Fallout: Equestria - Operation Killjoy

“What is it that you love so much, that you are willing to kill and kill and kill?”

Fade woke up with a cold pain in her back. Bare of her clothes, she was shivering in a still uncomfortably warm room. Her coat was covered in sweat and her muscles were sore from the metal floor. Nothing else but dark and naked metal along with thick pipes were surrounding her. It smelled like vomit and not too far away Fade found Key. She was laying on her side, coughing and spitting out more bile, too weak to scramble away from it.

Fade tried to crawl to her, but she found her hooves cuffed and the searing pain in her back only made her whimper.

“Stop moving.” Feather’s voice came from behind and was of little to no comfort.

It even filled her with anger. “Don’t you see that Key is laying in her own vomit?”

Feather didn’t answer. Albeit she was only a few feet away, Feather was strangely distant.

Suddenly the door to the small chamber was kicked open. Fade glanced up and found Colloquy entering the room, chewing on one of these gross sandwiches. She gulped it down and grimaced. “What is that reek? Do I look like I would allow such behavior on my ship?” She yelled at the doctor following her while pointing a wing at Key.

“I thought since you denied them bedding, you wouldn’t mind them puking on your floor.”

Colloquy glared at the doctor. “Didn’t you get the update from the Committee of Nutrition? An overabundance of calories leads to… brattish behavior. When was the last time you checked your calorie intake?” She took a bite from her sandwich and stepped to Fade, lowering her head with that arrogant grin. “Like this one here. Very bratty.”

Fade spit at her face.

Colloquy grimaced and spit the chewed sandwich at her in response. “If you want to eat anything other than what I just gave you, you should stop angering your food distributor.” She wiped her face with a tissue.

When her eyes fell on Key she sighed. “Do something! I need her to be able to walk and think clearly by noon.”

“No way. As a doctor I must insist, that she needs at least a month—”

“Doctor Pokey… You are a Ministry of Peace pony right? Do you believe in Fluttershy?”

“I swore an oath to her.”

“Then start behaving like that piss-colored pushover and do your thing!”

The doctor left in a hurry.

“And about you…” Colloquy pushed her hoof on Fade’s face and pressed her muzzle against the floor. “Just because we give you medicine doesn’t mean that you mean anything to us. You are a maintenance heavy asset. If you cause any maintenance overhead by even looking at me the wrong way, I will reduce the maintenance costs and kill the unicorn. Instructions clear?”

Fade growled, her chest heaving. She glared at her, staring right into her eyes. Fade hoped to find something sadistic, but all she saw was a cold rationality in Colloquy’s eyes.

“Glad you got it.”

When the massive gates to the hangar opened, it was flooded by the blinding light of the rising sun. The cold wind made Fade shiver and it felt like icicles being pushed into her back. She got enough painkillers so she could walk, but not enough to forget about her injury.

Key was standing closer to the hatch, accompanied by Colloquy. The doctor pumped her full with healing potions and more drugs to make her ignore the pain and exhaustion.

“Behold. This could be your home!” Colloquy said over the rushing winds.

Even though Key saw the sky for the first time, she looked away.

“I could give you a good life up here. You won’t need to meddle with politicians. You would only need to be loyal to the ponies and help us open the Ministries. Maybe… our cooperation will bring us enough prestige that you can live up here together with your parents. Hm?”

Key looked up at her briefly and Fade saw scorn in her eyes. Ignoring the sky with its soft blue and yellow, she refused to answer Colloquy.

“You are probably cold. How disrespectful of me to not provide you proper clothes.” Colloquy took off her thick jacket with the furred collar and placed it over Key’s back. “There. Much better, isn’t it?”

“I’m neither a child nor an asset you sick cunt.”

Colloquy tried to hide her anger and stomped away after a brief moment. She approached the doctor, not too far away from Fade. “Make her talk. I don’t care what drugs you need to give her, but make her like you.” Not waiting for an answer, her attention fell on Fade. “Are you grinning? Does that amuse you?”

“No.” Fade’s voice was weak, her throat itching from a cold. “I am disappointed.”

“Disappointed?”

“Yeah… That I didn’t teach her worse words than cunt.”

Colloquy laughed. “Maybe you should have a look too.” Ignoring Fade’s injury, Colloquy placed a wing on her back and guided her to the hangar gates.

