a foreleg around my withers. She was now the one wearing a disarming smile, though less smug and more sympathetic.

“If it hurts to hear, that's a good sign. It tells me you care,” she said.

“I guess I’ve become rather easy for you to read,” I replied. My attention turned back to the mine; they seemed about done setting up the dynamite. “Hey DH?”

“Yeah?”

“Our we one or two?”

DH tilted her head. “One or two what?”

“Ponies. Are we still separate ponies, or the same one?” My eyes drifted to her. “You can feel my wings, I can feel your horn. We share each other's memories, and therefore have lived each other's experiences. Your mom and dad feel like they are just as much family as my own.” I frowned. “More family than them, in many ways.”

She blinked, and then tilted her head up to the sky. “Weird question. Kind of… existential, I think?”

“Yeah, existential.” I sighed. “It’s scary, and I’d rather not think too hard about it but… my life feels so different now. It’s like the surface has brought pieces out of me that I’d never known existed.”

Dead Hooves opened her mouth to reply, only for a certain ghoul’s voice to cut through the air like a dull knife.

“Everything is set up. Everypony alive, get back!”

Three groups of hooves and one pair of griffon talons galloped away from the mine. I trotted backwards till we were at a point considered safe. Many ghosts were still asking Malt if this truly needed to be done. He never turned to argue with DH and I, so we never changed course.

Willow, the speedy mare that she is reached my side first. Day Glow and Sharpshot followed, with Gold just slightly behind. We stood in a line, side by side, and each took a look over the dynamite placement. If Gold was correct, we placed them just inside enough where not a single beam of light would make it through the closed off entrance. No craven would make it out into the darkness of night.

All our shit had been moved out already, so one final step laid before us. Sharpshot lifted Flash Fire, took a brief glance through the scope, and then floated it over to Day Glow. The one winged pegasus tilted his head in confusion.

“Safer for you to do it then me,” he explained. “Besides, this would probably look better for the Shattered Moon if you do it, right?”

Day Glow leered at me. “You say that like ponies are going to learn about this.”

“Better safe than sorry,” he replied. “You’re kind is the authority here, after all.”

Day Glow snagged the enchanted zebrican sniper rifle from mid air and immediately set it down on the desert floor. He laid down with it, checked to make sure the scope was zeroed, and lastly made sure it had a round in the chamber. With everything set, her shoulder went up against the stock, hoof teasing the trigger.

With a press, a shot rang out, followed by a thunderous boom. A cacophony of dust, sand, shattered rock and otherwise burst from where there used to be a mine’s entrance. There were shrieks and gasps only I was able to hear, coming from the ghosts who called this mining camp home. More than a few pleaded that our plan wouldn’t work.

The wasteland responded by tossed dust and sand parting to reveal a heap of rock and wood. We stood there and took it all in, waiting for the wind to be the only thing in most everyone’s ears. When that was done, Sharpshot let out an impressive whistle. Gold clicked his beak, the closest thing he had to copying the ghoul.

“There we go. As long as no idiots try to clean this up nopony will be hurt,” Sharpshot explained, turning to Day Glow. “You make sure word gets out about this, okay?”

Day Glow nodded.

“I’m still sad you wouldn’t let me kill more of them,” Willow said. “Killing craven always made me feel good.”

“We’ll likely be killing some bugs tomorrow hun. Just hold on till then,” Sharpshot replied, patting one of her forelegs with a hoof. He took some steps backwards to give himself space to turn around, and then headed towards Nowhere. “Well, I don’t know about you all but I’ve had enough excitement for one night. Catch ya in the morning.”

Our group slowly dispersed, everyone following suit until it was the ghost villagers, DH, and myself looking over the rubble. The question I had asked Dead Hooves just moments earlier climbed back to the surface. I hadn’t gotten an answer, and I needed one.

“The ward believed I was dead.”

The spectral mare looked at me, eyes wide. “Huh?”

“The talisman that kept you from originally going in the mine. We are so closely tied together that it considered me a spirit, and not a living pony,” I explained. I brought one of my hooves up to my face, examining as much of it as possible. “It’s just… shouldn’t we be worried about that? What if the line continues to blur, and I start thinking I’m you?”

“I… haven’t considered that,” she said. Her eyes flitting to her back, no doubt to the phantom wings she had begun to recently feel. “It’s happening fast.”

“Yeah.” I swallowed, bit my lower lip hard, and lowered my hoof. “Am I dying?”

“Are you…,” her attention was immediately back on me, “you think you’re….”

“I mean, it’s a possibility, right? You’re dead and everything that is happening to it doesn't seem normal for a spirit medium. Gold seemed surprised when I managed to do telekinesis like it was second nature.”

“So you think I might….”

DH couldn’t get the words out of her mouth, hanging her head due to an invisible weight. She wanted me to die as little as I wanted to, and yet neither of us were able to say ‘no’. How could we? This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“If I’m not dying, then we’re blending together,” I said. DH jolted up. “I mean, maybe it's the same thing as dying but that sounds better right?”

Dead Hooves opened her mouth to speak, then shook her head and looked away. “I’d rather not think about it. Everything will be fine, Rhaps, I’m sure.”

I frowned at the deflection, and then sighed. My eyes trailed down to my forelegs, as if they or the sand beneath them would give me an answer. I got nothing of course, and that just lead to the question repeating over and over again in my head.

Am I dying? I’d rather not know. Perhaps it was best to just let that day come, and never have to worry about it all again.

Act 2 – Chapter 10: Death

Day 10

Nowhere, San Palomino Desert

If only that was the end of my night, but something out there wouldn’t let me sleep just yet.

It wasn’t anything dangerous that kept me up. The ghosts that had called this town home had more than a few questions as to why the mine had been destroyed. There was only so much Malt could do to calm them; they needed to hear the truth from the ponies who were responsible for the eternal burying of their family.

Listening to every one of them grieve for family lost or turned though, it was another sign of pain on an agony filled night. It was like having to tell the family of a soldier that their sibling or child had died. At least those families could believe that death had meant something, defense of a country or otherwise. It was not the same here.

Giving them all closure meant watching as mother and father, sibling or cousin, wept. They had to accept that the souls among their community still missing would never come up. Whether they were lost in the caves or devoured by the Gluttonous One didn’t matter. The tears were the same.

I was so tired when it was all said and done. My hooves were practically dragging through the sand as I entered Nowhere proper, E.F.S. leading to where my companions had decided to sleep for the night. I didn’t bother to make it inside like the rest of them, instead slumping to the ground up against the wooden walls of our makeshift sleeping quarters. That should have been the point I had finally been able to pass out.

Unfortunately, one earlier question was still lingering in my head like a horrid smell.

Am I dying?

It wasn’t the first time the question of mortality had reached my head, but never before had it felt so bleak. Back home, in the Enclave, dying meant something more than just fading into the afterlife. You had served a cause, helped defend your fellow pegasi, made your friends and family proud. Sure, dying itself was not something to openly seek but at least life had a clearly defined meaning.

Back then there was also the possibility of some greater afterlife. The words ‘they are off to the Everafter’ felt real. There was something grander to what came next, a place to enjoy eternal rest. It certainly seemed better than believing there was nothing after, or that we became nothing but a wandering spirit with no way to contact those alive that we love.

These were, to me, the keys that made death something to find comforting. Now I had learned the truth, and like every other time the wool had been stripped from my eyes since arriving on the surface I hated it.

Moondancer forcing Bone Breaker into commiting suicide, the remains of those who had died from balefire in Trotson, and now these miners who were twisted beyond recognition. What purpose did these deaths serve? What reason was there for a son to watch their mother kill themselves against their own will? Perhaps if there was something greater to what came after I could be assured these souls found peace in death.

Yet they didn’t, instead living in a limbo that can’t be escaped. There was no resurrection, no eternal peace, just endless wandering. Sure there were other spirits by your side but they were… oddly few. Gemmy mentioned something happening to her mom’s spirit that took them away forever. Was everypony fated for that same oblivion?

Which all led back to the question that sent me down such a terrible spiral: am I dying? Nothing I had said answered the question. It just made saying ‘yes, I am dying’ much harder. Denying that reality felt easier, even if it didn’t solve anything.

My ears perked up on a sound, the steps of a creature not far away. It got ever so slightly louder and louder, closer and closer. It wasn’t an equine like myself; no clip clop of hooves with each step that hit my ears. I didn’t initially think anything of it, believing it to be another ghost.

Then, a pair of talons landed in front of me. My head jerked up, staring at them blankly for a moment. They didn’t belong to Gold, his were a bright yellow compared to this griff’s dull gray. The question of who this was had been firmly set in my mind. All I needed to do was look up to get my definitive answer.

The first thing to meet my eyes was the barely visible upward curve at the end of their beak. This was quite possibly the largest griffon I had ever seen, with a wing span large enough to encircle an entire settlement's worth of ponies. Pitch black feathers would have made them nothing but an outline if not for the predatory purple eyes staring down at me.

My heart skipped a beat. Even with the calming, almost maternal smile on their face, this griffon was terrifying. I was but a mouse before a cat. My mouth opened to speak up, but nothing came out. After what felt like half an hour of silence between us, they proceeded to pick up one of the talons…

And placed it on my mane.

“Hello, Singing Rhapsody,” they said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Maternal had definitely been the right descriptor. For as might and powerful as the griffon looked, there was a gentleness to them that proved indescribably. Their talons flowed through my mane pleasantly, and for a moment I felt myself get swept away in it. The sudden departure of their claws was like a wake up call to my body.

“I-I, um,” I blinked wildly, looking over their body for anything that might be remotely familiar, “do I know you?”

“Yes, though you not recognizing me is understandable,” they replied, the slightest sign of amusement in their breath. They made their way to my side, sitting down and wrapping their wings around me. It was warm, protective, and comforting. “Think about your younger days, when you didn’t have food to eat, or the grenade that nearly killed you on your first deployment. Perhaps both the close encounters with an alicorn in your later years in the Enclave’s service, or that…”

Their expression fell, their wings pressing against me just the tiniest bit. They stared into the palm of their talons for a moment, and then pressed it into their chest.

“That horrible tragedy in Trotson, five years ago.”

With each event mentioned, I felt the skin under my coat pale more and more. I search my memory for any sign of a pitch black griffon during those. Nothing came up, but that only led to another question. Most of the aforementioned incidents were from my time in the military, and I could imagine learning about them to some extent.

Those younger, hungry days, after mom had disappeared? They didn’t line up with the others. What the griff said was all true though; after mom got thrown in jail and dad started his own mental spiral, food rarely came into our house. Everything we had was spent on his alcohol addiction, meaning he stayed drunk and I stayed hungry. If it wasn’t for Ironsight finding out about everything, and his family personally feeding me, I wouldn’t be around today.

Young, dependent Singing Rhapsody, too idiotic to realize what starving was doing to her.

“He really was a shit father,” I muttered to myself. After a moment of silence, I looked up at the griffon before me. “How did you know about that?”

“I was there, Rhapsody. I already told you as much,” they explained, bringing a talon to their beak in order to hide their amusement. “I’m proud of you for living through that, and your resolve to make sure your own foals don’t end up the same.”

I shot up, backing away from their wing. My own sprung out, ready to fight or fly. This griffon stayed calm, shaking their head in what I assumed to be amusement. They must have seen me as a non threat.

“What in Tartarus do you know about Clear and Rainy?” I asked, practically growling at the griffon.

“I know they miss you, Rhapsody. As does Iron Anchor,” they responded. I winced, wings bending as I took a step back. “Having their mother disappear like that, with your husband unable to tell them the full truth. As far as they know, you’re dead.”

My legs collapsed under me, staring expressionless into the griff's eyes from what can best be described as a verbal punch to the gut. They… thought I was dead. Of course they thought I was dead; to all but the military the surface was believed to be a skin eroding, organ melting furnace. From Clear and Rainy’s perspective the Enclave had tossed me down here to die. Murdered, for reasons nopony but the very top of the government body would ever know.

The griffon closed the distance between us without me noticing, once again wrapping a wing around me. Their talons ran from my withers to halfway down my back in a slow, yet pleasant motion. It was calming, my heartbeat and breathing returning to a steady rate. I hadn’t even realized how close I had been to hyperventilating until right then.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the griffon replied. They repeated those words like a mantra for a while, and it seemed to further relax me for reasons I didn’t understand. “Listen to me, Rhapsody.”

I looked up to her, showing she had my attention.

“There is nothing you could do about it,” they explained, continuing to stroke my back even after I had fully calmed down. “Perhaps coming down here was a mistake, or perhaps it wasn’t. I’m not the judge of that, and I can’t fix it for you if the end conclusion is that it was wrong.”

All I could really think of doing at that moment was stare at them. I knew that; I had said and thought those same words multiple times in Trotson in my first week on the surface. Yet, hearing it from this unknown griffon somehow hit me differently.

To scold, then comfort and help in the way they had. Anchor and I had done that to Clear and Rainy before, when I was upset at them. No raised voice, just a slightly harsh tone and being as up front with them as possible. It was the correct way to treat foals, the one that didn’t end with them being afraid of you. That… was now being used on me.

“You have a question,” the griffon stated.

I wasn’t sure if I really did before she had said those words. After some thought, however? Yes, I definitely did.

“Who… are you?” I asked. That sentence was a floodgate, causing me to lean in and my mouth to keep moving. “How did you know about my… my foalhood? The other things, yeah, I can imagine words perhaps getting out around the surface but that makes no sense.”

My haunches raised slightly, in hopes to get ever closer to those glowing purple eyes above me. I felt a tentative smile reach my lips as something long buried, a piece of me long kept locked up, broke free.

“Have you been to the Enclave? How did you get past the cloud barrier and the guards? I mean, I think it would have been big news if a griffon managed to get past us. How did you avoid every–“ I stopped myself, realizing what I was doing. The buried piece was locked up again, and the soldier returned with a look of tense fury. “You didn’t just choose those earlier examples for no reason. Did you?”

The griffon nodded, her wing folded back up, and she stepped in front of me. Eye to eye, her wings extended once again, blocking the stars, the moon, everything. Even where her wings didn’t cover, the outlines of buildings or distant dunes that once were visible had now disappeared. When they were folded again, I was expecting the faint moonlight to return.

Instead, the darkness stayed, all consuming. Out of curiosity, I stretched a foreleg out to my left, where a rickety old building should have caught it. Instead it completely straightened out, hoof touching nothing. I slid towards the invisible building, searching for what I knew should have been there. I was met with nothing, absolutely nothing.

I let my hoof touch the ground again, and looked at the griffon with wide eyes and a loud inhale through gritted teeth. “What… are you?”

“Death,” the griffon replied instantly. I instantly tensed up, leading them to raise a talon. “Your fear is understandable, Rhapsody. I promise, I’m not going to harm you.”

“But… but you are–“

“I am not here to claim your soul either, or take you to the afterlife. I doubt I’ll be doing that for a long, long time,” Death says, chuckling lightheartedly. They motioned with a talk to our right, and I followed where it led. Two sofa chairs had appeared out of nowhere, dark red and inviting in a way I can’t explain. “I would just like to chat with you. Is that okay?”

I looked from Death, to the chairs in question, and then back to them. Something deep inside me, born from either the griffon's menacing appearance or the motherly way they acted, made turning down the offer feel wrong. Besides, it wasn’t like we hadn’t been talking already, and if they were here to claim my soul they would have likely done it by now.

Body still tense, refusing to let my eyes leave them in fear of what it might mean, I slowly made my way over to the chairs in question. Death didn’t start moving until I had already seated myself, sitting down to my left. I spent the majority of that time shifting around and fluttering my wings in extreme discomfort.

Not from the chair, it was actually extremely comfy. It was like sitting on a cloud that had broken loose back home. I’m absolutely positive Death had chosen that on purpose. It would have been more effective at relaxing me if they weren’t there.

What other reaction is a pony supposed to have when the physical incarnation of death was right there. As pleasant as they were – as willing as I am to admit they had been nothing but nice to me – my stomach was still twisted into several knots at their mere presence. What did they want from me? What reason would Death be here for if not to claim my physical body?

They answered both questions immediately after sitting down.

“I have already talked to your other half concerning this topic,” Death said. I immediately snapped my head their way, and was ushered to calm down. “Dead Hooves, I mean, not Iron Anchor. I feel the term best describes your, odd state of existence as of right now.”

“Just say DH then, next time,” I spat back. They nodded, smiles growing slight. It was as ineffective as it was previously. “What do you learn by ‘odd state’.”

They sighed. “I wish I could put it in a way that didn’t sound like a riddle. To try and make it as straightforward as possible, I have the answer to your earlier question, concerning whether you are dying.”

I bit the inside of my lip hard, to the point I could taste copper in my mouth. “The… the answer?”

“You are, at least spiritually, dead.”

The only word I paid any attention to was that last one: ‘dead’. I’m damn certain my heart stopped at that moment, if it had somehow still been functioning before that point. Every single hair on my body, head to tail, was on end, throat clogged by something I can’t comprehend. I take back what I said when Death mentioned my husband and foals. That was a verbal gut punch, this was a sword going through my heart and out my back.

My head hit the neck of the chair, its soft, cushioning material felt far too hard for the circumstances. I was dead. I was actually dead. While I should have asked about the obvious problems with their statement, my brain was too scattered to think about it.

“Yet, at the same time,” Death continued, her expression having shifted far more towards worry as they read my reaction, “through some strange loophole that the Infinite had only now decided to show to me, you are not. You, Singing Rhapsody, are just as much alive as you are dead.”

If that was somehow meant to calm me, it did a very bad job. My head was still spinning, mind fixated on the fact that I wasn’t alive to some measure. My chest started to rise and fall far more rapidly, wings flapping uselessly at my sides. I probably would have fainted if it had been allowed to continue.

Death, however, was not going to allow that.

Our chairs were close enough for their talons and wings to wrap around me, and they wasted no time doing just that. I was suddenly shielded in warmth, as comforting as before. There was the slight tugging of my mane being brushed, and combined with the aforementioned feathery embrace I felt that panic began to die.

Breathing slowed, chest rising and falling at a more normal rate, the only remains of my immediate panic was the beating in my heart. It would have been a sign of calm, if my mind wasn’t still focused solely on one thing.

I was, to some extent, dead.

“How… wh-why am I–”

“Being scared is completely understandable,” Death said. “Take your time, calm down, and then ask me whatever you need to.”

I closed my eyes, and immediately felt something wet fall down my face. “But I’m d-dead. Y-you said I’m dead.”

“I also said that, somehow, you aren’t,” they replied. Lowering their heads so that they didn’t tower over me, I felt another talon start to caress my back. “You're confused, you're scared, that is all normal. Let me assure you of one thing, once again: I’m not here to take you away.”

I opened my eyes and looked directly at Death. Our eyes were level to each other, and in theirs I saw honesty, kindness, and fear. Fear for me, for how I had reacted, and what it might lead me to do in the future. Seeing this mighty, terrifying griffon be afraid of what I could do to myself, it was the biggest comfort they were able to offer me.

My heartrate was finally dropping, leaving me tired and frazzled. Messy mane, tear-stained face, dry mouth and throat. My reaction was about on par with how I had reacted to being half-unicorn, though slightly more subdued and far more understandable.

“Death?”

“Please,” their talon moved to wipe away my tears, “call me Vigil.”

“O-okay, Vigil.” I swallowed, then took a deep breath, “what do you mean by ‘not entirely dead’?”

“That is going to take some explaining, but we got the time,” Vigil said. They removed their wings and talons from me, and with the latter they grabbed two small, porcelain cups that had appeared from nowhere. “Have you ever had tea, Rhapsody?”

“I haven’t,” I answered. “What does it have to do with me being dead?”

They giggled and shook their head. “Nothing. It’s a caffeinated drink, a lot like coffee. The difference is that tea acts more as a way to calm a pony, then energize.”

They showed the inside of one of the cups to me. I looked inside, taking note of a strange, reddish liquid. Steam rose from it, filling the air with a wonderful, fruity smell. The corners of my lips ever so slightly tugged up as I breathed it in.

“This cup is for you, if you are interested,” Vigil said.

I nodded, carefully placing the cup in my hoove and bringing it to me. I sat there for a full minute, taking in the smell like it was the only thing that mattered. It was so rich, so natural, if I hadn’t known I was supposed to drink it then I would have just sat there basking in fruity heaven forever. I didn’t even realize I was taking my first sip until after the liquid had hit my tongue.

Needless to say, it tasted just as good as it smelled. Just as fruity, soothing, and not so strong it was overpowering. Better than any coffee or alcohol I had ever had before. One sip alone was enough to make every muscle in my body relax, though I doubt that was fully thanks to the tea.

Either way, it was heavenly.

If it wasn’t for it being hot, I would have downed it all in one go. Instead, I took sip after sip, forcing myself to savor the drink before me. It removed the dry feeling from my throat, a welcoming comfort after an ugly, rare cry. Letting my head lean against the back of the sofa chair, I found it felt perfect. A far cry from how hard it had been during my earlier fit of panic.

“Everycreature has a mind, body, and soul,” Vigil suddenly said. I placed my now empty cup on the chair's armrest and leaned forward. They had my full attention. “Any one of these being annihilated leads to death. The means may be different, and sometimes it might simply be the death of identity, but that doesn’t change the truth.

“Your oddity began when, one week ago, your soul experienced death. You didn’t notice it, none of your companions did, and Dead Hooves had no idea what she had done.” My eyes went wide. Vigil gazed at me with a fierce but sympathetic glint in their eyes. “You know exactly what event I’m referring to.”

I nodded. “When Dead Hooves cast that memory spell for the first time, in that medical clinic.”

“No. She cast it for the first time in Alibi Street Cinema.”

I blinked, then began searching my memories for any sign of Dead Hooves on that second day in Trotson. My mind came up blank, and DH’s memories were so ingrained within my own mind picking out when I had seen them was impossible. It all just felt like a part of me, something that had always been there despite knowing full well it wasn’t the case. I rubbed my temple, the futile search bringing my head to hurt maddeningly.

“I… don’t remember her being there,” I said. “Are you sure that she was there?”

“I have notes on every living creature on this planet, Rhapsody. If something affects my domain, I would know of it,” Vigil explained, the slightest show of authority in their voice. “From the moment you two first met, your notes have grown increasingly less understandable. What does makes sense is this,” they drank the last of their tea, and set it down, “whatever happened to her memory spell, when it crossed from the plane of the dead to that of the living, led to your soul… being eaten, similar yet different to that of a craven.”

“Wh-what?” I asked. Needing to check the current state of my existence, I pressed my right hoof into my left foreleg. There was a slight twinge of pain from the action. “But, how? I feel as alive as I always have.”

There was a brief pause, before Vigil answered. “Tell me, Rhapsody, if Dead Hooves’ spirit was being consumed by what you all refer to as ‘the Gluttonous One’, then why is it whole?”

There was a sinking feeling in me, though I wasn’t quite sure I understood it. Why was it whole? What did that have to do with anything? I mean, sure, DH had been infected by the Gluttonous One but why could that possibly…

…

Oh.

“If…,” I had to swallow yet another lump in my throat. It was starting to get annoying, how often that was forming. “If it had eaten away only some small part of her spirit before she died, then I guess there should be some gaps or whatnot.” Vigil nodded, telling me I was on the right track. “It’s whole though, like you mentioned. If those gaps weren’t filled in by Dead Hooves… then it was filled in by the spirit that had taken her as a host.”

Silence gripped the air like a vice, and all I got in response was a hesitant nod from the griffon sitting next to me. A loud, defeated breath found its way out of my lips. I hung my head in grim acceptance, a noiseless ‘fuck’ mouthed. The sinking feeling had shown where its existence came from, and I now wished it had stayed hidden instead.

Dead Hooves was, by all means, the exact same creature now that had infected her in life. The pony she had afflicted in turn? Myself.

There was absolutely no way she could have known about this. All she had wanted to do was validate Sharpshot’s claims that I was related to her, nothing more. Eating my spirit, bonding us together to the point that I was able to use her horn as my own, she hadn’t planned for any of that. Sure, it explained everything, and my view of what was normal had been so skewed that I had immediately accepted Vigil’s claim as fact, but no way in Tartarus was it intentional.

Still, I needed to make sure. I lifted my head, and turned to Vigil. Their eyes were on me as well, waiting patiently for what was left of Singing Rhapsody to come to terms with her existence.

“Did she… did she know?” I asked.

“No, not until tonight,” Vigil answered. “I’d recommend talking with her later, when you are ready. She isn’t taking it well.”

“I will, don’t worry. I understand that she didn’t want any of this, same as me,” I replied. My eyes trailed over my body, or Rhapsody’s. The coat, the wings, the horn, none of it suddenly felt right on me. “Who am I then, if Rhapsody is dead?”

The griffon blinked, then tilted their head. “You aren’t dead, at least not completely. Sure, a part of yourself is gone, but everything else about you is still Singing Rhapsody. Your mind and body are still your own.” They looked away. “Despite the memories and sudden magical abilities you’ve gained, you are in no more danger. If that changes, I will tell you as soon as possible.”

“I would like that, yeah,” I said. “Thanks Vigil.”

They smiled, and I forced myself to smile back. Her answer should have comforted me but there was still an overall sense of wrongness in me. I understood what was happening, what had caused it, but none of it helped. It just added another layer of discomfort, my future feeling even more uncertain than it had previously. If it wasn’t for my mission, I’m certain this news would have left me directionless.

“I wish I had more time to discuss this and help you tonight, but I’m afraid I’m required elsewhere,” Vigil said. I leaned forward, reaching out to them and preparing to speak. The griffon preempted me, stopping my words once again with a simple gesture from her talons. “If you want my recommendation, consider within these next few days what you truly want to do with your life going forward. Talk to Dead Hooves, try and understand the pony you are joined to. You are like conjoined twins now; one can’t live without the other.”

My heart skipped a beat. “So since my soul is hers, if I die, we both… what? Disappear from existence?”

“Yes, and I would prefer to not see another bright soul taken from the world in that way.” There was a slight hint of anger, mixed with a little pain and grief. They almost seemed taken aback by the words they had said, with a pause in their words. “I’ll be watching Rhapsody, hoping that you aren’t taken that same way. I believe you have more left to give.”

They opened their wings, and I felt adrenaline rush through my veins. “Vigil wai–”

My forehooves didn’t collide with the smooth faux-leather of the sofa I had been sitting in moments prior, but instead sand. Lots and lots of sand, stretching as far as moonlight allowed it to, only broken up by old houses and other such buildings. I was standing when I didn’t remember standing prior, and most unwelcoming of all was the cold desert breeze that went through my fur.

I was back in Nowhere, though that assumed that the place Vigil had briefly taken me was somewhere else. For a moment, I pondered all I had just witnessed. Was it real, or a dream from an overly exhausted mind? It certainly seemed possible, and more welcoming then accepting any of what I had just heard as true. It was pleasant to think of everything with Vigil as nothing more than some horrifying nightmare.

Then I remembered I had already checked for signs that would point to a dream. Pain from my hoof, the scent and taste of tea, the feeling of her wings and talons holding me as if I was a scared foal. Those were all signs it was real… but it might just be a trick on my mind! Nopony ever said those couldn’t occurred in your sleep so perhaps–

Any idiotic, ignorant hope I had was dashed as I heard the flap of a wing. I looked behind me, to an old building standing so yards away. There I saw a shroud, with large wings and purple eyes. With another flap, they took to their air, and I followed for as long as my eyesight would allow me. It was more than likely that it had been even longer too, given how their body blended into the night.

Through the mere sight of Vigil, I had no choice but to acknowledge that everything I had just witnessed was true. I was left feeling wide awake, all exhaustion from my body gone, and dread filling my mind. There would be no sleep for me, for Death had come, imparted on me knowledge that I did not want, and left me with no true direction to go.

Nowhere, San Palomino Desert

Day 11

I was quiet the majority of the morning, Vigil’s uncomfortable truths and a lack of sleep leaving me in a bad mood. What little sleep I did get felt worthless, the conversations around me blending in with the breeze and the chatter of ghosts. My companions more than knew it too, or at the very least Willow and Day Glow did. One hoof from each pressed against my withers, nudging it to get my attention.

I shot the alicorn and pegasus with a harsh glare. “What?”

Willow winced at my tone. “Are you okay, Singing? You’ve been kind of grouchy this morning.”

“Yeah, you looked like you just got done with a duty day,” Day Glow replied. “The worst one of your life, for a matter of fact.”

“Impressive feat, right there. Surface really is full of surprises,” I said, a groan leaving my mouth immediately after. I hid my muzzle under my hooves and averted eye contact, inwardly blanching at the dry tone I was currently using. “Sorry, slept like shit.”

“Because of the cravens?”

I shook my head. “If only. Cannibal spirits I can deal with… for the most part. It’s the talisman we had to destroy for me to leave the mine.” Both Willow and Day Glow tilted their heads. “It thought I was a ghost, Willow. DH’s spell? Turns out it fucked with me so much that some part of me is considered dead.”

No need to mention Vigil, so far as I’m concerned. Would make me seem crazier than I was already becoming, and the last thing I needed at the moment was for ponies to think I’ve completely lost it. The fact I had reached the point where being dead made more sense then talking to death themself? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d be justifiably locked up in an insane asylum back in the old world.

“You’re… kidding, right?” Day Glow asked. Sweet Luna, the concern and disbelief in the stallion’s voice was enough to tell me how ridiculous this all sounded.

“You saw me doing magic; you witnessed my little… episode yesterday with the warding talisman. Would I kid about something like that?” I spat. Willow flinched, but Day Glow was as still as a statue. This wasn’t his first time seeing me in a state like this. “If that isn’t enough, ask the fucking pragmatist who takes care of our injuries.”

…

“So you are not fine.”

“No! I’m not!” I shot up at the speed of a bullet, the alicorn flinching yet again. “I’m very much not fine! How in Tartarus am I supposed to be fine when I don’t even know if I’ll be dead in the next few days?!”

Willow and Day Glow offered no answer, not that I expected them to have any. While the latter merely shied from making eye contact, I saw something much more… emotion takes shape on the former. A look of resignation marked by flat ears, a barely visible frown, and eyes that looked at nothing and everything at the same time. There was something more to it, that I was unable to put my hoof on, but it was a sharp contrast to the Willow I knew.

Something large and feathery brushed my withers, and I tensed up. Turning around, half my brain expected to see Vigil standing in front of me once again. Instead of their pure black, however, I was met with the black and yellow of Gold. There was something coy about his expression, perhaps amusement or sympathy, but it wasn’t entirely sincere.

“We all die. I die before rest of you, hopefully,” he said. His tone assured me that at least some of that expression was, in fact, amusement. “You not allowed to die. Lucky needs you. Part of contract, remember?”

I nodded, and then immediately looked past him to Sharpshot. The ghoul was watching the two of us, horn lit up, the abomination lifted off the ground but not yet pointing at me. That made me just a little bit safer.

“So I’m not allowed to feel miserable at what is happening to my body?” I asked him.

“No. You are.” He responded. “Wait till job is done. Once in Underside? Drink yourself stupid. Get your mind off things.”

“Wasn’t planning on that. There are less destructive ways to be miserable.”

I shoved past him, and at the same time Sharpshot cut his telekinesis. Gold’s words were a warning veiled by comfort, and the only reason I now recognized it was Sharpshot’s warning the day before. I made my way over to them, flashing a smile at the ghoul which was both real and fake at the same time. Real in that I truly did appreciate him watching my flank, fake everywhere else. As soon as we were within whispering distance of each other, I groaned.

“Today is going to be shit.”

Sharpshot nodded as he returned to gathering up all our supplies. “You can feel it too, eh? Glad to know I’m not the only one who woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.”

“That assumes you ever wake up on the right side,” I replied, sitting down next to him. He passed me a granola bar, one of a good number he had purchased back in Underside. They were filling, if a bit lacking in the taste I was getting used to out of surface foods, “and that I got any sleep.”

“Fair enough,” he said, chuckling lightly. I snorted as he did; it was nice having somepony to share in the misery with. “Guessing you had an unwanted nighttime visitor.”

His sentence made me pause from taking my first bite. “You too, huh?”

“Unfortunately.” There was a strain behind the word, perhaps a little malice too. “Dusty bones decided to drop in. I got angry, he laughed and made himself sound smart, and then he showed me a tarot card, Two of them, actually.”

“A… tarot card?” I asked. I finally took a bite of my granola.

“Think of a deck of cards,” he replied, “but instead of playing games with them they are used to divine things about ponies. Maybe the past, the future, something about yourself. Didn’t believe in that shit till he showed up.” He looked towards the others and raised his voice. “I need to talk to soldier mare about something real quick. I’ll be right back.”

I let loose a series of rapid blinks. His words had grabbed Willow, Day Glow, and Gold’s attention. Words were exchanged, but I was too focused on what was going on in my head to grasp any of them. Where the heck had this come from?

“Be quick,” Gold shouted back. “Quicker we find target, the better.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Sharpshot replied as he turned around, walking away. “Will be back before your naptime. Now come on soldier, before the geezer changes his mind.”

“W-wait, why are we–”

A yelp left my mouth as my hindlegs were yanked out from underneath me. My muzzle fell into the sand, and was then dragged unceremoniously backwards through it and away from everycreature. I didn’t really need to look behind me to see the culprit behind my foalnapping, but I did anyway just to be completely certain. It was, as proven by my eyes, Sharpshot who was responsible, magic pulling me away.

“Uh, Willow? Where the fuck is your husband taking me?” I asked, looking back to the alicorn. Her earlier frown had been replaced by a pure-seeming smile. “Willow.”

“Don’t worry about it,” She unhelpfully replied. “Have a nice chat!”

One of my eyelids twitched in building rage. “Willow, I swear to everything still holy, when I get back I’m taking a barrel and shoving it up your ass!”

“That would be impressive. I would love to see you do it.”

The last thing out of my mouth by the time I was dragged out of sight was an annoyed scream. An attempted empty threat, undone by the target of it taking things just a little too seriously. It would have been funny in literally any other scenario if my question hadn’t been genuine. All I was able to do was let myself be dragged along the ground like an old world suitcase – the ones with the wheels on them to be precise.

I didn’t notice the stallion had stopped dragging me until he circled back in front of my face. I must have looked like a mess, it was the only way to explain the shit-eating grin on Sharpshot’s muzzle. The fact he was rolling around on the floor and having a laughing fit was downright incredible. As quickly as my legs allowed me, I shot up onto my hooves and gave the ghoul smack across the mane.

Apparently it was a bit harsher than I had meant for it to be.

“Fucking ow,” he grumbled. His misery did manage to get a smile onto my own muzzle for the briefest of moments. “Did you need to?”

“Considering you just dragged me away by my hindlegs, yes. Yes I did,” I answered. He made tons of small noises under his breath, like a foal after not getting what they wanted. “If it makes you feel better, I’m not asking for an apology.”

“Good, cause you’re not getting one.” His flank hit the sand, and he briefly looked behind himself. “Besides, with the mood you’re in I get the feeling that ‘yes’ isn’t the answer I would have received.”

“On that, you are correct.”

“Perfect! Now that this little side conversation is done with,” he pulled down his rags and coughed into his hoof, “you and Willow were on the cards.”

My shoulder slumped, as did my wing, a look of extreme disappointment on my face. He had done all of that, because some creature only he could see had shown him playing cards. With a roll of my eyes, I tried to step around him and head back towards the others. He met every single step, acting like a living wall, unflinching and stubborn.

“Let me through,” I ordered, placing one forehoof right beside his right one. He moved it so that I was no longer stepping around him, but rather into him. “Sharpshot.”

“Soldier mare,” he said, sharp and irritated in his delivery, “listen to me.”

“Whatever you’re going to say, I don’t want to hear it.” Another attempt to step past him, another failure as he places himself in front of me. I let out a sarcastic chuckle at the ghoul’s actions. “You actually believe shit like that?”

“If it was from anypon–”

“I mean, there are pegasi who did shit like that back in the Enclave too. Scams, each one of them.” My amusement from it all was rising, unable to take his claims or attitude seriously. “Oh yeah sure, let’s read my wings too while we’re at it, or divine the future by the shape of the clouds.”

Sharpshot chewed on his lower lip, anger rising. “As I was saying, I understand. If it was from anypony else I’d be just as skeptical, perhaps more so than you. Trust me, though, when I say that the Dealer’s readings are always accurate.”

“Aw, why’s that?” I asked, full on mocking the pony before me. I didn’t notice the way his nostrils flared as he breathed, or the slow drag of one of his hooves against the sand below us as I asked that question. “Did he predict you’d get Willow Wisp?”

If I had been paying attention, I might have noticed how close I had been to snapping him before that point. Instead, with me being over-exhausted and perhaps unreasonably hostile with the stallion before me at points, I didn’t notice anything. Maybe some ponies would see that as an excuse, but in the end it all led to the same result.

I felt something grasp my neck at the same moment Sharpshot’s horn lit up. A croaking noise left my mouth, eyes and muzzle wide as the latter tried desperately to continue breathing. Both my forehooves went to my throat in a desperate attempt to remove whatever was binding me, only to find nothing. The cause of my constriction was simple telekinesis, used in a way I didn’t even know was possible until just now. In other words, I was completely at Sharpshot’s mercy.

“Listen up, Rhapsody,” he said. His voice had gone completely monotone, a faux laziness to his expression. “I’m trying to save my wife's life, and it is highly possible that I’m doing everything within my power to keep you from being broken in a way you won’t come back from.” A shiver passed through his body, and for a moment I saw fear make its way into his eyes. “I’m going to let go of your throat now. Keep your muzzle shut, and I won’t consider snapping your fucking neck. Understand?”

What other choice did I have but to nod frantically. Instantaneously, Sharpshot let go of my throat, and I collapsed to the ground as a heaving heap. Even if I wanted to tempt fate – to talk and see if he would actually try and kill me – I was so focused on breathing that forming words was useless. A few times, something tickled my throat and forced coughs out of me, probably sand I had inhaled.

All the while, Sharpshot waited patiently. His face kept that lazy look to it, staring down at me like a corrupt king would a pitiful peasant. He wanted my full, undivided attention, and he was going to make sure I was able to give him that. When he felt confident enough I could listen, he finally spoke.

“I used to not know what the cards mean, because I once laughed at it all just like you,” he explained, purposely allowing a little emotion to show. “One reading… changed that. I learned what it all meant, so I could hopefully prevent him from winning one day. Last night, he gave me a very similar reading to that day.”

He hung his head, teeth gritted and eyes closed.

“He showed me the Tower. That was Willow’s card.”

His words were marked with grim acceptance, as if this tower was an unavoidable fate. Fear and sadness had completely overwritten his anger, his flank hitting the sand as a sigh left his muzzle. I may not have had any idea what this card meant, but I didn’t need him to tell me anything else for that locked away piece of me to be unsettled.

“So something–” I started, only to shut up instantly as the anger came back to his eyes at the speed of light. Message received. I had to be careful with what I said, “Something bad’s going to happen to Willow.”

“The Tower represents danger, destruction, and sudden upheaval,” Sharpshot said. “The fuck do you think?”

“And it might be an attempt on her life.”

“On her life? No, but any of us?” He paused, looked away for a brief second, and then back to me. “I’m just… I’m scared, okay? She’s the only pony I have left from those days, and she’s the one I easily cared about the most. I see her on the Tower and…” His voice trailed quieter and quieter, though his mouth still moved. “Soldier mare, Rhaps, if you’ll allow me to call you that, I’m asking for your help here. I want you to help me possibly save my wife from doing something she might regret.”

My brow shot up, and my jaw hung open. I immediately closed the former, in hope a more subdued response would need lead him to give a cocky grin. Though, given how he bared his teeth and had looked away, I had a feeling it was as hard for him to ask me this as it was unbelievable to hear it. Perhaps he was also waiting for a witty retort of my own, one that gave him the chance to strangle me further.

Instead, I thought of myself in his position and what I would do if I feared Anchor was in some form of similar danger. Not that my husband was the type to go killing other folks, but the point was I would likely find myself in a similar predicament. Just like Sharpshot, I would do anything to keep my Anchor out of harm’s way. It was the excuse I gave myself for coming to the surface after all, separating us for what might have been the rest of my life.

For that reason, I did not rub Sharpshot’s plea in his face. I may hate him for his cocky, adolescent nature, but I like to think I know when something goes too far. Whether I’m good at it… others can be the judge of that.

“So, I assume you know what that danger is, then?” I asked.

“Y-you’re not gon–” Sharpshot stopped himself, immediately hiding his surprise. He coughed into his hoof, put on a more stoic expression, and then nodded. “Possibly, if what Willow is saying is true. Granted she isn’t the type to lie but as far as I know nopony was there to say it.”

One of my ears flicked. “What Willow says is… you mean you two weren’t just having an argument when we left you in the mines last night?”

“Well, that did happen but it wasn’t everything.” His mouth hung open after those words, then closed. With a surprise show of conflict and confusion in his eyes, he forced himself to keep looking at me, his magic holding his own chin upwards to do so. “She said somepony spoke the trigger word to her last night, when she was down there by herself. She showed me what it caused: three dead craven, torn apart and bent in ways that aren’t just unnatural, but nearly impossible.”

My breath got caught in my throat for a moment. Willow’s… trigger word? That made no sense; nopony was down there with her till she had talked with her husband. There wasn’t a way she could have heard anypony say ‘bury’, not unless…

I closed my eyes, ears flattening. Suddenly, the alicorn’s sorrowful look this morning made a lot more sense.

“You think the Goddess is responsible,” I said. Not asked, just stated, because it seemed like a fact that was undeniable given the circumstances.

Sharpshot’s response came via gritted teeth, and even further signs of conflict on his face. One came to recognize it easily enough, especially a soldier with as much time on the surface as I had. How many pegasi had worn a similar expression upon first viewing the world below? How many more had asked if it was really beyond saving? I’m not sure, but I most certainly knew what came next.

First, they would seek either inwardly or otherwise how they feel about it. A mental battle would play out between what they had been told, and what they now see. If they are aware of the claims some soldiers-turned-Dashites made, perhaps they would also wonder if it was saveable. For that entire first foray on nearly lifeless earth, an Enclave’s view would lock swords with the Dashites, both sides challenged from one thing or another until, finally, either side became a victor.

If my former self, the Rhapsody who DH had accidentally killed, was anything to show by it, the Enclave had won for me. That was thanks to two incidents: a horrible experience with a grenade that became a joke to my former brothers and sisters, and the splayed corpse of a pony the same age as myself. Whether they were mare or stallion was impossible to tell, with how gutted they were. It doesn’t matter; no pony sees that mistreatment of life, that amount of blood and gore, and is the same by the end of it.

It was only during my time on the surface that I realized the pony who had done this unforgivable act had likely been changed in a far too similar way. Perhaps they had obtained a similar horrible upbringing to Gemini. Again, doesn’t matter, given they are most likely dead or so broken beyond repair that whoever they were before might as well be another pony altogether.

Thankfully, Sharpshot had not yet reached that point. He was still asking himself if what I had said might possibly be true. The piece of him who had so long ago spat at my dead self’s view on ignorance now fighting to not walk that path himself. When I saw conflict turn to pain, the corner of his lips curled downard and his eyes looking in the same direction, I felt comfortable saying that uncomfortable truth had won.

“I’m sorry Sharpshot,” I replied. I sat down and placed a hoof around his withers. “I’d like to help of course, but if it is really the Goddess then–”

“It can’t be her.”

I had to double take at his response, paying attention to his body. He was shivering somehow, despite the desert heat, eyes unfocused as pupils and irises fidgeted uncomfortably. Sharpshot did his best to hide all those little things behind a faux seriousness, muzzle void of expression and his brow furrowed. Would have fooled somepony who hadn’t lived that same horrible experience that he has.

My belief had been wrong; ignorance was winning.

“It can’t be her. How could it be?” He questioned. It wasn’t directed at me, but rather at himself. “Craven are known to make pony-like sounds. Perhaps her brain got fooled into thinking it was said by one of them. It’s better than… better than….”

He nodded, and looked me dead in the eyes. Perhaps he thought he was fooling me, with the decisiveness he was forcing on himself. A few days ago it might have, but not so much anymore. I was familiar with that look, one of a pony desperately clinging to the one good thing they have in their life. One that showed they wanted every reason to believe it wasn’t being taken away or destroyed right in front of them, left broken beyond recognition where no one can find it.

Credit given where it is due, however, he wasn’t throwing a fit. Despite being a forever teenager he was showing more maturity about his ignorance than I was. Made the dead me look incompetent as fuck.

“Sharpshot, what grounds do we have to say it’s not the Goddess?” I asked him rhetorically. He opened his muzzle to give a defiant answer, but I spoke again before he was able to. “That day we met, Willow Wisp told me something. The blue that is crawling its way up her body, according to her it is consuming the white in her coat. You said the reason she isn’t part of the hivemind is because of the killing joke that made her throat burn, right?”

He didn’t immediately respond, instead turning away and snarling in fear. There was no way he didn’t see where I was going with this. If he refused to answer, or tried to all out avoid it while still giving one, I wouldn’t be too surprised. I’d probably do the exact same, in similar circumstances.

“It did something to her saliva that makes it hurt like mad, scratching and choking her. She was coughing up blood for a long time, and against scientific reason her body has been unable to adapt to it; couldn't really go much of anywhere without being in agony,” he muttered quietly. There was apprehension in his tone, a show that he wanted to talk about this as little as he wanted to consider my own theory. “It’s counteracting the I.M.P. in her body too. That’s something medical related that we never looked too heavily into, but we know it is stubborn as a mule. Must still think it's winning.”

“I see.” I took a deep breath in, the ghoul glaring at me all the while. “The Cloud Nine is what you are using as a painkiller, I remember that. It’s also the reason her coat has become more blue. Like the Goddess’ own” A frown formed on my face, my lips peeled back ever so slightly to show my teeth. “If she is very subtly connected to the Goddess now, doesn’t that mean they knew her trigger?”

There was a flash of defeat on Sharpshot’s face, though it only stayed around for a second or two before being replaced by either anger or denial. He shoved me, pushing himself away from me more than it moved me. Then, with wild eye movement that signaled confusion and conflict, he started to pace. Murmurs too quiet for my ears to catch left his mouth. They were rapid, hushed, laced with terror in a way I had only seen once out of him.

That, of course, being his fight with that one unexplainably fluffy earth pony, when the Dealer took over his opponent's shadow.

“I’m sorry.”

Sharpshot’s attention snapped back to me. His mouth moved, less like it was making words and more akin to a subtle vibration. By Celestia he wanted to talk, he wanted to say something, but the words refused him.

“I want to save her, and I’m asking for your help with that,” he said. “Therefore, we need to consider options that we are able to do something about. Options where the only option isn’t just ki… kil….” He hung his head, closed his eyes, and exhaled sharply. “We don’t have enough time to continue Willow’s discussion, we still need to talk about your card.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sharpshot, she is your wife and my friend and I want to mak–”

“Your card was Death!”

His words were harsh, harsher than he intended if the wince was anything to go by. I knew it was a diversion – a means to shield himself from the worst and most likely scenario – one easily overcome by continuing to talk. Anypony could have gotten over it, anypony but me apparently. All I needed was a mention of death, and my mind went back to that night.

Meeting with Vigil, learning that I was dead, finding out the culprit is the first spirit I’d ever met on the surface.

“Not literal death. The card implies great change for the pony it divines,” Sharpshot explained. “Considering everything happening to you already, I guess this card should have been expected. Still, knowing who did the reading, I’d keep an eye out.”

Even with his assurance that this Death card didn’t refer to actual death, the coincidence was too up front to keep a straight face. I knew he was trying to warn me about something, even if neither of us knew exactly what it was, but it felt impossible to take it seriously. How could I after meeting the literal incarnation of death hours earlier?

So, knowing full well it would make me look crazy, I laughed at my circumstances. It was only slightly forced, the humor born less from a good joke and instead at my own expense. Everything about my existence felt so unbelievable fucked that something like ‘a great change’ felt like a forgone conclusion. It would be easier to state what had remained the same about me, if anything of the old Rhapsody remained at all.

So I laughed. I laughed until my horrible reality felt less like a joke, and I was reminded of how far I had fallen. Sharpshot watched in horror as I went from laughing to borderline crying. The two emotions mixed together, and for the second time in the span of twenty four hours I felt tears building in my eyes and crawling down my face. It was quiet, not as ugly as it had been with Vigil, but I knew what it felt like. A piece of me almost couldn’t believe what I was doing.

I was crying, freely, without the need for Anchor to be there. The actual act felt horrible to go through, but it gave me a feeling more wonderful than flying.

“Rha– soldier mare?” Sharpshot said. I hadn’t noticed I was looking down at the sand until he spoke, and found the ghoul right in front of my face as my eyes locked on his own. “Are you okay?”

“No. No I’m not,” I answered, choked up from my impromptu weeping. I briefly considered wiping the tear trails off my face, but a large piece of me didn’t want to. “I feel horrible, yet somehow the best I’ve ever felt in years. The best I’ve felt… since Clear was born.”

He blinked. “Clear?”

“One of my foals. My youngest child, and a real piece of trouble,” I explained. I think the waterworks were starting again, just by mentioning them. “She wasn’t the reason I was crying though. I was just… my life feels so fucked!”

“Oh,” Sharpshot said. He looked downwards, chuckling. “Trust me, I know the feeling. I’m guessing the tarot card alone didn’t bring this about.”

“Something along those lines,” I replied, giving a slow nod as I did. “I met somecreature last night, as you know. They were strange, powerful, kind but also cruel. A griffon, bigger than Gold with a coat black as the night I met her in.”

I closed my eyes, and focused on their image. Their smile, their touch, the chastising and comforting. It was hard to figure out if the correct facial expression was a smile or frown, but the former found its way first. With the image fully formed, I opened my eyes.

“Their name was Vigil, and they told me they were Death.”

Sharpshot brought a hoof to his muzzle, rubbing the underside of his chin with its toe. The right side of his brow was still raised, the rest of his face wearing a look that I don’t have a name for. He didn’t immediately call me crazy, meaning he was being unusually kind or thinking of exactly how to rip the band-aid off and approach my growing insanity.

“So, one of them is a griffin,” he muttered instead. I tilted my head, something he seemed to expect. “The Dealer has mentioned… I think he called them ‘acquaintances’. Things like him, similar, powerful and connected to this Infinite that Joy worshiped. You said Vigil was… kind?”

I nodded. “When she wanted to be, and was not reminding me about how my father nearly let me starve to death, or how I left my foals with no knowledge of where I am now. Every single time she comforted me, even after…,” a sigh found its way out of my body, my smile turning more sorrowful, “even after telling me that I was, as far as she and the Infinite knows, dead.”

Ears twitched, interest piqued. “What?”

“Dead Hooves killed me back in the theater,” I explained, sitting down. His jaw had dropped so far that I feared it might somehow detach from his head. “Since she died before the cannibal curse had completely consumed her, it survived by becoming a part of her. When she first cast her memory spell on me, hoping to see if I was really related to her, she accidentally ate my soul.”

…

“So, the pony standing in front of me,” Sharpshot said. His voice had gone monotone, horn alight. “Is it Dead Hooves, the spirit that cursed her, or something else?”

Another sigh left my lips. “If it was the Gluttonous One talking to you, don’t you think I would have attacked you all by now?”

His hornlight died, and something thumped against the sand. A look to my left showed me he had removed a wooden plank from one of the nearby houses, or at least that was my guess. Neither the abomination or Flash Fire were within my line of sight, so he wasn’t about to kill me.

“Who are you then?” He asked.

“If Vigil is to be believed, still mostly Rhapsody,” I replied, sitting down. “The rest of me is still me… somehow. To be honest this situation is as confusing to me as it is to you.”

“I, uh, I see.” His flank followed my own in hitting the sandy ground below. A hoof went to his temple, rubbing it as he groaned. “I see what you mean. Don’t think you can get more fucked than that.”

“Celestia, I hope not.” It was my turn to groan, my muzzle tilted towards the sky in the process. “I’ve had enough unwanted surprises for one lifetime.”

“Wish I could tell you that we’re done with them, but we both know that isn’t true,” Sharpshot replied. I glared at him, the ghoul letting out a sheepish laugh as he did. “I mean, outside of life just generally having tons of change in it, we still have the Dealer’s card to consider.”

I wanted nothing more than to bury my head in the sand. The reminder of the card and what it meant, while appreciated in some aspects, was also greatly agonizing. Had I not experienced enough change in my life, even if only for a small while? I thought so, but the wasteland itself felt different.

How different was unknown to me, and I was far too afraid to ask the world. If I asked, I’m sure it would answer. Yet that likely meant witnessing something similar to those frozen ghosts I had seen in the sandstorm.

“I’m guessing there is no stopping my card, is there?” I asked Sharpshot.

“Probably not. Change is such a constant in life that I couldn’t tell you what the Dealer was inferring in this instance,” Sharpshot answered. He smiled at me, and let out another small chuckle. “Better to know your shit outta luck than to have it come out of nowhere, right?”

“I… I guess. Thanks, Sharpshot.”

“No problem, Rhapsody.”

…

“Wait.” I looked at him. I think my stun expression had made him a little nervous, because his smile fell away. “You said it. You actually said it.”

One side of his brow raised, and his head tilted. “Said what?”

“You know, my na–” I stopped myself before I had finished, both hooves covering my mouth. I turned away. “Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing, Rhaps.”

“No, no, I was wrong. You said nothing.”

“Yeah, and I’m a pretty fucking princess. What did I say?”

Sharpshot leaned in, glaring at me with all the fury of Celestia’s sun. I knew that looking directly at him was a bad idea, so I looked off into the distance. The plan was simple: focus on the blowing wind and endless plain of sand and rock that laid before us. If I did, he might let it go.

…

…

I dared to glance back. He was still staring.

“We should get back to the others before Gold gets suspicious,” I said, hastily getting to my hooves and speed-trotting my way back towards the others.

As I made my way around the abandoned house he had dragged me behind for this chat, I heard two words leave Sharpshot’s mouth. Two words that made me snort from the sheer annoyance he had laced them with.

“Fucking pegasi.”

After finishing off the granola Sharpshot had given me earlier and packing everything up, we left Nowhere. Back to the endless dunes of sand and rock, with the sun beating down on us all. We would head back through Nowhere on our way back from this megaspell test site, just to be completely sure the craven hadn’t somehow gotten out. If they did, Day Glow had an extra bit of paperwork back in Underside that I’d rather he didn’t have to deal with.

I lagged behind everycreature else, something I was more than fine with. Sometimes Sharpshot would look back at me, either because he had heard something he didn’t like out of Day Glow or Gold, or was still wondering exactly what he said. He had mostly dropped it though, leaving me in peace as we traveled. With none of the living to interact with, I had time to turn to business with the dead.

More specifically, I had a unicorn I needed to comfort.

“DH? Are you there?” I called out. I stayed quiet enough where I hopefully wouldn’t draw the attention of anypony ahead of me. “Dead Hooves?”

Nothing. I knew she was around, the pieces of her inside me somehow told me that, but I couldn’t see her.

“Dead Hooves?”

“I… don’t think she wants to talk right now.”

Looking straight down, I saw Stardust walking at my side. I gawked at the sight of the filly, or more specifically that fact she had followed us out here into the desert. She was looking up at me with a worried expression, though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t meant for me. After all, it wasn’t just me who had woken her up from whatever nightmare she had been stuck in.

Still, that a filly as young as she had been was going with us was shocking. I checked her chest, just to make sure she didn’t have the same tether that linked me to DH. It wasn’t there, which meant she had come with us of her own free will. That was more than a little worrying, given the events of last night.

“Stardust, why did you follow us?” I asked, a tinge of worry for the ghost making its way into my voice. “I’d figured you would want to stay in Underside.”

“I thought about it, but you can actually talk to me,” Stardust replied. Her ears went flat, hooves dragging through the sand instead of trotting. “Being around you makes me a little more comfortable. Until I find mom, wherever she is, I want to stick by you.”

“So you didn’t find her in Underside.”

The ghost filly shook her head. “I know that I’m dead, and they can’t really do anything about it if I walk in, but those Shattered Moon ponies didn’t want me in that building.”

In other words, if she was there, Stardust didn’t completely check. Her and DH walking into SM’s F.O.B. with me wasn’t something I had originally considered, and a piece of me now felt a bit dumb for overlooking it. If either of them had walked in with me, I became a threat to the organization’s anonymity. Knowing at least one of them had been smart enough to not put my life at jeopardy was nice. Dead Hooves, however…

If my soul was now Dead Hooves’ soul, and that thread was what connected her to me. It now made sense why she couldn’t get that far away from me. If we considered that fact, and how she couldn’t be blindfolded due to her current status as fully deceased, then I was a danger to a piece of what made the Shattered Moon what they were. After a silent prayer that Day Glow never realized the full danger of bringing me inside a F.O.B., I turned my attention back to Stardust.

“Did you go inside the mine with us last night?” I asked.

She shook her head again. “It was really dark and scary.”

“Good. There are things down there a foal like you doesn’t need to see,” I replied, smiling. My words put a hint of fear into the ghost filly’s eyes; the point had been thoroughly made. “Anyways, you were saying Dead Hooves didn’t want to talk.”

“Yeah. She’s had this gloomy look on her all day,” Stardust explained. “I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but she just told me to stay away. She said she wasn’t safe to be around.”

I looked behind us, though in truth it was about as interesting as the world to my front. Hoofprints faded not long after we left them, the constant slow gusts covering the indents with more sand. Though my eyes did not see them, my heart knew that where I looked was the mare in question. She was there, sulking, moving so slowly that she was practically being dragged along by myself. I knew what the mare was like, and this wasn’t her.

“Dead Hooves, listen,” I said. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t showing herself, the rest of the world was quiet enough where she didn’t have a choice but to listen to me. “Vigil told me what you did, and what it means. They explained how you didn’t mean it, how what has happened to me is an accident. I’m still trying to stomach the fact that I’m dead, just like you and Stardust.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Stardust freeze in place. It was only for a moment, but it was enough to make me aware that she hadn’t been around for anything that happened the night prior.

“If I had learned about this all, back when we first met, I’m certain my reaction would probably be horrible. That’s probably what you’re expecting now, in fact. Can’t deny that there might be some horrible catharsis in screaming at you for killing me, but you’re a victim just as much as I am. Vigil made that perfectly clear.”

…

“What… are you trying to say?”

Dead Hooves’ form appeared near moments after those words were said, exactly where my eyes had been focused on. There was a slight distortion in her spirit, like a lesser version to how we had met Stardust. Her very form seemed ready to break loose, muzzle moving in ways not possible. Unlike the young filly, however, something forced her to stay together; something banned her from going into that state of complete, endless despair.

There were pieces of her spirit giving off this dark, all consuming glow. That’s the only real way I can describe them, and even that somehow fits. It was acting like a bandage, keeping the distortion from overtaking her form. Any time some part of her started to fray or break, it expanded and repaired her, doing its best to keep her as normal as possible.

This was the cannibal spirit that had possessed her in life, and had led her to accidentally kill me all these years later. It's only reason for preserving her ghost was to preserve itself, the mare still its host even after death. In a way, it was also now part of myself, even if that hunger for pony flesh was absent.

“You’re right, you should hate me,” DH said. I slowed my pace so I was no longer dragging her along, only to find she was moving so slowly that we might as well have been stationary. “I only… I only wanted to know who you are, and my own curiosity got you killed. Anypony else would hate me if I had done the same to them.” Where her head had once been bent unnaturally low, she brought it up to look me in the eyes. “Go on then. Stop trying to be nice and just yell at me. I know you can do it.”

“That’s not…,” my ability to respond was briefly taken away as I winced at her words. She was right, I was more than capable of getting really, really angry at ponies. She had been on the receiving end of an outburst from me, after all, “Dead Hooves, did your parents ever scream at you?”

“No, but I don’t understand what that–”

“Have they ever hit you, threatened you, called you an accident or left you with nothing to eat for days on end?”

“No. No! Why the heck are you mentioning that right now?”

I closed my eyes for a brief moment, and looked back ahead of us. “I ask because I know what it does to a pony. I’m a shining example of it, having lived that Tartarus for most of my foalhood. None of it works, DH, it only harms both the pony on the receiving end as well as yourself. I have done my best to be the opposite of that, at least when it concerns foals.

“For you, however, and everypony else down here? I’ve been a bitch, no other way to really put it. I’ve done everything in my power to make you all hate and despise me, because instead of being a decent pony I decided to act like my father. I was hurting myself, and I’m still paying the price given that Sharpshot, despite all his talk of trust, is still willing to kill me.” I shook my head, and looked back at her with a smile. “So despite how much I despise what happened to me, and that it would probably feel good to get mad at you? I’m not going to do it. I’m not subjecting you to my worst aspects more than I already have.”

We had both stopped moving completely by that point, staring at each other. Once again I found some slight humor in how fucked and wild my situation was. I must have visibly shown that humor as well, because DH let loose her own half-hearted giggle. Before long we were both laughing like madmares, with Stardust watching us both in confusion at how we were acting.

“You know, I agree with what you said to Sharpshot earlier. Our lives are so fucked,” she said. While the tone came off as joking, I was more than aware she didn’t actually find it funny. “Afterlife works better, I guess. Doesn’t matter if one of us happened to actually keep her body.”

“Yeah, and that is going to take some getting used to,” I replied. My ears bent backwards just the tiniest bit, my humorous expression falling away to one of concern. “Are you okay, Dead Hooves?”

“I think we both know the answer to that question, and I think we both know that it won’t be changing anytime soon,” DH answered, one of her forehooves running through her mane. “Lets just agree that I shouldn’t touch anypony with my magic. You’re fine, I think, but I don’t want to know if I can do this to more ponies.” She then turned to Stardust, her eyes refusing to look at the filly on their own. “Sorry about this morning, Star.”

“I’m just happy to see you talking with ponies again,” Stardust replied, ears unfolding slightly. “You made me worried.”

DH winced, and then turned to me. “We should… probably catch up with the others.”

My brow shot up, and my attention turned back in the direction of Sharpshot and the others. They hadn’t even noticed how I had stopped moving, likely due to the oppressive heat the desert had beat down on us. I motioned for DH and Stardust to follow me, and I quickly broke up into a gallop in order to catch up to the others. Not so close where they would notice my sudden haste, but close enough where they wouldn’t question anything.

Act 2 – Chapter 11: By the Messenger's Will

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.

Act 2 – Chapter 12: The Memorial Maze

Day ???

???, ???

In an old wooden building, before my hooves, what had once been a stallion laid limp on the ground. A thick, ever growing pool of red poured from where his head had once been, a shotgun lying on his chest. It pointed upwards, to his neck, and would have rested on his chin if he still had one. He didn’t, as what had once made it up had joined his skull and brain to be splattered everywhere, including on me.

This was my fault, yet not in the traditional way that many in the wasteland brought death. I had him under my hoof like some raider warlord, following my every command as if it was either that or Tartarus. It actually made me feel powerful, and the extension of the timer in my head only encouraged me further. Then I gave that final order, and watched as a life brought itself to an end.

What the fuck had I just done?

There had to have been a better way to handle that; a command that kept me safe while not making a pony off themself. Yet my brain had jumped to this conclusion, and I was left to stare at the consequences. Nothing was worth this, so why? Why had I given him that command? What twisted, messed up thing inside of me would ever want…

My mouth felt dry, and with how I had turned inwards from shock and horror a realization came over me. I was hungry, really hungry. Eyes glued to the corpse before me, a dark and twisted thing inside of me wormed its way up. There was something about the muscle, the fat, and the bits of gore and blood on my face that suddenly seemed a lot more enticing than previously.

As if it had its own mind, my tongue slipped out of my muzzle and tasted the crimson ichor on it. A simple little lick turned into another, and another, until it had run across as much of myself as it possibly could. That wasn’t enough, something inside me begged for more, and the hunger in my stomach asked for the same. Without even thinking, I started to drag my hoof forward, toward the body.

I needed flesh. I needed their flesh.

Before I knew it my muzzle was slowly leaning down towards his torso. A whisper in my ear egged me onwards, just as hungry as I was. Maybe hungrier, and their hunger did nothing but full my own, the only thing keeping me from digging straight in being a small piece of my brain trying everything within its power to tell me what I was doing is wrong. It was even quieter than the whisper, too quiet. Moments before my nose would have touched the body, that voice was snuffed out.

Fully convinced that I needed this, I dug in. My teeth somehow ripped flesh open, spitting it out as I tasted the fur that lined it. Muscle was torn off, chewed on, and swallowed after a serious amount of chewing. Bone appeared not long after, trying to protect organs that were barely holding on, but they proved easy to break. All it took was a single stomp to shatter any that I saw, and after haphazardly removing them I was able eat more.

I’m not sure how long I had spent eating, nothing else seeming to matter but the overwhelming hunger in my body. No matter how much I ate, it never dimmed. The hunger pains grew worse and worse, as if my body was burning through the food faster than I swallowed it. The worse it got, the more certain I was that I needed to eat more.

More.

More!

More!

My body craved more! More flesh, more bone, all of it! This was the only way to sate the hunger. I needed to eat more of this pony. I needed to eat more ponies. I needed to eat, eat, EAT!

Something wrapped around my neck and tugged me away from my meal. I thrashed and squirmed, snarling and attempting to bite the thing that dared to interrupt me. It didn’t relent, it’s grasp far stronger than my own despite all my best efforts. With every swing of my head, I watched as a zebra dragged the dead pony away. I wanted so badly to kill her, to eat her, but yet the thing holding me wouldn’t let go!

“__, you really shouldn’t struggle that much!” The thing behind me said. “You are the last pony I would want to snap the neck of.”

With each second that ticked by, my hunger became less all consuming. It never left, I was horribly aware of how badly I was starving, but somehow I found myself… thinking again. It hadn’t even occurred to me that everything my body had just done was pure animalistic instinct. Yet the more my senses came back to me, I came to better understand how that didn’t fit.

Ponies didn’t eat other ponies.

Though I had calmed down considerably, Willow Wisp didn’t let go of me. I was still held tight, likely in fear that my body would immediately start dragging itself towards the corpse. A corpse I had made, and a corpse that brought out the piece of the Gluttonous One that lingered down inside me. It was so strong; I never stood a chance at resisting.

“W… Willow,” I replied, the emotion drained from my voice as my mind continued to try and comprehend what I had done. “You can… you can let me down now.”

She did, though not before moving me to a corner where the blood pool that had once marked where the corpse’s head used to be was out of sight. The quiet that overtook the entirety of __ was haunting. When had the fighting stopped? Was everypony okay? Was Mud still alive?

I allowed my head to hang as I thought about everything that had just occurred. In doing so, I noticed something on my flank that hadn’t been there previously. It was a collection of black and white swirls, all moving towards a central point. I checked the other side of my flank, and saw the exact same thing there. No more need to figure out exactly what it was.

Any other filly or colt would be ecstatic about getting their cutie mark. For me, the moment felt as hollow as a pegasi’s bones.

The timer in my head was fluctuating like mad, as if unable to tell if my life had just extended or shortened. A cutie mark, in some cases, would hint towards the former considering it meant you had found your special talent. The Gluttonous One’s hold on me made it feel more like a tiny bandage on an extremely large wound. Somehow, not knowing how much longer my life may be was the most terrifying thing in the world. More terrifying than death being mere seconds away.

“Congrats, __. I knew you’d get it eventually,” Willow replied, her wing wrapping around me gently. I wanted to turn away from it, but the wing had joined the rest of her body in obtaining a new coat of red. “Oh, my little pony-eating savior is now truly a mare. How did you get it?”

“I… I….”

My mouth wasn’t working, but that didn’t mean I was oblivious to the circumstances surrounding how I had obtained my cutie mark. It hadn’t been around before those mercenaries came into __ wanting to kill me, and the same went for when the stallion had put the gun to my head with the plan to do just that.

“He killed himself… because I ordered him to,” I muttered, both as an answer to Willow’s question and an affirmation to myself of the horrible thing I had just done.

The mare next to me gasped, but one glance at her face showed me it was more due to excitement than shock.“I’ve never heard of a pony getting a talent like that! How did you do it?”

“M… magic. I’m not sure how but,” I slowly brought one of my forehooves to touch the tip of my horn, “I ordered him to do a lot of things, and he followed them all. It felt good, being in control for once.”

“So you can control ponies?” Willow asked, just to make entirely sure she was getting it right. I nodded. “Oh, the ponies we could kill if we put your talent and my skills together.”

The horrifying naivety in the pegasi’s tone, I know it was just who she was but it felt so wrong. Every word she said dripped with excitement and enthusiasm, her twisted view of reality leaving her unable to see the truth. The hoof touching my horn fell in front of my eyes as I searched it for any sign that the Gluttonous One had more of a hold. I found nothing.

That was a good thing, right?

“I take it you two are the ponies that Stitch sent me after?”

The raspy voice that interrupted my musings caused my head to jerk up. Before me was a unicorn colt, or at least they looked like one. They were a ghoul, like that Ditzy mare that I had met at __. Where she had this friendly expression pasted on her face that made her feel safe, he came across as more brat-like. The better-than-you look he wore was enough to gain my attention, and it was only fueled by that obnoxiously bright-looking blue and yellow shirt he wore.

Not to mention the goggles he wore looked like they were actually part of his body. It looked stupid.

“Dead Hooves and Willow Wisp, right?” He asked. That tone of his, it made me want to deal with him even less, so I ignored him. “For fucks sake just give me a yes or a no!”

“Yep, that's us,” Willow answered. “What is a little ghoul like you doing out and about?”

“First off, I’m nineteen, don’t call me little,” the ghoul replied. He levitated a saddle bag off his flank and onto the ground, allowing me to see his own cutie mark. It was a heart that had been cut into. “Secondly, the name is Open Heart. I’ve been asked to check you both for injuries, so save your ghoul-hating comments for after I possibly save your lives.”

I looked at the small box my friend was presenting to me, the material something I had never seen before. Confused, I looked up to his parents, despite how much they scared me deep down. Both were smiling at me warmly as if I was their own daughter, Ironsight’s mother specifically motioning me to accept the box.

“I-I, um, what is this?” I asked.

“It’s a gift,” Ironsight replied, holding the box out a little bit further. “It’s from us, and for you.”

I looked at the box again, trying to figure out what it was meant for. A gift, but what was it a gift for? It seemed ordinary, featureless, not at all interesting. I felt compelled to ask if it was a joke, but I refused to actually ask it. Dad always said things like ‘shut up’ or hit me or locked me in my room when I asked him questions. Would Ironsight’s parents do the same? I didn’t want to change it.

“Thanks I-Iron,” I said, reaching my hooves out. He gave me the box, and I clutched it close. “So. what is the box meant to be for?”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I inwardly screamed at myself. Closing my eyes, I waited for some form of retaliation for speaking out of line. Instead, Ironsight trotted right up to my side, put his hoof on my shoulder, and did a little whistle. He always did that when he wanted me to pay attention to him. I did manage to open my eyes, but I was too ashamed at what I said to look at him.

“The box isn’t the actual gift __. The gift is what’s inside the box,” Ironsight’s dad said. The smile on his face no longer seemed so bright. “We heard you’ve never gotten anything for your birthday and, well, Ironsight insisted we fixed that.”

My ears went flat, eyeing the box with even more concern than before. My attention turned to my friend, my vision feeling slightly blurry. “You… you didn’t need to.”

“It was nothing about needing to, __,” he replied. He wrapped a wing around me, holding me closer and more comforting than anypony I knew. “Somepony needed to make up for eleven years of no gifts, and I wanted that to be me. It’s only one, I know, but I think you’ll really like it.”

“Go one now, __; open it,” Ironsight’s mom said, doing a little motion with her wing.

Well, it would be rude not to open it, correct?

Slowly, carefully, as if fearing the strange material would cut me open, I opened up the box and peered inside. I didn’t take it out, or ask what it was, I just looked at the small box of cloud and electronics that laid inside, and felt my vision blur to the point that seeing was impossible. The corners of my lips twitched up and down, unable to decide if this moment was truly a happy one. My muzzle hung open, unsteady breaths entering and leaving it as I broke into a quiet, shameful cry.

Inside the box was a simple radio, not unlike what most pegasi had. A knob for tuning frequencies and volume, an on and off button, but nothing else. It seemed so silly to be crying over what many in the Enclave viewed as a standard piece of their home, but it was luxurious to my eyes. There was no doubt this little container of circuits and whatnot was more expensive than anything else I owned.

Anything… else. I owned this. What a strange, unfamiliar feeling it was, having something to call my own.

“__? Everything okay?” Ironsight asked me.

I looked from the radio to him, or at least I tried to. The box my present was contained in fell from my hooves as I lunged at him, forehooves and wings clinging to him like a lifeline. The tears falling from my face, the quiet sobs leaving my muzzle, they came from nowhere. Why was my body reacting like this? A present really couldn’t be that big of a deal.

Yet I was still hung to Ironsight, just like he was now wrapping himself around me. I didn’t deserve to have somepony as nice as him in my life. He deserved somepony so much better than me as a friend, and yet I knew if I told him that he would deny it. Nothing about it made sense to me in the same way it did to him.

“Th-tha… th-th-thank you,” I said, voice struggling to form a single word through my sobs. “Th-th-than… thank y-y-y-ou, I… I-I-Iro… Iron–”

“Just let it out,” he said. “You don’t need to say a thing.”

I did, by Celestia I did. Ironsight just held me close, letting my emotions do what they had to do. The tears felt endless, even as my sobs eased into something quieter. My face finally found an expression worth keeping, the ends of my muzzle turning up ever so slightly. When the tears finally stopped, I found the strength to pull away all on my own. It was possibly the strongest I had ever felt.

“Th-thanks, seriously. I… I don’t know what to say,” I said, looking back to the box containing my radio.

“You don’t need to say anything,” Ironsight’s dad replied. He and his wife had trotted over to me at some point while I was crying, and he had extended his wing out to my back in comfort. “Enjoy this gift, that’s all any of us are asking you.”

My smile grew ever so slightly bigger as I nodded. I was going to do just that, right as soon as I got home. Nothing dad said was going to stop me.

I looked mom up and down, taking in what had become of her as we sat on __ waterfront. Every once in a while I looked behind us to the little community she called __, the place she had disappeared to all those years ago. It was filled with those just like us, who the gluttonous one had gotten their hooves on. The only ponies who weren’t infected were my friends… and Hearty.

“So, how much longer?” I asked.

The look of pain on her face as the question left my lips. Even when the urge had hit her hardest in my younger years, she kept a smile. Didn’t matter to my foal-self if it was real or not; seeing that smile, hearing her voice, it made me forget about my own troubles. Now the smile was gone. It felt as wrong as the state of her body.

Even without needing to say a single word, I knew what that meant. Still, silence was not a concrete answer. I didn’t care how accurate it was, just knowing how long we still had together was all that mattered. Like a young foal, I clung to her foreleg and gazed up at her with all the innocence I still had. A piece of me felt terrible, manipulating my own mother like this, but it felt like the only way.

At the very least, no spell was needed. The expression was all that I needed here.

“I… I don’t entirely know,” she said as she wrapped her foreleg around me. “Less than a year, perhaps less than half a year.”

My ears flattened, head lowering down onto her lap as the answer settled in my head. She was lying, somehow I was certain of it. With the way her body had been transfigured to be nearly unrecognizable, it wasn’t hard to imagine that one more slip up was all it would take. One more taste of pony flesh, and giving in would be something she wouldn’t come back from.

“I don’t want you to go,” I told her. “It took so long to find you and the thought of losing you….”

Mom sighed, her hoof stroking my mane. “It’s scary, I know. Most of us would go to the infinite when we die, but you and I? There won’t be anything for the infinite to take. Oblivion awaits us, and while it isn’t what I wanted I’ve… made peace with the idea.”

“But you shouldn’t need to. You deserve so much better than that,” I replied, tears welling up in my eyes. “You're amazing, and wonderful, and so much better than ponies think you are. The thought that you don’t get a happy ending–”

“I already had my happy ending, __,” she said, lowering her down so she could better look me in the eyes. She did everything in her power to smile at me, even as the shape of her body did everything in its power to try and turn into something more feral. “I met your dad and had you. Those were the happiest days of my life. Now, you are living yours, with Joy, Willow, and your other friends.”

I nestled my muzzle between her hindlegs in fear. “That isn’t a happy ending mom. Isn’t a happy ending supposed to be a full life? A painless death? Meeting your loved ones in the afterlife and all that?”

She stopped stroking me, hoof close to my withers, unmoving. I blinked at the sudden stop in motion, tilting my head so that I was looking into her eyes. A fake smile tried to hide pure terror, but she had put it up too late. Every single piece of her fear had already graced my vision.

She knew her words were a lie; she was facing horrible pain from a hunger that couldn’t be quenched, and it grew stronger and stronger by the second. What she claimed as death was anything but, her body still moving and her mind still functioning, even if it was on a twisted, more basic level. The only piece of herself that was dying was her soul, the very thing that made mom… mom. For it to not be her fate, but mine too?

No wonder she was scared.

“I… I can ask my friends and Hearty to put us down when we are gone,” I said. The offer made a part of me sick, but somehow it still felt better than any alternative. “They’re really good at killing. Willow was raised to do it, Joy has saved my ass more than a hopeful of times, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Heart miss. I’d prefer for all of you to take a rest, mom, not just your soul.”

Her mouth fell open, making sounds but not much else. Mom closed her eyes, her forelegs keeping me from escaping her, and her nose sniffling. Tears ran down her cheeks as much as they were currently running down mine, soft cries filling in for words. They weren’t needed, not when our shared pain did every bit of talking that anypony could ask for. That, and our solidarity, was all we needed as a clock echoed out in my head.

Two clocks, actually. One was far closer to striking midnight than the other, and for once it wasn’t my own.

“Hey, sis!”

The commanding voice nearly caused me to freeze before registering exactly who it was. Leaning over to look past my mom’s neck and mane, I found my eyes meeting with a magenta pegasus, her mane a blue so dark it could fool most into thinking it was black. Any sense of soldier-ness left her as she looked at my mom and I, ears folding back in sympathy.

“Sorry, didn’t realize,” they said, taking a step back. “I can… I can wait.”

“It’s… it’s okay,” mom replied, briefly turning back to look at the pegasus. She couldn’t hide the tears, but I don’t think she didn’t want to. “You’re Star Chart, right? The step-sister __ mentioned earlier.”

“Y-yep. That’s me,” Starry replied. My step-sister and I met eyes for a moment, before she started to trot slowly towards us. “And your __’s mother. I’ll admit, when I heard you were a zebra I thought you would be a bit more… normal.”

Mom didn’t exactly seem sure how to take those words at first, but she ended up chuckling at Starry’s words. I gave my step-sister a look, one that simply said ‘really?’ in hopes that she would understand the insensitivity of her words. The look she gave me in turn could best be described as blank, that poor brain of hers probably didn’t get what I was trying to explain. Letting out my own snort of amusement, albeit at Starry’s face instead of her words, I lifted myself out of my moms lap and focused completely on her.

“You called?” I said, after letting her stand there confused for at least a minute or two.

She blinked, shook her head, and then smiled at me. “Stitches says she got that device of hers complete. Wanted to see you try it on.”

“Iron Iron Iron!”

The height at which he jumped from my words and sudden barging in, it had to have been the most startled I had ever seen him. In literally any other circumstances, I might have been worried about doing such a thing to a CO, but my brain was not working well. Like a scared foal, I stampeded into his office, slammed my hooves onto the top of his desk, and craned my neck down at him.

“Iron, I need your help. This stallion, he–”

My brain paused as soon as I saw my friend and higher up was lying on the back of his chair, which apparently fell down when I had barged in. To say he looked unamused would be an understatement; I’m certain I’d be having my pay docked, and possibly have a few out-of-the-blue shifts added to my schedule. With a sheepish laugh, I circled the table and reached a hoof out to him.

“Sorry, Iron– I mean, sir. Sorry sir,” I said as he grabbed my hoof.

I pulled him back up instantly, eyes darting from his own and to the desk in shame. He did a brief stretch of his back and wings, an annoyed grunt passing through gritted teeth as he did. When it ended, his gaze fell on me, a mixture of disappointment and amusement gracing his features.

“Fucks sake __, what in Tartarus got into you?” he asked me.

I swallowed a lump in my throat, straightening my posture and doing everything in my power to show some semblance of humility and respect. “Apologies sir. I can’t really explain what got into me.”

