I awoke in a dark void with that Zebra mare again with her looking at something in silence.

“Um hello,” I said as I started walking to her but never getting closer.

She quickly turned to face me and said “Rook what you doing here Did you and Night Haven get knocked out or something!?”

Wait what? But before I could start my line of questions she waved a hoof and I was pulled in closer.

She put both of her hoofs on my face and I looked into her eyes and I was taken in by her wonderful eyes both of them being a light green as she said “Wake up and Finish the mission no time to go dream about your memories.”

Then next thing I knew I was awake in the sewers with Night Haven missing.

It took me a bit before I noticed the explosives were missing and remembered what Night Haven said to me before I passed out from her hitting me in the head.

I got up and ran into the opening and through the colorful mist as the smell of a chemical dump took over my sense of smell.

I heard a familiar voice ask “was it worth it?” It was my mother's voice.

I stopped for a moment paralyzed then I heard another pony say “You ran instead of staying to fight!”

These voices keep coming as another says “You should have died with all of us you coward!”

I keep pushing through the mist trying to find Night Haven as my vision fails me and then I was back home in my family farmhouse moments before it happened.

I said to my self “Wait this is no fuck no please no,”as i bolted out my house and saw a settlement on fire.

I ran to the middle of the settlement and found every pony dead and burning as a voice behind me said “Abandon the fight and left us all to die!”

I quickly turned to try to find a pony who was speaking but all I saw was bodies and burning buildings.

“Should of stay and fight alongside your family.” the same voice said again behind me causing me to turn around once more.

Behind me were ponies with gunshot wounds and open injuries with one an earth pony saying “You could have saved us!”

Felt somepony behind me so I turned and saw it was more ponies with life ending injuries standing and a unicorn in front of them said “Instead of facing your crimes you tried to redeem yourself by joining the ARA. You are weak!”

A voice above me spoked it was a pegasus with three others missing hoofs and wings but still flying, one leading them said “we could have flown out and got help faster than you. You would have been better off fighting and dropping dead.”

Crowd of ponies started talking all around me. I could barely understand everything but I knew all they were doing was blaming me for what I did.

Their chatter stops as a gun slides to me, a revolver fully loaded with raider modifications to it.

A pony in crowed said “do the right thing and kill your self for your redemption after all the world be better without you.”

Come on Rook you held this all inside do not give in…but what if they are correct after all maybe if i was there i could of help maybe they would have lived.

I took the revolver and put it to my head counting down in my head to pull the trigger Five…four…three…two..one.

“Rook, what are you doing?” my father's voice asked, causing me to freeze from pulling the trigger.

He walked over to me and slowly moved the gun away from my head “It is not your fault. What happened to our home is not your fault” he said to me with that smile he always had.

A pony from the crowd stepped forward and said “It is entirely his fault if he stayed we could have won!”

My dad shaked his head then said “You got a face of a loved one but you're not one.”

The pony vanished as he kept talking “None of you are ponies from our settlement. Each one of those ponies would have thanked my son for doing the job we all ask him to do and he should not be tormented for it and now get out of my son’s head you alicorn bitch.”

Whatever was happening, the world started turning normal again and I was in some basement with pipes running along walls hearing Night Haven yelling “I AM SORRY I BE GOOD PONY I WILL OBEY GRAYMANE I WILL OBEY!” from down the halls of the basement.

As I got ready to run to her I felt something under my hoof. It was the revolver from whatever that was. It was a standard model with odd runes on it with pieces of rusted metal running down it in the form of a bayonet. I quickly holstered it.

I would have marveled over it a bit if I did not need to rush to Night Haven. She wants to keep me safe but all she manages to do is put both of us at major risk because if there is one thing i know for sure somepony has been down here with us there is only one pony i can imagine.

I made my way from the basement to a control room as the mist grew thicker and illusions danced around the rooms. Illusions spread from simple loved ones to cryptid monsters.

“Night Haven I need you to snap out of it we need to go,” I said as I reached a hoof out but somepony grabbed me with their magic and tossed me into the controls.

Illusions vanish for temp before returning “page eleven and i quote ‘when canterlot was cleansed it allowed the weak and none worthy of the Equestria legacy so through our Hipno we will test their minds at least for that is my will.’ one of my favorite ways to purge weakness from a pony,” Freesoul said as she closed a book with a bullet indent in it.

She looked at me for a few seconds then asked “not shocked i am alive?” with a confused look.

I took a moment to get up, readying my new revolver and aiming at her then said “No, not really like when the illusion of my dad says alicorn i figured out it was you.”

She was unhappy with what I said before stomping her hoof with so much force sending me back and said “You sound crazy but the Hipno has not destroyed your mind so that means your mind is strong. Join us and all you will have to do is turn in Night Haven.”

I scanned the room for anything I could do as she kept talking “Look at Night Haven strong body but her mind is weak to high doses of Hipno. This has opened my mind to the many new ways to purge weakness with Hipno.”

I noticed an old fire extinguisher before shooting at it with my new revolver. The moment the bullet left the revolver a hellish scream burst out causing Freesoul to stagger from the sound as the bullet flew through the air. It left a green misty trail and hit the extinguisher with so much force I think it went through the wall. Then boom goes the extinguisher.

Speed from the bullet aired out of the room getting Night Haven out of whatever illusion she was in and she screamed “What happened!?”

“No clue all i did was shoot this thing but more important are the bombs ready?” I asked while trying to figure out what I did.