When the ship turned so slightly, a monstrous structure of metal came into view. The flying fortress was embedded into a nest of clouds so thick and dense that they shaped a perpetual thunderstorm. Massive turrets to shell cities, landing platforms to unleash swarms of Vertibucks, bombing chariots and Raptor frigates, enough space to house a flying army. Massive scaffolds all over the ship showed that the repairs from the war were still going on. The fortress was absorbing direly needed resources and it was still hungry.

“Ever seen a Thunderhead? That’s the Victorious. Enjoy the sight. If the general deems you… disposable, I will let you starve in a tiny room with a screen and let you watch the canteen.”

Fade scoffed and looked away. “You want to enter the Ministry hubs?”

“Getting cooperative?”

“Not really. Your breath stinks five miles against the wind and I just happen to know where you can find toothpaste.”

Colloquy scoffed and stomped away. “Prepare for landing! We don’t want to let the general wait.”

Fade looked over at Key and saw a small smile on her muzzle.

“Raptor Cirrocumulus! Salute!”

Two squares of young recruits were stomping once and then saluting with a wing to their forehead. Colloquy left her ship and smiled.

“Welcome back, Captain Colloquy and congratulations on your accomplishment of finding the VIPs,” a stallion in a black uniform, wearing countless plastic medals on his chest greeted her.

“Thank you. Your cadets look great. How old are they?”

“Sixteen. Two more years and their training is complete.”

“A promising generation. When will General Lightning Dust arrive?”

“In a minute, Captain. But we all know, it will likely take five.” He chuckled.

“Five?” Colloquy turned to the stallion. The fake smile suddenly disappeared. “Are you suggesting that my general is… slow?”

He shook his head. “No. Of course not. I… Uhm… I rather want to suggest that… as… to celebrate your achievement, I would offer you a banquet.”

“A banquet? How quaint.” Colloquy answered with a patronizing smile. “Apology accepted. To the hangar! It is a very fresh morning.”

“Move!” One of the guards behind Fade bellowed. With a harsh kick, Fade stumbled forward. She groaned from the pain and moved alongside Key and Feather, who were ushered to the outside as well.

Fade’s attention fell on the countless ponies without uniforms and clad in dirty clothes. Drafted engineers and construction workers. If anyone could help them to get out, it was them.

The lack of Vertibucks and other vehicles made it appear empty. Fade only counted two other cloudships. Instead there were a wide variety of carts, filled with tools and replacement parts.

It took them a while to cross the massive flight deck. Fade was glad to finally get out of the cold wind. The hangar itself was a busy mess. The interior was still under repair and the smell of fresh paint mixed with the scent of welded iron. Around them, engineers, both Enclave loyalists and draftees were repairing Vertibucks or even disassembling them when their parts were needed elsewhere. At times some of the civilians were looking up, pity visible in their eyes.

“General on deck!”

On the far side of the hangar a wide door slid open and out stepped an old mare, wearing Enclave power armor. Even from the distance it was clear that she had trouble moving. The armor’s strength enhancements could only do so much. Her mane had lost all color and even her coat was only a dull shade of the once strong turquoise. Her yellow eyes were condescending and lacked any kind of humility.

Colloquy’s salute lasted the longest. Her narcissism was gone, now replaced with blind adoration.

“They look pitiful.” The general stepped closer to the three. Her voice was rough but still strong. “And they smell pitiful as well. How were they able to defeat our Shadowbolts?” She began to cough and took an inhalator from her armor to regain her breath.

“A good general knows not to put teenagers into power armor and call them soldiers.” Fade croaked.

“Very funny, Swift. From what I heard you behaved like one, before Colloquy disabled you. Is it true that you carried a Rainbow Dash toy with you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Aren’t you too old for toys?” She coughed and took another breath from the inhalator. “Who is this?” Lightning Dust pointed to Feather.

“That? Her name is Feather Swirl. She is Swift’s mother.”

“Is she a Shadowbolt?”

“No. She was only married to one.”

“So she is useless?”

“Affirmative.”

“Kill her.” Lightning Dust ordered.

Colloquy gave a nod to a soldier. The shock of the general’s order made Fade rush to the soldier charging his energy rifle. But another Enclave soldier slammed into her, pushing her to the ground until her back was pressed against the cold metal floor. Her skin cracked and began to bleed and she yelled in pain.

Key tried to race to her, but she got grabbed and her muzzle held shut.

“Wait!” Her voice was shaking. “She is a high ranking agent of the O.I.A.! She has access to their hubs!”

“Fade! Be quiet!” Feather yelled. Another soldier quickly pushed her to the floor to quieten her.

“This is simply a lie to keep her mother alive,” Colloquy said through the erupting chaos.