“Well that isn’t going to do, is it?” he replied, turning away and standing his chair back up. He motioned for me to move to the opposite side of the desk as he sat down, an order I followed without delay. He closed his eyes, his wings messaging both sides of his temple. “We’ll talk about what you just did in a moment. I haven’t seen you act like that in a few years now, not since….”

I felt my gut twist, knowing exactly what manner of event he was talking about. A grimace took over my features, Ironsight’s eyes going wide as he saw them.

“__, did he–”

“No! No,” I said, shaking the grimace off my face and replacing it with something colder, stoic. “He hasn’t shown his face in some time, thank goodness. I’m here for something else.”

He let out a sigh of relief, his back resting against the chair. “Thank the winds. What’s the issue then?”

“Well, this stallion came to talk to me at the mess hall earlier today,” I explained. As soon as I finished that sentence, Ironsight’s look grew far more defensive. Eyes barely visible, a frown on his face, he was prepared for the absolute worst. I quickly shook a hoof in front of me. “H-he did nothing bad. At least, I don’t think so? He just asked me if I wanted to go to this place and it made me feel… I’m not sure how to describe it.”

Even saying that much brought the feeling back tenfold, my heart beating wonderfully fast and my cheeks forcing my muzzle into a smile. My stomach felt like it was stuffed with butterflies, and for some fucking reason the sight of the stallion’s face wouldn’t leave my mind. I brought a hoof to my chest, getting lost in the unknown feeling. For all of its strangeness, it might just be the most pleasant feeling I ever held in my entire life. All given to me by some pegasus I knew absolutely nothing about.

I opened my eyes, realizing I had been silent for around half a minute. Of all the things I expected when I looked at Ironsight, watching him go from disgust at a pony he didn’t even know to stupefied beyond belief was not one of them. I blinked, the strange but pleasant feeling subsided slightly so that concern could peek through. Usually it was me wearing that expression, not him.

“Ironsight, are you okay?” I asked.

My words did wake him up from whatever spell I had managed to cast. He cleared his throat, put on a stoic face, and focused his attention back on me.

“Completely fine, just a bit surprised,” Ironsight said. A smile was threatening his face, but he somehow managed to keep it down and his professionalism up. “I’m not entirely sure what you are here for so far. Did something happen afterwards?”

“N-no. It’s… well,” I focused on that strange, pleasant feeling I had in my chest, as if drawing on it for strength, “I wanted to ask you what I might be feeling. Not as my superior, obviously, but as my friend.”

Just like that, all professionalism fell off his face to be replaced by an adorable, goofy smile. There were tiny little movements in his body, ones I recognized as him holding in the urge to laugh at something. I tilted my head, raising one side of my brow as I tried to determine exactly what it is he found funny. Did he not realize that my question was entirely serious?

“Sorry, __, sorry. I guess it makes sense since you wouldn’t completely understand what you are feeling but ....”

Ironsight rose from his chair, circled his desk, and suddenly wrapped a hoof around my head. In surprise, I let out a small yelp and tried to free myself, but his grasp was a bit too strong to get out of. His free hoof ruffled my mane to the point that it was now a mess, the slight amount of work I spent keeping it in line completely destroyed. By the time he let me go, I was well beyond frustrated with the stallion before me.

Unfortunately, I was more than aware that he was one of the only ponies who saw me being angry as a thing to not be afraid of. Years of basically being an older brother to me had led him to view it more as a pout more than anything. That was the case here as well, the goofy smile still on his face and a hoof rubbing his withers. It was all I was going to get from in terms of an apology.

“First things first,” he said, that same hoof booping the air in front of him, “what did you say? Can I assume it was….”

A crumb of confusion found its way into my frustration at his words. “I mean, yeah! I said the feeling was strange, not bad.”

Thinking about that feeling, it was all my brain needed to completely forget about my anger. The way it bubbled up, crushing any negative emotion that stood in its path, filling my body with warmth. What was this feeling? Why did that stallion make me feel this way, and why had it been so much harder to speak with him than literally any other of my fellow soldiers? So much of me didn’t care, wanting to feel it again and again. The naive little filly still deep inside me, however, was far too curious to let the question go.

“Why does he make me feel so… happy?!” I asked, more to myself than to the stallion before me.

“You really don’t know?” Ironsight questioned back. I nodded absentmindedly, too focused on soaking in every little bit of what I felt to care about what he was asking me. “__, that is love!”

A stood there for a moment, my brain not immediately registering the words that came from his muzzle. Then, slowly, like an errant cloud going across the sky, it sank in more… and more… until my brow rose up high and my jaw ever-so-slightly dropped. I blinked once, twice, thrice, trying to grip the sheer idea that Ironsight had just laid before me. To top it all off, I felt my face suddenly feel a lot hotter – for lack of a better term – than it had been before.

Despite standing completely still, I somehow nearly lost balance and collapsed as soon as I realized the full meaning behind his words. Love, I was feeling love. Not the kind a friend felt for a friend, the one a pegasus had for the Enclave, or the kind associated with a really good story or song. This was romantic love, towards a pony who I had seen, but hadn’t really talked to until today. A stallion that had a really lovely voice, pretty nice on first impression, a great mane-style, pretty nice on first impression… a great flank… gorgeous eyes… and that wingspan of his was just… just….

A snicker woke me up from my love-induced daydream. Ironsight had covered his face with a wing, the sounds he was making behind it not at all muffled by his feathers. Sweet Celestia was I glad that my coat hid blushes well because the level of embarrassment I was feeling was unmatched.

“I-Ironsight!” I shouted. I wanted so badly to sound angry, but the aforementioned embarrassment had found its way into my voice as well.

“Sorry. Sorry,” he said, though judging by the continual laughter present in his voice he certainly didn’t sound sorry. His wing went back to his side, face practically beaming as he locked eyes with me. “So, what’s his name? Come on, I told you about my crush, you have to tell me yours.”

“I, uh, well, his name was, uh…,” I looked away, unsure that my coat color was actually hiding the red in my face anymore. “I-it’s… Iron. Iron Anchor. He’s a cloudship pilot.”

Oh Tartarus the smug smile that put on his face. As a hoof went to rub at the underside of his muzzle, I already knew mentioning it was a mistake.

“Iron, is it?” Ironsight asked. Despite everything in me saying to not do anything, my body automatically nodded. “Well, I know I’ve made an impression, but I didn’t think somepony having such a similar name would–”

“Shut!”

Before he could finish, I started bopping him on the head with my wing. It wasn’t harsh – I didn’t actually want to hurt him after all – but it felt like the best and most appropriate way to show how I felt at that moment. Was it foalish? Definitely, but at some point a pony reaches such a high level of embarrassment that acting foalish is a non-concern. All he did was chuckle, a fact that made a groan more than happy to escape.

Yet even that little show of being upset was completely fake. Once again my mind turned to the crazy fact that I had somehow fallen for somepony. I started pacing back and forth, Ironsight watching with a coy look on his face.

“Wait. I-if I’m in love, a-a-and he asked me out. That’s… that is a–” the words got caught in my throat, so I looked to Ironsight to make sure I was correct. He gave a nod, and I swallowed before starting to pace again. “A date. H-h-h-he asked me on a date. Am I ready for one? I mean, it would be rude of me to back out but what if this ends up going bad? What if this feeling is incorrect? What if–”

“__!”

The sound of my name causes me to stop in my tracks, head snapping to Ironsight as if switching form one hostile grounder to another. The smile on his face had softened greatly, no longer carrying this cocky aura to it. It was more laid back, gentle, and every bit more comforting than what he had adorned before. He knew that this was the moment to stop teasing me as a friend and console instead, something he was no doubt way to use to from years of dealing with me.

He placed a wing on my back and a hoof around my withers. He gently nudged me to close in. There was no reason for him to, I felt so small at the moment and his comfort meant the world.

“Listen, he hasn’t done anything to harm you, right?” He asked. “Nothing verbal or physical, just polite.”

“Y-y-yeah,” I answered, one of my hooves rubbing against my upper foreleg. “He said just as scared as me.”

“And you clearly like him, so don’t worry about the ‘what ifs’ right now. I’m happy for you, and I think it's at least worth giving him a try,” he said. His wing patted me a few times. “If things don’t work out, that’s okay; if they do, wonderful! And if you would like a third wheel to keep you calm during this first time…”

Having calmed down significantly from his words, I rolled my eyes. “Y-you just want to look at the h-h-h-hot stallion that made me feel like this.”

“Guilty, but you know I can control myself,” he said, taking his hoof off my withers and poking my chest with it. “So? How does that sound?”

Even knowing about his silly little ulterior motive, straight up saying ‘no’ to him wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. I’ve known Ironsight for years, and I know he wasn’t joking about controlling himself. He meant every word, and he fully expected me to reprimand him if he got out of hoof. Maybe not that harshly, considering he was still my closest friend, but enough to drill it into his brain that Iron wasn’t his… probably.

“I’ll consider it,” I replied, though judging by the smile we were flashing at each other, it was basically a yes. With one last playful shove from me, and then one in retaliation from him, I wrapped both forelegs and wings around him. “Thanks for hearing me out, and not being a complete ass about this.”

He giggled and returned the hug. “Anytime __.”

“…”

“…”

“Hey. you there?”

“…huh?”

“Oh thank Celestia. You had me worried.”

“Who… your voice sounds familiar.”

“Of course it does, because I was the one who put us in this predicament.”

“...”

“Wait, no, that was you, right?”

“I don’t know. All these memories, they don’t make any sense.”

“You see them as well?”

“Of course! They are my memories after all. At least, I think they are. Some don’t fit.”

“Of course they don’t.”

“Huh?”

“They don’t just belong to one pony, I mean. I think… I think these memories are from both of us.”

“What? How?”

“It’s the memory spell. The one you… I… one of us cast on each other. I can’t tell who exactly did it. Trying to recall memories, it hurts too much.”

“If that is the case, then that means we both are–”

“Singing Rhapsody and Dead Hooves, yes.”

“...”

“...!”

“Ah!”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, it’s just… you’re right. It does hurt.”

“You didn’t just try to–”

“Of course I did! I want to know which of us is which! All these memories, jumbled up and battling with one another, I want it to end. My mind feels so chaotic.”

“It’s not just your mind. Mine is too. It’s all muddled together to the point I can’t tell who is who.”
“What do we do about this?”

“I-I don’t know. Not even Vigil completely understood it, if our memories serve correctly.”

“And if death itself has no idea what is going on…”

“Then what is happening to us?”

“Let’s… let's calm down for a moment. Take one thing at a time, try to figure shit out.”

“Y-yeah, that sounds good. First thing first then, where are we? I can’t see anything.”

“I think we are unconscious. Last thing I recall is Rhapso– Dead– the body falling unconscious.”

“The body?”

“The living pony who one of us killed… kind of. I can’t remember who was who, so that’s what I’m going to call them.”

“Sounds kind of rude, but since we can’t tell who is who, I guess we have no choice. Do we just do the same thing for the ghost?”

“Yeah. We’ll deal with the fact we are kind of insulting each other later.”

“So the body is unconscious. Yeah I remember that. Blood loss from a firefight.”

“We will be okay, right?”

“We have Sharpshot. Couldn’t ask to be in better hooves right now.”

“Heh, I guess that is true.”

“Though, if we are unconscious, then how are we talking? Is it that link between the ghost and the body doing this?”

“Only thing I can think of that makes any sort of sense. Though, with how muddled things are, I’m not sure if we are two different ponies anymore.”

“W-w-wait, what?”

“Think about it: our memories are fucked up beyond belief, and we can’t tell who is who. The body started casting spells, and is being affected by warding talismans just as much as – if not worse – then the ghost was. We only noticed the line blurring in the past day or two, but it must have been happening long before that.”

“And that means that, when we wake up, we won’t be Singing Rhapsody or Dead Hooves.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“...”

“...”

“I’m… I’m scared. Really scared.”

“Same here.”

“What about Gemini, or Anchor and the rest of the body’s family? What is Gold going to do to us when he finds out? What about the body’s mission?”

“Calm down. Panicking isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“But–”

“Calm down!”

“... sorry.”

“It’s fine, I understand how you are feeling. Just, listen to me for a moment.”

“Okay, okay. You have a plan?”

“Not really, but I don’t think we will need that much of one to begin with. Look, we both clearly care about Anchor, Clear, Rainy, and Gemini.”

“Yeah.”

“Then nothing to worry about there. Even if one of us cares this much simply because of the body’s memories, that means we won’t let anything happen to them. Now, about that second question, you remember that Sharpshot is aware of Gold’s orders to kill, right?”

“Y-y-yeah.”

“Sharpshot, insufferable bastard he may be, isn’t going to let us die. Willow made that clear back in Trotson. We don’t have anything to worry about, not with him there.”

“And with us in agreement, there isn’t any reason to be scared. At least, not scared of any immediate problems. Everything else though…”

“We’ll deal with it when we they come along. Now, we are going to need a name.”

“A name? You mean we can’t just call ourselves Rhapsody or Dead Hooves?”

“You have as little idea of which one inhabited the body as I do. That and… something in me forbids using one of them.”

“If you say so. I… do have an idea for a name, if you will hear it.”

“I think I already know what you are going to choose.”

“That predictable, huh?”

“We share the same memories, as headache inducing and nonsensical as they are to us right now. I would be surprised if I couldn’t predict it.”

“Fair enough. Say it at the same time then?”

“Sure, why not. On three. One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

“Danse Macabre”

Act 2 – Chapter 13: And Thus, Two Became One

Underside, San Palomino Desert

Day 14

The first thing to greet my eyes upon waking up was the ceiling, nearly invisible in the darkness. A little bit of moonlight shone in from a window, more than enough to let me know what material made it up. Some kind of stone or brick, though my mind didn’t want to figure out exactly what kind. All it knew was that it made no sense; we had been surrounded by wooden buildings earlier, not to mention I felt unusually comfy. All the houses were barren if I recall correctly.

I shifted my attention from directly above me to my side, and found more evidence that this was not the testing site. An end table with a desk lamp on it, an area I first mistook for a kitchenette before realizing the lack of stove, fridge, or other appliances. All it had was a rusty sink and cabinets, not to mention some small medical supplies sitting on top of the latter or on the walls. With a look directly behind me, I bore witness to an old, faded poster. The words were impossible to read in the darkness, but I knew the yellow pegasus on the front.

This was a medical clinic, which meant my friends had found either another abandoned mining town or some actual civilization. I willed the MentaBuck up, wincing at the pain it’s neon green hud caused in my eyes. They begged me to shut it off, close them, and return to resting, but I ignored them. Everything about me felt strange, and I wanted answers.

Answer I had not found while both sides of me talked in my sleep.

That thought proved a worthy enough distraction from the headache my MentaBuck was giving me. I searched my brain for those opposing sides, trying to find them. I felt neither of them anymore, their individuality snuffed out in the time between that conversation and me waking up. Just how long had I been asleep? Was it days or weeks? Both were terrifying for different reasons, the main one coming to my head being checked in with Ironsight.

“Wait, this isn’t right. Who’s doing this?”

I blinked as I heard the voice. Willing the MentaBuck’s hud away and forcing myself to sit up, I looked all around me for any sign of a pony within the room before me. No one. If there was no pony with me, then that meant the voice I heard was… one of them? It had to be. Which one, though? Rhapsody or Dead Hooves?

“It doesn’t matter right now. You’ll just give yourself a headache figuring out the answer.”

I blinked as I heard them speak again, initially confused at what they were asking. Then I nodded, recalling the head-splitting sensation something even that simple proved to give me. My existence felt disorienting, strange, wrong. As badly as I wanted to fix that – answer which of the two ponies in me this body had first belonged to – that had to wait.

First things first, figure out where I am. That meant pulling up the MentaBuck and dealing with the way the light hurt my eyes.

Upon looking at the map, I let out a sigh of relief. Underside. That meant I was safe for the moment, at least physically. It also confirms that the body had been unconscious for more than a day; it had been a two day journey to find Lucky Shot after all.

A grimace painted my face as the changeling came to mind. Lucky Shot, the entire reason we had been out there; one half of why I had ended up out cold from blood loss. The body had wanted to ask him several questions before they or Day Glow killed them. I prayed that they were still alive, if only so that I had the ability to extract just one or two things of note from them before we killed him. That much had not changed.

That was my whereabouts figured out, now to see how bad my injuries still were. I looked down, shivering as I recalled the near-death experience that had nearly been this body’s last moments. Lots and lots of bandages on my midsection and foreleg were expected, likely covered in a good layer of my own blood. After all, it isn't like somepony recovers like that and is…

A simple glance down at myself left me stupefied. There wasn’t a single bandage wrapped around any of my body, as there weren't any holes in me that needed to be covered. My chest was completely healed on an externally, and pressing against it with what should have been a mangled foreleg revealed that it wasn’t the only thing to be completely fine. No pain from cracked ribs, no coughing blood or harsh breathing from a popped lung, nothing. I was completely healed, no scarring on my entire body despite every piece of logic in me saying that there should be.

“H-how–”

My brow went high, and my should-be-horribly-scarred hoof went to my neck. My voice, it felt… off. It was like an in-between of Rhapsody’s commanding low alto and Dead Hooves’ raspier tone had been pushed slightly together. That was wrong, I damn well knew so. A pony’s voice didn’t change with the stomp of a hoof. I felt my heart beat a little faster.

Something was wrong with me. Something was very, very wrong with me.

Suddenly, the bed I had been on felt a lot less safe than it had been originally. Kicking what sheets had still been covering me off, I slid off the bed, forelegs out with the hope they would keep me from falling. They didn’t, instead choosing to give out under me as soon as I had half my weight on them. I crumbled to the floor, a muzzle impacting the hard surface under me with the force of a bullet. A wing immediately went to cover it, the rest of me ceasing as waves upon waves of agony passed through my nerves.

Forcing myself to fight through it, I struggled onto my hooves. They felt weaker, ready to collapse, and upon looking down to make sure they wouldn’t do just that I realized something. Maybe my brain was tricking me, perhaps the conglomeration of memories in my brain were fucking with me, but the ground seemed farther away then usual. Was I imagining it?

“Focus on that later. Get out of here!”

“Right,” I mumbled out loud. My voice still felt wrong, but it was something to think about later.

My eyes darted around me wildly, trying to figure out where the door was. It ended up being on the other side of the end table, or out of view of the bed. I made my way towards it with unsteady steps, the invisible horn on my head coming to life at my command and giving some real light. Light meant seeing, seeing meant I wouldn’t be fumbling with the door before me, and fumbling meant freeing myself from this room.

I swung it open without any care for subtlety, quickly shuffling out of the room as it slammed into the wall to the door’s left. A brief look around confirmed what my room had told me: this was a clinic. Most likely it had been back before the Last Day too, giving the general layout of the place. Shut off terminals, medical supplies strewn about in a fashion both chaotic and orderly at the same time, a lack of debris or disrepair, it had been kept well maintained. So many doors leading to different rooms too, most of them likely for patients. I didn’t want that, I wanted the chance to see my face, to get an idea of if anything else was different about me.

A bathroom, that would probably be the most likely chance for me to get a look at myself. Most of them had mirrors after all. Even if it wasn’t a full body mirror, it would work perfectly. Not wishing to stay around for somepony I don’t know to find me, I started trotting down the hall to my right. My eyes flicked to each door, looking to see if they could possibly be anything else. Last thing I wanted was to intrude on a patient’s sleep, or make them think I was a doctor when I’m not.

Thankfully there was not any need to guess; they had labeled a bathroom not too far into my walk, left side of the hallway. There was no light inside of it, so I didn’t bother to knock before opening the door. It was small, holding just enough room for everything a pony would expect a bathroom to hold. Sink, toilet, a tiny trash can, and most important to me, a mirror. I immediately positioned myself in front of it, the light of my ‘horn’ making my reflection clear as any other day in San Palomino.

Two things struck me immediately as being wrong.

It didn’t hurt to recall what the body looked like: magenta coat, white and blue mane and tail, yellow eyes, cutiemark covered hidden under a cruel symbol of an old world traitor. The mare that looked back at me had most of that, but some things were slightly off. Her left eye was still yellow, but her right one was now blood red; her mane was still blue and white, but now a streak of black joined them; the coat was still a vibrant magenta, but her wings now shifted into a tan. My brain felt like a brick wall had been stacked in front of it, for when I looked at myself I saw neither Dead Hooves nor Rhapsody's body.

Instead, I saw the pony that was… me.

“This is you. Your name is Danse Macabre.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat, and the pony in the mirror did the same. Danse Macabre, the name they had given me before I had awoken. It fit well, given the name of the two ponies that made up who I was. Dance equaled music, and macabre was a word well associated with things morbid, grotesque, or deceased. A sigh left my lips, ears falling flat against my head.

“What do I tell you, Iron?” I asked the mare in the mirror. “This voice, you won’t recognize it; it’s too different.”

There was no answer, not from my reflection or the remains of Dead Hooves and Rhapsody within me. It was something I’d have to figure out myself, apparently. It left me with a feeling of dread, any hope of an easy upcoming conversation with him dust before my altered self. I lifted a hoof and placed it on a mirror, wishing to draw some courage from the mare that laid inside of it.

The fact she was also stricken with a look of unease told me that wasn’t happening.

I bid my reflection farewell, stepping out of the bathroom and closing the door behind me with my magic. Despite knowing whoever ran this place wouldn’t want me walking around, I didn’t want to head back to the room I woke up in. Something in me desired to walk, run, perhaps fly if my wings felt like working. Without even a second thought, I gave into that desire, the sound of my hooves on the floor echoing as I started down the hallway.

The quiet of the world was a blessing for my chaotic mind, still passively doing everything in its power to separate and order the memories that were called up. They were random, brief, flashes of sounds, sights, and smells that felt both familiar and unknown at the same time. Everything was a contradiction. Happy family, horrible family; loving husband, all alone; a healthy life, and one filled with sickness. The only commons in any of them was the knowledge that my two sides had lived, been happy, and suffered greatly. The silence helped me adjust to the constant noise.

“Danse Macabre. I am Danse Macabre,” I said to myself. My mouth repeated the name over and over, hammering it in so that it would be impossible to forget it. “Mother, soldier, deadweight, neuromancer, I am all these things. I am Danse Macabre.”

A particular set of double doors caught my attention, different from the rest that I had gone by before now. They seemed to be made mostly of glass, but it was made in such a way where somepony couldn’t see through it. This had to be the way out, given how out of place it was from the others; waiting areas always seemed more inviting than anywhere else in a clinic or hospital.

I pushed the door open with ease and walked through, finding before me a rather familiar sight. The lobby was not too different from the one we had spent the night in back in Trotson, though the layout was mixed up. Chairs were in different places, the door leading outside was on the building’s right instead of the left, and overall it was a bit smaller. The only thing that mattered to me then and there was the exit.

So I stepped inside… and heard a gasp. My head snapped to the welcome desk, finding a rather tired hippogriff staring at me with wide eyes. I froze, silently swearing at realizing I had been caught.”

“Wait, your the mare that–”

“Don’t pay attention to her. Out the door, now!”

Agreeing with my inner voice, I bolted away from the hippogriff mare as soon as possible. I heard her call out to me, asking for me to come back, but I wasn’t listening. Horn opening the door outside, my hooves carried me through it. The cold desert-night initially made me shiver, but it did not stop my sprint into the streets of Underside, away from the clinic and into the crowd of whatever few ponies were awake.

There weren’t that many ponies or creatures out that night, but there were more than enough of them to aid in my escape. All their eyes tracked me as I went past, but not for long enough to tip anypony from the clinic off who may have been on my tail. It felt wrong in some ways – the doctors were just as much the reason I was alive as Sharpshot – but there was still that unexplainable something nudging me out here. This is where I needed to be, at least for right now.

After several minutes of galloping, my pace slowed. It first dropped to a light canter, then a trot, and finally a full stop. My neck craned up, looking towards the moon. The chill of the desert breeze, the star-filled sky, the chatter of the few passersby that went by me. My jaw hung, expression filled with awe and nostalgia at the sight above everypony. It felt like the first time I had ever seen it in my whole life, which was incorrect. Both Rhapsody and Dead Hooves had seen it before, after all.

Then again, while they were both me, I wasn’t exactly them. Their memories felt like old pictures in somepony else’s picture books when my mind could grab them for longer than a second. What brief visions of the night I had seen felt like nothing compared to truly seeing it with my own eyes.

In other words, it was my first time seeing the night sky, even if my two halves contradicted that.

“So… beautiful,” I mumbled.

One hoof reached outwards to the moon, as if wishing to grab it and pull it closer. Obviously it didn’t work, but it didn’t stop me from trying for the next minute or two. My wings flapped, not giving enough lift to get me airborne but more than enough to feed my wish to believe that maybe, just maybe, I could grab the moon. It was only a matter of time before it hit me that such a thing was impossible. Didn’t make the night any less beautiful.

Tearing my eyes away from that and to the world around me, I briefly paid attention to ponies and other creatures walking by. Some seemed a lot less steady, most likely from drinking, and others were having chats with friends or family as they made their way to whatever destination awaited them. As soon as I thought about friends, a frown graced my face; I felt alone.

“There was a motel, remember? If you want to be with friends, then that is where they will be.”

I nodded, the idea was good. Being with friends sounded very nice right now, after the body’s near experience. With a quick look at my MentaBuck to give me an idea of where I was in relation to the motel, and started to make my way towards it.

Knock knock knock

“Willow? Gemmy? Anypony? Please open the door.”

Nothing. If they were in their rooms, then they were fast asleep and unable to hear me. I tried anyway, several more times, hoping that the banging on the door would at least be enough to get their attention. Once, twice, thrice, on and on I went, hoping to be heard at this late hour of the night.

All I ended up doing was well up a feeling of anxiety inside me, along with a healthy dose of shame. Now more than any other point in the night, leaving the clinic felt like it had been a terrible idea. Out in the cold, nowhere to go, and I had absolutely no idea how to get back to it. Desperate to find some other action outside of admitting I was an idiot, I considered one last final course of action. It made my stomach more than a little upset, just thinking of lying to them, but I had no choice.

With another series of raps on the door, I steeled myself for what I was about to do. “Sharpshot, it’s me, Rhaps–”

Before I could finish saying her name, a sudden surge of pain ripped through my entire body. Legs buckled, wings went rigid, and a noiseless scream left my mouth as the most aggravating pain in both my lives tore through me like a hall of machine gun fire. My brain begged me to turn away from my plan, and I had no choice but to submit to it’s wants. With a hasty, harsh shake of my head, I dispelled any want of lying to these ponies of who I was. The pain disappeared with it.

Taking a few steps away from the motel door, I sat down and stared at it lost. What just happened? Why did every nerve in my body light up as if they were being burned alive? Sure, lying to the ponies I was traveling with about who I am wasn’t good, but the night was cold. Too cold in fact, now that I had been out and about for longer than a few minutes. At the very least, I had figured out one undeniable fact: I wasn’t Singing Rhapsody.

That left Dead Hooves as my true identity, but that didn’t fit. My hindlegs still worked, I had no visible horn, the constant hunger pains from the Gluttonous One’s influence weren’t there. All of those things coincided with the unicorn, and none of them accurately fit with how I looked or felt at this moment. That meant I was Rhapsody, but the pain I had just been subjected to from trying to invoke her name as my own nudged me away from that idea.

No closer to the truth than before. I grimaced as a particularly harsh breeze passed through my feathers and coat, as if mother nature was also mocking me for my predicament.

“Well, that isn’t a pony I expected to see tonight.”

My ears perked up, and I turned my attention behind me. I let out a gasp at the sight of the Abyssian looking at me from not that far away, his expression both joyful and sympathetic at the same time. His eyes glowed in the dark of night, looking me up and down. There was only one Abyssian I had interacted with, and the voice he had was a dead giveaway as to who he was.

“Basalt?” I asked.

“Remember little ol’ me huh? Didn’t think our conversation left that much of an impression,” he responded, kneeling down so that he was closer to my height. “Being up and about this late, I doubt your doctor would be happy about that.”

I hung my head, a wave of shame passing through me. “No. They’ll be upset, but I couldn’t stay there. Needed to get out; need to… see the stars.”

Looking back to the night sky was all it took for that brief shame to turn into awe, and Basalt joined in. He too smiled at the tiny lights in the sky, and the great pale moon that hung above us all. The two of us sat there for a minute, soaking it in, enjoying the atmosphere.

“Is this all you came out here for?” he asked, after a time. He had looked back to me, the tiniest hint of concern in his eyes. “Missus Rhapso–”

“No!” I shouted in panic. The moment he had started saying her name to me, the pain came back. “Not Rhapsody. Not her… anymore.”

The silence my words left was far less peaceful than any I had been in previously that night. Somewhere in me, no doubt the piece of me that was Singing Rhapsody, was hurting from having to say it. What other choice did I have, though, when somecreature else calling me her name made me hurt? This has to have been the result of another of the ghost’s spells, but trying to figure out exactly which one made that horrible migraine come back.

“Sorry, Basalt,” I said. “I’m not her, just a shadow of what once was her. That’s… that’s the only way I can explain myself, what I am.”

“Something more happened than just the injuries, didn’t it?” He asked. I opened my mouth to ask how he knew of them, but he had preempted the question before a single sound left my muzzle. “Sharpshot told me what happened – popped lung, broken ribs, mangled foreleg – but he also told me about other things. Changes to your appearance, your body healing itself without any sort of medicine. It’s why I managed to recognize you despite the mane, eyes, and cutie mark.”

I blinked. “My cutie mark.?”

“You haven’t noticed it? The dashite brand is gone.”

My brow rose at his words, and my gaze shifted from the abyssian to my own flank. I stared at it, rubbed my eyes with a foreleg just in case I was seeing things, and then found myself staring at it even more. Where the mark of an Enclave traitor once was was now three quarter notes, connected by a triplet bar. I knew this mark well. It was Rhapsody’s mark, the one she had gotten years ago when she had touched her bass for the first time.

Now, it was my cutie mark too.

“My cutie mark,” I repeated quietly. A smile crept up my face, water welling up in my eyes. “Something good has come from all this, as small as it is. It’s so nice to have it back.”

“I can imagine, though this is definitely the first I’ve ever heard one of you ponies call their cutie mark a small thing,” Basalt said, a somber laugh leaving his muzzle. I joined in, finding my choice of words similarly comedic, even if they were true. “Still, not exactly normal. Though from the sounds of it, none of your predicament is.”

I shook my head. “No, but at least I got this out of it. All the scary things to come, all the terrifying discussions I’m going to have with my friends, is made just a little easier by this being here.”

“A tiny light in the dark, as faint as that which the moon reflects,” the abyssian waxed. After a pregnant pause, he stood back up and stretched. “Well, got to get back to the Lucky Clover. Want to come with me? Don’t think anything alcoholic is good for you right now but it’ll at least get you out of the cold.”

Getting onto my own hooves, shivering slightly at the reminder of how chilly the night was, I nodded to Basalt. After stupidly leaving the clinic, being among company sounded like the smartest thing to do right now.

“Three days? Really?” I asked, tilted a half-empty cup of Sunrise Sarsaparilla this way and that. Basalt nodded, standing behind the bar and doing everything in his ability to keep looking professional. “I mean, that makes sense given how long it took us to get there, but that also means that I’ve likely been laying in that room for one whole day now.”

“Yep. Your wounds were mostly healed but Sharpshot insisted on bringing you to somepony here,” he explained. He looked to the rest of the Lucky Clover, passively examining the few ponies, griffons, and otherwise that were seated. “Gemini, she acted so tough while you were gone, but as soon as she saw you? I think a wound in her cracked open again.”

I scowled, sighed, and then brought more of the root beer to my lips. Gemmy, I already knew she was going to hurt, but hearing it from somepony she had likely been around the past several days, it hurt even more. It felt like I was supposed to be there right now, with her, comforting them. To take it away, or at the very least ease it, would mean the world to me.

“Whether I left her here or took her with us, nothing would have likely changed,” I said, more to myself than to Basalt. “At least she didn’t get hurt, this way.”

“Thank your princesses for small blessings, or whatever ponies do,” Basalt replied. I nodded in solidarity. “Still, the way you are talking about this, it’s like you expected it to happen.”

“Expected? No,” I said. I emptied what remained of the root beer down my muzzle, set the glass down, and sighed. “It’s just that both parts of me are… kind of in agreement that it was impossible.”

“Right, this… soul eating, memory fusing thing,” he replied, motioning in an irritated manner. “Magic. Not something I know much about, but then again it sounds like the same went for you and this other pony.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t questioning anything about it.”

“Trust me Missus… Danse, I think you said?” he asked. I nodded. “You see enough crazy stuff around where you don’t really question it anymore. That, and your explanation makes as much sense as any other going around town.”

My head automatically tilted itself to the side. “Ponies were starting rumors?”

“You know how individuals are,” he replied with a roll of his eyes. “Your story is so odd it was impossible to stop it from spreading around town. Tartarus, give merchants long enough and it will hit the SMR. The radio host lives off stuff like that after all.” He grabbed a bottle of Sunrise Sarsaparilla from under the bar, opening it with a bottle opener before pouring it into my empty glass. “Even earned yourself a little nickname, partly for your strangeness and partly for your services to the Shattered Moon: the Cloudborne Anomaly. Don’t ask how the first part of that came about, I have no idea.”

“Sounds like some work went into that.”

“Yeah, and with the way the world works, I can guarantee it will stick. Especially if DJ–PON3 or Mysterioso hear it.” He leaned in. “That's what ponies call the local radio stallion, by the way. No one knows his actual name.”

“Put a lot more creativity in my little nickname, didn’t they?” I asked. He gave a shrug, offering a weak smile. “Though, back to more important things, is Gemmy… alright?”

His gaze briefly went elsewhere before returning to me. “Outside of her reaction to seeing you return? Yeah. She isn’t the toughest mare out there, but she did something that has a lot of us here thinking highly of her. Others had her back, me specifically.”

I smiled at the abyssian. Knowing she was physically safe meant the world to me, and meant that all I had to do was patch up whatever had broken inside of her. Not that it would be easy, considering my very existence was likely to mend her nearly as much as it could hurt her. Caution would be the only approach when it came to that reunion.

As for whatever she did that made everycreature so grateful? No answers were needed there; I already knew exactly what she had done.

“Let me guess,” I said. “She found an equalist infiltrator and hooved them over to the Shattered Moon.”

His brow went high, attention thoroughly hooked. “Well, yes! How did you know?”

“My memory may be all fuzzy, but I remember some key things,” I answered, taking the refilled cup of root beer and down it all in one go. “Ponies I considered friends and family, ponies that I have to kill or have a responsibility to, a young mare that I gave an important mission to. That last one was Gemini, it had to be her.”

“Well, Danse Macabre though you think yourself, there is a little Rhaps–” Basalt stopped as he watched me shiver; another flare of pain, “of your pegasus half, in there. Listen, I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but perhaps it would be best to head back to the doctors. Magical though I’m guessing it is, there is clearly something wrong still.”

“You’ll have to narrow it down. Everything about me is wrong right now,” I replied, letting out a chuckle out of my morbid joke. Basalt responded with a firm, disappointed stare. With a sigh, I relented. “Yeah, I should. Wandering around in the middle of the night isn’t going to fix anything, no matter how bad I want it too.”

“Need an escort back?’ he asked. After a moment of hesitation, I gave him a nod. “Got it. I’ll bring you there in a minute or two, just going to make sure my patrons are all set and my staff knows I’ll be heading back out for a few minutes.”

Another nod, and Basalt made his way around the desk and behind me to the rest of the pub. I rested my head against the bar’s counter, my scowl refusing to fade. What was it about going back to the clinic that had me so jumpy? I had more than enough experience with Enclave doctors, Sharpshot, and Stitches where I felt it shouldn’t exist. Yet still this inner fear stayed, as if some piece of me that felt so brave suddenly felt extraordinarily small. Which side it was though remained a mystery to me.

The door to the Lucky Clover opened behind me, something I hadn’t given too much thought about. The sound of someone non-equine filled the floor with thumps, just heavy enough for my ears to hear them. They grew closer, closer, and then a griffon appeared by my side. I turned to look at them, only to find them looking back at me. Dark blue fur, crimson feathers, eyes tired from age yet filled with something immense. Most would have seen it as wisdom, but the look did not take me as the look of a wise griff.

“You’re her, aren’t you?” Falke asked. “Gold’s contract, I mean.”

“Yeah, and you're Falke,” I replied, staring back at the griffon.

“The one and only. Falke Rotfeather, long-time talon, grandfather, and far too old for the shit he does,” he said. The griffon chuckled at himself, then waved off his own joke. “Not the only one my age still going strong though, am I? Had a feeling Gold didn’t just up and die when he disappeared all those years ago, now I know that I was right!”

“Can’t really take credit for it. Only met him some time ago,” I said. Once again, I made the mistake of trying to figure out specifics, only to wince and bring a foreleg to my head as I was punished for my actions with pain. “Fuck. I… I can’t remember how long exactly?”

“I’m assuming you haven’t fully recovered yet,” Falke said. Closing my eyes to hide from the bright light of the pub, I nodded. “Damn, sorry to hear that. Good to see you up and about though, at least. Heck of an improvement, if you ask me.”

Daring to open my eyes again, I thought about his statement for a moment. Then, a tiny smile adorned my face.

“You know, that’s probably the most positive outlook anyone has offered me so far,” I replied. “The accuracy of it is up for debate, but I’ll take it.”

“It’s all we can do sometimes. Life throws unavoidable brahmin shit our way, and we must look for that tiny bit of light so that sorrow and agony doesn’t swallow us whole,” Falke said. He laughed at his own wisdom, and let out a heavy sigh. “You need it, in Gold and I’s line of work. Things almost never go the way you intend it to.”

I didn’t respond, but I more than understood what he meant. Both my lives had dealt with quiet a large number of events that fit perfectly in that category, too many to really recall. The pain, the suffering, the despair and depths that they had fallen into needed no help emerging, however. They were there, still as strong and horrible as they had always been.

Yet each feeling was also opposed by something more positive, and with it faces of ponies I knew. Willow, Iron Anchor, Joy, Starry, even Sharpshot, as strange as it was, all had a place there, cycling in and out with each other. They were the lights Falke had mentioned, the ones that lifted me up when things got dark. They allowed a little bit of hope in situations that were completely devoid of them.

“Thanks,” I told the griffon. He grinned and winked at me, the talon that had previously been holding his head up now reaching into the air to wave somecreature over to us. “Guess that’s part of how you’ve stayed alive as long as you have. Merc work sounds taxing.”

“No less taxing than the Enclave military, I’m sure,” he replied. He flashed a faux irritation. “I got dumbass clients, you have politics. I have to make sure the jobs I take aren’t death traps in disguise, and you have regulations and protocol up the wazoo.”

An involuntary snort left my nostrils. “You get used to it after a while.”

“Yeah, just like you get used to being old,” Falke said. He shifted so that he was able to comfortably look behind him, Basalt having walked back over to us in the. Falke gave the abyssian a mock salute. “Hey Bas.”

“Evening, you old rooster,” Basalt responded. He finished making his way back behind the bar, briefly flashing me a look halfway between worried and comforting. Seems our departure wouldn’t be quite as immediate as he wanted it to be. “Chatting up Missus Macabre tonight instead of being with those grandkids of yours?”

“Yep. You know Gideon and Gigi; they won’t be going to sleep anytime soon and, well, there is only so much of them I can handle in a day,” he said, the grin on his beak never once fading away as he spoke. It made me beam, seeing the hidden pride the griffon had in the younger generation. “Macabre, though. I swear Gold said a different name when we last met.”

Just like that, my smile vanished from existence, replaced with melancholy. “It’s… a long story. The name is Danse Macabre now. Rhapsody… I can’t be her anymore.”

Falke tilted his head, raising one side of his brow much higher than the other. His attention turned to Basalt, hoping for some form of an answer. The abyssian merely put some form of alcoholic drink in front of the griffon, and then held his paws up as if surrendering. An exhausted sigh left his lips.

“If you're looking for an explanation, you ain’t getting it from me,” he explained. “The situation is needlessly complicated, absurd, but at the same time it makes sense.”

“If you want the short version,” I said. “I’m two ponies and one at the same time. The result of a spirit with some cannibal curse attaching itself to me and things going awry.”

“Cannibal, eh?” Falke asked, scratching the underside of his beak. “Some strange version of raider disease? Wouldn’t fit with the cause of this being dead.”

“No, not raider disease,” Basalt answered, leaning over the bar. “The Mlafi, or Gluttonous One if you want the Equestrian name. A post-war legend, no record of it before then. No idea where exactly it originates from but from what I’ve heard.”

He leaned in further, motioning us all to do the same. We did as he asked, and he put a paw up to hide his muzzle from the other patrons.

“They say it came right from their highness’ home.”

“No shit, Canterlot?” Falke asked. Basalt nodded, and the griffon looked to me with a mixture of awe and terror. “You are one lucky mare. Anything that comes out of that place is not to fuck around with.”

“Rhapsody and Dead Hooves, the other mare in me, didn’t know,” I said, laying my head on the counter. “Not that it matters. Too late to get back.”

“Can’t argue with that. Certainly does make my earlier statement about you improving a bit inaccurate, no offense,” Falke replied. I waved the comment off, he was right after all. He took a long gulp of the alcohol Basalt had given him, then sat it down on the table lightly. “Hey, Danse, can I ask you a favor?”

Basalt stood up, and I straightened out my posture as my attention focused fully on the griffon. There wasn’t any great chance in his face, nothing that screamed what he was feeling, yet still I saw it. Conflict, confusion, questions, all hidden just in his eyes. This was personal, unsettling, something he wanted to do himself but couldn’t bring himself to. Shifting on my seat so I was completely facing him, I gave Falke a nod.

“I’ll be heading back to the clinic when Basalt’s ready, but if it is something simple–”

He held a talon up, silencing me without a single word spoken. He got off his seat and started slowly making his way towards the door. His wing beckoned me to follow, and I found my hooves hitting the floor before I knew what I was doing.

“I’ll bring her back myself, Bas. Will pay when I get back.”

“Huh? Wait, Falke, what are you–”

The door closed behind me, my magic coming alive without a second thought to do so. As soon as Falke started to turn back to me, I cut the aura to keep questions down. His eyes went from me, to the Lucky Clover’s entrance, and then down the street. Then, with a quick turn, he started down the street. I trailed directly behind him, eyes drifting toward the night sky.

“Gold didn’t come back with the rest of your crew,” Falke said. My gaze instantly turned to him, every other sound in the night drowning out. “Tried to ask that ghoul friend of yours, Sharpshot, what happened. Get pissy at me, he said some things that… well, a number had to break us up before one of us really hurt each other.”

“He got that pissed, huh?” I asked. Falke gave me a nod. “Fuck, sorry. Sharpshot is an ass, but him snapping out of absolutely nowhere just… doesn’t make sense.”

“You know him better than me, so I’ll take your word for it,” the griffon replied. “Still, the way he acted from me mentioning Gold, it sounds like something happened. Something a bit more than the old bird croaking.”

A shiver raced through my body, though whether it was from the chilly night or knowing exactly where this was heading was up in the air. If Gold was gone, and Sharpshot was irritable enough to nearly start a street fight, then it was pretty clear what had happened: I had been declared a liability to ArcanaTech. If I was a liability, then Gold would have put a gun to my head and attempted to pull the trigger. Whether he succeeded or not didn’t matter, a well of rage building up from inside me.

“That fucker! He tried to kill us!”

I ground my teeth together, pulling every bit of Rhapsody and Dead Hooves’ willpower together to try and hide my fury. A liability? What in the Infinite’s name gave him the right to call me a liability. Half dead though I may be – my mind an unintelligible mess from whatever had happened to me though it was – I still knew what was important. The wants and desires of my two halves were my own; Gemini’s happiness, the safety of my ex-husband and foals, revenge against the ponies who had brought one part of me to the wasteland, it was all still front and center in my mind.

Nothing had changed, except for the fact Gold was now also on my list of creatures to kill.

I opened my mouth to tell Falke everything, but found my vocal chords unresponsive. Falke had stopped in his tracks. He looked back to me, my silence having lasted far longer than I thought. The longer my voice refused to work, the more concerned his expression grew. Still I tried, desperate to tell him the truth despite my own body seeming to work against me.

“Danse, is everything alright?” he asked, after a while.

“Even if we are certain, it would be best to check with Sharpshot.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I replied, the scowl countering my own words. That sudden control my two halves had just showed to me, it felt backwards. I was the one with the body, so why did they get control? “You want me to ask Sharpshot about Gold’s disappearance.”

Falke nodded, talons and paws starting back down the street. “If you would prefer to focus completely on your recovery, I understand.”

“It’s fine, I can do it,” I said. “Not like anything can go wrong with asking a hormonal mess of a ghoul why he tried to beat a griffon to death.”

“Hah! Like a tiny little thing like him was going to do anything outside of leaving bruises,” Falke said, head tilting up as he let loose a long, thunderous laugh. “I appreciate it, Missus Macabre. I’m sure Gold told you, but we’ve known each other for quite a long time. This is the first time I’ve ever heard him bail on a contract, you see.”

“And since it is out of character, you want answers. Completely understandable,” I said. Silence fell upon us, Falke’s having said all he needed to. Hoping he wouldn’t notice, I lowered my head, looked to the side, and dropped my voice to a mumble. “Don’t fucking do that again.”

“We’re just trying to help you,” my two halves replied. The way they addressed me felt so condescending, it just made me more upset. “Danse, we didn’t expect things to be like this; we thought we would be in control when we woke up.”

“You are. I’m you,” I spat back, “or are you saying I’m something else.”

“No. Danse, you are us, we know that. It’s just–”

“Then don’t take control away. Your advice is appreciated, but I am in control here. Got it?”

A pause, as long as it was infuriating.

“We won’t promise that. This is our body just as much as it is yours.”

I growled at them, but they knew just as much as I did that any show of hostility was empty. Harming them meant harming myself, and I had zero interest in partaking in such things. Instead, I turned the growl into a show of displeasure. Was I not them? Was Danse Macabre not the name they chose for me?

“I am you. Trust in yourself,” I told them.

Yet another pause, followed by more unwanted words.

“If only we could. If only…”

Falke did indeed bring me back to the same clinic I had run from earlier. The staff certainly had some choice words for me, acting as I had, and I simply apologized where I could. The griffon bid farewell to me, likely heading back to the Lucky Clover, and left me to be escorted back to my room. Thus my night returned to wear it began, like a story gone full circle.

For a while, I sat in bed and stared at the darkness that enveloped the room around me. While I had failed in my task at reaching Sharpshot and the others, the night had at least been productive. I imagined I was caught up on almost everything that the public knew, as little as that likely was. Day Glow’s involvement in the past few days likely meant a lot of specifics stayed with Shattered Moon and those who had been there. It would be something to ask him specifically, once we had the privacy and opportunity to do so.

Yet, for all the productivity, it didn’t make things any easier. My head still erupted in migraine when trying to recall most of my memories, and everything about my body felt both right and wrong at the same time. So many questions, so many answers, and yet more of the former swirled around inside my head despite that. That was to say nothing about how fast it had all happened.

How the fuck had it only been two weeks? My head tilted down slightly, ears flat against my head and sorrowful.

“I missed check in,” I whispered to myself. “Ironsight either thinks I’m dead, or a traitor. Fuck.”

I fell onto my side, the bedsprings squeaking underneath me irritatingly. Perhaps it was for the best that I didn't call in. Explaining everything that had happened to me since we last talked would only end badly. He would have called me insane, and by all means he was correct. Nothing about me was normal anymore, or even believable to all but those who had seen me turn from the ponies I had once been… into Danse Macabre.

Emotionally, it made no difference. At the end of the day, I was now officially an enemy of the Enclave, and there was nothing to stop them from using my own family as an example. All I had to guide me was the will to protect Gemmy, what a brave mare she had become in my absence, and vengeance. All of this was still linked to Medicine Ball, Lucky Shot, and Angel Hair, whether it was intentional. They wouldn’t get away with what they had done to me.

“Killing such ponies would be a good idea anyway. They changed sides once, who says they won’t do it again?”

“On that much, we agree,” I said. My horn lit up, bring the bed’s blankets over my body via telekinesis. After that, and some slight adjustments with the pillow, I closed my eyes. “First things first, however, is confirming why Gold bailed on us.”

“Right. We’ll be there to assist, guide, and help you, so don’t worry.”

“You make it sound like I don’t know how to use my own brain or body,” I replied.

They did not reply. If that was a good or bad thing, I did not know.

Author's Note

Well, this chapter got finished a lot quicker than I expected.

Act 2 – Chapter 14: Reintroductions

Underside, San Palomino

Day 15

“Well, most everything looks good,” the doctor said. The unicorn wrote something down on a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard, an exhausted yet genuine smile on their face. “Have no idea how your body healed itself from that, but the world is full of mysteries. If it wasn’t for the damage to your mental health, you might be one of the only true bonafid miracles a medical professional has ever seen.”

I simply nodded at the mares' words, staying silent and hoping that this would end sooner rather than later. Most of my morning had been like this; checks to make sure every piece of my body was truly as healed as it looked, some mental tests to see if there was any damage there, that stuff. It didn’t take a medical expert to tell me that I was completely fine in the former, the second…

They were keeping quiet about it. They had noticed the changes there, clearly.

While it maybe should have worried me a little, all I wanted was for it to end. There was a piece of me begging to once again get outside, though this time it was not because of a beautiful night sky. Sharpshot, Gemmy, Willow, they would all likely be up around now, and I wanted to let them know that I was alright. It would also mean telling them who I now was, but that was something that couldn’t be avoided.

That wasn’t currently possible. Instead of getting a rather difficult discussion over with, I was dealing with boring – albeit rather important – medical shit. If I was lucky, the monotony of it all might be broken up by one of them visiting, likely Sharpshot given his talents.

“Missus Rhap– Macabre,” the doctor called out. I had stopped paying attention to her for a second, the sudden surge of pain from her speaking one of my half’s names the thing to pull me back. “Apologies.”

“You’re… you’re fine,” I replied, sucking in a huge amount of air as I did. “I’m getting used to it myself. The pain was not something I expected, or any other part of this.”

“Of course. I promise to be more careful, for your comfort,” they explained, smiling just the tiniest bit brighter. “Magic and the spiritual world is not my area of expertise, unfortunately. I’m afraid any help we could give you would be negligible at best and possibly harmful at worst. As close as your condition is to Dissociative Identity Disorder, it isn’t one and the same and I refuse to give you anything when it’s more than likely common medicine won’t help.”

I nodded, having anticipated the answer well before everything had started. They had done everything they could for me, far more than they probably knew. It made me feel just the tiniest bit more guilty about my midnight escape the previous night. At the very least, admitting there was nothing they could do likely meant I’d be out of this clinic sooner rather than later. That was relieving.

“While I’m unable to help, I do know of a pony – or zebra rather – that might be able to help,” they said, placing the clipboard onto the countertop opposite of the bed. “Another medium, like yourself. Rather well known, exceedingly odd, but more well versed in magic and its origins than any unicorn I know.”

I tilted my head. “Another medium?”

“Yes. Their name is Liberty, a legend of his own out here.” They turned to me, discomfort undoing their smile. “I wouldn’t recommend somecreature like them from a moral or medical angle, but you are the first of your case. None other more respected, and distrusted, medium out there.”

“Liberty. That was the zebra responsible for the ward talisman in Nowhere.”

I shuddered as the memory surfaced all on its own. The pain from that talisman, it flashed through my body, as real as it was all the way back then. Same went with the hate Malt spat when talking about them. The doctor was right: if anycreature knew, it was likely going to be him. Still, if what I was hearing was right…

“What do you mean distrusted?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s simple to explain,” the doctor replied. “He trades with the Equalists.”

The doctor left a bit later to fill out some last bits of paperwork, my release nearly finalized. Thus I was alone again, with all the time in the world to figure out how to explain my predicament to my friends. Countless different versions of the same message ran through my head, none feeling exactly right. Too blunt or melancholic, impossible to predict reactions, it was hard to put completely together with my brain not running at one hundred percent. Like anypony, though, I did everything I could to figure out those right words anyways.

Yet a pony can only do so much to predict the future before their reactions turn to fiction and fantasy. We were living beings, after all; logic and emotion rolled into one, though not always in a perfect unison. No matter how well you know someone, it is impossible to call every action they make. It only made sense that I would deal with that same snag here, given the very nature of the interaction I was attempting to plan out.

It didn’t stop the knock on the door from being entirely unexpected. I turned to face it, having got off the bed so I could pace while thinking. My initial thought was that the doctor had returned, but all it took was a voice both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time to dispel that.

“Danse Mac… M-M-Macabre,” a mare called out from the otherside of the door. “It’s Will… Willow. C-Can I….”

I hadn’t prepared for them to come to me.

Instead of giving her a yes or no, I hurriedly trotted up to the door and opened it up. I was greeted by a familiar alicorn, her wing rubbing the outside of her neck in discomfort. The way she beamed upon seeing me, I was honestly surprised that I wasn’t immediately strangled. When she did hug me, it was surprisingly gentle, using only her wings instead of her forelegs. I returned it back, melting slightly at the comfort of her wings.

“I got the new name correct, right?” she asked, lowering her head to better look at me. I gave her a nod. “Thank goodness.”

“I’m guessing the doctor told you everything,” I said as we removed our wings from each other. I took a few steps back, allowing the alicorn inside. Looking at her now, I couldn’t help but feel there was noticeably less white in her coat than before. “I’m… surprised at how well you are taking this.”

“Oh, trust me, hearing about everything definitely hurt,” Willow replied, practically jumping onto the bed I had stayed in the night prior, “but considering everything I’ve witnessed in my life, I feel like it could be worse. A lot worse.”

“I’m a bit afraid to know exactly what you mean by that?”

“Ever seen an earth pony slowly dissolve into gravel because they touched a little blue plant?” she asked. I felt my entire body tighten up just trying to picture what she was saying. “Ever seen a craven or ghoul in their last minutes as themselves? Have you lived so long that you’ve watched nearly everypony you know die, and your only escape means either given in to that aforementioned plant or–”

Willow closed her eyes, one of her forehooves sinking so far into the upper part of the mattres I was surprised she hadn’t made a hole in it. Her wings were flared slightly, her face stuck between anger and discomfort. Once again she started rubbing at her neck as she took in deep breath after deep breath, all in an attempt to keep herself calm.

“I’ve lived for longer than most anypony around these days, Rh– Danse,” she explained. “Nearly a century and a half, and that is far longer than our minds are meant to last. I’ve seen communities rise and fall, beautiful stories turned into tragedies because of any number of messed up reasons or horrible mistakes.”

Her wings settled again after one small flap, her eyes opening so that she may look me in the eyes.

“I don’t really show it that often, but I’m tired. Until we met, two weeks ago, the only reason I had left to live was… thinking how upset Sharpy would be if I died. You want to know why I’m taking it so well? It’s because I’ve caused, seen, and suffered enough personally that very little shakes me.”

There was no way to respond to that, at least without feeling like my words weren’t enough. With slow steps, I made my way over to the bed and sat down next to her. One of my wings rested itself on her back, my hope being that it would be enough to get across the fact that I understood her feelings. It wasn’t enough, there was no possible way it could have been enough, but it was something. More than words would ever do, that is for certain.

“Sorry. Shouldn’t have dumped that on you so soon,” Willow said. A foreleg went to rub her withers. “Been a bit… all over the place, emotionally. Quite a bit has been going on in this head of mine recently.”

“You’re not the only one,” I replied. “My head is an absolute mess. It’s impossible to tell Rhapsody apart from Dead Hooves.”

“They are in there though, right?” she asked me, leaning down. I nodded. “Then we will figure something out. I’m sure they’d both prefer to be themselves than you… no offense.”

Though her words were certainly blunt, they weren’t wrong. I felt it, the remaining will both mares had, clinging onto those words of hope. Both knew it was unlikely, borderline impossibilities, but it did everything in its power to try and worm its way into my brain. I almost growled at the thoughts, forcing them down and reminding these bits of individuality exactly what I had told them last night.

This body was mine.

“Ours, now yours,” that individuality said.

“None taken,” I lied. Willow did not need to know of the little voices in my head. “I’m just happy to see you alright. How about the others? Are they okay?”

“Sharpy is fine… at least physically,” Willow answered. Her lips pulled themselves into something trying to be both a smile and frown at once. “He’d never admit how worried he was about you, at least in front of everypony else. Even when you started healing, he seemed more about you then himself. As for Three, he got banged up a bit. Currently recovering where we can’t visit him.”

As if I didn’t have enough reason to believe Falke’s words last night, that practically settled it. Willow went deathly quiet afterwards, not a single word about Gold’s wellbeing. He was, indeed, not with us anymore. A spark of rage worked its way into the front of my mind, teeth gritted.

“Gold tried to kill me, didn’t he?”

Willow’s eyes went wide, though the shock that it was formed from wasn’t one of fear. Even assuming she had been told about my little excursion the previous night, no one but Falke and myself had been present for that small bit of conversation. There was no way for her to know that I had learned about the griffon’s departure from our party, not unless she had gained the ability to read minds while I was out cold. The aforementioned shock made it clear that wasn’t the case, of course.

“How… why do you know about–” She shook her head, banishing the shock as swiftly as it had come. “Sharpy was supposed to have this conversation with you, not me. He’d be here too but, well, Gemini needed a bit of a distraction after seeing you unconscious.”

“That’s… understandable,” I replied. “I’m guessing that means what I was told is right?”

Willow nodded, a rare and unusual frown on her face. Everything I knew about the mare had led me to believe she saw killing in the same way foals saw a new toy. For this to be such a clear outlier was a sign I was wrong. There was a line, one Gold had crossed.

“Whatever he tried, you don’t need to worry about it,” I told Willow, placing a hoof on the foreleg closest to me. “What I am now is not a result of whatever he did, so don’t dwell on it.”

Willow closed her eyes, letting out a sigh. “You ask us the impossible, Danse.”

I withdrew my hoof and shuffled away from my friend. Though the words were carried through the same telepathic means that I had gotten used to from the alicorn, the words seemed off. The voice was hers, yet not hers at the same time. Where Willow carried this crazed foal-like innocence in her voice, there was something more… maternal here. Still deranged in its own way, but where the mare I knew was simply insane there was a gravitas here. It didn’t fit, and that only grew more clear when she opened her eyelids and smiled at me.

Though it was Willow’s face, it wasn’t Willow’s expression. It was weird, uncanny, different in ways so minute that, even knowing they existed, I couldn’t truly point any out. Perhaps her lips didn’t reach just high enough, her mouth was just the tiniest bit open, or maybe her ears and eyelids were off. I don’t know what was wrong and yet, looking at her, I felt a shiver going down my spine.

Not the shiver I got when the mare before me said something horrible in a far too innocent manner. No, it was the kind of shiver one got when they were talking to somepony of far higher station. An orphan foal talking to a High Councillor, a new employee talking to a CEO of some old world company…

A mare who didn’t even truly understand what she was, standing before a goddess.

“We cannot sit idle as a potential threat still holds their life,” the not-Willow replied. It was quickly dawning on me who exactly was using my friend’s face, causing my stomach to twist. “Oddity as you are among our kind, you are no less one of us, the future of Equestria. Let your worries and fears fade away, Danse Macabre. You need never be scared of anything again."

She slowly reached a hoof up to my face, attempting to console me as if I was a scared filly. I stood still, glaring back at not–Willow as harshly as possible, hoping to convey my feelings to the creature that had taken control of her. They didn’t stop, their hoof getting closer and closer, aimed for my left cheek specifically. I went to raise a hoof up and push it away, but there was no need.

In a flash, the alicorn’s before me recoiled away from me of their own volition. She closed her eyes yet again, snarling at herself, body quaking as she held her wings to her side like shields. Quick, loud, fearful breaths left her muzzle as she slowly opened them again, suddenly on the verge of crying. It was equally as non-Willow as the words I had heard earlier, but the sudden change in reaction made it clear that this time, it was her.

“Willow?” I called out to her, shuffling closer. “Willow is that–

With no warning, Willow let her horn and disappeared. My brow rose, and I quickly galloped over to where she was. I reached a hoof out to touch her, only to find nothing but air. The door for the room opened wide, and then shut itself without any further warning. With a single flap of my wings, I catapulted myself towards, hoof reaching for the door knob. Grasping it tightly, I opened it and gave it to her…

Only for control of my body to once again be taken away.

“What are you– let go of me!” I shouted, fighting to make any part of my body outside from my lips move even the tiniest bit. It didn’t budge. “It’s my body, and I want to help Willow. Stay where you are supposed to and leave me alone!”

“And if we let you go after Willow, how will you find her?” My two halves asked. “Do you know where she is heading right now? As long as she is invisible, we can’t exactly follow her.”

Curse them. Curse them and their ability to make sense. Their control over me lessened, and I placed my hoof on the floor, staring at the knob as if I could burn a hole in it. Everything I had heard out of Willow’s mouth played in my head, the subtle yet sudden shift sending shivers down my spine from memory alone. It didn’t take a stable pony to figure out what I had just witnessed, or why my friend had fled in fear.

Still, even then, the way the Goddess spoke felt… different.

“Gentle, acting almost like a mother and yet that slightest bit… off,” I murmured to myself, hoping my inner selves would understand. “Certainly paints a picture but it feels….”

“I see it too. It’s entirely different from our memory of her, or at the very least her ‘children’,” they replied. “Either, judging by her wording she knows we can use magic. Apparently that is enough for her to see us as one of her own. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not.”

“This is the Goddess we are talking about. Assume the worst from her, just like you would Red Eyes,” I said. It felt weird to say, as if I was both convincing myself and a different pony at the same time. “She’s made it clear from past interactions she doesn’t care about pegasi, and the same goes for Sharpshot.”

“On that, we all agree,” my inner selves replied.

The doctor checked in on us not long after Willow Wisp left, probably expecting we had made an attempt to leave before we were supposed to. The look of relief on their face upon seeing me still within the clinic’s walls certainly lessened the wound of having my body once again halt by Rhapsody and Dead Hooves again. Still wasn’t happy with it, but I’ll admit that it kept us out of trouble. From there, all it took was one last talk with the doctor and some paperwork, and we were free.

All the while, Willow had no doubt disappeared to someplace we would remain unable to find them. Hopefully the disappearance wasn’t permanent.

Upon entering the clinic’s lobby, I found a familiar face – or mask technically – waiting for me. I smiled at the sight of Day Glow seated in the corner closest to the door, his hoof waving to me in a hesitant manner. He didn’t share it back, I could tell that much even with only his eyes visible underneath her uniform. They seemed ready to burst, the only thing likely keeping him from crying right here and now being professionalism and the necessity for him to remain anonymous to the general public.

Anonymity didn’t mean a thing when it came to invisibility though. Anycreature else present in the lobby had their eyes on us, and somehow it only seemed to intensify when Day Glow got up from his seat and walked up to me. He was quite aware of said attention as well, eyes darting left and right the entire time, and anyone whose eyes he locked on to for even a second immediately looked away.

“Seems we’re popular.”

As if my talk with Basalt didn’t make that statement clear enough.

Once Day Glow was right in front of me, I found myself doing something that felt… wrong. He wasn’t the tallest pony, but the same went for both of my former selves. I was tilting my neck down to look at him, just as he was craning his neck up to look at me. It felt odd, wrong, and for the briefest of moments it felt like my sight and sense of self had detached from my body. How had I not noticed up until now? Was it because everycreature I had talked to up until now were individuals I either didn’t know or were taller to begin with?

“You okay?” Day Glow whispered, as if something like that was truly incriminating on my pre-Shattered Moon relation to the stallion.

“Kind of, but, um…,” I looked down to my forelegs, and then looked to Day Glow’s own, “why am I taller, Three?”

From somewhere in the lobby a creature snorted at my question, and I’m sure if my innerselves could they would have brought a forehoof to their head in disbelief. All Day Glow did was blink wildly, as if my first choice of words to them was so far out of left field that their brain couldn’t fully grasp it. He closed his eyes once he finally did, closing his eyes and allowing the tears just a little bit of what they wanted. When his eyelids opened again, his eyes only seemed to be even more clouded than they were previously.

“Let’s… let’s talk about that somewhere else,” he whispered, trying his damndest to hold the sorrow in his voice back. “Where is Willow? We both came here together but she went in by herself because, well, you know.”

“Anonymity,” I muttered back. He nodded, and I found myself looking around the lobby to the other creatures present around us. There were far too many around. “Something happened and, well, she ran herself off.”

To my surprise, all the one-winged pegasus did was nodded again at my words. No surprise, no further questions, immediate belief and acceptance of my statement. Considering exactly what that ‘something’ was, it just made me a bit more concerned. Without another word he turned around and ushered me to follow behind him. I did as he asked, my hooves trailing behind his hooves as he left the building.

All it took was a single second in the hot sun for me to instantly regret it. Along with the semi-busy mid-morning streets of Underside, and the immediate gasps and stares I got from just walking out of the clinic, some small, fragile piece of me wished to retreat back inside. Were those stares present the previous night as well? No, the streets were quiet and lonely enough where I would have noticed it. I had gotten lucky then.

It was different, this time.

“Hey, isn’t that–”

“Oh, Miss Gemini is going to be so relieved.”

“The Anomaly is awake! I can’t believe it!”

“Damn. If that ghoul shows up I’m going to look like a fool for calling her dead.”

“What’s the Shattered Moon’s interest in her? Are they going to try and recruit her?”

That last one actually caught my attention as we started to walk west of the clinic. The Shattered Moon, interested in recruiting me… or perhaps more accurately who I used to be. That didn’t seem accurate, however. Nothing about this felt like a recruitment, and considering I had passed out from blood loss back in the desert, me being their pony of choice made even less sense. Sharpshot made far more sense.

“Seems we’re popular,” my inner selves commented. I could easily imagine them puffing out their chest and unfolding their wings in pride at the statement. “This feels pretty damn good. Been a while since we’ve had any true respect.”

“Lightning Cloud and Three don’t count?” I muttered.

“The former is afraid of us and, well, one pony is hardly enough to be considered respected,” they replied. “It gives this… nostalgic feeling. You feel it too, don’t you?”

Out of curiosity, I searched for the feeling they had mentioned inside of me. What I found was fluttering in my chest, which quickly caused my lips to curl upwards in a smile and my gait to become more confident. It was new, yet familiar at the same time, walking this fine line between a wonderful new experience and an old, comforting one. It led me back to Basalt’s words the previous night, or more accurately the moniker that had gotten around in the past twenty-four hours.

The Cloudborne Anomaly, as fitting as it was unnerving. The cloudborne part of it likely just came from me looking like a pegasus, despite really being somewhere in the middle between that and an alicorn. It was the comfortable part of the name, the one which left me more warm inside then cold. The anomaly aspect of it was that cold, the piece of me scared at what it exactly meant. It wasn’t wrong, everything about me was strange, from my looks to my very existence screamed ‘unnatural’. No one dealt well with the unknown.

It made me curious, and more than a little afraid; despite what Basalt said, the moniker might not have been born out of awe. What were the chances that being called an anomaly was meant more as some warning than anything else?

“You’re worrying too much,” my inner self said. I scrunch my nose; as if taking control of my body wasn’t invasive enough, they were now reading my mind. “A title is a title. You’ve worn one before, and you were given it out of love for the Enclave.”

“I wouldn’t relate Lieutenant Colonel to Cloudbourne Anomaly,” I replied. “They are far from the same thing.”

“Yet they are both still titles. We should be proud of them.”

I snorted in annoyance. “I’ll consider it once I’m certain what the cause behind it wa–”

“Talking to another ghost?”

My attention returned to Day Glow, his head turned just far enough to the right to show he was addressing me. My ears feel against my scalp, more than a little embarrassed that he had overheard me. A ghost certainly would be a good excuse for my actions, but lying didn’t feel quite right. Besides, something told me the truth would make him feel far better than any lie I could come up with.

“Myself, actually. Though I guess you can call my former selves ghosts in some strange way,” I explained, piquing the masked stallion’s interest. Something about those words had filled their eyes with pure, uncontainable desperation. They begged for me to continue talking. “I can feel them and hear them, to some extent. Whether I’m talking to Dead Hooves or Rhapsody is impossible to tell, but there are some pieces of them that aren’t completely a part of me.”

Day Glow didn’t need to say a word, his eyes said everything for me. Where once had been confusion, morning, and desperation was now something that looked like… hope. Where that hoped stemmed from, what piece of my explanation had caused it, was unknown to me. Even with their mask, I saw their mouth attempt to move and say something, but they either kept stopping themselves or were resisting it. Was there a question they wished to ask?

In the end, they turned away from me once again and focused back on the road.

“W-we should keep moving, Rhapsody,” he said. I fought through the pain that the mare's name inflicted on me, certain it was just a slip of the tongue. “I have somepony I need to get you to.”

“Okay,” I replied as our legs started moving once more. “If it’s okay for me to ask, who is it?”

“Sharpshot,” Day Glow answered immediately. Something about saying his name made him snort. “I can’t believe I’m admitting this but, he’s pretty good for a horn head. It makes sense you’ve kept him around all this time; first pony I’ve met who has ever been able to fully back up all their shit-talking.”

“That’s… surprising,” I said, tilting my head slightly. “Granted I don’t remember you two being on bad terms, but you weren’t friendly with each other either.”

“Somepony saves your ass, you learn to lighten up on them,” He said. “He saved my life, and then we saved yours together. Incidents like that bring ponies together.”

There was a story there, one that had unfortunately occurred while I was comatose. I never got the specifics on how Sharpshot saved Day’s life, but from context clues and knowledge of the two ponies I had an idea how they saved me. It was certainly better than the opposite, both of them had each other’s throats tossing blame back and forth for my injuries.

Though, nothing said that hadn’t happened, just that it had resolved due to one thing or another. Somecreature attempting to kill me was one way that could happen, and Willow had already confirmed that.

“Thanks, Three,” I said, offering the stallion a smile he couldn’t currently see.

“Don’t apologize to me just yet,” he replied. “Wait until you are yourself again, then I’ll accept it.”

Of all the things I expected to find Sharpshot doing in the middle of the day, sitting on that destroyed statue in the middle of town, drinking a smoothie. In two whole weeks of getting to know the stallion, it was probably the most ordinary thing he had done outside of his little signs of affection towards Willow. He had this pleasant look to his face, possibly the most calm I had seen him in my entire life.

Then I saw who was with him, and I froze up.

“Gemmy?”

There she was, right next to Sharpshot, listening to him talk about something in silence. Her face was downtrodden, her own smoothie barely touched, probably thinking of me… or Rhapsody more likely. This body had belonged to her, everycreature’s words to me had made that clear, but she wasn’t completely me. I thought through all the various ways this could possibly go wrong, of all the ways to break her heart.

I didn’t want that, for despite what parts of me were different I still had those same feelings towards her. One's Rhapsody had pushed down, mostly due to her being unsure of how to feel about them. The motherly love, the pride in seeing Gemmy slowly become more confident, the disgust at everything that had happened to her. Didn’t matter how much my creation had changed me, all of those stayed the same. With it, I admitted quietly what I knew to be true.

This unicorn mare, born a slave, turned into something of an everyday hero to the creatures of Underside for exposing an Equalist spy, was a daughter to me. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t Clear or Rainy, it was how my mind categorized her. Hopefully, she’d allow us to continue thinking of her that way.

“Us?” my inner self asked. “You’re including us in this?”

“You care for her too, don’t you?” I asked back quietly, so as to not sound as insane as I probably was. “We both want what’s best for her. I just… hope she accepts who we are now.”

“I hope so, but it's going to be hard for her either way,” they responded. The wording made it clear more than usual that this was Rhapsody speaking. If it wasn’t for the context of her words, it would have been impossible; she and Dead Hooves sound exactly the same. “I was one of her only real anchors, besides Willow. It’s going to take her some time, but I’m sure she’ll come around.”

As much as I wanted to smile, put on a facade for Gemmy, the only thing my face was capable of showing then was worry. “I hope you’re right.”

Sharpshot noticed us before we reached him, a brief flash of surprise took over his face, fading into relief. I mouthed ‘please don’t’ to myself over and over as he turned to Gemmy, holding onto a useless wish that he did bring her attention our way. A wish destroyed as her eyes locked on me, the happiest smile I had ever seen on her face as she did.

It sent a dagger through my heart, knowing I was about to destroy that.

“Miss Rhapsody!”

The emotional pain paved way to something far more physical as that name left Gemini’s mouth. It was just like the first time, my legs on the verge of failing and my wings opening defensively. Something about her saying it made it several times worse than it actually was, like a parent calling their foal disappointing compared to some random stranger. Even worse, Gemmy saw all of it, placed her smoothie on the statue, and started running towards me in fear.

Well-meaning, but the choice was wrong.

“Miss Rhapsody, are you all right?” She said again. Another surge of stinging pain through every part of my body, my legs collapsing. Poor naïve Gemini had no idea what she was doing. “Miss–”

Day Glow cut her off with his wing, the appendage acting as a barrier between the young mare and myself. It gave me time for the pain to fade, catch my breath a little bit, and start getting back onto my hooves. My eyes looked around, noticing the attention we were getting from other creatures present. Whether it was because of me collapsing, or two ponies the town was now more than familiar with being in the same place didn’t matter.

Day Glow’s wing folded back up, taking a few steps forward so that his body was the makeshift wall now instead of it. Very briefly, his eyes trailed the town square just like I had. After a sigh and shake of his head, he started motion towards our unwanted audience.

“This is none of your concern, keep on moving,” he said, his tone flat yet commanding enough where no one dared to question it.

As asked, hooves paws and otherwise all started moving, the number of gazes on us falling to numbers far more comfortable. Day Glow turned his attention afterwards towards Gemmy.

“Mister Three, i-i-is… is Miss–”

“Shining, listen to me real quick,” Day said, interrupting her before they could say Rhapsody’s name again. “There is some sort of… curse on her, I guess. Whenever we see her name, it hurts her.”

Gemini audibly breathed in, taking a step back. “W-w-wait. You don’t- does that mean that I… I didn’t mean to… to…,”

She made herself smaller, a look of horror and grief on her face. One hoof covered her mouth, her mind no doubt spiraling as she thought over her mistake. I didn’t want that; there was no way she could have known what she said would have hurt me. Finding the strength to move my legs, I walked around Day Glow so that I was able to look at Gemini directly. The mare backpedaled at the sight of me, unable to meet my eyes in fear.

A small piece of me wondered how she actually managed it, capturing ‘Amaryllis’, but that didn’t matter at the moment.

“It’s okay Gemmy,” I said. This time, I was able to muster up a real smile at the sight of her. “You didn’t know. Can’t fault you for that.”

“But I still hurt you,” Gemmy replied. Her head fell further, ears flat against her head. “That was wrong, right? You’re not supposed to hurt ponies unless they try to hurt you.”

“Can’t blame someone for something that hadn’t been told about,” I explained to her. From out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sharpshot slowly making his way over to us. “It’s a bit more complicated than just a curse, but that doesn’t matter. I know it might be hard to get use to but,” I placed one of my forehooves against my chest, “I already have a new name. Danse Macabre.”

Gemini looked up at me, eyes ready to burst and her head tilted slightly. “Danse… Macabre?”

“A rather morbid name. Prench for ‘dance of the dead’ if I remember correctly,” Sharpshot said, grabbing everyone's attention. He had both smoothies held in his magic, a faint line of what I assumed to be mango juice dripping from what little fur was still on his muzzle. “Not exactly a name I would expect you to choose, soldier mare.”

“I had a little help picking it out,” I told him. The hoof I placed on my chest went up to my forehead, tapping it lightly. “There is more than one pony up here now. I’m not sure of all the specifics but, all the changes to my body and myself that I’ve noticed, it’s because I’m Dead Hooves just as much as I am Rhapsod–”

The very end of my statement was interrupted by another set of strings throughout my body. It doesn’t make sense, what I was telling them was the truth. I was both Dead Hooves and Singing Rhapsody, there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind.

Yet the pain insisted on denying that truth. The only way to talk about her was via past tense, as if she was no longer around at all.

That entire time, Sharpshot was looking me over, inspecting everything from my wings to to my tail. He stopped at my flank, staring at my cutie mark, face going through several different expressions that were far too subtle to recognize. After one full rotation around me, he locked eyes with me. There was skepticism on his face, perhaps a little disgust as well, though at exactly what it was impossible to tell.

“I think you remind him too much of Dead Hooves.”

I tilted my head slightly, both as an acknowledgement of what my inner self was saying and as a way to question Sharpshot’s expression. The former didn’t explain further (they were likely guessing more than anything else), but Sharpshot? He cut eye contact with me and floated Gemmy’s smoothie back over to her. While I couldn’t see his face at the time, I could see hers; a flash of grief, followed immediately after by great melancholy.

“Danse Macabre, right?” he said. Gemmy took the smoothie in her own magic, allowing him to turn back to me. As soon as I knew he would see it, I gave him a nod. “I want you to explain everything you know about your situation. I need to know exactly what Dead Hooves did to Rhapsody.”

I nodded, and without further ado did exactly as I had been asked to. Finding the words was hard, putting it into something that felt like it made sense even harder. So much of it was hypothesis and theory, very little understandable by even the doctor. I had to say ‘I guess’ or ‘possibly’ and other words like them so many times it was hard to tell what was fact and what wasn’t.

Those facts were as follows: I am the creation of Singing Rhapsody and Dead Hooves’ spiritual link to each other, both them and somepony at the same time. I’m an alicorn, even if I don’t have a visible horn, though my body belongs to a pegasus and my soul a unicorn. There are little fragments of both of them, still talking to me, able to take control of my body against my own will for a small amount of time. Lastly, the volume of memories, as well as the fact many of them contradict each other in some way, makes it hard to recall them. I gave myself a migraine in an idiotic attempt to show that last bit.

As I talked, we all made our way back to the destroyed statue. Sharpshot, Gemmy, and myself sat on it while Day Glow stood on one of the other ends, listening carefully but keeping an air of indifference for the sake of her anonymity. Sharpshot kept that same skeptical expression the entire time, as if waiting for me to mess up. He asked questions every now and then, poking and prodding as if expecting me to mess up somewhere.

Gemmy stayed quiet, tears trailing her cheeks. Nothing more needs to be said about how she was taking it.

“A living pony and a ghost fusing together and created you,” Sharpshot mumbled to himself. There was a brief pause in his words as he organized everything I had laid in front of him, then threw his forehooves into the air aggressively. “Sure, why the fuck not. Fits with the card drawn, that's for sure.”

“C-card?” Gemmy asked, her voice slightly choked up.

“Not explaining now, not in the mood for it,” he said. As his hooves rested once again on the statue’s pedestal. “The doctor mentioned this zebra to you. Liberty, correct?”

“Yeah. They’re a medium, like Gemmy and myself. If anycreature was to know it would be him,” I answered with another nod. Despite her current state, I noticed Gemmy’s own interest pique at the mention of a medium, leaning forward to better look at me. “There is one problem though, and if you and Willow would prefer to not interact with them because of it I completely understand.”

A sly smile crossed his face, a somber chuckle leaving his lips. “Okay, how did I manage to piss them off, exactly?”

“From what the doctor told me, they’re with the Equalists.”

In a flash, the smile was gone, replaced with aggravated disbelief. He leaned back, groaning loud enough where he got a few stares from creatures passing by. His forehooves went to cover his eyes, and he started mumbling to himself.

“Of course they are. Why wouldn’t they be?” he asked himself, forelegs falling away from his face. “Everything was so easy with getting here and finding Lucky Shot, I should have expected the wasteland to throw a curveball like this at me.”

“I can definitely see how that would be a problem, especially considering what happened three days ago,” Day Glow said. His head didn’t turn to us as he talked, addressing us only passively. “Changelings are like Unity, though more individualistic. They’ll know about what happened at the test site, figure it out as soon as the holes in their hivemind are recognized. You’re not stepping hoof into Equalist territory without a target on your head.”

“I have to head there anyway. Angel Hair is in that direction, and I still have a mission to do,” I explained. “Rhapsody wants me to, and I want to. Whether the memories are fully mine or not, her foals and husband still feel like my own. I’m not abandoning them more than I already have, even if I missed…,” I closed my eyes, breathed in, and continued, “even if I missed my call in with Ironsight. Even if the Enclave considers me dead.”