Night Haven nodded no as Freesoul yelled “YOU HAVE THE SOUL REAPER!?” before rushing at me and grabbing my neck with her hoofs.

I tried to point the revolver and aimed it at her head before she headbutt me, breaking my focus causing me to drop the revolver and tossed me out the room as Night Haven charged her.

She then tossed Night Haven into me then Freesoul turned to take the revolver but stopped as it was missing.

She started cursing up a storm as she entered a blind rage and started ripping the room she was in apart looking for it. What was her deal? Her focused swap so fast from us to the revolver like it a cool gun but i do not see how it is so important.

Before i could spend time asking more questions Night Haven got up and quietly said ”we need to go now.” I snapped and got up as we both started to run.

I ask “Why are we running?” as i could still hear the alicorn bitch back in the control room yelling.

Night Haven then said as we kept running “Before Hipno took over my mind I overloaded the core. I could not get into the room with the power source but I was able to set it to blow itself up.”

We escaped into the basement through a few stray Hipno mist clouds on our way out, quickly diving to the sides of the opening from the basement into the sewers as the building exploded.

“Are you still alive?” Night Haven asked as I started to get up.

When I got up I found the Soul Reaper revolver under me somehow. So I holstered it and replied to Night Haven saying “Ya a bit shaken. we should get back to the others.”

Night Haven fixed her armor as we walked through sewers to find an exit to the surface so we can see if the plan worked or not. Out of nowhere she said to me “Thanks again for saving me again.”

I smiled a replied “Maybe now you see we ARA ponies are in fact good?”

She bumped her flank against my flank and replied “I at least learn my faith is strong and I am nothing like Freesoul.”

When we finally reached the exit we saw through the rubble a good chunk of the area buildings was destroyed by the explosion with a few stragglers from the Freesoul flock fleeing “look like our plan work,” Night Haven said as we got out of the sewers.

We moved fast to the edge of town as Night Haven asked “How are we going to find the others?”

I thought for a moment and remembered Zonk is the bossy type so the odds are they are likely following ARA regrouping protocol.

So we will need to head to the edge of town and start walking till we reach the north point of the outside of town. So once I filled Night Haven in on the plan we started walking along outside of town.

“Now that we are safe, can I ask you something?” Night haven asked as we walked along outside of town to the northern point of the town.

I nodded yes and in no time she ask me “how the fuck do you have Soul Reaper and can i see it?”

I replied and said “No clue I woke up and it was there,” I pulled it out and floated it to her as she held it in a single hoof.

She looked it over and was clearly amazed then she said “Man it has three runes like Graymane’s Revolver as well. I thought I would never see one of the four legendary revolvers,” she keeps looking at it.

I keeped walking as she showed me each rune and explained to them saying “First one gives gun powder the power of a cannon as for the second it lets it punch through anything but power armor as for the last one…To be honest no idea it just says Reap hmmm how odd.”

“You two are done talking?” said Sturdy Hoof as he waved to us and led us to the others.

Night Haven holsters the revolver into my holster for me before we meet up with every pony and all of us flee away from the town towards the direction of the fortress path.

Once we were safe we found a cave to set up camp as the day turned to night.

I sat down by a rock as Frosty set up outside the cave to keep watch while Sturdy Hoof was sharpening a knife as Both Zonk and Night Haven argued over who was going to cook tonight.

I got up before I got dragged into their argument and headed to talk to Sturdy Hoof but before I could speak he asked me as he sharpened his knife “So your King's boy?”

I could only reply with “Who? My dad was Checkmate,” but all that got a shrug out of him before I asked “So now what since you got vengeance on Freesoul?”

He finished sharpening his knife then said “Going to make Graymane suffer so I am sticking with all of you. First, I need to loot a dead ARA pony uniform and then help defend the fortress. After all, the only reason ponies tolerated me was largely because of my friends, now I might as well raise some hell you know.

I nodded before saying “Can skip the looting part we might have a spare for you.”

He smiled and nodded before heading off towards Zonk and Night Haven saying “I will cook. Now you ladies stop fighting!”

I chuckled before heading out to check on Frosty as she scanned the darkness for any pony who might be trying to sneak up on us. “What do you need?” Frosty asked me while she keeped her eyes out.

“You know we did not all say you had to keep an eye out for raiders like can relax an-” I was saying before she turned her head to me with a look that could kill. I took a step back and said “sorry,” and I went back in.

Returning inside I saw Sturdy Hoof cooking as Night Haven doing sit ups and Zonk was stressing out.

Zonk walked up to me and said “I am going to scout a path out in advance before tomorrow,”they attempted to leave but I blocked them.

I looked them in the eyes…or visor and said “we close to the finish line we cannot risk one of us being jumped.” They looked past me then stomped their hoof before going back and sat down by a rock and started muttering to themselves.

Night Haven asked me “Hey, how is Frosty holding up?”

“Seems a bit angrier for some reason,” I replied before Night Haven finished her work out and got up.

She walked past me and said “I will go talk to her.”

Sturdy Hoof filled a bowl and gave it to her and said “give her something to eat.”

Night Haven grabbed the bowl and walked out without a word back to him before leaving to talk with Frosty. Before I went to sit down, Sturdy Hoof held a bowl for me full of chilly. Before I questioned him on where he got meat for it he said “I had some salted scorpion meat, it is still good.”

After eating I found a spot to finally sleep for the night and before I knew it I was asleep.

Author's Note

have no clue when i am ending the story but just know it getting close to the end.