“No!” Fade groaned. The soldier pushed a hoof on her throat, choking her. “The holodisk!”

“That’s enough! Kill her!” Colloquy raised her voice to repeat the general’s order.

But the general raised her hoof. The signal immediately made the soldiers stop.

“O.I.A. you said?” Lightning Dust approached Fade. “Tell me more.”

“The holodisk—”

“Shut up, Fade! Just shut the fuck up!”

A tiny nod by the general and one soldier kicked her in the side. Feather collapsed, coughing and struggling to breath.

“Please. Continue,” the general said calmly and it allowed her actual voice to be heard.

“The disk… it has position data to something called Killjoy. Only my mother can access the facility. All the other O.I.A. agents are likely dead. Just like the Shadowbolts you need her to access the O.I.A. hubs.”

The general was quiet for a long time. “Colloquy. At eight hundred tomorrow you will bring them to Quebit. You know where to go. And find some of these… O.I.A. offices. I am sure there is something in the archives.”

They spent the night isolated from each other and the next morning they were brought onto a transport vessel. Their hooves were cuffed and their wings tied against their bodies. Inside, Colloquy already waited for them. She was wearing Fade’s armor and smiled when Fade’s eyes filled with anger.

Cramped onto the seats between two dozen soldiers, Fade noticed how the closest ones were disgusted by their smell.

“Cap!” One of them spoke up. “Didn’t we have a spare cloud for them to wash?”

“Nah!” Another one answered in Colloquy’s stead. “They would only clog up the filter with all the shit and radiation in their fur!”

The Enclave soldiers laughed but Colloquy lifted a hoof. The laughter died quickly.

“The traitors perhaps. But not the unicorn.”

“Cap, with all due respect, why the unicorn out of all of them?”

The transport vessel was banking massively but Colloquy stood up and moved to Key. “Because she is young and doesn’t know better. It is not her fault that her brain couldn’t fully develop. That’s the fault of the nutrition systems of the Stables.” Colloquy put a hoof on her shoulder. “But since she is still growing, we can feed her and she may become a proper unicorn. A proper Enclave unicorn!”

Key pushed the hoof away. “Don’t touch me with that. I don’t want to know how deep you pushed that into your general’s ass.”

Colloquy couldn’t hide her anger but after taking a deep breath she cleaned her face. “You should know why we like the general. Most of the ponies here are alive only because of her.”

“Yeah. Until she sends them out as cannon fodder,” Key replied.

“Would that make her worse than Princess Luna? Did they tell you in the Stable that the casualties of the pegasi were more than fifty percent higher than earth ponies and unicorns combined?”

Colloquy waited and looked at Key with a piercing gaze. She shook her head.

“General Lightning Dust was just a normal pegasus during the war, but one of the greatest supporters of the Enclave. She convinced thousands of ponies to join the Enclave who later became parents. Our parents. All the ponies you see here, live because of her.”

“And what did it cost?” Fade spoke up. “Letting millions starve above the clouds and hundreds of thousands more below.”

Colloquy smiled. “How would you solve it?”

“Solve what?”

“The famine. How?”

“Certainly not by closing up the sky!”

Colloquy didn’t say anything. With a simple nod she signaled Fade to continue. But Fade didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to prevent the famine.

“See? It isn’t some Enclave propaganda. It is only the realization that what the Enclave did, was the right thing.”

“Raining plasma on hungry ponies could never be the right thing!” Fade yelled.

“What should we have done instead? It is not a question about them or us. If we would have let them take over the food storages, they would have lived a week longer.” Colloquy turned back to Key. “You surely understand the choice we had to make. By securing our food, we now have happy families, living, working and protecting each other. Young ponies of your age are alive, because General Lightning Dust did what she had to do.”

After the transporter landed, the soldiers rushed out to secure the area. Not a minute later, Fade and the others were chased out and found themselves back in the cold wasteland. The light was dim from the thick clouds high above the city. Every minute a lightning bolt flashed deep inside them. Even down here the presence of the Thunderhead was noticeable.

Around her, the pegasi were securing the ruins of the city. A wet and slimy smell lingered in the air. Fade thought that, in the distance, toxic fumes were rising from the polluted rivers. Between the ruins, Fade saw a few ponies in dirty rags, which couldn’t hide the halfway starved shapes underneath. Some of them were watching, waiting and hoping that the Enclave would give them food.

Fade examined her surroundings to search for an escape route, but the soldiers pushed her and the others to a building in a much better shape. Except for the dirt and ash it was as good as new. Among the other buildings it would have looked like an unremarkable one, but its stability spoke for itself.