If only hooves were strong enough to puncture stone. They dragged along the statue’s pedestal, scratching it up but doing very little else. It was the truth I had immediately accepted, as soon as I learned how long I had been unconscious. Anchor was probably being told I was dead as we spoke, making what had originally been a lie to Clear and Rainy seem like truth. There was nothing I could do to change that.

Except, it didn’t need to be changed at all, because one moment later a familiar violet aura floated over a hoof-held radio; Rhapsody’s hoof-held radio, to be specific. I blinked, brain slowly processing what was in front of me, and then looked at Sharpshot. His magic let go of it, the piece of machinery falling between my forelegs unceremoniously.

I stared at the ghoul, hoping that he would explain out loud whatever he was wordlessly trying to tell me. Another, smaller groan left his throat, along with some more faint, incoherent mumbling. Considering the pony in question, he was likely calling me an idiot in some form.

“You’re correct about me not going with you,” he said. “You aren’t Rhapsody, not in appearance or name anyways. I doubt they’d recognize you, but to fully sell it, nopony who was present at the test site should enter Northern San Palomino at your side.”

“Meaning I’d have to go alone,” I replied, getting a nod from Sharpshot in confirmation. I briefly looked down to the radio, and then back to him. “Why did you hoof this to me?”

“So we can contact you. Check in, make sure you're alright, all that stuff,” Day Glow answered. “Sharpshot filled me in on why you are in San Palomino to begin with. I’m not stopping you, but I would at least ask that you stay in Underside for a few days. Had a lot of ponies scared for you, and this way,” he swallowed, “we can hopefully keep Gold off of you for a few days.”

Sharpshot snarled at the mere mention of the griffon, a raging fire visible in his eyes. This was it, the moment to ask what both Falke and myself wished to know. I allowed a silence to follow in Day Glow’s words, giving myself time to prepare the question in a way that would hopefully not lead to the ghoul lashing out. That was assuming it was even possible, considering how much of an emotional balefire bomb he was. Anything might set him off.

All I could do was take a deep breath, prepare for the inevitability of him over reacting, and be as straightforward as possible.

“He tried to kill me?” I asked, broaching the topic with all the subtlety of a .50 cal bullet.

“Caught him about to put a gun barrel to your head. Called him out, and next thing I know that gun was now pointed at me,” Day Glow explained, voice neutral. This time he turned his head to address me more directly. “Fired a shot at him, and he fled. By the time Willow and Sharpshot arrived, Gold was gone.”

“I told you, didn’t I? Moondancer and Lucky Heart tell him to jump, and he’ll jump,” Sharpshot said, voice filled with the venom of a snake. “Fucker cared about us as little as a slaver does a slave. We step out of line, or he starts to see us as a hindrance? Boom, bullet straight through the brain, no more Danse Macabre.”

I allowed their explanation to sit, marinate in my brain, as I now had the full story. Blind loyalty, Rhapsody had been more than familiar with the concept, having lived and breathed it for the majority of her life. For her, it was the Enclave, a false symbol of greatness ruled and controlled by extremists. For Gold, it was one little filly, and the ‘assistant’ controlling her like a puppet on a string for her own purpose. Whatever that purpose was didn’t matter.

“Backstabbing cuck,” I mumbled. Shaking my head to clear some small amount of negativity from my brain, I allowed it to rest there. “Yeah, probably best I stay in Underside for the time being. I’ll have to leave at some point, though, and sooner rather than later. Can’t take a chance at Angel Hair disappearing.”

…

“I-I’m going with you.”

My attention snapped to Gemmy, the young mare still clearly on the verge of breaking down. Her face was stained with tear trails, eyes looking bloodshot, and yet despite all of that there was a determination in face that rivaled any soldier in the Enclave. Placing down a now empty cup, she hopped off the statue and looked me dead on. There were little flashes of fear in her muzzle, her emotional mask held together by threads.

“Gemmy, you don’t–”

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to,” she said, her tone halfway between terrified and authoritative. “You were gone for five days, and now you are back, and you are both somepony entirely different and the exact same at the same time. I got scared that, the next time I saw you, you were going to be a ghost like Dead Hooves or those two griffons that appeared behind Gigi and… and…”

Determination fell away to desperation. Desperation born from pain, fear, and a ‘what if’ so terrifying to her that inaction would probably wound her more than anything else. Those eyes were like swords, piercing any immediate argument I had and wounding me emotionally. She had been so brave while we were gone, but now that I was back? Now that I was Danse Macabre?

I do not regret leaving her behind when we left to kill Lucky Shot, but at the time it felt like the worst mistake of my life.

“Look, little filly,” Sharpshot said, “I know you mean well, but I don’t think it’s the best idea.”

Gemini’s desperate look became more exaggerated at his words. “W-what?”

“Can you fire a gun accurately? Can you control your emotions? When you and Macabre’s life is on the line, can you bring yourself to pull that trigger?” He asked. Gemini seemed ready to answer at the end of each of those questions, and yet each time the ghoul cut her off before a single word was able to leave her mouth. “No you can’t. You’ve fired a gun twice, and the first time you shot Rhapsody in the shoulder because you had no idea what the fuck you were doing.”

Day Glow’s eyes shifted to Gemini as the young mare winced at the reminder. He held the slightest hint of shock in his body posture, specifically in how his ears had gone completely straight. Gemmy didn’t notice, Sharpshot’s words having robbed the majority of confidence, her legs bent in a way that made her look small.

“But she taught me afterwards. I know how to fire a gun now, and what not to do, and even if she isn’t completely the same pony, Macabre is able to teach me,” Gemini replied, a begging tone in her voice.

“Yes, she might be able to, but tell me this,” Sharpshot replied, leaning forward, “in one week of training, do you think you can take on Three? How about Macabre herself? Or, since we know he is out there, and has orders to kill her, can you. Kill. Gold?”

His barrage of questions were followed by silence, the sound of creatures passing by and the sound of chatter, the only thing daring to break it. Gemmy, once so confident in her decision, lowered her head as low as possible. All her tears were already spent, but she could still cry. That hurt more than the desperation in her eyes, a metaphorical sledgehammer to her heart. I wanted to tell Sharpshot off, saying that Gemini would be more than capable of defending me.

Except, the ghoul was right. Gemmy’s declaration was more likely to be a death sentence to her than anything else. She had no ground to stand on, when the ghoul she was arguing to was one of the most hated ponies in the entire wasteland. If he said she shouldn’t go, then she shouldn’t go.

I got off the pedestal, making my way slowly over to Gemini. I laid down so that we were eye level, my forelegs stretched far enough out for her to see them out of the top of her vision. Her head slowly lifted, looking at me. There was the barest glint of hope in her eyes. It stung to see, knowing that what I was about to say was likely about to crush it.

“Gemini, I appreciate you wanting to help me, but I can’t let you,” I said. Her jaw hung the slightest bit open, hope gone from her eyes, heart crushed. “You’ve barely gotten the chance to live life, and the last thing I want is for you to throw away that chance for me. If we had more time, if it wasn’t going to be so dangerous, I might have said you could come with me but… I can’t.”

Gemmy hung her head again, closing her eyes as if it would keep us from seeing how much my words hurt.

“I-I’m scared t-t-to see more happen to y-you,” she said.

“I know, which is why I’ll promise you this,” I replied. “I’ll come back from Our Haven as soon as Angel Hair is dealt with, alive and still myself. How does that sound?”

The young mare didn’t answer. Instead, after a few seconds of silence, she got up and looked at me. She wore a fake smile, once again attempting to look brave. It was all for me – for Rhapsody – and we couldn't help but feel proud of her. Though she was still recovering from a foalhood of suffering, she was coming into her own, finding herself.

This was the type of soldier Rhapsody wanted her to be, isn’t it? Not the kind that fought and protected a country or cause, but one able to overcome the wounds they had. It fit Gemmy perfectly.

“I think I need to step away, talk with Basalt or some others,” she said. The hurt was still clear in her voice, but she was dealing with it better than we expected. “If I’m going to stay here, in Underside, I want to help out. Catching Amaryllis, feeling liked for more than just my body, it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said, nodding my head.

Then, out of shock. Gemmy did something completely unexpected of her: she wrapped her forelegs around me. A hug, possibly the first she had ever given anypony her entire life, strong yet gentle. She didn’t have the strength to really squeeze me, but by the Infinite she tried. There was a little more light crying into my shoulder, but that was okay. It was healthy to cry, and nopony needed to cry more than the young mare currently hugging me.

Not knowing where her boundaries with touch were at the current moment, I did the same thing Rhapsody had in the research station back in Trotson. My wings spread out like a shield, shading her from the sun. We stayed like that for about a minute before Gemmy pulled away, my wings furling back up on my sides as she let go of me. The false nature of the smile she wore was now gone.

After a couple steps backwards, she turned around and rushed off to wherever it was she was planning to go. I’m certain she’d show me a couple of the places and creatures she hung out around in the following few days. I looked forward to it, a motherly pride welling up inside me at the thought.

“Little mare was right about one thing, you don’t need to go completely alone,” Sharpshot said. I looked to my right, having not noticed he had hoped off the statue’s pedestal at some point in the past minute or so, head tilted in curiosity. “I ain’t about to ask him myself, but there is a griff in town with a lot more known infamy than the traitorous geezer we know.”

“You’re talking about Falke Rotfeather,” I replied. He eyed me, one side of his brow raised. “Might have had a little trip out and about last night. Had a small talk with him and Basalt.”

“Well, that makes this all a bit easier than,” he said, letting out a sigh of relief. “If he was pleasant to you, then he would be more than willing to let you hire him.”

“Got to admit, I’m surprised you're vouching for him, considering what I heard about your little scuffle yesterday.”

Sharpshot winced, looking away. “Wasn’t in a pleasant mood. Last griff I saw tried to kill you.”

“Fair enough.”

That was the last thing he said before leaving too, giving a small wave as he walked away. That left Day Glow as the last familiar face present, and I decided to look at him in case he had anything left to say. He looked to me in turn, then to the ground, and finally back to me; a show he was mentally checking whatever he was about to say to me.

“Left his body in the test site. A crew will recover any stolen material from the Hurricane, but the four of us did a sweep once you were given medical aide,” he explained. No need to guess who ‘his body’ was referring to. Felt a bit upset that I wasn’t there in pony for it, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. “No sign of what you were looking for. He probably gave it to Equalist’s so-called Messenger as a show of his good faith.”

He looked away again, doing another mental check of himself, and focused on me once more.

“There’s… somepony who wants to talk to you, over at the F.o.B.,” he said. “Nothing more.”

“Thanks,” I told him, flashing a small smile. “I’ll stop by at some point before I leave Underside. I think I’ll just… relax for a bit.”

He nodded, and then motioned for me to start moving. He had to get back to work, and I wasn’t going to get in the way of it.

Opening my MentaBuck, I looked at each of the streets around me, seeing which ones I hadn’t seemed to explore quite yet. That left a good number of options, more than my brain could reasonably consider without hurting just a bit too much. Only a day or so awake and I was already done with these migraines.

“Not going to go after Willow?” My inner selves asked.

“We didn’t find her on the way here, and I doubt she’s going to show herself again till she is ready,” I replied, randomly placing a little waypoint on a street to the northwest. “Tartarus, we’ll probably have Sharpshot later today asking around about her whereabouts too.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. What do we do in the meantime then?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but we got time to prepare for the journey ahead.” I whisked away the MentaBuck, turned until I was facing the direction of the waypoint, and started walking. “Besides, after everything we went through, having some days to relax feels nice.”

“Seconded. Let’s find something interesting around her and just… enjoy ourselves a bit.”

Couldn’t say no to that.

Message found on private terminal
…
…

Embraxia, I once called you mother. I once worshiped the ground you walked on like the heretic alicorns do their goddess. I gave everything I had to see the Messenger’s will fulfilled, no matter how grueling the task or how sick the heretic you threw me at. Never did I fail; never did the false ones escape my hooves. You called me one of your best, most beautiful, and exceptional daughters. When you came, claiming I was to challenge for the title of Messenger’s Voice, I gave everything of myself to show that those words were not wrong.
Yet now, now I see the truth of you.
You remember the words you said to me, right? “It is through undying faith in the Messenger that all will be fine.” I have been faithful, loyal, unquestioning of your wishes and have reached a state none of our kind has ever seen before. I became the example you wish me to be, that the Voice needs to be. This form is a gift from Her, I know it just as much as you do. It was a sign that I was destined to follow in your hoofsteps – to be the guiding star for all the Messenger’s beloved.
Yet when you laid eyes upon her gift, you called me sick. You claimed I was poisoned by heretics; you claimed that I was no longer fit to be the Voice; you claimed these and separated me from Paradise, exiling me from light as if I was a common sinner. All of these are signs that you do not truly speak for her. A False Voice, using her for your own sick power.
They are not your biggest crime however, Embraxia. You, queen of the hive, know better than anyone what the greatest insult is.
For cutting my connection with my brothers and sisters, my friends and lovers, I made a promise. With the arms of the Southern Sinners, I shall see you and your false rule struck down. You will face punishment, forced to listen as heretics cheer your death as I, Amaryllis, True Voice of the Messenger, smite you.
This is my promise, my rite…
My guarantee.

Act 3 – Chapter 1: Till Fate Makes Us Part

Underside, San Palomino Desert

Day 17

“His employer is Amaryllis? How?”

The question my inner selves asked was one mimicked by myself. I stared silently into the changeling’s eyes, heterochromia meeting sparkling blue. It was hard to figure out if them not recognizing me was a good thing or not. They were still looking me over, a hint of annoyance visible as they tried to unravel the mystery of who I was.

“It’s so odd. You share so many traits with her, including her irresistible looks,” Amaryllis whispered sensually into my ear. Their voice still had that same affect on me as it did when they met Rhapsody one week prior. “Then there’s this smell of… is that disgust?”

They pulled away, a look of confusion shining through that earlier confident. It was only for a second before the regal mask they wore came back up, as practiced as Rhapsody’s own. The pegasus side of me huffed at having called her out, but she did not say anything further. The changeling before us was more important than her hidden immaturity. It was time to pull the wool off their eyes.

“Of course you taste disgust. The last interaction we had included you threatening my friend for being in love with an alicorn,” I said. There was a shot of pain through me, talking about Rhapsody as if she was myself. I bore through it, for the purpose of seeing the shock on the face of the piece of shit before me. “How does it feel, knowing you got caught by the young mare who was shitfaced next to us?”

I knew that was going to get a reaction, but I had hoped it would be one of shock and anger. Instead, Amaryllis’ smile somehow managed to grow ever worse, the sensual nature they had spoken with to me taking it over. They tilted their head, eyes briefly looking towards Falke and giving him a nod. Whatever it meant remained a mystery, but the griffon made his way over to the table the changeling had been seated at previously.

“The Messenger, blessed she is, told me of my eventual capture,” they lied. “For it to be by one so unassuming was not expected, but my arrival in this temporary cage was necessary for the betterment of all her followers.”

The way they spoke reminded me of Harbinger in all the worst possible ways. Confident, charismatic, vile, all were apt descriptions for the Enclave councilor and the Equalist before me. The biggest difference was in the hidden, sexual undertone in the way the changeling talked. Where Harbinger was unable to turn off that military side of his brain, making him Tartarus to talk to informally, Amaryllis was a charm. Each syllable they spoke with felt tailored not just to lure unfortunate ponies into the embrace of their cult, but her bedchamber.

“However, the fortunes of one unicorn mare are nowhere near as interesting as the sight before me now,” Amaryllis said, lowering their neck slightly so that their muzzle was just about touching my own. It did take much, we were about even with each other in terms of height now. “I’m not sure how you obtained your new look, sugar, but I approve. You look delicious.”

“Can it Amaryllis,” I spat back, pushing into them. Despite the anger the changeling’s words sparked in me, being so close to them left my heart beating fast from their attractive form. “I’m not here to swoon. I’m here because I need Falke.”

“You would deny your heart’s desire? What an admirable, and may I say sexy, quality,” the changeling replied. They licked my lips, something I definitely did not let out a squeak at, and then backed away. “I will respect your choice. Please, have a seat and enjoy a drink. They’re not close to the quality of home, but for heretics the Shattered Moon’s options are… enjoyable.”

Amaryllis joined Falke at the table, looking out of the corner of their eyes at me expectantly. I didn’t really have much of a choice, not with the griffon working for the changeling. Leaving meant I was back to traveling alone, and the risks of traveling alone still didn’t feel worth passing up what was in front of me. It was hard to tell if it was logic or… something else speaking.

“We’re really going to take a chance on him… her… them?” my inner selves asked. Their confusion at how to refer to the changeling was shared, though not a primary concern of mine at the moment. “They’re dangerous, not in the same way we are though but more like–”

“You don’t have to tell me,” I muttered back. “I won’t let her do what the Enclave did to us.”

I walked over to the table and took the final open seat, something Amaryllis was more than happy about. They levitated over a cup of tea, the same exact kind that Vigil had given Rhapsody days prior if the smell was any indication. All it took was a sip to confirm that, yes, it was indeed the same. I blinked several times, unable to tell if it was a simple coincidence or something a bit more. Either way, it still tasted good.

“Intriguing.”

I looked up. Amaryllis’s attention was on the cup I was holding with my magic, idly swaying in the air without any illusion of being supported. It took me far too long to figure out what the problem was, and by that point the changeling’s look had grown judging. I instantly brought my hooves under the cup and let the magic sizzle out, as if it was somehow enough to hide what they had already seen.

The creature before me didn’t approve of alicorns, she had made that abundantly clear to Sharpshot during their one and only interaction with each other. That wasn’t good; as much as I didn’t like Amaryllis, her approval was necessary for my deal with Falke to go through. Showing I was an alicorn was a misstep, but it might at least stop her more sensual side.

“Last I heard, pegasi aren’t able to hold cups like unicorns and my kind,” they said. “So why can you?”

“I think you already know why,” I said. Despite knowing that hostility would do me no favors, something in me wanted nothing more than to snap at the changeling every chance I had. “I’m not one of the Unity’s alicorns. I’m the result of a strange mixture of a cannibalistic spirit, the spirit of a unicorn infected by one, and the pegasus you met one week ago. All of it was completely against my will, and it’s why I look as I now do.”

My words led to a pause. I fully expected Amaryllis to spout words of hate in my direction, but once again they defied expectations. Instead of similarly pointed anger to that which I held, that crooked smile of theirs returned anew. They lined back against their chair, mandibles twitching for some bug-like reason I didn’t know. The changeling’s eyes turned from me to Falke.

“You are bringing an interesting pony into our mix, Mister Rotfeather,” Amaryllis said, words laced with intrigue and curiosity rather than disapproval. “I hope you understand that my views, as well as that of my followers, is not that high when it comes to her kind.”

“They are not one of the goddess’ own, as they pointed out,” Falke replied. Whereas his employer kept their words filled with the intention to charm, he was far more deadpan, straightforward, and business-like in his delivery. “Danse Macabre is her own mare. Besides, you already had plans to recruit her for this, correct?”

My eyes went wide, and immediately my attention went from Falke to Amaryllis. The changeling giggled, took a sip of their tea, and then turned to me.

“You don’t mean… I was told somepony wanted to meet me here a few days ago,” I said. My shock was able to get itself under control halfway through the sentence, allowing me to follow the griffon’s example in approach. “That was you, then? Didn’t think Shattered Moon would allow you visitors considering your allegiances.”

“Quite a shock to you, I’m sure,” Amaryllis answered. I glared at them, not appreciating the snark being thrown my way, but they didn’t even seem to recognize it. “Your Shattered Moon was indeed quite uncertain of me at first, but that was before they understood. My appearance had them awe-struck, perhaps understanding the divine nature of my ascension to some minimal extent, and with it they were all too willing to listen to me.”

Amaryllis, seemingly enthralled by her own charisma, stood up before Falke and I. A hoof to her chest, head held as high as could be to maintain her high-and-mighty persona. Her wings fluttered in an uncanny, bug-like manner, same as her tail. Her mandibles clicked together.

“Though heretics you are, I understand that which my siblings in the hive do not,” they said, their voice exuding power and attention similar to that of a member of the high council. “Two hundred years standing tall, any harm to your existence squashed under the fetlocks of your seemingly immortal Lady Hash. None other save for the Grand Pegasus Enclave and my Messenger’s faithful can boast such a claim. While my siblings and her brilliance’s followers would see you squashed like the uncountable amount of failures to the east, I see a better, brighter, and less wasteful option.”

I stared at her, doing everything in my power to hide my own intrigue at their words. It was better if I remained looking unimpressed, for my belief’s sake alone. It did not stop Amaryllis from continuing their speech, and despite all better judgment, a piece of myself had been captivated by their words.

“When long lived civilizations meet each other, destruction of one another should not be their goal. Once already the foolish, old Equestria made that mistake, and we see fit to carry that on like uncultured, mindless husks,” they waxed. “We must stop it, for that is the only way our two civilizations live on. To do that, I shall see past everything, even your status as an alicorn, to pave a path of peace between our kinds.”

The hoof they had brought to their chest stomped the floor, their smile taking on a satisfied twist to it.

“Congratulations, Danse Macabre, former soldier of the Grand Pegasus Enclave and newborn alicorn, you are hired.” They allowed that to hang in the air, eyeing me in hope of seeing some manner of reaction. When they didn’t get it, they merely waved a hoof and sat back down. “It shall stay that way, it seems. Unlike the guards posted outside my cage, your brain is not as influenced by my ramblings. That is good, for if you were easily swayed, you would find your employment ended as quickly as it began.”

I felt my body release a load of tension as Amaryllis finally ended her speech. Doing my best to hide my exasperation at everything I had just heard, I turned my attention to Falke. “They passed your test?”

“Trust me, I was quite surprised myself,” the griffon said, letting out a heavy sigh. “They downed it with even more ease than you did. Asked for another cup as well.”

“What can I say? My palette and that of the Vhoski seem to be one,” Amaryllis said. She let out a happily little chirp, mandibles twitching in joy. “It’s a shame they are no longer with us. I would have loved to introduce them to the Messenger, though no doubt it would take some convincing for them to join her followers, if they would at all.”

“So you needed us to not be easily swayed, and there was mention of peace in your speech,” I chimed in. The changeling nodded at me. I took a sip of the tea they had given me, forcing down a smile at the familiar flavor. “I think it is time you explained why I'm being hired. I get that you need a bodyguard, but I’m not entirely sure what your plan is.”

“Of course you don’t; no doubt Falke has already made you aware of how sensitive this information is,” they responded. Receiving a nod from the griffon in question, she relaxed against the back of her seat, forelegs crossed. “Through the divine awe granted to me by the Messenger, I was able to sway enough of the Shattered Moon here to let me talk with Lady Hash. It is most necessary that I convince her to ally with the Messenger, no matter the cost.”

I lowered my head, looking for any sign of obvious deceit in Amaryllis’ posture. None showed, the changeling having emotionally secured herself better than anypony I knew could. It only made sense that a creature that fed off of emotion knew how to use and control them. No doubt whatever form of teacher she had drilled those into her brain like a drill sergeant did respect and promptness. All the better to conceal themselves from public view.

No wonder the old world never learned about them. Sharpshot and I had gotten lucky when we caught Amaryllis, the changeling’s only hate of the Unity overriding her common sense. Her hive must have been pretty peeved about it…

Actually…

“I have a question, Amaryllis,” I told her.

She leaned her head in my direction, her mane almost completely covering both of her eyes from my sight. “Oh? But I haven't finished talking yet.”

“I know, but given what I know about changelings it must be asked,” I replied. Her eyes briefly glanced elsewhere, mandibles twitching as she thought. When she looked back to me, she motioned with her hoof for me to go ahead. “Doesn’t your hive already know everything you are going to do? You all share a connection much like the Unity, if I’ve heard correctly.”

With that, just as I was becoming inwardly impressed at Amaryllis’ ability to control herself, the aura of superiority they were was shredded. It started with a full body flinch as my words opened a wound I didn’t know existed. Their focus turned away from Falke and myself, eyes staring at the table, lost in some horrible memory I couldn’t imagine. It was all a feeling I knew far too well, both sides of myself having felt it at one point or another in their lives.

Hurt. My words, a question I had assumed was innocent if a bit probing, had led Amaryllis into a realm of emotion pain. I didn’t care that much, however. I needed to know the answer to this question.

“There’s… more than a few things wrong with that comparison,” they stated. The confidence in their voice vanished, replaced with uncertainty and shame. “Our hivemind still holds individuality. The queen can not control us, only nudge us one way or another with her words. We also are more than able to keep secrets, have private moments, and all without worrying of something prying into our mind. However, none of what I say matters, because my queen, fearful of my ascension, cut me from my siblings.”

Seeing as she showed a little bit of emotional insecurity, I felt it was okay to do the same. Even if it only formed in wide eyes and my mouth hanging dumbly open, it was more than enough. While the idea of being part of a hivemind felt terrifying to myself, having seen the Unity’s own through Willow’s experiences, but to a creature that had lived its entire existence with it? Being cut out of it, something I didn’t even know was possible, must have been no different from getting ostracized.

I did wonder for a moment if the same could happen to Willow, since it had happened to Amaryllis. The idea immediately met a dead end for multiple reasons, the most chief among them being that, until recently, she had been cut off as well. Now that she was connected, there was no chance of the Goddess even considering removing her. She didn’t care, because as far as the majority of the Unity was concerned, someday everypony would be one of them.

Any attempt at convincing the Goddess to cut a single mind from the hivemind would be like talking to a brick wall.

“Queen or no, the act of removing anyling from the hivemind is a very controversial topic,” Amaryllis explained. Slowly their voice regained its confidence, though this time there was a hateful edge to each word she spoke. “In my hive, the action was considered a cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore forbidden. I am the first in possibly over a millennia to ever be removed from my sisters, brothers, lovers, and everyone else I know. Those are not the actions of a benevolent queen,” she leered at me, the gaze nearly as cold as her tone, “they are the actions of a tyrant, a false Voice that must be crushed for the sake of both heretics and believers.”

“If I am remembering correctly,” Falke chimed in, raising a talon into the air. As attention focused on him, Amaryllis’ anger faded into their mind. There were signs it was still there, but it had been internalized so well none would be able to find it if they didn’t know it existed in the first place, “the current Voice of the Messenger, Embraxia, has been the queen of your hive since before the Last Day.”

“That is true, and I do still hold some respect for her carrying us through the end of the world despite everything she did to me,” Amaryllis said. “It does not change the fact that she is a nonbeliever acting as the Messenger’s Voice. Two centuries under the rule of the wrong ‘ling, and you wonder why relations between us and you, our southern neighbors, are so frayed.”

She lifted her cup to her lips… only to find that she had already finished her tea. Getting up from her chair, she made her way behind us to a kitchenette. This must have been a break room back when this building had been a Police Station.

“The queen is our final target. My plan, and my reason for hiring you two, is to make sure that I don’t die before I’m able to put my little coup into action.” As Amaryllis finished talking, she came back to us with a back of tea floating at the top of a lukewarm cup of war. “I know it sounds dangerous. I assure you that not only have I planned this out, and know that you two would be set for life within Northern San Palomino for whatever you would wish to do after.”

Had to admit, if the changeling was telling the truth, that was certainly a good deal. Falke’s claims made more sense now, as did the reason why my help would count as part of the payment. He needed somepony else there to make sure this went off without a hitch, because the big reward at the end of it all wasn’t coming easy. Amaryllis didn’t need to say anything concerning the risks, because they were clear as crystal.

“You’re asking a lot of just two creatures, Amaryllis,” I stated before finishing up my own cup of tea.

“Afraid you can’t live up to expectations?” they replied smugly, eyeing me with an expression practically daring me to spat back.

With a snort, I decided to give her what she wanted. “I think myself a very capable mare. One side of me lived their life as a soldier of the Enclave, the other a unicorn who, despite her handicaps, survived through capable allies and a mastery of mind magic.”

“Mind magic?!” Both of Falke and Amaryllis shouted, one leaning back while the other leaned forward. Similarly, the griffon looked terrified while the changeling seemed ecstatic.

“What are you doing? We could have used that to–”

“I’m letting you know this because I have no plan to use it on either of you,” I explained, the words meant just as much for my inner selves as they were for the two in front of me. “It might be useful though, if the situation calls for it.”

“That’s… pretty dangerous,” Falke said, swallowing a lump in his throat. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath in, and then opened them again. “Though, I guess you would have already used it on me already at this point. Considering you haven’t I–”

“Hold that thought,” Amaryllis said, one of their forelegs reaching across the table to close the griffon’s beak. Their horn lit up, eyes flicking between Falke and myself for a moment before finally landing on me. “Huh, strange.”

“Did she use it on me?” Falke asked.

“No. Actually, I’m feeling a portion of magic on herself,” the changeling explained. Her mandibles clicked each other as she tapped the underside of her muzzle. “It does seem to be centered around her brain, though that’s about as much as I can tell. It was hard to see under the hostile magic covering her entire form.”

“Hostile magic?” I asked, tilting my head. “Wait, you mean there is more than one spell on me?”

The changeling shook their head. “No, not a spell. Something else.”

“That must be the Mlafi,” Falke said. Amaryllis looked at him, tilting their head just like I had. “The cannibal spirit she mentioned.”

“Ah, of course,” they said as they cut their magic. “Intrigue aside, I don’t see any sign of magic on you, Mister Rotfeather. We are both safe, and as long as sugar doesn’t try to do anything to you then she will be safe as well.”

“I’m surprised,” I said mockingly. “You checked him and not yourself. Wouldn’t it have been a good idea to make sure I haven’t used anything on you.”

“While it would be exciting finding out what it is like to be under somepony’s whim, I’m afraid you won’t have any luck with me,” Amaryllis said. She removed the teabag from her cup, taking a sip of it before continuing. “We have an inherent resistance to that form of magic, you see. It would take a particularly gifted mage to bind us for more than a couple seconds.”

“I’d be more than willing to test her on that.”

“Don’t,” I whispered. For the first time since I had arrived, I decided to give Amaryllis a smile. “Is that all?”

The changeling made an overexaggerated show of thinking about it, each of their limbs finding the most dramatic way of getting themselves into a thinking possession. Even afterwards, as they sat there pretending to think, they seemed determined to be as much of a character as possible. Exaggerated motions and facial expressions, taking their sweet time despite clearly already knowing the answer. If they were anyone else, the neutral expression on their face would have slowly begun to crack into a smile, but Amaryllis kept up the act like some old world movie star.

“Yes, I do believe that will be all for now,” they said. “We leave for Shorelock in two days, be prepared to meet me at Underside’s gate western gate. Oh, and if you have anypony else you’d like to bring along,” their eyes landing on me specifically, allowing one corner of their mouth to turn upwards, “make sure they talk to me first.”

One blind-folded walk back outside later, as well as the blinding flash of the midday, and Falke and I were out. Amaryllis stayed in the base in order to play up the role of the ‘captured Equalist spy’ to the public. All the red tape that applied to the griffon was now my baggage as well. All I was able to say was I had gotten a job doing mercenary work and that the reward was really good (the changelings words, not mine). Might as well have been covered in black ink and stored in some government facility to be eternally forgotten.

I felt a little bit of pain from it all, however. Not from having to keep secrets, I was use to that, but from having to leave some ponies I had gotten to know pretty well in the past two weeks. Couldn’t help but just at the thought. When Rhapsody had first met Sharpshot and Willow Wisp, she had not cared about them at all, even hating the ghoul with a passion.

Things had changed since then, at least in some aspects. Sharpshot was still somewhat of an ass, but in the past few days – both before I had become Danse Macabre and after – he had been… different. He was nowhere near as physically aggressive as before, and our jabs at each other felt more like jokes now. Willow, well, she was the first pony down here to get through that barrier of racial superiority. Nothing more really needs to be said about how much I appreciate her.

“Imagine you’ll be spending the next few days saying your goodbyes,” Falke said. There was a small amount of tension in his voice, no doubt born from learning where my magical talents lie.

“Yeah, most likely,” I replied. “Oh, and, I was being serious about–”

“Words don’t matter, actions do,” he interrupted, holding one of his talons up and shaking his head. “I appreciate you telling us, but no amount of promises are going to make me relax.”

While getting interrupted definitely didn’t sit well with me, I nodded at his words. “Fair enough. Anything else you want to say, since I’m now a part of this?”

“Yes, actually, but it doesn’t have to do with…,” he didn’t finish, merely motioning with his eyes back towards the Shattered Moon base next to us. “The pegasus you are looking for, you are probably not going to find her in Our Haven proper.”

“I won’t?” I asked, one side of my brow raised high.

After one more glance back towards the base, he started walking. He tilted his head towards one street, and I joined his side. Whatever he was about to tell me, he wanted to be away from them to say it.

“No. Equalists don’t let anyone but the devoted into the main city under normal circumstances,” he whispered. The further we got away from the base, the louder things got. Everycreature was out and about for one reason or another, creating an effective sound barrier for him to talk to me. “Those considered outsiders, as well as traders not authorized within city limits, can be found in what is called Lesser Haven. Equalists themselves call it the Blood District.”

“To keep their faithful from getting any bright ideas from us outsiders,” I said quietly. The griffon nodded. “Quite the nickname. Most creatures wouldn’t be comfortable stepping even within eyesight of a place with such a name.”

“That is the point of it. Lesser Haven is actually rather nice, but if the Messenger’s Voice admitted that, then they’d lose some control over their populace,” Falke said. “You lived in the Enclave, I’m sure you can guess how.”

“Spinning stories to make it look worse than it actually is, making those in it look more like animals than sapient beings, and plenty of brainwashing.”

“Exactly. Lesser Haven isn’t terrible, all things considered, though they do have their ways of pushing you towards Equalism. Make somecreature feel welcomed enough, give messages both direct and indirect concerning the Messenger, Our Haven, and their beliefs, and in time you’ll be able to reel them in.”

“Which is why they wanted their bodyguard to not be easily influenced,” I said, more to myself than to the griffon next to me. He nodded his head anyways. “I won’t ask further. I don’t trust Amaryllis, but if helping them gets me to Angel Hair, I’ll do it.”

“Good,” he replied. “For now, the less we know, the safer we are.”

“So, did it go well?”

Gemmy, Sharpshot, and Willow Wisp had all been waiting at the Lucky Clover, waiting for me to return from my meeting with Amaryllis. Obviously none of them knew who it was Falke had taken me to, and that had to stay a secret, but that didn’t mean they didn’t deserve to know the good news. Taking a seat next to Gemmy in the booth they had taken, I let out a content sigh and looked between all of them.

“I would say so,” I replied, “considering I got the job.”

Every single one of them beamed at the news, save for Sharpshot of course. He crossed his forelegs and smirked as if he was saying ‘called it’. Gemmy slowly brought herself into a hug, her hooves slowly claiming more and more of me before finally wrapping around my whole frame. Willow just stomped happily like a foal unable to control themself. Something about it all just made me feel warm.

“Oh, yes yes yes yes yes!” Willow repeated happily, wrapping Sharpshot up in her own hug. His eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets from the strength of the hug. “I knew she’d get it, hun. Nopony can say no to Danse Macabre.”

“I know, now please… need… breath,” Sharpshot said, trying to wiggle free from his wife’s grasp. She did as he asked, the unicorn ghoul collapsing onto the booth's seat back first, his hindlegs the only thing visible from my side of the table. “Thanks… Willow.”

“You’ll be okay then, right?” Gemmy asked, pulling just enough out of the hug so she could look me in the eyes. That desperation from days earlier had returned, and this time I was more than willing to nod. “Oh thank goodness.”

“Hold your horses, Miss Triggerhappy,” Sharpshot replied, pulling himself back up into a sitting position. He stretched his backs, the pops and cracks of muscles muffled under the noise of the pub. “Just ‘cause she has a guard doesn’t mean she’ll be completely fine. It’s still merc work, and take it from somepony who has done it most of their lives: it’s dangerous work.”

Gemmy’s hooves held me a bit tighter, muzzle trembling as if stuck trying to stay something. With a sigh and shake of my head, I leaned my head in Sharpshot’s direction and gave him a disappointed frown.

“You couldn’t have just left that part out?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I think we had this conversation about ‘ignorance is bliss’ before, soldier mare. It’s better she knows these things, just in case the worst happens.”

“And I would have preferred you kept that part a secret.” With another sigh, I turned my attention back to Gemmy and used a wing to stroke her mane. “I promise I’ll be coming back, this time without being a somewhat different pony.”

“Y-you promise?” Gemmy repeated. I nodded, and she briefly looked at our seat before looking me in the eyes again. “Say the words.”

My eyes went wide. “H-huh?”

“That ‘Pinkie promise thing’ you did in Trotson. The one where you hit yourself in the eye,” she said, her face going pale before looking away. There were snickers from the other side, my eyelid twitching at what I knew was the cause of them. “S-s-sorry. There were better ways to–”

“No, it’s fine. That… did indeed happen,” I replied, doing my best to hide my discontent at the reminder. I shot a warning glare Sharpshot and Willow’s way, the former paying it far less attention than the latter, and then returned my attention to Gemmy. “Listen, Gemmy, I’m not sure if I’ll be capable of keeping it. For as much as I can say that I’ll return alive, the chances of it breaking against my will is too high.”

Her ears drooped, pulling away from me and pulling her lips into her mouth. When she let go of them, I was more than certain she had chewed them up a small bit. The idea of losing me, the pony she likely cared about the most in the world besides her birth mother, did not sit well with the filly. My eyes went to my forelegs, and despite everything I genuinely considered her request.

“You said it yourself. It’s a promise that is entirely outside your own control.”

Yet what was the harm in seeing this young mare, barely an adult, given a little hope to cling to? We were both mediums, both broken beyond words, even if the reasons were entirely different. She had so little to cling to for happiness, and she was asking me to ensure her a piece of that would forever stay. Even if keeping it wasn’t completely in my control, did Gemini not deserve some hope.

“Are you certain Danse?” My inner selves asked.

“She no doubt has enough nightmares. I don’t want my mission to create more,” I whispered, raising a hoof up to my chest. Gemmy didn’t hear what I was saying, but she noticed my foreleg’s movement immediately. “Shining Gemini, I promise that I’ll come back, alive and unchanged. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

I ended the necessary series of motions with a small blep in an attempt to lighten the mood. It worked, if the smile and laugh from Gemmy was anything to go by. Closing the distance between herself and me, the young unicorn rested her head on me. I wrapped my wings around her protectively and returned to stroking her mane. A hum came from my throat, slowly turning into a familiar lullaby. Ones that I sang to Rainy and Clear, and I had faint memories of being sung back to me.

Hush now little one, there’s no need to fear

For in all your dreams, I will be there

To break down all the bad, and hold you so close

To guard you from nightmares, and take them as my own.

I meant to stop there, with one verse, but I couldn’t. I continued on, hearing both Rhapsody and Dead Hooves continuing along with me.

Let me hold your tears, I promise it’s fine

Lean on me all you need, I’ll bring you the light

From dreams to waking world, I’ll be by your side

Your mother is with you, don’t fear the urge to cry.

I never thought those words would leave my lips again, not after leaving the clouds. I’m not sure where I first heard them, or who sang them to me, but through all the pain of foalhood, it never left. The effect it had on Rainy, Clear, and myself now applied to Gemmy, what hidden stress and anxiety she had about me leaving without her faded into nothingness. She was no different from Rhapsody: a tortured filly in a grown mare’s body.

Just like Rhapsody before her, that filly was now strong enough to stand on her own hooves. With assistance from a certain abyssian, alicorn, and ghoul of course.

“Thank you,” she whispered from her cocoon of feathers.

“Of course, my….”

I stopped myself, momentarily considering the words I was about to say. It had been easy in the lullaby, its lyrics unaltered. Was it truly a good idea to tell Gemmy how I saw her now? Would it make her worry even more than she had before? The words were on the tip of my tongue and yet… and yet…

“Didn’t you say we would tell her? Are we really going to turn back on that now, after promising her we would come back?”

…

“My… daughter.”

She removed her head from her chest and looked up. “D-daughter?”

Near instantaneously, I became very embarrassed at how out of nowhere that had been. Briefly, I opened my eyes to what little of the pub I could see from my current position, and then forced myself to smile at the young mare before me. It felt very awkward.

“I-I-If you don’t like it, I understand,” I said, voice quieter and more shy than I originally wanted to be. “It’s just, I see so much of myself in you. All the hurt, the struggle, but at the same time the love and will to keep moving. We’ve known each other for not even three weeks, and yet, I can’t help but look at your eyes and see a kindred spirit; a daughter, one that I feel so happy to see grow in such a short time.”

Her eyes were starting to water up, but she did not frown. When I finished telling her how I felt, I was treated to a small yet beautiful smile. For the third time in less than half an hour, Gemmy wrapped her forelegs around me and cried happily into my fur. All I did was return the feeling, holding her in my wings happily. My heart had been going faster than Rainbow Dash before that, but now it was slowing back down to its natural pace.

“Please don’t break your promise,” Gemmy said, her voice soft and quiet. “If anything happens to you… if anything happens–”

I patted her back with one of my wings. “I’ll come back. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks… mommy.”

“Anytime, Gemmy.”

It took some time for my daughter to pull away from me, the both of us never wanting the moment to end. The world stops for nopony though, and there was in fact a point where we did finally end our hug. Gemmy smiled happily in my direction, her initially small smile twice as big. She wiped the tears that had fallen away herself, her eyes watching them for a few seconds as if unable to put together the fact that they were from joy. It was a small sign that she wasn’t fully recovered yet, and made me wince a little at the thought I’d be away from her for a decently long time.

“Even more reason to come back alive.”

I mentally agreed with Rhapsody and Dead Hooves. This was about more than just Pride and my family in the clouds now. I had family here too.

“Well, I don’t think anypony is going to top that when it comes to goodbye gifts,” Sharpshot remarked, both Gemmy and myself turning our attention back across the table for the first time in quite a while. The ghoul himself was leaning against the booth, a smirk I might have once seen as condescending now carrying a hint of happiness underneath it. “Guess I’ll just not go through with my own plans then.”

“Oh come on hun,” Willow said, rolling her eyes and playfully shoving him at the same time. “Don’t lead them on like that. Just show it already.”

Sharpshot let out an exaggerated sigh at his wife’s words, eyes looking off towards the rest of the pub.

“Goodbye gifts?” Gemmy asked, tilting her head.

“Yeah, uh… okay,” Sharpshot said. They were clearly for himself, closing his eyes as he spoke to them. They only opened back up when he addressed the rest of us. “I figured, some of us don’t know when we will next see each other again, so I bit the bullet and did something I haven’t done since I was in my twenties. I… have something to give you all.”

Lighting his horn, three photos came out from a pounch on his rags. He floated one to me, one to my daughter, and one to Willow. My eyes landed on a photo of several ponies, all familiar to me. I knew what this was, I had been there for it.

Dead Hooves had, to be precise.

We had taken that picture in Arbu.

I’m certain the name rings a few bells, given the infamy it gained from your Lightbringer’s time in it. I can’t say anything for what it was like then, but I can say what it had been. Even back then it had been filled with cannibals, but they didn’t fake what they were. All who came to Arbu had come for one purpose, and one purpose alone.

To live out their final few months before the Mlafi fully took hold of them.

I was not at that point yet. Her fur coat was thinning, but she was still very much the same pony Willow, Sharpshot, Stitches, and everyone else had met. What few times I had given in at that point had done very little to affect me, outside of making that hunger the Mlafi gave me worse. It was something I was able to deal with, and something mom had been very happy to see when we reunited.

The ponies I met in my time there, saying what I knew might be my final goodbyes to one of my moms, they weren’t like the ones Littlepip saw. Not every pony is possessed by a Mlafi when they eat the corpse of another. The conditions have to be more harrowing, your life on the line, for the possession to take hold. The ponies who were there in recent years ate their fellow ponies because they wanted to, nothing more. On that much, your Lightbringer is justified.

When all of us were on our way out, one of the other inflicted ponies brought out an old world camera that had survived the years. It was a small tradition, for those few who made the trip to Arbu with their family, to take a picture with the one they would be leaving here. A small memory to hold onto, so that you’d have some physical piece of them for the rest of your life. I hadn’t brought mom here – she came to them herself – but as I was family, they said it applied.

So, with me and mom in the middle, everyone else funneled in around us. Zoey was to mom’s right, Starry on my left, Willow and Sharpshot behind us. I kept my smile up, doing everything I can to not think about what this photo meant in the long term. This was a good moment, ruining it was wrong.

“Has, uh, anypony here taken a picture before?” Zoey asked. She seemed more nervous than usual. “I don’t think I remember seeing any cameras back in Stalliongrad.”

“You got that weird explosive licorice shit, yet you don’t have cameras?” Sharpshot replied. The young zebra shot him a glare, earning a roll of the eyes from the ghoul. “Yes, I’ve taken one before. Happened when I started my apprenticeship back home.”

“The Enclave also has cameras, though they aren’t for commercial use,” Star Chart said. “Military only.”

“Everything in your Enclave is military only,” Sharpshot said.

“And everything down here gets set on fire on a weekly basis,” Starry shot back, a sly smirk on her face. “Tell me which you would prefer.”

He leered at her. “Touché.”

“Come on everypony, is this really the time?” I asked, looking specifically to the two ponies behind me.

“Apologies if I have problems with those above the clouds,” Sharpshot said. Another roll of the eyes, his gaze landing back on Star Chart at the end of it. “Present company notwithstanding.”

“Well I’m happy to know the stable pony approves of me,” she responded, ending her sentence with sticking her tongue out at him.

He did the same back to her. My mother chuckled at the sight and shook her head at their actions. It wasn’t the first time the two of them had bickered like this in front of her, and it wasn’t the first time she had laughed at it. She understood as well as I did that it was just the way their relationship had formed.

“Now now, that’s enough of that,” my mom said. “Save it for after the picture you two.”

They both immediately stopped bickering, at least verbally. Both of them threw a glare at each other, only smiling once they weren’t looking at each other. Focus went back to the camera, the inflicted pony having finished setting things up.

My mom’s left hoof wrapped around my own, her foreleg holding firm. A look into her glossy eyes revealed fear, something she did her best to keep down for the sake of the moment. As best as I could, I squeezed her foreleg with my own in a sign of solidarity. She looked at me, and that smile on her face became a little bit bigger, and far more real. I returned it, quietly telling her not to worry, because she wasn’t the only pony scared.

“Alright, everypony face forward,” the camerapony said. All eyes turned to the camera, our heads high to further hide any discomfort that we were dealing with. “Big smiles, move in a little Joy. Now say cheese!”

The photo itself revealed everything that happened right as he said that. Willow had plopped her head on Dead Hooves, sticking her tongue out and closing her eyes. Joy’s smile was far more uncomfortable than the rest of us, looking as if she wanted to be literally anywhere but right there. Star Chart looked professional, as if this photo was meant for something far more serious than the rest of us. Sharpshot didn’t even try to smile.

Between each of these ponies was Dead Hooves and her– one of my moms. I felt a tear fall down my face at the sight of us together. It had been so, so long since I’d seen her face in more than just my mind's eye. To know that Sharpshot had kept this after all these years, it was a testament to how much he really did care, even if he refused to admit it.

“You kept it in good condition,” I told Sharpshot, somehow managing to peel my eyes off the photograph.

“Well, I’m sure more than just Dead Hooves would be upset with me if I didn’t,” Sharpshot replied. “Through every battle, every near death experience, the one thing I always made sure didn’t get was this.”

“I don’t recognize all of these ponies,” Gemmy said. She tapped Star Chart with her hoof and looked at me. “Da– Mom, do you know who these are.”

“Oh, oh, can I tell her?” Willow asked, raising a foreleg into the air excitedly. I gave her a nod, and the foreleg went from on the air to the table. She spun her copy around and…

I felt my body freeze. Why did Willow get one?

“This is Star Chart. She’s your new mom’s ancestor.”

“Ancestor?”

“Somepony who is related to you, but isn’t around anymore.”

I tried my best to make my mouth move, but it stayed glued shut.

“Ah. I recognize, Dead Hooves and Sharpshot. That mare next to him is new.”

“Actually, she isn’t. That’s me!”

“That’s… h-h-huh?”

“I know. I looked really different as a pegasus don’t I.”

Why did it refuse to work? Why was I so afraid of asking a question I already knew the answer to? There was no way I was that scared of the confirmation.

“The really creepy zebra next to Dead Hooves?”

“Her mom. She had this really bad disease that disfigured her body over time.”

“Disfigured?”

“Messed up.”

“So she isn’t actually that scary?”

“Nope, absolute sweetheart. In fact, I decided to go to her concerning how I felt about Sharp–”

“Hearty?” I finally managed to say. It wasn’t that loud, but the name managed to draw everypony’s attention my way. Sharpshot themself seemed nervous, likely due to the fact I had said his actual birth name. “Is there something you and Willow aren’t telling us?”

There was a brief sign of confusion, but it quickly evaporated into fear. He turned his head away from me, shame mixing into his expression as he eyed the booth seat. Willow, the wonderful wife that she was, turned her attention from the photo to her husband. With a hoof placed on his shoulder, she leaned forward to whisper into his ear. Despite how scratchy her voice was from her long battle against killing joke, and how low she tried to make it, it was more than possible to make out what she said.

“Sharpy?” She asked. “Did you… did you not tell her?”

“No. I didn’t have the time,” he replied. He rubbed the back of his head, and turned his head back towards the table. His eyes were still down. “Yes, Danse. I have something I need to tell you. Willow said it was best that you know as well.”

My gaze went from the downtrodden ghoul to his wife. She had him wrapped around her wing, wearing a smile that did not reach her eyes. That hadn’t told me a thing yet, but I could still feel a dagger sinking into my heart. There was no way the two of them had… but when? Why? Surely Willow still had more than enough time left, so there was no reason for them to–

“Sharpy and I are going our separate ways.”

They had, and all I was able to do was hang my jaw like an idiot and ask. “What?”

“We, uh, talked about it yesterday, when you weren’t around,” Sharpshot said. He still couldn’t look at me, but the monotone nature of his voice told me everything I needed to know about how he viewed this. “They know her trigger word. She barely managed to keep herself together long enough to get away from us in Nowhere. We… we don’t have a choice.”

That feeling, that expression, it was all far too familiar to me. While I did everything I could to stay positive on my final day with Anchor, Rainy, and Clear, that is exactly how I felt. The difference was, I had been given the illusion of choice when I left the Enclave. Sharpshot and Willow were having a wedge driven between them from outside, by a Goddess who claimed superiority while seemingly not understanding a thing about love.

If Willow’s words two days ago were to be believed, even her own alicorns understood it better than she did.

So, with me knowing all of that, what response could I give? Just when my jaw had unthawed, it had frozen right up again. Tears began to cloud my vision, but I held back the urge to cry. What was happening to them wasn’t fair!

“I’m leaving tonight and heading to Maripony,” Willow said. Her voice had a much more clearly somber feel to it, and yet still she smiled to the rest of us. “Far away, where I can’t be made to hurt the stallion I love. Far away, where the only ponies who can possibly hurt me are the Goddess and myself.”

“What do you mean?” Gemmy asked. “I thought this Goddess pony couldn’t talk to you?”

“I… lied about it,” the alicorn admitted, shying away herself as she did it. “I thought I had done a good job hiding it too, but Sharpy? Sharpy knew. He had for some time now.”

“Because we told him. We possibly save his life doing it, and yet this hurts somehow far worse than I ever thought it would.”

Once again, my jaw finally managed to find itself capable of moving. Instead of using that opportunity to talk, however, I instead immediately closed my mouth and swallowed. They were right, Rhapsody was the one that told him about it. Back then it had just been a possibility, now it was fact. It had saved two lives, but caused them far more pain in the process.

“Sharpshot, Willow,” I finally managed to say. “I’m sorry.”

Sharpshot briefly brought his head up to look at me, only for it to fall after a few seconds. It was like somepony had tied a cement brick around his neck.

“I should be the one apologizing, for not immediately listening to y- Rhapsody,” he replied. “I knew what the card meant, of course I did, but the idea of losing her was… I didn’t want to think about it. Then you nearly died, and I realized how stupid that was.”

“It’s okay. I understand,” I told him. “Still, does it have to be right now? Surely you two still have a little bit more time together than you’re stating.”

“Remember how I rushed off down the mine for seemingly no reason?” Willow asked. I hesitantly nodded in reply. “She tried to make me kill most of you then, in hopes that Sharpy would be one of the ones that died. From there, it would be all too easy for her to dump all those events and the emotions tied to them on Lacunae. Poor mare is used as a trash can for all the bad emotions in the Unity.”

“This isn’t just about me, Danse,” Sharpshot said. “It’s about keeping others safe, and a mare none of us know from dealing with more pain than she already does. The best course of action is for us to leave on good terms, and leave the Goddess unable to take any of it.”

Whatever was holding down his head, it fell away after those words. He smiled and looked to Willow, and the alicorn did the same back to him. Despite openly showing their sadness, they managed to put it to the side and keep their moods up. It was admirable, even if some aspects were a little bit forced.

I didn’t understand all too well what Willow meant at the time when she was talking about Lacunae, but I didn’t need to. Within all the hopelessness that came with the two’s forced separation, she wished to celebrate. It was important to her, and seemed to be just as important to Sharpshot. Neither wanted their relationship to end on a down note. For that reason, I pulled the knife out of my heart and wiped the tears from my eyes.

“If all of this is to avoid giving that disgusting excuse of a Goddess what she wants,” I replied, conjuring the cockiest smirk I possibly could onto my face, “then let's do exactly that.”

“Fuck yeah!” Rhapsody and DH shouted. Their approval only fueled my confidence in this being the right course of action.

“Thanks Danse. You have no idea what that means to me,” Willow replied. Her eyes lit up, and her horn followed right after as she looked left on her seat. “Oh, that reminds me, I have something for you.”

“Me?” I asked, pointing to myself. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for Sharpshot to get a gift from you?”

“Oh, she already did that,” Sharpshot said. With his magic, he brought up a tiny little orb, which I immediately recognized for what it was.

“What’s that?” Gemmy asked, leaning forward and squinting at the orb. “It doesn’t look like much of a gift.”

“It’s a memory orb,” I explained. My daughter looked at me, no words needed to know the question that was about to leave her mouth. “It’s a device unicorns use to store memories for one reason or another.”

Sharpshot nodded to confirm that I had gotten things right. “Willow gave me a small collection of them earlier today. It’s her way of making sure that, no matter what, I’m there with her.”

“It was only something I thought up in the last year or two, so the memories are all incredibly recent,” Willow said. Her horn was still aglow, but whatever she was holding was currently out of view from us all. The exception for Sharpshot, who chuckled sarcastically at he saw what she was hiding under the table. “Speaking of incredibly recent, you still have that Twilight statuette on you, right?”

I blinked a few times, then nodded. “Um, yeah, wh–”

“Surprise!”

Up from under the table rose a similar statuette to the one I had in my saddlebags. It wasn’t another copy of Minister Twilight, instead belonging to a yellow pegasus with a pink mane. If her look wasn’t enough to tip me off on who it was, the ‘be kind’ etched into the pedestal was a dead giveaway. I held my hooves out, she dropped it in my hooves, and I gave it a closer look. While I certainly couldn’t be familiar enough with them to tell if it was a fake, it seemed as real as the one I had obtained in the Project Nebula labs… and shot back in the Trotson Grand Hotel.

My ears fell slightly from shame and embarrassment. While Rainbow Dash still didn’t paint me as a symbol of loyalty for her actions, trashing her likeness may have been a step too far.

“Where did you find this?” I asked Willow, stuffing the statuette into my saddlebag right next to the one of Twilight Sparkle.

“Back at the doomtown, believe it or not,” she said. “Honestly I’m surprised nopony else has taken it in all these years.”

“I’m not,” Sharpshot said, with a hint of venom in it. “The average wastelander sees anything dealing with that mare, and they keep their distance. Only exception is first-aid kits and shit, but some people are idiotic enough they won’t even take that if her cutie mark is on it.”

“But all first-aid kits have Fluttershy’s cutie mark on it,” Gemini replied.

Sharpshot pointed at her enthusiastically. “Exactly. Those idiots don’t survive for very long.”

“Well, whether she destroy the world or not, I like it,” I said, looking back at the alicorn. “Thanks, Willow. Wish I had something I could give you as a goodbye gift, but I wasn’t exactly prepared to say goodbye.”

“What are you talking about, Danse? You do have a gift you can gift me,” Willow replied, giggling into her hoof. I tilted my head, curious as to what she meant. “I want to hear you play music one more time. It was awesome getting to hear you on stage, and it would be even better to hear it without some dumb changeling joining you.”

Slowly, my eyes went from her to the far corner of the pub where the stage sat. Just like last time, a splattering of different instruments were visible from where I stood, my eyes instantly locking on the bass. In an instant, I felt it suddenly call out to me like a friend I hadn’t seen in years. It wanted me to play it again just as much as Willow wanted to hear it. Thankfully for both of them, I was more than willing to play again.

With a wink towards Willow, I got up from the booth and casually made my way over to the stage. The sound of chatter died down more and more the closer I got, everycreature noticing me. No doubt word had gotten out about Amaryllis and I’s performance when I first arrived in Underside, and given how quickly I was identified as their ‘Cloudborne Anomaly’, the attention made sense. I ignored all of them, my attention on the stage and nothing else.

As soon as I reached it, my hooves swiped the bass and brought it to the stage’s center. My hooves plucked each note; the tuning remained off, just like the last time I played it, but it was okay. After testing a few series of notes, I looked out in front of me. All eyes, from the front most seats of the pub to the bar at the back, were all on me. Willow had peaked over the booth to watch me, using her hooves as a cushion for her head. Sharpshot feigned disinterest while Gemmy beamed in excitement.

“You think we still got it?” my inner selves asked.

I snorted as I mumbled back to them. “What, are you two nervous?”

“Hah! As if. It’s just, this is the first time we’ve played since merging. I’m worried it’s not going to sound as good as last time.”

“Don’t worry.” Satisfied with my small warm up, I settled my hooves on the first notes for the song I had chosen. “It’ll sound even better.”

Without a second thought or a word to my audience, I started playing. Within seconds I was lost within the song, and all my worries and fears melted away.

“Come on, Rha– mom! They’re this way!”

I followed my daughter through the streets, not sure exactly where she was currently taking me. The sun was starting to set, Willow’s time with us was winding to an end, but Gemmy insisted on showing me something before final goodbyes were said. It felt a little wrong, not giving all my time to my first friend on the surface, but one look at Gemmy told me this was important to her. She wouldn’t be bringing me through random streets for no reason, something proved by her choice of words.

They. Who was ‘they’ in this instance?

I didn’t pay too much attention to exactly where we were heading until we ducked into an alleyway between two shops. Gemmy slowed her hooves, her ears flicking for a moment before a joyful gasp left her mouth. She directed me forward to the other side of a really old dumpster, a hop in her step that nopony would have expected from her even a week ago. While still confused, I did as my daughter asked and looked where she was.

Once more that day, my jaw dropped at the sight of an older unicorn mare curled around a very familiar unicorn filly. Stardust looked completely solid compared to the last time I saw her, with no visible sign that she was really a ghost. The same went for the older mare she was curled up against. Given the fact that they were covering the filly with their tail and had their full attention on them, it was easy to figure out they were also a ghost, despite the lack of opaqueness on their figure.

“Miss Shine,” Gemmy said, drawing the older mare’s attention.

“Oh, Gemini. How wonderful of you to visit us,” they said, smiling at my daughter. Their attention turned next to me, and that smile faded a bit. “And who is this with you today?”

“Oh, that’s my new… mom,” Gemini said. Despite the hesitation in her voice as she looked at me, the joy plastered on her muzzle was genuine. It was just something that was going to take her quite some time to get used to, I understood that, “and the mare responsible for finding Stardust and bringing her here.”

Miss Shine’s eyes went wide. “Wait, you’re Singing Rhapsody?”

Just as each time before, Rhapsody’s name sent a thousand tiny needles probing both out and under my skin. It still hurt like Tartarus, but the more it happened the more I found myself getting use to the pain. No longer was I crying out or collapsing every time I heard someone refer to me by her name, even if sometimes I really wanted to.

“You look… odd,” Miss Shine said, only for her to cover her muzzle with one of her hooves and shake her head. “Sorry, that was rude. I’m Night Shine, Stardust’s mom.”

“Stardust’s…,” I trailed off, looking at Gemini proudly. “You managed to find her?”

“I-i-its a bit more accurate to say that she, uh, found me,” Gemmy replied, rubbing her withers with one of her forelegs. “I didn’t know Stardust had snuck off with the rest of you, a-a-and it got me nervous. Started asking ponies to Underside about it – completely forgetting that Stardust is dead – and eventually found Miss Shine.”

“When she told me that she had met my little star, I joined in with the search,” Night Shine explained. She nuzzled into the filly happily, her voice soft, happy, and yet mournful. “It had been so long, I had lost hope of ever finding her.”

“She was in your old home,” I told her, stepping forward and laying down on the sand. It had gotten late enough in the day where it no longer felt capable of burning me. “Mistook me for you. She’s been crying for you since the day the bombs fell.”

The look of horror on Night Shine’s face as she heard that, it hurt so fucking much to see. She clutched her own daughter closer, muzzle vanishing into their mane, sniffling quietly. It wasn’t a long cry, but I could tell she felt a little better when she removed her nose from said mane that it had been a good one.

“I’m sure it doesn’t reflect well on me. She was supposed to have a foalsitter there, but either their ghost unraveled long ago, left, or they never arrived at my house in the first place,” she said, a deep frown on her face. “Pinkie’s agents must have caught them, thinking they were up to something. Knowing that, I don’t think any amount of thanks would be enough.”

“From one mom to another, just knowing your kid is safe and where she belongs is enough,” I said, looking at the filly in question. That got a smile back on Night Shine’s face, the ghostly mother looking about ready to cry again at hearing my words. “If you don’t mind me asking, what were you doing here in Underside instead of back in Trotson on the Last Day.”

“Oh, I wasn’t even here in Underside. I was in Shorelock, with other ponies,” she explained. She looked to her right, out of the alley and towards a Shattered Moon guard not too far away. “I’m sure you’ve gathered from Stardust who my employer was, even if she didn’t know exactly who they were.”

Both Gemmy and I nodded our heads. My daughter decided to lay down next to me, leaning into my body in a similar fashion to Stardust. The warmth of such a simple action sent through my body, it was beyond anything I can explain.

“My husband died fighting, and Stardust and I were denied entry to a stable,” she said. Her words confirmed the things I had heard the day I met her filly. “The Shattered Moon contacted me, explaining in broad strokes what they were and that they wanted me. At the time, it seemed like the best course of action.”

“And now?” I asked.

Night Shine shook her head. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the conflict with the Equalists. I don’t like them, but I signed up to stop a war. It feels like they’ve lost their way.”

“That’s understandable, especially with what ponies went through in your time,” I responded. “War isn’t completely unavoidable though. When we find things we can’t agree on, we fight. Simple as that.”

“I know. I know,” she replied, her voice so quiet I’m certain she didn’t want me to hear her response. She rested her muzzle back on her daughter. “Either way, thank you. Thank you for bringing my little Star back to me.”

I looked at my daughter, and she looked at me. I mouthed my own thanks to her, the young mare’s smile growing larger. To see her be proud of something after how timid and shy she was back when we first met, it was incredible. If time permitted, the two of us would have likely stayed there for hours, but we had a deadline. Willow would be devastated if we weren’t there when she left, and that was the last thing I wanted her to feel.

So, after some quick goodbyes, Gemmy and I got up and headed back into town. The entire time, I couldn’t get my mind off how proud I was to now call the unicorn next to me ‘daughter.’

Act 3 – Chapter 2: Reopened Heart

Underside, San Palomino Desert

Day 17

With the setting of the sun, a chapter in two ponies' lives was ended. They stood some distance away from my daughter and I, talking to each other for what would be the last time. Their voices hushed, their words out of my ear’s reach, I was with an inability to know what was going on between the two. That was okay, I didn’t need to hear the goodbyes of a husband and wife if they didn’t want me to. Watching gave me more than enough of an idea as to what was going on anyways.

They smiled, laughed, cursed, cried for each other, but more than anything else, they gave one another love. The last bits of love that both of them could ever directly give to one another outside of a photo or memory orb. Jokes, harsh remarks, every other feeling they had for each other and those around them was being unleashed in one, final emotional tirade. It made Rhapsody’s goodbye to Anchor feel cheap, lesser, but I knew that wasn’t the case.

Different couples had different ways of handling things. This was not one of the ways I could judge them. Not that judging would feel right at all, especially when two lives before me were being ripped apart.

Their goodbyes ended with a hug, Willow lifting Sharpshot off the ground and squeezing him hard enough to hear pops and crack from the ghouls body. He took it like a champ, trying his best to return the bone crushing hug. The most surprising part was seeing him stay standing after; if that had been me, I would have very likely been lying on my back for the next several minutes. A final few words were exchanged, and then Sharpshot walked over to us.

He stopped for a moment when he reached our side, but refused to turn around to look at Willow.

“As much as I would like to stay and see her off completely, it’s not safe enough for me. Tartarus, even accepting that hug was a risk,” he said to me, a mixture of pain and sorrow making up his voice. “I’ll be back at the motel. Please see her off well, both of you.”

“Of course, Sharpshot,” I replied, nodding my head.

He chuckled at my response, a small, melancholic smile on his face. A wordless thank you was passed to me via the sorrow in his eyes, and then he headed off. I watched him until he disappeared from sight, heart unable to hide the pain this entire situation gave me. There was only so much one could do to hide hurt, no matter how much somepony asked you to not to.

“Are you okay… mom?” Gemini asked quietly.

I had to think about her question longer than I wanted to admit, eyes focused on the ground below me. Yet, even when I had an answer for her, it felt impossible to give a real answer. All I did was give the exact same smile Sharpshot used on me, and mimic it in front of my daughter.

“Come on,” I said, nudging her forward with a wing. “Let's say goodbye to Willow.”

Gemini accepted my non-answer, and the nudge was more than enough to get her moving. As we made our way up to Willow, the alicorn sat down and gave a big, hopeful grin. If it was fake or not didn’t matter. The message behind it was clear: don’t give the Goddess any means to classify it as a painful or sad memory. The tears had to be left for later, for the sake of our friend and her identity.

“If you two don’t mind me speaking first, I have something important to say,” Willow said. Both Gemini and I nodded immediately. With a hoof to her throat, and so forced coughs, Willow opened her mouth instead of using telepathy. “Thank you both, for traveling with me these last few weeks, and for helping Sharpy out.”

Her voice sounded healed, or at least as healed as it could be. It was still raspy, each word sounding like it was speaking, but Willow didn’t care. There were hints of what it used to be, back when Dead Hooves was alive. Low, sultry, and yet very clearly holding that hint of emotionlessness that was connected with insanity. A voice that was likely trained from the pony who originally owned her, either for his own twisted pleasure or to make it easier to get certain types of ponies to fall into her clutches.

A murderer’s voice. It was not rude or wrong to call it that, especially when Willow was as open about enjoying it as she was.

“Helping Sharpy?” Gemini repeated back to the alicorn. Her head lowered slightly, ears following suit as she did. “I, uh, don’t remember helping him.”

“Maybe not directly, but have you seen him this past week?” Willow asked rhetorically. “It’s probably the most I’ve ever seen him willingly hang out with anypony that isn’t me. That’s good, he won’t go feral then. At least I hope not.”

“You’re sure this has to happen today?” I asked her, taking one more step forward. “I know we would have gone our separate ways when I headed to Our Haven, but it feels like–”

“It has to be now,” she chimed in. “Not just for Sharpy’s sake, but for the others who might get hurt when she next decides to use those words on me.”

Willow and I specifically stared at each other for a decent amount of time in silence. I had no argument, not with what I’d seen Willow capable of when her bloodlust kicked in. If that happened in the middle of Underside or any other settlement, who knew how many others might get killed or hurt before she died. Willow wasn’t ready for that yet, her choice to keep living made that clear enough.

Tired as she claimed to be, dying was not on her mind.

“Still, thank you both for being with me these last few weeks,” Willow said, pulling both Gemini and myself in with her wings. “It was nice to talk with you, eat with you, and kill with you. I’ll never forget it, I promise.”

“It was… it was nice getting to know you too,” Gemini said. There was a large amount of discomfort at the sudden physical contact, but she didn’t wiggle free. Whether it was out of fear or simply trying to not worry the alicorn responsible was impossible to tell. “Thanks for listening to me. It’s nice, knowing that I’m not the only pony who has gone through that same pain.”

“Glad I could help,” Willow said. She pulled her wings back and crouched just enough so that her head was level with Gemini. “Just remember, you got a mom to talk to about it all too. I’m certain Danse is more than capable of taking the baggage on.”

“Already done so,” I replied, giving my daughter a wide smile. She gave a much smaller one back to me before my attention shifted back to Willow. “Thanks for saving my ass back in the M.A.S. hub, and also for, um…”

I felt a blush rise up in my cheeks as I remembered our one night stand. It was an incredible night, it really was, but the shame at knowing I had also cheated on Anchor in the process hurt. I knew I’d never see him again, of course I did, but letting go of somepony you genuinely loved isn’t easy.

The shame must have been obvious on my face, because Willow responded to me trailing off with a couple light pats on the head. I didn’t notice that I was hanging my head until I had to lift it to look at her. She chuckled at me.

“He’d forgive you, I’m certain,” she replied. Then, she took a step back, and all the joy in her face faded away. “Anyways, Danse, before we leave I’m being… required to do something. I think you already know what.”

Gemini looked between the two of us, a mixture of worry and confusion on her face. “Is something wrong?”

No need to figure out what Willow was hinting at. The Goddess never got her chance to talk with me days earlier due to the aforementioned one night stand, and I’m certain she had words for her ‘newest’ alicorn afterwards. Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I prepared myself as much as possible in the short time given.

“Gemini,” I called out. “Head back to the motel.”

“H-h-head back?” she asked, looking at me with wide eyes. “I-is what Willow asking you to do bad?”

“Yeah, and it is entirely out of her control too,” I said, hoping inwardly that it was enough of an explanation to ward off any other questions. “So please, Gemmy, head back to the motel and stay there until–”

“No, no, it is more than alright for her to stay.”

If the way Gemmy’s entire body tensed up wasn’t enough of a hint at who had just spoken, the sudden switch to telepathy was. It was that same voice I had heard back in the medical clinic, coming from Willow and yet clearly not being her. My teeth grinded against each other as I looked at the alicorn, head held high in a look of superiority. She trotted back up to us, or more specifically, she trotted up to Gemini.

“After all, you are an alicorn, and therefore more than worthy to join our Unity,” the Goddess said, eyeing up my daughter like a slaver did a slave. Gemmy took a step back, and the Goddess took another towards her. Another step back, then another, and another, but each time the thing controlling Willow’s erased the distance just as quickly as it was gained. “You’re mother is a most unusual alicorn after all, and we’d love nothing more than to see that our dear Willow is not parted from those in her life that are more… respectful.”

“I… I…,” Gemmy tried to respond, but every bit of confidence she had gained in the past week and a half seemed to shatter under the gaze of the Goddess.

Without a second thought, I darted between the two of them, acting as a wall between the Goddess and my daughter. One of her eyelids twitched, sneering at me as if I was a disobedient foal. Where I imagined some of her drones might have cowered or backed away in fear of what she might do, I did not. Stance firm, I met her sneer with a glare, an animalistic snarl leaving my mouth.

“We did not ask you to stand between us,” the Goddess said.

“Do I look like I care what you think?” I spat back. “You will not take my daughter from me.”

“Take? We are not taking her from you,” she replied, seeming to do all in her power to not let her anger get the better of her. “We merely wish to bring her under our wings and keep her safe, as you have done. It will lead our numbers to grow, and it will keep her from ever facing real harm.”

“At the likely cost of you stripping away parts of what makes Gemini who she is,” I replied. Something violent and feral was rising within me, disconnected from Rhapsody and Dead Hooves. “Do you think I’m blind to what you do to ponies? I know what you do to all the hurt your alicorns had faced before joining you, I know about Lacunae. Even ignoring her, I’d be a damn idiot to not see the happy couple you’ve torn apart before my very eyes!”

“A dumpster is necessary to clean out the trash in one’s house, and the mind is no different,” she replied, placing one of Willow’s forelegs right in front of my muzzle as if preparing to run me over, “and do not mention that murderer before us. We have no doubt that Open Heart has done nothing good for her in all the years she’s spent separated from us.”

Wither her foreleg as close as it was, the feral piece of me only seemed to get louder. It told me to bite, maim, and do everything within my power to keep this monster away from my child. The maternal side of me was affecting it just as much as it was affecting my maternal side. Every violent action it asked of me seemed to use Gemini as validation, and it took a huge effort to keep myself from acting upon it.

“I have been around them longer than you have in Willow Wisp’s entire time as an alicorn,” I said. With each movement of my mouth, I seemed to have to convince myself even more not to give in to these odd instincts as I brushed against the fur of the leg.

“Yet that time is so little, compared to everything we have seen.” She pushed it further into me, forcing me to look straight up into Willow’s eyes as the Goddess loomed over me. She leaned over just enough so that her face was practically all I could see in front of me. “Need we tell you about those in our Unity that he killed on that day? How about all the innocent lives since then? I can tell you every sin that ghoul has committ–”

With every growing second, and each word the Goddess said, those violent urges grew greater and greater until I neither wanted or was able to hold them back. Mid sentence, with her more focused on doing everything in her power to intimidate me into backing off, I opened my mouth wide and bit down on Willow’s leg. The Goddess roared, Willow’s head shooting up in pain as I did everything in my power to pierce flesh with flat teeth. In time, I did indeed manage to draw blood.

As a coppery taste hit my tongue, my eyes went wide. Despite having tasted my own blood several times as I coughed it up for one reason or another, Willow’s had a flavor to it that I could not explain. It was better than any dish I had ever had. The taste made me want more blood.

I licked at the blood, and the craving grew. I needed more.

More!

“Danse, focus!”

Rhapsody and Dead Hooves’ voices cut through the animalistic instincts, my focus turning away from the delicious blood and back on defending Gemmy. The Goddess was practically throwing a fit as she attempted to remove us from Willow’s limb. She may have been in the stronger body, but I had planted myself firmly enough where my hooves didn’t leave the ground. Didn’t matter how much she tried to shake me loose, I wasn’t letting go until I was certain she was no longer a threat.

“You disgraceful child!” the Goddess exclaimed, growling at me as she continued to useless flail about. “Let go of us this instant.”

A spell came to my mind, no doubt courtesy of Dead Hooves, and I knew that was the thing I needed to end this. All I needed was for the Goddess to look at me, and she was watching me like a hawk. Lighting up my horn, I let go of her hoof, briefly made sure my horn was pointed at her head, and then closed my eyes. A sound not too dissimilar to the flash of a camera sounds out from seemingly nowhere, a burst of light visible even with my eyelids still shut. As soon as the light faded, I opened them and looked at Willow’s body.

She was staring down in my direction, but it would be far more accurate to say she was looking past me and not at me. Her pupils were wide, and though she blinked wildly everything else about her seemed to be motionless. Taking a few steps back, I gave either Willow or the Goddess – whichever recovered from the short term memory wipe first – the time to get themselves back together.

“Did I do it correctly?” I whispered to my inner selves.

“Yes. This is normal, trust us,” they replied. “How are you though? You seemed to kind of… loose yourself for a minute.”

“I feel okay. Might just be another side effect of our odd existence,” I replied, subconsciously rolling my tongue along my lips for whatever blood had dripped onto them. I basked in the coppery goodness, my entire body briefly convulsing in delight. “It’s wonderful, perfect, and oddly… nostalgic.”

“D-D-Danse?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t forget,” I replied, smiling like a madmare. I looked back to Gemini, taking note of how she was shaking in place. “Are you okay, Gemmy?”

“I-I-I, um, yeah,” she said, turning her head to the left. “Though, uh, I think we got noticed.”

Turning my attention from my daughter to the general area, I quickly noticed she was right. It wasn’t a huge crowd, the ponies making it up wearing terrified stares and shocked expressions. Some were looking at me, some were focused on the still unmoving Willow Wisp. Those scared faces were not the big concern however.

We had been next to Underside’s walls after all, and two of the Shattered Moon’s own were standing guard on both sides. One of them had come up closer to us, though clearly taking a wider turn around Willow. The alicorn was starting to move again, though they were robotic and slow due to their brain still gathering itself back up.

“Neither of you two move,” the guard said. He waited a second, as if expecting one of us to disobey. When that didn’t happen, he turned his attention to me. “I saw a lot of what was going on, but I’m afraid I’m a bit confused as to what happened.”

I briefly looked at Willow, and then back to the guard. No reason to hide what happened; I knew whatever trouble she was about to get in is something she could easily get out of. The alicorn was good at that.

“Goddess possessed her and tried to take my daughter from me,” I explained. “That’s all sir. Just protecting my own.”

He turned to Willow, the mare finally seeming to be completely there. The shame and disgust on her face was plain for everypony pleasant to see.

“That’s accurate, sir,” she said, just loud enough for us all to hear.

“Then I’m sure you understand that, if this happens again, the Shattered Moon will personally get involved,” the number replied. Willow nodded in response, though he probably needed to hear it as little as I did. He likely already had a good enough idea of what we were doing at the gate, if he had overheard anything. “Have a good day ma’am.”

“You too,” I said. As the guard went about clearing the small crowd away, I turned back to Willow. We both looked at each other, and I now perfectly understood how dangerous her connection to the Unity was for everypony around us. “I guess… we should part ways now.”

“Yeah,” she replied. She did her best to smile at me, a half-hearted chuckle leaving her muzzle. “It was wonderful, getting to know you.”

Just like she had, I forced myself to smile and further store the pain this entire goodbye now held. “Same here. Thanks for being an amazing friend these past few weeks.”

Her smile grew a little, becoming the slightest amount more real than it was previously. She started to turn and head toward the gate, her hooves seeming to drag more than they usually did. Once she reached the other guard that had been posted at the gate, she opened her mouth to talk to them. As he spoke into the walkie-talkie on his chest, Willow looked back at me one more time.

“W-W-Willow!” Gemini called out, grabbing our attention instantly. She hadn’t walked back up to my side, her legs still shaking from her encounter with the Goddess. Eyes filled with tears, she did her best to hide that fear behind a straight posture and high head. “Stay safe out there, please!”

The alicorn’s smile took on a sympathetic tone, tilted ever so slightly to the right. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Spend your energy worrying about those that get in my way.”

With those final words to us, she turned back towards the gate. After a few more seconds, it slowly started to open up, the screech of rusted iron making me wince. As soon as it was high enough, Willow trotted through the gate and into the desert. Gemini as I watched as she trotted away, spread her wings, and then took flight.

That was the last time I saw her.

With the alicorn finally out of sight everything flooded forth. The tears started falling from my face before I had even realized they were there, making trails through my fur before either disappearing or falling to the sand below us. Before my hindlegs could think of collapsing I sat down, doing everything in my power to continue smiling. The worse my tears got, the harder that was.

Gemmy didn’t cry like I had expected her to. She just stared at the gate, eyes watered but nothing more, having already given up any attempts at looking happy for Willow. As she sat down next to me, I was able to notice the increased rate at which she was breathing. She understood better than I did what was going on; Willow had just given up her freedom and happiness for another, different form of enslavement. She now knew that what Willow, Sharpshot, and I had given her could be taken away again at the drop of a hat.

When Gemini and I returned to the motel that night, the sun had disappeared from the sky, the moon taking its place. The two of us spent longer than either of us wanted to think about, staring at the gate, holding onto that thin shred of hope that Willow would come back. It didn’t happen, it was never going to. Willow was gone from Underside, our lives, and existed only in our memories now. She wasn’t dead, but in many ways she might as well have been.

Gemmy went to our motel room to sleep, but I felt compelled to check on Sharpshot. Was hard to imagine him taking it well, considering how long the two of them had been together. The worst part was that him leave was the best possible option. If he had been there when the Goddess took over Willow’s body, things would have definitely gotten more physical than a bite.

“Do we tell him?” My inner selves asked.

I contemplated the thought as I slowly moved from the door of my motel room to Wil… Sharpshot’s room. I knew he would want to know the truth, given his own view of the world. It also felt like the worst possible option. While I was uncertain how a ghoul’s mental state was linked to them going feral, Willow had told me a long time ago what might happen when she left.