“Key, my dear. Listen.” Colloquy sat down in front of her. “I know that you don’t like me, but you would make this job much easier for us. Be so kind and look at Doctor Pokey.”

Key did.

“Her allegiance forbids her from being part of the Enclave. But she saved your life and she is hungry. If you can open the hub behind me, we can give her the food stored in there.”

“What about Swift?”

“If you apologize for what you said about the general, she can get some food too.”

“And med—” Key looked to the side, her eyes tracking something only she could see.

“Medicine? Do you mean medicine?” Colloquy tried to get Key’s attention back to her.

“Swift?” Key’s eyes wandered to the ground. “There is something moving in the ground.”

“Don’t worry dear,” Colloquy gently turned Key’s face back to her. “Your E.F.S. picked up some rats. And yes, I know about your PipBuck. You are very smart to have it active.”

“These are red signals.”

Key got Colloquy’s attention. There was a hint of concern in her eyes and she stood up.

“Squad Leaders! Sweep and—”

The ground under a soldier next to Fade broke open and a massive creature emerged from it. The huge maw of a deformed head snapped around the pony’s hip. Massive claws grabbed the upper body and tore the pony apart. The scream stopped as quick as it began and it threw the torn body at another Enclave pony.

The creature turned its head, still covered in blood and intestines, to Fade. One eye focused on her, the other two misshapen and halfway merged eyes weren’t moving in their sockets and didn’t even react to the blood dripping into them.

“Shoot you idiots!” Colloquy yelled and the order drew the hellhound’s attention to her. With a roar it climbed out of the hole, revealing an armor made of thick steel plates. Magic energy bolts were fired from the Enclave soldiers at it, but the bolts evaporated against a magic shield.

Fade tried to escape the barrage of magic fire as fast as the cuffs allowed her. Looking briefly at the hellhound she found him beheading another pony with its massive claws.

With the hellhound being distracted by the soldiers, Colloquy grabbed Key and pushed her to the transport ship. Fade turned immediately and tried to rush at her, but the ground between them exploded and some of the canine creatures she saw in Tall Tale emerged. They immediately opened fire at the pegasi with their wide array of weapons. Colloquy fired her plasma pistol at the dogs, igniting the dirty fur of one and making the meat pop when it exploded from the plasma’s heat.

With the frantic fight erupting and more diamond dogs appearing everywhere, Fade cowered down and tried to find some cover. The hull was already under a barrage of bullets, the turret on top firing into the ruins and turning both diamond dogs and unlucky ponies into pink dust. She ignored all that, her only goal was to reach the cloudship before Colloquy did.

“It’s below us!” Fade heard Key’s voice among the cacophony of explosions and gunfire. “Colloquy! Below us!”

Fade turned and saw Colloquy looking at the ground. Key struck her muzzle with her hooves as hard as possible. It staggered her but only briefly. Colloquy wrapped the armored foreleg around Key’s neck. “Stupid brat!”

Fade used the distraction and rushed forward, but Colloquy noticed her and aimed her pistol at her. Fade stopped instinctively but noticed something behind her enemy. A diamond dog was aiming a missile launcher at them.

“Missile! Behind you!” Fade yelled and dropped to the ground. It was warning enough for Colloquy to look over her shoulder. The panic overtook her. She dropped Key and with a strong flap of her wings, she swung herself into the air. The missile hit the cloudship’s turret and fire was bursting into the passenger compartment, taking away the direly needed cover for Fade and Key. From inside Key heard the pilot, trapped in the flight harness, shrieking.

Fade didn’t wait until the rain of burning debris stopped. She picked up Key who was retching from the smell of burning flesh. They barely managed to move forward with the cuffs hindering them and didn’t know where to go until Fade found Feather. She was already darting from whatever tiny bit of cover she could find to the next. Around her, pegasi and diamond dogs fought in melee combat, ripping each other apart with claws and knives. Feather didn’t bother to look for them. She only tried to save herself.

When they reached her, Feather whirled around and almost tried to crush Fade’s skull with a rock. She stopped only at the last moment, a hint of shock in her eyes. She dropped it and in the short moment where the diamond dogs fired at the pegasi in the sky, they left their cover to reach an alleyway.

Key shrieked when she stepped on the entrails of a dead soldier.

“Mom! Get Key away from here!” But Feather was already hobbling down the alley. “Key! Get into cover!” Fade held her breath as she approached the soldier to search for a Ripper knife. Her eyes were locked on the spilled intestines. Even after seeing countless corpses, her stomach still revolted at such sights. She found a Ripper and grimaced before picking it up with her muzzle.