“I might not be around forever. My coat wasn’t this blue when I became an alicorn; the killing joke won’t hold her back forever. I’m worried that once I’m gone, he’ll go feral.”

More than anything, she wanted Sharpshot to remain Sharpshot. He had Gemini and myself, but that was it. The risk that this broke me – made him lose a piece of himself – was too high. Far, far too high.

“We keep it a secret,” I mumbled. “He’s better off that way. Ignorance is still sometimes bliss.”

My inner selves did not comment, which either meant they agreed with my decision or didn’t want to argue about it. The end of our talk lined up perfectly with me reaching the door to Sharpshot’s room, meaning it was entirely possible he may have heard some piece of it. If he’d ask, I’d bullshit something, simple as that. With my ‘plan’ in place, I brought a forehoof to the door and knocked on it.

…

Click.

The door either locked or unlocked, whichever one it was unknown to me. Lighting up my horn, I tested the door knob. It turned in my aura, no locking mechanism giving any resistance. I pushed it lightly with a hoof, and it gave, slowly pushing open just enough to see that at least the bedroom light was off. Pushing it open a little more revealed that the only light on was in the bathroom.

I took a step inside, my eyes and nose instantly trailing to the bed. The smell of Willow and I was gone from the covers on the bed, to no surprise. They probably changed them while we were all out and about. Just like everything else about the mare, the memory of that odd, exploratory night was nothing but that: a memory.

If I chose to, it would stay with me for my entire life. Yet the chance of forgetting it was always there.

Another step, and I felt a different fabric from the floor underneath my hoof. Lifting it, I lit my horn and took a look at exactly what was below me. The material was old, all defining features having long faded for an ugly brown. Whether that was its original color was unknown to me, but I didn’t need to in order to figure out where it came from. All I needed to do was look up to the single light source in the entire motel room, being the bathroom.

“Sharpshot?” I called out, stepping closer to it. The door was open enough where I felt confident in saying nothing private was happening inside. Still, I knocked again just in case. “Are… are you in there?”

“Yeah,” he answered, his voice quieter and shier than I had ever heard it before. “You can come in.”

I placed my hoof on the door again, waited a few seconds to contemplate if this was really the best idea, and then slowly pushed it open. The first thing to catch my eyes was more pieces of that same fabric strewn about the tile floor in various sizes and shapes. All of it once belonged to the rags Sharpshot had worn, or at least that which he was able to cut off. It meant that, when I finally looked at the ghoul himself, I was able to see exactly what his body looked like.

Some things I already knew, patches of fur still visible in places on his head, as well as anywhere else that his clothing hadn’t fused to his body. His mane and tail had gotten a little longer in the time that I knew him, though that wasn’t saying much considering how few hairs made them up. His goggles were still attached, more clearly fused to his skin now that his rags had been forcefully removed from his body. What had no doubt once been his stable suit was still there on him, now a part of him due to his encounter years earlier with pink mist. The color had faded there too, though nowhere near as much as whatever he had worn on top of it. The ‘17’ on its back was barely visible anymore.

I could even see his cutie mark now; a heart, stitched back closed after a successful surgery.

Now, without everything covering him, it was easier to tell how young he had been when he had become a ghoul in the first place. Despite the ghoulification, he still looked as if he was thirteen years old, a few years removed from being a foal by the logic of stables. It was hard to believe this was one of the wasteland’s most wanted ponies, especially with the expressionless stare he gave to himself in the mirror.

Sharpshot was standing at the sink, his front hooves on either side of it as he looked in the mirror at himself. His PipBuck, a scalpel, and a healing potion were on it as well. I took a look at the screen of his PipBuck, noticing the extra tabs on his. All of it seemed medical related, which made sense considering what the ghoul had originally been brought up for, back in his stable.

“I know, I look like shit,” he said. Outside of his mouth, nothing moved, his gaze fixated on the pony looking back at him in the mirror. “Not hard to see why my dad was so scared of me, huh? I looked like a freak.”

I didn’t respond at first, instead simply walking into the bathroom proper. I stood behind him and joined in staring at our reflections in the mirror. It felt uncanny looking at myself, the thing staring back at me incorrect in ways that not even I could explain.

“You look like you,” I responded, after some time. “Nopony more, nopony less.”

“Doesn’t make me less of a freak.”

“At least you can recognize yourself. I’m not sure who it is I see in my reflection.”

He tilted his head up to me for a moment, and then resumed lifelessly staring at himself. “And at least you still have a full mane and tail, a fur coat to keep you warm, and a fully developed body.”

“You know, more than a few older mares or stallions back in the Enclave would kill to be young again.”

“It’s not as fun as it sounds. Besides, would you really want to be my age of all things? I think all of them would want to be in their early twenties but…,” he trailed off, tapping the ceramic of the sink’s basin. “You’ve done so many things, had so many laughs, and experienced so much pain, is it really worth it? Growing old sounds nice.”

I stared down at him for a little bit, then looked back up at myself. “Guess we all like things we can’t have.”

All he did was nod. Then, the two of us returned to staring at the mirror, my eyes only ever looking down to eye the healing potion he had left out.

…

“Hey, Rhapsody,” he said, after some time. His front hooves left the sink, his smaller stature even clearer now that he was standing normally. “Can I ask you a favor?”

I did not immediately say anything, hoping he would explain exactly what the favor was. He said nothing, instead using his magic to leave the scalpel into the air. With growing concern, I looked from it, to the healing potion, to Sharpshot, and back to the scalpel again. Rhapsody and Dead Hooves felt something, and their fear made me panic and think of the worst.

Without thinking, I placed a wing between the ghoul and the scalpel. The surgery tool fell to the floor, his eyes drawn to it as it made a tiny tink sound on the tile.

“Sharpshot, I know you are upset about Willow,” I said, subconsciously taking a step back to give the unicorn a little bit more room, “but self harm isn’t the answer. After all, while we can’t replace her, Gemm–”

“I’m not going to harm myself. Well, not doing it for the reason you think anyway,” he replied, scowling as he pushed my wing away. His horn ignited once more, and the scalpel rose up in front of his eyes. He scrunched his muzzle, and then brought it towards the sink. “Got to wash it again, so thanks for that.”

“Whatever your planning, it isn’t necessary,” I told Sharpshot as he turned the sink on via telekinesis and started to scrub the medical tool in his magic. “There is always another way.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Turning the sink off, he looked over the scalpel again. Rotating it around, he made sure no piece of it had gone without attention, and then placed on top of the healing potion.

“Danse, you know how most of the world sees me,” he said, as if I somehow didn’t already know that. “Ponies know me as that one annoying little stallion that always lands his shots, and I feel much the same about them. I don’t like most ponies, I hate the history of my own country, and despise myself even more than both of those things combined.”

He finally looked at me again, water having welled up in the groove between his eyes and goggles.

“Yet I’m still a surgeon, a pony whose job is to give ponies a second chance,” he explained. Once more his magic ignited, and he brought the scalpel up to his face. “I have the opportunity to give myself that now. Discard Sharpshot, bring back Open Heart, and start anew after years of being hated. The only way that is happening is by becoming unrecognizable, and that means this,” the scalpel tapped against his goggles, “has to go.”

My eyes slowly grew wider and wider, the realization of Sharpshot’s plan hitting me like a bag of bricks to the back of the head.

“You're going to perform surgery on yourself,” I muttered. That was why he had the healing potion; he would need it to reform his skin after cutting the goggles free. “Is… is that really safe?”

“I mean, it certainly isn’t something recommended,” he said, “but I’m not about to trust you with this, or anypony else. I’m going to have to be the one to do it, but I need you to promise me something.”

He pointed towards the aforementioned healing potion. The lack of any shaking or fear in his body showed either a bravery or idiocy that any standard pony wouldn’t be capable of.

“If, after I get it off, I’m in too much pain to heal myself, I need you to feed me that potion.”

My jaw fell slightly, looking towards the potion in shock and terror at exactly what he was asking me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t capable of it – I had seen more than enough blood in my lifetimes – but the knowledge of what Sharpshot was about to do to himself. He was putting his life possibly in my hooves. There was no way in Tartarus that he had that much trust in me.

Though, perhaps it wasn’t trust that led him to ask for my help. Maybe, given all the burned bridges and lack of real connection outside of Willow and myself, he had no other choice. Willow was gone, alive in body but dead in presence. Gemini was around but she was already asleep, not to mention the question of if she was mentally strong enough to do it.

That left… me.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked, just to make sure he had really thought this over.

Sharpshot nodded. “You don’t have to agree to this. I understand that I might be asking too much of anypony, given exactly what I have planned.”

“No. I mean, yes it certainly isn’t something I ever thought I’d be asked but,” I looked away, briefly questioning what I was going to respond with before giving my final answer, “I’ll do it. Last thing I’d want is to lose you on the same day we lost Willow.”

Instead of responding, Sharpshot looked through me. There was a brief moment where his pupils seemed to grow wider, as if preparing to get lost in thought, before returning to normal. He tried to grind his teeth together, but he didn’t have the energy or will for that.

In hindsight, I really should have known that he was still internalizing the day’s events.

“Feel free to wait outside the bathroom,” he said, even more emotion having faded from his voice. “This isn’t going to look pretty.”

As quickly and quietly as possible, I did as he asked. Walking back around him, I walked out of the bathroom and closed the door behind me. The plan was to sit down, maybe take a look through my MentaBuck at where Shorelock was, or do whatever else I could think of to push my memories of Willow’s goodbye to the back of mind.

Instead, as soon as the door was closed behind me, the barrel of a pistol was pressed up against the top of my neck. I tried to look at the pony responsible, move my head just enough to not make them pull the trigger. Instead they shoved the deadly piece of metal into my neck. The only knowledge I gained about them came from the glow of horn light, and the shroud of magic it placed on the door. Their body, their weapon, everything but the knowledge they were a unicorn was completely unknown.

Then, as if I hadn’t already dealt with enough, three gunshots filled the silence. The first was followed up by an all too familiar scream, and then two more in quick succession. The scream, just like the shots, had come from Gemmy and I’s room. My eyes went wide, every organ in my chest and stomach tightening, and if it wasn’t for the gun ready to kill me I’m certain a gasp of pain would have left my mouth.

“No. They didn’t… they didn’t!”

“Good, that makes two of you dealt with,” my assailant muttered. The end of the gun’s barrel pressed even further into my neck, just enough to make airflow the tiniest bit more difficult. “Farewell Miss Rhapsody.”

Fear, shock, and pain were all quickly turning into rage as my brain realized what they had done. The flare up from Rhapsody’s name was all but drowned as I tried to look at the pony holding me at gunpoint, that feral instinct that had shown up before the Goddess returned with a vengeance. As I did, they put pressure on the trigger, intending to fire.

Only to find their magic aura suddenly overridden by one of vibrant blue, and then fired right back at them. The shot missed them by a hair, maybe even grazing their cheek, but I didn’t care; my vision was red, and that violent piece of my mind had woken back up.

Without a single thought as to who fired the gun at my assailant in the first place, I turned and lunged at them. It was blind, but it didn’t matter; they were still trying to register the fact that their own gun had just been taken from them with minimal effort. My blow was more than enough to knock them onto their back, their head hitting the carpet with the force of a sledgehammer. The yelp of pain they emitted was music to my ears, but it wasn’t enough.

“Murderer!” I growled out as I stood over them. Without a second thought, both forehooves immediately came down on their neck as hard as possible. “Murderer!”

The pony’s face was stuck trying to grasp for air, forehooves flailing and failing to remove my own from their neck. Their hindlegs kicked at me simultaneously, but no matter how hard they kicked I didn’t care. I applied more pressure to their neck, watching as they uselessly struggled underneath me. As far as I know, they had killed Gemini. Strangulation was a merciful death compared to some of the ideas floating around in my mind.

I didn’t think about how long I stood there, watching as my assailant slowly lost life and will. Their kicks no longer hit my stomach with much, if any, force; their forelegs were resting on my own more than they were actively trying to remove them. Their head laid against the floor lazily, gasping for the air I blocked them from. It gave my justification, telling me to keep on going, keeping on choking them, keep on–

“Mom!”

Gemini’s voice cut through my murderous haze like a dagger, and in a moment of clarity I accidentally lifted my hooves off my target. They didn’t try to attack me, they didn’t have the want or ability to do that when they were greedily inhaling as much air as possible. That gave me more than enough time to see if the shout I had heard was real, or if my mind was playing tricks on me.

It didn’t take much time at all to find out, with Gemmy wrapping her hooves around my neck. She was tugging backwards, trying to pull me off the mare (I was now sane enough to tell that much about my assailant) that I had been trying to kill. Breathing hard myself due to the anger that consumed me, I allowed her to pull me away. Her head flicked up, looking me dead in the eyes.

“Mom?” She called out quietly. “A-Are you okay?”

Instead of a more straightforward answer, my brain tunnel visioned on the most obvious thing. With the biggest smile my face could manage, I held her cheeks in my hooves and wept. That alone was enough to cause a decent chunk of fear to disappear from her eyes.

“You’re okay,” I whispered. “I thought… I-I thought they killed you.”

“She almost did, sugar, but the Messenger is not one to let such injustices fly,” called a similarly familiar voice. Into the motel room stepped Amaryllis, undisguised, half a dozen numbers with her. The latter immediately went to my assailant and started to tie her up, but the former only had eyes for me. “Maybe now you see that she is lovely and merciful? Such a miracle can only be provided by a god, or one chosen to lead her followers.”

“What are you…,” the question died on my lips, taking one more look at Gemini next to me. Why the changeling was out and about didn’t matter, not when they had just saved my daughter’s life. “Thanks, Amaryllis.”

“If you want to thank me, we can talk about more… satisfying methods later,” they said, licking their lips. Their mandibles did what could be best described as a happy dance, an excited chirp sounding out in the process. “That said, I do believe there is one more pony we should check on, unless he isn’t around right now.”

With my mind still cooling down after the fit of rage I had gone through, it took me a moment to realize exactly who Amaryllis was referring to. The second it hit me I gasped, immediately getting back onto my hooves and turning around. Running back to the bathroom door, I opened the door and…

…

…

I’m… not sure I should describe exactly how Sharpshot looked when I came inside. He was alive, somehow managing to sit up despite the immense amount of pain visible in his eyes, but the amount of blood on his head – not to mention the fact I could see his skull – says everything about pink mist that needs to be said. His goggles laid on the floor, showing how the material and his skin had become one and the same. Blood stained it too. There was enough to give the impression that somepony had just died here.

My head felt fuzzy after only a few seconds of looking at that much blood, so I had to work fast. Lighting up my horn, I grabbed the healing potion and made my way to the ghoul. Doing my best not to look in the area of his eyes, one of my hooves lifted up his chin. As soon as it was high enough, the potion was taken off the sink’s basin and brought to his lips. He attempted to reach up with his hooves to grab it and drink it himself, but pain was overriding control of his body.

“Just… let me,” I whispered. I’m not entirely sure if he was conscious enough to hear me.

He practically choked on it. Gargling and convulsing as the liquid overflowed down his chin. A pony praying to save himself from dehydration by drowning instead. When he had all of it, the now empty bottle was placed back onto the sink basin. By that point I could barely see, light headed and sweating horribly from the sight of the blood still dripping from his body. I had no choice but to lay down, head resting on his hindlegs, leaving me unable to watch as the potion started to repair his skin.

In time, Sharpshot’s head was healed and the pain faded. By that point his body was beyond exhausted, and his upper body collapsed on top of me. The two of us sat there for a time, oblivious to the world for similar reasons. Barely able to see, nearly unable to hear, body numb, all I had was the smell of an old bathroom and freshly spilled blood to go off of. I was aware enough to notice when a shadow covered Sharpshot and myself, the latter getting lifted off by Amaryllis while Gemini and one of her illusions lifted me back into a sitting position.

It took a bit after that for my vision to come back, but when I did the first thing to catch my eyes was Gemmy. Two of her to be specific.

“Sorry about that,” I said. It was near impossible to tell which one was the real Gemmy, at least until she cut her illusion spell.

“What happened to him?” she asked, looking out of the bathroom. We could both hear Amaryllis place Sharpshot on his bed. “The mare you were hurting, did she hurt him?”

“No. Did that to himself,” I answered. I shuffled back until my back was against the wall, using it to keep myself up. “Wanted to get rid of his goggles. Should have told him it was a bad idea.”

Gemmy tilted her way in that same way she always did when confused. “Why is there so much blood then? Goggles are clothing, like the stuff the Shattered Moon wear. He should be able to take it off just fine.”

Despite knowing that it was a really bad idea, I shook my head gently. That was enough for my vision to blur once again, my head falling forward. Sharpshot’s self-butchering had really done a number on myself.

“Bit more complicated in his case,” I explained, trying to motion towards where I believed his goggles were with a foreleg. Lifting it off the ground nearly made me slump onto the ground, Gemmy barely able to hold me up and place me back against the wall. “There is this thing to the east called pink mist. It has the ability to fuse ponies to anything they are touching. Was one of the spells the zebrican empire launched on the Last Day. His goggles were basically part of his skin.”

“Part of his…,” Gemmy said, a look of pure fear taking over her face. She shivered, stumbling as her brain put together the implications of what that meant. “He didn’t. You can’t mean he–”

“Surgically removed a piece of his face? Yep,” I answered. “Gemmy, what happened in our room? I heard gunshots, and you screaming, and I thought that you… I thought you died.”

“I almost did,” she replied, another shiver rippling through her body from her hindlegs up to her muzzle. “Somepony unlocked the door not too long after you left. I thought it was you at first, but they were built more like… like….”

Gemmy subconsciously leaned into me, eyes wide and full of tears, horn pressing against the base of my neck. One of her forehooves went around my back, and I wrapped one around her too. My concern for my daughter over-rode the lightheadedness I had been dealing with before as she continued to talk.

“I-I-It wasn’t him, b-b-but he l-looked like him, a-a-a-and he had a gun and I was so scared that I h-h-h-hid and–”

“Gemmy, Gemmy, look at me,” I said, patting her back gently. She did as I asked, a tear-stained face looking up at me, breathing wildly. “It’s okay, you’re okay. I’m here, and you’re safe.”

“H-h-he wanted to kill me, mom,” she replied, her words constantly interrupted by hiccups and a sharp breath. “I don’t understand. Why did he want to kill me?”

“I’m not sure, but it wasn’t just you they wanted dead,” I explained, caressing her back with a wing. “They want Sharpshot and myself gone as well. We’re alright though. We are still here. What matters right now is that we are safe.”

“Not for too long, I’d imagine.”

Amaryllis’ comment couldn’t have come at a worst time for me emotionally. My eyes looked at the changeling, standing in the bathroom doorway. With everything I had gone through in the past few hours, my patience and control was a hair away from fully snapping. I snarled at them, giving a warning to watch what they were about to say.

“From what the heretics explained to me, your would-be killers were neither seen at the gates or registered at Underside’s town hall. Similar to myself, one might say, except these two are very clearly not Her believers or another changeling,” Amaryllis explained. “They were hired to kill you, however, that much is clear. Now tell me, sugar, have you perhaps pissed off a fellow heretic recently? One with the caps and reason to kill one of my bodyguards?”

It didn’t take after that to put two and two together. There was somepony who met both of those requirements. A pony that, up until recently, I had been unwillingly working for.

“Moondancer,” I muttered. Gemmy’s pupils shrunk to the size of needles at the name. It was all she needed to figure out exactly what I had. “Gold didn’t clean up loose ends, so she sent those two to fix that.”

“Ooh, I’m sensing some history here,” Amaryllis responded. I shot her another glare, and she instantly shifted from intrigue back towards mock concern. “If this Moondancer is that desperate to kill you, then these two won’t be the last. If she knows you are in Underside, which she clearly does, then I’d hardly call any of you safe.”

The urge to yell back at Amaryllis was there, and it was extremely tempting with how close I was to snapping again, but I held back. They were right, and sweet Celestia did I hate that fact. Underside wasn’t safe anymore, not just for Sharpshot or myself, but for Gemmy as well. The plan to have her stay here was up in smoke, not just her freedom but her life threatened by forces completely out of her control.

The snarl on my face stayed, but it lost a lot of its intended effect the more I thought of Gemini. She was still crying into me, her breathing a hair steadier but that was it. What was I supposed to do? Telling Gemmy of how I saw her, letting her call me mom, suddenly it felt like the biggest mistake of my life. How was I supposed to be her mom if I couldn’t protect her.

How?

…

“I’m always willing to hire two more,” Amaryllis said, their words dragging me out of despair just enough to look at them again. Any anger at the changeling was gone, my desire to keep Gemmy safe overwhelming how much I hated them. “A medical specialist and an apprentice mercenary, specifically your apprentice, could be useful. I’ve already mentioned my lack of ability to be picky, after all, considering my circumstances.”

Just like that, all my fears had been given an answer. Amaryllis didn’t dare to hide the sly nature of their grin, making it clear that this wasn’t just an act of kindness. They had something to gain out of this, something more than just my thanks and a sliver of trust. It should have scared me, especially knowing she was an Equalist, and yet…

“We don’t have a choice, do we?”

We didn’t. Sharpshot had options on where he could go, but Gemini? She didn’t know anything existed outside of Trotson until she met us. Leaving her on her own, out in the middle of San Palomino, was basically a death sentence. That meant the only option I had was the one Amaryllis was giving me right now.

“Gemmy?” I asked. The young mare removed her head from my chest once again, looking at me. “Do you… want to come to Our Haven with me?”

Her brow rose at the question, probably so lost in her own tears that she hadn’t heard Amaryllis’ proposal. Didn’t stop her from nodding her head rapidly before leaning back into me. Her crying, as well as her breathing, slowed down greatly. She was still upset, fear visible in the corner of her lips, but no longer was she concerned about the stallion that had barged into our room when I wasn’t around.

“Come on, let's get up,” I said, patting her a few more times on the back. Gemmy moved off of me, allowing me to stand up. My legs still felt a bit heavy, but it was easy to put off as I walked up right in front of Amaryllis. “I’m assuming you have some place safer for us to stay.”

“Oh sugar, you understand me so well,” they replied, their grin taking on a more seductive tone. She earned an unamused look as their reply, leading them to roll their eyes. “I can quite easily get you three a room much like my own back in that old police station.”

“H-h-how?” Gemmy asked the changeling. She did her best to look annoyed at Amaryllis’ presence, though the scrunched muzzle tear-stained face made it cuter than she intended. “What are you doing here anyways? I thought you’d be in a jail cell or something.”

The changeling chirped in amusement, bending down so that they were eye level with the unicorn. “Any other changeling would be, but when the Messenger gives you a body like mine she expects you to use it. You heretics are incredibly easy to convince when something calls to your… base urges.”

Gemmy backed up, gritting her teeth in discomfort at Amaryllis’ implications. Taking that as a sign to step in, I walked in between the two of them and shoved the changeling back with a hoof. They did back up, though there was no change in their expression or even a fake apology.

“If you want to ask the mare any questions before the Shattered Moon takes her away, I’d do so now,” they said, tilting their head towards the door leading outside. “Might be your only chance.”

I did just that.

Just like when I confronted the Goddess, a small crowd of onlookers had gathered around the outskirts of the motel, no doubt drawn by the sound of gunshots. The Shattered Moon held them back, Amaryllis taking on that same stallion disguise they had when we first met to keep them relatively unknown. The fact none of the onlookers immediately recognized them meant that this wasn’t the form they had worn when Gemmy initially found them. While it led to questions of what disguise they were wearing, it wasn’t really important.

Especially since, jailed or not, Amaryllis had become a problem in a very different way for Underside. Their sudden ability to order this town’s protectors around like they were Equalist soldiers would make her a threat and enemy under almost any other circumstance. Unfortunately, they were also my employer, and my ticket to Our Haven.

The unicorn that had attempted to kill me was bound up, some form of ring on their horn. I didn’t know the specifics on the ring, just that she was simply wiggling useless instead of undoing the rope binding her with magic. Must have been enchanted in some way, not unlike Sharpshot’s Flash Fire or the mine entrance back in Nowhere, just without the gemstone signifying a talisman carved into it. She had no hope of going anywhere, but one guard was still watching her just in case.

“Three!” Amaryllis called out. Day Glow turned to the changeling, the briefest sign of a double take on his face as looked in my direction for a split second. “The three of us have her. Join the others in keeping the civilians away.”

“Y-yes ma’am!” Day Glow said, saluting at them.

They flinched slightly, regret and disgust visible in his eyes at what Amaryllis had forced him to do in front of me. He trotted away, the captive mare ‘lunging’ at him in a pathetic attempt at… something. I’m not sure if she was trying to attack, or squirm away, but it didn’t really matter. The lunge was more of a flop, face colliding with the ground muzzle first and causing both Gemmy and myself to wince.

“Fucking- come on. Get off, get off!” she said, her forelegs wiggling in a desperate attempt at getting the ropes off of them. She was checking literally everywhere except where we stood with her eyes, as if expecting to somehow get away. Then, she looked at me, and her body froze in its place instantly. “N-no.”

“Good evening, little criminal,” Amaryllis said, choosing to lie down less than an inch from the unicorn’s face. If she wasn’t already afraid from seeing me, her yelp when she noticed how close the changeling was fixed that. “I hope you don’t mind if we ask you some questions concerning tonight's events.”

The mare swallowed and said nothing, staring terrified into Amaryllis’ eyes. She tried her best to puff her chest out in an attempt to seem strong, but it was so clearly a facade that neither Armaryllis or myself were fooled by it. Gemmy was scared herself, leaning against me for safety, not trusting any of the measures taken to restrict my assailant. Not that the mare noticed, with her focus specifically on the changeling and myself.

“J-Just do it,” they said, the shake in their voice betraying their own words. “Kill me if you want, I-I won’t tell you anything!”

“Oh really now? What a brave, loyal little thing you are,” Amaryllis said, caressing the mare’s cheek slowly. Though they were clearly trying to sound seductive, it proved to only make the mare’s fragile mask crack, their lower jaw quaking in terror. “Now, how about we start with a name. Surely you’d rather tell us that then suffocate again, right?”

Amaryllis looked to me with a sinister smile, setting up our dynamic for this interrogation. I motioned Gemmy to back up – which she did immediately – and then placed one of my hoofs on my assailant’s chest. Her eyes went wide, trying to block my hoof with her bound legs to minimal effect. It was too easy to slide it onto her neck, making it look as if she had done it to herself in her attempts to shake me off.

“So that is your choice? Such a selfless little heretic you are,” Amaryllis told the mare mockingly. Getting up, he stretched and started slowly walking away. “Well, go on then Danse. Put her out of her misery… slowly.”

I nodded at the changeling, immediately starting to apply pressure to her throat. It only took a second after that for them to crack.

“Ink Spot! My name is Ink Spot!”

Amaryllis stopped midstep, and started walking backwards to us. The smugness in their face grew vividly, not caring to hide the joy they took in breaking the bound mare down. They dragged their own hoof against the one I had on Ink Spot’s neck, silently telling me to let go. When I went to completely take it off her neck, however, she instantly nudged it back into place.

The changeling had made their plan clear. Despite Ink Spot’s earlier remark, she had no plans or desire to actually die here. If all it had taken was the slightest threat of ending her life to get her name, then all we needed to get her to cooperate was play the same card until all our questions were answered. If she didn’t…

I’m not sure Amaryllis wanted to kill her, but I was more than willing to after what Ink Spot and her dead collaborator tried.

“The pony that was working with you, his name?” I asked.

“Wh-why do you want to know th–” I cut off her question with another small press. “Pure Jade.”

“Okay, now why were you two trying to kill me and my daughter?”

“Your… daughter?!” Ink Spot’s eyes went wide. “I wasn’t told that. They said that I was killing thieves.”

“They?” Amaryllis whispered into the bound unicorn’s ear. “Mind letting us in on exactly who ‘they’ is in this circumstance?”

“I can’t! Sh-she’d kill me if I tell you.”

“And we’ll kill you if you don’t. Wouldn’t you rather have time to tie up loose ends, plead forgiveness to your princesses, and enjoy some final freedoms, then die here?”

Ink Spot’s pupils kept darting between Amaryllis and myself, her paranoid brain trying to make a decision. Eyes watering, teeth gritted she battled herself for the option she felt was right. When she closed her eyes, doing everything in her power to get her breath under control, I knew she had made her decision.

“Sh-Shadow Corp. I don’t know their names, but they claimed to lead it,” she said. “Never saw their faces, since they were using sprite-bots to talk to us. Didn’t know anything existed outside of Trotson until then and, well, they said that if we did this job we never had to go back.”

Amaryllis looked at me with a raised brow, hoping for some form of explanation. I ignored them, instead looking behind me towards Gemmy. My daughter, taking it as a hint that I needed her help, walked back up to us.

“I need you to wake up Sharpshot,” I said.

“No need, already awake.”

Both of us immediately looked back towards the still-open door to the ghoul’s motel room. There he was, leaning against the door frame, PipBuck back on his foreleg, clearly still out of it from all the blood he had lost. Without even thinking of asking for help, he tried to take a step forward and immediately collapsed on the ground. Gemmy ran up to him without a second thought, casting an illusionary version of herself to help lift him up just like she had for me. Then, slowly, with my daughter doing most of the work, they made their way over to us.

“We need water!” Amaryllis shouted to her Shattered Moon.

A few of them immediately turned our direction, first looking to the changeling and then at Sharpshot. One tossed a flask to the other, and they sprinted over as quickly as possible. They reached us at the same time Gemmy and Sharpshot did, the former setting the later down. Her illusion stayed as a support for the ghoul as he clutched his head with one of his hooves.

“Been a long time since I’ve felt this bad,” Sharpshot muttered. The guard held out the flask to him, the ghoul practically ripping it out of their hooves. Bringing it to his lips, he eagerly gulped down each and every last drop of water that was in it before hoofing it back over to the guard. “Marginally less shit; I’ll probably keel over in a bit with how fuzzy everything is, so try and explain quickly.”

“Got a pony here from Trotson,” I explained. “You know what that means.”

The ghoul leered at me a second, before letting out an annoyed groan. “Fine just… give me a second.”

With him standing up and managing to keep his own balance, Gemmy’s illusion disappeared from his side. Sharpshot trotted practically on top of Ink Spot, the poor mare terrified as she looked at the ghoul. Must have been her first time seeing one. She tried to wiggle away from him, but all it took to stop her was just a small press on her neck.

“I was really hoping I’d only have to operate on myself tonight, but this is the wasteland we are talking about,” The ghoul said, lighting his horn. “Okay, keep your head completely still.”

“What are you doing?” Ink Spot asked.

Her mouth was clamped shut immediately after that with his magic. “Saving your life. Now please shut up, stay still, and let me do my work.”

He let go of her muzzle directly after that, Ink Spot getting the hint and deciding to remain completely still. He brightened up his PipBuck’s screen as high as possible and placed it on the right side of Ink Spot’s neck. The screen looked different from anything on my own MentaBuck, holding a bunch of medical shit that I didn’t understand. With that, his horn lit up again, and he stared into the mare below him.

About a minute later, Ink Spot made a sound similar to a dying radroach. She closed her eyes, grinding her teeth against each other in pain. Simultaneously, Sharpshot cut his magic and moved off of her and over to my side. Seems I was right, Ink Spot had one too.

“I think I’m a bit out of the loop here,” Amaryllis said, eyes darting between Ink Spot and myself. It was the most genuinely confused I had seen them, their typically controlled emotion state seeming to fray at everything that had just occurred. “What did you just do?”

“I think un-doing is a more accurate term,” Sharpshot said. Both Ink Spot and the changeling looked to him, the former still fighting with the migraine no doubt wreaking havoc on her eyes. “To summarize, a group of scientists who have lost all ethical reasoning planted shit in her head that, if activated, would allow their leader to take control of her body.”

“Wh-what?” Ink Spot muttered.

“It’s true. They did the same with Danse and I,” Gemmy said, sitting down with the rest of us. Her forelegs were pulled into her chest as she broached a topic that made bother her and myself extremely uncomfortable. “Sharpshot broke it, though, so that they can’t make us do anything out of our control… like forcing us to kill ourselves.”

Ink Spot’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, and for the first time since we met I got to see true, uncontrolled fear in Amaryllis’ own. While all the bound mare could do was think of the implications of what that all meant, Amaryllis brought a hoof to her head and started mumbling to herself. It was too quiet to catch all of it, but I heard what sounded like the words ‘monsters’ ‘threat’ and something concerning a place called Paradise.

My MentaBuck picked up on the location immediately, and upon checking with the map, showed me exactly where. It was on the outskirts of what had once been Las Pegasus, in a mountain valley west of Our Haven. It looked like nothing special in the MentaBuck’s HuD. If only I had known what it actually was.

“The only reason Moondancer, the leader of ‘Shadow Corps’, hasn’t done it to you is because you’re not exactly capable of it right now,” I told Ink Spot. “The Shattered Moon putting that ring on your horn might have saved your life. If you had succeeded in killing us, it’s more than likely she would have killed you immediately after, just to tie up loose ends.”

I didn’t have complete confidence in my words. Moondancer would do what I said but because I had no way of validating if it was true. She had shown no mercy when it came to Bone Breaker’s death, and was more than willing to leave both Willow Wisp and myself to die in those underground labs. Why wouldn’t she throw some random pony from her city into the world with the full intent on killing them when their use was up?

Given the truth my words were based on, all I needed was for Ink Spot to believe that we had just saved her life. She would be willing to divulge everything to us, and I’d no longer need to crush her throat.

“You seem… almost upset at the idea of her thanking us.”

“Shut it,” I mumbled. The mare and her friend had still tried to kill us, and I was more than okay with her choosing the wrong option so I could silence her eternally.

Unfortunately for myself, she chose the smart option.

Ink Spot, while still battling with the migraine caused by Sharpshot destroying the device ArcanaTech had put in her brain, was staring at me horrified. She was mumbling to herself, thinking through everything we had just explained with terrifying realization. There must have been other signs as well, ones she had noticed while Jade and herself had made their way to us. The longer it went, the more downtrodden Ink Spot looked, until finally…

“It was… all a lie,” she said to herself. She rested her head on the ground, staring at it in a disinterested manner. “Jade died for a lie.”

I gave her a little bit of time to mourn, more than felt she deserved. Amaryllis looked at me, seeming to be as disappointed as I was that things had taken on a more sorrowful tone. I motioned for them to wait, because with them now regretting their actions, pulling information out would be several times easier.

To my surprise, I was not the one to do it. Gemmy trotted up to Ink Spot during that moment of silence and laid down right in front of the mare. That grabbed Ink Spot’s attention immediately, grief-stricken eyes looking at my daughter’s own, probably prepared for some form of retaliation. It never came.

“My mom told me that I should give respect even to those I hate, so that I don’t become them,” she told Ink Spot. Her fellow unicorn winced, closing her eyes and trying to tuck her muzzle into her neck. “I don’t think I need to say it but… I hate you. You tried to kill my mom, and Mister Sharpshot, and when your friend went to kill me I got reminded of some really awful things. I have no reason to respect you for what you’ve done…”

I got up, about ready to pull Gemmy away in fear that her own emotions might have been getting the better of her.

“But I’m going to, because mom would want me to,” she continued on, stopping me in the middle of my first step towards her. Ink Spot opened her eyes, looking at my daughter stunned. “Somepony used you, and I know what that is like. For most of my life I was surrounded by ponies who hurt me in awful, awful ways, and I didn’t know how awful they really were until I met my mom. Moondancer may not have hurt you in the same exact way, but you were hurt just like me. For that reason, I forgive you.”

Ink Spot looked up at Gemmy, staring in the same stupefied manner that I was. Gemini’s past was something she had only really talked about with myself and maybe Willow Wisp, the trauma keeping her mouth and mind shut from the events whenever it wasn’t directly called up. So for her to address it with not just Sharpshot, but two complete strangers in our presence was shocking. Even if she didn’t go into any form of detail outside of what happened to her being bad, that was quite the next step.

Then came her mention of respect, something that made a well of guilt build up in my chest. On the one hoof, it felt good to see her put into practice what Rhapsody and Gold had taught her on that first visit to the Lucky Clover. On the other hoof, this truly didn’t seem like the time to be encouraging the mare Amaryllis and I were interrogating. The last thing Ink Spot needed was to feel better and less responsible for their own actions, because it possibly meant that they would be more willing to take their information to the grave than before.

“Can we blame her for doing as she was told?” My inner selves asked. “She isn’t like us; she’s just a young mare figuring out how the world really works.”

They were right, of course. I’d have to find a way to tell Gemmy about exceptions and timing later. For the sake of her mental health, it was best to let her put what I asked into practice.

A decision made all the better by the fact that her words to Ink Spot did not have the negative effect I thought it would. My assailant looked to Amaryllis, and then to me. The guilt on her face was several times greater than my own. Ears flat, still a little but uncertain, she opened her mouth to speak.

“As I said, I didn’t learn their names, but they told me you ponies had stolen some things that could be dangerous to everypony’s lives. Jade and I didn’t want our lives to be in anymore danger than they already were, so we agreed,” she explained. “One of them sounded young, a teenage filly around the same age as him,” she tilted her head towards Sharpshot, “and the other was a decent bit older. It felt like the older pony was guiding the filly’s words in some way, though I thought originally that she was just helping them.”

“That sounds like Moondancer and Lucky Heart alright. Poor filly is being used like a doll by her ‘assistant’.”

“They wanted us to kill four creatures. Two unicorns, a pegasus, and a griffon,” Ink Spot said. “Something about you all stealing blueprints and research that could help Trotson grow food on its own.”

My eyes went wide at the mention of a griffon, head turning to Sharpshot to make sure I wasn’t the only pony who had heard it. He seemed on the verge of falling back asleep, though had enough energy to look back at me, the faintest sign of confusion and surprise in his eyes. The amount of questions that formed from that one statement alone was enough to take my thoughts off this supposed theft I had taken part in.

“You said they wanted you to kill a griffon?” I asked, receiving a nod from the bound unicorn as confirmation. “Did they tell you what they looked like?”

“They told us what all of you looked like,” Ink Spot said. “If I remember correctly, the filly said the griffon was on the older side, had a lot of scars, and spoke weird.”

“That’s Gold!” Gemmy shouted.

“Why the fuck do they want him dead?” Sharpshot asked. “Fucker tried to kill the three of us. Don’t know why they would kill one of their own.”

“It didn’t sound like it,” Ink Spot said. “They lumped him in with the rest of you. Perhaps some sort of falling out happened? It doesn’t seem like he killed any of you.”

“I guess that depends,” Amaryllis said. “This Moondancer individual, you’ve already made it clear she is a danger to both heretics and believers alike. Would she be the kind to throw her own to the wolves?”

“With what little we know of her, yes” I replied. “The moment somepony proves to be even the slightest sign of a problem, they are discarded in one way or another.”

“Then it is quite likely that this griffon is yet another poor, unfortunate victim of this cruel mare,” Amaryllis waxed, putting a hoof over their heart in an attempt to appear more caring than they really were. I gave the changeling a harsh glare, the corners of their mouth falling slightly in disappointment at my reaction. “It was not me he tried to kill, sugar. Also, while I certainly don’t approve of his attempted murder, he seems to be but another victim of this Shadow Corp you all know.”

“It still doesn’t make any sense though!” Gemmy exclaimed. “Gold talked like he was really close with Lucky Heart, similar to Danse and I actually. For her to order his death makes no sense!”

“Unless Moondancer is twisting the filly to think like her,” Sharpshot said, sitting back up. One of his hooves rubbed at his eyes, yawning from physical and mental exhaustion; it had been a longer night for him than any of us. “Take it from someone who has worked with her in the past. Whatever goal ArcanaTech and herself push towards, it’s selfish and ill-willed.”

“Yet still you worked with them,” I said.

The ghoul shrugged. “My mindset wasn’t what it is now. I didn’t give enough shit back then to really care unless it hurt….”

He couldn’t say it, the mere attempt at saying her name causing his entire face to take on a more depressed expression. He half-heartedly tried to make a show of anger, tensing his forelegs and grinding his teeth, but it was as fake as a desert mirage. The reality of the day’s events had started to set in, his forelegs sliding forward until his chest and stomach hit the ground with a barely audible thump.

“Is there anything else you all want to know?” Ink Spot said, looking between each of us with desperation and worry. “I’m not sure how much more I can help, but if it is possible–”

“You have done more than enough, little sinner,” Amaryllis told the mare. Standing up, they stepped away from Ink Spot and around Gemini. “Ninety-Seven, One Thirty-One, bring this pony to a cell! The rest of you, disperse this crowd!”

“Wh-what?!” Ink Spot shouted, watching the changeling with horror. “Why are you locking me up? I answered all of your questions, didn’t I?”

“That is true, but you did still try and kill somepony,” Amaryllis said. They looked at the underside of their disguised hoof, inspecting it curiously as the two guards she requested came up to us. “Failure to commit a crime can be a crime itself, in case you didn’t know; most of you poor, lost souls forget that part. Besides, it sounds to me like a cell is the safest place for you, given said failure.”

“But… but I–”

Whatever Ink Spot was going to say was interrupted by the guards forcing her onto her hooves. Her attempts to speak were robbed similarly by binding her mouth using rob, and they blindfolded her eyes just like they would whenever I had entered their base. She struggled through all of it, her self-made belief that her cooperation meant freedom denied by reality as she moved away from us to wherever she would be kept.

All the while, just as Amaryllis had ordered, the rest of the present Shattered Moon worked to disperse the crowd of onlookers. It was slow, some creatures less cooperative than others, but in time the attention died down and most everyone went home. Those who didn’t have to be forcibly removed themselves or had been subtle enough watching us that the guards paid them no mind. I should have been happy to have the crowd gone, and yet…

I looked to the pony who had given the order, or more exactly the changeling. In less than a week of being found out, they had gone from locked up in a cell to ordering around those who were watching their cell. They had compromised this entire town, knowing the faces of several members of Shattered Moon and making them subservient enough where I had to ask myself: if the Equalists ever came here, how quick would Underside fall?

Not that Amaryllis themselves seemed to care.

“Three!” the changeling called out, grabbing Day Glow’s attention after the crowd had fully dispersed. “These three need rooms on base until tomorrow. Please be a dear and see that they are made comfortable.”

Rhapsody’s old squadmate gave a hesitant salute to Amaryllis, the changeling turning around and giving a bow to Gemmy, Sharpshot and myself.

“Well, I think we can agree that tonight has been exciting enough,” they said. “I’ll see you three tomorrow for breakfast so I can explain everything to my two new bodyguards.”

“I’m pretty damn sure you never hired me,” Sharpshot replied as Amaryllis rose from their bow. There was the tiniest sign of hate in the ghoul’s eyes, though the target of it seemed completely unaffected.

“Well you were busy bleeding out throughout this entire affair, so I’m not surprised,” Amaryllis told him in a cheery, almost self-congratulatory tone. “To summarize, you have been recruited to overthrow a false prophet. I’ll explain more thoroughly in the morning. In the meantime, sleep well.”

They trotted off after that, Day Glow watching the changeling cautiously the entire time. The two passed each other as the one-winged pegasus made their way to us, purposefully stepping to the side as he did. The moment Day Glow was behind Amaryllis, he slowed down from a job to a slower pace trot, taking a glance behind him to make sure he wasn’t being watched. Once he was certain they were far enough away, their head slumped forward in relief.

“I think it is around now that I am told what…,” Sharpshot was cut off as another yawn erupted from his muzzle, “exactly happened. You took quite a bit of time getting me that potion.”

“You were conscious enough to figure out that much?” I asked.

He shook both his head and a hoof at the same exact time. “Not in the moment. When I got my goggles off I was barely able to sit down. Didn’t really think of how long that was until I woke back up.”

“And of course, he wakes up far quicker than we do. Fucking wonderful.”

“If you want the general overview, we got word over the radio of a unicorn and earth pony teleporting through the town gate when asked to hoof over their weapons,” Day Glow said. All attention was now on him, the stallion looking between all of us before waving a hoof. “Nice to see you all again, by the way. Sorry it isn’t under better circumstances.”

“Hello!” Gemmy replied happily. I joined her in giving the masked pegasus a wave.

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Sharpshot said, waving off Day Glow instead. He then tilted his head in the direction Ink Spot had been dragged off in. “Guessing that was the unicorn you mentioned. Where’s the earth pony?”

“Currently lying in a pool of his own blood from two holes in his chest,” Day Glow explained. “Amaryllis and Rhapsody subdued the other one. She seemed pretty shaken.”

“Well mom did almost kill her,” Gemmy stated in a matter-of-fact manner. “Only reason she’s alive is because I stopped it.”

The masked stallion gave an understanding nod, and then went wide eyed. He looked at me, my brain predicting the question before he had even opened his mouth.

“New development, but I think you can understand how three unknown shots in my motel room might cause me to act badly.”

“Y-yeah, I can imagine,” he said.

“Wait, back up,” Sharpshot said. “Did you say Amaryllis? As in, the same Amaryllis that–”

“That I revealed to everypony?” Gemmy said, interrupting the ghoul. “Yeah. They were the stallion ordering the Shattered Moon around earlier.”

His expression hardened, a spark of hate visible within his eyes. “What?!”

“They managed to get in my higher up’s good graces, something I’m sure she has already told Rha- Danse and Gemini,” Day Glow replied, her eyelids falling halfway. “A few honeyed words, some sexual promises, and they were out. Damn bug could have used it to escape, but instead started ordering us all around as if they were the boss instead. Got to walk around in base unblindfolded despite not actually being one of us which is… going to get good ponies killed.”

His head fell, ears following suit. It took me a moment to realize exactly what he was talking about, that the words were more than just hyperbole. With everything that had happened in my life, I had completely forgotten about just how strict the Shattered Moon was with anonymity. It had nearly gotten me killed when we reunited, yet by the way Day Glow is describing it now, Amaryllis wasn’t going to be the one killed for the failure of her officers. Officers that, in all likelihood, were the reason behind it.

“Fuck,” I muttered. “Three, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s… not okay, but I was prepared for it,” he replied, rubbing one of his forelegs as his remaining wing shifted uncomfortably. “Every single pony, griffon, hippogriff, and otherwise in Shattered Moon knows what we signed up for. The initiation is one of the few things the public actually knows about, so it’s impossible not to.”

Despite my body protesting the action, I swallowed a lump that had taken root in my throat and spoke. “Are you of the ponies who are–”

“No. I got told what happened pretty early on,” Day Glow replied. He briefly looked behind him to make sure no other Shattered Moon were around before turning back to us. “Don’t tell anyone that I said this but there is an execution planned. Nothing public, but a lot of us with lower authority figured it was the best way to save ourselves. The bug is serious about her plans, Danse, but I think you can tell from how they talk that calling them ‘trustworthy’ is like calling Harbinger a decent pegasus.”

“These are your ponies Three, not mine,” I told her. “Things work differently here than in the Enclave. If this has to be done, then I’ll trust you and yours to do the right thing.”

“Thanks… lieutenant,” he said. There was a hint of relief in his eyes, his body relaxed as he let his guard down. His words brought with it the usual pins and needles that occurred when somepony referred to me by Rhapsody, but it didn’t stop the feeling of pride I had for the stallion before me. “The bug told me to get you all a room, so let's get going before my fellow Shattered Moon gets suspicious about anything.”

Gemini and I nodded, but Sharpshot sheepishly looked back towards the motel. A second of conflict later, and he turned to Day Glow.

“You okay if I just… grab something real quick?” he asked. “It’s important.”

Day Glow nodded. “Just make it quick.”

With a lot less coordination than usual, Sharpshot darted back towards his motel room. As he came out of his, another pony came out of what had been my room. Earth pony, a brilliant emerald green coat, white mane and tail, looking lost and confused. He opened his muzzle to ask Sharpshot a question, but the ghoul trotted past them like they didn’t exist. If that wasn’t a clear enough indication of who he was, Gemini pressed herself up against me as soon as they appeared, shivering in fear.

“M-mom.”

“He isn’t going to hurt you Gemmy. Probably hasn’t grasped the fact he is dead yet,” I said. Something about saying that felt wrong, almost unreal; it was something I hadn’t ever expected to say.

Not wanting to think about it, I turned my attention to Sharpshot. He had made his way back to the rest of us, two items held in his magic. One was a photo from Arbu, the other was Willow's memory orb. There was a sense of longing in his eyes, the same face an elderly pony made when remembering their youth.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.

“Ye… yeah,” he lied. He levitated them over to me. “Do you mind putting these in your saddlebags? I don’t really have those right now.”

“Of course, Sharpshot,” I said, giving a sympathetic smile to the ghoul.

“Please, don’t call me that anymore,” he replied. “If I’m going to be starting over, I can’t go by that anymore. Open Heart will do.”

I blinked, staring in surprise at the statement. “You're sure?”

“Don’t really have a choice. The name Sharpshot is known throughout the entirety of Equestria. Open Heart? Not so much,” he explained. He stared at me, waiting for my word that I’d start using his birth name. I gave a stilted nod, and he then transferred the photo and orb from his telekinesis over to mine. “Don’t touch the orb to your horn by the way. I know it’s invisible, but I’d rather not take chances.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” I told him. Opening the saddlebag with the Twilight and Fluttershy statuettes in them, I placed both items carefully inside. Once it was closed, my attention turned to Day Glow. “Guess we’re ready.”

Day Glow nodded, and motioned us to follow. Gemini and Sharpshot were all too eager to get away from the motel after the night’s events, but I took one more look back. It wasn’t much, the place didn’t really belong to me, but the motel had been the closest thing to a home that I had since leaving the Enclave. Leaving it, knowing that I likely wouldn’t be back for months or more, hurt. If things were different, Underside was definitely a place I would have set roots down in.

Instead I was forced to leave, not just because of Rhapsody’s wanted revenge, but because of forces outside of my control. As if Gold being ordered to kill me wasn’t enough reason to hate Moondancer.

Before turning to join the rest, I gave one more look to the recently deceased Pure Jade. His ghost was staring at me, a look of terror on his face for some reason that I didn’t understand. For a brief moment, I considered giving him a few words of advice, only to realize none of them applied to him anymore. All that left me able to do was contemplate why he seemed so scared of me.

“Why is he staring at us like that?” my inner selves asked.

As I turned and made to catch up with the others, I gave Rhapsody and Dead Hooves a shrug. “Don’t know. Maybe he just figured out what happened to him.”

“I don’t think so,” they replied. “If it was just the stare I would agree, but that fear felt too… directed for it to simply be that.”

“So you're saying he is scared of us?” I asked. I received the mental version of a nod from both of them, looking behind me and back towards Jade’s ghost. “I mean, I don’t mind it considering what he tried to kill Gemmy, but why? We didn’t do anything to him.”

“I’m not sure,” they answered. “Perhaps they don’t entirely know themselves.”

A trip across Underside and one blindfolded trek through Shattered Moon’s base later, we arrived at our rooms. Gemini and I got our own, just like back at the motel, with Open Heart getting the one next to us. Like Amaryllis’ own room, this one wasn’t originally intended to be a bedroom but some office. Privacy glass made it impossible for us to see anycreature outside it, giving both the Shattered Moon and ourselves the privacy we needed. Not that either of us were interested in playing chicken with how exhausted both of us were.

With only one bed available, I ended up spending the night in the same bed as Gemmy. Falling asleep was impossible. I was tired enough where all I desired was to pass out, yet far too awake to actually do it. My brain would stop thinking about everything that had happened, the bad parts taking special attention in my exhausted state. It wasn’t too long until I came to a very clear yet unwanted conclusion.

This day was pure, unfiltered Tartarus.

I thought the events in Nowhere or nearly the day after were terrible, but in one fell swoop Luna had taken her moon and cracked my head open. Even that didn’t feel like a decent enough description of how horrible the day was. Amaryllis not only being free but taking charge of the entire base, the Goddess ruining our goodbye with Willow, and the rest of us nearly dying because of ArcanaTech, it was too much for just one day. Most ponies would have crumbled under it all.

I just laid there, staring off at the rest of the room.

Gemini, the poor dear, was handling it far worse than I was. Her head was resting on my neck, with her horn pressing lightly against my jaw. Her legs and stomach were similarly pressed against my back, the rise and fall of her chest just a little too fast to be considered normal. She was doing everything she could to seem fine, but I knew better. The only reason any of it was working was due to the fact that I could not see her face.

It took me longer than it should have to actually address my daughter’s own mood. I was still trying to put together everything that had happened, and figure out myself just how horrible I felt. It was impossible to keep my attention on her for long though. All it took was for me to feel the cold, wet, sensation of a tear on the front of my neck to realize that I wasn’t the one who needed counseling at that moment.

“Gemmy?” I called softly.

“I’m okay,” she replied, her choked up voice and another tear hitting my neck revealing her lie for what it was.

“Gemmy,” I said again, turning on my back to face her. My daughter shuffled away, allowing me to look at her tear-stained face as best as I could in the darkness. “It’s braver to show your emotions than hide them, especially when you are hurt.”

“I-it is?” she asked. I nodded, and she placed her head in my chest once more. “Sorry, mom.”

“It’s okay, though I’m surprised to see you of all ponies try and hide your feelings.”

“I know, but you’ve also dealt with so much today already. I didn’t think the timing was right.”

I couldn’t help but smile. While it wasn’t the correct choice of action, it was undeniably sweet. One of my hooves slowly glided through her mane to calm her down and make her feel more at ease.

“I’m your mother now, Gemini, and that makes us family,” I told her. “A family listens to each other's troubles. So please tell me what’s wrong.”

Gemini remained silent for a bit, and then pressed further into me.

“H-his face. I can’t get it out of my mind,” she said. “I feel like I did back in Trotson, being forced to serve all those bad ponies. I feel so weak.”

I frowned, wrapping one wing around my daughter in comfort. Of course that was bothering her, it made too much sense. Years of sexual abuse isn’t something anycreature could recover from in the blink of an eye. It was amazing how well Gemini had been holding together over the course of the past two weeks. Now, as her mother, I had to lay there and comfort her while asking myself: how long has she been holding the pain in?

“Gemini, I’m so sorry,” I whispered. What other words could I say at that moment?

“I felt so safe out here until today,” she said. “Being around you and Willow and Sharpshot and Gold made me feel like I could breathe for the first time in my life. Even when you all were away I felt okay because Gigi, Gideon, and Bastion were around. Now… now things don’t feel safe anymore.”

“You’ve gone through something that nopony ever wants to go through in their life,” I told her. “It’s completely okay for you to be afraid of it. Just know that, as long as we are around, nopony will ever do that to you again.”

“But what if you aren’t around anymore?!” she asked. “Willow is gone, and Gold nearly tried to kill you. What if I wake up tomorrow and you aren’t there anymore? What if I wake up tomorrow and I’m back in Trotson?”

“That’s not going to happen!” I said, voice far harsher than I intended it to be. Gemini looked back up at me, the white of her eyes strained red from the amount of tears she had shed. “Gemini, I made a promise to you today. It doesn’t matter that you are now coming with me, I swear that I am not going to die.”

I had hoped that would be the thing to calm her down, maybe even get a smile on her face. Instead, she once more lowered her head and pressed her body against mine. For a second I was worried that my words had no effect on her, but then she spoke up.

“Mom, can I be honest?”

“Of course sweetie. Go ahead.”

“I think I made a mistake, revealing Amaryllis.”

My eyes went wide, my brow rose, and I swore my heart stopped for a moment. Somehow, it hadn’t hit me that what Day Glow had said earlier would affect her.

“It’s not your fault, Gemmy,” I said.

“H-huh?”

“Everything that happened with Amaryllis, it’s not your fault. None of us what they were capable of. You did a good thing,” I explained. I felt her head shift, her muzzle no longer pressing into the base of my neck but instead leaning against it, all so she could look at me. “Amaryllis is the one to blame for everything that happened afterwards. The creatures who are going to die, it is their fault, not yours.”

She shifted around a bit, shuffling away enough so that she could once more look at me without my muzzle blocking view of my eyes. “Do we really have to work with them?”

“You and Hearty don’t, but I already signed up to take her back to Our Haven,” I answered. “If you want off after Shorelock, I’ll figure out things so that you can stay there while we are away. I need to go with her though, not Amaryllis, not just for Rhapsody, but because they genuinely do want something good, even if they aren’t good themselves.”

“Just like you weren’t when we first met each other?”

I flinched at the bluntness. “Y-yeah.”

“Then I’ll keep going,” she stated. “If you can become a better pony, then they can become a better changeling.”

In my attempts to calm her nerves, somehow she had calmed my own. I smiled at my daughter, unable to help but be proud of what she was saying. She was right after all, I had changed a lot since I stepped off that train in Trotson. The term grounder now felt like every bit the horrible slur it truly was, and somehow I felt more genuine care for these wastelanders than I had for most pegasi during my entire military career.

Not everycreature can change, I’m certain Gemini understood that from her own experiences, but her mission was worth it. Not just because it could possibly change the Equalists, but so Night Shine could see the war between both factions ended. I’m certain there were many more spirits out there just like her who wanted the exact same.

“We will have to go into greater detail about guns then,” I said. I playfully poked her belly. “Not to mention get you in better shape. Sure you may not have a lot of fat, but there isn’t a lot of muscle there either.”

“Good thing I have somepony who can teach me these things then,” Gemmy replied, finally managing the faintest smile. Without warning, she wrapped her forelegs around me and gave me the strongest hug she could. “Thanks mom. I needed that.”

“Glad I could help,” I responded, returning the hug immediately.

I’m not entirely sure how long the two of us were laying there. All I know is that, at some point, the two of us heard muffled sobs from the room across. Breaking the hug, our attention turned from each other to the direction the sound was coming from. The crying was a mixture of rage and sorrow, love and despair. It was the sound of a husband who, after decades of happiness with his significant other, was going to sleep without them for the first time in forever.

“Mom, is he…”

Gemmy stopped as she turned to see me staring at the wall, lost. Where my daughter heard Open Heart, I heard Iron Anchor; where one cried for Willow, another cried for Rhapsody.

Act 3 – Chapter 3: The Pains We Carry

Author's Note

Attention: While nothing is show, the following chapter heavily discusses sexual abuse. Reader discretion is advised.

Act 3 – Chapter 3: The Pains We Carry

Day 18

Underside, San Palomino Desert

“Well, this table has certainly gotten crowded.”

Falke wasn’t wrong, that was sure. One day earlier, it had just been him, Amaryllis, and myself sitting at this table as I learned who I’d be working for. Now two more ponies sat there, neither of which we had planned to be with us in any capacity twenty-four hours ago. There hadn’t been enough seats for the five of us back then, but Amaryllis had fixed that before any of us had arrived.

In doing so, they probably put the lives of even more Shattered Moon on the line.

“Surprised to see him here, and unnaturally naked,” he muttered, subtly pointing to Open Heart. Our conversation was drowned out by Gemini and the ghoul being brought up to date by Amaryllis, something neither of us needed. “Unnaturally for him, of course. I understand the why, thanks to you, but a surprise remains a surprise.”

“You plan to do the coffee test on them too?” I asked. The front of my muzzle was drenched in milk from me haphazardly shoveling cereal, the taste of which being as good as everything else down on the surface.

“No need, I’m not the one who hired them,” Falke answered. “Still, Open Heart was it? Are you sure he is in the right state of mind for this?”

“He’s not going to tell us if he is,” I replied. “This wasn’t some break up or divorce he just went through. Dude got his wife stolen from him against both of their wills. As far as things stand, she might as well be dead.”

A single look at Open Heart’s face was enough to see how badly Willow’s loss was affecting him. If his crying the previous night was his brain finally realizing everything that had happened, then the morning might as well have been the worst hangover of our life. He talked with us, ate, and otherwise, but everything seemed either took more effort than usual or was strangely stilted. It reminds me of myself, after the sandstorm, physical there but not completely present.

It would have only been worse if he knew the full truth of her goodbye, I was certain. Looking back on the day, thinking of my last moments with my fellow alicorn, I felt myself growing more certain that we didn’t give Willow what she wanted. The Goddess alone had made sure of it, but even before her arrival? The pain and heartache was so clear that there was no reason for the Goddess to not remove it. By all means, the Willow we likely knew was gone.

What did that leave behind, when every trauma, every weakness, and any moment even the least bit melancholy was removed? Why did I have any reason to believe that, whether we succeeded or not, the Goddess wouldn’t remove all traces of Open Heart from her mind? She had made her disdain for him clear as day. It would be far too easy to convince herself it was unnecessary bloat for her newest drone.

I shook my head, bringing myself out of that dark pit. The truth is, none of us knew anything that happened to Willow after we saw her off. The military trained me to expect the worse, but Dead Hooves wanted me to hope for the best. The latter, more pony option won out over logic, and that tiny dot of light was grasped as tightly as possible.

“Being separated from the one you love, it isn’t easy,” Falke said, his voice taking on a reflective state. A sad smile plagued his face, a half-heart chuckle leaving his beak. “We all experience it, sooner or later. Everything he is going through, I experienced it all myself.”

“With your wife?” I asked. He nodded. “What was she like?”

“Feisty, a little crazy, terrifying… but beautiful,” Falke answered. “No better griff to watch my back, no better lady to share my nights with. The days I spent with her at my side were some of the best days of my life.”

“She sounds wonderful.”

An amused exhale left his nares. “She was. Got to spend more time with her than I did any other griffon that entered my life, but we are mercs. Dying young is practically a guarantee.”

“Was she…,” I stopped, holding in the question that nearly escaped. Falke looked at me, tilting his head towards me to say it was okay. “How did she die? Killed by raiders.”

“No. Even at her weakest no immoral, twisted pony would ever kill her,” he said. His head rose till his beak was pointed towards the ceiling lights. “Cancer from taint exposure. When we found out, she only had a few more months left.”

“Oh sweet Infinite,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks for the sympathies,” he said, smiling at me. He hunched over the table, one claw absent-mindedly stroked the ceramic of his cup. “We both knew the dangers of our job. Radiation, taint, other creatures, bad employers, all things more than capable of getting you killed. I’m certain military service has made you aware of most of those.”

“All, actually,” I joked, sheepishly grinning back at him. “You’d be surprised how stupid some of us are. I’m certain that if they were ordered to, at least half the Enclave’s standard infantry would chew their own hooves off without a second thought. A quarter of those remaining would join in because of peer pressure.”

Falke raised one side of his brow as if to ask if I was serious. I nodded, unable to meet his eye contact on account of being one of those ponies. Less than a month ago the mare known as Singing Rhapsody would have been all too willing to die for the Enclave. Even as a member of the high counsel, I was very often just… there. Ironsight led me one direction or the other, and I followed it without second thought.

“Was he using us?” my inner selves asked themself. A feeling of disgust immediately caused them to backtrack on the question. “The Enclave wasn’t good, but he was our friend. Ironsight wouldn’t use us like that, especially with everything we’ve gone through.”

“And how are you fairing this morning, Danse Macabre?” Falke asked. It was more than enough to pull me out of the past, though the present wasn’t exactly pleasant either. “Soldier or no, there is only so much we can take. If I had gone through everything you did yesterday, and at my age, I’m certain I’d currently be a bit… unresponsive.”

“I’ve lost good ponies in missions before, nothing new there,” I answered, scowling. “Still, Willow was not a sister in arms. She was a friend, even if she was definitely insane. I might be holding together better than some, but it still hurts.”

“It always does,” he replied. “The moment when it doesn’t, lay down your arms for good. It will save you.”

“Right.”

At that moment, I decided to tune back into Amaryllis’ speech. She was still going over things with Hearty and Gemmy, the former seeming a lot less interested than the later. Not that the changeling themself seemed to notice or care; they were so enthralled by their own voice they weren’t looking at either pony. Their words didn’t mean much to me since I already knew their goals, but it was incredibly entertaining.

Eventually, though, Amaryllis stopped. Proud of themselves, they sat back down in the chair they had subconsciously risen from. They only gave pause when, much to their surprise, Gemmy clapped her hooves in applause at them. Shock turned to joy, the changeling’s mandibles doing the same happy dance they had done the night before. For all their faults, I do have to admit that it was absolutely adorable.

“Face it, you like the bug.”

I froze up, face going pale at my inner selves’ response. Quickly mustering up a scowl, I turned my attention away from the table and towards nowhere in particular.

“Come on, don’t be like that. You can’t help that they are our type.”

“They are not our type.”

“Oh really, so the flutter of your heart just now was because of who? Open Heart? We all know you ain’t interested in him.”

I felt my face burn up a little as blood rushed to it, scowl turning into a pout. “I-i-it was just a single movement.”

“Yes. A single movement on an exotic creature with beautiful eyes, gorgeous wings, an incredible build, and ass gifted b–”

“O-o-okay, so I like them a little bit.”

“Knew it.”

“Oh like you were any different!”

“What can I say? If it wasn’t for their preaching, I’d be down asking them to date.”

“I mean, yeah, me too, but they are–”

“Miss Macabre,” Amaryllis called, their voice freezing me up once again. I turned my attention back, noticing that literally everyone had been watching my argument with myself. While most of those present were staring stunned and wide eyed at me, the changeling merely smirked. “As charmed as I am to learn of your infatuation, may we focus on the task at hoof.”

Swallowing in an attempt to calm my nerves, my blush definitely showing through the magenta of my coat, I nodded. Open Heart snorted at me, mumbling something that didn’t reach my ears. The smile on his face, on the other hoof, was a decent bit brighter than before. It wasn’t enough to completely rid the the sorrow from his eyes, but it was something.

“Now then, I would like to discuss one of the more sensitive topics concerning our mission,” Amaryllis said. “A piece of me wanted to leave this for the future, but as it will be our responsibility I have no choice.”

“This is concerning Paradise, I assume,” Falke replied.

Both Gemini and I looked at the griffon in confusion. “Paradise.”

“The Equalists ‘holy site’, at least as far as names are concerned,” Hearty said, his voice both emotionless and expressionless. One of his hooves propped his head up, making his foul mood seem slightly more foalish than the night before. “It’s their stated reason for being in San Palomino. Supposedly it is the only place in all of Equestria that has clean water and rich soil. I think I speak for us more traveled individuals when I call that brahmin shit.”

“Oh come now, do not lie to the pegasus,” Amaryllis said, looking positively smug. “Sure, things grow elsewhere, but the end of the world brought about by your false goddesses and their striped counterpart has twisted them. They are not as they should be, and polluted besides.”

“Not everywhere,” Falke replied. The smugness from Amaryllis’ face faded ever so slightly, leering at the griffon. “It isn’t big, but there is this wonderful little area some ways north of Las Pegasus, a former ski resort area if I remember correctly. It’s rocky, sure, but it is possible to farm there due to the fact no mega spells were close enough to harm the land.”

“Brayington County?” Hearty asked. Falke gave him a confident nod. “Had a feeling that’s where you are talking about. No cloud cover or S.P.P towers out that way.”

Amaryllis, briefly seemed to show surprise at their words, the information as new to them as it was to Gemini and myself. There was a brief moment of deep thought visible in the way they cast their eyes to the table, but it was gone before anycreature but me noticed it. With a cough into their hoof, they obtained the attention that had been taken from them. Despite their best attempt to smile confidently, they ended up looking more annoyed at us than anything.

“Well, while it may be clean by the standards of heretics, I’m certain it’s still lesser than the Messenger’s great gift,” they said, mandibles twitching as they vocally tried to repair the crack in their world view. It really was like looking in a mirror, seeing where Rhapsody had started to where we were now. “After all, our followers were led across the continent to that very spot two centuries ago. Surely one such as her saw the end of days and–”

Without thinking, Gemmy chose that exact moment to interrupt the changeling. “Wasn’t Sandstone and ArcanaTech also able to make fresh food?”

A brief flash of life showed up in Hearty’s eyes. “Oh, hey, you are righ–”

“Shut up!”

Amaryllis slammed her hooves on the table. My daughter yelped and jumped in surprise at the sudden noise. Hearty flinched, though he seemed infinitely more amused at the changeling’s than anything else. All the while the bug’s eyelids and mandibles twitched even more furiously, as if preparing to bite into any of us at a moment's notice. Closing their eyes, they did some box breathing in an attempt to get their emotions back to their usual state of control.

“This is not about Sandstone, or Brayington, or any other place in your Messenger forsaken Equestria,” they said, voice just barely controlled. “This is about Paradise. More specifically, infiltrating the place, investigating it, and finding out how to get it under Shattered Moon’s control.”

“Right, let's stay focused,” I replied, a tinge of amusement infecting my voice. The deadpan look they gave made me just have the urge to not full-on laugh. “So obviously Paradise is important. Why are we focused on it and not your central government buildings?”

“Because it’s the one thing that has kept Shattered Moon from attacking for so long,” Amaryllis replied. “The false prophet made things perfectly clear: ‘any attempted invasion from heretical forces shall see our wonderful Paradise destroyed under a deluge of blood and fire.’ In other words, kill the workers, destroy the fields.”

“Wh-what?!” Gemmy asked. “You mean they would kill their own ponies, and nopony has any problem with it?”

“That’s the not-so-funny thing about Paradise,” Falke said. “The creatures working the fields at Paradise? They aren’t believers. Each and everypony there is a convicted ‘heretic’, forced to toil the rest of their days tending far too many fields with little food or water.”

My heart sank, muzzle moving of its own accord as I summarized what he said. “It’s a labor camp.”

“Exactly,” the griffon replied. “Everyone knows it, but the Equalists manage to trick their people’s ethics via religious doctrine. It’s not too dissimilar to Red Eyes' own movement in the east.”

“Ah, yes, I believe you told me about him before,” Amaryllis said, getting a nod from Falke. “The copycat is not our concern, though. The point is that before Shattered Moon can launch an assault on Our Haven we need to rip Paradise from the false prophet’s hooves.”

“Not going to be easy getting in,” Open Heart stated, eyes trailing to Gemini. “Not sure how I feel about some of us taking part in this either.”

“I can do it!” Gemmy repeated, puffing her chest much like I did sometimes. I know she meant to come off as brave, but the mimicry was more adorable than anything. “Mom will have me ready by then, and a medium could be lots of help.”

“You’re a medium?” Falke asked my daughter. She gave a confident nod to the griffon, earning a just as confident smile in return. “Lots of angry spirits no doubt reside there. They’d be more than willing to give up secrets, and put both us and the captives in less harm.”

“Not that it matters if we can’t get in,” Open Heart responded. He immediately followed up his response by side-eyeing Amaryllis. “I assume that, putting aside chaos theory for a moment, you have some way inside.”

“Please use words that the common pony knows, it sometimes sounds like you’re speaking another language sometimes,” the changeling replied, muzzle high and smiling as if what they said was worthy of praise. “The Messenger has revealed all that we need to succeed. Give it time, and you’ll see the divinity you all are currently so blind to.”

Hearty scoffed. “And the bug says I speak in riddles.”

Amaryllis briefly looked down at the ghoul, smile falling just enough to show that his words had gotten to them. Once again I found myself amused at the two, purely out of memory of once being in the changeling’s position. It felt good no longer being the target of his every quip and counterargument.

“So, Amaryllis,” I asked, a sassy undertone in my voice, “what exactly is this way in?”

“Sugar, it is only too perfect that you asked,” they replied. “While I initially had planned to use myself as a martyr, your being here has given us a safer option. After all, there is no better way into Paradise then as one of its prisoners.”

“What?!” Gemmy and Hearty said in union.

While the changeling’s words were met by vitriol and terror by my friend and daughter, I couldn’t help but smile. My hiring truly was a boon in more ways than one for them. Perhaps a part of me should have felt bad, being used as a sacrificial lamb, but the pet name Amaryllis gave me clearly meant something. I had obtained it before all of this, back during my first visit to the Lucky Clover, and they were still using it. Being up on stage with me that night was for more than to snack on my love or embarrass me at Gold’s request.

As zealous, malicious, and misguided as they were, Amaryllis really did like me. They wouldn’t throw me to the wolves without some means of retrieving me, possibly in a way to make them look like some divine white knight. As Gemmy and Hearty bickered and fought to make her change her mind, my inner selves and I came to an agreement.

“She really is our type.”

“I’m in,” I replied, getting three pairs of wide eyed stares from everycreature but Amaryllis as I grinned maliciously. They quickly matched it, their eyes hiding hidden relief and lust at my announcement. “All you need me to do is kill my target and get caught, right?”

“Mom, what are you doing?” Gemmy cried out.

“Getting us our way in,” I responded.

“And nothing about this seems like a bad idea to you?” Hearty asked.

“Do you have another solution?” I questioned back. Hearty opened his mouth to answer, but stopped himself short of actually saying anything. “Exactly. We may not like it, but unless some other option presents itself this is what we have to do.”

“It only gets you in, though,” Gemmy said. “It doesn’t do anything but put you in danger.”

“Now now, Gemini,” Falke replied, motioning with his talons for her to calm down. “You and Open Heart haven’t exactly given Amaryllis time to say everything. They want all of us in there, after all, not just your mother.”

“Not that I can blame your over-protectiveness,” the changeling responded. They turned to Gemini, offering the unicorn a look of genuine sympathy that I had not expected. “I know this is an awkward time, but I think it is best I say it now before we continue. I’m sorry, Gemini, for my words to you last night.”

While Hearty gave his usual protective, judging look, the rest of us allowed our shock or confusion at the statement to shine through. Gemini specifically seemed distraught, her attempts to stare at the changeling broken by rapid blinks. After a few seconds, her muzzle fell slightly open and her head tilted to the side.

“You… apologize?” she asked.

“On the comments I made concerning using your body,” Amaryllis answered. The way my daughter’s coat and mane seemed to immediately raise at the statement made it clear she knew what the changeling was talking about. “After I said them, tasting your emotions – as well as the speech you gave Ink Spot – made it clear that the resentment comes from something far darker. There is clearly some experience you’ve had that I don’t know about, and for that reason I am sorry.”

While the intention from Amaryllis seemed good, the effect it left on not just Gemini, but the entire table, made it feel wrong. Something about the way they worded it felt intrinsically wrong, not helped in any way by the timing. If their apology was as genuine as their face and tone were trying to make it sound, then why say it here? It felt too calculated, especially considering the metaphorical scab they were picking on Gemini’s body.

A piece of me expected Gemini to retract inwards at the ‘apology’, try and go somewhere that might make her feel safe. Instead, her lips pulled into a snarl, her teeth grinding loud enough for me to somehow hear it. Amaryllis, whose confidence and control had but a day ago seemed infallible, once more cracked as they blankly stared at the unicorn in confusion. Her claims she made last night about befriending Amaryllis had disappeared in an instant.

“We’re not doing it,” she said.

As soon as Gemini spoke, Amaryllis moved to make up ground she had lost, returning back to her controlled, yet slightly seductive form of speech. “I’m the one in charge here, Shining Gemini. As your employer I respect your opinion but–”

“I don’t trust you with my mom.” Gemini responded, interrupting the changeling again.

Whereas it had last led to an outburst of anger, Amaryllis now leaned back and winced. Any sign their response was out of kindness was annihilated as, instead of looking to the pony the words came from, Amaryllis looked at me. There was a brief hint of desperation, as if they were hoping for me to step in and save her.

I responded by returning to my cereal, chewing on more of it so that I had a real excuse to not respond.

“Since you can’t be trusted with my mom’s life, we aren’t going to do it,” Gemini explained. Still Amaryllis looked to me instead of the pony speaking, eyes practically begging me to step in. I merely did nothing and let an angry Gemini vent. “You talk smart, so be smart. Find some other means of getting everypony inside, because I’m not letting you do anything to my mom. I hate you.”

Gemmy finally had Amaryllis’ attention on her, but both of them knew no words were going to change anything. In one fell swoop, my daughter had effectively sealed off any and all avenues for them to pursue me. A creature with no good inside them would not have cared for it, but in that moment they finally looked to Gemini they proved that wasn’t the case. There was something better in there, buried under the brainwashing of a cult that had them fulling in their grasp.

Now they just had to show they can be that better pony. Prove they can change, that they can make the apology in the future and have it be as sincere as it should have been. Without Gemini’s approval, Amaryllis was never going to have a chance with me. I was more than willing to play that game, especially considering the problems I did have with the changeling’s personality to begin with.

“We have a long journey ahead of us, not to mention a Shattered Moon to convince,” I said, smiling proudly at my daughter to let her know I approved. “That is more than enough time to come up with something else. If we are not all in agreement with Amaryllis’ plan, then we have several weeks to plan something else.”

“Good, because I was not going to agree no matter what argument you made,” Hearty said. “After all, who is to say they wouldn’t just lock you up or kill you? Hoping they throw you in Paradise is too risky.”

“Not really. It’s more common than you think,” Amaryllis muttered loudly. With a reluctant sigh, the changeling forcefully turned their attention back to the rest of us. At least they tried to, eyes instead falling to their table, mandibles resting lower than usual. “I… guess we can figure out something else. The Messenger, mighty as she is, must have some other means of seeing her will manifest, surely. This was just… her first option. Her first one, yes, but not her only one.”

“Then you should have no trouble figuring it out,” Falke replied. Amaryllis seemed to shrink slightly, clearly not believing it as much as she thought she did. “Anything else we should discuss before we leave? I need to let Gideon and Gigi know that I’m leaving a day early.”

“Just that I have precured saddlebags for both Open Heart and Shining Gemini, seeing how they don’t have them already,” Amaryllis replied, sitting up. “I’ll just grab them real quick and let the guards know you're ready to leave. I’ll meet you all at the gate in two hours.”

Standing up from the table, they made their way to the door and opened it up. Closing it behind themselves, the rest of us were momentarily left to ourselves. Hearty immediately let out a groan, head colliding with his near-empty bowl, flinging droplets of brahmin milk onto his face. Falke caressed his beak, letting out an irritated huff as he looked at my daughter, whose face had grown far less stern the moment Amaryllis was gone.

“I understand why you said what you did, but this is definitely going to complicate things,” the griffon told her. “After all, who knows if there even is another way inside.”

“I know, but mom pinkie promised that she would be fine yesterday,” Gemmy replied, looking at me. “I’m doing what I can to keep you from breaking it. If it is the only option, I want to make sure Amaryllis is a better pony before going along with it.”

“A better pony?” Hearty asked, raising his head from the bowl. Bits of cereal stuck to his unamused face, which he quickly started brushing off in disgust. “Please don’t tell me you're going to try and fix the damn bug.”

Gemmy shrugged. “Why not? You managed to do it with mom, so surely I can do it to Amaryllis.”

“While I’m uncertain of the specifics around ‘fixing’ Miss Macabre, I have to partly agree with Mister Heart on this,” Falke replied. Hearty smirked and left his muzzle high in victory, only for the griffon to motion for him to wait. “However, that is not because Amaryllis is unable to change.”

Both brows on both unicorns rose in confusion at his statement. It very quickly dawned on me exactly where Falke was coming from.

“You think Gemini isn’t the right pony to do it,” I stated.

“This is correct,” Falke replied. Gemmy’s brow even went higher after hearing that. “Now, it is none of my business, but Amaryllis did mention some form of past trauma you carry. Might I ask for a basic explanation as to what exactly happened?”

Gemini opened her mouth to reply, but what came out was less words and more a strangled and detached series of vowels. She closed her muzzle, only to open it once more and tried again. One more failed attempt later, and my daughter hung her head in shame. My heart hurt all the more, knowing exactly what it was she was trying to say. As brave as she tried to be, as impressive as it was to see her beat Amaryllis in an argument, the scabs from her life in Trotson were still too fresh for her to say.

She looked to me out of the corner of her eye, giving that same begging face Amaryllis had tried to use on me earlier. Where it didn’t work with the changeling, my weakness for my adopted daughter made it far more effective.

“Are you sure you want to tell them?” I asked, just to make sure she wasn’t forcing this out into the open.

“Y-y-yeah,” she said. “I trust Hearty, he’s a doctor. Gideon and Gigi are good friends of mine, and I told them a little, so I think it is okay to tell him.”

“If you want me to stop at any point, just tap me on the wing,” I told her.

She gave me a nod, and I turned back to the rest of the table. Falke and Open Heart were looking at me, waiting for me to speak. A couple boxes to mentally prepare myself, some moments of quiet conversation with Rhapsody and Dead Hooves on exactly how to approach this, and I was as ready as possible. With my stomach twisted in knots, and bile in my throat, my muzzle opened.

“Shining Gemini, before we met her, was… a sex slave for some disgusting ponies in Trotson,” I said. Every word felt like I was stabbing a dagger to my heart, horrible flashes of memories Rhapsody had long suppressed hitting my mind. “That includes two times when… when she….”

…

I couldn’t say it.

It was too much, remembering my own experiences. A hoof protectively went to my lower stomach, the other pressing against me. My heart threatened to burst from the confines of my body, breathing barely staying calm. All I was able to do was sit there, mentally telling myself that it was okay.

I was okay.

He can’t harm me here.

“S… sorry,” I quietly managed to say. “I thought I’d be able to tell you all, but I guess some of it is too much for me.”

“You don’t need to,” Open Heart said, a hateful edge to his. What remained of his coat and mane bristled with rage, horn crackling with magic. “It’s fucked up, simple as that. Nopony, and I do mean nopony, should ever have to live through that. Sweet Tartarus, I should have let Willow play with him more.”

“As the ghoul said, that is something you should never have gone through,” Falke said. Where Hearty seemed ready to tear the room apart in anger, the griffon was just sympathetic, sorrow and pain visible in his eyes. “I’m sorry for asking about. I didn’t realize exactly what you had gone through.”

“I-I-it’s fine,” Gemini muttered, staring at the table. “Just, don’t tell anypony about this. It hurts to think about.”

“We wouldn’t dare, sweetie,” I assured her, stretching a wing her way. She leaned into the down instantly, the darkness from her face fading away. “It’s not our story to tell, not unless you want us to.”

Closing her eyes for a moment, Gemmy allowed her body to relax. Though tears were in her eyes, they were formed from relief instead of sadness.

“Thank you,” she told them both. “I think… I was worried about what you’d think of me. I’m not sure why.”

“When faced with trauma like yours, irrational actions are completely understandable,” Open Heart said, trying his hardest to smile despite the inferno of emotions raging through his body. “In simpler words, it makes sense. You went through shit, acting off because it is natural.”

“I’m sure she knew what you meant the first time, Mister Heart,” Falke replied.

“Actually, not really,” Gemmy responded. “So, uh, thanks. I might ask about those words later.”

I retracted my wing after that, feeling that the mare had gained enough emotional support to not need it. She looked at me, smiling a little bit wider than it had been before. No words were needed to decipher the meaning, it was another thanks. If the red in her cheeks were anything to go by, it was left unsaid more out of embarrassment for saying the words yet again.

“We didn’t have this till we met Anchor, didn’t we?” My inner selves asked. “Ponies to fall back on and reveal our worst memories to. Ironsight knew some of it, but not everything.”

Of course he was never told. He was the prince while Rhapsody was a pauper. There was no way he’d understand.

With comfort given to the one who needed it, I turned to Falke and returned the conversation back to the original subject. “I’m guessing this is the main reason you didn’t agree with Gemini’s plan.”

“Again, I only somewhat disagree,” Falke said. “My problem isn’t with breaking Amaryllis free of her brainwashing, but the pony doing it.”

“Wh-what?” Gemmy asked.

“The gesture is wonderful, really, but you have already dealt with so many Gemini. I’m not entirely sure how long ago you got out of this stuf–”

“Two and a half weeks.”

Falke briefly deadpanned to Open Heart, then shifted back to the rest of us.

“You already carry enough pain. You alone breaking Amaryllis free would be too much on you emotionally.”

“Then all of us pitch in and help out,” I replied. Hearty stared at me, as if expecting me to suddenly say that I was joking. “Hearty, you and Willow saved me from the Enclave’s mental clutches. I have no right to say they can’t be saved when I was one in their horseshoes.”

He just kept staring, waiting for some crack to form in my confidence. He found none, my belief in this cause as certain as it was the night before. I was sticking by my daughter, because Amaryllis needed that wake-up call. The sooner she realizes the harm she did to the Shattered Moon here in Underside, the quicker we’re able to free her from this cult’s clutches, the better.

Open Heart, whether he would ever admit it or not, understood that perfectly. He had seen me at my lowest, when I had discovered there was more than just pegasus in my blood. If he could save someone from going through something similar, he would.

“Just don’t ask me to be a nice pony to them,” he said.

“I’m not expecting you too. After all, you weren’t exactly nice to me,” I replied. He snorted in amusement, knowing just how much of an understatement that was. I then turned my attention back to Falke. “There, now Gemmy isn’t alone in this. She’s got two ponies to back her up.”

“Three, actually,” he corrected, holding that same number of claws up to me. “Never said I wasn’t interested, just that Gemini shouldn’t do this alone.”

It was at that moment that the door opened behind us. A number stepped in, body completely concealed as per usual, stepped inside. He briefly looked each of us over, before his eyes fully focused on Falke.

“Sorry for the wait. I’m here to escort you all out,” he said, holding a collection of blindfolds in their talons.

“Of course,” Falke said, standing up. Gemini and I followed suit. “Thank you, sir.”

“Just doing my job,” the guard replied, a hint of relief in his voice. “I’m happy you all are getting the bug out of here, though. Thanks for getting rid of them.”

“Happy to take Amaryllis off your hooves,” I replied.

Falke and Gemini had already made their way up to the stallion by the time I took my first step, only for my attention to swiftly be pulled back to the table by the clearing of a throat. All eyes turned to Open Heart, still seated and looking rather disinterested in leaving his chair. Looking to the masked pony standing in front of the door, he motioned a hoof towards me.

“Can I have a moment to take to Miss Macabre? Privately?” he asked, taking on a more professional tone of voice. “Medical related. You know about doctor-patient confidentiality, no doubt.”

“Doctor-patient… where is this coming from?”

“Of course sir. I’ll have two of the blindfolds hooved over to my friend waiting outside,” the guard asked.

I remained silent, eyes focused on the ghoul as my daughter and the griffon were blindfolded. The sound of the door opening, the clopping of hooves, and the door closing were all I needed to know that Heaty had been given the privacy he wanted. That was the moment he decided to stand up. With a motion of his head, he wordlessly directed me towards what had been Amaryllis’ bed for the past several days.

“Okay, what is this about?” I asked as I made my way up to him. “Last I checked you aren’t actually my doctor.”

“Danse, do you want to know how many times in the past two weeks I’ve dressed your wounds, healed you, or otherwise?” he questioned back, sitting on the edge of the bed. My muzzle stayed closed as I sat down next to him. “Exactly. I may not be your physician, internist, therapist, and surgeon assigned by the Enclave, but I’ve pulled enough lead out of your body to basically be them.”

“I guess you have a point there,” I replied, giving him a mock frown. “Though you are definitely more crass then Doctor Mending ever was.”

“You don’t pay me enough to coddle you.”

“I’m not paying you anything.”

“And that makes a difference in this argument because….”

He was begging for me to say something stupid. A week ago, I might have given him what he wanted. Not now, however, given everything we had been through together. We both knew each other well enough to know when one was trying to rile up the other.

“How are you managing?” I asked. This time the frown on my face was very real. “Gemmy and I heard you last night.”

After a second of hesitation, he brought one of his forehooves to his face and dragged it across himself, groaning. “Fuck. Really?”

“The walls here aren’t as thick as they are back at the motel,” I said, leaning backwards and tapping on the wooden wall behind me. “They were likely offices back then.”

“Celestia fuck me sideways, I was hoping nopony heard it,” he muttered to himself. His hoof dropped from his face afterwards, annoyance and sorrow making up the scowl on his muzzle. “Looks, I’m going to need some time for all of that to really settle in. I appreciate you asking but, please, just let me deal with this myself.”

I nodded, forcing the corner of my lips to curve upwards in a smile. I managed to hold it long enough to get one from the ghoul himself before the act proved too much. He fell shortly after; neither of us were in the right place to talk about Willow Wisp.

“So, doc,” I said, trying to shift the topic away, “what is it you need to talk to me about?”

It took Open Heart a moment to register my words. Once he did, he cleared his throat once more before turning to me.

“Danse Macabre, understand that when I told him this was confidential, I mean it,” he explained. “None of what we are about to talk about leaves this room unless you want it to. Understand?”

I gave him a nod.

“Then pardon me as I speak frankly, directly, and without restraint,” he said. “Danse Macabre, did your father sexually assault you?”

Every part of my body froze up, and for a moment my lungs seemed to stop working. My stomach twisted until it was inside out, eyes wide and unmoving as I stared at the ghoul. Once more the memories came back, things that had stayed submerged in the back of my mind for years resurfacing clearer than ever had before. Yet even with that clarity nothing visually stuck, my mind instead was occupied with sounds, cries, and words.

His words. Useless, worthless, mistake, and so many others more derogatory that I can’t bring myself to say or write. Words Anchor never called me, because he knew how much they affected me.

“Danse?”

“How did…,” my voice stopped, throat constricting to the point where it felt like I had to choose between speaking and breathing. “Was it… that obvious?”

“No. I didn’t figure it out until you were talking about Gemini’s own sexual abuse earlier,” Hearty said. Despite his earlier remarks about not needing to be kind, his voice was gentle. He knew one wrong word would be like stepping on a landmine. “It reminded me of something Gemini said while you were unconscious after the sandstorm. I think her exact words were… ‘she’s just like me.’ Didn’t know what she meant until just now.”

I hung my head, the movement stiff and robotic. Of course Gemini knew, she had just been too scared to discuss it with me.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I told him, a bit of irrational anger worming its way into my voice. “I told you my family was horrible, now you know everything. Most I tell anypony about my dad is that he is absent and always drunk. Was never home when I got back from school, barely ever got groceries because what little we had was always spent on him getting plastered,” I bit on my lower lip, closing my eyes. “What I didn’t tell the ponies was that sometimes, when he got home, he was always wasted and really mad. That anger seemed to make him horny, and he blamed me for mom. So sometimes, sometimes he would just… he’d just…”

Just like before, saying it was impossible. I had gathered the blankets between my hindlegs up to my stomach, a habit from when I was younger in futile attempts to keep my private area safe. The noises in my mind got louder, the name calling more violent, the word ‘mistake’ specifically being screamed in my skull. Copper hit my tongue as my teeth pierced the skin on, blood slowly starting to flow into my mouth or down my chin.

It made no sense to me. I thought I was over all of this, that I had conquered what that despicable excuse of a stallion did to me. Anchor had helped me there. It took so, so long for me to actually feel comfortable sharing the same bed with him, and even when we finally slept together for the first time it still took months for me to even consider having sex with him. Yet in time I worked up the courage to do that too. I remember how slow we went and how careful he was with me, and that despite everything we had done to make sure I managed to enjoy it for the first time in my life…

“Wind! Wind!”

Anchor, the caring stallion he was, stopped the moment he heard the safeword. Any fog intercourse had placed on his mind dissipated in an instant, and he withdrew immediately. His eyes locked on me, but I couldn’t look back at him. As soon as I was free I started pulling up the comforters, blankets – regular and fitted – from our bed and gathered them up around my stomach. My vision was clouded with water, and I was hyperventilating.

“I-I’m sorry,” I croaked out.

“Rhapsody, you don’t have any reason to apologize,” he replied.

His words were drowned out by visions of my dad’s face and his voice. They were everything I saw, and everything I heard. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry oh by the princesses I’m so so sorry.”

“Rhapsody.”

“I can’t do it. I-I can’t do it. It’s too much. It’s all… It’s all too muc–”

Something wrapped around me. It was soft and gentle, warm and unrestricting. Opening my eyes, I was greeted by the gray fur on Iron Anchor’s chest. It was close enough to encompass everything I saw, but not so close as to touch my muzzle. His forelegs rested next to it, hind legs invisible under the mass of blankets I had made between me and him. His fifth leg, the one that had led to this to begin with, was blocked by that same mass, seeming to understand that’s presence would only make things worse.

Looking to my left, I was greeted with a large, beautiful wing. An identical one was to my right, both forming a protective barrier around me. Everything about them made me feel safe, and with that safety I found all the panic faded away. My dad’s face and voice were no longer at the forefront of my mind, allowing me to think just a little bit better than before.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

“For what?” Anchor asked.

“This… this was supposed to be the night. Everything felt right, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt but…,” my voice briefly got caught in my throat. I closed my eyes and looked at the blankets in shame. “I’m pathetic. They call me one of the Enclave’s best and bravest, and yet this,” I pointed towards his abdomen, “I can’t handle. Every single time I see yours or somepony else’s it always makes me think about him and the things he has done to me.”

“I know, that’s why we made a safeword,” he said softly. “If this isn’t the night, that is okay.”

“But what if I never get to that night?” I asked. “What if we aren’t ever able to have those foals we talked about?”

“Then I’m completely okay with that,” Anchor answered, lifting a foreleg to wipe away the tears falling down my face,”and do you want to know why?”

Practically prying my eyes open, I forced myself to look up at him. Those irises of his, the warmth and care in their blue hue, they became all I wanted to look at. They, more than any else so far, reassured me that I was fine; I was safe.

“Wh-why?” I croaked out.

“Because sex isn’t the reason I ended up falling in love with you, it’s everything else,” he said. I gawked at the words leaving his mouth, unable to comprehend them with the way my dad had twisted my view of the world. “I fell in love with you because you are… Well, you’re amazing. Of every soldier I’ve ever met, none of them were ever as brave, sweet, silly, and wonderful as you. The fact you're dropped dead gorgeous is nothing to all of that.”

“G-g-gorgeous?” I repeated to myself. My head fell, and a smile managed to emerge on my face.

Iron Anchor is just… so perfect. His words didn’t make the scars disappear, but by Luna did they make me feel better. The tears continued to fall, but their existence now felt joyous. Without even thinking I leaned forward, pressing my face into his chest. He brought his forelegs around me, because I was finally calm enough where a hug wouldn’t trigger my trauma.

For the next several minutes, that is where we stayed. His forelegs and wings held me close, warm and ever-comfortable; his breath tickled my neck as he lowered his head to rest on my left shoulder. More than anything, however, the fact he was just there – that my outburst and traumatic episode hadn’t scared him off – made everything that had happened feel fine.

These are the moments that make or break relationships. You can have every happy moment imaginable, only for something like deployment to drive a wedge in that love for one reason or another. Not everypony can take the pony they love being away that long – or an emotional flare up like I had – and still say ‘this is worth it.’ We all have our limits.

Anchor, in that moment, proved that our relationship was one that could last. He was the one, I knew it, and it made my heart flutter more than any gift or date we had gone on before.

“How are you feeling?” he asked after some time. He kept his voice quiet, just in case I relapsed.

“Better,” I said, pressing further into him.

“Do you want some time to yourself?” He asked.

I shook my head, enjoying his smell and the brush of his chest fur. “No. I’d actually like to stay like this for a bit longer, if that is okay.”

“You don’t need to ask,” he responded, holding me the tiniest bit tighter than before. “I’ll stay here as long as you need.”

“Danse? Are you okay?”

I’m not entirely sure how long I had been out of it when Open Heart’s voice finally reached me. I looked at the ghoul, noting the concern in his eyes. Shaking away the daydreams completely, I sheepishly stared back at him.

“Sorry. I thought I had gotten over everything that happened but,” a lump once again formed in my throat, but remembering that night with Anchor gave me the strength to swallow it down, “seems that's not the case.”

“It makes sense,” Open Heart replied. He leaned off the bed, pawing the covers under him. “You probably had a support group up there. Ponies you trusted being around and could talk to about it”

“One, actually. Just my husband,” I replied. I looked down to the bed, a miniscule smile on my muzzle. “Up there, he was all I ever needed. All I could ever really tell it too.”

“That would explain why talking about it seems so hard then,” he said.. “You haven’t known any of us for more than a month. Doesn’t matter how well we’ve gotten to know each other, to confide in somepony about something that personal is not something you can just do on a whim.”

“It’s a bit more than that,” I said, ears folded back. “Open Heart, you have some familiarity with the Enclave. Do you know what would have happened to my career if anypony found out?”

It took him a second, but it was easy to tell exactly when he realized what I was saying. The way his pupils shrunk to pinpricks, the way his mouth silently mouthed out words I couldn’t read, it made it too easy. I knew exactly what I was about to hear from him before the question even left his mouth; Iron Anchor had done the same.

“Danse, your military career couldn’t have been–”

“It was!” I interrupted, placing a wing over my heart. “Boot camp meant getting away from him, signing my first contract was an assurance that I never had to see him again! More than the comfort of a standard life, more than the pay, more than the patriotism, do you genuinely think I could have gone into anything else when it meant staying with that monster for another year?!”

“I’m not judging you for going into the military in the first place. I didn’t live your life; I can’t judge you there,” Hearty said, shaking his head. “You had Anchor though! You had somepony to support you, and you were away from your dad. You didn’t need to fight anymore!”

‘You didn’t need to fight anymore.’

Hearty was right, I was free, and had been for a very long time. The words felt like a bag of cement hit me in the back of the head. The reason I joined made no excuse for the fact that I had stayed. It would have been okay – Tartarus it would have been sensible – for me to not go beyond my first contract. Everypony would understand, Ironsight especially, and with me out of the picture I would never have ended up down here. I would remain blissfully ignorant, my husband and daughters forever a part of my life, and happy.

Yet when I thought of it all for more than just a few seconds, the idea felt inconsolably wrong. A peaceful life with Anchor should have been a wonderful thing, but that peace made me want to puke. It was like the act of putting my gun down meant losing myself. I needed to press the trigger, needed to kill, needed to fight, suffer, pull the trigger, kill, fight, suffer, pull the trigger, kill, repeat, repeat, repeat…

Repeat.

“I don’t think I could handle it,” I said. “You’re right that I don’t have to, but I need to. I can’t tell you why because I don’t understand it myself, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t.”

Open Heart just sighed, a hoof reaching back behind his neck to rub at his withers. I was expecting him to further psycho-analyze me, instead he stayed silent. Eyes closed, he took care of whatever itch he had before opening them and staring right at me. The sadness in them, it hurt far too much to look at for more than a few seconds.

“Danse Macabre,” he said, “as your doctor, I hereby diagnose you with post traumatic stress disorder, as well as wartime stress disorder.”

My eyes went wide. “Wha… why are you–“

“This is what you feared, isn’t it?” he asked. I clamped up, averting my eyes from the ghoul. “You don’t know anything else. You can’t step away because you feel like you still have some mission to fulfill.”

“I-I do!” I shouted. “I have ponies I need to kill!“

“Because it was a mission, or because you need a mission,” he stated. “Perhaps more than you do Anchor, or your foals.”

“Leave them out of your fucking mouth!”

I snapped, unable to take words that were both so incredibly wrong… and horribly right. Without even realizing what I had done, a pulse from my horn ripped through the air. Hearty was able to put a shield up in defense of the pure magic I was unknowingly weaving. The room around me was far less fortunate.

The utensils, plates, cups, and otherwise from our breakfast were thrown everywhere. Some crashed into the walls and shattered while the rest were flung around in an invisible tornado. The counters seemed to twist and bend like clay, the dish washer and sink bending with them. The fridge started to melt, unable to withstand volcanic heat. The bed underneath both Hearty and myself harmlessly shifted between all the colors of the rainbow.

All that while, in a state of denial, I proved Open Heart how right and wrong he really was.

“I need to kill them for my family’s safety. I need to kill them because they put my entire species at risk. So what if I have some selfish reason to add on top of it all? That doesn’t change the fact that others might die if I don’t. Stop. Moving!” Another pulse of magic went from my horn, cracking the floor. “So many others died, so many others could no longer fight, but I can! If I stop, ponies will die; If I stop, who is going to keep everypony I care about safe? I have to keep going. I have to. I have to. I have to!”

With my declaration, one last flare of magic was sent through the room. Everything seemed to fall away, and I found myself no longer in Amaryllis’ room. All that surrounded me was nothingness. My chest heaved for breath, suddenly aware of the terrifying amount of magic that I was unleashing. I wanted to stop it all, but my body didn’t not feel like it was under my control. Every fiber of my being felt ready to be ripped apart.

Then, just like that same night with Anchor all those years ago, a wing rested on my back.

A piece of me begged for them to run, not knowing how safe I was to be around at this moment. All that came out was a strange mix between choking and screaming. I tried again, but once more all that left my mouth was a scream, though it felt ever-so-slightly weaker. Not weak enough to give me back control, but enough for my brain to make out.

With each passing second the magic seemed to lessen, and with it I noticed other things about the creature next to me. The absurd size of their wings, the talons carefully running through the hair of my mane, and how their figure seemed to almost blend into the void around us. Slowly, I managed to crane my head upwards until I saw a pair of unforgettable purple eyes piercing through the nice. Directly below those orbs was a beak, and where it met skin there was the faintest sign of a smile.

“V… Vi… Vi…”

“Just relax. No unicorn has ever had a comfortable magic surge,” they said. If their touch hadn’t already been calming, their voice definitely was. “Relax, focus on me, and let your body calm down.”

With no other clear choice for what to do, I took the one Vigil had for me. My eyes stayed on their own as they cautiously, carefully stroked my mane and back, my muscles slowly letting loose the tension built up in them. They started humming at some point, but I didn’t hear it until the surge was completely under control. At that point, with every bit of strength sapped from me, my legs did not feel capable of holding me up.

I collapsed onto a floor that did not exist, in a place that shouldn’t exist. Vigil laid down next to me, watching me with concern and care in her eyes. It felt so odd to think about, death being gentle. On the battlefield it always seemed cold and visceral.

“Why?” I asked them.

“Why would death save you from themself?” Vigil asked rhetorically, filling in the missing parts of my question. “Because it isn’t yet your time. That, and I care. Didn’t I tell you that when we first met?”

“You did but…,” I coughed, throat hoarse and sore from my screams. Some blood may have been hacked up in the process, but it was impossible to see. “I was… kind of stuck on being dead.”

Vigil snorted. “Fair enough. Though it seems quite a bit more has happened since then.”

Their eyes trailed from my mane of blue, black, and white to the brown feathers and fur that had mixed with Rhapsody’s original magenta. They only paid my cutie mark a passing glance before they stared directly into my eyes. Along with the still present concern and care, there was now the hint of curiosity in them as well.

“It seems they still have not explained everything to me,” they muttered to themself.

“So you… you don’t know what caused this?” I asked.

“No, some of it makes sense. You’ve already figured out what I already know in terms of your body and spirit,” they explained, “or are you talking about just now? The magic surge you just dealt with?”

I tilted my head. “Magic… surge?”

“It’s mainly a unicorn thing. When they are young it's not uncommon for them to lose control of their more direct connection to the infinite, and it can lead to messy results,” They said. While one talon tenderly ran through my mane, the other conjured water from seemingly nowhere. They gave it to me, and I was all too happy to raise it to my muzzle and douse it in my mouth. “You, however, are not a filly in a physical sense. Your body is still adjusting to having the abilities of a unicorn, it was only a matter of time before you had a surge, and it was going to be ugly.”

“And you are here to make sure it doesn’t kill me,” I replied, hoofing the now empty glass back to them. “Even knowing you care, it still feels weird.”

“Your perception of death is twisted by your military experience. It makes sense,” Vigil said. “Now come on, we should get back to Open Heart. He’s starting to worry.”

Vigil stood up and walked in front of me, holding a talon out far enough for me to reach. I gladly took it, and in less than a second the exhaustion my magical surge had forced onto me reduced. I didn’t bother to ask about it, understanding that Vigil’s powers were far above any creature that was alive. They knew that I would be traveling, and was using whatever powers they had to make sure things would stay that way.

Once I was on my hooves, they motioned for me to follow her. Our destination was a door some ways off, farther away than I’m certain it needed to be. If Vigil wanted to snap her talons and instantly bring me back to Hearty, they would do it. The fact they were giving us time meant they either wanted the company, or had something they wanted me to ask. That only proved itself more true as, with each step, the door seemed to stay the exact same distance away that it had before.

It wasn’t too hard to figure out what they wanted me to ask. After all, it had been the cause behind the very surge the griffon had stopped.

“Vigil,” I called out. Death looked at me, our legs continuing to move towards the door. “Is Open Heart right? About the diagnoses? About me?”

There was no way Vigil didn’t already have an answer, but as if to show me they had really thought about it, they didn’t respond immediately. Instead their eyes looked up, scanning the nothingness above us as she faked deep thinking.

“He is. His way of broaching the subject was certainly harsh and blunt, but he is,” Vigil said.

My ears fell flat against my head, because despite acting as if I needed an answer, I knew Vigil was right. There had been several chances to call it quits before this point, and the longer things went on the less necessary it all became. Yet still I marched forward, not caring about the Tartarus I had been through because of it. Some of what happened it had been unavoidable if I had just been sensible and quit while I still could.

Yet on I went, making one excuse after another. I claimed it was about the Enclave, but it was not; I claimed it was about Anchor, but it was not; I claimed it was about Rainy and Clear, but it had never been about them. It was about needing a mission, that was it. Didn’t care what it was, didn’t care what it cost me, as long as I had some greater objective. Pride, revenge, none of that really mattered as long as I just had something to do.

“I’m a horrible pony,” I muttered to myself.

“Are you sure?” Vigil replied.

“How could I not be?” I asked the griffon. “I’ve thrown so much away for seemingly nothing. The M.A.M., nopony down here could build it. We couldn’t even build it.”

Once again Vigil made a show of thinking through their response, though this time it seemed far less fake and more real. “You are correct in some ways. You destroyed the life you had to push an unhealthy coping mechanism, hurting both you and many creatures around you….”

At Vigil’s answer, I hung my head low…

“But you are not this monster you are painting yourself as.”

And then immediately brought it back up to look at them. My confusion, melancholy, and shock was met with sympathy, sadness, and most strange of them all, joy.

“How?” I asked. “How can you say that?”

Vigil’s response was simple. “No monster could raise a family as lovely as your own.”

To that, my mind had no rebuttal. That was all Vigil wanted me to say and hear, because for the rest of our walk to the door we were both silent. The griffon’s words hit me just as hard, if not harder, than Hearty’s own earlier. It hurt, thinking of not only how they were both right, but how I had reacted to the ghoul’s own attempt to help understand all of this. As much of a piece of shit as he was, he did not deserve any ire from me.

Even in nothingness, that was clear as day.

When we reached the door, I gave Vigil another look. They placed their talon on the door, glancing at me as if to wordlessly ask ‘are you ready?’ I didn’t have a real answer. Just like the first time we talked, I was leaving Vigil in a state of mental turmoil. At least this time it wasn’t over my mortality.

A nod of my head, and death themself opened the door back to Underside. More specifically, it led back to Amaryllis’ room, the first thing to greet my eyes being Hearty turning the place over. He seemed at wits end by the time he turned to see Vigil’s door, and myself on the other side.

“Danse?”

“I’m… fine now,” I told him, tilting my head toward the griffon. “Had some help.”

Vigil leaned out of the door just enough for him to see them, his jaw dropping to the floor. “What the….”

“Pay me no mind, just return your patient,” Vigil said. They ushered me through the door. “Lets make our next talk a little less… dramatic, okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, managing a small smile.

With that, I walked through the door back into the real world, hooves hitting cracked and frayed carpet. Vigil spent no time making themselves scarce after that, closing the door and whisking it out of existence. Being death griffonfied is not exactly an easy job, I’m sure. Lots of things to do, and literally everywhere to be.

That left me with time to survey the damage I had done to the room. Seeing the twisted counters, melted fridge, and broken countertop was quite embarrassing. To think, my body had only just gained the ability to use magic a week or so ago and it could do that. I’d have to make sure it never happened again.

“So, uh,” Hearty stammered, staring at where Vigil’s door had once been, “that was who?”

“Oh, that’s Vigil,” I explained.

He blinked. “Vigil?”

“Yep.”

“You mean, that was death?”

“Pretty much.”

“And they suddenly snapped you to where-ever-the-fuck because…”

“They didn’t want me dying just yet.”

With a groan, they rubbed the area on their forehead just below their horn. It was impossible to not see the migraine the poor ghoul was getting from this. Seems dealing with the Dealer had not prepared him for a brief visit with death.

“I’m not going to ask further. Don’t have anything to drink it down,” he said, his hoof falling back to the floor. In the snap of a griffon’s talons, his face went from aggrevated to worried, the expression entirely focused on me. “So, are you feeling a bit calmer now?”

“Y… yeah,” I responded, lowering my head in humility.

I bit the inside of my upper lip, knowing what I needed to say to him and yet still absolutely terrified. A piece of me still wanted to continue as I always had, but the state of the room around me made it perfectly clear that wasn’t possible. There was no other choice but to admit what I didn’t want to, and allow the real me completely out.

The me that, since joining the Enclave, had been locked in a cage for what I had assumed was my own safety.

“Hearty,” I said, letting go of the militaristic edge in my voice. What was left sounded younger, maybe even foalish. “I… need your help.”

I don’t think he caught my words immediately, his brain still processing the vulnerability in my voice. I hated sounding so meek, yet if I was to show Hearty that I was serious about this, I had to let go of the facade. It was just hurting me now, and I knew it was not necessary anymore; I was tough without it.

“I’ve spent so long being a soldier, I’m not sure how to be anything else,” I said. “No, life never gave me the chance to be anything else. We still have a mission, but during it can you help me be… be me.”

It still took him several seconds afterwards to actually formulate a response. He knew he was talking to the real me, not the mask I had worn up until now. He seemed proud of me for that alone, hooking a foreleg across my withers and grinning madly.

“You’re a fucking idiot to think I alone can do it,” he joked. “Good thing you got more than just me around, huh?”

That’s the most Hearty way of saying ‘yes’ that I think I’ve ever heard out of him.

Not long afterwards, Hearty and I left Shattered Moon’s base. Neither of us had anypony in town to say goodbye to, so we made our way to the western gate. It gave me time to get used to the idea of being vulnerable, open. Nothing about it sat right with me, so much of myself begging to go back to my soldier-like self, but I stopped myself. Going back to it wasn’t good for me, I had to accept it.

It’s honestly embarrassing how hard it was for me.

When we arrived at the Underside’s west gate, I was surprised to see a small crowd forming. Considering the day prior I was initially worried something horrible had happened, but that wasn’t the case. The mumbles of the creatures present within the crowd were exceptionally less heavy, if still rather sobering. It was all about one mare, specifically a certain daughter of mine that this town saw as something of a hero.

“Miss Gemini is really leaving?”

“Is this because of the attempt on her life?”

“It really is not fair. Who would ever want someone as wonderful as her dead?”

“She’s probably going to join the Shattered Moon. Maybe help take down the Equalists!”

“What a brave, inspirational young mare she is.”

“Somepony is popular,” Hearty snarked as we started to push through the crowd towards our group. “Here I thought you were the talk of the town, coming back from the dead and all.”

“It’s probably not that interesting the second time,” I said in an attempted jest. The ghoul looked up at me, seeming both amused and disappointed at the same time. “What? Was that not good?”

“No. Nothing wrong with the joke, your delivery was just… stilted,” he responded, shrugging. “Though I guess you are somewhat right. Coming back from the dead is not ordinary, but these ponies have their own hero to worship.”

“Who told them about this? Last I checked, the decision to leave today was made last night. Nopony here should know.”

“Probably Amaryllis,” I muttered to my inner selves. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she woke up before us all and started spreading the word.”

“That… makes it hard to tell if it was in good faith or not.”

“From what we’ve seen of the changeling, it was probably both good and bad at the same time.”

With a little bit more weaving Open Heart and I managed to get through to the front of the crowd. There was a small bubble between it and our group, with the latter talking to different creatures. Falke was talking to his grandkids, likely reassuring them that he would be alright. Amaryllis with some of the crowd in their pony disguise, answering or assuaging the fears they held for Shining Gemini. My daughter herself was talking with a familiar Abyssian, holding a bag in her magic that I did not recognize. Basalt immediately noticed our approach, turning his attention away from Gemini and towards us with glee and enthusiasm.

“Well, there you two are!” he shouted, him and my daughter making their way up to us. “Your little girl here was getting pretty worried about how long you two were taking. Congrats to you both by the way, you make a wonderful family.”

“Th-thanks, Basalt,” I said, blushing slightly from embarrassment. Gemini looked similarly embarrassed by his announcement, and I heard some of the creatures closest to us in the crowd change their topics on the dime. “I didn’t expect to see you, or all of these other creatures for that matter.”

“Well, word gathered around pretty quickly about a supposed assassination attempt on you two last night. You’re both pretty well known at this point, but lots of folks are specifically pissed about it happening to Gemini,” Basalt said, crossing his arms and looking out to the crowd. “Then we all started hearing that you folks were leaving, and after what your daughter did for us Underside wasn’t about to give a half-assed goodbye. We came out in force for Underside’s little hero.”

“It’s… kind of a lot,” Gemini sheepishly admitted. Her eyes trailed the edges of the crowd, no doubt noticing how so many gazes landed on her specifically. “It feels nice so many creatures seem to care about me, but there are just so many!”

“You can thank him for that,” Basalt said with venom and disgust. His paw pointed towards Amaryllis, a grimace on his face. “Gemini told me everything the public didn’t know. Are you sure it’s a good idea to help them?”

“We’ve reformed worse,” Hearty replied smugly, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. I playfully smacked the ghoul over the head for the comment, but couldn’t resist smiling myself. “With them exiled from their little cult, it shouldn’t be too hard to knock some sense into them.”

“That, and I’d be lying if we said it was impossible for somecreature like them to change,” I said. “After all, I’m here.”

Basalt did not look convinced, every look he gave the disguised changeling bringing with it a deep-seated sourness. Not that we could blame him, given the general outlook on changelings in Southern San Palomino. Anything Gemini told him no doubt reinforced whatever stereotypes and feelings the Abyssian had for them. It was going to take more than a coup to fix that.

“As long as Miss Gemini is safe. I was going to hire her before all of this happened,” Basalt said, one of his paws making circular motions in the air. “Guess I’ll just have to wait until you all get back.”

“I look forward to it, Mister Basalt!” Gemini said, beaming at the abyssian. As if it wasn’t clear enough that the two were basically friends.

I turned my attention to the bag Gemmy was holding, my curiosity getting the better of me. “What do you have there sweetie?”

“Oh, that’s right!” My daughter said. If she wasn’t beaming already, she most definitely was now. “Mister Basalt made a meal for us all today!”

My eyes went wide, turning my attention back to the Abyssian. Judging by the grin and his straight posture he had, he seemed pretty damn proud of himself.

“The least I could do for some wonderful customers,” he replied, “and the best musician I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to.”

If his goal had been to flatter me to the point of blushing the hardest I had in weeks, he had thoroughly done it. To the shock of everyone but Hearty, I found myself hiding that very same blush behind my wings. To be given a compliment like that by someone outside of Ironsight and Anchor, I wasn’t entirely sure my heart could take it. How could I not be bashful at it?

“Th-thank y-you, Basalt,” I managed to say. “I-I’m glad to know you liked it.”

“Just make sure to play for us again once you all get back,” he said. I nodded rapidly, and the Abyssian gave us a bow as he started to walk back towards the crowd. He had almost reached it before turning back to the rest of us. “Oh, one more thing Danse. Might I recommend giving Mysterioso a visit while you are off in Shorelock. I know his radio station is in the area, and they are always looking for new music.”

“I’ll keep it in mind!” I shouted back to him.

With that, Basalt disappeared into the crowd of creatures watching us. Gemmy, Hearty and I shared a look of appreciation and joy at the pub owner’s words before heading over to Falke. He was still talking with Gideon and Gigi, the two pestering him for any details they could on his job. It was going about as badly as expected.

“The answer is no you two. Please stop asking.”

“Come on grandpa! Surely there is something you can tell us!”

“You both know I’m not going to answer. So please stop.” Falke’s eyes snapped to us, letting out a sigh of relief at the sight of us. “Besides, it seems we are just about to head out.”

The griffon siblings turned to us, their eyes immediately locking on Gemmy and myself. They rushed us both, nearling plowing right into me specifically. Gigi specifically seemed interested in me, those golden, avian orbs of her’s staring into mine with almost predator-like intensity. Not that I felt any fear from the young griff.

“Wow, you really do look different,” she stated. Despite being an adult, she was bouncing up and down like a foal with a new toy. “What happened? That ghoul friend of yours refused to tell anycreature and I’ve been dying to hear the old story.”

“Because the ghoul had no idea what the fuck was going on,” Hearty mumbled under his breath.

“If I had time to tell you Gigi, I would,” I said, motioning for the griffon to calm down. “Unfortunately we have to leave.”

“Oh come on, whatever happened can’t be that long of a story,” she said. “Just summarize it, please?”

“Leave the mare be, Gigi!” Falke shouted. Gigi flinched, her tail going straight in terror. “If she doesn’t want to tell you, then don’t force her.”

Gigi pouted at her grandpa, but he did not back down from his position. With a sigh, the younger griff snapped a talon in disappointment and made her way up to Gemmy and Gideon. Allowing the younger generation the time to talk in private, Hearty and I gave the older merc our attention.

“You two took longer than expected,” he said. “Everything alright?”

“For the most part,” Hearty said, shrugging. “Not my place to talk though. You want to know what happened, ask Danse.”

“No need,” Falke replied, physically waving the idea off with one foreleg. “I’m not going to open that can of worms again. Already one mare reveals uncomfortable things about themselves, and I still feel pretty bad about that.”

“It was Gemmy’s choice to let me reveal her history,” I reminded him, looking proudly over at my daughter. “She trusts you both enough, I think that says a decent bit about the impression you two have made on her.”

“Well it isn’t hard to make a good one when all you know is burnt shit,” Hearty replied, grimacing as he looked me in the eyes. “Still, I must admit that it feels weird that she trusts me considering I’m not exactly the nicest.”

“She must be able to see through it,” Falke said.

“Got no idea what you are talking about,” Hearty responded, his smile and a dramatic turn of his head letting on to the fact he very much did know what Falke was hinting at.

At that moment, Amaryllis joined the rest of us at the center of the crowd’s little clearing. Gigi and Gideon, knowing full well what that meant, gave a quick goodbye to my daughter and made their way towards the crowd. I gave those watching us another look over, taking in how many different species and types of ponies seemed to be gathered around. All of this for my little Gemmy, it made me wish I had been there to see what led to it.

“It seems like we are all ready,” the changeling said. They looked out to the crowd, a malevolent grin on their visage. “Though I don’t think they’ll be happy if their ‘hero’ leaves without a few words.”

I placed myself in front of Gemmy, making my stance on her words perfectly clear. Yet, much to my surprise, my daughter placed a hoof on my back and walked out from behind me. We looked at each other, the younger mare’s gaze seeming to switch between confidence and worry at a moment's notice. She wanted to do this, but she was too scared to stand there by herself. She needed me to stand next to her, and I wasn’t about to say no.

Gemmy and I stepped up, Hearty, Amaryllis, and Falke all taking a step back to give us both the spotlight. All eyes were on us, the murmurs dying down as everycreature around realized that we were about to address them. Gemmy’s ears were pinned against her head as she scanned them, an uncomfortable smile on her lips. I draped a wing around her at the sight, the act not quelling the fear, but allowing her to control it enough to speak.

“I… I want to thank everycreature for welcoming my family and I here in Underside!” she said. She needed to take a deep breath afterward, but it allowed her to say everything else she needed. “Before meeting my family and coming here, I never really had a place that I could call home. You all have been the closest thing to a home that I’ve ever had in my entire life. To talk with you, eat with you, enjoy life with you, it made me realize that there really is good in the world.

“Which makes it hurt so much that I have to leave now. There are so many of you I don’t know, but all of you know me. If I was able to I’d stay here and get to know each and every one of you, but I can’t. There are ponies out there who want me dead for reasons I don’t fully understand, and I don’t want to put all of you in harm's way by staying. That’s the main reason I’m leaving.”

She wiped her eyes with a hoof real quick, holding back the tears that threatened to burst free.

“I won’t be gone forever though. I’m going to be back one day, hopefully sooner rather than later. Until then I’m going to do everything I can to make San Palomino a better place for us all, one small thing at a time. That’s how I’m going to thank you all. So please, don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine….” She turned to face me, and all that joy and happiness on her face seemed to quadruple in an instant. “Because I have some really great ponies around me. Ponies who love me a whole lot.”

The pride, joy, and love in her words were too much, there was no way I couldn’t hug her after that. I barely had my own hooves around her when her own wrapped around my withers, doing everything she could to squeeze me as hard as possible. We had barely been family for twenty four hours, and to hear her say that about me showed that she had seen me as a mom long before we made it official. It meant so much, more than I have words for. Gemmy is just way too sweet.

All the while, the crowd slowly went from whispers to cheers. They chanted her name, doing what they could to motivate her to follow through with what she said. It ended up being a bit much, Gemmy just squeezing me tighter the longer the cheers went on. Patting her back with one of my wings, we broke up the hug and joined the others.

My eyes immediately landed on the gate and the two numbers holding our weapons for us. We grabbed everything as it opened, and then made our way out with the crowd still cheering us on. I only looked back once, jaw dropping momentarily as I saw a familiar large, black griffon at the back of the ground. They smiled at me, waving a wing as if they wouldn’t be watching me like a hawk at all times. I lifted my chin up and grinned widely.

‘Isn’t my daughter amazing?’ it said.

Vigil simply nodded in understand. ‘Indeed she is Danse Macabre. Indeed she is.’

Audio files found on encrypted terminal

Play audio?

Yes No

Playing recording..

SM 1
Well, that’s quite a surprise. Didn’t expect some of the ship’s systems to still work.

SM 2
Hippogriffian engineering for you right there. Shit’s sturdier and more efficient than anything Equestria ever made. It’s part of why they annexed them after all.

SM 1
Still, to see terminals, lights, and otherwise still running after all of these years. It’s nothing short of a miracle.

SM 2
Not a miracle just yet. We still got to figure out where the megaspell bay on this thing was. Does it say anything?

SM 1
Nope, nothing. Not surprising, considering that the megaspell in question was top secret.

[Groan]

SM 1
Oh come on, it ain’t that bad. Sure, the Hurricane is a little infested from its years in the water, but feral ghouls and mutated sea life ain’t anything to worry about.

SM 2
It’s not the ghouls or sea life I’m worried about. There are only four of us in here, and this thing is massive. How the heck do they expect us to find the megaspell bay in this place?

SM 1
With time and patience. Sure it might have been quicker if the terminal had information on it, but four of us are more than enough to–

[Distant gunfire]

SM 1
The fuck is–

[Distant gunfire]

[Screams]

>> Fast Forward >>

SM 2
You want to what?

SM 3
Leave. We have to leave! If we don’t th-that thing will.

SM 1
Ten, calm down. What the fuck happened. Where is Nineteen?

Ten
Dead, sir.

SM 2
Dead?

Ten
W-We thought to check the lower areas of the ship, thought it might be there based on what knowledge we have of the Hurricane’s layout. It’s falling apart, but there are rooms down there that fit in with some of the blank spaces on what maps we have.

SM 1
What you saying Nineteen, a griffon, fell to his death.

Ten
No Fifty-Four. I never saw what it was but I know he went to check out what sounded like singing. Before I knew it, whatever he had gone to investigate had ripped out his throat and chest.

SM 2
What the fuck?

Fifty-Four
Singing? You sure that is what they heard.

Ten
Yes. Didn’t recognize the melody but there was something almost alluring about it. It must have some power behind it, that is the only way I can explain what happened.

Fifty-Four
…

SM 2
…

Ten
S-Sir?

Fifty-Four
Where was it?

Ten
Huh?

Fifty-Four
The singing you heard. Where exactly was it?

Act 3 – Chapter 4: Growing Pains

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Act 3 – Chapter 5: Love Bug

Day 20

San Palomino Desert

“Got to be honest, while I am aware of the pain it is causing sugar,” Amaryllis said, not even bothering to whisper as Gemmy, Falke, and themselves watched Hearty inspect my newest physical appendage, “it is just so adorable. I’ve never seen one so tiny before.”

If it wasn’t for Hearty’s specific instruction to not move, I would have shot the changeling a harsh glare. The doctor was doing what little he could with a PipBuck and the very few medical utensils he could carry in his saddlebags. He looked ready to blow up based on the twitching eyelid and how only one side of his muzzle was curled downward. Knowing that it was all pointed at me, or rather the thing on my forehead, was both amusing and worrying. Its entire exist was no doubt causing him a large amount of stress.

“I’m pretty sure I already know the answer, but this isn’t normal for unicorns, right?” Falke asked.

“No, not normal in the slightest,” Hearty answered through gritted teeth. “We unicorns are typically born with our horns. Sure it grows alongside us as we grow up, but I’ve only seen one pony actually grow a horn in my lifetime.”

“Really?” Gemmy said, practically beam in intrigue. “Who was it?”

Open Heart scowled at my daughter, who seemed to instantly realize she already knew the answer to her own question. With a sheepish grin, she darted her eyes in the direction of the stream. She giggled in embarrassment as a hoof rubbed her withers.

“Right, sorry,” she said. Her ears, which had started to fall, perked right back up moments later. “Is it similar to Willow?”

“Highly doubt it. If she had an IMP infection the doctors back in Underside would have told us,” He said. “On one hoof, that keeps her out of the Goddess clutches. On the other, every moment I spend trying to think about it just makes me more pissed.”

“You do realize I’m standing right here,” I said, earning a glare from my doctor. I was more than used to his constant irritation that it didn’t bother me anymore. “Kind of rude to talk about a pony like she isn’t there.”

“I know that,” he stated, enthusiastically pointing at my forehead. “But that little nub on your head is currently all I can think about. I’m a doctor, not some spirit healer or whatever; very little about your physical health makes much sense to me.”

“Well, there is one thing you can be sure of,” Amaryllis said. “You're no longer the smallest one here.”

Hearty was ready to give the changeling some form of retort when he hesitated. He closed his mouth, tapped his hoof, and then looked at me. With his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth, he eyed my forehead with one eye close, as if looking for stray green hair in an otherwise black mane. When he was done, he allowed the tiniest of smiles on his face. It only stayed for a second before he started frowning.

“You know, that is probably the nicest thing you’ve said to me since we’ve met,” he replied. He followed it up with a shrug. “I’ll take it while I can. Nice to have a small, albeit temporary victory before it gets bigger than mine.”

I looked up in a futile attempt to see my own horn, gulping in nervousness. “It won’t hurt as bad from here on, right?”

“I don’t remember my horn aching too badly when it was growing,” Gemmy told me, “so I don’t think so. It was probably all the other things that hurt badly, and not just the horn itself.”

“While I certainly would not go to Gemini for medical advice, I agree with that,” Hearty said. “The soreness and aching is likely a result of the punctured skin and the fact you quite literally grew a new bone. It won’t completely go away, but as long as you don’t touch it, hit it against anything, or use magic…,” he stopped for a moment, tapping his chin and tilting his head. “Actually, does it hurt to use it?”

“Only one way to find out, right?”

“Y-yeah?” I answered hesitantly.

With a deep, nervous breath, I closed my eyes and tried to levitate a single grain of sand. To my surprise, nothing happened. The yellow and red aura I had come to know as mine did not appear, and not a single grain of sand was displaced. For a moment, I was confused as to why nothing seemed to happen. Then something hit me, more than a little terrifying to realize: the horn I was trying to use was Dead Hooves, not my own.

The unicorn hadn't completely merged into me! While worrying due to not knowing what other changes could possibly occur to me, it at least explained why channeling magic through her horn no longer worked. I could no longer think of it as somepony else's horn that I was just borrowing, it was truly mine. If my focus just changed to my own horn, then it would be no different than any time before.

The moment I realized that, my mind instantly rushed to the tiny little nub on the top of my head. In less than a second my magic aura appeared on it…

“Danse, that wasn’t an invitation to–“

“F-fuck!”

The pain that laced through my head the moment I tried to cast telekinesis nearly made me black out. It was more than enough to make the rest of my body collapse to the ground. Wrapping my forelegs right over it, inwardly begging for the pain to stop, I groaned. The throbbing in my horn had flared back up fiercely, easily some of the worst pain I had ever felt in my entire life. Didn’t matter that it faded nearly as quickly as it appeared, the damage was done.

“Mom?” Gemmy called. She had rushed her way over to me immediately, the sweet mare she was.

“I’m… not fine,” I said, trying to get back up on my hooves. “That felt worse than nearly dying.”

“Well, at least you’re now aware of how sensitive horns are,” Hearty replied. “As I was originally going to say, before my curiosity stoked your own, no magic for at least today. In general you will not want to bump it, touch it, or just generally aggravate it under any circumstance.”

I nodded, and then mumbled to myself, “Not too different from teats during puberty then. Great.”

Gemmy got a laugh out of that as well, having been close enough to hear my words. Whether it was due to the statement being accurate, inaccurate, or just overall a funny comparison. Her laugh made me smile, and the pain got just the slightest bit easier to bear. Even if the throbbing hadn’t completely gone away, that bit of relief was far better than nothing.

“This won’t keep us stationary at least,” Amaryllis spoke up as they and Falke walked a little closer to us. “Unless the doctor has some reason to state otherwise?”

“I was apprenticing back in my stable when mine started growing. Danse will be fine,” Hearty replied, giving me a smirk. “Besides, she’s a bit too stubborn for something like this to keep her down.”

“Damn right!” I said. Almost subconsciously, I nearly tapped my horn with a hoof yet again, catching myself the moment one of my forelegs left the ground. “Though not touching it is definitely going to be difficult.”

“That’s just because it’s new,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”

Due to the aforementioned horn, Gemini’s workout was shortened drastically so that we would still have time to eat before heading out. My eyes constantly drifted up, trying and failing to catch the eye of the tiny bump on my head. Despite what Hearty said, the idea that I would get used to my new horn felt impossible. Next to Iron Anchor, it was probably the most distracting thing I had ever had in my life. The main difference, outside of one being the love of my life and an entirely different pony, was the fact it constantly reminded me it was there, taunting me just out of sight.

It wasn’t heavy, at least not yet, but the constant attempts at looking at it caused an ache in my neck. I knew it was there. Its weight and shape, while miniscule, was more than present enough for me. Add in the soreness constantly irradiating from it into the rest of my skull, and what everycreature had expected to be a normal day had been thoroughly trampled on. Not to say that, for all my problems with it, the new appendage wasn’t appreciated.

In fact, something about it being there, nagging me, annoying my every waking minute, was nice. Something about having a horn felt right, like I had always meant to have one. More than likely it was DH affecting me on some subconscious level, given she had been a unicorn. The idea of being mentally manipulated by whatever spell she cast was not fun, but it was a fact of my life now. No escaping or deny the truth before my eyes.

Besides, whether the feelings were born from mental manipulation or not, the horn was still nice to have. The thought of it growing longer, of feeling it’s weight, of being able to look in any mirror or river and know that it was mine, filled me with some form of pride. Did all unicorn’s feel this, or was it just a me thing? Never sought out an answer, but the question lingers in my head to this day.

Now if only I was the only one distracted by my horn.

It was painfully obvious that Amaryllis was, on some level, infatuated with me in the same way I seemed to like her. The difference in us lied in the fact that, while she had seemingly no problem with me, her zealotry for this ‘Messenger’ was about as big of a turn off as could be. They were the victim of a cult, the brainwashing was to be expected, but the fanatic reverence was almost scary at times. The preaching, the prayers throughout the day, the way they interjected the word ‘heretic’ and ‘sinner’ as if it was no different from the word ‘grounder.’ I couldn’t wait for the day we either snapped the changeling out of it or were free from them entirely.

Until then, I’d have to deal with their ogling and lust-filled compliments. Not that they weren't the only one of us doing the former, however. Amaryllis was still hot as fuck, and my brain couldn’t help itself.

Something about my horn though, it only seemed to fuel the changeling more than before. At some point during the day, seemingly at random, they specifically approached me. Their grin was cocky, eyes looking me up and down with desire like usual. With a heavy breath through my nostrils, I already knew the goal of Amaryllis’ was about to say.

“I got to say, sugar, it looks adorable on you,” they said, practically whispering the words into my ear. “I can only imagine what it will look like when fully grown, but I’m sure it will be strong and beautiful, just like you.”

The blush on my face was thankfully hidden by my coat color, not that it mattered. Amaryllis’ grin grew as their tongue flicked out to taste the emotions in the air. It was fascinating in a cute, yet also creepy, way. Somepony had to be really, really good at holding their emotions down for a changeling to not drink it. The idea of being read like a book might have terrified me, if their forked tongue quickly flicking out wasn’t adorable.

“You are just the cutest little thing,” they said, between amused chirping. “It’s one of the things I like about you, you know. You act big and strong, but inside you are just–“

“Please, stop,” I told the changeling, heavily embarrassed. There was no way the red on my face wasn't showing itself for everycreature to see. “This is not professional.”

“Professional? Sugar, we are currently in the middle of nowhere,” Amaryllis replied, my begging having only amusing them further. “No need to be the big, tough mare. Especially not for me.”

“It isn’t for you!” I said, snarling at them. “Perhaps I need to remind you of what my daughter currently thinks of you, before continuing.”

If the near animalistic sound of my voice didn’t scare them, mentioning my daughter definitely did. Amaryllis’ head instantly turned to Gemmy, who was happily prancing next to an extremely focused Falke, staring momentarily at the pony they knew was the biggest obstacle when it came to my approval. I smirked, the pride I felt at what Gemini did only grew greater at seeing the changeling’s perfect comprehension at what it meant.

It was also nice, in a way, to see them genuinely pause their teasing and flirting. At the very least, it meant Amaryllis wanted to prove themself to my daughter.

“I meant the apology,” the changeling states.

“Doesn’t matter if you meant it or not,” I said. “The timing, not to mention what you were using it for, might as well have made it fake.”

“The timing?” They asked. Sweet Celestia, as if the question itself wasn’t bad enough, there was genuine confusion on her face. “I didn’t think there was a wrong time to apologize.”

“You practically announced my daughter’s sexual abuse history to the rest of the room,” I replied, trying to not let the sparks of anger burst into an actual flame. “Did you say anything specific? No, but your words led to uncomfortable questions that she might not have ever wanted asked to her. Besides, given other ponies outside of you and her were present, what do you think was going to happen?”

Amaryllis seemed to think on it, their mandibles moving aimlessly as they closed their eyes to focus. When she opened them once more, they were locked on me, a noticeable regret visible in the way their eyelids hung.

“I can’t find fault in your words,” they said. “I have misjudged my actions and caused harm. As the Voice of the Messenger, such harm is not just a stain on myself, but on Her. I offer my deepest apologies to you and your daughter, Danse Macabre.”

Her words came with a subtle bow of her head, an odd humility fastened into it that almost felt wrong. I thought I had Amaryllis at least somewhat figured out, but watching them act like that had given me a different side to their zealotry. It was probably the first real sign that there was more to the changeling’s faith than calling those they didn’t like heretics. Not that it made any of the bad less problematic; they were still using ponies for slave labor, and Equalism was still very much a cult.

Still, knowing that Amaryllis had some modesty was better than nothing.

“It’s a start,” I said with a heavy sigh. “Don’t expect that to be enough, however.”

“Of course. Abuse is abuse after all,” they replied with a nod of their head. “Whatever happened to her, sugar, know that if I ever met the individual responsible, they would either see a life behind bars or a swift end.”

“As far as I know, the latter has already happened,” I quietly muttered to myself. They didn’t need to know those who had enslaved Gemmy and her mom were long dead by now.

I allowed some silence after that, giving both Amaryllis and myself some time to let each others words truly sink in. During that time I considered what little I knew about the Equalists, or how much I didn’t know to be exact. Given what Amaryllis had told us about our mission, knowing at least a little about the place she came from would be necessary.

“Is Amaryllis really the creature we should ask this?”

“Unless you see a better option, they’re all we got,” I explained to my inner selves. There was some strange sense of satisfaction at the back of my mind from the answer, which I took as meaning they had no problem with my reasoning. Clearing my throat, I raised my voice so that Amaryllis could hear me. “Well, since we’re already talking, I might as well ask you something.”

The changeling’s expression brightened immediately. They leaned into me, wings buzzing and mandibles clicking in excitement. It was so strange to see and yet so cute at the same time. So cute, so hot, it was impossible not to just lose myself in the look for some time.

“Well sugar, go on,” Amaryllis said with an innocent jab at my chest. “You can say that only to leave a ‘ling hanging.”

“R-r-right!” I said, shaking my head to try and clear my mind. It was only half effective; those eyes of theirs are just so beautiful! “Well, it isn’t the main question I was going to ask, but, um… why do you call me sugar?”

The double facehoof I felt in the back of my mind instantly made me aware of what I had just opened myself up to. Amaryllis was more than intelligent enough to see the avenue of attack I had unknowingly given them. They didn’t hide that, at all, their smile slowly turning from something simple into something bordering on insidious. Then, it grew sultry.

“Oh sugar, it’s simple,” they whispered into my ear. “Your love is delicious and sweet.”

“H-h-huh?”

“You didn’t know emotions have a taste, did you?” Amaryllis asks. I was too flustered to respond, not that Amaryllis’ chirps of amusement made it any easier. “Of course you didn’t. It’s okay, just know that being around you scratches my sweet tooth more than any solid food on the planet. Oh how I would love to become another of that love’s catalyst,” she suddenly leaned away, smiling proudly, “but we should wait till your daughter is a bit more comfortable with our love. I’ll just stick to teasing you for now. After all, I’m already spoiling myself just having you in my presence, twenty-four seven.”

I started bouncing on my hooves as if the surface below me was hot as magma, my face an entirely different shade of red than usual. Amaryllis knew how to tease me way to fucking well, it was both embarrassing and a little unnerving. Their chirping made me more than aware that they were pleased with the results, not to mention proud of it. At least they seemed to understand on some level that actively pursuing me was a no-go right now. Not that it eased my mind in any way.

“Not that you can deny enjoying it~”

“Shut!” I whispered. I took a deep breath in an attempt to bring myself under some amount of emotional control. As if that would save me from Amaryllis’ voice and sultry words. “S-so, the actual question I wanted to ask.”

“Ah, that is right,” the changeling said. “What was it you wanted to ask?”

“Well, while some of us have knowledge of the Equalists from an outside perspective, we don’t really know much about your home,” I explained. “So, as the only one here who has actually lived in Our Haven, I was wondering if you could tell me anything about home.”

Their wings fluttered in excitement, faces practically glowing. No surprise at all there; I had fully expected them to jump at this chance. With what little I know about them, they probably saw it as an attempt to sell me on Equalism. It fit in with how they seemed to view themself as this destined savior. They certainly were doing a good job fooling themself, especially since ‘saving’ Our Haven seemed to be the plan.

“Oh Danse, sugar, it would mean the world to be the thing that guides you into the messenger’s light,” Amaryllis said, basically confirming all of that.

“I didn’t say anything about that,” I replied. Amaryllis’ excitement died instantly, her mandibles drooping and a sad, chittering sound leaving her mouth. “I just mean I want to know your culture and how to blend in. We’ll have to know it once we get to Our Haven, after all, so we aren’t found out as heretics.”

“I… of course,” Amaryllis said along with more sad chitters. They did their best to keep it out of their voice, but the sorrow in their eyes was impossible to rub out. “Apologies. I’m not exactly used to this.”

I blinked, then tilted my head. “Not used to what?”

“Talking informally,” they answered. “My queen, no, my former queen did not birth me as a simple drone like my brothers and sisters. I was raised to be an Arm of the Messenger, my life in service to Her and nothing more. More specifically however, I was one of several candidates meant to become the next queen of the hive.”

“A… queen?” I asked.

“That is what I said, right?” They asked back, rhetorically. “I was raised to hopefully succeed her, my queen, my mom. Then, a show of compassion to a group of poor, starved drones makes me this and she… she…”

There was an angry, almost violent buzz in their wings, one they attempted to quell not too long after it appeared. The changeling princess tried to focus on their breathing, something clear hard given the fact their wing’s continued to periodically buzz in agitation. My ears fell halfway, and Amaryllis earned a drop of my sympathy. Enough for them to taste, apparently.

“I fear that I’m not that familiar with standard conversation outside of my faith and love.” they said. “Saxophone was one of the only things I had that could really be considered a hobby. Even then, learning it wasn’t exactly out of choice. A friend, another Arm of the Messenger, introduced me to it.”

“I, uh, see,” I replied. Half of what they said made no sense to me, but that did give me room to ask questions. “Let's start off with these Arms of the Messenger you mentioned.”

“Ah, that’s easy to explain.” Amaryllis’ muzzle turned upwards, a prideful smile on her face. “We are pastors, priests, delivering the beliefs of the Messenger to Her faithful. We also officiate weddings on Union days.”

“Officiate?” I asked, my brow rising in surprise. “You have weddings?”

“I know, quite the contrast to the rest of this damned continent, isn’t it?” they rhetorically asked back. “My hive didn’t have them until the Messenger and Her followers arrived at our home. It’s one of the many ways Her teachings have affected us, and one of the many pieces of pony culture that we have adopted.”

“Got to say, I wasn't expecting that. Not that I’m entirely sure what I should have expected to begin with,” I replied. To the best of my ability, I smacked myself with one of my wings, inwardly scolding myself. “Fucking Enclave.”

Amaryllis tilted their head towards me. “I’m not quite sure why you are cursing out your birthplace.”

“I spent most of my life believing myself to be better, thinking everyone down here is some barbarian or scum of the earth. I know better now obviously but,” I shook my head, scowling, “some things take a bit longer to change, I guess. When I asked you about Equalist society I expected Our Haven or your hive to be alien.”

“My mention of pheromones being used to give orders did not help, did it?” the changeling asked. After a second of hesitation, I nodded my head. They dropped their head, a solemn look on their face. “You come from a dark place that had long corrupted you with sick, twisted thoughts and beliefs. Those are not easy to free yourself from, and even harder to not fall back into. Their persistence in your head is understandable, even if the Messenger is hurt to hear them. Continue on your path, unnatural soul, and in time freedom from those thoughts will become true.”

The sudden shift in tone of the prideful, lusty changeling was nearly enough to make me stumble on my own hooves. My brain had trouble thinking about the fact that this was the same changeling that had earlier been teasing me about the taste of my love. It made their claims of being a priest believable. It actually sounded like advice someone like them would offer when in a confessionary. Not that I had any experience to relate it to.

There were no churches in Aery. Enclave gave less of a shit about that than the surface. What few did exist were around from before the end of the old world, and those who visited it were miniscule and were never given materials to make necessary repairs. All of that went to the military, research and development, or medical.

“Aw, have I left you speechless sugar?” Amaryllis teased.

I was not aware that I had been staring at them until that point, and to say the realization made me red in the face would be correct. Yet another mental facehoof from my inner selves made me cringe a little at how helpless I was to such things. Anchor would be so disappointed if he saw any of this.

I’m sorry, my love. I technically already cheated on you once with Willow, and at that moment I considered doing it again. The only thing that kept me from it was not you, but Gemini.

“You really were a priest, weren’t you?” I asked in an attempt to dodge Amaryllis' question.

“It seemed obvious to me, but I guess to a godless, heretic filled world like the one you come from it might not be,” they said. The insensitive, if somewhat correct, nature of their words were more than enough to banish the worst of my own desire. “I believe we have spent enough time talking about Her Hooves, though. Let us move onto other things.”

The rest of the day was slow, even with the consistent topic of conversation. Not a whole lot to do outside of that when all you have is a stream, rocks, and acres upon acres of sand around you. Couldn’t even fly, again, due to the sensitivity of my new horn. What little excitement occurred was born from settling down for the evening, and it was nothing compared to the emotional last few days in Underside.

I finally gave the Trench Buster a bit of attention. Falke helped me out with learning how to care for a material weapon. The thing had already gotten a decent amount of sand inside of it over the course of the last few days, and it made me aware that the Novasurge was going to need similar treatment. Frustrating, even if rather expected for the environment.

My dreams were also not worth mentioning, outside of the fact that they followed the same pattern as the one from the previous night. Same blurry vision, same hunger, though this time my body felt far more absent then it did before. It was also a lot less pleasant, though I was not entirely sure about it. Maybe it was just how hungry I seemed to be in it; it felt like I was on the verge of death, that it was possible if I didn’t eat something in a minute I could die.

Then the sun rose, our fourth day out in the middle of what seemed to be nowhere. That wasn’t true, however. Open Heart and I both knew we were less than a day’s walk from Shorelock thanks to our PipBuck and MentaBuck. The more we would walk, the less ‘middle of nowhere’ we would be. Before we were able to get moving though, two things got in the way. The first one being my horn.

It had grown noticeably while I was asleep, though it still did not come close to the smallest of the horns in our group. Hearty practically demanded that he check it every day, just to make sure nothing about it caused a risk to my physical well being. It was, thank the princesses, and it also didn’t ache as much the day before. Not to say that it wasn’t itchy or aggravating, or that I was allowed to start casting spells once again, but it was an improvement.

“The sensitivity is likely just a result of the new nerves in your body getting used to existing… probably,” Hearty said. I frowned at him. “Need I remind you what I said yesterday? You growing a horn is not normal. You aren’t some IMP victim like Will– the goddess’ alicorn’s are. Everything right now is just theory and hypothesis.”

“Well, doctor,” I replied. “If that is the case, would you have a hypothesis about its existence?”

Hearty shrugged. “About as much of one as anypony else. We know it’s a result of your merging with Dead Hooves, and honestly none of us know if you two are done merging. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this is the final thing that hasn’t become one yet.”

“Well, that and…”

My inner selves didn’t need to finish that. The thought scared them as much as it did me but… it was entirely possible. They certainly had been getting quieter and quieter since I woke up.

“The only one that would likely know is a zebra shaman, and even then I’m not sure if they’d have ever seen a case like you before,” Hearty said. “Well, them or this Vigil griffon you met.”

“Vigil is as clueless as the rest of us,” I replied. A sigh left my muzzle as terrifying truth set in. “There’s… no telling when this is going to stop, is there?”

“No, not really,” Hearty said. He stomped the ground in anger, and then brought that same hoof to his face. “I’m sorry Danse.”

“There was nothing you could do to stop it,” I told him, placing a wing on his withers. “Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

He forced a smile, as fake as it was obvious. It’s impossible to gauge exactly where his pain came from, outside of knowing Willow was the main cause. He continually assured me that I was not one of the Goddess’, as if I needed much more confirmation than my own magenta coat. Hearty would never admit though that he was scared of losing ponies, at least in a straightforward manner. Stallion was stubborn to a fault, a quality I used to hate that now was one of his best.

There were other pieces to it, though. At least I thought there was more to it than just Willow Wisp’s departure from our lives. There was the Dealer lurking over him in a manner far less friendly than Vigil was to me, and his status as one of the wasteland's few true medical professionals. There was the guilt at killing Dead Hooves all those years ago; did he think about that now, whenever he looked at me? So many different variables, all likely responsible to some basic extent, but what if one was a bigger influence than any of the others?

Just how much did he fear me dying?

“Well, your horn looks good, nothing to be concerned about,” he said, forcing a change in the subject. “Which means the only thing stopping us from getting moving now is Gemini.”

At the mention of my daughter, my eyes looked towards the second thing keeping us in place. It was only a matter of time until her new morning workouts made her feel sore and stiff, and that time had finally come. She was currently on her back, groaning in discomfort. With a roll of my eyes, I trotted my way up to her and stared down with a knowing smile.

“You good sweetie?” I asked her, already knowing well what the answer would be.

“Everything hurts,” she foalishly whined. “My legs are like water. I don’t like it.”

“None of us do, Gemmy,” I told her, lying down and trying to keep my amusement at reasonable levels. “It’s part of getting stronger though.”

“I’ve felt this sore before,” Gemmy said, looking up at me with watery eyes. “I don’t like being sore.”

I winced, able to understand immediately what she was getting at. I did my best to keep smiling despite it all, tapping her on the shoulder.

“Being sore is a part of life, Gemini. It’s one of the many things we can’t take out of it,” I explained to her. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, as she tried to curl her head into her neck. “It will get better, though.”

Her head instantly turned back to me, ears twitching in intrigue. “It will?”

“Yes, as long as you keep on exercising,” I replied. She seemed slightly less enthused after that. “I know it isn’t the answer anypony wants, but it is the truth. The more you exercise, the stronger you will get, and the less you will get sore. Even when you do, it won’t bother you as much.”

“Was it that way for you?” she asked. I gave her a nod, and she rolled from her back onto her stomach. “Okay. If it helps me not feel sore anymore I’ll continue doing it.”

“Then get up, it’s time for us to start,” I said. Gemmy’s jaw dropped, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes again. “You get a day off tomorrow, since we will be in Shorelock. Now come on, we’re going back walking anyway so there is no reason not to. Same routine as always.”

While she wasn’t thrilled, Gemini did as she was told. Getting up onto her hooves, she started the workout regime that we had decided on days earlier, though altered given both the heat and her own capabilities. I watched her all the while, correcting her posture when needed to or otherwise. She would whine about it, but that was to be expected from somepony who wasn’t used to this or had a drill sergeant ready to chew them out at a moment’s notice.

“You are kind, but not lenient,” Falke said at some point. Wasn’t entirely sure when he had made his way next to me, but the older griffon seemed intrigued by how I handled Gemini’s training. “You remind me of my own mom and dad, though maybe not as kind. Pushed me through the ringer when I was younger.”

“As was I, though young for you and young for me are probably a bit different,” I replied. “Didn’t start working out till I joined the Enclave. Was more concerned with other things before that point.”

“What age can you join the Enclave military?” Falke asked.

“Eighteen.”

“Ah, so that didn’t change.”

“Was it the same back before the Last Day?”

“Apparently.”

“Huh, guess you are right then.” My focus temporarily turned away from my daughter, my front left hoof tapping the sandy ground beneath us. “How much never did?”

Falke’s head turned to me. “What do you mean?”

“The Enclave, my home. We were raised to believe that what we have up there is better than anything that ever was down here,” I explained, scrunching my muzzle up in thought. “I’m already aware that things, while maybe not great down here, are not what I was led to believe. I can’t help but wonder, however, how much of the Enclave is like the Equestria that existed when the world ended.”

Falke looked back to Gemmy, tilting his head left and right in deep thought himself. Just like my forehoof, one of his talons was now tapping the ground. Nothing came to me, and it seemed pretty clear nothing came to him. We both sighed near simultaneously, and I sat down as I realized the near impossibility of the answer.

“We’ll never truly know, will we?” I asked him. “We can hear stories from creatures, view memory orbs, Gemmy and I can talk to all the ghosts we want, but we will never know how true it is.”

“Yep,” the old griffon replied. “Propaganda, homely bias, stories being twisted due to age and misunderstanding to the point the truth no longer exists.”

“It sucks, but it’s a fact of life,” I mumbled, scrunching my muzzle even further in frustration. Knowing that train of thought was going to go nowhere, I turned my attention back to Gemmy. “They’re push-ups, not half-ups. Chest to the ground!”

“I’m trying!” Gemmy said in her own mixture of irritation and determination.

She might not be as excited about it anymore as she was on that first day, but she was still giving up. A smug, proud grin wormed its way onto my face the more I watched her. There was strength in there she wasn’t aware she had, or too afraid to let thrive. Hopefully, within a few weeks, this would help her feel more comfortable with letting it out for all of us to see.

There it was. Several days of traveling, and Shorelock was visible for us to see.

It immediately set itself apart from Underside from having no walls surrounding it, or most of it anyways. Anyone could walk in or out just fine without a single worry. This was Southern San Palomino’s ‘capital’, for lack of a better term, right? A part of me figured that it would be even more fortified than somewhere like Underside. At first I thought it was due to a lack of resources, but not only did that not make sense due to them clearly finding some to build a wall, but the real reason was exceptionally obvious.

Why would the Shattered Moon need a wall when they have a fortress watching over the entire city?

Standing out like a pine tree in the very desert I stood in was Shorelock Prison, a beast of a building able to rival that of Trotson M.A.S. hub. It was fenced and guarded like a building of its nature usual would, but with more firearms than usual. Prison guards above the clouds (yes, we don’t throw everything we don’t like down to the surface) were not allowed guns. Batons were all the military allowed them, and it seemed to work effectively enough. The Shattered Moon seemed to think the same.

“I see you’ve noticed the hellhound in the room,” Amaryllis said, having changed into their earth pony disguise the moment the city was within eyesight. Their eyes ran all over the prison, practically violating it with them. “That is why I’m here?”

“The prison?” I asked. When they nodded, I briefly looked back to the building in question, and then to the changeling when I was finished. “I thought we were asking Lady Hesh for the Shattered Moon’s aide.”

“We are,” Amaryllis replied. “You don’t think they actually use that for its original purpose do you?”

Just like that, any assumption I had made about Shorelock Prison had evaporated. This prisoner was their headquarters, their ‘seat of government’ for lack of a better word. That alone made the building go from ominous to intimidating, as it almost felt like the building had eyes of its own, watching everything in Shorelock like an unforgiving guardian. One wrong move from anypony, and you’d end up in there for what it was originally made for, and not what it had become.

“From what I know, they purposefully got caught in order to be sent here,” Falke explained. “It was the most secure prison on the west coast, and with everything they got up to before the end of the world? Nowhere else they would be sent. Since Shorelock wasn’t a megaspell target, it was the perfect place to hide away while the world ended.”

“And when it did, and everypony realized it, their message of unity and acceptance would be approached a lot more willingly,” I said. The conclusion wasn’t too hard to draw, especially considering what I’ve seen and heard about the Shattered Moon so far. “Must have been a heck of a break out when the megapsells dropped.”

“W-w-wait,” Gemini said, looking between Falke, Amaryllis, and myself with clear fear, “w-we’re going in there?”

“That seems to be the plan, unless the bug has something else they want to do first,” Hearty answered.

Amaryllis shook her head. “They already know I’m coming. No reason to wait, especially when Lady Hash is expecting us.”

Thus, after asking a local for directions to the prison’s entrance, we made our way there. I spent that time familiarizing myself with everything in Shorelock not our destination. Anypony could see where post-last day architecture ended and pre-last day architecture began. Streets made for walking turned into those made for auto-carriages, the former far better maintained then the latter. There were areas where old world asphalt roads had been completely replaced with the brick that not just the streets, but many of the newer houses and buildings were made of as well.

There was no need to guess where they got the clay to make it, not with the stream we had followed here and the ocean.

Sweet Celestia, I was not prepared for the smell of the ocean. The salty smell of the air was unlike anything I had ever smelled before, making my nostrils and mouth feel dry from them alone. Couldn’t hear or see the waves –we weren’t heading near the harbor after all – but it wasn’t hard to imagine how horrible the water must actually taste if it filled the air like this!

“Pray to Celestia we never have to find out.”

In time we reached the gate leading into the prison, a rather bored yet attentive Shattered Moon sitting in a booth. He saw us at the same time we saw him, and any sense of lazing around disappeared in a snap. Gun at rest, he watched us approach him. Amaryllis took the lead, given they were the one with the actual invitation inside. That also meant there was the possibility that the rest of us would been forced to wait outside.

“Good day ma’ams, sirs,” the Shattered Moon said.

“Hello there,” Amaryllis said. The seductive undertone in their voice was a lot more lowkey in those first two words, but it was present. “The name is Amaryllis Bloom, and I’m here to see Lady Hash. She should be aware of my arrival.”

Instead of response, the Shattered Moon turned to his radio and spoke into it. “One, this is Three-Eleven, you read me? I have a stallion here, whose name is Amaryllis Bloom, who says they have a meeting with the boss. Appearance… earth pony, stallion, purple coat, yellow mane.”

He absentmindedly nodded along, letting out affirmative humming every once in a while. After a jumble of sounds that was probably some equivalent of a ‘sir, yes sir’ his hoof fell off the radio. His attention shifted from the disguised changeling to us.

“Mister Bloom, are they with you?” He asked.

“They are my bodyguards, so yes,” Amaryllis replied, sensually smiling at us all.

“Understood,” Three-Eleven said. “I’m sure you all know the drill. No weapons within Shattered Moon premises, you leave them with me.”

“I’m surprised you allowed us to bring them into Shorelock to begin with,” Hearty said.

“This is Lady Hash’s home,” One-Eleven replied. “You’d have to be stupid to try anything with her around.”

“You know, this is the second time in less than a week we’ve walked into one of their bases, blindfolded, to meet somepony we don’t know.”

At least this time I was more than aware of who that somepony actually was.

All of us, including Amaryllis, were currently blind as we were guided through the prison. It had happened enough now where it was less disorienting and moreso just a nuisance, never quite sure if my next step was going to accidentally brush up against one of the multiple creatures around us. If anything I felt anxious, because knowing who we were about to meet just made the possibility of things going wrong a thousand times worse.

“Will she be nice? Authoritarian? With the Equalists it's easy to imagine what their leader is like but the Shattered Moon are hard to read. That’s the point though, isn’t it?”

My inner selves couldn’t help but theorize about Lady Hash, and it only made that anxiety worse. There wasn’t much I could say to them without making myself look insane to everycreature around me. The prison halls were deadly quiet, or at least the areas we were being led through were. Every once and a while we’d catch whispered conversation, the clip clop of hooves, and a bunch of other miscellaneous sounds whose sources were outside my ability to guess. Didn’t matter what it was, they were all off putting when you had no idea where you were and where you were going.

Yet like each time I had done this before, there was a point where the curtains were lifted. One final door closed behind us, and we were no longer moving. For five seconds nothing happened, but then a collection of hooves hit my ears. Someone had stepped forward, and in response something squeaked, likely rusted metal.

“I assume these are our visitors, Twenty,” a voice said. It had that same rough, damaged sound to it that Hearty’s did. The kind of voice synonymous with being a ghoul, but in this case feminine and older.

“Yes, Lady Hash,” a Shattered Moon said, this Twenty Lady Has mentioned if I were to hazard a guess.

“Take the blindfolds off. If what their leading stallion said is true, then it is best we do this face to face,” Lady Hash ordered. Even with the ghoulification of her voice, it was impossible to not hear the militaristic tone that was carried through each word.

“A-Are you sure?” Twenty asked. The concern alone showed how much these creatures care for their leader.

“That was an order Twenty. Remove the blindfolds.”

Not even a second later I found my eyes no longer bound. The first thing that caught all of our eyes was the four individuals watching the five of us, guns at rest but ready in case anything happened. There was an uneasiness to the way they watched us, as if they weren’t entirely sure how to gauge this situation. Visiting Lady Hash must have been a rare occurrence.

The second thing I noticed was the room we were in. We were in an office room, the warden’s office if I were to take a guess. Well preserved books laid on shelving on the wall to my left, some form of reward from the original warden still hanging on the wall next to them. The right was bare save for a single picture. It had on it three ponies, though only the front two were really visible. It was a military wedding between an unicorn and a pegasi, one I instantly recognized thanks to her artificial right foreleg.

Lightning Dust, the founder of Shattered Moon. As for the unicorn she was happily standing next to in the picture?

Her ghoul was right before us all, sitting at a desk, a tired, judging look in those light blue eyes of hers. She was the only one besides the five of us to not have their face hidden. Before me was a mare with a dark purple coat, a patchy maroon mane on her head, and a horn. A broken horn, to be exact, a sight that made Hearty, Gemmy, and myself cringe slightly. If growing one had been uncomfortable, I can only imagine what it would feel like.

“I assume you are Amaryllis Bloom,” she said, her eyes on the disguised changeling. Amaryllis nodded. “I know what you are. Undisguise, then we can talk.”

Amaryllis smirked, and in a rupture of green flames a really hot stallion was replaced with an equally hot changeling. The mare didn’t react at all, save for a rather slow blink and a heavy breath out.

“Lady Hash, I assume?” Amaryllis asked.

“Correct, and you,” Lady Hash said, leaning forward. The guards suddenly snapped their guns up, Gemmy letting out a scared gasp as one was pointed at everypony save herself, “know far too much.”

Author's Note

Am starting to work on other writing things as well, just so I don't completely burn myself out on this since I've been working on it for about a year and a half now. Chapter releases might become slightly slower, but it should be too bad for you all.

Figured it was just good to warn you all, that's all!

Act 3 – Chapter 6: What Comes Back to Haunt You

Day 21

Shorelock Prison, San Palomino Desert

“For fuck sake, can we go anywhere without somepony threatening to kill us?”

It was a shared sentiment, but currently my anger was less pointed at the guns and more at the changeling I knew was responsible for this. I should have known, I really should have known that Amaryllis’ blatant disregard for the Shattered Moon’s rules were going to get us in trouble. Not that they seemed to realize that, looking at the weapons with the barest hint of confusion visible. That sense of blindness was really irritating.

“Lady Hash, I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Amaryllis said with total sincerity. “I’m not here to cause any trouble. This visit was in hopes of–”

“I know why you are here, I received your message,” Hash replied, the cold delivery more than enough to silence the changeling. “You really think I’d cooperate with you after how much of a fool you’ve made of my Numbers?”