“Swift! Run!” Key yelled and pulled at Fade’s foreleg.

Fade’s eyes went wide when Maverick snarled at them. A magic spark drew her attention back to the corpse. She recognized the bright shine of Key’s magic when she pulled the pins from the dead soldier’s plasma grenades.

Fade ran, following Key who was only a few feet before her. She forgot about her aching back. When the grenades erupted into a bright flash of various colors, she felt the heat wash over her and expected her coat to be set ablaze. But she just made it.

Key took the knife with her magic and activated the magic blade. She was about to cut through the metal wire connecting the cuffs, when Feather grabbed her. “Quick! Cut them open.”

Key struggled to hold the knife in her magic, while she cut the cuffs and the rope that bound Feather’s wings. The moment she was free, Feather fled.

“You first Key!” Fade said, ignoring that her mother left them alone.

Key hurried with her own cuffs and continued with Fades, but before she could free Fade’s wings, she looked at the wall behind her sister. Fade recognized the look in Key’s eyes whenever she followed the E.F.S. signal. No word was needed and both rushed down the alley.

Behind them, Maverick dug through the wall like an unstoppable force and continued his chase. Through the alley and across a street, they tried to follow Feather into a ruin. A huge explosion made them fall, hitting her chin on the hard asphalt road. She heard how the massive hellhound was thrown to the ground as well.

Before Fade could realize what caused the massive shockwave, an unbearable pain suddenly spread in her hindleg. Maverick was just in reach and bore one of his massive claws into her leg. She screamed and could only stare at the blood gushing out of her leg, already building a puddle.

The Ripper knife whizzed past Fade’s head and cut into Maverick’s face, barely missing the mutated eye. The pain getting more unbearable, Fade began kicking the hellhound with her uninjured leg until her hoof struck the eye Key just missed. The beast yowled and covered his face. Fade tried to pull her leg free, but the claws just cut it more open and dug deeper furrows into the bone.

Key yelled and rammed the knife into Maverick’s right arm, just under a PipBuck. Fade briefly saw that Key recognized it. The monster growled and let go of Fade’s leg. Finally free, Fade pushed through the pain and escaped into the house.

The massive horn of a cloudship rolled over the city, followed by the deafening bellow of one of its turrets. Fade just saw a pink blast piercing through the air before detonating into a massive, pink explosion. Fade felt the ground quake from the impact and soon a cloud of dust and debris swallowed everything around her.

Maverick fled. There were still fights going on and the diamond dogs were forced into small skirmishes with the Enclave. With the pegasi controlling the air and the diamond dogs moving through the earth, no side could gain the significant advantage. Amidst the noise, Fade heard her mother shouting from somewhere above.

Key helped Fade up a flight of stairs and into a room, where a medic was trying to protect an injured soldier from Feather. She aimed a sidearm at him but the medic was shielding him. The soldier was groaning in pain. A grazing shot removed parts of her face down to the bone.

When the doctor saw Fade stumbling into the room, bleeding heavily from her leg, the medic’s eyes filled with anger. “Put that weapon away or your daughter will bleed out!”

She already felt dizzy and collapsed on the dirty and moldy carpet. “Mom… please!” She looked at the medic, recognizing Doctor Pokey.

“Go away!” Feather yelled and struck the doctor’s face with her hoof. In the brief moment Pokey stumbled aside, Feather aimed the gun and shot the injured soldier, vaporizing the rest of his face. Then she aimed it at the medic. “Give us all your fucking medicine, Enclave bitch!”

“I’m not Enclave, you shite-hawk! Put that thing away!”

The energy pistol in Feather’s muzzle was wrapped in a magic glow, clicked and the ammunition box fell out. She turned around to see Key pointing the Ripper at her. The hellhound’s blood was still dripping from it.

“You don’t have the guts to kill me,” Feather said.

“Step away from the doctor.” Key levitated the knife closer.

Feather did and Pokey rushed to Fade. She took out a healing potion and poured it over the leg to quickly stop the bleeding.

“Is it bad?” Fade asked.

“No. Here, take this for the pain.” She produced a syringe from her medic bags.

Fade rammed it into her foreleg without hesitation and she immediately felt the pain in her entire body ebb away.

“I can’t do any more than this. I need the medicine for the others.”

“The fucking Enclave? Don’t you see how they treat you?” Fade asked.