“Again, Lady Hash, I fail to see what I did that could cause this,” Amaryllis replied, her attempt to take a step forward being halted with a gun moving closer to her skull. “Whatever happened, I’m sure we can talk through this and work out whatever misunderstanding has occurred.”

“There is nothing to discuss. You know the identity of my Numbers, and now you know my face,” Hash explained, leaning even further over her table. That look in her eyes was one I had worn a thousand times during my service in the Enclave. It was uncaring, unloving, and deaf. Nothing Amaryllis said mattered to her. “Did you really think I’d reveal myself if I planned to let you leave this room alive?”

“Danse, it’s going to hurt but–”

“I got it,” I said, more than loud enough to grab everycreature’s attention. I charged my horn, ignoring how badly it ached. “Hash, cover your eyes!”

Hash, while having no reason to believe me, did as instructed and averted her eyes. Hearty and Falke did the same, the former problem more than familiar with exactly where this was going. Amaryllis looked straight to me as I gritted my teeth, and every gun once pointed at her was now pointed at me.

“Sugar, what are you doing?”

Instead of answering, I closed my eyes and let loose the charged spell at the same time Hash let out a command to her guards.

“Fire!”

The pulse of magic swept through the room ‘i’ in ‘fire’ was said, leaving none of them able to pull their triggers. When the word finished and the spell ended, I fell to the ground. The headache gained from the mere act of casting a spell nearly blocked out all of my body’s senses, with touch being the only exception. It was how I was able to feel both Hearty and Falke on either side, pushing me back up onto my hooves, the latter allowing me to momentarily lean against their side.

It took a moment for my vision to focus, but when I did I was more than able to notice that the spell had worked. Amaryllis, not to mention the Shattered Moon that had just been ready to kill us, all now held the same black look in their eyes. With the exception of breathing and standing, all their higher functions had momentarily stopped. I already knew Hearty and Falke had dodged it, as had Hash, but a special note of relief passed through me when I heard the heavy breathing of Gemini on the other side of Falke.

“It’s okay, Gemmy. They will be fine,” I said, voice strained from the throbbing in my horn. “Fuck that hurt.”

“Not sure whether to be angry at you or relieved that I’m currently alive,” Hearty said. He seemed ready to smack me in the back of the head, but held his hoof back. “Never thought I’d be thanking you for fucking with ponies minds.”

“Didn’t want to, but didn’t see another option,” I replied.

An odd, crackling sound drew my attention to the front of the room, to the only other pony currently still functioning. Hash didn’t look happy, for obvious reasons, broken horn eliciting sparks, likely ready to fry all of us. She barely held herself back, and I was instantly aware that I was one wrong move from getting electrocuted.

“What did you do?” Hash asked, glowering at me like an Enclave officer would to a halfbreed recruit for simply standing wrong.

“I temporarily turned off all but the most necessary functions needed to survive,” I explained. “They’ll awaken when I tell them to. Everything between the moment I cast the spell to the moment I canceled it will be a haze, like waking up from a dream.”

“How?!” she demanded, standing up. Her horn crackled even more violently than before, something I didn’t think was possible. “You’re a pegasi. There is no way you should be able to cast magic.”

“A pegasi?” Falke and I asked around the same time. The griff had a little more to add on afterwards. “Danse Macabre is no pegasus, Lady Hash.”

I looked up, realizing that my horn was small enough, and my mane had grown long enough that the latter covered up the former. I brushed my mane out of the way, allowing Hash to view my growing horn. Her brow rose, the electricity in her horn lessening in ferocity. She sat back down and leered at me out of caution and intrigue,

“You aren’t one of the Goddess’s drones, are you?”

I allowed my bangs to fall once more, and shook my head. “No. My ascension was unnatural, but IMP was not involved.”

“If you need confirmation, I have a Stable doctor’s license on my PipBuck and can verify what she’s saying,” Hearty explained, stepping forward. “I’ll hoof it over if you want to see it.”

After a brief pause, Hash nodded. Stepping towards the desk, Hearty took his PipBuck off and hooved it over to her as he said. She took a look at it, sighed, and then motioned that he could have this back. As Hearty reattached the Pipbuck to his foreleg, Hash let out a sigh.

“I understand your reason for wanting Amaryllis dead, Lady Hash,” I said as Hearty came back over to us. “The four of us were made aware of their actions before we signed up. However, I must insist that you give them, if not the benefit of the doubt, the chance to prove themselves better.”

Hash stared at me for a moment, a scowl fixed onto her face not too dissimilar to the one I constantly forgot during my first week on the surface. Still, she was no longer ready to kill us, so that was an improvement.

“Alicorn or not, I’m not sure what ground you stand on to make such demands,” she said. “Besides, she has still broken regulations and rules meant to protect my Numbers. You can’t expect me to let them go free.”

“We’re not asking you too,” Falke replied. “Amaryllis does need to be punished, but I’m certain there is a better way of going about it.”

“As for what grounds I stand on,” I said, walking right up to the front of Hash’s desk. “I believe you were told about me by Three. Former member of the High Council, his higher up, a good friend.”

Her anger seemed to die down just a little bit more, but in it’s place came doubt. “Your friends called you Danse. Three called you Singing Rhapsody.”

“I lost the name,” I explained, “just a few days before the horn started growing.”

“Danse Macabre is two souls in the same body, conjoined to make one singular entity,” Hearty explained further. “Not sure what part of that caused the loss of name, but I’ve stopped making sense of it.”

“If you need to fact check, I’m sure me, my daughter, and my companions are more than willing to wait in a cell while you make whatever radio calls you need to,” I said. “Obviously, that will also come with releasing your soldiers from my spell.”

Hash stayed silent, eyes refusing to leave my own for even a split second. She crossed her hooves, let out an aggravated sigh, and shrugged. I had no idea if any of what I had just said would actually save us, but I had to try. Even if it offered the five of us a chance to plan some manner of escape. Anything to cover Amaryllis’ idiotic ass.

“We got a deal,” Hash said. “Release them.”

With a nod, and bracing myself for pain I knew would be coming, I lit my horn and canceled the memory spell. Hash’s guards stumbled slightly, but quickly reorientated themselves, looking at each other wondering what had just happened to them. Amaryllis trotted back into me subconsciously, their hooves placed in just the right way to nearly knock us both over. When they did recover, they looked back to me.

“What in the Messenger’s name just happened?” they muttered.

“Will, we just saved your life, at least for the moment,” I explained. Amaryllis tilted her head and lowered her mandibles in confusion. I chose to not give them the answer they wanted and instead turned back to Hash. “Done my part, now you have to do yours.”

Hash nodded. “The four of you, put them in five of the unoccupied cells, separately. I have a radio call to make.”

“Wh-what?” Amaryllis asked.

Hash’s guards saluted and moved to restrain everyone, all of us save for the changeling playing along. When one of the Shattered Moon’s approached with cuffs and blindfolds, they backed up. When they did finally catch them, they wiggled and squirmed to the point it was near impossible for them to get the cuffs on her hooves or the blindfold around her eyes. I already had both on, plus something around my horn, when the sound of magic hit my ears and her struggles suddenly lessened.

“Unhoof me. You can not restrain the Voice of the–”

“Amaryllis, shut up,” I barked at them.

“S-Suga–”

“I said shut up!” I yelled. A hoof was around my neck, holding me back from the changeling just in case I wanted to try and fight them. “You put us into this, and I’m doing everything in my power to keep us alive. So keep quiet, let them restrain you, and show some damn respect.”

“But… but…,” it was easy to hear the defeat in their voice growing greater until, finally, a sigh of resignation hit our ears. “Fine, Sugar. Just for you.”

I’m not entirely sure where they ended up putting the five of us, except for the fact we were all in different cells. The blindfolds and cuffs stayed on, the walls were thick enough where if any of them were nearby they couldn’t hear me, and the amount of room I had to pace was minimal. All I had to occupy myself were my own thoughts, Dead Hooves, and Rhapsody.

Not that there was a huge distinction between the latter two and the former most anymore.

“Well, so much for planning out some other means of escape,” they said. “You think Amaryllis is currently screaming their lungs out right now?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” I said, snorting. I was sitting against the wall of my cell, using the chains linking both cuffs to rub at whatever they had put on my horn. “I’m certain that, the moment they were in their own cell, they started shouting to be let out.”

Two minutes of silence passed before I got a response from them.

“Yeah, that does sound like them. Like, seriously, for somecreature so hot they really know how to make themself as unattractive as possible.”

I rolled my eyes under the blindfold. “You really still hung up on my attractiveness to them.”

Another long pause from them. “Just teasing you about your bad taste.”

“Oh, ha ha, shut up,” I replied, sticking my tongue out. Another pause, this one deliberate on my part, passed before I spoke again. “DH, Rhaps, are you two okay?”

Nothing. A full minute of silence followed the question with zero answer from either of them. With the lack of vision, the discomfort from my horn, and now the lack of response, something about it made me start to panic a little. My head swerved left and right, as if expecting to somehow see through the cloth over my eyes.

“DH? Rhapsody?” I called out. Still nothing from either of them. “Dead Hoo–”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” they finally said. Then out of nowhere, they got annoyed. “I said we are fine! Jeez, you took so long back in the office to do anything and now this. You got wax in your ears?”

I didn’t say anything, simply because I wasn’t entirely sure how to process how they were responding. To be silent for as long as they had, and then suddenly reply to not just my first question, but my calls to them immediately after as if they had just happened. That wasn’t even acknowledging the fact that I had cast the memory spell immediately after they said to. All of it, together, caused my panic to rise even higher than it already was.

“Why did you take so long to respond?” I asked them.

I knew even before they answered that it was going to take at least a minute to actually get something out of them. I had actually timed it in my head; it took fifty-nine seconds for them to say exactly what I thought they would.

“What are you talking about? You are the one taking forever to do things.”

There is only so many times my stomach could drop in a week before I actually got ill from it. Something was wrong, more wrong than nearly dying from Lady Hash not even half an hour ago. What they said both made no sense and made perfect sense at the same time. Their perception of time was off, that much was abundantly clear. How it had gotten de-synced in the first place was impossible to figure out.

Was this just another part of their individuality they were losing to me? The possibility should have felt terrifying, but then I remembered how they made me freeze up during my first night as Danse against my own will. The more they fused together, the more complete I became, the less I had to worry about that ever happening again. Something about that didn’t feel too bad, since it meant I could forever keep this body.

Something about that thought made me pause. This body was always mine, why was I so concerned about losing it?

The cell door opened not long after that, and somepony walked in. I stood up, looking in the direction I believed the door to be. It was hard to tell, with how sound echoed off every single wall. What was clear is that the door did not close; whoever was in here was hoping it’d be quick.

That pony, as I soon learned, was Lady Hash.

“Three verified what you told me,” Hash said. “He also was more than willing to reconfirm Amaryllis’ crimes.”

“I never said they were innocent.”

“Yet you ask me to not kill her despite breaking a law of my ponies. Why is that?”

“Three reasons, one more selfish than the other. One of those, obviously, is that I’ve been hired as their bodyguard,” I answered. “The selfish one is that there is somepony I have a vendetta against in Our Haven. I want them dead, and she is my way in.”

“And the last one?” Hash asked coldly.

“Amaryllis has a way into Paradise,” I said. Hash did not respond, making it clear even with blindfolds she wanted details. “My vendetta would allow me to enter as a prisoner. With Amaryllis and the others disguised as guards, we can sneak in and take Paradise from the inside.”

“Take Paradise?” Another voice, a Shattered Moon that had accompanied her, asked. “Lady Hash, if that is true…”

They didn’t finish, or rather didn’t need to. Hash knew what that meant as much as anypony else in Southern San Palomino knew, that seizing Paradise was the key to Shattered Moon’s victory. It was the only defense Amaryllis had, the one thing keeping her from being killed by this mare. All I needed to hear was a sigh from one of the ponies in front of me to know that, at the very least, it got them contemplating.

“You’ve put me in a moral dilemma, Danse Macabre,” Hash said. “You can’t expect me to let the changeling off free. Regardless of what information they hold, they have endangered the identity of my Numbers.”

“I’m not saying that she goes unpunished, Lady Hash,” I replied. “I’m merely saying that their death would only elongate a conflict that both the living and dead would wish finished.”

There was a small pause, and then a few steps forward. Much like before, it was impossible to tell exactly where they were, but something in my gut told me Hash was coming closer. A guess that proved correct when I felt the faintest feeling of breath against my nose.

“It sounds to me like the wrong pony is in charge of your group,” Hash said. Some of that eternal cold in her voice had faded away, enough to just barely give the impression that her words were a compliment.

“We rarely choose who leads us, Hash,” I replied. “Even when somepony says we have two choices, we really only have one.”

“A lesson you’ve learned first hoof, I take it.”

“Rhapsody wouldn’t have been thrown down here if that wasn’t the case.”

Another series of hoofsteps, and Hash’s breath was no longer on my nose. A click ran out, and the pressure of the cuffs on my forelegs suddenly disappeared. It was followed by the clank of metal against metal, the sound leading me to wince. Once the sound had died away, I turned my attention to my front limbs, immediately lifting one of them to find my full range of motion had been restored.

Then, somepony placed their hoof on my withers.

“Missus Macabre, if you could please follow us,” Hash requested. By that point, the cold had completely dissolved.

“First thing first, while Amaryllis deserves no apology, you and the rest of your friends do.”

Those were the first words out of Hash’s muzzle as she sat me down in her office, the same exact one we had been in earlier. No one but the two of us, blindfold off, mare to mare. Seems she had even grabbed some beer she had stored somewhere in her desk for us, as a way to further drive in the apology. It nearly made her seem desperate, but Hash kept her expression, tone, and body language neutral. Practiced control, no different from Amaryllis in appearance but far more in terms of display. It was formed not with the purpose of charisma and confidence, but rather that of a soldier focused on the next battle.

We were one and the same in that regard, save for the fact Hearty and Vigil had broken my own soldier mask for some time now.

“When you arrived, I had believed all of you were responsible for what had occurred back in Underside. It seems the report given to me was not clear enough,” Hash explained, as she handed me a can. “I had hoped to meet you, in fact. The way Three told it, you are quite the incredible mare.”

“I guess that description works,” I said, taking the can and quickly inspecting it. No logo, brand, not even nutrition labels on it anywhere. “Your ponies make their own cans?”

“San Palomino may not be the easiest place to grow food, but it was home to miners a long, long time ago,” she said. “That allows us to make many things. What you have before you was home-made. No pre-war factory.”

“Every day, I grow more and more shocked at how wrong the pegasi are about you all,” I responded, snorting in half-hearted amusement. “Most everything the Enclave has is old and worn down. This? This is new!”

Hash allowed me to glimpse a smile before she returned to a neutral expression. She brought her can up in her hoof, as did I, and we clinked them against each other as if they were wine glasses. From there we opened it, took a sip, and then placed it down on her desk. My eyes strayed back to that picture of Hash and Lightning Dust.

“That’s my wife there, as I’m sure you’ve realized,” Hash said, having noticed where my attention drifted. She sighed, and took a longer sip of her drink. “Die not long before the bombs fell. Ministry of Morals doing, you can be damn sure.”

“Lightning Dust, correct?” I asked, more than aware of the fire I was playing with. Hash’s head snapped to me, the slightest amount of cold returning to her ears. “Found a recording from you all back in a theater on Alibi Street in Trotson. She was talking about the end of the world, how inevitable it seemed.”

The cold faded, a voiceless ‘fuck’ leaving her mouth. That was all the proof she needed to know I was telling the truth. Didn’t matter what she did to try her emotions after that; her teeth were grinding against each other, no doubt able to pick out the exact moment I was talking about.

“She just wanted the war to end,” Hash said. “All of us did. Instead she gets a bullet through the head and the rest of us dealt with, well, I think you know.”

I nodded. “You try to do the right thing, and the world spits on you.”

“And now we see ourselves in that same situation, albeit on a smaller scale. We need to end this war with the Equalists. We need Embraxia dead.”

“Embraxia?”

“The current Voice of the Messenger,” Hash explained. She stood up as I took a sip of my beer. “She’s the reason this war started in the first place. Believe it or not, there was a point in time where we and the Equalists used to be allies. Then, one changeling queen died, and the new one decided to greet me with the same thing that took my wife from me.”

”That’s… kind of surprising to hear,” I said, moving to get up myself. “Everything I’ve heard made it sound like you’ve always been at each other’s throats.”

“Our relationship with the north has certainly been strenuous,” Hash said.

She shook her head as she turned around and looked out the window behind her. I joined her, getting a top-down view of Shorelock from Southern San Palomino’s seat of power. It was easy to see where post-war and pre-war architecture started and ended, but my eyes turned to the distance. It was there that the ocean laid, with its salt-infused water and air. What stuck out, however, was the giant ship sticking out of the horizon like an artificial mountain.

No need to ask what it was, that was without a doubt the Hurricane in all its glory. What needs to be said about a hunk of steel that looked, from the outside, like a fully functioning fortress. Maybe it wasn’t the biggest or most impressive battleship Equestria had, but it was the first to greet my eyes. Before me was a symbol of wartime greatness, and if it wasn’t for the knowledge it had been sitting in the ocean for two centuries, I’d have believed it to still be fully functional.

Yet, what I saw was what had not been destroyed by age. If that was the case, how bad was everything else.

“Impressive piece of ponywork, isn’t it?” Hash asked.

“Impressive? It’s magnificent!” I said, Rhapsody’s inner filly coming out of its cage and infecting me. “I’ve been in cloudships, both civilian and military, but that? That looks awesome!”

She may have been a soldier, even Hash couldn’t withhold her amusement at me. The faintest sound of a chuckle left her throat, and I got another glimpse of a grin from the Shattered Moon’s leader. It made me realize what had happened instantly. I had acted like… myself, for lack of a better word, instead of who I was trying to be. For a moment, I nearly locked that filly away out of pure instinct.

Then I remembered my emotional outburst in front of Hearty days earlier. An outburst that nearly killed him and me due to my magic. I hesitated to close the door on that filly now, knowing what I had asked Hearty to do.

The filly was all too willing to be locked away again, because of course she was. It was all they knew, all I had taught them. Locking her up and letting things simmer wouldn’t help us, would it? Not to mention, I had asked for help in changing. Was anything anypony did to help me worth it, though, if I refused to acknowledge it?

For me, deciding on whether to lock her away felt like a small eternity. In truth, it was only a second before, with no small degree of fear, I opened the cage’s door. That little filly at the back of my mind stared at me before walking out. No more locking them up, no matter how much I wanted to. As long as she understood the risks she was taking, everything was fine.

She had seen enough from my two lives to understand that risk.

“What I’d give to be on a ship like that in its prime,” I said, the foalish joy in my voice having only increased in that short amount of time.

“Then consider yourself lucky, Danse Macabre,” Hash said. She had once more returned to her neutral expression; back to serious time. “You will be stepping hoof on the Hurricane, though not for the purpose of a tour. This journey on board will be far more dangerous.”

I looked to Hash, chest out, stance strong, allowing my own brand of intensity to shine. “This is part of getting Amaryllis released, I assume.”

“Partly,” Hash answered. “You and the rest of her entourage will be doing the work to get her released. That’s all you need to worry yourself with, as far as Amaryllis is concerned.”

She motioned with her muzzle towards the Hurricane.

“As you are no doubt aware from the radio, we have been working to salvage anything within the Hurricane for our own use. It was going well for a time, but we’ve had trouble finding one specific part of the ship. A part that the ministries wanted to keep hidden, and therefore is not listed on any of the ship’s maps.”

“Something they didn’t want the rank in file then,” I said, rubbing the underside of my muzzle. “I’m guessing you know what it is.”

“Yes. It’s a megaspell bay.”

My eyes went wide, jaw dropping in terror and fascination. The Hurricane, that glorious ship I saw outside, was holding mega spells in it? So many questions formed in my head from that alone, but only one was necessary. Only one question could explain exactly why the Shattered Moon saw this as important.

“Were they fired?” I asked.

“No,” Hash answered. I swallowed nervously, unable to imagine what kind of firepower was packed in its hull now. “The Hurricane has been off the coast of Shorelock since before the Last Day, and nopony saw anything get launched out of it. In fact, the ship seemed to do nothing, just sit there before, suddenly sinking into the water. It stayed there, half submerged, for nearly two centuries.”

“Until you all pulled it out, hoping to disassemble what was usable for yourself,” I replied, getting a nod from the mare next to me. “You want us to go in and find it.”

“Correct, but I wouldn’t be turning this over to you if it was that simple,” Hash said, turning away from the window and returning to her desk. I joined her back in my own seat as Hash took a large gulp of beer, properly emptying the can. “The teams we sent in, they didn’t return. At least, not alive.”

“Something killed them.”

“Not just them. The past few days, at night, creatures have heard singing near the harbor. Nocreature thought anything about it but…,” Hash shivered, openly grimacing. “A young colt went missing two days ago. They popped up on the shore a day later, dead, cut open in a way where it was impossible for anypony but their mother to recognize them. It was the exact same fate as the team we sent in.”

“Cut up?” I asked, just to make sure I heard correctly.

Hash hesitantly nodded, and that same shiver that had gone through her passed through my bones. I knew the surface was home to some horrifying creatures – the balefire fossil still stood in my mind as some of its more monstrous creations – but there was something about how Hash talked about this one that gave me pause. ‘Cut open’, not ripped apart like an animal. Whatever it was, it had some form of intelligence, not too different from a ghoul on the verge of going feral.

“Any idea what the perpetrator is?” I asked.

“We aren’t quite sure, but stories are being tossed around,” Hash said. “Old folks tale from old Equestria specifically. It talks about the hippocampi, sapient creatures that are both fish and pony, their voice powered by magic. They don’t eat ponies though; their magic brings out the worst in a pony, because they subsist on negative emotions.”

I scrunched and scratched at my muzzle some more, thinking of what had been told to me. “Only other idea that comes to mind is that this is some form of altered sealife, though I know jackshit about that.”

“Whatever it is, it needs to be dead,” Hash replied, pulling my attention away from the perpetrator’s identity for a moment. “It’s a danger to Shorelock’s population, and as long as it remains nocreature is safe.”

That much was beyond clear. Truth be told, it didn’t matter that dealing with this was the price for Amaryllis’ release. My memory returned to the filly that had died on my eighth birthday, or how my choices had left Bone Breaker’s own child from ever seeing their mother again. Now a colt was dead, not by my hooves, but some horrible creature without the morals to even consider what they were doing. Imagining Clear, Rainy, or Gemmy in their place, I felt an animalistic rage build up inside me, almost as if they had suddenly become real.

If this creature was killing foals, then killing them was justified. There mother would want to see them lynched anyways.

“You have a deal Hash,” I said. The Shattered Moon’s leader smiled gratefully, more than aware that this had become significantly more personal. She was a mare, it only made sense she understood. “I have one request I would like to make though.”

“If it gets the threat neutralized, name it,” Hash said.

The grin on my face that formed as she said those words, there was nothing kind about it. “Let Amaryllis search with us. If what you say is true, then whatever we are going to deal with there is a suitable punishment all its own.”

With decisions made, I was brought to a yet another cell along with the rest of my friends and companions. Gemmy had instantly pressed herself against me once her blindfold was removed, clinging to the young mare she is, getting more than a few chuckles out of us all. Hearty and Falke just seemed happy to no longer be blinded and, in Hearty’s case, magically suppressed. The only one of us five who still had their blindfold, cuffs, and horn ring on was Amaryllis.

“Clearly the Shattered Moon is showing some form of racial bias,” they immediately said. They meant to turn their head in disgust, but with their sense of direction fucked up they ended up slamming themselves in a wall. “Gah! Will one of you please just get this off of me.”

“Nah,” Hearty said, barely holding in his laughter. “I think this is plenty deserved.”

“Deserved! I am the true Voice of the Messenger! To keep me captive and disoriented is nothing but here–” Amaryllis then proceed to slam into the wall in the opposite direction. “Fucking… how many of these are there?!”

“Four, like most rooms typically have,” I replied, rolling my eyes, unable to hide the giant smile on my face.

“Not sure how much I believe you right now, sugar,” Amaryllis said as she aimlessly stumbled around, her mandibles twitching all around in panic. “As far as I know there could be some divider none of you are telling me about. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had my vision taken advantage of.”

“Your vision?” Hearty said, momentarily raising an eyebrow. Then, in a split second, both of them shot up as high as possible. “Amaryllis, do you have bad eyesight?”

“I do not!” Amaryllis spat back, looking in the entirely opposite direction of Hearty. “It’s that we changelings… rely on magic for our vision.”

“Magic?” Gemmy asked.

“I hardly know the specifics, but yes,” the changeling replied. “I’m not a biologist, I’m a devotee. Faith comes to me greater than science.”

“So cut off your connection to magic, and you have the grace of a bird with no wings,” Hearty replied, looking at me with a smug grin. “Can we keep her like this forever?”

Falke forced a cough, bringing the attention to him. “As funny as that would no doubt be, I believe we have deviated from whatever we've gathered here for. Am I correct, Danse?”

“Yep,” I answered. I gave the ghoul a side glance, “and no on keeping Amaryllis blind.”

Hearty just shrugged. “Was worth a shot.”

“So I got good news and instructions from Lady Hash,” I said. “The good news is that the majority have permission to leave, with the exception of our charge.”

Amaryllis’ jaw momentarily dropped at nearly the same time Gemmy let out a sigh of relief. They attempted to rush forward, wanting to demand answers, but instead missed me and collided with another wall. Groaning and rubbing their chitin, Amaryllis finally managed to look where I was by pure chance. They also sat down, having firmly given up on figuring our where anycreature was with her magic temporarily cut off.

“I-I’m glad we’re getting out,” Gemmy said, pressing herself against my left side. “This place hasn’t been fun.”

The snort of amusement through my nostrils went unnoticed. That was mainly due to Amaryllis’ own voice filling the walls around us.

“Hold on. What do you mean I’m the only one not allowed to leave?” they asked, their shock having quickly turned into anger. “In case I need to remind you, sugar, your job is to protect me. How exactly is offering me up to Her believer’s greatest enemies protection?!”

“Mister Amaryllis, need I remind you why we are in this predicament to begin with?” Falke asked the changeling. They didn’t respond, instead turning their heads away, which ironically ended up with them looking straight at Falke. “You compromised the identity of several creatures in the Shattered Moon. You can’t expect them to not have some form of demands for your release.”

Amaryllis continued their streak of silence, acting less like the leader they claimed to be and more like a foal. I held in the urge to groan at the changeling, unable to believe the immaturity they were showing. They were really that delusional? Really made me question my own attraction to them.

With Amaryllis refusing to admit their faults, I decided to explain what Lady Hash was asking us to do. It was a basic run down, nothing too specific but more than enough to give everycreature an idea of what we were getting ourselves into. That included mentioning the mystery killer responsible for the death of some of Hash’s subordinates and the colt. Just mentioning the latter got my blood boiling again.

“Killing an unknown entity on an old warship,” Falke said, mulling over everything I had just relayed, “and uncovering a hidden megaspell bay.”

“Is it normal for these mega spells to be hidden?” Gemmy asked. “I don’t really know much about them, other than that they destroyed Equestria and are really, really dangerous.”

“Considering the destruction they are able to cause, yes,” Hearty answered. “Everycreature knew they existed, and what they could do, but outside top military brass, the ministries, and the crown? Their exact locations were unknown, in order to keep the enemy from hopefully finding them.”

“Makes you wonder what Hash wants them for,” Falke replied, scratching his beak.

All I could do is shrug. “If we want the Shattered Moon on our side and Amaryllis free, the why is less important than the how. They are trying to strip the ship of everything useful or usable. I’m hoping that, in this case, it means dismantling the spells and not using them.”

“But you do not know that for a fact,” he said.

“Nocreature would pass up on acquiring such a deterrent,” Hearty replied. “I’d bet at least a hundred caps they want it for its intended purpose.”

“But the Shattered Moon and Hash was around before the Last Day,” Gemmy replied, eyes wide with terror. “They know how bad they are. They wouldn’t do that!”

“No bigger liar and hypocrite than a leader, Gemini,” the ghoul said, giving my daughter a pat on the head. He turned his head to me. “Your own leader was one of those liars until we found her.”

“More like the pony fed the lies,” I retorted. “Either way, what choice do we have? We refuse, Amaryllis is killed. We were hired to be bodyguards, and in this case that means helping the Shattered Moon, simple as that.”

Hearty lowered his head, gritting his teeth and stomping a hoof against the floor. He took a few steps away from us, took some calming breaths, and then came back into the group. The sneer on his muzzle made it clear he wasn’t happy, but his folded ears showed reluctant acceptance.

“So, when do we go in?” he asked.

“Tomorrow, midday,” I explained. “Hash said she’s contacting a former Shattered Moon about giving us a place to sleep tonight. All of us save Amaryllis at least.”

“Yes, because the changeling can’t have any comfort,” Amaryllis spat. “Well, all of you have fun. I’ll just be sitting here, waiting for you to be done.”

“Oh, you're not getting out of this that easily Amaryllis,” I told her. The changeling froze, their mandibles up as high as could possibly be. “You’re staying in here tonight, but you’ll be with us on the Hurricane tomorrow.”

“W-w-wait, you’re making me investigate some old hunk of metal?!” they asked, practically jumping to their hooves in fear. “With some foal murdering monster and who knows what else inside?”

“You showed us you can turn into a hellhound,” Gemini said. Amaryllis’ jaw dropped open, maybe having meant to talk, but my daughter continued on. “I don’t think there is anything to worry about then.”

“Unless you are afraid that is,” Hearty said, grinning madly. “But I’m certain some mysterious killer is no match for the Voice of the Messenger.”

Amaryllis closed her mouth, going quite as her muzzle tried to form into a prideful smile. Emphasis on ‘tried’, because no matter how hard they tried they could not get rid of the terror on their face. Every single one of us smiled at the sight. I snorted, remembering how Amaryllis had acted after saving me from Ink Spot, and comparing it to now. All control had been ripped away from them, their pride had been toyed with, and the only thing a creature as prideful as her could do was lie.

“O-of course they aren’t. I just merely wish to not get my chitin dirty,” Amaryllis replied in a desperate attempt to save face. “I-i-if I must be there, then I will be there. This monster foal-murdering monster will soon wish it had never been born!”

“Perfect. I look forward to seeing you work then,” I responded cheerily.

The smile on the changeling’s face was as uneasy as it was fake. There was the tiniest bit of guilt at the back of my mind, knowing I was the one behind this decision. It didn’t stop me from going through with it, especially after they had nearly gotten us all killed. At the time I had justified my thoughts about what had happened to me back at ArcanaTech’s research outpost, and my reaction to learning I was not a pure pegasus. It had seemed obvious that the thing Amaryllis needed was a hard shock, as terrible as it was eye-opening, no matter how traumatic it really was.

Now, I feel disgusted.

It felt as good getting out in the sun as it did ditching Amaryllis. Could have done without getting blinded by the sun, but Shorelock Prison isn’t exactly the most well lit place. Even then, of all the places I actually saw inside, only one had an actual window. Being blindfolded and left in the dark doesn’t leave a pony easily well adjusted for light.

Not that I was in a position to file complaints. Unlike a certain changeling, I was willing to follow rules and regulations.

“You four wait here. Lady Hash’s contact will be here soon to take you to their place,” Three Eleven said as he took the last of our blindfolds off. “Afterwards you are free to roam Shorelock.”

“We’ll get in trouble if we walk off right now?” Gemmy asked, leaning past us all to get a look at the masked pony.

“No, but it wouldn’t exactly be nice,” he responded, a slight strain in his voice. It seems Gemmy’s silly little question had hit some nerve for him. “It’s basic etiquette.”

“Eti… quette?” Gemmy asked, looking back to me.

“It’s… the art of treating somepony well,” I said, not entirely sure of my explanation. Correct or not, Gemmy latched onto what I said like it was fact.

“Oh, I don't like how Amaryllis treats creatures,” she said, her face quickly lighting up. “Then I’ll make sure to etiquette really well!”

“Well, you have fun with that,” Hearty said, sitting down with Falke and leaning against the fence. If it wasn’t for the shade given by the prison, it probably would have burned it back horribly. “Have to say, though, kind of surprised the Shattered Moon is something you can leave.”

“It wasn’t always this way,” Three-Eleven replied, gaining the ghoul’s attention. “When the bombs fell, most of those inside the orginization were on the younger side, or war veterans. Barely anypony was over forty, apparently. Yet as they got older, they were unable to do as much…”

“Then Hash was forced to put some form of retirement option into practice, though with a host of red tape of what can and can’t be revealed,” Falke said, laying down next to Hearty. “Youth doesn’t stay forever. There comes a time when we all must put down a sword and shield.”

“That’s why you are doing this, right?” I asked. “Amaryllis is your last contract before retirement. You hint as much when I first approached you about it back in Underside.”

Falke nodded. “My mind is sharp, but my body? Well, it’s held up better than some my age would, but that isn’t saying much.”

“Tartarus of a contract you’ve given yourself,” Three Eleven said. The griffon chuckled, knowing how great of an understatement the number was making. “Still you got it right. Some of us, like the pegasus coming to meet you all, was an exception.”

My ears twitched as I turned my gaze towards the number. A piece of me couldn’t help but believe Hash had chosen a pegasus on purpose. She no doubt knew enough about the Enclave to know how years of propaganda had brainwashed us into false beliefs, and I had only been on the surface for three weeks. It was likely she was not fully convinced I was free of that, given the short time frame. Nocreature changed that fast, at least not under normal circumstances. Still, something about Enclave brainwashing being the reason behind her choice in pony left me sick, as if I was getting treated like some princess.

I think it is agreeable that I am not princess material, despite the horn growing out of my head.

“Surface born or dashite?” I asked for the number.

“Dashite. That’s all you are getting about Musical Harmony out of me.”

Every single hair on my body stood up the instant I heard the name, pupils constricting. I’m pretty certain I stopped breathing for a full five seconds, having to practically force the next breath out my throat. Once it was out I loudly sucked more air down, closed my eyes, and exhaled again. It wasn’t just me going into panic, the filly Rhapsody was doing the exact same. She went back into her cage.

It was already gone. We had thrown it into the mental equivalent of a lake, letting it sink too deep for either of us to find.

Instead, I tried to convince both her and myself that it wasn’t possible. Harmony was in jail, back up in the Enclave, where she could not find us or hurt anypony else. Those were facts after all, at least as told by my dad and the Enclave itself. As much as I hated the former, and as much as I knew the latter was not trustworthy, I wanted to hold onto the hope that maybe that was still true. It helped a little, though having no idea what Musical Harmony looked like, ‘a little’ was all I was going to get.

“Mom, you okay?” Gemmy asked. “You’re breathing really hard.”

Hearty’s attention snapped to me, immediately getting up. He placed his PipBuck on my head, likely to allow whatever medical magic it had to scan me for heatstroke. One look at my MentaBuck and knowing exactly what was going through my mind was all I needed to tell me that was false, my hoof pushing him away.

“I’m… I’m fine,” I lied. “Some of the past week just resurfaced and… it wasn’t fun.”

Gemini instantly leaned against me in an attempt to comfort me. Hearty did the same after taking a few seconds to question whether he wanted to believe me. It wasn’t completely false, the events that led to us leaving Underside were still far too fresh in my mind, but the actual cause behind my panic came from much further back. Before I became a dashite, or became a member of the high council, or joined the military.

My mind continued to tell myself there was nothing to worry about, that I was safe. The sound of hooves approaching should have alerted me to the fact that wasn’t true. Open Heart blocked whoever it was at first, having placed himself in front of them. Falke had gotten back up, meaning that this was clearly Musical Harmony. Standing back up, I once again told myself any fears I had were unwarranted.

All I needed was a single look at the mare in question to realize that was wrong.

“Hello,” said a pegasus in her mid fifties. A magenta coat identical to my own, pure white mane, blue eyes. Couldn’t see her cutie mark but I didn’t need to; it was no doubt a dashite brand. “I assume you are the ponies who will be helping us with dismantling the Hurricane?”

“Yep, that’s us!” Gemmy said, jumping up.

“I assume you are the mare Lady Hash sent then,” Falke said, continuing off of my daughter.

“That’s right!” Harmony said, her smile like searing daggers in my throat. “I’m Musical Harmony. It’s nice to meet all of….”

The chance she may not recognize me as a full grown mare died in that moment. Her gaze, innocent though it may have looked, made it feel like my heart had stood completely. Their silence didn’t go unnoticed, and with those terrifying orbs stuck on me everyponies attention soon turned to the same place.

I don’t have stage fright, but it wasn’t too hard to assume that this is what it felt like. More eyes on you than you ever wanted, waiting, seeming to anticipate the moment you fuck up, and laugh. Except here there was no laugh, no fucking up, just the waiting. I backpedaled slightly, lips making small movements but nothing substantial enough to truly bring about a sound.

Then, she said those words that I had feared. The ones that confirmed everything laid out before me.

“Rhaps… Rhapsody?”

If the pins and needles from Rhapsody’s name wasn’t enough, hearing that skyrocketed my panic to levels unimaginable. Barely thinking, I dashed off into Shorelock. Away from the prison, away from my friends…

Away from my mom.

Act 3 – Chapter 7: Mother and Daughter

Twenty-nine years ago

Aery, Grand Pegasus Enclave

“It’s time to go to bed, Rhapsody,” Mom said, wrapping me up in her wings and carrying me away from the empty kitchen cabinet.

“But I’m still hungry!” I whined back, trying to squirm my way out of her grasp. “I want more!”

It was hard to count the amount of times we had that exact same interaction as a foal. The fault of having little to no money, and therefore little to no food to go along with it. What counted as a meal for us was not always enough, even for my younger, smaller self. It seemed so normal to me back then, before meeting Ironsight’s family and knowing just how much we should have had. Beforehoof, however, the idea that a stomach could be full was pure fiction.

It’s ironic, looking back on it.

Mom and dad always stayed up late, and to younger me it seemed solely for the purpose of keeping me out of the kitchen. Our meals were so light, and being hungry all the time was terrible. It wasn’t uncommon for me to try and sneak into the kitchen, grab an extra bite of something, and then inevitably get caught because hoofsteps are loud and I was not yet able to fly. Before mom left, she and dad saw it as amusing. That might have just been them trying to hide their own sorrow from not being able to feed their own daughter.

“Being hungry is normal, sweetie,” mom lied. It’s what she always said, and my seven year old brain ate it up as if it was fact. “If you eat too much, your stomach will bulge and you will never be able to fly.”

“But I want to eat and fly!” I replied, whining even more. “It’s not fair!”

“It’s not forever. Just until you are older,” dad said, flapping up next to my mom. I… I think he was kinder then, less despicable. It’s hard to separate the two after all these years, especially when the only way I could conjure up his face was with it drunk, mad, or madly horny. “Once you are able to fly and have your cutie mark, you’ll be able to eat all you want. Just got to wait a few years.”

A few years isn’t much to an adult, perhaps, but to a foal? That was the equivalent of a teenager asking about whiskey and being told ‘wait until you are eighteen’. All it did was make me groan.

“That sounds so far away,” I groaned as we entered my rather empty room. At the time, all I had was a bed for furniture. A dresser, or a bedframe for the cloudbed? Having that would imply money, and we didn’t have that, “and I’m not tired.”

My words were betrayed by how heavy my eyes were.

“Of course you’re not,” my dad said as I was set down in bed. He pulled the single, thin blanket we had over me. It barely kept me warm on the coldest nights, “but a good night’s sleep is important to growing up big and strong.”

I pouted. My mom shook her head, giggling at my behavior. That just made me pout even more, seeing how little they were taking me seriously. Looking back on it now, I feel rather embarrassed by it.

“I’m really not that sleepy,” I told them. “Besides, I’m too hungry to sleep.”

Both mom and dad winced at my bluntness, my younger self unable to fully grasp the melancholy my words caused in them both. Mom wrapped a wing around me again, nuzzling my muzzle in a show of love. There was something wet on her face, but it was too dark for me to see it.

“If I sing you a song, will you go to sleep?” she asked.

I nodded my head. Mom had a really good singing voice, that much had always been true. Any chance to listen to her sing was worth it, no matter how hungry I was.

“Okay,” I said, only a small dose of reluctance in my voice, “but I’m not sleepy!”

She snorted in amusement, but gave me a nod. That was enough to fool me into thinking she had finally believed me. She sat down on the edge of the mattress, on the wing stroking my withers comfortably. Dad sat on the end, watching us both with a drunken smile. I forced my eyes to stay open in an effort to back up my words.

Then, she sang an all too familiar song.

Hush now little one, there’s no need to fear
For in all your dreams, I will be there
To break down all the bad, and hold you so close
To guard you from nightmares, and take them as my own.

Let me hold your tears, I promise it’s fine
Lean on me all you need, I’ll bring you the light
From dreams to waking world, I’ll be by your side
Your mother is with you, don’t fear the urge to cry.

By the time she finished, my eyes had grown too heavy to keep open. I wasn’t asleep just yet, but I was moments away being there. With a kiss on my forehead, she and dad got up and quietly made their way out of my room. The door closed, leaving me in darkness thicker than any blanket.

“Harmony,” one of them said from outside the door. I was too sleepy and just dumb enough to not realize Harmony was my mom. “I know you want her to be happy, but is it really a good idea?”

“I… I know it's terrible. I know how this might end up for me,” Harmony replied, “but they are offering good pay. It will only be for a few months, enough to make her eighth birthday something special.”

“And what if it goes wrong? What if the Enclave finds out?”

As my consciousness drifted into the incomprehensible world of dreams, my dad got his answer.

“I don’t care. You and Rhapsody are all I have, and I don’t want her to be hungry anymore.”

“Get away. Get away. Have to get away.”

Those were the only thoughts going through my mind as I rushed mindlessly through Shorelock. All I needed to do was get away. The farther I was from the prison, the farther I was from her. Didn’t matter where I ended up, whether it was the ocean floor or miles out in the desert. As long as I was away from Harmony – away from mom – everything was okay.

All the while, her face was superimposed on my thoughts. Every attempt I made to think of something or somecreature else, she was there, like some ghost watching my every moment. The sounds of pegasi singing ‘happy birthday’, screams of terror and rage, dad’s insistence that I was to blame for his wife being arrested filled my ears. It didn’t go away. No matter how much I wanted it to go away it didn’t and it only seemed like her face got clearer and clearer over time and…

It was only a matter of time before my legs stopped working, and the all-encompassing panic became all I was. I was only grateful that it happened in an empty street, with nocreature nearby to notice me. There was enough sense in me to lay down on my side; that way, if my legs gave out, I was less likely to land head first on the stone street. My brain was already in a tailspin as it was, unable to free itself from Rhapsody’s memories. Her foalhood, specifically.

With me laying on the ground, those memories were the only thing I could focus on outside of my breath. Breathing that left my mouth dry from how fast I was breathing in… then out.

In and out.

In and out.

Just keep breathing. In and out… until I found that light.

Ironsight…

I slowly chewed on the school lunch I had, though really it wasn’t a lot. The school provided it, but my mom and dad had drilled into my head that eating too much was a bad thing. Maybe it's autism, turning what they had really meant into something destructive, but it doesn’t matter. Where other students happily down the expected amounts of the tasteless, cloud grown food, I barely made a dent; where other students happily chatted about one thing or another, I sat alone because… I’m not sure. Something about my parents giving me bad blood, an idea my tiny, odd mind couldn’t comprehend.

Either way, none of them hung out with me. Well, almost none of them did. One colt, probably not clued into the news hanging out with me was wrong, sat down next to me that day. He looked at me, concerned.

“Hiyya.”

“Huh?” I said, turning to look at him.

I think foal me nearly had a heart attack at the sight of a small, gray colt. Though, with how high his voice was at the time and the pink mane, I initially thought he was a filly. The fact he was there, next to me, was kind of scary given nopony ever sat with me. I moved away from him on the bench a bit, out of distrust more than anything.

“I’m Ironsight Bullseye,” he cheerily, stretching a foreleg out to me. I looked at it, and then at the colt it was attached. I saw others do it, but had no idea what it meant. “What’s your name?”

“O-o-oh! Um, S-S-Singing Rh-Rh-Rhapsody,” I said, barely above a whisper. This was one of the first times I had really interacted with anypony outside my family or the teachers, and I had no idea what I was doing.

Ironsight, pulled his foreleg back, still smiling, and shook both it and his head. “Nuh uh. Not good enough.”

“Huh?” I asked, tilting my head.

“My daddy said, ‘a future soldier of the Enclave must be strong and confi… confi…’,”

“Confident?”

“Yes, confident! A future soldier of the Enclave must be strong and confident.” Ironsight slid closer to me on the bench, and I slid away from him again. His eyes stared at me intently. “You said your name with no confident. Do it again, this time better.”

“I… I don’t understand,” I replied.

“It’s simple. Just speak louder,” he said. “Tell me who you are again, but this time do it strong and confident.”

I swallowed nervously, but was too scared of the colt to know what would happen if I said no. “I’m, um, I’m Singing Rhapsody.”

“Louder!”

“But I did.”

“No, you're still not confident.” Ironsight got even closer to me. “Louder.”

“I-I’m Singing Rhapsody.”

“Almost there. Louder!”

“I’m Singing Rhapsody!”

To say the two of us were earning some stares after it all was an understatement. My eyes darted to one table, seeing every filly and colt there staring at me, and then at another to see the same thing. Everypony was watching me, and I felt my heart rate increase for a moment as I realized all eyes were on me. Having that much attention on me was new, and I had no idea how to feel about it.

Then, all of a sudden, Ironsight started jumping up and down on the bench.

“You did it! I knew you could do it,” he said, before darting at me and giving me a tight hug with both his wings and his hooves. “You're quiet and shy, so I didn’t know if you were really a pegasus or not. Now I know you are.”

“Wh-what are you saying? Of course I’m a pegasus,” I said, pouting. “I got hooves and wings. All pegasi have hooves and wings.”

“Not true,” Ironsight replied, bapping the air with a hoof as he separated the hug. “Some pegasi aren’t real pegasi. Daddy told me some are actually earth ponies and unicorns in disguise, and some of my friends say those ponies try to throw you to the surface.”

My foal brain grabbed onto that and shivered. Every foal was told the same story about the surface, about how it was unlivable and nothing was down there. Some even said you would melt into a puddle because it was really, really hot. The idea of earth ponies and unicorns disguising themselves so they could do that to you was terrifying.

“I-Is that true?” I asked, leaning forward. No longer did Ironsight seem weird and scary. Instead, I was registering him as the smartest foal in the room.

He confidently nodded at me. “My daddy is on the high council; he is never wrong,”

“Your dad is on the high council?” I asked, eyes wide. Ironsight nodded again. “That’s so cool!”

“I guess. Would be cooler if he was home more often,” he said. What little his eyes had dimmed at talking about his father quickly lit back up again, grabbing my hoof in his wing. “Wait, that gives me an idea. I should invite you for a playdate!”

Somehow, my eyes managed to get even wider. “A-A playdate? With me?”

“You’ve never been invited to a playdate?” Ironsight asked.

“I’ve heard some of the others in my class talk about it, but I don’t know what it is,” I explained. “I’ve tried to ask but they just ignore me and tell me off. They say I’m dangerous to be around.”

“Wow, meanies. No, more than just meanies, they are idiots,” he said. I let out a gasp at hearing such language out of him. At that age, calling anypony an idiot was about as bad as calling them a cunt. “You got that confident thing, so you can’t be dangerous. No unicorn or earth pony in disguise would be as confident as you just were.”

The full context of what he said passed over my head like a home run. I didn’t understand why this colt was as excitable as he was, or what had made him talk to me. Though, just the fact he was talking to me when nopony else was would have made me really happy. I wanted something to label it as, my mind working for whatever best described him. It took some time, but eventually I found them.

“Ironsight, you're a friend,” I said. My comment turned his thoughts away from whatever foalish anger he had towards the other foals around us and back to me. He tilted his head, neither smiling or frowning at me, and my ears fell slightly in nervousness. “D-Did I say something wrong?”

“No, it’s just… you think I’m a friend?” he asked.

“Do you not have one?” I asked back.

His head fell instantly, wings and ears slumping slightly. “No. Some of the colts say they do, and my mommy and daddy invite them over for playdates, but I don’t like them. I think they’re forcing me to hang out with them, instead of letting me make friends myself.”

“So they are kind of like the unicorns and pegasi,” I replied. He got even sadder after I mentioned that, and it was starting to make me angry. My strange little mind didn’t understand why it made me angry, but I knew I wanted to stop it. “Well they are idiots too. Big, dumb idiots!”

Ironsight raised his head, watching my anger. It seemed to inspire him in some way, most likely viewing it as that same confidence his dad told him about. He wasn’t the brightest of foals, but watching as his sorrow turned to pure joy, it made me happy in a way I can’t describe. He nodded, matching my fire with a fire of his own.

“Yeah! Big, dumb, stupid idiots,” he replied.

“So, friends?” I asked. While the question held no fear, my hoof shook violently as I held it out.

“Friends,” Ironsight replied, baring the outstretched hoof no mind and deciding to barrel into me instead, hugging me tightly. We stayed like that for a time, both smiling, probably still being watched and laughed at by the other foals around us, but not caring. Ironsight pulled away first, his eyes looking at my barely-touched soup on the table. “You should eat that.”

“I am,” I told him. “I’m just being careful not to eat too much. I don’t want to get too fat to fly.”

“The soup won’t make you fat, silly,” he said. “Not unless you have one the size of the school. That bowl is fine.”

I looked at the soup, and then at him. “You are sure?”

He gave me a nod, and my eyes went back to the soup. His words did seem to make sense, and they didn’t contradict what mom and dad said. After a bit of hesitation, I practically threw my head down into the bowl, devouring it as if I was a wild animal. Ironsight jumped back in fright, shielding his face with one wing so that the broth didn’t hit his face. He only lowered it only when I had completely drained my bowl of everything in it, the biggest of grins on my face.

“It's so good!” I said, not caring how my face was now caked in broth and vegetables. “I’d be fine if I had seconds, right?”

The longer I thought about the day Ironsight and I met, the more the world came back into view. Harmony was no longer the main image in my mind, my ears filled with the sound of more pleasant, joyful memories. Even knowing that a lot of what he told me might have been lies, it was impossible to hate him. Ironsight is part of what gave me hope during those horrible years after my mom was exiled, giving hope where there otherwise was none. Even now, when I’d never see or hear from him again, he managed to see me from myself.

As my head cleared enough to think, and the panic flowed into the back for later use, I considered what that meant. I dug into one saddlebag and pulled out the radio he had given me, the one I was supposed to contact him with. That day was the start of my third week on the surface. If I hadn’t been unconscious, and had radioed in last week, then we would possibly be talking right now. I’d try to explain my name change, the horn I was growing… and then he’d probably turn his own radio off, maybe thinking Willow had dragged me to the Goddess and had me transformed.

There was no avoiding this outcome. Even if I didn’t tell him my name was no longer Rhapsody, when the mission was over our contact would be permanently cut. I just found a way to bring that about far sooner than wanted.

“What do you think he’s doing up there, now that you and Sapphire are down here?”

It was a decent question, and allowed me to further distract my mind from the thought that my mom was here in Shorelock. There was no sure way of knowing, but I could guess pretty easily.

When Calamity had been exiled he and a majority of the council freaked out, fearing his words would spark some form of rebellious spirit in the ranks and file or younger. That was what led to the development of the M.A.M., which Lucky Shot got word of through what I can only assume is another Equalist contact within the Enclave. That was stolen, and I was promptly tossed down to the surface as a scapegoat to clean up this mess and draw fire away from the council itself. With that knowledge, Sapphire Storm vanishing with at least a few dozen troops would only further fracture what little unity was left inside my old home.

The chance of guessing exactly what they’d do in response was unknown, but with how things were looking? I could see ponies being killed or arrested to instill a sense of fear and authority. Whether it worked or not depended on how amicable the masses still were, and we have Operation Cauterize in the current day to gauge that.

So many pegasi lost, because a small group of powerful, frightened stallions and mares couldn’t accept things weren’t working.

It wasn’t a happy thought, but along with Ironsight it helped further with not thinking about Harmony. The next came when I looked up at the sky, clear and blue as always, silent. My wings twitched in a way they hadn’t in a very long time. The urge, no, the instinctual need to fly hit me for the first time since becoming Danse Macabre. Spreading my wings out, feeling the ocean breeze against my feathers, I found the last thing I needed to truly wipe her face from my mind.

Even if it wouldn’t only be temporary.

With a single flap I shot up, leaving Shorelock behind me. My eyes stayed forward, focused on that endless blue above me, the world’s top my end goal. I thought I couldn’t; no matter how good of a flier I was, the air would grow too thin and the world too cold for me to pierce the vale. Yet to see how high my wings could take me, to ride that line between living and another visit with Vigil.

“It’s always been like this hasn’t it? Us toeing the line between life and death since the day we were born?”

I smirked, finding such a dark truth exhilarating. In some ways it only compounded Hearty’s claims of me having Wartime Stress Disorder, but I didn’t care. To ride that line of my own free will, it was one of the best feelings in the world. The higher I climbed, the less air there was, I felt my body push until that limit was reached. The fact the thin air felt like less than a burden, or that the cold didn’t bother me, never hit me.

Yet those oddities couldn’t stop pony limitation. In time I reached that apex, wings tired and lungs begging me to turn back. Accepting defeat, I stopped flying upwards and instead splayed myself out as if laying on the ground. Despite being significantly higher than the cloud barrier, I was not high enough to make the blue coloration of the sky disappear. No pegasi alive or dead was capable of that.

Not that the sight wasn’t worth it. The sky stretching on for eternity, the ground below splitting in half between land in the sea. I saw where Shorelock ended, paving the way for seemingly endless amounts of desert only broken up by a single, solitary farm at the base of the river we had followed here. I saw how the ocean stretched beyond pony sight, leaving me to wonder briefly if Zebrica or otherwise still lied beyond, out of view.

Were those good descriptions? I don’t know. The beauty of such a sight can’t be put into words or a picture. It’s something you have to experience.

Long ago, during the golden years of Equestria, my actions would have been normal. No cloud barrier was around to hide the sky from the surface and the surface from the sky. In those two centuries between the end of the world and the parting of the cloud barrier, I was one of very few to ever see this.

“We took so much from them,” I whispered.

“We did,” my inner selves said.

“Why?” I asked.

“You know the answer already, don’t you?” they replied.

I shook my head. “It wasn’t an answer, it was an excuse. That’s all the Enclave is.”

“Yet you still care about Ironsight, the soldiers, the civilians.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I lived there for so long. I can hate who I was, what I represented, but the pegasi? I can’t blame them, not with what we’ve been taught.”

…

“So you don’t know why?”

Exhaling, I tilted my body down toward the ground, starting my descent. Their question wasn’t worth answering; my silence said everything that I would need to. All I knew was that I felt… not ready, but capable of dealing with what was down below. There was no avoiding Harmony, not without abandoning everycreature. Not only did that go against my need to satisfy the mission Hash gave me, but the damage it would do to Gemmy…

Rhapsody abandoned one pair of foals to a life without a mother. I wasn’t going to make that same mistake.

At first I checked where I had left them, at the Shorelock Prison main gate. None of them were there anymore. It meant they were likely looking for me, or had gone with Harmony. Three-Eleven didn’t know where she lived, so I ended up stuck having to ask around. Several minutes of that and a lot of walking around town later, and there I was, in front of Harmony’s house.

My mom’s house.

It looked normal, unassuming, and rather quant. Nothing about it should have scared me, and yet there was a shake in my legs. This place was home to one of the ponies responsible for destroying my foalhood, and now I had to go up to that door, knock on it, and make conversation with her. It would be nice to stay out in the street, where she wasn’t, but that was a bit too foalish for even filly Rhapsody to be okay with.

With short, slow steps, I made my way up to the front door, and raised one of my hooves. It stayed there, frozen, attempting to disobey my command to knock on it. Now that it wasn’t on the ground, the shaking had increased tenfold. With enough will, and closed eyes, I managed to rest on the door I wished for it to knock on, and then…

Knock… knock

Two was all I was able to muster, allowing the hoof to rest on the front door for sometime. A few seconds later, it jostled as somepony on the opposite side touched it. I placed that hoof on the ground with the rest, and subconsciously took a step back. A piece of me pleaded that it was one of my companions, but of course it wasn’t. The first thing my eyes met were those same blue eyes that had caused me to run away in the first place. Nearly did the exact same thing, only Gemini and my own stubbornness stopping me.

“Hi,” I said, quietly. All the strength I had disappeared before the eyes of the mare before me.

“H-Hi, Danse,” Harmony replied. She briefly looked back inside at something, and then to me. “I’m sorry. Didn’t know you changed your name.”

“Too late for apologies.”

“I-It’s… okay,” I lied. The two of us stood there, silent for what felt like hours. I was too scared to say anything; not sure why Harmony wasn’t saying anything. “Can I come in?”

She smiled far too easily as she moved to the side. “Of course. Everycreature else is already inside,”

“I know. Stop talking.”

“Okay, got it.”

Walking up to her, with all of Rhapsody’s foalish spite being voiced in the back of my head, felt like an eternity. Every muscle in my body tensed as I reached her side, keeping my eyes on her. Didn’t even make it all the way in before the two of us started staring at each other. It made Harmony uncomfortable, ears going flat, the lines on her face visibly shifting as her smile strained.

“You’ve changed a lot. Hardly recognized you back at the prison,” Harmony said with the tiniest hint of joy, her voice wobbling from emotion. She was barely holding back tears of happiness in her eyes. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you again.”

“Really? You're trying to guilt trip me now?”

I didn’t say anything that time, instead breathing harshly out of my nose and walking completely into her house. For all the spite currently running through me, I was at least able to appreciate how well she had kept it. The furniture was nice too, basic as it all was with only a few items that were clearly from wartime. I’d assume the second floor was no different from the first.

There was banter a few rooms over, so I decided to make my way down the immediate hallway, passing the dining room, and into the living room. Everyone was there, enjoying themselves without a care in the world. A load of tension I didn’t know I was carrying disappeared, especially when my eyes caught Gemmy laughing her head off to some joke I had missed. Seeing she was okay, it gave me the faintest of hopes that being in here was not going to be horrible.

“Hey Danse,” Hearty said with a casual wave of his hoof. He and Falke had found room on a couch – extremely well maintained despite its age – one of his hooves around Falke. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment, but the two had grown pretty close over the past few days. “Nice to see you found your way here. Thought I was going to have to drag you here by the tail.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, ignoring the snarkiness of his comment. I trotted over to Gemmy, deciding to stand next to her since she had the only other available chair. “You okay sweetie?”

“Completely fine. Your mom isn’t as much of a raider as you said she was,” Gemmy answered. I tried to smile, but nervousness at my daughter’s safety made it next to impossible. “She was very sad when you left.”

“I’ve gathered that things between you two were tense when she was exiled,” Falke said. He looked like he was ready for the couch to absorb him with how he was lounging in it.

“Tense is a bit of an understatement,” I said, my ears swerving as I heard clops from the hallway, “but I can tell you some other time.”

At almost the same time he nodded, Harmony entered the room… with a little filly spirit right before her. My eyes went wide at the sight of them, Gemmy merely tilting her head in wondering where they had come from. I knew that filly’s face as well as I did my way around an MEW. It had haunted me for years when I was a filly, not just because of what happened to her, but because of what it led to…

Thud!

A colt’s scream ripped through the air of the café Ironsight’s family had temporarily taken over for my eight birthday party, both him and myself immediately looking in its direction. The entire room had gone deadly silent save for the hurried hooves and loud wails of one foal, running to their mom and dad. Some of the other foals were laughing, thinking that he might have just been scared of some dark cupboard or surface horror story, but I knew that was wrong. As young and naïve as I was, I knew there was a difference between when the parents went silent and when they didn’t.

It was confirmed as I saw one mare rush to the side of a table not too far away from us. Ironsight and I looked at each other, and rushed over in foalish curiosity. An adult moved to intercept and save us from just the slightest bit more trauma; he only succeeded in getting a wing in front of Ironsight. My little hooves kept marching, wondering what scary thing had happened. Maybe it was a unicorn, or an earth pony, or some horrifying melted abomination that was also from the surface.

That’s… not the case though. I think everycreature can get a pretty good idea of exactly what it was that greeted my face when I finally reached the now weeping mare.

It was a filly, one of the many both my and Ironsight’s family had invited in an attempt to make this the best birthday possible. Her eyes no longer held the spark of life, and a smile hidden under a mouthful of strange, colorful foam. She didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t stand up and give a ‘got you’ to try and validate the horrible joke before me, because there was no punchline. There was nothing to laugh about.

There was a dead body before me, and while I didn’t know she was dead the lifeless stare and foam-filled mouth was terrifying on its own.

I screamed and ran to mom and dad, who in turn ran to me. Only one of them made it to me, the former stopping mid-way in realization of exactly what had killed them. I didn’t care, I just ran into my dads hooves, quickly being shielded by his wings in an attempt to protect me from damage already done. Even as I hugged him, shaking terribly from fright, the filly’s face had been plastered at the front of my mind.

“D-d-da–da-d-dad,”I managed to say, my muzzle barely functioning. “What is… wh-wha-what is…”

“It’s okay Rhapsody, it’s okay,” he said, before saying words he would never say to me again for as long as I knew him. “I’m here to protect you. You are going to be alright.”

That rainbow foam, a telltale sign of a Cloud Nine overdose, was not there. The filly was the same one that died back then, however, save for the horrifying way her body lurched and deformed. It almost reminded me of how I had met Stardust, or how DH’s body had tried to act without the wendigo holding her together.

She turned to look at me, and the strange way her body acted suddenly stopped. Without a single word, she started backing away, and then ran off. I had barely lifted my hoof off the ground, having desired to go after her, before my attention was brought back to the reason I was in this house to begin with.

“Glad to see everycreature is finally here!” Harmony said, completely oblivious to everything I had just witnessed. “Obviously make yourselves at home. I’m not sure what your doing for Hash, outside of it involving the Hurricane, but after traveling all the way here you all deserve a chance to rest up.”

“Think we already got ahead of you on that, ma’am,” Falke joked, somehow managing to sink even further into the couch than he already was.

“Yeah, the chair is really comfy,” Gemmy replied, trying to mimic the griffon. It didn’t really work. “Thanks for letting us stay here, Miss Harmony.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” she replied. “Anything for the creatures responsible for keeping my little Rhapsody safe.”

It was impossible to tell what was more painful, her calling me Rhapsody or her acting like she cared. “I’m more than capable of taking care of myself. I’m not eight anymore, mom.”

Her smile faltered for just a second, her eyelids falling slightly as she thought about that. I hadn’t meant for it to be, but my words ended up doing more than just passively reminding her why she was down here. It had been… how many years since she had last seen me? Twenty-eight? To be reminded about all the time she had lost with me, her fault or not, was cruel. Couldn’t call her out on it either, especially when I had done no different to Rainy and Clear mere weeks ago.

Genuine grief managed to creep into me, despite my spite for the mare. I actually felt bad about that.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “That… that was wrong of me.”

“It’s okay Danse,” Harmony replied. “I understand.”

That time, her words did actually work on me. My head fell, eyes looking towards the carpet below us.

“So, I think some more thorough introductions are in order. After all I don’t know any of you,” mom said, distracting herself. She placed a wing to her chest. “I’ll go first, since I technically already started that earlier. Musical Harmony, dashite and retired Shattered Moon. Can’t tell any of you about my time with them for obvious reasons.”

“Completely understandable,” Falke replied.

Hearty decided to be the first to introduce themselves, no longer lounging and instead leaning forward. “Open Heart. Met Danse a few weeks ago under bad circumstances. About the same time I met Gemmy too.”

“Oh, right. I forgot that I met you and mom at the same time,” Gemmy said, chuckling awkwardly.

Harmony, however, was far more interested in what the young mare had said. She looked at me, the surprise in her eyes making me smile nervously.

“Mom?” she asked.

“That’s… an even more recent development,” I explained. I held a wing out above Gemmy, looking at her just to make sure she was okay with me touching her at the moment. She nodded, and I laid a wing on her back in a show of love and support. “Mom, this is Shining Gemini. I ‘officially’ adopted her a few weeks ago. No papers to show but… I don’t think ponies do that down here.”

“Adopted? So you mean this mare is…” Harmony’s eyes had grown so wide they seemed ready to pop right out of her head. “I have a granddaughter. I’m a grandmother!”

Water started to well up in her eyes, a hoof going to her muzzle as her brain quickly figured out I wasn’t the only family she had here. Then she looked at me, a smile both joyful and sad at the same time quickly spreading to each corner of her lips. A wordless ‘thank you’ from one generation to another, and as a mother myself it was hard to not share the sentiment. Something about being recognized in a maternal sense felt wonderful, a small boost of confidence after so many hits to both it and my ego.

“I, um… I can call you grandma then, right?” Gemmy asked, looking to me rather than to the grandmother in question.

“Of course Gemini,” Harmony said, but I knew they weren’t the one they were asking the okay from. I gave my daughter a nod; no matter what Harmony had done, she deserved that much of a kindness. “Oh Luna, I can’t believe it. I thought I’d never get the chance to know but… but you're right here before me. Oh this is the best day of my life.”

She was so wrapped up in her emotions, that she didn’t even think to ask before rushing to Gemini. My daughter tensed up as she was unwantedly wrapped in forelegs and wings, picked up off the couch, and was then squeezed as tight as possible. Once again Gemini looked to me, this time not for approval but for help.

“Mom, let go,” I said, coming off more as a request, worried and anxious but kind. When she ignored me, I made my way over to forcibly pry my mom off her. “I said let go!”

A single, forceful push was all I needed with Harmony’s age. The older mare would have likely fallen on her back, maybe even broken something, if Falke hadn’t jumped off the couch to catch her. Instead of thanking the griffon, however, she instead looked to me in shock, as if how I acted was some grand betrayal.

I didn’t care, Gemini was more important than she ever was.

While my adopted daughter had not been comfortable hugging her grandmother, she had instantly wrapped her hooves around me as soon as she was free. Her breathing was fast, her forelimbs shocking as she held onto me like a lifeline. Instead of hugging back, I merely shielded her with my wings, humming the very same lullaby that Harmony had sung for me years ago. Her breathing instantly started to return to normal.

“It’s okay. I’m here,” I told her.

“It was so fast,” Gemini responded. “I didn't think she was going to…”

“You don’t have to explain anything. It’s not your fault.”

With Gemini still hugging me, I turned my attention to Harmony. Falke had helped her back onto her hooves, muttering thanks to him. She turned to me with a glare, likely about to scold me for possibly getting her hurt, only to stop herself. While my wings kept Gemini’s body out of her eyesight, she didn’t need to see anything to know where they were. Dad and her had done the same for me when I was younger, before they became the horrible ponies I knew them as. Her anger quickly faded into nothing, being replaced by melancholy and pain.

“That’s right. Stand there and think about what you’ve done. It’s all you deserve.”

Rhapsody’s spite would have made me wince, but I was in a similarly foul mood after what Harmony had done. I bit back a protective growl as I stared at my mother, adopting the glare she had attempted to throw at me.

“I’m only going to say this once: do not touch my daughter!” I said. “Understand?”

She flinched at my tone, eyes watering up. “I… I just wanted to hug my granddaughter. What is so wrong with that?”

“Miss Harmony, I understand where you are coming,” Falke told her, placing one of his wings around her withers. “I’m a grandparent too, but everycreature has their boundaries. Gemmy is no different.”

“What… what do you mean?” She asked.

“Not my place to tell you about it,” Hearty replied, having hopped off the couch. He looked at me, just to make sure I was okay with him giving even a generalized summary of my daughter’s mental health. I trusted the doctor, and nodded, “but Gemmy has severe PTSD concerning events in her life from before we met her. She doesn’t take physical contact from anypony but Danse well.”

It instantly clicked what she had done wrong, and the regret on her face was obvious. Confident she wouldn’t make the same mistake again, I lowered my wings from around Gemmy. She shuffled around till Harmony was barely able to see her face, her body pressed close to my own. With that done I stared my mother down, and she instantly understood what it was I wanted her to do.

Not that Harmony needed to be threatened into an apology, she probably would have done it anyway. The pieces of Rhapsody that spited her, not to mention the mistake that led to the apology in the first place, made me not care.

“I’m sorry Gemmy. I should have asked if you were okay with it,” she said. My daughter peaked her out just a little more, allowing her to look at my mother with one eye. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I promise to be better in the future.”

Gemmy looked at my forelegs and wrapped one of her hooves around my own. “Don’t touch me, and I forgive you. Okay?”

“Never again,” Harmony said. Her gaze then shifted back to me, and suddenly every bit of fight left my body. She was giving me that disappointed mother look. “Now, Danse, no matter what your reason was…”

“Oh fuck.”

“I don’t think I need to remind you that throwing the elderly to the ground is frowned upon.”

I averted my eyes, looking down at the floor in shame. “R-R-Right. Sorry mom, won’t do it again.”

“Good.” With a clap of her hooves, all disappointment vanished from her face. In its place was joy, and it was impossible to notice how her eyes did not trail to Gemmy. “Now I’m going to go ahead and get some dinner cooking. Am fine doing it myself, but if anycreature is interested in helping…”

“Well, as the only griffon here, I think it would be best to make sure you have something for me,” Falke said. My mom gave him a cheerful nod. “Oh, Falke Rotfeather by the way. I’m a business partner of your daughter.”

“Mercenary?” Harmony asked. All Falke had to do was grin for her to know the answer, holding a talon out to her. The two shook hooves, a shared look of respect and understanding between them out of seemingly nowhere. “Pleasure to meet you. I already had something in mind, but with someone no doubt as traveled as you I’d love to try something unique.”

“Well how about you show me your kitchen then. We can work from there,” the griffon replied.

Everything after that proved to be uneventful. Harmony and Falke put together some form of seafood dish – making me aware of how much said sealife had become important to the area culturally – and there was no further arguing. Stories were traded between each other, laughs were had, and the entire time I stayed silent. It was clear to me that my mom had changed so everyone else talking with her didn’t upset me, but I wasn’t going to ruin the mood by opening my mouth.

The hate didn’t leave, and how could it? Ten years of Tartarus with a father who hated me, left me to starve, and hurt me. So much of the trauma in my life was connected to her, and seeing her as the pony she truly was didn’t change any of that. It just made me angrier, but I wanted her to be that monster; I wanted her to be okay killing that foal; I wanted her to be hateable. Anything to make it justified.

Yet every moment my eyes looked at Musical Harmony, my mother, I saw a mare and not a monster. It probably would have left me feeling sick at myself, but it was clear that I wasn’t the only pony who had wanted that over the truth. The spirit of the filly was there, her form distorting in wrath at the mere sight of my mom. It only ever seemed to stabilize when she saw me.

It was happening a lot actually, now that I think about it. Since fusing with DH the majority of the spirits who saw me seemed rather terrified for some reason.

The sun fell below the horizon, and we all decided to go off and do our own things. Harmony insisted we had the upstairs bedrooms for the night, both hers and the guest one, and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Gemmy and I took the former, Hearty and Falke had the latter, and mom was apparently going to just sleep on the couch. Where everypony else was off trying to do something or another, I found myself trying to turn in earlier.

It didn’t work.

I found myself lying there in bed, staring at the white ceiling, for what felt like a small eternity. I was too awake. My mom had returned to dominating my mind, though nowhere near as bad as it was earlier in the day, and knowing it was her bed I was lying in left me uncomfortable. There was still that part of me waiting for the reveal that how she was acting was all some elaborate ruse, and my brain refused to shut off until that threat was dealt with in one way or another. I wasn’t about to act on that.

The only thing to pull my eyes away from the ceiling was the sound of the door opening. Gemmy stepped inside, smiling joyfully at the sight of me at first before something caused it to fade away into concern. I didn’t realize it beforehoof, but my face had set itself into a frown subconsciously.

“Is everything okay mom?” she asked.

“Y-yes, I’m fine,” I said. The lie was horrible, the way Gemmy’s ears flopped against her head making it clear how little she believed me. “Have a good evening?”

“Kind of. Your mom is nice, but I take back what I said about her not being like a raider,” Gemmy replied. I sat up as a shiver passed through her body. “She does things without thinking, just like one.”

“Her hug is still making you nervous?” I asked. My daughter nodded. “That’s not a raider thing, sweetie. It’s her maternal side showing up. Though I do agree that it wasn’t right.”

She tilted her head. “Maternal?”

“Feeling like a mom, or a grandmom and my mom’s case,” I explained. Explaining mare things to Gemini always hurt, knowing her horrible experience with sex, but I knew it had to be done. “When a mare cares for their foal, protects them from bad ponies or creatures, feeds them when they are still really young, or teaches them things. Those are all examples of maternal love.”

Gemmy ingested it all, trying to sort through what she did and didn’t understand as she trotted over to bed. I scooched over so that she didn’t have to go all the way around and waited patiently. She looked down at herself, one of her hooves brushing against her teats before wince and freezing up in panic. My frown stayed, but it took on a tone that was more melancholic at Gemini’s reaction.

“I think there is something wrong with it,” she replied.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She quickly looked to the door, her magic lighting up and gripping the handle. She closed it, and then turned to me.

“M-mom, I told you that I’ve had foals, right?” she asked.

That was something impossible to forget. Bile tried to climb up into my mouth just like it had when she had told me that over a week ago. The thought of being impregnated against my will, forced to go through with it because raiders either don’t know what abortion is or don’t care about you enough. Even writing that down now makes me sick to my stomach, but I think I understood where Gemini was coming from.

“You didn’t feel any love for them, did you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“No,” she answered. “You feel it, my mom loved me, but I didn’t love them. That’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s perfectly understandable,” I told her. She looked at me, confused at my response. “Gemmy, I choose to welcome you into my family, and I just have the two foals I did before meeting you. You were forced to have those foals against your will; the lack of maternal feeling towards them makes sense.”

Gemmy stared off, digesting my answer as best as she could. Seeing the conflict and confusion in her eyes as she mindlessly looked at nothing, it told me everything going on in her head. She wanted to understand, she wanted to learn, but her own experiences (or lack of it) sent her in circles.

In time, she hung her head, eyes wet as she came to her conclusion. “I don’t get it. I love you and my first mom, and I know you love me but… I don’t get it.”

I smiled at her sympathetically. “That’s fine. It might just mean being a mother isn’t for you.”

“And that is okay?”

“Completely. Believe it or not I felt that way for a long time.” Gemmy’s ears twitched, her interest piqued. “I went through some things similar to you, at your age. Got hurt badly by a really mean pony, and the idea of having foals felt wrong.”

“What changed?” my daughter asked.

“I met somepony,” I explained. “A really nice stallion, one who I instantly fell in love with named Iron Anchor. He loved me back, and we spent a lot of my years in the clouds together. At some point I realized that I wanted to start a family, to be better than my mom and dad were to me.”

An image of a newly born Rainy Day came to my mind. Warmth filled my heart as I remembered what it felt like, holding her for the first time. Clear was no different, though she certainly cried a lot more. Yet whether they wailed their little heart out or not, knowing that I held newborn life in my hooves made me feel something that I had never felt before. An overwhelming urge to protect, care, comfort, and teach.

Did a good job at it all too, but then I slipped up. My idiotic brain left the Enclave, not realizing I already had a mission at home, and a duty to Rainy and Clear. I abandoned them, just like my mom did to me. All I hoped was that Anchor didn’t turn into the same monster my dad had become.

“Is it the same for me?” Gemmy asked, pulling my mind from dark places.

I didn't need to think of an answer. It came to me as quickly as lightning.

“No, Gemmy. The reason I wanted to adopt you is very, very different,” I said. A forehoof went to my heart, and I closed my eyes to better listen to it beat. “When you told me about what those slavers did to you, I saw myself. When I saw how you grew in just a week with Open Heart, Willow, and myself, I was empowered by the strength you held.”

My eyes opened, locking on my daughter’s own yellow orbs in the process.

“Every step you’ve taken, no matter how big or small, has made me feel like I was watching my own foal grow before my eyes. You make me stronger, Gemmu, happier too, just like Rainy, Clear, and Anchor. You felt like those I cared about most back in the clouds, so I decided that I wanted you to be exactly what they were to me: family.”

As soon as I finished talking, a pit in my body started to fill with fear. What I had just said was the truth, unfiltered and unbelievably raw. My eyes looked away in terror at possible rejection. Did anything I say even make sense with what Gemmy knows? The worst possible response hit my mind, making my heart pound far too fast for comfort.

Only to be calmed when I felt Gemmy lean against me, one of her forelegs around me. Still a little scared, my eyes turned to my adopted daughter to try and gauge her expression. All I saw was a wide smile and closed eyes, her head resting on my wings. That was all I needed. I kissed the tip of her horn, earning a small giggle from her.

“I love you, Shining Gemini,” I told her.

“Love you too mom,” she said back. “Thanks for adopting me.”

“It’s only been a week, sweetie,” I reminded her, snorting in amusement.

“I know,” she replied, “but that’s all I need.”

I stayed with her after that, talking with her little by little before she slowly started to drift off to sleep. Any attempts from her to say she wasn’t tired were undercut by either a yawn or her eyes growing just a little heavier. In time, she was completely out, one hoof on my own as we both laid in bed together. I tried going to sleep with her, but it wasn’t happening. My brain was still too active. Eventually I gave up on sleeping at all, carefully getting out of bed to not disturb her before quietly flying to the door.

As I opened it, I briefly turned back to Gemini. The sight of her sleeping peacefully filled me with the same warmth that filled my heart when Rainy and Clear were born. The blood she had didn’t matter, same for her lack of wings and the horn on her head. She was my filly, my family, and somehow I was certain Anchor would have welcomed her with open wings.

“We got lucky, didn’t we?” my inner selves asked. “Sure, Open Heart can be a bitch, Gemini isn’t a fighter yet, and Willow is no longer with us, but I can’t think of anypony else I’d rather being going through this all with.”

“By ‘this all’ do you mean becoming an alicorn or helping Amaryllis?” I questioned back, smiling widely.

“Come on now Danse,” they replied. “I think we both know that answer to that.”

“I know, just testing you,” I said, quietly giggling into a wing. I maneuvered my way through the open door flank-first, just so that my eyes didn’t have to leave my daughter for a little bit longer. “She really needs a therapist after all this. There is only so much I can help her with.”
“Yep. We know that ourselves, don’t we?”

Act 3 – Chapter 8: History Told in Steel and Rust

Shorelock, San Palomino Desert

Day 22

“How the fuck did Shattered Moon get that in port?” Hearty asked, looking up in awe at the steel behemoth of a warship currently above us. “No, seriously, how?!”

“Magic?” Gemmy asked, staring at it not too differently to how the ghoul did, but with a little bit of fear added in. “I’ve picked up and moved things with it before. Maybe they did it with the Hurricane.”

The answer was perfectly Gemini, and therefore very naive.

“I may be wrong, but something tells me no telekinesis is that powerful,” Falke answered.

“None that I’ve met, that is for sure,” Open Heart said. “Maybe one of those big storage containers, but not an entire ship.”

Yeah, nopony was lifting up the Hurricane. Looking down on it from up above was one thing, but from the ground? The ship was big enough to shade an entire side of the harbor by itself. Long ago this had been just one of my battleships in Equestria’s navy, seemingly no different from any other besides not actually being made in Equestria. Well, that and the fact there was a megaspell hidden somewhere in its hull…

And a monster willing to eat foals, but intelligent in how they do it.

“How spacious is it inside?” I asked myself.

“Knowing that it was mainly earth ponies and unicorns inside,” Falke said, his own wings uncomfortably fluttering, “not very.”

“Eh, the rooms themselves aren’t probably not that bad,” Hearty said, shrugging. “Just the halls.”

“Great,” Falke and I groaned.

“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad,” the ghoul said, rolling his eyes.

“You don’t have wings,” I replied. “You don’t have to deal with the stress that comes with not being able to open your wings completely.”

“Is the once mighty Enclave soldier saying they have claustrophobia?” Hearty asked, smirking mischievously.

“It’s not just Miss Danse,” Falke replied, answering for me. I let out a sigh, knowing that now I wasn’t the one feeding the ghoul ammo. “It’s not just pegasi either. It’s a thing for griffons and hippogriffs too.”

“Maybe I’m part pegasus then,” Gemini said, “because I also don’t like tight spaces either.”

Harmony had led us to the Harbor after a quick breakfast, staying quiet out of the conversation to my relief. Her wing was over her head to keep the sun out of her eyes as she scanned the docks for any Shattered Moon numbers within the vicinity. The only ones she came across were a group of three stations at a retractable stairwell that led up into the ship itself. As her wing folded back against her side, she rubbed the underside of her muzzle in curiosity and confusion.

“Huh, she’s not here already,” she mumbled to herself. “Rather unlike her.”

“Unlike who?” I asked.

“Lady Hash,” Harmony replied, looking at me. “She told me that she would be personally escorting your changeling ‘friend’ to the harbor. Hash is one for arriving early, and given we are on time and she isn’t–”

“That’s probably just the bug causing some trouble,” Hearty replied, rolling their eyes. “Haven’t known them for long, but they don’t take me as the type of creature who likes being ordered around.”

“Considering she nearly got herself killed after Miss Danse saved her,” Falke said, “that is an accurate description.”

“Sounds like you got your hooves full,” Harmony said, snorting in sympathetic amusement. Her eyes flicked to me, that sympathy quickly turning to worry. “Why did you take up such a dangerous client?”

Everycreature else had their answer, but I knew the question wasn’t aimed at any of them. Harmony’s eyes stayed on me, even as she gave the others nods when they explained their reason. She was waiting on me, hoping for a decent explanation on why her own foal would help out what she likely viewed as an enemy. Even after all this time, with me all grown up, she was still trying to be a mother.

How did I tell her the truth, though? All of this was because of revenge, for a mare that I used to be. She wouldn’t find that answer acceptable. My ears looked to the stone road beneath us as I tried to come up with some manner of excuse. The moment I realized what I was trying to do, my train of thought altered.

I was caring about what my mom thought, despite everything she had done. The foal she killed, who haunted her even to this day. The agony I endured in her absence. By all means I shouldn’t care about what she thought and yet here I was, doing just that. It didn’t make sense, yet telling her the truth… what would she think of her daughter?

Stomping a hoof into the ground, I tried to shove all care surfacing for my mother and answered.

“I have somepony in Our Haven I need to kill,” I stated bluntly. “At first it was for the Enclave, but now it’s simply for myself.”

I half-expected Harmony to try and chastise me for my wanted revenge. Instead, she only frowned, and nodded. Her eyes finally moved off, head perking up slightly at something out of my field of view. A wing went to her muzzle, but everypony heard the giggle that came out of her.

“There they are.”

At those words we all looked back in the direction we had come from, noticing a group of numbers, Lady Hash, and a rather familiar blindfolded changeling heading our way. To say Amaryllis was grouchy would be an understatement. If it wasn’t for the ring around their horn, I have no doubt that they would have shown up with some cracks in their chitin and maybe a broken mandible from the amount of fight they’d put up. Tartarus, who knows if they would have shown up alive at all!

The moment Amaryllis showed up, the eyes of everypony in the harbor that wasn’t a part of our group was on her. It didn't matter how different Amaryllis looked from most changelings, their chitin, wings, and tail made her stand out like an earth pony in an Enclave city. Guards were up, glares were cast, and no doubt there was mumbling about why Hash had a creature they saw as a danger to their way of life near them. The anti-magic ring made no difference there.

“Morning Ama!” Gemmy shouted, waving at the currently blind changeling. Amaryllis turned their head this way and that, trying to figure out exactly where my daughter was.

“Had a good night, oh wise and humble prophet?” Open Heart asked, smugly smirking at them.

“Yes, actually. The bed was not to my standard but it was serviceable," Amaryllis replied. They attempted to smirk right back at Hearty, but her head was turned to me instead. “Oh, you meant to mock me didn’t you? Well despite what you may think I am not as gullible as a young grub.”

“Certainly fooled us all yesterday.”

“Enough, you two. Save it for after the mission,” I said. They did as requested, thank Celestia, allowing me to turn my attention to Hash. “So what you’re looking for is in there, somewhere?”

“Correct,” Hash replied. With a motion of her hoof, one of the numbers with her quickly took the blindfold off Amaryllis. The changeling instantly shut her eyes due to the sudden sunlight. “Of the few modifications the Equestrians made to the Hurricane, one just so happens to be a megaspell bay. We would have found it by now, but I believe you’ve all heard from Danse what the problem is.”

“Some monster with a taste for pony flesh,” Falke replied.

Hash nodded, and then forcefully nudged Amaryllis forward. The changeling leered back at them for a moment before trotting over to the rest of us.

“You’re not to come out until both the megaspell bay is found and the creature inside is neutralized,” Hash re-explained. “Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” I replied, giving her an Enclave salute in a sign of respect. She matched mine with one of her own, foreleg to the top of her foreleg and standing straight as an arrow. I’m certain she was smiling under that mask. “Alright everycreature, let’s get moving.”

As Harmony started to lead us towards the stairway, I circled around the group to get to Gemini. She was trying her best to look brave, but the tension in her lips and more stilted motion of her legs said everything. This was the first time she had participated in anything truly dangerous since the Trotson sandstorm, and the first time that pistol at her flank might be used for more than practice.

“You remember everything I taught you about firearms, right?” I asked.

Gemmy looked up to me, nodding her head. “Don’t aim it at good creatures, magic off the trigger till I fire it, and don’t look into the barrel.”

“Good job,” I said, nuzzling into her mane. She smiled so proudly, and if I wasn’t in soldier mode I would have returned it. Instead my face went stoic. The nuzzle was all she was getting. “This is your first real mission, and real missions come with real risk. Creatures won’t wait for you to line up a shot, they will kill you if you aren’t fast enough.”

Any pride she had was dismantled, pupils dilating in fright. Any attempts to soothe her fears would have been lies, and I wasn’t going to do that. It was better to expect the worst possible outcome, and be relieved afterwards if we avoided it. The proper military mindset, one which I wore with as a testament to my survival. That meant Gemini had to understand there would be no coddling, no do-overs, nothing of the sort while onboard the Hurricane.

By all means she was a fresh recruit, seeing the battlefield for the first time.

“When we get in there, I need you to follow my lead perfectly,” I explained. It was easily the most stern I had been with her since when I had first taught her gun safety back in Trotson. “Do that, and we all leave together.”

At that moment we reached the stairway up into the Hurricane. Open Heart was first, followed by Amaryllis and then Falke. The lattermost was mumbling about the heat of the metal as he started making his way up, making me aware we were likely heading into something comparable to a sauna. I motioned with a wing for Gemini to get behind me as I took my first steps on the hot metal stairs. Thank Luna for hooves.

The climb up was slow, dreadful, and silent save for the creaking of the Hurricane itself. It didn’t bob in the water like some ship with both its weight and the fact it had been dragged into a bank of sand, but it still swayed. It wasn’t obvious from below, but when I reached the top of the stairs and only a step was left between me and the hippogriffian warship’s insides, I saw it. Then I felt it as I placed a hoof through the ship's doorway.

One hoof in the ship was all I needed to question whether it would have been worth dying back in Shorelock Prison too.

Once upon a time this place had some form of air cooling talisman. It was one of the many things that had stopped working in the time of the Last Day and the Shattered Moon pulling it into harbor. Even with a door open and whatever holes the Hurricane had gained from age, it was an oven. I swear my mane was sticking to my neck within seconds. Nopony else was doing any better.

“Sugar, as much as I love you for saving my chitin,” Amaryllis said, “the Messenger will not look kindly upon the fate you’ve inflicted upon Her Voice.”

“I did not know it would be like this,” I said, trying to spread my wings enough to fan myself. “Besides, it’s just some heat. What’s the worst it can do?”

“Heatstroke,” Hearty replied. His horn lit up as he fidgeted momentarily with his PipBuck, pulling several canteens out of his saddle bag. “Thankfully, Musical Harmony had some form of preparation for that.”

He passed them out quickly. More than a few of us, including myself, immediately took a sip of nice, cold water. Those of us who had saddlebags or similar kept the canteens on ourselves, the rest hooved it over to the closest creature. That meant I got Gemini’s, and Falke got Amaryllis. Wasn’t going to bother asking why mom had several of these; they were probably from her time in the Shattered Moon.

I opened up the local map the MentaBuck had of the Hurricane, and then briefly questioned how StableTech had gotten away with putting map data for an Equestria warship on their hardware. It wasn’t ArcanaTech who had made this, that much was clear based on how Hearty had also found the very same map I did on their PipBuck. The high-ranking officer in me couldn’t help but feel my insides boil at the security risk this would have posed back during the war. There was no reason for the ministries to give StableTech this data, no matter what ties Applebloom or Sweetie Belle had to the ministry mares.

“You can question Equestria’s ministries later. Just be happy we have a map at all.”

The soldier piece of me wanted to go into a tirade on national security, but I relented. My inner selves were right. Focus on the task at hoof, like I had to. A map was more than any of us could have expected when it came to navigating this place.

Now if only the map was readable. For all the wonders and capabilities of the computer that had been shoved into my head against my will, clarity on the map turned out to not be one of them. I thought I understood where the hall’s walls were on the green picture obscuring my vision, but everything was blurry. Figuring out where something started and ended. Multiple floors overlaid over each other, creating incoherent messes in some places with no indication of what was above or below us.

“At least we know the general direction is down,” Hearty said, turning back to us at the same time I had willed the MentaBuck’s map away. “Now it’s just a matter of finding out how to get down.”

“Yes, and quickly at that,” Falke replied. “There isn’t enough clean water for us to be dallying.”

It didn’t take long into our exploration for us to realize how much of an issue navigating the Hurricane would be. The ship was nearly a maze, with shallow corridors and dozens upon dozens of rooms whose purposes were all lost. Some might have been common areas, or washrooms, or maybe they had been cabins for the soldiers. Impossible to tell a lot of that now, with how the Shattered Moon had stripped its upper levels bare. When we had found one stairway, we had expected to be free of it.

It didn’t take us as far down as I wanted too. Only two floors, due to the way the ship curved. We were stuck finding another flight.

“At least we know what to climb if we need to get to the main deck,” Hearty said. “Not the worst heat I’ve dealt with in my life, but it certainly is up there.”

“What manner of torture have you been through to find something worse?” Amaryllis asked, a glint of terror visible in those bright blue eyes.

“Radiation sickness,” Hearty answered.

Amaryllis didn’t ask further. The way her eyes suddenly snapped back in front of her made it clear it was less because she didn’t need it and more because she wasn't afraid to. Others besides me probably would have noticed if they weren’t too busy lagging behind us from the heat.

“It still sucks, don’t get me wrong,” Hearty said. “You all might be roasting but I swear my skin is turning black like it was left in an oven for too long.”

“If this is what an oven feels like, then I feel bad for the meat and veggies Miss Harmony cooked last night,” Gemini said. “I hate this, it’s aw… ful.”

Nocreature else paid the way she drew out that last word any mind, leaving me to be the only one to realize that Gemini had stopped. Small droplets of either water or sweat ran down her chin, her eyes looking down a corridor we had ignored. I pulled away from the front of the group and made my way back to her. She noticed me approaching before I had reached her.

“Something up?” I asked.

Everycreature stopped, turning back to the two of us. Instead of replying, she looked back down the corridor. I followed her gaze, only to spot nothing. It seemed as metallic and lifeless as the rest of the artificial beast we stood in.

“There was somepony there,” Gemmy finally said. “An earth pony. They were staring at me, and when you came back they took off.”

Amaryllis groaned. “Great, we’re already hallucinating."

“I’d agree if it was you, Falke, or myself saying that. Gemini, that’s a bit tricky,” Open Heart replied. He trotted over to join us, momentarily looking down the hall Gemini had been staring at, and then to the mare herself. “Were they wearing anything?”

“Yes.”

“What did it look like?”

“It was…,” Gemmy’s hoof stomped the ground as she thought. “Black? A lot of it was black, but there was some white.”

Open Heart tapped his chinning, mumbling to himself. Falke had made his way up to us in that period of time, brow raised as he looked from the ghoul to Gemmy. Finally he landed on me.

“I assume there is something you haven’t told us about your daughter,” he said.

“Hard to tell if it is exactly the case here, given nopony but Gemini has seen them,” I replied, shrugging with my wings. “Though assuming the guards outside did their job of making sure nopony got in, that leaves spirits.”

“And she can see them?” he asked.

“Just as well as I can,” I said.

“Whether your daughter saw a spirit or not, is this really necessary?” Amaryllis asked. She had barely moved, staring at us with unamused, eyes narrowed specifically on Open Heart. “We came here to kill a monster and find some secret room at the bottom of the ship. I need not ask the Messenger if this is a waste of time or not.”

“You do realize that we can cut our time down greatly if the ghost she saw was a member of the Hurricane’s crew, right?” Hearty asked. “White and black do match up with the colors Equestria had for its navy. They’ve been on here for two centuries and likely know more about this ship than you know about your digestive system.”

Amaryllis’ eye twitched, mandibles out and spread as some form of subconscious threat. Open Heart merely smirked at the sight, much in the same way he would when we had first met. Not even the oven-like environment of the Hurricane could stop him from purposefully riling up those he hates.

“If it was indeed a spirit of the ship’s crew, we could possibly learn where the megaspell bay is. They might also know what in Tartarus killed the creatures the Shattered Moon sent,” he explained. His smirk grew just a little wider. “Is it a waste of time now, bug brain?”

“You are the most insufferable rotting corpse I have ever met,” Amaryllis growled out through gritted teeth. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then leered at Hearty with enough venom to instantly kill a young foal. “Yet the Messenger alerts me that there is truth in your words. Is the spirit still there, Gemini.”

“I think so?” Gemini replied, tilting her head. She looked back down the hallway. “It seemed like they were watching from one of the rooms at the back and not from another hall.”

“Then by all means do it, you and your mother are the ones who can talk to them. I will wait here.”

I turned back to my daughter, motioning with a wing for her to take the lead. Gemmy smiled for the first time since stepping in the Hurricane and did just that. I followed her down the hall. She had seen the spirit, watching the other rooms just in case I saw any others. They were empty, however, just like every other room the Shattered Moon had stripped down till the only things left were the walls, floor, and the occasional pipe.

“How many ponies were stationed here?” my inner selves asked. “Most cloudships in the Enclave only have a couple dozen or so crew members. Even the biggest ones only have up to one or two hundred.”

“How should I know?” I asked back. “I know as much about these ships as you two.”

“Well an estimate would still be nice.”

I tried. By Celestia I tried really damn hard to come up with what my mind could view as a reasonable answer. No cloudship in the Enclave could compare to the Hurricane, not just in size but in the sheer amount of living quarters. I knew the majority of them likely held more than one pony – unless they were officers – but that was it. The number of rooms, the lack of beds to get some form of a body count, it made estimating the number of ponies impossible.

“Got nothing,” I told myself.

“Damn,” my inner selves replied. “That’s going to frustrate me for the next several days.”

“Who are you talking to?” Gemmy asked, looking back to me. She had stopped near the end of the hallway, body facing a room that was on my right.

“Nopony,” I said, convincingly of course.

Gemmy blinked, and then looked towards the aforementioned room. “I think they came out of there.”

“You think so?”

“I mean, maybe it came from that room instead,” she pointed at a door to the left of the one right in front of us, “but it isn’t any of the others, I’m sure.”

I nodded, and then pointed at the second door she mentioned. “You go in that one, and I’ll check this one. If they are there, let me know.”

Gemmy nodded, and without further word trotted over to her room. I did the same with my objective, eyes peeled on the furthermost wall. Not that turning my head would have done anything in the end. The moment I entered it, something collided into my side…

And wrapped their hooves around my neck.

“Got you, monster!”

Everything happened too fast for me to see who had just grabbed me. I was dragged into the room against my will, then thrown to the floor. As soon as my hooves were under me there was weight on my body, pinning me to the ground. It didn’t feel like there was any pressure in the places I was being held, nor the touch of hooves, fur, or mane. It felt almost like the wind itself was holding me down, yet it was as stale and lifeless as the pony-made beast we were currently stuck in.

“You’re the one that’s been sending creatures in here, haven’t you?” the pony holding me asked. Their voice was gruff, deep, a bit twangy too. “Feeding them to your fellow freaks?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I said.

“Don’t bother trying to trick me. We’ve been stuck on this ship forever, of course we know what your kind look like,” he said. I tried to turn my neck to get a better look at him, but all I managed to catch was the semi-transparent sight of a purple and blue mane. “Now all I have to do is figure out exactly what can kill you and–”

The weight on my back disappeared in an instant, and I watched as the ghost of an earth pony landed head first on the floor. They were the owner of the mane and tail I had seen moments earlier. Their similar blue coat was mostly hidden under an unfamiliar but recognizable uniform. Mainly white with black outlines, a patch indicating rank near the chest, and a logo that I was unfamiliar with on a beret. The latter didn’t move an inch from their forehead stuck to their spiritual form for reasons only Vigil probably knew.

I slowly stood back up with the help of hooves and my daughter’s familiar magic aura. A look to my side was all the confirmation I needed to know who had gotten the ghost off of me. Her eyes looked up into mine, a question having formed in her mind but unable to say anything. A smile seemed to lessen her concerns slightly, though not exactly by much.

Apparently I had taken my eyes off the spirit of this old soldier for too long, because I hadn’t noticed him trying to escape until an ‘oof’ hit Gemmy and I’s ears. As we turned back towards the door, we found him once again having fallen backwards, this time having run into the body of Falke. His frame blocked the spirits retreat, though he likely didn’t know that at all. His focus was on me after all.

“Everything okay?” the griffon asked.

“Overall, yes,” I answered, before glaring at the spirit. They were looking back at me, what bravado they had gained in attacking me moments earlier gone as they quivered in fear. “And it seems we found the spirit Gemmy mentioned.”

As I trotted towards them, they spun themselves around and tried to scurry back towards Falke. “N-n-now now, don’t do anything hasty. I’m sure I’m not as tasty as the other two.”

I hooked a hoof around one of their homes and yanked them up. They looked about ready to piss themselves with how small their pupils were.

“You're going to answer our questions. Refuse, and I can’t promise your safety,” I said. The threat was a fib (I doubted there was anything I could actually do to hurt him after all) but he was far too afraid to realize that. Several hasty nods were his response. “Good, now take a seat over here please.”

“I think we’ll be fine, Mister Falke,” Gemmy said as I dragged the spirit over to the wall.

I barely heard the faint clink of the griffon’s talons on metal, my hooves making far louder and more aggravating noises against the floor. I swung the spirit in front of myself, his back up against the wall, trapped by my larger frame. It was the first time the height I had gained from Rhapsody and DH merging proved to be anything more than slightly disorienting.

With a wing, I pointed back towards Gemmy and then to my side. She got the hint, trotting up next to me and looking at my attacker with a rare sign of anger. Probably would have done more if it wasn’t for the fact said pony was dead, and her slightly skewed view on respect wasn’t stopping her.

“We should probably correct that sooner rather than later.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. Then, leaning down towards the earth pony spirit, I did my best to take all emotion out of my face. I’d never seen a spirit’s face go pale before, not until that moment. “Name, rank, job. Now!”

“P-P-Petty Officer Bowsprite, e-engineer for the ESS H-Hurricane,” he replied.

“Petty Officer? I’d expect you to have your emotions under control sailor, considering your station,” I replied. I placed a hoof on the wall next to him. “I’m Danse Macabre, and this here is Shining Gemini. Us and our companions are here under order of the Shattered Moon to find a megaspell bay that is supposedly hidden here. You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, do you?”

Bowsprite looked to my daughter, and then to me. “I-I’m not telling you. I’m not letting your kind kill more ponies.”

I felt my eyebrow twitch, and I leaned even closer to him, parting my bangs to reveal my horn.. “You want to repeat that, petty officer?”

“Th-they got an alicorn?” he whispered, brow shooting up as high as physically possible.

“Now listen, no matter what you heard of the Shattered Moon all those years ago, they are not the bad guys,” I explained to him. “They run Southern San Palomino since Equestria's government is long gone. They want to decommission this ship, use the material for other things to better the lives of the ponies they protect. That’s why we need to know where these megaspells are. Mind telling us now?”

Terror and awe filled the spirit’s face, probably thinking they had just insulted some form of modern day royalty. I expected him to immediately spill his guts out, but instead something about it seemed to steel his resolve. He glared at me with the confidence that finally fit his job. It had taken him long enough.

“I-I’m sorry your highness, but I will not,” Bowspirit said. “I will not put your charges in any danger.”

“If you mean the monster on this ship,” Gemmy replied, “we already know about it.”

“It’s another reason we are here,” I said. “A young colt was found murdered by something that was clearly not a pony. It came only a day or so after another group went missing before us directly from the Shattered Moon. We’ve been sent to deal with it.”

“You… want to kill it?” he asked. I narrowed my eyes at the question, his brow shooting up once again as he realized how that sounded. “I-I-I mean, that’s a good thing but… I’m just surprised.”

I tilted my head. “Surprised how?”

“It’s, well, no offense your majesty but…,” Bowsprite gulped, “you look just like them.”

Without even thinking, I pressed into the spirit further. A growl rumbled through my threat, face pressed against face. It didn’t hit me that in some strange way, I was actually touching the spirit before me as if they were a living being. His forehooves were pressed against my chest, somehow managing to hold me back the tiniest bit.

Gemmy, while not the target of Bowsprite’s words, had a very similar look of fury on her face. When I had attempted to flatten the spirit into a spectral pancake, she had pressed her face as close to his as she possibly could.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“I-I mean exactly as I said,” Bowsprite answered. “None of us have any idea what that creature is. We had sent ponies down to fix damage to the hull and they never came back up. After I tried to sacrifice myself for the crew, the other spirits showed me what it was.”

He shuddered, his forehooves trying and failing to reach and protect his face. His form faltered momentarily, distorting like Stardust had when I first met her.

“So when I say you look like them, I mean it. You can still talk, but your form is somehow just hunger and fury.”

Hearing those words, it all clicked together. I backed up, a wing reaching out in front of Gemmy, silently informing her to do the same. She looked at me, confused, but didn’t fight against it. Closing my eyes, my other wing reached towards the base of my muzzle and started massaging it.

Bowsprite declaring me a monster made so much more sense, same with how other spirits have treated me since becoming Danse Macabre. The way my mind had seen it up to that moment, Singing Rhapsody and Dead Hooves were the only things that made up who I was. Yet Dead Hooves was not whole enough upon her original death to hold herself together, Vigil had said as much. The only thing holding her together was the mlafi that had infected her.

A mlafi that, as I understood it at that moment, was keeping me together as well. The only reason I hadn’t noticed, was because of how absent the hunger was. It made so much sense why the filly haunting my mom was afraid of me now.

“Bowsprite,” I said. “You see that in me too, right? Hunger and rage?”

“Yes, your highness. Not just me, but every other spirit on the ship,” he said. “One of us noticed you all from the deck before you had entered the Hurricane and alerted the captain. We thought you were maybe responsible for the others who had died on the ship, Shattered Moon or not.”

“Others have been on here?” Gemmy asked. “I mean, besides those from the Shattered Moon.”

“Yeah. Probably thought it was easy scavenging and a quick bit,” he replied, nodding. “If they were early they had stuff on these middle and upper levels to take. It’s barren now, as you can see, meaning anything of value is down below.”

“Meaning they would have walked right into the mlafi’s territory.”

My words quickly drew the spirit’s attention. “A mlafi, your majesty?”

“A creature of undying hunger, who can take over the bodies of those who’ve eaten their own kind,” I explained to him. His ears folded back, terrified. “Did things get to the point where you and your fellow soldiers considered cannibalism?”

Bowsprite looked away, grimacing in disgust. “A few of us did when supplies ran out. They started attacking and killing others for no reason as time went on so we killed them. After that most of us either attempted to swim back to shore – which was too far away for anyone to reach – or took the easy way out.”

“Do you think it was possible for one of those who did eat a pony to go unnoticed?”

“Maybe, but the monster can’t walk on land like a pony can,” Bowsprite answered, shrugging. “All we knew was that, at some point, it wandered in through one of the holes in the hull. Called the bottom of the Hurricane home.”

“So whatever the mlafi got hold of, it wasn’t a pony,” I muttered.

Bowsprite looked back at me, disgust turning to fear as the information I was presenting to him clicked. Not just in terms of what the creature at the bottom of the ship was, but to what was before him. I thought I understood what the wide eyes and hanging jaw he wore on his face meant, and with the knowledge I had told him what seemed to be the truth.

“I’m… a bit of a complicated case. I got a mlafi possessing a part of me, but it doesn’t have any power,” I told him. “Trust me when I say I’m not the same monster that we are here to kill.”

That didn’t calm him down at all. With the space I had given him, he had more than enough room to move, and he used it immediately. Faster than I could react, his head impacted into my neck. One of my forehooves immediately went to my neck, the other collapsing, and with my attention firmly on myself Bowsprite rushed off. My vision locked itself on the floor, the metallic grey only getting interrupted by the grey of my daughter’s coat.

“Mom!”

“I’m…,”

A cough left my throat as I tried to speak. Gritting my teeth, I laid down a bit more comfortably and continued to rub in the area Bowsprite had rushed into me. It didn’t hurt, or at the very least there was no pain, but my esophagus still acted like it would if a real pony had done that. Granted, if Bowsprite had been alive, that might have done a little more than wind me.

“He hurt you?” Gemmy asked. It was as much a question about my safety, as it was confusion.

“Yeah, just like he held me down earlier. Not sure how he managed that,” I said, smiling as the hoof on my neck joined the rest on the floor. “I’m fine though. No damage done.”

Gemmy let out a sigh of relief, and then wrapped her forelegs around me in a hug. I returned it briefly before standing back up. Looking towards the entrance to the room, there was no sign of the spirit, and moving into the hallway showed the same. A frown took form on my muzzle.

“Rather cowardly for being a member of the equestrian military,” I said. “Doesn’t put forth the greatest of impressions, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t get him,” Gemmy replied, tilting her head. “He tries to hurt you, then stops us from finding the creature, and then hits you and runs off. Is that how other military ponies act?”

I shook my head. “Not the good ones. If the ponies supposed to protect you are running away, they aren’t good protectors.”

“Are you two done yet?!” Amaryllis shouted from where the rest of our group was, my daughter and I turning around to look at her. “My insides are boiling under my chitin.”

“Just finished, calm your wings!” I shouted back at her.

The changeling glared at me and, in immature spite, started rapidly buzzing her wings. The display was more adorable than anything.

The farther down we went, the more we all got to see of the damage done to the ship during its two centuries stuck out in the bay. Far less had been taken from down this far, allowing us to see a rusted, moldy, sickly version of what certain rooms may have looked like. Being where we were in the ship, a lot of it came in the form of the bits and pieces that actually made the ship run, storage, things that a soldier wouldn’t go to unless the work they did required it.

Rhapsody had worked at the gunsmith whenever she was on base or deployed. That would have been on a floor higher than these; she would have no reason to venture this direction.

With the rust and mold, the heat was no longer on any of our minds; the closer we got to the water, the cooler the Hurricane got. Instead we had to deal with the smell and sights. If it wasn’t metal, an item either looked incomprehensible or was covered in stuff nocreature but Open Heart likely knew. Discolored, smelling wrong, breaking or tearing at the slightest motion, and more often than not some combination of the three.

“All of this damage just because of age and salt water,” Amaryllis remarked, the tiniest hint of discomfort in their voice as she spoke. “I’m amazed the ship didn’t tear itself apart on the way back.”

“I assume you don’t see this much in Our Haven,” Falke said, tapping his claws against the rusted metal. The sound gave the impression of sturdiness, even if coloring didn’t. “This is common in many places where the Enclave covers the sky. Things don’t try unless you can create a fire.”

“And ponies choose to live in such awful places?” they asked.

“The large majority of them don’t know the cloud layer ends. You spend so long with it above your head, everywhere you go, that its ending feels impossible,” Falke explained. He turned to Hearty. “I assume you thought that, much like I once did.”

“For longer than you have any idea,” He replied. “Can’t remember what it felt like, seeing sunlight for the first time. Was so long ago now.”

“You’ll have to forgive me for viewing that as impossible,” Amaryllis said. “The idea of never seeing the sun feels too foreign to picture.”

“Guess it goes both ways then,” Hearty said, shrugging. There was a slight pause, and then, “What?”

“That was rather civil, considering how you typically act to each other,” Falke replied.

“The Voice of the Messenger is always civil,” Amaryllis said. “The rotting nature of a ghoul’s brain just has trouble understanding what that means.”

Said ghoul rolled his eyes. “Yes, clearly it’s my brain and not yours.”

Falke groaned, and then another groan-like sound echoed back from further down the hall. Every creature stopped where they were, eyes forward. The sound lasted too long to actually be an echo, and voice just off enough for us to tell it was not Falke. As if desiring to confirm our suspicion, the groan rolled through the halls of the Hurricane, sounding even less like Falke then before; his was born out of annoyance, this one sounded like a pain in the form of a melody.

As I reached for the Trench Buster with my magic, Amaryllis frowned. “Is that really necessary?”

I looked at her. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s clearly another of you idiot heretics. Probably tried to swim in and cut themselves open,” Amaryllis replied. “I’d hardly call that a reason to bring out weapons.”

“Miss Amaryllis,” Gemmy said. She had followed my lead, taking out her own pistol, looking at it terrified. “I don’t think that was a pony.”

The changeling furrowed her brow, frown deepening. “What do you mean?”

“Until Gemini and I talked to that spirit, we only had the knowledge that whatever was down her sings,” I told them. “Now we know it is some type of aquatic mlafi. They have the ability to mimic voices to some extent. Open Heart and I have seen it ourselves.”

“Is this true?” Amaryllis asked, turning to the ghoul.

“Yeah, and my wi… I had heard the sound even earlier than that,” he answered.

Both he and Falke had their own firearms ready. This was the first time I had actually paid any real thought to the griffon-made rifle Falke had on him, old but exceedingly well cared for. I made a mental note to myself to ask him for a chance to fire it, purely to sate some curiosity.

Amaryllis focused their attention back down to the end of the hall, where ‘singing’ was coming from. They eyed the walls as if to measure it, mandibles twitching in anticipation. With a sigh, their frown turned into a scowl. She turned to me.

“A hellhound wouldn’t fit in here, and as unfamiliar as I am in the nature of this creature you call a mlafi…,” they held their hoof out, “I fear I’m going to require a weapon.”

I was about ready to point out the fact she had even less firearm training than Gemini, but Falke beat me to it. He took his knife and placed it in her outstretched hoof. Amaryllis glared at him with mandibles raised high, but he simply looked back at them exhausted, like an out of shape pegasus having their first day in boot camp. When it did not change what was held in their hoof, they snorted and scrunched their muzzle. Everycreature present knew that would do jack against the beast we would be fighting.

“Amaryllis,” I said. “I’m teaching you how to shoot a gun if we make it out of here.”

“You need not chastise me, the Messenger is already doing that,” Amaryllis replied. Their magic grabbed the combat knife, lifting it from her hoof into the air. “Shouldn’t you be telling me we will make it out of here, though?”

“And get your hopes up? I’d be a poor officer if I did that,” I said.

Wasn’t going to let them argue that, so I started trotting down the hall once more, shotgun up and ready. Amaryllis still tried, but as soon as I refused to answer their third attempt at calling me out, they gave up. It allowed me to focus on the sounds of the mlafi in the distance as we made our way through the ship. We reached the next staircase without any sight of them.

If the effect of water on metal was shown on the floor above, reaching the bottom of these made it clear that it was more that kept it from getting back to harbor. The first step I took was met with a small splash, leading me to look downwards. A thin line of water, just deep enough to cover my hoof, dirty and still. I could hear Hearty gag at the sight of it.

What I suddenly didn’t hear, was the mlafi’s singing.

The dripping of water, Gemini’s breathing, my hooves going out and back into the water, all were present. The thing that had led us and multiple others down here, however, no longer wailed in some approximation of a melody. My eyes looked to my left, down one hall, and then towards the one in front of me. I didn’t see anything, the still water filthy enough to block sight of the metal below me. Something was wrong, but I wasn’t entirely sure what.

Not until I found a large hole directly in front of me.

It was like missing a step when going down the stairs, my body attempting to tumble forward as my hoof sunk lower than. My wings spread out as much as the corridor would allow, flapping to keep myself from falling into the water. It likely wouldn’t have been enough if not for being magically tugged backwards and onto my ass by several ponies.

“You good?” Hearty asked.

I tilted my head back enough to look at him, giving a very awkward nod to him. “Yeah. Make sure to watch your step, the flooring isn’t all there anymo–”

A loud splash interrupted my warning, the wasteland deciding that it wanted to show instead of tell. Several of my companions' eyes lit up in shock or fear, guns up as they readied to fire. My head snapped back in front of me, not carrying as I got sprayed by water, trying to see exactly what they were aiming at.

All I saw before me was a mass of flesh leaping out of the water, looking nothing like that of a pony. A fact that I only became more familiar with when I felt a large maw clamped down on my chest and up and, without any time to grab my weapons, I was dragged into the pit I had barely escaped from.

Author's Note

Sorry this took me so long everyone. Spent some time focusing on another Fallout Equestria story that has been uploaded onto her in the past few months, and then tie that in with holidays and how badly I handle traveling, writing got put on the backburner for a little bit. Even when I did finally get back it took some time to really find my footing again, and I'll admit that, if this chapter feels a little weird, that might be why. Half of it was written at a far different time than the other, and while I did my best to make sure things are in sync I can only hope that it doesn't feel too disjointed.

Message incoming… (edited)

Message from Enclave Council incoming…

…

…

Message received

Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody, after much deliberation from the council you have been honorably discharged from your duties in the armed forces. The secrets that were taken have greatly threatened the safety of the Grand Pegasus Enclave as a whole, and your part in seeing them be released can’t be overlooked. Do understand that, while this must be hard with how you have worked to get where you are, this is for the safety of every pegasus. Be glad that you are not being charged with treason.

We are sure that, given your outstanding record in the Enclave Military, such information being released would do unnecessary harm to your family legacy. For this reason, we ask that you turn in your uniform, equipment, and any other military affects that you have. Follow standard procedure and your actions won’t be released to the rest of the G.P.E.. You have until 1200 tomorrow to do as ordered.

Thanks again for your service to the Grand Pegasus Enclave.

…

…

Message from Ironsight incoming…

…

…

Message received

To Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody

As of now I’m sure word has reached you about the council's decision. The news was as much a shock to me as I’m sure it is to you. I did my best to argue in your favor, and in my eyes you are innocent, but it was not enough. Those documents that were stolen and brought to the wasteland were too vital for my word to do anything. I apologize for failing you, not just as your superior officer but as your friend.

I’m sure those words mean nothing right now to you, which is why I shall get to the true point of this message. Everything below here is classified, and when you are done reading it, wipe it from your system. Leave the top paragraph intact so it looks as if you chose exile over discharge. None can know of the alternative the council is giving you.

Now then, I am here to tell you the true decision of the Enclave Council. As I stated, and as you well know, those documents your former squadmates stole include highly sensitive material that put the entire Enclave at risk. These can not be allowed to get into the hooves of anypony on the surface and must be destroyed. The safety of the G.P.E. depends on it.

That is where you come into play.

Instead of taking your Honorable Discharge, the council is giving you an alternative: seek out your former squad, confiscate the stolen information, and destroy it. The means in how you get them back is up to you, but your squad can’t be allowed to live. They are enemies of the G.P.E. now; they can’t be allowed to live.

However, if you choose to do this there is one thing you must know. The council recognizes that you will still need your equipment in order to complete what must be done. With you honorably discharged, such an action would be considered a betrayal and the G.P.E. will brand you as a Dashite. You would never be able to return, be considered an enemy yourself, and be left branded.

I hate it as much as you do, but if you wish to take responsibility into your own hooves this is what must be done. I can’t do anything about it, and as your friend I apologize.

At the end of the day the choice is up to you. Honorable Discharge, or become a Dashite to take part in one final mission. Know that whatever choice you make, I’ll be there to support you when possible. I don’t care if you’re a Dashite or not, I’ll do what I can to feed you any information about the location of those traitors.

Your best friend,

General Ironsight.

…

…

Creating a new log entry…

Ironsight,

You know exactly what it is I want to do. Just give me time to say farewell to my family and friends. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to correct my mistakes. I won’t let the G.P.E. down, even if none will ever know what I did for them.

Singing Rhapsody

Log sent to General Ironsight’s terminal.

Act 1 – Chapter 8: Remnants of the Silver Screen

Streets of Trotson

Day 2

“So, how in tartarus did you manage to piss off most of the wasteland?”

When I had said those words, I hadn’t expected Sharpshot’s immediate response to be to freeze up. Having stepped in front of him, I looked at the ghoul perplexed. He chuckled, started walking in a manner best described as sheepish, and shook his head. I couldn’t tell if there was shame in that laugh or walk, but the embarrassment was clear enough. It was interesting and quite odd; I had imagined the wasteland’s most wanted stallion to be a lot different from what I was getting.

I wasn’t quite sure how long we had been walking at the point I asked that, but it was long enough for the music blasting via his PipBuck to become background noise. The only times I paid it any mind was when the music stopped and the radio mare, DJ-PON3 as they called themselves, spoke. I remember Medicine Ball would find literally any opportunity to listen to them, infatuated by their voice to an almost unhealthy level. Listening to them brought back… interesting memories of the mare. It was definitely the reason she went to Manehattan.

“So you know my reputation,” He said, though his words felt more like it was meant for himself than me. “Of course that is the case. I can’t have one pony who does not learn who I am and what I’ve done? Can’t the wasteland give me that?” He ended his little rant by ramming the butt of the abomination into the road. That seemed to calm him down. “So, any faction or settlement in particular you want to know about? It would be easier to list who I haven’t pissed off than who I have.”

“Well, I can guess what is going on with Unity. I can’t imagine having Willow trotting around does a lot of good for their cause,” I told him, not taking notice as the trotting of my hooves suddenly changed at the start of a new song. I became perfectly in sync with its rhythm and had started doing more of a prance than anything. “Considering all of the ponies you have on your bad side, the fact the Grand Pegasus Enclave seems to be the opposite is strange.”

“As I tell everypony, it’s a long story,” He said, shrugging. “Lets just say they helped me, I helped them, and we both got something we very much wanted. For me, that was Willow’s freedom from her owner.”

“Oh yeah, that has been mentioned a few times now,” I replied, turning my head away from the ghoul. I didn’t notice the intrigued look that he seemed to have on his face. “I doubt that you managed it by just killing ponies. Sure, it would make you a nuisance, but most of you grounders are that anyway.”

“You say that word far too casually,” Sharpshot muttered, rolling his eyes. There was silence for a couple seconds, then he spoke up. “You’re correct. I mean, Willow and I’s relationship was enough for the Goddess to want me dead. Sometimes all you have to do is free some slaves or reveal some secrets. Wastelanders can get touchy.” He laughed. “If you want the most interesting story, it’s how the Steel Rangers came to hate me.”

I raised my brow, leaning my head in his direction. “It’s more than just taking some technology from them?”

“Let me put it this way: I’m a ghoul. A ghoul with two pieces of unique, old world tech at my hooves,” he said, tapping both his weapons against himself. “A ghoul, with old world tech, who in an odd moment of doing more good than bad for the wasteland, decided to kill an elder of theirs. Not the best look, even if the stallion in question wasn’t exactly sane.”

A couple of blinks, and I looked away to hide the fact that I was impressed. Elders might as well have been the leaders in the Steel Rangers now that the Ministry Mares were gone. They were well protected, but at the same time were soldiers themselves. Killing an elder was no small feat, and while the first two parts of Sharpshot’s small story would create tension between him and the Rangers, that last one would burn any bridges that could ever be forged. It showed skill, but also the danger of having a pony like him around; it could easily make things harder.

“How did you do it?” I asked. “I’m certain you didn’t just waltz in and blow his head off.”

“It would have been rather funny, you gotta admit,” Sharpshot said, doing his best to hold in the urge to laugh more at my statement. I would never admit that he was correct. “If you must know, it was a decent amount of time ago. The Bucklyn Bridge was actually still fully standing at the time and, well, it would take forever to explain why we did it.” His gaze was lost in the distance, a mix of joy and pain in his voice. “Let's just say it has to do with I.M.P., a cast out Steel Ranger, and a bunch of other shit. We stormed their base on the bridge, doing our best to spare as many of them as possible, and I got the final shot in. Nearly died that day… and a friend of mine did.”

I turned to him for just a moment, and then looked back in front of me. “My condolences.”

The most recent song stopped, a new one began, and once again my canter changed. This time I was very much aware of it, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was a woeful acoustic guitar piece, the singer different from the mare I had heard just before. I had never heard it before, but had quickly synchronized all my movements to its beat. The casual mention of the wasteland and other post-war things made me realize that what I was listening to was more recent. I didn’t expect ponies to still be writing music nowadays down here, but I wasn’t going to complain.

In fact, I have to admit that I was really enjoying it. The music of the wasteland had such a different tone to that of what anypony would hear above the clouds. The joyful, rock-like notes that I was used to were replaced with acoustic, single-instrument ballads of the ruined world. It put a large, genuine smile on my face that no pony but Anchor and my foals knew was possible. There was a hint of surprise on Sharpshot’s face as I practically pranced my way to our destination. It was only when the song stopped and DJ-PON3’s voice hit my ears did that smile and prancing fall away.

“On the spectrum?”

My eyes widened, looking at Sharpshot. For a moment I was surprised that he had managed to pick that up just from how I had been acting. Then I remembered he was from a stable, possibly the only place in Equestria where I would expect knowledge of things like that to survive. After briefly wondering if it was okay to divulge that much to the stallion, I came to the conclusion it wouldn’t do any more harm than telling him my name would already do. The ghoul had earned a nod from me for his detective work.

“Wasn’t diagnosed until I joined the Enclave proper,” I explained. “Parents didn’t care enough about if I was or not.”

“That makes two of us then… except I was diagnosed rather early,” Sharpshot replied. I could hear the smirk he was wearing through his voice. “Glad to meet another neurodivergent out here.”

I considered my possible responses, and then spoke. “The feeling is mutual.”

Our journey stopped at a theater that, according to the MentaBuck, was known as Alibi Street Cinema. Of all the places I had expected them to camp out in, it certainly wasn’t what I had expected. That made it a great choice, as it likely kept them off the radar of ArcanaTech and wouldn’t be somewhere a group of raiders might choose to hang out around. Sharpshot seemed to know what he was doing, which perhaps wasn’t surprising considering he had been living with a gun under his pillow for who knows how many years.

I also couldn’t deny that I had some interest in seeing what lied inside. Cinema was a wartime development, half used to fuel propaganda against the zebra menace and half to offer relief from the war. When Equestria died, so did cinema. Not even the Grand Pegasus Enclave made use of it anymore, what film we had long since used. Either that or it was blown up when Las Pegasus destroyed itself with its own balefire bomb. The point was, it was possible something might still be preserved and watchable. Chances were rather low, given both the damage the balefire had done to Trotson and the time that had passed.

“Here we are!” Sharpshot replied, a hoof going at wide as if he was a tour guide from before the war. “Enclosed enough where we’ll know raiders are there before they know we are here, but open enough to not cause Willow’s claustrophobia to set in.” He turned his head to me. “Pegasus thing, right?”

“Oh yeah, she did mention she was a pegasus, didn’t she?” I asked rhetorically, mind flashing back to her mutilation of the burned raider. “I guess it’s nice to have a former member of my tribe with me.”

Sharpshot showed me inside, opening the door like a gentlecolt. The inside of the building left his action somewhat absurd, considering the inside looked as lovely as a hangover. The decay that rotted all of Trotson was here as well, and I suspected time had turned much of it to dust. The concession stand was either filled with things far too disgusting to be considered edible or straight up dust. The curtains that darkened the theater behind said stand had been dissolved into nothing by time and the hunger of insects. There was also a pony behind what I had to assume was a ticket counter, knowing they didn’t have a spot in one of Stable-Tech’s bunkers. Personally, they had been given a fate far kinder than what some ponies experienced in stables.

The lights were out, predictably, and when the door closed the outside and light from Sharpshot’s PipBuck became the main source. It was far more eerie hearing our hooves echo in the cinema compared to the apartment complex. There was far more light and the space was more cramped, but the light outside didn’t reach into the main theater room. It was almost completely pitch black, save for right around where the blackout curtains should have been.

Left was the restrooms, and right led to a door reading staff only. With the darkness of the theater properly repelling me, I turned my attention there. I could feel Sharpshot’s confused gaze on the back of my skull, but I ignored him to satisfy my curiosity. Better to do so now rather than later when it was more than possible we could be in danger. The door wasn’t locked too, and as I entered I finally looked back at the ghoul staring at me.

“You two check up here?” I asked.

Sharpshot shook his head. “No reason. E.F.S. was clear so we just let things be.”

His faith in Stable-Tech’s systems concerned the soldier side of me. An uncleared building was not a safe one, and it gave me the perfect reason to check the upper floor. I made my way up the stairs located on the other side of the door, ready for maybe a feral ghoul or something like it. At best there would in fact be nothing, but a soldier never expected the best. That was how ponies got killed.

The stairs led into the projector room. A gemstone had been lodged in the door, cracked to the point I could scrap it off with my hooves. It was a talisman of some kind but I have no idea what kind it was. My best guess was on some sort of preservation talisman, probably placed for something like a fire and not a megaspell. Given its state I figured the film reels and projector it was trying to protect would be beyond the point of usable.

To my satisfaction and shock, I was only half correct.

Opening the door showed me a room that seemed half as aged compared to the rest of the building. It still didn’t look clean, but the rot and mold had not infested it to the level of Whickerbury Apartment Complex or the main floor. Film reels were scattered on the floor, some in far better shapes than others. The projector was facing down into the main theater, and not far to its side was a terminal. The green light from its screen made things a lot more visible then they otherwise would be.

“See, nothing to worry about. I get the mentality but Stable-Tech stuff is trustworthy in its design,” Sharpshot said from behind me. He walked to my side and eyed the room around us. “Huh, didn’t expect it to look this good up here.”

“I’m gonna see if the projector works.”

“Oka– wait, why?” He asked, tilted his head at me.

I hadn’t fully made it to said projector before my hooves stopped working, his words hitting me like bricks. I looked down at my hooves – at myself – and realized that I was acting in an odd way. I was a soldier on a mission, and that mission should have been my focus. Instead I had somehow found myself intrigued at the thought of seeing the remains of a world I had no attachment to. The surface I was calling dangerous and scary was feeling… nostalgic, maybe? Either that or it was feeling more like home than the Enclave had throughout my many years.

Realizing what was happening, how I was acting, and the realization that in the span of only two days I had shown more emotion to strangers than I had in the past few years, I panicked. That panic only made me panic more as I realized that I was feeling panicked. My hooves started to do a dance and my mind went into overdrive as I tried to figure out why I was feeling this way. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t figure out why I suddenly felt more like a pony than I had in years, and everything about it terrified me.

Then a hoof laid itself on the back of my neck, and another curled around the bottom of it. I snapped to the face of the pony doing it, my mind instantly believing that it was Anchor. I was instead left stunned as I saw Sharpshot doing something that I thought only my ex-husband had been capable of. The touch of hooves calmed me, allowing me to regain myself. Thinking clearly, I lifted a hoof to my head and groaned.

“You okay?” The ghoul asked me.

“Yeah. Just a panic attack, I guess,” I told him. I looked to the door, then to the projector, then to the door. “It’s… it’s safe. No enemies. We should go down where–”

“Let’s check the projector.” Sharpshot butt in. I looked at him with more disapproval than I had a lot of things in my past two decades of service. “It’s what you want to really do, so we’re doing it.”

I looked away from him. “It’s not mission critical.”

“You're a Dashite,” he stated. Those simple words caused my heart to twist. “You can’t go back. This is your home now, so you are gonna enjoy it.”

“What gives you the right to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do?” I asked him. My entire body felt tense.

“Other than the fact I’ve lived for over a century and have seen and experienced more than you will ever in your lifetime?” He asked rhetorically. He walked around me and used his own body to block the door. “I’ve seen dashites and stable dwellers live and die. I know how the smart ones stay alive in a new, different environment.” He shook his head. “A trusting of the gut, a willingness to explore and learn. These ponies take the chance to learn their environment, and you are trying to talk yourself out of doing just that..”

I looked at the projector, a small piece of me considering what he said. “It’s all pre-war, it won’t tell me anything about the surface I don’t already know.”

“Yet you still want to view it, don’t you?” Sharpshot asked me, chipping away at my patience and excuses like a sculpture. “Something made you interested in this. What is it?”

I wasn’t sure how to counter that. As I did my best to find the most effective and indirect way of saying “it doesn’t matter”, Sharpshot stood there in contempt. He had me, and I knew it no matter how much I wanted to believe otherwise. I felt pathetic knowing that a walking corpse had the upper hoof, and the fact I could feel his shit-eating grin under those rags made it only worse. I was a ticking time bomb, one he had expertly wound up over the course of the day.

It took one simple sentence to make me explode.

“I guess the little miss soldier is a lot more pathetic than she made herself out to be.”

With no second though, rage formed listening to that cockiness for the entire day, and a newly wounded ego, I snapped. I spun around, walked over to Sharpshot, and my hoof found his haw. A quick, powerful right hook had sent him stammering to the side, but he didn’t fall over like I expected. I had managed to hit him in just the right way where his mask had come off, allowing me to see his gull expression. To my shock he didn’t frown or get angry, but instead obtained a smile so wide it could not be considered natural.

Then he started laughing, shaking his head as a hoof felt his muzzle. I looked at the bottom of my hoof, and then at myself. His laughter grew, my heartrate picking up at the volume of anger he had managed to get out of me. The curiosity and panic I had felt could all be categorized as one-off events, but this anger wasn’t. It had built too naturally, and the way it lingered in my body made me worried. As I looked at Sharpshot desperate to find some way to call it unnatural, I found that he was still laughing at the punch I had given him.

“I knew it. I fucking knew it,” he said. He flashed an ugly, toothy grin in my direction. “You're definitely that idiot's descendant. No pony besides Star and Dead ever hit me that hard.”

I didn’t pay attention to the names he dropped, being too wound up from his words. “How did you make me do that? You put some kind of spell on me?”

“Miss, I may have a big magic pool but I’m not a spell caster. Precision as a talent doesn’t cover much outside of really easy telekinesis for spell casting,” Sharpshot explained, walking away from the door and sitting down in the center of the room. “Mind magic is way out of my league. That anger was all you, and it was absolutely beautiful.”

I stood there looking at him, my voice only able to find a single word. “Why?”

“I would like to say it was because you needed it, but I would be lying,” he explained, one hoof holding his mouth like it was about to fall off. “I just like seeing ponies angry. It’s the main emotion down here for a lot of ponies.” He shook his head, shoulders rising and falling as he giggled like a young colt. “Now, how about we see if the projector works.”

I looked at the device, having held in the urge to ask why. The anger had made me tired, and it was perhaps that reason I finally gave in to my curiosity. The question of “why” echoed in my mind, but I didn’t want to answer something I couldn’t explain. An answer I didn’t have at the time, to be completely truthful. At the time the wheels of film and the projector they were meant for just seemed like a piece of intrigue.

I looked at the projector, and then out in front of it to the well-sized room below. Rows upon rows of faded red seats faced a wall that had once been painted pure white. Now the paint was gone, and age had cursed it with a hideous brown and dark gray. It would still do the job, but it was a shame I would never see this equipment in prime condition.

I checked cables, made sure a bulb was on, and then flicked the projector on. To my astonishment, a flickering light found its way out from the projector and beamed down onto the large wall below. It was just pure white, no film put in for it to read, but that didn’t matter at that moment. It worked, and that meant that we could take a look at whatever film reels were in good enough condition to be usable. That all gave me the smallest of smiles.

“Anypony tell you that you hit like an earth pony?” Sharpshot asked, still nursing his muzzle.

“No, and I do not care,” I told him. “Now get off your ass. We got some film reels to examine.”

Before we put any in we tried our best to determine if any of them were usable to begin with. The labels for what was contained on one was faded by father time’s cruel march, and more than a few had been far too rested. The ones we thought might work were stored next to the projector, and when we had gone through everything there were only four in that pile. Everything had otherwise been either snapped apart, rusted beyond viewability, or the film part of the reel was missing. It was to be expected given the amount of time they had simply sat there, and I considered myself lucky that we had any that worked at all.

With that it was a simple matter of waiting for Willow to meet us here. Sharpshot wasn’t gonna let me leave her out of this, and I more than had the patience to do so. That time was spent sating the hunger I had worked up with some of the provisions we had been given and checking the terminal. While I couldn’t admit it at the time, the food was some of the best I had ever had in my entire life. I knew it, and though I would deny it when he asked, Sharpshot knew it too. The surface was winning me over, and far faster than any proud Enclave member would like to admit it. It left me questioning if what I had seen on that first time to the surface was correct or not.

The terminal wasn’t as interesting, given it was mainly a list of showings and how to properly run the projector. The one thing of interest it did have was a recording on it, which Sharpshot had put into his PipBuck upon its discovery. It was one of the perks of having an actual device instead of simply having the main functions in one’s brain. When we finished eating, he set it to play. We were greeted by the voice of a stallion in what I would assume was his last fifties. He sounded pretty damn upset.

“Well, today is my last day here, and good riddance. If you found this, that means you're either a member of the Minister of Morals or my replacement. If you're the former, you listen damn well because boy do I have the juiciest bit of info for you. For my replacement, the same thing goes to you because somepony has to stop these dumbass sympathizers from getting their way. Yes, you heard me right, Sympathizers! Using a Luna damned cinema as their little base of operations!”

“Okay, technically they are not stripe sympathizers but they are members of that anti-ministry group making a name for themselves. What did they call themselves? It was something in prench. Resistance deli whatever the fuck? You know who, so I’m gonna just skip over that and tell you that this cinema isn’t what it used to be. The point is that they are recruiting new members from here, are planning something at the ol–”

There was the sound of a scuffle on the other side, the sounds of hits and grunts coming through. That was followed by tense seconds of silence, and then a voice far different from what we had heard before. They were younger and feminine, cold and yet as mature as a pony twice their age.

“The ministers plan the end of the world. They slowly bring all of Equestria and Zebrica to judgment day, and I will not stand around and let it happen. Find me, detain me, and you only further prove what we have said. The ministers will pay for their sins. You can count on it.”

It ended there, Sharpshot squirming a bit before his posture suddenly straightened far more than it had before. Whoever she was, she sounded like a very wonderful pony to talk to. Probably spent her days out on the streets preaching about the doom of ponykind. Either that or working for this anti-ministry group didn’t change that. An anti-ministry group I wasn’t even aware existed until that very moment.

I could understand why it was swept under the rug, but it showed a side of Equestria that wasn’t as great as high school history had painted it. I knew enough to know that the ministry mares were responsible for what we saw today, and that Pinkie and Fluttershy specifically made the problem worse. One turned Equestria into a surveillance state, and the other had given the zebras the keys to megaspell disaster. In hindsight it only made sense that there were ponies asking for the removal of the ministry.

“Well, mare got her wish,” Sharpshot stated, staring at the terminal we had retrieved the recording from. “Karma in the form of magical annihilation for the ministries.”

“But the cost they paid to get it was what they had feared the most,” I said. My eyes lingered on where I knew his PipBuck was underneath his clothes. “Did she get her hooves on a monkey's paw?”

“That would certainly explain our lovely little wasteland, wouldn’t it?” He asked smugly. After a moment, he forced himself to laugh. “Funny. Perhaps I should be pissed at what she said about the ministries but I can’t help but agree. We really went and fucked up the whole world.”

I narrowed my eyes on him. “We?”

“Parents were the children of ministry ponies. Father is from the Ministry of Peace side, and my mother’s parents were from the Ministry of Morals,” He explained, motioning wildly. If the motions meant anything, they made no sense to me. “I hate the ministries, and I hate them. Their existence is the cause behind so many of the things we have to deal with now tha–”

“AaaaaaaAAAAAAH!”

My eyes went from barely open to blown wide at the wail of agony below. Sharpshot shot up from where he was sitting, seeming worried and scared, and ran out of the projector room. I followed behind him, half expecting the source to be some half-feral ghoul that had not showed up on my E.F.S. earlier. I was met with something else as we reached the bottom of the stairs, something that caused me to hesitate.

Hooves clutching her neck, still screaming in sudden pain despite her body looking completely fine, was Willow. She was in tears, the foal-like voice I had heard in my head sounding almost nothing like what actually came out of her mouth. It sounded like she had been screaming forever, her eyes barely able to look at either Sharpshot or myself as we walked up to her. It was terrifying, and horribly familiar.

While Sharpshot had rushed to her side, I stared at… something. It wasn’t Willow, Sharpshot, or any other physical being but rather some banshee that had appeared in my mind's eye. I immediately recognized them, twisting Willow Wisp’s screams of agony into the death cries of soldiers and grounders that I had seen die over my years of service. I was lost in my own little world of horror, those that had been damned seeming both raging at my very being and scared of me at the same time. They were incomprehensible, but my mind put in words that a part of me had wanted to hear.

“YoU dId ThIs!” My brain made them say. “YoU kIlLeD uS!”

At the time, I was so lost I did nothing but agree. Not even Willow’s telepathic voice in my head could wake me.

“It hurts Sharpy! It hurts so much!” She cried out. She sounded as if she was going to die, but I could barely register her. “Everything… everything hurts.”

If anything her words seemed to make the voices in my head worse. The real and imaginary fit together too perfectly, creating a loop I couldn’t escape. My eyes didn’t register the room any longer, and my mind felt like something was trying to rip it from my brain. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, but I didn’t care. The world had locked me in a mental torture chamber, and I didn’t even tried to escape. I felt I needed this.

I felt I deserved it.

I was awoken to the realm of the living by a slap to the face. It wasn’t anywhere near as hard as the one I had given Sharpshot, but the pain was enough. The ghoul took center place in my vision, silencing gracing my ears. Willow was getting back onto her hooves behind him, the look of pain on her face saying that whatever had caused her that pain wasn’t gone. I would have kept my eyes on her, but Sharpshot gave me several extremely light blows to the face several times when my eyes trailed too far from his.

“Stay with us, soldier mare. The lands of imagination can wait,” he told me. He only stopped when I blocked an incoming hoof, pausing for a moment before backing away. “Wasn’t expecting you to go all “thousand yard stare” on me there. You good?”

“Peachy as Pinkie,” I retorted. I briefly looked at Willow, one hoof rubbing her throat. “Any clue what happened.”

“Don’t need clues. We’ve been dealing with that for a long, long time,” he explained. He looked to his wife, and then to me. “I think it’s best if she explained.”

It took some time for Willow to feel comfortable up in the film room, both due to claustrophobia and how much pain she seemed to be in. Though she had stopped messaging her throat, there was this feeling that she wasn’t comfortable. Her eyes seemed ready to bring forth another wave of tears, the smile she wore unsteady and incredibly false. The strange part is that it was the same smile she had worn around me all day, and it got me to think if those ones were just as fake. The answer would only come once the couple started to explain.

That explanation started with a simple question from Sharpshot. “Soldier mare, how much do you know about killing joke?”

“Nothing. I have no history with it, and I don’t know anypony who has ever dealt with it,” I explained, having laid myself down to rest. I could still faintly hear the screams of the damned in the back of my head, calling for my decapitation. “I know it exists, and that it's nasty. That is pretty much it.”

“Well, in that case, remember how you mentioned a monkey’s paw earlier?” He asked me. I gave a nod to the stallion. “It’s like that. It twists your words and uses them against you. I won’t use an example for my own safety, but the plants are literally killer jokes.”

“My former owner was a very bad pony who killed a lot of ponies. He made me kill a lot of ponies too, and to protect myself I learned to enjoy what he made me do,” Willow said, her head resting on the floor. Her body was curled against itself tightly, and I could see she was terrified. Seeing an alicorn afraid seemed just as anomalous as the rest of Willow’s existence, and put me on edge. “He liked the quiet, so I would talk his ear off to spite him. He could have just detonated the collar I had on, but he needed me and didn’t want to go through the process of purchasing and training some other pony. Then, one day, I made a comment about how not even my throat burning would stop me from talking.”

Her eyes closed, a long, heavy breath escaping her nostrils.

“Worst mistake of my life. He didn’t need me anymore, so he forced killing joke down my throat. Suddenly everything just… it hurt!” She sounded like she was in pain again. “My throat wouldn’t stop hurting. Everytime I move my neck or head, everytime I swallow, and everytime I try to speak I’m greeted with pure agony. It never stops. Even with painkillers it doesn’t completely go away. I’m living in constant pain, and the only thing that keeps me going some days is having Sharpy at my side.”

“Oh goddesses,” I whispered. “A plant can do that?”

Willow nodded her head, and I felt my entire being go pale. Now that I was aware of it, I noticed the way she moved her neck. Her muscles looked as if they were constantly working, constricting and almost twitching in some aspects. There was also the consistent motion of swallowing, as if Willow was trying to get a piece of food out of her throat that was lodged inside. I was pretty sure there wasn’t anything stuck there; she hadn’t eaten in the entire time that I’ve known her, as far as I was aware.

“You… have my sympathies, Willow,” I replied, trying to think of the pony before me not as the terrifying alicorn I had expected her to be, but the frail pegasus she was at her core. Imagining her as one of my own made the act of apologizing a lot easier. “I wish there was something I could do to help you.”

“Even if you did, I wouldn’t want it,” she replied. Her words caused my eyes to go wide. “The killing joke sucks but it's also the only thing keeping me out of her hooves.”

“Her?” I questioned. Neither gave me an answer, giving me a look that said “figure it out for yourself”. After a bit, I had an answer that should have been somewhat obvious. “The Goddess.”

“We made a gamble years ago, before the Goddess made herself known to the wasteland. Don’t ask how we found her, it’s a long story,” Sharpshot replied. His eyes went back to the saddlebags near his flank again, that same look he had the last time he looked at the gracing his eyes. “Basic version is we were approached for something good we did. She said she could help Willow, and that becoming an alicorn would break the killing joke’s effect. Mainly she just wanted a test subject.” He shook his head. “Clearly the killing joke didn’t find that funny.”

“There are no other voices in my head, and I’m still truly myself,” Willow explained. “I’m a defect. They want me dead, and they want Sharpshot dead for knowing I exist. If the killing joke is removed from my body, it’s entirely possible that my assimilation into the Unity will be finished.” She closed her eyes, a single tear falling from her face. “If that happens I… I might kill him.”

Words evaded me, as did coherent thought. The number of ways I wanted to say sorry to these two, despite the fact that they were grounders, wouldn’t put into justice how I felt. It was both heartwarming and heart wrenching at the same time, and I could barely imagine what Anchor and I would do in that same situation. The room suddenly felt too small, and my wings felt like there wasn’t enough room to spread them out. I got to my hooves, trotted in place a bit, and then made my way to the door.

“I just… I need to step outside a moment,” I told them both. “Need some clean air.”

Inhale for three seconds, hold for one, and then exhale for five. It was a simple yet effective technique to calm one's breath when under stress, and the air in the cinema wasn’t enough. I had to step outside, there was no choice. Everything that had happened in the span of the past hour had me wound up like clockwork. If I didn’t calm down, it was too likely that I might somehow do something stupid.

The small moments of believing the wasteland wasn’t as bad as I imagined were thoroughly buried. Hearing Willow’s story terrified me, the knowledge of everything she had been through made me sick. Her story of persevering by finding Sharpshot was beautiful in a way, but everything around it felt unbelievable. Ponies in the Enclave didn’t need to go through all of that just for the one they love, and they shouldn’t have to. I felt bad for them, having to live in this environment.

I felt bad for surface ponies!

My first time on the surface in the Enclave, we had killed a bunch of raiders. That was the kind of pony I expected to be down here, and the kind I was use to killing. When I was only here for missions and deployments, the idea that grounders could be so much like myself seemed nonsensical. I would probably question their loyalty to the Enclave and remind them of what I had always seen as the truth: we were the last pure ponies of Equestria. Amazing how quickly that line of thinking made me feel like a foal.

I sat against the door to Alibi Street Cinema for who knows how long. The unnatural quiet of Trotson filled my ears, the wind rarely making itself known. Perhaps a gunshot or something would ring in the distance, but I didn’t feel on edge. I was starting to trust the E.F.S.’s word that there were no hostiles around me, and so I closed my eyes. Taking in the feeling of everything around me, I reminded myself of the one thing I still felt was true.

“I’m a soldier of the Enclave. My brand doesn’t change my love for my home,” I muttered to myself, expecting nopony to hear it. Even as the exceptionally quiet sound of static graced my ears, I believed that. “Nothing you’ve seen changes that fact.”

“In a way, I can see that loyalty as admirable.”

I opened my eyes at the sound of a new voice, expecting to see a pony. Instead I was greeted with the form of a Sprite-Bot hovering not far in front of me. I stared at it, and it stared back at me in silence. With a sigh, I inclined my head and looked up to the blue sky above me.

“I’m hearing voices now,” I said. “I must be going crazy.”

“I would say you are a lot less crazy then most ponies in this wasteland,” the Sprite-Bot said. “After all, it seems you’ve already made two friends down here. Sharpshot and Willow are rough around the edges, but trust me when I say they are good ponies.”

“Okay, this is actually happening,” I told myself, shaking my head. I looked at the Sprite-Bot, expression turning to stone. “So you are some sort of sentient robot?”

“No. The Sprite-Bots are just my eyes and ears in the wasteland,” he said. It had to be a he, though I’ve most definitely been wrong about that in the past. “Call me Watcher. I’m sure you probably feel rather well prepared for being down here, but I figured even a Dashite like yourself might need some advice for the wasteland.”

Act 2 – Chapter 8: The Hornless Alicorn

Day 10

Underside, San Palomino

“So, to go back over everything you’ve laid at our hooves,” Sharpshot said, eyes never leaving the masked pony that now stood at the end of the motel room’s bed. “You two do, in fact, know each other, but we aren’t getting any more about you then that.”

Three nodded. “Shattered Moon only gave me permission to tell the counselor. I didn’t even know she’d be with grounders.”

“Oh hey, you call us that too!” Willow said. Three flinched, not the first time he had done so at the alicorn’s telepathic communications. Clearly having her in his head was far more upsetting than it was for anypony else here. “You two really do know each other!”

“It’s a common term used in the Enclave. Three using it reveals nothing,” I said.

“More a slur than anything, but I guess you don’t have the ability to think that separate from your precious Enclave yet,” Sharpshot replied. Three looked at me, brow raised as if to silently ask if this was really the company I’ve decided to keep. I let out a loud breath, and shrugged as a response. “Anyways, mister totally-doesn’t-know-soldier mare here supposedly knows of a pegasus bearing striking resemblance to one of her targets. It also happens that they are in cahoots with Our Haven.”

“Exactly, and we know where they’ve been operating out of, so we are going to neutralize them,” I told him. He gave me his own dissatisfied look, one he made very easy to read. “You call brahmin shit.”

“Of course I call brahmin shit!” He dialed up the exasperation in his voice, looking at me like I had a giant hole where my frontal lobe should be. He then looked and pointed to Three. “I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you.”

Three took a step forward, purposefully crossing both back and front hooves as he did. “Oh really? And why is that?”

“Why do you think? Anypony can be under that mask, none of us save Rhapsody was there, and overall this entire situation just feels shifty.” The ghoul nodded his head in my direction. “The moments I trust our “leader” the least is when her mind is so set on revenge that it doesn’t think of every other possibility.”

“Will agree. Pegasus has one track mind,” Gold added on.

Willow nodded confidently. “Not to mention rather emotional.”

“And very scary if you get her angry.” Gemini shrank as she added her own addition to the growing pile of jabs. “Like, she might want to kill us right now as an example, scary.”

Her statement was proven correct through a twitching eyelid, impatient hoof tap, and downright comical frown. The last of them was fake, but only because behind every ounce of anger their remarks left, my heart hurt just a little bit more. Gemini was joining in just cause everycreature else had done it, but the others? I had a lot to prove to them.

Simply saying I was wrong wouldn’t do anything.

“Seems you got a rep among your… friends here, councilor,” Three said, just a hint of a smirk evident in his voice.

“Saying friend too far. She's just part of contract,” Gold bluntly explained, putting yet another dagger into my heart. “Lot to prove, for friendship.”

“Well I think she’s a friend, so Three is still right!” Willow said, smiling wide. It is near-instantly shaped into something a bit more sheepish as she looks at me. “So, uh, no offense for the comment–“

“Offense still taken.”

Eyes were averted from me, ears folded back. “Fair enough.”

While the entire side conversation happened, Sharpshot’s hoof got closer and closer to his face. When quiet finally fell upon the room once again, he was less than an inch from a self-boop caused by disappointment. Instead, it fell back below him, and he settled for a resigned sigh.

“The point of what I was trying to say is that I feel any information gained from the featherbrain needs to be double checked,” he explained. “Soldier mare wants the pony dead. Pony tells soldier mare want she wants to hear. Soldier mare does that ponies dirty work. Who is to say she gets wise even after the fact.”

“So you think I’m using her,” Three replied.

Sharpshot nodded. “I’m sure it's not the preferred method of the Shattered Moon, but if you can keep your ponies safe you do. Throwing us to the wolves is a decent way of doing it.”

“I guess I can see why you would think that, but allow me to point out the obvious.” Three eyes the alicorn at Sharpshot’s side. “Why would I lie to you all with her standing right there?”

Sharpshot grew annoyed, and that was all anycreature needed to show the pegasus was right. Three knew about Willow from the night before; she was with us when we reported Amaryllis. If the purpose of this was to use me for Shattered Moon’s own benefit, then Willow’s mere presence next to me should have warded them off.

What Three said was the truth, though that didn’t mean Sharpshot wasn’t… somewhat correct. Considering the circumstances around how I received said information, calling it sketchy was accurate. No standard group of ponies blindfolded a pony, locked them in a room, and threatened them with death if they dared to leave before they were allowed to. Suspicion was rightly cast on an old friend of mine.

“You let us into Underside, you were comfortable dealing with us,” the ghoul shot back. “Just because killing her is harder than it is with most ponies doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

Three glances between Willow and her husband. “Why would we risk that?”

“Better question: why we arguing?” Gold chimed in. After a firm stretch, he jumped off the other bed and made his way towards Sharpshot. “If we’re being used, we deal with it later. If not? Rhapsody gets what she wants.”

“Oh, I’m aware that’s an option,” Sharpshot replied with a roll of his eyes. “I just don’t want us to be the pawns in some grand game.”

“Rather be the puppet master than the puppet.”

Sharpshot clapped his hooves, then pointed them at Three. “Exactly! Having control is very… important…,” the barest sign of a smile showed through the latter’s mask, causing the form to narrow his eyes. “You sneaky….”

“You asked for control, I gave it to you.” A little amusement had worked its way into Three’s voice, barely holding in an actual vocal laugh. “I’m not surprised that it means so much to you, given how young you look. Forever stuck in our rebellious phase, huh?”

Sharpshot’s eyes went wide, mouth sputtering as he tried and failed to come up with a suitable comeback. Gold squawked loudly, filling the motel room with his laughter. He wrapped a talon around Three and pulled them close, giving a smug grin to the masked pegasus. As his mad cackling died down, Gold gave a playful punch in the shoulder to the pegasus.

“I like you. Got good jokes,” the old griffon said. He shoved himself away and turned to me. “Can deal with him easily. Pulls rug over our head? I kill him. Sounds good?”

I looked at Three, and he looked back at me. There was the slightest sign of tension and anxiousness that came with Gold’s declaration, but overall he seemed calm. I shifted my expression into concern for him, silently asking how he felt about the arrangement. After a long, sharp exhale, Three cave a small, mechanical nod to me. The same exact kind of exhale graced my lips moments later as I looked back to Gold.

“Only if I give the order,” I told him. While he didn’t seem quite satisfied with the arrangement, he nodded in agreement. With one companion dealt with, my attention turned back to Sharpshot. “If you don’t want to walk into what you believe is a trap, you and Willow can stay here.”

“And leave you to likely get yourself killed, no thank you,” Sharpshot replied, shaking his head. “Someone is going to need to patch you up. Whether Three is correct or not, you are going to get hurt.”

I frowned. “You have that little faith in me.”

“Rhapsody, how many times have you gotten injured in the time I’ve known you?” Willow asked. My muzzle opened in an attempt to answer her, but she beat me to it. “As far as I know, you’ve gotten stabbed with a horn, shot by Gemini,” the unicorn in question looked away in guilt, “broke your shoulder firing a sniper rifle, passed out from pain after teleportation, and that is within the span of just twenty-four hours.” A brief, if uncomfortable silence hung in the air, Willow’s eyes looking from pony to pony in confusion. “You need Sharpy, Singing. You need him, and you probably want me.”

“Having an alicorn certainly would help cutting off any escape attempts Lucky Shot makes,” Three said, giving a nod in my direction. “That and, well, if this little operation goes anything like how they did back home…”

My frown turned into a snarl. I hated how right both of them were, especially on the point of my luck at remaining uninjured. A single glance towards my still healing wing was enough to not just remind me, but the entire room of how fucked I’d be without him. It’s entirely possible that, without him and Willow, I’d be dead in the sandstorm right now from whatever Domino had attempted to do to me. He was the reason I hadn’t joined DH in the afterlife.

“I appreciate it, really,” I said in a more sullen tone. I shook the thoughts away immediately after. “Okay, we head out now then. Gemmy, you stay in here while the rest wait outside.”

“D-did I… did I do something wrong?” Gemini asked, ears folded.

I draped a wing not too high over her, shading the young mare but nothing more. “No. Three and I just need your help with a little something extra,” my head fell a bit. “I’m… sorry ahead of time.”

She blinked. “Sorry?”

I looked back to everycreature else, and they got the memo. Willow, Sharpshot, Three, and Gold all made their way to the door and exited, one by one. Each gave either a short nod or wave before they did, as if I wasn’t about to see them not too much later. When the room returned to silence, I hopped off one bed and jumped onto the other, allowing me to give the unicorn my undivided attention without needing to turn my neck.

She didn’t like it.

She had tucked her head into the base of her neck, avoiding eye contact with us and practically sinking into the mattress. It didn’t matter what my earlier words meant, she was scared that she had done something wrong. Either that or she thought I was going to get on her again for the alcohol she had partaken in the day prior. In an attempt to help her out a little bit I gave her a smile.

“DH, you there?”

“Yep!” Gemmy literally jumped at the sound of the ghost appearing next to her. Landing with her legs splayed out, one living unicorn looked to the dead one that had taken a seat right next to her. Dead Hooves giggled and laughed sheepishly at her. “I know you’ve technically seen me a few times by now but, well, hi. I’m Dead Hooves.”

After a series of blinks that no doubt coincided with her brain restarting. Once it had, she pulled herself into a more comfortable lying down position, eyes never moving from DH. “H-Hi there.”

“How long have you been able to see here?” I asked Gemmy. She tilted her head, confused. “Dead Hooves isn’t alive, same with the filly you addressed before we entered Underside, and the two griffons that appeared next to Gigi and Gideon. They’re… dead.”

I watched as realization dawned her features, eyes going wide, ears slightly back, mouth hung open. She looked at Dead Hooves, blinked wildly, shook her head, and I think she also bit the inside of her lip. Anything to try and dispel what she must have now thought was some wild dream. Yet she didn’t wake up, because she hadn’t been asleep.

With a heavy breath, her eyes looked DH up and down as if they were a statue. A mixture of amazement and horror was visible in her shaking irises. Everything was clicking together, and before long tears were starting to fall down her face. After a brief look down at the bedsheets under her, she focused back to me.

“I just thought… the disappearing and reappearing and… twisting.” She shuddered, the meaning of the last phrase lost on me. “I thought that was just something some ponies could do. You mean that- this entire time they-“

DH gave an innocent smile to the mare. “At least you know there is something after death.”

“Dead Hooves!” I growled at the ghost.

“Hey, just saying the truth,” she replied, simply giving me a shrug. “Better to let her know there is something after life, even if it isn’t the Everafter or Infinite or whatever. Granted, this wasn’t exactly what I expected death to be like myself.”

A hoof reached out to Dead Hooves cheek, Gemmy’s to be specific. Her first chosen physical contact with anyone happened right there, feeling DH’s face. While the subject of her feeling was clearly uncomfortable with the actions, she did nothing to stop them. Even as a shiver ran down her incorporeal form as Gemmy felt her horn, and a baffled “eep” escaped her mouth as a hoof booped her muzzle, she allowed the young mare to do as she pleased.

All this while Gemmy tried desperately to keep a single expression on her face for more than a few seconds. Confusion turned to horror, and fear, then sorrow, and a whole number of different feelings that may or may not have names. None did the sight before her justice. Was this how I looked when I saw Dead Hooves the first time? That was a week ago, but it felt like a lifetime.

For simplicity, I decided that this was indeed how I had looked.

“You… you’re… you're dead!” she stated as her hooves finally went back to herself. Dead Hooves nodded. “You types of ponies were the nicest to me. I felt safer around you than anyone else. I didn’t realize you were dead, I just thought you were strange.” Her pupils turned to pinpricks, and I felt my heart quicken from fear at whatever she had just thought up. “My mom. My mom. Th-they… they killed my mom!”

Dead Hooves read my mind, but stupidly choose to reach a hoof out. Gemmy, panicked and frightened, kicked up blankets at the mere sight of the outstretched limb. Leaping off the bed and rushing to the nearest corner.

As she just about reached one, her hindlegs got caught up in each other. With a yelp, she fell forward. Head first, her jaw met the carpet.

“Gemmy!” DH and I shouted simultaneously.

I got up and hurried to her side, DH doing the exact same. We reached her around the same time, and having learned nothing the latter tried to physically help her back up. I shoved her away, getting a look of astonishment and betrayal from her. After a nasty look, one I hoped got across to her, I laid down next to Gemmy.

She was crying badly. The pain may have started it, but there was another edge to her sudden outburst. Her face quickly became flooded with tear trails, her hooves trying and failing to hide them. Her chest heaved, quickly bordering on hyperventilating.

“Gemmy?” I called to her, softly.

“They killed her. They killed her!” She managed to say through her tears. “I thought… I thought she was just really hurt. Sh-she didn’t move for a time but then… but then….” she moved her hooves so I wasn’t able to see her eyes. “She seemed okay. I thought she had just gotten all better, and she said so too. I didn’t know I didn’t know.”

My heart twisted. She really didn’t know. “Gemini, I'm so sorry.”

“I… I always knew she was gone but… I thought it was later,” she continued on, acting as if she had never heard me. “I thought it was when she disappeared the last time. No. No, she was already gone. She had been dead for so long and she just… just pretended she wasn’t.”

“She hid the truth, in an attempt to give you a little happiness,” Dead Hooves said. She was keeping her distance from the both, likely more scared of me than anything. “I… think I understand why. Ignorance is bliss, right?”

She looked at me as she asked that question, my stomach twisting even further than before. A horribly time jab at my world view, one crumbling away the more I learned about the true Enclave. Of all the times to try and stick another nail in its coffin, this was not it. A stern glare was all she needed to figure out how she had misstepped.

A shameful glance down and a mouthed “sorry” was her response.

“Do you want to talk about it further?” I asked Gemmy. “I would like to hear more about her. You haven’t told me much about your mom.”

Her breath seemed to calm a bit at the thought of a casual conversation. She looked at me, then to the floor, and that back my direction. She nodded and, after a few seconds, raised a shaky hoof up my direction.

“H-help.”

After a long, stuttery breath of my own filled the air, I nodded. Gently grabbing her foreleg with my own, I aided her into a sitting position. A tear stained, dry eyed face looked at me, seeming ready to break down again at a moment's notice. I'm certain she would have, if her eyes hadn’t spent all their tears already. She quickly yanked her hoof away as soon as she felt capable of not falling back down.

“Th-thanks,” she said. “S-s-sorry for crying.”

“Don’t apologize. I sort of know how you feel,” I said, eyes briefly glancing back at the ghost behind her. “Dead Hooves probably understands the most though.”

Gemmy slowly turned to face her. “You… you lost your mom to bad ponies too?”

“It’s a… bit more complicated than that,” Dead Hooves replied, a dry laugh escaping her. “It wasn’t so much a bad pony as it was a bad… thing. A curse that made her no longer herself.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’ve had decades to deal with it.” With a faux smile, DH motioned with her muzzle back to Gemmy. “This isn’t my time to talk, however. I think if I upset Rhaps again she is going to punch me through a wall.”