Doctor Pokey shrugged. “I swore an oath and I don’t differentiate between a pony, zebra, diamond dog or shite-hawk.”

“Doc? Where should we go?” Fade asked.

“I don’t care. But I can send the Enclave on the wrong track.”

“Tell them we’re going South,” Fade planned, while her mind was swimming from the painkiller.

Pokey finished wrapping a bandage around the leg and poured more of the healing potion over it. “That’s all.” Pokey took something from her pocket and returned the Rainbow Dash toy pack to Fade. It left Fade speechless and without another word, Pokey jumped out the window and flew back into the battle outside.

Under the cover of the smoke and dust they managed to escape. Feather led them North. Fade didn’t question it and Key was busy helping her sister walk. Only after a few hours when they wandered through the outskirts of Quebit, Fade sat down.

“Mom… Where are you bringing us?”

“And why did you kill her?” Key shouted.

Feather stopped and glared at them. “Is that all you can offer? Stupid questions?”

“She was wounded! Why did you kill her?”

“Because these bastards let foals your age starve to death, because they weren’t useful enough to keep them alive!”

“I’m not a foal! Have you ever asked yourself how many foals you have killed by taking the food they needed? Or were you just telling yourself, they wouldn’t have survived anyway?”

Feather stomped to Key. “Listen! You grew up sheltered in a Stable. You don’t know anything about the wasteland out here! If I have to kill a pony to make Equestria a better place, then I will!”

“Including us?”

“Key. That’s enough.” Fade patted her back and she took deep breaths. “Mom… Why do we go north?”

“Because you, in your infinite wisdom, made us need to go to Orlov!” Feather’s eyes were filled with wrath.

Fade only shook her head. “Orlov? Mom, we are not going to Orlov.”

“But we have to. Because thanks to you, the Enclave will now keep my holodisk in a very secure place. We need a Vertibuck and enough crazy ponies and firepower to get it back!”

“Thanks to me? I tried to save your life, Mom!” Fade raised her voice, even though she was short of breath. “You said we have the coordinates for Killjoy!”

Feather stomped her hoof. “I told you to shut up, but you kept happily telling them that the disk is important! And instead of throwing it into the junk, the Enclave is now in possession of Killjoy!”

“What?”

“Don’t pretend to be stupid! The holodisk doesn’t lead to Killjoy! The holodisk is Killjoy!”

“Why didn’t you tell us!” Fade stood up, enraged. “You are so stupid, why didn’t you tell us?” Fade was close to tears. “Why are you not trusting us? What did we do to you that you didn’t tell us!”

“I have my reasons, but it doesn’t matter, because you just delivered the most powerful spell in Equestria to the Enclave! And now we need to go that forsaken place to find that PipBuck your trader friend wants—”

“What are your fucking reasons!?” Fade yelled, not caring if the Enclave could hear them.

“What difference would it make? It doesn’t make a difference now and it wouldn't have made a difference back then!”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference?” Fade’s voice grew dark. “I think I am beginning to understand. It wouldn’t have made a difference, like so many other things. Like it wouldn’t have made a difference if you would have told me that you are an O.I.A. agent twenty years ago. It wouldn’t have changed my decision to stay above the clouds and keep fighting. It wouldn’t have changed that I didn’t see you for twenty years!” Fade’s voice grew louder. “And it surely wouldn’t have changed a damn thing if Dad would have told us that he was a Shadowbolt!”

“Shut up!” Feather shouted and her voice cracked. “It is your fault that the Enclave has Killjoy now. If you would have kept your mouth shut, they would have only seen a scrambled mess of data and may have put it into some unguarded archive. But no. You are incapable of considering the big picture. Instead of thinking for the whole of Equestria you prefer to save your little sister that you don’t even know!”

“Oh, is this where we are now? Sacrificing our family to save Equestria?”

“Sometimes you have to sacrifice things to make the world a better place!”

“Did Dad tell you that?”

Feather remained quiet. Fade noticed Key in the corner of her eyes, who was sitting nearby. She sniffed and tried to hold back her tears. Fade sighed. “Good… I will help you to get the spell back. Not because I am okay with what you did. I am only helping you because I don’t want the Enclave to have Killjoy.”

Fade returned to Key and rubbed her back with a wing, even though the pain was slowly creeping back. “I’m sorry.”

Key nodded.

“Hey… Do you remember when you said that I am not your big sister?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know. But if you want me to be, you can still call me Swift.”

Footnote: Level Up

New Perk: Image of the Enemy - Fade gets + 20% to Speech when she talks with the Enclave.