“Certainly a possibility, with that mouth of yours,” I said.

To both our surprises, that comment earned a sad, yet genuine, giggle from Gemmy. Another few tears manage to manifest, staining her face further. One foreleg reached to her cheek, and she pouted a little as she felt how many tear trails actually covered her face. She quickly attempted to wipe it away.

“So, your mom,” DH said, trotting around Gemmy till she was at my side, “what was she like.”

The young mare before us didn’t immediately speak. Instead, she points her hooves up to the ceiling. It was impossible to tell if she was smiling or not.

“Strong. She was strong,” she answered. “She kept them away from me, gave h-herself so that I didn’t. It… it didn’t always stop them.” Her expression became far more readable, a sorrowful frown on her face. “She taught me lots of things. I thought she knew everything at the time, but I know that isn’t true. She said nothing existed anymore outside the city. Anyone who said there was, was trying to kill me. I don’t believe that anymore.

“She showed me how to cast magic. She said it would make me useful, more than just a living toy. I think she was right, but not sure. They didn’t ever treat me well.” Her head fell with a slow shake. “I told you before, that they made it really real. She said that was good, that it may free me one day. It did, in a way.”

Her horn lit, and light and color started to shift around us. It bent and morphed till its shape became equine, but the lack of a gray coat immediately struck me. Instead it was a deep red, about the same color as the red in DH’s mane. The form was around my age, on the older side by wasteland standards, a unicorn. That and a messy sea green mane were all that they shared, and I felt a pang of guilt when I saw her stomach.

Pregnant. That was another piece of how Gemini remembered her mother. I remembered that one stallion’s words from all the way back, when I had first met Gemini. He had bargained life for the same, second head consuming his everything thought.

Something about it made me want to throw up, but it didn’t immediately hit me.

“Did you have siblings?” Dead Hooves asked, her own innocent question hiding its own darkness. Gemini tilted her head at the words. “Brothers, sisters. Were you your mom’s only foal?”

“Oh. No, there were others,” Gemini said. “Lots of others, both before and after me. They were more like the bad ponies. I wasn’t. Mom said it was because she was older. Apparently she wasn’t as useful to them anymore, but I was.”

…

No. No no no no. Oh goddesses no.

Bile attempted to rise to my throat, only held back by sheer will. It didn’t stop the sound of me dry heaving from disgust and fear. A wing covered the end of my muscle, my brain going into full panic as everything set in.

“Rhaps, you okay?”

I gave DH a sideways glance, my terror meeting her concern. My heart was attempting to burst from my chest, my stomach practically begging me to let it empty itself. I refused it, for both the sake of my dignity and to not draw attention completely away from Gemini.

Sweet, young, oblivious Gemini. A mare who didn’t know what consent was until days earlier. A mare whose captors wanted her to be…

To be…

…

“Rara?”

Words impossible to write, evils too horrible to be mentioned directly. Joy taken, twisted into some malformed horror. I saw her as a kindred soul, our pains and traumas familiar and horrible. I was right, and I was so, so wrong. How could such a kind mare be treated like such shit?

“R-Rara?” I finally looked at the mare in question, eyes trailing to her stomach. “Is everything okay?”

“G-Gem… Gemini,” I said. My words felt muffled and my muzzle numb. “Have you… h-have you…,” I gritted my teeth, pressing down on the carpet with both hooves. “Have you… carried a foal?”

She nodded without hesitation. “Twice.”

Gemmy didn't know what that simple nod was admitting to, but Dead Hooves and I did. Before us was a somepony likely between the ages of sixteen and nineteen, and she had given birth twice. Twice! If there was even a shred of regret, sympathy, or anything for those fucks who I had saved her from, after all this time, it died right there.

If anything, it made me wish Willow hadn’t killed most of them so quickly. They deserved to suffer.

“Gemmy, I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“It’s… it’s fine,” she lied, trying to smile despite the pain that filled her voice. “I mean, I’m away from them now. They can’t hurt me again… right?” She shifted uncomfortably. “Can we talk about something else.”

“Yeah, we can do that,” I said. DH gave her own nod of agreement to Gemmy’s request. I tried to swallow down all the bile still resting in my throat. It didn’t work. “I’m… I’m honestly not certain about asking you about this anymore. Three and I’s request, I mean. I don’t want you to possibly get hurt, but I don’t want to leave you here anymore.”

Her eyes went wide. “You were going to ask me to stay?”

“For a good reason, I promise.” I sighed. “That said, I will not force you. You have the choice here Gemmy, and I will not force you to stay or come with us.”

I wanted to tell her that I would highly prefer if she stayed, out of my own fear for what a firefight with Lucky Shot might lead to, but I kept my mouth shut. I had already influenced her enough with my own words, and she needed the chance to decide for herself. Years upon years without the ability to choose for herself, taken advantage of by terrible ponies. Free choice wasn’t something she had known long.

So giving her the option, allowing her to choose her path, was something important for her to learn.

Gemmy looked at the illusion of her mother. As if it was truly a separate, sapient entity, and not just a creation of magic, it smiled and nodded. It faded away moments later as the glow of Gemini’s horn faded away. She looked at me, determination clear on her face.

“I-I want to prove myself. I want to show I can do things on my own,” she said, doing everything in her power to hide her own fear behind a newborn fire in her eyes. “Willow was like me once, but she is her own pony now. I can be like her.”

She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, a sight that comforted me greatly. She had grown a lot in just a week’s worth of freedom, no doubt all formed from the hope my companions and I had given her. I wasn’t about to squash such growth, especially when it seems positive . With that in mind, I knew what her answer was before she said it.

“What do I need to do?”

Gemmy stayed behind, as was needed of her by Shattered Moon.

There was undoubtedly some worry lodged in my throat at the idea of somepony who had been through as much as her being left alone. A week’s worth of independence isn’t exactly enough time for a former slave, one with no real education or knowledge of the world, to be safe by themselves after all. Under most circumstances I wouldn’t have given her the option to stay. Three made it clear that her friends in Shattered Moon would keep her safe.

I trust Three more than most of the ponies around me. If he said Gemmy was safe, then I believed him.

After having our weapons returned to us upon leaving Underside, the masked pony took the lead. He didn’t need to, given Sharpshot and I had a map on us at all times via PipBuck and MentaBuck, but his insistence won out. Some things about ponies truly never changed.

He was the reason we drank those Sparkle-cola’s back in the Fillydelphia mission after all. That stubbornness was also what led him back to the military after his contract was up, putting off the start of his transition for a few more years. While I personally don’t agree with his choice, along with the Enclave’s stance on not allowing transitioning while in the military, it was ultimately his choice.

Travel through the desert was long and tiring, but after a night’s rest in an actual bed it proved slightly more manageable. Willow was flying around above us, enjoying the clear sky and making me more than a little jealous. The desire to fly was overwhelming, but like for much of my time on the surface I had been bound to solid ground. Besides, I’m damn near certain Sharpshot would have some choice words for me if I did.

Gold was right next to Three for much of it. There was a hushed conversation between them, the topic unknown to everyone but them. There was a smile on the old griffon’s face, however, and I considered that a good thing.

“Anything on your E.F.S?” Sharpshot asked me, seemingly out of the blue. “Besides us, I mean?”

I raised a brow, but nonetheless checked. Four dots, all green, each corresponding to the location of a companion.

“Negative. All clear here,” I told him. I tilted my head slightly. “Worried about wildlife?”

“More concerned about being followed,” he explained. He closed his eyes, and let out a deep sigh. “Yet, if neither of us are seeing anything, that means I was somewhat wrong. Still don’t trust him, but I was wrong about the ambush.”

“Fucks sake Sharpshot,” I replied, growling slight. “Have a little faith in me. I’m not going to invite somepony to journey with us if they would rather have us dead.”

“I’ve seen enough broken promises and backstabs in my near century and a half of life to know you're wrong.” He nodded in Gold’s direction. “For example, just as a heads up, the geezer has orders to kill you when you either prove to no longer be useful or step out of line.”

“Since the research lab, I assume?”

“Since the shit that happened in Sandstone,” he leered at me. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, by the by. Consider that a sign that, despite my doubts in your leadership ability, I do trust you.”

My eyes went wide, jaw dropping at Sharpshot’s words. Did he, of all ponies, just say he trusted me? Maybe the desert heat was messing with my head, because I must have been hearing things. There was no way in Tartarus Sharpshot would ever admit to trusting somepony.

Right?

“Funny way of showing trust,” I said. “Willing to tell me shit that can get you or Gold killed, but not about to trust me with who I surround myself with.”

“Well I wouldn’t call you the most mentally stable pony around, and given your background…,” he looked up at the sky, catching Willow just as she did a loop in the air, “there is a difference between trust and blind faith. I know you will watch my flank, but you're also a bit of an idiot and too proud to admit it. Just like Dead Hooves, if I’m being honest.”

“I resent that remark.”

I briefly glanced right. The ghost mare had quite the way of sneaking up on ponies without them realizing.

“She resents your remark.”

It was Sharpshot’s turn to growl. “Luna fuck me sideways, this isn’t your conversation Dead.”

“I know, but I got a translator, and I’m going to use it to fuck with yeah.” She wrapped a hoof around my back, sticking out her tongue as a show of her maturity. “Gotta remind you of the good old times, right?”

“They weren’t really that good,” he muttered, a hint of pain making it through his voice. “Soldier mare?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t translate for the cripple.”

“Roger that.”

Dead Hooves pouted, but didn’t say anything. At least, nothing that could be counted as a coherent phrase anyway.

Plains of sand morphed into something more rocky and mountainous as the sun started to fall. Level elevation became a near constant ascending and descending. Turns out deserts aren’t quite as barren as they seemed at first, just mostly barren. It was possible to make out the occasional small surface creature scurrying past, searching for either a meal or place to burrow for the night.

That included scorpions, and I’m proud to say that I dealt with them significantly better this time around. By that, I of course mean that I wasn’t screaming at the top of my lungs from the sight of them. I just jumped around and squeaked a bit… and perhaps latched onto the closest pony or griffon when they got too close.

Apparently Three finds my ‘arachnophobia’ as Sharpshot calls it, ‘funny’. Traitor.

If the setting sun wasn’t enough reason to find a place to rest for the night, Gold’s wheezing proved more than sufficient. For as good of a shape as he was in, it was impossible to not see the damage his smoking had done to him. It got tiring to listen very quickly. I’m certain that Willow was probably figuring out the best way to puncture his lung as some form of lesson to the old griffon.

A lesson shortly followed by death, but that was very much the alicorn’s style.

“There is an abandoned mining camp not too far away. That should be a good place to spend the night,” Three explained, having slowed down to make up for the fact Gold was progressively getting slower and slower. “Better than sleeping out in the open, at least.”

“Pegasus planned this?” Gold managed to ask through his wheezing. Three looked at him, and then tilted his head. “Route, I mean. Expected to make it here, around this time.”

“Won’t deny that I had some help figuring out the exact path to the test site,” Three explained, giving a nod. “Haven’t been out this direction myself. Had to ask creatures with more knowledge on San Palomino.”

Willow, still airborn up to this point, landed at the masked pony’s side. “You sure nopony is going to be there?”

Three gave yet a nod. “There isn’t reason for us to have a mining operation stationed here; Veins are completely tapped, lots of the mines have caved in, that stuff.”

“So… it’s like a ghost town?” Willow asked. Before Three could give what I’m certain would be another nod, the alicorn turned to me with a gigantic grin. “Hear that Singing and Deady? You might find some ghosts here.”

“I never said it was a bonafide ghost town, just abandoned,” Three replied. “And who is Deady?”

Everycreature but Three stopped, the stallion taking a few more steps before stopping himself. His eyes flicked from Gold to Willow to Sharpshot, and then finally where each of them were looking, and that was at me. Either none of them knew how to address this topic, or they thought I should explain the new, supernatural elements in my life. I felt a pat on the back, and looked to see Dead Hooves had reappeared at my side. Her smile made finding the words to explain everything slightly easier, but finding something that seemed convincing was another matter.

The lack of an immediate answer was more than enough to scare Three. “Councilor, is something wrong?”

“No, sorry, just trying to find a way to describe what my life has become.” I looked him dead in the eyes, ready for every possible response he might have for what likely sounded unbelievable. “Three, I can see spirits, dead ponies to be specific. To my side right now, invisible to everycreature but myself, is a mare named Dead Hooves. She traveled with Willow and Sharpshot a long, long time ago.”

…

Nothing. Complete and utter silence from my old squadmate. His pupils darted around, the only sign I had that he was trying his best to think put together what I had just said. The words had been simple, but to somepony who didn’t live the experience I was living now, it probably sounded like the ramblings of a crazy mare. Not to say I’m not crazy – I’ve accepted that now, given all of the shit that has happened to me – but I wasn’t “rambling old mare” levels of crazy yet.

By Celestia I hope that, even now, I haven’t reached that point.

With Three completely silent, Sharpshot took a step forward. A clearing of his throat was all he needed for everycreature’s attention to be fixated on himself.

“Just to be clear, she is telling the truth about this. She knows things that she shouldn’t have been able to with what Willow or I have told her. Things only Dead Hooves can possibly know,” he explained. He looked at his wife. “She knew about Maripony, Willow. I had a full conversation with Dead Hooves through her a few nights ago, and the way she spoke, the words she used ....”

“Just like Deady?”

He snorted, the faintest sign of a smile peeking out from under his rags. “Yeah, just like her. Bitch was as cocky as ever.”

“Lack of good memories?” Gold asked.

“Sharpy and Deady never got along. Always at each other's throats over who was right or wrong, and they never budged,” Willow explained as she trotted over to her husband. She dragged him in for a hug with her wing, giving a small, lustful smile that instantly made him red in the face. “I was the uniting factor, I think. I had sworn Deady I would protect her, and Sharpy was… I think he was my second real friend. The first pony to see past “the bloody angel” at the very least.”

“Second there too,” Dead Hooves muttered at my side. I frowned as I looked at her, noticing the heartbroken expression on her face at hearing this.

“I found out what love was through this mare, and I guess that much I do have to thank you for, Dead Hooves,” Sharpshot said, the couple lost in each other’s gazes. DH, having no wish to hear it, closed her eyes, turned around, and vanished. “Brash and dumb as she was, she gave me Willow. I have that much to thank her for at least.”

“I… see,” Three finally said, managing to find his voice after what was no doubt far more trouble than he expected. He rubbed his temple with his remaining wing, sighing. “So ghosts are real.”

“Yes. Ghosts, spirits, maybe gods, all real,” Gold summed up. He motioned with a talon back to me. “She can see the first.”

“And I, to some degree, the second,” Sharpshot added. Gold’s eyes lit up like he was a foal at a skyball game, looking to the ghoul with extreme interest. They shrugged at him. “As I told soldier mare, some pile of dusty bones likes to show his face around me. Sometimes to laugh at my expense, sometimes to read cards.”

Gold tapped his beak. “Huh. Not familiar with them.”

“Not expecting you to.” Sharpshot leaned into his wife’s chest, half of his face practically disappearing in his fluff. No, I’m not jealous of her. Why would I be? “Nopony else has told me who he is. All I know is he calls himself the Dealer, and he finds my life amusing.”

“Is this… is this some elaborate joke?”

All eyes were back on Three, who was holding his head as if it was suddenly twice as heavy. His eyes were squinted, not in the angry or unbelieving way, but more akin to having a migraine. Overthinking had sent him in circles.

“Lieutenant Colonel, is this a bit of revenge or… something like it?” Day Glow had snuck out, the one-winged pegasus so overwhelmed by the idea of ghosts and spirits that we had managed to break through his Shattered Moon styles mask. “For some of those pranks and practical jokes I pulled back home, I mean. For the workaholic list I made, possibly?”

The ghoul chuckled, crossing forelegs. “So you two do know each other.”

Day Glow’s ears flattened, the slightest sign of fear making its way into his face. It didn’t take a scientist to figure out what was wrong; Shattered Moon valued anonymity, and my companions had just learned a little bit too much about the trans stallion before me. I glared at Sharpshot, getting a slightly amused look back from him in turn. All I needed to do was raise my hoof, and two more plus a talon followed suit.

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” we said as one, sealing yet another deal with the Discord-spawn known as Pinkie Pie.

“Your secret is safe, Three,” I told him, giving a friendly little smirk his direction. A shiver went down his spine, one that told me he now knew full well the power such a foalish incantation had. “Also, no, I’m not fucking with you. I can see ghosts, though when I started being able to see them is something I’m not quite sure of. I wish there was a way to prove it but….”

I went silent, hoping the rest was self explanatory. What I didn’t expect was the ghost right next to me to speak up.

“There actually might be a way.”

I looked at DH, interest piqued and ears perked. There was a great deal of uncertainty in her expression. Whatever she was about to tell me was an untested theory and nothing more, but I was willing to listen. Anything to make me seem less like I belonged in a mental health center.

“Do I… have your permission to use magic?” DH asked, looking slightly more pleading as she spoke. “Won’t be on anyone. Just the loose rocks around us.”

After some quick contemplation, I came to the conclusion that there was no harm in what she was asking. I nodded, took a step back, and motioned for everycreature to do the same. They all did, Three with a bit more hesitance than the rest of us.

Then, DH got to work.

Her horn lit, and there was an immediate gasp from the masked stallion before me. A red aura surrounded various pebbles and rocks of differing sizes, and lifted them up. The same color that matched DH’s horn. Neither Sharpshot or Willow had their own lit, and there was nopony but us on the E.F.S., which left no room for any other immediate interpretation.

“What the fuck?” Day Glow had come out again, foal-like wonder filling his eyes. I gave him a huge grin in response. “How? How are you doing that?”

I snorted at her, not noticing the concerned looks of the others around me. “I’m not, it’s all DH.”

“Then… why… your head,” he pointed at me. My grin falls slightly, brow rising in confusion. “How is that… is she doing it through you?”

It rose higher. “Through me?”

“Hun, that's new, right?” Willow asked. Her eyes seemed to be focused directly above me, for what reason I didn’t know.

“Yep. Brand new, fresh out of the box in fact,” he answered. “Soldier mare, have you had any interaction with taint or anything like it the last few days? Possibly in large amounts?”

“Wouldn’t touch that shit with a ten foot pool,” I replied. “Besides, where in tartarus could we have found that stuff? Didn’t seem that prevalent in Troston.”

“Is not. Very clean city. Cleaner than other places,” Gold replied, his voice the slightest bit colder than usual. One might even say it sounded threatening. “Still, taint not work like this. Too early if encountered in Trotson. Other oddities should have occurred. Makes this… interesting. Very interesting.”

His words raised both my own concern and my frustration. The fact nopony around me was explaining anything, acting like I knew what they did, was aggravating beyond reason. I decided to vocalize it with a long groan and the stomp of a hoof.

“One of you, please, just fucking say it!” I demanded, dropping into a fighting stance. “Whatever you all see, I don’t see it, okay? What the fuck is on me.” I tensed up. “Is it another one of those scorpion things?”

“Lieutenant Colonel,” Day Glow spoke up, tapping a hoof to her forehead. “Check… up here.”

Once again, my brow rose, but it was the closest thing I had gotten to an answer. I certainly didn’t feel a scorpion on my face, which meant that I was at least safe from those things. The earlier tension in my muscles left with that acknowledged. With some idea of where to turn, I extended a wing and brought it to the same place that Day Glow had.

The tension returned in an instant.

There was both something and yet nothing on my head at the same time. A point, extended and connected to my head, but invisible for all to see. I knew it was there, I felt it, and trying to move my wing inside it brought a horrible feeling of discomfort. With more than a little worry, I looked up, and that is when I saw it.

A red glow in the shape of a horn, exactly the same to DH’s own. Her horn was on my head.

A horn was on my head.

A… horn.

Heart skipped a beat, pupils shrank, and jaw hung. I slowly turned to DH, the ghost mare looking at her, no, our horn in wonder. Its form was on her physically, that much hadn’t changed, but now that I was consciously aware of it I felt a weight on my head. It was small, insignificant really, but fuck if it wasn’t noticeable. The best way I can describe it is… like two .50 rounds were tapped to my head when I wasn’t looking.

That wasn’t the strangest thing though, not by a long shot. The thing that I realized, after a few seconds, was that while I was now aware of its weight nothing about it felt unnatural. It was like it had always been there, a part of myself from the moment I had left the womb. The horn was as much Singing Rhapsody as my wings, and as much as that same horn was Dead Hooves. That was the thing that scared me the most.

Outside of, you know, the question that literally everycreature around me, including myself, wanted to ask.

“Am I an alicorn now?” I asked.

“Are you an… that is the question you are asking?!” Sharpshot shouted, trying to lean forward to emphasize his shock. Willow immediately pulled him back to her chest. “Soldier mare, there is an invisible horn on your head. That shouldn’t be there!”

“I mean, yeah, but I’m not certain I can actually use it,” I said. I turned my attention to Dead Hooves. “Right?”

“We can try and swap, if you want,” DH replied, shrugging.

Focus briefly turned towards the ghost mare’s attempts at explaining the basics of magic. The living, unable to see her, continued to ask questions for understandable reasons. Day Glow specifically was looking at my puzzled, hoof tapping his muzzle at the sight.

“You’re taking this far better than I expected you to.”

“Our fault, probably,” Gold answered, the smallest of smirks on his beak. “Travel with strange company. Angsty undead teen, crazy alicorn wife, and me. Gemini most normal friend.”

Willow nodded in agreement. “And I think we can all agree Gemini isn’t the picture of mental health, as nice as she is.”

“So you all broke my old LT… again.” Day Glow sighed. “At least she is in a better state than after the sandstorm incident.”

“The… sandstorm incident?”

I froze up as I heard Willow’s telepathic words. I looked at Day Glow, and he met my gaze immediately. Without a single word between us, I understood that he was asking for permission. That day, five years ago, it was a day I didn’t want any of these ponies to know about.

So I gave a shake of my head. No arguing, for he was a good, loyal soldier. He took his answer, knew what he was allowed, and acted accordingly.

“Classified. It's that bad,” he explained.

“So, traveling through the storm with us wasn’t the worst experience she has had in one,” Sharpshot scoffed. He rolled his eyes, pupils landing on me after it all. “How am I not surprised?”

“Okay, enough talk about that!” I shouted, getting everponies attention. I briefly looked at DH. “Think I know enough?”

“Yeah. More than most unicorns do, I think,” she replied.

I nodded to her and then cleared my throat as I looked back to my living companions. “Okay, Dead Hooves and I are going to attempt to swap places with magic, see if I have control of this thing.”

“Think you're a prodigy?” Gold asked, a slight tilt of his head.

I snorted at his words, noting the cold, collective look in his eyes wasn't completely gone. “Hardly, but if our mental link works like we think it does, then this won’t be difficult. Now, step away in case this goes wrong.”

Everycreature complied without issue, stepping away from the floating pile of rocks and pebbles that was now directly in front of me. It was DH’s way of making things easier, collecting everything she had lifted individually into a single place. A part of me understood the insanity of this situation. A pegasus thinking she could do unicorn magic was certainly not a normal thing, but nothing about it felt impossible.

It was like our horn; new but feeling perfectly normal. Something in me felt expected to do magic, that it was just another part of who I was. I needed to succeed at this, for myself more than anything else.

So, with a simultaneous sigh between us two, DH let go of the rocks and–

“Come on Dead, you almost have it,” dad said, a protective and supportive hoof on my back. I looked at him and mom, a frustrated scowl seemingly duck taped to my face. “One more try, you’re almost there.”

“You’ve said that four times though now!” I whined, dramatically rolling over. An attempt was made to look at my useless, no good horn, but it was too small to see back then. “I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. That damn can should be floating by now!”

“Language, Dead Hooves,” mom said as she laid down next to me, giving me a disapproving look. All I did in response was let out an annoyed groan “No unicorn ever did it on their first try. Your father most certainly didn’t, and look at him now, a magic casting pro.” She pressed a hoof to my chest. “You just need to take a deep breath, focus, and have some patience.”

I scrunched my muzzle as she said that last word. “But I hate waiting. I do it all the time and it's boring.”

“If you do it all the time, then you know how to be patient,” she countered. She got back onto her hooves and rolled me back onto my stomach, facing my head towards the empty metal can they had placed in front of me. “Come on, my little gem, you got this.”

I pouted, trying to hide the fact that her words had actually encouraged me a little bit. As she moved behind me, I found that the only thing within my field of vision was now that stupid fucking can. The ticking clock in my head grew louder, reminding me of just how fragile my life was. Even back then, when mom was still living with us, I was painfully aware of how low my odds of surviving on my own was.

That, more than anything, drove me forward. It made me aware of what I wanted, or rather needed to do. I needed that can to move, to rise off the ground as if possessed by a phantom. Any way to increase the timer in my head, to give me a longer life, was something I desperately needed.

Dad placed his hoof back on me, and I briefly looked at him. He smiled at me, giving that look that said “you got this” and a small nod. Determined, afraid, and wanting to prove myself to him, I focused back on the can. Closing my eyes, I focused all of my attention on getting my horn to work.

I needed it to do something.

I need it to do anything but just sit there, poking out of my head.

“Please,” I whispered in an almost inaudible tone. “Please, please, please, please–”

“Please, please, please.”

I didn’t recognize the identical, one word chant between DH and I at the time, with a similar begging tone as well. All I know is that I felt something unexplainable in me wake up in that moment, a piece of me that hadn’t existed until some short time ago. Raising my head, I stopped chanting, and opened eyes that I hadn’t realized were closed. Eyes glued towards what laid in front of me…

And then beamed like a foal who had just managed to fly for the first time.

The rocks had hit the ground, that much I had failed at, but the rest was a pure success. No longer did DH’s crimson red surround the pebbles, but a vibrant yellow that was the same color as my eyes. Not all the pebbles lifted off the ground at my command, only one or two, but the fact I was even able to lift that much was astonishing.

I, a pegasus, was doing unicorn magic. An impossibility had been made possible through whatever mindfuckery DH had done to me. For the first time, I was happy about it.

“I’m proud of you, Dead! Great job.”

Something about hearing her father congratulate the ghostly unicorn in my head, after I had just managed my own first spell, choked me up a little. My beaming smile turned into something softer, more sympathetic. Something about the praise felt like it was meant for me, so I took it. It was impossible to not imagine the small, loving family holding each other in elation for what Dead Hooves had done, and replace the unicorn with a younger me.

I envied her for that love, and I always will. The idea of parents from the wasteland being more caring than my own was soul crushing. Even feeling what she felt, in those memories, was not enough to dispel that jealousy.

Day Glow, who had been trying to figure out some way to pick his jaw off the floor, turned from the floating pebbles to me. “How are you–”

“Congrats Singing!” Willow screamed. I have no idea how she got behind us or when she had left her husband's side, but I suddenly found myself getting picked up and squeezed by an alicorn. The horn light cut out, pebbles dropping to the ground. “This is awesome! I’m no longer the only pegasus who's ever done magic! Oh Celestia, this is so exciting.”

“Hun, you're crushing her.”

Willow looked to Sharpshot, and then down to me, gasping for any breath I could achieve. She loosened her grip, closed wings that had been trying to flap for freedom, and straightened my forelegs. With all that done, Willow placed me back on the ground, and slowly removed her hooves.

I promptly fell forward, colliding muzzle first into the rocky terrain below me.

“LT!”

Day Glow’s shout, along with the sudden pain lacing through my body, woke me from whatever spell Willow’s hug had put me in. I quickly pulled myself back up, stumbling a little and blinking rapidly. With a shake of my head, I tried to dispel the awkward, seemingly traumatized look that I had been put into from a simple hug. Judging by a certain griffon’s snickers, I had failed.

“Rhap– Lieutenant Colonel, are you okay?” Day Glow asked, having made their way up to me.

I ushered him back with a hoof. “Fine. Fine. Just… had an incredible experience ruined slightly.”

My focus turned to Willow, the alicorn giving me a sheepish smile in return. “Sorry Singing. I was trying to congratulate you and kind of… forgot you aren’t as used to my hugs as Sharpy.”

“Please try and hold back next time,” I responded. She nodded, looking away in embarrassment. After a moment, I smiled and chuckled at what she had done to me. “Thanks though. Is this how you felt, when you did a spell for the first time?”

“Hard to say. I can’t really remember.” She looked at Sharpshot. “You remember, hun?”

“We were more concerned about other things, like how pissed off I had made the Goddess,” the ghoul said, eyes elsewhere. He was the only one around who seemed to have little to no interest in both what I had just accomplished or the current situation. “Damn impressive feat, eh? I feel certain the only reason we made it out of there is due to the aforementioned collection of dusty bones. Only a few others I know have ever hit her nerves as badly as we did.” He snorted. “One of them is still “alive” I guess you can say. Bastard has been alive longer than me, can you believe it?”

“Ditzy.” Willow and Gold said near simultaneously, equally deadpan.

“You can just say yes, for fucks sake,” he grumbled. His eyes trailed to the pile of pebbles in the middle of us all. “ Though, getting back to an earlier question, you got your answer, soldier mare.”

I blinked. “Which one?”

“About whether you are an alicorn now.” There was the tiniest bit of a smirk poking out from his rags. He let his own horn glow, raising every single pebble in the pile just like DH had before as he started to walk once again. “You are… the least impressive alicorn I've ever seen. Congrats, now go die in a cage match to one and see how weak you still are compared to the Goddess’ posse.”

Underneath the insult and harmful remarks, he gave me a wink. The wink and smirk were clear enough indicators that he wanted me to prove him wrong on this. Wasn’t going to get an answer out of him, and he wasn’t going to give me the opportunity to even attempt it. The ghoul was already marching off from us, Gold and Willow following suit. He fidgeted briefly with his PipBuck, probably setting some waypoint for the ghost town Day Glow had mentioned.

That left the mask stallion, DH, and myself. There was no fear of them getting too far ahead; I had the MentaBuck, and it seemed to know the exact location of places we would speak about in passing. Day Glow watched all of them as they got farther from us, before gently tapping me on the neck. The message was clear: time to move.

“I’ll admit, Lieutenant Colonel. These aren’t the kind of ponies I thought you’d be hanging out with,” he told me.

“That makes two of us,” I replied. “They’re not the easiest group to be around, and I wouldn’t call any of us good ponies. Willow is basically a trained killer in Celestia’s body, Sharpshot is an arrogant prick who can’t keep his mouth shut,” I allowed a little more anger as I looked at Gold, “and he wasn’t my pick. Had the bastard forced on me, not sure how much he can be trusted.”

“And Gemini?”

My ears lowered slightly, anger fading into sadness as I reflected on the conversation DH and I had with the young mare this morning. “Not my choice, but she’s different from Gold. I look into her eyes, listen to her fears and life, and I see myself staring back.”

“Which version of you?” He asked quietly. I ruffle my feathers in discomfort at the question. He winced at my reaction and looked away. “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” I replied.

Silence reigned afterwards, both of us a bit too scared to broach the subject I had led us to. DH had read the mood perfectly, and decided to make herself scarce before she said something stupid.

There is something comical about a ghost town being named Nowhere. It was even more comical to think it had been called that before the end of the world, when one could reasonably say it was something different. Before we arrived, that name was the only factor of this old mining area that I knew. To the standard traveler entering it, the place probably just seemed like a collection of old wooden houses and rusting iron tools.

It was… a bit more to me. A figurative ghost town to most, was a quite literal one through the eyes of a medium.

There weren't a whole lot of them around, Nowhere is a small community even on the dead’s side. It was so far from any major city that the magical radiation hadn’t done anything, and that meant these ghosts were all here from kinder, more natural reasons. At least, that was the hope.

It was easy to tell what the nail had been in the living society’s coffin: lack of viable farm land. Nowhere was located in an exceptionally rocky area, what had once been a well connected to an underground river being the only source of water for several dozen miles. Even then, the well had not withstood the test of time; it had fallen inwards, blocking access to what lies underneath.

Combine an ungrowable terrain, disconnection from water, and lack of other reasons to stay, and you get a doomed community. Everypony either left, or was too stubborn and died because of it. A small scale example of how societies rise and fall in the world of the living.

More than a few of the ghosts turned to look at us as we walked into their haunting grounds, the sun having just finished its descent. There were whispers among them, a few fillies and colts watching us in excitement, probably the first living soul they’ve seen in a long time. Only I was aware of their presence, my companion’s sight met with something far more chilling.

“It’s so creepy here,” Willow said, the cheery voice and elated shudder passing through her body giving the words a very different meaning. “Nothing but the creaking of wood and roaring of wind. No living soul for miles and miles. It’s absolutely perfect.”

“You enjoy these places?” Day Glow asked. He had kept a decent distance between himself and the alicorn since he had seen her nearly crush me with a hug.

Willow gave her best approximation of an innocent smile to the stallion. “You don’t?”

“I tolerate them, but I prefer being in someplace that feels more… functional,” he replied, eyes one particularly rickety house as we passed by it. “I may have spoken too soon about us finding shelter.”

“No. Cave mouth… still open,” Gold wheezed, pointing towards our east.

Following his talon led us to an entrance to the mine the little settlement had been built around years ago. As he said, the boards holding the entrance up still held. In fact, they seemed in remarkably good condition. It seemed strange at first, but as we got closer a shiny blue gem could be seen lodged in its top.

A talisman, perhaps similar to the one back in Alibi Street Theater. Certainly made sense, in my mind.

“Ah yes, perfect,” Sharpshot said, rolling his eyes. “Get trapped behind some boulders instead of under a hundred planks of wood. Sounds like a great idea.”

Day Glow let out an exasperated groan. “Do you have an off switch, hornhead?”

“If I did, the soldier mare would have used it a long time ago,” he leaned his head in my direction. “Right?”

I snorted for my answer, and turned my attention back to the ghosts. Not entirely sure what the others were saying during that time, but it seemed the mine entrance had won as our resting place for the night. Nearly as soon as we had turned to make towards, I saw a few of the ghosts offering us concerned looks. One had their forehooves to their chest in prayer.

I ignored the odd behavior, turning towards the mine as we came upon its entrance. I had lagged behind the others during my time watching the ghosts. Everycreature had already stepped inside, Gold and Willow setting our supplies down. I picked up the pace to join them, and as soon as a hoof crossed past the under the beams…

I screamed.

Explaining exactly what made me scream is hard. It's like the moment I had tried to step into the mine, every cell in my body was begging me to get back out. No pain, no horrific sights, just the flight part of my fight or flight response activating for seemingly no reason. Except, even that doesn’t do the feeling justice. It was more than just being frightened, more than just some out-of-nowhere panic attack.

It was almost like… a fatal wound. I’ve felt more than a few of those from ghosts I’ve met, whether they be soldiers, mercs, or unlucky wastelanders. The fear of knowing you are about to die, that there is no way to stop it, who does a living pony describe that? Some would say that I should know, I’m a soldier that has seen friend and foe alike go through it after all. To that, I have but one statement.

The fear of knowing you are about to die, and the fear of knowing somepony you care about is going to die, are two entirely different things.

Needless to say, I was overwhelmed. I fell on my flank, forehooves going up to my chest as I sucked in as much air as possible, vision unfocused. The objects around me seemed like incomprehensible blurs, companions blending into each other. Not that I was even able to register them. My mind felt so much louder than the world around me, and it screamed at me to get away. Somepony shook me. Who it was remained unclear for a while, until everything started to settle down.

“Stay with me LT. Stay with me,” Day Glow ordered, voice firm but soft. It was far better than Sharpshot having kicked me several times when this had happened in the sandstorm. I managed to look in his direction. His sole wing, outstretched in panic, relaxed me to some extent. “Thank the winds. You okay, LT?”

No immediate response came from me, my brain too scattered to stay focused on him for long. They trailed the wooden cross beams on the mine’s entrance like they were some holy relic, perhaps hoping for an answer. My frantic, nonsensical state of mind came up with jackshit. All my mind was able to reaffirm me was a truth it had seemingly accepted as fact.

I was about to die. I was going to die. Any second now, I would join DH in the afterlife, and there was nothing that could help me.

Without thinking, I grasped Day Glow and forced his head to cover my lower chest. It was less a hug and more akin to me trying to cover a horrid wound with a rag. Anything to stop a death that I was certain laid before me. I was more than aware that it was a pony I was using as said rag, but I didn’t care. How could I, when so many more fallacies had suddenly been placed within my brain.

“H-h-h-help,” I pleaded to the one-winged pegasus I was pressing against me. “H-h-h-h-help me. P-p-please help m-me.”

Suddenly, a burst of light flooded my vision. My mind finally started to rest, but alongside it was an overwhelming exhaustion. My body felt heavy. I flopped onto my side, Day Glow managing to wiggle free from my grasp as I did. He placed a hoof on my shoulder, calling out to me.

His words did not reach me. My consciousness faded.

Message on secure terminal found
…
…

Lady Hash has asked me, with my expertise, to check an abandoned town recently. See if the mines were safe and worth getting back into working order. I’m not her typical choice – she usually has teams dedicated for this – but I understand why she asked now. This wasn’t truly about the mine, not entirely.

After a thorough examination and nearly having my life taken from me, I deemed it unfit for mining. I also advised that, unless necessary, she and her soldiers avoid the area. While, yes, it would prove faster if heading north for the sake of towns like Underside, it isn’t a safe place for the living.

For the traveler unfortunate enough to spend the night, I have done all I can to keep them alive. The siren’s call is theirs to avoid.

Act 2 – End Shift: Reloading the Chamber

Underside, San Palomino

Day 15

The rest of the day proved to be mostly calm and relaxing, as I had hoped it would be. I wandered around Underside aimlessly, going from street to street to look for anything of interest, stopping in at small shops or greeting creatures that went past. They all knew who I was, at least on some level. The moniker of Cloudbourne Anomaly had traveled much quicker than Rhapsody’s name, and everyone wanted to make sure I was really them.

It wasn’t the infamy I wanted, but it was the kind that had been hooved to me. Gemmy was the popular one, the name on everyone’s lips. In four days, she had become a household name within this desert community. More often than not, those who approached me did so less because of my nickname and more because of my connection to Gemmy. Everycreature wanted to know about her, where she came from and what life she lived. I refused each and every one of those questions.

Gemini had only told two ponies about what her life was truly like in Trotson, and that was Willow and myself. If she wasn’t openly telling those around her, then I was going to do the same. A lot of it was too traumatic for the young mare anyways.

It was later in the day, around sixteen hundred, that my mind turned from relaxation to preparation. With Gold gone, and Sharpshot, Willow, and Gemini not coming with me to Northern San Palomino, then I had to make sure I was ready. Discarding or selling shit I didn’t need, buying ammo, food, and otherwise for the long road ahead, and tracking down Falke both to tell him why Gold hadn’t returned with my friends and offer him a contract. The sooner I took care of them, the better.

The first thing I did was hoof the Atomizer over to the Shattered Moon, asking that the weapon itself be disposed of. Rhapsody had seen what it did, weighed its use during more than a fair amount of combat encounters now, and after some discussion with my inner-selves a conclusion was reached: it was too dangerous. Only two shots had actually been fired from it, and they nearly cost Rhapsody her life. Best thing for us all was for it to be disassembled for parts.

They also asked for the power armor ArcanaTech had given Gemmy and myself, though not for military purposes. They wanted it for mining and scavenging operations in the ocean. The use of power armor in mining wasn’t something new; old world corporations had designed suits for that specific purpose. The deep water scavenging, however, was a bigger shock. Turns out, this armor was made and enchanted in such a way as to withstand a heck of a lot of pressure that would make it perfect for such activity.

While it was quite the asset to loss, I gave it to them. Looking at the armor, knowing the pegasi it had once belonged to, and seeing what it had become made wearing it… hurt. Not saying I couldn’t put the armor on, but it was a shadow of the Enclave armor that I adored. I wished it well as they took the bastardized armor away, that connection with the soldier it had served before me still there.

Lastly, I gave all the drugs Rhapsody had picked up all the way back in the Grand Trotson Hotel, seeing how I was going to use them. Leaving them for actual medical experts to use was a far better idea than holding onto them any longer. They’d obviously still have to check if the medicine in question was safe to use, but that was expected. Where many wastelanders would probably use these without a single thought about side effects or addiction, doctors would keep things considered harmful away from such idiots.

That left me with just my Novasurge rifle, what ammo I had for it, and her radio, all that Rhapsody had come to the surface with. Yet something inside me felt slightly off. The weapon felt right, but it was like only one side of my brain was satisfied with it. There was a deep longing for another firearm, one that connected me to my other home from centuries prior. Something simple, powerful, nostalgic.

A shotgun. Dead Hooves had used a shotgun. Her desire to hold one again was rubbing off on me.

This need led me to what was likely the only place in Underside that had the right to sell firearms inside the town’s walls. Shattered Moon is very particular about who they allow to sell such things in their territory, apparently requiring far more paperwork and background checks than anything else. After all, most creatures weren’t allowed to hold weapons anyways. It meant that, while somepony was allowed to buy a rifle within the confines of the Underside, it would be given to a member of Shattered Moon and placed with the rest of your arsenal till you leave town.

Hate it if you want, but those are the rules.

The store in question was called Rebel Path, the lonely nature of the street its own exaggerated by the setting of the sun. The store got traction – sand and rocks led inside through the open door – it was just a slow hour for them. Given the time of day, and the nature of their merchandise, that was probably due to closing sooner rather than later; it was seventeen-thirty when I arrived.

Rock music filled in for the lack of customers, loud enough to be heard an entire building away. It was all old, anti-war, likely banned by the ministries for their messages or drowned out by all the pro-war shit that had played instead. It felt ironic hearing a gun store of all places play such music.

Trotting in, my eyes immediately started scanning for what they had to sell. It was a pretty impressive selection, that was for sure, holding a lot of the more recognizable wartime era rifles, shotguns, sidearms, and otherwise in glass cases on the counter or on the wall behind it. No M.E.W.s in sight, likely are around these areas, but there were some lesser known, foreign options that wouldn’t be seen in most other places.

It was an incredibly impressive selection.

Wasn’t allowed to touch anything there, but I didn’t need to in order to figure out that these guns had been well preserved. No sign of rust, nothing clearly broken, and the clerk, a zebra, was clearly well versed in maintenance. Absolute gun nut, could give you a full history on at least half his inventory right off the top of his head. Obsessive, perhaps, but no less fun to listen to all the same. Just be careful when you ask him about his merchandise, he won’t be shutting up for the next thirty or forty minutes if you say the right thing.

Found that out when my interest landed on an odd zebrican weapon that stood out compared to all the others. The thing was short yet bulky, a cylindrical magazine that functioned like an old wind-up toy. It was certainly an odd choice, and the Rhapsody half of me was inwardly complaining about every little problem based around it. Unfortunately for her, that rant wasn’t loud enough to catch my attention, especially with the zebra (his name was Mapinduzi) doing the same right before me.

“– which is why, despite the XS-23 being passed over in favor of less mechanically complicated firearms, it was considered a marvel of zebrican engineering for its time,” he said, finally finishing up what had been at least afifteen minute history lesson on the. He placed a hoof on the clockwork magazine, a prideful smile on his face. “You won’t find many of them out there, not exactly easy to fix. Unless you’re a collector, I wouldn’t recommend it. Ironshod and Redwing firearms are more common and a lot easier to use.”

There was a beat of silence following that.

“Oh, thank Celestia he is done,” my inner selves said, sounding oddly out of breath for what we're just voices in the back of my mind. “Now, please, have him put that back. We are not taking that thing.”

I gave a subtle eye roll at their behavior. “Yeah, something a bit easier to maintain would work better. I’m… not really a mercenary, just a wanderer. Once I leave Underside I’m not sure when I’ll next be taking a stop in civilization.”

“Meaning you’ll want something that will be able to withstand lots of sand and shit inside it, and easy to take apart if it does get clogged,” Mapinduzi said. I smiled and nodded to tell him he was right. “Well, if you want my pick…”

His eyes turned behind him, eyes lighting up as he looked at one particular model behind him. It was griffon in origin, something clear from the way the sights and mouth grip were made. Compared to how most of the zebrican and Equestrian weapons were designed, these were a lot rougher and more patchwork. It was still griffon made, despite being made for us Equines.

“You got magic right? I think I heard something about that from rumors,” Mapinduzi said, briefly looking back to me. I answered by lighting up my horn, a sight that made his brow rise exponentially. “Heh. Heard some talk about you being a hornless alicorn, seems it's true.”

“Magic is a new thing for me. Long story, but to summarize I haven't had it most of my life,” I replied, cutting the horn glow after the first sentence. “Why are you asking?”

“Because, while it certainly isn’t terrible, the early equine version of the Redwing Trench Buster is not spectacular,” he explained. The joy in his face became almost blinding, the same one that he had worn when he started talking about the previous shotgun. “You see, Equestria saw what the griffons had and wanted it. Due to the difference in anatomy – they have claws, we have hooves – they had to expirement. They idea of holding it with out mouths came some time later, and it took several tries for both to get it right.”

He pointed up at the Trench Buster he had been looking at before.

“That? That’s one of the original designs. Usable, but not comfortable. Great piece of history, though, and still Ironshod-level reliable.”

His eyes went to a different version of the same gun, this time with the talon-grip, trigger, trigger guard, and otherwise that marked it as griffon-made.

“Either way, it didn’t matter if you were a griffon, pony, or zebra,” he continued on, taking it off the wall and placing it down on the counter between us. “In the trenches of zebrica, this thing was considered a menace. Twelve gauge, pump action, reliable, if you want something that will withstand the sands of San Palomino, then look no further.”

“Sounds like this is coming from more than just a merchant,” I replied, smiling smugly. My inner selves sighed in relief that his rant had been significantly shorter this time around. “Own one yourself, I take it.”

“Yep. It was my closest companion back east,” he said. “One of the Equestrianized ones perhaps, but it was all that stood between me and whatever horrors or monster wanted to take my merchandise and me.” He took a step back, the happiness faded from his face to be replaced with something mournful. “It wasn’t easy, being a zebra merchant out there. So many of the ponies over there still held hatred that was ingrained in you from the war. You think it would have faded, after two centuries.”

Something about those words and the sadness in his face as he spoke them hurt me. It wasn’t from a singular source, but rather two different ones at the same time, belonging to both sides of me. He was right, two hundred years should be enough to curb harmful stereotyping and distrust, or at the very least lessen it. Instead, it had either stagnated or grown in much of the central wasteland or grown worse. The latter seemed more likely because… because…

I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth and mentally chastising myself. My two halves had lived on different sides of that hatred. One had throw slurs and insults at those on the ground as if it was a standard part of her vocabulary, the other had bore insults to half her ancestry from all those outside her family. I was stuck between hating myself and hating the world, but eitherway, I understood.

I understand, for I was both a part of the problem, and a victim of it all the same.

“I left when it became clear I wasn’t welcomed out that way. Didn’t know where to go and somehow I just ended up wandering here, into San Palomino,” Mapinduzi continued on. He waved one of his forelegs in front of me, a dry laugh leaving his muzzle. “Sorry, got carried away there. You didn’t come here to listen to my life story.”

“Just like we didn’t come here to listen to you talk about the entire history of Zebrican shotguns.”

“Shut up, let him show his passion,” I muttered to myself, looking away briefly as I did. I made sure to turn back to the zebra as I addressed him. “No need to apologize. I can’t really imagine what it’s like, living that way. What I do know is being on the other side of it, being that terrible influence which creates said stigma.”

“Pegasus originally, right?” he asked, getting a nod from me as his answer. He looked back down at the Trench Buster, running a hoof over it. “Yeah, I’ve heard or seen some of what your own does. Don’t like it, can still blame you for the thing you said, but I also understand that certain environments cause certain… behaviors. That part, I can’t blame you for.”

His words made me a little less uneasy, as if the mere understanding of what my life had been like was more useful than any version of ‘sorry’ he could have used. Sorry wasn’t an applicable word for me or Rhapsody; everything we had done in the Enclave, brainwashed or not, had been of our own volition. Every surface dweller killed, every joke made at their expense, every pegasus we tried like shit was still all us.

Once, those cities about the clouds were a shining beacon of what the wasteland refused to be. Now the differences between the ground and the sky had grown fewer, the line separating them blurring. What was the Enclave's biggest difference? A government? Maybe, but it no longer felt like something worth respecting.

I understand that dashite mentality much more now than I did before.

“I am learning to be a better pony, I promise you,” I said. As true as I felt the words were, the lack of reaction from Mapinduzi showed how empty the statement was. Claiming you changed and actually changing are not the same things. “So, the Trench Buster.”

“Yes,” he replied, clearly happy to get back to more important matters. “Wish to see other options?”

I shook my head. “No, it’ll be perfect.”

Willow Wisp didn’t vanish off the face of the planet, thank the princesses.

The sun had gone over the horizon by the time I found her, sitting outside the motel rooms that we were still renting. She was all alone, or as alone as she possibly could be now with her own collection of voices in her head, silent and staring into the distance. From afar, I grew certain of one thing I had felt unsure about when we had talked that morning: there was more blue on her coat than white now. Her wings, the majority of her mane, all of her coat up to the very top of her back, was now a deep blue.

I had been staring at her for a minute when she finally noticed me. Our eyes locked on each other, neither saying a word, not a single other movement between us. She knew it, didn’t she? She knew I had questions, ones that only she was able to answer. At the very least, she didn’t flee at the sight of me, telling me that she was ready to talk.

“Say something,” my inner selves said, gentle yet commanding.

“What… what do I say though? If I say something bad and hurt her–”

“It’s going to hurt anyways. Just be blunt, direct. That’s the best thing to do right now.”

Despite Rhapsody and Dead Hooves’ little nudges for me to talk, my muzzle refused to move. My eyes fell on the sand-covered street beneath me, one of my forehooves pawing at the ground in discomfort. Being blunt about a subject such as the Unity, that seemed impossible. Willow was already hurting, and the fear of hurting her further kept my mouth shut and my mind struggling to come up with something to say. I couldn’t hurt her. I couldn’t…

I couldn’t…

…

“It’s okay, Macabre.”

Though my head still hung low, my eyes found themselves capable of looking at Willow. She wasn’t smiling – wasn’t pretending that everything was fine – a deep melancholy and pained look itched into her visage. I hadn’t said a damn thing, and yet somehow that was what hurt her. Swallowing down my nervousness, I started to walk towards her as she talked more.

“I’m sorry for this morning. I didn’t think I was that connected yet, and wasn’t prepared at all for her to take control of me like I’m some… some puppet,” Willow explained. A shudder passed through her body, her eyelids closed tight at a phantom pain. “She got angry at me when I took back control, chastised me like I was a misbehaving filly. Snapped back at her for ruining a talk with a good friend, ended up shocking a lot of my sisters.”

Sisters.

Such a simple word with so many implications. It implied family, the closest companionship a group of creatures could ever have. Hearing Willow use it, when referring to the other alicorns in the Unity, left me conflicted. Did she truly see them as family? Or was it some sign of her individuality being taken from her? I doubt, even if she would tell me it was the former, that I would believe her.

“She wants to talk to you, but I managed to fight for permission to talk to you first,” Willow explained. I was right next to her at this point, a wing subconsciously wrapping around the bigger alicorn in comfort. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” I said softly. “I’m just glad that you still seem to be… you.”

Willow let out a somber giggle. “The Goddess isn’t used to it, having alicorns like myself around. Not saying there is no individuality in the Unity – you have the personalities of so many in one hive mind there is no way there couldn’t be – but outside of me there is only one other that is really their own pony. Her name was….”

She tapped a hoof against the ground, then suddenly beamed.

“Lacunae, right! Thanks, all of you!” she said. She looked back to me, and near immediately her emotions swapped once again. “Go on, I know what you want to ask.”

I briefly looked to the ground, then back up to Willow. “How long have you been hearing them?”

“Since before we entered the sandstorm back in Trotson,” Willow answered. “Sorry for keeping it a secret, but if Sharpy found out what was happening to me… well, I didn’t want him to worry.”

“Willow….”

I placed a hoof on her shoulder, the contact earning the tiniest of smiles from the alicorn next to me. She wrapped another wing around me, her feathers gently stroking my back. It felt nice, comforting, and I started subconsciously stroking her own back in turn. For a little bit of time, we allowed stress and fear to fall away, relaxing and giving no worries for the implications of her newfound connection to the Unity. Those moments of ignorance were pure bliss.

When I felt relaxed and ready, I let both my shoulder and wing fall off of Willow’s body. With a clear mind, I found the ability to ask questions that my mind was previously unable to ask.

“Is it crowded up there?” I asked, tapping on my noggin.

“Very,” she replied. When I tapped the top of my head, she rubbed it as if nursing a headache. “I thought I was going crazy at first… or crazier than I already am anyways. Was hearing all these tiny, indecipherable noises at first. They seemed excited, anxious, but I couldn’t tell what it was for. The more connected I became, the louder they got. Took a bit of time, getting used to it.”

“I can imagine. I mean, I told you earlier how everything is feeling up here,” I said, tapping myself a few more times. “Talking with what remains of Rhapsody and Dead Hooves, all the memories, I’m surprised I’m dealing with things as well as I am.”

“Guess the two of us are just made of tougher things than most other alicorns,” Willow replied. She let out a laugh, her expression growing more and more smug as she did. “At least one of you agrees with me.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the way she was talking to the Unity. “There a cast of characters?”

“Do you want to know how many pony minds make up the Unity, Danse?” she retorted. While she remained smug, there was a tinge of seriousness in her expression lips too. “The Goddess has kept count, and it’s past four digits. Almost shocking, except so far I have a higher body count than at least three fourths of them…”

She leaned in, her pupils bearing into mind with that crazed, murderous expression that tended to come before she brutalized someone.

“Combined.”

“Sweet Celestia,” I muttered. Willow backed off as soon as she heard those words from me, looking proud of herself. If there was any show that this was still the same alicorn I met back in Trotson, that was it. “I think I’m good not knowing then. That’s a few more alicorns than I want to be aware of.”

“Or be on the opposing side of.”

“Still all things considering, you seem to be taking this rather well.”

Willow blinked, snorted, and then chuckled. That chuckled turned into a pained laugh, her smile holding on by a thread. She sounded crazy than usual, if that was somehow possible, her laughter showing amusement while her expression and body showcased agony. It almost seemed like she was ready to cry for a moment, but there were no tears. Just more cackling at the world, situation, and most clearly of all, herself.

“Well? I had my body taken over earlier today, know that the same being is going to take it over again when we are done talking, and it seems like I’m doing well?” she asked me. Though her words seemed mocking, her tone was far closer to desperate. She scrambled to the ground, head resting on her forelegs as she continued to laugh at herself. “Is my mental voice really so foalish that the pain isn't clear in it? I thought that I made it clear that this isn’t what I wanted, no matter how welcoming my sisters have been, or how highly they seem to think of my life.”

My forelegs left the ground, held close to my chest as I watched one of my first friends on the surface have a complete breakdown. “I’m sorry.”

She briefly looked at me, and then winced. For a moment, I thought something about my apology had upset her further, gotten her angrier at me. Instead, her head went from on top of her hooves to under it.

“Danse I… you shouldn’t have been on the receiving end of that,” Willow explained. “I’m the one that should be sorry. I’m just… maybe it looks like I’m doing well, but the truth is I’m really, really scared.”

I shuffled closer to the mare and laid down so that I was eye level with her. I placed a wing around her withers, doing my best to smile despite everything. I wasn’t sure, but considering her sniffles died down and her breathing had evened out, she was in a better state. It was when she looked at me that I finally decided to speak.

“If it helps, I’m also afraid of what’s happened to myself,” I said. My pupils went to my hooves, specifically where my toe and fur overlapped. “I had my name taken from me, separating memories is literally painful, I physically look different. Maybe it's not the same as what you are going through but it’s similar.”

Willow’s expression went neutral, blinking rapidly at me. “I guess it is. Huh. ”

“So you aren’t alone in this.” I patted her on the back with my already extended wing. “It’s not fun, and I’m not making light of what you’ve gone through. I’m just saying that, if you need somepony to talk to about it, I’m here for you.”

“Danse you…,”

Willow stopped herself. She lifted her head, meeting my smile with one of her own. In a blink, she had removed my wing from on top of her body, surrounded me with her own, and shoved me into her chest. The warmth of her fur and feathers left a fuzzy feeling inside of me, one increased when her forehooves wrapped around my barrel and pulled me close. Compared to how she had attempted to crush Rhapsody twice before, this time Willow’s hug was comforting, cozy.

The fuzzy feeling in me seemed to grow, my head burying itself in her chest fluff. There was that slight tinge of jealousy at it (even with how much I changed I had not gotten fluffier), but my heart and mind did not care. Something about being cuddled up against Willow like this felt right, like a long forgotten yearning had returned with a force. I rubbed against her, taking in deep breathes, the smell of what was definitely blood long dry didn’t matter. It was only when I heard the alicorn’s giggle at the back of my mind that I managed to peel my head back and look up to her. The smile on her face had become quite goofy, adorable…

Cute.

“Well, we have the answer to that question I posed back in Trotson now,” she said, one of her forelegs going to her mouth in an attempt to hide said goofy smirk.

Thank the infinite my face was already magenta because otherwise the blush on it would have been clear as the desert sky. Didn’t take much for me to figure out exactly what question she was referring to, this was about the possibility of Rhapsody swinging both ways. In everything that had happened over the past two weeks, somehow the mare had remembered something that is, at least compared to everything else, rather unimportant. Now I was faced with the fact that, despite everything, she might have been right.

Yet of all the ponies for me to realize it around, it was Sharpshot’s wife.

“I, uh, I-I-I couldn’t help myself,” I said, standing up and flapping backwards so I had just enough distance. “It’s just, something about your fur and feathers was so nice and, u-u-um….”

Willow chortled at me, not in my mind, but out loud. My blush only seemed to deepen at it, though I wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or the realization that I thought her laugh was cute.

“It’s more than okay, Danse. If I were to guess, it’s probably the Dead Hooves part of you acting up right now,” the other alicorn said. It took me a couple seconds to put together, and while the blush certainly didn’t get any worse it certainly didn’t fade away. Somehow, the fact Dead Hooves was a lesbian had not yet hit me. “So technically Rhapsody isn’t bi, but you? There is a decent possibility that you are.”

While definitely still embarrassed, I managed to laugh at the news. “I guess so. Still, we probably shouldn’t tell Sharpshot about this.”

“Oh, like he is going to care,” Willow replied, standing up and rolling her eyes at me. Her pupils landed on the ground for a moment when the eye roll ended, before looking back to me. “He’s allowed me to fool around with ponies the entire time we’ve been together. His way of dealing with the fact that, well, you remember.”

“His banana is broken,” I said. Willow nodded back at me. “Still, we were just snuggling Willow. I don’t think that really counts as ‘fooling around’ to any couples.”

“Well, in that case, I guess you have to ask yourself a question,” she replied, touching her nose to mind. In less than a second, the blush that I thought had faded was now back and even brighter than before. “Do you want to see what it's like for mares to fool around?”

Those piercing purple irises cut through my own with ease, the goofy smile that had originally adorned Willow’s face now mine. My heart was beating fast, the feeling of her breath on my face making it skip beats here and there. With a tiny, mental apology to Iron Anchor, I chose to give into my fellow alicorn’s proposal, and melted into her embrace once again. I rubbed against her neck in a nodding motion, in case the sudden affection was not a clear enough ‘yes’.

The door to one of our rented motel rooms opened, and with a gentle touch she ushered me inside. The Goddess never got her moment to speak with me; Willow and I had both fallen asleep an hour later, both tired from certain… activities.

Sharpshot had come back to the motel the night prior with a very clear idea of what had occurred, but Willow had been right about him not caring. Willow had woken up around then, the ghoul had moved me onto the floor because Sharpshot is Sharpshot, and I woke up some hours later with a stiff back, dry throat, and mild dehydration. They had a good laugh at my panicked reaction to Willow and I being found out, the former throwing light jabs about inexperience my way.

All the while, I came to the conclusion that I liked both stallions and mares, and it was something I was more than able to get used to. I just hoped I didn’t pick up any more of Dead Hooves taboo tastes. The discomfort that went through my body at the thought was clear enough indication that, no, I hadn’t obtained them.

The morning went by quickly and quietly without anything to interrupt it, and Sharpshot invited me out to lunch. It was his way of spending some time with me before I headed out to Our Haven. A good drink and meal, throwing each other jabs, while he was definitely still an asshole the ghoul was more mellow than he had been. It was a little strange, seeing him in a less pissed off state, but at the same time it was nice.

That said, Sharpshot was still Sharpshot. He was one of the wastelands most wanted for a reason, and he was damn proud of it. Was more than willing to share how he got on the bad side of literally anypony if you got past that mask of his.

It was in the middle of one of these stories that his focus was abruptly pulled away, eyes going from our table over to the bar. I decided to follow them, see exactly where they were going. I was greeted with the sight of a familiar griffon, one I had sat down with two days prior, making their way to the Lucky Clover’s bar.

Falke.

“Did you talk to him yesterday?” The ghoul asked. I looked back to Sharpshot as he continued to speak. “About the job, I mean.”

“No, not yet,” I answered. “Wanted to make sure I was ready first. Not sure how many days of travel it's going to be, after all.”

“Right. Not a bad idea, but since he is right there…,” Sharpshot left that sentence unfinished, instead motioning me back towards Falke. “No reason to not ask him about it now. Sounds like you got a lot of that taken care of already”

I nodded, seeing the logic in his statement. Getting up, I made my way over to the bar slowly, giving the griffon enough time to relay his order to Basalt. His eyes flicked my way, flashing a small smile as he did. I gave him one of my own, and he tilted his head towards the seat next to him. An invitation, one that I probably should have expected, given what he had asked me to do when we last met.

That would have to be taken care of first, and he wasn’t going to like what he heard.

I sat on the barstool next to him, giving a little wave to Basalt on the other side of the counter. The abyssian more than knew I was already here, but it felt right to update him on my temporary change of seats. He gave me a small nod, and then returned to whatever he was doing.

“Got the answer to your question,” I told Falke quietly. I already had his attention, but I figured it was best to let him know that, yes, I was coming to him about Gold. “You aren’t going to like it.”

“Figured that much out already,” he replied. His talons strummed the top of his glass. “Is he dead?”

“No, but it sounds like he came damn close to it,” I answered. “Tried to kill me while I was out cold. Sharpshot and that Shattered Moon associate saved my ass.”

Their was the faintest sign of shock on Falke’s face, his crest rising ever so slightly. His talon slid off his cup, possibly scratching the surface of it in the process. When it touched the table, his other talon grabbed it and practically threw the rest of his drink down his gullet. He slammed the glass into the table with enough force to make Basalt jump.

One simple word left the old Talon’s beak.

“Fuck.”

“Is everything okay, Falke?” Basalt asked. Falke looked to the abyssian, then back down at the table before waving the pub owner off. “You sure?”

“Yeah, just frustrated,” the griffon replied. Basalt, not wishing to push further, backed off, and gave him some room. As soon as Basalt was out of earshot, Falke shook his head. “You’re gonna have to explain it all.”

“You don’t believe he would do it?” I asked.

“I don’t think any worthwhile mercenary would do it,” he said, his eyes snapping to, filled with anger and a drop of confusion. “Talons have an honor code toward their contract holder, and breaking that code is seen as a serious mark against you. Word would get out, any settlement in that entire area would know you can’t be trusted. Killing the individual holding your contract is the stupidest thing you can do and yet… he isn’t here.”

He turned so that his entire body was facing me, leaning forward so that his face was all that I could see.

“So why, Danse Macabre? Why did he attempt to kill you?”

“Keep poised. Just tell him the truth, and you will be fine.”

Closing my eyelids and taking a deep breath, I gave the smallest of nods possible to my inner selves. They were right, Falke lacked a lot of context that Sharpshot, Willow, Day Glow, and myself now knew. He didn’t know until he and Gold reunited that Trotson still existed, nor did he know about ArcanaTech, Moondancer, or the pony truly holding his contract. As they stated, just tell him the truth.

“Despite what he said, I wasn’t the pony with the contract,” I explained, staring him dead in the eyes. He straightened his posture a little, a wordless ‘keep talking’. “The ponies who do? They are descendants of the Ministry of Arcane Science, using a foal he seems to treat like his own daughter as a puppet leader. The actual conditions of the contract, as far as I know, was that he was to watch and protect me as long as I still held value to that group. If not, then he was to kill me.”

“Which, considering how severe your injury originally was, made you a liability,” Falke said, finishing up my explanation for me. I nodded, and the griffon brought a talon up to hold his head in disbelief. “Using somepony he cares about for their own means, and he’s too much of a softy to realize it. He didn’t break the contract, just followed it through.”

He turned away from me and back to his empty glass, anger gone from his eyes. He remained silent, emotionless, taking in everything I had just told him.

“Gideon and Gigi aren’t going to like this, not after how much I talked him up,” he said, eyes seemingly glued to the countertop in front of him. “He was an inspiration to me, when we were both younger. Sure, I had some stupid moments, but that goes for everyone. I don’t remember that griffon, but the one able to pick up on a bad contract in a single word. His shooting was perfect, negotiation fluent, even with his weird speech quirks. He was a good griffon.”

“You’re talking about Gold like he’s dead,” I said, brow ever-so-slightly raised.

“He will be, before long. We all have that contract, the one which finally manages to get the better of us in one or another,” Falke replied, looking back to me. “I’m fifty-eight, a lot of Talons don’t live to even half my age. Even fewer live past their first contract. It is always a test, a way to see if you really have what it takes to live the life of a mercenary. The amount that never come home is…,”

His gaze trailed off behind me, staring at nothing. There was the tiniest of shakes in his forelegs and talons, his beak left wide open as if he was still attempting to speak. It was impossible to imagine the events his brain was recalling at that moment. The idea, though, was familiar to me.

“The first time Rhapsody saw the surface, she probably went through a lot of the same,” I told him. My voice was enough to cut through the trauma of a long-held memory, his focus back on me. “Not everypony is made for the military, and more than a few crack when they see raiders for the first time. Some die, some abandon the Enclave, some try and abandon only to get gun down for desertion. That’s… just a few of the results the Grand Pegasus Enclave considered bad.”

One of Falke’s talons slid off the countertop. “How many for her?”

“Twelve.”

“Twelve,” I echoed. “Twelve that never came home, for one reason or another.”

“I see,” the griffon replied. His gaze once again went elsewhere, though this time of his own volition. His eyes darted across the ceiling, a void in his eyes. “Gold and I, we were the only ones to come back from our age group. Our year was considered a tragedy, and our parents and their friends didn’t see us as strong, but lucky. It’s probably why he grew as attached to me as he did.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said.

“Thanks, though I doubt any number of ‘sorrys’ will ever make the memories hurt any less,” he said. He flashed me a smile for less than a second, and then returned to that emotionless look he had been wearing before. “Lucky though they thought we were, the truth is Gold and I were smarter when picking out our first contracts. We asked questions the others didn’t, weighed risk to reward, prepared more thoroughly, and came out alive because of it. I still hold to those today, but Gold? It seems like only a matter of time before the one who hired him gets him killed.”

He motioned to Basalt for a refill, and after the Abyssian confirmed it he looked back to me.

“You have my condolences for his betrayal, and my thanks for telling me this information,” he said. He brought one of his talons to my muzzle, sending a strange, not-entirely pleasant sensation through it. “You are free to rejoin that ghoul friend of yours, if you want.”

He looked away from me and back to his empty glass. I stayed silent as Basalt came over to us and refilled said glass with whatever Falke was having, waiting for the perfect moment to bring up the other reason I had come to talk to him. That, to me, meant waiting until enough time had passed between topics for me to bring up work. It was simply a matter of if I would have to broach the subject or not.

Falke made the option I would have to choose perfectly clear when he down the entire glass and immediately asked for another.

“Are you open for hiring?” I asked. That drew his attention to me instantly, his posture straightening and his talons strumming against the bar countertop in anticipation. “I’m in need of a bodyguard. Where I’m going Sharpshot and Willow would be shot on sight, and I need somecreature who might possibly be more accepted.”

“Really? Well, from what little you’ve already told me, the prospect doesn’t seem bad yet,” Falke responded. His claws tapped a bit more forcefully on the bar. “Bas, you still have any of that Vhoski blend?”

I tilted my head.

“Vhoski blend?”

“I believe I do. Let me just take a look,” the abyssian said, ducking under the bar. His tail flicked back and forth slowly, before pulling out a small container of dark coffee beans. “It will take a bit, but that is what you are hoping for, aren’t you?”

Falke just grinned at the feline in response. I looked between both of them, reasonably confused as to what exactly was going on right now, only for Basalt to make their way over to me. His own grin was even cockier than that of the griffon next to me.

“Hope you can handle strong stuff, Missus Macabre,” he said, “Not a lot of ponies out there can handle this stuff.”

“I, uh, I see,” I replied. As Basalt turned around to start working on my cup, I looked to Falke, beyond confused as to this sudden shift. “What is this Vhoski blend? Never heard about it before.”

“A rather rare type of coffee bean that was once grown by one of the tribes of zebrica. The tribe itself is long gone, having refused to kneel and fight against ponykind, by which part of them lives on,” Falke explained. “I hold this belief, you see. The Vhoski always drank it black, and to the soldiers outside their tribe that drank it during the war, its taste was vial. Whenever someone asks to employ my services, I have them drink it, to see if their hearts are as rotten as those who stole the lives of its creators, or if their hearts are pure.”

I blinked a few times, then tilted my head even further. “That’s… quite poetic.”

“It is. Just because I’m a Talon doesn’t mean I'm a cap-hungry idiot,” Falke replied, laughing at his joke. “You learn interesting things when your work takes you all across the wasteland.”

A few minutes later, a freshly brewed cup of the darkest coffee I had ever seen was placed before me. Its aroma was just as intense, not unpleasant but completely unfamiliar to my nose. It certainly didn’t seem like something to form superstition around, but then again I wasn’t a griffon. From being around Gold as much as I had, not to mention this little ‘test’ from Falke, had heavily skewed my viewpoint of them.

Still, if Falke really did survive this long via such a coffee based superstition, who was I to say if it was true or not.

Picking it up in my hooves immediately and blowing some of the steam away, I brought the cup to my lips. Like any other drink I had in my life, I managed to down a decent amount of it with relative ease. It was nutty and foamy, almost overwhelmingly so. I didn’t like it, but years of Rhapsody dealing with military cooking and rations won out over Dead Hooves' more immature way of dealing with food she disliked. That meant not complaining and dealing with the exceedingly nutty taste, because it might be all you get for the next several hours.

Before I had even put the now empty cup back onto the bar counter, Falke was grinning at me with massive approval. I had passed his little test with flying colors. He even clapped at me, though it seemed a bit much.

“So, thoughts?” He asked. His tone voice hinted that this question was back asked purely out of intrigue and nothing else.

“A bit much, but certainly not bad,” I said.

“Lots of clients think the same. Very few have ever tasted coffee like this before, given the general state of the continent literally anywhere but here,” Falke explained. He leaned in, his grin taking on a sly twist to it. “So, if I’m going to charge you accurately, I need to know the details. If it is confidential, we can discuss elsewhere.”

“Not confidential, but I have a feeling that most creatures here wouldn’t approve of it,” I said. Basalt took the hint and once again made himself scarce, going to help his other customers. “When Rhapsody came down from the clouds, she had four targets that she needed to kill. Two of them are already dead, but neither were what she expected to be the first. That mare, going by Angel Hair, was last sighted heading towards Our Haven.”

Falke’s expression twisted from a grin into something far more serious. Merely saying the name of that place was enough to make it clear why I had waited to tell him everything. Still, he had not yet said no, only leaning in further.

“You care for the vengeance of a mare you no longer are?” He asked.

I nodded. “Though I’m not Rhapsody exactly, her likes, dislikes, and desires are a part of me. I think of what Angel Hair and these others did, and I feel the same anger she felt. I can kill them myself, but getting there is something too dangerous to do alone.”

“And your ghoul and alicorn friend can’t come with you due to the Equalist encounter that finished making you…,” a talon motioned to all of me, from tail to ear, “who you are now.”

“They don't look any different. Well, maybe Willow would but I’m not separating her from Sharpshot in what might be her final–” I cut myself off, shaking away that insidious thought. No doubt enough had already been said for Falke to figure out where I was going with it, but he didn’t ask for anything specific on it. “The point is, I look different enough from Rhapsody; their hivemind will be looking for a pegasus with a magenta coat and a white and blue mane. I got brown and black dotted on me, and I’m taller for some reason.”

“Enough where they might pause at your approach, but like looking at somepony from the back, it is easy to mistake one for the other,” he said. He went from leaning forward to a better, yet still lackadaisical posture. A talon tapped the air in front of him. “The hostilities between the Shattered Moon and Equalists, Gold’s duty to kill you, and loneliness are all dangerous in similar or different ways. Anything else, before I give my price?”

“Just that Angel Hair is mine to kill, not yours,” I explained. “Our agreement would see you bringing me safely to Our Haven, that is all.”

“I would not take vengeance from you and Rhapsody, Danse Macabre,” Falke replied in a matter-of-fact tone, one foreleg swaying horizontally through the air to emphasize his words. “This is your dish to serve, not my own.”

“Straight forward, and so far a lot more honest than his friend ever was to us,” my inner selves replied. It was impossible to not feel Dead Hooves specifically approve of the griffon. “Still, we’re possibly hiring him to kill his friend. I’m surprised he doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with it.”

“Given his earlier remarks, this probably isn’t the first time he’s had to do it,” I whispered back to her.

“Fair. Still, if his relationship proves problematic, well,” the malicious smirk at the back of my own mind sent shivers down my spine, “nothing a bit of magic won’t fix.”

A piece of me wished to argue against the lack of care at wielding mind magic, but something deep inside me agreed. No argument, no talk of right or wrong, just acceptance that the option was there. In fact, as if preparing to do it in that exact moment, I felt the exact spell necessary come to my mind. As soon as it resurfaced, it engraved itself in my mind like the memory of a foalhood injury. It would be so simple to make sure there were no problems here and now.

That was something far easier to beat down, thankfully. Even that side of me more than willing to use it understood that the application was not necessary at this exact moment. It was a safety net, in case death ever felt just around the corner.

“That’s all,” I said, speaking up now that my conversation with myself was done. It didn’t hit me how unconcerned Falke was about it. “So, I imagine you’ll be wanting a decent number of caps for your work?”

“That is correct, however, it will not be the majority of your pay,” Falke answered. He seemed to relax, wearing this expression between content and education all at once. “You see, while the coin is well and good, it is fleeting. There are better, more long term rewards then a cap long removed from its soda bottle. Connections, items… work.”

The way he singled the last one out, it was too coincidental.

“You… want my help with something?” I asked.

“Again, correct!” the griffon replied. “You see, I’ve actually already been employed by someone else. Their name is something I can’t share until some time after you agree, unfortunately, but it just so happens that their contract and yours… line up. Similar end destination, but they need me to take them to Shorelock.”

I tilted my head. “Shorelock?”

“The headquarters of the Shattered Moon,” he explained. “You’ve heard about the Hurricane, right?”

“The ship the Shattered Moon brought into dock around a week or so ago. Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” I answered, nodding my head. After a second, my eyes went wide. “It’s at the port there. This contract has to do with it?”

“Loosely, but I again can’t explain it all until you meet and agree to help the other employer,” he said. He brought a talon to his temple, pinching its center and closing his eyes. “Usually I don't take jobs with this amount of red tape, even if they pass the coffee test. The price though, not only would it allow me to retire after this all, but it would set up Gideon and Gigi to continue their work without me.”

Red tape, an unknown employer, and rewards too good for an aging griffon to pass up. I was left wondering if that was too many unknowns to consider agreeing to meet this creature, but I didn’t really have a better choice. If hiring Falke didn’t work, I’d be heading into the desert all on my own, with a chance at anything ending my life when I closed my eyes to sleep. The risk of dying with revenge unfulfilled was far greater so far than that of some mysterious other.

Besides, from the sounds of it, I still had the option to say no even after meeting them.

“So you want me to help with this other job as payment for you seeing me safely to Our Haven,” I summarized. Falke’s talon fell from the top of his head to his seat, his eyes open once more and focused back on me. I received a nod as my answer. “In that case, when and where do you introduce me to this creature?”

The when ended up being the next day. The where was answered with a number.

It should have been obvious that something so secretive had to deal with Day Glow’s new employers. The organization had been born out of keeping about themselves hidden from Minister Pinkie Pie, and while they had become more highly thought of they hadn’t changed all too much in terms of operations. All I had to go off of as Falke and I were guided through the halls of were the sounds, and they were few. We here hooves, some conversation here and there, the ruffle of their makeshift uniforms, but that was it. No clue where we were going, even if the identity of the hiring was obvious.

The question was, given the context clues Falke had given me during our initial talk the day before, why was the Shattered Moon sending a Merc north? The path of his current employer lined up with my own, he had made it clear. Something felt off, though for all two of my lives it was impossible to pick up on what it was. What did the Shattered Moon need in Equalist territory? Why send an aging Talon like Falke (no offense towards the griffon in question, of course) instead of anycreature else? The pieces didn’t fit, and thinking made my head hurt just as much as when I tried to sort my memories.

My answers came when a hoof was pressed to my chest; a silent order to stop. We had arrived at the employers destination. We heard the opening of a door, and then the clearing of throats.

“Once we close the door beyond you two, you are free to remove your blindfolds,” one of our guides said. “Make sure to have them on when you are prepared to leave.”

“Understood,” I replied.

With that, they ushered Falke and I inside. My ears flicked as I listened to the door quickly close behind the two of us, and then lit my horn. The griffon removed his blindfold quicker due to being a bit more use to his talons than Rhapsody’s body was to her magic, but I managed to get them off easily.

After my eyes went through a mild adjustment period as they were once again greeted with light, I found myself looking at Falke’s employer. My muscles tensed as my eyes were greeted by chitin.

A changeling was seated at a table facing away from us, one who seemed to hold nothing in common with their northern brethren. Where the ones I had met before were black as night, this one was a vivid – and somewhat enchanting – orange. They lacked the seemingly copy-paste body of the drones, being taller, more feminine, insectoid wings that fit on a butterfly and tail not too dissimilar. The last ones in particular were striking, being a gorgeous orange separated into patterns with black lines, white at the very edge. I hadn’t even seen their face yet, and an uncomfortable realization had hit me.

“They… they look absolutely stunning!”

Their appearance struck something in me that I didn’t even know existed. My heart was thumping wildly for reasons that I did not understand. What kind of changeling was this? Were there more of them? The thought of more than one in the world existing was both terrifying and alluring.

Then they turned around to look at us, and it took every ounce of strength in me to not let my attraction to them show. Where ponies had whites in their eyes, she had dark blues. White iris stared at first Falke, and then at me. Underneath an orange mess of whatever changeling manes were made out of, as well as a mandible, was a confident and playful smile. Above both her muzzle and eyes was a large, slender, and curved horn completely dissimilar to that of a unicorn or alicorns.

It was at the moment they gave me that smile when something clicked. Everything gorgeous about them washed away, replaced with dread and a small amount of shock. There was a piece of me that hoped my realization wasn’t true, that this changeling was different from the one I knew had been in Underside days prior. Amaryllis had been an Equalist, after all, and there was no reason Shattered Moon would allow them to hiring anyone after Gemini had captured him.

Yet, like so many things, all it took was one or two sentences for those fleeting hopes to be dashed.

“Well, well, this is certainly a surprise,” they said. That voice, though clearly more feminine and distorted with an odd trill, was all too familiar. “Mister Falke, who is this?

“Her name is Danse Macabre, Miss Bloom,” Falke replied. My stomach twisted into knots at the all too recognizable name. “I figured you wouldn’t mind another bodyguard, but I needed to make sure both you and Danse were okay with it first.”

Amaryllis’ smile turned devilish, raising their chin high as they eyed me. “Danse? How intriguing.”

They got up with the grace of a monarch, their body language as confident as their smile. With slow, careful steps, they made their way over to me. My body was eyed up like a slave up for auction, the changeling giving little nods and hums as they did. Every single piece of me was looked over, from my cutie mark to my hind legs all the way up to my eyes. When Amaryllis got to the last one, they looked me dead in the eyes.

Their dark smile took on an uncanny vibe, far too big to be natural.

“So familiar, yet so different. We have met, haven’t we?”

Author's Note

He/she has arrived. Prepare yourself folks, Act 3 is going to be a ride.